it's fake news. totally fake news. made up. fake. we went through the same stories -- you could have asked me the same questions four years ago i had to litigate this, talk about it. totally fake news. actually i paid tax. you'll see that as soon as my tax returns. it's under order, they've been under order for a long time. the irs does not treat me well. >> you know, he's actually right, mika. he does pay taxes. it was it last year he paid $750 in taxes? >> yeah. >> ten out of 15 years he paid 0% in taxes. think of the nurses who paid more in federal income taxes than donald trump over the past decade. the construction workers that paid more in federal income taxes than donald trump over the past 10 to 15 years. think of all the waitresses, all

the -- you just go down the list. >> you can think of all that, you can also think of all the money he lost over the years. talk about the busineiggest los. never seen a worse businessman in my life. that was president -- >> hold on a second, mika. some people might say that's harsh for you to call donald trump the biggest loser when it comes to business. >> it's staggering. >> but the numbers actually show that through a large part of his business career, he lost more money than any other american citizen. and the amazing thing is daddy gave him the e kwif -- equivalent of $400 million, he lost all of that, bankruptcies

right and left. then, as he was struggling he finally got to the apprentice, struck oil there, made another $400 million there. lost all of that money. like he -- i don't know. you would think if you lost $400 million that your daddy gave you the first time, you would say, hey, the next time i make some money i'm not going to be really stupid with it. but he's -- i think it's safe to say, if you just look at the federal records, mika, he is the least successful business person of all time. and the incredible thing is that he has painted himself as this great businessman. which, by the way, we all know that in new york, real business people would die laughing at the prospect when donald trump was doing the apprentice, they would

say middle america thinks that's a good business man? that's a business tycoon? they would laugh because they were running the banks where donald trump had rolled up hundreds of millions in debt. they were the ones running the construction projects he couldn't pay for. they were the ones who had seen him collapse and fail time and time again. i think when the history books are written, it will show that nobody has lost more money in american business over the past 20 years consistently than donald trump. >> we heard all the stories and now the tax returns are backing it up. that was president trump lashing out at "the new york times" over the bombshell report of money problems and maybe legal questions coming out as well. struggling property, chronic

losses, years of tax avoidance and hundreds of millions in debt quickly coming due. we'll get to those newly obtained records ahead. >> tax avoidance is one thing. a lot of -- >> that's not what i'm talking about, though. >> -- americans engage in tax avoidance. and we've talked time and again how we think the tax code is horrible. it allows billionaires, multimillionaires -- amazon, amazon paid zero, zero in federal income taxes. and that's what we're talking about here, federal income taxes. so there's something terribly wrong with the tax code and it needs to be fixed. but that's tax avoidance. what we're talking about here looks like tax evasion. and if the irs ends up, in the end, deciding -- going after trump and winning that case there, you know, you could have

a guy that's spending his post presidency bankrupt and all of these loans we're finding out that are coming due in the next three, four years, donald trump has personally guaranteed. so this is a guy, make no mistake of it, look at the numbers, he can call it fake news. it's his own tax returns. so if it's fake news, he's also guilty of tax fraud. it's his own tax returns this reporting is over. >> yeah. >> we're looking at a guy who could be bankrupt in the next three to four years. and is he a billionaire? not even close. >> and also, joe, if you look into these numbers as we will over the days and weeks to come, carefully, it may explain his behavior as well. >> it does, yeah. >> it may show what his intentions were, where he was vulnerable. and how he played the game. >> and the money he got from

turkey -- >> we'll talk to mike schmidt and others about this, but the money he got from foreign countries, it explains an awful lot. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe" as we back into the show this morning, it's monday, september 28th. with us we have white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire. host of "politics nation" and president of the national action network reverend al sharpton. his new book "rise up" confronting a country at the cross roads is out tomorrow. >> we'll be talking to reverend al all this week about rise up throughout this week as it launches again tomorrow. we're very excited about that. >> also with us political correspondent for msnbc news and national weather service, steve kornacki. and nbc news correspondent, kasie dc. and "the new york times"

reporter and national security analyst michael schmidt author of the book "donald trump versus the united states, inside the struggle to stop the president". we want to get to battleground state polling showing joe biden up over president trump in several key states. 36 days before election day. people are voting now. in maine, the latest colby college poll shows biden with an 11 point lead, 50 to 39%. in wisconsin, biden up by 10, 54 to 44%. in michigan, the same poll gives biden an eight-point lead, 52 to 44%. in minnesota, "usa today" pal has biden up 47 to 40%. while the star tribune has biden up by 6 in the state, 48 to 42%. and in north carolina, the

latest cbs news poll finds biden and president trump in a statistical tie, 48 to trump's 46%. in georgia the same poll shows another statistical tie, trump 47%, biden 46. and in south carolina, the cbs news yougov poll shows president trump holding a 10 point lead, 52 to 42%. >> steve kornacki, no need to put the asterisk next to any of these polls anymore, it is no longer early. these are not national polls. the national polls still unmoved yesterday, a couple national polls at ten and nine, so looking the same as they have for an entire year. one of the most tumultuous years in modern american history. the one thing that's a steady is joe biden has been ahead by 8, 9 points. but i want to zone in, steve,

because it is true generals are always fighting the last war, i guess political pundits are looking at the last race. what have we been saying the last three, four years, it's the white voters donald trump has been gaining while he's been insulting hispanics, minorities, the others. you look where the white guys are, in wisconsin, supposedly, in michigan, in minnesota, and you see, actually, joe biden consolidating. apparently he's doing pretty well with voters in wisconsin. and this is a consistency -- a ten point lead in wisconsin, we've seen a nine point lead, eight point leads, post kenosha it hasn't been close. in michigan we have an eight point lead in michigan, in minnesota a seven point lead. and yet we didn't show the polls from florida and arizona, but

where is it getting close, steve? it's getting close in florida and arizona. in the sun belt, in part because biden hasn't closed the deal with hispanics yet. so we have sort of a reversal of what everybody is talking about. but let's talk about the industrial midwest. because that's donald trump's only path to victory. what's going on up there? >> several things happened. they all came together for donald trump in 2016. one is that he ended up getting, you know, pretty much consolidating the republican base, helped him in a state like georgia, you talk about texas and north carolina. but the other ingredient is what you're honing in on. the northern tier line, north dakota all the way up to maine, to northern and western maine you find town after town, county after county where donald trump was running up massive numbers

in places with large populations of blue collar white voters, white voters without a college degree. older white voters running up massive margins. all the polls you're putting up, they are consistent in this way. represent polls showing significant movement among white voters and among non-college white voters, which is trump's base. we looked at wisconsin and michigan, two states trump flipped, these are states where trump was basically winning the blue collar white vote by about 30 points in 2016. that was much higher than anybody thought he was going to get in 2016, about 30 points, our polling right now and other polls out there, they find the same thing, single digits, trump lead of single digits among non-college white voters in those states.

put maine up there. it's part of the story. why did trump get an electoral vote out of maine in 2016, because that congressional district, one of the two state that is does it, is pifilled wi blue collar white voters, trump ran up the score in many 2016 against hillary clinton. we've seen several polls from that congressional district that shows joe biden running competitively with donald trump. one thing to keep in mind here, we have spent four years talking about the trump base, the trump voters, blue collars white, non-college white. remember the day after the election in 2016 we had a different term for those voters we called them obama obama trump voters. these are voters who went for obama in 2008 and stuck with him in 2012 and flipped to donald trump in 2016. that's why he was winning a state like iowa, wisconsin,

michigan. the obama part of that equation, in the polling at least, is coming back into the mix. biden is drawing support now. it's starting to look a little more for the democrats like 2012 than 2016. >> and jonathan lemire, you suddenly see in these numbers that steve kornacki just pointed out the significance of "the new york times" yesterday, not just for msnbc prime time anchors to talk about all night, the taxes. you have the blue collar voters that, again, went enough for obama twice and then went, as steve said, plus 30 for donald trump. now down to single digits. we've all been looking at these white blue collar voters down to single digits. and as nate silver said, another swing of two or three or four

points from these blue collar voters, suddenly you have states like iowa tipping to biden. which it's already close. ohio tipping to biden, and a state you've been focused on as well. pennsylvania. i mean, this story, again, you know, for people who say this is an old story. it may be so, it may be so, but the timing of this could not come worse for a man who is bleeding support terribly among white working class blue collar voters. and i'm not so sure as minnesota, wisconsin, michigan goes, i'm not sure that doesn't have an impact ohio and pennsylvania if those white working class voters in pennsylvania are seeing the same thing they're seeing in wisconsin. >> so we're already seeing in the poll numbers the president's erosion of support from white

working class voters, and you're right. part of what he did in 2015 and 2016 as a candidate was to sell himself as a successful businessman. this story, the tax returns undercuts that image dramatically. moreover as a smart republican pointed out to me last night there have been a number of scandals we've covered the last four years that haven't really stuck to the president in terms of his base because they were hard to understand or distance from everyday americans' lives whether it's the mueller probe or ukraine and the impeachment. that was something the average american didn't follow or care about saying it doesn't change my day-to-day existence. but what americans do understand is how much they pay in taxes and pay most of them far more than $750 a year in federal income taxes including the white working class voters in the states that the president can't win without. there's no spinning these numbers, there's no difficult polls for president trump who is trying to put together, again, a

path to 270 electoral college votes. they're the campaign's theory of the case all along was the three states along the great lakes, pennsylvania, wisconsin, and michigan, they needed to hold the rest of their math and win one of those three. michigan was seen as the longest shot and this poll reinforces the president hasn't been close most of this year. their play was wisconsin but they've stayed away. this is one of the biggest deficits he faces even after kenosha, the play to law and order, that hasn't worked and he has not been able to close that gap. and if he can't win wisconsin and arizona slips away. he's in even more trouble. if he loses arizona, wisconsin is not enough to make 270. the state that is, pennsylvania. we took a deep dive this weekend looking at that, how the president is putting on a

full-court press in pennsylvania. he was there twice last week. we haven't seen new polling today from pennsylvania but he has faced deficits as well. smaller than wisconsin but deficits in joe biden's native state, a tough state to win though a state both campaigns feel may be the electoral college tipping point this time around. >> i'm wondering, reverend al, if you are a construction worker in philly, a waitress in lancaster county, if you're a schoolteacher in scranton and you're looking up at the news today and you're finding out that you've paid more in federal income taxes than a guy that's lived in a gold plated 90 story building and flown around the world in private jets, and probably illegally deducted taxes, not a really great

message for the final month or so of the campaign. i mean, that is -- that is something that voters can understand. a guy working at walmart saying i paid more than $750 in taxes last year. and trump and amazon paid zero in income taxes. it's just not right. that's, again, for a guy that's already really struggling with working class voters, the timing of this piece is just -- i would think would be pretty negative for donald trump? >> the timing would be pretty negative, clearly. and i think it speaks to the core of what the problem politically is going to be for the president. this was his brand. he sold himself to americans as this successful businessman that

knew how to manage his businesses therefore he could manage the country. now we find that is totally untrue and we look at covid-19 and know how he managed the country was clearly lacking. one of the things that i looked at when i looked at "the new york times" story. i'm someone with tax problems, the right wing blasted me for it. many of my friends, including you joe, said if you messed up, correct it and own it and go forward. i did. i want the right wing to hold him to the same standards that they did to me and others on the left with tax problems. that wasn't our brand. our brand was social activism. his only brand was he was this great billionaire that can make magic happen in the sky. we find out when we look behind the curtain the wizard of oz had

no clothes and only a $750 check for the u.s. government. >> let's look at what's happening politically now to the senate polling, which shows some democratic challengers giving republican incumbents a run for their money. in north carolina democrat cal cunningham holds a ten point lead over thom tillis, 48 to 38%. in maine democrat sarah gidens leads susan collins by four. that's looking close. in south carolina, incumbent lindsey graham is statistically tied with democratic challenger jaime harrison, 45 to 44%. he was on fox all day friday saying help me. help me i need money. and he just showed up all day on fox begging for money. in georgia, incumbent david purdue holds a 5 point lead over

democratic challenger john osoff 47 to 42%. kasie hunt, what races stand out to you the most and could these be consequential changes? >> they could be. the one that stands out the most there is that north carolina race. if we put that number back up on the screen, this is stunning for an incumbent. 38%. if you're at 38% and you're an incumbent, that is a huge problem. more than any other race on the map, i think this one is a generic ballot test. tom ti thom tillis hasn't -- it's a race that's a pure reflection of d versus r with no candidate

having a huge advantage in personality or any issue over another. you don't want to be there if you are thom tillis, that is a terrible number. on the flip side, that michigan number is also something i've been hearing from republican sources that they are keeping an eye there because that number is closer than we anticipated it might be. you see gary peters slightly under 50%. a potential trouble spot for democrats there. when you bring the lindsey graham number in. we talked about this last week. republicans -- we saw this in 2014 when democrats could not overcome president obama's approval rating and there was a sweep across the map. if this is a true reflection of where things stand in south carolina, republicans are going to have a problem holding onto the senate. it is just -- just stunning. and, you know, joe, i just -- i'm sorry go ahead. >> no, you go ahead.

>> i was just going to pick up on your conversation about these tax returns in this context and also as i was sitting here listening to you talk about it. i went to go find joe biden's tax return, they're on his website in a neatly ordered list. in 2016, when obviously he and barack obama were serving and he was making the salary that's afforded to the vice president, he paid $92,198 in taxes and got a 1,031 refund. that's how this was supposed to look. he was not before he left office a rich man and somebody who did well. you have a high salary as a government official. but just to contrast that night and day, talking about normal people who pay taxes, one of the things that makes this such a problem for trump is that joe biden comes across like a working class guy, people believe that's who he is. they obviously didn't believe that about hillary clinton.

so that compounds the problem that donald trump is facing here. >> boy that contrast is great. >> exactly. >> and i'm sure it's something we're going to be hearing about in the debate tomorrow night. steve kornacki, though, we've talked about the industrial midwest. we've talked about the sun belt, florida and arizona, those two states still up for grabs depending on whether joe biden can turn out hispanic latino voters more successfully than he is right now and actually take both of those states. but let's talk about the solid south for a moment. other than barack obama winning north carolina in 2008, i believe it was. it's been the solid south since, my gosh, the early '70s at least. think about -- i mean, think about -- we've got thom tillis in north carolina at 38%.

that would be more shocking if he hadn't been mired in the 30s for most of his term. but losing by ten points in north carolina. drive south down 85 and you get to south carolina and lindsey graham, in the reddest of red states, is tied with jaime harrison and is frantically going on tv practically in tears begging people for money. then you keep going down, driving south from greenville, you know, on 85 past athens into atlanta and you're into georgia. and what's happening in the state of georgia? another presidential poll like so many over the past couple months that still shows georgia in a dead heat. that is just -- that is a political revolution of sorts. we are either seeing a lot of

false positives or we're actually seeing something dramatic changing. and i'm not talking about the georgia senate race. i was talking about donald trump being deadlocked in -- with joe biden in georgia and it's been that way for a couple months. >> it's a bit of a different story that we're talking about with the north. the interesting thing to me is we've seen a number polls where trump is leading solidly still in south carolina and graham is tied. i've seen him down a point. i don't want to overstate this, but it could be significant. there is a small share of voters in south carolina who appear to be trump/jaime harrison voters. voters willing to relekt donald trump but not ready or willing

to vote lindsey graham to the senate. and they're telling pollsters they'll elect jamie shaime harr along with president trump. it's a small but could be significant group of voters. i think the story in georgia is more of demographic change and the transformation of the suburbs. you have two forces here changing democratic forces. number one, it's an influx of registration effect with african-american voters in the atlanta area in particular. that's been a factor at work for a while. and then the suburbs you have suburbs just moving rapidly and dramatically in the democrats' direction away from the republicans. democrats already flipped one house seat there in the atlanta area in 2018, came within a whisker of getting the other. there's growth potential in

georgia fitting in with the 2018 story we've been talking about for a while. >> all right. well, "the new york times" yesterday began publishing the series of reports that examine 20 years of the president's tax returns revealing financial losses in the millions and an audit battle of a tax refund and payment of almost no federal income tax. the times reports for 2016 and again in 2017 president trump paid $750 in federal income tax. let me repeat that, 750 bucks. for ten of the previous 15 years he paid zero. nothing at all. because he reported losses that eliminated his tax liability. the paper does not have records for 2018 and 2019. now according to the times,

ultimately mr. trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life. "the apprentice" along with the licensing and endorsement deals that flowed from his expanding celebrity brought mr. trump a total of more than $427 million. that's a lot of money. he invested much of that in a collection of businesses, mostly golf courses, that in the years since have steadily devoured cash. also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the internal revenue service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received after declaring huge losses. the president has received more money while in office from foreign interests than previously known, and that hundreds of millions in personally backed loans come due in the near future. how is he going to pay those?

while the times reported that trump did not pay income taxes for several years, he did pay other forms of federal taxes, including medicare, social security and the alternative minimum tax. in a statement to nbc news, the trump organization lawyer claimed that the story was riddled with gross inaccuracies over the past decade, the president has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government he said in part. nbc news has not independently verified the documents, but the times reports it obtained them from sources with legal access to the material. according to the paper, additional reports will be released in the coming weeks. >> what you did not hear donald trump's lawyer say is that donald trump paid millions of dollars in personal income taxes

because he didn't. >> that's a carefully worded statement. >> he paid 750 does one or two years, paid zero ten out of the the past 15 years. and probably lost more money over the past 20, 30, 40 years than any other single american. "the new york times" said that, actually, certainly during the '80s and into the early '90s, i would love to know if that's still the truth for this time period. but michael schmidt give me your takeaways from your paper's blockbuster story. >> the work of my colleagues here is pretty remarkable and the times has invested an enormous amount of money and time itself to go after this. now going somewhere that we certainly didn't see in the mueller investigation. we didn't see in any of these congressional investigations. so unearthing things here that

have been this great mystery for the president. as you guys were laying out and the times has this in stark terms. the president at a basic level not the business person he says he is. doesn't have the money he says he has. the cash on hand that he says he has. has far more losses. spends a lot of time using those losses to help him in his own taxes. so at a basic level, sort of the premises of the president coming under assault from these things. the second thing is the amount of money he's taken from foreign governments and that money, whether it came from the philippines or turkey is greater than the amount of money he's taken say from his salary as president. taking more money from foreign countries than he's taking from his own country as president. there's a reason why, whether it's the counterintelligence world, or whether it is just the -- sort of business ethics

world or traditional way that people in the government are supposed to function that you don't want people in government taking so much money from foreign countries. and sort of the influence that can have on someone that gets to the third and probably most important part of the story. and that's the vulnerable position that the president finds himself in financially. he has this 70, $80 million or so dispute with the irs about whether he's going to have to pay back this money that he took as a refund from them. a refund that some would say is questionable. and he still has this dispute with the irs. remember, he's the president, he can control who's in charge of the irs. it's not entirely clear to me how that would be resolved but he could be on the hook for that. at the same time he's on the hook for that, he looks like he's on the hook for $400 million in loans that it's not really clear how he would pay those back either.

so this entire picture, the president is moving himself, as a business man, in towards a very vulnerable place where his own irs could come calling for a lot of money that he may not have. >> jonathan lemire, that's obviously what a lot of people have been investigating through the years, is he perhaps as kind as he is to vladimir putin, as deferential to vladimir putin, kowtowing in the presence of vladimir putin in helsinki after for instance you asked the question you asked him and he bowed and scraped in front of vladimir putin, why is he acting the way he is towards turkey, the philippines. we're seeing now he's getting more money from countries like turkey and the philippines than he is from the american people in his salary.

but you've been looking at this for years, studying it for your years what's your takeaway from the reporting you read over the last 24 hours? >> michael hit on a number of the key points. to zero in on that last one, about the idea of the foreign investment, if you will, in president trump. that is why so many democrats last night in their initial reaction to the story were framing it as a national security matter. a national security threat. though the story does not indicate, says so far the tax returns don't show any further unknown investment from russia, certainly we are seeing influence of foreign governments here in terms of money with the president and is that shaming his foreign policy decisions and performance. that's something that's going to require extraordinary scrutiny for the rest of his time in office. and also the loan, the money

coming due many of them before the end of his second term. that's another matter that requires extraordinary diligence to see who does, in fact, he owe that money. whether foreign or domestic, how does that impact his day-to-day operations in the white house? and then politically, joe, going back to how we opened this conversation. this changes the idea how he's perceived among americans, potentially even some of his supporters. you're right. some won't care. some will say we're with the president. some will believe his explanation. some will say, this is fake news. some will say he outsmarted the government, that's my guy. but i think with the working class voters this is going to hit home and hit home hard and cost him support at the worst time. two days before the first general election day. >> there's a difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion.

right now, michael schmidt your book "donald trump versus the united states," you go into detail about those battles but we may have a battle now between the united states government and donald trump on this tax refund that they may claw back against that could actually tip him over if you look at these numbers, could actually tip his financial situation over where we may have a president or a former president who has to personally declare bankruptcy. >> and that, to me, was the most intriguing part of all of this. is that the president has a dispute with the irs and the president is in charge of the executive branch. at the most fundamental level of all the conflicts that donald trump has had. all the fights he has had. the fact that he is president -- this may sound a bit simplistic,

is the reason he's been able to survive so many of these different things. whether it was the pressure he put on his own justice department during these investigations, his demand for loyalists in these positions over decision around him who could impact him. the fact that he's president has such a baring on these things. and now he's standing with this dispute with the irs. and if there's anything we know about donald trump, it's simply the motivation of money. a loot of things he does are hard to understand and explain, but money is the most salient thing with him. but now here he is potentially coming into the end of his presidency and having to resolve that. how is that going to be dealt with? why is it we don't know more about that? it just seems to cut to the

heart of what the presidency is and what potential conflict of interest is. but once again, donald trump testing the system, testing us in a way that if we sat here we could not have drawn up on a white board. >> well, it might cut to the heart of what's ailing this presidency, because everything that's driving him could be explained or at least partially explained by what we're finding in these returns. even his sort of scrambling to hold onto the presidency because leaving the presidency might not be a pretty picture for donald trump. >> it will not be a pretty picture. >> still ahead on "morning joe," democrats use health care to fight against the president's supreme court nominee. we'll have the latest in that battle. first the supreme court, now congress. the president continues to muse about unconventional ways to secure another term in a disputed election.

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plus, 0% interest for 24 months & free delivery. ends monday. florida's bars and restaurants reopened with no restrictions on friday, following an announcement by governor ron desantis. his order prohibits local governments from issuing restrictions to businesses, unless they can justify the economic cost. bars are now able to operate at full capacity. >> wow. >> having been opened at 50% capacity since september 10th. though desantis did not address other businesses during the announcement, many gyms, hair salons and other service industries were already operating at full capacity. according to nbc news the up tick in cases during the months of july and august prompted the governor to close bars and

restrict restaurants to takeout only but he has slowly reopened the state for business even as the virus continues to decimate the u.s. on friday the same day of reopening announcement, florida reported more than 2,500 new infections. that's a lot. >> doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. >> more than 1,000 new yorkers tested positive for coronavirus on friday, the first time since june 5th the infection rate reached 1%. new york city's health department said in some neighborhoods 19 is spreading at an alarming rate and the city should consider shutting down private schools and nonessential businesses in these areas. in some parts of the city the infection rate topped more than

6%. new york city's public schools are set for in-person instruction this week. >> in the spring, before it got warm, you had a lot of places across the north especially that had problems because more of those residents were inside. in the summer months when donald trump said this was going to magically go away, you suddenly saw an outbreak from florida to arizona because it was getting hot, a lot of people were coming inside. here now as we go into the fall and flu season starts up, a lot of people have been concerned about this, new yorkers and others in the northeast and across the northern states are going to be going back inside again en masse and it's just going to cause, again, probably going to cause real concerns. >> one more story here. former trump campaign manager brad parscale is in the hospital after threatening to self-harm.

fort lauderdale police arrived at his home after his wife said he had multiple fire arms and he was threatening to self-harm himself. officials were able to talk him out of the house and transport him to broward medical hospital. the trump campaign wrote a statement saying brad parscale is a member of our family and we all love him. we are ready to support him and his family in any way possible. jonathan lemire, i'm sure you have had dealings with brad before, we have, and, of course, at times the dealings have been tough going back and forth, but a really sad story. we've now seen this a few times with some people in donald

trump's inner circle that, you know, trump is used to the glare and the fighting and the back and forth, all these tabloid wars. but it's really hard for people to understand the glare that anybody in washington d.c. goes through. but you've seen caputo having some challenges in this atmosphere and now brad again, somebody we've known for a while, and again our hearts and prayers are going out for him in this terrible struggle, and his family. but it has been a very tough few months for brad, hasn't it? >> it has, and first and foremost thoughts and prayers for him and his family and hope he's okay. glad the matter resolved yesterday without anyone being hurt.

brad parscale was the campaign manager for the 2016 run and part of this one as well. he's 6'8" with a noticeable beard and fans and rally goers were drawn to him, and he was well liked by staff, including senior members of the staff. but he had a falling out with the president over the summer, in particular after the tulsa rally that ended up being 6,000 people there and the president stared into a sea of empty seats and he was demoted soon thereafter. he himself was the center of an ad campaign -- an anti-trump ad campaign suggesting that he was profiting off the trump name. so this can be the stroocrutiny spotlight can be tough on any campaign adviser, particularly one that brad parscale was an

anonymous digital guy a few years ago. we hope he's okay. joining us the chief justice of the florida supreme court, chief wells. he presided over the 2000 election and desceissented over majority count. he recently penned an op-ed saying that president trump's threat not to accept the outcome of the election is a grave and real threat to our democracy. judge wells, i'll start there. if you can expound upon that. why are those words so dangerous? >> i appreciate this opportunity, mika to do that. first with all the sad news, especially about brad parscale

and here in florida, the pandemic, i'm following the advice of long ago, that is i turn to the sports news first when i pick up the paper. a great thing that's going on here in florida with the heat in the playoffs doing well, with the rays doing superb and with joe and my florida gators, a quarterback throw six touchdown passes on saturday. but let me get to my concern. my concern is, coming out of my experience in 2000, i came from that with the recognition that it is imperative that our citizens have confidence in our electoral system. and i am very concerned at the comments that president trump is

manafort and gat making about the election being rigged and fraud in mail-in ballots and without any evidence attacking the very foundation of our election system. and we have got to cling to the fact that we have a representative democracy in which power is only temporarily bestowed on a leader. and we have to have confidence that when the citizens of this country vote to pass that power to another leader, that we're all going to participate in that, especially the person that the power is being passed from. that was our experience in 2000 here in florida. we never had a doubt, throughout the 36 days of bush v gore that both -- then governor bush and

vice president gore were acting in good faith and were going to accept the result. and that's what has to happen in our democracy. so that statement, very disappointing and very much of concern. but we're going to have an election and we've never had any fraud in florida. i noted in my decision in 2000 that we didn't have fraud in that election. we had mechanical mistakes, punch card ballots, a slew of things that should have been fixed and which now have been fixed in our election. but that is what my concern is. >> former justice charles wells, thank you very, very much. we're going to turn now to al sharpton's book, "rise up," confronting a country at the cross roads, which is out tomorrow.

>> we are obviously in a time that is the mosty mul since 196. talk about "rise up," talk about what you get to at the heart of this book and what 2020 has meant and how history is going to look back at this moment in american history. >> i wrote "rise up" and i had to keep extending it, so many things were happening, to talk about how this year -- you're right -- is like 1968 where we are at a cross roads. voting rights, lgbtq rights, voting rights, women's rights, climate change, i write all of this is at risk from the progress we made in these areas and certainly race, and all of

this has come to the forefront, the george floyd movement and all the things we've taken for granted the last several years, now we have to decide which road to take. i take on those that have tried to reverse things in all of those areas and i take on the latte liberals, who sit high, look low and have not tried to engage to make the country work because they come too purist on one side as we fight those too unreasonable on the others. so this book spares no one and says we have to make a decision, and we have to have an intersectional movement across party lines, across sexual orientation and gender lines. we have to rise up together and save the last half century of progress this country has made. we have to rise up together. this is not just about race but is race at the center but it's ant all these areas that if we don't come together we'll end up

going backwards into an america we fought to get out of. i hope everyone gets the book. >> you've been warning about latte liberals for quite some time. i find 2020 fascinating in your conversation, actually what you've been saying for years was predicted. you basically predicted what's happened in this presidential race. joe biden getting absolutely smashed in iowa, absolutely smashed in new hampshire, and then coming down to south carolina. all the pundits had basically dismissed biden said he was going to be gone. and then black voters in south carolina, especially black women in south carolina, especially across the deep state, said not so fast and voted for joe biden in overwhelming numbers. it reminds me so much of what you and i have been talking about of what's happening from new york city to seattle, where

you have black legislators, black leaders, saying to these so-called latte liberals in gentrified neighborhoods, wait a second. you want to defund the police do it in your neighborhoods. we need police officers. we need safety officers in our children's schools. we need police officers on the street to make sure that our kids can walk to schools safely. we don't want to defund the police. we don't want less police. we want more police. we just want policing reformed. >> we want policing reformed. we want the resources to be distributed right. but we do not want to open up our communities to this danger where gun manufacturers make all this money and our kids are shooting each other. i take it on in the book because i want people to stop speaking for us that don't speak to us on one side and the others won't hear us at all.

so i wanted to say at this moment we need to really sit down and deal with all of this and put it in writing. the book comes out tomorrow. i'm doing a series every night virtual virtually, i'm doing one with pete buttigieg, martin luther king iii, and on and on. where we talk about all the aspects of this country that we have to see the battle for lgbtq rights, racial reform and equality, police reform, that we have to see the end of the road on all of this. and we can't let the latte liberals on one side or the inflexible right wingers on the other guide this country to something that's going to be destructive. >> what does that mean if joe biden does win the election as many polls are suggesting that

we will. what's the first step you want to see from him and his administration to try to make sure the country is headed in the direction you are laying out in your book. >> he must reserve associavotin. make sure voting is available to everyone. he has to also give the criminal justice system -- if joe biden wins i'll be the first one the first day to hold him accountable. but at least you can hold joe biden accountable. i think we must be about what we want to see happen rather than who we want to see in the seat. it's about what we want in a presidency and then back into who should be president. not who we want as president and then let them back us into who and what the president should be about. it's about the what, not the who and i expect the what to be something we hold joe biden accountable to. something that donald trump hasn't been able to rise to that

occasion. the book is "rise up". reverend al thank you. we'll run through another section of the book tomorrow and every day this week. kasie hunt, thank you as well. it is the top of the hour on this monday, jonathan lemire is still with us. and joining the conversation editor of the new yorker david remnick and political reporter for "the washington post," robert costa. he is the moderator of washington week on pbs. we want to start this hour off with the new battleground state polling showing joe biden up over president trump in several key states 36 days before the election. in maine, the latest colby college poll shows biden with an 11 point lead, 50 to 39%. in wisconsin, the nbc news poll, shows biden up 54 to 44%. in michigan the same poll gives biden an 8 point lead 52, 44.

minnesota, "usa today" has biden up 47 to 42%. the star tribute poll has biden up by 6 in minnesota, 48 to 42%. in north carolina, the lathest cbs news poll finds biden and trump in a statistical tie, 48 to 46%. in georgia, the same poll shows another statistical tie, trump 47, biden 46. and in south carolina, the cbs news yougov poll shows president trump holding a 10 point lead, 52 to 42%. >> bob costa, we've been looking at wisconsin closely the last three, four years after donald trump surprisingly won it in 2016 and people were saying of wisconsin what tim russert said

of florida it was wisconsin, wisconsin. since kenosha, the polls have been six, seven, eight, nine, ten points, steadily going into the biden category, something unforeseen by the trump campaign. but steve kornacki last hour when he was on talked about why that's happening. donald trump won blue collar working class white voters by plus 30 points in 2016. that lead now, not only in these polls but in many polls down to single digits. so this magic touch that donald trump seemed to have with obama, obama, trump voters, seems to have gone away. at least with one month to go. >> joe to take the phrasing of tim russert, florida, florida,

florida, that was 2020, health care, health care, health care. if you listened to vice president biden on sunday he gave a speech, took questions from reporters after, but he did not get distracted on questions, the speech was about threats to the affordable care act and president trump's handling of the pandemic. so if you wonder why is georgia so close, all these other states so close, including wisconsin, you see from the democratic nominee, not exactly a flashy campaign, not a campaign out making headlines, not engaging with the press enough, all of that is clear but they are focused on health care just a day before this debate and that appears to be resonating with many of the voters across the south, across the industrial midwest and a different kind of campaign than we've seen from previous foils for president trump. >> and georgia is too close for comfort for donald trump. north carolina obviously too close for comfort for donald

trump. you had joe biden ahead in those two states. in south carolina you have lindsey graham fighting for his political life. we'll show that in a second. but as the talk of the new supreme court justice pick came just minutes, unfortunately, after ruth bader ginsburg's death, of course, the focus turned immediately to abortion. that's, right now if you believe the kaiser family poll from -- foundation poll from earlier this year, the polls from this past weekend, that's almost a two to one issue as far as people not wanting roe to be overturned. but what may have more of an impact with the few swing voters left is health care. it's interesting, we've always thought that this battle, this final battle would be over row v wade, it looks like it's going to be over the affordable care

act and on the affordable care act it looks like donald trump is under water again on a 2 to 1 margin. >> health care is an issue in the most intense form when? when a pandemic is running out of control. when a president of the united states has proved himself to be completely uncaring about the health of his own nation. and i think, you know, that the -- look, nobody can get ahead of themselves. we've been here before on polls. those of us who remember very keenly what happened in 16ds are not going to jump and say this is over by any means, no matter how desperate the president of the united states seems. when i read "the new york times" piece last night, a brilliant piece of investigative journalism about the president's taxes, or lack of taxes, after i absorbed the report, the first question i had and the question i have for you joe, how much does it get absorbed?

how much do people in western pennsylvania, suburbs of milwaukee, how much do these repeated bombshells of information about the bad character and the bad actions of donald trump get absorbed and how much do they affect things? it's brilliant journalism. i think after reading that piece last night. when it's boiled down to something like $750 paid for a year in his first year in office, 10 years of -- 15, not paying any tax it es whatsoever. an article that makes it clear the president's business is an enormous grift. we're not going to know until election day if it says things. no debate, no one news story is going to be decisive. >> mika, i do think, when you look at the numbers again, with

white working class voters, blue collar voters that voted for donald trump in such overwhelming numbers but have been moving away from him consistently, the area he targeted, the area he's been playing to now for four years, just -- almost like he's put blinders on -- >> yeah. >> -- when it comes to any other segmental of the population. these are the people who will be o o offended the most. >> the most. >> if you have a waitress in lancaster county who pays more than $750 a year in federal income tax. a construction worker in scranton, pennsylvania that pays more than $750. they're going to say, here's a guy that lives in in the white house, been living his entire life in this 90-story gold plated building, flies around in

a helicopter, a jumbo jet and i can't pay to change my tires because i'm struggling so much with this economy? i've got to get a second job and donald trump is paying less in taxes than me. i'm sorry, $750. >> that hurts. >> that does resonate. >> it's also four years ago he talked about being able to avoid paying taxes legally. dealing with the tax laws. being so brilliant he could figure out how to pay a lower tax rate. this is not just avoiding. what is being seen in this reporting is avoiding, evading, perhaps robbing and cheating, we'll see. but it doesn't look good. >> it's one thing. amazon pays zero in taxes. that's a real problem. we have to reform our tax code -- >> sure. >> -- it's broken. but in donald trump's case, you read "the new york times"

investigation it's not legal tax avoidance, it look like it's moving to tax evasion. and also shows, as david said, donald trump's presidency is a lie. not only is he not a good business person, he's one of the worst business people in modern america people. you look at the numbers that the irs has put out there in the past, you look at documents, federal documents, this guy, one of the worst business people in modern american history. >> he didn't have much to say about it yesterday. didn't want to talk about it. let's bring in news correspondent yamiche alcindor. what's the reaction inside the white house? what are they saying? >> there's anger and also this sort of let's all push this aside and avoid it.

if you listen to what president trump said yesterday during his briefing, he really lashed out at "the new york times" and the idea this is fake news. this is all made up, false. but when he was posed a specific question, how much taxes do you actually pay and is it more than a couple hundred dollars, $750 over two years, $750 twice, is it more than that? he stumbled and mumbled and didn't answer the question. which is, is it true that you are this billionaire who is evading tax taxes. so he continues to say he's under audit, cannot talk about his tacks. once he's done under audit he'll present them. i think the line in this "the new york times" story what this mean, apart from as you say the evadining and the possibly breaking of laws, they said ultimately president trump may

be better and more successful playing a media mogul than being one. that stopped me dead in my tracks it tells us he sold the idea of himself as a business man, successful person. he was fighting so hard to be reelected not only to be reelected but also because if he's not, he could face jail time and be carried off like a lot of his personal associates like his former personal lawyer and so on. one thing your guest said, which i'm thinking about as a reporter, how much will it matter? will people who pay much more in taxes, waitresses and blue collar people, firefighters and teachers, are they going to pay attention to the story and that's a question we might not know the answer for until november. >> let's get to new polling that's showing some democratic

challengers giving republican incumbents a run for their money. in north carolina cal cunningham holds a lead over thom tillis, 48 to 38%. in maine, softwaarah gideon lea susan collins by 4. in south carolina, lindsey graham is statistically tied with jaime harrison, 45 to 44%. in georgia, incumbent david purdue holds a 5 point lead over democratic challenger john ossoff, 47 to 42. and in michigan, gary peters holds a five point lead over challenger john james, 49 to 44%. >> bosch costa, obviously the north carolina race stands out,

ten points. a republican incumbent in the 30s for quite some time, early voting been going on in north carolina for quite some time. so if these polls are accurate, that's obviously bad news for thom tillis and then, of course, you go down to south carolina and you have lindsey graham who has been playing starving tell advantage list, he's done everything except going to the top of the tower saying he's not going to come down until he gets $3 million from people of faith. he's basically done that on fox news begging for money. he obviously knows he's in trouble. but when you have republican senators endangered in south carolina, north carolina, one month out, that's lining up to be a heck of a battle on november 3rd. >> we are seeing it real time, an evolution of the politics in the south. joe you know the south as well as anyone, representing the florida panhandle but the south

isn't what it was ten, 20 years ago. you go to place like atlanta or charlotte and you're sighing the demographics changing, young people, black americans, asian-americans, latino americans, this is a new kind of south. people are moving to the south because of the cost of living from different parts of the country. you see from senator tillis and graham significant challenges and even senator purdue in georgia running against a candidate a couple months ago seen in these races as embracing president trump, not enough to carry you across the finish line. in some cases it might be but their strategy has been use the president's political capital to win. but the strategy just weeks before the election being tested. >> you no knknow, jonathan lemi look at the state of georgia. it's a state that people have talked about going blue eventually, turning more purple.

i know you talked about the diversification of georgia. i was born in dorville, georgia in 1963 and spent my time in a neighborhood that look like the wonder years, very white, and when i went back to visit my home even in the '90s, it was extraordinarily diverse, it has changed dramatically and yet, donald trump's message has been playing to, actually, my parents from 1961 or 1962 or 1963, talking about, your great suburban life. he is a man out of time and you look at the georgia polls and you look at polls in other areas and it looks like time is catching up with donald trump. >> that's right, joe.

he is seemingly out of step with where much of the south is going right now. georgia as you know, democrats have had their eyes on for a while. they saw virginia transform into what was a red state, into a true battleground and now a consistent blue state that's not really up for grabs either party things. the transformation of north carolina which was a republican strong hold now the definition of a battleground, one that president obama won once right now polls show tight and if they continue to move down south, georgia would be next on the list, in terms of the sprawl of atlanta, the changing suburbs there. and the president had to make a stop in georgia last week for a campaign event the more time he has to play defense in places like georgia or other states he won in 2016, is a real problem now. he had to visit ohio which he won by 9 in 2016.

iowa, texas. and if these are places the president needs to be now. each trip to georgia is a fewer trip he can make to pennsylvania, wisconsin or florida. and i think that is something that the trump campaign is concerned about. their latest wave of ads spending, three states were wons that hillary clinton won in 2016, the other 12 or so are places that he won last time around, needing to play defense. joe, i want to get your take on this. we talked with steve kornacki in the last hour about the seeming surprise. maybe split ticket voters in south carolina, those backing president trump but may be moving away from lindsey graham and moving towards jaime harrison, the challenger. but look at north carolina, we talk about thom tillis and the deficit he seems to be facing but the presidential polls sho s a tighter right there but what about michigan, the president.

are we seeing split ticket voting which had been phased out in previous cycles might be coming back? >> i'm skeptical. i really ampy only skeptical of that dramatic of a swing and split ticket voting. i think what it may suggest is that the michigan race for the presidency is much closer than we think it is. and in north carolina i think those polls that show a ten point margin show that actually there may be a little more separation between donald trump and joe biden in north carolina. who knows, and that south carolina may be a little tighter on the presidential level. but you do have three races. those three races in particular that are showing possibly the return of split ticket voting. i can't speak to senator peters and how he is with rank and file democrats. i do know that thom tillis and lindsey graham have never been

trusted by rank and file republicans. what you may be seeing there, especially with lindsey graham who said some of the most harsh things about donald trump as anybody on the national stage before quickly flipping over to becoming one of his most -- just -- i'll just say one of his most loyal followers is you may be seeing disgust from people across the electorate. david, i want to ask you about the endorsement of joe biden for the new yorker. you and i talked about the column you penned a few hours after donald trump got elected. i'm curious through these tragic years what you wrote that night was very stark and accurate. i'm wondering, though, have you found yourselves, at times, surprised by how bad it has

gotten? has it actually been worse than you expected? >> well, it took specific shape. in other words, i think we could have an tticipated by the president's own words and actions that he had no great affecti affection for or attachment to the rule of law. i think we knew he was a bigot. we knew he was far friendlier with foreign autocrats than allies. we could see that coming. unfortunately to our pain we couldn't see a pandemic coming. we couldn't see so much else coming. so the reality this all took led to a reckoning. i think that's what you're seeing reflected in the polls, the reckoning of the last six months, first of the pandemic, then george floyd, then breonna taylor. this was an x-ray of our society. and it exposed not only a

president whose activities one could describe as either criminal or dishonest or cynical, all the adjectives that we can spin out and that are accurate. but also a society that in many ways is broken. and a society that we -- people have described american exceptionalism and suddenly american exceptionalism is a negative term. where our performance on the pandemic is horribly worse than a place like germany and other societies, why is that? in the new yorker's endorsement, i don't think we surprised anybody by endorsing joe biden as opposed to donald trump. but it takes different shape this endorsement. we had five writers with really specialties with race, in the law, in medicine, and we had them describe what it is that a biden presidency, should it come

to pass -- and we don't know yet, should it come to pass, needs to happen to take action. i think we realized we were in a position as in 1933 when franklin roosevelt came to office that a reconning is happening in terms of the law, in terms of ourselves, an environmental crisis of the scale the globe is facing cannot be dealt with with pronouncements, it can't be a compromise that's no solution. we need real action for our survival of our planet and for the survival of the constitutional democracy that we cherished so deeply. and without that, we are in deeper and deeper trouble. >> so, david, let me ask you again we'll have time for a post mortem after the election regardless of who wins or loses,

i'm wondering when you talk about the reckoning, we've had a racial reckoning, an economic reckoning, a reckoning over science and the continued denial of science and medicine. i'm curious as you look back over the four years and look at the institutions and look at those that actually -- like, for instance, it seems every night when it seems there is another court that has stopped donald trump dead in his tracks and it's not always democratically appointed judges. last night it was over tiktok but you can say the same thing over hundreds of other things. the racial situation and the racial reckoning, you look at one poll after another and it seems that, actually, the racism that americans have seen in their president, at one point a majority of americans considered

donald trump to be a racist president. that was in a poll. americans actually seem to be more attuned to the racial problems that this country has had. and that their own feelings on race have evolved over the past four years because of the ugliness that donald trump has brought to the forefront. do you see some of those developments, and do you think that we can get out of this actually being able to face those reckonings with our eyes open and be able to move forward faster? >> i not only think we can, i'm told we can. we're told despair is the unforgivable sin, and i believe that. i know how closely people have come to the brink of despair whether it's because of the lack of racial justice, economic justice and all the many reasons one can have for despair, not

only the last six months but in the longer period of time. i think what the last four years has shown is our institutions so often, whether it's the press, our civic institutions, demonstrators on the street, and so much more, american people are capable of standing up even against this. even against an elected president who, in the end, is an authoritarian. >> david remnick, thank you so much. and bob costa thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe," democrats have landed on a strategy to fight back against the president's supreme court nominee. reminding voters what's at stake. namely, health care. we'll talk to a member of the senate judiciary committee, democrat mazie hirono. you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe" we'll be right back.

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to replace her with amy k

coney barrett is so wrong. her record also makes clear if she's confirmed that women's reproductive freedom will be at risk, roe v wade itself will be at risk. if she's on the court i'm afraid it'll be eliminated. >> joining us member of the judiciary and armed services committees, mazie hirono who said she will not meet with amy coney barrett. i'm curious, why not meet with amy coney barrett? why not try to understand her, know her, see how her views are

evol evolving? why not meet? >> i'll have ample opportunity when she comes before the committee to question her, so that's what i'm going to do. >> why wouldn't you meet with her? it was galling, i thought, when republicans wouldn't even meet with merrick garland. shouldn't senators sit down and have a one-on-one conversation with somebody who may be on the court for the next 30 or 40 years? >> i'm going to spend my time questioning with her, chatting with lher under oath, i think that's the appropriate step to take. this is not a normal process, joe. people are saying i should extend the courtesy. when the president extends the courtesy to the american people to not lie to us and tell us the truth, then i'll extend the courtesy to their nominee for the supreme court. they're shoving this person down

our throat and i'm preparing for her -- at the confirmation hearing to ask the questions i need to ask. >> what are your biggest concerns? >> my biggest concern is that she's being pushed to be on this court, that she'll be sitting there to hear the affordable care act case on november 10th and she'll be a vote to breakdown the affordable care act and therefore millions of people, including about 100,000 people with preexisting conditions will no longer have the protections of the affordable care act. breaking that down is near and dear to the republicans' hearts and they're going to accomplish it by putting her on the court in as fast a process as possible. this process shouldn't be happening but the republicans are not keeping their word, what else can you do?

>> senator, there's been some discussion among your colleagues that if the democrats were to reclaim the senate this fall and the president was able to confirm and place his nominee here that the senate would perhaps -- the democratic controlled senate would look to take radical changes, including eliminating the filibuster and expanding the seats on the supreme court, beyond what has become the normal nine. do you support the measures? >> i thought about court reform for a number of years now and the fact is we won't have a serious discussion about any of those matters unless the democrats take back the senate. so first you need to take back the senate. i've been thinking about it -- by this administration, this president and mitch mcconnell. >> senator, let me ask you about

the judge's faith. 2017, a lot of eyebrows were raised when dianne feinstein suggested that her faith could get in the way of her being an effective judge. do you have any concerns about her being a woman of faith, a devout woman of faith and getting in the way of her being able to do her duty, or do you believe people can actually be practicing catholics and devout christians and still be an effective judge? >> joe, her religion is immaterial. the issue is whether she can separate her deeply held views on issues like abortion, lgbtq rights, whether she can separate her views from her ability to be fair and objective as a justice sitting there for years making

decisions that impact all of our lives, starting with the affordable care act. >> so your suggestion is that if she just interprets the law, based upon the law, which she has said that's what she does, if she can interpret the law based on that and not actually legislate from the bench, then you have no problem with her faith at all? >> i have concerns about her willingness to -- to, you know, overturn supreme court preced t precedent. she's written about that. i would like to know what kind of factors would she apply in her determination that a previous supreme court decision was wrong. and so, roe v wade is a previous supreme court decision. that's a precedent. so i would like to know because she has expressed a willingness to overturn precedent based on her own view of the

constitution. i think it is really important for the american people to understand what those parameters will be, because there are a lot of supreme court precedents that she could over turn based on what she's laid out for us. >> it'll be very interesting to hear her being questioned. senator, thank you for coming on this morning. >> thank you. aloha. coming up, new reporting that the director of the cdc is alarmed over the influence of the president's new covid task force adviser. "morning joe" is coming right back. e adviser. "morning joe" is coming right back

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new reporting just in on the trump administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the centers for disease control is growing more concerned that president trump is sharing incorrect information with the public. >> incorrect would be one thing. actually, what's happening is they're concerned he's lying to the public.

he's lying to the public because he knows better and he continues to spread the lies anyway. we have him on tape talking to bob woodward telling us he knows what the truth is, he's just chosen to lie to the american people while 205,000 americans are now dead. >> so more now dr. robert redfield, who heads the cdc suggested in a phone call that the president's covid-19 adviser dr. scott atlas is arming trump with misleading data about a range of issues, including the questioning of the efficacy of masks. >> lying. >> whether young people are susceptible to the virus -- >> lying. >> and the potential benefits of herd immunity, the key things we're dealing with with this pandemic. on that phone call dr. redfield says about dr. atlas, quote, everything he says is false. redfield made the call in public on a commercial airline and

overheard by national weather service -- nbc news. he acknowledged that he was talking about dr. scott atlas. atlas was brought onto the white house task force in august. >> maybe he and ronny jackson can get reported. in a report nbc news said they're reporting one side of the conversation. asked to response to redfield's comments, atlas said in many part in a statement, everything i've said is directly from the data and the science. >> that too is a lie. >> okay. joining us now former acting director of the cdc, president and ceo of the robert wood johnson foundation, dr. richard besher. i'd like to start out by asking you to prognosticate a bit based

on the science we have on what the next few weeks look like, the next month really. the president has been traveling state-to-state. he's been in pennsylvania, virginia, large crowds close together, some of them outside but many not wearing masks. do you expect numbers to surge in those areas from what we've seen in the past from places where he has held public events? and where do we stand in terms of the coronavirus and surges around the country? are things getting better or worse? >> yeah, that's a big question. clearly we know, mika, that public gatherings, people close together without masks is a really dangerous thing. so you want to encourage people not to do that. if you are going to be in a public space wear a mask. what you can do to protect yourself and others around you. whether we'll be sensitive enough to pick up spread from that is another question. we've seen it's a dangerous

thing. we saw it occur earlier on when the president went to oklahoma, saw cases out of that and did unfortunately see deaths. going forward the next several months depends on what we do. we passed last week a grim milestone of 200,000 deaths and it's time for us as a nation to say, do we want to talk in a number of months about 300,000 deaths, 400,000 deaths or do those things that work around the globe, wearing masks, social distancing, washing our hands looking out for each other. we can do that. but if a sizable part of the country isn't willing to take those steps we're going to be facing a lot of grim milestones over the course of the next year. >> let me ask you about the state of florida. ron desantis, the governor there, lifted all restrictions despite the fact that cases are going up. is there any scientific, medical reason why he should do that? and how dangerous is that,

especially for florida seniors? >> what the cdc data has shown, and cdc while it's under siege is still doing incredible studi studies. over the summer they showed the rising cases was from young people coming together. you saw it in florida, texas, arizona, california, when those states then took measures to reduce that kind of crowding we saw the numbers going down. so what i expect to see in florida is further development and support for that evidence. when you encourage or allow people to come together in unsafe ways, cases are going to go up. they found young people tend to do well with this but a couple of weeks from the surge in young people you see the cases go up in older people and they don't do so well. >> yamiche alcindor is with us and has a question for you.

>> thank you. i have two quick questions the first is the president said over and over again that young people are almost not at all affected by this virus. could you specifically talk to young people, as a florida native, about how susceptible they are to the virus. and two, i was at the white house when the supreme court nomination happened. there were dozens of people on the lawn, shoulder to shoulder, most not wearing masks, how dangerous is it to do in this pandemic, at this time? >> i'll take the second question first. the virus doesn't care what party you're a member of. wear a mask. these are critical issues. if you feel you need to come together and protest and raise concerns, wear the mask, keep 6 feet from each other if you can, but please do those steps to protect each other. in terms of the impact on young people. i'm a pediatrician. what we see is younger people are at lower risk of having

severe infection but that's not no risk. it doesn't mean you can't get sick and can't get hospitalized and die. we've seen deaths across the age spectrum. the other thing is young people don't just stay with young people. they get together and spread it. across our country what we're seeing is the impact isn't spread easily. people of color, black americans, native americans, latinos are bearing the brunt. and a lot of that is with contact with young people. so wear the masks, avoid the parties. there are ways to stay connected that aren't going to put others at risk. i want to comment, at the top you were talking about scott atlas, who is now on the task force. it's really important for people to recognize that we have some of the world's leading experts in public health at the cdc, at nih, at fda and other places around the country. scott atlas is not one of them. he's not an infectious disease

physician, a public health expert. the idea we're taking advice from someone without the experience to know how to handle this and that advice is becoming part of the approach the administration is taking is extremely dangerous. >> dr. richard besser, once again thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. >> thank you. still ahead, "the new york times" bombshell on the president's massive money problems, a decade long battle with the irs, loads of debt and a struggling business empire. is trump among the worst businessmen of our time? >> yes. >> "morning joe" is coming right back. coming right back beautiful. but support the leg!

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on voter fraud, as you know, hopefully there won't be a very

beg movement because hopefully we'll be able to win. we have the massive movement. i think we're going to have a tremendous victory that won't be a transition because i can't imagine we call it transition if we win. you know, they talk about, will there be a friendly transition? of course there will. we have a big problem. you see is every day happening with ballots. >> no, you don't. that's a lie. but it's a lie because he's seen the polls and you know he's losing. >> and there's a lot now explaining why that could upset him a great deal as it pertains to the new york city "times" bombshell on his tax returns. the former republican governor of pennsylvania and the first secretary for the department of homeland security, tom ridge, says he's voting for joe biden. in an op-ed yesterday in the "philadelphia inquirer," ridge writes, in part, it will be my first vote for a democratic candidate for president of the

united states, but it is not the first time i have said no to donald trump. i urge my fellow pennsylvanians to join me. donald trump has proven over these last four years he is incapable of such leadership. it is not within him. he lacks the empathy, integrity, and mature to lead. he sow division along religion and race lines and he dismisses experts who know far more about the subject at hand. with just about one month until election day, president trump continues to claim the only way he can possibly be defeated is a rigged election. can you imagine the huberous. >> mr. republican, jonathan

lemi lemire, for pennsylvania, also for homeland defense security, homeland security chief, in the bush administration deciding to break and vote against a republican candidate for president for the first time in his life. you've been reporting on pennsylvania. what's your take on this story? >> well, joe, i think it could have an impact in two ways. ridge is just the latest national security, many who have come out against donald trump saying he's unfit for office, he's perhaps even a danger to the nation. there's been a broad array of republicans, national security officials who have done that. some of whom, of course, worked in the trump administration. those who knew him best are coming out against him. yes, there's also the pennsylvania governor, governor ridge served the commonwealth of pennsylvania for some time. it does carry some weight among the gop. we've been talking all morning

about how pennsylvania might be the most important state on map. biden and trump view it could be the electoral college tipping state. in wisconsin and michigan and potentially arizona are slipping away from president trump, he needs pennsylvania, quite simply, to make it to 270. polls suggest a pretty tight race. joe biden up, not up by a lot. if governor ridge's voice here sways even a sliver of republicans or independents or undecideds away from trump to biden, in a state that president trump so desperately needs. still ahead, do obama voters who switched to trump in 2016 now prefer joe biden? polling shows the president may be losing a major chunk of the coalition that helped him win the white house. we'll look at all the latest numbers. numbers.

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that's fake news. totally fake news. made up, fake. we went through the same stories, you could have asked me the same questions four years ago. i had to litigate it and talk about it. totally fake news. actually, no, i pay tax. you'll see that as soon as my tax returns are -- it's under audit. they've been under audit for a long time. the irs does not treat me well.

>> you know, he's actually right, he does pay taxes. i think what was it last year he paid $750 in taxes. >> yeah. >> ten out of 15 years he paid zero percent in taxes. think actually of all the nurses who paid more in federal income taxes than donald trump over the past decade. think of all the construction workers that paid more in federal income taxes than donald trump over the past 10, 15 years. think of all the wait reresses,u go down the list. you can think of all of that. you can also think of all the money he lost over the years. i mean, talk about the biggest lose loser. never seen a worse businessman in my life. that was president trump -- >> hold a second. some people might say that's harsh for you. >> no.

>> to call donald trump the biggest loser when it comes to business. >> it's staggering. >> but the numbers actually show that through a large part of his business akeer, he lost more money than any other american citizen. and the amazing thing is his daddy gave him equivalence of $400 million and he lost all of that. bankruptcies right and left. then as he was struggling, he finally got to "the apprentice" and struck oil there. made another $400 million there. lost all of that money. i don't know. you would think if you lost $400 million that your daddy gave you the first time, you would say, hey, the next time i make some

money, i'm not going to be really stupid with it. but he is -- i think it's safe to say, if you just look at the federal records, mika, he is the least successful business person of all time. and the incredible thing is he has painted himself as this great businessman, which, by the way, we all know that in new york real business people would die laughing at the prospect when donald trump is doing "the apprentice," they would say middle america thinks that's a good businessman? they think that's a business tycoon? they would laugh because they were running the banks where donald trump had rolled up hundreds of million in debt. they were the ones running the construction projects they

couldn't pay for. they had seen him collapse and fail time and time again. no, biggest -- i do think when the history books were written, it will show that nobody has lost more money in american business in the past 20 years consistently than donald trump. >> we had heard all those stories and now the tax returns are backing it up. that was president trump lashing out at "the new york times" over its bombshell report over his massive money problems. and also maybe some major legal questions coming out as well. struggling properties, chronic losses, years of tax avoidance, and hundreds of millions in debt quickly coming due. we're going to get to those newly obtained records straight ahead. >> one other thing, too. you know, tax avoidance is one thing. >> that's sad. >> a lot of americans -- >> that's not what i'm talking about, though. >> i know. and tax avoidance. and we've talked time and again

how we think the tax code is horrible. it allows billionaires, multimillionaires. amazon, amazon paid zero, zero in federal income taxes. that's what we're talking about here. federal income taxes. there's something terribly wrong with that tax code and it needs to be fixed, but that's tax avoidance. what we're looking at here looks like tax evasion. and if the irs ends up in the end deciding -- going after trump and winning that case there, you could have a guy that's spending his post-presidency bankrupt and all of these leans we're finding out that are coming due in the next three, four years ago, donald trump has personally guaranteed. this is a guy, make no mistake of it. you look at the numbers. he can call it fake news. it's his own tax returns. so if it's fake news, he's also

guilty of tax fraud. it's his own tax returns this reporting is over. we're looking at a guy that could be bankrupt in the next three to four years. and is he a billionaire? not even close. >> also, joe, if you look into these numbers, as we will over the days and weeks to come carefully, it make explain his behavior as well. >> it does. >> it may actually explain. it may show what his intentions were, where he was vulnerable, and how he played the game. >> well, the money he got from turkey -- we'll talk to mike schmidt and others about there, but the money he got from foreign countries, the money he got from the philippines, it explains an awful lot. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." as we back into the show this morning, it's monday, september 28th. with us we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire, hose of politics nations and president

of the national action network, reverend al sharpton. his new book "rise up: confronting a country at the crossroads" is out tomorrow. >> we'll be talking to reverend al all this week about "rise up" throughout this week, as it launches again tomorrow. we're very excited about that. >> also with us, national political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc, an author of "the red and the blue," steve kornacki. and nbc news capitol hill correspondent, host of "way too early," kasie d.c., kasie hunt. "new york times" reporter, nbc national security analyst, michael schmidt, the author of "donald trump versus the united states:inside the struggle to stop a president." we want to get to new battleground state polling showing joe biden up over president trump in several key states. 36 states. 36 days before election day. people are voting now. in maine, the latest kol by

college poll shows biden with an 11-point lead, 39% to 50%. in wisconsin, the nbc/marist cloej poll shows biden up by ten. in michigan the same poll gives biden an eight-point lead, 52% to 44%. in minnesota, the "usa today"/suffolk poll has biden up by seven, 47% to 40%. the star tribune poll has biden up by six in the state, 48% to 42%. in north carolina, the latest cbs/yougov poll has biden and donald trump in a statistical tie, 48% to trump's 46%. in georgia the same poll shows another statistic all tie, trump 47%, biden 46%. in south carolina the cbs/yougov

poll has trump with a ten-point lead, 52% to 42%. >> steve kornacki, no need to put the asterisks need to these polls. it is not early. the national poll unmoved. a couple of national polls at ten and nine. the national polls looking the same as they have for an entire year. one of the most tumultuous year in modern american history. the one thing that's a steady, a constant, joe biden has been ahead by eight, nine, points. the cbs/washington post poll, up by ten. political pundits are always looking at the last race. what are we saying for the last three, four years, oh, it's those white voters that donald trump has been gaining while he's been insulting hispanics and minorities and the others.

you look where the white guys are and wisconsin, supposedly, in michigan, in minnesota, and you see actually joe biden consolidating. apparently he's doing pretty well with voters in wisconsin. and this is a consistency. a ten-point lead in wisconsin. we've seen a nine-point lead, we've seen eight-point leads post-kenosha. it hasn't been close. in michigan we have an eight-point lead in michigan. in minnesota, a seven-point lead. and yet we didn't show the polls from florida and arizona, but where is it getting close, steve? it's getting close in florida and arizona in the sun belt, in part, because biden hasn't closed the deal with hispanics yet so he has sort of a reversal of what everybody's been talking about. let's talk about that industrial midwest because that's -- that's donald trump's only path to

victory. what's going on up there? >> it's interesting. they all came together for donald trump in 2016. one is he ended up getting pretty much consolidating the republican base. it helped him in a state like georgia. you talk about a texas and north carolina. the other key ingredient on trump is what you're honing in this, the midwest. you could draw a line. it almost starts in parts of north dakota, stretches down as far south as appalachia and goes to maine, and you can find town after town, county after county where donald trump was running up massive numbers in places with large populations of blue collar, white voters. white voters without a college degree, older whites, and all of the polls were you putting up here, are consistent in this way. they represent polls showing significant movement among white voters and among noncollege white voters in particular, which is trump's base.

to give you a couple examples from our nbc/marist poll, we took a look at wisconsin and michigan. two states trump flipped, these are states where trump was basically winning the blue collar white vote by 30 points in 2016. that's much higher tlan anybody thought he was going to get in 2016. our polling and other polls out there, you look at other polls, they find the same thing, single digits. trump lead of single digits among noncollege white voters in those states. you put maine up there. maine is part of the story. why did trump get an electoral vote in main map in 2016. it's because that congressional direct he won in 2016. maine is filled with blue collar, white voters. noncollege white voters. trump ran up the score there hi. we have seen polling from that

congressional district which shows joe biden running competitively with donald trump. we have spent four years talking about the trump base, blue collar whites, noncollege whites. the day after the election in 2016 we had a different term for those voters. we called them obama, obama trump voters. these are voters in a lot of cases who went with obama in 2018, stuck with obama and then flipped to trump. the obama part of that equation in the polling is coming back into the mix. biden is drawing support and looking more for the democrats like 2012 than 2016. new polling shows key republican incumbents still strugglinging to hold on. you're watching "morning joe." a"

let's take a look at what's happening with polling that shows democratic challengers giving republican incumbents a run for their money. cal cunningham holds a ten-point lead over incumbent thom tillis. in maine, democrat sar are guiden leads susan collins by four, 45 to 41. that's looking close. in south carolina, incumbent lindsey graham is statistically tied with democratic challenger jamie harrison, 45% to 44%. he was on fox all day friday saying, help me, help me, i need money. and he just showed up all day on fox, begging for money. in georgia, incumbent david perdue holds a five-point lead over democratic challenger john

ossof. in michigan, gary peters holds a five-point lead over john james, 49% to 45%. kasie hunt, what races stand out to you the most? and could these be consequential changes? >> they absolutely could be. and the one that stands out the most there is that north carolina race. i mean, if we put that number back up on the screen, i mean, this is stunning for an incumbe incumbent. 38%. if you're at 38% and you're an incumbent sitting senator, that is a huge problem. you know, more than any other race on the map, i think this is a generic ballot test because tillis wasn't necessarily -- this was true when he ran against kay hagan, it's the purest re-election of d versus r

with no candidate necessarily having a huge advantage in personality or any other issue. you really don't want to be there if you are thom tillis. that is a terrible number. on the flipside, that michigan number, gary peters versus james is also something i've been hearing from republican sources that they're suddenly keeping an eye there. that number is closer than we anticipated it might be. you see gary peters ever so slightly, under 50%. a potential trouble spot for democrats there. but when you bring that lindsey graham number in, and we talked about this last week, republicans -- we saw this in 2014 when democrats could not overcome the approval rating, this is -- if this is a true reflection of where things stand in south carolina, republicans are going to have a hold time holding job to the senate. joe, i'm just -- go ahead, sorry. >> no, you go ahead.

i was going to pick up on your conversation about these tax returns in this context and also as i was sitting here listening to you talk about it. i went to go find joe biden's tax returns. they're on the website in a neatly ordered list. you can click on it and find it. you can see in 2016, when obviously he and barack obama were serving and he was making the salary that's afforded to the vice president, he pays $92,198 in taxes and got $1,031 refund. this is how it's supposed to look. he was not before he left office a rich man and he was somebody who did well, who had a voe -- have a high salary. to contrast that, no rememberal people who pay taxes, one of the things that makes this such a problem for trump is joe biden comes across as a working class guy. people believe that's who he is. he obviously didn't believe that

about clinthillary clinton. that compounds the problem donald trump is facing here. a look at other stories we're following this morning. the latest on the covid crisis as officials warn about the fall surge. plus, former trump campaign manager brad pascel. >> we'll have the latest in the latest reporting. e the latest i latest reporting ♪ but i like it, i love it, i want some more of it ♪ ♪ i try so hard, i can't rise above it ♪ ♪ don't know what it is ♪ ♪ get a dozen double crunch shrimp for one dollar with any steak entrée. only at applebee's.

four years behind us. to end the anger, the insults, the division. and start fresh in america. i don't pledge allegiance to red states of america or blue states of america. i pledge allegiance to the united states of america. i'm gonna fight as hard for those who supported me as those who did not support me. we have a chance to put anger and division that has overtaken this country behind us. and we can. we've done it so many times in our history. we begun anew. we can get control of this virus. we can reward work. we can make healthcare affordable. we can be a safe and just nation. we can deal

with the existential threat of climate change. we can be what we are at our best. one nation, one people, one america. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. but we are hoping things will pick up by q3. yeah...uh... boss: doug? sorry about that. umm...what...its...um... boss: you alright? [sigh] [ding]

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restaurants reopened with no restrictions on friday following an announcement by governor ron desantis. his order prohibits local governments from issuing restrictions to businesses unless they can justify the economic cost. bars are now able to operate at full capacity. though desantis did not address other businesses during the announcement, many gyms, hair salons and other service industries were already operating at full xafrt.

according to nbc news, the uptick in cases during the months of july and august prompted the governor to close bars and restrict restaurants to takeout only, but he has since slowly reopened the state for business even as the virus continues to decimate the u.s. on friday the same day of reopening announcement, florida reported more than 2,500 new covid-19 infections. that's a lot. >> doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. >> more than 1,000 new yorkers tested positive for coronavirus on friday, the first time since june 5th. the infections rate reached 1%. andrew cuomo announced over the weekend, new york's health department said in some neighborhoods, covid-19 is spreading at an alarming rate and that the city should consider shutting down private schools and nonessential businesses in these areas. in some parts of the city, the positivity rate topped 6% as

more businesses, private schools and colleges have reopened. new york city's public schools are set to resume in-person instruction this week. >> let's just remember. in the spring before it got warm, you had a lot of places across the north especially that had problems because more of those residents were inside. in the summer months when donald trump said this was going to imaginingicly go away, you suddenly saw an outbreak across florida and arizona because it was getting awfully hot. a lot of people were going inside. as we go into the fall and flu season starts up, a lot of people have been concerned about this. new yorkers and others in the northeast and across the northern states are going to be going back inside again en masse. and it's just going to cause, again, probably going to cause real concerns. >> one more story here.

former trump campaign manager, brad parscale, is in the hospital after threatening to self-harm, according to authorities. ft. lauderdale police arrived at parscale's house in the afternoon yesterday when his wife alerted authorities that he was armed, has access to multiple firearms and was threatening to harm itself. officials were able to talk him out of the house uninjured and transported him to broward health medical center. the trump campaign released a statement following the news writing, brad parscale is a member of our family and we all love him. we are ready support him and his family in any way possible. >> it is really, really sad story. jonathan lemire, i'm sure you've had dealings with brad before. we certainly have.

of course, times dais-- the deas have been tough, going back and forth. a really sad story. we've seen this a few times with some people in donald trump's inner circle. trump is used to the glare and the fighting and the back and forth, all these wars, tabloid wars, but it's really hard for people to understand the glare that anybody in washington, d.c., goes through. you've seen caputo having some challenges in this atmosphere. and now brad again, somebody we've known for a while and, again, our hearts and the prayers are going out to him in this terrible struggle and family. but it has been a very tough few months for brad, hasn't it? >> it has. first and foremost, our thoughts

and prayers with him and his family. glad the matter resolved yesterday without anyone being hurt. brad parscale was the campaign manager for the first stretch of this run. he was part of the 2016 team as well. he had been a bit of a character, 6'8" with a noticeable beard. rally goers and fans were drawn to him. he would sign autographs and take pictures and was well liked by staff, including very senior members of the staff. you're right. he had a falling out with the president over the summer, in particular after the d'baebacle the tulsa rally where he said there were a million ticket requests and ended up being about 6 thouf there and the president stared into a sea of empty seats. he himself was the center of an anti-trump ad campaign suggesting that he was making -- profiting off the trump name. this can be, the scrutiny in the spotlight can be tough on any

trump adviser, particularly one, brad parscale a few years ago was anonymous, digital operations guy, not used to the campaign. we hope he gets the help he needs and comes through okay. coming up, the great jeff daniels will be our guest after his portrayal of james comey and the events leading up to comey's firing by the president. we're back in just a moment. when i started cobra kai,

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welcome back to "morning joe." foreign policy is looming large over the final stretch of the presidential campaign. with serious challenges facing the next administration, regardless of who wins in november. in the coming weeks, "morning joe" is diving into the most pressing international issues beginning today with the middle east. joining us now, nbc news senior

international correspondent keir simmons. keir? >> good morning. it is positive important, to crucial that you guys are looking in depth at this, that your executive producer commissioned this because i don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this election may be as important to the world as, for example, when fdr was re-elected in 1940 during the height of the second world war. billions of people around the world who don't have a vote know what happens in november may deeply affect their lives. as you mentioned, today we're going to look at the middle east and israel in particular. whoever is president next year may have to make crucial decision about the long talked about two-state solution. and that will be profoundly important for the israeli/palestinian issue. >> reporter: the past seven

decades have seen wars, civil unrest and peace deals but it's often appeared like little changes when it comes to israel and the palestinians. that's not how it looks right now. whoever is president from january will face a new middle east and potentially historic decisions. president trump along with his son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner have been moving the needle in ways previously thought unthinkable and in ways that are, perhaps, irreversible. >> i took my promise, recognized the true capital of israel and opened the american embassy in jerusalem. >> reporter: for filling a passionate goal of his evangelical base and shattering the long-held idea of u.s. support for a palestinian capital in east jerusalem. the u.s. has recognized golan heights and benjamin netanyahu

in 2019 even named a settlement there, trump heights. and the trump administration recognized israeli settlements in the west bank as legal, going against decades of u.s. policy that are considered the community's illegal under international law. then this month a peace deal that read more like a trade deal, signed at the white house between israel, the uae and bahrain. ambassador gold knows prime minister benjamin netanyahu well. >> since president trump took office, the relationship between the american president and the israeli prime minister has been very close. with a lot of understanding of israel's dleilemmas, israel problems. >> reporter: the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee says crucially the gulf states are ready to move on. >> i think they're tired of the situation, tired of the situation not changing. they see clearly that iran is on a very bad path and a wrong

path. as far as the palestinians are concerned, i think they see they have missed opportunity after opportunity. >> reporter: the palestinians have not taken a seat at the table for recent negotiations during trump's so-called deal of the century. the palestinian ambassador to the united kingdom was based in washington until a trump administration shuttered the palestinian mission to the united states two years ago. >> what president trump and netanyahu are doing is abracadabra. the abracadabra pops, the rabbits have disappeared. >> reporter: the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee told us palestinians have misjudged their negotiations. they got it wrong. >> this is not about centimeters of land here and there. this is about human, sheer, pure, human dignity, human rights, human aspirations. >> reporter: the trump administration has changed geopolitics but look closely at

the facts on the ground and it's clear, future presidents will have to deal with some harsh realities. over the past two decades, over 600,000 jewish settlers have built communities in parts of east jerusalem and the west bank. >> first thing out there -- >> reporter: land promised to the palestinians for a future state. >> this is our historic homeland, where our roots are, where our identity is. that doesn't mean we hate arabs. that doesn't mean we should have upward mobility. it just means this is our land. >> reporter: that's an impossible idea to the palestinians. >> this land, sooner or later, according to the israels, it will be taken. and to be honest, we will not be able to do anything because we are talking about this side and weak on the other side. >> reporter: this man says his family has owned this land for generations, which now sits in the shadow of this settlement.

>> taking this part of land from me, it's like taking my life. >> reporter: solving this historic impasse is the deal president trump hasn't done. during his last election, prime minister netanyahu promised to, quote, apply israeli sovereignty over or annex parts of the west bank. words israel, annexi ining part the west bank, make a two-state solution impossible? >> it makes it harder and harder. with each step israel takes to resolve what are called final status issues in advance of negotiations between the parties, it shrinks the space for a possible resolution. and i think shrinking space for a peaceful resolution may have the unintended consequence of increasing the likelihood of conflict. >> reporter: who wins the election in november could be the deciding factor.

>> senator chris coons who could be secretary of state under biden, meanwhile the secretary saying they could be part of the west bank. the israeli ambassador told us that annexing parts of the west bank, even under a president biden, is a distinct possibility because it is important for israel's security. >> okay. nbc's keir simmons, thank you so much. we look forward to your next report. appreciate that. and up next, a portrayal of donald trump and the fbi director at the center of the russia probe. we're joined by jeff daniels, who portrays jim comey in the new miniseries. keep it right here on "morning joe."

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but i have to rely on people. i have all these idiot advisers around who think they got me elected. you know who i actually listened to? tv people, because i've got to get ratings every day. white house adviser can guess wrong, still keep his job. not the tv guys. a lot of smart people in that business. >> well, you can rely on me, sir, to tell you that i -- >> i need loyalty. >> that was a scene from the two-part showtime, two-part event series "the comey rule" based on the number one best seller. a higher loyalty by former fbi director james comey. let's bring in emmy-award winning actor jeff daniels who plays comey. jeff, thank you so much. i want to start by talking about james comey and what you -- what you learned about comey as you dug into this. obviously, he wrote the book.

he wrote the history that it's based on. but for a lot of people, james comey reminds me of the churchill quote that, you know, this guy is riddle wrapped inside a mystery inside an enigma. who is james comey, this character that has shaped so much of our recent history? >> i found he's a guy that believes in the rule of law. he looks at that as something bigger than he is. same thing with the institution, such as the fbi. he believes in protecting the integrity of the fbi. and those things matter to him like people's religion matters to them. and their god matters to them. there's a sacredness to it. when he got into these situations that secretary clinton's use of the emails threw him into, that the mistake where they missed those 30,000

and 300,000 emails in october leading up to the election, that he now had to be thrust into, he relied on those things that he believed in. and none of those things are political. they're apolitical. that's what i found in this guy, was a guy that was trying to do the right thing, as if that could save him or save the integrity of the fbi. and led the way into people that were apolitical that came after him. and that's what i found was what apolitical looks like, what apolitical thinks like, and why jim did what he did. knowing what he knew then. >> was it possible that a little more cynicism, a little more political insight may have guided him through one of the most difficult times in recent american political history?

>> yes. and we go through that in last night's episode. and it's -- but it's political. and i think he had to -- his north star had to be the things i just mentioned. and none of those are political. and when the politics come into it from the left or from the right, it's almost like he had to push it away. rightly or wrongly, politically. and stay true to what he believed were the important things, which, in this case, was the rule of law. you know, i look back to barry goldwater and, joe, you know far better than i, but the republicans hung on for a long time in watergate. deny, deny, deflect, dismiss, and then when nixon was breaking the rule of law, goldwater said, let's go and he marched the senate republicans up to the white house and he said, mr. president, you have to resign.

we don't have those republicans anymore. and jim was up against that. so when he reopened the investigation, by protocol, by sending the letter to the gang of eight, they're not supposed to leak it for political purposes. he knew they would because that's who we have now. and they did. but jim tried to do the right thing. and that's what i keep falling back on. this series is real good if you just hit pause a bunch of times and go, what would you do, given what you know now based on what jim said, it's not so easy. >> yeah, not so easy. let's show another clip. this is where james comey discusses his dinner with the president with agents on his staff. >> am i overreacting? >> no, no. this is how a mob boss talks.

>> a few takeaways. the independence of the fbi doesn't mean anything to him. he sees everything in terms of personal loyalty. he's fixated on the hookers thing. and he thinks you have a problem. i told him you don't. >> boss, you have to be very careful here. memorialize any more conversations you have with him. >> there aren't supposed to be any conversations with him. >> did he bring up michael flynn at all or acknowledge that we've been to the white house to interview flynn? >> no. >> possible he was respecting a boundary there? >> hard to say. he moved so fast from one subject to another. so much of what he says is factually, legally incorrect, it's possible that he thinks the conversation went well, that i'm solidly on board. >> this cannot happen again. it is completely inappropriate for the two of you to engage like this. >> he's the president. am i supposed to refuse your call? >> he just asked you to put loyalty to him above your duty to investigate the threat posed

by russia. >> i'm aware. >> boss, he just fired sally yates. >> so, jeff, that scene is so evocative of other moments where you have guys from another era unaware that a new reality is upon them. whether it's guys in detroit in the early 1980s, don't understand that their world is about to change radically, or in other countries like surviving autocracy says one of the mistakes we make in news is we're trying to apply the old news of america to a new reality of an autocratic leader. i'd love for you to talk about it, but that looked like james comey and everybody else in that

room trying to apply the old rules of madisonian democracy to a very new harsh reality. >> everybody respected the rule of law. everybody respected those things that made america and make america the free country that it is. until now. and it's been painfully obvious from before 2016, but certainly in the four years previous. and look at what happened yesterday. that's what autoc kautocrats do. what i find worse than trump is the complicity of those in congress, in the senate, and i see a republican party that is -- that is no longer the republican party that my dad belonged to. it's trump's republican party. and they are clinging to that like it's the "titanic" heading to the iceberg and it's their

last stand. it's the last stand of the republican party. and a lot of the people in this country, and i live around a bunch of them, think that that party still exists. and i think days like yesterday with the tax returns starting to come out, we're starting to see a president who is doing everything he possibly can, including lying about the pandemic, to stay out of jail. that's who you're voting for is a president who is heading to prison. and if i'm wrong, i guess we're going to find out, but it's so obvious. if the trump administration were a movie, a script, they would kick it back because the villain is too obvious. he's not transparent enough. and you just see this stacking and stacking as we head into november 3rd as the reality of, guys, the iceberg is -- we can see the iceberg now. what are you waiting for? and what they are waiting

official is -- i don't know. i just don't know. >> yeah, none of us do. jonathan? >> hey, jeff. jonathan lemire. a lot of angry msnbc viewers watching this would probably like to evoke the title of one of your movies "dumb and dumber" when it comes to comey and president trump. my questions to you are, did you speak to comey? did you try to learn from him while preparing this? did you try to study him in that way? and also, how do you perceive him now? someone who thought he was doing the right thing. but is someone who, frankly, is so disliked by both sides. trump republicans feel he was not sufficiently loyal to the president and, of course, democrats feel that biprioritizing the secretary clinton investigation and reviving it just days before the 2016 investigation, he may have played a role in electing donald trump.

>> yeah, i certainly think he had an impact on the election. well, first of all, i went to the book. i went to the audio book. you hear jim read it. youtube is full of interviews. colbert show. you can see comey's sense of humor. as an actor playing any role, living or dead, fictional, i had plenty going in. i emailed jim. i was finishing "to kill a mockingbird" on broadway. i said if you're in new york, i'd love to talk to you. he emailed back, but it didn't happen, and i took that to, don't impose on the guy. rightly or wrongly, he's been vilified. and i'm not going to go down to his house and watch him eat dinner. i got enough. and billy ray, the writer/director was far more knowledgeable about comey. so i had -- i was okay. he led the -- he opened the door for the apolitical public

servants that came after him. and i could get my timeline wrong, but sally yates may have been even before comey when she was fired and led before congress and lit it up. jim comey was that apolitical public servant who was simply trying to do his job on the side of what was right. that opened the door for people like fiona hill, colonel vindman and others. that's the picture of apolitical public servants trying to do their job in trump's administration. there were other things that impacted the election, aside from comey, not standing in front of a podium and announcing like a showboat that he was going to reopen the investigation into hillary's emails in october. he didn't do that. he sent the letter to the gang of eight and jason chavez leaked it because two days later, giuliani was going to leak it. it was coming out.

the media jumped on it. as you guys know, that's a red meat story. that's eyeballs and ratings. that happened. what didn't happen was an even better story, and that story is hillary is guilty and they found something. she's criminal, three days before the election. that didn't happen. so while the media covered it, it was more like a retraction. regardless, then you've got the american electorate who is asleep at the wheel. this is october 2016. well, she's probably guilty. they did investigate her. meanwhile, trump's going to lower my taxes, and, you know, he's going to have ten people around him that are going to stop him from doing something stupid or crazy. you know, just like they thought when they attached sarah palin a heartbeat away from the presidency. they'll surround her with people who know what they're doing. in trump's case, all those people are gone. they're all gone. >> yeah. >> and so there was a lot going

on in october 2016, more than just jim comey lost the election. >> all right. jeff daniels, thank you so much for being with us. it is a remarkable story and i can't wait to see part two tonight. part two of the series airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. on showtime. jeff daniels, again, thanks so much for being with us. we appreciate it so much. and that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is monday, september 28th. let's get smarter. this morning, president trump's tax information is finally seeing the light of day. revealed in a bombshell report from "the new york times" and this thing is a stunner. tons of detail about the president's massive business losses and the fact that he paid essentially nothing in federal income taxes