2-year-old and a 2 week old, you can do it with mars, your little boy. together you guys will sort through it and hopefully you won't fall asleep on the bathroom floor too often >> you are a hero, christina is a hero for the 2 week old. >> correct. >> i'm excited we're bringing back "way too early" i love the show. my family loved the show so we're really excited to get started. yasmin, let me echo, the weekends are so much richer to have you msnbc weekends is a great place to be. i've been there three years. i'm sure the loyal viewers who tune in on the weekend are going to love having you. >> the morning viewers are loyal and they stick with you and love you. willie geist thanks for joining us this morning. kasie thank you as well. both of you stick tight. kasie we see you monday morning for the premier of "way too

early" that does it for me, guys. want to thank the "morning joe" team for being the best team to work with for three and a half years. dan, i love you, my friend i'm yasmin vossoughian, "morning joe" starts right now. i view this -- i really do view this campaign as a campaign between scranton and park avenue and i really mean it, because, you know, the way we were raised up here in this area, awful lot of hardworking people busting their neck all they ask for is a,shot, just a shot all trump can see from park avenue is wall street. all he thinks about is wall street, we're all going to do all right. how many of you own stock? not a he -- not a lot in

scranton >> that's the best approach. when i was campaigning i'd be going around and someone would bring up something my opponent would say and it would be nasty and i go, well, i got to tell you, the way i was raised. i mean, my parents just raised me to be better than -- whenever you start talking about, you know, the way we were raised here in scranton that's gold. that's political gold. i also love the framing there, just looking at it politically, that it was scranton versus park avenue i haven't heard anything like that yet in this campaign, other than a lot of insults going back and forth. but sort of that definition, giving voters a real look at the fact that yes, you had one guy that was raised working class in scranton, pennsylvania, whose father was unemployed and they had to leave the town and were

desperately looking for work and you had another guy that was, you know, born in network and basically inherited $400 million and it's quite a contrast that biden used last night. >> it was. and it was a new message from vice president biden something he rolled out at the town hall. he also went to the ivy league school thing, something president trump loves to brag about. saying who said you need to go to an ivy league school to be president of the united states he's flipped this and used this, which is donald trump the alleged man of the people, lives in a gold and mirrored penthouse on fifth avenue and flied around with his private jet with gold belt buckles that guy is not your man of the people, joe biden is saying. i am i grew up the way you grew up, i

enj know what it's like to lose a job. >> it's like with senators playing man of the people. they all went to harvard law school, you ever notice that >> yep. >> if i still -- even after all this time, if i walk on the campus of harvard or try to get close to harvard law school, a campus cop comes and they cuff me to a radiator. >> you're on the watch list. >> i've been on the watch list like since 1988 when i like kept sending letters to all those schools and they kept getting, no, no, no by the way, willie, did you see my rankings? i don't know if you saw it but t "the wall street journal" put out the rankings of the best colleges of america. did you see "morning joe's" rankings >> i saw them and i think you adjusted them a little bit

i think you had alabama one, florida two, is that right >> yeah. and always, you got to put ole miss up there. if it isn't one, it's just barely one hold on one second here. are we on tv right now or not? here we go >> we'll wait for you. you call that email up. >> i got it. here we go now you tell me if there's anything you disagree with here. number one, university of alabama. number two, university of florida. incredible law school there. number three ole miss of course. i was embarrassed putting them that low number four, uva is there a better town than athens, g.a. >> no. >> number five van dy. i did write a note great alum.

a lot of yankees there, willy. number 6, university of south. number 7, smu. you got to put smu -- texas isn't really the south but smu is it's like east berlin and west berlin west berlin was in east germany but still part of the free west. and the number 8, of course, the college of charleston. i think you had 14, 15 presidents coming out of the college of charleston. >> not a lot of crossover with the forbes list. the only thing about the university of south is that jon meacham went there so that always works to their detriment. >> again, they probably would have been in the top five except for jon meacham. by now, phil is calling alex screaming and saying we should start the show you can tell by the way mika is off, she's upset

she kept trying to get me to put williams on the list i couldn't do that. >> couldn't do it. >> you know who gets an honorable mention, dartmouth they don't know they're a southern school, but they have dartmouth is an incredible place. that's all i have to say do you want to take it from here >> if mika were here, this would have been over four minutes ago. >> exactly. >> why don't we bring in our guests, co-host of show time's the circus, john heileman has been waiting patiently professor at princeton university who may want to weigh in on the book, eddie glaude jr. and capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt who starting monday hosts the return of "way too early" >> we have kasie hunt as our lead in, it's all happening this

morning. we have a slew of new polls for you. the latest poll finds joe biden with a nine point lead over president trump in tarizona. in wisconsin, a nine point lead as well. in maine, the latest poll finds biden with a commanding 17 point lead over the president. and down to north carolina, where biden and trump are statistically tied with biden up one over trump, 45 to 44, joe. >> those are -- north carolina and florida just about as tight as they could be arizona, most polls are showing that joe biden has a comfortable lead there, but again, let's go back john hieileman to the race we've been talking about especially since kenosha,

wisconsin. it was supposed to be wisconsin, wisconsin, wisconsin, the battleground to see if joe biden had a chance, to see the working class, white, angry, pro-trump males that would not vote for a democrat anymore the polls certainly seem to be showing again that wisconsin, for now, as we move towards early voting in wisconsin, that wisconsin seems to be one of joe biden's stronger if not his strongest swing state. >> i think, joe, in that set of six battleground states we've been talking about all yearlong, the three industrial midwest states, wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania wisconsin and michigan have been solid for joe biden. pennsylvania i think is the one that's a battle for joe biden. but the consistency of the lead

in the two midwest states. and now as you say the battle over kenosha which donald trump and his people were comfortable they changed the subject from the coronavirus and this subject was going to go in their favor i was there a couple weeks ago and thought it was going to be a competitive race here, but the people in the middle of the electorate who did not love donald trump in 2016, who did not give him a primary victory in 2016 they were very turned off by the way the president seemed to be pouring gasoline on the fire they were worried about law and order but they were worried about donald trump not condemning the vigilante shooter in their strait. donald trump's divisiveness is

showing up in a consistent way in the polls in that state. >> it is, willy. and again, this is the second time, june 1st and then post kenosha where donald trump has trotted out the law and order spiel thinking that's somehow going to be the magic card to play, this is 1968 we've been saying for a long time, it's not 1968. he's president of the united states if people see chaos in the streets, that is still, at least until january the 20th, they think, donald trump's america. and word from jonathan lemire that the white house has now po pulled all of their law and order ads and are moving into another direction focussing on the economy because the law and order argument keeps failing. >> yet he was in wisconsin last night, the president, hitting on that and tweeting about it last night. but we showed a "reuters" poll

yesterday showing law and order only registered with 11% of suburban voters. so coronavirus is going to be front and center regardless how the president is trying to change the subject if you look at the collection of polls, arizona, wisconsin, throw in michigan and the one district in nebraska, steve kornacki points out if he wins those, if joe biden takes those states he doesn't have to flip back any of the other 2016 states that donald trump took. so you're looking at the election right there in the polls we just showed >> you absolutely are, willie. but i think there's the underlying reality that places like north carolina, florida across the map that it's going to be so tight and close that it's likely going to be difficult to call this on election night i think it's important for people to, as they are, you know, listening to these results roll in when we get that far to

be, you know, cautious about what we are saying, certainly in the media, but how voters are interpreting these results as they come in because places like wit be decided until later on so it's some of these sunbelt states we're going to be watching on election night i think the law and order point is such an important one and the economy remains the only message where donald trump actually has an edge over joe biden i think that's part of why you heard biden make that argument last night that he did and you know, the language that he used, you know, talking about trump and yes, how he inherited everything but also how we squandered what he inherited and how biden has these roots and a story that people perhaps who are looking to try and reclaim an american dream that has seemed farther and farther away in recent years might be able to grab onto. i think there's an emotional

piece of this economic message that the biden campaign knows they need to focus in on, i think that's what you saw from the candidate last night. >> eddie glaude we'll go to you next even though i noticed your school, princeton not in the "morning joe" great eight but you're welcome to come teach on any of those campuses you like but let's talk about the law and order polls, wisconsin, june the 1st, and let's talk about if you're looking at these polls, the reality that donald trump scratching away at that scar of racism in america, racial a animous. it continues to backfire on him. it did in the polls and that seems to be the meaning of most of these polls you go back to june the 1st, his

numbers plunged after june the 1st. you go back to the pew poll that we talked about a couple years ago, post charlottesville, the great irony is that a president who prayed on racial animus had the strange effect of making white americans more racially sensitive and we've seen that in quite a few polls. i'm wondering if donald trump is, in fact, waking americans up to just how bad things have been >> well, it seems to be an ironic consequence, joe. by the way, i want to add the great institution of moorehouse college to your list of extraordinary schools that's in atlanta, georgia along with spellman >> very important. >> but i think it's an ironic

consequence of donald trump's position willie mentioned this this yesterday talking about when we look at the cross tabs of the polls what's driving voter behavior, the response, it's coronavirus, people are concerned that folk they know, love are ill, folk they know have died. but also i think law and order has to be seen as part of this broader culture war that donald trump is waging. law and order may not well be striking the core that he thought it would but he's still, in some interesting sorts of ways, playing on white grievance and white fear and white resentment. as you say, the ironic consequence as he does it, he's really activating a kind of awareness about how deeply divided the country is and what we might need to do.

as he switches from law and order, he's still hitting questions about the history, the monuments and statues. he's going to play the radical left card. i think that's one of the underpinnings of his appeal to the economic question as well. >> and, of course, those are all debates to be had. you and i can debate 1619 versus 1776 i think we can find synthesis there. somewhere in the middle i think we can his problem is this. he's an arsonist so he takes every one of those issues and he pours fuel on it, lights the match and makes it that much harder to pull, for instance, let's take that one example that he's starting to talk about now the differences between the 1619 project and the 1776 project two things can be true at once this is something that donald trump can't handle sort of the synthesis. it requires complexity as tom

rick said in his great new book that's upcoming talking about the founding of this republic. but he can't do that he pours gasoline on the fire, he lights it up, and all he's looking for is conflict. all he's looking for is a political skirmish again, for conservatives who think that's -- well, so-called conservatives who think that's the way forward. you certainly aren't berkey, and you aren't following in russell kirk's or even reagan's steps. my lecture done. let's talk about, i love looking at these swing states. the six swing states that we've all talked about, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, north carolina, florida, arizona, and i love seeing how the map is

shifting we were all sure, at least a lot of people were thinking that we're going to be looking at wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, maybe minnesota, that's where the races were going to be the closest. and donald trump would probably have florida in the end. what's happened is, at least with wisconsin and michigan, those have broken hard for joe biden in the past month or so. pennsylvania is still tight. i'm not sure why it's still tight. i don't think donald trump can win there, but pennsylvania is still tight. but you come down to florida, and that's really, that's a poll that had -- that's a place that had biden up by five, six, even points at the height of coronavirus. the first outbreak, the first wave now it's gotten especially tight, and there are two groups right now, two demographics that

are going to determine the outcome of that state, one is seniors. how offended have they been by donald trump's horrific handling of the coronavirus and then hispani hispanics. i heard time and again that joe biden hasn't focused enough on hispanics. they're trying to change that now but where are those two groups you've been in florida where do you see those two groups breaking right now? >> so i was down there all week joe, just back from a week there. i went and saw donald trump's campaign in tampa and then got around to some other locals not quite your old stomping grounds on the red neck rivera but others part of the reason the focus has shifted to florida is that it's a state where unlike some of the battleground states which are going to have this giant influx of early vote that they have

never seen before, because of the laws in the states, the counting might go on for some days after election day. florida, as you know, the first big battleground state that often reports. they have long experience and history with counting early vote they're not freaked out by the fact there's more people voting this time around and people assume we'll have a result from florida, unless it's so close we get a recount. people think we'll have a result by 11:00 on election night there's not really a world where donald trump can win, get to 270 votes without florida. so i think part of the focus is if biden manages to beat trump in a clean way and we know that at 11:00 on election night the uncertainty will fade because people will say there's not many ways for trump to win if he's lost florida now we have the focus there.

the two groups you talked about are super important we talked about what it means for joe biden to be up with senior citizens across the country. how unusual it is, problematic for trump remembering that trump won seniors by four or five points nationally in 2016. in florida he won senior citizens by 9 points he's down right now. the last poll i looked at, the monmouth poll, had him down one or two this week so huh a nine-point swing with senior citizens in florida it's something even the trump campaign does not deny and they're fully aware of how hard it is to win florida if you're donald trump and lost 8 or 9 points to seniors with joe biden. and they're looking at other groups, like latinos, to make it up the state is going to be close but it's hard for donald trump

to win the state of florida given the deep hole he put himself in with senior citizens. you know how important the vote is everywhere, but florida, it's decisive. >> willie, obviously we talked about cuban americans and the fact they may be breaking more strongly towards donald trump than they did for republican candidates in 2018 we'll wait and see how that turns out in the end but there's a huge port rican population across the state, especially in orlando, especially after, of course, the devastation that hit that island and donald trump's contempt for puerto rico and wanting to sell puerto rico and being very resentful time and time again of providing any aid to puerto rico, that's not me talking. there are tons of clips out

there far more damning to donald trump than -- images of him throwing paper towels. >> yeah. >> it's hard for me to understand how donald trump doesn't get blown away by the non-cuban american hispanic vote in the state of florida, especially since he called hispanics breeders, he's attacked puerto rico viciously we go back to judge kuriel and all the things he said about hispanics over the past four years all the policies that he's implemented. i have to say, i'm surprised than the latino vote is as close as it is and that joe biden is not far outpacing where hillary clinton was four years ago >> the president is more interested in the greenland than

puerto rico over the course of his administration we should point out the poll we talked about last week that had donald trump up so big amid latino voters we've seen wild swings in the numbers because of small sample sizes so it's hard to get a feel of latino voters in florida john was down there as he mentioned for the recount talking to different people around both campaigns and talk to trump campaign adviser suze wile, about the swing from sign areas. >> in 2016, trump wins 68% of seniors this recent poll had trump at 49% that's a drop in people, that's a big [bleep] problem, right : it's a lot >> it's a lot. >> it's a lot. >> what do you attribute that

to >> i don't know. it could be covid, it could be an anomaly, it could be one poll it could be we haven't had the right message yet. it could be a lot of things but it's our job to right that ship. i believe we will. it's also, no two elections are the same so the group you put together to get to 51% or 50 plus is never going to be the same election to election. >> you know it's not one poll, right? across the battleground states, across the country, trump has seen his advantage with seniors eroded in a significant way. i think find it hard to believe that covid is not -- >> it stands to reason that it would be right. >> this is a pattern we've seen in arizona too in recent poll, p among seniors but coronavirus is at the center of everyone's life right now, especially among seniors

it's pretty simple. >> you know, susie -- i didn't catch her last name. what was her last name >> wiles >> she's right, though, when she says no two elections are alike. everybody is always fighting the last war, the last campaign. and, you know, the way they're looking at it is, they're not doing as well with seniors, they've got to do better with hispanics, they've got to really -- i mean, they've got to really pour it on in miami-dade and get a ton of cuban americans going out, get as many cuban americans and white voters, men especially if they can but kasie talking about states with a heavy hispanic population, there was a time people thought as florida goes, arizona goes, no, not even close. we've seen biden doing better in

arizona like we've seen mark kelly doing really well in arizona. we have a poll coming up there and it is hard not to look at some of the things that donald trump has done, like pardoning joe arpaio, at least hispanics would say, latinos would say, an openly racist former sheriff who has declared war on hispanics throughout his political career. that seems to be hurting trump in arizona, seems to be hurting martha mcsally in arizona. and also in arizona you don't have a big cuban american population and you really see the difference there democrats doing very well. there's mark kelly at 50% to martha mcsally's 42% donald trump also down considerably in the latest "new york times" poll as well

really a tale of two states both have a large hispanic population. >> we shorthand it in our polling the way we talk about it on tv but hispanic communities have differences geographically and historically speaking. they're simply not the same. we like to compare them but they're not the same one thing i would point to in arizona, joe, is frankly, the separation of children and those images of children in cages. it was one of the first real moments during the trump administration where i started to hear from members of congress across the country that this was something that was really going to change minds. we talk about how polarized as a nation we are, how few swing voters there are this is an issue that caused people to stop and evaluate and

was front and center because of the challenges they faced on the border with legitimate problems with drug smuggling and other issues but there are major communities of hispanic americans and places affected directly by these separations. there are white voters in the suburbs of phoenix who saw what happened and were absolutely horrified. i think that's a point you can look to to see how arizona has trended differently. and, you know, florida it's a much different experience in florida. we were talking a couple days ago how republicans have been talking about socialism and how many of the voters now looking in miami-dade have a direct family experience and connection living under socialism, communism and that's at the forefront of voting decisions and what's been in the news with

venezuel venezuelan there are a lot of retirees in florida and arizona. my grandpas live in florida. if you're elderly and dealing with the pandemic you're stuck inside my son turned 1, he's barely seeing his great grandparents he's lucky they're here but that experience is universal and of course it's affecting how people feel about donald trump. >> that's why every time donald trump has a rally, willie, we talked about it after his rnc speech with a thousand people packed together outside, at least it was outside, but every time he has these superspraeade events and is mocking joe biden for wearing masks. sure, there may be some guy that's going hell, yeah, you tell it like it is mr.

president, there are a lot of seniors looking and going what the hell, i live in phoenix, you're having superspreader events in phoenix? you don't have contact tracing, testing, mr. president you're putting my life in danger that's the reality that seniors are facing every day and the fact that donald trump still has contempt for people who are wearing masks at people who are being safe colleges -- you know, trying to get college football back in places as quickly as possible. that's great for us for a couple hours on saturday afternoon. a lot of seniors look at it -- not all, but a lot of seniors look at it and go my god, this guy doesn't understand that 200,000 people have died and most of them have been seniors so yeah, that's having a huge

impact in florida and arizona. >> it's showing up in the numbers and we point out again last night dr. fauci was on this network saying, of course, you should wear a mask how many times do i have to say it, despite what you're hearing from the top of the government, of course you should wear a mask, social distance, stay away from crowds. you could see the frustration on his face we have a big morning we're just scratching the surface a federal judge temporarily blocking the u.s. postal service from implementing policy changes that slowed mail delivery. what that means for the influx of mail-in ballots ahead of the election. meanwhile, president trump continues to prime the country for a disputed election, claiming yesterday we may never know the real winner we will discuss attorney general william barr's role in helping the president set up a

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welcome back to "morning joe. john heileman, just to wrap up that last discussion about seniors. you know, so much of what donald trump has done has backfired we've talked about june 1st, kenosha. but also when you're talking about seniors and coronavirus, that's one part of it. but another part, isn't there polling out that shows constant attacks on joe biden is senile when obviously joe biden is not senile is actually backfiring on

donald trump as well >> yeah, i don't know about polling joe but it's a suspicion that you and i have had for some months that we talked about. so in florida this week i was asking some smart republicans down there, beyond covid, the obvious the way trump has kind of been casual and mismanaged the pandemic and how that's hammered the senior community what else is it about? and a lot of them pointed to this notion that if trump had run a subtle campaign, which is kind of impossible for trump but if he ran an attempt to make biden but accepting, playing after his age and saying he lost a step, that he wasn't up to the judge, he lost his fastball whatever, that was the kind of attack that a -- that would have resonated with a lot of seniors. a lot of seniors are aware in their 70s they lost a few miles

per hour on their fastball but when they hear trump attack biden as if he's addled, seen ni senile and lost it you're saying because the guy in his 70s that he's lost it, he's addled, senile so one of the things that's problematic in the covid era the qualitative research is not anything like it normally would be in an election year you can't talk to people the way you normally would but amongrepublican strategist in florida why is trump hurting with seniors they come with two answers one is covid and the other is he overplayed his hand how he attacked joe biden as being mentally infirm at this point in his life. they think that's backfired. >> especially when you look at

the reels of tape that "the daily show" has on donald trump unable to complete sen sentences. it's a ridiculous argument, an ageist argument coming from a 74, 75-year-old guy. speaking of not making a lot of sense, here's the attorney general of the united states a few days ago saying some things that caused a lot of concern, including his claim that people staying in their homes protecting senior citizens and protecting their loved ones with underlying conditions that that somehow is bad as slavery. >> tell the business people what the rules are and then let them try to adapt their business to that and you'll have inquestion knge people will have the ability to earn a living. but putting in national

lockdown, stay-at-home orders it's like house arrest it's -- other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in american istory. >> quite frankly, they're sick think about it, did you ever, ever think any of you you'd hear an attorney general say that following the recommendations of the scientific community to save your and other people's lives is equivalent to slavery? people being put in chains you lost your freedom because he didn't act. >> there's a lot to comb through in the barr event the other night. joining us law analyst and editor and chief of law far benjamin wit tteswittes. he has a piece out analysising what does it mean. and also barbara mcquade, she's

writing how barr twists himself into a knot to wreck justice department and michael schmidt, author of the new book "donald trump versus the united states state, inside the struggle to stop the president" welcome to you all before we dig into the bill barr event. i want to go back to you eddie glaude because we were texting about that comment about slavery and bill barr's comparison of that to lockdowns, stay-at-home orders to protect people in a pandemic. >> just that phrase, slavery, a different kind of restraint. talk about hemmingway-like under statement, slavery a different kind of restraint. it seems that william barr is searching so desperately to find a way to describe white americans who refuse to wear masks as victims that he's

reaching for comparisons that not only don't make sense but reveal a moral kind of tone deafness, that reveals his character in interesting ways. that's the first thing two, quickly, the idea of liberty and freedom here has become a sin know anymore for selfishness. people are using liberty as an excuse to be selfish and mean spirited and endanger people that they don't care about other than themselves. so i want to keep those things in mind at the same time >> what a decline. ben wittes, it is hard to believe that there were some washington establishment figures vouching for william barr when he applied to this job by writing that ridiculous memo and

when he was getting voted upon in the united states senate. and it seems that like donald trump we are -- we are not surprised, but we at least observe him reaching new depths every week, every month. >> well, i'm afraid to say i was one of the people who was optimistic about bill barr when he was nominated -- >> what happened to him, ben >> i have no idea. i have no idea this was a very strange speech even the plain text of the speech was very strange and very -- would have been very controversial. but then he embellished it in this q&a talking, you know, not just about the covid restrictions, you know, as the greatest civil liberties violation since slavery which not only compares it to slavery,

which is incredibly offensive, but, of course, would have come as something of a surprise to the interned japanese during world war ii, the victims of the palmer raids, you know, the lynching campaigns in the south. there were, you know -- this country has not lacked for substantial civil liberties violations in its history that surely eclipsed basic common sense public health matters designed to prevent the spread of a pandemic virus. but he did not stop there. we should like be candid about some of the other things he said he went on an extended rant about the word "narrative" which he claims is a word that, you know, means we don't believe in truth anymore. you have your narrative and i

have my narrative. the attorney general of the united states doesn't like that. he -- he dismissed black lives matter protesters as not caring about black lives but only wanting political props by which he means dead black people in the -- to advance what he termed a larger political agenda. this was kind of the attorney general as, you know, right wing social critic, and pundit. he also, by the way, described the press as not merely partisan but more ignorant than it use to be he went off in a lot of directions here, felt free to be a free-wheeling opinion pundit, and doesn't seem concerned at

all that such talk might diminish people's confidence in the u.s. department of justice and that's all before you get to the substance of his prepared remarks. >> of course, it was bizarre coming from an attorney general. you can only think he's hoping to be able to draw large speaking fees in if russia in 2021 or maybe get a fellowship at one of the universities in hungary to prop up anti-democratic leaders in europe i want to get to our other guests but i have to ask you, aga ben. do you have any fear that donald trump will use william barr to undermine election rights and do anything that he can using the justice department to keep donald trump in the white house,

even if it appears that donald trump has lost the election? >> well, barr also in this speech or in the q&a opined that not merely mail-in voting was an affront to the very idea of an election, but that the very idea that you would have an election on more than one day is offensive to the notion of the election so he declared himself -- i mean, he didn't declare himself willing to step outside the law, but he did make very clear that he's sympathetic to the president's stated ape sinxieti about mail-in voting and other forms of voting that would deal with the pandemic in a reasonable way to allow people to vote. the larger body of his speech

was an effort to defend his interventions, and he doesn't like the word interventions, but i don't care, in cases involving the president's friends and russia, for example roger stone and mike flynn and to defend his disparagements of the work of the mueller investigation. i think when you put that together with your question, this is a man who is very suspicious of the electoral processes that states have set up highly, highly partisan and the partisanship was dripping off the entire evening contemptuous of the president's critics. and when you put all of that together -- oh, and willing to

intervene in cases so that the president gets his way, i think you have to worry at least a little bit about how that plays out in the context of, you know, the justice department's positions in votediing cases ann any contest that the election produces that would require or maybe not require the federal government to intervene. so yeah, i think, you know, we're heading into a difficult, anxious period or we're already in it and the attorney general really made clear whose side he's on, which was never in doubt, but also how energetic he's willing to be. >> barbara mcquade, i want to ask you as a former federal prosecutor yourself what you made of something else attorney general barr said when he was talking about his own justice department calling prosecutors, quote, head hunters. accusing people of going after

political chases, witch hunts. this casts in an interesting light the durham investigation which is looking into the origins of the russia report, the mueller investigation. what did you make of the top of the justice department, the attorney general, calling his own prosecutors head hunters. >> not only is it incredibly offensive, ignorant and wrong, it's going to undermine the ability of prosecutors to do their work in this country prosecutors are used to being put on trial and called names and typically have thick skins but when the public hears these comments it's going to cause them to believe these things so when there's a case in the courtroom and the defendant claims it's politically motivated you're coming after me because of my politics it's going to have merit when the attorney general is saying the same thing it's a classic argument by

william barr, saying they don't want to be supervised, that's not the reason people are walking off these cases. it's not because they're being si supervised it's they're being supervised in a way that puts politics into their work they're told to dismiss a case in the friend of donald trump, michael flynn, after he's pleaded guilty when they're told to reduce the sentencing recommendation for roger stone, contrary to the position they take and we don't know what happened to paula that caused her to walk off the case but it isn't because these people don't respect the org chart. they live it every day what they don't respect is an attorney general intervening on behalf of the president for a political agenda. >> michael schmidt your book

"donald trump versus the united states," you write a great deal about how william barr, as soon as he got into the job, moved beyond being a traditional attorney general and instead decided that he would, in fact, answer donald trump's call to be trump's roy cohn talk about your book, your reporting and how it basically predicted what he's done this past week. >> donald trump was in a, basically, presidential-long search for this type of person to be his attorney general the president was open about it, said it publicly, privately to his aides. he fired his attorney general who he did not think was loyal to him he got rid of his white house counsel who told him to stop intervening in the justice

department's work. warning the president if there was even a perception of him trying to pressure the attorney general, that he could get into grave trouble, he could lose at the ballot box, he could be impeached. he could get into legal trouble himself. the government at least could. but despite all of that, the president has found this person in bill barr, he's told people how happy he is with him and the president and bill barr find themselves at this highly unique situation with just a few months here before the election. the question is that how far will they go are they willing to go up until this point, the president's meddling in the justice department's work has been largely focused on trying to protect himself, protect the people around him. to obstruct the justice department's work, to ensure that they're loyalists but is the president and is barr going to go more on the

offensive in ways that we haven't seen before in prosecuting the president's rivals, in intervening around the election in ways that we've never seen the justice department that is really the question. will they pivot and do stuff even more aggressively than just trying to protect the president, which a lot of the president's efforts have been focused on up until this point in the administration >> you know, i don't understand and i -- michael maybe you can answer this because you've done so much reporting of it in your book and ben wittes we'll get you back in on this, but i don't understand why william barr would do this. he has to know he's forever sullied his reputation here's a guy worth tens of millions of dollars, he made a fortune after he left public service in 1993. and i -- i can never figure out

what is the upside for destroying your reputation and doing things that do violence to constitutional norms and political norms and certainly cause great offense to people you have known and worked with your entire life what is in it for him? >> well -- as i reported on and i've seen, a colleague of mine, peter baker, emailed with barr in the first year or two of the administration, before he became attorney general and barr said something along the lines of how there was a clinton-related investigation that was -- that had more merit to it than the russia investigation that should be looked into. to me that appeared to show that he had been impacted by the beliefs of the far right media now is it so simple as to say

that like bill barr made a lot of money and stayed at home and watched a lot of fox news and became attorney general. probably, that's probably too simple but he certainly has entertained those views more so even than his predecessor jeff sessions who was seen as conservative an attorney general as you could find what has differentiated barr is sort of his effectiveness and willingness to speak out in the ways that he has the thing is that barr knows what he's saying and there was a story out there this morning that well, barr was trying to say that this was applying to both sides, republicans and democrats, basically saying he was concerned about the rhetoric of the president. the attorney general could say that, and if had had said that in that speech, the speech would have been received differently so barr knows what he's doing

and saying so the question is that if he really meant this for both parties, including perhaps the president, then why wouldn't he say that >> and ben wittes, that is at the heart of this. here is a guy that worked for george h.w. bush, had the respect of many in the washington legal community, and as you know better than anybody, that is a very small community there's no hiding from your deviousness or lying that he's doing right now. the guy committed perjury in front of congress. he goes on interviews, and claimed -- even though as michael said he knows better, he knows he's lying when he says the mueller investigation started with the steele dossier, he knows that's a lie and all of his friends he's been working

with for 20, 30, 40 years they know that's a lie too. they know he's playing the role of roy cohn. he has all the money he wants. what do you think, what do some of his friends, former friends think about this guy who has savaged his reputation, lies willfully for the president of the united states, and sounds more like a bizarre right wing blogger than the attorney general of the united states >> so it is a mystery. and there's a range of opinions among, you know, people who knew him at various times in his career and have admired him. my own view is similar to mike schmidt's, i think he believes it all i don't think he wakes up in the morning and looks at himself in the mirror and sees, as you describe him, the president's roy cohn, or as the president

describes him. i think he looks in the mirror and sees somebody who is righteously standing up for the traditions of the department even over a bureaucracy that is sometimes overzealous in trying to get the president and i don't think he seems to have, remotely, an appreciation of -- i think he knows how his actions are received, because he clearly knows he's angered a lot of people. but i don't think he understands the merits of the anger at all and i think he is not detained for a moment by anything like self-doubt and i do suspect he has been very substantially influenced over the years by right-wing media so i think he believes a lot of things that seem like crazy conspiracy theories to you and

me >> but barbara -- >> when he says -- hold on i'll follow up quickly and then let willie go to barbara when he says something like -- in an interview, says something like the mueller investigation started because of the steele dossier, he knows that's a lie he knows by looking at docume s documents, by looking at timelines that lawyers look at, he knows he's a liar to the american people to push a right-wing conspiracy theory he can be confident what he's doing is in the best interest of america, even though he's actualactua actually shattering constitutional norms, political norms but are you telling me he's so delusional he doesn't know he's a liar when he says,

for instance, that the mueller investigation started with the steele dossier >> look, you will not get me to defend that or a myriad of other statement that is statements that he's made that are factually incorrect and some of which may not be factually incorrect, it's wildly inappropriate for him to be talking about these matters, a lot of which are by his own order under current investigation, yet he talks about them in a kind of speculative fashion. it's completely inappropriate. that said, what is in his mind when he makes these material misrepresentations, i don't know i honestly have no explanation for his apparent change. and it is a change from the person that he used to present himself as being and does not bother to do that anymore.

so are they lies or are they delusional accounts of conspiracy theories? i honestly don't know. >> barbara, as a former u.s. attorney there in michigan, you're obviously still very plugged in to the justice department, judges you know, prosecutors you know across the country. what do they think when they watch that event from william barr and hear him go after the justice department and make the claims he was making and the allegations he was making. what do they think when the man who runs their department is speaking that way? >> well, i don't want to speak for anyone else but what i would think if i was still working there, it's not just offensive but it is damaging to the reputation of the department of justice when your boss -- you expect to hear those things from rivals in a court case, defendants fighting for their lives may say those things about a prosecutor but to hear it from the attorney general undermines their anlts

to do their jobs effectively it's wrong, inaccurate and one of the things about william barr he never himself has been a prosecutor, served as a prosecutor and it shows in some way, the most dangerous person in the courtroom is the person who's certain that he's right. you have to respect the process. you have to understand that there's a possibility that you're wrong and as a result it's process that matters over the ends and william barr has allowed the ends to justify the means. if you read his speeches at notre dame law school and the federalist society and this one most recently at hills dale college he is on a crusade to correct what he believes is the correct religion, capitalism, whatever, he's on a way to protect it and will do whatever it takes

i want to turn now at the top of the hour -- just after it, after 7:00 on the east coast to joe biden's appearance last night in his first televised town hall since becoming the democratic nominee here what he told voters. >> back in march i was calling for the need to have masks, to have the president stand and tell us what's going on. but he knew it, he knew it and did nothing it's close to criminal things get worse and worse before they get better, but you have to level with the american people, shoot from the shoulder. this president should step down. grew up in scranton we're used to guys that look down their nose at us, think we're suckers, look a us and think we're not equivalent to them if you didn't have a college degree you must be stupid if, in fact, you didn't get to go to an ivy school what bothered me to tell you the truth, maybe it's my scranton roots, i don't know. when you started talking on

television about, biden if he wins will be the first person without an ivy league degree to be president who thinks i have to have an ivy league degree to be president i'm not joking guys like me, the first in my family to go to college. my dad busted his neck we are as good as anybody else and guys like trump, who inherited everything and squandered what they inherited are the people i had a problem with not the people busting their neck >> this is sheila, a registered nurse for scranton, a republican who voted for trump in 2016 also the widow of a police officer who lost his life to cancer last year due to toxins at the world trade enter. >> god love you. if there are any angels in

heaven it's docs and nurses. docs let you live, nurses make you want to live, thank you for what you do. >> he showed great empathy throughout the evening but iloved the ivy league comment. you could tell he felt that because he -- you go -- start going back through the president's -- actually, joe biden would be the first president since ronald reagan not to have an ivy league degree i think about the time ronald reagan went to speak at harvard and he had his hands on the podium with the presidential seal underneath him and he said, you know, sometimes i think of what i might have accomplished if i had just gotten a better education. so that same reagan-esque vain. >> shout out to the university of delaware blue hens for joe biden there last night he's casting this race in a new light, one he hasn't used

before, this strategy. he is scranton joe and donald trump is park avenue or more correctly fifth avenue donald trump living in a penthouse made of gold and mirrors. that's the comparison he's happy to make. i think watching the last part of that clip joe if you contrast donald trump two nights earlier in the town hall had he, where you had voters stepping to microphones weeping about what happened to their families, how the coronavirus impacted him it's not a skill that donald trump has. he's not capable of being empathic he's not capable of reaching out and talking to somebody. he's not capable of making the comment convincingly anyway that joe biden made last night. so joe biden is happy to have the fight on the grounds of where are you from and how do you reach out and touch people how do you feel their pain in a time when so many people in this country are feeling pain we have a new panel, former u.s.

senator now msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill. columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson and there he is, donny deutsch is with us as well this morning. donny, got some new depth on your shot today. trying something different every thing remains the same, the tanned up guns are still there. >> i was getting heat about the dental office i was in, my office was downstairs. so i moved upstairs. i'll give you a tour later >> look at this guy, amazing check out these polls we have for you. starting in arizona, joe biden with a nine point lead over president trump there. in the battleground state of wisconsin that president trump won by a hair in 2016, the latest morning consult poll shows joe biden with a nine point lead there as well

in maine, the latest "new york times" poll finds joe biden with a commanding 17 point lead over the president. and in north carolina, the two are statistically tied with joe biden up one point over donald trump 45 to 44 joe? >> claire, we were talking about generals always fighting the last war wisconsin, a lot of us thought wisconsin was going to be what tim rus erthought florida was in 2000 we thought it was going to be wisconsin, wisconsin but post kenosha you see one poll after another showing joe biden up the average, it seems more often than not, nine points. the law and order argument failed miserably failed him after june 1st and what he did there, failed him again and now word this morning

that the trump campaign is taking down their law and order campaign ads because they're just not working >> yeah, if you were on the ground in wisconsin, i'm trying to put myself in that position, what you wanted was a president that would calm things down. that would soothe the rough edges of this incredible tear at the fabric of our society around racism what they saw in wisconsin instead was a president unwilling to say one negative word about a 17-year-old going into a conflict with an ar-15 and killing people it is -- and, you know, older voters saw that and said, wait, presidents are supposed to fix things they're not supposed to make it worse. i think this president has really missed the touch you need, especially with older voters look at the contrast last night.

joe biden who is supposed to be incapable of putting two sentences together, is knock it out of the ballpark in a town hall question after question and trump is at a super spreader event and all the elderly people in the country are going what are you doing, to say nothing of the fact he was talking about hillary clinton's emails this is a president who doesn't understand how the american people are viewing him right now. >> and you know, also, at donald trump's event with george stephanopoulos, he proved himself to be ignorant on issue after issue despite the fact he's been president for four years. there's so many mysteries with the choices that donald trump has made since he's become president. we've talked about it a good bit where politics is about addition, all he's been doing has been subtracting time and

time again but you look at all of these polls and it seems like he's facing the consequences of it. and all because this man has been fighting culture wars for the past four years, creating culture wars, lying about the need to build a wall and lying that mexico was going to pay for the wall and let's go to the biggest one, the original one, when donald trump knew, because he watched ourshow and we said it regularly, that illegal immigration at the time he was talking about that, was at a 50-year low. and he's refused steadfastly to talk about the economy, time and time again he should have been talking about the economy the past four years but he's been picking fights on twitter with people that are well below the standing of most presidents

so here we are going into the campaign, he's behind, and he still refuses to stay focused on the economy. >> donald trump can't stay focused on the economy but what joe biden was focused on last night, i think this is really important, health care that is what won the 2018 midterm elections. 5 million people have lost their health care since covid and when you watched joe biden last night go at trump about his son. when he talked about his son who obviously was a war hero and the health care he needed when his son got cancer and the passion and rage when he went at trump, you called my son a loser? that's what i want to see on debate night when joe biden gets passionate, angry, something happens that you go, yeah, you're punching back i like that stay on health care and economy,

and tie it to the health of covid. that word health, whether it's financial health, health as it relates to the virus or guess what donald trump is going to take away health coverage for americans with preexisting conditions let trump talk about the culture wars, stay on health, financial health, health of human beings. >> claire eluded to president trump's event last night in wisconsin, no social distancing, few masks even as covid cases are rising in that state wisconsin hit a new record high for positivity rate more than 2,000 cases reported there yesterday besting the previous record set on sunday in marathon county where the president's rally was held, health authorities deem the covid activity to be high. meanwhile an internal email from a senior trump administration official shows the white house

scrapped a plan to send face masks to every united states household back in april. in an email obtained by nbc news, a senior official says the white house instead decided to send the masks to businesses, state and federal agencies and non-profit organizations "the washington post" obtained a press release about the original plan shows masks were supposed to be distributed to homes in areas with the highest number of cases at the time, including louisiana, washington state, michigan and new york. when asked why that plan was scrapped a spokesperson did not answer the question but said, quote, cloth face masks are available from a number of vendors and accessible to the american people and additionally people are making their own. the white house did not respond to the request for a comment so gene robinson this gets right to it, when the president told bob woodward i always wanted to play it down the reason the white house

didn't allow this plan to go through for the post office to send the masks to americans in april is because they didn't want to create a sense of panic which is exactly what the president told bob woodward. >> right and so, again, the big trump lie. yes, he downplayed the virus and the result is that tens of thousands of people died who did not have to die. who would have lived had the federal government, had the white house, responded intelligently, compassionately, consistently to the virus. that's just a fact i think we learned a couple of things this week i think if you look at the two town hall events and the way president trump and joe biden responded to questions from voters i think anyone who worried about how joe biden would perform in the debates, in the coming

debates now has new confidence and can relax. and joe biden is obviously very good on his feet he projects the qualities that he puts front and center in his campaign for the presidency, the passion and experience and he -- so i think you take that worry off the table. i think the other thing we've learned just from the polling we've seen this week is that this is the period when theo theoretically we were going to see the race tighten i think if you take the polling as a whole you don't see it tightening you don't. any sort of over confidence going into november, anything can happen but we see donald trump continuing to appeal to

the members of his cult, acting less like a can't trying to win presidency and more like a cult leader he's deepening that connection and affinity with the members of his consult to the exclusion of everyone else and leaving the rest of the field to joe biden because he's incapable of trying to make a broader appeal and if that does not change, and i don't it will change, then i think we'll continue to see polling like what we saw this week >> everybody stay put. we'll keep this group together stillahead on "morning joe" we continue the conversation with new senate polling we look at what gene is talking about there, possible tightening or not but delaware republicans pass on the party's endorse candidate and instead nominate an alleged q-anon supporter for the united states senate.

plus new york city mayor bill de blasio will be our guest to talk about the delay of schools that have parents outraged. you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back. how about no

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fbi director christopher wray warns that russian agents still are working to influence united states elections and their motive is to undermine joe biden leading up to november yesterday before testimony before the house homeland security committee director wray said that, quote, russian has been very active, very active efforts by the russians to influence our elections in 2020 through what i would call more the malign influence side of things, social media, use of proxies, state media, online journals christopher wray talking about russia there after ward president trump tweeted this, no activity has

been seen from china even though it's a far greater threat than russia let's bring in staff writer david frum so much to say there, director wray in his sworn testimony said russia is at it again, at it to help president trump and he talked about white supremacists being the worst threat to this country and not antifa, something attacked by president trump and others director wray has done it before, comes out with his own intelligence, it's informed by intelligence gathering and donald trump goes out publicly and rips him for it. >> this is a warning of what's to come in a second trump term if there is one. you have to listen to this wray, trump spat just two days ago the attorney general in a q&a session said he believes the fbi should be

reporting to him, the attorney general and he should have power to decide what they investigate and don't investigate. when the president signals russian interference in the u.s. election is not important he would like you to focus on interference by other people and not what fbi professionals recognize as the number one threat, barr is in the back putting the nickels into the glove to say i will be working those people over to make sure if we are re-elected we make the fbi do in the future what the president personally wants. >> claire mccaskill, again, it must be galling for you to have served with republicans that ran around holding constitutions, you know, having these pocket-sized constitutions in their pockets and always waving it around and yet here they are falling meekly in line behind a guy who says article ii gives me complete power and the justice department is mine and now he wants the fbi to be completely under his control because he wants to be able to

do what vladimir putin and the law and justice party in poland does he wants to be able to prosecute political opponents. >> yeah, let this settle in. the head of the premier law enforcement organization in the united states of america took an oath to tell the truth and told congress yesterday that russia was trying to meddle in our election to help donald trump, to hurt biden and that white supremacists were the biggest domestic threat to our national security and what is the attorney general doing? he's talking about arresting the mayor of seattle he's talking about arresting protesters i mean, if this was a plot for a movie, i would walk out and say this is so unrealistic this couldn't happen in america, but it's happening and barr is totally and completely responsible the way he is not only allowing

the denigration of joe biden by russia but the way he's denigrating the life long career prosecutors i can't tell you how badly barr needs to go into the trash bin of history and the sooner the better. >> i can't repeat this story enough i remember in 1993 when a couple of clinton aides talked to somebody be at the fbi about how to word a certain press release and republicans freaked out. you would have thought that the constitution had been shredded into a thousand pieces and here you have a president that does that every day and so-called constitutional conservatives members of a personality cult and raging hypocrites, say absolutely

nothing. and you have, of course, gene robinson, a president who respects no boundaries a president who despises any madis madison-ian checks and balances, any constitutional balance and here you have him tweeting again at his own fbi director because, as we found out in woodward's book, donald trump would become enraged any time anybody suggested that russia was anything less than a perfect actor on the international stage. >> yes you know, historically, obviously, as you know, and as everyone knows, the fbi director is given an amount of autonomy and authority to do what he needs to do in the service of

american justice and is thought to be immune from the sort of political interference, at least that's the theory, that was what we tried to do from the end of j. edgar hoover's tenure to now and it started at the beginning of donald trump's term when he got rid of jim comey because he wouldn't do his political bidding. so this is nothing new for donald trump what is new, i think, is that we can say bill barr is now the second most dangerous man in america, most dang roerous man o our constitution, our constitutional norms, to what we think of as the american way of life he believes, i think he sincerely believes, i think he is this looney, but he believes in an absolutely imperial

presidency and he believes that yes, the president and the attorney general, his attorney general, should be able decide that the fbi investigates these people over here but not those people over there because we say so and that's astonishing, as claire says if if you wrote it in a movie script, you wouldn't believe it it would -- because it's so implausible. but it's true. it's happening before our eyes and bill barr is, you know -- it's almost every day he's talking about prosecuting for sedition, arresting the mayor of seattle. it's just astonishing but he's the attorney general of the united states and he has enormous power and he's going to use it in malign and horrible ways >> let's see how all of this is playing out down the ballot.

new polling from "the new york times" shows democrats holding leads in three key senate races. in north carolina, thom tillis trails by five points. in maine, susan collins is in trouble, she's five points behind her democratic challenger poll yesterday had her down 12 points 54 to 42. in arizona martha mcsally trails democrat joe kelly by 8 points dave i'll let you have a crack at all these polls which jumps out the most >> none jumps out because they're consistent with what we've seen north carolina in particular is a state that the trump campaign would have hoped to put away by now and thom tillis would have hoped to put away by now he's one of the 2014 republicans who won narrowly with very low

turnout. in this climate, he's not broken away from the president, not built a lead, an advantage cunningham was someone the republicans didn't take seriously, someone who's been recruited before but unable to win a primary. this far from a convention, too. we're far beyond the period if there was going to be a reset at the rnc then it would have happened you would have seen new opportunity in the polls one thing i point to too is republican senate messaging is different than the president's messaging. the president's messaging and tv ads changes week-to-week, a new silver bullet every week, an issue focused on biden's fitness. republicans are running on the affordable care act. health care came up, that is the topic of every democratic campaign it might be boring to write

about. but it's been consistently winning votes for democrats. >> it is so funny, dave, watching the republicans run kinder and gentler television ad in the state of florida they're doing what they always do, stand in front of rivers, lakes, they talk about how they have been great environmental stewards that's one thing if you're not from florida, a lot of people don't understand actually, even right wingers, they want their kids to be able to fish in clean water ways. the environment is just -- you know, connie mack was always very good at talking about what an environmentalist she was. but that's the message a kinder and gentler message but you've seen it in other states that all of these people are running from trump not only

in message but most importantly in tone. >> you eve seen this in midterm years wasn't successful in 2018 for republicans running more as a super power mayor someone who brought a bunch of money back to the state. point to businessmen who thank them for being able to stay open during the pandemic. apart from districts that are heavy with white working class voters, college degrees, that's where you see the republican messaging on unrest, looters, then the police. in places the movement has been suburban college educated white voters you're not seeing that as much i think it also declined in the last few weeks maybe it wasn't clear to a lot of people that voters didn't see a protest get out of control, see somebody break a window, burn a building down and think that person is a joe biden supporter.

something the trump campaign was saying people didn't make that connection in their minds because he did not run his campaign as part of a grass roots movement throughout his career he's been tough on crime, pro police funding. they run it with a message that didn't click and you see the same thing in state races. you needed more ramp up to convince people. people that weren't watching the message, reading the email forwards, watching media, you need more to convince them this country is going to fall apart i think that's why you're seeing a different message in the downballot campaigns they're not convincing themselves, we can morph the democrats into somebody throwing a molotov cocktail they lost two, three, four weeks on that message that didn't move a lot of balls. >> like trying to morph joe

biden into aoc or bernie as people can see on our screen we have assembled an entire football team to ask questions so i'm going to pass it in a second but dave, i love when you break apart the states for pennsylvania you said the seven states of pennsylvania pennsylvania is the one state that has remained a mystery to me when you look at the massive amount of, you know, the advantages that biden is going to get out of philadelphia, the amount of -- that he's going to get out of the philly suburbs. the fact he runs better in the scranton-wilkes-barre area than any democrats in the recent past the fact that pittsburgh seemed like a home away from home for biden for quite some time. i keep finding myself surprised by, you know, the three or four point spread

i would expect pennsylvania to be more like wisconsin, eight or nine points and wisconsin to be more like pennsylvania i know there's the t in the middle but i can't figure out why that race is so close. can you give us any insights >> well, a lot of it is demographics you were talking about the t, the center of the state between pittsburgh and philadelphia. but what i broke down the state, what became clear is democrats turned out a ton of voters in philadelphia, didn't have fallout from the barack obama years in 2016. hillary clinton improved in the suburbs of philadelphia, improved in allegheny county she did gain in some places but you can't lose white working class voters by as much as she did. this being a narrow one-point race, a two-point gain with those voters and doing everything else right wins the state for joe biden but not by a lot. it's a state you were talking about in 2008, close to the states look, pennsylvania was a ten

point race but michigan and wisconsin were in the mid teens, minnesota was in the high teens but it has conservative voters more skeptical and the only state that has the coal country, the trump energy message does not land as hard in wisconsin where there's fracking sand but it's not a big issue you saw biden address again last night and tripped himself up a little bit because his position is that fracking can continue but we'll ban it on federal lands and maybe one day we won't need to use it that's been the barack obama, 2008, 2012 position. he needs to keep stressing that in pennsylvania. sometimes he drops a word and says no new fracking and the trump campaign has been driving a truck in the t in western pennsylvania, places voiting for trump anyway but to get the voters on the fence,

list your problem with how trump has been president to convince them this industry is going to be banned on january 20, 2021. you see him stressing that in pennsylvania, trying to walk a tight rope that issue does not resonate in the rest of the swing states we're talking about because look where the shale rock is. >> donny deutsch is with us and has a question donny? >> dave, nice to talk to you hypothesis and a question. coming off the last segment with bill barr, who is such a repulsive character. is there any messaging that's possible for democrats with what i call all the president's men message, mitch mcconnell, jared kushner and donald trump together, talk about a four-headed repulsive monster you don't just get four more years of donald trump you get these highly unappealing human beings and something that didn't get a lot of attention mike bloomberg putting

$100 million into florida. that would be the equivalent of putting a billion and a half in initially. any thoughts on my foreheaded monster theory >> the bloomberg part, he did it in 2018. people forget about it he waits until it's late in the game and when you're making investments that it's tough for the other side to match. you have republican multimillionaires and billionaires giving to super pacs but not as strategic as bloomberg, get in and fund what's happening in bloomberg. if you look at florida's races in 2018 republicans were in trouble basically all year after the primary in august. the fact that rick scott could spend millions of dollars every time he was in trouble was the difference maker in the senate race so outspending republicans on the air in florida, in especially these markets you find voters who were comfortable

with mitt romney, connie mack but not trump. you were talking about barr and everybody else i don't think any of that helps the president. is it in the conversation every day? not really one thing it does, an advantage biden has versus hillary clinton at this point is the conversation -- look at this revelation, look at this mistake, who the associations she brings with her. and the campaign struggled to make anything about joe biden and his associations enough to walk away from him so he leads on honest and trustworthy. he leads on who would bring racial healing and things like that he's had success in linking the barr and the rest of the trump administration to a climate of disarray also when they try to make a scandal happen in the news with ron johnson's investigation of

hunter biden in ukraine it doesn't connect because there's so much dust coming up from the active trump administration. pardons of his associates, the speeches from the ag seeming to take this position it's blurring what some republicans thought would be a killer message because they had it for hillary clinton, get three or four days out of a news cycle from a revelation from her emails or accusation from james comey. so much from the trump administration, it looks like they've turned the legal system to a defense mechanism for the presidency and his campaign. there's only so much news in a day, attention voters have, if you blur that issue it's losing them votes and news cycles we're down this weekend to six weekends in the campaign what have they connected on joe biden and the campaign compared to what has become infamous about the justice department under

bill barr. >> david frum if you look at the collection of states that turned the election in 2016 by such narrow margins, wisconsin where the president was last night, miechlt michigan, pennsylvania where joe biden was last night the biden campaign is optimistically positive ant those states today, but where would you be focussing your energy if you were the biden campaign are you looking at georgia at texas what are states you think are realistic to flip? >> i would be looking at every state where the schools that reopened in august and early september are closing and children are being sent home, young people being sent home from college when you think about bloomberg's $100 million, the most important fact in mid fall is president trump insisted the schools be opened, universities opened, they mostly were, young people got sick and came home and maybe they're exposing their parents

and grandparents most of us in the cable tv land are in the post young child phases of our live it's important to remember people catching the snow in snatches because they are making lunch now have children at home. what that means to the education of those children, the lives of those families i think 2016 blinded us to this. for three and a half years pundits have been saying that trump 40%, nothing seems to shake it, no matter what he does, he has the 40% look at that it's just like a rock. in the past few weeks we've gone wait it's a two-party system, 100 minus 40 leaves 60 and those 60 have also been there. and president trump talking about, you know, how antifa and ruling minorities are going to come steal our pillow cases that never made an impression on the 60%. maybe you can do better with 40

than 60 in 2016 but you're playing this game i'd rather have the 60 than 40 and that's what joe biden has >> that's what i kept thinking going into 2018, this is still a two-party system and i could never figure out how republicans could do well when donald trump was sitting at 41, 42, 43%. much hasn't changed in the past couple of years. politics, i've said it a million times, i said it, the members of trump's administration, politics is about the game of addition, making friends, adding to your coalition. all donald trump has done over the past four years is subtract, to offend, drive a further wedge between the 42 and 58% thank you for being here

willie, david obviously doesn't know our backgrounds we still have young kids in the house we're still making lunch we're still -- >> yeah. >> i got one kid at school and i've got one kid that's still on zoom so it's a still a ways to go there. >> yeah. we got some road ahead of us you've been down some road but you have some ahead of you. >> long way. still ahead this morning, former top staffer to vice president mike pence throwing her support behind joe biden she worked on the task force with vice president pence, we'll tell you why she is now voting for biden. knowing who we are is hard. it's hard. eliminate who you are not first, and you're going to find yourself where you need to be. ♪ the race is never over.

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a former top aide to vice president mike pence is now throwing her support behind joe

biden. olivia troy who worked on the homeland security security terrorism and coronavirus task force said the administration's response to the pandemic has cost american lives prompted her to live the white house, she says, last month her comments highlighted in a new ad by the group republican voters against trump >> towards the middle of february, we knew it wasn't a matter of if covid would become a big pandemic here in the united states, we knew it was a matter of when but the president didn't want to hear that because his biggest concern was we were in an election year. he doesn't care about anyone else except himself. he made a statement one and it pretty much defined who he was when we were in a task force meeting, the president said maybe this thing is a good thing. i don't like shaking hands with people i don't have to shake hands with those different gusting people those disgusting people are the same people he claims to care about.

these are the same people going to his rallies today who have complete faith in who he is. >> so, claire, vice president pence yesterday called olivia troy a disgruntled employee. the white house did send out her resignation letter which was glowing talking about her experience there but this is yet another staffer, another person who worked close to the president or the vice president, who worked in this white house who is compelled to come out a month later and go on the record talking about what she saw there. >> yeah. and does anybody in america believe that donald trump has an affinity towards her cult-like supporters this is a guy, as you said earlier, who wanted to live in an apartment that was all mirrors and gold that wanted to outfit his jet in all gold and who is a proposed germ phon germaphobe so i think it rings true that he

considers his supporters disgusting i also think she's a hero. this is going to impact her life and i compare her courage to united states senators the republican united states senators we have mitt romney alone on an island and all the rest of the republican senators are hiding like reptiles under a rock refusing to stand up for what they believe in, for what they actually believe in. so i think this is a very powerful ad. i think what she has done is meaningful to a lot, particularly republican women who have voted for george bush and who did vote for john mccain and mitt romney and who will not vote for donald trump. >> it is amazing when you talk about the republican senators. you've got some that aren't going to have a competitive race for six years. another who aren't up for another four years and yet a complete conspiracy of

silence against a man who is trashing constitutional norms and who is the least conservative president that we have had in my life time, conservative with a small "c," conservative economically. when you talk about small government, conservatism, when you were talking about deficits, when you're talking about debts, the size of the federal budget even before covid, this guy, for a party that used to talk about character and that character mattered in presidents for a party that eviscerated bill clinton's character for years saying he was unfit to walk into the oval office, who would be forever stained by his presidency, there are some of those same people now who just sit quietly and are trying to act invisible, to pretend this will just go away. when what is required is

actually for them to speak out and they just won't do it. not for liberals, not for woke journalists, not for college professors, but for the future of conservative, for the future of republican party and yes, for the future of evangelicals but my god, they choose silence instead. let's turn now to writer journalist and documentary filmmaker chris whipple. how the cia directors shape history and the future what an incredibly important time for this book tell us about the spy masters, what is -- what is the big idea in your book >> well, you know, this began as a documentary in 2018. but i thought this if i am barely scratch today surface of this unbelievable untold story of 17 men and one woman who have

run the cia since the mid 1960s. and what you learn when you interview almost every living cia director as i did, and you go back to the era of richard helms, is that it's almost impossible to overstate the importance of the position the cia director is the person we depend on to prevent another pearl harbor 9/11 or lethal pandemic and it's also almost an xwabl balancing act because the cia director has to tell the president hard truths while also having his ear you have to have a seat at the table to be effective. that's tough in the best of times and it's almost mission impossible with donald trump >> well, and chris, also, though, even before the age of trump, the cea seemingly is always under siege unless we are at war, unless we are under attack of course, after 9/11, everybody

turned to the cia on the -- in the senate and the house they didn't want to ask too many questions. they wanted to be safe when they finally felt safe in 2005, 2006, there were a lot of cia officers having to hire lawyers because suddenly capitol hill felt safe and they forget everything that they had been briefed on in 2001, 2002 >> you know, it's funny, joe, because somebody once told me that they will never get rid of the cia, could never abolish it because then presidents would have no one to blame there's a saying out of langley that in washington, there are only policy successes and intelligence failures. the cia was blamed for missing the attacks of 9/11. but as i write in my book in great detail, the fact is that george ten i can't tell and his lieutenants went to the bush white house in july 2001, the

summer of 2001, he banged his fists on the table, and said we have to go on a war footing now. the bush white house ignored it and the rest is history. so, you know, if you look at the history of the cia, you remember frank church once famously called it a rogue elephant, the truth is that the cia, when it gets in trouble, generally speaking it's because it's doing stuff that the president has asked it to do >> right so let me ask you, finally, just as you look at all of these people that have run the cia, and that includes, of course, bob gates, an extraordinary man who knows his way around washington, as well or better than most, george h.w. bush, is there one cia leader or cia director that stands out to you

who should be a model for a president to look for, to put in that position? >> you have mentioned a few great ones i would go back to richard helms, too, who was the subseque quintessential cia director, dry martini in one hand, cia in the other. but what helms could do, he could walk into the oval office and tell lbj that bombing north vietnam was not having any effects and now you have to really fast forward to the present day. i think gina haskell is a fascinating character. the first woman to run the cea she flies under the radar. she gives no interviews. she cut her teeth as a covert operative in the back alleys of africa there were high hopes for her that she could be that honest broker of intelligence but frankly, i think her record has been really mixed and all you have to do is look at the

latest developments with the russian assault on our elections. when john radcliff, the dni, said he wasn't going to brief congress about that, i think gina hafking, in my view, should have said, okay, if you won't, i will because at the end of the day, the cia director has to be the honest broker, not only to the president, but to the congress and the american people. >> the new book is the spy masters, how the cia directors shape history and the future chris whipple, thank you so much and in about 20 minutes, we're going to be joined by new york city mayor bill de blasio after another last minute decision to delay in person classes for public schools a lot of parents are obviously concerned. our 8:00 a.m. hour conditions right now with this message from joe biden in a town hall meeting last night in pennsylvania >> i view this -- i really do view this campaign as a campaign between scranton and park

avenue and i really mean it because, you know, the way we were raised up here in this area, an awful lot of hard working people busting their neck all they ask for is a shot, just a shot all trump can see from park avenue is wall street. all he thinks about is the stock market and saying we're going to do all right everybody owns stock how many of you own stock. >> scranton? in my neighborhood in scranton, not a hell of a lot of people own stock. >> that is really -- that's just the best approach. i'm not just talking about joe biden. i'm talking about for anybody. when i was campaigning, i would be going around and somebody would bring up something my opponent would say and it would be nasty i would go, well, i've got to tell you, the way i was raised -- i mean, my parents just raised me to be better than

that whenever you a start talking about the way we were raised in scranton, that's gold. start tag about the way we were raised in scranton, that's gold.start talu the way we were raised in scranton, that's gold. also scranton versus park avenue i haven't really heard anything like that yet in this campaign other than a lot of insults going back and forth but certainly that definition, giving voters a real look at the fact that, yes, you had one guy that was raised working class in krant job, pennsylvania, and you had another guy that was born in new york and basically inherited $40 million. it's quite a contrast that biden used last night. >> it was and it was a new message from vice president biden. he also went to the ivy league

school thing, which is something that donald trump loves to brag about and said who the hell ever said you had to go to an ivy league school to be president of the united states. so he's flipping this thing and using something that i think you and i have been surprised no one has gone to which is donald trump, the alleged man of the people who lives in a gold and mirrored literally penthouse on fifth avenue and flies around with his private gold belt buckles, that man is not the man of the people. i grew up where you grew up. i know what it means to lose a job. i know what you're going through. >> and it's the same thing with these republican senators who tried to play man of the people. and oh, i'm just a working guy they all went to harvard law school you ever notice that >> yep >> if i still, even after all this time, if i walk on the campus of har variety and try to get close to harvard law school,

a campus cop comes and they cuff me to a radiator >> you're on the watch list. >> i've been on the watch list since like 1988 when i kept sending letters to all those schools and they kept getting nope, nope, nope by the way, willie, did you see my rankings? i don't know if you saw it, but "the wall street journal" put out the rankings of the best colleges in america. i don't know did you say "morning joe's" rankings >> i saw them and i think you adjusted them correctly. i might quibble with where you are vanderbilt on the list you had alabama one and florida two. is that right? >> yeah. and you always have to put ole miss up there. if ole miss isn't one, i mean, it's just barely one hold on one second here. i'm working -- are we on tv right now or not here we go >> we'll wait for you.

you call that email up >> i've got it here we go you tell me if there's anything you disagree with here number one, university of alabama, number two, university of florida incredible law school there. number three, ole miss. of course. i was embarrassed putting them that low number four, uga, baby, between the hedges athens is there a better town that athens, ga >> no. no >> come on >> they might need to be higher but, yeah, go ahead. >> number five, vandy. and i did write a note, great alum there a lot of yankees there, too, willie that was my only issue >> there are >> number six, suwannee, university of the south. >> number 7, smu you have to put smu. texas isn't really the south, but smu is it's kind of like east berlin and west berlin. west berlin was in east germany, but it was still part of the free west.

and the number eight, of course, the college of charleston. i think you've had 14, 15 presidents coming out of the college of charleston. >> not a lot of crossover with that forbes list, but i like your list better the only thing about suwannee is that jon meacham went there so that obviously works to their detriment. >> well, again, they probably would have been in the top five except for jon meacham >> that's right, yeah. >> by now, i think phil is probably calling alex and screaming to me saying we should start the show you can tell by the way mika is off. mika is upset. she kept trying to get me to put williams on the list i just -- i couldn't do that you know who gets an honorable mention, though? dartmouth. that school, they don't know they're a southern school, but they are dartmouth is an incredible place. that's all you have to say >> and over new hampshire. you know, if mika were here, this would have been over four minutes ago. >> yeah, exactly i know >> why don't we bring in some of

our guests, msnbc national affairs analyst co-host of show time's "the circus," an executive editor of the recount, john heilemann has been waiting patiently. professor at princeton university who may want to weigh in on this list, "begin again" eddie glaud jr. and kasie hunt who starting this monday will host the return, we're proud to say, of "way too early" weekdays at 5:00 a.m. eastern right before "morning joe. joe, we've got kasie hunt as our lead in. >> incredible morning. >> and we have a slew of new polls for you starting with the race for the white house in arizona. let's look there first the latest cnn and "new york times" poll finds joe biden with a nine-point lead over president trump. in the battleground state of wisconsin. the latest morning consult poll shows abide within a nine-point lead there, as well. in maine where the latest cnn and "new york times" poll finds abide within a commanding

17-point lead over the president. and down to north carolina where biden and trump are statistically tide with biden up 1 over trump 45-44, joe. >> north carolina and florida, just about as tight as they could be arizona, most polls are showing that joe biden has a comfortable lead there, but, again, let's go back, john heilemann, to the race we've been talking about for some time now. wisconsin. it was supposed to be wisconsin, wisconsin, wisconsin this year that was going to be the battleground that would determine whether joe biden had a chance seeing how he did with those supposed working class angry white pro trump males that would not vote for a democrat any more the polls certainly seem to be showing, again, that wisconsin, for now, as we move towards early voting in wisconsin, that

wisconsin seems to be one of joe biden's stronger, if not his strongest swing state. >> yeah. i think, joe, you know, the -- you know, in that set of six battleground states that we've been talking about all year long, you know, the three kind of industrial midwest states, wisconsin, mississippi, pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan have both been, you know, so solid for biden now for -- pennsylvania i think is going to be the battle for biden. and they're all going to be battles, let's be honest but the consistency of the lead in those two upper midwest states and now we look at wisconsin, as you say, this battle over kenosha which donald trump and his people were very confident that they had changed the subject away from the coronavirus and that this subject would play to their advantage, especially in that state. i was there a couple of weeks ago. it's been a week and i came back and i thought, you know what there's -- it's going to be a competitive race here. but a lot of these suburban

moderate wisconsin republicans, independents, people in the middle of the electorate who did not love donald trump in 2016, who did not give him a primary victory in 2016, they were very, very turned off by the way the president seemed to be pouring gasoline on the fire they were worried about law and order, but the thing they saw was donald trump refusing to condemn the violence of vigilante shooter in their state and they, like that, less than -- they're worried about that as much as anything donald trump'sdy devisiveness was a core issue in that state coming up, a look at how the senior vote in florida is playing a huge part there. and coming up, joe's new book "saving freedom" is coming out on november 17th but you can preorder it right

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i lot of looking at these swing states, the swing states that we've talked talked about, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, north carolina, florida, arizona and i love seeing how the map is shifting we were all sure, at leastlty of people were thinking that we were going on be looking at wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, maybe minnesota. and donald trump would probably have florida in the end. what has happened is, at least with wisconsin and michigan, those have broken hard for joe biden. in the past month or so.

pennsylvania is still tight. i don't know why it's still tight. i don't think donald trump can win there. but pennsylvania is still tight. but you come down to florida, and that is a place that had biden up by five, six, seven points at the height of coronavirus. and there are two demographics that are going to determine the outcome of that state. and then hispanics i've heard time and again joe biden hasn't focused enough on hispanics. where do you see those two groups breaking right now?

>> yeah. i went and saw donald trump's campaign in tampa and got around to some other locals >> i'll tell you part of the reason why the focus has shifted to florida is that it's a state where unlike some of these battleground states which are going to have this giant influx of early votes that they never seen before, because of the laws in those states and the counting might get on for some days after election day, florida, as you know, it's the first battleground state that often reports. they have long experience and history with counting early votes. they're not freaked out by the fact that there's more people voting early this time around. and people assumed that we're going to have a result from florida unless it's so close that we get a recount, right there's not really a world where

donald trump can win, can get to 270 electoral votes and win the presidency without florida so part of the reason that the focus is on that state is if biden manages to beat trump in a clean way, a lot of the uncertainty will face because people will say there is not really any way for trump to win. and we've talked about what it means for biden to be up trump won seniors nationally in 2016 in florida, he won senior citizens by nine points and he's down right now the last poll that i looked at was the monmouth poll and had him down eight that is our story, down one or two.

so you had a nine point swing with senior citizens in florida and it's something even the trump campaign does not deny and they also are fully aware of how hard it is to win florida if you're donald trump and you've lost eight or nine points with seniors to joe biden and they're looking at these other groups like latinos to try to make it up the state will be very close, but man, is it hard math for donald trump to win the state of florida given the deep hole he's put himself in but in florida, man, it's decisive coming up, the mayor of new york city is standing by bill de blasio is joining the station to talk about the delay of starting school and more. that's next on "morning joe. family's land,

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welcome back to "morning joe. beautiful live picture at 8:25 in the morning of new york city, new york once again now delaying its plan to resume in person classes in its public schools mayor bill de blasio made the

decision after meeting with union leaders who have been warning new york city schools are not ready to open. i'm sure you've heard from outraged parents that have moved from frustration to outrage about this explain the decision why the 11th hour change >> let's put this in perspective. we are opening the largest school system in the nation. and we are opening, in fact, on monday we're going to start with our early childhood education kids, our special education kids, next week there is going to be almost 90,000 kids in new york city classrooms the following week, hundreds of thousands more we're going on be over half a million kids in classrooms in the next few weeks so, look, i was a public school parent here in new york city i understand it's frustrating that we need to get it right we are going to have our schools open for our parents and our kids that's really what i think

matters here >> mr. mayor, you've cited safety concerns, ventilation in some of these older school buildings, a teacher shortage, as well. these are all problems you knew were coming. so it's fair to ask, what were you guys doing all summer? why did all of this don on you now? >> look, all summer long, we've been preparing, ventilation, for example, so much work was done over the summer to improve the ventilation in the classrooms. we set literally a gold standard for what it takes to reopen schools. no school in the world that i know of has layered all of these people on each other, every adult and student has to wear a mask at all times. we're talking about a classroom that is going to have kids in it and we're talking about constant cleaning the things we're doing here are taking the best examples around the world.

the staffing is something we realize we had to add more and it's going on happen and schools are opening in new york city and it's going on be a big part of how new york city comes back. willie, you see it there is more and more people coming back to work. there's more and more people on the streets than the subways things are happening in this city and we're going to be the largest school system by far in america that actually opens up schools and kids need it here is the thing, willie. you can do remote education. it's easier. it's by far less helpful to our kids and our families if kids can't be in school, can't be with a teacher helping them, can't get the support they deserve, can't see their friends, can't he learn the most effective way. it sets them back and we're not going to let that happen >> so if you're talking about retrofitting schools and fixing ventilation systems and hiring perhaps thousands of teachers and training them to get this program up and running, how are you going to do that in the next eight, ten, 12 days? as you say, the plan goes out as far as october 1st that is only a week and a half

away how do you solve these massive problems in that amount of time? aren't you going to have to keep kicking this can down the road >> no, i'll tell you, willie, the teachers that we need to bring in, several thousand already work for our school system they're being reassigned to schools right now. we have thousands of substitute teachers signed up in our school system we have education students, students who are planning to be teachers who want to start doing this work. we have adjunct professors there is an amazing pool of talent that wants to teach our kids and doesn't give up on them when you only have remote learning, it means kids that are having a tougher time, don't have that support from a proven

educators. it's taking extra work together it done, but the town is there and we are opening our schools >> and parents agree with you about remote learning. it's brutal. it's hard on families, it's hard on kids. but that's the point they want to know about hiring education students and bringing in new teachers. why weren't you thinking about that in march, april, june and all summer >> clearly, those things were being worked on all summer, as i said a lot of talent has been brought in this is a complex situation because we're asking principals and educators to figure out how to do in person, how to support kids who are part-time in person, part-time at home, how to support kids who are only at home it's never been done before. it's unprecedented as we've been doing it, we find things that need more work, but we're going to do it and we're going to do it with health and safety first this is a crucial point.

if it takes a few more days to make sure all the bases are covered, then it's worth it because once we're up and running, well over half a million kids going to school, nothing like that happening in america, yesterday morning, willie, when i looked at the level of positivity for the infection level of coronavirus, 0.63% yesterday morning. 0 of 63% the reason we're even having this discussion is because the people of new york city have fought back this disease heroically so we could be one of the only places to open up our school system on a massive level. and by opening our school system, it will be part of the bigger rebirth of new york city. there are some things we have to fix. it will be a crucial piece of why new york comes back strong >> so it's the uncertainty that has parents outraged, a few

parents that have tried to figure out child care. can you say with certainty now that these dates will hold for them so they can start planning their lives? >> yeah. i was a parent it is tough on parents to do this but i also know parents want us to have the kids back in school. if we wanted to cheat our kids, we could have gone all remote a long time ago. i do feel for parents who are having to make new plans for the next few days. but then we're up and running. the vast majority from day one, we've been surveying them nonstop, the vast majority from day one said we want to see schools open again and that's what's going to happen >> so, again, for those parents

who are watching, you'll guarantee that by october 1st, all the public school students who want to be in school will be in school. >> willie, i need the health care situation to quart always but i want to tell you, based on everything i'm seeing, how well new yorkers have worn this mask and fought back the disease really in a heroic way, i feel very confident about that date >> do you think, mayor, there is any chance that you just bail on this altogether and go all remote for the school year, which is what some parents at this point are saying? that's where it looks like it's headed >>. >> willie within if it was headed there, why are 90,000 schools going to be in classrooms next week come on. we have an early childhood education system that is the envy of the country. we started pre-k for all all of those programs are up and running.

monday, willie, monday, special ed students are in school. 90,000 kids in the course of the next week. hundreds of thousands in the next week. this is hatching lit ralgly monday morning that is what people need to watch. we're going to show you this school system moving forward >> now crime is exploding. gun violence up 166% in august shootings up, murders up let me ask, obviously, there are not only a lot of new yorkers concerned about this, but also a lot of people that are going to want to travel to new york on business, for tourism, when the

country gets opened back up completely what are you doing to drive these numbers down >>. >> thank you for acknowledging what happened before this pandemic and before this perfect storm. because what happened in this city is there weren't jobs, there weren't schools, there weren't houses of worship, you name it. people went through such crime and frustration. but now we see the nypd working with communities fighting it back a week ago, the nypd set a record for the last 25 arrests, the most gun arrests in a single week so they're fighting back communities are out there working with the nypd. new york city never gives up and, joe, i know you appreciate how great this place is.

flon ga no one gave up you see more and more jobs coming back. you see the biggest school system in america coming to life starting on monday look, i'm very convinced we're going to turn the tide on all these things nypd never stopped fighting crime. people in this city have been joining with the nypd out there on patrol, supporting the nypd from the very few people that do violence so what worked for us all these previous years, the same strategies will prove effective again. >> so anybody who has watched this show for the past ten years certainly know that i and rev rental and other people have been critical of how young black men are treated differently than young white men, how young black

men are treated differently than young black women. there is a cultural problem. there is a problem with systemic racism that needs to be corrected. at the same time, we can hold two competing thoughts in our minds at the same time because god gave us that type of brain i'm allowed to ask you this question, do you have a guy or a woman putting on her badge at night, go out, do her dangerous job, not know if she or he are ever going to see their family again and can they do their job without fear of, you know, if they do it the right way without fear of not having the supports of you and not having the

support of other politicians >> look, a few weeks ago, i was with a minister, happened to be a close protege of reverend al sharpton the minister was hold ago prayer event to support the local police and he said, look, i'm a social justice guy. and i want to see changes in the nypd,but we also need our officers and i talked to a black officer, a white officer, and a latino officer. they said to me the same thing when they walk the streets of southeast queens, people thank them for what they're doing. people want to work with them. joe, you're right. there is a culture problem in

american policing. there is a systemic racism it might be weeded out people want the police to be there for them when you talk to every day new yorkers, they will say that is what we want i've seen it with my own eyes. >>. >> i've seen it across the country over the past month or so politicians that have been unfortunately fighting crime over the past three or four months, they are quoted where they're saying, we don't want some woke white people telling us that we don't need more cops on the street, that we want to

defund the police. there is even, you know, some complains about other leaders in gentrified neighborhoods very easy for them to say let's defund the police. let's cut the number of cops on the street or in schools protecting these neighborhoods what do you say to those black represents telling you we need cops in our schools, we need cops on the streets, don't defund the police, support the police. >> joe, what you've said i've heard constantly out in communities around the city. i mentioned southeast sequence robert cornigie, he talked about

protesters coming through. and community leaders said, you know what? this is our neighborhood it's one of the proudest, largest african-american neighborhoods in all of new york city and they said this is our neighborhood we will determine how the protest goes and we'll determine how to work with our police in our community. if you really are serious about changing structural racism in america, then you have to acknowledge and respect self-determination from communities. and what i hear all the time, of course we need our police and we want to see our police visible in the community

it used to be cops got send to every community. give them their cell number, give them their email. and what i hear is officers say, one people come up to me in the community and they tell you me where there is a problem they tell me what is about to go down so we can stop it and keep people safe. that is the kind of police we go need to build. and we can but if you're talking about what neighborhood leaders want, they want police there for them >> gene robinson with "the washington post" is with us and gene has a question for you.

mayor de blasio, when you do open the schools, and i'm confident you will, you will have hundreds of tonhousands of students coming back together. what is the brother when there's -- procedure when there's a student in the classroom, do you contact trace? what is the procedure? >> first of all, yes, monday, next week, about 90,000 kids back in our school so this will be the real thing we have our test and trace team, we have over 4,000 test and trace team members here in new york city able to move very quickly if a school community needs it so they're all on a pod system or a cohort system so one classroom has only a few

teachers who will ever be in that classroom all those kids, any teachers with them go home for two weeks. if you have multiple cases, there's an investigation schools shut down for at least 24 hours school investigation determine the sources. if they're isolated situations, the school keeps going, but you pull out any individual who was exposed. if god forbid, a bigger situation, you might have to close down the school longer but we know with this pod approach that's worked in a lot of the world, if we see a case, we're going to be able to generally isolate it and take only a few people out. we're talking about the reason why everyone is wearing a mask, everyone is social distanced a lot of focus on cleaning, a lot of focus on ventilation. this is not going to look like any school you've seen before because it's built on a health

and safety model to fight this pandemic >>. >> mayor de blasio, as someone who lives and works in new york city, loves the place, there is no denying when you walk around the city that things feel different. there are no storefronts you can see it in the real estate market, the unemployment numbers, quality of life matters. you have that letter from a group of c he os asking you to do something about quality of life in new york city. so how do you respond to people who say i love new york, but i have to say it does feel like it's slipping a bit. what do you say to that? >> people who want to bet against new york city, every time they've been wrong. 60s, 70s, millions of people left guess what

new york city came back strong a whole new generation of people came here. a lot of people stood and fought new york city was left for dead, came back after 9/11 came back after hurricane sandy. how many times are we going to go to this movie new york city's greatness is eternal. and we will come back stronger because we're going to focus on a lot of the disparities that this crisis dredged up, things that i've been talking about for a long time that we need to address. so when you talked about quality of life, how you define quality of life, we have to bring back our schools because that's quality of life for millions of parents and family members and kids and we're doing that. jobs are coming back more and more people taking mass transit. we've got work to do to fight back crime, but we're doing it because we have the finest police force in the country. we have work to do to keep city streets clean.

but we need resources, too we need help from our state government haven't gotten that. but we're fighting through it. here is the thing about new york city we don't give up so real issues to confront and we will. but, willie, don't bet against new york city. >> i do not. mayor bill de blasio, thank you for your time this morning thanks for being with us >> thank you earlier in the show, we were discussing how important the latino vote will be in the upcoming presidential race more than 32 million latinos eligible to vote nationwide in the 202 presidential election. and there is now a new initiative under way to help them use their political power "morning joe" producer daniel pierre pravo recently sat down

with actresses america ferrea and ava longoria bethstone >> we're really excited to launch this which is a new digital lifestyle community. it's a media platform that will be for latinas on how to leverage our power in a way that transforms our lives, our families and our communities >> so much of this was inspired by such incredible work being done, by latinas in their fields stephanie valencia has been doing amazing research and polling around the latina electorate and while a lot of people assume that latinas don't show up because they're not plugged in, we find out that it's the opposite

there is unfortunately a real confidence gap in the latino community when it comes to voting and participating in civically. >> latinas have more turnout rates than any other deaf graphic. what do you think is at the root of the lower turnout rates and does this present abdomen opportunity for voters in november >> we have a self-esteem gap we're very intimidated so even though latinos are the longest demographic in the united states, unless we built a culture that allows latinos to act on that power, then we're never going to see the potential full force 234 this country. we are powerful, we're here and we're going to act on that power. >> and america, you know, when

we talk about the issues that face the latino community, we talk about economic inequality, health care. what is at stake here when you leave women out of that political narrative? >> ability to show u in our democracy is about the health of this whole nation. if you have 32 million eligible americans who cannot access the ballot, whether it's because of very targeted voter suppression or because there's a cultural issue, and a systemic problem with the engagement of 32 million americans, that's a problem for our democracy. latinas are the fastest growing cohort in states all across this country. the power that we have to make the difference is undeniable but our challenge is how do we see that power, own that power and then be resourced in a way

to use and act on that power >> eva, we saw you at the dnc. i want to ask about how vice president biden is fare with latinos. what should his message to be hispanic voters? >> the biggest misstep that candidates do is focus on latino issues they think latinos want to hear about immigration reform and citizenship. the number one issue latinos care about is the economy. the number one issue the americans care about is the economy. and so i think you have to approach our community with that in mind and know we're not monolithic our vote is not a given for the democrats and so you have to work towards making sure any policies you are putting forward affects people like us covid didn't cause issues we're facing in our community. all the disparities, access to health insurance, access for our children, it's all been

exasperated. farm workers have been deemed essential. they are the backbone of our food supply of the united states 34% of all essential workers are latino that's your health care workers, nurses, farm workers, drivers, delivery service people. we're only 18% of the population but we're 34% of essential workers. so we are bearing the brunt of the economic engine of this country so we should have access to equity and equality to everything that we need to live dignified lives. >> what is the message or precaution to political leaders and campaigns on not taking latinos as a monolithic group? >> well, don't come for us two months before your election, for one. eva and i have had decades of the same experience of,you know, your phone is ringing off the hook as you approach an election come on out and help us get the latino vote out. latinos are like everybody else. smart and pay attention and know

when something political feels like a transaction the best long term, be meaningful and thoughtful in the way that you're engaging the latino community we have to resource and empower all year long, every year for the next five decades our latino community if we are ever going to see the power and potential that lies within our community be acted upon. all right. great. we greatly appreciate that from daniel pierre bravo. now to a new book "a way with words," using online conversations for good the author at national religious broadcasters, daniel darling joins us now daniel, i'm so glad you wrote this book because since i've been on twitter, i have actually found that some of the, you know, some of the harshest things have come from people who say, i hope you die a thousand

deaths and roaches eat your eyes out and i go, who is this person and it will be like jesus is lord, born again since 1984 and it's not just been in the trump era. this has been like an ongoing thing. and i just sit there like, they read a different bible than me but you're actually talking about incivility online, how christians should hold themselves to a higher standard. >> yeah, i am. and i think part of the reason that people act so uncivil online is because we're having conversations that are mediated by screens we're not looking at people face to face. and so sometimes when we get on twitter or on facebook, we forget the person on the other side of that is not an avatar or just a clump of pixels to be destroyed but a human being. made in the image of god and i think that the way that we communicate online kind of takes away some of our humanity.

so i think the solution to that is, when we do communicate, when we tweet when we have conversations, even if they're heated disagreements is to remember a few things. we first need to remember that we're interacting with human beings but, number two, we're in public we're not just in private. and i think number three is to remember that our conversations are permanent. like what we're posting online is permanent for the whole world to see so i think we need a little bit of wisdom to say, before i get heated, before i fire that thing back, before i let that adrenaline pump, think through exactly what i'm saying and posting. >> yeah, and also, just taking a step back, looking at the bigger picture, also remembering that if you are a person of faith, politics is not the most important thing. y render unto caesar that which is caesar and unto god which is god's. i'd speak like to christian colleges and christian schools and say, stop putting politics

at the center of your life and i was saying that as a politician when did this happen, and why are so many christians -- why does it seem that at times they put their politics ahead of their witness or their faith >> well, i think we have misplaced allegiances. politics is an important vehicle for flourishing especially in a democracy like ours. but what has happened is people have replaced religious fervor and the energy they put into their faith with political fervor and politics is a ufseful vehicl but makes a very poor religion this is why it's divided people and it's seeped into every area of life. even the areas where we used to have common ground so i think the answer to that is to take our politics seriously, if not to disengage, but it's to

understand the place that politics have. that it's temporal, that it's messy. but it's not ultimate. and as christians, we ultimately aren't looking forward to that next election but we're looking forward to as the writer of hebrews says, that city whose builder and maker is god something beyond politics, beyond the next election, beyond winning this temporary battle. >> daniel, it's willie geist congratulations on the book. you write that in 2016 you almost lost a friend over a facebook post. i think a lot of people have had that experience where they maybe see the side of someone they thought they knew and you go, wow, i didn't know he or she believed that or thought that way. so you asked people to ask themselves a few questions before they post namely is this worth it? do i actually need to express this to a wider audience what else would you say to people as they navigate these decisions online >> you're right. i did almost lose a friendship one of the important things is not to let politics be a litmus

test for friendship. to not reduce people to their opinions but the questions we should ask ourselves is, is this conversation worth it? can i have an argument in good faith? number two, am i considering the humanity of the other person is this a conversation i would have in public with other people around us? would i use this kind of language number three, i think particularly when we're sharing information, when we're talking about politics, ask ourselves, is this true do i have the whole story? do i have half the story is this something that just confirms what i already believe, what i want to be true about people that i disagree with? and i think lastly, i think it's important for us to slow down a little bit and say, you know, am i in the right frame of mind i think there's such an urge we have to post rirkght away, havet have an opinion right away the book of james says let everyone be slow to speak, quick

to listen and slow to anger. that's applicable to today's digital age. >> really interesting book it's called "a way with words. using our online conversations for good dan darling, thanks for being with us. appreciate it. and we want to give a special shoutout this morningure to longtime producer monica suarez who has been with "morning joe" for seven years. she recently got married and is now heading to south florida she will still be in the news business, and if her track record here is any indication, she's got a bright future ahead of her joe, we love monica. we'll miss monica. i don't think people realize to put the show on the air, people like monica get up in the middle of the night and work overtime these crazy hours. we'll miss monica. >> she's so incredible and something that we say and, especially during this age of -- they haven't been able to work together as a team and yet they

just rise to the occasion. and i agree with you, they make what we do so much easier because they do such an extraordinary job. >> we are nothing without them it's literally true every morning. joe, i will see you again on monday have a good weekend. that does it for us this morning. we'll see all of you back here on monday as well. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now hi there i'm stephanie ruhle. it is friday, september 18th let's get smarter. we are just 46 days out from the presidential election. just 11 days from the first debate but the number that could matter the most right now, 200,000. 200,000 americans dead from coronavirus. at the current rate, we'll hit that number some time this weekend. it also remains the biggest point of contention between joe biden and president trump. >> to other co