indictment with various charges is survivable. the question is how long he drags it on. this is an interesting scandal because so many of us who lived in new york knew something was coming, right? they seized his phone, seized his ipads. there was a lot of people. the last couple weeks, we've seen various members of his cabinet resign. i do think we all saw this coming. that said, i think it's even -- i think like so many things in adams' world, it's weirder and more damning than my of us thought. >> he's vowed to say in. we'll see if he's able to do so or if the governor takes action. political analyst molly jong-fast thank you for being here this morning. we'll talk on "morning joe." thank you to you for getting up "way too early" on this friday and all week long. "morning joe" starts right now. i believe i will be able to

make a deal between president putin and president zelenskyy quite quickly. >> what does that look like? what does that -- >> i don't want to tell you what that looks like. >> okay, that's one way of answering the question. >> i don't want to tell you what that's like. >> donald trump remaining coy when asked what a deal between russia and ukraine would look like. we're going to show you more of what the former president had to say ahead of a meeting today with the ukrainian president, who appeared alongside vice president kamala harris yesterday at the white house. >> wasn't that kind of like nixon's secret plan? >> secret plan to end the vietnam war, yes. >> oh, there are a lot of polls. >> every morning, there's new polls. i didn't see them today. >> the bloomberg polls. key, new polls from the key swing states that crossed overnight. [ laughter ] we will show you how, once again, "the new york times"/siena poll is a dramatic

outlier. that is what happens when you have voodoo, witchcraft. welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, september 27th. along with joe, willie, and me. >> let's get to talking. let's go. >> we have "way too early"'s jonathan lemire. pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson. u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay. >> can i do this one? >> it's impossible she was on a red eye. >> come on. >> i don't believe it, katty. >> were you really? >> i'm never doing it again. there's no point, and i'm too old. >> you, of course, are not too old, but there is no point for people born in the decade that we were born in to do a red eye. >> my son has come home for a few days, and you will fly anywhere at any time. >> you're right. >> yes, you will. >> we also have "new york times" washington bureau chief elisabeth bumiller. so happy to have her here as we

go over polls and talk about the difference between "the new york times"/siena poll and every other poll. >> and sam stein from "the bulwark." >> oh, sam. >> don't worry. >> we do have breaking news. we have the latest on the tropical storm. willie, you've got that. >> yeah, it is now a tropical storm, helene, downgraded this morning after a hurricane, after making landfall in florida as a category 4 storm. right now moving farther inland over georgia. helene is the strongest hurricane ever to hit florida's big bend region. we're still waiting for the sun to come up to assess a lot of the damage overnight. forecasters warn it still could bring life-threatening winds and an unsurvivable surge with water reaching 20 feet in some places. it's led to at least three deaths. one in florida, two in georgia. at least one million florida customers remain in the dark this morning after strong winds knocked down power lines. let's go straight to nbc news

national correspondent marissa para. she is live in tampa. marissa, what's the latest there? >> reporter: willie, good morning. well, i will say, i think you put it very well. it's difficult to tell the full scope of helene's damage because it is still so dark. let me report for you what we can see on the ground behind me, then what we're getting online. first, to give you a little perspective, that is bay shore boulevard down there by that stop sign, if you can believe it. it's a little hard to tell where the street ends and where the bay begins. that's because you can see, even though this water has significantly receded from where we saw it last night, because we were here yesterday when it was raging, the storm surge was happening as we were speaking live on the air, it has receded. clearly, not enough. this is clearly not drivable. this is not passable. so what we have heard from people who live here, because this is a residential street, it sounds like it was several feet

higher. we have heard, more or less, the same across the region, which is people, homeowners, have seen water go places they've never seen it go before. this is in line with what we expected. record level storm surge. record level flooding here. again, the full scope of it remains to be seen. i know that i have gotten videos from people that i interviewed over the last couple of days showing just how much water there was, guys. and i will point out a couple things. tampa general hospital, the aqua fence seems to have held up well overnight. you can see the water on the other side of it that did not penetrate the hospital. then i want to point out one other thing. this image, this strong image of a rescue happening outside of santa bell island. a man and his dog. boat sank 25 miles off the island. the coast guard coming to his rescue, the chopper behind him.

an incredible image. we know there are water rescues happening as we speak in panellis county. st. petersburg fire and rescue have seen several fires because people can't cut off the power and electric there as houses flooded. a lot of things people will be waking up to. we'll be here to report the full scope as we learn it. >> the governor of florida pointing out there's likely to be more fatalities as they wake up and get out across the state. we'll see shoreshortly. marissa parra, thanks so much. let's turn to meteorologist angie lassman for a look where the storm is now. >> willie, we're seeing improvements in places where marissa is. the state of florida, things will get better and, of course, quieter, time to assess the damage of what they dealt with yesterday, in the overnight hours and into early this morning. places like the southeast of georgia stretching to the carolinas, things are just starting to ramp up.

here's the latest details as of the top of the 5:00 a.m. 70 miles per hour, so it is, of course, a tropical storm, but it is moving at an incredible pace. 30 miles per hour. that's why it kept its act together as a hurricane and ultimately still a tropical storm, even though it is well inland across the state of georgia. couple things happening right now. we have the kind of prime environment for some of those tornadoes. this morning while it's still dark out, really concerned about those tornadoes ramping up. we've seen the tornado watch stay in effect all morning long. it'll stay with us through at least 8:00 this morning. we already have some of the tornado watches happening north of charleston, across south carolina. there's more of that likely as the morning goes on. notice the heavy rain ahead of the center of the system. places like augusta, you are finally starting to see some improvements as far as rainfall. again, that's going to continue as the morning goes on. but ahead of it, across the appalachians, that's where we're really concerned, especially if we get what we call the orographic lift, where the air flow works up the mountain.

then we wring out the atmosphere on already saturated ground. the flooding concern is there along with the tornado risk. greenwood stretching to athens, all of that area is going to continue to see these really incredible rainfall amounts through the morning hours as this system works through. 42 million people under these flood alerts. flash flood warnings going on. there will likely be some of the rescues, willie, throughout the morning hours. that's going to be our biggest concern as things improve around the coast for the state of florida. it'll be concerning across this region. >> downgraded to a tropical storm but still dangerous. angie lassman, thanks so much. we appreciate it. joe, you've been through a bunch of these things in the panhandle. category 4 slamming into the coast is no joke. >> category 4 is next level. it really is. we've been through them. i went through one in pensacola. here, we were fortunate, fortunate overall, it moved toward the big bend area. tallahassee, inland, was

impacted by it to the west. but, yeah, the big bend area, if you're looking for the least amount of damage and for everybody that's in florida, also, the least likelihood of further homeowners cancellations, which is the insurance crisis. it's there because storm after storm after storm keeps going into florida. the big bend area will probably rack up the least amount of damage. though, of course, devastation for many people still really great. let's turn to politics now. with less than six weeks to go until election day, polling from bloomberg news and morning consult continues to show a tight race in every battleground state. in the latest survey, vice president kamala harris holds leads within the margin of error in every swing state but georgia, where she and former president donald trump are tied in this poll.

harris leads by three points among likely voters in arizona, michigan, and wisconsin. she's also up by seven points in nevada. by two points in north carolina. and by five points in pennsylvania. >> and the one race she's tied in, georgia, there's the latest fox news survey of likely voters in georgia. that has harris ahead of trump by 3 percentage points. that, too, of course, falls within the margin of error. if you look at all of these, all of these polls, it's a tie. you talk to both campaigns, they will tell you it's a tie. gene, the harris campaign is very interesting. they're sending out messages. you can tell the specter of the great pumpkin 2006 continues to rise over the pumpkin patch. nobody is saying, we feel good. they're like, i don't know. >> i don't know. >> that, you know, had a large

cross-examination last night, mika and i, with a member. after about 30 minutes of breaking it down, you know, couple drinks, they finally broke and said, okay, we feel okay. but nobody is going to say that, all right? >> how many drinks did it take? >> not many. >> two or three in and a spotlight on top of them. chained to a metal chair. >> sounds fun. >> please, come over and have a drink with us tonight. >> thursday night in washington. >> seriously, they are so scared because of what happened in 2016. >> who wouldn't be? >> everybody was mocking donald trump. >> who doesn't have ptsd? >> right. you talk to somebody in the harris campaign, and you have to go deep to hear someone say, polls are breaking in our favor. except for one poll, which i won't name, the trend lines have been fairly positive over the past month. >> they've been positive. if you look at the trend lines,

you'd rather be kamala harris right now than donald trump. if you want to win the election, right? you look at the long-term trend line, and you see that it has crept up, has crept up, and then she's getting awfully close to that 50%. >> right. >> trump is basically steady. he's basically got 45%, 46%. >> right. >> that's it. but he's overperformed his polls in some prior elections. everybody remembers 2016. nobody is going to feel confident, and no one should feel confident because it's going to be a turnout election. >> right. >> i mean, if harris gets her voters to the polls, they've got the machine out there to do. if they get their voters through the polls, then that's a very different story than if they don't. >> you look at the numbers. obviously in the bloomberg news/morning consult poll,

harris is doing well. the trend lines are very positive. you go back to before she was in the race, and it was joe biden. you started to see states like minnesota, virginia, new hampshire, suddenly get uncomfortably close. those races are no longer close. for those that say, oh, it'd be the same with -- things dramatically shifted. >> major difference. as gene says, the trend line is up for her consistently. we have polling showing that she is doing better on the economy than she was even two weeks ago. she is beginning to catch up with trump on perceptions of who would be better for the economy. she's out there talking about what a rich guy he is and how she's, you know, a capitalist and middle class. in her speech, she made clear, i'm not a marxist, not a socialist, not a communist. i'm a capitalist, showing

friendliness toward business. she has a lot of these tax cuts, a lot of these plans for the young people. $25,000. i don't know where she'll get the money for this, but talking about the $25,000 credit for first-time homebuyers. $50,000 for start-up new businesses. she's beginning to make inroads there. but i should say, yes, there's a lot of concern about these hidden trump voters. i can tell you that there are more newly registered republicans this cycle than there are registered democrats, despite the stories we've been running about all the college kids signing up. >> yup. >> and there is -- and trump is doing better in that group among younger men of color than you would expect. >> right. katty, the one thing we have heard from the harris campaign, even those that will be cautiously optimistic, is that pennsylvania is the new ohio. pennsylvania has had a surge in

republican registration over the past four years. they still believe they can and will win pennsylvania, but, you know, they feel good about michigan. they feel good about wisconsin. relatively good. you know, maybe a landslide. maybe they'll win by a full percentage point in both states. but in pennsylvania, they know it's going to be a fight. it is going to be a fight because she's doing much better among women and most young voters. older white men, just like people thought after biden left the race, more of a challenge. >> older white men and younger white men, too, also a bit of a challenge. that number they'll like a lot, up plus five in pennsylvania. you're right, it's the new ohio. it's the new florida. it's the state where they see they have the most problems. then, of course, either the concern or the upside, depending on how you look at this from the harris campaign's point of view, is that pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, people think, will break the same way.

that's what they've done traditionally ever since 1980. i think there's one exception. if they lose pennsylvania, what would that then mean for wisconsin and michigan? if they win wisconsin and michigan, will they win pennsylvania? they're putting so many resources in. but it's men. the struggle for the harris campaign is young men, older men, men of color, white men. they're doing all they can. i think the debate next week will be interesting to see how tim walz reaching out to that group. doug emhoff, who i interviewed yesterday, and we'll have a clip later on the program, he is making a concerted effort in his own way to reach out to that group. they know that's where they have a weakness. >> sam, it's interesting watching trump yesterday. i don't know how long he spoke, maybe an hour, but it was hatred and vitriol toward, again, springfield and migrants and these people who are ruining our country. doubling down on this rhetoric, on these lies. it must be working for them?

>> well, they would love to talk about immigration for the rest of the election if they had their druthers. the problem they've had is they've concocted a bunch of racial lies about haitians and distracted the conversation from immigration to whether they're being truthful about immigration. that's a different conversation. but i think it's not particularly great insight. they've been banking on young men. they put trump on these platforms. most of them are not tv platforms. they're podcasts, youtube videos. they want to generate more enthuiasm among young men and also young men who haven't been necessarily politically engaged before. high risk, high reward. can they activate them? we go over incessantly. you can drive yourself crazy. the more important numbers aren't the polls. it's around the economy. when you have gas prices going

down a bit, interest rates being cut, the mortgage rate at the lowest level in a couple years, it adds to the perception the economy may be improving which, in turn, is imparted on kamala harris because she is part of the administration. i thought the most important data point and story yesterday was, in fact, from your paper, which looked at the view of voters in terms of ability to and handle the economy, which relates to the election. she can get to a tie with trump or better him, that's more important than any bloomberg/morning consult poll. >> you don't like bloomberg/morning consult? >> i like that. i will say, just to circle it all here, this morning, they put out -- the harris people put out a fundraiser email. they chose a certain poll to highlight. it was "the new york times"/siena poll. they love the idea of people freaking out because then they can write checks. >> let me tell you, i joke about "the new york times"/siena poll,

but i think the democrats are actually funding the polling. >> they love it. >> because every time one comes out, everybody -- every democrat freaks out. we must work harder. we must spend more money. go. there's been, jonathan lemire, some time, the suggestion that the only way that joe biden before but now kamala harris can get to 270 is to go through the blue wall of wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. the fact is, let's put up the bloomberg poll that sam stein so derisively commented about. >> yeah. >> show you the new pathway. if they do not win pennsylvania, they feel more confident every day with north carolina. they feel good about georgia. they feel good about nevada. i've got to say, that nevada plus 7 sticks out like a sore thumb. >> yeah. >> that sticks out to me kind of like wisconsin plus 14 before the 2020 race where joe biden

was supposed to win that state. i think it was an abc poll. supposed to win that state by double digits. nobody is winning nevada by 7 points. still, they have several pathways to 270, and they're playing it that way. they are going to go down fighting in north carolina and georgia. >> yeah, there's no question. there is no one involved in the harris campaign who thinks they're up 7 in nevada. i think people think that's a tie. nevada is one of the states that's always razor thin. it tends to break democrat at the last minute. they think it will again. certainly, no one thinks it'll be that lopsided. you're right about the path. they feel very good about michigan, wisconsin fairly well. pennsylvania is, as you've rightly said, a source of real anxiety. demographic trends are breaking away from democrats in the state. there's prominent democratic thinkers and pollsters who think in a cycle or two, pennsylvania might slip away like ohio and become more of a light red state. right now, it's a true battleground. it's going to be very close. but they feel great about north carolina, as we'll get to later

in the show. donald trump was asked point-blank yesterday about mark robinson, the controversial gubernatorial candidate there and chose to not disavow, just say he didn't know enough about it and walked away. harris' weaknesses have been perceived as the economy, and polls showed she's picked up steam. the rally in pittsburgh has been pointed to. gas prices lower. people feeling better than the economy. then the other is immigration. she's going to arizona, a true toss-up. she'll go to the border, talk about immigration, and squarely blame donald trump for killing the bill that would have helped. all right. still ahead on "morning joe," vice president kamala harris, as lemire mentioned, heading to arizona today for that major speech on immigration. we'll have a preview of what to

expect. plus, the latest on the calms for a cease-fire between israel and hezbollah as israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu prepares to deliver remarks to the u.n. general assembly this morning. also ahead, president biden and vice president harris met with ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy at the white house yesterday. now, donald trump says he wants to meet with zelenskyy, too. you're watching "morning joe." we're back in 90 seconds. e feelg of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb.

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hello, everyone. this is your favorite president, donald j. trump, with exciting news. by popular demand, i'm doing a new series of trump digital trading cards. you all know what they are. we've had a lot of fun with them. it's the america first collection. 50 all new, stunning digital trading cards. it's really something. these cards show me dancing and even me holding some bitcoins. we are announcing the launch of trump coins, a true symbol of american greatness. trump coins are designed by me and minted right here in the usa. i've seen a lot of coins out there using my very beautiful face. i'm a very beautiful guy. i'm only kidding. but they are not the official coin. real trump coins.com is the only place to get an official trump coin. i'm here to introduce something really special. i think you're going to love it. my new trump watches. we're doing quite a number with watches. and the quality to me is very

important. the trump victory is one of the best watches made. get your trump watch right now. go to gettrumpwatches.com. it's trump time. >> i will say, willie -- >> oh, my gosh. >> -- politics just keeps moving. >> wow. >> it keeps slipping, slipping, slipping into the future. >> wow. >> i will say, this is my favorite use of merchandising by presidents since gerald r. ford sold his personalized leather football helmet. dkakis in '88 with his push lawn mowers, but nothing like this. >> it is getting very expensive to be a supporter of donald trump. you have to get the digital nfts. you have to buy the sneakers. you have to buy the bible, of course. the trump bible. >> yeah. >> now, you have to buy a watch. i mean, this guy is really asking a lot of his supporters.

did you love, too, when he call called himself a beautiful man, then pretended his kidding? >> right, right. >> one of those watches is actually $100,000. >> yeah. >> crazy. >> $100,000 for that. >> wow. >> a disclaimer on the website notes the proceeds do not directly benefit trump or his campaign. >> no. >> not directly. >> but each was part of a paid licensing agreement. >> paypal, then it goes to -- >> whoa, whoa, whoa. >> katty, do they do this in britain? >> no. but, you know, our elections only cost, i figured it out the other day. it's about $50 million for a whole general election in the uk. that's kind of bargain basement democracy, right? ours is cheap by comparison. that's about the sum -- >> it's a state election. >> it's probably one congressional race in new york or california. >> that might win you

comptroller of vermont. >> dog walker of burlington. >> what product will he hock them? probably do a version of the cyber truck. >> good thought. >> he's already done sneakers. >> is that what you're wearing? >> not trump sneakers. >> i'll say, there is a disconnect between those people who are all-in for donald trump, who sees this as, like, christmas morning. >> this is their day. >> buy a watch. >> very exciting. >> $100,000 for a watch. can you imagine if the democrats were doing something like this? >> out of touch. >> i mean, the trump campaign was going after kamala harris' necklaces and saying how much they were costing. >> yeah. >> they weren't -- this is amazing. >> yeah. >> nothing matters. >> he's entertaining. let's not forget. >> seriously, i was speaking to some businesspeople this week who are trump leaning. they say, yeah, okay, well, he

says all the stuff about the immigrants. we don't like that. we don't like his character. but, you know, things were more stable under trump. the economy was doing better under trump. >> it's not true. >> but whether it's true or not, those are the people who will turn out and vote for him. that's why the harris campaign, understandably, is right to be careful and cautious about the polls. they know there are a whole bunch of people out there who are prepared to disregard donald trump's rhetoric and selling watches and saying i'm beautiful -- >> deregulation. >> it's deregulation and tax cuts. >> aren't business people supposed to manage risk, right? the risk. >> that's the alternative, the chaos factor. >> the risk of this magnitude is greater. >> deportation of immigrants, pushing up wage prices. there's a load of reasons. there is some feeling that they know what they had with trump. actually, the economy was better. yes, he says this crazy stuff, sells watches, and that's sort

of a joke, but we don't -- that's not what this is about. >> most of the people you're talking to, they've made more money than ever in their life. >> the markets have gone crazy. >> they're watching their stocks go up. >> they always get -- >> tens of millions of dollars. it happens time and time again when democrats are in the white house. the stock market goes up. when republicans are in the white house, most of the time, there are recessions. you look at -- i mean, again, this is the thing, sam, that used to drive me crazy, even when trump was president. he kept saying, greatest economy of all time. greatest economy of all time. probably it was "the new york times" that did a study. post war presidents' gdp. donald trump pre-covid was number seven, behind jimmy carter. >> yes. >> i'd be watching msnbc. i'm using that as the most extreme example of the people you would think would be least likely to repeat donald trump's

propaganda. the questions would start, of course, we know this is the best economy ever, but -- and you're sitting there going, oh, my god. propaganda has worked even in the mainstream media. >> he's very good at it. >> seventh best gdp post war. >> yeah, pre-covid. >> yeah. >> i mean, even lower than jimmy carter. yet, dumb people who are looking for permission structure, who are millionaires, who want corporate tax cuts and regulation relief, they're saying, oh, the economy was -- no, it wasn't better. you talk to one economist after another economist. they will say, donald trump's policies will lead to massive tariffs, massive inflation, and massive debt. >> couple things going on here. one is, for all his faults, and there are many, i think he is a legitimately good salesman for himself, right?

he went out there day in, day out, prior to covid, and he would say things like, look at this great economy. the second thing is, to a large degree, he's managed to, or we have collectively managed to memory hold the covid year. it is shocking to me how much the electorate and politicians and trump himself have basically been like, we don't count 2020. we just don't count it because we had the virus. of course, i hold no responsibility for it when, in fact, it was his management of the virus that exacerbated some of the problems. third thing is, relating to that, for a lot of people, it's about tax cuts and deregulation. all the other stuff is sort of noise. they look at the deportation plan, which would be incredibly disruptive. putting aside the moral and social fabrics that would be ripped apart, economically, disruptive to rip 15 to 20 million people out of the country. to them, they don't factor it in. it's deregulation, it's tax

cuts,vantageous to them in the oval office. the data shows it's not the case. >> there was a report yesterday, because of trump's plan to put a 10% tariff on everything that comes into the united states, every product, and the plans to deport up to -- >> 15 to 20 million. >> well, 11 million people. plus, his desire to take more control of the fed, that would cause inflation to rise by, like, 9% by 2026. there's numbers there. >> he'll say, oh, i don't believe it. >> the other thing is, democrats never talk up the economy the way republicans do. >> or the stock market. >> they don't. >> they don't care. >> his stock market numbers every single day, we've seen the stock market great records under the biden administration. you think, why doesn't the white house say, look at the stock market. >> they don't want to talk about it. >> right. >> they don't want to talk --

>> they'll talk up how good things are. >> for the wealthy. >> other people don't feel they are good and will say, you are out of touch. maybe that's the smart idea. maybe it's a bad idea. that's just an article of faith. >> donald trump has taught, that's not a smart idea. >> yeah. >> exactly. >> every day, he was talking it up. >> ran that experiment. >> every day, people bought it. >> yeah, yeah. >> all right. "new york times" washington bureau chief elisabeth bumiller. thank you for being on this morning. we're going to take a look at the harris campaign strategy and why it appears to be more effective for the vice president than it was for joe biden. "morning joe" will be right back.

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>> six-and-a-half hours later. >> carpenters, electricians, your drivers, you're doing a lot of things. >> f-35 lightning. >> russia is growing up with ukraine. there's wars starting all over the place. looks like bad things can happen. 89% increase in aggravated

assault. >> all right. >> that was from the harris campaign. its social media operation has drawn a lot of attention for its sharp and, at times, risky strategy against former president trump. the campaign's most popular tiktoks have garnered 164 million views at roughly no cost. joining us now, bloomberg 2024 u.s. presidential election reporter, riley ray griffin. she's co-author of the piece entitled "how harris' campaign finally made biden's meme strategy work." >> let's talk about the launching point. three words. explain to all of us how kamala is brat. >> changed everything. >> it encapsulates this broader, organic momentum that the campaign has been able to seize. that day that president biden

dropped out of the race wasn't a day that the campaign had a strategy for executing, you know, renaming harris to the oval. ultimately, they had to seize that organic momentum. a british pop star posted, kamala is brat. you immediately saw the social media accounts seize that and make it the brand. they didn't have a brand to turn to otherwise. >> it was incredible to watch some of the memes and things like her mother, all this stuff, that i think some of the republicans thought could be used against her actually working in her favor. >> the coconut tree. >> yeah, did you fall out of a coconut tree. was that something the campaign could see and seized upon or fell into? >> yeah, they've thought to take that momentum, ride the wave, but not ride it too far. >> right. >> nothing is more uncool than taking a meme too far. >> right. >> they're jumping in, jumping

out. they are still spending a fair amount on their digital strategy, more than four times than the trump campaign on facebook and google. part of the reason why is that tiktok, meta, they are downplaying political content on their platforms. there is an adjusting to the algorithms here. it is a new social media landscape. >> you really do have to, katty, you have to understand the social media landscape, also pop culture. so while we all heard, you know, brat, kamala is a brat, what does that mean? >> my daughter tried to explain it. >> immediately connected to our daughters. >> didn't need explaining. >> immediately connected to everybody. i will say, you look at the number, and riley points this out, numbers skyrocketed. >> this is interesting. are you getting data now on percentages of people that are seeing the kamala harris social strategy and having a -- how it

has a positive impact on their likelihood to vote? 50% of people under the age of 30 voted in 2020. they need to get the numbers higher if that's going to be a big part of their base. do the memes just create a good vibe, or do they translate into votes. >> that's the question. >> we'll see that on election day. i think it is a very difficult art to determine how the digital strategy translates into vote. one thing that came out was harvard's youth poll. what they found was that about the same number of young people under 30 had seen harris memes as trump memes, but they were playing better among the youth when it came to harris. 34% said it impacted them positively, versus 13% for trump. actually, one-fourth said that it impacted them negatively to see trump's memes. >> interesting. >> sam stein is brat. >> right. >> he has the next question. >> are you really? >> i don't think so. the kids did a poor job

explaining it, i think. honestly, so much of this is two things. one, harris, though she was vp, was really not that well-known. when you have a new commodity come out, people are introduced to that person, you instantaneously make, you know, ideas about them, perceptions about them, and you mem-ify them. the other thing is jd vance. he's making fun of childless cat ladies. if anything is perfect fodder for memes, it's cats. that, too, i feel like, adds to this whole thing. it is interesting to watch, maybe you can talk about this. i mean, the biden people, when it was joe biden, it's the same people, right? it's not like she brought in these, you know, crazed internet warlords who are going to meme-ify her. it's the same people. they tried really hard to meme-ify joe biden, and it didn't work. it's a different subject matter you're dealing with here? >> he was less meme-able.

>> are we meme-able, riley? i don't know. >> yes. >> you guys are meme-abel as hell. >> we like the memes. >> that's true. >> oh, my god, the memes are horrible. the last couple years, the young part-time i spend time with, two daughters, they don't -- they were so done with politics. they didn't even want to talk about it. >> yeah. >> then kamala harris came on the scene, and i will tell you, i saw around my dinner table this past summer the most engaged young people i've ever seen in politics, explaining to me brat. the question is, again, will it translate? >> part of it is she's not 80 years old. everybody else is 80 years old, right? >> yeah, yeah. >> or jd vance. >> she speaks in short sentence it is. i've seen -- it can be more meme-able. >> what do we want the

youngsters to get? you mentioned this was the same team. there are about 200 people that were working out of wilmington, delaware, on this strategy. they were the same team that was then working on harris. one thing i want to note is they are also taking a page out of the republican, the trump playbook. they're a little grittier, edgier. >> being the disrupters. >> they're posting pictures of donald trump looking old and tired. that's something the republican party and trump himself was doing on social media when it came to president biden. >> that's true. >> and as we talk about what's memable and what's not, we can just say, a 59-year-old woman who looks, at times, like a movie star on stage, the way the light is hitting her hair and everything else, versus donald trump, a 78-year-old guy who, you know, is an old 78. >> donald trump is memable. >> oh, he is. no, no, no, i'm just saying,

though, if you want why younger voters might be drawn to kamala harris. >> yeah. >> but, you know, talk finally about this give and take. as you explain in the article, presidential campaigns are the most, like, conservative entities ever. you have this social media team that's constantly pushing, going, we're conservative. we're not doing our jobs. it's sort of that back and forth, isn't it? >> yeah, it's certainly a back and forth. and one thing to consider, too, is x right now, purchased by elon musk, there is a different dynamic this election cycle than there was in 2020 and then in 2016. trump advisors have said to me that musk's purchase of twitter has changed what they formerly saw as censorship by republicans. they can do more now on the internet. a lot to see here, but there is

the give and take. both campaigns are trying to be edgy and on the attack. >> bloomberg's ryan ray griffin, thank you very much for coming on the show. great piece. >> thanks for having me. >> see you soon. ahead, vice president kamala harris is set to deliver a speech on border security and immigration later today. we'll speak to one of the lead negotiators of the border bill that donald trump squashed earlier this year. democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut. plus, we'll have the latest on tropical storm helene as it now moves through georgia. "morning joe" will be right back. moving forward with node-positive breast cancer. my fear of recurrence could've held me back. but i'm staying focused. and doing more

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postseason berth. now, trying to nail down the n.l. east. this could do it. yankees win, 10-1, and they clinch the american league east for the 21st time in their history. they finish first for the 50th time since 1903. >> ball game over. american league eastern division over. yankees win. yankees! >> everybody loves an underdog story. the new york yankees, yeah, the yankees, clinched the a.l. east title for the second time in three years. 10-1 win over the orioles. securing the yankees a first round bye in the playoff and home field advantage in a best of five a.l. division series

starting october the 5th. few hours later in los angeles, the dodgers wrapped up the n.l. west for the 11th time in 12 seasons. amazing. clinching the division last night with a 7-2 win over the second place padres. dodgers also earned a first round bye and will open the postseason october 5th at home in a best of five n.l. division series. it'll mark the first time shohei ohtani will compete in the playoffs. that'll be fun. all the mlb divisions now have been claimed. leaving a total of four wild cards yet to be decided. american league, the o's own one spot with the detroit tigers and kansas city royals tied for the final two. the twins and mariners three games back with three left to play. national league wild card contenders have the night off. heading into the final weekend of the regular season, the padres already claimed a spot. the race likely to come down to monday's double-header in atlanta between the braves and

the new york mets. jonathan lemire, still a whole bunch to be decided here. be fun to have ohtani in the playoffs after the season he's had. knocking on the door, potentially, of a 55-55 season. aaron judge hit his 58th home run. by the way, he goes up on saturday, the yankees do, against paul skenes, the rookie pitcher for the pirates. >> one of the best stories of the season. judge homered five straight games now. has a shot at 60, doing it again. we'll see what happens there this weekend. of course, the main focus will be on the wild card races. certainly in the american league, tigers and royals do have an advantage, three-game lead with three to play. looking good there. national league wide open. we're looking at the monday double-header between the braves and mets as what could likely decide the spot. there is a chance, though, the drama may go away. mets play the brewers this weekend, nothing to play for. the braves are playing the

royals who is still battling for a wild card spot. it's possible if the mets can build up a couple game lead, monday will be irrelevant or they'll have a chance to maybe win one of the games. we shall see. it'll be a fun, final weekend. i can't wait for the playoffs next week, including ohtani making his debut. >> feels wide open. a lot of good teams, teams that aren't always there having good seasons. should be a lot of fun. coming up, we will be joined in studio by nato's secretary general as he prepares to step down next week. "morning joe" coming right back. liberty mutual customized my car insurance so i saved hundreds. with the money i saved i thought i'd get a wax figure of myself. oh! right in the temporal lobe! beat it, punks! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you.

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i'm not old enough to vote yet, so clearly you. but i learned how one out of six of us will someday be raped. so please think about me when you vote. i learned how our freedom to have an abortion was taken away... even in cases of rape or incest, even to travel to get an abortion. please think about me. you know who got rid of roe v wade. now women are being refused lifesaving care at hospitals, and politicians are trying to ban birth control. please think about me. my parents call me their miracle daughter because i was born with ivf. but ivf could be banned, too. do they think we're less than human? do they think we can't make decisions? about our own bodies? about our own lives? when you vote, please think about me.

and me. -and me. because the politician who got rid of roe v wade, he couldn't care less. former president trump is promoting his new collection of watches. they're selling for as much as $100,000 each. you can tell it's a trump watch because the hands are tiny.

[ applause ] you can tell it's a trump watch because if you buy two, they link together like handcuffs. you can tell it's a trump watch because if you try to set it to military time, it says, sorry, i have bone spurs. that's right, a trump watch -- [ laughter ] there's one for men and one for women that's set back 50 years. >> that's true, actually. welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, september 27th. anybody happy it's friday? >> we're all happy. >> not us, no. jonathan lemire, sam stein, eugene robinson, katty kay still with us. and joining the conversation, we have staff writer at "the new yorker," susan glasser is with us. good to have you. vice president kamala harris will visit battleground arizona today for a major speech on border security and immigration. it will be her first visit to the southern border since

becoming the democratic nominee. now, according to a senior campaign official, harris will call out donald trump for his role in tanking a bipartisan border bill earlier this year. in august, the border patrol recorded about 58,000 encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border. according to u.s. customs and border protection. compare that to donald trump's last month in office. the border patrol made just over 75,000. >> are you saying they're lower -- there are a lower number of border crossings now than when donald trump left office? >> if you want to look at actual data, yeah. >> hold on a second. i don't understand. >> right. >> so he's attacking kamala harris, but the border crossings are lower now. >> and he killed the deal that was put together by bipartisan legislation. >> right. but you said they're lower today under harris and biden than they were under trump when he left office. >> correct.

>> even after he had four years to work on it. >> right. >> interesting. >> depending on what you watch, you won't get that truth. so starting today, the harris campaign is running a new ad focused on her immigration policy set to air in arizona and other battleground states. >> kamala harris has never backed down from a challenge. she put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars. and she will secure our border. here's her plan. hire thousands more border agents, enforce the law, and step up technology, and stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking. we need a leader with a real plan to fix the border. that's kamala harris. >> i'm kamala harris, and i approve this message. >> all those things, though, that, susan, all of those things that kamala harris said she supported would already be law of the land if donald trump hadn't called republicans on the hill and said, "kill this

conservative bill." >> yeah, you're exactly right. i think back to that moment at the beginning of this year when a conservative senator, inhofe, spent weeks and weeks with democratic counterparts in the senate. they come up with this bill. it includes major democratic concessions to tougher provisions that biden would have otherwise agreed to. what does trump do? kills the bipartisan bill that not only democrats but that republicans in the senate had demanded. of course, what did they do? they chose the leader, donald trump, over their own measure. they left hanging out to dry their own conservative senator and what they wanted. it was a gift politically. >> one of the most conservative hawks in the senate. >> yeah. >> you know, it was fine with him. to his credit, he has said, we should have done that. we should have passed this. he hasn't made any bones about saying trump is wrong. we should have passed this.

look where we are now. >> you look, jonathan lemire, at the bloomberg polls that came out this morning, and you see how close this race is. and how it really is tipping right now in the slightest sense toward kamala harris. i do think so much of it has to do with the fact that she has gotten the message out that they were ready to pass the toughest immigration bill in history. james lankford and other conservatives supporting it. donald trump killed it. to we have the bloomberg polls from this morning, t.j.? can we put those up for a second? i do think it's having an impact in the swing states. you at arizona, harris up three. tied in georgia. there is a fox news poll that has her up several points there. michigan, harris plus 3. nevada, harris plus 7. none of us believe that number. it'll be close. north carolina, harris plus 2.

pennsylvania, harris plus 5. fascinating number, too. i think that race is tighter than that. wisconsin, harris plus 3. we can look at arizona especially, though, jonathan, and that is a state where she is going today and is going to drive home the point that she, along with james lankford, supported some of the toughest moves on border security ever, and donald trump killed the bill. >> yeah. one of the things her campaign keeps pointing to is her ability to communicate certain messages in a way that, frankly, president biden wasn't able to earlier this year while he was still running. one of them is on the border. she did it in the debate. she's done it in media appearances. she's done it on the stump. pointing the finger squarely at donald trump, saying one of the most conservative senators out there, lead negotiator of this bill. you killed it and killed it for your political gain. that's driving home the larger theme of the harris campaign, that trump is out for himself. he's not out for the citizens. not out to make it better at the

border. he is simply looking for his own personal gain and political power. we're going to hear that again from her today. in fact, there was another poll in arizona that came out this morning. suffolk usa shows harris down a couple points there. this is all margin of error stuff. the fact that arizona is in play at all is a change from where things were heading in the spring, joe, mika, willie. it's about trend lines. this race is close. we say it every day. this is a margin of error race. right now, it feels like she's got the momentum. perhaps slight momentum but momentum all the same. they want to keep the pathways open to 270. arizona and the border is the way to do that. >> well, and the trend lines have been in her direction. i don't mean to keep bringing this up, and maybe they're the only polling outfit that's right, but the trend lines have been in her direction. "the new york times"/siena poll will come out, and an entire shift of reporting will happen. it will. overnight, people will say, well, her post convention bounce

stopped because "the new york times"/siena poll will do something that is always outside margin. put this bloomberg poll up again, t.j. doesn't look like the momentum stopped, but a bloomberg and -- you know, the reporting has to be truthful. "the new york times"/siena poll is always outside the margin of error. "the new york times" will run 16 articles on their "new york times"/siena poll. then we will really be shocked when numbers like these come out because it'll show that, actually, the trend lines do continue in kamala harris' favor. >> they do. i mean, those numbers tell the story right there. i'll give you one more number, too, when talking about arizona. vice president harris will be there today down at the border. the harris campaign likes this when you talk to them, which is the senate race. there is a fox news poll that came out yesterday that shows

the democrat, running a great campaign, under 13 points on kari lake, who is a trump acolyte. she brings all the things donald trump brings. election denialism, rhetoric against immigrants, all those things. we're 40 days ago, but there's a 13-point lead on the senate candidate there, which obviously might benefit kamala harris, as well. >> willie, what's so interesting about that, and i'm sorry to interrupt, but run is not even a moderate democrat, the type that can occasionally win in arizona. he is a center left democrat. up 13 points in arizona. it's that state that hasn't voted for a democrat since harry truman, until 2020.

now, they're electing democratic centers. here, you have a center left democrat up, what'd you say, 13 points? >> yeah. fox news poll has the spread at 13 points right now. >> wow. >> again, that's donald trump, right? that's herschel walker, dr. oz, go down the list. kari lake is another one of his candidates. let's bring in senator chris murphy of connecticut. he was one of the lead negotiators of the the border bill trump had killed earlier this year. senator, good to see you. you worked for months on this bill that donald trump swept in at the end and had his friends in the republican party and congress kill. can you speak to guy those border apprehensions have gone down so much recently, even in the absence of that legislation? >> yeah. thanks for having me. you know, listen, we negotiated for five months the toughest bipartisan border security bill in decades.

we believed on sunday afternoon, hours before introducing that bill, releasing the bill's text, that we had 20 republican votes in the senate. then overnight, donald trump and his lieutenant sent the word out that they wanted to kill the bill. for one reason. the bill was going to be effective. they looked at the bill and knew if it was implemented, it'd drive numbers down at the border and donald trump would have stolen from him one of his key narratives. that there's chaos on the border and chaos on the border should cause you to be afraid of people coming to this country to be rescued from ter terror, torture, economic desperation. what happened is a story of two things. first, the biden administration decided to implement through executive order the key provisions of the bill. they implemented the changes in asylum processing so that asylum cases would be decided weeks and months, not years. they decided to implement the

emergency provisions in the bill that allowed them to shut down the border when crossings were too high. so they basically proved that the elements of the bill that donald trump thought were going to be effective at controlling the border would be. second, they did really nimble diplomacy with mexico. mexico has begun to stop and apprehend more migrants as they come through their country. meaning they never arrive at america's southwest border. those two developments, the implementation of key provisions of the bill and that diplomacy with mexico, has meant that, today, there are fewer people crossing at the southwest border than at the end of trump's term. stealing from trump an argument he thought was going to be key to his election. >> senator, i know it's hard to make, but what kamala harris was charged with when given the immigration brief was looking at those triangle countries and trying to work out how she could

stop the immigrants coming to the mexican border. from my reporting in mexico, it worked. what she did has resulted in the mexican government not letting people come into mexico, not giving them the visas to get there, restricting them coming to the border. why aren't we hearing more of that positive message? maybe it's impossible to maybe because immigration has been a hot-button issue. but what the biden administration did worked on the border. it stopped them coming to the frontier. >> well, let's go a step deeper. kamala harris was given a specific project. she was not the border czar, but she was given a really hard task. she was asked to go down to central america, to three key countries there where there were high levels of migrants coming to the united states, and try to do something about the root causes of migration, that economic desperation, the public safety crisis that caused a lot

of people from those countries come to the united states. it was a difficult job. it was one that had a high risk and likelihood of failure, but she didn't turn it down. she dug in. what she did was extraordinary. she used traditional diplomatic tools like sanctions against bad actors in those countries and investment through the state department, but she also rallied the private sector to make a really historic announcement of $5 billion of investments in those countries to create jobs so that those individuals would stay home. what happened? two years after kamala harris was given that job, migration from those three central american countries dropped by 50% to 60%. that's a stunning story of success. so when kamala harris was given work to try to reduce the number of people coming to the southwest border, she dug in and got results. that's a story that the campaign has been telling, but it would

probably be good for the campaign to tell more of that story because it shows you, when she's given tough jobs, she rises to the moment. >> all right. senator, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy will meet with former president trump today. yesterday, he met with president biden and vice president kamala harris. here is, first, what kamala harris had to say on the issue of ukraine, followed by what donald trump said late in the day yesterday in new york city about the situation with ukraine. take a listen. >> there are some in my country who would, instead, force ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory. who would demand that ukraine accept neutrality and would require ukraine to forego security relationships with other nations. these proposals are the same of

those of putin. and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace. instead, they are proposals for surrender. which is dangerous and unacceptable. >> the vice president suggested today your strategy with ukraine amounts to surrender to russia. how do you respond? >> i don't think so. i don't think so. it's not a surrender. what my strategy is, to save lives. i want to save lives. millions of people are dead. millions more than they even think about. and it's not my fight, but it is a fight to save humanity. there was no reason for that war to happen, but it did happen. and millions of people are dead, including soldiers from both sides. it's so sad to see it. i'll meet with president zelenskyy, and we'll see what happens. but i believe i can work that

out. >> senator, we know trump's view on ukraine. he basically would give up. we know vice president harris' view on ukraine. it's more the traditional u.s. foreign policy views, supporting democracy and the international order. what's your reading of the senate these days? has it become trumpified? has it become isolationist? is there a consensus in the senate, and if you can speak to it, in the house, in favor of our traditional foreign policy, supporting democracy and nato and, you know, the world order? >> well, you saw the vote on ukraine aid after trump spent months trying to stop the congress, trying to stop congressional republicans from supporting aid to ukraine, to

allow them to keep the fight up against russia. we got a good bipartisan vote with many republicans supporting ukraine. but it is just true that that party is increasingly under the thumb of donald trump. if he wins this election, i don't believe they will be able to stand up to him. so there is a decision this country is making in this election. do you want vladimir putin to be able to own ukraine? do you want to increase the likelihood that he will then march into a nato country and it'll be u.s. troops fighting russian troops inside europe? or do you want to give ukraine a shot to win? here's the reality. if kamala harris wins and she's got a pro-ukraine majority in the senate and the house, vladimir putin is going to have a decision to make. now, he is faced with four hard, long years of war against ukraine, backed by the united

states. it increases the likelihood that he will sit down and find a negotiated solution to this crisis. donald trump has told you that he is going to give ukraine to russia, even before he's sworn in. that's what he said at the debate. if you have been listening to vladimir putin, you know he is not going to stop at ukraine. that means there are likely going to be u.s. troops going to war. so the decision is critical. republicans will not be able to stand up to trump and ukraine and the post world war ii order is undoubtedly on the ballot. >> democratic member of the foreign relations committee, senator chris murphy of connecticut, thank you. katty, appeasement doesn't work. vladimir putin invaded georgia in 2008. a republican president did nothing. vladimir putin invaded crimea in ukraine in 2014. a democratic president did

nothing. vladimir putin in 2018 basically got donald trump to pledge his fealty to him in helsinki. one president after another has shown weakness. what has that led to? well, it led to another invasion. the united states is finally pushing back after 15 years of invasion. it's just very obvious. if donald trump is elected and surrenders ukraine to vladimir putin, poland is next. moldova is next. estonia, latvia, lithuania. those states are going to fall in no time. yes, when they're invaing nato countries, it's going to be u.s. troops on the ground fighting and dying. right now, a million russian casualties without one american casualty. i don't understand what donald

trump does not get about this. >> less than 5% of america's defense budget. it's the cheapest deal america could have had in terms of trying to diminish its main adversary in the world. it's a message that i don't think has been sold particularly well. actually, ukrainians are fighting and dying for america's self-interest. it's costing america really very little in terms of the money that is being spent. but you look at the way that volodymyr zelenskyy was received in washington over the last 24 hours. he's not the rock star he was two years ago. he's not being welcomed with open arms by everybody in the senate, everybody in the house, in the way he was. there is a certain amount of fatigue on both sides, to some extent, in keeping this fight going. you know, it's hard for him. they are watching the polls. the polls we have been talking about on this program are being watched on the front line by the soldiers in ukraine. >> right. >> so they can see what their fate is going to be after november. they are running on america's political timetable.

>> to see whether america will elect a president who believes that vladimir putin is more trustworthy than his own intel agencies. >> right. we're going to come back to this. we continue to follow the path of tropical storm helene. it made landfall in florida overnight as a powerful category 4 hurricane. now, the storm is moving inland over georgia. joining us now live from atlanta is nbc news correspondent priya. what's the situation there? >> reporter: first of all, i want to start with the fact that three people here in georgia have tragically died as a result of hurricane helene. two of them were in a trailer park community in southeastern georgia, 80 miles away from macon. winds were so significant, they developed into a tornado. now, we're also learning that one firefighter has been killed as a result of a downed tree. here in atlanta, we're about to

feel the brunt of hurricane helene. we were expected to feel the most significant effects of it in the daybreak hours. we're basically now seeing a significant amount of rainfall. also, those wind gusts are starting to increase. we're expecting they're going to get up to about 50-mile-per-hour. that's also causing significant power outages across the state of georgia. we're seeing reports of about 1 million people without power. 22,000 of those here in the atlanta metro area. overnight, authorities responding to about two dozen people with swift water rescues, having to basically rescue them from their homes because the water was accumulating so much. it was so significant, they were having to take shelter in the public transportation buses here in the city of atlanta. we're also hearing that in a neighborhood on the border of atlanta and sandy springs, fire crews were going door to door, knocking on residents' homes and asking them to evacuate.

there's also a flash flood emergency in place until 1:00 p.m. today. we're certainly going to be monitoring all of this. unfortunately, the worst is yet to come here. >> nbc news correspondent priya, thank you for that. ahead on "morning joe," our next two guests traveled across the country speaking with black women from the cities to the suburbs in an effort to determine what that critical voting block thinks about the upcoming election. symone sanders townsend and melissa murray join us next to discuss what they learned. and before we go to break, willie, what do you have planned for "sunday today"? >> got a good one dialed up, mika. one of the biggest stars in hollywood, academy award winner, kate winslet. she's in a new movie which tells the true story of a fashion model turned war correspondent during world war ii. she also stars as a dictator in

the comical series "the regime." of course, we talk about how "titanic" changed her life. a great conversation with the delightful kate winslet, coming up this weekend over on "sunday today" on nbc. we'll be right back here on "morning joe." business. it's not a nine-to-five proposition. it's all day and into the night. it's all the things that keep this world turning. it's the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. trust. hang out. and check in. they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. powering more businesses than anyone. powering possibilities.

i want to turn to the issue of abortion. for 52 years, they've been trying to get roe v wade into the states.

i did a great service in doing it. it took courage to do it. and the supreme court had great courage in doing it. i have talked with women around our country. you want to talk about this is what people wanted. pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage. being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail. and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot. she didn't want that. her husband didn't want that. a 12 or 13 year old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. they don't want that. i think the american people believe that certain freedoms, in particular the freedom to make decisions about one's own body, should not be made by the government. i'm kamala harris, and i approved this message.

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katty kay, your podcast with anthony scaramucci, you have a new episode. you interviewed second gentleman doug emhoff. let's take a look first. >> doug, you spoke a lot aboutmg a regular couple. how is that going these days? >> so funny you mentioned that. today, she happened to have a white house day, also, as did i. since we do not spend a lot of time together, all of a sudden, i see all this scurrying around in my office, this murmuring. the door open, and there she is, big smile on her face. everyone gets out, and she said, i wanted to come in and give you a big hug. i gave her a big hug, how you doing? great. i'm going to go do katty and anthony's podcast. on my way to the dnc. she was like, i have a few events.

it was a distillation of the fact that even with all this going on, she took the time to come in. we're not getting enough time together, to give me a big smile and a big hug, and tell me she loved me. i told her i loved her. i'll see ya on the road. >> you take your dates where you can get them these days. >> i love it. katty, first of all, tell us more about the interview. boy, a contrast in many ways, i'll just say, between the two campaigns. >> i was going to say, the marriages. let's leave that where it is. >> yeah. >> it was interesting on why he thinks the race is close, the energy he is feeling from the crowds, the need to get everybody out there. i asked him also about the role he has as first second gentleman. he talks about this. he thinks about it a lot. particularly, i think on this campaign, where we have two views of masculinity. i think us women, and i'm sure you've noticed, too, gene, there is this alpha retro view of masculiity from the trump

campaign. then you have tim walz and doug emhoff, who are professional men but are in supportive roles of a woman who is the principal candidate. >> yeah. >> he said something interesting. he said, you can't scold people, you can't tell them, you should have more supportive of women and women candidates and it'll help everybody, but he hopes that by leading by example, by talking about the fact he loves his wife, that you can make space for women to rise to the stop and it doesn't diminish your masculinity. >> he does a great job of that. >> yeah, and he is authentic about it. >> authentic about the blended family. i think he's a very, very -- like a secret weapon for the campaign in many ways. nice guy, too. moving on now, in a new msnbc special airing this sunday entitled "black women in america, the road to 2024," co-host of "the weekend," symone sanders townsend, and msnbc legal analyst melissa murray expect the power of black women in electoral politics.

let's take a look. >> people are going to make decisions at the ballot box, and everyone is talking about what black women are going to do. how are black women going to show up in this election? well, black women continue to save the world. they cite the numbers from secretary clinton and obama. they talk about joe biden in 2020. you look at the drop offs and the margins. well, what do the ogs, the gurus think about this? >> if we want a taste of freedom, if we want to believe that this democracy needs to be saved, then we have to be participants in it. we can't continue to use the narrative that black men won't show up because it's the females. what is true, in my humble opinion, is we have to change how men see women. we have to give them the visual of a commander in chief. i believe that vice president harris has done that quite well. i thought that hillary had done it quite well. we still have to push because if we blink, people will see something different because

they've never seen it before. it's up to -- i think it is up to black women, up to white men, it's up to asians, lgbt community, how do you envision a woman as president? >> all right. symone and melissa join us now. this looks amazing. first, tell us some of the things that surprised you along the way. >> thanks so much, mika. you know, melissa has been describing this as the summer girls trip that we took across the country. is that accurate, melissa? >> it's accurate. >> accurate. we wanted to just really get into what black women were thinking ahead of this election. you know, a lot of people talk about black women prior to the switch, as people are calling it across the country, there was a question if black women would come out at the same level as they did in 2024, joe biden and kamala harris. now, i think there's an assumption that because vice president harris is now at the top of the ticket, black women are automatically going to turn

out. what melissa and i found traveling across the country, black women, just like other voters, they want to know where the candidates stand on the issues. they care about the economy. that particular conversation happened right before the start of the democratic national convention, sitting with five women who have been institutions, if you will, in american politics. the chair of the convention this year. donna brazile, the first black woman to ever run a presidential campaign. vice president harris' first chief of staff. a long-time democratic party strategist who orchestrated many things for the party. of course, the 2008 and 2016 ceo of the democratic national convention. >> melissa, what did you guys find were the issues that were driving their motivation this election? >> there were a lot of issues, mika. obviously, reproductive rights was at the top. they also spoke about police violence, student loan relief, the difficulties of first-time homeownership. what we found was that, despite

the fact that there was a black woman at the top of the ticket, they weren't necessarily animated by affection for any particular candidate. rather, were wondering whether their disaffection for politics as usual would actually keep them home. so they were looking for a reason to get up on tuesday, november 5th, to get to the polls. >> melissa, is the history-making nature of harris' bid playing a role here at all? like, i think there is an assumption it would. tell us what you found. also, what are some of those issues that are animating, that might get some of these disaffected voters out to the polls? >> so they definitely understand that this is an historical moment, but they also recognize that hillary clinton's run was historic, as well. they felt disappointed about her loss in 2016. they want actual, real specifics. one of them mentioned that she really wanted student loan relief, but they didn't get student loan relief. we mentioned to her, in fact, there was student loan relief from the biden administration. it was just withdrawn from the

supreme court. one of the things we noticed was, you know, they perhaps have a broad view of what presidents can do that is unelevened by the realities of working in a tri government system and working with state and local governments. the things they were concerned about, police violence, student loan relief, homeownership, some can be done by the president but certainly not all of it. >> you had a conversation about what would happen if vice president harris wins the election and what happens if she doesn't. let's listen to that quick sound bite. >> now, she wins, we got a partner. >> mm-hmm. >> that'll help us do that work. she doesn't win, we fight harder. >> mm-hmm. >> more armor. the fight continues. >> symone, tell us more about that conversation of what's at stake. >> so this particular conversation, prior to the convention, was important

because we talked to real people, if you will. the conversation that melissa was detailing, that happened at my nail shop, actually, here in washington, d.c. one of the voters said they at no time know if they were going to vote, the a voter who votes in north carolina. we also went to blue bell, pennsylvania, which is important because it's montgomery county. an important county that made a difference for joe biden in 2020. democrats netted 40,000 more votes between 2016 and 2020 in that county. in the suburbs, black women live in the suburbs, surprise! people talk about suburban women as though it's white women. we heard a range of sentiments from women and younger women there in the suburbs, so we want ed make sure we also talk to the women as people see as the architects. ensuring there are seats at the table. that is what the conversation was from the convention. melissa also had a great conversation about the legal battles and the legal fronts, how it's going to play into what

black women do in the election. melissa, we also talked to kerry washington. >> wow. >> fun. >> amazing. the people's olivia pope. >> you know, as part of the bigger story this year, overall, of what the democratic pollster said to me just yesterday was, the gender gap on steroids this year. i'm wondering if you're seeing that with the black women voters, as well. even historically, this has been a big gap, do you see it as being even wider this time? >> i think we'll have to wait and see, right, what the voter data shapes out. in our conversations, particularly when we went to montgomery county, pennsylvania, the women in that group, we had an intergenerational group of seven black women, they uniquely understood the stakes of this election. they brought up the supreme court on their own. melissa didn't have to raise it. they talked about abortion. we actually talked about guns, actually. the women in the room talked about how many of them are now gun owners. they talked about the economy. clark, who is in the yellow there, specifically, melissa, i

was struck by the fact that she was just -- she was recently a masters graduate, but talked about how they're feeling the pinch of inflation. she was someone that didn't know who she was going to vote for at the top of the ticket yet. i think maybe clark is coming into clearer view now. >> melissa. >> i think that's right. they were not trump curious in the way we've learned about black male voters, but they definitely wanted the candidates to come out, to appeal to them, to not take them for granted, and to earn their vote. >> you can watch "black women in america, the road to 2024," this sunday at 9:00 p.m. right here on msnbc. msnbc legal analyst melissa murray and co-host of "the weekend" and "morning mika," symone sanders townsend. thank you so much. we'll also be watching "the weekend" saturday and sunday starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern time. great job. look forward to that. coming up, we'll have the latest on the war in ukraine as president volodymyr zelenskyy meets with top u.s. officials.

nato secretary general stoltenberg will weigh in on that and the importance of supporting kyiv, when "morning joe" returns. soriasis. thanks to skyrizi i'm playing with clearer skin. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. with skyrizi, nothing on my skin means everything! ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save.

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lies ahead. but of think am sure, while the challenges we face may change, the answer is the same. we are stronger and safer. europe and north america together in nato. >> nato secretary general jens stoltenberg last week in brussels, reflecting on his decade long tenure at the alliance. he'll leave his position next week. stoltenberg began his term in 2014, coordinating nato's response with the obama administration to russia's annexation of crimea. ten years later, the secretary general stepping away after rallying historic levels of support for ukraine. secretary general stoltenberg joins us now. thank you for being with us this morning in your final days as the head of nato. you've touched on it there in your remarks in brussels a few days ago, but if you could expand a little bit on where you leave this alliance. of course, earlier this year, nato welcoming officially two

new members in finland and sweden, strengthening the alliance there. where is nato today as you step away? >> well, the bad news is that the world is more dangerous. i leave nato in a more dangerous world. full-fledged war in europe with a war in the middle east and a rivalry with china and many other challenges. but the good news is that nato is stronger than we have been for decades. with more members, four new members, including finland and sweden over the last years. then more troops in eastern part of the alliance, highering the forces, and investing more in defense. the nato guideline of spending 2% of gdp. this year, 20 allies are meeting that guideline. nato is stronger in a more dangerous world. >> secretary general, the main focus these last few years for nato has been the war in ukraine. president zelenskyy here in the

united states met with president biden, vice president harris yesterday. meeting with former president trump today. he says that a key part of ukraine's ability to win this war is to have the permission to use long-range weapons deep inside russia. do you agree? >> i agree that ukraine should have the right to strike legitimate targets inside russia. that's because that's in line with international law. we need to remember what this is. this is a war of aggression. russia invaded another country. that's a blatant violation of international law. according to its national law, self-defense is legal. self-defense, as now ukraine is conducting, includes also the right to strike legitimate target on the territory of the aggressor, russia. some allies don't have restrictions, except in keeping within international law. others loosened their restrictions, including also the

united states. i welcome there is an ongoing dialogue on this issue in nato, and i welcome that we are seeing some of the lifting of restrictions. >> mr. secretary general, obviously there is always talk of bringing this war to an end with some negotiated agreement. right now, certainly, many are talking about the possibility of ukraine sacrificing some land for membership in nato. what is the possibility of nato membership for ukraine as part of a peace deal that brings this war to an end? >> first of all, we all want this war to end. but the problem is that the quickest way to end the war for ukraine is to lose the war. but that will not bring peace. that will bring occupation of ukraine, and that's not peace. so the challenge is to get an end to the war where, actually,

ukraine prevails as an independent nation. the only way to achieve that is to convince president putin he won't win on the battlefield. only way to get there is to provide more military support to ukraine. then it has to be for the ukrainians to decide what are they willing to give to reach peace. what i can say is when a line is agreed, cease-fire or any other line, it is important the war stops there. therefore, nato membership will be a way to guarantee the borders, the lines that are agreed as part of a peace deal. therefore, nato membership is part of creating peace and stability in ukraine and, therefore, in europe. >> i want you to take an overview look at your time as secretary general of nato.

and just the advances. you know, you've said it's a more dangerous world than ever before, and yet nato is more powerful than it has ever been before. have you -- looking back over the history of this organization, have you ever known of a time that it has grown as much or increased in power as much as it has during your tenure? >> no. i think it is hard to find a similar decade in nato's history. the reason nato is the most successful alliance in history is that we have been able to change when the world is changing. that's exactly what we have done over the last decade. the other reason why nato is the most successful alliance is that we stand together. we are 32 different nations with different presidents, prime ministers, political partners in power, but we are able to unite because a strong nato is good for europe. it is also very good for the united states. the united states is big, 25% of the world's gdp, but together with nato allies, we represent

50% of the world's global economy and 50% of the world's military might. that makes the united states stronger and safer and, therefore, nato is a strong ally. >> mr. stoltenberg, what is the level of trepidation about the u.s. election, and how is that being seen in the nato countries? >> well, of course, nato allies watch the elections in the u.s., as everyone else, but i expect that regardless of who is elected as president in november, the united states will remain a strong ally. partly, it is the u.s. security interest to have a strong nato. the united states a strong, committed ally. part of this is because the security interest is to have a strong nato. the united states has not gone to war alone since the korean war, and we've always gone to war together as nato allies. that's something china and russia doesn't have, and that's

more than 30 friends and allies, good for the united states. second, this strong bipartisan support in the united states for nato in the congress, but also among the voters. according to all the opinion polls, and thirdly, the criticism from the united states and also from former president trump has not mainly been against nato. it has been against nato allies not spending enough on nato, and that is right, but that has changed because a few years ago, a few allies spent 2%. now many allies are spending much more than 2%, and the u.s. is no longer the biggest spender based on gdp or a share of the gdp. poland has been sharing more gdp than the united states. this has proven the burden. >> former president trump was a

big advocate on allies to spend more, but he also as you well know, has been rather deferential to russia's president, vladimir putin, throughout his political career. what is your level of concern that if trump were to win again, that he would abandon ukraine and he'd give putin at least some measure of a victory there in ukraine? >> well, i expect that -- the united states regardless of who is the president, see what is the security interest of the united states, and if president putin wins in ukraine, it's a trouble for the ukrainians, but it's dangerous to us. it sends a message to president putin, that when he violates national law, he gets what he wants. that's spending a message to beijing and other powers, including china that if they use force, they get what they want. what happens in ukraine today could happen in asia tomorrow just like the japanese prime minister said recently.

it's not for me to speak on behalf of the candidates, but when i worked with former president trump, we had the issue of javelins, and he actually stepped up to support ukraine and provided javelins. so while it is in the u.s. security interest to ensure that european allies and the united states enable ukraine to stop the russian invaders, and i expect that to be the position of our elections. >> nato secretary general jens stoltenberg, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> take care. and coming up, we'll have the latest on the historic indictment of new york city mayor, eric adams, ahead of his arraignment today on five federal charges. "morning joe" will be right back. did you know that 96% of customers recommend the hartford? boy that's higher than most movie ratings. and those who switched to the aarp auto insurance program from the hartford? they saved hundreds.

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this did not surprise us that we reached this day, and i

ask new york to wait to hear our defense before making any judgments. from here, my attorneys will take care of the case so i can take care of the city. >> that was new york city mayor eric adams yesterday after a 57-page federal indictment was unsealed accusing him of a decade-long corruption scheme. the 64-year-old becomes the first sitting new york city mayor to be indicted in the modern era. in all, he's charged with five counts including bribery and wire fraud. the indictment accuses the mayor of receiving more than $100,000 worth of free plane tickets and luxury hotel stays from wealthy, turkish nationals, and at least one government official. additionally, the indictment states that in return for free travel, benefits, and illegal campaign contributions, adams performed favors for his foreign

foreignben factors. prosecutors say the international pay to play scheme began after adams became the brooklyn borough president in 2017 and worked several years later. adams kept fake paper trails and deleted messages to hide his misconduct. he is set to be arraigned in lower manhattan this afternoon. he denies all charges against him. >> the mayor of new york city. >> yeah. >> seriously. do you think you're going to be able to, like, cover up paper trails? >> exactly. it's always a coverup, isn't it, right? because not only does he take these favors, this money essentially these campaign contributions that are not legal, but then he deletes the messages. >> right. >> you know, he claims he can't

remember the password to his phone so the feds can look at it, and it, you know, that is -- i don't know. it seems to me to be kind of evidence of consciousness of guilt. >> well, we'll see. coming up, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is set to address the united nations general assembly later this morning. we'll dig into what we can expect to hear as israel and hezbollah continue to trade fire. plus, we're tracking tropical storm helene. we'll get a report from perry, florida where the storm first made landfall. we're back in just two minutes. made landfall. we're back in just two minutes

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the question. >> i don't want to tell you what that's like. >> donald trump remaining coy when asked what a deal between russia and ukraine would look like. we're going to show you more of what the former president had to say ahead of a meeting today with the ukrainian president who appeared alongside vice president kamala harris yesterday at the white house. >> wasn't that kind of like nixon's secret plan? >> secret plan to end the vietnam war. yeah. >> oh, there are a lot of polls. >> every morning there's new polls. i didn't see them today. >> well, the bloomberg polls and there are key new polls from the swing states overnight. we'll show you this, and we will show you how once again, "the new york times"/siena poll is a dramatic outlier. voodoo witchcraft. >> it's friday, september 27th, along with joe, willie, and me.

>> let's go. >> we have jonathan lemire, pulitzer prize-winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson, correspondent for bbc news, katty kay. >> can i get this one? >> it's impossible that she was on a red eye. i don't believe it, katty. >> i'm never doing a red eye again. there's no point doing it and i'm too old. >> you are not too old, but there is no point for people born in the decade that we were born in to do a red eye. >> my son has come home for a few days, and you will fly anywhere at any time to see your children. >> you will. we also have "new york times" washington bureau chief, elizabeth. we're so happy to have her here as we go over polls and talk about the difference between "the new york times"/siena poll. >> and sam stein from the bullwork. >> don't worry. i was just completely skipped over.

>> we do have breaking news. >> we're going to start the show with breaking news. the latest on the tropical storm. willie, you've got that. >> yeah. it is now a tropical storm, helene, downgraded this morning after a hurricane -- after making landfall in florida as a category 4 storm. right now moving farther inland over georgia. helene is the strongest hurricane ever to hit florida's big ben region. nbc news senior national correspondent tom llamas is in perry, florida with the latest. >> reporter: this morning, a monster storm unleashing its fury overnight on florida's gulf coast. hurricane helene, a catastrophic category 4 showing no mercy, destroying property, flooding hotel lobbies, businesses, and homes, and submering vehicles in oceans of water. >> this is terrible. >> reporter: helene not only bringing hurricane-force winds to the region, but also a historic storm surge and tonight on top of all of this, the threat of tornadoes.

violent winds of 100 miles an hour slamming into florida. floodwaters with these high waves in tampa, and treacherous driving conditions with trees blocking roads, and this boat shored up. storm surge transforming neighborhoods with chest-high water in some areas, and this man left to take refuge in a kayak. turning roads into rivers. all of it inundating towns right in the center of florida's gulf coastline. >> i have been in this organization for 31 years, and thiss the highest surge i've ever seen. >> reporter: showing what seems to be a possible transformer exploding in st. petersburg. leaving more than a million customers without power across the region. tampa general putting up an aqua fence in place to keep the water at bay and it held up. >> in this backpack -- >> reporter: someone from the campus in tallahassee sheltering

through the night. >> we'll be watching this through the window. >> reporter: the landfall of helene challenging for rescue teams, forced to save lives in the dark, as many as 40 people pulled from the rising water. facing dangerous conditions with one crew in a different county, and homes engulfed in flames. >> anybody in the house? >> reporter: the elderly being helped to safety, carried out by first responders. >> once the wind got to a certain point, we had to hunker down. >> reporter: and this captured on camera, the coast guard saving this man and his dog after his boat capsized off the coast of sanibel island. >> that is no joke. >> category 4 is just next level. it really is. we have been through one. i went through one in pensacola. here we were fortunate and fortunate overall that it did move toward the big bend area even though tallahassee, which is inland was impacted by it to

the west, but yeah. that big bend area, if you are looking for the less -- the least amount of damage and for everybody that's in florida, also, the least likelihood of further homeowners cancellations which is that insurance -- the insurance crisis is there, and it is there because storm after storm after storm keeps going into florida. the big bend area will probably rack up the least amount of damage though, of course, the devastation for many people still really great. let's turn to politics now with less than six weeks to go until election day. bloomberg news and the morning consult continues to show a tight race. harris holds leads within the margin of error in every swing state but georgia where she and former president donald trump are tied in this poll.

harris leads by three points among likely voters in, arizona, michigan, and wisconsin. she's also up by seven points in nevada, by two points in north carolina, and by five points in pennsylvania. >> and the one race she's tied in, georgia, there's the latest fox news survey of likely voters in georgia. that has harris ahead of trump by three percentage points. that too falls within the margin of error. so if you look at all of these polls, it's a tie, and you talk to both campaigns, they will tell you it's a tie. gene, the harris campaign -- >> mm-hmm. >> -- is very interesting. they're sending out messages. you can tell the specter of the great pumpkin 2006 continues to rise over the pumpkin patch, and nobody is saying we feel good. they're, like, i don't know. >> i don't know. i don't know. we're still behind. >> we had a long

cross-examination last night, mika and i with a member, and after about 30 minutes of breaking it down, you know, a couple of drinks, they finally broke and said, all right. we feel okay, all right? nobody's going to say that, all right? >> how many drinks? >> for them, two or three and then a spotlight on top of them. it was really, you know, chained to a chair, a metal chair, but that's -- there is a -- it is. please come up and have a drink with us tonight. >> thursday night in washington. >> but seriously, they are so scared because of what happened in 2016 when everybody -- >> who wouldn't be? >> who doesn't have ptsd? >> you talk to someone in the harris campaign and you have to go deep to find someone to admit polls are breaking in our favor, and here it shows again, except for one poll which i won't name, the trend lines have been fairly positive. >> they have been positive.

if you look at the trend lines, you would rather be kamala harris right now than donald trump. if you want to win this election, right? because you look at the long-term trend line, and you see that it has crept up. it has crept up and she's getting awful live close to that 51%, and trump is basically steady. he's basically got 45%, 46%. >> right. >> that's it. and -- but, he's overperformed his polls in some prior elections. everybody remembers 2016. nobody is going to feel confident, and no one should feel confident because it's going to -- it's going to be a turnout election. >> right. >> if you get -- if harris gets her voters to polls, they've got the machine to do it, but if he get their voters to the polls, then that's a very different story from if they don't. >> right, and elizabeth, you look at these numbers obviously in the bloomberg/morning consult

poll, harris is doing well. the trend lines are very positive. you go back to before she was in the race and there was joe biden. you started to see states like minnesota, virginia, new hampshire suddenly get uncomfortably close. those races are no longer close. trump's basically thrown in the towel. >> yes. >> so it really has. for those that say, oh, it would be the same with biden. things dramatically shifted. >> it's a major difference, and the trend line is up for her. we have polling showing that she is doing better on the economy than she was even two weeks ago, that she is beginning to catch up with trump under perceptions of who would be better for the economy. she's out there talking about what a rich guy he is, and how she's, you know, a capitalist for the middle class. her speech where she made clear, you know, as he is saying, i'm not a marxist. i'm not a socialist. i'm not a communist. i'm a capitalist, trying to be

friendly towards business. she's got a lot of these tax cuts, a lot of these plans for, you know, the young people, $25,000 -- i don't know where she's going to get the money for this, but talking about a $25,000 credit for first-time home buyers, and $50,000 for startup new businesses. she's beginning to make inroads there, but i should say, yes. there's a lot of concern about these hidden trump voters. i can tell you that there are more newly registered republicans this cycle than there are democrats despite the stories we have been running about all the college kids signing up. >> yep. >> and there is -- and trump is doing -- in that group, he's doing better among younger men of color than you would expect. >> right. and katty, the one thing that we have heard from the harris campaign even those that will be cautiously optimistic is pennsylvania and ohio. pennsylvania has had a surge in

republican registration over the past four years. so they still believe they can and will win pennsylvania, but, you know, they feel good about michigan. they feel good about wisconsin. relatively good. it may be a landslide, and maybe we'll win by a full percentage points in both of these states, but in pennsylvania they know it's going to be a fight and it's going to be a fight because she's doing better -- much better among women and most young voters, but older, white men just like people thought, after biden left the race, more of a challenge, pulling them to vote against trump again. >> younger white men too. also a bit of a challenge. that number, they'll like a lot, up plus five in pennsylvania. it's the new ohio, the new florida, the new state where they see they have the most problems, and either the concerns or the upside depending on how you look at this from the harris campaign's point of view is that pennsylvania, michigan, and wisconsin people think will

break the same way. that's what they've done traditionally since 1980. if they lose pennsylvania, what would that then mean for wisconsin and michigan? if they win wisconsin and michigan, does that mean they're going to win pennsylvania? that's why they're putting so much resources into, that but it's men. the real struggle for the harris campaign is young men, older men, men of color, white men, and they are doing all they can. the debate next week will be really interesting to see how tim walz reaches out to that group. doug emhoff who i interviewed yesterday, and we have that later on the program, he is making a concerted effort in his own way to reach out to that group. they know that's where they have a weakness. >> and sam, it's so interesting watching trump yesterday. i don't know how long he spoke. maybe an hour, but it was hatred and vitriol toward again, springfield, and migrants and these people who are ruining our country, doubling down on -- on this rhetoric, on these lies.

it must be working for them? >> they would love to talk about immigration for the rest of the election if they had their druthers. the problem is they have concocted a bunch of racist lies about haitians and they've distracted about immigration to whether they're being truthful about immigration. that's a different conversation. i think it's not particularly a great insight. they have been banking on young men. they put trump on these platforms. most of them are not tv platforms. they're podcast. they're youtube videos. they want to generate more enthusiasm among young men, but also young men who have not necessarily been politically engaged before. that's a high risk, high reward strategy for them, isn't it? can they activate them? i will say we go over these poll numbers incessantly. you can drive yourself crazy, but the most important numbers is the economy. when you have gas prices going down a little bit, interest rates being cut, the 30-year

fixed mortgage rate at its slowest level in a couple of years, those are materially matter more in this election. that means the economy may be improving which in turn gets imparted on kamala harris because she is part of the administration and i thought the most important data point and story yesterday was, in fact, from your paper which looked at that -- the view of voters in terms of her ability to handle the economy, and she is making improvements there. if she can get to a tie with trump or even better than him, i think that is way more important than any bloomberg/morning consult poll. >> you don't like bloomberg/morning consult polls? >> i will say, just to circle it all here, this morning they put out -- the harris people put out a fund-raising email and they chose a certain poll to highlight. it was "the new york times"/siena poll. they love the idea of freaking out because they can write checks. >> i joke about "the new york

times"/siena poll, but i think the democrats are actually funding the polling. >> they are. >> every time one comes out, everybody -- every democrat thinks we must work harder. we must spend more money. go. so there's been, jonathan lemire, for some time, the only way that joe biden before, but now kamala harris can get to 270 is to go through the blue wall of wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania. the fact is now let's put up the bloomberg poll that sam stein so delusively commented about. let's show their new pathway if they do not win pennsylvania, they feel more confident every day with north carolina. they feel good about georgia, and they feel good about nevada. now i've got to say, that nevada plus seven sticks out like a sore thumb. >> yeah. >> that sticks out to me kind of like wisconsin, plus 14 before the 20 race from joe biden.

he was supposed to win that state by -- i think it was an abc poll, supposed to win that state by double digits. nobody is going to win nevada by seven points, but still, they have several pathways to 270, and they're playing it that way. they are going to go down fighting in north carolina and georgia. >> yeah. there's no question. there's no one involved in the harris campaign that thinks they're up seven in nevada. it's a tie. it's razor-thin, and tends to break democrat last minute, and they think it will again, but no one thinks it's going to be that lopsided. i think you're right about the path. they feel good about michigan, wisconsin fairy well. pennsylvania is a source of real anxiety. democrats, the trends are breaking away from democrats. there are some prominent democratic thinkers and pollsters, in a cycle or two and they think pennsylvania might slip away and it might become a light red state. right now it's a true battle ground. it'll be close, and they feel great about north carolina as we'll get to later in the show. donald trump was asked

point-blank yesterday about mark robinson, the controversial gubernatorial candidate there, and he chose not to disavow and he said, i don't know enough about it and walked away. democrats will continue to tie robinson and trump together, and in terms of harris, her two biggest weaknesses heading into this election were perceived as the economy, and as you guys just mentioned, polls show she's really picked up steam there. that speech in pittsburgh this week has been pulling it to the federate cut, and people feeling better about the economy, and the other is immigration as we're going to talk a little bit later. she heads to arizona today. one of the states like georgia, a true tossup, a true tossup, and she's going to talk about -- she's going to the border. she'll talk about immigration and squarely blame donald trump for killing the bill that would have helped. coming up, we're keeping a close eye on the u.n. where prime minister benjamin netanyahu is set to address the general assembly. what the israeli leader has to say about the conflicts raging in the middle east and the

possibility of a ceasefire when "morning joe" comes right back. k

hello, everyone. this is your favorite president, donald j. trump, with some very exciting news. by popular demand, i'm doing a new series of trump digital trading cards. you all know what they are. we have had a lot of fun with them. it's called the america first collection. 50 all new stunning, digital trading cards. it's really something. these cards show me dancing and

even me holding some bitcoins. we are announcing the launch of trump coins, a true symbol of american greatness. trump coins are designed by me and minted right here in the usa. i've seen a lot of coins out there using my very beautiful face. i'm a very beautiful guy. i'm only kidding, but they are not the official coin. realtrumpcoins.com is the only place to get an official trump coin. we can do something really special. i think you're going to love it, my new trump watches. we're doing quite a number with watches and the quality is very important. the trump victory tourbillon. get your trump watch right now. go to gettrumpwatches.com. it's trump time. >> i will say, willie, this is -- >> oh my gosh. >> politics just keeps moving. it just keeps slipping and slipping and slipping into the future.

>> wow. >> i will say, this is my favorite use of merchandising by presidents since gerald r. ford sold his own personalized leather football helmets and you had michael dukakis in 1988 with his push lawn mowers that he signed. nothing like this. >> it's getting very expensive to be a supporter of donald trump. you got to -- the digital nfts. you got to buy the sneakers. you got to buy the bible, of course. the trump bible, and now you've got to buy a watch. i mean, this guy is really asking a lot of us, but did you love too, when he called himself a very beautiful man and pretended he was kidding? he was not kidding. >> she was not joking. >> one of those watches is actually $100,000. i just saw that. crazy. $100,000 for that. >> yeah. >> tourbillon. a disclaimer on the website notes the proceeds do not

directly benefit trump or his campaign. >> no. >> not directly, but that each was part of a paid licensing agreement. >> through paypal, and then to trump. do they do this in britain? >> no, but our elections only cost -- i think it's -- i figured it out the other day. it's about $50 million for a whole general election in the uk. that's bargain basement by democracy, isn't it? that's a cheap election. it's less. it's probably one congressional race in new york or california. >> that might win patroller of vermont, right? >> burlington. >> we don't know what product he would hawk next. i think he's going to get his own version of a cybertruck, a trump cybertruck. >> i think it'll be new sneakers like sam said. >> he's already done sneakers. not trump sneakers. >> is that what you're wearing? >> not trump sneakers. >> there is such a disconnect

between those people who are all in for donald trump, who sees this -- >> this is okay. >> this is christmas morning. it's very quiting. >> -- exciting. >> $100,000 for a watch. can you imagine if the democrats were doing something like this? >> it would be out of touch. >> donald trump was going after kamala harris' necklaces and saying how much they were costing. this is amazing. coming up, we'll be joined with an interview with vice president kamala harris. first, hilary swank is standing by with her new leading role, mom to twins. she'll joining the table when "morning joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back at bombas, we make absurdly comfortable socks, slippers you'll float in,

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these people get bored, but they don't get bored with me. >> 6 1/2 hours later. >> lawyers, and your carpenters and your electricians, and your drivers, and you're doing a lot of things. >> beautiful f-35 lightnings. >> police is blowing up. russia's blowing up with ukraine. there's wars starting all over the place. looks like bad things could happen. 89% increase in aggravated assault. >> all right. that was a recent tiktok from the harris campaign. its social media operation has drawn a lot of attention for its sharp and at time, risky strategy against former president trump. the campaign's most popular tiktoks have garnered 164 million views at roughly no cost. joining us now, bloomberg 2024 u.s. presidential election

reporter, riley ray griffin. she is co-author of the new piece entitled "how harris' campaign finally made biden's meme strategy work." >> and riley, let's talk about the launching point. three words, explain to all of us how kamala is brat. >> yeah. yeah. >> changed everything. >> it's such an important question, actually, because it encapsulates this broader, organic momentum that the campaign has been able to seize. that day that president biden dropped out of the race wasn't a day that the campaign had a strategy for executing, you know, meming harris into the oval. >> right. >> ultimately they had to seize that organic momentum and charlie xcx, a british pop star had posted, kamala is brat and you immediately saw some of those social media accounts seize that and make it the brand because they didn't have a brand

to turn to otherwise. >> it was incredible to watch some of these memes and these things like her mother and coconut tree. all the stuff that i think some of the republicans thought could be used against her, actually working in her favor. >> the coconut tree. the coconut tree. >> did you fall out of a coconut tree? was that something that the campaign could see and seized upon or kind of fell into? >> yeah. they've sought to take that momentum, ride the wave, but not raid it too far because nothing is too cool. they're jumping in. they're jumping out. they are still spending a fair amount on their digital strategy, more than four times than the trump campaign on facebook and google, and part of the reason why is that tiktok, they are downplaying political content on their platforms. it's a new social media landscape. coming up, the war that would not end. inside the year-long american effort to free the hostages, end

the fighting, and bring peace to the middle east. frank foer joins us next straight ahead on "morning joe." t straight ahead on "morning joe."

♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." this morning, we are just over one month until election day, and with that in mind, today we are unveiling the inaugural democracy heroes list. the nonprofit organization, i am a voter, in partnership with the rockefeller foundation, head count, and in collaboration with us here on "morning joe," are spotlighting 25 trail blazers, advocates, organizers, and changemakers who are making a difference in their communities every day. a young man who began his civic engagement work registering people to vote in a popeye's drive through in florida, to a

woman in michigan building the political power, to golden state warriors, head coach steven kerr who is using his voice in civic engagement and activism. even one of our honorees is break barriers and ensuring that marginalizes voters have a seat in our democracy. take a look at some of the award winners. >> there was none. there was nothing in our community that reflected us. >> it's heartbreaking to see people see us as a burden in society. >> they do not have a voice. >> if disabled people voted at the same rate as non-disabled people, there would be a 1.7 million more voters. >> we've seen 350 bills pass

this year alone that in some way has impeded or created a barrier. >> my work is ensuring that disabled people can participate in our democracy and are able to vote. >> we make sure there's also something on the calendar that brings people in to have a social escape. >> i'm just trying to ensure that our children and youth, regardless of immigration status, have a place where they feel seen. >> ultimately, we strengthen frontline communities so they can respond to what's happening in their community. we help lift up formerly incarcerated people, and smaller organizations throughout the country. >> that's a huge opportunity to remind them that we are just people. we are just human beings like them. >> you know, no state is red or blue state. they're states full of people. >> so here to tell us more is i am a voter co-founder and also with us for this discussion is msnbc host jen psaki. you have been going through the list.

>> i have. >> did you figure out who you love the most? have you made the decision? >> i love them all. can i just say though, you just mentioned the guy who -- got his organizing start at a popeye's drive-through. his name is david ledbetter. you've talked to people who feel overwhelmed about how to get involved. just get involved in your local community. get in the popeye's drive-through and help people register to vote. >> i think you might have found your choice. >> i love them all. >> your idea has come to life. tell us more about it. >> thank you so much for your partnership and making this all possible. you know, we talk so much about the importance of presidential elections, but democracy exists and thrives because people like our democracy heroes are working every single day in communities all across our country to ensure that marginalized voters have access to their rights, and that story about david ledbetter is genuinely what inspired this whole thing. when i saw that story, i felt

like there are people all across our country who are doing magz work every single day, and, you know, we hear one of the biggest barriers to participation is voter apathy, that voters believe that they keep participating and nothing changes, but what if we share these stories? what if we showed the profound ripple effect in communities all across the country? and with the partnership of the rockefeller foundation and head count and "morning joe," we were able to honor and spotlight these 25 trail blazers, and tonight we will honor them at a dinner hosted by jessica alba and ariana debose. tomorrow they will also be honored at global citizen. the list is now published on "morning joe" and "know your value," and all of our honorees will be getting a year-long mentorship and training, and i am so, so inspired by their stories and i'm so grateful that we get to share them and hope that this shows more people the

impact that they have when they get off the sidelines and meet the moment and get involved when they feel adversity or justice. >> most of these are honorees are dedicated to serving and uplifting underserved communities. take us through the highlights. >> our democracy only functions when we all participate, and for that to actually work, we need the participation of everybody. it's now been 30 years since we passed the national registration act, and nearly half of our country is going to be facing restrictions on their voting rights this year. we've continued to see restrictive laws against absentee voting targeting minorities and immigrants, and what i think is so beautiful about some of these honorees who are working so hard to ensure that these voting restrictions don't apply to marginalized communities is that they took sort of the barriers they experienced and did everything they could to try to make it better for others in a similar situation. some of the honorees, kenia

flores who experienced accessibility challenges as a blind voter, making sure everybody has a voice in the democratic process. rana montoya who grew up as an undocumented immigrant is working on helping daca recipients. david ayala has dedicated his entire life to advocating for the formerly incarcerated and making sure they have a voice in our government. >> as we mentioned, golden state warriors head coach steve kerr is also honored on the list. he's been using his platform to encourage voter engagement, inspiring both the sports community and the general public to be more active in the democratic process. here's what coach kerr had to say upon accepting his award. >> aye learned over the years that heroes come in so many forms, that each of us can be a

hero, that by using our voices and our platforms, by participating and leading by example, we can all preserve our great democracy and be heroes in our communities. our country, our rights require us all to show up over and over, to lead, to vote, to educate, to show up. >> it's not the first time he's using his voice. tell us about his impact, jen, this election cycle. >> watching his convention speech, i was thinking, should this guy run for office? is he going to run for office? >> what's he about to announce? >> all the questions. what's so powerful about him is people who are basketball fans know who he is because he was the coach of the olympics team. he's very close with steph curry, coaches the golden state warriors. he reaches an entirely different audience, and this is what the power can be of people like steve kerr. he's not a typical politician. he's not even a politician, yet. we'll see. he was speaking and getting this

award and putting his voice out there. it's just another sign of how impactful this election is to people who aren't always using their voice to be involved in politics. >> i love what you've done here. she has, like, so many ideas and all of them are good. >> she's an idea machine. an ideas machine. >> a lot of these honorees are dedicated, jen, to getting younger voters out there, mobilized, more involved. >> mm-hmm. >> talk about their potential impact. it's always hard to know if they're actually going to show up, but feeling something this time around, aren't you? >> no question, and i mean, who's going to be greater impacted, have a greater impact on them about whether or not they have abortion rights than gen z voters? >> right. >> there's almost 8 million gen z voters in the seven swing states. that's a lot of voters, and what has -- i've done a lot of presidential campaigns. a lot of political campaigns. what's most effective, is there's television advertiing

and people doing events, but it's grassroots organizing and your neighbors, people you feel like you connect to and relate to, and that's what so many of these democracy heroes represent. they're people who are going out into their own community talking to people who are their change, and that is always the most effective way to impact people and to get them to get engaged. >> thank you so much. we're going to have more coverage of the democracy awards dinner which takes place tonight. we'll have that next week on "morning joe," and to read about all of the honorees, visit msnbc.com/morningjoe or knowyourvalue.com. hilary swank will join the conversation. we'll discuss one of her most important roles. it has nothing to do with movies. she'll explain next on "morning joe." movies she'll explain next on "morning joe. dove it new dove

replenish your skin after every shave.

so it's your birthday, huh? how old does that make you?

>> i'm 32, mr. dunn. i'm here celebrating the fact that i spent another year scraping dishes and waitressing, which is what i've been doing since 13. according to you, i'll be 37 before i can even throw a different punch. after working this speed bag,i realize that may be god's simple truth. my brother is in prison. my daddy is dead, and my mom weighs 312 pounds. if i was thinking straight, i'd go back home, find a used trailer and a deep fryer and some oreos. if i'm too old for this, then i got nothing. >> that is a clip from the oscar-winning movie "million dollar baby." hilary swank won the academy

award. you could argue her most important role is taking place right now in her 50s as a mother to 1-year-old twins, aya and ohm. she's also taking on a new business role, partnering with the company healthy baby to promote her mission to prioritize the health, safety and quality of our children's environment right from the get-go. hilary joins us now. also huma abedin and editor of "forbes women" maggie mcgrath. welcome to "morning joe." >> thank you. >> at know your value, we talk a lot about the long runway that women have and all the things we could do that maybe once we didn't think were possible. i want to ask you about motherhood at 50.

how do you consider yourself a mom at 50 versus you at 25? >> that's a great question. i got pregnant at 47. i just turned 50 last month. i have to say i think that if i had a child in my 20s, i just wouldn't have as much patience and grace. you know, thankfully i have a lot of energy still, but i feel like i have a lot more patience. >> yes. >> i think you really have to be that, especially with two at once. >> two at once is a lot. i have two daughters. they're 26 and 28. i feel so -- i'm like, i wish i was your mom now, because i would have been so much better. >> i hear that a lot. i hear that a lot. i also think that at that time i really had this baby, which is my career. focusing on both of those is really challenging, and lots of

women do it all the time. i'm currently back to work as well. having this thing that's already established allows me to focus 100% on them and give them my attention in a way that i wouldn't have. >> you've inspired a lot of women. as you just said, you turned 50, you have 1-year-old twins at home. you've just launched this exciting new venture which is going to help all of our children. after an oscar-winning career, what has surprised you the most about picking what many might consider the nonconventional path to motherhood and career, and what advice do you give to other women who are thinking about career and family in a nonconventional way? >> you know, i really feel that we -- there are so many things that are thrown at us through society and through even our parents, through our teachers subliminally as well that we're

told, you know, you can't do and don't even try. i look back when i said i wanted to be an actor. i mean, there are people in my town who say, well, you know, good luck with that or that's a hobby. you'll see that's not going to be reality. in fact i ran into a girlfriend from my high school at the grocery store because i live in my hometown. now i condescendingly say to him, well, it's a good thing you wished her luck, because she's doing pretty well. it's quieting those voices and listening to your internal voice that we also silence without realizing it. just persevere, don't give up and work really hard. you know, they say nothing comes easy, right? it's the things that you really work hard for that are also more satisfying because you worked hard for them. >> excellent advice.

hilary, you recently partnered with healthy baby, a company that sells non-toxic baby products. can you tell us why it was so important to get involved with this company and why the mission spoke to you? >> i'm so passionate about it. when i started doing my research, we realized from zero to 3, the time that babies are in diapers is the most developmentally important time of their life. they're growing 85% of their brain. these toxicities that are prevalent in our environment and unfortunately in our products, you know, things like tampons and diapers are non-regulated. there is something like 1800 chemicals that companies don't have to disclose that are in their diapers. so when i did my research, which was very extensive, because this is one of our most absorbant

areas right into our bloodstreams, i found healthy baby. they are completely transparent. they say everything that's in their diaper. they are plastic neutral, which means they don't use petroleum-based plastic, which is terrible for your body. plastic is in everything. this is the statistic i was just telling you guys that i learned when i sat down here, which is, a pregnant woman will consume nine plastic bags during her pregnancy worth of microplastics. we're essentially consuming, all of us, a plastic bag worth of plastics every month, everybody. it's in our water. it's in everything. so if you can find a campaign that is making products without these plastics -- and by the way, the way to avoid that for people who are watching and are like, well, what do i do, don't drink out of plastic bottles, don't use plastic cutting boards and don't use products that have plastic in them that are

petroleum based. babies are making one million neuro transmitters every second. this is vital to their health. it's vital to the environment to create this change. it's not just their diapers. they have vitamins, prenatal and post natal, which i never heard of postnatal vitamins. they're creating change and pushing the boundaries of what's been created, which is really hard, talking about building something starting from scratch and, you know, you're challenging the status quo. you're creating something that hasn't been created, which is a challenge in an environment where there's already a lot of diaper choices. >> i'm still stuck on the plastic bags. >> i am too. >> i'm sitting here with jen psaki and i'm trying to figure out how many i've eaten in my life. >> at least 18. >> thank you so much for sharing that. >> this is causing cardiovascular disease.

it's causing a lot of different ailments with people that people aren't discussing. >> we need to do more on this with know your value. >> healthy babies is also ewg certified, which is really important. it's the only diaper on the market that has the environmental working group stamp of approval. >> i'd love to do more of this with you on know your value. this is an important issue. you can read more about hilary's partnership with healthy baby at knowyourvalue.com. hilary swank, thank you so much for coming on this morning. huma abedin and maggie mcgrath, thank you both as well. still ahead on "morning joe," we have the latest on the attacks on the israel/lebanon border as prime minister netanyahu vows to fight with his full force ahead of the u.n. general assembly. we're back with a packed fourth hour of "morning joe." e back wi hour of "morning joe."

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trump finally unveiled his plan for comprehensive health care reform. just kidding. he unveiled more trump brand crap to sell to his lemmings. hold onto your maga hats, because this one is going to cost you. >> hello, everyone. it's your favorite president donald j. trump here to introduce something really special. i think you're going to love it. my new trump watches. the quality to me is very important.

>> right, right. it's almost as important as ripping you off is important. but please, please rolex luther, go on. >> the trump victory turbian. this is one of the best watches made. it has almost 200 grams of gold and almost 100 real diamonds. that's a lot of diamonds. i love gold. i love diamonds. >> i never owned a diamond in my life, never well. but this is turbian. man, he will slap his name on anything at all. doesn't matter what it is, donald trump watches, donald trump watches, donald trump jr., any garbage he will put his name on for a dollar. welcome back to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. vice president kamala harris is set to visit the southern border later today for the first time

as the democratic nominee while former president donald trump meets with zelenskyy. >> reporter: this morning kamala harris is preparing to visit the u.s. southern border for the first time in more than three years. >> we do have a broken immigration system, and it needs to be fixed. >> reporter: here in battleground arizona, according to a senior campaign official, harris will call for tougher border security measures, including more border patrol agents and new fentanyl detection machines. it's a remarkable attempt at rebranding the vice president of an administration that has seen 10 million illegal border crossings. 54% of registered voters believe former president donald trump would better handle securing the border and controlling immigration, compared to 33% who said the same about harris.

still, 57% thought harris would be better at treating immigrants humanely, compared to trump's 29%. harris is also slamming trump for urging house republicans to block a bipartisan border bill this year, which he said wasn't tough enough. >> he wants to run on a problem. >> she keeps talking about how she supposedly wanted to fix the border. why didn't she do it four years ago? >> reporter: today trump is meeting with president zelenskyy. >> we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal. >> reporter: it comes after harris met with zelenskyy in washington, accusing trump of wanting ukraine to surrender to russia. >> these proposals are the same of those of putin. they are proposals for surrender.

>> it's not a surrender. what my strategy is to save lives. >> it's surrender. >> we have molly jong-fast, stephanie ruhle joining us. staff writer at "the atlantic" franklin bore. >> this is not a thousand stars in the morning. >> we'll be wrestling bears. >> stephanie, mika, mika likes watching fox news. >> no, i don't like it, but i do watch it. >> all day just to be like to

catastrophize. >> no. >> yesterday i noticed howie kurtz was saying you launched a softball interview with kamala harris, and you seem to be the running banner for about 30 minutes. >> 30 minutes? >> all day. >> what a softball interview this interview was. of course, nothing, nothing like donald trump and sean hannity, i'm sure. but i'm just curious what your thoughts were about fox news desperately suggesting that she bombed a softball interview. >> well to fox news, i would say thank you, because as i learned from donald trump, all press is good press, so i am thrilled to be all over their air waves all day long. >> will you do a brand of watches? >> it was great, because i was watching fox news, and i'm now excited about melania's memoir. i'm going to have to pick that up this weekend. and i can get a silver coin that

donald trump launched on monday, one of the hundred grand watches. i haven't gotten my sneakers yet. that's nonsense. anybody who watched the interview i did with vice president harris, we sat down for 25 minutes and talked about one single topic, the economy. it is the number one issue for voters. if donald trump would like to sit down and have that same conversation, i'm ready for you. i think it's hugely important. it's a vulnerability for both candidates. it's tricky, joe, because you obviously want to cover all of these topics, but to just do it with one candidate, it's hard, because many people feel like she's speaking in platitudes. she's speaking about an economic vision, and she's not giving details. she's got an 80-page detailed policy proposal. do i think that she answers every single question and gives people exactly what they want? she doesn't. you know why? because she's a politician, and none of them do. they all speak in platitudes.

but donald trump has given absolutely nothing except mass deportations, which would be a huge issue for our economy. he just says, i delivered you the best economy ever and i'm going to put across blanket tariffs. the thing she needs to answer for more is despite all of the economic wins over the last four years, despite the fact that donald trump emotionally connected with that blue collar worker but he didn't deliver for that blue collar worker, she needs to solve why he still polls better on economic issues with voters. that, to me, is mind boggling. when you talk to voters across the board, they say i don't know what any politicians do for me, but i did get my taxes lowered. she made it clear. when the individual tax cuts expire next year, the one group of people who will get their taxes raised are people who make over $400,000 a year. a lot of people in blue cities and states are wondering what happens to that state and local

tax deduction. donald trump said we're going to lift that cap. he's the one who put it on. we don't yet know what she's going to do. >> that tax cut is sunsetting. good luck getting 60 votes from either party, regardless. so you look at this and and and i just -- i'm just curious who could look at kamala harris' economic proposals and look at donald trump's economic proposals, jen, and see -- >> what proposals? >> mass deportations, tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, and then massive tax cuts. even the "wall street journal" jerry baker at the "wall street journal," the editor emeritus said this is going to blow a hole in the deficit, a sky-high hole in the deficit. even the "wall street journal" editorial page says donald trump's tariffs are going to be

inflationary and they're going to crush middle class americans. >> on the back of middle class americans, yes. >> you look at the proposals. none of this false equivalency b.s., oh kamala harris needs to tell us more about her policies. it's just no true. donald trump has no expectations, so he gets away with whatever he wants with the mainstream media. >> that's exactly right. what i think is great about her strategy and their campaign strategy right now -- and this is not always how democrats play it -- is the places where there is weakness in terms of how the public perceives her, they're just leaning right into it and diving right into it, right? the economy is certainly the top of every poll that we all see, including among young voters. they have successfully convinced people that the nostalgia of

pre-covid, which is not how the economy works, is the key thing. they leaned into that. she's also going to the border today. the border and how the public perceives that issue is the biggest disadvantage for democrats in this ticket in the polls. she's just diving right into it, which i think is smart. >> republicans have known this for a while. you lean into the weakness and make it a strength. they've been much better at that than democrats. why are democrats just learning to do this? >> let's just be grateful they're doing it now. now they can go at him on the border and say, guess what, donald trump? you killed the bipartisan border deal. that's what happened. >> i've told this story before to mika, so you don't have to listen to it again, dear. this is story number 72. that is what republicans do. we're celebrating today and going to have some friends on, the 30th anniversary of contract

with america, the 104th congress. we balanced the budget four years in a row, only time it's happened in 40 years. very proud of that. they said you have to slow down the rate of medicare or it's going to go bankrupt in seven years. we did it in an election year. there's all the demagoguery. i went through the campaign and it's all i talked about. i said i could tell you. you know, i could act like a doctor, open you up and see cancer and close you up and tell you you're doing fine. that's not why i got elected. we polled like 120 republican districts. what are you doing with seniors? oh no. that strategy doesn't work. he said you have the highest

approval rating among seniors. tell people the truth. go into what they consider your weakness, use it as your strength. if you can do this with the border, and she should, shouldn't she? >> yeah. go ahead. >> no, no, no. go ahead. i was just carrying this on. [ indiscernible ] [ laughter ] >> the character of her campaign surprised me and i think surprised a lot of people. from the day after president biden decided he wasn't going to seek the nomination, she was at that campaign headquarters. she's been very aggressive. part of the benefit here, i think, has come from the fact that she's had to make quick decisions. it's not an overloaded structure there, right? there's not months of polls where we should consider, should we go to the border? it's a gut instinct. you should go to the border,

because you should dive into the thing that is your weakness. the democrats just need to make a couple of points on it, and that is a win for them. >> i've heard stories from barack obama's first campaign in 2008. the fact that he campaigned all across iowa and he went to counties that were for republicans. people thought he was crazy for doing it. guess what? on election night they ended up being 60/40 counties. he still lost by 20 points, but he didn't lose by 40 points. again, you go to what's considered your weakness, turn it into your strength or at least cut the margins. makes a huge different in the aggregate. >> it's all about managing the margin of defeat. this campaign are sending the vice president into republican districts, some of the bus tour stops early on. we have seen tim walz do that in

some of the western pennsylvania counties, places in michigan and wisconsin. we're going to see more from president biden as well, specifically speaking to older white voters in places like pennsylvania. look, there have been some democrats in the last week or two -- we've been through this -- expressing anxiety there's too much bubble wrap around the candidate. she just did an interview with stephanie here this week. she's starting to do more and more. so we're seeing a slight change. is that a valid fear from some democrats? or do you think steady as she goes, campaign looks okay? >> democrats have anxiety? what must that be like? no. the stakes of this election are humongous humongous. donald trump is not running as a normal candidate. part of the reason the

mainstream media is having so much trouble with this is he's really running as an autocrat. so when you use conventional thinking they elevate the autocrat. there is reason to be worried. american democracy may very well be on the ticket here. she has been very aggressive in this campaign, and i think that's been really smart. we were talking about this earlier, during the debate when she rushed over to shake his hand, it got him off balance. it got trump off balance. from there, we've seen that sort of move again and again through the campaign. i think it's useful. i mean, again, you know, we just don't have accurate enough polls, right? they're all over the place. one day she's winning, one day he's winning. so i think we're really not going to know until november. >> it's crazy to think that half of america is a-okay supporter of mass deportations, but a lot of voters are leaning towards

trump on immigration is that he does talk about it every day. the fact that she's now talking about it is a huge win. and not just going to the border, but talking to communities around the country that have had a huge influx of legal immigration, but those communities are economically strained. they are maxed out. what she's starting to do now is talk to those communities, not just talking about the dreamers, not just talking about the path to legal immigration, but to say to americans, nobody's eating cats and dogs in springfield, but there are lots of folks in springfield who say my town looks different, my town is different. we're stretched, our schools and hospitals. she's starting to address that, which is a huge positive. now donald trump touches a scintilla of truth and then pushes it into a total lie zone. she's now getting into that space and seeing those people, people who have potentially felt like the government said, sit

down, be quiet and get used to the new world. she's going there, and this could really be a new world for her. >> stephanie ruhle, on fire on this friday morning. thank you very much. we'll be watching "the 11th hour" right here on msnbc. appreciate it. let's talk about the endless war as you ride it out, joe biden for six months, seven months, eight months has been trying to move this war towards a cease-fire and has had increasing frustration. he was extraordinarily frustrated with netanyahu six months ago, still pushing toward a cease-fire that netanyahu kept pushing away. where are we now? >> so i spent the last six months kind of trying to get inside the room of the biden administration foreign policy starting on october 7th, extending to the present. i think the big take-away that i had is that for all of his solidarity with israel, he's

never really -- i mean, he's never really supported this war. his sense of where things need to go has always diverged in pretty significant ways from the netanyahu government. and yet over the course of the last year, they're played this reactive sort of diplomacy, even though they have a very good vision of what a world after the war could look like, a very positive vision where the middle east is transformed, where gaza is transformed, where israel, in effect, is transformed. but they haven't been able to impose that will. >> by the way, that vision includes encouragement from arab nations that want to be part of -- and this is part of the biden administration's frustration. they have sunni arab nations that want to be there, part of the rebuilding in gaza, peacekeeping in gaza, you know, moving towards a two-state solution. let's just say it. netanyahu doesn't want a two-state solution and hamas

doesn't want a two-state solution. how do you get either of them to the table to sign a cease-fire when your goal is actually a two-state solution? >> i think in the end this is one of the things that i couldn't see my way around. i tried to think of all the ways in which the president and the administration could have done something measurably different to get a different outcome here and when the core players have such a strong sense of their own interests and their interest collides with the world in some sense, it becomes very, very difficult to move them in some other -- >> let's be clear. netanyahu's strategy over the past couple of weeks -- i'm not talking about with hezbollah, but with hamas -- has collided with his own cabinet, has collided with his own defense minister. >> yeah. so i have almost from october 7th on these conversations where netanyahu explains his position to the administration this way. he says, just after october 7th,

you want humanitarian aid to get in here? i have people in my cabinet who don't want an aspirin to get into gaza. i'm trying to help you out here. he has said privately to biden that he would be willing to break with the theocrats in his administration. yes, i can get to a cease-fire, and then blinken would go in with him to the cabinet, and the cabinet would say the exact opposite of what netanyahu promised in the private meeting, and then he would never correct them. he'd be like, okay, i'm working on this in the long run. it's a very frustrating way to negotiate. >> i know the intel community has been very impressed with what he's done with hezbollah. how is israel going into lebanon in 2024 not end up like israel

going into lebanon in the early 1980s, which ended up just as a tragedy, as a quagmire for israel. >> i think it's the ground campaign, the ground campaign that has not been launched, and a lot of us hope that it will not be. what israel's been able to achieve, you know, over the last week or two, you know, is really dramatic in terms of the intelligence community and taking out high-value targets. they've compromised hezbollah's leadership. >> how compromised is hezbollah's leadership? i've seen reports that almost all of their leaders have been killed. is that accurate? >> several leaders have been killed, including some with american blood on their hands. israeli strategy makes sense because they're climbing an escalatory ladder. the problem is they've almost

had catastrophic success in that they are now thinking about going further. i think a ground campaign would be disastrous. i was in syria in 2006. i could actually hear the bombing in lebanon. it was a disaster for the a israeli people and the military. i'm hoping this will lead to negotiations. they've changed the status quo. your adversary gets a vote. in particular, this kind of kerfuffle at the u.n. -- >> let's say ukrainian forces under pressure in the donbas, they also have ukrainian incursions into russia while we have dueling visions between kamala harris and donald trump on where the war needs to go. >> i think there's a stark contrast, of course, between the two campaigns.

you have obviously kamala harris, who gave an incredible press conference yesterday with zelenskyy. she was strong, she was tough. i think a lot of us who support ukraine were very reassured with that. then you have the donald trump and jd vance vision, which is, in fact, surrender. so there are stark contrasts here. when it comes to where we are on policy is this big debate on whether we should use u.s. kit for deep penetration strikes into russia. i think this is something that the u.s. has to do. i hope president biden eventually signs off on this. i think they will. ultimately it's a morality test because a lot of ukrainians are dying right now. i think vladimir putin bluffers quite a bit. we have our intelligence community laser focused on the tactical stockpile and there's no movement on that. ultimately i think this is something we should do. this would be a defining legacy

for president biden. >> mark me down as being concerned about nuclear escalation. final thoughts? >> what ties together biden poms in both the middle east and ukraine that a guy who was born in the silent generation, who lived in the atomic age where kids had to hide under desks that that's the question he asks constantly, will this politician lead to nuclear escalation? it's a great question for the president of the united states to be asking. >> it is. as james baker said, it's the question for any president. that's the first question. could what i do lead to nuclear war? >> on the other hand, there may be instances where it's become a paralyzing anxiety and it's prevented the united states from presenting its more strongly in both instances. >> frank's new piece is available online at the

atlantic.com. we're keeping an eye on the u.n. general assembly in new york, where president netanyahu is set to address the body moments from now. ahead, we're joined by oscar and grammy-award-winning musicians to discuss their work in the area of criminal justice reform. we'll be right back. a of crimin reform we'll be right back. my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis held me back...

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this week, the state of missouri executed inmate marcellus williams, a 55-year-old man convicted in 2001 of murdering newspaper reporter felicia gale. the execution took place despite pleas from the prosecutor's office that convicted him as well as the victim's family to stop it. missouri's governor and the state supreme court denied

requests to delay the execution. ultimately the u.s. supreme court rejects williams' final appeal this week, though all three liberal justices indicated they would have put this execution on hold. now, williams' case is sparking new calls for reforms in the criminal justice system. our next guests are long-time collaborators in the area of criminal justice reform. joining us now, grammy, oscar and emmy award wining musician common. he scored the upcoming documentary short film entitled "four letters" about the inspiring story of former inmate and now computer coder charles anderson, who was mentored in president by our other guest, acclaimed movie producer scott budnick. he is the founder and ceo of one

community, a production company that promotes civic engagement and other issues like criminal justice through storytelling. it's great to have you both. common, i'll start with you. tell us about "four letters". >> "four letters" is about charles anderson and this individual who was incarcerated who was abused when he was young, became a part of the criminal justice system, but really was a very humane and very good human being. i met him in prison my first visit to prison with scott budnick and our team. charles inspires me and influenced me. he eventually was released, came out and is doing excellent in the coding world. he learned coding in prison. now this documentary is about his journey and how he's become this great human being in society after being abused and being incarcerated.

it's the humane story of charles anderson, who we both love. >> certainly a beautiful tale. scott, as we sat down here, you said you were moved by what we just read about, marcellus williams' execution here, that has shone a real spotlight on criminal justice as we barrel into this election season. what went wrong here, in your estimation? >> i mean, this was a guy that democrats and republicans, many, many people thought and knew was innocent. dna not on the murder weapon, the victim's family asking him not to be executed, the only two witnesses admitting they were paid for their testimony. even with all of that, a maga governor, who endorsed trump, a maga attorney general and trump's appointees to the supreme court denied staying this, and they put an innocent

man to death. and that's not tough on crime. that's dumb on crime, because the actual killer is still out. so i don't think there's democrats or republicans that think that's the right outcome in a case like this. >> you guys have worked with incarcerated people. i'm wondering what you think the government could do to help incarcerated people get back on their feet, something that maybe we haven't seen or that we've seen, but they're just not normalizing. >> well, i think, first of all, humanizing people who are incarcerated is one of the most important things that i've noticed when we've visited people incarcerated, that's one of the most important things. also approaching it from a healing perspective, because people that go into prison usually are coming back to society. if we want to save society, we have to set up programs and treat them as human beings, so

that when they do come back to society, they can be productive. that's something that scott with arc and his one community community has been doing, making sure that individuals who come back to society, women and men, are great for society. most people i've met in prison have been some of the most enlightened and inspired people i've met in my life. i think it's approaching them from a human perspective. what about you? >> yeah. this guy right here, very quick soon after we met, agreed to do ten concerts in ten prisons in ten days. it wasn't just going in to do concerts and show love, but it was to film and highlight that rehabilitation programs are happening inside. to me, it's an equal part of accountability, you committed a crime and now we have you as a captive audience. now like with charles, let's get him in a coding program. he's out doing it, and he's

living in new york city, which he's never done before. we had some in prison seminary becoming pastors or getting university degrees. so much is about hope, right? that word hope is everything. when you give someone hope and give them some real resources, that's when everything begins to change. >> the new documentary short "four letters" premiers next month at the san quentin film festival. common and founder and ceo of one community scott budnick. thank you both. you guys are amazing. we should mention scott's new movie "winner" is now streaming. "winner" is based on the life of an air force veteran who is in prison for leaking russian information about the 2016 election. coming up, we're moments away from prime minister benjamin netanyahu's address to the u.n. general assembly in new

york. that is straight ahead on "morning joe." as we go to break, moments ago new york city mayor eric adams walked into court ahead of his noon arraignment today. this comes after a 57-page federal indictment accusing him of a decade-long corruption scheme. we'll follow this developing story throughout the morning. "morning joe" will be right back. morning "morning joe" will be right back hi, my name is damian clark. if you have both medicare and medicaid, i have some really encouraging news that you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the

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america is in trouble, and our trouble extends beyond the white house. the fact is, as a history teacher, i would insist that it is impossible to a maintain american civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of aids and 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can't even read. this is a crisis of our entire civilization. within a half mile of this

building, these conditions happen in our nation's capitol. >> i can't find you in the picture. >> i wasn't there. >> why? >> i wasn't a joiner. but i'm still going to celebrate. knocking on doors in the district -- >> that was then-house minority whip newt gingrich 30 years ago announcing what he called republicans' contract with america. just a few months later with republicans nationwide running on that contract, the party reduan regained the majority in the u.s. house for the first time in 40 years. over the next several years they would balance the budget for the next four years in a row, the only time that's happened in the past 100 years. they would also pass welfare reform, save medicare. and, together with bill clinton, enact swiping bipartisan legislation even in the midst of government shutdowns, a presidential impeachment and

heated political standoffs. as bill clinton and gingrich have both said, we put our political differences aside for the best interest of the country. and this weekend, joe and his freshman class of 1994 will be commemorating those achievements when they return to the u.s. capitol. with us now former republican congressman of arizona and kansas. it's been like a reunion in the studio. [ indiscernible ] >> it has been exciting. let's see now. matt and i were always in trouble. >> always. >> always. [ indiscernible ] he was telling on us. >> i see. >> for a long time, newt gingrich carried around a list of names in his pocket. there were 18 people on that list, these two guys and i was on that list as well. >> it was sort of an enemies list. >> really?

>> we were holding firm for what we believed in. >> i think when it comes to balancing the budget, you can thank the hard-liner. >> that's an interesting thing. it really was. that's what i tried to explain to republicans that followed us. i tried to explain it to mark meadows when he ran the freedom caucus. listen, you're going to have to do more than antagonize the other party and pick wedge issues. you're going to have to go after the most powerful people in your own party if you want to make progress. and they just haven't been up to the task. in 2001, congress made $155 billion surplus. >> nice. >> the bush administration, the obama administration, the trump administration -- [ indiscernible ] >> what people out there across

america are concerned about in person, you don't -- all you have to do is take an economics 101 class to figure out it's government spending. the government spending and the debt and the fact we're having to print more money, that's creating the inflation. we've got to get back to this idea, because it is an existential threat. we've got to balance the budget. that's going to take some really serious work. >> in our group, mark newman came up with his own budget and put it into the kasich budget. that was why we got to an earlier balanced budget, not the ten-year plan that case casic had. i think he had a pocket protector. >> the craziest thing happened.

they got so angry at mark they kicked him off the appropriations committee. for people who don't no congress, that's the most powerful committee. everybody has to be nice. the entire freshman class said you're not going to pass another bill, newt, tom, dick army, we're not going to pass another bill until mark newman is back on the appropriations committee. they did not believe us. >> no. >> after a few votes, they did. isn't that incredible? >> wow. >> it was an unusual circumstance. i wonder if, if you guys' freshman term and what you did wasn't a unique circumstance. i mean, look at our politics now. >> i know. >> so how does this discussion even get started? >> the republicans are -- >> it's not about -- >> you know -- >> that's the problem. it's not about ideas anymore. >> it's about personality.

>> personality -- >> and grievance. >> and grievance. >> they're right. and i think the way it happened in the past is that it took -- it was a process where they developed issues that were common ground. and then they built on those issues and brought people together. right now we don't have that common ground being built. that foundation is crumbling. so we need to go back and find the common ground that we all, and we do have it. >> right. >> it's a series, i think, of meetings and reaching out and being open to new ideas or changing the current beliefs that you have on some hard fiscal ideas, for example. but it's meeting and not yelling. it's sitting down. we used to have bipartisan retreats where republicans and democrats met each other's families. some of my closest democratic friends came because my wife and their wife made friends first. vicki helped me make a lot of

friends. >> i like vicki. >> we built those relationships. >> it really made such a big difference. every time i got onto the floor, i wouldn't go to the republican side. i would sit with democrats who i had nothing in common with politically, and we would start talking and getting things done. newt gingrich and bill clinton are sworn political enemies, but you talk to them alone and they laugh about the fact, yeah, we were fighting hard, but while that was going on -- in fact, newt gingrich told the funniest story, that on the morning of impeachment, his phone rang and it was bill clinton. they said the president's on two. he looked like a scene from ferris buehler, do i want to pick that up? it was bill clinton. they were talking about the problem of saddam hussein. they'll both say it today. we fought like hell, but when

push came to shove, we put the country first. >> this is a part of the joe biden history too that i think is often undervalued. i sat in the oval office with him for many, many, many hours where he would pick up the phone and call mitch mcconnell. oh, we're having an issue with this? i'll just pick up the phone and call them. he comes from that era where that was how you got things done. the perfect could not be the enemy of making progress or finding agreement on something. it's disincentivized which is a real challenge to actually getting anything done. >> and so how much of it was that so many of us came in at the same time and we could bond together? i mean, could this happen with classes, you know -- >> i think we had such a large class and it gave us instant recognition. we didn't have to wait in line. remember the old adage before is freshmen should be seen and not heard. >> right. >> that dynamic completely

changed when we came in. we were actually part of the solution process from day one. >> they called us the majority makers. so we had some reverence given as freshmen. that really helped us be part of the process of changing things. >> thank you both. freshmen no more. [ laughter ] >> thank you so much. we're going to go right to new york. the u.n. general assembly, prime minister netanyahu the prime minister of israel speaking. >> i have a message for this assembly and for the world outside this hall. we are winning! winning. [ applause ] ladies and gentlemen, as israel defends itself against iran in the seven-front war, the lines

separating the blessing and the curse could not be more clear. this is the map i presented here last year. it's a map of a blessing. it shows israel and its arab partners forming the land bridge connecting asia and europe between the indian ocean and the mediterranean sea. across this bridge, we will lay ray lines, energy pipelines, fiberoptic cables, and this will serve the betterment of 2 billion people. now, look at this second map. it's a map, look at the second map. it's a map of a curse. it's a map of an arc of terror that iran has created and imposed from the indian ocean to the mediterranean. iran's malignant arc has shut

down international waterways. it cuts off trade. it destroys millions. it destroys nations from within, and inflicts misery on millions. on the one hand -- on the one hand, a bright blessing, a future of hope. on the other hand, a dark future of despair. and if you think this dark map is only a curse for israel, if you think that, then you should think again. because iran's aggression, if it's not checked, will endanger every single country in the middle east and many many countries in the rest of the world because iran seeks to impose its radicalism well beyond the middle east. that's why it funds terror networks on five continents. that's why it builds ballistic missiles for nuclear warheads to threaten the entire world. for too long, the world has

appeased iran. it turns a blind eye to its internal repression. it turns a blind eye to its external aggression. that appeasement must end, and that appeasement must end now. nations of the world should support the brave people of iran who want to rid themselves of this evil regime. responsible governments should not only support israel in rolling back iran's aggression, they should join israel, they should join israel in stopping iran's nuclear weapons program. in this body in the security council, we're going to have a deliberation in a few months, and i call on the security council to snap back u.n. security council sanctions against iran because we must all

do everything in our power to ensure that iran never gets nuclear weapons. for decades, i have been warning the world against iran's nuclear program. our actions delayed this program by perhaps a decade. but we haven't stopped it. we've delayed it. we haven't stopped it. iran seeks to weaponize its nuclear program for the sake of the peace and security of all your countries, for the sake of the peace and security of the entire world, we must not let that happen. and i assure you, israel will do everything in its power to make sure it doesn't happen.

so ladies and gentlemen, the question before us is simple, which of these two maps that i showed you will shape our future. will it be the blessings of peace and prosperity for israel, our arab partners and the rest of the world? or will it be the curse in which iran and its proxies spread carnage and chaos everywhere. israel has already made its choice. we've decided to advance the blessing. we're building a partnership for peace with our arab neighbors, while fighting the forces of terror that threaten that peace. for nearly a year, the brave men and women of the idf have been systematically crushing hamas's terror army that once ruled gaza. on october 7th, the day of that invasion into israel, that terror army numbered nearly 40,000 terrorists. it was armed with more than 15,000 rockets.

it had 350 miles of terror tunnels, and underground network bigger than the new york subway system, which they used to wreak havoc, above and below ground. a year later, the idf has killed or captured more than half of these terrorists, destroyed over 90% of the rocket arsenal, and eliminated the key segments of their terror tunnel network. in major military operations -- in major military operations, we destroyed nearly half of hamas's -- sorry, nearly all of hamas's terror battalions, 23 out of 24 battalions. to complete our victory, we are focused on mopping up hamas's remaining fighting capabilities. we are taking out senior terrorist commanders and destroying remaining terrorist infrastructure. but all the while, all the while, and i'll say this one more time, we remain focused on

our sacred mission, bringing our hostages home, and we will not stop until that mission is complete. now, ladies and gentlemen, even with hamas's greatly diminished military capability, the terrorists still exercise some governing power in gaza, by stealing the food that we enable -- sorry, that we enable aid agencies to bring into gaza. hamas steals the food. and then they hike the prices. they feed their bellies. then they fill their coffers with money they store from their own people. they sell the stolen food, and it's exorbitant prices, and that's how they stay in power. well, this too has to end and we're working to bring it to an

end. and the reason is simple, because if hamas stays in power, it will regroup, rearm, and attack israel again and again and again as it has vowed to do. hamas has got to go. just imagine, for those who say, well, hamas has to stay, it has to be part of a post-war gaza, imagine, in a post war situation in world war ii, imagine allowing the defeated nazis in 1945 to rebuild germany. it's inconceivable, it's ridiculous. it didn't happen then, it's not going to happen now. this is why israel will reject any rule for hamas in a post-war gaza. we don't seek to resettle gaza. what we seek is a demilitarized

and deradicalized gaza. only then, only then, can we ensure that this round of fighting will be the last round of fighting. we are ready to work with regional and other partners to support a local civilian administration in gaza committed to peaceful coexistence. as for the hostages, i have a message for the hamas captures. let them go. let them go. all of them. those alive today must be returned alive. and the remains of those whom you brutally killed must be returned to their families. those families here with us today and others in israel deserve to have a resting place for their loved ones, a place where they can grieve and remember them. this war, ladies and gentlemen,

this war can come to an end now. all that has to happen is for hamas to surrender, lay down its arms, and release all the hostages. but if they don't -- but if they don't, we will fight until we achieve victory. total victory. there is no substitute for it. israel must also defeat hezbollah in lebanon. hezbollah is the quintessential terror organization in the world today. it has tentacles that span in all continents. it has murdered more americans and more frenchmen than any group except bin laden. it's murdered the citizens of many countries represented in this room. and