Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/24/24

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Harris calls Trump a fascist, says he is 'dangerous'

And I think for many of us, the last 24 hours certainly have been a bit shaking with the reporting coming out in the Atlantic. Donald Trump's dissension into madness and John Kelly's, who I thank for showing the courage to come forward. Donald Trump made it very clear that this is an election about Donald Trump taking full control of the military to use against his political enemies, taking full control of the Department of Justice to prosecute those who disagree with him, taking full control of the media on what is told and what is told to the American public. And the opportunity here and the absolute requirement of Americans is to understand that this rhetoric has not been used in this country, certainly not by a party's presidential nominee. Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And I and I also believe

that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted. All right, here we go. The closing message that's beginning to emerge from the Harris-Walls campaign, especially in light of recent reporting by Michael Schmidt and in the Atlantic. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Thursday, October 24th, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, NBC News National Affairs affairs analyst and a partner and chief political columnist at Puck, John Heilman, CEO of the Messina Group, Jim Messina. He served as White House deputy chief of staff to President Obama and ran his 2012 reelection campaign. And also

with us, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye is with us. Good to have you all this morning. Joe, the polls are showing, once again, a very close race. But the messages, the final messages are beginning to emerge. Breaking news. This race is now a tie. And so it's interesting. Conservatives, well, conservatives don't support Donald Trump. So they probably are thinking Harris is going to win. But Trump Republicans will look at the polls

they want to look at. Harris supporters will look at the polls that they want to look at. But I just I just want to say there's been some chatter about this October surprise that maybe it was Michael Schmidt's reporting or Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting that was an October surprise. Maybe it was that Kamala Harris said that he was a fascist or maybe more importantly, it was Donald Trump's longest serving chief of staff, who was a general, a highly respected general whose son gave his life to America in defense of America and who's committed his entire life to defending this nation, who said that Donald Trump was, yes, indeed a fascist. And also the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Donald Trump's last chairman of the Joint Chiefs said Donald Trump was a fascist to the core.

Those aren't really the October surprises. The October surprises, Willie, are not what everybody else is saying about Donald Trump. And I understand there's some pathetic people out there. Yeah. Some some some some pathetic people that are trying to cozy up to Donald Trump, who were trying to blame Jeffrey Goldberg or trying to blame General Kelly for a, quote, October surprise that they're making up. Of course, imagine that people actually questioning the integrity of those two, questioning the integrity of General Kelly. But no, those aren't the October surprises. The October surprises are what Donald Trump says and what he has said every time he has

opened his mouth. The October surprise is that Donald Trump has said he's going to arrest his Democratic opponents. The October surprise is that Donald Trump has said he's going to arrest his Democratic opponents. The October surprise is that Donald Trump has said he's going to use the army and he's going to use the National Guard against his political opponents. That's the October surprise. The October surprise is that Donald Trump has called Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, called his Democratic opponents the enemies from within. The October surprise has been that Donald Trump has said the Democrats and people in the press who do not

support him are the enemy from within and more dangerous to America. He has said it. He has said it. Not me, not Kamala Harris, not General Kelly, not Michael Schmidt and not Jeffrey Goldberg. But it's Donald Trump who has said that Nancy Pelosi is more of an enemy to America than Kim Jong Un, then kim jong-un then she then putin and all the other communist leaders and dictators that want to destroy america willie that's the october surprise and that's big that's donald trump's biggest problem right now an october surprise that is not at all surprising from donald trump because it's the kind of rhetoric we've been hearing consistently. But you're right that he has dug in much deeper on it and given repeated opportunities to say, no, I was speaking off the cuff or I didn't mean that.

He's making very clear that that's what he believes, that he the military may be used and may be deployed against people he views as enemies of the country. People like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi that you're talking about. And these comments put together with what we heard from General Kelly, as you said, a decorated four star general, our fodder for Vice President Harris. She talked about them in a town hall with CNN last night, trying to make clear the choice here, how stark it is, what the country will look like, how different it may be if he is reelected president versus her being elected president,

Mika. And she is you know, we talked about the campaign of joy coming out of the convention in Chicago and all those things. And that was there and that was real. And enthusiasm was juiced in her numbers went way up and have stayed up since then. But now she's really drawing this contrast with 12 days to go of here's what I believe. You've heard my economic plan. I've made the speeches about how I want to make the country better for you. But let's also consider where this country goes if we head down a different path. Well, I think what she's doing is two things at once. Her campaign is about joy in America. It is about freedom in America. It is about women who are right now in danger freedoms. It is still an extreme. If you look at their social media outreach, Joe, and you look at the way that they speak,

it's a joyful campaign, but it is reflecting off who they are running against. A dark, dismal, fascist and increasingly obviously fascist person. Well, yeah, I mean, again, it's pretty unanimous if you talk to, you know, even if you talk to the foremost expert in fascism and in America, a historian who has been around long enough and who initially rejected that label and hates using the label, but now says it fits too tightly, too comfortably on Donald Trump. But this is this is what I find fascinating. John Heilman is that Donald Trump has proven what many libertarians have said all along. And that is that if Donald Trump can take the rights away from women that they have had for 50 years and have the government making decisions over a woman's body, the government, the federal government

saying the state government can now make any decisions they want to make over women's health care and they take control of a woman's body and take away her health care choices. The libertarians have said if they can do that to women, this federal government that we libertarians don't think can do much right, they can take away my rights, too. And in the final weeks of this campaign, Donald Trump has proven these libertarians right. He has said, if you speak out against me, you are the enemy from within. If you are against me politically, then you are the enemy within. And I can use the military and the National Guard against you. If you say something on CBS News, I can take over CBS and shut it down. If you say something on a Comcast network that I don't like, I can take it over and shut you down.

Donald Trump has promised. He's promised after being pushed back on from Fox News hosts, from Laura Ingraham, from Sean Hannity, from from Howie Kurd saying, oh, you don't mean that, do you? You don't really mean that you're going to arrest your political opponents, do you? Donald Trump said, in effect, yes, sure. Sure, I do. So now we're not only talking about taking away a 50 year right that women had to make health care decisions about their body. We're now talking about Donald Trump taking away the right of people to speak out against him. Donald Trump taking away the right of political people to run in the Democratic Party against him

and his policies. And he has promised this repeatedly, even when pushed back upon in the final weeks of this campaign. So, yes, this is no longer about women. This is about women and men. This is about health care decisions. This is about free speech. This is about the First Amendment. Yes, it's about all those things, Joe. I think it comes back to this discussion that we had on the C9 Town Hall last night about whether Donald Trump is a fascist.

And the thing you just mentioned a second ago, this is a constitutional republics are very hospitable to classical liberalism and classical conservatism. They're not hospitable generally towards either communism and the far left authoritarianism or to fascism and far-right authoritarianism. And if you were trying to run effectively as a consolidator of federal power for your ideological ends, not as someone who kind of wants to disperse federal power and keep the government in check, which is really what classical liberals and classical conservatives want to do. You want instead to take all the power of the state and build something that looks as powerful and as disrespectful of and as willing to trample over basic constitutional rights as what fascism and authoritarianism and autocracies are, that is that is an antithetical to to those more classical conceptions. And it's also it makes it clear that we're all in this together, because

that's one of the truths about this is that when you start taking away one kind of right and the state starts to become so powerful, it doesn't care, makes no distinctions in the end between between men and women, makes no distinctions between health care versus things in criminal justice or almost any realm of policy. It's all just about the power of the state under the command of an individual leader, whether that's, again, on the far left or the far right. Donald Trump has kind of gone around the circle now. He's not that far from being far, far from being what he condemns most, which is which are kind of communists and socialists. So, Jim Messina, you've run successful presidential campaigns. We have 12 days left. You know exactly what these the people inside the

Harris campaign and Trump campaigns are feeling right now. We could go through the polls, but we can save a lot of time by just saying these are all statistically tied. We have seven battleground states that are statistically tied, could go either way depending on who comes out to vote. So I'm curious what you make of the case that the Harris campaign is making right now. On the one hand, energizing the base with joy. And on the other hand, you have Liz Cheney coming out trying to win over some of those Nikki Haley Republicans and convince some women that it's OK to come over and vote. You can do it in the quiet of the ballot booth and nobody has to know if that's a hard thing for you to do in your family or your community. And also yesterday, last night at the

CNN town hall, Kamala Harris saying, yeah, I believe Donald Trump is a fascist. And the fact that she's going to go one week from Election Day next Tuesday and make a big closing speech at the Ellipse, where Donald Trump delivered his remarks on January 6th before his supporters went and violently stormed the Capitol. So with all that together, what do you make of this closing case from the Harris campaign? John brought up the CNN town hall last night. I think there was a perfect distillation of the last 10 days last night when she looked at the camera and said, let's be very clear. Donald Trump has an enemies list and I have a to do list for the American voter.

Right. That's their close. That is I hope that is a TV ad tomorrow. Right. Because it is a perfect distillation of I'm in it for you and he's in it for him. And that's the closing argument that people need to understand. We're sitting here in an absolutely tied race with a very small amount of voters who are sitting undecided. And then a lot of people saying, am I going to vote? And that distillation, that frame is exactly what the Harris campaign wants. And Trump is playing into it with Mika's point about saying this stuff out loud, saying the private part. Backing it up as a positive.

That's exactly right. Again, you think there are two clear things that they should say in their message to make it so clear to the voter what the choice is. I'm in it for you and he's in it for him. And that's what they've been saying. But there's a sea of disinformation that they have to fight through, Joe. I mean, even on this, these latest developments broken by Michael Schmidt, as put in The Atlantic, you see not only distortion and lies, but twisting it and making it a positive that Trump fashions himself after Adolf Hitler. Yeah, it's just let that sit for a second. And then if I could just add one more thing, as I was watching a clip, Joe, from Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris on stage on YouTube yesterday off of Jim's point, I had to watch an ad. You know, you want to skip it, but you watch

it. And it was like an ad telling me that you can cast your vote, but your vote is public. Everyone will know about it. So just for the record, it's important to know that Liz Cheney is right. Your vote is private. But these ads are everywhere. It's not just Fox News and in places that are completely, completely taking orders from Donald Trump, but in places that you least expected. Joe. Yeah. I mean, yesterday was quite a day, quite a day. And if you're a Republican and you want to know where your party is right now, how low your party has sunk. Yeah. All you need to know is that the television network that you watch most of the time yesterday started by saying, well, Donald Trump, yeah, maybe he liked Nazi generals, but he sure did receive a lot of pushback from his staff. So that had to be

frustrating. So we can understand why he liked Nazi generals. And maybe he didn't even know that Hitler's generals were Nazis. That's the first thing. And then, you know, you're gone. You're saying stuff like that. One of the Republican governors who was supposed to be the most one of the more respected and popular Republican governors was on CNN yesterday. And this Republican governor was asked, well, what about Donald Trump wanting Nazi generals? And this Republican governor said, well, you know, with Donald Trump, that's all sort of baked in by now.

Oh, OK. So I didn't know that. Their words, their words. So so this man's this man's longing for Nazi generals, according to they're not denying it. They're now saying they're now saying, well, he had a good reason to do this because his staff members pushed back on him. Again, a good reason to do this. And maybe he didn't even know that that Hitler's generals, German generals were Nazis. And then it's, quote, baked in. A governor says a Republican governor says this is fascism. This desire for Nazi generals is, quote, baked in by now. So sit on that. Thanks for letting us for a while, if you will. So so Jim, Jim

Zin, I'm so glad you're here because you can you can talk to our friends that are watching right now. You can help our Republican friends perhaps take a deep breath and stop taking victory laps because we still have a couple of weeks left and this race is tied and we don't know who's going to win. And maybe you can tell our Democratic friends to get a bag, paper bag and breathe into it four or five, six times like Nicolas Cage does in Family Man when he finds out that his life's completely been turned upside down. But in this case, you can tell Democrats. How about that? One of my favorite movies of all time.

I threw that one in. We need to breathe into a bag for the life of our country. I didn't know what Nicolas Cage reference we were going to get. He's dead serious. The Nicolas Cage. Dead serious. Family Man reference. One of the great movies of all time.

Never saw it. Con Air. Never saw it. The Air. Never saw it. The Rock. Here's the deal, though. I'm getting to my point three and a half hours later. Jim Messina. So Democrats despair even when they're on the pathway to victory.

And Republicans rejoice even when they're walking into the jaws of defeat. And I can I can talk about 2022 when Republicans were mocking and sneering of of Joe Biden. Oh, he's running on abortion. I could I could get you the clips. He's running on abortion. He's running on democracy. What fools they are. And it's all blown up in their face. And there was no red wave. Of course, in 2020, Republicans were so sure they're going to win that some of them ransacked the Capitol, committed an insurrection against the United States Capitol. I mean, Trump's own campaign manager said it was an insurrection. And then or my favorite, this is my favorite. You can go back to 2012, the campaign you know the most about where every

single day Republicans were quoting Gallup polls that had Mitt Romney up by 11 points. And every single day they were saying, we're going to crush Obama. My Republican friends were all certain that Barack Obama was beaten. All of them, Democrats in despair, going to 538 every two seconds and refreshing, refreshing. What are the latest polls? We're so freaked out. And even on election night. And this is important to point out because people think they know where this race is going to be.

They don't know where this race is going to be yet. Even on election night. I remember Karl Rove, a guy who knows a thing or two about presidential politics, couldn't believe the numbers he was seeing. And we said, let's look at him again, because these numbers can't be right. Mitt Romney and Ann Romney, two people I know and love, were certain that the numbers they were getting were wrong on election night because Republicans remained in this bubble. And again, like I said, Democrats despair. They look for the negative news so they can freak out. Republicans look for for news that reinforces that. And this way, they've lost seven, eight years in a row. So to talk about that instinct and why Democrats should actually understand this is a race that's tied and Republicans need to understand the same

thing so they are not freaked out the day after if Donald Trump actually loses again. Well, Joe, thanks for bringing up my 2012 polling PTSD on national television. You're welcome. Yeah, I remember on the Saturday before the election, Barack Obama had me go to Wisconsin to brief him and he and he brought up the Gallup poll. He's like, Messina, why is the Gallup poll say I'm down three and your numbers say we're fine and we're going to win this race handily i'm like because polling sucks and we have better data and very clearly and it's like this in this race too if this race is a choice a contrast we will win if it's a referendum on you we will lose and we have driven this campaign to be a choice.

And this is exactly what Kamala Harris and her campaign team are attempting to do, is end this with a very clear contrast. I love the theory of ending the campaign on the ellipse, where she's going to give a speech and remind everyone about January 6th. You look at the morning polls out this morning, the morning consult poll that now shows Kamala Harris tied on cost of goods, tied on taxes. When's the last time you see Democrats tied on taxes? You look at some of the numbers below the head to heads. And yes, we're in a tied race, but we're in a tied race where she has room to grow. After three presidential campaigns, there is nothing positive Donald

Trump can tell voters. So all he can do is go negative. To Mika's point, there still is a moment here about joy. There's a moment about happiness. There's a moment about women who, by the way, saved the Democratic Party in 2022, who are going to be called again to save the party and save the country from Donald Trump in 2024. And early voters showing that those women are starting to vote in record numbers. Yeah, it's a moment about what can be, Jonathan. It is. And voters, of course, are, as Jim just pointed out, already voting. And the data can you can read into what you will.

Right now, Republicans feel good about early voting numbers in Nevada. Democrats feel good about where they are in Pennsylvania. It's unclear, though, are these new voters or simply voters who were going to vote on Election Day and now are just doing it early because Republicans are embracing it this time around. So, Katty, the polls are all tight. And to quote Jim Messina, polling sucks. So therefore, it's it's pretty hard to get a read on where things are. I know both campaigns, though, are banking on that hidden vote, that vote that isn't being picked up in the polls. For the Trump team, it's young men, young men, young men of color, sort of working class voters who weren't picked

up in the polls in 16 and 20 are being missed this time around again. They'll be there on election day, the Trump team believes. For Harris, though, they think it's women. They do think this is the first presidential election post Roe v. Wade being overturned. And in this Dobbs reality, Democrats largely undefeated when it comes to elections because of the role abortion rights are playing. And they believe that's who's going to show up quietly, perhaps, but will show up next Tuesday. Yeah, I mean, if this really is going to be the boys versus girls election, then you'd probably rather hold Kamala Harris's hand because historically women have voted in larger numbers than men have voted. And now the question is going to be how many of those Republican women or women who live in Republican households or who have husbands who vote Republican or perhaps we should call them Trump voting husbands are actually going to peel away.

And when it gets in and do what Liz Cheney has suggested that they can do and has given them permission to do. And they've got to do all of this. I mean, the closing argument, that to do list that we mentioned, he's got an enemy's list and she has a to do list that Jim Messina liked the sound of. It needs also fleshing out behind it because she has to get out everybody. She's got to get out those women. She's got to cut her losses against men. The people I was out with on Saturday campaigning alongside campaign volunteers in York, Pennsylvania, they are not focused on democracy and fascism. They are firmly focused on their rent. And they were saying to these

campaign volunteers, we still need to hear more about what she's going to do for our rent, where rent prices have gone up. So she has to be everything to everybody and hope that she can cut away sliver by sliver by sliver and then get the machine that the Democrats are more confident about than the Republicans get the machine behind her to actually get those people to the polls. Yeah. And that is that is the question at the end of the day. If this ends up being a tied race 12, 13 days from now, it is it's all about turnout at the very end. And so Mika, it's it is it is all about turnout because right now it seems like such a close race. But anything can happen in the coming weeks. Anything.

And Willie, let me just say really quickly, I'm not sure if I picked it up, but are you a Family Man fan or not? Because along with You've Got Mail, it's one of the most watched movies. And it's a wonderful life that I can watch every time and just tear up. I hate to say it. I don't know if I've seen it. Oh, my Lord. It's not the one where he found the map on the back of the Constitution, right?

No, that's not it. No. This is Nicolas Cage, Tia Leone, you're killing me, and Don Cheadle, and I think it's on Netflix. So this is the recommendation for everybody. You can put the paper bag down,

regardless of what, this is a great movie, and Willie, at some point, you need to watch Family Man. I like the one where Nicolas Cage is chugging vodka

in the shower in Las Vegas. That's more Heilman's Speed. Leave it in Las Vegas. Great movie. Mika, you would like... I've seen none of these, and I really don't care about any of them right now. The great Nicholas Cage movie, a recent movie called Pig. You like pig. You like animals. I do. He's a

devoted truffle hunter. His pig is stolen. He goes to seek the pig. It's a very story. It's a very it's a story. It's a story of. Yes. I mean, it's a name. You know, truffle family man. Good. Watch family, man. OK, guys. Yeah. All right. You can shut up now. Still ahead on Morning Joe. Long time Democratic strategist James Carville is laying out three reasons why he thinks Kamala Harris is going to win. We'll take a look at his arguments. But first, Steve

Ratner is standing by. He's got the charts at the Western Wall. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable. And in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions. Those who once tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would no longer be there and no longer be there to rein him in. So the bottom line is this. We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be what do the American people want? Thank you. Beautiful shot of the Capitol. Half past the hour, everyone. Nobel Prize winning economists are backing Vice President Kamala Harris's vision for the economy, calling it vastly superior

to the plans laid out by former President Donald Trump. Twenty three U.S. recipients of the prestigious award have signed a letter serving as a stamp of approval for Harris's economic agenda. According to the group, the vice president's agenda will improve the overall health of the economy, while Trump's policies will greatly increase tariffs, something he seems to be obsessed with. Joining us now from the Southwest wall, former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. Steve, take us through this. Yeah, Mika. Well, you saw the Nobel Prize announcement by The Economist, and it's indicative of what

economists feel about it. So let me show you one other survey of economists, and then we'll get into the details of why economists feel as strongly as they do. So The Wall Street Journal surveyed 39 economists, and what they found was this. A lot of support for many of Harris's key plans, 74 support for a tax credit of $6,000 for new babies, 59 support for raising the corporate tax cut, 64% for capping insulin prices at $35 for everyone. And 46%, roughly, 50-50 for capping out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs.

Less support for a couple of other things, but basically very strong support. Contrast that over here with Donald Trump, who got 8% support from economists for making his tax cuts permanent. Exactly zero support for his tariffs of 20 percent and 5 percent support for eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits. And I'll come back to that in a second. So the dramatic contrast between support for Harris on the one side, no support basically for Trump on the other side from 39 economists from across the board. So, Steve, you can already hear Trump's campaign supporters saying, oh, these are pointy headed economists. These are academics who cares. We can point them, though, to the economists from The Wall Street Journal or Goldman Sachs, who says that Kamala Harris's

economy would be better than Donald Trump. So let's move to your second chart about what a Trump plan would actually do to the economy if implemented the way he's pitching it. Yeah. So why are these economists so opposed to Trump's plan? Because the economic effects would be pretty terrible. This is a study done by Bloomberg Economics, and they found that Harris's plan did not have much change in either the GDP or inflation, which in a sense is a good thing at this point. But look at what Trump's plan did not have much change in either the GDP or inflation, which in a sense is a good thing at this point. But look at what Trump's plan would do. Trump's plan would cut the GDP by 8.9 percent. Let me put that in perspective for you. This is roughly twice the

amount that the GDP went down during the financial crisis. So we would be looking at something between a recession and a depression. And interestingly, as I'm sure people know, because we've talked about this many times, the tariffs would cause certainly a part of this. But the biggest cause, actually, of this drop are the mass deportations that Trump is talking about, because he would take huge pieces of our labor force out of the country, send them back through or send them somewhere else. And the result would be business wouldn't have labor. They wouldn't be able to produce things. And you'd have this enormous economic

contraction. So this is this is something we've never seen before in terms of scoring a set of policy proposals from a presidential candidate. The other reason why Harris seems to be doing better or may be doing better for her economic thoughts relative to Trump is maybe people are figuring out what's actually in these two plans. And one of the most important things in these two plans are the differences in their tax proposals. Harris's tax proposal would raise incomes for people at the bottom 20%, for people in the 20% to 40% percentile, by fairly significant amounts. She would raise taxes for people at the higher incomes down here, the 99% to 100%, and the 95% to 99%.

Trump does the opposite. Does the opposite. He raises after-tax incomes for people at the highest incomes up here. And believe it or not, if you're at the bottom, Trump's tax plan would actually increase your taxes slightly. So maybe people are figuring out these kinds of differences and changing their view of her tax of her economic plan versus Trump's economic plan. Well, Steve, that's a good point. We were just talking earlier about a poll this morning that showed that the economic advantage had been taken away from Donald Trump.

There was also an AP poll that came out earlier this week that showed the same thing, that it's pretty much a statistical tie, even though Harris is ahead on taxes, Harris is ahead on housing costs, Harris is ahead on some things that no one would have believed they would have been ahead of before Harris Walz. But it's very interesting. There's something else going on here, isn't there? Because when the Biden White House tried to push

up Bidenomics, it didn't work. Inflation was still coming down. Gas prices were still coming down. But they hadn't gotten to where they are now. I wonder if some of the shifts and it's it's dramatic shifts unless you look at partisan polls. It's dramatic shifts like in this AP poll on the economy toward Harris. I wonder if that has to do with the fact that gas prices just keep dropping. Inflation just keeps dropping. The interest rates have dropped. I mean, people are actually seeing it in their day to day life that some things still cost too much when they go to the grocery store. Something still costs too much when they go to Home Depot. But after a while, they're comparing it to what it was a year ago, two years ago,

three years ago. And they see that everything's going in the right direction as far as inflation, cost of living, and most importantly, the difference between the cost of living and their living wages going up. Sure, Joe. Yes. Look, we have, as you have pointed out, and actually the cover of The Economist this week calls our economy the envy of the world. We have the most amazing economy and our economic projections and our economic results continue to get better. Growth is faster than people thought. And as you said, inflation has come down almost to the Fed's 2 percent target, which is really quite which is really quite extraordinary. And, yes, some things absolutely still cost too much, but it is all moving in the right direction. All right, Steve, let's move to your third chart about the national debt.

Obviously, Donald Trump, as president, racked up massive historic debt for the country. What would it do this time around? So maybe voters are starting to process this as well. And one of the things that Donald Trump has done among his more cynical things that he's done, where he's throwing out tax cuts for everybody over time and this and that, is cutting taxes on Social Security benefits. And that may sound like something you want to do, but the consequences of it would be pretty terrible because the Social Security trust fund, which is already going to run out of money out in 2034, would be decimated by eliminating Social

Security taxes from their source of income. And insolvency would come three years earlier, and there would be a huge cost to other taxpayers, presumably, to make up for this gap. So maybe voters are starting to figure that out. And then also is the budget deficit and the debt. And this, again, may be something people are beginning to get aware of. So if you combine Harris's tax proposals together, she would have actually a fairly minimal impact on the debt, $500 billion over 10 years. So that's relatively small in the context of what we got. Trump's tax cuts, even with his, these are his tariffs, by the way, so we know what those would have done. But Trump's tax cuts, this rather cynical giveaway to everybody and anybody, would add three trillion dollars to the national debt over the next 10 years.

So the party that's supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility turns out to be the party of fiscal irresponsibility. And again, perhaps voters are starting to figure that out. So, Steve, with all that data behind you on the wall, including that eye popping second chart that shows Trump's plan would crater the economy, according to leading economists. Why will you go to, I don't know, a cocktail party or an event of some kind or just be out in the street and talk to your friends who work in the financial world who say, yeah, I'm going with Trump this time. What what is the rationale as guys who understand the economy so well, who know the Dow is sort of above forty three thousand,

who know tariffs are bad for the economy, will lead to inflation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What is the argument people who are so smart about money and the economy are making in spite of that data behind you? It's a great question, Willie. The argument is basically, what I hear back from them is basically twofold. One, they don't think Trump's going to do all this stuff. And if that's the way you want to vote and you want to guess that the guy who says he's going to do all this stuff isn't going to do all this stuff, then I guess that's one way to approach it. The other thing they say is that he will be good for business, that he will cut

regulations to the bone, he will not block mergers the way the Biden-Harris administration has stopped some mergers that were anti-competitive, that essentially it'll be free reign in Washington for the business community and they'll get whatever they want and they'll be able to essentially run their business, merge, do whatever without a lot of government regulation. There is, I have to say, some unhappiness in the business community about regulations in the last four years. And they view Trump as the kind of no pun intended, get out of jail card for business with in terms of what they'd be able to do under a Trump administration. Yeah, but I mean, it's just incredible. I mean, again, the Dow at record levels,

the S&P at record levels as the economist article. And I talk about all the time. You talk about all the time. The United States economy is the envy of the world. We have a 27 trillion dollar GDP to China's 18 trillion dollar GDP. Texas has a bigger GDP than Russia. California has a bigger GDP than India and Canada and Britain and every other country in the world. California, the supposed socialist state of California, other than three others. I mean, we could go down the list, the dollar over the past four years at 50 year highs, the jobless rate lower below 4% for longer than any time over the past 30 years. I could continue on and on.

I mean, Amazon has a higher R&D budget than any G7 country could go on and on. It just never stops. And you look at these individual people on Wall Street, these billionaires, they talk about, oh, well, we need Trump. Trump might be better for us. And Ross Sorkin yesterday talked about one of Trump's biggest fans, who, of course, was against him after January 6th, but I guess changed his tune. Steve Schwartzman, was worth $25 billion when Kamala Harris became vice president. He's worth $50 billion today because the economy has exploded so much and the Dow has exploded so much and the S&P has exploded so much. And this is the story of all of these billionaires, Steve. It doesn't make sense. And for you and me, when you talk about the debt, I'm gravely concerned about the

thirty five trillion dollar debt. This has to be addressed. And yet Donald Trump broke all records when he was president for being fiscally reckless. And now with his proposals, according to economists quoted by The Wall Street Journal, it's going to happen again. Yeah, that's the risk, Joe, is that he actually does this stuff this time and you get these kinds of results. But just to add on a couple of things you said, because you said it all so well. But, for example, on the businessmen, they complain about Harris. But yet, if you look at business investment in this country, it's off the charts high. Why is it off the charts high? Confidence in America, our strong economy, but also, ironically, some of the Biden-Harris policies, like the Inflation Reduction Act, which has spurred this extraordinary

upsurge in investment in renewable energy and all kinds of things for the new economy. I was in Silicon Valley last week, and we are the center of artificial intelligence research and development in the world. There's nobody else who's even close. And the dynamism out there and the excitement about that is really quite breathtaking. And so, yes, this is an extraordinary economy, and it has made a lot of people very, very, very wealthy. And I think I personally obviously think it's a better bet than going down this rabbit hole and potentially having 10 or 20 percent tariffs and disastrous economy. All right. Morning, Joe. Economic analyst Steve Ratner. Thank you. As always, we appreciate your insight.

So we're going to have more with Jim Messina, Katty Kay and John Heilman also ahead. One of our next guests says there are three factors that will decide the election. The Atlantic's George Packer will explain that ahead on Morning Joe. Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville is out with a new piece in The New York Times entitled Three Reasons I'm Certain Kamala Harris Will Win. He writes, First, Mr. Trump is a repeat electoral loser. This time will be no different. Second, money matters. And Ms. Harris has it in droves. Since joining the race, the vice president has raised an eye boggling one billion dollars. And third, it just a feeling. My final reason is 100 percent emotional. I refuse to believe that the same country that has time and again overcome its mistakes to bend its future toward justice will make the same mistake twice. America overcame Mr. Trump in 2020.

I know that we know we are better than this. And Jim Messina, if you could comment on that. I mean, in that he didn't even mention Dobbs. He didn't even mention women's health care. No, that's exactly right. And he didn't mention January 6th either. The close of the Harris campaign is focused on abortion in January 6th. And you're going to talk to Adrian Elrod. The campaign is betting a whole bunch on this. And let's not let's not forget, this is how they did much better than expected in the 2022 election, where everyone except for people on the show gave them grief about the way they closed in 2022. And they're going back to this playbook because it works and because it sets up the contrast we talked about earlier, Mika,

that is important. Trump's in it for himself and she's in it for you. And that ending is the right way to end a campaign. And Katty K, obviously, as Jim has been saying this morning, a powerful visual image one week before Election Day for the vice president to be standing at the ellipse and really to bring home and remind people what a Trump presidency looked like and what it may look like again. Yeah, and it does two things, right? It reminds everybody of that speech that Donald Trump gave before the crowd that then went down and stormed the Capitol on January the 6th. We were all there. We were all watching.

And you're going to have exactly the same images behind her. So it's a visual reminder of the chaos of that day and of the threat of that day. But I think it does something else, too. For those people who have been telling pollsters or who've been telling door knockers, as I've heard them tell them, we don't quite know if she can be president. We don't see her as president. Is she strong enough? Is she ready? Does she have the policies? I mean, some of that, I think, is all code for she's a woman and she's not a man. And we've never elected a woman for president

before. But for Kamala Harris to stand on the ellipse in front of the White House with the White House as her backdrop, and it's such a magnificent view of the White House from that side of the ellipse. It puts her in the position, right? It's I'm here. I've done the job. I belong here. And I think visually that could be a potentially powerful image for her to close on to. And that closing argument, one that I think there's a little bit of I told you so emanating from the Oval Office and senior West Bank offices, because this was, of course, what President Biden has been saying all along. So, John Hammond, one thing we're hearing from those in the Harris campaign who acknowledge this is a tight race, it's a margin of error race, is they do feel confident, though, that they have a little more room to grow than Trump does. Trump's basically hit his ceiling in support. That's their theory of the case. First of all,

do you think they're right? And if so, where are they? Where is that room to grow? Is it women voters? Is it seniors? Where is it? I think it's a whole bunch of different places. And this one thing that David Plouffe will tell you is that it's not like a soccer mom election. Here's this one demographic. We're going after them entirely.

It's going to be chipping away at small pieces of a lot of things. And some of them are going to be some of these Nikki Haley voters. And some of these are going to be white working class women who who are who are more independent, not necessarily ever. There were never Trump voters in the beginning. I just going back to what Katty said. And I'll answer your question, Jonathan, because it's an it's an important question. But there's another thing that's going to happen on this ellipse thing. You know, Trump always when he talks about that day, he does, as he often does about everything, he boasts about it and talks about how it was the biggest rally he ever did. There were a million

people on the mall, of course, ridiculous, right? But there will be images, not just the images of what happened on the Capitol on January 6th, but images of the actual rally. I will be stunned if, given the organizing muscle that the Harris campaign has and the money they have, if they don't turn out a larger crowd that day, and that if you want to go back to Mika's invocations of her politics of joy, a joyful, younger, larger crowd than Trump had, that not only shows up in larger numbers, but is celebratory, is happy and not angry and doesn't march to the Capitol,

would be a contrast of a different kind without having to call out. Just the visual itself will make a powerful statement. I think that, look, you were talking about, Jonathan, your point about the ceiling. This is something that, you know, I mean, Donald Trump got 46.1% of the vote in 2016. He got 46.7% or 46.8% of the vote in 2020. He's never had an approval rating north of 47%. I mean, there's not just the data of those two elections, but there's all of the data over the course of his nine years in American life. David Plouffe would say to you that Democrats have to brace themselves for the fact that Trump's going to get over 47. They expect him to get 48, 48 and a half. The third party vote is going to be

almost nothing in most of these places. At least that's what their models tell them. So, you're going to have a lot of 49.5 to 48.5 races, which are going to be crazy, nerve-wracking races for Democrats, because they're going to be way closer than anything we saw in a lot of these states than what we saw in 2020, and those were very close races. But I think the historical data suggests that they are on to something. And I do think that the one thing you can tell, and this is something that Plouffe said to me when I did this interview with him for this week for Puck, he said, you know, our research show, the reason she's making the argument she's making is that, he kept saying, our research shows that the votes that are out there some of the votes they're deciding between the couch and

kamala harris some of their deciding between trump and caris are really like right now attuned to the notion that boy trump is old he seems like he's losing it and he the things that he's doing make me nervous and to reinforce all that it's not just about remembering. It's about bringing them to the doubts they already have about who Trump is today. Jim, final thought to you. Yeah, look, I think your point about a tied race and a field operation is really what the Harris campaign is banking on. I was talking to a Republican official last night who walked me through the numbers of what they're doing.

And their entire theory is that we're going to talk about a million voters. The Harris campaign is talking to a million voters every day. Like their national day of actions are a million voters every Saturday. That is a huge advantage on the ground in a tight race. One other thing that's really important is there are real consequences and real implications to Trump's first term. And some of them are bearing out right now. So coming up in the next hour, we're going to have video story of yet another woman who had a reproductive emergency. She had a pregnancy with Potter syndrome, totally unviable pregnancy. She was forced to deliver the baby. The baby was blue and it died in her arms. And these are the real implications of Trump. And those real consequences have ripple effects

across communities. And I don't think you should underestimate what is happening to women right now, viscerally to their bodies because of him. I think that's going to play a big role of this. I expect to see a lot of women at the Ellipse.