ford out who is testimony also ignited women. every woman has a story, so people who track this say that president trump animated this trend, but they think it will last long beyond trump. >> mike allen, thank you very much. of course, we will be reading axios a.m. in just a bit. you, too, can sign up for the newsletter by going to signup.axios.com. that does it for me on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. the sergeant-at-arms will restore order in the gallery. the sergeant-at-arms will restore order in the gallery. >> that was the scene in the senate gallery on saturday as protests swept through the capitol including during the confirmation vote of brett kavanaugh to the supreme court. the senate confirmed kavanaugh in a 50-48 vote saturday

afternoon. in a private ceremony kavanaugh was sworn in by both chief justice john roberts and retired justice anthony kennedy. the court's long time swing vote whom he will replace. tonight president trump will hold a swearing in ceremony with justice kavanaugh at the white house. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, october 8th. with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, former adviser to president george w. bush now co-creator and executive producer of "the circus" on showtime mark mckinnon, i can't m-- yamiche alcindor and joe meacham. joe, why don't you try to set the scene for us what this will mean for the midterms, what this will mean for democrats and republicans, the senate. i could go on. what does this mean?

>> well, we'll hear from our esteemed guests, but a lot of talk, mika, this weekend about how this was going to be different, the supreme court would never be respected again, the supreme court wouldn't be able to work together again. of course, in that swearing in ceremony also justice kagan, justice sotomayor was there. the supreme court will go on and united states congress will go on, the government will continue its business. the only question is who is going to be running it? is it going to be run by mitch mcconnell, is it going to be run by people who did what they did over the past couple of weeks, and then were cheerleaders. that's going to be actually our first story after saying that we were trying to get a justice on

the supreme court that was impartial, that was neutral, that was going to be an umpire and ref and tell it down the middle, they spent all weekend gloating like they had just won a high school football game on friday night. it was shabby and it was sad. >> yeah. >> but, mika, 30 days. if you don't like what happened. >> right. >> you can scream in restaurants all you want. you can protest all you want, but you've got 30 days to register, to register your friends, to register your family members, to get them out to vote, to change washington and to change the world. >> yeah. >> and if you don't like what happened this past week, or if you love what happened this past weekend, you've got 30 days. all the talking, all the screaming, all the shouting over the next month means nothing.

what matters is getting out the vote for your side, whatever that side is. i can't -- i can't think of a big term election, mika, that has carried more weight and that has meant more. as if americans needed more evidence of just how important voting in a month is going to be, we have what happened over the weekend. >> well, this weekend was a real opportunity for a dignified, respectful response. republicans celebrated the confirmation of brett kavanaugh as a victory for republicans. activists tweeted photos of their alcohol with the #beers for brett. john cornyn posted a photo of sparkling wine reading not quite beers for brett, but bubbly for brett instead. i don't know why this is funny. >> it's actually not funny. >> it's not. >> it's distressing. they are talking about the united states supreme court. lindsey graham, why don't we

show what he did. >> he wrote, i'm not tired of winning. victory. press secretary sarah sanders invoked the 2016 election, quote, congratulations jawed. instead of a 6-3 liberal court under hillary clinton we now have a 5-4 conservative supreme court under president donald trump cementing a tremendous legacy for the president and a better future for america. >> i want to top right there really quickly, then we will get to mitch mcconnell and everybody else. jon meachum to say it is hard to see barack obama or george w. bush or bill clinton or george h.w. bush or ronald reagan, their parties gloating this way -- >> keep going. you have 40 more to go. >> jimmy carter. >> i've got 40 more to go. this is, again, so unbecoming and it proves what day traders

they all are. i have to say classless in this respect that they're acting like it's a high school football game when, in fact, we are talking about a deciding vote on the u.s. supreme court. no dignity and not at all. >> and it's the great tell of the process, as you point out a second ago. on the one hand when it serves their purposes they argue that this is about justices is blind, this is about qualifications and then when it serves their purposes five seconds later you get the dancing around, you get that a historical and ill informed and worst nightmare reaction from the white house press secretary actually putting the court under trump and putting these justices in these boxes, which you had just been saying wasn't really what this

was about. so it's the -- i guess we should be shocked, shocked that there's partisanship in washington, but what we can be if not shocked, we can continue to be concerned about, is the -- this idea of the court as just another battlefield in this tribal era. court has always been political, always will be. one interesting thing, i think, is that we now have a court where we have one president -- just justice appointed by the one-term president george h.w. bush, two by clinton, two by 43, two by obama, two by trump. so to some extent we now not only the way harry truman said we always get the government we deserve, we now have the supreme court that follows the presidents we elected. >> mark mckinnon, you certainly know george w. bush very well and have known him for a very

long time. what's the likelihood that anybody that worked for him putting out a statement like that after, let's say, justice roberts went to the supreme court, talking about the supreme court now under george w. bush and painted in such stark ideological terms, what's the chance that they would still have their job by the end of the day? >> not great, joe. in fact, what he always used to tell us was don't dance in the end zone, act like you've been there before. to your question, joe, about turnout i think the fundamental answer is easy. it's who is madder. who is mad. that's whos going to turn out. it was interesting to see the swing over the last couple weeks. it looked like the vote was going to be rushed through democrats suddenly got energized, suddenly when it went into overtime last week and i was in tennessee and texas and republicans were really activated, but i suspect now given the outcome there may be complacency on the republican side and democrats being

activated. i thought about last week john mccain. we missed his voice. i'm not saying where he would have landed or ended up, but he would have put everybody through an acid bath through the process on both sides. what would john mccain do, i want to send it to all 100 senators to think about that because the process was ugly, unfair, unjust and needs to be changed. >> i've got the first person you can send that to, his name is lindsey graham who is behaving -- he's just the antithesis of what john mccain was through his entire career. he obviously learned absolutely nothing working alongside of him. so, mike, a bigger question for democrats, they now are -- well, they now have a court with four people appointed on that court from republican presidents who got elected while losing the

popular vote and the united states senate now is controlled by about 18% of the population and if you look at the primary process the most extreme elements in that 16% of the population. this is not a time to say that we need to rework the constitution of the united states. that's not the problem. the problem is that the democrats don't seem to know how to win west of the hudson or east of reno. isn't this a good time for the democratic party to reexamine who they are and figure out whether they want to get outside of their blue bubbles on both coasts so they can start winning senate races in middle america again and start figuring out how to appoint supreme court justices? >> well, joe, i think the democrats have to sit down as a group and decide who they are and decide what the country is all about. i don't think they know what the country is all about. this was an extraordinarily

depressing sequence of events that this country has just been through and headed by what happened over the weekend where you have the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell, choosing ideology over the country in terms of his celebration. where you have the press secretary to the president of the united states clearly unaware that there are three independent branches of government, the legislative, the executive and the judicial, and as jon meachum pointed out in her tweet or whatever it was or statement, you know, that under hillary clinton, a supreme court justice we won't have them under hillary clinton. the justices are supposed to be independent. the politics of the process, people are used to that, but it's just extraordinarily depressing that what has happened over the past few days and it's even more depressing, i think, for democrats to see that not a single democratic voice really was raised in opposition

to what lindsey graham did during the hearings by calling out democrats. not a single democrat said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. not one. something wrong there. >> amid celebrating the confirmation of brett kavanaugh senate majority leader mitch mcconnell defended his previous decision to block president obama's supreme court nominee merrick garland saying the move was entirely consistent with the history of the senate. >> senator, how broken is the senate? >> the senate is not broken. we didn't attack merrick garland's background and try to destroy him. we didn't go on a search and destroy message, we simply followed the tradition in america which is if you have a party of a different -- a different -- senate of a different party than the president you don't fill a vacancy created in a presidential year. that went all the way back to 1888. you would have to go back to

1880 to find the last time a senate controlled by a different party from the president confirmed a supreme court justice to a vacancy created in the middle of a presidential election. they also conveniently forgot that joe biden said in 1992 when he was chairman of the judiciary committee if a vacancy occurred they wouldn't fill it. they also conveniently forgot that chuck schumer and harry reid 18 months before the end of bush 43 said if a supreme court vacancy occurred they wouldn't fill it. talk about hypocrisy. >> but, mr. leader, i don't think that's right. in 1956 eisenhower nominated brennan, the 84th congress was democrat controlled. and also on the biden rule, joe biden was talking in the abstra abstract. there was no nominee, no nominee was blocked and he said to not have the nomination come up before the election, but that it could come up after the election. so democrats say when they hear you doing this they say he's creating new rules to essentially do what he wants to do and as you've written in your

book "the long game" when you do that it actually hurts democracy. >> that's not exact -- that's not at all what happened, joe. you are completely misconstruing what happened. what i gave you is the history of this. i know the history of this. i've spent a lot of time on this throughout my career. what i did was entirely consistent with what the history of the senate has been in that situation going back to 1880. >> well, i think the 1956 example and also in 1968 later in the election cycle when a democratic president put somebody forward the republican leader worked with him to get that person a hearing and get him towards the supreme court, which is not something that you did. a vote -- >> then there was a democrat in the white house and a democratic senate. >> but the republican leader at the time tried to help the democratic president. >> john, you are not listening to me. the history is exactly as i told you. >> oh, really? >> it's like a used car salesman. >> the history is what i told

you. >> this car only has three tires on it. >> no, no, it's got four tires on it. you are not listening to me. it's got four tires. that was, first of all, good job by john dickerson. >> amazing. >> now they're moving the goal post to different parties pretty soon, yamiche, i suppose if it serves him there will be a leprechaun rule, no, we can do it if there is not a leprechaun who is a vice -- he's changing history, adjusting facts to suit his purposes today, but, of course, the great concern is the long-term ramifications even when democrats get back in power. perhaps it goes, you know, harry reid moved the goal posts, now you have mitch mcconnell moving the goal posts and the question is what comes next? how undignified can this process become? >> well, i've talked to democratic sources who say if only we had a mitch mcconnell. there are a lot of democrats who are looking at mitch mcconnell

and say, yeah, what he did was changing the rules, what he did was in some dis despicable in many people's minds but he bet the long game and bet his party's future on the idea that he could supreme court if he just had enough time and he did that. he was able to say i'm not going to even look at merrick garland even if it hurt the republicans in the 2016 election for whatever reason it didn't urt hurt them enough to not get donald trump elected. then you have donald trump elected and he was able to fill that seat. you have a lot of democrats who are saying we need to make sure that when we talk about changing our democratic leadership i'm thinking of nancy pelosi and chuck schumer we still have to remember that these are people who understand how the senate works and can deal with the same rules in the same way that mitch mcconnell does. there is a win there for republicans that's undeniable. what it does of course for the republican party when you look at millennials, when you look at women and you look at the way that they see what mitch mcconnell did is a whole other story. >> i can't help but think, john

meesh chum, meachum, as you say, mitch mcconnell's actions are a good starter, pretty lousy finisher. in the end people will look back in this period of history in the senate as a shabby senate with a short-sided selfish cynical majority leader who compared more about his political party and own political ambitions than the country itself. yes, i said that. than the country itself. read history. doesn't it seem fairly obvious that that's exactly what mitch mcconnell has done? >> well, senator mcconnell has become, if you are looking for a partisan warrior in chief, if you're looking for an archetype of a hugely effective party leader in a party leadership position in the senate i was trying to think of arguably a more effective one. i suppose the legend of lyndon johnson in the '50s, but imagine

in 30 years, almost 40 years now this shift from howard baker, the tennessee senator, revered, long time minority leader becomes majority leader, think about leaders like bob dole, and you move from institutionalists to a figure who has unapologetically become not as much the leader of the senate as the leader of his party in the senate which is a difference. those other men who were not perfect did see the institutional role as being critical to what -- how they conducted themselves. i don't know if you're defining victory in terms of seats confirmed, which is the way senator mcconnell had done this, it's hard to -- it's impossible to argue really with his record.

he has not single handedly because his majority, let's be clear, he didn't do this by himself, he had the rest of his caucus with him and joe manchin who is now an honorary member of the caucus, then you've got someone who has defined his mission. again, he is not apologetic about it, he has weaponized that history very selectively, but i think ultimately we will look back on this and could think of it as the mcconnell era to some extent as much as the trump era. >> i will tell you, mika, there's so much that harry reid did in the years before mitch mcconnell became majority leader that was bad for the united states senate, that i doubt it will be called the mcconnell era if we are just talking about the decline. >> right. >> of the united states senate as an institution, as our founders saw it, as the saucer

that cools the coffee. if what john is saying is the case, this will be looked back as the harry reid/mitch mcconnell era and all the country will be poor for it. >> still ahead on "morning joe" we mentioned lindsey graham's twitter celebrations for justice kavanaugh. wait until you hear what he said just moments after the confirmation vote. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back.

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offered this by a way of comparison. >> i think dr. ford was treated well. i think the roles were reversed. the slut whore drunk was kavanaugh. >> mike barnicle, what would john mccain do? what would john mccain say? >> i think what john mccain would say is, lindsey, who are you? what has happened to you? because clearly, i mean, he morphed into donald trump, into a donald trump supporter, before john mccain was even put in the ground in annapolis. it is shocking how quickly he switched over to maybe who he really is. we don't know who he really is. we've had him on here, joe and mika, as you know, numerous times, he is engaging, he can be funny, he can be sort of introspective about things like

the separates senate, but during the course of these hearings he is someone who is unrecognizable in terms of who you thought he was. i mean, mark, i don't know what your take on it is, but, i mean, who is he? >> i can't remember, although it happens all the time, the distance and gulf between where lindsey graham was and where he was now. you think about the things he said during the campaign about donald trump, couldn't be further from where he is now and you just get a sense is this senator graham speaking or is this future attorney general graham speaking? >> he wants to be attorney general so badly, mika. i guess you do what you -- what he thinks he has to do. >> yeah, he's lost me. on friday president trump falsely claimed protesters were not motivated by their concerns but by paychecks from billionaire george soros, instead, quote -- >> that's a very old, tired,

anti-semitic -- they old anti-semitic trick that people have claimed, usually on the internet. >> the rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make senators look bad, don't fall for t look at the professionally made identical signs paid for by soros and others. these are not signs made in the basement from love. with the pga troublemakers. trump's comments which was examined and debunked by the "washington post" came shortly after this exchange on fox business with judiciary chair chuck grassley. >> do you believe george soros is behind all of this, paying these people to get you and your colleagues in elevators or wherever they can get in your face? >> i tend to believe it. i believe it fits in his attack mode that he has. >> yamiche, are these protesters

paid or what do you make of this? >> no, i don't think the protesters are paid by george soros, but even further, what i want to say is that the republican party and a lot of the republican leadership are really acting like donald trump. i've been taken aback by covering president trump and all this conversation that people had about him coming in and maybe being somehow watered down by the republican leadership and maybe there are adults in the room who will make president trump act in a different way. what we've seen and said is that everyone starts acting like president trump. when brett kavanaugh testified he was talking about the clintons revenge, talking about the 2016 election, lindsey graham is using the word slu slut whore. this is the idea that president trump has lowered the decorum of what you can say and have allowed people to be more raw. some people like that. there are trump supporters that say we like the brash talk and the idea that people aren't being politically correct but long-term people are including do we want our senators to be saying slut whore when talking

about the supreme court nominees, do we want people to be talking about political revenge when talking about the supreme court. >> do we, mark mckinnon want the chairman of the judiciary committee to pick up an anti-semitic slur and run with it? >> one thing i will say about the paid protesters line is that anybody who said that obviously didn't actually go out to the halls of the grounds of the capitol and see and talk to any of these women. >> talk to people. >> what they're saying with this charge is george soros paid people to go out and publicly tell their rape stories or tell their sexual assault stories. the stories that you would hear walking around the halls were so gripping, so terrifying, so emotional and people were spontaneously combusting into tears about this trauma from their lives and the notion that they were being paid to do that is just outrageous really. >> but really and, jon, you look at this you have a cable news

host whipping up a frenzy about george soros, you have the president of the united states tweeting about it, you have the senate judiciary leader talking about george soros and this anti-semitic conspiracy. it reminds me of exactly what we have a guest coming on al 8:30, very well respected man, who when talking about why he decided to leave the republican party this weekend said they can troll all three branches of government and yet they still act as if they are victims of some grand conspiracy. >> absolutely. this goes back, i think we are looking at basically a 60-year drama here and i don't think we can look at it in isolation. a lot of this conversation, a lot of these troeps as you identify them come from the early 1950s. they come from the people who joined the john birch society,

who thought that dwight eisenhower was a dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy because he worked with franklin roosevelt who the same people believed had been working with stalin on behalf of stalin at the end of the second world war. remember 20 years, 1932 to 1952, the republicans were out of power. immense anger rose up on the right wing. now people get this way after eight years. double that and then add four years and you begin to get some sense of how these things change. the other thing about that period is we think that now if i had a dime for every time someone said, well, you know, it's cable news, it's the internet. well, you know, ft. sumpter was pretty bad. the reaction to yalta, the reaction to eisenhower not rolling back the new deal led to this mainstreaming in many ways

of conspiracy and that drove politics in the 1950s and 1960s, at the same time eisenhower after that 20-year drought put earl warren and judge brennan on the court. what did they do? 1954 they integrate the schools, 1955 they affirm that with a second decision on all deliberate speed, 1962 they ban sectarian school prayer, they rule for defendant rights. suddenly heading into the nixon era you have a conservative movement that believes that eisenhower had sold them out early on, then nixon appoints four justices, only one of whom turns out to be a conservative in the mold they wanted. a nixon appointee writes the roe decision. george h.w. bush puts david suitor on the court. this is a long-term conversation

and momentum building about we're never going to be fooled again. it's a scarlett o'hara thing, they're never going to be hungry again, the right is never going to be fooled again. that's what senator graham and mcconnell they are playing off this deep storm system that's been building for 60 to 70 years. >> well, coming up, the u.s. department of justice will soon own a condo at trump tower and a house in the hamptons, all courtesy of paul manafort. we will explain that. plus a veteran saudi journalist and "washington post" columnist vanishes after entering the saudi consulate in istanbul. turkish officials say he was murdered by saudi agents, but saudi arabia is calling that allegation baseless. "morning joe" will be right back. baseless. "morning joe" will be right back

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>> cricket wireless, now are you happy we have awful service. join now for $2.99 per decade. the phones have candy inside. >> i don't know where to begin, but that was funny. i just want to mention our fun event on friday, we went to the new yorker festival and had a great time talking with david remnick about politics and the media and, joe, you had an official fan girl who had scarborough written all over her t-shirt. that was fun. >> i don't remember that. i do remember, though, a great conversation with david and it was exciting to be there. we talked about the courts and congress, we talked about -- >> really took the time to really kind of give the people in the audience a sense of how we do what we do, but also some of the things that have happened that, you know, there is a lot of nuance involved with the events of the past several weeks

and it's very hard even in a three-hour show to get to everything. >> we talked about me too, troubled times we're in, and of course, mike barnicle, this was friday night and as you know because i busted out of the doors, called you immediately to get an update on the boston red sox, i kept stopping every five minutes, any updates? any updates. >> it's true. >> after the event he let me know that the sox were ahead 3-0. man, david price, what a rough second game, went 1 2/3 innings, 0-9 in playoff games, is terrible against the yankees. tonight is extraordinarily important but also yesterday the brewers sweep. that's a great team. maybe not as great as the dodgers who were ahead 2-1 after losing to the braves last night. but what's it looking like right now, mike, with all all these games? >> well, joe, i will tell you this, we've been talking about mitch mcconnell today and mr. trump this morning. the most important man in

america today is nathan eovaldi of boston red sox who takes the hill today, the series in tied 1-1. i'm optimistic. it's such a great series you wish it was going to be seven games, it's only five. it's obviously the best of five. whoever gets to three first continues on. we will find out a lot about that tonight at the big ballpark in the bronx. >> the big ballpark in the bronx, it is all about eovaldi. last minute decision to go with eovaldi instead of porcello. that's tomorrow night. but, man, the dodgers are looking strong. the astros are looking tough as ever. those two teams making good argument that it may be a repeat, but right now i don't know that there's a tougher team, mika, as you were just saying last night, there is not a tougher team and a hotter team in baseball right now than the los angeles dodgers. >> all right. coming up -- >> do you remember saying that? >> i was saying that -- i said that, yeah. >> got it.

yeah. >> mika, do you know what an eovaldi is? >> hey, i threw out the first pitch at dodgers stadium. doo you are that? >> do you know what an eovaldi is? >> yeah. >> you're going to know tonight because i'm going to be screaming his name i'm afraid a lot. >> i will look forward to that. coming up, new poll numbers in key midterm races from texas to tennessee. "morning joe" is coming right back. ssee "morning joe" is coming right back ♪ not long ago, ronda started here. and then, more jobs began to appear.

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♪ taylor swift ended her long standing policy of avoiding discussions on politics endorsing two tennessee democrats for congress. the 28-year-old pop star made her statement on instagram on sunday night, one day after finishing the north american leg of her reputation world tour. swift voiced her support for former governor phil bertison and u.s. representative jim

cooper for tennessee's senate and house of representatives seats. she also offered marsh words for republican nominee marsha blackburn, writing in part as much as i have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, i cannot support marsha blackburn. her voting record in congress a paul's and tear nice me. i believe in the fight for lgbtq rights and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is wrong. i believe that the systemic racism we see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. these are not my tennessee values. >> mika, it's interesting. we have always -- we've talked from time to time whenever we've seen articles of people who are criticizing taylor swift for not becoming -- >> political, yeah. >> -- political. obviously she's one of the largest pop stars, one of the largest music stars on earth,

but there were people that were trying to drag her into the political arena for years, got really nasty about it. i think this is, you know -- this is a good way to do it, if you're going to get involved regardless of what side you are on, get involved in a race or two when you're ready to do it, not when -- not when extremists on one side or the other are demanding that you come in and, you know, start taking up their cause and carrying around their flag. >> i think it's always risky when hollywood or, you know, people who are in the performance field, music fields jump into politics because, you know, they risk getting made fun of, but i think politics is for everybody to talk about and especially now. step up, use your voice and she is. you can't blame her for that. a new cbs news ugov poll shows that tennessee republican marsha blackburn has an eight point advantage against the

democrat phil bredesen. in texas republican senator ted cruz leads democratic congress beto o'rourke 50% to 44%. while in arizona democrat kristen cinema has the edge on her republican house colleague martha mcsally 47 to 44%. in new jersey democratic senator bob menendez has a 10-point lead over republican bob hugin 49 to 39%. >> mark mckinnon those polls were all taken during the kavanaugh fight as the former british -- one former british prime minister said, of course, in politics a week is a lifetime. i'm sure some of those polls will look much different a week from now, but still we've got about 10 or 11 races up in the air in the senate that could go either way. >> well, one thing i will say, joe, about that, i think it's great that taylor swift is getting involved but i wouldn't be surprised if marsha blackburn takes that endorsement and puts

it up on tv for herself. people in tennessee and places where you come from, joe, don't really like hollywood getting involved. i was also just in texas and i spent 40 years there and i've been saying it's going to take the will take the second coming of christ for a democrat to win in texas. but beto o'rourke's supporters think he walks on water. but this race is settling where it is and the kavanaugh thing has had an effect. certainly last week. >> which way? >> energized republican voters. certainly cruz was talking a lot about that. the other thing i heard from cruz's people from his campaign manager is there was a viral video that cruz did on the national anthem which was compelling and powerful and good news for beto and cruz went with paid media and it's their opinion that hurt cruz. >> again very wrong way -- i'm sorry.

hurt beto. >> you look at the other races whether it's arizona, whether it's tennessee, marsha blackburn has a bigger lead right now in tennessee than she's had. again, that obviously is in response to the kavanaugh battle. three weeks from now, four weeks from now when it's election time that's going to be a distant memory, i suspect. >> i agree with you, joe. two things. one on, you know, celebrities endorsing politicians. it takes a particular kind and a misuse of the word, particular kind of courage to step up and put your own personal feelings even though you're a celebrity into a political race. the other thing that mark was re referencing and you can sense i want out there is the backlash on the kavanaugh endorsement. you get a real feeling it has energized republicans. in terms of your coverage of the hearings and what went on, i think you could even sense it, the republican seizing on this,

you know. i mean they are acting like sore winners. >> i think the idea of acting like a sore winner goes back to president trump and this idea that he's really used victimhood and turn it on its head. you think of the me too movement and this talk of women and what they've been through, the sexual assault survivors both men and women, talking about their stories, telling their stories at the capital and what you have is republicans saying you know, we're the real victims. men are the real victims. i'm scared for my sons, i'm scared -- you should be scared for your husband or child. there's this idea who is the biggest victim. republicans have really taken that all the way from president trump and used that. i think my reporting shows republicans are feeling very much that they are victims of this left wing idea that they want to take back power and that could help them a lot in the mid-terms. >> john, they won. sometimes the worst thing that

can happen for you politically is the win. you know it very well because you wrote the book on him, george h. w. bush. the soviet union closed up shop december 25th, 1991. it should have been the highlight of the bush presidency. you talked about this before. the thing that motivated republicans over the course of generations was when the soviet union disbanded and allowed americans to vote for bill clinton who would never have been elected at the height of the cold car. the republicans got their second supreme court justice. i would be surprised if those who were gloating and winning and spiking the ball in the end zone are less inspired to go vote a month from now than the democrats who lost? >> well, i think defeat is ultimately more energizing than

victory. i think that's the story. >> it is. >> that's the story of movement politics. so in tennessee i don't think that's an eight-point race. could be wrong, obviously. and to me the whole, this whole 30 day, you started off with this, you got a 29-day period here which is who is the angriest? and right now and who can channel that anger into action and right now the center to the left of this country is far more angry in the moment -- there's a perpetual anger, almost a perpetual petulance, if you will among the trump folks and he's going to be spending -- we'll see him at these rallies for a month, right? he'll be every where. trying to stoke these fires of victimhood and say, you know, what i love about his argument

is we got to fight off these forces because we only control the white house, congress and the supreme court. we better fight hard here because things can go under. but defeat is a more powerful motivator and i think that is going to -- i suspect when we're talking the day after the mid-terms that will be proven out. but i didn't think donald trump would be president so what the hell do i know? >> all right, john meacham, and thank you all for being on this monday morning. coming up republicans celebrate their supreme court victory with beers and bubbly for brett. plus senate majority leader mitch mcconnell claims the senate is not broken while appearing to change his standards for confirming justices. robert costa joins us with his latest reporting. "morning joe" is back in just a moment. " is back jinust a moment you're headed down the highway when the guy in front

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ironically the behavior, first the democrats on the senate judiciary committee and then the overreach of the protesters at the capitol actually energyized the republican base particularly in the red states where we're trying to pick up seats across america. so i want to thank, i want to thank the other side for the tactics that have allowed us so energize and get involved our

own voters. >> welcome back to "morning joe". it is monday, october 8th. with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle. political writer for the "new york times" and msnbc political analyst nick confess ore. robert costa. and director of the school of media and public affairs at george washington university frank sisno is with us this morning. gosh, we can go a lot of different ways, joe. great to have frank on board this morning to take a look at the media throughout the past few weeks. >> we were talking about that. also talking about the republicans gloating. let's put up really quickly a couple of examples of republicans gloating about actually getting supreme court justice nominated and through the process. lindsey graham said i'm not tired of winning.

victory! of course this looks more like something that you would post after winning a football game. this is john cornyn, talking about bubbly for brett. again, i don't know that either of those two can compete with sarah huckabee sanders who talked about the supreme court being under president donald trump. submitting a tremendous legacy for the president. of course, talking about liberals and conservatives. because at the end of the day everything, bob costa, of surs is about donald trump in the eyes of sarah huckabee sanders and donald trump. it's not about the court or about the country. with that said, you know, we have spent probably five or ten times where we talked about the president's worst week ever. i would argue last week was probably the president's best week since being in the oval

office. winning a very tough supreme court fight. unemployment at 3.7%. renaming nafta. getting anti-china provisions inside there was. launching sort of a holistic attempt to counter the rising influence of china over the past decade or so. what's the attitude inside the white house? are they jubilant right now? do they feel they have the wind at their backs no into the mid-terms. >> they know a month cab lifetime in politics. when you rattle off a checklist that's a checklist that congressional candidates on the republican side need. that's why when i was at the capitol this weekend talking to senators they were jubilant not only because they could see the court moving to the right for a generation with justice kavanaugh in there but they were concerned about the president hitting the road for weeks with

rally after rally they needed to talk about something on their own, tax cut, two supreme court justices confirmed, to get the traditional republican voter out there and enthused. that's why leader mcconnell is making this overconfident argument he believes some republican voters were complacent, trusting the president when he talked about a red wave. >> so, nick, there are things that concern us, the breaches of constitutional norms, the overt appeal to racism. you can go down the list. the ugliness of the tweets. yet, if you're a republican congressman or congresswoman fighting for your political life, you can say we got 3.7% unemployment. that's as low as it's been in my lifetime. we got two conservative supreme court justices, republicans have been tlilining to you for years.

we have the conservative majority for the first time in our lifetime. regulatory reform. tax cuts. it seems to me that list that they can take to votes in the mid-terms is growing by the day and kavanaugh, well that's just sort of the cherry on top. >> joe, certainly it's important to have passed this court pick. courts after core reason for a wavering republican who doesn't like trump to be for trump or be happy he's president. this court thing is a reminder of the value of having the white house in republican hands. so that's important. but, look, i will also say this reminds me a bit of 2016. closing weeks of election. people in one party who are sour on their nominee will start coming home. so we're seeing that across the country. the last thing i'll say, joe, is the person who thinks that donald trump will stay on this message. these three points for the next month and stay there has not been awake for the last two years. so just give it a week.

>> it's not going to happen. the man, it seems, just can't be comfortable and enjoy his success. you know, we're going to have tom nichols on who left the republican party this past weekend for a lot of the same reasons i left it a year ago. yes republicans, there's been some wins that they put up on the board. at the same time you have a united states senator posting victory signs while talking about sluts and drunks and you can go down the laundry list of all things that happened that just seem unbecoming of united states senators and of party leaders. this is all, of course, come at a cost and it seems that even the gloating now suggests that united states senators are adopting donald trump's worst personality characteristics, in hopes of appealing to him and

his most hardened base and what does that mean for the future of the republican party? >> well, i think for the short term, a lot of what this means will -- i think rather the long term a lot will depend on what happens in the short term which is does the party's shift towards the rhetorical positions of donald trump, speaking more like donald trump, getting closer to his agenda like on immigration does it help them in the short term. does it sustain them in the mid-terms and push back against the historical pattern that suggests no matter what happens republicans would have a bad mid-term. if donald trump can come out at the end of mid-term and even if republicans lose one chamber they still hold on to the senate and those seats, maybe taken out a red state democrat or two. republicans feel they like winning and if being more like donald trump helps them to win at all or at least stave off

potential losses this will continue. it won't be until you see significant mobilization of young voters, latinos, coalitions that democrats -- you know democrats have activated female voters for this election, college educated female voters. they will be hugely influential in a lot of districts. there's other pieces of the democratic coalition that i have not seen data that they are fired up at the levels that democrats would need to really make this blue wave a tsunami and i think that is part of where republicans will be saved and if they are, i think that the step towards being the party of donald trump, that will not change after this mid-term unless a blue tsunami happens. >> frank, mika and i last week were, while of course we are regular critics of donald trump, some would say we've gone overboard at times.

we've even been mocked on "saturday night live" for it. i thought last week the untold story was just how biassed top to bottom the press was on reporting the story. mika also expressed real concerns about political commentators going on networks and calling brett kavanaugh a rapist. columnists, respected columnists calling him a serial sexual predator. and there didn't seem to be the push back that there should have been from network executives, from opinion page editors. i thought the whole thing was a bit out of control despite all of our concerns about donald trump and bluntly about our concerns we had about brett kavanaugh. >> yeah. i mean what we've been through has ripped off all the scabs of politics and gender and sexual assault. it's a very difficult story to cover in the best of times. in this hyper critical and hyper

sensitive time in our politics it's almost impossible. there was and there needs to be as you say, or there needs to be push back across the board. i mean that's what journalists do. journalists are supposed to question everything. doesn't mean there can't be sensitivity or strong opinions on the opinion page. then editors are supposed to or we hope balance those opinions so that the public can get a broader sense of things and it's one of the reasons now, i think, that the republicans are finding such traction with this accussation that this was mob. the question to the immediate now going forward whether it's kavanaugh at the courts, or how we're covering these incredibly sensitive stories going forward, how will that to be done? what does balance mean any more? how are we going separate out

constant politics from the policy that things that are being done that actually affect people's lives. that's what i fear is getting lost most of all. >> it was interesting, frank, and hard not to get swept up interest at times, but you saw a lot of female journalists sharing their stories, and sort of bringing -- there was a kinship developing among women activists, democrats, but also women journalists sharing their personal stories, and it seemed to me that part of me too, i'm just trying to pick my words very carefully that believes very much that all women are to be believed. that also sort of overflowed into the media. and that's a hard one to talk about, because, again, our job is to ask questions, correct? not to believe. >> well, to ask questions, to

ask questions critically but also sensitively and respectfully, all those things. at least in an ideal world. this is far from an ideal world, unfortunately. i was at dinner last night with some friends and before evening was over i heard yet another tale of this kind of thing from a woman who had experienced it. she told a story about sitting around with several of her women friends at every single one of them she said had a story like this. i think that this has resonated so with women because it is so shared and often so buried. it has surprised men because they either haven't heard of it or they just think this is the way it is. so it presented itself as a huge challenge to people covering this story. people may have seen connie chung's column. that was incredible. how to digest this when we're so polarized is a very big challenge, but i think -- i mean the job that you are supposed to do every morning is to ask

thoughtful but also tough questions of everybody, right? and that is something we need to do no matter what. >> frank, what about the daily challenge presented to newspaper editors, to television news directors, programming directors and it is this: in an administration built on a tissue of lies on a daily basis uttered by the president of the united states, this search for truth, this questioning, looking for facts each and every day performed admirably by institutions like, you know, all the tv networks, "the washington post," "new york times" and others, a substantial percentage of americans don't believe us. you know, they choose to believe the wire in chief, you know. i'm kind of reluctant to use that phrase but it's been proven true. what about that challenge?

>> it's huge. but it's not new. i sort of refer to this as a pre-existing condition. we came into the trump years, the media did with very low public approval ratings, very low sense of trust. the book "bias" was written years ago. not the first time we heard this. where you stand is very true in politics. even if we put out a fact check and say liar, liar, pants on fire, people will absorb that the information may be wrong or the fact was misstated but not going to go south on the person that they followed very easily. that doesn't change minds. so the press needs to do what it has done, which is to point out where there are misstatements or lies or misdeeds. it needs be tough but needs to be fair and one of the things that has gotten lost in the world of social media and internet and cable is we've lost

a sense of proportionately. it's one story all the time, always angry, always outraged. that has a sense of driving the public to say, you know what? they really are the opposition party. those sfoers are often justified and need to be covered very very hard but have a consequence when they land on a very diverse and now divided public. >> frank makes a good point, mika. donald trump is not the reason why a lot of people in middle america see the press as opposition party. donald trump is the result of that. same thing with foreign policy. donald trump is the result of 20 years of failed foreign policy. this was a pre-existing condition. americans, a lot of americans in middle america believed for a very long time that the media was just an extension of the democratic party. so to blame that all on donald

trump would be a huge mistake and would overlook our past sins. of course, though, when he starts talking about enany of the people, he uses stalinist phrasing to whip up a frenzy and had a tried, that obviously is a grave concern and something that should be brought up, especially when journalists across the world are getting raped and murdered and jailed. >> senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has appeared to change his standard about confirming a supreme court nominee in a presidential year although he would not admit to it. here he is in 2016 on the nomination of merritt garland, followed by what he said yesterday. >> well, of course, of course, the american people should have a say in the court's direction. chairman grassley and i declared weeks ago and reiterated personally to president obama the senate will continue to

absorb the bid-- observe the bi rule. the biden rule reminds us the decision the senate announced weeks ago remains about a principle and not a person. we simply followed the tradition in america which is that if you have a party of a different senate of a different party than the president you don't fill a vacancy created in a presidential year. >> if donald trump were to name somebody in the final year of his first term in 2020, are you saying that you would go ahead with that nomination? >> i understand your question. what i told you is what the history of the senate has been. we'll see whether there's a vacancy in 2020. >> you're not ruling out the possibility since you're the republican majority leader and as a republican president that you would go for and push the nomination of a trump nominee in the election year? >> what i'm telling you is the

history is you have to go back to 1880 to find the last time a senate controlled party different from the president filled a vacancy on the supreme court that was created in the middle of a presidential election year. that's been the history. >> actually that's not the history. he was corrected by john dickerson but let's not facts get in the way of a good tv sound bite from mitch mcconnell. so mitch mcconnell stopped merritt garland. mitch mcconnell pushed through justice kavanaugh. is mitch the king of the hill now for republicans? >> when you're at the capitol talking to senators in both parties you hear about the kavanaugh nomination being the searing national crucible that's changing our culture in so many ways. the senators trace it back to the garland nomination. when senators like flake were telling me over the weekend this

is rock bottom for this institution they are referring to the atmosphere that goes back to garland, that led to kavanaugh with both leader schumer and leader mcconnell in their own separate camps. this is an institution when you see it up close where both sides are very rarely speaking to each other, the tensions are palpable and it comes down future of the courts in a way they are both dug in. leader mcconnell is about power. the courts are his concentration day in, day out. wants to overhaul the federal judiciary. it comes with a cost. he can talk about the historical, the lineups of the senate when other parties are in powerer and all those details. haven't fact checked him on those. the big picture is mcconnell made a choice with garland. he's gotten two supreme court justice out of that choice but the consequence is you have a divided senate and senators on both sides saying the institution is barely functioning. >> robert, in the course of your reporting, and talking to united

states senators mostly off the record i'm going ask you about, do you get any sense among the democrats that there's a longing or a wondererment about why they can't come up with tougher leadership combat the unbelievably tough leadership of mitch mcconnell? >> mike, they feel like they tried with judge kavanaugh, now justice kavanaugh, that they believed dr. ford. they pushed for the fbi investigation. they had the testimony. there was a sense in some democratic circles that maybe justice kavanaugh during the process would have to withdraw, that the american people in a cultural moment during the clarence thomas hearings would rally around dr. ford. but it played out a different way. the democrats took a political risk. they believe voters will turn out seeing what mcconnell and

the republicans have done. this is politics. it's messy. schumer had a limited hand but being pushed to be aggressive. he was aggressive along with senator dianne feinstein and this is where we are. >> well, let's talk about where we are for conservatives, life long conservatives. i know for your entire life, for my entire life, much longer than your entire life, conservatives and republicans have been bemoaning the fact despite having won the presidency time and time again, republican presidents gave us justice brennan, harry blackman who wrote roe v wade, gave us sandra day o'connor who was the deciding vote to uphold roe, time and time again conservatives have voted for

republican presidents to get a conservative supreme court. this has been, as john meacham said a 60 year battle. that aim, that battle was finally won last week, of it not? >> i think that's right. i also think that this is part of why you are seeing so much of the republican party begin to look a little more like donald trump. let's imagine an alternative universe where one of the 16 republicans won that primary and you have a more conventional republican president in the white house. let's play out what would have happened with the kavanaugh hearings. do you think the odds under a different republican president would have been greater, for instance, leadership would have said let's pull this nominee, let's try for someone else. but the trump methodology is apologize for nothing, norms don't matter, wins matter that's what brought us to this moment

with this conservative majority on the supreme court. so i think you got a lot of republicans who are going well i'm worried about norms getting thrown out but i do really love these wins that i think that's what -- it's those wins that has enabled donald trump to say well it took some very different approaches to get there and that's why you're seeing folks like lindsey graham suddenly sounding a lot different. >> thank you all for being on this morning. we wanted to mention frank's book "ask more the power of questions to open doors, uncover solutions and spark change." still ahead on "morning joe" for the vast majority of u.s. senators their respective votes on kavanaugh were a foregone conclusion. our next guest said only five members took their duties of advise and consent as seriously as founders intend.

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accusation. joining us now senior fellow at the council on foreign relations and columnist for "the washington post," max boot. he's the author of the new book "the corrosion of conservatism, why i threat right." max thanks for joining us. nick has the first question for you. >> max, we were looking at some of the celebratory tweets on instagram, senator cornyn with champagne. we saw on saturday and sunday that traditional conservatives were treating this win as their win. as a great win for traditional conservatism. but in your book and your writing you think of it more as a win for trump being conservative. tell us why. >> i think brett kavanaugh, you

know, on the merits would have been the kind of nominee that would have been put forward by any other republican president. i understand why conservatives supported him. let's remember how it changed after christine blasey ford came forward. there was a credible allegation of sexual assault instead of looking into it, republicans tried to sweep it under the carpet and donald trump mocked this woman with her story of being instaultd and invoked george soros to game that soros was paying for the protest. ultimately then kavanaugh himself became kind of like a mini trump before the senate judiciary committee engaging in this kind of divisive partisan rhetoric. at the end of the day, i get it kavanaugh was confirmed. but me personally i was willing to support him before. i wasn't willing to support him after he revealed him self to be a partisan. that's something a traditional

conservative would be very concerned about because a traditional conservative would be concerned about conserving our institutions and placing somebody like brett kavanaugh on the court now under these circumstances with a cloud over his head and with his partisan divisive rhetoric i think that will undermine the legitimacy of the supreme court. i don't think this is something that real conservatives should be celebrating. >> let's pretend donald trump is, indeed, a conservative. what are the differences, your conservative, your philosophy and his? >> well the differences, in how long do you have here? the differences are so vast. i grew up in the 1980s under such a different kind of conservatism. ronald reagan, sunny, optimistic, inclusive, pro immigration, pro free trade. never engaged in this kind of hateful racist rhetoric that donald trump routinely engages in. donald trump is against trade. he's against america's international leadership. he's not in favor of limited

government. he's undermining the rule of law. he is engaging in racism and sexism and seeing a phobia. he's mobilizing the worst forces in america, bigotry and prejudice in order to divide americans for political gain. this is not the kind of conservative i was familiar with in the 1980s. the reality there are these conservative trends in america, including people like george wallace and mccarthy. there's these terrible trends we were trying to overcome and sweep under the carpet and to be better than that. unfortunately donald trump is driving us back into the mud and redefining conservatism in his own image which is not the kind of conservatism that it recognize and that's why i can't be a republican any more and i even question whether i'm really a conservative because these days conservative basically means trump toting. >> you talk about redefining the

party. also reshaping the way republican senators and members of the house behave and we can talk about paul ryan, how he's turned his back on just about every belief that he espoused for years, he would fight for. he's been very quiet. you bring up lindsey graham, a guy you've known. a guy you worked with. lindsey this weekend talking very much like donald trump, gloating very much like donald trump. and this is a guy who during the primary process called donald trump a kook and said his election would destroy the republican party. i think lindsey was right then. >> he was right. this to me is just soul crushing because as i write in my book, i've been a part of the republican party in the conservative movement my entire adult life and i've known people like lindsey graham and paul ryan. i've admired people like lindsey graham and paul ryan and i don't recognize these people. who the hell are these people.

paul ryan is someone who called out donald trump for being a racist in 2016. lindsey graham called him a kook. they were right the first time around. how do they justify being trump's lick spittles. the cost has been way too high. all that he's doing to undernine rule of law, our institutions, our standing in the world, how can they support all that? >> max, you and your family immigrated from the soviet union. you obviously know the importance of america's tradition of immigrants. yesterday i was watching fareed zakaria talking to madeleine albright, children of immigrant, coming from immigrant families that's at the center of the american experience for over

240 years. how damaging is it to the republican party that donald trump goes, takes a 180 turn along with the rest of the republican party from not only american traditions but from a core principle in ronald reagan's thinking? >> that's exactly right, joe. it's hugely harmful to the long term future of the republican party as america becomes less white. the republicans are being identified as the white nationalist party. so that's just in political terms. this is not a smart long term play. i don't even look at it in political terms, i look at it in personaler and moral terms. this is heartbreaking for me because the reason i became a republican in the 1980s because the republican party was anti-communist and you have somebody in the white house who is an admirer of vladimir putin something you couldn't imagine in the 1980s. also the republican party was so welcoming to people like me. here i was an immigrant from the soviet union and i felt i was as much as an american as anybody

else because ronald reagan talked about the contributions of immigrants. he celebrated immigrants. he even legalized undocumented immigrants. he welcomed refugees like me and my family. how dirt is that from the way donald trump behaves where he's trying to redefine what it means to be an american in blood and soil terms and essentially if you're not a white christian native born american you're a lesser american. that's the message he's sending. one of the proud just achievements in my life, i came here at age 6. i learned to speak english. i think i speak it reasonably well. i try to fit in, blend in. i thought i achieved that. i thought of myself as an ordinary american not as a hyphenated american. donald trump is making me to think in those terms. he's making me think there's something less american than me. i wasn't born here. i'm jewish. i'm not the kind of american

that donald trump celebrates. it's a tragedy for me and heartbreaking for me. >> max, if you believe that donald trump has redefined meaning of the buckley, reagan conservatism, you are a conservative, if you believe he's changed the nature and the meaning of that descriptive phrase do you think it's lasting? >> i fear that it is. this is -- you know, we don't know. obviously we don't know. but i fear that the redefinition that's going on now, if it's ever going to be undone will take many, many years. i think it is imperative the republican party walk away from this as quickly as possible. but there's no chance they will do that as long as they seeing being trumpified is a winning electoral strategy. they will double down on white nationalism and racism, xenophobia, undermining the rule of law.

they will be solidified as a core part of the republican identity. that's why i think it is essential that the republicans pay a price at the ballot box for what they are doing and that's why i'm urging as somebody who is a life long republican never voted for a democrat before i voted for hillary clinton in 2016, having said all that i'm urging everybody to vote straight ticket democratic in november because i think it's imperative to get some checks and balances. the republican party has shown they will not stop donald trump's abuses of power, and that they will continue reimolding themselves in donald trump's image unless they understand there's a price to be paid at the ballot box. i think essentially the republican party as currently constituted needs to be destroyed and burned and maybe, maybe, maybe out of the ashes we can build up a more reasonable center right party which is something this country needs. >> max stay with us. still ahead one message that

crystallizes where things stand around the world. ned price tweeted the saudis appear to have murdered a u.s. resident and "the washington post" contributor. the chinese have arrested the head of interpol and the russians have used chemical weapons on british soil the worse impulse of brutal regimes are coming forward because no one is standing up against them. we'll talk about that straight ahead on "morning joe". we get to spend it

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now to the mysterious disappearance of prominent saudi born journalist jamal khashoggi. khashoggi, a "the washington post" columnist and a vocal critic of saudi regime was killed in istanbul last week. we're told he tried get paper work to marry a saudi woman in washington but directed to the consulate in turkey. according to two individuals, khashoggi was told to return on a different day and when dehe never walked out. unnamed officials claim more than a dozen saudi agents flew

in, murdered khashoggi in the consulate and hid his body. the saudis call the allegations baseless. they say khashoggi left the consulate and claimed to be looking into what happened to him afterwards. turkey's president calls the disappearance upsetting and vowed to investigate. >> max, obviously, a lot of questions still. the saudis have much to answer for. but, then, again so does turkey. in trying to figure out exactly what happened. but you certainly knew mr. khashoggi, and he was a critic of the new young leader in saudi arabia who said his reforms were being undermine by reckless arrests and foreign adventures. what can you tell us about mr. khashoggi? >> well, jamal khashoggi was a very brave saudi die dissident

spoke out about the abuses of the saudis. he was not a terrorist. avenues mainstream saudi who was close to the leadership in many ways but very critical of the crown prince of saudi arabia and got on his bad side clearly. the reports of what's happened in turkey, if they are true, horrible tragedy and a disgrace. we still don't know the full story. but i mean if saudi arabia truly murdered a dissident in their consulate, a nato ally that's outrageous and you have to ask why would they feel emboldened to do something that heinous. i would suggest part of the explanation is the fact that you have an american president who loves saudi arabia and doesn't stand up for american values. you have a president who embraces dictators and doesn't criticize the human rights

abuses. >> we talked about saudi arabia having a lot to answer for. turkey having a lot to answer for. the president of the united states than administration need to start asking tough questions this morning. let's bring in right now the president and ceo of the atlantic council fred kemp. fred, a lot to talk to you about. i want to read you quickly what david ignatius said. the reckless arrest and foreign adventures undermine these advances khashoggi believe. wrote that the crown prince didn't lock up princes he went after thoughtful intellectual activists. he jailed up the activists that encouraged the reforms. much to be concerned about in saudi arabia this morning? >> let's pray that the stories and the news as presented from turkish officials is untrue. let's hope jamal is still alive. i worked for the "wall street journal" for 25 years. i knew him. i respected him. i also spent long periods of

time, three meetings both in saudi arabia and washington with the crown prince. he is a visionary. he really does want to change his society. he believes that the 1979 fundamentalist turn in saudi arabia was responsible for a lot of bad including 9/11. so the there's a lot at stake here. at the same time jamal khashoggi got that. he praised it. at the same time he said alongside letting women drive, alongside opening up the movie theaters and reforming the economy you also have to open up society a little bit. you can't arrest protesters. you can't crack down without constitutional means and so he was a threat to them. i just hope they didn't go this far. now was u.s. intervention that prompted the saudis to say yes, we did hit some civilians in yemen and then apologize for it. so i think you are right, joe, the white house should say look it's crucially important if you want this bilateral relationship

to remain strong you have to tell us what happened here. certainly somebody knows what happened. >> by the way, we can have bilateral relations with a country that murder "the washington post" journalists. that's black and white. let me -- let's talk about some of your concerns about last week, some of the big events that happened last week. you said while the rest of the country was focused on the kavanaugh hearings, the explosive kavanaugh hearings, which the result of which will impact us for a generation, you also said the most significant geopolitical event in some time also occurred last week unnoticed and that was that donald trump's conflict with china was raised several levels in a way that you said could have generational effects. explain why. >> yeah. first of all, i did think that. with the kavanaugh hearing and everything else, the noise around the trump administration,

also the new nafta agreement, what i think is the only significant geopolitical event of last week but maybe of the trump administration. you had a mike pence speech saying that china was a bigger threat to us than russia. you had an announcement that the u.s. naval fleet was going to do a set exercises in september over a week sending a message. you had a new dod, pentagon report on threats to our military industrial base, including raw materials and especially metals from china and so on and so forth and it all came together last week. i talked to a senior professional who said over the last two years officials have worked for thousands of hours, studies, assessments and just decided that, you know, we brought china in. we thought as they modernized economically they would become more liberal in terms of human rights, democracy, common cause with the united states. we've given up on that now and

we think it's time to counter them. what they don't have, what's clear is what they are doing is bold, what they don't have is a strategy to share the world together and that's what i was calling for them to do. >> i was just going to say since 1994, 1995 congress has been fighting this battle. we've talked about extending mfm, most favorite trade status to china if they focused on human rights and stealing of intellectual property, religious freedoms. every year they blew through every stop sign that was put up and every year we turned our cheek. that's been happening for 20 years. i wonder whether more foreign policy leaders in washington, d.c. and in the west are actually believing that maybe u.s. leaders before trump were a bit too easy on china. did not hold them to account enough until it was too late.

>> look, what you have to say about president trump is on many issues he is highlighting issues that are real and previous presidents haven't taken on in a real way. the real question is can he put together a comprehensive strategy over time that turns some of that around. secretary pompeo today was in beijing and he got dressed down by the foreign minister of china for the fact that the trump administration was getting more offensive and more comprehensive in the way it was taking things on. then over the weekend china is worried enough about its economy that it's loosened up the reins on minimum reserve requirements for banks pouring $100 million of new liquidity into the economy, which shows that they are worried that all trade dispute could have some real impact on their economic growth. >> i want to take the same question to you as joe did. is it actually time for a more

aggressive pose tour towards china, speaking as a long time member of the traditional republican foreign policy establishment? >> that's a great question. i used to think we were too soft on china. now concerned we may be too hard and in the wrong ways. there's no question that china presents a growing threat, for example, their power grab on the south china sea. they've militarized and taken control of it and we've allowed that to happen. in the mid '90s, bill clinton sailed aircraft carrier groups through the taiwan straits when china was threatening taiwan. that's not something we would do today because the threat from china is too grave. now we're not focused on the military threat that china poses. we're focused on the economic threat. there are some that we need to deal with including theft of

technology and espionage. but i'm concerned trump is on the verge of blowing up our relations with one of the most important countries. donald trump is not clear about what he's trying to achieve. sometimes he talks about china's theft of technology, but other times he talks about the fact that china has a trade surplus with the united states. if you ask any economist, they will tell you that the fact that china has a surplus is not a bad thing. that just means they're producing a lot of high quality low cost goods that americans want to buy. if we were really serious about standing up to china, we would do so with our partners and allies. yet the very first thing he did was exit the trans pacific partnership. this trade area meant to bolster our allies against china. and he exited that. so that doesn't make any sense.

>> fred, max was just talking about how u.s. companies and of course european companies are becoming too tied to chinese companies, whether it's apple or other tech companies. all of this activity, as you pointed out in your weekly newsletter, came before we found out that the chinese actually had used components and used chips in american products so they could spy on americans. >> look, what's clear is there's unfair trade practices, cyber attacks. but i agree max that this is not the soviet union. this is not a decrepit society.

china according to some measures is the largest economy already from 2014. other measures, it will be soon. it is integrated into the global economy all over the place, into supply chains all over the place. so you're not going to be able to go to war, at least you shouldn't go to war with china. the real question is how can you create a world order that accommodated china but also protects our interest. there max is also right. we haven't seen what graham allison is calling for which is extreme imagination to construct a new world order. max's new book is "the corrosion of conservatism." still ahead we'll be speaking with someone else who just last night left the republican party. else who just last night left the republican party

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still ahead, president trump is set to take a victory lap tonight with a public prime time swearing in ceremony for brett kavanagh. but for much of the gop, the celebration has already begun. snl wasn't too far off. >> i see mitch mcconnell here. how are you feeling? >> awesome. whoo! >> do you feel like this is a win you can be proud of? >> oh hell yeah, dana. republicans read the mood of the country and we could tell people really wanted kavanaugh. everyone's pumped from white men over 60 white men over 70. 70. cancer survivor. surviving for five years is a big deal. i had so many people at ctca helping me find a way to go through the treatments. the reality of cancer is not everybody survives.

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sergeant at arms will restore order in the gallery. the sergeant at arms will restore order in the gallery. >> that was the scene in the senate gallery on saturday as protests swept through the capital, including during the confirmation vote of brett kavanagh to the supreme court.

the senate confirmed kavanaugh in a 50-48 vote saturday afternoon. in a private ceremony, kavanaugh was sworn in by chief justice john roberts and retired justice anthony kennedy, the court's long time swing vote whom he will replace. we have mike barnicle and mark mckinnen. and professor john meechum. joe, why don't you try and set the scene for us, what this will mean for the midterms, what this will mean for democrats, what

this will mean for republicans, the senate. >> well, we'll hear from our esteemed guests, but a lot of talk, mika, this weekend about how this was going to be different, the supreme court would never be respected again, the supreme court wouldn't be able to work together again. of course, in that swearing in ceremony also justice kagan, justice sotomayor was there. the supreme court will go on and united states congress will go on, the government will continue its business. the only question is who is going to be running it? is it going to be run by mitch mcconnell, is it going to be run by people who did what they did over the past couple of weeks, and then were cheerleaders. that's going to be actually our first story after saying that we were trying to get a justice on

the supreme court that was impartial, that was neutral, that was going to be an umpire and ref and tell it down the middle, they spent all weekend gloating like they had just won a high school football game on friday night. it was shabby and it was sad. >> yeah. >> but, mika, 30 days. if you don't like what happened. >> right. >> you can scream in restaurants all you want. you can protest all you want, but you've got 30 days to register, to register your friends, to register your family members, to get them out to vote, to change washington and to change the world. >> yeah. >> and if you don't like what happened this past week, or if you love what happened this past weekend, you've got 30 days. all the talking, all the

screaming, all the shouting over the next month means nothing. what matters is getting out the vote for your side, whatever that side is. i can't -- i can't think of a big term election, mika, that has carried more weight and that has meant more. as if americans needed more evidence of just how important voting in a month is going to be, we have what happened over the weekend. >> well, this weekend was a real opportunity for a dignified, respectful response. republicans celebrated the confirmation of brett kavanaugh as a victory for republicans. activists tweeted photos of their alcohol with the #beers4brett. john cornyn posted a photo of sparkling wine reading not quite beers for brett, but bubbly for brett instead. i don't know why this is funny. >> it's actually not funny. >> it's not. >> it's distressing.

they are talking about the united states supreme court. lindsey graham, why don't we show what he did. >> he wrote, i'm not tired of winning. victory. press secretary sarah sanders invoked the 2016 election, quote, congratulations judge kavanaugh. instead of a 6-3 liberal court under hillary clinton we now have a 5-4 conservative supreme court under president donald trump cementing a tremendous legacy for the president and a better future for america. >> i want to top right there really quickly, then we will get to mitch mcconnell and everybody else. jon meachum to say it is hard to see barack obama or george w. bush or bill clinton or george h.w. bush or ronald reagan, their parties gloating this way -- >> keep going. you have 40 more to go.

>> jimmy carter. >> i've got 40 more to go. this is, again, so unbecoming and it proves what day traders they all are. i have to say classless in this respect that they're acting like it's a high school football game when, in fact, we are talking about a deciding vote on the u.s. supreme court. no dignity and not at all. >> and it's the great tell of the process, as you point out a second ago. on the one hand when it serves their purposes they argue that this is about justices is blind, this is about qualifications and then when it serves their purposes five seconds later you get the dancing around, you get that ahistorical and ill informed and worst nightmare reaction from the white house press secretary actually putting the court under trump and

putting these justices in these boxes, which you had just been saying wasn't really what this was about. so it's the -- i guess we should be shocked, shocked that there's partisanship in washington, but what we can be if not shocked, we can continue to be concerned about, is the -- this idea of the court as just another battlefield in this tribal era. court has always been political, always will be. one interesting thing, i think, is that we now have a court where we have one president -- just justice appointed by the one-term president george h.w. bush, two by clinton, two by 43, two by obama, two by trump. so to some extent we now not only the way harry truman said we always get the government we deserve, we now have the supreme court that follows the presidents we elected.

>> mark mckinnon, you certainly know george w. bush very well and have known him for a very long time. what's the likelihood that anybody that worked for him putting out a statement like that after, let's say, justice roberts went to the supreme court, talking about the supreme court now under george w. bush and painted in such stark ideological terms, what's the chance that they would still have their job by the end of the day? >> not great, joe. in fact, what he always used to tell us was don't dance in the end zone, act like you've been there before. to your question, joe, about turnout i think the fundamental answer is easy. it's who is madder. who is mad. that's who's going to turn out. it was interesting to see the swing over the last couple weeks. it looked like the vote was going to be rushed through democrats suddenly got energized, suddenly when it went into overtime last week and i was in tennessee and texas and republicans were really activated, but i suspect now given the outcome there may be complacency on the republican

side and democrats being activated. i thought about last week john mccain. we missed his voice. i'm not saying where he would have landed or ended up, but he would have put everybody through an acid bath through the process on both sides. what would john mccain do, i want to send it to all 100 senators to think about that because the process was ugly, unfair, unjust and needs to be changed. >> i've got the first person you can send that to, his name is lindsey graham who is behaving -- he's just the antithesis of what john mccain was through his entire career. he obviously learned absolutely nothing working alongside of him. so, mike, a bigger question for democrats, they now are -- well, they now have a court with four people appointed on that court from republican presidents who

got elected while losing the popular vote and the united states senate now is controlled by about 18% of the population and if you look at the primary process the most extreme elements in that 16% of the population. this is not a time to say that we need to rework the constitution of the united states. that's not the problem. the problem is that the democrats don't seem to know how to win west of the hudson or east of reno. isn't this a good time for the democratic party to reexamine who they are and figure out whether they want to get outside of their blue bubbles on both coasts so they can start winning senate races in middle america again and start figuring out how to appoint supreme court justices? >> well, joe, i think the democrats have to sit down as a group and decide who they are and decide what the country is all about.

i don't think they know what the country is all about. this was an extraordinarily depressing sequence of events that this country has just been through and headed by what happened over the weekend where you have the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell, choosing ideology over the country in terms of his celebration. where you have the press secretary to the president of the united states clearly unaware that there are three independent branches of government, the legislative, the executive and the judicial, and as jon meachum pointed out in her tweet or whatever it was or statement, you know, that under hillary clinton, a supreme court justice we won't have them under hillary clinton. the justices are supposed to be independent. the politics of the process, people are used to that, but it's just extraordinarily depressing that what has happened over the past few days and it's even more depressing, i

think, for democrats to see that not a single democratic voice really was raised in opposition to what lindsey graham did during the hearings by calling out democrats. not a single democrat said, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. not one. something wrong there. still ahead, the supreme court doesn't look the same this morning. neither does the u.s. senate. how the battle over brett kavanagh is changing capitol hill. apitol hill who wants customizable options chains? ones that make it fast and easy to analyze and take action? how about some of the lowest options fees? are you raising your hand? good then it's time for power e*trade the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. alright one quick game of rock, paper, scissors. 1, 2, 3, go. e*trade. the original place to invest online.

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destroy him. we didn't go on a search and destroy message, we simply followed the tradition in america which is if you have a party of a different -- a different -- senate of a different party than the president you don't fill a vacancy created in a presidential year. that went all the way back to 1888. you would have to go back to 1880 to find the last time a senate controlled by a different party from the president confirmed a supreme court justice to a vacancy created in the middle of a presidential election. they also conveniently forgot that joe biden said in 1992 when he was chairman of the judiciary committee if a vacancy occurred they wouldn't fill it. they also conveniently forgot that chuck schumer and harry reid 18 months before the end of bush 43 said if a supreme court vacancy occurred they wouldn't fill it. talk about hypocrisy. >> but, mr. leader, i don't think that's right. in 1956 eisenhower nominated brennan, the 84th congress was democrat controlled. and also on the biden rule, joe

biden was talking in the abstract. there was no nominee, no nominee was blocked and he said to not have the nomination come up before the election, but that it could come up after the election. so democrats say when they hear you doing this they say he's creating new rules to essentially do what he wants to do and as you've written in your book "the long game" when you do that it actually hurts democracy. >> that's not exact -- that's not at all what happened, joe. you are completely misconstruing what happened. what i gave you is the history of this. i know the history of this. i've spent a lot of time on this throughout my career. what i did was entirely consistent with what the history of the senate has been in that situation going back to 1880. >> well, i think the 1956 example and also in 1968 later in the election cycle when a democratic president put somebody forward the republican leader worked with him to get that person a hearing and get him towards the supreme court, which is not something that you did. a vote --

>> then there was a democrat in the white house and a democratic senate. >> but the republican leader at the time tried to help the democratic president. >> john, you are not listening to me. the history is exactly as i told you. >> oh, really? >> it's like a used car salesman. >> the history is what i told you. >> this car only has three tires on it. >> no, no, it's got four tires on it. you are not listening to me. it's got four tires. that was, first of all, good job by john dickerson. >> amazing. >> now they're moving the goal post to different parties pretty soon, yamiche, i suppose if it serves him there will be a leprechaun rule, no, we can do it if there is not a leprechaun who is a vice -- he's changing history, adjusting facts to suit his purposes today, but, of course, the great concern is the long-term ramifications even when democrats get back in power.

perhaps it goes, you know, harry reid moved the goal posts, now you have mitch mcconnell moving the goal posts and the question is what comes next? how undignified can this process become? >> well, i've talked to democratic sources who say if only we had a mitch mcconnell. there are a lot of democrats who are looking at mitch mcconnell and say, yeah, what he did was changing the rules, what he did was in some dis despicable in many people's minds but he bet the long game and bet his party's future on the idea that he could supreme court if he just had enough time and he did that. he was able to say i'm not going to even look at merrick garland even if it hurt the republicans in the 2016 election for whatever reason it didn't hurt them enough to not get donald trump elected. then you have donald trump elected and he was able to fill that seat. you have a lot of democrats who are saying we need to make sure that when we talk about changing our democratic leadership i'm thinking of nancy pelosi and chuck schumer we still have to remember that these are people who understand how the senate

works and can deal with the same rules in the same way that mitch mcconnell does. there is a win there for republicans that's undeniable. what it does of course for the republican party when you look at millennials, when you look at women and you look at the way that they see what mitch mcconnell did is a whole other story. >> i can't help but think, jon senator lindsey graham used some choice word to describe the supreme court fight. that is next on "morning joe." that is next on "morning joe."

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senator lindsey graham was perhaps the most vocal supporter of brett kavanagh in the senate, even erupting in anger at the nominee's critics during the confirmation hearings. speaking to reporters moments after kavanaugh was confirmed, the south carolina republican insisted dr. christine blasey ford was treated well by the senate and offered this by way of comparison. >> i think dr. ford was treated well. i think the roles were reversed. the shut whore drunk was kavanaugh. >> mm-hm.

um, mike barnicle, what would n john mccain do? what would john mccain say? >> i think he would say, lindsey, who are you, what has happened to you? clearly he morphed into a donald trump supporter before judge mccain was even put in the ground. it is shocking how quickly he switched over to maybe who he really is. we don't know who he really is. we've had him on here, joe and mika, as you know, numerous times, he is engaging, he can be funny, he can be sort of introspective about things like the united states senate. but during the course of these hearings, he is someone who is unrecognizable in terms of what you thought he was. i mean, mark, i don't know what your take on it is, but, i mean, who is he? >> i can't remember, although it happens all the time, the

distance and gulf between where lindsey graham was and where he was now. you think about the things he said during the campaign about donald trump, couldn't be further from where he is now and you just get a sense is this senator graham speaking or is this future attorney general graham speaking? >> he wants to be attorney general so badly, mika. i guess you do what you -- what he thinks he has to do. >> yeah, he's lost me. on friday president trump falsely claimed protesters were not motivated by their concerns but by paychecks from billionaire george soros, instead, quote -- >> that's a very old, tired, anti-semitic -- they old anti-semitic trick that people have claimed, usually on the internet. >> the rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make senators look bad, don't fall for t look at the professionally made

identical signs paid for by soros and others. these are not signs made in the basement from love. with the pga troublemakers. trump's comments which was examined and debunked by the "washington post" came shortly after this exchange on fox business with judiciary chair chuck grassley. >> do you believe george soros is behind all of this, paying these people to get you and your colleagues in elevators or wherever they can get in your face? >> i tend to believe it. i believe it fits in his attack mode that he has. >> yamiche, are these protesters paid or what do you make of this? >> no, i don't think the protesters are paid by george soros, but even further, what i want to say is that the republican party and a lot of the republican leadership are really acting like donald trump. i've been taken aback by covering president trump and all this conversation that people had about him coming in and

maybe being somehow watered down by the republican leadership and maybe there are adults in the room who will make president trump act in a different way. what we've seen and said is that everyone starts acting like president trump. coming up, republicans hope the supreme court fight will energize their voters. why tom nichols, a professor at the u.s. naval war college says he is out of the gop. says he is out of the gop - [announcer] the typical vacuum head can struggle

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i view the word conservative as derivative of the word conservative. we want to conserve our money, we want to conserve our wealth. we want to be smart, where we go, how we spend. we want to conserve our country. >> donald trump there during the 2016 campaign and what it means

to him to be a conservative. with us now, we have columnist and editor at the "washington post" ruth marcus. and professor at the u.s. naval war college and author of the book "the death of expertise" tom nichols joins us. let's start with the piece. you write, unlike senator susan collins who took pages of text on national television to tell us something we already knew, i will cut right to the chase. i'm out of the republican party. they have become all about winning. winning means not losing. instead of acting like a coequal branch of government responsible for advice and consent, congressional republicans now act like a parliamentary party facing the constant threat of a vote of no confidence. so i'm out. the trumpers and the hucksters

and the consultants and the hangers on like a colony of bees who exist only to sting and die have swarmed together in a dangerous but suicidal cloud. and when that mindless high finally extinguishes itself in a blaze of venom, there will be nothing left. all right then. >> tom, thank you so much for being with us. i wanted you to be on after i noticed i had retweeted you about 14 times in one afternoon. soon after i did, then of course the punch line came and that was that you were leaving the republican party. i thought one of your most interesting and important points is that the republican party became what they hated. and that is a group of people that wanted to achieve by judicial fiat that which they couldn't achieve at the voting booth. >> yeah. it's really remarkable the way that the republicans and

democrats have switched roles here in that the republicans now act like they're an embattled cultural minority that is constantly on the verge of extinction and that therefore they have so little faith in their own ideas and their ability to achieve what they want through legislation, that their entire rationale for being has been to engage in the raw exercise of power to put judges in places, unelected judges. remember, republicans used to complain all the time about unelected judges, to carry forward their agenda even after they're gone. >> the judicial fiat that they want achieved would be of course the overturning of roe v wade, something that over 60% of americans oppose. yet that's at the end of the day, at least on twitter with a lot of conservative actactivist

that's what this fight has been primarily about, getting this judge to do something that 6 in 10 americans oppose. >> i don't represent any views here but my own. i think that the rationalization of republicans and roe v wade is how republicans have rationalized lives of immense hypocrisy. they are claiming they are engaged in a project so important that it excuses all other sins, whether it's donald trump's character or tariffs or caving to russia. if pushes against the wall they say, yes, all those things are true, but i'm doing it because of the future of unborn children and that excuses everything. i'm not sure i believe in the sincerity of a lot of the folks who say that. i think a lot of people really do believe that, but i also

think that's all they're left with, is to say i'm going to get a judge that's going to do these things and that's why i'm accepting all this other terrible stuff. >> a lot of conservatives, it appears to be fewer and fewer conservatives. let me read another part of your piece. let me say i have no love for the democratic party which is torn between totalitarian instincts on one side and complete political malpractice on the other. talk about picking your poison. right now for so many actually real conservatives who believe in limited government, there just is no good choice out there if the only choice is between t. >> this is the time for the seine trycentrists to join forc

as best they can. the republicans are acting like a parliamentary party all the way down to state legislatures and town halls. we're losing the whole notion of separated powers and federalism and i think it has to stop. >> you work at the naval war college in rhode island, once represented by a classic eastern republican john chafy. you've made this declaration you're no longer a member of that party. how many people have come up to you and said, what took you so long? >> that's really such -- that's one of the things i instantly mute on twitter when someone says what took you so long. i've been a republican since 1979. to leave a party you've been a member of for 40 years is not something you take lightly. i think i finally left for good. i was es statranged from the pa

after the 2012 elections. but to leave for good required me to say there is no future in this party. there's nothing for me that when all this is over i can identify the people that i'm going to gravitate to to reconstitute the party. no party is perfect. there have been things about the republican party i've never liked, things i've always liked. but this is where i finally came to belief the republican party cannot recover from the compromises that it's made. at some point, you sell your soul, you don't get it back. >> as you know, i'm optimistic. i believe that things can always get better, that this country and political parties can turn the corner. but really who is there in the republican party that hasn't already sold their soul to donald trump? >> right. >> just because donald trump is going to leave power sooner or

later, who do you associate yourself with? mike pence. is mike pence presidential timber after he sold his soul to donald trump? what senator, lindsey graham? we could go down the list. unfortunately nobody has stood up to the absolute worst instincts and the breaching of constitutional norms of donald trump. >> we ask time and time again why many of these republicans who are so complicit don't see how this is going to end. it can't end well. i can't think of a positive ending. ruth marcus, does this open the door for an independent candidate? where is this going? because it doesn't feel like when you look at polling and the midterms and the senate, it doesn't feel like the democrats have an incredibly strong, sturdy response to all of this in the form of a leader.

>> the road for an independent candidate is a really uphill road. look at michael bloomberg who has probably spent more time and money examining that road than anybody else. and he seems to have concluded if he's going to run for president, it's going to be as a democrat. there's a super crowded democratic field. how that shakes itself out is really up in the air. but i share both joe's optimism and his worry. i have thought that our constitutional system is really resilient, but the shakiest leg of the stool has been the feckless legislative branch and the absolute unwillingness of senators and house members to stand up to president trump. and we've seen that on display. now i'm adding for my own just to kind of cheer everybody up a little bit further, a new worry, not about how the court is going

to function internationally, because the justices will manage to forget what they saw in justice kavanaugh's testimony and cooperate with him. but in terms of the country's perception of the court as a legitimate non-partisan institution, justice kavanaugh talked about that himself, but i really fear he's done grave damage to that. >> tom, it's always hard to leave your tribe. i have a question for you, which is the people that i have seen leave the tribe in the trump era, people like you and joe and bill crystal and max boot, it's intellectuals, writers, people in the media. the president is extraordinarily popular among the rank and file, perhaps more so than any other president in years and years and years. and those include voters who have voted for people like mitt romney and john mccain. has the party changed, or has

trump kind of pulled something out of the party that was there and latent or there and a minority part of the party and made it the main purpose of the party? >> i think there was always something in the party that resented coastal elites, intellectuals, but that we had a larger -- we had an uneasy alliance among ourselves because i think we shared some basic values. i think trump has turned the republican project that was conceptualized during the reagan era as positive. now it's we no longer have things to achieve. here are the people i'm going to punish and get even with. republicans don't like to talk about this, i think, but some of that radicalization happened after eight years of barack obama. some of this is racial resentment. it's the sense that the information age has produced a

gap between people with education and people who can manage in this 21st century economy and people who can't. i think it's a combination of things. there was always a latent racial tension. there was always a latent class tension and a difficulty of dealing with, again, the elites, the intellectuals and so on. trump really took that and ran and said everybody is against you. this is one of the reasons i left. the one thing that i think made republicans and conservatives deferent fr different from liberals in the '70s and '80s, we were the party of optimism. we didn't think of ourselves as victims. now we are the party of eternal victimhood. trump supporters are constantly claiming they're forgotten and nobody loves them enough. i find that amazing for people

that control all the branches of government. >> president trump is apparently using opposition to separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border to attack the democrats. at a campaign rally on saturday night in kansas, the president repeated several of his usual falsehoods and exaggerations along with adding this. >> every single democrat in the u.s. senate has signed up for the open borders and it's a bill. it's called the open borders bill. what's going on? and it's written by, guess who, diane feinstein. >> there's no bill by that name. >> it doesn't exist. >> there's no bill by that name. he's just making that up. if you're in the audience, you have to be asking yourself why does donald trump think i am so stupid? why does donald trump play me for a fool? why does donald trump think i'm

such an idiot? i know that so many of those people in that kansas audience have to be angry at donald trump for him thinking they are so stupid, that they are such bumpkins, that they are such fools that they can't just go on google. i know this morning they have to be deeply disappointed that their president would lie through his teeth to them and use them as a punch line. >> they didn't sound all that disappointed. every time you think we've reached a new low, president trump goes a little further. but this was just an extraordinary amount of blatant dishonesty in the service of nativist ugliness. so the combination of those two threads is such an illustration of where the republican party has gone. i'm not a member of either

party, haven't been for a long time. but you have to -- i hear the anguish in the voices of all of my republican and former republican friends who remain conservatives and believe that conserving is limited government and changing slowly and openness to sunny reaganist vision of america. and then to hear the president pull stunts like this is just sickening. >> mika, the lying. and you even see it all over the place from people that i've known and have known me for a long time and know that i've written three books. they all say the same thing. they're all attacks on big government republicanism, 2004, 2009, 2013. when it comes to bloated budgets, i'm a one trick pony.

there are a few people out there like that still, but they seem to be fading by the day. >> tom nichols, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. >> thank you, tom. great having you on you, tom. great having you o up next, 17 years after the u.s. invasion of afghanistan, a new poll shows americans, including veterans, want out we'll discuss that next on "morning joe." that's right no fees on loans to remodel your bathroom. ♪ no fees on loans to consolidate your credit card debt. see no fees just feels good. ♪ boo yeah. if you've got the drive, you can do a lot with no fees on personal loans. boo yeah.

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the pentagon released the name of an american soldier killed in afghanistan on thursday. sergeant james slate, the member of the north carolina army national guard, died from wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device in helmand province. at 23 years old, was just 6 when the war in afghanistan began 17 years ago this week. there are approximately 15,000 u.s. troops stationed in afghanistan. and a new survey from an institute and real clear prosta attitude finds a higher percentage of current and former members are skeptical about the use of power. 49% believe we should be less engaged. that's six points higher than the nation at large. 33% think levels should stay about the same. and 17% say more engaged. asked about the choice to send troops to afghanistan in 2001,

54% of active duty and military veterans feel it was correct and 31% say it was a mistake. 30% called america's military involvement in afghanistan either unsuccessful or very unsuccessful. 33% said neither. and 24% called it successful. and on whether the u.s. has a clear strategic objective in afghanistan, 59% said no. 23% said yes. and 17% don't know. asked about u.s. troop levels in afghanistan in the next year, a plurality of 30% say remove all troops. 25% want them kept the same. and 19% want to decrease just 15% want troop levels increased. >> you know, it's interesting, mika, a lot of americans wantsed us to remove all troops from iraq. >> yes. >> and we did so.

and the result was isis. the result was chaos. the result was a lot of things we're still paying for now. i understand the anger and the frustration. we've expressed it on this show time and time again. but there are no easy answers. with us now, the executive director of the head strong project and u.s. army veterans of the wars in afghanistan and iraq. joe, who are "the new york times" op-ed last month called for an end to the iraq war. thank you so much, greatly appreciate it. tell us why now is the time after so many years to get out of afghanistan. >> yes, as you mentioned, the soldier who was, you know, killed in afghanistan last week, he was probably 5 years old when the war started. and i think 17 years later, without a strategy, without

attainable objectives or reasonable exit strategy, i think a lot of veterans out there are asking, you know, what are we still doing there. and pulling the troops out, it's not a perfect solution. but it's better than the current plan or lack of plan that's going on right now. >> joe -- you wrote a truly lasting and beautiful piece in "the new york times" in september and there was aful lowup i think last week to it, with the enormous response to that piece. people can go to "the new york times" website or google a piece. i could encourage them to do it. it was triggered -- your service in afghanistan and iraq was triggered by the loss of your brother, jimmy, 23 years of age, on the morning of september 11th. now are you at the point where you're wondering, the two questions, that have forever gone unanswered in this forever war are, what are we doing there

and when are we coming home? >> i think if there's anyone out there that wanted to go to afghanistan, after losing a brother, it was me. and president bush wanted me to go to invade company da, would have been the first one to the border. because you're 21 years old. when you actually go to afghanistan and you realize the complexities, that one day someone is part of the taliban, the next minute they're part of the afghan forces. there's a lot of different criminal groups. i just don't see the utility now of having a united states military person in the middle of it. >> joe, the war in afghanistan has been the policy of this country through three administrations, string of theater commanders and we are still there and the reasons we're there change and our strategy for winning changes but we're still there. is the problem in our country that we can't admit here that we can't win? >> i don't think about winning

or losing. it's about the chains keep moving on what we want to accomplish there. to me, it's a strategy and attainable objectives. if it was to get rid of bin laden, that was achieved. if it was to get rid of the taliban early on, we should have left 16 years ago. the sad part is no one cares. there's not one politician out there that's pumping, oh, let's stay in afghanistan. i think president trump, who campaigned on getting us out of afghanistan, perhaps was bullied by the military complex of generals and colonels that are keeping us out there and there's this kind of thing of we're going to stay there just because we put so many resources into it and when young veterans and soldiers are dying overseas, i don't think that's a good solution or strategy. >> mika, how few of us served there as well. >> yes. joe quinn, thank you so much. you can find more information about his organization, which provides free mental health

treatment for post-9/11 veterans to get. it is time for final thoughts. as we look ahead to the prime-time swearing in of brett kavanaugh tonight, joe. >> really quickly, we are where we were in 2016. a lot of people saying the republican party's headed the wrong direction, and yet they swept in 2016. whether they sweep again in 2018 and donald trump is validated by voters, that depends on what everybody does 30 days from today. >> exactly. if you feel something about this, vote. that does it for us this morning. ayman mohyeldin picks up the coverage now. >> hello there, everyone, i'm ayman mohyeldin in for stephanie ruhle. maximum impact, new questions this morning about now supreme court justice brett kavanaugh's potential influence on the court and the midterms. does he help or