Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/16/24

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Trump's bizarre music session at town hall reignites questions about mental acuity

She's been very, very bad to Israel and she's been very bad to Jewish people. And I say it, if anybody I know is Jewish and they would vote for Kamala over me, they should have their head examined. If any senior doesn't vote for Trump, we're going to have to send you to a psychiatrist to have your head examined. I'll tell you what, any African-American or Hispanic, and you know how well I'm doing there, that votes for Kamala, you got to have your head examined because they they are really screwing you. They are really screwing you. Let's see. So Jewish voters and everybody's, I guess, crazy. That's Donald Trump adding another group of voters to his

running list of people he says should get their head examined if they don't vote for him. Trump also made similar comments to Catholic Americans on Truth Social, writing any Catholic that votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have their head examined. Anybody that calls Kamala Harris a comrade when the Dow Jones Industrial goes to record levels and the S&P goes to record levels time and time again. Anybody that calls Kamala Harris comrade Kamala, despite the fact the Wall Street Journal ran a story showing about how one economist after another economist after another economist says her economic policies will be better for America. Her economic policies will bring inflation down while Trump's will bring inflation up.

And her economic policies are better on the deficit and the federal debt than Donald Trump's. Maybe that person should get their head examined. Willie, you know, you know how you sometimes you look at things and you just kind of let it go past you. That's a little strange. And then you look back and you think, what did I what did I see? And I will tell you, and I saw more more more people coming up what happened with donald trump for 39 minutes yeah when he was just standing up on stage signed it zoned out what happened and fortunately for you and me uh well not this part's not fortunate mika's not feeling well uh but fortunately she had 39 minutes to see that from the beginning to the end of course as she dies and she keeps three cable channels streaming all day and you said it was just absolutely bizarre right and and the people

there were just at times just staring at him in christine home. They're not going to be doing a buddy film anytime soon. Not a lot of chemistry there. And 39 minutes. I've never seen anything like it. And, you know, we kind of stayed away from it yesterday morning. And Alex and I had talked about this. I know you did, too. And I'm not exactly sure what happened.

So we don't want to dive too much into it. Here we are 24 hours later. I still have no idea what's going on. Here we are three weeks before the campaign. And he's standing on stage. And it's kind of like he just zones out and just just quits. And the teleprompter saying, hey, sir, you can, sir, take more questions, sir. And he just just ignores it and just keeps playing and kind of wandering back.

Very bizarre, Willie. Very bizarre. Yeah. Beyond beyond bizarre. It was. So it started. First of all, apparently it's always just just too sweltering hot at his events. He always complains about the heat. His events team might want to look into that. And it was hot in that room in Philadelphia the other night. So a couple of people, they stand for a long time. They wait for a long time to get in there.

They're very excited to see Donald Trump. And some people succumb to the heat. And they fainted. And thank goodness the two people who fainted were fine but at that point at a normal rally normal politician says okay let's stop make sure they're okay they're good all right now let's get on with what we're doing which was a q a a town hall answering questions from the voters who had waited for hours and instead he said you know what let's not do any more questions let's just stop and listen to some music so you think all right he's not do any more questions. Let's just stop and

listen to some music. So you think, all right, he's going to do a song before they get back into it. Maybe some kind of a buffer between the medical incident. Instead, he stood there for thirty nine minutes through nine songs ranging from Pavarotti to Guns and Roses and just swayed and just danced. And it does raise the question of why? What was that? What was going on there? Why didn't he want to answer more questions? Why was Kristi Noem there to begin with, to ask questions that were just thrown in the scrap heap so that they could listen to Ave Maria as he swayed along? Truly, truly bizarre. And it fits with a pattern, Joe, of his. They're all bizarre. All of his events, arguably increasingly so. He had an interview with Bloomberg News yesterday that was

truly bizarre. A live event on a stage. We're going to play some of that where he said, among many other things, the word tariff is his favorite word in the dictionary. He excused his behavior on January 6th and on and on. But again, this is these are not one offs anymore. It's really sit and watch. It's getting weirder by the day. Well, I'm slurring so many words, even in the speech last night. I don't think I think it was insurrectionist and just slurring through words. And I know people get exhausted. It's a long campaign. I do think that we're starting to really see signs of a 78 year old man who obviously has been through a trial, been through an attempted assassination, going through the rigors of this

campaign. And right now he's becoming more erratic by the day. And it looked to me at least, and this is just my, my guess. He just shut down. He tried to answer a question or two. He sort of made a sort of made a joke before a gold star family came up on stage after he got shot at. And, and, and Kristi Noem had to say, sir, they've, they've lost their son. They lost their child in war. And it's almost like he realized he was just sort of out of his depth and he wanted to stop talking because we've seen, you know, on Saturday nights when he gets exhausted, you know, end of weeks when he's been doing things, we see him start confusing Joe Biden for Barack Obama, World War Two for World War Three, making one mistake after another. And just my best guess is he just, you know, he just figured this was the safest thing to do, that he just he wasn't feeling it.

And so look at that. It's just, again, just very strange. You know what else is strange, Willie, is when you have one of the great shortstops in all of baseball who has a ball popped up to him by the MVP, you've got a chance to actually get your first out with two men on base and just like, you know, a little leaguer, drops the ball. That was a pretty crazy start to the Yankees game. But your New York Yankees, they have done what they need to do. And here's the pop-up.

It was hit very, very high. Locchio is a gold-glove level shortstop. And here's the pop-up. It was hit very, very high. Rocio is a gold-glove level shortstop. Just kind of the ball drifted a little bit. He drifted with it. That kind of opened the scoring for the Yankees. Won nothing there. It was just a weird, sloppy game, honestly.

Garrett Cole was off his game. He got away with a lot before he got chased. Errors. Pitching wasn't great on either side, honestly. And then in the seventh inning, Aaron Judge finally hit his first home run of the postseason, a bomb to center field out into Monument Park. 6-3, the Yankees win. They go up 2-0 in this series as they head back now to Cleveland for game three tomorrow night. But as a Yankee fan, you feel like you kind of got away with one. You didn't have Garrett Cole's best. It's nice to see Judge finally get a good swing on a ball there.

He's had a couple of sack flies, but no home runs. Got that last night. Sloppy game. We'll take it. Yankees take a 2-0 lead in the series. Yeah, Cleveland's back definitely against the wall. Jonathan O'Meara, they're going to have to win at least two in Cleveland. I would say probably three. They're going to probably have to sweep the Yankees out in Cleveland, unlikely before they come back

to to to Yankee Stadium. But right now it's looking it's looking like it's, you know, looking like the the the Guardians almost said the Indians looking like it's, you know, looking like the Guardians, I almost said the Indians, looking like the Guardians' first World Series win since 1948, getting further and further away by the minute. Dark days, Joe. Dark, dark days. We have lived now 15 years without the New York Yankees being in the World Series,

and we're on the verge of that streak ending. Yeah, to Willie's point, the Guardians right now just don't seem up for the moment. Look, they'll come home. The series is not over, but I agree. They probably have to win all three at home, and I just don't think they have the pitching to do that. They have made errors that pick the wild pitches, pass balls, dropping fly balls, booting balls in the outfield.

And now if you're the Yankees, Aaron Judge, that's the best thing you saw there yesterday. If he starts to get hot and can carry them, then they're in great shape. But of course, also the action, baseball action in New York shifts across town today. Game three, Mets-Dodgers, it will be a raucous city field.

It's going to be exciting. Let's bring in president of National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton, also NBC News and MSNBC political analyst, former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill and U.S. national editor for the Financial Times, Ed Luce. Now, on Sunday, Willie, of course, the NBC poll came out that showed this race was tied. And of course, the New York Times also decided to do what they do every Sunday and tell you why Kamala Harris is going to lose 49 states with their their New York Times Marist poll analysis. And black men and Hispanic men are gone. It's all over. She might as well give it up.

That, coupled with the NBC poll that showed it to be a dead heat, had a psychiatrist business up about 47 percent on the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side in New York. A lot of psychiatrists doing extraordinarily well with Democratic voters this campaign. It's just as they did in 2008 when they were going to see 538 polling averages every 14 seconds. But since then, we've had one poll after another. We also had the ABC poll, Kamala plus three. You had the CBS poll, Kamala plus three. You had the tip tracking poll, Kamala plus three. And now this morning, the Marist national poll is dropped and also suggests maybe those stories about her momentum being blunted just may be overselling the case for Donald Trump. Yeah. So that is the New York Times Siena poll. That is the full employment act for Upper West Side therapists. This morning, Marist National Poll of Likely Voters finds Kamala Harris ahead of Donald

Trump by five points, 52 to 47. Again, this is a national poll. Earlier this month, Vice President Harris had been up just two points. This latest result does fall within the polls margin of error, but five points instead of two a short while ago. Meanwhile, yesterday, Vice President Harris took part in a radio town hall with Charlemagne the God. He's the host of the popular show The Breakfast Club. Harris was asked several questions about her plan for black Americans, as well as her record as a prosecutor. But it's not just you versus Trump, it's you versus misinformation.

Yes, that's right. And one of the biggest pieces of misinformation, one of the biggest allegations against you is that you targeted and locked up thousands of black men in San Francisco for weed. Some say you did it to boost your career. Some say you did it out of pure hate for black men. Please tell us the facts. What's the facts of that situation? It's just simply not true. And what public defenders who are around those days will tell you, I was the most progressive prosecutor in California on marijuana cases and would not send people to jail for simple possession of weed. And as vice president, have been a champion for bringing marijuana down on the schedule.

So instead of it being ranked up there with heroin, we bring it down. And my pledge is as president, I will work on decriminalizing it because I know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations and specifically black men. One of the biggest challenges that I face is mis and disinformation.

And it's purposeful because it is meant to convince people that they somehow should not believe that the work that I have done has occurred and has meaning. My work from the beginning of my career through today has been about, for example, we've talked about it, whether it be on HBCUs, whether it be on health care, black maternal mortality, I am singularly, many would say, one of the highest level leaders in our country to bring the issue of black maternal mortality to the stage of the White House to address it. The work that I've done that has been about focusing on my knowledge and my experience in my life experience of knowing the entrepreneurship that we have in the community, the ambition, the aspirations, the dreams, and then tapping into that. So that not only is my work been about ensuring that we have some of the lowest black unemployment ever in our country, but that also knowing that that should be a baseline that everybody has a job and what we should be invested in is also building wealth in the community and

intergenerational wealth. And I have many, many examples of that. But again, part of the challenge that I face is that they are trying to scare people away because they know they otherwise have nothing to run on. Ask Donald Trump what his plan is for Black America. Ask him what you know. I'll tell you what it is. Look at Project 2025. Project 2025 tells you the plan includes making police departments have stop and frisk policies. The plan includes making it more difficult for workers to receive overtime pay. The plan includes ending the ability of Medicare to negotiate drug prices. You know what we have done? He said he would. We did. Which means that that's how we brought down the cost

of prescription medication. His plan includes making it more difficult for working people to get by and to destroy our democracy. You know what he says he'll do? Terminate the Constitution of the United States. I grew up in the black church. I grew up attending 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland, California. That's church. Yes, that is church. My pastor is Amos C. Brown of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, California. I have throughout my career and as vice president and recently been actively engaged in the church and church leaders,

not only so we can share in fellowship, but so we can share in what we can do together that is about supporting the community, the strength of the community, the cohesion of the community. And it is my longstanding work and therefore my pledge going forward. I will always work closely with the church because I understand who our church leaders are and who the congregation is. We are talking about people who are driven by faith and the ability to see what is possible by faith where I was raised. And I know many of us were understanding that our God is a loving God, that our faith propels us to act in a way that is about kindness and justice and mercy, that is about lifting one another up.

And let's talk about the contrast here. Donald Trump and his followers spend full time trying to suggest that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down, which is absolutely contrary to the church I know. He sells Bibles, though. Where our church and my church is about saying true leadership, the measure of that is based on who you lift up. And right. And then he's selling $60 Bible or tennis shoes and trying to play people as though that makes him more understanding of the black community. Come on. So, you know, Claire, brother Pat Buchanan and brother Barnacle in the past, we're talking about political athletes. You're either a political athlete or you're not a political athlete.

Well, watching that clip suggests that actually you can grow into being a political athlete. And that's something that I've seen Kamala Harris do, especially over the last couple of months. But you see her there and you see how effective she is. And any Trump person watching this show, take what she just said, take that interview and find any interview Donald Trump has done over the last nine years and stack them up. And Claire, you will find one candidate speaks in complete sentences. One candidate speaks in complete thoughts. One candidate can engage in detailed policy discussions. One candidate is capable capable mentally, intellectually, emotionally of being president of the United States? And one's just simply not. And it's out there for anybody to see. This has nothing to do with

ideology. This doesn't even have to do with democracy. Even if Donald Trump were not a threat to democracy, as so many Americans, including myself, believe he is. And I believe he's a threat to American capitalism, even if he weren't. Donald Trump, compared to Kamala Harris right now, is a distant, distant second. And beyond that, spiritually, all these evangelicals that are saying they're going to vote for him. Listen to what he says about beating down people, about blood, about a day of violence, of the hatred, calling people crazy if they don't vote for him. Don't lift him up, don't give him power. What's Kamala Harris talking about? Kindness, justice and mercy. It sounds almost as if

she has read a Bible, unlike Donald Trump, who makes Bibles in China and then sells them to Americans at like a 500 percent profit. I mean, your take not only on Kamala yesterday, on the vice president, but also on what we've been a side-by-side of his interview with Bloomberg yesterday and her interview with Charlamagne. And I wish we could require every American citizen to watch them side-by-side in its entirety. As she has gained in her stature and her poise and her ability to, with discipline, articulate a very clear message about what she will do and what her priorities will be as president, he is going the other way. She is rising to the moment and he is falling. And I'm so glad you said that, Joe, about setting aside all the policy stuff that is dangerous that he embraces. And just look at his cognitive ability. He is hiding his medical records. He's hiding them. He said in July, oh, sure, he would release his medical records. He said just a week or so ago that he already had. He doesn't realize, I guess maybe, that he hasn't released his medical records.

And then he goes on to say that it's very dangerous that Kamala Harris has allergies. This is, I mean, this is a weird, weird, weird turn here that he is refusing as the oldest man who's ever run for president, as a man who will be in his 80s sitting in the Oval Office. I mean, everything I get it that everyone was worried about Joe Biden being old. But you know what? Joe Biden did a gut check and said, yeah, I think I should pass the torch. Not not Donald Trump. And people should be outraged that he's hiding his medical records. He will not release him. Just like I predict he'll never do another interview with somebody who's not in the tank. Yeah. You know, Willie, he does seem to be slipping as quickly as she appears to be gaining. Just I mean, I think Claire's right.

He's you know, he sets himself up and is easy of a situation as you can with somebody who calls him, sir, every three words. And he can't even answer more than four questions. He just sort of zones out. You have his people afraid to put him in the Fox News debate with Kamala Harris. You have his people afraid to put him on 60 Minutes, first time in 50 years a presidential candidate's been afraid to go on 60 Minutes. You have his people

afraid to release his medical records. You have his people canceling on Joe Kernan on CNBC. Well, one of Trump's biggest fans on CNBC. And he cancels at the last minute going on Joe Kernan because he knows it's every time he does this, it ends badly. He goes on Maria Bordoromo, one softball pitch after another softball pitch. And what happens? He starts talking about using the military and the National Guard against Adam Schiff and other Democratic opponents. So again, he seems to be, you know, things seem to be blowing up on that side. And Kamala Harris keeps doing better. And I was struck by how well she did yesterday and what Van Jones's take was after that interview was over on CNN. He goes, she just turned black. The only person that would say that woman just turned black after listening to that interview

would be the whitest person in the world because she's she's been to black churches before. She knows what she's talking about. Yeah, obviously, Donald, that's something Donald Trump has said about Kamala Harris. And it is interesting to watch Donald Trump. He did finally he went into maybe he didn't know it was going to be this way, but an adversarial interview yesterday in that Bloomberg News Forum where real questions were asked and just had a complete meltdown, attacked the guy interviewing him, attacked the Wall Street Journal when presented with facts and asked real questions. He just couldn't handle it, which shows you why he didn't do 60 Minutes. And you're right. We're just not going to sit here and listen to this talk of Kamala Harris and the word salad that her critics talk about.

Just sit and listen to her and then watch Donald Trump at a rally. It puts that to rest. So, Rev, let's go back to Charlamagne, the God, obviously very influential radio show that he hosts. What is the work that you believe Kamala Harris needs to do with black voters? They were talking very specifically about black men yesterday, but black voters in general, if you feel like she does need to do some work still with under three weeks to go, what else should she be doing? I think that she's doing what she should be doing. She's going to the black community

as well as others. And she's unapologetic. She's going to Gerald Ford's old district in the same weekend. She'll be doing other shows. She'll be doing my show. So I think she's doing what a president should be doing. And that is addressing all people, specifically dealing yesterday with the disinformation in the black community. I've known her since she was a district attorney. She was attacked for not feeling that marijuana arrests should rise to the level of incarceration, though she did go after criminals. And I give our viewers a secret.

Some of the criminals she went after were committing crimes against black people. She was not anti taking care of criminals. She just felt that some crimes didn't rise to the level of what we were seeing penalized at the time in terms of the outcome of some of what it did to those communities. But I think we also, going back to the topic of the show, we can't miss the fact that with all of the conversations about where our momentum is, yesterday there was record turnout in Georgia for the first day of voting. Over 300,000 people.

They almost doubled the record of 2020, which was a record. When you see that kind of turnout in many of them in black districts, you are going to be surprised how wrong these polls are. I'm going today to Columbus, Ohio, for Get Out the Vote rally, nonpartisan, National Action Network, with Congresswoman Joyce Beatty. Reverend Jesse Jackson is joining us. All over the country where I go to these get out to vote rallies, people are turning out. So I think that they're fooling themselves if they think the momentum is the other way. If you want to see somebody that can answer the questions and has a track record and opposing someone that just plays tracks, that can't even dance to the crack to the tracks,

then that's your choice. I mean, Donald Trump was embarrassing the other night to anybody that supports him. If I was there, I would have walked him off the stage if I was a supporter. I mean, how long do you let grandpa stand there and humiliate the family? Well, a lot of the people at the rally who came to see him wondered, is this is this the end of it? And started streaming out as he continued to dance. We're going to dig deeply. That's a great point you bring up, Rev, about the early voting in Georgia in our next segment with Greg Blustein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as you say, smashing early voting records in that state. So we talked specifically about those black voter numbers, what she needs to do to bring those up to 2020 or 2016 levels.

But let's take a step back more broadly because you understand this stuff so well. There's a lot of panic among Democrats. We're talking about some of the New York Times polls. Oh, she's losing there. You talk to people inside her campaign, even though we'll say this is going to come down to the last day, the last vote. It's going to be very tight in these states. So where will you be looking in these last 20 days or so as pivotal to who wins this election? I'll be looking at Pennsylvania. I'll be looking at North Carolina, which could go her way. I'll be looking at Georgia. If that happens, it's over. And I think that the get out the vote efforts of many nonpartisan groups and the concerted effort by the Harris campaign is going to tell the story. What I've observed is there's

no real underground infrastructure on the Trump side. It's all personality driven. It's all about what Trump does at the top. It's going to be about who's going to pull out their votes, who can deliver their voters to the polls. Trump is betting on trying to use some kind of legal mechanisms to prolong the results. And we've got to make sure for the good of the country, not only the good of the campaign of Kamala Harris, the good of the country, that we don't stall democracy. Yeah, you know, Jonathan O'Meara, it's interesting. People say that national polls don't matter. And for the most part, we don't focus on national polls, but we always look at trend lines. And I've always said I look at trend lines. If, you know, again, everybody's obsessing. Reverend Reverend Al was just talking about these polls, which Democrats have been suggesting the

polls are bad. Maybe they are. Maybe the polls are bad. I talk to people internally and I know you talk to people who are straight. They'll tell you it is a very close race. But again, after the NBC poll came out and showed that it was a tie that 48 48, I think it was, you know, Democrats started getting on the ledge. They didn't, again, pay attention to you. look at all the polls that have come around that because the argument was oh the momentum stalled remember they always they always have saying that that the momentum stalled there's a new york times sienna poll that came out the momentum stalled coming out of the convention no it didn't kept going up and then while it is close in these seven swing states you look at the national, they are all breaking in our direction.

NBC tied, but as I said, CBS and ABC plus three. The tip national tracking poll, which is the most accurate poll in 2020, had Harris plus three. That lead this morning goes to plus four in the tip national poll. The Marist poll, plus five right now. Again, this is going to be a very close race. We're not going to know who's winning to the very end. But when you start seeing numbers,

real numbers, like what's going on in Georgia, suddenly you feel like telling Democrats that are bitching and moaning about what the Harris campaign's doing, hey, calm down. You know what? Victory is in sight in less than three weeks. If you go out, work hard and do your job. The opponent is imploding and Harris is doing better than ever. You talk to both campaigns and people inside both acknowledge this race is very, very tight. The Trump side then says, well, we're going to win. The Harris side says, well, we're going to keep working hard. I think it's instructive to look at just these last couple days here. You know, Trump has this bizarre moment where he's dancing and swaying on stage.

I will say, of all the conversation on this show, we talk about how there should be more focus on Trump's mental acuity and his fitness for the office. This moment seems to have broken through wider in the mainstream. So interesting to see if others follow suit in having that conversation. But Trump is staying with, with the exception of that one event yesterday, sort of safe venues. They don't want him to be exposed anywhere. Harris, meanwhile, going two things at once this week. Yes, making an all-out push for that black vote, as Reverend Sharpton just detailed.

They have a number of events. And the other thing she's doing this week, the other theme is targeting Republicans, disaffected Republicans. She's appearing with Adam Kinzinger later today and Barbara Comstock and David Trott. She goes to Grand Rapids this week, home of Gerald Ford, Republican president. That's a thin slice of the electorate. But she's trying to create that permission structure to say Republicans, you, even if it's just this once, you can vote for Democrat. Jonathan, you know, what's so interesting is this is tearing a page out of the Obama playbook. And you can you can sense that General Malley Dillon and David Plouffe are saying we're going to do in Georgia when they go to Savannah, in Michigan when they go to Grand Rapids, we're going to do what Barack Obama did in Iowa.

And we're going to go to counties that we're going to lose. But instead of losing by 80 percent, we're going to lose by 60 percent. Instead of losing by 65 percent, we're going to lose maybe by 10, 11 points. And you start adding all of those up in these close races. It makes a difference. And the fact that she's going to places like Savannah, the fact she's going to places like Grand Rapids suggests that this campaign, they may be saying behind the scenes, hey, we don't know. This looks tough. But they are actually doing the Obama strategy. They are expanding the map, whether it's in Georgia or in Michigan. It's

a fascinating strategy. We'll see if it works. Yeah. Tim Walls in rural Wisconsin yesterday. Harris also goes to a pretty Republican leaning district in Wisconsin this week to that point. Ed Luce, though, you know, the Harris team, they've got a plan, but they do acknowledge it's going to be really, really close. And you've written about in your new piece about how even if she wins, and certainly you've made clear the dangers that this nation and world would face if Trump wins. But you were writing now that even if Harris wins, the sort of era of bitter polarization likely continues. Tell us about it. Well, I look at four scenarios, one of which the best of which

is Harris winning, but also the Democrats retaining the Senate and regaining the House. That would, I think, enable something like normal governance to resume in the United States. I don't think that's the most likely scenario. I think probably a combination of Harris winning but losing the Senate or Trump winning but the Democrats regaining the House are likelier scenarios. Of course, the dread one, the one where we would be in completely uncharted waters, is if Trump wins and Republicans regain the Senate and retain the House. And then we have basically, if you combine that with the Supreme Court ruling in June, the immunity ruling basically excluding almost any potential crime a president would commit as an official act.

Then you have a green light for Trump to remake America as an Orban, Putin, illiberal democracy, to go after his enemies, to act on what he said about people like Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, being a traitor. Many other people he's called traitors. He has a green light. has a mandate essentially to do what he likes and if there is no check from the judicial branch and there is no check from the legislative branch that having been taken over by republicans we are into a different game here so you know what i would get back to that first scenario, Kamala Harris

winning, the Democrats retaining the Senate and retaking the House. That is the one that we should all be hoping for. Conservatives and Democrats alike, if you want normal, grown up, predictable governance, that is the only scenario that we should be hoping for. It's not just about the presidency. And I'll just say one other thing, Jonathan, you know, taking a leaf, as Joe said, about out of Barack Obama's campaign in 08. I think that the Harris campaign should take a leaf from Bill Clinton 1992, where they sent a chicken to George H.W. Bush's rallies. A chicken followed him around wherever he was. They had a Michigan chicken, George. They had an Ohio chicken, George. They had a Mississippi. They had right down to counties, a Lehigh County chicken, George.

They need to follow Trump around with chickens saying, debate me, debate Kamala Harris, because he would lose that debate. And that's why he's refusing to debate. She needs to shame him. He can be shamed. He already lost one debate to Kamala Harris, doesn't want to do that again. And she does talk more about him, to your point, Ed, about shaming him and his behavior. Did that yesterday in an interview as well. Still ahead on Morning Joe, as I mentioned, a live report from Georgia amid record turnout on the first day of early voting in that key state. Plus, Bob Woodward joins us to talk about some of the biggest revelations from his new book, War. Morning Joe, back in 90 seconds with a live picture from our friends at WNBC. Chopper four

of the house that Derek Jeter built. Yankee Stadium yanks up to nothing. Mets are on tonight. Just hours after polls opened in Georgia yesterday, the state smashed its early voting record. More than 300,000 Georgians turned out to vote ahead of next month's presidential election. It's according to the Office of the Secretary of State. Joining us now, political reporter for The Atlantic Journal-Constitution, Greg Blustein. Greg, always great to have you with us. So that was a staggering number when it was posted yesterday by the Secretary of State. Can you talk about just in some perspective of what that 300,000 looks like?

Yeah, that's an eye-popping number. I think it even caught some state elections officials off guard, shattered all sorts of records. But I would also caution into reading too much into these numbers. We saw heavy turnout in Democratic-leaning areas. We also saw heavy turnout in Republican-leaning areas. So we're not quite sure which party it will help most. We also don't know how many of these folks are just going

to be voters who are new voters, who are switching, you know, crossover voters, or frankly, just voters who voted Election Day and who were just voting early. So there's a lot going on here. But we do know the Republicans this cycle are putting a much greater emphasis on early voting than they have in Georgia in the past as well. And even at Donald Trump's rally last night in Georgia, there was all sorts of messaging about make a plan to vote. And that used to be primarily Democratic language here in Georgia back in the 2020 and 2018 campaigns.

Yeah, we don't know which way that early vote is leaning, but it's just incredible enthusiasm to begin with around the election. That's what it tells us. It was, as you say, interesting to hear Donald Trump in Georgia praising Governor Kemp, somebody he has attacked and insulted consistently. It's almost like somebody got to him and said, sir, you need to win the state of Georgia. This is key. Stop messing around. What is your sense of things on the ground there right now? Yeah, I think what's also surprising Republicans here in Georgia is that truce is holding. You know, Donald Trump's last rally in Atlanta was back in early August, and that's when he went on that surprise 10 minute tirade against Governor Kemp and his wife, Marty, and other allies of the governor. And since then, you know, there's been a calming of the waters and that truce.

And they had this in-person reconciliation a few days ago in the city of Augusta. And it's held. I don't know how long it's going to hold. I was texting with some of Kemp's allies during the rally last night, and they're also not exactly sure how long it's going to hold. But look, for Republicans in Georgia, if they can win back, if Donald Trump can win back those split ticket voters that that move decisively towards Joe Biden, towards John Ossoff, towards Raphael Warnock in the last couple of election cycles

here in Georgia, then they can win this race. But if if if Democrats can reach those crossover votes in significant numbers, then Kamala Harris has the ticket to her victory. Yeah, it's a fascinating dynamic where you have Donald Trump calling Governor Kemp a liar for saying that Trump lost the 2020 election. Governor Kemp being called a liar by Donald Trump because Governor Kemp told the truth about getting hurricane relief and for good measure, Donald Trump attacking Governor Kemp's wife. So we'll see how long that holds. By the way, Greg, as an Atlanta native, let's just we should probably stop and just remember that yesterday was the 30th. And I think was it the 30th?

No, not the 30th. Whatever. Yesterday was the anniversary of Sid the Kid Bream making it to home base, limping home in 1992 as the Atlanta Braves make it to the World Series. A day, a milestone I still remember from being in my basement at my parents' house. Watching that 32 years ago, that moment still indelible in my mind. I stayed up in Dalton, Georgia, listening to the radio a lot of times, listening to the Braves lose. That was that was a night to remember. I'm going to say one more thing about sports and then we're going to go on with another political question.

I promise you. But I've got to say it's a Bulldog fan, what do you think about Vegas making Georgia three and a half point underdogs against Texas? I mean, seriously, you're giving Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs, the most dominant team in college football the last couple of years, you're giving them three and a half points. All I can say is good luck with that. Yeah, it's bulletin board material for our Bulldogs, of course. You know, that game in Tuscaloosa, even though Georgia lost, I know you're a huge, huge Crimson Tide fan. That was one of the best games I've ever seen. And it doesn't seem like your Crimson Tide has recovered since that second half of that game, really. Yeah, I know. It's just so horrible that we beat you guys again.

I don't know if we're going to get over it. I said that I said that was I've never had a win feel more like a loss than that game. It suggested that Georgia was not to be underestimated and Alabama was not to be overestimated. Let me ask you about undervotes, because we've talked about, you know, talking about making the people that voted for Ossoff, the Republicans and others vote for Trump. There's also the possibility of undervotes. I'm curious, just from your reporting, what is your sense from those northern suburbs of Atlanta? I mean, it's had friends that went to Alabama that stayed in Birmingham, friends that went to Alabama that moved back to Atlanta. And it was it was just like a dividing line. I think we've talked about it before.

People in Birmingham mostly voted for Trump in 2020. I couldn't find one Atlanta Republican that I knew that voted for Trump. I mean, there was a real divide. And I'm curious what you're feeling about those northern suburbs that this race can swing on. Yeah, look, that's my territory. That's where I live. And I live in an area in North Atlanta suburbs that used to be solidly Republican that's flipped decisively towards Democrats. We have a Democratic state lawmaker. We have a Democratic aligned mayor. And it's always unthinkable, not a generation ago, it was unthinkable maybe a decade ago to have that flip. And now these areas are the pillar of the Democratic coalition in Georgia.

And there are Republicans who will hold their nose and vote for Trump. There are Republicans who are going to cross over and maybe not tell their friends, but they'll vote for Kamala Harris. I talked to one Republican on the fence yesterday who said she's not voting for Donald Trump, but she's voting for J.D. Vance. So that's how she framed it in her own mind. And that is a vote for Trump, but a vote for his.D. Vance. So that's how she framed it in her own mind. And then I vote for Trump, but I vote for his running mate. So, you know, there's a lot of kind of of that going on, of ways to reconcile with their folks decisions, you know, just as I'm sure some Democrats who are in love with Kamala Harris vote for the policies, vote for other issues. You're having Republicans certainly doing that. And that's accelerated. That trend is accelerated in Georgia over the last three cycles. Greg, I note you, the Georgia fan and

Joe, the Alabama fan conveniently left out America's team, the Vanderbilt Commodores, their home tussle this weekend against Ball State in Nashville. Watch out for that one. Circle it on the calendar. Anchor down. Anchor down. I'm rooting for them. We dodged you this year, by the way, Georgia. Thank goodness. Let me ask you, before we let you go, Greg, a couple things about election security in Georgia. To their everlasting credit, Brad Raffensperger, the governor Kemp there and the team secured

the election in 2020, stood up to Donald Trump and said, you lost. We counted the votes three times, including once by hand, and you lost every time we did that. Secretary of State Raffensperger yesterday announcing some new security measures around the election. This time around, what more can you tell us about the security of the vote in the state of Georgia? Well, it is what it always has been, which is that state officials and not just Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, but other Republican officials are backing up Raffensperger on this one, saying that the vote is free and fair in Georgia and that voters can have competence in the integrity of their vote. And there was a pair of rulings yesterday that sided essentially with the secretary of state and against the Republican controlled secretary state election board that Donald Trump had had promoted, had touted the three-vote majority

on that board that was trying to make these last-minute changes. And those last-minute efforts, at least some of them, were blocked by a Fulton County judge who said that there shouldn't be hand-counting of the number of ballots at each election site that local officials said would just bog down the whole process. So it looks like we're going to have a hopefully quicker than expected count, because the longer that could happen, the more conspiracy theories and misinformation could spread about Georgia's vote in November. Raffensperger saying yesterday, we've done everything we can to be transparent, show the people no matter who wins, a secretary of State says, it's up to the voters.

We're just here to report the final results. Political reporter for the AJC, Greg Blustein. Greg, thanks so much. Always great to have you on the show. Thank you. Former President Trump yesterday, as we mentioned earlier, was interviewed by the editor in chief of Bloomberg News. Trump was pressed about his economic policies and on accepting the results of November's election. And the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget, which is a bipartisan

outfit, put out some predictions the other day. If you add up all the promises you've made and your plans would add $7.5 trillion to the debt. That's more than twice the total for Vice President Harris. You're on course to push up debt up to 150% of GDP. This is a very business-like audience. Why should they trust you with that? Because we're about growth. She's got no growth whatsoever, and we're all about growth. We're going to bring companies back to our country. You look at even today as I was driving over, I see these empty, old, beautiful like steel mills and factories that are empty and falling down. Some have been converted to senior citizens homes,

but that's not going to do the trick. And we're going to bring the companies back. We're going to lower taxes still further for companies that are going to make their product in the USA. We're going to protect those companies with strong tariffs because I'm a believer in tariffs. I'm not sure that you are. I don't think you are, but I congratulate you on your career.

To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff. And it's my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm. Will you commit now to respecting and encouraging a peaceful transfer of power? Well, you had a peaceful transfer of power. You had a peaceful transfer of power. You had a peaceful transfer of power.

Come on, President Trump. You had a peaceful transfer of power compared with Venezuela, but it was by far the worst transfer of power for a long time. The primary scene in Washington was hundreds of thousands, the largest group of people I've ever spoken before, and I've spoken before, and it was love and peace. And some people went to the Capitol, and a lot of strange things happened

there. A lot of strange things with people being waved into the Capitol by police, with people screaming, go in with that never got into trouble. You know, I don't want to mention names, but you know who they are. A lot of strange things happened. But you had a peaceful, very peaceful. I left. I left the morning that I was supposed to leave. I went to Florida and you had a peaceful, very peaceful. I left. I left the morning that I was supposed to leave. I went to Florida and you had a very peaceful transfer. You talked a lot about tariffs. You look at the American economy, 40 million jobs rely on trade. It counts for 27 percent of GDP. If you cut that off, that's also going to have an effect on many, many business people here. Tariffs also have another side.

Isn't that something that you have to acknowledge? You could be plunging America into the biggest trade war since Smoot-Hawley. But there are no tariffs. You're going to stop. There are tariffs already. There are no tariffs. All you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don't have any tariffs. People in a lot of places like this, there are a lot of jobs that rely on foreigners

coming here. You're going to basically stop trade with China. You're talking about 60% trade on that, 60% tariffs on that. You're talking, as you said, 100%, 200% on things you don't really like. You're also talking about 10%, 20% tariffs on the rest of the world. That is going to have a serious effect on the overall economy. And yes, you're going to find some people who would gain from individual tariffs. The overall effect could be massive. I agree. I agree.

It's going to have a massive effect, positive effect. It's going to be a positive, not a negative. Let me just, no, no, let me tell you, I know how committed you are to this. And it must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you're totally wrong. The markets are looking at the fact. You are making all these promises. Latest one was car loans.

You're flooding the thing with giving giveaways. But we're going to grow. I was actually quite kind to you. I used $7 trillion. The upper estimate is $15 trillion. People like the Wall Street Journal, who's hardly a communist organization, they have criticized you on this as well. You are running up enormous debt. What does the Wall Street Journal know? I'm meeting with them tomorrow.

What does the Wall Street Journal know? They've been wrong about everything. So have you, by the way. You've been wrong about everything. You're trying to turn this into debate. It's not a debate. But you're wrong. You've been wrong all your life on this stuff. The Mercedes-Benz will start building in the United States. And they have a little bit.

But you know what they really are? Assembly, like in South Carolina. But they build everything in Germany, and then they assemble it here. They get away with murder because they say, oh, and then they assemble it here. They get away with murder because they say, oh, yes, we're building cars. They don't build cars. They take them out of a box

and they assemble them. We could have our child do it. It's Donald Trump at the Economic Club of Chicago yesterday being interviewed by the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg, John Micklethwaite. Mike Barnicle joins us now. Mike, that was about five minutes

of 64 minutes of exactly that. Confronted with facts, asked real adversarial questions and attack the guy asking the question, attack the Wall Street Journal, cross your arms like you're a toddler, never answering the questions. Smattering of applause from some people in the room. Yeah, you'd like to find out what businesses they actually run to be plotting that stuff. So you watched all 64 minutes, bless you. What did you think? I'm with Claire McCaskill on this. If you ran the interview that Kamala Harris did yesterday

and then run the interview that Donald Trump just did yesterday with John McElweath at the Chicago Board of Economics, you'd be stunned at the difference between the two in terms of competence, in terms of leadership, in terms of what you know about today's economy. I am stunned that The New York Times, at least in the print edition this morning, maybe it's online, I don't know, didn't have much space to actually write about what he did yesterday in Chicago, what Trump said yesterday in Chicago. I'm stunned that the United Auto Workers haven't had a rebuttal to what Donald Trump said yesterday.

Basically, they're building cars out of a box that shipped to them and they just open up the box and put the thing together and run them down the assembly line. An amazing display of total economic ignorance yesterday in Chicago. Yeah, and there was so much in there. When he's asked a question that he knows he's wrong about, he changes the subject, Joe. Among his other comments, he said Google, the search algorithm, is rigged against him. And he's called Google to ask why they only put up bad stories about him. Also was asked about whether or not he's been in contact with Vladimir Putin since he left office. Again, refused to answer, but said, if I have been, that would be a good thing. That was Donald Trump yesterday. Yeah, I don't think anybody in the United States government or any of our allies would think it's a good thing that Donald Trump is talking to Vladimir Putin,

a man who considers America to be Russia's enemy. I'm going to get to Ed with the Financial Times, obviously, the editor of Financial Times, America's editor of Financial Times in a second. But I want to go to Claire McCaskill because I guess this is this is how Donald Trump operates. He says so many outrageous things, Claire, that he gets away with it. And I just I just I we've got to stop on January the 6th where Donald Trump said it was a day of love and peace for police officers died. Their families blame it directly on January the 6th. Police officers had the hell beaten out of them. There was an attempt, though I'm shocked by how many Republicans have now sort of washed to the United States Capitol and stop the constitutional counting of the votes of the Electoral College and to officially certify the winner. And Donald Trump, again, still saying it's much ado about nothing. It was love and peace. There was a

peaceful transition of power. And by the way, the tell on the smattering of applause that their Trump hacks that were in the audience was when Donald Trump said we did have a peaceful transition. It was about love and peace. And they started applauding as on cue like seals. And and it just it shows you I'm so glad he showed himself again to again say that January 6th was a good thing. That's what he thinks still. Yeah, it's that old saying, who are you going to believe me or your lying eyes? No one forgets the video of what happened as the mob breached the Capitol. No one forgets the flagpoles being used as weapons, attempts to gouge out police officers' eyes. And I think he said yesterday that there were only like 500 or 600, 800 people that went to the Capitol. 1,300 people have been charged with federal crimes from that

day. Those are just the folks that were charged with crimes. So, and here's the thing about that day that I hope people remember. I wish we had video of it. I wish somebody on his staff that knew what a danger he was to the world would have taken video. He sat in his dining room, which is just off the Oval Office, watching the TVs up on the wall, watching the violence ensue, watching the police officers under attack. He watched it all. And when everyone around him said, you've got to do something, he was really happy to do nothing, nothing to stop what was going on. He liked it, America. He liked the fact that people were attacking police officers for him. It's not about you ever.

It's just about him. That's what that day was all about. He finally, after hours was forced almost to a microphone. And even then he couldn't bring himself to say what he should have said. So I honestly can't believe they are now going there and his little sycophants all over there. You watch they're all over Fox and everywhere saying it was a peaceful transfer of power. It was a peaceful transfer of power. It's they're trying to sandblast January 6th out of America's memory. Don't let it happen. be harsh on those that are trying to to sane wash donald trump and also uh to just

push january 6th to the side and suggest it was much ado about nothing which is which is what they do it's what they've been doing on other networks uh certainly have not been doing it the wall street journal editorial page let me say not not not the actual editorials. There are people who write on that page, though, who will suggest that it was much to do about nothing, which is shameful and disgraceful, especially since some of these people worked in past Republican administrations. And so we've talked about that part of his interview. Let's now talk about Donald Trump saying that, quote, we're about growth. And yet he talks about tariffs that the Wall Street Journal editorial page and just about every competent economist says will cripple American businesses, will cripple American growth. Tariffs, of course, made the Depression a great depression.

Smoot-Hawley, that's something that every politician since then has been smart enough to realize. And yet Donald Trump is all in on tariffs. He's all in on massive federal deficits. He's all in on massive federal debt. He's all in on policies that make absolutely no economic sense for 99 percent of Americans. And by the way, again, conservative economists are saying it. Moderate economists are saying it. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has been saying it about, you know, so many of Donald Trump's policies.

They make no sense at all. I know the Financial Times has, too, because actually, Mike Barnicle asked a great question. Those clowns that were clapping about tariffs being his favorite word, what businesses they run? Because they're not big businesses that actually want to compete in the marketplace. Yeah, I mean, their business, almost all businesses that make anything or provide services will have components and inputs from all over the world, from different parts of the world, because the economy is specialized and different people do different things well.

If the cost of those inputs go shooting up, which they would with the Trump tariffs, then the cost of their products will become much more expensive and much less competitive. They won't be able to export them because they'll be priced out of export markets. Remember, America is built on having a booming export history. That's what industrialized America. As regards Smoot-Hawley, I saw John Micklethwaite try to ask Trump about the history of tariffs. As you rightly say, Joe, Smoot-Hawley made a mild depression into a great help, turned a mild depression into a great depression. It then led other countries to retaliate, which is what would happen today.

And it dug America deeper. It wasn't until FDR came in. It wasn't until 1933 that America began to sort of row back the effects of acts like Smoot-Hawley. That is what Trump is proposing for today. It would be a tax on working class Americans. And at the same time, he'd be passing tax breaks for the Elon Musks of this world. And I think this has to be driven home. He calls this a plan for the people. It's a plan for the plutocrats. And most plutocrats wouldn't gain either. But it's a plan for the plutocrats. And it's inflationary. And that leads to higher

interest rates. The knock on goes on and on and on. He likes to brag about having gone to the Wharton School of Business. This is the stuff they teach the first day, first week, first month at Wharton, I think. But when you look at the fact he was president when we had the supply chain disruption, he did nothing to protect consumers against price gouging that was going on then. And I think we were like $8.3 trillion in debt. So here's a guy that shows he doesn't know what he's talking about, despite having gone to Wharton. And now he's talking about tariffs, which will only make the consumers have to pay more. Because what are the people going to do? They're going to raise the prices if they have to deal with tariffs.

I mean, I didn't go to what I was in church, but I found out what that is. I think most people do. So you watched you watched a bunch of that conversation, that interview, and it wasn't just about tariffs. It was just about economic policy. The whitewashing of January 6th. We can't say it enough because J.D. Vance said the same thing in a vice presidential debate. There was a peaceful transfer of power for that one hour. I would remind people the Capitol was still ringed by security fencing so that it could be peaceful. Maybe it was. But that ignores everything that led up to that day.