Morning Joe - Darline Graham wins South Carolina GOP Senate runoff

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

August 26, 2026: 8am — Darline Graham wins South Carolina GOP Senate runoff  To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Along with Joe, Willie, and me, we have the co-host of our 8-m. Hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and the co-host of The Rest Is Politics Podcast. The BBC's Caddy Kay is with us as well. So our top story this morning, along with the passing of Dolly Parton, is words now from the family of Alex Preti, speaking publicly for the first time, demanding answers and accountability. seven months after the 37-year-old was fatally shot by Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis during an immigration crackdown. Now, at the time, witnesses said the ICU nurse was recording agents with his cell phone and helping a woman who had been pushed down when officers surrounded him. One agent appeared to wrestle away his legally permitted firearm before two agents fired multiple shots. Freddie's mother, father, and sister reacted during an interview with ABC News.

Here it is. I was not shocked that he helped somebody. My shock is that he was murdered, and no one has given us the complete truth or anyone has been held accountable. And it's been seven months. There was more effort in vilifying him than... pursuing justice. A kid who is out observing something that should not be happening in this world today, in the United States. Why? What did he do to deserve to be murdered? To left cold on the ground dead. My child.

What did he do? Former DHS Secretary Kristy Noem accused Pretti of committing an act of domestic terrorism. The Justice Department then opened a civil rights investigation shortly after the killing, working with the FBI and DHS. Attorney General Todd Blanche said Preddy's actions did not meet the legal definition of domestic terrorism. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Preddy's death a homicide. Two officers were charged for use of force, but they have not been charged for the killing. And again, with the feds sweeping up the investigation, the state is doing their best. We've been in touch with Hennepin County.

Hopefully we'll hear more from then. But so many things wrong here, especially after the killing of Renee Good, that happened just weeks earlier. But I'm just focusing right now on the depravity. of Joe, leaving this family hanging. Every day, leaving the family hanging. Every day, a mother's child, as she said, gunned down in the streets of America. Gunned down execution style, as she said, quote, murdered. There are a lot of people in Minneapolis, a lot of people across America, a lot of people across the world who saw what happened on that videotape.

and believe he was murdered, believe he was shot for no reason, execution style. And Alex Prattie's mom asks, what did my son do? What did he do? Well, Willie, what he was doing was doing what we would want our children to do. He was trying to help a woman up, pick a woman up, who had been knocked down by these things. These thugs, these untrained thugs, knocked down in the snow. And he went away from the police officers toward the woman to pick her up after she had been brutally knocked down in the snow. And for that, he's pulled back out and he is shot in what looks like execution style. in America, in the streets of America, and still no justice for those who shot him, who the mother said,

murdered him, who a lot of us look and say, looks like got shot execution style for helping a woman out of the snow. Why are these men that shot him execution style not in prison today? Yeah, these masks men, they're masks for a reason so that they can't be identified. And in a case like this, they're not, they're being protected by the federal government. They're be protected by the Trump administration. The FBI finally did share information with Hennepin County. Keith Ellison, the Attorney General in Minnesota says that's a good development. at least we're beginning to get the evidence we need to pursue this case.

But as Ms. Prety said, in those heartbreaking words, it's been seven months. And they're not getting any comfort from the government when their son was shot in the head in the streets by a federal agent. They're not getting any information from the government after that happened. I'm glad you pointed out the full video. We've all seen it. Ice can't run from this. We saw what he did. He raced like we would hope our sons would do.

Joe, to step into a woman who was being pushed down and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, you don't push somebody down like that. And for that, he was on his knees and shot in the head. And after that, he was called a domestic terrorist without evidence. The Attorney General now Todd Blanche has backed off that saying there's no evidence he was a domestic terrorist. But just think the first reflex to watching a man shot in the head by federal agents in a video the whole world saw us to say, it was his fault. He was a domestic terrorist, which he clearly was not. You know, Willie, this is what happened in Jim Crow South when a black man would be shot. Like in another lifetime, justice would not be served. You know, we saw this happen to civil rights workers.

We saw this happen to black men. We saw this happen time. And again, where somebody would be shot dead and no justice would follow or a jury would acquit. That's now happening in 2026. That's now happening in Minneapolis, Minnesota, because the Trump administration is trying to protect people that gunned down an American citizen in the streets of America. Really, this is a perverse throwback to an uglier, horrible, time in this country where certain people can be gunned down and shot, killed, and no justice follows. Justice has to follow here, Willie, doesn't it? And the difference is back then they could do those things under the cover of darkness.

Today we have video. We watched Renee Good get shot in the face. We watched Alex Pretti get shot in the head. And Jonathan Lemire, there's got to be justice for Alex Pretti, as his family is now publicly asking, but as you've been reporting, there is an ongoing and maybe enhanced push for ICE to be more aggressive, to get the numbers up, to meet the quotas, to get people out of this country, hopefully not to the point where they're shooting peaceful protesters in the head. But this has maybe restrained ICE to some degree for a while, but it's clear that the mission continues. Yeah, it's such a heartbreaking interview with Preddy's parents here yesterday.

They said they learned of his death by the TV footage, by the news. by the news coverage. And certainly, though, the cameras that delivered that heartbreaking news to them, though, have played a role here in not allowing DHS to continue with these lies, as they did rightly, so you say, about Renee Good as well. And that is the most Orwellian and, frankly, horrifying part of this in some ways, is that the way that this administration tried to lie despite the evidence that we could all see. But you are right. As I've been reporting for weeks now, quotas still exist. These daily phone calls from Stephen Miller to DHS officials are still happening. Yes, there have been far, there have been fewer confrontations like this, but we've

also had people shot in Texas and in Houston, in Maine, and Caddy. This is something where this administration, first of all, they're almost never able to admit a mistake. We have seen that from the president on down. There's an imperiousness that they feel like they are right, despite what your lying eyes may tell you. But we're also a stubbornness that they feel like this is their still their best political move, despite what the polls say. In fact, Katty, we know that the new head of DHS who succeeded Kirste No, Mark Wade-Mullen, is under a lot of pressure right now from the right who think that he's gone too soft on deportations and needs to ramp those up ahead of the midterms.

Yeah, and we saw him being overruled by the president on traffic stops, but you're right to mention Stephen Miller. This is Stephen Miller's policy. Yeah, the buck stops with President Trump, but this is Stephen Miller's policy. This is what he wants. He wants the deportation numbers stepped up every day. And it's his policy, which is the reason that you've had killings in Minneapolis, killings in Houston, killings in Texas, killings in Maine as well.

And it's because he has these deportation quotas because he's so fixated on them. I had a dinner the other night here in London with a group of foreign journalists. And I was asking them, what's the most shocking thing that's happened in America in the last year and a half of the Trump administration? Some said Greenland, one said Iran, but about three or four of them said Minneapolis and the killing of Alex Prattie and René Good. They knew the names. This story has traveled right around the world. It's part of the reason that people are looking here in Europe back at America and saying, is this the country recognized?

Is this the country we can be an ally with? Because there seems to be this lawlessness and a breakdown of the rule of law. And Alex Prattie's mom is right. What did he do to deserve this? Under American law, nothing. Coming up, our next guest served as one of President Bill Clinton's top economic advisors. Former Labor Secretary Robert Rice joins us to break down the big issues driving the midterm elections and the growing wealth gap in America.

That conversation is straight ahead on Morning Joe. Welcome back as the war with Iran approaches its seventh month. The New York Times has taken a closer look at Defense Secretary Pete Higgsett's pattern of firing top generals, leaving the Army in the paper's words, quote, essentially rudderless. The Times points out the Army has not had a chief of staff since Hegseff fired General Randy George without explanation in April. Hegsaith has also forced out at least three senior officers who had been viewed as potential successors to General George. Meanwhile, Army's Secretary Daniel Driscoll. The service's top civilian leader is also experienced.

to leave the administration in the next few months. The paper goes on to note that as recently as January of 2025, there were 10 four-star generals on active duty. The service currently has five, the fewest in decades. In a statement of the times, the service downplayed the impact of the firings, with an army spokeswoman saying, leaders are, quote, actively driving the Army's mission forward, ensuring that our strategic objectives are met, our modernization efforts remain on track, and our global readiness is never compromised.

Joe. He's a joke, and not only is he a joke, he's a dangerous joke. There are many jokes that have been appointed in this administration, and there are such jokes that they're not causing damage to America's national. security or to institutions that Western democracy based upon. But Pete Hegesith is dangerous. He's a joke and he's incompetent and he's destroying the culture inside the Pentagon.

It's going to take a while to rebuild. Let's bring in right now the President of the Council of Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. Richard, I want to talk about this story, but I want to go circle back to a Wall Street Journal story from yesterday that talked about how this war began six months later. You had Benjamin and Yahoo and Lindsey Graham pushing Donald Trump to go to war. And then you had our Intel agencies that came up with a very pithy conclusion that Intel communities have been coming up now for over 40 years. And it was this. If you attack, first of all, if you kill the Supreme Leader of Iran, it will usher in a more hardline, revolutionary guard-type leadership that will more aggressively pursue nuclear weapons. Well, the intel community was right on that

count. The second thing they said was, again, not new, something that we've been hearing for 40 years now. If you attack Iran, they'll close the straight. They've done both of those. So you You had Vance and Rubio a bit more skeptical, but you actually had Pete Hegesith and General Kane pushing Donald Trump and telling him, don't worry about these complications, we'll be able to take care of any of this. And of course, once the war started

and all these military successes were going forward, Donald Trump's turning around like looking at them yelling, Why isn't Iran backing down? Well, Iran wasn't backing down because the intel community and everybody else that he could listen to, other than a handful of people, were saying, don't go into Iran. Talk about six months later, just how badly Pete Heggzeth got this wrong. He got it dead wrong. But Joe, I feel I ought to issue a public apology because one of the people who got it right and it's good you're sitting down was Tulsi Gabbard. Everything she said, according to the Wall Street Journal's story, was spot on.

You mentioned the straight was going to be closed. You'd get a worse leadership. And she also said this would actually fuel Iranian interest in nuclear weapons. Check, check, check. That's what the intelligence community is meant to do, speak truth to power. She did it. General Kane turns out to be something of a disappointment here, at least the way the story had it, because he was, I think, promising more than he could deliver.

comes off as a reckless cheerleader. And it's the combination of the war story and now today's story about how he's basically wrecking one of the institutions, the U.S. Army, which over the last couple of decades win's most improved. The Army emerged from Vietnam broken. And what we've seen over the decades is the Army has been rebuilt and it's been improved.

And I used to work with Colin Powell and he would talk about it with enormous pride. And what we're seeing is that we're seeing essentially the purging. Let's use the word what it is. It's political purging of people who, for whatever reason, Pete Hegseth doesn't work. So this will be election. And we need an intact army, because right now there's a revolution going on in military affairs. Iran is way ahead of us, as we're seeing in some ways. Ukraine is ahead of us. We do not need a broken army at a time it needs to incense, fix itself. Coming up, how the Pentagon is pushing back against Pete Hegseth. We'll talk

about the key issue that caused top military commanders to break with the Secretary of Defense. That conversation is straight ahead on Morning Joe. Live shot there. The U.S. Capitol 826 in Washington on this Wednesday morning. Senator Darlene Graham, who was appointed last month to fill the seat in that building held by her late brother, the Senator Lindsey Graham. Well, she is now officially South Carolina's Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate. She finished last night's primary runoff with more than 52% of the vote over her opponent, longtime Republican Congressman and Freedom Caucus member, Ralph Norman.

Graham had the backing of President Trump, who traveled to Myrtle Beach to campaign for her last week, and a Trump-aligned super PAC spent more than $827,000 on her behalf. Now, some of Graham's critics have questioned whether she has the necessary experience to serve in the role after she made a serious gaff during a recent debate performance when she was asked about national security. She now goes on to face pediatrician and Democrat Annie Andrews in November's general election. Here's some of what Graham had to say during her victory speech last night. People are moving to South Carolina in droves to get away from the blue state policies of the Democratic Socialists. We cannot and must not allow Democratic Socialists to gain.

a foothold in our conservative state like South Carolina. Tonight is a great victory, but it's not the finish line. In fact, it is the starting line for an even bigger fight which lies ahead. I understand the struggles facing South Carolina families because I face them too. As your senator, I will continue to work to grow our economy and put South Carolina families first. first. So we don't have time to waste. Go to darling graham.com to join the team. I was doing there channeling a little bit of Lindsay, right? Matt Mara, I mean, the debate performance was very shaky, but she survived it. And it clearly

was personal to President Trump, who's, look, still has a pretty firm grip on the GOP. His endorsements are not, his record, though, very good, not quite as impeccable as it used to be, or he would like to make it out to be. But this was a win, and clearly he was really wanted this to happen. That Super PAC has spent zero money so far, but they did dip into their coffers to help her. Yeah, I mean, look, this is a win for Donald Trump. He still has some juice, of course. And, of course, this is also a testament to Lindsey Graham and his longtime reputation in the community and in that state.

So this is in part about local politics, too. Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee, obviously not a Democratic socialist. They're running in South Carolina. But I do think that the conversation, even hearing the DSA come up in a South Carolina race, tells you something about the concern both among the Republican and Democratic establishment that there is a mood in this country against incumbents, against corporations, and anger. the populist anger, and there's not quite a sense for how to capture it. I wonder if, though, that this is also, we're seeing the Republican playbook here.

The DSA has nothing to do with the race in South Carolina, nothing. But yet they're going to invoke it as sort of the boogeyman to try to scare throughout the country, like, hey, this is what you would be getting if you elect a Democrat. No, there's no question. I mean, the Republicans, I mean, you said it a little while ago earlier in the hour. the Republicans don't have much to run on in this election. Donald Trump has not given them much to run on. The country is not in good shape. Americans are not in great shape. And so, you know, they're looking, they're casting about for something to run on. Now, the DSA line might work. I think the problem is,

what we're starting to see is that, you know, lots of Americans are angry about this economy that isn't working for them. So whether it's the DSA or a different kind of progressivism or something that is not quite in the left flank, but is still speaking to the concerns of Americans, people are looking for an alternative. So when you have a DSA candidate winning in Florida, you have to kind of wonder, like, is this going to work? And of course, when I've spoken to voters, you know, even people who are not necessarily progressive voters in Georgia, they're kind of curious about some of these DSA ideas. They don't want to abolish prisons, but they care about affordability. They care about child care.

health care, Medicare for all. So some of the positions underneath that platform are actually deeply popular. And of course, all of this is heading towards 2028, where South Carolina is going to be the first state for the Democrats. There's going to be a lot of focus on black voters in South Carolina, whether they can make that state more competitive. And Graham, it's certainly a heavy favorite in this race. But any money that the Republicans have to spend a supporter there, they can't spend somewhere else. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is threatening the future of the Kennedy Center if renovations pushed by President Trump are not allowed to move forward. A new court filing on Monday warned that the building might be demolished if the White House's plans aren't followed, including adding President Trump's name to the facade.

It marks the first time the administration has explicitly said the historic performing arts center could be closed if the president doesn't get what he wants. The filing reads in part this way. Without those efforts, the center will deteriorate further into an unsafe decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down with a determination to follow on what to build on the site. The threat is just the latest move in a months-long power struggle over the building. There is a court hearing schedule for tomorrow on the push to change the name to include Trump. A judge previously said only Congress had the power to rename the Kennedy Center. This is pathetic. This is the President of the United States saying, well, if I can't, you know,

I'm going to take my ball home if I can't play. I mean, if he can't get his name on it, he's just going to wipe it out and no one can use it. This is a cultural institution for the city of Washington, for our nation, and tribute to an assassinated president. The Trump administration has been dealt setbacks by the court already by this. I would assume that will happen again. But this is truly petty and sad. Still ahead here on Morning Joe, we're going to have more on the issues impacting the midterm elections with former Labor Secretary Rob Reich. He'll join us next right here. I'm Morning Joe. Welcome back. A new substack piece by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich

calls out those whom he calls corporate Democrats amid the recent rise of several progressive Democrats across the country. Rice writes in part this. To be sure, over the last three decades, Democrats have scored some important victories for working families, the Affordable Care Act, an expanded earned income tax credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example.

Yet they've done little to alter the widening economic inequalities that have taken a huge toll on working-class families. And the former Labor Secretary joins us now. The paperback edition of his book, coming up short. A memoir of My America is out now. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for joining us again. Always good to talk to you. So let's delve into your piece here a little bit. We're certainly seeing a lot of energy on the left right now for Democrats, progressive candidates, some even affiliated with DSA, surging, at least parts of the country. Is that because, in your estimation, they are talking big, big swings, big promises, and not just settling? Yes. I think that we are seeing right now a fundamental shift in the Democratic

Party that is similar to the shift that occurred in the Republican Party in terms of populism, progressivism, a concern for affordability, a concern for average working people. And for too long, it seems to me, at least. And again, I don't want to engage in false equivalents because I think the Democratic Party at least does value working people and has been on the side of working people to a far greater

extent than the Republican Party, in my humble opinion. But I do think that the Democratic Party is now fired up to deal with the kitchen table economic problems that affect most American families these days.

So, Mr. Secretary, are you right that you saw the start of the corporate Democrats there in the 1980s and then 1990s. It became a party of big money. Again, we're not offering equivalencies here between the two, but you suggest that perhaps maybe moderated some of their ambition. So what would be an example or two of something they could do that would be big that would make a difference? Well, I think we're hearing it around the country in terms of progressive Democrats

that we're saying, you know, number one. Medicare for all or at least a single party player, payer, for health care that's going to be affordable. Number two, childcare. Number three, housing, making housing more affordable and more available, particularly to young people in this country who now cannot afford a house. I mean, issue by issue, what people talk about over the kitchen table really are now central to the democratic message.

And I think that a lot of Democrats I speak with, a lot of Democratic candidates are not getting off on the issues that Republicans want to talk about. You know, issues of wokeism or issues having to do with the Democratic Socialists of America. No, the Democrats are focusing where they should on this issue of what can we do, to make your life better off. I also expect that Democrats are going to be asking the same question that Ronald Reagan famously asked in 1980 at the end of his debate with Jimmy Carter. And that is, are you better off than you were

at the start of this presidency? And most people are going to say no. When you talk to voters, they are extremely angry at the Democratic Party, even if they didn't vote for Trump. What went wrong in the Democratic Party? How did the Democratic Party become so corporate? And where were those mistakes made? Was it NAFTA?

Was it in compromising on single-payer health care? What went wrong? Oh, I think you've got to go way back. Back to the early 1980s, when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, under, let's say it was Tony Coelho at the time, made a deal with corporate America and said, essentially, look,

We are in control of the House. We've been in control of the House since 1955. Remember, this is the early 80s. So we're going to be in control of the House forever. Why shouldn't we drink at the same trough as the Republicans? And that proved to be a deal that was really an unmaking of the Democratic Party. I mean, once the Democrats began drinking at the same corporate trough as the Republicans, you know, it's very difficult to bite the hands that feed you.

And I saw again and again Democrats who were reluctant to take on big corporations and Wall Street because of all the funding that was coming from big corporations and Wall Street. The big difference I see now is that Democrats are saying many Democrats, not all, But many Democrats are saying to those funding sources, those big corporations and the wealthy people, they're saying, no, we don't want your money. We are actually depending now on small donations. We think we can do it. We're organizing like mad, and we're creating a very different kind of campaign. And I think we'll see this increasingly in the Democratic Party.

The paperback edition of Coming Up Short, a memoir of My America is available now. Also got a can't miss substack. Author and former Labor Secretary, Rob Rice, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Still ahead here on Morning Joe, we're going to dig into some new reporting

that's raising questions about Defense Secretary Pete Hegsseth's decision to cut a program designed to protect civilians in war zones. Now, amid deadly strikes and congressional pressure, is Hegseff starting to back down? We'll discuss that next here on Morning Joe. Welcome back. New reporting from ProPublica is shining a spotlight on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's decision to cut the civilian protection program

despite pushback he received from top military commanders. The program, which was adopted after years of heavy civilian tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan, is designed to protect civilians during U.S. military operations. Current and former defense officials told ProPublica that Hegseth had bet that senior officers would endorse his view that focusing on civilian security was woke and out of step with his philosophy of maximum lethality. Instead, every commander rebuffed the idea. Hegseth cut it anyway, leaving only a handful of people to carry out the mission. Now, amid fallout from deadly strikes and continued pressure from the military and from Congress, Hegseh appears to be backpedaling. Joining us now is one of the

reporters behind that piece, ProPublicas, Hannah Allen. Thank you so much for joining us. So give us, we know the background of this was to come out of Iraq and Afghanistan and the civilian tolls there. How is this program supposed to work? Like, walk us through what are a couple of the measures that military commanders would then take to prevent to prevent, you know, unnecessary civilian deaths? Sure. I mean, what we're talking about is this program known by the acronym, CHMR or Chimmer, the military loves an acronym. It stands for civilian harm mitigation and response. And as you said, this came out of years of advocacy in and out of the Pentagon to rethink the way the military handles, assesses, and prevents civilian casualties.

So finally, this framework, the Chimmer framework, was formalized in 2022. And what that did was it allowed for the creation of a specialized Center of Excellence. That was the area where there would be a clearinghouse. for data, for strikes, for lessons learned. And then also, there were to be a team of advisors that was embedded and dispatched throughout the major regional combatant commands, these regional commands.

And so the idea was to have embedded in the strike planning and combat operations, these advisors who would say, have we looked at the civilian environment? Do we have a clear picture of the civilian presence in this area of operations? Now, there's certainly been some reporting around this, the Atlantic included, about that when the early days, early hours even, of the Iran war, that school that was hit.

You know, there were some who suggested that if this program had been in place, perhaps that could have been avoided. So talk to us now, please, Hannah, as to, you know, what signs do we have that Heggseth may, in fact, be backtracking? Well, after this first poll, which hadn't been previously reported, I mean, as you said, There had been reporting on this program and these cuts happening over the objections of commanders, but the memos reviewed by ProPublica really spell out this broad command support for just the kind of mission that we did see in Iran, in Yemen, in Somalia.

And so at the same time that the Pentagon was cutting the civilian protection program, it was ramping up operations in all those theaters. And certainly Minab, that school strike. in Iran on day one of the U.S. Israeli war in Iran. That was certainly a turning point in the discussion around civilian protection. So that, the commander's pushback, combined with those tragic scenes we've seen in Minab, really restarted the conversation about civilian harm. And there was a more recent correspondence that we were able to see, you know, offered

the commanders a choice now, okay, so you guys want to be? to keep it. You know, are you, here's this option for keeping it at a reduced level. And again, Commander said, yes, we want the most robust Chimmer program we can get. Hannah, your reporting and the reporting of others for some time now has suggested that Secretary Hegsef slashed this program in part because he thought commanders would agree with him that it was to, quote, woke, unquote. It turns out he was wrong. So what does that us about his read on the culture of the military and talk to us a little bit about, you know, what that says for his broader leadership and the kind of morale within the military

at the moment. I mean, certainly people, you know, officials, current and former officials we've spoken with do put this in the context of this broader, you know, sort of attack. or rethinking of different guardrails and norms, whether it's in promotions, the role of women, the role of people of color, and here's civilian protection that was kind of rolled into this suite of ideas and concepts and efforts that, you know, weren't in line with this reimagined department of war that Hexeth was building. And on this issue, though, what he ran into was the experience of, you know, all these

commanders, many of whom had served and had seen up close civilian casualties and their effects in these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And in this case, which we haven't seen in many other cases, I will say, at the Pentagon these days, we did see pushback. And whether that pushback will be enough, combined with those images in Minab and these ramped up operations, whether that will be enough to actually see a partial restoration or full restoration at some point of this program, that remains to be. to be seen, but we do hear that is what is under consideration at the moment.

Certainly one could argue a real indictment of Heggseth's judgment here, that he was presented by with this poll, giving the information what top commanders wanted. He defied it, went ahead with this anyway. We've seen potentially a tragedy resulting from it. The new reporting, very important, available to read online now. ProPublicas Hannah Allen, thank you so very much. And we should just conclude here with a note that, like Secretary Hegsets, certainly come under intense scrutiny in recent. recent weeks. Now, White House officials have told me President Trump still likes him. He still has

his confidence in him. But HACSAT does not have many supporters in the West Wing or the administration right now. That includes the chief of staff in the West Wing. And we have reporting yesterday from the New York Times about the purge he's done of generals, how it has hurt the military at a time of war and a time of such military advancements with drone technology and the rust. A storyline to watch in the weeks ahead. That does it for us this morning. We really appreciate you watching. Tomorrow at 6am Eastern for another morning, Joe. Money, power, politics with Stephanie Rule is up next after a short final break.

Rest easy, Dolly.