always navigated to talking about the rest of the american people and not that, you know, black people should be so enraged all the time about race, but that everyone should be upset about racism and it's a way that her allies say to bring people into the conversation instead of making white people frankly feel shamed about the kinds of things that are happening in this country and we are writing -- i wrote about that this morning and that will come out in a little bit in playbook. she is tip towing around it in a interesting way. >> very good point. an important interview yesterday. nice job, again. white house correspondent for politico, eugene daniels, thank you. thank you for getting up "way too early" for us on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. >> we would have so much coming out of the energy. we have the best. we have bagram in alaska. they say it might be as bigger as all of saudi arabia.

i got it approved. ronald reagan couldn't do it and nobody could do it. i got to done. in their first week, they terminated it. check that one out, bagram. >> check it out, willie. you got your google machine? bagram, alaska. i hear there is some of the best moose hunting in all of the world in bagram. >> imagine if joe biden -- >> or wait a second. >> 24/7. >> bagram left. that would be -- bagram, alaska, bagram, afghanistan to the right. no. i think he may have confused alaska and afghanistan. >> not a slip of the tongue either. he said it five or six times, gwynne, closed with check it, google it, find it, look it up, take it to the bank. one thing he is right, though. rodney reagan did nothing about bagram so that part of it is

true. >> thank god. thank god he is so much better than every other president ever he says except for the other 45. >> that was a campaign event in michigan last night where he repeatedly confused alaska's arctic national wildlife refuge known as anwar with bagram military base in afghanistan. >> it happens. it happens. hey. you know, front page of "the times" today, a couple of fascinating stories, willie. we will be talking soon about this. but man. the massad using pagers. >> oh, my gosh. >> and pagers to have simultaneous explosions all across israeli. i mean, all across lebanon with hezbollah terrorists who have been raining missiles down on israeli now for months, months after months there. then we also will be talking

about -- we have talked about this issue an awful lot but, willie, instagram making some pretty significant changes, child safety changes in their app which, of course, is something so many americans, so many parents have been concerned about for so long. >> a long time coming for a lot of people, especially if you have kids between 10 and teenagers and making changes people have been pleading for a long too many and see if it makes a difference. the other story we will dig in to deeply, a report from israeli. a stunning attack by massad. it appears they are not taking credit for it but it seems pretty clear it was israeli to blow up thousands of pagers. if you read into the details of this, we will get into it, it wasn't something that happened yesterday.

it was something that happened along the supply chain of when these pagers were made and then purchased by members of hezbollah. just extraordinary and we will get into the details of that as well. tell me about the culture significant of diddy and for those like me who may not be as well-versed in his place in music history. >> p. diddy. >> first of all, the details laid out in this indictment turn your stomach is appalling what he is accused of having done over almost two decades, but, yeah. bad boy entertainment, bad boy records. his partnership with biggie smalls early on in their career before biggie smalls was killed was a turning point in hip-hop music in mainstreaming hip-hop music along with jay-z. they came up pretty much the

same time in new york city. diddy was a wrapper, a producer, a ceo. he sort of expanded the idea, along with jay-z of being more than just an artist, controlling your own business, controlling your own empire. but along the way, it appears, according to this indictment, he has pleaded not guilty, is still in jail and given no bail and in federal prison, sexual abuse and trafficking and really appalling details in that indictment. >> looks like he faces life in prison if convicted. no bail. he could be inside prison for the rest of his life. >> we will have much more on that straight ahead. along with joe, willy and me. we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. msnbc contributor mike barnicle is with you also as well. our top story this hour is another moment from that trump event in flint, michigan, to

show you. this is arkansas governor sarah hukaby sanders taking a swipe at vice president kamala harris for not having her own biological children. >> not only do my kids serve as an reminder what is important and keep me humble. you can walk into a room like this and people cheer when you walk on stage and you might think you're kind of special. you go home and your kids remind you very quickly that you're not that big of a deal. ours are pretty good at it. so my kids keep me humble. unfortunately, kamala harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. >> whoa! what is there obsession with women without children of their biological connection. kamala harris is a step-mother of two children with her husband doug emhoff, cole and ella

emhoff they consider her as much of a mother as their own. their biological mother kerstin emhoff wrote, quote. what is this exception? >> it's cruelty. really. >> you know you're turning off an entire population of people so they just don't want those voters. >> they are playing for a very small subset that relishing the cruelty. first of all, it's adding sarah huckabee sanders still can't pronounce kamala harris's name correctly. you want to make them the other?

continue to mispronounce their name that everybody seems to do on fox better when they know better. it's kamala. i will talk to republicans who will say ka-malla. why do you mispronounce her name to make cher seem like "the other"? so he is starts there, ka-maula doesn't have her own children. it's to be hateful. they do this to be hateful because they know the truth. they have heard doug's children's mom say time and time again that they are all part of a blended family. not everybody i guess is perfect like sarah huckabee sanders and donald trump and maybe j.d.

vance are perfect in this respect. a lot of us stumble through life. a lot of us have blended families. a lot of us figure out how to make blended families work. but i've just got to say politically, there are a lot more people who may have blended families, a lot more people who understand what kamala harris and doug are doing. there are a lot more people who understand. you know, again, blended families. than people who are just self-righteous and mean and hateful and it goes back. they keep playing in tim walz's hands where he says in minnesota the golden rule is mind your own damn business. they don't win any points here. they make independents and others say, ew. why are they so hateful and

attacking a woman because she doesn't have any biological children? there are quite a few out there and it's not a sin against god or humanity. >> we have lived in this strange era the last decade or so when donald trump came out of the scene where you earn points for being mean and other words we have used off the air, for being a jerk. that is the virtue in and of itself. she got laughs and cheers in that arena among hard-core donald trump supporters. outside people say women don't have children by their own choice in many cases and in many cases a life they have chosen for themselves. stay out of it. none of your business. i think what you think about the politics for kamala harris has

done pretty damn well in her life. it's a change for people who talk about their christianity and judging people with one particular moment and get an applause line from people inside a trump rally. >> i think it strikes a lot of people that it's so small. >> yeah. >> it makes them so small. never mind the fact if you ask any american, give me the top ten issues on your mind today that you're dealing with in terms of your family or your job or your issues politically, what are the top ten issues? i doubt whether the fact the vice president's family situation would be one of them. people don't care about that. but, again, to joe's point, i mean, there is a lot of blended families in this country and to your point, the fact that she has no children by birth is meaningless because she is a

mother. she does take care of children in that blended family. she is like of other women in this country, a lot of other families in this country. but it is just so small of an approach. >> it really is. mika, i want to hold up "the wall street journal." first of all, look at that incredible super moon. it jumps out at you over osaka japan, is supposededly one of the biggest and brightest this year. over here, though, really the lead story today, the exploding pagers killing nine and hurting thousands in lebanon. i must say, you know, massad, if you look at what happened here and look what happened in iran with the bombing there and the killing of a leader of hamas, it

seems that massad can do what they want to do when they want to do it and where they want to do it, which leads to the question why on october 7th? >> it makes that question even bigger. >> why october 7th? do they know an attack coming for a year had all of the warning signs and did nothing? >> and still haven't explained it. >> and still haven't explained it. >> never a good time. >> kicker here is b.b. netanyahu's rabid cabinet are now trying to get rid of the defense minister. you see, this has been an ongoing fight between secular jews that are running the defense in intel agencies or have since 1948. and extremists who really don't care about the military but are

always undermining, always trying to undermine those in the military and intel community and lifting up bebe netanyahu. while this is still going on, they are still trying to get rid of the competent leaders inside of netanyahu's cabinet, instead of going after the guy who was responsible for hamas' funding, its growth, it's illicit collection of funds, on and on and on. >> the precision of magnitude on these steaks. an unprecedented attack that involves blowing up hundreds of pagers across lebanon. nbc news international correspondent has the details. >> reporter: explosions like

this across lebanon as the hezbollah militant group says hundreds of pagers belonging to its members detonated simultaneously, calling it a massive coordinated attack and blaming israeli. look again. the explosion injures the man with the pager but causes almost no damage around him. lebanon says almost 3,000 people were wounded, including the iranian ambassador and at least nine killed. among them, several children. iranian-backed hezbollah uses pagers avoid israeli surveillance and israeli refusing to say whether it was behind an unprecedented intelligence operation. have you ever seen anything on this scale before? >> no. no, i haven't. it really is remarkable sort of milestone in the intelligence security activity. >> reporter: hours earlier, israeli said it foiled a hezbollah assassination plot using a land mine.

the latest escalation in a conflict many fear are spiraling to an all-out war. >> this morning "the new york times" is reporting that israeli was behind the operation. american official said that israeli had planted explosives in pagers. israeli has not commented on the incident. joining us is columnist and associate editor for "the washington post" david ignatius who is writing about this this morning. and retired cia operator mark who is a intelligence analyst. mark, can we talk about the practical questions how israeli, how massad pulled this off getting into the supply chain. what else do you know about that? >> willie, this is -- massad has given us a master class on

covert actions. my 26 years in cia i was involved in operations like this and never seen anything in terms of the exquisite nature of an operation like this in the lethal and supply chain aspect of it. this gives the notion that israeli has restored its deterrence and what did they do here? well, hezbollah had switched their communications methods. you know? they believed the israelis would be able to intercept cell phones so they moved back to pagers. think with a wire, the great tv show taking place in baltimore. israeli took a look at how hezbollah was going to, in essence, import these pagers and got into the middle of the streak. we don't know how. israeli was an enormous scale, thousands of pagers able to implant explosives and come up with a means to detonate them via a page. it's an intelligence operation for the ages and i think it

restores the capability of instilling fear in its adversaries. in many ways, massad is back now. they are actually showing almost total domination of hezbollah in the intelligence sphere. >> the message from israeli, we can find you and get to you wherever you are, including on your hip. so, david, you're writing this morning in a piece that is headlined the ominous implications of the pager attack against hezbollah. >> willie, i wrote that this operation is like an incredible james bond thriller. hundreds of pagers exploding at the same moment across lebanon and destroying communications network. one problem is that hezbollah gets to write the next chapter by determining how it responds.

u.s. officials believe that hezbollah is confused by what has happened, panicking. everywhere around the fighters, people are dying because of the communications devices that they were carrying. but, at some point, israelis believe they are likely to retaliate and the question is whether israel can recontain that retaliation like in the most recent incident of cross border fire where they sent their air force to take out hezbollah rocket positions before they got started. will they be able to do that again? if not, there is the fear we have all been worrying about for nearly a year now since october 7th, that this conflict could explode in to something much bigger. a devastating war across the border between israeli and lebanon which would lead israeli cities, major centers of population as targets, could

definite state lebanon and continue to wider countries. u.s. is hoping that does not happen. they were in touch with the iranians i'm told yesterday to convey the message, we had nothing to do with this and we weren't aware of it beforehand to try to stabilize the situation, but i think the u.s. commitment to help israeli, if it gets in a really deep scrape with hezbollah to stand by israeli remains as strong as ever. but these next days are going to be dangerous. >> david, i wonder. you look at how iran and hezbollah has responded to past attacks by israeli and it's quite clear they haven't had the stomach for a regional war. iran doesn't want a regional war right now, at least if you judge by what has happened over the past month or two. they respond but they respond in a very measured way that they

know is not going to amp things up and heard the same from hezbollah a few weeks ago after a attack there where they say we responded but didn't do much overall. we are all good now. but it seems neither iran nor hezbollah wants that regional war. is that your read? >> joe, that is certainly my read, the read of both the u.s. and israeli officials. hezbollah and iran have not wanted to go all the way in to a conflict that they know would be devastating for them. the question is how you remain on the edge, how you display enough force that you still seem credible to your followers without displaying so much that you get clobbered. one problem for hezbollah at home in lebanon it appears to the lebanese people to tie lebanon's fate to sinwar and

hamas who are really on their last legs in gaza. hamas, on monday, just said it wants a long war of attrition. any hopes that the u.s. cease-fire and hostage release deal could quickly take place i thought were dashed on monday. hezbollah is getting drawn ever deeper into this war which really began with hamas and israeli, a sunni group as opposed to a hezbollah group. the u.s. retains enormous military force in the region to try to deter iran but, again, i've learned to be careful about making predictions about the police. i would watch and wait for the next couple of days. >> yeah. to echo what david said, i was in the white house in the aftermath of this stunning operation there in lebanon and u.s. officials stressed they knew nothing about it and they

were later informed after the fact by israeli officials. so, mark, let's talk about this. this is a remarkable tactical achievement but the strategy seems less clear from analysts this morning. what is your take as to why this happened? more importantly, why now? because as noted, there has been such concern about an expansion into a wider war. the region already holding its breath to see what iran might do in retaliation for israeli's last strike. now the ante has only increased. >> an operation like this can have two possible, you know, effects. one is you do something called operation preparation of the environment. that is israeli is going to launch an operation in which they so destabilize the hezbollah fighters and that follows with an israeli ground incursion. that does not happen here. in my sense it's something different. to me a signal to hezbollah that, again, israeli has total dominance over the kind of

intelligence domain and that, you know, that they know where every hezbollah member is, you know, hezbollah operatives are going to have their heads on a swivel and it instills fear and it's a message to hezbollah and the rank in file in particular that a wider war is certainly not in their interests. in some ways the israelis often escalate to de-escalate. i think this might have been part of their strategy, you know is in the diplomacy in which hucksteen is in hezbollah trying to mediate and going nowhere and could push the region forward. neither want a wider war and hezbollah has shown the israelis the cost to this. >> thank you mark and david. we greatly appreciate it. by the way, willie, it seems to me i overlooked the most important story, front of "the wall street journal" and it should speak to our own mike barnicle. >> what? >> first golden bachelorette

wants a man who grocery shops. >> that would be mike. >> i know mike is taken. >> mike is more than taken! >> maybe mike could be a consultant for the golden bachelorette? mike, you go grocery shopping for ann, right? >> he does. >> i go multiple times a week, joe. i can rank supermarkets up and down the east coast for you, if you'd like, and i could certainly be a value to them. >> several times a day, says why don't you pick up something to the grocery store. go to the farthest one from our house. >> did your dad ever go grocery shopping? >> no! >> my dad loved grocery shopping. every saturday morning, the kids would file in the stationwagon and we would go. my dad loved grocery shopping. >> we had a budget and put stuff back because my dad -- anyhow!

>> jonathan, your dad grocery shop? >> no, he did not. my mother did the grocery shopping! but i do. i do the grocery shopping at our house what i was suggesting. mike and i, look. we have spent many an hour comparing market baskets in the greater boston area. we could bring that to the viewers this morning if you'd like but i know we are up against a break. >> we are up against a break. >> go ahead. >> i don't go grocery shopping but we make donnie deutsche do our grocery shopping. ahead on "morning joe," ohio's republican governor mike dewine is calling on donald trump and j.d. vance to stop spreading misinformation about haitian immigrants eating pets. our next guest said he went to springfield, ohio, to report on a story that isn't happening.

the exotic cat eaters of springfield, ohio! pretty long story about a thing that didn't happen. the great kevin williamson is coming up in 90 seconds. in 90 s.

you say that you have a responsibility to share what your constituents tell you but don't you also have a responsibility to fact check them first? >> well, i think the media has a responsibility to fact check the

residents of springfield, not lie about them. i've got residents of springfield coming to me for a dozens of problems and talking about it for years and the america media ignored it until they showed up to see what is happening with people eating bets. many have come to my office and talk about the pet store and all of the american media wants to talk about. the american media goes into springfield and dives in and harasses everybody who dares to complain about the condition of the town. that is not journalism and that is not seeking the truth. that is bullying on an industrial scale and i think the media ought to be ashamed of itself! >> so those comments, you know, about eating dogs and things are hurtful. they are hurtful for these men and women who very work, very hard. they are, obviously, for their children. >> they are hurtful but are they also fueling these threats?

>> well, look. listen. the mayor said, mayor roo said before this, you know, we had haitians here for three years, four years. and we did not have any of these. >> but if these comments that are baseless that being made by former president trump and senator vance, if they were not being made, would those threats stop? >> well, i don't know. i can't predict what would happen, but the statements are wrong. i've said they were wrong. the mayor has said they were wrong. and, frankly, they need to stop. >> that is the republican governor of ohio and we have heard it from the mayor, we have heard it from city officials. and, again, as far as, you know, the fire hose of falsehoods where, you know, and what autocrats do where they just lie repeatedly and then they gas-light you, so you're supposed to get confused. it really didn't work.

in the end, j.d. vance goes this is all of the press wants to talk about and they should be ashamed of themselves and they should do the fact checking. the press fact checked and found that j.d. vance and donald trump are liars is what they are saying. why is the press talking about it? because donald trump talked about it in the debate, because donald trump talks about it in his speeches after the debate. because donald trump said he is going to springfield. while donald trump and j.d. vance are lying and j.d. vance is putting his own constituents' lives in danger, they just keep at it. j.d. vance keeps as it. here we have the gas-lighting. oh, they should be ashamed of themselves. so you have somebody lying, putting his own constituents' lives in danger, having his own constituents' schools shut down

because he keeps lying about this. having hospitals in his own state shut down and his constituents not able to use those hospitals because he keeps lying in the middle of a presidential campaign and he says somebody else should be april shamed of themselves? that, my friend, is what the kids call gas-lighting. mika, how many bomb threats have there been? >> say about 30 bomb threats, more than 30 bomb threats in the city last week including threats to elementary schools and threatening the media not to cover a story when a republican nominee lies like a rug about people. >> he keeps talking about about this story. >> you don't want us to cover the fact you are lying? and making up stories that are endangering the lives of people. okay. i get it. >> and spreading these lies in a debate that 60 million plus

people watched. >> right. >> then saying you're going to be talk about it on the campaign trail and say you're going up to springfield? >> they have a network that won't talk about this or cover the story. >> january 6th, why are they talking about january 6? a lot of people say it was nothing. and, yet, donald trump keeps talking about january 6th, he keeps talking about his january 6th convict choir. governor dewine said dozens of straight troopers are to be stationed across the city schools for the foreseeable future all because of donald trump and j.d. vance's lies. >> joining us now is national correspondent for the dispatch kevin williamson. also with us, is white correspondent for politico and co-author of "the playbook" eugene daniels. >> all of your pieces are

incredible. a southern state school like me who stuck out. you wrote that you're surprised at a guy that is basically this smart, that has an education that he has, would resort to these lies when he knows better. that is what every time i look at members of my former party that went to, you know, yale and harvard and stanford, wait. they could be doing so much as a conservative. they could be helping this country so much as a conservative and, instead, they follow donald trump around and spread his lies. >> yeah. donald trump being a serial liar is not news so i don't think we have to devil on. j.d. vance a serial liar, maybe talk about that some. what is interesting j.d. advance with his book and hillbilies

were like haitians came from the poorest place in the hemisphere and didn't explain the language and didn't fit in well and the legend the hillbillies living or a diet of possums and road kill and things like that and squirrels. so j.d., of all people, is someone who is well placed to understand the way in which these legends can really slander and libel and hurt a community. on the people he speak have their schools and colleges closed down and they have had to cancel public events and big annual cultural festival they have that will cost their economy a lot. i note in the story this is something that isn't happening. no one in springfield seems to think it's happening. i didn't talk to one person who believed any of these stories. what is worse about this there are issues related to immigration in springfield. a town of 50,000 to 60,000 people and 10,000 immigrants

move there and of course, situation associated with that. instead of talking about to improve the situation for everybody, we are having this crazy conversation about dogs and cats. these guys have the calling them weird. trump starts shouting they are eating the dogs and the cats. they had to be a weird moment for normal people. >> yeah. so, kevin, in your new piece entitled the exotic cat eaters of springfield, ohio, a long story about a thing that didn't happen. you write, in part, this. springfield, like many similar cities, had been suffering from a declining population and economic stag nation when it joined others to immigrants to

settle there. the town fathers may not have had imagined 12,000 immigrants there but what they got. unemployment went up, not down. and wages -- >> employment. >> employment went up and wages went up, too. the case against the haitians they aren't cat-eaters or illegal immigrants who came here thanks to joe biden's lax border enforcement which many aren't but the real issue working over time and investing in the community, they have made life more challenging for reliable trump voting constituency. marginally employed white people on the dole. >> we often play ronald reagan's

fairwell speech in 1989 when he talks about the importance of immigrants to us. it is so fascinating. your story echoes that. yet, this isn't neat. it's not clean. these people are here legally. but there are going to be some bumps along the way. and, yet, you can say that about the irish, about the germans, about the hillbillies, as you say, one wave after another that come to america, they settle in and they create jobs. the economy grows. as ronald reagan said, an america gets younger. >> they did say exactly the same things about the irish and maybe less so about the germans but if you look at the rhetoric in the 19th sent you have similar stuff as well. i understand that immigration can be disruptive. i'm from west texas. we are a border state. our current border situation is a real mess. it's something that needs to be

got hold of. this isn't in defense of anyone's border policies or anything like that. but it's a matter of what we might call bearing false witness against an entire population, a very poor and vulnerable people and j.d. vance should know better than this. i don't think it serves his interest. they want to talk about the issues there related to immigration but you can't really have that conversation with every shouting at each other about cat-eaters. it's a bizarre time but we live in bizarre times. >> kevin, something we moved past quickly, there are ohio state troopers standing outside of elementary schools in ohio this morning to protect kindergartners with their backpacking because of what donald trump and j.d. vance are pushing and what is your sense of how this gets cooled off or how the temperature is cooled

down? >> sure. i think after the election of the election and national goes away, that of this will stop. they will get back to doing what they have been doing the last couple of years is work towards way to mitigate the effects of the real problems that they have there. they have had to hire a bunch of extra esl instructors and interpreters for schools and also hospitals and things like that because most or a lot of haitians don't speak english very well and need help with that. driving is an issue. haitian driving culture is more casual in terms of its observation of the rules. there was a terrible accident a couple of years ago in which haitian immigrant was driving recklessly hit a school bus and killed a kid so that began to bring some of this to the forefront. they are work through some of those things. they will work in terms of

culture education and getting people to understand local norms better and that sort of thing. it's important to remember that these haitians are there working and working illegal under temporarily protected status so they are not people who have just hopped over the border and are working off the books in some factory or farm somewhere and this is not what the situation is at all. >> it's important to also remember, mika, that good people in springfield don't want to be drawn in to this. >> no. >> the father of the young boy who was tragically killed in that accident actually went before city council and said do not, do not try to use my son to spread hate. >> that was an accident. a terrible tragic accident. >> he said it was a terrible tragic accident but said do not use my son's memory to spread hate. it is not who he was. and it's not who we should be. >> national correspondent at the

dispatch kevin williamson, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> vice president kamala harris talked about this while she was doing an interview with reporters with the national association of black journalists yesterday. she did an interview yesterday and took many questions. here is a response to the situation in springfield. >> it's a crying shame. i mean, my heart breaks for this community. you know, there were children, elementary school children who, it was -- it was school photo day. you remember what that is like? going to school on picture day. they were dressed up in their best and got all ready and knew what they were sitting it out to wear the next day. they had to be evacuated.

children. children. a whole community put in fear. >> one of the reporters who conducted that interview yesterday is right here, eugene daniels. nice job, eugene. let's start with that, with the vice president's response to what is happening in springfield. i will say that was some of the more powerful words and body language that we have seen from her on this issue. >> yeah. on really any issue, right? i think the thing that was really fascinating is i wanted to see if she would talk about a policy implication, right? whether what was happening in springfield, more importantly, the racist conspiracy theories. was this redeemable situation or were there policies help what is happening in springfield? kind of to what kevin was saying. she took the opportunity to do what you saw which was not just talk about the dangers of the language, but also get into how people who want to be in charge of this country shouldn't be

doing this. and the way that she did it, right? this is something that black politicians have to policy and white politicians don't when they talk about race is she has to be able to tell black people, people what look like them, haitian immigrants, that this is terrible and my heart -- she said her heart breaks for them. but also for those that are watching, white people that are watching who maybe in a different place when you think about race and don't think about it in the same way she does, that everyone should be upset about it, right? that it's not just about black people feeling scared and haitian americans in that community feeling scared and worried about taking their kids to the haitian american community center or what have you, but like everybody should be concerned about that. i thought that was a really interesting way of her navigating race as she has, what, 48 days left in this election. >> certainly one of the through lines of her interview yesterday was the warnings about political

rhetoric and she talked about january 6th and assassination attempts against donald trump. i think the biggest theme was race. >> yeah. >> in particular, sort of a message towards men, young black men who she knows donald trump is trying to win over and she has to -- she made it clear yesterday -- we played sound earlier in the morning. she has to earn their vote. >> yeah. it's interesting. she has said that before even when she was just a running mate but on these podcasts they were doing specifically to get to black men. this is a business partner for lebron james. he has a podcast and they talked for 20 minutes. she said things like this before but this is different. she is head of the ticket and this is why it's really important for, you know, organizations to make opportunities like this for black reporters, because you only get this kind of conversation with a black politician if you're doing it with black reporters, honestly, right? so the question about how -- what she would do for black men

in the economy, she got to that but she did talk about she needs to earn their vote because accurate complaints from the black communities a very long time that politicians, including democrats, come and see them the last three months before an election, a presidential election, don't do much during the four years. then come back again or, more importantly, take their vote for granted. she is trying to make clear that is not how she wants to operate. >> white house correspondent for politico and co-author of "the playbook" eugene daniels, thank you for coming on morning. coming up, we will speak to an expert about the latest het injury suffered by the miami dolphins quarterback and the nfl's protocol for treating concussions. we will explain what my be to blame about west nile virus and how you can stay safe. "morning joe" will be right back.

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okay. okay. the miami dolphins placed theirs franchise quarterback tua tagovailoa on the injured

reserve left after suffering his third diagnosed concussion. according to league rules the former first round pick must spend at least four games on the injured list. his latest injury happened while tua was scrambling for a first down during last thursday's loss to the buffalo bills. he immediately appeared dazed with his arms propped in an unnatural position, but ultimately was able to walk off the field under his own power. joining us now nbc news medical contributor dr. vin gupta. dr. gupta, always great to see you and lots to talk to you about this morning. it's been hard to watch, especially in the case of tua. he had a couple of years ago, fencing, i think it's called, when your arms voluntarily kind of lock up in the air, and then because these guys are competitive, they want to stay on the field, they get up and try to walk off under their own power, often staggering, but as a physician, what do you see in a moment like this. >> well, it's hard to watch, willie. to your point this is the third time this has happened for tua since 2022. what we know from the

literature, and it's not surprising, is that the more you have hard head impacts because of football or maybe because of other contact sports, the risk that that person will have forrionic traumatic encephalopathy is increased. the cte that we're talking about in football players dying prematurely. there's a link between this risk that now we're talking more about in cte than unfortunately people dying too young, including former football players. the nfl changed their protocol in 2022. we now have dynamic kickoff that changed the game just this year to minimize the high-impact hits, and, yet, we've seen a 20% increase in concussions on this field since this protocol has changed maybe because we're talking more about it. >> joe, the nfl has taken precautions in the last year since this really discussion about cte came up, and they don't hit as much in practice and they wear the bubbles on

their helmet in practice, but at the end of the day, as you know very well, if a 225-pound safety is running downhill at you, and there's a collision head-to-head during a game, there's no helmet that's going to protect you from that. >> yeah. 225, 240, 250 pounds and players keep getting bigger, players keep getting faster and stronger. willie, you and i have talked about this. i mean, talked about it before, that, you know, all those collisions are like car accidents. >> yeah. >> if players are going to go out and do it and people are going to watch the game which they are in record numbers, it seems to me there has to be an off-ramp for players like tua, a guy, that you know, we love, you know. our family loves. alabama grad, and we love him so much as a player. we just -- it's too painful to see this happening again and again. you know, when two seasons ago after he had two concussions in just terrible shape, people were

saying then that he should never play again. he's come back and is playing again, and now we're talking about eight weeks from now. aren't there, willie, a lot of veterans, nfl hall of famers that are saying, hey, tua, football is not worth it. you need to take care of yourself. >> yeah. we're seeing that in ways we probably wouldn't have seen in the past because we've seen this so much for tua, in particular. guys who have played the game saying, dude, this isn't worth it, but, man, he just signed a huge contract, more than $200 million, face of the franchise. they have invested so much in him. the likelihood that he walks away from all of this seems small, so is there anything else that can be done here, dr. gupta, by the nfl? as i said, they have taken all these measures over the last decade in change. what else would you like to see? >> you know, we need to continue to empower medical staff on the field. i think prior to 2022 we weren't talking enough about this. i think we saw it. we were all very aware that this was a problem, but now medical staff on the fold are much more

empowered than they were than two years ago. they need to continue to be. they have pulled players off the field. they are actually able to remove them from playing, if they are worried, even if there isn't a red flag symptom line loss of consciousness or fencing as in the case of tua. they need to step out of the game. number one. number two, there needs to be an emphasis on flag football. there's now data saying that tackle football amongst gets 8 to is a, a much higher risk with impacts to the head even with all the impacts in place. so we're seeing this at a younger and younger age. >> i was talking to a professional football player about tua and saying this is his third diagnosed concussion and yet the number of times he's gotten hit in the head during games, they don't consider them concussions, but it's almost like a weekly basis.

>> that's right. and that's the problem here, mike. concussions -- episodic concussions, this might be surprising. no link between episodic concussions and in this case tua three over the last three years and the development of cte. yet, if you're going chronically hit week in and week out in football, that is the link between that johnic exposure and cte. >> at any age? >> at 14, 15? >> we don't know what happens in youth football. we're learning a lot more, and what we're learning is concerning. flag football is a lot safer, but we only have the data for nfl players, and unfortunately what we're seeing here is the chronic exposure week over we are high risk. >> and willie, you know, it's so disconcerting to see people that we remember as young men, our heroes. >> yeah. >> now walking around in their 50s with canes and not remembering things. >> yeah. >> i don't know if you saw a heartbreaking story about the heisman trophy reunion.

you know, it's like a family. they come together every year the weekend of the heisman trophy, and there's one story after another story after another story about the football heroes we looked up to as kids whose wives were having to hold them by the arms. >> yeah. >> and explain to them who they were seeing and what they were doing. it's so, so often this ends in tragedy. >> especially with the older generation didn't have any of these safeguards, and as you and i experienced when we played high school football a million years ago, when you got hit like that, you would say your bell got rung. >> exactly. >> and you would literally see stars, you remember this, joe. stagger would come around. might come out for a play, didn't want to come out for a play because then they would bench you, and so you just played through it and it went on generations through generations. so dr. gupta's point, you have to change the culture around that said. a couple other points.

mosquito-borne illnesses, west nile virus sauces up in several states. what should we know about if? >> west nile virus has been on the back burner for a couple of years, eee, exwin encephalitis, something similar but more serious, basically if you live in the north atlantic or the gulf coast, this is the prime trans mission season, willie, high mosquito season. what we're seeing here is a spike in the cases, causes a flu-like type ill necessary but in many patients we're seeing neurological conditions, seizures can be quite serious. why does this matter? in until the end of september, in the mid-atlantic, places like massachusetts, try to stay in after 6:00 p.m. at night and deet and picardin, give them insect repellant, mosquito

repellant with deet or picardin. >> stay safe. seem to be rolling into flu season and covid seems to be making a comeback. there is a new booster coming out. >> i tell all my patients end of september into middle of object, willie, that's the right time to get both of these shots. covid and flu, get them at the same time. important to get it. we're seeing a thousand deaths week on week about covid. again, we don't talk about it anymore. that's a lot. >> a bit of good news. one final story that just broke this morning. npr reporting exclusively that overdose deaths in the united states are down 10.6% over the last year. obviously -- >> incredible. >> this is a plague in this country. what do you make of that number? >> that's the direct result of public health message willing talking about that regarding concussion. that works, and that's working now with overdose deaths. getting narcan in the hands of people, making sure that it's over the counter, easily accessible, and how do we use it if we see somebody on the street that might have had an overdose?

it's working. public health education, giving the tools directly to the people, it's working. >> hey, vin, i'm curious. are you seeing -- i think it's going to probably take a couple of years, but it's like -- we're seeing some anecdotal evidence here, anecdotal evidence there, you know, crime rates going down significantly, companies saying, hey, you need to come back in and be in our community, and we need to hear amazon and need you here five days a week. a lot of parents upset about that. a lot of parents with younger adults that say, oh, thank god, they will go back in the office and have a social component to their lives again, and then you see overdose deaths going down. i'm wondering if we're seeing bit by bit the connecting of some dots that maybe suggest we could be moving out of the horrors and the hells of once in

a century pandemic. >> joe, i share your optimism, joe. i think that this is a great sign, one of social connectivity, being in person again, to your point, return to office. we think that means something for mental health and then, two, just a better -- to me the narcan -- accessibility of narcan, the fact that overdoses are declining, empowering people to care for their health, having a better health system. what the pandemic did was give us tools directly in the at-home environment to care for ourselves so that's having a real impact here, but, yeah, i 100% agree with your point. >> all right. nbc news medical contributor dr. vin gupta, thank you so much for coming on this morning. a lot to talk about. we turn now to a story that we mentioned last hour. music mogul sean "diddy" combs has been charged with racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in

prostitution. a judge denied his request for bail yesterday after the rapper pleaded not guilty. nbc news entertainment correspondent chloe milas has the latest. >> reporter: sean "diddy" combs behind bars. a federal judge denying the music mogul bail following his arrest and indictment as prosecutors alleged that combs is dangerous and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of community. in court combs charged not guilty to three counts. >> sean combs led and participated in criminal activity, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and the obstruction of justice. >> reporter: in an indictment unsealed, federal prosecutors say since 2008 combs abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his

conduct. >> as alleged, when combs didn't get his way, he was violent, and he subjected victims to physical, emotional and verbal abuse. >> reporter: combs' arrest at a new york city hotel monday night comes six months after federal authorities raided the grammy winner's homes in los angeles and miami, revealing what they say they found, firearms, including three defaced ar-15s in his bedroom closet and video of elaborately produced sex performances with multiple victims known as freakoffs according to prosecutors. >> freakoffs lasted several days, involved sex workers and involved the use of narcotics including ketamine and ecstasy and ghb which combs administered to the victims to keep them obedient and complaint. >> reporter: his attorney denied the charges. >> he's innocent and will fight until the end. >> reporter: there's a string of

civil suits as well as a settlement with singer cassie seen in this 2016 veins video being physically assaulted by combs. cassie later filed a civil suit for the abuse. the terms of their settlement were not exposed. his attorney said mr. combs is not a perfect relationship. the attorney added is it sex trafficking if people wanted to be there? federal prosecutors are leaving the door open for even more arrests saying combs did not act alone. >> i'm not taking anything off the table. >> staggering. nbc's chloe malas with that report. no, that's not sex trafficking the way the lawyer described it, my god, that is incredible. >> willie. >> yeah. >> so, again, cultural implications, yeah, and i would guess very big headlines in new

york. >> front page news here in new york city. obviously a native of new york is sean combs and chloe just laid it out pretty well. >> yeah. >> the details, even if you read deeper through the environment, he's pleaded not guilty here, but our stomach turning among the worst that you could read about the treatment of women. >> yeah. >> the drugging of women and some of the acts that he alleged -- allegedly had them perform over sustained periods of time. it's truly awful. >> sick. we're going to turn to politics now. we'll keep our eyes on the story, and a moment from a trump event in flint, michigan where arkansas governor sarah huckabee sanders took a swipe at vice president kamala harris. she did this. she took a swipe at kamala harris for not having her own biological children. >> not only do my kids serve as a permanent reminder of what's

important, they also keep me humble. we can walk into a room like this where people cheer when you step on to the stage and you might think for a second that you're kind of special. then you go home and your kids remind you very quickly you're actually not that big of a deal, and ours are pretty good at it, so my kids keep me humble. unfortunately, kamala harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. >> that's interesting, again, she's the other. we're going to mispronounce her name on purpose. we know it's kamala but we're going to keep mispronouncing her name even though everybody now that she is actually running for president, they may have had the excuse me, mispronouncing it, but now everybody knows, and they keep pronouncing it. i'll be talking to trumpers, and they go, you know, kamala, that's not how you pronounce it.

you know that's kamala because you certainly hear it every day and they go back to kamala. >> and they laugh at you. >> like a tick. >> yeah. >> they want to say she's the other. i don't really understand how to say those wild exotic names and then, again, as we were saying before, they are mocking and ridiculing people that have blended families. well, yes, we have blended families, but i'll tell you, what a heck of a lot of other people have blended families and they do their best and from all accounts and including from doug's -- the mother of doug's children and his former wife says they all work wonderfullly together and, you know. >> support each other. >> kamala is a remarkable presence around the children, and the children -- the children love her, so i'm -- again, it really does feed into what tim walz said in minnesota, the golden rule is mind your own damn business. here you have people going out

mocking and ridiculing her because she doesn't have any biological children. you would think -- you would think republicans would learn, trump republicans. they just don't learn. they -- they -- i guess it will take another loss, another year of losing until they finally figure out that being snide and angry and hateful, if you're a politician, it doesn't actually help you win elections. >> joining us we have affairs analyst and chef political analyst john heilemann and co-host of msnbc's "the weekend." simone sanders with us. >> there's the meanness of it, one of a billion examples. we had kevin williamson are his

extraordinary essay on what's happening in springfield, ohio, and he just -- he just talked about how they know they are lying. everybody on the ground knows they are lying, but they continue doing it. they continue putting people who are here legally in danger for their lives. >> yeah. well, look, sarah huckabee sanders proving with this performance that those who think that she is a rising star in the trumpified republican party are probably right. this is what you -- you look at -- at her. you look at j.d. vance. you look at -- they are -- there are so many object lessons in which trump has corrupted the republican party on this front. there are people who clearly know better and are smarter than they appear on television, and they recognize that they think they have a future in whether donald trump wins the presidency this year, reclaims the

presidency or whether he goes away. this large question of what happens in the post-trump era, this is a preview of it. j.d. vance, you know, just brazenly gets up and does the thing you've been talking about the last two days, gaslights the people on what's going on in springfield, ohio and sarah huckabee sanders gets up and says what this is what it takes, what it takes to be accepted in a party where now because of donald trump the cruelty is the point, and, you know, it's -- it's not just obviously -- you know, the childless cat ladies. it's not just blend family, you know. i sit here as a child of adoption, and my mother passed away a long time ago. i can imagine what my mother would have said saying that an adopted mother does not qualify for somehow as motherhood or that the children of adopted families are somehow not -- don't measure up in some way to the standard of normalcy and the standard of completeness that trump and -- >> i don't even think about it

this way. they just want to crap on people and there is some culture we own ibs, we own them, we mock them. that has become the guiding spirit of the maga republican party and you can see it not just in donald trump but in everyone who aspires to be trump's successor. >> and we see the emhoff/harris family being a real picture of love and togetherness all the time. but i want to get you to zero in on this idea of the other because it does seem like that is really where the trump/vance campaign is focusing right now, not just on the cheap shots against the vice president because of her name or because she doesn't have biological children of her own but also just what is happening in springfield. these racist attacks looking to drive home a point about immigration, but also just to spark fear and to paint their opponents. republicans' opponents, everyone

from migrants to democrats as un-american. >> yeah. it is -- when you are able to other someone, you take away their high temperature, and if you can have people in this country not seeing someone's humanity, it then lessens maybe the concern about what happens to them, and in my personal opinion that's exactly what the racist conspiracy theories out of springfield is about. it doesn't just affect the people in springfield. it the affects haitian americans all over the country, immigrants all over the country and black people across the country. i was really struck by the fact that the u.s. attorney in florida who was handling the case of the second assassination attempt on former president trump's life is a haitian american immigrant. maybe donald trump and j.d. vance would say aren't the

haitians we're talking about. it's all about dividing us, and unfortunately that is frankly as joe just said a feature of the republican party a rattus in this current time. it's not every republican, to be very clear, but it is -- it is the culture of the party, and because that is the cull tour of the party, folks have to make a decision, voters, in this election about if that's something that they would participate in going forward and they just might. >> i'm going to give you a scorecard to see how this is working. let's see trump '16, they lost in '17. they lost in '18. they lost in '19. they lost in '20. hileman, they lost in '21, right? >> yeah. >> the off-year races, okay. >> '22 also. >> '22 and they are losing elections in '23. okay, that hasn't worked but maybe on a more national scale since, you know, this

infotainment came up and the rise of rush limbaugh in '91 and '29 and then fox news, talk radio. that started in 1919, '92. let's see, republicans lost in '92, the popular vote. they lost the popular vote in '96. they lost the popular vote in 2000. they lost the popular vote in 2008. they lost the popular vote in 2012. they lost the popular vote in 2016. they lost the popular vote in 2020, and really the -- yeah -- the only -- let's see. so john heilemann, it's fascinating. >> yeah. >> they have lost every year this sort of hey, we're going to own the libs. they have really inspired a shrinking republican party that we've talked about for a very long time, and '17, '18, '19, '20, '21, '22 and '23, and the

majority of americans voting against the presidential candidate every presidential year since 1992 except for one. >> right. >> and they still are clinging to this -- this sort of nasty, snide game of subtraction instead of -- i can't tell you how many trump republicans i've politely said, hey, listen. politics is a game of addition. find common ground. put your arm around people. bring them in. build your team. do great things. they don't want to hear it. they want to attack. they want to say they are not even -- not only do they attack democrats and attack independents, they will attack republicans as being insufficiently hateful. they will attack single moms. they will attack people that -- that don't have children. i mean, it's just -- it's like why? instead of trying to figure out how do we make their lives better? how do we bring the community

together? it's a losing message. it's a -- i just don't know how many years i have to sit here and tell my former party this is a losing message. there's a reason why ronald reagan won 49 states, because he talked about immigrants being part of america. you know, george w. bush after 9/11, what did he do? he went to a mosque, put his arms around muslims, around arab americans, saying they are every bit as much american as i am, and that is a message that has been lost on this republican party. >> true. >> lost a long time ago. >> i mean, joe, that -- i believe if you count them up, just if you take out all the mid-terms and the special off-year elections, just do the presidential years, i think my math is right, that's eight elections from 1992 through 2008, eight national president

elections. >> yeah. >> the scoreboard on that in terms of the national popular vote is 7-1. that's not a great win-loss record are. you don't even make the wild card with a 1-7 record. of course, it's true because the electoral college, you can still win the presidency, but i'll tell you what george w. bush knew and what ronald reagan knew and bill clinton knew and barack obama knew and all those other people that we talk about knew is that if you -- if you happen to get elected president of the united states without the popular mandate of any kind, without winning the popular vote, you can get into the white house. you just can't get anything done. >> right. >> there's not a world where -- if you're a 48% president, where you can move on the big problems that america faces and presumably if you're running for president you think america has big problems and you're trying to solve them, so the republican party has backed itself into a corner. it's that stark, you know. we overcomplexify this question and if you lose seven out of eight national elections and if

your goal is to win 50% plus one and you win seven out of eight times it's time to rethink your strategy. and republicans are going the opposite direction. they keep doubling and quadrupling down on the same strategy that's lost them seven out of eight national elections. >> and you look at what donald trump did at arlington. >> oh, my god. >> yeah. >> that was brilliant. >> no, and actually -- >> who says that's brilliant? >> other people are saying this is brilliant, three-dimensional. it's just hatefulness. same thing with the debate where they will try to tell you that it's a way to look at that debate that donald trump won. it's desperation. it's intellectually dishonest and nobody believes it. >> absolutely dishonest. john, you recently sat down with second gentleman doug emhoff for your in politic podcast are and one of the topics you discussed is how he handles the vitriol, specifically coming from far right act laura loomer.

>> a million and a half people follow her on twitter and she goes on and says disgusting stuff about your wife. i would find it impossible to keep my cool in that situation if i were you. how do you keep yours, if you do? >> i'm keeping it now. those things are obviously, you know, not true andrey dicklous. >> of course they are. >> and it's disgust, but it's -- it's distraction. you've got to let it bounce off you because we have to stay focused and disciplined on the task at hand which is winning this election. >> right. >> and if we're, you know, taking time out of our mental space to focus on completely ridiculous stuff that people are doing like dobbs and project 2025, extremist view of america that so few of us want. >> so, wow, that's -- that's fascinating, his response to that because i could see how

that would be really difficult. i actually saw what was said. it was vulgar, disgusting along with a lot of gaslighting and i just wondered to joe's point about trying to win, how donald trump kind of coupling up with her as part of her team or whatever, some extra person running around with him all the time, what is he doing? is he doubling down on the ugliness? is that going to get him more maga following? i don't even understand the strategy. >> i don't think there's a strategy there, mika. i think it's pure id on donald trump's part. he likes -- it's not just her. eric erickson that you cite sometimes in the show, joe, has tucked about what has happened to trump is he surrounds himself with the twitter edge lords, the maga trolls in the social media, and he's more interested --

always been a creature of social media, loves that space, but seems to be more interested in winning and juicing up the far right, the far maga extreme on social media that he is and trying to find the voters that he'll need to win on election day, and his rapid response team at the debate in philadelphia was a team full of laura loomer, people like laura loomer. she's the shineiest object or maybe the most dipped in tin fool motor oil because she's the most vocal and says the most heinous stuff and has as cadre of people who follow him around. that's the rapid response team now. he seems to be playing to that crowd because it's visceral for him. it's what he wants to -- this is where the springfield -- j.d. vance introduced the pet-eating

thing and just to come back to doug emhoff. there were a lot of comments about how kamala harris that is performed with extraordinary poise and excellence given that she was put in this extraordinary circumstance becoming the nominee very late in the game. you talk about this guy shot out african none, you know, someone who might have had two minutes of speaking team at the democratic convention and ends up in primetime as the opening acts for the obamas in chicago, introducing himself to 50 million people on television, 20,000 people in the room and gave one of the most effective speeches there, and everyone who sees him on the campaign trail says he's unflappable about these. that's why i asked him about the laura loomer stuff, kamala harris -- the kind of criticism she gets from donald trump, she's too stupid to be president, but j.d. vance and at the extreme the much more disgusting things that loomer says, how does that not get

under your skin he's unflappable and inper teshable in a way that's almost super human and it's a huge as net this very tightly compressed race that they are talking right now, that this guy is affable and genial and is a charming window who reveals a lot of things about her that americans need to understand if americans are going to vote for her. >> yeah. you know, the thing that we found with him and with -- with kamala is they also -- they -- in the middle of this madness, they are very grounded. >> yeah. >> doug is very grounded, and they are not getting swept up into the excitement of it all and not chasing, you know, all of these -- you know, not going down rabbit trails that people want them to go down. they are -- they -- they are handling this time, both of them, with a lot of grace and with a certain calmness. >> yeah. >> which i will say, mika and i

have been around a lot of people running for president, a lot of people inside the bubble, a lot of people that are either in the white house or on their way to the white house or trying to get into the white house, and usually there's this sort of frantic nature about them. what has surprised us so much in this case in the most frantic of chapters in recent american political history is you have two people at the center of that storm who privately and i think it translates publicly are very, very calm and very xen about it all. >> they understand it's daunting and it will take everything that they have got. they can't take anything for granted. the new episode of john's podcast is available now. john heilemann, thank you so much for that. more now on how the issue of immigration is playing out in this election.

donald trump is doubling down on his promise to carry out large-scale deportations of migrants if he retakes the white house. the former president stated last week he'd start the program in springfield, ohio, where he and his running mate j.d. vance continue to push the lies about haitian migrants eating pets. >> unfortunately, donald trump, while thinking about beautiful baghram, alaska. >> yeah. >> is also confused in talking about the venezuelan immigrants in springfield instead of the haitians. >> and in the wake of those comments. >> and the wake of those comments social media posted by senior adviser stephen miller has resurfaced from last year highlighting the denaturalization project that began in the trump administration with plans to turbocharge it during a second trump term. joining us now, former ambassador susan his, former director of the domestic policy

council for the biden administration. also, former national security adviser and former u.n. ambassador in the obama administration. it is great to have you on the show this morning. we appreciate your coming on. i'd love to hear your comments on what trump plans to do in springfield and across the board when it comes to denaturalization processes and mass deportations. >> good morning, mika, good morning, joe. great to be with you both. >> good morning. >> this is really quite terrifying. we've heard for many, many months about his plans for mass deportations of undocumented persons here in the united states. that would be hugely violent and disruptive, separating families, causing millions to be expelled through the use of force, but what he's saying now is something quite different and even more scary.

what he is saying is you recall last week donald trump went out and said that he was going to expel the haitians in this country starting in springfield who are here in this country legally, legally, working with authorization and send them to venezuela of all places. he has said very clearly that he is going to deport immigrants who are here legally, but he said something that's even more outrageous, and that is what is reflected in stephen miller's social media post, and that is that he will expel and denaturalize american citizens -- american citizens who were not born here. mika and joe, there are over 25 million american citizens who are naturalized, who are law-abiding, who are taxpayers, who have families in this country. they are fathers. they are mothers.

they are children. they are our neighbors. they are american citizens, and back in the trump administration they set up an office in the justice department to denaturalize american citizens and not just those that were convicted of crimes, those are already subject to denaturalization if they have done some very violent crime or obtained their citizenship unlawfully. we're talking about a massive increase in the number of people that they try to ship out of the country on false pretenses because perhaps they don't like the countries from which they came. can you imagine what that means for this country when american citizens living here lawfully, living their lives with their family can one day wake up and find themselves denaturalized and deported, and now that the supreme court has said that the president of the united states, donald trump, if god forbid it

were to be him again, can do whatever he wants in the office of the presidency with immunity, this is a recipe for mass expulsions of american citizens. >> ambassador rice, good morning. we should underline the message you just highlight the which was less than a year ago from stephen miller, not some random guy, not a random podcaster, this is a guy who creates immigration policy, famously, infamously for donald trump when he was president and would again in a new trump administration saying again we've started a new denaturalization project under trump in 2025 expected to be turn charged, and as you say we're talking about people here legally in the case of these haitian immigrants. they are here legally so they have moved from talking about rounding up illegal immigrants, people here illegally and expelling them from the country to expelling people who live here legally, and i'm curious what you make of donald trump's running mate, senator j.d. vance, who represents the very town and the people in it he's attacking, putting these people

at risk and standing by while the guy he's running with says he would pull them out of the country. >> well, i want to just underscore, willie, people who are here legally, yes, but also now american citizens, american citizens, not just people who are here on work permits, but all of this is outside of the bounds of the law and absolutely reprehensible, and then you have senator j.d. vance, the senator from ohio, who has no reticence to literally sick violent actors, people who want to commit harm on his own constituencies, having students unable to go to elementary school, having local colleges have to shut down, having hospitals face bomb threats and have to evacuate. these are his constituents. if he's ready and willing to do that to the people of ohio, to

whom he's accountable, think about what donald trump and j.d. vance will do to the american people. they are clearly signaling every day in every way that they have no intention of serving the american people and governing on behalf of all of us, but they are willing to divide, use fear, sick violence on populations that they don't like and pretend to be serving as leaders of this country. it's outrageous and, you know, let's -- let's see what they are doing and not just what they are saying, but what they are doing every day and what they are doing every day and what they are telling us it is that they just don't care about the vast majority of people in this country. >> ambassador rice, symone townsend sanders. i want to talk about the denaturalization which is

stripping someone of citizenship. it is rare. it has happened in the past, but it is rare and what donald trump and j.d. vance and stephen miller saying they will turbocharge this in a next trump administration. can you tell people at home how there are no guardrails that will be able to stop a trump department of justice, if this is what they would like to do, because legally they can currently if they would like, the department of justice, can take a look into and challenge someone's citizenship. >> yeah. it -- there has always been the legal option if somebody committed a crime in getting their citizenship or a very serious crime thereafter for the federal government to go through a process to denaturalize them, but that has happened in the past before the trump administration in very, very, very small numbers in extreme cases. the trump administration came in, set up this office of denaturalization, and the percentage of people being put

through this process of investigation and then denaturalization began to wrap up quite rapidly and substantially, and now what they are saying is they are going to turbocharge that. they are going to take it as far as they possibly can, and with the supreme court saying that a president has literally no constraints on what he does in that office, then there is nothing preventing the federal government literally without due process walking into people's homes and separating families if they don't like, you know, the color of the skin or the country of origin or the religion or you name it of whoever it is that is here in this country legally as an american citizen. can you imagine in communities across this country people who have come from latin america, from africa, from asia, from parts of europe, from the middle east who are here legally, lawfully, working, paying taxes,

abiding by the law, loving their families, contributing to their communities, can wake up one day and find themselves no longer able to be here as the american citizens that they have become and that they earned lawfully and sent god knows where? it's a terrifying prospect. it's not fanciful. they are saying it, and we've got to believe what they say because in this case they already started doing it in the prior trump administration. >> former ambassador, susan rice, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning to share that. we really appreciate it. thank you. >> good to be with you, thank you. >> good to have you. symone sanders townsend, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe," "forbes" magazine is out with a new profile piece on donald trump that dives into how the former president turned his

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facebook and instagram, i think more than anybody. zuckerberg told me at the white house, he said congratulations, you're number one on facebook. this was a number of years and then all of a sudden i went to being number one to having no voice and then we built this platform, and the reason i built it is because i don't want to be -- i don't want to have my voice shut down, but a lot of people think i'll sell my shares. you know, they are worth billions of dollars but i don't want to sell my shares. i don't want to sell my shares. i don't need money. >> donald trump insisting during a news conference last week he has no plans to sell shares of his media company. now "forbes" magazine is out with a new cover story today depaling how trump's latest business venture has changed his fortune and how the former president has used politics to build his personal wealth. let's bring in chief content officer and editor-in-chief at "forbes" magazine randall lane. randall, good morning, good to see you. >> good morning. >> can we start before we get into the big picture with the claim about truth social and how

he's doing, the man who is being silenced, donald trump, the man in our lives every single day being silenced by social media sites. how is truth social doing? >> how is truth social doing as a business? you have to look at it two ways, as a business it's atrocious, maybe one of the worst companies if not the worst company that's public in america right now, but in terms of trump's fortune is doing terrific, so if you look at the financials, truth social over the last 12 months ending in june did $3.4 million in revenue which is a tiny, tiny amount and if you say it's new and just growing, it's actually down about 10% from last year, and yet the market cap is about almost $4 billion, so as an asset it's amazing, but as a business it's kind of a basket case. >> randall, following donald trump's financial adventures is like trying to follow a ball on a roulette wheel, it keeps bouncing around from different purchase, different sales, one thing to another. >> that's right. >> my question to you is given

the sums of money that he has raised, the sums of money or sum of money that he might be worth, does donald trump ever spend any of his own money on anything? >> that's a great question. donald trump used to spend all his money, and he famously around 1990 went bankrupt and came out with a lesson, other people's money beats your own money so he started borrowing heavily, putting his own money behind it but becoming a licensing company and with truth social and trying to monetize, very successfully his following, in politics creating a movement he's created followers and now out of those followers he's created customers and those customers say whatever he's selling, a bible, ntf or softball in trout social, he's found an incredible new audience that he's been able to monetize

without putting up any of his money. when he first started, you know, trump technology, trump media and technology, a parent company of truth social, he has two of his former apprentices from his television show, gave him 9 a% of the equity without having to put up a dollar, and that's why that stake that he has is worth over $1 billion in public stock. >> so randall, let's dig a little deeper on that. we know that trump is trying to sell nfts, sneakers, those redshirt. what matters here might be this, the social media company, but i know there are rules attached as to when he can sell and not sell. we just played a clip there claiming he won't, though i think a lot of people expect that he will. walk us through just exactly what could happen and if he does sell how much money he could make. >> tomorrow is the day when he can legally start selling, and so we're going to find out tomorrow if he's good on his word. he has incentive actually not to sell because if he starts selling, the stock goes down,

and he actually winds up with less money so he's a little bit in a box here. the best way for him to monetize, of course, would be for the business to grow in terms of profits and in terms of revenue, but, again, it's insanely microscopic. if donald trump did not have his name attached to this business, it would be pretty much worthless. it lost $380 million last year and yet it's worth almost $4 billion and his stake is worth $4.2 billion and if he starts selling that could create a panic, and he's a little bit in a box where he has this asset, he has so many -- he basically told himself public, and if he starts selling himself, especially middle of a political campaign, his stock will collapse. i think he'll be good on his word and he doesn't want to monetize it because it's in his interest not to sell right new. >> randall, quickly, donald trump has always inflated his

net worth and talk about how much money he has, but you guys in the new "forbes" 400 list have his net worth at $4.3 billion, a significant figure. >> yeah. >> how much of that is made up by this truth social stake? >> it's an incredible turnaround, because if you think about it, donald trump left the white house, we had him -- we have an amazing team, three people working on this led by dan alexander, the best in the business, and dan basically does this full time looking at trump's fortune. we had him at $2.4 billion when he left the white house. he actually for the first time in decades fell off the "forbes" 400 so for the last three years he's not been on the "forbes" 400 and his core is real estate, commercial real estate, a terrible place to be post-covid and yet he's almost doubled his net worth since he left office because he's figured out a brilliant way to take his political following and turn it into big bucks, and that's through truth social, so now

more than half of his social, $1.4 billion is from kind of that political area, and he's actually -- we've actually seen him -- the other area that he's monetized very effectively are his golf clubs and the reason those have gone up so much because there's people who pay a lot of money just to be in the trump orbit so he's -- he's literally selling access to himself. when join mar-a-lago, you get to hang out with donald trump. you get to be in kind of the trump universe, and, you know, we've seen -- they don't say how much it costs to join mar-a-lago. we've heard somewhere in the area of a million dollars which leads to a lot of cash flow so we've seen him almost double his golf club business because people want access to kind of this -- this, you know, this trump aura or maybe trump himself. >> a conversation with a world leader on the patio at mar-a-lago, $4.3 billion is the number "forbes" puts down for donald trump's net worth. the new issue of "forbes" is out right now. editor-in-chief randall lane,

thanks so much. mika. >> fascinating. still ahead, one of our next guests helped a democratic governor win in a red state, and now democrats is hoping she can help deliver votes in multiple ballot grounds. we're going to be joined by hadley duval, the young woman making a strong case for the harris/walz campaign when it comes to the abortion rights issue. "morning joe" is coming right back. ghts issue. "morning joe" is coming right back should screen for colon cancer. these folks are getting it done at home with me, cologuard. cologuard is a one-of-a-kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45+ at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. i did it my way. take on the day. with taltz, up to 90% of patients saw a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques. some even saw 100% clear skin.

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cloudy day at the white house. 7:52 in the morning with the presidential election just 48 days away now. our next guest is trying to take us through the presidential history. joining us now, president of global affairs, "new york times" best-selling author, jared cohen, out with his children's book. i don't know if it's a children's book because it's so full of important history that mike and i are getting reminders of things we may have learned 30 years ago that need reminding. talk broadly what you want to do with the book first? >> i have three daughters. it appalls me kids today are

le about politics through background noise and algorithms. what i wanted to do with the book is tell america's story through words of the men that served as president. it talks about what was happening in the country in the world when they said the words and how the words had an impact, and also fun facts like the pet parrot. >> who are you writing for? >> it's really eight plus. i am using the book also to get a refresher on american history. >> no question. you have all the big names. i think to me it's some of the lesser known presidents that

need a little reminding. let's talk about james monroe, the fifth president and the monroe doctrine. >> if you go back to washington, washington's farewell address it was about observing good faith and harmony towards all nations and as america emerged on to the scene by the time james monroe was president, that was not so easy anymore, and he had a doctrine that is cited today and it declared foreign nations need to be kept out of the western hemisphere. it was the first significant american doctrine on foreign policy. >> is there another president who was elected twice, opposed to a president that wants to be elected twice today. it was grover cleveland. he says why be president unless

you stand for something. what about that one? >> grover cleveland is an extraordinary figure, and put aside the fact that it seems like there's a historical premonition. the issue in 1888 was the tariff and the party wanted cleveland to take one stand, and he said what is the point of being re-elected if you don't stand for something. he torpedoed his own election, and loses the electoral college and never has been more proud of anything and comes back when he decides benjamin harrison is ruining the country. >> let's talk about the deep

dive and many could not name and doesn't have a great legacy, but the quote is relevant to today. the storm of frenzy and faction must inevitably dash itself in vain against the unshaken rock of the constitution said in 1855, and extraordinarily relevant all these years later. >> unshaken rock. with the kansas-nebraska act, it introduced the sovereignty, the decision of if they would be free or slave was left to the people, and there was lots of violence and uproar. yet the country at every moment in history is tested with these moments, and the constitution,

time again, we need to lean on it like an unshaken rock, and it's important for the president of the united states to be seen as a messenger as that unshaken rock. that's why i quoted it. >> obama, yes we can, and donald trump, make america great again. the new book, speaking of america, united states presidents and the words that changed history available now. "new york times" best-selling author, jared cohen. liz cheney made headlines for endorsing kamala harris for president. we will show you her new remarks about a closely watched senate

race in texas. we're back in two minutes. 15 or more headache days a month each lasting 4 hours or more. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. and treatment is 4 times a year. in a survey, 91% of users wish they'd started sooner. so why wait? talk to your doctor. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. chronic migraine may still keep you from being there. why wait? talk to your doctor about botox®. and get in the picture. learn how abbvie can help you save.

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we would have been now having so much money coming out of the energy, and we have bagram in alaska, and they say it might be bigger than all of saudi arabia. i got it approved. ronald reagan couldn't do it, and nobody could get it done, and check that out. >> check that out, willie. bagram, alaska. i hear there's some of the best moose hiding -- >> wait, bagram, alaska --

bagram, afghanistan, to the right. i think he may have confused alaska and afghanistan. >> not a slip of the tongue either. he said it five or six times closed with check it, google it, take it to the bank. one thing that he is right about, ronald reagan did nothing about bagram. that much is true. >> thank god, he's the best president, he says, except for the other 45. >> the refuge in alaska is armoire. >> using pagers --

>> oh, my gosh. >> -- pagers to have simultaneous explosions across israel -- i mean across lebanon with hezbollah terrorists that have been reigning missiles down on israel now for months, for months after months there. also we talked about this issue an awful lot. willie, instagram making some pretty significant changes -- child safety changes in their app, which, of course, is something that so many americans -- so many parents have been concerned about for so long. >> long-time coming for lot of people especially if you have children between the ages of 10 and teenagers as well, and finally making changes people have been pleading for for a long time.

on the other story, we will dig in deeply and have a report from israel, just a stunning attack by assad. it looks like it was israel that blew up thousands of pagers. it was not something that happened yesterday but appeared along the supply chain of when these page kwrurbz were made and purchased by hezbollah. extraordinary. we will get into the details of that as well. tell me about the cultural significance of diddy and for those like me who may not be as well-versed in his place in music history. >> p diddy. >> well, first of all, the details laid out in the

indictment turn your stomach, and bad boy entertainment and bad boy records was a turning point in hip-hop music, along with jay-z, and diddy and jay-z came up at the same time in new york city and from different parts of the city. diddy was more than a rapper. he was a producer and ceo and expanded the idea with jay-z of being more than just an artist and controlling your empire, and he pleaded not guilty. he's in federal prison right now. sexual abuse is the allegation, trafficking and really appalling details in the indictment. >> looks like he faces life in prison if convicted and no bail -- i mean, he could be

inside a prison for the rest of his life. >> we will have much more on that straight ahead. along with joe, willie and me, we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire, and msnbc contributor, mike barnicle with us as well. and here's a trump event in flint, michigan, and this is arkansas governor, sarah sanders. >> not only do my kids serve as what is important, but they also keep me humble and you might think for a second you are kind of special and then you go home and your kids remind you very quickly that you are actually not that big of a deal. and ours are pretty good at it. so my kids keep me humble.

unfortunately, kamala harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. >> whoa. what is their obsession about women without children of their biological connection? kamala harris is the step parent of two children, doug emhoff, and they call her mom a la. >> i do it through storytelling. kamala harris has spent her entire career working for the people, all families. that keeps you pretty humble. >> yeah. >> what is this -- >> it's cruelty. >> but you know you are turning off an entire population of people, so they just don't want

those voters. >> they are playing for a very small subset that relishes the cruelty. first of all, it's fast adding that sarah -- sanders -- can't pronounce kamala harris' name properly. they continue to mispronounce her name like on fox when they know better, and i will talk to trump republicans that say kumala, and why do they mispronounce their name when they know better, so she starts there. kamala doesn't have her own children. and willie, it's so obvious, it's just to be hateful.

that's why they do this to be hateful, because they know the truth. they have heard the children -- doug's children's mom say time and time again they are part of a blended family. i guess donald trump and j.d. vance, maybe they are just perfect. a lot of us stumble through life. a lot of us have blended families and a lot of us figure out how to make blended families work, but i just have got to say politically, there are a lot more people who may have blended families, a lot more people who understand what kamala harris and doug is -- are doing. there are a lot more people who understand, you know, again, blended families, than people

who are just self-righteous, mean and hateful. it goes back. they keep playing in tim walz' hands, where he said the golden room is mind your own damn business. and independents think, oh, so hateful and why are they attacking a woman because she doesn't have any biological children, and there are quite a few out there and it's not a sin against god or humanity. >> we have lived in a place where there's a virtue for being cruel, and you have words off the air for those being mean, being a jerk, and all that happens inside the bubble. she got laughs and cheers in that arena among hard core trump

supporters. other people outside say wait a minute, a lot of women don't have children, not by their own choice in many cases. in many cases, it's because of a life you have chosen for yourself. and it's strange, mike barnicle, too, to hear people who profess their christianity and virtueality, yet they strive to get that applause line. >> it makes them so small. never mind the fact that if you asked any american, give me the top ten issues on your mind today that you are dealing with in terms of your family or job or issues politically, what are the top ten issues?

i doubt whether the fact that the vice president's family situation would be one of them. people do not care about that. to joe's point, there's a lot of blended family in this country. to your point, the fact that she has no children by birth is meaningless because she is a mother. she does take care of children in that blended family, and she's like a lot of other women in this country, a lot of other families in this country. it's just so small of an approach. coming up, when cyber war meets sabotage. david ignatius is writing about hezbollah who used pagers to take down multiple targets all at the same time. that's next on "morning joe."

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pagers. killing nine and hurting thousands in lebanon. i must say, if you look at what happened here and iran, with the bombing there and the killing of the leader of hamas, it seems that assad can do what they want to do and when they want to do it, which leads to the question why on october 7th -- >> it makes that bigger. >> why didn't they know about an attack coming for more than a year and had all the warning signs and did nothing about it. >> and still can't explain it. >> the kicker here is bibi netanyahu's rabid cabinet are now trying to get rid of the

defense minister, and -- this has been an ongoing fight between secular jews that are running the defense that intel agencies have since 1948 and religious extremists that really don't care about the military, but are always undermining, always trying to undermine those in the military and intel community and lifting up bibi netanyahu, and so even while this is going on, they are still trying to get rid of the competent leaders inside netanyahu's cabinet. instead of going after the guy that is responsible for hamas's funding and growth and its elicit collection of funds, and on and on and on. >> the precision and the magnitude of the attack raises many questions, and the militant

group is blaming israel for an unprecedented attack that involves blowing up hundreds of pagers across lebanon. nbc news foreign correspondent, raf sanchez, as the details. >> explosions like this across lebanon. the group says hundreds of pagers belonging to its members detonating simultaneously, calling it a massive coordinated attack and blaming israel. look again, the explosion of the pager injures the man with the pager and causes no damage around him. israel refusing to say if it was behind what appears to be an unprecedented intelligence operation. >> you have ever seen anything

on this scale before? >> no, no i haven't. it really is a remarkable sort of milestone in the intelligence security activities. >> hours early, israel said it foiled a hezbollah plot using a land mine. >> this morning "the new york times" is reporting israel was behind the operation. american officials and others briefed on the matter tell the paper israel hid explosive material within a new batch of taiwanese-made pagers imported into lebanon. nbc news reached out for comment but israel has not yet commented on the incident. joining us, david ignatius, and an nbc news security and intelligence analyst.

mark, can we talk about the practical questions, how israel pulled this out get into the supply chain. what else do you know about that? >> willie, ma sawed has given us -- i have never seen anything like this in terms of a kinetic intelligence, and the lethal aspect and in the supply chain. it's instilling fear in the adversaries. what did they do? hezbollah switched their communications efforts. they believed the israelis would be able to intercept their communications, so they went to pagers and israel took a look at how they would import the

pagers, and israel was able to plant explosives and come up with a means to detonate them via a page. it's really a intelligence operation for the ages and it restores israelis' capability of instilling fear in its adversaries. this was lost -- they are showing total domination of hezbollah in the intelligence sphere. >> yeah, we can find you and get to you wherever you are, including on your hip. and the headline was ominous implications of the pager attack against hezbollah. what do you think is among other things an embarrassment to hezbollah.

>> i wrote this operation was like an incredible james bond thriller. hundreds of pagers exploding across lebanon and one problem is hezbollah gets to write the next chapter by determining how it responds. u.s. officials believe that hezbollah is confused by what has happened, panicking. everywhere around the fighters people are dying because of the communication devices they were carrying. it's likely hezbollah will retaliate, and the question is can israel contain the retaliation like they did when they sent their air force to take out the hezbollah rocket positions before they were able to get started. will they be able to do that again? if not, there's the fear we have

all been worried about for nearly a year now, since october 7th, that this conflict could explode into something bigger, the devastating war between the border that would leave israeli cities, major centers of population could expand wider to neighboring countries. u.s. officials hope that will not happen. they were in touch with the iranians to convey the message, we had nothing to do with this and were not aware of it beforehand, but the u.s. commitment to help israel, if it gets into a deep scrape with hezbollah, to stand by israel remains as strong as ever. these next days are going to be dangerous. >> i wonder, you look at how iran and hezbollah has responded

to past attacks by israel. it's -- it's quite clear they have not had the stomach for a regional war. iran doesn't want a regional war right now, at least if you judge by what has happened over the past month or two. they respond but respond in a very measured way that they know is not going to amp things up. we heard the same thing a few weeks ago with the attacks where they said we responded when they didn't do much of anything at all, so we're all good now. it seems neither iran nor hezbollah wants that regional war. is that your read? >> joe, that's certainly my read and the read of both the u.s. and israeli officials. hezbollah and iran have not wanted to go all the way into a conflict that they know would be devastating for them. the question is how do you

remain on the edge? how do you display enough force that you still seem creditable to your followers without getting clobbered? now it appears to the lebanese people to have tied lebanon's fate to sinwar and hamas who were on their last legs in gaza. hamas on monday said it wants a long war of attrition and hopes the u.s. cease-fire and hostage deal were quickly dashed on monday. and the war began with hamas and israel, a suni group opposed to hezbollah, which is a shia-led group. i think the choices for everybody couldn't be higher. the u.s. retains enormous military force in the region to try and deter iran.

again, i have learned to be careful about making predictions. i would watch and wait for the next couple days. coming up, our next guest is delving into a very long story about a thing that simply didn't happen. kevin williamson weighs in on the latest figments of donald trump's imagination. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." 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™.

you say you have a responsibility to share what your constituents tell you but don't you also have a responsibility to fact check them first? >> well, i think the media has the responsibility of fact

checking. >> the american media totally ignored it until they showed up to fact check what some people were saying about pets. there's one story out there from multiple people, by the way, and multiple people came to my office and they talk about the pet story and that's all the american media wants to talk about, and of course they go to springfield and dives in and harasses anybody that complains about the town, and that's bullying. >> those comments are, you know, about eating dogs and things are hurtful, and they are very hurtful for these men and women that work hard and they are hurtful for their children. >> they are hurtful but are they also fueling these threats? >> look, the mayor said today,

he said before this, you know, we had haitians here for three years, four years and we did not have any of these. >> if these comments that are baseless that are being made by former president trump and senator vance, if they were not being made, would the threats stop? >> i don't know what would happen but the statements are wrong. i have said they are wrong and the major said they are wrong and need to stop. >> the republican governor of ohio. we have heard it from the mayor. we heard it from city officials. again, the fire hose of falsehoods where, you know, and what autocrats do is they lie repeatedly and then gaslight you, so you are supposed to get confused. really didn't work. in the end, j.d. vance goes this is all the press wants to talk about. they should be ashamed of

themselves and they should have done the fact checking and the press did the fact checking and what they found is that j.d. vance and trump are liars. why is the media talking about it? because trump talked about it in the debate and in his speeches after the debate, and while donald trump and j.d. vance is lying, and j.d. vance is putting his own constituents' lives in danger, they just keep at it. j.d. vance keeps at it. here we have the gaslighting. oh, they should be ashamed of themselves. you have somebody lying and putting his own constituents' lives in danger, having his own constituents' schools shut down because he keeps lying about this, and having the hospitals

in his own state shut down because he keeps lying in the middle of the presidential campaign and he says somebody else should be ashamed of themselves. that, my friend, is what kids call gas lying. >> there have been more than 30 bomb threats in the last week, and they are threatening the media to not cover a story when he lies -- >> well, he keeps talking about the story. >> you don't want us to cover the fact that you are lying and making up stories that are endangering the lives of people. okay. >> and spreading these lies in a debate that 60 million-plus people watched and then saying you will talk about it on the campaign trail and then saying you will go up to springfield.

>> they have a network that will not say any of this, by the way, and won't cover the story -- >> well, they will go why are they talking about january 6th? it's much to do about nothing. i have heard a lot of people saying it's nothing, and yet donald trump keeps talking about january 6th. again, this is all because of donald trump and j.d. vance's lies. >> joining us now, kevin williamson, and co-author of the playbook -- eugene daniels. >> kevin, all your pieces are incredible, but there is a line for a southern guy like me that stuck out, where you wrote that

you were surprised that a guy was basically this smart that has the education that he has would resort to these lies when he knows better. that's what -- every time i look at members of my former party that went to yale, harvard and stanford, i thought, they could be doing so much as a conservative. they could help this country so much as a conservative, and instead they follow donald trump around and spread his lies. >> yeah, donald trump being a serial liar is not news so we don't have to dwell on that too much, and j.d. vance being a liar is a new development so maybe we should talk about that some. j.d. vance with his famous book called "hillbilly elegy." they came from one of the poorest places in the western

hemisphere, and they complained they didn't speak the language and fit in well, and even to the urban legends of hillbillys living off possums and road kill and squirrels. j.d. vance is one to understand in the way these legends can slander and hurt a community. right now they have schools closed down and colleges closed down and having to shutdown events and will cost their economy a lot, and as i note in the story, it's about something that isn't happen. i did not talk to one person that believed any of these stories. what is worse about this is there are real issues related to immigration in springfield. you have a town of 50 to 60,000 people that have 12,000 immigrants move there. of course there are issues going to be associated with that. rather than talking about the

things going on in springfield and talking about what could improve the situation for everybody, and we are having this crazy conversation about the dogs and cats. and these guys have the temerity about people calling them weird, and they are talking about this weird cat story, and trump starts shouting out of nowhere, they are eating the dogs and cats. that had to be a weird moment for people. >> in your piece, a long story about a thing that didn't happen. you write in part, this, springfield, like many similar cities had been suffering from a declining population and economic stagnation when it joined a number of other rust belt cities to actively recruit immigrants to settle there. now the town fathers may not have had 12,000 haitians in mind

and that's what they got and the results were pretty good, contrary to what you hear from j.d. vance, employment went up and wages went up, too. the case against the haitians isn't that they are welfaremongerers or cat eaters and came here thanks to joe biden's lax border enforcement, because they aren't. marginally employed white people on the dole -- >> we often play ronald reagan's farewell speech to america in 1989 where he talks about the importance of immigrants in the american story, the importance to us economically, culturally,

spiritually, and it's fascinating, your story echos that. this is not neat. it's not clean. these people are here legally but there will be bumps along the way, and yet you can say that about the irish, about the germans, about the hillbillies, as you say, one wave after another that comes to america, they settle in and create jobs and the economy grows, and as ronald reagan said, and america gets younger. >> in fact they did say the same things about the irish and maybe less so about the germans but if you look at the rhetoric,ing there was similar stuff there as well. i am from west texas and we are a border state, and our current border situation is a mess, and this is not in defense of anybody's border policies or anything like that, but it's a

matter of what we might call bearing false witness against a population of poor people. j.d. vance should know better than this. they want to talk about the real issues related to immigration but you can't that have conversation with everybody shouting at each other about cat eaters. it's a bizarre time but we live in bizarre times. >> kevin williamson, thank you very much. kamala harris talked about this when doing an interview with the reporters and the association of black journalists, and for anybody that questions if she does interviews, she did this and took many questions and here's her response to the story in springfield. >> it's a crying shame. i mean, my heart breaks for this community. there were children, elementary

schoolchildren who -- it was -- it was school photo day. do you remember what that's like, going to school on picture day? all dressed up in their best and got all ready and knew what they were going to wear the night before and had to be evacuated. children. children. a whole community put in fear. >> one of the reporters who conducted that interview yesterday is right here, eugene daniels. eugene, nice job. let's start with that, with the vice president's response to what is happening in springfield. i will say, that was some of the more powerful words and body language that we have seen from her on this issue. >> on really any issue, right? the thing that was really fascinating is, one, i wanted to

see if she would talk about a policy implication, right, whether what was happening in springfield and more importantly the racist conspiracy theories being spread or was it the situation or were their policies that could help what was happening in springfield, kind of to what kevin was saying and she took the opportunity to do what you saw, which is not just talk about the dangers of the language but get into how people want to be in charge of this country shouldn't be doing this. the way she did it, right, this is something that black politicians have to balance and white politicians don't when they talk about race, is she has to be able to tell black people, people that look like them, like haitian immigrants that this is terrible and she said her heart breaks for them, but also for those that are watching, white people who are watching and could be in a different place when you think about race and you don't think about it in the same way she does, that

everybody should be upset about it. it's not just about black people feeling scared and haitian americans in that community feeling scared and worry about taking their kids to the haitian american community center or what have you and everybody should be concerned about that, and she has 48 days left in the election. coming up, with flu season around the corner, covid is making a bit of a comeback, and we will talk to the doctor about that and a story we discussed earlier in the week, the long-term health issues connected to the concussions on the field. that's straight ahead when we come back.

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the miami dolphins placed their franchise quarterback, tua tagovailoa, on the injured list after suffering the third concussion in his career. his latest head injury happened while tua was scrambling for a first down last thursday. he immediately appeared dazed with his arms propped in a unnatural position but was able to walk off the field in his own power. joining us now, dr. vin gupta. it has been hard to watch in the case of tua. a couple years ago, it was, like, fencing i think is what it called when your arms lock up in the air, and because they are competitive they try and get up and walk off in their own power.

what do you see in a situation like this? >> it's hard to watch, and like you said it's the third time that it happened to tua since 2022, and the more you have hard head impacts because of football or other contact sports, the risks that person will have for chronic traumatic, cte is what we are talking about. now we are talking more about cte in former football players, and that's what tua is at risk for. we have a dynamic kickoff, and that changed the game this year to minimize the high-impact hits. yet we have seen a 20% increase of concussions on the field

since this change, probably because we are talking about it. >> covid is lingering and making a comeback here. there's a new booster and vaccine coming out. >> end of september into middle of october, willie, that's the time to get covid and the flu. can you get them at the same time. we are seeing a thousand deaths week over week from covid. we just don't talk about it. >> overdose deaths in the united states are down 10.6% over the last year. obviously this is a plague in the country. what do you make of that number? >> i think that's a direct result, one of public health messaging and we were just talking make of that number? >> that's a direct result of public health messaging. we were talking about that regarding concussions. that works. getting narcan in the hands of people, making sure it's over the counter, easily accessible

and how do we use it if we see somebody on the street that might have had an overdose. it's working. giving the tools to the people. it's working. >> i'm curious, are you seeing -- it's probably going to take a couple years. but it's like we're seeing some anecdotal evidence here, anecdotal evidence there. crime rates going down sitly. companies saying you need to come back in and be in our community. we need you here at amazon five days a week. there are a lot of workers upset about that. there are a lot of parents with younger adults that say thank god they're going back into the office and having a social component to their lives. then you see overdose deaths going down. i wonder if we're seeing bit by bit the connecting of some dots that maybe suggest we could be

moving out of the horrors and the hell of a once in a century pandemic. >> joe, i share your optimism. i think that this is a great sign, one of social connectivity, being in person again, return to office. we think that means something for mental health. two, for me the narcan -- accessibility of narcan the fact that overdoses are declining, it's empowering people to care for their health. what the pandemic did is give us tools at home to care for ourselves. that's having an impact here. i 100% agree with your point. coming up, chris matthews is standing by. he's keeping tabs on battleground pennsylvania, a key state on the road to the white house, very key. chris joins our political round table when "morning joe" comes right back.

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out there who have no options and i want you to know that we see you. we hear you. kamala harris will sign a national law to restore the right to an abortion. >> coming up, our next guest is playing an important role in the november elections and she's not even on the ballot. hadley duvall is using her own story as a rallying cry. she joins us live in the fourth hour of "morning joe."

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another guy making no effort to tone down the rhetoric is j.d. vance. he spoke at a rally in michigan where he pushed his hateful lie about haitian immigrants without knowing where they're from. >> what happened in springfield is an example of kamala harris' open border, what she wants to do to every small town in this country. over 20,000 migrants, primarily from hatia have been dropped into springfield, ohio. >> that's right. that's right. haitians come from hatia, much in the same way lesbians come from lesbia and donald trump comes from dementia. >> wow. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast and 9:00 a.m. on the east. we'll get the latest from the

campaign trail in a moment. first the developments in the middle east. top national security experts say they've never seen this before. the militant group hezbollah is blaming israel for an unprecedented attack that involved blowing up hundreds of pagers across lebanon. it happened all at the same time. two u.s. officials tell nbc news israel was behind the blasts and the u.s. and other western governments are still gathering information about how it was carried out. nbc news international correspondent raf sanchez has the details. >> reporter: this morning a vast coordinated attack, new details emerging on what hezbollah says was a coordinated effort to turn pagers into bombs. they say large numbers of pagers detonated simultaneously across

lebanon yesterday. the blasts wounding nearly 3,000 people, including the iranian ambassador and at least 12 dead, among them several children. explosions like this going off as hezbollah members went about their day. israel refusing to say if it was responsible, but this week said halting hezbollah's attacks on its border is now war. "the new york times" reporting israeli agents planted explosives in pagers. two sources tell "the new york times" the pagers received messages that seemed to be from hezbollah leadership, but instead detonated the explosives. those details not verified by nbc news. >> the israelis were able to compromise the supply chain of hezbollah. >> have you ever seen anything

on this scale before? >> no, no, i haven't. >> reporter: the pagers bore the branding of a taiwanese company, but the firm says that model is made by a company in hungary which licenses its logo. with hezbollah vowing revenge, fears of escalation spiraling towards all-out regional war. >> raf sanchez reporting there. israel not claiming credit for this, but nbc news has learned that israel is behind this and their message is we can reach hezbollah and hamas anywhere they are. vice president harris and former president trump campaigning now in key battleground states. trump was in michigan last night making his first public appearance since sunday's apparent assassination plot against him. nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake has more. >> reporter: with less than seven weeks until election day donald trump and kamala harris are speaking to voters in

critical battlegrounds. former president trump stumping in michigan. his first public appearance since the secret service stopped the man with an assault rifle at his golf course. mr. trump acknowledging the foiled apparent plot against him, coming just two months after a would be assassin wounded him in pennsylvania. >> only consequential presidents get shot at. >> reporter: thinking kamala harris for reaching out. >> i got a very nice call from kamala. it was very nice. it was very nice. it was very, very nice. we appreciate that. >> i told him what i said publicly. there's no place for political violence in our country. >> reporter: kamala harris appearing in philadelphia for an event with the national association of black journalists. that event in stack contrast to one mr. trump held with the group earlier this summer when he suggested harris had suddenly, quote, become black.

>> i didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she turned black. >> reporter: harris who is black and south asian telling the panel she doesn't assume her ethnicity will help her. >> you got to earn their votes. >> reporter: it comes as some trump allies are pushing for more protection for the former president. >> he has to have the protection he needs. >> reporter: sarah huckabee sanders taking a swipe at harris for not having children. >> my kids keep me humble. unfortunately kamala harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. >> reporter: kirstin emhoff defending the vice president on social media. kamala harris has spent her entire career working for the people, all families. that keeps you humble. >> that's a blended family right

there. it's working together in the best interest of the children and i guess that's something that maybe sarah huckabee sanders doesn't understand. it's kind of weird that -- again, they want to go there. we talked about it before, that the cruelty, the meanness, the meanness -- you have to understand, it's a crazy way to go through life. the meanness and the cruelty is, you know, not a bug. it's the fever. as i said a couple hours ago, it's a feature that leads to failure politically. politics is simple. let's bring in chris matthews here. chris, you understand politics is so strange how things have changed during the era of donald trump for the republican party. i mean, you know, i -- you know, what i did is what a lot of

people would do. i know you. you're a democrat. i'm a republican. i would go on the floor of the house. they all considered me to be a right wing nut on economic issues especially. i had a 95% acu rating and yet i deliberately made all of my friends there democrats. they would go over. i would work with them. i would talk to them. i will tell you -- i won't mention names, but when they stood up and were demigods, i would go over and sit down. you just said we wanted to starve little kids because we're going to have school lunch menus go up 4.5% instead of 6%. that's hurtful. it's not true. could we talk about that? they would sit and talk to me because you build those relationships. politics is a game of addition.

when it was time to get a bill sponsored or time to do some heavy lifting, i would have my conservative brothers and sisters and would walk across and find 15, 20 democrats and get the job done. that's how politics has always been until the last nine years where with donald trump and trump republicans it's, like, you've got to insult the other and be mean to the other side and attack the other side. again, all it does is lose elections for them. i just still, chris, i don't get it. >> reporter: well, you know, the we, they thing has got completely out of hand when you start going after people who don't have children as the enemy. how about not mothers to be or single women or not married women, the fact that you don't have kids does not necessarily -- it's not some treasure house. people want children generally

and to hold it against them it's subtracting. you talk about addition and subtraction, you're taking a whole level of people away. women who never got married, men who never got married, not having kids -- when you have kids, we have three of them. your friends that don't have kids sort of adopt your kids. that's what goes on. people like having kids and they look out for your kids. they say how is michael doing, how's thomas doing? they adopt you. this is what happens when you don't have kids naturally. you want to find kids to look out for. that's what people are like. now they're calling them the bad guys. you know, it's about the abortion thing too in pennsylvania. i'm telling you this dobbs decision thing in the suburbs is going to be a match for the rural areas where they're conservative and you'll have a real battle up there. trump's behavior and this guy vance who is a complete -- quick

draw. how did he become a pro trumper? didn't he write a book against the guy? didn't he make fun of the people who worked for him? then he jumped in and become one of them. j.d. vance is a huge mistake. you can blame it on trump's kids. they could have picked anybody else and they have more trouble. they have more trouble with this guy than they had before which is amazing for trump to say -- i've got more problems because of this vp guy. the vice presidential debate will be interesting. >> the things that have come out of this man's mouth have caused more problems for the campaign than you could argue donald trump, which is really saying a lot. from childless cat ladies, which i think made women across america, democrats and republicans, extremely angry and protective of each other. to eating cats and dogs out of

donald trump's mouth and j.d. vance as well in springfield, ohio. that's why i'm so confused as to why sarah huckabee sanders would double down and be so -- this to me is such a dangerous behavior. to be so judgmental to other people, to other women, i've never seen that behavior end well for anybody. it backfires, being judgmental. it was mean, cruel, all the things you were saying, but also extremely judgmental and it's not a thing j.d. vance, tucker carlson, all these men are coming to the table and talking about women in the most judgmental and condescending way on the heels of the frontrunner taking away 50 years of rights to women across america. how is that going to work out for them? >> again, chris, mika says all

this, but i'm just looking at it politically. >> that's what i meant. >> politics is a game of addition. i know, but people will see it and go the libs are triggered. >> i'm not triggered. >> no, it's not that. it's just the question why do they keep putting their hand on the hot stove when they know it burns them? it costs them votes. they lose elections. >> reporter: you know, that hot stove thing is a good example. why is -- trump talks about late-term abortion or right before a kid's born. he's bringing up the issue of abortion. why's he bringing it up? he's attacking women. he wants women to be punished. he never took it back. mccormick, the guy running in pennsylvania, he's the republican candidate, he's opposed to exceptions for rape and incest. they're making women the victims

of their own punishment. on the haitian thing, i guess what they're up to is race. they're saying when they go after cats and dogs and all that stuff, what they're reminding the american people is we have people coming in from countries who are black. we have black people coming into the country. let's talk about that. they want to bring that subject up. they talk about all the drug dealers coming in. they want to talk about mexicans coming into the country. it's a way of bringing the ethnic issue in. it's always that. if they bring up the issue of they're all drug dealers, they're talking about immigration. when you talk about abortion, you're talking about women. that's a weird one. why do you want to make women your enemy when women are most of the voters. why are you talking about women who worry about their daughters, women under 45 say it's their number one issue, abortion

rights. why are you making women your enemy? what's the politics here? i don't understand the crude nature of it. what are you up to here making all women worried about their daughters and their sisters? all the ethnic people saying why are they going after the haitians? oh, they're black. we've gotten enemies out there. joe, you're right, it's the politics of subtraction, not addition. >> the childless theme we heard first from j.d. vance and now sarah huckabee sanders, not a slip of the tongue. it's something they're pushing. let's talk about pennsylvania. let's talk about somebody in bucks county. wait a minute, there are a lot of women i know who don't have kids. there are a lot of women who wanted to have kids and could not. that's incredibly cruel. help us sift through how any of

this plays in the places that will determine this election? >> reporter: well, potentially everything changed when biden withdrew. you had an older guy, older than trump. they're both old obviously. i'm old. they're clearly old. along comes a woman about the right age. she's got this zest, the enthusiasm, the joy. she's enjoying running. she's the kind of candidate with normally go for. what does she do? i'm not talking about race. same old tired playbook. that's so smart. that's what jack kennedy did with the houston protestant pin ministers. he said i'm not the catholic nominee for president. i'm the democratic nominee for president who happens to be catholic. i don't speak for the church and they can't speak for me. it was so smart to nullify the

normal american prejudice and not nullify it. it was smart for kennedy to do it and it's smart for harris to do it. >> polls are moving slowly for her. are you seeing that? >> i think it's anecdotally. she looks ready to be president. biden was slow on the draw. it's hard to get the words out. he hated talking. i understand this. i'm a catholic too. he hated talking about abortion. he didn't want to talk about the right to abortion. you're talking about the right to abortion. that's what he was not good at. he just wasn't. >> chris matthews, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. always good to see you. the harris/walz campaign is out with a new ad focussed on abortion. it featured hadley duvall who drew national attention after

appearing in an ad for governor andy beshear in kentucky. let's look at the new ad. >> i've never slept a full night my entire life. i was 5 years old when my stepfather abused me for the first time. i felt like i was alone with a monster. i was 12 when he impregnated me. i just remember thinking i have to get out of my skin. i can't be me right now. like this can't be it. i didn't know what to do. i was a child. i didn't know what it meant to be pregnant at all. but i had options. because donald trump overturned roe v. wade girls and women all over the country have lost the right to choose. even for rape or incest. donald trump did this. he took away our freedom.

>> i'm kamala harris and i approve this message. >> hadley joins us once again on "morning joe." it is good to see you, hadley. thank you very much for coming back on the show. >> absolutely. thank you for having me. >> i want to start by asking how it's been going on the campaign trail, what you're hearing from american women, quite frankly, and men. especially when you share your story, i'm curious to where you have been campaigning and where you plan to go and the feedback you're getting. >> i've been going to a lot of the battleground states, but right now i'm in pennsylvania on the reproductive freedom bus tour. we've seen so much energy. we've been to college campuses. we've talked to men, women, republicans, democrats. you know, it's amazing to see that we are all unified on this

decision and this topic. it's so heart breaking to see some people are in denial of that, but it's really been amazing seeing everybody come together. >> i'm curious. i would think pennsylvania would be a big controversy, this discussion over the right to abortion, which i think what you're trying to share in your story and in the story of many others across america is that it's more than the old fashioned idea of trying to get rid of a pregnancy that you don't want. it's health care and that there are women whose health is in jeopardy now because of the overturning of roe. are you able to get that across to those who don't agree? what are you hearing when you hear people who don't really understand or agree with what you're fighting for? >> i really like to ask people, you know, could you sit down with me one-on-one and listen to

every detail of trauma that i had to experience for about ten years. if you can't do that comfortably, which you should not be able to, you should not feel comfortable walking into a voting booth and voting for a man who has the audacity to tell me what to do with that trauma. you know, if that doesn't get through to some people, then look at your daughters. look at your mothers, your sisters. look at your neighbor. because i am a very normal, regular person and this happened to me and it was happening for so long and it's happening to so many others right now. you know, you can't deny that. it's heart breaking and that's why we're speaking. we're speaking for those who can't speak for themselves. we're trying to flip votes and change people's minds while we can. we're not going to get through to everybody, and that's okay, but we need to be able to spread a clear message. it's not a question on where we

stand in our decision about pro-choice. >> the music in hadley's ad features the song "when the party's over" by musician billie eilish who yesterday along with her brother finneas endorsed the harris/walz campaign. take a look. >> we're voting for kamala harris and tim walz because they're fighting to protect our reproductive freedom, planet and our democracy. >> the only way to stop them and the project 2025 agenda is to vote for kamala harris. >> vote like your life depends on it, because it does. >> billie eilish and her brother finneas endorsing kamala harris for president after taylor swift did the same. hadley, it's willie geist. i want to ask you about your courage in stepping out and talking about this so openly, going back to the race in your

home state. it's not an easy thing to do. i don't need to tell you. i don't think most people would be comfortable telling their story in such a way. there's a reason to protect victims, to have their privacy. why has it been so important for you to stand up and speak with such a strong voice on this issue? >> i went through my trauma. i survived it. i've been healing now for many years and i just hope that any little girl going through that right now knows that she will too. you know, if not me, then who's going to speak up? i remember being that little girl and needed somebody to make me feel safe, needing somebody to save me. i never want those little girls and women across the country to think we're not fighting for them because we always are. >> reproductive rights activist hadley dduvall, thank you for coming on the show.

so great to see you. so proud of you. really appreciate what you're doing for women across america. >> thank you. >> see you soon. >> jonathan lemire, i got to say, almost everybody that's followed politics and the politics of abortion for the past generation, i think most have been very surprised by the reaction of voters, the reaction of swing voters, the reaction of independents, the reaction of voters in kansas and kentucky, the reaction of voters in wisconsin, everywhere where abortion came up as an issue, either directly or indirectly through statewide races, pro-choice has won every time. pro-life since 2002 has lost every time on these ballot initiatives. it's going to be fantastic. if i'm wrong there, please correct me. thus far, that's how it seems to

have gone. but you look at this campaign and you look at the senate campaigns -- and i do wonder how it impacts a lot of these close races from arizona to pennsylvania. look at texas where you actually -- first of all, the senate, republicans in the senate, once again killed a bill that would have protected ivf, would have provided ivf protections to families across america. they killed that bill. ted cruz, though, had to go out of his way and put an alternative bill on the floor that got voted down because he's in a very tight race in texas. i mean, it's just -- it's not red versus blue when it comes to abortion. this is an issue, man, in the dallas suburbs, the houston suburbs, obviously austin,

across a state like texas it's making the senate races and the presidential race tighter than it would be, at least it looks like that now. >> reporter: no question since the dobbs decision in 2022, abortion rights defeated at the ballot box. it doesn't seem to be at the forefront every day because there's the chaos and the assassination attempts and the lies trump and vance are saying about springfield, ohio, but it's there. every time you talk to a staffer on the harris campaign or one of the senate campaigns or any democratic activist in the field, they say abortion rights is in the top one, two, three of someone's concerns going into november. it helped the democrats in 2022. it certainly seems poised to do so again. the ad there from hadley and the way she spoke at the convention and just now, so powerful.

it resonates with a lot of people. i think it will without question be one of the closing arguments for the harris campaign heading into early november and as early voting starts, the idea of the abortion rights and they, republicans, are trying to take away your freedoms. >> absolutely. speaking of that texas senate race, former congresswoman liz cheney was in the state to help raise money for the democratic candidate colin allred. she explained why she can't campaign for ted cruz. >> i feel this race is such an important one. i have not endorsed in any other senate race, but i served with colin. i know what kind of congressman he's been. we were on opposite sides of issues and opposite sides of the aisle, not every issue on opposite sides.

i also know ted cruz. i've known him for over 20 years. i know he will say anything if it serves his own political purpose. when i watch the kinds of things we saw ted cruz do after the 2020 election in particular, his willingness to do whatever donald trump wanted him to do, including proposing this completely unconstitutional plan that would have resulted in throwing out electoral votes, throwing out the votes of millions of americans, something that, as i said, was unconstitutional and ted cruz was one of the leaders of that in the senate. it's dangerous. coming up on "morning joe," as baseless conspiracy theories continue to be part of the 2024 campaign, our next guest, former national institute of health

director, dr. francis collins joins us to discuss that and his new book "the road to wisdom." "morning joe" will be right back. you'll find them in cities, towns and suburbs all across america. millions of americans who have medicare and medicaid but may be missing benefits they could really use. extra benefits they may be eligible to receive at no extra cost. and if you have medicare and medicaid, you may be able to get extra benefits, too, through a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. call now to see if there's a plan in your area and to see if you qualify. all of these

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those are some topics discussed in the new book, "the road to wisdom." the book's author dr. francis collins joins us now. he previously served as the director of the national institutes of trump for presidents trump and biden. you saw a little bit of all of this at the nih, truth, science, faith and trust especially during the pandemic, around covid, around vaccines. what story did you want to tell with the book? >> well, i think we're living in a dark time with our society having gotten so tied up in divisiveness and polarization and conspiracies. we should try to pull ourselves out of that. if there's a road taking us to wisdom, we're kind of in a ditch. it means getting reanchored to things like there is such a thing as objective truth.

there are facts out there. they don't care how you care about them. they're just facts. if we could reanchor ourselves to the acceptance of that, that would be a good start. many conspiracies were false, but spread anyway because they tapped into your favorite emotion which is righteous indignation. we have to pull ourselves out of that. i don't think the politicians are going to help us do that. i don't think the media is the solution. this has to come from us, the exhausted majority, which is about two thirds of the country. maybe a little blue, little red, some are believers, some are skeptics. we all feel something's wrong here. maybe one at a time working with each other, starting to break down those barriers, build bridges, we can recover our country. yes, it's a dark time. martin luther king jr. said darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. we can be people of light.

let's recover that attitude instead of continuing the animosity, the vitriol, the polarization, being off in our separate tribe. >> amen to that. case in point, the covid vaccine. as a man who has spent his life in public health, and we saw the miracle of the development at such a speed, thanks to president trump's "operation warp speed," doctors, scientists working together, we got the vaccine which for most of us was a miracle. we were so grateful for it. but for a segment of the population, it was not to be trusted and still isn't by the way. for you, as a scientist to say, my gosh, i can't believe we did this with an efficacy greater than we expected. >> 90 to 95%. >> you were looking at 70 and got 95. what was it like from the inside to see so much doubt cast upon that historic development? >> well, it was historic.

the night where we unblinded the data and could see in late november of 2020, what the results were, i was dumbfounded. i prayed about this for a whole year. i worked as hard as i ever worked, so did thousands of people. dared to hope it would be that good. 90 to 95% effective with essentially no side effects. i thought we were going to be on the straight path now towards getting control of this terrible epidemic. for a while in early '21 a lot of people were rolling up their sleeves. by the time we got to the summer, 50 million americans made it clear we don't trust this. these are good, honorable people. they had been misled by information and disinformation by people making money off those lies. really what happened there continues to be the deepest source of heart ache i can imagine. the estimated are 234,000

americans died unnecessarily between the summer of 2021 and the spring of 2022 because of misinformation. it's astonishing that that could happen in the most technologically advanced country in the word. >> joe, we're still seeing that now. there's a man in bobby kennedy jr. who donald trump we're hearing is promising him some position if he becomes president again. >> most of the disinformation, and we can say this because i'll follow up with saying something positive about former president trump, most of the disinformation has come from the republican side and consistently come from the republican side. it has -- i say that because if i had gone to anybody -- if i had gone to you dr. collins, when we first realized in early

2000 what was upon us, as a doctor, how quickly can we get a vaccine? you would say maybe three years, maybe four, five. maybe never. you just don't -- you just don't pull a switch and get a vaccine. "operation warp speed" launched by the trump administration will be remembered 100 years from now as being perhaps one of the great scientific achievements of the past quarter century and we'll look on that much like people are looking back on pep far, george w. bush's that saved 20, 25 million people in africa from the scourge of aids. donald trump would no longer get on stage and brag about "operation warp speed" because of that disinformation. how frustrating is that?

>> believe me, beyond frustrating. i was honored to serve in the trump administration and do everything i could to manage this terrible pandemic working with lots of other government agencies and with private industry and philanthropy and the public in general. to have that undercut at the point it was showing remarkable ability to save lives was very bizarre and hard to understand and can only be explained by the fact that politics became more important than the truth. >> you know, dr. collins, you're a person of faith. we've talked to you before about it. i think we'll have probably a similar background here. it used to be when i would go to baptist churches across the south and before the pews started emptying out and before civic organizations starting thinning out, we would sit down in our sunday school circle and

somebody would come in with a crazy conspiracy theory. we would all turn and gently go, i don't think that's right. listen, let's talk about it. when we were talking through it, through the most part just the whole group embracing them, but politely saying, yeah, that's a conspiracy theory. you should check. there were social boundaries there. with church pews emptying out, with civic organizations thinning out, is that one of the reasons these conspiracy theories spread because we don't have the same social guardrails we had even 25 years ago? >> i think that's one of the factors for sure. we're just not anchored to some of those foundational institutions that used to keep us on track to help us recognize there's such a thing as shared evidence-based information, what jonathan rauch calls the constitution of knowledge.

someone that's got a bit frayed by our lack of those connections to those sources so that almost anything can be questioned. well, that might be true for you, but not true for me. that's fine if we're talking about a opinion of a movie, but not if we're talking about whether the earth is flat or round. there are thousands of people who think it's flat. >> how did we get there? >> dr. collins, as a scientist you learned lessons from your research and your experiences. with a little distance from 2020 and 2021, those dark years for the world and for america, what lessons do you take away? i'm not saying you specifically, but is anything you as an administration could have done differently? >> i'm glad to talk about that. it's not sufficient to say these other people messed up. the government didn't do things perfectly. i'm one of them. i was talking to a camera every

other day trying to talk to the public about what they should be doing about masks and social distances and schools. i wish every time we did that we had said, look, we don't know all the facts. we wish we did. i'll tell you the best i can do right now with an evolving situation. this is how science works. we have incomplete data. we try to make a conclusion and then we get more data. i think people didn't understand that. when things changed like masking, oh, we don't need that, now we do, people began to lose confidence that the sources whereas reliable as they wanted them to be. it would have been great if we had a great network of science communication and it didn't seem to be coming from a group that was called elielitists. i got called that a lot. for the next time we have to have a better strategy. we have to figure out how to

immunize people about misinformation, not always playing catch up. when something comes along, get ready. you'll hear crazy things about this. be ready for that and don't be taken in. we were always on the back foot. >> for example, schools, i think that's one place people looked and said, okay, knowing what we know now and the benefit of hindsight, schools probably didn't need to be closed given the impacts we're seeing on our children, is that fair? >> there's a study that said during 2020 when we didn't have a vaccine and thousands of people were dying, closing the schools was one of the most effective thing to do when we were trying to flatten the curve so hospitals would not be overwhelmed. they stayed closed too long. a lot of that was local decisions. people got spooked about going back to school. the teachers did understandably. i wish we would have done a better job figuring out how long

that needed to be sustained and not be a prolonged period. >> so much to talk to you about. we have to have you back. much more in the book. the new book is titled "the road to wisdom." it's on sale now. former director of the national institutes of health, dr. francis collins, thank you very much. dr. collins, thanks. coming up tomorrow on "morning joe," former secretary of state hillary clinton will be our guest discussing her new book and her advice for vice president harris on how to run against donald trump. we'll be right back with much more on "morning joe." and stay on top of the market. e*trade from morgan stanley

this just in. we're learning more than 100 former national security adviser who served under ronald reagan, george h.w bush and george w. bush, have all come together and

endorsed vice president kamala harris after they said that former president donald trump is, quote, unfit to serve again as president, which is obviously what his own former chief of staff and others said. some of the names include former cia director michael hayden, former director of national intelligence, former defense secretary chuck hagle, former congresswoman barbara comstock and kim eggleman and many others on this list. you start adding these gop officials, national security officials with all those that served in donald trump's administration and it is just overwhelming. i do wonder how people look at that and say, everybody that's served other republican presidents, most everybody that served other republican presidents, and most people that served for donald trump say he's

unfit to be president again for a second term. that's speaks about as loudly as anything. >> we'll talk about this a lot more tomorrow. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> it's so gorgeous. any moment julie andrews will be running over that hill. >> that was austria. this is a france. >> fashion, romance and iconic european sites are back in season. the netflix hit "emily in paris" one of the stars of the show joins us, along with the executive producer. that's next on "morning joe."

san francisco's been through tough times. london breed led us through the pandemic, declaring an emergency before anyone else, saving thousands of lives. from growing up in the western addition housing projects to becoming mayor, london has never given up on the city that raised her. london is getting people off the streets and into care. london never gave up on me. i found a home, and my life is on the right track. london made it super easy for me to open my small business,

by cutting city fees. and she's reinventing downtown to make our city vibrant again. she's building 82,000 new homes and helping first time homebuyers, just like us. and london's hiring hundreds of police officers, and arresting drug dealers. san francisco has been through difficult times, but our hard work is paying off. working together, we're building a better future for the city we all love. ad paid for by re-elect mayor london breed 2024. financial disclosures are available at sfethics.org. i really needed this. >> what did you need? >> a break from work, paris, everything. >> where is emily? >> she went to rome. >> emily's in rome? >> i knew it. >> pack your bags! >> bongiorno, emily.

♪♪ >> which city do you prefer? paris or rome? >> surprise! >> that's a look at part two of season four of netflix's smash hit show "emily in paris." the series follows american emily cooper who moved overseas to work at a french marketing agency run by a boss as demanding as she is suave. in the latest season, emily and her co-workers embark to rome, each with different professional and personal pursuits in mind. and joining us now is one of the stars of "emily in paris," philippine leroy beaulieu who plays her boss on the show and the creator, executive producer and writer of the show, darren star. good morning. so great to have you with us. >> happy to be here and happy

you said my name right. thank you. >> high school and a little college french paid off. it has been a while. forgive me. let's -- we were talking in the break, darren, about the explosion of this show. you always hope you created something that is going to resonate. you have so many times in your career. but could you have imagined the way this has taken off, not just here in america, by the way, but around the world? >> no, you never really go in expecting something like this. and i think part of it is that just the netflix effect, it sort of dropped everywhere in the world at the same time. so, everyone got to experience it simultaneously which is sort of a first for me. >> i remember reading when it came out it was number one in more countries than i knew existed. the number was so high. >> yes. 95 or something. philippine, let's talk about your role, for people who haven't seen the show there are some left, you are the boss to emily. how did this role come about for you and how excited were you to work with this group? >> it came through a casting, so it was really readings. but i was so excited. i was so excited, i read, it

wasn't for me, it was for somebody younger and then for some reason darren decided it was going to be me. so it was amazing. i was excited. and kind of nervous about getting into, you know, a show with darren because he's such a legend. but it was fantastic. a great adventure. >> when i saw you i saw philippine read, i thought, i just have to tailor the role for her. because she just sort of defined it for me. >> that's a nice credit to you as an actor. >> yeah. >> you are well known french actress for people who don't know, but obviously your profile has raised here in the united states and around the world. what has that side of it been like for you? >> it has been very exciting. at the same time a bit overwhelming. i'm still trying to figure out how to navigate this whole thing. but it is wonderful. it gives us so many more opportunities as actors. everybody, actually. everybody is, like, their life has changed. our lives have changed. so it is great. >> you've earned it. let's take another look at a scene where sylvie reconnects with an old flame in rome.

>> i know what i'm good at. and i have an office to run now. >> in are a lot of things more important than work. >> i know. somehow coming here reminds me of that. today i told an american girl that works for me to sacrifice romance for my ambition, which is so wrong. >> and what did she do? >> she refused. as she should have. but ever since i opened my own agency, my life has become my work. even in business with my husband now, who has opened a club in paris. >> still with your husband? >> i think you're the only man who has ever been jealous of. >> i think you made the right choice with the casting, darren. >> no one else. >> people love about the show, and just the great performances, and also what you do with all

your shows which is this atmospheric element of costumes and cities and setups. as paris, as a backdrop, gives you, i would imagine, just as a creative person, so much to work with. >> yeah, the city totally inspires me. and always has. and it is why i wanted to set a show there. i just felt like for me i wanted the opportunity to live and work in paris, like emily. i got to do it. >> selfish reasons. >> exactly, yeah. that was the motivation. >> and for you to shooting your home country. >> it was great. but also rome is my hometown. i was raised there. >> you were? >> yeah. >> okay. >> so paris and rome, what else? we don't need anything else. and being in these two cities, represent so much for me, so rome is the heart and paris was the exciting life. >> right, right. and so we don't want to give too much away. you've been renewed for a fifth season. congratulations on that. for people just dialling into this fourth season, what should they be expecting?

>> well -- >> where do we find ourselfs? >> by the end of the fourth season, we find ourselves in rome. which is a big change for the series. but doesn't mean we'll be leaving paris, but the footprint of the show expands. i think there are those that have been seeing season four, a lot of twists and turns. >> and for your character, philippine? >> i hope a lot of twists and turns too. i love how darren blows off everything. every time we think we have it. >> and you're no dummy about your locations. paris, rome, bouncing around the world's great cities. >> it is not bad. >> congratulations on the success of the show. you can stream all four seasons of "emily in paris" on netflix now. actress philippine leroy beaulieu and creative and executive producer and writer darren star, thank you for being here. >> thank you so much for having us. that does it for us this morning. "ana cabrera reports" picks up the coverage right now. >> right now on "ana cabrera reports," crying shame, vp

harris slams trump for comments on haitian migrants as conspiracy theories and intense rhetoric loom large on the campaign trail. plus, the fed poised to make the first interest rate cut since 2020. how it could impact everything from credit cards to car loans to mortgages. also ahead, u.s. intel officials now say israel was behind that series of pager explosions targeting hezbollah. how the audacious attack was pulled off. and later, sean "diddy" combs behind bars this morning, what's next for the disgraced music mogul as he sits in a new york city jail awaiting trial. good morning. it is just about 10:00 eastern, 7:00 a.m. pacific. on the campaign trail, intense rhetoric is in the spotlight. the candidates navigating the effects of the apparent