post columnist. good morning. it is wednesday, october 17th. along with willie and me, we have sam sign, willie geist, kasie hunt up early this morning. columnist and associate editor for "the washington post" david ignatius is with us and white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lamere. he interviewed the president yesterday and we'll get to that just ahead. there's so much going on, willie. >> there is so much going on and we hope joe gets better. but i am glad there's one degree less of red sox gloating this morning. it's going to be bad as it is. >> we'll talk about that later or never. there are a number of developments this morning. president trump is willing to

extend the presumption of innocence to the saudi regime over jamaal khashoggi. mitch mcconnell, meanwhile, says soaring deficits are not a republican problems. plus, stormy daniels lost a legal fight against the president but won a ratings war. as we all know, few things matter to donald trump more than that. coming up, his latest sexist attack against the porn star. there's some new reporting, as well, that bob mueller could release key findings right after the midterms. and on the issue of saudi arabia, president trump insists he has no financial interest in the kingdom. even fox news had to check that one. mika, listing off fox, apartments and lobbyists all tied to president trump and his organization. so we'll start right there. the latest in the disappearance

of washington post columnist jamaal khashoggi who walked into saudi arabia's consulate in turkey on october 2nd and has not been seen since. turkish president erdogan found toxic contents at the consulate and parts had been repainted. turkish police planned to search the home after the saudi turkish general after that official suddenly left the country. the a.p. reports surveillance video shows the vehicles traveling to the koconsul general's residence. this after the photo and biopages of seven saudi passports belong ing to the members of the 15-person saudi hit team they believe is responsible. the "new york times" identifies

one of the suspects, the times report cites witness and records to link three others to the crown prince's security detail as well as an autopsy expert and its medical establishment. in all, the times says it has independently confirmed that at least nine of the 15 worked for the saudi government. there is a lot of evidence leading up to something ready bad happening. >> the washington street journal has some grewsome details of

what it says happened inside that consulate. with all that, the president continues to defend the saudi side. president trump said this. spoke to the crown prince. he said he and his father knew nothing about it and that was very important. i spoke to the king yesterday. the crown prince today wanting to know what was going on, what was happening. and he said very strongly that he and his father knew nothing about it. that's a quote from president trump. the a.p. then asked if his remarks about rogue killers came up. well, the concept of it, i guess. yesterday when i spoke with the father, not so much today, but when i spoke to the father, it sounded to me like he felt like he did not do it. he did not know about it. and it sounded like the concept of rogue killers. but i don't know. that was just from my feeling with the conversation with the king. president trump said this, well, i think we have to find out what happened first. here we go again with you're guilty until proven innocent. i don't like that.

we just wevent thrount through justice kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way. they are very strong about their denial. >> jonathan lamere, you had that interview with your colleague inside the oval office with president trump. it sounds like he's completely convinced based on his conversations with the king and the crown prince that saudi arabia did want do what all this preponderance of evidence says it did do. >> theater. and i was there with my colleagues and it became yet another xarm of the president wanting to take the word of an autocrat foreign leader in which he was clearly not going with u.s. intelligence but relying on the conversation he had with the king and the crown prince and believing their denials saying

they didn't have anything to do with it and that was good enough for him. he has time time and again he's reluctant to alter the relationship the president has with saudi arabia even though some of his top allies in the senate say that may be necessary. we saw the secretary of state mike pompeo in riyadh yesterday with members of the saudi royal family suggesting that, hey, they promise to be transparent about this. we will take them at their word, what they tell us. and then the president drew this remarkable lij to the idea of being guilty until proven innocent to the justice kavanaugh hearings we saw at the capital behind me a few moments ago. another moment where this powerful man or institutions where he's inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and he does not want to believe the preponderance of evidence that something really terrible

happened inside that consulate. >> david ignatius, you write this. inside his royal palace in riyadh, mohammed bin salman is said to have alternated between dark brooding and ramp aemging anger in the days after the death of jamal khashoggi. the emerging saudi narrative appears the to be that the palace authorized khashoggi's arrest and interrogation, but not his murder. this version has some obvious holes in it. if the goal was rendition back to skraub, then why interrogate him in istanbul and why did a forensics expert join them. finally, will such a saudi

defense hold up? behind the scenes says one knowledgeable source, mbs went into a funk for several days before re-emerging around a rampage of anger around what happened and trying to put a lid on the response. david ignatius, this is a member of the press. when the press has its back up and the press is never going to let this go away without all the answers. >> jamal khashoggi was our colleague. we've known him for more than a decade. so, yes, we do take this seriously. i was with three of jamaal's children on monday who came to see a number of us at "the washington post." and what they want is for an

international investigation that is credible to the pursue these leads. the idea of leaving it entirely in the hands of the saudis who have such an interest if there's evidence of wrongdoing by the senior princes of covering that up. they instead want an international process that can establish the truth in a more reliable way. what we do know from my reporting and that of others is that last summer the crown prince ordered his subordinates to try to bring back to the kingdom jamal khashoggi and other disnants. that didn't become clear to officials until later. but he personally made that order some months ago.

in terms of the specifics of how this happened, there does need to be an investigation. but one of the people who appears to come into turkey at the time on of this, was part of his entourage. >> david ignatius, they talk about an audio recording made by turkish officials a that they say has been shared with the united states and saudi officials. and it goes into details about what happened. if the united states knows that, if they've heard this intelligence, if they've read the "new york times" and the washington street journal and the "washington post" reporting on all this, where is the doubt that we're hearing from

president trump? why is mike pompeo sitting smiling next to the crown prince? what do you think they know that we don't? >> i wish i knew. vaughn has been a long time ally of the united states. that's why i think we need to demand an inquiry process that produces clarity and disability. saudi arabia's economic future is endangered by the uncertainty about what the united states is going in this case. there is nothing the saudi government could do better that would establish exactly what

happened to jamal khashoggi and be willing to consider investments, go to conferences, whatever, but that won't happen until people know the truth. >> you know, in the case of president trump and the saudi leaders, one could argue that money talks, can kasie hunt. but poor leadership is ultimately going to be the guiding light for this country and every time this president opens his mouth, he seems to take us down a peg because we need the concern to be at the top. we need the lack of trust at this point to be at the top. we need the demand for answers to be at the top. we need the concern for the evidence at hand to be from the top of the president of the united states. he's not giving that. how could members of congress not look at this and want more from their commander in chief?

>> it does seem as though the president is basing his comments from a conversation with the king. he is a man who it was suggested may be struggling to keep control of those around him which suggests that perhaps this was part of that. and instead, of course, the blame that we're all talking about is at the foot of the crown prince. and i think that there are demands from congress that something be done. this is a place where congress does have leverage. they could potentially try and stop arms sales to saudi arabia, although there are no indications at this point that they intend to go that far. and lindsey graham was particularly direct in confronting the crown prince. take a look. >> you do think there will be some type of response if these allegations are true?

>> i can't imagine there won't be, you but i think we need to find out what happened. >> i've been their biggest defender on the floor of the united states senate. this guy is a wrecking ball. he had this guy murdered in a consulate in turkey, and to expect me to ignore it, i feel used and abused. i was on the floor every time defending saudi arabia because they're a good ally. the mbs figure to me is toxic. he can never be a leader on the world stage. they're going to sanction the hell out of saudi arabia. we deal with bad people all the time, but this is in our face. i feel personally offended. they have nothing but contempt for us. why would you put a guy like me and the president in this box after all the president has done. this the guy has to go. saudi arabia, if you're listening, there are a lot of good people you can use, but mbs has tainted your country and tainted yourself. >> so you can hear the message from the president from lindsey graham blaming mbs.

i think the question is going to be who ultimately is the president going to decide he trusts? jared kushner, his son-in-law, does have a pretty strong relationship with mbs and they've put a lot of chips on that and so far don't seem to be walking away he. >> david ignatius, let me ask you, given what we know right now, today, we have a clearly premeditated homicide that occurred in turkey. we have the secretary of state and the president trump of the united states basically engaging in back slapping, smiling camaraderie with the crown prince and the king. we have a young crown prince who it seems is intent on his own survival. where does the crown prince go now? does he look for somebody to blame? what does he do?

>> last weekend, jared kushner called his friend mohammed bin salman and talked to him about the need to identify a culprit in this investigation, in this disappearance of jamaal khashoggi. the next day you had the president saying that he thought that rogue killers were involved, whatever that means. i mentioned a senior official in saudi intelligence, the major general, who is at the top of that list. so i think there is under way an effort of pompeo and others to in effect tidy this up, to form as process. we point to the investigation and then the investigation will

reach conclusions. the question is whether that's credible at a time when among the suspects in the turkish photographs are people who were the crown prince's bodyguards. so if this investigation is going to be of any value to the saudis in clearing the air, it has to be credible. it has to be transparent. >> because right now, david, according to everything we know that's on the table, the crown prince is right at the edge of being involved in a cover-up as an accessory to murder. >> the idea, mike, that the united states would participate in that would facilitate that process on something as serious as this, i find just appalling. i feel especially strongly because this is my colleague. but it's not appropriate for the united states to help tidy up a murder investigation. the u.s. has to insist on the

facts. president trump meanwhile continues to refute his financial ties to saudi arabia. the president tweeting yesterday, for the record, i have no financial interests in saudi arabia, or russia for that matter. any suggestion that i have is just fake news of which there is plenty. but the president's business empire has had connections to saudi arabia and with leaders there as far back as the 1990s. the post cited one deal in 1991 when trump was nearly $900 million in debt from failed casino projects. he sold his 281 foot yacht to the saudi prt for $21 million. a few years later, the prince bought a stake in trump's plaza hotel by agreeing to pay off some of trump's debt on the property. meanwhile, the trump international hotel took

in about $270,000 in payments tied to the kingdom, the spending which was disclosed in recent justice department filings took place between early october 2016 and late march of last year. obviously there are financial ties. that tweet wasn't right. it's one place to look about the question i asked. why is mike pompeo sitting smiling next to the crown prince and why is president trump so insistent on taking the word of the crown prescriptions and the king? >>. >> we are looking at a midterm election in which the democrats probably will take the over the house. at that point, they will be able to look under the hood at his finances and we may get a clear understanding of the extent of the dealings that he has not just with russia, but in this

case saudi arabia. this could can add a whole new different collar to that whole saga. ties to exist. if we find out some of his hesitancy is due to financial leanings that his.company has or the kushner company has, that would be a huge scandal of epic proportions. you can say that might be one of the reasons that they have been so hesitate to cast blame here, but the other thing that's clear to me is that the trump administration made a huge strategic bet and this is a conscious decision they made coming into office. it was in part done because they thought the obama administration was in the other direction. you have gone down a path, not just with arms sales, but with

the u.s./israeli relations that could take years to undo. we're in a mess, a huge mess. >> we're in a mess. at this point, it's really clear to me, at least, that the voids in this presidency on a moral level, on a patriotic level, on a national security level are coming to a head. and things are going to get really ully. still ahead on "morning joe," for a while, one of the few people president trump wouldn't publicly attack was stormy daniels. that is no longer the case. and her response to the president's tweet triggered far more twitter traffic than his original attack. but first, bill karins. >> texas is not pretty. we had fatality from the flooding. governor abbott has declaredti emergency. look at that video, the pictures there. at one point, it rose 7 feet in one hour. the release from the dams is pretty epic. there's just too much water.

they have no choice but to release it. and it continues today. we have flood watches that cover much of texas from dallas/ft. worth all the way through west texas and this goes through thursday. we're going to expect another 2 to 3 inches of rain. and you can see the rain this morning once again in texas. it's not like it's torrential, but it's just endless. it's already the wettest fall they've ever experienced in dallas and we're only halfway through it. now let's go to the winter cold side of the country. tomorrow morning, windchills in the 20s through northern new england, 31 in new york city, 28 in pittsburgh. so be prepared as a big winter chill comes down into the northeast over the next couple of days. if you want sunny, warm weather, florida is your spot. tampa, near record high once again today of 94 degrees. everyone else is getting their winter coats out in florida. it's just the cool air is not there yet. new york city, you're looking

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x1 help. another reason to love x1. say "teach me more" into your voice remote to get started. when you looked at that horrible woman last night, you said, i don't think so. >> she was the winner and, you know, she gained a massive amount of weight. and it was -- it was a real problem. you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever -- donald trump said the following about you, quote, look at that face. would anyone vote for that. can you imagine that, the face of our next president. >> i think women all over this country heard very clearly what mr. trump said. >> a playing of donald trump's long standing pattern of using looks as a basis to attack women. now add stormy daniels to that

list. a day after a federal judge tossed out stormy daniels defamation suit against the president and ordered her to pay his legal fees, associated with the case, trump tweeted in part, great, now i can go after horse face and her third rate lawyer in the great state of texas. she was confirm the letter she signed. she knows nothing about me, a total con. daniels, who was paid $130,000 in the final days of 2016 to keep quiet about her alleged affair with trump hit back on twitter citing what she calls trump's shortcomings referring to him as tiny. during an interview with the associated press yesterday, trump did not back down from calling daniels horse face. when asked if it was appropriate to insult a woman's appearance, he said you can take it any way you want. jonathan lamere, i'm just -- we've got this situation with the saudis and some other things

that are fairley pressing as it pertains to the united states of america. yet this president is calling a porn star on twitter a horse face. i guess one would have to ask why he would pay $130,000 to someone he call that's to, why he would have sex with someone he calls horse face while he was married to his wife. that's sort of sad and disturbed. and you just wonder what could the russians have on him if he is this base and animalistic and disgusting. >> as you said, this is far from the first time he has negatively attacked a work by going after her appearance. and he was eager to talk about this yesterday. that tweet came out of nowhere. he had a pretty empty public schedule yesterday ahead of our interview and others where he spent most of it watching television. including he tagged fox news in that tweet and was eager to weigh in. in our interview with him, we

pressed him on that. sir, do you feel like it's appropriate? as the president of the united states, even if this woman has come after you, you're involved with litigation with her, she has criticized you, but you're the president. should you be talking about her this way? and he didn't back down at all. as you said, his quote to us was you can take it any way you want and defiantly called her a liar, suggested that she and her attorney have said about him things that were not true and he was not going to the apologize. he was not going to back down. in fact, suggested that more attacks could continue. meanwhile, a day after ""vanity fair"" reported michael cohen has spent at least 50 hours meeting with investigators, president trump lashed out at his former fixer. during that interview with the associated press yesterday, the president argued cohen was lying under oath when he testified in federal court earlier this year that trump had directed him to commit a crime. the president telling the ap, michael cohen was a pr person

who did very small legal work. and what he did was very sad, when you look. the president went on to say cohen represented me very little. it's a very low level. what he was was also a public relations person. now if he wants to try and get a lighter sentence for what he did, totally uninvolved. you point out that not long ago, president trump had nothing but praise for michael cohenen. in april, trump called cohen a fine person who he always respected. in june, trump told reporters that he, quote, always liked michael cohen. in the months earlier, rudy giuliani defended cohen as an honest reliable lawyer. so you put these together, i put this in the cat cangoer that we've created here on "morning joe" where we can't be surprised, but we can continue to be disgusted about the things we hear. but with michael cohen, it's absurd the way he's running away from him, given how close they've been through the years. >> i totally take he your point, willie. i do hope i never stop being

surprised because this -- we shouldn't forget that these things should be surprising to the president of the united states. i think it's noteworthy. we had gone several weeks without the president focused in on kind of this piece of the universe that we're living in, the kind of russia probe had for the first time in a long time been on the back burner in the face of our conversations about kavanaugh and some other issues. i think it's pretty clear here that the president recognizes, you know -- i mean, what does he do when something is a threat to him? he tries to minimize it in public. did the same thing with paul manafort, oh, no, he was a small peaon. no, he was the campaign chairman who ran your convention. same thing. so i think it's pretty telling that he's doing this now. >> yeah. i think -- first of all, trump is right in one respect. michael cohen wasn't a lawyer in the traditional sense. he was a pr operative.

but he was involved in helping trump's political for rays. he set up a lobbying shop that companies, big, multi national companies poured millions of dollars into in order to get him to influence the president because he clearly knew that he had a seat at the table. so this idea that he is a nobody is ridiculous. but i don't want to gloss over the stormy daniels thing. and i know we can roll our eyes at it and it's ridiculous, too. but if you think about it, who calls someone horse face? who uses that terminology? it's something you would expect out of a pre-pubescent point. we've come to expect that type of behavior from the president and i'm shocked that we've gotten to the point where it's like, oh, yeah, he dubbed someone who he had an affair with when he had a child. >> we've got to come that kind of behavior.

>> a lot of people accept it, but it's almost like we've gotten to numb to the idea that this is shocking that we just kind of move on with it. but, honestly, if anyone in my life were to say the word horse face with about a woman, i would be shocked by it. >> clearly some of his voters want to hear stuff like this. they reacted to this stuff during the campaign. >> look at the rallies. >> he's being egged on by these people. he says this is unbecoming of any man, let alone the president of the united states is a vast understatement. and to say this enables teenage boys to feel like they have a license to refer to girls with some names is -- the. >> as parents or friends or whatever, if we heard someone say that about a woman, we would

be shocked and we would admonish them and tell them that's crazy and we would tell them not to do that again. >> well, you have boys. would you let your boys talk about women like this? >> of course not. of course not. mika. >> look, women and men should not behave this way and we should call it out. honestly, for me, this is one of the many, many, many ways this president has shown us that he is not fit, possibly not even well. and i don't understand the people in this administration taking matters into their own hands and trying to sort of stick it out because they can keep things together. on the foreign policy front, he is cratering our reputation. he is making us an international joke. we are losing our influence because this is the type of man who calls a woman a horse face, by the way, a woman he chose to have sex with. i don't know where that begins and ends and i wouldn't want to pick that apart.

but if you look at how he is speaking on the international stage about the murder of a washington post reporter, that itself should be deeply disturbing to anybody who works inside the white house, works on the national security team, works in the state department. at some point, you are working for a president who is not fit to lead, who is going to do something crazy in five minutes, one hour, tonight or tomorrow. what more do you need to hear from him to start thinking 25th amendment or something else. this is not okay. this is not normal. and this is where we are. still ahead, downtown beto o'rourke borrows a line from president trump to attack republican ted cruz during last night's senate debate. we'll have that coming up on "morning joe." ate. we'll have that coming up on "morning joe." sometimes, the pressures of today's world can make it tough

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david ignatius, before you go, some final thoughts, are you convinced we will find out what happened to jamal khashoggi and are you concerned at all about

the u.s. response when and if we finally do? >> i think it's important that americans urge our government to insist to saudi arabia that this investigation of jamal khashoggi's disappearance and apparent death be aggressive, transparent, that it disclose all the facts. i think that an international investigation, one that has that bro broad authority and sanction is in everyone's best interests because it will finally establish what happened. but i think for the united states, it's crucial that they stand up for the rule of law, for orderly investigation. that's what the united states has always stood for in the world, a rules-based order in which people have reliable information. this is a time when i hope they'll do that in the case of

jamal khashoggi. >> david, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> you voted for a republican for president in 2016. >> i did. >> now, would you be willing to vote for a democrat for governor in 2018? >> absolutely. >> i don't vote by party lines. although normally i vote republican. i mean, more of the people i've talked to and told them i've voting for hubble, they're, oh, chuck spawn is voting for fred hubble? hey, he's a good man. >> trump voters in iowa tell us why they like the democrat running for governor in this state. and look at the ingredients to a midwest comeback coming up on "morning joe." midwest comeback coming up on "morning joe." hello is friendly...

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iowa stunned democrats in 2016 losing the state by a larger margin than in texas.

but small leads in three majors races are giving democrats some hope with a few hints on the parties way back in 2020. nbc news political correspondent vaughn hilliard reports. trump loving governor cripple reynolds. >> the midwest has a partner in the white house. >> rallying with the man who painted iowa red in 2016. trump won here by almost 10 points, but republicans are now the ones on the run. reynolds and two members of congress trailing in polls, a contrast from the iowa inside the rally. >> oh, my gosh. this is amazing. >> and the iowa outside. >> totally undecided. >> did you vote for donald in 2016? >> hell yeah. >> are midwest voters flipping back.? >> who are you going to vote for governor? >> hubble. . >> businessman fred hubble is the democratic businessman with

a low key demeanor that is the opposite of trump's. >> why is this race close? >> people are frustrated. they want change. especially in the ways of health care and education. >> you voted for a republican president in 2016. >> i did. >> would you be willing to vote for a democrat for governor in 2018? >> absolutepy. lonnie appleby's host town of newton was devastated years ago when maytag closed its factory. >> all of a sudden, you lose 4,000 jobs. >> obama won by 7 points here. trump won it by 18. >> i don't know what this county is. confusing at best is all i can say. >> it's long time voted democrat. >> yes. >> so between kim reynolds and fred hubble? >> i lean towards hubble, but november is a ways away. >> education and health care are driving tara newton, a suburban mom who voted independent in 2016. but now this time here in november, you are going to vote

for one of the parties. >> i am this time, yeah. >> fred hubble. >> yes. >> the democrat. yeah. >> i think that he's a little bit more in tune with what people want. >> the connection democrats need to make. vaughn hilliard, newton, iowa. >> nice cameo there by java joe's in des moines. joining us now, author of "the red and the blue the 1990s and birth of political tribalism," steve kornacki. good to see you. >> morning. >> american voters are are free thinkers who don't vote down the party lines sometimes. they voted for president trump in 2016. they might vote for a democratic governor in 2018. >> in the governor's races, that is kind of the exception to party lines. in my state, massachusetts, charlie baker is poised to be

the fifth to be voted in. but you know what hasn't happened? a single republican winning a seat in the house of representatives. but in the there are a number of opportunities for democrats to pick up in iowa, pennsylvania, a couple in michigan, maybe one in wisconsin, we will see there, but there are some opportunities. the better the democrats are doing in these gubernatorial races two years after the trump surprise of 2016 it certainly can't hurt those democratic candidates. >> we had the debate last night in texas between senator cruz and beat owe o'rourke, the polling drifting in ted cruz's favor for the most part. about beto o'rourke do anything to close that gap? a new cnn poll has the spread at seven points. >> my sense, i was watching that debate last night, it was fairly entertaining but my sense is people went into it seeing what they expected to see. >> it struck me that beto was a little sharper than he has been, which usually is what happens when somebody feels like in the

stretch that they are down a little bit in the polls. him repeating president trump's lying ted lie is contrary to the sort of happy-go-lucky, skateboarding, campaigning in the rain beto that we've come to know. >> steve, when you look at the polls, not just the beto o'rourke texas stuff, what's your sense about the level of volatility in the electorate? >> it's a couple things, first, i feel it has changed over the last three weeks, so that tells us there is some volatility here. three weeks ago i think the democrats weren't just favored for the house, but i think three weeks ago you were talking about potentially some very significant gains there, significant majority of for them. i think they're still favored to take the house right now, but the possibility this is a much more narrow majority for even in a doomsday scenario for them they fall short, i think that's alive right now because we've seen this republican energy increase over the last three weeks. i think the obvious point there is if it's changed that way this three weeks and there's still three weeks to go until election

day, there is the possibility that we are back where we were three weeks ago come election day. >> the supposed kavanaugh effect and republicans, how much is it people going home to their political -- >> i was talking to one pollster who was saying he was picking up in his polls each before the brett kavanaugh controversy what you're talking about, republicans -- sort of the polarization lines of 2016 starting to reemerge. now, did kavanaugh accelerate that? did it heighten that? did it drive that point home to voters? i think that's possible. that's still a debate about what happened at the end of 2016. was it always going to end up happening that way or was it the comey letter that catalyzed it. president trump says he believes republicans would do well in the midterms tells the a.p., quote, look, it feels to me very much like '16. i was going out and making speeches and i was getting tens of thousands of people and i said, why am i going to lose? now, i'm not sure that's right, i'm not running. i mean, there are many people that have said to me, i will

never ever go and vote in the midterms because you are not running, and i don't think you like congress. well, i do like congress, said the president. the president also says he will not accept blame if republicans lose the house because he is helping the candidates, but he says he expects to get credit if they win. jonathan lemire, you conducted that interview, the president just lays it all out, you don't even have to read between the lines. >> which lines? >> this is a pretty typical trump construct, i will take the credit but none of the blame. he was very clear about this yesterday. first of all, he is still bullish, he thinks republicans do have a chance to maintain control of both houses and when we presented him that the white house's political operations and trump himself have acknowledged it will be harder to do so in the house, he was very quick to say, look, i'm out there, i'm helping people, i'm energizing people, i'm bringing tens of thousands of people to these rallies and i'm doing my part. if we lose, that's not my fault, that i'm out there doing

everything i can, there are historical trends that work against us, as we know, the party that controls the white house often suffers losses in off-year elections. he also struck -- and this was sort of interesting -- a sort of defiant note. we have talked a lot on this show and others about what will happen if the democrats do control congress, even earlier this hour we said they will have the power of the subpoena, they will be able to i can can around and looking under the hood on his finances, on russia, on things like that, and he basically said, bring it on. do what you need to do and we will do what we need to do. perhaps suggesting they won't cooperate with these probes or just extreme amount of confidence that the democrats won't find anything wrong. >> i think what happened about a month ago or so was that trump and the people around him decided that they needed to sort of personalize and national lies this campaign. i remember interviewing steve bannon about this and he said the only way that the republicans in congress will be able to actually hold on to the house is if they talk about this race as a referendum on trump because you need to get those people who are trump voters who

maybe weren't participants in politics prior to 2016 to come back to the polls this 2018. we see from trump a lot more he goes on the stump, he says i am not on the ballot but a vote for so-and-so is a vote for me. or trump surrogates that say if we do not win it also impeachment, it also disorder in washington. i think that's been effective in terms of mobilizing republicans. the one thing i will add is democrats face an incredible institutional advantage, too, is this he could win 2%, 4% of the popular vote and still not get the majority of the house of representatives. they have to actually score a fairly big victory if they do want to take over one of the chambers. >> the money numbers come in and a huge advantage for democrats in terms of fundraising. >> and i think it's one of those -- if democrats fall short of their expectations you are not going to be able to blame, i think, the money that they didn't have the resources in these races. beto o'rourke has raised $62 million total for this campaign. when i was covering new jersey

politics at the time jon corzine a self-funding shattered all previous records in 2000 when for the entire campaign he raised $63 million and here is beto o'rourke with a month to go at $62 million. it's big but standard now. >> 38 just in the latter quarter. the book is "the red and the blue." thanks so much. still ahead, turkish officials have provided nbc news with passport photos of the 15-person team they say traveled to istanbul to kill jamal khashoggi and according to the "new york times" several of them worked for the saudi government. former cia director john brennan will join us to talk about the disappearance of the columnist and the washington response so far. we will also be joined by robert costa. "morning joe" will be right back. rt costa. "morning joe" will be right back how can we say when you book direct at choicehotels.com

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learn more at retire your risk dot org. they made the largest order in the history of our country for -- outside, outside of our country -- for weapons, for any kinds of military weapons, missile systems, ships. they're buying -- >> from us? >> from us. $110 billion they're purchasing. it's 500,000 jobs, american

jobs, everything is made here. >> okay. that is the president not only misrepresenting the dollar figure related to saudi arms sales, but also falsely conflating american jobs with the issue. we are going to fact check that for you in just a moment. welcome back to "morning joe." it is wednesday, october 17th. joe is off this morning, along with willie and me we have politics editor for the daily beast sam stein, nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kc d.c. on msnbc, kasie hunt. editor in chief of the atlantic magazine, he smiles, jeffrey goldberg, presidential historian and author of the new book "leadership in turbulent times" doris kearns goodwin, and moderator of "washington week" on pbs, robert costa. a lot to get to this morning. we will start, though, with the latest in the disappearance of "washington post" columnist

jamal khashoggi who walked into saudi arabia's consulate in turkey on october 2nd and has not been seen since. turkish president erdogan says investigators found, quote, toxic material at the consulate and that parts had just been repainted. while turkey's foreign minister says police plan to search the home of the saudi consul general after that official suddenly left the country and several saudi diplomatic vehicles. the ap reports surveillance video shows the vehicles traveling to the consul general's residence shortly after khashoggi entered the consulate, this as turkish officials provided nbc news with the photo and bio pages of seven saudi passports belonging to members of the 15-person saudi hit team we believe is responsible. while "the new york times" identifies one of the suspects claiming he has been a frequent companion of crown prince mohammad bin salman, seen with him in paris, madrid and around the united states.

the times reports sites, witness and records to link three others to the crown prince's security detail, as well as an autopsy expert said to hold senior positions in saudi arabia's interior ministry and its medical establishment. in all the times says it has independently confirmed that at least nine of the 15 worked for the saudi government. so many questions being raised here, willie. >> and with all that in mind the president of the united states appears to be defending the saudi arabian side. in an oval office interview with the associated press yesterday president trump said this, spoke to the crown prince. he said he and his father knew nothing about it and that was very important. i spoke to the king yesterday, the crown prince today wanting to know what was going on, what was happening. he said very strongly that he and his father knew nothing about it. the ap then asked if during that conversation whether his remarks about, quote, rogue killers came up. the president replied this way, well, the concept of it, i

guess. yesterday when i spoke with the father, not so much today, but when i spoke to the father it just sounded to me like he felt like he did not do it. he did not know about it and it sounded like, you know, the concept of rogue killers. but i don't know. that was just from my feeling of the conversation with the king. on the idea of trusting the saudis the president said, well, i think we have to find out what happened first. you know, here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. i don't like that. we just went through that with justice kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way. so i was unconcerned, but i will say they were very strong in their denial about themselves knowing. mean while secretary of state mike pompeo met yesterday in riyadh with the crown prince mohammad bin salman who was personally suspected of ordering the operation to lure khashoggi from his home in virginia to saudi arabia. >> thank you for hosting.

>> did they say that mr. khashoggi is alive or dead? >> i don't want to talk about any of the facts. they didn't want to, either, and that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way. >> jeffrey, what do you think as you look at that image of the secretary of state smiling next to the crown prince of saudi arabia who has now been credibly accused of ordering the murder of a "washington post" columnist? >> where to begin with all this? first, by the way, can i say that i'm sure brett kavanaugh is not thrilled, but we will put that aside for a second. look, let's be real here, we have allies around the world, our allies sometimes do terrible things, as our adversaries also do. so this is -- this is more baroque than usual, but it's not of a different order entirely.

i think what's going on is this, mike pompeo is the lead figure in the administration's effort to contain and isolate iran. this saudi operation in turkey could ruin all of their best laid plans to essentially destroy or undermine the iranian economy and i think pompeo there smiling, he's smiling for a reason. they need the saudis desperately to engage in this plan. saudi arabia has to keep the oil flowing if iran's oil gets cut off. so this is real politics at its most real. i mean, this is -- >> so the cost, jeff, of this plan for iran is if a journalist is murdered, a resident of virginia, "washington post" columnist, so be it? >> it seems that way so far, unless the administration changes its tune, but it seems as if the president is desperate to move past this and obviously this whole o.j. if they did it

sort of thing is part of that. it seems as if they won't be able to do that entirely because this episode is so horrific and so baroque and so horrible that the world -- i think there's physical repull shon that people are feeling. >> to your point saudi arabia has been involved in what is essentially a humanitarian disaster in yemen and we have been utterly comfortable -- >> saudi arabia has never been -- >> so we're comfortable with that. this obviously hits at a more visceral level because, first of all, it's one of our own -- >> bone saws. >> it's basically a murder plot. >> you know that there's russians sitting somewhere going it took 15 guys with a bone saw to do this? we do with this with two guys in a park. if this is all true, they killed the guy in the one place where they had no deniability. it's unbelievable in so many ways. >> our friend richard haass, counsel on foreign relations tweeted about the old trust but verify reagan doctrine.

trust and look away when you look at the president saying russia says it didn't interfere, kim jong-un says he's going to denuclearize, the crown prince says he did not order the killing of jamal khashoggi. >> i don't think we can look look away from this because of the image not only that he was a "washington post" reporter but we watched him go into that place and never come out. somehow we can imagine what might have happened. sometimes pictures make something more visceral, the word the use, than an abstract human rights. it was already wrong the way the president talked about we're getting billions of dollars so it's okay that human rights is violated, but now you think about those pictures and it made a difference, the little girl who was running down the street after nay palm bombing in vietnam, the person falling out of the world trade center made all those killings real. there is a sense in which when you see an image of something it somehow gets into your heart and soul and i don't think we're going to forget this unless we are on overload. that's the problem, those other images made such a difference, even in world war ii they never showed a dead soldier until

finally 1943 and even then that soldier was sleeping because somehow it made real hundreds of thousands of people that were dying around the world. this has become real. it's every kid's fear, somebody goes away and doesn't come back. >> jeffrey goldberg, you know, you see private companies pulling away from the saudis, you see them stepping up, but what we have right now is president trump on the international world stage lying about financial ties with saudi arabia, saying to the saudis, in essence, he's with them, he doesn't know if he was murdered or not, he doesn't necessarily distrust them, he might trust them. he's playing both sides on the international stage, clearly siding almost with the saudis. he's appearing weak, feckless and easily manipulated. we all know that, but i feel like some might argue that this is a massive fail on the secretary of state's part. that he needed to step up and

have some strong language there. i mean, if members of this administration are going to fill this void that this president clearly puts out there, then do it. bring us down to let president internationally? and isn't that what we are seeing here? >> you know, i would take a slightly different tack than this, and i'm trying to view it from the middle east out rather than from washington and new york in. what i mean by that is the following, remember the arabs -- the moderate -- the so-called moderate arabs never forgave barack obama for hosting mubarak, the leader of egypt. what's happening across the middle east is people are looking at donald trump and mike pompeo and saying these guys have our back no matter what, that's what a friend or ally does. i'm not sure this is going interpreted as weak and feckless in the middle east, it's being interpreted as these are the rules, this is not a happy place, this is not a friendly place, it's a brutal place and sometimes we go a little bit too

far and we get into a little bit too much trouble, but the president of the united states our historic ally has our back. they are thanking god right now that they have donald trump and not barack obama in office. >> this is the business we've chosen. >> look, this is straight mafia. i mean, you know, what's going on here is straight mafia. >> i do think we need to just address one other component that's sort of this weird elephant in the room here, which is we have the opaqueness of the trump financial records that could be coloring a lot of this. we do not know the extent to which he and his family have financial ties to the saudis. we do not know the extent to which kushner and his family have financial ties to the saudis. i'm not saying this is determinative, i actually think they have put a huge geopolitical investment on the saudis and that's probably what's playing out here which is that they can't undo that. i do think that it is probably affecting some of the president's reactions to this. it certainly explains why he was preemptively talking about how he doesn't have any financial ties to the saudis, even though there is a public paper trail showing that he does. >> jeffrey, it sounds like what

you're saying is this is sort of baked in and that the president is making perhaps a cynical but a smart political play. when doris talks about images, rightly talking about images, there are plenty of images of the famine and children killed on school buses, but the president has made a calculation that his relationship with saudi arabia is more important than the life of this journalist. >> the president has two things going for him, one, our attention span and overload, as you talk about. there's the hope that in another week or two or three or four, maybe the "washington post" will get off its campaign or something like that. they will go to the next -- i mean, this is a really kind of crazy scandal, obviously, compared to most scandals that we deal with. and the second thing he has going for him is that saudi arabia's enemies are just as terrible in their human rights behaviors and in their

nonadherence to democratic norms and the rule of law. we are talking about iran and qatar. turkey jails more journalists than any other country. so it's -- you know, this is the middle east we are talking about and so he has picked -- you know, you can say he has picked a terrible middle east country that happens to like us rather than the terrible middle east country that doesn't like us. that he has long-term in his favor. >> what's interesting is you have congressional republicans, senators like lindsey graham saying clearly on television, on fox news and other places that if the president won't act on this congress will. that they are outraged by this even if the president is not. what does that mean? what does that turn into? what is that action potentially? >> it's a complicated moment politically for the republican party. talking to my top sources last night they said this is perhaps the real october surprise, not the kavanaugh confirmation in that you have human rights and foreign policy being injected into the midterm campaign just weeks ahead of the election. most of these lawmakers are now back home in their districts

trying to save their seat, whether it's in the senate or the house, and they are really looking to the white house for cues about how to handle this, but there's this indecision inside of the gop because they are not here really in washington about whether to move forward with sanctions, to take a harder line against saudi arabia or not, to risk going against president trump and his line. >> and based on your reporting, bob, because you are so wired in in washington, what is the calculus from the white house right now? we know that jared kushner has a very close relationship with mbs. are they helping saudi arabia through this? are they helping them concoct a plan, whatever the story is going to be, that it was an accidental death, perhaps, of the "washington post" journalist jamal khashoggi? >> white house officials say the president views this not so much through a foreign policy or ideological prison but through his transactional prison. he sees world politics as something that's about what are you giving the united states, what is the united states getting in return for what it gives, and on saudi arabia

whether it's the arms deal, oil, it's geopolitical position in the middle east, he values that and keeps articulating that privately inside of the west wing as something that he wants to protect, which has made him even as he lashes out at ms. daniels he's not taking any firm position on human rights. >> doris kearns goodwin, does this look like united states presidential leadership or would you argue, like add lip all bright does, that we are leading down a very different path here and all the pieces are fitting together towards someone that is trying to make this a dictatorship? >> the problem like using words like fishism or dictatorship is i think the pattern of behavior that we're seeing may be leading in that direction and you just want to be able to persuade other people to look at this president. my argument would be to look at whether he is a leader or not.

what does a leader normally do? a leader normally takes blame when things are wrong, a leader normally shares credit when things are right, a leader normally does a team that's built with people who are strong minded and can argue with him and you get a purpose in that team. a leader normally controls his negative emotions. a leader normally communicates honestly and with truth. if we can just show that he's not necessarily a leader, that's bad enough, rather than putting a label on him. when the mueller investigation comes out, we may well see the rule of law being denied and then we have to go after him, but right now we have to expand the people who look at him and see that this is not right what's happening, rather than turning them away by using a term like that. >> okay. so pull back on the term, but every question or every check that you put out there for this president is no. >> exactly. >> what's the word that we can use if we can't use certain words apparently because he uses any word he wants to use.

i understand that you don't want to overreach, but tell us where we are right now in the process of devolving the presidency if you think that is happening. >> i do think the fact that there's no shared political truth, that there are lies, there are fabrications, there are alternate facts, is a really troubling thing. i do think the fact that he is deliberately dividing the country rather than trying to bring us together. jeffrey and i were talking about that beforehand. other presidents may have done that, but this is being done deliberately. what a president normally does -- look at these moments of triumph that he had. at the inauguration he could have tried to bring us together, he didn't. after the kavanaugh hearings when he was triumphant, he got the supreme court justice he wanted, his party wanted into the court, and what does he do? he mocks dr. ford and talks about the democrats as horrible, horrible people. even after he won the suit evidently the other day over stormy daniels, why doesn't he just keep quiet instead of having to call her names? there is a feeling about him that the only joy he ever gets

is when he's fighting somebody rather than exhilaration even of a victory, and that's not an ordinary leader. you should be taking problems and feeling great and something solved or when you've been victorious, but instead he comes to life when he's arguing with other people and calling them names. all of those things are not what a leader is and we have to focus on that. leadership is what matters and then we can figure out what to label him as things go down the line. we may be reaching that point. if he were to do something with the mueller investigation and stop it, then clearly we have to talk about the rule of law and dictatorship. >> doris kearns goodwin, thank you very much, robert costa, thank you for your reporting. still ahead on "morning joe" lindsey graham has been towing the president's line recently but yesterday he did not. he had a far tougher position on saudi arabia than the administration has. plus, president trump has no financial ties to the saudi kingdom, that is, if you ignore the yacht, the real estate, the

long standing business ties. so why is he claiming something that is so easily disproved? former cia director and nbc analyst john brennan joins us next on "morning joe." analyst john brennan joins us next on "morning joe." fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate helps you. with drivewise. feedback that helps you drive safer. and that can lower your cost now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? if you're waiting patiently for a liver transplant,

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six-million low-income people to low-cost, high-speed internet at home. i'm trying to do some homework here. so they're ready for anything. defender on the floor of the united states senate. this guy is a wrecking ball, he had this guy murdered in a consulate in turkey and to expect me to ignore it, i feel used and abused. i was on the floor every time defending saudi arabia because they are a good ally. there is a difference between a country and an individual. the mbs figure is to me toxic, he can never be a world leader on the world stage. >> all right. joining us now former cia director john brennan. he also served as cia station chief in saudi arabia for three years and he is currently a senior national security and intelligence analyst for nbc news. thanks for being on this morning.

sir, on the president equivocating and lying on the world stage about the potential alleged murder of a journalist, why isn't there more push back from inside his administration, from the foreign policy community, from the national security community, from perhaps the secretary of state who is there? why aren't we seeing something stronger, more clear and more in line with american values? >> well, i think this has been consistent with other instances in the past where individuals have been reluctant to speak out, despite the facts and reality, because donald trump is somebody who does not allow that type of dissension and takes it very personally. i do think that donald trump and others right now are trying to find out how they can navigate what is, i think, a very difficult situation. trying to preserve not just the united states relationship with saudi arabia but their own personal relationship with mohammad bin salman. >> mr. director, the apparent

murder of jamal khashoggi took place 15 days ago, turkish officials according to published reports have shared audio reports of what they say happened, surveillance audio, in the room when khashoggi was killed with u.s. intelligence. so how much this morning does u.s. intelligence know about the death of khashoggi? >> i think they know a lot more than we know and i think they've been getting information from their turkish counterparts as well as other types of intelligence capabilities, technical and otherwise and that's why they are putting together the picture of what happened for donald trump and others. that's why it makes it very difficult for trump as well as mohammed salman to concoct some cover story because i think the intelligence will belie it. >> you've anticipated my next question. so in the morning when the president gets his briefing, is u.s. intelligence sharing everything it knows about this story with him? >> hopefully they are and i have confidence that my colleagues are teeing up at least to the white house what it is that they know, and their capability to

collect additional information, and what the saudis and mbs right now are doing in trying to cover up the story. >> mike, when the president goes out and stands there and says i take the saudis at their word, they're denying it, he's doing that knowing all of what director brennan has told us, what intelligence is sharing with him. >> we don't know what's in the presidential daily brief but i think the director is absolutely right. let me ask you this, given everything that we know that's on the public record today because of reporting, it appears that the crown prince is tripping right up to the wire of accessory to murder. given that, given what we know and given your knowledge of the kingdom, what are they doing to try and save -- or how much effort are they putting into trying to save the crown prince in concocting a cover story? >> well, mohammed salman as crown prince has a monopoly on power in saudi arabia and

including the royal family. people are now reporting to him and i'm sure that he is working with them to try to find out how that they can protect themselves and most importantly for him how he can protect himself from being implicated in this. king salman if he were in his younger years i think he would have gotten to the bottom of this and he wouldn't care even if it was his favorite son that did something like this, i think he would hold him to account, but i don't see who is the independent voice now within the royal family that has the strength and the political fortitude to be able to challenge the crown prince on this. >> but isn't the assumption built into what you just said, that people in the royal family would object to what happened in istanbul? i mean, this is -- we are not -- again, i make this point over and over again, with err not talking about sweden here, this is a country, a royal family because, of course, saudi arabia is a wholly-owned family business, this is a family that uses bee heading and crucifixion as forms of the death penalty. this is an absolute monarchy, there is no freedom, they use violence to advance their goals

in all kinds of ways. how different is this from the usual order of business in saudi arabia that this family has conducted over the years? >> i think this is very different and, yes, things happened in the past where the saudis would engage in these types of horrific and extra judicial acts that they would carry out. they carry out islamic law, so executions and this is all according to the law, but this goes well beyond anything that i have seen in my history of working in and with the saudis. it wouldn't have happened before mohammad bin salman had assumed the crown prince position. he is the day to day decision-maker in saudi arabia. my counterpart when i was there, we were working very closely with the saudi intelligence services trying to professional lies them, trying to make sure they did adhere to what the requirements are for intelligence security officials. i think mohammad bin salman has thrown that book out the door because he is continuing to consolidate his position and

continue to prevent opposition from gaining traction that might be threatening to him. >> you've said that the saudis are going to have to choose between their relationship with the u.s. and mohammad bin salman, but it sounds to me like you are not sure there is an alternative. what does the future of the saudi government look like if he can't stay in this position? >> there is no clearly anointed successor to the crown prince position. i don't know the state of king salman's current mental health. he is aging and i don't know whether or not he is able to deal with this effectively. i think mohammad bin salman has been very, very scrupulous as far as preventing the king from receiving any information that mohammad bin salman does not want. so i think it's a real crisis right now inside of the saudi government. it is a crisis for u.s./saudi relations and i am hoping that, again, the congress will put the pressure on the administration to get to the bottom of this and hold the saudis to account and i think it squarely lies in

mohammad bin salman's quarter. >> i'm interested in your take on something a former cia officer told me when we were talk about this privately. effectively he says the saudi government likes what's happening right now because, number one, this he don't think the trump administration will do anything significantly punitive, but number two because even the gruesome details that are out in public sends a message to other dissidents and to other journalists that this is what happens when you cross the kingdom of saudi arabia. >> i don't agree with that. >> you don't agree with that. >> no. i think mohammad bin salman would like to stifle and quiet any type of criticism but clearly this now is getting to be a donnybrook and i think mohammad bin salman badly miscalculated the reaction to this. look what has happened to davos in the desert, everybody is pulling back from that, investments and other types of things. it's sending a signal to opponents is one thing, but the attendant down sides that are accruing now to the u.s./saudi relationship, as well as how individuals, not just americans, but also europeans and others

are going to be looking at mohammad bin salman, this is a story that's going to continue to play out i think in the coming days, weeks and essentially months. >> a man who knows this country and this story all too well, former cia director john brennan. thank you very much. still ahead, a recent u.n. report warned of the catastrophic effects of climate change, but president trump says not to worry, he has a natural instinct for science. we will explain next on "morning joe." xt on "morning joe.

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do you still think that climate change is a hoax? >> look, i think something is happening, something is changing and it will change back again. i don't think it's a hoax, i think there's probably a difference, but i don't know that it's man made. i will say this, i don't want to give trillions and trillions of dollars, i don't want to lose millions and millions of jobs, i don't want to be put at a disadvantage. >> after last week's u.n. report warning that human pollution is speeding up catastrophic effects of climate change president trump told "60 minutes," quote, it will change back. yesterday when the associated

press told him that scientists say it is nearing a point where this can't be reversed, trump responded, no, no, some say that and a some say differently. you have scientists on both sides of it, my uncle was a great professor at mit for many jeers, dr. john trump. i didn't talk to him about this particular subject, but i have a natural instinct for science and i will say that you have scientists on both sides of this picture. sam stein, i will just let you take it from here. it's really hard to watch him do this on every issue. >> yeah. >> basically sowing doubt and leaving people hanging. >> my dad is a doctor, you wouldn't want me performing surgery on you. >> now you tell me. >> you might have a natural instinct for surgery. >> you wouldn't want me delivering your child. this is just absurd. it would be funny if it wasn't

like so serious. i mean, this u.n. report, if you look at it, the u.n. report basically says we are at a tipping point where if we don't do something within the next ten years we will have suffering, death, drought on a magnitude that a planet has never seen before. now, if we were to sit here and tell anyone that credibly we have determined that terrorists have plotted to destroy a huge chunk of the planet with weaponry, with bombs and they would starve a bunch of people and they would cause massive economic damage in their plot, with he as a government and society would do basically everything in our power to prevent it, we wouldn't dismiss it by saying there is one person out there that doubts that the terrorists are going to do this. we would do everything we could to prevent it. because climate change has been a slow moving crisis for now we don't have the political will power to do it. it's a shame because in 10, 20 years we are going to looking ba and say we missed a real opportunity to do something about it and get ahead of it. >> we missed a real opportunity to talk about it at length

because of the trump effect. the climate change story that appeared in the papers last week was a truly important story that's going to have huge impact obviously, most people know, for years, and it's blocked out really because of what happens each and every day out of the white house. so how do we deal with that, that's one question, and the second question is trump's comments about climate change. doesn't he remind you a little of bill karins? >> the meteorologist. >> the weather is going to change tomorrow, it will change back. >> on your first point, it is sort of amazing, right? headline, the world is slowly burning to death, but stormy daniels, you know, i mean, it is astonishing. can i just be the optimist for a moment here and note for the record that trump has modulated his view on climate change. >> no longer a hoax. >> he said this was a chinese manufactured hoax and now he says, yeah, it might be changing, it will change back, i don't know, i don't know what causes it. so he's moving in a direction towards science, perhaps because

of his natural instinct. so i'm just going -- i'm just going to be the optimist and say that over time -- i'm trying. >> mika, has the president said there are scientists on both sides -- i want to read one line from the partisan organization nasa. >> oh, yeah. >> that says multiple studies published in peer reviewed scientific journals show that 97% or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree climate warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. that's right off nasa's website. >> they'll change back. >> yeah. to quote rex, he is a moron. jeffrey goldberg, thank you very much for being on this morning. >> thank you. still ahead, former white house photographer pete souza has found himself a new role since president obama left office. trolling trump. he joins us next on "morning joe." joins us next on "morning joe.

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as we've been reporting today, president trump called stormy daniels horse face yesterday, prompted this post by president obama's former official white house photographer pete souza who highlighted this caption it's only okay to call a horse a horse face. the latest example of how suze dpla is using the time he spent in the president obama white house to take jabs at at the trump administration. souza's trolling of president trump is no longer limited to social media. his new book is titled "shade, a tale of two presidents" and pete souza joins us now. good morning. >> thanks for having me on. >> you didn't set out to throw shade, i understand you didn't even know what that meant a couple years ago. >> it actually started a calm days after the inauguration when i posted a picture of president obama in the oval office with the red curtains in the background and i just said i kind of liked the old curtains

better. it had a double meeting and i think people caught on to it. >> we usually don't see this from a white house photographer who has a fly on the wall quality to him or to her. what maze you want to step out and make this stand? >> i think this guy disrespects the office of the presidency, i mean, it's as simple as that. if john mccain or mitt romney or marco rubio had been elected president, i wouldn't be doing this. because i think they would have respected the office. i don't think he does. >> let's take a couple looks at some of these. this is your response to president trump's claim that president obama had his phones tapped during the election. you have the president saying, say what? >> say what. i was trying to imagine how president obama was reacting to reading this where trump accused him of a high crime, essentially. i couldn't -- i know president obama really well. i don't know how he would have reacted, so that's why i had the different expressions. >> do you hear from president obama about your photographs? >> he tells me that friends when he is on the road tell them

about them. >> what does evening? >> you know, i think he thinks they're probably pretty funny. >> here is your response to president trump's criticism of not doing enough about vladimir putin's meddling. not much happening here. >> president obama was not afraid of being tough on world leaders when necessary. >> two things, one is the power photographs to sort of be a narrative corrector because we live in a time where i think it's fair to say that the occupant of the white house likes to pedal in falsities, untruths, and photographs are a great way to counterbalance that. do you find that that's sort of your calling here, to use your photographs as a way to, you know, promote truth? >> sometimes. definitely. i mean, the crowd on inauguration day, you know, i mean, the picture from 2009 which was the biggest crowd ever at an inauguration to counter

president trump's claims that he had the biggest. so definitely. >> now, my second question is just about you, yourself. you've taken -- i mean, god knows how many pictures you took during the course of the obama presidency. do you have an encyclopedic knowledge of what those photos are and where to pull them out from. when you see a tweet in your head is it working i remember this picture from the obama administration, i'm going to go find it? >> yes. >> you have that type of -- >> yeah, it's usually in my head. >> really? >> oftentimes i just google it because the pictures i'm using are ones that we had made public while we were in office. >> sure. >> so they're public domain. i can usually google them and find them somewhere. >> you can recall specific moments in the pictures that you took? >> yes. >> have you ever used private pictures that weren't public domain? >> no. >> why not? >> because i just don't think it's the right thing to do. >> you save them for the next book. >> yeah, maybe.

>> what's interesting to someone looking at the pictures or at least it's interesting to me, is in the crowd shots, most of the crowd shots that you use in this book and in others, people look really happy to see the president of the united states, and if you juxtapose it to the crowd shots today with mr. trump, they seem, you know, on the edge of being gleeful but about, you know, something bad is going to happen. he's going to make fun of people. it's like a comedy show. but your crowd shots are different. >> well, i don't think president obama from the podium would, you know, bully people. he didn't call the press that were there the enemy of the people. he was talking to them and not talking about other people in a negative way. >> in fairness, there are a lot of people very excited to see president trump if you have ever been to one of those rallies. >> i didn't mean they weren't x

excited to see them, but the tempo of the crowd is different. >> this is your response to the appointment of robert mueller as special counsel in charge of the russia investigation. what are you saying here with this picture? >> i don't remember what the caption is, it's too small to read, but i did want to point out that robert mueller is one of the greatest public servants of our generation. i mean, he served in fbi, was asked to stay on past his term by president obama. i mean, this guy is without question just a great government service person. >> and has served republican and democratic presidents obviously. now, this one, mika, i want to bring you in on. this is pete's response to president trump's disparaging comments about women, particularly his attack on you, mika. what are you saying here, pete? >> i was trying to have mika's whack on this one and show that president obama had a lot of women in senior positions around

him. >> mika? >> and, in fact, he started the white house council on women and girls, he passed the lilly ledbetter act. thisact. president obama really considered elevating the level of women and helping them use their voices and find leadership positions. all of that has literally been wiped away. the council is gone. what we have now i guess in terms of examples of female leadership would be kellyanne conway, ivanka and melania and sarah huckabee sanders. it is hard to understand what has happened. >> this is your response to reports of president trump calling the white house a dump. you said in the caption, despite

what some say, the white house definitely is not a dump. what a shameful thing to say or to think. >> i think it says it all. there are so many permanent workers of the white house that do so much to keep it looking great and functioning. >> this is your response to president trump's nickname for north korean leader kim jong-un. there is only one rocketman, sir elton john. >> you knew -- >> as soon as he called him little rocket man. >> how long did you take on the caption? >> some captions take longer than others. some just come up. that one was easy. >> did you ever photograph trump prior to his presidency? >> two days after the election when he came to the white house and then on inauguration day. >> how did you get the job?

>> i was the washington-based photographer for the chicago tribune when barack obama was elected to the senate in 2004. i got to know him because of that professional relationship that we had. >> what is it like to be, as i said, a fly on the wall almost everywhere the president of the united states goes and to get to know him in a way that nobody else will. >> you see the president in all aspects of their life in the situation room and then playing with his daughters in the snow. >> i remember he would always be just sort of off to the side. he has all the scoop. i didn't realize you were the photographer. >> what were you like and what was it like that horrible day in sandy hook, connecticut? >> the day of the shooting was hard. president obama took it so

personally imagining what it would be like to be the parent of those who died and then to go to sandy hook and spend the time consoling them. it was two days later. they were still trying to come to grips with what was happening. they were having to talk to the president of the united states. we don't see that kind of interaction from the president today, which i think is unfortunate. >> pete souza saw it all, the good and the truly awful. the book is "shade" the tale of two presidents. jamal khashoggi has not been seen since october 2. president trump is pushing back against the growing criticism of saudi arabia by invoking brett kavanaugh, calling this another case of guilty until proven innocent.

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do you trust him? >> i trust him. that doesn't mean i can't be proven wrong. if i didn't trust him i wouldn't say that to you. i do trust him.

>> i said it will be a thory, complete and transparent investigation. they made a commitment to show the world the results of their investigation. >> president trump trusts north korea to throw away its nuclear weapons. and secretary of state mike pompeo trusts saudi arabia to investigate itself in the apparent murder of a washington post columnist. welcome to "morning joe." joe is under the weather today. he will be back tomorrow. we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle, sam stein, nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt up early this morning, columnist and associate editor for the washington post david ignaceous is with us. and white house reporter jonathan lamere. he interviewed the president

yesterday. we'll get to that. there is so much going on. >> we hope joe gets better. i'm glad there is one degree less of red sox gloating this morning. we'll talk about that later or never. there are a number of developments to get to this morning. president trump looking to extend the presumption of innocence to the saudi regime over the suspected murder of saudi journalist jamal khashoggi. mitch mcconnell says soaring deficits are not a republican problem despite them blooming. plus stormy daniels lost the legal fight against the president but won a ratings war. few things matter more to donald trump than that. his latest sexist attack against the porn star. and on the issue of saudi

arabia president trump insists he has no financial interest in the kingdom. even fox news had to check that one. >> so we'll start right there. jamal khashoggi who walked in to the consulate in turkey on october 2 and has not been seen since. turkish president says investigators found that parts had just been repainted. turkey's foreign minister said police plan to search the home of the consulate general after that official suddenly left the country. the a.p. reports, surveillance video shows the vehicles traveling shortly after khashoggi entered the consulate. this as turkish officials provided nbc news with the photo

and bio pages of seven saudi pass ports belonging to the members of the 15-person saudi hit team they believe is responsible. while the "new york times" identifies one of the suspects claiming he has been a frequent companion of crown prince seen with him in paris, madrid and around the united states, the times reports sights, witness link to three others as well as an autopsy expert said to hold senior positions in saudi arabia's interior ministry and medical establishment. in all the times says it has independently confirmed that at least 9 of the 15 work for the saudi government. i take it we stop right there and try and break this down. there is a lot of evidence leading up to something really bad happening and yet the

president and everybody wants to just sort of trust before they verify. >> the wall street journal al an audio recording reporting of gruesome details of what it says happened inside the consulate. the president of the united states appears to continue to defend the saudi side. in an oval office interview with the the associated press president trump said this. i spoke to the crown prince. he said he and his father knew nothing about it and that was important. he said very strongly that he and his father knew nothing about it. that is a quote from president trump. the a.p. asked if his remarks about rogue killiers came up. president trump responded this way, when i spoke to the father it sounded like he felt like he did not do it. it sounded like the concept of rogue killers. i don't know.

that was just from my feeling of the conversation with the king. on the idea of trusting the saudis, president trump said this. i think we have to find out what happened first. you know, here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent. i don't like that. we just went through that with justice kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way so i was unconcerned. i will say they were very strong in their denial about themselves knowing. you had that interview with your colleagues at the the associated press inside the oval office with president trump. it sounds like he is completely convinced based only on his anecdotal conversations that saudi arabia did not do what this preponderance of evidence says it did do. >> i was there with my colleagues. it became yet another example of the president seeming to want to take the word of a foreign leader, an autocrat foreign

leader, in which he was clearly not going with u.s. intelligence but relying on the conversation he had with the king and believing their denials, suggesting that they said they didn't have anything to do with it. that was good enough for him. he has said he is reluctant to alter the relationship the u.s. has with saudi arabia even though some top allies in the senate suggested that may be necessary. he continues to say he is waiting to hear more about the investigation. we saw the secretary of state mike pompeo there yesterday in a smiling photo op, suggesting that they promise to be transpo transparent about this. and then the president drew this rather remarkable link to the idea of being guilty until proven innocent to the brett kavanaugh hearings that we saw a few weeks ago. another moment with a sort of

powerful man or powerful men or institutions where he is inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. he does not want to believe the preponderance of evidence that something really terrible happened inside the consulate. >> in your latest piece in the "washington post" you write this, inside his royal palace he is said to have alternated between dark bruding and rampaging as saudi arabia's crown prince looked for someone to blame for what turkish officials have said was the journalist's grisly murder. the emerging saudi narrative appears to be that the palace authorized khashoggi's arrest and interrogation, but not his murder. this version has some obvious holes in it. if the goal was rendition back to saudi arabia, then why interrogatein istanbuistanbul?

why did a forensics expert join the team at the airport? will such a count hold up under intense scrutiny by congress, the media and perhaps u.s. courts? behind the scenes says one knowledgeable source nbs went into a funk after learning of khashoggi's death before re-emerging in a rampage of anger. putting a lid on the murder investigation won't be easy, even for the confident crown prince. this is a member of the press when the press has its back up and the press is never going to let this go away without all the answers. >> we take this very seriously at the "washington post." jamal khashoggi was our colleague.

she was a friend of many of us. we have known him for more than a decade. so yes we do take this seriously. i was with three of jamal's children on monday. what they want is for an international investigation that is credible to pursue these leads. the idea of leaving it entirely in the hands of the saudis who have such an interest if there is evidence of wrong doing of covering that up, they want an international process that can establish the truth in a more reliable way. what we do know from my reporting and that of others is that last summer the crown prince ordered his subordinates to try to bring back to the kingdom jamal khashoggi and other dissidents.

unfortunately, that warning didn't become clear to u.s. officials until after his disappearance. now they are confident that he personally made that order some months ago. in terms of the specifics of how this happened, there does need to be an investigation. the "new york times" reporting this morning which you cited of which they established that one of the people who appears to have come into turkey at the time of this apparent killing, was a body guard, a person who was close to him, part of his personal entourage. that is a very important piece of evident. >> if you look at the wall street journal reporting, they talk about a surveillance audio recording that they say has been shared with the united states and saudi officials. it goes into great and gruesome detail about what happened and how khashoggi was beaten up,

drugged and killed and later dismembered by this specialist in forensics. if the united states knows that and have heard the intelligence and read the "new york times" and reporting on all of this, where is the doubt that we are hearing from president trump? why is mike pompeo sitting smiling next to the crown prince? what do you think they know that we don't? >> i wish i knew. i think those pictures are disturbing to see people smiling in the aftermath of what appears to be a horrible murder should disturb everyone. saudi arabia is a country that has been a long-time ally for the united states. it has an important relationship. that's why i think we need to demand an inquiry process that produces clarity and stability. investors are rushing away from saudi arabia today. saudi arabia's economic future is in dangered by the

uncertainty about what is going on in this case. there is nothing that the united states can do that would help saudi arabia more than establish clearly what happened to jamal khashoggi and then perhaps people will have confidence in that conclusion, in that investigation and begin to be willing to consider investments, going to conferences, whatever. that won't happen until people know the truth. coming up on "morning joe," president trump lashes out at stormy daniels, not after he lost a legal case against her, but after he won. his ugly misogynistic victory lap is next on "morning joe." all eyes are on texas. the rain is endless. 8 to 12 inches of rain in the last week in some areas. we had one fatality reported. 18 communities are declared a disaster. this bus driver decided to cross a flooded road with a student on

board. the driver and student were rescued safely and the driver, by the way, is being charged with child endangerment and rightfully so. as far as the river went, the destruction was epic. it went up about 35 feet in 24 hours. you can see some of the results here, cars washed away. they had some structural damage done to a bridge. look at the raging water at that dam. we are dealing with flood watches in the area. dallas was just dropped from it. most of the heavy rain is focussed now out here where a lot of heavy rain was yesterday. you can see the dallas area just light rain right now. there is steadier stuff developing in west texas. our computers are pin pointing this blue to purplish color, this is one to two inches of rainfall in west portions of texas. and then the opposite of the rainy cold texas forecast is the

chili and raw feeling in the northeast tomorrow. detroit's wind chill will be 23 with a temperature of 30. as we go thursday into friday, it's still pretty cold. at least not quite as windy. philadelphia wind chill into the 30s. the opposite of the northeast is florida. yesterday a record high in tampa. we will continue with the unusually warm october. we are about 92 degrees today and will continue to be in the 90s as we go throughout thursday. today 93 is the record in tampa. your high is 92. tallahassee near record heat. jacksonville forecast record today. one spot in the country holding on to the heat is the sunshine state. we are leaving you with new york city and will continue to watch very nice fall conditions today. be prepared for tomorrow morning. hats, gloved and winter coat for the kids. you're watching "morning joe."

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when you looked at that horrible woman last night, you said i don't think so. >> she was the winner. she gained a massive amount of weight. >> you can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, plood coming out of her wherever. >> donald trump said look at that face. would anyone look for that? can you imagine that? the face of our next president? >> i think women all over the country heard very clearly what mr. trump said. >> a sampling of donald trump's long standing pattern of using looks as a basis to attack women. now add stormy daniels to that list. a day after a federal judge tossed out the defamation suit

against the president trump tweeted now i can go after horse face and her third-rate lawyer in the great state of texas. she will confirm the letter she signed. she knows nothing about me, a total con. daniels, who was paid $130,000 in the final days of 2016 to keep quiet about her alleged affair with trump hit back on twitter referring to him as tiny. during an interview with the the associated press yesterday, trump did not back down from calling daniels horse face. when asked if it was appropriate to insult a woman's appearance he said you can take it anyway you want. jonathan, we have this situation with the saudis and some other things that are fairly pressing as it pertains to the united states of america. and yet this president is calling a porn star on twitter a

horse face. i guess one would have to ask why he would pay $130,000 to someone he calls that to, why he would have sex with someone he calls horse face while he was married to his wife. that is sort of sad and disturbed. you just wonder what could the russians have on him if he is this animalistic and disgusting? >> this is far from the first time he has negatively attacked a woman by going after her appearance. he was eager to talk about this yesterday. that tweet came out of nowhere. he had a pretty empty public schedule yesterday ahead of our interviews and others where he spent most of it watching television. he saw a segment about stormy daniels and was eager to weigh in. in our interview with him we pressed him on that. do you feel like it is appropriate as the president of the united states, even if this

woman has come after you, you are involved in litigation with her. you are the president. should you be talking about her this way? he didn't back down at all. as you said his quote was you can take it anyway you want and then defiantly called her a liar, suggesting it was something she and her attorney have said about him were not true and he was not going to apologize and suggested more attacks could continue. >> a day after "vanity fair" reported michael cohen spent more than 50 hours with investigators. the president argued cohen was lying under oath when he testified in federal court earlier this year that trump had directed him to commit a crime. president telling the a.p. michael cohen was a pr person who did small legal work. what he did was very sad. the president went on to say cohen represented me very

little. it is a very low level. what he was as a public relations person -- not long ago president trump had nothing but praise for michael cohen. in april trump called cohen a fine person. in june trump told reporters that he always liked michael cohen. and the month before, trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani defended cohen as a quote honest, honorable lawyer. when you put these together, stormy together with michael cohen and the category we have created on "morning joe" where we can't be surprised but we can continue to be disgusted by the things we hear. with michael cohen, it's absurd the way he is running away from him. >> i do hope i never stop being surprised because we shouldn't forget that these things should be surprising from the president of the united states. i think it is noteworthy, we

have gone several weeks without the president focussed in on kind of this piece of the universe that we are living in. the russia probe had been on the back burner in the face of our conversations about kavanaugh and other issues. i think it is pretty clear here that the president recognizes, what does he do some when something is a threat to him? he tries to minimize it in public. i think it is telling that he is doing this now. >> i think -- trump's right michael cohen was more of a pr operative, but the idea that he was a small bit player in the universe is ridiculous. he was involved in helping trump's first political foraes. he set up a lobbying shop that

big national companies poured millions of dollars into in order to get him to influence the president. the idea that he is a nobody is ridiculous. i don't want to gloss over the stormy daniels thing. i know we can roll our eyes at it and it is ridiculous . if you think about it, who calls somebody horse face? it's something that you would expect from a prepubescent boy. i am just shocked that we have gotten to the point where he dumped someone who he had an affair with and paid hush money for. it is just crazy to me. >> the phrase we come to expect that kind of behavior. >> we have. >> no. >> when will we come to the point where we don't accept that kind of behavior?

>> i don't this can people accept it. we have gotten so numb to the idea that this is shocking that we just kind of move on with it. if anyone in my life were to say the word horse face about women, i would be shocked by it. >> some of his voters want to hear stuff like this. they reacted during the campaign. the rallies, he is being egged on by these people. coming up on "morning joe," beto o'rourke doesn't agree with president trump on much except -- >> this is what you can expect over the course of the debate. senator cruz is not going to be honest with you. he is dishonest. that is why the president called him lying ted and why the nickname stuck, because it is true. >> we will get an update on the hard fought race in texas. "morning joe" is coming right back. ce in texas. "morning joe" is coming right back. my name is elaine barber, and i'm a five-year

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to take money away from neighborhood public schools and give it to their corporate charter schools. that's why tony thurmond is the only candidate endorsed by classroom teachers for superintendent of public instruction. because keeping our kids safe and improving our neighborhood public schools is always tony's top priority. senator cruz is not going to be honest with you. he is going to make up positions and votes that i have never held

or taken. he is dishonest. it is why the president called him lying ted and why the nickname stuck because it is true. >> it is clear his pollsteres have told him to come out on the attack. have you noticed in the campaign and this debate he doesn't talk about what he has accomplished in congress because he has scored political points rather than accomplishing victories for the people of texas. >> if you have the special relationship with president trump, then where is the result of that? you are all talk and no action. all you heard from senator cruz is what we should be afraid of. it's a campaign based on fear. it's the same person who shut down the government of the united states of america for 16 days perhaps because he thought too many people had too much health care. >> with congressman o'rourke leading the way, two years of a partisan circus shutting down

the federal government is not good for the state of texas. >> it is interesting to hear you talk about a partisan circus after your last years in the u.s. senate. >> republican senator ted cruz and congressman beto o'rourke faced out in their second debate ahead of next month's election. joining us now, founding president of voteo latino. and in austin, texas, professor at the linden b. johnson school of public affairs at the university of texas, victoria soto. how is this race looking in terms of the numbers and the polling that we are seeing out there? >> so it is a -- i don't think this is the number we should be focussing on. here i am putting on my

political science cap. these polls that we are seeing are based on likely voters. what we have seen since the last mid term election is 1.6 million new voters. this has really been the focus of the beto o'rourke campaign. they have been going after these nonvoters. they want to increase the electorate. they know they are not going to change the minds of a lot of g.o.p. texans. they are going after folks who have not registered. this is where all the money and 38 million that he raised is going to knocking on doors time and time again. when we include this 1.6 million, it's going to be within the margin of error. i'm not going to say it is beto o'rourke's win, but it is a lot closer than we are seeing in the polls. >> how is the money matching up on the cruz side? >> so in the last reporting period we saw that beto o'rourke outraised ted cruz by three

times. keep in mind that beto o'rourke is not taking any pac money. all of the money that he is raising is through individual donations. he has this rock star quality about himself. he has these rallies. he goes across the state. he has been to every county. we have 256 counties here in texas. he has been a ruthless fundraiser in terms of mobilizing people, directing him to his website and the money has been coming in. folks here on the republican side are getting very nervous. we are seeing corporate interest starting to pound money into the cruz campaign. >> beto o'rourke has raised a ton of money and set a quarterly record. there is an impression and ted cruz touched on this last night that he is sort of a national candidate, that his support is coming from new york and california because he has this rock star quality as it was described by victoria. what does it look like inside of texas? where will latino voters go in two weeks?

>> the proportion of people that they are registering are young latino voters. there are roughly 2.3 million latino voters under the age of 29. they are first-time voters so getting to the polls will be something that beto o'rourke will have to focus on. the fact that cruz is saying that he is a national candidate is pretty rich because that is the stage he wants to dominate. when you look at who is funding him, it is individual donors for beto and koch brothers for cruz. it gives you a just xtaposition it is going to be close. >> we have new nbc news reporting that many latinos may sit out the mid term election. immigration with family separation has been front and center. what are you looking at in terms of turnout of latino voters? >> the biggest challenge is that

there is a lack of investment when it comes to connecting the connective tissue, that the only way you can solve for health care and education and solve for the immigration crisis is bringing in a line of defense into congress. the latino community is disproportionately young. 60% is under the age of 33. the median age of a white voter is 54. there is a ton of education that the democratic party, the progressive party, they are simply not doing on how the basics of education and branches of government work. >> how big of a problem is the lack of democratic infrastructure? the democratic party down there has sort of withered away over the years. >> this is the challenge. they have really based a lot of their infrastructure following unions and union strong holds. in the places where there is the

greatest opportunity right now, is actually in georgia and north carolina, florida, texas and arizona. those are not union strongholds. so the progressive party really has to figure out how they reimagine investment to capture that market opportunity. >> third quarter campaign fundraiser reports were due this week. democrats have the upper hand. 71% of the democrats out raised their republican opponents. that's in 32 of the 45 districts. all told in those races democrats brought in $154 million while republicans raised $108 million. in georgia despite ongoing accusations of voter suppression in the state, early voting there opened on monday and set records. across the state 69,049 voters cast the ballots on the first day of in person early voters. with some voters waiting as many as two hours to cast the mid

term ballot which includes the governor's race between brian kemp and democrat stacy abrams. that is a sharp increase from the last one wh. a total of 129, 458 georgians have voted as of monday. when you put the money together with the early voting in georgia, what do you see? >> obviously, there is an immense amount of democratic enthusiasm. you can suggest from that looking at the data. does it translate into enough? we glossed over it in the script. what is happening in georgia with respect to the voter suppression efforts is remarkable. the fact that people had to wait two hours online to vote in early voting is kind of a traves travesty. our government should be making it easier for people to vote and not setting up barriers. this is a huge problem that

spans not just through georgia but other states where you are seeing restrictions put up and secretary of states sit on registrations. it could potentially have an impact on the mid term elections and denying democrats opportunities for gains. >> it is challenging because the function 06 government where the voter registration online in florida and texas has been down. people are starting to internalize and say is this by design? we have to recognize that the power of our democracy is maximum participation. it is something we have to have a frank conversation how to address that and modernize it. >> in last night's debate we showed the clip, basically a back and forth between cruz and beto o'rourke. did family separation and the fact that there is basically a large refugee camp filled with children along the border, did that come up? >> the issue of immigration came up, but sadly the human issue of the family separation fell into

bo background. it came down to border enforcement. beto o'rourke talked about using technology and not wasting money on a border wall. ted cruz never really answered the question. what he did spend his time talking about and touting was how the border patrol had endorsed him and how counties had endorsed him. texas having the largest portion of the u.s. mexico border is disproportionately impacted by immigration and the crisis of the family separation. and i was disappointed, extremely disappointed that more time was not dedicated to this. instead, it was a superficial treatment of it. >> so if texas does not go blue, what are the chances that the democrats could take the senate? do they diminish significantly? >> my sources are telling me that if anything the phenomenon that we saw in the wake of the

kavanaugh hearings is looking more like democrats could lose two to three seats in the senate. if they lose texas and tennessee which was one of the ones that was most effected by the kavanaugh hearings and then they use north dakota then they have to run the table everywhere else. there is not a lot of likelihood that that could actually play out. bill nelson is potentially in trouble in florida. the polls have shown mixed picture in nevada which is one of the pickup opportunities. anything can happen. one never knows, but i would say that most people i'm talking to on the democratic side are pessimistic about the senate. >> what is your take on the house? >> i think it is still a tossup. what we are going to see is the central valley. the central valley of california has not only republican leadership, but there really is a huge appetite for the participation that we had. i encourage folks to look at

what is happening in texas on the congressional level. they have really strong candidates that are former veterans that will give a run for the money and the folks in austin, as well. it is going to be really tight. i think the wave is coming. it has to be really focussed. i think a lot of folks often read the polls and they can suppress the vote. >> thank you both. i think it will be a nail biter. still ahead, the g.o.p. controls congress and the white house. according to mitch mcconnell it does not control the impact of washington's policies. why the majority leader says rising deficits are not a republican party. keep it here on "morning joe." republican party. keep it here on "morning joe."

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the daily show. he is reprising his role in sakina's restaurant which he wrote 20 years ago. it tells the story of an indian immigrant who comes to new york to work at a restaurant and live the american dream. we are just talking about this play which you debuted 20 years ago. now you are bringing it back and how the context has changed completely. >> we did sakina's restaurant the first time in 1998. it was pre-9/11. america was a different place. i never thought i would bring it back. i realize that 20 years later the story around immigrants and muslims, immigrants, this narrative is so much more relevant today than it was even back then. look, one of the ways that you dehumanize people is you politicize them, whether muslims or immigrants.

what this play does and what theater and what art and story tellers can often do is humanize that immigrant story and that immigrant experience and why people come to america, the sacrifices they make, the joys, the heartbreaks of that. telling that story felt to me like it was more necessary today than ever. >> was there a moment or something you saw in the culture, on tv, in politics that made you think i'm going to bring it back? >> once the first muslim ban happened, i got very active at that point and started working with the aclu and did a fundraiser and stuff with a lot of comedy people. so once that happened and then you started to see like the stuff that was happening with the families being separated at the border, the cumulative effect of those things made me realize that this administration is waging a war on immigrants.

and that war -- i'm an artist. what i can do is use my story telling and my words. so it felt to me that sakina's restaurant is a story about immigrants. it's about when you go to the theater and see the story and relate to the characters it humanizes that experience which we have de-humanized in our culture today. >> what is kind of interesting is that when you first performed it 20 years ago, the play, the story line is actually ageless. it's about immigrants, people coming to america. now reprising the play and having it on broadway, there is one element in the air that i don't think was present to the extent it is now, the fear. >> that's the thing. back in 1998 most americans didn't know what a muslim was. i have a joke about it in the

play. today there has been a lot of -- after 9/11 americans not only know what muslims are but they have been told to fear muslims. so i feel like this again does a similar thing which is that we haven't changed the text. we have set it in the period it was written, so the late '90s. it's a window into america that we don't live in right now. it reminds us of who we are and why people came here whether you are muslim or mexican or whatever it is. the fact that people come here for a reason and what america represents to so many people around the world or at least used to. >> art can reflect reality better than the news can. >> i learned this on the daily show for many years, using comedy we can often tell the truth in a way that unfortunately you guys couldn't.

and so i think the artists and writers, story tellers have that ability. that is what i'm hoping we can do with this. i just feel like, when i revisited my own play, i realized this is something that i feel like i need right now. i need this kind of sense of the america that i came to. i'm an immigrant. my family came to this country. so there was a reason we came here. that reason feels very diluted now. it just feels like in today's environment i don't think my parents would have come to this country. >> an entirely new audience to check it out. it is fun 20 years later is you fit in the costumes. congratulations on that. >> and it is funny, by the way. it's funny. it is funny. >> the play is sakina's

restaura restaurant. always great to see you. >> thank you so much. >> we'll be right back. o much. >> we'll be right back. insurance that won't replace the full value of your new car? you'd be better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with liberty mutual new car replacement we'll replace the full value of your car. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty ♪ let's do an ad of a man eating free waffles at comfort inn. they taste like victory because he always gets the lowest price on our rooms, guaranteed, when he books direct at choicehotels.com. or just say badda book, badda boom. book now at choicehotels.com.

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a republican problem, it's a bipartisan problem, unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics in america in the future. the federal deficit ballooned by 17% to 779 billion in president trump's first full fiscal year in office. and, sam, i will concede, you do need bipartisan support to make cuts to programs that people depend on, or are used to getting. your reaction? >> well, listen, i mean everyone who passed the tax cut package basically said it would pay for itself. >> yeah. >> they said it would create this great economic benefit, you'd have these increased revenues, therefore it's perfect, you reduce the deficit while getting rid of taxes. it's obviously proven to not be the case. and, you know, republicans hit the ball fairly well. they said they weren't going to touch entitlement reforms, said it was not on their political

agenda. what mcconnell has done here, he's stripped away the veneer and said in the next congress we will take a whack at social security, medicare and medicaid potentially. it's, you know, somewhat of a political mishap, but it is the truth. this is what they want to do. >> the reality is, republicans control the white house. they control both houses of congress, and they passed tax cuts that they argued, you know, and at the time it was on its face not correct to the point that bob corker was kind of like this is absurd, why are we doing this and had to be quieted down by the leadership in his party. but it's simply patently not the case. is it true that entitlement spending is a bigger long-term problem than, you know, the balance of our discretionary and defense spending? sure. but that's not the question at hand. >> also, i would add this, if you are thinking about a bipartisan solution to the entitlement issue, which is what

mcconnell has said needs to be done here, if we're being honest about it it's going to likely involve some form of revenue increases. you know, could be in the form of taxes or raising the cap on social security. it's going to require revenue component. but republicans have shown time and time again they aren't interested in having that be part of the deal. there was a great bipartisan near deal from boehner and obama in 2011. it didn't happen because of taxes. until republicans are willing to talk about raising taxes, there will be no bipartisan deal on entitlements. it's just a fact. >> and health care costs too, keeping them down and figuring out how the policy of that, you have to be willing to throw the government's weight around pushing down prices. that's something that republicans also aren't willing to do. >> ben sasse, the republican from nebraska, we have to reraise the retirement age, but not raise the revenue -- >> raising the retirement age. it will hit people hard who are

working later into life and they're willing to say you need to make that sacrifice because we can't afford it. it's difficult to say make that sacrifice when they just gave a huge tax cut to corporations like that. >> something's gotta give. nancy pelosi knows what she wants to do if she reclaims the speaker's gavel after november. she said, quote, lowering health care costs, rebuilding infrastructure and running the house chamber with more transparency and openness. in an interview last week sidestepped calls for impeachment. she said "we will seek bipartisanship where we can." one of the reasons we should when we're not like them. payback will not be part of a democratic led house and pushback would be the pound of flesh crowd, referring to those democrats eager to get back at republicans for political attacks since donald trump took office. that was an interesting set of statements and interviews nancy pelosi gave. that is pushback against a

pretty loud, vocal part of her caucus. >> a couple things. nancy pelosi has been in this position for quite some time now, much to the consternation of some of the more progressive elements in -- or i shouldn't even say more progressive elements, but to some of the younger people who feel as though leadership has sort of been stuck. but she's been very effective as a legislator. she'll say that outright, republicans who you talk to on capitol hill will say that, you know, they're frankly going to be worse off with nancy pelosi in the speaker's chair. part of that is because she understands that if they want to prevent donald trump from getting reelected he can't be allowed to make her and a democratic house the enemy. if they go after strictly impeaching the president, you know, that's an incredible useful foil. >> if they do regain the house, and they're going to have a much better chance at doing something about health care costs than they are about impeaching the president of the united states, nancy pelosi is very realistic.

she can count. >> he can count better than anyone else in washington. >> that screams to me she has a sense, whether it's informed data or not, that this notion of mob rule that republicans have been pushing is actually having some traction and that's moving voters. i think she and other people in the democratic party don't want to be tarred that way heading into the election. she's saying, we're not going to do it. and she's hopeful the progressives will say, okay, fine. >> she also knows, mika that screams of impeachment help donald trump. undo the election result. >> everybody has their opportunity to chime in on election day. we can talk more about this tomorrow, but i think the brett kavanaugh circus was bad for democrats and republicans. and is rallying both sides. and it's really a level win for both sides in terms of who's going to show up at the ballot box. willie, how about you? >> well, i think we deserve to

know more, obviously much more about what happened to the "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi. so far the president is taking the word of the saudis. mike pompeo is sitting smiling next to the crown prince of saudi arabia. today we'll hopefully get to the bottom of this. that does it for us. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. good morning, everyone, i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover. secretary of state mike pompeo arrives in turkey to meet with president erdogan as the turkish government releases more evidence they claim proves saudi arabia murdered jamal khashoggi. meanwhile, the president of the united states continues to defend the kingdom, comparing it to the accusations against brett kavanaugh, saying it's another case of guilty until proven innocent. >> saudi arabia -- and they have -- they've been a great ally to me, to me. they're investing tremendous amounts of money. they're fighting terror. we want to be smart. i don'