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tv   Morning Joe  MSNBC  October 31, 2018 3:00am-6:00am PDT

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the president is going out in these conservative districts that he has won and the messages that is coming out from the make america great again, messaging doesn't show any images of president trump. >> i think there is a bit of a disconnect there. we have seen some super pac ads with trump in their ads, but it's mostly nancy pelosi. >> alexis, you've covered so much this morning. thank you. sign up for the news left at signup.axios.com. "morning joe" starts right now. >> i can already tip you off. president trump is going to keep his promise to the american people and he's going to nomination a strict constructionist to the supreme court in the tradition of the
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late and great justice scalia. this person will possess a top notch legal mind and unwavering commitment to the constitution. >> and on wavering commitment to the constitution until president trump wants to personally rewrite it. house speaker paul ryan says trump cannot end birth right citizenship without an executive order. former spokesperson for president obama put it like this. trump wants a debate about ending birth right citizenship more than actually doing it. democrats should say okay, see you in court. now back to your plan to get rid of protections for pre-existing conditions. wow. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, october 31st. with us, we have mike barnacle,
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national affairs analyst for nbc news john heilman, steve kornacki, heidi prisbella is with us and john meachum. he is an nfl news and msnbc contributor. also with us, global opinions editor at "the washington post" karen ataia. we appreciate you being on this morning along with joe, willie and me. there is so much going on especially with some of these polls showing a lot of moment. >> you have one of the heros of the tea party in trouble in virginia. you have a guy would has been
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known, as trump as said, one of his favorite congressmen now being abandon because of his white nationalist leanings. and you know what? why don't we just start with the most accurate poll in the 2016 campaign, the poll that showed president trump doing better. caused a lot of consternation. but this poll ended up having it right. and my gosh, the headline coming out of the usc/"l.a. times" poll, it is a political earthquake. >> so six days, less than a week to go before election day and everyone is trying to figure out what is going to happen. you're talking about the uscdomsife/lau
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uscdomsif uscdomsife/"l.a. times" poll showing 57% leaning democrat. while the poll could be an outlier, democrats are seeing a shift in the closing days of the campaign. >> steve kornacki, a lot of consuper nati consternation throughout the campaign. but i've been talking to democrats the past couple of days. they have seen a momentum shifting their way in a lot of races, whether you're talking about arizona, a tightening in some of these other states, but you start seeing if other polls start moving in this direction, 16 points. that points to some bad days ahead for republicans, doesn't it? >> yeah. and i think that's the question. let's see what other polls do. the "l.a. times" pog had trump
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winning the popular vote by three points. so they were off by five on that front. so i think ours did hold up pretty well in 2016 there. but it is a question down the stretch here with the last week that was dominated by how donald trump handled the package bombs, how donald trump handled pittsburgh, donald trump leaned into this idea of birth right citizenship. a gallop poll had his approval rating over the last week dropping four points. that's a key variable in this. republicans think it gives them a fighting chance to hang on to the house. so gallop suggested maybe there is the possibility of movement there. but, again, i think it's striking, too, just to compare how donald trump is closing the
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2018 midterms with how he closed the 2016 campaign. but remember, he was basically off twitter down the home stretch in 2016. his aides managed to wrestle that away from him and settled on these broad themes of changing washington, making the system fair, that he was on point in his rallies in ways he hadn't been before. and those were the days when his numbers did tick up just enough to get him through the election day gauntlet. it does seemp the tone he's endi ending this campaign on is different. we'll see if those republicans who came through for him in 2016 may do the same in 2018. >> i was talking to steve
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schmidt. steve said, do you notice when we're in the campaign and people are talking about someone else, donald trump wins. but when we're talking about donald trump at the end of the campaign, donald trump loses. and donald trump, showing absolutely no discipline, is making everything about himself and we're seeing his numbers fall and we're seeing democrats' numbers go up. >> he's eating up all the political space right now. every day he comes out some new idea. yesterday it was taking away birth right citizenship. yesterday it was sending 5,200 troops to the border for a caravan that is a thousand miles away. and candidates can't get out from under that. in california's 50th with,
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congressman duncan hunter who is facing february charges for misuse of campaign funds has a narrow lead, 48 to 45 over democrat democratic newcomer amarch camapshar. in utah, mayor ben mcadams is ahead of republican mia camp. in kansas, 12% are still undecided in a "new york times" see anna college poll. north carolina's 9th district, mark harris has a narrow lead over democrat dan mccready, 45 to 44 percent. and in virginia's 7th congressional district, abigail spanberger is leading represent dave brat 46 to 45 percent. >> i think this is one of the most fascinating races. dave brat, the tea party darling
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is running one of the dumbest campaigns in modern day history where he thinks if he just keeps saying nancy pelosi that nothing else is required. and his democratic opponent has come back really strongly with some great ad campaigns. i think voters are saying, hey, we're not that stupid. we're not going to be fooled by stupid campaigning. >> he's also bringing in steve bannon here at the end of this campaign which is the anti-globalist. how does this play out on tuesday? >>. >> clearly a play for the base there. that district, you're talking
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about the suburbs and you're talking about suburbs where democrats are investing in this idea of typically women who traditionally may have voted republican in the past around there being turned off by the donald trump version of the party. if you've got brat closing with.bannwith bannon and the other factor is the u.s. senate race. you have corey stewart at the top of the ticket. it's an interesting choice to close there. >> let me go back to the point that joe was making about trump being at the center. who is the focus on, right? the second thing that happened was the focus shifted to hillary clinton because of the jim comey e-mail release. the third thing was trump
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believed at that point that his base was secure and he needed to bring home traditional republicans who were nervous about him. what is he doing right now? coming out of the period after kavanaugh, he is now bringing all the the discussion back to himself. and instead of focussing on issues that will bring traditional republicans back home to the republican party, he's focussing on these issues that make swing republicans nervous about donald trump and the party under donald trump. so it's almost a mirror image. and given the dynamics of this race, it's in some ways dumber than if he had done the same thing in 2016. it's just all of the problems that he has and the party has because of him are being
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magnified by this. he feels as if he doesn't do this, the base might stay home. but it's a terrible bind he's in right now. he's already alienated a lot of suburban voters. the more the focus is on him and these issues, the worse he is. democrats are in a much better position now than they were two weeks ago after the cavanaugh thing when the focus was on them. in florida, two new polls have bill nelson leading over governor rick scott who is spending tens of millions of of his money. nelson is ahead 47% to 46%. in the governor's race, andrew gillum has a six-point lead over ron desantis, 49% to 43% and a
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one-point edge in the usa today poll. president trump will head to ft. myers, florida, later today to kick off his final 11 rallies of the 2018 campaign cycle. >> here is what john heilman was talking about. donald trump can come into your base, gin up the base, and you have an empty that is going to say, oh, wait, wait a second. that guy said really offense of things in my hometown.
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it is a catch-22, but donald trump doesn't seem to have the discipline or the understanding to get that fact that every campaign appearance he's making now is driving up democrats' numbers. >> i don't think discipline and understanding will be big things at the trump lie break. i think there's an extraordinary issue, anecdotally living in a competitive state, the passion on the democratic side is remarkable. and the idea that this is -- we finally can do something is what people are saying. there's a step one can take instead of angrily tweet to go
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one's own followers about how awful the president is. and i wonder if that engagement, if that passion in the suburban planses you're talking about is going to be what we're talking about on wednesday morning. or, as you said about young voters, will the story wednesday morning be that there were a lot of angry suburbanites, a lot of angry women, but the trump base came out, even though he wasn't explicitly on the ballot and saved him from total humiliation. and i think that's the damble thing about midterm elections is it's going to fall into one of those two bucket. >> so karen, and amid all of this, the president is trying to now shift the focus on birth right citizenship. the strategy seems pretty clear. and, again, toward his base and any racist tendencies.
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>> sure. i mean, i think there are a lot of people who are saying, you know, this is just another employ, this is just another distraction coming from trump. regardless of the fact that constitutionally processwise it is not possible for trump to end this by executive order, r rhetorically, the damage has been done. as part of the migrant caravans, as part of the chain migrations, the attempt to change the conversation is an effective way the poison the conversation against people of color. the 14th amendment was historically given to freed slaves back in 1988. so this is not just an
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immigration issue. this is an attack on our civil rights history. so i think for us to understand how broad this assault is, it's not just immigrants, it's also american civil rights history. >> another example of lindsey graham degrading himself for donald trump, he came out yesterday and was excited that donald trump was going to amend the constitution with an executive order which, of course, even paul ryan said you can't do that. justin omage said you can't do that. kellyanne conway's husband said you can't do that. i just wonder, what does the
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university of south carolina school of law think right now. what do they think that a guy that graduated from their program really thinks that you can tear up the 14th amendment by signing an executive order? i don't think lindsay thinks that, but it shows you how shameful he has become in john mccain can's passing and how stupid donald trump thinks the american people are. it is a clear call to racists to come out and vote for his candidates. >> that gets to the language of the campaign, the language of the president. i have just spent five days at an event, the world series, that became trivial after the events of the murder of jewish people in pittsburgh. as you know, the world series attracts people from all over the country.
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and this is anecdotal, but it blends in with what steve and john have both been saying. you talk to people from all over the country. whether they voted for donald trump or not, they realize that this country is a community of people who come from different cultures, different countries. nowhere else is it as prominent in this nation as it is in the basin, the legislation basin. and you talk to them today and they want to lower the bunsen burner flame that this president has done to the country. they want calmness restored. it's a toxic presidency out in the country when you talk to many, 'em people. it's dangerous. and in some cases, danger turns to lethalness. the country is not, i don't think, anecdotalally as divided ae we think it is. people want community restored. they want calmness restored.
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this particular particular has injected himself into the campaign to the point where he said i'm on the ballot. this is a vote for me. so we're going to find out a lot about the direction of the country going forward next tuesday. >> no doubt about it. and heidi, very interesting that paul ryan and other republicans on the hill, even yesterday, were pushing back on donald trump's birth right citizenship. the president asked paul ryan and mitch mcconnell to travel with him to pittsburgh and go to that horrid scene. they refused to go with him. pat toomey said he was too busy. he's doing it separately from donald trump, but you get the real sense right now that suddenly, over the past three or four days, this, quote, national
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president has become too toxic. >> you do get that sense, joe, because the denial of -- actually, all four of the congressional leaders were so swift. and you had reporting coming out of pittsburgh saying maybe those families would have welcomed the president, but maybe at a later point that they were still mourning. at the same time, i think the president felt like he was in a bind, that if he didn't go, he would be criticized, but it certainly is notable that he could not enlist a single even republican member of his own party to accompany him there and that he understood -- the reporting is that he was within earshot of those protesters and that he understood the situation that he was in right there, you know, amid the sounds of those protesters that he should not say anything. and he didn't coming out of
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there. and i think that kind of speaks to the moment that we're in here where you're seeing those numbers moving swiftly, that there is a sent that culturally this closing argument on cultural lines alone maybe in some sense back firing because you have two forces here. it is not just the suburban moms, the moms who live within 20 miles of whole foods, it is also on the democratic side the kind of anger factor that we were briefed on. because if i remember back to 2016, the big problem hillary clinton had was there was a drop-off in traditional democratic groups, like ma littleals and african-americans.
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and there is nothing more powerful, they told us, than anger and fear and that is what is now motivating them. >> and this last week, that's why republicans are scared of him right now. it's been race. he's been playing the racist card. he said i'm a nationalist. david duke comes out the next day saying thank you. thank you so much for finally admitting that you're a white nationalist. then you have some republic-backed benchers that are linking george soros and these anti semantic threads to the caravan. you've got fox news talking about small pox and leprosy coming up. it is -- i'm sorry. i won't say specifically what regime this is out of, but might
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as well be certain countries talking about gypsies. it lines up historically with what people were talking about when they talked about gypsies and jews. mika, that doesn't play well in peoria. that doesn't play well in suburban virginia. that doesn't even play well in western iowa. that is why you have republicans now distancing themselves from donald trump, going to pittsburgh, and the head of the nrcc distancing himself from a republican who basically has identified with white nationalism, steve king now, for far too long. >> and back to heidi's point, all types all across the country, it's a presidency on every level that you just named, joe, that lacks empathy and it doesn't sit well. >> it's like charlottesville every day. >> no empathy.
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still ahead on "morning joe," of all the public figures out there, robert mueller is probably not the guy you want to mess with. >> i'd stay away from. >> we'll talk about an alleged scheme to smear the special counsel. plus, president trump visits pittsburgh in the wake of the synagogue shooting. where it leaves that community and the nation at large at a loss. we'll talk about that. you're watching "morning joe." 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. schwabbb! calling schwab. we don't have a satisfaction guarantee, but we do have tecky! i'm tecky. i ca... are you getting low costs and award-winning wealth management? if not, talk to schwab. and award-winning wealth management? - [narrator] meet shark's newest robot vacuum. it powerfully cleans from floors to carpets, even pet hair, with ease, and now for cleaning surfaces above the floor, it comes with a built in shark handheld.
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like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. a quick note, a minute ago we were talking about the 7th district in virginia. i am told steve bannon is coming there, but not at the request of the campaign. >> and we were just looking at this story that bannon was in topeka where a he did a
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juggernaut event which 25 people showed up at the holiday inn express. the energy on the alt-right bases. >> in fact, the campaign seems nationwides that mr. obama would be in the district. steve king is facing criticism for his associations with white nationalisms. congressman steve stivers tweeted yesterday, we must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms and i strongly condemn this behavior. again, that's from a fellow republican. this comes after republican keng recently met with mess of a facility right party. on saturday, he posted a picture from his annual pheasant hunt
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saying different breeds of dog indicated diversesy. now a statement reads in part their ultimate goal is to flip the house and impeach donald trump. a democratic poll shows him in a statistical tie in a district that went for trump by 27 points. king is virtually broke at this point. he had $176,000 on hand in mid october and was badly outraced by his challenger j.d. schulten. how much trouble is steve king in here? >> it is tough to say that is a democratic poll. there is an online component with that. there was a more reputable one a couple of weeks ago that had him up by about ten points there.
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they're sort of each a quadrant of the state. that move, though, i think that is going to get a lot of attention and a lot of focus on this race. republicans can't afford a net loss of 23 seats. there's some seats, they would be happy to be rid of steve king and not have to deal with this any more. >> what is interesting is steve stivers is listening to the country and the country is well ahead of what has been defined as donald trump's base. i was just submit that. >> and i would say what steve said, this is exactly the kind of race that when you get that
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tsunami, we caught this and are now catching this one early, but this is the one in years past when you wake up on election day and go, wow, no one saw that coming. steve king went down. that is the kind of wave that you see if there is a giant wave. >> and you're looking up at these districts where trump won and you're saying, whoa. >> i am at a loss of words. but the nrcc came out. there seems to be forces even within the republican party, to an extent, that are beginning to step up possibly. >> yes. hopefully, possibly. i think with this rhetoric with steve king, you know, this idea that this rhetoric is not just confined to the boarders of the united states, but it is a
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global western poison that's courting through our politics. it is something that is -- i think what we need to understand, it's not just about rhetoric. it's not just about political points and about flipping seats. people's lives are on the line. and going back to the republican party and going back to trump, three men were convicted in kansas of trying to bomb somali refugees. and they said in court that trump's anti-muslim rhetoric helped to influence their decision to take people's lives. this is not just a matter of rhetoric of distractions, of cultural ploys. this is a matter of people dieing over the climate that's being created by not only the white house, but people are literally dieing over this. and i think that is one thing that americans need to consider
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when they go to the polls. the last two weeks, if i were any other country, i'd be issuing travel warning he to the united states. >> john, let's talk about tennessee, your home state. if you were the one of the proud on saturday, it was vanderbilt touchdown, marsha blackburn commercial. she's up in a couple new polls to replace bob corker. taylor swift wrote on instagram, she voted for fill bredesen. please don't sit this one out. but marsha blackburn has taken
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the lead. you have phil bredesen. lar two-term governor of the state. how is this one shaping up from where you're sitting? >> well, it's going to be interesting. it's almost a reverse trump effect, to some extent. if governor bredesen pulls this out. and what's on the ballot here, tennessee which is an upper south state has always prided itself that when alabama sent george wallace to the national stage, we sent howard baker he. that's kind of the dynamic here. it's a complicated state. the eastern part of the state did not want us to see it from the u.s. the middle and western parts did. you had to be able to really be almost a pro toe national figure to win in tennessee going forward. and if congresswoman blackburn wins, it will be the first time we've had a kind of fox news
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style senator go to washington. what i wonder is going to happen, clearly the kavanaugh thing bizarrely, in my view, but nevertheless, we have to follow the truth wherever it leads as jefferson said. her break away in some of these polls began with the kavanaugh business. there is a gu guvanotorial candidate, there is a vanderbilt fan base and a ut fan base. so that tells you a lot. i think that there are some republics who voted for trump because they couldn't stand voting for secretary clinton who, if they can vote for a republican for governor may vote for bredesen and may not be
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telling people that. it's interesting to live in a place where voting for a pro business sensible former governor for the united states senate is a source of embarrassment, but that's kind of where we are in 2018. if governor bredesen wins this. i think that is a signal that the democratic wins will be even larger. >> ahead, with we'll talk to congressman steve king's challenger, j.d. scholten. also, attorney general jeff sessions could soon be out in a new apparent plot to discredit the special prosecutor. that is next on "morning joe." so a tree falls on your brand new car and totals it.
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why are you and rod rosenstein such good friends now? >> i do get along.
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but there should have never been a special counsel, in my opinion. a lot of people agree with me. there was no collusion. there was never any collusion. >> well, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and president trump may be getting along for the moment. that could change after the midterms. if trump decides to shake things up at the justice department. joining us now, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama joins joyce advance and former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade. they are out with their newest think piece this morning entitled new attacks on mueller. and joyce advance, you know, at some point, this congressional protection, if it doesn't happen, could be catastrophic if
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this investigation is thrown off. in some ways, it could destabilize the country. am i overstepping here.? >> i think you're exactly right, mika. the problem here all along has been republicans have been hesitant to pass a bill that would protect mueller from an arbitrary firing saying it's not necessary. and the catch-22 is the point at which it's necessary, the point at which he's fired is a point at which it's too late for them to pass the legislation. so they need to do it now. firing mueller would be very destabilizing. >> so the president right now has the right to fire who, who and who? pretty much everybody on the food chain here of this investigation, correct? >> yeah, that's absolutely right. he can do it at will under the current special counsel operations and operationing
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procedure in the executive branch. >> barbara, what exactly are you guys hoping will happen? >> in addition to protecting the special counsel's job, the other thing that i think makes a lot of sense is to require the report not only be submitted to congress, but also that it be made public. but letting the public know. there's an old quote saying sunlight is the biggest disinfectant. if there is dirt in government, let us expose it to the light of day. so that is one of the things that we've asked about to not only see the if there's misconduct by the trump administration, but we need to understand what russia did to mess with our elections. >> special counsel robert mueller has asked the fbi now to
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investigate a possible scheme in which women allegedly were offered money to make false claims about him. turns out multiple reporters were contacted over the last few weeks to say she was harassed by robert mueller. it was said to make allegations of workplace harassment against mueller. around the same time, report either started getting contacted about the allegations jack berkman promowed on his facebook page that he was investigating sexual misconduct and alcoholic investigations against mueller. meanwhile, the doe name records for sure fire intelligence list jacob wall who began hyping a
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scandalous story about mueller yesterday, but denied knowing anything about the firm's involvement. wall told nbc news he doesn't have any knowledge of any such investigation. >> this alleged plot let by jack berkman to accuse bob mueller of harassment is ludicrous to begin with. that is putting it mildly. heidi, what can you tell us, though, about jack berkman? right. so last year, i was in the middle of a story that jack berkman was trying to plant
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against representative bobby scott. when i started to look into it, i found that there was a long history not only of jack berkman, but also of the woman that he was trying to use to make allegations against bobby scott. jack berkman was also behind the seth rich conspiracy theory that was splashed all over fox news. jack berkman was trying to arrange a similar situation here with mueller, actually at the same holiday inn in rosalyn where he brought before us a woman who was making allegations against representative bobby scott. when i looked into it further, i found that she had a long record, that she had filed a lawsuit under a different name in chicago. and that jack berkman may have been putting him on her payroll. it was uncorroborated and it was especially troubling because it was at the time when a lot of members of the congressional-backed caucus were worried that there was going to be an attempt to try and bring
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down other male members of their conference after it was found that john conyers, in fact, was guilty of sexually harassing members of his staff. >> so joyce advance, when this woman was calling around to tell her story to reporters, she said she was supposed to say she worked at the same law firm as bob mueller and this alleged incident took place then. nbc news called that law firm, quote, we have no record of this visit working for our firm. so the woman who is being put out did not work at the firm where the alleged incident took place. is this just more fuel for your argument? and barbara mcquade's argument that the special counsel needs protection here? >> well, it is. on the one hand, this is just the thinnest sort of an effort to smear bob mueller. and it seems inevitable that it would have been uncovered that this is just completely baseless. but by the same token, coming so close to the midterm with just days on a transparent effort to influence voters, a transparent
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effort to set in motion a rationale for firing mueller, it makes it very clear that the time is long past for congress to act to investigation. you know, we don't know what the outcome will be. mueller may be done, mueller may have more to do here, but whichever way it goes, the american people deserve to see this criminal investigation come to its conclusion in a professional way, not to be arbitrarily shut off by this president to protect people close to him. >> barbara, it's john heilemann here, i just want to ask you one question about what happens now, not in terms of bob mueller, but in terms of the fbi and this referral. what's the worst-case scenario for the perpetrators of this thing, assuming it is a fraud as we kind of assume on the face of it, what happens to them now and how hard does the fbi maybe go after those people to send a message to others as well as just pursuing the case on the
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merits? >> in addition to any civil liability that they might have for a defamation claim, i think that you could make an argument that this is an effort to obstruct justice. obstruction of justice shows that if you corruptly try to interfere with an official proceeding, that constitutes obstruction of justice and so if the goal here was to get robert mueller fired, to prevent him from completing his work, then certainly that could be an accusation of obstruction of justice. anyone who participated in that could be guilty of conspiracy to obstruct justice. i think they will begin with open minds, fbi investigators, to find out what happened and they will discuss it with prosecutors to see what crimes if any they will charge. deterrents is an important part of such charges because you want to send a message that this is a serious crime and you can't play around if you do, there will be criminal consequences. >> joyce vance and barbara mcquaid thank you for being on this morning, we will be reading
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your new piece on heidi, thank you as well. coming up, susan paige explains why the president's birth right citizenship plan could help the republicans keep the senate but hurt them with the house. plus jake sherman joins us after the vice president told him that it's time for the supreme court to rethink the 14th amendment. "morning joe" is coming right back. here we go.
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many others -- constitutional scholars have said that the 14th amendment has been misinterpreted or misused in this way. there is no question that there have been news reports about birth tourism where women pay a lot of money, maybe money that they really don't have, to make sure that their children are born here. so the idea that this isn't happening, the idea that it isn't going on in the thousands,
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the idea that it's not unique to the u.s. and to canada and the developed world is just false. >> there's so many things wrong with that, i don't even know where to begin, but shortly after that interview kellyanne conway's husband, george conway, came out with an op-ed calling the president's plan to do away with birth right citizenship with an executive order unconstitutional. so we will let his words speak. we will talk to his co-author ahead. so first it was the middle class tax cut with congress out of session, then it was troops to the southern border with the migrant caravan still 800 miles away. now it's birth right citizenship. with the midterms less than a week away, what other desperate, racist ideas will the president come up with? "morning joe" is back in a moment. let's begin. yes or no? do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet?
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we all know what the 14th amendment says, we all cherish the language of the 14th amendment, but the supreme court of the united states has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th amendment subject to the jurisdiction thereof applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally and i think the president is looking at executive action. >> you cannot end birth right citizenship with an executive order. we didn't like it when obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action and as
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conservatives we believe in the constitution. you know, the conservative -- i'm a believer in following the plain text of the constitution and i think in this case the 14th amendment is pretty clear. >> alex? >> welcome back to "morning joe." it is wednesday, october 31st, with us we have mississippi contributor mike barnicle, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc nbc and could host of "the circus" john heilemann. white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire, "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner, washington bureau chief for "usa today," susan page, and senior writer at "politico" and co-author of "the playbook" jake sherman. jake, that was your interview that we just heard, that was quite incredible given the behavior of the president and his desperate moves to hear the vice president last night. tell us more about the interview before we launch into the latest
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polls. >> yeah, the vice president clearly backing the president up on his plans to get rid of birth right citizenship via executive order. i want to just kind of highlight how problematic this is for the white house as we head into a midterm and the more than 50% chance the democrats will take the house. if the president does this, it will not only be subject to inn terminable court action, i think, immediate court action, but i assume that democrats one of the first thing they are going to do when they get into power is they are going to stipulate that this needs to be reversed if the president wants to do anything. i think this is emblematic of a larger issue which is that the white house has not fully come into terms or at best is grappling with the idea of democratic power and what that might mean in washington and how it will really grind their agenda to a halt. i also have had the vice president about democratic power in washington and if the white house is prepared and he said he
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is prepared to deal with democrats as a house minority. clearly some political readjustment if democrats do take the house, as many election handicappers expect. >> joe, doesn't it actually -- i mean, what i'm -- i don't really understand the vice president or kellyanne conway not really understanding the law, but put that aside for a second because i'm just not sure they care at this point. the bigger picture is it seems that this president is scrambling because maybe there's a sign that there could be a situation in which the democrats have power and that would lead to a lot of shoes dropping for president trump. i'm trying to think of a few of them. impeachment, perhaps asking him to reveal some things that he doesn't have to right now with republicans in power and a complicit congress. i think there is a lot on the line for this president and we see him very clearly flailing. >> of course the democrats
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aren't going to even talk about impeachment, not going to even think about impeachment right now. they've said that time and time again. certainly the leaders have. i'm sorry, i do want to go back. i don't want to talk about mike pence and kellyanne conway. what did she say, alternate realities. >> alternate facts, which she put out yesterday. >> not only are there alternate facts in the white house, there are obviously alternate facts at home because george conway, a conservative constitutional lawyer, said clearly that this couldn't be done. you can't amend the constitution with a presidential executive order. if that were the case it would have been done a million times before. and on the mike pence front, this is a guy, and we have all seen that famous video where donald trump puts his water on the floor so mike pence looks around and hurriedly he grabs the water and puts it on the floor. mike pence knows that you can't
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gut the constitution like that. it's ridiculous. but they're simply following donald trump. mike pence has shown no courage, there's no reason to believe he will ever show any courage in standing up to donald trump's breach of constitutional norms. but what does it mean? there is a lot on the line and obviously donald trump is in full panic mode and, you know, mika, that's exactly why -- i mean, that's why he's acting the way he's acting and why i think we're seeing his numbers falling and why we're seeing democratic numbers going up right now. >> i mean, at this point it's so obvious in some ways, susan page, we've watched the behavior of this president, we know him, and he uses the media and he uses anything to bait the base and to stir up controversy. we confronted him about his
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birtherism on obama way back when. this is very much in his playbook, to take something that sews doubt in people, on others, at this point it's a faceless others, at this point it's the caravan or people who may be born in this country who don't deserve to be in this country. this is a far cry of where i thought we were in america but it's exactly where we are with this president. >> over the long haul if the president did sign an executive order, certainly you would have a huge legal challenge that would end up at the supreme court. >> of course. >> legal experts say the prospects the president would prevail are limited. think about the short haul. the short haul is the next week. this is one of those issues focusing on immigration and fears of immigration, fears of immigrants, fears of the changes, the demographic changes in our country, that most animate the president's core supporters. so this is a -- maybe over the long haul not something that
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will work, but over the short haul in political terms i think it does work in senate races in red states where the republicans really need trump voters to turn out on behalf of republican senators and senate challengers. it does have the reverse effect, though, i think, in some of the house races. it seems to me this just reinforces this divided election we think we're headed toward where democrats take the house but republicans may well increase their majority in the senate. it's really an unusual midterm year. >> john heilemann, though, you look at -- maybe in deep red states like north dakota, texas, maybe it has that impact, but in states like florida every poll that we're seeing right now is showing how far ahead -- you have how far ahead gillum is in some of these polls, other polls are tight, but democrats looking better today in florida than they have in a very long time. i wanted to pick up on something that mika said, which is that
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when donald trump was attacking hillary clinton there was a democratic face to go after. when donald trump and republicans were going after dianne feinstein, there was a specific democratic boogie man that they were going after. now if you look at this phoney caravan story, there is nobody. if you look at donald trump's so-called anchor babies, he can't call them lying anchor babies. there is no lying ted, there is no crooked hillary, there is just donald trump, like donald trump was during child separation? charlottesville, just a meme politician with nobody to distract from that central fact. >> joe, what we saw, you know, was that the attempt to try to put a face on the caravan was to attach it to george soros or attach it to maxine waters or
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attach it to some of these other people who ended up getting pipe bombs sent to them last week and has created obviously, you know, this violent toxic environment where that is the thing that people are recoiling from right now. so you're right, the boogie man that the president wanted to attach some of these policies to, some of these culturally frayed policies to, or events, things that he's trying to create fear around, that has now backfired. obviously there are much more significant consequences to -- because of the violence and attempted violence we saw last week, but it has made that issue radioactive for him so he can't go back to that now. he can't now attack george so s soros, we saw him try to attack tom steyer over the weekend. there is a radioactive quality to that and he is left casting about attacking a kind of -- a nameless, faceless other, which, again, may motivate some members of the president's base in certain places, but as you pointed out a second ago, if you
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look at some of these key senate races, you look at arizona where kristen sinema seems to be pulling away, that's a place where the immigration issue cuts in both directions in an increasingly diverse electorate in arizona. in nevada where it does not necessarily help dean heller, in fact, puts him in a difficult position for the president to be leaning in on immigration issues where dean heller he needs the republican base to turn out, the white base in rural nevada, but he also is concerned about getting crushed among hispanic voters in clark county around las vegas. there are obviously places where the republican base is overwhelmingly white, a place like north dakota where maybe it helps a little bit, but in some of these key senate races and, again, the map is stacked against democrats, but in some of these key senate races it does not work to the president's advantage or his party's advantage and we're seeing that now in the polls in some of those places like arizona and nevada and in florida for sure. >> you've even seen in texas, that race, which most
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conservatives were mocking and ridiculing beto o'rourke a week ago. it was actually sport on the far right. now the latest poll has beto within five. in tennessee that race is five, six points. still likely red, but it's a hell of a lot closer than it was a week or so ago. let's show what we showed earlier today, this usc l.a. times poll, jonathan lemire, that shows democrats with a huge 17-point lead. this poll was of course the poll that was an outlier throughout much of 2016 when other polls had hillary clinton up by 12 points, they still had it a race. here 57 to 40. it may be an outlier, but there is no doubt that at least over the last three or four days the trend lines have been breaking in the democrats direction in a lot of races and perhaps that's why we're starting to see a panic from the president. he knows it's slipping away. >> that's right.
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there definitely was concern among democrats particularly after the kavanaugh hearings that suddenly what they had anticipated -- they would capture the house and perhaps even in substantial fashion, that that momentum had slowed. that has now changed again, that's reversed itself. certainly most democrats strategists i've talked to believe that the senate would be an uphill crime, it would be hard to flip that. republicans and those close to the white house feel like they're pretty safe there, but the house seems to be leaning back towards democrats. people i've talked to suggest that's where they think this is going. we will send up having this split decision next week. i do think there is some urgency, perhaps panic, setting in around the white house again where they feel like they know what it means if the democrats take the house. not likely impeachment, that's probably a political loser, but investigation after investigation after investigation. where nearly anyone who has ever worked with the president or said donald trump's name will be called up to the hill under subpoena and be asked to testify, whether it be about not
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just russia but corruption and things like that. you are seeing this almost frenzied pace from president trump in the last week or so with the trial balloon yesterday about the birth right citizenship being the latest and most dramatic example where he is trying to animate his hard line supporters. he told us in an oval office interview, my colleagues at the ap about a week and a half ago that he felt like this was going to be 2016 again and part of that was using immigration as his closing argument. we are seeing that. nearly every day an increasingly more dramatic proposal, many of which will never come to fruition, but to get out there, to excite his voters and to get them to turn out next week. >> jake sherman, jonathan lemire just used the word frenzied to describe part of trump's approach to the final few days of the campaign and clearly the usage of issues like immigration, using language like invasion, that they're coming with diseases, they're coming
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with gangsters, with rapists, things like that. this is a changing country, everybody is aware of it. the basic appeal to put it on the table bluntly is whiteness, that's what the president seems to be doing. so my question to you after your conversation with vice president pence, is there any awareness, was there any awareness from the vice president or others in the administration, that president trump had thought this out, had talked to others about it before dropping this let's repeal basically the 14th amendment to the constitution? was there anything at all, any dialogue at all, within the white house? >> it didn't seem like it, but furthermore, there was no dialogue with congressional leaders, as you saw paul ryan said it was immediately inappropriate. it's important to note that this kind of discussion about birth right citizenship and immigration among independent voters who are undecided at this point who would otherwise -- who
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would in this climate break toward democrats, this is the biggest political loser there is. just to note, if that usc poll was right, a 17-point generic ballot margin would mean republicans would lose something like 60 or 70 seats. again, we don't know if this is an outlier, polls are all over the place. we've seen the generic ballot anywhere between 4 and now 17 so it's really all over the place. if it's anything approaching that, 23 seats, which is what democrats need to take the house, will seem minuscule because that is a complete and utter wipeout. >> steve rattner, six days to go until the midterms and you are looking at metrics that might help predict what will happen. i would venture to say we should be careful, but what are you looking at? >> yeah, look, i think we've talked a lot about whether the economy is the thing that's going to affect the president's party reelection hopes or his approval rate.
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we will look back at history and see what does and hasn't had any particular correlation. you can start with something like the jobless rate and what you see in the case of the jobless rate essentially is no real correlation. no real correlation. the dots are all over the place. you couldn't draw a line through them, you couldn't make them make any sense. so we can put that idea aside that there's really been any historic correlation there. you can then turn to consumer sentiment, another thing that the president has been out on the campaign trail bragging about how high consumer sentiment is. again, you can't really see much correlation. you can see over on the left there are a couple outlier dots, clinton in 1994 where he lost a lot of house seats as we know, even though consumer sentiment was reasonably high and obama in 2010 lost a lot of house seats even though consumer sentiment was also reasonable. then on the right side you can see clinton and bush in 2002 and 1998, so it's all over the place.
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but let's turn to the third chart which is really the most interesting one and this really -- this charts the president's approval rating against how many seats were lost. you can see here there is a very high correlation. there's actually a 70% statistical correlation the way statisticians do this math. what it implies is that at a 40% approval rating which is gallup, the same numbers that are used in all the dots on this chart, you can see it implies a lost of about 42 seats for the president. now, again, there are plenty of outliers. you have president obama all the way over on the left in 2010 who lost over 60 seats despite having a 45% approval rating and bill clinton in 1994 who also did very poorly and then again in the upper right corner you can see president clinton in 1998 and george bush in 2002, but, again, statistically there is about a 70% correlation among all these dots and it doesn't imply a loss, a very substantial loss, for president trump's party in the midterm house race.
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>> steve, give me that number again. so at 40% what is -- what's the average we could expect, which is where the president is in gallup right now? >> 40% tells you it's about a 42-seat loss, with the caveat that there are many outliers, but there is the 70% correlation -- 70% prediction rate of the president's approval rating against seats loss. so it points to 42, that doesn't mean it can't be 35 or 48 or some other number, but it does point to a very substantial loss without very many exceptions at all in history. you really can't find any example in history of a president with this approval rating not losing a substantial number of seats. >> isn't it interesting, susan page, that most of us in our adult life have grown up with james carville's sort of bumper sticker mentality ringing in our head, it's the economy, stupid, but it's not in off-year elections. this is in presidential
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elections but in off-year elections, whether it's '94 or 2006 or 2010, even 2014, it's not the economy, stupid, it's a variety of other issues. >> you know, and this is, of course, so frustrating to the white house and to other republicans that the economy is good, the unemployment rate is at a historic low and yet it's not rebounding to their benefit. i think that's also perhaps one reason why the tax cut which republicans once thought would be a driving issue in the midterm election is basically not mentioned. it's a nonissue in this election. you do see president trump being an issue, you also see healthcare being an issue. that is one of the surprises in this midterm election, one of the notable developments, that the affordable care act which was so damaging for democrats in the previous two midterm elections is turning out to be a plus for democrats in this one. >> and, you know, mika, if you do want to know, though, an
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issue that it seems every year that it comes up is a major issue, it's healthcare. 1994 it was hillary care or whatever we were calling it back then. in 2010, it was healthcare, obamacare. 2014, it was obamacare again. and now in 2018, those tax cuts for the rich, well, they aren't resonating because it appears to a lot of voters like they're getting paid for by cuts in -- or at least republicans attempting to pay for it by cuts in their healthcare plans, going after preexisting conditions. mitch mcconnell talking about going after social security and medicare, that's just not a winning formula any year. >> jake sherman, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," congressman steve king is facing a tough challenge in iowa and his words are not helping him with his fellow republicans. why he's getting push-back from
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his own party. and we will talk with his democratic challenger as well. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ eastbound and down. ♪ loaded up and truckin'. ♪ are we gonna do what they say can't be done? ♪ ♪ we've got a long way to go ♪ and a short time to get there. ♪ ♪ i'm eastbound, just watch ole bandit run. ♪
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jonathan lemire, you have been like a naus dam mass predicting that these red sox if they were going to win they were going to back into the world series and that's exactly what
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they did, squeaked in, 119 wins, one of the greatest teams of all time, but, boy, man, next year is looking rough, isn't it? we have set ourselves up for failure the way we were pitching, the way we were pitching -- i mean, maybe third place, jonathan, maybe fourth. i mean, you know, the orioles could bounce back. >> the way i see it the red sox have a parade today to celebrate their world series, this is a day we are losing to prepare for next year. we are already behind the eight ball for next season. this was the most underwhelming 119 win championship team we have ever seen. >> he can't even say that with a straight face. >> i can't do it. no. we have been consistently wrong all year, i think, but perhaps deliberately so. this is a tremendous team and one that was easy to root for. mike barnicle was a little more confident than we were, i think, most of this season. >> go to the tape. go to the tape. red sox in five. >> if you go to the tape, mike barnicle, you actually -- while
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lemire and i were saying the sky was falling every time you predicted it correctly every time. in fact, you said the sox in five against a very good dodgers team. >> correct. correct. and the dodgers are a very good team. but you know what was most rewarding about both teams and this year's world series played in the city where it was played, it's a true reflection of what this country is all about today. i mean, the inclusiveness of both clubs, the rosters of both clubs, people from countries all over the world literally playing for both teams and a city where you can have an iranian cab driver and you can have a german waiter at a restaurant. the inclusiveness of the city, it represents what america is today, and specifically what we talk about here quite a bit, a president of the united states who seems to be fighting the reality that this country is so inclusive, so great, so big, so expansive, you know, i wish he were more a part of it. >> well, moving on to this,
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then, congressman steve king of iowa is facing criticism from members of his own party for his association with white nationalism. the chairman of the house gop campaign steve stivers tweeted congressman steve king's recent comments, actions and retweets are completely inappropriate. we must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms and i strongly condemn this behavior. this comes after congressman king recently met with members of a far right austrian party with historical nazi ties during a european trip financed by a holocaust memorial group. on saturday congressman king reportedly told the "washington post" that members of that group would be republicans if they were in america. the criticism also follows a recent tweet by king where he posted a picture from his annual pheasant hunt, saying different
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breeds of dogs indicated diversity. congressman king is hitting back at the media and members of his own party, releasing a statement that reads, in part, these attacks are orchestrated by nasty desperate and dishonest fake news. their ultimate goal is to flip the house and impeach donald trump. establishment trumpers -- >> wait. mika -- mika, again, it's very interesting. you had laura ingraham talking about left wingers, equating nationalism with white nationalism when, in fact, it's david duke. in this case steve king is trying to attack the media and talking about, quote, fake news, trying to flip the house. mika, the guy who is in charge for the republican party of keeping the house republican is the person that leveled this attack against steve king yesterday, in effect saying, if
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white nationalism is required to stay in power, we would -- we would rather not stay in power. that's what steve stivers' statement said yes. >> by the way, democrats are running for a check on the president. that is true. joining us now the man challenging representative steve king for his seat, democrat j.d. scholten, and he is a former pro baseball player, joe, fyi. >> let's talk about the race. obviously big news yesterday, coming out of washington, d.c., where, as i said before, the guy who is in charge of beating democrats and electing house republicans came out yesterday and strongly condemned steve king in the strongest of terms. what's your reaction to that? sn>> do we have our guest? >> j.d., are you there? can you hear us? >> yes. yes. sorry, i didn't know that i was referred to me. sorry about that.
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yeah, the weekly standard a couple weeks ago called out king and then i had a series of speeches where i said is there one republican elected official who is willing to also hold him accountable? i applaud representative stivers for what he was able to say yesterday and it's where they needed to draw the line, and you see that along with other corporate pacts that have drawn out from promoting steve king these days. so you just see this movement of saying, do you know what, this is unacceptable. >> and as the president, j.d. scholten, works to distract and seems to always sort of appeal to the base at moments when he's feeling the squeeze, that's my opinion, we're seeing the issue of birth right citizenship come up, of even -- maybe even
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changing the constitution through executive order. this issue with president trump is a conundrum for democrats. what is your message? what is the message of your campaign, and does it include a check on trump? >> well, our message for the last 15 months and using our platform is to get out there to the people and we've been talking about healthcare every single day and trying to get just some sort of control on the cost, and going out there talking about this depressed agriculture economy because we are the second most agriculture producing district in america in the depressed rural economy, and then the other thing we are out there talking about is, do you know what, we are all frustrated, especially here in iowa, about the amount of special interest that dictates our democracy. to clean that up and get a government back that's of the people, by the people and for the people. we just finished a 39-county tour doing 39 town halls in each
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county and we called it the can't fake showing up tour and just having that engagement with our constituents. >> j.d., it's john heilemann here. i'm familiar with your district, i have a couple friends who live there. i note this week that you've started to see the kind of bleeding away of a lot of financial support for steve king, a lot of big companies that had been previously donors to him have abandoned him. yesterday the biggest name maybe in rural iowa, land o lakes which is added to a last that includes intel and other big companies have abandoned him. is that the kind of thing that actually an average voter in your district notes when some company like land o lakes decides to repudiate congressman king? >> right. and purina is there as well. what that shows is just the momentum. we recently got the endorsement of the sioux city journal, the largest paper in the district and it's my hometown, and for 16
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years they have endorsed him and to go against the grain, you just see that momentum and you see the momentum in the polls going from the emerson poll at 10 to our internal poll at 6 to the change poll that just came out on monday at 1. we have the momentum and that's just all part of that. so we're just continuing to do our game plan and get out there, meet the people and i pretty much live out of an rv, a winnebago rv that's made in the district and we're just going to continue to ride that thing into november 6. >> j.d. scholten, thank you very much. good luck to you. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump says he wants to end birth right citizenship with an executive order. but he's getting push back from lawmakers and legal scholars alike who know the law. kellyanne conway's husband, george conway, came out against the president's idea along with a former solicitor general in
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acting u.s. solicitor general in the obama administration, a current professor of law at georgetown university, attorney neal katyal. he co-writes an op-ed in the "washington post" this morning with kellyanne conway's husband, george conway, entitled trump's proposal to end birth right citizenship is unconstitutional, and they write in part, sometimes the constitution's text is plain as day and bars what politicians seek to do. that's the case with president trump's proposal to end birth right citizenship through an executive order. such a move would be unconstitutional and would certainly be challenged and the challengers would undoubtedly win. the fact that the two of us, one a conservative and the other a liberal, agree on this much despite our sharp policy differences, underscores something it is critically
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important to remember during a time marked by so much rancor and uncivil discourse. our constitution is a bipartisan document, designed to endure for ages. its words have meaning that cannot be washed away -- wished away. we find that, joe, this president in the final days before the midterms is truly trying to do something that is bringing the base, but completely impossible. >> it's interesting. neal, i remember reading a george conway article several months ago where basically i think, like a lot of lawyers, you cut non-lawyers slack sometimes for not getting things right, but you can't look at other way when somebody like lindsey graham, who is a lawyer and who practiced law, who is on
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the judiciary committee, says something like this is a good idea, when, in fact, this is black and white. >> yeah. >> this is so clear. this decision as you know and have said arises -- the 14th amendment rises from the ashes of the worst supreme court decision in u.s. history in 1857, dread scott, to ensure if you are born here, even if you are a slave, your child becomes a citizen of the united states. >> exactly. i've argued 37 cases at the supreme court, i'd say all of those were tough. this is not a tough case. this is an open and shut case and you're absolutely right, joe, it doesn't require, like some lawyer or some fancy lawyer, it basically just requires anyone who can read, the text of the 14th amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the united states and subject to their
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jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the united states, period. there are no exceptions. that's what it says. >> yeah, joe, that's a problem because neal just pointed out something that really -- he said anyone who can read. >> actually, the thing is, again -- >> i'm serious. >> i asked donald trump the question a long time ago whether he could read. i don't know about him. i know that his lawyers can read, neal. i know that mike pence can read. i know that lindsey graham can read. i think, again, that's what is so disturbing is that if there were any exceptions to this, i think there are two exceptions, but they do not come close to what donald trump is suggesting here. again, this would be a 9-0 decision, would it not? >> it would be, and it would be the fundamental betrayal of america's values, america's promise. i mean, here trump is going the full antebellum trying to turn the clock back to a way of
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thinking before the civil war, a war of dread scott versus -- dread scott versus sanford, the idea that if you're born a slave and your children are born slaves then their children have to be slaves. the whole idea behind that text i read to you is to say, we fought a war about that, we don't punish children because of whatever their parents did or anything like that. joe, you raised a really good point about the lawyering in this administration. i mean, in any administration in our lifetimes the lawyers would have stood up and said, what in the world are you talking about? you can't possibly do this. you can't even float it. it is unamerican and unconstitutional. but these lawyers are nowhere to be found. i mean, trump has put in place at the justice department and the white house not just a c team or d team, but something below that who fundamentally aren't acting the way lawyers should, which is to say to a president who wants to do something or a politician, huh-uh, that's a red line, you
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can't do it. >> so, jonathan lemire, do people inside the white house -- i mean, they obviously know that this is unconstitutional, that the president can't rip up the constitution with an executive order. are they just letting trump be trump? is nobody trying to get in the way of it? i know that pence and lindsey graham are humiliating themselves and shaming themselves by trying to go back to 1857 on this issue, but people in the white house, they do know that this is fantasy by the president, right? >> there is an element of that, just letting the president vent about an issue. this is something that he has sort of floated for a while without people around him taking it all that seriously knowing the constitutional challenges that would be in the way to have to be overcome to make this happen. let me throw this question back to neal, because, look, this is also -- you started to hit on it just now, a lack of legal counsel in the office. don mcgahn has left, his replacement has not actually
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started yet. how important is it for a president to be surrounded by people, by legal experts, lawyers, his counsel, who can talk to him about what is appropriate, what is not, or, you know, to perhaps stop him from making such an overt political play? >> there's nothing more important. because, look, every president wants to come in and do stuff and, you know, sometimes it makes a lot of sense, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes there are legal problems. the most important thing you do is hire good lawyers that tell you the truth, not just what you want to hear. you know, the president is -- you know, had done this time and again, not just in terms of talk, but actually acting and executing on things that are fundamentally at their core unamerican and it all stems to really i think a cynical view of what law is, about what the supreme court is, it's just a tool to help him and his policy objectives and, you know, ultimately the project here is to get rid of law. i mean, the idea that you can use an executive order to repeal the constitution, i mean, come
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on. >> neal, you were talking about this a couple moments ago. given the language and the tone of the president's campaign over just the past few days and the temperature of the crowds that he speaks to and that he raises the temperature, speak not just to the danger of the law that this latest proposal is, but to the danger of the country, this rich diverse country. >> yeah. so, i mean, we've seen the president do this before after charlottesville with his both sides remarks, and the muslim ban and so many other things. you know, i think this whole project which i wrote with george conway yesterday is about just saying one simple thing, which is, you know, we are first and foremost americans, we are -- you know, we are bound by a constitution which is as chief justice marshall said, intended to endure for ages to come and provide comfort and guidance to people of all parties. you know, the constitution is a bipartisan document and its
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values transcend these kinds of inn civil moments and i think we should look to our founders and its values and not to this, you know, really horrible, horrible way of appealing to the worst parts of our society. >> neal katyal, thank you very much. our thanks to both you and george conway for writing that very clear piece in the "washington post." susan page, before you go, thanks for being on this morning. final thoughts? >> you know, i'd like to know -- we were so glad to have neal on the show, but how interesting that his co-author was george conway and how peculiar to have a leading legal conservative critic of the president be married to one of the president's top white house defenders, even on this particular issue. >> i think it's very difficult that she's actually trying to defend this concept of what the president is trying to do when it is so clear that her husband has to actually co-author a piece explaining it. it's as if he's speaking to her
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and the president. still ahead, the rhetoric over race is already ugly. things could go from bad to worse as the president heads to florida tonight to campaign for a trailing ron desantis. that is ahead 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. schwabbb!
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steve, you know about a year ago donald trump and the republicans passed this massive tax cut. a lot of people say it was for the richest americans. donald trump said all of his rich buddies, i just made you guys a ton of money. then he and paul ryan and everybody else promised the economy and the market would explode. here we are a year later and the market is exactly where it was a year ago. the only thing different is we are a trillion dollars more in debt. what has happened? why are we exactly where we were last year before this massive
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tax cut? >> predicting the stock market is probably harder than predicting elections because you don't have polls and things to look at. let me give you a sense of what i think. the tax cuts were kind of a sugar high, a one-time rush of adrenaline and it did have a short-term positive effect on corporate profits and the stock market. now there are other things happening which have surpassed that. one of them is that interest rates rising because the budget deficit is getting larger and that pushes interest rates up. that has had an effect on the housing market. it's created turmoil in the emerging markets because high interest rates here push the dollar up. then you also have hanging over all of this, the trade. the trade stuff is starting to bite a bit on corporate profits. when you look at the corporate
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profit numbers, big multinational companies are saying things are slowing down and trade has created uncertainty around business. you have trump's pro stock market on one side. >> $1.3 trillion in debt is going to be added this next year. $1.3 trillion in debt because of reckless spending by republicans who control congress, reckless spending on pentagon programs that the pentagon doesn't even want, and of course this trillion dollar tax cut for the richest of americans. and the republicans' answer, they want to go after health care. >> true conservative thinking on the deficit there. still ahead, the poll that predicted donald trump's 2016
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victory is now predicting a big blue wave ahead of the mid terms. bloomberg's reporting that the white house is bracing for republicans to lose the house and with it an exdous of white house staffers concerned about democrats winning subpoena power. "morning joe" is back in a moment. dear foremothers, your society was led by a woman, who governed thousands... commanded armies... yielded to no one. when i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. my name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. now with 2 times more geographic detail than other dna tests. order your kit at ancestrydna.com
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i can already tip you off. president trump is going to keep his promise to the american people and he is fwogoing to nominate a strict constructionist to the supreme court. this person will possess a top notch legal mind. >> an unwavering commitment to the constitution until president trump wants to personally rewrite it. house speaker paul ryan says that trump cannot end birth right citizenship with an executive order. tommy vetorput it on twitter like this. trump wants a debate about ending birth right citizenship more than actually doing it. democrats should say okay, see you in court. now back to your plan to get rid
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of protections for preexisting conditions. welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, october 31. with us we have mike barnacle, national affairs analyst for nbc news and executive producer of show time's the circus. national political correspondent for msnbc, steve kornacki. and historian, author of "the soul of america" john meacham. he is an nbc news and msnbc contributor. also with us, global opinions editor at the "washington post." we really appreciate you all being on this morning along with joe, willie and me. joe, there is so much going on especially with some of these polls showing a little bit of
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movement. >> a little bit of movement in some polls, a lot of movement in other polls. you have really one of the heroes of the tea party in trouble in virginia. you have a guy who has been known as one of trump's favorite congressmen being abandoned. why don't we just start with the most accurate poll in the 2016 campaign, the poll that actually showed donald trump doing better throughout the entire 2006 team campaign, caused a lot of consternation. this poll ended up having it right. the headline coming out of the poll, it is a political earthquake. >> six days, less than a week to go until election day. you are talking about the times tracking poll showing a massive
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lead for democrats in the final full week of october. 57% of likely voters favoring or leaning towards the democrats, 40% towards the republicans. while the poll could be an outliar, democrats are seeing a shift in the closing days of the campaign. >> steve kornacki, why don't we talk about this poll for a second? a lot of consternation throughout the 2016 campaign. it also had barack obama more comfortably ahead in 2012 than most other polls. i have been talking to democrats the past couple of days. they have seen momentum shifting their way in a lot of races where you are talking about arizona, tightening in other states. you start seeing if other polls start moving in this direction as far as the generic ballot test goes, 16 points.
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>> i think that is the question. let's see what every poll is doing. i put in a plug for our own poll. the "l.a. times" poll had trump winning the popular vote by three points. he lost the popular vote by two. so they were off by five. our own nbc poll had it clinton at four. she won by two. donald trump's decision to lean into the idea in the home stretch, we saw a gallop poll the other day. they had his approval rating dropping four points. we have talked about how that is a key variable in this. if donald trump's approval rating is in the mid 40s republicans think it gives them a fighting chance to hang on to the house. if it is the low 40s it could be
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a blood bath for them. gallop suggests maybe there is a possibility of movement there. i want to see if we pick that up in other polls, as well. i think it is striking just to compare how donald trump is closing the 2018 mid terms with how he closed the 2016 campaign. i think it is a forgotten moment. he was basically off twitter down the home stretch in 2016. his aides had managed to wrestle that away from him. they had settled it on the broad themes of changing washington, making the system fair. he was on point in his rallies in the closing days in ways he hadn't been before. he was avoiding traps he had fallen into. those were the days when his numbers did tick up just enough to get him through that electoral college gauntlet that he ran on election day. it does seem the tone is different than '16. i wonder if the reluctant republicans who came through at
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the end for him in 2016 may react to this differently in 2018. >> it's so fascinating that you say that because i was talking to steve schmidt. steve said, you notice when we are in the campaign and people are talking about somebody else? donald trump wins. he said the last ten days of the campaign he was smart enough to keep his head down. when we are talking about donald trump at the end of the campaign, donald trump loses. and donald trump showing absolutely no discipline is making everything about himself. of course, we are seeing his numbers fall and seeing democrats' numbers go up. >> he is eating up all of the political space right now. yesterday was the idea of taking away birth right citizenship. the day before it was sending additional troops to the border. he will tweet this morning and
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say something and make some announcement. candidates can't get out from under that. let's look at house polls which show democrats fairing well. in california's 50th congressman duncan hunter has a narrow lead 48 to 45 over democratic newcomer. mayor ben mcadams seven points ahead of mia love 50 to 43 there. in kansas the second district 41% to 37% with 12% still decided. north carolina's ninth district, mark harris whas a narrow lead. and in virginia's 7th district
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46% to 45%. >> i think this is one of the most fascinating races. dave brat, the tea party darling that beat the majority leader at the time, is running one of the dumbest campaigns in modern american history where he thinks if he just keeps talking about nancy pelosi that he is somehow going to win. nothing else is required. we have seen 15 mentions of nancy pelosi in the debates and his democratic opponent has come back with great ad campaigns. i think in some of these races whether it is western iowa or virginia, voters are saying we are not that stupid. we are not going to be fooled by stupid campaigning. >> how does this play out on tuesday? >> clearly a play for the base there. that district, the suburbs of richmond, a big part of that
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district, you are talking about suburbs that have been changing politically and suburbs where democrats are investing in the idea of particularly women who traditionally maybe voted republican in the past being turned off by the donald trump version of the party. don't forget the other factor in virginia is the u.s. senate race. you have corey stewart who democrats think will offend the suburban voters. it's an interesting choice to close on there. >> let me go back to the point that joe was making and referred to steve schmidt about. you go back to 2016, there are a couple of things that are true. trump was unusually disciplined as steve pointed out. the second thing is that the focus shifted to hillary clinton because of the jim comey e-mail release. trump believed at that point as
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they all did that his base was secure and what he needed to do was to bring home traditional republicans who were nervous about him. what is he doing right now? coming out of the period after kavanaugh where the focus did shift to democrats and he was able to focus on democrats. he now is bringing all of the discussion back to himself. instead of focussing on issues that will bring traditional republicans back home to the republican party, he is focussing on these wedge issues which are exactly the issues that make suburban republicans in swing districts nervous about donald trump and the future of the party under donald trump. it is almost a mirror image of what he did in 2016. given the dynamics in the race it is in some ways dumber than the same thing in 2016. all of the problems he has and that the party has because of him are being magnified by the strategy that he is running. he has no other choice. he feels the base might stay
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home. it's a terrible bind he is in right now. he has alienated a lot of suburban voters. everything he does every day is leading in the direction of me, me, me, focus on me. the more the focus is on him and these issues the worst he is. democrats are in a much better position than two weeks ago after the kavanaugh thing. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump heads to florida today to campaign for a candidate he first promoted and then took issue with. we'll look at the governor's race. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. when my hot water heater failed, she was pregnant, in-laws were coming, a little bit of water, it really- it rocked our world. i had no idea the amount of damage that water could do. we called usaa. and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they were on it. it was unbelievable.
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to make sure every penny goes to solving our homeless crisis. vote yes on c. endorsed by the democratic party, nancy pelosi, and dianne feinstein. i am a techie dad.n. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. in florida two new polls have democratic senator bill nelson leading narrowly and within the margin of error over
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governor rick scott who is spending tens of millions of his own money. nelson is ahead 47% to 46% in a unf poll and 45% to 43% in the usa today poll. tallahassee mayor has a six point lead over ron desantis. president trump who has taken credit for desantis winning the primary will head to florida today to kick off his final 11 rallies of the 2018 campaign cycle. he has another florida rally in pensacola on saturday. >> here is just what john was talking about, here is the catch 22 for republicans. donald trump can come into your state, a state like florida. he can genup the base and make
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sure they get out and vote. chances are very good for everyone member of the base that you have an independent and a suburban house wife that may have voted republican in the past that will say that guy said really offensive things in my hometown. i have to get three people i go to church with going out and voting against him, too. it is a catch 22. donald trump doesn't seem to have the discipline or the understanding to get the fact that every campaign appearance is driving up democrats' numbers. >> i don't think discipline and understanding will be big themes at the trump presidential library. >> probably not. >> i think that there is this extraordinary -- this is all anecdotal. i know there is science polling on it, too.
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anecdotally living in a red state with a competitive senate race, the passion on the democratic side is really remarkable. and the idea that this is -- we finally can do something is what people are saying. there is actually a step one can take instead of just angrily tweeting to one's own followers about how awful the president is. i wonder if that engagement, if that passion in the kind of suburban places you are talking about is going to be what we are talking about on wednesday morning. or as you have said about young voters will the story wednesday morning be that there were a lot of suburbanites and angry women but the trump base actually came out and saved him from total humiliation.
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i think that is the damable thing about mid term elections is it will fall into one of those two buckets. coming up on "morning joe," you can generally tell how much the president wants to change the subject by how extreme the topic. his talk of his personal life changing the constitution indicates a level ten on the distraction meter. "morning joe" will be right back. i can do more to lower my a1c. because my body can still make its own insulin. i take trulicity once a week to activate my body to release its own insulin, like it's supposed to. trulicity is not insulin. it works 24/7.
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so karen amid all of this the president is trying to shift the focus on birth right citizenship. the strategy seems pretty clear. again, towards his base and any racist tendencies? >> sure. i mean, i think there are a lot of people who are saying this is just another ploy, this is just another distraction coming from trump. i think for a lot of people this is just yet another assault on lives and livelihoods regardless
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of the fact that constitutionally processwise it is not possible for trump to end this by executive order. rhetorically the damage has bip done a -- been done. this is part of the attempt to change the conversation is an effective way to poison the conversations against people of color, against immigrants. i think what people need to understand is that birth right citizenship historically was given to freed slaves back in 1968. this is not just an immigration issue but on our civil rights history. i think for us to really understand how broad this assault is, it's not just immigrants. it's also about american civil rights history. >> another example of lindsey
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graham degrading himself for donald trump after the passing of john mccain, yesterday he came out and said -- it is time that donald trump will amend the constitution with an executive order which paul ryan said you can't do that. you can't do that. george conway constitutional scholar said you can't do that. what does the university of south carolina school of law think right now as tom nickels asked yesterday? what do they think that a guy that graduated from their program really thinks that you can tear up the 14th amendment by signing an executive order? i actually don't think lindsay
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thinks that, but it shows you how shameful he has become in john mccain's passing. the most conservative conservatives say you can't do what donald trump is saying. >> that gets to the language of this campaign, the language of the president. as you know, i have just spent five days in los angeles in an event, the world series, that became kind of trivial on sunday morning after the events in pittsburgh, after the murder of jewish people in pittsburgh. as you know, a world series attracts people from all over the country. this is anecdotal but it blends in. you talk to people from all over the country whether they voted for donald trump or not. they realize that this country is a community of people who come from different cultures. nowhere else is it as prominent
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in this nation than it is in the los angeles basin. you talk to them today and they want to lower the bunsen burner flame that this president has done to the country. they want calmness restored. it's a toxic presidency out in the country. it's dangerous. in some cases danger turns to lethalness and you get what occurred in pittsburgh. the country is not as divided as we think it is. people want calmness restored. this particular president has injected himself into this campaign to the point where he said i'm on the ballot. this is a vote for me. so we will find out a lot about the country, the direction of the country going forward next tuesday. coming up, the white house is bracing not only for potential mid term losses, but also for a staff exodus. new reporting on how the
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administration is preparing for what could be a very different reality seven days from now. "morning joe" is coming right back. - meet the ninja foodi, the pressure cooker that crisps,
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i think we're going to do very well in the mid terms. this is one of the very big reasons. the fact is people respect law and order and they love our law enforcement. i think we are going to have much more of a red wave than what you are going to see as a phony blue wave. >> that was president trump just over two months ago bragging about a red wave that was building ahead of the mid terms, but such talk has ceased inside the white house lately. the mood around the president has grown dark. it's not the mainstream media. it's not the fake news. it is people inside the white
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house that are very nervous. the white house is bracing for mid term losses and also staff departures. that is from the latest reporting from white house correspondent for bloomberg news. we also have professor of history of tulane university and host of msnbc's politics nation, reverend al sharpton. you are talking about, of course, people inside the white house seeing internal polls starting to understand that they are probably not going to hold on to the house. with that comes problems in the form of two words, subpoena power. >> the reality of what a democratic house and the likelihood of that would mean to the second half of this administration is not lost on many of the white house staffers. there are certainly people who are still optimistic that republicans could hold the house
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by one or two seats. there are many who have the growing sense that the house is all but lost. they are nervous about the senate and what could happen there when they thought they could pick up seats. they understand that a democratic house would mean nonstop subpoenas and investigations from democrats. to staffers who are already burnt out and exhausted from the daily crisis that have sort of consumed this white house, sticking around for that has no appeal. there is a sense that the second half of this administration will look different from a staff perspective and legislative perspective. there will not be any domestic legislation. throw on top of it the investigations and subpoenas that will start rolling into the white house. >> we still don't know how this election will turn out. it can break either way. we see polls going in a lot of different directions. the past few days there has been a break post kavanaugh towards
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the democratic party whether you are talking about arizona, whether you're talking about florida or the "l.a. times" poll that now shows the generic ballot at 17 points. it certainly does look right now like the trend is breaking the democrats' way and people inside the white house are right for being worried. >> i think that what is happening is especially after the horrors of the past week from the kroger shooting to the pipe bombs to pittsburgh, people are exhausted by the flames, by the hatred, by the things that have been stoked up. i'm down here in louisiana. i was at a dinner last night with a lot of republicans and others. there is sort of a sense that we really have to restore some calm as mike barnacle said. i also think the democrats will do well if the focus stays on
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things like the affordable care act type repeals that the republicans have been pushing. that makes it so that you can't get insurance for your family if your kids got pre-existing conditions f you busted your knee or something like that. i think that is why trump keeps trying to change the subject with like i'll amend the constitution with an executive order, something if obama had said would have driven people to distraction. the main thing you said at the beginning is right. let's not count this election over. if the democrats can't win right now, they probably should go into another line of work. >> probably so. i'm sure reverend al you agree on the same thing. you have donald trump desperately trying to distract away. in florida it is such a huge deal that rick scott has been trying to get rid of preexisting conditions and doing everything he can to fight against
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obamacare, stopping people from medicaid expansion, hurting people in nursing homes, hurting younger kids from getting health care while supporting massive tax cuts. that is just the sort of thing that if you are donald trump you know you have to distract and try to change the subject because that is going to kill your candidates at the polls politically. >> absolutely. when you look at the fact that they all say we want to appeal to millennials but you want to deal with the health care act which gives millennials the right to be insured under their parents until they are 26, it is a walking contradiction. you need a distraction. at the same time you don't need a distraction like donald trump who has come out with this nationalism and come out with this kind of race baiting and dog whistling. there are many republicans and conservative whose do not want to be identified as being bigots or even soft or bigotry.
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so as the country wrestles next tuesday on what it wants to be, they are clear on what they do not want to be. i think when you have a president going after the 14th amendment which he clearly can't do, that is just a joke to even think of he can overturn an amendment on the constitution, but the significance it is that it was the one that cemented citizenship for children or offsprings of slaves, he only energizes the vote. the best thing that can happen to senator nelson is that trump is coming there twice because he is liable to say something around his nationalism which i agree with barnacle was a cover for his campaign of whiteness. most whites don't want tojust be white or black. they want to have the country come together and have a healthy debate. >> when donald trump started talking about being a
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nationalist, it was david duke, the clan leader who said he is talking about white nationalism and should be applauded for that. speaking of polls and the way things are breaking new, buzz feed news is reporting that oprah is headed to georgia tomorrow to campaign with democratic candidate for governor stacy abrams. she will be going door to door knocking to encourage voters to get out and vote. just like actor and comedian will ferrell did for abrams over the weekend. abrams will be campaigning with president obama on friday just before president trump will be campaigning for republican brian kemp on sunday. the new fox 5 atlanta poll is finding abrams with 48% of the vote ahead of kemp. like so many other things we are
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seeing a trend going in the democratic direction. this race regardless most likely headed for a runoff on december 4. here you have stacy abrams, a black progressive in georgia. you have a black progressive running in the state of florida. both of them ahead in the polls. i don't think we call this the new south. we may have to call this the new new south because this is dramatic. >> it is very dramatic. i was in macon for national action network last week. the voter suppression issue where brian kemp, the candidate against stacy abrams has purged these voters and has said that if there is a recount he is not stepping aside as the one supervising the recount as secretary of state. that is making a lot of people that may not have been pro abrams say we can't have this.
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that is the old south. i think that whether they are progressive or not, people don't want to be regressive. they don't want to go backwards. we can debate about how we are going forward. most of us agree we do not want to go backwards. that is what is going to help abrams i think in georgia and help gillam in florida. >> before this week charlottesville a lot think is the low point of donald trump's presidency. it is almost like a new charlottesville every day with the president and his allies talking about the jewish funded caravan and people carrying leprosy and smallpox coming into united states. the caravan is still 1,000 miles away. last time one of these things started up, 14 people were
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arrested at the border. it's like a new charlottesville every day. donald trump is reminding moderate republicans and independents and democrats why it is so important they get out and vote next week. it seems to be a colossal mistake. i can be wrong. >> it would be so outlandish that if it weren't so pernicious it would seem laughable, a parody of what you would imagine trump or another kind of crazed autocrat populist would do in a circumstance like this. i think the country is complicated. are there places where this may if you think that republicans after we saw that surge of republican enthusiasm coming out of the kavanaugh hearings where trump managed to make the conversation about democrats. if you are starting to see that
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ebb now, are there place wheres this might work? i don't think it will work as effectively because of the fact that it is not as direct and focussed as it was on democrats post kavanaugh. are there a lot of places, obviously, a lot of congressional districts that he has kind of given up on the house. there are some senate races in places like arizona, nevada and florida where i think this will back fire on the president and will certainly rally a lot of democrats around the calls of voting. i ask you in this context, as you look at the -- we have six days here. i think there is now a conventional wisdom that we might be looking at a split decision next tuesday where democrats take the house. republicans keep control of the senate, but they may pick up a couple of seats in that contest. what will be the message if that
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is true? what will we take away from that race if that is where we end up with a split decision on election night? >> i think that you have to sort of look at individual races and which type of messages resonated especially for the democrats. i think that if you can have a message that focuses on the economy, on health care, on not taking away the right to buy insurance if you have preexisting conditions and you have a thoughtful democratic message that works, i think it will keep the country from splitting further into the extremes. one thing you said about the south, mitch landrieu is leading a project here which is about the south. you mentioned the people. the question is whether the
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south with moderate democrats can lead out of this poison. it would be particularly interesting to me if some of the democrats were able to win in the south. in louisiana we have a mix of a democratic governor and republican lieutenant governor. that can lead to a more moderate nation. >> tonight begins the president's blitz here of valve and rallies between now and election day. to piggyback on john's point it is mostly the senate with a couple of governor's races mixed in. it comes on the heels of his trip to pittsburgh yesterday and dealing with the arrest of the mail bomber. is there any sense from your reporting do they anticipate the president to address these moments of national tragedy or is this just right back to red meat rally, usual material? >> they will try to get back on
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messaging as quickly as possible. the final strategy for these past few weeks has been immigration, obviously, sending troops to the border, bringing up this idea of birth right citizenship again. that was their closing message was immigration, to go back to the president's base and get them to turn out and give up on moderates and swing voters who don't show up that much on mid term elections. this issue of the pipe bombs and the synagogue shooting really threw them off mess age. there was debate about how to hammer away on this message which is quite divisive. so that took away the news cycle when they wanted to be talking about the caravan. they are hoping they can get back to immigration. who knows what will happen.
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>> that is interesting and fairly predictable. human nature being what it is clearly president trump is underestimating the impact of what happened in pittsburgh where yesterday we buried two precious special brothers who greeted each day with happiness and welcome. we also buried a 97-year-old woman, all of them killed because they were jewish. in terms of that, the language of the president is what it is. >> i think that when you look at this president who we talk about as a tabloid president, i grew up in new york like he did. we grew up in the same kind of era where he played to the tabloids. what he doesn't understand to try to just turn the page and get the next headline is where in a place of worship, 11 people can be mowed down because they were jewish, because no other
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reason than their faith, a 97-year-old holocaust survivor who survived hitler and in the sa church is killed. i think it reinforces the worst energy in this administration. they not only miscalculated morally. >> he is also without empathy. >> he is talking about members of his family. he didn't even make it personal and talk about his own family members. it was i got to do this. let's get this immigration thing back up. it is totally insensitive. >> he refused. he actually refused to cancel an event that night and later joked with the press that he was considering after this slaughter canceling because he was having a bad hair day because he was
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standing on the tarmac talking about the pittsburgh synagogue slaughter and his hair got wet. that night he was tweeting about baseball. thank you so much for being with us. in six days voters are going to the polls. a week from today the morning after the mid term elections we will broadcast live in front of a studio audience from historic studio 8-h here at rockefeller center. be part of our live audience as we break down the results. we will be talking about what they mean for the trump presidency and for america's future. for more information, visit joe.msnbc.com. we hope to see you there. we will be right back. a once-in-five hundred year storm should happen every five hundred years, right? fact is, there have been twenty-six in the last decade.
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. sarah, a roller coaster or facebook shares yesterday. tell us about what happened. >> this morning, joe, facebook news is being well received. they posted earnings last night. two big takeaways for you. number one, the privacy scandals and all the heat that facebook is dealing with on election interference is hurting the company. higher expenses. for instance, facebook is on a hiring spree, growing head count by 45% over the last year to try to deal with this. that's number one. number two, mark zuckerberg, ceo, talked about the shift in user behavior. people are using stories more. when you post the photos and videos that disappear in 24 hours. on instagram, on what's app, he says that's the future and they have the shift advertisers away from thinking about the news feed into stories. that's all adding up to slower growth for facebook.
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it could be factored into the stock. it's been a rough year for facebook, down 20% so far going into today. and speaking of a loser, just wanted to mention stocks because today's the last trading day of october. it's been a brutal one for stocks. the dow's down 6% during the month. we're looking to jump today, but the tech heavy nasdaq, guys, is having its worth month since back in 2008. the financial crisis. >> oh, my gosh. >> winners like amazon and netflix getting sold hard on a combination of worries, joe, about higher interest rates, which the president has complained about, and of course those tariffs and the trade war which a lot of companies are talking about in earnings calls. >> what volatile times. sarah, thank you so much. we didn't mention the world series on monday's show following the devastating synagogue shooting in pittsburgh over the weekend, it was just too difficult, and as mike said just seemed too insignificant.
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but there is something about baseball that has the power to up lift the nation. particularly in challenging times. one of those stories comes from a graduate of pensacola catholic high school, where all-star player drew labounty overcame an incredible challenge on and off the field. lewis bergdorf has the story. it was just another friday night. in the back of my head, i was thinking breaking ball, fast ball, he threw and it kind of kept riding up and in and ended up tipping off my bat and catching me in the eye and, you know, went down on the ground and the pressure that was building just near the eye was tremendous. blood was coming down and first thing that popped in my head was, i don't know if i'll ever be able to see again after this. just asked god that whatever the
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will is for my life that it will be done, whether it be, you know, that i keep my eye or whether it be that, you know, he take it away. >> reporter: in that split second, shortstop drew labounty's life changed forever. >> i was certainly thankful that he was able to talk and be able to communicate. i was thankful then because at least we had him. the first thing he asked was how the pitcher was feeling, the first thing. >> and wanted to make sure that he didn't feel in any way responsible for what has happened. >> stunned me. >> reporter: drew's selfless concern for those around him was not lost on ophthalmologist dr. allen franklin who performed multiple surgeries in an effort to save his vision. >> do you really want to see the picture? >> yeah, i think. oh, wow. >> yeah, that's what you had -- that's what we had to start
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with. >> wow. yeah, i haven't seen that before. >> that was -- >> that's not going to make it to tv right there. >> so this is the normal left eye. the other eye is just all whited out. it's just a sea of hemorrhage. and then there's a bunch of swelling in the eyelet. >> it's honestly kind of shocking to see this, clearly it's honestly a miracle that he was able to save the eye. >> good job, seriously. >> thanks. >> that's what i'm supposed to doing. >> tell us about his recovery process. >> drew's done a remarkable job. he has the ideal approach that you would want in anybody that you're trying to take care of. >> what he meant as a teammate in the locker room as a leader he was the most important part of our program, no question in that locker room, the most important player on our team. so i knew he was going to get
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drafted. if dwrorew was healthy it would have been top 20 rounds i would say. the blue jays out of respect drafted drew because they had so much appreciation for the way he played the game. >> toronto blue jays chose to draft him as their last pick. that says it all. >> yes. >> absolutely. they get it, that's what i say, they get it. >> talk to me about this, right here. >> i got to represent, you know. i'm very, you know, thankful to the toronto blue jays organization. i kind of felt bad for somebody else who might be able to play. but at the same time i was very thankful and like i said it's something that i'll never forget. >> hey, first baseman, bring me what you got. i knew at some point baseball was going to end. it happened a little bit sooner than i anticipated, but at the same time i'm still living one of my dreams, which is, you know, coaching baseball. >> the guys respect him, they love him. when he speaks they listen. and i think he's -- i think he's already earned that. that's a compliment to who he is as a person. >> i appreciate you guys coming
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out here and actually getting better. that's what i look forward to every day is to spend time with those guys, to kind of give them an outlet through baseball to whatever they're going through in their life, no matter -- no matter what's going on in the world, you know, the game has given me so much more joy and happiness than i could ever imagine. >> let's bring in dr. dave who you also saw reporting in that piece. dr. dave, you know, i love baseball. i know a lot about its history. i've never before heard of a club that's actually drafted a player that couldn't play for them out of just pure respect of his extraordinary character. tell us about that. >> you know, the toronto blue jays really went above and beyond to bring this kid on. he's a young man with the -- that's the spark plug on every team he ever plays on. he's the rock. and toronto really, in honor of
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that, felt that they could bring him in, help their own team in their culture and really give all of us in america something to look at as a role model, and that is drew labounty, really a role model for all of us. >> you said his character -- i've heard this before from the coaches and organizations. you said his character was unlike anyone you've ever seen. in these tough times, that kid actually is a great example of what we should aspire to be. >> oh, yeah. that young man is selfless more than almost anybody i know. there are many stories we heard. one of them was when he woke up from that first operation where his eyeball had been really exploded, the first thing he said to his mother was, how's the lady next to me, how is she doing, how did her surgery go, not how did his surgery go and how is his eye, it's amazing. >> it really is. thanks to lewis bergdorf for
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reporting. we want to thank everybody on the show and thank you for watching. we are six days away from election day. it is obviously these are extraordinarily important times. we'll be back here tomorrow morning at 6:00 on morning joe. let's pass it over to stephanie ruhle. good morning, everyone, i'm stephanie ruhle and happy halloween. but we're not starting with a holiday, we're starting with a sprint to the finish line because it is on, six days until the midterm elections and president trump hitting the trail full steam ahead, 11 rallies scheduled in the next eight days as republicans' fate becomes tied to the president for better or for worse. >> i just don't think this is a typical midterm election. i think this is like -- this is a trump mandate. >> i feel like he has kept all of the promises that he has made on the campaign trail so far. i feel like our economy is strong, and i think i