Morning Joe - Kamala Harris to campaign with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

September 18, 2026: 7 am — Kamala Harris to campaign with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan  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.

This order also expands fishing seasons and fishing quotas undoing another Biden disaster. That means you can sell a lot of fishing rods, Johnny. You're going to sell a lot of rods. I could have made it so you couldn't sell. You couldn't sell anything. I could have banned fishing. I'll tell you what, the power of this office is crazy. I could have banned fishing and driven Johnny right the hell out of business, okay?

I think I'm going to do that. just maybe just a quick order just for a day or two until he calls me and he says, please, President, please, you're putting me out of business. I could have banned fish. That's where we are, baby. What a ride. They're still fishing. Hurry up.

Catch as much as you can. Get your. Where is this, T.J. Pulaski, New York. hurry, hurry, get your fishing in. He can ban at any moment now, just for the hell of it. He thinks it's funny. Hyalman.

This office is so powerful. I got a ban fishing. I'm here. I'm here for a couple days. Who writes his material when the world's going to hell and AI's about to end everything? I'm pretty sure I wasn't in the teleprompter, yeah. Yeah. It's just also the notion that you could.

Like, his conception of the office is sort of, I could ban fishing. And I could ban it for just a couple days to punish Johnny. You know, just to let him know that I could. I don't know. It's, um, there you go. This is not the best timeline. Are you, okay. We're hurtling toward the end, but we'll have a few last.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And joining a conversation on the banning of fishing, we have contributing opinion writer in New York Times, Molly John Fas. She is one of the best bass fisherman. Fischer persons on the planet. Is that what you say? Fisher woman? Oh, yeah, because I'm so into fishing.

I feel like... Very, very good. Angler. Fish, yeah. Do I hear you trashing fly fishing on the show the other day? I didn't trash fly fishing. I trashed people that didn't know how to fly fish. I don't know how to flyfish, but I can look at people. I don't know how to dance, but I can look at people who don't know how to dance and say,

you don't know how to dance. I heard the word... Oh, he's far. I heard the word boring come out of your mouth, I thought, on that matter. I don't really have a brief for fly fishing, but, dude, you don't want to have those people on your... That could be Gavin Newsom right there. He's working the Pulaski, New York vote.

Poor Gavin. You look so lonely out there. Yeah, seriously. Yeah. Now I wasn't trashing it. I will say, like, when I was younger. Like, you're about to trash it now. I'm just saying people. I'd say, hey, you want to go out fishing on a pond.

Like when I was in Mississippi, I, that's all right. I play wiffleball. I'll play basketball. I'll play football. I'll go golf and yell and throw my club. I'll do all of that stuff. know about just sitting for like three hours, especially when you're like seven or eight years old.

Yeah, it's not good for that. It's not a super engaging activity for a, when you get older and you need a contemplative meditative. When you get older, yeah. Yeah, when you need that. Not seven. I'm saying, no, it's, it could be very peaceful. I'm certainly being staring at a phone.

I'm sure I'll go down to Isla, Maraud of Lake Ted Williams and I'll do some like. One of the great fly fishermen. He was a great fisherman. It wasn't fly, was it? Yeah, he was. You can fly fishermen? But he would look down.

What did he do in Isla Marotta? We need to ask Warren. Who that's bone fishing? There's a certain bonefish. It's like the hardest thing to do. He's incredibly hard. He's incredibly hard. You know who's really good at bone fishing?

Rev. Abdu else I asked. Oh, I thought it was. He really is. He's been bone fishing. Like, I'm sure he goes down to Isla Marada every winter. You don't think so? Let's ask him.

Do you fish? Abdel, do you fish? That was not the intro question. Not the intro question I was expecting. No, it's not. No, I don't have as much time. You don't have as much time. And if you did have time, do you think you would fish?

You know, I think it's one of those things that maybe in 30 years, it might be something I do if we still have great lakes and Donald Trump hasn't destroyed all of them. So there's that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There you get. Now, that's a good political question. And it segues into my next question, which is, of course, about Michigan. Did Michigan, did they get an extra play that they didn't deserve?

Did the officials get that, you're a football guy? Did the officials get that wrong? He's trying to wedge me from, he's trying to wedge me from my base. Look, as a tried and true Michigan fan, I'm glad we won. At the same time, I wish it wasn't against Western Michigan. And also, the rules need to apply the same everywhere. And I just feel like, I feel like had it not been in the big house or under the Big Ten auspices, we might have had a different outcome.

That being said, Michigan is 2 and O, and I'm happy about it. Yeah. Now, you're not one of these goofy politicians that goes to a game when you have two different teams playing and you wear like hats on both sides, one like Michigan and Western Michigan. I hope you went there and you were cheering for your alma mater, despite the fact you were going to piss off some people that went to Western Michigan. Look, I cheered for two reasons on Saturday. That was the Saturday afterwards.

Last Saturday, Michigan beat Oklahoma at the best. Big House, and Ohio lost to Texas. And for everybody watching, just in case you don't understand this, we don't give Ohio the dignity of the second word because it's unstately. So if you produce J.D. Vance, you inevitably lose the second name of your university. It's Ohio and they lost. That's why I call the Yankees the new Yankees. We'll not give them the dignity of the second name.

Can't say York. No, you know York. No, I learned something from you that like people in Michigan call Ohio State, Ohio. No dignity for the second name. Ohio, the entire state, was created to uphold Michigan. That was the whole point of the state. Okay, very good. All right.

All right. He's got him all. He's good. I told people, he's good. So tell me, your campaign, I always ask this question because I'm fascinated by it. Like, my favorite part of campaigning was knocking on doors and actually hearing what people were saying when cameras weren't running. I'm curious about affordability.

People are being squeezed, obviously, on medical bills, are being squeezed on gas. Now, diesel, what is, $6.30 a gallon? They're being squeezed on groceries, on gas, on rent. I'm curious specifically, and you can't say all of the above, specifically, what do you hear more than other issues, like on affordability? What is it that's hurting people in Michigan the most? The one that I hear the most is groceries. People tell me about how they skimp, and they'll name specific groceries that they skimp on. The first one that you hear all the time is meat.

It's a lot harder to afford a pound of meat. You know, if you walked in and said, you know, I'm going to treat my family to some steak. You walk out with some ground chuck. If you wanted two pounds of ground chuck, you might have one. I also heard a young woman talk about peanut butter, and that's one that's a staple in every home. And you think about that. The price of peanut butter has skyrocketed. The third thing I hear a lot about is, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the

The affordability crisis doesn't just hit you in one place. It's one place you might notice, but then you see everything else creeping up in price, and they all hit you at the same time. And I think that's what's frustrating so many people. It literally feels like drowning in costs. Yeah. Yeah. You're in D.C. right now, and you're going to be talking to the National Party.

Does the National Party want you to win? Does Chuck Schumer want you to win? Are the Democrats invested in you winning in Michigan? I had a really great conversation with the Senate Minority Leader, and the thing we all agree on is that we need to win Michigan, we need to win back to Senate, we need to hold Donald Trump accountable. Now, of course, the party is big. There have been disagreements.

Many of them were played out in my own primary. But right now, we have to win back the Senate if we want to hold Donald Trump accountable. And we actually want to get on to doing the important things that I campaigned on, getting money out of politics, put money in your pocket, passing Medicare for all. And so, yes, the party wants me to win. They understand that there is no pathway to the Senate majority without my winning. and they're invested in this race. Now, look, I'm showing that you can talk about different things as a Democrat

engage in different ways. But I think that's an important moment right now, especially as we think about where we head. But here in Michigan, people are struggling. And folks understand that if we're serious as a party, we've got to be serious about addressing the challenges like the cost of peanut butter than I hear about when I'm on the doors in Michigan. Yeah, let me get over a couple of quick things that are always brought up

whenever I read about you in national news items. It's either about Israel, Hassan Pike, or Pass, So let's just go through those really quickly because you've answered them. I want to just check off the list, though. On Israel, I think I read a column by Nick Christoph. No, I think it was, it's early in the morning. Who was it? It was Tom Friedman, who said your approach was the approach that every Democrat should take,

which is you're for a two-state solution. You're for a secure Israel and you're for a secure Palestinian state where Palestinians live in dignity. Is that your position? Yeah, my position is that we need equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination. My position, Joe, is that every child growing up in the Holy Land, whether you're a Palestinian child or a Jewish child, should not have to look at their future and ask what happens now and where do we go from here. And I've said, until we have a real Palestinian self-determination movement that can speak on its own terms, it's going to be very difficult for us to imagine

that kind of a peace. And so if the free Palestinian people, free Jewish-Israeli people come together and say, we want two states for two people, I'm for it. If they come together and say, we want one state where we share, I'm for that. But I'm for keeping our money here and not using it to buy bombs and tanks to drop on other people. And so if we have equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination, that's a world in which we will have peace because it's founded on justice. And Hassan Piker, who was in the news again yesterday. You, I think you were critical of what he said about al-Qaeda and the United States. and the comparison.

You, though, you have said, though, oh, he's just a California streamer. He was a California streamer who's actively engaged in your primary campaign. Don't you think it's disingenuous just to call him like a California streamer when you know the guy,

you campaign with a guy, he was a big part of your campaign? It wasn't a big part of my campaign. We had him to Michigan once. People in the course of a campaign, and you know this, Joe, will have conversations with all kinds of people. And to me, it's really important

not just to have a conversation with an individual. You know, I'm on your show, Joe, because I want to talk to the audience who's watching you right now. And the problem in our democracy too often is we say who we cannot talk to rather than asking how do we bring these folks back into an electoral fool. No, no, no, I get that. I totally get that. I remember Ronald Reagan said in 66 when he had a bircher problem.

He said, listen, if they want to vote for me, that's great. But they're voting for me because what I believe, not because I believe what they say. So I totally get that. I'm just saying if you just call him a California streamer, that seems to minimize what he did in the primary. That's the only thing I'm asking you. Do you think that he minimizes that? Here's my issue.

Here's my issue. At the end of the day, right, he is a streamer in California. And the issue that everybody's focused on, as we talked about, is the price of gas and groceries in Michigan. Meanwhile, you've got a guy like Mike Rogers, who literally goes to Dallas instead of showing up to a debate in Detroit, to campaign with Donald Trump, who not only says crazy stuff every day, but does crazy stuff that cost you money.

The tariff war, the war in Iran. And so it's frustrating to me that I never hear about Hassan Piker on the doors. I never hear about him outside of conversations that are having this. I don't mean to interrupt you, but you've answered the question. I'm going to interrupt you just to say, let's just state the obvious. And I won't swear while I'm looking at the rev. But it is subtle bullshit for the Republican Party to be so shocked that, somebody who's a streamer who you campaigned with, I think one time,

like this is the biggest issue. And Donald Trump says the things that he says every day, and they justify that every day. That's one thing. The second part of it, Rev, is I've campaigned. I've knocked on doors. The things that people are writing are talking about on cable news, they ain't saying when I'm knocking on doors.

It is, it is about, you know, it was about costs. It was about groceries. It was about gas. And, you know, like Abdul said, man, when people go and vote, they are going to be thinking a lot more about how much their groceries cost, how much their diesel costs, how much their rent costs, than anything else we talk about here. Especially if they had the drive to go vote because they've got to look at their gas tanks. So I think that it is those bread and butter and buying gas issues that's going to determine the election.

But let me ask you this, Abdul, you and I have talked on air and off air. And the whole charge, two areas I wanted to ask you about, the whole charge of you having to repair some damage perceived or real with the Jewish community statements you've made. And I went through that early in my career, where I was accused of saying things I didn't say, and some things I did say that I should have clarified, that you have tried to deal with that.

And talk about that, how you wanted the Jewish community in Michigan to understand your position. understand what was not your position in which you had to correct. And secondly, in the black community, where some people during the primaries went another way, there's some tension in some parts of the community feeling that some of the Muslim community looked down on them. But Reverend Williams and others tell me, you've gone out of your way to say that is not you and let's work together.

Talk to me about how you've had to deal with both of those tensions and how you want to Unified Michigan if you are, in fact, elected. Rev, I appreciate those questions. Look, we had a contentious primary, and it was difficult. We had $70 million spent against me. That's a record amount of money. Heat seeking missiles to try to break my relationship with some communities. And I've tried to repair those relationships because those relationships are founded on long

histories. I grew up in a town called Bloomfield in Metro Detroit. It is heavily Jewish, and I'm so grateful for it because I had the opportunity to learn so much about the Jewish community, the contributions of Jewish Americans to American life, the beauty of the Jewish faith. And I want to remind folks that even if we might disagree on an issue of foreign policy, there is so much more that we agree on. And I've been having those conversations. And when it came to a particular statement that I made that felt like it really hit at the wrong time and the wrong place after the attacks on Temple Israel, I condemned those

attacks, but I also wanted to put them in context. But it wasn't the right statement. And so I apologize for what I said. I never, ever want people to think that I am not fully committed to them and their safety when it comes to their rights to worship freely. As a Muslim American, I understand exactly how hallowed those rights are. When it comes to the relationship with the black community, I served the city of Detroit, led its health department, rebuilt it after it was shut down back in 2015. I didn't walk into black communities asking for a vote for the first time. I walked in to rebuild a health department alongside Detroiters, putting glasses on kids, taking on corporate polluters, eliminating medical debt. And I know that there has been in times a certain frustration with

the relationship with the Arab and Muslim community too often business owners coming in and mistreating local communities and not respecting the incredible neighborhoods and the communities that they're a part of. But I've been on the right side of trying to hold them accountable and bring people together. And I want to remind people about my work. It's said, of course, I want to be judged by the content of my character and my work, not by the color of my skin. But there's also a unique opportunity to bring communities together. Because too often the ways that folks like Mike Rogers and J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, the way they work is to point at us and say, well, do you want to share community with them? And I think the bigger conversation is, yes, here in

America, the beauty is that we're not as small as they think us to be. We are in America where people come together beyond our difference is to build something greater than the sum of our parts when we are willing to get to know each other and embrace each other and invest in each other and the things we all need together. Affordable gas, affordable groceries, good schools, health care that we can afford and depend on. Those are the things this campaign is built on, and we're going to continue to build relationships on those moments and places of agreement and shared work. Hi, Dr. Al-Said. It's Molly Jongfest. I was wondering if you could talk. You have been on a show with the host that I really disagree with, Jesse Waters. And I think that one of the things

that was really interesting about that appearance was it got a ton of eyeballs. And it, it sort you got in front of people who traditionally do not watch, uh, Democratic candidates. And I'm wondering, you know, I have a theory after previous elections that Democrats really need to go everywhere, even if it's a place that is not a place that, where a lot of Democrats watch. And I was wondering if you could talk about that theory of the case and, and how you've done that in the campaign. Yeah, Molly, I really appreciate that point because I think it's exactly. exactly right. You know, not only are we going everywhere on the ground. We went to 110 different cities, 550 public events, but we're going everywhere in the media. I don't have to tell you all

this, but our media environment is a lot more fractured than it used to be. And what happens is that folks will pay attention to a particular channel or a particular creator. And if you want to speak to those people, you've got to speak through that channel or that creator. And that puts you in positions where you might be having a conversation mediated by somebody who said things you disagree with, whether that's Jesse Waters or Hassan Piker. And so I just go everywhere and talk to everyone because I know what I believe. I say the same thing to everybody and I am willing to go and defend my beliefs. And here's the thing about it. It turns out that when you're willing to have those conversations, not only do people give you credit for believing in

what you say you believe, but you're exposing people who might not have heard it to what you're saying in the first place. You know, when I said with Jesse Waters that I'd rather have good roads and good schools than have a billionaire to make a second billion, I know that resonated with a lot of folks who might not agree with everything else I had to say. But I'm speaking to the challenges that they face in their life. And again, this campaign is not about all of the circus that sometimes the media wants it to be about. It's about the affordability of gas and groceries. It's about the corruption of our government on the form of corporations buying off politicians like Mike Rogers, who is the chosen sock puppet for Donald Trump. And it's about guaranteeing people health care

and the richest most powerful country in the world. And I'm going to go everywhere I can to talk about that because I know that those things are important. And that's what Michiganers need me to be fighting for. So, Abdul, it's well established that Michiganers hate Ohio. But most in your state are rather fond of Canada, your neighbor to the north, where the economies are intertwined. So speak to us about the impact of President Trump's trade war to those who live in your state. Now, I appreciate the question because, you know, everybody knows Canadians in Michigan. Canadians are really nice people. Like, they're the only people I know who preemptively apologize for something they haven't even done. Now, Ohio, a different story that created J.D. Vance and

Vivek Ramoswamy. So, you know, I'll just take that for what it is. Now here's the thing about it. It's not just, don't even, come on. We're having such a nice conversation. So I'll just say, look, here in Michigan, not only are these tariffs disrupting our relationship with our neighbors,

but we're paying for it, $5,619 a year that we're paying for, and it's costing us jobs. Those auto parts that go back and forth across our bridges and our tunnel, those parts are getting tariffed in ways that are making the products that we make in Michigan unsustainable. And here's the thing about it.

I'm somebody who understands that tariffs could be a part of the solution, just not like this. It's like chemotherapy for cancer. If you think that free trade was cancer on our economy, then you might need some chemo. A problem with it is you don't give your patient all the chemo all at once. Instead, you've got to dole it out and make sure you're aiming at the tumor

and not the whole patient. And that's what's happened here. This is not about actually protecting jobs in Michigan or in the United States. This is about Donald Trump's insane pissing contest with the Prime Minister of Canada that we're all now having to pay for and that's destroying relationships across the border with our ally. Hey, Abdul. It's John Heilman here. You're campaigning with Kamala Harris next week,

and there's some debate among various candidates in competitive states about whether that makes sense. You've got Mary Piltoll up in Alaska, Rob San, Josh Turuk, Adam Hamilton, who are all basically saying for various reasons, no thanks. Explain your rationale for why you think it's a good idea to have. former Vice President Harris in the state, and then tell me which peninsula of Michigan you like better, the upper or the lower? And I say this is, and I say this is someone whose mother's from the upper peninsula, so be careful. Well, I'm not going to fall into the trap of that question. Okay, they are both beautiful peninsulas. And as we know in Michigan, if you seek a pleasant peninsula,

look about you. But, you know, to the question, I really, I really appreciate, I really appreciate the question because look, you know, in all of the states that you named, they did not have the kind of tumultuous, uh, uh, 2024 election season that we had in Michigan. And as folks know, if you look back to 2024, one of the hardest issues to deal with, uh, was the genocide in Gaza. And I was, um, proudly supportive of uncommitted because I understood that I wanted the party to understand that this was going to be a devastating situation for a lot of folks, because our tax dollars were being used to subsidize the worst things that should have been used to invest in the

best things. Now, the moment that President Biden called out of the race and Vice President Harris had become the nominee, I endorsed her, and I endorsed her because I understood that whether you saw this race from the eyes of a child in Detroit, who I was responsible for as Wayne County's health director, or the eyes of a child in Gaza, that Donald Trump was going to be worse. But it was a really, really difficult 107 days for everyone involved. Now, fast forward. into this election, going back to the reverence question, there were some hurt feelings about the engagement with the Arab and Muslim community around the 2024 election. Folks saying, well, if your community couldn't stand up for Vice President Harris, why should we stand up with you,

even though I was on the right side of that conversation? But who better to say it than Vice President Harris? We've got a large, diverse community. We're not Alaska. And a lot of folks in the black community from whom I've heard said, you know what? We believe you, but if the Vice President said it, we might believe her a little bit more because, of course, she was the one who is the candidate. And so in the conversations that I've gotten to share with the vice president, she understood just how frustrating that moment was and the challenges with the Biden-era policy toward Gaza going into 2024. And this is an opportunity for us to come together. Now, the campaign event we're doing is actually about an area that she and I have both worked

quite a bit on, which is maternal in infant mortality disparities. When I was health director in the city of Detroit, we built a program called Sister Friends, where we were providing free pack and plays and providing mentorship for moms. I'm looking forward to sharing that conversation, and I know it's an issue of passion for both of us, but it's an opportunity also to bring communities together that have often been torn apart by recent events. And I'm hoping for a way forward where folks can look together and say, we can build together on the areas of agreement, and we can come to understand each other far better on the areas where we might not have seen eye to eye.

And I think her coming into town will help us to do that. All right, Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-S. Ayat. so much. Greatly appreciate you being here. Thanks for having me and not having somebody from Ohio. Okay. Wouldn't think about it. Or the Upper Peninsula, which is really kind of a sleight, I would say, my God. Still out on morning, Joe. The head of the U.S. Postal Service, big story here, says the agency's stopped working on a computer system that was key to President Trump's effort to limiting mail-in voting. Plus, the federal judges warning the Kennedy Center Board to give notice before any demolition or other major changes to the venue.

For the very latest on the ongoing legal fight, straight ahead on Morning Joe. We've done a lot of work on the White House. I've resurfaced the exterior was in bad shape, very, very bad shape. I get, I have a lot of fun. Don't devote too much time to it, but I know what I'm doing when it comes to that. And if you look at it, it's in perfect shape now. It was in really bad shape. I don't want to even discuss it.

It was so bad. Moldings falling off the building. Moldings off the building for 20, for 25 years in some cases, and it was all replaced. And we'd make copies of the one on the other side. I'd have a window with a molding on one side, and the molding on the other side had fallen off. Other presidents were not big into it.

I can tell you, Joe Biden definitely wasn't. And we made it beautiful. It's a beautiful building now. It was in bad shape. But now it's in beautiful shape. It's in better shape now that when they built it in 1792. Can you believe it? I don't spend much time on renovations.

Well, let me talk for 30 minutes about renovations. He loves renovations. He loves it. He loves building. It's what he loves. That was his life before politics. And it's now his life, though he's in politics. I mean, this is, you know, we've talked about this in the show.

Maggie Haberman has added her agreement that he spends, in her estimation, about half his time. More. Thinking about these various projects at the White House, which he was talking about there, but other monuments throughout D.Z. Meanwhile, a federal judge has ruled the Trump administration must give 30 days notice before any demolition can begin to the Kennedy Center. That's Trump's latest project. After Trump, warned the performing arts venue in the nation's capital could be ripped down. Images of Trump captured through the windows of Air Force 1 late Wednesday night fueled speculation about possible demolition.

Is that Pulte right there? Yeah, so Bill Pulte was. Wherever there's a bad idea, Bill Poulton's there with something blown up. In fact, someone yesterday put it to me that Bill Poulton was a master of problematic poster boards. Yes, exactly. And that is what this is the latest. He follows him around. He comes in with these big poster boards.

And that's one of the things that's in Maggie and Jonathan's book also is he'd always come in with these big styrofoam poster boards of the worst ideas on the planet. Like, Susie Wilde's has got to be thinking, like, can we not get that guy? He'd be locked out of the White House. Much to Susie Wiles' annoyance. Maybe he has, you know, look at an administration full of insider trading and benefits. Maybe he's got stocking kinkos. And he goes, I'm going to deal it now. We shall see.

So there's, yeah, Kennedy Center demolition is what it says there on that particular poster board. Earlier this week, the Kennedy Center's board of trustees, a majority of whom are, of course, Trump loyalists, voted to close the venue for two years for renovation, citing alleged safety concerns. But Trump has threatened not to care out the renovation. unless his name is added back to the building's facade. That is called extortion. Joining us now, former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave,

there's been court ruling after court ruling that says to President Trump, you can't touch this building. Take your name off it. You can't touch it. He seems like he may not listen. Where do things stand? By the way, Bill Pulte, he's the force gump of bad ideas. He's just always there.

Always there. Always. Well, Trump is saying that this is an emergent situation. This is dangerous because apparently some ceiling tiles fell down, so we need some immediate repairs, but we'll only do it if you put my name on the building. So this is another example of Trump's words undermining his legal argument. I don't think Judge Cooper is going to buy it. And I do think Judge Cooper knows that Trump is actually abiding by his ruling.

Judge Cooper said, take your name off the building, the administration complied. And when they tried to put it in another place on the facade, Judge Cooper said, no, can't do that, and the administration complied. And that's why the judge here acted with some restraints, said, okay, We're just going to force you to give us 30 days a written notice if you're going to do anything like demolish a building. Joe, this is judicial restraint within conservatives would like this approach. Yeah. So let's move from the Kennedy Center to Florida politics, something you know a lot about because you've been in Florida politics for much of your adult life.

Talk about what's happening with Maria Salazar and her pushback against Donald Trump and immigration. Maria Salazar was a well-known Hispanic journalist, and she defeated an incumbent and became a member of Congress and a Trump loyalist, but that's now hurting her because her largely Hispanic district is really upset at the ice raids. I mean, they didn't vote for that. They wanted deportations, but not of people who they know, who are their family members, who are the hard workers in their community. And Salazar responded to that with a shocking ad that came out and said, President Trump, people feel betrayed by you. And that is surprising. I mean, you know how much she's hearing that every day in her district? I mean, it's got to be nonstop in her district.

You don't talk like that unless the polling is telling you this. It's also the fact that she has a really strong opponent. See, the Democrats went by the Salazar Playbook, and they found a very well-respected, well-known journalist in the area, Elliott Rodriguez, and he's running neck-and-neck. This is a district that Trump carried by 15 points just this last time. Although just four years ago, it was neck-and-neck, so it could bounce back. She's in some trouble.

You know, I live in Palm Beach County, two counties north. She had a billboard about this issue in Palm Beach County. Why? Political malpractice, or maybe she thinks that her voters are driving north on vacation. She wanted them to see the billboard. Yeah, but it was all in such small letters that only a political junkie like me would read this billboard. So I don't know how about her campaign. My biggest question is, will Trump react to taking a shot at him, or is this something they've worked out behind the scenes where Trump is allowing her to say this?

Trump normally doesn't let his people say things like this about it. No, she went out of harm. Understatement. So we know President Trump's been waging a campaign against mail-in voting. Well, the head of the U.S. Postal Service says that agency has now stopped work on developing a computer system that would have helped carry out Trump's executive order that would have restricted mail-in voting. Postmaster General David Steiner told the Associated Press, there's an injunction, so we're not doing

anything. It follows the Supreme Court ruling against the president. executive order that would have drastically changed and severely restricted vote by mail for the November elections. John, talk about how important this is. This is extremely important story. I mean, President Trump has weighed on multi-fronts attempts to rein in mail-in voting, something he has long hated, despite Republicans telling him often, hey, our voters use it,

too. He's taken defeats at the Supreme Court. But there was this effort underway at the Postal Service that would have brought this in. could have severely slowed down and complicated things. And there was fears that some voters would just never get their ballots or certainly wouldn't be able to vote in time. But this is a surprising admission in this interview with the AP. So with this, does Trump have any recourse left if he's taking defeats at his own government agency here, but also in the courts? Is there anything he could still do to try to cut back mail in voting?

No, I don't see it. I mean, he can ask Jared Kushner to meet with Hakeem Jeffries and try to have a detain. That's what he's doing. he sees the writing of the wall here. Also, it should give you some confidence that the system is holding. We've seen Congress self-emasculate, but Article III judges have stood strong. And Trump knows it. Trump is actually abiding by these rulings. That's why he lashed out at the Supreme Court justices. Right. He appointed. They ruled against him. So I think this is a good day for democracy where you see that Trump is listening and not fighting the court.

He's abiding by their decision. Well, and Rev, we saw this in 2020. We saw federal courts step in. We saw federal Republican election officials step in, do the right thing. And we have seen over the past six months, sort of the same thing happening, the lower courts. The Supreme Court's been dragging their feet from time to time, but even they came out and pushed back on Donald Trump, trying to, again, stop the melon voting. The Supreme Court decision, the Supreme Court decision was surprising, but they did it. But I think the real danger is that so much goes on that it makes a lot of people in the midst of the confusion not vote, and which is why I think that the efforts of both parties has to be to come out and tell people you can vote. There must be clarity.

I spent two days in Houston, Texas, earlier this week. And you've got to push people out because they're saying, can I vote? Can I not vote? Will they be early voting or not? You've got to break through all of the, and I think that's part of Trump's strategy. to have so much out there to just feed the beast of confusion, that people will get frustrated. Yeah, that's an idea, confusion.

Former State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave Aaronberg. Thank you, as always. Greatly appreciate it. Coming up, Liam Schreiber joins the table, fresh off a trip to Kiev on behalf of Bluechak, Ukraine, a humanitarian group he co-founded. Morning Joe, coming right back.