they wanted it to be very clear, he wasn't going after all republicans but the maga folks, who they think face the damage to the country. >> alexi, thank you. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this friday morning and all week long. have a great weekend. "morning joe" starts right now. donald trump and the maga republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. maga republicans do not respect the constitution. they do not believe in the rule of law. maga forces are determined to take this country backwards. maga republicans have made their choice. they embrace anger. they thrive on chaos. they live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies. >> president biden in one of his most forceful speeches yet, denouncing donald trump by name and warning about the threat he and his followers pose to

america. the president saying today's gop is, quote, dominated, driven, and intimidated by maga republicans. we'll have complete political and historical analysis of his address to the nation. plus, the latest developments in the investigation of former president trump's mishandling of classified documents, as another conservative legal voice predicts trump will be indicted. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, september 2nd. with us, we have u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay with us. the host of "way to early," white house bureau chief at "politico" and the author of "the big lie," jonathan lemire. pulitzer prize-winning columnist at "the washington post," eugene robinson. and nbc news presidential historian, michael beschloss joins us this morning. glad to have you all. >> so much to talk about. jonathan lemire, i must start with you.

it is like secretariat at the kentucky derby in 1973. starts out slow and then, boom, takes off. i know you had to be thinking about secretasecretariat. either that or another last place boston red sox finish, when they came back in the ninth inning last night. what a comeback, four runs. >> four in the ninth against the texas rangers. we're talking about the joe biden's reversal of fortunes, his poll numbers. >> that's what i was thinking. >> the boston red sox doing the same. things are turning around there. and we all remember the headline, "dewy defeats truman," the upset there. >> yes. >> people who held up headlines, "yankees winning the a.l. east," red sox only five games under .500. >> it must be stated for the record, last night, we ran out of pictures. they actually got a couple of

attendants in the parking lot to throw the seventh and eighth inning which, of course, is why the red sox gave up two runs each inning. >> they're doing it as a raffle tonight. a contest winner. buy a ticket, buy a hot dog, pitch the seventh. >> gene robinson, would you like to pitch for the boston red sox? tonight is your chance. >> yeah, i got a little tendinitis, a little shoulder tenderness tonight. >> perfect. >> i'll skip it. >> that's perfect. i mean, that's even better, gene. if your arm hurts and you can't throw, the red sox give you a $150 million contract for ten years like chris sales. >> someone is a little sore. let me tell you all they're going to lose, and let's move forward. i thought you were talking about joe biden. let's start in philadelphia, where president joe biden issued a dire warning about threatens to american democracy last night in a rare primetime address. standing outside independence hall, where the united states

constitution was written and signed, the president spoke directly about the dangers posed by the trump-backed wing of the republican party. here is some of what he had to say. >> equality and democracy are under assault. we do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise. tonight, i've come to this place where it all began, to speak as plainly as i can to the nation. about the threats we face, what's happening in our country today is not normal. donald trump and the maga republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. not every republican embraces their extreme ideology. i know because i've been able to work with these mainstream republicans. but there's no question, as the republican party today is

dominated, driven, and intimidated by donald trump and the maga republicans. maga republicans do not respect the constitution. they do not believe in the rule of law. they do not recognize the will of the people. they refuse to accept the results of a free election. they're working right now as i speak in state after state to give power to decide elections in america to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself. maga forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an america where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love. you've heard it. more and more talk about violence as an acceptable

political too in this country. it's not. it can never be an acceptable tool. we cannot be pro-insurrectionist and pro-american. they're incompatible. we can't allow violence to be normalized in this country. it's wrong. we have to reject political violence with all the clarity and conviction this nation can muster, now. we've seen election officials attacked. poll workers subject to intimidation and death threats. and can you believe it, fbi agents just doing their job as directed, facing threats to their own lives from their own fellow citizens. on top of that, public officials today, yesterday, and the day before, predicting and all but

calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets. i want to say this plain and simple, there is no place for political violence in america, period. none. ever. >> you know, maureen dowd a few years ago had a column, pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the "times," where maureen said that what presidential candidates prepare for is never what they have to deal with. one of the examples, michael beschloss, was george w. bush who said in 2000 -- >> no nation -- >> that america was going to have a humble foreign policy. >> right. >> that it was really more of a domestic focus of the agenda. then there was 9/11 and, of course, george bush and the entire government had to respond

in several ways. joe biden, likewise, wanted to bring this country together. talked about that. he has been able to work with the other side in a way we haven't seen in about 20 years. that said, when you have united states senators that are talking about republican riots in the streets, talking about violence if the law is enforced, joe biden is pushed to a position, is he not, where he doesn't have any choice but to speak out against the calls for violence and civil war. i think you're right, joe. good morning, mika, as well. we are in a situation where we are talking about historical parallels. in 1960, we were on the precipice of civil war. very different from where we are in 2022. but this specter of looming

violence. 1940, world violence, would the united states enter world war ii to oppose adolph hitler and mussolini and the imperial japanese? i'm not suggesting that this year is the equivalent, except for in one respect. that is, if, you know, a historian from 50 years from now were to go back and visit america in 2022, the overwhelming question is, are we going to have a democracy in a year or two? are we going to have free and fair elections with all those state officials and state legislatures threatening to say, we're going to just name the winner whoever he feel like. are we going to have rule of law? take a look at what happened at mar-a-lago. so those questions are hanging in the balance. and to have a president saying this election this year is about anything but the survival of democracy, you'd wonder where he was.

>> yeah. gene robinson, just, again, to go down a quick list of really where we are as a country, you have had republicans calling law enforcement officers the gestapo, calling them communists, threatening the fbi, threatening members of their family, threatening violence in the streets, threatening riots, republican riots in the street. you have donald trump amplifying the worst part of this in his social media platforms. so, again, i think you'd have a president who would be derelict if he did not speak to this. i was the first person -- you know, i was talking about both sides should work together, and these are the sort of speeches --speeches.

at the same time, i don't know. when you have lindsey graham talking about if donald trump is held to the same standard as every other american, republicans are going to go out and burn down cities. there's going to be riots in the streets. there's going to be violence in the streets. republican members of congress talking about the gestapo. just whipping the base into a frenzy, again, with a context that we have the january 6th riots in our rear-view mirror. these people know what they're doing. donald trump knows what he is doing. he is calling for violence. he wants republicans and maga supporters to go out into the street and commit acts of violence. >> yeah. the speech last night, to me, sounded like a president delivering a wartime address. indeed, joe biden sees this as,

as he said, a battle for the soul of the country. it is a battle for the preservation of our democracy. to me, the significant thing was that he -- yes, he called out donald trump, but he also called out the maga republicans, the maga republican officials and followers who, for whatever motive, every whatever delusion, are going down this authoritarian path, this undemocratic path, and trying to take the nation with them. he framed this as an emergency. >> yeah. >> as something that we as a nation need to bond together to stop and to reverse. to return to our democratic principles and our democratic practices. to me, it was -- it was an

urgent wartime address. >> well, gene, to your point, wartime addresses come during grave moments of peril for this country. biden was using trump's language to try and reach every american. he was using the word "maga republicans." if you look at the latest news, joe, just for the past 24 hour, it is hard to keep track of the concerns that trump poses to this country. but in the past 24 hours, he was threatening another run for the presidency, planning another run for the presidency, and promising pardons to january 6th protesters, to january 6th rioters. he was -- >> rioters, yeah. this isn't about protesting. >> in everything that is happening -- >> to rioters that brutalized police officers. that beat the hell out of police officers with american flags that they had turned into weapons. donald trump calls those people

patriots, says he loves people who batter and abuse police officers. >> a former president -- >> to try to overthrow -- >> -- with an indictment looming. >> -- an election result. >> this is what he is saying to his followers, "i'm going to run for president. if i run for president, i'm going to give pardons to criminals." and, you know, his attorneys, not so pretty either in the past 24 hours, calling the taking of top secret documents, something that doesn't belong to the former president, removing it from the u.s. government property from scifs, from the white house, taking it to his home, his public place, mar-a-lago, calling that not a big issue. that's more like overdue library books. once again -- >> yeah. >> -- completely not denying that he took something that is not his. it's very hard, i think, not to viscerally feel like this is a

man on a streak to tear up this country for his own gain. i think president biden had to say what he said last night, and he has to do more. >> well, he's been calling for violence against the united states, attacks against the united states government, for a very long time. he has been shredding constitutional norms. it's one of the things that makes me wonder how my friends and family members can still support a man who told the proud boys to stand by in a presidential debate. then, in fact, made a call to him and everybody else in texts and tweets after he lost the election. talking about coming to washington, saying it'll be wild. demanding that his attorney general, when he was still president of the united states, throw his political opponent into jail along with his political opponent's family, two

weeks before the election. this is as authoritarian as it gets. this is what putin does. he throws his political rivals in jail. that's what donald trump was pushing for after the -- >> not wrong to say the democracy is at stake. >> of course. then donald trump said the election was rigged. he fomented a revolt and a revolution. it was failed because, of course, donald trump was charge of it. but, again, he has taken an authoritarian path and continued to whip maga supporters into a frenzy. that's why we're at a point now where you have nypd cops that are being sent to jail for ten years for brutalizing police officers on january 6th. their lawyers saying that they were under the spell of this man, under the spell of donald trump. and, of course, katty, for those who might suggest this is an

overstatement, over 50% of republicans believe there's going to be a civil war. republican figures like newt gingrich are calling the fbi wolves who want to devour americans and that people should fight back. you have a group of people around donald trump, and it is not the entire republican party. joe biden talked about republicans he worked with. this is a part of the republican party that has taken over the republican party. but there is a part of the republican party that is authoritarian, talking about violence, talking about civil war. >> yeah. donald trump released this idea into the atmosphere that the 2020 election is stolen, and now it's spread throughout the country and has almost gone beyond him. as one republican said to me,

you know, donald trump needs his supporters almost more than they need him now. they have taken this idea of the election being rigged, and they are running with it. it is leading to talk of violence. i was really struck, as i was traveling around the country this summer, that was the thing that struck me most. how often i heard people speak about coming violence. i heard it both from the left and from the right. joe biden is absolutely right, american democracy is in a moment of peril. the very fact that an american president had to use a primetime address to defend democracy in this country tells you an awful lot about the state of america in 2022. but, curiously, i heard from democrats and from republicans who would say democracy is in peril. of course, from very, very different points of view. it is, oddly, one of the things both sides agree on. they just have no agreement on the facts and why it is in peril. i don't know if donald trump -- i mean, if joe biden will have

changed any minds, even in the middle of the political spectrum last night, but he was quite within his -- it was quite the moment to say what he said. it is what i've been hearing all summer, this country's democracy cannot be taken for granted. >> yeah, and we left with a remarkable split screen yesterday. donald trump gives his radio interview, suggesting he'd give pardons and an apology to those convicted of rioting at the u.s. capitol. of course, the latest courtroom hearing, the battle over the classified documents found at mar-a-lago. then we had president biden last night. i mean, he said it in his plain spoken way, he said, "what is happening in our country today is not normal." that's right. the idea that a huge percentage of another party, the maga republican party, and he took pains to say this is not the entire gop, it's the maga republican party, that they are refusing to acknowledge the results of the last election. they're refusing to promise to adhere to the results of the

next election. they are endorsing violence. this is an extraordinary threat to the very foundation of the nation's democracy. white house aides in the run-up to the speech told me and others that this was not going to be a political speech. this was not going to be about one person. well, it was. it was about donald trump and his legacy and the impact he's had on the republican party, that cult of personality that biden spoke about last night. he said the maga forces are determined to take this country backwards. this was some of his strongest language he has used since taking office. it was a stern warning, and it was a blaring red alarm, mika, from the president of the united states about where this nation stands right now and where it could be going. >> we're following two developments. in the fallout from the fbi search of president donald trump's mar-a-lago home and club. at a hearing yesterday in florida, the judge said she would make public a more detailed list of what the fbi seized from mar-a-lago.

trump's lawyers requested a more specific inventory of what investigators took, claiming the version they got from the government was too vague. in a court filing earlier this week, the doj stated it was ready for the possibility the judge would order a more detailed list be unsealed. it is unclear when the document will be released. the judge did not immediately rule on the request to appoint a special master to review all the material seized in the august 8th search, to determine whether any of it includes potential attorney, client, or executive privilege issues. meanwhile, conservative legal analyst and former judge andrew napolitano believes the justice department will present its findings to a grand jury right after the midterms, and that it will result in an indictment, maybe more. here's what he said yesterday on

"newsmax." >> i think that the doj has already decided to ask a grand jury in either miami or washington, d.c., to indict former president trump. what they've tipped their hands on, the little that they've revealed to the public and what they've shared with the judge is more than enough to indict him and probably enough to convict him. >> wow. let's bring in former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official, chuck rosenberg. chuck, do you agree with napolitano's assessment there of the potential for an indictment? >> the potential? sure. his certainty, i don't know where that comes from just yet, mika. look, i wish i was as certain about things in life as he seems to be. you know, folks pick horses to win races all the time. sometimes they're right, and they go to the window and collect money. they had absolutely no idea what they were doing when they laid down the bet. that could be the case here.

i think it is a serious matter. the search warrant indicated that, that crimes had been committed and evidence of crimes were found at mar-a-lago. that we know. but who is responsible for it? who will be charged? that will be determined. that stuff, mika, was in the redacted portion of the affidavit that we're all anxious to read. unless judge napolitano has some access we don't, i really don't understand why he is saying what he is saying. it doesn't make sense to me yet. >> chuck, tell me, from everything you've heard from donald trump, from donald trump's lawyers, what's his best defense against taking top secret documents, classified documents, secret documents from a government building and then lying to the fbi, lying to the department of justice about returning everything that he had had down at mar-a-lago? is there a defense that you can think of? >> i can hypothesize a defense, joe. i don't know if it is going to work for him or not. here's what it would sound like.

that he didn't pack the boxes, didn't know what was in the boxes, didn't move the boxes, and he didn't care to review it. now, there's a problem for him here. as you well know, some of this stuff wasn't just found in the basement at mar-a-lago. some of this stuff was found in his office, apparently in his desk drawer. so that defense i just laid out, the hypothetical defense, becomes much more difficult when you find this stuff in his desk. but what i'm really getting at is intent, right? because crimes require intent. you mentioned the fact that there were misrepresentations made to the fbi about what remained at mar-a-lago. if the lawyers who made those misrepresentations, joe -- and you know this, you're a lawyer -- if the lawyers who made those misrepresentations failed in their due diligence or passed on bad information that was given to them, but they didn't intend to lie, then they didn't commit a crime.

they're just bad lawyers. we don't put bad lawyers in jail unless they intended to commit a crime. if we put bad lawyers in jail, we'd run out of space pretty quickly. it turns on intent. what did the lawyers know when they made the misrepresentations to the government? what did trump know when the documents ended up in his home? i think it become more difficult for trump, and i agree that he is in serious jeopardy, and i imagine the department of justice is having very serious discussions about whether or not to charge him, but the certainty that judge napolitano expressed, i just don't see that at this point. i'm not as certain. >> when you talk about intent, they're looking for intent, even there, you have tapes at mar-a-lago that the doj and the fbi have their hands on, of people moving documents out of a certain room after they get a call and a request from the fbi.

which, again, you talk about showing intent, they ask for documents and, suddenly, documents are moved from the main holding room. how does that play out, chuck, and what should we expect next in this case? >> that's a really interesting point, joe. that sort of suggests to me, more than suggests, that indicates to me that there are a bunch of people that the fbi needs to interview. who was on those tapes? where were they going? what were they doing? at whose direction were they going there and doing that? so these are all leads. this is why i have been saying over and over, let's wait to have more information in the public record. but you're absolutely right, if after getting a call, a bunch of people are dispatched to the basement to squirrel things out of mar-a-lago, that's extremely damning evidence. now, we need to figure out, who told them to do that? why they were told to do that, and whether or not that's what

they were actually doing. that requires interviews. that requires fbi agents. that requires time. that's what they're doing now. that's why the investigation is ongoing. that's why we should also reserve judgment on what the evidence, what the investigation is going to produce. >> i really appreciate that we need to stay right where we are with the information, not get in front of it, and it is still a long way off from resolution. let put it that way. chuck, i'm just curious, when members of trump's team call this something like an overdue library book, accomplishing that they have whatever documents it is we're talking about once again, does it seem to you, though, it is a misunderstanding and, you know, trump could have given them back and it is not a big deal? >> it is a big deal. calling it an overdue library book is nonsense, mika. it is much, much more serious

than that. who will be charged and what they'll be charged with is to be determined. this is not an overdue library book. if i had an overdue library book and gave it to a russian intelligence officer, it wouldn't help him much. if i have top secret, classified information from the united states government and gave it to a russian intelligence officer, i could do grave damage to the national security of the united states. so in no way is this like an overdue library book. i think lawyers really do themselves and their clients a disservice when they make idiotic arguments. that was an idiotic argument. >> yeah, it really was. >> former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning with your analysis. appreciate it. >> michael beschloss, we can look back at recent history and see what these so-called overdue library books have cost other top government officials. two cia directors faced

consequences for mishandling some documents. you have sandy berger, bill clinton's national security adviser, of course, charged as well. the idea these are overdue library books just doesn't square. also, when we played judge napolitano, of course, we don't know how this is going to end, and perhaps he is right. what i think is more telling is, you're starting to hear guests, karl rove on fox news, judge napolitano on "newsmax," andy mccarthy in "the new york post," you know, other people in other very conservative news outlets that have predominantly defended donald trump through the years, now allowing voices on their channels. now allowing op-eds in their

pages that are saying, this guy, like karl rove, these documents were not donald trump's documents. he should have never had these documents at mar-a-lago. judge napolitano talking about he is guilty. andy mccarthy saying, you know, the feds have a pretty darn open and shut case against donald trump for obstruction. this is -- i think that's the -- that is the breaking news on what judge napolitano, karl rove, andy mccarthy, a lot of these other republicans are saying now. >> yeah. you as a great lawyer know that a charge of obstruction of justice requires establishing a motive. and if it is obvious that donald trump was trying to obstruct the investigation of what was at mar-a-lago and impede a legal proceeding, which is part of the official definition of obstruction of justice, he is in

really bad trouble and deserves to be. you know, joe, if you and i were to think of something that would outrage an american conservative or most republicans, let's say, just ten years ago, i think we would have said that an american president took potential nuclear secrets, hi lists of cia agents took these things and at least raised the possibility that they shared it with hostile governments and others who wished americans ill and that cia informers and others might have gotten killed by these hostile governments as a result. or nuclear secrets that could kill millions of people, got into the hands of people who should not have them. in a way, you hear someone like karl rove, this is, i think, conservative and republican leaders just coming back to their senses after the spell, this excursion during the period of trump.

and as for the overdue library book, you know, i worked in formerly classified documents in the national archives since i was 18 years old. i've been doing this for a long time. and to say that that has anything to do with a nuclear secret or an ultra classified list of cia agents reminded me of the crummy lawyer who is trying to defend wilkes booth in 1865, saying he deserved leniency, and he survived because he left 99% of the people in ford's theater alone. it is ridiculous. it is an affront to anyone's intelligence. >> wow, yeah. no doubt about it. gene robinson, quickly, following up on what michael said about what republicans would be thinking ten years ago, it is -- i predict -- i'm not one of those who thinks there is going to be a civil war. i predict that the republican

party will move past trump eventually. maybe it is another two, three year. maybe it is another two, three election losses. when they do, you'll see a return to more traditional republican party and people pretending this never happened before. because you are starting to see, suddenly, you know, donald trump's republican party was against nato. apologized for vladimir putin. trump apologized for vladimir putin. in fact, did so in a question in helsinki that was asked by our own jonathan lemire. when i was a republican, we defended the fbi. we defended the cia. we defended the intel community. we balanced budgets. none of that, of course -- that sounds mundane these days, but we also, you know, were the ones that would get the most

sensitive about top secret documents being misused. no more. now, republicans -- i'd love to hear if the republican party believes that squirrelling away top secret documents at your home after you've left government service is nothing more than an overdue library book. >> well, if the republican party is going to awake from this nightmare, from your lips to god's ear, i certainly hope you're right, it is astounding what has happened to this party. as the president pointed out last night, it isn't just donald trump. it's the people who are following him. it's those state officials who are election deniers, who are very openly preparing to not

respect the results of the next election if the next election doesn't go their way. i mean, it's a big deal. parties usually change when they get creamed at the polls, when they lose, when they get wiped out. it may take a couple election losses, and they've had some. donald trump, like herbert hoover, managed to lose the house, and white house, and the senate all in one term, which is pretty astounding. you'd think republicans would get some message from that. but there has to be more losing until the party, i think, comes to its senses. and we all hope it does. it is nowhere near its senses right now. most republicans -- >> well -- >> -- support the maga line. that's just the unfortunate fact. >> president biden definitely

drew a line last night. might be from my point of view, but it seemed like the republican response, kevin mccarthy sort of fell flat in his response. that goes beyond his sort of strange alliteration about the electric court of history. >> what was that? electric court of liberty? does anybody -- >> sort of a high school presidential stump speech. >> jonathan lemire, what is the electric court of liberty that lights our hearts? >> oh, liberty, got it. >> it seemed like a shocking sort of metaphor. >> confused. >> yeah. i missed that, if that was taught in school or if it was a famous quotation. life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, electric court of liberty. i don't have it here. he went to scranton and delivered a prebuttle to his speech, but it did seem like

republicans haven't been able to coalesce on a message of this, the defense of democracy, which biden is offering. do republicans want to be talking about inflation? sure, they do. but they haven't been able to in a long time because the democrats have moved through the legislative agenda. republicans are stuck day after day trying to explain or defend what happened at mar-a-lago. even those defenses have grown quieter in recent days. it seems like they're on their back heels. we'll get to it later in the show, but there is in-fighting in the republican senate right now, feeling they could lose their shot at claiming the majority. and the house in question, as well. they're, right now, fumbling, and biden took the moment, a moment when he has the wednesday at his back, and laid out the stakes plainly for this november. >> presidential historian michael beschloss, thank you very much for coming on the show early this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," the committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol wants to

hear from a former republican speaker of the house. >> who could that be? they want to talk to denny? >> no, it's newt. >> oh, the guy who says the fbi is wolves that want to devour mirren americans? >> that newt. efforts to overturn the 2020 election by the wife of a supreme court justice. turns out, ginni thomas wasn't just pressuring officials in arizona. a new report in "the washington post" reveals she was also emailing officials in another state, as well. >> wait, wait, wait, wait. another state, to tell them to ignore the voters? >> the reporter behind that scoop joins us next. >> geez. >> you're watching "morning joe." >> the authoritarianism runs deep. >> the electric court of liberty still sparks in our hearts. >> lisa, bart, stop that. >> whoa! >> wait a minute, wait, wait.

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your future is ahead of you, so it's time to make the most of it with kisqali. because when you invest in yourself, everyone gets the best of you. a monster was attacking but the team remained calm. because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer that was right under their nose. or... his nose. 43 past the hour. a live look at west palm beach, florida, for you, where a lot is happening in the investigation into the secret documents at mar-a-lago. a new report by "the washington post" reveals that ginni thomas, the conservative activist and the wife of supreme court justice clarence thomas, pressed lawmakers to overturn president biden's 2020 victory, not only in arizona as previously reported, but also in wisconsin, even though president biden won.

according to emails obtained under state public records law, thomas emailed two republican lawmakers in wisconsin, state senator kathy bernier, then chair of the senate elections committee, and state representative gary touchin. both received the email on november 9th, virtually at the same time the arizona lawmakers received the exact same copy of the message from thomas. the "post" adds thomas sent all the emails through freeroots, allowing people to send pre-written emails to multiple elected officials. joining us now, the investigative reporter at "the washington post" behind this report, emma brown. emma, what can one deduce from these discovered emails? what exactly was she pushing these lawmakers to do, and is there potential she was using her influence as the wife of a supreme court justice to try to

sway an election that joe biden won fair and square? >> well, she sent these emails to those lawmakers on november 9th. the context here is two days earlier major news organizations called the race for joe biden. the message was essentially, stand strong in the face of media pressure. do the right thing and, quote, choose a, quote, clean slate of electors. sort of taking that in context, she's saying, you should take action, state legislators, to disregard the will of the popular vote and choose your own electors. you know, i think you ask was she using her influence. there were thousands upon thousands of emails sent via this freeroots platform. one thing the new records from wisconsin show us is that ginni thomas was one of the first

people to send this particular email, and somebody with the same name as one of her associates sent the very first one. you know, her lawyer, the house committee has sought to speak to ginni thomas. her lawyer, in response to that request and a sweeping documents request from the house committee, said -- this was in june after reporting on the arizona emails -- they said, you know, she didn't write the emails or edit them, she merely sent them as one of many people who did. the fact she was one of the first to send them is interesting to me. >> well, katty kay, it is ridiculous for her to claim she was just, you know, hanging out at home and said, oh, look at this form email. i'll send it along. when, in fact, she had been on the phone with conservative leaders, with maga leaders. she had been pushing hard for

kevin mccarthy to overturn the election. she had been pushing hard for donald trump. she'd been in the white house talking to donald trump, trying to get her to talk to -- i forget the lady's name with all the waco theories. the kraken lady. she was calculating, trying to figure out exactly what her response was going to be. there's emails out there where she made these decisions and thought through these decisions. so if she's one of the first to send these emails to arizona and to wisconsin lawmakers, she had calculated it. she had talked about it. she was a maga conservative thought leader who decided she was going to ask state legislators to throw out the popular will of democratic voters. democratic in, like, democracy. to throw democracy to the side and have them select their own electors.

>> yeah. now, we learn the wife of a supreme court justice, who could one day potentially be in a position where an election suit comes before him, who knows, in 2024, and he has to rule as they did in 2000 on which way an election might go. the wife of that supreme court justice sent these emails not just to officials in arizona but also now in wisconsin, as well. emma, my question to you is, how does this play out? january 6th committee has asked to talk to her. so far, of course, she hasn't. what's the legal process? what are the -- what's the legal recourse that the justice department has to try to get more information from ginni thomas, if she say, no, i'm not going to talk to the january 6th investigation. could you see her being subpoenaed at any point by the justice department? where does this play out? how far does this go? >> i don't think we've heard anything about the justice department's interest in speaking with ginni thomas.

what we know from the documents request that the january 6th committee sent to her a couple months ago is that they wanted to see everything that she was communicating with a wide range of people. members of congress, employees at the justice department where, you know, part of the effort to overturn the election was taking -- was taking place. it was just a really broad document request. it was almost as if reading it, you know, you wonder whether the committee saw her as a portal into understanding the actions of many other people. you know, so far, we have no indication that she's turned over documents. as i said, her lawyer responded to the request by saying he didn't see sufficient basis for her to sit for an interview and provide the documents. >> "the washington post"'s emma brown, thank you for your reporting this morning.

coming up, gas prices continue to fall. in less than two hours, we're going to get another snapshot of our economy with the august jobs report. ahead of that, steve rattner joins us with why there remains a major shortage of workers in most fields. we'll talk about that when "morning joe" returns. when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis persists... put it in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when uc got unpredictable,... i got rapid symptom relief with rinvoq. check. when uc held me back... i got lasting, steroid-free remission with rinvoq. check. and when uc got the upper hand... rinvoq helped visibly repair the colon lining. check. rapid symptom relief. lasting, steroid-free remission. and a chance to visibly repair the colon lining. check. check. and check. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin cancer; death, heart attack, stroke,

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54 past the hour. numbers are flat as -- >> look how beautiful new york city is. >> gorgeous morning. it is september. >> the city is back. >> always gorgeous in september. >> the city is back. it is a city back in the new york groove, as can kids would say. >> the jobs report is due out later, joe, and it should tell us a lot. economists expect to see 318,000 jobs were added last months. for the unemployment rate to

hold steady at 3.5%, we'll see if that happens. the big question remains, how will the fed react? let's bring in former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. he's going to talk about that, what we can expect, but also the worker shortage. what is going on? steve? >> good morning, mika. yes, we'll watch for the jobs report. we'll look for the jobs created, go, america. >> go, team. >> good for the people looking for work. but one of the problems we're having is workers dropped out of the workforce during the pandemic, as we know, but they're not yet fully returning to work. you can see it on the chart on the lower left. the turquoise line is the labor force participation rate by people in prime age, between 25 and 54. they started to come back to

work, almost got back to where they were, but now it is kind of plateaued out. it's been bouncing around a little bit. they're still not all back to work. a bigger place where we have people not back to work are the 55-year-olds and above. many decided to retire. you can see that the participation rate by people 55 and above is less than it was. all told, our workforce is short about 600,000 workers, though the jobs are back. we have 600,000 fewer workers looking for work. what is interesting on the right side is who those are. turns out, people with a college degree are entirely back. you can see that red line is all the way back to where it was. people who are still not back are people at the other extreme who have high school but no college. this is a bit of a mystery. we had theories during the so-called great resignation about whether it was the benefits being too high or the covid fears or whatever. most of the issues have gone past us and, yet, we still don't

have a full workforce back. >> yeah. so what are the leading theories on why high school graduates with no college degrees are not going back to the workforce? it is certainly not because the jobs aren't there. this isn't 1974 or 2009. there are people begging for jobs. in service industry, any restaurant, any car dealership, you name it, they're begging for workers in jobs that just don't require a college degree. >> it's interesting, joe. as i said, and we've talked about this a lot in the past, the early stages or during the pandemic, there were some reasons we could all relate to. again, health fears. you did have the stimulus checks. so on and so forth. but why they're not coming back now -- and a lot of people saying that i don't want to work in a fast food restaurant anymore. i'm sure we can relate to that,

not wanting to work in a fast food restaurant. but at some point, you'd think people wanted and needed to earn and living and would come back. this is one of the mystery. there's another factor going on out here which is immigration. immigration is playing a significant role also in the worker shortage. during covid, essentially, our immigration offices had to shut down overseas and couldn't really process visas. this was not really a policy issue by donald trump or anybody else. it was simply a function of covid. so if you look at these two periods, 29 months each, before the pandemic, after the pandemic, you can see the shortfall in workers being issued visas. of course, i think this summer, a lot of us who traveled around have seen the shortage of the summer workers who come on visas. the upshot of all this is another 800,000 or so workers who would have normally been here but are not now here. now, this situation is normalizing itself. immigration is getting back. i'm talking about legal

immigration, of course. it is getting back to normal levels. nonetheless, there's a hole in the size of the workforce. >> wait, so you're saying -- again, we're not talking about the chaos at the southern border which i am against. i believe in strong immigration enforcement on the borders. but i've heard from one small business owner after another, one family restaurant owner after another, that one of the reasons why they're not able to stay open seven days a week, why half of the tables in their restaurant are not served, is because the immigration levels for legal immigrants, for work visas are way down. are you saying that that situation is starting to be rectified for small business owners? >> i think certainly by next summer, i think it will be. the problem you talk about, we all saw this summer, any of us who traveled anywhere, anyone at

resort locations which normally depend on a lot of these guest workers. saw the shortages. it was really sad. you had small businesses that have a short season in the resort areas who need to be open seven days a week, two, three meals a day, and couldn't get the staff to do it and couldn't do it. therefore, are having a tougher summer of it. yes, i do believe that situation will be normalized by a combination of covid passing but also, frankly, simply better government in washington, better administration, more able to execute these things. but, joe, to your point, there are huge, huge number of jobs that are still out there and untilled. we had a report earlier this week that called about how many open jobs there are. you can see on the next chart, basically, we had twice as many -- we have twice as many jobs open at the moment as we have workers to occupy them. that's the turquoise line on the

left. you can see how much it dropped and how much it came back. now, a good consequence of that, we all want wage growth, we've been getting a lot of wage growth. you can see that on the right. to your point, it is not surprising that since the people of high school and less are the ones that dropped out many than others, their wage growth is actually faster than others. this is the shortage of workers in the service industries. so we all want wage growth, but wage growth does become inflation at some point. that's the goldilocks spot we want to try to get into it, not too hot, not too cold. look for the total number of jobs today in the jobs report, but we also want to see who is coming back to work and who isn't. that is one of the core issues behind our inflation problem. >> we'll be watching for those numbers to come in. "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner, thank you very much for being on this morning. it's just past the top of the hour now. jonathan lemire, katty kay, and eugene robinson are still with

us. joining the conversation, we have the host of the podcast "on brand with donny deutsch," donny deutsch. and msnbc contributor mike barnicle joins us. >> mike, i wanted to ask you, did they try to get you to go into the game last night as a relief pitcher? >> oh. >> i know they ended up with two guys from out in the parking lot, the parking attendants. they only gave up two runs in the seventh and eighth. still won, but did you get the call from the bullpen? >> mm-hmm. >> joe, i was all geared up to come in in the tenth inning but, of course, we pulled out a victory in the bottom of the ninth. it saved my arm. i could give a couple innings tonight. i was ready. i was ready. >> he was right there. >> that sent a strong message that we should remember. the strong message is that, thankfully, there are only 30 games left in this miserable season. >> thank god. >> mike! >> thank god. let's turn back to president

joe biden's dire warning about threats to american democracy. in an address to the nation last night, it was a rare primetime address, and the president used independence hall as the backdrop to speak directly about the dangers posed by the trump-backed wing of the republican party. >> i believe america is at an inflection point. one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that is to come after. now, america must choose to move forward or to move backwards. to build a future or obsess about the past. to be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness. maga republicans have made their choice. they embrace anger. they thrive on chaos. they live not in the light of

truth but in the shadow of lies. but together, together, we can choose a different path. we can choose a better path. forward to the future. a future of possibility. a future to build and dream and hope. we're on that path moving ahead. i know this nation. i know you, the american people. i know your courage. i know your hearts. i know our history. we can't let the integrity of our elections be undermined. for that is a path to chaos. look, i know politics can be fierce and mean and nasty in america. i get it. i believe in the give and take of politics, in disagreement, debate, and dissent. we're a big, complicated country, but democracy endures

only if we the people respect the guardrails of the republic. only if we the people accept the results of free and fair elections. only if we the people see politics not as total war but mediation of our differences. democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election, either they win or they were cheated. that's what the maga republicans are today. >> gene robinson, let's establish the facts here before people who may be watching say, you know, maybe he is overstating his case. i just wrote it down in two seconds. violence threats against law enforcement officers, going out against fbi agents and their families while republican members of congress are calling them the gestapo, communists, wolves. mika begging them to stop that sort of language because it

would lead to violence. sure enough, that very day, a cincinnati fbi bureau attack. senators threatening of riots in the street. republican senators, senior republican senators threatening riots in the streets if donald trump is -- if the law is applied to him. we have other senior republicans lying about irs employees, saying they're going to come to iowa with ar-15s, weapons of war, kick down door of iowa residents and shoot them. you have fox news hosts saying the irs government employees are going to go out to middle america, small business owners with ar-15s and kill americans. this is dangerous, heated rhett rhetoric which, of course, all starts with the former president and ends with the former president who, of course, gleefully repeats what lindsey graham and other senior senators are saying about violence in the

streets. republicans, if they don't get their way, are going to riot. if they don't win elections, they'll riot at the capitol. if donald trump is held to account for breaking the law, if that's what the justice department finds that he did, there will be riots and violence in the streets by republicans. because they don't think donald trump is -- should be held accountable and he is above the law. >> that's exactly what they're saying. you know, fact check true. what was untrue about anything the president said last night, he was absolutely right in describing this incredible situation the country finds itself in. you know, he was basically saying, look, people, this isn't us. unfortunately, it is us. it is donald trump, yes, but it is the people who are following

him. that is a sizable chunk. fortunately not a majority, but a way-too-large minority of the country is going down this authoritarian path. of course, republican officials are all -- they're already saying, oh, it was political. it was a political speech. well, you know, if he had wanted to give a strictly political speech for the midterm, it would have been all about the dobbs decision. you know, that's the issue that is -- really seems to be mobilizing, particularly women, to go to the votes in the special elections that we've seen so far, that seems to be really driving turnout for democrats. if you wanted to give a strictly political speech, you would have focused much more on that. i think this is something that joe biden deeply believes, that

this is an inflection point for the country, and our democracy really is in peril. you know, it was, as i said earlier, kind of a wartime speech. this is a battle for the soul of the country. >> yeah, mike, you're in touch with the white house a lot. why did they decide to make this speech, have the president make this speech? >> joe, i've been told for months now that the president has wanted to make a speech like this, not necessarily this speech, but a speech with these themes for many, many months. this speech is who joe biden is. it was a day of contrasts, oddly enough, when he gave the speech. i mean, he stood up last night in philadelphia and said two things that are almost bumper sticker ready. this is not normal. that's one thing. the other thing that he said, and it sort of underlines where we are as a country, you can't love your country only when you

win. there is another bumper sticker that amppies to what is going on today in this country. the president of the united states, while he was in philadelphia giving the speech, he did it a few hours after the former guy on a radio interview said he would pardon people involved in the january 6th incitement of riots. he would pardon them and would apologize to them. so he is going to pardon and apologize to people who beat police officers with tire irons, fire extinguishers. he is going to pardon them. there's the contrast as to where we are today as a country. the president defined himself even further as the kind of person he is last night with that speech. in direct contrast to the former guy, he further defined himself in that radio interview. >> mike, you bring up a great point. let's show that part of president biden's address to the nation last night. take a look. oh, we're going -- sorry, alex.

we're going to show trump on the radio. >> i will tell you, i will look very, very favorably about full pardons if i decide to run and if i win. i will be looking very, very strongly about pardons. >> amen. >> full pardons. >> well deserved. >> i think that's probably going to be the best. even if they go for two months or six months, you know, they have sentences that go longer than that. >> years and years. >> we'll be looking very, very seriously about full pardons. we can't let that happen. what's happened here, and i mean full pardons with an apology. >> amen. >> they've been so badly treated. i know that's just my little list. it is a big subject for you, and it is a big subject for me, too. >> amen. >> whoa. that was actually former president trump, obviously, and that is a special level of crazy. not in a good way, joe. >> well -- >> talking about january 6th

rioters, people who desecrated our capitol. people died. they were threatening the lives of our lawmakers. this man wants to run for president again and pardon them, and he is saying this to a maga right supporter who is peppering his words with the words "amen." >> you know -- >> this is crazy cult crap. >> well, you know, i've been saying for five years, he is an authoritarian in training. now, you could say he is an authoritarian in waiting. >> mm-hmm. >> he's hoping that there are enough people who will riot in the streets. he's hoping there are enough people who will commit violent acts against the government. who will place him back in power. you know, donny deutsch, the fact that he continues. the people he called patriots on

january 6th after they had a riot, launched a riot against the united states capitol, the people's house. the center of democratic freedom in the world, he called them patriots. now, he's talking about a full pardon and forgiveness for people who beat the hell out of cops. who beat the hell out of law enforcement officers. here we have again, and this explains why the republican candidates, the maga republican candidates especially that trump endorsed are having such a hard time. you know, in 2020, they were very successful, talking about de-funding the police. suggesting that, somehow, republicans were friends of law enforcement officers. since then, we've seen law enforcement officers battered and brutalized by donald trump supporters with flags, with pepper spray, with bear spray, you name it.

now, you have republicans attacking law enforcement officers on the federal level, calling the fbi the gestapo. calling them communists. calling them wolves who want to devour americans. the radicalism is very dangerous. it is violent rhetoric. it is meant to incite violence against law enforcement officers like it did january 6th. this is exactly where we are. if donald trump or any of his supporters wonder why his poll numbers are slipping and wondering why his candidates are not doing as well as they expected this year, they're all self-inflicted wounds. again, you've got people on the hard right who were saying this. it's not the democrats that are inflicting these wounds. these are self-inflicted wounds. every single day, he does something else to hurt his cause. >> that's why joe biden's speech was so brilliant last night.

and bravo to joe biden. i've been very, very critical that he doesn't have the mojo, doesn't have the passion, is not hitting the nerve. he nailed it last night. he did something, joe, that you and i have been asking for, brand the republican party overall. make it a referendum on crazy, a referendum on semi-fascism, a referendum on violence, a referendum on the end of democracy, a referendum on a woman's right to choose. all of these things which is extreme, which is very right wing, which is frightening, he did it and branded the entire -- although he was clever to say, look, this is not everybody, but, yet, make it a referendum on the extremism, the semi-fascism. there was also something in the visual, the ominous red in the background. i don't know what was intentional and what was not, but kind of the backdrop set the seriousness of it, the ominous of it. there was a certain tone there. but what he did last night in a very single-minded way, finally,

and i think people at home, probably, there was a sigh of relief as you were watching it, finally set up the parameters. don't hold anything back. saying, you know what, this is now a referendum on extreme, crazy radicalism and the end of democracy. set the stage that way. to me, that trumps, no pun intended, inflation and anything else. i think he nailed it. >> one of the things, clearly, the president was trying to do, lemire, was separate maga republicans from the rest of republicans. whether he hopes there are votes to be picked up in the midterm elections, perhaps down in 2024 from the center of the country that isn't quite decided yet, whether there are many people left in that category, i don't know, but do you think -- and i know the white house was weighing this up beforehand, how they could thread that needle. do you think the speech was effective in doing that? making it clear he was talking about maga republicans without, amongst some republicans, you

know, making them think, there is a president just being divisive and that's some of the critique you've heard. there is joe biden being divisive again. you could even hurt off some of the people in the center of the republican party by doing that. >> yeah, that was the question in the hours before the speech. who exactly was its audience? for democrats, it could fire them up. they have had a strong summer, and they're certainly deeply concerned about the future of democracy. that's one audience. there are going to be some republicans, the maga republicans, who weren't going to listen to anything he said. white house aides were telling me, yes, indeed, katty, they were trying to squarely aim at those independents, the swing voters who went for obama, went for trump, went for biden in those cycles, who now are potentially in play for 2022 as they worry about things like inflation as well as assaults on democracy. but also meant to be a permission structure for republicans. some republicans who are just fed up, who are just tired of -- they have liked some things trump did.

maybe they liked his economic policy. maybe they agree with the party on policy issues, but they are tired of the chaos. they're tired of the turmoil. of course, turned off by what happened january 6th. though the timing of the speech was not planned, it was not linked to the events rounding the fbi search of mar-a-lago, that also provided the backdrop here. it was a reminder. this former president may have broken the law. at minimum, it is a reminder of the chaos and tumult that surrounded his term. to donny's point, there was the alarm red backdrop. the president flanked by two marines. underscoring the severity and the seriousness of his message, saying, look, our entire democracy here is at stake. >> it's taken -- biden is taking republican branding, trump branding, maga, and he is using it against them, calling them maga republicans in a very negative light. republicans will have to ask themselves the question, do they

want to be maga republicans? in another radio interview, trump spoke about the search of his florida estate for classified documents that he took with him from the white house, complaining the fbi agents made him look like a slob. >> what they did here is they broke into the house, and they went to an area, that area is my office, i presume. and everything's neat. you know, i'm a very neat person. everything's clean. everything's buttoned up. they took documents and put them all over the floor. then they deceptively put out that picture. a lot of people think that when you walk into my office, i have confidential documents or whatever it may be, all declassified, but i had confidential documents spread out all over my floor. and like a slob, like i'm sitting there reading these documents all day long or somebody else would be. it's so -- it's so dishonest when you look at it.

and so people were concerned because they said, "gee, you know, that's a strange scene. you look at the floor and see documents, cover sheets of documents." >> i mean, the question -- >> where do you begin? >> mike barnicle, how stupid does he think his maga followers are? obviously, he thinks they're pretty stupid. to suggest that a scene where the fbi gets evidence, puts it on the floor, takes pictures of it, that they were somehow suggesting that, you know, he just left stuff on the floor like that is so stupid. of course he doesn't even believe it. it just shows you, he still has no defense. he still hasn't explained why he has the top secret documents. still hasn't explained why he lied to the fbi and justice department about returning them when he just had as many hidden at mar-a-lago. he's got no defense. host coming up with these

preposterous attacks. >> well, that's the point, joe, isn't it? i mean, what the president does now each and every day with these interviews and pronouncements and his statements, is he further defines himself as being so far out on a certain edge, away from normalcy, and he did it just then. his principal concern in the radio narrative we just listened to was how this made him look. his appearance. he's not a slob. he is a neat person. he puts everything away. his office is neat. he says nothing about the documents involved. top secret documents, documents that could have gotten american spies extracted from various stations around the world, whether it's in russia or saudi arabia, because of the danger that the release of these documents or the openness of these documents would mean to people's lives. agents of the united states government. the other aspect of it that is

interesting is that trump seems not to understand, as biden does, that we're not talking here really about a political party. although it is a part of a political party. we're talking about a cult within a political party. that's the definition of what is going on in the country right now politically. the republicans have a cult within themselves, and they don't know how to deal with this cult. it's a dangerous cult. it's almost at the trip wire of exploing our democracy. we see it every day with inciteful language, with the refusal still, still, after all these many months, is to concede the fact that joseph r. biden is the legitimately elected president of the united states. >> let's bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian. ken, there were court proceedings yesterday pertaining to the trump team's requests for a special master, among other

things. what did we learn? >> good morning, mika. well, the judge in that case has not ruled. she says she's going to rule in writing at a later time. i'll tell ya the most important thing i took from the hearing, the brief the trump lawyers filed before the hearing, and the comments you just heard there from donald trump. if you notice, donald trump just kind of threw in, as an aside, he said, "declassified." he is still saying that he declassified all those documents. he has been saying that for weeks, as have his allies. the president had the authority to declassify everything, and all the documents they took out of the white house were declassified. now, as we've tried to report this out, we found no evidence that that is true. we have spoken to former senior trump administration national security officials who say they do not believe it is true. john bolton told me he thought that was a lie, an absolute lie. so we don't think that is true. guess what? his lawyer are not arguing that. they did not argue in the brief this material was declassified.

they didn't argue that in court yesterday. to the contrast, what they've said is, look, this was a dispute about presidential records. they actually compared it to an overdue library book. they said, you know, the president had these records that maybe he should have given back. of course, the lawyers said in their brief, of course they would have contained highly doc. that's the nature of presidential records. leaves you wondering, as you just said, what exactly is the defense here? i didn't discern one from the court hearing yesterday. the other interesting thing that came out of the hearing is, donald trump has lawyers who are former federal prosecutors. one was the head of the justice department's organized crime unit. they went into court yesterday and essentially accused the justice department of bad faith and wrongdoing. it is remarkable. you don't see that a lot in normal criminal cases, with no evidence whatsoever. they, you know, put that in front of the judge, urging her to appoint a special master. the end of the day, she may

appoint a special master tolimi documents that may be subject to attorney/client privilege, but it is not going to impede the investigation. the fbi said they already looked at the documents they seized at mar-a-lago. at this point, as far as i'm concerned, the more important questions in this information are going to come from the witnesses that they are speaking to confidentially, who can answer questions like, who brought the documents there? did donald trump have them? did he see them? what was his state of mind? why did some documents get to donald trump's office? who knew about that? those are questions not going to be answered by the documents. we know what they were, highly classified. they'll be answered by the witnesses the fbi are interviewing in this case. >> the appointment of the special master, thought it may slow down the process, is questionable at best. you do wonder if we get past labor day and there is no indictment of donald trump, whether there will be an indictment after labor day in an

election year. i think it is highly unlikely, considering that donald trump is considered the de facto head of the republican party with an election a couple months ago. ken dilanian, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. donny, we haven't talked too much over the past week or two about the democratic party. you and i have said, just had blistering criticism about them as being the gang that couldn't shoot straight. going out holding press conferences for a year and a half, attacking each other. not being smart enough to get behind closed doors to have their negotiations out of earshot of the press, so they didn't seem like they were fighting each other. but we've seen one thing after another after another where the democrats have shown they're able to not only pass legislation, and more legislation than any president since, i guess, bill clinton, but they've also been able to answer back to criticism.

they've been able to answer back to extreme supreme court decisions where you have concurring decisions questioning the right of privacy for millions and millions of americans. then last night, joe biden, i know a lot of people in the democratic base that have not been positive toward joe biden were some of the people that said this was his best speech ever. and he needed to tell the truth. how are the democrats doing now two months away from an election? >> they're doing better than they've been. they finally got it right. you know, literally, stay single minded right now. biden laid out the democratic platform into the midterms and into 2024. it's there. mika, i think, really said it the most simplistic, really, really smart way. basically, they took trump's branding and did a brand back on

top of them. trump, you own the republican party? god bless. it is your party. it's what the republicans stand for, the maga party. i think biden really laid it out. the democrats have to just stay in this lane. it's there. it's been put out there. >> mm-hmm. >> do not stray from it. the playbook is there, and it is single minded. it trumps every other argument the republicans can come up with. >> it's become a very powerful argument. that is for sure. donny deutsch, thank you very much. coming up, what impact could president biden's pointed speech on maga republicans have on the midterms? senator kiersten gillibrand and congresswoman stacey plaskett will join us. also, nearly 200,000 people in jackson, mississippi, who are entering their second month without clean drinking water. after a longstanding issue at one of the city's water

treatment facilities were made worse by heavy rain and flooding last weekend. mississippi governor tate reeves has deployed more than 500 national guard troops at water distribution sites across the state. he announced yesterday one of the broken pumps at the treatment facility had been replaced with the others expected to be fixed sometime next week. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. so i go triple... with trelegy. with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler,... it's the only once-daily treatment for adults that takes triple action against asthma symptoms. trelegy helps make breathing easier,... improves lung function,... and lasts for 24 hours. go triple... go trelegy. because asthma has taken enough. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler... for sudden breathing problems. trelegy contains a medicine that increases risk of hospitalizations and death from asthma problems when used alone.

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versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. people in this business, the business i'm in, have been trying to figure out how to motivate voters 18 to 24 forever. >> maybe this will do it. >> every consultant trying to sell you an idea tries to sell you senior politics and, guess what, they don't. >> former republican governor chris christie of new jersey on abc news this past sunday, saying if president biden hoped to woo younger voters on his

decision to cancel student debt, it was wishful thinking. well before the president's move on student loans, generation z show up to the polls the past two national elections. in record numbers. with the midterms now a couple months away, will that trend continue? what issues will drive their vote? this morning, we're kicking off a series, diving into those very questions about gen-z. "morning joe" reporter daniela pierre bravo has a look at the young activists who played a key role in biden's 2020 win, and what they're thinking headed into november. >> reporter: generation z, those born between 1997 and 2012, have quickly become one of the most sought after group of voters today. these young americans in their teens and 20s are more politically active than their parents were at the same age.

they voted at record levels in the last midterm and presidential elections. they helped propel biden into the white house and played a key role in helping democrats capture majorities in the house and senate in 2020. and with the midterms just around the corner, the gen-z vote will be just as crucial. gen-z for change is an organization that rallied around president biden and is trying to bring young people to the polls. >> speaking to young people and say, you have to get out and vote in the races that are often separated by a few thousand votes. it is very, very important. >> reporter: they're passionate about climate change and gun control. while the white house celebrated wins on both, gen-zers are demanding more. reproductive rights is one of the top issues gen-z voters will be looking to have addressed in the midterms and beyond. for voters like nora and isabel, who live in spring states, the fallout from the overturn of roh versus wade is top of mind.

>> it was a big thing, that i think we'll get a lot of young women to the polls if they weren't already going. >> i couldn't help but feel for the millions of women who needed abortions that now couldn't, or even the medical people who don't know whether to provide care or not to a dying patient. they don't know if they'll be sued for it or not. >> reporter: the decision on roe could motivate more young people than ever before to the polls. what have you seen in terms of excitement over whether or not your generation, gen-z, is actually going to show up to the midterms? >> i think generation-z is definitely going to show up. i will be very surprised, and i am quite confident that this year, we'll have record high turnout because generation-z is absolutely, very, very angry. >> reporter: sant santiago meyr is the founder of a platform for gen-zers. he has a message.

>> when young people vote, they flip elections. they're, in large part, why donald trump isn't still in the house. >> joining us now, director of polling at the institute of politics at harvard university, john della volpe, msnbc political contributor and author of the book "fight: how gen-z is channelling their fear and passion to save america." great to have you on. >> great to have you on, john. i want to follow up on what chris christie said. it is what i said during my political career. i'd go to colleges. you know, when i started running, i was 29 years old. i went in going, gee, younger voters are going to vote for he and older voters won't. it was the opposite. older voters voted for me overwhelmingly, and the younger voters didn't go to vote. after two, three terms, i'd speak at colleges and high schools. people would ask, why don't you

advertise on our radio stations? i said, because you don't vote. i would love -- i'll show you the numbers. you guys don't vote. you need to vote. every time you hear somebody saying, oh, this year is when the young people will get out and vote, i always say, you're going to leave politicians waiting at the altar because they never show up. but i take it you are here, and we had that package, because this political reality just may be changing. tell us about it. >> well, i think you're right, joe. your experience is right. we're in the 1990s, a generation ago when younger people were gen-x and some baby boomers, right? that's the issue, i think, with governor christie. he's thinking about generations past. everything that so many baby boomers think about young people is just wrong. we saw that package, that they

are more angry, more anxious, but they are also more committed to justice. in a 2018 midterm election, where there had been an average of 16% or 17% turnout to the previous 30 years, we saw a doubling, 35%, 36% turnout. we saw record levels of engagement in 2020. a young voter in college voted at the same level as the average of all americans in 2020. joe biden is now president of the united states today with young people, specifically in the five battleground states. politicians, republicans, specifically democrats, they ignore them at their peril. what we've seen, joe, over the last several months, is not only them committed to voting, even before dobbs. there was a level of commitment to voting that we talked about from the april poll. now, it's supercharged on the combination of what the supreme court did but also the positive work that democrats have done around gun violence, the inflation reduction act and, of

course, student loans a week ago. >> if you talk about the things done that may appeal to younger voters, and i'm sure student loans, younger voters were on the minds of people in the white house when they were thinking of the student loan legislation, understandably. one of the things i was hearing, it was the inflation reduction act and specifically the issue of climate change. perhaps that is the single overriding issue that gen-z is concerned about. they are right to be concerned about it. they are inheriting a mess we have left them. is that something, do you think, that if you were really trying to rally young voters and there was a single issue you were going to try to break the historic pattern joe talks about, what would it be? what would be the issue to get them to the polls? >> i don't know if it is one issue. climate change is there. what is critically important to understand in young people, and

that was with the student loan debt, keeping your word. have a clear set of values that align with a generation or two generations of voters, baby boomers, 40% of the electorate will be millenials or gen-z, and give specific examples. as president biden said last night, not just of words but actions that affect a generation. climate change, gun violence, student loan debt. these are all examples of government, specifically a party keeping their word, building trust. that's how you encourage generations to vote. >> all right. we should mention again that this is part of a series. john is going to be looking at young republicans coming up, specific battleground states. director of polling at the institute of politics at harvard university, john della volpe, thank you for being on this morning. ahead, we'll stay with the youth movement and a kid caster with a bright future in the

booth. >> keith has ketchup on his hot dog. do not tell me you put ketchup on your hot dog. >> no way. >> what do you put on it? >> mustard and sauerkraut until the end. >> oh, my gosh. eddie krause impressed a lot of people, while calling part of a mets game on sportsnet, new york. he joins us next. plus, twitter finally gives the tweeters what they want, an edit button. but it is still not going to make everybody happy. we'll explain why. "morning joe" is coming right back. snp sn age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. "peace of mind." such a big, beautiful idea.

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kidcasters we've had, you're the most experienced. take it away. >> all right. now alonso going to take the first pitch a little outside. ryan feltner, first time pitching against the mets. he has a 2-5 record all time in the mlb. two seasons played. the fire, he's going to drive one and it is going to get through! shortstop unable to get it. alonso on first. now feltner fires the 3-2. driven deep to left. pete returns to first base. i love baseball. i played it my entire life, but, you know, being in the booth with you guys, this is one of the best things i'll ever get to do. as now we have a line to center. mcneil trying to push to third. he is going to get there. now runners on first and third.

naquin addresses the runner to third. a strike wraps up the inning. >> eddie, that was fantastic. >> that was so good. >> wait, why is he so good? he's so good. 12-year-old eddie kraus with the play-by-play for the mets broadcast last week on sportsnet new york. eddie was this year's winner of the channel's kidcaster competition. i think he could win adult caster, too. he joins us now on "morning joe." mike barnicle, talk to me about this guy. take it away. >> i was watch the game. eddie's debut. eddie is a better prepared broadcaster. doesn't talk over everything as some broadcasters do. he could do the job for most major league teams right now today. eddie, you were there in the booth. >> right now. >> with gary, keith, ronnie.

they are, arguably, among the best broadcasting teams in major league baseball. you fit right in. my question to you is, how did you prepare for this? why weren't you more nervous? you didn't seem nervous at all. really, you've never put ketchup on a hot dog? >> well, right away, ketchup on a hot dog is an immediate no. mustard and sauerkraut until the end. i said it during the broadcast, and i'll always stick to that. as far as preparing for the game, i had game notes ready. i actually have them here. the mets media guy notes. i got them signed here. here is gary. then you've got keith down here. ron at the bottom. but i actually had the mets media notes. then flip it to the inside, we got battle lineups for both teams, the pitchers, feltner and degrom. flip it to the back, we have the

defense charts. as far as the guides go, that's how i do it. also preparing, i practice almost every night. you know, shut off the volume on the tv. not the met games, they're too good for that. but any game i can find, you know, just muting it and it. >> what is going on? >> yeah. >> amazing. >> please don't do any red sox games. but, eddie, let me ask you something else here. at one point, i don't know whether it was gary or ron who asked you the question, but the question was given a career choice down the road, if it came down to you becoming a major league baseball player or the broadcaster for a major league baseball team, you said you'd choose the broadcasting job over the major league baseball job. really? >> 100%. i mean, like i said, love baseball, played it all my life, just the experience of being in the booth with them, it just

further made me want to drive to this and want to chase my dreams. this is what i wanted to be since i was about 4 or 5 years old. i wanted to do play by play for major league sports teams. it's a dream come true. that's what i want to be when i grow up. >> eddie, this is jonathan. this is wonderful. congratulations. you did a terrific job. let's talk about those next steps. if you want to do that when you're growing up, are you going to keep practicing? do you hope to go to school to study broadcasting? how do you think -- this is a very good mets team. how do you think they'll fair this october? >> i mean, i'm going to hope that they stay top two in the nl. i think the mets will take the second bye and go, you know, run a bit. i think they'll make a deep run. this team has all the star power they need, they'll make a very, very deep run. as far as my future in broadcasting, i attend the

hofstra broadcasting camps every year. i love those camps. there's so many great people you get to meet, interview and talk to. it's crazy because there's some notable people from mlb network and nhl network, and you're getting to interview them at such a young age. that's really cool. my junior high also has a radio club, which i'm pumped for. and my high school has a very good broadcasting program. that's what i'm set on now as far as school. but i don't really know about college yet. i go to the hofstra camps, so that would be nice to go to. know a lot of people there. not really sure about hofstra klemm. >> eddie kraus, you made our day. thank you. it's so wonderful to see you enjoying yourself. you can worry about college later. this is amazing. thank you very much for being on. >> thank you so much. >> you're welcome. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe."

>> you think pete will be running here? >> what do you think, eddie? you think they'll send him 3-2? >> i don't know. he's not the fastest guy on the team, sorry, pete. >> lower 15th percentile. >> when you're in the media, you have to tell the truth. >> it does not escape our attention that you're far better dressed than we are tonight. that's one spiffy tie. >> thank you. it was between two ties. i let me family decide because they were a big part of this >> was the other one was orange and blue as well? >> it was. >> do you have a whole closet full of orange and blue? >> essentially, you know. you never know when you'll be doing something like this. >> gary does, too. >> we'll have to compare our closets one day. do you play ball at all? >> i do play. >> what's your position? >> i catch, pitch and play the outfield. >> obviously right-handed then. >> i am. >> you're not like keith where you were restricted. >> i'm not like keith. >> what's your favorite position? >> probably catching.

>> really? you're involved in every pitch. every play. >> good call. eddie, keith has ketchup on his hot dog. do not tell me you put ketchup on your hot dog. >> no way. what do you put on your hot dog? >> mustard and sauerkraut to the end. >> no relish -- >> um -- >> not relish. >> i don't -- >> he's a kid, he's mustard and sauerkraut. >> great having you here. great tie. great voice. great demeanor. couldn't have asked for anything more. >> thank you. you're going to go far. keep at it. it's the all-new subway series menu. twelve irresistible new subs. the most epic sandwich roster ever created. ♪♪ it's subway's biggest refresh yet!

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i believe america is at an inflection point. one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that is to come after. now, america must choose to move forward or to move backwards.

to build a future or obsess about the past. to be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness. >> it's one minute before the top of the third hour of "morning joe." president biden there in a prime time address warning americans of the danger posed by donald trump and his most loyal followers. welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, september 2nd. jonathan and katty kay are still with us. let's start with that address by president biden last night calling former president trump and his followers a threat to democracy. peter alexander has the latest. >> reporter: with philadelphia's independence hall as a back drop, president biden last night warning american democracy is under assault by the forces of extremism led by his predecessor, donald trump.

>> too much of what's happening today is not normal. donald trump and the maga republicans represent an extremism that are a threat to our democracy. >> reporter: this speech marks a sharp new tone for him as president. he long avoided mentioning mr. trump by name but has now escalated his fierce criticism against a military back drop. >> there's no question that the republican party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by donald trump and the maga republicans. that is a threat to the country. >> reporter: the president only briefly mentioning democratic achievements. >> maga forces are determined to take this country backwards. backwards to an america where

there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception. >> reporter: protesters tried to interrupt the president's speech. >> empathy that fuels democracy. >> reporter: the president hitting back. >> good manners is nothing they ever suffered from. >> reporter: the fiery speech showing the growing concern about trump allies continued denial of the 2020 results. >> you can't love your country only when you win. >> reporter: top republican kevin mccarthy accusing the president of dividing americans. >> joe biden and the radical left in washington are dismantling americans democracy before our very eyes. >> reporter: and former president trump later responding on his social media site calling the speech awkward and angry. adding if he doesn't want to make america great again, then he should not be representing the united states of america. >> bizarre from a man who is

under investigation right now from a republican appointed fbi director. by the way, under investigation by someone he appointed. >> yeah. >> to be fbi director. that was peter alexander reporting. katty kay, an awful lot to look at in that speech. i found it fascinating he did talk about the dobbs decision. he talked about the fact that you have donald trump and donald trump's republican party who spent a generational fight to take away a woman's right, make choices over their own health care, over their own lives and decisions. it's really been magnified, the consequences of that over the past several months, as we learn of 10-year-old girls that are raped, that have to flee ohio because they fear that ohio is going to force them to have the rapist's baby. you have the michigan gop nominee who is saying that a

14-year-old girl raped by her uncle is a perfect example of why there can be no exceptions and why the centralized state has to force a teenage girl who has been raped to have a forced birth. >> yeah. there are various reasons why america's democracy looks like it's in peril at the moment, joe. some of it is around the idea that the election was stolen and what that has done to the republican party and the fact that donald trump is trying to put into place people who would have influence over the 2024 election and potentially be able to manipulate the outcome of the 2024 election in his favor, if he wanted them to do that. that's a structural threat. but then there's another threat to democracy which is is democracy as it exists in america today reflecting the will of the people? when you look at issues like dobbs, abortion, when you look at issues like gun control, it's clear that the apparatus of

american government and democracy is not reflective of where the american public is. the supreme court has made changes that the vast majority of the american people do not agree with. and in that case, you also have to wonder, well, is the democratic system working? i think you have these two things coming together in this really extraordinary moment in american politics. the issues around election fraud and the issues around election reliability and whether the elections could be trusted, which i think both republicans and democrats could end up in a position thinking the elections can't be trusted, and the issues of extremism in policy, and they're coming together to produce this moment where democracy looks fragile. is it working for american people? is it reliable? i think joe biden was right last night when he says, you know, we've taken democracy in this country for granted for over 200 yards. don't be so sure. you can't take your eye off the

ball and think it's always going to be there just because it has been there. things can change. that, for me, is what this speech was really about. president biden's blistering speech comes after a pivotal day in court for former president trump's attorneys facing off against lawyers for the justice department over the search at mar-a-lago. at the hearing yesterday in florida, federal judge aileen cannon said she would make public a more detailed list of what the fbi seized from mar-a-lago. trump's lawyers requested a more specific inventory of what investigators took, claiming the version they got from the government was too vague. in a court filing earlier this week, the doj stated it was ready for the possibility that the judge would order a more detailed list be unsealed. it's unclear when the further documentation will be released. also yesterday, judge cannon did

not immediately rule on the trump lawyer's requests to appoint a special master to review all of the materials seized in the august 8th search to determine whether any of it includes potential attorney-client privilege or executive privilege issues. mark caputo joins us now. what did we learn yesterday, especially from the trump team, reaction, characterizing this, sort of overdue library books, and other kind of -- i think it's fair to say bizarre defenses. >> their defenses -- we got a glimpse of what the defense would be if donald trump is indicted, which is a combination of things, like this is some big misunderstanding, this is a records issue, and this is totally uncharted waters that we're in, and they're going to fight this as often as possible all the way up to the supreme

court wherever they can. so, to that end, judge cannon yesterday, there was an interesting exchange with one of the attorneys from the government in discussing this issue of executive privilege and a case out of the u.s. supreme court. nixon versus gsa. and the government is relying on this heavily not to allow for or to attempt to deny specific master access to the various documents. and the judge at one point told the doj lawyer, look, this is essentially not settled law. that is this has not been fully explored, this issue. so as i hear that, that is a way to kind of tee up this case or this issue potentially to wind up before the u.s. supreme court where, as we know, a majority of the justices are republican or were appointed by republicans. that's probably a glimpse of the things that we'll see to come. >> mark, one of the other topics

discussed yesterday beyond the possibility of a special master, it does seem like it may still be going that direction, is the idea of putting in public a more detailed list of what was seized from -- by agents there at the palm beach estate. give us a sense as to when we might see that list and do we have an idea of just how detailed and therefore potentially more damming to trump that list will be? >> i'm being led to believe it's not detailed. it's not the stuff we'll want to see. we'll want to see, like, okay, which foreign leaders potentially were in these classified documents he allegedly had or whatever. however, it's going to be more detailed. how much? we have no clue. the judge yesterday said she would start to unseal it after the court hearing. today is technically after the court hearing. we'll see. i think a broader issue here is what you're also going to see in cases, again, if there's a

prosecution of something called graymail, which is where a defendant in a case, where there's classified information, tries to push the release of that classified information knowing the government doesn't want it released. and that can sort of psych the government out of wanting to release that highly classified or sensitive information. now there is a classified information procedures act, which allows for the courts to kind of go through and handle these issues and release redacted information. but the fact of the matter is we've never had a former president and future presidential candidate, likely future presidential candidate, on trial, especially over stuff like this regarding issues related to his presidency or his past presidency. so, we're -- as i said, we're in uncharted waters. we should just expect a lot more of this. whether it's in the -- in motions or in appeals or, again, sending things all the way up to the supreme court if it starts

to really steamroll in that direction. >> so, in a radio interview yesterday president trump railed against this, and he has met with some of the defendants in the insurrection in his office and suggested he would grant full pardons to convicted january 6th rioters if he were to win back the white house. >> i want to ask you, i'm certainly concerned about these january 6th defendants. there are hundreds of people who have been dragged through hell and some are still locked up in the d.c. gitmo. i'm sickened, sir. how do we right this wrong? what can you do? >> so, i met with a number of -- i'm financially supporting people that are incredible. they were in my office two days

ago. it's very much on my mind. it's a disgrace what they've done to them. what they've done to these people is disgraceful. i will look favorably about full pardons if i decide to run and if i win, i will be looking very, very strongly at pardons. full pardons. >> well-deserved. >> i think that's going to be the best. even if they go for two months or six months, you know, they have sentences that go a lot longer than that. >> years and years. >> we'll be looking seriously at full pardons because we can't let that happen. what's happened here -- i mean full pardons with an apology to many. >> amen. >> they've been so badly -- so badly treated. i know that's a big subject for you, it's a big subject for me, too. >> amen. >> mark, when i was talking to the smartest people in the florida republican party who

really understood why donald trump did as well as he did in 2020 and they got into the data, they said a lot of it had to do with law enforcement. including in the hispanic community. they noted there were a lot of people in the hispanic community who had family members who were police officers, who were in the fire department, et cetera. and so they really thought that the defund the police argument worked really well, specifically in dade county. what's fascinating here, you have the celebration by donald trump of people who beat up, abused, bludgeoned nearly to death police officers, law enforcement officers. you now have republicans who are making threats against law enforcement officers and their families. calling them the gestapo. you know, newt gingrich saying

they're wolves -- the law enforcement officers are wolves who want to devour the american people. i'm just wondering, how -- how is that playing out in a state like florida and what do you think the consequences may be this fall? >> well, we're not hearing ron desantis go that far, perhaps for a reason. if you look at the "wall street journal" poll, it shows joe biden is now leading nominally president or former president trump in a hypothetical match-up. before they were tied. the more trump is in the news, acting in this way, the less helpful it has historically been for the republican party. now, we do have the abortion debate, which has helped kind of get democrats reenergized and off the bench. but the more you're talking to republicans who pay attention to this, the more you start to look

at the data, there's signs that trump's re-emergence as a national political topic, not only discussing these matters of january 6th and the january 6th issue, but also the mar-a-lago search, it's not helping him. it's not helping republicans. you're starting to see the congressional ballot test get more even between republicans and democrats. i'm not predicting who will win the house or that stuff, but right now the trend line suggests this is not helpful for republicans and therefore it's more helpful for democrats. there are some voice in the republican party who are trying to stop this, but they're either muted or certainly in the minority. >> all right. mark caputo, thank you very much for being on the show. joining us now, democratic congresswoman stacey plaskett who represents the virgin islands. great to see you. i'm curious, your thoughts on

the fbi search of mar-a-lago and where things stand right now, not getting ahead of things or a couple of folks that we've quoted who are looking at what might happen in the future, but right now we have donald trump admitting, not denying, that he has documents that do not belong to him. his team seems to be parsing words on this being a misunderstanding, overdue library books versus what the fbi seems to see as a much bigger concern. >> well, it is a bigger concern because we know that the president does not have the authority to take documents, any document out of the white house and bring it to his personal home after leaving office. we stopped that after watergate and president nixon with the presidential records act. we also know that because he's taken classified information,

top-secret information, that there may be other laws that have been broken with regard to this. let's not forget that there's many fronts under which donald trump is finally coming to terms with his misdeeds, whether they be in georgia with regard to the grand jury that is convened there to look at criminal charges as well as in new york with letitia james, the attorney general there who is looking at civil charges related to his business dealings. so, the chickens have come home to roost for donald trump. i think we'll see a confluence of the misdeeds that he has done to america finally coming to bear. >> president biden using the term maga republicans, taking a phrase that donald trump created for himself. we all remember the hats. and turning it somewhat against republicans. are you seeing among your republican counterparts any

movement away from the former president? >> well, i think that privately you see individuals who are concerned about the rhetoric, but many of them cowher at potentially being marked by donald trump as unloyal to him. and therefore are not moving away from it. we see it in the votes they're taking. we have been taking votes that are really related to supporting the american people. and their votes are related to supporting donald trump, supporting power and supporting politics over and over again. when we're voting on lowering the cost of prescription drugs, to making communities more safe with gun control, addressing climate change, the republicans are lockstep with donald trump each and every time. they're petrified of the man and those individuals who follow him, of those maga party people, i don't even know if we want to call it the republican party

anymore, just maybe the maga party because that's what they've all been going by. >> when you were impeachment manager, only two republicans look like they'll still stay in congress. can we look at the democrats ahead of the midterms? there's a lot of excitement in the democratic party, on the senate side and potentially even in the house side with some surveys suggesting the house is now in play again, perhaps the democrats could even hold on to the house. what do you think the most -- thinking of your constituents in the virgin islands, what is the message that resonates most? what's the way you can galvanize voters to get to the polls the most ahead of the midterm elections if democrats want to stay on in the house? what is the thing you need to focus on? >> september is important to us in the virgin islands. it's hurricane season. this will be five years since we were hit by irma and maria, a

category 5 hurricane that decimated and destroyed our island. we are concerned in the same way that other americans are with climate change, with energy. we are concerned with the president as well as congress, and i believe the democratic party has done this, following -- on their promises. making sure that they are, one, holding the line on our democracy defensively, but at the same time bringing us forward so we have an economy that can grow. that we can have wealth that we can pass down to our children. that we can have homeownership at affordable costs. i think those are all things that democrats are fighting for the people of america while the republicans showing a stark contrast with republicans who are about power and about politics. >> democratic congresswoman stacy plaskett, thank you. thank you very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," a historian will explain

why he said president biden needed to deliver the speech he delivered last night. plus we are minutes away from the august jobs report with economists expecting just over 300,000 jobs to have been created. we'll get full analysis from dom chu when the numbers cross. twitter has announced it will soon begin allowing some users to test an edit button. the long-awaited feature is being tested internally and will soon expand to subscribers of its pad twitter blue service later this month. it will allow users to edit tweets a few times for up to 30 minutes after they are first published. the tweets will appear with a label indicating they have been edited. and users can see past versions of an edited tweet. russian news agencies say the chairman of the largest private oil company has died after falling from a hospital

window. >> this keeps happening. >> ravil maganov is the eighth energy executive to die suddenly this year. the lukoil is one of the few russian companies to call for an end to moscow's military operation in ukraine. russian-state sponsored news outlet interfax and reuters both confirmed he died from falling out of a window, but a statement from lukoil reads maganov passed away following a serious illness. >> falling out of a window six stories, that's going to cause a serious illness. we have frightening video from argentina as a man pointed a gun at the head of the vice president at point-blank range, he appeared to pull the trigger but the weapon did not happen. it happened in buenos aires as the vice president was returning

home from court. she is currently on trial for corruption. the 35-year-old would-be assassin was quickly arrested. argentina's president condemned the attack in a televised address and said the country is shaken. also confirmed the gun was loaded. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. who are positive for acetylcholine receptor antibodies, it may feel like the world is moving without you. but the picture is changing, with vyvgart. in a clinical trial, participants achieved improved daily abilities with vyvgart added to their current treatment. and vyvgart helped clinical trial participants achieve reduced muscle weakness. vyvgart may increase the risk of infection. in a clinical study, the most common infections were urinary tract and respiratory tract infections. tell your doctor if you have a history of infections

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6th. we've seen election officials, poll workers, many of them volunteers of both parties subject to intimidation and death threats. and can you believe it -- fbi agents just doing their job as directed facing threats to their own lives from their own fellow citizens. on top of that, there are public figures today, yesterday and the

day before predicting and all but calling for mass violence and rioting in the streets. i want to say this plain and simple. there is no place for political violence in america. period! none! ever! >> you know, maureen dowd a few years ago had a column, columnist for the times, where maureen said that what presidential candidates prepare for is never what they have to deal with. one of the examples, michael beschloss, was george w. bush who said in 2000 -- >> no nation -- >> that america was going to have a humble foreign policy. >> right. >> that it was really more of a domestic focus of the agenda. then there was 9/11 and, of course, george bush and the

entire government had to respond in several ways. joe biden, likewise, wanted to bring this country together. and talked about that. he has been able to work with the other side in a way we haven't seen in about 20 years. that said, when you have united states senators that are talking about republican riots in the streets, talking about violence in the streets if the law is enforced, joe biden is really pushed to a position, is he not, where he doesn't have any choice but to speak out against the calls for violence and civil war. >> i think you're right, joe. good morning, mika, as well. here we're in a situation where we're talking about historical parallels. in 1860, we were on the precipice of civil war. very different from where we are in 2022.

but this specter of looming violence. 1940, world violence, would the united states enter world war ii to oppose adolph hitler and mussolini and the imperial japanese? i'm not suggesting that this year is the equivalent, except for in one respect, and that is if, you know, a historian from 50 years from now were to go back and visit america in 2022, the overwhelming question is, are we going to have a democracy in a year or two? are we going to have free and fair elections with all those state officials and state legislatures threatening to say, we're going to just name the winner whoever we feel like. are we going to have rule of law? take a look at what happened at mar-a-lago. so those questions are hanging in the balance. and to have a president saying this election this year is about anything but the survival of democracy, you'd wonder where he was.

>> yeah. gene robinson, just, again, to go down a quick list of really where we are as a country, you have had republicans calling law enforcement officers the gestapo, calling them communists, threatening the fbi, threatening members of their family, threatening violence in the streets, threatening riots, republican riots in the street. you have donald trump amplifying the worst part of this in his social media platforms. so, again, i think you'd have a president who would be derelict if he did not speak to this. it's something that -- you know, i'm the first person, as you know, i was talking about both sides should work together, and these are the sort of speeches -- i just hate seeing these sort of speeches.

at the same time, i don't know. when you have lindsey graham talking about if donald trump is held to the same standard as every other american, republicans are going to go out and burn down cities. there's going to be riots in the streets. there's going to be violence in the streets. republican members of congress talking about the gestapo. just whipping the base into a frenzy, again, with a context that we have the january 6th riots in our rear-view mirror. these people know what they're doing. donald trump knows what he is doing. he is calling for violence. he wants republicans and maga supporters to go out into the streets and commit acts of violence. >> yeah.

the speech last night, to me, sounded like a president delivering a wartime address. indeed, joe biden sees this as, as he said, a battle for the soul of the country. it is a battle for the preservation of our democracy. to me, the significant thing was that he -- yes, he called out donald trump, but he also called out the maga republicans, the maga republican officials and followers who, for whatever motive, under whatever delusion, are going down this authoritarian path, this undemocratic path, and trying to take the nation with them. and he's -- he framed this as an emergency. >> yeah. >> as something that we as a nation need to bond together to stop and to reverse. to return to our democratic principles and our democratic practices. to me, it was -- it was an

urgent wartime address. coming up, the monthly jobs report is due out just moments from now. we'll go live to cnbc to break down the numbers. plus kirsten jill brand joins the conversation for reaction to president biden's speech condemning maga republicans. we'll be right back. ack. it's the all-new subway series menu! 12 irresistible new subs... like #6 the boss. pepperoni kicks it off with meatballs smothered in rich marinara. don't forget the fresh mozzarella. don't you forget who the real boss is around here. it's subway's biggest refresh yet.

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biden won. according to emails obtained under state public records law, thomas emailed two republican lawmakers in wisconsin, the chair of the senate elections committee, and the state chair. both received the email on november 9th, virtually at the same time the arizona lawmakers received the exact same copy of the message from thomas. the post adds thomas and all of the emails through free routes, an online platform that allows people to send pre-written emails to multiple elected officials. joining us now is the investigative reporter behind this report, emma brown. emma, what can one deduce from these discovered emails? what exactly was she pushing these lawmakers to do, and is there potential she was using her influence as the wife of a supreme court justice to try to

sway an election that joe biden won fair and square? >> well, she sent these emails to those lawmakers on november 9th. the context here is two days earlier, major news organizations called the race for joe biden. the messages said essentially stand strong in the face of media pressure. do the right thing and, quote, choose a, quote, clean slate of electors. sort of taking that in context, she's saying, you should take action, state legislators, to disregard the will of the popular vote and choose your own electors. you know, i think you ask was she using her influence. there were thousands upon thousands of emails sent via this freeroots platform. one thing the new records from wisconsin show us is that ginni thomas was one of the first

people to send this particular email, and somebody with the same name as one of her associates sent the very first one. you know, her lawyer, the house committee has sought to speak to ginni thomas. her lawyer, in response to that request, and in response to a sweeping documents request from the house committee, said -- this was back in june after we reported on the arizona emails -- they said, you know, she didn't write the emails or edit them, she merely sent them as one of many people who did. the fact she was one of the first to send them is interesting to me. >> well, katty kay, it is ridiculous for her to claim she was just, you know, hanging out at home and said, oh, look at this form email. i'll send it along. when, in fact, she had been on the phone with conservative leaders, with maga leaders. she had been pushing hard for kevin mccarthy to overturn the

election. she had been pushing hard for donald trump. she'd been in the white house talking to donald trump, trying to get her to talk to -- i forget the lady's name with all the waco theories. the kraken lady. she was calculating, trying to figure out exactly what her response was going to be. there's emails out there where she made these decisions and thought through these decisions. so if she's one of the first to send these emails to arizona and to wisconsin lawmakers, she had calculated it. she had talked about it. she was a maga conservative thought leader who decided she was going to ask state legislators to throw out the popular will of democratic voters. democratic in, like, democracy. to throw democracy to the side and have them select their own electors. >> yeah.

now, we learn the wife of a supreme court justice, who could one day potentially be in a position where an election suit comes before him, who knows, in 2024, and he has to rule as they did in 2000 on which way an election might go. the wife of that supreme court justice sent these emails not just to officials in arizona but also now in wisconsin, as well. emma, my question to you is, how does this play out? january 6th committee has asked to talk to her. so far, of course, she hasn't. what's the legal process? what are the -- what's the legal recourse that the justice department has to try to get more information from ginni thomas, if she say, no, i'm not going to talk to the january 6th investigation. could you see her being subpoenaed at any point by the justice department? where does this play out? how far does this go? >> i don't think we've heard anything about the justice department's interest in speaking with ginni thomas. what we know from the documents

request that the january 6th committee sent to her a couple months ago is that they wanted to see everything that she was communicating with a wide range of people. members of congress, employees at the justice department where, you know, part of the effort to overturn the election was taking -- was taking place. it was just a really broad document request. it was almost as if reading it, you know, you wonder whether the committee saw her as a portal into understanding the actions of many other people. you know, so far, we have no indication that she's turned over documents. as i said, her lawyer responded to the request by saying he didn't see sufficient basis for her to sit for an interview and provide the documents. >> all right. the "washington post's" emma brown, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. coming up, we'll go live to

the house on the heels of president biden's speech last night. plus a full recap of the big developments surrounding donald trump's mishandling of classified documents. we have the very latest from a florida courtroom straight ahead on "morning joe."

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♪♪ welcome back. there is a renewed push to ban horse-drawn carriages from new york city's central park. >> this has been an issue for a while. >> it is. >> bill deblasio tried to do it nine, ten years ago, no luck. >> but then a horse collapsed in the middle of a busy city street, and many are calling for the practice to end. one politician is proposing a

replacement for the animals. late last month, bystanders recorded videos of a new york carriage horse named ryder as he collapsed on to a manhattan street. he has recovered and is now retired at a farm upstate, according to the union that represents horse carriage drivers. the viral videos have renewed outrage from new yorkers and animal rights activists around the country. >> a horse laid out in distress. >> now once again, opinions are swirling -- >> over the future of carriage horses in new york city. [ chanting ] >> it sparked protests around central park last weekend from animal rights activists who say there is no reason to have horses working in the city. >> horses are prey animals. they will bolt at unexpected noises like the ones going on

all around us right now. and we've seen terrible incidents of horses spooking and taking off and running through traffic, colliding with cars. >> look at this mess. that's what's left of a carriage in spooked. >> a carriage driver is hospitalized after his horse crashed the carriage after running through the streets of manhattan. >> the strongest opposition to the industry comes from the group new yorkers for clean liveable and safe streets. it estimates there have been at least 60 accidents there the past five years. >> these horses are suffering every day. and it is 2022, not 1822. >> reporter: horse carriage tours have been a part of central park since it opened in 1858. but in recent years, the push to ban horse carriages has become more mainstream. former mayor bill de blasio tried several times to get them banned from the city. >> they're into the human or

appropriate. it is over. >> while he was unsuccessful, the new york city council did increase protections for horses especially while working during hot temperatures. counselman robert holden said his new bill would replace horses with electric carriages and allow drivers to keep their jobs. >> it will essentially end horse-drawn carriages in new york city. it takes about 200,000 to take care of a horse per year. they could be replaced with electric carriages which are very charming, just as charming as the carriage a horse pulls and that would be much cheaper, much better not the drivers and the owners. >> we're not trying to take away jobs we're trying to protect everyone. >> but drivers and their union disagree with the characterization that the industry is cruel and the horses are mistreated. they want to know who will pay for the electric carriages which

could cost anywhere from 20 to $30,000. >> owner, carriage drivers, stable men, they're here for the love of the horse and the pd mounted unit, whatever the stringent measures on them, we get the same measures. >> a spokesperson for new york city hall said the investigation into what happened to riders in midtown is ongoing. and the legislation on horse-drawn carriages is under review. the transit workers union informed us that as of today, they are unveiling a new proposal to increase regulations calling for a full time horse veterinarian doubling the number of medical exams for horses, improving city oversight and enhanced driver training and an opening new state of art stable in in central park for the horses. we'll be following this story as it develops. >> maybe they also have a ban if it is over 80, 85 degrees there.

>> oh, right. because the heat. >> when it gets so hot in the city, it is just -- it is just torturous. >> it is overwhelmk. >> also ahead, the struggle to save democracy, we are facing the most momentous threat to the american republic since the civil war. we'll speak with that author straight ahead, "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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very low clouds hanging over san francisco as we're just a couple of minutes before the fourth hour of "morning joe" and we're going to start this one with breaking economic news. the august jobs report is out and it shows the united states adding 315,000 jobs last month. exactly what economists expected. it follows a surprisingly strong july when 526,000 jobs were added. for some analysis, let's bring in cnbc's dom chu. dom, good morning. so this is what analysts expected. give us a sense, we saw news on the unemployment rate as well. what does this mean big picture? >> so the key here is, yes, this is still a very strong jobs report on a relative basis with 315,000 jobs being added. you noted the unemployment rate. what we shows you was 3.7%, you will have seen that has ticked higher from the previous month where it was 3.5%.

now the reason it is ticked higher and on at first blush, it is bad, when you see the unemployment rate go higher, but the reason why it is going to higher is because more people are actually entering the labor force and then looking for jobs. so when you're actively seeking employment, and not yet employed, you are counted in the unemployment rate. so to that end i will show that labor force participation, the number of people who are entering the work force moves higher to 62.4% and that is a post covid high. just to give you a sense of where we were 63.4% of americans were part of that labor force participation rate before covid back in february of 2020. so you could look at it as getting back to more normalized levels. now this is part that is a little bit more kind of, i guess, important for markets overall. that is average hourly earns.

so are people making more money? yes, they are. but they are not making so much as to perhaps jar the inflation picture right now. on a month over month basis, wages increased by about .3%. that means on a year-over-year basis it is up 5.2%. so it is still growing, but both of those were below economists expectations. as for where the hiring is happening, manufacturing added 22,000 jobs, professional and business services added 68,000 jobs and then hospitality added 31,000 jobs so there are the places where you're seeing job growth. and we look at markets and reaction here. what you're seeing here is markets generally higher, interest rates did not move all that much on this. so this is being viewed by some experts in the market as a so-called goldilocks scenario. inflation is not being stoked higher by this report, and at the same time, you're starting to p