tv Morning Joe MSNBC October 12, 2020 3:00am-6:00am PDT
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for that. and they're in the state department, but mike pompeo is unable to get them which is very sad, i'm not happy with him for that reason. i don't know why. you're running the state department, get them out. >> we have the emails, we're getting them out. going to get all of this information out so the american people can see it. >> will that happen before the election? >> we're doing it as fast as we can. i think there will be more to see before the election. >> boy, when trump says jump, mike pompeo asks how high. >> wow. >> i started, mika, finally i got into david roll's new biography on george marshall, the great secretary of state, the great general. the great american who gave 50 years of his life to this country in service to this country and understood the importance in those roles of being apolitical. at one point, someone asked marshall are you a republican or
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a democrat and he looked at them, and he said i'm episcopalian, which is his way of saying we have a duty to be above petty partisan politics. that's a duty that this west point guy has -- pompeo has breached time and time again and he's doing it before an election, an election that i believe his boss is going to lose and everything he does between now and then over the next 23, 24, 25 days will stay with him for the rest of his life. for the rest of his public career. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, october 12th. with us we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. the host of msnbc's politics nation and president of the
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national action network, reverend al sharpton. and from bbc world america, katty kay is with us this morning. so president trump was discharged from walter reed medical center exactly one week ago and many details of his recovery are still unknown. in another interview yesterday on fox news, the president claimed that he's now immune to the virus. >> the note that you have revealed from your doctor which says you are no longer considered a transmission risk, does this suggest you no longer have covid, sir? >> yes, and not only that, it seems like i'm immune. i passed the highest test, the highest standards and i'm in great shape. i feel fantastic and i feel good by the fact, you know, the word immunity means something having really a protective glow. it means something, i think it's very important to have that. >> protective glow? if he really has that protective glow it raises the question as
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to whether he had it knowingly during the presidential debate that he showed up late to. >> he didn't have the glow during the debate. he looked bad during the debate and he performed so badly during the debate that republicans lost three, four, five points after his performance. so no, that protective glow, i wish we knew but we won't know. >> yeah. >> we'll get to this more throughout the entire show, but donald trump, lindsey graham, charles grassley, republicans all refusing to take tests because, well, they just want to steam roll ahead with things, with campaigns, with hearings. and they really don't give a damn whether they're putting their staff, whether they're putting fellow senators, whether they're putting the entire institution -- >> and themselves at risk. it's worth pointing out that the note released on saturday night by the president's physician, dr. sean conley, didn't mention anything about immunity or a glow.
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he wrote that the president is no longer a transmission risk to others and added that these will continue to monitor the president as he returns to an active schedule. the president also tweeted that he's now immune to the virus which was tagged by twitter as misleading. while many health experts believe that most people develop an immune response after a coronavirus infection, it's not clear how strong that response is or how long it will last. >> well, we don't know if he has the infection or not, again, because they won't tell us anything inside the white house. we're supposed to guess and we have been -- you know, we have been asking, mika, everybody has been asking when was your last negative test? >> well, he could into the virtual event last night where he told supporters he had tested negative for coronavirus but his own doctors have not confirmed that and the white house is refusing to give any information on when the president last tested negative. >> and i have been tested
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totally negative. i'll be out in florida tomorrow working very hard because this is an election we have to win. this is the most important election of our lives. >> when was the president's last negative test prior to his diagnosis? >> so we don't have that. >> you don't know or you don't quantity to say? >> so we don't have that. i don't personally know. >> right, what does that mean? have you asked -- i think ugh wednesday i think you said you'll look into that. >> so hallie, the president doesn't check his hipaa rights at the door when he becomes a president. >> it's a privacy thing, hipaa? >> so that is one reason. >> let me ask you this. did the president comply with the cleveland clinic debate -- 72 hours -- was the president in compliance with that, yes or no? if you don't have an answer -- >> -- about very important
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issues. >> actually, good job, hallie. focused on looking backwards because i'll tell you there's a lot of obvious questions about whether or not the president was completely contagious putting the presidential debate putting vice president joe biden and his family and members of the media at risk. putting his team at risk of having coronavirus so he could get up on that stage and bloviate and run over people and interrupt and look sick. so the question is, was he sick during the debate and did he know? >> well, so we do need to look back. we need to find out. need to find out whether donald trump knowingly went on stage and knowingly went on stage knowing that he had a disease that could get everybody in there including joe biden sick. we need to understand that also because of his family members who arrogantly took off their
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masks against the cleveland clinic rules. again, these -- >> turned them down when they were offered masks. >> these are people who republicans who i guess feel like they live by their own standards, by their own rules with a nation combating coronavirus that's killed over 215,000 people, mind you. i mean that's over three vietnams. that's over two world war is for u.s. troops dying, but they refused then. it's also, jonathan lemire, it's not just about looking back which is very important. we need to know. it's also about looking forward. this is a white house that's been in a cover-up going backwards. they have been in a cover-up when it came to contact tracing, with all of the people who were exposed at that white house event and this is a white house now who's covering up, moving forward. yeah, they said he had a
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negative test and his own doctors are lying to us every day since the president had to go to the hospital. so as we move forward, what can you tell us? what do you know about the president's condition before and now, as he starts to go out on his infection tour 2020? >> this is a president who was hospitalized for several days with a deadly disease and yet there's an extraordinary amount that the american public does not know about his health. two things about the tests rightly. there are questions about when was his last negative test before his diagnosis. how frequently was he being tested, how many people may he have exposed either at the debate or the campaign event in minnesota or any number of things he did that week. also, has he tested negative now and his doctors have
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steadfastly -- refused to say whether he has or not. of course his claim of immunity is nonsense, there's no scientific evidence that's the case. but they have made a decision and it's clear that the doctors have not been very forthcoming with details. extraordinary lack of clarity as to how he was doing, what sort of risk he may pose still to members of his staff, to people who are traveling with him on air force one later on today to the rally sites but the decision made to put him back on the road to resume his schedule. i was there on -- >> and jonathan, you actually -- yeah, jonathan, we'll get to saturday in a second but you just reported for the associated press that one of the reasons they're doing this is that they're in a panic mode. they see the polls. we'll be showing some new polls in a minute but they're panicked right now because they believe that the white house is slipping away. they believe that the united states senate is slipping away. they believe their hold on power is slipping away.
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>> that's right, joe. a sense of desperation and really alarm set in among republicans both in and outside of the white house of the state of this campaign which is why the president is going to be -- he's suddenly back in public life. he had that event on saturday and resumes campaigning tonight in florida. as we reported just now, there's growing panic in the republican party. the one-two punch of his widely panned debate performance and the covid-19 diagnosis, a lot of finger pointing on how they handled pulling out of the debate, the blowing up of the covid relief talks. they're trying to set up excuses as to why he lost and there's great concern, we have seen some republicans in the senate start to slowly distance themselves from the president in the last week or so. there's growing alarm not only in the states we have been talking about, about losing senate seats in colorado or
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north carolina, but also deep red states like kansas and south carolina. where lindsey graham's challenger put up a record amount of fund-raising in the last month. there's a fear that the white house is slipping away and he's pulling the rest of the party with him. there's a chance now that some in the party believe that it's not just that joe biden might post a decisive victory on the election night, and the recount and the court challenges, but a sense indeed that the democrats could sweep to power here and fully repudiate where the president has taken the republican party. there's still three weeks to go, of course things can change. but right now with time running out there's grave alarm among the republicans about the fate of the white house and the senate. >> and with that, jonathan mentioned president trump on saturday made the first live appearance since leaving the hospital. he emerged from the white house blue room balcony to address
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mostly black and latino supporters gathered below on the south lawn. the white house claims it was aimed at honoring law enforcement, but it had all of the markings of the campaign event. from the president's rhetoric, to the maga hats and the fact that the event itself was organized by far right activist candice owens and the founder of the blexit campaign. emails obtained by abc news showed owens organization paid for some guests' travel and lodging expenses so they'd attend. more than 2,000 people were reportedly invited. rough estimate show about 400 to 500 people attended. that is desperate. flying people in and you can't even get the number you want and you're the president and this is the white house. look at that. there were more masks being worn at that event than at the president's actual campaign
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rallies, but there was no social distancing and not because of a lack of space. you see that. this is how the white house staged the event. people packed together, presumably to make the crowd appear bigger for close-up shots. this comes on the heels of last month's rose garden event that may have -- may -- that sparked the recent white house outbreak and there was debate prep and other events that caused the virus to spread among the highest ranks of the government. >> so, rev, we have an organization that represents and black brown voters. i'm sure you have heard of this organization before. >> yeah, a few minutes ago i heard about it when mika read it. >> come on. >> seriously. >> obviously, most blacks haven't heard of it. when you look at the fact that five or six weeks ago we had a march on washington with tens of thousands, and they couldn't get 500 people with expenses paid, it tells you how bogus this is.
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but it shows a deeper desperation and this president is trying to say to independents i'm not racist because he would use his emergence to an alleged black and brown crowd and an alleged black organization that apparently has no black following at all. you can have leading blacks but that does not make them black leaders. you can build somebody's brand. it doesn't make them a leader. it's also interesting he's starting the campaign swing in sanford, florida, and it was known as the location that trayvon martin was killed eight years ago. a very interesting location for him to start his infection campaign as you call it. >> yes. the great infection campaign of 2020. we'll go to polls in one minute, but when we talk about donald
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trump and him barging out in the spotlight before he's ready a lot of people on trump's side would think, you people don't want him to go out there because he'll go out and actually help himself, help republicans maybe do something that'll help him win the election. but that's not the case at all. first of all, it's a danger, but secondly, donald trump is not just a danger to others. donald trump is a danger to himself. think about this last week. where, you know, he was on a lot of steroids and acting like he was 'roided out. think about how he canceled the debate just out of nowhere and of course panicked everybody inside the white house because, you know, they have been claiming for months that joe biden would be afraid to debate. so he canceled the debate and then what's the next thing he did? he canceled the stimulus relief package. that sent republicans scrambling as well inside the white house. so then what does he do when
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it's too late? he changes his mind and goes, oh, wait, i want to do the debate, but it's too late for people to switch at the last second and then we heard all weekend how the president was saying, wait a second, we want even more money than nancy pelosi and chuck schumer causing a revolt in the united states senate among republicans. this guy is so extraordinarily just -- >> darting in all directions. >> i don't know if it's the 'roids but he's so inconsistent that every day he's out, he just hurts his cause a little bit more. >> yeah. it feels really erratic, especially the thing about the stimulus package, right? first of all saying i'm the one that did this thing of canceling the negotiations but that didn't go so well in the polls or the markets, the markets didn't like that, so let's get the negotiations back on track now and the republicans are for the first time pretty much in big
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numbers saying no, mr. president, we're not going to give you what you want. i can't think of another time that the republicans have said to president trump we're actually not going to go on the route you want us to do, we're not going to deliver what you want to us deliver. if you say we'll focus on amy coney barrett, we'll get that done, but your huge $2 trillion plus bill doesn't fit with our principles so they're not going help some of our senators up for tight re-election around the country. i'm not sure getting president trump out, doing the rallies after what we know what happened at the white house in the coney barrett celebration is going to help him more. he wants to get back out there and for somebody to be recovering from covid traveling like that every single day this week seems i'm not sure most doctors would recommend that in this kind of recovery phase. but is that going to help him
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anyway? it didn't before he got sick. >> well, maybe he's perfectly fine. maybe he's far from recovered from the coronavirus because maybe he had it a lot earlier than he has let everyone know. there's no good answer to this which is why probably the white house won't answer it. the latest "washington post"/abc news poll shows biden up by 12 points over trump. it's a five point increase for biden since september. in the battle ground states polling from cbs news yougov shows biden up. in nevada biden holds a six point lead. 52-46%. in iowa, two are tied at 49% apiece. so what do you think of those polls, joe, and what could be done in the final three weeks to try and turn that around for donald trump? what would his best strategy be?
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i can't think of one. >> i have been thinking about e -- i have been thinking about it and jonathan lemire and i have been talking about it a good bit. jonathan, of course, let's just push to the side what we have been saying for six months, on this month and privately, it's early. and also jonathan, in your talking to trump campaign and the biden campaign and my taking to the trump campaign and the biden campaign, you know, last week we said those numbers had shown 11, 12 points ahead, these numbers sound like what we have been hearing from the campaigns. in michigan, plus 6. no, it's not the 8, 9, 10 points blowout that the democrats wanted but the trump campaign has been frustrated with the plus 5, plus 6 in michigan and wisconsin.
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those are hard, solid numbers that just aren't moving. nevada the same with the plus 6 there. hard, solid plus 6 that just has not been moving. and then of course iowa. reasons for concerns because now suddenly iowa and ohio, two states that donald trump won going away, almost by double digits last time, those things are dead even in the polls. >> let's start there, joe. the fact that the president this week is part of his return to the road has slated an event in iowa on wednesday shows the level of concern that they have in the state of the race. that's a state they won by nine, i believe, in 2016. he's barely had to campaign there this time around because they felt like they had it in the bag that's not the case. ohio is another. and that's where joe biden is going today because the democrats feel like a state very much they can put on the map. they feel like they're within the margin of error internally. another one that the president
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won handily last time around. if the president here who is facing not just a shortage of time, but a shortage of finances. he has far less cash on hand than joe biden. he has far less than advertising time reserved between now and election day than biden. biden is going to dramatically outspend him on ads on television. what the president has left is himself. the greatest resource that the candidate has is -- the campaign has is the candidate himself. there's questions about his health and whether he can keep up a robust schedule. he has to go to iowa and that's less time he has to spend elsewhere and the ballot ground states will decide the election. those in the great lake states of wisconsin and michigan, they thought michigan was seen as a bit of a long shot, but wisconsin was one they zeroed in on for more than a year now. they felt they felt like that
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was one of the three, that old blue wall, wisconsin they could pick off and get and combine that with florida and north carolina and south carolina that's your path. but wisconsin is out of reach and they have had to double down for pennsylvania. a state that's very hard as well, because of biden's roots to pennsylvania and his message to white working class voters in the state. and even arizona and florida, those are far from sure things either with three weeks out the president is scrambling. he is facing deficits in every state on the board. >> you go to the midwest, a solid plus 6 for biden and wisconsin. plus 6 for biden in michigan. pennsylvania, both campaigns suggest it's plus 4, plus 5 for biden in those states. north carolina the biden people are outperforming how they would ever expect that to be.
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i suspect that will be too close to call as we get closer to the campaign, but right now the biden people feel like they're up a point or two in north carolina. georgia, a state that should not be in play right now has been deadlocked throughout the entire campaign. you go to florida, both sides say florida is deadlocked. maybe the biden team feels like they're plus 1 or plus 2. they feel like in the end they'll win florida but a bad debate performance and the covid diagnosis caused problems there. then you go to texas, that's leaning republican right now. trump should be ahead by seven, eight, nine points. but even that they have to worry about texas right now. and then you go out to arizona. and i'm sure you saw a spate of articles this weekend that showed that not only is the president having trouble in arizona, but mika, the entire
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republican apparatus is going up in smoke because you have had a president trash john mccain, an arizona hero, for decades. a president who has been trashing john mccain through the years. and a senator in martha mcsally that remained quiet until recently about that. you have a state party run by right wing extremists that again this is not hard. if you play for the 30%, you're gonna get -- help me here, republicans in arizona, help me here, not hard. you're going to get to 30%. you're going to lose. so, mika, i said and as other people say politics is a game of addition. donald trump has been playing a game of subtraction since his american carnage inaugural
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speech. i can't believe it, because, you know, i don't know if you know this or not, but i was once a member of congress myself. >> yes. >> you would think that these republicans would not be so stupid to follow him off the cliff the way they have followed him off the cliff for the last four years and now they're paying for it. not just at the presidential level, but it looks like in states like arizona they could pay for it up and down the ticket. >> i say this seriously. this is a sick game of subtraction. in wisconsin we'll go back where we began in conversation, they're setting up field hospitals. so this is a really sick game of subtraction because people are really sick and they're dying. >> yeah, in that state, a good example of you had the president of the united states and republican politicians in wisconsin praising an out of state teenager running in the
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state, shooting around an ar-15, just as he ran up and down the streets of kenosha. that is not the type of leadership that wisconsin voters want. >> some of the other headlines we're following this morning as pertaining to the coronavirus, former new jersey governor chris christie was released from the hospital on saturday after a week in the hospital. he was one of 13 people who tested positive after attending the september rose garden event where no one wore masks and he was part of president's debate preparation and no one was wearing masks in the room during that time when we were prepping the president. after being released from the hospital, christie tweeted i want to thank the extraordinary doctors and nurses who cared for me. for the last week, thanks to my family and friends for their prayers. i will have more to say about all of this next week. the white house is once again sending mixed signals with its approach to a covid stimulus
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relief package. according to "the washington post" president trump's aides are now pushing for immediate action on a bill after the administration's $1.8 trillion proposal was dismissed by both republicans and democrats. in a letter to congress over the weekend, white house chief of staff mark meadows and treasury secretary steve mnuchin asked lawmakers to first pass legislation allowing the administration to redirect about $130 billion in unused funding from the paycheck protection program intended for small businesses while negotiations continue on a bigger relief package. the request is unlikely to pass in the house. where speaker nancy pelosi has turned it down in favor of a broader package. we'll have more on this later in the hour. and also the president wanted to leave the hospital and then show up and make an appearance where he opened his
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coat and had a superman t-shirt on. that is being reported. >> let's turn now to some sports finals. the los angeles lakers are the nba champions for the 17th time and tying the boston celtics for the most in history after defeating the miami heat. what a team the heat put together this year. lebron james was named the finals mvp for the fourth time. the french open wrapped up over the weekend. nadal tied roger federer's record after defeating djokovic in straight sets. on the women's side, poland's 19-year-old swantech won over sophia kenan.
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amazing. >> those are the first polish -- the polish player to ever win a grand slam tournament. in baseball, the tampa bay rays, where did this team come from, took game 1 against the houston astros 2-1. game 2 is this afternoon. and tonight the atlanta braves and the l.a. dodgers square off in game 1 of the national league series and lemire, you'll be watching this to see how mookie is doing. are you cheering -- are you going to be clearing on mookie and the dodgers? >> i am. my boys and i were still obviously very upset that mookie's no longer with the red sox, but that is the team that we are pulling for the rest of the way. i'd like to see clayton kershaw have a slot at a championship and joe, i'll mention, those tampa bay rays, america's team. now of course -- >> america's team. >> facing the houston astros.
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the disgraced, treating houstons a astros and redeeming at least a little bit of what has been a difficult 2020. >> okay. >> tampa bay rays. they now belong to the world. still ahead on "morning joe" we'll speak with chuck schumer as covid relief talks appear to be stalled. plus, the democrat who is giving lindsey graham a run for his money in the south carolina senate race, jaime harrison, will be our guest after his historic fund-raising haul and really quite a debate performance last week. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." eek. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." ♪ since pioneering the suv in 1935, the chevy suburban has carried many things. nothing more important than family. introducing the most versatile and advanced chevy suburban and tahoe ever.
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considering before he left walter reed medical center last week. in several phone calls, the president apparently said he wanted to appear frail at first when people saw him, that's according to people with knowledge of the conversations, underneath the button down dress shirt he'll wear a superman t-shirt and reveal as a symbol of strength when he ripped open the top layer. the president ultimately did not go ahead with the stunt. let's bring in physician and fellow at brookings institution, dr. kavita, an msnbc contributor. i'm having a hard time getting that image out of my head. so dr. patel, if the president
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is immune right now, if he's well, if his recovery has gone well which we hope for, does it tell us anything about the timing of the virus because the white house won't let us know about when he first tested positive, when he last tested negative. can we glean anything about the timing if we would assume if he's perfectly well right now? >> yeah, mika, that's an incredible important question given all the people he's come into contact with and certainly all we have are these very kind of vague, short physician statements but given what the physician put out, dr. conley, on saturday, it all accounts that he's quote/unquote met the cdc guidelines of ten days of isolation which is kind of the recommendation for mild illness which we're not even sure what the president had. but if you work backwards that's well before that thursday where we first heard about the president testing positive.
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so as you point out, if all goes the way the white house physician said, then that puts us ten days before friday to saturday which squarely puts us around that vice president/presidential debate, so that's a critical question. plus, we know that families at the gold star event saturday they were contacted they could have been in contact with someone who was positive. we don't know who that was, but it seems to reason that it was in president's circle. again, operating without much detailed information. that's why people such as you and joe are asking the right question -- when was the last negative test before the positive test and still no answer. >> yeah. and katty kay, not to get overfocused on that, but we should keep asking that question and wondering about it, but there are many other people in the white house from the press secretary we could go on with
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the names who tested positive and yet, this white house continues to hold events. you can take the next question to dr. patel. >> yeah, doctor, just to talk about the infectious period because my understanding is that actually a patient is most infectious before they have symptoms potentially. so actually, the four or five days before president trump started demonstrating symptoms which would have been the thursday or the friday, that actually would have been the period where he might have been shedding the most virus, is that right? >> yes, it's possible that someone can be symptom free can be exposing other people for -- it's even possible for up to a week to even longer. so yes, you're absolutely correct. which is why, again, this is -- you know, this is a president who keeps talking about oh, everybody is tested, testing itself as you are alluding is not a foolproof strategy pause you can even test negative and
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then still be in that window where you yourself have the coronavirus and give it to other people which is -- i keep saying this, but masks matter. and again, this is a president who seems to feel like, you know, he can advertise his own immunity when even if you develop immunity, let's pretend that's possible. masks matter. the only winner in any of this this past weekend was the nba where they showed they can do all of this together and actually produce something that's of value for the country. that's the only winner that was here this weekend. >> dr. patel, thank you very much. it's just important to look at this virus that it goes way beyond the white house. there are dozens and dozens of states, 41 last check, reporting higher infection rates. 54,000 new cases in a 24 hour period. this is bad and it's still happening here across the
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country. and it's traveling throughout the white house and yet the president goes on with his infection tour. he's going to florida. it's crazy. >> infection tour 2020. >> crazy. >> get your t-shirts now. coming up the rest of the world is taking advantage of a distracted america. david ignatius joins us to discuss the latest piece and plus what the taliban is saying about president trump and the election. "morning joe" is back in a moment. election "morning joe" is back in a moment (♪ )
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automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. and now, the queen sleep number 360 c4 smart bed is only $1,399, save $300. plus, free delivery when you add a base. ends monday. the top people in the pentagon probably aren't, because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. >> that's donald trump with those comments last month about u.s. weapons manufacturers. now, the taliban issued an endorsement of sorts for president trump that echoed some of that sentiment. the taliban said to cbs news in
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part, quote, trump accomplished all of the major promises he made to the american people. the taliban spokesman continued, other politics including biden chant unrealistic slogans. some other groups which are smaller in size but are involved in the military business including weapons manufacturers companies, owners and others who somehow get the benefit of war extension might be against trump and support biden. trump campaign responded by saying, quote, the taliban should know the president will protect america's interests by any means necessary, except, of course, unless vladimir putin puts bounties on the heads of young u.s. service men and women and then he will say absolutely nothing at all. despite the fact that his own white house team had been begging him since march to take action against russia for doing that. but anyway, let's bring in associate editor from "the washington post," david ignatius. david, this reminds me of the
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final days of 2004, i'm sure you thought about it too, where osama bin laden came out and put out a video in support of john kerry. at that point, like saying, hey, if you keep that to yourself, it would be great. but why wouldn't the taliban be sporting trump? i'm saying this seriously. as dr. brzezinski said, put yourself in the enemy's shoes and of course, they're supporting donald trump because he wants to get out of afghanistan, of course vladimir putin is supporting donald trump, he wants to move our troops out of germany. of course kim jong-un wants donald trump to win. donald trump has shown he's also soft on south korea. so why wouldn't our enemies be supporting donald trump's re-election if you just look at
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their selfish geopolitical needs. >> joe, i think you can see around the world countries positioning themselves to try to benefit from what they can, what's left of the trump presidency. certainly you see that with turkey, which is moving for a much stronger role as a regional hedge aamon and becoming a bloody war with many hundreds killed. the u.s. is basically not at the center of the diplomacy. russia is. in terms of afghanistan, i don't think the president could do anything that would undermine the very difficult, delicate diplomatic negotiations that are going on with the taliban that would be more destabilizing than to promise an early withdrawal of american troops which is what he and the national security council robert o'brien have been doing.
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independent of the conditions based criterion that beset as these negotiations begin. this is a difficult negotiation. we are seeing the taliban. if you reduce violence, if you steer afghanistan away from civil war, and towards stability, we are prepared to take out the remaining 4,500 troops we have there now. and o'brien jumped into that and said, no, we're ready to go down to 2,500 at the beginning of next year and then donald trump said he wants all of the troops out by christmas. interestingly that drew a direct comment, essentially a rebuke, from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general milley this morning in which he said any discussion of withdrawal of the troops from afghanistan independent of the conditions on the ground is pure speculation. he as our military leader cannot endorse it.
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i think that tells you how concerned the military is about political statements that are being made in these last weeks of the campaign. >> well, david, what is so concerning also inside the military and if you could talk about this and i know we want to get your column, but what's so concerning to the military that the military leaders that i have spoken with, that you have spoken with, they have talked about the extraordinary sacrifice our troops have endured over the past 15, 20 years. but then they talk about the light footprints in afghanistan, the lightfoot prints in syria. something you saw first hand where the best and brightest minds inside the pentagon and outside the pentagon, men and women in the field, figured out how to have a disproportionate impact in the region with a lightfoot print. we are not -- this is not 2002. this is not 2006. we had a light footprint in
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syria that was holding the russians, that was holding the syrians, that was holding the turks at bay. and donald trump gutted it. we have a lightfoot print right now in afghanistan compared to where we have been. donald trump wants to unilaterally withdraw, ignoring all of the lessons of the unilaterally withdrawal from iraq. talk about the great frustration this is causing our military leaders and perhaps this is the reason why the president of the united states, the commander in chief, continues to slander their good name. >> joe, we as every viewer feels have had a terrible struggle these last two decades with what the president calls endless wars and i think people don't understand is that after all of the difficulty in iraq, in afghanistan, with over 100,000 troops in each place, the military got smart and realized there's a different way to
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achieve u.s. objectives. it does involve a lighter footprint and involves the special forces, not big, heavy units that were basically designed to fight russia. it involves partners who are reliable, who will stand and fight. we are lucky to find partners like that in syria to a lesser extent in afghanistan. but some of the afghan forces, we have found good partners in iraq. the iraq counterterrorism service is one of the best special forces unit in the region. another thing we haven't talked about is that to me very sad statement by secretary of state pompeo, he may close our embassy in baghdad because he's so angry at iranian backed militias attacking u.s. diplomatic facilities there. that would be a terrible loss. so the military feels that they have made progress. the president doesn't seem to recognize it. he treats these small deployments, small, efficient
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low imprint deployments as if this were still got 100,000 troops abroad. still an endless war scenario. i think that upsets people in the military because they have worked hard to get this right. >> david, your piece, the rest of the world is taking advantage of a distracted america is part of sort of an unseen, highly dangerous narrative playing out while americans are faced with, you know, struggling to hold on to jobs, if they have been able to. or they're deal qug dealing with health issues and our position is ever more dangerous. tell us about it. >> well, you know, it's something that your dad often used to say, mika, zbigniew brzezinski, he always kept a focus on other things that were happening in the world not necessarily the topic at hand.
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we understandably are -- >> [ indiscernible ]. >> we're losing his -- >> yeah, we're going to get back to you in one minute. we're having a problem with your audio. katty, following up on that, again, you look at the rest of the world, you look at the fact that many countries have been taking advantage of donald trump being president of the united states. and as david said, now they think that may be coming to an end and the next couple of months may be in fact dangerous for this country. >> yeah. i have had conversations with several european diplomats in the last week and there are some who are kind of trying to scramble now to kind of switch their attention from team trump to team biden. but i think the biggest winner in the last few years of the trump presidency has been china which took advantage of the trump administration to do something they had not
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anticipated for doing 10 or 15 years. they'd wait until they shored up the consumer base, they had a strong economic base for its own people and then start asserting itself more around the world. along comes the trump presidency and it's clear this is america first, trump is looking inwards that the president is not interested in global leadership. so china accelerated its plans and most of them are just economic, but some of them are caused concerns in the military sense too. and that is going to be a real question. even if joe biden were to be re-elected. that's done, right? i mean, china has stepped into the vacuum that donald trump left open. and i don't think that president biden were it to be president biden has a concrete pathway for reasserting america's role at the expense of china that's going to be really interesting to watch how biden manages china
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and shores up america's supremacy in the world. >> we'll switch to the coronavirus relief negotiations. joining us is the author of "power up" and where do they stand right now? it looked like trump wanted to unload a lot of money to a lot of people and it was a lurch. >> needless to say, the president is no lebron when it comes to hashing out the stimulus package which has been ongoing for several months now. but over the weekend the white house proposed a $1.8 trillion package that the republicans rejected. they said it was anathema to a lot of long-standing priorities. and the republicans here have previously been completely unquestioningly deferential to the president are rejecting his
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last gambit before the election, believing that, you know, amy coney barrett's nomination is a sure fire win with their base versus a costly stimulus bill. there's very little appetite and my colleagues, you know, talked to many republican senators who are on a conference call saturday morning who lashed out at the white house chief of staff meadows over the proposal. so then after that, the white house pivoted to try to go for a piecemeal approach, using the ppe money and getting that to the american people and the small businesses. regardless, that is not going to fly with the house democrats so were back where we started which is no deal. >> jackie alemany, thank you. coming up we'll get david ignatius back in. plus, senate confirmation
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hearings get under way for president trump's supreme court pick, amy coney barrett. kasie hunt has the latest on that. also the trump campaign has adjusted the spending over the last month. upping their buys in washington, d.c., while pulling money from several key states. what is going on? >> makes sense. >> what are they doing? we'll talk to the chairman of priorities usa about that data. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ng joe" is back in a moment
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the greatest people are in the fbi but the top people are accustom. they did nothing for us. >> what year is it? >> 2016, of course, we are waiting for the world series, the cubs and the indians. i'm not so sure who going to win that. but i think -- i'm guessing the cubs will probably win in seven games probably in extra innings. since this is 2016, what? so -- >> come on. >> first of all, it's bizarre that the president's talking that way. it's bizarre that other people are actually asking him questions about hillary clinton's emails on anthony weiner's laptop. 22 days until election time. even republicans understand how stupid this is. even republicans say -- >> i'm embarrassed. >> -- nonstop over the past four years understand this is a man not well.
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he's talking about hillary clinton's emails and he's gotten his secretary of state -- i'll release more emails before, seriously? the secretary of state is acting that stupid too? a guy that went to west point, a guy that went to harvard is getting down in the mud with donald trump talking about releasing more hillary clinton emails from four years ago? hey, donald, at this point, nobody cares. nobody cares. >> rupert does and maria does. >> well -- >> just saying. >> well, it's not going to do anything and the president's been erratic all week, mika, we talked about this. he canceled the debate, he played into joe biden's hands. after saying sleepy joe biden is out of his mind, he's senile, he doesn't want to debate donald trump, donald trump takes it off the table by rejecting a debate and then scrambles back to,
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well, maybe i'll do the debate and as far as covid relief, donald trump himself unilaterally trashes any deal for covid relief to help all of the people right now who are suffering and struggling through the difficult time. and now he's scrambling back but it's too late. it's too late. his own republicans in the senate, you know, they're claiming that they're deficit hawks, no, too late. too late. you all have been absolute disgraces when it's come to running up the biggest deficits in u.s. history. passing the biggest budgets one year after another in u.s. history. even before covid. you were the biggest spenders in the history of the american republic. you're spending money like drunken socialists, so it's too late for you to come back now
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and say, oh, we don't want to pass this bill because we're worried about deficits. no, this is about something else. mika, this is about a party that wants to show its voters that they stood up to donald trump and one little thing. at the very end, four dangerous, deranged years. >> so david ignatius and jonathan lemire, reverend al and katty kay is joining us and also cohost of showtime's the circus and executive editor of the recount, john heilemann. and political reporter for "the washington post" and political analyst robert costa, the moderator of washington week on pbs. >> so we'll get to the polls in a second, but first, bob costa, what's happening on capitol hill? you have a president who said we aren't going to have any relief, any covid relief packages between now and the election.
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canceled it unilaterally. then his team started scrambling, then the president erratically said, no, we'll do more than the democrats have said. you talk about a colossal mess three weeks out. can you give us the latest on the hill? >> in short, joe, my republican sources this weekend especially in the senate they think the president and secretary mnuchin and mark meadows they have blinked over the negotiations over the stimulus. he walks away from the table, walks right back to the table and some of the conservative senators don't want to be spending at the $2 trillion level that nancy pelosi does. but at this point they believe the democrats have the leverage because of the way that
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president trump handled this. they think speaker pelosi can hold out and if she doesn't get what she wants, vice president biden looks solid in the polls and can make it a first priority for president biden. they say that the president's isolated particularly after he returned from walter reed. >> yeah. jonathan lemire, talk about the fear and loathing occurring inside and outside of the white house over the fumbling of the covid relief bill and he said, hell, no, we won't give voters any more relief between now and the election and then darted to the other side, oh, wait, we'll give them more than nancy pelosi and then of course the debate, canceling the debate unilaterally. he has played right into joe biden's hands. >> that's right, joe. first on the debate. there's a lot of finger pointing within the trump orbit as to how that was handled.
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the debate commission wanted this week's debate be a virtual debate because of president's covid-19 diagnosis and the president abruptly said no, we won't do it all at. only two hours later, the campaign said let's do two debates and postpone them and there's a thought in the trump campaign if that had been the original proposal rather than the president taking his ball and angrily going home, if they said let's push it back a week, that would have put the onus on the biden camp. but at that point the biden camp would have said no, and that wouldn't have been good but instead with the president blowing it up, they're playing into biden's hands and there's real second-guessing going on. the president's behavior on the relief talks has been puzzling from the start. there was a belief all summer long that the president should have pushed for bigger spending because the president who cares not at all about deficits,
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needed that sort of spark for the economy to help his re-election bid. again, to angrily back out of talks and bashing nancy pelosi as he does it and then sort of a fumbling attempt to restart them again has alienated the republicans who really spoke out in a way that we rarely hear from the gop. breaking with the president, his team over the weekend in a conference call about the idea of talks and it points to the wider alarm as we have written today. the sense that the white house is a sinking ship and that he's in real trouble and may be bringing down the entire party with him and we're seeing republicans for one of the very few times outwardly break with him, second guess and start looking out to save themselves. >> so, rev, let's talk about just the politics of this. if we can talk about the human suffering that president trump
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doesn't care about, but talk about the political malpractice of unilaterally killing a covid relief bill when as many americans of all parties are suffering the way they are. >> it certainly does not make political sense. it would seem to me if the president was trying to not only help his own re-election, but protect the senate candidates, both the incumbents and the insurgents in his own party, he would want to show the american public his concern. he'd want to be fighting to get relief. he'd want to be fighting for small businessmen. the biggest defunder when we talk about defunding police is the fact that this virus and the fact that it has swallowed up a lot of the local municipal and city funds are the ones that's a threat to laying off police and teachers and other things that we need, so it would seem politically if not from a moral point of view, the president
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would want to be trying to at least appear to be concerned by leading the fight to get some kind of covid relief. when you see the people in need looking at a president that's at 74 years old, still wanting to play superman, it does not give you a lot of comfort. >> all right. well, let's look at the latest "washington post"/abc polls. it shows biden up by 12 points over president trump. 54-42%. that's a five-point increase for biden since september. let's look at the battle ground states. polling from cbs news yougov shows biden up 52% in michigan. in nevada, biden holds a six-point lead. 52-46%. in iowa, the two are tied at 49% apiece and in iowa, the senate race there, democrat theresa
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greenfield holds a lead over republican incumbent joni ernst. >> so john heilemann, i love the polls and where they poll because it really does break up -- gives us a sample from each of the three regions that are making a difference. upper midwest that catapulted donald trump to victory in 2016 and right now he's struggling mightily in wisconsin and in michigan. pennsylvania seems to be right now slipping away. it's about plus 6, plus 6, plus 4, plus 5 in those states if you look at the public polls and some of the private polls and trump people have said they're going to be focusing on the sunbelt instead. so we go to the sun belt looking at nevada, and arizona, having to worry about georgia. nevada is a solid plus 6. arizona if you believe all of the stories we saw this weekend seems to be slipping out of the way. but if i'm the trump campaign
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what concerns me the most are those midwest states. not the upper midwest states but iowa and ohio. if i'm tied there, three weeks out, and still tied in georgia and i'm short on money, my pathway to 270 has closed very quickly. what does the trump campaign tell you they're going to do and how is biden going to play out these last three weeks? are they going to go for 270? are they going to expand the map and try to have a bigger win? >> okay. a lot there, joe. good morning. happy monday to you. good to see you guys. so i'll just let you know, i happened to be in arizona last week so we can talk more about that but on the two largest
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questions, first, what does the trump campaign plan to do? they have to clue what they plan to do and part of the reason -- not part of the reason but the whole reason for this is you have a campaign that is almost as -- has been almost as decimated by covid-19 as the white house has been, right? so there's -- you know, the comprehensive meltdown as people learned that much of the senior leadership was infected with coronavirus, you have bill stepian infected. you have a campaign leadership that's been in just as much disarray in the last ten days and trying to figure out what to oas jonathan lemire was talking about a couple of minutes ago how to handle the fact that the president of the united states all last week was out of his right mind and was -- you know, we all observed the notion that the president every time we saw him in a video was clearly not -- even by trump standards,
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was disassociative and he was taking high doses of steroids so he was not in the right mind. nothing that an organized, disciplined campaign would have handled the commission's move to switch the second debate to virtual. they didn't handle that the way a functional campaign would have because they have a dysfunctional leader in donald trump. those two cornerstones of the midwest strategy, iowa, ohio, two states that should not have been in contest through battle ground states. and what i mean when we talk all year long about the battle ground states what does that mean? it means that both campaigns are spending money to contest the given state. the battle ground states have been michigan and pennsylvania and ohio and iowa is battle ground states. the trump campaign is having to spend what little money it has to try to defend the states and
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to use the president's time. so the map is expanding and then switch to the southwest where it is the case that the president's team feels strong -- feels more secure although they're deeply insecure about everything, but more secure in north carolina and florida than they do in arizona. arizona is a huge problem as i said. i was there last week. i have been in and out of that state and i have written about the politics of arizona since 1986. i have never been in arizona where there has been more consensus, republican and democratic sources, that this is the year that arizona is going blue. that's at the senate and the presidential level. i wouldn't say it's 100% gone for the trump campaign but i couldn't find anyone in arizona who doesn't think that biden will win that state and if you take iowa and ohio and arizona out of the picture there's no
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path to 270 for the trump campaign. they're in a world of hurt right now. and the biden campaign, the final thing i'll say, they have to start spending some money on the area in texas starting this week. so that's the -- that's -- this is the moment that the biden campaign's financial advantage allows them to spread the map. i won't say that the trump campaign -- there's nothing they can do about it, but they're in a state of kind of panic scrambling now for the next three weeks. >> i just don't know, mika, where they focus. that's the problem. you can't focus on the upper midwest states, they're gone most likely, they believe. so maybe they focus on pennsylvania, but they focus on pennsylvania, are they really going to waste time and money and effort in iowa and ohio, two states they won easily back in 2016? well, apparently they are because the president going to des moines this week. >> this discussion sounds like
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there's no pandemic and there aren't people dying in field hospitals still being put together in certain states. speaking of money, priorities usa is launching a new digital ad campaign to encourage in-person early voting. this comes as the trump campaign is pulling tv ads from several key states and biden's ad spending is surging. joining us chairman of priorities usa guy cecil. so guy, what do you see about the trump campaign and where they're choosing to spend or not spend at this moment in time? >> well, i think there are two really telling things about the trump campaign. despite all of their early talk about expanding into nevada and new mexico, they are on retreat and playing defense.
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the fact they're being forced to spend a higher percentage of their budget in georgia and wisconsin should tell you everything you should know about the map but they're spending a higher percentage and trying to raise money online. we heard for years that the republican party had this huge advantage on digital, they had increased their fund raising apparatus and in fact the trump campaign has spent over $600 million to raise money online. and yet, they're being forced to spend a higher percentage raising money which means they're spending less money actually talking to voters to persuade and mobilize. so the map for donald trump is shrinking and at the same time, the map for -- the map for joe biden is expanding. and he has the resources. he doesn't have to choose between focusing on 270 or building the broadest map possible. he could actually do both. >> bob costa? >> guy, when you look at the map
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and if you were advising the biden campaign about the south, you see john cornyn he's nervous and making comments about the president's conduct and the president's handling of the pandemic. senator graham, senator purdue all in some tight races down there. is it really worth it with the amount of time left in the campaign to put resources into the deep south? >> absolutely. i think for a couple of reasons here, but besides the fact that the polls say we're competitive in places like north carolina, like texas, like georgia, the fact is you can watch senate republicans in these states completely dissembling. you can watch their comments on twitter, the fact that just this week thom tillis started separating himself from the president, telling voters if joe biden wins they're going to need a republican senate as a back stop. these are not messages of confidence. so i think we should press the financial advantage that joe biden has, move in to new battle
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ground states like texas, like georgia, let's expand this map and force donald trump and the republican party to spend their money on fewer and fewer states. by the way, we haven't even mentioned florida. they don't have a senate state, but the fact is that joe biden has a lead in florida today. that between priorities usa and michael bloomberg we're spending $140 million on the independent side and joe biden is advertising there. so if you start cutting off florida, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, there's no path for the administration to win. we just need to make sure democrats stay focused for the next three weeks on converting these polls to votes so that we win on election day. >> katty kay? >> guy, back in 2016, pollsters will tell us the polls were accurate in the sense that they were a snapshot in time and a snapshot of intent. what changed was behavior on election day. what are you seeing that could
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shrink the delta between intent and behavior this time that would make the polls more reflective of the final outcome? >> so the first thing is focusing on the issues around voting administration and voter suppression. you know, we still are executing a national election in the middle of a pandemic and so making sure that there are sufficient number of poll workers, making sure that people have access to the ballot box through vote by mail or on election day and then third is to fight back against the republican party's attempts to make it more difficult to vote. the fact that the republican national committee lost another court case in pennsylvania trying to make it more difficult to vote, i think it's pretty illustrative of the fact they're not just attacking joe biden anymore. but attacking an american election that would be the number one issue. second, we need to continue to run through the tape. the fact is that democrats are on the advance. we have more resources. we have more states to put into
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play. we have a more diverse path to 270 electoral votes. if we take our eye off the ball, if we get complacent, those polls are going to shrink. but unless donald trump develops an entire new personality and his campaign develops an entire new strategy out of thin air, then democrats should stay on the advance in these states. >> all right. guy cecil, chairman of priorities usa, as always, thank you so much for being with us. john heilemann, we have been talking about the presidential race so let's talk about the race for the majority in the united states senate. things have been breaking democrats' way. we showed you the joni ernst poll showing she's down right now in iowa. she has been down two or three or four points or some time now. all within the margin of error. so democrats have been feeling good about it, but a couple of warning signs. one, obviously, the candidate in north carolina, the middle of a scandal that is going to be hard
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for him to get past. doug jones in alabama obviously facing an uphill battle there. and steve bullock in a tighter contest than expected. those are the things that bre break -- will probably break bullock's way at the end if democrats have a great night. but even with those, what's the pathway -- best pathway for the democrats to take control of the senate? >> well, joe, i think you've got -- you know, you've got about eight right now, maybe eight or nine senate races that are plus or minus 2 or 3. right, they're -- there's a bunch of the states that are competitive and now you mentioned the three that are all tight and have been -- are kind of upside surprises in some sense. so north carolina race is breaking because of cunningham's
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problems. upsides for the republican side. the states that are in kind of written off -- not written off but are seen as deep, deeply problematic, susan collins, cory gardner, martha mcsally. there are three that are hugely problematic and then you have got states like the cornyn race as bob costa mentioned before where suddenly people look at texas and say maybe cornyn has problems especially if you listen to the way he's talking. he's getting nervous about the situation. we're starting to see movement in the numbers and then lindsey graham race, a race where jaime harrison, the record breaking fund-raising, strong debate performances and given the way that donald trump is behaving that he's provoking a kind of mass democratic base turnout. especially among african-americans in south carolina that could put that race out of reach that could knock lindsey graham out of his perch. i think the most important thing to think about here, something you and i have talked about,
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when you have eight or nine races in the senate that are all tight, in the plus or minus 2 or 3 points, what's more likely they split or that they all break in one direction? historically, they have tended to all break in one direction rather than, you know, ending up with four going one way and five going the other or six and three. you tend to get like waves, right? move with the national electorate. i think that's one of the stories of last week, was this dawning, quiet sense on again both the republican and democratic side and i think bob -- i'd be curious to hear what bob costas has to say about this, there's a dawning sense that maybe we're -- that they're headed into landslide territory. you hear that word whispered more and more in the past week or so. by that i don't mean joe biden is over 400 electoral voters but you could see all of the races tip and if they tip in one
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direction or another they won't tip in the republican direction given the problems that the president is having. so you could -- i think that's a dawning bipartisan sense that that -- that those close races all fall and it looks like 1980 where democrats don't actually thread the needle. what they get is they win -- they get a net 8 or a net 9 or net 7 or net 8 senate victories and are in firm control of the senate come january 2021. >> john, many of my democratic sources are whispering 1980. it feels like 1980 but there's so much caution and i know you hearing the same caution from top democrats because they know a lot can happen between now and election day. what is the president going to do when it comes to the vaccine announcement, his interactions on the emergency use authorization, and the other
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investigations. we mentioned the secretary clinton emails, how does that play out, the president's own health. so many variables out there and they see the republicans nervous. but when it comes to the actual presidential race, they see a candidate in 2016 who was able to scramble and wonder if he can do so again. you won't see them out in public crowing about it. >> jonathan lemire? >> on that same point, a lot of people in the trump circle like to point to 2016. that the president also in early october, donald trump the candidate, after the "access hollywood" tape was in real trouble and they point to how he turned it around in the last month, making the comparison to where he is now but there are some key differences. there's a lot of external forces last time. the wikileaks was releasing the hacked clinton emails and there was russian interference and of course the james comey letter in the week to the final week or ten days or so, and he faced
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hillary clinton, whose negatives were almost as high as his own, which is certainly not the case with joe biden. as much as 2016 is with the trump campaign, there are others that others are starting to whisper. republicans and democrats alike. 1980, yes. but also, 2008, a race that was close, but then it wasn't with the collapse of the financial market in fall of 2008, sort of the echo now with the president's own covid diagnosis and i talked to newt gingrich, one of his closest allies over the weekend who said that it was clear that the president was still fighting the last war. that he was still consumed with hillary clinton and the emails and he has yet to figure out that the attacks that worked against clinton simply aren't working against biden and that is perhaps the overarching theme of this campaign for president trump. is that he never adjusted. in february, he thought he had run for re-election on the back
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of a strong economy. he thought he might be running against a socialist like bernie sanders or a real left wing democrat like elizabeth warren. or if he faced joe biden, he thought that he could do sort of the small ball politics attacks, the accuse a person of corruption, link him to the scandals of the obama era. basically recycle the 2016 playbook, but the pandemic changed all that and he's still trying to use a playbook in a race that doesn't matter and the country is not consumed about those sort of political issues right now. the country is consumed about a pandemic that claimed over 215,000 lives and cost millions their jobs and the president has yet to adjust, he continues to flail and he seems to be bottoming out at the wrong time. >> all right, david ignatius, before we lost the audio, you were talking about how all of this impacts us on the world
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stage. >> mika, so when we were in the tight election race we would think that the rest of the world is on pause we can ignore it, and that's been the case here, foreign policy is never mentioned in the presidential debates, but this is a world in which there's all sorts of trouble. there's a hot war between armenia and azerbaijan. the u.s. is pretty much absent in terms of the diplomacy. russia is at center stage. countries that have depended on donald trump are hoping to get some last-minute successes and fear that he may lose. it's interesting to see turkey, which has had a close relationship with trump, pressing azerbaijan in this war in the caucuses. it's interesting to see north korea which has had diplomatic dance with donald trump, love letters between kim and trump, taking a quite mild stance on a
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big anniversary of its revolution. in saudi arabia, i'm told that the leading trending saudi twitter hash tag is hillary's emails. why? because the regime of prince muhammad bin salman is trying to make it sound as if hillary clinton pa remembers, joe biden would work with his enemies. with the former crown prince. so there the elections are playing out in a way we're not aware of. this is a country you can't leave on hold indefinitely and another thing i note is that in foreign ministers around the world, people begin to think how would we reconstruct relations with the biden administration, what are new ways to talk to biden's people in each of the key positions. likely people are very well known abroad. it's a funny situation, a lot going on in the world.
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trump is absent and people are beginning to recalculate their estimates. >> all right. dave ignatius, thank you very much. we'll be reading your column from "the washington post." robert costa, thank you as well. we'll be reading your reporting in "the washington post." south carolina senate race has become one of the most watched election battles ahead of november. >> while lindsey graham has publicly pleaded for money, help me, his democratic challenger is shattering fund-raising records. jaime harrison joins us next. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. - [announcer] welcome to intelligent indoor grilling
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with our savings card, we live with at&t and we are well past the honeocupado tom. at&t, what's this i hear about you advertising a 100% fiber network? only like a fraction of my customers can get that. that's it?!? you have such a glass half-empty attitude. the glass is more than half-empty! you need to relax tom. oh! tom, you need a little tom time. a little tt. stop living with at&t. xfinity delivers gig speeds to more homes than anyone. but i'm being killed financially. this money is because they hate my guts. i stood in the way of kavanaugh, i stood up for kavanaugh when they wanted to destroy his life and i dared to help president
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trump, the unpardonable sin of a republican. the wrath is coming down on us and we're getting outraised. to those out there who want to help republicans fight back, get on our websites. lindsey graham.com, 5 or 10 bucks goes a long way if enough people do it. >> but they're having problems with it. this is the best story when you're running for congress it really hit home you just told people the truth. even when it hurt. something lindsey can't do right now. >> well, you know, so many people said, hey, you're too conservative for me. this was after the election. and it was supposed to about 50-50 race i ended up winning 62-38%, and everybody would come up to me afterwards and say you're too conservative for me but i voted for you because you told me the truth, what you'd
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exactly do. yes, you're more conservative than i'd like, but i'm voting for you. the first re-election i was getting hammered constantly because we actually cut the increase for medicare because the medicare trustee said medicare was going bankrupt in seven years. i ran straight to it. i talked to seniors, i said, this is why we did it. that medicare trustees told us we had to cut the race of increase. because i even ran ads on it at the end of the campaign. my pollster, glenn bulger, i told this story before, but it really is applicable here. he called me up and said, what are doing with seniors? >> what's going on? >> i said, why? because of the 120 races we polled you have the highest percentage among seniors of anybody -- of any republican across the country. i said, i'm just telling them the truth. i told them why we had to cut
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the rate of increase for medicare. and they understand. you can trust people with the truth. you can trust voters with the truth. they -- if you tell them the truth, they can take it. that's something that lindsey graham just doesn't understand. and that's why he's begging for money. >> help me. >> in south carolina, raising a ton of money. let's bring in jaime harrison. he raised $57 million the largest ever raised in a senate race. graham has yet to release the third quarter numbers. >> and he won't take a covid test. but can we just congratulate jaime joining us right now, running against lindsey graham for his plexiglas box -- >> brilliant move. >> way to keep yourself safe. >> you are a trail blazer because now they used it in the vp debate. that was insanely good. >> so the first question is this.
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are you finding out on the campaign trail what i found out on the campaign trail so many years ago, that voters are turned off by politicians that try to have it both ways? they can't just tell people the truth and lindsey has done it with donald trump, trashing him as a cancer on the republican party and of course he's done it with the supreme court nominations. one of which we're going start hearing about today. >> joe, that's exactly right. in the last quinnipiac i poll i was plus 29 on honesty and that was before he used my words against me. it is really, really sad. this is the thing i tell the folks here in south carolina that they may not always agree with me on every issue but they will always know that i will tell them the truth. i will never lie to them and lindsey graham has lied from first day. i mean, this is a guy who said he was for term limits and now
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he's been in congress for 25 years. and even on the debate stage when he was asked about it, he tried to hem and haw about it. just say i'm going in a different direction, don't try to blame chuck schumer for the reason you have gone back on your word. my grandfather said a man is only good as his word. lindsey graham's word isn't worth much. >> so there's a lot i know -- if i gave you the floor to talk about what's going wrong with lindsey graham's campaign, you could have quite a list. starting with the fact that he won't even take a covid test. but what's going right about yours? why do you think this is working or breaking through or is it just that lindsey is collapsing at this point? >> well, there's a stark
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difference in this race. i'm talking about hope and opportunity. i'm talking about how to bring the communities together and lindsey is talking about division and chaos. he's trying to scare people to vote for him. i'm trying to inspire people to support me. i'm focused like a laser on the issues that people are dealing with on a day to day basis here in south carolina. he has all of the urgency to get the supreme court nominee through right now, but he has none of that urgency to get another covid bill through the united states senate and we desperately need relief right now for covid. we have 3,500 people in south carolina who have died, 150,000 who have been infected. 750,000 unemployed, 400,000 who have lost their health care. and they desperately need help right now. all of the small businesses are closing and they won't open again. and instead of lindsey urgently going to the floor of the senate to get a bill through, he took
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off most of august and now he's trying to shepherd through the supreme court nominee when he said he would don't this. >> john heilemann is with us and he has a question. john? >> hey, jaime, you know, like everybody else in the political world i have been stunned to see the incredible financial support that's flowed your way over the course of these last three quarters, particularly this last quarter. and it does raise a question for me was is, you know, given the extraordinary advantage you have had, obviously that has been a huge factor in making this race as close as it is but it hasn't been enough for you to put -- to pull away from lindsey and get yourself in a position and maybe just the nature of the state makes that impossible. so i guess i ask you the question is this, in the final three weeks you have one more debate with him. what's the closing argument here?
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you have him on the ropes but the question is kind of what you need to do, what's going to be the decisive argument to put him away? >> well, all politics are local and it has to be somebody who is focused on the things that people are concerned about. you can find lindsey graham on sean hannity every other night and the folks recognize that lindsey graham hasn't focused on them. 38% of the rural communities don't have access to broadband and those who do it's slower than what you have in venezuela. and republicans have refused to expand the medicaid. 13 of the 46 counties, no ob/gyns. so at the end of the day, how has lindsey graham's service helped you, what has it done in your communities, it's not very
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much. i'm talking about rebuilding and revitalizing our rural communities. so that, you know, south carolina moves from top of the bad list to the top of the good list. so i have concrete plans on doing that, while lindsey is doing what he's doing. he's being mr. relevant in washington, d.c. i just want to be mr. relevant in south carolina. that means i'm addressing the issues that people care about. >> u.s. senate candidate jaime harrison, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. of course we have reached out the senator lindsey graham's campaign to schedule an appearance, but we haven't heard back yet. coming up, "new york times" reporter mark leibovich takes on the fifth avenue theory with a new piece entitled, trump called his supporters disgusting. do they care? he'll join us next. disgusting. do they care he'll join us next how will we do it, at a time like this?
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we've been asked that before. and through pandemics, and depressions, wars that split a nation, and fractured the world. americans have always found a way to vote and make their voices heard. so stand with the national council on election integrity and help make sure every vote is counted. no matter who you vote for, or how. because while this election may feel different, we all call america home.
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revolting. >> they stink on ice. >> you know, my majesty, this is a serious problem. the peasant feel you have no regard for them. >> what? i have no regard for the peasants? they are my people. i'm their sovereign. i love them. >> oh! drifting to the left. >> oh, my god, mel brooks as king louis xvi in his satire, history of the world, part one, expressing his disdain for his subjects during the french revolution. there's a connection here, believe it or not, with our next guest. joining us now, from "the new york times" magazine, mark leibovich here with the piece "trump has called his supporters disgusting, do they care?" also with us kurt bardella and
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axios reporter alexi mccammond joining us us. so mark, do they care? >> apparently not. it's been a very durable support network for donald trump. his unshakable do look over ti there have been some cracks here. i mean, i think the base does, if you look around the edge, seems to be shrinking a little bit. also, if you listen to focus groups of people who voted for donald trump in 2016, there is quite bait of anecdotal evidence that his act is wearing pretty thin. you hear some saying that they are not going to vote for him again. and i think that that part of what his larger electoral challenge is right now, which is that his base is maybe not as durable as thwe thought it was. one of the things i did with the story was accumulate the times over the last few weeks and months and also years that he has said the quiet part outloud about how he really feels about the people whose addration he is
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bathing in at his rallies. as howard stern said, these are not the kind of people he would want in mar-a-lago. there is a disconnect there that i tried to put together and i think this might be one of the things that is hurting him right now. >> alexie, mark said his base may not be as durable as we think it is. his base may not even about his base. for the past 3 1/2 years we've talked about the upper midwest and those white, older white guys in wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania that always voted democratic that a lot of them even voted for barack obama. well, apparently, if you look at the numbers, he's losing a lot of that support right now and has been for the past several months. >> i mean, that's exactly right, joe. that's one of the more fascinating trends with joe biden in this race. joe biden's base is very much becoming parts of trump's former
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base in 2016. that's in large part because of what mark's piece captures, because trump in 2016 sold this faux populous message where he was looking out for the forgotten little man and woman, expecting grievances that people felt addressed their concerns in their lives. now we see how those grievances are increasingly personal. they are all about me, me, me. they are about how the media is against trump, democrats are against trump, how everything is bad for trump, but he is not focusing on the people that he focused on in 2016 and in the same way. and now we are seeing biden go directly after those voters with a kind of more populous message we heard in 2016. this idea that he is looking out for them, that he is from this working class place that they are from and they understand, and he says trump doesn't understand their lives in places like park ave and suspect looking out for them this is
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hurting him with seniors, non-educated white voters and from the president's own re-election campaign. advisors to the campaign told axios that they thought wisconsin was in the bag because they thought they could get the white working class voters. now they are looking towards pennsylvania hoping that their law and order rhetoric and tough stance will help them with white working class voters there. >> yeah, and jonathan lemire, i know you have a question for kurt. before you go to kurt, talk about how effective that scranton versus park avenue argument has been for joe biden. it was very easy for donald trump to point to hillary clinton as, you know, an ivy league educated 1960s liberal that doesn't understand voters in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. that doesn't work with scranton's own joe biden. even when he is saying it, it just doesn't ring true at all. >> right. it's been a failing argument to
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this point. as we were discussing earlier, hillary clinton had negatives nearly as high as donald trump's. joe biden doesn't. the same block of voters that trump pulled away from the democrats in 2016, many white working class men may have voted for barack obama in 2008 if not in 2012, those are the voters as one person close to the trump campaign put to me lately, they recognize and understand joe biden. joe biden is sort of one of them and they sort of feel compelled perhaps to vote for him and they are not seeing much out of donald trump that they still like or recognize from four years ago. on that topic, the idea of messaging, i looked at some 2016 trump videos, campaign rallies recently, and it was striking. a lot of the distractions and the nonsense. he was pretty good about hammering certain messages night after night on immigration, on trade, about being against washington corruption. what would you say right now is the message of this re-election
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campaign outside of promising a return to a good economy? it seems to me he is flailing and struggling and still fighting the last war. are you seeing anything there that would resonate with these voters we are talking about? >> no. and i think your observation, jonathan, is pretty spot on when you think about the 2016 campaign. you can pretty much sum it up in drain the swamp, pay for the wall and hillary's emails. no matter where trump was, what rally he was doing, he would hit those three themes. this election right now and the problem for donald trump is because of the coronavirus pandemic and his horrible mismanagement of it and the rising death toll, no matter what he does, no matter how many distractions he throws at the wall, no matter how many times he tries to troll us into talking about something else, there isn't a single perp in the country who hasn't been touched by this pandemic in some way and who in doing every day things, going to the grocery store, figuring out how to manage
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children and child care, health care, people are reminded of the coronavirus every day. donald trump has zero message for the pandemic other than these fantasy type of things it's either going to go away, there is a miracle cure, shomehw he is immune to. all the things he said about it are wrong, inaccurate and a break from reality of what everyday americans are experiencing. i think you are seeing this divide grow between the reality on the ground. >> the polling and what donald trump is trying to do and say. the fact they tried to recycle the hillary clinton email over again in the last week tells you how desperate they are and trump doesn't know what to do beyond what he did in 2016. >> mark, let me ask this question. one of the things that i have observed, knowing donald trump for years, he doesn't even socialize or relate to the regular lives of the people that are considered his base. that struck me to think about when i was looking at your
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piece. he really looks at their lifestyles with contempt. he is an elitist in the sense that he wants the elite casinos and the elite to come to his many shopping mall and trump towers, but he certainly doesn't relate -- i can't think of a time i have heard of him going in neighborhood. i am talking about the white neighborhood in atlantic city or new york and doing what regular people who have been his base do every day. >> yeah. i mean, he does not like to mix with these people who are his most fervent supporters. i mean, he doesn't shake hands. this is true when he has always hated retail politics and having to go in and deal with folks, you know, even before the pandemic. but there also been a whole bunch of tells over the years in which he has sort of been -- betrayed his true feelings about his supporters. there are a couple of anecdotes recently where he called them
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disgusting. there is the famous fifth avenue i could shoot someone on fifth avenue and not lose any support. there was an episode after the nevada caucuses i think in 2016 where he was talking about all of the groups that supported him so overwhelmingly in the caucuses and he talked about people in all ethnic groups, and he said the poorly educated. then he sort of dwelled deviously on the poorly educated and he said i love the poorly educated. you think that was a tell in which he kind of recognized his marks and he was indicating he was kind of in on joke. a lot of his supporters didn't care. loot of them thought as long as he is angering the people i want to see angered and as long as he seems to be speaking the truth in a ray that resonates with me that's fine. i think many people are getting on to this and a lot of the things that he has promised them, he might not have delivered on to the extent that he said he would. >> all right.
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mark leibovich, kurt bardella, alexie kim, john heilemann, thank you as well. up next, president trump has declared himself cured and immune from the coronavirus as he ramps up his public appearances starting today with a campaign rally in florida. plus, senate minority leader chuck schumer will be our kbes as covid relieve talks stall. "morning joe" is back in one minute. "morning joe" is back in one minute g as covid relieve talks stall. "morning joe" is back in one minute. u as covid relieve talks stall. "morning joe" is back in one minute. e as covid relieve talks stall. "morning joe" is back in one minute. s as covid relieve talks stall. "morning joe" is back in one minute. t as covid relieve talks stall. "morning joe" is back in one minute. one minute look here, it's your very own all-in-one
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she got -- forget about what was on the emails. it's irrelevant, although many were classified, highly classified, you go to jail for that. and they are in the state department, but mike pompeo has been unable to get them out, which is very sad, actually. i am not happy about him for that. that reason. he was unable to get them out. i don't know why. he is running the state department, you get them out. >> we got the emails, we are getting them out, get this information out so the american people can see it. >> will that happen before the election? >> doing it as fast as we can. i certainly think there will be more to see before the election. >> boy, when donald trump says jump, mike pompeo apparently asks, how high? you know, i started, mika, finally got into david rolls's new buyingography on george marshall, the great secretary of state, the great general, the great american who gave 50 years of his life to this country in
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service to this thcountry and understood the importance in those roles of being apolitical. at one point somebody asked marshall, are you a republican or a democrat? he looked at them and said, i'm miss copailian, which was his way of saying we have a duty to be above petty partisan politics. that's a duty that this west point guy has, pompeo has breached time and time again. he is doing it now before the election. an election that i believe his boss is going to lose. everything he does between now and then over the next 23, 24, 25 days will stay with him for the rest of his life. for the rest of his public career. >> good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, october 12th. with us we have white house reporter for "the associated press" jonathan lamire, the host
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of msnbc's "politicsnation" and president of the national action network reverend al sharpton and washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay is with us. president trump was discharged from walter reed medical center exactly one week ago, and many details of his recovery are still unknown. in another interview yesterday on fox news the president claimed that he is now immune to the virus. >> the note that you have revealed from your doctor which says you are no longer considered a transmission risk, does this suggest you no longer have covid, sir? >> yes, and not only that. it seems like i'm immune. i passed the highest test, the highest standards, and i'm in great shape. i feel fantastically. i really feel good. i even feel good by the fact that, you know, the word immunity means something, having really a protective glow means
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something. i think it's very important to have that. >> protective glow? if he really has that protective glow now, it raises the question, joe, whether he had it knowingly during the presidential debate that he showed up late to. >> he didn't have the glow during the debate. he was in horrid shape. he looked bad during the debate and he performed so bad during the debate that republicans across the country lost three, four, five points after his performance. so, no, that protective glow, i wish we knew. but we won't know. we are going to get through this throughout the entire show. but donald trump, lindsey graham, charles grassley, republicans all refusing to take tests because, well, they just want to steamroll ahead with things with campaigns, with hearings, and they really don't give a damn whether they are putting their staff, whether they are putting fellow senators, whether they are putting the entire institution -- >> and themselves at risk.
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it's worth pointing out the note released saturday night by the president's physician, dr. sean conley, didn't mention anything about immunity or a glow. he wrote that the president is no longer a transmission risk to others and added that he will continue to monitor the president as he returns to an active schedule. the president also tweeted that he is now immune to the virus, which was tagged by twitter as misleading. while many health experts believe that most people develop an immune response after a coronavirus infection, it is not clear how strong that response is or how long it might last. >> well, we don't know whether he has the infection or not again because they won't tell us anything inside the white house. we are supposed to guess. we have been asking, mika. everybody's been asking, when was your last negative test? >> he dauld in to a virtual event last night where he told supporters he had tested negative for coronavirus, but his own doctors had not confirmed that. the white house has so far
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continued to refuse to give any information on when the president last tested negative. >> and i've been tested totally negative, i'm going to be out in florida tomorrow working very hard. because this is an election we have to win. this is the most important election of our lives. >> when was the president's last negative test prior to his diagnosis? >> so, we don't have that. >> you don't have that. you don't know or you don't want to say? >> so we don't have that. well, i -- i don't personally know. >> what does that mean? have you asked? i think wednesday you said you were going to look into that. >> so, hallie, the president doesn't check all of his hippa rights at the door when he becomes president. >> it's a privacy thing the reason you are not saying the last negative test? hippa? >> that is one reason. >> did the president at least comply with the cleveland clinic debate requirements to be negative tested in the 72 hours prior to that debate?
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>> you are very focused on looking backwards. >> again, yes or no, do you have an answer? >> talk to the white house about very important issues. >> actually, good job, hallie. focused on looking backwards, joe, once again, because i'll tell you there are a lot of questions, obvious questions about whether or not the president was completely contagious during the presidential debate putting former vice president joe biden, his family, his own family, putting everybody there, members of the media at risk. put higgs team at risk of having coronavirus so he could get up on that stage and run over people and interrupt and look sick. so the question is, was he sick during the debate? and did he know? >> so, we do need look back. we need to find out. we need to find out whether donald trump knowingly went on stage and knowingly went on stage knowing that he had a disease that could get everybody in there, including joe biden,
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sick. we need to understand that also because of his family members who arrogantly took off their masks against the cleveland clinic rules. again, these are people -- >> turned them down go they were offered masks. >> these are people who republicans, i guess, feel like they live by their own standards. they live by their own rules with a nation that's combatting a coronavirus, that's killed over 215,000 people, mind you. i mean, that's over three vietnams. that's over two world war i's for u.s. troops dying. they refused then. it's also, jonathan lamire, not just about looking back, which is very important. we need to know. it's also about looking forward. this is a white house that's been in a cover-up going backwards. they have been in a cover-up whether it came to contact tracing with all of the people
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who were exposed at the white house event. this is a white house now who is covering up moving forward. yeah, the president said he had a negative test. they have been lying to us. the doctors, his own doctors have been lying to us every day since the president had to go to the hospital. so, as we move forward, what can you tell us? what do you know about the president's condition before and now as he starts to go out on his infection tour 2020? >> this is a president who was hospitalized for several days with a deadly disease. there is an extra order amount the american public doesn't know. two things about the test. there are questions as to when was his last negative test before his diagnosis. how frequently was he being tested? how many people may he have exposed whether at the debate or a campaign event in minnesota or any number of things he did that
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week? also, has he tested negative now? his doctors, as you pointed out, steadfastly have said -- refused to say whether he has or not. of course, his claim of immunity is nonsense. there is no scientific evidence that that is the case. but he has, they have made a decision, this white house, and it's very clear that the doctors have not been very forthcoming with details. there is an extraordinary lack of clarity as to how he was doing, what risk he may pose still to members of his staff, to people who will be traveling with him on air force one later to a tomorrnumber of these rall sites. the decision has been made to resume his schedule. i was there on the white house lawn on saturday -- >> yeah, we will get to saturday in a second. you just reported for "the associated press" that one of the reasons they are doing this is they are in a panic mode. they see the polls. we will be showing some new polls in a minute. but they are panicked right now because they believe that the
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white house is slipping away. they believe that the united states senate is slipping away. they believe their hold on power slipping away. >> that's right, joe. a sense of desperation and real alarm set in among republicans both in and outside of the white house of the state of this campaign, which is why the president is going to be -- he is suddenly book in public life. he had that event on saturday and resumes campaigning tonight in florida. as we reported just now, there is growing panic in the republican party. they are seeing the polls. the 1-2 punch of his widely panned debate performance and his covid-19 diagnosis, finger-pointing within the campaign as to how they handled the debate, pulling out of the debate, blowing up the covid relief talks. there is a sense around the president so much of this is not about efforts to win, but rather trying to set up excuses why he lost and there is a great concern, we have seen some republicans in the senate start to slowly distance themselves from the president in the last week or so.
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there is growing alarm not just in the states that we have been talking about all summer, losing senate seats in places like colorado or north carolina, but also deep red states like kansas and south carolina where the lindsey graham's challenger put up a record amount of fundraising in the last month. there is a fear that the president is falling down his -- the white house is slipping away and he is pulling the rest of the party with him. there is a chance now that some in the party believe that it's not just joe biden might post a decisive victory on election night, might spare the country days and weeks of drama over the recount and court challenges, but there is a sense that indeed the democrats could sweep to power here and fully repudiate where the president has taken the republican party. there is three weeks to go. of course, things can change. but now, with time running out there is grave alarm among the republicans about the fate of the white house and the senate.
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president trump returns to the campaign trail in florida. some thoughts about that ahead. as we go to break. a note from joe's new book "saving freedom, true man at cold war and the fight for western civilization" coming out on november 24th and you can preorder that now. "morning joe" is back in a moment. repair your enamel with pronamel repair. our most advanced formula helps you brush in vital minerals to actively repair and strengthen enamel. so you don't just brush to clean, you brush to build. pronamel intensive enamel repair. i will send out an army to find you in the middle of the darkest night it's true, i will rescue you
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trump on saturday made his first live appearance since leaving the hospital. he emerged from the white house blue room balcony to address a crowd of mostly black and latino supporters gathered on the south lawn. the white house claims it was an official event aimed at honoring law enforcement, but it had all the markings of a campaign event. every bit of it. from the president's rhetoric to the maga hats and the event itself was organized by far
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right activist candice owens and the founder of the blexit campaign that urges black voters to leave the democratic party. emails show owens' organization paid for some guests' travel and lodging expenses so they would attend. more than 2,000 people were reportedly invited. rough estimates show about four to 500 people attended. that is desperate. flying people in and you can't even get the number you want and you're the president and this is the white house. look at that. there were more masks being worn at that event than at the president's actually campaign rallies but there was no social distancing and not because of a lack of space. you see that. this is how the white house staged the event. people packed together presumably to make the crowd appear bigger for close-up shots. this comes on the heels of last month's rose garden event that may have sparked -- that sparked
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the recent covid-19 outbreak, one of them. there was the debate prep and a couple of other events the white house held that caused the virus to spread among the highest ranks of the government, joe. >> so, rev, we have an organization representing black and brown voters. i am sure you have heard of this organization before, right? >> yeah, a few minutes ago i heard about it when mika read it. >> come on. what is this? >> obviously, most blacks haven't heard of it. when you look at the fact that five or six weeks ago we had a march on washington with tens of thousands, and they couldn't get 500 people with expenses paid, it tells you how bogus this is. it also shows a deeper desperation that this president is trying to say to independents i'm not racist because he would use his emergence to an alleged black and brown crowd and an alleged black organization that apparently has no black
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following at all. you can have leading blacks, but that does not make them black leaders. you can build somebody's brand. it doesn't make them a leader. it's also interesting that he is starting his campaign swing this week in sanford, florida, and sanford was known as the location where trayvon martin was killed eight years ago. very interesting location for him to try to start his infection campaign, as you call it. >> yes, the great infection campaign of 2020. catty, we are going to go to the polls in a minute. while we talk about donald trump and him barging back out into the public spotlight before he is ready, a lot of people on trump's side would think, oh well, you people just don't want him to go out there because he'll go out and actually help himself, help republicans maybe do something that will help him win the election. but that's not the case at all.
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first of all, it's a danger. secondly, donald trump is not just a danger to others. donald trump is a danger to himself. think about this last week where he was on a lot of steroids and acting like he was roided out. think about how he canceled the debate. just out of nowhere. and, of course, panicked everybody inside the white house because, you know, they have been claiming for months, and joe biden would be afraid to debate, so he canceled the debate. then what's the next thing he did? he canceled the stimulus relief package. that's sent republicans scrambling as well inside the white house. what does dough when it's too late? he changes his mind, oh wait, i want to do the debate last night. too plalate for people to switc the last second. we heard all weekend how the president was saying, wait a second, we want even more money than nancy pelosi and chuck schumer causing a revolt in the
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united states senate among republicans. this guy is so extraordinarily just, again -- >> darting in all directions. >> i don't know if it's roids, but he is so inconsistent that every day he's out, he just hurts his cause a little bit more. >> yeah, it feels really erratic, especially the thing about the stimulus package, saying i did this thing of canceling the negotiations and saying, you know what? that didn't go well in the polls or the markets. let's get the negotiations back on track again. at which point the republicans for the first time pretty much are in big numbers saying no, mr. president, we are not going to give you what you want. i can't think of another time in the last 3 1/2 years where the republicans have clearly said to president trump we are not going to go on the route you want us to go, we are not going to deliver what you want us to deliver, and i think that is telling about the state of this race. if you have even got republicans saying, no, we are going to
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focus on amy coney barrett, get that done, but your 2 trillion plus stimulus bill, we don't feel that fits with our conservative principles we which s which we just recently remembered. i am not sure that getting back out president trump doing these rallies after what we know happened at the white house in the coney barrett confirmation celebration is going to help him any more. he wants to get back out there. every single day, for somebody recovering from covid to be doing an event like that, traveling like that every single day this week seems -- i am not sure most doctors would recommend that in this kind of recovery phase. is that going to help him anyway? it didn't before he got sick. >> coming up, chuck schumer joins the conversation ahead of the start of the senate confirmation hearings for supreme court nominee amy coney barrett. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ng joe" is back in a moment
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u.s. army combat veteran wes moore. good to see you. you writing this book, which i think is so important and so good and i'm glad you are here to talk about it, traditional masculinity encourages strengths, independence, fortitude. at the same time it provides no useful outlets for our vulnerable. if we cannot allow ourselves vulnerability, how are we supposed to experience wonder, fear, tendersness. if we cannot turn to others for help, what do we do with bewilderment and frustration? how do we express something as elemental as joy. you are a father, michael. this a letter to your son elijah. when you sat down to write this, what did you want to say, and what compelled you to say it? >> i wanted answer a question. and good morning. i wanted to answer a question that i had been seeking for my whole life from my own dad.
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what does it mean to be a man? my dad died when i was young. we never had that conversation. and i found myself kind of wondering it my whole life and feeling like constantly questioning, like was i being a man? was my, the way i expressed my manhood the right way to do it? so my son was going off to college and i wanted to give him something to take with him, something that maybe could relay those own questions that he may have about masculinity to rest in his head. >> there are these things in the book that you lay out that are a part, we have been told, being a man. it's power. it's conquest. as you write in the book, it's down to the clothes you wear and the car you drive and the sports you watch and the things you talk about and the way we acknowledge each other in an elevator, as you write in the book. what do you tell elijah about all of these cues we get from the moment we are born through adulthood about what it means to be a man?
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are those okay? should those be changed? >> i don't think you can change them burke i think you can be aware of them and understand that that's what they are. you can understand that whether you drink coffee or tea doesn't make you any more or less of a man. the message for him is however you are, whatever it is that you want to be in this world is enough and you are a man. you are enough of a man. you don't need to compare yourself. you don't need to challenge other men or feel challenged by other men. so much of the way we think of manhood is comparing ourselves to other guys and being, like, is he more tof a dude than i am. it's ridiculous. these are an acronist i can notions for years and years and years. i think we can let them go. i think it's okay. >> wes, i mean, if you look at some of the cues that we get, what it means to be soft, you
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know, to be kind, to cry, you know, to be respectful to women, all these things since i know you so well, we try to instill in our kids as okay and important. we've learned, you learned as a young guy and i did, too, that those were kind of things that made you soft. >> and that one of the things i love about this frame, michael, is it's actually not is it outdated. it's incorrect. and i think about it. your words in this book hit me. when i was 4 years old, i watched my father die in front of me. i will hear my mom talk about what it was like being a woman trying to raise a man and trying her best to understand what it means to raise a man in this world. what it means to raise a black man in this climate. the book is written from the perspective of a man. how would you recommend that for a single mom or a grandmother
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who is helping to raise her grandchild, what recommendations would you give to her as she is now having to go through the process and in this case raising that boy into a man on her own? >> so, i grew up in a lesbian household. my parents broke up when my mom came out of the closet. she got involved with another woman. so i grew up in a very female dominated household. and it may be un-pc to say, because i support women raising their kids. i mean, i just do. but i do think it's important. i needed to have a male role model in my life. and i didn't really have it. i needed to have somebody, a teacher, a coach, maybe somebody in the clergy, somebody that i felt like i do look to and talk to about these questions.
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it was frustrating for me that i didn't. women do an amazing job with their kids, with their sons, and if they don't have that in their lives, i would say for all parents, what you want to do is model the behavior that you want to see. that's not gender specific, i don't think. but if you want to raise a strong child, and i think we all do, be strong. but one of the ways that we show our strengths is to be vulnerable. and i think it's not only acceptable, but you should show your vulnerability as a parent. you should show that you are not infallible. you should apologize to your children when you've done wrong. how else can you expect an apology from them? i think modeling whether you are a female head of house old or a male head of household is the best bay to move forward. be the person you want them to be. >> michael, i love this for a number of reasons, including
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because i think in many ways there is a focus on women and young girls and developing their confidence and growing up in a man's world and sometimes we leave boys and men out of the conversation, which is just as unproductive. so it's a wonderful, wonderful book. you tweeted about an excerpt of your book that describes the, quote, real man, and how it explains much of trumpism. the real man is beset by enemies always. always there are others out there threatening to destroy him, to destroy his family, to take everything. it's a bleak way to go through life. here we men are supposedly strong, yet not strong enough to tell the truth. tell us more about trumpism and that sort of fallacy of the real man. >> one of the ways we think about traditional masculinity is through the pris up of strength. and we, as men, are encouraged
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to build a kind of suit of armor around ourselves to protect ourselves from 'senessentially other men. it ends up trapping ourselves in a suit of armor. we are immune from expressing empathy, from the freedom to express love in some cases, and that armor that we see in so many guys is a kind of -- it's like a -- you weend up in a tan bursting through the world, and i think trump is a really good example of that. he is so wrapped up in his own suit of armor, so kind of terrified to let anybody in that he's incapable of empathy. he is incapable of understanding what other people are going through. if he wasn't as powerful as he is, he would be such a tragic figure.
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because he seems like so incapable of feeling comfortable in his own skin. i think so much of that is bundled up in these antiquated ideas of masculinity. >> the new book, "a better man," michael ian black, congratulations on the book and thank you for being here today. >> thank you for having me. >> and we'll be right back with more "morning joe." my husband and i have never eaten healthier. shingles doesn't care. i logged 10,000 steps today.
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and he's selling out america to big corporations. i'm working to protect immigrants, women, communities of color, and lgbtq people. and i'm making corporations like pg&e and insurance companies play by our rules. we need experienced leadership to wipe away trump's stain on america for good. it wouldn't surprise me at all if they did not come up with some type of possibility that they could delay it. so we're just coming guns loaded, packed, ready to be there, and prepared to take whatever they throw at us. >> yeah, okay. cindy, republican senator cindy hyde-smith with an interesting choice of words of mississippi with those comments ahead of today's start to the confirmation hearings for supreme court nominee amy coney barrett.
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joining us now senate minority leader democratic chuck schumer of new york. nbc's kasie hunt from capitol hill. and the ap's jonathan lamire is back with us as well. >> chuck schumer, what's the democrats' strategy going into this week of confirmation hearings? >> well, it's very simple, joe. we are focusing on the issues that matter to the american people. above all, health care. judge barrett said she would overturn the aca, which would r rip away protections for people with pre-existing conditions. they could end up with no insurance. that's 130 million americans. it would raise drug prices for 40 million seniors on medicare, 20 million people would lose it. so we're focusing on that and it's going to be a little unconventional. every democrat in their opening statement will have a story of someone from their state or another state, maybe a republican member's state, that will lose their health care under this issue and we will
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have large portraits showing them. we are talking directly to the american people on the issues that matter to them. i'll tell you a story. we learned of justice ginsburg's death. our family at a dinner. immediately my daughter turned and said i wonder if my right to marriage will be curtailed or eliminated. my mom, who has parkinson's, said what will happen with her health care? women's reproductive rights, the rights of labor, climate change and above all health care. we are going to show the american people how damaging this nominee, who said proudly, i guess, she would follow antonin scalia, whose philosophy would turn the clock back 100 years, will be if she gets on the bench. the republicans are rushing this through, as you know. it's totally hypocritical. that will be a second theme we will mention today after they
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held back gare land eight months before a presidential election. the number one reason they are doing it is to get someone on the bench to undo so many of the things people need and turn the clock back. they can't do it themselves. they are afraid to do it themselves, although a lot of these republicans voted eight or mine times to repeal aca. so they are trying to get the courts to do it. i think the american people will look very unkindly on it. >> so, senator, mitch mcconnell's standard, as you know better than most, over the past four years as it's pertained to the supreme court justices and nomination fights has been mike makes right. y we could go back 30 years. we have been on opposite sides over 30 years. in this case, though, it's so clear that mitch mcconnell and the republican standard is if it's constitutional we can do it, doesn't matter whether we're
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lying, doesn't matter if we are going back on our own words, doesn't matter if we are turning the senate into a crude majoretarian chamber. if that applies to what they have done with merrick garland and now this nomination, why can't democrats constitutionally finish what fdr started over 80 years ago and add a couple of justices in response to republican radicalism? it's constitutional. and by mitch mcconnell's standard, you would be in your right to do that, correct? >> we would certainly be in the constitutional right to do it. let me say this. you know, the republicans are always looking for a smokescreen. they don't want america to know that this justice would take away their health care. they don't want america to know that this justice would repeal roe v. wade even though 71% of americans are against it. they don't want to know that this justice could turn the court into something that would get rid of labor unions, make
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america a right-to-work state. so they come up with smoke screens. this idea, democrats are going to pack the court. what the heck were they doing? listen to this. not only merrick garland, republicans introduced legislation a few years ago to limit the number of judges on the second most important court in the land, the d.c. court of appeals, because they didn't want obama to appoint people. then the fifth circuit, the very circuit that decided to get rid of the aca they held back, mcconnell did, all these judges when obama was there and then they appointed right-wingers who, again, undid aca, which is what the supreme court will rule on on november 10. this idea that democrats are packing the court, they have already done it. as for ourselves, what i have said is we are going to win the election, god willing. the president maybe hopefully take become the senate. and then everything will be on
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the table. we are not going to fall into the trap of debating that now after what they have done and when there is so many substantive issues at stake that the american people care about, health care above all. >> let's go to kasie hunt. she is live on capitol hill. >> senator, good morning. good to see you. to follow up on this question, joe biden, the democratic nominee, former vice president, said that we'll find out after the election whether he wants to add justices to the court. my question is, have you talked to him about that? and have you talked to him about whether you would consider ending the filibuster and do you know where he stands on those questions? >> i have not talked to him about that because, again, this election is about the issues that affect the american people. i have said this. we're not as a democratic -- i am not a democratic leader busting my chops to get the majority to have nothing get done. we will figure out a way to get something done. everything is on the table. but these discussions have to occur after the election when our caucus will gather and make
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some decisions. nothing's off the table. everything's on the table. but let's win the election first. that's job number one, because if we don't, none of these matter at all. >> speaking of job number one, i know you are in many ways your party's most focused strategist in terms of winning back the senate. where do you see the map? do you think jaime harrison is going to put south carolina in play? and are you worried about senator gary peters in michigan? i have had several republicans mention that as a potential place they might be able to pick up a seat. i am curious, your assessment. >> jaime harrison, we are doing well. it's not easy. you know, the republicans are pouring money, the right-wing business interests and special interests are pouring money against us. but we are doing well because the american people know, number one, that mitch mcconnell has blocked every piece of legislation. i think the house passed something like 300 bills, many
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of them bipartisan, that would help america, help average folks gain better jobs and get better health care and deal with climate and all these issues. so they know they are on their side. the american people know we are on their side and that's why we're doing well. jaime harrison is neck and neck with lindsey graham. he is running a great race. he is a very, very capable guy. i would leave to see him in the senate. as for gary peters, i think he sprung into a lead when people hear that john james had proudly told his supporters he wants to dismantle health care and aca, they don't like it very much. when they know that he is sort of a member almost of the due boss organization, she is not popular in michigan they don't like it. they know gary peters has done a great job for michigan. so we are pulling into a nice lead there. and we are going to keep an eye on it, but we are doing well there. >> senator, let's bring in
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jonathan lamire. >> hi, jonathan. >> good morning, senator. speaking of senator graham, he has refused to take a covid-19 test ahead of the debate in south carolina. you called upon him to require coronavirus testing for senators and staff and others who are going to be a part of the supreme court hearings. can you give us an update as to whether -- what his answer to that was and if he and others refuse to take tests during the proceedings over the next couple of weeks, what will your resource be? >> well, you know, as i said, mcconnell, and joe talked about this earlier, he has so defiled the senate that there is very little bipartisanship left. he has taken, changed the rules to make it much more of a majoretarian body. so we don't have the tools that can force lindsey graham to require testing. but let me just say this. he is setting such a bad example, as is donald trump to
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the american people. here we are in the fall. covid cases are increasing. they are rushing this supreme court nomination through instead of dealing with the covid crisis. trump is like a yo-yo. today near proposal. who knows where they will be tomorrow. and they are rushing it they'll tomorrow. they're rushing it through, but what a bad example. where we know if we had observed things in a more rigorous way, like europe, like asia, we would have had many fewer deaths, and wearing masks and distancing. we can't force them to do anything but it's an outright shame and i think he pays a price with the american people when he so flaunts the science and safety. americans want the economy to improve, but they also want to make sure they don't get covid and lindsey graham's example like his mentor donald trump's example is a very poor one for the american people.
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>> it is that simple and people don't want to get sick and they want the pandemic to end. senate minority leader chuck schumer, thank you, very, very, under way, your thoughts looking ahead to today? >> reporter: we just learned senator mike lee will attend in person. he tested positive for covid-19 after we saw all the photos of him without a mask on, shaking hands at the rose garden event, and inside with the president. we learned he said in a radio interview this morning he is actually going to be here in person. a bone of contention, obviously, for democrats who demanded everyone take a covid test. lindsey graham refused to do that.
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republicans are not allowing those tests to happen ahead of the hearing. democrats did demand it, and senator kamala harris, a member of the judiciary committee, also, of course, joe biden's running mate says she's going to be appearing here virtually for this very reason. she said, republicans are endangering lives by not allowing these tests to go forward. so that's one of the things that we are watching today. of course. i'm thinking more broadly as well as the political inch placations across the map. lindsey graham is relying on this hearing to try to save himself down in south carolina, getting traditional republicans, maybe turned off by trump or his closeness to donald trump but focused on this. he thinks this is going to be potentially good for him in a political situation. >> wow. >> hmm. >> so count on that as well. >> kasie, thank you so much. mika, it's unbelievable. you actually have, you actually have republicans who have tested positive, who are going back in
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to a work space, inside, without telling their fellow employees whether they're now negative. they won't take tests. lindsey graham won't do it. chuck grassley won't do it. i don't know if mike lee's going to do it for not, but can you imagine? this is such a non-partisan issue. people coming to work that have had covid, that come back into a work space and refuse to take a test and tell you whether they are positive and actually have a deadly disease or not? this is, again, a sort of thing that the republican party being the party of trump is doing, and it's such a huge disconnect for middle america. from the american people, and it shows just how reckless they are and just how little americans can trust them in positions of power. >> because there's a disconnect between other things they would do and are not doing and the fact they're going in there to do this is, well -- they're
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fools. >> it's medieval is what it is. >> social coverage of the -- >> it's medieval. >> confirmations hearing begin top of the hour and we're back with more "morning joe" in just a moment. and taking a short cut to the highest court in the land. there's a pandemic devastating every corner of the country, but they're just rushing to play politics with the court. it's a lifetime appointment, tell senators to do it right. demand justice is responsible for the content of this advertising. ythey customize yours lcar insurance. so you only pay for what you need.
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as you can see, folks there are getting prpd some ready. some of them are wearing masks. most, actually, in the room are wearing masks and some controversy we just heard about with senator mike lee showing up after testing positive for coronavirus and no word as to whether or not he is still shedding the virus. this is so concerning on so many levels. i mean, just look at the room. pretty tight. so -- idiotic, some medical professionals would say. joining us now from capitol hill, nbc news correspondent heidi przybyla. you're looking at judge barrett's disclosures or lack thereof on certain issues over the years. >> reporter: right, mika. there's been a series of news reports that have forced the judge to come forward with additional revelations about participation by her at the university of notre dame in ads that were done in the 2000s.
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anti-abortion ads. notable, mika, this was only disclosed after the media reports, and secondly, based on my reporting from last night, basically her entire record at notre dame is really under wraps. if she had been at a public university, we would have a lot more access to information about to what extent she participated in similar activities that would be viewed by many on this committee as potential activism. so nbc is taking a close look at that. also at some items that were omitted from her work resume. notably, her work for a pittsburgh steel magnate involved in a bankrupted hospital system that was very impactful. so, mika, a lot there that the democrats will be looking for, kicking rocks, asking this candidate, given the unprecedented nature of how quick with confirmation is going what more is there that you haven't told us about. mika? >> okay. heidi przybyla, thank you very much. again, you're looking inside the
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hearing room where the hearing for judge amy coney barrett are set to begin with the senate judiciary committee. i want to point out, not a lot of these republicans as well as the family of judge barrett knew much about masks before today, it appears. they came to the rose garden ceremony and other things at the white house not wearing masks. they're all wearing masks today with some having tested positive for coronavirus. that does it for us this morning. chuck todd picks up the special coverage right now. good morning. i'm chuck todd of nbc news here in washington with msnbc special korb coverage of the senate confirmation hearings. president trump's pick to succeed the late ruth bader beginberg, amy coney barrett. the senate will gather into what expected to be a
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