>> joe, we start this morning, again, fighting for just the truth, just the facts, just getting the facts right. >> well, you know, that actually while it's easy to ask what exactly is wrong with donald trump, jon meachum, when you have something that passed 98-1, passed 98-1 and it is about as bipartisan as anything can ever be, only one republican voted against it. jon, you actually have donald trump -- is jon there? do we have jon there? >> yeah. >> why don't we go to jon meachum, he is the soul of america, he can speak to this much better. there he is. jon meachum, you actually have the president who has a chance to talk about bringing washington together, the sort of thing that presidents in the past would love to do. here instead you have a president who actually lies about the fact that he had a 98-1 vote, which i guess, you tell me, what does that do?

does that speak to the fact that he's just a lot more interested in dividing americans than bringing them together and when he has a chance to talk about how america comes together, he still lies and suggests that it's torn apart. >> he's fighting for the next five minutes, not for -- not even the next five weeks, much less the next five years or next five decades. basically he's going to keep doing this because he has been rewarded for t he's the president of the united states, he gets the feedback loop he wants from those of his supporters. i think he thinks of us as an audience, not as a country, and is happy to have, in the professional wrestling sense, the people who boo him he thinks are booing him partly because it's their role. i don't think he takes on any kind of constructive criticism. so i think where we are is we

have a president who now or has for quite a long time, he's incapable of changing because the way he's acted has been rewarded. i think that the only thing people can do at this point, and it's not -- and i don't mean to minimize it by saying only, but we have two weeks and one day before a significant message can be sent that we believe truth should have a place in the arena along with this kind of passion. >> what a wonderful thing, mika, to actually thing truth into the arena. we've been focused so much on donald trump. i have to say i think it's time to start focusing on the people behind him who were applauding at lines that they know are lies because you can ask donald trump, well, is he just -- is he incompetent? is he evil? is he -- we don't know why he

would lie about something that -- >> but we know it continues. >> but it continues, right. but the question is when donald trump states an obvious lie and people cheer at it like it's a punch line or like it's a touchdown being scored when he's lying, when he is not telling the truth and they're laughing about it and cheering about it, or let's say last week when donald trump praised the assault of a reporter who was beaten up and thrown to the ground for simply asking a question about healthcare reform, the audience behind donald trump is cheering and laughing and applauding. i'm just wondering who raised them, first of all, who raised those people that are cheering and laughing when a president applauds somebody being beaten up and battered, a reporter, for asking a question about healthcare? apparently, again, forgetting what happened to khashoggi in saudi arabia. who raised them? what church did they go to growing up? do they still go to church every

week? do they go to church on sundays and then mondays they applaud somebody beating up the press for asking a question about healthcare reform? what do they tell their children at night about the type of character they want them to have? you see, you can't cheer about somebody committing assault and battery and beating up somebody and throwing them to the ground. you can't cheer on lies that you know to be lies and then go home and try to teach your child anything. you just can't. because they will see that you are the hypocrite standing behind the president cheering him on and laughing as he applauds assault and battery. >> yeah. >> as he lies about the most basic facts, as he tears to shreds one constitutional norm after another. this may seem like this is all above your children. it's not.

i have four. they are a lot smarter than you think they are. i'm just wondering what do you do when you go home from that rally, applauding what's going -- applauding the lies, applauding the assaults, applauding the abuses, applauding the vulgarities. it's a very, mika, i think we need to start asking a lot more. >> it's fair enough. >> who are the people that continue to applaud things they know to be lies? >> i just don't know if they see it as lies or if they see it as a show. i'm not sure. but 15 days to go. 15 until the midterm elections, and with much at stake the new nbc news "wall street journal" poll suggests it is difficult to tell what the outcome will be. think about that. according to the poll, 50% of likely voters are inclined to support candidates from the democratic party while 41% are for the republicans. at the same time president trump's approval rating among

this group of voters is at 45%. some of the best marks of his presidency. this as enthusiasm about the election is up among core groups that support democrats, 72% of the party's voters have high interest in the election, up 25 points from 2014, while at 71% hispanic voters have seen a 33 point increase in interest from the last midterm elections. high interest is at 68% among black voters, 67% among women, 51% among young voters, that's a 22-point bump from 2014. joe, you just have to wonder, though, is that good for trump, that interest growing, or is it good for the democrats? sn>> john heilemann, you look aa lot of numbers, the key numbers that we always look at, one of them has to do with the

president's approval rating, it's higher as its ever been or as high as it's ever been. you look at the ballot test in the nbc poll it has tighten and gotten closer, 8, 9 points. you look at intensity. intensity is up among democrats but after kavanaugh it's up among republicans as well. this race does not look to be the foregone conclusion it once was and democrats appear to be even losing ground in the senate. where do you put it 15 days out? >> yeah, there's no doubt about all of that. i think the notion that -- i think the conventional wisdom is basically still the democrats have -- are more likely than not by a reasonable amount more likely to take control of the house, the question is like how big, by how much. and the situation for democrats in the senate, which, again, maybe a month ago people were starting to think there was some chance the democrats might be able to thread the needle and take control of the senate, that is more or less gone from most people's scenarios. now, it is the case that if history is a guide, if you look

at where donald trump's approval rating is right now and you compare it to where barack obama's approval rating was in 2010, that would foretell a large swing in the house, but i think obama lost, i think -- the democrats lost i think 69, 66, somewhere in the mid to high 60s of seats in 2010 and if you look back at bill clinton even back in 1994 a similar kind of thing happened. now, does history hold? does history govern in the era of donald trump? i don't know. but there is no question that a combination of the post kavanaugh -- the new post kavanaugh landscape and the natural tightening that they were going to see in any circumstance in october, those things had democrats worried and those things, i think, rightfully have democrats worried that this is certainly not going to be a slam dunk for them as most people thought for most of this year. >> it certainly doesn't look like the tsunami, steve korna i kornacki, that everybody was talking about. you go in the house races, i know a lot of people who have studied all the house races, i

know you certainly have, they still see an outside path to republicans actually retaining control of the situates house. maybe they lose 18, maybe they lose 19 seats. that would have been unthinkable even two, three months ago. where do you see it right now? >> yeah, i think what john said is correct. the democrats are still more likely than not to take the house, the senate looks like it's changed pretty dramatically in the republicans favor in the last few weeks. i think that the two big variables where we've seen movement that sort of accounts for this, number one, you put the president's job approval number up there, just overall poll after poll when you average it together he's at sort of the high point here, the high water mark, almost for his entire presidency, absent the first week or so when he had the closest thing to a honeymoon he was ever going to have as president. but he's sitting there and the average of all polls at about 44% approval. republicans said given the nature of the map if they thought they could get him into the mid 40s they might have a fighting chance of keeping the house. the other big variables that's

changed is the question of enthusiasm. this isn't to say anything has changed on the democratic side with enthusiasm because it has been through the roof from the minute donald trump was elected two years ago, it is still through the roof. the thing that has changed is the republican enthusiasm is ticked up, not quite equal with the democratic number but getting closer to it. when you think back to those past midterm landslides, 2006, 2010, even 2014 when the republicans had a sneaky midterm landslide that came on late, you ended up seeing double digit enthusiasm gaps between the parties this those years. right now what we're seeing is there seemed to be the potential for that over the summer when democrats were talking about making inroads beyond just the suburbs, making inroads well into trump country, 40, 50-seat gains, that kind of thing. it seems that the republicans have gotten close to parity on enthusiasm, not enough where i think they are favored to keep the house or anything, but enough where the conversation has changed. >> kristen, let me ask you a question off of this.

we talk every day about the horse races, the house, the senate, we talk every day about voter enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm, democrats versus republicans. in your polling, in your experience there is another issue out there i'm wondering if it registers as deeply as the day-to-day stuff does. we have a deeply and intentionally dishonest president of the united states who takes to the country multiple times a week with the single intent of dividing the country, with deep, deep lies that twist and turn facts into myth. does that register? >> in poll after poll when you ask people what attributes they assign to the president, trustworthiness is not one that he does well on, even among republicans. so voters already sort of know that and i feel like it's baked into his numbers. >> do they accept it? >> i think it's just sort of an accepted thing that you get with trump, but you also get good economic growth and for some

voters that's the bargain they've chosen to strike. when you look at the top issues in that nbc "wall street journal" poll, the top issue is the economy, 38% of voters said that's their top issue and republicans in this poll are winning on that issue by the largest margin, i think it said in the history of the nbc "wall street journal" poll. so it's a tradeoff that voters are making in their mind where they're like, yeah, he is kind of a jerk but he's our jerk and maybe the economy is going well. i think that's the way a lot of voters are thinking about this. there's one other issue that stuck out to me in this poll that i think is why we have such a sense of this election being up in the air and that's the question of change. normally in these midterm elections when you've got a new president in power, the party out of power is challenging, it's really we need change, we need something different and sure enough when i go into focus groups and ask people what are they thinking they say, i feel like we can't keep going on like this, but in this nbc "wall street journal" poll republicans win among those on the question of who is going to bring about change to washington, which is a very strange dynamic for a

midterm election like this. >> joe, i would submit that the acceptance of a deeply, deeply, deeply dishonest president, the acceptance of that among people is the single most important issue of our day. >> it is, and you have to ask what's the alternative to donald trump? i think one of the most fascinating and disturbing polls that we saw week in and week out during 2016 was honest and trustworthy numbers. donald trump was in the mid 30s, at times hillary clinton was lower than that, but when people went to the voting booth actually hillary clinton had lower honest and trustworthy numbers than donald trump. right now there is no national democrat to balance that against. right now those national democrats, if you ask people, they'd say it is nancy pelosi,

it is elizabeth warren, it is dianne feinstein, it is perhaps chuck schumer, but, you know, mika, it is an absolute mess and dianne feinstein, of course, her name got thrown out there because of the kavanaugh hearings. the numbers i looked at, you look at voter intensity, i always say in these midterms it's not the generic ballot test that matters, it's voter intensity. democrats had double digit leads, mika, before the kavanaugh hearings, they disappeared in a big way after the kavanaugh hearings. >> that's news that no democrat wants to hear, that perhaps the kavanaugh hearings were misplayed. look, last week i expressed concern that democrats were blowing the midterm elections despite the fact that it should not be close. this did not get a good reaction all day on friday. after looking at the latest polling, though, and reporting out there that concern has become a dprim acceptance that my party is potentially falling

short again. if america's reaction to nearly two years of donald trump as president is to reward him with continued republican control of the senate and the house, that would be disastrous on so many levels to mention, but that possibility is rising by the day. look at the numbers. unless americans do something about it over the next two weeks. the new nbc news "wall street journal" poll shows republicans' interest in the elections is up, thanks in part to the kavanaugh hearings, and president trump's approval ratings are in the mid 40s. think about that. nearly half of the people in this country approve of the job this man is doing, even after charlottesville, porn stars, his humiliation in helsinki, bowing to kim jong-un, ripping babies from their mothers, destroying america's most critical alliances and bankrupting our country and we could go on.

with just over two weeks to go are democrats still lulling themselves into believing that they will win simply because trump is abhorrent and history is on their side? that was not enough in 2016. >> no, it wasn't. >> and it won't be enough now. this is hard to say. people don't want to hear it, but the party badly misplayed the kavanaugh hearings. like hillary, they lack a message and their leaders lack heart and unless trends change over the next 15 days, democrats are going to wake up to the same kind of political reckoning they did two years ago. at least i believe that will prove a disaster for the democratic party, the tradition of divided government and the dream of american democracy. that's where it's all on the line right now. >> so much, jon meachum, is on the line over the next couple weeks, and mika spelled it out. there are a lot of people, not just democrats, but there are a lot of republicans and independents that are going,

wait a second, after charlottesville, after a policy that intentionally puts children in cages, rips babies from their mothers' arms, intentionally, after porn stars, after the humiliation at helsinki, after -- we could go down the list, donald trump saying he was in love with kim jong-un, embarrassing himself there, after destroying our alliances and after putting america on the path to bankruptcy, highest national debt ever, massive deficit, 45% of americans still say, yeah, i approve of his job as president. that is very vexing for the 55% of us who don't approve of the way he's handling himself in the white house. how do we put that into perspective, jon? >> i think 55/45 is a pretty good way of thinking about it. trump is not a wholly new force

in american politics, but he is the most vivid manifestation of many of our worst characteristics. we have to be honest about that. harry truman once said that we get the government we deserve. politicians are far more often mirrors of who we are than they are molders. we like the idea that people -- like in shakespeare's history plays, henry c shapes who we are, far more often they reflect who we are. the constitution was written for moments like this. it assumed that we were sinful and driven by ambition and appetite and greed. that's why they made it so hard for you to get anything done. they basically bet that we would get things wrong more often than we get them right and we have proven them correct with astonishing regularly. this is an extreme moment, but it's not a wholly separate moment. i think that until we genuinely grapple with the fact that

donald trump hasn't hijacked the country, he has just magnified our darker elements, we probably can't really come to the kind of resolution we need to come to. >> mika, he has magnified that. again, what we bumped in with at the top of this block is a perfect example. here you have something that every president would go out and say, do you know what, democrats and republicans still can work together. we still can get things done. take, for instance, our work together on both sides of the aisle to try to face down the scourge of opioids and that epidemic that's killing so many people. most presidents would take great heart in that because that's making washington work. donald trump takes that, he lies and tears it to shreds, trying to make it partisan. that's his game.

we'll see if he's rewarded. >> still ahead on "morning joe," no one said it better than tim russert, florida, florida, florida. there is new polling from that key battle ground. plus we are taking "morning joe" on the road this week. >> where? >> to florida. >> yes. >> and we have details on how you can be part of the show. also the they latest on the murder of jamal khashoggi. key senators now say the u.s. should have nothing to do with the kingdom's young leader. big developments on that ahead. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> mika, can you believe we're tracking another huge hurricane, this time it's not heading for the united states, this is heading for mexico. another category 4 storm, winds 155 mile per hour winds. this is going to head just north of purity at that vier at that. this is the ninth category 4 or stronger storm in the eastern pacific. that has never happened before and we wish our friends in mexico well. that's going to be moving inland as we go through tuesday afternoon. a chilly morning as advertised throughout the east, it was a chilly sunday, windy in the

northeast. we had about 67 million people at or near freezing, that's why we have an end of the growing season in many areas from tennessee through north carolina. let's take you through the week. there's not a lot of issues the northern half of the country, it's looking chilly but a lot of sunshine. a little rain in south texas. event that rain will move into texas as we go through wednesday. last week we had the horrendous flooding, now we have a chance of one to three inches of rain. by the time we get to friday that storm goes through the southeast. if you have weekend plans on the weekend in the mid-atlantic this is coming through the coast. saturday will be a rainy day in the northeast, kind of like a nor'easter type event, maybe snow in the highest elevations of northern new england. a quiet part to our workweek but we go through the week things will be more active. washington, d.c. through the northeast, everybody needs their winter coats this morning, temperatures in the 30s. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back.

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i feel certain that the crown prince was involved and that he directed this and that's why i think we cannot continue to have relations with him. so i think he's going to have to be replaced, frankly, but i think that sanctions don't go far enough. i think we need to look at the arms sale because this is not just about this journalist being killed, it's about the war in yemen where tens of thousands of civilians are being killed, it's about them spreading hatred of christians and jews and hindus throughout the world. >> let's finish this investigation. we have the best in the world at being able to do that. we obviously have intercepts from the past that point to involvement at a very high level. so let's let this play out, but my guess is at the end of the day the united states and the rest of the world will believe fully that he did it. >> can you imagine us having a relationship with the saudi government that's positive if the crown prince is still there?

>> no, i don't think so. i think, again, if the facts lead to what we all suspect they will, i think it will be very problematic for our relationship going forward. >> boy, mika, that's strong, hearing that from rand paul and -- >> yeah. >> we heard earlier from lindsey graham, but you also heard it from bob corker, thom till lis the head of the senatorial committee. republicans are lining up saying we can't have relations if this guy was responsible for the murder, and, by the way, they all believe that, in fact, the crown prince was responsible for the murder of cash dwee. >> contrary to its original story and weeks of denial, saudi arabia says that "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi was killed inside its consulate in istanbul on october 2nd. per the kingdom, khashoggi died, this is what they say, during a quarrel and a fistfight after a, quote, suspect attempted to take him from istanbul to saudi

arabia, and that those involved attempted to, quote, conceal what happened and to cover it up. saudi arabia also says that 18 people have been arrested and several high ranking officials including a top intelligence officer and a top adviser to the crown prince have been fired. recent reports have stated that the crown prince personally ordered the operation to lure khashoggi from his home in virginia back to saudi arabia in order to capture him, although saudi arabia maintains mbs had no advanced knowledge of the incident. >> keep in mind when you have a situation like this you want the information that you put out to be as accurate as you possibly can. we are not an authoritarian government, we are monarchy, we have our checks and balances, we have our systems. the individuals who did this are outside of their authority, there obviously was a tremendous mistake made and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to try to cover up. that is unacceptable in a

government. these things, unfortunately, happen. we have never engaged in such behavior and we will never engage in such behavior, this is an aberration, this is a mistake, this is a criminal act and those responsible for it will be furnished. this was an operation that was a rogue operation. this was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had. >> no. >> absolutely everything that he just said was a lie. i mean, very rarely you have a spokesperson, ayman, that comes on and -- i mean, baghdad bob is blushing somewhere because everything he said was a lie. it wasn't a rogue operation. our intel community knew that it started with the crown prince. he wasn't going in there swinging. we found out that they brought people over with a bone saw to cut him up in seven minutes while listening to music. i'm wondering, ayman, what

reports you're hearing out of the middle east if it's seeming more evident there as it is here that there is no way the crown prince is going to be able to survive this without saudi arabia forever being a rogue nation. >> that's a really good point, the point that you brought up at the end about the crown prince and it's almost important to emphasize with all this information that was coming out from the saudi arabian government late friday evening one of the most important pieces of information came out was that the king has actually formed a ministerial committee headed and chaired by the crown prince to investigate this murder as well as to reform the intelligence services. so in simple terms, the king is doubling down on his son. anybody who thinks that this may have been an opportunity for some royals and others to perhaps push the crown prince aside or express their dissatisfaction with what has happened, the king has really put an end to that really quickly. that's the first part of that. the second part of that as you were saying, there are so many

holes and so many questions in the explanation that was put forward by the foreign minister in that interview that it just dz not pass muster. we will expect to hear from the turkish government in the coming days about what evidence they have to actually substantiate. they've been leaking information throughout the course of the past couple weeks, but everything they have leaked has put pressure on the saudis to match. keep in mind the saudi consulate himself gave an interview, gave a tour of the consulate saying this didn't happen, there was no murder, he left through the back door, then the saudis have totally once again changed their story. there have been at least three or four versions of what has happened over the past two weeks. every time they put out an explanation the facts don't match that up and the saudis haven't provided any evidence whatsoever -- >> so, ayman, let me ask you something. you say the king is still lining up behind his son who planned this murder and saw it carried out. i just wonder is there no one in saudi arabia that can tell the king or anyone else that if they

move forward in this direction they are going to be international pa rye i can't say for a generation? this just does not end well. >> that's a really good question and the inter deliberations of the saudi royal family are one of the hardest things for westerners and outside people to know. the deliberations are a blacks box. we don't know what the communications are that are being sent to the king from some of the most senior members of the royal family, but what we do know is the message that comes out of washington is closely watched in saudi arabia. if you do have the president of the united states saying that, you know, the story is credible and that he still wants to see the crown prince involved, that is going to carry weight with the saudi decision-makers and they are not necessarily going to say it is the only factor, but if they know washington has their back and if they're going to continue to go forward with that same tone, that is a very important factor in their decision-making. >> so nbc's chief white house correspondent hallie jackson is with us. hallie, what is the white house's response to this? >> well, in stark contrast to

what you and joe were talking about at the beginning of this segment, the tough tone from republican lawmakers, specifically on the crown prince, on mohammed bin salman, you have kind of the opposite from president trump. in a new interview over the weekend with the "washington post" he is coming out praising mbs, as he's known, calling him very -- a strong person who has very good control. the president is saying this in a complimentary way. he said i haven't seen if he is responsible or is not responsible and very plainly saying i hope he wasn't responsible. all of the signals there are that the u.s. wants to preserve the relationship that it has and president trump wants to preserve the relationship that he has with saudi and keep in mind, guess who will be there this week, leaving today, secretary of the treasury steven mnuchin who told a small group of reporters who are traveling with him according to the "wall street journal" that he sees saudi as an important regional partner in checking iranian power and is a key in counterterrorism which is why he is traveling there this week. he canceled that business summit, he is not going to the

davos in the desert, he is still going to be in riyadh. >> that, joe, is the answer to your question as to why the saudis think they can lie that way and why they can put forward a really lame description as to what happened to jamal khashoggi, why they can completely throw away any sense of responsibility here that might be real. they're doing it because president trump and any type of outward messaging that they are getting from this president is that you can say what you want, we will smooth this over. >> it's definitely -- it has been -- it's been a mix. the president has been weak, he's been bumbling on the international stage on this. >> i think he knows what he's doing. >> but the further we get into the crisis the stronger the condemnation has become. mike barnicle, the president this weekend talking -- he did have some nice things to say about the crown prince i inexplicab

inexplicably, at the same time he said it was obvious that they were lying, that they were covering it up. you look what the those republican senators are saying, especially those who are up for election, they're saying that for a reason. the president knows this doesn't poll well. those republicans know it doesn't poll well. embracing a saudi crown prince who took a bone saw to a "washington post" journalist and a virginia resident, carved him up in seven minutes while they were listening to music on their headphones does not play well in peoria. so at some point donald trump is sure to throw the crown prince away, just like he threw away paul manafort, just like he threw away his first national security adviser general flynn, just like he throws away anyone who becomes inconvenient to him. >> unsurprisingly this story has again created a rift between the american intelligence community and their principal client the president of the united states. ayman, i like to ask you, tomorrow president erdogan of turkey has committed to revealing the entire truth as

the turks know it about this a assassination, this murder of khashoggi. so the question is what do the turks want out of this, and what is going on in the region with neighboring countries given this conflict? >> the short answer to that is it's sad politics, you're absolutely right, at the core of this is a journalist who was killed, but now it is being totally caught up in regional politics, the turks and the saudis over the past several years have had very stark differences about syria, about the region and there is tension between them. don't make any mistake about that. in a nutshell the turks want to have the audis over a barrel, they have this damaging evidence against the saudis and they haven't put it out there officially yet, but they keep telling the saudis we know you did this so you either need to confess and play ball and that could entail a lot of things, the reading i got from the turkish officials i have spoken to and heard from is that their ultimate goal is to sideline the crown prince, find a way to

create enough pressure on the saudi government for the king to make the conclusion i have to change course with the crown prince. if he does so that would be a game changer in the region. the crown prince has been putting a lot of pressure on iran, he has isolated and put cutting under siege. there is a want to see the geopolitical landscape change. it is highly unlikely whatever the turks have they will be able to pressure the americans and europeans to say to the saudis you need to somehow change course with the crown prince. it does not seem that anything inside the saudi decision-making structure has indicated that so far. >> and, hallie jackson, before you go, on the topic -- the subject line of is there a deal, the president won't pull out of if it isn't his, give us an update on the russian arms deal. >> the inf here. the president saying over the weekend that he is getting rid of it, he's terminating, pull out. national security adviser john bolton is in russia, on an overseas trip, he left over the

weekend, gets back on friday. the expectation reportedly is he will be delivering that message. this is an arms control treaty negotiated back in 1987 with president reagan that eliminated essentially got rid of an entire class of nuclear weapons. the u.s. for a long time, even back during the obama administration has said the kremlin is violating the terms of this treaty. the president referred to that over the weekend, but now they are taking steps, the administration is, to pull out of this. this is something defense secretary jim mattis int hadded at, alluded to before the cripple lin has denied violating the treaty and is unhappy about this latest move calling this a very dangerous step. watch for developments on that with bolton in moscow this week. >> hallie jackson, thank you very much. ayman mohyeldin, thank you as well. coming up, the nominees for florida governor clash in their first debate and the candidate backed by donald trump got called out for side stepping a question on whether the president is a good role model. we will play that moment ahead.

we also have a couple very surprising polls. >> oh, yeah. >> just new, just out of florida. that's next on "morning joe." - [narrator] the typical vacuum head has its limitations, so shark invented duo clean. while deep cleaning carpets, the added soft brush roll picks up large particles, gives floors a polished look,

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recommendation, grab your family, grab your friends, grab your neighbors, get to the poll because if not you're going to have another two or another six years of this craziness. make sure you vote. >> president trump's former fixer michael cohen explaining to cnn on friday his recent tweet. calling on his fellow americans to get out and vote. calling the midterms the most important vote in our lifetime. his plea comes after cohen changed his voter registration from republican to democrat. florida's statewide races have been neck and neck, but a new round of polling this weekend shows a bit of a tilt toward democrats. the cnn poll has democratic senator bill nelson with a five-point lead over republican governor rick scott. 50% to 45% among likely voters. then in the governors race, tallahassee mayor andrew gillum is ahead by 12 points over

republican ron desantis, 54% to 42%. in last night's debate both men were asked about president trump's influence on kids. after that desantis campaign ad that showed him playing build the wall with his daughter and reading a trump book to his son. >> do you think president trump is a good role model for the children of florida? >> well, jake, my wife and i were poking a little fun at ourselves because of the way that campaign was going and i'm proud of my family, though. i don't actually read the art of the deal to my son mason, he is a great kid, he smiles at anything, but that's not necessarily his cup of tea. here is what i know, i was very passionate about moving our american embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem, donald trump promised it and followed through with it. to me when you give your word and you follow through with it as an elected official, that is the model that we're supposed to do. he was right to move the embassy to jerusalem, i was there for a historic event, i know andrew

didn't support that and doesn't think that's right, but to me that was true leadership. >> i'm confused by the question. >> the question was whether or not he thinks president trump is a good role model for the children of florida. >> that's what i thought originally, i got confused. no, he's not. donald trump is -- donald trump is weak and he performs as all weak people do, they become bullies. >> wow. i tell you what, that was -- that was quite a debate last night. the closing remark was something. mike barnicle, something else happened that was fascinating during that debate, after parkland, after the mass of school shootings that have been going on, andrew gillum actually went after the nra for not negotiating, not compromising, not doing the most basic things for gun safety and the republican candidate stood mute,

said nothing. that is certainly one way politics are changing, but i don't know if you saw much of that debate last night. >> i did. >> if mayor gillum was 12 points ahead before that debate, it will be interesting to see how high those numbers go after the debate because that one wasn't even close. >> yeah, kristen, let me ask you on that point, andrew gillum and i'm trying not to be partisan here, but he was a very -- it was a very impressive performance last night by andrew gillum and it was a very standard political and cautious performance i would think by the republican candidate for governor, mr. desantis. did you see the debate? >> unfortunately i did not. >> okay. so let's look at the numbers. this sudden jump to 12 points. what impact do you think just on the clips that we saw and the general tenor of campaigns and the contrast between the two candidates, what's your estimate, where are the numbers going to go here? >> it's interesting that there's such a big difference between the way the governors race and the senate race is playing out

in that state. he had current governor rick scott who has been a vocal supporter of president trump along the way, performing much more strongly than the gubernatorial candidate who, as you saw, ran that ad sort of saying like i am trump light. i think governor scott has won his record as governor to run on there, where for ron desantis i think he's mostly known in the state of florida as someone who has a strong presence on fox news, but is struggling to make that pivot away from the guy he needed to be to win the republican primary to the guy he needs to be to win in a state that leans slightly red, but is ultimately a swing state. i think somebody like rick scott already has more of an established identity, which is how he's able to perform much more strongly in this environment and distance himself from the president. >> yeah, so, steve kornacki, florida, florida, florida as tim russert would say. it remains the bellwether. when it looked like donald trump

was going to pull ahead and stay ahead in florida, suddenly you knew that other states were going to fall. it's interesting in these two races -- let's take the senate race first. it's been a race run in three parts, right after the primary gillum was ahead in just about every poll and ahead comfortably. i was surprised, but he was ahead by 3, 4, 5 points. the kavanaugh hearings flattened that out, suddenly it became close, but here we are moving beyond the kavanaugh debates and suddenly you have gillum up comfortably and now you have bill nelson for the first time up by, what was it, five points in this poll. still could be an outlier but at the same time you have both democratic candidates breaking pretty hard with two weeks to go. >> yeah, and i do want to see some more here just in terms of the outlier potential, but i would say overall you're right. since the primary it's been very consistent. gillum has consistently led the

governors race. this is the largest margin i've seen him have a lead by, but he's consistently been ahead there. the question that that's raised to me is is there going to be an effect there where gillum ends up helping nelson survive because scott has been running so much closer in that race. the other variable is the fallout from the hurricane. you have had two polls taken in florida since the hurricane and what they've shown is there's very broad, i think not surprising here, very broad support for how governor scott handled the hurricane down there. one of those polls actually put him ahead of nelson by two points, this poll shows him behind nelson by five points. both of those polls show gillum leading in the governors race. again, it's a question here of has this thing broken open in a new way where gillum is not just ahead but is ahead decisively and is ahead at such a level that he can pull nelson over the top or is it a bit of an outlier and maybe that senate race is more in play. in the governors race i think

it's clear there is an advantage to dwil thumb here? it looks, john heilemann like we will be following two tracks to election day. the nelson race is going to be fight, the senate race is going to be tight all the way to the tight. the senate race is going to be tight all the way to the end. but gillum looks like he has a space between himself and desan tis and he's back to where he was before the kavanaugh hearing. ran a scorched-earth campaign, donald trump campaign to win the primary. maybe that works in idaho. probably doesn't work in the state of florida. >> look if you look at that senate race that's a race that reflects the state of florida. if you look at the governor's race right now what you're seeing i think is one of the races the different of candidate quality is the whole story. candidate, as mike said, not in

a partisan way, if you watched that debate last night, gillum has a very powerful presence on the stump. very charismatic candidate. his performance skills are very, very high. desantis are not. around this race, there's energy around this new face. andrew gillum is a fresh face in florida even though he's been mayor for a while up in tallahassee. people are just meeting him. he's electrifying the democratic base. >> all right, "morning joe" will be live in florida, florida, florida. this friday. we're heading to rocco's taco

and tequila bar. in boca. if you're baca raton, come by, stop, be part of the show. >> have some coffee. >> again, these two races we have been talking about, two of the most exciting races in america. as we always say going to break, as we go to break, we mentioned andrew gillum's closing argument last night. just 15 days until voters go to the polls. this was his closing argument. >> because my mother and father would have to get up so early in the morning they would load us all into a car, drove over us to our grandmother's house. two rituals. she would take her bottle of olive oil and build a cross on my forehead to send us out with

a blessing and covering. mantra, go to school, mind your teachers, get your lesson, one day bring that education home. bring it home for your mom and daddy. bring it home for your little brother and little sister. what my grandmother was communicating to me ux it's not just about me it's all about us. we have an opportunity on november 6 as a collective, as a state, to say we deserve better. we want better. we want better schools, access to health care, a clean economy, a restorative justice system. where law enforcement work together.

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we're going to be putting in and are studying very deeply

right now round the clock a major tax cut for middle-income people. not for business at all. for middle-income people. we're looking at kevin brady's working on it. paul ryan is working. . we're all working on it. and we're looking at major tax cut for middle-income people who need it. i would say some time around the first of november, maybe a little before then. >> president trump -- it's too much. >> come on. >> i'm trying to keep a straight face. >> we're going to outside the white house lawn. we're going to build the mothership out of graham crackers, honey and candy canes and we're going to fly it to the moon and everybody in america is going to get $20 million apiece. because we're going to mine the

moon and there's magical powers on the moon and magical gold dust that i'm going to sprinkle in my trump spaceship. mika, i got bad news for the president. of course, he knows this. congress isn't in session. they're not going to pass anything by november 1st. they're not going to vote on anything by november 1st. they're not going to draft it up by november 1st. he knows he's lying. everybody in congress knows he's lying. . reporters know he's lying. why is he doing it? what's wrong with him? he lies -- everybody knows he's lying. >> but it's working for him. >> is it? >> we'll know in 15 days. >> there are some people that i don't -- i think they don't care if he's lying. i mean, i don't know any other

way to put it, i don't think they care s that he's lying. historian jon meachem join us. the co-founder of axiso, mike allen is with us. and author of "the new york times" newsletter lisa lehrer. >> lisa, congratulates on the podcast. wait a second. she doesn't have a podcast. we all assume. >> she's still using the typewriter. you know what, it's still an art

form. let us, john, let's talk about these two clips that we played coming in. last hour we played a clip. the president clearly lying. everybody knew he was lying. and here we have the president lying about passing a tax cut in 15 days or less -- actually in 13, 12 days or less when, of course -- i understand that he reads polls that show that his -- that his tax cut that he passed and he went to mar-a-lago and bragged to his friends. does this show just how stupid the american people are that he thinks that he can tell them he'll pass a middle class tax cut in the next 12, 13 days and they'll believe him?

>> yeah, the thing that's incredible about it, the trumpian qualities of it, the main one that i like is the specificity of the lie that kevin brady is working around the clock. up all night 24/7 working on this tax cut. >> john, i wrote it down here, around the clock and they're doing something else. they're studying very deeply did, they're not studying shallowly, they're working around the clock, the president guarantees us they're studying very deeply. >> right. i had this image in my mind what kevin brady thought when he saw this. he's back in his district, no mul where near his office. to introduce this tax cut around november 1st when congress will not be in session.

you know, it would be so easy and it would be a typical thing for a president to do, to say, you know, allow republicans maintain control of the house and senate, dear voters, and we will next year, immediately on the first day of the new congress get to work on a middle class tax cut that would be what you normally do. the kind of presidents, or many presidents would offer. so, you know, is it typical? it's typical in trumpian, does he think the american voter's stupid? apparently. i can't imagine. who knows, maybe we'll hear this every day from trump past election day. >> jon, this president will do anything. he'll say anything and he'll tell lies, even if the lies are obvious and understood by

everybody around him to be a lie? >> the trump stake of tax policy for this year. the impulse is, when you're in a jam, or when you want to change the subject, you make an announcement. trump's a little bit like the admiral in mary poppins. he walks around that fake ship and fires off cannons across the park. but it's sort of a cute image. >> it works. >> and that's the danger of the moment. this is exactly what he wanted, right. he says this. it seems to his base, more tax cuts that's great. the left-wing commentary and his view saying it's not going to happen. we're locked in this abusive relationship with this guy. i don't know what the alternative is. we have to talk about it.

you have to bear witness. you have to fact-check him. when we look back on this, it's going to be this fevered period where we were all in a way unpleasantly joined in this moment that he did create. i mean, he did set the terms for this. and those of us who want to try and say, wait a minute, here's the actual facts, john adams said facts are stubborn things. he needs that as a foil. to me that's the inherently frustrating thing at the moment. >> yeah, so, jeremy, you followed the president around on the campaign a good bit. after he won the state of florida he had his home shopping network at his home golf course in jupiter, florida. look at the trump steaks, they're the best steaks in the world. he bought a lot of steaks, wrapped a label around the butcher's steaks and put them up

as trump steaks. it's a big success. he hasn't sold trump steaks since the brooklyn dodgers won the pen innocent back in the 1950s. again, he's doing the same thing now that he's gone from lying about trump steaks and now lying about a middle class tax cut and whipping up fears about that caravan. always a caravan that's coming. it's coming for you middle america. once again, a complete lie. complete, what he talks about, again, you look at the numbers. you look at the immigration numbers. you look at the number of gang numbers that actually get across the border. he's lying to the american people. the facts show it. >> yes. be afraid. be very afraid. the only one who can protect you is donald trump and that's what he did the last time there was this caravan coming up through

mexico. you're exactly right the facts of these mass movements often get obscured by the politics of immigration. a lot of these people end up staying in mexico. those that do come up have to declare asylum at a legal port of entry and many often do. so, yes, but this is not about any of that. this is about what jon was just saying and that is create a diversion. when things aren't going well or in this case when things are going a little bit better for republicans and polls in key house and senate races are really tightening, keep people scared. after the brett kavanaugh confirmation, are republicans going to be able to stay mad enough, long enough, until the november election? immigration is probably the safest bet for the republican party. remember in 2014, there was another migration crisis and

that coincided with a loss of the senate for the democrats. this issue doesn't tend play well for democrats. trump knows it and democrats know it. >> how hard would it be for democrats to say we're against illegal immigration? they can't figure out how to push back on donald trump? we're against illegal immigration as well. mike allen, you called this the republicans' throw this everything against the wall plan, which i suspect looks a lot like what happens when citadel play the clemson tigers in november. throw everything at the wall and what's stick zblg right. it's the economy, stupid. don't forget health care. here he's out talking about the tax cut.

i checked around with both senate republican leaders, they all shot back they said i think he's making it up. but he pays little price for making it up. no long-term planning in this white house. >> nick, what do you see and what do you hear when you look at the president of the united states constantly, intentionally this week, another round of lies to the american voter? is this changing our politics? is it our changing our country. >> both. here's the thing, what he's doing right now is trying to create a reason to come out to vote. it's hard to create a sense of fear and passion on your side if your side controls the supreme court, the house, the senate, the presidency and most of the state government. this is the most powerful political party in a century. so, how do you create a fear?

there are migrants and they're about to invade the country. the problem is, once you have uncooked that and you'll say anything to create a sense of fear it keeps on going and going. i'm very worried about after the election, mike. >> lisa, jump on the democrats' chances of taking over the house and the senate at this point? it seems like they could lose both? >> well, i think as you point out earlier, part of the reason why we see the president saying these things is because it's in in fact working. in the senate, republicans feel a lot about those seats they hold. they feel good about missouri and north dakota they can maybe flip one of those seats. they could feel pretty good about maintaining control of the

senate. in the house, sort of this home of the blue wave where democrats were going to take over with a huge margin they could still take over but with a much tighter margin. around 20, 30 seats which could get them there but kind of just barely. part of the reason why we see trump seeidoing this is good. it's almost completely accuracy on that. you see that the president is a huge force in these midterms. every midterm is about the president in some ways. this one and he's trying to get his people out to the polls and based on what we're seeing in polling it seems to be fairly successful. >> mika, you've been concerned this weekend. looking at a lot of different polls and different information and you have been expressing

concern to me and to others about where this election has been going. >> who's is it about on the democratic side? we have been talking about the new nbc news/wall street journal poll, fred yang, the democratic pollster said what we all thought would be a blue wave is running into a rip tide of uncertainty that's been created with a surge of republican intensity. where did that come from? democrats have an edge nationally in the generic ballot, in most competitive districts that would decide control of the chambers, the poll is tied on that question. hillary clinton won the popular vote over donald trump. but that edge came almost entirely from deep blue california. throw the national polls out and

go race by race, and what you see is a stark reality for the democratic party. barring some democratic change, control of the senate is out of reach and republicans are fighting very hard to keep the speakership and control of the house and they just might. donald trump is talking about trade, crime, immigration and judges. what are the democratic issues that pack the same kind of inspiring, emotional punch? democrats can still win these midterms, with time running out the message and the momentum appears to be on donald trump's side. democrats have two weeks to turn that around. can they? for those who are growing increasingly concerned we're about to see a repeat of 2016, there's no time to waste. >> john, let's go back to what

jeremy peters was saying, republicans bring up immigration. they have for 15 years. what's the democratic response? there is no democratic response. i mean, donald trump -- it seems that donald trump, whether it's on crime, immigration, the wall, wherever it is on, there's no focus democratic response. you know, newt gingrich criticized in 1994 for his contract on america, as the democrats would call it. what's the democrats' contract? newt said we're going to do these ten things. first hand that's powerful message to take to voters. tell me three things that the democrats are going to do the second they get into the house and take over the house if they in fact do that. is there a promise to do anything? >> well, on the democratic side,

so far to be fair, it's been the case, enough to gin up this wide gap until the kavanaugh hearings the wide gap in voters enthusiasm. protect us from donald trump. that's what the democratic message has been. protect our health care from donald trump. protect our social security from donald trump. and again, up until about three weeks ago we saw in poll after poll and special election after special election, in primaries we all democratic enthusiasm off the charts. republican enthusiasm, not anywhere near the charts. what happened three weeks ago, what happened in the context of the kavanaugh hearings, republicans enthusiasm is now on the raise. joe, that's what the president's strategy is all about. those issues it's not so much there's a toe to toe fight over immigration, over trade, or over

judges. what the president is doing very effectively is identified the problem was that his side, as steve bannon put it to me a few weeks ago the deplorables are resting on their shovels. the problem that we have had around labor day. get the deplorables as they called them to get off their shovels and start digging. >> john, let's take the issue, if the republican issue they're going to lean on immigration the democratic issue is health care, i haven't heard a compelling argument about health care. what bill clinton told us in 1996 democrats should have been doing all along, they got a mitch mcconnell quote, the tax cuts for the rich don't work, say the exact same thing that bill clinton said and they'd win in a landslide. you got mitch mcconnell saying

they're going after entitlement reform next because they're so in debt because they cut taxes so much. they're busting a whole in the national debt. all they have to say is, republicans are coming after your social security and their medicare to pay for tax cuts for the rich. boom. >> there's no doubt, joe, that over the course of the first 18 months of the trump administration, democrats got lulled into the sense of co complacen complacency. denouncing against donald trump, a check on trump power that would be enough. they got lulled into a place where looking at the polling and looking at that gap in enthusiasm they didn't think they needed a positive message. basically run against trump. now they're in a situation because of that break that happened with the kavanaugh

confirmation hearings it's just not enough to be against trump. again, just the circumstances made it look like it's enough. they have issues that are on the right side of in terms of public opinion. they're driving those issues in those earned media, paid media, across the board. it may be too late for them to fix that problem given how close election day is. >> lisa, off of this conversation, would you agree that the democrats are back on their heels, have been back on their heels for quite some time, they have a terrifically pow powerful wing who can't wait to take control of the house and all they talk about is impeaching the president. all they have to do is if you have a child who's sick, you better pay that the republicans

don't take control again beca. e >> going to youngstown, ohio, what changed your life with the pay raise you got? >> i think i disagree with you a little bit. i agree with all the overall premise. i don't think a lot of democrats when i go out to these districts, they're not mentioning the president by name. they're talking about health care. nationally the party hasn't figured out how to deal with the president's attacks. we're two years in and they still don't know how to push back after the president goes after somebody. we saw this last week with elizabeth and the dna debacle. it clearly wasn't the right approach against donald trump.

i think you have to tune into my podcast to hear all about that. >> exactly. by the way, can i just say that was your best podcast. >> thank you. i thought it was an excellent one. really fabulous. >> fabulous. >> i think part of what we'll see in 2020 regardless of what happens in these midterms is a bunch of democratic candidates, more than a bunch, like the entire team of the party running for president trying to figure exactly how to get one on donald trump, how to attack him, how to navigate him and i don't think the party has cracked that code yet. even though these candidates are talking about protecting health care and these local issues that people care about it's not enough. >> who's the newt gingrich as -- who's in command and in control

of the democratic party that's not running for president of the united states? who is the person who, if this all goes up in smoke, the day after the election who's the person that's going to have the most fingers pointed at him or her. >> the obvious choice is nancy pelosi. it's funny, joe, nobody really wants to be the leader of the democratic party. i asked elizabeth warren, who's the leader of the democratic party? she wouldndidn't know the answe. so, i think in the races that democrats seem to be polling tighter with republicans, i was out in iowa and nebraska last week talking to swinger voters,

i'll tell you what, they're not talking about pocahontas, "horseface,," they're worried about pre-existing conditions and if democrats aren't talking about that they are tuning out. they are increasingly susceptible. >> the score could be lopsided the day after the election as possibly as the alabama-citadel game. maybe we're sitting around here like bear bryant before he played alcorn a&m, they're the best players, we're going to lose by 70, 80 points. maybe the democrats' history, too much history is on the democrats' side. but i want to ask you the question, if it does go badly who are the democrats who are responsible for this? what democrat is responsible for

hispanics saying they haven't been reached out to by the democrats? >> there's no party connecting with the hill. i can tell you as i talked to democrats this weekend, severe trepidation, some of those markers that mika pointed to, a ton of worry among democrats this weekend and here's one of the biggest -- the blue wave depends on a number of voter groups that historically have not turned out. a change in human behavior, always risky, and one of the biggest groups is the young voters. lot of hope about the parkland kids and the voters they were going to bring out. i can tell you, our reporters went to parkland rallies and guess who's not there, kids. it's us who are at the rallies. who's going to turn out? that's what democrats are worried right now. >> you know, mike, back in 2004,

when we were on the set together, john kerry's people said the young people are going to come out and carry him over the finish line. i said in 2004, i say it now, unless something radically changes, young people will leave you waiting to the altar every time. >> yes. >> i said it in 2004. i say it in 2018, mike. they better have a better game plan than young people showing up at the polls. >> there's a flood of early voting. the lines of early voting, more people look like me than my kids. i mean, there's a real problem there. >> mike allen, jeremy peters, lisa, thank you all. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> i see myself as a transitional figure. i have things to do, books to

write, places to go. grandchildren, first and foremost, to love. >> nancy pelosi isn't giving up hope at another stint as house speaker but she suggest it might be the only on a short-term basis. who's waiting in the wings, do you think? we'll ask ohio democratic tim ryan, next, on "morning joe." carl? lowest price guaranteed. what about the world's lowest limbo stick? how low can you go? nice one, carl. hey i've got an idea. just say, badda book. badda boom. badda book. badda boom. nice. always the lowest price, guaranteed. book now at choicehotels.com

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unstopand it's strengthenedting place, the by xfi pods,gateway. which plug in to extend the wifi even farther, past anything that stands in its way. ...well almost anything. leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. john, in your travels for the circus, you're looking at 2020 contenders. who's standing out to you. >> you're starting to see the thing that happens every four years, a bunch of 2020 -- a bunch of people coming out in midterm cycle to raise money and raise their profile. you're thinking about nancy pelosi and the big democratic contenders. the front-runners, elizabeth

warren, joe biden, bernie sanders. all people in their 70s, right, so, another guy around this table on the younger side, the guy we're going to talk about is gil garcetti, 47 years old, first hispanic american mayor of los angeles or second in a hundred years, i think, and someone who's below the radar, someone who's going to bring those mayoral credentials. someone who's thinking pretty seriously about running for president. i sat down and talked to him about a week ago. >> you're the mayor of the city home to the me too movement and the most radical fringes of the democratic party. resistance is important.

>> we have to stand up to our values, no question. >> when i hear los angeles is the heart land. you recognize people in the heartland who need to vote democrat. >> to come here, spend some time at fontana, spend some time in south los angeles, tell me whether the values there are out of whack we have more mid westerners here than in the midwest. it's not east coast, west coast, it's washington against the rest of the us. no one is listening to me. this booming economy doesn't feel like that to them. i think the outrage i still feel everywhere and a sense that i can't get sit this one out. >> mika, that's a guy right there who's trying to talk about

the country in a slightly different way. trying to get us pass this tribal notion of america but that washington is broken and looking for leadership. >> so, sounds great. let's bring in someone else who some consider one of those potential 2020 challengers but first he needs to win re-election in two weeks. democratic congressman tim ryan of ohio. also with us is washington bureau chief for usa today, is susan page. congressman ryan, how is your election looking? >> it's looking good. turning around cities like youngstown, ohio, and akron, ohio. we're fighting for health care, pensions, making sure that young kids have an opportunity to live in our community and if they

moved away they can come back making sure we have high-tech jobs around the energy sector or the manufacturing sector. >> so, what do you think is happening 15 days out? why aren't the polls wider apart for the democrats? what happened to this blue wave that everyone was, i guess, maybe hoping for or predicting? is it there? >> well, you know, these races, if you look, you can't take the national statistics you have to look at them by race by race by race. a lot of these races across the board, toss-up races very close, within a point or two one way, this election is going to be about turnout. in the house races you're seeing

gerrreque gerrymander district. connor lamb won a republican plus-20 seat. we're doing extremely well in some of these communities and some of these congressional districts. if you're worried or concerned, if you're a democrat, you need to knock on the doors. we got to go old school, grassroots campaigning and that's getting our voters out to the polls. >> tim, are you worried? >> i'm cautiously optimistic. i have never thought that there was this big blue wave that was going to come. i'm from ohio, i have seen the redistricting campaign and these are hard districts for us to win. fortunately i we got really, really good candidates. we got veterans out there running. people talking about manufacturing. the national narrative is much different than what our candidates is talking about

locally. they're talking about how they're going to make ends beet. congressman sherrod brown is doing well in the polls. what he's talking about, he's talking about jobs, he's talking about pensions, he's talking about health care, bread and butter issues that most people can understand and that they're thinking about when they go to bed every night. he's talking about them and he's winning. i hope that's recipe for democrats across the country as to what they should be talking about. >> nick, then susan page. >> it's fascinating. what we see around the country is a decline in enthusiasm or a lack of power from hispanic americans. democrats were kind of hoping that was in the bag, right, with this president and his policies on the border and immigration, there would be a huge

outpouring, it's not there. what the democrats don't understand yet about this group of voters? >> i think we should have learned from 2016, donald trump did as well mitt romney did among hispanic voters. they vote on immigration, what else? they want opportunity for their kids. a robust economic message. we want everybody to participate in a growing economy. and have the opportunity not to be discriminated against. but a robust economic message. how are we going to make your life better? we're talking about your pocketbook every single day. as i said, sherrod brown is doing really well and he's doing really well in purple state of

ohio. >> party voters come home when you get close to the election. everybody knew there would be some tightening of the big democratic edge, i wonder if you think the brett kavanaugh hearings were kind of a break point that has really helped the republicans as they go into these final few weeks of this campaign? >> i think it did solidify their base. these judicial appointments with republicans are a huge issue. i think it woke up their base. the energy level increased in the polls. already-energized base on our side for the kavanaugh issue and a variety of other issues. it helped tighten things up. still two weeks left and really important issues. the economic issues, you know the issues around health care, what joe said earlier about the tax cut we should be campaigning on we'll repeal 83% of the tax cut.

83% of this tax cut went to the top 1% of the people in country. we're going to repeal that. protect medicare with slight adjustments, we can expand social security for those who are struggling in many of these communities. we want to hold donald trump to the promises he made. he said he was going to raise taxes on the top 1%. we'll give him an opportunity to do that when we get in. expand health care, we'll give him an opportunity to do that when we get in. he said he wanted to rebuild the united states, we'll give him an opportunity to do that. if you stayed focus on those issues, we'll come home. >> here's an issue that doesn't get a lot of attention, young married couples, two kids, what are you going to do about them in terms of pre-k for the

children helping them out with daycare cost? >> these need to be tailored but part of a larger narrative, we're going to have policies that are going to help working class people. we're the party that will be for for these tax benefits. college savings. these are the people, the mom's a nurse, the dad's a firefighter, they're making $110,000 a year, everything that comes out of our mouth as democrats should be how we're going to help these people. that's how you rebuild the blue wall. rebuild pennsylvania, ohio, wisconsin. you have to talk about the economic issue and congressman tim ryan, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. he's also the author of the book

"healing america:how a simple practice can help us recapture the american spirit." thank you very much for being on. coming up, president trump said it would pull out of the nuclear treaty with russia. that's ahead on "morning joe." - [narrator] if you want serious cleaning with a cord-free vacuum, you need a shark. because only shark's cord-free lineup has duo-clean technology so you can deep clean carpets and give hard floors a polished look. and with two swappable batteries at maximum suction, our shark ion f80

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bill very careful here. several months ago a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise donald trump and three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons. three times he asked, at one point if we have them why can't we use them? three times in an hour briefing. why can't we use nuclear weapons? >> that was joe reporting several months before the 2016 election. basically who givesing everybody this information on

then-candidate trump. questioning why the u.s. can't use nuclear weapons. about a year later, nbc news reported that during a national security meeting president trump said he wanted to increase america's nuclear arsenal by tenfold. now the commander in chief said he's pull the united states out of a 1987 treaty with russia which required both nations to eliminate short and intermediate ground-launch, ballistic and cruise missiles from their arsenals. joining us from the white house, nbc news correspondent hans nichols. >> there was broad agreement that there was violation of this agreement. what secretary mattis has said is you do it in consultation with nato allies, that doesn't appear to happen here.

overnight, we have heard from the german foreign minister said this decision to withdraw was regrettable. but as i said the idea russia was in violation of this agreement it goes back to the obama administration. this is john bolton before he heads off to his first trip to russia and he's long been on the record that you should scrap this treaty. you're seeing this pattern from the trump administration of withdrawing from international organizati organization after international organization. you see a pattern here. this is bolton's foreign policy. he wants to go it alone. he doesn't believe in the importance of alliances >> thank you very much. now to a question that's vexed democrats since trump won the presidency, in the nearly

two years since the election of the president many are still coming to terms with two fundamental questions -- who voted for trump and why? a good place to look for answers to those key questions is in luzerne county, pennsylvania, a place who hadn't voted for a republican president since 1988. our next guest delved into that one rural county for his new book "the forgotten" how the people of one pennsylvania county elected donald trump and changed america. the author, ben bradlee jr. joins us now. >> i suppose it was hard for you to find a topic as important as the last one you wrote about, ted williams, you may have come close with the 2016 election. it was so fascinating during the election, people around our sets saying hillary clinton is going

to win, hillary clinton is going to win. then a family reunion in pennsylvania they would come back and say, the 19 people there, 18 were voting for donald trump. i heard this story time and time again. pennsylvania, always pull up stakes two weeks before elections, it became the epicenter of this new trump movement, what was it about pennsylvania that made donald trump resonate so strongly there? >> well, this was really an interesting county. they hadn't voted for a republican since 1988. obama carried the county twice. but it surged in the other direction for trump. he compiled such a margin in this one county that it was 60% of his victory margin in the state of pennsylvania.

so, without this one county, he wouldn't have won the state or perhaps the presidency, to the extent pennsylvania's demographics are like the other two key swing states -- michigan and wisconsin. these voters, a lot of them were crossover democrats, people who jumped into the republican primary to vote for trump and then of course stayed with him in the general. they told me, generally, that they didn't leave the democratic party the party left them. and trump spoke to them in ways that hillary clinton did not. they said they felt that hillary clinton looked down upon them. condescended toward them. whereas trump listened to them and they could relate better to them. >> you know, it's interesting barack obama won that same county, though, by 5 percentage

points. you wouldn't expect it to be landslide territory for donald trump. was this about the democratic party or more about hillary clinton? >> it >> it was a combination. they didn't like hillary for sure, but i'd say it was also an affirmative vote for trump. one democratic state senator there told me that obama had hope and change, but trump had knock ee eed down the door and change. these people were frustrated. they felt neglected, they felt forgotten. as trump aptly referred to them as the forgotten people. they were in a mood to take a chance, to upset the table and break some china and take a flyer with this guy, hoping that he would improve conditions for

them in this county, which has long been economically distressed. >> susan page, you talked about the kavanaugh hearings and your question was about whether or not it actually helped republicans. i'm wondering -- and you can take the question to ben bradley jr., but is that exactly what could have happened in a county like lucerne where you found republican men and women on the side of trump when it came to kavanaugh. >> and i wonder if an issue like kavanaugh really resonates in this county, or is this county still concerned about items much closer to home. and after supporting donald trump and helping to elect him last time around, are they satisfied with what he's done? are they happy with how he's delivered for this particular county and within their own

lives? >> i interviewed about 100 trump voters, but decided to focus on about a dozen who represented different slices of the trump constituency. checking back with them as recently as three or four days ago, 11 of the 12 say that if the 2020 election were to be held tomorrow, they would enthusiastically vote for trump again. only one has slipped into the undecided column. while he hasn't always delivered for them economically, they just like his style. they like how he gets up every day and tweets up a storm, sticks it to the elites, bashes the media and the other elites. they feel he just stands up for them. while you would think the kavanaugh case, since the

democrats lost, would be a key motivator, trump seems to have successfully blunted that with his talking point about male anger and guilty until proven innocent. >> so this book is called "the forgotten" but as long as i've covered politics, the white working class has been at the center of our motorcyclepolitic. why do these people feel forgotten? are there cultural issues or racial issues that play a part in their support for him? >> yes. i think culture trumps economics, i really do. he's not replaced obamacare. he's not solved the deficit. he said he would eliminate the deficit in his eight years, but

his budget for 2018 adds $7 trillion to the deficit. he said he would hold the line or increase medicare or medicaid, but he's slashing both of those programs. so i think it's just they feel listened to by this guy. you know, you look at trump and he behaves more as president of his base, not of the country. he's the first politician that i know who doesn't seem interested in expanding his base. as the new poll you referenced earlier in the show, he's now up to 45% approval rating and he appears to be calculating that he can win reelection with that percenta percentage. >> the book is "the forgotten." how the people of one pennsylvania county elected donald trump and changed america. ben bradley jr. that much.

still ahead, new polling on the fight for congress as president trump ramps up his campaign appearances. . >> anybody that votes for a democrat now is crazy. let's get these people out of there. there's something wrong. they e they're cuckoo. to look at me now, you don't see psoriasis.

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is therehamber wishing to v change their vote? the motion is agreed to. >> i'll soon sign into law the largest legislative effort in history to address the opioid crisis. rob and so many others helped,

very little democrat support. >> okay. earlier this month, the senate passed a sweeping bipartisan bill to fight the opioid epidemic. it was opposed by just one member, a republican. yet according to donald trump, the 98-1 vote translates to, quote, very little democratic support. it's a question we ask again and again. why is trump incapable of telling obvious truths? good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, october 22nd. we have mike barnicle with us, john heilemann, kristin sol tti anderson and the author of the book "the red and the blue"

steve kcornaki. and john meechum. joe, we start this morning again fighting for just the truth, just the facts, just getting the facts right. >> you know, while it's easy to ask what exactly is wrong with donald trump, when you have something that passed 98-1 and it is about as bipartisan as anything can ever be. only one republican voted against it. john, you actual have the president who has a chance to talk about bringing washington together, the sort of thing that presidents in the past would love to do. here instead you have a president who actually lies about the fact that he had a

98-1 vote. what does that do? does that speak to the fact that he's just a lot more interested in dividing americans than bringing them together and when he has a chance to talk about how america comes together, he still lies and suggests that it's torn apart. >> he's fighting for the next five minutes, not for not even the next five weeks, much less the next five years or decades. basically he's going to keep doing this because he's been rewarded for it. he's the president of the united states. he gets the feedback loop he wants from those of his supporters. i think he thinks of us as an audience, not as a country, and is happy to have, in the professional wrestling sense, the people who boo him he thinks are booing him partly because it's their role. i don't think he takes on any kind of constructive criticism.

so i think where we are is we have a president who now or has for quite a long time, he's incapable of changing because the way he's acted has been rewarded. i think that the only thing people can do at this point, and it's not -- and i don't mean to minimize it by saying only, but we have two weeks and one day before a significant message can be sent that we believe truth should have a place in the arena along with this kind of passion. >> what a wonderful thing, mika, to actually bring truth into the arena. we've been focused so much on donald trump. i have to say i think it's time to start focusing on the people behind him who were applauding at lines that they know are lies because you can ask donald trump, well, is he just -- is he incompetent? is he evil? is he -- we don't know why he would lie about something

that -- >> but we know it continues. >> but it continues, right. but the question is when donald trump states an obvious lie and people cheer at it like it's a punch line or like it's a touchdown being scored when he's lying, when he is not telling the truth and they're laughing about it and cheering about it, or let's say last week when donald trump praised the assault of a reporter who was beaten up and thrown to the ground for simply asking a question about healthcare reform, the audience behind donald trump is cheering and laughing and applauding. i'm just wondering who raised them, first of all, who raised those people that are cheering and laughing when a president applauds somebody being beaten up and battered, a reporter, for asking a question about healthcare? apparently, again, forgetting what happened to khashoggi in saudi arabia. who raised them? what church did they go to growing up?

do they still go to church every week? do they go to church on sundays and then mondays they applaud somebody beating up the press for asking a question about healthcare reform? what do they tell their children at night about the type of character they want them to have? you see, you can't cheer about somebody committing assault and battery and beating up somebody and throwing them to the ground. you can't cheer on lies that you know to be lies and then go home and try to teach your child anything. you just can't. because they will see that you are the hypocrite standing behind the president cheering him on and laughing as he applauds assault and battery. >> yeah. >> as he lies about the most basic facts, as he tears to shreds one constitutional norm after another. this may seem like this is all above your children. it's not. i have four.

they are a lot smarter than you think they are. i'm just wondering what do you do when you go home from that rally, applauding what's going -- applauding the lies, applauding the assaults, applauding the abuses, applauding the vulgarities. it's a very, mika, i think we need to start asking a lot more. >> it's fair enough. >> who are the people that continue to applaud things they know to be lies? >> i just don't know if they see it as lies or if they see it as a show. i'm not sure. but 15 days to go. 15 until the midterm elections, and with much at stake the new nbc news "wall street journal" poll suggests it is difficult to tell what the outcome will be. think about that. according to the poll, 50% of likely voters are inclined to support candidates from the democratic party while 41% are for the republicans. at the same time president trump's approval rating among

this group of voters is at 45%. some of the best marks of his presidency. this as enthusiasm about the election is up among core groups that support democrats, 72% of the party's voters have high interest in the election, up 25 points from 2014, while at 71% hispanic voters have seen a 33 point increase in interest from the last midterm elections. high interest is at 68% among black voters, 67% among women, 51% among young voters, that's a 22-point bump from 2014. joe, you just have to wonder, though, is that good for trump, that interest growing, or is it good for the democrats? >> john heilemann, you look at a lot of numbers, the key numbers that we always look at, one of them has to do with the president's approval rating, it's higher as its ever been or

as high as it's ever been. you look at the ballot test in the nbc poll it has tighten and gotten closer, 8, 9 points. you look at intensity. intensity is up among democrats but after kavanaugh it's up among republicans as well. this race does not look to be the foregone conclusion it once was and democrats appear to be even losing ground in the senate. where do you put it 15 days out? >> yeah, there's no doubt about all of that. i think the notion that -- i think the conventional wisdom is basically still the democrats have -- are more likely than not by a reasonable amount more likely to take control of the house, the question is like how big, by how much. and the situation for democrats in the senate, which, again, maybe a month ago people were starting to think there was some chance the democrats might be able to thread the needle and take control of the senate, that is more or less gone from most people's scenarios. now, it is the case that if history is a guide, if you look

at where donald trump's approval rating is right now and you compare it to where barack obama's approval rating was in 2010, that would foretell a large swing in the house, but i think obama lost, i think -- the democrats lost i think 69, 66, somewhere in the mid to high 60s of seats in 2010 and if you look back at bill clinton even back in 1994 a similar kind of thing happened. now, does history hold? does history govern in the era of donald trump? i don't know. but there is no question that a combination of the post kavanaugh -- the new post kavanaugh landscape and the natural tightening that they were going to see in any circumstance in october, those things had democrats worried and those things, i think, rightfully have democrats worried that this is certainly not going to be a slam dunk for them as most people thought for most of this year. >> it certainly doesn't look like the tsunami, steve kornacki, that everybody was talking about. you go in the house races, i know a lot of people who have studied all the house races, i know you certainly have, they

still see an outside path to republicans actually retaining control of the united states house. maybe they lose 18, maybe they lose 19 seats. that would have been unthinkable even two, three months ago. where do you see it right now? >> yeah, i think what john said is correct. the democrats are still more likely than not to take the house, the senate looks like it's changed pretty dramatically in the republicans' favor in the last few weeks. i think that the two big variables where we've seen movement that sort of accounts for this, number one, you put the president's job approval number up there, just overall poll after poll when you average it together he's at sort of the high point here, the high water mark, almost for his entire presidency, absent the first week or so when he had the closest thing to a honeymoon he was ever going to have as president. but he's sitting there and the average of all polls at about 44% approval. republicans said given the nature of the map if they thought they could get him into the mid 40s they might have a fighting chance of keeping the house.

the other big variables that's changed is the question of enthusiasm. this isn't to say anything has changed on the democratic side with enthusiasm because it has been through the roof from the minute donald trump was elected two years ago, it is still through the roof. the thing that has changed is the republican enthusiasm is ticked up, not quite equal with the democratic number but getting closer to it. when you think back to those past midterm landslides, 2006, 2010, even 2014 when the republicans had a sneaky midterm landslide that came on late, you ended up seeing double digit enthusiasm gaps between the parties this those years. right now what we're seeing is there seemed to be the potential for that over the summer when democrats were talking about making inroads beyond just the suburbs, making inroads well into trump country, 40, 50-seat gains, that kind of thing. it seems that the republicans have gotten close to parity on enthusiasm, not enough where i think they are favored to keep the house or anything, but enough where the conversation has changed. still ahead, what makes the

saudi's current explanation any more believable than the first few lies. the kingdom finally acknowledges killing a "washington post" columnist, but the truth seems to stop there. ♪ making my dreams a reality takes more than just investment advice. from insurance to savings to retirement,

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i'm trying to do some homework here. so they're ready for anything. ill certa feel certain that crown prince was involved and that he directed this. i think he's going to have to be replaced, frankly. but i think that sanctions don't go far enough. i think we need to look at the arms sale. this is not just about this journalist being killed. it's about the war in yemen where tens of thousands of civilians are being killed. it's about them spreading hate of christians and jews and

hindus throughout the world. >> we have intercepts from the past that point to involvement at a very high level. let's let this play out, but my guess is at the end of the day the united states and the rest of the world will believe fully that he did it. >> can you imagine us having a relationship with the saudi government that's positive if the crown prince is still there? >> no, i don't think so. again, if the facts lead to what we all suspect they will, i think it will be very problematic for our relationship going forward. >> boy, mika, that's strong, hearing that from rand paul and -- >> yeah. >> we heard earlier from lindsey graham, but you also heard it from bob corker, thom tillis the head of the senatorial committee. republicans are lining up saying we can't have relations if this guy was responsible for the murder, and, by the way, they all believe that, in fact, the crown prince was responsible for the murder of khashoggi. >> contrary to its original

story and weeks of denial, saudi arabia says that "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi was killed inside its consulate in istanbul on october 2nd. per the kingdom, khashoggi died, this is what they say, during a quarrel and a fistfight after a, quote, suspect attempted to take him from istanbul to saudi arabia, and that those involved attempted to, quote, conceal what happened and to cover it up. saudi arabia also says that 18 people have been arrested and several high ranking officials including a top intelligence officer and a top adviser to the crown prince have been fired. recent reports have stated that the crown prince personally ordered the operation to lure khashoggi from his home in virginia back to saudi arabia in order to capture him, although saudi arabia maintains mbs had no advanced knowledge of the incident. >> keep in mind when you have a situation like this you want the

information that you put out to be as accurate as you possibly can. we are not an authoritarian government, we are monarchy, we have our checks and balances, we have our systems. the individuals who did this are outside of their authority, there obviously was a tremendous mistake made and what compounded the mistake was the attempt to try to cover up. that is unacceptable in a government. these things, unfortunately, happen. we have never engaged in such behavior and we will never engage in such behavior, this is an aberration, this is a mistake, this is a criminal act and those responsible for it will be furnished. this was an operation that was a rogue operation. this was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had. >> no. >> absolutely everything that he just said was a lie. i mean, very rarely you have a spokesperson, ayman, that comes on and -- i mean, baghdad bob is blushing somewhere because everything he said was a lie.

it wasn't a rogue operation. our intel community knew that it started with the crown prince. he wasn't going in there swinging. we found out that they brought people over with a bone saw to cut him up in seven minutes while listening to music. i'm wondering, ayman, what reports you're hearing out of the middle east if it's seeming more evident there as it is here that there is no way the crown prince is going to be able to survive this without saudi arabia forever being a rogue nation. >> that's a really good point, the point that you brought up at the end about the crown prince and it's almost important to emphasize with all this information that was coming out from the saudi arabian government late friday evening one of the most important pieces of information came out was that the king has actually formed a ministerial committee headed and chaired by the crown prince to investigate this murder as well as to reform the intelligence services.

so in simple terms, the king is doubling down on his son. anybody who thinks that this may have been an opportunity for some royals and others to perhaps push the crown prince aside or express their dissatisfaction with what has happened, the king has really put an end to that really quickly. that's the first part of that. the second part of that as you were saying, there are so many holes and so many questions in the explanation that was put forward by the foreign minister in that interview that it just does not pass muster. we will expect to hear from the turkish government in the coming days about what evidence they have to actually substantiate. they've been leaking information throughout the course of the past couple weeks, but everything they have leaked has put pressure on the saudis to match. keep in mind the saudi consulate himself gave an interview, gave a tour of the consulate saying this didn't happen, there was no murder, he left through the back door, then the saudis have totally once again changed their story. there have been at least three or four versions of what has happened over the past two weeks. every time they put out an explanation the facts don't match that up and the saudis haven't provided any evidence

whatsoever -- >> so, ayman, let me ask you something. you say the king is still lining up behind his son who planned this murder and saw it carried out. i just wonder is there no one in saudi arabia that can tell the king or anyone else that if they move forward in this direction they are going to be internal pariahs for a generation? this just does not end well. >> that's a really good question and the inter deliberations of the saudi royal family are one of the hardest things for westerners and outside people to know. the deliberations are a blacks box. we don't know what the communications are that are being sent to the king from some of the most senior members of the royal family, but what we do know is the message that comes out of washington is closely watched in saudi arabia. if you do have the president of the united states saying that, you know, the story is credible and that he still wants to see the crown prince involved, that is going to carry weight with the saudi decision-makers and

they are not necessarily going to say it is the only factor, but if they know washington has their back and if they're going to continue to go forward with that same tone, that is a very important factor in their decision-making. coming up on "morning joe"? >> hey, how are you? hi. >> does a democrat usually get that sort of reception around here? >> no. i'll take it. >> why south dakota could elect a democrat for the first time in years. keep it here on "morning joe." ♪ i know you want to leave me for schwab, but before you do that, you should meet our newest team member, tecky. i'm tecky. i can do it all. go ahead, ask it a question. tecky, can you offer low costs and award-winning wealth management with a satisfaction guarantee, like schwab? sorry. tecky can't do that.

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warning, california. a handful of billionaires have spent over $70 million on campaigns to undermine our public schools. and electing a former wall street banker named marshall tuck to superintendent of public instruction is all a part of the billionaires' plan 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. with pg&e in the sierras. and i'm an arborist since the onset of the drought, more than 129 million trees have died in california. pg&e prunes and removes over a million trees every year to ensure that hazardous trees can't impact power lines. and since the onset of the drought we've doubled our efforts.

i grew up in the forests out in this area and honestly it's heartbreaking to see all these trees dying. what guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future. we need people in congress who are going to stand up to the pathological liar who is the president of the united states. we have members of congress who are trying to win votes by dividing us up. i say to trump and anybody else in this country who thinks that

way that we have struggled too long and for too many years to fight discrimination. we are not going back. we are going forward! >> that was bernie sanders back on the campaign trail in iowa this weekend. joining us from des moines, von hilliard. how did they react to bernie sanders' return? >> there was about 300 or 400 people in that hall there on the campus of iowa state university last night. what particularly felt interesting about last night was the 2020 vibe to it. it felt a lot like that same energy that it felt on the campus back in 2015 with senator sanders. he was laying out the legitimacy of his message there.

he said once considered radical idea like a 15 minimum wage, medicare for all, issues like that had suddenly entered the mainstream of american politics and he's not wrong. i asked five women last night that drove down from iowa falls, have you tired at bernie sanders at all? immediately they scoffed at such a suggestion as that. last night was very much a 2020 message from senator sanders here in iowa. >> there's so many democrats running, maybe up to 20. does bernie stand out as far as exciting people in iowa? >> that was the interesting part about last night. i was interested because i went to a good two dozens of senator sanders' rallies back in iowa back in 2015 and i was interested whether that message that people have been hearing

for four years about the top 1% and corporations, whether people would be turning more toward cory booker or kamala harris or elizabeth warren. they said we'll listen to them, but bernie sanders' merge residen -- message resonated with us three years ago and nothing has changed. >> you also went to south dakota to look at the race for governor there, which the cook political report rates as a tossup. what did you find out? >> exactly. the question here was coming out of 2016 was what can democrats do in order to win back places like the midwest? a lot of that conversation came down to what kind of candidates do they recruit? up in south dakota they found one gentleman. he's a 34-year-old former rodeo

star, paralyzed. he's now in a wheelchair. but it's not about his past. he's from a town of 600. when you walk up and down the streets with this individual, it's quite clear he's essentially tied in the polls two weeks out. billy sutton is running for governor of south dakota. >> how's it going? >> does a democratic usually get this sort of reception around here? >> no. so i'll take it. >> the place that produced george mcgovern and tom dasheel. it began when his rodeo dreams were cut short. >> i was to be a world champion and that's all i had planned. as so often happens, you plan doesn't go the way you thought

it would. >> a horse flipped him over his chute 11 years ago. >> i was instantly paralyzed from the waist down. >> he turned to public service, won a seat in the state legislature. now he's a prairie democrat south dakota could support. >> i voted for billy sutton. >> are you republican or democrat? >> republican. >> i'm going to vote for suttos. >> sutton's opponent is undefeated in statewide races. she has a presidential endorsement and a $100,000. republican edge in the voter rolls. >> any time the president comes to your state, i believe he carries a piece of that state in his heart. i think he's got an interesting story and he's largely unknown so they're believing his commercials when he talks about

being conservative. >> i'm a moderate. some people would consider my conservative. >> whether they're voting for him or not, people seem to ag e agree. >> i think he's a great guy. >> nice guy. >> pretty good guy. >> good guy. >> nice guy. >> super awesome guy. >> a face that seems honest. >> when i tell them i'm with them, they know that's the truth. >> there's a lot of conversation about what it will take for democrats and young people to get involved. there's a woman there in her 20s. she said she was involved in politics for the first time because of billy sutton. she was from one of those small rural farming communities there in south dakota and she felt like billy sutton was actually listening to the concerns of rural america, issues like rural broadband.

>> this is what i've been talking about for some time. democrats need to work really hard to find candidates that fit culturally with their state. here you have a former rodeo star, a guy who's fighting adversity, a guy that a lot of people there believe can relate to them. as we hear democrats complaining about a senate that doesn't represent their interests, you grudgingly have to tell democrats, well, that's because you don't elect people in middle america. but this is a type of candidate i think democrats really have to start looking for, seeking out, heart land democrats. >> if democrats are seeking to be a majority party around the country in the state capitols, in washington and if they want control of the senate, that power requires them to appeal to

voters who are not traditional democrats. it's a real perplex for the party right now, because the energy in the party is mostly on the left and on the cultural left. but the voters are not always there. the question is can they feel these candidates and build a party that allows the candidates to run with the support of the party in the places where they are a good fit. >> joe, let me ask you a question that gets to the heart of the democrat's deleilemma. can you name me one democrat from the senate or the house who would help billy sutton by making a personal appearance in his state with him? >> no. that's because candidates like bill clinton in 1992 -- forget the scandals that followed bill clinton into 2018 for a second, but if you look at the ideology of bill clinton, there's a guy who ran in 1992 and he won every

state up and down the mississippi river. can you believe that? louisiana, arkansas, missouri, all the way up into minnesota. that's unheard of x b, but that the sort of heart land democrat that this party is going to have to find if they want to not just win the presidency, but start winning senate seats again, start winning back the seat, start winning back the house, start winning back governorships. it is vital they build an fdr-style coalition and not just fight between are we going to be an extremely progress party or a conservative party. now to texas where despite a past history filled with insults and name calling, president trump is heading to houston later today to stump for senator ted cruz. >> that was the guy he called lyin' ted, right? >> that guy. >> that's the guy who said his

dad killed jfk. >> yep. >> is that the guy he insulted ted cruz's wife and said she wasn't attractive? >> yeah. >> he's rallying for him? ted cruz is letting him stand on the same stage as him? >> cruz is facing a tougher than expected reelection fight with democratic challenger beto o'rourke. joining us, a correspondent at the "new york times" elizabeth diaz. good to have you on. >> these women in texas, evangelical women, white women, young moms were telling me when i was out there two weeks ago that at least this group was ready to give up being long time republican supporters, mostly on the single issue of abortion to say, hey, as one of them said, we care as much as babies at the border as we do babies in the

womb. that is such a radical choice for young evangelical women who many of their whole communities, their churches in texas, like many white evangelicals around the country, support the. republican agenda full heartedly based on this issue of abortion. but now they're seeing beto o'rourke, someone they're telling me better represents jesus, frankly, and the range of ways they saw jesus caring for the vulnerable people. they said, look, we all voted for ted cruz in 2012 and no more. the question is, you know, how widespread is that sentiment. but we've been really wondering what is going on in white evangelical communities that keeps their support for president trump at an all time record high. it's much more complicate ed th that for young moms in a border

state where they're seeing families being separated. >> i'm sure a lot of people are skeptical about this reporting, especially when you look at the percentages right now supporting ted cruz over beto o'rourke. we've got a long way to go. i told the story on this show before about a friend of mika and mine that we've known a long time who told us, a woman, who said if you asked me to name four things i identified myself as six months ago, i would have said a christian, a republican, a mom and a wife. and she said, i've left the republican party and i'm not voting for one of them this midterm election, because she thinks trump needs balance. it could be while evangelicals don't seem to be all moving in one direction, there does seem to be some evangelical women who are thinking that way.

>> absolutely. i think they face a great amount of resistance within their churches. many of them were telling me it felt like the sort of revolutionary moment, you know, they're slapping a rhee beto o'e bumper sticker on their car amid going into their church parking lot and feeling so relieve when they see another one over there. also for the democratic party. they're not reaching out strategically to women like i was talking with in texas. they're not on call sheets. most of it's because i think for many national democrats, why would you spend time mobilizing these new voters when you really just need to turn out your base and people who voted for hillary in texas? but i noticed these women what are taking these kind of risks

and there's a lot of cultural churn going on in these churches right now. >> thank you very much for being on this morning. up next, we report on donald trump, he becomes him. >> what a great rally. what a great rally. we're here in pennsylvania, home of steel and we love steel. we love steel, don't we, folks? and we love aluminum and the aluminum foil. we use it to wrap up the leftovers and we love the leftovers. and we're going to put the foil in the moi cricrowave. they say you can't do that, but they also said i couldn't win. i'm the human equivalent of putting aluminum foil in the moi cr microwave. >> up next we'll speak with that man, probably the best trump

impersonator around. how he goes about becoming the president and what he means by the three trumps, next on "morning joe." the same? that's why capital one is building something completely different. capital one cafés. welcoming places with people here to help you, not sell you. with savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. that are easy to open from right here or anywhere in 5 minutes. no smoke. no mirrors. this is banking reimagined.

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what a great rally. what a great rally. we're here in pennsylvania, home of steel. and we love steel. we love steel, don't we, folks? and we love aluminum and the aluminum foil. we use it to wrap up the leftovers, and we love the leftovers. we're going to put the foil in the microwavmicrowave. they say you can't do that, but they also said i couldn't win. i'm the human equivalent of putting aluminum foil in the microwave. >> that was a clip from comedy central's "the president show." anthony atamanik.

how long have you been doing trump? >> august 27th of 2015. >> did you know -- had people said you could probably do a good trump? >> i'm an improviser. i was improvising and someone said, mr. president, he had announced two months prior. so i thought this will be funny, i'll try out trump. so i did him and wrote a one man show that came true because it was a preference after ss confe won. we toured m eed playing trump a bernie. >> what's the key to doing a good trump? >> i think the key to a good trump physically is to have no center of gravity, to keep your arms up and moving and waving all the time and always pivot.

when you turn, you crane like an animal kind of. >> like a neck injury. >> right after this rally, how about we have a telethon? i don't know, should we do it? >> mentally abandon all morality, logic and any sense of order. and then you can do his thought process very easily. >> first of all, let's drop one of the best impersonators. i thought it was trump when the clip started playing. >> everyone knows the press is terrible people, the worst people. that's why i'm trying to change liable laws to make it easier to sue the crooked media. but the lawyers are saying that it's impossible. so executive order. the first amendment is now the last amendment. and the second amendment is promoted to the first amendment. from now on, you have to say something with a gun. >> i want to ask you, how many hours were you forced to watch

trump in order to start mimicking his -- >> on the road i literally watched every rally of his from september on, every rally. and partly because they were bizarrely entertaining. it was like watching jonestown just play out over a year, without the end so far. >> let's talk about the book. "american tantrum." what do we find when we open this up? >> i wrote this book with my friend neil casey before the michael wolf book came out. it's the journey of this character kelsey nelson who met trump at some point at a golf party and he's there to interview the president. there's a through line of kelsey with the president and transcript after transcript, interviews, phone calls. we have excerpts from steve bannon's fantasy fiction novels.

we have a variety of materials like general kelly's instructions for the president. we did that like washington's manners and rules piece that he did. it's americana. it's 50% national lampoon and 50% thomas payne's common sense. >> what do you figure the number of people in united states of america might pick this book up, start reading it and think it's nonfiction? >> i think a lot of people. my good friend howard fineman told me there are things in here that he's heard him say and in addition, when the sars report, all the reports about the suspicious activities and his father's money poured in, that's like a series in here we wrote like ten months ago. we've been predicting both in the show and in the book forever. we predicted the kid's separation of families on the show almost a year before it

happened. >> i love the different versions. casual trump. >> casual trump is sort of, you know, when he was dancing at the church and he was sort of like he was in fleetwood mac and sort of flowing back? breezy, light, efem nat almost. walks with the umbrella while his wife is walking uncovered. he's a breezy guy who doesn't really care. he's the one who says who cares, who cares about the elizabeth warren dna test which also being from massachusetts you're, like, is that dukakis in the tank? >> i don't know. who cares. >> ♪ pearly whites >> are you singing the national anthem to avoid answering quote? >> ♪ what so rowdly we wail and the ramparts parting ♪

>> do you not know the words? >> quiet, honey, if words mattered, i wouldn't be president right now. >> anyway. >> so that's casual. what about rally trump? >> ooh, rally trump is, you know, that's where he's sort of the medicine man. he's sweaty. he's more louis armstrong. he gets in there like this and he belts more, you know. and he is a call and response. where he's telling the story to his followers, i think people don't understand how important the rallies are in galvanizing the support because the rallies are the story that the people who support him follow, that they're a part of his story. i will say fundamentally misunderstand what's happening in this country, i'll say that. >> and who's going to pay for the wall? who's going to pay for the wall? >> mexico! >> who's going to pay for the wall? >> mexico! >> they won't even let me build the wall. mexico won't pay for it. congress won't pay for it.

the military won't even pay for it. so i guess i'm just going to give up -- and make you pay for it! doesn't that sound nice? >> last one is prompter trump where he keeps it low energy. >> like a grandmother reading "good night moon." you can see my favorite thing about that is it's one of steve bannon's dungeons and dragons-type thing he's written. he's like -- and he huffs and he turns and looks at the next one. he can barely spit the words out. >> it's so clear when he dips into the ad lib and has to go back to the prompter. >> because he's talking to -- he hasn't read the speech, i can almost guarantee you. >> sure. >> he's commenting, he's doing the notes while he's reading it. >> this is a chance for all americans to set aside our differences. no matter which side of the aisle you're on.

from the obstructionist freedom stealing democrats. to the un-american which hunting democrats. we can't politicize our politics. song bird! >> the book is "american tantrum." anthony, thanks. congrats. >> end of the show, i got to tell you guys, huge fan. >> a whole massachusetts thing going on. >> oh, forget it. i'll see you at the new bridge. >> absolutely. do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet? do you want $4.95 commissions for stocks, $0.50 options contracts? $1.50 futures contracts? what about a dedicated service team of trading specialists? did you say yes? good, then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. looks like we have a couple seconds left. let's do some card twirling twirling cards e*trade. the original place to invest online.

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time now for final thoughts, joe, you go first. >> mike barnicle, i can't believe we've been on three hours and we haven't talked about yet, mike, the los angeles dodgers and the boston red sox. the last time these two teams met, a kid named casey stengel was 25 years old, playing for the dodgers and a kid named babe ruth was 21 playing for the red sox. >> yes, big coastal series, huge, huge numbers anticipated for ratings. red sox, great team. dodgers, great team. i'm looking for the red sox to win in five. i would like all ticket requests for the series to be in by noon today to me in order to go through them. i'm looking forward to it, joe. we need it. we never needed baseball more than we need it right now to take our minds off of what goes on in the news every day. >> yes, we do. >> while we're figuring out who is going to be winning the world series, we're also going to be

figuring out who's going to be in control of congress the next couple weeks. it seems there's so many cross currents right now, you can look at one set of stats and say the democrats are in trouble. you can look at another and say the same about the republicans. >> it's very hard to read, joe. for months, democrats believed that trump was the only issue they needed. that the entire election would be a referendum on trump and what's happening now is trump is actually a bit more popular than over the summer and they're finding that he is, you know, a weight on them as well as an advantage for them. >> powerful words from you earlier this morning. you really don't think democrats are going to win this, do you? >> i'm deeply concerned, worried about that. but everybody should get involved. you can go to joe.msnbc.com if you're in florida and get tickets to our show this friday. we're going to be in boca.

joe, willie and me. if you want to join us, have a cup of coffee and join the conversation, go to joe.msnbc.com. and that does it for us this morning. chris janice picks up the coverage right now. >> thank you, mika, hello there, i am chris jansing, in for stephanie ruhle. fort night battle royale. both parties are breaking out the heavy hitters. both have something to work with. a new poll shows democrats with a nine-point advantage. even as president trump's job approval rating is at its highest level yet. trump and republicans are working to make a midterm issue out of immigration because of those thousands of migrants inching closer to the u.s. border. the administration continuing to threaten military force. but the desperate people show no signs of giving up. >> you know, we're going to fight, we're going to keep o