officials who can appeal to moderate and independent voters, not maga voters, who he didn't gain traction with in 2016. >> alexi mccammond, thank you. as always for joining us this morning. election day, a week from tomorrow. races tight across the country. we will be giving you complete coverage. we appreciate you getting up "way too early" with us on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, october 31st. paul pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the house, the woman who is second in line to the presidency, was savagely attacked. deranged right wing fanatics, trump media allies, and some of the most powerful people in the world were feverishly trying to stir up conspiracy theories that

distracted from the central political headline of this story. that years of republican propaganda and trump fueled fascism led 42-year-old david depapp to break into nancy pelosi's san francisco home, with the intent to harm her. today he will likely be charged with the attempted murder of the speaker's husband who was in the home when he allegedly invaded it. he smashed his way in, a man on a mission, and confronted paul pelosi, but looking for nancy. according to the ap, citing a person familiar with the situation. pelosi told the intruder that he had to use the restroom. he was engaging with him, trying to hold him off, and in the restroom, that's where paul pelosi's phone was charging. that's when he dialed up 911. when police arrived, depap attacked pelosi violently,

smashing a hammer into his head and arms, fracturing his skull. he went into surgery. he is expected to make a full recovery. police say zip ties were found at the scene, just like the ones found on those who were hunting nancy pelosi at the capitol on january 6th. and that's not the only similarity. before attacking mr. pelosi with a hammer, a source tells nbc news depap shouted at him, where's nancy, where's nancy, where's nancy, where have we heard that before? some on the right would say don't jump to conclusions and don't connect that to this. >>. [ chanting nancy ]

>> we're coming in if you don't bring her out. >> nancy, oh, nancy. nancy. where are you, nancy? >> a connection? what connection? i don't see a connection. why would there be a connection? i mean, he was just deranged, right, in an isolated way. by the way, voters, look over here, crime is up. look away from the parallels to january 6th, trumpist shout. a review of david depape account, he was involved in conspiracy theories involving anti-vaxx hysteria, and voter fraud, and many of his posts published in the past few months but don't look at that. ignore the fact that these right wing skreeds line up with the biggest lies, propagated by

trump and trumpists. he was deranged, after all, just isolated. never mind the fact that cult leaders and fascists prey first on the weakest, most vulnerable among us, in short, deranged people that they inspire with hate and hard wire for violence against their enemies, but ignore all of that say republicans. after all, this political attack was just another example of rampant, random crime. >> when you let dangerous criminals out on the streets, you know, with bail and not put them in prison, you're just asking for this sort of incident to happen. and i think it created the environment where this happens. >> so it's a convergence here of what has been political violence. we've witnessed the rise of just crime on our streets and our subways. >> we all need to recognize violence is up across the board. i think the other thing to

remember is if this weren't paul pelosi, this criminal would be out on the street tomorrow. >> other republicans found this tragedy of an 82-year-old grandfather getting his brains bashed in with a hammer, like glenn youngkin who saw the attempted murder of paul pelosi as a good opening line. >> speaker pelosi's husband, they had a break in, he was assaulted. there's no room for violence anywhere, but we're going to send her back to be with him in california. >> there's no room for violence. when asked about his one liner, his spokesperson said as the governor clearly said the assault on paul pelosi was wrong and there's no place for violence. he wishes him a full recovery and is keeping the pelosi family in his prayers. youngkin's team called the concern that the governor was joking about violence a quote mischaracterization. when not making jokes about the

attack other trumpists were spreading lies about it to make you look away. take one unfounded anti-lgbtq conspiracy theory claimed to be tied to the attack. about this theor elon musk, new owner of twitter, and the man who wants to see donald trump reinstated on the platform said yesterday, quote, there's a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye. that tweet had more than 24 how re-tweets and 86,000 likes before he, the new head of twitter, chief twit, deleted it. there is no mischaracterizing what happened. are we to insist this attack was not the direct result of the dangerous, violent rhetoric we have heard from donald trump's republican party over the last six years. the deranged man who violently

assaulted paul pelosi got his idea from somewhere. are we supposed to ignore the fact that threats against the house speaker have been specific for quite some time. marjorie taylor greene reportedly liked a facebook comment that stated removing pelosi from office with quote a bullet to the head would be quicker. greene also claimed under oath that she does not remember that she expressed support for pelosi's execution in 2019. that's convenient. her boss, minority leader kevin mccarthy claims he was just joking when he said last year that if republicans win the house majority and he gets the speaker's gavel, quote, it will be hard not to hit pelosi with it. pretty funny. it's a good joke. january 6th should have been all the evidence anyone would need. rioters were there to hang trump's vice president and do lord knows what to nancy pelosi,

all encouraged by donald trump. it started before he became president. >> this guy started screaming by himself, i don't know rough up, maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. >> if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you, seriously. okay. i promise you, i will pay for the legal fees, i promise. i promise. we're not allowed to punch back anymore. i love the old days, you know what they used to do to guys like that in a place like this, they would be carried out on a stretcher, folks. i'd like to punch him in the face, i'll tell you. we having a good time? usa, usa.

yeah, get them out, try not to hurt them. if you do, i'll defend you in court, don't worry about it. in the good old days this doesn't happen because they used to treat them very very rough, and when they protested once, you know, they would not do it again so easily. isn't it great to be at a trump rally, really. part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore, right? >> you know, it continued into his presidency. remember charlottesville, there are good people on both sides. remember the subtle messages, stand back and stand by. when left unchecked, trump led an increasingly desensitized

nation through shocking moment after shocking moment, all the way through this, the january 6th attack on the capitol. yeah, there are many weak, deranged minds in this country, like the man who attacked paul pelosi, but republicans have been hiding behind that word deranged as if it was some isolated incident and you should only look at that. don't look at anything else, even if it's screaming out at you. and yet you can see where depape's idea came from, in his blog posts, in his words, where is nancy, in his plans. he brought zip ties with him. deranged people can fall prey to a cult leader like donald trump. and they have. with us, we have nbc news senior reporter, ben collins, former fbi special agent and national security analyst for nbc news and msnbc, clint watts, the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico,"

jonathan lemire, former chair of the republican national committee, michael steele, and columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius, thank you all for being with us. ben, i think we should start with you with your latest reporting, especially taking a deep dive into not only what depape was posting but the disinformation swirl that ensued. >> he was posting standard qanon, pizza gate, cabal stuff. the idea that the world is run by this new world order, and it is trying to censure you, and that nancy pelosi and people like that, those people in the qanon spaces right now, those people are at the top of that sphere. they are at the top of that pecking order when it comes to believing in conspiracy theories. i want to stress this. right now, trending on twitter, is the lie about this guy. it's the lie that -- >> it's trending. >> it's trending on twitter as we speak because elon musk

pushed it on saturday. or yesterday, sorry. i just want to make it clear how they got to this place. so first of all, lies on the internet move faster than the truth, and that's in part why there are all of these safeguards that elon musk is trying to take down on twitter right now. the lies that were pushed were from bad pieces of information they found. for example, they said that paul pelosi was in his underwater. of course he was at 2:30 in the morning at the time he was attacked. that led them to believe this was a lover's quarrel between two different people that knew each other. the reason they believed they knew each other is because police said they didn't know who opened the door. that led them to believe there was a third person in the house. so from there, there was this world building on the pro trump internet. what could be the opposite of reality here? and the opposite of reality they came up with was these two people were having a lover's quarrel in the house and the police sort of intruded on us.

fundamentally incorrect, pushed by the richest man in the world, and yesterday pushed by donald trump jr. who posted a picture of underwear and a hammer and said it's a halloween costume for paul pelosi. if we don't cut this out right now, not just the normalization of violence, but the idea that reality can't even exist anymore because it cannot catch up to the lies on the internet. i'm not a scholar on authoritarian history, but i've read all of these people. this is how it gets really bad. this is the start of something that gets really really bad. if you are getting the guardrails off the truth, where it literally cannot catch up to the lies on the internet because of how the pipes work, how the system works, because of the incentives of the richest people in the world, then that's how you lose your democracy. >> so clint watts, speak to that, if you could, because the guardrails are off the truth, and there is no containing it. and the nation is desensitized to this.

i don't think people see what ben is seeing right now. >> yeah, what people tend to believe, two things dictate that. what they see first, what they see the most. if you went on to social media today, you're seeing the lie first, and that's what you're hearing repeated the most. i think the other big part of this is it's an accelerant. no one imagined in the beginning of the internet what would happen if all of these lies were connected together by people that coordinate, by people that ramp up their activity. when this happens over time, you have the desensitization. when i got the alert on my phone, i was not surprised at all. i've seen january 6th, and who they went after. i'm more likely to encounter a lie and the demonization of nancy pelosi as a target. why would a man who at times has lived in different places and followed different conspiracies want to attack this single target. that comes down to the internet and social media and you add to

that this accelerant, where filters trying to protect people are being removed. it is just over a week to election day. it is no surprise that this dehumanization, this targeting, it's coming up today, and every election cycle it gets a little bit worse, and every election cycle we tend to just wave it off. in this case, the target was known. we knew it was going to be nancy pelosi that would have somebody show up at their house. it wasn't a surprise to anybody. what we don't know is the attacker, who the attacker is going to be. and that's what this terrorism we have seen over the many years from political leaders is going to unfold in a devastating way. >> david ignatius, big picture, you have studied through the course of your career, how stable governments collapse, how democracies die before they can practically even come into fruition. number one, the worry about nancy pelosi herself continuing to be targeted. but also i'm curious.

your thoughts on the lightning speed, to ben's point, of how this just spiralled down toward disinformation, that the disinformation itself is trending and we have the most powerful person in the world, and top republican leaders, you know, tweeting within hours, within moments of this happening, and the disinformation spread like wildfire. your thoughts on that and the impact it has on our overall democracy. >> so first, mika, i thought your opening montage was superb, bringing together footage, reminding us of the kinds of things donald trump said at campaign rally, bringing together all the evidence that these are not isolated incidents, they're part of a pattern. something i have been saying really since 2016, i remember in the spring of that year as donald trump was beginning his campaign, visiting germany, and saying and writing in one of my

columns, bad things happen to good countries. and that's the story of modern germany. germany, the birthplace of science, philosophy, music, the arts. it was a country that was taken apart by uncontrolled radical extremists, anti-semitic politicians, adolph hitler as the dominant personality. it happened in a country that was a good country. so we have to be on guard always, and i think discussions like this one are important. i worry sometimes and i'd be curious what the other panelists think about our role in the i want to say mainstream media in disseminating these false texts, that this is -- it was pushed by elon musk. he's a significant person, but it's the replay, the way in which we talk about it. we talk about what's in these

fringe publications. and we may be amplifying that material ourselves. i worry about that. i was heartened after the attack on paul pelosi by two things, first, the fact that senate minority leader mitch mcconnell pretty much immediately said he was disgusted by this. and you could tell from his words, he meant it. he was disgusted by it, and i think every right thinking person should feel exactly that, a sense of disgust. second, friday night, i talked to a senior law enforcement official, federal law enforcement official and asked him point-blank, what's going on here in this level of political violence. and his answer was very straightforward, that we are becoming a country where if people don't like something, they don't like a political outcome, they don't like a candidate, they don't like a person, there is this network that supports, encourages,

condones violence and people take things into their own hands more and more, people on the right, qanon, a special case of that, but the decency that underlines our politics that makes it work is everybody's business. and, you know, i hope that's a takeaway from this attack, that people are disgusted. that they walk away from conspiracy talk and we begin to get things right. >> i think to make that happen, though, jonathan lemire, especially in the work you've done for your book "the big lie," the problem is that it's very good that mitch mcconnell did and said the right thing. if i may, these republican leaders need to do more. they need to say more. they need to call out those who are not doing the right thing, because right now, mitch mcconnell can say that this was terrible, that he denounces it, but marjorie taylor greene and others, they have a big

megaphone too. and they use that megaphone to ripple through trump's people, donald trump's people, they use him as a vehicle to get clicks, to trend, and to get their voices heard. if you don't call out the people on your side and say no. i think of john mccain on the campaign trail when the voter came to him in public on mic and attacked barack obama, and he said, no, no, that needs to happen to these people. they need to be publicly told, this is not acceptable in the republican party. i don't see that happening. and i don't think top republicans who are on the right side of this understand what ben understands, and that is that we're past the edge here. we're past the edge, and this is only the beginning. >> yeah, and sure, mcconnell and some republicans denounce what happened, but they were drowned out by others who played what aboutism, who tried to suggest

this is similar to the threats received by supreme court justice kavanaugh and others and tried to point the finger elsewhere and say this is just violence. san francisco is a high crime town run by democrats, what do you think is going to happen. we heard that from a number of republicans too. and the montage of trump encouraging violence during his presidency, that culminated in january 6th, with cries from them. and just over the summer, we should remember, the threats toward public officials and law enforcement officers after the mar-a-lago search where lindsey graham and others predicted there would be riots in the streets if trump were to be indicted. violence has become a part of our political discourse, and public officials i have spoken to, as well as law enforcement officers post january 6th were deeply afraid that something exactly like this would happen, and now it has. and michael steele, where do we go from here from the republican party?

and again, we were just clear, not every republican is playing whataboutism. some have spoken out against this. there are enough influential figures saying this is not the fault of republicans. not the fault of the rhetorics and at times, even fostering this continued violence. how does that possibly change? >> it doesn't. it won't change in the short-term because there's no political upside to do so. there's no incentive within the party itself to do so. i appreciate, to mika's point, the rhetoric, the words that come out in sympathy and concern, but that's performative. >> yeah. >> it's performative because there's no backing it up. >> there's much more that needs to be done. >> just -- exactly. just as you hear republicans say, like youngkin, oh, violence

is awful, but this is awful, but, you know, well, if you're putting a but after that, then, no, you're not changing anything. you're doing the performative thing you have to do. okay, people expect you to come out here and say, oh, my god, i feel bad about what happened, but, you know, let's send nancy back home, but, you know, democrats are the worst. you have this thing where you go through the performative work that you have to do with, you know, without having to do the real work of looking to those around you who are fostering and performing this. i think the work that ben has done has been so profoundly important for folks like me who are trying to understand and put into context, and go back and have conversations with people and connect those dots. and you realize, oh, my god, you really don't want this to end.

you really do -- you're okay with what's happening right now. because our politics are so infected and become so infect bid all of this disease that we've just given up on curing it. there's a great piece that was in the post yesterday by max boot who really kind of laid it all out in such an incredible way that you just kind of sit there and listen to the whole thing and you read the whole thing, wow, this is amazing story line about what is actually happening out here on the street, and we need to do something about that. >> and ben collins s mitch mcconnell's statement trending. wrap this up, this block, we're going to be spending the entire show trying to take a deep dive into this, but wrap up this block with a sense of, yes, these republican leaders that are doing the right thing, like michael said, they say the right thing. they don't name anybody. they don't talk to the big picture of it.

are they trending right now? >> no. >> and tell me the problem with that. >> the incentive structure this these spaces, the things that animate the right now come from the far right. and while it used to maybe come from, you know, the nro or like, you know, a regular publication, now it comes from four chan and the donald. we saw in pipeline of stuff going up through to the president from anonymous spaces, people making up lies and forming a narrative, world building, like if you were trying to build a fantasy novel or something. that's the sort of thing that hits right now. they can't be failed. that's the thing in these spaces. there is no admitting you're wrong on fortune, on truth social. it's called truth social, right? you have to double down over and over again. there's no admitting that that attack had something to do with what you said. you have to create a reality in

which they're still the bad guy. nancy pelosi despite her husband getting hit in the head with a hammer, somehow he's the bad guy. that's what happens in these spaces, they world build to create a permanent victim hood complex. this has been happening since 2015 and 2016. the difference is the world's richest man now runs the most powerful news platform. and donald trump still has his own. and kanye west has his own. these people who were committed to these new world order conspiracies, those are the people that run these platforms. we can't ignore this anymore. i understand the idea that, you know, for some reason, we're supposed to be able to ignore this and move past it, and not talk about it. we have to confront this head on. these are people running this party. this is not the fringe. this is not a side show. these are the people who could very easily take power in 2024. look, i would love to break down every single day, every one of these lies and tell you how they are building up these evil

villains, so by the time 8:00 comes around, tucker carlson can lay it out in the public. we have to do this together. we have to realize this is not going away unless we confront it. >> the way it gets from the fringe to mainstream is 100 million twitter followersment it only takes one. that's consistent, whether we're talking russian disinformation, the election, misinformation and covid, we bring that forward now to election 2022. all it takes is one re-tweet by a person with 100 million followers who happens to own twitter or any of the platforms that are out there, and that's what people hear the most. you can't shout that down. >> by the way, what mitch mcconnell said was great. not to minimize it at all. >> of course. >> having said that, i'm trying to think what stops the far right and their crazy conspiracy theories and the violent rhetoric that is leading to this and inspiring deranged people to act out on these thoughts.

we need republican leaders, not just mitch mcconnell, all republican leaders on the right side of this, and there are many, to say what is wrong about what is happening, to make the connection, and by the way, this show went, you know, wall-to-wall, we were as upset and concerned about political violence in a very different way at a very different time when steve scalise was shot at a congressional baseball game. and nancy pelosi said on days like today, there are no democrats, no republicans. only americans united and our hopes and prayers for the wounded. compare that to what we're seeing, all over the place, the republican party completely disjointed and the loudest voices being the most violent ones. we're going to have much more on the investigation into this attack. we're going to go live to san francisco for what police are saying this morning. plus, with just over a week until the midterm elections, we're breaking down new senate

polling on the state of the race in four key battle grounds and former president obama spent the weekend campaigning across the midwest. we're taking a look at his closing message to voters. also ahead, the very latest from south korea, following a deadly crowd surge during halloween festivities, what officials are saying about this incident. plus, president biden and other world leaders are rushing to congratulation brazil's new president elect. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ hit it!♪ ♪it takes two to make a thing go right♪ ♪it takes two to make it outta sight♪ ♪one, two, get loose now! it takes two to make a-♪ get double rewards points this fall. book now at bestwestern.com.

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states and this nation. their families don't sign up for this, to be harmed. and it is wrong. >> not a random act. let's bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian who's been following this story all weekend, and nbc news reporter, maura barrett. she's outside the pelosi home in san francisco. we'll start with you. what more are we learning about the attack on paul pelosi? >> reporter: well, this morning, mika, mr. pelosi is still recovering in the hospital from that surgery. the attack leaving him with a fractured skull and serious injuries to his arm and hands. nancy pelosi releasing a statement over the weekend saying that she is heartbroken and traumatized by the attack but said that mr. pelosi's condition to improve. we have learned new details over the weekend about how the attack happened. police confirming to us that the suspect, david depape, broke in

through a rear window and went upstairs, where he found mr. pelosi. this is the key element, mr. pelosi was able to make a somewhat secretive call to 911, and police are hailing the 911 dispatcher, heather grieves as a hero. i spoke with the police chief over the weekend and he gave more details about how that all played out. >> i want to reemphasize and thank our dispatcher, heather grimes, for her intuition, her quick thinking. she had to interpret what she was being told, and based on her experience and her intuition, she basically figured out that there was something more to this incident than what she was being told. her actions, in my opinion, resulted in both a higher priority dispatch and a faster police response. i think this was life saving. >> reporter: police also saying

that paul pelosi's actions by making that call also life saving. we know, police confirming that zip ties were found at the scene after they arrived. they said when mr. pelosi and the suspect were struggling over a single hammer, the suspect said that they were waiting for nancy. the police also confirmed to us, debunking previous conspiracy theories that the two men did not know each other prior to the attack. the d.a. i spoke with also over the weekend is planning to announce charges today and his arraignment will be as early as tomorrow, the suspect does remain in the hospital. the district attorney saying this is obviously an emotional and troubling time for her. the police chief echoing the same, but she said that these online conspiracy theories, the rhetoric we saw from the suspect online in some of his blog posting, social media posting over the last several years, she says it's a wake up call of how bad political discourse has gotten in this country right now, and so for someone like that to be so troubled by it,

really paints a picture of how serious this attack is. she says she plans to bring charges of attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, and burglary among other felonies, related to friday's attack. >> nbc's maura barrett, thank you very much, let's turn to ken dilanian, what angles stand out to you, and can you speak to how much the conspiracy theories started flying on the internet and are now trending way more than the actual facts of what happened. >> on the day that this assault occurred, the fbi issued a joint intelligence bulletin, and i have it about threats to the election. it's entitled, domestic violence extremist threat violence heightened between 2022. this focuses on the disinformation around election fraud and how that is driving domestic violence extremists to

violence, and to attack poll workers and threaten politicians. it's one of a piece here. you were describing in the first half of the show, the massive disinformation machine that we're seeing energized about the fats of this case, already was aimed at nancy pelosi. and for years this has been going on. even pre-dating donald trump. nancy pelosi was a target of right wing threats and conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric. our law enforcement sources were telling us this was an emotionally disturbed person, but that's exactly what law enforcement officials have long feared happens in this situation. it is exactly this kind of person who is posting a variety of things across the ideological spectrum, but most recently things about the qanon conspiracy theory about the pizzagate conspiracy theory, alleging that democrats were running a child sex ring in washington, d.c., really bizarre

things. so bizarre, i wouldn't be surprised to see an insanity defense raised in this case. those are the kinds of people that are most susceptible to the rhetoric. the justice department is considering its own set of charges in this case. there are crimes prohibiting obviously assault and attempted murder of federal officers. those charges carry as many as two decades in prison. the fbi may take this case, and justice department may bring parallel charges to the state case, and then of course lastly, this raises the issue of security for lawmakers. and why spouses of the most senior lawmakers until the united states, third in line to the presidency, why they don't have their own detail or at least home protection. we can see from the account that paul pelosi was able to dial 911 using his cell phone. there was apparently no panic button, no ability for him to immediately press a button, and summon security.

that seems rather strange, you know, given the threat picture around nancy pelosi. she obviously has security detail, but he did not, and there's some talk about changing that now. >> it does seem rather strange after january 6th when her life was openly threatened. ben, your thoughts. >> ken, i want to ask you a little bit about that 911 call. on the conspiracy internet right now, we see this 911 call, they believe it debunks the whole idea that he was attacked in any way because he had a strategy, right, this guy was being attacked. he had an intruder in his home with a hammer, and he made it seem like this guy was his friend, and that they were waiting for nancy. but the 911 operator, obviously knew what was happening, it was 2:30 in the morning, why would you call 911 and say, we're waiting for nancy. could you talk a little bit about what went on in that phone call, and you know, how not all 911 phone calls are immediate calls for distress. >> that's right, ben, and there's a lot we just don't know, obviously, but one thing that's very clear is that the authorities have said these two

people did not know each other. they've said that they've never met before this incident, and paul pelosi was able to tell d we're told is that he was able to tell the attacker he needed to use the bathroom. he knew his cell phone was charging in the bathroom. he was able to make the 911 call and leave the phone, leave the call open and the dispatcher was able to put out a code that led the police to know that they had to get there as soon as possible. you know, immediate response, and that's what perhaps saved paul pelosi's life, but, you know, the idea that these people knew each other, that there was anything other than a random attack has been debunked by senior law enforcement officials who have investigated the facts of this case. >> nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian, thank you, and david ignatius, i want to close with you, you're saying at this point, the one thing that's missing is unity between

democrats and republicans, and authentic unity about what's really going on. not isolated comments about violence being bad, and crime being up, and we wish him the best. >> absolutely, mika. our election system, its integrity, people's confidence that they won't be attacked or followed when they go to the polls, those are all at risk. and there needs to be a broad statement that this is intolerable. i know a number of republican, moderate republicans in the house and senate who face threats themselves. i asked one republican congressman, could i go home to the midwest to watch him campaign. the answer was, no, it's not possible right now. i'm under attack, i get threats every day. a lot of republicans would say the same thing, i get threatened, i'm afraid. it's one reason they don't speak out, and somehow people have got

to find the courage to say, this has got to stop, and they've got to do that working closely with the fbi, which is taking this really seriously, which sees across the country the level of threats. we got to pull together, i think, for the safety and well being of candidates on both sides of the aisle. and put the integrity of elections back together. so people who are essentially vigilantes aren't trying to run this system, and when somebody like elon musk puts out a tweet with no factual basis, he needs to pay a penalty for that. he's the richest man in the world, he just bought this company. he needs to pay a penalty. people need to jump on him, and he deleted the tweet. that's not enough. people have to say, this is unacceptable, if you propose to run this key communications medium. >> and finally, jonathan lemire, was there a resounding response from the white house at least? >> yeah, they swiftly condemned

it in the after math of the attack. we heard from the president that night in philadelphia, again over the weekend in delaware saying that this violence has no place in our politics. he has spoken to speaker pelosi, they feel like her husband is going to make a full recovery, which they are relieved about. it's raised questions about additional security needed for lawmakers from candidates, just a week from the midterms, and we talked earlier about republicans speaking out. you know who we have not heard from at all, donald trump. resounding silence. >> of course. nbc's ben collins, thank you very much. we'll talk to you again very soon, and coming up, fears are mounting this morning for civilians in ukraine after a new wave of russian missile strikes hit critical infrastructure in kyiv and across the country. we'll have the latest on the war and analysis from retired navy admiral james stavridis, "morning joe" will be right back. s stavridis, "morning joe" will be right back when you're through with powering through, it's time for theraflu hot liquid medicine. powerful relief so you can restore and recover.

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48 past the hour, russia launched new missile strikes targeting critical infrastructure. the mayor of kyiv says part of the ukrainian capital has been cut off from power and water supplies. the scale of the attack wasn't immediately clear, but an adviser to ukraine's interior ministry said russia launched 40 cruise missiles at different targets across the country. joining us now, retired four star navy admiral, james stavridis, chief international analyst, and former supreme allied commander of nato. i want to talk about ukraine and the problems we are facing in this country, in light of the attack on paul pelosi. but first, update us on the state of this war, and how ukraine is doing in light of the fact that russia keeps coming at them. yes, they're struggling. yes, they're dragging anybody in

to force them to fight, but these are impactful attacks. >> indeed they are, and let's sort of stipulate, putin, if he can't take ukraine, he's going to break it. that's kind of his philosophy, is destroy it, you know, like the way soran went after shire at the end of lord of the rings, and he will continue striking. this is a card he'll continue to play. in terms of where the war is right now, the russians are still on their back foot. there's an important city called kherson, which the gateway to crimea. i think that will fall to the ukrainians, and that's a good thing because it's psychologically critically important. there's a third combatant about to enter the battle, ukraine, russia and winter. not to go all "game of thrones" on you, but winter is coming and it will impact both sides. it will slow the military action, but i think in that

winter period, unfortunately you'll see putin continue these long range strikes. our job to conclude is to provide the ukrainians the best support we can, and in particular enhance their air defense systems so putin's strategy will not be successful. >> clint. >> admiral, i was wondering what you thought about russia in terms of their strategy. we have been talking, you know, for six months about their ability to fight and now can they continue to fight, you know. some of my research, we see russian troops showing up literally with just a bayonet. they don't even have water, drinking out of puddles. what would the effect be inside russia if even through the winter, russia can't feel the military anymore. what are you seeing in terms of that? >> i agree, clint, completely, with your analysis that the russian capability to take these 300,000 troops that they have pulled out of homeless shelters, pulled out of bars who are dead drunk, dragged off to recruiting stations, they're being told to buy their own sleeping bags,

bring their own bandages with them, and as you say, have no real military capabilities. so as that cannon fodder heats the ukrainian war machine, i think you will see reverberations back in moscow. but, again, with winter, it's going to have a slowing effect on both sides of that firing line. >> and admiral, there's reports out just this morning that mayor of kyiv says that because these latest strikes, 80% of the capital city without access to water or power, which is a real thing, especially as the weather continues to get colder, these terror strikes clearly are putin's m.o. going forward, trying to rattle ukrainian resolve, as well as europeans and their unity to stay with ukraine here as we see another report today, just how inflation is soaring across the continent. are you concerned here, as putin shifts tactics, there could be cracks in the alliance overseas. >> i think we're going to see a little bit of creeking at both

ends of the political spectrum. here in the united states, we have seen mccarthy walk a little bit away on the left side. you saw a group of progressives kind of put out a statement, they pulled it back, but you feel a little creeking to the support here, and i think similarly, jonathan, in europe, you're going to see more stress on the political system, but my assessment, both here and in the u.s., and in europe is that this coalition will hold together particularly if the ukrainians continue, as i think they will, to be more successful on the battlefield than the russians. one final point, we haven't mentioned it, but russia is now talking about pulling out of this grain agreement of shipping grain out of ukraine. they're doing that because it will damage the ukrainian economy. they won't have assets coming in because it will enhance the price of russian grain, which can still be sold to those who are not honoring the sanctions. and it will put inflationary

pressure in the west, see paragraph 1 about creating cracks in the political system. so putin has cards to play. >> david ignatius. >> you spoke about putin's efforts to break ukraine, and they don't seem to be working. i was there several weeks ago, boy, you hear nothing but defiant resolve. my question for you is whether you think it's likely or possible that putin will seek to further escalate in significant ways, and in particular, what your own personal evaluation would be about the use of tactical nuclear weapons. >> let's start with a historical analogy, david. during world war ii, hitler's strategy was to launch air-raids, try and demoralize the population, how did that work out, as you correctly point out in ukraine today, it simply energizes the population, it gives lift to inspirational leaders like winston churchill,

who i think zelenskyy is channelling pretty well in this moment. in terms of would putin reach for the nuclear card, not the strategic one, not a big nuclear exchange, look, i despise vladimir putin, but i'll give him this. he loves his country. he loves russia. he doesn't seek a global war that destroys russia alongside much of the world. so would he use a tactical nuke? i think the chances of that have increased, perhaps to 10%, still unacceptably high. my own evaluation is he will not choose to do that. simply because it would swing many nations that are sill kind of in the middle on this over against putin. that would be disastrous for his economy. i don't look for the use of a nuclear weapon, david. >> admiral, stay with us, and clint watts, thank you very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe." we have much more on the violent threats elected officials have faced over the past few years. we're going to get the admiral's take, and get michael steele

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what makes us think that it's not going to corrode the political climate. enough is enough is enough. every person of good conscience needs to clearly and unambiguously stand up against the violence in our politics, regardless of what your politics are. >> and yet the response has been disjointed to say the least. that was president biden tying the violent rhetoric on january 6th to the vicious attack on nancy pelosi's husband. we're going to have the very latest on friday's ambush inside the speaker's home that police say was not a random act. welcome back to "morning joe." it is monday, october 31st. jonathan lemire and michael steele, and admiral james stavridis are all still with us, and joining the conversation, we have former secretary of homeland security under president obama, jeh johnson joining us. we are learning new information

about friday's violent attack on paul pelosi, the husband of house speaker nancy pelosi. according to san francisco police, 42-year-old david depape entered the home by breaking a back window. a senior u.s. official tells nbc news once inside the home, he confronted paul pelosi, shouting where is nancy, where is nancy. according to the san francisco district attorney, pelosi called 911 from a bathroom where he had a veiled conversation with a police dispatcher who recognized the situation as dire. when police arrived, they were sent there on a health check. they say depape attacked pelosi violently, smashing a hammer into his head, and arms and fracturing his skull. police also say zip ties were found at the scene. they didn't specify how many or discuss their intended purpose. depape is now in custody and will likely be charged today with the attempted murder of the

speaker's husband. paul pelosi is still recovering in the icu following surgery for a skull fracture. he is expected to make a full recovery. speaker pelosi put out a statement late saturday which reads in part this, a violent man broke into our family home, demanded to confront me, and brutally attacked my husband paul. she added quote, our children, our grandchildren and i are heartbroken and traumatized by the life threatening attack. meanwhile, a review of david depape's online accounts show he was part of the far right world of hate. he appeared to operate on a web site with a wide variety of posts touching on anti-semitism and conspiracy theories involving anti-vaxx hysteria and voter fraud. many of his posts were published in just the past few months. the web site did not mention nancy pelosi by name. some top republicans are

rejecting any assertion of a link between heated gop rhetoric and the attack on paul pelosi. here's what rnc chairwoman ronna mcdaniels said on fox news yesterday. i think that's unfair. i think this is a deranged individual. you can't say people say let's fire pelosi or let's take back the house is saying go do violence. it's just unfair, and i think we all need to recognize violence is up across the board. lee zeldin was attacked. we had an assassination attempt against brett kavanaugh. joe biden didn't talk about the assassination attempt against kavanaugh. we saw lee zeldin's attacker was on the on the street right after he attacked him. this is what democrat policies are bringing. >> there's a lot wrong and actually not true about what she was just saying, and i'll just point out, again, the talking point for republicans, and don't fall for this. i know you won't.

smart people don't. you'll pretend you do, if you are on the side of the far right and you want to continue a narrative that tries to distract from what happened here, but, yes, of course the attacker was deranged. but that's not isolated from the narrative from his life, from what he posted, from what he was doing there, from what he was saying there, from what he brought there, ronna, come on. you think people are stupid, and you continue to do this, try and take this narrative and pull it apart from the truth. and congressman, the chair of the campaign arm sparred with margaret brennan over a tweet he posted days before paul pelosi was attacked. take a look. >> on your twitter feed, you posted this video we're going to show just a few days ago where you're firing a gun and it says enjoyed exercising my second amendment rights, #firepelosi.

why is there a gun in a political ad at all? >> it wasn't an ad. i was tweeting -- >> #fire pelosi with a weapon. wouldn't a pink slip be more fitting if it's about firing her. >> it's interesting, margaret, that we're talking about this this morning when a couple of years back when a bernie sanders supporter shot steve scalise. >> which is horrendous. >> i never heard you or anyone else in the media trying to blame democrats for what happened. >> we did extensive coverage of what happened to steve scalise. >> excuse me. >> there is extensive news coverage. >> nobody tried to equate democrats' rhetoric. >> i'm not talking about your rhetoric, what you posted, you're shooting a gun. our viewers saw it. #fire pelosi. >> exercising our second amendment rights, having fun. >> that's not a debate about second amendment. >> yes, it is. >> i'm running a campaign operation. >> that is suggestive to people

who are in a bad state and in this current environment how risky it is, as you're talking about the importance of lowering the rhetoric. >> i want to get to our panel about the violence, and the rhetoric that is spiraling out of control. first, michael steele, on that conversation that margaret brennan was having, can you please explain it to me, why he can't just say what knees to be said? >> because when they're trapped, they double down on the trap. they cannot pull themselves out of it. they cannot take that pathway. look, you know, to the reporter's point. in 2010 when we had our fire pelosi bus tour, it was about a pink slip, it wasn't about you get your guns and meeting at nancy's house. it wasn't videos showing republicans shooting off weapons. there's a direct correlation here, i mean, look, if i have a video of me doing something with

a hash tag that emphasizes the thing i'm doing about someone, yes, people are going to make that connection. you know, so you can't be honest. they just cannot be honest about it in those moments, mika, when you have the evidence put in front of you. this goes back to what we were saying in the last hour, you know, we take the truth, and we want to strip it down. we want to rip it apart. we do not want to face it and confront it because it exposes our own hypocrisies, it exposes our lies, it exposes our own behavior. and as a political party, you can't stomach that because you know why, because you have all of these folks behind you that you sold that action, those lies, that behavior to, and so now as the leader, you're not going to stand up and go, oh, gee, guess what, we were really wrong to say this, because then what. the money stops, the internal

implosion begins, and you don't want to deal and confront with the monster that you created. >> so let's talk about that, jeh johnson, in terms of the threat level to this country, where would you put it in terms of the disinformation spiraling out of control with no guardrails and now violent acts with clear connections to january 6th and others, no matter what a republican might tell you, and they may say this is isolated, we have to wait for all the facts to come out, and all the other stupidity, because they don't want to face what really happened here, but if you could pull back and tell me what your concerns are for the threat to our homeland from within. >> mika, i'm going to look at the larger picture here. we're all a product of our circumstances and the times in which we grew up. i was born in 1957. that makes me a child of the '60s. in a five-year period, we lost

medgar, malcolm, martin, jack and bobby. within a five-year period. political assassinations, on average, once every 12 months. the environment we live in today is at least as combustible, if not more than it was in the mid-1960s. what happened to paul pelosi in some respects, he was lucky. this was a horrible attack. i feel terrible for the burden that nancy pelosi and her family must bear right now. but in many respects, we've been lucky. we were lucky that no member of congress was seriously injured, was not seriously injured on january 6th. we were lucky that the vice president of the united states was not injured on january 6th. we've been lucky, and it shouldn't take someone dying for those in this country who

command a microphone, who have a public voice, to decide we need to tone it down. on the right and let's talk about the full spectrum. if it requires that we include within this conversation brett kavanaugh and steve scalise, we have to do that, but we shouldn't wait until someone dies before collectively, we all say, hey, we've got to calm down. >> it goes beyond we in terms of if you look at politicians, or the media, or other, you know, scapegoats, admiral, it's all over the internet, the most powerful, richest man, one of the richest men in the world, elon musk just took over twitter and one of his first acts as the new owner of twitter was to tweet a conspiracy theory about this incident. how do we put this back -- put the tooth paste back in the tube, so to speak?

>> i don't think it's gone back in the tube, and i think that's a pretty lethal combination, very rich individuals with strident political views and megaphones. it's like in ghostbusters, you don't want the streams to cross. i think they're starting to cross. what i worry about, and not only what secretary johnson has said so eloquently, also, how is this perceived internationally? what is the view from abroad? does this help our cohesion in nato, our relationships in asia? of course not. we're creating a witch's brew that will harm us internally and abroad in the world. >> we should note that the article that musk re-tweeted is from a publication has claimed that hillary clinton died several years ago, and it's a body double since, so that shows you just the nonsense that he is putting out there to his hundred odd million followers. david ignatius, with this -- i'm

sorry, dave, we lost david, but let's talk about this moment here, secretary. we're eight days to the election. we're eight days, and that there are some questions as to why the speaker's house in san francisco didn't have additional security. we know she wasn't there. the capitol police were with her. what would you do? putting on your old hat, in terms of safeguarding elected officials and, candidates who are crossing the country right new this the stretch run of this campaign? >> very often it's a question of resources. secret service, capitol police, i don't want to get into the specific details of specific individuals but very often, most often, security surrounds the protectee, the high level government official, and we don't have the resources to protect the family, except in certain circumstances or if the

protectee has multiple homes, 24/7 watch on both homes. in the case of someone like speaker pelosi who is second in line to be president of the united states, who is probably the most on the right vilified democrat in america, we need to take a hard look, and i'm sure the capitol police are doing this right now about whether they need to step up the security around her, her family, and her homes. >> so let's bring in carolyn gallehr to the conversation, a professor at american university who has researched far right groups and mara militaries in the united states. and also with us, jon meacham, his new book is entitled "and there was light, abraham lincoln ands american struggle" a very important day to have jon on. tell us your immediate take aways from what happened to paul pelosi, but also, if you could bring in to the conversation what you have learned about what's been happening out in the country and the threat to our

democracy given that right now conspiracy theories about what happened to paul pelosi are running far more rampant than the facts out on the internet. >> well, my first thought when i heard about this was january 6th. the sort of where is nancy, i think that was echoed on that day by the failed insurrectionists, and so that was sort of, you know, that sent a tremor through me. it was a sad and scary moment. i think the conspiracy part of this that's so troubling is the flooding of the zone, so, you know, we don't really have neutral arbiters of news anymore. very few of them are left. people are in media bubbles. so when elon musk, for example, tweeted what he did, that conspiracy theory, you know, he was flooding the zone with inaccurate information. that happens when you have a divided landscape, people don't know what to believe, they don't believe anything, and they're

very mistrustful and conspiratorial about everything. with what you see with the conspiracy theories as you said earlier in the program, we're hearing more about the conspiracy theory than what actually happened. >> jon meacham, we just heard from mr. secretary a minute ago, invoking 1960s in a time of assassinations and this was apparently an assassination attempt for speaker pelosi. we just had you on the show all last week, talking about your new book and how you spoke eloquently about how the divides and the gaps in the country reminded you of the era around the civil war. put this into context for us, it seems to me, we're in a very dark, dangerous place. >> we are in a dark and dangerous place, and it's up to every one of us to get out of it. it's about both the leaders and the led, but the leaders, as the admiral said, had a megaphone, and so what is said into that megaphone matters enormously. words matter.

the climate matters. when you look back at our most violent episodes, you see -- you can see the time line moving toward that. so in the late 1850s, you have the south carolina congressman crosses the capitol and beats charles sumner, that nearly sen the senator to death with a cane, and the reaction in the white south was such that brooks received gifts of canes. it became a token. it became a meme, if you will, a 19th century version of that. that's a sign, we can see now, of a sickness. that obsession, that slavery. that so much of my native region was willing to put their own power ahead of that experiment.

and it would ultimately lead to war. and 1968 is exactly as the secretary was mentioning it, is exactly right, what happened to paul pelosi, remember, it always looks crazy and unlikely until it happens. >> yeah. and it's now being said by many who don't really want to discuss any connections here that he's just deranged and carolyn, you point out that of course someone like david depape did not get this idea out of thin air, and his ideas rhyme with a lot of other violent things we have seen and heard in this country. about him, he was previously a leftist, a pro nudity activist, he posted qanon conspiracy theories. he's tied to a number of social media accounts that share right wing conspiracy theories. he recently posted things that were anti-semitic and he did a

lot of claiming of election fraud. he denies the 2020 election. says it was stolen. he defends trump. he defends kanye west. how possible is it that he's not just an isolated deranged man who just got his ideas out of his own head but that he got these ideas from the conspiracy theories that have been floating around through trump supporters and through conspiracy theory web sites, and my bigger question, that there are many other david depape's out there. >> i don't think we should conflate mental illness with radicalization, and it's clear evidence this person was radicalized. he was in the early 2000s on the left, a pro nudity activist. since 2014 he was associated with the alt right.

he was radicalized in a far right ecosystem, and that ecosystem is pretty big now. it includes maga republicans, it includes social media sites, you know, telegram, gab, truth social, and there's also a media network, breitbart, newsmax, he didn't kind of come out of a vacuum. if he's having a moment of crisis, he articulated it in a very specific far right way. he was radicalized and i think that's what we need to think about, not whether or not he's mentally ill. there are mentally ill people in this country today that do not go out and try to shoot politicians or their spouss. >> yes, at the same time, there are people, though, that are vulnerable to being preyed upon like a cult. is that fair? >> yeah, i think that's definitely fair. but i would also say that a lot of people are subject to radicalization. a lot of it has to be who do you target, and who are you trying to recruit, and, you know, you

can see this for young men. you can see it for men going through domestic strife. what i have been able to figure out about his background, he had a bad break up with his partner who is now in prison, i believe, in california, and he sort of went down a spiral. there are a lot of people that are subject to radicalization, but at the end of the day, we need to focus on the radicalization, and that's what was so troubling to me about all the republican comments about this, it was like trying to bring it back to this question of defunding the police. and the real glaring problem in the room is right wing, far right wing extremism and the radicalization of quote unquote ordinary people. >> secretary johnson, where do we go from here? >> mika, i have to say, when i heard about the attack, i was horrified, i was shocked, but i was not surprised, and it's time that we just say two plus two equals four. overheated rhetoric makes violence inevitable. and for every act of violence,

by the way, and i know this from my prior life, for every actual act of violence, there are dozens, if not hundreds of threats of violence directed against that individual. and where we go from here, we have to change the climate one way or another, and it shouldn't take somebody dying to make that happen. >> and admiral stavridis, just your closing thoughts as we move forward. you were talking about this impacting our national security. >> indeed. let's put it this way. america, our nation, can meet any of these challenges in the greater world. we can defeat putin's invasion. we can stand up to china. we can manage through the many many crises in cyber. we have the capability, but the question is, can we do it together. how do we pull the nation together. you know, to steal a line from abraham lincoln, jon meacham's

marvelous new book, a house divided against itself cannot stand. we have got to keep this house standing because it is the house of democracy to the world. >> to that point, jon meacham, i'll let you close us out here. at moments of crisis, isn't unity what usually saves the day, and isn't that what we're severely lacking at this moment? >> it is. what saves the day is just enough of us to do the right thing. it's never going to be unanimous. you know, this isn't a 90/10 country. it's not a 60/40 country. it's a 51/49 country. we had to have a civil war to rid ourselves of enslavement. people didn't wake up in 1860 and say, oh, it's time to emancipate. looking back, it's not a fairy tale. there was never a once upon a time in american history, and there's not going to be a happily ever after.

what there can be is a test of citizenship in which just enough of us put the principles of the declaration of independence ahead of our own thirst and lust for power. and that begins with an understanding that you don't have to always be right. and when you see people out, taking time context chulize an attack on paul pelosi and bring it back to republican talking points is just embarrassing. they should just stop. this is a terrible thing, and at a certain point as secretary johnson just said, if you can't say two plus two equals four, if you can't say an attack on an 82-year-old man during an attempted assassination effort against his wife, the speaker of the house. if you can't say that that is

reprehensible and stop the sentence there, don't say it's reprehensible but you didn't mention x, y or z, if you can't do that, then you are putting temporal power ahead of essential principle. >> presidential historian, jon meacham, thank you very much. american university's carolyn gallaher, thank you as well. and former nato supreme allied commander, james stavridis, thank you very much for being on this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," conservative writer david frum will join us as we continue to cover the attack of paul pelosi. david writes on the what aboutism that we're hearing from many republicans, explaining how it's only the gop celebrating this sort of violence. plus we'll speak with a member of the january 6th committee, congresswoman, elaine luria, about the increased level of

threats members of congress are facing. we'll also go live to a new york courthouse where in just about 90 minutes, the trial against the trump business empire will kick off. and snl takes on what could be another biden/trump match up in 2024 with a movie trailer for the potential sequel, just in time for halloween. we're going to play it for you. that's next on "morning joe." g u that's next on "morning joe. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed.

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popcorn, you want some? >> sure. sometimes a familiar face can be the most terrifying. >> in political news, president biden has said he intends to run for reelection in 2024. >> no. >> you trusted him once. >> i know he's a little old, but he could still win. right? he beat trump. >> but can he beat desantis? >> i don't know. i don't know. >> can you trust him again? >> he's 79 now. election is in two years. so that means -- >> when it feels like nothing's going right. >> gas prices are still kind of high. >> even though it kind of is.

>> why are we so worried, he's done so much, student debt relief, nato, infrastructure bill. >> but he fell off his bike once. >> according to this article, he's not actually going to run in 2024. he's just saying he is to present a united front before the midterms. >> what a relief. >> i mean, i love the guy, but he did his part. >> but if biden's not going to run, who will? >> just when you thought the terror was over. >> i don't know, i don't know, kamala. >> you realize it's just beginning. >> there's got to be someone. >> cory booker. >> he's corny. >> mayor pete. >> listen to yourself. >> from the producers of smile and the twisted minds at

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37 past the hour. there is new polling from the "new york times" and sienna college on four key battlegrounds that could decide the balance of power in the u.s. senate. in arizona, the democratic incumbent, senator mark kelly holds a six point lead over republican challenger, blake masters, by 51-45% margin. nevada is neck in neck with the democratic incumbent, senator katherine cortez masto, and republican adam laxalt locked in a dead heat at 47%. in pennsylvania, democrat john fetterman leads mehmet oz by a 49% to 44% margin, and in

georgia, senator rafael warnock leads by three points over his republican opponent, herschel walker, 49-46%. jonathan lemire, by the way, close, really close. >> very close, but these are some of the better poll numbers we have seen for democrats in a little while here. nevada has long been the state that the dems hold but have been most worried they would lose, and some polls have the incumbent senator down a few points. this one has a tie. it's all in the margin of error. mark kelly has had a steady lead throughout this campaign. that race has tightened. but six points, democrats happy with that. we should note about the pennsylvania number, has fetterman up five but most of the sampling was done before the debate. we haven't seen muchover an -- of an impact on that yet. and georgia, very close, strategists on both republicans and democrats feel it is likely

destined for a runoff with neither candidate making 50%. >> let's hope people behave themselves during that. former president barack obama was in georgia on friday, stumping for democrats, speaking to a crowd of thousands in atlanta, obama warned that democracy itself is on the ballot next week. he called into question the credentials of georgia's nominee for senate, former college football star herschel walker. >> some of you may not remember but herschel walker was a heck of a football player, but here's the question, does that make him the best person to represent you in the u.s. senate? does that make him equipped to weigh in on the critical decisions about our economy and our foreign policy and our future? let's do a thought experiment. let's say you're at the airport

and you see mr. walker, and you say, hey, there's herschel walker, heisman winner, let's have him fly the plane. you probably wouldn't say that. you'd want to know, does he know how to fly an airplane. and by the way, the opposite is true, too, like you may have liked me as president, but you would not want me starting as tail back. can you imagine my slow, skinny behind getting hit by a 300 pound tackle, who runs a 4.040. the in milwaukee on saturday, obama called out incumbent

republican senator ron johnson, who recently proposed a plan to have congress review america's social security program every year. >> some of you here are on social security. some of your parents are on social security. some of your grandparents are on social security. you know why they have social security, because they worked for it. they worked hard jobs for it. they have chapped hands for it. they have long hours and sore backs and bad knees to get that social security. and if ron johnson does not understand that, if he understands giving tax breaks for private planes more than he understands making sure that seniors who have worked all their lives are able to retire with dignity and respect, he's not the person who's thinking about you and knows you and sees you and he should not be your

senator from wisconsin. >> just real quick, michael steele, it seems the democrats have a lot to brag on, prescription drug prices, but it does seem like that should have been folded into the message as well. >> oh, my goodness, yes. former president laid out their case. and he did it in a very direct, compelling way. and it really begs the broader question of why so long to do this, to develop this kind of messaging. and understanding exactly where the voters were to speak to that. which barack obama has done in a very effective way. and i think for a lot of folks, you know, as i was listening to all of this and certainly the conversation we have been having, mika, i still can't get away from a question that just kind of, at the end of the day, puts the point on this. is this the what the american people really want.

barack out there, and, you know, other dems trying to make the case for democracy in the 11th hour, but then you're looking at the numbers and the polling, and the polling, you can sort of, it's all over the place, but, again, it's still reflective of something, and that something is where the american people see themselves at this hour. do they align themselves more with the individual who attacked nancy pelosi's husband. do they align themselves more with the political leadership of the republican party that says, yeah, violence is bad, but do they align themselves more with what barack obama had to say, that, you know, you got to look at the people who represent you, and these people ain't it. >> yeah. >> so that's going to be the real test, i think, in the last week and one day of this campaign, and i'm not feeling good about how the american people may answer that. >> yeah, i'm not either.

with the week and one day to go, let's bring in cnbc founder and newsweek editor at large, tom rogers. his new piece is entitled "what democrats independents can't afford to forget about the 2022 elections, the numbers 2-0-2-2." . tom, tell us what you mean. >> thank, mika. economy, inflation, they have been the number one issues on people's minds for a long time. that hasn't changed. that was true in august, september, now. what the republicans closing argument is crime. you can't answer crime by changing the subject to social security. you got to answer crime with the issue of gun control. those two issues together have to be paired. as we've talked about on this show previously, the emerson leadership now poll of independent women in swing states, the most purple of purple voters, the thing that

resonated more than abortion, more than crime, with independent women who are going to decide this election is gun control. and you just don't see enough campaigns really focusing in the closing argument where the republicans have them on the defensive with respect to crime going back hard, that republicans have no answer on gun control. >> so going through 2-0-2-2, the second one is. >> 0 confidence. that reform in the electoral count act, which a lot of people are hoping will pass in the lame duck session, i do too. important reform, but it is not the ultimate safety net in terms of the 2024 election. too many holes in it. you have the independent state legislatures, supremacy court case that could create a precedent to put a hole in. without that, you two to two

others, two state legislatures which must be flipped. that is the ultimate safety net, drawing 270 electoral votes away from republican state legislatures controlled by election deniers. and there are two that are critical. and citizens of michigan, citizens of arizona have to make sure that they pay attention to those down ballot state legislature races, particularly the state senates in each, which are within reach of being flipped. and what is critically important in those two states is state legislatures elected in this cycle will control the decision of electors in the 2024 election, and finally, the final two, two state delegations in the house of representatives that need to be flipped. because what's the ultimate game plan here for republicans? it's to throw the presidential election into the house of representatives by creating enough objections, enough chaos, where they believe in the

delegation by delegation house vote that would take place, they would win it, because today that state delegation count in the house is 27-23. two states really matter here. alaska and, believe it or not, north carolina. they are within reach. now, these congressional races will not decide the people who are in office in 2024, but incumbency matters, and sarah palin in alaska could lose flipping alaska to a democratic seat, meaning we could pick up one more to have it be 25/25 and not an automatic win for republicans. north carolina has one new district and has an open seat in a republican district with a very weak republican candidate, and they could turn that into a tie delegation, again, bringing this out of the reach of republicans, and another safety net issue. >> so jeh johnson, taking some

of tom's key points here and bringing you back to our central narrative. there are election deniers that are potentially going to win in the next week. just what's your take on the election and how there are a number of candidates that we're going to see winning elections, who back some of the conspiracy theories, that tie right to our main story today? >> mika, one of the last things i did before i left office in january 2017 was to declare election infrastructure to be critical infrastructure. over the objections of a lot of people. and looking back, i'm glad i did that. the latest bulletin from dhs calls attention to the need for security around our election infrastructure, voting places, and the like. given the rhetoric about an attack on the integrity of our

democracy. a little advanced billing here, thursday night, i'm going to be participating in a debate at the cambridge union in england about whether americans should vote blue or red. and my debate partner will be jane harmon. my debate opponents will be mick mulvaney and trey gowdy. one of the points i'm going to make is that democrats are the party of public safety for the simple reason that we want to get guns off the streets. we want to take away from an 18-year-old on his birthday, the ability to walk into a gun store and buy an ar-15 to kill innocent, men, women, and children. we want to get guns off the streets. republicans do not. that, to me, is the number one threat to public safety many america, particularly in communities like suburban philadelphia, main line pennsylvania and the like where a lot of suburban people are deciding on this issue of crime, as tom has pointed out. >> that's thursday night?

i'm going to watch that online, i think. >> i hope it will be online. >> yes, i'll look into it. former homeland security jeh johnson, thank you very much for being on. we appreciate it. tom rogers, thank you as well. a closer look at the money race now and what it tells us when what might happen in eight tase. for that part we bring in ali vitali. >> reporter: mika, this is the time of year where following the money gives us the best sense of where these campaigns are thinking about they can win. look, both parties are moving millions of dollars around, but for republicans, i'm seeing millions of dollars in ads going to places that were previously presumed blue, including in new york where the house democratic campaign chair shawn patrick maloney himself is in a very tight race. check it out. >> reporter: republicans are feeling the momentum. you're of the mindset it's a red wave? >> absolutely.

>> reporter: taking the majority depends on the gop flipping seats in some of the biggest places in the world. new york city has some of the biggest house plays. >> we're going to win races in a lot of places you haven't seen. >> reporter: that puts shawn patrick maloney. >> i'm a gay guy with an interracial family. it's not news to me that this is a competitive part of the world. >> reporter: he's in charge of helping democrats keep the house a tall order made tougher by rising costs and a focus on the economy and crime. his opponent says -- >> that's what this election is about. that's why we are on the verge of winning. >> reporter: now both parties are pouring money into races like this one trying to close the deal with voters, democrats hoping to hold the line, republicans trying to break it. in maloney's district gop aligned groups shelled out $6 million. what maloney said republicans

are setting money on fire. >> this isn't a function of lighting money on fire, this is a function of voters in this district are fed up and they want change. >> reporter: across the map republicans investing in states that have elected democrats for decades. >> we can't afford magger in congress. >> reporter: blanketing the air waves with adds. >> it's all on the line. >> reporter: democrats focused on contrast especially abortion rights. do you think it's overblown? >> yes. nobody is in jeopardy of having their reproductive health care taken away from them here in new york. >> reporter: that mindset might show why they're in play for republicans but democrats are still competitive in red states that already have abortion restrictions. polls show that's where their pro choice messaging is having capture. that time of year where both parties talk a big game.

>> you know, this is the home stretch. >> reporter: but when the money and where they're spending it speaks the loudest. >> reporter: mika. i'm so struck as i was traveling over the course of just the last week, i was in virginia, i was in new york, i was in florida, all of these places where as i was talking to voters, including in my hometown which is actually where maloney is running for re-election, the issues we talk about on crime, the economy, reproductive access and of course threats to democracy, those are really the issues that are hinging on this election. voters very much keeping those front of mind. even as all politics is still local, those issues have percolated down to voters. it's clear the polling matches what voters are talking about on the ground. >> nbc's ali vitali, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," for the first time in history three women of color are leading the largest women's groups in the country and all three will join us to break down what's at stake in next week's

election and how each group is working to make sure women don't stay home on election day. plus we'll go live to outside a new york city courthouse where in just over an hour opening statements will begin in the case against the trump organization. also ahead, elon musk tweets then quietly deletes an unfounded conspiracy theory on the paul pelosi attack, but it's another terrible decision, this one about twitter's business model that may doom the social media site. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin will be here with that angle. up next, member of the january 6th committee, congresswoman elaine luria here to talk about the increased threats facing members of congress. we're back in a moment.

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and we've been talking for the past two hours about the far reaching implications of what happened to paul pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the house, the woman who is second in line to the presidency, who was savagely attacked on friday. and while surgeons were operating on the fractured skull of this 82-year-old grandfather, deranged right-wing fanatics, trump media allies and some of the most powerful people in the world were feverishly trying to stir up conspiracy theories that distracted from the central political headline of this story, that years of republican fueled trump fascism that led david depape to break into nancy pelosi's home to harm her. today he will be charged with attempted murder who was in the home when depape invaded it.

he smashed his way into the back door of the pelosi home, a man on a mission. he confronted paul pelosi but was looking for nancy. according to the a.p. citing a person familiar with the situation pelosi talked with the intruder trying to calm him down. he told the intruder he needed to use the restroom and that's where his phone was charging. that's when he quickly called 911 and just left the line open. thankfully the 911 operator stayed on and could tell that there was a problem and had cops head to the house for a wellness check. when police arrived depape attacked pelosi violently smashing the hammer into his head and arms fracturing his skull. police say zip ties were found at the scene just like the ones found on those who were hunting nancy pelosi at the capitol on january 6th. and that's not the only

similarity. before attacking mr. pelosi with a hammer a source tells nbc news depape shouted at him, where is nancy? where is nancy? where's nancy? where have we heard that before? some on the right would say, don't jump to conclusions and don't connect that to this. >> where's nancy? nancy. nancy. nancy. nancy. nancy. nancy. nancy. nancy. nancy. nancy. >> bring her out here. >> we're coming in if you don't bring her out. >> nancy. oh, nancy. nancy. where are you, nancy?

>> you say there's no connection? that he was just deranged? you're going to hear that word a lot when a republican is asked about this, you're going to hear the republicans say, look, this was a deranged individual. they say it's that simple, that he was deranged. by the way, voters, crime is up. look away. look at that. crime is up. trumpists will say that you should look away from the obvious parallels to january 6th. a review of david depape's online accounts show he was part of a far right world of hate, anti-semitism and conspiracy theories involving anti-vax hysteria and voter fraud with many of his posts published in the past few months. but you should just ignore that, republicans will say, ignore the fact that these right wing screeds completely line up with the biggest lies propagated by

trumpists and, yes, donald trump himself. he was deranged, after all. never mind the fact that cult leaders and fascists prey first on the weakest and most vulnerable among us. that's how a cult works, and as ben collins said at the very top of the show this morning, this has been years in the making and the violent rhetoric is rampant with no boundaries and that deranged people get inspired with hate and hard wired for violence against their enemies spending hours online fueling up on vitreole but ignore all of that, republicans will say, after all, this political attack was another example of rampant, random crime. >> when you let dangerous criminals out on the streets, you know, with bail and not put them in prison, you're just asking for this sort of incident to happen and i think it created

the environment where this happens. >> so it's a convergence here of what has been political violence we've witnessed the rise of just crime on our streets and subways. >> we all need to recognize violence is up across the board. i think the other thing to remember is if this weren't paul pelosi, this criminal would probably be out on the street tomorrow. >> other republicans found the tragedy of an 82-year-old grandfather getting his brains bashed in with a hammer a political punch line, like virginia governor glenn youngkin who saw the attempted murder as a chance for a laugh. >> speaker pelosi's husband, they had a break-in last night in their house. he was assaulted. there's no room for violence anywhere, but we're going to send her back to be with him in california. >> when asked about his one-liner youngkin's spokesperson said the assault on

paul pelosi was wrong and there is no place for violence. he wishes him a full recovery but you heard him and heard the tone. as the governor clearly said, the assault on paul pelosi was wrong and there is no place for violence. he wishes him a full recovery and is keeping the pelosi family in prayers. youngkin's team called the term a mischaracterization when not making jokes about the attack other trumpists are spreading lies about it to make you look away. take one unfounded anti-lgbtq conspiracy theory claimed to be tied to the attack about this theory, elon musk, the new owner of twitter and the man who wants to see donald trump reinstated on the platform said yesterday, quote, there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the

eye. that tweet had more than 24,000 retweets and 86,000 likes before he deleted it. there is no mischaracterizing what happened. are we to insist this attack was not the direct result of the dangerous, violent rhetoric we have heard from donald trump's republican party over the last six years? the deranged man who violently assaulted paul pelosi got his idea from somewhere. are we also supposed to ignore the fact that threats against the house speaker have been very specific, marjorie taylor green reportedly liked a facebook comment that stated removing pelosi from office with a, quote, bullet to the head would be quicker. greene also claimed under oath that she does not remember that she expressed support for pelosi's execution in 2019.

her boss, minority leader kevin mccarthy claims he was joking when he said last year that if republicans win, the house majority and he gets the speaker's gavel, quote, it will be hard not to hit pelosi with it. has he responded to what happened to nancy pelosi? has anyone responded with unity between democrats and republicans and talked about the rhetoric that it needs to go down many notches? can they admit things are out of hand and be unified that we don't need this type of violence in our politics? can they -- is it possible? are they capable of facing the truth? january 6th should have been all the evidence anyone would need. rioters were there to hang trump's vice president. they had a noose and do lord knows what to nancy pelosi, all encouraged by donald trump.

>> we're not allowed to punch back anymore. i love the old days. you know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this, they'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks. i'd like to punch him in the face, i'll tell ya. >> you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you, seriously? just knock the hell -- i promise you, i will pay for the legal fees. >> the white house grappling with the ongoing backlash over all the words president trump didn't say in the wake of those violent clashes in virginia, not specifically calling out white supremacist groups behind it all. >> you look at both sides. i think there's blame on both sides and i have no doubt about it and you don't have any doubt about it either. you had some very bad people in that group but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. >> he had referred to protestors as thugs and wrote, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. but the president claimed no

awareness of that expression's link to 1960s racial unrest then used by a miami police chief who wielded tough tactics in black communities. >> i am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters. >> this is an extraordinary escalation on the streets in front of the white house right now. within the last 15 minutes mounted police have been coming down the street. you're going to see them in the frame now using flash bangs in front of them and mounted police to clear what has been an entirely peaceful protest. not 90%, not 99% but 100% peaceful protests here today. people throwing -- there was no throwing of water bottles. there was no throwing of objects. a short time ago mounted police officers have been clearing the street. tony, if you could pan to the right. i want to show the military police. i want to show the military police on the side of the street. over the last half hour we've had military police.

we had secret service officers. we've had park police and now we've had national guardsmen lining the fence. they've been stepping up closer and closer and closer over the last couple of minutes. >> there continues to be this constant roar of sirens and helicopters that you can hear on the white house grounds, that the president was obviously able to hear as he headed over to that park but, of course, one thing the president wasn't able to hear were any of those protesters because the police and the national guard had aggressively pushed them out of that park just moments before the president made his walk over there. >> we're going to walk down pennsylvania avenue. i love pennsylvania avenue. and we're going to the capitol and we're going to try and give -- the democrats are hopeless. they're never voting for anything. not even one vote. but we're going to try and give our republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help, we're going to try and give them the

kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. >> with no guardrails, former president donald trump led an increasingly desensitized nation through shocking moment after shocking moment all the way through the january 6th attack on the capitol. and, yes, as you can see there, there are many weak, deranged minds in this country, like the man who attacked paul pelosi, but republicans have been hiding behind that word deranged as if this was an isolated incident and yet you can see where his ideas came from in his blog posts, in his words, where's nancy, in his plans. he brought zip ties. deranged people can fall prey to

a cult leader like donald trump and they have. on that la mere and michael steele are still with us. let's also bring in nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter. tom, i know you're also covering the court proceedings in new york city today, but i'd like to start our coverage with you now with the latest on the investigation into the attacker on paul pelosi. >> reporter: right, mika. so paul pelosi remains in critical condition in the icu in the hospital according to a family member to nbc news. brooke jenkins, the district attorney in san francisco says they expect to file formal charges and we should get a lot more detail as to the time line of events and also potentially any statements that this attacker, david depape, allegedly made during the course of this. we know that he has spoken to investigators. he was interviewed over the weekend. how much information he provided them, it's still not entirely clear at this point.

both police and the district attorney's office not going into a lot of detail about those discussions, including any sort of specifics about motive or what he planned to do when he actually got to the pelosi house, but as you know and as we've reported, he did ask where the house speaker was and he did bring zip ties. they were found at the house. on top of that he apparently made some statements, according to a family member, made some statements about tying up paul pelosi. so we need to still get some more details. obviously i think at this point we know the over arching theme of this is that he came to that house to do harm. he wouldn't have brought a hammer. wouldn't have assaulted and, as you mentioned, probably going to be charged with attempted homicide today, attempted to kill paul pelosi, if he didn't attempt to do harm perhaps to the speaker. but we should get some more detail on that. should kind of clarify those. it is also possible, mika, that we could see federal charges as soon as today. there's a parallel investigation

that's going on. the fbi's obviously involved. we saw them at the home on friday. the evidence response team going through there and assisting the san francisco police department but a federal charge or charges are possible as soon as today. so we'll have to keep a watch out for that. there's some different things that the feds can bear when it comes to charges. all of this in the backdrop of what you've been talking about this morning. threats to congress up 144% from 2017 to 2022. the dhs, department of homeland security, fbi, national counter terrorism center not tied to what happened on friday at the pelosi home put out a memo to other law enforcement agencies talking about the potential for escalated risk as we head into the mid-term elections including threats to poll workers. the probability or possibility that we could have violent incidents particularly if there's some sort of allegations about voter fraud that center around the 2022 mid-terms.

we're already hearing some politicians talking about that. they talk about the potential for attacks from people that are at odds at other people ideologically. basically just people on the other side of the aisle. that's the backdrop that we have here. i think it does potentially raise some questions, mika. certainly the u.s. capitol police was not supposed to be at the home that night. their job is to be with the speaker. she's third in line to the presidency as we well know, so she has a protective detail. there's obviously security at the home. there's obviously security cameras, we saw those, as you would expect. i do think it raises the question given the escalation in threats, 144%, given what we saw on january 6th, does there need to be more that's done for members of congress, particularly those that are in congressional leadership? should there have been a paid san francisco police detail that the u.s. capitol police should have brought in there? should there have been somebody

at the house? we're living in a very different time, it's obvious and clear. does more need to be done? particularly when we're talking about people so close to our political leadership, these are people that are -- and that's for democrat or republican. people that are that high up and are that high profile, do they need additional protection? do their residences need additional protection? it's kind of the symbol of our democracy and people are breaking into those members of congress that are that high up, what does that say about what we're doing here? so i think it's just the reality of the moment that's something that needs to be addressed. >> thank you very much, tom. we'll talk to you again in just a moment on the other story you're covering. let's bring in former cia member. mark, yes, we can get more security at our schools to stop school shooters and we can get more security from members of congress to stop extremists from shooting them, but is that

really addressing the problem at both cases? it's the rhetoric, the conspiracy theories, unchecked websites and news organizations that back them up and it's the politicians spewing conspiracy theories and lies that are leading to this danger. what am i missing here? >> mika, no, you're not missing anything. in fact, your opening montage was outstanding. look, nobody should be surprised by this. if anyone was surprised, they've been living under a rock. there's not a single u.s. intelligence or law enforcement official who has not predicted this day is coming. there's been a plethora of threat reporting and the bulletins and the propaganda that's been spewed forth in the right wing echosphere. it's almost where violence is marginalized. marjorie taylor greene and donald trump jr. holding an ar-15 with a magazine dlap had

hillary's -- the drawing of hillary clinton on it. this is normalized by one political party in the united states. it's something that is extremely dangerous. mika, i will tell you one thing based on my time at cia and looking at radicalization, in this case terrorists overseas, the only way this comes to an end is when the party involved understands it's up to them. this is the republican party to come to grips with this. no one else can. >> it's the people who have been pushing these conspiracy theories and avoiding the truth. we played for you some of the top republicans rejecting any link between heated republican rhetoric and the attack on paul pelosi and these are the people that need to tell the truth, that needs to say on both sides and especially far right extremists, we need to tone this down. we need to stop the lies. we need to stop the violence and yet rnc chair woman ron na

mcdaniel said on fox news yesterday this -- >> i think that's unfair. i think this is a deranged individual. you can't say people saying let's fire pelosi or let's take back the house is saying go do violence. it's just unfair. i think we all need to recognize violence is up across the board. lee zeldin was attacked. joe biden didn't talk about the assassination attempt against brett kavanaugh. the other thing to remember, if this weren't paul pelosi, this criminal would probably be out on the street tomorrow. we saw lee zeldin's attacker was on the street after he attacked him. >> see, that's what they do and they go to places where people will just nod approvingly at what they say even when they're lying and deflexing. the first thing you'll hear that ronna said was oh, look, look, look, look, this is a deranged individual, kind of insinuating

that it's isolated and these crazy lefties are trying to connect everything. they're evil. no, ronna, this deranged individual got ideas from websites, he brought zip ties and he said where's nancy, and you have to literally be willfully ignorant to avoid that fact and just kind of condescendingly say, this is a deranged person. yeah, that's -- come on, guys. you know crime is up. my god. did you see how much crime was up? that's what this is about. it's random crime. even happening in san francisco at the home of nancy pelosi. it's insulting, but beyond that, she lies and she makes a parallel that is completely nonsensical. >> yeah. it's about what aboutism and mistruths there. a few fact checks here. first of all, the steve scalise shooting all democrats condemned at the congressional baseball practice. joe biden and democrats did condemn the violent rhetoric and

the attempt to threaten supreme court justice brett kavanaugh. she mentioned lee zeldin. one a man got up on stage. said he didn't even know who zeldin was. that was not a targeted attack. they were making much about a shooting down the street from the zeldin house. that had nothing to do with zeldin. there are very few republicans who are stepping into the breach. mitch mcconnell did, we'll give him credit for that. kevin mccarthy has spoken about it sending his well wishes to nancy pelosi. not a word, not a word from donald trump. what possibly can change here? >> well, i think change happens inside the party. i mean, they're the ones who have got to stop it. the leadership has got to say enough is enough. i mean, they're not willing to do that. i mean, i don't know why anyone is sitting around waiting for

donald trump to say something. what do you think he's going to say? what the hell do you think donald trump is going to say about an attack on paul pelosi that is believable if it's like oh, i'm so sorry, thoughts and prayers? i mean, the reality is that's -- we still play this game, sort of cat and mouse game where republicans go out and they put all of this stuff out in the ether and then everybody sits back and waits for them to retract it or do something about it. they're the ones perpetuating it. there's no condemnation. no absolute outright condemnation to the violence. to ronna's point. i mentioned max butte earlier. he notes the new american think tank found last year that since september 11th, 2001, far right terrorists have killed 122 people in the united states

compared with only 1 killed by leftists. 122 people killed by far right extremists in this country. the center for strategic and international studies found last year that since 2015 right wing extremists have been involved in 267 plots or attacks compared with 66 from the left. so we see where the weight of this is and when you compound the conspiracy theories, when you compound them, elon musk and that crazy, what the hell do you think this landscape is going to look like a year from now with a, you know, speaker, marjorie taylor greene? because that's who the speaker's going to be. >> right. >> that's who's going to control the narrative. that -- kevin mccarthy's not controlling. this is marjorie taylor greene and others. >> michael, mitch mcconnell did speak out. it was a good statement, but who

are the republicans, i know they won't, but i'm just asking, who are the republicans who should be speaking out wholeheartedly about this and stepping up and demanding unity with democrats in this moment of crisis and pledging to lower their rhetoric? who are the ones -- we can get all the security in the world we need -- >> right. >> -- for certain members of congress and for nancy pelosi's family, but if the rhetoric doesn't stop, then the view owe lensz continues to grow, as it seeps out online on twitter and in all these websites and so-called news networks. so who are the republicans who need to full stop change their ways? >> well, it starts with what we saw in the matter with scalise whmpt scalise was shot, what did the democrats do? john just pointed out.

the entire democratic leadership came out and spoke against what had happened to representative scalise. so that would mean in this instance you're looking at not just mcconnell in an individual statement but to have the entire leadership standing there with kevin mccarthy, with the caucus leaders, with the leadership in the senate, with the political leadership of the party, meaning the rnc, all of them are saying the same thing condemning the violence and making clear this is not what we should be about. so an individual republican can make a statement and, yes, it's important that it's mitch mcconnell who made the statement, but an even more powerful moment is to have that visual with the entire leadership standing together saying, this is not who we are. this is not what we want this to be about. and until you get that, it goes to what your guest was saying

before. unless you have someone -- unless you have that effort on the republican side completely and holistically and sincerely, you're not -- you're not going to have a change. i mean, where's the clap back on what the tailor greene's are saying. even in the moment if they say those words but still allow members of the caucus to behave in a certain way and to push out certain things, you're not changing anything. >> i think that's the only way things change and become safer. let's bring in democratic congresswoman elaine luria of virginia. she's a member of the house select committee investigating the january 6th attack. i first want to ask what your reaction was to the attack on paul pelosi and especially when you heard the details surrounding the attack, the similarities to the work that you're uncovering on your

committee. >> i immediately felt that there's a direct line here. i mean, not only the use of violence in a political way but this idea that these echos we heard through the halls of the capitol, i was shocked to hear of the attack and then even further distraught to hear that paul pelosi went into surgery, a fractured skull and the absolute level of violence, the visceral violence of someone hitting an 82-year-old man with a hammer, the silence, the crickets on the other side of the aisle. there is such a clear line between the conspiracy, disinformation and rhetoric. you covered the threat of that from charlottesville to where our governor took light of this and actually used it again as a political attack to continue to perpetuate this type of rhetoric here in virginia immediately after it happened while paul

pelosi was in surgery. >> congresswoman, we know speaker woman pelosi has been the subject of republican ads for a long time. she has been the subject of a lot of their ire, venom, therefore people like this could be susceptible to attacking her this time literally. my question is we've been spending all morning talking about how the republicans have not truly denounced, with few exceptions, this violent rhetoric here. what should be done? will you speak directly to your colleagues there in the house who are perpetuating conspiracy theories and violent language that directly leads to attacks like to? what can you do? >> well, what is even more disturb something that the conversations i have behind closed doors with people, republicans, those you might refer to as moderate republicans, you know, they will say, we don't believe this but we don't have a choice. they are almost themselves subject to the pressure of maintaining this narrative or they will become attacked. so this has just become a very

dangerous place. i have an opponent in an upcoming election as well who literally will not say that joe biden was legitimately elected and continues to perpetuate this lie. some people do it more vocally, some people do it more passively. any means by which people continue to perpetuate this is continuing the wink and nod to the extremists, the ability to say this is normalized and it can't be normalized. >> this is one of the many themes you're looking at in your new campaign ad that's out this morning. let's take a look at it. >> politics used to be about serving. today it's about winning, at all costs. >> you have not answered the question. was joe biden fairly elected? >> that's not me. and if standing up for what's right means losing an election, so be it. if you're looking for someone who will just say anything just

to win, i'm not your candidate. if you support insurrectionists or call our military weak, i'm not your candidate. the attack the fbi and defend donald trump, i'm not your candidate. and if you believe the 2020 election was stolen, i'm definitely not your candidate. but if you believe that our democracy and constitution are worth fighting for and you want a congresswoman who will always stand up for what's right, then i'm elaine lurie. i approve this message. >> our thanks to democratic candidate elaine luria. with that ad, mark, i'd like to ask you, at what point are we -- where are we in terms of our homeland security, our safety in this country when you have a candidate that has to put an ad out like that saying don't elect me if you like the truth, if you

believe in rioting at the capitol, don't elect me. i mean, this has been turned upside down and it does seem like the forces of evil, the violent rhetoric is much louder than anything else out there. >> well, mika, i think we really are in troubling times and this is not just me saying it, this is the words of the fbi director, dhs officials. the threat of political violence, this is threat reporting and statistics. the problem is, there's nothing on the horizon that says this is going to get any better. you'd think january 6th or events over the last couple of days with paul pelosi would have changed people's minds. republican party would have said, wait a second, would he have a cancer within us. there has to be people who will step up, our own tribe and i don't see anything on the positive. threat reporting is up. i think we're going to see some political violence in the future. look, you have armed vigilantes patrolling outside of ballot

boxes in tackle gear. this is nuts. this is the great fear of law enforcement. there's nothing on the horizon that gives me any hope for -- you know, for a kind of more peaceful times. i think we're in for some rough waters ahead. >> former cia officer, thank you very much. now nbc's tom winter, let's turn to the other story that you're covering today. you're in new york city in front of the courthouse. the trial begins against the trump business empire. tell us about it. >> reporter: that's right, mika. less than 30 minutes away from opening statements here at the manhattan courthouse behind me. state court. where state prosecutors, the manhattan district attorney has charged the trump organization and they are putting them on trial for what they say was a 15-year scheme to defraud taxpayers here in new york when allen weisselberg, the trump cfo was able to get an apartment, cars, garage for the cars, other benefits paid to him by the trump organization. that part's not illegal.

where they say they crossed the line and broke state law is when weisselberg was able to get those and not pay taxes on them and that they weren't properly accounted for. so you can get any benefit from your employer, but it's treated as income and in this particular case they say it should have been income, those benefits he received and he should have paid taxes on it. the whole trial here expected to last approximately a month or so. weisselberg, a key witness in this. he pleaded guilty earlier this year to the charges that he was indicted with when this case first came down in july of 2021. as part of that guilty plea he has to cooperate, he has to testify in about a week around november 7th or so he's going to be on the stand and he's going to have to talk to the types of things that he did as cfo. essentially saying it's kind of an unusual trial in this respect. he's going to essentially say i did things as the trump cfo working for the corporation as the corporation is on trial. so that's what we anticipate

here. obviously a lot of documents, a lot of financials, a lot of different types of evidence components will come into this case. jury of eight men, four women. took them about a week to pick that jury. six alternates, of course. we do anticipate opening statements to go on behind me and for us to be here and covering this trial for about a month or so, mika. >> all right. nbc's tom winter. thank you very much. we will talk to you again very soon on the latest with that trial. still ahead on "morning joe," we're going to go to san francisco for the latest update on paul pelosi's health and we'll talk more about the right wing's reaction to the attack. also ahead, we'll go live to the supreme court where the justices could be getting ready to overturn another major precedent. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis persists... put it in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when uc got unpredictable,...

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a series of explosions rock the kyiv early this morning as russia launched a new round of missile strikes targeting critical infrastructure. the mayor of kyiv says part of the ukrainian capitol has been cut off from power and water supplies. the scale of the attack wasn't immediately clear. an adviser said russia launched 40 cruz missiles at different targets across the country. joining us retired four star navy admiral. he's former supreme allied commander of nato. want to talk about ukraine and we want to talk about the problems we are facing in this country in light of the attack on paul pelosi. first, update us on the state of this war and how ukraine is doing in light of the fact that russia keeps coming at them. yes, they're struggling. yes, they're dragging anybody in to force them to fight, but these are impactful attacks.

>> indeed, they are. let's state if putin can't take it, he's going to break it. destroy it. the way soron went after shire at the end of the lord of the rings. this is a card he'll continue to play. in terms of where the war is right now, the russians are still on their back foot. there's an important city called kherson, which is the gateway to crimea. i think that will fall to the ukrainians and that's a good thing because it's psychologically critically important but there's a third combatant about to enter the battle, ukraine, russia and winter. not to go all game of thrones on you but winter is coming and it will impact both sides.

it will slow the action. our job to conclude is to provide the ukrainians the best support we can and in particular enhance their air defense systems so putin's strategy will not be successful. >> clint? >> admiral, i was wondering what you were thinking about in terms of russia and their strategy. we've been talking about their ability to fight. russian troops are showing up literally with just a bayonet. don't even have water to drink. drinking out of puddles. what will be the effect to russia if they can't field a military anymore? >> first, i agree with your analysis, clint. they've pulled them out of bars, dead drunk dragged off to recruiting systems. they're being told to buy their

own sleeping bags, bring their own bandages with them and have no real military capability. as that cannon fire heats the ukrainian war machine, i think you will see reverberations back in moscow but, again, with winter it's going to have a slowing effect on both sides of that firing line. >> admiral, there's reports out this morning the mayor of kyiv says because these latest strikes, 80% of the capitol city without access to water and power, which is a real thing especially as the weather continues to get colder. these terror strikes clearly are putin's m.o. going forward trying to rattle ukrainian resolve as well as europeans and their unity to stay with ukraine here as we see another report today just how inflation is soaring across the continent. are you concerned here that as putin shifts tactics there could be some cracks in the alliance overseas? >> i think we're going to see a little bit of creaking at both ends of the political spectrum,

both here in the united states where we've seen mccarthy kind of walk a little bit away on the left side. you've seen a group of progressives pull back. i think in europe you're going to see more stress on the political system. my assessment both here in the u.s. and in europe is that this coalition will hold together particularly if ukrainians continue to be more successful on the battlefield than the russians. one final point, russia is talking about pulling out of this grain agreement of shipping grain out of ukraine. they're doing it because it will damage the ukrainian economy. they won't have assets coming in. it will enhance the price of russian grain which can still be sold to those not honoring the sanctions and it will put inflationary pressure in the

west. see paragraph 1 about creating cracks in the political system. putin still has cards to play. coming up, one of our next guests says both parties can suffer from partisan violence but only one glorifies it. david froome explains how republicans have embraced political bloodshed. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. uhhhh... here, i'll take that. [woo hoo!] ensure max protein, with 30 grams of protein, one gram of sugar and nutrients for immune health. two new ihop lunch and dinner menu items for twice the goodness, twice the flavor, and twice the choice. sirloin salisbury steak and all-natural salmon. perfect for lunch or dinner. only at ihop. download the app and earn free food with every purchase.

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let me press you a bit on that. if the legislature passes a morey stricttive abortion law, abortion bill, would you sign that bill? >> i'm not going to count on -- you know, say yes or no to any specific piece of legislation without actually seeing exactly what it's doing. it's not my desire to go move the needle any further on this issue. we've been dealing with this issue for three years. that's where the general assembly was. i personally don't see a need to go back, but when you're governor you have to deal with all kind of legislative issues

that are out there. so we'll look at those when the time comes. >> brian kemp does not have a plan for the women that are being forced to carry to term the unwanted pregnancies. more importantly, he refuses to defend us and protect us and he defended herschel walker. saying he didn't want to be involved in the personal life of his running mate but he doesn't mind being involved in the personal lives of women in georgia? what's the difference? well, i would say it's the equipment. >> that exchange during last night's debate in georgia between republican incumbent governor brian kemp and democratic challenger stacey abrams. georgia's so called heartbeat law was kem notary public 2019. i bans abortions when there is cardiac activity in an embryo but has exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. joining us now, the president of planned parenthood, alexis mcgill-johnson, the president of

emily's list, lafanza butler and the president of naral, nimi. >> they all have interviewed at the same time and the first time they are appearing together in an interview. so i welcome you all. thank you very much. i want to start out by asking all three of you what your strategy is. what each organization's strategy is in the final days before the midterms leading up to election day. alexis, i start with you. i take it you're hitting the road? >> yeah. yes, i have been on the road. i just came back from north carolina with sharon beasley. i've been in wisconsin. i've been in arizona, new mexico, you know, our strategy is to work tirelessly getting out people who deeply care about this issue, who understand that abortion is a freedom issue. it is an economic issue. it is a health issue. and, you know, we're focused on

senate races and governor's races because we want obviously to get to 52 for federal legislation and governors will be important backstops in the event that we have not able to do that. >> and lafanza butler, i understand you're hitting the road. where you are going? what you are hearing so far? >> thanks so much for having me, mika. and, that's right, we are on the road. i have been on the road. i'm headed to las vegas, atlanta, atlanta, georgia, and michigan. and everything that i have heard across the country is that women are angry and they are determined. they're determined to maintain their reproductive freedom and they're determined to lekt leaders who are going to stand with them. i'm excited to be a part of this great coalition from emily's

list, planned parenthood and pro-choice america where we're determined to lift up the voice of women across this country and lekt more democratic pro-choice women that are going to stand with us. >> and i understand naral is doing a lot of different types of strategies here hitting college campuses, blanketing college campuses, also a lot of online mobilization. talk about the different ways you are trying to get the message out. this is before the league and they were on this issue of legal abortion. we know this point in the election the game is about mobilization and turnout. that's why we've been on the road. that's why we've been aggressively focussed on go tv. so one of the reasons we're focused on college campuses is this the first generation of folks entering the reproductive

lives with major fundamental right taken way from them. and the energy as you reported is incredibly high. we're seeing record voter registration numbers with young people and women. we know our job is to turn folks out. that's why we're doing aggressive canvas organizing and mobilization, virtual phone banks, text banks, anything folks can do from the comfort of their home and also on their campus to really motivate them. we know if we can get our people out, we will win this election. >> so i know it's first time the three of you have appeared together. and there is a lot of firsts happening here which are great. we've got one week until election day. i'd like to ask each of you to give your closing pitch. you're talking to a republican woman or a woman who is on the fence about voting at all. if you could give, like, the closing statement about what is at stake, speaking directly to that woman and just take, you know, 20 seconds to give us a sense of why you are doing what

you do. and alexis, i'll start with you. >> you know, look, what i would say is that we know that the majority of people who seek access to abortion are already mothers. they already know what is entailed and what it means to control their own bodies. and to have this right taken away, to understand that we really want people to vote because we trust women to make decisions about their own bodies and that these politicians are trying to take that right away. and that's exactly why they need to show up. because their freedoms are at stake right now. >> and lafanza, with the economy being so on the front of so many women's minds as they're trying to feed their families, what is your message to breakthrough? what is at stake when it comes to abortion rights? >> look, mika, i would say to that woman that our fundamental freedoms are on the ballot this november. whether we're talking about reproductive freedom, economic freedom, freedom to live in

clean and environment for generations to come. our fund mental freedoms are on the ballot. with very to trust that women and their doctors are going to make the best decisions for themselves and their families and now is the time to turn out to vote. >> and mini, your closing statement to voters? >> there's no more fundamental economic issue the decision when, if and how to have your family. i would make that case to republican and independent voters. and also, there is a place for new our coalition. especially for women and people in the beginning of the reproductive lives. so join us. we know clearly which party stands for reproductive freedom

and we hope you join us at the polls. >> ladies, thank you all very much for coming on "morning joe" this morning. we really appreciate it. and still ahead on "morning joe," we go live to the supreme court where the conservative majority could be poised to overturn another major president. we'll explain that. and a live report from san francisco with the latest on paul pelosi's conditions and the condition of our democracy as dangerous conspiracy theories amplified by republican leaders continue to run rampant. n leade continue to run rampant. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you.

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