diverse than in the past. >> okay. mike allen, always good to see you. >> great to see you, alex. >> i'm going to see your name come up on the inbox and it will be -- anyway, the to all of your viewers out there, you can see have that, as well. sign up for the new letter. na does it for us on this thursday morning. "morning joe," everyone, starts right now. >> good morning. it's thursday, september 13th. welcome to "morning joe." we want to get right to the countdown for landfall for hurricane florence. this storm has been downgraded to a category 2, but authorities warn this still will be an extremely dangerous hurricane. federal officials say florence could hit parts of the carolina coast for 24 hours or more bringing more than 40 inches of rain to some areas. video out of north carolina shows emergency vehicles lined up ready to begin relief

efforts. hospitals in the path of the hurricane rb transferring patients. with nearly 2 million people heeding evacuation orders, emergency shelters are filling up fast with some folks preparing to stay for at the least a week. let's get over to bill carin ka with a look at the forecast. >> this is a huge storm. it's a big storm. it's able to push more water and water is going to be the huge issue with this storm. maybe we have less extreme wind damage, but the water damage will be historic, anyway. so it doesn't really matter. the damage will be done. here it comes. there's the eye of the storm and here is the north carolina coast. it will be closing in on you during the day today and that sunset tonight is when the hurricane force winds will be with us. this time tomorrow morning, i think the eye could be right over the top of wilmington, north carolina. here is the latest hurricane path. this is 2:00 p.m. this

afternoon. they have it as a strong category 2. it's going to do the same amount of surge damage. it's going to do the same amount of rainfall damage. the wind damage, 5 miles per hour, one way or the other, it doesn't make much of a difference. here is the path. that's 160 miles in 36 hours. that averages 4 miles per hour. that's how painfully slow this storm is going to move over southeast portions of north carolina. that means extreme rain as we go throughout areas of the southeast. then the biggest problem, the reason why i'm not focussing on the wind, this is the causes of deaths from atlantic cyclones from the national hurricane center. only 8% of fatalities are caused by the wind. that's mostly trees falling on people or on cars or on their residents. 20% of fatalities are from the rainfall, 50% are from the storm surge. so 75% of deltaths are from wat from storm surge.

so still, even though the storm is weaker, the storm surge has not changed. still looking at 9 to 13 feet and we'll be worried about the high tide cycles. how about this from our rainfall prediction from our european model jovernight. the flood of record in this area was 1999 with hurricane floyd. if you google the pictures, it's horrendous flooding. i'm now seeing river projections that are supposed to top hurricane floyd. ifs those people had evacuated, i'm glad you did so. if you haven't done so, you have about 12 hours to do so. get out of there if you can. >> bill, thank you very much. along with joe, willie and me, we have mike barnacle and republican strategist and msnbc political analyst susan delpercio. as florence nears the united states, president trump continues to tout his administration's response to puerto rico following hurricane maria last year. but new polling shows more than

half of puerto rico's residents give president trump a negative rating for his response to the storm. 52% say he did a poor job. only 15% say he did an excellent and very good job. and some more new poll numbers for you this morning. a new cnn poll finds americans are growing more supportive of robert mueller's handling of the russia probe. 50% back the special investigation. >> so let's stop right there and just look at that number, mike. robert mueller, again, a united states marine, a man who has committed his entire life to service to the united states of america, impeccable credentials. he believes in right and wrong. he's lived that way. he was a war hero because a

classmate of his had gone over to vietnam and died. he and his buddies said, you know what? we need to follow him. that's what he would want us to do. service above self. and rudy giuliani has been trashing him. there have been a lot of people in the media saying maybe what rudy has been doing is working. maybe america are such fools that they will be rudy lying every day, changing this story. robert mueller today has a higher percentage of approval from the american people than he ever has. 20 points higher than donald trump. he keeps going up. trump keeps going down. you would think somebody at the special -- you know, special counsel's office, maybe they should send rudy some flowers and thank him because he's been doing nothing but help robert mueller. >> joe, the contrast is quite vivid between the two people involved and it's the two principals, donald trump and

robert mueller. and i think the public picks up on the contrast. one person, mr. mueller, is doing his job. the other person, mr. trump, is clearly not doing his job. one person's goal is to find out who did damage to the country. that's mr. robert mueller trying to find that out. the other person is denying, constantly denying that russia did damage to the country. so i think people have picked up on that. >> well, 61% of voters think the investigation is a serious matter while only 33% think it's to discredit trump. >> that's two to one. again, the numbers are going in the opposite direction, willie. this has been, again, the strategy, i can't state it enough. this strategy of rudy giuliani's is a steve bannon strategy. it's a 33% strategy. and you have these dupes in the house of representatives who --

they're not just being dupes for donald trump. but now since they're trying to obstruct a russian investigation and interfering with democracy, they're now -- they're being dupes for vladimir putin. does that play in the deep south? because i'm from the deep south and that ain't ever played in dixie. that's never played where i come from. >> well, you're looking at the numbers right here. it's not playing. and i think the reason bob mueller's approval rating goes up is because he's not interested in his approval rating. in other words, he has his head down doing his work. the question of whether or not this is a serious matter has basically been settled by the intelligence agencies saying russia went after our elections. that's not a question about donald trump. that's a question about whether it's a smart, good, and important idea to investigate what happened in the 2016 election and what continues to happen as all the intelligence agencies have agreed to our system from russia. >> and susan delpercio asked

whether the president should tfr under oath, more than 7 in 10 say yes while 23% say no. 47% say yes when asked if president trump should be impeached and removed from office. that's up 5 points since june. 48% feel he should not. >> so let's keep that up for a seconds. susan, i've been following politics for a very long time. i've just never seen a number like that where half of america -- and it's moved up 5% since june. >> maybe it's a compliment. they want to hear from him. >> half of america want donald trump impeached and removed from office. now, we know it's not going to happen. i mean, it's not going to happen because it doesn't really matter what happened in the elections this fall. there is not going to be two-thirds of the senate that is going to vote to remove him from

office. so many of these republicans are scared of their own shadow. >> that number is going to irk him. that's going to stay with him. but stepping back and looking at mueller and his numbers doing so well, i think you can't forget that you had the manafort guilty finding which was a big success for mueller. now we're after labor day and we're starting to see more campaigning. people don't like to see the ugliest that we're seeing and donald trump has gone more and more down that road of ugly and attack. and i think he's just going to spiral into it. >> i would have never guessed, but the child separation

followed by helsinki and followed actually by the ugliness surrounding john mccain's funeral. it's had a devastating impact on the numbers. >> if one doesn't impact somebody, chances are there other. there's a number of issues where this president is reput nant. >> at least the republicans don't have to worry about it impacting the generic ballot test because trump is an island unto himself. >> with 54 days until the midterm elections, three new national polls give democrats a double digit advantage in the vote for congress. >> oh, never mind. i'm sorry. willie, i got that one wrong. that was a bad read. you would think i would have figured this one out. >> the latest quinnipiac poll shows democrats 14% ahead of republicans on the ballot while the newest politico poll puts

democrats 10 points ahead. >> so, willie, while i don't usually look at the generic ballot test, you look, you know, more at the intensity. that's what really matters. and the democrats have that, as well. but i always look at trend lines. and my gosh, the trend lines for the republicans and these generic ballot tests have completely collapsed. remember, they were crowing again in the spring, it's been closed, you live for -- yeah, whatever. here we are. those are massive numbers. >> yeah. how about the woman number. that's the one i look at, a 20 point spread for democratic women there. that is a devastating number. and you look at the kind of candidates the democrats are running this fall and what they

hope and expect will be a blue wave, it's women, it's minority candidates, the kind of people they need to peel back and create some distance from republicans and donald trump. >> and what's even more amazing is some of the republican women that are running, they're still having a lot of drag on their side from donald trump. i mean, when you look at those numbers, i just looked at a poll from nevada. 62% of people think that their state is going in the right direction economically. and yet heller is in for the race of his life. and that is just absolutely stunning. and when you talk about the spread of people wanting to come out against donald trump's policy versus support it, that's a nine-point spread there. that says an awful lot. >> again, when you start talking about intensity, we hear and we're going to hear it, i'm sure, when we go to mississippi. but you hear a lot of people. i hear a lot of my friends in the south saying i voted for

him. i don't want to talk about it. you should have stopped tweeting. >> or i just don't want to talk about it. >>. >> those people who feel that way, and there are a lot of them, and they are disgusted by donald trump even if they like some of the policies, those are the people that stay home. >> and that is the biggest problem the republicans are facing now. >> and when you hear nick mull vein thee, those people do stay home. i still find it hard to believe a republican loses in texas yet.

we'll see. mike, a four-point lead, that's pretty close, in a wave year. much closer than it should be. so, mike, i don't like to talk about baseball, but i did look at the calendar last night when red sox got over a hundred games and i immediately said, oh, my gosh, how are we going to collapse after winning a hundred games? and then i look at the calendar and it's middle of september. even i will say it may -- i may be other, right? >> yeah, but you have classic red sox disease. fine, it's the middle of september. we're all set. and you immediately jump to october. >> but we're screwed in october. i did text him that. we don't have a rotation. this was fun while it lasted. we may win 112 games, but the a's are going to sweep us.

but, you know, the calendar crowds out the possibility of the red sox choking. the same you can say with these poll numbers. we are now in the middle of september. not only that, but some people in some states, if they haven't started early voting, they're going to start voting early very soon. and suddenly these numbers breaking at the worst possible time for donald trump and republicans start to get locked in and we have to stop being so smug and cynical saying oh, these numbers don't matter, let the people vote. some of the people are going to start voting. did you like that, willie? >> there is an amazing thing between the red sox ten-point lead and the poll numbers we're looking at. the tissue connection is people

want to know to candidates and to a baseball team, can you do your job? and i think that is one of the underpinnings of trump's failure to pick up more energy in the polls given the economy than he has. and the betty oh rock campaign is more destructive nationally. there's an exhaustive level in american politics over the president. there's increasing doubts whether or not he is up to doing the job. and if you watch the o'rourke campaign and you listen to what he says out on the stump and he's out on the stump 20 hours a day throughout the biggest, largest state in the union, he is basically -- while he talk bes issues, he talks about health care, he talks about taxes, he talks about schools. but basically what he's saying if you listen to him, really listen to him, he is saying don't you want this country to

be better? don't you want people to be nicer to each other? don't you want to live in a place where people smile more, an invective is smaller in politics. and i think if you ask people this, the answer is a resounding yes. >> you know what else he does. he does what barack obama did in iowa. after hillary clinton lost, president trump said, you know -- president obama said, you know, you can't just go to counties where you think they're going to vote for you. i said why don't we show up and see if we only lose 55% of the vote. and that made such a huge difference for president obama in iowa and in a lot of other places. he went to places where people didn't want to see him. and then they saw him and said, wait, he's not this monster that we hear about on talk radio.

o'rourke is doing that. he's going to places in texas that democrats don't usually go and people are looking at him going, hmmm, nice guy. >> and that's what's interesting. when you look deeper into some of these polls, besides the horse race, pollsters look for information like how do we go and get votes. they're seeing a lot more places that o'rourke can go and get votes than republicans are. republicans are going to only rely on trying to turn out their base. whereas o'rourke and others, like you said, they're showing up and they're finding little way toes bring more and more people in. it may not go blue this year, but i think you're right, joe, and down the road, it certainly could. >> and the other thing that you just touched on is if you have a consistent theme as a party, and every candidate in your party, the republican party i i'm speaking of and your consistent theme is rooted in fear, eventually that's going to turn people off. when they bump into a o'rourke.

still ahead on "morning joe," we're going to dig deeper into a series of tight races from around the country from texas to tennessee. plus, he's been in congress for three terms and just won a month's long primary battle. but ron desantis still needs time to flush out his policy positions for florida? that's interesting. >> in the words of george bush, it's hard. willie, how can you serve in congress for three terms and then win the republican nomination and still don't know what you believe in. you're supposed to figure that out before you knock on the first door. >> you have to wait for the polling to come in before you decide what you believe. >> that's why he -- >> three terms, three elections and he doesn't understand what racially charged language is? interesting. >> or you don't know what he believes in. >> that's a lot of waffling. also a warning from former

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this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. democratic nominee for florida governor andrew gillum has led while his republican opponent has had some issues. he's not ready to discuss the issues yet. >> too early. >> but why are you running? >> i only ran against a guy who is one of the most qualified public figures. >> adam smith writes during the

republican primary, desantis appeared multiple times a week on fox news, but almost always talked about national issues such as the special counsel's russia probe and he rarely made himself available for one-on-one interviews. the desantis campaign confirmed he would sit down with the tampa bay times to discuss his issues facing nr. but the campaign canceled saying they wanted to give desantis time to flush out his platform before taking questions. >> so this guy is running, by did way -- >> he announced his candidacy in january. >> this guy is running, mike, to be governor of a state that has a gdp greater than most countries, has hurricanes coming in, it seems every few weeks in the fall. it is a hard state to run.

i said that jeb bush is the single best public officials i've ever seen in my life. it's because jeb going in knew more than anybody else in the entire -- he was steeped in knowledge about the state of florida, steeped in knowledge about how you save people during a hurricane. wasn't running around, you know, talking about nursery rhymes or the stories you read to kids. have republicans not been through as many hurricanes other than to pick a guy that the doesn't know what the hell he is doing? >> my question is not having followed mr. desantis's campaign as much as he ought to, i have a couple of questions. is he a recent arrival in

florida? did he move that, like so many people, for tax purposes? >> no. he's been there for a while. i don't think he's been there for as long as i've been there, but he's been there for a while. >> so the idea that he has not sat down with reporters or news organizations in those areas and talked about, you know, what he's going to do about highways and bridge construction and now in the wake of hurricane season what he would do in terms of an emergency situation. >> and that emergency always comes. >> imagine you're sitting there in florida, you see florence coming in, and you're going to vote for someone who doesn't

know what its policies will do? if there's ever such a stark difference, it's mayor that he is running against. that means you're used to operational procedures and that you know how to get things done. this is the fox primary. candidates go on fox as much as they can. they try and win a state or their district, whatever they're looking for, and they come up independent after they're done with that because they have not been through the ringer and go through the interviews and everything else that you need. they're just focused on winning that primary. >> and by the way, willie, what do i tell you all the time? i love senators. all of them. wonderful people. salt of the earth, great people. >> what's going on? >> but you can -- if you're a senator and you're dumb, you can kind of hide in the back of the chamber for a couple of years until you figure things out. >> not talking about anyone specifically. >> no. salt of the earth. i love the senators.

but if you're governor of a state of florida -- >> this is true. >> -- and you get a hurricane, a category 4 or a cat 5 coming at you, there is no place to run, baby, no place to hide. and i sat watching. i just could not believe that the state of florida, republican primary voters had a chance to elect a guy in adam putnam, and i said nice things about him. that probably hurt, that was as qualified as anybody i've ever seen to run for governor. instead, they pick a guy who goes on fox news, talks about how he wants to obstruct a russian investigation, and doesn't even understand any of these issues. i -- this isn't even about winning or losing, but if he wins, what's going to happen the first time the cat 4 starts barreling down on -- >> he's going to take some time

off to flush out the issues. >> get suck into the gulf and starts moving towards pensacola. not good. >> here is the headlines from the tampa bay times. ron desantis still keeping his issues from florida issues. but florida has an interesting choice here because andrew gillum has put out proposals that are -- not far left, but pretty darn progressive. medicare for all. he's on board with abolishing i.c.e., $15 minimum wage. on the other hand, you have ron desantis whose primary strategy appears to be hugging donald trump tight. reporters are enemies of the people. he said you had some sympathy for that point of view. he wants everyone to know that i will be lock step with president trump and that is part of the strategy. >> you also have with gillum one other fundamental problem i think he's going to face is he admits he has to raise taxes. that's not going to play well in

florida. you can go through everything else, but raising taxes in florida is a big issue. >> so, joe, what would you think the consensus would be in terms of jeb bush? if, as a lot of people suspect desantis's campaign really gets ugly, what does jeb bush do, does he endorse him? >> no. >> boy, i don't think so. i'm not sure. >> he knows who he is. >> i'm kind of surprised that george w. is going out and campaigning for republicans. fund-raising for republicans. because every republican you send to washington, d.c., you send somebody to vote against an investigation. and i'm sure george w. thinks should be investigated. but, boy, i would find it hard to believe jeb bush would ever endorse ron desantis. adam putnam in a second because the guy actually would know what he's doing. but this guy, again, this the guy doesn't understand the

issues. he's having to take time out to figure out exactly what he believes. and we're in hurricane season. it's a toxic mix and it reminds me of what my friend, david stafford said when we were driving over to katrina and we were going over every day mississippi, louisiana. and he's a very consrervative guy, but he said on the show, you know why we're at this position where we have a mayor, a governor and a president who don't know what they're doing? because we all go in and vote in primary season and if we're a democrat, we check the box. examine if we're republicans, we check the box. but the one box that is left out in this idealogical era is leadership.

and they don't look at leadership, who can actually get us through a hurricane katrina. so we get what we deserve. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> by the time i left office, household income was near its all-time high and the uninsured rate had hit at an all-time low and wages were rising and poverty rates were falling. i mention all this just so when you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let's just remember when this the recovery started. >> okay. last week, former president obama argued that president trump is just riding the obama economic policy wave. but does trump deserve more credit? our next guest says yes. and we'll hear those arguments, coming up on "morning joe." (vo) when bandits stole the lockbox from the wells fargo stagecoach,

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ten years ago this saturday,

the major financial services firm lehman brothers came crashing down and with it almost the entire u.s. financial system. where do things stand a decade later? for "the washington post" and professor at george mason university, steve pearlstein. can american capital yammism survive? because we got into a debate in 2009 or 2010 and he said i guarantee you every dime of the bail out money will be paid back. i was like -- he was right. >> he was right. >> i was wrong. >> and his book is" can american capitalism survive." also we say former treasury officials economic analyst steve ratner and msnbc's josh barrow. >> alan greenspan is writing a book that will be coming out

this fall about american capitalism. and he talks about the rub with creative destruction, between the creative and the destruction. and if you take -- if you focus too much on the destruction, then you start actually getting in the way of the creativity that has made this country what it is. where do you come down on where america balances these moving forward? >> it's a good question. i think you got out of balance. you don't want an economy that guarantees everybody total economic security. you want to make sure new companies come along with new ideas and new ways of doing things with new products and able to knock out the old company. that involved quite a bit of pain and dislocation.

just to give you, you know, an example, yes, you want to give your top employees good compensation and their executives so they have the ability to innovate, to make hard decisions, to take risks. but if you put all the gains from productivity on the top of the ladder, then the workers have no incentive to work hard and be loyal and be engaged in their work. that is where we are, for example, in the united states where a lot of employees aren't engaged. so we're having a productivity problem in the united states in part because we went too far in the direction, frankly, that alan greenspan wanted things to go, which was that the compensation goes to those at the top. >> it seems like we have a hard time balancing in all ages from the mid to late 1800s until

1929. we focused obsessively as a country on the creative part of that equation. fdr came in and had to focus almost entirely on cleaning up the destructive side of that equation. how do we, in realtime in 2018, how do we strike the proper balance? >> well, the problem is that we no longer have the mechanism to do that. we do this through government policy, largely. although norms of business behavior are also important. but we are so divided, our social capital is so depleted by this period of inequality and the period of saying government is always the problem and this period in which businesses went to court and challenged every new regulation that came along. the pendulum has swung soer far that way that we've undermined the mechanism by which we can

rethink that thing. we have a dysfunctional government. that is the vicious cycle we're in. we're going the to have to restore some trust in each other and it has been eroded. we need to use the government to help rebalance things and have a conversation. but are we having that conversation today, joe? alas, we're not. >> we should talk about it more. >> good. >> steve, and i want to tell everybody, our viewers, that you actually cared about the debt while barack obama was president of the united states. you were involved in an organization, hyper focused on the debt. that debt now, of course, 21 trillion. it's exploded even this past year. here we are with a strong economy. and, yet, we're spending like

crazy. tax cuts left and right. actually making no tough choices just like we saw during the bush administration, presequestration. how much of a drag is that on the economy as we move forward over the next decade? >> in the short run, of course, it's a stimulus and it's parts of why we had 4.1% growth or 4.2% growth in the last quarter. but that's like putting gasoline on a fire. what we're doing is simply piling trillions of dollars of debt on top of 20 trillion we already have and at some point that is going to mean government is going to have to either raise taxes or cut benefits for people and that will be a drag on the economy when the time comes. it is, in my opinion, a completely irresponsible fiscal policy. >> we got numbers out yesterday that show in 2017 incomes were up, poverty was down.

we know the unemployment rate is 3. % and we know where the stock market is and all that. we heard that clip from president obama reminding voters that this recovery began under him. is trump getting too much or too little responsibility for the economy? >> he's giving himself too much, but the media is giving him too little. some of it is what steve referenced, it's a fiscal tax cut through the end of sequestration, but even liberal economists would have tended to tell you that was going to boost economic growth for a year or two. the other big thing is he's made good decisions about the federal reserve. he picked a really good fed chair in jay powell. i don't think there was a good reason to fire janet yellen, but he replaced her with someone who has almost the same views that she had. most republicans when they talk about the federal reserve during the presidential campaign and

before, they made noises they wanted a hard money person. they were very worried about inflation. they wanted higher interest rates. that would have been a real problem for the economy. trump, to his credit, has had a better view on that than most people in his party. you've seen him lambasting the fed for raising rates too fast. that's a better instinct for him to have than what most republicans seem to have which is that the fed ought to be more hawkish. and he's done some negative things on the trade stuff, but the effects of that are small. >> you look lsz at the markets and the markets continue to go up. trade is the one area where i do give donald trump a little bit of a benefit of the doubt that he's not just being a day trader. you can actually see. and steve, i talked to democratic business men,

republican businessmen, they all say the same thing. and first of all, on trump, they say yes, he's so much more positive towards business owners. we didn't even know anybody in the obama administration that ran a business. so they -- you hear that an awful lot. but also on trade. i have heard that china has been taking advantage of us, whether it was the monetary policy or whether it was on strayed now for a decade. that what donald trump is saying is right, the united states has been played for suckers and somebody needs to push back. i don't know if donald trump has the end game in mind here, but there are a lot of business people that would never vote for him in a thousand years that's glass he's pushing back on china. are you one of those, steve? >> with respect to china, i'm glad, although i think he's doing it the wrong way. but let's go through the report card. i would agree with josh, a plus

on picking jay powell. give him an a plus if what you want out of life is a business friendly administration, i would give him an a plus for that. if you want to judge him on what he's done for the average american, i would give him a much lower grade. the census report also said, willie mentioned the fact that income equality hasn't gotten any better. wages for men went up 3% last year. wages for women went up zero. and most of us do agree that china is a protectionism country and we should push back on it. you think if you talk to business men, the vast majority would tell you that trump is doing it the wrong way. instead of rallying our allies around us, he's alone in fighting china and threatening these massive tariffs and that is not the way to get anything constructive done. >> completely agree. especially, again, as you look at what donald trump has done,

you look at tpp, him removing the united states, that would have given us so much more leverage, josh, in our battle with china on trade. >> i think there's two things to keep in mind on trade. one is that trump has talked bigger than what he's actually done. a year ago, it was almost all talk. now there are significant actions. but you can see the way the stock market moves. when it looks more like donald trump's trade war is very real, the stock market goes down. when it looks like it's not going to be as real, the stock market goes up. it's only negative when they think the actions are going to be large. the other thing is that 70% of the economy are -- >> they look in this industry, they're paying higher prices for washing machines, higher prices for wood that is imported from canada. so the 770% that don't work in

trade are losing. >> the effects of the specific trade actions are not as large in terms of the overall economy. >> when you ask can american capitalism survive, we hear a lot of talk on the left that the answer is socialism. is that where we're going do go? >> i don't think so, but, you know, if you are in business and you were looking at the polls of young people, less than half of young people prefer capitalism over socialism. and that is a part of social reality. i think people are taking note of that and trying to respond to it and they need to respond to it in a way that makes sure that prosperity is shared.

donald trump's trade initiatives are meant to do that. in that perspective, he's right. the obama administration and the bush administration did not take enough of having trade dislocation with china in order to get some long term gain. but that's not what's moving the market these days. this is a very frothy market. it's not rational. you think 70% of the economy is service and this and that. that's a rational way of thinking about it. this market is very frothy. it's being driven by cheap money still. and by wall street which is creating more and more products so that more and more people can take out more and more credit. we're in a credit bubble. and those things have a life of their own, a momentum of their own. but i think looking at our stock market now in terms of rational things going on and responses to

that misses the underlying point. we're in a credit bubble now and that's one of the things ten years on that we haven't fixed. we have the shadow banking system that's totally unregulated, that's largely opaque, almost replaced the real banking system in terms of mediating between savings and investing. right now it's out of control. >> thank you very much. the book "can american capitalism survive." on sale september 25th. congratulations. >> thank you. hope you'll come back soon. josh, thank you as well. good to see you. coming up new reporting suggests former campaign chairman man may be angling for a pardon. we'll have the latest moves in the russian investigation ahead on "morning joe". ♪

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jamie dimon. i like the fact also that he always is measured and restrained. remember when he went to the hill and they were trying to make him like take money and he was not happy about it. >> ceo jamie dimon claims he could defeat the president in a head-to-head election. he made the comments first reported by cnbc at his bank's headquarters here in new york city pep told the crowd that he's as tough as trump and smar smarter than trump. that's true. adding that trump can punch me all he wants it wouldn't work with me. i would fight back. dimon also apparently said he earned his money. this is a good point, jamie, adding it wasn't a gift from daddy. shortly after the comments came out dimon walked them back releasing a statement i should not have said it. i'm not running for president.

i wouldn't make a good politician. i get frustrated because i want all sides to come together and help solve big problems. >> so jamie dimon, again he goes after everybody, right? this is not just about donald trump. >> he says what he thinks. >> he says what he thinks. >> yes. coming up hurricane florence closes in. forecasters warn about life threatening storm. the president finds himself on the losing end of a number new polls from his response to hurricane maria in puerto rico to the russia investigation. he's a big womp womp. we'll be right back. >> look at those numbers. so i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. that's right, $36,000.

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upmc does more living-donor liver transplants than any other center in the nation. find out more and get out of line today. florence. internet, works. it's politically effective. morally wrong but politically effective. i want to spend my time thinking about is how do you make inclusive aspirational unifying politics free market conservative, stuff i believe in, how do you make it valuable. how do you make it this is the winning thing. this is how you conduct campaigns. you have to figure out how to beat tribalism and show that it's the right -- not just morally right but have to show it's strategically the right thing to do. we have a ways to go on that.

>> house speaker paul ryan. >> if only a guy like that. >> says he's too busy on appropriations right now to think about tribalism and the damage to our nation's institutions. but he promises to get right to it -- >> after he has no power to do anything. >> after he leafs capitol hill. welcome back to morning joker everyone. it's wednesday, september 12th, 2018. national week republicans day. national come poli mike barn cal. susan. and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner and chief white house correspondent for the "new york times" peter baker is with us. >> peter, how are things going on inside the white house? are people happy? >> it's a joyous day in the white house. absolutely. >> peter, you studied the impeachment of bill clinton. we had ken starr on yesterday

talking about it. i'm curious. there's a lot of fear and lotting in the white house in '98 and '99. compare what you saw then and what you see now inside this trump white house. >> well, the difference is you had a president then who was riding high in the polls. it was 60% more or less throughout that whole ordeal, sometimes higher. that gave president clinton a lot of balance last. president trump is nowhere near there. in the mid-30s, low 40s depending on the day. that makes a big difference. having said that an impeachment battle, the kind of investigatory cloud that hangs over the white house is crow civilian. in 1998 it was all consuming for that president and his staff. no matter how much they tried to focus on policy behind-the-scenes it was driving the president up a wall. he consumed with it. and i think that's the same thing happening in this white

house. this is a different president and his responses are more public. his responses are more unrestrained. but it is a bad situation for any white house to face the kind of cloud that this one does and that one did 20 years ago. >> we heard early on that steve bannon would hang around the white house at night so he could spend time talking to donald trump and that they would -- they would have conversations. so many people, though, that were with him at the beginning are gone now. who is donald trump talking to? when he's cornered, is there anybody that he's talking to that can walk him through some of these crises? >> with contacts and historical knowledge. >> a great question. other than his daughter and son-in-law inside that white house he doesn't have a lot of people he trusts in a really implicit way, who he confides in a very personal way.

i think that, in fact, donald jr. said the number of people he can trust has shrunk following the woodward book and the anonymous official. he has people outside of the white house he regularly calls and keeps in touch with. sort of an unspoken kitchen cabinet if you will. >> who is on that list? >> you can path lot of people on that list. a whole series of his friends about business. but none of them with the kind of experience in washington that would be of particular help to him right now. you don't have a gray haired former senator who can kind of guide him through what to expect these next couple of months. i think we're in a per, frankly, where we're still playing pre-season football. we haven't gotten to the main season and that's coming probably in a couple of months. >> mike? >> peter, given staff attrition that's taken place over the past 14, 15 months, given the fact that there's a hurricane about to crash into north carolina,

what is happening to the nuts and bolts, the fundamentals of daily governing. who is there to help? who is there in support of the president of the united states? >> that's a great question. that's general kelly's role. he's to ignore the flack, ignore the fireworks that comes each day no matter what happens and focus nounts and bolts, make sure they have a system that's operating. it's a system that doesn't really operate, at least not the way the previous white house did. i was talking with some people yesterday. the nec doesn't have regular meetings that they had. they don't get-together at a table in a sit down what they are doing. what they are doing in north korea or syria. big things are happening while everybody focuses on, you know, who is the thoroughfare that anonymous op-ed is. it's a white house that hasn't yet put in place a disciplined organization that functions in a way that gets information the

president, helps him make reasoned decisions. still government by tweet. ireland the other day was told that the president is not going to come visit in november and then the white house puts out a statement saying maybe he will. we don't know. he talk to foreign diplomats in washington and they are confused. they don't know what though i. they are both ordering bob woodward's book so they can get some insight how this white house works. >> a new cnn poll finds americans are growing more supportive of robert mueller's handling of the russia probe. 50% back the special counsel's job in the investigation while only 30% approve of the way president trump has approached the issue. a drop of four points since august. 61% of voters think the investigation is a serious matter. while only 33% think it is to discredit trump. asked whether the president should testify one oath more than seven in ten say yes while 23% say no.

and 47% say yes when asked if president trump should be impeached and removed from office. that's up five points since june. 48% feel he should not be. >> willie, those numbers, we talked about it last hour, just one bad number after another for the president. >> you look at the trend line too of bob mueller's approval rating. the highest ever. it's ticked up june, july to august and this is the middle of a relentless attack beginning with rudy giuliani, kouvgs wiof. another interesting number 47% of americans say he should be impeached is independents are up 10 points on that question. remember "the washington post" poll last week generally he's falling apart among independents down 33% among independents. now you have 10% spike in that number on the question of impeachment. that's very interesting and speaks to the base sticking by him but some of the others

perhaps peeling off as we go along this investigation. >> and, willie, we heard mitch mcconnell talk a couple of days ago how it was going be a knife fight for senators and for the republicans maintaining control of the senate. some new numbers out showing he's exactly right. this thing could break either way. >> things tightening up from texas. republican senator ted cruz inside the margin of error against democratic congressman beto o'rourke. 11% undecided. new fox news poll shows arizona senate race within the margin of error. the democrat leads the republican by three points. in indiana republican mike braun has a slight edge over democratic senator joe donnelly. and north dakota's republican congressman kevin cramer has a four point lead over heidi

heitkamp. in missouri, mccaskill leads the republican. and mash shah blackburn just ahead of phil bredesen. new political aarp poll shows sherrod brown with a 16-point lead in ohio where president trump won decisively. which ones do you think will be most surprising on election day? >> i think mash shah blackburn might be the big surprise she could go down in tennessee would be crazy. that should not be happening. she should be running away with this race. that's where we're seeing the poll on donald trump is taking on these candidates without question. we see consistently poll after poll, people feel that the economy is going in the right direction. and yet republicans are not getting the credit that they probably should. >> you look at states, west virginia, joe manchin, feeling

pretty comfortable in west virginia. arizona, democrats have a good shot at winning that good one. nevada we didn't even put that one up. heller is in trouble in nevada. no doubt about it. again, either side can win these races, but if the tide keeps going to democrats, west virginia, arizona, indiana, missouri, nevada, couple other states could be tight. tennessee, like you said. it happened in alabama. no reason to believe it won't happen in tennessee. >> we know the math. there's ten states that democrats hold in red states that trump won. they need hold all of them. contrary to what that poll said people i talk to in my world, the democratic party think that joe donnelly is in good shape in indiana, they think heidi heitkamp is in good shape in north dakota. if they hold all ten of those what it comes down to is democrats taking two out of three to get control of the senate.

authors in play. >> florida. >> florida is a bit in play. that's scary. phil bredesen is a strong candidate in tennessee. he's a good guy. he was governor. people like him. he's got a good shot at it. >> speaking at atlanta, former president jimmy carter warned democrats not to veer too far left and lose moderates. here's what he said. >> we voted for bernie sanders in the past and he represents the liberal side but i think for the democrats this time is to appeal to the independents. i noticed today in published polls, only 33% of independents are still in favor of trump. 37% of americans are in favor of trump. and 57% think he's done a very poor job. so we have a good chance to get those independents and i think we should concentrate our

efforts on that. i don't think any democrat is going to vote against the democratic nominee, but i think a lot of independents need to know that they can invest their vote in the democratic party in 2020. >> there you go. >> what do you think? >> first of all, i just think he's amazing. i love him. that's the balance. as we look at these poll numbers and we see potential blue wave which we don't know if it's going to happen but we have too think about after that and who represent as more broad spot of whether it be a district or the entire country. >> peter baker, that is a debate that the democrats have been having inside their party now for several years. if you look at the results from 2018 and the primaries, it looks like the progressives have won more often than not. at least in the big ticket, on

the big ticket raebsces. >> there's some momentum for the left. you see these incumbents coming down. you see the energy on the more liberal activist side than from the center. that's for sure. within the party it's really important because tension is unresolved. you heard president obama, former president barack obama weigh in last week during his speech in illinois. he had a message for fellow democrats. he said don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. don't be a purist you can't see we can make things better even though we don't make things perfect on policy one. it was an interesting speech on his part. at the same time he said that the democrats need to offer new ideas and cited one of them medicare for all. remember when he was in office he didn't favor that. he favored a different kind of health care plan that still came under take. he, in fact, was reflecting that shift inside the party towards a more liberal point of view on

health care. >> let me open up the question to the table. who is the democrat on the national stage that's thinking about running in 2020 that occupies the space that jimmy carter and bill clinton occupied, bill clinton in 1992 when he ran? which was a fairly moderate, almost conservative, moderate to conservative viewpoint. is there a democrat on the national stage that occupies the space. >> the key question is national stage. there's a bunch of democrats. take steve bullock from montana who has done a great job as a democrat in a red state. the former governor of colorado. the senator from colorado. mitch landrieu, former mayor of

new orleans. >> kamela harris. >> she's not in that category. >> i think the future of the democratic party, whether it stays in some sort of semblance of power for years to come will be decided in the next 24 months based specifically on who their national candidate for president will be. and the national candidate for president in the democratic party, it's fairly simple. you don't have to have all the ph.d. kaenl can you miscellaneous to figure it out. you got to be able to put someone out there for the democrats who actually knows how real people live. it can't be a senator, i don't think, unless it's a combination of -- you know someone like sherrod brown. he figures it out. i understand that he's way left. i get that. you come down. you go through all of them as steve just did and you come out with people like mitch landrieu.

you know, he knows how people live. and that's -- they got to stop this. we all admire to a certain extent kamela harris. >> i do. >> i think she's great. >> she's way out there. >> so, a couple of wick regional stories here. first from the "boston globe," tell us the story. >> this is actually what we're talking bin a certain way. this is a uniquely american story. >> amazing. >> an american story about what can happen in america, the greatest country ever on god's earth and i want has to do with sofia wazer, running for state representative in new hampshire, in concord new hampshire. she's running against a 66-year-old former city counselman dick patton who is the incumbent. sofia is 27 years old.

two children. an afghan refugee and she beats him. she beats him. people out there, if you are unaware that something is happening out electorally in this country and especially with women as candidates pay attention to this story. it can only happen here in the united states of america. >> read it in the "globe." >> we talked about democrats, future democrats. there will be life for republicans after donald trump. most likely. a name we never mention here is a guy who has extraordinarily high approval rating in massachusetts who happens to be the republican -- >> charlie baker. if the republican party -- >> what's that guy's approval rating. >> 72%. if the republican party hadn't clearly lost its minds over a per of years charlie baker could be president of the united

states. company be president of the united states. company be the top of the republican ticket. he's enormously likeable. enormously sensible. he's a moderate. middle of the road. he knows how people live. he ran a hospital insurance company for years quite well. resurrected it, rebuilt it. the republican party has gone crazy. >> let's say donald trump didn't run for re-election. baker would get killed because he's been critical of the president. he would never survive that primary on the right ever. >> remember back on that democratic question all they have to do is win back that 78,000 votes that cost them the presidency. he's not conservative. joe biden. people who live and breathe. tim ryan, from youngstown, ohio. understand those people and can win them back. that's what they need. >> joe biden, kamela harris is

the ticket. >> let's go hurricane florence. getting closer to the southeast coast. the storm is downgraded to a category 2 but extremely dangerous. officials could hit parts of the carolina coast with hurricane conditions for 24 hours or more, bring up to 40 inches of rain to some areas. bill karins is back with us now. what does the track look like? >> in the overnight we didn't see much change in intensity and the track didn't change. we're only about 24 hours away from when we could get a landfall. hurricane force winds later on this afternoon. the eye is on the radar. see these bands of rain are approaching the outer banks. just had a tornado watch issued from now until 9:00 p.m. 14 hours you'll be in a tornado watch here in eastern north carolina. weak tornadoes tend to occur with these tropical storms especially during daylight hours. this is the 5:00 a.m. advisory. next advisory comes in at 11:00 a.m.

they have the storm coming towards the coast at about 5:00 a.m. in the morning. with the eye going over the top of wilmington. that puts the storm surge and highest waves and wind to north of the center along the beaches. that's who could get hit the hardest. winds are at tropical storm. hurricane force winds come on shore. 5 p.m. over the coast at midnight. tomorrow morning they are over the top of wilmington. as far as the other concerns, one of the worst things will be the storm surge up to 13 feet as we go throughout this evening and tomorrow. i just saw one forecast, more head city, gulfport right in here. they are predicting this storm surge tonight at midnight thiebest on record, worse than hazel in 1954. the water will be up and in them at thooid.

one of many problems we'll see with water in eastern north carolina. >> bill, thank you. keep us posted. still ahead on morning joe the white house is pushing to fight back against election interference. but that's not the end of the story. why congress may have been left in the dark about the president's executive order. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back.

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jury selection is set for next week. he's been convicted in virginia on eight counts related to tax and bank fraud. peter baker, what are his options here? and what's the potential a pardon could happen in this environment? >> well, that's the question. the pardon has been so explicitly dangled out there for so long it's hard not figure that's calculated into this discussion. as paul manafort talks with the prosecutors, he had some, you know, expectation, perhaps, that that could happen down the road and, therefore, no incentive to provide any information about the president that might be damaging to him. it may be, in fact, this discussion we're having this morning is for his people to say look even if he's talking about a deal it's not a flip. the president is against flippers, talking to authorities to lessen their sentence. paul manafort seems to be saying

i'm not going to be one of those even if i cut a deal preserving the opening for a pardon. this is complicated kabuki dance where manafort is talking out loud with mueller but with president trump. >> having to do with the russia interference with less than two terms to the mid-term election president trump signed an order combined to fight interreynolds from foreign operators. the dni would have 45 days to determine if there was significant finding from the intel agencies and report those to the justice and homeland security departments. those department then would have another 45 days to review the dni report and if all are in agreement sanctions would be imposed. the treasury and state departments then would have the

ability to recommend additional sanctions to the president. national security adviser john boll on the says the american public will learn about possible interference only when sanctions are nungsed a end not during review periods. u.s. official previously told reuters congress was left out of of the executive order drafting process on purpose and the administration reportedly wanted the executive order at least in part because it wants to get ahead of much more harsh legislation being considered in both chambers. peter, help us through this. this left democrats and republicans in the senate unsatisfied. marco rubio was one of them, critical saying there ought to be mandatory, automatic sanctions as soon as we know there's allegations of interference here. what was the white house seeking to do? >> no question basically trying to head off legislation that would shackle in his view. he wants to retain his flexibility. this order doesn't apply sanctions to anybody. doesn't take any actions. trying to create a process by

which that could happen. the sque whether or not they would use that authority and that's been something that people on capitol hill have been uncertain about for some time. remember last year congress passed over the president's objection legislation mandating sanctions on russia in punishment for its intervention in 2016. president couldn't veto because it happened with such a huge bipartisan majority he would have been overridden. congress sort of forcing itself on the president into foreign policy where presidents don't like congress to play. that's been happening here as well. what you see john bolton and dan coats trying to do is say to congress look we got a process let us handle it. congress doesn't have faith that president trump would follow through. >> peter on that last point you just raised, dan coats, yon boll on the, the intelligence community. what's the level of cooperation and coordination between the intel agencies and the national security adviser mr. bolton and his staff. at any time same? it is less? what's your view?

>> i was struck by the fact that john bolton wanted dan coats to be with him yesterday as they made this announcement. dan coats has gotten in hot water with his unscripted comments in the last few weeks including on this network when he made clear he didn't know what president trump had said to president putin in helsinki and made a sarcastic remark about the possibility of a second meeting. ever since he's resolved not to be out in public unless the white house wanted him to be here. the bitterness there between the president and the intelligence community is still pretty deep. i mean he's been very critical of them. very harsh in his assessment of the intelligence agencies. they don't look very kindly on the idea that the president will stand next to fortunate of russia and say i might take his word over the order over my own intelligence agencies. >> we told you last hour of reported comments from jpmorgan

jamie dimon. he made comments yesterday during an event at his bank's headquarters here in new york city. he apparently told the crowd he was as tough as trump and smarter than him. and that trump could punch me all he wants it wouldn't work. i would fight right back. dimon said he actually earned his money and it wasn't a gift from daddy. now, as expected, trump can't help himself. he's responding, tweeting the problem with banker jamie dimon running for president he doesn't have the aptitude or smarts and is a poor public speaker and a nervous mess. >> jamie dimon is the most successful capable banker of his generation. he is one of the -- he's soon to be the last one who was there at the financial crisis who saved jpmorgan. his ik, i would bet is at least

twice that donald trump's, and -- >> nervous mess isn't what comes to mind. >> yeah. >> the antithesis of nervous mess. >> i was talking to a woman in new jersey yesterday said it's exhausting. why do you cover them. it's a good question. it's a window to the president's mind he would be so petty and so small to respond to that at 7:30 in the morning. was he watching "morning joe"? he would never. he does not like us. so how could he hear about that? gracious. please don't watch our show. please it's not good for you. made me very sad. and make you angry. peter baker thank you very much. still ahead there were 2400 my grandchildren in custody in may

of last year. this month there are 12,800. why that number is skyrocketing. that's next on "morning joe".

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>> "world without mind," but we won't be talking about that. >> caught forever. >> you're looking pretty good. >> they are terrific. entertaining to watch and haven't won a trophy. >> oh, my god he's so hateful. >> now you'll talk about his book. >> thank you so much for being with us. >> so, your book is out in paper back now. explain to us why -- you talk about the threat of big tech, and that actually is -- it's actually -- >> would i lie to you >> it's actually something i think more and more americans

are feeling now. >> absolutely. i think the last year has been a big year in terms of the way we perceive these companies. obviously, the election of trump. the cambridge analytical scandal and attention on facebook has awakened people to the role that these four companies, google, facebook, amazon, apple play in our lives. i think we're more aware right now about the amount of data that they collect. how careless they've been with that data. also the ways in which that data is used to manipulate us. and they collect all this information about us. they follow us every where we go on the internet and the reason they do that is to understand our weaknesses. they understand the things that give us pleasure. they understand the things that cause us anxiety. they exploit that information in order to keep us as engaged as possible for as long as possible on their devices. and so, yes, i'm concerned.

i think google is a marvel of human engineering. i love my phone. but it's hard not to be conflicted about these devices and these technology, especially when we see that there is the public health cost to it. we see loneliness, we see depression starting to skyrocket especially among kids. there's national security costs to the ways in which they've been so careless about it. then economic costs as well. that these companies have amassed incredible power over, over markets. and so i think for the sake of capitalism, we need to be concerned about the power that they've started to accrue. >> frank, it's willie. i guess the question for me is how do you put the genie back in the bottle now that 2 billion people are on facebook, so many of us have shared our private foerjs every picture you post somewhere will float out in a cloud for all eternity. what do you do now to pull that back and get to a place.

kids are now born into this culture with their heads down on a screen and offering their private information. >> there's clearly a political element to this but a personal element. politically, i think we're moving towards passing some sort of privacy regulations probably along the lines that the europeans passed with their general data protection. we'll have a bigger debate about antitrust which has been our historical bipartisan solution to concentrations of economic poerks especially in the realm of communications. but then there is this personal component to it as well. that we're all going to have to start to find ways to live in a state of greater moderation and balance with our technology. which is doable. it sounds hard because the manipulative powers that they are deploying are so intense, but food was created, especially

processed food with the intent of manipulating our brains and addicting us but most of us when we're young learn to live in moderation with food. we can use food as a source of pleasure and connection as opposed to addiction. we need to find a way to live in the same sort of way with our phones. >> you know, we were talking to somebody that runs security on campus, and we were asking what were the biggest concerns with kids. what's the challenge? loneliness, anxiety. kids coming up a lot. depression. and steve rattner, you said it's all connected to the phone. he said all the studies are showing it's connected to the phones. they look at that phone and look at an instagram life that they think they are going to have and they go off to college and it's just not there. and there's such a disconnect.

it seems as parents we need to start doing what people who run these massive tech companies do and that is, it's so ironic, they restrict the use, so many of them restrict the use of phones, computers, ipads in their own house. >> it's interesting, there is a movement by people to -- adults and younger people to use less of these devices and now there are some apps that monitor your device, shut you out of your phone after a period of time. now app operating system 12 there's an app which actually encourages you to use less of your phone by telling you how much you use. but what frank is saying it seems to me the solution is not simply to like abolish these companies, the solution is some combination of government regulation and individual personal responsibility with parents leading the way with kids and adults leading the way with themselves. >> frank, off of this last strand of conversation, it's interesting that these companies

are so wealthy, so powerful, so isolated in a sense out there in silicone valley. they are all genusiuses. eye contact, how to shake somebody's hand, how to have a simple conversation with another human being. all these emergency jakal gifts we've gotten from silicon valley deprive us of a lot of those things. >> it's bit ironic these devices intended to create global connection actually make us lonelier. and i read a poll yesterday that common sense media published where they asked kids, i think it was teenagers, maybe 15 to 25 about their preferred methods of communication. now, about five years ago face-to-face communication was what they deemed to be the best way to get a point across. but in a v-very short time, in fire years, most teens now say they prefer to communicate via

text message. face-to-face communication was 50%. preferred me thofd communication five years ago and now it's down to 32%. so we're undergoing this revolution. we are being re-engineered as human beings to behave in a different sort of way, to have a different set of morays. steve rattner's point is correct that the people who run these companies know better. but also i think we need to think more holistically and humanistically about these technologies and the way these systems run. they were created by engineers in order to function in a very efficient sort of way. but the people who use these technologies are not data. we're human beings and the systems need to be structured in a way that respects us as human beings. >> for those of us that still have children that are young enough to be concerned about such things, i guess it was netflix or i saw some commercial

for a documentary and talking about dating, young people dating, swipe right, swipe left, all this other stuff, things that thank god i never had to worry about growing up. none of us did. but there was one thing and i guess it was the hook to get to you watch the series, they were asking all of these younger people how do you, this is the way to do it. why don't you just call a girl up and teller you want to date her. and the guy said if i did that she would think i was a creep. >> they don't call each other any more. no calling. >> they don't talk. >> which, again, that's -- >> can you imagine? >> texting, emailing, the apps, it is so impersonal. >> a new language. >> when you pick up a phone you connect. you understand by listening to the other person's voice actually if they are a creep or

if they are not a creep. if there's a connection or if there's not a connection. but it seems like all of that is getting thrown out. >> it is. it's funny, two summers ago my brother-in-law told my nephews you have to spend eight hours a day outside without a device. they became very good golfers. but it was like a shocking thing. we were so surprised that you ask someone, eight hours, it's not a lot of time when you think about it. it was a big change. my question to frank is, when we start looking at children and how -- let me step back. when we see what facebook was able to do in forcing an election, having an effect on an election, when we look at our children how do these applications affect them and what's the danger for them and could they be driven to a really negative place >> i think it's happening now. that's what the data suggests when we were talking about the

rise of loneliness and depression. but one thing i think we all need to do is it's obviously we're really concerned about kids and when we see a kid sitting there across from us with their face about youried in their phone unable to carry a conversation, we start to get extremely alarmed. but as grown-ups i think we need to remember we're models a lot of this behavior for kids. kids are a mirror. holding ourselves back to ourselves. while i'm extremely concerned about kids, i think change actually starts with us. and being able to establish the clear sorts of boundaries, the clear sense of disconnection. you know, one of the oldest concepts in our society, our civilization is the idea of the sabbath, the idea of disconnection. but we live these lives now and everything from our work life to the way that technology

manipulates us makes it so that we're not able to have those spaces in our lives. and to me, really, the greatest concern is the way in which -- so these devices are trying to hijack our attention. we're just notified constantly, the data is leveraged in such a way to exploit our weaknesses that we're not able to sustain our attention and it's not just our kids. it's a threat to contemplation. it's a threat to human connection in our relationships. >> yeah. wow. this is really important. >> it. this has inspired me, my project that has been an utter failure. >> the flip phone. >> operation flip phone. i got one six months ago. >> do they sell them. >> i was going to get on that flip phone and i was going to put my -- because less time on these things, the more productive i am. i'm serious.

i'm switching to the flip phone. >> i just want to alert you to one thing. i went down that lane. i had a flip phone. the problem was people kept texting me and texting back from a flip phone is really hard. >> will let them know. i want to move to the point where i can be bill murray. like the year he did the interview. >> walking around with a little fox. >> call 1-800 number. >> the book "world without mind" is now on paperback, an important book, thank you very, very much. >> thank you. still ahead, we have been talking about the well being of children this segment. there are some direct parallels between that and what's on the cover of this week's "time" magazine. we'll reveal the new issue just ahead on ""morning joe."

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so, your children are a little older, micah? >> yeah. >> my roles you had?

>> oh gosh i tried in vain. >> it didn't work. >> i even sought help with an expert on kids and technology. i had her come to the house and give us roles. it's just very difficult because and a challenge for parents just to say this reality is not, is that their homework is on their computers. so it's online and the school, so they're doing their homework, all of a sudden all the other stuff creeps in. >> yeah. >> it's impossible to keep the kids from using tear brains from four different ways at once, when the homework and all that other stuff comes why. >> willie, what about you? >> we're in the pre phone era,py daughter is in the 6th grade a lot of her friends have phones. they have people they can tech their friends, it's almost like video games, when we are growing up as a parent, they're occupied, i don't know if they're playing fort figknight.

we're playing cards at the table. you have to stay on top of it. that's where the personal aspect of this as a parent comes in, is not to do the easy thing and let them disappear into their room leak that, you are like a cruise director, okay, here's our next activity. >> you drag your son outside. >> it's one of the things you have to do as a parent, depending on the age of the child, you have to use the phrase, look at me, look at me. >> i like that one, good one. >> so critical. >> look at me. so, by the way, apple yesterday unveiled its newest lineup. the iphone 10 -- >> they're like huge phones, right? >> one of them is. >> the iphone 10 and iphone 10 x max. >> i'm bringing my flip phone to set tomorrow. more news ahead, hurricane florence increased in decreased in strength and increased in

size, bill kierans joins us next with the latest. plus, more americans are getting behind bob mueller's russia probe and the percent of americans that think donald trump should be impeached is also up. don't worry, he's not watching. he won't get upset. we'll have new numbers straight ahead. i recommend my tempur-pedic to everybody. the most highly recommended bed in america just got better.

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have msnbc contributor microbarnacle and strategist political analyst susan dell persio. we want to go right to the countdown for landfall for hurricane florence getting closer as the southeastern coast braces for impact. the storm has been down graded to a category 2, but authorities warn this will still be an extremely dangerous hurricane. let's go to bill kierans with the latest forecast. bill, how's it look? >> here it comes, there's outer bands the rain bands, the eye of the storm. the carolina coast. it will be closing in on you today that sunset tonight is when the hurricane force winds will be with you for about 24 hours. this time tomorrow morning, i think the eye could be right over the top of wilmington, forth carolina. here's the latest forecast path in the hurricane center. they have it as a strong category 2. it may go up to a low end category 3. it doesn't matter much. it will do the same amount of rainfall damage and you know the wind damage five-mile-per-hour

doesn't make much of a difference. so here's the path. i did a little line here, that's 160 miles in 36 hours. >> that averages four miles per hour. you and i walk about four miles per hour. that's how painfully slow this storm will move over southeast portions of carolina. >> that means extreme rain as we go throughout areas of the southeast. then the biggest problem the reason i'm not focusing on the wind. this is the causes of deaths from atlantic cyclones from the national hurricane center. only 8% of fatalities are caused by the wind. that's mostly trees falling on people if cars, or on tear residents, 27% of fatalities are from the rainfall. 50% are from the storm surge. so 75% of deaths are from water with hurricanes. that's why our storm surges is one of our biggest concerns, we're still, even though the tomorrow the a little weaker, with max winds the storm surge has not changed, still looking at 9 to 13 feet. we'll be worried about the high tide cycles. how about this for our rainfall

prediction overnight, 30 inches of rain in wilmington. mika, the flood of record in this area fine 99 with hurricane floyd. if you google the pick, it's horrendous flooding. i'm seeing river projections that are supposed to top hurricane floyd. when i hear that those people that evacuated are glad you didn't do so, if you haven't done so, you have about 12 hours to do so, get out of there, if you can, in southeastern portions of carolinas. president trump continues to tout his administration's response to puerto rico, following hurricane maria last year. but new polling shows more than half of puerto rico's residents give president trump a negative rating for his response to the storm. 52% of puerto ricans say he did a poor job. only 15% say he did an excellent and very good job. and some more new poll numbers for you this morning, a new cnn poll finds americans are growing

more supportive of robert mueller's handling of the russia probe. 50% back the special counsel's job, while only 30% approve of the way president trump has approached the issue. a drop of 4 points since august there so let's stop right there. just look at that number, mike. robert mueller, again a united states marine a man who has committed his entire life to service of the united states of america, impeck annual credentials. i mean, he believes in right and wrong. he's lived that way. he was a war he. >> reporter: he went to war because a classmate of his had gone over to vietnam and died. he and his buddies have said, you know what, we need a following and that's what he'd want us to do. service above self. and rudy guiliani has been trashing. maybe what rudy has been doing is working.

maybe americans are such fools that they're going to believe rudy lying every day, changing the story. robert mueller today has a higher percentage of approval from the american people than he ever has, highest approval ratings ever, 20 points higher in donald trump. he keeps going up, trump keeps going down. well, just think, somebody at the special you know counsel's office, maybe they should send rudy some flowers and thank him, because he's been doing nothing but help robert mueller. >> joe the contrast is quite vivid between the two people involved the two principles, donald trump and robert mueller. i think the public picks up on the contrast, one person, mr. mueller is doing the job. one person is clearly not doing his job. one person's goal is to find out who did damage to the country. that's mr. robert mueller trying to find that out the other

person is denying constantly denying that russia did damage to the country. so i think people have picked up on that. >> well, 61% of votersty the investigation is a serious matter, while only 33% think it's to discredit trump. >> that's 2-1. again the numbers are going in the opposite direction, willie. this has been again this strategy, i can't state it enough. this strategy of rudy guiliani's is a steve bannon strategy. it's a 33% strategy. have you these dupes in the house of representatives who -- they're not just being dupes for donald trump but now since they're trying to obstruct the russian investigation and interfering with democracy, they're now being dupes for vladimir putin. does that -- does that play in the deep south? because i'm from the deep south

and that ain't ever played if dixie. that's never played where i come from. >> well, you are looking at the numbers here, it's not playing. i think the number robert mueller's approval rating goes up, he's not interested in the approval ratings. he has his head down doinging the work. the question of whether or not this is a serious matter has been basically settled by the intelligence agencies saying russia went after our elect, that's not a question of donald trump. that's a question of whether it's a smart, good and important idea to investigate what happened in the 2016 election and what continues to happen as all the intelligence action versus agreed to our system from russia. >> and susan del percio, more than 7 in 10 say the president should testify under oath. 23% say no. 47% say yes when asked if president trump should be impeached and removed from office. that's up five points since june. 48% feel he should not.

>> lets keep that up for a selling. susan, following politics for a very long time. i just never seen a number like that, where half of america and it's moved up 5% since june. >> maybe it's a compliment. they want to hear from him. half of america want donald trump impeached and removed from office. now, we know it's not going to happen, because it doesn't really matters what happens in the elections this fall. there will not be two-thirds of the senate that's going to vote to remove him from office, so many of these republicans are scared of their own shadow. so even if high crimes and misdemeanors are shown, that's not going to happen. it's just a bigger question of how far donald trump has fallen in the eyes of a lot of americans, even since this spring when he had a 44, 45% approval rate. >> that 72% of wanting to see donald trump testify is part of

trump's own doing. and that number is going to hurt and that's going to stay with him. but just stepping back and looking that's mueller and his numbers doing so well, i think you can't forget have you the manafort guilty hearing, guilty finding, which was a big success for mueller, and then even john mccain's funeral seen bipartisanship. now we're after labor day, we're starting to see more campaigning. people don't like to see the ugliest we are seeing. donald trump has gone more and more down that road of ugly and attack and i think he's going to spiral into it. >> i would have never guessed, but the child separation followed by held ssinki and the ugliness surrounding john mccain's funeral. it's had a devastating impact. >> if one doesn't impact somebody the chances are the other, there is a potpouri of issues that are repugnant.

>> at least the republicans don't have to worry about the test. trump is on an island unto himself. >> true. who would align themselves with -- 54 days until the mid-term elections, three new national polls give democrats a double digit advantage in the vote for congress. >> oh, never mind, i'm sorry. willie, that's wrong. you would think i would have figured this one out. . >> >> the latest poll, that spread is 12 points. >> geeze. >> in the mu npr mar it's poll the politico morning con cull poll puts democrats ten points ahead, inside a startling data point for the gop as democrats have a six point edge among men, 48% to 42% according to 2016 exit polls, president trump won men by 12 points, 53% to 41%. so willie, while i don't

usually look at the gen eric ballot test, you look more at the intensity, this really matters. the democrats, though, have that as well. but i always look at trim lines and my gosh the trim lines for the republicans and these gen eric ballot tests have completely collapsed. remember, they were growing again in the spring the generic battles is closed. blah blah blah. whatever. here we are. those a massive numbers. >> what about the woman number, that's the one i look at a 20-point spread for democratic women there. >> that is a devastating number. you look at the candidates, what they hope and expect will be a blue wave. it's women, it's minority candidates. the kind of people they need to repeal back and create distance for donald trump. >> some of the republican women are having drag on their side from donald trump. when you look at those numbers,

i just looked at a poll from nevada, 62% of people thinker that state is going in the right direction economically. yet, heller is in for the race of his life. >> boy, that's -- >> that is just absolutely stunning. when you talk about the spread of people wanting to come out against donald trump's policy versus support it. >> right. >> that's a nine-point spread there. >> that just says an awful lot. >> still ahead on "morning joe," we know barack obama and george w. bush are both jumping into mid-term politics, but now, jimmy carter is weighing in, too. we'll show you his warning to democrats if they lurch too far left. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. if you're waiting patiently for a liver transplant, it could cost you your life. it's time to get out of line with upmc. at upmc, living-donor transplants put you first.

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>> andrew gillum, can you believe this? >> in every primary last month. i can. while his opponent ron desantis is having issues. he is not early to discuss the issues. >> too early, too soon. only in congress three times. >> why are you running? >> in congress three times. >> why are you running? >> i only ran against a guy only the post-qualified public figures if all of florida according to smith the desantis campaign confirms several days ago we would sit down with the tampa bay "time's" to discuss issues facing florida. but the campaign cancelled tuesday morning saying they

wanted to give desantis time to flush out he's platform. >> wow. >> before taking a platform. >> this guy is running, by the way -- >> he announced his candidacy if january. >> this guy is running, mike, to be governor of a state that's got a gdp greater than most countries, has hurricanes coming in, it seems every few weeks in the fall. it is a hard state to run. so i said jeb bush is the single best public official i've ever seen if my life. it's because jeb going in knew more than anybody else in the entire. he was steeped in knowledge about the state of florida. steeped in knowledge about how you save people during a hurricane, wasn't running around, you know, talking about nursery rhymes or stories he

read. >> as kids, yeah. >> which is such a joke, warp the republicans in that state? have they not been through as many hurricanes as i have been through in florida to pick a guy who basically ran a joke of the campaign and doesn't know what the hell he's doing right now? >> given the fact you are a young man, you have been through more hurricanes. my question is not having following desantis' career as much as i thought i would have. i have a couple questions. is he a new arrival, did he move there like so many for tax purposes? >> no, he's been there a while. i don't think he's been there as long as i have, but he's will be there a while. >> so the idea he has not sat down with multiple local units, thus far, tampa bay, sarasota, ft. meyers, miami, he hasn't sat down with reporters and news organizations and talked about what he's going to do about highways and bridge construction and now, you know, in the wake

of hurricane season, what he would do in terms of an emergency. >> that emergency always comes. have you to have somebody who is competent, not a guy who when he is asked by a reporter what his position is on land use if florida. he says i like purple. that's not going to get it. >> i mean, imagine you are sitting there in florida. you see florence coming in. you see what north carolina and south carolina are going to do, you are going to vote for someone who does not know what his policies are, forget what to do if there is an emergency. if there is ever such a stark difference, yes, it's a mayor that he's running against, but that means that you are used to operational procedures. and that you know how to get things done. if this is what's happened in the age of trump. it's the fox primary. candidates go on fox as one as they can. they try to win tear state, whatever district they're looking for. they come up empty because they have not been through the ringer

and go through the interviews and everything else that you feed. >> coming up on "morning joe," a new book says greed is not good, ton is the not ecouncilwomen and fairness won't make us poor. steve pearlstein aims to answer the question, can american capitalism survive? that's next on ""morning joe"." insurance that won't replace the full value of your new car? you'd be better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with liberty mutual new car replacement we'll replace the full value of your car. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty ♪

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peltdown, the american financial system is rocked to its foundation as top wall street institutions topple under a mountain of debt. >> den years ago this saturday the major financial services firm lehman brothers came crashing down, with it almost the entire u.s. financial sys m system. where do things stand ten years later? winning columnist for the washington post and george mason university steve pearlstein, steve, you can't trust anything he said. >> oh, c'mon. >> can american capitalism survive? we got into a debate if 2009 or 2010. he said, i germany tee you every dime of the became jut mondale

be paid back. he was wrong. >> "morning joe" economic analyst steve radner and msnbc contributor host of casey left right center josh borrow. good to have you. >> both of them always right. steve, let's start with you. alan greenspan is writing a book that's going to be coming out the fall about american capitalism. and he talks about the rub with creative destruction between the creative and the destruction and if you take -- if you focus too much on the destruction, then you start, you start actually getting in the way of the creativity that's made this country what it is. where do you come down on how america balances those two interests moving forward? >> it's a good way to put it, joe, i think we've got out of balance, you don't want an xi

that coddles everybody, that guarantees everybody total economic security. you want to make sure new companies come along with new ways of doing things, few product, able knock out the old companies. that involves quite a bit of pain and dislocation and the socialist countries of the europe in the 1980s and '90s fell down on that and now they've moved in our direction. but we moved too far in the other direction, too much destruction, just to give you, you know, an example. yes, you want to give your top employees good compensation, so say and their executives so they have the incentive to info rate is to make hard decisions to take risks. but if you put all the gains from productivity at the top of the ladder, then the workers have no incentive to work hard and be loyal and be engaged in their work and that's where we are, for example, in the united

states. where a lot of employees aren't engaged. so if we're having a productivity problem in the united states, if part because we went too far in the direction frankly that alan greenspan wanted things to go, which was that the compensation goes to those at the top. >> it seems we have a hard time balancing if all ages from the pid to late 1,800s until 1929. we focused obsessively as a country on the creative part of that equation. fdr, of course, came in and had to focus at least for until world war ii broke out, almost entirely on mopping up, cleaning up of the destructive side of that equation. how do we, in real time in 2018, how do we strike the proper balance? >> well the problem is that we no longer have the mechanism to do that. we do this through government policy largely, although norms of behavior are important we are

so divide, our social capital is so depleted by this period of inequality and the period of saying government is always the problem and this period of which businesses went to court and challenged every new regulation that came along. the pendulum has swung so far that way that we've underpined t mined -- under mined the way we which that thing and move the pendulum back. we have a vicious government. >> steve, here we are with a strong economy. yet, we're spending like crazy, we're owe tax cuts left and right, actually, make knock tough choi -- making no tough choices just like in the bush administration, pre sequestration. how much of a track on

the xi over the next decade. >> we had 2.4% in the first quarter. >> that burns out quickly, you are left with a mess. we are piling trillions of debt on top of the 20 trillion we already have. at point, that is going to mean they will have a drag on the economy. it's fiscal irresponsible. >> that census numbers just show out in 2017, incomes were up, poverty was down. we know where the stockmarket is and all that, inequality, though, still continues to go in the wrong direction. we heard that clip from president obama reminding voters this recovery began under him. is trump getting too much or too little credit for the state of the economy? >> he's giving himself too much credit. the media in general is giving him credit. we're 20 months into his

presidency. you have to describe some of the credit and blame for kout coouto him. some is a fiscal tax cut and end of sequestration that has a negative long-run effect. even liberal economists would have tended to tell you that was intended to boost economic growth for a year or two. the other thing he deserves credit. he made good decisions in the federal reserves. i don't think there was a reason to fire janet yellin. at least he replaced her with someone with the exact same views she had. most republican, when they talk about the federal reserve and before, they made noises they wanted a hard.person. they were very worried about inflation and higher interest rates. that would have been a real problem for the economy, trump to his credit has had generally a better view on that than most in his party. you seen him out there sort of lamb basting the feds for raising it too fast i don't think the president should tell the fed what to do. that's a better thing we ought

to have the fed ought for more hawkish. i think he deserves to have credit on that. he's done negative things on the trade stuff the effects are small. coming up on "morning joe," there are plenty of outsiders out there. the "new york times" is trying something different. women take notice. that's ahead on "morning joe." the fact is, there are over ninety-six hundred roads named "park" in the u.s.

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the reason i voted for bernie sanders in the past, so he pretty well represents the liberal side, but i think that for the democrats this time is to appeal to the independents. i noticed today in a published poll that i saw tonight, as a matter of fact, you know that 33% of independents are still in favor of trump. and 37% of americans are in favor of trump.

and 57% think he's done a very poor job. so we have a good chance to get those independents. i think we should concentrate our efforts on that. i don't think any democrat is going to vote against the democratic nominee after we choose him, but i think a lot of independents need to know that they can invest their vote into the democratic party in 2020 if we appeal to the middle of the road. >> former president jimmy carter going through the cross tabs of polling, warning democrats not to veer too far left and lose moderates, by the way, reminding people he did not vote for hillary clinton in the democratic primary 2016. joining us, the bill press show, he is out with a new book "trump must go." the top 100 reasons to dump trump, one to keep him. and also lisa laier.

in washington, pbs news hour -- >> what's the one to keep him? >> oh, that itself guessing game. >> let's start there. >> let me say, if you could say different things, you could say because he's great for ratings for all of us. >> no. >> you could say because he's been great for the democratic party in terms of inspiring a lot of people to run for office the one that i choose is mike pence. >> that mike pence could be more effective, more dangerous. >> when you say trump must go, you talk about voting him out of office or before then? >> before then. >> how so? >> he could go by criminal charges filed against him. maybe by impeachment. he could go by being forced to resign. i think the first step is democrats taking back control of the house in 2018 to put a road block in his path. but you know, i just sort of took my inspiration to be so bold from the declaration of unless. jefferson says the first thing

before you overthrow a tyrannical government is let the facts be submitted to a candid world. so that's what i tried to do in this world to document the damage that donald trump has done in 18 months. like bob woodward said to wake up the person people, you got to get busy here, guys, make sure this doesn't continue. >> what troubles you the most a guy that has covered the most presidents, what troubles you most about the trump presidency? >> that's interesting. first of all the policies do very, very much the damage that i believe he's done no our international allies and our reputation around the world the damage that he's done internally on the environment, on immigration, on health care and so many issues. you know what troubles me the most, pike you may sign, agree with this, too, how he has debased the presidency. i mean, through george w. bush, george h.w. bush, ronald reagan, bill clinton, i have great respect for the person who upholds that office and respect the fact that they treat it with

dignity. i think donald trump has treated it with almost nothing but disgust. it's an embarrassment. >> well, i agree with you. lisa, one of the themes the under currents of american politics these days the news letter, you are just getting to it fairly recently news letter is the damage that's already been done to specific institution, like the presidency, like the justice department, like the intelligence agency. >> like the white house. >> that operate on behalf of this country, how long can that damage last? can it be repaired? and what elements of it can never be repaired the damage that's already been done to it in. >> that is a fundamental question here, right? what we're trying to do with this news letter is a little risky, brace yourself, we're trying to not do all trump all the time. we believe there are a lot of other stories to tell in politics, not only on the democratic side but on the local level. we have been hearing a lot from

our readers, yes, we know, we can't stop clicking on the trump stories, we want to hear what else is going on, too, i suspect that rebuilding those institutions, at least in some way, will begin at the local level. i don't see how it doesn't. >> he has been such -- and the republicans have been such a dominating force in american politics, it's hard to avoid injecting them into no matter what political story you come up with. take health care, their insistence on reducing or eliminating obamacare and pre-existing conditions, things that people care -- you cannot help but avoid bumping into them. >> we're not trying to avoid in republicans, we live in a two party system. i think what we're trying to do is tell a story that goes on beyond the daily trump of it the back and forth tweet. we feel our readers are getting a ton of that, they want it. they're getting it. but there are a blot of other important stories to tell from interviewing various people, we did something yesterday on how

seven state legislatures are pretty close to flipping, like that is a mr. ill story that can have huge implications, particularly if the supreme court, kavanaugh is confirmed a lot of those issues will go down to the state level. we think our readers should know something about that. this is not for insiders. we feel that market is pretty well served. i have been jokeing this is a political news letter. for people that hate news letters. >> we'll see. i love it. >> i have ahead of the major packs, they are join inging a digital aim this fall the ads, like the newsletter. social media platforms and streaming services, according to hill the majority of the spots are focusing on issues like

health care and other things? nearly 18 million will be spent in arizona, florida, indiana, missouri and north dakota another 3 million on ads in montana, nevada, tennessee and west virginia. the strategy is what you think? >> the strategy is to double down what democrats believe in to really prevent people not with an anti-trump message, with a message that says this is why you should pick democrats. what i find interesting, you hear president carter say we should appeal to independents, they'll usually vote with one party or another. you hear someone call themselves independent, most of the time the democrats or the republicans, in an issue like health care, there is a stark difference. if you are a democrat, you believe in healthcare for all, health care as a right f. you are a republican, you think it should be privatized and people should be looking at something that's not just about saving people but whether or not the business can sustain all the people on it. so really i think when you

august to the democrats i talk to, the sources i talk to, they say there is no line here this is what the left believes. they believe that because bernie sanders and all the people he's endorsed have been winning races, that they can win on that very left message. >> so bill, as mika points out a part of donald trump has been the rise in democratic socialism. pick your term. do you worry about the party going too far left make not hurting them as much in 2018, where they can speak to a district that is very aggressive. has they look no challenge donald trump if 20 when the in the. >> i don't think the term is socialism. i think it's good politics. mike raised health care, it's the most popular issue today. donald trump achieved something barack obama never did. he made obamacare popular. i have been in politics a long time. what i care about is winning. progressives are winning. women are winning today. young people are winning today. people of color are winning

today. mainly all, almost all on the democratic side. so that i believe is a winning message. it makes me feel very hopele contractorful about this resurgence if you will of the democratic party. >> do you have concerns about darting too far left in. >> no, god bless them, i don't. >> i think when i talked to sources who are these progressive candidates or women or people of color, they argue this appeal to independence comes at a cost. that that part is the base of the party. mid-terms are base elections, if you are a democrat, you want to turn those people out. so if you do go the independent route, can you risk depressing turnout among the base. and that is a real risk for democrats. i'm not sure why that's taken for granted sometimes. >> i agree. thank you so much, bill press the new book "trump must go" is out. congratulations, yamiche stay with us. up next, "time" magazine doesn't

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you want to talk to me, you call me. i'm not texting. i'm going to get off of twitter, like, for the next two days. ain't that great? >> it's impressive. >> look at president trump is on defending his administration's response to the hurricane aftermath in puerto rico. >> see, this is what i'm going to miss on twitter. >> you're going to miss it so much. >> not really. >> 3,000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit puerto rico. when i left the island after the storm had hit, anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. as time went by, did not go up by much. then a long time later, they started to report really large numbers like 3,000. now there's a second part of the tweet because he can't help himself. >> are you really kidding me? >> this was done by the democrats in order to make me look bad, as bad as possible. >> is he saying dems killed 3,000 puerto ricans? >> if a person died for any

reason like old age, just add them on to the list. bad politics. i love puerto rico. >> well, that last one -- >> people died because they weren't getting -- they were dying because they didn't have water. they weren't getting medical attention. >> they weren't getting health care. >> they didn't need paper towels. >> they needed light, water, generators. >> a year in, still 50% of the island did not have electricity. 50% of the island did not have water. drinkable water. health care conditions were absolutely horrid. and donald trump didn't focus on it. >> if he would have said americans instead of puerto ricans -- >> donald trump -- >> he just does not care. >> does not realize that puerto ricans are actually are americans. >> -- are americans. >> the arrests of migrant families entering the united states illegally shot up 38% last month according to new statistics released by the department of homeland security.

border patrol agents apprehended nearly 13,000 members of family units. the highest august total ever recorded. homeland security officials characterized this surge as a crisis at the border. officials say the increase was due to court imposed restrictions limiting how long children can stay in immigration jails. explaining that parents bring children as a way to get quickly released from government custody and avoid deportation. meanwhile, "the new york times" reports the population level also at shelters for migrant children has quietly skyrocketed. more than fivefold since last summer. 12,800 migrant children are being housed in federal shelters. the highest level ever recorded. data from the department of health and human services shows the number of children crossing into the country remains unchanged but the stricter immigration system has discouraged relatives and family friends coming forward to sponsor children. let's bring in nbc news national

security and justice reporter julia ainsley. we hear there was a settlement reached late last night between the trump administration and lawyers for separated migrant families. what did you find out? >> so, mika, this is incredible. this is late last night. there were three big cases that they combined in the settlement that had to do with families seeking asylum and those that where deported. all the ones separated under the zero tolerance policy that lasted from april until the end of june. now these families, a lot of them will have a second shot at asylum. essentially when they came in, they were separated and had to make these cases on their own. children having to make their own claim of asylum. that can be difficult. parents who are under a lot of stress trying to get back together with their children. as we reported on nbc news, a lot of these parents were misled into thinking they had to drop their asylum cases and be deported in order to see their children again. now a lot of them will be able to have a second chance with their children, come in and get due process, have a lawyer with

them and then even in some cases deported parents will be allowed to make their case again. >> wow, julia ainsley, thank you very much. >> last spring, nearly 20,000 fed-up teachers in west virginia walked out across their state. >> late word that all west virginia public schools will remain closed for a seventh day tomorrow impacting nearly it00,000 students. this, despite the governor announcing a deal earlier this week to end the statewide teachers strike. many of those teachers don't believe lawmakers will hold up their side of the bargain. they're froefting over pay and rising health care costs. >> the public outcry over education funding in america continues to grow. it's already changed the face of this year's midterm elections. that is the cover story of this week's "time" magazine. the title, i'm a teacher in america. high demands, low pay and the long fight ahead. joining us now, assistant managing editor for "time," ben goldberg. good to see you. >> good to be here.

>> as you point out in the piece, this is not a new problem. it's a problem that's been around of teacher pay since 1947 when we established teacher education in massachusetts. what's different now? why doesn't our country do a better job of paying teachers? we pay great lip service to teachers but we don't pay them. >> you ask two incredibly important questions. the first one is that what's different now is that the differential has gotten worse. teaching has always been a relatively low-paying and perhaps undervalued profession. we quote in the cover story back in 1865 the superintendant of california's public schools lamented that teachers weren't pay equal to that of lawyer, doctors, engineers. the differential has gotten substantially worse. so over the last 20 years, teachers are making actually less than they did when you adjust for inflation. when you compare it to other college educated professions, the differential has absolutely

plummeted. in 1994, they were earning about 2% less. today, it's nearly 20%. >> they're sharing classrooms. they're buying supplies out of their own pocket to make sure the class can function properly. it's a basic question, but why don't we do a better job in this country? why isn't this an urgent problem for congress for example? >> well, it's actually less congress and more state legislators and governors. frankly, teachers have finally had enough. they're the ones who began to say, damn it, we have been putting this off for far too long. and they're pressing their state lebl legislators to support them. it's one of the rare issues in a moment of historic division. you talk about virtually every day. this has widespread and bipartisan support. >> i have a question about political activism. how much of these teachers or how many of these teachers are starting to get politically active? we've seen a lot of first-time candidates. >> it's a really good question.

right now, there are about 300 members of the american federation of teachers who are running this cycle for all manner of different offices. about 160 of those are in state legislators. that is roughly triple the number. it's safe to say significantly more. there's a lot of energy we just haven't seen for races in recent years. that's because they speak to this issue with an authenticity, with an earnestness and with an urgency. they're incredibly credible about it. >> okay, can you talk to a rather underestimated aspect of not appreciating teacher, not paying enough attention to teacher's salaries and what teachers do for poor students in their classrooms. and then there's this. the demographics. that there are multiple numbers of people who begin their lives in cities with children. they put the children in public schools in the city they belong to. they get better jobs. they earn more money. they move to the suburbs. left behind in the inner city schools and maybe some big city

schools as well but cities themselves you have people with no clout. they can't call the superintendant and get a response. because they are who they are. >> teaching is hard work. teaching in underfunded schools is especially hard work. >> the best teachers. >> right, there are affluent districts where teachers can make a nice living and one that is consistent with the cost of living where they live. that isn't the case in a lot of our larger cities where the pay is higher than the national average. but it's not just what they make. it is, as you said, mike, that the circumstances of teaching there are much, much harder. teachers are on the front lines of the frayed safety social net. whether the effects of the opoid crisis. whether these are children who endure intense gun violence, trauma, teachers are the ones who deal with the fallout for that. we're asking them to educate the future of an engaged, informed

voting public. >> ben goldberger, thank you. the new issue of "time" on teachers is on sale tomorrow. >> thanks, ben. >> time now, just a little bit left for final thoughts this morning. >> timing's everything. and in politic, a week can be a lifetime. as the saying, as the british prime minister once said. a lot can change between now and the fall election. right now, every poll we're seeing, every trend line, bad for the republicans, good for the democratic party and a pretty big sweep. >> really. >> the president's tweet just moments ago about puerto rico is appalling but let's keep our eyes on what's important, which is the storm moving now. >> and puerto rico. >> and maryland and georgia and other parts. tomorrow morning at this time we'll be dealing with the fallout. >> remains the greatest country the earth has ever seen. this is a 27-year-old woman with two little children in concord,

new hampshire who beat a veteran of politics and she happens to be an afghan refugee. >> i love it. >> final thoughts. >> an experienced -- like you said, we have affluence coming into south carolina, north carolina, and we have a governor -- in florida who just has no experience and may have to face something similar. >> that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika, thanks, joe. i'm stephanie ruhle. we're watching hurricane florence as it is closing in on the coast. the dangerous category 2 storm is slowing down but growing in size which could mean days, days of life-threatening storm surge, catastrophic flooding and destructive winds. we've got an incredible team of reporters deployed across the region as the outer bands of the storm begin reaching the carolina coast. first, let's get you caught up on what the