already effects of this coverage. the president is, according to my colleague's reporting has himself been quite frantic behind the scenes, trying to figure out ways to juice the economy, and we have seen in recent surveys a drop in consumer confidence. this doesn't happen in a vacuum, and this kind of reporting can actually increase the chances of a recession. >> jonathan swan, live in washington, d.c. >> thanks for having me. >> always a pleasure. >> we're going to be reading axios a.m. in a bit, and you too can definitely sign up for the news letter by going to sign up.axios.com. >> i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe," it is wednesday, september 4th.

with us, we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan la mere, and author of the book, disarray. >> we came back. >> and the yankees. >> the season is just beginning. >> oh, my god. >> for the astros. >> we'll talk about the astros. >> i heard, i heard. >> also with us, former treasury official. >> the mets have had their run. the mets have had their run. >> my son thinks they still have a shot at the second wild card spot, but it is not going to happen. >> how do you recover from that last night. >> that was rough last night. >> former treasury official, steve rattner and washington bureau chief and author of the matriarch, susan page. great to have you all this morning. we're going to start with news and politics. we're going to start with the hurricane, a little bit of music, that's fine, we can do that, but everything in its

proper context and place. hurricane dorian. >> baseball, cooking. >> lashed parts of florida's east coast overnight with storm surge and hurricane warnings, extending up the eastern sea board as far as the carolinas. we're also following the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in the bahamas, look at the aerial pictures. >> the images are unbelievable. just absolutely unbelievable and for anybody that's ever been through any hurricane at all, a cat 5 is everybody's worst nightmare. >> destroyed. >> the fact that a cat 5 comes over your community and just stand stands there, just sits there for several days, is the worst case scenario. >> the worst. >> we're going to be sending dr. dave down there later today and bringing up images. >> what you see her is parts of the abaco islands decimated, major homes flooded, infrastructure flattened.

at least seven people killed and officials expect that number to rise. the country's prime minister went on a reconnaissance mission bit u.s. and found the airport underwater and said the area around it looks like a lake. the red cross says 62,000 people are without clean drinking water and 60,000 people will need food. here's more from the prime minister on msnbc last night. >> building codes were built to withstand about 150 miles per hour winds. we never expected that we would one day encounter a wind velocity of 180 to 200 miles per hour, but we will take that as a lesson. >> let's go to bill karins. bill, again, you have been doing this for a long time, talking act these for a very long time. the idea of a category 4, i

mean, the cd idea of a category coming on shore, it's just absolutely devastating. but the cat 5, just stayed over there for so long. a real nightmare. >> yeah, most building codes, you know, as he's mentioning, you know, can go to a certain level, but not for the duration. i mean, you think usually they test it for a couple of hours. not for a day or two. so, like, think of things that can hold together like nails, and sooner or later, in some of those braces, that hold the roofs on, they can't hold forever. and the thing i heard last night, joe, that's krconcerning we tell everyone fill your bathtub you have with water, every container with water. that's the first thing you need to survive after the hurricane is over with. they are starting to burn through their water. there are people now that have uses up their pitchers and they are looking at their bathtub and that's the only fresh water they

have left. these are the structures remaining. the better areas in free port that are doing fine, someone on the phone last night said they are using the swimming pool as the water to clean their dishes and to bathe themselves and clean themselves. that's the swimming pool complex water and everyone else is rationing the water they have, and that's what they're saying, we need water. i mean, i know we have navy ships that are capable of providing fresh water. i haven't heard that ours is heading there. i certainly hope it is. >> i hope so. you can just look at the pictures and you can understand what happened here. it is going to be a humanitarian crisis of just the first order. when katrina was, when we were going through katrina, the after math, i remember going over. we went over every day to mississippi and louisiana, and they needed water. we would fill up from the pensacola community just advance and pickup trucks of water. we would drive them over in two

or three minutes in mississippi, they would be gone. here of course, there's no quick drive over from anywhere, so this is a humanitarian effort. >> water and tent. there's nowhere to stay. we still have concerns with this storm. we're not done with it yet. i want to get to the forecast for all of our friends dealing with in northern florida through the carolinas. 105 miles per hour winds. we're still at a category 2 storm. it's 90 miles off daytona beach. the overnight path from the hurricane center, it stays off the florida coast, and then the question that we're going to have to watch closely in 36 to 48 hours is that northeast turn, when does it occur, and how sharply does it occur. right now, the hurricane center has it just along the coast, possibly a landfall out there on the outer banks. what does that mean, the number one concern we have is storm surge, with a category 2, we could get a 4 to 7 foot storm

surge. they told everyone evacuate, get out, you should be gone. and in areas of north carolina, it looks like around 2 to 4 feet. the storm moving quicker, tgs n -- it's not going to be as great of a concern. camp lejeune marine base, areas of north carolina are prone to flooding with the sound areas, the pimlico sounds, and we could get 10 inches of rain in the area. just because florida has been brushed, more like tropical storm, we could have all of the facets of a storm, of a typical hurricane. you know, there's a lot of pine trees in the area of north carolina. if you get 90 to 100 miles per hour winds, we're going to get power outages that could last days. we get the potential for river flooding, and fresh water flooding, and on top of that, we have the storm surge concerns. florida is going to look back at this and say i can't believe how close that was to a huge, huge disaster, but, you know, we still have our friends in the carolinas that are crossing their fingers that they can be

so lucky. >> bill karins, thank you so much, we look at the track up there, obviously about the low country in south carolina, along charleston, and then north carolina, the outer banks, we are always in danger, north carolina, of just getting absolutely slammed. >> not done yet. >> we have to keep those people in our thoughts and prayers as we move forward. one more thing, too, start looking today if you want to help the bahamas. it's just an absolute nightmare. it's going to be a human crisis, the like of which we just haven't seen probably since katrina around here. so be looking, whether it's americare or the red cross or whomever you think can get relief to these people as quickly as possible with as

little bureaucrat as possible. walmart responded to the national gun debate yesterday when it announced it would stop selling ammunition used in military style assault rifles and high capacity magazines is while also discouraging its customers from openly carrying guns in stores even in states where it is permitted. the announcement came exactly one month after a gunman killed 22 people at a walmart store in el paso, texas. according to a memo by a walmart ceo to its associates after selling through the current inventory commitments which could take several weeks, the company will stop selling certain short barrel rifle ammunition, and all handgun ammunition. the retail giant also announced it would call on congress to increase background checks and consider a new assault rifle ban. the nra issued a statement writing in part quote it is shameful to see walmart succumb.

>> i'm not going to read. just take that down. i'm not going to read three lobbyists in washington, d.c., putting a statement out that actually goes against what the majority, overwhelming majority of republicans believe. what the majority of nra members believe. there are three people up there working for hedge funds that own gun companies. they are not gun owners. they are not the rank and file gun owners, and you know, that's the thing jonathan lemire when you look at this debate, you have people that have defended the second amendment their entire life like myself, and you know, after one ar 15 slaughter after another ar 15 slaughter after another ar 15 slaughter, in this case, insufficient background checks led to the killing in odessa, a lot of conservatives, a lot of republicans, 89%, in fact, the latest poll, which support universal background checks, a majority who support banning

military style assault weapons, semiautomatic weapons and most americans, an overwhelming said enough. walmart is hearing that. other companies are hearing that. enough. >> the polling reflects it. it's not just americans want it, but specifically republicans want it, nra members want it. some common sense reforms, background checks and things like that. the polls is overwhelming and would seem to be an obvious political winner, democrats on the trail, congressman o'rourke has been fiery about this in recent days. others as well, whether it's joe biden and elizabeth warren, the question is whether republicans will move on it when congress comes back to session. we have been reporting in the associated press the last couple of days, there is movement behind the scenes for some sort of measures that the white house is looking to throw the hodgepodge of ideas, something the president can get behind, they can present as the white house bill. it's going to be relatively

modest stuff. it will be improving, making sure juvenile information, and existing background checks. we saw the attorney general writing legislation that could make it speed up capital punishment for mass shooters. so many mass shooters are looking to die in the moment in measures like that where the president can get out there, say we have done something that the nra won't, that support, perhaps won't be so vociferous in opposing, hoping that can be enough to quiet the fire storm. >> the politics of this have completely changed and i don't know if republicans have figured it out. businesses have figured it out. 9 out of 10 republicans support enhanced background checks, universal background checks to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, out of the hands of people who are mentally ill suited for guns, but you know, in 2018, the

nra was badly outspent. they were just trouncedment t. y they don't have the money they used to have because wayne lapierre and the three lobbyists in washington, d.c. have been luting the coffers, and buying hundreds of dollars worth of italian suits and $6 million mansions. there's a guy in south florida, brian mass who sported a ban on military style weapons, he's a guy who went to war, lost his legs in war, he knows about war. and you know, he not only won reelection, he won with a larger margin. this is not a lose -- this is what we would go around in our office and laugh off as a 90/10 issue, and somebody gets on the floor, and says i stand up and support the flag, and laugh and go good courage on the 90/10

issue. this is a 90/10 issue now, when will republicans figure it out. >> it is a 90/10 issue but if you go back a couple of elections, the nra was a huge spender. they spent more money than all the c 4s put together, and they have all this money behind them and at the moment, the nra is in its own set of scandals, and it will be really interesting to see whether a combination of that and the public pressure can actually emasculate the nra once and for all. as for walmart, they are responding to their customers. >> let's just be very careful, the three lobbyists in washington, d.c. who are making themselves rich, and who work for hedge funds and themselves and fly around family members on private jets with hairstylists. i'm serious. we're not talking about nra members, we're talking about the scam artists in washington, d.c., the three people that have gotten fat, rich and happy off

members dues but go ahead. >> i can't quite match that. >> i don't want you to natmatch. i want people to understand. nra members know they have been scam artists and stealing their money. >> wayne lapierre has had the nra in a head lock, complete and utter control over huge amounts of money, and has been able to allocate to the three hedge fund guys in washington and whoever, and may come to a head because of the nr a's problems, and as for walmart, they are responding to public pleasure, they're a good guy. the ceo of walmart is a good guy, but they are trying to find a balance. their customers are rural customers in the kinds of areas. walmart sells 20% of all the ammunition sold in america for all kinds of guns. they did ban assault weapons in 2015. they did raise the minimum age for gun purchases to 21 last year. so i think getting on the program, thanks to pressure from their customers. >> and what about big

sporting -- >> what is it going to take. >> also on lapierre, despite certainly in a weakened status, he's still talking to president trump, you know, routinely, and preying on the fear the president has of losing his base. that is the thing that fuels every donald trump nightmare that some of his base would be eroded. other forces are trying to tell the president, your base stays with you through everything. this is a moment you can support stuff, they'll stay with you, and you can provide cover for republicans who are nervous about this vote. you might get something done. >> as joe mentioned, law enforcement officials tell nbc news, the gun mman who killed 7 people and injured two dozen others, purchased his weapon from a private seller, a transaction that does not require a background check. officials say the gunman had previously failed a background check in 2014 because of a disqualifying mental health issue. and that investigators are now looking into who sold him the

gun. the seller could face criminal charges if they are aware of the shooter's mental health issues. senate minority leader chuck schumer released a statement yesterday blaming the shooting on republicans and the senate for stalling on a house passed bill that would require background checks for nearly all private sales. senator schumer writes quote, if the house passed background checks bill would have been signed into law, this tragedy would have been avoided. leader mcconnell, you have no excuse. the senate must vote on the house bill next week. not a diluted bill, not a bill on other matters, we must take a vote on the house passed bill to close these loop holes without delay, and "the washington post" is also calling on mitch mcconnell with a full page editorial this morning entitled do something, mr. mcconnell. when the senate returns from its labor day recess, it must act on guns.

the editorial includes the names of mass shooting victims from incidents such as columbine, sandy hook, last month's shooting in dayton, and el paso, and many many more. the editorial board writes in part, what if there was a mass shooting in the united states not once or twice or four or six times monthly, but every single day, a big one, the kind that electrifies social media and squats for days on page one. would that be enough to move senate majority leader mitch mcconnell from his insistent inertia on gun safety. would any volume of bloodshed convince the kentucky republican that congress faces a moral imperative to act, 38 people were slain in three such shootings in august in dayton, ohio, and el paso, as well as west texas, and still senate republicans and president trump refuse to act. mitch mcconnell says he is open to do something, but is waiting

for the white house. >> we're in a discussion about what to do on the gun issue in the wake of these horrendous shootings. i said several weeks ago that if the president took a position on a bill so that we knew we would actually be making a law and not just having serial votes, i'd be happy to put it on the floor, and the administration is in the process of studying what they are prepared to support, if anything, and i expect to get an answer next week. >> i mean, that's what moscow mitch says. you look at this guy's legacy, and it's going to be two things, i think right now, he's going to have a legacy of basically doing the work of vladimir putin, an ex-kgb agent, and mitch

mcconnell has been told by the cia, director of national enten intelligence, the united states military, he has been told by everybody that russia is trying to interfere and disrupt our democratic process, that we are under attack, so mitch mcconnell is killing republican bills like marco rubio's, and democratic bills that would protect the homeland from this attack from russia. and moscow mitch is doing nothing about it, but he's killing every bill, including marco rubio's bill that simply says if we catch somebody interfering with american democracy, we will put sanctions on them. moscow mitch killed that bill too. moscow mitch has killed every single bill that the intel community has said will protect america, so that's his legacy, not protecting us from enemies foreign. and what about his legacy protecting us from domestic enemies, people that would shoot

children, first graders, the friday before they go home for christmas holiday with ar 15s or people that would shoot wildly from their car in odessa, texas, and shoot 17-month-old babies in the backseat of their cars or would shoot up people going to worship jesus in texas churches that do nothing about it, or shoot up people going to walmart for back-to-school shopping. but mitch mcconnell just like moscow mitch won't do anything in protecting us from foreign enemies, he has been the one person that has killed every one of these bills to protect us from our domestic enemies, that are gunning down our children every day. what's his end game?

what's his legacy? where does it end? who supports moscow mitch doing vladimir putin's bidding and killing republican bills to secure the homeland against russian interference at donald trump's fbi director, cia director, director of national intelligence and military intel have all told moscow mitch russia is invading this country and we need to protect the homeland. even kirstjen nielsen when she was the head of the department of homeland security said this is a threat to american democracy. he does nothing. against our foreign enemies, he does nothing against our domestic enemies. what is his legacy? >> i think the legacy is pretty clear, it's unilateral surrender in terms of protecting american democracy, by the way, not just against russia but conceivably

against north koreans, iranians, chinese and others. we're not taking the steps we should. we're not fighting back. on gun control we're not doing anything, and you know, background checks are necessary but not sufficient. other countries have mental illness of roughly equal levels of prevalence, so mental illness cannot be the only factor shaping american gun violence, obviously availability of certain weapons is part of it. his legacy will also be, i think, undermining the functioning of the senate when it came to supreme court nominations, the garland nomination, whatever you think about garland versus kavanaugh, the idea that the united states senate would not act, you're basically arbitrarily saying we interpret the constitution to say the president can't appoint a supreme court justice in the last year, year and a half of his term. where did that come from. conservatives are meant to be in process and institutions and what we have are conservatives who no longer believe in processes or institutions.

and we'll get to it later i expect, but the contrast between so-called conservatives in the united states and those in britains is really on display, and we saw actually, i think, and we'll get to the story, but the difference between people who really embrace conservatism as opposed to partyism, and the difference between on both sides of the atlantic is quite impressive. >> yeah, it's not conservatism. it's trump itism. >> what happened in the uk is the equivalent of marco rubio, ted cruz, chuck grassley and a whole bunch of senior, senior, republicans, basically saying no mas, we're not going to do this anymore. in britain, including winston church i churchhill, basically breaking with the prime minister, and here you have a bunch of sheep who are following donald trump right off the cliff. >> and susan page that's exactly what happened last night in britain. you had 24 conservatives saying boris johnson we are not going

to follow you off the cliff, and yet, time and again we're seeing republicans in washington, d.c. just being silent despite the fact that 90% of americans want them to pass, 94% of americans, i'm sorry, let me be exact, want to see them pass universal background checks. >> and you know, there's no issue on which congressional republicans are more at odds with public opinion than the issue of some of these gun measures, including the measures that the house already has passed and sent to the senate. i did think we saw a slightly different tone on the part of senate majority leader mcconnell yesterday in that he was openly saying we're going to do what trump is willing to support, and if president trump does not give us confidence that he'll actually support and then follow through and sign, again, measure, we're not going to bring it up. he did include he would bring it up at the white house if the white house went there first.

that is not the traditional role of a coequal branch of government but it is the approach that this republican controlled senate has taken with this president. just one other point, going back to walmart, you know, one thing that strikes me about walmart's decision at this point and the previous decisions limiting some sales of guns and ammunition, this is not exactly ben & jerry's taking a political stance. this is a company that is the largest employer, private employer in the united states, the biggest retailer in the united states. grounded in red america, in rural and conservative parts of our country saying that they're willing to take these steps and calling on congressmen, that strikes ne -- me as important to note when you look at the elements of american society beyond the government saying enough is enough when it comes this it ggun violence. >> it is pretty remarkable and richard, it is, i mean, can you

believe we'd get to a point where we'd have the senate majority leader saying i can't do anything unless the president allows me to do something, unless he gives me permission. here, is granted by the constitution of the united states and the people of this country all the power of article 1, and yet he meekly says, i can't do anything unless donald trump gives me permission to do anything. >> we could call him the majority follower, rather than the majority leader but this is not a one off. in issue after issue, the use of sanctions, tariffs and so forth, the congress has transferred all sort of authority to the executive branch. we have created a degree of an imperial presidency that we have never had. the president is using law that was never intended to be used to allow himself to unilaterally

make foreign policy, economic policy, and the rest. and congress is not pulling back these authorities, so this is not an exception. >> and again, the hypocrisy, mika, after what they said about barack obama and his use of executive orders. here, they're going to sit back and let donald trump go in and raid pentagon funding to build. >> we have questions pertaining to that today. >> part of his wall. he said he tried emergency funding, no he's going to steal it from our pentagon budget to fulfill a campaign promise that he hasn't been able to fulfill because republicans haven't given him that money. anyway. >> we're going to be asking jim mattis about that and other things later on in the show. still ahead on "morning joe." we need that guy here.

>> that gives you an idea. >> i want that guy in congress. >> that gives you an idea of what's happening in london right now. we'll break down the latest chaos over brexit next on "morning joe." brexit next on "morning joe." the weather's perfect... family is all together and we switched to geico; saved money on our boat insurance. how could it get any better than this? dad, i just caught a goldfish! there's no goldfish in this lake. whoa! it's pure gold. we're gonna be rich... we're gonna be rich! it only gets better when you switch and save with geico. would shakespeare have chosen just "some pens?"s. methinks tul pens would serve m'lady well. thanks. and a unicorn notebook!

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british prime minister boris johnson suffered a serious loss in parliament yesterday furthering the brexit chaos. >> boy, you talk about drama. >> yeah. >> you always read growing up about winston churchill walk across the aisle and, actually, for churchhill, one side to the other. he was like a ping-pong ball going back and forth, but at the beginning of boris johnson's

speech, his majority evaporates. >> right. >> right in front of his face. that's high drama, my friends. >> lawmakers voted to take control of the parliamentary agenda from the government, which will allow them to introduce and likely pass a bill which would compel the prime minister to seek another brexit extension from the eu, past the october 31st deadline. prime minister johnson is a brexit supporter and a proponent of a no deal divorce, although this bill would essentially kill that option. johnson says he will now likely seek a new general election in october, which if granted would be the third in great britain in just over four years. 21 members of prime minister johnson's conservative party supported the motion, including the grandson of winston

churchill, and one of the more dramatic moments. >> get your popcorn out. >> one conservative party member stood up and literally walked across the aisle and joined the liberal democrat party. that defection cost the conservative party its majority in parliament. >> so richard, first of all, high drama in the house of commons, but what do you think about, you think calling of the new election is just an idle threat from boris johnson? >> well, parliament has to approve a call for a new election. it's unlikely he'll get support for 2/3, i think it is. that's not going to happen, so it's quite possible that we're just going to have drift. we won't have a no deal brexit. my guess is we'll have drift for a while, and it won't resolve anything. there's the tragedy of the brexit vote, you don't conduct foreign policy by referendum,

particularly one that was not honestly debated, influenced by elections among other things, to have labor. normally you would have a general election, and labor would offer an alternative, except you have jeremy corbyn. >> again, there's no alternative. >> labor has jeremy corbyn, a guy who is just an absolute disaster, talk about socialists, an anti-semite, he's the worst of the worst. >> the guy should be running the labor party is running the international rescue. the doorman ought to be running. what's so interesting though, and comes back to the conversation we were just having, what boris johnson tried to do is jam this through, essentially suspend parliament, and get it through in this policy. they essentially violated every norm and tradition. it wasn't illegal but it was against every principle of british policy and essentially parliament pushed back.

and i thought it was a great moment in democracy. >> the problem is there are essentially three constituencies in parliament, there's the hard brexit constituency who want to leave, you have the soft brexit constituency, which wants to solve the problem of the irish border and the pain group. there's no single solution. that's in part why they rebelled because boris johnson was heading for a hard brexit, there's not support for that, but there's not a majority of support for anything, and so britain is getting to be like italy, they have election after election, and hung parliaments after hung parliaments. >> let's bring in journalist and residents of georgetown university school, elise levit, what do you think is going to happen? >> what richard said is exactly right. there's going to be drift for a while, boris johnson has tried to call an election. jeremy corbyn said he would only support it if the measure was

passed to prevent a no deal brexit by the end of october, and ei think there's a lot of concern that boris johnson is going to pull another fast one which is to avoid having this election before october 31st and then the brits would be out of the eu, and i think it's exactly true that, you know, boris johnson's hardball tactics were called. they called his bluff and the problem is right now that there's no alternative in the middle. this kind of healthy center, the conservatives have kind of cannibalized themselves, labor is providing no alternative, and they're scaring everybody, and i think there's a lot of buyer's remorse. eu brexit was a protest vote, very similar to what we're having in washington. you discuss, you know, not being able to call the bluff, and the british people did, and i think here in america we're failing to see the republicans kind of call trump on some of his executive authority as they're saying.

>> jonathan lemire. >> walk us through the chain of events that might have to occur for there to be another referendum on brexit. there's been such speculation about that, since the vote was taken in 2016, not fairly contested. how remote of a possibility is that that we could end up with another vote on whether to leave it off? >> i think there's going to be another one. i can't predict it. i'm not an expert on british politics but i can only see right now that, you know, the brits faced with the majority, and faced with what's happening, the brits are having a lot of buyers remorse and theresa may put forward, what, three deals to try and leave brexit. nobody was really supporting any of them, so i have to think that the british people are rethinking how difficult it was going to be, what this was going to do to the british economy, the pound is down right now. i can only think that the brits are going to say, hey, let's rethink this, and hopefully there will be a candidate who

can try and negotiate some, you know, better arrangement with the eu instead of, you know, just kind of leaving. >> susan page, it is so striking, though the difference in character between conservatives in the uk and conservatives in america. you actually had 24, again, cross party lines yesterday, and vote to do what they thought was in the best interest of their country. and here we have, well, people who call themselves conservatives, day in and day out, just blindly following donald trump, and it really was striking yesterday just the difference between, again, conservatives in those two countries. >> well, you do see trump allies around the world facing great difficulties. boris johnson, of course, in london but also prime minister netanyahu in israel who has a tough election coming up very shortly, and i wonder if there are, maybe richard haass has

thoughts on this, there are lessons from the british experience we're seeing now from the united states. and i'm struck, we mentioned that there were some similarities in russian interference in the brexit vote in england, and in the 2016 presidential election here. and i wonder if there are kind of, how pleased vladimir putin marco rubio must be on the success of his efforts to sow discord among his adversaries in the west, but are there different lessons that the united states and england are drawing from this very disruptive experience that both countries are going through now. >> let me add one for you, we were talking about italy. here's a guy who has modeled his entire eyes in the most extreme way after donald trump. he just got thrown out of government, shut out of government. there appears to be a push back against this mindless populism.

>> yeah, populism works much better when you're in opposition, but when you have the responsibility of government. that's what we're seeing in italy. that's what we're seeing with boris johnson, elements of turkey where erdogan has run into difficulty. we're seeing hong kong push back in china. we're seeing less of it, interestingly enough here, certainly, but elements of it in this country. again, populism is a -- it knows what it's against. it doesn't know clearly what it's for. >> it's a great starter, poor finisher. >> exactly. so when they become the establishment, they're going to be tossed out, sicklically, the way -- cyclicly. the way they were brought in. relief efforts are underway in the bahamas, residents are facing health risks.

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the bahamas unrecognizable, the first images from above abaco, showing paradise to paradise lost. >> absolute devastation, and it really is heartbreaking just from the air it looks completely levelled. >> debris fields for miles. houses surrounded by water, and boats littered across the island. >> nbc news correspondent morgan chesky with a look at the devastation from hurricane dorian in the bahamas where relief efforts are underway. >> by the way, richard, you were talking about the scale of this. the scale is so gigantic, unless the united states gets involved to alleviate human suffering. >> there will be many more deaths. >> nobody else can do it but us. >> the emblematic picture of the prime minister having to tour his own country on an american helicopter. this is a country that doesn't have the capacity. unless we treat this like a war zone, and bring in war, we bring in tents, basically the ability

to rebuild, there's two phases, there's the immediate crisis phase, and then there's the rebuilding phase so this place can get back on its legs. this is a short-term and a long-term problem, and clearly it doesn't have the capacity to do it on its own. >> one of the big questions is how to reach the people in need as fast as possible. joining us now, "morning joe" medical contributor, dr. dave campbell. you're headed there with americare later today. what's the plan to get in there, the airport is a lake. >> the plan today for our medical team for "morning joe" is to fly to nassau, and tomorrow morning we believe we'll be on a barge that goes to abaco with the first large group of supplies and suppliers, and you're right, we need water, we need safe shelter, we need basic medical services. this is the recovery phase right now. it's very short-term, it's acute. we're not really sure besides what we're all seeing on the

pictures what we're going to find. >> yeah, it's project hope is going in. you're going in with project hope, but the scale of this is so devastating, i mean, you went to haiti a year or so back, and reported from there, and helped with americare there. this looks like it's on the scale of what you saw in haiti, at least from these aerial shots. the entire island just looks decimated. >> joe, you know what seems different this time, the land is so flat in the abaco all the little islands that wrap around abaco and marsh harbor, there's no mountains, hills, it's pretty much right above sea level, so the water damage that went on, is still there, seems to have been dramatic, combined with the relentless wind damage, so it's

going to be a catastrophic scale of suffering and some of the islands, we spoke to yesterday, all that's open is a baseball field that perhaps is a landing zone, other than that, i have patients, i have friends in those islands, including man of war kay and marsh harbor, it's devastating. we're going to do our best to report back when we get there, and we will report that. >> it seems to me, let's talk about the medical issues and the health care issues, but i think you start at the very beginning, you start with the basics. i certainly know even in mississippi along the gulf coast and louisiana, what people needed the most desperately in the first couple of days after katrina was just water. how do we get enough water to that island to keep people alive? >> it's going to start today, joe. barges and ships, but

particularly flat bottom barges will be going from nassau to the abacos with supplies. the supplies will be primarily water. then some basic services beyond that. but the land is still covered by water, so safe drinking water number one, that's today. the hospitals are closed. they have been inundated, perhaps over the next few days we'll see food, we'll see basic medical supplies, and medical support teams starting to show up. >> all right. dr. dave campbell, thank you so much for being with us. we really appreciate it. >> we look forward to your reports a lot. >> yeah, look forward to your reports, and any suggestions on how people watching this show can help, our brothers and sisters in the bahamas. let's go to rattner's charts. raising fears of a recession

amid rising trade tensions between the u.s. and china. by the way, i would call it steve's carts but mika says rattner's charts. >> you at least called me steve. i'm kind of used to it. but i will tell you, it's sort of become your trademark, so i know a lot of kids, i'll see them running around playgrounds yelling about rattner's charts. >> they print them out and hold them up in the plagues now. >> they do -- in the playgrounds now. >> they do, and four squares, they're exercising but also learning something statement. >> there we go. >> take us through. >> so let's talk about the manufacturing. >> we're going to talk about a bunch of stuff. let's talk about manufacturing which triggered a bunch of headlines. for the first time really since 2016, this key manufacturing index dropped below 50%, suggesting we're losing manufacturing output rather than

gaining it. the last time it happened in 2016, if you want to know why it's not that complicated. trump started imposing tariffs in early 2018, that was essentially the peak of manufacturing, and it has been -- the index has been dropping ever since, now below 50%. and it's also important to note that the latest round of tariffs went into effect over the weekend as well, another 15% on china, and that's added to it. but let's take a look at how businessmen and consumers view the economy because this is kind of interesting and again, if you go back to trump's election, you can see that there was a shot in the arm to confidence both on the part of consumers and on the part of business, but then again, the tariffs came into effect and then you start to see see diversions where ceo's started to lose confidence in the economy, and consumers stayed the same. recently, even consumers are starting to lose confidence in the economy as well. we'll have to see how that

unfolds over the next couple of months. >> that's still good. consumer confidence is healthy right now. >> right this second, there's one number that came out yesterday, too soon to put on the screen, that shows it's starting to weaken. consumer spending has been the strong point but what's been the weak point and what is significant in the economy is business investment. business is not only saying they're lacking confidence, they're voting with their dollars, and so if you take a look at what's been happening in business investment, you can see, if we can take a look at what's happening in business investment, you can see the fact that we actually had a decline last quarter in business investment. and you can also see interestingly, that under obama, once the recovery started in 2010, business investment grew at a 5.7% annual rate under donald trump it's grown at a 3.9% annual rate, so the president who said i'm here to make america great again, i'm here to help manufacturing, i'm here to help business, i'm passing a tax cut to spur

investment, actually has a worse record on business investment than his predecessor. >> susan page, you look at the last chart where business investment is down for the first time in some time, that certainly looks like a leading indicator. >> yeah, and don't think the white house isn't aware of all of these numbers and warning signs, the red flags that are coming up about the economy is slowing down and the possibility of a recession, even before election day next year. you know, there is no more existential threat to donald trump's presidency than a weak economy. the biggest selling point he has going forward next year into an election year is that he is deliberate on the economy. the economy has been robust during his tenure, so we have no history of ejecting presidents running for a second term if the economy is really good. we definitely have a history of rejecting presidents for reelection if the economy is weak. so the white house is also printing out steve rattner's charts and carrying them around.

>> they ought to be aware of it, because their own policies are causing it. it's all about the trade policy. of course the white house is aware of it. you know, we have met the enemy, and he is us. this is it. >> there you go. >> susan page, steve rattner, thank you for both for being on this morning. >> and two things the kids on the playgrounds, ceo is confidence going down, and business investment is going down, and oftentimes, and it makes sense, everything else follows. >> coming up, he was president trump's first defense secretary, but he resigned in protest after trump announced he would pull u.s. forces out of syria. retired marine corps general jim mattis joins the conversation in three minutes. mattis joins the conversioatn in three minutes.

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are going to be ready to lead the charge. >> if the president took a

position on a bill, so that we knew we would actually be making a law. >> president trump says congress will take the lead on gun reform. mitch mcconnell says it's up to the president to act first. is it any wonder why nothing gets done. meanwhile, america reels from one mass shooting after another, after another. welcome back to "morning joe," it is wednesday, september 4th. with us, we have the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass, msnbc contributor, mike barnicle, white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire, and proud to welcome to the table, former defense secretary, retired four star marine general james mattis, and former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs under president reagan, they are coauthors of the new book entitled "call sign chaos", learning to lead and we

welcome you both to the show. >> great to have you here. by the way, barnicle, they have a history here. >> i know that. this is a terrible problem. terrible problem. >> thank you both for coming in. >> so why don't we -- you know, let's just, we'll throw the softball to you first, why did you write the book? >> i was very fortunate, to tell you the truth, i was able to lead 40 sailors and marines, a second lieutenant, 21 years old, and have ncos teach me leadership principles, eventually i commanded a quarter million u.s. and allied troops across the middle east and i learned a lot about leadership from direct leadership to strategic, and when you get to my color hair, you want to pass on the lessons learned. >> what's so interesting is as you're reading your book, civilians think the marines are button down, you follow orders, but you kept talking time and

time again about initiative, ingenuity, you kept talking about actually breaking out of the mold, and one of the most important leadership qualities you could have is not stifling creativity. explain how that fits in, pretty tough button down culture. >> well, i would say the marines are very disciplined but they're not very regimented, they are some of the most unregimented thinkers i have been around and what the leaders job is to set the ultimate vision, make certain you say what you want to accomplish, and then when you define it in very clear terms, you back off, take your hands off the steering wheel, and let young people that you have trained use their initiative, use their aggressiveness, to carry it out. and they will surprise you with their ingenuity, they will grab opportunities that you could not possibly have seen from your remote location. it's a wonderful way to get ownership for any mission. i don't care if you're in business or on the battlefield

or on the football field, you want initiative by your young people. you don't want to stifle it. >> we're not going to get the answer from the general on this one, so i'll say to you, you all wrote down the three c's for leadership, and it was comp ten -- competence, be good in the basics, know what the nuclear triad is but be good in the basics, secondly caring, teddy roosevelt, i love the quote, people don't care what you know until they know that you care. >> exactly. >> that doesn't sound like a lot of leaders we have in washington, d.c. >> well, then you come to the third one, conviction. >> right. >> you have to know what that leader stands for, and the reason i wanted to write this book is because i spent a couple of decades on the battlefields with jim, and he was always at the front, but the troops knew that he was going to win those battles that he was sent in for, and he was going to do the best he could for them.

and they got that. he was going to take care of them. but he was going to get that mission done. time and time again i saw him at the front, and i thought this can make an interesting book about how he led, even when you had policy chaos. we went through three presidents, it wasn't just president trump, president bush and president obama, all three of them took on more than they should have taken on. >> can we stop right there. let me open this up to both of you all. because as you say at the end, we live in a tribalized culture, if i talk badly about president trump, my relatives don't talk to me. if i talk badly about barack obama, i got other people who don't talk to me. it's just, we're so tribal, nobody seems to be able to step back. i want it talk about the last 19 years, because in 2000, we were really at the height of our power. probably in our history. we stood alone in 2000. the last 19 years, we had one

foreign policy disaster after another, all either overreach after 9/11 or overreaction to the overreach. let's talk about the past 19 years because you all are critical, rightly, of the last three presidents. >> i think joe what you're pointing out, i would agree with as far as the definition of the problem but for one word where you said we stood alone. our alliances were a big part of why we stood astride the world model for others to follow, and we have been on many battlefields, i was privileged to fight many times for the great big experiment we call america and i would just tell you i was never on a crowded battlefield. i was never out there without allies. when i went into afghanistan a couple of months after this town was hit, after some maniacs attacked this town and killed 3,000 innocent people from 91

countries, we were in fighting in the dust bowl of afghanistan and right alongside us, joining us were troops from canada and the united kingdom, and norway. >> if i may, let me restate that because obviously it's something we talk about every day that we're only as strong as our alliances, but the united states was, i mean, we were exthe record fair-- extraordinarily powerful, a bipolar world to where we were first among equals. that's changed over the past 19 years. we can start with what happened in 2002, when they were telling you a war was going to start up in iraq, and we can talk about what happened after we supposedly won that war, and you know, we had bremer do what he did. >> well, i think. >> go ahead, bing. >> i was going to say that it struck me because after i spent years in vietnam, that we got into this thing in afghanistan and iraq, i thought richard and

jim and mike, and in kind of a sloppy manner, jim used to spend days on rehearsals ensuring everyone knew what we were doing and why we were doing it, and it seemed to me that at the top, policy was made willy nilly by people not taking the time to be able to explain that policy to that corporal who was going to go out on that battlefield and risk his life, that i didn't think the people at the policy level were taking the time to get their message right. jim? >> well, this is a problem not just with any one administration. i think it's a problem that crosses the western democracy's right now, they have trouble believing that their values are worth defending and if you actually have to go into a fight, you have to choose how to fight, and you have to determine to win the fight. you can't go in and then say, whoa, this was a mistake, something like that. when you take that grave

decision, it's got to be for a sound reason. you have to have a strategic purpose, a policy, and like bing said, we did not rigorously look at the problem. we did not define the problem sufficiently. >> in iraq. >> we didn't define a number of problems. i think it starts in the 1990s when we expand nato, and i'm not sure that we've really examined the second order of consequences of expanding nato in the way we did. i'm not against expanding it, but i think if you were to go back to the root cause, take a look at how we teach history on university campuses today. i don't think we're preparing young men and women for leadership historically informed leadership because history may not be perfect, but it's the only guide we have. it will light the path ahead, and at least tell you two things, how did people before you deal with something successfully, and unsuccessfully. now you know the right questions to ask when you hit these inflection points that you were

referring to. >> if you can't read, mike, you can't lead. >> and the history element of this, we have been talking about it for decades. almost a decade now, but the lack of history being taught children in grammar school, american history, our history. never mind college, grammar school, high school, but in this theme, before we get to the redundancy of you saying you're not going to speak about trump, i'd like to ask. >> hey, mike, don't kill hamlet in the first act. there's a lot of people who can't wait to hear him dish. >> off of the discussion that joe is having with the two of you in the process of coming up with some sort of withdrawal formula for the united states troops remaining in afghanistan. how concerned are you about an element that people don't understand called force protection in terms of the troops who are there now, withdrawing those troops, to agree with what's being done right now?

>> well, mike, i don't know enough about the specifics and the back chatter that's going on, the negotiations to comment about that. forced protection, the military will take care of forced protection. it will be as good as they can make it under the circumstances they're dealt, but i think, too, in this town in 1984, secretary of state george schultz gave a talk about terrorism, and that's what's got to inform us today, and he said terrorism is going to be with us. it's going to cost us innocent people in our troops' lives. it's an ambient threat today. 17 years after george schultz said that, 9/11 happens right here in this town. now, we want won a war over, declare the war over, but the enemy gets a vote, and the bottom line is, any negotiation like this has got to accommodate, and take into account the enemy's vote. what is the enemy going to do. that's just the reality we live in. i would like to bring more

positive message to you and say, well, you know, it's all going to be over and we're going to live happily ever after and we saw what happened when the intelligence community warned president obama that if you pull all the troops out of iraq, you will have to go back in for our interests and that's exactly what happened. so that's the concern i have. again, we're not even being informed by recent history, in some of what we're doing, but i can't comment on the specifics of this one. i don't want to pretend to know details that i don't. >> general, one of the stories today but it's not a new story, the u.s. of military construction funds being transferred and used along the southern border where u.s. forces are being detailed and deployed, it happened when you were in the pentagon, and happening again now, how can we justify the transfer of american troops to the southern border given all the things we're coping with in the middle east, out in asia, in europe, how can we make an argument that's a legitimate use of american military forces given all the

demands on these forces all over the world? >> you know, when i was a colonel commanding a regiment in the 1990s, one of my tasks was to deploy battalions of infantry, under president clinton, on the southwest border, in order to warn the border patrol where people were coming across. i think we've forgotten that, under president bush we deployed trips to the border. president obama had troops on the border, armed troops on the border as well for seven of eight years, so it's how we are doing it today where we're increasingly in an adversarial relationship between the executive branch and the legislature, and i think we have to look at it in this way, i think it was einstein who said, you know, if given an hour to save the world how would he compose his thoughts, he said i would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and i would save the world in five minutes. our executive branch and

legislative branch have to sit down and define the problem to mutual satisfaction, otherwise, every solution either one proposes, the other one is going to say that doesn't address the problem as i see it. we're not defining the problem sufficiently to come up with a collaborative stance out of washington, d.c. between the congress and the executive branch. >> reminds me of a friend of mine, measure nine times, hammer once or saw once, and i do it just backwards. >> great. >> that's the problem. >> so i want to ask you about some of the news that we have been reporting this morning, the pentagon is cancelling $3.6 billion in military project spending instead to fund for trump's border wall. the move has been authorized by defense secretary mark esper, it will affect 127 different construction projects. officials said half the money will come from planned international projects, the other half if needed would come

from domestic projects, details on which projects would be put on hold were not released but your reaction, sir, to this shift in funding toward the wall? >> you know, mika, i left the administration under policy disagreement. i put it in a letter. the president and i had our usual straightforward discussion. the discussion was open between us, and i disagree with this idea that you can leave office and immediately become a critic. the secretary of defense right now is a fine man. he's doing the best he can. the president's secretary of state, they have grave responsibilities. this is a very very dangerous world. and i do not want to sit in what i now consider to be my cheap seat and without full information, and like you said, we don't know what the projects are. i can't really calculate this. my concern is the break down of trust because in leading, as i point out repeatedly in the

book, that bing and i wrote, trust is the point of the realm when you're in a leadership position and so are we building trust among the decision makers in washington, again, and i think that starts with defining a problem, quantifying the problem to the degree you can so that at least you have some known facts that everyone agrees on, and then deciding what to do about it. i'm not in a position, i think, to walk out of the administration over a policy disagreement. >> right. >> and then become a critic. i believe in what friends call a duty of quiet, and the reason is, i don't want to add what's simply right now the corrosive political debates. i don't think it's helpful. i don't think it's necessary. >> so to that point, i mean, earlier in the conversation, we talked about our values being worth defending. and with all due respect, obviously national security secrets and issues you can speak

on, but there's so much to say about the damage being done to our alliances, the break down of our core values. the respect for the basics of our constitution. at what point, when is it time to stand up and speak to was happening and you may call it the cheap seats, but you have a lot more insight and credibility than anybody who's ever been at this table. and at what point is it important to say something or become part of the problem because we know what is happening, we see what is happening, and yet nobody speaks to it with the insight that perhaps someone you would have, like you. >> i don't know how i could have spoken more loudly to where i stand than what i put in my letter of resignation, and quitting a job when i had not completed it two years in. i think, too, this goes back several administrations. this didn't start overnight. this isn't about one man. and the solution is not going to

be about one person speaking out. it's going to be about the majority of americans, and that's enough. we owe better to the next generation than what we're doing right now, and we grew up in the luckiest generation, all of us at this table, the greatest generation raised us. we are not turning that over to the next generation. >> weren't you helped, though, by reading robert gates book where he talked about the shortcomings of the presidents he worked for, wasn't that helpful for you as you prepared for your own? >> it was very helpful, and each of the former secretaries of defense, from both republican and democrat administrations immediately made themselves available, would come and have lunch with me, the point i would make there is that what the right wing senator vandenberg from michigan said when challenged, why do you work with that terrible democrat president truman and he said the defense of the country is a nonpartisan

issue, basically. politics ends at the water's edge. what is the institution that is most admired, the american public has the most confidence in in polls year after year, it's the military. why is that, because we're apolitical. we stay out of the politics. we defend the experiment that you and i call america. >> is there a statute of limitations. >> probably, on policy and strategy, there will come a time, not right now. >> what happened competence and character. >> i believe the political assessments should be left to the wisdom of the american people. i have this much -- let me just make a point. general bradley after world war ii was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and he said when a general retires their uniform, they should retire their tongue on these kinds of issues, and the reason is, when i walked into your studio this morning, people greeted me as general mattis. i consider myself jim mattis,

i'm from the west, and i'm jim, but i will be forever in some people's minds a general. we have a tradition that goes back over 200 years, george washington, george marshall, that military people do not dictate or pass evaluations on political leaders or tell the american people this is the way you should be thinking or maybe some people would misinterpret it and say he's telling the uniformed military now how they should be voting. i don't think this is helpful at all. >> and i will remind my wife, hey, honey, that dr. brzezinski, i don't know if you knew this or not, he had opinions, lots of opinions, and he always shared those opinions, but in the ten, fifteen years that i knew him in the most private of conversations, he never once said anything negative about

jimmy carter, his commander in chief. it was always positive, and if you tried to ever move him there, a wall went up, so i always respect and admire him for that. you think, though, you shouldn't make an exception before the 2020 election. let's get back to, but what's fascinating about this book is it's a great book on leadership and some things you say here remir reminds me of another book which really changes the way i think about recruiting talent, the book called range, and you say early on, you recruit for attitude, you train for skill, skill sets, i mean, they change. ten years from now, some skills are going to be obsolete. talk about, i would love for both of you to talk about recruiting for attitude because that, you said, that's a weapon in and of itself. >> well, i'm glad you asked that

question because we started this book in 2013 because i had spent so much time on the battlefields with jim. later he's become this statesman, you want to talk about the large level things in the state capitals and the capital of our country, et cetera, but much of this book is about story, story, story, about leading when jim first had a platoon, and then 40 men, and then 400 men, then 4,000 men, and what he had to learn about leadership as he went along. it's story after story. >> you know, bing, what you just said gets to you and your life, and you said to mika that you don't want to be speaking from the cheap seats, you almost more than anyone i know paid for your cheap seat. paid for it in blood and treasure and the leadership of men who you lost. and so, a year ago tomorrow,

someone, i don't know who, wrote an anonymous op-ed. >> yeah. >> in "the new york times." and in part, they wrote this, to be clear, ours is not the popular resistance of the left, we want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made america safer and more prosperous, but we believe our first duty is to this country and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic. the root of the problem is the president's amorality, anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making. do you agree with that? >> i wouldn't comment on it other than to say that i've never believed in cowardice. if i felt that strongly about something, i would have signed it. i would have been right up front

about it. i think you would owe that degree of candor, but i think, too, we have to look at this as a test of everyone's character in america. again, i don't think we have a problem today that suddenly mushroomed into our observation and what we're seeing here in the last six months, last two years, or last five years. i think this is a growing problem inside america. we have lost a fundamental friendliness with one another. we have lost a sense of fairness, we really believe in some cases, that our people believe i'm right about everything and that guy is wrong about everything, and if we don't wake up to the idea that the people we disagree with are fellow americans, if we don't understand that once in a while people we disagree with are actually right and if we don't roll up our sleeves and start working together, then we're going to have a problem in this experiment because this would set up so it would not work

without cooperation, collaboration, and compromise. it was set up that way with three coequal branches of government and just to add more problems with it, there's a bicameral legislature. we're going to have to address this in less personal terms than whether or not we agree with condemnation of any single political leader because i'm sure i can find a letter just as damming about people on the left. this is the very problem we face right now. instead of being hard on the issues, we're hard on each other, and we actually let the issues go. i mean, you're talking about issues here this morning that we have not even defined the problem we're trying to solve to mutual agreement. >> and you talk actually at the end of the book, very end of the book, out of many, one, and you talk about the tribes, and abraham lincoln, a man who gave his life, along with 670,000 other americans gave their lives uniting the union and here we are.

you said lincoln, the great emancipator would be very stressed by just how divided we are. >> foreign lady one night, january, cold rainy in washington, d.c. called me and said she wanted to see, she was in town, i had known her previously, first time to washington. wanted to see the lincoln monument, the lincoln memorial and i rather grudgeingly got up and got dressed, took her around and she's walking around inside this cold night, taking pictures of everything, including the words on the wall, and i'm sitting slumped against the wall, reading with malice for none and charity for all at a time when we were killing one another in this country, killing each other on the industrial scale in a civil war, he could already see we would have to find a way to find charity for each other with malice for none. how many of us wake up in the morning now with malice for none that we disagree with. that's a problem. i could not have run that marine

division. i could not have led that marine division, there's no businessman who could run his business with that degree of dissension inside. we need to understand how to run school districts and run parishes and run towns and cities and government, that sort of thing with a sense of common purpose, again, and that's one of the reasons i wrote the book because we could not have crossed that bridge into baghdad if i had people inside arguing once a decision was made, here's how we're going to do it, you know, you couldn't do it. now, a democracy is not a military organization. the sense of high spirits and selflessness in the military certainly is something that we could look at for our country. >> how extraordinary, that was lincoln's second inaugural address at that time, if lincoln can say with malice toward none then, we need to figure out a way to get together. jonathan lemire with the associated press has a question.

>> secretary mattis, can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with the president. he's someone you have written you did not know prior to your first interview with him before he took the position. talk about how you would communicate with him, how it he absorb information, what was the best way for you to talk to him, how did that relationship evolve and have you spoken with him since you resigned? >> i have not spoken to him since i resigned. he's busy, i assume. he's got probably the toughest job in the world. i had never met the president. i took no part in the campaign. i don't believe generals should get involved in elections and speaking out. when i got the phone call from vice president pence, vice president elect pence to come back to the interview, i went back to the interview and the communication that president guided the discussion about 40 minutes long, we talked about several things. i disagreed with him on three of the primary points he brought up, so i thought, well that

takes care of that, i'm on my way back to the west coast and my good life, and we walked out on the streeps and i got surprised, when he said i was the real deal, and he would be nominating me. >> he liked your nickname. >> perhaps he did. i didn't like it. but everyone is entitled to their own opinion, great big america. over the months that, almost two years that i was secretary of defense, i would talk to him on the phone occasionally. i didn't like that as much. i like going face to face as i get to know my boss, and i'm from out west where we say you're riding for the brand, and i swore an oath to uphold the constitution, so i rode for the brand. i would see him weekly. we would have lunch together, sometimes just he and i, sometimes the chief of staff, african the secretary of sta-- often the secretary of state, i would brief him on what we were doing, very straightforward discussions, he would right up

front and i'm pretty blunt in my communication style, so there was nothing going on there. i often chafed against the idea that i was the adult in the room as if i was doing something off in the corner that he wasn't aware of. that's not the way i deal with any boss i have had. i have always been right up front, and if once in a while it's gotten me in hot water, at least my boss knew whatever the message was i'd bring it to him. >> somebody wrote that he felt he was getting george patton with that nickname and ended up getting george marshall. >> i know jim mattis and i'm no george marshall, i can tell you right up front, he's one of my heroes. >> a lot of people would disagree with that. let's talk about the book, and if there are ceos out there watching or there are small business owners that are watching right there, somebody that wants to start a business or a football coach that's

trying to figure out who to recruit for their college football team, and you just go down the list. what, for you, what's the most important leadership skill that comes out of this book, because you all give us a great story about what leadership can do, where you had the commander in vietnam that said nobody can predict when they're going to die, but they can control how they're going to face death. and how that inspired those young men in vietnam. how do you inspire people today in the work force. how do you find the leaders of your business, your organization, your church. >> one of the reasons i wanted to write this book with jim is he had a leadership style that really resonated as he kept going up in rank, and i realize ed that was because he had two basic principles and the first was whatever the task was, he

spent an enormous amount of time getting the vision and the goal straight as the leader. he'd say this is what i think we have to do, and he would make sure he had that out there. >> going back defining the problem first. >> time and time again. >> one leader once said, 90% of the problem is defining what it is. right. >> and once jim had done that so that every corporal understood, everyone, then he took his hands off, and he didn't believe in command and control. what i really liked about, and we try to get into the stories, this isn't about command and control, get rid of that word control. when you're the leader jim was, you set the vision, and then you empower your subordinates, trust them, and encourage their initiative. jim. >> yeah, you reward the initiative, i think, and what you want to make sure you're

doing too is you're selecting who are going to be representing you as the subordinate leaders. generally speaking and growing up in the naval service, the navy and marines gave me first rate leaders. they were well trained for whatever we knew they would have to do, well educated to take in stride the things they couldn't anticipate, you knew how to solve things. you were unpredictable. i wanted humility out of those people. i wanted people humble enough to know they didn't know it all. the reason you have people called commander or ceo or leader, because they cannot do the job on their own, can't do it on their own. that's why they're given all these people and assets. how do you enlist to the youngest sailors and marines, how do you enlist their ownership of the mission. mike. >> you know, general, you have the unique gift of being able to say follow me and people follow you because it's an us, not a you thing. your life and your family has

been the united states marine corps. you've written letters to mothers, parents of young men who served under you who have been killed in battle, what does that do to someone, what does that do to you? >> well, that's -- i'm not sure i'm articulate enough to explain that. it humbles you. it humbles you to know that from the 20-year-old corporal who pointed a 19-year-old and points towards the enemy and the guy nods and gets up and starts moving against them, to the admirals and generals that still much rides on when i gave them their orders, i need you to get up in the waters of the persian gulf, i need you to keep those sea lanes open, but i can't support you getting into a war. we've got to avoid war at all costs. you know, eventually it really

drove home a point to me, mike, that comes to mind here. you all know what my primary job was as the commander, i coordinated military activities in the united states, across that tumultuous middle east. my real job was how do you keep the peace for one more year or what passes for peace in the middle east, one more month, one more week, one more day, one more hour to give the diplomats time to work their magic and try to make this a little bit better world so you write fewer of those letters home. you want the diplomats, always speaking from a position of strength. and that was why we have a military out there to ensure they do. >> and mike mentioned what you kept under your desk. >> bing knows me so well, he knows i still keep this question, i used to stand at a stand up desk where all the deployment orders come in, sending young troops, young men

and women, young patriots who volunteered to defend this experiment overseas, and the question i wrote down to myself was will this commitment contribute sufficiently to the well being of the american people to justify putting our troops in a position to die. not in harm's way, not to possibly get injured, in a position to die, and i would look at the -- it sat right there on my desk. i hand wrote it and i taped it to my desk so that i would never overlook it, and then the deployment orders would come in twice a week, generally, and i would be signing off on them, and they're very sensitive in many cases. in other cases, they're very straightforward, you read about the casualty list later on this very news show. but it's very sobering, it's very humbling and it also brings a sense of gravity and responsibility that changes everything about how you look at

the world. >> mr. secretary, general mattis, thank you so much for being with us. bing west, thank you so much for being with us, too. >> sure. >> the book is "call sign chaos" learning to lead, and we thank you both for being on with us this morning for such an extended period of time, and we will be right back with much more "morning joe." be right bah more "morning joe. so ...how are you feeling? on a scale of one to five? one to five? it's more like five million. there's everything from happy to extremely happy. there's also angry. i'm really angry clive! actually, really angry. thank you. but what if your business could understand what your customers are feeling... and then do something about it. turn problems into opportunities. thanks drone. customers into fanatics change the whole experience. alright who wants to go again? i do! i do! i have a really good feeling about this.

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michigan's democratic governor, gretchen whitmer. i don't believe we're here. i know a lot of kids vape, young kids, they're coming in different flavors. of course barnicle does. just joking. this is like cigarettes all over again, and because apparently they aren't as potent as cigarettes, they think this is allowable. what's going on? >> so what we know is that in 2018, the u.s. surgeon general said we have an epidemic. my chief medical officer this week said we have a public health crisis. it's time to take action, so i'm using my executive authority as governor to order the department of health and human services to ban e-cigarettes, the flavored e-cigarettes, to restrict advertising and the misleading advertising that they're engaged in, that it's healthy or that it's a good alternative. and to ensure at point of sale, they're not marketing these right next to the candy. we have seen an 800 percent,

900% increase in 2011 in use of this, and 81% of our young kids who start vaping start with a flavoring product and that's why it's so important we ban this flavored product. they market it like it's a healthy alternative that's glamorous, and in fact, our kids are inhaling nicotine, which is addictive, formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals and metal particles and ending up in the hospital. it's time for us to take action. >> so governor, who opposed this, what groups opposed this, and why just a six month segment of time here? >> well, we'll find out who opposes it, mike, i'm announcing this today. it is going to be an all out ban, and this is the emergency authority that i have as governor. i'm going to work with the legislature to ensure that we've got it written into statute, but we can't wait on washington, d.c. we have to take action right now. it would be great if, at the federal level, we know there was a surgeon general warning on all vape products, that they were

treated like tobacco, but none of that is happening, and that's why it's on the states to take action and as governor, i'm going to do it unilaterally until i can get the legislature to adopt a statute and write it into law. this is too important. i've got teenagers at home. i was talking with them last night at the prevalence of vaping in schools, and it's everywhere. people don't understand how dangerous this is. >> it's jonathan lemire, what type of advertisement were you seeing toward youth, how dangerous is that, and secondly if you find violations to the ban, what sort of punishment could these companies face? s >> if you look at u hohow they market, they are marketing bubble gum flavor, fruit loops, the fact of the matter is every time our kids inhale this, they are putting nicotine into their system, which we know is an incredibly addictive drug and in

combination with the other chemicals they use in the products and the metal fragments, we're seeing kid showing up with severe respiratory illnesses that we need to address, and that's what this is all about, so the department of health and human services will be the enforcement arm and we're continuing to promulgate work with our businesses to make sure they know how to comply with the law. there's a complete ban in michigan. >> i appreciate what you're doing. michigan governor gretchen whitmer, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning and shedding a light on this issue. coming up, bernie sanders takes on joe biden for saying quote details are irrelevant in terms of decision making. that is next on "morning joe." ng that is next on "morning joe."

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i was making the point how courageous these people are, how incredible they are, this generation of warriors, these fallen angels we have lost, andt the problem is. what is it that i said wrong? >> that's former vice president joe biden last week in an interview with our next guest, jonathan capehart. during which the 2020 contender responded to a "washington post" report that he conflated and confuse facts in a story he told about an american soldier. biden told npr and iowa public radio yesterday that while he was not trying to mislead anyone with the story, he doesn't think the mistake reflects on his judgment. >> i was >> i was making a point about a generation that has nothing to do with the judgment of whether or not you send troops to war or the judgment of whether you bring someone home, the judgment of whether you decide on a

health care policy. you understand that. >> not judgment, but details. that's something i've heard from some voters. maybe not at your events, but >> details. >> details are irrelevant in terms of decision making. >> and now senator bernie sanders is taking biden to task over that last comment, that details are irrelevant in terms of decision making. in an email sent out yesterday, sanders' campaign seized the moment to juxtapose biden's decisions to those of the vermont senator's on a range of topics including iraq, health care and climate change. the email to supporters reads, biden has seen the details of monumental policy proposals and then used flawed judgment to support ill-advised decisions that bernie opposed. it goes on to liken biden's flippant comment to the trump administration which the sanders' campaign claims also, quote, treats details as

joining joining us now, editorial writer for "the washington post," and msnbc contributor, jonathan capehart. wow. so wow. so bernie sanders certainly bites back there at biden. was it fair given the context of the conversation in your estimate, jonathan? >> given the context of the conversation, sure. it's a fair attack on the vice and and senator sanders who is in the pack with vice president biden and elizabeth warren and a few -- in a couple weeks time they'll all be on the debate senator stage. senator sanders has to do something to get some attention. maybe stop his poll slide but leaving aside senator sanders, what we're talking about with regard to vice president biden is, if this keeps going, could be very problematic. details do matter. i get what the vice president is saying in terms of knowing where the leader's heart is, what his

or her intentions are in terms of policy. but details are relevant, and it runs -- it stands in contrast to one of his big applause lines in his stump speech which i saw in rock hill south carolina last week at a town hall forum where he gets huge applause when he says we value truth over lies. and the way people know what the truth is, is digging into the details of what a policy is, of what a president is saying, and what a president is doing. so this is -- this, as we all know, the so-called gaffes you can talk about whether they are relevant to this, but when you get into details don't matter, that is a problem. >> yeah, and i think there's another problem here. i think there's like a double cheeseburger where you stack one gaffe on top of another gaffe because if you go back and you look at that quote, he, obviously, wasn't saying -- he wasn't meaning to say details don't matter in terms of

decision making. that was a clear gaffe. he was going back to the story and talking about how details don't -- let's forget about the i'm details. i'm talking about a generation of young heros if you take the whole thing in context. that's what he was saying. he wasn't talking about decision making about going into iraq, et cetera, et cetera. but this guy has been a gaffe machine for 30 years. so now he finds himself in the unfortunate position to say, listen, when i was speaking, i didn't mean to make a gaffe when i was discussing the other gaffe i made. and the press is jumping on every one of these gaffes, isn't >> it? >> and this and this gets to something that i talked to him about in the interview for my podcast. there are two narratives when it comes to the biden campaign. one, he has a strong relationship with the african-american community. and the other narrative is that, you know, he is prone to gaffes. and i think with all of the

candidates, there's -- we in the press and particularly those who are traveling, covering the campaign, a narrative is set, and it's very hard for a candidate to break out of what that narrative is. and so now a lot of reporters are out there covering him just waiting for the next -- waiting for the next so-called gaffe instead of listening to what he's talking about and juxtaposing that to what the other candidates are saying. >> yeah, all right. jonathan, thank you. we'll be reading your latest piece today. it's posted on joe biden. we appreciate your being on. >> thank you very much. so first of all, don't blame anybody bernie. anybody running for office, if somebody made that verbal gaffe, they said, hey, details don't matter in decision making. he clearly didn't mean that but you can't blame bernie because i think they're masterful? oh, really? look at all these mistakes you've made. very fair and really astute on

their part. at the same time, any media outlet covering this saying, oh, joe biden really thinks that details don't matter in decision making, come on. they are taking a gaffe and putting more importance to it than need be. >> you've touched upon it, and jonathan just said it. his problem now -- he's got two it's problems. it's no longer early in the process. it's just not. we're right there at the edge of a real starting gun the second the second thing is now he's in the position, jonathan, of the media covering his campaign speeches and rallies looking for not the not the content of what he says. >> and he's long had a history of gaffes. the narrative here is different. it's not just, oh, he said something that was foolish or didn't mean to say that. it's reinforcing the narrative people have about his age, whether he's up to the rigors of this campaign. that's different than just saying something incorrect or a

it's blunder. it's real questions about whether he's up for the job. >> he's got a 30-year history of this. so he so he is -- this is the first time he's run in those 30 or so years in the age of trump. >> right. >> where a democrat can say, oh, okay, i'll take this gaffe and match it to these 30 tweets. you want to play this game? we can play this game all day. and we win. that's what democrats would say. we're tracking hurricane dorian's latest path. the storm is dangerously close to the east coast after leaving the bahamas devastated. bill karins will be here with the latest. plus, what will it take to get republicans in congress to act on gun reform? "the washington post" is calling out mitch mcconnell in a new full-page editorial. >> moscow mitch is not going to like that. >> you think he's read it yet? >> he's read the russian he version. he gets that first. also we'll be joined by senator and 2020 candidate amy

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good good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, september 4th. with uwhite house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. >> season is >> season is over, jonathan. >> and author of the book "world in disarray." >> and we came back some. showed some fight. >> excuse me. >> it's just beginning. >> for the astros, exactly. >> very good. >> also with us former treasury -- >> the mets have had their run. >> the mets have had their run. >> my son thinks they still have a shot at the second wild card spot, but it is not going to >> happen. >> how do you recover from that last night? >> that was rough. >> former treasury official, morning joe economic adviser mike rattner, also author of

"the matriarchs" susan. we're going to try to stick to news and politics. we're going to start with the a little hurricane. a little that's fine. that's fine. but everything but everything in its proper context and place. >> baseball. >> hurricane dorian. >> cooking. >> lashed parts of florida's east coast overnight with storm surge and hurricane warnings extended up the eastern seaboard as far as the carolinas. we're also following the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in the bahamas. look at these aerial pictures. >> the images are unbelievable. just absolutely unbelievable. and for anybody that's ever been through any hurricane at all, a cat 5 is everybody's worst the nightmare. the fact that a cat 5 comes over your community and just stands just there. just sits there for several >> days. >> torture. >> is >> is the worst. >> the worst. >> worst case scenario. we'll be sending dr. dave down

there later on today and bringing up some images. >> part of the abaco islands major decimated. major flooding. homes, homes, businesses, infrastructure infrastructure at least seven at least seven people that we know of have been killed and officials expect that number to the rise. the country's prime minister says he went on a reconnaissance mission provided by the u.s. and found the airport there under water and said the area around it looks like a lake. the red cross says 62,000 people are without clean drinking water and that 60,000 people will need here's food. here's more from the prime minister on msnbc last night. >> our building codes were built to withstand about 150 miles per hour wind. we never expected that we would one day encounter the velocity as high as 180 to 200 miles an but we but we would take that as a

>> let's lesson. >> let's go to bill karins. bill, again, you've been doing this for a long time. you and i have been talking about these for a very long the time. the idea of a category 4, i mean, the idea of a category 4 coming -- a category 5 coming onshore, it's just absolutely devastating. but the cat 5 just stayed over there for so long. a real nightmare. >> yeah, joe, one reporter at "the washington post" put it, one of the weather people said it's like a flash flood and a tornado that lasted for 24 imagine being in imagine being in both of those situations for 24 hours? you just see the pictures. never going to be the same. humanitarian disaster is and they'll and they'll need so much help. just as much help as they can possibly get. so the storm now is located just off daytona beach by about 80 and miles. and all of the heavy rain and the gust -- highest wind gusts

have been offshore. haven't had a lot of damage in still florida. still have to go through the high tide cycle this morning. 105-mile-per-hour winds. still a category 2. and it is moving at 8 miles per so hour. so it's beginning to increase its forward speed. and that path does take it very close to the south carolina coastline and the north carolina coastline as we go throughout wednesday afternoon. it will be closest to thursday jacksonville. thursday afternoon, closest to charleston and then as we go through friday morning, exiting the outer banks. really increases that forward storm surge storm surge is the thing we're most concerned about with areas of northern florida. also near south carolina. could get a water rise of 4 to 7 that's feet. that's almost up there with what hugo did. that was a horrible storm surge in areas like charleston. and then the other thing is, because it's closer to the coast, some of that heavy rain will be in flood-prone areas in south carolina and north so carolina. so we'll continue to watch this story as it keeps going here over the next two days.

our friends in the carolinas prepare today because a storm is coming your way tomorrow. >> bill karins, thanks so much. as you look at that track going up there, obviously you have to worry about the low country in south carolina around then charleston. then it goes up to north carolina, the outer banks who are always in danger. north carolina, just getting absolutely slammed. so we've got to keep those people -- >> not done yet. >> -- in our thoughts and prayers as we move forward. one more thing, too. start looking today if you want to help the bahamas. it's just an absolute nightmare. it's going to be a human crisis. the likes of which we just haven't seen probably since katrina around here. so be looking whether it's americares or the red cross or whomever you think can get relief to these people as quickly as possible with as little bureaucracy as possible and as little overhead as

help possible. help out. mika and i mika and i are going to be writing a check today to americares specifically for walmart forcefully responded to the national gun debate yesterday when it announced it would stop selling ammunition used in military-style assault rifles and high capacity magazines while also discouraging its customers from openly carrying guns in stores, even in states where it is the permitted. the announcement came exactly one month after a gunman killed 22 people at a walmart store in el paso, texas. according to a memo by a walmart ceo, to its associates after selling through the current inventory commitments which could take several weeks, the company will stop selling certain short barrel rifle ammunition and all handgun the the retail giant also announced it would call on congress to increase background checks and consider a new assault rifle the ban.

the nra issued a statement writing in part, quote, it is shameful to see walmart succumb -- >> i'm not going to read -- no. just take that down. i'm not going to read three lobbyists in washington, d.c., putting a statement out that actually goes against what the majority -- overwhelming majority of republicans believe, what the majority of nra members there believe. there are three people up there working for hedge funds that own gun companies. they are not gun owners. they are not the rank and file gun owners. and, you know, that's the thing, jonathan, lemire, when you look at this debate, you have people that have defended the second amendment their entire life, like myself, and, you know, after one ar-15 slaughter, after another ar-15 slaughter, after another ar-15 slaughtslaughter,s case, insufficient background checks tlo s led to the killing od

a lot a lot of conservatives and republicans, 89% in the latest poll who support background checks, support banning military style assault weapons. semiautomatic weapons. and most americans, an overwhelming americans said enou walmart is hearing walmart is hearing other companies are other companies are hearing that. that. enough. >> the enough. >> the polling reflects it. not just americans want it but specifically republicans want it. nra nra members want some common sense reforms. background checks or things like the that. the polling is overwhelming and would seem to be a fairly obvious political winner. we're seeing it, democrats on the trail. congressman o'rourke in particular has been fiery about this. others others as well whether it's joe biden or elizabeth warren. the question is whether republicans move on it when congress comes back to session. we've been reporting that there is some movement behind the scenes for some sort of the measures. the white house is working to sort of -- like a hodgepodge of

ideas that something the president can get behind as the white house bill. it's going to be modest stuff. it will be improving, making sure juvenile information gets into existing background checks. the attorney general is writing legislation that could make it -- speed up capital punishment for mass shooters. there's some debate whether that's a deterrent since so many of them are looking to die anyway in the moment. where the president can get out there and say, we've done something that the nra ponent support but prat perhaps won't vociferous in opposing. >> the politics of this have completely changed. i don't know if republicans have figured it out. businesses have figured it out. but overwhelming majority of republicans, 90%, 9 out of 10, support enhanced background checks, universal background checks to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, keep guns out of the

hands of people that are mentally ill suited for guns. but, you know, in 2018, the nra was badly outspent. they were just trounced. they don't have the money they used to have because wayne lapierre and the three lobbyists in washington, d.c., have been, according to reports, looting the coffers. and buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of italian suits and trying to buy $6 million there's mansions. there's a guy in south florida, brian mass, he supported a ban on military still weapons. he's a guy who, you know, went to war. lost his legs in war. he knows about war. and, you know, he not only won re-election. he won with a larger margin. this is not a -- this is what we would go around in our office and laugh off as a 90/10 issue. when someone says, i stand up

and i support the flag. and would laugh and go, good courage on the 90/10 issue. this is a 90/10 issue now. when will republicans figure it >> out? >> well, it is a 90/10 issue but if you go back, the nra was a huge spender. they spent more money than all the others putting to the political lobbying and they had all this money behind them. at the moment, the nra is in the middle of its own set of scandal. lapierre in lapierre in the middle of his own set of scandals, and it will be really interesting to see whether a combination of that and the public pressure can immasculate the mra once and for a >> when >> when you say emasculate, let's be very careful. the three lobbyists in washington, d.c., who are making themselves rich and who work for hedge funds and themselves and fly around family members on private jets with hairstylists. that's who -- i'm serious. we're not talking about nra we're members.

we're talking about the scam artists in washington, d.c. the three people that have gotten fat, rich and happy off of members' dues, but go ahead. >> i can't quite match that. >> i don't want you to match it. i want to make sure when people go out there, they understand. nra members are saying this now. they know they've been scam artists and >> wayne >> wayne lapierre has had complete and utter control over huge amounts of money and has been able to aloe date to the three hedge fund members. walmart is responding to public they pressure. they are a good guy. the ceo of walmart is a good guy but they're trying to -- walmart sells 20% of all the ammunition sold in america for all kinds of guns, but they did ban assault weapons in 2015. they did raise the minimum age for gun purchases to 21 last so year. so i think they are getting on

the program thanks to pressure from their customers. >> and obvious news events happening in their stores. people getting shot. what is it going to take? >> on lapierre, despite certainly in a weakened status, he is still in the president's ear. talking to president trump talking to president trump routinely and routinely and preying on the fear the president has of losing his base. we know that's the thing that fuels every donald trump nightmare. some of his some of his base would be other eroded. other forces are trying to tell the president, your base stays with you through everything. this is a moment you can support some stuff. they'll stay with you and you can provide cover for republicans who are nervous about this vote. you might get something done. still ahead -- new details surrounding the investigation into this week's mass murder in west texas. how the shooter attained a weapon of war. hmm. exactly.

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explore cost support options. hey. you must be steven's phone. now you can know who's on your network and control who shouldn't be, only with xfinity xfi. simple. easy. awesome. law enforcement law enforcement o tell nbc tell nbc news the gunman who kills seven people and injured

nearly two dozen in the shooting rampage in west texas on saturday purchased his weapon from a private seller. a transaction that does not require a background check. officials say the gunman had previously failed a background check in 2014 because of a disqualifying mental health and issue. and that investigators are now looking into who sold him the the gun. the seller could face criminal charges if they are aware of the shooter's mental health issues. chuck schumer released a statement yesterday blaming the shooting on republicans in the senate for stalling on a house-passed bill that would require background checks for nearly all private sales. senator schumer writes if the house passed background checks bill would have been signed into law, this tragedy would have been avoided. leader mcconnell, you have no the senate must the senate must vote on the house bill next week, not a diluted bill, not a bill on

other matters. we must take a vote on the house-passed bill to close these loopholes without delay. and "the washington post" is also calling on mitch mcconnell with the full-page editorial this morning entitled "do something, mr. mcconnell." when the senate returns from its labor day recess, it must act on gu the the editorial includes the names of mass shooting victims from incidents such as columbine, sandy hook, last month's shooting in dayton and el paso and many, many more. the editorial board writes in part, what if there was a mass shooting in the united states, not once or twice or four or six times monthly but every single day, a big one, the kind that electrifies social media and squats for days on page one. would that be enough to move senate majority leader mitch mcconnell from his insistent inertia on gun safety? would any volume of bloodshed convince the kentucky republican

that congress faces a moral imperative to act? 38 people were slain in three such shootings in august in dayton, ohio, and el paso, as well as west texas. and still, senate republicans and president trump refuse to mitch mitch mcconnell says he is open to do something, but is waiting for the white house. >> we're in a discussion about what to do on the gun issue in the wake of these horrendous shootings. i said several weeks ago that if the president took a position on a bill so that we knew, we would actually be making a law and not just having serial votes, i would be happy to put it on the floor, and the administration is in the process of studying what they are prepared to support, if anything, and i expect to get an answer on that next week.

>> that's what moscow mitch says but you look at this guy's legacy, and it's going to be two i things. i think right now he'll have the legacy of basically doing the work of vladimir putin, an ex-kgb agent and russia who mitch mcconnell has been told by the fbi, the cia, the director of national intelligence, the united states military, he's been told by everybody that russia is trying to interfere and disrupt our democratic process that we are under and attack. and so mitch mcconnell is killing republican bills like marco rubio's and democratic bills that would protect the homeland from this attack from russia. and and moscow mitch is doing nothing about it but he's killing every bill. what about his legacy in protecting us from domestic mitch enemies? mitch mcconnell, just like

moscow mitch won't do anything protecting us from foreign he enemies. he has been the one person that has killed every one of these bills to protect us from our domestic enemies. that are gunning down our children every day. what's his end game? what is his legacy? >> i think the legacy is clear. unilateral surrender in terms of protecting american democracy. by the way, not just against russia but conceivably against north koreans, iranians, chinese and others. we're not taking the steps we we're not we're not fighting back. on gun control, we're not doing and and background checks are necessary, but not sufficient. other countries have mental illness at roughly equal levels of prevalence. so mental illness cannot be the only factor that's shaping american gun violence. obviously, availability of certain weapons is part of it. his legacy will also be, i

think, undermining the functioning of the senate when it came to supreme court nominatio the the farland nomination. whatever you think about garland versus kavanaugh. the idea the united states senate would not act? we're arbitrarily saying we interpret the constitution to mean the president can't appoint a supreme court justice in the last year of his term. where did that come from? what we have are conservatives who no longer believe in processes or institutions. coming up on "morning joe," brexit hasn't yet split the uk from the eu, but it is splitting voters from their elected we'll officials. we'll talk about the politics at play in this very chaotic, very consequential issue overseas. every day, visionaries are creating the future.

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british prime british prime minister boris johnson suffered a serious loss in parliament yesterday furthering the brexit chaos. >> boy, talk about drama. >> yeah. >> you always read growing up about winston churchill walking

across the aisle and going -- well, actually for churchill, one side to the other. he was like a ping-pong ball going back and forth, but in the -- at the beginning of boris johnson's speech, his majority >> evaporates. >> ri >> right in >> right in front of his face. >> that's high drama. >> lawmakers voted to take control of the parliamentary agenda from the government which will allow them to introduce and likely pass a bill which would compel the prime minister to seek another brexit extension from the eu past the october 31st deadline. it would mark the third brexit extens prime minister prime minister johnson is a major brexit supporter and a proponent of a no-deal divorce, although this bill would essentially kill that option. johnson says he will now likely seek a new general election in

october which, if granted, would be the third in great britain in just over four years. 21 members of prime minister johnson's conservative party supported the motion, including the grandson of winston and one churchill. and one of the more dramatic moments -- >> get your popcorn out. >> one conservative party member stood out and literally walked across the aisle and joined the liberal democrat party. that defection cost the conservative party its majority in parliament. >> richard, first of all, high drama in the house of commons, but what do you think? you think calling of a new election is just an idle threat from boris johnson? >> well, parliament has to approve a call for a new and election. and given the polls which show labor losing, it's unlikely he's going to get support for -- >> won't get three-fourths. >> two-thirds. >> that's not going to happen. it's quite possible that we're just going to have drift. we won't have a no-deal brex

pipt we won't have a new we'll election. we'll have drift for a while and it won't resolve anything. there's so many tragedies in the this. the tragedy of the brexit vote. you don't conduct foreign policy or policy by referendum, particularly one that was not honestly debated, influenced among the russians and other things to have labor. you'd have a general election and labor would offer an alternative except you have jeremy corbyn. >> which there is no >> alternative. >> there's no alternative. >> why labor has jeremy corbyn, a guy who is just an absolute talk about talk about a socialist. an anti-semite. he's the worst of the worst. >> the guy who should be running the labor party is running the international rescue committee. ought to be running and -- what's so interesting and it comes back to the conversation we were just having. what boris johnson tried to do was jam this through. essentially suspend parliament and get it through in this

policy that essentially violated every norm and tradition. it wasn't illegal, but it was against every principle of british policy. and essentially parliament pushed back. >> yeah. >> i thought it was a great moment in democracy. >> the problem is there are essentially three constituencies in the parliament. the hard brexit constituency, just want to leave, which boris johnson is now the head of. the soft brexit constituency which wants to solve the problem, wants to have trade relations, and then the remain there's group. there's no majority in parliament where any single so solution. so that's in part why they rebelled because boris johnson was heading for a hard brexit. there's not support for that. but not a majority of support for anything. and so britain is kind of getting to be like italy. they just have election after election and hung parliaments after hung parliaments. coming up -- senator amy klobuchar is standing by. the presidential candidate joins us live on the set next on "morning joe." johnson & johnson is a baby company.

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36 past the hour. joining us now, democratic candidate for president, amy klobuchar from minnesota. >> great to be here. >> let's talk about news of the obviously day. obviously a lot of hunters in a lot minnesota. a lot of nra members in just minnesota. just like a lot of nra members in northwest florida who learned to start hunting with their dads and granddaddyes when they were 5 years old. who won't understand what wayne lapierre is doing with their money and don't understand why he doesn't want universal background checks to stop terrorists from getting guns. >> you're exactly right. >> or the mentally ill from getting guns. >> i look at this and say does this hurt by uncle dick and his deer stand or when i was in arkansas talking about it because there's more and more hunters, trump voters, you've

seen the polls. vast majorities of these people say why can't we have sensible background checks? does it hurt our hunters? a lot of hunters are standing they up. they don't want to be part of -- >> does your uncle want an assault weapon? >> no, he does not. and that is the point. this bill coming up right now, the universal background check is still in the senate. we have a stronger version coming out of the house sitting on mitch mcconnell's desk. can come up for a vote. and i challenge our republican colleagues to not vote with us. i was listening to your brexit i story. i want to see one of them walk across the aisle. five of them and say, we want to have a vote on this. it's the safety of america. >> so how long have you been in washington now as an elected >> representative? >> i've been there 12 years. >> so in your 12 years, have you ever -- can you think of a single issue where the majority party is more out of step with

what 94% of americans are is demanding? is there another issue other than this? >> i can't. i think we know they are at times on things like contraception and other things, but on this one, right now, at this moment, they literally avoided the vote. mitch mcconnell just had to make a call. get everyone back. trump could have gotten them back. the president the president has numerous times, including with me sitting across from him after parkland at the table in the white house, he told me he wanted to see the universal background check bill. nothing happens. he folds when he needs with the >> it's nra. >> it's >> we >> we generally talk about the i i personally think the nra are my friends i went to first baptist church in pensacola, florida, with, these people who go out hunting every fall who are sportsmen and sportswomen just like your uncle. but that's why -- why don't the

republicans understand that the overwhelming majority of americans, the majority of -- overwhelming majority of republicans not only want universal background checks but they also want to get rid of these military style weapons. like 54% of republicans. >> they do. >> and i look at the track on you've this. you've been through it. when i was in law enforcement, we tried on the assault weapons and we failed. then i got to the senate. and after sandy hook, we tried on the background check and i i remember those moms being in my office that morning and still my saddest day in the senate. and i had to tell them, we didn't have the votes to pass and this. and i remember one of the moms saying the last day i saw my son alive, he was autistic. he pointed to the picture of the school aide on the refrigerator that was always with him and then went off to school and a few hours later i'm in the fire station waiting. one by one these kids come in. soon the parents left.

they'll never see their babies and as alive. and as she's sobbing in that room she knew she would never leave his side. they were shot through killed and that school aide had her arms around that boy. that's how they died. they advocated for this background check bill that they knew wouldn't have saved their kids but would save the most as we're lives. as we're looking at with this private sale down in texas after the last massacre where the guy failed the background check and then finds a way around it. that's what we're talking about. loopholes sound too nice for what this is. when trump blames mcconnell and the senate and then mcconnell says, no, i've got to wait on it's trump. it's a game of whack-a-mole and they're playing it at the expense of our kids and people's >> lives. >> if universal background checks were passed then, this person would not have gotten a

>> gun. >> most likely not, yes. >> and that 17-month-old baby would not have been shot through the face. i'm sorry. it's that direct. and the warnings have been that direct, jonathan, since sandy >> hook. >> tell us what the boyfriend loophole is. >> three bills on mcconnell's background desk. background checks, charleston loophole, simply allows our law enforcement officers to do their job and finish vetting people and gives them ten days. the third bill is the boyfriend right loophole. right now the law says if you commit domestic violence and are convicted you can't go get out and get an ak-47 if it was against your wife or someone you lived with or against your but husband. but if it's your girlfriend or boyfriend, you can. that's why they call it a yet half yet half the domestic homicides involve girlfriends or dating partners. and we and we know there's a trend in half these mass shootings involving first killing a woman

in their lives. so that's why this bill would be so important. 33 republican votes it got in the house, joe. part of the violence against women act. it is sitting on mcconnell's desk because they won't even put the violence against women act out there, which is always bipartisan because it has this simple provision in there about and guns. and someone actually said to me, why would you put guns in the violence against women's act. so really? so that is -- those are the three bills. the background checks, the charleston loophole and this and the assault weapon ban, magazine limits, those are things that should also come up but there are three on their desk right >> >> so what happens, the loopholes, the story, you know, sandy hook, the school aide hugging the child, both dead. what happens when you have conversations with your republican colleagues about these kinds of issues with those

kinds of details? what do they say? >> sometimes they actually say the boyfriend loophole example, i'll vote for that but i don't want to be a co-sponsor. and i say, okay. but that means all the power is in mitch's hand. if he calls it up for a vote they'll probably not be able to vote against it. we get the vote. sometimes they say, i have just too much pressure in my state with the nra, right? and as was just pointed out here, that's shifting. majority of gun owners want to see background checks. vast majority of trump voters want to see them. but these guys are stuck in their old politics. they want to use it as a wedge against people. they don't care. they don't care. >> they're elected officials. elected state senators. that's at one low basic level. they're also, many of them, parents and/or grandparents. >> uh-huh. >> what do you talk to them about their role as a parent or >> grandparent? >> i do.

but you know what's changing? their kids are talking to them. that's what changed after that's parkland. that's why we were able to win some of those districts across the country, those red suburban those districts. those kids saw those icons from florida standing on a stage and they thought all across the country, i can do that. some of them marched. a lot of them voted but mostly, they talked to their dads and grandpas and said, i know we love hunting. i want to learn to hunt too, or i hunt, too, but we can still have the background checks. that won't hurt us. that's how we finally bridged that hurdle on gay marriage. that's how movements are. a lot of times it's from people, young people who suddenly start talking to their parents. and that's what is this amazing moment in time right now. yes, we can get more done in 2020 when i'm president, but i think we've got to do something right now. >> we saw that after parkland. we saw that after sandy hook. we've seen it, and it's happened over the past decade especially

where when we were growing up, talking about barnacle and me because you all are way too young to remember this, when you were in school, you'd see the fallout shelter. and we lived believing that any day that we went to school, we could be in a nuclear war. and we live with that shadow over us. kids in the '60s more so than in the '80s, but, still happened. that's what our children, all of our children are living under now when they go to school every day. and no and no republican, no democrat, no independent that has children can say that that's not a burden that their children are carrying around every day. >> right. and also remember the daily the violence. the classroom of kids killed every single week in this and country. and that would also be reduced. domestic homicide, suicides, as well as street crime if we could

get these assault weapons and other guns off the streets. >> you can be pro second amendment, as i have been my entire life, and still fight for sensible gun safety laws to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, domestic abusers and the mentally ill. >> and i have won every red congressional district every time in my state with always being for the assault weapon ban and that's because i respect hunting, fishing, conservation, which they care a lot about. and i talk to them about it. >> this can be done. before you go, you're releasing a climate change plan this week? >> yes. >> tell us about it. >> i think as we see this hurricane that just barreled down in the bahamas, the devastating photos you just saw, we just can't pretend that this isn't happening anymore. it's not just the rising sea levels and the melting greenland ice sheet. it's also about the midwest and the fires we've seen in the middle of the country. the flooding in places like iowa where a woman named fran gave me

her binoculars and said this is my house. i bought it with my husband. i love the kitchen and it's now under water. this is where i wanted to retire and the house has been there nearly a century. there's horse hair in the i said where is the plaster. i said where she said, no, the river is 2 1/2 miles away. it's never got this close before. so this so this is about taking this on as a national mission. just as the greatest generation did in world war ii. just as we did with the civil rights movement. we can do this. and there are so many opportunities when you're out there and you see that 99% of wind turbines are in rural the areas. the potential for all these new jobs in technology. and we just have to put our mind to it. get the climate denier whiner out of the white house and see this as actually economic driver instead of just the negatives. we have to look tat as cost it's benefit. it's going to cost us something like $500 billion every year if we keep doing this. home insurance up 50%.

and so we make the investments we need in this clean energy >> piece. >> is this the fourth year in a row there's been a category 5 for hurricane? for the first time -- >> which the president said he didn't know existed. >> okay. >> the president said he never knew it existed. he said that for the past two or three years. you know, it's very interesting you talk about the costs. the billions and billions of dollars it's costing. got a very good republican friend who has always voted republican, but he is -- he works in an insurance company. and he's the guy that figures out whether the company is going to be able to pay out their property damage. he said i can show you every he chart. he said i'm a conservative, free enterprise, right-wing but i but i can show you every chart that's in my office, and you will have no choice but to say, climate change is real, and it is causing havoc on this country and we've got to do something about it.

>> yes. the old movie "the day after tomorrow," is today. like it is happening now. general mattis, who i like so much, the military that you just had on, the military has been predicting this for a long time. so it's really important to bring to this debate private sector, the arguments that we see in rural america and the midwest if we're going to get the votes to get this done as well as the security issue as we see refugees coming in places like sub-saharan africa moving up because we're going to start having security issues everywhere because there simply isn't the way to keep having the economy that we depended on. >> as bill clinton always said, the choice between protecting the environment and protecting jobs, it's just a false choice. >> exactly. they can both be done. senator amy klobuchar, thank you so much. good luck on the campaign trail. >> great discussion. >> looking forward to the >> debate. >> should be fun. >> i made the playoffs. ready to go. >> one night, exactly.

coming up, our next guest advises democrats to give up identity politics and focus on a progressive economic agenda. we'll discuss that next on "morning joe." back in two minutes. dedicated . >> we need the twins to lose the next two nights, by the way. we have to have them lose. >> that's just wrong. >> it's a cinderella team. a cin. every curve, every innovation, every feeling. a product of mastery. lease the 2019 es 350 for $379 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. woman: (on phone) discover. hi. do you have a travel card? yep. our miles card. earn unlimited 1.5 miles and we'll match it at the end of your first year. nice! i'm thinking about a scuba diving trip. woman: ooh! (gasp) or not. you okay? yeah, no, i'm good. earn miles. we'll match 'em at the end of your first year.

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>> okay. senator elizabeth warren during the second democratic presidential debate on the path democrats need to take in order to win back the white house. our next guest argues that it's not enough for democrats just to beat trump, they also need to govern as economic progressives in order to bridge potentially fatal schisms of race, identity and rebuild an economy of broad prosperity. joining us now, co-founder and co-editor of the american prospect, rob cutler. he is the author of the new book "the stakes 2020 and the survival of american democracy." good to have you on the show. explain what that means, what it takes to win to beat trump. >> i think we need to understand how we got trump. a lot of working class people were willing to vote for somebody as crazy as trump was the fact that for 40 years ordinary working people have

been getting the short end of the stick economically. trump was brilliant at creating a mass shop, playing to a mass shop of economic and cultural grievances so that white working class voters in particular who used to be the heart and soul of the democratic party voted for a guy who was selling one part racism and one part i'm going to have your back economically. i think the way to solve this is for democrats, and warren and sanders, i think, do this better than anybody, to say, we are going to take back the economy on behalf of working families the way the democratic party once did in the roosevelt era. >> so it didn't obviously start with trump, you've talked about this being a problem for some time. it's very interesting after george w. bush got reelected, there was a question, what's the matter with kansas? time and again you've heard democrats, you've heard liberals, progressives talk about how working class americans vote against their own

economic interests. is this mainly because of cultural issues, a disconnect on cultural issues? what do you say? >> no, i think, really since carter, and emphatically under clinton and tragically under obama, clinton have been embedded in wall street. hillary clinton epitomized this. so while trump has been talking about a need to make america great again for white working class people, she is taking the federal dollar from wall street and trying to make up for that by being something of a cultural radical. it's the worst possible recipe. when i had my 15 minutes of fame with steve bannon a couple years ago, he said, i want the democrats talking about race and identity every day of the week, and if i can do that, i got 'em. i think the way to bridge that is to talk about the things that unite black people and white

people, which is the common economic beating that working families of all races are taking for the past 30 or 40 years. if you can be plausible on that point -- plausible -- you can win back the presidency, you can win back the country and get america back on the economic path that it needs to be, and then damp down the sources of trumpism. >> robert, let's keep talking about bridges, real bridges. if you go to your old neighborhood where you grew up, it's now tech jobs. everybody is there working for high-tech companies on both coasts. in the middle of america, not so much. but there is one common denominator. if there were to be passed a massive infrastructure bill for real that would put people to work regardless of their income now, regardless of their gender, their race, do you think that that would be a huge step forward in getting done

socially, culturally and economically in this country what you talk about? >> yes, i have a whole chapter of the stakes on that very point. if you can have a massive infrastructure program that put people back to work, america can regain technological leadership, americans can create millions and millions of good, blue collar jobs, and there can be some regional diversity. amy klobuchar, before i came on, was talking about the fact that a lot of these jobs are rural jobs if you have a green economy. and that's absolutely right. there was an idea to move coding jobs, instead of moving them to bangalor, move them to west virginia and kentucky, so these kids, instead of going to work for walmart, can have 40 or $50 jobs doing coding for the tech companies. the rosen administration, what it did, was the great western

dams and rural electrification generally. i'm not one of those people who believes in an automation scare. we've been hearing this for centuries. if you create new technologies, new jobs will follow. >> you mentioned the $15 minimum wage. another one is the defensive components of obamacare. but what we heard on the debate stage from these democrats, including senators warn and sre sanders, said you want to move away from that. is that going too far with the argument you make? >> no, i think the key is transition. you can transition to universe cal coverage universeal

coverage in a way that's not scary. they'll end up with better insurance. i don't think it's good for the democratic field to be divided on that. do we have time for me to say one more thing about race? >> a little bit. take it. >> i think we have to be incredibly respectful about the reckoning that is going on about the historic racism that america was built on, and at the same time we need to make sure that the election is not just about race. it needs to be both things. it needs to be respectful of the reckoning on race, but it mainly needs to be about the commonalities among all races and about the class interest of working people to get their country back. that's how democrats win. >> what a great, actually, reminder for republicans, independents and democrats alike. and the first politician that can figure out how to do that, that's what bobby kennedy did in his 1968 campaign, where working

class of all races came together. >> elizabeth warren's remarks on race are just sublime. she really gets this more than anyone else. her many speeches, she does that superbly. it's not jaus warrust warren, t playbook is available noi dto a democrat. >> robert cutler, thank you very much. that's it for us. stephanie ruhle picks it up right now. >> good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. here's what's happening this morning. the east coast is getting its first taste of hurricane dorian. plenty of rain and wind in florida, as it skims the east coast and dorian heads north in the next couple days. but when all is said and done, the legacy o