"morning joe." it is tuesday, september 27th. new footage released of trump aide roger stone calling for violence and talking about plans to steal the election. the clips are set to be featured at tomorrow's january 6th hearing, but we'll get an early look this morning. we are also tracking hurricane ian, which is rapidly intensifying as it barrels toward the state of florida. the storm could hit the state as a category 4 hurricane, and a state of emergency has already been declared. we'll have the very latest and we'll be tracking it throughout the show. and nasa goes armageddon on an asteroid to see if it's possible to save humanity from disaster. >> yeah. >> willie, i just want you to know, of course, mika has no idea what she just said. >> no, i do actually. >> about armageddon.

>> on the asteroid. i was telling alex before when we were talking about this, when i kept hearing this incredible story yesterday about smashing into the asteroid, come on, what was i thinking. i was thinking aerosmith "i don't want to miss a thing," hear the news story ♪ i don't want to close my eyes ♪ >> it was incredible. >> willie, stop him. >> a sappy summer movie. they tried to do this last night. >> you got bruce. you throw affleck in there, mika, if you don't know what we're talking about, this was a huge movie 25 years ago, with the plausible plot they trained oil drillers in a matter of days to become nasa astronauts and effectively do what we saw

yesterday in real life, they knocked a rocket with a ship the size of a refrigerator, they knocked an asteroid off its course yesterday, nasa did this in real life. no liv tyler, now they know if something is barrelling toward earth, they have a decent chance of knocking it away. >> scientifically, the movie, i don't think it was that big of a movie. >> it was a huge movie. >> it was. it was one of the great summer movies of the late 1990s. it was sappy, i understand. but still, come on, it was amazing. steven tyler singing with aerosmith. if only we could go back to the simple days because things right now, we have been talking about the meltdown in trump world, and the threats that that poses to

american democracy for quite some time. it's really something, mika, that you have donald trump and vladimir putin who sort of have been connected in the news over the past five, six years, both of them are now facing their own crises. the only difference is right now vladimir putin facing a crisis, a real meltdown in russia, with dire consequences, not just for the russian people and the ukrainians but possibly the entire world. this is a country that has more nuclear weapons than any other country in the world, and i know speaking of 25 years ago, we were all very concerned on the armed services committee about nuclear proliferation, where the former soviet union's nuclear weapons would find their way into what terrorist's hands. you know, let's hope we done approach that moment, but this unfortunately is not as simple as putin loses, we win.

>> no, it is not. >> it is a chaotic situation where we need people like your father to walk through just all of the contingencies because, again, there's nothing simple about this. there's nothing simple about ukraine winning this war. there's nothing simple about the chaos and anarchy being released in russia right now. and again, what makes putin different? nuclear weapons. >> well, it's hard not to think of what my dad would be thinking right now as we got a rare admission yesterday from the kremlin, acknowledging its new military draft to reinforce russian forces in ukraine has been rife with problems. the kremlin spokesman yesterday said there had been irregularities in the call-up due to cases of noncompliance. "the new york times" reports he

tried to shift the blame to local authorities carrying out the mobilization among resistant civilians across the country. this as the governors of several russian regions also acknowledged that men who did not meet the defense ministry's criteria are being called up. the authorities' admission came as a gunman who was allegedly distraught over the military mobilization opened fire yesterday at a draft office in siberia, seriously injuring a recruitment officer. meanwhile, the president of kazakhstan, a close ally of russia reportedly said yesterday quote in recent days, many people from russia have been coming to us. most of them are forced to leave because of the current hopeless situation. we must take care of them and ensure their safety. this is a political and humanitarian issue. >> let's bring in the staff writer for the atlantic, anne

apple balm, and former chairman of the republican national committee michael still. obviously this is an area you have spent your entire adult life studying. you're well aware of the time that i was talking about before, after the soviet union's fall, there was political and military and economic and cultural chaos in the former soviet union. are we seeing something that may be the beginning of a similar meltdown for the putin regime? >> you're certainly seeing the first break in what was essentially putin's deal with the russians. so essentially he offered them a kind of swap, you know, you let me steal. you let me have absolute power. you let my friends and cousins and relatives make a lot of money, and in exchange, i'll leave you alone and you can go on living your own life and not be bothered by politics. and that was even the deal with this war.

so we'll conduct the war, we're not going to even call it a war. we're going to call it a special military operation. it won't affect you. you'll see it on tv as a form of entertainment, gladiator battle. with this mobilization, suddenly the war and the kind of chaos that putin has brought to ukraine begins to come home, and people ask themselves, do i really want to fight the ukrainians. do i hate the ukrainians. maybe i don't. i have no military experience. do i want to be sent to the front line. they're sending people apparently with no training, with poor weapons, with no equipment, and you're seeing the first kind of -- it's not organized resistance. putin has eliminated all the organized resistance in the country, but you are seeing as you've just heard, people fleeing the country, military recruitment offices being shot up and fire bombed. it's the beginning of an

unraveling of the arrangement of the last decade. >> it's an act of courage to express dissent publicly in the streets of russia, and vladimir putin is quick to crack down on that. is he actually feeling pressure, is he capable of feeling pressure, whether it's internally in russia at home or from president xi or prime minister modi abroad. does he feel pressure? does he acknowledge this is going badly. >> he doesn't say, gosh, i made a mistake, and i'm really sorry, but he clearly feels pressure, both because of ukrainian military advances that took place over the last few weeks. we saw him at a really extraordinary summit a few days ago where he was snubbed by some central asian leaders where both the chinese and indian leaders made kind of oblique comments about how the war is not going badly, this is not a time for war. erdogan, the turkish leader in an interview said, you know, of

course the war must end and putin must give back territory that he's conquered, so he's seeing the dictators and strong men in his region begin to push back at him, and that has to be unsettling. you just saw the note saying, you know, we understand this turmoil in russia, and we'll take care of russian dissidents, and this is a country thought to be dependent on russia. you see there's clearly pressure on him from the nationalistic part of the spectrum. there are military bloggers and writers inside russia who have been criticizing him for a long time, saying he's not fighting the war very well, there should be a mass mobilization, there aren't enough people. there aren't enough weapons. and this mobilization effort seems to be in part a reaction to them. he's feeling pressure inside the system, maybe from within the military and security services as well. >> michael still, the economy,

putin's economy, which as we talked about on this show has a gdp smaller than the state of texas, and that was before the war. that was before all of the economic consequences that grew out of this war. and that was before oil prices dipped the way they have over the past couple of months. the situation was dire enough, so you're going to turn to your partners to help you through those times, but as anne said, china delivers a touch statement after his meeting with xi. erdogan says you're going to give ukraine their territories back. we got from modi, just a slap in the face diplomatically during their meeting, and now kazakhstan. >> right. >> this is a guy who's isolated in the world, and he doesn't

have an economy that allows him to go it alone. so the question is what's next, and what should the united states be worried about right now? what should be our focus? >> i think on a number of fronts, you know, as you point out, that the allies, the supposed allies are not really all in. they're letting putin know that, you know, okay. you just can't throw bodies at this. this has not been, you know, the one-week operation you thought it would be. so the consequences that are starting to flow out of that, are the kind of pressures that putin is thinking about going into the winter. you know, yeah, i can't throw bodies at this, but i can make winter tough. i can hold out at least through winter. what does that mean for gas prices? and for those in europe and across the globe who rely on the oil that may flow out of russia, how can they leverage that?

and from the u.s. perspective, from an economic position, is what impact will that have financially on the markets going forward? can the allies hold together in a unified front when winter comes because winter is coming. and so i think that's going to be an important feature for the biden administration to make sure that the economic toll that can come from putin messing around with the oil and gas markets bringing pressure to bear there. there's saber rattling with nuclear threats. i don't know that people believe it's reached that point, you know, defcon 2, if you will, in that regard. i think the winter is his play, and the question is how do the allies put together sort of a block and tackle on the winter front to make it through the winter. if that happens, if they're able to do that successfully, i think the spring for putin is going to

be a hell of a lot rougher than he can imagine. >> well, with all of this as a backdrop globally, americans are dealing with big questions in the lead up to the midterms, and new polling shows most americans don't think former president donald trump should be given special treatment under the law despite being a former president. in the latest survey from cbs news and ugov, 87% of registered voters say the legal system should treat trump the same as every american. that includes 80% of republicans. in a different question, nearly half of all likely voters, 47% say trump won't play a role in who they vote for this november. 32%. meanwhile, 32% say their vote will be in opposition of trump, while 20% say their vote will be in support of the former president. i find that fascinating.

>> yeah, i do too. you know, willie, we've seen a series of polls over the past week that show, and most of the polls over half of americans believe donald trump presented a direct threat to american democracy after the election, and also believe that he committed crimes, and now we're seeing 85% of americans say that no man should be above the law. >> including republicans. >> including 80% of republicans. it sounds like even despite the craziness and the madness that we see from trump corners from time to time, it does appear that more americans are lining up to the reality that donald trump likely is going to be facing some criminal penalties for january 6th, for trying to steal the election, for what he did in georgia, calling the secretary of state demanding that he find 11,000 votes to win

that election, for what he did with the documents, a series of legal -- serious legal problems, and he's going to be facing. i think there's a growing understanding from americans that he's going to be held accountable. >> yeah, and it's heartening, is it not, to see that 80% of republicans still believe in the rule of law, whether it's donald trump or someone else. if you commit a crime, there are consequences to that, even if you're the former president of the united states. eight in ten republicans, as mika told us believe he should be held to that standard, which just anecdotally is not what you hear on the streets, oh, come on, the document thing, what we're hearing from senate republicans, by the way, not just people on the street. it was a house keeping issue, a storage issue, trying to wave that away. with the american people, nine out of ten are saying, michael steele, no, that stuff is serious and if he did it, he ought to be held accountable. we're going to hear much more beginning tomorrow at a new hearing for the january 6th select committee.

all of these questions around the 2020 election will be top of mind again as we get closer and closer here to the midterms. >> willie, this is such a significant movement in this narrative that donald trump for, as we've seen, going back to the mueller investigations was able to manage, was able to divert attention from the main arguments that were made against him. now i think largely because of the effectiveness of the january 6th committee, the combination of letitia james and georgia prosecutors creating a move narratively with facts, and with a higher degree of evidence that while a lot of people thought that the american people were sort of, you know, it's summer, we're at the beach, who cares, you know, no, they were actually paying attention. they were actually taking a lot of this in, and i think that's reflective in this polling, you know, and so republicans now

have another narrative problem, you know, while they want to be dismissive as this was just a storage issue with mar-a-lago, the american people don't see it that way, and so how do you narratively translate that, so you don't get on the wrong side of their attitude when it comes to the ballot box in four or five weeks. there are a number of things playing out here with the january 6th committee coming back in front of our television screens tomorrow, this narrative picks up. a little bit of hiccup with denver riggleman and his phone calls at the white house, they're going to seize this narrative back. this is going to proceed and nak for an interesting fall narrative relative to the campaign, if people continue to digest this in the way they have so far, it will be interesting to see whether or not this weighs on their vote just a

little bit more than you think they're saying right now. >> after january 6th, i thought you wrote a really important article "the atlantic" talking about attempt to go bring some of the trump supporters, more extreme trump supporters back into the mainstream of american politics, back into involvement in democracy. we have been looking at polls over the past six months, over the past year that show around the edges some americans becoming more skeptical of donald trump. i'm wondering what you're seeing, former supporters, i'm wondering what you're seeing now in these numbers that we have been discussing and also just general attitudes of republicans about whether we're moving in that direction or not, whether there may be enough americans skeptical of what donald trump has done since the election. we have a majority now saying that he committed a crime, that

perhaps you wanted to happen is slowly beginning to happen around the margins? >> so there's clearly a kind of hard core that doesn't watch the january 6th hearings that dismisses them as illegitimate, that's very resistant to any kind of persuasion. but what the january 6th hearings did really well was use the language of republicans and especially of republicans who had worked for trump to tell the story. and this seems to have been a deliberate idea. they made liz cheney the center of the panel. she was one of the primary speakers, but also the interviewees, the clips they used, trump's children, trump's employees, other republicans from congress. they were telling the story and because they are trusted messengers or more trusted messengers or could be trusted messengers, anyway, for

republicans, it does seem that some of them were listening. that is hard problem, how to reach people who are in a different information bubble or who reject, you know, what's being told to them by even media like this one, or maybe even particularly media like this one. and so finding ways to reach them is something that a lot of politicians should be spending more time doing, and i was really glad to see the january 6th committee took that into account. they were trying to write the story, tell it in a way people could understand, and as i said, especially using the language of people who had worked for trump himself, and that was an attempt to reach people who would normally not listen. >> well, and, you know, willie, what i always tell my friends who will generally talk about the mainstream media, read the "wall street journal." it's owned by rupert murdoch, read the editorial pages of "the

"new york post" i won't agree with what they say all time. if you're talking about how the election was rigged, even go on the web site of fox news and see how they reported the election. it's not like you have to go to -- if you don't want to come to this network or don't want to go to cnn, you certainly can get media outlets that, again, are controlled by people who have a very conservative world view, and even, especially the "wall street journal," the news gathering site of the "wall street journal" is as good as any media outlet in the world, and so there are those options, but some people are just lazy. some people just want their

prejudices and preexisting beliefs. they'll look at facebook pages sent to them by conspiracy theorists or go on to crazy web sites that are run by third parties who have absolutely no credibility at all. >> you just put your finger on it, the people who want to have their views confirmed will find that confirmation somewhere, but there's no excuse for not having the facts. there are all of those places you just described. january 6th committee meets again tomorrow. we'll carry that live on msnbc of course coming out for the first time with a hearing in two months. other news this morning, hurricane ian has strengthened to a category 3 hurricane as it approaches cuba with powerful winds and dangerous storm surges. it's expected to hit the western part of the island nation when it makes landfall with wind speeds of 125 miles an hour. authorities have evacuated nearly 50,000 people from the capital city. ian then is expected to become a category 4 hurricane before making landfall in florida with wind speeds forecast over 130

miles per hour. tampa and st. petersburg currently projected to take a direct hit as ian is expected to be the first major hurricane to hit the two cities since 1921. florida governor ron deny -- desantis has declared a statewide emergency. we'll have a live report from florida ahead. the senate is back in session working on a tight time line to pass a funding bill and avoid a government shut down. funding is expected to expire at the end of the day this friday. senate democrats released the text of the short-term funding which would push the deadline to mid november. a measure from senator joe manchin of west virginia to reform energy permitting. it includes billions of dollars in new aid for ukraine. the first test of the spending bill comes later today when the senate will vote on a procedural motion to move forward. it will need at least 60 votes

to pass, mika. the u.s. dollar continues to hold strong. recent interest rate hikes aimed at tackle inflation have also pumped value into the dollar and other economies are struggling to keep up. the british pound hit a record low against the dollar yesterday and was able to rebound just this morning. "the new york times" explains it like this. the united states is a super power with the world's largest economy and hefty reserves of oil and natural gas. when it comes to global finance and trade, its influence is outsized. rising interest rates make the dollar all the more alluring to investors by ensuring a better return. that, in turn, means they are investing less in emerging markets which puts further strains on those economies. despite the pain a strong dollar is causing most economists say the global outcome would be worse if the fed failed to halt

inflation in the united states. so that's the balance. >> it is a balance, and you read that article in the "new york times" and what do you see, you see that despite years of whining, despite years of fear and loathing about the decline of america, i remember my teacher in 7th grade talking, telling our class in 7th grade that america was going the way of the roman empire. the fact is america is strong and resilient. the dollar is at a generation gnat high, and the united states right now is more powerful relative to the rest of the world economically and militarily and culturally than it has been at any time since i would say 1945. this continuous chatter of america's decline, it's nonsensical. actually, our greatest challenge is electing politicians who are worthy of the country they represent, politicians who will

stop tearing america down every time their party loses. you know, that's happened my entire adult life, and it's happened with increasing intensity. now, there's a group that wants to destroy madison democracy because their side lost the last election. if you look at where america is right now, if you look at how strong it is academically, and militarily, and culturally, both hard power and soft power, we're in an extraordinary position, and we have been for a very long time. just please, please take off your political blinders. i'm not saying this because joe biden is in office. i said this about our economy when donald trump was in office. i said it when barack obama was in office. i said it when george w. bush was in office.

we have problems. but most of our problems right now, if you look across the board, come straight out of washington, d.c. we have a political system that is corrosive right now. and one of the reasons it's corrosive is because a party that's out of power spends all of their time talking about how bad america is. just because they're out of power. and it keeps getting worse. and of course it's at its low point now because you have donald trump who starts playing qanon music. and then spends the end of his speeches talking about how bad america is. just like he did before he was president, talking about how bad america was. how bad crime was in america because he wasn't president when in fact crime was at a 50-year

low before he came president of the united states. talking about how horrible the southern border was, and guess what, before donald trump was president, illegal crossings at the southern border hit a 50-year low. the fact is america's in a strong position now. we have been in a strong position. we just need politicians who are worthy of representing this great country. we don't have it right now. what we have right now is pure madness. we need to appreciate what we have, embrace it, and build upon it. and still ahead on "morning joe," new reporting about missing secret service text messaging related to january 6th. we have learned two dozen phones were handed over to investigators. nbc's julia ainsley joins us with more on that. plus, the house select committee investigating january 6th wants to hear from wisconsin's republican house

speaker. we'll look at how that testimony could play into the committee's probe. also ahead, a look at this morning's front page headlines, include ago reporting of a record number of nursing home complaints in one state. as we mentioned at the top of the hour, a nasa space craft deliberately crashed into an asteroid yesterday. what scientists are saying about the first of its kind test to prevent asteroids from hitting earth. and mika, here's the song. >> yeah, that's it? >> oh, yeah. "morning joe" will be right back. >> oh, yeah. "morning joe" will be right back i was always the competitive one in our family... 'til my sister signed up for united healthcare medicare advantage. ♪wow, uh-huh♪ now she's got a whole team to help her get the most out of her plan.

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wow, look at that view, a beautiful picture this morning from the international space station. as we mentioned, nasa yesterday successfully completed its first real world test of the ability to nudge an asteroid off of its course. nbc news correspondent tom costello has more. >> reporter: traveling at 14,000 miles per hour, nasa's d.a.r.t. spacecraft in time lapse, final seconds before slamming into a harmless asteroid named dimorphous. in typical nasa, bulls eye. >> for the first time humanity has demonstrated the ability to autonomously target and alter the orbit of a celestial object. >> reporter: it will take a week or more before nasa can analyze damage from telescopes to see if

it gave a tiny push a critical test, nasa hopes to use the same technique to one day divert a megaasteroid from hitting earth. >> there is a huge comet headed towards earth. >> reporter: a nightmare scenario that's played out in hollywood megahits but potentially a real life threat to the global population. nasa chief, bill nelson. >> it may be the clue of what we could do in the future to try to save life here on earth. >> nasa says it does not see any asteroid posing an imminent threat to earth. in 2013, a massive meteor escaped detection and exploded over a remote village injuring 1,500 people. >> impacts have had a profound effect of history on the earth. ask the dinosaurs on that. >> nbc's tom costello reporting. the references to armageddon aside, it's just extraordinary that nasa can send a

refrigerator into outer space, nail a moving comet and knock it off course. pretty cool. >> talk about being prepared. we're not prepared for anything, we're prepared for that. impressive on nasa's part. it's time to look at the morning papers, "the connecticut post" leads with the latest on the state's gubernatorial race. according to a new ct insider poll, governor ned lamont has a 15 point lead over his republican opponent, bop stefanowski. the results mirror findings from other recent surveys which have shown lamont and other democrats with commanding leads. in ohio, "toledo blade" reports that senate candidates tim ryan and j.d. vance have agreed to participate in two debates ahead of the november election. the agreement puts an end to the long back and forth fight between the two candidates regarding scheduling. the debates are expected to take place on october 10 and 17th.

in wisconsin "the green bay press gazette" is covering a surge in nursing home complaints. the state has received 1,500 complaints against nursing homes so far this year, an all time high. that works out to nearly 200 complaints each month. it comes as the state struggles to find enough nurses. "the buffalo news" reports canada will lift most of the covid-19 border restrictions beginning on saturday. travelers will no longer need to submit public health information, including proof of vaccination, and covid-19 test results. in addition, travelers will no longer be required to wear masks on planes and trains. and coming up on "morning joe," the january 6th select committee will hold its first hearing of the fall tomorrow with the house panel expected to feature video of trump aide roger stone

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sun comes up over washington. it is 42 past the hour. we're going to take a look at the must read opinion pages right now. "the washington post" editorial board says danger lurks after italy's shocking election. and it writes in part this, the rise of giorgia meloni, seemingly victorious in sunday's elections has sent shock waves through europe with fears italy might be the achilles heel of russia's resolve in the bloody campaign. she's the latest in a string of extremists who have performed well in european elections this year, including nationalists in france, hungary and sweden. her apparent victory is more evidence that far right leaders are ascendant in a continent buffeted by immigration, economic head winds and on its

eastern flank, the most destructive war in three quarters of a century. willie, it is huge news out of italy. >> absolutely, and some alarm bells going up as jonathan lemire has been reporting. he's the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," and author of the best selling book "the big lie," the white house publicly putting on a facing and saying our relationship remains strong with italy. we believe they will continue to support the war in ukraine at our side. privately some concerns, it sounds like. >> behind the scenes, concerns, growing ones after this victory by a far right candidate, meloni. italy is a member of the g7, a part of nato, and they fully expected them to continue, meeting obligations to europe writ large and also to the war efforts in ukraine. behind the scenes there is worry, particularly as we head

into the winter. there's a sense it's going to be a tough season for europe because of the continent not getting the energy supplies from russia that it has in the past. that's going to potentially be a cold and dark winter for much of europe, inflation of course already high there. higher in the united states. real fears that the continent is teetering on the edge of a recession. and if all of those things happen, there's a sense that meloni who has been sympathetic to putin, saying we should focus on matters at home. and certainly there is a part of the right wing government in italy that has always been sympathetic to moscow, and there's a sense here that she may head down that path once again. to this point, she has said that her stance has not changed, that she wanted italy to say involved, but there's a sense that's not an ironclad commitment and if italy were to wobble and start pushing for immediate negotiations to end the war, as opposed to to continuing to fortify and arm

ukraine, italy's a major g7 power. if italy goes, it could be a dominant effect, and weaken the coalition. that's what the white house is worried about right now. >> anne applebaum, are the fears warranted with the first woman to be prime minister of italy. a historic moment there. tell our audience who she is, and the party she comes from. >> so i would say there's bad news and good news. the bad news is that the party she comes from is directly descended from mussolini's party. it's had different names over the years, but it's the same political institution and some of the language she uses is a kind of white watched or as one analyst put it, gender washed version of recognizable language from the distant past. you know, she talks vaguely about enemies, about financial speculators who are holding back

italy. that's the kind of language that mussolini once used meaning jews, she creates the idea they're enemies seeking to undermine the country. she uses that language, even though she presents a much more moderate face to the public than the male leaders of the past. in a way, the good news is that she is still -- her victory wasn't overwhelming. she won about a quarter of the votes. she's not really in a position to change the constitution or alter italian democracy at least not yet and that part of her attempt to portray herself as a centrist meant, as you just said, she's adopted mainstream language about supporting nato and staying within the european union and so on. she's also very constrained by italy's particular financial situation. you know, she has a very limited

room for maneuver. there's some hope that she, like many other former, you know, italian leaders that people were very worried about turns out to be more mainstream than possible. we really don't know. it's another example of a country choosing someone who's really completely unknown, has no experience in government. but has won election by casting doubt on everything, really, on the nature of the political system, on the nature of the modern world, and offering a very vague alternative, and that does seem to appeal to people right now. the atlantic's anne applebaum, what an important day to have you on. thank you very much for joining us this morning. to another must read, the editorial board for "the st. st. louis post dispatch." a list of platitudes, not plans, and it reads in part, the

party's list of platitudes revealed more about its intentions than it intended to. the manifesto provides the latest evidence that the party stands for consolidation of its own power and pretty much nothing else. house minority leader kevin mccarthy's game here is obvious, with republicans no longer looking at a cake walk to the majority in the midterms, thanks to widespread fury over the party's threat to abortion rights, and its continued fealty to an unhinged president. and michael steele i would take it a step further, i think, where the party is at a place where the coolest thing they have to offer is cruelty. they think it's funny and cool, and they can own the libs and hurt people at the same time, let alone that they don't stand with most americans on abortion.

they don't stand with most americans on guns. the migrant issue, a lot of republicans thought it was the coolest thing ever to be so cruel. it appears to be i just don't know if people really deep inside think that was funny, and i mean, even some candidates are reducing themselves to sort of mini trumps or schoolyard bullies, making fun of, for example, governor whitmer, making fun of the fact that she was kidnapped. it's cool to be cruel if you're a republican, but definitely don't have an agenda. >> well, yeah, you actually speak about two things they have in play at the same time. one, the cruelty piece goes to the base, and that is the, you know, owning the libs, at any level and any way we're going to do that over and over and over again, they're not concerned about mika and michael being offended by it.

they're just concerned that it turns into cash and it turns into an agitated base. on the second track is the agenda piece, so what you see, and joe can appreciate this moment, even though it falls way short of 1994. this is the, you know, our contract with america. this is our chance to come back and say we have an agenda for how we're going to, you know, solve our nations problems. the difference is the contract laid out specifics. it said exactly what it would do legislatively. and then acted on that because it had that baseline. this is, as the st. louis dispatch reports, mcconnell said the truth, give us the power and we'll tell you what we're going to do. we'll frame it around how you

feel in this moment, and we'll tell you we're going to fight to reduce inflation. exactly how are you going to do that? because the fed, which it's their charge to do can't seem to do it. what does congress, who can't even give us a budget. we opened the show talking about a continuing resolution on the budget, right? you don't even have a budget. so the realities are right now one of electoral positioning to take advantage or to grab back advantage, i should say, mika, that the republicans had going into the fall, which they lost because of not just roe, not just the fall of roe, but also as we said earlier, the january 6th committee, and a party that looks more beholden and resistant to where america wants to go more broadly. >> a party that is holding on tightly to a man who's facing legal proceedings on four different massive levels. i mean, as it all closes in on

him, they still hold on to him, and i think, perhaps, they might want to loosen their grip. still ahead, pulitzer price winning columnist at "the washington post" eugene robinson joins us. and an update on the investigation into the secret service and the communications between the agents on january 6th. n january 6th. it's the greatest sandwich roster ever assembled. next is the new great garlic. the tender rotisserie style chicken is sublime and the roasted garlic aioli adds a lovely pecan flavor. man, the second retirement really changed you. the new subway series. what's your pick?

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city as the sun is coming up over the big apple. we've got a lot to get to this morning. we have new reporting on what to expect at tomorrow's january 6th committee hearing. according to "the washington post," the committee plans to show footage of roger stone recorded in the weeks before the capitol attack by danish documentary film makers. nbc news has obtained several clips. in one clip recorded a day before the election after a rally in georgia, stone can be heard calling for violence. >> excellent. [ bleep ] the violence [ bleep ] the voting. shoot to kill. see an antifa, shoot to kill. done with this [ bleep ] >> ef the voting, get right to the violence stone said, the day before the election. he followed up that remark

claiming he was kidding. hear more clips of stone explaining how the trump campaign planned to steal the election. >> what they're assuming is that the election will be normal, the election will not be normal. oh, these are the california results, we're not accepting them. we're challenging them in court. if the electors show up at the electoral college, armed guards throw them out. i'm the president. i'm challenging all of it, and the judges we're going to are judges i appointed, [ bleep ] you're not stealing the election. >> let's just hope we're celebrating. i suspect it will still be up in the air. when that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. possession is 9/10 of the law, we won, [ bleep ] you, you're wrong. >> so that's the concept. has it been pitched to the president? >> yes, it has. i believe the president's for it. the obstacles are these lily livered, weak kneed bureaucrats

in the white house counsel's office, and now they must be crushed because they've told the president something that's not true. >> stone released a statement saying he believes the videos have been manipulated. let's bring in congressional investigations reporter for the "washington post" jackie alemany, an msnbc contributor, and pulitzer prize winning columnist at "the washington post," eugene robinson, jonathan lemire and michael steele are still with us as well. roger stone, some of his words are quite chilling. don't know how they'll hold up in court, but they do indicate a lot. >> yeah, mika, and i think thematically what the committee is going to be looking to highlight on wednesday is that stone, along with other trump associates, including people like steve bannon, mike flynn, some of these fringier figures who were in close touch with the former president were planning on ignoring the results of the

election no matter what happened. no matter the actual outcome on november 4th. some of those clips that you just played actually happened prior to voting day. for example, that preliminary clip where roger stone said screw the voting, let's go straight to violence. that happened on november 2nd after a doug collins rally. all of this, the committee believes, shows that the former president was deliberately and knowingly trying to ignore the results of the election and after the fact then went to great lengths to overturn it. i think we're going to see these clips sort of be in the broader context of that environment that took place at the white house, facilitated by the former president. >> and we're going to talk to the two danish film makers, by the way, in an hour, live on our show, who made that documentary about roger stone. give us some context around what he said. but jonathan lemire, you don't need much context, it's all there in black and white.

roger stone, we should remind people, you mention him in your book was a right hand and adviser to donald trump, has known him for many years, and just saying out loud what the strategy was, which is just say you won. possession is 9/10 of the law. if you come out quickly and say you won, then it's on the other guy to prove that you didn't. interesting, too, though, that he said before the election results came in, we're going to take you to court. we're going to fight it everywhere. well, they did. and they lost 62 times in court when challenging election results. >> nothing subtle at all about what we heard from roger stone there, willie. and actually, you mention my book. in my book i uncovered how stone's working on a plot like this predates 2020. an interview with breitbart, he talked about claiming victory, and if needed resorting to violence to secure it. of course that was the election with hillary clinton, trump ended up winning that, so none

of this was necessary but it shows that far back already some seeds were planted as to what we would eventually see in 2020. stone, of course, not an official member of the white house staff, not a member of the campaign, a long time trump adviser, in the president's ear. part of the bannon cabal that took home in the willard hotel, the war room there, and of course now this new footage suggesting that, yes, this was being discussed out in the open that they were going to just claim victory and steal it, and try to steal it, and we know that was reiterated on election night as well. that's also what rudy giuliani pitched to the then president when the results started to come in. giuliani tells trump, go out there, say you won anyway. that's what they did and the insurrection was off to the races. >> and eugene robinson, you write about this trump wing of

the republican party, which is the actual base of the republican party. it is out in the open, revenge replaces working for the american people. violence replaces the support for peaceful transition. sedition replaces democracy. and i keep talking about how it's so shocking that they're saying this all in the open. you have conservative, so-called conservative thought leaders that are now openly saying that western democracy does not work. liberal democracy does not work. they choose the illiberalism of italy, of hungary, of russia, and it's all about exacting revenge on your opponents instead of doing what's best for your constituents. >> yeah, it absolutely is.

it's what happens when a criminal organization achieves power, seizes power in the united states. and maybe we're lucky that it never happened in the 200 plus years before this, but how do you distinguish trump and the people around him from a criminal organization. are they more criminal or more authoritarian? you know, it's hard to pick. you can go either way on a given day. and so now, we're facing the midterms and we're looking at the prospect, you know, what happens if republicans do manage to take the house. i think it's just all revenge all the time. that's their own -- they have no plan for governing, and they have no interest really in governing. it will all be about revenge for, you know, trump got impeached. let's impeach biden. that will be the ultimate bragging biden cabinet members

up before hearings. benghazi, benghazi, benghazi, only it will be something else. that's what's happened to the republican party. it is shocking, a shocking example of devolution into a criminal/authoritarian organization. >> and you know, they will be the first to admit it. again, when they talk about how western democracy doesn't work, liberal democracy doesn't work, they'll be the first to talk about it, which, again, they're admitting the quiet part out loud as donald trump has always done. michael steele, listening to gene robinson, i'm just struck by the fact that we all get on tv and we talk about what's happening in the midterms of course because of a history. historical trends in midterm elections, we're sort of rading

on a curve, democrats may take control or a few seats in the senate. they'll lose the house, may not lose the house by as much as, but just stop right there. as you know, as gene is talking about, if republicans take control of the house by one vote, then this exacting of revenge that they're now openly stating. they're not going to govern, we're going to use any power we have to exact political revenge on our opponents because they won an election two years ago. that becomes the new reality. listen, it's going to be bad for america over the next two years. of course, if you look over the horizon, it will be horrible for whatever republican candidate is running in 2024. i don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but the biggest nightmare for ron desantis, if he runs in 2024 would be republicans taking control of the house and behaving this way

because it will turn off the middle. but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, we would have that constitutional crisis on our hands over the next two years if they got in and decided to start moving forward with undemocratic, you know, legislation or -- we're just openly destructive the way they're talking about being right now. >> so i guess i'll use the word assumption, will it turn off the middle? i don't know. i think that's the test of this election. i mean, look, the republican party is telling you what we're all about. you've got, you know, stefanik, you've got mccarthy, all of these folks out here saying, you know, we're about an agenda that involves investigation of hunter biden. you've got, you know, clarity on if we get power back, we're

going to impeach biden. that's a declarative statement, well, we'll think about it, no, we're going to do that. everybody is ringing their hands about the biden administration and inflation and gas prices and they look across the aisle and a group of thugs sitting there saying, we want to further sow anti-democratic agenda. we're not laying out a governing strategy. we're laying out a resident -- retributive strategy, if the american people told up front that we've got no plan except to own the libs and take down biden through an impeachment process, then they've basically said that's okay if they give them that one seat so this is, you know, i don't know how much the

middle or anybody else is concerned if they go to the polls saying, oh, my god inflation, i'd rather have an anti-democratic party in power, than a guy at least trying to manage, however halfheartedly an economy that i'm concerned about. it makes no sense it me. the american people have to reconcile themselves about the kind of leaders they want to lead them. these leaders are an extension of us. they represent us and so when they go out and show their behinds as my mama used to say, they're showing our behinds, we're part of that. we may sit there and talk about what the italians are doing. we're not that much better. we're not much far removed if this is the path we want to go down when we have it staring in our faces from the reports out

of january 6th, the evidence coming out of georgia, and elsewhere that this is an anti-democratic process that has been unfolding in front of our eyes, joe and so the question to that middle you referred to, are you down with that, is that what you want? that's what you're going to get. there's not going to be any difference. i understand what you're saying about the middle. this is in their hands come november. if they give the power back to a party that has no agenda that wants to impeach the president and go down that road, then don't complain about what happens between, you know, 23 and 24. >> i don't disagree. by the way, wisconsin's republican speaker, robin vos is trying to block a new subpoena from the house select committee investigating january 6th. the committee issued the subpoena over the weekend seeking testimony about a phone call vos had with trump in july of this year, during which the former president pushed him to

overturn wisconsin's 2020 presidential election results. here's what vos told a local news station shortly after that phone call. >> when's the last time you talked to the former president. >> last week. >> what was that conversation like. >> one of those, it's very consistent. he makes his case, which i respect. he would like us to do something different in wisconsin. i explained that it's not allowed under the constitution. he has a different opinion, then he put the tweet out. >> the panel wanted testimony from vos by yesterday, but in a court filing, vos argues the quote only explanation for such an extreme time line is the committee's desire to conduct the deposition before tomorrow's next public hearing. jackie, give us more context about this one person they want to hear from and why he's holding back.

>> yeah, mika, he's not wrong about the committee's time crunch right now. they want as much evidence as possible to put forth in the hearing which is unlike the past hearings that we saw over the summer is not going to be chronological but more about various themes and topics. disparate themes and topics. vos, they would like to speak to him with regard to the fake electors plot, and sort of piece together just how high up some of these directives emanated from. whether or not the former president was directly in touch with some of the people that were at the state level, trying to actually implement the unconstitutional means of overturning the results of the election, which vos obviously said in the interview right there that he was actually in touch with the former president. it wasn't just his campaign lawyers, counsel, and state organizes. it was the former president who himself was encouraging and trying to facilitate this scheme

so that come january 6th, an idea that had been spoken about prior to november 4th was starting to be pushed around, was going to try to have these electors through the vice president interfering with the election certification, send it back to the states so that they could then submit trump electors. >> "the washington post," jackie alemany, we'll see you again tomorrow. thank you very much. willie. for another part of this story, let's bring in nbc news homeland security correspondent, julia ainsley. she has exclusive new reporting about the investigation into the secret service response on the day of the january 6th attack. julia, good morning. so we know that the january 6th select committee will have another hearing tomorrow, the first one in a couple of months, and we expect, anyway, that some of these text messages may be part of that presentation from the secret service. our viewers will remember a couple of months ago, the secret

service said the texts were lost in a systems upgrade. what else did you find out? >> i learned that shortly after the dhs, the secret service actually handed over 24 phones of agents who were involved in the events surrounding the january 6th insurrection at the capitol. now, we done know what was found on those phones. we understand they're still in the possession of the dhs inspector general. we also understand that some of the secret service agents were frankly a little bit peeved that their superiors came in and took their phones, but they do in fact belong to the government. they're secret service property. they handed those over and there may be other communications that the dhs ig could get. they're doing forensic analysis on these phones. i also think it speaks to kind of the black hole that the dhs ig's investigation has fallen into. we heard a lot about this after

the last batch of january 6th hearings earned around july. that was a big topic because we wanted to know more about what the secret service was saying, particularly after we heard cassidy hutchinson's testimony. then we understood that those text messages were missing and the dhs inspector general had launched a criminal probe. really we weren't able to find out the nature of the probe, why it was criminal, what statutes might have been violated and why they launched that in the first place. all we know from the secret service is they believe the text messages were gone as part of the systems upgrade. now we understand there's actually been more probing but it remains a big question about what joseph is doing, and we learned as recently as last friday that some of his own employees think he isn't doing enough and is standing in their way to do thoughtful, independent, and thorough investigationings. -- investigations. so a lot of questions arise into what the investigation entails into the missing texts and whether there might be a chance

we could see any of the communications that those agents would have exchanged that day since we know 24 phones are in the possession of the office. >> that was my follow up question, either the texts were erased or weren't. is there a suspicion or hope by investigators that some of them may have been preserved on the 24 phones that were turned over? >> yeah, i think that's the hope or if it's not text messages, perhaps there's other information that you could get from these phones. but basically looks like it got to the point where they wanted to get in and see for themselves what kind of systems upgrade would have taken out all of these communications across all of these phones. and so now they're trying to see if there's a way they can get into it. remember, there was a big question about whether or not we say erased. it wasn't that they had been manually gone in and deleted texts. according to secret as much as, when they did the upgrade, they scored everything basically back to factory settings.

we did speak about this at the time, the fact that the secret service did ask employees to take some measures to preserve communications. perhaps there's something that can be saved as part of this investigation. again, there's so many questions about what exactly the inspector general might be able to get and why we have heard so little about that investigation is apparently criminal. >> january 6th, one date whose messages you may want to preserve. julia, thank you so much. we may learn more about the hearing of the committee tomorrow. >> absolutely. let's turn to hurricane ian, which is growing in intensity this morning, and it could be a monster category 4 storm when it's forecast to slam into florida later this week. parts of the state could see historic rain. catastrophic winds, and life threatening storm surge. msnbc correspondent sam brock joins us live from gulf port, florida, sam, what are you

hearing from local officials and residents there? >> reporter: they're urging people to leave as soon as possible. we're in a hurricane warning. right now, first time since 2017 reality is starting to set in. this is a powerful visual right here. many businesses putting up plywood to block the windows. sandbags on the ground to prevent flooding. the focus is on mass evacuations. hundreds of thousands of people being asked to leave their homes as hurricane ian is inching ever so closely to this region of 3 million people. this morning florida is rushing residents out of a possible disaster zone. hurricane ian has grown so large so fast, the storm which is nearly 500 miles wide can be seen from space. the fear it could hit florida this week as a major hurricane. >> even if it's off the coast of having really historic storm surge and flooding is very very real. >> around a half dozen counties

on florida's gulf coast issuing mandatory evacuations, many starting today. prompting bumper to bumper traffic on many highways. >> please be patient. we expect to have to evacuate over 300,000 people. >> reporter: yet time is quickly running out. especially for those seeking sand being as or to stock up on supplies. empty shelves at stores throughout the region. this video from inside a tampa home depot shows generators, plywood and gas cans flying off the shelves throughout the day. florida now activating 5,000 national guardsmen. double the initial call up from a few days ago. an 2,000 guards are on stand by in neighboring states. fema is also on the ground and ready to provide help. it's why so many are preparing to leave. for vica waters who lives near an evacuation zone, that's not an option because she's 38 weeks pregnant. >> getting in a car makes me nervous as well because i would

have to deliver somewhere that my doctor is not there. >> reporter: for others who have not been ordered to leave yet, the scars from past hurricanes weighing on them heavily. in mexico beach, florida, they're busy filling sandbags, remembering all too well, category 5 hurricane michael's destructive power in 2018. many there taking the tried and true advice, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. just for some context, the tampa bay area has a population of about 3 to 3.2 million people. it's grown in recent years. hillsboro and pinellas, 2 1/2 collectively. the vast majority of people in the two counties, a million plus are in evacuation zones. crucial hours ahead with tampa's airport closing at 5:00 tonight, not before the last flights to help people get out of town. >> you, nbc's sam brock, thank

you very much. difficult decisions for people, but they've got to get out of the path of that storm. >> they do. that's the one thing we've learned time and again, most traumatically with hurricane katrina. you look at the tampa st. pete area. i know you've been there and are aware of it. there aren't a lot of places for the water to go. if you have a storm surge, if, in fact, the tampa bay area gets hit by a major hurricane for the first time since 1921, it's just going to be catastrophic. >> yeah, there's no question about it. and as you say, it's been a century since there's been a direct hit in tampa. when you hear the mayor of the city saying yesterday, if you can leave, leave now. that's about as dire as a warning gets. governor desantis, statewide emergency. the tampa bay buccaneers moving south to miami because they know how bad this is going to be. this is about as serious as it gets for the west coast of florida there. we're tracking this and

still ahead on "morning joe," we'll speak live with the directors of the film that's expected to be a key piece of evidence in tomorrow's january 6th committee hearing. also healed, new reporting that a high ranking member of the oath keepers who was charged in his role in the january 6th attack was texting with a white house aide in the weeks before the insurrection. we'll also speak with senator amy klobuchar about a bill that could go a long way in preventing another january 6th. but that's facing an uncertain future in the senate. and coming up, britain's economy melting down right now. the pound melting down. >> how did that happen? >> well, because liz truss happened is what many people are saying right now. we'll get the opinion of two people who know the issue as good as anybody else coming up next on "morning joe." good as anybody else coming up next on "morning joe." the new subway series menu. the greatest sandwich roster ever assembled.

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financial markets closed yesterday at their lowest level since 2020. and while that has people here concerned, overseas, there are fears of a total economic collapse in the united kingdom after britain's new finance minister last week announced the country's largest tax cuts in half a century. >> i'm not going to cut the additional rate of tax today, mr. speaker. i'm going to abolish it all together. from april the 23rd, we will have a single higher rate of income tax of 40%. >> joining us the editor and chief for the economist and u.s. national editor for the "financial times" ed luce, good to have you with us this morning. >> how bad is the situation in

britain right now? >> it's pretty bad. there's been a fairly major loss of confidence in the uk. the pound hit an all time low. interest rates are rising, so the uk has a toxic combination that you normally associate with emerging economies of a falling currency, and rising interest rates. the reason this happened is partly because the strong dollar means currencies are tumbling around the world. the uk then added a huge goal, as you say, by last week, announcing the biggest tax cut in half a century, a breezy announcement by the new uk chancellor, and what they're doing is very self-consciously a kind of warmed over reaganism. they believe in the reagan recipe, they have only read the first couple of chapters of reaganism, and that of the early 1980s when ronald reagan dramatically cut taxes to boost the economy. the difference is that the u.s. has the dollar and the dollar

soared then, but the uk is a small open economy, and it has the pound and investors freaked out and the pound tumbled and interest rates soared. the uk is in real trouble right now. we have lost the market's confidence. >> yeah, and ed luce, what is remarkable to me is, you know, we americans love to talk about how bad our system is. what is remarkable to me is that liz truss gets elected by, i don't know, a couple hundred thousand dues paid in torys. less than 1% of the british population, and she's installed as british prime minister, and she takes a radical course economically with no mandate whatsoever. and suddenly the pound is collapsing. >> yeah, i mean, she became prime minister on labor day, so three weeks ago, and britain's lost half a trillion dollars of

market value in those three weeks. and remember, ten days of those three weeks essentially was shut down for the queen's funeral and mourning period. 81,000 conservative party members elected her as the new prime minister for the whole country, far country of 67 million people. on the basis of repudiating much of the previous 12 years of conservative party government. so this is a very weird, very quirky mandate she's picked up and this decision to cut taxes by borrowing from a market where interest rates were already rising, so the borrowing costs are going up dramatically is an extremely eccentric sort of throw of the dice that is already being punished. there are people talking, zanny will know better, and she gave a good summary of the situation.

there are conservatives talking about writing letters of protests and perhaps challenging her before christmas. it's italian style politics, not what we're used to from britain. >> and zanny, just to provide an alternative view to what we have been hearing over the past several days about how disastrous this new policy shift is, this morning the "wall street journal" editorial page says miss truss started pulling into the pro investment, pro growth of the economic ring. there are risks all around, but don't underestimate the risks of stagflation, the editorial page goes on to say that the pound was sinking even before her plan was announced last friday. what's your response to that? >> so that is true. i said that earlier. a lot of this is the strength of

the dollar, and journalist is right, and i agree that britain needs to focus on growth, and liz truss is right to focus on the need to raise britain's growth rate. the recipe for higher growth is deregulation, supply side reform, all manner of other things which she has hinted at but hasn't laid out. where i would part company with the "wall street journal's" analysis, with the uk case, 10% inflation, and massively increased spending as she has done to bail out people to prevent energy costs going higher. she's just on a big government expansion to then have the highest, biggest tax cuts in half a century. those tax cuts are not really focused on areas that are necessarily going to make a huge difference to growth. she has gotten rid of the top rate of tax. maybe there are some, including the "wall street journal" editorial page, that will have a huge impact on growth. that impact is massively

outweighed by the problem that comes from interest rates soaring in the uk. so the u.s. in the early '80s could do reaganism, but the uk in 2022 cannot do a light form of reaganism and succeed. we're just in a different position. i'm all in favor of higher growth. i think she's right on that. we supported her on that. we've had a campaign at the economist the last few months. this is how you can increase britain's growth rate. she's spot on on her diagnosis. the problem, i take issue a bit with the recklessness of the tax cutting side of her recipe of how to get her. >> ed, all of a sudden, britain is the sick man of europe in terms of its economy, it's not italy, it's not turkey, it's britain, which is astounding, but this is a like a total u-turn from the previous prime minister, boris johnson, who i believe actually raised taxes to pay for the covid relief.

how do torys explain that and isn't there, you know, aren't they freaked out essentially by this complete u-turn? >> yeah, i mean, the "wall street journal" of all all papers should treat what markets say seriously, and britain's borrowing costs are higher than those of greece, italy, portugal, spain, they're the club med countries of europe, but caused such problems during the euro crisis ten years ago. britain has to pay more to borrow. that's what the markets think of this. yes, she's repudiated boris johnson's leveling up agenda, which is about investing a lot more in the post industrial parts of britain, the north in particular, and it was politically quite successful. he won a lot of labor seats at

the last general election that now seem almost impossible for the torys to regain. so what's the theory behind what liz truss and quasi are doing. i think it is the cartoonish, the markets don't agree. very few economists agree. the economist clearly doesn't agree. and i think what we're going to see in the next few days is more and more pressure on liz truss to do a u-turn of some kind. >> zanny, give us a view at what role brexit has played in this. we were talking about it as you sat down, in terms of the confidence in uk but more immediately, where does it go from here?

>> i don't think made brexit made a direct role. because britain is no longer in the european union, it's easier for the uk to lose investor confidence. we are now separate from europe. we have been hit by that, lost free market access to our biggest market. britain was more vulnerable. the economy was weaker before brexit and now this shock has hit it, and where does it go from here. i think the striking thing is the markets, the pound has somewhat rebounded today. we'll see whether there's a complete route. i think there's going to have to be some clarification. the uncertainty about what this government wants to do is dire. beyond that, britain is going to be constrained in how much she does. what i hope she does is double down on explaining the progress of other policies she wanted to do. they are really important and she needs to do them. and understands the limits, you can't cut taxes and borrow and

borrow and borrow. the bank of england will be important. it's issued statements. we need calming and confidence building. i hope she can do the pro growth, she has managed not only to upset the markets but upset her own nps. to do something politically tone deaf and repressive is impressive and the daily star today had a fantastic picture of the chancellor in a head loin that said honey i shrank the kwint. >> editor and chief of the economist, zanny, and editor for "the financial times" ed luce. john brennan joins us, why he thinks the biggest threat facing america is our own politicians.

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comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. ™ . today is the final day of voting in a series of what many have called sham referendums in ukraine. they come as the russian government continues to crush protests as the country tries to call up 300,000 more troops for its war. nbc's erin mclaughlin has more from ukraine. >> reporter: this morning, russia scrambling to contain the chaos as the wave of men fleeing the draft shows no signs of slowing. video appearing to show miles of cars lined up at the border to neighboring countries. the government responding to heated anti-war protests last weekend. and violence at recruitment centers a video appearing to show one recruitment center on fire. yesterday during a meeting with president putin, the leader of

belarus condemning what he claims tens of thousands dodging the draft. let them run, he says, claiming russia has enough draftees who are showing up. for draft-age men living in russian-occupied areas of ukraine, running is not an option. former kherson resident said not only are they not letting men 18 to 35 out, some are going missing. >> they go missing, they drag them out of their homes and take them somewhere. >> reporter: men and women suspected of pro ukrainian ties were being kidnapped from the liberated village of lipsy. ukrainian prosecutors say 80% of the village was evacuated to russia. they weren't allowed to go to ukrainian-held territory. now the streets are eerily quiet. residents claim there's evidence the russians turned the back of the local high school into a torture chamber. they electrocuted the prisoners like this, he alleges, claiming the russians left their call

sign on a nearby wall. >> erin mclaughlin reporting from ukraine. joining us now, former cia director john brennan, an msnbc national security analyst and his memoir "undaunted" is out today in paperback. director brennan, it's great to have you on the show. i want to talk about the book in a moment. first, if you are, put yourself in the shoes of the cia director right now, and you're watching what's happening in russia, looking at the dissent in the streets, resistance to the call ups of 300,000 troops, the failure on the battlefield, how are you assessing where this war may go? >> i think our assessment is that putin realizes he's in trouble on the battlefield in ukraine where the russian military has been suffering setback after setback. in the international arena, where the countries like china and india and others are criticizing what's going on in

ukraine and the protracted nature of the horrific war. most profoundly for putin on the domestic front, not only is he having to deal with economic changes but also this tremendous opposition to this partial mobilization, the call up of supposed reservists. so i do think he sees that his plans for ukraine and swallowing it up over seven months ago have fallen apart. now i think he has to determine how best to salvage something in what has turned out to be a debacle for him. >> he said i'm not bluffing when i say i'm willing to use them. how seriously should the united states take that threat? >> i don't think we should ever discard out of hand anything that putin says. i do not think at this point that he is seriously considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons or any type of nuclear bomb in ukraine because he knows that it would be international condemnation and also i think it

would invite the u.s. and nato allies to intervene in some manner, as president biden and jake sullivan have said, it would be catastrophic in the event that putin goes down the nuclear route. i think it's typical of him to intimidate others. at this point, i do think he is not deciding to go down that road. >> director brennan, good morning,velopments in the situa surrounding the classified documents that former president trump had at his estate in palm beach. you of course know better than anybody about the importance of documents and keeping them safe. walk us through a little bit as to your sense of this, the procedures that were clearly not followed and what you feel would be an appropriate recourse for anyone, whether a cia officer or

former president who was found to have classified documents he shouldn't. >> well, i served six presidents and all of them treated not just the intelligence professionals with great respect and dignity, but also the documents they would read and look at and see in the oval office or the white house situation room. never did i think that a president would in fact take those documents out of the white house and leave them in an unsecured area. and so i know that if this was the case with any cia officer or nsa, it would have been very swift action taken to make sure that first of all these documents were going to be retrieved, but secondly that the individual would be held accountable for what was clearly an intentional breach of security practices and procedures, and clearly donald trump knew that he was doing something that was highly illegal by taking all of these documents, and looking at the cover pages and the markings, not just the classification

level but the code words, these documents contain highly sensitive intelligence that keeps the country's national security safe. therefore it really was outrageous, and i know my former colleagues are outraged at what happened. >> director brennan, your book includes a new epilogue that touches on recent events. i'm wondering if you can share with our viewers not just what those events are but why it was important to note them and what you think the biggest threat to democracy is today. >> well, for over 30 years, mika, i was trying to counter a soviet and then russian efforts to try to undermine our democratic system of government here. also trying to stop the chinese and other foreign adversaries from using disinformation and propaganda to sow the seeds of dissension within our midst here in the united states. what i have seen over the past number of years is more and more american politicians report not

only to demagoguery but to spreading falsehoods and disseminating lies that really distort the views of the american people and the american electorate. therefore, i really am concerned that the continued use of disinformation is really underm democracy in a way that is so fundamental to maintaining our system of government and our values. and when i see individuals like donald trump and also what has happened to the republican party, i find it surreal. that's what i say in the epilogue in the book. it used to a bastion of thinking, conservative thinking, now it's resorted to lies and falsehoods. it's not just the politicians, it's the talk show hosts on other networks that distort the american public. this is where american officials

have a particular responsible to speak truthfully to the american public. >> former cia director, john brennan, thank you very much. the paper back edition of his memoir "undaunted: my fight against america's enemies at home and abroad" is available now. we appreciate you coming on the show this morning. thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," the federal government wants to bring more transparency to what your next flight will cost you. we'll explain how they'll do that just ahead. and a far-right conspiracy theory sets off a member of the january 6th committee. we'll have his impassioned response to republicans. "morning joe" is coming right back. super emma just about sleeps in her cape. but when we realized she was battling sensitive skin, we switched to tide hygenic clean free. it's gentle on her skin and out-cleans our old free detergent. tide hygenic clean free. hypoallergenic and safe for sensitive skin.

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the biden administration is out this morning with new proposed rules for airlines in an attempt to make them more transparent about some of their added fees. stephanie gosk has the details. >> reporter: the scramble to get those holiday plane tickets is on followed by the ticket shock. compared to last year, average domestic fares are up 43 for thanksgiving and 39% for christmas. those high prices include extras like checking a bag and change feeds. the federal government proposal new rules to ensure airlines and travel sites are transparent about extra costs up front as soon as a price is listed. customers would no longer have to search for fees tied to things like checking bags, canceling or changing flights and guaranteeing seats with family. the white house says the new rules would force airlines to be more competitive, driving down prices. >> are these new rule changes necessary? >> no, they are not necessary.

all the information that this proposed rule is about is available on our websites. >> reporter: nick calio is president for airlines for america, a trade association. >> we don't need the government to tell us to do it. our carriers are so fiercely competitive, it's unbelievable. >> reporter: the transportation secretary responding. >> i think right now, we still have too many situations where passengers think you're getting a low fare and a great deal, but it wasn't obvious what the fees were. >> reporter: the announcement comes after a summer of discontent. tens of thousands of cancellations and delays. staffing shortages forced airlines to cut down the number of flights, contributing to an increase in ticket prices. air travelers are frustrated. the federal government hoping some new rules might make things better. >> it's a way to say to the public, we hear your complaints, we agree with you. we want you to know everything that's involved and the true cost of flying. >> stephanie gosk with that

report. up next on "morning joe," we'll look ahead to tomorrow's january 6th hearing. the filmmakers behind a roger stone documentary which is expected to be a key focus tomorrow will join us this morning. plus we're live in georgia where this morning former white house chief of staff mark meadows is expected to testify in front of a grand jury about the efforts to overturn the vote in that state. and senator amy klobuchar is here as the senate prepares to take up a bill that could keep a january 6th insurrection from ever happening again. we're back in just two minutes. 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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it's the very top of the third hour of "morning joe." welcome back. it's tuesday, september 27th. jonathan lemire and eugene robinson are still with us. we have a lot to get to this morning. had hurricane looks like it will be huge. >> yeah. it's sizing up to be a big one. we got some new updates at the top of the hour. hurricane ian, which has now made landfall in cuba as a category 3 hurricane, bringing with it powerful winds and storm surge. it hit the island nation this morning with wind speeds of 125 miles per hour. the national hurricane center is warning of heavy rainfall which

could raise the water level by 14 feet above normal tide level. authorities in cuba evacuated about 50,000 people from the capital. ian expected to become a category 4 hurricane before making landfall in florida with wind speeds forecasted at more than 130 miles per hour. tampa, st. petersburg are projected in most models here to take a direct hit as ian is expected to be the first major hurricane to hit the two cities since 1921. florida governor ron desantis has declared a statewide emergency warning ian could knock out power and interrupt fuel supplies. we'll get the storm's latest track in a few minutes. joe, you were talking about storm surge in tampa. the national hurricane center says life-threatening storm surge from tampa down south to those beach communities you know so well. this is a big one. >> it's so heavily populated. if you go from fort myers,

naples, all the way up to sarasota, tampa, st. pete, you're having this hurricane, it might be a category 4 hurricane, which is just devastating. we had that in pensacola with ivan in back in 2004. just completely wrecks the town. again, the problem with tampa and st. pete, the area has not had a direct hit since 1921, if you've been there, you know everything is so low. it is at sea level. a ton of water around throughout that very populated area. and there's just not -- if the tide rises and water levels rise, forget 14 feet, five, six feet, there's no place for that water to go in downtown tampa. no place for the water to go in st. pete. it could be a really devastating storm. we've also seen storms that go

across florida and that peninsula, go there and then when it hits, it just sort of stops. and then moves around. so, these storms are always unpredictable. hurricanes are unpredictable. i talked about the 2004 hurricane, hurricane i've have a in pensacola, florida. it was supposed to go to mobile, at the last second darted back to the east. just terrible news for pensacola. that happens with these storms. still unpredictable exactly where it's going. what we've seen over the past couple of days, we've seen these spaghetti models start to sort of consolidate. >> right up the coast. >> they were going everywhere originally from mobile, alabama all the way down to tampa. now it seems to be solidifying a bit. the forecasters really do believe it could be a worse-case scenario going over tampa and

st. pete. >> we'll continue to track that. we have a lot to get to this morning. new reporting on what to expect at tomorrow's january 6th committee hearing. according to the "washington post," the committee plans to show footage of roger stone recorded in the weeks before the capital attack by danish documentary filmmakers. and those filmmakers join us now. director and producer of "a storm foretold" christoffer guldbrandsen and also with us is the director of photography for the documentary, frederik marbell. thank you very much for joining us this morning. christoffer, if you could explain how you ended up along for the ride with these characters, what drew you to them and what stood out during your experience. >> that's a lot. i think like people all over the world, we looked at the election in 2016 in the united states

dumfounded, trying to understand what was happening in the world's largest democracy. that was our starting point. we wanted to try to understand this movement that was emerging. we decided to look up with roger stone because he has been with trump for 30 years. if anybody signifies and identifies with this movement, we saw it as stone. >> so we have a clip here where we hear roger stone calling for political violence. let's take a look at that. >> excellent. [ bleep ] the violence. [ bleep ] the violence. shoot to kill. cnn, antifa, shoot to kill. done with this [ bleep ]. >> give us the context of that. >> we were returning from a rally, it's just literally days before the election.

we were returning from a rally in georgia, and as i think most people recall, the days before the election were extremely tense. i think this was an expression of frustration with the expectation of the pending defeat of donald trump. >> he reportedly followed those statements by saying he was kidding. let's take a look at another clip where we hear roger stone laying out the plan to challenge and discredit the election results. >> what they're assuming is the election will be normal. the election will not be normal. oh, these are not the california results? we're not accepting them. if the electoral college shows up, armed guards will show up. [ bleep ] you. i'm challenging all of it. and the judges we're going to are judges i appointed. [ bleep ] you, we're not stealing the election.

>> former president trump declared victory in the 2020 election before results were announced. in the next scene, we hear roger stone explain that was the plan all along. >> let's hope we're celebrating. i suspect it will be -- i do suspect it will still be up in the air. when that happens, the key thing to do is to claim victory. possession is nine-tenths of the law. we won, [ bleep ] you. you're wrong. [ bleep ] you. >> and finally, you asked roger stone if trump was willing to go along with the plan to upend the election. let's watch what he told you. >> so, that's the concept, has it been pitched to the president? >> yes, it has. i believe the president is for it. the obstacles are these lily livered weak-kneed bureaucrats in the white house counsel's office and now they must be crushed because they told the president something that's not true.

>> so, what was your understanding of about how close roger stone was during those weeks, those important months up to and after the election to donald trump? did he really have his ear? was he helping along with steve bannon and others to push this idea on president trump? how often were they talking when you were around? >> he didn't communicate directly with trump while we were together with him. you could sense that he was communicating a lot with aides around the trump campaign. we were with him when he launched stop the steal on january 5th when he was communicating with michael flynn and more fringe characters. i know he was communicating directly with people on the campaign. >> let's talk about stone there. it's remarkably -- he's remarkably candid. he's saying this is what we'll do. stone is a flamboyant character. he's been in trump's life for a

long time. did you have any sense at all while he was talking to you that he knew what he was saying was wrong or illegal or he felt this is the power of the president, we can strongarm our way into office. >> i got the sense he thought they would get away with it and they were in the right to do it. but he has this -- as with trump -- they have this win-at-all-cost mentality. i don't think they take those things into account to be honest. >> as we said a minute ago, we'll see clips from your documentary from the select committee, from the january 6th select committee in congress. you guys were subpoenaed for that information. initially you told the "washington post" you were reluctant to provide that material. what was that reluctance about and why did you ultimately hand it over? >> i think as journalists, our starting point is to stay in our own lane.

there's a political sphere, a law enforcement sphere, and then there is journalism. so that is where our hesitance came from. of course, when you receive a subpoena from the united states congress, it's something that you take very seriously. i think the work has been -- i think you cannot overstate the importance of the work they have done. and the success they've had with uncovering what really went off. for me, it was impossible to defend not to contribute when we had material that could help them solve their objective. >> yep. christoffer guldbrandsen and frederik marbell, thank you very much. the documentary "a storm foretold" it's expected to be featured in tomorrow's january 6th committee hearing. thank you for coming on the show. and since the january 6th committee was formed, some republican lawmakers have tried to discredit the panel through

misinformation and far-right conspiracy theories. it happened again last week during a meeting of the house judiciary committee. kentucky republican thomas massey pushed a conspiracy theory about a man named ray epps. it is a baseless theory that claims epps worked with the fbi to instigate the attack on the capitol. that set off january 6th committee jamie raskin who called out republicans. >> it was vetoed by the cult leader, donald trump, who said he wanted no investigation at all. that's your guy, donald trump, he said he wanted no investigation. and so, you pulled the plug on the investigation you originally advocated because donald trump didn't want it. let's talk about some truth! i'm giving you the facts about it! and then when speaker pelosi said, well, in that case, the house of representatives will conduct our own investigation, then again you guys boycotted it

because you wanted to put pro-insurrection members on the committee. so, we ended up with a bipartisan committee of people really interested in getting to the facts. you know what? this is what you guys can't stand. america listened to it because we had real congressional hearings unlike what goes on here with the temper tantrums and the diatribes and to often our side gets pulled into what you guys are doing. we had real hearings. 25 million, 30 million people watching because we told the truth. >> jonathan lemire, the first part of jamie raskin's conversation there, he explains how they had come to an agreement with republicans. they had actually sent their proposals to republicans who

were taking part in the process and then as he said, right as the clip began, the cult leader, as he called donald trump, the cult leader vetoed it. this is just a self-own by republicans. they had a chance to actually participate in this process. and they said no to a bipartisan investigation when you had joe manchin trying to apply pressure on republicans who he was trying to work with saying come on, this is something you don't play politics with. you all should be involved in this for the betterment of the senate, the house, this country. they refused. then, of course, you had house republicans, democrats talking together, working together, and democrats passing proposals to republicans who would send proposals back to democrats and they had actually agreed to work together and then donald trump

vetoed it. so here we are with republicans on the outside of this process and complaining about it when time and time again they had an opportunity to participate and they just refused to do it. so they turned this entirely over to the democratic party and liz cheney and adam kinzinger. >> there were two moments when republicans were a part of the process and bailed. in the senate, this looked like it would be a bipartisan probe into january 6th, and mitch mcconnell pulled the plug out of fear of what donald trump might do. the other republicans followed suit and the senate backed out. suddenly, no more senate it was only going to be in the house. house speaker pelosi put together this senate committee and said we want slots for republicans. when she went to kevin mccarthy and said -- this is all detailed in my book, who do you want

here, he picked a bunch of election deniers, the jim jordans of the world. pelosi said this cannot stand. we cannot have people who stood with trump and backed that, they cannot be a part of the committee. the two republicans she got, cheney and kinzinger. and the two of them have essentially run this process. the only republican voices we are hearing, those two lawmakers and republicans who some within trump's own administration who have all testified to what he did. painting damming accounts of his behavior leading up to and on january 6th. that not only made it effective arguments for the american people but, yes, trump and his allies have been shut out of the process weekend we know trump has been stewing at this for sabotaging his efforts to defend

himself. they're dealing with facts. people have been captivated by it. we'll see it tomorrow. >> facts versus conspiracy theories. gene robinson, that's one thing willie and i talked about, the frustration for some time. friends we have known, educated people with advanced degrees, they'll push a conspiracy theory about the rigged election. >> my god. >> i'll patiently walk my friends through it. i'll give them links to "wall street journal" stories, fox news stories, "new york post" stories. they'll go, oh, okay. what about -- they'll go to a covid conspiracy. >> they won't get it. >> they won't get it and then they'll move to a covid conspiracy. i'll walk them through that. they'll go, what about the russia hoax? it's always -- it's whack a mole. i bring that up just to say, republicans are doing this on the national level.

you have this story that is a conspiracy theory, a complete lie that has been pushed by members of the trump media, pushed by sitting members of congress. they know it's a lie. it's just like the same lies that they were pushing about the irs where you have -- is he perhaps the most senior republican member in the united states senate saying after news was breaking badly for donald trump about the investigation into stolen documents, you actually had a senior member of the united states senate talking about irs employees going to his homestate with ar-15s kicking down doors and killing people. poof, it was proven to be a lie.

let me say one more. you had the investigation -- thank god i forgot his name already -- but the dud who would prove the fbi acted appropriately. he just wrapped up his testimony a few weeks ago. durham. there's a durham investigation. do you remember that long, hot weekend of right-wing pro-trump stories about it's true, hillary clinton really did spy on donald trump. and then three days later, another lie. just made it up out of whole cloth. but there's never a reversal. there's never an "i'm sorry." >> never a consequence. >> they do what willie and my friends do, they move on to the next conspiracy theory. it's whack a mole. here, they're lying about this guy named ray epps, just like

they were lying about two volunteers that were counting votes in georgia, destroyed their lives. they lie with impunity. they lie without consequences and they're doing it again here on the high -- in the highest level of american politics. >> yeah. it keeps happening. this whole problem of deliberate disinformation is a threat. it's a threat to democracy because you need to have a common set of facts. you need a common narrative and then argue about what it means, what we should do, this and that. they've just completely done away with that. it's -- you know, that period, it's fascinating the earlier discussion, that period between january 6th and the next month or two, when the republican party had the opportunity to come clean. had the opportunity to say, you

know, what were we thinking? what were we doing? let's get back to the democratic process as we knew it. this -- what happened on january 6th is just, you know, unacceptable. we need an investigation, we need to get back to our tradition of democracy in this country. and a bipartisan, bicameral investigation will be part of it. and you have to look back at that period and you have to blame not just kevin mccarthy but mitch mcconnell and all the republicans who decided, no, in the end, we'll stick with donald trump. we think that's our route back to power. they chose power over democracy. after making that decision in that period, that led us to where we are now, where one of our two political parties

just -- does no longer believe in democracy as we have known it for the past two centuries. >> that's a point. just a couple days ago, liz cheney said if kevin mccarthy held the line in those days after the events of the 6th and said it's time to walk away from donald trump, we live in a different country right now except he went down to mar-a-lago instead for the photo op. let's bring in amy klobuchar of the senate, the rules committee will meet together to reform the electoral count act. i think we should take one step back for viewers and remind viewers what the existing electoral count act is. there's been some attention around it the last couple of years and what you believe needs changing to it. >> i want to thank you guys for being a check on the lies and a check on the conspiracy.

what we have to do today is take an 1877 law, put in place during the rutherford b. hayes era and make sure we have a democracy and a process that basically reflects the will of the people. you know what happened, january 6th is not just a date, it was a date we were counting the electoral college vote, pretty much a ceremony but it became a rallying cry for the insurrectionists. senator collins and manchin headed up a group of senators with senator blount and i as heads of the rules committee working with them and today we're going to get this bill out of committee. what it does, makes it clear, vice president, ceremonial role in this game. by the way, when those insurrectionists were 40 feet away from mike pence yelling "hang mike pence" donald trump was trying to use that old law in a way that was not correct. we're clarifying 2 out of 535 people, that's all it takes to

lodge an objection and create havoc in this process. we're putting that number up in the senate bill to 20%. number three, you can't have legislators after the fact creating slates of fake electors. we're clarifying that process. the fourth thing is a very clear appeals process. we're working together on this. i predict a strong vote out of the committee today. the house already voted on it, different version. but we're proud of the work we're doing in the senate. >> as you say, current law allows one member of the senate or one member of the house to stand up and then the objection is heard. you all are looking to raise that threshold. how are republicans coming around to this? you mentioned susan collins. do you think you'll actually get enough votes in the senate to change the law? >> i do. we already have ten republicans on the bill. i'll note our committee is the only committee on which both senator mcconnell and senator schumer serve as well as ted

cruz. what could go wrong today. overall, we keep adding senators to this bill. democrats and republicans. again, really strong work by a bipartisan group of senators. now it's our job to take it over the finish line. we'll make some changes to the bill. some of them reflect what was going on in the house. some of them are our own unique way of handling this, then we'll take it to the floor. we simply cannot allow people to manipulate an 188 law and use bayonets and bear spray to overturn the will of the people. that's what this vote is about today. >> senator, by the way, we've been talking about this for some time about how important it is that the senate comes together and passes this legislation. i know it's one of the few things that the "new york times" editorial page and washington

journal editorial page agreed on after january 6th. i would like to stop for a moment. you live in a state where there's a lot of republicans in minnesota, a lot of democrats as well. >> we're the only state with a split legislature in the country right now. so, yes. continue. >> i want to celebrate, again, another bipartisan achievement by this congress over the past year, year and a half. despite the fact that we are facing some grave political and constitutional challenges, you have got this extraordinarily important piece of legislation, obviously the infrastructure bill. obviously a small step forward on gun safety. i could list five or six others. could you talk about that?

we always get into our session here and say two things can be true at one time. we could be facing a grave political crisis, women could be facing a grave crisis when it comes to their own control over their health care choices. at the same time, democrats and republicans have figured out how to get quite a few things done over the past year and a half. more so than i think probably since you have gotten into the united states senate. >> exactly. this is our moment where we talk about a spacecraft can hit an asteroid 6.8 million miles away because we have defied the odds with this president and gotten things done. bipartisan infrastructure bill. we're not just talking about it. bridges are being built. broadband is going out. we got past the chips and science act. something you didn't mention. we're down to 12% of american production of chips, which are so important for everything from our phones to our refrigerators.

we pushed forward gun safety. we got finland and sweden, their unanimous vote in the senate to get them into nato. we supported ukraine in very strong votes in the senate including the budget that just came out this morning to continue the government. that includes that. we have done many, many things on a bipartisan basis. the president never gave up. he's persistent. two, you got leaders in congress like senator schumer and speaker pelosi as well as republicans that want to work with them where we've been able to push these bills through. i think so many times people counted us out, but we want to make sure, we have the backs of the american people. while we have clear disagreements, we don't want -- if the republicans take charge, a number of them have been talking about an abortion ban. you know that. you featured it on the show.

that's why we have to win the midterm. we just did something about climate change for the first time in decades. that's why we have to win this as that hurricane bears down on florida. we have to win in the midterms. we understand that. none of that stopped us from deciding we'll put our differences aside and get some things done. that's what that vote is today in the rules committee where you will see strong bipartisan support, a very good hearing for changes to the electoral count act. >> amy klobuchar, thank you for being on this morning. great to see you. >> great to be on. thanks. all right. still ahead on "morning joe," new reporting on the january 6th insurrection including who some key players inside the white house were texting with in the lead-up and on the day of the riot. plus any minute now, former white house chief of staff mark meadows is supposed to walk into a georgia courthouse where he

will testify in front of a grand jury. we'll go live to the courthouse. and people in florida are preparing or evacuating as hurricane ian takes aim at the west coast. it could be a massive category 4 storm. we'll have the latest on its path. also ahead, protests and a mass exodus in russia after the government tries to draft hundreds of thousands of men for the war in ukraine. the atlantic's anne applebaum says we're seeing an unraveling of the arrangement putin had with his russian citizens. she'll explain that ahead. you're watching "morning joe." for more on the new boss, here's patrick mahomes. incredible - meatballs, fresh mozzarella and pepperon- oh, the meatball's out! i thought he never fumbles. the new subway series. what's your pick? i look back with great satisfaction on my 32 years of active duty. i thought he never fumbles. i understand the veteran mentality. these are people who have served,

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we got a rare admission yesterday from the

kremlin, acknowledging its new military draft to reinforce russian forces in ukraine has been rife with problems. the kremlin spokesman yesterday said there had been irregularities in the call-up due to cases of noncompliance. "the new york times" reports he tried to shift the blame to local authorities carrying out the mobilization among resistant civilians across the country. this as the governors of several russians regions also acknowledged that men who did not meet the defense ministry's criteria are being called up. the authorities' admission came as a gunman who was allegedly distraught over the military mobilization opened fire yesterday at a draft office in siberia, seriously injuring a recruitment officer. meanwhile, the president of kazakhstan, a close ally of russia reportedly said yesterday quote in recent days, many people from russia have been coming to us. most of them are forced to leave because of the current hopeless situation. we must take care of them and

ensure their safety. this is a political and humanitarian issue. >> let's bring in the staff writer for the atlantic, anne applebaum, and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele. anne, obviously, this is an area you have spent your entire adult life studying. you're well aware of the time that i was talking about before, after the soviet union's fall, there was political and military and economic and cultural chaos in the former soviet union. are we seeing something that may be the beginning of a similar meltdown for the putin regime? >> you're certainly seeing the first break in what was essentially putin's deal with the russians. so essentially he offered them a kind of swap. you know, you let me steal, you let me have absolute power,

you let my friends and cousins and relatives make a lot of money, and in exchange, i'll leave you alone and you can go on living your own life and not be bothered by politics. and that was even the deal with this war. so we'll conduct the war, we're not going to even call it a war. we're going to call it a special military operation. it won't affect you. you'll see it on tv as a form of entertainment, gladiator battle. but you won't have to do anything with yourselves. with this mobilization, suddenly the war and the kind of chaos that putin has brought to ukraine begins to come home, and people ask themselves, do i really want to fight the ukrainians. do i hate the ukrainians. maybe i don't. i have no military experience. do i want to be sent to the front line. they're sending people apparently with no training, with poor weapons, with no equipment. and you're seeing the first kind of -- it's not organized resistance. putin has eliminated all the organized resistance in the country, but you are seeing as you've just heard, people fleeing the country, military recruitment offices being shot

up and fire bombed. and so it's the kind of a beginning of an unraveling of the arrangement of the last decade. >> we want to see how american voters view the legal trouble hanging over donald trump. the former president may think it's above the law but most voters including republicans do not. those numbers are straight ahead on "morning joe." it's the greatest sandwich roster ever assembled. next is the new great garlic. the tender rotisserie style chicken is sublime and the roasted garlic aioli adds a lovely pecan flavor. man, the second retirement really changed you. the new subway series. what's your pick?

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prevent fires. cut emissions. and cleaner air. yes on 30. new polling shows most americans don't think former president donald trump should be given special treatment under the law despite being a former

president. in the latest survey, 87% of registered voters say the legal system should treat trump the same as every american. that includes 80% of republicans. in a different question, nearly half of all likely voters, 47% say trump won't play a role in who they vote for this november. 32%. meanwhile, 32% say their vote will be in opposition of trump, while 20% say their vote will be in support of the former president. i find that fascinating. >> yeah, i do too. you know, willie, we've seen a series of polls over the past week that show -- in most of the polls, over half of americans believe donald trump presented a direct threat to american democracy after the election, and also believe that he committed crimes. and now we're seeing 85% of americans say that no man should

be above the law. >> including republicans. >> including 80% of republicans. it sounds like even despite the craziness and the madness that we see from trump corners from time to time, it does appear that more americans are lining up to the reality that donald trump likely is going to be facing some criminal penalties for january 6th. for trying to steal the election. for what he did in georgia, calling the secretary of state, demanding that he find 11,000 votes to rig that election. for what he did with the documents. a series of legal -- serious legal problems that he's going to be facing. i think there's a growing understanding from americans that he's going to be held accountable. >> yeah, and it's heartening, is it not, to see that 80% of republicans still believe in the rule of law, whether it's donald trump or someone else. if you commit a crime, there are consequences to that, even if you're the former president of

the united states. 8 in 10 republicans, as mika just told us, believe he should be held to that standard. in, anecdotally is not what you hear on the street. oh, come on, the document thing, it was a housekeeping issue, a storage issue. with the american people, nine out of ten are saying, michael steele, no, that stuff is serious and if he did it, he ought to be held accountable. by the way, we're going to hear much more beginning tomorrow with a new hearing from the january 6th select committee. all of these questions around the 2020 election will be top of mind again as we get closer and closer here to the midterms. >> willie, this is such a significant movement in this narrative that donald trump for, as we've seen, going back to the mueller investigations was able to manage, was able to divert attention from the main arguments that were made against

him. now that's come home in a serious way, and i think largely because of the effectiveness of the january 6th committee. the combination of letitia james and georgia prosecutors creating a move narratively with facts, and with a higher degree of evidence that while a lot of people thought that the american people were sort of, you know, it's summer, we're at the beach, who cares, you know, no, they were actually paying attention. they were actually taking a lot of this in. and i think that's reflective in this polling. you know, so republicans now have another narrative problem. you know, while they want to be dismissive as this was just a storage issue with mar-a-lago, the american people don't see it that way. so, how do you narratively translate that so you don't get on the wrong side of their attitude when it comes to the ballot box in four, five weeks. there are a number of things

playing out here with the january 6th committee coming back in front of our television screens tomorrow, this narrative picks up. a little bit of hiccup with denver riggleman and his revelations about phone call records at the white house, but i think they're going to seize that narrative back. this is going to proceed and make for an interesting fall narrative relative to the campaign, if people continue to digest this in the way they have so far, it will be interesting to see whether or not this weighs on their vote just a little bit more than you think they're saying right now. coming up, nasa's mission to crash a $300 million spacecraft. we'll show you the moment it collided with an asteroid intentionally. that's ahead on "morning joe."

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nasa yesterday successfully completed its first real-world test of the ability to nudge an asteroid off its course. nbc news correspondent tom costello has more. >> oh, my goodness. >> yeah. >> reporter: traveling at 14,000 miles per hour, nasa's dark spacecraft in time lapse, its final seconds before slamming into a harmless asteroid orbiting a bigger asteroid 7 million miles away. in typical nasa precision, bull's-eye. >> fantastic. >> reporter: nasa's goal to slam dark and nudge it slightly off course. >> for the first time, humanity has shown the ability to alter the orbit of a celestial object. >> reporter: it will take time for nasa to tell if dark gave

the asteroid a tiny push. they hope to use the same technique to divert a megaasteroid headed towards earth, a nightmare scenario that's played out in hollywood. >> a global killer. >> reporter: but potentially a real-life threat to the global population. nasa chief bill nelson. >> it may be the clue of what we could do in the future to try to save life here on earth. >> reporter: nasa says it does not see any asteroid posing an imminent threat to earth, but in 2013, a massive meteor escaped detection and exploded over a remote russian village injuring 1,500 people. >> impacts from ast roilds have had a profound effect on the history of life on earth. you can ask the dinosaurs about that. >> nbc's tom costello reporting. mika, the reference to armageddon aside, it's just extraordinary that nasa could --

>> it really is. >> -- send a refrigerator into outer space, nail it into a comet and knock it off its course. >> we're not preparing for anything, yet we're preparing for that. so impressive on nasa's part. time for the morning papers. "the connecticut post" has the latest on the state's gubernatorial race. according to a new poll, governor ned lamont has a 15-point lead over his republican opponent to bob stefanowski. the results marries findings from other recent surveys which have shown lamont and other democrats with commanding leads. in ohio, the toledo blade reports that senate candidates tim ryan and j.d. vance have agreed to participate in at least two debates ahead of the november election. the agreement puts an end to the long back-and-forth fight between the two candidates regarding scheduling. the debates are expected to take place on october 10th and 17th.

in wisconsin, the "green bay press gazette" is covering a surge in nursing home complaints. new data shows the state has received more than 1,500 complaints against nursing homes so far this year, an all-time high. that works out to nearly 200 complaints each month. it comes as the state struggles to find enough nurses and nursing home inspectors. again, staffing issues. and in new york, the buffalo news reports that canada will lift most of its covid-19 border restrictions beginning on saturday. travelers will no longer need to submit public health information including proof of vaccination and covid-19 test results. in addition, travelers will no longer be required to wear masks on planes and trains. coming up, we will go live to atlanta where former trump white house chief of staff mark meadows is set to testify before a grand jury about efforts to overturn the state's 2020

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welcome back to "morning joe." we're at the top of the fourth hour. it's 9:00 a.m. on the east coast, 6:00 a.m. out west. we'll begin this hour tracking hurricane ian now a major category 3 storm and still growing in strength as it eyes florida. any moment now florida governor ron desantis will speak in tallahassee on the steps he is taking to prevent a disaster. nbc news correspondent sam brock is in gulfport, florida, with the latest. >> reporter: reality is starting to set in for the tampa bay area as there's now a hurricane warning, first time since 2