Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/17/24

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Harris clashes with Fox anchor in contentious interview

You had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn't come because of me. They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election, and that's why they came. Some of those people went down to the Capitol. I said, peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all, nothing done wrong. And action was taken, strong action. Ashley Babbitt was killed.

Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there. We didn't have guns. The others had guns, but we didn't have guns. And when I say we, these are people that walked down. This was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows. But that was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions. It's like hundreds of thousands.

It could have been the largest group I've ever spoken before. A day of love. That was a former President Trump during a town hall with Hispanic voters hosted by Univision yesterday. He was responding to a man who said he wanted to give Trump a chance to win back his vote. January 6th, a day of love. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. Willie, as you know, I was off yesterday. I've been struggling with COVID over the past week. I took the day off to recover. Yeah, well, I thought a day off would help because I had all this time, you know, to rest and relax. But I took a lot of time to watch TV news a lot all day. And what a day it was, specifically what we saw play out on Fox News.

What did you make of the vice president's interview with Brett Baier? Well, first of all, we're very happy you're feeling better and that you're back. And I can't wait to get your take on this in just a minute. I think, first of all, Donald Trump successfully worked the refs. He said in the days leading up to this that Fox News had gotten weak and soft. He called Brett Baer soft. Brett Baer conducted that interview as if he had something to prove to the former president of the United States. We're going to show some many of the moments here. But I do I think on the other side of it, we could talk about Brett Baer's performance and the fairness or unfairness of some of the ways he pursued those topics.

The other side of it is Kamala Harris went on Fox news and took all those questions and hung in there and kept her calm and didn't attack the network or the interviewer or whine that things were unfair. She talked about policy and she gave answers to tough questions. But the tone was set right from the outset with a series of questions about immigration where the vice president of the United States wasn't really given the opportunity to respond. Here's how that played out. How many illegal immigrants would you estimate your administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years?

Well, I'm glad you raised the issue of immigration because I agree with you. It is a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have. And you know what I'm going to talk about. Yeah, but just a number. Do you think it's one million, three million? Brett, let's just get to the point. OK, the point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired. So your Homeland Security Secretary said that 85% of apprehensions... I'm not finished.

It's a rough estimate of 6 million people have been released into the country. And let me just finish. I'll get to the question. I promise you. I was beginning to answer. Looking back, do you regret the decision to terminate Remain in Mexico at the beginning of your administration? infrastructure, before the Inflation Reduction Act, before the Chips and Science Act, before any before the bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

The first bill practically within hours of taking the oath was a bill to fix our immigration system. Yes, ma'am. It was called the U.S. Citizen Citizenship Act of 2021. It was essentially a pathway to citizenship. May I finish responding, please? But you have to let me finish.

You had the White House and the House and the Senate. I'm in the middle of responding to the point you're raising. And I'd like to finish. Yes, ma'am. And that was the opening exchange, Mika. It went on like that for nearly 30 minutes. It goes without saying that Donald Trump would not be given the same treatments, talked over, not allowed to finish those questions. It doesn't mean the topics weren't fair.

There was a lot in there that viewers wanted to hear from Kamala Harris. Why do you have different positions now than you did in 2019? How are you going to fix the immigration crisis? All fair, fair questions. But Donald Trump obviously would never be treated that way on Fox News. No, not by. I mean, I watched Brett Breyer for years. That's just that was different. I think another great place to focus would be with the enemy from within comments that President Trump made. You see, that's the exact phrase Trump used a number of times in

recent days, referring to his political adversaries and members of the press even, and the retribution he would take against them. It's decidedly un-American. It's a big story. And it's the critical backdrop to this moment in which Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with Fox News. It was supposed to give viewers an opportunity to actually hear her plans as president. Instead, as you saw, it almost immediately devolved into an embarrassing bad faith effort by a once respected host to play to an audience of one. The host's constant, rude interruptions were designed to distract from the issues and facts that Trump and his acolytes try and twist and distort every day. And on Fox News, they try and avoid and they couldn't. When Kamala Harris realized the host

was not going to let her speak, the only way the vice president could give Fox viewers an opportunity to hear what she had to say was to talk back over him. Was he making sure that happened? I personally think absolutely. Did she do well in this environment? Of course, she was great. She was a former, she's a former prosecutor, attorney general, senator, current vice president. She's fine with a situation like that and even flourishes. Yet there were times she was shaking on answers about immigration. He kept coming after her. But the questions sounded like they came from a Trump campaign ad. In fact, they played a Trump campaign ad in the interview.

The host almost seemed obsessed with transgender surgeries. The vice president kept trying to tell him she will follow the law. That was the answer. All the while, the vice president found her opportunities to make the case against Donald Trump. Over the last decade, it is clear to me and certainly the Republicans who are on stage with me, the former chief of staff to the president, Donald Trump, former defense secretaries, national security advisor and his vice president, one that he is unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous, and that people are exhausted with someone who professes to be a leader who spends full time demeaning and engaging in personal grievances and it being about him instead of the American people. People are tired of that. If that's the case, why is half the country supporting him?

Why is he beating you in a lot of swing states? Why, if he's as bad as you say, that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States? Why is that happening? This is an election for president of the United States. It's not supposed to be easy. I know, but it's not supposed to be. It is not supposed to be a misgu know, but it's not supposed to be. It is not supposed to be. So are they misguided, the 50 percent?

Are they stupid? Oh, God, I would never say that about the American people. And in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he's the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people.

He's the one who talks about an enemy within, within about an enemy within, within an enemy, within talking about the American people. That's the part they don't want you to hear. How Fox News conducted itself with the Harris interview is just part of the story. What was equally dismaying was another piece of the phony playbook that came earlier in the day in the form of a fluffy town hall, if you call it that, with Donald Trump and a handpicked audience that appear to have been all MAGA, many thanking him for gracing them with his presence. As for the content, well, Trump lied to the audience about the issue of abortion, claiming it'll just work itself out. It'll be OK. You're good. Now it's where everybody has wanted it for years. And now it's working its way out in the states. Nobody wanted it to be in the federal government.

Five or six or seven years ago, they started talking about weeks and this and that. But what they wanted is they wanted it back in the states for a vote of the people. And that's where we have it. And the states are now voting for it. And honestly, some of them are going much more liberal, like in Ohio. I would have thought it might be different. Some of them are not. And some of them are not.

But it's going to be redone. It's going to be redone. They're going to you're going to you end up with a vote of the people. And some of my agree that they're too they're too tough, too tough. And those are going to be redone because already there's a movement in those states. I know exactly what you're talking about to redo it. It's back in the states where they can have the vote of the people. It's exactly where they want to be. Remember this. This issue has torn this country apart for 52 years. So we got it back in the States. We have a vote of the people

and it's working its way through the system. And ultimately, it's going to be the right thing. I want to share with you Senators Warnock and Arsoff, Mayor Bottoms and Atlanta Mayor Bottoms and Amber Thurman's family have come out on a press call and they're doing what's called a prebuttal to our town hall right now. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. And I want to get better ratings, I promise. Yeah. OK, so is he changing his position about abortion after overturning Roe and saying women should be punished for? And by the way, joking about a woman who died arguably because of a severe abortion ban allowed to be in place because of Donald Trump. Classy, but it'll all work out, right? Yeah, that's he also said, by the way, this was interesting that he's the father of IVF. Moments before admitting he only learned about the issue this year.

Oh, I want to talk about IVF. I'm the father of IVF, so I want to hear this question. I got a call from Katie Britt, a young, just a fantastically attractive person from Alabama. She's a senator. And she called me up like emergency, emergency,

because an Alabama judge had ruled that the IVF clinics were illegal and they have to be closed down. A judge. And I said, explain IVF very quickly. And within about two minutes, I understood it. I said, no, no, we're totally in favor of IVF. I came out with a statement within an hour, a really powerful statement with some experts, really powerful.

And we we went totally in favor of the Republican Party, the whole party. Alabama legislature a day later overturned, meaning approved it, overturned the judge, essentially approved it. And we really are the party for IVF. We want fertilization and it's all the way. And the Democrats tried to attack us on it. And we're out there on IVF even more than them. So we're totally in favor of it. When he talked about illegal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio,

continuing his cruelty toward the legal Haitians who he terrorized there, the host gently reminded him ever so lightly that they were actually legal. Springfield, Ohio, they have 50,000, 52,000 people, no problems, no real crime, a beautiful community. They just dropped 30,000 illegal aliens in Springfield, Ohio, and it's become a different place. We're going to destroy our country. Our country is going to— Actually— It's horrible. You know, there's more to that story.

They are here legally, and there are programs that the current administration has put into place to do those flights. So we recently learned, we didn't have any number to compare it to, so all of a sudden we knew a million and a half people had come in through those flights. And we know the numbers have lessened at the border because of what they're doing partially. For the election. Right. Well, I mean, the timing of it is interesting, right? But the numbers get made up by the people that we can't see in the flights and all of it has a burden on the economy. Okay. They're legal, illegal, whatever, you know. But then you go to the evening, the polar opposite. We witnessed a man who spent his life as a down the middle journalist,

seeming to throw it all away for his audience of one, interrupting the vice president awkwardly and unnecessarily, ignoring many issues that define this campaign, including a woman's right to health care freedom. Most disturbing was when he showed a misleading clip about Donald Trump responding to a question about his enemy from within comments. He's the one who talks about an enemy within, within an enemy, within talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people. We asked that question to the former president today. Harris Faulkner had a town hall, and this is how he responded.

I heard about that. They were saying I was, like, threatening. I'm not threatening anybody. They're the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations. I've been investigated more than Alphonse Capone. He was the greatest. No, it's true.

We've got to think of it. It's called weaponization of government. It's a terrible thing. So, No, it's true. We don't think of it. It's called weaponization of government. It's a terrible thing. So, Brett, I'm sorry. And with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he's speaking about the American people. That's not what you just showed. He was asked. No, no, no. That's not what you just showed in all fairness and respect to you. The question that we asked, you didn't show that, and here's the bottom line. He has repeated it many times, and you and I both know that. And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American

military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy and an inner democracy. The president of the United States in the United States of America should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he'd lock people up for doing it. And this is what is at stake, which is why you have someone like the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying what Mark Milley has said about Donald Trump being a threat to the United States of America. She got it in there. You see,

the concern is that Trump has clearly indicated he intends to use the military to go after his adversaries in this country, in this country. And in his Fox friendly town hall, Trump doubled down on that, this time actually naming names. But that's not the clip they showed. Kamala Harris and the vice president called out Fox News on Fox News. Here's the full clip they should have shown. I wasn't unhinged. You know, you know, they are they're a party of sound, but they're some somebody asked me, can they be brought together? You know, it was very I never thought really I wasn't thinking like they could because they are they're very, very different. And it is the enemy could because they are they're very different and it is

the enemy from within and they're very dangerous they're Marxists and communists and fascists and they're sick I use a guy like Adam Schiff because they made up the Russia Russia Russia hooks it took two years to solve the problem absolutely nothing was done wrong etc etc they're dangerous for our country. We have China. We have Russia. We have all these countries. If you have a smart president, they can all be handled. The more difficult are, you know, the Pelosi's, these people,

they're so sick and they're so evil. If they would spend their time trying to make America great again, we would have, it would be so easy to make this country great. But when I heard about that, they were saying I was like threatening. I'm not threatening anybody. They're the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations. I've been investigated more than Alphonse Capone. He was the greatest. No, it's true. We don't think of it. It's called weaponization of government. It's a terrible thing. All right. They're the threat to democracy. It's simply another sign of what appears to be a threat of fascism. Yes, we need to say that word.

As for Fox, there was nothing fair and balanced about what we saw play out yesterday over their airwaves. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Beer Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, the host of the podcast On Brand with Donnie Deutsch. Donnie Deutsch, MSNBC contributor and author of the book, How the Right Lost Its Mind, Charlie Sykes, and MSNBC political analyst and publisher of the newsletter, The Inc., available on Substack, Anand Giridharadas. Charlie, I'll start with you. Did I miss anything? Well, you know, you pull back the lens a little bit. This is one of the craziest endings to a presidential campaign we've ever seen. These are the closing arguments. And what

you're seeing is gaslighting and BS coming from the Trump folks. I mean, it's hard to keep up with all of the things that have been happening. You know, his meltdown the other day, his his performance at the Economic Forum in Chicago, and then those answers last night. But I don't think you've you've you've missed anything. Kamala Harris is doing something very interesting. She is going places that most presidential candidates don't go. She's reaching out as creating a big tent by campaigning with Republicans. She's going into the lion's den of Fox News. And she's she's going she's, you know, going into aggressive hand to hand combat with a guy who clearly did have an audience of one. I mean, Brett Baier had one mission, which was to engage in in fan service for Fox News and to get and to get a social media post from Donald Trump telling him that he did that.

He did a great job. Jonathan Lemire, I think, pointed out. I mean, I'm sorry, it was Willie Geist who pointed out Trump has been working the refs and he successfully worked the refs. But but I do think that this is one of those moments you step back and you go, OK, we are now what, you know, three weeks out from the election. Normally, presidential candidates present their best and most appealing sides. Right. They are appealing to the voters who are still in play. What is Donald Trump doing? What side of himself is he showing himself? It really is kind of remarkable. And I think you've you've you've you've seen that showcased over the last 24 hours in these dueling town hall interviews. So, Donnie, as I said before, I've long had respect for Brett

Berry does tough interviews with Republicans on his show all the time. We want adversarial interviews. That's how you get information for people. Fair questions in there about some changes in her positions on things. But they kind of gave away the game a few times, most notably when they showed that clip trying to defend Donald Trump totally out of context and using half of the soundbite saying, no, no, he didn't really mean it. When he said there are enemies from within on the radical left in this country, that was the third or fourth time he said that, said it first last Sunday, also on Fox News, and specifically did mention Adam Schiff and did mention the Pelosi's, as he called it. So I guess the question for you is, did that interview move the needle in one direction or the other? I thought you did a great job. I was watching in real time and I was quite repulsed by Brett Baer. I had always liked him, always

thought he was a straight shooter. And the attack mode from the beginning was quite stunning. What dawned on me as I was watching is, can you imagine Donald Trump doing an interview at MSNBC? Can you imagine what he would be called on? And he would, after the interview, because he was challenged, he'd say the license should be revoked from him. Like there's this fairness and unfairness. There's this weakness and strength. And the weakness is Donald Trump. He didn't do 60 Minutes. He won't show up for the debate. He would never do anything on an adversarial network. He's a coward. He's an absolute coward. And the litany of things that he says, I think the thing yesterday that got me more than anything

was when he described January 6th as a day of love. I kept picturing that. Remember that Coke song from the 60s that like to teach the world? I was picturing that music over that image, a day of love. It's it is reprehensible the way he behaves. And it is just it is to the point where I'm having trouble talking to people who are voting for Donald Trump. I really it's it's I don't see what they're not getting. How do you see that and go bang? And let's just watch again. This is he was talking about enemies from within. They played that misleading clip yesterday for Kamala Harris, and she called them out on it. Here's what Donald Trump said beginning on Sunday on Fox News. I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have

come in and destroying our country, by the way, totally destroying our country, the towns, the villages, they're being inundated. But I don't think they're the problem in terms of election. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're the and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary, by the military, because they can't let that happen. Should be handled very easily by the National Guard or the military. So on a couple of days ago, you were here. We're talking about Kamala Harris going into these places like Fox News, maybe going on Joe Rogan's podcast and sitting there and talking policy and taking the

heat and coming out and benefiting her. Do you think that benefited her yesterday? Yeah, I think, you know, it was a rich policy discussion if you dug into it. But I think what most people are looking for is more visceral than that. People are looking for whether you have the metal to smash the obstacles in their lives that they can't smash on themselves, which they need leaders to smash for them. And I think that kind of thing, when you're up against that, it shows that to people. To pick up on a couple of things Mika said, I thought were really important. I loved Mika that you used the word fascism, the other F word, the F word of this moment, because I think many of us in the media, particularly a lot of the newspapers,

have been very, very reluctant to say what is clear, right? A tree is a tree, a river is a river, and fascism is fascism. It is a word with a dictionary definition. And if a tree is a tree, fascism is fascism. And this offered by what is offered by Donald Trump, the Republican Party today is fascism. And we in the media need to say it. And and the other thing that Mika brought up, which I just wanted to, you know, expand on for a second, is this notion of interruption. Right. It was it was a it was just a it was a tick in that interview. But it was of interruption, right? It was just a tick in that interview, but it was almost interruptionism last night. I was watching this and it was like,

this is interruption as an art form, interruption. And it felt like, it started to feel like interruption as a metaphor for a rising new America, a new generation of leadership, a woman, a person of color in Kamala Harris trying to speak. And this kind of figure of the old guard who was offended at the notion that her voice had a volume, right, that her vocal cords made sound, invited her on the show and then was very, very angry that he could hear her. And it just felt like a metaphor for a minority in this country

that is angry at the notion that a rising pluralist, more pluralist new America is speaking, is around, is here and a desire to interrupt not just a person, but the future. And I actually don't think the future will be interrupted. And I think a lot of people who watch Fox News even have experienced that in meetings, have experienced that at work, have experienced that all their lives in different forms and don't like it, whatever their policy views are. So believe it or not, as bad as that is, it's important. And I think she handled it really well. And I agree with you completely. There are a lot of people going to have a lot of different reactions to how that interview played out. And I don't think it's exactly how it was intended by Fox.

But I think you are right on and we have to say it for what it is, for what we see happening here. Joe made the point earlier this week. I think he tweeted this, the Trump apologist playbook. And it kind of happened in this interview as well. It definitely happened in Jake Tapper's interview with Glenn Youngkin, which Jake doubled down on when Trump doubled down on his enemy from within comments to take what Trump says and to say, oh, no, no, no. You guys take little snippets here and you take them out of context. That's what Fox did last night, by the way. You take the comments that Trump makes out of context and you are lying.

That's that's definitely not that was out of context. And then you say, no, here's what he said. And you read it to the person and you show it to the person. And the person goes, oh, I didn't hear it. Or at least I didn't hear it that way. And then you say, here is what he said. He wants to use the military against his adversaries. He named Adam Schiff in this soundbite and Nancy Pelosi in this soundbite. And then the person just completely devolves and goes, oh, well, he didn't mean it. Kamala Harris was powerful making that point in that interview. She got

her point across to Fox viewers. If they needed to hear something, it was that. I don't know if it will break through, but she got her point across despite every effort to talk over her and to not get to that incredibly important point. She showed up and she showed Brett Beier and Fox News out, and she was able to show the problem in real time, especially when they ran a misleading clip. She didn't even let him talk. She goes, I'm sorry, with respect, you just showed the wrong clip. That is not the clip that we are

talking about. And basically pointed out their dishonesty for the viewers to see. It was a pretty victorious moment. Jonathan Lemire, at the same time, there is very little time between now and election day. Does Kamala Harris do more of these or has she done the work that needs to be done over the airwaves of Fox News? Yeah, well, first of all, remember a couple of weeks ago, a lot of Democrats in a real panic that she wasn't doing interviews, that she wasn't campaigning hard enough. That has now, of course, dissipated. She had a media blitz last week with perhaps some more friendly interviewers. And then this week into the lion's den, Charlamagne Tha God has been skeptical of Harris at times. She sat with him and obviously

going into Fox News yesterday and dealing with a contentious interview. And as you well detailed, being interrupted repeatedly. And her team feels really good about what they got done yesterday. Yes, she was pressed on some tough questions. Not every answer was a home run, but that she showed up and that she fought back, called out Fox News for the selective editing, called out Donald Trump for his lies. The Harris people I spoke to in the aftermath of the interview said it showed real toughness. They loved that she was able to say things to Fox News viewers who wouldn't normally hear them. It's not a coincidence. This interview happened just hours after she appeared with about dozens of Republicans, lawmakers,

who were supporting her. She's trying to say it's okay to vote Republican, even just this once. But she was able to say, remind Fox News viewers, because they don't hear it every day, that members of Trump's own cabinet, Trump's own vice president, aren't supporting him this time around.

She was able to say it to that audience. One Harris advisor texted me afterwards and his word was simply presidential. The idea of being in a tough moment, standing up to someone and delivering it. And Mika, also just one more note about Donald Trump yesterday, that clip we played about January 6th talking about we, as he always talks about, uses the word we when he talks about the January 6th, talking about we, as he always talks about, uses the word we when he talks about the January 6th rioters. And he said, we were there peacefully. They had the guns. The they? Those are Capitol Police officers. That shows you Donald Trump's framing of January 6th. Well, and that was the vice president. You get a sense that there was very little time to make a point to Fox viewers, but that this is an urgent time.

And the message that she was trying to send to Fox viewers is Donald Trump is unhinged. He is unfit and he is a danger. using the words of the very people who worked for him, the people who have served this country, who have dealt with dictators and dangerous situations, calling him the greatest danger to America. I don't think it's something Fox viewers have really had a chance to put their heads around. So it was good that she had the opportunity to have her voice heard. That is for sure. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Donald Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, gave his most direct answer yet about the results of the 2020 election. We'll play for you those new remarks. Plus, Vice President Kamala Harris rallies in Pennsylvania, where she was joined by more than 100 Republicans. What she had to say about that support for her

in her White House bid. We're back in 90 seconds. In a typical election year, you all being here with me might be a bit surprising, dare I say unusual. But not in this election. Not in this election. Because at stake in this race are the democratic ideals that our founders and generations of Americans before us have fought for. At stake in this election is the Constitution of the United States, it very self. We are here today because we share a core belief that we must put country before party. Vice President Harris during a rally in the

suburbs of Philadelphia yesterday. Why did she say it was unusual? Well, she was joined there by more than 100 Republican leaders. Meanwhile, Senator J.D. Vance says now out loud he does not believe former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Speaking at a pair of press events yesterday, the Republican vice presidential nominee confirmed his stance at the event before giving a more fiery answer at the second. On the election of 2020, I've answered this question directly a million times. No, I think there are serious problems in 2020. So did Donald Trump lose the election?

Not by the words that I would use. I answered this question a million times when I ran for the Senate, the 2022 Republican primary. I've answered this question in the 2022 general election. I've answered this question 10 times recently. I think that big tech rigged the election in 2020. That's my view. And if you disagree with me, that's fine. I've given that exact question for years. And this is

such a preposterous thing that the American media does. I have given this answer to this question for literally years. And the American media wants to focus on what happened four years ago than the fact that North Carolinians can't afford groceries. I think that's a disgrace. Do your job and focus on the problems the American people care about rather than bull from four years ago. It's funny, Charlie Sykes, Donald Trump is the one who is completely obsessed with the results of the 2020 election, brings it up at every rally and every interview at every turn. J.D. Vance has flirted with this before saying, yeah, I think there were problems with the election.

Now just explicitly saying the election was rigged. Of course, everyone around Donald Trump in the White House around the election in November all the way through January 6th disagreed with him. Donald Trump has said many times he's let it slip when he says he lost to the election. Sixty five courts disagreed with J.D. Vance's view of what happened during the election. The proof, the evidence is all there. Again, this is J.D. Vance as the beta in the relationship having to say what the big guy wants to hear. Yeah, and that's why he's on the ticket. He's there as opposed to Mike Pence, because he's willing to do and say what Mike Pence refused to do. I think that people also ought to recognize that they are laying the groundwork to doing this after this election as well. This is not simply looking back. incoherence of his position, which is like you people are obsessed with this when, in fact, he can't stop talking about it. Donald Trump can't stop talking about it. He can't stop

trying to glorify and rewrite the history of January 6th. And again, as I mentioned earlier, this is an extraordinary closing argument for the Trump campaign. Rather than looking ahead, rather than focusing on voters in play. What are they doing? They are wallowing in Donald Trump, Donald Trump's obsessive lie about this election. J.D. Vance just tells us who he is in those clips. But again, I think that people ought to be very, very aware that that there's no way that this ticket is going to graciously concede if they lose this election. The post-election 2024, I think, has the potential to be even more outrageous than what happened after the 2020 election for a couple of reasons. Number one, Donald Trump has people like J.D. Vance who are willing to lie and stick with that lie.

He's got an entire political party and an infrastructure that is unwilling to stand up to him. They've already filed lawsuits all around the country to at least put them in position. And I think that when we go back to what the Trump conspiracy was to overturn that election, all of those elements are in place and in many cases are more plausible, including using state legislatures. But what a remarkable moment for J.D. Vance three weeks out from the election to double and triple down on that lie. Yeah. And that's the key point, not just some obsession with what happened four years ago, but concerns that it could happen again here in the next couple of weeks and months ahead. The speaker, Mike Johnson, on a Sunday show the

other day asked, did Donald Trump lose the election? Then asked, do you will you certify this election? Will you go along with the results that if it's free and fair, they always leave themselves that little out. So we don't have to wonder because we watched what happened last time. What will happen again if Donald Trump loses? Yeah. And, you know, I think if you think about some of the great presidents we've had in this country, obviously they were interested in winning and losing, but it wasn't necessarily the sum total of their being or understanding of the world. They were interested in policy. They were interested in the country. They had a certain feeling for history. I think Donald Trump is someone so small,

so limited in a way that winning and losing is really the only thing he understands. There's this kind of thing that his father supposedly said to him, there's two kinds of people in the world, you know, killers and losers, killer being a good thing in this moral landscape. And so you can imagine the 2020 loss was a trauma for Donald Trump, because it's the only kind of meaning he has is to have ratings higher than the other person. And his ratings were lower, the ultimate rating in this country, which is voters. And then J.D. Vance. I actually met J.D. Vance the first time here. We were both on the same day. This is 2016. I thought he was charming, kind, interesting, with different worldview. But we spoke, messaged a little bit after that. And he became what I think the founders

a couple hundred years ago used to call men of ambition. Ambition didn't used to be a good word the way it is now. It used to mean people who have such a design on power that there's nothing they won't say, do, become to have power. This is a person who is now willing to throw out constitutional democracy. He studied at Yale Law School, where I believe they actually have courses on the Constitution. He's willing to throw out everything he took time to study to be that kind of man of dark ambition. And I think what's really important now is for people across this country who may not be diehard for Kamala Harris or diehard for Donald Trump, but who love the country, who have who

have been blessed by the many gifts of this country to say this country is what it is. It has given you whatever it's given you because of institutions, institutions you take for granted, processes of a peaceful transfer of power that you take for granted. So you can go live your life. You can go start that restaurant. You can go do that job. You can go drive your kid to that college. You can do all those things in a way you cannot in Somalia because the institutions are just working in the background. You don't even have to think about them very often. You have to vote every so often and then they work. And what is at stake now is you possibly not being able to do all those things you've done all your life, not be able to chase your dreams, not be able to make your plans, because what works in the background is not going to be working in the background in a Trump administration. Politics,

government, persecution would become your life. This would become the full drama of our country. That's what happens in these countries that go in that illiberal, unconstitutional direction. And what they are proposing is not just, you know, an abstraction of fascism. It is a kind of political project where politics would eat your dreams, eat your plans. And I don't think most Americans want that. John, talking about Jonathan Lemire, talking about J.D. Vance and the lies he's told in pursuit of power, the latest that we've heard from him and President Trump, again, is that there was, in fact, they say, a peaceful transfer of power, despite what our eyes, our ears told us on January 6th and the days and weeks around that election.

Yeah, when Trump sat for that interview at the Chicago Economic Forum this week, the moderator Mosley said, well, yeah, January 20th, that one day was peaceful. But of course, two weeks prior, there was a siege at that very building at the Capitol. I think the timing of this is interesting. Vance has sort of danced around answering this question for a while, including at the debate to that sort of tough moment he had with Governor Walz and to go so forcefully yesterday and say and multiple times to say yes he believed Trump won. It's indicative of how this campaign is closing its argument. Yes for Vance it's about playing to an audience of one but it's also how Vance and Trump there's no effort here to win over any sort of swing voters, those undecideds, where Harris has really spent a lot of time in recent days. This is a pure base play,

lying about the 2020 election, lying about January 6th, fear mongering about migrants, lying about crime. It's all part of that same piece about fear and grievance and this idea that things were taken from us. The other, whether that's migrants or Democrats, have taken this from us. That's what Trump and Vance are telling their supporters, Mika. That's how they plan to close this election. That's their argument just to try to rally the base. You know, a great point. And Donnie Deutsch, to close up this block, I think to what Jonathan Lemire just said and Anand as well, this is a very hard discussion to have in this country

because it's asking citizens to consider what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America, and then to envision what it would be like not to have that. And I think that's a very hard case to make because this imperfect union has done so well at making freedom such a core value and every other part of our Constitution that to an extent people just don't believe that it could happen. And so the case that Kamala Harris, the Harris campaign team, Democrats are trying to make and even some Republicans now and members of the Trump administration and his former vice president and General Milley, the case they're trying to make is this is the biggest danger America has seen. And we're asking Americans to envision that. And that's difficult. It is difficult. But at this point, it is on you.

You know, the the the old Uncle Sam, you know, your country needs you now. I know it just has to be. You have to take in the fact you out there, if you're voting for Trump, that if he gets elected, we will no longer have fair, fair and free elections. He will put the military on his own people. He's telling you that he will straighten out the press. He's telling you that he will go after his political enemies and put them in jail. He's telling you that he's telling us, listen, I don't understand why people refuse to take it in. And I think it's on you. It's not on him anymore. It's on you. He's telling us, listen, I don't understand why people refuse to take it in. And it's on you. It's not on him anymore. It's on you.

Well, Ana and Gerd Artis and Charlie Sykes, thank you both very much for coming in this morning. We appreciate it. And coming up, we'll play for you more of Donald Trump's comments from his town hall with Univision, including what he had to say about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. Morning Joe will be right back. look what he's done with runners in scoring position back to early september 16 out of his last 19 typo numbers there's a towering drive down the line. Otani's broken through.

It is gone. Shohei Otani with a three-run bomb sneaking inside of the foul pole. That's in the eighth inning, punctuating the Dodgers' 8-0 win over the Mets in Game 3 of the NLCS last night. Quique Hernandez hit a two-run shot in the sixth. He kind of broke this thing open. Max Muncy launched a solo home run to the upper deck of-run shot in the sixth. He kind of broke this thing open. Max Muncy launched a solo home run to the upper deck of Citi Field in the ninth. It was a route as right-hander and Vanderbilt University star Walker Buell combining with four relievers.

He was great last night. Combined for the Dodgers' fourth shutout in their last five playoff games. L.A. now leads the Mets in the best of seven series, two games to one. Game four tonight in Queens. Mets got to win that one. This evening, the Cleveland Guardians will host the New York Yankees in game three of the ALCS. Yankees lead that series, two games to none.

Mike, let's go back to the Mets for a second. It's been kind of a strange series. Blowouts in all three games in one direction or the other. Certainly down two to one, but certainly tonight at home, you can't go down 3-1 if you're the Mets. No, no, you can't. The Mets are interesting, though. They have the capacity to bounce back. They've proven it, certainly over the past five or six weeks. They're a very interesting team. On paper, the roster, they're not as good as the opponent that they're facing. That's clearly evident. But they have something that the other team simply doesn't have.

They have an odd momentum that arises in surprising situations. But what might be last night was, what is Major League Baseball doing starting a game at 8 o'clock or 8, 10? I mean, little kids, you want to grow baseball fans. You're marketing. You're looking for an audience, right, Donnie? You want to grow your audience? They don't want a 4 o'clock or 8, 10. I mean, little kids, you want to grow baseball fans, you're marketing, you're looking for an audience, right, Donnie? You want to grow your audience? They don't want a 4 o'clock West Coast start time. I mean, that's the simple matter.

These 5 o'clock games have been great for fans, for viewers. Game's over by 8 o'clock. Donnie, how much fun is it to have in this city when both teams are in the playoffs in October? It's electric. And Mike was just talking off camera. The Yankees are a given. So like the Yankees, there's a hum when they're going to make the Mets.

Something electric happens to the city when the Mets go on. They're the quintessential underdog, even when they're stacked. And there is a magic about this team. And I would not sell the Mets out yet. If you live in the New York area, you could actually go to see a playoff game every day of this week. Yeah. Every day of this week in the New York area, you could see the Mets or the Yankees or another team play. How great is that? You also could see the WNBA finals here in New York. How about that? A huge finish, an incredible shot last night for the New York Liberty for one of the biggest stars

in the game in game three of the WNBA finals. Eight seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of game three. Four seconds. Ionescu will heave and hit! And hit! Sabrina Ionescu with the biggest shot in Liberty history! That is some Steph Curry stuff. A step back for Sabrina Ionescu. A tie-breaking three-pointer with just over a second left on the clock to lift the Liberty to an 80-77 win. They now lead 2-1 over the Minnesota Lynx in the WNBA Finals. It's a best-of-five, so the Liberty can win their first WNBA title with another win on the road.

That's tomorrow night in Game 4. Do you remember anything exploding like the WNBA title with another win on the road. That's tomorrow night in game four. Do you remember anything exploding like the WNBA? It's incredible. Almost overnight. It's the farthest thing from overnight. But just, yeah, I think it was one. Kaitlin Collins, yeah. Yeah.

It's been an incredible year. Yeah, Kaitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Sabrina is an incredible player too.