tv Morning Joe MSNBC October 14, 2024 3:00am-7:00am PDT
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responsibly? i think there's certain times when the media fact checks and it backfires. there's the perception, i think, going in, and there has been for years, of liberal media bias. i think if you put your thumb down on the scales, it reinforces that stereotype which, frankly, had credence to it throughout a lot of my lifetime, certainly. on the other hand, if you let the challenges, the things trump says, the allegations, the insinuations, the outright lies go unanswered and you don't fact check them, then they become fact. he uses words to manifest this alternate reality. i don't think we've figured out yet, actually, how to cover somebody like donald trump. >> really important thoughts. we're grateful for them. this is a story line we're going to stay on as we focus on the stakes of this election. author, columnist, and conservative writer, matt lewis. thank you. thanks to all of you for getting
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up "way too early" with us on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. he talks at his rallies about fictional characters. he constantly is in a state of grievance about himself. he has no plans for the american people. he makes things up on a full-time basis, with the intention to make people afraid, to make people fear that which they should not be afraid of. but he does it in a way that he thinks, i think, will compel them to believe that, somehow, he is the savior, when, in fact, he is quite unfit to do the job. >> that's vice president kamala harris speaking with reporters on saturday with a theme she carried throughout the weekend. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, october 14th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. also, we have u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay. so much going on in the news
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today. katty, why don't you get us started in north carolina? >> yeah, joe, it's been a super busy weekend on the campaign trail. we're now, what, just three weeks until election day pretty much. yesterday, vice president kamala harris held a rally in greenville, north carolina, where she called donald trump weak for refusing to do the things that every other presidential candidate typically does, including herself. >> he has no plan for how he would address the needs of the american people. he is only focused on himself. and he's not -- but here's the thing, north carolina, he's not being transparent with the voters. he's not being transparent. check this out. he refuses to release his medical records. i've done it. every other presidential camp, every other presidential
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candidate in modern era has done it. he is unwilling to do a "60 minutes" interview. like every other major party candidate has done for more than half a century. he is unwilling to meet for a second debate. [ crowd booing ] and here's the thing, here's the thing, it makes you wonder, it makes you wonder, why does his staff want him to hide away? one must question, one must question, are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead america? is that what's going on? we can already see the harm he's up to as a candidate.
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most recently, spreading disinformation in the wake of natural disasters. blocking real solutions that would stop drug cartels from crossing the border when he tried to kill, and did, that border security deal. because, you see, donald trump cares more about scaring people, creating fear, running on a problem, instead of what real leaders do, which is to participate in fixing problems. [ applause ] >> all right. well, we've got a tied race. we're going to get to that in a minute. nbc news poll came out yesterday. 48/48. what we're looking at, i think, jonathan lemire, with kamala harris in north carolina there, is the beginning of a three week dash. i mean, we're talking about the
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beginning of, i think, her closing message. if you look at it, it's a pretty trong message, saying that he's afraid to release his medical records. he's afraid to go do a "60 minutes" interview. he's afraid to do a debate. then she comes behind and goes, to what donald trump's political sort of strength is, which is strength, power, and she says, he's weak and unstable, which does seem to sort of pick at what a lot of people who even have supported donald trump say. going, i don't like him. not sure if he is all there, but i may vote for him anyway. i'm curious, is this a deliberate effort by the harris campaign to drive this message home, that he's weak, he's unstable, they're afraid to envelope put him out there? >> yes. part of this is a hope to provoke him. she's been effective at needling him, finding his sore, weak spots. one of which, let's remember the
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debate, almost seemed like a throwaway line, though we've since been told it was well practiced, where she noted that people leave trump's rallies early. donald trump hasn't given a speech since where he doesn't try to rebut that. people don't leave my speeches early. that was a sign to the people in the harris campaign that she can effectively needle him, put him on the territory where she wants to compete. she's doing it again now, trying to turn one of his strengths, much like his crowds, his suggestion of his strength, and turn it into weakness, having to defend it, undercut it. actually, he's afraid to do an interview. he is afraid to release his medical records. tying that with the overall theme, which is, trump makes every decision about himself, not about you, the voter. he's shielding you. he doesn't want to give you this information. he doesn't trust you. he's not looking out for you.
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and that is her argument right now as trump simply goes darker and darker on the campaign trail. >> well, he does do that, and we'll get to that in one second. katty, there's also this frustration inside the harris campaign that nothing matters it seems when it comes to donald trump. he doesn't release his medical records. every other presidential candidate does. there's really not even that much of a fuss about it. that he doesn't do the "60 minutes" interview, the first time in 50 years a presidential candidate doesn't do the "60 minutes" interview. he ducks that. then he says that cbs should be arrested, people at cbs should be arrested for "60 minutes" editing an interview the way "60 minutes" always edits interviews. then, of course, refuses to do the second debate, even if it's at fox news. so it does seem that he is hiding, and so she drives it
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home with, it's like they're afraid he's too weak and too unstable to do his job, to go out there. how does that work with undecided voters, to you think? >> yeah, i mean, look, the kamala harris we saw in north carolina this weekend is the kamala harris that both the campaign and democratic strategists that i speak to say that they want out there. that's the person they want voters to see, who is projecting strength, who is reminding people about the weaknesses and the chaos surrounding donald trump. but i agree with you, joe. it is remarkable. here we are, three weeks out, and almost nothing seems to move the needle. perhaps not very much has moved the needle ever since what donald trump -- the first assassination attempt against him. even then it didn't seem to move the needle much. the harris campaign has to keep getting out there three weeks and hoping, incrementally, sliver by sliver, you can pick
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away at the electorate, and hope that is going to be what swings the -- what are we now seeing, 4% of people say they still haven't made their minds up. >> who hasn't made their mind up yet? it is crazy. again, we'll be talking to mark murray in a second about this tight race. i will say, though, i thought that was one of harris' better performances in some time. it harkens back to the early rallies right after she got in and you were seeing the sold out crowds in arizona, in nevada, and in north carolina, all over the place. but last night, that speech showed the energy i think a lot of people saw when she first launched her campaign. if this is their strategy to end strongly this way and, you know, continuing to ask the question, what's he afraid of? why is he afraid to debate me? why is he afraid to do what every other presidential candidate has done over the last 50 years and go on cbs?
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what is wrong with him physically or mentally? why won't he release his medical records? the way she was delivering it, positive, and i think joyful but also aggressively. again, that's the tack she needs. joyful and yet defiant. i keep saying joyful because campaigns are about contrast. you see that? you see that picture right there? kamala harris, joyful. that is a contrast to an increasingly dark campaign. if you ask donald trump, he'd tell you, yeah, i'm running an increasingly dark campaign. that is his intent. he thinks fear, he thinks loathing, he thinks darkness wins. how do you combat that? you combat it, again, with being defiant but being joyful. she seemed to strike that tone last night very well. >> yeah, joyful and strong. meanwhile, of course, you've got
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former president trump who was out in the battleground state of arizona yesterday, where he continued this dark rhetoric against, particularly, minority groups and migrants. >> so we're now known all throughout the world as an occupied country. can you believe it? they said, one of the papers said in another country that we are an occupied country. you know what? they're not that wrong. but these gentlemen will unoccupy us very quickly. [ applause ] it's no different than if we had a war and lost a war. but to everyone here in arizona and all across the land, i make this pledge, november 5th, 2024, will be liberation day in america. it's going to be liberation day. it's going to happen so fast. these are among the worst criminals anywhere in the world, and they come from all over. a huge number is coming out of jails in the congo. what's happening is, countries
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and continents, but countries are releasing their prison populations into our country. you know what? if i headed up any one of the countries we're talking about, i would have done the same thing. i would have done it even faster. because who the hell can blame them? who can blame them? venezuela, their crime is down 72% because they've taken the street criminals, they've taken the drug dealers and the drug lords, they've taken all of these people, and they bus them into the united states. their crime is down now 72%. it'll go still further because they haven't gotten them all out. but they're coming. they've taken their prisons, and their prisons are way down. lowest number they've had in many, many decades, because they've moved all their prisoners. these are hardened people. they know better than anybody who they are. >> it really is remarkable, if you sit and watch him, jonathan lemire. you've seen, this has happened
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with orban. this has happened with other illiberal leaders. they make up -- you know, they find the enemy, make the enemy up. i've said this before. again, you don't have to -- people don't have to like the facts. if they don't like facts, they can make things up. it's a free country for now. but as i've said before, many times, when donald trump was running around talking about immigrans flooding into our country, how horrible life was in 2016, illegal immigration, border crossings across the southern border were at a 15 year low. now, he's doing it again. it's actually lower and has been lower over the past several months than it was at the end of his term. one final thing, he talks about us being an occupied country. nobody thinks we're an occupied country. if they do, they're living in a different country.
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but you look, again, facts. let those with ears hear. facts, he keeps talking about crimes committed by illegal immigrants, committed by immigrants. study after study after study, year after year after year shows the same thing. crime rates among immigrants are lower than crime rates among native born americans. that's just like, you know, that's just as evident as the score last night. i mean, you might as well say the mets won 9-0 last night against the dodgers. they just didn't. the numbers are the numbers are the numbers. we'll get to that when pablo comes a little later on. but yeah, there's no doubt, this is the message. this campaign has been reduced now to three things. he's doing it because, obviously, he thinks it works. number one, he's talking about illegal immigrants, and he's
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saying that america is being destroyed by this invasion of illegal immigrants. again, when he was the one that killed the bill that would have given us the toughest border security that we've ever had in the united states. he said he killed it for political reasons. said to blame him. that's number one. it's that. then he talks about tariffs. he keeps going higher and higher with the tariff numbers, which, of course, will hurt working class and middle class americans more and more. they're the ones that are going to pay that tariff tax. and then we're going to talk about this, jonathan, too, later. the third thing he is talking about is how he is going to deploy the justice department to arrest people and stifle speech that he doesn't like. that's his closing message. again, up to this point, it seemed to be working very well with his base.
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because we are tied right now, and we are tied because his base has come back home. >> he is lying. he is lying about migrants. he is lying about crime. he is lying about the crimes committed by immigrants. that is his closing argument. his rhetoric is only getting darker and more dangerous, and it might just be working. his base is coming home. we have seen a little bit of movement toward him in some of these polls. it's still a tie race. no one is saying it is over by any means. but the harris momentum of a month or two back seems to have dissipated, and trump is here closing on the claims about migrants that simply aren't true. the mayor of aurora, colorado, republican, fact-checked him and said how he depicts this is simply not true. the mayor said, claims about the venezuelan gang activity in our city and our state have been grossly exaggerated and have unfairly hurt the city's identity and sense of safety. this is an unreality that trump is propagating, but the
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right-wing media is backing him up. front page of "the new york post" again today, any number of days in a row now, we're seeing scare photographs here about gangs and exaggerating their impact wherever they may be. we are also seeing this, joe, in his closing argument, and it is impacting -- he is doing it from colorado, which is not a swing state, and it is his message in the swing states. i was just in the suburbs of philadelphia over the weekend at a youth soccer tournament. this is basically where the election is going to be decided. every trump ad you'd see on television, during the baseball playoffs, the college football games, was about immigration. every trump billboard, and there were many, signs all about immigration. taking our country back. protecting our borders. protecting our citizens from the other. that's the message. i'll say, the ratio, we talk about anecdotal evidence, yard signs, pretty 50/50 when it comes to harris and trump in suburban philadelphia that i
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saw. every trump message was about immigration. this is how he wants to close the race, whether it's true. most of it are lies. >> like you say, it's about the others. so that's what he's locked into. it's you, white americans, versus the others. right now, that seems to be working. let's bring in nbc news senior political editor mark murray. hey, mark. so we had, of course, joe biden in the race, losing ground to donald trump. kamala harris gets in the race. it seems to be tied up. you have a debate, harris gets the bump from the debate. goes up four or five points. then it comes back where you knew it was going to come back to. we're three weeks out. we're tied. it's 48% to 48%. there's some really interesting numbers i want to ask you about. mainly about kamala harris
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needing to lock down a higher percentage of hispanic voters, needing to lock down a higher number of black voters, and of course, carrying a historic number of white educated voters. it is fascinating to see how all of that is going to play together. tell us what you've got. >> yeah, joe, you're exactly right. the timing of our poll is really instructive here. when our september poll came out and had harris with a five-point lead over donald trump, that, of course, was after the debate. it was after a really rough news environment for donald trump with the discussion about springfield, ohio. now, all of a sudden, we do show a tied race. what has occurred is, those soft republicans, non-maga republicans have come back home to trump. in our september poll, they were lagging, obviously after the debate, after the discussion of
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springfield, ohio, our poll finds that they are pack with trump. going from 44% in the poll in september now to 48%. joe, you ended up mentioning the things harris has to work on with shoring up latino voters, getting african americans in the fold, white woman. our poll has a really big gender gap. harris has a 14-point lead among female voters, while donald trump has a 16-point lead among male voters. that's overall a 30-point net gender gap. what is kind of fascinating is, trump's lead with men is slightly larger than harris' lead with women. you know, her ability to get back in a lead, national lead over trump is being able to have a bigger lead among women than trump's lead among men. a lot of those demographics -- this is the last three weeks of the race. this is why you have
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mobilization and a campaign, to be able to juice your turnout, to shore up your weaknesses. we're going to see what both campaigns have up their sleeves over the next three weeks. >> mark, talk about this closing message on migration, and specifically the way that donald trump is talking about that. what impact does that have on whatever number of undecided voters there are? we're looking about 4% to 6% of voters who say they're undecided still. talk about the general population and then hispanic voters, the impact it might have on them. that seems to be counterintuitive. >> yeah, katty. donald trump is leaning into the immigration issue because this is his strongest argument. our poll shows him having a 25-point edge over harris when it comes to which candidate is better when it comes to immigration and the border discussion. so donald trump is going right into his strengths. when it comes to undecided voters, he is a candidate, and this was true in 2016, it was true in 2020, he doesn't really see somebody who wants to
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moderate. i'm going to try to win over the independent voters, nikki haley voters. he goes directly into his base. that helped him in 2016. didn't help him in 2020. we'll see what ends up happening in 2024. when you talk about the immigration issue and latino voters specifically, you know, our own deep dive into latino voters shows that latinos aren' liberal latinos, those who live in california, live in florida, and they are very diverse. what has happened is latino voters are really split when it comes to, do you want to see more enforcement, a crackdown at the border, or do you want to see a path to legalization, a path to citizenship, the dream act? you know, howdy li divided we a a country shows how divided the
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latino voters are as a whole. >> it's funny you say that, mark. actually, i remember during the '96 campaign, that's how long -- i mean, that's how old i am. but i remember saying that democrats always made the mistake of thinking all hispanics wanted the most liberal immigration policies out there. it's just not the case. again, it's not a monolithic group. that's something i think that democrats have misplayed often through the years, by thinking it is. i want to ask you really quickly right now, because i'm sure whatever nbc polls say or other polls say, people will be coming back afterwards and saying they were wrong for one reason or the other. of course, we remember leading up, and i'll show clips later on in the show, leading up to the '22 election just two years ago. we had so many people talking about a red wave, red wave, red wave. in 2016, we often got into
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debates on this set, mika and i, with people saying there's no way donald trump could get to 270 electoral votes. we all remember "the new york times" needle that was tipped over 98% for hillary clinton, then swung back. so you can only be so certain with these polls, right? so there's a 3% to 3.5% margin of error. talk about that. also, talk about the difficulty you all have sorting through, and maybe tell us how you do it, sorting through who the voters are, who the group is you're talking to. because, of course, in '20, in a lot of states, joe biden's support was wildly overestimated. you know, we saw some polls showing him winning in wisconsin and michigan by double digit leads at the very end. in '22, like i said, the polls
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seemed to undervalue the strength of a lot of democratic candidates. overvalued trump's supporting candidates. how are you guys adjusting to that? it's got to be a bit vertiginous as you go to '24. >> i live and breathe polls, but we can't say it's precise instruments. 48% to 48%, you have to take it to the bank that's how the election will turn out. of course, our it is a national poll, and the presidential race will be decided in the states. but one thing that we're trying to do is looking at what different turnout scenarios might end up being. again, close races always come down to turnout. our poll shows a 48% to 48% tie among trump and harris. okay, what happens if you assume a juiced out democratic turnout? that is, more woman who come to the polls, more younger voters, more non-white voters.
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we asked our pollsters, hey, what do our numbers look like if you assume a more favorable democratic turnout environment? our poll shows that harris ends up taking a three-point lead over trump. all of a sudden, the 48/48 tie goes to a three-point lead for harris. what ends up happening if you assume a better republican turnout? that is, a wider electorate, an electorate that is more male than you might end up expecting. that goes to a two-point donald trump lead. the margin of error in our poll is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. we can't take these numbers as certainty, as a precise measurement. things end up changing. most importantly, you know, we don't know what the turnout is going to end up being in this election. i think that that exercise that we end up having, a juiced up democratic turnout, a juiced up republican turnout. our current numbers show you the ranges of possibilities that
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might end up happening. again, joe, this is really important. we have three weeks to go and a lot can end up happening. a lot happened in 2016 that decided that race, donald trump over hillary clinton. a lot happened in the final days of the 2020 race. we have to see what the next three weeks bring us. >> i'll tell you, exactly, the british prime minister, i think it was wilson who said, in politics, a week is a lifetime. we have three lifetimes left to go in this race. nobody knows how it ends up. senior political editor mark murray, thank you for being on. i greatly appreciate it. as always, it's obvious and simple. football, it comes down to blocking and tackling, comes down to the basics. in politics, comes down to gotv, getting out the vote. the side that gets their people out in these close races win the
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election. it's that basic blocking and tackling. so if you want your candidate to win, you get out the vote. you knock on doors. you pick up the phone. you call your friends. you drive people to the polls. you do whatever it takes. that's how i got elected to congress the first time. we just kept calling people until they yelled us and told us to stop calling them or else they wouldn't vote for us. they said, what should we do? i go, call them again. knock on their doors again. plant yard signs again. again, three weeks. a lot of people are acting, oh, we're at -- no, three weeks is a lifetime in politics. so much can change in three weeks. so this race is a tie. anybody that tells you differently doesn't know what they're talking about. this could go in either direction. if you believe that the future
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of america is resting on this race, and especially if you live in one of those swing states, you've got three weeks to figure out how to make a difference in democracy. and that is what american democracy is about. still ahead on "morning joe," i had a chance to sit down with second gentleman doug emhoff on the campaign trail. we will show you that interview coming up. plus, charlie sykes was the voice of conservative radio in milwaukee for nearly 25 years. but then all the conservatives went away. now, he's telling us why he is voting for kamala harris this november and wants to talk to other republicans about why they need to do the same. we're going to be talking to charlie straight ahead. i'm going to be having a conversation with john mecum in 90 seconds. we will have a red wave, the likes of which they've never
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seen before. >> what can democrats possibly do to avoid, forgive wave, the red tsunami that is coming in 2022? >> i think we'll see in november not just a red wave. we're going to see a tsunami. >> elon musk tweeted last night, i voted for mayra flores, first time i ever voted republican. massive red wave in 2022. >> the red wave is coming. >> red wave rising, that is the focus of tonight's angle. >> the wave election and you'll lose the senate. i'll bet you $1,000 right now. >> $1,000. >> that's right. >> both chambers, $1,000? you got it. >> the red wave that's coming is going to be like the elevator doors opening up in "the shining." >> red wave or red tsunami, what are you l feeing today? >> red wave. >> okay, first of all, where is the red wave? >> republicans swore they were going to sweep, a red tsunami. that's what they told us and we, to be honest, cautiously
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believed them. >> i want to step back and look at this map. that's not a red wave. that is nothing like a red wave. >> disappointing. i have to give a mea culpa. i was genuinely predicting that we were going to have a red wave, a tsunami. >> the only red wave possible today was what i was wearing. it was a triple, no question. >> the republican party needs to do a really deep introspection look in the mirror right now. this is an absolute disaster. look at this craftmanship. i mean they even got my nostrils right. it's just nice to know that years after i'm gone this guy will be standing the test of ti... he's melting! oh jeez... nooo... oh gaa... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪
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oh, my goodness, do we love this man! [ applause ] you know, i used to say after the first term of president trump, we just witnessed one of the great presidents in american history. and now i say, this is the greatest president in american history. [ applause ] but i think it goes further than that. i think we are -- we are in the midst of one of the greatest leaders in human history, and his name is donald j. trump. this guy right here. >> wow. katty, um, that's just -- that's
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something. i don't know exactly what to say about that, other than it is -- it's amazing where my party has gone. my former party has gone. they know, praise donald trump, you're his friend. don't praise donald trump, you're his enemy. >> yeah. i mean, kari lake's modus operandi since running for office in the very beginning was to praise donald trump. it didn't work for her in arizona, running for governor. the polls suggest it is not necessarily going to get her into the senate in arizona either. she's way behind gallego. yet, she sticks to it. she has decided to pin her colors to the mast of donald trump. that was even more extreme than i've ever heard her be in his -- flattery, i guess, she thinks will get you anywhere. donald trump, on the other hand, says the greatest threat on election day, the greatest leader, of course, according to
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kari lake we've ever had, is not interference from other countries but what he call, quote, the enemy within. the former president made the comments yesterday in a taped interview with fox news. he was asked if he was expecting chaos on november the 5th from outside agitators, like migrants or people on terror watch lists. this is what he said. >> i think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. not even the people that have come in and are destroying our country. by the way, totally destroying our country, the towns, villages. they're being inundated. i don't think they're the problem in bad people. we have some sick people, radical left cs i think they're the -- and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by national guard, or if really necessary, by the military. because they can't let that happen. >> let's bring in right now rogers chair at the american presidency at vanderbilt
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university, historian jon meacham. also president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton. and msnbc contributor and author of the book "how the right lost its mind," charlie sykes. jon, a couple things. first of all, again, he is talking about how immigrants are destroying our country, destroying our towns. we showed a quote from the mayor of aurora that said the president was lying about the situation in aurora with venezuelan immigrants there. we, of course, know about springfield, ohio, the lies going on. we just had former president and somebody who wants to be president of the united states saying that -- when asked about outside agitators and illegal immigrants and gangs, he said, the problem is the enemy within, the radical left. says we should take care of them with the national guard, the
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united states military. of course, both of those things being extraordinarily unconstitutional. he's also said that cbs should have their licensed revoked because he didn't like how they edited the "60 minutes" package. he also said that he was going after google because he didn't like some of the online headlines for the harris campaign. you can go down a very long list. he's talked about using the justice department to arrest political opponents and others. so here we are. we're three weeks out. the race is tied. i'm wondering, for those people who say they're still undecided, what is the message to them when you have a candidate that's talking about doing these things that no other president has done, clearly unconstitutional in our 240 year history. then you have kamala harris, who
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may they not like what she said in 2019 or 2020 when she was running in the democratic primary. what is -- what's your message to those voters? >> is donald trump worth the risk? the vice president's campaign may not like this particular point, but i believe it to be true. i don't believe that vice president harris would fundamentally change the trajectory of the country in a negative way. and probably not in a permanently positive way. that's the part they probably wouldn't like. but she is part of a constitutional consensus, a conversation, that with the exception of the trump presidency, has unfolded in this country for a long time. and in many ways, perhaps that conversation, perhaps that consensus has not been commensurate to the problems we have. but it is, as winston churchill told us, the best system we have, except for all the -- the worst system we have, except for all the others.
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and so the vice president represents a vote, i believe, for the constitutional order, for the rule of law, for a country whose politics we recognize. and it may well be that a lot of folks don't want a recognizable politics. but i don't believe that this handful of folks who, for whatever reason, have not decided what to do this year, i don't think that's their issue. i really don't. let's be clear about who we're talking about, all right? this is 43,000 votes in 2020. 43,000 votes had gone the other way, president biden would not have won. more people will go to yankee stadium today to watch game one against the guardians than decided the 2020 presidential election. so seems to me the conversation we all have to have, particularly with center right,
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republican folks, who have a remarkable capacity, as do we all -- let's be clear, this is a sinner talking, not a saint -- the remarkable capacity to talk themselves into whatever they want to do. and there are a lot of people, republicans, bush republicans, reagan republicans, folks who should be cheney republicans, who will say, yeah, he's -- trump's awful, but i like his policies, right? we hear that a lot. or trump is awful, but harris, as you eluded to, she's too liberal. she talks in word salad. i mean, let's be clear here about how odd that comparison is. >> but, but, jon -- >> yeah, yeah. >> -- you talk about word salad. again, it's amazing. they'll say, oh, she flip-flops. then you have donald trump who switches positions on abortion,
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like, five times. says he is going to be the champion of women's reproductive rights. says he is against the six-week abortion ban in florida. he flips and flops and flips and flops. then they go, oh, she flip-flopped. she said this in 2019 when she was trying to be really liberal in a democratic debate. they're still showing clips from her from 2019/2020 and that campaign. yeah, did she say things that make you scratch your head in 2019, 2020? yeah. in 2019, 2020. then you have donald trump who said things that really make you scratch your head on friday and saturday. >> right. >> is it worth the risk when you have a president who refuses to debate kamala harris, even on fox news? when you have a president who refuses to sit down for a "60 minutes" interview for the first time in 50 years because he's afraid that he's not going to do a good job? you have a president who won't
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release his medical records when every other presidential candidate has released theirs. is it worth the risk? i just -- i really -- this has nothing to do with ideology. i'm far more conservative than kamala harris. it has nothing to do with ideology. it has to do, though, with the functioning democracy. you know, i've always known, whoever is elected president, if that person, whether it were -- i said this between, you know, 2017 and 2021. people said, oh, you must be liberal. no, i'm not liberal. i like presidents who respect madisonian democracy and those boundaries. from a mike pence to bernie sand ers. because i know if you have somebody really liberal or conservative, you'll have the united states senate, most likely republican coming up, that's going to be able to round
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off the sharp edges on any candidate that respects constitutional boundaries. donald trump has clearly told us, and it's been his calling card this election, he is not going to respect constitutional boundaries. he is going to do whatever he wants to do, whether congress wants him to do it or not. >> yeah. one of the things that's so interesting, and i think you and i -- you're more conservative than i am, but we come from the same zip code, roughly. you know, i haven't moved particularly, right? i'm george h.w. bush's biographer. now, you know, you can say -- some people say, you're an anti-trump trotskiite. i don't want people to go into the streets and wear sackcloth and ashes. leave that aside. we're in the conversion
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business. just vote for harris. what i'd argue is, don't tell anybody if you don't want to, right? if you go in there and you're a republican, and i know it's hard. you know, this is part of people's identity. when they really look at the names, they think, ah, you know, democrat. taxes, ugh. how about thinking, ah, constitution, when you look at trump? i just think that there is a sane vote here, and then there is a risky vote. and i just don't see what the -- what's the upside here of voting for trump if you are, in fact, a center-right person? or centrist, period? it's a tiny number of folks who are going to make this decision. therefore, we are in a moment, i'd argue, which is as important a test of citizenship as at any moment i can think of in
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american history. as president biden would say, not hyperbole, right? it's really not. i can't think of it, unless you >> yeah. again, the question is, is it worth the risk? not just for democracy. also, i would say, and here's the conservative in me, for capitalism. where you have a strongman deciding who the winners are, who the losers are, where the tariffs go, where the attacks go against trading allies. i mean, it's a good question about that. you know, let's bring in somebody -- charlie sykes would be a great person to bring in now. it reminds me, charlie, after donald trump first got elected, i would walk into a coffee shop every day. there he goes, used to be a republican. i'd smile, say, good to see you guys, too. after three weeks, i go, you
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guys do understand that we have voted for the same presidential candidate, likely, our entire life, except one time. chances are good after donald trump leaves the scene, we'll be voting for the same presidential candidates again for the rest of our lives. but if you're going to pick one election to go against your habits, to go against your pre-existing prejudices, to go against what you've done out of habit, this might be the one election to do it. charlie, you've made that decision, haven't you? >> yeah. and this is the pitch. i mean, i understand how it's hard for republican voters to cross over. i understand that there's this partisan muscle memory, and that they disagree on a variety of issues. but the point, i think, that has to be made over and over again is that this is not a normal election. this is not dukakis versus bush.
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this is not republican versus democrat. this is not left versus right. we are talk about the possibility of the return to power of a convicted felon, rapee seditionist who threatens to undue the constitutional order. there is nothing conservative about that. you've said this over and over again. it is not that you have left the republican party or left conservative. conservatism has morphed into something that's unrecognizable. you're talking about somebody who kowtows to dictators, who wants to shred the constitution. this is one of those moments where you say, okay, i understand that you are not changing your conservative or centrist values. i understand that you disagree with kamala harris on a lot of different things. but there's a moment where you have to put the country over party. i think that one of the closing arguments, one of the most powerful closing arguments that
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kamala harris has is to say, look at the people who have been the republican party, who have been conservative leaders. whether it's mike pence or whether it's dick cheney or whether it's, you know, liz cheney herself. former attorney general alberto gonzalez. all of these people who are looking at the republican party under donald trump and saying, this is not who we are. as well as all of the people who worked with donald trump, who were in his cabinet, who were in his white house, who are saying, we saw him up close. the man is not fit for another term in office. i think that the task is to convince republicans who go, well, i disagree with her on this. i disagree with her on abortion, on immigration, on transgender issues. i disagree with her on tax policy. but that is ultimately not what this election is about. and it's not just the risk of donald trump.
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i also think it's the question of do you really want to put america through this? do you really want four more years of this? do you really want someone back in power who has made it absolutely clear that he is off the charts of the normal american political difference? again, it's a small number of voters, but i think that the harris campaign has made a very concerted effort to create a big tent in places here like in wisconsin. bringing liz cheney to wisconsin, the birthplace of the republican party, and saying this is not the normal partisan choice. you now have permission to do something that you probably would have thought unthinkable a few months ago. >> donald trump inspired a riot at the capitol. donald trump kowtowed to vladimir putin. donald trump was found liable for sexual assault, which a judge later likened to the
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definition of rape. now, he is out there, day after day, lying about migrants in the most racist and vile ways. reverend al sharpton, i think it is important we're spending time on this show talking polls, taking state of the race, but we're also talking the stakes of a race. it's important, what a second trump term would do to the judiciary, to the military, to the legislation branch, the consolidation of power in the executive branch. donald trump would be president, and he'd be president again after having got away with everything. defeated the criminal trials. survived january 6th. survived two impeachments. now, he would be unfettered, unchecked. do you think that for voters out there, the undecided, but also maybe members of the democratic base who are waffling about whether to show up, who aren't going to vote for trump but can't be bothered to show up at all, and i know you speak to some at your radio show at the national action network. we saw polls this weekend about the concerns the harris campaign
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has with black and latino voters. do you think there is an understanding of the stakes of this election? >> i think that that's the challenge. i think they're beginning to but not to the degree we need to see the turnout that is going to be required. because this is a tied race. i think they need to understand, this is not about whether you like kamala harris or like donald trump. this is about whether you want to do what is best for yourself. if we allow the boundaries of fighting for what we like or what we want or what we desire to be totally eradicated, which is what donald trump is talking about. donald trump is talking about bringing in the military around people's rights. i think that if we allow that to happen, then whatever you're dissatisfied about will not matter because it won't even be on the table. that's what they have to understand. that's what we've been saying on
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our bus tour to people. it's non-partisan, but we're saying to particularly young black men, you will not have a chance. trump is telling you that because they're going to wipe out due process. he's going to punish enemies. we're going to decide this based on politics. so if trump is defeated, the day after, charlie sykes and i may disagree on a lot of issues, but we're in the same boundaries of how this country is supposed to run. those boundaries will be eradicated if donald trump wins this election, and that's what people need to understand. >> the boundaries for democracy. the boundaries for capitalism. the boundaries for the economy. the boundaries for, you know, just basic economic progress. middle class and working class people are going to be taxed terribly. as "the wall street journal" editorial page has said, trump's tariffs are going to be
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crippling to this economy, and that's just a risk, as jon meacham said, that a lot of people can't afford to take. charlie sykes and jon meacham, thank you, both, so much. hope you'll come back again very soon. coming up, the excitement for a potential subway series took a bit of a hit last night in los angeles. pablo torre is here to break down the mlb play offs and the headlines out of the nfl. and pablo will tell us how the cowboys can come back and win the super bowl. "morning joe" right back. ♪ another day my heart swings ♪
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[ thunderclap ] your business needs a network it can count on. even during the unexpected. power's out! power's out! -power's out! power's out! -power's out! comcast business has you covered, with wifi backup to help keep you up and running. wifi's up. let's power on! let's power on! let's power on! -let's power on! it's from the company with 99.9% network reliability. plus advanced security. let's power on! power on with a leader in connectivity. powering possibilities. comcast business. love looking deep on first down. man out there. wide open watson for a packer touchdown! >> quick crossover.
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>> pitch it to najee harris. harris sidesteps, gets to the sideline. najee harris dives for the pylon! >> fakes to allen. fakes to swift. touchdown! >> first and ten. schultz finding room. there he goes. it's a foot race. gonzalez pushes him out before he hits the pylon. no, they give it to him! it's a touchdown! >> 54 yard field goal from here. mayfield is getting yardage. a first down to tucker. inside the 15. all the way to the house. it's a touchdown! >> from the browns' 45. complete. wide open, smith down the
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sideline. devonta smith into the end zone for an eagles touchdown. >> here's a trick. flea flicker, laporta wide open. sam laporta, foot race to the end zone. diving touchdown. >> unreal. >> some of the biggest touchdowns from across the league yesterday. ending on the 52 yard touchdown trick play in the detroit lions blowout win over the dallas cowboys. a little fla flicker. let's bring in pablo torre finds out host, pablo torre. a lot of things we could talk about. a lot of things coming out of yesterday. you know, the cowboys just stand out. they've lost four games in a row at home. most of those have been blowouts. what in the world is going on there? >> yeah, one of the worst feelings in not just sports but life, i imagine, is when your opponent does not respect you. that's what this was. just for the bigger context here, joe, this was jerry jones' 82nd birthday celebration.
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the cowboys lost four straight at home right now. as you said, all pretty much blowouts. when i talked about the cowboys to america broadly, i always want to point out, jerry jones bought this team for $150 million in the '80s. it is worth $10 billion. one of the greatest investments in the history of business, frankly. yet, you feel like this. you feel like you're being played. i mean, being played. you're being fooled, being tricked. they were putting, the lions, joe, i know they're your team, they were throwing to offensive linemen, flee flicking. they were doing stuff deal into a blowout to indicated this team, the dallas cowboys, should not be taken seriously, despite being the dream of a capitalist who owns a sports team. it was embarrassing. the nfc north, vikings, lions, packers, bears look good. the division looks incredible right now. >> they really do.
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let's talk about, though, a team that looks horrible. that's deshaun watson's cleveland browns. >> yeah. >> is that watson deal looking like one of the worst ever signed in nfl history? >> it is the worst sports transaction, i think, in general, ever. we can talk about the many, many lawsuits, more than 20, that prompts the moral investigation of that. the introspection just as a decision is just ridiculous. joe, we put this into context, right? it is not merely they chose deshaun watson and gave up three first rounders, six picks overall, gave him the largest guaranteed contract in this indefensible way in the history of football. >> it's destroyed the franchise, hasn't it? >> it's ruined the franchise. and you see it in juxtaposition to baker mayfield, who they jettisoned, who is leading the nfl in touchdown passes right now. you see it in juxtaposition against joe flacco, another guy they let go, who is a capable backup in indianapolis.
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again, at every level, a lack of strategic, moral, self-defeating in the literal ways when it comes to this franchise. >> bengals beat the giant, 17-7. unremarkable football game in what was an uninspiring week in the nfl. i'd argue the marquee game was the battle of the beltway. not a riflery between the commanders and the ravens, but maybe the start of one. jayden daniels, another strong showing. commanders come up short, but it was nothing to be ashamed of. >> no, for talent, i want to see what these two look like when they enter the ring. lamar jackson and jayden daniels. daniels looks good again. now, the bloom coming off the rose in terms of, okay, he was leading the nfl in completion percentage historically. he's still at a really impressive pace. one of the great rookie seasons ever. but, you know, lamar jackson comes into the building, and what does he do? he has derrick henry, basically
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this meat tenderizer beating up a defense. you have a running attack that can't be stopped. the ravens, who started off really slow, as we talked about on this show, they didn't look great to start, they have surged to, again, an afc north now that looks impressive. >> except for the browns. >> except for the browns. let's turn to the main event, the baseball playoffs. down to the final four. guardians dispatched the tigers. thrilling game over the weekend. they're set up to play the yankees. talk about them in a second. first, dodgers and mets. mets have this magical ride. it's just one game, but they hit a speed bump. the dodgers offense pounded them. the experiment backfired badly in the first inning. what the dodgers got, besides timing hitting, seven good innings from jack flaherty, which rested the bullpen, which they had to use so much against the padres. that's a gigantic advantage for l.a. going forward. >> look, i compared the mets to
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a wooden roller coaster. what is the critique of the dodgers in recent past? i was thinking about this. they're like the ferrari that stalls on the interstate. you're like, this is embarrassing. you paid all this money, luxury vehicles, big names, and they choke in the postseason. this game is exactly what you want if you're a dodgers fan. they have run, jon, a 33-inning scoreless streak. the dodgers had three straight shutouts on top of the bullpen which was rested exactly because of it. they're doing what you want when you have, again, as a team, incredibly well run. ohtani had the longest postseason draught in baseball in terms of, when can this guy get into a playoff game? you see the faces, the applause. it feels like the money is paying off. it's been a long time coming for that feeling specifically against the mets. >> let's hope it is a great series and goes all the way. host of "pablo torre finds out on meadow lark media," pablo
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torre, thank you. >> let's go yankees. >> oh. >> that's right, i said it. >> oh. >> cut his mic. joining the conversation, we have former msnbc host and contributor chris matthews. so much to talk about. first, let's talk about the new nbc poll that came out yesterday. it is tied. you talk to people in both camps. the trump people will tell you they'll win by 80 points. talk to the harris people, they say it is tied. i mean, they are under indexing among hispanic voters and black voters. they're trying to bring everybody home by the end. they're over indexing in white, college educated voters. you know, margins of errors. we always have room for the margins of errors. 3.1%. this thing could go either way. what do the last three weeks look like to you? >> i'll tell ya, it is a battle. it's the usual map of
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pennsylvania. you've got pittsburgh, then you have philadelphia in the suburbs, chester county, delaware county, montgomery county, and bucks county. all those on one side, philadelphia is the big one. philadelphia brings in about 600,000 votes. used to be back in 1960, just to put it in a historic perception, 330,000 votes for philadelphia. majority for kennedy. won the state by 100,000. now, they bring in about 600,000 votes in philadelphia to win the state by about 80,000 in 2020. it's still the city where you have to measure it against what's going on in the rural parts of the state. rural parts of pennsylvania, it is rural. it is very different. doesn't feel like the city. it is not the suburbs. there's no downtown really. it's a very conservative area, and they're voting for trump. then you go to the burbs around philadelphia, like bucks county. they sort of are part of the
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amtrak route. much more new york oriented. much more east coast. the western part of pennsylvania, like pittsburgh, is really part of the big ten. it's really different. i'm going up tomorrow to the philadelphia organization, the city committee. they're having their cocktail party. biden is going to be there. it'll be an attempt to get everybody out to vote. you have to get the black vote out. you have to get the women vote out. the younger vote out. we have to hope it's all there. meanwhile, trump is out there saying the vote is not going to count. the vote is going to be broken up. it's not going to be predictable. there's a guy out there, secretary of state, al schmidt, going around the state. he was on "60 minutes" last night. he is a heroic figure. he's been put in by josh shapiro, the governor. this guy has been saying there's no cheating, no foreigners voting, no illegal people
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voting. it isn't happening. yet trump is stirring it around that you really can't count it because you have mail-in votes. he said if you have a 45-day lead for a mail-in vote, there must be having going on here. what? nothing. this is trump really trying to screw up american democracy, just like he did on january 6th in '21. he wants to screw it up so people don't even believe in the vote. that's his game here. either win or blame it as a stolen election. >> he's been doing that going back to when ted cruz beat him in the iowa caucuses in january of 2016. kamala harris last night was in north carolina, and i think she delivered what is the start of her closing message over the next three weeks. take a look. >> donald trump intends to end affordable care act. [ crowd booing ] and he has no plan to replace it. did you see the debate? he has concepts of a plan!
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[ crowd reacting ] okay, so he is going to threaten the health insurance coverage of 45 million people based on a concept? come on! and take us back to when insurance companies had the power to deny people of pre-existing conditions. you know where i'm going. well, we are not going back! [ applause ] no, we're not. no, we're not. [ crowd chanting "we're not going back" ] >> anybody who wants to be president of the united states, who has called for the, quote, termination of the constitution
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of the united states, should never again have the ability to stand behind the seal of the president of the united states. never again! never again! [ applause ] and the people who know him best know it. his former national security adviser. two of his former defense secretaries. his former chief of staff in the white house. his own vice president. have all warned america, donald trump is unfit to serve. >> let's bring in "new york times" best selling author jonathan alter. he is author of "american reckoning," inside trump's trial and my own. he details his experience attending donald trump's hush
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money trial in new york. jonathan, let's start by just talking about american politics and how close all of these races are. jon meacham was on earlier talking about how joe biden won by 43,000 votes spread across seven states. basically, as he said, less people than will be watching the yankees play cleveland tonight. >> right. >> we, of course, remember 2000, which was 500 or 600 votes. 2004, which george w. bush won more comfortably. yet, you could fit more people into ohio state's football stadium than decided that election, as well. and other than barack obama in 2008, 2012, every race has come down to a few thousand votes here and a few thousand votes there. looks like it's going to be the same this time, as well. how do you see the last three
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weeks playing out? you heard kamala harris' message last night. she'd said that, you know, you don't need a president who won't release his medical records, who won't do a debate even on fox news, and won't do a "60 minutes" sit-down. is that a strong closing statement? >> it is a very important part of her closing statement, joe. we've all known this has been a hope versus fear election. i think it is also now a strong versus weak. it's harris who is flipping the script and making trump look like a coward. last night, she called him weak and unstable. that'll be a very important part of her message. i think you can expect, probably as early as this week, that at her rallies, you're going to see her people in the audience going, bock, bock, bock, like trump is a chicken. he won't go and debate her.
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he won't go on "60 minutes." karl rove always said, go after your opponent on his strengths. if you take down that strength, you win the election. trump is posing as a strongman, but we all know he is a coward underneath, like the bully on the playground. she has to flip that script. she has to keep her foot on his neck every day with new, imaginative attack lines that convey that she is the one who can be trusted with the presidency. he is dangerous don. demented don. that's the line surrogates would use. the surrogates' language isn't nearly tough enough in their attacks on trump. but she is on the right track. it's all within the margin of error. the press should pay less attention to the polls and more on the stakes. cover it less as a horse race
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and more on the future of the democracy. >> this is going to come down to 40,000 votes in a few swing states. there are still people who haven't decided. what do you make of what you're hearing from donald trump in these closing -- it seems he has made a very direct rhetoric about migrants. they've replaced the 2019 caravan of people coming into the country with attacks on people already in the country. how do you see that playing out? what do you think the harris campaign can do to kind of highlight the darkness in that, or just leave that be? >> well, i think it is a problem to be talking about immigration generally. you want people focused on other things. i'm not sure she should, you know, respond directly to all of that. but the surrogates need to get out the message. this is not america. we don't do this. you know, i keep coming back to these lines which i have in it
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"american reckoning," my book. in the gettysburg address, lincoln said a nation so dedicated can long endure. we're talking about a definition of who we are and who we want to be as a people. this is not who we are, the way he is talking. the other thing that i think, you know, is just so important for democrats is, if this is a fight for democracy, which i believe it is, like, my late father went and fought in world war ii, was shot down over europe. george h.w. bush one shot down in the pacific. they were fighting, putting their lives on the line, like so many soldiers, for democracy. if they can risk their lives, what can we do? what can we do for democracy? each of us has to ask ourself that question. whether that gets you out to phone banking in battleground states, which you can do from non-battleground states or whoever. in my case, it is bearing
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witness. you know, in the trial and everywhere. that's the question we have to ask. franklin roosevelt said, he had everybody put a decal in their window at the depths of the depression. it was a blue eagle. underneath it said, "we do our part." what's our part right now in the last three weeks? i'm not talking about kamala harris. the rest of us. what's our part? will we defend democracy? even though we -- you know, we don't have to put our lives on the line. all we have to do is get up off the couch or, you know, convince uncle bob that, you know, it's worth it to get up off the couch. that's why i wrote this book, was to convince uncle bob to get up off the couch. i think if we -- if people of good faith, and there are millions in this country, put their mind to it, what lincoln
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called the better angels of our nature, we'll prevail. but this is the national moment of truth. this next three weeks will define who we are as a people for decades to come. that's how stark the choice is. >> chris matthews, hearing what jonathan is saying, and remembering just what you said a few moments ago, taking pennsylvania as an example, isn't part of what has to happen in the next three weeks with the harris campaign that she and her surrogates have to energize natural supporters of theirs and committed supporters and surrogates without alienating, to the degree, the rural parts of pennsylvania that will vote for trump but not do things that will make that turnout become higher? because she can say things or surrogates can say things that
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will excite the base, but they've got to do it in a way that they do not excite a turnout or backlash against the base. isn't that the needle she's -- the thread she's got to get through the needle? >> yeah, al, it seems to me that when we look at the election results the day after, the wednesday after the election, if there's any clarity by then, it's going to be, if trump wins, the lead will be immigration, asylum seeking in this country, illegal immigrants, however you want to phrase it. he will benefit by every one of those votes. she has to fix that. i think when she says her policies are going to be the same as biden's, that's a big mistake. i don't understand why she doesn't point out the fact that she said that she'll bring it to a vote, the bipartisan bill that trump destroyed, put an ax through basically, said, i'm going to take that to a vote in the u.s. senate. we're going to get that through. i'm not sitting around like
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biden, waiting for the other side to agree with us. i don't care what trump wants. we'll bring it to a vote. it's a fair bill. we'll try to bring it through. that's how i'll be different. i'll be tougher on immigration in terms of getting things done. she can also talk about the poor people and working class people that she's going to tax the rich for. that's called reconciliation. put the bill on the floor. the bill says the rich people are going to pay for this, and this is what we're going to do with it. say you're going to do it. say you're going to do things. she has to work the immigration number down. she can't just let it sit there where everybody who doesn't like illegal immigration votes against her. she has problems. abortion rights, she has got to stick it to trump on the fact he said he wants women to suffer. the fact is, he wanted them to suffer, then he picked three conservatives to put on the court and get rid of roe v. wade. she's got to get tougher on both fronts. if she wins, it'll be abortion rights that'll be in the lead. if she loses, it'll be
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immigration. that'll be in the lead. we know the facts. she has to address them. i think her pitch so far has been too soft. i think she's got to get after it and say, i'm going to do something for you on the economy. i'm going to do something about abortion rights. this is going to be a tough fight. we're going to win it on the issues. she has to do that. i think, so far, it's a little too vanilla. it doesn't quite have an excitement to it, her pitch, i think. >> jonathan, you mentioned your new book, and it talks about trump's trials, hush money trial. you were there pearbearing witn as you say. happened in manhattan. led to a conviction. you also talk about your own trial, your own reckoning. tell us what you mean. >> i grew up in a political family in chicago. i've interviewed nine american presidents. i like to think of myself as an idealist without illusions, which is how jfk defined himself. it turned out i did have illusions about roughly half of the american public. i'm kind of going through a
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crisis of faith in half of the public. that colors my account. ultimately, people who read the book say it makes them feel better when they finish the book. because donald trump was held to account by that jury last spring. the judge, you know, for the first time in trump's life, since his father died 40 years ago, he had to answer to somebody. he was -- and watching that jury, four persons say, guilty, guilty, guilty, 34 times, this was one of the most dramatic moments of the 21st century so far. nobody could see it because it was untelevised. now, this goes before the big jury, the electorate. i feel right now the way i did when the jurors were deliberating. what would they come back with? this election can complete the
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accountability that that trial started. so i think that there are ways of being energized and getting other people energized that go beyond, obviously, the critical issue of abortion. i agree with what chris said, trying to neutralize the immigration issue. i do also think that democracy is a powerful issue. we found that after 2022. with exit polls. it's pretty high right now among people's concerns. i don't think that democrats should let the stakes for democracy recede, or the fact that he's a convicted felon. remember, people like former arkansas governor asa hutchinson. he said, i can't vote for a convicted felon. the matchup of former prosecutor versus perp is part of kind of the under -- the subtext of this election.
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they need to bring that a little bit to the surface and remind people that this man is a criminal. he's a convicted criminal. >> jonathan, let me -- let's delve into your crisis of faith and tell me how you're sorting through this. because you and i both know, we followed politicians our entire life. i was a politician. politicians, i mean, they say what they think will help them. they focus on what will win them votes. i did it. i mean, in my races, i believed what i believed. i figured out early on, knocking on doors, what is it people want to focus on this year? i focused on it in campaigns. >> right. >> donald trump has focused on a very dark message. he's talked about just this past weekend, he's going to use the national guard. he is going to use the united states military to go after people on the left. he said just over the past week he was going to shut down cbs
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news, or that cbs news should be shut down because he didn't like the way "60 minutes" was edited. he's talked about being a dictator on day one. these are all -- we could -- these things are all being said for a reason. they're being said because donald trump thinks his base wants to hear autocratic, strongman speech. if you look at the polls, he seems to be right. even country club republicans are coming home. you tell me, how a range rover driving, country club republican in greenwich, connecticut, or palm beach, florida, who hears this autocratic talk, and understands what the stakes are, goes, eh, i don't like trump at all. he makes me tired. but i think i'm going to vote
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for him? >> first of all, some of them are coming home, but trump is underperforming in these polls with white voters. we always look at the glass half empty. harris is underperforming with black voters, but trump is getting fewer white voters than he got in 2020. so there are obviously a lot of mostly college educated voters who aren't buying this. this is why i think liz cheney is so important to harris' campaign. she really validates that he is acting in an un-american way. i actually think she should talk about putting liz cheney this her cabinet in some position, ramp it up for voters you're talk about, joe. also, give people a sense that, as she said in her pittsburgh speech, i'm a capitalist. most of her proposals are for
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small business. they're for the people who live in those suburbs, who want to start a business, who want help because they're in the sandwich generation. and focus on some of those economic issues so she can drive up turnout in bucks county, montgomery county. she has to do better than biden did to win pennsylvania and the election. >> that's a name i keep hearing, liz cheney for the cabinet. the new book "american reckoning, inside trump's trial and my own," is available for preorder now and goes on sale next tuesday, october 22nd. great timing. "new york times" bestselling author jonathan alter, thank you for joining the table. >> thank you so much. >> chris matthews, thank you, as well, for getting up early for us this morning. >> thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," in bob woodward's new book, former joint chiefs of staff mark milley is quoted as calling donald trump fascist to the core. we're going to talk about the significance of those comments and what else the general had to say. you're watching "morning joe."
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which i hope -- [ applause ] -- which i hope is finally enough money for her to stop texting me. >> a new report shows that inflation has dropped to its lowest level in almost four years. man, i wish joe biden was still around to see this. >> okay. that's good. as we heard earlier from mr. meacham, this 2024 presidential race is likely going to be decided by just a few thousand voters in a few key states. chief among those voters are white women, who are one of the biggest voting blocks in the nation. nbc's ali vitali traveled to all-important pennsylvania for a deeper look at what is motivating them, and we'll talk about that in a moment. first, here is ali's report. >> i changed my voter registration the day after the dobbs decision. >> from what to what? >> from republican to independent. >> reporter: dr. wheeling had always been a registered
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republican. >> i felt embarrassed to call myself a republican after the passage of the dobbs decision. >> reporter: in 2020, wheeling went for trump. she believed her kids' jobs hinged on the policies of the administration. >> i thought it would be hypocritical if i did not vote for trump. >> when you think about voting in this election cycle, do you have a sense of who you're going to vote for? >> absolutely. i'm going to vote for kamala harris. four years ago, i might have said no. now, i do think she is more moderate. i absolutely cannot vote for trump. >> reporter: voters like teresa in areas like this one, erie, pennsylvania, could decide the election. white women are the largest voting block in the country. since 2000, the gop presidential ticket has won a majority of them. in 2016, the group, including deb loney and lisa nebis, helped trump win the presidency. >> his message about wanting to breakaway from the status quo of politicking was appealing. >> i voted for trump. it was a struggle for me, and i ended up voting for trump.
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i regret it. >> reporter: trump grew his support with white women in 2020. despite losing voters likely sa and deb. >> i always felt women liked me. >> reporter: nbc news data shows white women shifting left with their party preference in recent years, from a gop advantage in 2012 to a growing gap after 2016. >> do you see the left ward shift? >> we do see it. >> reporter: jackie wayne runs galvanize action. they've been tracking the same 6,500 moderate white women across ten swing states since may. a margin of error race throughout, but their new poll shows harris has a slight edge, 46% to 44%. >> it is a game of inches. like, it is so, so close. >> reporter: the economy is a top issue for these voters. nearly half of them believe republicans are better on the issue than democrats. preserving democracy, fixing immigration, and strengthening abortion rights are also key. >> primary importance is women's rights. >> what is important to me is
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our democracy right now. >> the whole political discourse, i feel like, is getting negative. >> reporter: a wreckening that -- reckoning that could decide the election, even if just for now. >> is this a permanent realignment for you? >> maybe with my registration but not with my voting. it's based on the character, the person, and the issue. >> katty, when we look at the way white women broke down overall, but specifically in pennsylvania back in 2020, you can see here that biden was able to win among all women. then if you break down even further, you see that trump had an edge when it came to breaking out white women specifically. then we look at our new nbc news poll from over the weekend. writ large, nationally, we know, of course, this is a head-to-head race. you even heard it in the piece there. it is a game of inches. we know that it can be decided by a cluster of a few thousand votes in key states. for example, in our september 2024 poll, trump was trailing harris among white women. you see harris here has a margin
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of plus six. then if you look ahead to one month later, you already see a pretty massive shift happening. trump now is up with this group of voters by two. so this is going to be a pretty significant shift that we're watching. yes, in states like pennsylvania. it was important to travel to erie. but also looking in places like georgia and north carolina, michigan, wisconsin. all of these states that we spend so much time on, these are the kinds of shifts that we're watching. not just in our poll but in polling across the board. they could be the thing that make the ultimate difference, jonathan. >> as mentioned earlier in the show, i was in montgomery county, pennsylvania, over the weekend. anecdotal. one house upstairs had a trump banner and downstairs, harris. >> isn't that life these days? >> this is where we are. ali vitali, thank you so very much. we're also learning more about how former top officials in the trump administration feel
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about the former president. general mark milley, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, called trump a, quote, fascist to the core. that's according to excerpts from "war," a new book from longtime "washington journal"ist bob woodward. milley said, i had suspicions but now i realize he is a total fascist. he is now the most dangerous person to this country. milley also fears he could be court marshalled if trump wins the election. though milley is retired, the president as commander in chief can recall retired commissioned officers to active duty and then potentially court marshall them. joining us now, another retired general who is raising the alarm about the dangers of a possible second trump term, two star major general. thank you for joining us and, of
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course, for your service. we heard what chairman milley had to say. give us your own impressions. why are you so alarmed about the possibilities of a second trump term? what would it mean for this nation? >> i think it is very important for all the viewers to understand a few things about what is the trump campaign and what is president trump? he is authoritarian. it is nationalistic, far right. it is intolerant of dissent. it has a contempt for the ule of law. it requires direct obedience to a powerful leader, and it requires the supremacy of one ethnic group. well, i gave you the definition of what fascism is. that's what hurts so much personally, is the average american who is a trump supporter does not understand that actually, right now, president trump is demonstrating the attributes of fascism every single day. so essentially, we have to
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remember, what does it mean when general milley called president trump a fascist? that is right out of the textbook. it is not something where it is political rhetoric. it is what the. every american supporting trump needs to understand they are absolutely supporting fascism if they vote for trump. >> your word and the title you carry, we know other retired military officers have done the same, spoke out. there are some who say milley. but you worked with him. if you were to give an interview on the record in front of a camera, that would carry -- that'd mean so much. same with mattis, kelly, and the rest. what would your urgings be? >> it is important to say every
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retired officer has to make their own choice. as retired military, we are free to express our opinions politically. not, of course, while serving on active duty, but while we are retired. part of the organization the national security leaders for america, we have over 15 four-star generals and admirals who actually have expressed very strongly their support for vice president harris. i think it is important to say that it is an individual choice, and people have to decide what they need to do personally. it is also very important, as was described by some of your -- the people you interviewed a few minutes ago, a few thousand votes are going to decide this election in key districts. it disturbs me greatly that congressman scott perry and others in pennsylvania and in michigan are literally suing their states to disenfranchise the absentee ballots of deployed american soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, their spouses.
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it is something where they're losing the military vote, and they're very nervous about it. they want to, quite frankly, say those votes shouldn't count, for various reasons. we need to keep in mind that all of these are attempts to disenfranchise our military and our veterans who actually do support vice president harris. think about it. almost every single american, whether you are a parent, a spouse, an uncle, an aunt, a son, a daughter, knows somebody who has served in the military or serves as a veteran, held their hand up and said they will support the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, of which i have done it, my father did it, my grandfather did it during world war ii, my son has done it in the air force presently. it's one of those things where, because we all know that, do we want a commander in chief who says that he will potentially use the national guard and active duty military to hunt
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down those people who do not agree with him? not only is it illegal, it's immoral. now, remember, the supreme court has already said that the president can do whatever he or she wants without any kind of consequences. that means that that will be a green light for him to use the national guard, which is extremely easy, by the way, from a legal point of view. he could use it to hunt down people who don't agree with him. is that what he want in our country? well, i don't. i think most americans do not. >> general, talk about how the anguish and soul searching that you and others, retired, have to do to even step out. i've been around a while now. it's unprecedented to see people like general milley and people like you be so public, knowing that you could be targeted if this election goes another way.
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talk about what it took to get to your personal decision and that of others who have taken this unprecedented thing where people who are present in the top ranks in the military goes against what the trend has been of staying out of political races but made you feel you had to come forward, even though it was at great risk. >> great question. it's something where, for 35 year, i was apolitical. i basically kept to myself. what i saw in trump's first term disturbed me greatly because he had this disdain for the constitution. he had this disdain for laws he did not agree with or he basically didn't want to follow. i think that myself and speaking from many of the other people i know personally, we took that oath, again, to defend the constitution of the united states. not as general milley said, to
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pledge alegiance to some dictator or wanna be dictator or king or queen. that is not the american way. that's the way that putin required it. that's the way that hitler required it. you are required to take a personal oath to him. that is not the way we do it here. all of these reasons put together mean that we believe strongly that trump is a clear and present danger to our democracy, that he will turn it into a fascist state. he already leads a fascist party. again, for those of you who don't believe me, please google the definition of fascism. you can see it almost word for word, what the maga group is all about. that's why we are not supporting trump. i am registered as independent. i voted for donald reagan. -- ronald reagan. i voted for george bush sr. i vote for the person who will best serve our country.
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trump is the absolute opposite of this. i'm just appalled, and it's been very difficult for me to come to this conclusion and for others, but we must absolutely not put trump back in as the commander in chief. >> retired two star major general randy manner, thank you. >> thank you. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> does she think about that? do you think about that? that if donald trump wins, if he's good on his word, he could arrest her and jail her and jail critics? >> we don't think about that for ourselves. we think about it for every single other person in this country. >> that was part of joe's wide-ranging interview with second gentleman doug emhoff. we'll play you more of what he had to say about how he and his family are handling personal attacks from donald trump. "morning joe" will be right back.
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second gentleman. the discussion began with what led to harris' candidacy. president biden's disastrous debate performance in june. take a look. >> you had the debate. and everybody's phones were blowing up for the next couple of weeks. and just about every democrat i knew, every journalist i talked to, everybody was saying, well, they can't just hand it to kamala. that's not going to happen. there's going to be an open convention. she's going to have to earn it. there's going to be fights. why did everybody close so quickly around kamala when all of the elites, all of the experts said that was never going to happen? >> i think it's a testament to her. i mean, almost four years as vice president. she's demonstrated that leadership throughout. it may not have been covered all the time, but it was there. she was building relationships across the party, across the
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country. and, again, no one handed this to her, joe. >> that wasn't the perception, though, of her. as you know, people were always knocking her. since she's gotten the nomination, i've talked to friends, world leaders, ambassadors who say, oh, yeah, she came to our country two times or three times. oh yeah, we know her. we like her. all of these things that you find out afterwards that she'd been doing the quiet work. >> that's why those of us on the inside were not surprised. that's why many could have stepped up and didn't. and so, you know, i think they saw what i knew and you're hearing after the fact. be you know, did ten hours of hitting the phones and making sure she was getting the words out, wasn't preor daned at all,
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and she earn ds it. she earned it not only through her actions on that day but her four plus years of being there. whether it was being covered or not it was happening. >> why do you think donald trump won't debate her again? >> you saw the first debate, didn't you? >> yeah. >> he was afraid that was going to happen again. rather, he's spreading this fog of misinformation, disinformation and gaslighting rather than facing her again. >> he's spreading it about you, saying that tabloid stories about your personal life, saying it should be front and center. he's saying it about your wife, and making incredibly crude and
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rude suggestions about her past life. how do you stay disciplined and not really go off and not really push back hard at these things? >> we don't have time to be pissed off. we don't have time to pe cuss on it's all a distraction. he's trying to get us off our game. all we talk about is the election. we understand the stakes, the responsibilities. >> what are the stakes? >> our country, our future. what kind of future are we going to have? what would you like picking the next two or three supreme court justices the guy who picked three and took away roe v. wade and more and more freedoms or the kamala harris? she said it it's not just the most important election of our lifetime. it's the most important election of our nation's lifetime. you've seen us before than the before times.
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a lot of happy couple talk, we love each other dearly, love being around each other, we have fun together. right now we're deferring that happy couple time because everything else we talk about right now is what else can we do to win this election. where else can we go to get the word out? the stakes are too high. all the other stuff bounces off, it's a distraction. we're not going to let it distract us. >> you talked about the stakes being too high. i don't know if you know this or not, but your wife and i were on the cover of ""the new york times" magazine along with 20 other people and the question is whether donald trump would be able to jail the people he said he was going to jail. so does she think about that? do you think about that? that if donald trump wins, if he's good on his word, he could
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arrest her and jail her and jail critics? >> we don't think about that for ourselves. we think about it for every single other person in this country. you know, she put herself out there and that comes with the territory. so we're willing to take anything that's thrown at us for our country. we love our country we're patriots. we care about the future of our country like i know you do. so this is why we're going to fight like held for these next 20-something days for our rule of law, for our constitution, for our democratic ideals, not someone who's going to talk about weaponizing the department of justice to jail perceived enemies and go against a free and fair media. this is all the stuff that people need to understand and not get sucked in by this trump fog that's out there of disinformation, misinformation, perception that he was somehow good on the economy when he was president. he was not. and all these things he's trying
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to, you know, dupe the american people on. when you have someone like kamala harris, a prosecutor, somebody who was an attorney general, a united states senator, vice president, been in the oval office helping make decisions in the situation room, doesn't have to train to be a world leader, already is a world leader and has the character that people can look up to and she tells the truth. so for me and so many others,s this why we're all supporting kamala harris. >> doug emhoff on the stakes of this race, we don't have time to be pissed off and you'll hear why the second gentleman thinks the race is still a tie. up next we'll have an update on recovery efforts in florida following president biden's tour yesterday of damage from hurricane milton, "morning joe" coming right back. k.
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president biden made his second trip to florida in as many weeks yesterday, visiting st. petersburg to survey the destruction caused by hurricanes milton and helene. nbc news correspondent stephanie gosk has the details. >> reporter: for many in florida the devastation is sinking in. >> i have never seen anything like this. most people living here alive have never seen anything like this either. >> reporter: president biden in st. petersburg toured the damage sunday and announced 600 million in federal funds for recovery efforts including 100 million
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for improving florida's power system. >> not only restore power but make the system stronger and more capable and reduce the frequency and duration of power outages, all extreme weather events become more frequent. >> reporter: nearly 1 million residents are without power and flooding is still a concern. >> rivers are continuing to rise, there are still shelters open for you to go to. >> reporter: on the ground some barrier island communities are completely destroyed. these are the front steps to a house that obviously is no longer here. the best thing that we can guess is that the house that was here was picked up by the water and deposited here. it's one of those two. we were given exclusive access to the key. that took a direct hit with wind and storm surge. is this the first time you were here? >> no.
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we were able to get on yesterday and saw the whole wall of our house is blown out. >> reporter: even first responders overwhelmed by the destruction as they escorted our team to still restricted areas. >> we live in a paradise we're resilient but they're not going to be prepared for this when they come here. >> reporter: it almost is like you're not prepared to see it. >> i'm not. it's devastation. these are kids toys. i have a child. we all have families it's heartbreaking to see. >> amazing the level of devastation there. that was stephanie gosk reporting for us. still ahead, quote, weak and unstable. that's what vice president kamala harris called donald trump yesterday as she questioned why he has yet to release his medical records. plus congressman steven horseford will join us on what they're doing to engage blackmail voters ahead of this
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very tight election. we'll be back in 90 seconds. we'. you're rich as hell. we're going to give you tax cuts. well, i'm not rich as hell. kamala harris will cut taxes for working people and make billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share. trump is fighting for rich guys like himself. kamala is fighting for us. [narrator] ff pac is responsible for the content of this ad. why choose a mobile network built
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for places you'll f probably never be... ...instead of for where you are most of the time? xfinity mobile was designed for where you need it most. now xfinity internet customers can buy one line of unlimited and get one free for a year. he talks at his rallies about fictional characters he constantly is in a state of grievance about himself. he has no plans for the american people and he just makes things up on a full-time basis with the intention to make the people afraid, to make people fear that which they should not be afraid of. but he does it in a way that he
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thinks, i think, will compel them to believe that somehow he is the savior when, in fact, he is quite unfit to do the job. >> that's vice president kamala harris speaking with reporters on saturday with a theme she carried throughout the weekend. good morning and welcome to "morning joe" it's monday october 15th and with us we have jonathan lemire and also we have special correspondent for bbc news katty kay. so much going on in the news today. why don't you get us started in north carolina, katty. >> yeah, joe. it's been a super busy weekend on the campaign trail. we're what just three weeks until election day pretty much. yesterday vice president kamala harris held a rally in greenville, north carolina where she called donald trump weak for refusing to do the things that every other presidential candidate does including herself. >> he has no plan for how he
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would address the needs of the american people. he is only focused on himself. and he's not -- but here's the thing, north carolina, and he's not being transparent with the voters. he's not being transparent. so check this out. he refuses to release his medical records. i've done it. every other presidential camp, every other presidential candidate in modern era has done it. he is unwilling to do a "60 minutes" interview. like every other major party candidate has done for more than half a century. he is unwilling to meet for a second debate. and here's the thing.
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here's the thing. it makes you wonder. it makes you wonder, why does his staff want him to hide away? one must question, one must question, are they afraid that people will see he is too weak and unstable to lead america? is that what's going on? we can already see the harm he's up to as a candidate. most recently spreading disinformation in the wake of natural disasters. blocking real solutions that would stop drug cartels from stopping the border when he tried to kill and did that border security deal. because you see, donald trump occasions more about scaring people, creating fear, running on a problem instead of what
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real leaders do, which is to participate in fixing problems. >> all right. well, we've got a tight race. we're going to get to that in a minute. nbc news poll came out yesterday 48/48. and so what we're looking at, i think, jonathan lemire with kamala harris in north carolina there is the beginning of a three-week dash. we're talking about the beginning of i think her closing message, and if you look at it, it's a pretty strong message saying that he's a -- he's afraid to release his medical records. he's afraid to go and do a "60 minutes" interview, afraid to do a debate. and then she comes behind to what donald trump's political strength is, which is strength, power, and she says he's weak
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and unstable. which does seem to pick at what a lot of people who supported donald trump say, i don't like him, i'm not sure if he's all there but i may vote for him anyway. is this a delivered effort by the harris campaign to drive this message home that he's weak, he's unstable, and they're afraid to even put him out there? >> yes. and part of this is the hope to provoke him. she's been effective at needing him finding his weak spots. remember the debate, that seemed like a throw away line although we've been told it was well practiced she noted people leave trump's rallies early. donald trump i don't think has given a speech since in which he has not tried to rebut that. he talks about it constantly. they don't leave my speeches early. they don't leave my speeches early. and that was a sign to the people in the harris campaign that she can effectively needle him, put him on territory she
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wants to compete and she's doing it again here now. trying to turn a strength, much like his crowds here, his suggestion of his strength and turn it into weakness, having to defend it, undercut it saying he's afraid to do interview, to release his medical records and tying that with their overall theme which is trump makes every decision about himself, not you the voter. he's shielding you. he doesn't want to give you this information. he doesn't trust you. he's not looking out for you. and that is her argument right now as trump simply goes darker and darker on the campaign trail. >> he does do that and we'll get to that in a second, katty. there's also this frustration inside the harris campaign that nothing matters. it seems when it comes to donald trump that he doesn't release his medical records. every other presidential candidate does and there's really not even that much of a fuss about it. that he doesn't do the '60
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minutes interview" the first time in 50 years that a presidential candidate doesn't do the "60 minutes" interview, he ducks that. and then he says that people at cbs should be arrested for the way they edited interviews the way they always do. and, of course, refuses 20 do the second debate, even if it is fox news. so it seems he is hiding and she drives it home with -- it's like they're afraid he's too weak and unstable to do his job, to go out there. how does that work with undecided voters, do you think? >> yeah, look, that's -- the kamala harris we saw in north carolina this weekend is the kamala harris that both the campaign and democratic strategists that i speak to say they want out there. that's the person they want
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voters to see, who's projecting strength, reminding people about the weaknesses and the chaos, surrounding donald trump. but i agree with you, joe, it's remarkable. here we are three weeks out and nothing seems to move the needle and perhaps nothing moves the needle as the first assassination attempt against donald trump and even then it didn't seem to move the needle much. so the harris campaign has to get out for three weeks and hope that you can pick away at some sections of the electorate. and hope that is going to be that swings those -- what are we seeing 4% of people who say they still haven't made their minds up. >> who hasn't made their mind up yet. it's crazy. we'll be talking in a second about this tied race. i thought that was one of harris' better performances in some time, harkens back to the early rallies when she got in
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and you were seeing the sold out crowds in arizona, and north carolina and all over the place. but last night that speed showed the energy people saw when she first launched her campaign, and if that is the strategy, continuing to ask the question, what's he afraid of? why is he afraid to debate me? why is he afraid to do what every other presidential candidate has done in the last 50 years and go on cbs. what is wrong with him physically or mentally? why won't he release his medical records. and the way she was delivering it, positive, and i think joyful but also aggressively. i think, again, that's the tact she needs. joyful and yet defiant. i keep saying joyful because campaigns are about contrasts. you see that, you see that picture there?
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kamala harris joyful that is a contrast to an increasingly dark campaign. and if you ask donald trump he would tell you i'm running an increasingly dark campaign. that is his intent. he thinks fear, he thinks loathing, he thinks darkness wins. how do you combat that? you combat it again by being defiant but being joyful. she seemed to strike that tone last night very well. >> yeah. joyful and strong. meanwhile, of course you have former president trump who was out in the battleground state of arizona yesterday where he continued this dark rhetoric against -- particularly against minority groups and migrants. >> so we're now known all throughout the world as an occupied country. you believe it? they said one of the papers said from another country we are san occupied country. and you know what they're not that wrong. but these gentlemen will
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un-occupy us very quickly. it's really no different than if we had a war, lost the war. but to everyone here in arizona and all across the land, i make this pledge, november 5, 2024 will be liberation day in -- it's going to be liberation day. >> these are among the worst criminals anywhere in the world and they come from all over. a huge number is coming out of jails in the congo. because what's happening, countries and continents -- countries are releasing their prison populations into our country. and you know what if i headed up any of the countries we're talking about i would have done the same thing and even faster because who the hell can blame them. in venezuela their crime is down 72% because they've taken the street criminals, they've taken the drug dealers and drug lords -- they've taken all of
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these people and bussed them into the united states and crime is down 72% and it'll go further because they haven't gotten them all out. but they've taken their prisons, the prisons are way down, lowest number in decades because they moved the prisoners, these are hardened people, they know better than anybody who they are. >> it really is remarkable if if you sit and watch him, jonathan lemire, you see this is happened with orbon. this has happened with other leaders where they make up -- you know, they find the enemy, they make the enemy up, i've said this before. againing, you don't have to -- people don't have to like the facts. if they don't like facts they can make things up, it's a free country for now. but as i said before, when donald trump was running around
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talking about immigrants flooding into our country and somehow horrible life was in 167z, illegal immigrations, border crossings were at a 50 year low. and now he's doing it again, and it's actually lower. it's been lower over the past several months than it was at the end of his term. he talks about us being an occupied country nobody thinks we're an occupied country. they don't. if they do, they're living in a different country. you look again, facts, let those with ears here facts. he talks about crimes committed by illegal immigrants, committed by immigrants, study after study after study, year after year after year shows the same thing. crime rates among immigrants are lower than crime rates among native-born americans. this campaign has been reduced
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now to three things. and he's doing it because obviously he thinks it works. number one he's talking about illegal immigrants and he's saying that america is being destroyed by this invasion of illegal immigrants when he was the one that killed the bill that would have given us the toughest border security that we've ever had in the united states and he said he killed it for political reasons. that's number one. and then he talks about task force, goes higher and higher with the tariffs number which hurts the middle class because they're the ones going to pay the tariffs. and the third thing he talks about is how he's going to deploy the justice department to arrest people and then stifle speech he doesn't like.
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that's his closing message. and again, up to this point, it seemed to be working very well with his base, because we are tied right now and we are tied because his base has come back home. >> he is lying. he's lying about migrants, about crime, about the crimes committed by immigrants. that's his closing argument, the rhetoric is getting more danger and darker and his base is coming home. it's still a tie race, no one is saying it's over by any means but the harris momentum of a month or two back does seem to have dissipated and jump is closing on the claims of migrants that aren't true. republican mayor of aura, colorado fact checked him and said how he depicts this is not true. claims about the venezuela gang activity in our city, state,
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have been grossly exaggerated and have hurt the city's identity and sense of safety. this is an unreality that trump is propagating but the media is propping him up. we're seeing scare photographs here and gangs and exaggerating their impact wherever they may be. this is his closing argument and it's impacting -- he's doing it from colorado, which is not a swing state and his message in the swing states i was in the suburbs of philadelphia over the weekend at a youth soccer tournament. this is basically where this election is going to be decided and every trump ad you see on television was about immigration. every trump billboard and there were many, signs all about immigration. taking our country back. protecting our borders, protecting our citizens from the other. that's the message. and i'll say, that the ratio we
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talk about yard signs, anecdotal evidence pretty 50/50 when it comes to harris and trump in suburban philadelphia that i saw. but every message was about immigration, this is how he wants to close the race. >> coming up we'll go live to pennsylvania where kamala harris is making her tenth visit in the state. we'll get a preview of a rally today and the strategy for that critical battleground state when "morning joe" comes right back. n "morning joe" comes right back
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let's bring in mark rory. mark we had of course joe biden in the race, losing ground to donald trump. kamala harris gets in the race, seems to be tied up. you have a debate. harris gets the bump from the debate, goes up four or five points. and then it comes back where you knew it was going to come back to. >> we're three weeks out. it's tied. 48/48. and there are really interesting numbers i want to ask you about. mainly about kamala harris needing to lockdown a higher percentage of hispanic voters needing to lockdown a higher number of black voters and also of course carrying on the other
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side of the margin carrying a historic number of white educated voters. and it's just fascinating to see how all of that is going to play together. tell us what you got. >> joe you're right. the timing of our poll is really instructive here. when our september poll came out with harris with a five point lead over trump was after the debate, after a rough news environment for donald trump with the discussion about springfield, ohio and now all of a sudden we show a tied race. and what has occurred is the soft republicans, non-maga republicans have come back home to trump. in our september poll they were lagging obviously after the debate, the discussion of springfield, ohio. our poll finds them that they are back with trump and that explains him going from 44% in our poll in september to now 48%. you ended up mentioning the
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things that harris has to work on, shoring up latino voters, getting african americans in the fold, white women. harris has a 14 point lead among female voters while donald trump has a 16 point lead among male voters that's a 30 point gender gap. what is fascinating is trump's lead with men is slightly larger than harris' lead with women. and if you -- her ability to get back in a lead national lead over trump is being able to have a bigger lead among women than trump's lead among men. so a lot of those demographics. this is the last three weeks of the race. this is why you have mobilization and campaign to be able to juice your turnout, shore up your weaknesses we'll see what campaigns have up their sleeves the next three weeks. >> talk about this closing
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message on migration and the way donald trump is talking about that. what impact does that have on whatever number of undecided voters there are. we're looking at 4 to 6% who say they are undecided still. and talk about the general population, then talk about hispanic voters and theism pact it might have on them because that seems to be a little counter intuitive. >> yes. so donald trump is leaning into the immigration issue this is his strongest argument. our poll shows him a 25 point each over harris when it comes to which candidate is better when it comes to immigration and the border discussion. so donald trump is going right into his strengths. when it comes to undecided voters he is a candidate, it was true in 2016 and 2020, he doesn't see somebody who wants to moderate i'm going to try to win over the independent voter, nikki haley voters he goes directly to his base, that helped him in 2016 didn't help
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in 2020 we'll see about 2024. you talk about the immigration issue and latino voters specifically. our deep dive into latino voters shows that latinos aren't mon monolithic. they are very diverse. but what has happened is latino voters are really split when it comes to do you want to see more enforcement a crackdown at the border or do you want to see a path to legalization? a path to citizenship? the dream act? and we -- how divided we are as a country ends up showing just how divided the latino community is and latino voters are as a whole. >> you know, it's so funny you say that, mark. actually, i remember during the '96 campaign -- that's how long -- i mean, that's how old i am.
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but i remember saying that democrats always made the mistake of thinking all hispanics wanted the most liberal immigration policies out there. it's just not the case. again, it's not a monolithic group. and that's something i think that democrats have misplayed often through the years by thinking it is. i want to ask you really quickly right now, because i'm sure whatever nbc polls say or other polls say people will be coming back afterwards and saying they were wrong for one reason or the other. we remember leading up to the '22 election, just two years ago, we had so many people talking about a red wave, red wave, red wave. in 2016 we often got into debates on this set, mika and i, with people saying there's no way donald trump could get to 270 electoral votes. we all remember "the new york
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times" needle that i think tipped 98% for hillary clinton and then swung back. so you can only be so certain with these polls, right? so there's a 3%, 3 1/2% margin of error. talk about that and also talk about the difficulty you all have sorting through and maybe tell us how you do it. sorting through who the voters are, who the group is you're talking to. because of course in '20, in a lot of states, joe biden's support was widely overestimated. we showed polls showing him winning in wisconsin and michigan by double digit leads at the very end and then the polls seemed to under value the strength of democratic candidates in '22 and oversupporting trump candidates.
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how do you adjust for that as you go into '24? >> great question. we can't actually say these are precise instruments. our poll shows 48/48 and you have to take it to the bank that's how the election is going to turn out. ours is a national poll and a lot of these -- the presidential race will be decided in the states. but with one thing we're trying to do is look at what different turnout scenarios might end up being close races come down to turnout. and our poll shows a 48/48 tie among trump and harris. but what ends up having if you have a juiced up democratic turnout, more women who come to the polls, more younger voters, more nonwhite voters we asked what do our numbers look like if you assume a more favorable democratic environment. our poll shows that harris takes a three point lead over trump
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that 48/48 tie goes to a three point lead to harris. what ends up happening if you assume a better republican turnout? a wider electorate. that goes to a two point donald trump lead. the margin of error in our pole is plus or minus three%. we can't take these numbers as a precise measurement. most importantly we don't know what the turnout is going to be in this election. that exercise that we enup having a juiced up republican or democratic turnout our number shows you the ranges of possibility that might end up happening. this is really important, joe, we have three weeks to go and a lot could happen. a lot happened in 2016 that decided that race. donald trump over hillary clinton. a lot happened in the final days
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of the 2020 race so we have to see what the next three weeks bring us. >> i tell you, exactly. the british prime minister i think it was wilson who said in politics a week is a lifetime. we have three lifetimes left to two in the race and nobody knows how it ends up. mark murray thank you for being on. i greatly appreciate it. and as always, it's -- it's obvious, it's simple. in football it comes down to blocking and tackling. it comes down to the basics. in politics it comes down to g.o.v.t. getting out the vote. the side that gets out wins the election. and it's that basic blocking and tackling. so if you want your candidate to win, you get out the vote. you knock on doors. you pick up the phone.
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you call your friends. you drive people to the polls. you do whatever it takes. that's how i got elected to congress the first time. we kept calling people until they yelled at us and told us to stop calling or else they wouldn't vote for them. what should we do? call them again, knock on the doors again, yard signs again. three weeks is a lifetime in politics. so much can change in three weeks. so this race is a tie. anybody that tells you differently, doesn't know what they're talking about. this could go in either direction. and if you believe that the future of america is resting on this race, and especially if you live in one of those swing states, you've got three weeks to figure out how to make a difference in democracy. and that is what american
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have you compared your medicare plan recently? with ehealth, you can compare medicare plans side by side for free. so we invited people to give ehealth a try and discover how easy it can be to find your medicare match. this is pretty amazing. i can go on a vacation with this money. i have quite a few prescriptions. that's why people call us. we're going to compare plans, and i'm gonna try to get you as much bang for your buck as possible. that's great. this one here covers all your prescriptions, your doctors as well. oh, wonderful. i have a hard time with this. that's okay, that's what i'm here for. based on our conversation today, i would highly recommend this plan. you're so helpful. you know, you don't know. i'm excited for you, sir. again, my name is sham. and if you have any other questions, give me a ring. thank you very much. oh, my god, that was super easy. uhhh!
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see how your medicare plan stacks up with the big changes for 2025. just call this number or get started at ehealth.com. compare plans that cover your doctor's prescriptions, pharmacy and budget, and compare plans from the nation's top insurance companies. they pay us to help you. how much do you think you'll be able to save using ehealth? at least $300 a month. would you say you found your medicare match? yes i did. what sham did she explain to me exactly what i needed to know? well, i have a surprise for you. sham, come on out. oh my goodness. it's a pleasure to meet you today, sir. what does it feel like to be face to face? you helped me out quite a bit. call to meet your advisor. they're paid the same. no matter which medicare advantage plan you choose. ask them about ehealth, live advice or get started on your own at ehealth.com. either way, it's always a free service. see if you could get more for less with ehealth, like these folks did. the savings are unbelievable. i could see the costs side by side. ehealth is wonderful. $1,200 savings in my pocket. i was really pleasantly
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history. and now i say, this is the greatest president in american history. but i think it goes further than that. i think we are -- we are in the midst of one of the greatest leaders in human history and his name is donald j. trump. this guy right here. >> wow. katty, that's just -- that's something. i don't -- i don't know exactly what to say about that. other than it is -- it's amazing where my party has gone. my former party has gone. and they know, praise donald trump, you're his friend. don't praise donald trump, you're his enemy. >> yeah.
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i mean, kari lake's modus operandi since he ran for office in the beginning was to praise donald trump, it didn't work for her in arizona running for governor. the polls suggest it's not necessarily going to get her to the senate in arizona either, she's way behind. yet she sticks to it, she's decided to pin her colors to the master donald trump and that was more than i heard her be. new polling shows three top issues for latino voters and kamala harris is trusted more on each of them. we'll go through those and the head-to-head matchup when "morning joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back
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just imagine donald trump with no guardrails. he, who has vowed, if re-elected he would be a dictator on day one. that he would weaponize the department of justice against his political enemies. he has called for the, quote, termination of -- wait, hold on, hold on. hold on. hold on because here's the thing. let's let the courts handle that and let's handle november. coming up the conversation with the chairman of the congressional black congress. steven horsford is going to talk about the final days of the campaign when "morning joe" comes back. of the campaign when "morning joe" comes back
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jill stein. shivering, fever, and upset stomach. green party candidate for president. so why are trump's close allies helping her? stein was key to trump's 2016 wins in battleground states. she's not sorry she helped trump win. that's why a vote for stein is really a vote for trump. “jill stein. i like her very much. you know why? she takes 100% from them.” i'm kamala harris and i approve this message. here you go. is there anyway to get a better price on this? have you checked singlecare? before i pick up my prescription at the pharmacy, i always check the singlecare price. it's quick, easy, and totally free to use.
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more now from my interview with second gentleman doug emhoff shortly before he took the stage last week at a campaign rally in athens, georgia. one of the things we discussed how the polls got tighter since kamala harris' honeymoon stage. >> why is it this race is tighter? if you talk to people in the campaigns they say this race is tied. why? >> it is close. >> why aren't -- those things would have been disqualifying for any democrat or republican in the past. >> they should be. >> why aren't they now? >> they should be. and i don't think people are hearing what he's saying because again there's a trumpian fog, all the gaslighting,
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misinformation, disinformation, and people not willing to see what's right in front of their face. >> how do you cut through it? >> this is why we are out here each and every day in each of the swing states each and every day. this is why we're rallying, republicans, moderates, independents this is why we go massively wide, a there's a place for everyone here. you don't have to agree on kamala harris on every policy position although many people agree on most if they pay attention to what she's saying. but we must agree on who we are as a country, our democracy, our rule of law, free and fair election system if you lose you have to exit the stage. the big lie, which is like a cancer coursing through the veins of our democracy. >> you talk about the republicans, over 100 people from republican administrations,
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even on hurricane relief, the republican governor of georgia, tennessee, south carolina, the republican senator from north carolina, the republican -- you know, there are republicans that are stepping out and saying, donald trump is not telling you the truth. >> yeah. people need to listen to that. and also, they should pay attention to the republicans who have come out and said they're not supporting donald trump. including vice president pence, including secretary esper, general kelly. the people who were in the room who know he's unfit for any job let alone president. this isn't about how horrible trump is, and he is, but this is about how great she is and she is. she's putting herself out there. if people want to do more, she's doing the media. she did a great piece with howard stern, which was just her. she's doing podcasts, did the view, did 60 minutes unlike trump who would not do that.
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>> do you think donald trump is not doing that because he's mentally unfit. >> i don't know what he thinks in his head but it's just obvious by looking at him, listening to you him, you can see the degradation in front of your eyes. i said he's a degrading version of an already horrible person so he's getting worse and worse, so people need to pay attention to that. and also for folks who think we may not like his style, but we like his policies. remember the folks around him when he was president, there were some so called normals that kept the lights on, helped save our democracy after the election until the inauguration him, you're not a good jew. and throws out some of the biggest anti-semitic tropes that have historically been thrown out there about dual loyalty and
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so many other things. what do you think about the anti-semitism that we've seen not only over the past year but have seen rising over the past several years? >> myself, we have been leading on pushing back on anti-semitism, but just go back to charlottesville in the trump era. remember charlottesville. >> jews will not replace us. >> that's when donald trump said there are good people on both sides. the tree of life murder massacre in pittsburgh that was during the trump era. there was also a rise of anti-semitism when biden and harris took office. as second gentleman with a very big push from kamala harris because when they got elected and i had to step away from my career, i was wondering, okay, what am i going to do with this role? it was kamala who said you are the first jew ever, there is a rise in anti-semitism you need to get out there and raise your voice. since october 7th there's been a
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crisis of anti-semitism, but as what trump said at an event purporting to fight anti-semitism and then to say what he said, the tropes, the bile that came out of his mouth, it is, you know, as we say the height of hutzpah. yes, there is reason to be alarmed but i always say i am so proud to be jewish and i'm not going to live in fear. this is my message to all jews out there. >> i've known you and i've known your wife, the vice president, before she was vice president, and i've always known you all to be down to earth. and then you got shot out of the canon and then suddenly she's walking into arenas with 15,000 people screaming like she's a rock star, getting endorsements from taylor swift, and i talk to you all once or twice since and mika and i both said that you
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all were freakishly, weirdly, bizarrely normal. >> i've been around a lot of people who run for president that were in the position that you all are in now and they tighten up and they get nervous and i don't recognize them until after the election is over. i'm wondering what's grounding you all? >> i think that's just who we are. i mean, i came to politics very late, i had a whole career as a hollywood lawyer where no one wants to hire a shaky lawyer, you know, i've learned how to, you know, be confident under extreme stress and stay calm under extreme stress as a living. i think i'm wired that way. she's certainly wired that way, i think that's one of the reasons that got us together. but we also understand the circumstances. we understand that she had to step up, i had to step up, our family had to step up because what's at stake. so we are taking this beyond
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seriously, but we still -- we are who we are and that's -- we're still going to be ourselves, but we're out there and we're just continuing to talk about what more can we do to win this election each and every day, while still being ourselves and that's who we are. >> tell us in closing something about -- about kamala harris that you think people may not know or that people should have a better understanding of. >> well, she's just so, you know, family oriented. she's fun, she's fun-loving, but she's -- that's the joyful part, but, you know, you have that warrior part, the joyful warrior. fiercely devoted to her family, to our relationship, to sticking up for others, but also, you know, sticking up for everyone else. so, you know, i think she's an amazing person and i'm so proud of her to step up under extreme
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pressure, extreme scrutiny, where the stakes could not be higher for our country, our world, and it's still her. it's still the joyful warrior that i'm so in love with. >> that was more of my interview with second gentleman doug emhoff. we will dig in deeper into the latest polling with nbc's steve kornacki when he joins the conversation next. he's live at the big board in the fourth hour of "morning joe."
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have you compared your medicare plan recently? with ehealth, you can compare medicare plans side by side for free. so we invited people to give ehealth a try and discover how easy it can be to find your medicare match. this is pretty amazing. i can go on a vacation with this money. i have quite a few prescriptions. that's why people call us. we're going to compare plans, and i'm gonna try to get you as much bang for your buck as possible. that's great. this one here covers all your prescriptions, your doctors as well. oh, wonderful.
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i have a hard time with this. that's okay, that's what i'm here for. based on our conversation today, i would highly recommend this plan. you're so helpful. you know, you don't know. i'm excited for you, sir. again, my name is sham. and if you have any other questions, give me a ring. thank you very much. oh, my god, that was super easy. uhhh! see how your medicare plan stacks up with the big changes for 2025. just call this number or get started at ehealth.com. compare plans that cover your doctor's prescriptions, pharmacy and budget, and compare plans from the nation's top insurance companies. they pay us to help you. how much do you think you'll be able to save using ehealth? at least $300 a month. would you say you found your medicare match? yes i did. what sham did she explain to me exactly what i needed to know? well, i have a surprise for you. sham, come on out. oh my goodness. it's a pleasure to meet you today, sir. what does it feel like to be face to face? you helped me out quite a bit. call to meet your advisor. they're paid the same. no matter which medicare advantage plan you choose.
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ask them about ehealth, live advice or get started on your own at ehealth.com. either way, it's always a free service. see if you could get more for less with ehealth, like these folks did. the savings are unbelievable. i could see the costs side by side. ehealth is wonderful. $1,200 savings in my pocket. i was really pleasantly surprised with that. (♪♪) (♪♪) ehealth. your medicare matchmaker.
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all right. doug e who have, name something that you keep in your glove compartment. >> oh, wow. i mean, i can't top that. it was so perfect. i will go with the same answer, steve, a glock. >> you want to give the same answer? that seems like a bad strategy, but show me another blip blam. oh. a second gun, that's the number one answer. damn, america. all right. president trump, what you got? >> well, steve, i've never ridden in the front seat of cars so this question is very unfair, so to answer this i'm going to do one of my signature weaves, it's called the weave where i say lots of different things but it all comes together so beautifully, like an episode of seinfeld. seinfeld, you know, jerry was always wearing mom jeans. he had bad jeans, just like the immigrants who are ruining this country. they're eating the pets. they're eating moo deng.
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there's no room. it's like a glove compartment, there's no room. do you see what i did there, steve? >> oh, yeah, i know exactly what you did. show me dementia. >> welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe" it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. jonathan lemire and reverend al are back with us. we're just 22 days away from election day. both kamala harris and donald trump are back out on the campaign trail with both candidates heading to the battleground state of pennsylvania. nbc news senior washington correspondent hallie jackson has the latest. >> reporter: coast to coast campaigning, counting down this morning to election day. our new nbc news poll shows the race in a dead heat. vice president harris and former president trump now tied among registered voters nationwide, with mr. trump erasing the vice president's five-point lead from last month. also among the findings, a big
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gender gap with mr. trump leading with men by 16 points and vice president harris up among women by 14 points. it all comes as on the campaign trail the former president deploying increasingly inflammatory rhetoric against his rival. >> kamala harris, her reign of terror ends the day i take office. she's finished. >> reporter: and suggesting using the military against what he described as domestic enemies. >> i think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. we have some sick people, radical left lunatics and i think they're -- and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by national guard or, if really necessary, by the military. >> how are you going to guard against the bureaucrats undermining you? >> well, they're going to undermine -- well, i always say, so we have two enemies, we have the outside enemy and then we have the enemy from within. >> reporter: vice president harris in battleground north carolina trying to put the spotlight on mr. trump's health. >> and he is not being
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transparent with the voters. >> reporter: point to go mr. trump's refusal to reveal his medical records after she released a letter from his white house doctor who said she is in excellent health. >> one must question, are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead america? >> reporter: both hands cats on the campaign trail all weekend and on saturday a man was arrested outside a trump rally in coachella, california, with what local officials said were weapons and fake credentials. the man arrested vem miller from las vegas has since been released telling a california newspaper he is a trump supporter and that the accusations are complete bs. a federal law enforcement source telling nbc news there's no indication right now it was another assassination attempt against the former president, with the secret service saying he was not in any danger. >> so let's bring in nbc's national political correspondent steve kornacki, he is over at the big board.
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so, steve, man, it's crazy, polls coming out with three weeks away from this election. there were three network polls that came out yesterday, cbs had harris up three, abc had harris up three, we have the race tied, which is a great way of saying, you look at margin of error, this is a tied race, nobody knows anything, we can only look into the polls three weeks out and get a snapshot. what does that snapshot show you? >> yeah, no, exactly, it's that time. they're going to be coming fast and furious all these different polls right now. take a look at ours, as you say, a tie. what's significant in ours is the shift that we found at least relative to a month ago, september the last time that nbc news was in the field with a poll. back then our poll had harris ahead by five, now a tie. to refresh people of what's happened since we took our last poll, this poll was conducted in the wake of that trump/harris
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debate. what happens since, there's been a vice presidential debate, campaign events, harris has done a number of interviews. i think the most significant shift that we found underneath in our poll is right here, it's on the basic perception of the candidates. we asked do you have a positive or negative view of both of them? for trump you can see here 43 positive, 51 negative, not very good, typically it's about what he usually gets, in fact, this is a tick higher, a positive score, believe it or not than we usually get for trump here. it's a little bit better for him but the shift is with harris, 43 positive, 49 negative. when we took that last poll a month ago she was actually above water. she had a 48% positive rating and a 45% negative rating. there was a clear advantage for her in our poll a month ago on basic image, basic likability, basic perception over donald trump. that advantage in our poll at least has basically gone away in a month for her. also what else is happening
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here? it's underneath these numbers, i think harris weighted down by she's part of an unpopular administration. joe biden's approval rating in our poll sits at 43% and to put this in some perspective, we also checked the retrospective job approval rating for donald trump, asking voters right now, thinking back to trump's presidency, do you approve or disapprove of the job he did? a 48% approval rating for trump retrospectively, notably that's better than trump ever did in our poll when he was actually president. so trump perhaps benefitting from a little bit sort of warming of attitudes towards his presidency after the fact and, again, that's five points better than biden's current approval rating in our poll and you also see it here, asking are the biden administration policies helping or hurting your family? only a quarter of voters in our poll say those policies are helping. again, we asked the retrospective question about trump, did his policies help or hurt your family?
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and, again, you see a difference, look at that, 44% plurality here saying that trump's policies did help their families when he was president. so i think the weight of the biden administration and maybe some as you say retrospective warming towards trump underneath these numbers, too. now, from harris' standpoint probably the most encouraging number for her campaign is right here, and you are looking at this, this is the most important issue, but we asked this a different way than we normally do. typically we will give folks a series of issues, is it important, is it not important, sort of a general sense. we asked the question specifically this time is there one single issue that to you is so important it will be the entire basis of your vote. that's what we asked. on this one abortion actually came in at the top of the list, you see 22%, more than 1 in 5 voters, and this issue is where harris has her largest advantage over trump in our poll. her advantage is 19 points. we asked who would you prefer on
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abortion, harris or trump? by a 19-point margin in our poll voters say harris. and, again, more than 1 in 5 are saying that issue is of singular importance to them, it's the entire basis or could be of their vote. that's an advantage the democrats think could drive turnout, there could be a persuasion effect there. we will land on this one i think for two reasons, this is the gender gap, we've been talking about a gender gap in american politics since 1980. this would be the largest ever. trump 16 points ahead among men, 56/40. harris 14 points ahead among women, 55/41. do the math, right, 30-point gender gap. that would be an all time high if that's actually what happens, and it's interesting, too, the gap is so huge the advantages are, as you see here, about equal, trump among men, harris among women. you know, which one of those -- is one of those going to be disproportionate come election day? it trump going to drive up an
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even bigger advantage among men? is harris going to drive up an even better advantage among women. it's almost like a tug of war when you talk about the gender gap this time around. >> you know what's so interesting, steve, is you sort of have these -- you see the electorate changing, this sort of under these candidates' feet, where you see black men and hispanic men not coming back to the democratic party as much as they have in the past. at the same time you see white, college educated voters break to go harris in record numbers for a democrat. so of course we don't know how all of that washes out, but the operating theory i've always worked on in politics is usually most of the time people come home to their party. i'd always go around telling
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people -- they would say i'm going to knock on this democrats' door and make them vote republican. i go my family was a crest family, colgate could have dumped all the toothpaste on my front door my dad would have thrown it all away. we were a crest family. we were a walter cronkite family. it was just locked in. in politics i've usually found that to be the case that is correct voters usually come home and they follow the habits they've used in -- done in the past, but in this case i do wonder whether trump gets those white college educated voters back and whether harris gets black men and hispanic men voting at the numbers that they've usually voted for for democrats in the past. that's what makes the final three weeks so unpredictable and so fascinating. talk about these shifts in the electorate. >> yeah, absolutely. look, for historical comparison, we took an nbc poll a couple weeks ago of just hispanic
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voters, we showed harris leading trump by 14 points among hispanic voters. we took a similar poll four years ago, biden led trump among hispanics by 29 points. trump was already making progress with hispanic voters. i think the variable when you talk about different demographic groups like you are right there, there's the persuasion question and then there's the question of turnout. because, remember, in 2020 basically 160 million people voted in the election. astronomically high. that was up from about 130 million, the 2016 number had been about 130 million. so like a 30 million voter increase. i think one of the questions and one of the things we see in our new poll is just trying to gauge overall enthusiasm, interest level in this election, and there's some indications in our poll it may be down from 2020. it would be amazing to ever get higher than 160 million, but as this number -- if this number
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does come down from 160 million and starts to -- you know, the closer it gets even down toward 130, who knows where it might land there, but as it comes down we do start asking the question there are there disparities in the turnout levels of some of these groups? i think that gets to what you are talking about there, trump's new strength, particularly among non-white male voters, really among non-white hispanic -- excuse me, male hispanic voters, he's actually winning by double digits in our poll, but there is a question there when you get to voting history, likelihood to vote, as a group that's a less likely group to turn out in the general election than you're talking about college educated voters in the suburbs. the turnout levels are typically much higher there. so a lot of the trump support is based on do these voters who are in polls are saying they're voting for them now, big shifts in the polls, do they actually turn out? i think the closer this number is getting to that 160 million from 2020, the answer is
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probably yes. as you start to fall down from 160 million the more substantially you fall from that, the answer may be no. and that may be a big democratic advantage if something like that were to come to pass, if that trump coalition, voters who don't necessarily vote in midterm elections, they don't vote in special elections and they may vote in the presidential election, if they don't you might get a disparity there in terms of turnout levels and that could go to the democrats' benefit this time around. >> we shall see. nbc's steve kornacki, thank you so much. >> got it. >> greatly appreciate it. bring in now the co-host of "the weekend" on msnbc, symone sanders-townsend and president and ceo of vote latino maria teresa kumar, she is here with an exclusive poll of hispanic voters in battleground states. i just want to repeat what i've said before, simone, you know, it's -- you know, if i didn't
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have so many friends that freaked out, right, and if i wasn't having to spend so much time on the phone telling people to relax, it would be a lot funnier than it is. but instead, you know, a "new york times" sienna poll comes out and people go crazy. an nbc poll comes out and it's tied. i'm not exactly sure what people expect in presidential politics in 2024. cbs poll comes out has harris up three, an abc poll has harris up three. forgive me for going on but i want you to follow what i'm saying here because you know so much more about this than i do because you've lived it in campaigns, but i remember in 2016 telling people on this show that donald trump can get to 270. people freaked out. do you remember nate silvers' needle, 98% chance hillary is going to win.
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exactly. >> uh-huh. >> and then in 2020 i remember tweeting a day or two before the election i don't believe any polls because biden was supposed to be up by 14 points in wisconsin, he was supposed to be up by 10 points in michigan. i go, i don't believe the polls. and then in '22 you saw the red wave clip, i'm sure that we ran earlier today, it's going to be a red wave. red wave. i was listening to one podcast after another, people mocking biden and the democrats for actually believing that abortion and democracy were going to matter. and this was the weekend before the election. and then everybody goes, well, sorry. when you have a margin of error of three, four, five points, it can swing in either direction. doesn't this all come out to who wants it more? who goes out and votes? who knocks on more doors the last three weeks? who makes the phone calls the last three weeks?
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who does what's required in those swing states, isn't that at the end of the day going to determine who wins this election? >> yes. look, joe, in the last three weeks of the campaign folks have to be willing to leave it all on the field and i think if we just look at the schedules and just the work that is coming out of both of these campaigns, the harris campaign and the trump campaign, to me it is very clear that vice president harris and her team uniquely understand that this race is tied in many places, that they could, in fact, be behind in some states, it's going to be a turnout election meaning how many -- how many of their voters that they can get to come out to go to the polls will make a difference. what we've seen is the vice president has been -- and governor walz, frankly, they have been going to spaces and places strategically as in some of these key battleground states early voting gets under way. yesterday vice president harris was in north carolina. she wasn't just going to church,
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there was a souls to the polls initiative. these key things matter. today releasing that opportunity agenda for black men specifically. the campaign is paying attention and, look, election day isn't the beginning of voting as we all know, in most places it's the end. as we speak more than 2.8 million people have already cast their ballots across this country. so this is a very active, live situation that could change by the moment on the ground. the last point i will say is we had debbie dingell on our show yesterday, congresswoman debbie dingell, she tells it like it is, keeps it real. at this time in 2016 i remember having a conversation with her saying that -- and she was telling me that secretary clinton was going lose michigan. yesterday on her show she said today no one is winning michigan right now which means it's still a very competitive race. so there are things that vice president harris can do to close the gap, she's going there on tuesday with a focus on, again, the economy, but specifically as it relates to black men and
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she's going to take questions from folks on the radio across the country. so i definitely think that campaigns are about, you know, infrastructure, having the money to -- and the infrastructure to turn out and get your message and to turn folks out. that is what i'm seeing happening. we don't know how this is going to shake out right up until election day. >> sort of the intensity of the harris campaign has really picked up. former president bill clinton on the road for her this weekend in rural areas including georgia. former president obama back out again later this week and harris and walz themselves camping out in those three blue wall states this weeks. lots of events. maria trees say we just heard steve kornacki give analysis about this race including the latino vote. you have some new polling. please share it with us. >> i think what joe was saying was absolutely right, this is going to be about turnout. the polls are a dead heat. but when voter latino when we conduct polls ours is all about
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creating programs. i will give you an example. when we saw "the new york times" poll that just came out that was 902 voters basically and they were across -- it was a national poll across the country. we did a bilingual poll of 2,000 voters, only in key battleground states because we need to better understand what is going to help move these individuals to make sure that they vote? one of the things that we found that was really striking is that she is up close to 64% in these key battleground states. the softness of the states that we find, though, were both in nevada and wisconsin. that means that she needs to have a bigger ground game, work more closely with the unions. that's one of the reasons why the united culinary workers came out so quickly with her in nevada just recently. i do think that the difference between what we're seeing in the harris campaign versus the trump campaign is that she is out campaigning, but then she has a constellation of groups also campaigning on her behalf. she has emily's list, she has the unions coming out knocking on doors. so what we're going to see at
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the end of the day is the turnout. and the latino community with a we keep hearing is an expression of what is she going to do around the economy specifically? abortion is absolutely a number two. and there is a softening among young latino men, but still even among young latino men she is still at 54%. so i would encourage folks to make sure we are talking about the issues that all americans care about right now and that's the economy. that's inflation. an opportunity agenda, that's not breaking through. but when you talk about giving someone a $6,000 tax credit, that breaks through. when you start talking to individuals and specifically about housing and how you want to give them $25,000 for the first home, that breaks through. because interestingly enough the number one issue between 18 to 29 year olds is the cost of rent. the cost of rent of not am i going to move away and move out of the house but cost of rent am i going to be able to balance the budget so i can afford meals at the end of the day. as we go into this piece i would say, again, concur with joe, we
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do not know, but i do know that when they said there was going to be a red wave back in the midterms we weren't seeing, it just like we saw there wasn't a massive defection in key battleground states. if you were to ask me what should be the democratic concern moving forward, the fact that there is a softening among latino votes, enthusiasm in california, that's a long-term issue. a present issue, how do you get people out to vote right now on the progressive side in the key battleground states that will make all the difference. >> let me ask -- i would like to ask all the panelists and, rev, i want to start with you. there is right now if you look at the polls the difference between kamala harris being up, let's say, two points in these swing states in some of these swing states and being tied right now in almost all of the swing states, or the number of black and hispanic men who are
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still not in the democratic column and this is something obviously that the harris campaign is working to bring their base home. we saw barack obama on friday night -- or on thursday night talking about this, urging black men to vote for kamala harris. talk about -- talk about right now the fact that she is not faring as well as joe biden or hillary clinton or barack obama or most democrats with black men in 2024. what does she have to do to close the deal on that and bring them home? >> well, i think that we're seeing some course correcting. she came out today with this whole policy on what she would do for black men, talking about putting a million dollars aside
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for $20,000 allotments to black men that just had an idea that does not have access to capital. talking about educational programs, health programs. this specifically the black men in the absence of donald trump who has no plan. and at the same time -- and i think it's important that she's doing souls to the polls because what she understands about the black community is you can't just go young and forget the older, who are in many cases churchgoers, who are your prime voters. so you can't go one way or another, you have to do it jointly. i think that what they're doing is very smart today by dealing with appealing to the young black men, doing video with that, but also dealing with souls to the polls and the older black prime voter. they must do the same thing in the latino community. you've got to address those young aspiring latino business type men and women, but at the
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same time deal with the traditional latino who has been the voters and has not felt a lot of this has been addressed to them. all of that while trump is demonizing both blacks and whites. so it's not enough to just talk about how bad he is, you must embrace and advocate on behalf of those that you want to turn out, and i think if they do this as they started today for the next three weeks, the turnout will make the difference. >> and, maria teresa kumar, let me ask you about hispanic men, with the caveat it's just like the polling, i feel like i have to say this, because every four years we hear donald trump is going to win 25%. i had one of donald trump's top campaign people in 2020 say i will bet you any amount of money that donald trump gets 25% of the black vote. i'm like, no. 20%. i go, no, that's not going to happen, either, and i'm not going to take your money, but i hear this every four years. maybe it happens this year, but
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this is a media narrative, go back and look, this is a media yair testify we keep hearing, black men, hispanic men, they are abandoning the democratic party. this is the year that donald trump gets 20% of the black vote. that's, again, that's what the trump campaign was telling me right before the campaign four years ago, never happened. but what is the issue with hispanic men and black men that there's even that question mark over -- what is it -- not about kamala harris, that's too easy because people say it's because she is a woman, but this is more of a democratic issue and we've seen it in florida, of course, with cuban americans, venezuelan refugees and immigrants and others from certain countries. what does the democratic party need to do not just in the next three weeks, but over the next three or four years to win those votes? >> so, joe, i think that
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reverend al put it perfectly, it is an economic agenda. when you have everything being equal and you still feel like you are stretched to buy groceries, you want to make sure that the person that is going to be at the white house is addressing your issues and that's one of the reasons why the harris campaign came out with this economic agenda for african americans, but when you look at it, it's basically for all americans. if you talk to the number one purveyors of small businesses in the latino community it's women. and they want to make sure that it's not -- they don't want handouts, they don't want government support, they want to basically say how can i achieve the middle class? how can i have upward mobility? and i do think that this is where the critique of the democratic party is very real. we abandoned a long time ago a lot of the states that are all of a sudden vulnerable and open to a populist agenda that trump prevails in. what the democrats need to get back torques and i think that we saw it very much with the biden agenda and the harris agenda when it came to the ira, to the
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chips act, it's manufacturing. bringing communities back together by really making sure that we're generating not just, you know, not just capital for local businesses, but also bringing back jobs that are, again, secure, middle class and union led. kamala harris has a unique opportunity to build off of that biden agenda that she was the tiebreaker in, but demonstrate what are we going to do next? that is when you start talking about very specific issues. when i mentioned the $6,000 tax credit, when people learned about that in arizona and nevada that went through the roof. when we mentioned that she was interested in actually providing people $25,000 as a first time home buyer in nevada, where housing constraints are super tight that went through the roof. it's a matter of like how are you going to impact me not nationally, but how are you going to impact me in my pocketbook? if you were to ask what was the major defection of latino men and african american men to trump, it wasn't his cult norms or misogyny or racism.
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it was economics. all things being equal, that check we made fun of because he signed people thought it was his money not recognizing it was their money. the more we are able to talk about the differentiation that yes you can have a secure country, upper mobility and at the end of the day people can treat you as an american regardless of your shade that is going to be the difference and i believe one of the things we are going to see at kamala harris at the next 23 days out. >> yeah, certainly. only three weeks or so to go to make that adjustment. president and ceo of votolatino maria teresa kumar. thank you so much. as we heard earlier in hallie jackson's report donald trump is prominently featuring his desire for revenge a long time hallmark of his political identity as part of his closing message to prospective voters. let's now bring in sahil kapur. good to see you this morning. your latest reporting is taking a look at trump's escalating
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rhetoric. it is noteworthy how darker it has gotten just in recent days. tell us more about what you found. >> reporter: that's right, jonathan. this kind of rhetoric has always been somewhere in trump's stump speech, but he's really dialed it up now in his third campaign and especially in the closing stretch to election day. just a few days ago he called his rival kamala harris a criminal when talking about immigration policy. in recent weeks and months he's said a whole host of things should be illegal, should be outlawed including an edit of a "60 minutes" news package. he said criticizing his judges ands justices who he appointed and who rule in alignment with him should be outlawed and should come as penalties and he has also talked about using the military on so-called enemies from within. experts who study this stuff see parallels to authoritarian leaders and this idea that descendant criticism is illegitimate. this is out of the autocratic
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playbook as autocrats consolidate their power once they are in office. anything that threatens their power or exposes their corruption or releases information harmful to them in any way becomes illegal. she goes on to say that trump s quote, actually rehearing in a sense what he would be doing as head of state which is what orban in hungary does, modi in india has done. she argues that telling the truth any objective inquiry becomes a criminal element that needs to be shut down under this philosophy. here is what gets interesting. at a recent trump rally i went to i spoke to a number of his voters about this and even a number of his own rallygoers are not on board with this idea of retribution and revenge. it riles up some of them but others say he should focus on the economy. one of them told me that his best revenge would be to get elected and improve the economy, not to sink to the level of his critics. this was the view of that voter. and that kind of explains the larger dynamic here, as important as this stuff s it is concerns about the economy, it
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is issues like immigration that are likely to motivate his voters to continue supporting him, even if they disapprove of this side of him. that's especially true in places like erie county, pennsylvania where economic concerns are likely to carry the day. among harris voters preserving democracy is a huge issue. >> kamala harris is headed back to pennsylvania today, right there in erie county which is where you are, a week long blitz that she will be holding in those blue states. let's zero in on erie county and harris today. what should we expect to hear. >> reporter: kamala harris is rallying in this city of erie, pennsylvania, and this bellwether county that has a knack for predicting which way pennsylvania ultimately goes. an official telling us she had lay out her agenda, a vision for the country which she calls a new way forward and encourage pennsylvanians to vote early and cast their ballot.
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look at how erie county has voted, 2008 obama won, 2012 obama won, 2016 donald trump won, 2020 biden won. what do they all have in common? they all carried pennsylvania. they all became president. this is one of the bellwether counties in the quintessential bellwether state that both campaigns are focusing heavily on. one person who is going to be there is senator john fetterman, the democrat who carried erie county by about nine points en route to victory in 2022 becoming a senator. he told me, quote, pennsylvania is like a smaller version of america and erie is like a smaller version of pennsylvania. he says he believes erie is the top bellwether county in in commonwealth. he said if you can't sell it in erie it's going to be really difficult to sell that across pennsylvania. we will see how well kamala harris's message sells here in erie and she's also got campaign stops planned later this week in the other so-called blue wall states of michigan and wisconsin. this could be crucial to kamala harris's hopes. she needs these states
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especially giving polls showing headwinds in georgia and arizona, even nevada looking up for her this time. if she carries these states and wins that one congressional district around omaha and nebraska she's home, 270 electoral votes. >> nbc's sahil kapur, thank you so much. both of his pieces are available to read now at nbcnews.com. it is just -- this is such a fascinating race because so many -- so many of these states are so close. you will see one poll that has kamala harris up by 3 or 4 points in pennsylvania, another one that will have her down a couple of points, a poll that will have her up by one or two in nevada then another down by four points. then north carolina, that's a state that has come into play, big question this year whether north carolina becomes to democrats what georgia was to democrats in 2020. so much riding on these states,
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on pennsylvania, on michigan, on wisconsin and on north carolina and the sun belt states. almost three weeks to go, the voting of course, early voting, already started. so democracy in action right now. if you are going to make a difference, now is the time to do it. coming up, a new report finds that donald trump is feeling underappreciated by donors and lashing out at some of the wealthiest figures in the republican party. we will get reports on that story next. plus, it was quite a sight yesterday in southern texas. spacex's test flight launch of its starship rocket and then the first catch of its 20-story-tall booster. we will have the details with cnbc's andrew ross sorkin coming up next.
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generous here, i don't blame him, he didn't notice the made in china sticker because they put it inside, a place he has never looked in the bible. all right. that's vice presidential candidate tim walz at a rally in michigan on friday. referencing reports that the trump bible which went on sale in march for $60 apparently cost about $3 apiece to make in
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china. china. meanwhile, "the new york times" is reporting that a frustrated trump has been pressuring big money donors to support his campaign. according to the paper trump lashed out at some of the most sought after and wealthiest figures in the republican party during a private dinner at trump tower a few days ago. let's bring in co-anchor of cnbc's "squawk box" and "new york times" columnist andrew ross sorkin. what you got? >> i think this shouldn't be that surprising to many, you know, if you look at just the fundraising efforts over the last several months, vice president harris has clearly outpaced former president trump's ability to fund raise. that's not an open secret, it's a very open fact of the matter. the question of course is whether that money is going to ultimately not just make its way on to the airwaves but persuade voters one way or the other. i think he's feeling, as you might imagine, that he is being
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outfund raised, which in fact he is. of course, the question is when you're spending time with donors, typically you don't lash out at them because they are the ones giving you the money, you lash out at maybe those who aren't giving you the money perhaps. i don't know. but i think that that's what that was indicative of. interestingly, you know, at this point harris has almost doubled the fundraising efforts of former president trump. it gets a little more complicated when you start to look at what's called pac money, but on just the -- just the full numbers clearly harris is ahead. again, the question is whether that money is going to change the outcome of this election. >> let's look at the front page of the "wall street journal" and of course, spacex launch and grab yesterday. tell us about it. >> can i tell you something? >> i mean, we can have all sorts of debates about what's happening with politics in this country, we can talk about, you
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know, whether things are going to hell in a handbasket or be upset about this or that. this is something we can all be, i think, excited about, whether you like elon musk or not, this was a -- just a marvel from a technological perspective. the idea that this remarkably heavy rocket is going to be reused, it's being brought back to earth, not only is it brought back to earth, it is coming into this landing spot almost perfectly and in this case because of how heavy it is, there are these they call them chopsticks that effectively are catching the rocket. it's going to allow this rocket to be reused over and over and over again, that's going to bring the cost down of this stuff. i think a lot of people didn't think it was possible for a very long time, the view was that you would have to have some kind of landing gear on these rockets. elon musk has always had this view that it was too heavy to actually put the landing gear on the rocket itself because it would be too expensive to
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actually, therefore, put it up into the air and that the way to deal with this was to actually put the landing gear like this, with these sort of -- these sort of massive hands that grab it on the way down and when you just think about sort of innovation, i think it's something to behold. >> yeah, it really is. i mean, and, again, we do look at politics and we look at the problems that we're having in this country right now and the great challenges before us politically, but as i say on the show all the time, economically, if you look at us economically, if you look at our technology, if you look at our military, if you look at our, you know, culturally, our hard power, our soft power, our entrepreneurs, i mean, we -- we just do an incredible job. we deserve a washington that does better. >> cnbc's andrew ross sorkin. >> we do. >> as always, thank you so much. today the harris campaign is launching a new economic plan focused on helping black men.
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the opportunity agenda for black men includes 1 million small business loans for black male entrepreneurs and a new initiative focused on health issues that disproportionately impact black men. let's bring in right now the chairman of the congressional black caucus congressman steven horsford of nevada, he is a national co-chair for the harris campaign. congressman, thank you so much for being with us. tell us about this plan. >> well, thank you, joe, for having me. it's great to be on. look, what is to fascinating and important about this plan is instead of continuing to talk about black men or talking down to black men, it's time to listen to black men and that is exactly what vice president kamala harris and tim walz have done with this agenda for black men. it is about providing economic opportunity, wealth, health, and prosperity for black america, which will help all of america. it's about providing $25,000 of
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grants for down payments to help 1 million black homeowners achieve the american dream and close the racial wealth gap. it's about providing $20,000 of forgivable loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs, people who have great ideas but who need help getting that business off -- off the ground and to a good start. and then once that business is operating, providing $50,000 worth of deductions in that first year so that that business can continue to be successful. it also expands into the child tax credit, providing up to $6,000 for families with children. but beyond that it also includes the health of black men by investing in a national health equity initiative to address the inequities of sickle cell, prostate, diabetes, that
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disproportionately effect black men's health. when we improve the economic conditions of black people we actually improve our economic and health outcomes. that is what the vice president understands because she's been listening to black men throughout her career, but especially as vice president and now as nominee and what i believe will be the 47th president of the united states. >> chairman horsford, this is symone sanders-townsend here. i do think the health initiative specifically is very important, sickle cell for folks who don't know out there disproportionately effects black people, black men specifically. my uncle's son died of sickle cell at a very young age so this is important. you represent nevada's 4th congressional district, you are what the democratic national committee calls a front line member. you are also as chair of the congressional black caucus you were traveling around, literally in detroit yesterday. what are you hearing on the ground from black voters, from black men specifically, and are
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you concerned, you know, again, we spoke with debbie dingell on our show yesterday and she had a lot to say about how the messengers need to be right, specifically in michigan, and i'm wondering your thoughts having just been on the ground. >> well, thank you, symone. look, black men are the second most dedicated group of black -- of voters, block of voters, for the democratic party and, yes, for kamala harris for president. so i just want to start by acknowledging the fact that black men we vote. we vote because we understand that the issues that matter to us literally are about our freedoms, our rights and our opportunities. we vote for ourselves, our children, our communities, because we understand the need to protect our democracy. we vote because, despite the fact that the system is not always working for us, we understand that we have to show
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up in order to hold it accountable to us. the vice president, the harris/walz campaign understands that, that is why they are meeting black voters where they are. the vice president launched economic opportunity tours earlier in her career as vice president, earlier in her term, going directly to the people who listen to us. this is the thing, i think too many people are talking about black men and talking down to black men. it's time that they listen to us and understand that we want the same thing as anyone else. we want opportunities for good wages. we want opportunities to acquire education and skills and training. we want to be able to retire with dignity and security and we want to be able to leave a legacy to the next generation, our children and our community after a lifetime of work to be
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able to have something to show for what we've done here on this earth. so, again, i want to commend the vice president because in this plan she actually centers black men. do you know only 1% of black men are teachers in our public school system? that hurts all of us. if we don't have -- it matters who we have at the front of the classroom. so she's talking about making sure that there's a teacher pipeline for black men in our hbcus and our community colleges, apprenticeship programs and other skills training to make sure that we have access to these opportunities for ourselves and our communities so that we can all grow together. when we do that it helps lift up all of america. >> all right. chair of the congressional black caucus, congressman steven horsford, thank you so much. >> thank you for having me on. all right. and coming up, we're going to be talking to award winning historian who is out with a new
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we do not get meaningful legislation out of this congress, the time will come when we will not confine our march into washington. we will march through the south, through the streets of jackson, through the streets of danville, through the streets of cambridge, from the streets of birmingham. we will march with the spirit of love and with the spirit of dignity that we have shown here today. by the forces of our demands,
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our members, we shall splinter the segregated south into a thousand pieces. wake up, america, because we cannot stop and we will not and cannot be patient. >> that was john lewis just 23 years old speaking at the 1963 march on washington. lewis' speech that day and his heroism at the edmund pettus bridge in 1965 where he nearly died after being beaten by alabama state troopers propelled him to the forefront of the civil rights movement where he would remain until his death in 2020 after serving 17 terms in the u.s. house of representatives where i had the great, great honor of making a friendship with him there. the remarkable life and legacy of the late congressman is the subject of the new comprehensive
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biography titled "john lewis, a life" and the book's author david greene brg joins us now. he's a professor of history at rutgers university. thank you so much. it's such an unlikely story. if you will, talk about how this shy as "the new york times" said, how the shy alabama farm boy grew up to be the one that helped drive the stake into the heart of jim crow. >> it is an amazing story. i think even readers who know john lewis from the television, know him from those years in congress, are going to learn a lot about him from the book. he comes really, as you say, abject poverty. his parents were sharecroppers who scraped together enough to buy their own plot of land. one of ten siblings really in the worst of jim crow alabama. and from an early age, he just saw and felt the sting and the evil of segregation.
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he gets to college, he goes away from home really for the first time to nashville. where under the tutorage of james lawson and other social gospel ministers, they take up the sit-in movement. that becomes the first in a wave of action throughout the early '60s that helps topple segregation, turns john lewis into a national figure, and really instills in him this belief in fighting for the rest of his life for racial equality, for voting rights, and really for a whole set of values that i think our democracy sorely needs to protect and preserve. >> david, one of the things, and i'm grateful that you wrote the book. i intend to read it since it was given to me. one of the things i think people miss is that john lewis was like about a half generation or so younger than dr. king, and he would fight some of his contemporaries about keeping the
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king kind of spirit alive. then i was about the same distance in age from him. and he would say to me, mrs. king kind of like got me to understand words. he says, al, you have to deal with the black jewish union, and what happen. not only have rhetoric that way, because i know you come out of sclc, but you can't identify with people that are anti-semitic. and we developed a relationship to where the last time we marched on the bridge, i helped hold him up. i think he held my arm on his last trip, he was dying of cancer, across the bridge. talk about how he could help cultivate some of those that we need today, my generation behind me, that would help to deal with this whole question of what's going on in the middle east as seen through the black community and what john lewis would be saying. >> we have a tendency to see the civil rights movement in retrospect as sort of one big
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happy family with everybody in complete idealogical alignment. in fact, there were real differences, real splits over tactics, over ideas. john lewis really followed in the steps of martin luther king, later coretta scott king, in believing that the fight for equality had to be an interracial movement, as you say, the black jewish alliance was an important part of that, but also working with catholic groups, labor groups, other kinds of groups. and in some years those relationships with ally groups became strained. but lewis always wanted to preserve and fought to preserve that relationship. back in the '90s, when louis farrakhan was having a heyday, john lewis was one of the few who really spoke out boldly and said, while there are elements of his message that some people might find inspiring, i cannot cast my lot with someone who is
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anti-semitic, anti-gay, anti-women. and i think he was also a lifelong supporter of israel and understood the importance of the jewish state, not only to the jewish people but to all people concerned with human rights. but that also didn't prevent him from understanding the plight of the palestinians. and even when there were rifts, he was the one who would be there to try to lead the healing, to find a common way forward. so you put your finger on an important theme of his life and career. >> the new book "john lewis, a life" is on sale now. author and professor of history at rutgers university, david greenberg, thank you so much. that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in 90 seconds. n 90 secs
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