this happen now because republicans are looking for another issue they hope could be a winning one. >> alexi mccammond, thank you as always, and thank you to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. "the new york times" did a fake story today, big front page, j.d. wasn't sure if he wanted my support. j.d. is kissing my ass, he wanted my support. i'm 18 points out. >> the reality is i have been a pain in the rear end to nancy pelosi, and if chuck schumer is the leader, i will be a pain in the rear end to him. i'm for ohio. i don't kiss anyone's ass like him. ohio needs an ass kicker, not an ass kisser. >> okay, then. ohio senate nominees, tim ryan and j.d. vance square off if their very first debate.

>> i can't remember the exact quote, but remember when churchill said britain needs an ass kicker. >> churchill said many wonderful things. those particular phrases i don't remember. you're the historian, not me. >> everybody attributes everything to churchill, and then like the greatest churchill quotes ever, he didn't say. all the things churchill said but didn't say, i'm laying claim to them. >> take them. >> tim ryan took that one, though, and i think he owned it quite well. it is a close race that could determine the balance of power in washington. the democratic nominee, congressman ryan will join us in just a moment. but first, nbc steve kornacki is standing by at the big board to break down where things stand with the midterms less than a month away. we are at go time. the rage is here, and i'm a little nervous. >> he's pissed off, look at him.

he's trying to hide it. >> i know. we're following the latest from ukraine as russia escalates attacks on civilian areas. g7 leaders are set to hold an emergency meeting in just a few moments from now. we'll be following that. we'll tell you what to expect. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, october 11th, along with joe, willie, and me, we have a full table. how weird is this. is everybody okay. >> i'm ready to go back into my corner. katty kay, u.s. special correspondent for bbc, member of the "new york times" editorial board, mara gay, and the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief, jonathan lemire. >> willie, let me ask a question. >> i don't like the look on your face. it's 6:02. so donald trump, he brings up a great point, donald trump emasculated j.d. vance in front

hed him. >> true that. truth social. >> and it is so foreign to me, he might as well have been speaking greek. i'm just asking you, have you ever had a job where you would allow somebody or want a job where you would allow somebody -- >> oh, yeah. >> i will tell you -- your honor, strike that question. i'm just saying, if a guy purposefully tries to emasculate here. i'm speaking as a guy here. i hope i don't offend people. i say that, but really i don't care. if a guy tries to emasculate you, and you sit there and take it. >> talk about guys and gals. >> i know, but i'm a guy.

>> it's a guy thing. >> and it's another thing, too. all of these guys that talk about a war on masculinity. i've given my unpopular opinion, if you're a real man, you don't know there's a war on masculinity. oh, that's very nice. thank you, yes, i feel terrible about myself. >> write entire books about that. >> interviews. >> i'm getting to a point here. how fascinating that the very men in the republican party talking about a war on masculinity put their own manhood in a lock box for trump and allow donald trump to insult them in front of their families, their friends, their communities, insult their wives, insult them constantly, and they just go along for the ride. i find this absolutely

fascinating. and j.d. vance, little butters, he's the same. >> and tim ryan put that into stark relief last night. and it's something we have talked about this for a couple of years now. how do a lot of these guys, and we're talking about mostly men, these senators, how do they look in the mirror every night with the things they do, and the things they allow to pass and the insults that are thrown at them, how do they talk to their kids about what they do for a living and why donald trump tells them what to do, leads them around by the nose and says do this or else. i don't know, just as a question of pride, personal pride, forget the politics and everything else, how do you allow it to happen, whether you're ted cruz or marco rubio or moving forward to j.d. vance, and the answer is power, they want to keep their jobs, that's it, and they'll do whatever they have to do. >> that's powerless power, if you have to cower down and let linger the insults that marco rubio and ted cruz have taken from donald trump and you never

ever rectify what has happened, you never say that was wrong. you never, perhaps, you know, push back a little bit. that is about as weak as it gets. >> it can be taken away. >> it changes like that. >> as we know. >> so you live in constant fear. >> you have to contort yourself into satisfying him, and getting over the things he said about your wife and dad. >> your wife. >> and you never know what he's going to do next. >> it's a bully on the playground. >> when mika was insulted, it took her a really long time, you all were on the set, it was downstairs. >> yeah. >> because sometimes i go to the locker room five or ten minutes early because i got to do -- i'm down there and donald trump does that bleeding badly from the facelift thing. >> and you guys were holding me back. >> and everybody was horrified, how is poor mika going to respond. she walks down and sees the cheerios book, and the box said

made for little hands, she takes a picture. puts up the tweet, there's the answer. she's a short fingered bulgarian, i hear. and i don't want to name any of their names because they have already been emasculated and you just look at these guys, these senators who completely, i'll just say it, rush limbaugh said it in a bit more stark way, but i've gotten older so i won't repeat it, they put their manhood in a blind trust, and they let him insult their families, insult their kids, it's just, it's unbelievable. >> if ted cruz's father hadn't helped assassinate jfk, this wouldn't be an issue for him. donald trump has been out of power, and republicans are refuse to go stand up to him, and ryan last night, not only called out vance for them, but drew a stark contrast, i don't think joe biden should run again.

i have been consistent on this. i don't believe president biden should run again. i think it's time for a new generation of leaders and he singled out schumer, pelosi, biden, as being an older generation. he said i won't be as beholden to democratic leaders as vance and his ilk are to trump. >> and he did say that, a new generation of democratic leaders instead of people in their late 70s and early 80s, he wants them to be at least 75 or younger. how did the democratic party get so old. it's incredible. >> it's a great question. probably a longer conversation, but one reason is that there's a lot of races that are not that competitive, and the democratic party locally does a really good job unfortunately at making it very difficult to have competition in local seats. you actually saw that several years ago with ocasio-cortez. she had run for dog catcher and then finally got fed up with the party apparatus that wouldn't

let her run a ballot, and challenged the big kahuna and took the seat. you don't have a lot of competition. >> willie take us to the rage on the big board. i promise i won't talk anymore. steve kornacki, sometimes just the red face. >> just bubbling beneath the surface, i assure you. >> it makes it scarier, right, like shutter island or whatever. >> wow, that's quite a poll at 6:00 in the morning. let's go over to steve kornacki, midterm elections four weeks away. he's over at the big board. steve, we can talk ohio, big picture, what are you looking at today. >> i'm sorry if you're looking for me to scream or shout or knock this thing over. >> oh, yes. >> we can see if it works, and we can take you through where some of the big numbers and indicators stand here. 28 days, four weeks ago until election day. we talk about the midterm election, the presidents job approval rating typically has been most closely associated with the results here, and you see biden where he's at right

now this morning, an average of a 42.9% approval rating. let's take every recent president at this point, 28 days out from the first midterm, what were there average approval ratings. you can see where the 42.9 fits in. it's right there. less than trump, a couple points under obama. basically identical to bill clinton back in 1994. one exception was george w. bush, a year after 9/11 when his popularity was industrial stratospheric. and you see what this has translated into. biden is right in the range. trump lost the house, obama lost the house, clinton lost the house in '94. giant gains for the opposition party. bush the only exception. on this metric, joe biden is right in that extreme danger zone for a president 28 days before the midterm. what has not quite been tracking with this, however, is another indicator we keep an eye on, and that is the generic ballot. he asked folks in the poll, who

would you want to vote for for congress, the democrat or republicans. who do you want to control congress. on this issue, on this trend, i should say, the republicans do have the edge right now, 46.1 to 45.2 on average. there has been a slight shift in the republicans' direction in the last two or three weeks, and democrats had a lead on this back in september. republicans have moved ahead, but it's only by 0.9. what you're looking at here, 18, 14, 10, 06, these are the four most recent midterm wave elections where the opposition party made tremendous gains in the midterms. this is what the generic ballot looked like at this point. four years ago at this time, you could see the democratic wave coming. 2010 you could see the republican wave coming. 2016, the democratic wave. the republicans, i think, are hoping for that maybe 2014, you know, it was only two points, the generic ballot at this point. barack obama's second midterm

election. republicans took the senate. getting to their highest level in the house. it was a late breaking wave in 2014. that's what republicans are hoping for now. when you look at biden's approval rating, you would expect historically to see a bigger gap in the generic ballot. that gap hasn't materialized. the big potential battleground for the senate, the party that currently holds each one of these seats, it's a 50/50 senate. the key obviously is republicans. they need a net gain from this map of one seat to give them control of the senate. let's take a look at these seats and what the polling average looks like in all of them right now. the democratic held seats in the battleground or potential battleground. this is key, i think. one of them you see in nevada here, the republican leads in the polling. that's adam leading katherine cortez masto, if that holds, if that ends up being results, that

for republicans would have a net gain of one seat for the democratic seats. what democrats have to counter that is they lead in one republican held seattle, that's pennsylvania where john fetterman, the democratic nominee leads mehmet oz by 3.7. if that held and everything else on the list held, democrats would erase the net gain of one seat because they would get one of their own, and things stay exactly the same. the name of the game is for republicans: they need to end up with a net gain of a seat here. democrats have their best shot on paper in pennsylvania. republicans have their best shot in nevada, but there's a lot of variables here. we'll see the fallout in georgia, we have yet tuc polling since the latest herschel walker controversy erupted. you were just showing in ohio, tim ryan has been running close to vance. the other wild card in this is some of these states, ohio, wisconsin in particular, the polls since 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, you've seen some significant misses. the polls have overstated

democratic support in wisconsin and ohio in particular in recent elections. that could also end up being a factor, but we wouldn't know that until election night. >> thank you for pointing that out. it's hard to look at the polls. to understand, some of us knew they were really off in 2020 when joe biden was going to win by 98 points in wisconsin, 47 in pennsylvania. they just -- i'm just curious as we're trying to figure out who's going to actually get out there and vote. what do you look at? and a month ago, everybody was saying dobbs is going to change the outcome of this election as something that actually i thought would happen, it would be significant, especially after kansas. you look at one issue poll after another issue poll, it doesn't seem to be at the top of the debate. and yet, i must say, and i'm

equating nothing here. i'm just saying as somebody that's observed politics my entire life, i've never heard and i'm around republicans or former republicans or conservatives, i have never heard people talk more in restaurants or on the dinner table out and about, about any issue since 9/11 as they have about dobbs and the crazy legislation republicans have been passing on the state level. it's wherever you go. i don't care what a woman's ideology is. they're bringing it up. lifelong republicans are bringing it. >> and their husbands and their dads. >> and their husbands and dads. and you go down the list. so i'm just curious, right now, what's your thought about how that's going to play into this election, how that's going to

change the people that get out and vote this time? >> i think it did have a bit of an energizing effect on democratic voters when the decision came down this summer. when i was showing you the generic ballot, when that dobbs decision came down, june 24th, republicans led on the generic ballot. you could look at the trend line on this, and there was an uptick in democratic support over the course of the summer that led to democrats around labor day into september leading on the generic ballot, and i think there were probably a couple of factors involved there, but i do think the dobbs decision was one of them. that said, when you look at our most recent nbc poll here and ask folks, what is the single most important issue that is going to drive your vote in the midterm elections, a combined 34% cite either jobs in the academy or inflation and you combine those to that's the biggest single number you're going to get and on that question, republicans have a

nearly 30 point advantage over the democrats. it's 8% in our most recent poll who cite abortion as the number one issue in their midterm vote. democrats have a comparable advantage in the 8% over democrats but 34 versus 8. that's economy and inflation. that's where abortion is in between, by the way, you have this topic that we haven't polled in the past but that pops up now. threats to democracy. that clocks in at 20%. that breaks heavily democratic. besides abortion, the other thing they're counting on in the election is an unusually former polarizing president, after the president left office, the donald trump factor. republicans are hoping there's a certain voter that isn't wild about biden, isn't wild about the democrats, but ultimately is going to look at republican party and see donald trump and not want to vote for him. >> i saw a conservative on

twitter yesterday who's not a fan of donald trump say, and summed it up perfectly, when people are talking about donald trump, democrats are winning, when people are talking about joe biden, republicans are winning. >> you notice that the democrats aren't talking about joe biden as a motivating factor, they're talking about abortion, they're talking about democracy, and so, i mean, that poll is very interesting to me. steve kind of raised this issue, but, yes, it's true, you only have, what was it, a small percentage was 8% or 13%, focused on abortion, but then if you add that to the people who are concerned about democracy, i actually would put those together because i think women understand. women are smart. they understand that the attempt to control our bodies is a threat to democracy. you know, our fathers understand that. voters understand that. our friends, our husbands our boyfriends, they understand that. so it's actually quite related and i think also the concerns about gun control would fall

under that same bucket. so when you look at the democratic voter, you are looking at somebody that's extremely concerned about human rights, women's rights, about racial equality, about voting rights and the country as a whole, and so i do think you always are going to have the contingent of voters, especially in a country where so many people are living paycheck to paycheck where that vote is going to be volatile. they're looking at the prices of the gas pump, and it's understandable. and you have other voters, heavily democratic base who's really concerned about democracy, and that includes women's rights. >> yeah, katty, i always quote you, something you said on the show in 2009, when "newsweek" had a headline that said we are all socials, you americans would be terrible socialists. you define yourselves by your work. you're horrible socialists.

we americans also, we're not good regardless of our ideology of you taking away a right, a constitutional right that we've had for half a century. it's just, again, even two people who are pro life, it is very jarring. >> i actually think americans would make terrible fascists, i don't think you're on either side of the spectrum. >> i agree. i hit the stock with mika a couple of weeks ago, oh, civil war. i said, honey, do you think in florida, a state i know very well, and in texas, do you think they're going to give up friday night lights for like an armed rebellion. no. >> it's a very long debate. >> you're right, i think the center does hold here despite how crazy it's getting. let's tactfully call it the fascist rights. >> the extremes have gotten more

extreme, and they have both gotten louder and been given this wonderful weapon of social media. if you add up the things that mara spoke about, democracy, abortion and gun rights, you get to 41%. if you look at the economy, people who say the economy is the biggest thing you've got 41%. does history hold or is there something quantifiably different this time around, and is that the presence of donald trump in the campaign and the issue of abortion and if the dobbs ruling had come down now, i suspect abortion would have been a bigger issue in the midterm elections than it was. you know, we get used to things, there's so much news going on in the world. we're inundated all of the time, there are big pressing issues and gas prices every week creeping up. i have come back from california, and they've gone up like 20% in the last week. that's a problem for democrats heading into the midterms. >> yeah. all right, nbc steve kornacki in playoff form. steve, great to see you. we'll talk to you again soon.

we just talked about republican j.d. vance, democratic congressman tim ryan going at it, head to head in the first debate ahead of the midterms coming up closely. they clashed on everything from the attack on the capitol to abortion rights where vance was questioned about what he's called his 100% pro life position. >> i have always believed in reasonable exceptions, this is a misrepresentation of my view, but let's hear it from me, not congressman ryan. i absolutely think the 10-year-old girl, the case that we've heard a lot about, an incredibly tragic situation. i've got a 9-year-old baby girl at home, i cannot imagine what that's like for the girl, for her family, god forbid something like that would happen. i have said repeatedly on the record, that i think that that girl should be able to get an abortion if she and her family so choose to do. so. >> i'm not going to take a backseat to j.d. vance on law

enforcement. the fact that january 6th, we had 140 cops, united states capitol police get injured, during the insurrection when they tried to overthrow the government, beat them up side the head with lead pipes, spray with pepper spray, the one video, the cop got jammed into the door, j.d. vance raised money for the legal defense fund of the insurrectionists. this is the kind of extremist, j.d., that we wholly reject. you have video posts, don't try to deny it. we've got your twitter posts and everything else. everybody has seen it. help these guys with their legal defense fund. can you imagine one guy saying out of one side of his mouth saying he's pro cop and on the other side of the cop, he's raising money for the insurrectionists who were beating up the capitol police. the one guy he tried to raise money for got four years in prison. i'm not taking a backseat to you. i brought $500 million back to fund police in ohio. i think the problem is when you

have guys like j.d. vance who can't stand up to anybody, like just a few weeks ago in youngstown, on the stage, donald trump said to j.d. vance, all you do is kiss my ass to get my support, that's bad. that means j.d. vance is going to do whatever he wants. peter teal gave him 50 million, he's going to do what he wants. he's the thing that's most troubling about this, lack of courage. after donald trump took j.d. vance's started shaking his hand, taking pictures, aren't we haven't a great time. i don't know anybody i grew up with, anybody that i went to high school with, that would allow somebody to take their dignity like that, and get back up on stage. we need leaders who have courage to take on their own party, and i have proven that, and he was called an ass kisser by the former president.

>> i mean, is there anything he's done that's concerned me. why don't we let the criminal investigations play out. i was alive during 2016 to 2020, and what i saw was consistently rumors that finally donald trump was going to be indicted that he was going to be accused of something legitimately criminal, of course tim ryan, despite his commercials voted to impeach him twice, i have seen nothing that would suggest that the president of the united states should be thrown in prison and most importantly here if you're going to make accusations like this, the attorney general of the united states, merrick garland, one of the most political actors in the history of american justice, if you want to go after a former president, a possible future president or at least a future political candidate, you've got to tell the american people why. we have really corrupt leadership at the department of justice, and that's a problem. >> well, that was something. ohio's democratic nominee for u.s. senate, congressman tim ryan joins us now. good morning, congressman, i

think congratulations are in order, that was a strong performance. i'm curious, though, how you felt it went last night but also how the campaign is going. is the party giving you the support you need, and what do you think it will take to get you over the line this final month. >> thanks, mika. good morning, everybody. yeah, it was a fun night. i mean, you know, there wasn't a crowd there or anything. it was just in the studio so it was a little bit muted but i think we got our points across. we wanted to make sure we held his feet to the fire. we see so many candidates who get away with some of the crap that they have been saying for the last however many months or years, really, and, you know, we held him to account last night, and by all accounts we won the debate. and, you know, got a lot of people wanting to help and support the campaign now. as i said, mitch mcconnell gave him 40 million bucks, peter teal gave him 15.

you know, we're out here sloging, it's david versus goliath, but i think we have a good shot to win this thing. >> have the democrats given you $40 million? >> they have not. i didn't see that come in. >> why not? >> i would have noticed. >> this is an extraordinarily important race, i'm curious, why are they letting republicans and peter teal buy this seat. where are the democrats, why aren't the democrats putting money into this race because the way i look at it, nevada is going sideways, pennsylvania is getting really close. it's really tight. i mean, if you look at trend lines, dr. oz, one second he's in a grocery store talking about crudites, and now it's too close to call. ohio is a critically important race because you have, and i'm just going to say this on the air, and by the way, j.d., we invite you to come on our show, people have told me, republican

donors have told me he's the worst candidate they have ever been in touch with. the worst candidate they've ever held fundraisers for. the rudest candidate they have ever seen. he doesn't like campaigning. they tell me he's lazy and he doesn't look like he likes being out there. i don't bring that up to insult butters. i have the greatest respect that butters is campaigning, j.d., you're welcome on the show, but i'm serious, i'm underlining this point for national democrats. why does mitch mcconnell want to win this seat more than national democrats? >> yeah, i don't know. that's a good question. as you know, and i have been on your show for years now, i have always expressed a level of frustration with the national democratic party, the disconnect to working class people, and here you have a blue collar candidate who's, you know, in the last two public polls we have been up 3 points. we're traveling the whole state.

we have rob portman's former chief of staff helping us with a huge republicans for ryan effort, lots of two-time trump voters that are supporting us, and, you know, yet we still can't get the kind of -- the air support that j.d. vance is getting, but look, make no mistake. we just had a huge fundraising haul. we raised $17 million, the national, you know, and state donor base are being very very helpful. you know, low dollar donors, i get little notes, joe, probably like you did when you ran. you know, someone that's on social security sent you a $10 check because that's all they can give. i like it a little bit, you know, david versus goliath. we're going to shop the world, and we're asking people to go to timforoh.com. no one is saying we can win. they have been saying it for a year and a half.

we're grinding it out and we're going to knock this guy off because he's a complete fraud as we proved last night. we'll prove it again at the debate, and we're going to do the final order of play. >> willie, i did get the little notes, get off my lawn, stop littering our neighborhood with your yard signs, they were everywhere. >> that's how you got their votes, annoyed them into submission. >> i will get out of your neighborhood if you vote for me. >> deal. >> congressman ryan said it's like pulling teeth with the national democrats, a guy running around with a tinfoil hat on, and we're out here fighting on our own. congressman, you made the point yesterday, last night at the debate when you were talking about the ass kisser line that donald trump used to talk about j.d. vance, that you had broken with joe biden, that you had broken with nancy pelosi, and you in fact, said joe biden shouldn't run for president. we can talk about that. republicans last night pointed to the fact that despite what you say, you have come out publicly and said those things, you vote with nancy pelosi and

vote with joe biden almost 100% of the time. what do you say to that? >> i say look at what we voted for. you know, the c.h.i.p.s act has helped us land $100 billion investment from intel to manufacture semiconductors in ohio. 7,000 union construction jobs to build it, 5,000 union construction jobs for the next ten years. look at the infrastructure bill. bipartisan, i was able, working with sherrod brown and others to get significant buy american language in that. it's going to create 6,000 jobs in ohio, and get the bridge we have been trying to get built in cincinnati for a long time. you look the inflation reduction act, all in on natural gas which is going to be huge for ohio, and we saw a stream of investments happen after we missed that. general motors is puts hundreds of millions of dollars into their transmission facility in toledo. they are going all in on

electric vehicles. they know the government is significantly behind them. the lordstown plant i talked about my whole career was empty. they just announced a fourth vehicle, there's a truck, two cars and a tractor that are going to be manufactured in the old general motors lordstown, we're talking about thousands of jobs. of course i'm going to support the things that are good for ohio. on the student loan piece, some of the other initiatives, i'm taking on the administration. >> we're in the lightning round, we've got a couple of other questions for you, but we don't have a couple of minutes. >> well we do. >> a lot of democratic voters are perpetually frustrated seeing republicans win races that democrats should have been able to win. do you think this is connected to the generational change. i'm stuck on the fact that the party isn't helping your campaign in the way they could be. is that part of the reason for

this need for generational change you were talking about last night? help us understand that. >> i don't understand it but i think the focus on the economic issues here in places like ohio are critically important. we lost that brand. when i grew up, it used to be democrats for the working people and republicans were for the rich people, and that's when we held congress and had significant support. getting back on the message, building stuff, taking on china, manufacturing clean tech jobs of the future. that's where we need to be. if we hit the sweet spot along with roe v. wade and a couple of things, we can put together another majority. >> congressman, we were talking about what issues are animating voters this fall, and a recent poll in your state in ohio stay 15% threats to democracy. 13% abortion and a whopping 41%, the economy. so by far, the biggest issue there. what are you hearing day-to-day on the trail of people talking about the economy and have you

seen a flood of new voters that democrats thought would come this fall in the wake of the supreme court decision? >> we are seeing a lot of energy around roe v. wade. i kind of feel that a lot of that is baked in already, including republican pro choice women or your dads or brothers who think this is the largest governmental overreach in the history of our lifetime. as joe mentioned earlier, taking rights away. people know about that, yeah, you got to communicate a little bit with them. but most people are living paycheck to paycheck, and if you're talking about issues other than their pocketbook, you look disconnected, and that's why you're doing so well here, we have the economic argument, we're also talking about freedom and personal liberty of women. you can talk about both. it's a false choice. economic freedom and personal freedom are still freedom. and so running under the banner of freedom, america, you know, this is a great place, and we

got to rebuild america's middle class shouldn't be hard to do, and so again, now we're taking on everybody here. we don't have the national support that we want. we're ask people to help us. we got 350,000 low dollar donors, 95% of our contributions are under $100, so we're asking people to go to timforoh.com and chip in a few bucks so we can keep this going and shock the world. >> ohio's democratic nominee for u.s. senate, congressman tim ryan, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> it's amazing he isn't getting more national support because of the candidate he is, and he's made ohio competitive. a lot of people think it couldn't be. he's done it. maybe they will turn on the gas in the last few weeks, they'll regret it if they lose. >> sometimes ideology doesn't mean. sherrod brown is a progressive's progressive, and they love him. if fetterman wins, it will be

the same thing with pennsylvania, swing state where a progressive wins. but democrats desperately need somebody like tim ryan in the united states senate. they need a guy from youngstown. a white working class guy from youngstown. >> with experience. >> with experience who's been there. it would work, and who's under 79 years of age. i do wonder, i follow up with mara, is this a generational thing? why aren't they giving this guy money? they're up. he's up three points in the latest sienna poll. he's up in other polls. it's a tight race. i know they're a little worried about media polls in ohio. okay, well, if you're worried about it, take care of it, give him more money so he's up ten points and wins by three or

four. it's ridiculous. >> democrats it's a skepticism about ohio. in 2020, polls showed biden was running neck in neck with trump to the point where two days before election day, they sent biden to ohio, the most valuable part of a candidate's agenda is his time right there in the final closing stretch of a campaign, he went and lost by eight. i think democrats for what pennsylvania used to be to republicans that white whale they could never get, ohio has become that for democrats. the counter to that is donald trump got pennsylvania, so therefore, why aren't the democrats playing harder in ohio, especially with as you say fears growing in a number of other battlegrounds. >> and by the way, mika, also important to know, sherrod brown is united states senator in ohio. >> i know. it's really incredible to watch last night, so he did a great job in the debate.

maybe they'll take note. the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee is calling on the white house to cut ties with saudi arabia over the country's decision to scale back oil production. in a statement yesterday, new jersey democrat bob menendez argued that last week's decision from the saudi led opec plus group will allow russian president vladimir putin to finance the war in ukraine. last week opec plus announced its largest cuts in oil production since the start of the pandemic, citing instability in the global economy. this move will allow russia, the world's second largest oil exporter to raise the prices of its own fuel. >> i wish life were that easy. i wish we could tell china, you're doing horrible things. we're not going to deal with you anymore. if we're going to end the war in russia, ukraine, that's going to happen through china. if we're going to make progress on climate change, china has to be a partner in that, as

reprehensible. same thing with the saudis, i wish we could just say, we're really offended by everything that you do. i mean, i guess he's smarter than i am. he's chairman of the committee, right. i don't think most diplomats would say life's that easy. >> how many times have we said, we need to reevaluate our relationship with saudi arabia, jamal khashoggi, this move by opec plus, it never happens because we're reliant on the saudis on the world stage. in iran, there's something extraordinary happening, workers on a petrochemical company went on strike. it's the first time the demonstrations have spread to iran's oil and gas industry since the unrest began last month. before that it was mostly small businesses who had closed doors in support of the movement. unclear whether the strike will affect oil production. the demonstrations began when a 22-year-old woman died after

being held by country's morality police for allegedly violating the strict islamic dress code. >> it's fascinating, every day what's happening in iran, and it's fascinating because it's not led by anybody. it's an up rising of women and girls, middle school girls. professional women. >> unbelievably brave, these young women and teenagers, and students across the campuses. what's been heartening to see is the degree young male students standing behind them. it's hard to talk to people, and we have had people across generations coming in and out of iran who are saying something has to change, and we are on the side of the students. there has to be a liberalization of the rules following this. whether they can keep out there long enough, the degree to which they're being repressed, they are clamping down hard on them.

they could clamp down hard. why are they letting this run so long. still ahead on "morning joe," first donald trump said it was all planted at mar-a-lago, now he's saying it's mine, give it back to me. now, a key player in the fbi's search of mar-a-lago sits down with federal investigators, possibly in an effort not to take the fall for the discovery of classified documents at the country club. >> it always gets fun when the lawyers start pointing at each other. >> no, it's me. >> a bad sign when your lawyers fighting. >> when your lawyer has to hire a lawyer, it's usually trouble. and alabama senator tommy tuberville goes silent after a racist rant, this weekend during a trump rally. also ahead, a major voting block gets behind herschel walker after allegations he paid for an abortion. the group that's rallying around him, might surprise you, might not. you're watching "morning joe," we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe," we'll be right back.

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who accepts medicare patients. so if you have this... consider adding this. call unitedhealthcare today for your free decision guide. ♪ a beautiful live picture of washington with the sun coming up. let's take a look at morning papers. we begin in alabama where "the montgomery advertiser" reports republican senator tommy tuberville is staying quiet amid criticism of a racist remark he made at a trump rally. former senator doug jones offered his criticism saying quote this racist rant has to be called out. tuberville's office has not responded to requests for comment. >> people don't follow up on

football, alabama football. the majority of kids that play are black kids usually from rural alabama. they come there, and they go there because tommy tuberville goes into their parents' homes, makes the sale and says i'm going to take care of your kid. >> that's right. >> you can bring them to me, i'll take care of them. >> he's a coach. >> saban, great in the living rooms, bear bryant used to be. tuberville. >> role models. >> what if you're one of those kid now, looking at this guy who sounded like george wallace, and lester maddox. >> yeah, i was just looking for one of his best players who ever played for him, carlos dansbury, is that the way he thought about all of us this time. he goes in living rooms and recruits kids who give their lives to him, four years to him. you can't imagine what they're thinking. he's the senator for all of alabama. he's not donald trump's right-hand senator or maybe he is. but what are the citizens, all

the people, black and white, anybody thinking about the man who was one of two people who represents them on the national level if that's who he is and what he believes. >> we'll be following that, and seeing when he finally emerges and what he says about it. trump lawyer christina bobb, a key player in the seized documents met with federal investigators. according to nbc news, bobb highlighted two other lawyers who were involved in the case. >> you mean pointed at them. >> yeah. on june 3rd, bobb signed a letter attesting that all of the classified material in former president trump's possession had been returned to the government. she signed her name to that. court documents show that the fbi subsequently determined that the signed statement was untrue and executed a search warrant at mar-a-lago which turned up 103 additional records with classification markings that were not returned as bobb had

attested they were. according to sources, bobb told investigators she did not draft that signed statement but was told to sign it by evan corcoran. >> who's evan? it wasn't me. i was just doing my job. just sign my name to anything. yeah. >> here's the thing, these people have seen, i'm dead serious here, they have seen donald trump lie, get away with lying when trump knew he was laying, they knew he was lying. oh, they can get away with it. anybody who's ever been an attorney, though, should understand that what works outside of the courtroom does not work inside of the courtroom. the fbi doesn't play. federal judges don't play. and i'm just -- i'm really surprised at the number of lawyers who didn't understand that. it's just -- >> and they're getting in trouble now.

>> yeah, we saw even in 2020, even the rudy giuliani who was trump's lawyer at the time, would say one thing outside the courthouse, and another inside, he knew he could run foul of the court if he were to lie inside the room. but these lawyers seem to have missed that memo. it points to the lack of shall we say, a-team attorneys that the president has had. the former president has been able to hire to represent him in this case. they have continually, and either taken the word of trump or taken the word of people around trump. a lot of them have not done the verification themselves. if trump could get away with it, i can too. that's not going to necessarily be the case. his circle is shrinking even further, his own lawyers are running into their own legal trouble. >> joining us state attorney for palm beach, california, dave aaronberg and senior political reporter marc caputo. i want to check this off the list. can an attorney, especially for a former president in a case

like that say i didn't know what i was signing, someone told me to. does that pass? >> good morning, mika. that's going to keep her from being charged by doj. she met with them ouch self-preservation, because she knows she's in prosecutor's cross hairs for obstruction of justice. punishable for 20 years in prison. here's a tip for fellow lawyers, don't sign letters that the letter writer won't sign himself. >> good advice. >> i was going to say, willie, if you're a lawyer, you understand if i'm signing something to the doj, like, i can tell you, you get everybody around, does this look okay. you have to really be lacking in some basic understanding of the world you're living in if you just sign a document and --

>> if you think that's what happened. >> and to know who you are to donald trump, a fall guy or a fall woman or a buffer between him and justice, and marc, that's what you're writing about. we should get into a little bit about who christina bobb is, not necessarily the a-team in terms of election lawyers. who is she, and was she effectively saying, look, i'm not taking the fall for this. this was somebody else's idea? >> well, one of the people we spoke to had said that she shouldn't be the fall guy or the fall gal. to dave's point earlier about don't sign something that someone else drafts and won't sign themselves, from what our sources tell us and looking at the federal court records, e corcoran was not only in charge of drafting the document but in doing the due diligence of the search, the diligent search that he claimed was performed to turn over classified documents. on june 3rd, the feds show up at mar-a-lago, hey, you got anymore

classified records from the subpoena that we sent you on may 11th. evan corcoran is like sure do, and hands them a packet of 38 of them, and the feds are also given this letter, this attestation or declaration or certification letter that christina bobb signed. one thing that's interesting, according to our sources who had spoken to christina bobb about her testimony is that she appeared to know something was up because evan corcoran claimed he did the diligent search and drafted the letter she didn't sign. she insisted to have a disclaimer saying based on the information that has been prvld provided to me, a diligent search has been performed and you have all the records. that wound up not being true. there's evidence she knew something was going on, and as folks have responded on twitter, as we broke the story, maga not only stands for make america great again, but in this context

it stands for make attorneys get attorneys. she has a lawyer. i mean, right? she has a lawyer. so christina bobb is a lawyer, john lavro, very good attorney. evan corcoran, according to our sources is going to need to lawyer up, and right now he's still of counsel on this case, but as folks have pointed out, you can't represent a client and be a material witness against him. that's a matter of time. boris epshteyn, who helped assemble this team in june of this year, he had his phone recently seized and had a subpoena served on him. so if you have that happen, you have to have a lawyer. we don't know who else has been kind of opened up in this. as was said earlier, christina bobb went willingly and completely, gave her testimony freely and willingly.

she doesn't want to be the fall guy or fall gal according to the people who know him. >> i guess there's someone at the trump white house who doesn't have a lawyer at the moment. dave, can you zoom us out to 10,000 feet, in particular with donald trump holding rallies, saying he had these documents and they belonged to him. he's taking ownership of the fact that they were there at mar-a-lago. what kind of legal jeopardy is he in right now with what we understand and what's out there in the public knowledge? >> trump keeps digging himself a deeper hole. he was saying he possessed these documents, but he has every right to do so. that goes to the crucial elements of knowledge and intelligent, and you know the prosecutors are listening. and even if he mentally declassified the documents through jedi mind tricks, it's still unlawful removal and retention of documents and possible obstruction. and after all of these months we

still haven't heard a coherent defense for trump's actions and unlike january 6th, where it's a bit murky, whether there's a direct tie between trump, but there is a direct line between trump and the documents, and this is why i expect trump to be indicted after the midterm elections. >> state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave aaronberg, also nbc's mac caputo, as always, thank you for being with us. mara, what are you working on this week, this month, this year, what are you focused on? >> you know, there's an election, we're going to be looking closely at the congressional races, especially in new york, and of course we also have a governor's race here in new york that i'm going to be -- >> is that going to be close. >> you know, it's funny, probably not, and yet, you know,

i think that the republicans are gaining a lot of ground in new york. and i think that, you know, from the folks i talked to very closely that the governor has been very conservative. people around here are very nervous. so may be closer than we think. coming up, vladimir putin retaliates following an attack on a russian bridge, we'll the latest on the war and get analysis from a decorated u.s. combat veteran and intelligence officer. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." officer. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." if you have high blood pressure, a cold is not just a cold. coricidin is the #1 doctor recommended cold and flu brand. specially designed for people with high blood pressure. be there for life's best moments. trust coricidin. quality healthcare goes beyond

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welcome back to "morning joe." top of the second hour of "morning joe." it is tuesday, october 11th. >> you see that 15 right there, that's how many hours we do every day. welcome aboard. >> it's like a telethon. >> we love every minute of it.

>> we're not raising money. >> i go over there and i do my jerry lewis. >> bring it in. >> still with us, joining the conversation, we have sean connery. the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass, and pulitzer prize winning columnist at "the washington post," eugene robinson. there's a piece up that we'll be talking about why these midterms may be the most important in his lifetime. >> let's look on the back first because we have sean connery here, "a cole new ball game," the "new york post," talking about the 21 playoff flop. no pressure on you. way to pat the guys on the back before the playoffs start. richard, you and willie, are you excited about tonight? you think this yankee's team is going to break the curse? >> i'm excited but i'm nervous. >> what about you, willie?

>> on paper, this is the most competitive of the four series, you know, the other three teams, the astros, the dodgers and the braves won their divisions, won over 100 games. guardians have been sneaky good all year. especially late in the season. you're always a little nervous, but this is why you paid cole all of this money. it won't amount to much if they lose the series. >> the yankees, i'm surprised when we went and saw the yankees, jack and i would look up at all the batters, judge was incredible, but we were surprised at home people had .220 averages, .225 averages. i don't know what the average is on the team, but they didn't seem to be really good hitters and you match that against just a pitching staff that looked incredible this weekend. i think you're right. i think this series matches up to be really exciting. >> the yankees have the long,

long, negative streak during the season where their collective average must have been about 100. they went into a serious slump after they started at 700. we'll see what happens. >> that happened with the red sox. >> and it never ended. >> we also have nasty necessary -- nestor, incredible. >> jonathan lemire, i know you're a counselor, i want you to counsel, if you will, mika's daughter. >> she's done. >> she's a mets fan and has been a mets fan her entire life. she now is where i was after 2003 when the yankees came back. and i remember, i'm finished, i can't do this anymore. i went through 75. i went through 78. i went through 86. i went through 2023. i said blank them, i'm done.

they always break you. i want you to explain that to amelia. they break you right before they win the series. >> i was the same way in 2003, we're never going to do this. i'm going to live my whole life, we're never going to win the world series. this is a rough stretch for the mets. they have had a couple of playoff collapses, a couple of world series losses but this is a team 101 wins, they have it evaporate in a week's time. and it's going to be an off season where they face a lot of questions in order to bring back degrom, how else they can come back. my focus is on the cleveland guardians. we are all guardians. terry francona, our old friend, one of the best managers in baseball. this is the youngest team in the league that he has brought to this moment, and they do match up well against a yankees team that is pretty inconsistent. offensively and pitching beyond

cole. >> let me say this. in the 1950s, what's good for cleveland guardians is good for america. one other thing, though, that the mets have that a lot of over teams don't have. they have an owner who's going to win. we want to tell mets fans who are broken right now, that guy, i promise you, he's gearing up for next year. the mets are not going to be the second best team in new york city for long. >> he put the team on the field this year. he got max scherzer for the playoff series. scherzer, degrom, you've got a great shot to win. it was the series in atlanta that put him behind the eight ball. >> and we know steve cohen, deep pocket books. he's willing to spend whatever it takes. maybe that's aaron judge's new home. >> did you hear what cashman said about the pot of gold waiting for aaron judge? >> he said we offered him a pot of gold before the season, he

bet on himself, good for him. >> they didn't offer him a pot of gold. they offered him relative -- they offered him -- >> 330 million only. >> if you look at the market and how much money he makes for the owners, you know what, it probably should have been about 400 or 450, if you look at the market. i know a lot of people would be upset about that, the owners keep more money and buy more yachts and jets. then they did this incredible thing. they then put this offer, which most of baseball thought was a lowball offer, we offered him this much money. he said no. how much is that going to cost. >> the yankees are worth $6 billion, i think. it might be a half a billion dollar contract. and by the way, he deserves it. that's how much money the team makes, and that's how much he makes for the team. boy did he earn it. we're going to get to the news, we got a lot of headlines with the midterms less than a

month away, but we are going to begin now with war in ukraine where we are learning new details about yesterday's massive attack in kyiv and other major ukrainian cities. according to ukraine's deputy minister of defense, russia launched 83 missiles, about half of which were neutralized by air defense systems. across ukraine, more than 95 people were injured and in kyiv alone, at least 14 people were killed. the missile strikes damaged critical infrastructure knocking out power lines and cutting off water supplies to several cities. at least 35 residential billions were hit along with museums and a popular pedestrian bridge in the center of kyiv. even a children's playground was hit during the missile strike, creating a mass equator that you can see here. in his nightly address, president volodymyr zelenskyy

spoke in front of the rubble, adding ukraine existed before this enemy appeared. ukraine will exist after him. zelenskyy's spoke yesterday with president biden. president emmanuel macron of france and german chancellor olaf scholz and british prime minister liz truss, all of whom condemned russia and pledged to stand by ukraine. look at him, i mean, he's quite a leader of this moment! it really is incredible, and it's also fascinating the position that vladimir putin's in. whatever he does he weakens his hand. whatever he does, these attacks only brought the west closer together at a time when winter is coming, and a lot of people in germany are seeing their economy struggle. but he unifies the west.

there's some freaks in the republican party that love vladimir putin, some freaks that hate ukraine. some freaks that are actually on the side of the tyrant who is bombing civilians and purposefully trying to kill children, all this attack does is reinforce the spine of republicans, not many, but a few, who may be sort of in the middle right now. they're seeing these headlines, headlines from the "wall street journal." russia unleashes mass strikes. "the new york times," russia unleashes deadly barrage against civilians, and again, against civilians. hey, freaks. fascist freaks on the right. there is no moral ambiguity here. there is no comparison between russia and ukraine, and you prove yourself to be the fascist you are when you suggest the

same. the official paper for "morning joe," "the new york post," and "the daily news," vlad's bloody pay back. richard, again, all he does when he launches these terrorist attacks, and they are terrorist attacks because he's trying to purposefully kill civilians. all he does is make ukraine stronger, make nato more united. engage people across europe and the world even more. >> it's as if vladimir putin hasn't read his history. whatever you indiscriminately bomb civilians, we saw it in world war ii, you tend to strengthen the fabric of society and determination. what they should do is provide ukraine greater defense against drones and cruise missiles and give greater ability to target

forces inside ukraine. one of the things this is going to do, it's going to make it harder to begin the process of rebuilding. i was there a couple of months ago. literally the cafes were filled, restaurants were filled. people were walking down the streets that looks like a honeymoon, those days are over. this is going to be hard psychologically, politically and economically, and europe and the united states have to step up. >> it will be difficult. again, the story of britain, it's really the extraordinary story of the 20th century. and we were just talking about the queen being -- living at buckingham palace, the germans decided they were going to bomb buckingham palace, and this will show how helpless they are. it united the country, the king, the queen, the kids, walking through the rubble. this always blows back on the terrorist. >> there was a photograph from one of the photos coming out of kyiv last night that shows, you

know, this church in the front with smoke and columns of destruction behind, and it was eerily reminiscent of the blitz. and there is that same spirit, and ukrainians are saying the shops are open again today already. they are not giving into this fear. they are rallying around. the head of britain's version of the nsa said today that he feels that there's clearly a desperation in putin, and there is now a growing realization in russia of how badly this is going because of people leaving, and yet at the same time, they clearly also have deep military stocks. they can launch these kinds of barrage attacks. what kind of -- how close are we to any tipping point where either the sanctions hit and they start not being able to resupply weaponry because they're short of semiconductor chips or the russian population is saying people are leaving the country because of the draft. this is not going well for us.

this is hurting us. is there any sign of a tipping point within russia at the moment, militarily or in public opinion. >> not yet. vladimir putin has basically given up that he can turn the military tide. that to me is the big take away of the last couple of days. he lacks the organization, the morale, the material to turn the military tide. this buys him time politically. this is his way of saying these guys are going to pay a price for blowing up the bridge. you know, i'm not a pitiful helpless giant to use a phrase we knew in a different context. it doesn't help him militarily. it buys him time. he's praying the winter, combination of attacks, threats of nuclear escalation speak the united states and europe so they back off helping ukraine. that is the strategy right now. putin isn't a chess player. he never thinks three or four moves ahead. this is his immediate move.

if this doesn't work he's going to try something else. the president is worried about escalation to something unconventional. >> the thing is, jonathan, all he does, by taking gas away from europe is make europe look elsewhere, and build redundancy. they're not going to need russian gas in the future. >> this winter will be hard for europe, but future winters far less so because they are finding alternatives here. that's the long game. yes, this is trying to show a attempt at strength. really it's him lashing out. he knows the battlefield is going poorly. let's hit parks a pedestrian bridge, and all it has done so far is bring europe further together. we have heard president zelenskyy for some time has been calling for better weapons, more missile defense weapons from the u.s., from europe. are there any early indications

this is an act of petulance, terror. >> up to now, we don't talk about it in the press, but europe and the united states have been carefully modulating the arms flow to ukraine. the feeling is to give ukraine enough to be effective but not too much. i think what this does is it takes away that argument. the feeling is if russia is going to act without any restraint, is going to target civilian areas, what the hell are we holding back for. i think you're going to see a greater emphasis on two things. a greater number of defense systems, and targeting russian forces inside ukraine. not russian forces inside russia. that's an escalation, people don't want to take, but give ukraine greater capabilities to inflict pain on russian forces. >> let's bring in retired sergeant, jayson beardsley, decorated combat veteran and intelligence officer with 22 years of fleet, navy, army

special forces and joint special operations experience. thanks for being with us this morning. i jotted down a list of the places that vladimir putin has been striking over the last several months. we can add to the list, playgrounds, hospitals, museums, the train station in april where women and children were gathering to flee the country. the list of war crimes goes on. when you see these kind of targets like the ones that putin struck yesterday, what does that tell you about your opponent? >> you have a lot of smart comments around the table. there's desperation from vladimir putin who has mishandled the invasion. he's not a chess player. he moves one piece at a time, and it's always a desperation move because the army has failed him. his generals have failed him. the supplies have failed him. the equipment have failed him. these are strike out. lash out, and temperate strikes.

you can expect more of that. this is going to be a long fight, and americans need to brace themselves for what is sort of an escalating, enduring bitterness between these two sides. ukrainians want to kill russians, and russians want to kill ukrainians. these can go on for a long time. we saw it ourselves in the united states, on the ground in iraq and afghanistan. even losing the base at home is not a near term end of this cycle. we can go on for a while. >> which raises the question, gene robinson for the united states and the west f vladimir putin now has just said we're going for everything. we're going to bomb playgrounds, hospitals, we're going to bomb places where refugees are fleeing. complete war crimes going after civilians, what does that mean for an escalation on the other side, what more does the united states do as this unfolds before the world's eyes? >> yeah, and i think one of the

things the united states needs to do is get more defense air capability faster. richard haass talked about how the flow has been modulated and i have heard that they have been parcelling this stuff out in a kind of metered way. i think that has to be over and shot down 40 of the 80 missiles yesterday. we need to raise that average. this is what putin can do. he can lob smart and dumb munitions on to civilian targets. it's counter productive. it's not playing chess. checkers. it kills people, and one thing i think is kind of a no brainer is we just really upped that flow of air defense, and the ability to attack the russian forces in

ukraine. i don't think the u.s. is going to give ukraine some of the other weapons they like to have. the attack on missiles that have a range of 300 kilometers and could strike inside russia. i don't think that's going to be forthcoming, but stuff short of that ought to be flowing now as fast as we can do it. my question for sergeant beardsley is put yourself, if you can, inside the russian lines. there has been this problem they've had all along of not having a well trained, empowered noncommissioned office corps that can make decisions and lead, and they have this terrible morale problem. is there any way the russians can retrieve that, can make that

better, or are they stuck with what is an increasingly dysfunctional big and dangerous, but dysfunctional military on the ground? >> that's a great question. i think they're stuck. by the time you get to this position, training that was never done well and you're in the middle of conflict, it's extremely difficult to turn around the situation on the ground for morale's sake. they're going to be a long way before the russian military improves that, and frankly, i don't think they're going to do it. they have a difficult time looking backwards inside themselves to really, you know, perform the way they would with a high morale type military structure. you see us regoing over the lines to increase the morale. the troops on the ground are going to be socked in for a long time, and i think they would

flee if they had the option. it's difficult, and russia that has made that difficult. this escalation has turned bitter and it's really turned into a disaster for vladimir putin. the question is how long will they hold on. >> retired army master sergeant jason beardsley, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. >> and thank you so much for your service to america. we're so grateful. richard, earlier we read news about chairman menendez saying that we should freeze relations with saudis because of the opec decision. >> o peck plus decision. >> he gets a beard, and suddenly he's got opec plus. >> professorial.

>> would the same happen, for you, joe? >> that would be an expensive comment. >> mika would have to pick food out of it. >> god no, just stop. >> i don't think so. she wouldn't let me. >> pop eye's chicken sandwich. >> chick-fil-a. >> there are advantages. >> later, i'm hungry. >> it's going to be a cold winter. >> richard, i don't know how we turn back to the saudis, i'm going to try. i made the comment that if life were that easy, we could tell the saudis to go their way, tell the chinese to go their way. we can't because chances are good a peace deal with russia is going to go through china and india and other countries and the saudis, yeah, it's been troublesome for years, and of course we certainly should continue talking about

khashoggi. but hell look at september 11th. we could go back years. and we've had to make tough decisions not for the benefit of saudis, but the benefit of us. i'm curious, what do you think about this walk away from the saudis? >> i understand it. it's not sustainable. this is a country like it or not, that matters. we've got the iran nuclear question, iran's destabilization. we want saudi arabia to normalize relations with israel, to join that process, energy still matters, even though the saudi output decision is disappointing. they're still one of the most important producers in the world. we've got to have a broad, serious dialogue, with saudi arabia, about regional and global matters. the problem is there's zero trust. this relationship, joe, has been rubbed raw. they don't like the biden

administration. they much prefer the trump administration. and biden is an extension of obama. they don't like democrats. >> can i ask you this, are they making, i would the mistake. i have spoken to some people around the world. and when they said what's going on in the united states, i said, please don't make the mistake of thinking that you need to kiss up to donald trump or people around. he's not going to be president again. he's not going to be president again. and i'm just wondering is that the bet that mbs is making, if he humiliates biden, that it helps trump. >> there's a group of people that think the fact that the saudis made the decision a month before midterms ain't no coincidence. this was meant to have gas prices going up. we know who that's going to hurt and who that's going to advantage. i think they're making the mistake not just about reading american politics but thinking they've got a real future with china and russia.

russia is not going to be a serious international player. china faces enormous problems. saudi arabia need to understand if and when things get rough in the middle east. the united states is going to be the most important. >> do they not have -- i'm sorry, i don't mean to be condescending. do they not have people around them to say you're betting on the wrong side, look what's happening in russia, in china the last five years. maybe you love their authoritarian streak, but it's working against them in every way. >> you ask if they have people. this is a decision making system. >> i'm curious how isolated mbs is. >> he tends to be impulsive. he's got real problems with the biden administration. >> give $2 billion, it's legal. is it because of jared, trump,

why? i guess what shocks me is that biden finally goes through at great political peril to joe biden, and this is what he does, he humiliates him, and again, i'm just, i'm not saying this for joe biden's sake. i'm not saying this for the democrats sake, i'm saying this for u.s. saudi relations, how could this guy be so isolated that he doesn't understand how shortsighted these actions are. we're going to win. by the way, here's the deal, bet against the united states, you lose. you always lose. i don't understand what's motivating. he finally gets out of the corner and he pushes himself right back in. >> biden gave him an outstretched hand at some political risk. it's shortsighted, arrogant, strategically they're reading

the situation wrong. saudi arabia is essentially, after the obama administration in syria and the red line and other disagreements over yemen, they said we're going to distance ourselves from the united states, become more strategically autonomous. that's what this is about. hence the also getting in bed with russia over energy, i think it's at the end of the day, shortsighted. if and when iran becomes a real threat to saudi arabia, good luck in turning to russia. good luck on that. they had better keep a strong relationship with us. still ahead on "morning joe," as we prepare for what could be the final january 6th hearing, adam kinzinger joins us on that. and last night's explosive debate in ohio, including a deep dive into the nonprofit organization set up started by j.d. vance that left its employees feeling used. and did it really help a lot of people? >> but he did build ptl land. up next, we take a look at

georgia, though, with the rationalization and excuses that evangelical christians are using to keep supporting no matter what herschel walker. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. re watching" we'll be right back. it's the subway series menu. 12 irresistible subs. the most epic sandwich roster ever created. ♪♪ it's subway's biggest refresh yet!

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it's got to be tide hygienic clean. i brought in ensure max protein you neewith 30 gramsan that. of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. uhh - here, i'll take that woo hoo ensure max protein, with 30 grams of protein, 1 gram of sugar and now in two new flavors (♪ ♪) running a nasty, dishonest campaign, perfect for washington. the reverend doesn't tell my full story, my true story. as everyone knows, i had a real battle with mental health, even wrote a book about it, by the grace of god, i've overcome it. warnock is a preacher who doesn't tell the truth, he doesn't believe in redemption. i'm herschel walker, saved by grace, and i approved this message. >> herschel walker's latest ad,

targeting evangelical christians, as he shores up support if the wake of recent abortion allegations and challenge his claim of standing up for family values like, for example, not recognizing children that he has, not supporting them, not being there. not raising them. >> actually lying about women who had his children. >> and lying about women who had his children. >> but that was a long time ago, that was last week. >> joining us now national correspondent for the "new york times" covering faith and politics, elizabeth diaz, coauthor of the forthcoming book "the fall of roe" also with us a reverend serene jones, president of union theological seminary, a johnston family professor for religion and democracy. it's good to have you both on the show. >> so reverend jones, explain to

a lot of people, i grew up in a baptist church, you grew up in oklahoma. >> surrounded by southern baptists. >> i know this shocks people, and they all accuse me of heresy, but, you know, southern baptists were pro choice. main line protestant denominations were pro choice, and then in 1979, direct mail guy named paul wyrick, and jerry falwell had a problem. they had a southern baptist in the white house, evangelicals and middle class catholics voted for democrats overwhelmingly, and what did they do. >> they decided to take abortion and literally out of the air turn it into a political issue that had theological grounding in it in order to create a split. they literally sat down and made it up. what's so shocking about it is that particularly in the context of the midterms is that's really

one of the first moments you see this raw move for power that in the southern baptist convention and in the evangelical world, sort of to use the word trumps everything else. if it can get us power, let's not think about what we're seeing theologically, let's not talk about the bible. >> that's what they've done. >> right. >> and it's amazing, a generation of christians who i grew up with, catholics have believed this for a very long time. >> not for a very long time, but at least longer. >> they debated this throughout the history of the church, about whether, you know, once viable, then maybe -- but for evangelicals, they're shocked, and they think it's heresy when i say, you know, jesus didn't even talk about abortion. i'm not saying jesus supports abortion. right. i'm just telling you, it was a

contemporary issue. and you're now saying this is the gravest of grave sins when you actually look at the red letters, it's not in there. what i'm trying to explain, i understand why people are pro life. i certainly do. but the fact that they have put it at the center of their faith because what three conservative activists did in 1979 because they had to take voters away from the southern baptist, jimmy carter who was in the white house. it's really -- it is one of the untold stories of our time. everybody i know, they think this goes back 2,000 years based on ancient scripture. the eagles had broken up by the time they figured out we're going to make this the moral issue for every christian. >> yeah, and look how successful

it has been. i mean, it's kind of shocking that a political decision of that magnitude made by that small number of people could overtime just take off and actually determine an entire generation of politics. >> why have i said all of this, willie, i want people to understand who aren't in the church how evangelicals now justify the voting for donald trump, how evangelicals now justify voting for people like herschel walker because they will say he did all of these things but warnock's a baby killer, and then that's what my friends say, oh, he's a baby killer, and that -- you would not have heard that in the church when i was in high school. but you hear it now because of decisions that political actors made in '79 and '80. >> and the fusion of religion with political power. the explanation of donald trump

we're not electing a saint, we're electing a president who will fight with us. your piece gets into the question in georgia, which offers a snapshot of politics and religion in the republican party where you have raphael warnock who is the pastor at ebenezer baptist church, the home of martin luther king jr. of course running against her shell walker and we've laid out the litany of his personal behavior. how are evangelicals in georgia justifying. what are they telling you about continuing to support walker through this? >> what we're seeing in georgia is two completely different kinds of christianity playing out in this race with walker on one side, and then warnock on the other. and what i hear from evangelicals is the same thing we have been hearing for years now, right, as you're saying, the legacy of why they supported former president trump. i mean, this is the same political playbook that's

being -- that we're seeing in georgia. the tradeoff of political power. the accomplishments of what they want especially on things like abortion, and just letting go of what you might think of as their other goals about personal morality. but that's not even the right way to think about it anymore. i mean, this isn't about personal morality at all. if you think this is hypocritical, you're missing the point that the whole game is just about power to begin with, and that's who the evangelical, especially white evangelical voting base is. it's people who want to achieve certain political ambitions. >> i'm old enough to remember in the 1990s when every person i spoke to in the evangelical community, which, by the way, i'm still a part of, saying bill

clinton can't be president because character matters. character counts. we heard it time and time again. everywhere i went. i heard it. he doesn't have the character to be president, joe, these are the people who are leading the parade with donald trump. i have to say as far as power goes, gene, we have been talking about j.d. vance, in 2016, who said, christians can't vote for donald trump because it is a poor reflection on christianity. i will say, i have talked to leaders of the southern baptist church, i talked to them regularly who have said quietly, they have been concerned from the very beginning about evangelicals flocking to donald trump simply because of social issues because of how that will reflect on the church. >> yeah, it is mystifying and

crazy, really. when you think about it. if that's how you construct your world view around evangelical christianity as many people do, yes, you understand the concept of redemption, but look at georgia. rafael warnock is an actual baptist minister. i want to underscore what willie pointed out. he's an actual baptist minister, and herschel walker is not. he is something else. so my question for serene is how can themselves that and have such a tenuous relationship with the bible, with what it actually says in the bible with what jesus actually said or did not say? i mean, all you have to do is open your bible and you can read the words and so how does that

somehow get lost? >> well, i think as joe was explaining earlier, once that move was made to center abortion and the kind of theological mind game you had to play to suddenly flip in your theology, set the stage for saying, well, let's not look at the bible too closely anymore. let's not talk theology too closely, and now we have generations of people, the bible is picked up as if it's the bearer of truth, and never actually quoted because it's not in the bible. >> they don't read it. >> trump holding it upside down in front of the church. >> you know, elizabeth, what's fascinating, and i saw an article after the -- the woman from the i'll just say formerly fascist party, now we'll just say hard right party, after the woman won, one of her largest contingency of votes, voting for this populist far right were

people who identified as christians but who weren't practicing christians. tim carney, who is pro life, who disassociated himself with everything i have said this morning, wrote one of the most fascinating books on this, when he was trying to explain why communities are broken. the more people who went to church, evangelicals, the less likely they were to vote for donald trump. you can see it in the polling numbers. so being a quote evangelical now is more of a -- for people there, not for people who go to church. it's more of a cultural marker than it is actually a definition of faith or theology. >> yeah, i talked to a lot of evangelicals who support people like walker who actually do go to church, and there is polling the other way too, so i think it's pretty complicated. and it's hard to separate those

different things out. and it's one of the, you know, once you have an actual spiritual belief that is empowering your political choices, that kind of crosses a line into where does that go, where does that stop at that point. it's hard to change people's minds about anything, especially if they actually do feel that they are driven by god. >> and if you look just one last thing, if you actually read, as i tell people to do, not just for politics, read the red letters and the gospels. read what jesus actually said, and what you will see time and again, is jesus talking about in matthew 25, 31-46, the disciples say what do we have to do to go to heaven, give a cup of water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give hope to the hopeless.

you can go through, it talks about forgiveness, turning the other cheek, which a member of the trump family said that's just -- you have these people calling themselves christian nationalists who actually have created this civic, this religion, this political religion that bears no comparison to jesus' teachings. and if i'm upsetting anybody, it's only because they haven't read the bible. they just hold it up sideways as a shield for their political beliefs. politics shapes their faith instead of their faith shaping their politics. >> and you know what an interesting new wrinkle this time around, it would be laughable if it wasn't so serious, is herschel walker's now new campaign slogan, herschel walker saved by grace,

so as if grace and the love of god is a campaign slogan. >> right. >> saved by grace. >> yeah. >> wait, this week, because he was just lying about this and denying hit child last week. >> you can be saved by grace any day, but i think what needs to be discussed in the context of a claim like that is this very old fashioned christian notion called cheap grace, which means basically, you can say god forgives me for whatever it is i've done, and i can lead a life where i never read the bible, i never talk about the poor, i never help feed the hungry, and it's cheap grace being thrown around, and it's a serious moral claim. >> by the way, it's not you saying that, that's his own son who said that last week, he was tired of the lying. he was tired of him pretending to be something he wasn't. >> it was all about the lying.

not everything you did, and you claimed you were accountable and again, you didn't actually make your promise on that, but it's the lying that is driving his family just really to the point of being openly hurt. "new york times" national correspondent elizabeth diaz, and reverend serene jones, thank you both very much for being on the show this morning. great conversation. and coming up, a new podcast explores the geopolitical and cultural ramifications of this year's morally bankrupt world cup. >> that sounds like a roger bennett segue. >> there he is. >> and in an impossible task, our friend roger bennett attempts to rank soccer's top 100 players. he joins us next. >> look at him. he joins us next >> look at him

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enchts. go ahead. i like it now because of just for kicks. >> exactly, exactly. >> i want you to try it and let me know what you think, okay? just for kicks. >> all right. who makes it into the hall of fame, the most popular sport on the planet, is it messi, ronaldo? that is the monumental task of a monumental man. the soccer lover behind the men in blazers took on, the host of men in blazers, roger bennett is here. >> this is beautiful. >> you're a beautiful man.

look, it's been three years. >> this is good. this is a good look. >> the world cup is just 40 days away. 40 days away. >> it's weird for many reasons. >> the world cup is like a soccer themed bar mitzvah to which the whole world is invited. the most thrilling aspect every four years, it's just there with goals scored. >> in june and july. >> surface tattoos, but it is in qatar, slightly challenged place. smaller than connecticut, population smaller than las vegas. 1.5 million human beings will descend upon it. these are mere details. watch it from home, america, savor it. we'll work out the mortal coe conundrums. >> they have alcohol.

these soccer fans have an issue with that. >> yeah. this is where we are. >> i'm not sure if the games are legal unless you can actually get inebriated while watching them, but the qatar issue is deeply complicated. it's not just football. it's all sports, it's the liv golf of the event. but it's still for millions of people around the world, for me, i mark my lives by world cups every four years. if you ask where i was in 1987, i work back. america is now a proper football nation. when i first came on and barnacle would look at me from afar and say why are we not talking about baseball. >> he still says that. >> he says, oh, soccer is so boring compared to baseball. and i was sitting there -- >> what? >> the 15th minute of a 0-0

playoff game, and we love talk about how incredible it was. >> god love barnicle and his minority opinion. that's where americans are, it's become a normal sport. the third biggest sport in america, the -- i'm not just saying this because of "morning joe" being a pioneer every monday. >> joey scarborough got me into it 2006. i know exactly where i was in 2006 watching zadan. >> head butt. >> converted me to the beautiful game in 2010, 2014. it is incredible how the world cups have tied -- i just wonder what it's going to be like in november. >> it's the greatest spine of

collective memory. america did fall in love 2014, and our book is trying to give any reader, young or old, the dna of every memory. who is mia hamm, where did megan rapinoe come from. we tell stories of tenacity of wonder. it's a beautiful book. i hope people read this book. >> i'm going to ask you a question and turn it over to everybody else. >> please. >> really quickly. >> zadan, where does he fit in your countdown? >> it's an alphabetical book. he's in there. >> come on. we want countdowns. >> that's the joy of the book, to do 100 greatest players is completely ridiculous. that's the joy of football. you come up with your 100. it's completely subjective, and then you defend it with the heat of a thousand suns. we hope you come up with yours.

>> if you were publishing in a couple of years, is he up there in the greats, the viking from norway? >> he's an incredible human being. they call him the -- he's like a nordic viking who smites the ball as if he's trying to take vengeance for his father who fell in battle. i just interviewed him, i said when you hit that ball -- >> the new man city striker. >> oh, good god. he's going to beat roger maris's home run record. he's going to beat the hot dog record of joey chestnut. >> we get the idea. >> this guy is incredible. >> he hits with zen and anger. i think everybody's possible. >> he's just a great player. >> great player. >> he is an incredible -- >> these are great stories. >> tell us -- roger, tell us, even new fans to the game know pele, know mia hamm. give us a story of one or two

who your average american wouldn't understand. >> their nation's histories, their nation's politics, their nation's cultures take the field alongside of them. there are stories in this book more about tenacity than about glory. the one that really stands out for me is a woman, briana scurry who grew up in minnesota, the only african american on every team, when she shows you every youth team she ever played on, she was the only african american face. she played in that culture, broke through, won the world cup with the united states. became the first african american in the soccer hall of fame. that kind of tenacity, that kind of singular path, that kind of higher pioneering, to me there's the joy of football, the goals, the ripped off shirts, the abs, the six packs. >> can we talk about the guy i've always been fascinated by. he played for a team, he played

for a country that had deep, deep problems. maybe one of the greatest teams ever fielded, i'm absolutely fascinated by the netherlands '74 and '78 teams and croif, may be the greatest player ever on the greatest team ever, and they were so in their heads. >> but they lost both times. winning for them was not the point was it was the beauty of the game. this is a man they call him picasso in cleats. he saw time and space in just an avant-garde style. bent the force of the ball to his will, but had a packet of cigarettes after halftime and go do it again. it's honestly like watching an elite painter, a maestro working. i caught the end of his career, this stylish human being. his idea of football is he birthed the modern idea of football. before him it was just bold men huffing and puffing trying to fight each other on the muddy

pit. >> he saw things before they happened. he showed up at camp at 17 or 18 and had all these veterans there. basically from the first day he said no, no, you don't doe do it that way. you it this way. >> football is a very simple game. he simplified it even while making it complicated. now manchester city, english champion, his idea is the one that fuses them altogether. the love really started after 2010, 2014 when you started the premier league on a monday basis. this book will allow you to almost take on that dna of having lived the full 20th century of football, all of those stories. i hope americans read it with their kids. >> they're great stories, inspirational stories. >> i told you before that joey scarborough and all of his friends and a lot of younger

kids, but they converted to football through fifa, playing video game fifa. i'm just curious, do you play fifa? >> i'll play you in the 8:00 hour. i will destroy you. >> have you downloaded -- have you gotten fifa 23 yet? >> i've got bags under my eyes. i've not slept in five days. >> so you don't know this, but you remember where the show started, i got the headphones and i fought with 9-year-old bulgarian call of duty at 3:30, which was oddly lifted for house of cards. but these 9-year-old kids in bugaria would be mocking me. now after the show i need 30 minutes. >> oh, 30? okay. 30 minutes. >> i'm not thinking, my brain goes neutral. if i don't, i sit down and i play fifa now. my kids all play fifa. >> mika beside you playing call

of duty. >> i'm so tired of losing like 19-0 to my kids. they're going to make me play. >> you should see it. >> i'm just curious, though. fifa 23. i've heard good reviews, bad reviews. what do you think? >> real quick. >> very quickly, the women's team in america made america fall in love with football. the internet allowed us to connect to the sport as close as liverpool, nbc broadcasting in the me premier league, it's the silent hand that grew the game, kids like joey to the star wars cantina of european football and teams. without that, that's been one of the greatest drivers. there would be no us, no football love, there'd be no book. all of it has come together to make america finally a proper football nation. we just need to win the men's world cup in my lifetime. >> the new book is entitled "the gods of soccer," roger bennett, thank you. really love the book. thank you very much. it's two minutes past the

top of the hour on this tuesday, october 11th. we are now launching the third hour of "morning joe." and we're following developing news this hour, an emergency meeting between g-7 leaders is expected to begin any minute now. focused on russia's new military onslaught against ukraine. the office of ukrainian president volodymyr se len ski says he will address the virtual summit. he spoke with most of the g-7 leaders yesterday. president biden as well as leaders of germany, france, and great britain and canada, the leaders of italy and japan will join the meeting set to begin any moment now. we will be following that as it happens. but we will begin this hour in ohio where u.s. senate nominees, republican j.d. vance and democratic congressman tim ryan went to head to head last night in their first midterm debate. the two clashed on everything from the insurrection to

abortion rights where vance was questioned about what he has called his 100% pro-life position. >> i've always believed in reasonable exceptions. this is a misrepresentation of my view. let's hear it from me, not from congressman ryan. i absolutely think the 10-year-old girl, the case that we've heard a lot about, an incredibly tragic situation. i've got a 9-year-old baby girl at home. i cannot imagine what that's like for the girl, for her family, god forbid something like that would happen. i've said repeatedly on the record that i think that that girl should be able to get an abortion if she and her family so choose to do so. >> i am not going to take a backseat to j.d. vance on law enforcement or anything else on that matter. the fact that on january 6th we had 140 cops, united states capitol police get injured. during the insurrection when they tried to overthrow the

government, beat them upside the head with lead pipes, spray them with pepper spray. the one video we saw the cop got jammed into the door, right? j.d. vance raised money for the legal defense fund of the insurrectionists. this is the kind of extremism, j.d., that we wholly reject. you have video posted, don't try to deny it. we've got your twitter posts and everything else, everybody's seen it. he said help these guys with their legal defense fund. can you imagine one guy saying he's pro cop and on the other side of his mouth he's raising money for the insurrectionists beating up the capitol police. the one guy he tried to raise money for got four years in prison. i brought $500 million back to fund police in ohio. >> i think the problem is when you have guys like j.d. vance who can't stand up to anybody, like just a few weeks ago in youngstown on the stage donald trump said that j.d. vance, all

you do is kiss my ass to get my support. he said that. that's bad because that means j.d. vance is going to do whatever he wants. mitch mcconnell's given him 40 million, he's going to do what he wants. peter keel gave him 15 million, he's going to do what he wants. here's what's most troubling about this lack of courage is that after trump took j.d. vance's dignity from him on the stage in youngstown, j.d. vance got back up stage started shaking hands, taking pictures saying aren't we having a great time here tonight? i don't know anybody i grew up with, anybody i went to high school with, that would allow somebody to take their dignity like that and get back up on stage. we need leaders who have courage to take on their own party, and i've proven that, and he was called an ass kisser by the former president. >> i mean, is there anything that's done that's concerned me, why don't we let the criminal investigations play out. i was alive during 2016 to 2020, and what i saw was consistently

rumors that finally donald trump was going to be indicted, that he was going to be accused of something legitimately criminal. of course tim ryan despite his commercials voted to impeach him twice, i have seen nothing that would suggest that the president of the united states should be thrown in prison. most importantly here, if you're going to make accusations like this, the attorney general of the united states, merrick garland, one of the most political actors in the history of american justice, if you want to go after a former president, a possible future president or at least a future political candidate, you've got to tell the american people why. we have really corrupt leadership at the department of justice, and that's a problem. >> you know, what's so fascinating, willie is -- and by the way, j.d. vance is certainly welcome on the show anytime. we'll treat him with respect, we'll ask him questions. the guy who was just saying that tim ryan has been too tough on donald trump from 2016 to 2020

following accusations is the guy who in 2016 called donald trump america's hitler. pretty good. i mean, if you want to like accuse donald trump of something, like he's going the full monte right there, right? i'm saying as far as like and the hypocrisy, you can't really be a christian and support donald trump, said that for the most part. christians should be ashamed. i don't know how people do that. like, and how do voters not figure that out? it's like kari lake, hope and change, baby. hope and change. huge obama supporter. how does that happen? >> and she was a news broadcaster on i guess the fake news -- i mean, what? what else can she say? >> and so you have to overcompensate for that and go all in with election denying. everything he tells you to say

you have to go along with it if you want to win. that's their belief. you can erase everything in the past, and as tim ryan raised at the debate last night, it was a statement of fact that j.d. vance was on a stage the other night with donald trump and said i like this guy, his words, because he kisses my ass, and that's all that donald trump requires of someone, and those guys know that. no matter what they believe privately or what they've said in the past, if you do everything he tells you, you got a pretty good chance of getting elected. in the case of j.d. vance, no matter how terrible a candidate you may be. >> and vance is taking that. like vance not only is taking the insults but also seems to cozy up to trump as much as possible. he doesn't mind that association because he's making the bet that ohio has gone republican in recent cycles and trump is popular enough to carry him over the finish line. we'll see if that's the case. ryan saying i'm independent. he knows that joe biden is not super popular in ohio. he's also said for some months

now that he doesn't want biden to run again. pelosi and schumer saying it's time for a new generation of democratic leaders. he's saying i'm going to be independent. i'm going to be my own man to represent the voters of ohio in the senate as opposed to j.d. vance who is openly saying, yes, i will do whatever donald trump tells me to. >> the man again in 2016 he called america's hitler. >> and then last night taking a jab at tim ryan on the issue of immigration, which may help j.d. vance. j.d. vance is still ahead in the polls in ohio. he's getting money from republicans, which tim ryan is not getting. everyone says he's a horrible candidate, he looks awkward on stage, but in ohio he is still ahead in the polls? joining us now politics reporter for cleveland.com, andrew tobias, and investigative reporter for the "new york times," david farenthold. he's been reporting on j.d. vance's introduction to ohio politics. it's good to have you both with

us. and andrew, i'll start with you. i'm curious just full context on how the debate went last night and what is the draw to j.d. vance in ohio? >> yeah, i think actually the issue with j.d. vance is that i don't think voters know a lot about him. a lot of the spending that's happened in this race has been on the republican side attacking tim ryan. tim ryan had the ads to himself in the summer because of j.d. vance's fund-raising issues. going on stage, i'm not sure if millions of ohioans are watching that live, but it might be their first opportunity to actually see j.d. vance talk. the context then is that he has the opportunity to try to work to define himself this late in the race, and i thought it was interesting that you kind of saw him skate past system of his more hard line positions. to me like i said, it shows he's kind of defying himself in the eyes of voters, which is a hard thing to pull off. >> we were talking to congressman ryan earlier in the show, and he's raised a bunch of

money on his own, but not getting outside support from the national party, the national party saying effectively off the record, we just don't think he can win. we think that ohio has gone red. we thought it was close for joe biden. he ended up losing by eight points. do we expect to see more national support, in what is a very tight race, more support for tim ryan? >> i've heard that democrats might be looking at putting more money in this race. i'm not really sure what the thought process is there. like i said, over the summer tim ryan had the air waves to himself. benefitted him a lot. he was able to set a definition. you see ads of him throwing a football around and doing things that ohioans like to do. the picture has even out on the republican side and you don't really see the democrats stepping up at this point. >> ohioans also especially in your neck of the woods, as we say in the deep south, also like

baseball. can the guardians do it? >> i'm optimistic. i mean, it's a tough matchup they've got against the yankees coming up. but i think they do actually have what it takes, we'll see. >> politics reporter for cleveland.com, andrew tobias, thank you so much. david farenthold, i won't ask you to weigh in on america's team, cleveland guardians. how he came up with a nongroup and it seems like some think it wasn't about helping people but rather his own political future. >> right, you got to go back to the moment of 2017. vance is a best selling author, but he lives in san francisco. he's moving back to ohio. he's trying to establish himself there, give himself a presence in a state where he hasn't lived in several years. he starts in nonprofit called our ohio renewal, okay? pretty big name, and he sets the goal of fighting opioids, joblessness, and broken families all at once. he says his goal is to help disadvantaged children achieve

their dreams. that's a pretty big mission. then within a year basically he abandons it. he spends a year describing its ambitions. in 2018 the year after he starts it, basically gives it up and moved on. people who worked for that group said we thought we were there to help ohio. now we think we were there to make j.d. vance have a presence in ohio. >> he's had this weird transition, j.d. vance, he wrote hillbilly elegy, every democrat and liberal fell in love with him, and then he goes back from silicon valley. he goes to ohio. is there any sense that you get from your reporting that ohioans are thinking that he's a transplant who's not even particularly going to stay in this state. if he loses does he even stay in ohio? is this all about his political career being there?

>> that's certainly the case that democrats like congressman ryan are making. it's so interesting, i watched a lot of video from j.d. vance from back then, from 2017. obviously this is a guy who put the word elegy in the title of his work. he wasn't aiming at the working class. he was aiming at liberals on the coast. even then you see a guy saying i'm not really a republican, i'm not really a democrat. both sides are wrong. i want to find solutions on my own. and it's amazing to watch that transition to now vance says donald trump has all the solutions. the solutions are not complicated. he is this really sort of hard right very, doctrinaire view of the world that's so different than the man he was a few years ago. he seems to have just adopted this persona that with the aim of getting into this race. what you saw and what i saw in my reporting is even in that year when his charity was semiactive, even when he said i'm not here to run for office. i'm here to change ohio through this charity, you saw him taking the first steps into politics.

it seems like that has been his goal and ambition from very early on. >> investigative reporter with the "new york times," david farenthold. thank you very much for being on this morning with your reporting. we're going to move to florida where the tampa bay times reporting republican senator ben sasse was greeted by hundreds of protesters during a visit to the university of florida yesterday. the senator has drawn criticism from some at the school for his assistance on same-sex marriage and other lgbtq issues. sasse will likely serve as the university's next president. in new york the ithaca journal reports the state's flu season is off to an early and aggressive start. new york had nearly 600 confirmed flu cases. as of october 1st, that's nearly four times as many infections than during the same period last year. health officials are urging new yorkers to get both their flu shot and that new covid-19 booster. and in connecticut, the

norwalk hour is looking at the state's struggling movie theaters. according to the paper, many theaters have closed since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, at least five have closed permanently since the start of the year. it's not just fear of covid that has fewer people going to the movies. the use of streaming services has also played a role. >> i love new canaan's movie theater. it's pretty small, just walk in there. all the avengers movies. >> i love going to the movie theater. it's safe, there aren't a lot of people in them nowadays. you forget because we didn't go for so long. sit there and watch top gun and feel the audio. >> feeling our age. >> that's one of the things, like for instance i didn't get to sea maverick, the follow up to "top gun." i really wanted to see it in the theater. and i was like do i really want

to strain -- i'm not watching this to see olivia. >> exactly. >> it's like for instance, we talked about armageddon, it was on a week or two ago and you know, on the little tv it's kind of like eh, they're not really that great of actors. i remembered this scene differently, but when they fill up space, you know, like tom cruise, i'm not criticizing. very big. he looks sometimes like he's over acting on a small screen. in a big movie theater, that's the star. >> have you not seen maverick? >> i've not seen maverick. >> joe. >> while i get the coffee cake, i'm going to let you know that dan just told me the new canaan theater shut down. >> okay. this is what's happening in this country. >> seriously? if ron desantis were mayor of

new canaan, this would never have happened. >> we used to build things. >> we used to build rocket ships to the moon. >> this is a proper country. >> can't even keep new canaan's theater open. >> i'm going to require you today to go see "top gun" in a movie theater. tomorrow by the latest. >> do you think they still have one? >> i think it's still out there. >> to feel those takeoffs and the aircraft carrier. >> when he goes up over the ridge and down again. >> his next movie he's filming a scene in outer space, he is single handedly trying to keep the american movie system going. >> speaking of tom cruise, i have a movie recommendation. mika who hates all movies unless they were based on actual events. >> complete reality, yeah. >> i actually said, here, let's watch "a few good men." and i said okay, i don't usually do this. let me show you the final courthouse scene. oh, i don't want to see. and it was tom cruise and it was, you know --

>> it was amazing. >> jack nicholson, and the writing, aaron sorkin's writing. it's just unbelievable. you should watch "a few good men" this week. >> you know what i also love? >> "bad sisters". >> i haven't watched that. >> i was in l.a. for my friend this weekend, and she said you've got watch this. >> i haven't seen it. >> i love it so much i can't even. "bad sisters". >> the other one i watched "charlie wilson's war". >> that's great. >> fantastic. >> all right, still ahead on "morning joe," that was all over the place. anyhow -- >> almost like "morning joe" used to be. >> one of the most powerful bank's ceo says we will be in a recession within the next year. andrew ross sorkin will weigh in on why jamie dimon's warning should be taken seriously.

>> you know why? jamie dimon's usually right. >> the latest on ukraine as russia ramps up its attacks this morning. and congressman adam kinzinger joins us on what we can expect during this week's january 6th committee hearing. it's thursday. but up next, we just talked about the ohio race. steve kornacki is going to break down that key race and why it could be key to control of the senate and why republicans are hoping to party like it's 2010. and we also have -- >> what? >> sharon. >> of "bad sisters". >> that's coming up later on "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪♪ subway's drafting 12 new subs for the all-new subway series menu the new monster has juicy steak and crispy bacon. but what about the new boss? it looks so good it makes me hangry! settle down there, big guy the new subway series.

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let's go over to steve car kornacki. ohio, big picture, what are you looking at today? >> i'm sorry if you're looking at me to scream or shout or knock this thing over. we can see if it works and take you through where big numbers stand here. we always talk about the midterm election, the president's job approval rating has been most closely associated with the results here. biden where he's at an average of 42.9% approval rating. let's take every recent president at this .28 days out from their midterm. you can see where that 42.9 fits in. it's a tick less than trump, a couple of points under obama. basically identical to bill clinton. one exception, george w. bush, about a year after 9/11 where

his popularity was stratospheric. you see where this translates into how seats gained and lost in midterms. trump lost the house, obama lost the house, clinton lost the house in '94. giant gains for the opposition party. on this metric, joe biden is right in that extreme danger zone for a president 28 days before the midterm. what has not quite been tracking with this, however, is another indicator we keep an eye on and that is the generic ballot. who would you want to vote for in congress this year, democrats or republicans, who would you want to control congress. on this issue, on this trend, the republicans do have the edge right now. 0.9 points, 46.1 to 45.2 on average. there has been a slight shift in the republicans' direction in the last two or three weeks. democrat had a lead on this in september. republicans have moved ahead but it's only by 0.9. what you're looking at here, 18,

rooe 14, '06, these are the four most recent midterm wave elections where the opposition party made tremendous gains. this is what the generic ballot looked like. four years ago at this time you could see that democratic wave coming. 2010 you could see the republican wave coming. 2006, the democratic wave. what the republicans are hoping for is maybe 2014, you know, it was only two points in the generic ballot at this point, this was barack obama's second midterm election. republicans ended up taking the senate, it was kind of a late breaking wave in 2014, and clearly i think that's what republicans are hoping for now because when you look at biden's approval rating, you would expect historically to see a bigger gap here in the generic ballot. that gap really hasn't materialized. the battleground, the big potential battleground for the senate, the party that currently holds each one of these seats is a 50/50 senate. the key obviously is

republicans. they need a net gain from this map of one seat to give them control of the senate. let's take a look at these seats and what the polling average looks like in all of them right now. the democratic held seats in the battleground or the potential battleground, one of them in nevada the republican leads in the polling. that's adam laxalt, if that holds, if that ends up being the result, that would represent a net gain of one seat from the democratic seats. but right now what democrats have to counter that is they lead in one republican held seat. that's pennsylvania where john fetterman, the democratic nominee, leads mehmet oz, by 3.7. if that held democrats would erase that net gain. again, the name of the game for republicans is they need to end one a net gain of a seat here.

democrats have their best shot right now on paper in pennsylvania. republicans have their best shot in nevada, but there's a lot of variables here. we'll see the fallout in georgia. we have yet to see much polling since that latest herschel walker controversy erupted. you're just showing in ohio this, tim ryan has been running very close to vance. the other wild card in this is some of these states, ohio, wisconsin in particular, the polls since 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, you've seen some significant misses. the polls have overstated democratic support in wisconsin, in ohio in particular in recent elections. that could also end up being a factor. but obviously we wouldn't know that until election night. >> steve kornacki, thank you. coming up, new reporting about an attorney for former president trump getting questioned by federal investigators. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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trump lawyer christina bob, a key player in the seized documents from mar-a-lago recently met with federal investigators. according to nbc news, bobb highlighted two other lawyers who were involved in the case. >> you mean pointed at them? >> yeah. >> on june 3rd, bobb signed a letter attesting that all the classified material in former president trump's possession has been turned in to the government. she signed her name to that. court documents show that the fbi subsequently determined that the signed statement was untrue and executed a search warrant at mar-a-lago, which turned up 103 additional records with classification markings that were not returned as bobb had

attested they were. according to sources bobb told investigators she did not draft that signed statement but was told to sign it by evan corcoran. >> it was evan. >> it wasn't me. it was evan. i'm just doing my job. i'll sign my name to anything. >> here's the thing. these people have seen -- i'm serious here. they've seen donald trump lie, get away with lying when trump knew he was lying, they knew he was lying, the country knew he was lying. oh, they can get away with that. i mean, anybody who's ever been an attorney, though, should understand that what works outside of the courtroom does not work inside of the courtroom. the fbi doesn't play. federal judges don't play, and i'm just -- i'm really surprised at the number of lawyers who didn't understand that. it's just -- and they're getting in trouble now. >> yeah, we saw even in 2020,

even rudy giuliani would say one thing outside the courthouse and another inside. he couldn't run afoul of the court if he were to lie inside the room. these lawyers seemed to have missed that memo. the former president has been able to hire to represent him in this case. they have continually even taken the word of trump or people around trump. it seems like a lot of them have not done the verification themselves. or they feel if trump can get away with it, i can too. that's not going to be necessarily the case. some of these lawyers are running into their own legal trouble. >> joining us now state attorney for palm beach, california, mark caputo. david, i want to check this one off the list, can an attorney, especially for a former president in a case like this just say i didn't know what i

was signing. someone told me to. is that -- does that pass? >> good morning, mika, yeah, i think that's going to keep her from being charged by doj, and she met with doj out of self-preservation because she knows she's in the prosecutor's cross hairs for possible obstruction of justice, 18 usc 1519 which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. here's a tip from my fellow lawyers, mika, don't sign letters that the letter writer won't sign himself. >> exactly. >> seems like good advice. okay. >> and i was going to say, willie, if you're a lawyer, you understand if i'm signing something to the doj, like i can tell you you get everybody around, does this look okay? does this look okay? you have to really be lacking in some basic understanding of the world you're living in. if you just sign a document and -- >> if you think that's what happened.

if you believe that. >> if you know who you are to donald trump which is a fall guy or a fall woman or a buffer between him and justice, and mark, that's what you're writing about. we should get into a little bit about who christina bobb is, not necessarily the a-team in terms of election lawyers. who is she, and was she effectively saying, look, i'm not taking the fall for this. this was somebody else's idea. >> well, one of the people we spoke to had said that she shouldn't be the fall guy or the fall gal. to dave's point earlier about don't sign something that someone else drafts and won't sign themselves, from what our sources tell us and looking at the federal court records, evan corcoran was not only in charge of drafting this document, but also doing the, quote, unquote due diligence in doing the search or pardon me the diligent search that he claimed was performed to turn over classified documents. so on june 3rds the feds show up at mar-a-lago. they're like, hey, do you got

any more classified records from this s&p 500 that we sent you on may 11th. evan corcoran was like sure do, and hands them a packet of 38 of them, and the feds are also given this letter, this attestation or declaration or certification letter that christina bobb had signed. now, wu thing that's interesting according to our sources who had spoken to christina bobb about her testimony is that she appeared to know something was up because evan corcoran claimed he did the diligent search and drafted the letter that he didn't sign, and so she insisted and had to insist twice, but have a disclaimer in there saying based on the information that has been provided to me a diligent search has been performed and you have all the records. obviously that wound up being true. there's evidence that she knew something was going on and as some folks have responded to me on twitter after we broke the story, is maga not only stands for make america great again but in this context it stands for make attorneys get attorneys.

[ laughter ] >> i mean, right? she has a lawyer -- so christina bobb has a lawyer john lowro out of tampa. evan corcoran is going to need to lawyer up. and right now he's still of counsel on this case. as folks have pointed out, you can't represent a client and be a material witness against him, and that's just a matter of time. boris epstein who is sort of the overall legal adviser who helped assemble this team at the time of what we're talking about in june of this year, he had his phone recently seized and had a subpoena served on him. so if you have that happen, you have to have a lawyer. we don't know who else has been kind of rope up in this. as we said earlier, christina bobb went there willingly, gave her testimony freely and

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that will frighten up your night on us, and a host of other chilling halloween activities all on the xfinity app. explore your rewards today. xfinity rewards. our thanks, your rewards. time now for some of the other stories making headlines this morning. the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee is calling on the white house to cut ties with saudi arabia over the country's decision to scale back oil production. in a statement yesterday, new jersey democrat bob menendez argued that last week's decision from the saudi-led opec plus group will allow russian president vladimir putin to finance the war in ukraine. last week opec plus announced its largest cuts in oil production since the start of the pandemic citing instability

in the global economy. this move will allow russia, the world's second largest exporter to raise the prices of its own fuel. >> i wish life were that easy. i wish we could just tell china you're doing horrible things, we're not going to deal with you anymore. but if we're going to end the war in russia, ukraine, that's going to happen through china. if we're going to make progress on climate change, china has to be a partner in that, as reprehensible. same thing with saudis, i wish we could just say we're really offended by everything you do. i mean, i guess he's smarter than i am. he's chairman of the committee, right? but i don't think most diplomats would say life's that easy. >> yeah, how many times have we said we need to re-evaluate our relationship with saudi arabia, 9/11, jamal khashoggi, this move by opec plus. it never quite seems to happen because we are reliant on the saudis on the world stage. meanwhile in iran, there's something extraordinary

happening. workers at a petrochemical complex went on strike marking the fourth straight week of anti-government protests. it's the first time the demonstrations have spread to iran's oil and gas industry. before that it was mostly small businesses that had closed their doors in support of the movement. unclear whether the strike will affect oil production. the demonstrations began when a 22-year-old woman died after being held by the country's morality police for allegedly violating its strict islamic dress code. >> it's fascinating, every day what's happening in iran, and it's fascinating because it's not led by anybody. it's an uprising of women and girls, middle school girls. professional women. >> i mean, unbelievably brave these young women and teenageers and students across campuses. and what's been heartening to see is the degree to which young male students have been standing alongside them.

it's hard to get inside there to talk to people and we've had people on the borders talking to them, but we've had people across generations coming in and out of iran who are saying something has to change, and we are on the side of the students. there has to be a liberalization of the rules following this. whether they can keep out there long enough, the degree to which they're being repressed as well is extraordinary. they are clamping down hard on them. they could clamp down a lot harder and that's the question, is why have they not clamped down harder. adam kinzinger joins the conversation, we'll talk about what we can expect at the next january 6th house select committee hearing, which is this thursday. "morning joe" is coming right back.

subway's drafting 12 new subs, for the all-new subway series menu. let's hear about this #7 pick, from a former #7 pick. juicy rotisserie-style chicken. you should've been #1. this isn't about the sandwich, is it chuck? it's not. the new subway series. what's your pick?

we can't just kill our

brother-in-law. phoebe! he is a piece of -- that's not how life, society works. okay? you can't just explode a man. this is barbaric is what it is. and you and me, we're not -- >> barbarians? >> murderers. we're not murderers. >> that was a look at the new apple tv plus hit show "bad sisters." the story centers around the garvey sister who is come together after the mysterious death of their brother-in-law. joining us, the star and executive producer of "bad sisters," sharon horgan. i love it. >> thank you. >> everybody wants to kill this guy and i'm thinking, because you know i don't like anything, how do you think you want to kill someone? j.p.? >> he's a monster. >> it's legit.

you get there and feel it. you're, like, i see it. i see it. >> we had a brilliant actor playing him. >> brilliant. >> and we had a great -- it's adopted from a belgian series called "clan," so to give you the bones of a really good character. every awful man i've ever met, a little sprinkle of them in there. >> literally everything. people probably are not very nice to him on the street. >> i hope so. yeah. >> yeah. no. so you called me nemi, which is not right. >> let me explain. i've told her -- >> t-shirts, right? >> i said christmas present, i'll get you a sweater. it will say nemi. >> not going to happen. >> explain to people who haven't seen it yet. you have to tell the story, you have that term for him calling her that. it's something the second you

hear it, you just cringe. >> it makes your hair stand up. >> it was a gift give on the us by the original as well, except, you know, it was whatever flemish for that is. i guess he's just desexualizing her completely. and, you know, it's something you do when you have kids, you kind of say mom, dad, or mom or whatever, but he keeps it going. >> yeah. >> it's like anathema. >> and the cat? oh, my god. >> the cat. in trying to kill him, and they're not very good at murder, try to kill him over and over, but there is collateral damage. >> lots of it. >> a lot of -- you kind of realize by like the fourth episode, you go, wait a second, they did it to that poor guy's eye and then -- >> yeah. >> you want to make someone -- in order to make an audience

hate someone, you have to throw an an nal in there. >> it works. >> that's the thing. they gather people along the way. first you're, like, okay, he's not that bad. then something happens. that's bad. when you get to the cat scene if you're a cat people -- >> that's a lot. they're done with him. >> yeah. >> it's real. >> they're trying to kill him because they want to rescue their sister. i think that's when the audience gets behind it because they can see how aggressive the relationship is and sick. >> sick. >> really sick. not as obvious as physical abuse but, you know, withholding from her financially and -- >> traumatic. the worst extent. people say can match physical abuse. not even rival it. >> i didn't realize until the last episode that you have

created a character for yourself that is the rodney dangerfield of the sisters. she gets no respect. >> love your character. >> your sister, yes. >> kicking you around. >> they don't appreciate you. they kick you around. their jokes at home. you've raised this entire family. >> i have. to my own detriment. >> exactly. >> i put my life on hold. >> but i get it. >> i feel -- i'm the head of that household. >> you are. >> i'm the matriarch. thank you, you two. >> so let me ask you about chemistry. we started the show 15 years ago and mika, willie, and i started and we'd never met each other or known each other. after the show, people were calling mika saying when have you all worked together before? because there was great chemistry. i noticed with the sisters. >> yeah.

>> you all -- it's so believable as sisters. it looks like you've been acting together forever, living together forever. >> i adore them. and i just called up all the women i thought i old like to hang out with for ten months. they also had to be good at their jobs but a long, long filming process. and, yeah, our director, debra walsh, an amazing irish woman, she got us sort of swimming together and eating together and hanging out and just very quickly it happened. she's such a laugh. a cutie pie. >> she's such a great actress. >> so good. >> about three episodes in, you know to she's the daughter. usually you're, like, wow. all of a sudden it's, like, you know, it's nice. she's a force on her own. >> she is.

>> we're now calling bono the father becausest so good. jonathan, you haven't seen it. >> i know. you didn't expect to be called rodney dangerfield walking in today, but you take it as a compliment. the finale airs this week. >> it can't be a finale. >> i know. it's happens do quickly. yeah, the tenth episode airs on friday. and i kind of threw everything in there. >> you really did. >> you watch the show and even if you enjoy the whole thing when it gets to the finale and they don't quite nail the landing, you end up being really angry about the show. >> there has to be more. >> well, i mean, yeah. it's tricky. i guess the characters really resonate. if i come up with a really good idea -- >> please. >> i mean, if you have any. >> we'll let you know. >>