keep it level, where the race is. if he stumbles, it's going to feed those attacks from the oz camp and republicans in the state. it's already been, you know, an attack, you know, in terms of the fallout from his stroke that has been, they felt they have had to address. now is going to be the time they need to do that. >> it should be noted as polls across the country show republicans make gains, oz has narrowed the gap on fetterman, but never caught him. politics reporter for "axios," lachlan markay. two weeks until the midterms. "morning joe" starts now. when you oppose the parents' rights in the education bill which prevents 6, 7, 8-year-olds from having sexuality, gender ideology in the curriculum, you're the one waging the culture war, i'm defending parents and students because it's inappropriate to have that in elementary school.

>> i'm not the governor who attacked walt disney world because they expressed their point of view. i'm not the governor who attacked the cruise industry because they wanted to make sure they weren't sick before they got on the boat. you're the most ant-business governor i have seen. >> a baseball team for send ago tweet saying that they were sorry that children were gunned down in uvalde, suddenly the governor of florida decided to actually penalize a baseball team for expressing sympathy with the parents of dead children. >> culture wars were a major topic in last night's debate between the two candidates for governor of florida. we're going to have more from that show down this morning, including the big question ron desantis would not answer. plus, the latest from eastern europe as there are

growing fears that vladimir putin is planning a new type of attack as a justification for escalating the war with ukraine. also ahead, adidas finally appears to be taking action on its partnership with kanye west following several anti-semitic comments from the rapper. we'll tell you about that development and we'll go live to london where a new prime minister will make history amid an economic crisis in uk. you'll hear from him live. welcome to "morning joe," it's tuesday, october 25th. willie, you know, ron desantis is actually a perfect example of where our politics are in 2022. i say that because pre-covid, ron desantis was following the playbook of conservatives like connie mack, for instance, who would be economically

conservative, even i wouldn't say pro environment but doing things that made environmentalists a bit more comfortable with the pro business republican governor. his approval rating was going up in the 50s and i think even into the low 60s. i think i even said some nice things about him about a year in, year and a half in after those extraordinarily stupid 30-second ads he ran talking to his maga babies. >> build the wall, yeah, with the little red blocks. >> but when he became governor, he really actually started to try to represent more people, and it showed in the polls, and then covid came along, and he wasn't just covid, but he started, like, picking at every scab he could pick on the body politic, and suddenly he realized that if he said something outrageous, and then,

you know, focused on owning the libs, just engaged in culture wars in a state that has a lot of problems, you know, but if he just focused on that, he could raise tons of money, get national attention, get progressives and media people angry at him, and just create this sort of swirl. and we saw it last night in the debate. i know florida pretty well. it is a big, complicated state with a lot of challenges and yet it was one culture warrior statement after another. all sound bites, all meant to rile up the media, liberals and fundraisers. >> and perhaps to look ahead to his political future. he knows this is going to be watched nationally. we'll play in a second that charlie crist asked him does he pledge to finish his term or is he going to run in 2024. governor desantis stood there

cold, looking forward, saying he wasn't going to entertain questions from his opponent. governor desantis has shown flashes of the competency we talked about, during the recent hurricane, for example, when president biden came down there. everyone on their best behavior. you're right, he has found currency, political currency in saying outrageous things, the martha's vineyard migrant stunt the most glaring to get national attention to make points to own the libs, as you say and to make angry all the right people, as he thinks about not just his position in florida but well beyond, depending on what donald trump does here. >> may or may not impact the outcome but the debate was reveals. we have u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay, pulitzer prize winning columnist at "the washington post," eugene robinson, and former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan,

whose focus groups are creating a little bit of a ripple effect. >> and "way too early" white house bureau chief, jonathan lemire. you know, elise, my grandma from dalton, georgia, would have said of you, well, she sure kicked a hornet's nest yesterday, didn't she. >> you did. >> you have people on the left pulling their hair out. you know, ready to jump out of windows. you had people on the right talking about how mean and angry you were. and there were others saying you were owned, the lib, who of course like libertarian conservative. >> you're saying she did a great job. >> lifetime republican elise jordan was owned by the people who said, yes, i believe the moon was made of cheese, and she just sat there dumbfounded. cheese, they think the moon is made of -- and somehow, you were owned because some people

followed conspiracy theories. >> i mean, maybe i've made it in the world now that i'm a corporate media hack, apparently. maybe that's, you know, i've really arrived. i think it is a sign, though, that we are talking about topics that we need to address, that it has hit so many nerves, and we saw, you know, on the day when we did the crime segments and we heard directly from black voters in philadelphia and their thoughts on crime, and we heard from swing voters in bucks county on crime, and we heard a lot of consensus about and worry about the rising level of crimes and that crime and that hit a nerve too. so i think we need to just talking about -- >> we do. >> topics that are uncomfortable but need to be addressed. >> and that's the thing, of course we actually had people who were outraged all day, that

we actually were saying that there were black voters in philadelphia, who were afraid to go to work and afraid to go to school. oh, you know, talking about us, that we were somehow creating crime as an issue in the pennsylvania race. no, black voters in philadelphia were saying it was important. and you know, i can sit here all day talking about how my family and friend believe that donald trump's president of the united states. it doesn't have the impact of people who don't have family and friends, who weren't raised in the south and in other places. it's much different hearing from trump supporters, still trump supporters, even now. i mean, people need to understand how others think. and again, we can do with it what we can.

most people yesterday on twitter just wanted to blast these people, but it's like you and david french and i said, we've got to figure out why is that still happening and what direction do we go as a country. screaming at each other doesn't work. >> and i think it's important to validate the people who were really upset, tweeting at us and reaching out to us. some were upset because there is, you know, a disinformation and a white supremacy angle to all of this, which is very painful, so when we're trying to understand people and using kindness to try and understand and reach out, that does not mean we accept those facets, the disinformation, the racism. two things can be true at the same time, but i can understand how that would be confusing. we're doing our best here. >> also, at the same time, elise, it's good talking to those people, seeing those people, communicating with those people, understanding that sometimes it's not as easy as

white supremacy. i have had people my entire adult life say, oh, your parents switched from being democrats to republicans in 1968 because they were racist and your family was racist and everybody in the south was racist because richard nixon had a -- no, my parents were raising like three kids in '68, '69, '70. they saw what happened in chicago, they saw riots at the democratic national convention. they saw the radicalism they believed in the democratic party on the far left, and no, it wasn't related to civil rights but it was related to a lot of bombings and extreme behavior. if we want to simplify everything, well, if somebody is still supporting trump, they must be a racist. we're not getting anywhere. i'm not saying race isn't a component. guess what two things can be true at the same time, right,

elise. >> life is complex. when you have extremism on one side, and extremism on one side, they're fighting to get people in the middle to join their camps. what i also did which i think is important, we heard from people in the middle who decide elections and we heard what they wanted and how they are sick of all of the partisan rancor, and they would like to see some solutions. and that's important too that we still hear their voices and hopefully help amplify their calls for some civility. >> i totally agree, and that's exactly why we're doing that. we're going to hear more today, but let's get to our top story, which also is politics, and these races. which, willie, are getting really tight. >> yeah, they all are. we're talking about pennsylvania here. we'll get to that in just a second. two weeks until the midterm elections, new polling shows extremely tight races in all of those battleground states. many of them won by president biden in 2020. we'll start in pennsylvania, democrat john fetterman,

republican mehmet oz, vowing to replace pat toomey, the latest cnn poll has fetterman leading by six points among likely voters, and they will debate tonight in the race for pennsylvania's governor, democrat josh shapiro, holding a 15 point lead over republican doug mastriano who was at the united states capitol during the attack on january 6th. in wisconsin, that same cnn poll shows incumbent republican senator ron johnson and his democratic challenger, mandela barnes statistically tied, 50-49 is johnson's lead. and tony evers and tim michels, deadlocks. in michigan, the cnn poll gives gretchen whitmer a six point lead over republican tudor dixon. two new polls showing a dead heat in the race to fill ohio's open senate seat. according to the latest spectrum

news, republican j.d. vance and democratic congressman tim ryan even at 46% with 6% of likely voters undecided. that's a 3 point game for vance since last month. in another new poll, vance leads ryan by just one point. that's within the margin of error. that poll, 8% of registered voters say they still are undecided. so things tightening quickly. new hampshire getting interesting as well. republicans have closed gap there too, joe. >> you look at all of these races. gene robinson, i think pennsylvania is tighter than the cnn polls show. at least the majority of polls show the senate race being two, three points going into the race tonight. wisconsin, tied in the cincinnati. we had seen a marquette poll showing ron johnson up six. that's probably well outside the margin of error. this wisconsin poll like all the others i've seen show it in a

deadlock. ohio in a deadlock. the michigan governor's race, much closer than people around gretchen whitmer wanted it to be. we suspected it would always tighten at the end. the arizona race, that senate race, where kelly, some like his 2020 race, kelly was way ahead, now that race has tightened up. everything is tightening up, and it's tightening up on both sides. >> yeah, it is. there are things in these polls, not just the cnn poll, but others that can give heart to both parties. i mean, you know, ron johnson is an incumbent senator. it's very very hard to knock off an incumbent senator, and it looks like mandela barnes is much closer than folks might have thought. johnson usually wins by just a little, but it's unclear whether he's going to win this time.

similarly, ohio should have been a complete slam dunk for republicans, had they nominated a normal republican. we wouldn't be talking about that race, i think. they nominated j.d. vance. and while, you know, that -- again, that poll we just showed shows a gain for vance, the fact that this race is tied two weeks before the election is just amazing in ohio. that's unusual, and i think it shows that number one, tim ryan is a good candidate, number two, j.d. vance isn't a very good candidate. you've got actual data coming out of georgia with very heavy early voting, so people are trying to look and see who those voters are. are democrats getting votes from african-americans or women and

young voters out who might not be, you know, every time voters in midterm elections. that race is extremely tight, obviously. but i think these haich numbers -- heavy numbers are making democrats a little bit happy and republicans a little bit nervous, and it's going to be a wild night in a couple of weeks. it really is. we're not going to know certainly the composition of the u.s. senate, and might have some questions about the competition with the house going late into tuesday night. >> yeah, jonathan lemire, again, let's take a couple of more states. we just saw georgia, a couple of other states. we saw georgia there deadlocked still in that poll. it's going to be tight. new hampshire, getting tighter in a recent poll than most expected. the republicans had even pulled up stakes in new hampshire, thought maggie hassan had it going away. perhaps she does. but look at this poll.

she goes from an 11 point lead in september to a three-point lead in october. that's an emerson poll. just one poll but she's an incumbent. you want to be over 50% in every poll taken. that's uncomfortably tight. again, you look at georgia, and you look at pennsylvania. you can look at other states, early voting, just completely setting new records. georgia especially we had heard about jim crow 2.0 in georgia. sure doesn't look that way. major league baseball moved the all star game because the obstacles to voting were supposedly so egregious. they're setting records down there. georgia voters are setting records. you look at the early voting in pennsylvania, the interest in this race seems to be extraordinarily high for a midterm election. >> yeah, we saw that polling

yesterday that shows the enthusiasm really high on both republicans and democrats. extraordinarily so for a midterm election. on georgia, some voters talking to theirs say those voting restrictions are a motivator to get out there and make sure they get their ballot counted. in this final fortnight, this is about as close of a scramble as we can get in terms of the senate. we may not have a winner tuesday night. depending on recounts, and of course the possibility of that runoff in georgia. but i was talking to senior democratic officials yesterday and quickly hitting on a couple of states here. new hampshire, they're aware of the poll, alarmed by the number, but they think should hold on. they feel like the infrastructure is strong enough. it will be a narrow win, but they're still feeling pretty good about that. wisconsin is harder. they do worry as gene said, how difficult it is to knock off an incumbent senator. tim ryan has run about as good as a campaign as you can in ohio. the institutions there, that's a

state that has trended red. democrats are hopeful that they're not banking on that. they do worry that he may fall just short. but at minimum, ryan there in ohio, because he has been so competitive, republicans have had to pour money into that state, which means that's money it can't spend elsewhere, which can help democrats elsewhere on the map. the last two, arizona is one where that senate race, kelly still has a decent lead. democrats in despair about kari lake and the governor's race, questioning the campaign strategy from their candidate, kay hobbs, and of course there's pennsylvania, tonight, the debate that's going to matter. i know we're going to talk about it more in a minute. democrats say this, though oz has closed the gap, he's never caught fetterman. fetterman has a lead, and they feel like he's stopped his slide. they still feel good about pennsylvania. >> let's talk about tonight. fetterman and oz, their first and only debate in this race.

much of the focus of course has been on fetterman who suffered a stroke in may and has struggled at times to speak clearly at public events. in a memo sent out yesterday, fetterman's campaign acknowledge the disadvantage heading into tonight's debate. his campaign wrote this, we'll admit, this is not john's format. oz comes into tuesday night with a huge built in advantage. we are prepared for right wing media to circulate malicious videos that try to paint john in a negative light because of awkward pauses, missing words and mushing other words together. that's from the fetterman campaign, managing expectations going into this debate. there is going to be for the first time i can think of closed captioning, which means the questions will appear behind the moderators on a monitor so fetterman can lead them. oz's responses will appear on a monitor behind the moderator, so fetterman can read them before he responds. >> i can't remember the eve of a

debate where one side has gone into it effectively, yes, we could lose this debate, but we're still going to win the election and lowered expectations to the degree they have done, specifically talking about those awkward pauses, what he does maybe mushing two words together. it's clearly an attempt to set expectations low in the hope that any performance that john fetterman gives is better than what the public might have been led to expect. we have seen him in interview performances like this. the nbc interview, there was a closed captioning, and perhaps once people get used to that, what else are you going to say, there's closed captioning in front of him. i felt his answers until the nbc interview, he was fluent. he gave to the point answers. he was deliberative. he didn't actually seem to struggle overly with more than one or two words. i think if he can perform as he did in that interview, and the audience gets used to the closed captioning because during the course of the whole debate it's

just going to be there in the way that audiences tend to get something visually at the first. it's a shock. once you got used to there, it's there. it's still going to be a tight race. oz seems to have done a reasonable job in the suburbs, if raising issues like crime, talking about inflation and the economy. he seems to have done a reasonable job of catching up. >> part of the reason fetterman's campaign did the interview with dasha burns is to prepare voters for what they're going to see tonight. >> exactly. >> how much, elise, when you spoke in the focus groups, how much did fetterman's health weigh on the minds if at all of these voters? >> fetterman's health was the number one concern that voters had about actually if they were going to pull the plug and vote for john fetterman, if they were undecided. there were some voters who were going to vote for him because

he's a democrat, because they want democrats to keep the senate, but then you got those swing voters that you really need to capture, and it wasn't just the stroke. fetterman had a reputation as a bit of a loose cannon previously. so coupled with the stroke, they question his judgment, and they want assurances that he's ready to take the reins of a six-year job. >> and there will be some voters, joe and mika, who step in there and have to think through that, whether fetterman's health is enough of an issue to change their vote. we should point out that the focus groups elise conducted came before the fetterman campaign did release some more information about his health, some medical reports. >> good point. >> yeah, that is. >> the debate tonight, though, anything can happen. i think they only have one debate, so a lot stake. >> i love when campaigns manage expectations. we saw herschel walker do it. now fetterman is going, we don't even know how to use a

microphone. >> that's not what they're doing. >> do we have to turn the power button on on the microphone, talk directly into it or turn completely around. you need to manage expectations. fortunately, though, i have low expectations wherever i go, it's not a problem. let me ask a serious question here, if i can make one up quickly to cover my tracks. jonathan lemire, we have been talking the past week about the fact that donald trump deliberately played the expectations game on states like pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, where he knew they didn't count votes the way we count votes in florida, which is you count the early votes first. i'm curious, do you know do they still have systems up there. are we still going to be waiting

a week and a half to see who won the pennsylvania race, the michigan race. like let's look at arizona and nevada. these states even in the best year, like after reelection day, they'll count one vote, go out, take a break for lunch, eat a ham sandwich. come back, build some legos, then they'll count another vote. then they'll go, okay, we're exhausted we're breaking, then they'll go home. like seriously, arizona and nevada always historically take forever after election day. are we going to be going through the same thing or have they reformed their systems in any of these states to actually count early votes early so we know on election night who wins. >> it was striking in 2020, i was with the associated press, they were waiting for the voting results, elections officials would go to the phoenix suns came, and then resume their job.

there is a sense that there is, first of all, there will be fewer votes this time around than 2020. it's an off year election. there will not be as many. not as significant at presidential. that will speed things up. a number of states have tried to put processes in place to make things quicker. there's about expectation, speaking to democrats yesterday as part of the conversation, they don't think they're going to know in a few key states, particularly because of how close the margins are going to be. campaigns have the rights to channel, petition for recounts, though in some states you have to pay for that. donald trump didn't want to. we will have a pretty good idea tuesday night or early wednesday morning, perhaps more likely. but, no, we're probably not going to know definitively who has won some of races, pennsylvania in particular for at least a couple of days. may not be a week and a half, but it won't be right away either. we should prepare ourselves. bad news in the state of pennsylvania, they can't start opening the mail-in ballots until 7:00 a.m. on election day.

they open them starting at 7:00 a.m. that takes a long time. they get them ready to scan, then they're counted. it's going to be a long day or several days. >> there's no excuse for that, and the state of florida, i have said this before, we usually know by 8:00, 9:00 p.m. who's won the state. even in presidential elections, because we count the early votes early. democratic governors have done that. republican governors have done that. this happened pre-trump. and of course there were a lot of people trying to get the state legislatures in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, to change those rules. there's no excuse unless you want to say the system is rigged. let people know by 9:00 or 10:00, who's won the race. >> that shouldn't be that hard. >> in these days of election denialism, there is no good reason for state legislatures and governors to not approve

systems to let them count the early votes early so people in the state know who's won, and politicians who want to undermine american democracy, don't get the chance. >> still ahead on "morning joe," in just a few minutes, rishi sunak is set to give his first remarks as britain's new prime minister. we'll get a live report from london. >> i think we have been reporting too much on london. jonathan lemire just said fortnight a couple of minutes ago. seriously. plus a look at the biggest take aways from last night's debate for florida governor. we'll be joined by charlie crist who faced off against ron desantis. also this morning, what we're learning about the first day of jury selection in the criminal tax fraud trial against the trump organization. that's the one in the state of new york. and adidas is reportedly planning to cut ties with kanye west following a slew of offensive remarks by the rapper in recent weeks.

weeks, it took them weeks. we'll have the latest on the corporate backlash. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. cklash you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪limu emu & doug♪ it's nice to unwind after a long week of telling people how liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. showtime. whoo! i'm on fire tonight. (limu squawks) yes! limu, you're a natural. we're not counting that. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪

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you're scared. anyone would be. the only way these women are gonna go on the record is if they all jump together. this is all gonna come out. i can't believe you found me. i'll do it. i'll go on the record. here we go with the whole damn story. welcome back to "morning joe," you of course are seeing images from the "morning joe" blimp, which of course, willie, when did we institute the "morning joe" blip, i think it was after the movie black sunday, which we both thought was a really cool movie. crashed the blimp into, yeah, into the coliseum and we thought, wow. "morning joe" needs a blimp like

that. >> we have crashed a number of them since then in the spirit of that movie. it's been expensive but i think worth it for shots like this. >> great promotional value. at least they spelled "morning joe" right. there we have captain ron, who by the way, he's on probation. >> i'm literally going to put you two in the hall. >> i don't want to hear it. >> i get out in time to like by band on the run. i owe this guy. >> the rules are a little different in the uk after he got out of prison, he immediately got his license back. we're feeling good about where he is right now in his personal journey.

>> all that you said along with this, rishi sunak is meeting with king charles right now to be formally appointed. >> again? >> as britain's next prime minister. >> isn't that what he said to liz truss. after that sunak will be making remarks. let's bring in sky anchor, and nbc news contributor wilfred frost. >> safely on the ground. wilfred, we have done this before a lot recently talking about today. >> reporter: we've done this all too recently, and we hope this goes for longer than six weeks this time, and the main challenge, the immediate challenge for rishi sunak is to deliver political stability within his party. without that, he won't be afforded the time in office to do anything at all, and i think with that in mind, the biggest focus today is this afternoon when he starts to appoint his cabinet, and we expect him to learn from the mistake liz truss

made which was just to appoint her closest allies in cabinet. so when things started to go wrong, suddenly the rest of the party didn't stick by her side. he's expected to appoint a broad church cabinet from all sides of the party. we don't quite expect boris johnson to be there himself, but his close allies likely to get decent jobs. the speech he's due to make in downing street, as soon as he gets back from buckingham palace provides a slightly different opportunity. sunak has been seen as competent but perhaps not relatable, and this speech will give him a big audience, but perhaps more importantly a forgiving audience and a chance to connect with the nation properly for maybe the first time, and after today, they won't be forgiving, it will be divisive again, they will have to answer for the economic travails the country faces.

and the speech will give him the chance for people willing to allow him to do so. >> tell us a little bit for american audiences who don't know what rishi sunak is and his background, we were watching him there. tell us about him. he strikes a whole range of firsts in british politics. but give us more of a sense of who he is, where he comes from, and how he might be suited for this job at this moment. >> reporter: absolutely. so he's the youngest prime minister for about 200 years, age 42. the first british-asian prime minister, the first prime minister of color, all factors, of course, that are reason for great celebration. interesting, he only became an mp in 2015, and then he occupied the second biggest office of state by 2020. a stratospheric rise, and it's fair to say he was adored initially. he outlined various support packages during the pandemic, and then oddly for someone who

rose so quickly, he kind of faced scrutiny after his rise as opposed to before it, and in the last year or so, some of the issues he's faced have been the issue that he's incredibly wealthy. he worked at goldman sachs and then at a hedge fund, then met his wife while pursuing a stanford mba, and she's the daughter of one of india's richest billionaires. he's the founder of the tech company emphasis. together they are worth about $800 million. not ideal when the country is going through a cost of living crisis, of course, and as i said, his time in the finance ministry, though short, did see him come across as competent, pragmatic. he has echoed over the summer leadership race the need for fiscal conservatism which has earned him further points which liz truss did the opposite and went poorly. he's not that well known and

only been an mp for seven years and has to prove credibility as much as anything. >> sky news anchor, and nbc news contributor, wilfred frost live from london. thank you very much. and coming up, grading president biden on energy. our next guest says ignore the misinformation oil slick that biden is making some real progress. we'll explain that. >> he also goes into where the united states is when it comes to drilling, when it comes to oil independence. fascinating numbers, and an ever shrinking reliance on saudi oil. and also the devastating impact the russia war with ukraine is having on russia. europe's just not dependent on russia like it used to be. >> also steve rattner is going to join us with charts on a shift in the race for control of the senate. also ahead, the chairman of the house democratic caucus,

congressman hakeem jeffries will join the conversation. "morning joe" will be right back. onversation. "morning joe" will 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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44 past the hour. representatives from multiple nato countries say russia's allegations that ukraine is preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory is a pretext russia has created for possible escalation. in a rare joint statement, diplomats from france, britain, and the united states rejected what they called quote russia's transparently false allegations. a dirty bomb refers to a device made of traditional explosives

that sprays radio active material. to date, russia has offered no proof of ukraine's alleged plans and the ukrainian foreign minister has called russia's statements lies. the news follows confirmation that russia's defense minister and u.s. secretary of defense lloyd austin spoke multiple times between friday and sunday, with u.s. officials saying sunday's talk was meant to delin -- delineate the red lines russia might cite to justify the use of a nuclear weapon. >> things going from bad to worse for russia. you look at what's happening on the battlefield, going terribly in the south, going terribly of course in the east. you also look economically at what's happening. what was supposed to be actually leverage and we've said this for some time here. that is russian gas, and the cutting off of russian gas to europe was supposed to be leverage, actually, all you do when you cut off gas supplies,

when you make it more difficult, you start wars, you just have people in europe looking for other markets. and they're doing that. and they're looking to the united states. so once again, vladimir putin's attempts to weaken nato have strengthened nato. vladimir putin's attempts to leverage energy has actually worked against him. and actually drawn europe closer to the united states. and by the way, there's so many misconceptions right now about what's going on as it pertains to energy, to gas, to oil. we wanted to clear it up. i read a great article, i believe it was in "fortune," and i wanted to bring in professor in management practice and senior associate dean at yale school of management, jeffrey sonnenfeld and former treasury official and "morning joe"

economic analyst, steve rattner. professor, let me begin with you, and my gosh, there were so many points in your "fortune" article, i almost feel like we have to do a lightning round. i'm going to read statements that people would never know listening to the gibberish and the talking points coming from the far right. so let's start with this one. number one, the united states is now the world's largest oil producer and needs almost no saudi oil. the united states has already cut its imports of saudi oil by 90% over the past decade. explain that to people who may not know that fact. >> that's pretty impressive. we've cut it back. it was about 2 million barrels perhaps a decade ago, now we're down to 350,000 barrels, and we're selling oil to europe. we could keep it and be 100% self-sufficient. we produce more oil right now than the saudis do. as an aside, i think very few

viewers would remember or have heard that, in fact, we used to own 100% of aramco and in a moment of panic after the yamaka -- war, we surrendered. it's a u.s. control is extraordinary. we're doing very well, and that's to the -- obviously the suffering of russia and putin's agenda. he can't really sell his oil, other than at a steep discount. a $35 a barrel discount, and he's the least efficient producer in opec. >> right. >> let's move through some of these others. by the way, it was the nixon administration that panicked and gave that away. second point, federal leases, this will be shocking to people, everybody hold on to your seats. my friends at the "wall street journal" editorial page, which i read every morning in national review, hold on to your seats,

federal leases under biden far exceed those under trump. we hear drill baby drill professor all the time. let me say it, federal leases under biden far exceed those under donald trump: explain. >> that is pretty astounding, but they're up by a third. the federal leases alone, the first year of biden versus trump. we don't have the numbers from the second year but it's basically around 2,500 starts under trump, and we're up to around 3,600 under biden. so that's quite a jump, and perhaps to the display of some environmentalists, but they certainly have opened up federal lands. the industry has used the leases available to them, and that doesn't even get to offshore, which is a big lead. >> all right. so let's go to number three. and this really is astounding, and again, it shows how stupid the russians have been over the past several months. the miscalculations.

this will be. historians will see this as really one of the great geopolitical blunders of our time. so let's talk about the war's impact, which i alluded to earlier. the united states already provides more gas to the eu than russia did at its peak. and now the eu buys 80% less from russia than they did before russia's attack on ukraine. this is devastating for russia, is it not? >> it absolutely is devastating. 86% of russia's gas was being sold to the eu because they had to. putin smugly said we're going to pivot east and sell it to india and sell it to china and macro economists at universities around the world, the imf and many in the media believe that. they didn't realize that gas is not fungible. that natural gas, it's a vapor. it has to go through pipelines. he doesn't have the pipelines to go into china and india.

it's just sitting in the ground, and who's filled it, like you said, joe, the u.s. the u.s. now sells more gas to the eu than russia did at its peak. russia is down to 9% coming in the two remaining pipelines, and that's hurting them. oil and gas is 2/3 of his economy. >> here's another shock. here's another shock. because, you know, of course the people that are saying that biden should be impeached for, let's see, the student loan program, should be released because he had lint on his jacket last week. they're also talking about the strategic petroleum reserve. this is the most radical thing ever, nobody's ever done this before, but joe biden, how could joe biden do this. my god, what's going to happen when we go to war. he has left us vulnerable. i remember every president. you talk about it here. every president has done this before, including, oh, hi god, locusts descending from the heavens, donald trump. he did it himself. explain. >> absolutely, joe, you get an a

plus, by the way, on studying this article. you know it better than i do. that's exactly right. trump has done it four times. we could list if we had the time, 15 occasions where presidents have done it, and they weren't natural disaster. trump did it in covid because production was down. trump did it when they had the iranians bomb the saudi refinery. it's regularly we go to that as a bank, and by the way, so do other oil producing countries, and replenishing it is the smart thing to do, especially at the pricing he has in mind. >> well, exactly, and we're, again, talking about the strategic petroleum reserve. which biden has tapped into it. he set it at a price, like you said, when we replenish it, capitalists are going to make money. nothing bad about it. at least not here on "morning joe." we like people making money. explain. >> that's the idea. it would be using forward

pricing, about $70 a barrel, which would guarantee that the industry makes money and we replenish this at a very reasonable price, and similar to the oil prices we probably won't be able to get into but the g7 is going to allow a very small margin of profit for russia. the saudis panicked and, you know, formed a, sadly, a collusion with the russians needlessly. we were never targeting saudi or opec in general, just russian oil for the oil price caps. that would be a price around there or a little higher. >> professor and joe, i want to mark the moment. joe, you just got an a plus from a yale professor. >> you did. >> something never afforded you at alabama. >> willie, i have walked on to the campus of yale before, and they've escorted me off. trying to buy a t-shirt. i applied to yale law school, i swear to god, i get the letter back, it's very thin. you know it's bad news, you know what they say, dear mr.

scarboro, yeah, no. >> tough but fair. i want to ask you about what you just mentioned, the cartel between the saudis and the russians in opec plus. cutting production by 2 million barrels a day. that was seen by some here as a political move against joe biden, an october surprise. what really is the impact of that? will it cause gas prices to go up the way some people have said? >> this is another place where highly conflicted energy analysts are saying, well, the market commands that. the markets are tight. no justification for it. they're making returns that tiffany would like to get. most opec nations, especially the saudis, they're making 75, 80% returns when the price was $80 a barrel as it was a week ago. the saudis panicked, i don't know if they're afraid because of the oil price caps that we see consumers forming a cartel. they're going to suffer. who knows why they wanted to help putin or if they wanted to

bring trump back in, which is as some suspected, this is the classic october surprise, but the prices should come down in gas, but the refineries are the strangle hold here. if you take a look at the last year, we have a 360% jump in refinery profits, unjustified. even the rest of the oil industry is not even up by a third, so there's something suspicious there. and they say, well, we've had shut downs. you look at the shut downs, it's 100% mismanagement, maintenance problems, nothing to do with the trump or biden administration policies. there's something weird going on with the middle man in the refineries that hasn't been discussed. >> steve, you have listened to the case. you have read the article. what do you make of it? >> i think the professor makes some very good points. i think the substance of what's happened with u.s. energy policy during this crisis has actually been fine from the standpoint of trying to keep prices as low as possible for consumers whether it's releasing oil, releasing oil from the strategic petroleum

reserve or other steps. i think the major problem the administration has had and why i suspect the professor wrote the article is perception and rhetoric, and biden did come to office with rhetoric about making a quick transition away from oil and gas and toward renewables, and what we're finding out and the europeans are finding this out in spades because they were trying to make a more aggressive transition from oil and gas to renewables, it can't happen that fast. the world is highly dependent on oil and gas, and you have to have policies that accommodate that and also effect this transition into the renewables and less climate affecting types of energy, and so what the administration is being tagged with highly rhetorical, and symbolic. he did put a temporary pause on oil and gas leases when he came in, and obviously the republicans are going to try to tag him with that. that's the issue. there's nothing the administration has done that has hurt our oil position, energy position or the world. in fact, it's helped it in a number of ways. it's got an image problem.

>> this is, you hear it constantly, conservative, they're upset about the strategic petroleum reserves. there shouldn't be calls of concern of national security even though it's at a 38-year low. >> it's easy to replenish, and as steve explained in the back dated futures market, it would be a reasonable price, and it's easy to replenish and people are saying he's not replenishing it three weeks ago. now that he is, the same critics are saying he shouldn't be replenishing it. >> it's unbelievable. to add to steven's analysis, is that people are confused in both parties, and frankly in this industry, the role of liquified natural gas, the technology was there since the 20th century but got commercialized in 2016. what we're providing to europe is more expensive, but you can shift lng. russia doesn't have lng, they

have to send it through pipelines. what germany did in terms of joe's list of miscalculations, nobody saw that germany would create six massive conversion plants which they will finish in the next month and a half that will take gas from all over the world, algeria, norway, in l and g form, and that's revolutionized the market. i guess technically it's a fossil fuel, so some of our green friends don't like it. it's a fantastic transition opportunity. >> green friends, whether you like it or not, we need about three or four more l and g plants in the united states of america. it would revolutionize things. it is part of the transition. i want to say for people on the left and right, the transition is coming. even oil producing countries think they're going to run out of oil, maybe by 2040. maybe by 2050 and they're moving desperately to transition. so you can accuse people who want to transition away from fossil fuels of hugging trees. even the saudis understand

that's where the world's going. professor, one final thing. at the risk of lowering my a plus down to a b minus or so. >> you have a good grade. you should stop while you're ahead. please. >> after the saudis had actually cut production, i talked to some people from oil producing countries. and they were shocked. they were shocked even though they worked closely with the saudis because they're saying what you said which is this is a bad economic move for the saudis, that they were already making a lot of money. oil was already at 80. they thought it was unprecedented. so many people tried to walk them back from the brink, and they made the move anyway, so economically, can you underline just how bad this move was for saudi arabia. forget the short-term, forget the election, just as a

strategic move, talk about how stupid it was for the saudis to do this economically. >> thank you, joe, and mika, we all guessed wrong. he just knocked it out of the park. he secured an a plus next semester, too. i didn't think it was worth the risk but it was worth the risk. you're exactly right, joe. this was incredibly foolish for them strategically. no self-interest. they produced oil, extracted at $22 a barrel, very cheap because it's all u.s. technology, by the way. the russians it's $46 a barrel, much different, so they are making tons of money, very high in profit margins but what this has done is put a spotlight on the sweetheart weapons deals that we won't have time to get into now, but senator blumenthal and congressman ro khanna has proposed this bicameral legislation, take a look at something that none of our real allies have. the eu doesn't have it. the uk doesn't have it. australia, israel, canada, nobody has a deal that we have now with our aerospace industry

where we have transferring as we speak, we're transferring the most sensitive weapons systems, everything short of the nuclear code. i'll explain later why ash carter won't be able to excellent on this, but ash was very disturbed about this, the former secretary of defense as this became public. this happened since 2017, i should make clear, is they own the production. they own the intellectual property. we never have done that before. they own the financial control of these weapons systems. in 18 months we will not be able to control our most sensitive weapons systems that we have given to the saudis and the supposed jobs we were creating, these 150,000 jobs, guess what, it's all in saudi arabia. there are few hundred jobs in the u.s. that's where they lose on this. we have to put a pause on the weapons deal, and that's why this is strategically stupid for the saudis, in addition to the fact that it's costing them money in the oil markets, is now who are they going to do

business with to replace the weapons system. russia? russia is relying on iranian drones. iran is more of an enemy to saudi arabia than they are to us. they have very few options now. they have made a huge strategic mistake. >> associate dean at yale school of management, jeffrey sonnenfeld, grading on a curve this morning. thank you very much. great to have you on. would love to have you back, continue the conversation. also still ahead on "morning joe," we've got steve rattner's charts, but we are now one minute past the top of the second hour of "morning joe," and we're exactly two weeks until the midterm elections and new polling is showing extremely tight races in several battleground states that were won by president biden back in 2020. so pennsylvania is one of them, and that's where democrat john fetterman and republican mehmet oz are vying to replace senator pat toomey, the latest cnn poll has fetterman leading by six

points among likely voters. in the race for pennsylvania governor, democrat josh shapiro holds a 15-point lead over republican doug mastriano who was at the u.s. capitol during the january 6th insurrection. also tonight we'll be watching the debate between fetterman and oz. >> willie, some breaking news that's coming across from the "wall street journal," adidas terminates its partnership with kanye west over the rapper's anti-semitic remarks. this came across a few minutes ago. and it says adidas ag said it would end its partnership with kanye west, following a string of controversies with anti-semitic outbursts. the move ends a lucrative arrangement produced the popular easy collection of sneakers, after weeks of pressure on the german sportswear company.

this is a german sportswear company with a checkered past. perhaps the most polite way to say it, but they made a ton of money with kanye, and we are seeing, and we've seen it over the past 24 to 36 hours. one partnership after another partnership collapsing for one of the most powerful names, not only in music, but also in fashion. >> yeah, the statement from just released by adidas, says adidas does not tolerate anti-semitism. they violate the company's values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness, so they say the decision is effective immediately. they're done with kanye west's adidas. he is a huge profit center for adidas. they've called that their most important relationship, the one with kanye west, the shoes, a big part of what they do, and

now cutting ties completely. adidas was slower to come around on this. the company that represents him dropped him. there was a lot of pressure on him and the dominos finally fell, and adidas ending their relationship with kanye west. he has been isolated after his anti-semitic comments. >> no doubt about it. let's bring in the circus's john heilemann who's with us to talk about these polls. we'll get back to the polls in a minute. it's hard for casual observers who may not follow the career of kanye west to understand what a massive figure he is, not only in music but in fashion. how much money he makes for so many people. several days ago, ari emanuel was the first to come out and say you have to cut your ties with this guy. other voices followed, a bit slowly, but things are really moving quickly now. talk about just how big of a

move this is, and what a massive footprint kanye west has on american popular culture, and culture around the world. >> vast, joe, and one of the things about kanye, this relationship with adidas is central to his influence in the world more than his music now, not to say he doesn't still move a lot of product in terms of records, but that brand, he's made a variety of extravagant claims for how much money he makes for adidas. i don't think all the numbers are public, how much they contribute to the bottom line. it's in the billions of dollars since that collaboration started, and there are lots and lots and lots of people around the world who couldn't name three kanye west songs who have multiple pairs of the sneakers. so, you know, for a brand like adidas that has the kind of checkered past that you refer to, joe, this association was good for them on a lot of levels. it was a connection to black culture. it was a connection to the world of fashion where he's a big

player on the paris runway side. it's like a lot of things, did a lot of things for adidas and they were reluctant to have him go. i will say, you know, not only ari emanuel but the first people who took leadership on this is live nation who deserves a lot of credit, a company that is tied to all artists in the music business and has a dominant position in terms of concerts and live events over the country. they came out early and led the way. the moment you know you're not going to be able to survive an anti-semitism scandal, and i would say, you know, there's no sort of instance when anti-semitism is acceptable, when kids start showing up on freeways putting signs out that say kanye was right about the jews, and you see those viral on social media as anything kanye west has done. they were all over, from los angeles and other places, they have been all over instagram and twitter, when that is the way in which you pierce the popular

culture in a moment, that's when the writing is on the wall for you, and it finally happened for kanye west. i'm sure we're going to hear a lot of complaints over the days ahead. he still has a lot of power on social media. he has millions of followers and he will complain as he has before about adidas. i think in the end they're going to be glad to be without him. >> lebron james, and maverick carter, had an episode with kanye. he sat there and reiterated the hate speech. they pulled the episode. there was a critical mass. adidas comes in at the end of this because of how important the relationship is with them. people who knew kanye west, friendly with kanye west for a long time, condemning him here. >> they have. his former wife, kim kardashian came out and said, you know,

decried anti-semitism and was critical. you know, this is great news for me. i can keep wearing my favorite adidas hoodie without guilt. but also, adidas was very slow. i mean, this has been in the air for a few weeks now. and if you are a huge global sportswear company that was founded a long time ago by actual nazis, you need to have a faster trigger on anti-semitism, i think, if you want to keep that status. you know, kanye west has just completely gone over the edge. it is sad. i can name more than three kanye west songs, and his music was revolutionary, and it produced, i think, works of genius, but

he's completely around the bend, and just has to be -- has to be said, this cannot be tolerated, sort of naked anti-semitism that we're hearing from him. and it just has to be condemned and you have to do this. and so i think all of his fashion connections now have severed ties, including balenciaga. he's out there by himself. >> yeah, he is, and mika, this is -- it will be interesting to see what's left of his career in terms of fashion and brand, where he ends up. and he was talking about buying a social media site. >> right. >> you know, sort of a fringe social media site. so his footprint is shrinking but as john says, he does have a big audience, a ton of followers on instagram. he has places to continue to perpetuate the hate speech he's put out there and we should mention jonathan greenblatt has put intense pressure on the

companies. he was on the phone with adidas over the weekend, and perhaps helped them come to this decision. we're going to follow up on that and look at the ripple effect and anymore reaction from kanye west himself as it develops. this breaking news story just coming out in the past hour. let's go back to the very tight battleground state polls as we head to the midterms, two weeks now, to wisconsin where the cnn poll shows incumbent republican senator ron johnson and his democratic challenger, mandela barnes, statistically tied. let's look at ohio, according to the latest spectrum news sienna college survey, j.d. vance and tim ryan are even at 46% with 6% of likely voters still undecided. that's a three point gain for vance since last month. and in another new poll from marist college, vance leads ryan

by one point, which is within the survey's margin of error. in that poll, 8% of registered voters still say that they are undecided. in nevada, cbs news, and you gov, adam laxalt reading katherine kor tes -- cortez masto leading but once again, well within the margin of error. georgia now, the latest landmark communication poll shows rafael warnock, the democratic incumbent at 46.1%, and herschel walker, the republican challenger at 46%. it is worth noting the libertarian challenger, chase oliver is at 3.4%. while 1.6% remain undecided. i just can't believe that state, but, okay, we'll keep watching

it. in new hampshire, new polling shows a once sizable lead for democrats has virtually evaporated. the latest emerson college survey has democratic senator, maggie hassan, and republican don bolduc in a statistically lead. last month, that lead was 11 points for hasan. the driving force behind this change is a reversal in support from likely male voters in last month's poll men said they favored hasan by bolduc by six points, an 18-point swing in one month. >> let's bring john heilemann back with us, the cohost"circus barnicle is here, along with jonathan lemire, katty kay,

steve rattner, eugene robinson and somewhere the "morning joe" blimp operator, captain dave or ray. what was his name, willie, captain ron. >> there was a may day call, joe, that's the last we heard from him, so we're checking on it. >> you know what, that guy just can't keep the "morning joe" blimp up in the air. i don't know what it is. it's not that hard. >> the circus went to georgia. >> the circus went to georgia. it was looking for a soul to steal. >> yeah. but we'll do that later. >> and we found some too. we did. >> let's just talk generally, guys. and, jim, we'll start with you, and go to john, this campaign just keeps moving back and forth. it's going to be a massive republican wave. then the dems were going to the hold serve because of abortion, and then we heard, you know,

starting about a week and a half ago, republicans were feeling great. everything was breaking their way. then over the past two or three days, i've heard that the bleeding has stopped on the democratic side politically, but you look at all of these races from both sides, they're so close. pennsylvania is closer to the polls we showed. it's been tightening up. wisconsin tied in just about every poll, but that marquette poll last week, ohio tied. even the michigan governor's race, it was looking like a 10, 12-point lead in the latest polls shows four or five points there. arizona, all the races in arizona, extraordinarily close, even new hampshire is tightened up, even though i still believe the democrats hold that, and georgia, just split right down the middle in that race. you've been out, you guys go out all the time, what did you see in georgia? >> i mean, people are just going

home. republicans are going home. so i just -- i have been doing this for a long time. i felt like those democratic leads that you saw in a lot of these battleground states were going to dissipate in michigan. gretchen whitmer was never going to win by 10 points. john fetterman was never going to win by 10 points. you feel the leads dissipating, and obviously the inflation news, none of this stuff is helpful for democrats but they're continuing to run good races, and the bad candidates the republicans have fielded for some of their nominees are hurting them. in georgia, i met kemp/wanock voters, people who are going to vote for marjorie taylor greene and couldn't vote for herschel walker. i met one guy who was going to write in mickey mouse for the senate race. >> well played. >> it was a bold call. you know, kemp warnock voters,

you see in georgia it still felt like people are not just looking at the economy. they're deciding about the quality of the candidates. >> polling is one thing, you can see economy is the number one issue, inflation, when you put all of those things together, far and away, most important, but what else did you hear from people? did you hear about the 2020 election? are they talking about donald trump? are they talking about crime? what are the other voting issues you hear about? >> they're talking about crime. they're talking about borders, borders even in georgia. now, granted we were in northwest georgia, the 14th congressional district. this is marjorie taylor greene's district, and she's going to win by 50 points. it's a very conservative part of the country, but moreover, they were talking about somebody that was going to fight for them. you know, they were talking about somebody that was going to stick it to the establishment. and a lot of frustration, a lot of anger and that was how it was going to manifest itself. >> also a dangerous border with

tennessee. all the mexican illegal immigrants coming across the border. >> they did understand that they were not on the border but that they still felt that the border was impacting them. >> john, on that score, the border, immigration, that's linked in one way to people's fear of crime. the pictures they see in the newspaper and on tv. all states are different. all of these races are different in a sense. they're individual states. but there's a thread that's missing, i would submit, in a lot of the races, and that thread is coming out of the tim ryan campaign in ohio. why do more democrats not talk like tim ryan? >> well, true false, multiple choice, that's an honor's thesis. i have no idea. i do think it points to something. the important thing i think you're getting at, mike, one of

the most striking statistics in all of this polling, the most ludicrous and unhelpful thing i saw in the polls, whoever the polling firm was that the 46.1%. these things are wildly within the margin of error, the 46.1 is a meaningless number, it is what they found in the polling but given margin of error, saying 46.1, that someone is ahead by .1. just consider them tie races. the poll that i think is interesting, mike is the most people around the country have no idea that the biden administration did the thing on medicare and the drug fix that was in the big bill passed. people have no idea. why do they have no idea. a bunch of people on the left are going to pile on twitter because we don't talk about it, it's the media's fault. i don't hear candidates talking about it. it's not like the media's not reporting it. decide democrats decided heading

into the fall that they were going to talk mostly about in a lot of places about abortion. i don't think that's wrong to have done that, but the economic message, you've seen joe biden talking about economics. bernie sanders came out the other day and said reproductive rights are really important but if we don't have an economic message we're going to get crushed because with the inflation numbers rising we're vulnerable. >> either of you on the trail listening to candidates hear any democratic candidates talking about schools, getting kids in schools, no more lockdowns, let's catch up. our kids have been screwed out of two, three years of education, do you hear them talk about that. >> not as articulately as you did. they do talk about the economy. there are ads that talk about the economy, and how republicans want to sunset social security. they do things on the economy

but is the question is what are you putting your money behind. and tim ryan is not running any ads on abortion, right, he just lets that be in the earned media space, for example, and all of his ads are about how i'm going to fight for you. i expected to see more ads on prescription drug coverage, and that has not really manifested itself. i think people are making decisions based on the results they're getting in realtime from how people are feeling about things, and they need to show that they get what the problem is and they're going to fight for you, and that's the message that i see coming out. but there's not a lot of specifics, not like what you said about schools. >> one of the most popular things, democrats have wanted this for generations, one of the most popular things the biden administration has done. i have heard two or three candidates talk about it in two months, voters don't know about it. i'm not saying that would necessarily change the outcome of the changes, but to have no positive economic message to push back against the republican

technique is a bad place to be when the table turns. >> i was going to agree that you look at all the polls and it's all the economy, it's been the economy. inflation has been at the top of voters minds for months now. the coming recession, the belief that there's a coming recession has been at the top of voters mind for a long time. and john, i just want to circle back to you. i mean, abortion, i always found abortion baked into the cake. if you're pro life, you say you're pro life. pro choice, you're pro choice. voters get that, and they're driven by that, and the voters that are driven by that move in that direction, and certainly there aren't many voters out there who don't understand what rights the supreme court took away, what 50-year rights the supreme court took away earlier this summer. check. got that. explain to people how you're going to help them pay rent.

explain to people how you're going to help them afford their groceries. explain to people how you're going to help them with the commute. and my god, you talked about medicare. every midterm, i talked about medicare. i talked about social security. i talked about cost of living adjustments. were i running right now with a democrat, i would be talking about, of course, be talking about democracy, i'd be talking about abortion. i'd be talking about the supreme court. but the main message would be the economy. and for seniors who vote disproportionately in midterm elections, you talk about two things. one of them is the medicare, or three things, actually, the medicare fixes that biden put in there. the second one is the head of the republican senate's plan to sunset medicare and social

security every five years. oh, my god, i would be talking about that nonstop. do you know what 2022's version of those checks that donald trump signed during covid was? the 2022 version of that is an 8.2% cost of living adjustment for seniors. that matters. the largest in, what, 30, 40 years, and democrats who always out think themselves, wow, we can't talk about that. it reminds people of inflation. >> that's not how democrats talk. >> yes, it is, that's how democratic strategists talk, other than jim, i would be telling seniors, things aren't going great with inflation. we're doing everything we can, all the things we did to flip inflation. understand this, next year, you're going to get the largest cost of living increase that any senior has gotten in a generation because we're taking care of you, we're taking care

of you with that, we're taking care of you with reforms that we passed a couple of months ago, and we're going to stop republicans from sunsetting social security and medicare in the next five years. my god, it's not hard. but they're not talking about that. >> they got to talk about the economy. they got to talk about everything. all the skilled candidates we know have been able to do a bunch of messages at the same time. you can't do one or the other in this environment. and the reality is that abortion, there's a reason why democrats decided to focus on this issue. they started it see these massive numbers of new registrations across the country. i pointed to it too. you looked at kansas, new york special election and you saw people cared, and in a midterm year, trying to change the composition of the electorate, trying to get people who aren't just seniors, to get young women to register and vote to come out was a reasonable goal. there's no reason democrats

shouldn't have done that. they should have done that, and they did it. what they forgot in the moment in august when gas prices started coming down, and we're going to have a soft landing, maybe the biden administration is right, inflation is heading in the right direction, and the approval rating start to rise. democrats seemed to forget they would have to come back to economics, there was a chance it could turn against them. and that's what happened. they took their eye off the ball in crime. you mentioned the border, that's a thing you see happening in race after race after race. one form or another, whether it's in the that wisconsin senate race where mandela barnes has been hurt by that issue. and i would say if you're talking about the big debate in pennsylvania tonight, for all the talk about fetterman's health, the real issue there is that double digit lead that he had at the end of the summer. got crushed when republicans spent $30 million against him on crime in september. that's when the race tightened. it wasn't because people were talking about his health issues.

it was because that in his role on the pardon board, he had too liberal a record. that's something democrats did not seem to be ready for, the republicans would go after them the way they did, and they have been flat footed on both issues, economy and crime, i think. >> and you know, jim, and i apologize for interrupting again, getting involved in this. i do understand the name of the show is "morning mika," this will be the last thing i say. >> no, it's good. >> this block, running for people in midterm elections, republicans would come to me and say, i'm going to get 30% of the african-american vote. >> there's that voice again. >> is that how republicans talk? this is different. >> i said, no, you're not, you're going to get 4% of the african-american vote until you prove that you're worthy of their vote, and i would say the same thing about midterm voters.

when they would say -- and i can't believe they all have the same voice -- i'm going to make people vote in midterm elections that never vote in midterm elections. well, no you don't really change the behavior of voters for the most part. like i had a list of people who voted in the last two midterm elections and if they hadn't voted in the last two midterm elections, i didn't talk to them. i didn't go to state fairs and shake hands randomly. i knocked on doors, and i targeted people who voted in midterm elections. i say that just to follow up on john's comment that the idea that you're going to radically expand the electorate and bring younger voters in, it's a fool's errand. i have said it since 2004 on this network. i have been proven right since 2004 on this network. on this sole point, i have been wrong about everything else, there just seems over the last month or two, there's democrats

have been terribly unfocused when it comes to the economy to me. trying to bring new people in to vote that just don't vote in midterm election. so i want to do a counter case to what you just said, make the argument for trying to bring in new voters. you know, a lot of people, the economy is top of mind but also voters, you know, do voters understand that what congress does on the economy is not going to have as much impact as what they are going to do on abortion rights, as what they are going to do on a presidential election. abortion rights, outcome of elections, those are entirely within congress's control, and both of those issues are fundamental, about fundamental rights of the republic, and you can make an argument to people who don't normally vote, particularly young people, you can make an argument to independents, you can make an

argument to conservative republicans who don't normally vote for democrats, those two things are important and you need to vote in a midterm election in a way you don't normally do. it may be this a normal midterm that people vote on the economy, and it's easy to say, democrats should talk about economy, but when the economy is not going great and people don't feel it, it's hard to come up with a compelling message that's going to breakthrough other than the critique that joe said about what the republicans would do, and i do see that starting to change in what the democrats are doing. really, i think the question is, early vote numbers are huge. is that what's happening with early vote numbers? are democrats or other -- or independent republicans turning out and voting for democrats because of the two big fundamental rights issues, abortion and democracy. >> i tell you one strategist who

does not talk like the way joe does in that voice, james carville, kevin mccarthy has given democrats a great gift on the economy. it's not just pushing back now on what republicans would do in control. mccarthy has come out and said he's going to take this thing, use the debt ceiling and try to force spending cuts, cuts in the cost of living. entitlements, social security, he has given democrats a giant stick to beat republicans with. if democrats do not spend two weeks beating republicans with a stick, they will miss the opportunity. it's quite extraordinary what mccarthy has said. >> suicide bomber with the economy. >> a suicide bomber before he's in control. he's telling you, if you put me in charge i'm going to wrap myself in the suicide bomber vest. that's premature if they're going to do the suicide bomber tactic, you wait until you're inside the building.

>> we got it. >> seems too soon. >> you have waited patiently, steve rattner with your charts. two weeks to election day, with all of this in mind, suicide bombing notwithstanding, how do things look, what do the percentages look like? >> i have waited patiently to a murderer's row, i was hoping we were going to do it before these guys got on set. let me put from a 30,000 perspective what you just heard from on the ground reporting. if you take a look first at the senate as a probability map, what you'll see is a lot of what we talked about in terms of the trend which is that the republicans started out in a strong position. biden administration not doing well. midterms go against incumbent party, and you see roe v. wade overturn their marks on the upper left corner, and you see the republicans support drop. this is the odds of the senate going to either the republicans or the democrats and you see the blue line at the bottom starting to go up, which is the democrats

doing better. you then see the manchin deal as an example of the legislative discuss that the democrats had during the summer. propelling the blue line up. and started to go the other way as we have talked about at length. and now the chart is giving republicans a 60% odds of retaining the senate. this doesn't mean they're going to retain. if there were ten elections out of six of them, republicans would win by this particular measure. take a look at the dotted black line. that is gas prices, and what's interesting about that, there's an enormous amount of things going on that make the chart what it is. gas prices show a surprising correlation to the fate of the republicans and the democrats and it's really interesting to see that correlated as we suspected it was correlated. >> what is going on as the blue

line climbs, and they cross in october. what else is going on there? >> you can defer to our colleagues there, but you can see gas prices starting to go up again. you can see all the talk about roe v. wade fading into the background and all the legislative successes being forgotten or largely not talked about as we heard our colleagues explain to us, and so now it's back to the core issues of biden's competency, and inflation and so forth. >> that plays in the second chart, democrats sliding in key states here. >> first of all, before we get to three race, i would in contrast to the polls we heard earlier, the prediction mark is essentially this is down to these three races with the possible inclusion of arizona, which i didn't put on here, but essentially the markets think that states like wisconsin, ohio, north carolina, new hampshire, are all essentially locked into their corner with very high probability of republicans in the first three democrats and the fourth.

the market thinks it's down to basically these three races, georgia, nevada, and pennsylvania. got that one. and you can see, again, a trend that is bothering the democrats, which is these races starting to move from the democratic side on the left part of the chart down into the republican side on the right. you can see the little blue bump there. that was when herschel walker's problems got into the press, and so rafael warnock got a nice bump. that has started to fade as well. what the market is now saying is that nevada probably goes republican and the other two are essentially too close to call and that needs back to the 60% probability because if you believe that the rest of the map stays where it is by party control, which is what the betting markets believe, and you believe nevada goes to the republicans, then essentially it comes down to these two states, and the democrats have to hold both of them to keep their 50

seat position. the republicans only have to win one of them to get to a 51-seat position and so that really becomes the essence of how these markets are looking at the senate. >> you're looking at the house majority, slim hopes for democrats to hang on there. >> i didn't show you the overall probability of the democrats holding the house, the markets have that in the 80, 90% range. the question becomes what does it look like in terms of the composition of the house. on the left side, you see the betting markets and it's looking -- there's a wide range of outcomes as you can see here, all of those are probabilities of different numbers of seats that the democrats or republicans would hold. you can see on the right, the biggest bar is essentially centered around the idea of republicans having 240 seats, which would be roughly a 30-seat swing. less than the historic average going back to 1934, but

significant. the right side, i put in 538.com, because the number of the sites that use models, rather than prediction markets are slightly more optimistic about democratic chances across the board and in the senate, the center point of the 238 analysis is about ten seats more favorable to democrats than what the prediction markets are saying, but still a fairly significant swing toward the republicans. >> gene robinson, of course, we have two weeks. >> yeah. >> two long weeks. >> and the debate in pennsylvania is tonight. >> i can tell you a debate in pennsylvania tonight, i can tell you vin weber was quoted as saying -- he was told by a bunch of old republican legislators a long time ago, son, the cake is baked by fourth of july. i got to tell you, i always felt it moving. i felt the ground moving under my feet until friday or saturday

before election day. and usually by saturday, i just stopped. because i knew it was over. but it was moving. you were running the rapids like anything. i mean, let's just tell our viewers, anything can happen. you look at those trend lines. some of those trend lines right now seem to be breaking toward democrats over the past couple of days. anything can happen. it can go in either direction. >> right. i mean, one of the things you notice in those lines, they move fairly quickly. when they started to move, they really went up or they really went down. so look, there's so many races that look balanced on a knife's edge, it feels like a good puff of wind in one direction or the other could make this totally different outcomes and make it look really really different, and so democrats, i don't think

they should despair at this point but they certainly need to get out and keep working and they need to get out their voters, the same for republicans. you know, they think they're looking pretty good in the polls right now, but their people have to vote, and that is, you know, republicans tend to vote a bit more in midterms than democrats. i don't know if that's going to be the case this year. especially with roe. this is a hard one to predict, and like i said, it looks like a good puff of wind could send it really in one direction or the other. >> that is a great way to put it. >> steve rattner, john heilemann, jen palmieri, thank you very much for coming on this hour. sorry about joe's imitations. still ahead on "morning joe," more on the breaking news from moments ago, adidas officially cutting ties with kanye west following his string of

anti-semitic statements. also ahead, hospitals across the country are running out of pediatric hospital beds as a triple-demic of respiratory diseases sweeps the nation. we'll speak with the white house covid-19 coordinator dr. ashish jha about that. we'll speak with the chair of the democratic governor's association, governor roy cooper of north carolina. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

i look back with great satisfaction on my 32 years of active duty. i understand the veteran mentality. these are people who have served, they'e been in leadership positions, they're willing to put their life on the line if necessary and they come to us and they say, "i need some financial help at this point in time." they're not looking for a hand out, they're looking for a little hand up. my team at newday usa is going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that veteran gets that loan. this morning about 9:10 a.m., we received a call for an active shooter, officers arrived within a couple of minutes of the call going out and they

immediately made entry into the school. the officers began to clear the building, looking for the shooter. upon hearing gunfire, they ran to that gunfire. located the shooter and engaged that shooter in exchange of gunfire. we had eight individuals from the school who were transported to local hospitals. one adult female has been pronounced at a local hospital. i believe that was from gunfire. we have one teenage female remaining here at the scene. she's also been pronounced as a result of injuries she received from gunfire. >> so much there. but important to point out those cops ran to the gunfire. heroes. that was interim st. louis police commissioner yesterday discussing the latest school shooting in america. a gunman opened fire inside of a school shortly after 9:00 a.m., killing two people and injuring seven more. he was then shot and killed by police.

the mass shooting comes only weeks after another when a juvenile gunman opened fire in a residential neighborhood in raleigh, north carolina. five people were killed in that attack. it's a weekly event in america now. joining us chair of the democratic governor's association, governor roy cooper of north carolina. governor, thank you very much for joining us. these incidents, as we know, are a daily, weekly occurrence. and it is a big political debate. as we are headed toward the midterms, it's hard not to look at the politics right in front of us. are democrats doing enough to address these issues? and push their opponents on solutions? >> mika, everyone deserves to be safe from violent crimes in their homes and in their schools. violent criminals should be held accountable. law enforcement should be funded at proper levels.

actions should be taken to prevent violence. democratic governors are doing those things across the country. but these tragedies continue to happen again and again. and we see these republican governors and republican candidates across the country who don't want to do anything about an important issue. gun violence has over taken car accidents as the leading cause of death for young people. that should be shocking for us. you can't be tough on crime when you're soft on gun safety. we're seeing republican governors and these candidates across the country who are not only stopping common sense gun safety measures like background checks, like red flag laws that

so many of their constituents support, they are actively trying to get rid of the restrictions that are on the books, and essentially work so that people can carry guns anywhere they want, anytime they want, loaded. in red states, you're seeing higher rates of violence and murder in gun deaths than you are in blue states. crime went up in 2020. violent crime increased significantly in under president trump in 2020. thankfully things have lechled -- leveled out a bit, but we have a lot of work to do, and gun safety has to be a part of the solution. >> governor, good morning, you're right. we haven't heard a lot about gun safety on the campaign trail in some of the races we have been looking at so closely. you mentioned common sense gun reform. from where you sit as governor of north carolina, a place where

many many of the people who live in your state treasure their second amendment rights, what is a common sense gun regulation? for example, do you think teenagers should be allowed to buy semiautomatic rifles like an ar-15? >> i don't. and in north carolina, of course we respect the second amendment, and we're not trying to take away guns from legal gun owners. but what we have to do is increase efforts to make background checks stronger. we have to make sure that we have red flag laws in place. the goal is to keep the guns out of the hands of criminals, of children, and out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves or others. now, i have a situation in north carolina like a number of democratic governors have in swing states. i have a republican legislature. and i'm hanging on to enough democrats who can sustain my

veto. i've had a legislature that has continued to try and weaken our gun laws, and i have been able to stop that with my effective veto and having democrats uphold that veto. that's at risk this november because redistricting has just occurred. they only have to flip two seats in the state senate, and three seats in the state house in order to have a super majority republican legislature. i worry about that. i've issued executive orders to strengthen our background checks. we're starting a safe storage campaign. we saw it during the pandemic, the number of guns continue to increase that are being purchased. a lot of families don't really foe how to use them, but they have them. we're starting a safe storage campaign. but we need to take common sense steps, and i'll tell you what the big problem is. republicans in all of these ads, they'd rather keep you scared than keep you safe.

they refuse to take simple steps to make things safer from gun violence. and it's frustrating. what they are scared of is a republican primary funded by the gun lobby. and they'd rather ignore a large portion of their constituents in order to protect their seats because they're afraid of being challenged. that's the problem with these legislative seats, congressional seats. it's a problem across the country right now. >> governor, we saw after the awful uvalde school shooting earlier in the summer the impact that that did have on polls suggesting that gun violence and gun deaths were an important issue for voters. that seems to have receded from the issues that voters are now thinking about, and i'm just wondering after the mass shooting and rally in your state

in which five people died in october, did you see -- does an event like that in a community like raleigh, in a state like yours, change people's awareness of gun violence? does it change their attitudes, their voting attitudes possibly? does it raise it to a level of consciousness that it had not been at perhaps before or does it really not make any difference, are the two sides so divided on the issue that very few people are left to persuade? >> we cannot normalize gun violence even though it continues to happen again and again and especially because it keeps happening again and again and again. i see an energy, particularly among young people, who have had it. if we can be successful in making sure they know that there has never, ever been a bigger difference between democrats and republicans right now, than

ever, that we need to get them to the polls to make sure that we elect democrats across this country. particularly democratic governors. the we're the last line of defense to protect rights and freedom with the first opportunity to lower cost to families. we're on the ground making things happen. and when you look at gun protections, they're going happen at the state level. they won't happen without democratic governors. i believe this can be one of the issues that energizes our base. they bring new voters to the polls. the cake is not baked. the last two weeks there say lot of movement going on. there are a lot of people who are getting fired up about early voting. and i believe that we're going to at least hold the line on the number of democratic governors across this country and

hopefully make a few gains. >> governor roy cooper of north carolina, thank you very much are being on the show this morning. and coming up on "morning joe," newly released diary entries from the late senator ted kennedy, reveal how the justice who wrote the opinion overturning roe v. wade misled senators on his judicial beliefs. we'll explain that when "morning joe" comes right back. n that whg joe" comes right back.

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54 past the hour. look at that shot of the statue of liberty. wow. absolutely beautiful. welcome back to "morning joe." a new book reveals supreme court

justice samuel alito, the justice who wrote the majority opinion overturning the abortion rights case roe v. wade assured the late senator ted kennedy back in 2005 that he considered a key legal basis for roe to be settled. he said, i'm a believer in precedence. i believe that there is a right to privacy. i think it's settled as part of the liberty clause of the 14th amendment and the fifth amendment." that's according to a diary century kennedy wrote. kennedy's diaries have never been released to the public. but now historian john farrell compiled entries that have been given to speechwriters throughout the years into a new book entitled, "ted kennedy, a life." and john farrell joins us now. i want to turn the first question over to mike barnicle

who, of course, knew kennedy so well. mike? >> and know john farrell, too. >> there you go. >> the interesting aspect of teddy and alito, his life in the senate all those years, one of the things that consumed him, energized him the most was his devotion to the law and to justice and the court. >> he's always thought of as the great champion of health care. he always called it the call of my life. but his son patrick would make the argument, no, it was civil rights. all of teddy's causes were legacy causes except health care. even then j.f.k. campaigned on medicare in 1960. but he was most definitely most

national nat about civil rights. it is interesting to have that peek behind the scenes and see them in their casual, intimate setting. they talked about things like chief justice robert's family has a house in ireland. and so they talked about ireland and i didn't realize this but the chief justice had a great fondness for irish music and dance. then they get to the nitty-gritty and the questions boil down to civil rights and abortion. >> did he after they win the seat, after they recorded the seat by the united states senate, did he -- did ted kennedy maintain any anger? >> no, i would say anybody that crossed their path of 47 years of history, the only one that had a problem with is jesse

helms. and in it was over aids funding. kennedy against jesse helms and then orrin hatch of oregon, great example of teddy reaching across the aisle comes in by teddy's side and they push the huge funding packages through the senate. but jesse probably is the only one he really resisted. >> john? >> i'm excited about the book because you unearthed new material. and you talked libraries into opening up new oral histories and letting you see new documents that had never been released to the public. can you talk about some of the new material that you got for this book? >> the greatest bonanza is the university of virginia and it is over 300 oral histories that were conducted in teddy -- the last year of teddy's life including a dozen of his own.

that is the real basis of the book. nobody had that before i started working on the book. my old friend told me before you started this, he said go for the die ruz. -- go for the diaries. the diaries will be interesting. so i was trying to revive teddy's memory or help the speechwriters. the they would go to jfk library and get the diary entry and bring them to washington and write memos or briefing books. then very often, they slip xeroxes of the diaries materials that are not supposed to be there into files that went into the national archives and revealed them to the public. >> one thing you read about john is the strain and conflict between senator kennedy's personal failings, infamous incidents, but you also connect it to how it undermind his ability to be the face and voice for progressive causes.

the what was that strain between those two sides of him? >> he was a very failed champion of liberalism for a great period of time. he was the face of liberals in the united states. and he had failures. most clearly in the anita hill-clarence thomas fight. he just came out of that palm beach scandal. he just came out of the sexual harassment and this was a cause of rape. they made hideous fun of him. jay leno made fun of him. he couldn't fight the fight that should have been fought. and i've had several people tell me that clarence thomas would not be on the supreme today if it were not for palm beach. >> you had a senator of ted kennedy doodling sail boats during the hearings. he couldn't do much. the new book is "ted kennedy: a life." we only scratched the surface. it's a great book. >> mika? >> all right. up next, the latest on what's

being called a triple demic, covid, the flu, and rsv. hospitals are seeing dramatic spike in patients. the numbers are only expected to rise in the coming weeks. "morning joe" is back with much more in just a moment. back wit more in just a moment.

welcome back to "morning joe." it's tuesday, october 25th. with exactly two weeks to go until the mid terms, nbc news washington correspondent hallie jackson has the latest on some of the biggest races which could decide control of washington and state houses nationwide. >> reporter: call it a keystone clash today in pennsylvania in a race that could tip the balance of power in the senate. republican candidate dr. oz face-to-face in the first and only debate against democratic lieutenant governor fetterman who is downplaying expectations after a stroke that affected his speech. his campaign in a new memo this morning calling the debate unprecedented, previewing the likelihood of awkward pauses or

missing words adding that the live captioning process they're using may lead to time delays and errors in the exchanges. that debate set for tonight coming after another overnight in florida where the firebrand republican governor ron desantis is widely speculated to be looking past november to 2024 and possible white house run. his opponent former governor charlie crist trailing in the polls. >> yes or no, ron. will you serve a full four year term if re-elected governor of florida? >> the only worn out old donkey i'm looking to put out to pasteur is charlie crist. >> reporter: two weeks out from election day and across the country people are interested, really interested with the new nbc news poll showing 70% of registered voters ready to cast ballots. the highest number of any midterm campaign in the history of our poll. republicans more enthusiastic than democrats, 78 to 69%. right now, stunning polarization. 80% of voters think the other side poses a threat to the

country. president biden in a kind of pep talk from party headquarters laying out the stakes. >> anybody wants to make it a referendum. it's a choice between two vastly different visions for america. >> boy, that's -- that is an understatement. >> yeah. >> i'll tell you. so mike, just really as an aside, i was talking and felt like ron desantis before covid and before he started thinking about president, i guess, he actually was interested in reaching out to independents and some democrats. first year his approval rating may have jumped into the high 50s, maybe the low 60s. and now he's reduced, again, to like fifth grade insults. the only worn out old donkey i'm looking to put out to pasteur is you. i mean, the thing is, seriously. it's just like -- >> really childish. >> it is just childish.

it's dumb. and it also shows that republicans now, again, republicans are he rewarded in primaries and perhaps i think general elections for insulting people, for being rude. >> for being nasty. >> for being nasty and being mean. the laws of psychics don't change. i must saw the laws of politics don't change ultimately either. they think it worked for donald trump and they think it's going to work for them too. it's just not on a national level. and they're all debasing themselves being rude and ugly. >> it did work for donald trump. and desantis -- >> wait. wait. but mike, really quickly, one time. one time where donald trump even admit philadelphia i ran on ten days i would have lost nine of those days. he proved it by causing

republicans to loose local elections and state elections in '17. lowsing mid terms in '18. losing governorships in louisiana and kentucky and 19 -- losing the presidency in '20. losing the senate in december of '20. all does he is lose and people say he's too ugly and nasty. get somebody else in there. how shocking it would be if they just tried to be decent. like ron desantis was for 15 minutes during the hurricane. oh, look, he's looking presidential. then he resorts to this stupid routine? >> if you listen, it's not just ron desantis. >> i know. >> other republicans around the country, there is a tough talk. they think they try to mimic donald trump with the tough talk. you heard it in the new hampshire senate race. you hear it in other state senate races. there is tough talk. i'm a tough guy. i want to speak like you. it's like being at the gas station.

listen to a guy drop f bombs about the price of gas next you to. that's me. tough guy for you. they're doing it all over the country. >> yeah. thanks, biden. i wonder if they're still thanking him for gas prices continuing to drop. thanks, biden. unbelievable. it's like me going through the miami airport and looking at all of the broken escalators. >> you have been there lately? honestly that, praise is frightening. it is falling apart. literally, you get off a flight, all the escalators don't work. you see people with wheelchairs hobbling around dark highways, messy floors. literally stains everywhere, smells. >> okay, mika. >> this is what ron desantis is like international airport. it wasn't about me. it was about the people in wheelchairs. who could not get upstairs.

>> i'm going to get stickers. >> he's complaining about joe biden. >> thanks, desantis. >> good on you, ron. you do such a good job. >> again this is a thing. again, when history is written of this era, they're going to say he tried to overthrow american democracy. that wasn't such a great move. he brought a level of rudeness, mastiness to the presidency. there had never been. >> to the country. >> and that wasn't a good thing for republicans. let me say it again. he was the first president since herbert hoover who lost the house, who lost the senate and presidency in the first term. he went out of his way in georgia to lose the senate. and we said this. we said this year too. but for donald trump, we would not be talking about whether

republicans were going to take the senate or not. we would say, republicans are going to take the senate. dave mccormick is going to win easily in pennsylvania. and whoever is going to win easily in georgia. you look out the other statewide races are going in georgia. those races are all close because donald trump went out. same thing with ohio. my god. donald trump's stupidity, his meanness, has made ohio competitive. none of these states would be competitive. but, again, for the toxic politics of donald trump. and all of these guys, they're all imitating everyone. you're not going to be the next donald trump. there is one donald trump. >> i'm still marveling of the attack ad by mika. was that the ft. lauderdale

airport behind this particular group? >> i have one more thing. i have one more thing. you brought it up. okay? let me just say, ron desantis is so busy moving migrants to martha's vineyard, he can't fix his own airport? literally the people -- that are dangers to people who walk through them. let alone disgust ug. good job, ron. >> you have options in south florida. but in terms of the trump and his style, i think you are right on something. and mike said this as well. we have seen a lot of republicans try to emulate that. but they also -- it's a blessing and a curse. they see trump. they see he won in 2016. they figure that must win for me. that will work for me as well. as you point out, he lost the party badly in 2020. he saddled the party with pretty suspect candidates in a bunch of races across the country this year. particularly in the senate. and also for trump, most people

watching this show, obviously very negative opinion of him, but the guy did have a charisma. he had a celebrity and businessman appeal. at least at the beginning. there was that initial appeal while crowds were drawn to trump in 2016. doesn't seem like these candidates with the possible exception about carrie lake if she is able to win the governor's race in arizona. but it is also for democrats here as well. i was here in washington, president biden visited the national party headquarters yesterday. outlined. he said it. closing argument. enlisted a lot of the things the administration and party has done over the past year. it's impressive. pledged to defend abortion rights even further. if they were able to keep, you know, extend you the majorities and so on. but the one thing that democrats have said to me recently that they want to hear more from of the president, is a little more paem think about how things are tough right now. that is in his wheel house. that is the best political skill. the but right now some democrats

including pollsters dan greenberg say the listing of accomplishments, that is not resonating. what they want to hear from biden is i know things are hard right now. i'm going to do my best to fix it for you to make things better. that's what they want to hear from the president. president, frankly, who singularly well fit to deliver that very message that they need to hear more of it. >> i know it's tough out there. my dad, my dad lost his job. i've been there. i understand. that's why we've done all of these things. but i know we have a lot more we need to do. so, yeah, you're right. that is a positive message. i also will say, too, willie, you know, when pat buchanan was on the show, he talk about political athletes, whether they're on the right or left. whether it was ronald reagan or barack obama. add donald trump to that regardless of his politics, regardless of what he's done, again, there aren't many people

out there whose skills -- trump skills or obama skills or reagan skills are transferrable. so more often than not, these candidates just look dumb when they say the only worn out old donkey i'm going to retire is -- don't do that. >> oh, my gosh. >> don't do that. i will say, carrie lake. we've seen carrie lake campaign say, you know, in buchanan's words, like reagan, like obama, like trump, she's a political athlete. that's the way democrats think she can win that race and also might go to the national level pretty quickly. >> yeah. she was a tv anchor for a long time. she knows how to handle a camera and applying all the fake news and everything else that comes with that. to go with it. you're talking about people that the trump thing doesn't fit. i'm thinking back to marco rubio trying it on for size in 2016.

he thought maybe this is the way for me to win. he just had the look away. it was so painful to watch. did not go well for him. let's turn to a guest waiting very patiently as we discuss the miami-dade airport. democratic congressman of new york. he is chairman of the house democratic caucus. shoutout to laguardia. they finished the construction. >> a little ways? you have to walk to pennsylvania. >> they're still working on it, joe. >> so, congressman, let's talk broadly about the way things are going in house races. do you have any hope that you may hang on to the house? all the odds stha is going to republicans. >> very hopeful. there are close races across the country. but our incumbent candidates are battling. they won tough races in '18 and '20. we have the american rescue plan, infrastructure investment and jobs act, chips and science act, gun safety legislation for

the first time in 30 years and the inflation reduction act. now i cite those accomplishments not to say reward us. but to say trust us. we have done the work. we have made a difference in the lives of every day americans. but we also recognize that there is more work that needs to be done. we have a track record that demonstrates we have the ability to do it. >> have you made the argument, do you think, people running, democrats running have made the argument about the alternative? kevin mccarthy said we're going to use the debt ceiling as a tool. from your view, what is the alternative if you all lose the ho us? >> the alternative are the extreme maga republicans that are extreme on reproductive freedom. they don't believe in it. we believe that a woman has the right and the freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions. they want to impose the

nationwide ban and criminalize abortion. we believe in social security and medicare. they actually want to detonate it. they said, clearly, we will end it and n. five years and in fact, will tank the economy, hold it hostage in order to extract pain on the seniors of this country by blowing up social security and medicare. and, of course, we actually believe in democracy. we think it's good for america. good for the country. good for the middle class, good for stability. good for our economy. they apparently don't believe in it anymore. >> congressman, crime is an issue that i know you understand. and live with within your district. but why is it that so many democrats seem not have understood the power of that as an issue, as it has come up over the last two, three weeks? i mean when someone is pushed from a subway in front of a subway train in new york, the residents in cleveland, wisconsin, north carolina, why is it that so many democrats seem not to have recognized that

as an issue? >> it's a visceral issue. it's a powerful one. the republicans, of course, demagogue it. many of my colleagues across the country actually have the support of local law enforcement on the ground. our candidates do recognize the importance of the issue. they have talked about the biden record and our vision for public safety. which i think is threefold. one, we have to strengthen the relationship between the police and community and make sure that law enforcement has the resources to get the job done. to get the guns out of our communities off our streets because they have been flooding far too many neighborhoods and cause catastrophic harm. and, three, we need to invest in programs like violence interruption initiatives that have a proven track record. >> is the defund the police

slogan, is this like an anchor around the democratic party? >> not really. they're trying to use it here and there. but given the fact that in many cases the actual relationship between incumbent democratic members of congress or candidates and law enforcement is strong with a proven track record. it is falling on deaf ears in my view. >> congressman, i know you have to be hopeful about democrats holding the house. but the numbers are not looking that good right now. and we were talking off camera about how there is so much dysfunction within the republican caucus right now. just different factions that don't work together. particularly you can see the looming battle of ukraine funding. what kind of policies do you think that republicans can get behind or do you it this it is more dysfunction in their new congress? >> well, it's going to be demagoguery, delay destruction, dysfunction. that is the republican playbook at this particular point in time. no one can point out a single

idea, vision, agenda item that they've actually articulated to deal with the issues that the american people confront. in terms of lowering costs, dealing with inflationary dynamics, gas prices. we have an agenda to lower costs, fight for better paying jobs, and safer communities. we have a track record to show we can do that work. but we also understand that there is a need to lean in further, lower childcare costs, lower health care costs, lower housing costs. and it's just no evidence that the republicans have a plan to get behind doing the business of the people. >> house democratic caucus chairman congressman jeffries of new york, thank you for coming in this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you. mika? >> all right. another top story we're following a growing number of states are reporting a shortage of pediatric hospital beds. as they deal with the convergence of three respiratory diseases all at the same time. nbc news national correspondent gabe gutierrez has the details.

>> reporter: this morning concerns of a potential triple demic are growing, flu, rsv and covid ramping up earlier than expected. >> the last few weeks is something that i've never seen before. >> reporter: roy roy, delaware, washington and maryland saying that their beds are fuel. several other states, 80% to 90%. many patients battling rsv, a common respiratory illness that is like a simple cold but can be very serious in children under 2. >> it's very worry so many because we're not even in winter. it is still only fall. so as the winter hits, as flu starts coming, where are we going to put these kids? >> in providence, children's hospital is now at 125% capacity. extra patients staying in the emergency department. while they wait for available beds to be admitted. >> it's unprecedented. because of that, we're sort inform a whole new world right now. we are trying to manage the sickest of the patients right

now and let people know that if they're coming in with more minor complaints that they may have to wait for a while. >> as for the flu, pharmacy giant walgreens now says that activity at its clinics is more than 10 times higher than last season. and that it doubled in just the past two weeks. >> we're seeing in cities in the south and we're seeing it move a lot faster than we have in the past. >> all of it weighing on parents across the country. >> he has a hard time breathing. >> in south carolina, corey robertson's newborn son had rsv and on a ventilator to help him breathe. >> i was very scared. you know, he is 7 weeks old. so i definitely had fear that i never felt before just the unknown. >> and nbc's gabe gutierrez with that report. joining us now, the white house covid response coordinator. thank you for joining us this morning. this triple demic, it is the result in some ways of covid and how will the white house, the

cdc, government get their arms around this? >> yeah. good morning, thanks for having me back. a concerning situation here. we've got three respiratory virus that's are circulating and growing. rsv, flu, and covid. the good news is that we're not powerless against this. we have really high quality vaccines against two of them. flu and covid. and those vaccines keep kids, they keep adults out of the hospital. so that sort of priority number one. we have to make sure at least for those two of the three we help keep hospitals and health care systems, you know, from getting overburdened and we protect people by getting people vaccinated. so number one thing people with do right now is go out and get the new covid vaccine. get the flu shot. that will make an enormous difference. rsv most kids it's mild. for a small number of kid, youngest ones, they can get sick from it. so obviously taking care of children, making sure we have plenty of health care capacity

and the ability to take care of the kid, very, very important. >> what about rsv, what if you want them to go out in the world and enjoy life, what mitigation measures do you recommend? >> yeah. so rsv is a respiratory virus. again, for most kids, most adults it's mild. we've all had rsv in our lives. the main recommendations are obviously avoiding sick contact if it your kid is sick, keeping them home. if you, you know, the play date is with a kid sick, avoiding that. washing hands is really important. you know, as opposed to covid where mostly airborne rsv, there is some surface transmission and washing hands is really important there. so there is a series of things parents can do to keep their kids safe. again, for most of the time it ends up being mild. if your kid gets sick and start having any problems with breathing, you have to get them

seen early by a doctor, pediatrician to avoid things getting worse. >> all right, i'll see you over at the white house later to day. the president is getting his final covid booster in an effort to araise awareness for americans. let me get you on. this the percentage of americans who have taken the shot in the low single digits. barely anyone has for the record. i got mine about ten days ago. but we're -- for health experts really worried that covid rates are about to start surging again coming into the winter months. potentially new variance on the horizon as well. what can you do to convince americans to get another shot? >> yeah. so first of all, more than 20 million americans have gotten the vaccine. i think it's a good start. you're going to hear from the president today. he is laying out how both were in a very different moment than where we were a year or two years ago and also the importance of keeping ourselves, our families protected. and then how it is a shared

responsibility. he's going to call on businesses to make it easy for people to get vaccinated. to run clinics. we're going to hear from pharmacy leaders who are talking about what major pharmacy chains are doing to make this easier. and, you know, for people to go get vaccinated this is really needs to be an all society effort. if people get sick and people end up getting -- for our health care system gets overwhelmed, all of us are going to feel the effects of that. so therefore, it really is a collective effort. obviously, we're doing our part. we're doing our part on. this making vaccines and treatments widely available and free. but this is a collective responsibility. and you're going to hear the president call on others to step up and do their part as well. >> doctor, thank you very much for coming on this morning. >> that's really something. a lot to worry about. >> there is. especially for parents. please, get your booster and flu shot. you're getting one today. >> am i getting one today? >> you're getting one today.

>> willie, our friend just a minute or two ago just retweeted the new teaser for the upcoming season of succession. >> oh, my goodness. >> is that out? >> we have to wait until easterly write early spring. >> takes forever. still ahead on "morning joe," the democratic nominee for governor of florida charlie crist is our guest hours after last night's debate with ron desantis. and tonight, it's the highly anticipated debate between pennsylvania senate candidates dr. oz and lieutenant governor john fetterman. nbc dasha burns interviewed both candidates within the last few weeks will join us with her latest reporting. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ng joe." we'll be right back.

the prop grand is so heavy against donald trump. what about him? he's a bully. >> what about his policies? >> i don't know. i never met anyone that had an answer for that. >> at least my grandma from georgia would have said it, well, she sure kicked the hornet's nest yesterday, didn't she? >> you had people on the right talking about how mean and angry you were and there were others saying that you were on the lib, like libertarian. she was owned by those people. they said yes, i believe the moon was made of cheese. and she just sat there dumb founded. she didn't know.

cheese? cheese? they think the moon is made of -- and somehow you were owned because some people followed conspiracy theories. >> i mean, maybe i made it in the world now that i'm a corporate media hack apparently. maybe that's, you know, i really arrived. i think it is a sign though that we are talking about topics that we need to address that it has hit so many nerves. and we saw, know, on the day when we did the crime segments and we heard directly from black voters in philadelphia and their thoughts on crime. and we heard from swing voters in bucks county about crime and we heard a lot of consensus and worry of the rising level of crime. and that hit a nerve too. so i think we need to keep talking about topics that are uncomfortable but need to be addressed. >> that's the thing.

of course, we actually had people who were outraged all day that we actually were saying that there were black voters in philadelphia that were afraud to go to work and afraid to go to school. it's like oh, you know, talking about us. we were somehow creating crime as an issue in the pennsylvania race. no, black voters in philadelphia were saying it was important. you know, i can sit here all day talking about my family and friends believe that donald trump's president of the united states. it doesn't have the impact. of people that don't have family and friends that weren't raised in the south and in other places. much different here hearing from trump. there are still trump supporters. even now. people need to understand how

others think. and again, we can deal with it all we k yesterday people on twitter wanted to blast these people. it's like you and david french and i said, we've got to figure out why is that still happening? and what direction do we go? screaming at each other doesn't work. >> i think it's important to validate people who are upset and tweeting at us and reaching out to us. some were upset because there is, you know, a disinformation and a white supremacy angle to all of this. which is very painful. so when we are trying to understand people and using kindness to try and understand and reach out, that does not mean we accept. the racism, two things can be true at the same time. but i can understand how that would be confusing. we're doing our best here. >> but also, at the same time,

it's good talking to those people, seeing those people, communicating with those people and understanding that sometimes it's not as easy. i had people my entire adult life say your parents switched from being democrats to republicans in 1968 because they were racist. so your family was racist and everybody is out is racist because richard nixon had a southern -- no. no. my parents were raising like three kids and 68, 69 and 70. they saw what happened in chicago. they saw riots in the democratic national convention. they saw the radicalism they believed in the democratic party on the far left. it wasn't related to sufficiently rights. but it was related to a lot of bombings and a lot of extreme behavior. so, yeah, if we want to just simplify everything, go oh, if somebody still supporting trump, they must be a racist, we're not going to get anywhere. it's a huge component. two things can be true at the

same time. right? >> life is complex. and when you have extremism on one sued and extremism on one side, they're all fighting to get the people in the middle to join their camps. and so what i think we also did that is important is we heard from those people in the middle who actually decide election ands we heard what they wanted and how they're sick of all the partisan ranker and they would like to see some solutions. that's important too. hopefully they help amplify the calls for civility. >> coming up, we'll go live to pennsylvania. ahead of tonight's debate between u.s. senate candidate john fetterman and his republican rival dr. oz. dasha burns joins us with a preview straight ahead on "morning joe." "morning joe." i'd like to thank our sponsor liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance,

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two weeks until the midterm elections, new polling shows extremely tight races in all the battleground states. many of them won by president biden in 2020. start in pennsylvania. democrat john fetterman republican oz find to replace retired senator pat timy. they have fetterman leading by six points. they'll debate tonight in the race for pennsylvania's governor. democrat josh schapiro holding a 15 point lead over republican doug mastriano who was at the united states capitol during the attack there on january 6th. in wisconsin that, same cnn poll shows republican senator ron johnson and his democratic challenger statistically tied 50% to 49%. in that state's government race, governor tony evers and tim

michels also deadlocked within the margin of error. to michigan, the cnn poll gives gretchen whitmer a lead. two new polls showing a opening in the ohio stat seat. the siena college survey, j.d. vance and tim ryan even at 46% with 6% of likely voters still undecided. that is a three point gain for vance since last month. and in another new poll from maris college, vance leads ryan by just one point. that's margin of error. and that poll, 8% of registered voters say they still are undecided. so things tightening quickly in new hampshire getting interesting as well. republicans closed the gap there too, jeff. >> yeah. you look at all of these races. gene robinson, i think pennsylvania is a little tighter than the cnn polls show. i mean at least the majority of

polls show the senate race be two, three points going into the senate race tonight. wisconsin though, tied in the senate. we saw a poll showing ron johnson up six. that's probably outside the -- well outside the margin of error there. but this was quis quis poll like all the others i've seen show it in a deadlock. ohio and a deadlock. the michigan governor's race much closer than people around gretchen whihmer wanted it to be. we suspected it would tighten up. the senate race where kelly some like his 2020 race, kelly was way ahead now. that race is tightened up. everything is tightening up. it's on both sides. >> yeah. it is. there are things in these polls and this poll and not just the cnn poll but the others that can give heart to both parties. i mean, you know, ron johnson is

an incumbent senator. it's very, very hard to knock off an incumbent senator and it looks like mandela barns is much closer than folks might have thought. and johnson usually wins by just a little. but it's unclear whether he's going to win this time. similarly ohio should have been a complete slam dunk for republicans. they're a normal republican we wouldn't be talking about that race. i think. this they nominated j.d. vance and while, you know, that, again, that poll we just showed shows a gain for vance. the fact this race is tied two weeks before the election is just amazing. in ohio, that's unusual. and i think it shows that number one tim ryan is a good

candidate. you have got actual data now coming out of georgia with very heavy early voting. so people are trying to look and see who those voters are or democrats getting heavy vote from african-americans? or are they getting women and young voters out who might not be, you know, every time voters and midterm elections. that race is extremely tight obviously. but i think the numbers are probably making democrats a little happy and republicans a little nervous. and it's going to be a while in a couple of weeks. we're not going to know. certainly the composition of the u.s. senate and might have questions about the house. >> it may be a two party system. but there are plenty of voters

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welcome back. it could be a night their scenario for democrats this november. latino voters staying away from the ballot box, something our next guest is trying to prevent. actress america ferrera campaigned for president biden throughout the 2020 election. danielle bravo caught up with the golden globe winner to talk about the midterm elections and much more. daniella? >> good morning, mika. that's right. we chatted about america's

impressive career representation in hollywood and what she's doing to turn out the latino vote ahead of the midterms. we've just gotten to the place where there is more representation and more support for our community, but was that the case when you were starting out? >> when i started out, it was not very clear that there was any room for somebody like me. in movies, tv shows like "ugly betty," they never existed before. i think we have a long way to go and a lot of it has to do with decisionmakers. you know, i think we need to see more latinos in executive rooms, as producers, as the folks who are making decisions about what stories get told and who gets to tell them. >> you're one of those people now, writer, producer, actress. you've won an emmy, a golden globe, the s.a.g. awards, the face of cover girl. starting with "real women have curves" you embraced your

duality and culture. was that the case what was happening inside of that moment? >> i'm a lot more aware now of what it takes to really make it in an industry where there is no representation, there aren't people like you invested in your stories. if it's going to change, we're the ones who have to change it. and i think one of the things that i struggled with was really feeling like there wasn't an easy identity, an easy label. i did feel 100% american and i felt honduran and latina. this isn't just a me experience or a latina experience. this actually is an american experience. that feeling of being torn within yourself because people expect you to feel like a label or like a word is lonely, and it divides you from yourself. >> the sense of loneliness in the nation that's happening. you've done a lot with voting.

i wonder if there is any sort of thing that overlaps in terms of people not feeling a part of the system. >> you went from loneliness into voting, and it kind of -- it's true that when i'm feeling down and, like, the world can be so overwhelming and it doesn't matter what i as an individual, you know, do, these problems are too big and insurmountable, the thing that gets me out of that feeling of isolation and helplessness and loneliness is remembering that we actually have each other. we can take action collectively. i love doing get out the vote work. i co-founded harness with my husband and my friend, and together we just started gathering folks from our own industry, storytellers, executives, artists, decisionmakers, people with resources, putting them in the same space with frontline activists and organizers.

>> what do you see as being at stake for our community? >> we have everything at stake that everyone else has at stake, but the disadvantage the latino community has in this country is a lack of example that we belong here and that we belong in decisionmaking roles, that we belong as part of the electoral process. not only are we missing visually from the systems that are meant to reflect us, but simultaneously, we're maligned within them, right? and we're made sort of the problem or, you know, the sleeping giant that never wakes up. people love to blame latino voters for not showing up. give us a reason to show up the way that you would court any other voter. and not just reasons but address the systemic obstacles that our communities face in exercising our vote. to not do that work is to put democracy at stake.

>> do you think candidates on both sides are doing enough to reach our demographic, latinos? >> i think candidates and campaigns tend to look at latino communities in election years, two-year, four-year chunks. they're not thinking about what we do today impacts whether or not latinos show up in 2022 and be huge deciders in who gains control of the house and the senate. we're not thinking far out enough about this quickly growing community in the united states of america and how much power they have, whether they show up or not. >> right. >> it will still determine what happens politically in this country. >> america also spoke about an initiative under the nonprofit harness which targets potential voters through the tradition of celebration and rite of passage in latina culture that happens when young women turn 15. on saturday, october 15th,

they're using this occasion to get young people and friends registered and out early to vote. this is just one of the many initiatives america has taken on to amplify the latino community not just to vote but to empower them to understand how much their voices matter and what's at stake come november and beyond. mika? >> "morning joe" reporter daniella bravo with that report. coming up, the democratic challenger to governor ron desantis in florida, charlie crist is standing by.

democrats are going to protect social security and medicare. republicans have stated they want to cut social security and medicare to the point that shut down the government, they say,