>> i think under the leadership of barack obama and hillary clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. they have been reduced to a point where it's embarrassing for our country. i think i would have a very, very good relationship with p e putin. if he says great things about him, i will say great things about him. >> were some of the e-mails by you referring to our drone program, our drone program? >> yes. in back-to-back appearances on the same stage last night, hillary clinton and donald trump outlined their visions for leading the u.s. military both overseas and here at home. for clinton, the first and

perhaps toughest test dealt with questions about her judgment, particularly in using a private e-mail server for government business. donald trump, meanwhile, bounced from bashing american generals to seeking their advice suggesting he'd install new top brass in the pentagon to wage his still secret strategy against isis. from vladimir putin to billion dollar budgets, the two contenders set the stage for the waning weeks leading up to election day. quite a night here on msnbc. good morning, it's thursday, september 8th. with us on set we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor, mike barnicle. managing editor and co-host of "all due respect" that airs at 6:00 p.m. on msnbc, mark halperin and richard haass. donald trump talked about the

state of the nation's top military officers after matt lauer quoted back to him h criticism of the generals in america's current conflict. >> i know more about isis than the generals do, believe me, was that the truth? >> the generals under barack obama and hillary clinton have not been successful. >> do you know more about isis than they do? >> under the leadership of barack obama and hillary clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. they have been reduced to a point where it's embarrassing for our country. >> you know, you said if we had mcarthur today or if we had patton today, we would not have isis. the rise of the military commanders we have today. they come up the military command and by the time they get to the top they're too politically correct. have you lost faith in the military commanders? >> i have great faith in the military. i have great faith in the commanders, certainly, but no faith in hillary clinton or the

leadership. >> what kind of research are you doing now? what kind of homework are you doing? what kind of things are you reading as you prepare for the day in two months where you might be elected the next president of the united states? >> well, in the front row you have four generals. you have admirals, we have people all throughout the audience that i'm dealing with. right here is a list that was just printed today of 88 admirals and generals i meet with and i talk to. >> how much are you spending on this? >> a lot. >> so, joe, you watched this from across the pond and we'll gauge reaction there. first of all, what did you think? >> i thought it was more of the same. i thought donald trump spoke in generalities and i think hillary clinton was peppered with very specific questions and something people have been complaining about on this show for a very long time. donald trump is held to a lower standard. he just is. nobody expects him to know the specifics of policy, so they don't push him on it. last night we heard more

generalities and we heard insults of generals saying our generals have been reduced to rubble. that would have a terrible impact, i think, on donald trump as a commander in chief if he became president of the united states. and you can go down the line. putin comments. just a lot of generalities. i'm really curious, i don't want to kill hamlet in the first act here. i want to go around and ask everybody what they thought. let's start with you, richard. what was your take away on hillary clinton and donald trump and the night? >> let me start with the night. i found it frustrated. i don't think we learned a lot about what these people would bring to the position of commander in chief. what did they learn from history? what, for example, other decisions the previous commanders in chief made. i came away with no greater insight on what they would do differently in syria. i don't think we know the answer to something like that. i found it a frustrating eepg. i thought mrs. clinton had a rough start. the ten minutes on the e-mails

is not whereshe wanted to go. her potential judgment as commander in chief. and then i thought for donald trump, as you se, he spoke at a level of generality. at 36,000 feet. we didn't, again, learn what he would actually bring to the job. >> that's what we want to do at the top here before we play more. we're going to be general at first and then dig in deeper to specific questions. let's go to you, mark halperin, what was your take away from last night. >> the american people believe these are two largely flawed candidate. i believe the way the flow of the evening went, unfortunately, one of two of them will be president. we saw their flaws. and i think they both should watch last night and think about, is that the side of themselves in terms of the specifics, the style, the willingness to engage on top issues that shows humillty and strength that they want to display in the debates coming

up. i don't think it is for either of them. >> mike barnicle, not a lot of a pluses being handed out this morning by our tough staff. what do you grade both the candidates from last night's forum? >> i give hillary clinton a b minus. i flunked donald trump for a staggering lack of depth, lack of knowledge. he is the, as you pointed out, the beneficiary, huge beneficiary of the double standard. hillary clinton was asked tough questions and had trouble answering those questions. syria wasn't mentioned. aleppo wasn't mentioned and the refugee crisis wasn't mentioned. i understand all of that. trump aligned himself with vladimir putin that in a way is kind of shocking and hillary clinton has to figure out a way to play offense, not defense. >> willie geist here in london,

obviously, a lot of people concerned about the prospects of a president trump as they are across every country in europe other than russia. when you hear donald trump, once again, saying that a dictator that assassinates political players that gets in his way and all that don't fit his political, his political plans and you have donald trump comparing that man to barack obama, it's got to be shocking even for rank and file republicans. >> and comparing him favorably to barack obama saying he's a much better leader than our own president. whatever your politics are in this country, you may not like president obama, but that's a pretty outrageous statement to make. as for last night, joe, i don't think the state of play changed much. i don't think we learned that much about either of the candidates. hillary clinton having to answer e-mail questions again at the top and donald trump in addition

to what you said about putin. him saying if putin says great things about me, i'm going to say great things about him. that's a scary prospect. if you can be so seduced by someone saying nice things about you and the comment about the generals. donald trump saying he was against the iraq war from the beginning. citing an esquer article that came out. he was not against the iraq war. >> not against the iraq war. mika, a lot of people looking at this forum and, obviously, there were limitations. but great frustrations. many people wondering why questions were asked about hillary's e-mail server and, yet, none asked about aleppo, none asked about syria, none asked about the serious questions they're facing. the most important questions that are facing the next commander in chief. a lot of question marks out the. what was your take away? >> bottom lining it for both. kind of overall pulling back.

donald trump was tragically uninformed. it was frightening. you can't pin him down and he could not be pinned down on anything because everything he said was sort of unprepared blurts of tv talk. and there was nothing to what he said that really helped sort of give the american public a sense that he had a grasp on anything. and for hillary clinton, there was a different problem. she was defensive. she clenched up. she began to filibuster. you could see her get nervous about the e-mail situation. she began to attack her opponent instead of talking about her own qualities. she is clearly impaired by the e-mail scandal. joe? >> she is impaired by an e-mail scandal, mika, that, again, i think most americans, at this point, have already passed judgment on. i think a lot of americans want to know. and i hope we hear in the debates. what is the plan for syria? what's your plan for getting

refugees back to syria? i mean, so many questions that were not answered last night because of time constraints. i don't know if last night was the place to be asking about e-mails. and, so, there were a lot more, obviously, to go through. >> yeah. trump was asked how he will take on isis over the last year and a half trump has claimed on multiple occasions that he has a plan to stop isis. trump would assign his generals with formulating strategy. >> immediately after taking office i will ask my generals to present to me a plan within 30 days to defeat and destroy isis. >> is the plan you've been hiding this whole time asking someone else for their plan? >> no. but when i do come up with a plan that i like and that perhaps agrees with mine or maybe doesn't, i may love what

the generals come back with. >> but you have your own plan. >> i have a plan. but i don't want -- look, i have a very substantial chance of winning. make america great, again. make america great, again. if i win, i don't want to broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is. let me tell you, if i like maybe a combination of my plan and the general's plan or the general's plan. if i like their plan, matt. i'm not going to call you up and say, matt, we have a great plan. this is what obama does. we're going to leave iraq. >> but you're going to convene a panel of generals. >> they will probably be different generals. >> willie, so much to sort through there. first of l so much to sort through. there are 1,000 follow-up questions there. he promises americans he has a plan. now we find out he doesn't have a plan. and then he says he's going to

get the plan from generals after he's elected right after he said the generals are stupid. then he says he's going to fire the generals. then he repeats twice, let's make america great again. twice in the middle of just -- i would call it word salad, but it's actually chopped word salad. it was just completely perp lll perposturous. put out your plan so the american people know what they're voting on. 14 months after not having specifics, he doesn't have ta. aren't the voters owed some idea of what he might do when he gets into the oval office? >> the short answer is yes. when you vote for someone as commander in chief, you have no idea what will come their way. when people voted for george w.

bush, no one knew 9/11 would happen ten months into his watch. you are making a vote of confidence that he or she could handle what comes their way. we know you're going to have to handle syria. one question is what would you do different than this administration is doing? we know you have to hand alcrisis in the north china sea or russian pressure on ukraine or implosion of venezuela and an entire agenda out there that is predictable. i didn't come away with a sense at all of how these people would handle what we know is going to be in their inbox on day one. >> you know, mika, i want to say this carefully. why say it carefully since it's our show. donald trump just proved everything that you've said about analyzing sound and fury signifying nothing. he says nothing in that -- if you are matt lauer, it's kind of hard to figure out exactly what

follow-up question. >> he did a great job. >> what he said meant absolutely nothing. you take donald trump's answer there and pick it apart, it completely confirms everything you've said about him saying nothing. >> now, clinton said something about ground troops that was fascinating and important. we'll get to that in just a second. but let me just add to that. you want to give strategy to the clinton campaign, both campaigns, both campaigns are too scared to do a long interview. clinton for the e-mail scandal, obviously, for not being able to have appropriate answers on that. she needs to take the licks on that. she needs to understand that there were really bad decisions made and she needs to lay it out for the american people and get past those questions by running out the clock on them. she's not going to control time on this. the questions are going to keep coming. but, if she runs out the clock on thez questiose questions she about her record and why she can be president of the united states. if donald trump is held to the same standard and the clock is

run out on him and the questions go beyond the surface, the mask will come off. clinton needs to understand the only way the mask comes off for donald trump is if they agree to ten minutes each. also differed on the use of ground forces to take on isis. take a listen. >> they are not going to get ground troops. we are not putting ground troops into iraq ever again and we're not putting ground troops into syria. we're going to defeat isis without committing american ground troops. >> i always said, shouldn't be there, but if we're going to get out, take the oil. if we would have taken the oil, you wouldn't have isis. >> how are we going to take the oil? how are we going to do that? >> leave a certain group behind and take various sections where they have the oil. people don't know this about iraq, but they have among the largest oil reserves in the world, in the entire world. we go in and spend 3 trillion

and we lose thousands and thousands of lives and then, matt, what happens is we get nothing. you know, use tad d to be to th victor. believe me, there was no victor. i always said, take the oil. >> yes, that says, that's his, i guess, guiding policy. it sort of to the victor goes the spoil, salt the earth so nothing grows back there. richard haass another frightening answer from donald trump last night. if i'm not mistaken, seizing oil, isn't that against the geneva accord? >> a plan to unify iraq and brought all the iraqis together against the resources. no, the idea that somehow you can carve out a couple square miles of iraq and take the oil wells and the united states would not be the target of a massive terrorist onslot.

plus, it underlines the principles that we intervened on the two iraq wars. it was to uphold order in the region and the world. >> mike barnicle? >> well, first of l listeningalg to donald trump on many, many topics he has no idea what he's talking about. he is thimble deep on topics of national security. we're about to vote for president of the united states. he's one of two major candidates running. are we as a media, as a group dropping the pall here ball her. asking him a series of yes or no questions. >> we haven't here, but, yes. >> getting pummeled unnecessarily and unfairly. >> oh, no, he didn't have enough time. >> be specific. what are you going to do about aleppo? are we dropping the ball here?

>> i think you saw last night the limits of these two candidates. each of them had their own kind of limits. i thought her stylistic performance. if i was involved in her debate preparation, i'd be terrified if she replicates that in the debates. substance matters, intelligence, knowledge. these matter most of all. and his performance on those points, i think, should be a real caution for his people because i think not only more time, but more of the questions you're talking about. one of these two will probably be president in january and, again, i think as a country and as a profession in the media, we need to figure out how to have more moments, not just the three debates, but more moments like last night. so one of these two at least improves. the "new york post" comment was the best i read about what happened last night. this was a really discouraging moment for the country to see the two of them and the people who like trump will say she was worse. the people who like clinton will say he is worse.

neither rose to the occasion of what we need in the next president. i hope they do going forward, but they didn't last night. >> let's be positive so all of america and the world is not depressed. last night was a warm up. it was preseason. and if you look at the two candidates, you would rather be in the clinton camp than the trump camp because the trump camp, i'm sorry, he's asked basic questions and how do you defeat isis? he said he is going to be talking to generals and they're going to formulate a plan. generals that he says are stupid. that he's smarter than. it's going to be really hard to get donald trump up to speed. right now, hillary clinton's biggest challenge is a stylistic challenge, mika. that's the sort of thing that she'll be able to prep much better on, especially because she's been doing this now. she's been emersed in policy for four decades. >> yeah. >> donald trump has been a

reality tv star and he's been, he's been a celebrity of sorts in new york city. and he's developed on the side. but hillary clinton, if she has, if she has challenges, probably more stylistic than substance. >> i think, willie geist, those challenges go away if hillary clinton is given the time to do a more complete round up of what exact l exactly she brings to the table. the good and the bad. at that point donald trump will fall short. >> we will appropriate the opportunity to sit here in person face-to-face and drill down on those things. i think joe is right. 2 1/2 weeks until the first debate. that's not a lot of time for donald trump to prove that he understands the world. if you're watching last night side by side you may not like hillary clinton or her policies but at least you know she understands the world and she has served.

she has served in some capacity. donald trump has some work to do before september 26th. we have a lot more to get to. we only just scratched the surface of what we saw last night and still ahead, we'll be joined by paul rieckhoff join nbc in presenting that historic event. plus, hillary clinton's campaign manager robby mook joins the conversation and an exclusive conversation with former governor gary johnson here on set. you're watching "morning joe." wale be right back.

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it is 24 past the hour. joe's in london. back here in new york, we are following the forum and. and last night during the forum hillary clinton was pressed on how she observed state secrets while secretary of state. >> classified material is designated. it is marked. there is a header so that there is no dispute at all that what

is being communicated to or from someone who has that access is marked classified. and what we have here is the use of an unclassified system by hundreds of people in our government to send information that was not marked. there were no headers. there was no statement. top secret, secret or confidential. i communicated about classified material on a howholly separate system. i took it very seriously. when i traveled, i went into one of the tents that i'm sure you've seen around the world. because we didn't want there to be any potential for someone to have embedded a camera to try to see whatever it is that i was seeing that was designated, marked and headed as classified. so, i did exactly what i should

have done and i take it very seriously. always have, always will. >> so, joe, let me start with you. what is your gut reaction to how she handled the question? richard haass has a completely different angle on this in terms of what she should have done. what do you think? >> well, i think at this point it's almost in court you would say asked and answered. i think at this point hillary clinton needs to say she made a mistake. she made a mistake. we've talked about this a lot. i made a mistake. i talked about it. and you can certainly see it out there. in fact, there's a statement up on my website explaining how i would never do it again. now, let's talk about what really matters and that is syria. the fact that there right now is

what is approaching a holocaust going on in syria, which is disrupting the middle east. which is disrupting our allies in europe. which is coming to america and disrupting america. there is a refugee crisis unprecedented since the end of world war ii. yes, i would like to talk about a home brewed server in new york for the next teniaries. unfortunately, the world is on fire. i apologize, i made a mistake. i'm sorry, if people want to talk about e-mail servers for the next four years, vote for donald trump. i'm going to try to figure out how to bring peace to syria. i'm going to try to keep terrorism off the shores of the united states and i'm going to worry about the things that americans are worried about. when she explains, she loses. she's been explaining this now for a very long time. she needs a quick answer and she needs to move on. >> richard. >> as difficult as it is for me

to say so, i agree with joe. i have nothing new to say on this, i made a mistake. tonight's forum are about the most sacred responsibility of the next president. you're surrounded by veterans. what we owe to veterans and the kind of decisions she would make as commander in chief. what lesson she gleamed from those mistakes. she really should have, i think, just totally turned on that question and put it in a compartment and move on. >> now i have to say. >> what do you think, mika? >> i hear you both and i think the problem is there was very tight time and at some point she's going to say, are we really going to spend the entire time -- >> that would have saved her ten minutes. >> or she has to agree to an interview that runs out the clock on this. we can move on because i feel like the mistake here being made is that the campaign leaves so little time, that those are the only questions for hillary clinton while she has a lifetime of service under her belt.

while she has so much knowledge compared to her opponent, joe, that i think -- >> what would you say? >> what would i say? >> what would you say, mika. what would you say if last night hillary clinton had said we don't have a lot of time here. the fbi put over 100 agents on this issue. they came up with the conclusion that no laws were broken. i made mistakes and i'm really sorry for it. but it's time to move on and talk about syria. getting people back to work in ohio. getting people back to work in florida. making education better. et cetera. because i guarantee you the fbi has spoken. most americans at this point are ready to move on o. now, it's absolutely destroyed her honest and trustworthy numbers. absolutely destroyed it. the more she talks about it and the more she explains it, she sounded like a litigator last

night. that's going to hurt her more. i have a statement up on my website, read that. now, i'll talk to you about what affects your family. that would be a winning answer. >> i'll tell you, i'll go to mike barnicle next, i agree completely. i think there has to be a conclusive, full throated complete answer on her website so she can refer to that because she keeps getting caught trying to do exactly what she needs to say to sort of carefully answer the question. you can see the wheels turning in her head and it's not good and then it ruins the rest of the interview. mike? >> you know, most people, everyone, meets their candidates for president on this. television. unfortunately for her she has been in this business for 30, 40, 50 years. she's incapable, as joe is saying, of looking into the camera and saying, look, if you're sitting out there in cleveland heights, ohio, and you have two kids in high school and

you're worried about those kids and their future and you think my e-mails are the most critical priority of the critical issue that we're facing as a country, then both of my opponent bozo the clown and just move on. >> yeah, yeah. >> well, i don't know, mark halperin, that is exactly the way i would put it if i'm hillary clinton. but i think, i want to pass this by you, as well. don't you think at this point hillary clinton needs to take the answer, push it away, take the question, pusht away and then move on to issues that are going to shape this campaign over the next two months and should shape this campaign over the next two months. >> sitting here letting you make the case for that is the case of pure political strategy. that's a good idea as a journalist and as an american, i can't advocate that. there are unanswered questions. i don't think you can say, i'm sorry, i did it and then spend

time explaining why you did nothing wrong. i think that there is lots else that is important in this election. there is lots else to her record but this is something of public concern which there are now many new questions that are raised. i don't want to minimize the weakness in donald trump's performance. i don't want tamo minimize her other accomplishments. their strategy is to do exactly what you're advocating. apologize and move on o. she should address the questions raised by the fbi. they praised comee a y and the questions. i just can't endorse the view. >> but mark, that's what -- if the fbi investigates me and they have over 100 agents investigating me. by the way, i think the fbi did a terrible job. i think they did a shotty job. they left too many questions unanswered. right now, my issue is with just how bad that fbi investigation was, which is why comey went out

yesterday defensive. he should be defensive because it was a terrible investigation and a terrible conclusion to the investigation. but, you can say, i was investigated by the fbi for over a year. and over 100 agents tearing through all of my records, reconstructing all of the e-mails. and they said that while we made some terrible mistakes, we didn't break the law. i apologize for those mistakes. and then not try to explain the mistakes away, then move on tapolicy that matters to americans. you think that would somehow be skirting the issue for hillary clinton? >> she's never explained what she's apologized for. and it's not, i think the right standard for any presidential candidate. i wasn't indicted. i'm sorry, what? >> what do you want from her? give us the apology you want from her. >> i want to understand if she

thinks having a cavalier attitude towards the freedom of information act and protecting america's secrets for her own convenience were things that she did wrong. i think the contradiction from last night's performance that i thought matt did a good job of teasing out is you can't say you're sorry and then say i didn't expose america's secrets. i didn't do anything wrong when it seems clear to me, not just based on what the fbi said in their less than adequate investigation, but based on the facts that we know them. she was cavalier about handling secrets and about the freedom of information act. >> what we've seen time and time, again, though, willie. is the bulk of an interview get thrown off by these questions that don't feel. nobody feels good about the answers, including the candidate being asked the questions because now she's got her back up and there's not enough time to answer them. i go back to my initial thought is that she's got to do a

complete open interview about this and other things. run out the clock. yes. obviously. something really unfortunate happened and it's her responsibility and she has to address it. but if she runs out the clock on it, then they can run out the clock on trump and sad way to win, but she will be the more qualified candidate if both of them give the time to answer questions because he will be revealed as completely unqualified. >> well, i think she, i think hillary clinton thinks she has run out the clock. i think she talked about this so many times on this issue. she talked about it so many times and made the concession of sitting down in interview and saying she made a mistake. she may not have been specific enough and apologized for having the server and you can see it on her face last night when matt asked and asked again and asked

again. and she's annoyed that we're still talking about it. she does not like this issue and she just thinks she's put herself out there and this shouldn't come up, again. that's not how it works, unfortunately, for her. >> it has to be frustrating when you know you're qualifying. it has to be so frustrated. this is self-inflicted. this is just the bottom line. still ahead, former ambassadors nicholas burns and cristful hill who both served under republican and democrat administrations. plus, we'll hear directly from the clinton campaign. robby mook joins us. "morning joe" is back in just a moment. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine. all seems beautiful to me.

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welcome to a brighter future. welcome to it all. comcast. >> and last night, sir, donald trump said vladimir putin has been more of a leader than you and then you reduced american generals to rubble. do you care to defend your legacy? >> do i care to defend -- okay. okay. respond. got it. what a great response. you know, i've been tough on this president for eight years, he should have been insulted by world leaders and donald trump well before and i would have come rushing to his aid. i mean, seriously. why would a reporter ever ask barack obama to defend himself against a stupid insult coming from donald trump? it's unbelievable. >> you should have heard him

saying, ookay, if t mean, it wa hard. it is extremely hard to respond to this candidate because what he says is so unbelievably limited in knowledge. so, just this morning president obama responded to donald trump's comments last night that vladimir putin is a stronger leader than the president is. we'll be right back with more "morning joe."

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using 60,000 points from my chase ink card i bought all the fruit... veggies... and herbs needed to create a pop-up pick-your-own juice bar in the middle of the city, so now everyone knows... we have some of the freshest juice in town. see what the power of points can do for your business. learn more at chase.com/ink >> i think i would have a very, very good relationship with putin and i think i would have a very, very good relationship with russia. >> let me ask you about some of the things you'd said about vladimir putin. when referring to a comment that putin made about you, i think he called you a brilliant leader, you said it's always a great honor to be so nicely complim t complimented by a man so highly

respected within his country and beyond. >> well, he does have an 82% approval rating, according to the different pollsters who, by the way, some of them are based right here. >> you think the day that you become president of the united states he's going to change his mind on some of these key issues? >> it's possible. i don't know, matt, it's possible. it's not going have any impact. if he says great things about me, i'll say great things about him. oh, isn't that a terrible thing? the man has very strong control over a country. now, it's a very different system and i don't happen to like the system. but certainly in that system he's bine a leader far more than our president has been a leader. >> as far as mr. trump, i think i already offered my opinion. i don't think the guy is qualified to be president of the united states. and every time he speaks, that opinion is confirmed. and i think the most important thing for the public and the

press is to just listen tawho w he says and follow up and ask questions about what appeared to be contradictory or uninformed or outright whacky ideas. >> that's the president of the united states responding to a question about donald trump. mika, i've just got to say before we introduce our next guest, it's absolutely staggering that even in september donald trump is praising a man because of a "82% approval rating in his own country that invaded crimia and georgia and assassinates journalists and kills political rivals." and he is still praising him this late in the game. >> if he's going to say nice things about me, i'm going to say nice things about him. >> this is something that continues to baffle even some of trump's closest advisors. they cannot figure out why he

has this obsession with putin. if trump wins and you check the exit polls, he would have dominated the pro-putin vote. >> thank god that general ford didn't have that, that approach to governing. i mean, it's just absolutely astounding. let's go to boston right now where former state department spokesman and u.s. ambassador nicholas burns joins us. he's now a professor at the harvard kennedy school of government. finally i have a chance to get accepted to that school. thank you so much, mr. ambassador for being with us. if you can pull some strings for us, maybe by the time i'm 60. so, i really don't know where to begin last night. we can talk about vladimir putin. i think that speaks for itself. but i, i want to talk about isis for one minute. hillary clinton said something

very interesting. she said she would not commit any ground troops into syria or into iraq to fight isis. we already have ground troops there. and i haven't spoken with one military leader that doesn't think there's not going to be have to be a mix of ground troops, as well as air power, if we want to ultimately defeat isis. how do you respond to secretary clinton's claim that there will be no ground troops there? >> well, unlike donald trump, though, secretary clinton has a specific plan and what she said was we should continue the air campaign. we should continue the coalition of fighting with the arab states and turkey and we have to work globally to try to shutout some of the isis movements. when she says no to ground troops. obviously, the united states has special forces in both iraq and syria. the administration has been open about that. 150,000 troops of a type we had ten years ago, she's right we

shouldn't be sucked back into that conflict. juxtapose that with donald trump. he offers no specifics whatsoever and the number one issue facing us in the middle east is just not good enough that someone running for president refuses to be specific, probably because he doesn't know these countries, he has no depth and he's out of his element here and i think we ought to judge him accordingly. >> willie? >> ambassador burns, it's willie geist. let me ask you about hillary clinton's proposed syria policy which includes creating safe zones and to create those safe zones you have to have some kind of no-fly zone to protect those areas. how do you pull that off with russia in the mix. if that's the answer, why hasn't the obama administration ton th that already? >> at some point that hum humanitarian situation has to be

addressed. as we speak right now, aleppo, this great city, is being surrounded and besieged and thousands of people are dying. so, the idea that you want to get humanitarian aid into them and create some kind of zone on the jordanian or turkish border makes sense to me. secretary clinton made a lot of these proposals last autumn when the situation was very. she's going to have to look at the situation because it changed so much. because the turks have now launched this military offensive. again, hillary clinton is trying to talk about specifics and she has this experience and she has fought through these issues and donald trump serves us up. he's not even meeting the lowest bar of what we should expect from the commander in chief and the president of the united states. i think the juxtaposition and the comparison of the two is stark and dramatic. one is very qualified to be

president and one shouldn't even be under consideration. >> again, ambassador, on hillary clinton's specific policies maybe no-fly zones are implausible. that couldn't happen now? >> i didn't say that at all. i said the situation has changed so dramatically on the ground, even in the last couple of weeks that any new president is going to have to take account of what's changed on the battlefield. what has to happen, in my judgment, is that we've got to help these refugees both in aleppo and secretary john kerry is trying to do that by agreeing to, by trying to put together a cease-fire proposal with the russians who are protecting the syrian government. the level of complexity of this conflict is probably the most difficult for us right now. you need a president with experience. you need a president who knows the leadership of these countries. she does. he doesn't. >> so, ambassador nicholas burns, is there any way you can stay for the top of the hour? there are more questions for you. >> i'd be happy to.

>> great. we've been hearing this morning from the two leading presidential candidates and now libertarian gary johnson joins us. that is straight ahead on "morning joe."

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so much to talk about from last night's commander in chief forum. joe, did you catch that? kind of hard to miss.

>> i did, i did. it was, and his tweet -- >> from 2013. >> he doubled down on from 2013. he tweeted 26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military. only 238 convictions. what did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together? >> oh, my god. >> what that implies is absolutely staggering. the fact that he stood by that 2013 horrific statement last night, even more disturbing. >> coming up at the top of the hour, nbc's chuck todd and hallie jackson break down last night's very telling forum on where the presidential candidates stand on matters of national security. "morning joe" is coming right back. they say a lot of things about rain. (engine revs) like how hard it's gonna fall. (engine revs) the things it does to your parade. we've got a saying about rain, too: when it rains... it roars.

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>> he's also a guy that invaded ukraine, supports assad in syria, supports iran, trying to undermine our influence in key regions of the world and according to our intelligence community, probably is the main suspect for the hacking of the dnc computers. >> nobody knows that for a fact. do you want me to start naming some of the things that president obama does at the same time? >> do you want to be complime complimented by that officer? >> i think when he calls me brilliant, i will take the compliment. i hate to keep repeating this, he just again compared vladimir putin to an american

president. i asked the questions of my conservative brothers and sisters. what if a democrat compared a republican president in 2016 to vladimir putin. there would be such an uproar from -- rightly, national review, breitbart, "weekly standard" "wall street journal" editorial page, maybe even sean hannity that there would be a mushroom cloud over the conservative movement. this is something that conservatives are going to have to speak out aggressively on unless they really want the standard lowered. so, when there is another republican president when he or she is attacked this way, then we can expect all of americans to unite together in defense of our american president. >> i can take three hours and

put it into two statements. and just cut to the chase here. the bottom line is, the democratic candidate is flawed. that's fine. she is flawed. she has questions to answer. she can't answer them. but the republican candidate is a danger. and i don't understand what your party's doing and why they're doing it and why some even can't come to this realization after hearing statements like that, which is not new at this point. the republican candidate is a danger. it is thursday, september 8, welcome back to "morning joe." >> we have mike barnicle, president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass and u.s. ambassador nicholas burns stays with us and managing editor of "bloomberg politics" and former democratic congressman herald ford jr. good to have you all on board.

joe? >> i just want to ask. ambassador burns, let's follow up on mika's very, some would say strident response to last night's forum. do you think a commander in chief named donald trump would be a danger to america's national interest abroad? >> i do. i da. because of his lack, not just his lack of experience but his ignorance of global affairs and his judgment. hesistently made the mistake in the world and vladimir putin and the greatest power differential between the u.s. and russia and china is that we have these alliances. nato and that makes us strong in the world and i was ambassador to nato 15 years ago on 9/11. when we were attacked all the nato allies came to our defense. trump said we don't need them. we don't need them in

afghanistan and we don't need them to confront. to me it indicates he's just not equipped to do the job of commander in chief. >> joe? >> richard haass, let me ask you the same question. donald trump, as commander in chief, is that a danger to the united states interests at home and abroad? >> well, it could be. if, again, he's going to tear down the alliance structure as nick burns was suggesting in asia and the united states. if we are going to somehow underestimate the challenge posed by the president of russia. if we are not going to go ahead with trade agreements, that are not just good economically but also tie down countries that would otherwise be potential adversaries to denigrate the military, i think, is a big, big question. so, i would say one of the take aways from last night has got to

be that donald trump has a lot of explaining to do about how he could be commander in chief in a way that would promote american national security, other than, rather than subtract from it. >> willie? >> let's get to some of the big moments from last night, including donald trump talking aboutthe sta abo about the state of the generals fighting isis. >> i know more about isis than the generals do. was that the truth? >> the generals under barack obama and hillary clinton have not been successful. >> do you know more about isis than they do? >> under the leadership of barack obama and hillary clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. they have been reduced to a point where it's embarrassing for our country. >> you know, you said if we had macarthur today or if we had patton today, we would not have isis. that the rise of these military commanders that we have today, they come up the chain of

command and by the time they get to the top, they are too politically correct. we know that's not a comp lment coming from you. have you lost faith in the military commanders? >> i have great faith in the military and great faith in the commanders, certainly, but no faith in hillary clinton or the leadership. >> what kind of research are you doing now? what kind of homework are you doing? what kind of things are you reading as you prepare for the day in two months where you might be elected the next president of the united states? >> well, in the front row you have four generals. you have admirals, we have people all throughout the audience that i'm dealing with. right here is a list that was just printed today of 88 admirals and generals that i meet with and i talk to. >> how much are you spending on this? >> a lot. >> a lot. >> joe, there's a lot to sift through there. if you go back to the beginning of that sequence when he talks about the generals being reduced and the intrepid surrounded by people who have nothing but respect for generals.

one thing to say the policy hasn't succeeded and we can do better, but to directly criticize in that way the most respected members of the military in that forum was pretty remarkable. >> it was deeply insulting to the generals. it would cause him great difficulty with the pentagon, if he ever got elected. but it also suggests a level of ignorance on how the united states military works. that it's frightening in and of itself. anybody that knows anything about the constitution and anybody -- as i have. i have served on the armed services committee. anybody that has dealt with people in the pentagon understands that the generals follow the leadership of civilians. civilians run the military. this would be like somebody say writing this afternoon, joe scarborough should be fired because of what i saw on

"dateline" last week. not understanding that i have no more control over nbc news shows than generals have control, ultimately, over the iraq war strategy. they can make suggestions. they can make advice. it is the commander in chief that makes those decisions. and the generals, in fact, herald ford, have been complaining for some time quietly behind the scenes that barack obama does not have an adequate plan to defeat isis. so, when donald trump attacks generals because of isis strategy, all he does is show his complete ignorance of how actually civilians interface with the military leaders. >> i think you said it well. you and willie both. you have to be struck by the fact that he is unable to really identify what policy differences he may have with those generals who are advising the president and also the president makes that decision. ultimately president obama in

light of whatever advice he gets he moves forward with. i was also taken aback, also, when matt asked the question he didn't answer. what are you doing to prepare yourself. matt gave him an out. you did very little up to this point. what are you doing or what are you doing differently? took a weird answer. listen tahis genero his general listen to those who were criticizing president obama. secretary clinton, i thought, did a good job. i do think at the end of the day probably daonald trump didn't hurt himself too badly politically. he didn't do himself anything last night. >> hillary clinton was asked to revisit her 2002 senate vote and whether she can lead america's fighting men and women after later saying going to war was a mistake. >> how do you think these people feel when the person running to be their commander in chief says her vote to go to war in iraq was a mistake?

>> look, i think that the decision to go to war in iraq was a mistake. and i have said that my voting to give president bush that authority was, from my perspective, my mistake. i also believe that it is imperative that we learn from the mistakes like after action reports are supposed to do. and so we must learn what led us down that path. so that it never happens again. i think i'm in the best possible position to be able to understand that and prevent it. now, my opponent was for the war in iraq. he says he wassanwasn't. you can go back and look. he told howard stern he

supported it. he supported it before it happened and as it was happening and on record as supporting it after it happened. i have taken responsibility for my decision. >> let me go to another veteran -- >> he refuses to take responsibility for his support. >> let me go to another question -- >> that is a judgment issue. >> i happen to hear hillary clinton say that i was not against the war in iraq. i was totally against the war in iraq. you can look at "esquire" magazine from '04 and look at before that. and i was against the war in iraq because i said it was going tatota to totally destabilize the middle east and it has absolutely destroyed. >> and if you are just joining this campaign, this is the way donald trump answers questions. he's slippery and says whatever he needs to say in the moment even though it completely contradicts something he has actually said. for the record, trump said he supported the iraq war before

and as the invasion began. hear me out here, that's what he said. then last night he changed it for the moment. the critical comments he made to "esquire" in 2004 came more than 16 months after the invasion. so, "esquire" howard stern, whatever. he does not tell the truth, joe. >> no, just doesn't. what's so stunning, mika, is he doesn't tell the truth when he knows that we all know the truth of what he said to howard stern. what he said to other news outlets. and this is what donald trump does all the time. and he did it with libya. attacking hillary clinton last night for supporting the libya invasion. an invasion that he supported on camera i guess with an instagram selfie saying it wouldn't be hard and gadhafi is a bad guy. it's surreal. mike barnicle, it is absolutely -- go ahead, mika. >> i was going to take it to

mike. he said he would never lie to the american people. it is clear he lies to the american people pretty much every time he opens his mouth. i'm sorry, i'm not mincing words because that is the case. that is what we see every time donald trump goes on television, does an interview, answers questions. he does not tell the truth. mike? >> he's got his own alternative universe. ben, you're in the batter's box. give us your analysis and your take from last night. >> i think it's so interesting that you invite me on as someone who has been so critical of donald trump and basically put me in the lone position of defending him. i thought hillary clinton had a terrible night last night. she showed she is a very poor defender of the record that she has within the government and i think that she showed why there is so much support for donald trump among the nation's military. i come from an army family. and multiple family members within the military currently. one of the consistent things we've seen is the level of

support he's had from america's military and that's because of the skepticism directed towards secretary clinton from her tenure as secretary of state. that there is a lot of distrust for her. now, i think that donald trump is all over the map when it comes to all of these issues. it's clear that his record is for this, against this, whichever quote you pick from whatever point in time. he has been on all sides of pretty much everything. when it does come to secretary clinton's record she will have a real challenge going into the fall's debate defending the kind of steps that she took as secretary of state and as a senator in the past and i think this event last night really showed she will have to do a better job defending herself when it comes tathese thi to th. >> ben, let me ask you. let's talk this out a little bit. you are right. if you look at the military and if you look at veterans, they support trump over clinton. they have for some time, just like republicans usually win this group.

do you think it has more to do with just party affinity. you talked about hillary clinton's positions. her positions were very close to bob gate's positions and far tougher than barack obama's when she was secretary of state. do you think it has to do with her positions or does it have to do just more with party loyalty? >> you know, you're touching on something that is close to my heart because bob gates is someone who personally i have a great affinity for. >> love him. >> but i think this actually has to do with the fact that secretary clinton has time and again made a decision that has put america's military in position where they have gone into regions to try to do something good. but something that has ultimately turn under to a real mess. i think there is a lot of skepticism among the military members currently for that type of foreign policy view. donald trump, you know, has upended so many aspects of the policy on the right, but, in

particular, the policy that he upended is the foreign policy that has been prevalent on the right for many, many years. you can debate whether that is a healthy thing or not. certainly a lot of people. bob corker yesterday, i saw your interview with him. questioning whether the reaction to donald trump is going to be a lot of questioning on the part of republican leaders about whether the foreign policy views they have had for a decade and a half really should continue. >> go to clinton campaign headquarters in brooklyn. hillary clinton's manager robby mook join uses. we'll continue the forum from last night here and pick up on some of the questioning that matt started with secretary clinton. hillary clinton said last night that it was a mistake, again. her quote to authorize force in iraq back in 2003. what did she learn? what was that mistake? shy said she learned from that vote. what did she learn? >> well, what she said in the past is that she was given faulty intelligence.

and that certain people were able to influence the intelligence that was being seen in a way that didn't give people the full picture that they needed to make this decision. so, what she was saying last night is that we need to make sure that never happens, again. >> it was somebody else's mistake on the intelligence. what did she learn personally? she was one of the leading advocates to go into libya? is she or is she not an interventionest? >> i think she takes each of these situations uniquely and looks at them. i think that's one of the things that you saw last night is how much experience she brought to the table. how much judgment. and as you all were discussing just a few minutes ago, we saw, once again that donald trump is completely unfit to be commander in chief. it's totally unclear at any time what he's thinking, what he believes. the facts shift around like quick sand and that's not what we need as our next commander in

chief. we really saw those differences on display. he didn't come prepared to answer the questions and, in fact, when he was pressed, you know, he attacked our generals and he showered more praise on vladimir putin. this is not who is ready to be commander in chief. >> open the night on the e-mails. do you think hillary clinton did well? >> she said what she has said for a long time now. that it was a mistake. that if she could go back, she would do it differently. she's taking responsibility for it. i think the voters have heard a lot about this at this point. so, she, obviously, wanted to spend as much time as she could talking about what she could do as commander in chief. and, again, surfacing this incredible difference between her and donald trump both in terms of their fitness, but also their experience and their command of the issues. >> robby, last night secretary also said that she would never introduce troops into iraq,

again. never introduce troops into syria. never is an awfully long time. >> well, what -- first of all, there are, obviously, special operators in both of those areas now and she certainly supports that. what she was saying is that she doesn't think it's appropriate to get into another ground war there right now. >> mark halper ay n. >> robby, i think some of your colleagues have acknowledged the race has gotten close. tell us where you think the race stands now? what are donald trump's chances of winning this election? >> the race is close. it's competitive. we believe it will tighten even further. we don't build a big ground game and build all the infrastructure we have here at our headquarters and around the country because we think the race is going to be easy. we build it because we think it is going to be hard. important for every single voter to understand how important their vote is and how much it is going to matter and that's why we spend so much time visiting our supporters and how important

it is that they go vote and give everything they can to the campaign in terms of their time and financial resources to make sure that hillary clinton has everything she needs to succeed. >> what was the take away last night for the campaign for the september 26th debate? i agree with your analysis of things, what did you learn and what does secretary clinton have to do better three weeks from now or two and a half weeks from now? >> look, to be honest with you, my biggest take away was i thought donald trump was going to come prepared to answer questions in fall. and he just, he couldn't. he couldn't get definitive answers. he droned on and on. i think secretary clinton is going to continue to talk about the things she has talked about. that she has a real plan to defeat isis. i hope some day donald trump chooses to reveal the secret plan which last night he showed is no plan at all. he could filibuster all the way through the debates, as well. the american people are on to the fact that there is just no there there. >> robby, thank you so much for

being with us. i'm surprised you have been in brooklyn for as long as you have, still no beard. i mean, you still have looking, you're still looking very midtown. >> i'm working on it. >> thank you so much for being on. >> thanks. >> all right, thanks so much. for the record, we reached outto the trump campaign inviting one of their top campaign officials to come on the show this morning and they declined. the invitation remains open. and wae we and we were told that kellyanne conway will come on the show and we are certainly always complimentary of her. mike barnicle. so, there was that moment and if you have been around enough presidential campaigns, you heard those moments where you said, that line is going to come back to haunt candidate "a" the same way as george h.w. bush's read my lips no new taxes came back. you keyed in on it when she said

she was never going to introduce ground troops into iraq or syria. and robby kind of cleaned it up there, well, not the major scale. if hillary clinton is president of the united states, there will be more ground troops introduced into iraq and/or syria. if the past is prolonged, she will just have to do it. and i'm wondering if that struck you last night when she said it. you're like, oh, we're going to be seeing that clip a year or two from now. >> sadly, joe, it did. because of the cauldron that is the middle east. the cauldron that is syria as ambassador burns pointed out earlier. the refugee crisis has changed the landscape in europe. it is going to change the landscape of the united states. and ambassador burns there is so much that happened last night. so much that was said last night. but one of the things, small thing, i think, but it jumped out at me was donald trump's references to his passing reference to receiving the

minimal classified intelligence briefing that candidates get when he said that the briefers seem to be unhappy with president obama and he learned a couple of things in the briefing that surprised him. he didn't indicate what they were, but they turned oout to be total disasters. that is pretty much an exact quote. i was wondering your thoughts on a candidate trickling, out, you know, what he gets in classified intelligence briefings. >> mike, i found this to be entirely implausible that somehow donald trump. this is his mo. he puts out an accusation and then doesn't substantiate it and leaves it sit out there. these are professionals from our intelligence agencies. they're not going to say things they shouldn't say. they're not going to insin youa and i can't believe this happened. i think he probably put that out

there for political reasons. here's his first political intelligence briefing and he abuses it on national television. i found that to be one of the sadder, stranger moments of the evening. >> so, ben, let's bring you in here as the lone person that wears donald trump t-shirts whenever he goes jogging around washington, d.c. why don't -- >> joe, that's a bit too much. >> i know. i know. no, but i mean a lot of republicans, a lot of conservatives that find themselves in a difficult position this year especially. but i wanted to give you the last word because you do seem a little, let's say, i don't know if you're more bullish on trump or less bullish on hillary clinton. but why don't we give you the final words. wrap up what you saw last night. >> i think what we really saw here last night is that you have a change in donald trump that

people are nervous about. people who have the potential to upend a lot of the things that people have done and people are nervous about that. the question is whether he could become someone who is acceptable to a lot of americans who to this point have been judging him as somebody who could be chaotic in the role of commander in chief. i think what we don't know about donald trump is the big question in this election. if he can become more acceptable to a lot of suburbanite voters, then i think he has a real chance of winning in november. if he does not become acceptable, hillary clinton can run away with this thing. the debates look more and more like a critical moment in this campaign. >> i think what we'll find is that in the primary everybody was willing to give him a chance, even some were forced into it begrudgingly but he has shown no respect and care and curiosity and love of country to

pull this thing through. at this point he is being pulled to a higher standard. richard haass and don, thank you. still ahead a "morning joe" exclusive. former governor gary johnson is here on set. but, first, nbc news political director chuck todd and hallie jackson from a pretty stunning backdrop across the river. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

coming up, will there be a third podium for the first presidential debate. libertarian candidate gary johnson is looking to land a spot on that stage. he just got a bit of a boost from mitt romney. the former governor joins the table straight ahead. up next, chuck todd and hallie jackson. "morning joe" is coming right back. afoot and light-hearted i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine.

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hey, with us now we have nbc news political director and moderator of "meet the press" chuck todd. also jersey city, new jersey, with the best view of the city this morning. nbc news correspondent hallie jackson. what a shot there. oh, my gosh. so, chuck, let's start with you. >> still jersey, joe. she's still in jersey. it looks great. >> i love jersey. >> it's new york that looks great, remember that. >> chuck, you are still such a manhattan snob. >> you know me. you know me, man. >> it's sad. let me ask you, chuck, it seems

tame and i think you drew the same conclusion most of us have around the table that last night really nobody was a winner. it was more of a draw and the way i look at it is the final very sloppy preseason game of the year. >> you're right. >> before the first debate starts. and you've got to have the head coaches on both teams going, my god, we better show up more than we did last night. >> there's no doubt. they both need better debate prep. hers is not informational. hers is stylistic. hers is also, you know, figuring out how to give an e-mail answer that is credible and at the same time short. you know, she gets bogged down in detail. but i tell you with trump, you know, trump's got talook at last night. it's interesting on one hand, boy, she didn't do well. no doubt she didn't do well, but the totality i think of trump

missed opportunity combined with eye popping statements that he made. sort of eight troubling statements in 24 hours is what we calculated. >> chuck, you look on vladimir putin and barack obama, and you look at what he said about the generals. you tweeted what he said last night about the generals was astounding and would cause real problems if he ever did win. >> absolutely. respect problems. i mean, i think there are people in uniform that just feel as if beyond a demeaning thing to say. but i guess the point i'm trying to make, the larger point here, he had a big opportunity last night. frankly, he had an easy opportunity last night. and he whiffed. that's what's amazing. we knew she had a hard time, was going to have a hard time in two respects. number one, she struggled with any e-mail question and, two, having to defend a foreign policy that a lot of people in this country don't like over the last 15 years. she was basically having to

defend the entire foreign policy establishment of both parties. that was never going to be easy. that was my point. trump had it easier and he blew it. he had it easier and he whiffed and a huge opportunity. >> well, there's a build up of a lack of work that has been done since he entered this race. he has not studied nothing. >> can you imagine 90 minutes, a foreign policy debate of 90 minutes right now. >> it is going to be painful. >> he has a lot more homework to do. >> it is going to be painful at this point. hallie jackson, you were in the great room. good job fielding those questions. >> thanks. >> what was the reaction in there to a lot of trump statements that he was making off the cuff? >> and it was interesting, too, because remember after the forum that aired on nbc news we had the special to talk to some of these people to talk about the reaction. i tell you this, incredibly

respectful in the room. people paid attention and they were listening and a real sense that everybody wanted to hear what both candidates had to say and that is what you would expect an audience packed full. that was no surprise. no scoffing or giggling in the audience where i was placed. i do think certain moments where you saw people turn to each other and kind of give looks. but people were really zoned in. at points you could have heard a pin drop, especially when donald trump was making some of those comments about generals in the military being, as you guys have talked about, reduced to rubble. i want to highlight a couple moments here. one question for secretary clinton and one question for donald trump. the va health care reform whether clinton thought the va problems were overblown. i spoke with him after, he was an undecided voter. he didn't feel like his question had been sufficiently answered. he felt like he didn't hear anything new from clinton nor what the problems really were.

the point was made in our conversation that there is the old saying, if you've seen one va, you've seen one va and the idea that perhaps these problems that were thought to be widespread, whether clinton had a handle on them. anderson himself didn't feel like he got his question answered. i want to highlight sue fulton. she was the first west point class to graduate women and the surprising round of applause for her and asked donald trump about undocumented immigrants. >> you have been a candidate. i think there is consensus here. trump didn't have enough information and not the right tone on some questions. the right kind of focus pitch and she had problems addressing tough questions stylistically. so, what happens inside a campaign today? you think, you know, the candidates are saying oh, the press coverage was unfair. how do these campaigns go to their candidate and get them

better prepared? >> if you're in the clinton campaign, you have to get more concise answers around the e-mail system and the e-mail server. >> that's the goal. you're saying today they're going to go taher and say, let's sit down and watch last night. >> i hope they do. al alan iverson said practice, practice. this was a practice round. with the three debates coming up, you have to figure out how to get that tighter. his answers are short. which means in that debate form he speaks longer and she speaks shorter and not a difference on how it is evaluated. hallie almost ran out of questions to ask trump last night. >> joe? >> yeah, you know, chuck todd, though, if you're looking last night. again, we've been very harshly critical of donald trump as far as substance goes. hillary clinton, obviously, stylistically not good last night. defensive backen her he eon hert of the night. if you're looking at whoay have fared better politically

from this debate, style always beat substance. at the end of the day, if it's a draw, does it not. you look at john kennedy 1960 versus richard nixon. the famous stories of people listening on the radio gave it to nixon and the people watching gave it to kennedy. you look at 1980, tips his head and goes, there he goes, again. crushed jimmy carter in that moment. you go to 1992, george h.w. bush looking at his watch. bill clinton saying i feel your pain and then, of course, you go to 2000 and george w. bush mocking al gore who gets in his face with a shrug. i just, i wonder if, again, here we are analyzing this, but people at home saw donald trump as a stronger, more forceful presence and that actually may translate more in the polls which will leave all of us scratching our heads more, chuck. >> you bring up an interesting point. if for some reason trump gets the bump out of this, i think

it's a reminder that, yes, style matters. sometimes style does trump substance in this way and perhaps that is, that is why you see a lot of hand ringing particularly on the left this morning, i think, about the coverage. i see where you're going there. but i think, i think we will look back at this in hindsight and say the person who had more to gain blew it, right? i always thought clinton had the least amount to gain, more to lose. trump had a lot to gain and he had it and everything broke his way and i think it was a -- i think they, this morning, are waking up going, look a draw is a win. no, it's not. you got a lot more ground to make up. >> yep. > >> hallie jackson, chuck todd, thank you, both. gary johnson tells us what his two main rivals missed last night when talking about

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>> i'm governor gary johnson. >> i'm running for pez. >> i'm running with him. >> difference between the two of us and the other candidates running for president is that we've been there. >> and done that. >> give us one term, america. if after four years you decide you don't like peace, prosperity and freedom, you can always vote a trump or hillary back into office, again. >> johnson/weld 2016. our best america yet. >> what do you say, america, are you in? >> come on. that was part of a tv ad airing a handful of states this week. joining us now, the libertarian candidate for president former republican governor gary johnson. >> great to be with you. >> there was a super pac that did an ad. an abe lincoln ad and now had close to 20 million views. >> my goodness.

>> in 12 days. >> what does that tell you? >> i think that there is, i don't know, maybe, maybe a little spice needs to get added to the two-person race that's currently going on. >> maybe a little less. >> that's a good place to start. for people who don't know a lot about you and where you stand on the issues. what is the lane for the johnson weld ticket. what do you bring that is different than those two? >> a big six-lane highway down the middle that incompasses 60% of arins and broadly speaking fiscally conservative, socially inclusive, skeptical when it comes to our military intervention. skeptical when it comes to our going in and supporting regime changes that have not resulted in a more safe world. free markets. so, i think that that encompasses about 60% of the electorate and the two-party system has really, really got to the fringes on both sides.

>> mike? >> which of those candidates are the two-party system do you draw the most votes from? >> you know, in all of these polls, it's just remarkably 50/50. amazingly, i think, though, that with the exception of just a few polls, it's more votes from hillary. but i think, i think when it ends up, it will really be 50/50. >> do you worry about the nader effect? >> i think the two-party system is broken. i don't think democrats are able to balance a checkbook these days. it's all about bigger government and higher taxes and then republicans with i think the social agenda. look, whatever, whatever your social inclinations are, just don't force it on me and i think the republican party has gotten really extreme in hat category. >> what would you do if you were elected about aleppo. >> aleppo and what is aleppo.

>> aleppo is in syria and the epicenter of the refugee crisis. >> okay. got it. well, with regard to syria, i do think that it is a mess. i think the only way that we deal with syria is to join hands with russia to diplomatically bring that at an end and when we align ourselves with when we have supported the opposition of the free syrian army, the free syrian army is also coupled with the islamists and then the fact that we're also supporting the kurds and this is, it's just a mess. and that this is the result of regime change that we end up supporting and, inevitably, these regime changes have led to

a less safe world. >> so, an alliance with russia is the solution to syria. do you think they're a good and reliable partner? >> well, i think diplomatically that that has to be the solution is joining hands with russia to bring, to bring the civil war to an end. >> joe. >> so, aleppo is the center of a lot of people's concerns across the planet about the terrible humanitarian crisis that is unfolding not only in syria, but especially in aleppo. you asked what is aleppo. do you really think that foreign policy is so insignificant that somebody who is running for president of the united states know what aleppo is, where aleppo is and why it is so important? >> i do understand aleppo and i

understand the crisis that is going on. but when we involve ourselves militarily, when we involve ourselves in these humanitarian issues, issues, we end up with a situation that in most cases is not better. and in many cases ends up being worse. and we find ourselves always, politicians are up against the wall, and ask what to do about these things, and this is why we end up committing military force in areas that, like i say, at the end of the day have an unintended consequence of making things worse. >> former governor gary johnson. >> i have one more question. donald trump said last night that he wanted to increase the military budget. i know you disagree with that. how much would you propose to congress that the military budget is cut? >> well, first of all, i think

there was a poll significant three weeks ago that among active military personnel i was the choice to be president of the united states, among active military personnel. the pentagon itself in the mid-'90s enacted -- >> i understand all that, but i'm curious how much would you want to cut the military budget? >> we would target 20%. and i would point out that the brach in the mid-'90s would suggest more than 20% be cut but it hasn't because the political will hasn't been there to accomplish that. we would bring that to the table, the 20% reduction. >> yeah, 20% cut in military spending. okay, thank you so much. former governor gary johnson, we greatly appreciate it. >> great, thank you. >> thank you for being on the show. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." you work at ge? yeah, i do. you guys are working on some pretty big stuff over there, right? like a new language for crazy-big, world-changing machines.

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this is -- wow, but this is already trending on twitter, what is aleppo? >> what is aleppo? my god, can you believe that? it's been on the front page of the paper. it would be like asking what is sarajevo in 1991. it is stunning. >> that and much more from the commander-in-chief forum right here on "morning joe." running for president means

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what would you do if you were elected about aleppo? >> about aleppo. >> yeah. >> and what is aleppo? >> you're kidding. >> no. >> aleppo is the epicenter of the refugee crisis. >> okay, got it. got it. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, september 8. still with us onset, veteran columnist mike barnacle. managing editor of bloomberg politics mark halperin. joining us with the conversation

is the white house department aid and contributor to "time" magazine alice jordan. and joe, what just happened? >> yeah. well, it is staggering that somebody would run for president of the united states, get 14%, 15% in polls and be so ignorant about foreign policy they would ask the question, what is aleppo? that was on national television. mark halperin, explain what just happened. because -- or actually, let's actually go to mike barnacle. explain, mike, what happened. >> well, you know, joe, i don't really know what happened. i was stunned at his question to me, what is aleppo? it's been on the front page of

every newspaper in the world for months. it is, as we tried to indicate, the epicenter of the refugee crisis. it's in the middle of the cauldron that is syria. it's home to thousands of people, civilians being slaughtered on daily basis. and the governor's a candidate for president of the united states. and personally this was just another added element of depression for me in the course of what is involved in this dreary campaign year with the candidates that received very little approval from the public. and this is just one more indication that the people in this country are so much better an deserve so much better than we're getting from this current campaign. >> alese, how do you respond to what happened here? >> this is incredibly

surprising. i was supporting gary johnson and thought he could rise to the occasion. this just shows the lack of comprehension about world events and basic reading in "the new york times." >> elise, will you not support gary johnson now? >> i think it would be hypocrite call to support gary johnson after i have been beating up on donald trump for his basic understanding of the issues and studying up. >> where does that leave you? >> i don't know where i'm left, mika. this is the conundrum for the american voter this year. if you want to be a responsible citizen and vote for someone who is putting in the time and learning and studying up what it means to be commander in chief of the american military and ensure our country's national security, who are we left with? >> i think you're left with hillary clinton, i'm sorry. i'm saying i'm sorry because i know that's the last thing from your point of view, but that is what you're left with. >> exactly. the stages of grief. >> willie, take it. >> we have a long list of smart

people like elise who say i can't do hillary clinton or donald trump. maybe gary johnson is the place i land. i don't know how anyone could say that if you don't know where aleppo is, you can't be commander in chief, period. >> yeah. guys, i was not even listening to the interview and just saw this bottom part of the screen that said, what is aleppo? then i went back to listen to it. and i asked mike barnicle, did you pose it in a way that he didn't hear what aleppo was? and then when i heard that you just literally asked him his position on aleppo, i'm shocked you have an american politician who served as a governor, who also is running for the country's top office who is going to have an impact on what happens in syria turn around and just not even know what is aleppo. and as mike was pointing out, aleppo is not some random city in syria.

it's not -- it's not just a small village. this is where the fight for syria is being fought. it has so many implications. geopolitically and internationally. it is mind boggling he would ask that question. >> joe, i'm going to jump in just because mark halperin just interviewed gary johnson on his iphone. >> after our interview. >> after our interview. and basically -- >> you need to turn the audio off there. >> was it a gotcha thing? should you have known it? in retrospect, do you know it? >> well, when you recognize what is going on in syria, when you recognize that aleppo is in kind of the epicenter -- aleppo -- not knowing that there's a city in between the two forces, really at the epicenter of the -- but not remembering or identifying that that's aleppo,

guilty. >> but in retro spect, is it a town you know? i mean, this is going to be a big deal. like, this is the first big flap of a campaign that has been doing pretty well, right? it's going to be a big flap, i promise you. it already is. so i'm just sort of wondering -- >> i'm incredibly frustrated with myself for -- >> how do you feel about it? like, should it be a big flap? >> well, sure it should. absolutely. you know, i use this as an example, in new mexico, there is an area called colonius, which is really destitute, if you will, it's between the borders. well, i'm asked running for governor, what do you think about the colonius, and i say, what do you mean colonius? i mean, what is that? >> he goes on to --

>> mark halprin, talk about it. your discussion with him. >> he said he needs to -- he said i need to learn more. he and his team -- i asked if he had heard from the governor yet, he said no. governor well, let's just be honest, governor well knows more about foreign policy than gary johnson. i guarantee that governor well could talk about aleppo for 45 minutes. >> but mark halprin, this is, though, this is -- this is foreign policy 101. >> i'm not minimizing it. >> i know! i'm just absolutely stunned he says he needs to study up. this is something that on college campuses across america, 18-year-old poly-sci students across america and across the world, know what aleppo is, know where aleppo is. if you read the newspapers once

a month, you've read about aleppo. right? >> yeah. i mean, again, you can see it on the video, i can see it with him, he's chased by this. he understands and his team understands. but it's -- it's a moment that is going to be difficult for him to address. it just is. >> yeah. well, let's go to washington right now to talk to senior foreign affairs correspondent michael crowley. michael crowley, weigh in on what has to be the news of the day. a man who could actually shape who the next commander in chief is, a man who is fighting to get on the debate stage to altar american history by who he takes the most votes away from, does not know who or where aleppo is. we'll just let you weigh in. >> well, it's stunning and it's mortifying. you would almost have to be trying not to be able to know what or where aleppo was.

like averting your eyes from the front page of the newspaper. a giant picture of people starving, children in hospitals, i mean, it's kind of -- it's kind of mind boggling. joe, i would also say it's probably pretty disappointing for people who want libertarians to thrive. i think they have a reputation for being fixated on lifestyle issues, you know, legalizing pot, maybe being flaky and not being serious, not ready for the primetime commander-in-chief test. could you seriously have a libertarian president commanding the armed forces? and this just plays right into that stereotype, no, you can't. i also liked to his defense afterwards was, yeah, there was another time i was asked about a place i had never heard of. like, it's not helping. i just thought his response afterwards was terrible. he was clearly embarrassed but nothing to give me any faith that maybe he did understand the question, it just seemed like he was completely lost. not only in the question itself,

but in the response afterwards, he was kind of digging his hole deeper. and bad morning for the guy. and he needs to hit the books, i think. >> mike, it's willie, you sort of got to it, the second layer of the conversation after mark barnicle told him where aleppo was, that his solution to the problem in syria is to form an alliance with vladimir putin inside russia. vladimir putin works with the assad regime there. that almost is as troubling as not knowing where aleppo is. >> sure, that's a complicated one, willie. because the united states right now, john kerry is in advanced talks for some sort of a cooperative military relationship with russia. but, you know, that is very conditional. that agreement, if they reach it, would require russia to put a lot of pressure on assad. more pressure than a lot of people think russia is capable of. but there is a serious school of thought that says we should be trying to do more with russia that the situation is so bad you've got to bite your tongue,

hold your nose, and work with these guys. but it does seem pretty impractical that the ultimate solution is we team up with russia and have this happy ending in the country. so i guess i would want to hear johnson say more about that, does he understand the significant practical and moral reputations to doing that. or does he have a breezy attitude like we heard from donald trump, wouldn't it be great to team up with russia and defeat isis and solve syria? it won't be that east. >> you know, mika, yesterday i jokingly tweeted out, i sort of channeled jon meacham, pulitzer prize historian saying that the 2016 candidates disproved dollar wip's theory of evolution -- darwin's theory of evolution. and this morning this is -- it's just not even a laughing matter.

we have somebody that is ignorant in foreign policy as donald trump. and there are those like elise jordan, and i know jeb bush, mitt romney, many other republican small government conservatives that had seen gary johnson as an alternative to voting for somebody who had been a liberal their entire life, donald trump. and now that's been yanked away this morning. this really is, to mike barnicle's point, a truly depressing morning for the american voter and i would guess a horrifying moment for the rest of the world. >> it is. and i think elise, you nailed the question at the very top of this hour, and joe, i hate to point it to you, but you lead the conversation on these things as it pertains to the republican party. conservative ideals and the future of this country, the future of the party and how

anything is ever going to get done in washington. elise asked the question, where does she go now? where do you go? where do you go given these choices? i mean, i think we've just lost any other option if you're a republican to be able to vote and not feel dirty. >> well, i think i can speak for a lot of republicans this morning saying, probably including the bushes, of course, i would never speak for the bushes, but i find it hard to believe that that family would -- because they've been asking a lot of questions about gary johnson. i don't know how that family supports a man that is so ignorant of foreign policy that he doesn't know what aleppo is.

i certainly know that mitt romney who boosted gary johnson just last night has to be horrified by what he has seen this morning. mitt romney tweeting, i hope voters get to see former gop governors gary johnson and bill weld on the debate stages this far. i am sure the good governor this morning doesn't feel the same way about gary johnson now. >> where does that leave the im? >> because as elise said, you can't condemn donald trump for his ignorance on foreign policy and then support a man who doesn't even know where aleppo is. where does that leave people like elise and myself? elise, i would say it probably leaves us gasping and wondering what the next two months are going to reveal. >> well, i think what is also is so disturbing about governor johnson's answer is his

aloofness to what this humanitarian tragedy is. as we are trying to forge a post-bush administration, republican foreign policy, and as people are trying to respond to what is the republican foreign policy without the -- having to move to a more realistic path, i think people expect more from our leadership when it comes to addressing the humanitarian tragedies around the world. we can't be completely immune and aloof and say that we're not going to have any role whatsoever. and that russia can go and do whatever they want. and we don't care about chemical weapons, essentially. >> but -- yes. yes to all of that. and so where does that leave? like, pulling the lever today, that leaves you all voting for hillary clinton or not voting. it does. thank you for being honest. >> we are not pulling the lever today. we'll see what happens over the next two months. mika, you don't know what is going to happen to hillary clinton over the next two

months. we don't know. every morning is a new revelation. >> but joe -- >> in this campaign. >> with all due respect, it's almost at the point -- i need to be really careful wording this. i think you have to hope nothing happens with her. because you know what you're going to get, at least. look -- am i alone here? the devil we know versus the devil we don't know. >> you're speaking for tens of millions of people who feel just as you expressed it. >> i'm not flak for hillary clinton. i've been very critical. but given all we know about -- >> but mika -- >> what? >> what you're trying to do is what you're trying to do every day, force republicans to say they are going to vote for hillary clinton. >> i'm forcing republicans to tell the truth about exactly what their options are. >> so a lot of people are just as offended about voting for

hillary clinton as they would be offend for voting for donald trump as they are offended this morning voting for gary johnson. i know a lot of republicans who are going to leave the top blank and vote for republicans straight down the line. >> i guess that's the other option. >> you are not going to get them in early september to sign a blood oath to you, a life-long democrat, that they are going to vote for hillary clinton. because right now most republicans i talk to say they are either going to vote for gary johnson, that's off the table now, or they are going to leave it blank and vote for republicans down the line. >> okay, but joe, i mean, this is -- us here, willie, barnicle, you, me, elise, we are talking honestly, okay? what happened with gary johnson here also happens with donald trump every time he goes on tv. >> i agree. >> you have two candidates out of three who don't know enough to be president. you have a third who is deeply flawed, perhaps, if i were to

take elise's point of view, and it's still at least knowledgeable, at least -- we're dealing with what offends you more. >> but 55% of americans think that other candidate that you are trying to force republicans to vote for in early september should -- yes, it is about you, because you are trying to force every republican that comes on to say that they have to either vote for hillary clinton or they don't love their country. 55% of americans told abc news in a poll they thought she should have been indicted. so it is not -- it is not as clean as you are trying to make it. i will tell you again, a lot of republicans i speak to say they are not going to vote for anybody on the presidential line and vote a straight ticket for the republicans down that line. >> mike and elise, go. >> joe, one of the things, and i know you know this, one of the things that is going on in this

election process this year combines two elements. both of them volatile, both of them dangerous. fear and frustration. there's an underlying fear in this country held by ordinary people, people you know that we all know, they have a fear of the future. they have a future of the economic future of their children. they have a fear of the future in terms of domestic terrorism here. and it's been -- it's been fed largely by candidates like donald trump. and the frustration that they find is that in their search for a candidate that they feel comfortable in voting for, sometimes many of them back off of hurricane hick because her -- because of her inability as exhibited last night to speak in a straight line of truth simply put about the e-mail stuff and move on to larger more important issues to the american public. and the deep frustration now, i think, that would be added to the burden, when they hear a

candidate like elise has, sort of like governor johnson, and they hear him this morning about the appalling lack of knowledge about international war, fear and frustration, is what we have going on. >> so i understand that. i say it is too simple just to say it is candidates blindly stoking this fear. i can take you back to the beginning of the century. 16, 17 years of failed american leadership coming out of washington, d.c. 1999 impeachment. 2000 the recount. 2001 you had the missed intelligence and the 9/11 attacks. 2002 you had enron, worldcom. 2003, you had wmds and iraq and

a failed invasion. let me continue. because it's critical to understand this. in 2005 you had hurricane katrina. i can go year by year by year. i can talk about 2008 and how the federal government republicans and democrats alike both -- turn that off, please. >> we got it. >> that republicans, it keeps getting turned on, turn it off. republicans and democrats alike in 2008, both juice the housing market so much that they actually created a crisis that not only wrecked the u.s. economy, but wrecked the world economy for several years. we could talk about barack obama taking every troop in 2010 out of a stable iraq after the u.s. military paid the ultimate price for george w. bush's mistakes in 2003. it gets cleaned up in 2010. every void is created and that leads to the rise of isis.

then you can talk about what hasn't been done in syria. so if there is fear among the americans in middle america, it is a fear that is well grounded in reality and fact by the complete and abject failures of a republican and democratic administration over the past 16 years. >> joe, you are absolutely right on everything you said. but there's one important ingredient that is absent in your diagnosis. and it is that prior to 2012 no one in this country was hand-cuffed together by the electronic fear instruments of twitter and social media that joins this country together in fear, largely, about political events. every single day, every moment of every single day. >> willie. >> just to tie up mika's points, americans should expect a base line knowledge of the world in their president, we're talking about the president of the united states. if you don't know what aleppo is, you can't be president. donald trump, does he know

enough about the world? can he learn? that's what voters have to ask themselves. we have to expect more of people who want to hold the most important job in this country. michael crowley, thank you for being with us this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," veterans advocate paul reitcoff will be here. and e-mails just released reveal what colin powell told hillary clinton about e-mailing, quote, without it going through the state department servers. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> what would you do if you were elected about aleppo? >> about -- >> aleppo. >> and what is aleppo? >> you're kidding. >> no. >> aleppo is in syria. it's the -- it's the epicenter of the refugee crisis. >> okay, got it. got it.

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joining us now from columbus, ohio, kristen welker who is covering the clinton campaign. kristen, hillary clinton took a lot of hits over the private e-mail server last night. what is the latest this morning? >> reporter: she was on defense again last night, no doubt about that. democrats are trying to lower the temperature on this controversy. the ranking democratic member on the house oversight and government performing committee elijah cummings releasing an e-mail exchange between hillary clinton and collin powell, which essentially shows that powell advised hillary clinton on how to use personal e-mail. he said he had a personal computer set up to a phone line and communicated to friends

through that system. and also the leaders of foreign governments. but he also gave hillary clinton a stark warning. let me read you a little bit of what he had to say, he said, there's a real danger if it is public that you have a blackberry and it is government and you're using it, government or not, to do business. it may become an official record and subject to the law. reading about the president's blackberry rules this morning, it sounds like it won't be as useful as it used to be. be very careful. i got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data. so a stern warning there for how to circumreceventhe system, to some extent. we reached out the to come colin powell's camp but we have not heard back. this all comes as hillary clinton got tough questions about using her personal e-mail last night. she again said it was a mistake.

and said that she didn't mishandle classified information. but this new e-mail exchange is not quieting the controversy as donald trump continues to pounce here. i spoke to voters last night who reiterated this issue that continues to feed many the lack of trust for her. >> kristen welker, thank you very much. donald trump was also asked about his plan to stop veteran suicides and took a moment to correct a statistic cited by the veteran who asked the question. >> mr. trump, i wanted to ask, what your plan will be to stop 20 veterans a day from killing themselves? >> and actually, it's 22. and it's almost impossible to conceive that this is happening in our country. 20 to 22 people a day are killing themselves. a lot of it is they're killing themselves over the fact that they are under tremendous pain and can't see a doctor. we're going to speed up the process, we're going to create a

great mental health division. they need help. they need help. they need tremendous help. and we're doing nothing for them. >> however, it turns out that trump's number was incorrect. in july the department of veterans affairs reported that 20 veterans die every day from suicide, revising the previous estimate of 22, a disputed figure that has been used for years. and after the forum, rachel fredericks who posed the question was asked what she thought of trump's answer. >> it seems to me he wants to blame it on access and mental health care and saying, they need help, they need help. i think everyone in america needs some type of help, but yet we are going to stigmatize those with ptsd, they need help? so i think to blame it on the access issue or to blame it on the lack of mental health care, and especially to blame it with living with chronic pain didn't answer the question at hand of what he'll do to stop it.

i know many veterans, especially in my organization of disabled american veterans, who live with chronic pain every day. >> how great is she? joining us "the new york times" reporter and army veteran and founder of ceo in iraq and afghanistan veterans of america, paul ratcliffe. we know about the problems at the v.a. they addressed the statistics last night, but from where you sit, what do you veterans need from the next commander in chief they don't have right now? >> well, they need the continued focus we had last night. last night was historic. it wasn't perfect. frankly, i wish the veterans had three hours of just questions, but for the first time in history we had a real commander-in-chief forum that focused on the community. it was historic and the beginning of a conversation. we hope this becomes a regular thing. we want other candidates

involved and want to expand that. we finally got to suicide and got to the military sexual trauma, a lot of other issues our veterans have been screaming to be heard of. and you got to hear from amazing veterans, the real people in the field experiencing this and living this from all parties. this was a game-changing vote. and it has put veterans issues front and center all the way to veterans day, right after election day, when we want unite everyone. will you come back to new york and you night on veterans day? >> we hope this is not a one-time thing where they stick and move away from the issues. hoping to help perform the v.a., it's been an uphill climb. i don't have to tell you that. but the positions last night not to privatetize, although donald trump entertained the idea of privatizing part of it, what is the best solution you have come up with? >> it's a mixed solution. we have a whole policy agenda on our website. you can see the details on how to reform it. but i think our generation wants

solutions. we don't want just this, we want solutions. trump said i don't support privatization but talked about privatization. there's a difference between the candidates there. we want a system that works, wet to see doctors, get good care. and that's what we want the commander in chief to deliver on. >> you think last night after hearing some of the answers, especially from donald trump, but also seeing some of the answers that happened on our show this morning with gary johnson, what more can we do as reporters to cover this story? >> i think what we can do as reporters is really, one, ask the questions like what happened this morning. i mean, the fact that you had someone who is a presidential candidate ask what is aleppo after, i mean, we have had so many stories in "the new york times," but also all over the world in that we had that whole image of the young boy that went viral, so i don't understand in some ways as a journalist and as

an american citizen. at the end of the day, what we should do as journalists is talk about fact-changing and challenging people for real policy issues. i covered arlington cemetery for a really long time, and i got to know a lot of the military families. what i took away from the experience is that these families feel like they are completely not seen, they are completely left on their up. that they are a population that is just forgotten by the vast majority of americans. and i think to be able to really ask those questions, to be able to ask people, how are you going to fix these issues and what are your real, solid solutions and fact-check them. i think last night we saw donald trump say he did not support the war in iraq. many people have fact-checked him and said that's a false statement. he broke that big story saying here is him on howard stern saying that he does support the war. so i think being able to do that as journalists, we have to do that. even if we want to move on to

the next question and want to have multiple broad conversations, we have to stop and say, wait, when you really need to answer this question, what is going on in syria. >> this is why we need another commander-in-chief forum with gary johnson and joe stein, anybody who wants to be president. let's open the conversation up and ask the hard questions from veterans. a lot of folks want gary johnson to be involve in the process. they are pushing for an expansive process and we think the next commander-in-chief forum should include him and anyone else who wants to be the commander- in-chief. >> thank you very much. we'll get foreign ambassador chris hales' take on gary johnson's question of what is aleppo? we'll be right back. come triumph, or trial, tennis legend serena williams

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they are not going to get ground troops. we are not putting ground troops into iraq ever again. and we're not putting ground troops into syria. we're going to defeat isis without committing american ground troops. >> i've always said, shouldn't be there, but if we're going to get out, take the oil. if we would have taken the oil, you wouldn't have isis. >> that was hillary clinton and donald trump talk about what they would and would not do to defeat isis. we'll ask former u.s. ambassador to iraq christopher hill what he thinks about their plans next on "morning joe." from verizon... hi, pete. i'm glad you called.

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she made a mistake on libya, she made a terrible mistake on libya. and the next thing, not only did she make the mistake, but then they complicated the mistake by having no management once they bombed the you know what out of gadhafi. part of it was the management after the fact. i would be very, very cautious. i think i would be a lot slower. she has a happy trigger, look, she votes for the war. >> have you thought about the emotional burden? >> i think it is a tremendous burden. there's no greater burden than anybody can. >> let's go to denver now to talk to the dean of the international studies program at the university of denver. one of our favorites, ambassador christopher hill. ambassador hill, i would ask you how depressed you were by some of the comments from last night's forum, but i think we need to start with the depressing developments on this show earlier this morning where you have a major party candidate

who may draw enough votes away from one of the two candidates to actually shape the outcome of this election. gary johnson, when asked by mike barnicle, what he thought of aleppo, he asked the question, what is aleppo? what is your reaction to that? >> i'm still trying to get my mind around that one. on foreign affairs, there's a lot of inside baseball that i don't expect people to understand or follow. but the capital of isis, very much in the news, especially in the last two days, but for the last two years. and for him to draw that kind of blank, and by the way, boy, was that a blank stare on his face. i was wondering whether he was talking about something called an aleppo and was he confused by that, i couldn't figure it out. it was just mind blowing. i don't know where he will have peaked in the polls, but i think he will now be known as aleppo

johnson. and that may be the end of their bid. >> i mean, i was sort of uncomfortable, the part of this that seems a little bit unfair is that the republican nominee seems to make statements like similar to that, even last night in the forum when given more time. >> well, i thought the most bizarre thing donald trump said last night, and there's a lot of competition for the most bizarre thing that he said, but was when he said taking the oil. that was a real -- you know, chin scratcher. i mean, what did he mean by that? are we going to surround the oil fields, pump it into big bladders, put it on ships? are we going to occupy the fields for the rest of history? what is donald trump talking about? you have no idea what donald trump is talking about because he has no idea what he's talking about. and i was a little surprised

that the moderator kind of let him off on that. i would have gone right at that issue and just forced him to kind of lay it out. >> well, speaking sort of as one who does that, i think what happens there in defense of matt lauer completely here, is that donald trump says so many things that are off the wall, exhibit a lack of knowledge, exhibit the sort of riffing that he leaves us with nowhere to go. and moving forward, he's going to have to be asked questions that are just about his basic knowledge, like his, you know, basic history, to reveal what it is that he doesn't know. but he throws so much against the wall. and when you only have a tight window, it's very -- i wouldn't blame it on the moderator here, i would actually ask the viewers to really look at what donald trump is saying. and to try and digest it. because most of it isn't true. >> for the record, matt did

follow-up on that. he said, how would you pull it off? donald trump gave an answer that doesn't make sense. on another question, you were ambassador to iraq in 2009 and 2010, and in the years were critical for the obama administration for the exit strategy. is it your analysis that the early pull-out from the obama administration gave rise to isis? >> you know, i think it's a much more complicated situation. if you asked iraqis, do they want american troops to remain in their country, many of them would say no. or worse yet, they would say, they would say yes to us, that they want them to remain, and then they would say no to each other. so this was not just something coming out of washington, although clearly the president wanted to fulfill a campaign promise. you need enough troops there to maintain law and order. and the second issue is isis

forming out of disgruntled sunni groups. it is not just the shea failure to offer the defense ministry position and then ask them to stay out of the organization called isis because i'm being called a job. it's far more complex than that and goes to the heart of the fact that in the arab middle east, 90% of the people there are sunni. and the shea are a small minority. and the sunnis a minority in iraq must live under the shea. this should be given some thought back to 2003. >> mr. ambassador, who was your reaction to secretary clinton's statement last night, pretty certain that we are never going to reintroduce troops to iraq never again and syria as well never again. >> yeah, i never use the word never. and so i was a little surprised

by that. but i think she's trying to make a point. we don't want to put any ground forces or a conventional army out there again. never is a word to be avoided in these circumstances. but i think she is trying to address people within the democratic party who really worry about this idea that perhaps she will support going back in. this is not the civilization problem between shea and sunni and radical sunni and not-so-radical sunni between the arab peninsula, saudi arabia and the rest of the arab world, these are complex issues and should not expect the u.s. troops to solve these issues. and perhaps she should have spent maybe a couple seconds longer to explain that. but basically the right

instinct. >> ambassador christopher hill, thank you for being on the show this morning. up next, apple raises the curtain on the new iphone. we'll talk about how another company tried to steal its thunder and how much the company has changed under tim cook. keep it right here on "morning joe." new app? new app? we're good. okay... what if a million people download the new app? we're good. five million? good. we scale on demand. hybrid infrastructure, boom. ok. what if 30 million people download the app? we're not good. we're total heroes. scale on demand with the number one company in cloud infrastructure. hewlett packard enterprise.

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it's time now for business before the bell with domenick chu. we'll go to you in a second, but first we'll go to mike barnicle.

our eyes are glazed over because of the remarks earlier today, but we have mike and willie, we have, don't look now, but a heck of a pennant race where the red sox are in first place, but the yankees have won four in a row. they're 4 1/2 out. and the cardinals have clawed their way back up to the wild card. and the mets on a five-game winning streak. this is going to be a heck of a september. >> you got the first place bus and the red sox. the yankees are coming up in the rear-view mirror playing young. and the mets refusing to go away. a great time for new york city sports fans. >> yeah, and willie, don't you love the fact that we never bring up baseball until the first day that the red sox are in first place by themselves in the american league east. >> yes.

this season they were selling off the big money challenge, they were thinking about going young. but the rebuilding got -- >> the yankees are expecting to have their best season -- >> seven seconds for the iphone, go. >> i live in connecticut and get a lot of the yankee and red sox all in one. it's a big mish-mash for me. but the iphone 7 is the big corporate story this morning. it's still making a lot of headlines here. what you want to know is it has a faster processor, longer battery life, a better camera, water resistant for those who have accidents every once in a while. and no more headphone jack. you have to use blue-tooth

wireless head phones. but there's an adaptor to let you plug them into the battery jack of the phone. they start taking orders tomorrow. delivery the following week. the phones start at $649 a piece. >> domenick chu, thank you. coming up next, what we learned today. mi ght want to at least mention that. i'm building world-changing machines. with my two hands. does that threaten you? no! don't be silly. i'm just, uh, going to go to chop some wood. with that? yeah wdon't have an ax. or a fireplace. good to be prepared. could u cut the bread? soon, she'll type the best essays in the entire 8th grade. get back to great. all computers on sale like this dell laptop. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great.

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>> you're kidding. >> no. >> it's in syria. it's the epicenter of the refugee crisis. >> okay, got it. got it. >> wow. so mika, what did you learn today? >> i learned that hillary clinton is headed to charlotte this morning and she'll be holding a mini press conference on her plane in the next hour. elise, what did you learn today? aleppo. >> mike barnicle. >> it's hard to get excited about the candidates, all of them in this election year. >> willie geist? >> i learned that last night's forum was not a one-off and hope the candidates stay focused on veteran issues. and the bar is on aleppo. if you don't know what it is or where it is, you cannot be president of the united states. >> that leaves us with one person then. joe, what did you learn? >> i learned the same thing as willie. that the libertarian candidate for president of the united states is unqualified to be

president of the united states. and he disqualified himself this morning on "morning joe." >> that does it for us this morning. steve kornacki picks up the coverage right now. all right. good morning, everyby. i'm steve kornacki. this morning, face-off. hillary clinton and donald trump on the same stage moments apart answering the tough questions on her e-mails. >> i make no excuses for it. it was something that should not have been done. >> on his praise of vladimir putin. >> if he says great things about me, i'm going to stay great things about him. >> their different views on foreign policy. >> she made a mistake on libya. she made a terrible mistake on libya. >> there's no difference between my opponent and myself. he's on record extensively supporting intervention in libya. >> and clinton we are just learning set to take questions from reporter this is hour. we'll bring that you