sale, a proactive sale, but also what we say of liz cheney, motivate people no matter how extreme donald trump is. what you said in the last segment with michael beschloss, you know, hopefully use that specter to nudge people off the coach who aren't fans of donald trump. that's the job the next 30 days. >> contributor to the bulwark, tim miller, thank you. have a good weekend. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this friday and all week long. "morning joe" starts right now. here's the pitch. swing and a fly ball to right field, well hit. at the ball, he jumps. it's gone! he did it! he did it! pete alonso with the most memorable home run of his career! pumps his fist as he rounds second. it is a three-run homer. he's given the mets a 3-2 lead. they all pour out of the dugout.

alonso on his way to home plate. they're waiting for him. he hits the plate. he's first congratulated, hugged by lindor. waiting outside the dug out. pete alonso keeps this fairy tale season going with the fairy tale swing of his career! >> you know, that's just the way the new york mets do -- actually, no, it's not how the new york mets do it. the night before is how the new york mets do it. they and the jets usually collapse under pressure. last night, an extraordinary moment for pete alonso. a guy who has had a lot of ups and downs this year. really hasn't had a great year, a great moment. people were talking about him being traded the first half of the year. i don't think he's going to be leaving the mets anytime soon. so the miracle mets! i mean, jonathan lemire, you know, let's just say here, and i don't say this about every town,

all right? but i love milwaukee. i love the people of milwaukee. it's a great city. it's a great town. i hate for them, what they had to sit through last night. it was sad for them. at the same time, the mets, i mean, the mets are kind of due. this was a nice turnaround. and the nicest part is, the mets are still in it, and the braves are out. there is no atlanta team to haunt them this playoff series. >> yeah. now, they get the philadelphia phillies, though, their other rivalry. a battle for the territorial right to new jersey, i think. amazingly, the mets and phillies -- >> never met in a postseason, incredible. >> i didn't know that. >> played 1,400 games against each other lifetime. >> wow. >> i don't know who our gentile is, but he writes this, "i fear america as a nation is genuinely

not prepared for the mets/phillies division series." south jersey will be a war zone. our interstate wawa system is at risk of collapse. our strategic hoagie and tanning oil reserves will be severely stressed. mara, we may never know pete again. >> it's like, don't we have enough anxiety ahead of this election? why are we doing this? >> squeeze it together. >> i mean, seriously. >> i-95. >> pete alonso, mets star for years, but, you're right, never had a signature moment, outside of the home run derbies. free agent after the season. last night, he did. this was a dramatic home run. mets were down 2-0. their bats seemed lifeless. they rallied yet again. their magic continues. you do feel bad for the brewers. we defended milwaukee when donald trump slagged off of it, you'll recall. but it's heartbreak for them. it's a good team going home.

we now have a really great final eight of the baseball postseason. we've got mets/phillies. >> no astros. >> division rivals, tigers/guardians. rivals, padres and dodgers. the yankees against america's team, the kansas city royals. >> you defined america's team as? >> whoever plays the yankees. >> exactly. we have to call the white house later on in the day.worried abo strategic tanning oil reserves, they will be severely stressed. >> we have the director of economic council on later. we'll put the question out. >> they averted a strike, which was remarkable. i'll be asking more about that in a minute. first, t.j., you all right? you've been a director for a very long time, always worn mets caps and paraphernalia. finally, last night, t.j., that was your one moment. >> one moment. they're amazing. we've been waiting a long time for this. it's exciting.

>> okay. >> he seems out of his mind. >> he really is. >> he expended a lot of energy last night. he's drained. >> we also have pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" and washington nationals fans, who will not be, along with the boston red sox, in the next round of playoffs, eugene robinson. i want to get to your column in a little bit. first, i want to show you this. bruce springsteen, he announced his endorsement of kamala harris and tim walz in a video posted on instagram yesterday. it really was perfect. i'm just talking about the words delivered, the location, how he was dressed. i mean, it looked like spiel spielberg put this together. perfect on every front. it's actually a pretty good tip

for anybody running for politics in the future in the age of instagram, the age of tiktok, the age of, well, insane madness. here's bruce springsteen sounding very sane. >> hi, i'm bruce springsteen. friends, fans, and the press have asked me who i'm supporting in this most important of elections. with full knowledge and my opinion no more or less opinion of any of my other fellow citizens, here's my answer, i'm supporting kamala harris for president and tim walz for vice president, and opposing donald trump and jd vance. here's why, we are shortly coming upon one of the most consequential elections in our nation's history. perhaps not since the civil war has this great country felt as politically, spirituality, and emotionally divided as it does in this moment. it doesn't have to be this way. the common values, the shared

stories that make us a great and united nation, are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again. now, that will take time. hard work, intelligence, faith, and women and men with the national good guiding their hearts. america is the most powerful nation on earth, not just because of our overwhelming military strength or economic power, but because of what she stands for, what she means, what she believes in. freedom, social justice, equal opportunity, the right to be in love with who you want. these are the things that make america great. donald trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime. his disdain for the sanctity of our constitution, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law, and the sanctity of the peaceful transfer of power should

disqualify him from the office of president ever again. he doesn't understand the meaning of this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply american. on the other hand, kamala harris and tim walz are committed to a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view, or sexual identity. and they want to grow our economy in a way that benefits all, not just a few like me on top. that's the vision of america i've been consistently writing about for 55 years. now, everybody sees things different, and i respect your choice as a fellow citizen, but like you, i've only got one vote. it's one of the most precious possessions that i have. that's why, come november 5th, i'll be casting my vote for kamala harris and tim walz.

thanks for listening. >> you know, gene, there are so many things that were done right there stylistically. but he said we're more divided than any time since the civil war. he said, it doesn't have to be this way. the common values, the shared stories that make us great, and a united nation. or, you know, a united nation are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again. then he says of donald trump, "he doesn't understand the meaning of this country, its history, and what makes america great." then at the end, i love how he says to his fans and anybody else watching, hey, listen, just one guy's opinion. i know people think differently, but this is the most precious thing i have, my vote. that's why i'm telling you, it's

so important, not only to vote for kamala harris, but to beat donald trump. what are your thoughts? >> well, look, he really does have a way with words, doesn't he? he has for a while. i just saw bruce and the e-street band perform in washington a few weeks ago. they were just in terrific form. it was such a cross section. it is a display of americana up there on the stage that speaks to so many people, through the music and especially through the lyrics that are just piercing. he's amazing. and i thought that was a great endorsement. it really was. it was pure bruce springsteen, and i hope people watch it. >> you know, donny, with mika

off the show this morning, i can say what you are. you are an advertising and branding legend. she would, like, tell me to be quiet and stop making your head bigger than it is. t.j., roll this while donny talks so we can look at the visuals of it. talk us through that, donny. why does that, the second it hits the screen, why does that appeal to americans so much? >> it appeals for tworeasons. number one, it is bruce springsteen. number two, that's a seat that pretty much anybody in this country can relate to sitting in. that is in a diner. that is in an -- you know, we all know that diner. he's wearing the flannel shirt. there's something about springsteen that transcends every other celebrity. >> by the way, that flannel shirt, talk about the consistency. it works because it's consistent with who we know he is. >> the whole thing is authentic. you know, the whole thing is. there is -- i've been very outspoken -- not very outspoken.

i said, step away from celebrities, democrats. it puts you in the elitist category. bruce is in a different place than everybody else. he is not red. he is not blue. he is america. he is red, white, and blue, and there is a trust factor there, an honesty, an authenticity there. he is the boss. i think this is beautifully done. it is well crafted. it is well written. joe, you said it best, it is authentic, and that's what makes it. >> mara, there is also a challenge in there, which is, this is what i've been writing about in my songs for 50 years. almost his way of saying, okay, you say you love my songs, you love my lyrics. you say you're a super fan of mine. well, the songs you've been singing to are exactly what i'm talking about now over these 2 1/2 minutes. >> i'm really glad you brought that up. first of all, i wish my father was here, who also was a

lifelong avertiing executive. he was the creative director for a long time. >> no way. >> you guys could have quite a conversation. >> he is the guy that fired you. >> yeah, i was about to say. >> told you to stop wearing the baby gap t-shirts to work. >> no, no, he owned his own company, too, and has a long history in the business. but i love watching campaign spots with him because he has a similar take. i think what he would say, too, is the other reason it works is that it respects the audience. it's not talking down to the viewer. it's saying, you're one of me. you're one of us. i'm here at this table with you. sit at my table, and i'm going to treat you like an adult. then say, please, do the right thing. it's up to you, but here's why i believe so strongly in this. come sit with me. and it's powerful. it's also really important because this is a moment where the campaign desperatelysurroga.

>> great point. >> it needs more trusted male surrogates to get this message out. i think that's why walz has gotten so under donald trump's skin. >> right. >> because he is an example of a man who can be strong without diminishing others. without controlling others. so the more examples we see of that and legends like bruce springsteen are directly in that tradition, the better. not just for kamala harris but for the country. this is about liz cheney and bruce springsteen saying, you know, this is america. >> right. >> those guys over there who want to take away your rights, destroy this country for themselves and their pals, that's not america. this is us. >> you also bring up a great point about where the harris campaign is right now. and we knew this was going to be the case beforehand. i think we talked about it around the table. when you substitute joe biden for kamala harris, you're going to be substituting the candidate who actually overperforms among,

for democrats, among older white guys in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania, but underperforms among people of color and younger voters. that's been switched since kamala harris has come on board. now, it is the older white guys in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania that the harris campaign needs to pick up, along with hispanics. she needs to gain in that. this is a message to those guys in, again, the diners, as donny said, that every one of those guys and all of us understand, it is, yeah, an important message to those voters. >> also, i think a lot of them are primed already to go into that voting booth and say, i cannot do four more years of donald trump. i love my wife. i love my daughter. i love my country. i don't really believe in this. but they do need that permission structure.

i've been traveling for "the times" all year, talking to some of these voters. a lot of them feel they're alone in this. what does it even matter if i vote? all the guys i know might be voting for trump. >> right. >> but this says, no, come on in. the water is fine. >> it is so important. you are so right. right now, that is the concern. guys that may have voted for trump in '16, barely were able to vote for him in '20, and they've said it to me, they hate the fact that they're going to have to vote for this guy in 2024. they don't feel like they can vote for a democrat, let alone kamala harris. that's why bruce springsteen here, not that one rock star is going to make a difference, but it certainly is the kind of phrase of the campaign, it's the permission structure. wait a second, i've listened to this guy for 50 years.

i know him. he's a good guy. he shares my values. if he says she's okay, maybe when they walk into the booth, they go, yeah, okay, let's do it. right now, jonathan, to underline this fact, that kamala harris needs help in this area, you had more, i thought, very surprising news yesterday. not good news for the harris campaign. the firefighters who were joe biden's most strident supporters, the firefighters union, the teamsters union, decided they weren't going to get involved in the presidential race. again, it could have been worse. they could have done what the teamsters have done in the past and endorse a republican president, but they did not do that yesterday. >> the firefighters union endorsed joe biden in april of 2019, early days of his campaign. they were immediately on board for him. yesterday, they announced they're not going to endorse at all. there was a close vote of its

members, and they opted, much like the teamsters, to not back at all. that is reflective of what is becoming a growing concern among democrats and the harris campaign, that she is, indeed, struggling with male voters, in particular, working class, blue collar, and often white male voters. there needs to be more outreach to those groups. these are groups that, over the last few years, have started to break toward trump, the non-college educated voters. they're breaking republican, breaking trump. it's a sign of concern. >> we showed the tim walz and jd vance numbers after the debate. it was pretty much a draw, even though walz's approval ratings went up far more. but you look at the crosstabs of white male voters without a college degree. jd vance won overwhelmingly. if jd vance is running around, like a lot of america may be looking at the cat memes. when jd vance goes to rural areas in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania, he's getting a

warm welcome. he messages much better there than tim walz does. >> he does. a trump campaign adviser pointed to me yesterday about the firefighters' union. jd vance went there and made a pitch. he got booed by a lot of people in the room. but afterwards, people gave him credit for showing up. >> right. >> he delivered the message, showed some toughness. he was there. heilemann, this is a concern for the democrats. to mara's point, they're looking for the male surrogates. important one on the left is mark cuban, who is out there a lot defending the biden/harris economic policy. also appearing on podcasts that young male voters might listen to, voters who won't hear the harris message otherwise. springsteen might help, too. this is a growing concern, that these voters who might have been for biden but now looking at the harris/trump choice, might be leaning trump. >> you've got this -- you know, we have seen this throughout the campaign. it was true when biden was the nominee, presumptive nominee, and it's been true with kamala harris, and, not surprisingly,

this massive gender gap. look, democrats are dominating with women voters. as much, in some cases more than republicans have been dominating with the male vote. but as you get closer to the finish line here and look up and see how close the races are, the democratic side, the harris campaign, looks at that gender gap and says, we may have maxed out on women. they're at the highest levels. you can claim the highest level of female voters, if the trend line holds, of any presidential candidate in history. how much more can you get? >> by the way, she's doing well right now, if you look at the polls, other than "the new york times"/siena poll. if you look at the polls, she's trending in the right direction. poll after poll after poll. the question is, though, for them, do you want votes to be counted four, five days after the election, or do you want to win on election night? >> unfortunately, pennsylvania, they're going to be a couple days after election day no

matter what. >> and arizona and nevada. but if they want this thing over on election night, they are going to have to do better with older white men and with hispanics. those are the two areas they need to really close ranks on. >> i just -- geographic spin on that would be to say, there's a consistent trend in the polling. we are, in so many ways, back to a better version of the same structural race we had when joe biden was atop the ticket. which is to say, the blue wall states are pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, continues to be the path of least resistance, along with nebraska. maybe add nebraska, too, for harris. >> interesting that harris is doing, in poll after poll, very well in wisconsin, which has some people in the harris campaign going, hmm. it is older and whiter. also, obviously, maybe more

solid, more moderate. >> she's doing incredibly well with white voters who are college educated. when you think about it, that path, that blue wall path is the way -- again, the path of least resistance, easiest way to 270 for her. she has been underperforming in georgia. they're all close. these are all within the margin of error. but the reality is, if you look, largely because of the hispanic vote, joe, more diverse states, especially in arizona where she's been weaker and so on, they keep looking to the industrial midwest states. if you're trying to get out of the zone when you're consistently up but only by a point and a half to two points, the way to do that is get a larger share of the white male vote. >> if the vote is 60-40, it'll be a close rate. if it is 55-35, harris is good. needs five, six, seven points. about a month to go, it'll

probably happen. we shall see. next, liz cheney in wisconsin, quite an event. we're going to show it to you when "morning joe" returns. ♪♪ ♪ bells of freedom rang ♪ ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're

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♪ control is everything to me ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. republicans were worked up about joe biden, how old he was, energy level, his ability to lead. even though trump is only three years younger than joe biden, they don't seem too worried about that anymore. >> biden can't walk. he can barely speak. >> another rocket. >> read a teleprompter. >> shifting production to thailand. >> they need to step down. too old. >> a.m. radio. >> he is really old. >> used to call it tivo. >> president biden is divorced from reality. >> chuck schumer has become a palestinian. >> joe biden has really lost touch with all reality. >> i'm a better looking person than kamala. >> the rnc.

>> ah. >> there comes a time where you take the keys away from grandma. >> they're eating the dogs. >> it gets worse, not better. >> they're eating the cats. >> we could give you examples. >> ar. >> examples. >> ding, ding, ding. >> after example. >> maga, maga, maga. >> the man is not functional. >> i'm joe biden. they made me withdraw as banana oil. >> that's right. >> wow. >> that was so well done. >> so much to work with. >> imagine landing from mars, seeing that video, and going, that's the guy? that's the guy that's running for president that 80 million people are going to vote for? >> i have a better way of saying it. can you imagine being asleep like rip van winkel since 2015, waking up, and seeing this is now the reality. this guy is still being

competitive in a race. i mean, we forget how quickly things have changed. i mean, gene, we forget. my god, if any politician had been asked about their policy, for taking care of rising crime rates, which we don't have right now, and the answer was a day of violence. we're going to let the cops, we're going to let everybody else engage in a day of violence. terrible violence. then we're going to have bloody deportations, his words. these sort of things. that politician, were he or she running for president, for senator, for governor, for congressman, for tax collector, for city councilman, for city councilwoman, they would be out of politics forever. now, it doesn't even make the front page of our newspapers.

>> no, it's incredible. it's incredible. this man whips up a crowd on the ellipse, sent them up to the capitol to sack the capitol, to beat police officers with the american flag, to defecate in the halls of congress, to threaten the lives of members of congress and his own vice president, in order to try to steal an election, to overturn the result of a free and fair election. and that guy is still a viable presidential candidate? what is wrong with us? what is wrong here? that is utterly impossible. yet, here we are. jack smith in the filing reminded us, as mike pence's life was in danger at the

capitol, he said, so what? donald trump said while watching it on television, on fox news, and said, so what? just stunning. absolutely stunning. if that's not disqualifying, what is? >> his chief legal counsel came up to him and said mike pence was in danger. they were talking about lynching him. he said, well, maybe he deserves lynching. you could go on and on and on. that guy is still competitive. and you try to ask people how they could vote for that guy who said that maybe his vice president deserved lynching. maybe his chairman of the joint chiefs deserved being executed for treason because he was not supportive of his attempts to overthrow the presidential election. who talked about being dictator for a day. who talked about a day of violence to take care of crime. a day of violence. i mean, we could go on and on and on. and their answer is, so what?

let's talk briefly about what happened yesterday. joe biden, a man that many newspapers and many republicans had said completely lost his faculties. we saw him do some pretty extraordinary things to get evan out of russia. i almost said the soviet union, but same thing. was nimble in a way that many other presidents wouldn't have been able to be. yesterday, we were reporting on the news that a union leader who was a trump supporters said, we're going to shut down the ports and basically wreck this economy. he'll wake up this morning to find that joe biden once again got his people involved and averted a strike that most people believed would wreck the economy and go through the end of the year. what happened? >> yeah, this has been -- they had been on strike a couple of days, and there was going to be significant economic

ramifications here, had it lasted much longer. had this strike extended a week or more, supply chain issues, economic issues, which would be bad for all americans, but also bad for the candidacy of vice president harris, who the trump team was already pointing to saying, you're the party in power. you're the one to be blamed if the economy slows down. the worst october surprise for democrats. that strike has been avoided because, in large part, to the quiet, behind the scenes work of the white house. president biden still president. deployed, whether it is pete buttigieg or the rest, his senior team working the phones for days and days with the business leaders and unions, trying to get them to a place to come to a deal. yesterday, tentative agreement on wages. other things need to be worked out, like automation, but it'll resume in january, after the election. this is good news for the american economy, first and foremost. the president continues to support workers, he made that clear, and takes this off the table for the stress of the election.

>> political news yesterday, former republican congresswoman liz cheney campaigned with vice president kamala harris in wisconsin yesterday. also something you would never believe in you had just awakened from 2015. you would have said, what? again, in 2014, donald trump contributed money to kamala harris' campaign. so yeah, anyway. yesterday, liz cheney and kamala harris were at the birthplace of the republican party. take a look. >> i volunteered on my first presidential campaign -- i already told you how old i am, so i'll tell you -- in 1976, when i was 10 years old. i was sealing envelopes for president ford's re-election campaign. i cast my first vote ever in 1984 for ronald reagan. i served in the state department in both bush administrations, and i served in the united states house of representatives

for three terms, including as the third highest ranking republican in house leadership. [ applause ] is, in other words, i was a republican even before donald trump started spray tanning. history teaches us again and again that democracies can fall. they fall to populists. they fall to strong men. strong men who beguile their fellow citizens with conspiracy theories and false emergencies. as my friend, the late charles krouthammer taught us, the task of merely maintaining strong and sturdy the structures of our constitutional order is unending. it is the continuing and ceaseless work of every generation.

and that responsibility now falls on all of us in this election. we have a shared commitment, a shared commitment as americans, to ensuring that future generations live in a nation where power is transferred peacefully. where our leaders are men and women of good faith and where our public servants set aside partisan battles to do what's right for this country. so, today, i ask all of you here and everyone listening across this great country to join us. i ask you to meet this moment. i ask you to stand in truth, to reject the depraved cruelty of donald trump. and i ask you instead to help us elect kamala harris for president. >> it's remarkable, absolutely remarkable. i ask you to meet this moment.

it's so funny, you'll have, i'm sure, people on twitter, others saying, oh, she's a rhino. no, she's not. she had a 95% acu rating, conservative rating when she was in the house, as was i, which means we were so conservative, usually, we'd make people uncomfortable at dinner parties if they were not all republicans. this is not the mushy middle. dick cheney, former republican vice president, not the mushy middle, right? you can't call dick cheney a rhino either. vice president mike pence also a vice president not voting for donald trump. either alberto gonzalez, a man loathed by many of the left. that's what all of these people share. they were loathed at one point by people on the left, by

democrats, for being too conservative. they now say donald trump not fit to be president of the united states. donald trump's own secretaries of defense say donald trump not fit to be president of the united states. donald trump's own secretary of state saying donald trump not fit to be president of the united states. donald trump's own national security advisers, multiple national security advisors, saying donald trump not fit to be president of the united states. hundreds of republican administration officials in bush 43's administration, in bush 41's administration, in ronald reagan reagan's administration, kim adelman, all of them saying donald trump is not fit to be president of the united states.

we don't need john meacham here, mara, to ask if this has ever happened before in modern american politics. it simply has not. again, i don't know how anybody could see what happened yesterday and see what's been happening over the past several weeks with one republican after another republican after another republican, that they used to pledge their fealty to, saying, don't vote for this guy. we know them. we worked for him. he's not fit to be commander in chief. >> i think the question is, you know, this election is going to be decided by a handful of states, by a small number of voters in those states. it's moments like this that could make that difference. when you go to wisconsin, when you do to michigan, when you go to pennsylvania, in north carolina, where i was just on assignment, you have

republicans, not just men, men especially, but also women republicans who say, you know, if liz cheney can stand with kamala harris on a stage, maybe i can vote for her. maybe i can stay home and not vote for trump. >> right. >> i mean, this is powerful. i also think it is important because it does something -- liz cheney is doing something that has not been done, which is to say, you know what? i'm going to stand with this black woman, and i'm going to wrap my arm around her. i am going to say she is a patriot. i am a patriot. she is a patriot. we are all patriots. this is the coalition of patriots. it's not about party. >> right. >> that's about democracy. whatever donald trump is doing over there is not about you or us. it's not about america or democracy. it's about him. >> yup. >> and that's a pretty powerful message. i think we'll find out on the trail how it's resonating.

i think there's going to be more surrogates needed. the answer is more. this has to be the beginning, is my takeaway, not the end. >> you know, what liz cheney did was courageous. it's courageous because it cost her her political career. for people who think that, somehow, she's enjoying that moment on the stage and it accrues to her political benefit, she is now a woman without a party. i will say, i, too, like all of these other people, i'm a man without a party. if you all will just forgive me for a moment of indulgence here, a point of personal preference, whatever. >> privilege. >> it's been a while since i've been on the house floor. >> i was going to say. >> we talked about it last week, but i went to the 30th anniversary, signing of the contract with america. we talked about -- and people said, wait, you're going to that

with those republicans? my answer was, i love those republicans. i said, because those republicans, what we sat around in the back -- we with respect talking about these crazy culture war issues. we were asking, how do we balance the budget? what leverage do we have? not over the democrats, over our own leaders. how do we push our own leaders, push our own appropriators to make the tough choices? time and time again, we lost, we lost, we lost, we lost. then we'd win one. then we'd go back and would shut down the government, and we would vote down a rule that would shut down congress. i will say, newt gingrich spoke at it. as gingrich said, he said a couple things that were very interesting. one, he said, you know how we did it? we worked. and it was hard, and it was hard. that's the reason why we're the only congress, along with bill

clinton, balanced the budget four years in a row. that hasn't happened in 100 years. and it was also a team effort. another thing gingrich said was, anybody close to donald trump, you may want to tell him how we do it. he goes, notice the word we? we did it. that's something that's missing right now. and so i'm not thrilled about the fact that my party has turned into what it's turned into. liz cheney is not thrilled that her party's turned. you know, we had crazy people there. we did crazy things. democrats have crazy people in their party. democrats have crazy things. but our north star is balancing the budget, being responsible with taxpayers' money, protecting the country, and trying to stay out of people's business.

and there's not a party that does that anymore. so, no, that wasn't easy for liz cheney to do. and it's not easy to be a person without a political party in america. but that's where we are. >> i want to tell you, you're not a man without a party, joe. you have a party right here. >> well, yes. i have all my friends at home that are watching right now, family members at home that are watching right now. that's our party. >> it is. >> to the prism of, like, what's the campaign trying to get done over the course of the next, little more than four weeks? there's one of the most common misperceptions about undecided voters, is that there is this group of people out there in america still trying to decide between voting for kamala harris and voting for donald trump. there's almost no one like that anymore. there's some, not very many. what there really is, a bunch of people, millions of people, some of whom have voted in an irregular way over the last couple election cycles, and some

of whom have never voted, but their decision is not between the two candidates. their decision is between voting and not voting. if you think about the groups that the campaign, the harris campaign targets in terms of who are the voters we need to turn out who are making that decision? not that they're confused on whether to vote for trump or harris, but are they motivated to enough to come out and vote for kamala harris? there's three big groups like that. one is young voters, the most irregular voters of all. another group are voters of color who tend to be lower propensity voters and come out in presidential elections, not a lot of other cycles. then your group, which is the people that powered joe biden into the white house in 2020, suburban, republican-leaning independents. liz cheney is all about that group. are those people going to -- a lot of them were going to stay home if the choice was joe biden and donald trump. they decided joe biden couldn't do the job another four years.

they do not want to vote for donald trump. now i don't want to use the permission structure phrase again, but they're looking for a motivator. can they get to the point where they are like, okay, i'm done with donald trump, but can i identify enough with, am i excited enough by, do i have the permission structure, whatever phrase you want to use, that she has made the sale, and i'm willing to go out rather than stay home. >> just for people that are watching going, wait, how could they not, how could they not vote for kamala harris? what they're seeing, and i saw it this weekend while watching football games, commercial after commercial after commercial of kamala harris in 2019 saying, she supported federal funding for transition operations. >> she's a radical. she's a communist. >> well, and they get quotes from her in 2019 where she was trying to be more woke than anybody else. in 2019. i think the campaign has done a

good job cleaning a lot of that stuff up. they need to look at the commercials being run over and over and over again. >> yes. >> again, it's not you or me in florida or new york that they need to worry about. it's the guys in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, that are looking -- >> charlotte, raleigh, durham, atlanta. >> arizona. >> watching sports on streaming networks. >> yeah. >> go to one of those cities right now, in a battleground state, go to a city and watch sports on streaming, what you will see is a non-stop barrage of that kind of advertising, trying to disqualify harris in the minds of all three of the subset of irregular voters. the question i have for you, joe, going back to your point of personal privilege. in past election cycles, there was always the colin powell primary. who is colin powell going to endorse? it was a late october thing. you rattled off names of a bunch

of republicans who are people without a party. >> there's one more. >> who are the republicans in your mind who could move the needle with suburban former republican, irregular republicans who are sick of trump, that need to get an endorsement, where an endorsement would matter to getting them out. >> donny, who is it? >> w. he is in a field of one. that would be everything. >> the only problem with w is, the second -- you know, i criticize w for, you know, spending too much money, for being too reckless with war, for deficits, and all the republicans called me a commie. the second he left off, they said the same thing about him. i don't know if w does it or not. certainly, it wouldn't hurt. but maybe, again, we're not talking big numbers. >> yeah. >> we're talking a small subset.

yeah, i think he would help. but it is important to think about these undecided voters, again, that we don't think about or that we don't understand. how could you be undecided? all you have to do is realize that there are people out there that voted for donald trump twice. bill clinton twice. george w. bush twice. barack obama twice. then voted for donald trump. those are people that are swayed by bruce springsteen, may be swayed by george w. bush, but, again, the main thing is, harris has got to convince them she is not the radical that they're seeing in every football game. it's very easy. for the harris campaign, they need to look at the football ads being run against them around the clock, and right now it's what she said in 2019 about taxpayer funding for transition surgery. also, i will say, forgive me for being presumptuous, first time i

have been presumptuous with political candidates before, you don't see the joy in the ads for kamala harris that you see when she's on stage. you know, we always have advice for people. my advice for the harris campaign is joy. it's got to permeate not just your speeches, it's got to permeate our interviews, perm permeate your ads, permeate everything. campaigns are about contrast. right now, the joy we saw at the launch of the campaign doesn't always come through in the commercials, doesn't always come through in the interviews. it needs to. you know, when you're doing an interview, you don't have to be, and i'm not saying she's this way, i'm a serious person. ronald reagan was smiling through his interviews all the time. barack obama always kept a sunny disposition through his interviews. it is critical they do that. >> yeah, there are moments she comes off a little too scripted, democrats fear. couple points here.

i mean, they're being outspent -- the harris campaign has more money than the trump campaign, it's the republican super pacs blanketing the airwaves and making a point, trying to define harris now as she was in 2020. the harris team is ramping up their own ads. in fact, during the major league baseball playoffs this weekend, they're targeting latino voters. bruce springsteen, liz cheney maybe helping with the moderate independent types. and to heilemann's list, young voters, people of color, next week, barack obama is heading out on the trail for her with an aggressive campaign schedule. it's about turning out your voters or those inclined to support your party in the past but aren't sure now. that's what this is about. also, from democrats, and, joe, you and i have been talking about this, a push for harris and walz to do more, period. just be out there. blanket the airwaves, rally after rally. in clip footage from one of the

rallies, capture the joy, put it in an ad. >> we have to go to break. alex is going to have to stroke. we've been trying to get to steve rattner for 30 minutes, and it's my fault. i apologize. coming up, president biden toured storm damage in georgia and florida. donald trump campaigned in michigan and lied, actually, about the federal efforts to provide relief to everybody that was impacted by the hurricane. we're going to fact-check his comments. plus, steve rattner is standing by with charts on donald trump's proposed economic plan. the rattner charts are here. wake up the kids. we'll be right back. what does a robot know about love? how to translate that leap inside the human heart into something we can see and hold. the fingerprints we leave behind show how determined we are to give the world a piece of ourselves. etsy.

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switch today! former president donald trump touted his ideas at his campaign, saying the country would make so much money if he was re-elected. in fact, it'd add trillions to the national debt. it'd be devastating.

he already set all records for blowing a hole in the deficit, just extraordinary. during his four years, he added more to the national debt than any president, well, the aggregate combination of all 44 presidents that came before him, after promising to balance the budget and pay down the debt. now, it's going to get worse. for a closer look at the national debt and the economic plan it is from both trump and harris, let's bring in former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. hey, steve. so, unfortunately, during this century, as we've discussed, neither party has cared about the national debt. when i left congress in 2001, we had a $155 billion surplus, had about a $5 trillion national debt. now, it's $35 trillion. any hope of that reversing from either of these two candidates'

programs, proposed programs? >> well, reversing would be too strong a word. but is certainly preferable to the other. first, let's put this in a little context and show the mess we're in and how we kind of got here. if you go back to 2007, ie, before the financial crisis, the congressional budget office actually thought our debt to gdp ratio, which is how we measure the sustainability of our debt, debt to gdp, would be going down to 20%. seems quaint now. then you had the financial crisis. since the financial crisis, every year, the congressional budget office projected that the debt would be higher than it thought the previous year. now, we're up here. we're on present course and speed, the cbo says we could reach 120% debt to gdp, which would be, obviously, the highest in recent history. also, the highest in all of our history, including world war ii when we had to take on a lot of

debt for very, very important reasons. this is what's happened. how has it happened? a little of what you said, joe. as a reminder, when bill clinton left office, we had a surplus. it lasted the first year of bush 43, then, as you mentioned earlier, taxes, the iraq war, he sent the deficit up. came down a little bit. then you had the financial crisis. of course, we had to do that. you have to give obama credit. he worked the deficit all the way down to here. then, as you also said, under trump, even before covid, the deficit was going up as a ratio to gdp. now, it's come down a bit under biden. that's where we are. that's what we're looking at as we go into this campaign. >> talk about how much more trump would borrow. >> let's look at the different plans we have. donald trump's plan would basically be to extend all his tax cuts for everybody, including the wealthy, exempt social security from income tax. these all add to the deficit. no tax on tips.

lower the corporate tax rate. he does want to repeal the green energy tax credits. he would add $5.2 trillion more to the debt over the next ten years. he has this idea for tariffs to offset it. nobody thinks these would really happen. that'd leave him with that, adding $2.6 trillion. harris, on the other hand, has a plan that actually pays for itself. it's also important to note that trump's tax plan favors the wealthy. harris' tax plan favors arj average americans. those making less than $400,000 would get tax cuts. the wealthy will have to pay their fair share. raise corporate taxes to pay their fair share. she'd only add a trivial amount to the deficit. she wouldn't solve the problem but she'd at least not make it worse. >> show chart three, how harris limits the new debt. >> when you add all this up together, you can see over here,

trump would add this $5.2 trillion to the debt without his tariffs, less with tariffs, but no one really believes that's going to happen. and she adds essentially nothing to the national debt. you compare that to what's happened under trump and under biden. under trump, $8.4 trillion, as you said earlier. in fairness, $3.6 trillion of it was covid-related debt. still, $4.8 trillion of debt. biden a good bit less, especially when you exclude covid. it's a much superior plan than anything we have seen for a good while. >> let me ask you this, steve. that looks remarkable. first of all, i'm curious about your sourcing. secondly, if that's all she added to the national debt, would that not make her the most fiscally conservative with a small c president this century, compared to george w. bush, compared to barack obama,

compared to donald trump, compared to joe biden? >> yeah, joe, that's a really good point. we have not had a president, as you saw over there, who didn't add a huge amount of debt to our pile over the last few years. let me also, joe, because i know you care a lot about this issue, close with showing you that we still have a problem. if you look at the 50 year average of revenues, tax revenues as a percentage of our gdp, our tax revenues are below the 50 year average now. spending is above our 50 year average now. >> doesn't work. >> doesn't work. you can see over here, just for example, under clinton, it did work. you had revenues higher than spending. now, we're up here. >> can i correct you, steve? under that young republican congress, you can say clinton. i guess it is all a perspective, but the young republican congress that forced bill clinton to sign our bills, we balanced the budget. >> all right. look, can we agree there's shared credit between the president and --

>> we can, though you were not sharing credit when you talked about clinton. >> in fairness, neither were you. now we can agree to share the credit. >> we'll share the credit. this is fascinating. again, it's really fascinating. give me your sources again. what are the sources for these numbers? >> these are congressional budget office numbers. >> what about the harris plan? >> these are numbers that her campaign produced but have been vetted by independents, the tax foundation, independent scorekeepers of these thing. these are honest numbers. >> again, it is remarkable. here you have kamala harris who has been part of an administration that has just outperformed china, just lapped china several times over the past four years, outperformed the rest of europe, all of our allies, the strongest economy in the world. a $27 trillion gdp. the strongest stock market ever.

a 50 year high for the u.s. dollar. more oil production than any country in history. now, fiscally, more conservative than any president this century based on her plan and what it's projected to do. there are still yahoos going around making millions and millions of dollars, claiming she and biden are socialists. somehow doesn't wash, does it, steve? >> it does not, joe, you're right. the record has really been exceptional. he has done a great job of growing this economy. as well as imposing a lot of new plans and policies like the ira that have solved things like our climate problem, the infrastructure act, the chips act. it's a strong record. >> finally, you and i have been worried about deficits and debt back to the obama administration. we've been talking about this. could you explain to people,

because it's hard for people to grasp, what happens when we have the crisis, the debt crisis, when the debt bomb goes off, and how quickly do things collapse, not only in america but around the globe? you know the hemingway line, he went bankrupt gradually and then suddenly? you add the debt to the pile, and at some point, the markets say, we don't want the debt anymore. you have huge rise in interest rates. you have another version of the financial crisis. we have stuff we should be doing voluntarily, but doing it under pain and having to do more of it than if we'd done it earlier. the other scenario, we drift along like this. what happens, our interest costs are rising, rising, as a share of our federal spending. it's pushing out all kinds of other useful federal spending. eventually could impinge on

social security and medicare. >> it would. social security, medicare, medicaid, every other program would be slashed as our economy spiralled out of control. that's the thing. we still have time to take care of it. when it hits the fan, it won't. progressive economists mocked not only me but people like me for years when we talked about how big spending would lead to big interest rates and big interest rates would lead to pain across all sectors of the american economy. then it happened and say said, sorry, we got it wrong. a lot of people suffered because of it. >> this is unsustainable. you can't run a country or business where revenues are year after year so far below expenses. you can't do it. >> yup. "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner, thanks so much. go mets.

congratulations, steve. >> thank you. top of the hour, and mika isn't here, so we're beginning this hour with baseball. the new york mets' postseason continues after a ninth inning come back last night in milwaukee. joining us, the host of mlb.com's "morning lineup" podcast, will leitch. long-suffering mets fans across the globe never saw this coming. thought they were doomed again. >> the closer for milwaukee had given up one home run all year. pete alonso was in a massive slump. hadn't hit a homer in a month. 5 for his last 41. then mets fans ascended to the plane last night. it was ridiculous, what happened. i discourage any children watching who can read lips to watch the highlight of alonso going around the bases. he was pretty incredible.

it was a wild, wild scene last night. >> the mets' magic continues, will. let's look ahead to the divisional round. four great matchups. the mets play the philadelphia phillies. remarkably, this is the first time these two teams will ever meet in the postseason. we played bruce springsteen's campaign ad earlier, endorsing kamala harris. this is actually the battle of the springsteen fan base right here. phillies might be the best team, top to bottom, in the league, but the mets are rolling. >> yeah, the mets are really firm. since the grimace thing earlier this year, the mets have been this ridiculous story. for months now, remember, they had the incredible, last double-header against the braves where lindor had his homer. this is a team built to win right now, right? they have bryce harper, who famously, the nationals won a world series right after he left. this is one of the best players, the only thing his resume is missing. they are very built to win now.

but the mets got vibes, as they say. it's really kind of incredible, what is going on. those teams have never played. i'm just assuing that chase utley is going to show up, and there will be some sort of fight. >> when i think about the playoffs and how wild they can be, i think about the cardinals. i think the 2006 cardinals that won 83 games, ended up winning the world series. never know what will happen. so i have a friend who has been suffering with cleveland his entire life. he weeps bitterly when -- i was about to say the indians -- when the guardguardians, when t guardians lose and get thrown out of the playoffs. i said to him, who do you want, the astros or the tigers? he goes, oh, the tigers. i go, be careful what you wish for. this team is hot. i told him, i thought he wanted the astros. thesetigers, man, a team this hot in august and september, you want nothing to do with, do you,

will? >> yeah, i mean, thank you for bringing up my 2006 cardinals. that was the team that was miserable until suddenly they were unstoppable. i think the tigers are clearly that way. remember, they traded away jack flaherty, who will be pitching for the dodgers in their playoff series, at the deadline, because they thought they were done. they've completely taken off. they have a lot of great, young players. their starter is going to not only win the cy young, he won the pitching triple crown last year. a.j. hinch, part of the astros team, lost his job because of the banging scandal, as they called it. he is the manager of the tigers. he says the rest of -- he said they're in pitching chaos. throwing guys together. they have been unstoppable. really for about a month now. they had a 0.7% to make it, and knocked the astros down. i get the astros idea, but i'd want nothing to do with the tigers right now. >> will, everyone here and

everyone watching obviously rooting for the royals against the yankees. set that series aside. instead, let's talk dodgers/padres. shohei ohtani, 50-50, his first playoff game ever will be tomorrow. this is a dodgers team who goes into the postseason with real pitching questions. this padres team does not. what will happen in that series? >> they spent money on shohei and yamamoto, who has had injury troubles. no clayton kershaw. walker buehler will be pitching. the rotation is in tatters, so they'll be relying on shohei, who never played a playoff game. remember how exciting it was in the world baseball classic? he struck out mike trout, how thrilling that was. that's the biggest stage. he finally gets that. the padres rotation, remember, the padres last year, they had

juan soto and the cy young winner, blake snell. lost both of them and actually have a chance to take out the dodgers this year. this looks like one of the best padres teams they've ever had. putting them up against shohei, betts, freddie freeman, great mv3 the dodgers have. remember, this is a socal rivalry. the dodgers have been the greyhound, the rabbit the greyhounds have been trying to capture for years. they haven't been able to catch them. that has so much history and will have vitriol. >> let me borrow from chris matthews and ask you to tell me one thing i don't know about this playoff. one thing we don't know and should be looking for. >> so my dirty secret about the playoffs, i don't think there's a lot of villains. some will say the yankees, obviously. >> yeah. >> this is a team that hasn't -- listen, it's fine. if you think the yankees are villains, i'm not standing in your way, but this is a likable

yankees team. >> no, it's snot. >> aaron judge with an incredible year. >> will, stop it. >> what's wrong with you? >> sorry, it's true. >> he really starts to grow on you, trying to kill everybody. >> right. >> will, what are you talking about? >> cut his mic. >> i'm saying, listen, i'm not calling the yankees scrappy underdogs, but, listen, the royals have been to two world series since the yankees have. i mean, if anyone is the underdog in the series, it's the yankees. >> no. >> well, i've got to -- >> what a gross thing to hear. >> it's sick. >> 7:00 in the morning. >> i'm sorry. >> report the news, friends. >> instead of tell me something, i don't know. that's more like tell me something that's going to make me gag. come on, will. what in the holy hell are you doing? >> likable yankees team. >> football last week. >> what? >> i'm in athens. we're sore about the game last weekend. >> there ya go. >> it was a crazy game. it was a game that, weirdly enough, i know when you lose, you lose, and nobody can be happy about that. but georgia fans had to feel,

after the game was over, all right, we got these guys. we'll see them again. we can take them apart. if you're an alabama fan like me, you're sitting there going, yeah, we won. a win is a win. but that was ugly the second half. >> yeah. if you look at kirby smart, getting his one, two national championships in georgia, i think half of his losses now are to alabama. even now, it's not just saban. it's deboer able to beat him, as well. the comeback was fantastic. i think it is reasonable for a georgia fan to be like, wow, are we ever -- like, we beat the national championship game, but they still think they have our name, even with saban gone. >> the crazy thing about the wince, think back, i've been an alabama fan, you know, since the mid '70s. three of the greatest games i've ever seen have been three games where we played georgia and won all three of them. coincidentally. one is the s.e.c. championship game where you were tackled on

the three yard line. nerve-racking. the tua game where he came back, just insanity. then this last week's game. every alabama/georgia game ends up being a classic. we happen to win most of them but, still, man, those are two teams that are so evenly matched. >> we could get two more this year. they could play in the s.e.c. championship game and the playoffs this year. i'm game for a best of three. like the wild card series in baseball, a best of three series between alabama and georgia this year. >> again, because mika is not here, let's talk about something we both agree on probably. the atlanta falcons. i've been, unfortunately, a falcon fan my entire life. they kind of feel like they're starting to get it. you look back, i mean, and looks like their offseason investment is working. >> yeah. it's funny because a lot of people criticized them for bringing in kirk cousins because they drafted michael penix in

the first round. the defense is the thing for the falcons. that's actually a really good defense. the falcons are forever a team, as you know, kind of pushing the rock up the hill and almost quite getting there. i'm always afraid to say the number is 28 or 3 at any point. >> right, i know. >> there's no question, something is good about this team. cousins is a perfect fit for them. >> cousins, you know, is doing a great job last night, looked very calm in the pocket. yeah, we never talk about 28. >> some of us to. >> to 3. no, we don't. my brother called me up the end of the third quarter and said, can you believe we're going to win the super bowl? i hung up on him. never, ever. it's never over. until it's over. unfortunately, will, our time is over. mlb.com's will leitch, you are the best. go dogs. i said it. >> one small exception. >> thanks so much. reverend al, happy birthday.

>> thank you. >> did you have a great birthday yesterday? >> a good birthday. monday night was the big thing at lincoln center. >> right. >> gladys knight serenading me. good night. kamala harris did a video. last night was my actual birthday, home with the family. kamala harris did call. i got the great news from tyre nichols' parents, saying they convicted the police that beat their son to death in memphis, which i had done the eulogy. vice president harris came. it was a great birthday. i entered my 70s in style. i started with mika yesterday morning. >> looking fit. looking fit. >> fantastic. >> jonathan lemire was a part of it. >> i was. very happy. happy birthday. >> jonathan, how many birthdays have you had gladys knight at? >> i was doing the tally, and i have yet to get that. >> adele? >> he gets sort of a stand-in

imitation pips. they will come. you just get the -- >> if it's a matinee, though. i can't get them at night. ♪ leaving on a midnight train ♪ >> at night, i can't get them. >> that's what you get at your birthday. gladys, i love her so much. >> still at the top. >> fantastic. speaking of incredible singers, musicians, jonathan mentioned earlier that bruce springsteen endorsed kamala harris and tim walz. here, again, is a video of the boss posted on instagram yesterday. >> hi, i'm bruce springsteen. friends, fans, and the press asked me who i'm supporting in this most important of elections. with full knowledge of my opinions no more or less important than those of any of my fellow citizens, here's my answer. i'm supporting kamala harris for president and tim walz for vice president and opposing donald

trump and jd vance. here's why. we are shortly coming upon one of the most consequential elections in our nation's history. perhaps not since the civil war has this great country felt as politically, spiritually, and political divided as it does at this moment. it doesn't have to be this way. the common values, the shared stories that make us a great and united nation, are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again. now, that will take time, hard work, intelligence, faith, and women and men with the national good guiding their hearts. america is the most powerful nation on earth, not just because of her overwhelming military strength or economic power, but because of what she stands for. what she means. what she believes in. freedom, social justice, equal opportunity, the right to be in

love with who you want. these are the things that make america great. donald trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime. his disdain for the sanctity of our constitution, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law, and the sanctity of the peaceful transfer of power should disqualify him from the office of president ever again. he doesn't understand the meaning of this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply american. on the other hand, kamala harris and tim walz committed to a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view, or sexual identity. and they want to grow our economy in a way that benefits all. not just a few like me on top. that's the vision of america

i've been consistently writing about for 55 year. now, everybody sees things differently, and i respect your voice as a fellow citizen. but like you, i've only got one vote, and it's one of the most precious possessions that i have. that's why, come november 5th, i'll be casting my vote for kamala harris and tim walz. thanks for listening. >> let's bring in washington bureau chief for the "usa today," susan page. also, columnist for "politico," jonathan martin. and investigative reporter, . talk about the political endorsement and how the harris campaign wants to use it, j-mart? >> they obviously want to use it with people who are in the political center, people who are living in a handful of battleground states and, frankly, probably white folks who are springsteen fans, springsteen admirers,

springsteen devotees, who are going to be persuaded by his rhetoric. also, i think, importantly, joe, apolitical people. in the industry, they're called low-information voters, the kind of people who are not engaged in this election, haven't really tuned in at all, except for the kind of vague concept we have an election. you get a celebrity like that in front of them making an impassioned case like springsteen did, and maybe you can reach a few folks who would largely have checked out from politics or never checked into politics in the first place. >> yeah, you look at taylor swift, the pennsylvania native, and, of course, a lot of people mocking that, until you find out 500,000, 600,000 people reng registered to vote and will most likely, at her urging, a good number of those possibly will go out and vote. here's springsteen. with springsteen, it may be something different. there are a lot of people, as we talked about last hour, a lot of

people that voted for donald trump in 2016 that don't like the guy at all. we hear it over and over again. i hate him. >> right. >> he's obnoxious. i don't know if i'm going to vote for him. you they wisconsin. remember ron johnson caught on camera trying to tell the person interviewing him, hey, trump lost because he got 56,000 less votes, less votes than every other republican that ran in the state of wisconsin. people who couldn't stomach voting for him in 2020. i wonder if this springsteen endorsement helps move some of those people actually to vote for harris? >> yeah, it's all about creating that permission structure for people who didn't like the clintons, maybe voted for trump in '16 because they couldn't abide hillary. maybe they reluctantly voted for bide been '20 to stop covid and get trump out of office. but they're not sure they can get there with kamala harris.

this is a way of getting trump back front and center and saying, look, you're voting against trump here. kamala harris effectively is the vehicle to block trump's return. if you don't like trump, you don't want him back in your living room for four years, there's one way to do that. that's to make kamala harris the president. by the way, joe, those votes count just the same as an enthusiastic vote for kamala harris. it doesn't matter if you're voting largely against trump, as long as you pull the lever for harris/walz, it counts just the same. she, by the way, is depending upon those people who don't have a lot of confidence in her or are uneasy about her, but just cannot stomach the thought of donald trump as president again. >> so-called double haters. liz cheney actually went up to wisconsin yesterday with kamala harris. take a look at what she had to say. >> i know that our securities

and our freedom depend upon a world in which america, with our allies, leads. upon all else, i know that the most conservative of conservative values is fidelity to our constitution. [ applause ] i'll tell you, i have never voted for a democrat. but this year, i am proudly casting my vote for vice president kamala harris. [ applause ] donald trump was willing to sacrifice our capitol to allow law enforcement officers to be beaten and brutalized in his name, and to violate the law and the constitution in order to seize power for himself. i don't care if you are a democrat or a republican or an

independent, that is depravity. we must never become numb to it. any person -- [ applause ] any person who would do these things can never be trusted with power again. we must defeat donald trump on november 5th. our institutions also held because of vice president mike pence, who refused -- [ applause ] he refused to violate his oath to the constitution. and that is why mike pence is not donald trump's running mate today. instead, jd vance is on the ticket. [ crowd booing ] vance has said -- i mean, it's

true. i know that president -- that a president harris, that president harris will be able to unite this nation. i know that she will be a president who will defend the rule of law, and i know that she will be a president who can inspire all of our children. if i might say so, especially our little girls. [ applause ] to do great things. >> but i say all that to say, every time i've come here recently, one of the conversations we have, all of us together, is how much we love our country, and that that really is the binding factor in us all being together and taking the time to be together, to really just renew and remind

everyone of what is at stake. but born out of love that we have this fight. and i want to thank you, liz cheney, for reminding us that, regardless of party affiliation, it is a factor that binds us all. i thank you for your support and your leadership and your courage. >> liz cheney lost for congress. she was terrible. liz cheney is a stupid warhawk. all she wants to do is shoot missiles at people. i really think it hurts. i think, frankly, if kamala -- i this you they hurt each other. they're so bad, both of them. >> stupid. it's what he said, stupid. what'd he say about taylor swift? i hate taylor swift. >> all capital letters, i hate taylor swift. >> he's like a third grader out on the campaign. it's really unbelievable. susan page, very strong here. i have never voted for a

democrat, but this year, i am voting for kamala harris. her father, vice president dick cheney. you have mike pence who is not voting for donald trump. alberto gonzalez, donald trump's own secretary of defenses, his own secretary of states, his own national security advisors, the list goes on and on. hundreds of republicans who worked in 43 and 41's administrations, who worked in ronald reagan's administrations, and who worked in donald trump's administrations, all not voting for the republican nominee. talk about damning. that's about as damning as it gets. >> talk about courage. we shouldn't forget what liz cheney gave up for her break with donald trump. there was a time when we thought she might be a future speaker of the house. now, she couldn't even win re-election in one of the most

republican states in the country. the thing that strikes me, joe, about the list of republicans you just named, none of them are in office now. tell me the republicans in office now who are willing to stand up to donald trump? some of them endorsed trump. some of them keep their mouths shut. but the list, i'm struggling to think of a single ranking republican who has stood up to trump. liz cheney did, and now she's at a democratic rally. she's being cheered. mike pence is being cheered. i mean, it's really quite a remarkable turn of events. but this did not come free for liz cheney. you know, one other thing, these testimonials that kamala harris got yesterday from liz cheney to bruce springsteen, neither of those speaking to the democratic base, of course. both of them speaking to different groups that kamala harris will need if she's going to break this really tied-up election in 30 days and win it, joe. >> a lot of the concern, bruce springsteen talked about it, and

so many others have talked about, how donald trump just doesn't respect the rule of law. you've had an absolutely fascinating series that you're working on, talking about what donald trump's second term might look like. you have liz cheney there, somebody who donald trump said should have to face military tribunals. you're looking at somebody right here, donald trump said i should be sent to jail and executed. tweeted that 12 times. you look at the fact he says his chairman of the joint chiefs should be shot for treason. says that media companies, and he names those media companies, should be shut down. that their ceos and their leaders should be tried for treason. you can go down the list. and when you bring this up to people, they go, oh, he's just joking. he could never do that.

as your piece points out, he could do that and he tried to do that. at one point, they made this argument, oh, look, joe biden is going after me, which was a lie. but i didn't go after hillary clinton. but he did. time and time again. he got angry at multiple attorney generals when they came back and said, she didn't commit a crime. we have nothing against her. he was trying. said before the election -- sorry, i have so much to say on this because it is shocking that people don't seem to give a damn, who are still voting for him. two weeks before the 2020 election, he was pressuring attorney general barr to arrest joe biden and joe biden's family. two weeks before the election. something you would hear about in belarus. >> i think this is the most important issue because it's not just, like, that this is something that people shouldn't

do and is something that has a longstanding -- the reason why this issue is so important is that it erodes the public's faith in the government. so if you think that the federal government is not prosecuting cases based on the rules and the facts, and, instead, on the wims of a politician, people start to say, well, am i going to speak out? am i going to say anything? it has a real chilling effect on a lot of the things that are supposed to make this country great. >> a lot of people are quietly talking about fearing, and their lawyers are suggesting they leave the country, because he's targeting them. he's announced he will be targeting them if he wins. >> we have done a bunch of different, large pieces on this. we have documented numbers wise how he tried to do this when he was president. when we went back and looked at what he wanted done and what

actually happened, a lot more of it lined up than we ever thought it was going to. there were ten instances in which he wanted investigations done or actions taken by the justice department in which the justice department went as far as they could, until they basically ran up to the judicial branch. now, people say, well, you know, no one was thrown behind bars. no one really prosecuted. this shows the institutions held up. well, something people don't appreciation is that an investigation in and of itself is a highly invasive, stressful thing for an individual to go under. it can cost them a lot of money. it can scare their families. it can allow the government to come in and to see into their lives in ways that you don't normally get to. even if there are not

prosecutions, even if there are not people that are put before military tribunals or imprisoned, that doesn't stop the simple existence of an investigation that can ruin someone's life. >> well, they've also promised, they have promised, jonathan, that this next term, the trump second term, they will have people there who will execute every one of trump's orders. >> yeah. >> and demands. they have promised that, you know, well, bannon and kash patel, just looked at the camera and said they are coming after us. they promised, we will not miss next time. we will find our targets, and we will throw them in jail. >> includes "morning joe." you're right, this time around, it's worst underscoring, there won't be guardrails. that won't be the don mcgahns of the world who will try to stop trump. something else he promised to change in a possible second term is how policing is conducted in this country. here's some of what trump had to say on sunday.

>> you know, these are smart, smart people. they're not so stupid. but they have to be taught. now, if you had one really violent day, like a guy like mike kelly, put him in charge, congressman kelly, put him in charge for one day. mike, would you say -- you're right here -- he's a great congressman. would you say, mike, that if you were in charge, you'd say, please, don't touch them? let them rob your store. all these stores go out of business, right? they don't pay rent. the city doesn't have money. it's a chain of events. it's so bad. one rough hour, and i mean real rough, the world will get out, and it will end immediately. end immediately. you know? it'll end immediately. >> joining us now, senior political reporter at "rolling stone," with the latest piece, "american death squad.

inside trump's push to make police more violent." good to see you. there's teeth to this proposal. tell us what you found. >> absolutely. also, if he were going around saying things like that for years, which he has been sh this was not a rhetorical, one-off thing, it'd be disturbing within itself. but it is not just trump wants police to brutally act with immunity all the time. it is something he and his chief lieutenants have shown over the years, including during his administration, including during this current campaign, that they want to back up with the full force of the department of justice, the executive branch, and the federal government. during his presidency, there would be multiple times where, according to our sources, he'd be doing things like banging his fist on the resolute desk in the

oval office, demanding, why aren't the police going around shooting street criminals and drug dealers and piling up their bodies on american streets so it can send a grim message to gangs and suspected criminals in america? he did this so often that there was some administration officials who reported to us as his american death squads idea. highly influenced by his admiration of duterte in the philippines. is it possible a second term, re-elected trump, could get exactly that? no, maybe not. but the point is, he wants to get to as close to that as humanly possible, which is a remarkable thing for a modern american presidency. some of the things he wants to do that he discussed with close advisors during his campaign, in late 2020, he toyed with the idea of pulling federal funding from different states and cities

that were not sufficiently, quote, unquote, pro-cop enough for his liking, or didn't let the police get away with enough degrees of awe abusive behavior, racial violations. he'd pull federal funding if they didn't do those things to his liking. he has talked to people recently about using pardon powers to excuse different officers, where people have been federally charged with things. there's all kinds of things that his second administration would be planning with the department of justice, with the power of the executive branch, to try to make police in this country as cartoonishly violent as men like donald trump would like them to be. >> you know, it's interesting that on a day we see police officers found guilty of some crimes in memphis on tyre nichols, he would say that day, let's have a day of violence. but in looking at what your

research -- we're not talking about what may happen. he was the president when george floyd happened, which was the biggest case of our lifetime. he did nothing but lecture the protesters, saying, reprimanded them, when there was a video of what they did. breonna taylor. all this happened under donald trump's reign. he was pro-cop even when other police unions and departments were saying, wait, we're not about knees on necks and all. talk about that. i think sometimes we talk about what he will do. he was president four years during some of the most horrific police abuse cases that we've seen. policemen were saying that doesn't represent us. >> sure. jonathan was talking about it earlier, that the modus operandi of the second trump term is to make it so the guardrails aren't there, that there won't be administration officials close to him who will try to tell him no, no, no, over and over again. one of the things he really

wanted law enforcement or even military to do was to shoot american protesters who were coming out, speaking out against this racial injustice and police brutality. this was something that was confirmed by multiple people in and around the oval office, who heard him say directly, who gave what you can interpret as a presidential order, and there were people there who said, that sounds illegal. maybe we shouldn't look into that and do something else. there are going to be people who are surrounding him right now, who do flood into levels of federal influence and power, who won't want to say no, who will say, let's try to get as close to that as possible. something else that the trump white house tried to do in 2020 but they eventually backed down, was that in the law, if the president said there was an extreme enough emergency in the nation's capital, the president of the united states can commandeer the d.c. police force. this was something he wanted to do when the george floyd protests were breaking out in washington, d.c., and elsewhere in the country. he has said that if he ever

wanted to do that again, he thought crime, protest, whatever, was too bad in washington, d.c., if he's re-elected, that is something he would want to go through with. imagine the d.c. police force trying to be reined in and be commandeered as donald trump's army of thugs. >> the new reporting is online right now for "rolling stone." senior political reporter asawin, thank you. we greatly appreciate it. jonathan martin, what are you working on today? >> i have a fun piece on the new documentary on james carville. it'll debut on a different channel tomorrow night. it'll be out in theaters next week. >> that's great. >> but your viewers are going to love this. it's a james' life, james' marriage, and also, of course, his role in the last year and a half, trying to ease biden off the ticket. it is pure, undeluded james. expect lots of lsu, go tigers

looks. >> can't wait to see it. michael schmidt, what are you working on? >> the mets. oh, no, no, no. >> you can work on the mets if you'd like to. >> we've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to explain to the public this threat about trump and wanting to do, you know, prosecutions. we have gotten primary documents, secret white house documents about memos that were written to trump. we put those out. we tried to, numbers wise, show the amount of people he wanted prosecuted. just yesterday, my colleagues at "the times" released a graphic that explains how he could weaponize the government and what that would look like, and how installing loyalists at the top of the fbi would change that. how installing loyalists at the top of the justice department would change that. and change that again on simple investigative -- >> when you say loyalists, that's different. every person has a right to appoint people where they want people that are not going to be

doing their predecessor's bidding. here, though, we're talking about rubber stamps. basically said -- >> it's an important point. >> -- we're going to get people to rubber stamp every crazy idea he has. >> important point. you're right. the top of the justice department is filled with political appointees. but they have a running start to not make the mistakes they think they made last time. have people like john kelly or don mcgahn around, or people at the justice department, even bill barr, who wouldn't do the things he wanted. they have had time to plan. i think what trump saw in those final weeks of the presidency was he could get away with more than he thought he could. >> right. >> his behavior in the first four years is certainly not normal presidential behavior, and there are questions about whether he broke the law then. but it's the last two months where he's really unshackled. they really seem to understand that and understand that when they come back, that is the type

of trump presidency they want to practice. and we spent a lot -- you know, this has taken a lot of resources on our end to try to find different ways to do that, but we have different platforms through our podcast and everything. we're going to continue to try to tell that story. >> the guy who gets away with it. what has donald trump learned, jonathan lemire, over the past couple years? gets away with it, one way or another. he has a loyalist in florida who dismisses the case. he has a supreme court that delays, justice delayed is justice denied. what has he learned? he gets away with it. >> he'd come into office again with that knowledge, that he got away with it in the last two months of his first term. it'll be a template for his second. coming up here on "morning joe," new polls show that the independent candidate in nebraska's senate race is closing the gap with the incumbent republican candidate. >> this is crazy. >> don osborne joins us straight ahead with a look at where the

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the factory, no one else could fix it, we'd call. the ceo took a bonus and tried to cut our pay. people have given their lives to this company. stan stood up. saved my job, saved our jobs. he took on the big corporations for people like us.

he's a heck of a mechanic. an even better guy. >> i'm dan osborne, and i approve this message. if you want to fix washington, send in a mechanic. >> new ad for independent candidate for the state of nebraska, dan osborne. the race in deep red territory appears to be no longer a safe bet for two-term incumbent republican senator deb fisher. the cook political report recently shifting the race from solid to likely republican. senate republicans are now being forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on that race. osborne is a union industrial mechanic who led a strike at the kellogg's cereal plant in omaha in 2021. a victory by the 49-year-old navy veteran would throw a wrench into the gop's plans to take control of the senate next year. and dan osborne joins us now. thanks so much for being with us this morning. tell us a little bit about why you think your candidacy, so

unlikely to start, is beginning to resonate. >> well, thanks for having me on. you know, i did serve in the united states navy. i served in the nebraska army national guard. i've always felt copelled to service. i did, you know, i ran the strike at kellogg's. 500 people took my friends and family out into the great unknown, not knowing if we'd have a job at the end of it. we certainly felt we were on the right side of history. now, i'm running as an independent for the united states senate. i'm an independent because, you know, i am frustrated with both sides, catering to their extremes. we've seen just recently a farm bill not getting done. we're seeing a border bill not getting done. you know, i think robin williams said it best when he said our elected officials should be wearing nascar style jackets with patches of their sponsors so we know how they'll vote.

my opponent has a lot of patches on her jacket. look at her voting record. it's right down the line. >> dan, you -- >> if you're watching this and you like what you're seeing, if you like what we're doing here in nebraska, go to osborneforsenate.com. my average donation is $35. we've raised over $4 million, and we haven't taken a dime of corporate number. we're being different. i don't want to be beholdened to a corporation. i want to be beholdened to the people of nebraska. that's it. >> no patches on your jacket. dan, you have said you will not be a member of either party in the u.s. senate. but would you caucus with either democrats or republicans? >> you know, that's a good question. thanks for asking that. you know, george norris was the last independent senator from nebraska. he helped create the non-partisan structure in nebraska today. he did not caucus with anybody

his last term, so there is some precedent set. you know, i don't think the two-party system is working for me, my family, my friends or their family, and i certainly plan to not caucus with either party. >> you know, dan, everywhere i go, i hear people complaining. most people complaining about the two parties. they don't represent them. yet, any time anybody talks about running as an independent, they're told by all the political powers that be, well, that's a great idea, sonny, but you're never going to get anywhere with that. it's impossible to do. i'm sure you heard those complaints. tell me, why has it worked for you? why could it work for other people out there that are watching right now who are sick and tired >> yeah, you know, i do feel

like we're in a two-party doom loop right now, and imagine if you will for a second, the ramifications on american politics, if nebraska elects an independent mechanic to the united states senate. the ramifications could be amazing. it would tell people that first of all, you don't have to be a cryptocurrency billionaire to run for office. so teachers and nurses and plumbers and carpenters, people who stare at a computer screen for a living, farmers. i don't want to leave anybody out, but they can also realize they can run for higher office. the way the framers of the constitution intended it, right? you come from our farms, come from your factories, do a term or two and then go back. that's the way it was designed, and that's the way i think -- that's one of the main reasons i'm doing this is to show it can be done, and also be beholden only to the people that elect

me. >> you know, dan osborn, deb fisher was not on anybody's list of vulnerable republican senators in this campaign, and he is the now. you talk about the appeal that you've made, but talk about why has this cut against her. she was considered a safely -- headed towards a safe re-election. she hasn't been involved in a scandal. she's not at odds with the party, and like you said, nebraska -- i don't think nebraska's voted for a democrat for president since '64 -- since 1964. is there something about deb fisher's record that has made her vulnerable in a way that some of these other republican senators in more competitive states are not? >> well, i think what it really boils down to is the fact that i've done over 140 publicly advertised events throughout the state of nebraska. i've traveled the state three

times over. hopefully i'll get around one more time in the next 33 days. senator fischer hasn't had a publicly advertised town hall since 2017. she just really doesn't get out there and talk to people. i think people are seeing that, but again, you know, her record, she went negative right out of the gate. attack ads against me once the first independent poll came out showing us within the margin of error. i had over 12,000 signatures in all 93 counties to get myself on the ballot which was a huge undertaking, and that prompted here to go negative, and so, you know, you would think as the two-term incumbent senator, you would -- you would be touting your accomplishments instead of going negative against your opponent. so that just tells me that she doesn't really have any accomplishments in the united states senate. she just kind of does what she's told. she's an empty suit. she does what her donors tell her to do, and people are starting to take notice.

>> all right. independent candidate for the u.s. senate in nebraska, dan osborn. extraordinary story. thank you so much for being with us today, and good luck. >> thanks for having me. >> all right. still ahead on "morning joe," we're going to be joined by a top member of joe biden's economic team who played an instrumental role in resolving the port worker strike. plus, we're going to have the latest from the middle east as israel continues its air strikes against hezbollah and lebanon. and an update on recovery efforts in the southeast following another storm-damaged shore by president biden. we'll be back in two minutes. bn we'll be back in two minutes p ha same game parlay. yaw! betmgm's got your back. get your welcome offer. and play with the sportsbook born in vegas. all these seats. really? get up to a $1500 new customer offer in bonus bets when you sign up now. betmgm. download and bet today.

hello? >> this is ron stallworth calling. >> who is calling? >> this is david duke. >> the klu klux klan? that david duke? >> since you asked, i hate blacks. i hate jews, mexicans, and

irish, italians, and chinese, but my mouth to god's ears, i really hate those black rats, and anyone else really that doesn't have pure, white arian blood running through their veins. >> i'm happy to be talking to a true, white american. >> that was a clip from spike lee's film "blackklansman." a colorado police department and his attempt to infiltrate the klu klux klan. it won the award for best adapted screenplay which was drawn from the real ron stallworth's memoir of the same title. now he's back with another incredible true story with his new book titled "the gangs of zion: a black cop's crusade in mormon country." ron stallworth joins us now, and the reverend al sharpton has the question. hi, ron. >> ron, the first book obviously

drew global attention and certainly focused on a lot of the things we had to deal with in the civil rights community. tell us what this new book, what is the objective that you're trying to bring out here, and is this a second step from the first book that got such wide acclaim? >> you know, rev, thanks for having me first of all, on the show. this book is a totally separate story. it relates my last 20 years of law enforcement in the utah department of public safety focused on the ever-present rising gang issue from l.a., the crips and bloods, and their crack trade. the underlying theme of this book is speak truth to power no matter what the consequences

because i had to go up against a couple of mayors of salt lake city, two police chiefs, the sheriff of salt lake county, the state senate majority leader, senator oren hatch, and the list goes on and on. >> so ron, take about -- there's a couple of really interesting features of this, one of which is the ways in which the money from the government, federal funds, were flowing into this situation and fueling gang violence and also the role of the mormon church that you were talking about a second ago. can you talk about both those? >> yeah. we have had -- i gave testimony in 1995 at a house hearing on the job corps program. utah has the fourth largest job corps in america located in plainfield, utah, and we found

out that the job corps was import crips and bloods into their program. the more students they got in, the more money they got from the federal government, and the private corporation that was running the job corps program was called mtc, management and training corporation. the multimillion dollar head of that corporation knew what he was doing, and when i gave testimony, he approached me afterwards and he said, why did you have to say that to the elected officials? i said, what do you mean? he said, why did you have to tell them about what was going on? i said, because it's the truth. he said, that's beside the point. why did you have to say it? i said, because it's the truth, and i'm not going to lie for you. they were more concerned with money than they were with anything else. they denied that crips and bloods were in their program. i was seeing my fellow gang officers that were seeing it on the streets of ogden and salt

lake city on weekends and they would get their passes. >> all right. ron, tell us a little bit -- when people think of cities that have struggled with gain problems, salt lake city does not leap to mind. tell us more though about what you found, that gang scene there. >> what we found was that no matter what your community's dynamics are, in this case, conservative, white, religious community. very, very religious. it had nothing to do with that. gangs were a social force that was impacting all aspects of american society back in the '90s, and to a certain extent still going on today. no matter what your religious persuasion, no matter what your ethnic background is, gangs were prevalent, and what i kept

running into was officials, mormon church officials and others who would tell me, we couldn't possibly have this problem in our community. we're white. we're conservative. we're mormon. gangs are a problem for blacks and hispanics. when i pointed out that some of our most notorious gang members were the polynesian kids who are mormon, they would kind of brush that off on the side. it was very racist. very racist. >> well t new book "the gangs of zion" is on sale now. "new york times" best-selling author, ron stallworth, thank you. and a third hour of "morning joe" starts right now. >> here's the pitch. swing on a fly ball to right field. pretty well hit. freeman back at the wall and he jumps. it's gone. he did it! he did it! pete alonso with the most memorable home run of his

career, pumps his fist as he rounds second. it's a three-run homer. he's given the mets a 3-2 lead. they all pour out of the dugout. alonso on his way to home plate. they're waiting for him. he hits the plate. he is first congratulated by nimmo, and dozens of mets waiting for him outside the dugout. pete alonso keeps this fairy tale season going with a fairy tale swing of his career. >> you know, that's just the way the new york mets do -- actually, that's not how the new york mets do it. the night before is how the new york mets do it where they and the jets usually collapse under pressure. last night, an extraordinary moment for pete alonso, a guy who has had a lot of ups and downs this year. really hasn't had a great year, a great moment. people were talking about him being traded the first half of the year. i don't think he's going to be leaving the mets any time soon.

so the miracle mets. i mean, jonathan lemire, you know, let's just say here, and i don't say this about every town. you. >> uh-uh. >> i love milwaukee. i love the people of milwaukee. that's a great city. it's a great town. i hate -- i hate for them, what they had to sit through last night. it was saturday for them. at the same time, the mets, i mean, the mets are kind of due, and so this was a nice turnaround, and the nicest part is the mets are still in it and the braves are out. there is no atlanta team to haunt them this playoff series. >> and now they get the philadelphia phillies though, their other rivalry battle for their territorial rights to new jersey, i think, and amazingly the mets and phillies have never -- >> never met in a postseason. incredible. >> never does. >> they played, like, 1,400 games against each other lifetime. >> i don't know.

>> i don't know who this is, but he writes this about the upcoming series. i fear america as a nation is genuinely not prepared for the mets/phillies division series. south jersey will be a war zone. our interstate wawa system is at risk of collapse. our strategic hoagy and tanning oil reserves will be severely stressed. mora, we may never know peace again. >> you know, it's, like, don't we have enough anxiety with this election? >> cats and dogs sleeping together. >> i mean, seriously. >> i-95. >> pete alonso, a mets star for years, but you're right. he never really had a signature moment outside of the home run derbies and he's a free agent after the season. last night he did. this was a dramatic home run. the mets were down 2-0. their bats seemed lifeless. they raied yet again. their magic continues. i do feel bad for the brewers.

we defended milwaukee this year when donald trump started slagging it, but it's heartbreak for them. that's a good team going home, and we now have a really great final eight of the baseball postseason. we've got mets/phillies. >> no astros, division rivals. and the yankees against the kansas city royal. >> and you defined america's team as -- >> whoever plays the yankees. >> exactly. we're going to be calling the white house later on today to be worried in this series about the strategic tanning oil reserves. they will be severely stressed. >> we will have the director of counsel on later. we'll put that on. >> very busy week for them. they averted a strike which really was pretty remarkable. i'll be asking more about that in a little bit. i want to make sure t.j. is all right. t.j., you have been a director for a very long time. you've always worn mets caps and

paraphernalia. last night, t.j., that was your one moment in time. >> one moment. they're amazing. we have been waiting a long time for this, and it's exciting. >> okay. >> he seems out of his mind. >> he really is. well -- >> he spent a lot of energy last night. he's drained from it after that. >> we also have with us pulitzer prize-winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" and washington nationals fan who will not be along with the boston red sox in the next round of playoffs, eugene robinson. eugene, i want to get to -- get to your column in a little bit, but first i want to show you this. bruce springsteen, he announces endorsement of kamala harris and tim walz in a video that was posted on instagram yesterday. it really was -- it really was perfect, and i'm just talking about the words delivered, the location, how he was dressed. i mean, it looked like spielberg

put this together. perfect on every front, and it's actually -- it's a pretty good tip for anybody running for politics in the future in the age of instagram, the age of tiktok, the age of, well, insane madness. here's bruce springsteen sounding very sane. >> hi. i'm bruce springsteen. friends, fans, and the press have asked me who i'm supporting in this most important of elections, and with full knowledge that my opinion is no more or less important than those of any of my fellow citizens, here is my answer. i'm supporting kamala harris for president and tim walz for vice president, and opposing donald trump and jd vance. here's why. we are surely becoming upon one of the most consequential elections in our nation's history. perhaps not since the civil war has this great country felt as

politically, spiritually, and emotionally divided as it does than at this moment. it doesn't have to be this way. the common values, the shared stories that make us a great and united nation, are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again. now that will take time, hard work, intelligence, faith, and women and men with the national good guiding their hearts. america's the most powerful nation on earth, not just because of our overwhelming military strength or economic power, but because of what she stands for, what she means, what she believes in. freedom, social justice, equal opportunity, the right to be and love who you want. these are the things that make america great. donald trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime.

his disdain for the sanctity of our constitution, the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law, and the sanctity of the peaceful transfer of power should disqualify him from the office of president ever again. he doesn't understand the meaning of this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply american. on the other hand, kamala harris and tim walz are committed to a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view, or sexual identity, and they want to grow our economy in a way that benefit all, not just the few like me on top. that's the vision of america i have been consistently writing about for 55 years. now everybody sees things different, and i respect your choice as a fellow citizen, but like you, i've only got one vote. it's one of the most precious

possessions that i have. that's why come november 5th, i'll be casting my vote for kamala harris and tim walz. >> you know, gene, there are so many things that were done right there stylistically, but the words. it doesn't -- he talks about how we're more divided now than any time since the civil war. he says, it doesn't have to be this way. the common values, the shared stories that make us great, and a united nation are, you know, a united nation, are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again, and then he says of donald trump, he doesn't understand the meaning of this country, its history, and what makes america great, and then at the end, i love how he says to his fans and anybody else watching, hey. listen.

just one guy's opinion. i know people think differently, but this is the most precious thing i have, my vote, and that's why i'm telling you it's so important not only to vote for kamala harris, but to beat donald trump. what are your thoughts? >> well, look. he really does have a way with words, doesn't he? he has for a while. i just saw bruce and the east street band perform here in washington a few weeks ago. my friend stevie vanzant, and in terrific tomorrow. it was such a cross section. it is a display of americana up there on the stage that speaks to so many people through the music and especially through the lyrics that are just piercing. he's just -- he's amazing, and i thought that was a great endorsement.

it really was. it was -- it was pure bruce springsteen, and i hope people watch it. >> yeah, you know, donny, with mika off the show this morning, i can say what you are. you are an advertising and branding legend. she wouldn't, like, tell me to be quiet and stop making your head bigger than it is, but let's just, t.j. roll this, and while donny talks so we can look at the visuals of it. talk us through that, donny. why does that, the second it hits the screen, why does that appeal to americans so much? >> number one, it's bruce springsteen, but number two, that is a seat that pretty much anybody in this country can relate to sitting in. that is at a diner. we all know that diner, and he's wearing the flannel shirt, and there's something about springsteen that transcends every other celebrity. >> that flannel you're talking about the consistency, it works

because it's consistency with who we know he is. >> the whole thing is authentic. the whole thing is, and you know i've said many times, step away from celebrities. bruce is in a different place than everybody else. he is not red. he is not blue. he is america. he is red, white, and blue, and there is a trust factor there, and there's an honesty there, and there's an authenticity there, and he's the boss, and i think this is beautifully done. it's well crafted. it's well written, but joe, you said it best. it's authentic, and that's what makes it work. >> there's also a challenge in there which is, this is what i have been writing about in my songs for 50 years, and it's almost his way of saying, okay. you say you love my songs. you say you love my lyrics. you say, like, you're a superfan of mine. okay, well, what you have been singing to, the songs that you have been singing to are exactly

what i'm talking about now over these 2 1/2 minutes. >> well, i'm really glad you brought that up because first of all, i wish my father was here who was also a lifelong advertising executive. >> i started out there. >> you guys could have quite a conversation. >> he's the guy that fired you. >> i was about to say that. >> tell you to stop wearing baby gap t-shirts to work. >> he wanted to own his own company, and he has a long history in the business, but i love watching campaign spots with him because he has such a similar take, and i think what he would say too, is the other reason it works is that it respects the audience. it's not talking down to the viewer. it's saying, you're one of me. you're one of us. i'm here at this table with you. sit at my table and i'm going to treat you like an adult, and i would say, please do the right thing. it's up to you, but here's why i believe so strongly in this. come sit with me, and it's

powerful. it's also really important because this is a moment where the campaign desperately needs more male surrogates. it needs more trusted -- >> that's a great point -- >> male surrogates to get this message out, and i think that's why walz has gotten so under donald trump's skin because he's an example of a man who can be strong without diminishing others and without controlling others, and so the more examples we see of that, and legends like bruce springsteen are directly in that tradition, the better not just for kamala harris, but for the country. i mean, ultimately, this is about between liz cheney and bruce springsteen saying, you know, this is america. those guys over there who want to take away your rights and destroy this country for themselves and their pals, that's not america. >> nope. >> this is us. >> you also bring up a great point about where the harris campaign is right now, and we knew this was going to be the case beforehand.

i think we talked about it around the table that when you substitute joe biden for kamala harris, you're substituting the candidate that overperforms for democrats among older, white guys in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania, but underperforms among people of color and younger voters. that's been switched since kamala harris has come on board, and now it is the older white guys in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania that the harris campaign needs to pick up along with hispanics. she needs to gain that, and this is a message to those guys, and again, in the diner as donny said, that every one of those guys and all of us understand that is an important message to those voters. >> and also, i think a lot of them are primed already to go into that voting booth and say, i cannot do four more years of donald trump. >> right.

>> i love my wife. i love my daughter. i love my country. i don't really believe in this, but they do need that permission structure. i have been talking to some of these voters and a lot of them feel like they are alone in this. well, what does it even matter if i vote? all the guys i know might be voting for trump. >> right. >> but this says, no. come on in. the water's fine. >> it is so important. you are so right because right now, that is the concern. the guys that may have voted for trump in '16, barely were able to vote for him in '20, and they've said it to me. they hate the fact that they're going to have to vote for this guy 2024. they don't feel right now -- some of them don't feel like they can vote for a democrat, let alone kamala harris, and this is -- that's why bruce springsteen here, not that one rock star is going to make a difference, but it certainly is

the kind of phrase of the campaign, it's the permission structure. hey, wait a second. i've listened to this guy for 50 years. i know him. he's a good guy, and he shares my values, and if he says she's okay, yeah. maybe when they walk into the booth, they go, you know, okay. let's do it. but right now, jonathan, to underline this fact that kamala harris needs help in this area, you had more, i thought, very surprising news yesterday, and not good news for the harris campaign, that the firefighters who were joe biden's most strident supporters, decided they weren't going to get involved in the presidential race. it could have been worse. it could have been what the team teamsters did in the past and endorsed a republican. >> the firefighters endorsed joe biden in april of 2019, in the

very early days of his campaign. they were immediately on board for him. yesterday they announced they're not going to endorse at all. they opted not to back at all, and that is reflective of what is becoming a growing concern among democrats and the harris campaign that she is indeed struggling with male voters, and often white male voters and that there needs to be more outreach to those groups. these are groups that over the last few years have started to break towards trump, these non-college educated voters and it's a growing sign of concern. >> by the way, we showed the tim walz and jd vance numbers after the debate, and showed how it was pretty much a draw, even though walz's approval ratings went up far more, but you look at the cross tabs of white, male voters without a college degree. jd vance won overwhelmingly. if jd vance is running around

like a lot of america may be looking at the cat memes, when jd vance goes to rural areas in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania, he's getting -- he's getting warm welcomes, and he's -- he messages much better there than tim walz does. >> he does, and a trump campaign adviser pointed to me yesterday about the firefighters union. jd vance went there and made a pitch. he actually got booed by a lot of people in the room, but afterwards, people gave him credit for showing up. he delivered the message, showed some toughness. he was there, and this is a concern for the democrats. to mara's point, they're looking for surrogates. mark cuban is out there defending the biden-harris economic policy and appearing on podcasts that young male voters might listen to, voters who won't hear the harris message otherwise. springsteen might help too, but these voters who might be for biden, but now looking at the harris-trump choice might be leaning trump.

>> you've seen this throughout the campaign. that was true when biden was the nominee -- presumptive nominee, and it's been true with kamala harris and not surprisingly, this massive gender gap, and look. democrats are dominating with women voters, almost as much -- in some cases more as republicans are dominating with the male vote, but as you get closer to the finish line here and look up and see how close these races are, the democratic side, the harris campaign looks at that gender gap and says, we may have maxed out on women. i mean, at the highest level, you've got to claim the highest level of female voters, if these trend lines holds of candidates in history. how much more can you get? >> she's doing well right now. if you look at the polls other than the vienna poll, if you look at the polls, she's trending in the right direction. poll after poll after poll. the question is though, for them, do you want -- do you want votes to be counted for five

days after the election or do you want to win on election night? >> unfortunately in pennsylvania they're going to be counting a couple of days after the election no matter what. >> and arizona and nevada, but if they want this thing over on election night, they are going to have to do better with older, white men and with hispanics. . those are the who areas they need to close ranks on. >> but geographic spin on that would be to say that there's a consistent trend in the polling which is that we are -- in so many ways, back to a better version of the same structural race that we have when joe biden was at the top of the ticket which was to say the blue wall states are, you know, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin continues to be the path of least resistance along with nebraska. if you add nebraska too in there or harris -- >> the interesting thing that harris is doing in poll after poll, very well in wisconsin, which even has some people in the harris campaign going, hm,

because it is older, and it is whiter, but also -- also obviously, maybe more solid. more moderate. >> she's doing incredibly well with white voters who are college educated, and so when you think about it, that path -- that blue wall path is the way -- again, the path to least resistance. the easiest way to get to 270 for her, and she has been underperforming in georgia. i mean, they're all close. these are all within margin of error. >> all within margin of error. >> but the reality is if you look -- largely because of that hispanic vote, joe, and these more diverse states, and arizona where she's been weaker, they keep looking to the industrial midwest states and if you are going to get out of that zone where you're consistently up, but you're only up by a point and a half or two points, the only way to do that is to try to get a little bit larger share of the white male vote. >> i mean, if the hispanic vote 60/40, it's going to be a close

race. if it's 65/35, harris is good, and she needs to pick up five, six, seven points, a month to go, and it will probably happen. we shall see, but what we'll come around to next, we just did the boss. next, the liz cheney in wisconsin, quite an event. we'll show it to you when "morning joe" returns. oe" retur.

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ask your gastroenterologist how to take control of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ control is everything to me ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. republicans were very worked up about joe biden and how old he was, and his energy level, his ability to lead, but even though trump is only three years younger than joe biden, they don't seem too worried about that anymore. >> biden can't walk. he can barely speak. he can read off a teleprompter. >> shifting production to thighland. we like to listen to a.m. radio. >> he's old. he's really old. >> they used to call it tivo. now they have tivo. >> president biden is so

divorced from reality. >> chuck schumer has become a palestinian. >> he's really lost touch with all reality. >> i'm better looking person than kamala. >> there comes a time when you take the keys away from grandpa. >> they're eating the dogs. >> it gets worse. >> they're eating the cats. >> we can give you examples. >> ding ding ding ding ding ding. maga. maga maga. >> the man is nonfunctional. >> i'm joe biden, and they made me withdraw. that's a bunch of banana oil. [ cheers and applause ] >> wow. >> that was so well done. >> he's got so much to work with. >> can you imagine landing from mars and just seeing that video and going, that's the guy -- that's the guy that's running

for president that 80 million people are going to vote for? >> can you imagine being asleep like rip van winkle and waking up and seeing that this is now the reality and that this guy is still being competitive in a race? we forget how -- how quickly things have changed. i mean, gene, we forget -- my god. if any politician had been asked about their policy for taking care of rising crime rates which we don't have right now -- >> yeah. >> -- and the answer was a day of violence, we're going to let the cops -- we're going to let everybody else engage in a day of violence -- terrible violence, and then we're -- we're going to have bloody deportations. his words. these sort of things, that politician where he or she are

running for president, for senator, for governor, for congressman, for tax collector, for city councilman, for city councilwoman, they would be out of politics forever. now it doesn't even make the front page of our newspapers. >> no. it's incredible. it's incredible. this man whipped up a crowd on the ellipse, spent them up to the capitol to sack the capitol, to beat police officers with the american flag, to defecate in the hall of congress, to threaten the lives of members of congress, and his own vice president in order to try to steal an election, to overturn the result of a free and fair election, and that guy is still a viable presidential candidate. what is wrong with us? what is wrong here? there's something that is

utterly impossible, and yet here we are, and, you know, jack smith in that filing this week reminded us that as mike pence's life was in danger at the capitol, he said so what? donald trump sat there watching it on television, on fox news, and said so what? just stunning. absolutely stunning. if that's not disqualifying, what is? coming up, dock workers have ended a three-day strike. we'll be talking about the president's role in helping secure the deal when "morning joe" comes right back. en "morni joe" comes right back. protect against rsv... with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain,

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♪♪ so let's talk briefly about

what happened yesterday because joe biden, a man that many newspapers and many republicans said they completely lost his faculties. we saw him do some pretty extraordinary things to get evan out of russia. i almost said the soviet union, but same thing. he was nimble in a way that many presidents were not able to be, and yesterday we were reporting on the new that is a union leader who is a trump supporter said, we're going to shut down the ports and we're going to basically wreck this economy, and here we wake up this morning to find out that joe biden once again got his people involved, and averted a strike that most people believed would wreck the economy and go through the end of the year. what happened? >> yeah. this has been a -- they had been on strike for a couple of days, and there was going to be significant economic ramifications here had it lasted much longer. had this strike extended a week

or more, supply chain issues, economic issues which could be bad for all issues and bad for the candidacy of vice president harris. the trump team was already pointing to and saying, you're the party in power. you're the one to be blamed if the economy slows down here. the worst kind of october surprise for democrats. that strike has now been avoided because in large part to the quiet behind-the-scenes work of this white house, president biden still president, and deployed whether it's people, his senior team, working the phones for days and days with both the business leaders and the unions trying to get them to a place where they could get to a deal. yesterday, a tentative agreement. there are some issues to be worked out, but even that will resume in january after the election. so this is good news for the american economy, first and foremost. the president continues to support workers. he made that clear yesterday, and it takes this issue off the table for the structure of the election. >> and, you know, big political news yesterday as we referenced former republican congresswoman

liz cheney campaigned for vice president kamala harris yesterday. also something you would never believe if you just awakened from 2015. you would have said, what? then again, in 2014, donald trump contributed money to kamala harris' campaign. so yeah. anyway, yesterday liz cheney and kamala harris were at the birthplace of the republican party. take a look. >> i volunteered on my first presidential campaign. i already told you how old i am. so i'll tell you, in 1976 when i was 10 years old, and i was sealing envelopes for president ford's re-election campaign, i cast my first vote ever in 1984 for ronald reagan. i served in the state department in both bush administrations, and i served in the united states house of representatives for three terms including as the

third highest ranking republican in house leadership. [ applause ] so -- in other words, i was a republican even before donald trump started spray tanning. history teaches us again and again that democracies can fall. they fall to populists. they fall to strongmen. strongmen who beguile their fellow citizens with conspiracy theories and false emergencies. as my friend, the late charles krauthammer taught us, the lessen of our history is that the task of merely maintaining strong and sturdy the structures of our constitutional order is unending. it is the continuing and ceaseless work of every generation, and that responsibility now falls on all of us in this election.

we have a shared commitment, a shared commitment as americans to ensuring that future generations live in a nation where power is transferred peacefully, where our leaders are men and women of good faith, and where our public servants set aside partisan battles to do what's right for this country. so today i ask all of you here, and everyone listening across this great country to join us. i ask you to meet this moment. i ask you to stand in truth, to reject the depraved cruelty of donald trump, and i ask you instead to help us elect kamala harris for president. >> it's remarkable. absolutely remarkable. i ask you to meet this moment.

it's so funny you'll have -- i'm sure, people on twitter. you'll have others saying, oh. she's a rhino. no, she's not. she had a 95% acu rating, a conservative rating when she was in the house. as was i which means we were so conservative that usually we would make people uncomfortable at dinner parties if they weren't all republicans. this is not the mushy middle. dick cheney, former republican vice president, not the mushy middle, right? you can't call dick cheney a rhino either. vice president mike pence also a vice president, not voting for donald trump. either, alberto gonzalez. the man loathed by many on the left. that's what all of these people share. they were loathed at one point by people on the left, by democrats for being too

conservative. they now say donald trump, not fit to be president of the united states. donald trump's own secretaries of defense say donald trump, not fit to be president of the united states. donald trump's own secretary of states saying donald trump, not fit to be president of the united states. donald trump's own national security advisers, multiple national security advisers, saying donald trump not fit to be president of the united states. hundreds of republican administration officials, in bush 43's administration, in bush 41's, in ronald reagan's administration. kim adelman, all of them saying donald trump is not fit to be president of the united states. coming up, unemployment is near a 50-year low. we're going to be talking about that with cnbc's andrew ross

sorkin as the labor department unveils a new jobs report. "morning joe" is back in a minute. w jobs report. "morning joe" is back in a minute

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former president donald trump touted his economic plan to the campaign rally in michigan yesterday saying the country would make, quote, so much money if he were re-elected. in reality, the former president's economic plan would add trillions to the national debt. i mean, just absolutely would be devastating. he already set all records for blowing a hole in the deficit. just extraordinary. during his four years, he added more to the national debt than any president -- well, actually caught the aggregate. combination of all 44 presidents that came before him, after promising to balance the budget and pay down the debt, and now it's going to get worse. for a closer look at the

national debt and the economic plans from both trump and harris, let's bring in former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. hey, steve. so unfortunately during this century as we've discussed, neither party has cared about the national debt. when i left congress in 2001, we had a $155 billion surplus. now it's $35 trillion. any hope of that reversing from either of these two candidates' programs? >> reversing would be too strong a word, but one is certainly preferable to the other. let's put this in context and show the mess we're in, and a little bit of how we kind of got here. if we go back to 2007, i.e., before the financial crisis, the congressional budget office actually thought our debt to gdp ratio, which is how we measure

the sustainability of our debt, we thought it would be going down. 40%. thought it would be going down to around 20%. that seems quaint now. then you have the financial crisis and since the financial crisis, every year, the congressional budget office has projected that the debt would be higher than it thought the previous year, and so now we're all the way up here where on the present course and speed, the cbo says we could reach 120%, which would be the any recent history, but also in all of our history including world war ii when we had to take on a lot of debt for very, very important reasons. so this is what's happened. how has it happened? a little bit of what you just said, joe. just as a reminder, when bill clinton left office, we had a surplus. it lasted for the first year of bush 43, and then as you mentioned earlier, taxes, the iraq war. he sent the deficit up. it came down a little bit, but then you had the financial crisis and then we had to do

that. you got to give obama credit. he worked the deficit all the way down to here, but then as you also said, under trump, even before covid, the deficit was going up as a ratio to gdp and now it's come down a bit under biden. so that's where we are, and that's what we're looking at as we go into this campaign. coming up, an inside account of the trump administration's family separation policy at the southern border. nbc's jacob soboroff joins us with a new documentary. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." that's straight ahead on "morning joe." good thing you don't need to fingerstick. how's all that food affect your glucose? oh, the answers on your phone. what if you're heading low at night? [phone beeps] wow, it can alert you?! and you can even track your goals. manage your diabetes with confidence with dexcom g7. the most accurate cgm. ♪♪ learn more at dexcom.com (man) look at this silly little sailboat... ♪♪ these men of means with their silver spoons, eating up the financial favors of the 1%.

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last friday the inaugural democracy hero awards honored over two dozen activists, organizers, advocates who are working to strengthen democracy and communities across the country. presented by i am a voter organization in partnership with the rockefeller celebration, head count and "morning joe," the event highlighted a range of change-makers from those providing civil discourse to uplifting immigrant voices to

empowering young people and marginalized communities. take a look. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> every advancement in our life happened because people like our honorees took the brave, bold step to advocate for better for all. >> they are passionate advocates, activists and organizers. >> our future leaders, innovators and changemakers are right here, y'all. they're right here. >> and they need to know their voice matters. >> i think this event is just almost a reminder that i'm on the right path in what i'm doing and the impact that it's making. it's the power of people. >> it means that our voices are

finally being heard. what i hope is that people of all ages are inspired to be a part of the process. >> it's an amazing honor to be recognized for the work that i'm doing to mobilize and educate hbcu students. it's an opportunity to make their voices heard every year, not just in a presidential election society. >> the work is never over. >> we are the future elected officials that are going to be making decisions today. you do not have to wait for permission from anyone to make a difference. >> every single one of us represents a piece of the puzzle. >> don't be scared. a lot of people get manipulated into not voting. once you do your research, make the vote that resonates with you. >> be educated about what's on your ballot. >> if i say one thing to new voters this year, study the ballot, look who's on the ballot and look at the initiatives and

agenda you want to support. i'm voting for my family. i'm voting for generations to come. i'm voting for my school. i'm voting for my community. >> 99% of my vote is for my children. i vote for their future. i want them to feel empowered. >> when you feel empowered, you become a leader in your community. >> i vote for my parents and kids and undocumented immigrants. >> a lot of people i speak to really feel disenfranchised. there are so many cases of down-ballot races that have been so close by a margin. your voice really does matter. >> you ever never be duplicated or recycled. your needs are different from every other american, which is why they need to hear what you have to say. >> they need to participate so the issues they care about could rise to the top. >> i wish i could vote. >> why? >> because it's just so

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the news of trump's alleged crimes are being called an october surprise. while most americans are like, um, we're not that surprised. according to the filing, trump told his staff that he was going to declare victory regardless of the results. vladimir putin heard him and was like, my little man is growing up. [ laughter ] >> today when asked about trump's 2020 election interference, jd vance said, i'm focused on the future election interference. [ laughter ] >> jimmy fallon, our thanks for that little january 6th humor. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe" on this friday morning. let's get right to the breaking economic news. the september jobs report was released moments ago, and it shows that the u.s. economy

added 254,000 jobs in september, coming in much higher than expected. let's bring in stephanie ruhle, molly jong-fast and lauren leader and professor of history at tulane university walter isaacson. a great group here to start us off. steph, your reaction to this jobs report, also revisions up from the previous month, a blockbuster? >> it's an awesome number. there's no way you can disagree with it being a great number. and the fact we've seen previous. months revised upwards. this is a great number all around. you cannot argue that. this is coming after we just had

this rate cut. the number we want to think about in the next month or two, what this number doesn't account for is hurricane helene. when we normally see natural disasters, we see them in cities that can normally rebuild quickly. this thing is so fast and has gone to so many rural areas, we don't know how many people will be displaced for so long. this is an awesome number, but this is something i'm thinking about. >> let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. andrew, good morning. let's get your reaction to this jobs number and what it tells you about the state of theist economy. >> i think it's a goldilocks number. i think it says two things. one is, all the numbers -- look, one of the conundrums is we look back at these months and the numbers therefore have been work. some of the reports over the summer seemed like we were going

in the wrong direction. it appears as we revise these numbers that things are actually better. it's impossible to say that the federal reserve and depending on how you want to look at the politics of it this administration are sticking the, quote, landing. that's what this has been all about and whether you can bring inflation down and deal with unemployment statement. i think anybody looking at in market from an employment perspective, looking at the inflation picture, can't look at this and say things are getting better. having said this, it's still a tale of two cities, two worlds, if you will. we always look at medium numbers. the top half and the bottom half, there's still a question on the bottom half that i don't think is in question in terms of there is still challenges there. you can't look at this in almost any other way. what this does do is put some pressure on the federal reserve perhaps not to cut as much as

we've been talking about. we've been talking about whether or not they were going to cut another 25 basis points twice the rest of the year. depending on how these numbers come back, maybe they only cut once. >> a lot of green on the futures board there. walter, your thoughts about what these numbers mean for the federal reserve and also for this campaign. >> it's amazing how they've been able to nail the landing, as andrew just said. you've had people on the show who said this was going to be impossible. so this is really good. you're also seeing the port strike being resolved. that could have caused real problems. the fly that may be in the ointment is oil prices. right now with the uncertainty of what is going to happen with israel and retaliation against iran, you see oil prices going from about $70 up to $74, $75. nothing correlates to presidential popularity better than the price of gas at the

pump. >> it's still pretty low. it's like $3.50 in a lot of places. listen, credit to the biden administration. they really should take a bigger victory lap on this. they felt they had under-invested after the crash in 2008. they didn't want it to take a decade recover, and they went big. this is the result. there's nowhere else in the world that has this kind of low unemployment. it's so frustrating, i think, for the administration that's gotten so little credit, because those inflation numbers are what people see investigation the employment numbers. >> i think they need to talk about this a little bit more. can i just give an example? you know i like to talk about my son working at a deli. we talk about minimum wage jobs. we want them to have dignity. we realize more and more people are working those kind of jobs. we have to realize if we are paying people who work at a

pizzaria or deli $20 an hour, because that's what they deserve to be paid, you're not going to get a dollar menu anymore, you're not going to get a pizza that costs less than $20. when my son makes $20 an hour making sandwiches and my republican mother has to roll in to pick him up for work and says, oh my god, sandwiches are $22, inflation is a disaster. you have to connect the two. if we're going to rise wages, it's not just about corporations and price gouging. it happens to little businesses too. the good thing is we've seen wages go up. we see strong labor participation numbers, but we just have to connect the two. >> that was a terrific impersonation. no idea where she's from. walter just mentioned a significant development we want to get back to right now, which

is 45,000 dock workers are back on the job this morning after agreeing with a tentative deal with the u.s. maritime alliance to end a three-day strike. the agreement was reached yesterday with the help of joe biden and some of his top advisors who sources say spent weeks to keep both sides at the negotiating people. talk to us a little bit about the effort this white house has been conducting behind the scenes. but also, why is it so important that this strike was resolved and resolved so quickly? what would the ramifications on the economy have been. >> look, president biden has been absolutely laser focused on making sure that this strike gets resolved and the ports get reopened. dockworkers are back at work as quickly as possible on the basis of supporting the collective bargaining process.

and that is what he achieved. he really pressed us to make sure that we were bringing both sides together. these parties have not spoken in months . they were deadlocked. so what we tried to do is help them find a basis for going back to the bargaining table, going back to work, extending the contract on the basis of a very strong wage offer and just showing that collective bargaining process can really work. i will say that these dockworkers, they made huge sacrifices during the pandemic. they went to work every day to keep our supply chains moving at great risk to themselves. their last contract they were only gaining $1 a year. some years they didn't actually see a gain at all. meanwhile, we did see this industry become quite profitable

in the last few years. this was in part just about making sure that workers get a fair share and this is a great basis on which they can get back to work while they continue to bargain. >> you mention the supply chains, these dockworkers being a significant piece of them. how has the u.s. strengthened the supply chain after all the problems we saw a few years ago? >> so we have been hard at work since day one of this administration, as you know, under the president and the vice president's leadership. bipartisan infrastructure law provides a lot of vital funds to be investing in our ports. so those investments are going to make a real difference. and we also have now a supply chain council across the government. we've been meeting every day for several weeks now. we've been reaching out to farmers who export products, to retailers who are bringing in food imports to make sure that we would quickly have the

ability for supply chains to come back when the strike ended. in fact, we haven't seen any impacts at all on consumers. and we're excited also that both the carriers, the workers, the port operators, you know, they really stepped up to their patriotic duty to make sure we can get supplies to those areas that have been devastated by hurricane helene. >> your reaction to the breaking news a few moments ago, the jobs report coming in higher than expectations? >> yeah. it's a great morning for american workers and american consumers. not only did we see the dockworkers going back to work on the basis of a good wage offer, but we saw today over 250,000 jobs created in the month of september. that brings us to 16 million during this administration. and unemployment ticked back

down to 4.1%. wages growing faster than prices, that means real purchasing power gains for americans. don't forget we just saw inflation coming in at 2.2%, back down to pre-pandemic levels. so we're really seeing a good jobs market, good growth with inflation back down. and that's good for american consumers, workers and the middle class. >> at their jobs right now, the white house grounds crew, which we can hear working throughout this interview. thank you so much, director of the national white house economic council lael brainard. if this strike had continued, not only would there have been an economic impact certainly, but potentially a political one. i know some in the trump campaign were already gearing up their attacks that if this strike lasted and the economy started to slow, they were going

to put that right at the feet of the current administration, which includes vice president harris. >> that's why you have to give this administration and therefore vice president harris credit for getting these talks to resolve themselves as quickly as they have. we talked about it earlier. each day would have been worth about $5 billion. then you really -- beyond the actual dollar numbers, the supply chain issues. the idea there were going to be products that americans were not going to have access to or going to be waiting for and things like that in a really meaningful way. there's still going to be a little bit of that, by the way. i don't think you're really going to see it for another week or two, but you may for a couple of days. but the idea this is resolved now, i think in many ways is a game changer, not just from an economic perspective but a psychological protect. you would have gone on amazon or shown up at walmart and you wouldn't have been able to get things you wanted, and people

would have pointed fingers at the various political sides. i think given vice president harris' propensity toward labor and trying to help labor, the idea she was able to work with labor to get a deal done, i think actually goes quite far. i actually heard from some republicans this morning giving them credit, which is something you don't hear that often. >> no, you most certainly do not. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, andrew, thank you as always. there are more than 200 people confirmed dead from hurricane helene across six states, making helene the deadliest storm to hit the u.s. mainland since hurricane katrina in 2005. sam brock has the latest. >> reporter: across the south this morning, the raging floodwaters may have faded, but the fallout from historic levels of rain and violent winds have left communities from georgia to north carolina virtually unlivable. >> we have got to rebuild

everything. >> reporter: north carolina now reporting at least 109 deaths. fema's administrator speaking to nbc's lester holt, says there are still areas that are out of reach. >> what's the order of priority right now? >> it is still life safety. there's a lot of search and rescue teams here on the ground. >> reporter: this fire chief telling us replacing the water pipes and fixing the roads above them will require plenty of time. >> i was born and raised here. i don't think there's a word to describe it. i don't know how long this is going to take. >> reporter: power is still a problem too. the carolinas and georgia have some 700,000 customers in the dark as the national weather service released this stunning image from space a day after helene made landfall, a big swath of the region just black. >> this storm is easily the most destructive i've seen. >> reporter: this drone company

helps governments and companies track terrain. he gave us a firsthand look at the search for the missing in burnsville, north carolina. it looks like half the road has just been cut off, and it's just slid into the river. >> that's mostly the problem, is not only can public safety get to individuals, individuals can't even get out. >> reporter: on thursday, president biden continued to survey the damage, promising states will have the resources they need as heartbreak abounds. >> with every single wave, it's trying to wash away a memory. >> reporter: and the race that continues to find loved ones unaccounted for. donald trump was in michigan yesterday, where he continued to spread lies about the biden administration's response to the hurricane while bragging about how he handled disasters when he was president. after falsely claiming earlier in the week that president biden was ignoring calls from

georgia's republican governor, trump told his supporters the white house has no money to spend on disaster relief because it's all being spent on illegal immigrants. >> we had the best four years with hurricanes. we got -- we took care of people. now we have a horrific disaster in north carolina, georgia, south carolina, alabama, tennessee, florida and virginia. that's how big this hurricane was. and the harris/biden administration don't have any money. they spent all of their money. they have almost no money, because they spent it all on illegal migrants. they stole the fema money just like they stole it from a bank so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season. >> there is, of course, no evidence to support trump's claims. that's not stopping some on the right from spreading them, including elon musk. and in terms of his own record,

two former white house aides are telling politico that on at least three occasions when trump was president, he had to be convinced to approve disaster aid for states led by democrats. you are familiar with the aftermath of a major hurricane, hurricane katrina in 2005. there's fear things are going to get worse before they get better and fears about the death total. to politicize this, though not surprising, i suppose, from trump, but just flat-outlying. >> you know, i can remember even back to hurricane betsy, you know, lyndon johnson. people came in and it was never really politicized. now you're seeing anything that happens in our society get instantly politicized and connected to the hot-button issues like immigrants. okay. there's a hurricane. people have drowned. let's connect it to there's too much immigration. it gets spread on social media.

as you say, elon musk spreads that meme that okay, we have so many immigrants, we've spent the money so we can't do it on fema. it's a type of thing that isn't really what america is about. >> yeah. molly, sadly, it is what the republican party is about more and more these days. how do the democrats push back on this? i just saw a few moments ago fema has launched a fact-checking website to show the work they're doing and the money they're spending because of this storm. how does something like that break through? >> it's important to realize that donald trump is doing this on purpose. this is from the autocrat playbook, right? the idea is they are getting your stuff. you need to push back against immigrants because they are getting your stuff. again, this is because donald trump has an election and he wants to turn out these low-propensity voters, these ones and twos. he wants to say to them, you know, you have to come out, because i am defending -- you know, it's a very autocratic

kind of thing. i think that's what we're seeing. i think obviously it's not true. then, of course, with trump, there's always projection, is always part of it. that's what you're seeing with his response to the wildfires in california. there's a certain amount of projection happening. >> but i also think you're seeing voters, some undecided voters, especially the people i talk to an wall street, breathe somewhat of a sigh of relief. there was all this talk about kamala harris. i don't know what she's capable of, if she can get things done. moments ago, the strike involvement, watching the federal response to the hurricane. kamala harris left las vegas and went to washington. you see the president working on this. so this idea that like i don't really know her, i don't know what she can do, this isn't about what she's promising, this is what she's showing. walter, what is your take? you wrote the most extraordinary book on elon musk.

elon musk has gone more than all in on donald trump and even gone as far as pushing a lot of the false narratives that he's going to go to donald trump's rally in the next day or so. where do you think this comes from? >> i think he actually is fervently on a mission. you can totally disagree with him, but he's going to butler, pennsylvania, tomorrow to support donald trump. >> how is it not in his economic interest? destroying the value of x for one thing. >> i don't think it's helping tesla sales. >> but if trump gets reelected, he'll have a huge job in the admin. >> not an official job. >> do you think he's doing this because he wants a job in the trump administration? is that what you believe? >> no. i definitely don't think he wants a job in the trump administration. i think someone who has extraordinary power like elon musk does, wouldn't it be

incredible to have a bat phone into the white house to get whatever you want? the most important that's going to happen in the next five years is a.i. regulation, and elon musk has a huge interest in that. and wouldn't it be amazing to have a lot of control over a president during that time? >> right. and no regulation. trump hates regulation. >> i think molly is right that he has a resistance to regulation, whether it's the faa not allowing starship up on a regular basis or the different types of regulation that came with covid, which really turned him from being a supporter of obama, a supporter of hillary. so regulation is one of the hot-button issues for him. i do think, though, that he actually strongly believes we're an over-regulated, over

bureaucracy. everybody thought twitter would not exist afterwards. it still exists. so it is a complicated thing where he, you know, all throughout his workforce is always cutting and somehow remains standing at the end. he would love to do that to the federal bureaucracy. >> and a lot of americans in theory would agree. >> correct. >> as walter said, musk is going to donald trump's rally this weekend to the exact same site of that assassination attempt in butler, pennsylvania, that happened over the summer. stephanie ruhle, thank you so much. we'll be watching "the 11th hour" tonight on msnbc. everybody else stay put. israel continues to strike hezbollah facilities and target its new leader. we have a new report from richard engel. also, a new book tells the

stories of those impacted by the october 7th terrorist attack. the author joins us when "morning joe" comes right back. n "morning joe" comes right back unitedhealthcare knows you've got your whole life ahead of you. ♪♪ ♪♪ it's nice to know you're free to focus on what matters, with reliable medicare coverage from unitedhealthcare.

welcome back. we turn now to news from overseas. israel is signaling it could widen its ground offensive in lebanon as it continues to strike hezbollah targets in the southern part of that country. and that includes fresh air strikes in beirut overnight. nbc news correspondent richard engel has the latest from lebanon. >> reporter: no one in beirut had a quiet night. buildings shook across the city as israeli war planes carried out at least ten strikes on what an israeli official tells nbc news was a meeting of hezbollah leaders in an underground bunker, including the group's likely successor. witnesses describe the air strikes near the beirut airport as the biggest since israel

killed the secretary general hassan nasrallah a week ago. you can see how powerful this blast must have been just by how much debris there is. the israeli military says the goal is to create a buffer zone across the south, free of hezbollah. this building took a direct hit by what appears to have been an israeli air strike, completely destroying it. this morning the israeli military ordered more evacuations from southern lebanon, telling the people of more than 20 villages to immediately head north. weakened and under attack, hezbollah remains intact. i spoke to a hezbollah political leader. the world is now waiting for israel to respond with some sort of strike against iran. what is hezbollah looking at as it sees what could be coming soon? if the israelis want to retaliate on iran, the iranians will know how to handle it.

we in the resistance here do our duty, others do theirs, he said. the idf this morning released new footage of israeli troops in lebanon as a buildup is under way, a sign a wider israeli offensive may be coming. the israeli military's chief of staff said the mission is to destroy hezbollah's capability and prevent the group from operating in south and east lebanon and beirut. >> nbc's richard engel with that report. the escalating violence in the middle east comes ahead of monday's one-year anniversary of the deadly hamas terrorist attack on israel. last october 7th, an israeli journalist was in the middle of a fellowship at columbia university when hamas launched that attack, slaughtering nearly 1200 people and taking hundreds more hostage. within days, she boarded a plane back to israel and spent the

next six months talking to survivors, first responders and eyewitnesss. she has compiled those accounts in the new book, "10/7, 100 human stories." she joins us now. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> some lives ended that day in terrible fashion, others forever changed. tell us, first, what compelled you to do this? >> i started writing this book in the end of october, still very much overwhelmed with grief, with anger. i felt like i needed to do something for these victims. the only thing i could do is what i always did, which is to write. i've been a journalist for almost a decade. and i've always been focused on human stories, on the people on the margins of israeli society, the lgbtq community, asylum seekers, people that are suffering from domestic violence. time and again i've seen how the

people in power not only shape the policies that affect these people's lives, but also retell and mis-tell their stories. i came to understand if i want to represent my readers, the real political reality, i need to do it from the bottom up. since october 8th we've been flooded with information and disinformation and misinformation about israel and palestine, but again, it came to us from the top down. so this book is my attempt to recreate the story of 10/7 from the people who created the crisis and bring it back to the people who suffered from it, to go beyond the statistics, beyond the political agendas and give my readers a real ground-level view of the conflict and of 10/7 from the hearts and the homes of the regular people caught in the cross fire. >> lee, as we approach the

anniversary and obviously today, the second day of rosh hashanah, it does feel like the misinformation and the disinformation has so proliferated. what is the thing you want the world most to know about the survivors and the victims of 10/7? how does understanding their stories help us move forward in these seemingly intractable conflicts? >> we're living in this time of great political polarization. i'm a big believer in the power of empathy to build bridges of coexistence. i believe the human stories, the humanizing stories are the best way to build this. literature allows us to do that much better than our brief covering and the media does.

>> what did you learn writing this book? >> one of the things i understand first that 10/7 is not just part of israeli history, but it's part of jewish history. when the fence was broken on 10/7, it wasn't just the physical barrier. it was the dream of generations that came to israel believing that will be a place of safety for their children and grandchildren. and on that day, this dream was shattered. i hear it from victims that came from our country to israel, people that came from the former soviet union, people that came from europe. time and again you're talking about this reopening. maybe i'll give an example. in the book there's a story of a peace activist from a kibbutz that gave testimonies to the organization, breaking the silence gave tours in the

occupied territories and really fought for a two-state solution. but on this day when hamas terrorists entered his kibbutz and murdered and took hostage 10% of the population, he took a weapon and went there to defend the clinic. when the terrorists came he put his hands up and said i'm not your enemy, please don't shoot me. but they did. when i'm speaking with his family, they tell me about his grandmother carmela that was only a child in iraq and baghdad when she survived the pogrom in 1941 and came to israel to build this kibbutz, believing that will be the place for her children and grandchildren. so what carmela would say if she knew how her grandchild was murdered? >> okay. >> the important new book with the title "10/7, 100 human

stories" is on sale now. next up, nbc news correspondent jacob soboroff and academy award winning filmmaker errol morris join us to discuss their new documentary "separated," detailing the trump administration's family separation policy at the southern border. that important conversation is straight ahead right here on "morning joe." versation is straight ahead right here on "morning joe."

the government thoughting that showing the world separations through the eyes of people like me, they would scare the set of people that were attempting to come from coming. >> it's a part of a family and you break the law, you will be incarcerated. >> i've honestly never seen anything like that. there are about 1500 kids in there. >> a federal judge says the government needs to reunite young immigrant children with their parents. >> we had 14 days to reunify all

of the children under 5. >> the system doesn't have that much information. what's your mom's name? mom. >> do i call this child abuse? do i call it torture? >> separation was the purpose. prosecution was the tool . . >> it's not over. five years later, we are still trying to reunite up to a thousand children. >> there's really nothing to stop this. >> this is a new era. >> it troubled me profoundly that it could happen again. >> that was a look at the powerful new documentary from nbc news studios titled "separated." based on the "new york times" best-selling book of the same title from nbc news national and political correspondent jacob soboroff and directed by academy award winning filmmaker errol morris. the book describes the trump

administration's family separation policy at the southern border. both jacob and errol join us now. jacob also serves as executive producer on the project. we can also add the title movie star to your introduction. this is a story you've been covering for a long time. tell us why this film is so important. >> don't take my word to it. listen to what the george w. bush appointed judge said who stopped this policy. he said it was one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country. 5500 kids were deliberately separated from their parents for no other reason than to harm them, scare them. it's part of a pattern in the united states that is bipartisan that revolves around deterrence and scaring people from coming here by hurting them. and most profoundly, with the famous example of the trump family separation policy. there are still questions about

why this happened, how it could have happened, how the nation let it happen. that's why errol and i decided to get together and make what errodone, a spectacularly beautiful film that only errol morris can make. >> you just mentioned it was part of a pattern of deterrence that's happened for two decades now. what is the alternative to that? >> the alternative is the system as the biden administration had laid out when alejandro mayorkas came in as the immigration secretary. what i can tell you is what happened in the summer of 2018 was not that. >> it's molly jong-fast. >> hi. >> you are known as such a legend. what drew you to this story? >> i had read the book. the book is an important book. the policies are nightmare like.

i felt that it was important to do so something to call greater attention to what had been going on during the trump administration. i felt quite impassioned about it. and i was given this extraordinary opportunity to make this movie with jacob. for that, i'm truly grateful. >> so in her upcoming memoir, former first lady melania trump reportedly describes how she made her husband, then-president trump drop his signature hard line child separation immigration policies. the guardian got their hands on the book, and they report the former first lady told her husband, this has to stop, emphasizing the trauma it was causing these families. and seeing him swiftly comply. jacob, can we fact check that? >> donald trump said why he stopped the policy. he said he didn't like the sights and the sounds of the

children being separated on television. as i report in the book and you'll see in the film, he wanted to reinstate it, and he still hasn't said whether or not he would reinstate it. that's why the film is to important to answer questions about what the future holds including what the biden administration has promised but hasn't done, which is have a wholesale radical departure from an immigration system based on cruelty. >> donald trump is the republican nominee for president. he stands about a 1-2 chance of being president again. some of his policies, including forced deportation of immigrants, including some who are here legally, is what he is saying. very much your film has a timeliness here. talk about why you think it was so important to come out now and your, frankly, fears of what the next trump term could look like. >> i'm scared.

i wish donald trump would deport himself. >> fair enough. with that, we'll leave it right there. perfectly said with some real brevity. the new documentary "separated" will have a run starting today and then the broadcast run right here on msnbc on december 7th. jacob soboroff and director errol morris, thank you both. coming up here, we'll take a look at another new documentary, this one titled "food and country," which explores america's broken food system and the challenges chefs and farmers now face. we'll be right back. farmers now face we'll be right back. you'll definitely want to hear. depending on the plans available in your area, you may be eligible to get extra benefits with a humana medicare advantage dual-eligible special needs plan. most plans include the humana healthy options allowance.

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i've been writing about food for 50 years, trying to get americans to care more about it. >> the revered restaurant critic for the "new york times." >> i really can't send cameras to anyone or.

>> that's right, that's right. >> covid was the wake-up call. our broken food system was exposed. >> you have restaurants all over the world, right? >> had is the keyword. >> the big issue is keeping all of our purveyors alive. >> the american food system is breaking, yeah. you're right. >> that was a look at the important new documentary titled "food and country." the film follows legendary food critic ruth, as she takes a revealing look behind the scenes of the troubled food system and the people devoting their lives to making it better for consumers and producers. and ruth joins us now, along with the film's director and coproducer, laura gabbert. thank you both for being here. ruth, what compelled you to make this film, to participate in this film, and why do you think it's so timely?

>> i went into the grocery store for the first time during covid and found empty shelves. this may be the moment i have been waiting for, americans understand, food is important, and we will not always have this abundance, and i wanted to chronicle what was happening to the people who produce our food, and i think it's timely. coming out of covid, we need to understand how difficult we make life for farmers in this country. we depend on them, and we are basically not growing food. we're growing commodities. in the next crisis, and there will be another crisis, we may not be able to feed ourselves! so a crisis that's on the horizon is climate change or already here really. you were talking to farmers, you were in different places, what did you see when it comes to climate change? >> that we're in trouble. >> yeah. >> i mean, during covid, we had

fires and floods in california, which is where we depend on that state for a huge amount of our produce. we saw farmers who could rely on certain climate conditions, suddenly they couldn't. they didn't know what was coming and they are the most resilient people on the planet, but they need to know something about what they can expect in the coming year when they start planting. >> you know, ruth, i remember when you were in gourmet magazine, the magazine world, you were always writing about chefs and recipes, and there was a trend, farm-to-table movement that's been around for the past 40 years. how has that caught on as something that affects farmers or is it a minor thing? >> it's something that affects farmers. because what happened over the last 20 years or so is we really

began to understand that where our food comes from matters and how we raise our food matters and what we have been raising in industrial agriculture, it lacks nutrition. we have lost 40% of the nutrition in our foods, in our home grown foods in the last, you know, 50 years. >> so, laura, this is, as painted here, this really worry, both the present and future, are there any signs of hope or are there things that people or governments could be doing differently to create that hope? >> well, i think one of the things that ruth and i really wanted to focus on. first of all, she interviewed probably over 175 people, and as we were editing the film, we were looking for stories of producers and restaurateur who were working outside of the system, trying to do it differently. and because they were outside of the industrialized agricultural system, they were able to pivot. they were able to innovative and do things differently.

we wanted to highlight those stories to give people hope but also show that there's a way forward here. >> and briefly, what would be the final take away message from this film? >> i think the final take away message is to understand that food actually touches every part of society, and we really need to pay attention to that. and, you know, there's lots of ways to get involved. you can go to foodandcountryfilm.com. we have partnering organizations, like the independent restaurant coalition, the union of scientists, you can get involved that way, and see where your representatives stand on things like the farm bill. we need more money to local, regional farmers. >> important and all too overlooked topic of conversation. the documentary "food and country" is in theaters and available on demand starting october 22nd. producer ruth reichl, and lauren gabbert, thank you both for being here. we appreciate it. we appreciate it

welcome back to "morning joe," just about time for some

final thoughts, walter. >> as i watched elections over our history, i've never seen one with so many surprises. we talk about an october surprise, we had it one after another, from biden dropping out to the assassination attempt. i'm looking at what will be the disruptive things. i think a war against iran in which china and iran and saudi arabia start aligning. that could be a really bad october surprise. if it's avoided, i think then things will be better for kamala harris. >> molly. >> i think he was on earlier today on the program, mike schmidt has a really important piece in the "new york times" about how donald trump could weaponize the justice department to go after his enemies. it's pretty horrifying and definitely worth reading. >> thank you, guys. we appreciate it. and thanks to all of you for watching us this morning all week long. that does it for us. we'll see you on monday.