isn't the goal. it may be out of reach. look, this seems so fundamental, it is odd we have to talk about it, but when you're ignoring the frontrunner, you're doing so at your own peril. that is what we have seen. they ignore him. every week, we see new polls of him higher and higher in the race. >> there's been speculation that some of them might be playing to be his running mate, playing for the vp. trump in michigan last night mused that he didn't see anyone on stage who could fit that. ten-second answer. do you think the fatigue the polls show between trump and biden, is there a spot for a third-party candidate? >> we're too divided as parties for an opening there, but i think a third-party could be a spoiler. no one in the third party is getting elected president, but they could elect one of the others by accident. >> many people in the white house feel it'd hurt the president rather than donald trump.

brendan buck, thank you, as always. thank you so you for getting up "way too early" on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. thank you. >> may i finish. >> you can't be on both sides. >> gentlemen, you'll have your turn. >> one of the challenges -- >> listen up. >> can we focus on the issues that matter? >> we know -- >> in china, everybody knows that. >> if i may -- >> focus on holding joe biden accountable. >> i agree with ron desantis. >> everybody is speaking at the same time. >> if you couldn't understand any of that, you were not alone. the republican candidates on stage at the ronald reagan presidential library last night, mostly focused on attacking each other rather than the frontrunner in the polls, donald trump. talking over each other a lot. trump was, instead, on stage by himself in michigan speaking to a crowd of mostly non-union auto workers, and criticizing the

strike against detroit's big three. that's a tight shot there. meanwhile, in washington, it appears the far-right republicans in the house are ready to shut down the government over one key funding item. we'll tell you what that is just ahead. yeah, so, willie, the debate last night, we're going to get to it and play more of the clips, but just, overall -- >> a mess. >> -- i had one republican leader, one contributor, everything after another, after another, just -- they were texting and calling all saying the same thing. what a mess. what an embarrassment. what a disaster. >> it was. it was a lot of what we just showed in that clip. talking over each other. the moderators having lost control of things. some very cringey, awkward moments. nikki haley, if you wanted to pick somebody, she had several adult moments. but, for the most part, you're

watching and thinking, wow, this is, as some people put it, the kids' table where they're fighting for second place, as donald trump sits comfortably at home. you watch that and ask yourself, why would donald trump ever participate in that debate, with the lead he has? why would he step into that fight? i think a lot of people, the analysis you're going through the usual motions of a debate, like, who won? who lost? what should we expect tonight? i guess the only question is, does any of it really matter? some things could change, of course. we have four major federal indictments, 91 felony charges against the president. i guess some people are trying to hang around long enough to see if that impacts donald trump, but it is hard to say anybody won last night. did anybody stand out? i don't know. we all watched, and i guess you could say nikki haley did pretty well. chris christie, again, the only one going after donald trump. he'll be on our show again this morning. i did note that one thing didn't come up, the former president united states called, effectively, suggested, i should

say, for the execution of general milley. that didn't come up at the debate. i'd be curious to hear what the candidates think about that. >> yeah, didn't come up, wasn't asked. but that's really par for the course. >> well, that's what molly jong-fast was talking about yesterday. the media has to cover the stories that are news. >> right. >> and the fact that that wasn't asked, or the massive fraud liability that went down yesterday, i mean, this is one universe versus another that actually lives on facts. these candidates weren't asked about anything. >> will, the fact -- yeah, you had the milley, basically invitation to assassinate. you had donald trump looking like he was going to get shut down from doing business in the state of new york. and you had donald trump also saying that he was going to shut down nbc and comcast.

jonathan lemire, that is something that those two really extreme things that he put on truth social were what "the wall street journal" editorial page correctly brought to attention and said, guys, gals, if we keep going in this direction, this guy, who just said these things, is going to be your nominee. >> step right over you all. >> if he's your nominee, there's a reason why the people in biden world think they're going to win. you look on the stage, everybody yelling at each other last night -- and i do think that nikki haley probably stood out among the best -- but it's so split up. it's just like 2016. they're splitting themselves up. you know, 5% here, 7% there, 9% there. for people who say it doesn't make a difference whether it's split or not, there were --

there's cbs/ugov poll that i'm sure you're aware of. i don't know if everybody watching is. but in the early states, iowa and new hampshire, in both states, you have about 75% of the voters who say they're open to voting for somebody other than donald trump. that they're looking. a lot chunk of them, about a third in each of those states, are saying they will not vote for donald trump. so there is an opportunity. last night was another blown chance to get those people united to find somebody that can actually be the guy who says the chairman of the joint chiefs needs to be assassinated. >> it was messy, sloppy. a lot of major topics were not addressed. vivek ramaswamy thanked someone last night for speaking while he was interrupted. that's what it was. everyone was shouting at the other, and it was hard at times even to hear what anyone was saying last night. certainly, there was no real breakthrough moment.

there were cringing moments and bad one-liners which we can get to later. to your point about the polls, there is this appetite, seemingly, to have someone else step forward to be the turn alternative. for a long time, it was perceived to be governor ron desantis of florida. his campaign has been in a free fall. there was nothing last night -- he didn't fair poorly, but there was nothing to suggest that his slide is going to stop. there is chatter among republican donors right now that maybe nikki haley could be that person, in part, because in head-to-head polls -- and we're early -- but in head-to-head polling, she fairs the best against president biden. maybe she'd be that choice, and she's done pretty well in the debates. i'd argue better in the first one than last night, but she is the adult in the room. the question is, with trump's lead so big, are republican donors really going to throw their money at haley right now if potentially it's a waste? that's the choice. do we see some of the candidates drop out potentially to give haley a chance to be the

alternative? at least right now, no one is. no one is. the more the candidates stay in, the more divided it gets, the better, of course, it is for donald trump. >> yeah, and elise jordan, as far as lines of the night go, i've got to say, nikki haley, borrowing from "happy gilmore," was a great move, after vivek's answer, basically uses the line, "every time you talk, i feel a little more dumb. you are awarded no points, and may god have mercy on your soul." that's basically what she did. let's give her props at least for, you know, borrowing from "happy gilmer." >> governor haley had the best sense of reading the room, actually speaking and following the flow of where the arguments were going, arguing questions, than any other candidate on stage. i think that's where some of the other candidates just really fell flat, because they stuck to their rehearsed lines and the

moment might not have been there, the timing was off. some of the more uncomfortable exchanges, i just -- i really hope that mike pence's line about his wife was not preplanned, just because it was awkward, just didn't need to know about his life with his wife. to say, that was a bit of a distraction. but, you know, nikki haley really emerged somewhat the winner of a very weak night overall. would it be in the republican party's best sense to coalesce around one candidate, for donors to coalesce around one candidate? yes. will it happen? i doubt the common sense will take hold. >> more troubling, neither the candidates nor anybody in the room addressed the elephants in the room. here's the moment with nikki haley and vivek ramaswamy in a

an exchange when the businessman was asked about having a tiktok account. then i want to get to charlie on the other side of this. take a look. >> so the answer is, i have a radical idea for the republican party. we need to win elections. and part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young americans where they are. when i get to office, i've been very clear, kids under the age of social -- under the age of 16 should not be using addictive social media. we're only going to ever get to declaring independence from china, which i favor, if we actually win. >> this is infuriating. tiktok is one of the most dangerous social media apps we could have. what you've got, honestly, every time i hear you, i feel a little dumber for what you say. because i can't believe they hear you've got a tiktok situation. what they're doing is 150 million people are on tiktok. that means they can get your contacts, your financial information, your emails, they can get your --

>> let me say -- >> knows exactly what they're doing. what i'll say, you've helped china make medicines in china, not america. >> excuse me. >> you want kids to get on social media that's dangerous for all of us. you were in business with the chinese who gave hunter biden $5 million. we can't trust you. >> you have to love vivek's logic. i'll ban the moonshine when i'm president of the united states, but i'll drink this moonshine here because i'll relate better with the kids. passing around moonshine for everybody. how can you say, i'm going to ban tiktok, the commies behind it, and then say, i'll win by using tiktok. it doesn't work. doesn't work. >> charlie, my bigger concern about the whole thing is why nobody asked or spoke about the

republican frontrunner talking about assassinating general milley. like, how does that get avoided by everybody in the room? >> yeah, how was that not the first question? well, they didn't talk about his felonies, didn't talk about fraud, any of these things. look, i mean, you know, where do i go to get the two hours of my life back? that was an absurd farce. it was a non-event, but it was also completely pointless. i think you put your finger on it. you have this debate, this presidential debate. donald trump is sitting back, he's not there, and nobody laid a glove on him. they continued to go through the motions. unless we want to engage in fan fiction, i think the reality is, that debate did not mean anything. it's not going to change anything. the republican field is very, very unlikely to coalesce around anyone other than donald trump. i think that that has to settle

in as the moment. you know, the larger picture is they should have asked about general milley. at some point, you would think that republicans are looking at that, this incredible clown show, this chaotic mess up there, and saying, this is the best that we can do. we're not going to address the fact that we are this far away from nominating somebody who has 90 felonies, who is calling for the death penalty for his political enemies and critics, shutting down the media, and somebody who is, you know, on a daily basis, decompensating on social media. so here we are. you know, to the point this feels a lot like 2016, i'm already having the ptsd flashbacks, except this is the lower, dumber version. by the way, joe, i think that quote is from "billy madison." >> yes, it is. >> "billy madison." you are right. >> "billy madison" quote, one of my favorites of all time. >> damn good.

>> it was "billy madison," delivered by the great jim downey, legendary "snl" writer playing the principal in the scene. we'll all be on youtube in a minute watching it in the next break. so none of the candidates last night, as we said, were asked about donald trump's suggestion, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general mark milley, a four-star general who spent his life in the military, deserves to be executed for treason, for communicating with his chinese counterpart at the end of the trump administration, to let them know the nuclear arsenal was secure. general milley, though, was asked about it in an interview for "60 minutes." >> president trump recently said that your dealings with china were so egregious, that in times gone by, the punishment would have been death. >> that's right, he said that. that's correct. >> he is suggesting that you be punished by death. the former commander in chief to his former top military adviser.

>> look, i'm a soldier. i've been faithful and loyal to the constitution of the united states for 44.5 years. my family and i have sacrificed greatly for this country. my mother and father before them. you know, as much as these comments are directed at me, it is also directed at the institution of the military. there's 2.1 million of us in uniform. the american people can take it to the bank that all of us, every single one of us, private to general, were loyal to that constitution and will never turn our back on it no matter what. no matter what the threats, no matter the humiliation, no matter what. if we are willing to die for that document, if we are willing to deploy, to combat, willing to lose an arm, a leg, an eye, to protect and support and defend the document, for the american people, we're willing to live for it, too. i'm not commenting directly on those things, but this military, this soldier, me, will never turn my back on that constitution. >> for the record, was there anything inappropriate or treasonous about the calls you

made to china? >> absolutely not, zero, none. >> it almost seems odd to ask this question because the former commander in chief seems to be calling for your execution. are you worried about your safety? >> i've got adequate safety precautions. i wish those comments had not been made, but they were. we'll take appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family. >> joe, that's a pretty extraordinary exchange, to see four star general mark milley sitting there in his dress with the bars, his four stars, saying, you can say whatever you want, talk, post on your social media site, call for me to be executed, but i and everybody i serve with, and the millions of americans who serve, are going to continue to defend the constitution. that's our job. that's all noise. i'll take care of my safety. keep going with this. we're not going to change what we do. >> yeah, i mean, it's so discouraging. donald trump has sent that signal out.

it's just will like "the wall street journal" editorial page yesterday said, and many others have said yesterday, that he's sending the message out. certainly, it is possible that some crank is going to follow through on that. it's the same thing that he said about mitch mcconnell. it's the same thing he said about, well, about me. it's the same thing he said about so many people. it does -- it is changing general milley's life right now, that he is going to need security around the clock for quite some time. because donald trump knows exactly what he's doing. that's why he starts talking about somebody being executed. when mitch mcconnell, it's "death wish" in all caps. it's a message. yet, yet, charlie sykes, nobody at fox news last night thought that was worthy of a question to

ask, even if their partners at "the wall street journal" did that morning. nobody thought it necessary to ask about banning nbc news once donald trump became president of the united states. again, if he got elected again. nobody thought about any of that. >> liable for fraud. >> nobody thought about asking something that was on the front page of all the newspapers, including "the wall street journal" yesterday morning, which is, donald trump is probably going to be stopped from doing business in new york state because he acted in such a fraudulent way in overvaluing his properties for bank loans. those were all -- i mean, those things were all teed up. >> it was a choice. >> i'm not really sure how those questions couldn't have been asked. more to the point, i think it's just absolute insanity that the people that are running against donald trump didn't bring it up

on stage. couldn't -- i mean, those -- i mean, at some point, you're going to have somebody smart enough to find another lane and challenge this guy, or they're just going to meekly keep, like, sort of, like quizlings, following behind him. >> we have chris christie on today. we can ask him. >> they do absolutely nothing. >> this is our life for the last seven, eight years, isn't it? "the wall street journal" editorial, i think, is worth spending a moment on, that they were shocked, shocked to discover that all of this going on. it is interesting, some of the anti anti-trumps are going, by the way, this is appalling. do you understand this guy is completely crazy, deranged, and we're about to renominate him? how did we get here? exactly the kind of thing you're describing, denial, avoidance, rationalization. going into this alternative reality, where these things did not exist. they don't exist for that

audience. you know, he didn't say, you know, that mark milley should be executed. you know, a federal judge shutting the business down doesn't even register. the 91 felony charges don't even register. i guess, you know, this is -- i'm really glad you're still focusing on this. you know, there is a sense that we have become numb to this, that he has normalized the language of political violence. and that can lead to the normalization of violence. we've gone from "lock her up" to "hang mike pence" to "let's execute general milley." this is intentional, and it is highly dangerous. there's no reason to believe that he will not escalate this. unfortunately, there's no reason to believe that there are not people out there who are hanging on his words and might act on it. so when you have general milley sitting there saying, "i have to take the steps to protect myself and my family," this is the reality. you have people like mitt romney who are spending $5,000 a week on security for their family.

this is the world we are living in, and we cannot allow ourselves to become numbed to it -- >> no. >> -- or the threat it poses to the constitutional order. >> we can't. i don't know about any of you here on the set, on the show, but i'm still shocked. i found it heartbreaking to hear general milley having to answer to that and to deal with that and to hear that this was said about him by the republican frontrunner, and to hear him deal with this. >> again, a republican frontrunner who dodged the draft with supposed -- >> a patriot. >> -- bone spurs, which never got in his way of doing anything after his father got a doctor to find bone spurs in him so he can avoid the war. he then, of course, mocks john mccain for sacrificing and leaving so much of his life behind in vietnam, staying there even when john mccain is told he can go home. he's going to stay with his band of brothers, despite the fact he is carrying injuries that will stay with him for the rest of

his life. then with general milley, i see donald trump, and i see other punks, i'll call them punks, punks in congress deriding general milley, a man who has served this country proudly and bravely for decades, who has fought in one war zone after another war zone, has risked his lifetime and again to protect and defend the constitution of the united states of america. and some punk on some committee is yelling at him and attacking him to try to gain political points. it's grotesque. and i do wonder when my former party is going to wake up. i keep homing my former party is going to wake up and start respecting men and women in uniform that give their all for this country, to protect and defend this country, instead of a game show host who makes everything about himself before country, before constitution, before party, before people.

i keep waiting for them to wake up. it's been a heck of a sleep. they are the rip van winkel of parties. >> another thing not brought up at the debate last night is the massive fraud case that was brought by new york attorney general letitia james. boy, did she have a massive win in that, with the judge making a ruling, not even needing a trial, because the evidence was so clear. steve rattner is here. we are going to ask about it. steve, what is the trump organization's current business status in the state of new york in light of this ruling? >> well, at the moment, it's in a little bit of suspended animation because trump will appeal the ruling, and this will get litigated. i think until the litigation has ended and recognize that trump is a master of litigation, knows how to prolong it, so it could be years, i don't think things change. the end of the day, what the judge ruled should happen once the litigation is all resolved,

is that his properties will be -- his business license in new york will be voided. his properties will be put in the hands of a receiver. their job will be to liquidate them and see what's left when all that's over. >> so right now, though, it appears that that suspended animation, what happens? are there people monitoring trump's business? are they allowed to still do business? what happens next week when they look at damages? is it -- also, the judge seemed very frustrated president trump lawyers constantly trying to prolong this, so might they try to speed up the future process with this, given that they have really called them out on trying to drag this out as long as possible? >> well, again, that is trump's specialty, dragging things out. >> it is. >> sure, they will try to -- the judge will try to shorten it. there are legal procedures that

take time, write appeals and so forth. the new york courts are notoriously slow in moing along some of this stuff, unlike the federal courts. i want to be realistic to say it is probably going to be some time until this is resolved. until then, he can operate his properties. the judge asked both sides to nominate people to be the receiver, but whether that person actually can exercise any influence until these appeals are exhausted, i think, is not going to happen. >> steve, the central part of this fraud is the overvaluation of his properties. trump tower, seven springs estate in westchester. you have a chart that shows that. just for the laymen, what's the benefit of his overvaluing these, so wildly, by the way? >> well, the benefit is he wanted to borrow a lot of money. the more collateral you have, the more money you can borrow, and the cheaper you can get it

at. you have his ego, inflating things for the fun of it. from the standpoint of borrowing money, you have a house worth $3 million, you'll borrow more money and at lower rates. if it is $30 million, that's what he was doing. >> is there no one at the bank who says, i don't think it is a $327 million apartment, sir? >> well, i guess not. that is one of the questions people in my world have been or the of asking, is how the banks could have relied on this, believed it or whatever. but the numbers are extraordinary. he valued mar-a-lago at over $600 million. relative to the $27 million that the judge said. by the way, when mar-a-lago was tax assessed at $26 million, trump fought it and said it was too high. mar-a-lago is worth more than $26 million. >> eric trump, two days ago, valued it at $1 billion,

mar-a-lago, just eyeballing it, back of the envelope. >> it's a family tradition to clearly exaggerate the wealth here. steve, were this to happen, were his businesses to be taken -- we don't know if it'll happen -- and he can't do business in new york, where does that leave him? he has properties overseas. could those be vulnerable, potentially fraud charges brought elsewhere? whether they are or not, does trump org as we know it exist? >> no. the point of this would be trump org as it exists would be dissolved. the assets would be sold. the banks would get paid off. whatever is left, he and his family would get, and they can start all over again. somewhere, that would allow him to do business. i don't know if he committed bank fraud in other jurisdictions, sure, he could be prosecuted in those, although i suspect most of his activities were in the banking system in new york. but this is the bulk of -- these are the bulk, probably, of his assets, so he'd not be left with a lot of other stuff to, you know, play with, so to speak.

>> yeah. steve, let me ask you, i'm curious about where the procedure is of this. if you don't know the answer to this, we will look it up and tell you later. but, but where does the judge decide -- what part of this process is the process where we learn that donald trump can no longer operate his business in new york? is that in the damages part of the hearing, or is that something the judge has already determined and we'll have to wait for the appeal? >> the judge has already determined that. the judge ruled. the ruling itself was quite extraordinary because it was a ruling from the bench before there was a trial, which is very unusual. in fact, trump had moved to dismiss the whole case, what they call summary judgment, and never expected that it would end up going absolutely the other way, where the judge would not only dismiss that request or claim, but then impose this ruling which is really

unprecedented, i think, on a couple of levels. first, the fact that it was ruled from the bench before there was even a trial. secondly, this whole process of appointing a receiver and putting the businesses into receivership and so on is something that you see for, like, organized crime or low-levels who shouldn't be doing business anywhere. i don't believe there's ever been a case of someone of this means, stature and so forth, who has had his properties essentially taken away from him. >> this is crazy. >> i've good to say, willie and i take that last statement -- >> come on. >> -- the low-level mer do wells personally. he is referring to our glue gun business of 1987. >> that was a good one. >> we got ronco to buy in. for a while, we were be going to compete. >> there were monitors. >> it keeps coming.

>> willie has to say -- >> go ahead. >> -- don't hate the player, hate the game. >> it was an automatic winner. we regret a lot of things from the '80s, including that project you pitched, ronco. >> a lot of regrets. a lot of regrets from the '80s. we won't get into the cessna i bought in the keys. go ahead, mika. >> '86 mets with us. >> steve, there were monitors put in place to assess what was going on in trump org by the judge. apparently, those monitors were ignored. they were not given information. they -- trump people come pleelt completely cut them out. will there be more? where people don't want to be liable of massive fraud across

the board? >> this is terrible for his business and his business prospects. i would say that a lot of people, of course, stopped doing business with trump for many reasons over the last few years. there are buildings in new york, in fact, where his name has been taken off of it because nobody would go there because it was a trump building. he's already suffered a fair amount of damage. yeah, i think he'll find himself with a judge who means business. you have to provide what you have to provide. stop stalling and let's get on with this. we'll have a system and an appeal. >> all right. it's all important. steve rattner, thank you so much. greatly appreciate you being here. even if he is insulting willie and me. >> listen -- >> i mean. >> -- used to it. >> we had the glue gun business with ronco. we had the cessna business. it didn't go well, but i thought 86 people would want tours of

colombia. >> there were tours. >> willie, we did kind of give the '86 mets the boost they needed to get through the lineup. >> they won it all. hate to bring it up, lemire. >> come on, guys. thanks a lot. >> i hate to have been a part of that. >> all right. >> it was a -- >> don't remember much of it, though. >> we can walk into the club anytime we wanted, mika. it was great. they loved us. still ahead on "morning joe," you know what alex told me? i have the power to end this. >> there were a couple of players. geez. >> last night's republican primary debate. chris christie's new nickname for donald trump. the former new jersey governor will be our guest. we have a lot of questions for him. plus, we'll have live reporting from michigan, where instead of joining his opponents on the debate stage, trump made his pitch to striking auto workers from a manufacturing

facility of non-unionized auto parts company. also ahead, we'll be joined by two democratic members of the republican-led oversight house committee, as the panel prepares to hold its first impeachment inquiry hearing surrounding president biden. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> honestly, every time i hear you, i feel a little dumber for what you say. >> at no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. what causes a curve down there? is it peyronie's disease? will it get worse? how common is it? who can i talk to? can this be treated?

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it's a beautiful shot of the capitol. it is 6:37 a.m. on the east coast. in just hours, the republican-led house oversight committee will hold its first impeachment hearing on president biden. "the new york times" reports that top house republicans are eyeing potential impeachment charges of bribery and abuse of power, while trying to tie the president to his son, hunter biden's, foreign business dealings. >> but, you see, they haven't been able to do that. they've tried time and again, and they keep looking stupid. i mean, the guy running the committee is asked, "do you have anything?" he says, "hope we can find something." they have the cart before the horse there, mika. >> yeah. we're hearing from senior house officials familiar with their plans. "the times" points out lawmakers do not have evidence of either potential charge. house republicans have struggled

to link any of hunter biden's business dealings to his father. >> which they haven't been able to do now for years. >> shouldn't they be able to do that by the time there is an impeachment inquiry? >> if you want to impeach the president of the united states, you probably need evidence first. >> okay. so they don't have that or get somewhere close to revealing proof of high crimes and misdemeanors. don't have that, willie. >> leading up to the impeachment hearing, an extraordinary moment, where the house ways and means party voted along party lines that release documents from irs whistleblowers revealing hunter biden's business dealings. jason smith of missouri pointed to a june 6th, 2017, remember that date, june 6th, 2017, what's app message in which hunter biden wrote to a business associate that he was not willing to, quote, sign over my family's brand. smith cited the message as, quote, evidence of corruption and misconduct.

well, nbc capitol hill correspondent, our colleague ryan nobles, followed up on the 2017 date, seeking clarification of the timing of the message leading to this exchange with the republican congressman. >> then the what's app message you have, i believe, is dated june 6th, 2017. joe biden is not vice president or even a candidate for president at that time. so where is the direct connection to some sort of criminal malfeasance within these two pieces of evidence? >> i think the facts speak for themselves. there's over 700 pages of examples of where people should be very concerned. >> can you explain the timing then of the august 6th what's app message? why is that evidence of some wrongdoing? >> i'm not an expert on the timeline. i would love to have president biden and his family to tell us about all the timelines, because it is really, really unfortunate that we see so many meetings and so many phone calls that involved around official activity that the vice president

has been participating in, and then big sums of money follows later. >> but if he's not the president or vice president at that time, where is the wrongdoing? he wasn't even a candidate for president at that time. >> he was a candidate. >> in -- on august 6th of 2017? >> what source are you with? >> i'm with nbc. >> apparently, you'll never believe us. >> i'm not saying i don't believe you. i'm asking you -- i'm asking a direct question. you presented a piece of evidence that you say came on august 6th, 2017, that demonstrates that joe biden was using political influence to help his son. if he wasn't a political figure at that time, the first what's app message you put up, where you talk about the brand -- and i'm not -- i'm here -- i'm completely open-minded about this. i'm asking you, specifically, how does that demonstrate that there's some sort of political influence being put over him, if at that time he's not an elected

official? >> i'm definitely not going to pinpoint one item. i think we've outlined -- >> you presented it. it was your first thing you brought up. >> apparently, you don't agree with it. >> it's not that i don't agree. i'm asking you to explain it. >> i'll take the next question. >> how deeply pathetic was that? >> wow. >> ryan nobles, our nbc news capitol hill correspondent. >> excellent. >> doing his job, pushing on a question. this was headlines across other networks the last couple days and websites, this what's app message, making some suggestion that the biden family brand was being peddled. again, joe biden was neither president, vice president, nor a candidate. the what's app message is a suggestion, not evidence or a direct link. >> i mean, it's like me taking a risk board to the local kennel down here and asking a group of dogs if they want to play risk. it's just not a fair fight. i mean, these guys are so dumb.

it's -- and they bring up this -- this keeps happening. >> i know. >> time and time again. charlie, this keeps happening. they lead with something, then find out there's no connection there. they look like fools, then they blame the media. i mean, we keep going back to that fbi tape recording. you have grassley going, "i don't care if he's guilty or not." you have republicans saying, "we're going to impeach the fbi director." then they find out there's absolutely nothing there. they start screaming about a missing informant. oh, i can't find the informant. the informant is missing. oh, what have they done with the informant? well, the informant is an international fugitive who was busted for being an agent of china, busted for illegally selling iranian oil to the communist chinese party. illegally dealing in arms. i mean, this keeps happening.

this is the game that couldn't shoot straight. it really does, doesn't it, just underline how stupid their efforts are to try to bust hunter biden and joe biden. >> well, that's why your comment about the dogs was unfair to dogs. >> that is true. >> i mean, let's -- >> i have been beat before by a german shepherd in risk. >> my german shepherd wouldn't make this mistake. no, part of this is, it is cringe worthy to watch that exchange. ryan nobles asked the direct questions and is saying, can you be specific? evidence is about specific facts, right? i mean, there is this cloud of sleaze out there. there's no question about it. but when you try to pin them down, where is the evidence? what is the timeline? clearly, the guy they pushed through the curtain to come up with their big piece of evidence had no idea. he was clearly unprepared. he was unprepared to answer that

question. >> he didn't know joe biden was vice president, charlie. >> exactly, yeah. basic facts. >> he is saying it is media bias if you bring up the fact that joe biden wasn't vice president or president in 2017. like, this is a perfect example of somebody who is now thinking that facts are biased, when, in fact, they're just facts that show his argument is really stupid. >> well, this is what happens when you spend your time in a bubble. when you're in the bubble, all of this makes sense, right? you're constantly in the echo chamber. you step out of the bubble and somebody says, can i ask you about that dazzling piece of evidence you just presented, that actually makes no sense whatsoever? clearly, jason smith did not know when joe biden was in office or what was going on in 2017. >> wow. >> which is awkward. and the fact they are so unprepared on the day they're about to launch the impeachment inquiry, boy, that's an interesting tell, isn't it?

>> biden not vice president in 2017 and not declared candidate for the presidency again until 2019. nothing there on that date flagged by our colleague, ryan nobles. elise, we can't say this enough, the republicans haven't provided any evidence that yet links the president to his son's business dealings. there's nothing about him misusing the power to this point. but the impeachment inquiry is going forward with the first hearing today. the politics is so deeply cynical, but the politics of this could still be effective for republicans. will it be enough of a what aboutism to distract from the legal problems facing donald trump? >> republicans are counterprogramming. i guarantee that any disclaimers about this impeachment process and that there is no actual wrongdoing against president biden himself going -- that's been proved and has been put forward as evidence yet, that's not getting covered in other news silos.

so you have republican voters who are getting one bit of content, and you have the rest of the country getting another bit of content. and so it doesn't really matter, and they get to talk about that as trump's legal troubles will be covered in other mainstream outlets. >> wow. what a show this morning. my head is spinning. i'm still stuck on the mark milley stuff, but we're going to talk more about that. >> charlie, let me just say, congratulations. mi milwaukee, a sports town that just, i mean, you keep punching above your weight. >> the milwaukee brewers clinch again. i'll be there the first playoff game next tuesday night. >> fun. charlie sykes, thank you. >> it must be exciting to live in a big market town where your teams go to the playoffs every year. while willie and lemire and i follow these mid to small market teams. >> no attention. >> we're just in it for the love

of the game. >> yeah. >> and to lose. >> if they build it. >> and to lose. >> one other note on milwaukee for charlie, they traded for damian lillard, one of the best players in the nba. giannis and lillard on the same team. but yankees clinched fourth place last night, and we're awful proud about that. we will not finish in last place. gerrit cole clinched probably the cy young. aaron judge hit two home runs, and we locked up fourth, john. >> who did clinch last night, the boston red sox, who also are assured of yet another losing record. they lost their 82nd game last night, so they will finish under .500. another disappointing and long winter ahead, joe. >> get on the brewer bandwagon. >> fenway neighborhood of boston. yeah, to willie's point, lillard, rumored to be going to

the heat, stunning in a three-way trade involving the suns, he goes to milwaukee. he and giannis, one of the nba favorites. >> red sox, last place, i think three out of the four last year. >> yup. >> you know, the yankees may have gerrit cole, who locked down the cy young award, but last night, the red sox, we caught a black cat that had escaped from right field and had him boxed up by the end of the third inning. >> okay. >> that's what we got going for us. >> charlie sykes -- >> go sox. >> -- thank you so much. >> go sox nation. >> for being on the show this morning. coming up on "morning joe" -- ♪♪ >> yeah, baby. >> whoa! look at this. >> whoo! >> we will explain what was behind the surprise jam session. >> look at him. >> featuring secretary of state

antony blinken. >> come on. >> he knows it. >> playing guitar and singing the blues last night at the state department. "morning joe" will be right back. that first time you take a step back. i made that. with your very own online store. i sold that. and you can manage it all in one place. i built this. and it was easy, with a partner that puts you first. godaddy. why didn't we do this last year? before you were preventing migraine with qulipta®? and look at me now. you'll never truly forget migraine, but zero-migraine days are possible. don't take if allergic to qulipta®. most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and sleepiness. qulipta®. the forget-you-get migraine medicine™.

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you have $6.2 billion for ukraine. they do nothing to secure our southern border. that is just a nonstarter. the senate needs to get real. you've all seen the images at the southern border. it has to stop immediately. this government should not continue to be funded if we don't secure our border. >> mr. president, a vote against a standard short-term funding measure is a vote against paying over $1 billion in salary for border patrol and i.c.e. agents, working to track down lethal fentanyl, and tame our open

borders. >> you know, mitch is right. elise, when you defund the government, you're defunding a -- first of all, you're defunding i.c.e. you're defunding the border agents. you're defunding the agencies that have any control over what's going on. these people are fighting day and night to try to bring order out of chaos. what the house republicans are doing, according to mitch mcconnell, anybody who knows what is going on, they're about -- they talked about defunding the fbi. now, they're talking about defunding the border agents and defunding i.c.e. >> joe, you know who is going to get blamed? republicans. they are going to take the blame if this shutdown happens. >> yeah. >> and if so many american government workers don't get paychecks. if, you know, military is not funded. if so many trains aren't able to run on time, because there is a

government shutdown. it is going to be very inconvenient for some people. it is going to be life-threatening for others. look at what's happened on the border. if you take what's happening on the border seriously, as so many republicans claim they do, they need to keep the government running. >> yeah. i mean, this is the thing that we found when we shut down the government in early '96. you're trying to make a political point, and then you start finding out a week into it, two weeks into it, just how devastating it is for so many people. for republicans, for independents, for democrats. really, you're messing with the health and the safety and the welfare of hundreds of millions of people. so this is something, again, that these republicans, who think they're making a point, could actually ask people who have been through it before, that are on the hill right now, that say, this never turns out well for republicans. >> i mean, they must know that, right? >> always answer to the republican party. it's almost as if these people want to be in the minority.

i know the types who would rather be in the minority because they can be rhetorical bomb throwers and probably raise more money off of social media and online if they're just lobbing bombs and don't worry about actually governing. they're not serious people. >> all right. straight ahead, we have much more on the republican debate last night. chris christie will be our guest. and "morning joe" will be right back. only the new sleep number smart beds let you both sleep at your ideal level of comfort. your sleep number setting. and now, all of our new next gen smart beds have temperature benefits. save $400 on the new sleep number c4 smart bed. now only $1,499. sleep next level. shop now only at sleep number about a cashew farmer from mozambique named carlos.

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during the trump administration, they added $7 trillion in national debt. 7 trillion. >> donald trump is missing in action. he should be on the stage tonight. he owes it to you to defend his record. >> donald trump hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won't show up here to answer questions. you're afraid of being on this stage and defending your record. you're ducking these things. let me tell you what's going to happen, you keep doing that, no

one up here is going to call you donald trump anymore. we'll call you donald duck. >> my former running mate, donald trump, actually has a plan to start to consolidate more power in washington, d.c., consolidate more power in the executive branch. >> donald trump said vladimir putin was brilliant and a great leader. this is the person who is murdering people in his own country, and now not having enough blood, he's now going to ukraine to murder innocent civilians. >> he should be here explaining his comments to try to say that pro life protections are somehow a terrible thing. i want him to look into the eyes and tell people who have been fighting this fight for a long time. >> a few of the moments the republican presidential candidates actually took on donald trump at last night's debate. welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, september 28th. jonathan lemire and elise jordan are still with us. joining the conversation, we have msnbc contributor mike

barnicle, and president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharper. and former policy director for the 2012 mitt romney presidential campaign and romney's chief political adviser, loni chen joins us. >> what a colossal and embarrassing mess. from time to time, people were shouting over each other. >> nobody talking about -- >> there were a few takes on donald trump there. certainly nobody talking about him calling for the assassination of the chairman of the joint chiefs. even when, that morning, you had "the wall street journal" editorial page on that. no morning on the front page of the "wall street journal," you had a story about how donald trump committed such massive fraud, he may lose his license to do business in the state of new york. his primary place of business. nobody talked about that. >> you know, joe, what was interesting to me, and you pointed it out and were talking

about it last hour, is "the wall street journal" yesterday and the fact that, you know, a lot of people in politics and government have been talking about it. we've been talking about it. the threat to general milley that was made. it didn't come up last night, nor were any of the contestants, and they are contestants, asked about it last night. yesterday and over the weekend, i spoke to two people. one really skilled at executive security, working for the government, for years working for the government. he has access to intelligence reports about threats to the nation, threats to individuals, and he ended the conversation by talking about the threat to general milley with a pause. he said, you know, something bad is going to happen here. as we sit and talked this morning, you just -- when you hear a remark like that, you shutter and you know, sadly, it's probably true.

something bad is going to happen here. fermented by the former president. >> something bad is going to happen. he has 24/7 security now because of the threas streaming in. you can say the same with mitch mcconnell when donald trump put in all caps, because he supported bipartisan legislation, that mitch mcconnell has a death wish, did that in all caps. at the same time, constantly making racist comments about his run. there are so many other people who have to have security 24 hours a day because of the threats that he has made against them or the things he's said against them. again, he doesn't care. apparently, the people he is running against don't care either. let's talk strategy, reverend al. you, among all of us, are the one who has run for president before. you've been on the debate stage, controlled a lot of the pacing of those debates when you were there. what do you see missing with the republicans who were just

shouting over each other? >> well, a lot was missing. one was the obvious, that within a 24-hour cycle, you had the milley statement that clearly was something that put him under serious threat. none of them touching that. the other was that your lead opponent, the head of the ticket at this point, the projected lead of the ticket, was found to be a major fraudster. and you don't talk about how you don't want the party to be represented by someone that a judge has decided accumulated billions of dollars by defrauding people, defrauding financial institutions. you don't use that and say, is this the kind of party that we want to be? is this what we want to present to the public? you know, when i ran, i wanted to raise issues. i didn't feel iraq was right, and there were no weapons of

mass destruction. and i wanted to prove i belonged on that stage. they didn't raise issues, and they didn't prove they belonged on the stage. that's known in the white house. >> as you watched last night, did you get the sense that any of this mattered? we're talking about it because these are people who are running for president of the united states, trying to, they say, trying to defeat donald trump for the nomination. but is he so far ahead that none of this matters? or, as many have suggested, are they biding their time to see if any of these federal cases of him take him down in some way, change his support within the party? >> yeah, i think it matters, willie, in so far as there's going to be one person who is going to end up one-on-one with donald trump at the end of this. i think all of these candidates are hoping that they are that person. so this is about painting in bright lines. this is about painting a contrast. you know, the only candidate i thought who really did that, you're going to have him on in a little bit probably, is chris christie. you know, the question is whether there is any kind of constituency for what he is

trying to sell in the republican party. but, you know, it is refreshing to hear him go after the frontrunner directly. if you're going to be the person who wants to take on the frontrunner in a debate like this, in a debate over who should be the nominee of the republican party, you have to paint in bright lines. that's what chris christie did last night. nikki haley continued her strong performance, so she's going to be in the conversation. tim scott came back out and really sort of demonstrated that he was going to be a potential contender. so it'll be interesting to see. i don't think it'll impact the polling very much, but at the end of the day, there is going to be one candidate. there is going to be someone who is going to be there to take on trump. i think all of these candidates are just, you know, biding their time in thinking about it, but really making sure they're still in the conversation when the time comes. >> you're right, nikki haley did have a few strong moments, fending off a broadside from fellow south carolina's tim

scott over taxes and spending. take a look. >> as the u.n. ambassador, you literally -- >> bring it. >> -- had $50,000 on curtains and a $15 million subsidized location. >> you have bad information. first of all, i fought the gas tax in south carolina multiple times against the establishment. >> let's go to youtube. >> against the establishment. you want to know what that was? when they wouldn't pass the gas tax, the establishment in the companies wanted me to do it so much, i said, the only way i'll pass it, you give us -- >> all to do -- >> excuse me. >> youtube. >> you will give me three times the deduction in income tax, then i will look at your gas tax. >> you said yes? >> secondly -- >> so it did. >> secondly, on the $50 million -- >> nice part -- >> secondly, on the curtains, do your homework, tim. obama bought those curtains. >> send them back? >> it's in the -- it's the state department. did you send them back? you work in congress.

>> they're your curtains. >> they were there before i showed up at the residence. you are scrapping. you are scrapping right now. >> excuse me. >> you know i fought taxes. >> here's the fact, though -- >> i cut taxes. >> wait, wait. >> i -- >> a gas tax -- >> i -- >> all right. >> hear the music. >> we do not intend to go ahead like this. >> seriously, how stupid is that? first of all, the curtains deal? you're blaming a woman for buying curtains that -- >> she didn't buy. >> -- were put in during the obama administration? >> i don't know where to begin. >> elise jordan, the stupidity of that. then, when corrected, said, "you could have sent them back." when, of course, all of that is funded by congress at the end of the day. so what tim scott should have said, if he wanted to be accurate, is, "we gave barack obama $50,000."

again, it's so stupid to say barack obama, but he was taking that stupid approach. "we gave barack obama $50,000 to put curtains up at the u.n. residence, and then we didn't take it down. and" -- >> this is what their -- they're talk ag bt. >> who in tim scott's circle said, here is a good one, attack the woman for putting $50,000 of curtains up when she didn't put the $50,000 of curtains up? seriously. who? who? >> okay. point on that, joe, it is a great point. >> hold on a second. in the words of the woman at the end of the verdict, "who are these men? how stupid can they be? who are these men?" what a joke. >> elise jordan. >> it is some man who put

together a book with bad information. there is an epic "new york times" correction at the top of the story, first of all. second of all, everyone knows the custom curtains can't be returned. should have been briefed on that, too. [ laughter ] >> it just looks like tim scott, there was all this hype around him. oh, he's the nice guy. he's going to end up emerging. everyone else is going to take each other down, then he'll be standing. he's really got this shot. he's a dynamic speaker. i just haven't seen it in these past two debates. >> nobody. >> i haven't seen any there there. he just looked really petty, going after nikki haley for something that was wrong. >> a lot of hope placed in senator scott, like it was placed in governor desantis. people keep jumping around to place their hopes. maybe it is nikki haley. mike, it was though, was it not, a metaphor for the whole deal, which is, while you have a former president of the united states, guy who is beating everyone on the stage by 30 points, calling for the execution of the chairman of the joint chiefs, a guy who led an

attempted coup against the united states government, a guy with 91 felony charges against him, they're arguing about the curtains in the state department under the last administration. >> now, that same guy that you're talking about is a legally proven thief, you know, here in new york state, manhattan. the odd thing about last night, and there were many, many odd elements last night, but you're thinking about people watching, the few people who were probably watching around the country. could anyone pick out someone on that stage and say, "yeah, i could see that person as president of the united states?" arguably, maybe chris christie. other than that, no one. >> a lot of republicans would say nikki haley. >> yeah. >> i think haley had a few good moments. she was stronger in the first debate than last night, but she was solid. senator scott was invisible the first debate. that's night, it was petty moments that got him nowhere. it is interesting dynamics. there is one candidate everyone clearly dislikes, that is vivek

ramaswamy. they were happy to jump in on him every time they could. mike pence is betting so much on iowa. nothing last night came of this. we have donald trump, the sight of donald trump being in michigan. no doubt he has all this baggage, the threats against m milley, fraud in new york, indictments, but he's already moved on to the general election. he saw there was no one in the republican debate participating who would be his vice president. as bad faith of an argument as this is, he was at the non-union hall making the case about the uaw strike. he is in the battleground state of michigan, one president biden needs to win, there a day after biden was, and he is already looking to next year. that makes everyone on the stage look that much smaller. >> vaughn hillyard was at the event last night and will join us from detroit for a full recap of what was going on inside the room with the former president in a moment. you mentioned mike pence. >> oh. >> unfortunately for him, he'll

likely be remembered from last night for this moment. chris christie first took a swipe at first lady jill biden while criticizing teachers unions and public schools. dr. biden is a member of the national education association. christie's comment prompted a very awkward response from mike pence. >> when you have the president of the united states sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglhold away from the teachers union every day. they have an advocate inside the white house every day for the worst of their teachers, not for our students to be the best they can be. >> full disclosure, chris, you mentioned the president's situation. my wife isn't a member of the teachers union, but i have to admit, i've been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years. full disclosure. >> hmm. gestured. gestured to his wife there in the crowd, too. he circled back.

he had that one dialed up, wanted to punch it in there. there ya go. >> oh. >> i hope he pointed to the right side of the room. i hope he's not nearsighted, you know? >> oh. >> what was he trying to get there, willie? >> i don't know. >> speaks for itself. >> move on. >> didn't need too hear mike pence talking about -- >> what in the world was this? this was crazy town. literally, everyone is talking about nikki haley doing pretty good. yeah, she did. but everybody in the room, everybody ignoring the frontrunner, grave actions and words that were reported about him that day, and nobody brings it up. nobody brings it up. they're talking about dr. jill biden, tiktok. they're making donald duck

comments on each other. are you guys crazy? >> so -- >> and those asking the questions, too, are you crazy? you made a choice last night to completely ignore anything that had anything serious to do with the frontrunner, and there was a lot to ignore. you chose to ignore it. that was an s-show. >> the republican party, it is amazing how far they've fallen in the past decade. i have so many democrats coming up to me, you know, over the last couple of years, going, what was i thinking in 2012? talking about mitt romney's dog. what was i doing when we actually had somebody who was a serious man, who could have been a great president? we had two great choices, and we didn't appreciate it. so many people saying the same thing about john mccain in 2008. saying, we had a man who stood

up for what he believed in, for his country, put his country first, and when people tried to attack barack obama, tried to smear his name, even question his faith as a christian, it was john mccain who said, "no, no, no." not that there would be anything wrong with being a muslim, but he is not a muslim. ma'am, he is a christian. you could keep going on and on. but this is where this party is. i find it hard to believe that john mccain or mitt romney wouldn't have started a debate during that time, running against somebody like donald trump, saying, "we have a guy who has been indicted for stealing nuclear secrets. he's been indicted for stealing war plans. he's been indicted for trying to steal an election. we have evidence that he tried to actually suppress evidence. he's already been found guilty of massive business fraud, so

massive that they're going to likely strip him, a judge said, of him being able to conduct business in his home state of new york, or his business' home state." you could go on and on. being accused by a judge of raping a woman. could go on and on, but i don't need to go on and on. it is shocking, though, that you had -- there was an alternate universe last night. you have all of these thing, and people wanting to replace that guy, not bringing any of it up. >> well, here's the thing, you have all of those legal issues, and there are many, many legal issues. you have the character questions and the contrast with folks like john mccain and certainly mitt romney is manifest. there's not a whole lot more you need to say about that. let's just come back to the fact that what you have is the frontrunner of the republican party is someone who really has policy positions that are fundamentally, like, not all that conservative. first of all, you have a guy who

added trillions to debt and deficit, which is an issue that came up last night. the ukraine situation. let's talk about the ukraine situation now. you have a frontrunner for the republican nomination who is talking about backing away from america's commitment to europe and america's commitment, not just to europe, but to its own national security. this is about what we need to do to protect the homeland, as well. it's not about this esoteric conversation about helping some country thousands of miles away. so these positions, these policy positions, and people are willing to sort of look past this point. so i do think there is this really different kind of party that you're seeing now, where some of these traditional positions, and i call them traditional positions. really, it's about the contrast between two different visions of governance in this country. if you're not going to have that contrast, if you're not going to be out there talking about these positions, then it's not clear to me why it is you're running for president. >> well, and it's not clear what

donald trump stands for because he didn't even have in 2020, didn't even have a platform for his party. because it's not about the party, it's not about positions, it's not about balancing the budget, it's not about protecting national security, it's not about bringing down inflation, it's about donald trump. >> yeah. yes. >> now and forever. >> lanhee chen, thank you very much. joining us now from detroit, nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. he was there for trump's speech last night at a non-union auto parts company. so did he call for anyone's execution or anything? >> reporter: there was no mention of any of his indictments or him being found liable for financial fraud. there was no talk of execution from that stage last night. frankly, none of the other gop rivals, their names didn't come out of his mouth either. he gave a passing reference to

the fact the gop debate was happening 2,300 miles away, saying none of them would be his vp, and they were all running for secretary of something. frankly, from here watching it, it felt like watching a minor league game on the other side of the country. where the results of it aren't exactly clear. the extent to which the standings matter, not exactly clear. and questions about whether any of the players will get promoted to take on donald trump is not clear. but donald trump squared up his focus on joe biden. we saw joe biden's low economic approval ratings here, and that is where, for joe biden, the democrat, this is sort of difficult terrain here. he's tethered to some sort of reality that is data, conomic data here. for donald trump, however, when he took the stage last night, there was none of that, because he made two claims. number one, he told the folks in the room and here in michigan that during his administration, he had saved the auto industry. if it weren't for him, it would have been over. that they were on knees, grasping for their last breath before he came into office.

of course, that was not reality. there were plans during his administration to close plants in ohio, michigan and maryland, and jobs remain. auto manufacturing jobs remained throughout the course of his administration. then he made the second claim, that the picketing that is happening behind us now is really all worthless, and that any compensation agreement that the uaw leadership comes to with auto executives won't matter at all. why? the only thing that matters, donald trump says, is voting for and getting donald trump back into the white house. take a listen. >> by most estimates, under biden's electric vehicle mandate, 40% of all u.s. auto jobs will disappear. think of this. in one or two years. one or two years. that's what you have to talk about, not that you're getting x amount of dollars an hour. doesn't matter what the hell you're getting an hour. get your union guys, your leaders, to endorse me. okay? i'll take care of the rest.

>> reporter: to translate, guys, donald trump last night, "i alone can fix it." of course, there's a conversation to be had about the impact of the electric vehicle injury here, but donald trump sidesteps any reality, doesn't make mention of the $3.5 billion electrical vehicle battery plant currently under construction in michigan, in large part due to investments by the biden administration. for donald trump, his claim over the next 14 months, if he is the republican nominee, is i saved you once and i'll do it again. that is what the democrats will be up against over the next year if donald trump, in fact, ascends to the nomination. >> we have to point out, there is no electric vehicle mandate from the biden administration. the administration set a goal, that half of american vehicles will electric by 2030. it is not a mandate. nbc's vaughn hillyard in detroit for us this morning, thanks so much. rev, we have a contrast of two candidates in michigan this week. tuesday, president of the united states on the picket line with

auto workers. donald trump at a non-union shop last night saying, i'll take the support of the union workers, probably upset they were hanging out with biden. the detroit news was at trump's event, going up to people holding union workers for trump signs, saying, are you a union worker? no, i'm not, actually. another said, union auto workers for trump. are you? no, i'm not an auto worker. who knows who was in the invitation only room. what's your sense of the contrast that biden was trying to draw this week? >> first of all, i don't know why we'd be shocked that he would defraud the public, people with sigs saying they were union workers when they weren't. when a judge said he defrauded insurance companies and banks out of literally billions of dollars. it only reaffirms his fraudster status. i think, though, when you see the contrast, you have joe biden on a picket line, first time in

american history a president of the united states has done that. and here's a guy that goes into anon-union hall to talk to non-union members about why he, the fraudster, ought to be able to give four more years to defraud the united states of democratic principles and elections. and i think the contrast was absolutely striking. the only comeback they have is joe biden is too old. oh, he's only three years older than donald trump, and he knows he didn't run against a guy he didn't run against, and he knows that world war ii was settled in 1945. >> that's a contrast certainly the white house is happy to make. they like the images of president biden on the picket line versus whatever the crowd donald trump addressed last night. we said earlier, many ways, the trump campaign starting the general election this week. joe and mika, so is the white house in many ways. not just the appearance on the picket line. today, president biden is going

to be in arizona, another battleground state. he's going to be paying tribute to sensor mccain in tempe, arizona, and give a series of speeches about how important it is to protect the nation's democracy and the threat that maga and the trump movement poses toward it. >> well, i think it is important. the contrast already in michigan, let's look what happened over the past couple days in michigan. you have joe biden, the first president to be on the picket lines, and doing it for the uaw. then you have donald trump going in and talking to non-union members, and telling the union members that they were wasting their time picketing. wasting their time picketing. they were getting nothing done. they needed to just vote for him. check for joe biden. now, let's see what happens in arizona. that's what he needs to do day in and day out.

still ahead on "morning joe," while the house gop remains divided on how to avoid a looming government shutdown, republicans on the oversight committee will try to make the case that an impeachment inquiry into president biden holds merit at their first hearing today. two democrats on the panel will join us to talk about it straight ahead on "morning joe."

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and when you give by credit card, we'll send you this exclusive canvas grocery bag to show you are a part of a movement of supporters working together to help end hunger. i have people that i can trust. i have, i have hope. please call now or make your monthly donation at helpfeedingamerica.org. working together we can end hunger in america. half past the hour. the republican-led house oversight committee today will hold its first impeachment hearing on president biden. yesterday, the house ways and means committee voted along party lines to release 700 pages of documents from irs whistleblowers regarding hunter biden's business dealings. republican committee chair jason smith of missouri pointed to a june 6th, 2017, what's app

message in which hunter biden wrote to a business associate that he was not willing to, quote, sign over my family's brand. smith cited the message as, quote, evidence of corruption and misconduct. nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles followed up on that, seeking clarification and explanation about the timing of that message, leading to this exchange with the republican congressman. >> the what's app message you have, i believe is dated june 6th, 2017. joe biden is not vice president or even a candidate for president at that time. so where is the direct connection to some sort of criminal malfeasance within these two pieces of evidence? >> well, i think the facts speak for themselves. there's over 700 pages of examples of where people should be very concerned. >> can you explain the timing then of the august 6th what's app message? why is that evidence of some wrongdoing? >> i'm not an expert on the timeline. i would love to have president

biden and his family to tell us about all the timelines because it's really, really unfortunate that we see so many meetings and so many phone calls that involved around official activity that the vice president has been participating in, and then big sums of money follows later. >> but if he is not if the or the vice president at that time, where is the wrongdoing? he wasn't even a candidate for president at that time. >> he was a candidate -- >> on -- in -- on august 6th of 2017? >> what source are you with? >> i'm with nbc. >> so, apparently, you'll never believe us. >> i'm not saying i don't believe you. i'm asking you a very direct question. you presented a piece of evidence that you say came on august 6th, 2017, that demonstrates that joe biden was using political influence to help his son. if he wasn't a political figure at that time, the first what's app message you put up, where

you talk about the brand -- and i'm here. i'm completely open-minded about this. i'm asking you, specifically, how does that demonstrate that there's some sort of political influence being put over him if, at that time, he is not a political -- he is not an elected official? >> i'm definitely not going to pinpoint one item. i think we've outlined. >> you presented it. it was the first thing you brought up. >> apparently, you don't agree with it. >> it's not that i don't agree. i want you to explain it. >> i'll take the next question. >> the man you heard running circles around that question, capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles joins us now live. good morning. tell us about the backstory of this what's app message. you were asking a fact-based question, that the member of congress didn't consider the date, that joe biden held no power at that time. for viewers, what is the story, the backstory? >> willie, i've been obsessed with this idea of timeline when it comes to the information and

the evidence the oversight ways and means and judiciary committee put out as it relates to hunter biden. time and time again, they keep attempting to establish this connection between joe biden and his son, and a lot of the information they presented comes during that period of time where joe biden is not the president or vice president of the united states. he is not the president of the united states. in the case of the what's app message, he isn't even a candidate for president. they demonstrate this, though, as a way to show hunter biden was trading on his father's name around the country, and somewhere along the line, there was then this extension of this financial benefit that joe biden himself benefitted from. so what i was simply asking there is, you know, if you think this is an example of the unfair use of an office, of political -- of a political office being used at the benefit of someone in your family, what does this timeline tell us about that? you know, they really didn't have an answer for that.

you know, i think in certain aspects, it's just kind of throwing stuff at the wall, making it look as though there is a real problem here. when you actually drill down on the timeline of all of it and how it is connected to both the stuff that hunter biden has done, what joe biden was doing at that time, there isn't really that specific connection that would demonstrate a high crime or misdemeanor. keep in mind, that would be the bar they have to cross in terms of an impeachment inquiry if they moved to articles of impeachment. the other point, too, willie, is that the other piece of evidence they provided yesterday was an email from a career prosecutor in the department of justice that came from these irs whistleblowers, that suggested that joe biden should not be a part of the investigation. political figure one should be removed from the conversation of a search warrant that they were looking for at that time. that particular piece of -- that email was dated in august of 2020. they were suggesting that the department of justice was somehow giving hunter biden

preferential treatment on behalf of joe biden. in august of 2020, bill barr was the attorney general. donald trump was the president. so they keep talking over and over again about these two-tiered systems of justice, but then they're providing evidence that comes from a period of time where the trump justice department was in charge. again, i am open-minded to this. if they are able to provide that direct piece of evidence that would explain to us why they believe that joe biden was benefitting from the work of his son, present it. at this point, at least i haven't seen that specific smoking gun. >> well, you sort of answered my next question for you, ryan, which is, in a couple hours in the building behind you, the overnight committee is going to hold an impeachment hearing led by james comer, who famously said, well, there's a lot of smoke, no fire yet, but we believe there's a will of smoke. that seems to be the theme of this investigation. have you, in your reporting as an excellent reporter, have you found anything that shows you a connection between hunter

biden's business dealings and the president of the united states? >> there isn't that hard piece of evidence that, if you presented it in a court of law, would convict someone. i think that's the important part of this. and i do believe that there are two different conversations to be having here. there is an ethical, moral and political conversation, and then there is a legal question. when you're talking about moving to articles of impeachment, you know, i think we're all not naive to the fact that impeachment is a political exercise, but you really do need the legal evidence to try and nail that down in a way that would really allow you to use the force of the government to potentially remove a president from office. you know, i think there are a lot of questions about what hunter biden was doing around the world, and perhaps doing it in the name of his father or under the banner of the biden family, but there has to be more than just joe biden was on a speakerphone when hunter biden called him -- i'm sorry -- hunter biden was on a

spo speakerphone when he called his father around his business associates. you need more than that to establish a direct connection. the impeachment inquiry is going to collect bank records from many of the biden family associates. james biden, the president's brother, and hunter biden. perhaps there is where we're going to be able to find the smoking gun piece of evidence, if there is a bank transfer that goes into a bank specifically controlled by the president, perhaps then we would have that answer. but, again, and this is why i say i'm obsessed with this, we go back to the timeline. even if something like that is established, if joe biden isn't the president or vice president at the time, is that illegal? you know, there's going to be a lot of things they bring up here today during this hearing, but i think we do need to drill down on the specifics of it and how all those things connect in this web that they're trying to build here. >> nbc's ryan nobles doing a great job explaining all of this for us. thanks so much. we appreciate it. joining us now, two democratic members of the oversight committee, dan goldman

of new york and jared moskowitz of florida. good morning. good to see you. congressman goldman, i'll start with you. just based on what you heard yesterday from ryan nobles asking one of your colleagues, republican colleagues, about this what's app message, dated june of 2017, at which time joe biden held no power in the government, what is your sense of what we're going to see today. 10:00 eastern. you'll be in the room. >> i think that exchange perfectly encapsulates the investigation. it has been from the get-go an effort by the republicans to conflate, to use innuendo, to misrespect, exaggerate and flat out lie to try to lump joe biden into some sort of wrongdoing on behalf of his son. and the evidence is not there. whether it's the timeline, whether it's the actual direct evidence that you would need to have, certainly to prove a case in court, but also just to prove

a case to the public of the united states. and the reality is, what we're going to have today is a hearing that's called the basis for the impeachment inquiry. i would think the basis would be the eight months of investigation they've already had, that we don't need to have another hearing with no witness who has any direct knowledge of any of the events that we're talking about, to form the basis of the impeachment inquiry. it just goes to show you, willie, you know, obviously, i worked on the 2019 ukraine impeachment of donald trump. we had 17 fact witnesses for depositions, public hearings with 12 fact witnesses, who all had direct knowledge and expertise about the issue we were discussing. they can't bring a single fact witness to their first hearing, and the reason is, they don't have any fact witnesses who have any evidence of wrongdoing by joe biden. >> congressman moskowitz, let's

talk about the witnesses they are bringing to the hearing today. conservative legal scholar, remember on fox news, a forensic accountable, fox news contributor, and ilene o'connor, who worked in the bush administration but was a member of the trump transition team. what to you expect to hear from these three individuals, and do you think they are, in any way, shape or form, credible witnesses? >> no, my colleagues across the aisle assembled a wonderful fox news panel today for our hearing, because this is a tv drama. it's the worst tv drama on television now. season two is getting picked up of the "real house republicans of oversight." as my colleague, representative goldman said, we're going to hear the same thing we've heard for the last eight months. it's a regurgitation, no new facts or evidence. the chairman of the ways and means gets confused on who was president in 2017. it was donald trump, not joe

biden. dan and i would like to forget donald trump was president in 2017, but this is more of the same. they're hitting the video game reset button. they're trying to rebrand it because it hasn't worked. they haven't been able to convince the american people that joe biden did anything wrong, because he didn't. there's no evidence. we'll hear more about hunter. we're going to see more ridiculous things coming out of marjorie taylor greene about hunter biden, more photos. i expect the fox news panel to give the republicans what they want to hear, which is why they're there, right? look, myself and all my other colleagues, all my democratic colleagues are going to talk about what the hearing is really about, which is evening the score for donald trump. donald trump is beaming this down to republicans on the committee. he has 100% of all the indictments of an american president. he said we'll be tired of winning. yeah, he is winning in indictments and impeachments. he wants joe biden to get in trouble so he doesn't run against a guy with a cleaner record than him.

>> congressman goldman, the contrast of this committee trying to muddy up joe biden with no mud, i mean, there's nothing there. he wasn't even in office at the timeline they're using. their own candidate for president, most if not all of the republicans on this committee has endorsed a man facing 91 felony counts, four trials, and his hometown judge just said that he had committed massive fraud. i mean, as you sit there, do you see the contrast that is so striking, that these people could be supporting a man for president while they try to fabricate and redo timelines, to try to muddy up the sitting president? >> absolutely, rev. when you look at the allegations, they are things that donald trump did as president. the republicans are trying to lump joe biden in with donald trump to create some false

equivalency. when you take a look at what's going on this week, it perfectly encapsulates what donald trump has done to this party. he has declared that he wants an impeachment of joe biden, so the house republicans jump. they do what he wants. this is the same investigation that president zelenskyy refused to do, but the house republicans don't have president zelenskyy's backbone. secondly, they are barrelling us headlong into a government shutdown, single-handedly. the house republicans have done nothing to fund the government past saturday. that's because donald trump also says he wants a shutdown. you have marjorie taylor greene linking the two. donald trump is a mob boss down in mar-a-lago, directing his soldiers what to do here in the house. and they are doing exactly what he says. that's what this is all about. they are just going to continue to fabricate evidence as long as they can, and we are -- it's our

job on the democratic side to point out the facts and the evidence that actually exist, or the lack of evidence in this case. >> all right. democratic members of the house oversight committee, congressman dan goldman and jared moskowitz, thank you, both very much for being on this morning. >> thank you. turning back to last night's republican debate, joining us now is one of the candidates who was on the stage at the reagan library last night. former new jersey governor chris christie. chris, thanks for being on this morning. i have to ask you -- >> thank you. >> -- what the heck was that? what happened last night? donald trump is the frontrunner. he is the former president of the united states. a judge found him liable for massive fraud, and he called for the execution of the chairman of the joint chiefs. how is it that nobody in the

room brought that up last night? >> well, mika, what i did last night was take on donald trump directly as i have all throughout. i took him on on ukraine. i took him on on his relationship with putin. i took him on in his failure to show up. i took him on on $7 trillion added to the national debt. i took him on on failure to build the wall in mexico. so, you know, i only have so much time, mika. i hit all of those things. maybe some of the points you wanted to have hit weren't hit, but i was responsive to the questions asked. >> he called for the execution of mark milley. he called for the death of -- >> mika, mika, i talked about that this week. i talked about that this week on social media. i talked about it on other interviews i did beforehand. it's hard for me to believe that i would come onto your show this morning, after what i did and said last night, and then you have criticisms that i didn't go

after donald trump enough. you know, maybe it's just too early out here in california for me. >> no, no, no. >> i didn't quite hear what you were saying, but come on. >> no, no, chris, it's not just you. i'm asking, what was going on in that room? that that never came -- like, these two major headlines about donald trump, one that's absolutely frightening, okay, what is going on in that room with all of the republican candidates? the mod -- what is happening? what universe are we in that that doesn't come up? i'm not specifically pointing at you, but doesn't it seem strange? >> look, the questions were never asked, mika. i'm not going to sit up here and be defense counsel for the other six candidates, because i did my job last night. i was the only one who went directly after donald trump on all the issues i just spoke about. i hope that you get to have each one of them on and ask them why they won't do it. i'll tell you why they won't do

it, because they all want to either be trump's running mate or in a cabinet if he becomes the nominee or the president. so i have no interest in that. i've been offered all those positions before by him, with the exception of vice president, and i turned them down. i have no interest in that. i want to be president of the united states. that's why i was making the case about american involvement in ukraine last night. why i was making the case on why our national debt is unsustainable. why i was making the case last night about the education system and how it is failing our children and their families. so that's why i was out there making those cases i could last night on the questions i was asked. i was not going to get involved in the food fight that went on, like, between nikki haley and tim scott about drapes in the residence of the u.n. ambassador. i don't think that's something that's going to improve the lives of the american people. >> just crazy. >> so i decided to stick on other issues. >> yeah, that was nuts, as we pointed out a few minutes ago. governor, let's try it here. i know you've talked about it

earlier in the week, but for our audience, the morning after the debate, the former president of the united states suggested this week the chairman of the joint chiefs, four star general milley, should be executed for treason for calling china around the 2020 election, and january 6th, to tell them the nuclear arsenal was secure. is that disqualifying of donald trump? >> well, it's just another thing, willie, that disqualifies him from being an appropriate candidate for president of the united states for our party and for being president himself at all. look, mark milley has given this country extraordinary service, and i have great respect for him. the fact is, that this is a pattern with if you don't agree with everything he says, you don't do everything he wants you to do, whether it's legal or illegal, ethical or unethical, right or wrong, he will then go after you, and last night after the debate was to every, the proof

of who made the greatest impact was that donald trump was posting on truth social about me and only me, not the other candidates in this race. he's the one -- i'm the one he's the most afraid of, and whathe said about mark milley is reprehensible, but it's not surprising because he's call on that for other people before. it's wrong. it needs to be called out as wrong. i'm doing that this week and i'm doing it again this morning, but i wish i could say i was shocked but i'm not shocked because this is the type of child -- absolute child, he is. that he uses words like that and doesn't care about the import of those words, all he cares about is what he sees in the mirror every morning. >> okay. next year, 2024, lightning strikes. the mets win the world series and chris christie is elected president of the united states. what are you going to do about migrants are portland, maine to the pacific ocean? what are you going to do?

>> well, look, mike. the first thing we need to do is to make sure that at the southern border, we are doing much more than we are doing right now to interdict fentanyl. 110,000 american deaths from overdose last year, and we need to do much better. it's not enough to just do that on the fentanyl and drug abuse problem. we need to provide treatment much more broadly, make it much more available. it's a disease, and a disease that can be treated and should be treated, and if we are the pro-life party, as i said last night, then you have to be pro-life for the entire life, and secondly what we need to do is to set up an immigration law that gives people a smart, secure, and sure way to enter this country. if we're going to grow the american economy, we need to have immigrants coming to this country legally who can provide great service to our economy and our people while at the same time enhancing their lives and the livelihoods of their

families, and you need a president who's willing to step up to the plate and get that done, and i talked about both of those things last night on the debate stage, mike, and i believe them. we need to make sure we continue to have legal, smart, effective immigration for people who want to come here and make a life for themselves and contribute to the american economy and our way of life, but we have to score the southern border because we have to lower the amount of drugs coming into this country, but at the same time, have to provide treatment for the disease of addiction, and i believe in this very strongly. you all know that. this is a disease just like -- just like heart disease, just like diabetes, just like cancer and we have to stop stag stigmatizing it and start treating it because we won't fix it by interdicting drugs. we'll do it by providing treatment for the disease to lower demand here as well.

>> governor christie, you've made it clear that stopping donald trump is important to the future of american democracy, and last night on that debate stage, you and nikki haley seemed to be the only candidates who had the command presence and could really take on donald trump and also take on joe biden. if it all is going to come down to new hampshire, and you know this better than anyone having run -- you ran a great campaign in 2016. how -- are you getting the sense the field is going to be winnowed, and if you're down before new hampshire, would you drop out of the race? >> no. i have every intention of winning new hampshire and i wouldn't drop out before that, and i don't think i'm going to see any evidence that would compel me to do so, but what i would also say to you is at least what i see up in new hampshire is donald trump in almost every poll, well below 40% in new hampshire. what we see in new hampshire is people of all kinds engaging in

the debate that's going on up there, and in the electoral process. we have great crowds at our town hall meetings, and we'll be up there morning in new hampshire to do another town hall on friday night, and what we need for people is to say, think about what that debate would have been like last night if i was not on the stage. think about what that debate would have been like. no one would have been willing to take on donald trump as pointedly and directly as i was, and so that's why the rnc has raised it, and 40% more donors between now and november 8th are needed to be on that do it stage. go to chrischristie.com. i'm not asking for money. i need those donors to stay on the stage to continue to bring the case against him. i'll bring it there. i'll bring it in new hampshire and south carolina, and when we win new hampshire, we'll shock the world and turn this race on its head.

>> 2024 presidential candidate, chris christie. thank you so much. we appreciate it. >> it's early, willie. i had absolutely no idea. none at all. >> it's even earlier for you. >> what time is it, willie? i have no damn idea. thank you. >> back to bed with you. >> thank you, guys. >> thanks so much. rev, so that wasn't so hard. i asked him a question about general milley and he said it was reprehensible and he's correct in saying it, but i'm not surprised. this is what this guy does. >> i think that he is probably the only one -- maybe he and haley that has really proven they belong in this race in terms of being taken seriously so far in the debates. i'm not saying -- i disagree with his politics, but you cannot say he's not qualified to run for president and to govern. i'm very curious though on if

lightning doesn't strike using mike's term, will he run for senate for the seat of bob menendez? i think that a lot of people in the region that he and i both live in are wondering whether or not he could step into the new jersey race and be very formidable for the democrats. a lot of people that know in new jersey on the democratic side is sweating with the idea that christie may be a formidable candidate for that seat. >> and governor christie said he's not, but he's running for president and doesn't want to project he might be looking elsewhere. we'll see. >> yeah. yep, yep, and to my questions, he said the questions weren't asked which is a great point. >> true. >> reverend al, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. >> thank you. coming up, we'll talk to the writer of a new piece in "vanity fair" on robert kennedy jr. who says kennedy bullied him during

the interview, and that's just ahead on "morning joe." that's t ahead on "morning joe."

excuse me. excuse me. thank you for speaking. >> chairman -- >> it can't be both sides. >> gentlemen, you'll have your turn. >> one of the challengers -- >> can we please focus on the issues that matter? everybody knows that. >> if i may address -- >> we need to be holding joe

biden accountable. >> i actually agree with ron desantis. >> stop speaking at the same time. >> so if you couldn't understand any of that, you were not alone. the republican candidates on stage at the ronald reagan presidential library last night, mostly focused on attacking each other rather than the front-runner in the polls, donald trump, talking over each other a lot. trump was instead on stage by himself in michigan speaking to a crowd of mostly non-union autoworkers, and criticizing the strike against detroit's big three. that's a tight shot there. meanwhile in washington, it appears the far-right republicans in the house are ready to shut down the government over one key funding item. we'll tell you what that is just ahead. >> yeah. so willie, the debate last night, we're going to get to it and play more of the clips, but just overall -- >> a mess. >> i had one republican leader,

one contributor, one of everything after another, after another. just -- they were texting and calling all saying the same thing. what a mess. what an embarrassment. what a disaster. >> it was. it was a lot of what we just showed in that clip, talking over each other, the moderators having lost control of things. some very cringey, awkward moments. nikki haley, if you wanted to pick somebody, she had several adult moments, but for the most part, you're watching and thinking, wow. this is as some people put it, the kid's table where they're all fighting for second place as donald trump sits comfortably at home, and he watched that -- you watch it and you ask, why would donald trump ever participate? with the lead he has, why would he step into that fight? and i think a lot of people, the analysis you're going through the usual emotions of a debate, like, who won? who lost, and what should we expect tonight? i guess the only question is,

does any of it really matter? some things could change, of course. we've got four major federal indictments, 91 felony charges against donald trump, and people are waiting to see if that impacts donald trump. did anybody win last night or stand out? we all watched and we could say nikki haley did pretty well. chris christie, the only one going after donald trump. i did note that one thing did come up. the former president of the united states called effectively -- suggested i should say, for the execution of general milley, and that didn't come up at the debate. i could be curious to hear what those candidates think about that. >> i didn't come up, wasn't asked, but that's really par for the course. >> that's what john faust was talking about yesterday. we -- the media has to cover the stories that are news. >> right. >> and the fact that that wasn't asked or the massive fraud liability that went down yesterday, i mean, this is one

universe versus another that actually lives on facts. these candidates weren't asked about anything that -- >> i mean, you had the milley basically invitation to assassinate. you had donald trump looking like he was going to get shut down from doing business in the state of new york, and you had donald trump also saying that he was going to shut down nbc and comcast, and jonathan lemire, that's something that those two really extreme things that he put on truth social were what "the wall street journal" editorial page directly -- guys and gals, if we keep going in this direction, the guy who said these things will be your nominee. if he's your nominee, there's a reason why the people in biden world think they're going to

win, and you looked on that stage and everybody yelling at each other last night. i do think that nikki haley probably stood out among the best, but it's so split up. it's just like 2016. they're splitting themselves up, you know, 5% here, 7% there, 9% there, and for people who say it doesn't make a difference whether it's split or not, there's a cbs poll that i'm sure you're aware of. i don't know if everybody watching is, but in the early states, iowa and new hampshire, in both states you have about 75% of the voters who say they're open to voting for somebody other than donald trump, that they're looking -- a large chunk of them, about a third saying they will not vote for donald trump. there was an opportunity, and

last night was another blown chance to get those people united behind somebody that can actually beat the guy who says the chairman of the joint chiefs needs to be assassinated. >> last night was chaotic. it was messy. it was sloppy. a lot of major topics were not addressed. vivek ramaswamy had the line of the night, thanked someone for speaking while he was interrupting. that's what it was because everyone was just shouting at each other. it was hard to hear what anyone was saying last night, and there was no breakthrough moment. there were some cringey moments and bad one-liners we can get to later, but there is to your point, joe, about the polls, there is an appetite seemingly to have someone else step forward to be the trump alternative, and for a long time desantis of florida, and he's in a free fall. there's nothing to suggest his slide is going to stop. there's chatter that maybe nikki haley can be that person because

in the head to head polling she fares the best against president biden. maybe she would be that choice and she has done pretty well in the debates. i would argue better in the first one than last night, but she's the adult in the room, but with trump's lead so big, are republican donors going to throw their money at haley right now if potentially it's a waste? do we see some of these candidates drop out potentially to give haley a chance to be the alternative? at least right now, no one is, and no one is, and the more the candidates stay in, the more divided it gets and the better, of course, it is for donald trump. >> yeah, and elise jordan, as far as lines of the night go, i've got to say nikki haley borrowing from "happy gilmore" was a great move after vivek's answers and basically uses that line. every time you talk, i feel a little more dumb. you're rewarded no points in the head, and god have mercy on your

soul. that's basically what she did. let's give her props at least for, you know, borrowing from "happy gilmore." >> governor haley had the best sense of reading the room, actually speaking and following the flow of where the arguments were going, and answering questions than any other candidate on stage, and i think that's where some of the other candidates just really fell flat because they stuck to their rehearsed lines and the moment might not have been there. . the timing was off. some of the more uncomfortable exchanges, i just really hope that mike pence's line about his wife was not pre-planned just because it was so incredibly awkward. just didn't need to know about his life with his wife to say that was a bit of a distraction, but, you know, nikki haley really emerged somewhat the winner of a very weak night

overall, and would it be in the republican party's best sense to coalesce around one candidate and for donors to get behind one candidate if they do not support donald trump? yes. is that going to happen? i doubt that that common sense will take hold. >> well, the thing that's more troubling as neither the candidates nor anybody in that room addressed the many el-- el el here's that moment. i want to talk to you on the other side. take a look. >> the answer is i have a radical idea for the republican party. we need to win elections, and part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young americans where they are. so when i get into office -- i have been very clear. kids under the age of social -- under the age of 16 should not be using addictive social media. we're only going to ever get to declaring independence from china which i favor, if we

actually win. >> this is infuriating because tiktok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have. >> yes, it is. >> and once you've got -- every time i hear you, i feel a little bit dumber for what you say because i can't believe, here you've got a tiktok situation. what they're doing is -- 150 million people are on tiktok. that means they can get your contacts. they can get your emails, text messages. they can get all of these things. >> this is very important for our party. >> they know what they're doing, and what we've seen is you've gone and helped china build medicines in china and not america. you want kids to get on the social media that's dangerous for all of us. when you were in business with the chinese and gave hunter biden $5 million, we can't trust you. we can't trust you. >> you got to love that. vivek's logic. now i'm going to ban moonshine when i become president of the united states. >> oh my god. >> but i'm going to drink this

jug of moonshine right here because it will help me relate to the kids a little bit better. >> charlie sykes -- >> how can you say i'm going to ban tiktok? the commies are behind it and hey, everybody, i'm going to win by using tiktok. it doesn't work, honey. it doesn't work. >> charlie, my bigger concern about the whole thing is why nope asked or spoke about the republican front-runner, talking about assassinating general milley. like, how does that get avoided by everybody in the room? >> yeah. how does -- how was that not the first question? they didn't talk about his felonies, fraud, or any of these things, and look. where do i go to get the two hours of my life back? that was an absurd farce. it was a nonevent, but it was also completely pointless, and i think you just put your finger on it. you have this debate -- a

presidential debate. donald trump is sitting back. he's not there, and nobody really laid a glove on him. they continued to go through the motions. so unless we want to engage in fan fiction, i think the reality is that that debate did not mean anything. it's not going to change anything. the republican field is very, very unlikely to coalesce around anyone other than donald trump, and i think that that has to settle in as the moment. so, you know, the larger picture is they should have asked about general milley, but at some point, you would think that republicans are looking at that, this incredible clown show, the chaotic mess up there and saying, this is the best that we can do? and that we're knock on wood, just the fact that we are this far away from nominating somebody who's been charged with 90 felonies, who's called for the death penalty for his political enemies and critics, shutting down the media, and somebody who is, you know, on a daily basis, decompensating on

social media. so here we are, and, you know, to the point that this feels a lot like 2016, i'm already having the ptsd flashbacks except this is like the lower, dumber version, and by the way, joe, i think that that quote is from "billy madison." >> yes, it is. you are right. >> it's a "billy madison" quote. one of my favorites of all-time. >> it was, and it was delivered by the great jim downey, legendary "snl" writer. we'll be on youtube watching that in the next break. none of the candidates were asked about mark milley, a four-star general who spent his life in the military, trump said he deserves to be executed for prison to let them know the nuclear arsenal were secure.

general milley though was asked about it in an interview for "60 minutes." >> president trump recently said that your dealings with china were so egregious that in times gone by, the punishment would have been death. >> that's right he said that. that's correct. >> he is suggesting that you should be punished by death. the former commander in chief to his top former military adviser. >> i'm a soldier. i have been faithful to the constitution of the united states. my family has made sacrifices for this country, and my family before them. there's 2.1 million of us in uniform, and the american people can take it to the bank that all of us -- every single one of us from private to general were loyal to that constitution and we'll never turn our back on it,

no matter what the threats or humiliation. if we're willing to die for that document -- if we're willing to deploy to combat, if we're willing to lose an arm, a leg, an eye to protect and support and defend that document and the american people, then we're willing to live for it too. i'm not going to comment directly on those things, but i can tell you that this military, this soldier, me, will never turn my back on the constitution. >> was there anything inappropriate or treasonous about the call us made to china? >> absolutely not. zero, none. >> it seems almost odd to ask this question because the former commander in chief seems to be calling for your execution. are you worried about your safety? >> i've got adequate safety precautions. i wish those comments had not been made, but they were, and we'll take appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family. >> so that's a pretty extraordinary exchange there to see four-star general mark milley sitting there in his dress with the bars and he can

say, you can say what you want to, you can post on your social media site and call for me to be executed, but i and everybody i serve with and the millions of americans who serve are going to continue to defend the constitution. that's our job. that's all noise. i'll take care of my safety. keep going with this. we're not going to change what we do. >> yeah. i mean, it is -- it's so discouraging and donald trump has sent that signal out. just like "the wall street journal" editorial page yesterday, and many others have said yesterday that he's sending message out, and certainly it is possible that some crank is going to follow through on that. it's the same thing that he said about mitch mcconnell. it's the same thing he said about -- well, about me. it's the same thing he said about so many people, and it does -- it is changing general milley's life right now that he's going to need security around the clock for quite some

time because donald trump knows exactly what he's doing. that's why he starts talking about somebody being executed or with mitch mcconnell, you know, when he says a death wish in all caps, it's -- again, it's all a message, and yet -- and yet charlie sykes, nobody at fox news last night thought that was worthy of a question to ask even if their partners at "the wall street journal" did that morning. nobody thought it necessary to ask about banning nbc news once donald trump became president of the united states again, if he got elected again. >> viable for fraud? >> nobody thought about asking. it was on the front page of all the newspapers including "the wall street journal" yesterday morning, which was donald trump is probably going to be stopped

from doing business in new york state because he acted in such a fraudulent way in overvaluing his properies for bank loans. those were all -- i mean, those things were all teed up. i'm not really sure how those questions couldn't have been asked, but more to the point, i think it's just absolute insanity that the people that are running against donald trump didn't bring it up on stage. >> well, this is the -- this is our life for the last seven years, the last eight years, isn't it? "the wall street journal" editorial is spending a moment that they were shocked to discover that all this is going on. it's interesting the anti-trump folks were going on saying, you understand this guy is completely crazy and deranged and we're about to renominate him, and, like, how did we get here? we got here by exactly the kind of thing you're describing, denial, avoidance, irrationalization, and we're

going into this alternative reality where these things do not exist. they don't exist for that audience. he didn't say that mark milley should be executed, you know, a federal judge shutting the business down doesn't even register. the 91 felony charges don't even register, and i guess, you know, this is -- i'm glad you're still focusing on this because, you know, there is a sense that we have become numb to this, that he has normalized the language of political violation, and normalizing the language of political violence can normalize violence. he's gone from lock her up to hang mike pence to let's execute general milley. this is intentional and it is highly dangerous, and there's no reason to believe that he will not escalate this, and unfortunately, there's no reason to believe that there are not people out there who are hanging on his words and might act on them, so when you have general milley sitting there saying, i have to take the steps to defend myself and my family, this is the reality.

you have people like mitt romney spending $5,000 a week on security for their family. this is the world we are living in, and we cannot allow ourselves to become numbed to it or to the threat that it pose. >> no, we can't. >> or to the constitutional order. the shutdown in a matter of hours, but today house republicans will focus their time on threatening president biden with impeachment. >> they're not sure why or how or what the evidence actually is that will prove high crimes or misdemeanors. >> but could be shutting down the government in a matter of hours. that's in a matter of hours. >> i feel a little bit dumber. >> at no point in your response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.

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in just hours, the republican-led house oversight committee will hold its first impeachment hearing on president biden. "the new york times" reports they're eyeing potential charges of bribery and abuse of power while trying to tie the president to his son, hunter biden's foreign business dealings. >> yeah, but you see, they haven't been able to do that. they've tried time and again, and they keep looking stupid. i mean, the guy running the committee was asked, and he said, we're hoping we can find something. that's really the cart before the horse there, mika.

>> yeah. we're hearing from senior house officials familiar with their plans. "the times" points out that lawmakers do not have evidence of either potential charge, and house republicans have struggled to link any of hunter biden's business dealings to his father. >> which they haven't been able to do now for years. >> shouldn't they be able to do that by time there's an impeachment inquiry? >> you probably need evidence first. >> okay. so they don't have that or get anywhere close to revealing proof of high crimes and misdemeanors that don't have that yet, willie. >> so leading up to today's impeachment hearing, kind of an extraordinary moment where the house ways and means committee voted yesterday along party lines to release 700 pages of documents from irs whistle-blowers regarding hunter biden's business dealings. jason smith of missouri pointed to a june 6, 2017 -- remember

that date. june 6, 2017, whatsapp message in which hunter biden wrote to a business associate he was willing to, quote, not sign over my family's brand. he says that's quote, evidence of corruption. our colleague ryan nobles followed up on that 2017 date, seeking clarification about the timing of the message leading to this exchange with the republican congressman. >> and in that whatsapp you have, i believe it was dated june 6, 2017, joe biden is not a vice president or even a candidate at that time. so where is the direct connection to some sort of criminal malfeasance within these two pieces of evidence? >> i think the facts speak for themselves. there's over 700 pages of examples of where people should be very concerned. >> can you explain the timing of the august 6th whatsapp message? where's the evidence of wrongdoing? >> i'm not an expert on the

timeline. i would love to have president biden and his family to tell us about the timelines because it's really, really unfortunate that we see so many meetings and so many phone calls that involved around official activity that the vice president has been participating in, and then big sums of money follow later. >> if he's not the president or vice president at that time, where's the wrongdoing? he wasn't even a candidate. >> he was a candidate. >> on august 6th of 2017? >> what source are you with? >> i'm from nbc. >> you'll never believe us. >> i'm asking a very direct question. you presented a piece of evidence that you say came on august 6, 2017, that demonstrates that joe biden was using political influence to help his son. if he wasn't a political figure at that time, the first whatsapp message you put up, where you talk about the brand -- i'm

here -- i'm completely open-minded about this. i'm asking you specifically how does that demonstrate that there is some sort of political influence being put over him if at that time he is not a political -- he's not an elected official. >> i'm not going to pinpoint one item. >> you presented it. it's your first thing that you brought up. >> apparently you don't agree -- >> it's not i don't agree with it. i'm asking you to explain it. >> i'll take the next question. >> how deeply pathetic was that? >> that's ryan nobles, our nbc news capitol hill correspondent. >> that was excellent. >> doing his job, pushing. this was the headlines over other networks over the last couple of days, this whatsapp message making some suggestion that the biden family brand was being peddled. again, joe biden was neither president, vice president, nor a candidate on that date, and, in fact, that whatsapp message is a suggestion, again, not evidence or a direct link. >> i mean, it's like me taking a

risk board to the local kennel down here and asking a group of dogs if they want to play risk. it's just not a fair fight. i mean, these guys are so dumb. i mean, it's -- and they bring up this -- this keeps happening. >> i know. >> time and time again, charlie, this keeps happening where they lead with something, then find out there's no connection there. they look like fools, and then they blame the media. i mean, we keep going back to that fbi tape recording and you have, you know, grassley going, i don't care if he's guilty or not, and you have republicans saying, we're going to impeach the fbi director. we're going to do this, and then they find out there's absolutely nothing there. they start screaming about a missing inform -- they say, i can't find the informant. it's missing. what have they done? the informant is an

international fugitive and they got busted for being an agent of china and got busted for illegally selling iranian oil to the communist chinese party, illegally dealing in arms. i mean, this keeps happening. this is the gang that couldn't shoot straight, and it just really does, doesn't it? doesn't it just underline just how stupid their efforts are to try to bust hunter biden and joe biden? >> well, that's why your comment about the dogs was unfair to dogs. >> that is true. i have had a german shepherd beat me before in risk. so good point. >> my german shepherd would not make this mistake. i mean, part of this is -- it is so cringeworthy to watch that exchange. i mean, ryan nobles, you know, asked the direct questions and he's saying, okay. can you be specific? because, you know, evidence is about specific facts, right? i mean, there is this cloud of sleaze out there. there's no question about it, but when you try to pin them

down, where is the evidence? what is the timeline, and clearly the guy they pushed through the curtain to come up with their big piece of evidence had no idea. he was clearly unprepared. he was unprepared to answer that question. >> he didn't know when joe biden was vice president, charlie. >> that's a fact. >> he's saying it's media bias if you bring up the fact that joe biden wasn't vice president or president in 2017. like, this is a perfect example of somebody who's now thinking that facts are biased when, in fact, they're just facts that show his argument's really stupid. >> well, this is what happens when you spend all your time in a bubble. when you get out of the bubble -- when you are in the bubble, all this makes sense, right? you're constantly in that echo chamber. you step out of the bubble and somebody says, can i ask you about that dazzling piece of evidence you presented that actually what i cans no sense

whatsoever, and clearly he didn't know when joe biden was in office, which was not in 2017, which is so awkward, and the fact they're so unprepared, boy, that's an interesting tell, isn't it? >> biden of course, not vice president in 2017, and not a declared presidency against again until 2019. there's nothing there on that date flagged by ryan nobles. we can't say this enough. the republicans have not yet provided any evidence to his son's business dealings. there's no sense he misused the power of any office to this point, but yet the impeachment hearing is going forth. the first hearing is today. do you think in terms of the politics of this -- and it's so deeply cynical. it's so deeply cynical, but the politics of this could be effective for republicans. is it going to be enough of a whataboutism facing the legal problems? >> republicans are counterprogramming and i guarantee that any disclaimers

about this impeachment process and that there is no actual wrongdoing against joe biden himself that's been proved and put forward as evidence yet, that's not getting covered in other news silos. so you have republican voters who are getting one bit of content, and you have the rest of the country getting another bit of content, and so it doesn't really matter, and they get to talk about that as trump's legal troubles will be covered in other mainstream outlets. >> wow. what a show this morning. my head is spinning. >> spinning. >> still stuck on the mark milley stuff, but we're going to talk more about that. >> charlie -- let me just say, charlie, congratulations. milwaukee, a sports town that just -- i mean, you guys keep punching above your weight. >> the brewers clinch again. i'll be there, first playoff game next tuesday night. >> fun. charlie sykes, thank you. >> must be really exciting to live in one of these big market

towns where your teams get to go to the playoffs every year while willie and lemire and i have follow these mid to small-market teams and just -- i don't know, willie. we're just in it for the love of the game and to lose. and to lose. >> one other note on milwaukee for charlie, they traded for damian lillard, one of the best players in the nba yesterday. now you've got giannis and lillard on the same point. to your point, the yankees, we're down red sox and yankees fighting for scraps. yankees clinched fourth. we will not finish in last plate. gerrit cole probably pinched the cy young. >> and now sure of yet another losing record. they lost their 82nd game last night so they will finish under

.500, another disappointing and long winter ahead, joe. >> get on the brewer bandwagon. >> in the fenway area of boston. lillard all summer long, will be going to the miami heat, stunning in a three-team trade that involved the phoenix suns. he goes to milwaukee, and he and giannis will be the nba favorites. >> and red sox last place. i think three out of the four last years. >> yep. >> and, you know, the yankees may have gerrit cole who locked down the cy young award, but last night the red sox, we caught a black cat that had escaped from right field and had him boxed up by the end of the third inning. >> okay. >> that's what we got going for us. >> all right. charlie sykes. >> go sox. go sox nation. >> thank you for being on the show this morning. coming up, someone who's been on the presidential debate stage before, former california governor, jerry brown looking

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you have $6.2 billion for ukraine. they do nothing to secure our southern border. that is just a nonstarter. the senate needs to get real. you've all seen the images at the southern border. it has to stop immediately, and this government should not continue to be funded if we don't secure our border. >> mr. president, a vote against a standard short-term funding measure is a vote against paying over a billion dollars in salary for border patrol and i.c.e. agents, working a truck full of lethal fentanyl, and maintaining open borders. >> you know, mitch is right at least when you defund the government, you're defunding a

billion dollars -- you're defunding first of all, i.c.e. you're defunding the border agents. you're defunding the agencies that have any control over what's going over -- these people are fighting day and night to try to bring order out of chaos, and what the house republicans are doing according to mitch mcconnell, and anybody who actually knows what's going on, they talked about defunding the fbi. now they're talking about defunding the border agents and defunding i.c.e. >> joe, and you know who's going to get blamed, republicans. they are going to take the blame if the shutdown happens, and if so many american government workers don't get paychecks if, you know, the military's not funded, if so many trains aren't able to run on time because there is a government shutdown, it's going to be very inconvenient for some people. it's going to be, you know, life-threatening for others and look what's happening on the

border. if you're taking what's happening on the border seriously as so many republicans claim they do, then they need to keep the government running. coming up, one of our next guests just sat down with presidential candidate robert f. kennedy, and in his words, quote, it is no exaggeration to say, this is the low point of my summer. a supposedly fun thing i wish i'd never done. >> i read this report in "vanity fair." it's great reporting, and great journalism. he takes you there with a strange trip on a ferry to nantucket from cape cod. it's crazy. >> joe hagan joins us next with his new profile in "vanity fair" when "morning joe" comes right back. "vanity fair" when "morning joe" comes right back

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as he helped launch the state department's new global music diplomacy initiative. here to talk about what it is, we have assistant secretary for education and cultural affairs, leigh satterfield and harvey mason jr. thank you both for being here. so tell us about, other than just showing how proficient the secretary of state is at playing the blues, what was last night's event about? >> thank you, joe, for having us this morning, and i really think the secretary of state stole the show. he really showed his chops, and really, i think, demonstrated that he has approach to diploma. it was our effort to elevate the role that music can play in promoting peace and democracy all around the world. the secretary on behalf of the american people will use every tool at his fingertips to get

the job done. that includes elevating music as a universal language that brings people together. we were thrilled to announce our partnership with recording academy. harvey, my good friend, is here, the ceo, who he himself is a producer and has worked with all the greats. i think he really enjoyed the secretary's performance as well. but we're going to do more to mentor international artists around the world and promote peace and democracy and bring us together. >> harvey, we heard so many stories after the iron curtain fell about how music penetrated the soviet union and eastern europe when propaganda didn't, couldn't, wouldn't. everybody was sneaking around trying to listen to beatles albums and beach boys albums. they got this view of the west,

this dream of going west. talk about how music is a universal language and how it helps us project american culture and american values. >> you said it perfectly, joe. last night was an example of that. you've always seen in times of crisis or hardship and also times of celebration music is what brings people together and breaks down barriers. there are no borders or languages when it comes to music. people of different belief systems can all nod their head and clap together, much like we did last night. talk about someone using all tools at their fingertips, the secretary was incredible. he stole the show. i can't believe we have a real true musician in that role. i was so proud and thankful to have him up on that stage. >> it's mind boggling to think

that mike pompeo could never do muddy waters the way tony blinken is doing. madam secretary, the idea of music as a uniter is incredible, an unused resource that ought to be used more. i know in ireland through private funding they established a music program nationwide in the south of ireland to expand music into schools. young people are uniquely attracted to music. that was unifier and it's a growing product in ireland. what are the odds of it being expanded to other countries with private investments? >> part of this is really our effort to implement the bipartisan peace through music act that the president signed into law at the end of last year. it calls on us to build more

private sector partners and elevate all that we can bring to bear together from the united states to really use music to teach english around the world. we're going to have a curriculum to go into classrooms and expand access to education. as we talked about, harvey is going to get mentors from his industry, from the recording academy to help lift up the creative economy. we feel like this builds on the amazing work done in the 1950s by the jazz ambassadors. we're going to take that to the next level and create this network and community of people to do exactly what you just described. we saw some amazing artists last night, iconic people like dave grohl and herbie hancock and amazing artists like miles

frost, who were just ready to be a part of this important initiative and become the new jazz ambassadors of our time. >> harvey, i also have to talk about who was honored last night. quincy, who i started writing down the names just because i'll forget. there's so many, but from sinatra to elvis, michael jackson, ella fitzgerald, miles davis' last album. forget the rock and roll hall of fame, quincy jones is a museum in and of himself. what an extraordinary life. i'm so glad you honored him last night. >> he is an icon. he is the first inaugural winner

of what will be known as the quincy jones peace through music award. he's done everything across multiple genres. he's moved the world through music. we're in the middle of times where a lot of people aren't seeing eye to eye. we're having national debates and controversy back and forth between different groups. music is what makes people rethink things, rephrase things, reimagine what's possible. so we're seeing that today through this initiative we've started to work on with the secretary of state. quincy has been doing it for decades and decades through all different genres of music. really proud to honor him last night. >> so great. assistant secretary for education and cultural affairs, lee satterfield and ceo of the

recording academy harvey mason jr., thank you both so much for joining us and for showing us the secretary of state with some pretty great chops on the guitar. >> thanks, joe. coming up, donald trump skipped another gop primary debate last night. we're going to show you what the candidates on stage had to say about his absence. say about his absence.

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i was with a boating manufacturer in a great state, south carolina, with a great governor, by the way, henry mcmaster. we were there two days ago. i asked them that question. he said, yeah, they want us to go all electric. i said, how does that work for a boat? he said, the entire boat would be like one big battery. you'd have no room for anything else. i said, would you get i electrocuted if the boat sinks? could you imagine if the boat goes down and you're sitting on top of a battery? >> what if while you're on the electric boat you have mosquitos all around you? he hates mosquitos. and it runs into a windmill and a dead whale floats up and hits

the electric boat? these are all things that fill the mind of donald trump that concern him. that really bizarre take on electric boats, that's how he was making his pitch to autoworkers in michigan last night. instead of joining his republican opponents on the debate stage. >> yeah. that combination of circumstances you described, joe, could lead us right into world war ii. we've got to be very careful. >> well, yeah. our producers have been doing some work for donald. i don't know if he would take cheat sheet, but i think they worked one up for him. if he ever does do a debate, he should take those note cards with him. his opponent is joe biden.

he's not running against barack obama, jeb, george w., george h.w., or most importantly for him, billy bush. like you said, donald needs to know world war ii is over and we won it. most importantly, always has to keep on the tip of his tongue person, woman, man, camera, tv. if anybody asks him any questions after he goes on a long rant how he beat barack obama in 2018, he can show how rational he is. >> we know that donald trump is very proud of his ability to pass that cognitive test, saying no one else could have possibly done it. i remember being on air force one when he came back and

proudly cited it and expected credit. then he answered some questions for the reporters. at the end, he's like watch this, and he managed to do it again. he expected a round of applause. >> what prompted him to come back on air force one and do that? >> there were reporters with microphones. >> i don't know. you've been on air force one with a real president of the united states. i can't imagine any of this. >> neither barack obama or joe biden went to the back of the plane and uttered four words repeatedly and looked for a cookie. >> let's talk about the debate last night, the one where donald trump did not show up. garrett haake has key moments from last night's debate at the reagan library. >> reporter: seven republican presidential candidates facing off in a contentious and at times chaotic debate. the frontrunner, former

president trump, skipping the showdown to campaign in michigan. his rivals chris christie and ron desantis repeatedly noting his absence. >> donald trump is missing in action. he should be on this stage tonight. he owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7 trillion to the debt. >> donald, you're not here tonight because you're afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. you keep doing that, we're going to call you donald duck. >> reporter: on abortion, desantis asked mr. trump explain his recent comments on "meet the press" when he criticized the former governor for signing a six-week abortion ban. >> it's a terrible thing and a terrible mistake. >> to try to say that pro life protections are somehow a terrible thing, i want him to tell people who have been fighting this fight for a long time. >> reporter: mike pence taking aim at president biden for joining striking autoworkers in

michigan. >> joe biden doesn't belong on a picket line. he belongs on an unemployment line. >> reporter: and vivek ramaswamy acknowledging his critics. >> you see a young man who's in a little bit of a hurry. >> reporter: still, his rivals pounced, tim scott seizing on his business dealings. >> i can't imagine how you could say that knowing you were just in business with the chinese communist party and the same people that funded hunter biden. >> reporter: and nikki haley targeting his use of tiktok. >> this is infuriating, because tiktok is one of the most dangerous social media apps we could. honestly, every time i hear you i feel a little bit dumber for what you say. >> reporter: we asked ramaswamy about that debate. the core argument nikki haley has against you, that voters can't trust you, what do you say to that? >> she said i made her dumber.

that's the first time i've ever heard that. >> there was garrett haake reporting for us. jen, you had some of the coverage on msnbc last night. did anybody do anything of note, in your view, last night except deliver some poorly canned lines and talk about how in mike pence's case he's been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years. >> really early for that. >> senator tim scott's criticism of nikki haley was that the drapes were too expensive. >> the seven candidates combined on the stage poll at about 35% all together, 20 points below donald trump. i've been to a lot of debates. leading into the debate last night, these candidates met with

teams of advisors and decided what they wanted to come to the debate to do, and that is what they came to do, deliver planned lines that sounded planned, not go after donald trump. they had ample opportunity to answer policy questions. they decided they didn't feel like doing that. that tells you a lot about the state of the race. more than anything, donald trump is the one who's probably sitting at home laughing right now, because even some of them who performed better than others, like nikki haley, but she had a good first debate and she moved by two points. >> donald trump's only comment at that event in detroit was i don't see any vice presidents on that stage. he totally wrote it off. let's bring in amanda carpenter and john heilemann. good morning to you both. amanda, there was no question

given no opinion offered by any of the candidates about the news yesterday that donald trump, the former president of the united states, had suggested that the joint chiefs of staff, four star general mark milley should be executed for treason because he reached out to china in the days around january 6th and said, don't worry, the nuclear weapons are secure. were you surprised that didn't come up? >> i'm not surprised. here's where i'm stuck. you know, i think a lot of people on the republican side of the aisle are talking about the moment that nikki haley had against vivek ramaswamy, sort of attacking him on grounds of national security and international relations as it has to do with tiktok. i have a hard time understanding how nikki haley is more angry at vivek other tiktok than donald trump and the national security threats he poses in the world. but we knows what going on here.

when i look at that debate in totality, i see it as a massive exercise in censorship, learned helplessness and appeasement. no one wants to talk about the fact that donald trump is attacking mark milley and suggesting that he should be executed. no one is talking about, hey, this is an economic debate, maybe it's a bad idea to potentially put a man who is in court right now today for massive amounts of fraud, to put him in charge of the entire u.s. economy. you just look at the things they are ignoring, ignoring topics on behalf of the candidates, on behalf of the moderators, that is a choice. that is how authoritarianism happens here. the big picture is really scary about what they're laying the

groundwork for. >> john heilemann, any words with advisors about the reluctance to talk about donald trump calling for the assassination or the execution of mark milley or calling for, i guess, eventually the execution for treason of people running comcast and nbc and msnbc or saying that mitch mcconnell had a death wish in all caps. or we could even go to the front page of the "wall street journal" and every other newspaper about the fact that donald trump's probably not going to be able to operate his trump organization in new york anymore because of the massive amounts of fraud he engaged in over the past 20 years. >> joe, you always choose to harp on these small things rather than giving president

trump credit for man, woman, person, camera, tv, as he obviously deserves. i want to correct the record on that. lemire said it was the entrance exam to the oval office. it actually was the final exam to graduate from trump university. joe, you and i are old enough to remember the seven dwarves. i'm not sure what to call the seven up there on stage. the seven completely irrelevant candidates. certainly this debate seemed like what nikki haley said about vivek, that we're all dumber having watched it. i think most of these candidates are not as dumb as they sounded and were prepared to be asked questions along the lines you're talking about. many of those advisors pointed

last night to the fact that we're finally starting to take donald trump on, you know, there was a little bit more criticism from the stage and they were ready for those questions, they say. obviously they're not ready to volunteer what they would have said if they were asked those questions. but they could point rightly at the moderators, who seemed more interested in allowing the candidates to bash joe biden than raise the question of who's going to be the republican nominee and ask those questions with respect to donald trump. these candidates were let off the hook because none of them relished the prospect of attacking donald trump given how popular he is. they were also denied the opportunity. it's about 100 days to the iowa caucuses. nothing changed last night in terms of republican nomination dynamics. >> we're talking about the mark

milley comments, because those are so shocking. again, news of the day on the front page of the "wall street journal," "new york times" and "washington post" yesterday morning was that large chunks of trump's business empire may be sold off, that several members of the family along with donald trump were found guilty of committing fraud for years. there's a very real possibility that this spells the end for the trump organization as a functioning business entity because of decades of fraud. it's mind boggling to me that that was neither brought up by the moderators nor the candidates on the stage. >> i mean, the lead moderator was a fox business anchor. it was a fox business debate, theoretically focused on the

economy. seems like that might come up, the leading candidate that day the news on the front page of the papers, but it did not. let's talk about the president of the united states going to phoenix today, obviously a critical swing state, razor-thin margins in the last couple of elections. he's going to honor john mccain, a man he eulogized at his funeral. what is this trip about, other than, of course, his late friend? he's got to win this state. >> he does. this week marks the unofficial kickoff for the general election, michigan, arizona two hugely important states for next year. he is going to pay tribute to senator mccain. he did so a couple of weeks ago in hanoi as well. it's the latest in a series of speeches. if past is prologue, he won't

use trump's name, but he will talk about maga movement and the threat that trump and his followers pose to our nation's democracy. he's going to tie it into the legacy of service from john mccain, someone who put patriotism ahead of party, which we see so rarely now. as you know, there are white house aides last fall who took umbrage at the pundit class and said, you should be talking about economy. >> look, i think if you're sitting in the white house or on the campaign in delaware, you're looking at 2022 as sort of a playbook, a model. presidential elections are certainly different, larger turnout. you have to excite the base of voters. there is some work to do on that front. but democracy as a core message works in 2022. in fact, the candidates who ran against it lost in the primary

and the general election. they know that. it has to be multitiered and layered for them. democracy is a powerful base for a speech. that's what the president is doing. his accomplishments on the economy, it's very hard to fete that covered. that is not a media critique. we're in a reality where trump is blocking out the sun from everything. that's why they are spending money on ads like they did around his visit around the uaw workers and union issues. but democracy and defense of that as a model, there's an inherent contrast that's also in place where you can heat up the contrast with each speech and set of remarks. i suspect that's what they'll do. it's time to start doing that. >> the theme of the danger to democracy that the former president continually presents to a lot of people, it was not

mentioned really. there were seven candidates for the republican nomination last night on that stage. six of them seem unable to realize what it's like to be in a fight with someone who keeps punching you in the nose and they never punch back. what is the potential reasoning for that? >> well, number one, they're afraid of trump. they're not playing to beat trump, as evidenced by their behavior and strategies displayed on the stage last night. they are planning to be a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency candidate. if something happens to this president, i'm next in line. maybe i'm planning for 2028. i work for an organization called protect democracy. i do hope president biden spends just as much time talking about why protecting democracy

requires a willing and able coalition of republicans and democrats to protect it. because we don't do this when we're completely polarized. we cannot protect democracy in america if one side has completely given up on things, like the peaceful transfer of power and accepting election results. that's where i see the big vacuum right now. i expect president joe biden is going to talk about maga republicans and the threat they pose, but it's equally important to talk about democracy. >> if you take a step back and i don't think donald trump was jumping around excited last night. he just found out that his lights may be turned off in his

business operations. this is a guy who is faing 91 felonies. one of those counts could send him to jail for life. yesterday he got the news he was found liable and his business could be shut down. trump's power could be taken away from him. his holdings in westchester county and down in wall street could be taken away from him. his ability to work in new york could be taken away from him. this is an existential threat not only to his freedom, but also to his bank account. he may be facing bankruptcy in the future if this case continues moving in this direction. i think it's important just to

step back and think there may be a reason why he's babbling on stage that he ran against obama and george w. bush. i can't imagine the pressure that he's under. he worries about stuff like this. he obsesses over stuff like this in the middle of the night. let's talk about just the magnitude of those challenges, the possibility of life in jail and being financially ruined and coming down in one court case after another seemingly every day. >> i'll put the word pleasure in quotes, but if you've had the pleasure of meeting donald trump at some point and you've read all the books written about trump. unfortunately all of us have been subjected to that too. a couple things you know about donald trump is that, one, he fears incarceration like nothing

else. number two, he fear poverty like nothing else. number three, he really hates the perception of poverty. to the psychic torture that must be going on for him right now, you could imagine how much pressure he's under and how this is piling up. the superlatives -- trump is unprecedented in so many ways. the whole history of the country, there's never been a presidential candidate, let alone a frontrunner for his party's nomination, who's ever been in a worse position to run for president, a very hard thing to do in the best of circumstances, emotionally, physically, financially,

psychically, in every way draining, the hardest thing to do you could imagine in life, the hardest race to run. he's an old man. he's under all this pressure. there's never been someone more burdened than him. yet at the same time he is sitting in the republican party, has a degree of dominance over his rivals for the nomination. that is also unprecedented and historic. he's as strong as any nominated candidate has ever been. riddle me this, joe. how could those two facts coexist? it is the ultimate conundrum of our age. there you have it. >> it's a great question. how could a guy found guilty of fraud, a guy with 91 counts against him, how could this guy be getting more popular by the day within his party? i saw a poll yesterday that suggested 75% of republicans in

iowa and new hampshire were considering somebody else. yet, donald trump is still sitting at over 50% in the polls. >> he's got a majority of both of those states, iowa and new hampshire. you ask people who still support him, how do you feel about him suggesting mark milley should be executed for treason? eh, it's just donald being donald. no. we've got to step up and call it out. coming up next on "morning joe," robert kennedy jr. is not giving up his presidential aspirations, reportedly considering taking his campaign down another path. we'll explain what that means with joe hagan who spent time with him this summer. and senator robert menendez of new jersey set to address the democratic caucus today for the first time since he was indicted

on federal bribery charges. ahead of that, senator john fetterman of pennsylvania issued a statement saying, unless senator menendez is coming today to resign, i'm not interested in hearing his explanation for gold bars stashed in a mattress. we're past the point of talk given the scope and scale of his alleged corruption. alleged corruption

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welcome back to "morning joe." beautiful shot of seattle, right now fighting to catch up with the astros to be that third team that makes it to the american league wildcard. they're going to have to have a really strong finish over the next five or six games. democratic presidential candidate robert kennedy jr. may be eyeing a third-party run.

kennedy publicly told a voter who asked about his plans that he was keeping his, quote, options open. the report also notes that back in july kennedy met with the chair of the libertarian party. correspondent for vanity fair joe hagan's latest piece is "robert f. kennedy jr.'s mad, mad, mad, mad world." like many people that you talk to in your piece, i've known bobby for quite some time. i think like everybody that's known bobby for quite some time, i like him a lot. i heard the guy give some speeches on the environment 20 years ago that were extraordinarily moving, very effective. i talk to a lot of his friends now who always saw some of this tendency in him, but you shake your head and think what he's doing now is sort of sad, kind

of the conclusion that you got to. tell us about your mad, mad, mad, mad day in i guess hyannis hyannisport down to nantucket. >> i went wanting to experience this kennedy charm. i wanted to learn something about his connection with his family. that was the intent of the story. >> he doesn't trust the press, but you all had a connection and made him think even though bobby thinks the press has completely treated him unfairly, he thought you'd give him a fair shot. >> we had a mutual friend in the late peter kaplan, who was a mentor of mine, and he was his college roommate at harvard. so this was something of a connection. i told him because of that i'm going to write this piece in first person. i thought it would be interesting to kind of get a

more up close look at him and tell people in an unvarnished way what it's like to be around him. i expected to be charmed. i wanted to see the kennedy estate. i wanted to find out about his history. well, it didn't turn out that way. when i began to kind of ask him basic questions, i thought, about his campaign and the possibility of him running as a libertarian, he clearly does not like the party he's in. he's constantly critical of it. his biggest fans are steve bannon and tucker carlson, whose show he has been on the night before he saw me. you know, a basic question would be, what's that about? so he got really aggravated and really enraged, actually, the more i asked these kinds of questions. you know, at some point i felt

bullied by him. and i think this is part of this personality tick that i think some of his friends are curious about today, like, why is he trafficking in so many conspiracy theories? because he laid so many on me, a mile a minute, my head was spinning. i couldn't keep heads or tails whether it was the cia or fda or big pharma and bill g and everybody's connected and i'm involved apparently too. it was one thing after another. you think you're in some alex jones hit. i felt disappointed, i have to say, with how hostile he turned out to be. he may have found me hostile asking these questions, but how surprised can you be if you're running for president of the united states if a reporter showed up and asks some hard questions? >> again, my experiences with him always positive. he always has been a charming

person. he's certainly obviously reading this article he does feel put upon by the media. i thought it was fascinating that he and other conspiracy theorists come up with these theories. he told you, read this book of mine, you didn't even do your job. you said, okay, i'll read the book. he was talking about how the second the vaccines came online, after those vaccines came online, death surged, and so the vaccines, in his eyes, caused death. just a little bit of research showed how absolutely skewed and, i'm sorry to say, just how false that claim was. if you just look at the data, the data even from the trump

administration. >> i'm an english major, okay? and i was able to very quickly see the manipulation in these many charts that he publishes in his book, a letter to liberals, by the way, which is his critique of the democratic party as, you know, corrupted and so on and so forth. that's a separate argument. it's infuriating on some level because we know, having lived through the pandemic, how many thousands of people died unnecessarily because they believed that vaccines were going to hurt them. so this isn't just a benign conspiracy theory. this is a public health danger to be spreading this kind of information. he wants to attack the white house for being upset about this while they're trying to get people vaccinated. so now he's hostile to them. he's hostile to joe biden.

he's decided he's a lone wolf. the psychology of that, we can analyze it, why did he get like this? if you read his memoir about his family, american values, you know he talks about, listen, i came up in a family that i was taught that we were on a great crusade and that i would be fortunate if i could have a heroic role in american life, you know, he is trying to pull the sword from the stone. it's a classic thing. but he's gone down this path. i have to say it's a path that he is not alone in this. he obviously has some percentage of people that believe what he's saying. there are other politicians in the right wing of american politics who also kind of follow some of this stuff, your rand pauls, your donald trumps. but he is expert at something

that's known as brandolini's law. people should look this up. this is interesting. an italian computer programmer came up with this. the amount of energy it takes to refute bs is an order of magnitude more than it takes to produce it. so he goes on these podcasts and spouts one thing after another. you can't make heads or tails of it. by the time your head stops spinning, he's left the room. then you have to go back to your house, like me, and look at these crazy books he's published and try to refute it for the public. i don't want him just to be saying these things in my story and everybody has to say, oh, well, gee, that might be true. you have to analyze it. let me say, lastly, that the thing that he did during our interview was consistently call

into question my integrity and the integrity of all reporters and us in the media. we are the biggest, easiest punching bag for any politician. everybody knows that. it's the donald trump fake news method. well, he's taken that up, and he's decided that we're all corrupt and we're all part of some vast conspiracy. you know, i'm sorry, but i don't buy it because i know it's not true. if big pharma or the cia wants to call me and offer a check, okay, then we'll talk, but that's not what happens. i'm joking. you get what i mean. it's offensive. this was the tenor of my experience with robert f. kennedy jr. >> good to know there's a name for it, brandolini's law. we call it drinking from a fire hose. all those articles he sent you, all those articles show they

didn't make any sense. i don't know robert f. kennedy jr. but i know a lot of people he did and applaud the work he did in cleaning up the rivers and lakes. where was the turn? and where does this chip on his shoulder come from? what is he so angry about? given his name, he's lived a life of incredible entitlement and privilege. if his last name was kennedy, nobody would be listening. he'd be another guy yelling conspiracy theories at traffic on 79th street. where does this come? >> he's been against vaccines for 20 years. the first time he came out publicly with this stage was on the pages of "rolling stone." it was retracted since then, because it turned out to be false.

then he went on that the 2004 election was stolen. that was debunked. i hate to try to get into people's head and analyze them, but it is partly my job as a profiler of people in magazines. there's a certain ego satisfaction to having been affirmed for things you say. when you can just make things up or have crackpot scientists come to you and say, hey, if you go after this idea, you're going to get a lot of attention for it, you're going to seem like you're on a crusade with fiery righteousness on your side. that must feel good to him. he's obviously also a person who's been working out a lot. he has said on the record that he's taking something called organic testosterone. his body looks unlike any

69-year-old that i know. one does wonder whether he's just got some kind of, you know, pumped-up rageful vision of himself and his ego is being stroked by the 18% of people who are against vaccines and think he's a hero. >> joe, in the time you spent with him, do you think the fact -- and it is kind of a fact that bobby kennedy has grown up not with a chip on his shoulder but with a trauma on his shoulder. >> absolutely. >> he was about 10 or 11 years old when his uncle was assassinated in dallas. he was about 15 or 16 when his father was assassinated. he's lost two brothers, one to drug addiction and another to a skiing accident. he's had his owned a diction . do you think any or all of this might play a part in who he has

become today? >> absolutely. he himself had severe drug problems in the '70s and early '80s. yes. one thing i hear from his friends and speculatively, as is my analysis about him in this moment, but the death of his uncle was really the beginning of modern conspiracy theory in america. if you think about that, about how the kennedy family name is so associated with conspiracy theories and now we're in this golden age of conspiracies. the internet has fomented a renaissance of conspiracies. his uncle's conspiracy, the death of his uncle is almost the beginning of it all. so conspiracies and the damage and the trauma of conspiracy -- and if you think about what conspiracy means and what it is

and why there were kennedy conspiracies, it's because people were having a hard time coping with the truth, because the truth can be not satisfying. how could it be that one man in a tower with a gun could change history? a lot of people can't cope with that. maybe that's something to explore. >> the new piece is titled "robert f. kennedy jr.'s mad, mad, mad world." read it online in "vanity fair". coming up next, former democratic governor jerry brown is our guest. he's the subject of a new documentary highlighting his political career in california and how many of the issues that shaped politics in the '70s remain relevant today. aped poli remain relevant today.

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before i went to yale law school, i studied for the bar in

sacramento at the governor's mansion. i was looking at law books falling asleep. i walked downstairs. i saw my father and i could hear him. they were talking about who was going to run for governor, pat brown or the speaker jess allen. i found that very exciting. there was a vitality, intensity. it was like watching an exciting movie, but it wasn't a movie. it was a reality that was imaginable for me to be a part of. >> that was former four-term governor of california jerry brown talking about what inspired him to get into politics. his decades-long political career is the subject of a new pbs documentary titled "jerry brown, the disrupter." he's with us now. marina, the great challenge here is there is so much detail.

you think about jerry brown talking about 1966. his dad loses to reagan in '70. he comes back. he's the only democrat elected statewide. he's got his first career then. then he's got his third career as mayor of oakland, third career as governor of california. absolutely remarkable political life. talk about how difficult that was to get all of that in one documentary. >> you know, you could have made a film about any segment of jerry's life that you just spoke about, but we wanted to chronicle the whole thing, because what a life. i mean, he was someone who lived how many lives between everything you listed, governor, mayor, running for president. he was a man ahead of his time, an intellectual thinker. the emphasis for the film was really what if you were lucky

enough to have the same job at 72 that you had at 36. >> in both cases, governor, you were a disrupter. you were a disrupter in your 30s, you were a disrupter in your 70s. looking back at all the things you did, i mean, it is not playing by the political rulebook. it really does serve you and others if they do it well. talk about it. >> well, disruption is the preliminary step. you've got to break things up to open them up for something different and better. i do different and better, but i do think at the end of trying to fight the status quo and the conventional wisdom, there were a lot of real solid achievements, and climate and prison reform and educational and tax fairness.

so it's a combination, and i think disrupter captures part of that. it's a good image, but along with that, you ought to see that that paves the way for something even better. >> you talk about climate. you can talk about tax fairness, you can talk about revitalization of oakland, but you can also talk about fiscal responsibility. right here, i just want to read this part. you sold the governor's executive jet and began flying commercial. sent back personal gifts to the governor's office. rented a $275 a month apartment, didn't have a chauffeur. you walked to work and drove a plymouth satellite, and your fiscal restraint resulted in one of the biggest budget surpluses in state history, roughly $5 billion. so this wasn't even ideologically slanted to one side. it was just like what made sense

for the state or the city at the time, right? >> well, it made sense, and also i was born in 1938 and went right into world war ii. my parents lived a relatively simple life, a nice life, a middle class life but we didn't have the luxuries and the entertainments and amusements you have today, the luxuries. i've always been put off by too much, having too much or also displaying the indee sha of wealth and power and what i call indulgence. and to that i spent almost four years in a seminary before vatican 2, very austere, silence, speaking latin. manual labor, cleaning out toilets, sweeping floors, so i had a different sensibility, a different compass as i came into government. and then of course this was the time of the failed vietnam war, you know, millions of people

died in vietnam for a crazy war, and then we had nixon and watergate, so all of that led to a skepticism of the status quo. the custodians of what was were not impressive to me, so i wanted to move them aside, and that was really certainly an important part of my motivation. >> so governor brown, your public life has extended practically 60 years across two american centuries the 20th and 21st. i can recall when you were running for president and you were speaking of future problems back then in the '70s. if you look at it today, what would you tell the united states of america, voting public population of america today. what are our two or three biggest problems right now and going forward? >> well, they're equal and they're big. first of all, we're living in an unsustainable way.

the oil, the gas, the coal. we're going to have to get off that. there's no question that's the science, and that's going to be extremely hard. it's going to take bipartisan leadership. it's going to take investment to help those who can't make the transition because of their income, their low income. secondly, we have an unfair society. we have not a few, but tens of millions of people whose families are chaotic, who don't have the income security to live anywhere near a decent life, and that income disparity, it affects blacks and latinos but whites and guys or lady who didn't go to college or work at a job whose jobs have been taken to china or malaysia or some other place. so we have the inherent conflict of a very and increasingly inegalitarian society, unequal

in the extreme. and then we have the unsustainability that we're just playing with the climate in a way that's going to come back to bite us. if i add a third one, we're on the brink of a war in ukraine to escalate to a third world war. we're getting ready to fight china. it's incredible the way the pentagon sees their role, and at the same time there's no effort to quiet things down, even under george bush, under reagan, there were real moves to deal with the adversary. right now it's all what they call competition, conflict, and you know, you talk about kennedy and the conspiracy. we're seeing a world where it's all against america. we've got to fight back. i think we need more common sense, understanding of what i call planetary realism. we're all on one planet. all 8 billion, and we're threatened by virus. we're threatened by climate change, disruptive climate change. we're threatened by nuclear proliferation, by the risk of

nuclear blender and now with ai and all the rest going on, we don't know how right we're going to be taken. it's time to talk sense, and right now they're fighting in washington over nonsense. the big issues are being ignored. worse now than when i ran in '76 and '92. >> governor brown, it's jen psaki, we've all been feel ago little dark this morning after the republican debate last night. you've spent so much time in public service, are there politicians out there, maybe up and coming people, who give you hope? who you're watching for? who we should all be paying more attention to? >> well, i'm generally not in the hope business. i'm very exuberant. i like what i'm doing. i've never been happier than here on my ranch where my grandmother grew up. when i look out at the world, while i'm chairman of the atomic

scientists we put out the doomsday clock and how close are e we to extinction. 90 seconds is the metaphor. that's too close for comfort. i'm not going to give you any name of the great leader. i don't see it at this point. >> all right, i'm n in the hope business. let's save that quote. make sure you watch t documentary from pbs, american masters, jerry brown, the disrupter. it's available to stream on pbs.org. we want to thank former governor jerry brown and director marina sinovich, thank you for bringing this incredible story to us, we greatly appreciate it. >> thanks for having us. all right, that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage after a final break. rak

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