libbed. there's sure to be bites out of those. >> and not only that, he is just out there. a lot of chat regarding the president. thank you so much. that does it for me on this tuesday morning. i'm frances rivera. "morning joe" starts right now. >> i have great confidence in my intelligence people, but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. his denial could not have been stronger that he had no knowledge. and it sounded like he and also the crown prince had no knowledge. >> huh. president trump struck a remarkably similar tone when pressed on russian hacking and the alleged murder by a saudi arabia of a washington post columnist. >> you know, mika, the question

is, either the president is way too naive to be commander in chief or he's way too willing to believe the word of autocrats who murder political opponents. >> naivety is beautiful in a baby, but not in the president of the united states. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, october 16th. >> willie geist, just like a baby. naive as a baby. >> i'm not a baby. >> babies are sweet. >> you're not a baby, willie. >> i'm not talking about you being a baby. i'm talking about the president being a baby. >> you're baby, but in a different way. >> a hgb agent who goes around believing political opponents and killing journalists, you heard him had right there. he was naive as a baby. and now this khashoggi murder, he's being naive as a baby there. willie, what do you think about this? we've got a commander in

chief -- >> who is a baby. >> basically naive as a baby. >> what he may have done is give the saudis the idea for the rogue killers's explanation or announce it before it was supposed to be announced with this idea that was cooked up to explain it to the rogue killers. >> so what you're saying is not a baby, just incredibly cynical and doing the dirty work for autocratic killers. >> we're going to get to a mix of big stories today. general jim mattis reacts to president trump's suggestion that he's a democrat who needs to study up on nato. that's delicious. plus, democrats just spent the last few days talking about bill and hillary clinton. and elizabeth warren's plans for 2020. are they missing the message just days ahead of critical midterms? >> yes, they are. guys -- >> 22 days. >> note to self, we don't need

hellry right now talking about monica lewinski being an adult at the age of 22 when she was taken advantage of. bad move. please, no matter what you think of it, don't come after me. just please, put the knife down. >> go to the phone banks, please. >> aye. >> stay away from blenders in your kitchen. call people up, democratic voters. don't hurt the cause. thank you very much. that is all. speaking of the midterms, republican chris collins is running for congress while out on bail. >> that seems very appropriate for republicans in 2018. >> could the from transform can confident win re-election while facing charges? >> you have the other one out in california, the guy who blamed his wife, got mad because the navy wouldn't give him an all-expense paid trip to italy. >>. >> it was all the wife. >> i think that guy is running

like third reich commercials against his opponent. if the third reich had gone after muslims. anti-on muslim rhetoric in that campaign right now just completely over the top and he can win the race. not third reich, but you know what i'm saying. >> yes. >> anti-muslim commercials. >> speaking of commercials, have you seen the latest commercials from the guy running against ted cruz? the it's the burgers and stuff, that old guy. i love it. from an outside group, not from his opponent. >> if you can get a positive reference about whataburger in at the same time that you are sliding white castle for being the home of, you know, the yankees, that's pretty good. did you see that commercial can yet, willie? >> i did. it's a good one. it's from the same one we played

earlier in the week. and i would throw crystal out in the mix as long as we're talking about mini burgers. >> i was going to see, if ted cruz is knocking whataburger and he's embracing white castle and he can't just have one -- barnacle is a yankee and barnacle has to know that mana from hiveeaven, it's a crystal burger, when you're finished you go through the mall parking lot, you stop at the chick-fil-a and then you take a left and go into the whataburger parking lot and that's what i call lunch when i'm in pensacola right there. >> that's terrible. >> i could watch that all day long. >> can you put that up right now, alex? >> that might be too much to

ask. we have a lot of news to get to. >> what about john oliver making fun of mika's pig? >> i like that. >> do we have that one? can can we put that one up right now? because that was disturbing. all right. let's get to the news. now to the latest in the disappearance of washington post columnist jamaal khashoggi. president trump spoke with saudi king solomon yesterday and offered up this explanation to reporters. >> i just spoke with the king of saudi arabia. who denies any knowledge of what took place with regard to as his saudi arabian citizen. we are going to leave nothing uncovered. with that being said, the king firmly denied any knowledge of it. he didn't really know, maybe -- i don't want to get into his

mind, but it sounded to me maybe maybe these could have been rogue killers. who knows. all i can do is report what he told me and he told me in a very firm way that they had no knowledge of it. he said it very strongly. his denials to me could not have been stronger that he had no knowledge. and it sounded like he and also the crown prince had no knowledge. it wasn't like there was a question in his mind. the denial was very, very strong. >> maybe, maybe rogue, i mean, willie geist, maybe rogue killers. this is along the lines that ted cruz's father killing jfk. i mean -- by the way, did he -- i didn't see the rest of that press conference. did he blame ted cruz's father for killing khashoggi? >> not this time. >> seriously, so he takes -- he

not only -- he plants a conspiracy theory. >> so he says rogue killers and just hours after that nbc report, the saudi arabia government is discussing a plan to sdmit admit khashoggi was killed in the consulate. two of those people tell nbc news the saudis are putting together an explanation that would absolve solomon of giving him plausible deniability adding he was told close to those with saudi leadership that the kingdom would claim that rogue operatives killed khashoggi during a terrorist attempt that went write. nbc's recording advances early reports that the saudis will claim khashoggi was killed in an interrogation gone wrong and president trump was asked about

that yesterday, as well. >> unauthorized interrogation, does that sound -- >> i just don't know. i'm going to have to see what they say. and we're working very close with saudi arabia and with turkey and they're working together to figure out what happened. and they want to know what happened, also. so a lot of people are working on it. a lot of people. and we'll be bound very much by that. we'll see. i heard that report, but nobody knows if it's an official report. so far, it's the rumor of report coming out. >> meanwhile, secretary of state mike pompeo arrived for a face-to-face meeting with solomon to find out what happened firsthand what's going on. gene, let me ask you about this. i'm interested in the role that jared kushner played in all this. we know he's very close to the

crown prince. i want to know how much he discussed with solomon and if together they cooked up this idea that it was rogue killers who killed khashoggi if, in fact, he was killed. >> i want to know, too, willie. funny thing, we haven't heard a peep from jared kushner who is perhaps the person in the administration with the direct line to mohammed solomon. but we haven't heard any answers there. look, this rogue killer's explanation, this is absurd. you know, a team of 15 guys equipped with a bone saw show up in istanbul for this intersection and that's some sort of rogue operation? it seems very clear from what we know or what we think we know that this was a pretty elaborate

plan that had to be authorized and everything we know about mohammed ben solomon and the way he operates, it suggests nothing like this would have happened without his direct approval. so this -- it sounds like this is the cover story and i think the president gave us a preview. maybe he got a hint from the king. but i think he gave us a preview of what the story is going to be later today. >> and think about what the saudis are saying if, in fact, they're going with this rogue operative. they're saying all we intended to do was abduct, torture and interrogate this journalist.. we just didn't mean to kill him. >> that's supposed to be the great news. we were just going to lure khashoggi in. we were going to interrogate him and take him back to saudi arabia and imprison him. but right now, the saudis and

donald trump find themselves in a position where they're desperate to keep investment going into saudi arabia. donald trump is democracy pratt to do whatever he can to basically play pr man for the saudis, just like he wanted to play ppr man for putin. he started on this show back in december of 2015 apologizing, mike barnacle, for vladimir putin being a murderer of journalists and being a murderer of political adversaries. i'm sorry, there is no explanation that donald trump makes a lot of money from the saudis and he doesn't want to upset them. just like the russians poured a lot of money into donald trump and the trump organization's coffers over the last decade of

so. this isn't about foreign policy. this isn't about human rights. this is about trump organization money. >> well, joe, the outlines of this story are pretty simple and they're very familiar. it's a line you just outlined and it's similar to his reaction to putin. this story also has to do with the $110 billion arms sales to saudi arabia. clearly more of a priority to the president of the united states than the national integrity of the united states foreign policy. mike pompeo is in saudi arabia today. he's going to meet with king solomon and with his son, the crown prince, mbs. and here is what he's going to do. this is an age-old story. he's there to make their story a bit better for when it finally comes out, probably later today, from the kingdom. and it will be, as you outlined, it's going to be a rendition gone awry that they ended up killing the guy. and they're going to get away with it, too.

they are going to get away with it. >> the question is, heidi, what happens on the hill? we've heard rand paul and some others who usually are obsequious to donald trump and cow tail to him, lindsey graham of late, being very critical of the saudis. are there enough republicans to cross the president when you have saudi leaders who are murdering washington post journalists? >> you would think that this would be the red line. we thought the red line may have been the tariffs. but in this case, yes, lindsey graham and several other republicans were strong in saying that the repercussions had to be severe. however, joe, it was within moments that the president really allowed mbs and the saudis to have this plausible deniability undercutting their own secretary of state's ability to go over there and be effective in his meeting, as well. like you said earlier, the only realistic outcome now would be

that pompeo is put in a position of having to rubber stamp whatever the saudis' explanation is. who goes to an interrogation with a bone saw. but that this was some kind of an interrogation that the saudis had no idea was going to lead to these consequences and a killing. so the implications are really, really significant because we've talked since the beginning of this presidency about the potential impact on human rights. that begins with journalists. i remember vividly a train trip when i talked to a group for international, who told me it was within months of trump taking office that they saw the worldwide threats to journalists going up. and this is kind of the -- in the extreme what is happening now in terms of human rights,

not only to journalists, but in several hot spots around the world. >> well, and look at the very places, mika, that donald trump calls leaders friends. vladimir putin and russia. journalists are murdered there all the time. opposition leaders are murdered there all the time. you look at what is obviously happening in saudi arabia, what happens in the philippines. other people mockingly. and, actually, not even mockingly calling journalists enemy of the people, but actually start to go pair it. donald trump's language, even assad in syria now starting to parrot, trump's language, enemy of the people. trump is parroting stalin's language when he does that. >> you're looking at potentially a dead journalist. >> here we have turkey trying to be good good guy, the white hat here. yet, mika, more journalists last year were killed or imprisoned in turkey than any country in

the world. so it is getting more dangerous by the day for journalists across the world and now apparently even journalists who work for "the washington post" now have to worry about governments like saudi arabia abducting them, killing them, and cutting them up with bone saws. >> look, this is vintage trump, sewing doubt,.propping up dictators, and people who are clearly on the side of wrong. look at him in the face of this, accusations that every day point more to what happened. and he's so in doubt and protecting them and saying maybe it could have been this or maybe it could have been that. he is showing extreme naivety on the world stage and it makes him look like a weak leader. >> he does look so weak and so

pathetic, just like he did in helsinki. >> a bumbling idiot. >> you have a guy who is scared of kgba agents, not man enough to stand up to them and not man enough to stand up to saudi sheikhs. that's what we have in a president? >> whatever they have on him better be worth it because he looks like a bumbling idiot. >> it's just money, i guess, though. is this what donald trump promised people? i thought he was going to be a strong leader. instead, he's cowtailing and heading these autocrats killing journalists in the light of day. >> that's not who we are. still ahead on "morning joe," donald trump books a decidedly smaller venuer for his appearance with ted cruz. >> no, no, i have to correct you there. fake news. donald trump this summer said he was going to find the largest arena in the state of texas,

sell it out and campaign for ted cruz, the same man who he believes his father killed jfk. that's what he promised this summer. willie, is it cowboys stadium? texas a&m? >> it had has to be jerry jones temple. >> maybe the aggies. their stadium holds like 102,000, 103,000. >> that may be it. >> it may be that. >> man. the 12th man. it will be amazing. cruz and trump going to go out on the field. the 12th man going to be going crazy. 102,000 texans with whataburgers in the right hand. screaming. >> screaming for the president. i've got to book me a ticket to college station, mika. this is exciting. >> we're going to talk about the optics of that and that memorable political ad. >> wait, wait, mika. >> yes, breaking news. what? >> i'm just hearing now from our

college station dispatch he's not going to be going there. >> no. >> it appears he will be about 2,000, 93,000 short of 102,000. >> so we'll get to that great ad about whataburgers. but first, bill carkarins with check on the forecast. >> dallas to ft. worth, flash flood watches continue. and it's cold. only in the 40s this time of year in texas. it's rare. but you can see where all the rain is this morning, north of san antonio. airport delays are likely. we have wet for weather for louisiana and back into areas of mississippi. in california, santa ana winds will be gusting today. we didn't get any of those big fires. let's cross our fingers and hope we can get to today, too. and how about the middle of the country? the cold air is with us.

right now, we're at 28 degrees in kansas city. 32 in wichita. we have freeze warnings in place. so it's a sunl up morning from chicago to detroit. so today's forecast, the exception to the rule is the southeast, tampa, 94 degrees today. we'll have 90s all the way up through savannah today. a nice day from d.c. through the northeast. i know a lot of people lost power in maine last night. strong storms went through with gusty winds. we'll continue to track our change of seasons. if you're in the southeast, you're one of the only people holding on to your summer warmth. new york city, the rain is over for a couple of days. fool, cool, chilly air is moving in. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ching "morn" we'll be right back.

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liberal, what does that even mean, ted? everybody i know in texas likes a whataburger. >> just as a consumer, i'm a big fan of eating white castle burgers. i like their burgers. >> i don't even know what that is. there's not a white castle within 900 miles of texas, ted. maybe up in canada. maybe up in canada, but not texas. >> oh, my lord. >> president trump said he would personally campaign in the texas senate race tweeting i will be doing a major rally for senator ted cruz in october. i'm picking the biggest stadium in texas we can find. >> awesome. >> and i confirmed in the break, it is kyle field, 102,000 people.

so the venue on october 22nd is for 8,000 people. the toyota center, home to the houston rockets, 18,000. this just two weeks after beta o'rourke and willie nelson attracted more than 50,000 people in austin, texas. the candidates will meet tonight in snow for their second debate. end of conversation. >> but end of conversation, that commercial is amazing, but it does point out something that, as you know, because you were in tennessee for four years, what self-respecting southerner or texan trashes whataburger and admits that they like white castle? i mean, it's -- >> whataburger is a san antonio company, by the way. >> but it's whataburger, it's crystal, and it's chick-fil-a.

that's your food pyramid in the south and in texas. there's no criticizing whataburger. that's like mana from heaven. >> i go chick-fil-a one, that's me. and crystal, if you need small burgers real kwquick, that's whe you want to be. >> do they not have whataburger in tennessee for you? >> they have it, but it was not central to our late night eating. >> whataburger was not only central to our family's late night eating, but it was so good, that's what we had for our thanksgiving dinner. >> oh, my gosh. you did not. >> we tell we would get about 24, put them in the middle of the table and have a very whataburger thanksgiving. it was beautiful. >> you lay it out with the fries. gorgeous. >> by the way, we need to start

giving -- they sell whataburger ketchup. so we need to start giving that as departing gifts to our "morning joe" gusts. >> steve kornacki is going to get some, then, because he's here to show new polls for republican house members. just out this hour, a new spectrum news/siena college poll shows republican chris collins is statistically tied with democrat nate mcmurray. the poll finds collins' favorbility rating in the district is a negative one, 37% to 49% with only 48% of republicans holding a favorable opinion of him. collins has pleaded not guilty to insider trading charges related to his board membership in an australian biotech firm. steve, let me stop there for a second. we'll get to utah in just a

second. is that about chris collins exclusively or is there a trump effect there, as well? >> that's it. joe will remember this name. every midterm cycle you end up getting a couple races like this where you can look at the national factors, but there's something happening locally. in 1994, the name was dan rostenkowski. he was running in chicago. dan was under indictment and lost his election to a republican. here you've got chris collins in a district that is the heart of sort of trump country in western new york, 25 points again for trump in 2016. collins, the first member of congress to endorse him but i think because of this indictment is sitting there in a dogfight now. >> republican mia love is even with ben mcadams in the utah fourth conal district.

republican mitt romney is dominating in polls there. in florida's 26th congressional district who voted for hillary clinton in 2016 and barack obama in 2012, republican carlos curbelo has a slight edge over debbie mucarsel-powell. >> carlos has been doing a pretty good job from the very beginning trying to separate himself from donald trump and represent the district more ideallogically. steve, let's look at a couple of other races. west virginia, the trumpiest state in the nation. here we are a very close race, again, within the margin of error between the republican and the democrat. >> and let me say first of all, that number you're looking up at your screen, this is exclusive to "morning joe." this is the first time anybody in the world is seeing this number. our friends at monmouth were

kind enough to let us release this here. you see carol miller leading richard ojeda. this is a district that donald trump carried by 50 points in 2016. you talk about that migration of west virginia from the democratic column as recently as the 1990s to a state trump won by 42 points. this district sort of captures that in terms of what trump did in 2016. i think there is a bigger sort of story to point out here. if you look at the poll in west virginia, the poll in utah with mia love, these are examples where there are local district-specific or candidate-specific factors that are are at play here in endangering seats for republicans that shouldn't be in danger. chris collins because of the indictment. utah out there, off state allergic to donald trump.

when you start looking at that path to a 23-seat gain for democrats, if they could pick off a.cup of districts like this, that could go a long way. if they pick up a couple that in normal times they would have no business picking up, that could be a differentmaker right there. so i think you're seeing it in three potential placeses here with these new polls. >> we've been talking about the kavanaugh effect for the past week or so, and if you went to the upshot, perhaps it was random selection, but if you went for the upshot for the weeks during and after the kavanaugh hearings, you would see one republican after another winning house races. now it seems to be the democrats that are doing better in virginia 10 which, of course, is barbara comstock's northern sdrikz. that's been a tough one for her all along. jennifer wexton, the democrat, ahead of her there be seven points. this is one of those suburban

districts that will be so hard for republicans to hold. >> and here is my question when you get to the races like this. is this a post kavanaugh effect where districts like this that you're looking at here, the suburbs of washington, d.c., a place hillary clinton won by 10 points in 2016, is it so strong that you're going to get a series of giant blue waves in districts like this. the question i have, though, is when you go to the next level of district, a place where donald trump maybe did better in 2016, maybe won it by a five to eight margin, those places where they've been getting a lot of good news, positive indicators all year, we need to see if there is a post kavanaugh effect

solidifying republicans in those places and potentially narrowing somewhat the options for democrats, where democrats could be doing even better now in these suburban areas, but sort of of the extra layer on top of that that they've been hoping for. >> mika, we've been talking a lot about how the kavanaugh hearings impact red states like ten ten, texas, missouri. >> right. >> but no doubt, it's helped for at least a week after the kavanaugh hearings. it's certainly helped republican candidates there. but if winning the house depends on not offending suburban voters any more than donald trump already has, then they're going to be a nightmare in those suburban districts. >> i agree. >> and it will actually help democrats a good bit. >> i was predicting more of a

net-net effect of both democrats and republicans getting riled up up post kavanaugh. for the same reasons, but they're on the opposite side of the argument. so i wasn't sure if it would be a massive boost for democrats across the board. >> no doubt, it's going to help republicans in red states, at least on the major yips. we'll see what it looks like three weeks from now. but certainly those suburban districts in california, the one that barbara comstock is fighting in right now. i'm sure barbara and other candidates like that, steve, would just as soon not hear the words kavanaugh again over the next 21 days. so let's go to colorado six where democrat jason crow has a comfortable lead over mike coffman who is the incumbent. >> yeah. again, this is exactly what i was talking about. this is still a poll with -- it's incomplete at this point. there may be some more numbers that change a little bit, but it's consistent with what i think expectations are in this

district. hillary clinton did very well here in 2016. if you have this idea potentially of two kavanaugh effects, this is where you would expect to see this helping democrats and energizing democrats. outside chicago, i said there's some examples there, as well. i think the issue here for democrats is when you start looking at districts that fit this profile, if the overall number they need to hit is 23, you can quickly get yourself past a dozen pick ups that that like they're right there. the question is what is on top of that. >> so let's find another district. here we are, the next one that the upshots reporting on. this one, new jersey 11th. the 11th congressional district is usually a reliably republican district. again, you have to ask yourself, is this post kavanaugh, as well? are we seeing the.opposite effect for these races in traditionally democratic states, this being a traditionally republican area. but here you have another republican incumbent in big

trouble in this 15-point spread right now in the 11th district. >> very republican area. in 2016, hillary clinton didn't carry this, but she came about as close as you can to carrying it without getting there. about a one-point loss for her in 2016. the lock-time republican incumbent in this district decided not to seek re-election. democrats have gotten behind a mikey sherrill. the districts that fill this are profile, suburban, college educated, post kavanaugh, yeah, i think if looking for a surge and improvement prospects there,

i think you are seeing that in some of these numbers. >> and, of course, as you said, that's rodney's old seat. we go now to kansas three. maybe you can tell us, give us some insight on what's going on there. a republican incumbent losing by 13 percentage points. >> this is johnson county basically. this is the suburbs. this is kansas city, you know, bedroom community suburbs. this is a district that hillary clinton actually carried in 2016. she carried this by one point. i know we think of kansas and we think of deep red. but when you get in and around kansas city, kansas, in the bedroom communities, you get that recipe of higher income, a little bit more mod ral culturally, already didn't seem crazy about donald trump. then you mix in the factors we're talking about right now.

>> willie, you look at these races, again, in a lot of these suburban areas, and you're having republicans and republican incumbents getting troused right now. a week ago everything was trending republican. now trending democratic. you have to wonder whether the kavanaugh hearings are having the opposite effect in the house than they had in the senate. >> yeah. well, you have that last race you talked about in kansas, a strong woman candidate looking to defeat an incumbent. let's talk about texas real quick because we came in with the ad about ted cruz and whataburger. o'rourke setting a record for more than 800,000 donors. yesterday ted cruz was still up 9 points. do you see any movement here?

>> it's tough not to compare that nine-point cruz lead in that poll to the election in texas which was donald trump by nine points. that was a bit of an improvement by democrats. we've talked about the longer term possibility for democrats. but i think texas is still texas. in every poll i've seen since labor day in this race, with one exception, every other poll i've seen -- and i think it's about eight of them at this point has had ted cruz ahead generally by more than five points. so the totality of evidence suggests that when it comes to this race, texas is still texas, especially cost kavanaugh. >> three weeks to go. gene. >> texas is still texas, but i'm curious, you know, they shrank that promised ted cruz rally. it doesn't look like o'rourke can really, you know, get across the bar.

but this is something funny about that race, still, to me. there's still -- do you think that's really out of reach for the democrats, steve, or do you think there's a possibility of a surprise? >> yeah, no, i wouldn't call it out of reach. i would just say it fits with that pattern that we saw. you talk about the split between the suburban house districts in red states. we've seen a trend here post kavanaugh highwa kavanaugh that's really solidified the republican position there. but look, it's true. if things can change over the last three weeks, they could change over the final three weeks, too. >> steve, the snapshot that we've looked at with all of these races, what about the exhaustion factor in voter turnout? what is going to happen? do you have any sense of voter turnout? >> to me, the variable when you start -- to me, the variable,

all year there was this gap, democrats versus republicans and the democratic energy has been off the charts all year, maybe even more off the charts post kavanaugh. but what we've seen is the republicans getting closer, closing it to the a level where they start they were starting to get competitive again. so i want to see, does that hold? the other big x factor when it comes to turnout for democratic voters is hispanic voters. there are a number of key congressional races, california, texas, into florida, a few other places where the democrats, i can, need to be worry background getting higher sxanic energy to really maximize their potential. >> i think we covered all 435 congressional districts and only you can do it that well. steve kornacki, thank you. still ahead here on "morning joe," just a day after the president called him sort of a democrat, defense secretary james mattis is setting the record straight. that's coming up on "morning joe." straight. that's coming up on "morning joe.

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the federal deficit just hit its highest level in six years. we'll talk about what is causing the ballooning debt. plus, senator ben sasse will be our guest this morning. you're watching mortga"morning " we will be right back. "morning j" we will be right back.

>> so, joe, you've had ahead no secret about mika's pigs. >> mika makes it like a member of the family. one month tried to have it balancing our checkbooks. giving this pig way too much leeway. >> somebody else noticed. john oliver sunday night noticed mika's pig on instagram last night. watch this. >> then there was mika

brzezinski, whose instagram shows you she has a pet pig. >> she might get mad at me, but i'll give you one last look at her tummy. she's going a big tummy. >> put the pig down. put the pig down. put the pig down. >> the thing is, you never, ever do it again. >> i'm going to make a gif. do . [ pig squealing ] >> what are you doing, mika? for a start, that's not how

gifts work. they are silent. b, they tend not to be heavy on the pig torture. >> john oliver, indeed, speaks for america right there. that's disturbing. every time i've seen it. >> she's so cute. see how small she was. >> mika, after dr. brzezinski calling me supsuperficial on na television, now that brand of love is being poured out on that little pig. >> there's just one. she got a lot bigger. did you notice? that's why i was showing how big her tummy is. >> mika, i have two words for you. bacon scanned which. >> >> no. >> bacon sandwich. >> very disturbing, willie. you couldn't see in the side

shot. the pig was still eating. there's a reason why the description pig fits as appropriately as it does. >> mika has her quirks. that's why we love her. >> we love you, willie. >> speak for yourself. gene, do the best you can to erase everything -- >> come on. >> -- that you just saw. let's try to talk about the previous segment for a second. it is striking how well democrats are doing in these house polls. the ones we showed this morning, especially the suburbs. there's a kavanaugh effect in tennessee, and texas for republican candidates but no doubt there's also a kavanaugh

effect that is putting wind behind the sails of a lot of democrats running in these house seats. >> the snapshot right now is that post-kavanaugh in red states in particular, republicans are being helped statewide because of this jump in enthusiasm and in those suburban house districts, democrats are being helped even more inflamed by the kavanaugh hearings. you know, a couple of caveats. number one, i think -- my theory all along has been one way or another republican enthusiasm was going to be boosted somehow, somebody was going to do something. trump would do something. there was no way republicans would totally sleep this away. >> something was going to happen. hillary had given an interview. people running around. doing something that would

inspire republicans. things happen like that. >> republicans vote in mid-terms. they were going to come out. but the second thing is did the kavanaugh thing happen just a little bit early to carry that enthusiasm through to the election and i think that's a question, because democrats are not going to schocool off. now republicans got kavanaugh on the court, does that high level of enthusiasm maintain through the election? we'll see. >> mika, timing is absolutely everything in campaigns. you don't put your best campaign ads out three weeks before, you put them out one week before. that's why the comey letter was devastating, why comey helped elect donald trump. if kavanaugh hearings came to its conclusion ten days before

the election it would have been much more worse news for democrats. that will subside. something else will happen in the final ten days or so that may have a similar impact for democrats or republicans. >> gene, thank you very much. still ahead, president trump suggests rogue killers may be to blame for the disappearance of "the washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi. ben rhodes will join us to talk about that. "morning joe" will be right back. back so i got tougher. they fostered a love of learning, so i got smarter. taught me to appreciate the finer things in life, so i became more civilized and refined. thank you, freedom and adventure, for giving me this rugged, civilized, wandering soul.

for giving me this rugged, civilized, flood, and rain event.to primarily be a wind, ♪ how many people are in the car? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ door. said ted cruz tough as texas. i mean, come on. if somebody called my wife a dog and said my daddy was in on the kennedy assassination i wouldn't be kissing their ass. you stick a finger in their chest and give them a few choice words or drag their ass out by the wood shed and kick their ass, ted. come on, ted.

a triple meat burger liberal. what does that even mean, ted? everybody in texas loves whatta burger. >> as a consumer i'm a big fan of eating white castle burgers. >> i don't know what that is. there's not a white castle within 900 miles of texas, ted. maybe up in canada, huh? but not in texas. >> oh, my lord. >> i love that. >> that guy, willie, that guy is an actor. i think -- i don't know if you give academy award nominations for political ads, but that guy is about as good as it gets. >> the cable ace awards. maybe we can give him a cable ace award. >> i think we should give him a cable ace award.

>> mika, do you mind if i go to our guest before you introduce him. >> oh, my gosh you're asking me permission. >> i am. he's a very polite man. he's from nebraska. >> ben sasse, how are you doing this morning >> i'm good but i'm scared where we're head. we're not talking about football today, are we? >> have you or a member of your family ever been spotted inside a white castle? >> is that the place where you used to get nine burgers for a buck? yeah. >> the fact you were showing ignorance is a positive thing. >> hope that's honest. >> have you ever had a whatta burger before? >> i have. >> how great is that >> those fries are great. you layer them under the bun. you put them with the burger. >> you know what i say about you, you're a triple meat whataburger conservative and that's why we're having you on. all that being said, i'm going

to get it for you, i promise. all that aside, ben sasse, i'm curious about this as well. what's it like -- what's it like going to a college that is one of the most stored football programs in the history of this country and watching the suffering and it's got to be even tougher because the guy who is your coach is a bit of an idol around lincoln. so you got have a lot of torn feelings right now, split feelings. >> let's talk again in 2019, 20, 2021. we're a winning team. time is a creation inside the physical universe. alabama is a blip on the radar. >> just a fleck. just a fleck.

little fleck of dust floating through the milky way. >> they are good. my bride, i sleep with a woman who is so arrogant about football right now. >> his dumb country lawyer voice. >> i'm not a dumb country lawyer. >> yes, you are. i'm a country lawyer. >> back to business. >> i'm not finished here. so, you're standing by the coach for now, right? >> everybody in nebraska is. he's doing a great job. we're changing a culture. >> i will just say this and mika then we'll go on to news. >> thank you. >> when we had our coach come in, nick sabin had a tough first year. we lost to auburn. i love you said culture. i'm being serious for anybody that wants to run a football team, a business, a congressional office or church. it's not coaching it's culture. you build the culture, you don't

have to worry about the coaching on saturday afternoons because that all takes care of itself, right? >> amen, brother. preach. >> preach, baby. mika, on the news. >> so welcome back to "morning joe". it was the top of the hour a few minutes ago but it's not now. senator sasse's latest book "them why we hate each other and how to heal" is out today. we'll get to that in just a moment. but we want to get to the latest disappearance of "the washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi. president trump spoke with saudi king salman and offered up this explanation to reporters. >> i just spoke with the king of saudi arabia who denies any knowledge of what took place with regard, to as he said, his saudi arabiian said. we are going to leave nothing uncovered. with that being said the king

firmly denied any knowledge of it. he didn't really know, maybe -- i don't want to get into his mind but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. who knows? [ question inaudible ] >> all i can report is what he told me. he told me he had no knowledge. his denial couldn't have been stronger that he had no knowledge and it sounded like he and also the crown prince had no knowledge. it wasn't like there was a question in his mind. the denial was very, strong. >> soon after the president made those comments nbc news reported that saudi arabia's government is discussing a plan to admit that jamal khashoggi was killed after entering the saudi consulate in istanbul, according to three people with knowledge of the situation. two of those people also tell nbc news the saudis are putting together an explanation that

would absolve the crown prince of responsibility by giving him plausible deniability to say he didn't order or know about the killing with one of the people in that report adding he was told by those close to saudi leadership that the kingdom will claim that quote rogue operatives killed khashoggi during an inter roinvestigation that went awry, echoing president trump's rogue killers explanation. so, senator, one of your senate colleagues marco rubio said if trump won't act on this, congress will. what does that mean? what should happen now if, in fact, we learned that jamal khashoggi was killed inside that cult? >> i think the saudis have a real problem. i haven't seen any current intel since the end of last week. obviously the president sees more than i do. i hope he's listening to the senior intel officials he has advising him because marco said it well. journalist goes into the embassy and he doesn't come out. that means one of two things he's either alive in there.

if he is great news. nobody thinks that. so he got killed in there and the saudis have lots and lots of knowledge of what happened. there's a big problem. >> what should happen next? the president said i don't want to jeopardize jars 110 billion arms deal. if he won't act in a way you believe appropriate what can chronicling do? is it sanctions, killing the arms deal, what is it? >> under our constitutional system the legislature is supposed to be making all the big and long term decisions. national security issues in the short term have to be acted on faster than committees and the legislature. everything has to be on the table including the arms sales. the arms sales is not an end in themselves. it's a means to the u.s. purposes in the middle east and middle east has these two different poles of iran and saudi. but iran has been sowing dissent and chaos and dischord among their neighbors and we're trying

to get the saudis to have some declaration of long term values. policy flows from principles but we need principles in common with the saudis and right now they need to explain a lot more than they are explaining. >> your going to cut arms sales? >> everything needs to be on the table. i'll talk to ambassador bolton in the next day and a half, two days. congress does need to be forceful and help american people understand what's the u.s. purpose in the middle east and to what degree can saudi partner with us. >> policy flows from principles. we used to have principles in foreign policy. president trump yesterday in response to another question on another topic said who cares? it seems now that elements of foreign policy are basically who cares in terms of american people. we got our policy towards iraq, iran, russia is similar to the way he treats russia, the way he treats saudi arabia and what

just happened. what are our principles? >> first of all, to who cares. 320 million americans should care because we need to have men and women put on a uniform to fight for our freedom and understand why we care. but we also have taxpayers funding bills around the world and we know in a flat world stuff that goes wrong in the middle east comes home to roost here. american foreign policy needs to be based on the idea of an american creed that believes in universal human dignity. it means alliances matter to try to maintain stability and order in that region and we need to declare stuff that's 10 and 20 years in the future not one or two news cycle. >> let's talk about your book, "them why we hate each other." let's start with the easy question. who is "them"? >> right now we have political

tribalism arcing in america and i don't think that problem flows from politics. why i wrote "them" i want to spark a conversation why so many of us feel lonely. nih talks about loneliness as a public health crisis. having a friendship in america in the last 27 years. we've gone from 3.2 friends to 1.8 friends. when you have a collapse of deep friendship, shorter duration jobs which by the sway by product of great stuff happening in the digital revolution, when you have declining in worship they have less we at home they look to politics. politics is about building good roads but not defining community. most of our politics are anti-politic, anti-tribe because of the collapse of real meaningful traditional tribes. we need to talk about the bigger

stuff. >> so you're looking at the growing lack of humanity in terms of our social structure, friendships and obviously technology playing a huge role in this because a lot of people are finding that kind of feedback they usually get from human interactions from likes or comments, from complete strangers that they never get to know or never have a face-to-face interaction with. >> that you can never hug. at the end of the day so much what matters we're people situated in a place with bodies. if you go from 200 to 500 to 1,000 social media friends you don't get any happier. if you know the person who lives two doors away from you you're much more likely to be happy. smartphone is awesome but can't substitute for having neighbors. >> so, senator sasse one thing i would say to people who are distressed at this time, people don't hate each other as much as twitter and cable news would have you believe.

as you go back to nebraska, you go out to a dinner party, people disagree but they are not screaming at each other. is the problem worse than we see in public or is it better? >> that's a great question. we have such decay in all of our institutions of trust right now that we don't have places to have big national conversations. lots of neighborhoods still do work but they are declining. we're more mobile. our jobs, the uberization of the economy means you're going from when i was born in '70s average duration at a firm is two and a half decades. now it's four years. that's great in economic productivity. bad in terms of having co-workers you'll spend life with. we need to reflect what it will be like to rebuild in a rootless age. i wrote "them" because we need a national conversation but most can't happen in politics. democrats and republicans can't fix this from d.c. >> do you have an answer?

i doubt whether anyone does. if do you you're a true genius. there are no more neutral corners in america. like what we're doing right now establishing eye contact, there's very little eye contact left in america. we don't know each other. we don't know our neighbors. we grow increasingly isolated in our little family units. we don't know who lives next door or upstairs. we don't converse any more with one another. what do we do about that? >> in the last 65 years average new home construction size has grown three and a half from 700 square feet to 2400 square feet. we're the richest people in the world. but your less happy if you live farther away from your neighbors. when you say you have to sit and talk like this. everybody knows bowling alone 20 years ago people were bowling but bowling leagues have declined. that was true in institutional

space after institutional space. the smartphone is making it worse faster. we need to learn the habit of an hour a day, a day a week, a week a year, get away from technology and have family dinner again. there's been a having of hosting in the last 25 years. 25 years ago the average family invited people over for dinner 14 times a year. now it's eight. at the end of the day politics are important but politics can't solve the vacuum we're dealing with in the digital revolution and the reason i wrote "them" we need conversations about some of these not just neutral corners but not hyper instant politicized corners. >> i know you feel the need, senator, to talk about the smartphone, a lot of aggravate things about the smartphone. with four kids the older i get

the less great things i see about the smartphone. i believe if you talk to educators and you hear the same thing over and over again, anxiety is up among teenagers and college students. depression is up. it all goes back to this. do you think it may be possible that 20 years from now we're going to look at unregulated use of smartphones by developing minds the same way we're looking at cigarettes and how they were viewed in the 1950s. >> it's a great question. i'm not ready to jump to the political answers but there's a whole chapter on what you're talking about in the book. i do think parents need to understand that the attention by engineers 30 years ago were trying to figure out how to keep you in a casino more hours those people work for tech companies to keep our 15-year-olds addicted to our smartphone. there's a ton of data that shows your frontal lobe isn't done when you're 15 and 18.

girls brains are finished a couple of years after publerty. digital addictions change our kids in ways that are scary. we'll have the third year of declining life expectan krrcy. why are there more and more deaths of despair. we're lonelier and more disconnected. the last time we had anything like this was during the industrialization. prohibition was the response to all the wholism because of the loneliness of the cities. we reformed social capital in the cities. we'll build new kinds of rootedness and relationships but only if 320 million americans want to wrestle with habit questions. every mom and dad and i have a chapter on that, every mom and dad need to be wrestling with should we give our 15-year-old

unencumbered access to cell phones. the answer should be no but we haven't developed those habits yet. >> we spoke at a college about a month or two ago and asked what the biggest problem was on the campus and the mr. straight orsaid it's anxiety, loneliness and it's brought on by people looking at instagram feeds and thinking that's this idealized world that they are trying to create will never be matched. it is isolation. i want to ask you a couple of quick policy questions and let's talk about the brett kavanaugh hearings because that seems to go right into the division and the tribes. first of all, donald trump, obviously, a lot of people disappointed even in the republican party when donald trump mocked dr. ford at the rally. i think it was down in mississippi. were you disappointed in that? >> yeah. i went to the senate floor and said that the president shouldn't have done that. we can't navigate issues like

the me too movement in a rally environment. frankly the senate bears a lot of blame. this isn't just the president. the circus atmosphere of the kavanaugh hearing and judicial committee was an embarrassment. it didn't serve our kids well, the kavanaugh family well, the ford family well. if you're going to bring forward an allegation you shouldn't be getting death threats. that circus environment is about institutions that should be cautious and building public trust, being swallowed whole by cable news and the pace of it is not sustainable. >> second quick question about brett kavanaugh. he seemed to pay undue deference to the presidency not just donald trump but the presidency itself if you look at his wriengs, i'm wonder if you're

concern that he's more of a hamiltonian than a madisonian he may defer too much to an imperial presidency. >> joe you said brief question and you just signed me up for three more segments. >> how about a brief answer? >> i'm great at those. i do think some of the news has misconstrued what justice kavanaugh was saying. i think he was saying in retrospect that a lot of people in both parties regarded the starr investigation as too boundless. people were hearing it as criticism of the mueller investigation and there's a difference between a special investigator and special prosecutor. the hamiltonian debates how three branches stop at three, i think that stuff is pretty important. so i don't think there's much to be that frightened about in what kavanaugh has written about his

worries over the last 10 or 15 years about the late 1990s and the downless starr investigation. those are important debates we should definitely have. >> yeah. i want to follow up and try to understand your vote more. >> sure. >> because he even said in 2015 in a speech about what it means to be a judge, to be on the bench. and he described the attributes of that person. and then he went through every stop sign of his own description of what it means to be a judge. he was rude. he was defiant. he showed rage. he was political. and he was very undisciplined during his opening statements by his own definition of what it means to be fit to be a judge. so while i'm not saying those behaviors made him guilty, but i am asking you why they didn't make him unfit? >> mika, it's an important

question. i think we're 32 years into the decline of the senate confirmation process, going back to bork in 1986 and coming forward. we have a trend line that looks like crap and it's headed to a bad place. we can do hatfields and mccoys from here on out. ultimately dr. ford made allegations that the senate needed to deliberate about very cautiously and i think we did. people like me called to delay the vote, called to have another hearing with her, duld have a seventh fbi background investigation. i think people like michael avenatti were doing something different. when you get accused of being involved in gang rape and your daughters are hearing all that stuff from their friends, it's understandable that somebody would be outraged. i wish the hearing had gone quite differently than it did and there's lots of blame to go

around on why the hearing did go the way did it. it's very unorthodox now that judge kavanaugh wrote the op-ed he did after that where he partially repenned for the way he presented himself in that hearing where he said there should be no aisle at the supreme court, no caucus rooms at the supreme court. i think we all know we're headed towards an ugly red and blue jersey place in the judiciary. one guy who has been accused of gang rape and speaking about that and losing his cool i don't think is disqualifying. but i think it was unfortunate and i think justice kavanaugh agrees it was unfortunate. >> one more quick question about judge kavanaugh and then i'll ask you about an easy question how you erase a $20 trillion debt. one question about judge kavanaugh. the most disturbing answer, the most disturbing part of kavanaugh's testimony was when he was asked by senator harris

whether congress or the president could ban somebody from entering the united states based solely on their race. he refused to answer that question, said that it was still before -- could still come before the supreme court. i don't think that's correct, is it? the president's first two so-called travel bans were triathlon out because they were too race specific. >> i agree with you on the substance. clearly there's not a race based argument for doing that. >> you can't do it under the constitution. it's unconstitutional. >> that's what i believe, yes. the cases are still pending because travel ban three, i guess, the legal nerds are calling it now has pieces of it that are still being litigated and obviously when you look at countries around the world where there's a lot of jihadism and that's a motivating factor for why people were trying to come to the u.s., the u.s. national security means we need to

control our borders and we need to look at what country does not have sufficient vetting. killing in the name of religion if that's one of your moifrs that clearly needs to be deliberated. i think kavanaugh was largely trying to say those cases are still being discussed so i don't want to get too close to them. you're right race can't be one of those variables. >> finally on the federal debt when i got to washington there was a $4 trillion national debt, actually campaigned against it that it was disastrous. when president bush became president 5.5 trillion. when he left it doubled. under barack obama the debt doubled. almost doubled. now under donald trump it's going to double as well if we don't do something about it. what are we going to do when we're passing huge tax cuts, defense spending is increasing, domestic discretionary spending is increasing. we've gotten rid of any spending caps that we had.

and the biggest threat, if you listen to economist, long term entitlement growth, the president said we're not touching that either. we can't do all things at one here. what are we going to do senator? >> when i was running in 2013 and 2014 i talked about this all the time. i believe lots of american voters cared about it. i think they still do. i think american voters know we're stealing from the next generation. yet are again, to go back to them one of the reasons our political tribalism is so stupid and dangerous is that right now people talk about the debt like it's only the fault of the other party when they were in power and when you take back power you're just playing defers against the other party critiquing you. politics aren't the center of the world. politics has to solve the entitlement crisis. we're trying to find good versus evil in politics. we need to cut that crap out and help people figure out they will only be happy if they have family and deep friends and long

term meaningful work. they should want less out of politics. entitlement reform is one of those basic things. it's hard to find people who want to work together between blue and red tribe because they are supposed to demonize each other. that's what we're asking of politics. it's not workable either for a political part of life or more civil part of society. i want to do entitlement reform today. we need to raise the retirement age. that's a third rail that makes you unelectable forever. if so, i'm good with that. there are many other components of what entitlement reform should look like as well and i would like to start on it today. there aren't many people in either party that want to do that today. that's unfortunate. >> senator, a big chunk of the book "them" is about us, about the news business. do you buy into the proposition that donald trump wakes up every day and plays us to the hilt and

laughs at us? >> i think he's good at it. the president is a good marketer and understands how to drive news cycle like nobody else in u.s. history has. one of the most fundamental things that's happening as you go to 500 channels per house hald. 93% households has 500 or more channels. we have nothing in common. when people are playing for cable news are playing for intensify occasion and deepening of the base. "i love lucy" had 70% share. if we got in a fight about politics we would still have lucy and desi. there was always something in common. today the most watched cable news programming in america is hannity at 3.2 million viewers. right now there is no 70% conversation and i think the

president is pretty good at puppet mastering, getting the news media having a new frenzy. that decent -- doesn't help us. >> donald trump didn't create this. he plays the fiddle better than anyone ever managed before. the new book "them why we hate each other and how to heal." a week from saturday, bethunbet cook is coming. >> brett stevens, former deputy national security adviser to barack obama ben rods and russian pro democracy activist join us when "morning joe" comes back.

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>> right now iraq is a training grounds for terrorists. >> would the world be better off with saddam hussein and moammar gadhafi in power >> absolutely. >> it's great to be with the president of egypt, mr. president you have a great friends and ally in the united states and in me. >> king salman, your father would be very, very proud to see that you are continuing his legacy. >> it's a great honor and privilege because he's become a friends of mine to introduce president erdogan of turkey. >> i have president putin. he just said it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would. >> i like him, he likes me. i guess that's okay. am i allowed to say that? we fell in love. >> president trump's praise for authoritarian leaders.

our next guest, contributing writers for a new book out today titled "fight for liberty." a collection of essays that analyze threat to the liberal world order. brett stevens joins us and chairman of the renewed democracy initiative and human rights commission, mr. kasparov. ben, let's start with you on this "the washington post" story on jamal khashoggi. the kingdom much saudi arabia will go out with a story that says he was accidentally killed inside the saudi consulate. president trump got out in front of the story by mentioning rogue killers. saudi arabia will say it's rogue operatives. what do you make of this? >> first of all, i don't think anybody who has any experience

with the saudis could think it was possible a team of 15 people could go turkey on a high-profile mission like this without the crown prince of saudi arabia knowing about it and authorizing it. that's an incredibly signe ly cd top down administration. it feels, willie, like the trump administration is trying to help them come up with a story to get this out of the headlines. you know what they want to do is pull down the temperature and move forward. which i think is a tragic abdication. we should put on the table real consequences like whether or not we'll continue to support a war in yemen that's out of control. whether or not we'll sell arms to a regime that would kill somebody in another country for expressing their views. i think it's a pattern of what you showed which is donald trump believes authoritarian leaders when they give him assurances, he doesn't give our allies the

same benefit of the doubt. >> in a parallel universe what would be happening right now? when mike pompeo goes speak to the king, speaks to the crown prince, what would you be saying directly to him? >> first of all, one of the things we would be doing is mobilizing the rest of the democracies in the world to have a united front. we would have coordinated statements with europe. you go into that meeting with bigger teeth. you go in and say we need a full accounting of this. number one there has to be consequences. number two if that accounting comes out there still has to be consequences. i would put on the table, again, a very real thing whether or not we continue to support a war in yemen that precipitateed a humanitarian crisis and continue these arms sales which feels like a blank check for the saudis. they can give us money and in turn we look the other way. >> gary he played the greatest

hits of president trump praising authoritarians and giving saudi arabia the benefit of the doubt. he said it's not him and today we learn saudi arabia will come out and say it was us, just a mistake. >> president trump, as you said, he could shoot somebody on fifth avenue and not lose his base. for him his political opponents, it's not a crime. somehow i feel that he envies these leaders around the world they can do whatever they want. >> i think part of the problem here is that we have a foreign policy under trump which is supposed to be an interest base rather than a values base foreign policy. what i think you're seeing here is how that blows, literally blows up in america's face because america is a democracy and we have problems, normal americans have problems

supporting a regime that is as brazen as murdering or beheading journalists in their own consulate. putting values at the center of your foreign policy turns out to be a central american strategic interest. >> mika >> ben, i'm just curious because you laid out the obvious steps that could be taken in the case of mr. khashoggi. but what message do you think the way the president is handling this, we sort of came into the show this morning, saying that he was naive. i think it might be a little bit more destructive and dangerous. hedging on whether or not they did it or not, almost sided them, almost not, sowing doubt. what message is that sending to the world, to our strategic partners and basically in terms of our foreign policy? >> well, i think it's a very dangerous message, mika. first of all, the message the

saudis wanted to sends and they have scene is that you're not safe anywhere if you criticize us. frankly they don't mind this attention because it's sending that message for them. if you're a saudi dissident you're thinking twice. there's nobody else who can play the role of the united states to hold people like this to account. "we are the world's" oldest and most significant democracy. and if we're not doing this, if we're not setting up for this, there's not anybody else who will do that. the consequences are that journalists all over the place are not safe. so values like freedom of speech and dissent are endangered around the world and that's a trend line that's getting worse. this vacuum of any abdication of democratic values is putting people at risk and nobody else will fill that vacuum if the united states of america is not doing that.

>> gary, in fight for liberty you talk about how at one time the spread of democracy seemed to be unstoppable and yet we now find ourselves at a place in time where there is a real threat that that democratic -- those democratic trend lines are going to be reversed. >> yes. it's the first time since the end of the cold war that we're facing the decline of freedom and democracy around the world. for more than a decade straight. and i think the free world has failed to come up with a strategy of promoting democracy and values. and foreign policy of the united states is just a policy of interest, very often short term interest and not the values that could lead the way. america basically abandoned its role as a global leader of the

free world, and looks for specific interests that are contradicting the strategic objectives. >> in the past we've had periods when authoritarian regimes have been strengthening, particularly in the 1930s. but at the time in the united states core leadership, franklin roosevelt and after him harry truman and succession of american presidents believed in the values of liberalism and democracy. they are what defined the western world at the time. what's so dangerous i think about this period is that you have at the core of the west this kind of raw representation in the trump administration that sees a lot to praise in dictators and not much in democracy. >> so the long term policy, because crown prince -- look at putin and putin's record of killing his enemies both inside and outside of russia. and looking at the rise of other

dictators. it's important it's a domino effect. if one dictator can do it others think why not. you ask why? it's always why not? no consequences. maybe could it have a positive effect for their strategic objectives because it could silence some potential criticism. >> joe? >> so, gary, talk about, if you will, because we focus, i think, sometimes too much on the impact that donald trump's language, his actions will have on leaders. you were a citizen in the soviet union. we heard stories after 1989, after 1991, after the soviet union fell of people that were behind the iron curtain actually taking heart from the words of every american president from jfk at the berlin wall to ronald

reagan at the berlin wall, we heard dissidents that were trapped in the soviet union listening to american presidents words and believing that the fight was worth it. what is the impact when you have a president like donald trump doing the opposite of what jfk did, the opposite of what ronald reagan did and seeming to embrace these authoritarian figures? >> somehow i hope that donald trump will have a positive effect in this country because it's a wake up call. because people here ignore ronald reagan's warning that freedom is always one generation way from extinction. now with donald trump people here slowly getting -- they recognize the fact that these institutions are getting rusty and important now to look back and understand what can to be done make sure that donald trump and the like will not be elected and will not be spreading u.s.

reputation around the globe. >> ben, one of the bottom lines in this story is that this morning we have the american secretary of state in riyadh basically telling the saudi arabians we'll take your story and help make it better, more saleable. your response earlier was that what should happen now, should form a strategic alliance of the nations, sit down and hash this out and tell the saudis they can no longer do stuff like this. my we do you is what allies? who are they? >> at its core the european allies. >> who we've insulted. >> who we've insulted. that's why it's so damage. when you have a donald trump that's shown himself much more willing to criticize an angela merkel or justin trudeau, when you need those countries and need them to do something hard standing up to saudi arabia, it's harder to build that coalition. frankly we're not even trying. ultimately, look, this is a

tough world. you have a china that's emerging. that is anti-democratic. you have a government in russia that's seeking to reassert it sichbl itself in a very authoritarian way. we need allies to work with us and share our values. the other side of the coin of president trump praising these authoritarian leaders him saying, even on "60 minutes" the other day i don't even know they are our allies. i don't know if nato prevented a world war iii. nato is the core security institution that share values. they are all democracies. we're supposed to be standing up for those democratic values and lead a chorus of voices. when you realize the united states would comment on something like this and europeans come behind you and japan coming behind you and that's what's missing. >> ben you said last night with

chris hayes it was a mistake for the obama administration to back the war in yemen. we know about the death, the famine, the refugee crisis. >> our approach is we had concerns about the war and about the crown prince. we thought by giving them some support and at times pulling that back so you're tapping the brakes, putting restraints on certain weapons that went to them, urging them to get a political solution, we were wrong about that. the fact of the matter is when the trump administration came in, any restraints went off. all the things that we saw him pressing towards our administration have come before. the war in yemen has escalated. you had that bizarre situation in lebanon. you had this fight with qatar that's really led nowhere. frankly we see him asserting himself in ways that are potentially destabilizing and

clearly silencing dissent in the kingdom. the saudis need us more than we need them. you would think they were the superpower and we're not. >> how does this play out based on the rhetoric we heard from the president yesterday he believed the denial. based on what we'll hear from saudi arabia today that it was an accident in the middle of an interrogation. what happens here? does the united states exert any pressure on saudi arabia? >> my suspicion is that they are going to seek some kind of admission, hang out limited kind of deal in which they say we accidentally killed khashoggi in an attempt to render him back to saudi arabia. the problem that the administration has is that it sees the saudis as a pillar in their larger overarching desire to stop the iranians. as long as saudis play that card they get a lot of leeway from

the administration. >> the argument from saudi we just meant to question him, interrogate and torture him and we end up killing him. defense secretary james mattis is fighting off speculation there's a rift between himself and president trump. what he told reporters about their relationship and his future in the administration when "morning joe" comes right back.

following the 2016 election, mika, everybody was focused on hillary clinton losing to donald trump. that obviously was the marquee race that's had massive impact. but when you talk about the strengths or the weaknesses of the democratic party after the election, people started looking back over barack obama's eight years in office and realizing that democrats had not only lost the big race in 2016, but it lost over a thousand local state legislative races, lost a lot of gubernatorial seats, a lot of local races. so heidi, why don't you get us up to date on what's happening

in 2018. does that disasterous trend line continue for 2018? >> what's happening with the governorships and also at the state legislative level. the map that you see in the senate that favors republicans is exactly flipped when it comes to the governorships. what you see is democrats potentially gaining many seats. the cook political reports are predicting that democrats could gain between six and 12 seats. then you look ot the state legislative level. all of that momentum that is feeding the house potentially being taken over by democrats will also have coattail effects for these legislative seats. the cook political report is predicting they could pick up anywhere between 400 and 650

state legislative seats. >> that's critical. 2020 redistricting, that impacts how american politics looks for the next decade. >> redistricting will be huga h potential side effect of that. you have trump in the white house the next two years. you may have a democratic house. you have a republican senate. that is the definition of gridlock. we'll probably have a lot of investigations in the house. then we're going to be looking to the states for any kind of progress. what we've seen is with republicans in control of a lot of these state legislatures, they've been very successful in advancing initiatives such as right to work, gun laws, abortions restrictions. see that flipped on its head if democrats take over. you're going to see initiatives on exactly that, abortion, possibly gun laws being loosened

up again and also minimum wage, women's access to health care. it will be a total rewriting of the script. secretary of state mike pompeo is in saudi arabia this morning. his visit comes as reports swirl that the saudi government is discussing a plan to admit that jamal kashoggi was killed after entering the consulate in istanbul. plus, new polling shows many republican incumbents extremely close heading into the midterms. >> it really does look like the trend lines are going democratic in a lot of those house races. >> we shall see. and the texas senate race turns into a debate over burgers. >> as it should. >> and the major rally that president trump promised ted cruz might be falling short of expectations. expectations

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i have great confidence in my intelligence people, but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. his denial to me could not have been stronger that he had no

knowledge. it sounded like he and also the crown prince had no knowledge. >> huh. president trump struck a remarkably similar tone when pressed on russian hacking and the alleged murder by saudi arabia of a "washington post" columnist. >> either the president is way too naive to be commander in chief or he's way too willing to believe the word of autocrats. >> thnaivete is beautiful in a baby. big baby, they've. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, october 16th, with joe, willie and me. >> a baby. >> i know you're not a baby. >> you're not a baby, willie.

>> the president is naive as a baby to believe vladimir putin, a kgb agent who goes around killing political opponents and journalists, you heard him right there, he was naive as a baby. now this kashoggi murder, he's being naive as a baby there. willie, what do you think about this? we've got a commander in chief -- >> who's a baby. >> he's basically as naive as a baby. >> he's not a baby, but he may have given the saudis the idea for the rogue killers explanation or this idea they may have cooked up with the saudis to explain it as young killers. >> so what you're saying is not a baby, just incredibly cynical and doing the dirty work for autocratic killers. okay. >> we're going to get to a whole mix of big stories today. general jim mattis reacts to president trump's suggestion that he's a democrat who needs

to study up on nato nap's delicious. plus, democrats just spent the last few days talking about bill clinton and hillary clinton and elizabeth warren's plans for 2020. are they missing the message just days ahead of critical midterms? >> yes, they are. >> guys, guys, note to self, we don't need from hillary right now talking about monica lewinsky being an adult at the age of 22 when she was taken advantage of. bad move. please. >> 22 days to the election. >> don't come after me. just please, this is not what the democrats -- please, put the knife down, okay? >> go to the phone banks, please. stay away from blenders in your kitchen. call people up, democratic voters. don't hurt the cause. >> speaking of the midterms, republican chris collins is running for congress while out on bail. >> that seems very appropriate for republicans in 2018.

>> could the congressman and trump confidante election? >> the navy wouldn't give him an all expense paid trip to italy. duncan hunter jr. that guy's running like third reich commercials against his opponents if the third reich had gone after muslims. not third reich. you know what i'm saying. really hostile, anti-muslim commercials. >> have you seen the latest commercials from the guy running against ted cruz? it's the burgers and stuff.

i love it. >> if you can get a positive reference about what ta burger statement you're sliding white castle for being the home of yankees, that's pretty good. did you see that commercial, willie? >> i did. it's a good one. i would throw crystal in the mix. >> i was going to say if ted cruz is knocking what a burger and he's embracing white castle. and he doesn't even bring up crystal burgers and you can't just have one. >> even i know that. >> barnacle is a yankee and barnacle has to know that manna from heaven, you take the crystal burger and you go through the mall parking hot and

ta that's what i call lunch when i'm in pensacola right there. >> i could watch that commercial all day long. the guy is great. >> can you put that up? >> that might be too much to ask. you have to wait. >> i don't want to wait. >> what about john oliver making fun of mika's pig? i don't want to wait. go to the news. >> i'm very proud of kasie, though. now to the latest in the disappearance of "washington post" columnist jamal kashoggi. president trump spoke with saudi king salman and offered up this explanation to reporters. >> i just spoke with the king of

saudi arabia, who denies any knowledge of what took place with regard to his saudi arabian citizen, as he said. we are going to leave nothing n uncovered. with that being said, the king firmly denied any knowledge of it. he didn't really know. maybe -- i don't want to get into his mind, but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. who knows? all i can do is report what he told me and he told me in a very firm way that they had no knowledge of it. he said it very strongly. his denial to me could not have been stronger that he had no knowledge. it sounded like he and also the crown prince had no knowledge. it wasn't like that was question in his mind. the denial was very, very strong. >> naive.

>> maybe rogue killers? this is along the lines of ted cruz's father killing jfk. i mean, i didn't see the rest of that press conference. did he blame ted cruz's father for killing kashoggi? >> not this time. >> seriously, he plants a conspiracy theory. the saudis go, that sounds pretty good, yeah, we'll start saying that publicly. >> he says rogue killers. just hours after that saudi arabia's government is discussing a plan to admit kashoggi was killed after entering the saudi consulate in istanbul. the saudis are putting together an explanation that would absolve crown prince salman of responsibility by giving him plausible deniability to say he did not know about or order the

killing. a source was told that saudi will claim that rogue operatives killed kashoggi during an interrogation gone awry. the sa-- president trump was asd about that yesterday as well. tlnchts's be >> i just saw that. i don't know. i'm going to have to see what they say. we're working very closely with saudi arabia and turkey and they are working together to figure out what happened. they want to know what happened also. a lot of people are working on it, steve, a lot of people. we'll be bound very much by that. we'll see. i heard that report, but nobody knows if it's an official report. >> meanwhile secretary of state

mike pompeo arrived in riyadh early this morning for a face to face meeting with king salman. trump says he instructed pompeo to go on the trip to find out, quote, what happened, what they know, what's going on. i'm interested in the role that jared kushner played in all this. we know he's very close to the crown prince. i want to know how much he discussed with bin salman and if together perhaps they cooked up this idea that it was rogue killers who killed kashoggi, if in fact he was killed. >> i want to know too, willie. funny thing, we haven't heard a peep from jared kushner, who's perhaps the person in the administration with the most direct line to bin salman and the person who maybe could get some answers, but we haven't heard any answer there is there.

this rogue killers explanation -- and it's ridiculous it has to be said -- this is absurd. a team of guys equipped with a bone saw show up in istanbul for this interrogation and that's some sort of rogue operation? it's clear from what we think we know that this was a pretty elaborate plan that had to be authorized. and everything we know about bin salman and the way he operates doesn't just suggest, it says that nothing like this would have happened without his direct approval. it sounds like this is a cover story and i think the president gave us a preview. maybe he got a hint from the king, but i think he gave us a preview of what the story is going to be later today. >> think about what the saudis are saying if in fact they're going with this rogue operatives

explanation. they're saying all we intended to do was abduct, torture and interrogate these journalist, we just didn't mean to kill them. >> that's supposed to be the great news, that we were just going to lure kashoggi in and interrogate him and then take him back to saudi arabia and imprison him. right now the saudis and donald trump find themselves in a position where they're desperate to keep investment going into saudi arabia. donald trump is desperate to do whatever he can to basically play pr man for the saudis, just like he wanted to play pr man for vladimir putin. started on this show back in december of 2015 apologizing i mike barnicle, for vladimir putin being a murderer of journalists and political adversaries.

i'm sorry, there is no other explanation than donald trump makes a lot of money, as he bragged to people during the campaign, he makes a lot of money from the saudis and he doesn't want to upset them, just like the russians poured a lot of money into the trump organization's covers over the past decade or so. they don't want to offend them. this isn't about policy, or diplomacy or human rights. this is about trump organization money. >> the outlines of this story are pretty simple and they're very familiar. it's similar to his reaction to putin. this story also has to do with the $110 billion arms sales to saudi arabia. clearly more of a priority to the president of the united states than national integrity. federal prosecutors tagged

him with criminal challenges. we've got an exclusive first look at west virginia's battleground. "morning joe" will be right back. "morning joe" will be right back my name is elaine barber, and i'm a five-year 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. at ctca, they have a huge celebrate life event. that was amazing, because the whole day was about all of the survivors. i'm excited about my future. visit cancercenter.com to schedule an appointment now.

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or paying your bill is easier than ever with x1. x1 help. another reason to love x1. say "teach me more" into your voice remote to get started. welcome back to "morning joe." new polls show republican house members in battles to save their seats with three weeks until polls open. indicted republican congressman chris collins is tied with democratic challenger nate mcmurray, this in an area that backed president trump by 25 points in 2016. >> wow. >> the poll kind collins' favorability rating in the district is a negative one, with only 48% of republicans holding a favorable opinion of him. he has pleaded not guilty to

insider trading charges. is that about chris collins exclusively or is there a trump effect there as well? >> every midterm cycle you end up getting a couple races like this where you can look at all national factors but there's something happening locally. in 1994 in chicago a democrat under indictment lost his election to a republican. here you have the heart of trump company in western new york, collins the first member of congress to endorse trump. i think because of this indictment he's in a dog fight now. >> mia love is dead even with ben mcadams in utah, both at 46%

in the poll, which also shows split ticket voting in the senate race with republican mitt romney dominating in polls there. in florida's 26th congressional district which voted for hillary clinton in 2016 and barack obama in 2012, republican congressman carlos curbelo has a slight edge over the democrat, 46-45% in the poll. >> carlos has been doing a pretty good job from the very beginning trying to separate himself from donald trump and represent the district more idealogically. the west virginia poll, which of course talk about trump country, west virginia, the trumpiest state in the nation. yet here we have a very close race again within the margin of error between the republican and the democrat.

>> that number you're looking at is exclusive to "morning joe." this is the first time anybody in the world is seeing this number. our friends at monmouth were kind enough to let us release this here. you can see carol miller the republican leading richard ojeda. this was a district that trump carried by 60 points. this district sort of captures that in terms of what trump did in 2016. i think there is a bigger sort of story to point out here. if you look at this poll in west virginia, if you look at the poll in new york with chris collins and you look at the poll in utah with mia love, these are three examples where there are local district specific or candidate specific factors that are at play here and endangering seats for republicans that shouldn't be in danger. west virginia for obvious

reasons, chris collins because of the indictment. utah, a deep red state that has been allergic to donald trump. when you start looking at that path to a 23-seat gain for democrats, if they could pick off a couple of districts like this, that could go a long way. that could be a difference-maker right there. i think you're seeing it in three potential places here with these new polls. >> we've got a bunch of other late-breaking polls from colorado to virginia. reaking pom colorado to virginia ♪

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we've been talking about the kavanaugh effect for the past week or so. if you went to the upshot for the weeks during and after the kavanaugh hearings, you would see one republican after another

actually winning house races. now, it seems to be the democrats that are doing better. in virginia 10, which of course is barbara comstock's northern virginia district, it's been a tough one for her all along. jennifer wexton ahead. >> here's my question when you get to races like this. the question i have is, is there a post kavanaugh effect where districts like this, the suburbs of washington, d.c., a place hillary clinton won by ten points in 2016, is the democratic energy, especially post kavanaugh, so strong in places like this that you're going to get a series of giant blue waves in districts like this? in new jersey, outside denver,

outs si outside kansas city, outside chicago, outside washington, d.c. the question i have though is when you go to the next level of district, a place where donald trump did a little bit better in 2016, those districts where democrats have been targeting, what i think we still need to see here, we need to see if there is a post kavanaugh effect that is solidifying republicans in those places and potentially narrowing the options for democrats. where democrats could be doing even better now if these suburban areas b areas. >> you know, we've been talking an awful lot about how the kavanaugh hearings impact read states hi s like tennessee, tex missouri. no doubt it's helped for at least a week after the kavanaugh hearings, it certainly helped republican candidates there. but if winning the house depends

on not offending suburban voters any more than donald trump already has, then they're going to be a nightmare in the those suburban districts. the kavanaugh effect will have the opposite effect in those districts for democrats and help democrats quite a bit. >> i was anticipating a net-net effect for democrats and republicans getting riled up post kavanaugh. >> no doubt it's going to help republicans in red states, at least on the margins. we'll see what it looks like three weeks from now. but certainly those suburban districts in california, the one that barbara comstock is fighting in right now. i'm sure barbara and other ka d candidates like that would just as soon not hear the word kavanaugh over the next 16 days.

in colorado's 6th jason crow has a comfortable lead over mike coffman the incumbent. >> it's consistent with what expectations are in this district. again, suburban district. hillary clinton did very well here in 2016. if you have this idea potentially of two kavanaugh effects, this is where you would expect to see this helping democrats and energizing democrats. outside chicago there's some examples there as well. i think the issue here for democrats is when you start looking at districts that fit this profile, if the overall number they need to hit is 23, you can very quickly get yourself past a dozen pickups that look like they're right there. the question is what's on top of that. coming up on "morning joe," just a short drive from the upper west side is a new york city district that voted for

donald trump by a large margin. jacob soboroff explores what's driving the political conversation there just 21 days out from the midterms. 21 days out from the midterms. (vo) this is not a video game. this is not a screensaver. this is the destruction of a cancer cell by the body's own immune system, thanks to medicine that didn't exist until now. and today can save your life. ♪

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only republican congressional distri district. >> it turns out there are more registered democrats than republicans there. they voted for president trump. they voted for republican congressmen many times. trying to figure out why and if the democrats have a chance to flip it. less than 15 miles from 30 rock once you get through brooklyn is the united states' longest suspension bridge. it's also the way to the only republican held congressional district in new york city. i've actually never driven across it before. we're heading out to staten island. new york's 11th district voted by trump by a huge margin. it includes all of staten island and it feels nothing like where we came from this morning. why did you want to meet at shop

right? >> this is a why to find out what's on people's mind. >> what does it say, stand for the flag, kneel for the cross. >> absolutely. if you don't like it, go to venezuela. >> if you want me to campaign for you, i certainly will. >> thank you very much. >> no wonder you wanted us to come to shop right. >> what can the congressman do for you? >> help with traffic. >> why traffic first? >> because it impacts me right now. >> are you republican or democrat? >> that's a hell of a question. >> did you see yourself voting for a republican? >> my wife doesn't vote at all. she says it doesn't matter. >> do you think you'll vote for the congressional election? >> i will. >> what will be on your mind the most? >> supporting my president. >> i love donald trump. he's great. >> a lot of democrats out here feel the same way you do. >> especially after the kau

thin -- kavanaugh thing. so many women here were outraged by that? >> really? >> just the treatment. the way he was treated. i would love to see a wall built. i would love to see his agenda move forward. life is good for me. i'm a simple girl. >> life isn't as simple for the staten islanders who spent much of their day off the island. thousands of people commute from staten island to new york city. this is also where i met the democratic challenger max rose. how many people do you actually know versus know you? >> i know everybody. i don't just hug random people. that would be weird. >> 7:45 is the next ferry. >> 7:45 is the next ferry.

>> what matters to you that you thought max was the candidate for you? >> the north shore need a rapid transit. >> he's saying something different. >> what matters to you out here on staten island? >> the traffic, the congestion. >> are you republican or democrat? >> republican. >> you think you might vote for a democrat? >> i might if he does the right thing. every four years i get disappointed. >> democrat or republican? >> democrat. so many democrats, more democrats out here than registered republicans but staten islanders keep voting for republicans. why do you think that is? >> it's just a different borough than some other places. >> get on your ferry. go, go, go, go! he made it through. >> i like how none of them even

looked at the camera. they've got to get where they're going. beyond the kavanaugh segment from the deli counter, it's local issues. it's district by district. it's not these big national issues. >> i heard jose it. i think it's why a lot of people in the democratic party at the national level, they're probably banging their headheads. you hear elizabeth warren coming out talking about her dna test. the number one issue on staten island is traffic. >> when you're trying to win, the last thing whether you're a republican or democrat -- the last thing you want is distraction, noise from national republican republicans or democrats. for us, often it would be newt gingrich would say something we

would have to answer in the final weeks of a campaign or dick army or tom delay. if you're a democrat, you're swimming upstream in staten island and you've got elizabeth warren talking about dna tests or hillary clinton defending what bill clinton did with a 22-year-old intern. you're sitting there banging your head against a wall going, just wait 22 days and you could talk about that all you want. right now i'm trying to tell people that this race is local. >> you know what they're focused on there in the democratic campaign? they're focused on turning out the increasing immigrant population in the district and telling them that there are things that the democratic party can do for them, whether it's mexicans in port richmond or in brooklyn to get out the chinese-american population there. the idea of bringing in all these national issues at the 11th, i'd think would drive these democrats crazy not just there but across the country.

>> mike? >> that piece, there was a thread in that piece that went unspoken. the thread in the piece was some of the people you spoke to who we saw and listened to i bet used to be democrat who is now feel that party has left me. it's a microcosm of the democrats' problem nationally, pennsylvania, ohio, wisconsin. >> 100%. first of all, democrats outnumber republicans on staten island. but you heard the guy at the end, the democrat who was about to get on the ferry say we're our own borough with our own issues. they just want to be listened to. whether it's the person saying we just want politicians whether it's in manhattan or washington, d.c. to listen to us. it's exactly what i hear -- i've been all across the country now. people keep saying the same thing. what we talk about is not the things that people want to talk about when they go to the polls.

the fact that they hear us talking about all this stuff makes them think twice about going into the polling booth on election day. congratulations for the newsletter, not congratulations for being on with us. actually you being on with us may actually cause you to lose your position. that's what mika was trying to say. it's still early. >> okay. so you're looking at the anger election. tell us about it. >> first of all, i want to gok go back to the point you guys were all talking about. i spoke with the white house political operation, the political shop, to get their feel for what the next 23 days will look like until midterms.

they agreed with this assessment completely, that candidates should stick to local issues. however, this doesn't quite jive with their strategy at hand, which is dispatching the president, who they believe is the most important person to be out there on the road to be the closer for what has been a tightening of senate and some house races who is elevating these national issues. the kavanaugh debate has elevated national issues. i found that to be a really interesting incongruity that the white house has pushed forward. >> when you have presidents with approval ratings in the low 40s or high 30s, they've got the rose garden strategy. they stay inside the white house because they don't want to have a negative impact in some of the swing districts. that's obviously not this president's plan, is it? >> not at all. we spoke with a white house political director who really

said that the president's going to be out there as much as possible. again, they view him as the closer. the kavanaugh debate was a pivotal spark to tightening a bunch of race, notably tennessee, montana, missouri. now they want trump to get out there to rally the base, to continue to fund raise and continue to hold rallies. it is an anger election, but the white house spin is that they're not inciting the anger or stoking the anger, this is just the base's response to the democrats' anger. is so they're using these terms we're seeing come out of people like mitch mcconnell's mouth, the leftist mobs that the democrats are trying to socialize health care. all of these buzzwords they're really trying to drive home. you heart the president say if voters embraced democratic policies, the u.s. is going to

descend into a venezuela-like spiral. they claim they're not stoking anger or inflaming the elect rate, but i think you can interpret that for yourself. >> a lot of this was borne out of the kavanaugh hearings. the president recognized that when he came out the other side of it, that perhaps democrats and progressives overstepped. so a lot of this mob argument is borne out of the protests and the other things we saw around that. >> correct. and perhaps an unlikely surrogate or someone you wouldn't have anticipated being out on the midterm road show is lindsey graham, the south carolina senator, who had a breakout performance during the kavanaugh hearings. when we touched base with graham's communications director yesterday, they didn't have a schedule but they said his message would be kavanaugh, kavanaugh, kavanaugh.

democrats have to real if they are not elected, they don't get to choose who their supreme court justices are. that will be the message pushed through over the next few weeks. >> we'll be reading the "washington post" early morning newsletter power up. jac jacob, you tweeted this morning some new child separation numbers. >> again, this is a long way from over. this started before the summer. last night the trump administration filed these new numbers. 66 kids are still separated there their parefrom their parents. 50 of the painrents have alread been deported. one of these kids is under 5 years old. the president is now weighing a new separation policy. they haven't even let all the kids out that are incarcerated.

>> so many of the issues that we do talk about every day, whether it's child separation policies or whether it's russia, whether it's the breaching of constitutional norms, when you're going district by district, people aren't really talking about that. i'm just wondering if you're finding the same with the child separation policies, because mika and i certainly found it in our ole miss focus group of sorts that some people just said, hey, that's not a concern of mine. they shouldn't have come here illegally. are you finding that too? >> yeah. bet you a nickel that's why donald trump is talking about a child separation policy right now. it fires up the voters. i went down to texas in one of those flipable districts. even he says the border issues are not top of mind. the top of mind down there is the economy. i would love it to be the front and center issue.

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phew. third time's the charm... professor blasey ford got before the senate and was asked ways the worst moment and she said when the two boys laughed at me at my expense. and then i watched you mimic her and thousands of people were laughing at her. >> they can do what they -- i will tell you, the way, now justice kavanaugh, was treated, has become a big factor in the midterms. have you seen what's gone on with the polls? >> but did you have to -- >> well, i think she was treated with great respect, i'll be honest with you. there are those who think she shouldn't have been. >> do you think she was treated with respect? >> i do. >> you seem to be saying she lied. >> you know what, i'm not going to get into it, because we won, it isn't it matter, we won. >> we won.

a clue into republican strategy for the midterm elections. greg sergeant writes in his latest column for "the washington post," quote, trump himself confirmed the basic outlines of the situation, the way this sufficiently energized voters is for trump to fill the media space with a big win that has the added benefit of rubbing the faces of the losing side in it. perhaps that is driving some gop voters. in trump's own telling, the necessary additional ingredient is a display of contempt and humiliation for the losers. the author of the blog joins us now, out with a new book today titled "an uncivil war." congratulations on the book. it's good to see you. this is something trump delights in which is not just having a win but vaporizing the other side as well. >> we're starting to see the polling really reflect the

strategy, right? i think nate cohn had a piece this morning saying that some of these more red districts are starting to look better for republicans precisely because of polarization which is to say, you know, when the electorate's more divided, you're seeing that republican energy coalesce. my general sense is that, you know, they just have unleashed trump to fill the space as much as possible, you know, to get those voters really revved up and, you know, the big question is, you know, how many of these outer ring, you know, districts for republicans actually do get moved into safe territory for them as a result. >> it really does seem -- and the kavanaugh hearings are a perfect example of the fact that donald trump is not a conservative, he's never been a conservative, but he is anti-liberal. he knows how to feed into that. it seems the republican party is

sold not to a conservative but just to a guy who is an anti-liberal that can somehow scratch that itch they've been feeling from american culture for 50 years. >> we even saw a report i think that the white house explicitly advised kavanaugh to go on offense in a very trumpian manner, right, to sort of portray himself as the big victim in this situation of a major kind of liberal/angry mob conspiracy to take down a good man and it worked, right, it got to the audience of one, meaning trump, but also got to these republican voters. i think you saw trump essentially confirm that during the cbs interview when he said, you know, one, because i gave that speech, it was the combination of him attacking blasey ford and kavanaugh pitting himself as the victim that kind of put it altogether for him. >> would you agree, greg, the constant flow of disinformation coming from the white house and specifically from the president, nearly every day has worked?

>> i think it's hard to say. there's a fatalistic view of this among some people on my side which says, you know, he's essentially created so much confusion that we'll never be able to recover truth. if the democrats have a good election, then we may sort of say it worked among his voters but there weren't enough of them. >> you write in the book about something called democratic back sliding. what are we talking about there? >> well, you know, essentially there's many ways of describing and cataloging democratic back sliding but what i mean is that, you know, there's essentially been a deterioration and agreement on the rules of political competition and i try to suggest wayings that we can get past that. the big case i make in the book is there's a big disconnect at the core of everything right now which is it took a figure like a sort of hateful menacing and,

you know, contemptuous democracy as trump to focus everyone's attention on the health of the political system but all these kind of deteriorations predate trump. so i argue that we have to come up with a way of kind of hanging on to this kind of pro democracy energy that's out there right now and hold on to it once he's gone and no longer there to galvanize it. >> the book is "an uncivil war, taking back our democracy in a way of trumpian disinformation and thunderdome politics." congrats on the book. joe, final thoughts this morning? >> well, you know, greg was talking about how trump supporters support him because he delivered these big wins and then gloats. we've got 21 days. for people who don't want disinformation campaigns to work, for people who don't want to reward a president for being

toxic, for having a toxic twitter feed, for breaching constitutional norms, for ripping children from their mothers and fathers on the border. you got a choice. you got 21 days. don't tell me the constitutional system doesn't work if you don't go out and vote. whether you're a republican or a democrat or an independent, mika, i don't want to hear people say there are not sufficient constitutional checks and balances. we have it. it's called election day. democrats and independents who stayed home in 2016 and elected donald trump by doing so, well, mick k mika, guess what, another chance to vote. >> the message to democrats will be, you know what, if you want them to come out and vote, give them something to vote for. i'll start, end where we began this morning, talking about hillary clinton not helping the democrat, coming out and talking about being an adult when her

husband clearly took advantage of her. people are tired of games and they're tired of double standards. you've got the president tweeting about elizabeth warren right now. just stop, democrats. stick to a good sharp message and value the truth. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thank you, mika, thank you, joe. i'm pretty sure those two want you to vote. hi there, everyone. i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning, we're talking rogue killers? secretary of state mike pompeo arrives in saudi arabia, meeting with the king and crown prince. this, as nbc news has learned from three sources that saudi leaders are discussing a plan to now admit, change their story that missing journalist jamal khashoggi was killed after entering the saudi consulate in istanbul. but that is still leaving more questions. >> where's the body? why wasn't the family