Morning Joe - Egypt hosting Gaza peace talks today

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Egypt hosting Gaza peace talks today Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It is Monday, October 6th. There's a lot to get to this morning, including the latest on the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, ahead of a meeting today in Egypt. Big developments. Meanwhile, in Washington, the government shutdown is entering day six. We'll show you what both sides are saying about it, as well as Ali Vitale. Sit down with Speaker Mike Johnson. Also, in the government shutdown is entering day six. We'll show you what both sides are saying about it, as well as Ali Vitale. Sit down with Speaker Mike Johnson. ahead, we'll go through the flurry of moves related to the National Guard and the efforts by the Trump administration to send troops to Chicago and Portland, Oregon. We'll also take a look at the big weekend in sports with updates on the MLB playoffs and top teams losing in the NFL. Jonathan Lemire, I mean, you're patriots. Do we dare say the pats are back? The rest of the league won't be happy about it.

But the New England Patriots might be on the verge of being back. This was an extremely impressive Sunday night win over Josh Allen on the road in Buffalo. Drake May looked good for a young team. It's potentially an important market. I mean, Drake May was a guy that couldn't throw 15 and out in the combines. A lot of people thought he was a really bad choice for the Patriots. Of course, the Patriots also gave up Mack Jones, who was doing, as you said before. nothing but winning in San Francisco.

I mean, it's an extraordinary story for Mac Jones. But, you know, the thing is, I didn't get to watch yesterday, sports yesterday afternoon. Of course, Willie and I go to the dog track, and then we go to the orphanation. We do our sort of cat skills routine for them. So I miss the Giants. How did the Giants do yesterday? Did they win? That's five turnovers on five straight possessions.

Okay, but the Yankees, obviously won, right? They threw it back even. Joe, Joe. Did you not go to church yesterday? Like, where's your... No, I did the dog track, and then I was in the orphanage. What happened? What happened? The final score yesterday was 13 to 7.

That's like a football score. It wasn't that close. And the scores deceptively close. It was 12-0. This comes after 10 to 1 the day before the Yankees. Well, it sounds like a football team. These Blue Chase. Did they ever hit?

The Vlad Guerrero Grand Slam last night was a thing of beauty. And the Yankees, look, Max Fried was terrific against the socks. last week. He sure was not yesterday. By the way, I think, I think like some JV pitchers at Pensacola Catholic High School could have been great against the Red Sox last week, and we couldn't yet. Yeah, we had two and a half major leaguers in the last week. Oh,

we're horrible. Yes. Absolutely. How do you end up a season that way? No, there's serious roster improvements to be made. So the Yankees not done. They still, they have a shot. They come home, but they're down in a best of five, down the first two, and they got crushed in both. They really got crushed, but at least

we have the Jets. We'll always have the Jets. There we go. If you're a New York fan. So anyway, we also have with us, columnist and Associated for the Washington Post, David Ignatius, David, the Washington football team. I'm scrambling the commanders this year. The commanders came back. Jaden Daniels was back.

The team bounced back from an awful first quarter and just rolled. And so, yeah, we're not taking any guff from anybody about our sports teams in Washington. Nobody. Now all you need to do is get back to RFK, where, you know, the Washington football team scores a touchdown. Everybody jumps up and down and the stadium moves. That would be very exciting. We also have senior writer for the dispatch and columnist of Bloomberg opinion, David Drucker. David will be invited to insert any sports story into any story regarding a historic breakthrough in Middle East peace at any point in any answer. But, Michael, let's start right there because, you know, we don't want to overstate anything right now, But things are lining up in such a way right now in the Middle East.

There is an opportunity for a breakthrough that we haven't had in quite some time. We'll start there. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says peace talks between Hamas and Israel are making progress. But the war in Gaza is not yet over. On meet the press, he confirmed. Hamas has accepted President Trump's hostage release framework with negotiations continuing in Cairo today. Both sides agree Hamas will not govern Gaza under Trump. Trump's 20-point peace plan, backed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Trump posted on social media yesterday that talks have been successful, quote, very successful, but warned that delays could bring massive bloodshed. Despite ongoing negotiations, Israeli airstrikes killed 65 people in Gaza over the weekend, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. Axis has new reporting on President Trump's phone. call on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It came after Hamas initially agreed to release all the hostages. Axis reporting that Trump called Netanyahu to discuss what he saw as good news.

But according to a U.S. official, Netanyahu felt differently, telling Trump, this is nothing to celebrate and that it doesn't mean anything. Trump then reportedly fired back, I don't know why you're always so effing negative. This is a win. Take it. And that, of course, reported by a reporter for Axis who talks to Donald Trump regularly almost every day. You get a sense almost that it was Donald Trump who report. We don't know this, but this is somebody root with ties to the White House. And it sounds up, it lines up with my reporting, too, that we've been talking about,

a growing impatience with Netanyahu. So given a deal here, Richard, where basically there's been shuttled diplomacy back and forth, Jared Kushner, Steve Whitkoff, going back and forth since UN week, trying to get this thing done. And they just looked at each other and basically said to Qatar, the Qataris, we have your back. You take care of Hamas. We're going to take care of Israel. And here we are. I think the stars are aligning, not for peace, but as you said, Joe, correctly, for a breakthrough. I think there's a pretty good chance now, which is not something we would have said any time over the last two years for a deal, hostage for prisoners, a ceasefire, Israelis pull back to some

still-to-be-determined line. I think there's probably some more aid going in. I think there's a pretty good chance we get that. The rest of the deal, will you eliminate Hamas? No. Will you get every Hamas fighter to go over, give up his weapons? No, no way to do that. No way to manda. Will you get serious peace talks underway? No. But could you get a kind of mini-deal? I think there's a pretty a good chance. And then I think the next big thing will probably be Israeli elections sometime in the first three, four months of next year. And B.B. Netanyahu, who was really forced by Donald Trump to accept this deal, will basically try to make it his own and basically say, first I won the war, then I got this breakthrough and I got the hostage. Well, that's why it was so fascinating

Netanyahu at first pushing back. Then after he saw that Donald Trump had cornered him, and that's why the administration is that we got him cornered, told me this week, we haven't cornered. And after cornering Netanyahu, Netanyahu starts bragging about his peace still. So that's a good sign. 100%. But, yeah, Donald Trump, particularly after the Iran attacks, is by far the most popular politician in Israel. And just given the whole backdrop of USAID and so I think BB Nets and Yahoo, in a funny sort of way, finally met someone who plays the same game that BB Nets and Yahoo. Right. So David Ignatius, it's very interesting. A lot of people reporting

that this week, that really a breakthrough actually was Netanyahu's mistake of attacking Qatar. And when that happened, that gave Donald Trump the leverage he needed to go to the Qataris and say, we're going to protect you guys. And in return for protecting you guys, this is what we need you to say to Hamas. And again, the conditions that Hamas, we talked about this on Friday, you've accepted, amount basically to a surrender, don't they? They do, although, as we're discovering today, the details of that surrender are still unresolved and are difficult. Exactly how Hamas will be disarmed. In the end, is up to the Hamas fighters in the field in Gaza.

It's not up to the negotiators who've been meeting with Qatari and Egyptian diplomats outside of Gaza. And similarly, the details of Israeli troop withdrawal, what percentage of Israelis will withdraw, where will they withdraw from, the fine points that really are decisive in the end in getting a peace deal at last are still outstanding. There's a big group meeting in Cairo today to try to resolve those issues. To me, Joe, the situation was summed up well by Israeli columns Neum Barnea, well-known. in Israel and to Americans who follow the Middle East who said Trump doesn't make threats to BB, he gives him orders. And that's the way it's looked, I think, in recent days. Trump has been the dominant figure in these negotiations. And as we've seen, Nanyahu has really no choice

but to at least nominally go along, as has Hamas. Hamas has nominally said, we're on board. But we'll see today in Cairo just how difficult some of the remaining details are. Well, and the devil, Jonathan's always in the details. Marco Rubio yesterday saying, I think it was on Face the Nation. Hey, we don't have Pishat. This is where the negotiations come through. And again, that shuttle diplomacy, Kushner, Wittkov, the Americans, Israelis, everybody there. What is so fascinating, though, this time is you usually have Israel isolated in the world now.

you know, when Hamas was trying to figure out whether to do this or not, you had the European allies first saying, we support this deal. Then you had Arab countries saying, we support this deal. Hamas really has nowhere to go here. Yeah, there's such widespread public pressure. Take this deal. And there's a sense I talked to some White House folks over the weekend as well. They do think like Netanyahu overplayed his hand. The strike, the strike in Doha, certainly. Also, word had gotten back to the White House that Netanyahu was telling allies, in the region that he was giving orders to Trump, that he was in charge, and the president would have to follow his lead. You can imagine how well that sat behind the resolute desk. So there's

been a change here where Trump and his team have really feel like they've been able to put the screws a little bit to Netanyahu. They forced the apology in Doha, and now they feel like they're close to getting Netanyahu to take this deal. I'm struck by the language we heard from the weekend of Trump telling that to take the win. That's the exact phrase that President Biden gave Netanyahu more than a year ago, October 24, right around this time. Netanyahu defied Biden then. Richard, he seems like he's not able to now. Now, we know the president, look, he's overstating things on social media in terms of where this is. That is his want. The Secretary of State, I think, more reasonable in terms of where things actually are. So walk us through in your

estimation where some trip wires could still be because we have had, we've been close before, and something always seems to go wrong. I think the trip wires are how much of this overall 20 points you try to get accomplished in order to get the first few points implemented. And that's always the challenge, Jonathan, in a negotiation. Are you willing to separate out the first few points, the hostage return, the prisoner release, ceasefire, Israeli pullback, which I think is all doable from basically the next 15 points. If you basically say everything has to be agreed to and implemented, or begun to be before anything to be implemented, this thing is still back. Well, we've got to figure out what is the Arab Peacekeeping Force

look like. Why do the conditions on the ground that have to be met first before, like you said, we go to those next steps that will determine how Gaza looks over the next five years? But you don't have to do that now, Joe. My point is simply that I think you almost want to separate this into two packages, a kind of mini package on this initial exchange and ceasefire, and then all the more far-reaching ambitious stuff, including the ultimate negotiations about peace. So my guess is you carve a small deal, and I think that can happen. The only thing I disagree with, I think for Hamas, it's really an interesting situation. They're being pressured by the local population to agree and the Arab countries.

My guess is Hamas will agree to this, but it doesn't mean they've surrendered. Let me just sort of, I think her Hamas can survive, if you will, to fight figuratively and literally another day. You can't get rid of them. They'll blend into the population. They will hide weapons. So I think what will happen is we'll get through this, but it doesn't mean that we've in any way resolved many of the basics of Gaza, much less the larger Palestinian issue. But what Donald Trump wants, if you will, is this win. He wants to get this breakthrough, which is an important break.

Get the hostages home. Get the hostages back. That's a huge way. And get a ceasefire. That's an enormous accomplishment. It's not the same as everything, but it's something. Yeah. You know, Mika, over the week in the Washington Post released a poll that showed,

we're talking about the pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu for possibly overreaching. Washington Post poll that I've never seen anything like it in America. Just stark, stark disagreement with Netanyahu. Yahoo and Israel on their policies from Jewish Americans. The numbers are staggering. And they play a role in this. In a minute, we're going to speak to a former Middle East negotiator's work for presidents on both sides of the aisle has many insights onto the different angles into this problem. But here to the polls, many American Jews sharply disapprove of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza.

The latest Washington Post poll of American Jews finds that 60, percent say Israel has committed war crimes against Palestinians, and nearly 40 percent say the country is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians. American Jews are particularly unhappy with the Israeli government. Sixty-eight percent give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership negative marks, with 48 percent calling it poor, a 20-point increase from five years ago. You know, David Drucker, so often you will have people on the right, you'll have Republicans saying, oh, those Democrats, they're anti-Semitic or, you know, people on both sides have always said that. If you're against Israel's policies means you must be anti-Semitic. Well, in this case, I mean, the numbers are just staggering.

61% of American Jews think that Netanyahu's government has committed war crimes in Gaza, almost 40% believe. they have committed genocide. And as we've been saying on this show for a very long time, we fear, I fear, let me just say I fear as a long time support of Israel, that the Netanyahu government, for whatever gains they make are causing irreparable political harm here in the United States among the one country that has been a steadfast defender of Israel since 1948. Yeah, it's been a real challenge. I think for Benjamin Netanyahu, and I don't know that he's fully cognizant of it. I've talked to some people in Israel, and some people feel he's aware,

and some people feel that there's just a lot of tunnel vision going on. On the one hand, I don't think this deal would be in the offing without all of the risks that paid off that the Netanyahu government took in going after Israel's enemies, including Iran. On the other hand, there has just been growing up. dissatisfaction in the United States politically among voters here with how the Netanyahu government has conducted its military affairs. I've talked to Democratic operatives who generally who care about Israel and U.S. support for Israel, who blame this on Netanyahu himself. They go back

to Netanyahu's address to Congress during the Obama administration. President Obama, very notably, did not invite Netanyahu to give that speech. Congressional Republicans did because they were trying to defeat the Iran deal, discouraged President Obama from signing the JCPOA. And that was the first time an Israeli prime minister had really become a negative figure in the eyes of Democrats. Then we see over the past five, six, seven years, a real change on the American right, where you just have much less support for military involvement overseas and U.S. global leadership abroad. And instead of that just being limited to events like the war in Ukraine, that Russia caused unprovoked, instead of that being limited to how we

handle China and its designs on Taiwan, that has now bled into American military and diplomatic support for Israel. All of this is to say is that it's not surprising to me that we would see a poll like this, particularly when Jewish voters generally have always been center-left, have always voted for Democratic candidates at every level. And that means that I think the Israeli government and supporters of Israel have to be more cognizant of how the government's actions are being received here, because when you look at the diminishing support for Israel, among other Western nations, the U.S. really is sort of the last line of support, and they just can't afford to take it for granted.

You know, there's so many misconceptions in American politics about Jewish voters. I mean, it's running up to the election last time. The Democrats are constantly thinking that Republicans are about to seize the majority of of Jewish voters, because I guess Donald Trump says so, it's 70%. It's like, it's 70%, 75%, 80% every four years. I mean, every four years, it's, it's constant. But David Ignatius, these numbers are not constant. I mean, I was shocked to see that 60, over 60% of Jewish Americans believe Benjamin Netanyahu's

and his government has committed war crimes. Israel has committed war crimes. Jewish Americans coming to that conclusion. It's staggering. And again, the long-term implications, for now this like group on the left, there are, you know, people on the left and on the right now who are hostile to American support of Israel. That has grown. It is no longer the extremist on both besides, that is starting to move toward the center. I mean, the long-term implications for Israel and support for Israel in the United States, if, like me, you're a supporter of Israel, that's pretty devastating. So these numbers are stunning, as you say.

I can't help but think of the way in which Netanyahu, as he was pushing Democrats, began to call more and more on support from Republicans. the moment where he defied Obama and made the address to Congress with Republican support was a very partisan move, something that went against Israel's enormous success in speaking to all Americans across all different parties. You know, that was the center of U.S. support for Israel for a generation. And Netanyahu went right at that. And so it's part of what we're seeing.

Also, I think watching wars on television as we've watched scenes of the bombing of Gaza is just enormously painful for people. I remember that during 1982 in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where people watched on TV a war I was covering in the midst of. And their impressions back home, the anger, the disappointment was palpable. And that's part of what's happened as American Jews and the whole world has watched this. war. However justified it may be to go after Hamas after October 7, the images just piled up day after day. And it is extraordinary, as you said, 61% of American Jews saying they think war crimes were committed. I thought I'd never see a number like that. Yeah, I thought I never would either. And I think what's so damning is the fact that, yes, after the heinous terrorist attacks

by Hamas against Israel, against raping Israeli women and burning Israeli grandmothers. And you just go down the list of the heinous things that they did, killing children in front of parents, killing parents in front of children. The whole world came to their side. What's been so devastating for the cause of Israel over the past year, year and a half, is you have had Israeli military leaders and Israeli intelligence officers telling that Nahu and his government, there is no more reason to fight a war in war. Gaza right now. We've achieved our military operations. You need to stop because it's just causing

additional suffering and hurting Israel, hurting the cause of Israel. Netanyahu, according to the New York Times and a lot of other people who know him, is he's committed to a forever war because that's what's in his political interest. That's the worry. And that is what has caused the nation of Israel right now. We have a lot to get to this morning. In a moment, we're going to talk to Aaron David Miller of the Carnegie Endowment for international pieces, a former Middle East negotiator for a little bit more on this. Also still ahead, where things stand this morning on the government shutdown still happening after another round of votes failed on Friday. Plus, we'll bring you Ali Vidalys sit down with Speaker Mike Johnson. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back.

Let's bring in senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Aaron David Miller, he was a U.S. Middle East negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations. And Richard Haas, you take the first question. Good morning, Aaron. So you've been involved in this for years. What is it you think at this point can actually be accomplished? What's the limit of ambition? And where do both sides have to say, we can't really accomplish that now?

We have to, quote, unquote, take a win. but it's going to be a limited one. Yeah, Richard, I think you laid it out pretty well. I think that a deal is likely to return Hodges as living and dead, although these negotiations are likely to have only to speed slow and slower. Hamas needs to find the dead Palestinians, which some of which they don't, Israeli, some of which they don't know where they are. There may be other Palestinian groups that control some of the living hostages.

there's the withdrawal line, which they're going to fight over. But I think you're right. There's a reasonable possibility within the next week or so that you could see the return of the 48 hostage living in dead. In exchange, probably for a diminution, though not an end, to a comprehensive Israeli military strategy, anything else, the International Stabilization Force, technocratic government, decommissioning, demilitarization of the Gaza Strip. Richard, I think that's tethered, frankly, to a galaxy far, far away, and not to the

sort of cruel and unforgiving realities of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict back here on planet Earth. Aaron, this is David Ignatius. I wanted to jump in with a similar question. As Richard says, you've been following us for many decades. I'm just curious whether you think, as we have a coalition now, of Arab supporters for President Trump's peace plan that stretches across the Gulf, Egypt, Jordan, whether Israel's hope that it will finally enter an era in which there is broad normalization of relations with Israel

is close once the war ends. I mean, I think, David, frankly, and Richard knows this, and so do you. what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in missing for decades now is the absence of leaders. The leaders who are masters of their political houses, not prisoners of their constituencies, leaders who are able to recognize their own constituencies, needs and requirements,

but also reach out to the other side. You don't have any leadership like that in Israel today. Among the Palestinians, the Palestinian National Movement, frankly, is in crisis. There will be no effort for this foreseeable future, to choose, Palestinians to choose their leaders. There won't be elections in Gaza or the West Bank. And the unpalatable choice for Palestinians is between Hamas. And I agree with Richard, Hamas will survive as an insurgency, capable of, until proven otherwise, capable of being

the most dominant Palestinian force in Gaza and seeking to influence events through co-optation and intimidation. So without leaders to pull the wagon, it's really going to be hard to take what I think is a real opening here and broaden it. One additional point, and again, Richard will appreciate this for sure.

What you saw in terms of Donald Trump's, when Nachumanea said that Trump doesn't threaten to give orders, this is unprecedented in the history. of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Jim Baker banned Benjamin Netanyahu from the State Department. Bill Clinton exasperated during his first meeting with Netanyahu came out and blurted, who's the effing superpower here?

Well, guess what? Donald Trump is the first American president, without exception, that answered that question for Netanyahu. Yeah, he certainly did. I think, last point. is that Benjamin Netanyahu is not thinking about returning ossages. He's not thinking about any more in Gaza. He's thinking about only one thing. And that is how do I run an effective election campaign, probably for the spring of

26, and he needs Donald Trump to win. Yeah. And that, as Robert Frost would say, has made all the difference. So former middle, he's negotiator Ed Miller. Thank you. David Miller, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah, it is pretty remarkable. And it's same thing with Joe Biden. Every day. Just cursing Netanyahu as Donald Trump passed for the first six months. But that, again, it was the strike against Qatar and several other things that really made the big difference. One other thing, those polls you were talking about, part of it. Phoebe Netanyahu cannot go over Donald Trump's head to the American people.

No. And he can't go over Donald Trump's head. You know why? Because Donald Trump, is in the White House. Yeah. If Donald Trump were not in the White House, he could go, he could support Beebe. Right now, it's almost like Nixon going to China. Only Nixon could do it. Only Nixon didn't have Nixon to worry about. Donald Trump does not have to worry about being outflank.

Well, you can't make it a partisan thing either, like Netanyahu did John with Barack Obama, where he said, I'm going to go to a Republican Congress and play off their hatred of a Democratic president. Now you've got Republicans running everything in Washington, D.C. Who's he going to play Donald Trump off? off of the 70% of Democrats are, you know, probably even higher who think that Benjamin Netanyahu is committing war crimes? Yeah. Again, as a top Trump administration official told me this weekend, we have Netanyahu boxed in. And if he doesn't think we do, you know, just have him try

something. Yeah, the president's patience has run out, I think is clear. There's nowhere for him to go. I mean, there are certainly staunch supporters of Israel among the Republican Party on the Hill. But they're not going to defy the president here. You know, the Democrats, as we ever poll after poll, long time suggested, they're, they're broadly unhappy with Netanyahu, and they want him, they want him out. So he is boxed in. And I think this is a moment where, at least for a short-term deal, there is hope. You know, it's not potentially going to be the greatest deal in civilization, as we've heard

from some quarters, but there is a chance here to get to, at minimum, as a two-year anniversary of the attacks or upon us to get those hostages. One step at a time. All right. coming up, we're going to get the very latest on the government shutdown, which is now in day six. And we're going to bring you Ali Vitale's interview with Speaker Mike Johnson. That's in just a moment.

Thank you, it's all because of the Democrats. The Democrats are causing the loss of a lot of jobs with their, it's a shutdown. It's their shutdown. It's their shutdown. I've encouraged my Democratic members to sit and talk to Republicans. It's always good when Democrats and Republicans talk to each other, but two points. First, in those conversations, the Republicans offered nothing. But second, the only way this will ultimately be solved is if five people sit together in a room and solve it.

The federal government remains shut down this morning with no clear end game in sight. MSNBC's Senior Capitol Hill correspondent, Ellie Vitale, sat down yesterday with House Speaker Mike Johnson for an up. update on where things stand. At the center of this debate feels like a debate over health care, and you've said repeatedly that addressing Obamacare subsidies is a December issue, but families are making their open enrollment decisions in October and November. So why shouldn't Congress give families some degree of certainty in a landscape where their premiums could double if this issue isn't taking care of?

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't do that. What I'm saying is we have to keep the lights on in the building so that we can have those discussions and debates. Republicans have made no assertions about how that will wind up. But December 31st is when the subsidies end. And so we have effectively three months to negotiate, you know, in the White House and in the halls of Congress, that's like an eternity. So we need the month of October to figure this out. There's a lot of thought that's gone into that on both sides of the aisle. But we need folks in good faith to come around the table and have that discussion, and we can't do it when the government is shut down. We got to remember,

We sent over a very clean, very simple continuing resolution just to buy a little more time so that appropriators in both parties can have their negotiations on appropriations. We just ran out of time. We need more, and that's all this is about. But you're going to discuss it and potentially make a decision on these ACA subsidies after families have made their decisions. How is that fair to that? Well, not necessarily, because we have the entire month of October.

Most of the notices for the insurance companies go out in early November, and that's a few weeks ahead of us now. As soon as we get the government open, the sooner the better so that those things can be resolved. And that's what we're saying. Now, look, Chuck Schumer and all the Democrats who voted against opening the government right now have said all this themselves. Chuck Schumer gave passionate speeches as recently as March of this year. I mean, roll the tape.

He's the one that voted for the exact same CR, the exact same spending levels just six months ago and said that we could not possibly shut the government down. He's changed his tune. And I mean, I'm not trying to be mean about this, right? I respect Chuck Schumer as a person, but he's got a political problem that he's trying to solve using government funding for it. He's afraid, this is very clear and obvious to everybody, he's afraid he's going to get a challenge from his left flank in his next reelection bid. So he needs to show a fight against the President Trump and the Republicans, and he's chosen government funding for that. I think it's selfish. I think it's foolish, and I think it's hurting real Americans.

We need to get the lights turn back on so we can finish the discussions on these substantive debates. Why should Democrats believe that this is going to come back around? that if they solve the government shutdown now, that there's a trust between Republicans and Democrats. There's not really an open line of communication here at all. Well, there is an open line of communication. The president himself had the four leaders in the Oval Office. For the first time, nine months in.

Because this was the first time that the president needed to engage with the leaders on a funding matter. And we've been keeping the lights on and keeping everything going pretty well until then. But Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffrey's in that meeting showed no willingness to come along and do the right thing to keep the government open. The president and everyone is open to negotiating all these issues. That's our process. We work in a deliberative public body. You've got 435 members in the House and 100 in the Senate. There's a lot of opinions that you cover every day, right? You've got to get those people working together to build consensus on these big issues because we have small margins of majorities in both chambers. And in the Senate,

of course, you need 60 votes. There's only 53 Republicans in the majority party. It requires everybody to work together. I'm heartened. that we were doing that on appropriations. We had Republicans and Democrats in Senate and the House working together to move those bills through. The Senate, they passed three bills off the floor as first time in years. They've done that. This is encouraging. We're getting Congress to work the way it's supposed to again. We just move a little more time. However slowly it's working and because we have limited time, I'm sorry for cutting you off. But bottom line, should families plan on paying more next year for health care? Boy, I hope not. I mean, we're working to bring

the costs down. We did that. We demonstrated it in the working families tax cut, the one big beautiful bill where we didn't cut Medicaid, we shored it up, we supported it. Why? Because we eliminated fraud, waste, and abuse. And don't take my word for it. Look at the CBO's analysis. The Congressional Budget Office says, we're going to save $185 billion just in waste and abuse, which is going to make the program work better for the people who depend upon it. They also say millions of Americans will lose access to Medicaid because of that. But I want to stay focused. Not Americans. Not Americans. Illegal aliens and able-bodied workers. I think we both know that that's a misleading point here. No, it's not. So we don't know that.

legal status, not people who are here illegally. Not true. Remember that under the four years of the Biden administration, when they opened the border wide, and we had about 20 million illegal aliens coming to the country, they just granted asylum and parole status to everybody. I recognize what you're saying, but it's people who were granted asylum or parole, and so they were working through the process legally. But I want to get you on the concept. We can debate that at length, yeah. We could debate it at length. And if you want to stick around, I'm more than happy to do it. I wish I could. But you've invoked the president a few times now. He looms so large over this entire process. Your colleague Thomas Massey, though, has said that your only speaker for as long as

President Trump wants you to be. Does he have a point? No, he doesn't have a point. We've been demonstrating this over and over. I've been speaker for two years now. It's not a job I ever aspired to, frankly, didn't know I'd have it. But I'm trying to keep steady hands at the wheel in very turbulent times. I'm trying to work with, in good faith, with people on both sides of the aisle, and we've done that. And if there was someone else that wanted to be speaker, I'd hand him the gavel. But right now, we've got to guide the country through these dire straits. These are turbulent times, it's wartime, effectively, around the globe. There's very serious, dangerous matters at hand, and we've got to keep steady leadership through it. So Thomas Massey's

been after me from day one. He's after the president. He's got a bone to pick. I'm not really sure what the source of all of that is, but it's his issue and not mine. You were in that meeting that the president had with the four corners of Congress at the White House. When I was listening to Democrats talk about what went on in that meeting, they made it sound. like the president was sympathetic to the idea of extending ACA subsidy. So if he came to you and said, let's make a deal on this, would you work against him? Well, no. I mean, no, what was said in that meeting, they might not have told you, Schumer and Jeffries, but Leader Thune turned to his colleague, Chuck Schumer, and he said there would need to be some reforms because there's a lot

of waste and fraud in that process. And it doesn't have adequate protections. And there's some things that could be done to make it work better. President nodded in agreement. I mean, no one's made any final assumption or assertions on that. So it kind of sounds like there might be something to negotiate. Well, that's been the whole point. We need the time to do that, and we have the time. But you have to have government open because in the middle of all this, remember, real people

are feeling real pain. We've cut off medical and health services to veterans. We have the WIC program has stalled women, infants, and children needing their nutrition supplemental funding and all the rest. FEMA's shut down health insurance. I mean, flood insurance programs in a middle of a hurricane season, and you have half the civilian workforce on furlough right now. This is no way to run a railroad. And yet people are looking at this. The polling is early, but it's there, a Washington Post poll saying that 47% of Americans

are right now blaming you, your party, and the president, as opposed to 30% who are blaming Democrats for this shutdown. We've got polls on the other side of that as well. This isn't about a blame game. It's about making sure the government is working for the people. And Chuck Schumer is the one holding up the votes. I mean, we passed a clean CR. I didn't have any partisan priorities or poison pills or gimmicks or tricks in that, I sent it over in good faith. It's 24 pages go look at it. And look what Chuck Schumer sent back and is a counterproposal. He wants to add $1.5 trillion in new spending to a seven-week funding stopgap measure.

Trying to claw back. And he wants to claw back the $50 billion we set out for rural hospital. But when you look at the fact that the president is tweeting pictures of Democratic leadership in sombreros, when he's saying that Russ vote, the head of the OMB, is the Grim Reaper with a Is the president making Republicans messaging job harder? Is that how you would be messaging this? I think the president's team is using social media and all of the tools there, memes and all the rest. But does that help you?

No, I think what they're doing is pointing out the absurdity of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffrey's political position. But in the middle of this, real people are harmed. And I can tell you, because I talk daily, almost hourly with the president. I've spoken with Russ vote in the last 48 hours. They take no pleasure in this. They don't want to do this. they're put in this position by the Democrats in the Senate. They're the ones that chose to shut the government down

and to put this responsibility on the Office of Management. But do you see how some Americans might feel like when they see those AI videos, however they're leveraging social media, that memes don't designate a seriousness about the gravity of this moment? Does it help you to have them doing that? Well, you can follow my social media.

I don't do memes and jokes against my colleagues. No offense, but his following is bigger than yours. Yes, a little bigger than mine. That's right. But, I mean, look, I'm working on the policy. There's politics to this as well, right? And those are both components now. We live in a social media age and people use it.

I think President Trump uses it as effectively as anybody ever has. And I told my friend Hakeem, who is my friend, I said, man, don't pay attention to it. Don't respond to it because it makes it worse. I learned that the hard way a long time ago. I mean, 48 hours ago, Gavin Newsom was trolling me. He painted me as a little yellow minion with big glasses and overalls. I laughed at it. He's not the president, though.

Well, he's the governor of California who wants to be the president. president. I hear that. The key is for all of us, everybody on both sides, don't play into it. Just do your job. And we'll get through and we'll get the policy negotiated. I think to get to the bottom line, Americans that I have spoken to look at this and they say, you're the Speaker of the House, Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. Do you see how blaming Democrats might ring hollow to them? No, because everybody who studies civics, you've got to have 60 votes in the Senate. We only have 53 Republicans in the Senate. We must have Democrats to do it. Now, you know three of them have already come over. Well, two Democrats

and an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. We're hoping that five more suddenly wake up and say, this doesn't make sense. We should not punish good law-abiding, tax-paying citizens for us to have political fights in Washington. Turn the lights back on, open the government so that we can get to the resolution of all these other issues. That's all we're saying. And that's all Chuck Schumer said his entire career until about last week. I have one more question for you because I am beginning to get the wrap. But realistically, how does this end? I hope that some Democrats in the Senate will wake up and say enough is enough. Let's turn the lights back on and let's get into these vigorous debates about the subsidies

and all the rest. That's what needs to happen. That's the only thing that can happen. People say, why aren't you negotiating with Democrats? I literally, Ali, don't have anything to negotiate. I didn't put any of my Republican priorities on the CR, so I can't pull those off and say, gee, is it better now? Can you vote for it? I sent over to the Senate, exactly what they voted on the last time, and now suddenly they want to have a political fight. Why? Again, I mean, this is, frankly, this is the truth. Chuck Schumer wants political cover. That's what this is about. My actual last one, otherwise I think Corinne will murder me, but you oppose, I want to just pivot to something else that we talk about a lot

on the Hill, you oppose the discharge petition that has been working its way through the building. But 77% of Americans, and 67% of Republicans say they want full transparency on the Epstein files with appropriate redactions. So do I. So then how are they wrong to say that this discharge petition is the fastest way of getting there? The discharge petition is a moot point now. The House Oversight Committee has some of the toughest bulldog Democrats and Republicans in Congress. They're all working together for full transparency of the Epstein files. They're doing it right now. Why is it taking so long? Well, because they had to send subpoenas. The subpoenas go through the House

committee process. The DOJ is in full compliance. Thirty-four thousand documents have been turned over already and they're digging. Yes, but now they're digging into the Epstein estate files, which is housed in New York. The lawyers are up there on the Oversight Committee going through, coming through that. They're about to have more and more tranches of this coming out, but they are appropriately redacting the innocent victim's names. We think as many as a thousand young women may have been victims of this. And the victims said that they want transparency on this for their own healing and closure. So do you feel that the longer you wait this out, the harder it is for them, the people at the heart of this? We're not waiting this out.

we're moving it as fast as the legal process allows, and more and more of this will be coming out daily, weekly as we go. The problem we had with the discharge petition is it didn't have adequate protections for all those innocent victims. Survivors disagreed. They said it was fine by them. You heard from about a dozen of them who wanted to come forward and put their names and faces on it. But remember, we're talking about as many as a thousand victims, and many of them do not want to be ducks. They do not want their identifications. And you've got to be very careful to protect them. Government has a responsibility to protect victims who have already been harmed. But I'm for maximum disclosure. I want every page of this out. We have always been consistent in that.

Do we have to do both things? I do, absolutely. I do believe that. Donald Trump's not implicated in this. If he was, you don't know about it a long time ago. He wants to protect the innocent victims. He and I've talked about this. He's very passionate about that. But he's for maximum disclosure and his DOJ is shown that. They're turning everything over and it's all coming out. So it's in process right now. Well, it all comes to a head when the House comes back and Adelita Grijalva is inevitably sworn in. I think many people are waiting for you to do that. Haven't you yet? Because we're not in session. But when we get back, we'll do that in regular order and I congratulate her. She's filling her father's seat. He had a long career in Congress and I'm sure she will as

well. So we look forward to that. I appreciate you giving me a few extra minutes as well and for coming on with us. Speaker, Frank Johnson. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you. So much to cover here. Democrat wins an election, not sworn in. She will be the deciding vote to actually do what Republicans and Democrats who like across America want and release Thabstein files. There's a lot to cover here. Let's, first of all, give you a little bit more time to talk about, just quite frankly, some disinformation on Medicaid cuts.

The Congressional Budget Office says $911 billion in Medicaid cuts by this Republican, so-called big, beautiful bill. That's the largest cut in the history of Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office also says 11 million Americans will lose their health insurance because of those cuts in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which is extraordinarily unpopular for good reason. And finally, I'm sorry, I had to laugh when the Speaker said, Russ vote does not. enjoy this. No, this is exactly what he wants and is exactly what he promised in 2025 when he said that something along the lines of their job was to make federal workers' lives miserable.

Joe, I think you did a lot of the fact check work there that I was frankly also trying to do in real time. I mean, you heard when I offered to the speaker that the CBO also scores that millions of people are going to lose their health care, and he fired back with that misleading point. around undocumented immigrants and this being really an immigration story. And I understand why Republicans are trying to redefine the playing field in that way, because that is a more politically salient issue to them. But again, though, as you've said, and as we've all said, illegal immigrants can't get the Affordable Care Act.

They can't get Medicare. They can't get Medicaid. I mean, it is, again, it is just grossly misleading. And again, tries to brush by the fact that, million Americans are going to lose their health care because of this big, beautiful bill. Which is exactly why I had one Democratic congressman on my show this morning to react to the point that the speaker made when I asked if bottom line Americans should plan to pay more for their health care next year. And he didn't say no. He said Republicans have tried to make costs

lower, but his exact quote was, boy, I hope not. And that's why the Democratic lawmaker on my show, Congressman Greg Lansman, sort of teed off on that and started listing all of the proposals that Republicans have enacted through the so-called big, beautiful bill around health care that are causing really a cascading number of effects, not just for people who use Medicaid, but also for people in senior living homes, in other, in rural hospitals, places that are already starting to see layoffs and closures because of what is written in this bill, even if it hasn't exactly set in yet. I will say in this interview, I thought it was very striking that we went on Capitol Hill

from Democrats saying, we want to have a negotiation on ACA subsidies and Republicans. sort of not responding or closing the door on it. Now, at least Democrats have, I think, shifted the window on the hill that there has to be some kind of negotiation on ACA subsidies. Obviously, they're not willing to cede their point quite yet. They see that they have leverage. They see that there's public polling that bolsters their position. But the idea that the Speaker of the House is now telling me, yeah, we have to have those negotiations. That means that the door is no longer closed. And it does mean that Democrats are shifting the window of what's up for negotiation during this process by continuing to hold out their votes. And you've got moderate

senators like Genejahan and others who are trying to press for some kind of bipartisan negotiation on this issue. They're pointing to the fact that that makes political sense for Republicans and Democrats alike. So I think that in this interview, the fact that that is so on the table and that the speaker, although I don't quite get the point, because the negotiation is not going to take a second. People are going to make their open enrollment decisions and then see whatever Congress has decided on this. But I do think that's a shift in the negotiating space and what's possible here. All right, MSNBC's senior capital correspondent.

Ali Vitale, thank you so much for bringing us an interview. We greatly appreciate it. David Drucker, this is just me talking here. Again, it's a Republican with political battle scars on his back, back when I used to be a Republican. Government shutdowns never end well for Republicans. And in this case, you actually, as long as the shutdown is going, on, we're talking about health care. And Republicans can do the look over there, look at the bird in the tree, look at illegal immigrants. But the numbers, the CBO numbers are hard and fast,

$500 billion slashed in health care supplements for Americans. 11 million Americans will lose health insurance because of this Republican vote. And I checked, $150 billion cut from medical providers. That means rural health care nursing homes. That means rural hospitals. That means pediatric care for people in the

heartland of America. I mean, I understand what the Republicans are saying and what the Republicans are trying to do as far as the logic, because we've said it forward. Look, we gave him a clean CR, and they're wanting to, but

that never wins a day when the debate has shifted over to, oh, yeah, well, you've cut $150 billion from rural hospitals. That's just, or from other health care providers. That's not a winner for Republicans. What are they thinking right now? And where does this end up? Well, look, I think they're pretty confident. I think one of the reasons Senate Republicans kept their fundraising events in Sea Island, Georgia,

over the weekend was because they feel like they have the political upper hand. But let's look at it this way, Joe. Republicans usually lose these shutdown fights because they're usually the instigators. And voters don't look at leveraging government funding as a legitimate form of political combat, usually. And so what Republicans are doing is running the Democratic playbook, which is proven to work. And that is, as we saw with Allie's interview, hey, listen, we're open and negotiating this. We agree there's a problem, but we need to get the lights on first. The government should be up and running, and that gives everybody more space to negotiate.

and there's no need to do all of this. And once we get into the first week of a shutdown, people dig in, they get a little comfortable with it. And then pretty soon we're into a second week. And then all of a sudden it becomes not about whatever you're arguing about, but just about pure political power. And I think that's what Democrats have to worry about. But look, if my UCLA Bruins were capable of beating the Penn State

and the Lerlands on Saturday. You invite, hey, you invited it. this, but I'm going to say it's a game. What a debut for their coach. Yeah. And so sometimes weird things happen. And so what I'm watching is how much of a participant the president and his team, i.e. Russ vote, want to be in the shutdown. Because if they're going to use this as a reason for firing workers, not just furlowing them till we can get everybody back to work, you know, that's the usual line. Hey, listen, I don't want to do this. If they become active participants, because they want to use the shutdown to do their own things.

Then all of a sudden, the political calculation and how voters look at who's responsible could change, and I think that's something to look at. Yeah, no doubt about it. Also, look at those UCLA Bruins. What a win. Congratulations. David Drucker, senior writer for the dispatch, greatly appreciated.

You know, David Ignatius, I know you've been around Washington long enough to see it just like me. You never know where these shutdowns go, but I will just say it again, is a guy that sat through one as a Republican. They usually turn against Republicans. I thought Allen made a very great point. It's hard to be talking about how much you're concerned about workers and how serious you are about health care when you have the president sending out memes that many people consider to be racist at the very least disrespectful and not serious in the middle of a government shutdown where people are really hurting. So I thought that, you know, he didn't want to talk about that.

What he wanted to talk about was how eager Republicans are to negotiate over and over again in Allie's interview. He kept making that point. And so I was left with the thought, we must be close to the beginning of some behind-the-scenes conversations if he's as eager to talk about negotiating a way out of this as he sounded. So maybe, Joe, he gets your point. This doesn't end well for Republicans. You know, the fear is it's not going to end well for anybody if it goes on much longer. Yeah, for sure. So coming up, we're going to go through the big weekend in sports, a bad one for New York fans.

Pablo Tori joins us with his take from NFL Sunday. You always have the Knicks. Yes, you do. He'll also have that MLB playoffs.