Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/15/24

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Trump's town hall turns into concert of his favorite songs after medical incidents

We are running like the underdog. We have some hard work ahead of us. But here's the thing also, we like hard work. Hard work is good work. And with your help in 22 days, we will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. I'll tell you, if everything works out, if everybody gets out and votes on January 5th or before,

you know, it used to be you'd have a date. Today you can vote two months before, probably three months after. They don't know what the hell they're doing. But we're going to straighten it all out. We're going to straighten that out, too. We're going to straighten our election process out, too. That's going to be important. The guy that just really told everybody that it's November, the election is January 5th said, oh, I don't know.

Whenever they don't know what the hell they're doing. So it was quite an event last night, by the way. That was that was I last night, by the way. Start to finish. That was. I was confused by it. I was very confused, but a lot of good listening. You know, the crowd got to go there and see Donald Trump sway to music for, what, an hour or so? So, I mean. I'm not sure what happened, but he just swayed for like an hour. Yeah, he did.

I think there was a medical emergency or two, which you see at these events. I saw at Doug's event on Thursday night. You go take care of the person, you take them out. And then you continue the speech. Last night, they listened to Pavarotti and Guns N' Roses for about an hour. And Christine Ohm, a governor and the party of Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan and Charles Krauthammer kept saying Kamala sucks. Kamala. I mean, it was just. Yeah. Again, it's it is so incredible. These people who claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan or claim the mantle of, you know, Lincoln or Ike or anybody. They've they've just debased the party so much in so many ways. You saw Glenn Youngkin yesterday, right?

Yeah. Glenn Youngkin being interviewed by Jake. And it was it was like you were watching clips of East Germany, 1986. Oh, no, we're free. The Soviet Union does that. And he just kept going back. And he was lying. The interviewer knew he was lying. The audience knew he was lying. But it didn't matter. It was only great leader that he was focused on. I have to lie. I have to shame all of my former business partners. I have to shame everybody that like has worked on my campaigns. I have to shame myself and just lie a bold faced lie about

the guy I'm supporting saying he's going to get armed troops to go after his political opponents on Election Day or else Donald Trump may get mad. That's that's where the Republican Party's been, unfortunately, for nine years. And that's why they keep losing. Yeah, the cultish behavior of this Republican Party was on full display yesterday from that strange rally in Pennsylvania that Donald Trump held where the sitting governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, who, remember, took herself off the short list to be vice president after talking again and again about shooting her dog, kept calling him, sir, sir, in this weird way and echoing whatever he said. It was just a bizarre dynamic. And then

you have Glenn Youngkin, who was supposed to be just this pro business Mitt Romney, old school Republican doing the same thing. Jake Tapper reading direct quotes to Governor Youngkin and say, that's not what he said. Jake said, no, no, hold on. I'm literally reading his words. What is your response to those words? We'll play that in just a few minutes. So it was again, this is where the party is now with three weeks to go until election day. And a lot of this is stylistic. But we'll also dig into some of the substance again of what Donald Trump is saying about tariffs, what he's saying about immigration, the lies he is telling to his supporters. I love what you tweeted, which is the process a Trump supporter or Trump apologist goes through when you try to actually present them with the facts. It's a process and you actually never get anywhere with them.

It always is. And Jake's interview with Glenn Youngkin yesterday really kind of showed it where, you know, and I hear this actually. And I heard it yesterday in my everyday life where, you know, you go in and say, well, my gosh, you know, did you hear what he said about arresting all of his opponents and shutting down CBS and, you know, and using the National Guard and military to go against his political opponents on Election Day. And the first thing they say, this happened to me yesterday. Oh, I I didn't I didn't hear that. And then you go, well, he said it. Here it is. Here's the quote. Let's play it for you. And he said, oh, well, for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't say I mean, he didn't say. And, you know, here's the quote. That's exactly what he said.

And then and then if you finally get them to admit what everybody knows the truth, Willie, they'll then go, well, he doesn't mean it. Right. He said he says he's going to arrest all of his opponents. He says he's going to shut down networks. He doesn't like the military. He says he's going to use the military to attack. But he doesn't mean it. He's just joking. Not much of a joke. But speaking of a joke, let's go out really quickly before we get into the show and be entertained by Glenn Youngkin and Jake Tapper. You heard some of the language that Mr. Trump used over the weekend.

What do you think of this idea of, quote, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics, and I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, the National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military? Is that something that you support? Jake, first of all, thank you for having me. And I guess what I want to just make very clear is that it's my belief that what former President Trump is talking about are the people that are coming over the border that, in fact, are committing crimes, that are bringing drugs, that are trafficking humans, and that are turning every state into a border state. And I'm a governor of a state

that is not near the southern border. And yet I see the impacts of 10 million people illegally coming across the border every single day. But that's not what I'm talking about, because he was talking about sick people, radical left lunatics who should be handled by the National Guard or the military. And then later on in that same speech, he said that one of the lunatics he addressed was Congressman Adam Schiff. That's who he was talking about using the National Guard and military against radical left lunatics, enemy from within people like Adam Schiff. Again, Jake, I don't think that the and again, I can't I'm just reading this for him. But but I do I do think that you are misinterpreting and misrepresenting his thoughts. I do believe, again, it's all around the fact that we have had an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants come over the border in an

unconstrained, unrestrained fashion. The Biden-Harris administration has allowed it to happen. Just two weeks ago, we, in fact, had senior people from our national security apparatus say that there's 15,000 violent felons in the United States. They have no idea where they are. That is what I believe the president is referring to. I don't think that he's referring to elected people in America, but I also literally reading his quotes. I'm literally reading his quotes to you. And I played them earlier so you could hear that they were not made up by me. He's literally talking about, quote, radical left lunatics. And then one of those lunatics he addressed, he mentioned was Congressman Adam Schiff. So I'm talking about what I'm talking about. Donald Trump saying that he wants to use the

National Guard in the military to go after the left. That's what he's saying. I don't I don't believe that's what he's saying. But listen, you and I are going to argue about that. But I would I would suggest if you would also the quote and I read it to you, if you would also wish that he weren't saying that. But that's what he's saying. Again, Joe, that is Glenn Young. Wow. Conventional Mitt Romney, pro-business Republican, just twisting himself in knots to defend Donald Trump. And again, they're lying about the numbers. I know he misspoke, but they're not even close when he said 10 million illegal immigrants are crossing the border every week. The number in September, according to the Border Patrol, was 54,000, which represented a low going back more than four years. Yeah. And and it is what's so fascinating

is I would say normally it's not really what Donald Trump said, except for the fact that what he's talking about is a fascist, a right out of fascist playbook where you use the military to go after your political opponents. I will say he did try to pressure the attorney general for everybody. All these Trump apologists right now are people who are ashamed to vote for Donald Trump and are lying about Donald Trump and saying, oh, we got through four years without him doing anything. Yeah, we didn't actually. And we didn't get through January 6th. And also, again, for those that were call themselves proud Reagan supporters or are 41 supporters or whoever you've supported in the past. This is a guy that pressured his attorney general publicly and privately to arrest Hillary Clinton. This is a guy that publicly and privately pressured his

attorney general to arrest Joe Biden two weeks before the 2020 election. So we've been here before and Republicans know it and they keep lying for him. And again, what? I'm sorry, what's in it for Glenn Young? And I've never understood what what was in it for him and what was in it for other people. Things don't end well for everybody. So why would he do that? Why? Why? Why have Republicans been doing this for nine years, especially inexplicable when you get to the point where you're defending somebody? Glenn Youngkin is defending the use of the army and the National Guard against Democrats, against Donald Trump's political opponents. That's where we are. That's where America is.

That's where the Republican Party is. Three weeks from, can I say it now, the election of our lifetime? Yes. The most important election of our lifetime. If you have a Republican Party going along with all of the things they've been going along with. And they can't even say it's about policy because, you know, the Wall Street Journal yesterday, the Wall Street Journal, not like the nation, the Wall Street Journal, the business journal for Wall Street in America. It interviewed economists and almost unanimously, they said Donald Trump's policies would lead to higher inflation and a bigger deficit than Kamala Harris's policies and the tariffs. They keep getting crazier and crazier. Five percent, 10 percent, 20 percent. I mean, there is nothing about his policies that are good for anybody except like

billionaires in Silicon Valley. Republicans are so specific about things Kamala Harris has said five, 10, 15 years ago. They're so they remember it crystal clear. And yet you present him with something Donald Trump said to them yesterday or said in an interview that they clearly saw. And they cannot admit it happened because it's usually something that is so against the norms or against what our Constitution stands for or unlawful. And just again, the hypocrisy is incredible. It's also frightening. Well, the things that Donald Trump is saying. Also, they say she doesn't do interviews. She doesn't do this. She time out. But here's the deal. Like Kamala Harris is now doing an interview on Fox News. What are you running out of things to criticize? They're making it up because you take that. Wait, who's stupid? Who who was beaten so badly in the

debate that he refused to do a second debate with Kamala Harris on Fox News, who is now, I mean, you know, he thinks the elections on January the 5th. He gets confused about World War Two. He thinks Barack Obama is president of the United States. You can go on and on about all the things that he said and swaying the music for God knows how long last night. He refuses to do a 60 minutes interview. OK, well, we know why he refuses to release his medical records. And while we're talking about just the latest outrage that he said on Sunday, I say outrage. I don't know if it's catastrophizing if somebody just out now out says we should be like fascists. We should use the military against our political opponents. That's what he said, Glenn Youngkin,

and you know it. So no need to lie anymore. Everybody knows you're lying. Stop humiliating yourself. Why? But, you know, even over the past week or two, they've lied about Springfield. They've lied about, again, still lying about the 2020 election, continuing to lie over and over again. So it's a pretty clear cut decision. If you're a Republican, if you're a conservative, if you're an American. And yet the polls say it's pretty close. We'll see. Along with Mika and Willie and me, we have the host way too early, White House Bureau overview of the polls over the last couple of days, which really, if you listen to Democrats, the worst, I mean, the whiners out there,

the worst couple of days of polling literally since Herbert Hoover lost to FDR. So what? How? Please. I want to understand this, this political thing. I'm just a simple caveman country lawyer. Tell me, what have the latest national polls said over the last two days? A roundup of the latest national polling tip tracking poll of likely voters finds Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump, 49 percent to 46 percent. This, by the way, the most accurate poll in 2020. Well, the whining is because, if you want to call it whining,

I just call it concern for the future of our country, is that that is within the poll's margin of error. Exactly. The latest NBC poll has the race tied at 48% each. The latest ABC Ipsos poll finds Harris up two. And the latest CBS News YouGos poll finds Harris up two and the latest CBS News YouGov poll finds Harris up three. And Jane, the whining. I mean, you've heard the whining. I've heard the whining. It is whining. Stop whining and get to work. Yeah, I mean, I mean,

seriously, you know, Gene, in in all of my campaigns, I always said we're behind. We're behind. We're behind. Just like Harris is saying we're behind, we're behind, we're behind. Just like Harris is saying we're behind. Work hard. I don't mind whining about, you know, Kamala not being up by five points so long as they work hard. I mean, I don't mind if if if one side is whining. Well, what are you going to do about it? Get to work. But your latest column, you talk about how Democrats need to stop doom scrolling. You know, this reminds me of this reminds you of

2008 when people would nervously go on 538 every like two or three seconds. And if the polls weren't going exactly their direction for Barack Obama, they would melt down. Thus, they continue to melt down. Yeah, I, I too am old enough to remember 2008 when it was the same kind of thing. If there was like a blip in Obama's polling, people would just freak out and they're just never going to elect him. It's going to be awful. It's going to be horrible. And of course, we know how that worked out. Look, the race is where it is. Right. She has a narrow lead in the national polls. And we and and we are the swing states are all within the margin of error, according to the polls. We're not going to know which way they're swinging until until we count the votes. And so what are you going to do?

Are you going to obsess on that and wring your hands and please go see your therapist? But in the meantime, go out and just work for her. You know, make phone calls with that phone instead of using it just to just to uh just to scroll through the the polling that's not going to tell you anything new in in fact uh she's got if she raised a billion dollars in three months and the her campaign has uh maybe the biggest field operation certainly that i've ever seen or heard of thousands and thousands of of field workers in uh all the states 2500 in the battleground states alone um they should be in a really good position with all those hundreds of thousands of volunteers to get out the vote

and by the way the election's already started in a lot of states. So get up off the couch. Go go help bring this home because she is in a really good position to be the next president of the United States. John Howman's piece is on this theme as well. And Puck titled Keep Kamala and Carry On. John asks whether the current Democratic worrying about the Harris campaign is warranted or a case of political PTSD. John, we'll let you walk through your piece a little bit. But a lot of this is about 2016, is it not? Which Democrats were feeling confident Donald Trump was Donald Trump. No way he could be president. They learned the lesson the hard way that he most certainly could be. What are you seeing out in the field and talking to people, not just voters, but inside these campaigns as well? I think there's some PTSD, not just from

2016, but even 2020, where the polling miss in 2020 was bigger than the polling miss in 2016. Comprehensively, you know, Joe Biden was supposedly up by these large amounts. And then we saw about basically a four point polling swing, polling miss across the battleground states. So there's a lot of PTSD. And I try to, in this piece, try to go through and say, hey, there are some reasons why Democrats, there's a case for panic. I mean, there's a case, there's data out there that should alarm Democrats. And you go through and look at some of those things. When you hear people like Alyssa Slotkin in Michigan or Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin privately telling people that the vice president is behind in those states, that's a good reason to worry. You look at her

numbers with African-American voters, her numbers with Hispanic voters, that's a good reason to worry. What is not a good reason to worry, and this is where I kind of go to the other side and say, here's the reason why you are just bedwetting here. And this is where you all have to calm down is relates to what Eugene said, although I'd put a somewhat finer point on it. The race is tied statistically. It has been tied statistically since the Democratic convention effectively. Harris got some ground from the late August to mid-September. But we have been in a statistical tie nationally and in the battleground states that entire time.

There's not been volatility in this race. In the period of time from the Democratic Convention through the debate through to now, just to start with the Democratic debate, Harris was up three points in the national polling. You had the debate where she slaughtered Donald Trump. You had a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump. You have war breaking out in the Middle East. You have the Fed lowering interest rates for the first time in years. I can name 10 other

big things that have happened. She's still up by three, supposedly, in the national polls. And one of the most helpful things that's happened in the last couple of days because of this panic in the Democratic Party is that the Harris campaign finally allowed David Plouffe to go out and try to talk about the data on both Dan Pfeiffer's podcast on Positive America and New York Magazine yesterday. And I will tell you that David Plouffe, he's a partisan and he fights for his team, but he is not a BS-er. And if you read his assessment of of the data it is i think is as clear as both sophisticated and clear-eyed as anything anybody could say and the two campaigns do not disagree about this and what pluff basically says is if you see a poll that has harris up by four points

throw it in the trash if you see a poll that has trump up by four points throw it in the trash it's a tie race this is uncomfortable for. It's a tie race. This is uncomfortable for Democrats. It's a tie race. It's going to be a tie race all the way through to election day. It's going to be maybe the closest election of our lifetimes. Everyone is going to be scared if they care about the future of the country. But don't read these polls in this kind of insane way over the course of this period of time, because there's really been nothing to learn from them for about a month and there's not going to be for another three weeks. Race was tied. The race is tied. And these polls also shouldn't be trusted because they've been so wrong in recent cycles.

And we have had pollsters acknowledge they're doing them in different ways, trying to oversample, perhaps, some Trump voters because they missed them in 16. They missed them in 2020. They undercounted them. So now there's a theory among some anyway that maybe they're being overcounted. But certainly this this race, to John's point, to Eugene's point, couldn't be much tighter. It's going to be one along the margins. We are seeing on the Harris side all of her surrogates fanning out in recent days. Former President Clinton's been on the road. Former President Obama's on the road. We'll head back out again. The vice president has really picked up her media blitz. It wasn't just last week with those mainstream outlets. This week,

you know, going on into enemy territory, talking to Fox, Bloomberg News reporting that there's in talks, her campaigns and talks for her to do an appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast. That's not settled, but that's at least being considered. You know, she's out there doing these interviews and more importantly, hitting the road. And this week, living in those three blue wall states, Governor Walz as well, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, because as much as this race has, we've had so much tumult between President Biden dropping out after his disastrous debate, the two assassination attempts, that Harris's unexpected surge, the fact that she's got a million dollars in the bank, the outside forces that John just detailed. This race has remained remarkably steady.

It's remained remarkably steady. And it's going to be about the Democrats' path to victory. Their best path is the same one we were all looking at a year ago, 18 months ago, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and that one from Nebraska. And if it is as close, and it certainly looks like it is as close, if it is as close, then tie goes to the side that has the best turnout operation. And right now, there's no doubt that the Harris campaign has a far better turnout operation than the Trump campaign. If they work harder over the next three weeks, if history is your guide, they're going to be in pretty good shape. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll get to that new survey from The Wall Street Journal about how Donald Trump's policies will cause higher inflation and interest rates compared to those of Kamala Harris. We'll break down the

data from dozens of economists. Plus, Vice President Harris used Trump's own words against him at her Pennsylvania rally last night. We'll talk about that new strategy for taking on the former president. Morning Joe is back in 90 seconds. All right. Do I have to even say what that is? It's a mausoleum. The new Yankee Stadium. Beautiful.

Yeah. a mausoleum the new yankees stadium beautiful yeah that's all the passion and warmth of elevator music but willie you're yankees though congratulations a good start uh but uh the day started though out on the west coast uh with the dodgers and the Mets. And, man, I'll tell you. The Mets. The Mets. Talking to Phil Griffin, when they lost 9-0 the first night, I said, go back and look at the 1960 World Series, where anybody that knows baseball knows that the 1960 World Series, it ended with Bill Mazeroski hitting that home run, that walk-off home run against the Yankees. But in 1960, the Yankees outscored the Pirates like 57-24 or 54-27, something like that, and they still won the series.

So 9-0, like with the right team, that's okay. And the Mets, I know it's going to be hard for you to believe, I'm getting to a point, the Mets are just one of those teams that are like, all right, we lost nine to nothing. Let's beat them two to one tomorrow. But they did a lot more than that. And it just shows the character of this Mets team. Yeah. In a seven game series, nine to nothing means nothing. That's just one game. You can win a hundred to nothing. It's over. You move on. You got plenty of time to recover in a long series. And they did that yesterday afternoon in L.A. Francisco Lindor, who else, put the Mets on the board early with a lead off home run to open the game, setting the tone in game two of the NLCS, and by the way, breaking

up that record scoreless streak by Dodgers pitchers this postseason. They'd been untouchable until that swing. In his next at-bat, the Dodgers would intentionally walk Lindor with two outs, runners on second and third, leading to this with Mark Vientos, and the bases loaded. Cracked to right center field. Pahez on the move to the track. He couldn't find it. That's because it's over the wall.

Grand slam, Vientos. Pitched around the door and got that from Vientos, making the Dodgers pay. Grand slam, right center field. Mets win 7-3, and they tie that best of seven series, one game apiece. Teams now travel back to New York for game three tomorrow night in Queens.

In the Bronx, Carlos Rodon was great last night. A strong start to open the ALCS for the Yankees. Struck out nine batters, walked none, while allowing just one run, three hits over six innings of work. They need that from him, and they got it last night. On the other side, the Cleveland Guardians gave up four runs between the third and fourth innings on just one hit. It was a mess of wild pitches out of the bullpen.

Solo home run there from Juan Soto. Six walks, four wild pitches making the difference in moving the Yankees to within three wins of their first World Series appearance in 15 years. Can you believe it's been a decade and a half? It's so sad. John Carlos Stanton adding his 13th career postseason home run in the seventh. He's been great in the postseason. Yankees beat the Guardians 5-2 in their first ALCS game against a team not named the Astros since 2012. Game two tonight at Yankee Stadium, and Jonathan

Lemire, they got Garrett Cole going tonight with a chance to go up 2-0. Yeah, and this is, the Yankees have just owned the AL Central. Yeah, they couldn't beat the Astros in recent years in the playoffs, but they have such a favorable draw this time around. Radon was shaky in the first round. He was terrific last night. It's just one game, but the Guardians seem a little overmatched, really nervous about being on that big stage.

We saw all the wild pitches, and the Yankees are set up. Sure, Aaron Judge still not hitting, but Soto is. Stanton is. They've got Cole going tonight. The bullpen's been better of late. So they're in good shape. And as back to the National League, I mean, yeah, this Mets team has proven to be so resilient in recent weeks.

And what a tone. To lose 9-0, to face a team that hadn't given up a run in more than 20 innings, first batter of the game, Lindor, home run. Huge. And then Vientos, who has become sort of a rising star. Wasn't even on the opening day roster. A rising star for the Mets. You know, now reliable for the third best hitter behind Lindor and Alonso.

And, you know, they got another good outing from Minaya, who's really been their best pitcher for some time now. And I'll say this. Tomorrow night, Citi Field in Queens is going to be loud. The Dodgers have all the talent. They still have Otani. They still have Mookie. But they've got pitching questions

and the Mets have momentum. Those Mets fans have been waiting a long time. I mean, the Dodgers have pitching questions. They do. But they put some of those questions to rest, I would say,

against the Padres when everybody said, you know, Dodgers pitchers can't get this done. And then they basically shut the Padres down for two straight games, crucial games. I'm not – Dodgers are my hometown team. Mets are my second favorite team in baseball. You know, they're – I'm in a terrible position.

But I got to say, it's going to be an incredible series. That's really the end of this. There's no way this thing's not going to go seven, I don't think. Yamamoto, huge start tomorrow for the Dodgers. It's going to be great. It's going to go seven i don't think yamamoto huge start tomorrow for the rogers it's going to be great it's going to be great and you know willie just said that uh or maybe it was lamere who said that aaron judge is not hitting yeah another aaron in new york is not hitting it either aaron rogers gene lost again last night you can fire all the coaches because aaron rogers wants you to fire the coaches. I mean, that's my theory.

But, man, the Jets are the Jets. They're the Jets. Yeah, they're still the Jets. I mean, Aaron Rodgers did do the thing that he does last night. He completed another Hail Mary. He's completed more Hail Mary passes than any pro quarterback, I think, in history. There was a crazy one last night. But in the end, they just fell short.

They're just not that good. Aaron Rodgers will be discontented again with how things are going with with the Jets. But they're just they're not good enough. They were supposed to be good. They're supposed to have a great, great defense. And Aaron Rodgers and look where it's taken them. Not very far. All right.

I'm so excited. Let's go, Matt. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe. Our next guest is taking a look at the epidemic of political lying, why Republicans do it more and quote, how it could burn down our democracy. That conversation is next on Morning Joe. Look at that. just answer did donald trump win yes yes he did win yep so will you will you concede will you concede if your opponent gets your opponent gets more votes will you concede? If your opponent gets more votes, will you concede? I really feel bad for you, man. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in.

They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. This was a tragic hurricane. This was maybe the worst hurricane we've ever had. And he's got no money. And we said, what happened to all the money? They were given billions for this. He spent it on illegal migrants coming into the country. It's just some of the lies, just all lies with major implications coming from former President Trump and his Republican Party. Nobody will say it's a lie. People in his party and most people that he talks to give him a safe space and bubble wrapping.

So now a new book examines how those lies are formed and spread. Well, we know how they're formed. They come out of Donald Trump's mouth beyond the big lie, the epidemic of political lying and why Republicans do it more and how it could burn down our democracy draws on interviews with politicians and experts in misinformation and analyze the rise of political lying. Joining us now, the book's author and founder of the fact checking site, PolitiFact, Bill Adair. He's also a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University. Bill and I go back a very long way. You did a very long profile of me when I was in Congress and tried to make a teetotaling right-wing congressman look cool. You did a pretty good job, Bill. You have a good memory, Joe. Yeah. Well, so, you know, I also have a good memory. The first time you started a political political fact, it was like that was like a new thing.

That is a fascinating thing. Fact checking. And then we saw The Washington Post try to keep up with Donald Trump over his four years. And it just again, it was just absolutely dizzying. But you look at Glenn Youngkin yesterday with Jake Tapper. You look at the vice presidential candidate saying Donald Trump won the election in 2020. It's lies of omission, lies of commission. But it's just a flurry of lies. And I do wonder if you get to a point where for one party, the truth just doesn't matter at all. And we know politicians on both sides will skirt the truth, sometimes lie, sometimes put things in, sometimes exaggerate. But here you have one party

and one candidate lying so much, it really is hard to keep up with it. How does democracy survive? How does fair and open debate survive in this sort of Orwellian environment on the right? Well, it's it's scary, Joe. And that's one of the reasons I wrote the book is to explore that. You know, if you think about 15 years ago when I used to come on this show and talk about PolitiFact, it would be a question of like, is it a mostly false? Is it a half true? And now it's just pants on fire, pants on fire. Things have really changed. And so what I tried to do with the book is to explore the why. Why do politicians lie? And how do they lie? And what is the partisan pattern? And one of the things that I admit in the book is that as a fact checker,

that I sort of hid the pattern of lying. And I begin with a scene of me on C-SPAN when a caller calls in and says, which party lies more? And I lie and I say, well, we don't keep score. Well, I knew this was 2012. I knew even then that Republicans lied more. And so what I do with this book is explore that, why that's the case, but also more broadly, why all politicians lie. In your career, Bill, we were talking in the break about the evolution sort of lying, if you want to put it that way. But a lie, let's take, for example, the Springfield, Ohio lie that Haitian immigrants here legally are eating cats and dogs, which the Republican governor, the mayor, everyone else in the town said was patently false 10 years ago, 15 years ago. That would have lived in some dark corner of the Internet.

Your uncle might have sent you that. Hey, did you see this in an email that was in all caps and different colors and fonts with the email that he wrote? But now you have the former president of the United States, the man who wants to be president again, elevating those lies to a presidential debate. So how did we get to that point where the conspiracy theories that were fringe before now are right at the center of the argument of the Republican Party. So I think there are a few things that that have changed. One is, I think the party has has decided in many ways that lying pays off. And one of the things I explore in the book is why do politicians lie? It's a calculation. I'm going to gain more from this lie than I'm going to lose. It's almost like points. So in Trump's case, of course, he just lies shamelessly. Joe was saying he's, you know, the Washington Post counted all these lies over the years. But there's also an ecosystem that

not only provides an echo chamber, but profits from these lies. You know, we saw in the Dominion case that Fox needed to play along with the big lie about the 2020 election to remain competitive. And so it's it's different. It's not just that they're not challenging the lies. It's that they are echoing them. Yeah. You know, I I go back and I look at my own family. I look at my own friends. There's a phone yesterday trying to figure out when did this start? When did this start with the people I know, the people I love, that they started watching programs and would start calling me up with the most bizarre and wild rumors. And got to say, it started after Barack Obama got elected and Glenn Beck started this five o'clock show. And I've said this on the show in real time. I'll say it now. And they would call me, you know, after his show every night my mom and either you know her

friends who again had master's degrees were getting up there in years but were brilliant loved listening to both sides very very conservative but you know liked keith oberman's show early on because it was witty. The writing was witty, that sort of thing, even though they probably never voted for a Democrat since my mom sneaked into the booth and voted for JFK instead of Nixon. But I do remember in 2009, something changing and they would call and go, oh, my God, Sharia law. Joey, you've got to talk tomorrow. They're going to enact Sharia law in Oklahoma. No, no. Barack Obama is a Muslim. And and I heard it on and out.

And every day I would have to deprogram them for about 20 minutes saying the Muslims aren't taking over the country. Barack Obama is not a, quote, black man who hates all white people, which they also heard on that program that you're not going to have Sharia law in Pensacola, Florida. But it was it was a daily occurrence. And I noticed at that point. Just everything starting to pick up and people on the radio starting to echo that. And suddenly, you know, it was all about whipping people into a total frenzy, lying all the time and lying the big lie repeatedly. And that's the first time I had trouble having conversations with my parents about just the truth. Like, no, Sharia law is not coming to Oklahoma. You're cool. Let's talk about the Braves. So I think so you identify a really important moment, Joe, and that is that point when people became connected. And that was in many ways such a profound, powerful time in the sort of 2005, 2000 to 2010 time frame. And there was a moment when a lot of us were optimistic about what the Internet would do. But it was also the time when our Uncle Bob was

sending everyone in his address book those emails that said Barack Obama was a Muslim. And so, yes, we were connected, but we were connected now with misinformation. And that was, I think, a beginning of the downturn. And John, in that moment, let's not forget Donald Trump steps in with the birther lie. The seed, the ground has been softened that maybe Barack Obama is Muslim. Maybe he's not American. Donald Trump effectively begins his political career with that lie. Yeah, that's that's what it started. It came at a moment where not only was he getting airplay on Fox News, but some of these other smaller cable channels were starting to exist. And I wanted you to go one step further because we live now. Sure, cable, Fox News, still a big player, but it's more than that. It's TikTok. It's all these. It's the venues

have changed where there is no gatekeeping. There's no fact checking whatsoever. It can just and we've seen Twitter's ex morph into at times what feels like part a wing of the Trump campaign. It's just that much easier for these lies to spread because of these venues. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, we've seen it in North Carolina, where I live with the response to Hurricane Helene, that it's just it is the great uniter that spreads misinformation, whether it's whether it's X or Facebook, this and and now it's resulting in threats against disaster workers. It's it's really troubling. All right. The new book, The Big Lie. You wrote it all before Saturday. Thanks, Bill. Part's going to be part of the historical record. The epidemic of political lying, why Republicans do it and how it could burn down our democracy.

It's on sale now. Bill Adair, thank you very, very much. word gatekeeper yeah gatekeeper and uh john heilman um i remember um roger ells calling around and asking whether he needed to move going back along because of the the the the rhetoric he even considered to be toxic. And he ended up doing that. I he had he he talked to a lot of people in inside and outside of Fox News saying, is this is this really where we want to go? So, you know, he, of course, has been portrayed as the king of disinformation by many. But there was an example of, you know, a Fox News that even talked to Obama. You know, he would talk to Obama and Obama would express his concerns. And there was a lot of back and forth. But again, I think it's just the complete lack of gatekeepers and the encouragement now at outlets go further

go further say more shocking things lie all you want it's fine that brings in more viewers more the more conspiracies theories the better right and you know i mean we we're all everyone around here basically this is we're all ancient. So we remember and we have kind of cast in a warm, nostalgic glojo the era when there were still gatekeepers. And back in the day, there were things that were problematic about three big network television networks and a handful of big national newspapers that that really controlled a lot of ways, the news and the discourse in America. It was an exclusionary environment. There were a lot of problems with diversity, etc., etc. But there was still a powerful thing of maintaining a common set of facts that people agreed to. And now, it is the case both that you pay no price in politics, Joe, for lying. That is, over the course of our adult lives. It used to be,

if you told a direct lie on a campaign, you would be hung out to dry by the New York Times, Washington Post. Now you pay no price for lying. And to your point on the biggest news source in the world, which is not any of these things, Facebook, biggest news source in the world. More people get their news from Facebook than anywhere else. The algorithms are tuned to put up things that make you angry rather than things that tell you the truth. And so politicians themselves are not incentivized to tell the truth. And the platforms are tuned towards conspiracy theory, towards conflict, not towards conciliation and not towards truth. If you live in a world like that, there are no gatekeepers and all the incentives are in the

wrong direction. And that is a big part of why our political discourse is as messed up as it is right now. And by the way, it's good to stop every once in a while just for perspective and look around where we are on on this journey and realize that on Sunday, Donald Trump said he wanted to deploy the United States military and National Guard against his political opponents. And it wasn't a screaming headline in any of the newspapers anywhere, anywhere, anywhere had that happened? You know, it's probably like Kamala Harris's third question from Oprah still haunting the campaign or something. I mean, they still I mean, that 10 years ago would have been basically the equivalent of war is over. And whatever candidate said that would have been driven from the race. But we now live in an age where Donald Trump has successfully numbed the editors at all the major newspapers.

So he can say on a Sunday. He can say on a Sunday that he's going to use the military. Against his political opponents. Brings up Adam Schiff, as Jake Tapper brought up. Like not illegal immigrants, but against his political opponents on the left. And major media outlets yawn about it. If I may, they're harboring his threats. I mean, to not mention them, to not cover them.

And Fox News to talk about how incredible he is and lie for hours and hours and hours to millions of people over the course of years. But now, well, not everybody there does. Not everybody there does. There's some loose people there that don't. To millions of people that are not that are either getting lies or not getting correct information because they don't cover it. But on top of it, when what you're talking about is Donald Trump says something incredibly, incredibly disturbing and important for people to know and understand and take issue with. And it's not either it's not covered or it's supported. So imagine this. Well, I wasn't the other side of this is if Kamala Harris said it,

it would explode. Well, of course it would. Of course it would. I mean, I'm sure the headlines were all about how Kamala Harris has 75 percent from black men instead of 82 percent from black men. And the world's coming to an end instead of actually saying Donald Trump just said he's going to have the military and the National Guard go after his political opponents. People on the left, Adam Schiff, on and on and on. So I'm not talking about Fox News. I'm not talking about AON if they're still on. I'm not talking about Newsmax. I'm talking about, you know, I know the New York Times. That's who I was talking. I didn't bring up what you want to bring up. I said, why wasn't that a screaming headline across the top of the New York Times? The magazine did that piece. What about him wanting to arrest people like me? Yeah. Yeah. But but but still, you can't go, oh, we did one piece. I mean, you when when somebody

all right, brings out a fascist approach, a fascist approach. And and and and the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal collectively on it. That that's how I'm just saying that's how it has happened. That's where we are. And that's why too many voters are still numb to just how dangerous these times are.