Morning Joe - Joe: Trump can't bend reality when it comes to war; he needs to be honest with the public

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Joe: Trump can't bend reality when it comes to war; he needs to be honest with the public 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.

The straits are in great shape. We've knocked out all of their boats. They have some missiles, but not very many. I think we're in very good, we're in very good shape. Why isn't the U.S. Navy escorting ships through the strait? I can't tell you the answer to that, but I think it's, I think right now it's still a dangerous situation. We happen with there. It's going to take a while for us to get control over the Strait of our moves. President Trump yesterday claiming the Strait of Hormuz is safe. Hours after Republican, Senator Rick Scott said the crucial shipping passage was a dangerous situation. Without U.S. naval escorts, there are serious concerns about a prolonged closure of the strait, the world's most important energy transport route.

It comes as Iran is stepping up its attacks, briefly sending oil prices back above $100 a barrel. all of this appears to suggest the president and his advisors misjudged Iran's response to attacks from the U.S. military. It certainly has been a lot more fierce. Here's the front page. Wall Street Journal, of course. Who saw that coming? I think a lot of people saw it come in, didn't they? Straits obviously in serious shape. There's also other reports about how the United States leaving actually causes too early now. causes so many problems. You have the opportunity, of course, you empower the Iranian regime. You also give them a chokehold over most of the world's oil. So, yeah, there are no easy answers.

We're going to get to all of that and a lot more, but I want to start with some history. This is sort of a John Meacham thing, Willie. You may remember when Ronald Reagan got shot, he went to the hospital and the doctors were all around, and he said, I hope you all are Republicans. and the first doctor that was there, Dr. Cassiopo said, sir, today, we are all Italians. Well, they fired him, pushed him out, and then they brought in another doctor who answered it correctly. Mr. President, we are what?

We are all Republicans. Exactly. So he got to do the operation. If you remember poor, poor doctor Gatsiopo. I don't know why. But here's the thing, though. Yeah, please tell the thing. Here's the thing.

It's like, you know what? Eventually, everything comes around. Right? You're laughing because you're not a good windup. It's a long windup. Louis Tion. Remember at the beginning, I would say, you know, Willie, there's a Japanese saying.

Yeah, please don't. Yeah. Well, here, this morning, as poor Dr. Cassiope said in March of 1981, today, Willie, alas, we are all Italians. Go. Dr. Cassiopos was a podiatrist. That was the problem. How we got in the war.

Why was he with a president? Okay. I don't know. He's just taking care of footbunks. No, exactly. I don't know how we got from this to laughing hysterically. We're not laughing hysterically. But Willie's going to explain why this morning, we are all.

So as we set up yesterday. Vita Italia. The United States and the World Baseball Classic needed Italy last night to defeat Mexico because we had a little slip up of our own thinking maybe we didn't have to win the last game. Coach DeRosa, it happens. It happens. Well, the Italians took good care of Coach DeRosa and of Team USA, wiping out Mexico 9 to 1.

So, Team USA, in fact, advances to the knockout round, to the quarterfinals. Tomorrow night, they play Canada. Along with Joe Willie and me, we have the co-host of our 9-am hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire. You know, this is a great thing about having T.J. back from CBS, even though I think his head's still there, we start introducing people and he shows baseball.

Opinion and the New York Times, David French is here. And get this, guys, starting us off early this morning, former host of Hardball. Chris Matthews joins us as well. Yeah, we got the shot. It's good, T.J.

That's pretty good, T.J. Getting good at what you do? Really? We talked baseball for 30 minutes. It's only been 20 years. Tuesday's like... Yeah. Takes a little bit of time. In fairness, he's books.

Let me get camera. He is booking a crew. Five. I think he's going to the Catskills this weekend. Can we get to the news? We're going to get to the news. Okay. There is a lot to sort through here.

And no easy answers. No easy way out here. No. But depending on who you talk to, sometimes some think that there is, the president. Nobody thinks there is. The conflict in the Middle East is escalating on multiple fronts this morning as a wrong. ramps up attacks on shipping traffic and energy infrastructure. U.S. officials say American and Israeli aerial attacks have crippled Iran's air defenses,

but Iran continues to fire missiles and drones across the region. In Bahrain, new video shows firefighters battling huge flames at a fuel storage facility following an Iranian strike. Iraq was forced to shut down oil port operations this morning after deadly attacks on two foreign oil tankers, Iran also hit a container ship off the coast of Dubai. Overnight, the global price of oil surged at one point above $100 a barrel, even after a group of more than 30 countries pledged to tap their reserves to help stabilize markets. Meanwhile, President Trump yesterday seemed to both downplay the conflict while bragging about the success of the U.S. military.

Here's what he said in both Ohio and Kentucky. And we did a little excursion. We had to take this little couple of weeks, a few weeks of excursion, but it's been incredible. Our military is unbelievable, the job they're doing. I would say to put it mildly, way ahead of schedule. But 47 bad years we suffered with them, not only us, the rest of the world.

We're doing our jobs. So we had to take an excursion, but it's doing well. The market's holding up well. Prices are coming down very substantially. Oil will be coming down. That's just a matter of war. That happens very, you can almost predict it. I would say it went up a little bit less than we thought. It's going to come down more than we, than anybody understands. You just said it is a little excursion and you said it is a war. So which one is it? Well, it's both. It's both. It's an excursion that will keep us out of a war. and the war is going to be, I mean, for them it's a war. For us, it's turned out to be easier that we thought. Operation Epic Fury!

Is that a great name? Well, it's only good if you win, you know, you can only do. And we've won. Let me say, we've won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the best in the first hour it was over. Oil prices are already coming back down.

And it's going to come down, but we're not leaving until that job is finished, and it's going to be very fast. It's going to be very fast. But we're not going to count on having competent presidents. You know, the president's been able to, for a decade now, he's been able to kind of bend reality to what he wants reality to be. And he's been able to pull a good, good chunk of Americans at least 40 percent at almost all times with him. so if they were anti-war before and voted for him if he's pro-war, they're pro-war. You could go through vaxes in the deep south, the most vaccinated regions in America. And if you were pro-vax, he decides you're anti-vax or the Magu movement does.

So we've seen that. That just doesn't work unfortunately with war. And the president realizes that. I mean, you can look at that and say he's trying to do a sales pitch, but you can't say that oil below 100. That's going back down when it's over 100. You can't say that we've won the war when images like this are happening. Now, there are some things the President said there that actually are true. But he needs to follow through by doing what great military leaders and political leaders have always done and be honest with the American people or be honest with,

You know, Churchill was always bluntly honest with the British people, always saying this is going to be very difficult. This is going to be tough. FDR, the same. Things are going to get much worse before they get much better. And he's not doing that. He is right. The military was a smashing success. He's exactly right about that.

He's right that the Iranian regime is the epicenter of terror for 47 years. But the idea that we've won, we haven't. The idea that this is an excursion and we're going to just zoom on. back home. Not so. And again... And they lost people and people are injured. Well, that's another thing that what I just see is sort of a, we know the people who died, but you just see a little simple. Oh yeah, by the way, 147 Americans have been injured in this war thus far. We're hearing really nothing about that. Hardly at all. So again, Willie, when you go to war, you know, bad, bad things happen.

And there are a lot of Americans who have seen this regime as an axis of evil for 47 years. So that's fine. But you have to tell the truth about the war, not just for Americans' sake and not just for the troops' sake, but for the president's sake to prepare for what's coming ahead. this just is not going to be easy. Tell the truth about it and explain to the public why we're doing this. I mean, why have those service members died? Why have 140 service members been injured? Why might this last weeks and weeks and weeks?

Why might there be boots on the ground? The president left that open yesterday. The possibility of more people dying, Americans dying. Why? Why? That's the answer. What happened with the girls school? What happened at the girls school? And we have new reporting on that as well.

So the president, you heard him there, they're treating it like a game. He's excited about the name. He went through this whole thing about how they brought him 20 names and he loved Operation Epic Fury and they're putting out these dumb memes and trivializing what war really is. And even the New York Post, the Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post is saying this morning, Team Trump needs to start lifting the fog of the Iran war for the U.S. public. The Post writes this, somewhere between the White House and the Pentagon, the nation's leaders need to start giving the public a regular, clear, concrete sense of how Operation Epic Fury is proceeding. Right now, regular Americans and experts closely monitoring the situation have good reason to feel confused.

That includes the hundreds of thousands of people with friends and loved ones doing the fighting. A public that feels it's being leveled with as much as possible will be a lot more patient than one that feels needlessly kept in the dark. Give the nation one daily report that emphasizes the big picture and provides enough of the smaller one to build confidence. David French, you've seen war up close. It's not a game. the way it's being talked about by some members of this administration. And this confusion over what the objectives are and how it's going, don't do the administration any favors. Yeah. Well, you know, two things can be true at once here. One is, yes, when it comes to combat

with the Iranian military, our military is excelling. It is incredibly effective. It's quite obvious that we have and retain the most powerful military in the world. And we're watching that unfold in front of us. The military is performing the mission it has been assigned. At the same time, the question is, is the United States being set up for failure in a larger sense that you can win each battle with the Iranian regime, but still not come out with accomplishing the geopolitical change that you wanted? What does that sound like? Well, and it sounds like in some ways the first Gulf War. In 1991, we smashed Saddam Hussein's military, just smashed it to degree beyond here. And then there was an uprising.

we haven't yet seen a full uprising that Saddam then turned around and crushed and then proceeded to be an enemy of the United States and so chaos in the region for the next dozen years. That's when we got the intel that he started trying to get nuclear weapons after that, but also the second goal for, people forget. You know, everybody looks back and says,

oh, that was bad from the beginning of the beginning. No, March, April, May. Things were going so extraordinarily well for three months militarily that George W. Bush had his mission accomplished. He said the battle of Iraq is over, something along those lines of military operations of seas. And then bit by bit, that's when it started falling apart. Well, as a supporter of the Iraq War in 2003, I remember how triumphant I felt in the days after the statue falls in the middle of Baghdad.

You thought that this thing was all but over, and then you had this slowly building sense of dread, because you realize at the end of the day, when you're talking about the duration of a war, the enemy gets a vote. Right. You don't get to just sort of say, well, it's over now, unless the enemy says, oh, I agree, it's absolutely over as well. You still have a fight. You still have a conflict. And that's one of the issues here is this unconditional surrender demand is that can't be a real thing in this context. So what is the end game here? Iran gets a vote as to win this thing in. I mean, that's the most important thing I think right now for us to be figuring out is Iran gets a vote and they get a vote on how they're going to act after we leave the region.

And a lot of people talking about their nuclear weapons are talking about their missiles. And of course, that's all been degraded. And I think most Americans would want it completely destroyed. That said, they get the vote. Are they going to allow oil to continue to be shipped through the straits? Are they going to allow the flow to continue? And Jonathan, you also, along the New York Post line, a few times we will parallel a former Daily News guy with the New York Post.

But you wrote for the Atlantic last night about the war not being sold. And by the way, that is not an insignificant thing, Cap Weinberger and Colin Powell. And the Weinberger Powell Docton, you know, that sort of formed over a decade, said, never go to war until you sell it. to the American people. You have to have substantial support from the American people and from Congress before the first fire, shots

are fired. Yeah, so yesterday on Truth Social, President Trump posted a lengthy, detailed case why he believed drastic action was needed to remove a complete and total disaster from power. He was talking about Congressman Thomas Massey. He did more of a sales job yesterday on Truth

Social about why he is trying to have Massey beaten in the primary than he has in terms of selling the goals of this war. He got no buy-in from Congress. He's got no buy-in from the American people. You just mentioned both President Bush. You know, did that, even as conflict soured eventually. They did build a coalition. They did sell the peace. And there were Republicans I spoke to for this who are deeply nervous about how this will play out in November, particularly if this war does extend. And this is administration, Joe, we've been talking about it all week, that is not viewing this conflict in terms of days. they're viewing it in terms of weeks or more.

The Pentagon, per reporting, preparing for, could last 100 days or more, that they think they know this is going to be a struggle, and as much as the president is looking, starting to talk about wins, it's hard for him to have an off-ramp to declare victory if the same regime is in power. And potentially, the I told his son,

more hard-lined than his father, and now, of course, embittered because most of his family has been killed by the Americans and the Israelis. So Chris Matthews, you're also writing about the war in Iran for your hardball substack. And you say this, it's back at U.S. again, this deep-seated hatred for what we did in 1953, when the CIA overthrew their government and inserted the monarchy of the Shah. It has been this way ever since 1979. Expect the same persistent hatred this time

around. It is consistent with our history, but more so. They will bomb their neighbors, choke the Strait of Hormuz, whack back at Israel. Most frightening, they know us. They know what hurts us most, what angers Donald Trump most, oil, the market generally, and they will play nasty. And Chris, you write about your own experience. Of course, you know 1979 what happened then, and it's a real warning, you say, for this present. It's amazing.

David French said it so well. The enemy gets a vote. Back in 79 and 80, we spent a horrific. this year of 1980, all those days and nights. Every time you turn on the television, it would be America held hostage at 1130 at night in the East Coast. It became a nightline, of course, later on. Kronkite would end this show with how many days the hostages have been held.

They knew exactly what they're doing. They were decapitating Jimmy Carter. And so the hostage said, watch how every day they had the flag burnings. Every day they had the trooping of the diplomat. the 50 diplomats walking around blindfolded to humiliate them. They were humiliating Carter every single day, and it was on our television. It was hurting Carter, and he ended up losing. And finally, a couple days before the election, I was on Air Force One, and I'm going to tell you,

we get a word from Tehran. Oh, the Mullahs are meeting. They may be making ready for a deal. So everybody flew back to Washington, and Carter finds out they weren't going to make a deal. They were just teasing, just to humiliate him. He went on national television the Sunday before the election. I will never forget this and said, I wish I could tell you when the hostages are coming home, I can't.

And by the way, on election eve, as we sat on Air Force One, we had to tell him on the Cronkite report that evening. The next day's election was not the number one news story. The number one news story right at the top of the news budget was the anniversary of the hostage taking. That was bigger news. Carter was screwed. They never set the hostages back until after he'd been beaten by Reagan.

And then when he had left office, they knew exactly what they're doing. They decapitated Carter. And I got to tell you, they're doing the same thing to Trump. They know exactly what the straight of himoos is doing to the oil markets, to the markets generally. They know what we're up to because Trump is on television all the time. They see him. They know how he works and how to hurt him. And they're trying to decapitate him.

All right. We're going to continue this conversation. You remember that very well, don't you? It was very painful. Very, very painful. Still, I had a Morning Joe. A preliminary report suggests the United States is responsible for the deadly strike on an elementary school in Iran. We'll dig into those details and talk to David French about his new piece focusing on that strike. Morning Joe is back in a moment. A preliminary investigation. by the Pentagon has found the United States is responsible for the deadly Tomahawk missile strike

on an elementary school in Iran. The strike was launched on the first day of U.S. attacks on Iran, killing at least 170 people, according to officials in Iran, most of them children. The U.S. official, familiar with the matter, tells MS. Now the fatal hit was the result of dated targeting information that identified the school as part of an adjacent military complex. The findings were first detailed in the New York Times, which were, reports the building had been part of an Iranian revolutionary guard base but was turned into a school several years ago. People briefed on the investigation tell the paper officers at U.S. Central Command created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the defense

intelligence agency. Officials emphasized to the Times, those preliminary, they are preliminary findings. As the investigation continues, questions remain about why the outdated information was provided, leading to one of the deadliest military mistakes in decades. President Trump, who in recent days repeatedly suggested Iran might have launched the strike, was asked yesterday about this new reporting. A new report says that the military investigation has found that the United States corrupt the school in Iran. As Commander-in-Chief, you take responsibility for that.

That is what? As Commander-in-Cief, do you use for the strike on the school in Iran, A new report says the military investigation has found it was the United States that struck the school. I don't know about it. So David Franks, the president, claiming not to know about one of the biggest stories of this Iran war so far, the death of children at an elementary school, which the New York Times citing officials inside the Pentagon says it was. A tomahawk missile. Most people suspected that meant it was America. And these preliminary findings seem to suggest so. There's so many questions to ask here. You can start with why we have outdated.

targeting information? That's a problem. It raises questions about other targets. But what else is conjured as you think about this story? Well, you know, looking at this, when I served in Iraq, one of the things I would do would be review targeting proposals. In other words, are we going to hit this building or hit this structure? And so one of the first things you do, one of the first questions you're asking yourself as you're reviewing this is how timely is this intelligence? And also, you cannot presume that something because of its proximity to a military base or even its presence inside a military base is always a military target. For example, in the United States, we have schools in military bases, we have stores in military bases, homes in military bases. And so

there's the first question that I'm asking here, because I do not think for a second that anyone in the military did this on purpose. I absolutely do not believe that for a second. But we do need to ask, have some of the policy changes that have been so loudly proclaimed and bragged about about streamlining targeting, eliminating alleged legal inefficiencies, talking about stupid rules of engagement. Did that play a role in what is obviously an incredibly flawed intelligence assessment here? Because this school had been in existence for maybe up to a decade. And so if you're talking about decade-old intelligence, that's inexcusable to use in 2026 for

targeting information. So when you're selecting targets from from your experience, what is the legal process that goes through, generally speaking? We don't know all the details of what happened here, but generally speaking, how does that work? Yeah, the actual processes will vary from operation to operation. But as a general matter, you're looking at the actual warfighters, the actual planners for the operation will propose a set of strikes. And these strikes will then be often reviewed. If they're pre-planned, they'll be reviewed by JAG officers to meet certain thresholds. Now, those thresholds will vary depending on the commander's intention. And so that's why these policies really matter. What kind of layer of review? How closely, like what kind of evidence

is being required to meet the threshold for approving a strike? That's all a command decision. So that's why we need to investigate this very, very, very thoroughly. All right. Coming up, We're going to bring you more from President Trump's speech in Kentucky, where he again tried to portray the economy as a tremendous success. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, today will be a reminder that it is still March. It is windy and colder in the northeast here today with showers. Mostly this morning could even be a few wet snowflakes. New York City, Philadelphia, Washington. in D.C. only 47 degrees in Chicago. Rain and thunderstorms pressing across the Florida Peninsula here this morning, isolated tornadoes, gusty winds. Rain will be leaving Atlanta.

Beautiful weather across Texas as it is cooler and there will be travel delays. Atlanta and in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., due to the wind. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the note, download the AcuWeather App today. In 12 months, my administration is driven down core inflation, down to the lowest level in more than five years, and in the last three months, inflation was less than 1.7%. Under our policies, prices for chicken, eggs, cheese, butter, potatoes, and fresh fruit are lower today by a lot than when I took office. Hotel rates, automobile prices, and rent payments are way down as well. As a result of my direction to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds,

a risky move, perhaps, but not for me. Okay, that's President Trump in Kentucky yesterday, painting a rosy picture of the economy. He also used the rally to attack. Republican Congressman Thomas Massey, one of the lone Republicans to speak out against Trump and who has been at the forefront of the push for transparency on the Epstein file.

We got to get rid of this loser. This guy is bad. He's disloyal to the Republican Party. He's disloyal to the people of Kentucky. And most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America. And he's got to be voted out of office as soon as possible. On the other hand, Ed Gowron has by complete and total endorsement. He's a true American hero.

And he's a great patriot. And he's doing it because he saw what this guy was doing to our country. And he said, I'm going to run. The person has complete support and who I love more than anybody that's ever run is Ed Gallerine. I mean, we're at war. Chris Matthews, you know this. I know this. You know, if you're going after a member of Congress,

That hard, you better take them out. Because I will tell you, when I first ran, Newton and the team were against me from the very beginning said I could never win through all their support behind somebody else. So, you know, what do you do when your own team is trying to get you and you win? In my case, 62%. You're like, I can never want to do. And this with Massey, you know, he's already tried to take Massey. This will make Massey strong.

if Massey wins here. And Massey's getting punished. It's not getting punished because he's a big lip. Massey's getting punished because he's the guy that keeps pushing on the Epstein files and every day, there's another report in the paper today. Every day, more really stunning details about a DOJ cover-up. It come out in the paper. Like, this is a story that won't end. I know it's been put on on hold because of the Iran war. But Anybody thinking that the base is going to punish Thomas Massey because he's pushing the Epstein files too hard? I don't know. That's a fascinating political theory. You know, even a good guy like Jerry Ford who came in after Nixon, when he pardoned Nixon, nobody liked that.

It was because we wanted to know what Watergate was about. How did the president get into it? How did he push that, the whole thing with the plumbers? What went on behind the scenes? And he shut that story down. people want to know the names. Let's face it, we don't know how many pages come out of the report on F's team. We want to know the names.

Who was involved with the sex trafficking? Who were the bad guys? Who were the guys messing around with young women or girls? And let's get it over with. You want to get it over with, get all the names out. And until those names are out, the MAGA people mostly, the real MAGA people are not going to take it. Because they know why they put Trump in there to tell us the truth, to find out what's going on, to stop these stupid wars.

They remember what, I hope they remember why they voted for him. They didn't want this in Iran and they don't want this constant cover-up. By the way, is he going to go after Rokana next? Is he, he goes after Massey?

I mean, come on, he can't get rid of everybody that wants the truth about Epstein. Because I think most people do. Yeah, and David, it is, again, this is, you always have to be careful when you sort through this stuff,

because when you go after somebody in the Republican Party, party for for wanting the truth out about Epstein. I mean, I always remember. I mean, when Republicans were attacking me for being too conservative, I was in my sweet spot, right? Because, I mean, so they're going to attack Massey for pushing what the base has been saying they've wanted for five, six, seven years. It doesn't, it doesn't work. Well, this isn't quite the shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue moment, you know, where Trump is really just thrown down the gauntlet. But it's close to that in the sense that this is just Trump essentially taking his supporters continued support for him totally for granted

here. He is absolutely pocketing it, assuming that they're going to be with him no matter what. Can I ask just open table here? And I'm not being facetious here. Does he care anymore? Does he care what happens to the Republican Party? Or has he decided we're going to lose? I know we're we're going to lose. I'm going to do whatever the hell I want to do. Are we at that stage, John Lemire? Some of his aides have actually tried to get him to be less pessimistic about the midterms. I mean, yes, there's a sense that he feels the House is likely gone. They think the Senate can be can still be kept. He knows that's bad for him. He does not want that, right? If Democrats take the House. But at the same time, is he now just saying, you know what, this is he's been able to

do whatever he wants. He looks at the polls and he sees that the numbers are just heinous. all these off-year elections have been heinous for Republicans, is he's just getting to a point where he just doesn't care anymore. Well, he's even said in his public remarks a couple of times now, oh, well, history tells you that the party out of power does well in the midteries. Like sort of suggesting he's sort of seeing a loss on the horizon. And this is also a particularly tough one in Kentucky. First of all, the state with voters pride themselves in independence.

There's a Democratic governor in Kentucky as much as it is a red state. And also, you know, his ability to sort of dictate who he wants to win Republican primaries, though he still has a very good record. He's not undefeated anymore. He's taken a few losses, including recently. So there's not any sense here that this could work. And there's probably a reason he's pushing so hard on the Save Act, right? I mean, it's not going to get through likely,

but he needs to all the help he can get at the polls trying to manipulate it. Through the legislation. With him, too, and this is something that, again, Chris Christie was saying in March or April of 2020, he also gets the argument going. So after it happens, he can go, see, they start. They would have only passed the same act, these Republicans, but they wouldn't take care of themselves.

They wouldn't protect themselves. They wouldn't protect America, i.e., protect me. I think it's a question you could ask throughout his political career. Does he care about what happens to the Republican Party? Only insofar as much as it helps or hurts him. Right. If they lose the House, he knows there may be impeachment hearings. The Epstein thing gets more serious. So I think he does care, but he just doesn't quite know what to do about all these bad trend lines we're seeing right now. Let's bring in the CEO, co-founder of Axios, Jim Van de Haid. Jim, why don't you weigh on this about the state of affairs here, what, seven months before election day, something like that, eight? Yeah, I think to your question about does he care, it's just not

how his brain works. I don't think he spends any time thinking about things two, three, four months from now. He's thinking about what's right in front of him. As Jonathan pointed out, his aides are really frustrated, Republicans are frustrated that he seems indifferent to what happens in the House and Senate races. Truthfully, I think he is indifferent because he feels like, whatever, I can bomb or I can bully or I can do things outside of the congressional process. I don't really care that much about lawmaking as long as I can exert power. And he finds ways to exert power without Congress being involved in it. But he's in a hell of a hole. And I think that hole's getting bigger for Republicans. The polls are awful top to bottom. That's why Republicans feel like they're

undoubtedly going to lose the House, might lose the Senate. They look at Texas and they're like, how's going on? You see this surge of enthusiasm there for Democrats. You don't see the same for Republicans. So there's not a lot you can look at it and be like, ooh, this is awesome. Regarding Texas, I've got to say, if I want to get a laugh, I go on X and I see how much the Maga Rite is melting down about Texas. And James Tarika, Terrake, Tala Rica. Tellerico, how quickly I forget. And Jim, it's funny. Don't forget him.

You've got these people who have completely checked everything they were ever taught growing up in said evangelical church over the last decade. I have forgotten everything. And now they're the ones going, oh, my gosh, this Tala RICO guy, he may not be consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I just sit there going, but the level, there are a couple guys. I like very much who I follow. Every second tweet is about Tala Rico. I have never seen Republicans obsess about anybody since Barack Obama first emerged on the scene. I'm not comparing him.

I'm not saying Texas is not fools gold. For Democrats, it probably still is. But there is a massive meltdown on Tala, the likes of which I haven't seen since Barack Obama first came on to the scene. There's just this singular focus, and I think they don't like him because he actually does, even if they disagree on a couple of things, he knows the viable. And they don't like that. Republican candidates are supposed to be going around preaching about Jesus

and then ignoring just about everything that Jesus said about taking care of the poor. And he's a super talented politician. He's obviously overperforming in a state that's usually tough for Democrats. And as he said, he's really good at talking about faith and talking about how his policy is grounded in faith. And there is a lot of hypocrisy happening in the Christian movement in terms of their tone and being in conflict with what the Bible actually says. I will say, there's still this interesting divide in MAGA. Like at the MAGA leadership level, they are definitely breaking with Trump on Iran. Epstein files, everything else. But the voters and the members of Congress are still with him,

no matter what. It's almost like there's three types of Republicans now. There's a kind of your establishment Republican. There's your Tucker Carlson, MAGA. And then there's just Trumpians that whatever he believes, they believe. You see those people supporting him on Iran, despite the fact that Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson and go down the list of every popular MAGA podcaster have turned on the war. They're with him, not them. And that, mesmerizing hold that he has over the voter and then therefore members of Congress, there's a reason we keep talking about Massey. He's like one of a couple, whoever say anything in critique with any consistency of the president, despite the fact that every conversation any of us at

this table have with Republicans that's off the record, they don't sound a whole hell of a lot different than we do, do they? Yeah, and by the way, we can talk about Tala Rico, but also just about this whole. You know, you hear Steve Bollinger. Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Andrew Schultz. You're all these people who supported Donald Trump now being very, very skeptical about what he's doing, whether it's on obscene files, whether it's on Iran, whether it's on Venezuela. But still, I, 85, 87 percent of MAGA supporters are still with him. Sure, sure. Well, and also I would say in the, in the MAGA world, there's just not a lot of belief in these polls, to be honest, that, you know, look,

Look, they've been hearing about Trump's upside down for years, that Trump's unpopular for years, and he's won two out of three presidential elections. And so I think, especially when it comes to the MAGA world, they look at this stuff and they just say, this is fake news. It's a noise. And I think this, you know, you go back to the SAVE Act conversation that we just had, I think it's a very important point to say, right now they're very much setting up the argument that, look, the Democrats colluded with establishment republic.

to block the SAVE Act, and then the midterm loss is exactly what you get. Because again, remember, this is an administration that will make the wildest, the wildest claims about illegal voting. And so this move from the blocking the SAVE Act and then using that as a pretext to call into question election results. I mean, I feel like we can see this coming from miles away. I think the thing about Tala Rico is that a lot of Democrats are looking for ways to fight back against Trump. What's the, you know, like Gavin Newsom. with his, they're hilarious at the posts and his clapbacks. But Tala Rico just, by virtue of his very existence, it's easy for him.

He uses his faith, and he speaks of it in a genuine, authentic way. And by virtue of his very existence, he completely calls out Republican mega hypocrisy on faith and all the issues. David, I want you the one who said, by the way, he does have, like, he's got some... He's got some wacky tweets from 2021 that he's, I think, mainly 2021, that he, you know, he's going to have to clean up in the state of Texas if he's going to win. And other Democrats need to see how he cleans that up because he was out there. Like as the crest of the woke tide was breaking, he was tweeting. So, you know, we can all go.

A bad combination. We can all go back. But that will be the, but from what he said in 21, but you wrote something. And if you didn't write this, take credit for it, please, David. I did. That this race isn't about conservative versus liberal. It's about mean versus nice. And we're not all saying conservatives are all mean, but just the politics, the anger in American politics.

This is really a race about can you, can nice guys still finish first? Even if you don't agree with him on everything, can nice guys still finish first? Yeah, because I think the thing that is actually resonating with him with a lot of people isn't so much that he's tying his religion to left-wing positions. It's actually that he's treating even his opponents with decency. That's right. Zinging away from the zag towards this constant pugilism and hatred of your political opponent. Along comes a guy who says, aren't we tired of that? Aren't we tired of that?

Just brings it back to the Bible. And then actually could say, I can have a conviction. disagree with you and still like you. Right. All right. So Jim, you and Mike Allen have a new piece this morning arguing, Americans may have more in common than we are led to believe. It's titled.

Yes. A consensus bill of rights. And you write in part, quote, watch the White House, Congress, and most political campaigns, and it seems clear we're too polarized and too tribal to find common cause. Well, that's a lie. Most people agree on most big topics most of the time. The results are striking and should give you hope. So, Jim, I mean, I've noticed this since...

Actually matches this conversation. You know, since I first got into Congress, who'd be on the House floor screaming and yelling, this is the most important vote of all time. And this is if the Western civilization rests on this very subcommittee vote, you know, and then it took about a year, nobody really gives it damn about this stuff. Like, they care about the big things, but it's a certain class of people.

I remember in the midst of impeachment, Bill Clinton's impeachment was around Christmertime. People were just going crazy, like yelling and this is the da-da. And I remember just going, hey, you know, kids across America tonight are looking at their Christmas tree. And they're wondering what's going on there. Parents are taking their kids to their school pageants. America goes on while we sit here screaming and yelling about this vote. Let's have the vote and understand we're most, and I've just found that time and time again, whether I'm on the Upper West Side of Manhattan or in Demopolis, Alabama, man, people may not want to hear this, but most people are like the same.

They want the same stuff other than, you know, this sort of subset of issues that both parties use to tear the country apart. I mean, with all due respect to all of us, most people are normal. They're not us. They're not terminally online. They're not terminally marinating in the news. And I'm struck by this every time I look at the data and I see that 80%, 90% of people never go on X, never pay attention to a damn tweet. I think about this when most people late at night aren't watching cable TV and throwing something at the wall. And then for the Bill of Rice, we just look at one issue by issue.

And it is really striking how Republicans and Democrats agree on a ton of topics. If you go down the list of things we talk about here, artificial intelligence, almost everybody wants the government to step in and do some regulation and prepare the American workforce for disruption. Immigration. Go down the line. Most Americans want the border lockdown like it is. Most Americans want immigrants. They like immigrants. Most people believe that we should find a pathway for people who came here illegally but played by the rules. to stay here. Most people think the education system is a hot mess K-12 in college and that we should change it. Most people want politicians to stop spending money. We don't have. There's a hell of a lot more agreement. And maybe it is, maybe Tala Rico, there is a flicker of the movement there. Maybe that maybe not him. And maybe it's not Democrats, but it's something where people just want

competent people to make government maybe function a little bit better and maybe be a little quieter so that they can do what they want to do, which is live your life. Go to a game. Hang out with your kids. Go to church. That'll be your... Yes. I mean, Chris, you know this. I mean, you go back to Pennsylvania. You hang out with your relatives.

I hang out with people who are, you know, every day, probably 80% of the people I see, you know, voted for Donald Trump. And they know what I feel. I know how they feel. And we sit and watch baseball and we talk about kids and grandkids and everything else. And, you know, nobody even thinks about bringing up politics. And, you know, and what do these people want, even though they, you know, like things that I don't understand it all politically. You know, they want their kids to do better than they did. They want their kids to have a shot at the American dream.

They're worried about whether their kids are going to be able to afford to have. I mean, all the things. we're worried about, they're worried about for their children, for their loved ones, for their parents. That's true. And when you pray at night before you go to bed every night, you think about your kids and how they're doing and how tough the world's going to get for them because of what's going on now. It's going to be a tougher world. We're going to have enemies in the world. We're going to make more enemies like the Iranians. And that's the world we live in. And it's a tough world. So you're root for your family, especially your kids. I think that's what more,

I think you're so right about that. All right. Chris Matthews, thank you so much for coming on this morning. Jim Van DeHy, thank you as well. The new piece is up right now on Axius. Opinion columnist for the New York Times, David French. Thank you as well. Always great to see you. And what did you learn today, David? We are all what? Italian. We're all Italian. Exactly. Okay. Yeah.