Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/25/22

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Polls show dead heat in key swing state races

When you oppose the Parents' Rights in Education bill, which prevents six, seven, eight-year-olds from having sexuality, gender ideology injected in their curriculum, you are the one that's waging the culture war. I'm simply defending parents and students because it's inappropriate to have that in elementary school. I'm not the governor who attacked Walt Disney World because they deigned to express their point of view. I'm not the governor who attacked the cruise industry because they just wanted to make sure that their customers weren't sick before they got on the boat. That's you. You're the most anti-business governor I've ever seen. That's time, Congressman. He actually could have added in there as well. Yeah. A baseball team for sending a tweet saying that they were sorry that children were gunned down in Uvalde. Suddenly, the governor of Florida decided to actually penalize a baseball team for for expressing sympathy with the parents of dead children.

Yeah, there's that. Culture wars were a major topic in last night's debate between the two candidates for governor of Florida. We're going to have more from that showdown this morning, including the big question Ron DeSantis would not answer. Plus, the latest from Eastern Europe, as there are growing fears that Vladimir Putin is planning a new type of attack as a justification for escalating the war with Ukraine. Also ahead, Adidas finally, finally appears to be taking action on its partnership with Kanye West following several anti-Semitic comments from the rapper.

We'll tell you about that development. And we'll go live to London, where a new prime minister will make history amid an economic crisis in UK. Should hear from him during the show today live. That'll be fascinating. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, October 25th. Willie, you know, Rhonda Santis actually is a perfect example of where our politics are in 2022. I say that because pre-COVID, Ron DeSantis was following the playbook of conservatives like Connie Mack, for instance, who would be economically conservative.

Even, I wouldn't say pro-environment, but doing things that made environmentalists a bit more comfortable with a pro business Republican governor. His approval rating was going up in the 50s and I think even in the low 60s. I think I even said some nice things about him about a year and a year and a half in after those extraordinarily stupid 30 second ads he ran talking to his MAGA babies. Build a wall. Yeah. Yeah. And sort of build a wall type stuff. But when he when he became governor, he really actually he actually started to try to represent more people. And it showed in the polls. And then COVID came along and he he wasn't just COVID,

but he started like picking at every scab he could pick on the body politic. And suddenly he realized that if he said something outrageous and then, you know, focused on owning the libs, just engaged in culture wars in a state that has a lot of problems, you know. But if he just focused on that, he could raise tons of money, get national attention, get progressives and media people angry at him and just create this sort of swirl. And we saw it last night in the debate. I mean, I know Florida pretty well. It is a big, complicated state with a lot of challenges. And yet it was one culture warrior statement after another. All soundbites, all meant to rile up the media, liberals and fundraisers. Yeah. And perhaps to look ahead to his political future.

He knows this is going to be watched nationally. We'll play in just a second that Charlie Crist asked him, does he pledge to finish his term or is he going to run in 2024? And Governor DeSantis just sort of stood there cold, looking forward, saying he wasn't going to entertain questions from his opponent. But you're right. Governor DeSantis has shown flashes of that competence you were just talking about during the recent hurricane, for example, when President Biden came down there, everyone on their best behavior. But you're right. He has found currency, political currency in saying outrageous things. The Martha's Vineyard migrant stunt, of course, being the most glaring of all of those

to get national attention for himself and to make points, to own the libs, as you say, and to make angry all the right people as he thinks about not just his position in Florida, but perhaps well beyond, depending on what Donald Trump does here. May or may not impact the outcome, but the debate was very revealing, if you're interested. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kay, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist at The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, and former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department's Elise Jordan, whose focus groups are creating a little bit of a ripple effect.

And we also have those way too early. White House Bureau Chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire. You know, Elise. Oh, wow. Elise, my grandma from Galton, Georgia, would have said of you, well, she sure kicked a hornet's neck yesterday, didn't she? You did. You had people on the left pulling their hair out, you know, ready to jump out of windows.

You had people on the right talking about how mean and angry you were. And there were others saying that you were owned, the Lib, who, of course, like libertarian, conservative, formerly longtime Republican, Elise Jordan, like was owned by those people that said, yes, I believe the moon was made of cheese. And she just sat there dumbfounded. She didn't know what cheese, cheese. They think the moon's made of. And somehow you were owned because some people followed conspiracy theories. I mean, maybe I've made it in the world now that I'm a corporate media hack, apparently. Maybe that's it. You know, I've really arrived. I think it is a sign, though, that we are talking about topics that we need to address,

that it has hit so many nerves. And we saw, you know, on the day when we did the crime segments and we heard directly from black voters in Philadelphia and their thoughts on crime. And we heard from swing voters in Bucks County on crime. And we heard a lot of consensus about and worry about the rising level of crimes and that crime and that hit a nerve, too. So I think we just need to keep talking about we do topics that are uncomfortable but need to be addressed. Well, and that's the thing. Of course, we actually had people who were outraged all day that we actually were saying that there were black voters in Philadelphia who were afraid to go to work and afraid to go to school. I was like, oh, they're talking about us, that we were somehow creating crime as an issue in the Pennsylvania race. No, black voters in Philadelphia were

saying it was important. And, you know, I can sit here all day talking about how my family and friends believe that Donald Trump's president of the United States, it doesn't have the impact of people who don't have family and friends who weren't raised in the South and in other places. It's much different hearing from Trump supporters, still Trump supporters, even now. I mean, people need to understand how others think. And again, we can do with it what we can. I mean, most people yesterday on Twitter just wanted to blast these people,

but it's like you and David French and I said, you've got to figure out why is that still happening and what direction do we go as a country? Because screaming at each other doesn't work. Yeah. And I think it's important to validate the people who are really upset, who are tweeting at us and reaching out to us. I mean, some were upset because there is, you know, a disinformation and a white supremacy angle to all of this, which is very painful. So when we're trying to understand people and using kindness to try and understand and reach out, that does not mean we accept those facets, the disinformation, the racism, that two things can be true at the same time. But I can understand how that would be confusing. We're doing our best here. But also, but also at the same time,

at least it's good talking to to those people, seeing those people, communicating with those people, understanding that sometimes it's not as easy as white supremacy. I've had people my entire adult life say, oh, your parents switched from being Democrats to Republicans in 1968 because they were racist and your family was racist and everybody in the South was racist because Richard Nixon had a Southern. No, no. My parents were raising like three kids in 68, 69, 70. They saw what happened in Chicago. They saw riots at the Democratic National Convention. They saw the radicalism they believe in in the Democratic Party on the far left. And no, it wasn't related to civil rights, but it was related to a lot of bombings and a lot

of extreme behavior. So, yeah, if we want to just simplify everything and go, oh, well, if somebody's still supporting for Trump, they must be a racist. We're not going to get anywhere. And I'm not saying that race isn't a component in it. It's a huge component. Guess what? Two things can be true at the same time. Right, Elise? Life is complex. And when you have extremism on one side and extremism on one side, they're all fighting to get those people in the middle to join their camps. And so what I think we also did that's important is we heard from those people in the middle who actually decide elections. And we heard what they wanted and how they are sick of all the partisan rancor and they would like to see some solutions. And that's important too, that we still hear their voices and hopefully help amplify their calls for some civility.

I totally agree. And that's exactly why we're doing that. We're going to hear more today, but let's get to our top story, which also is politics and these races, which Willie are getting really tight. Yeah, they all are. We're talking about Pennsylvania here. We'll get to that in just a second. But two weeks until the midterm elections, new polling shows extremely tight races in all those battleground states, many of them won by President Biden in 2020. We'll start in Pennsylvania. Democrat John Fetterman, Republican Mehmet Oz vying to replace retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey. The latest CNN poll has Fetterman leading by six points among likely voters, and they will debate tonight in the race for Pennsylvania's governor. Democrat Josh Shapiro holding a 15 point lead over Republican Doug Mastriano, who was at the United States Capitol during the attack there on January 6th. In Wisconsin, that same CNN poll shows incumbent Republican Senator Ron Johnson

and his Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes statistically tied 50 to 49 as Johnson's lead there. In that state's government race, incumbent Governor Tony Evers and Republican Tim Michaels also deadlocked within the margin of error. To Michigan, the CNN poll gives Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer a six point lead in her reelection fight over Republican Tudor Dixon. Meanwhile, two new polls showing a dead heat in the race to fill Ohio's open Senate seat. According to the latest Spectrum News Siena College survey, Republican J.D. Vance and Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan, even at 46 percent, with 6 percent of likely voters still undecided. That's a three point gain for Vance since last month. And in another new poll from Marist College, Vance leads Ryan by just one point. That's within the margin of error. In that poll, eight percent of registered voters say they still are undecided. So things tightening quickly. New Hampshire getting interesting as well.

Republicans have closed the gap there, too, Joe. Yeah, I mean, you look at you look at all of these races. Gene Robinson, I think Pennsylvania is a little bit tighter than the CNN polls show. I mean, at least the majority polls show the Senate race being two, three points going into the Senate race tonight. Wisconsin, though, tied in the Senate. We had seen a Marquette poll showing Ron Johnson up six. That's probably well outside the margin of error there. But this Wisconsin poll, like all the others I've seen, show it in a deadlock.

Ohio in a deadlock. The Michigan governor's race, much closer than people around Gretchen Whitmer wanted it to be. We suspected it would always tighten up at the end. The Arizona races, that Senate race where Kelly, some like his

2020 race, Kelly was way ahead. Now that race is tightened up. Everything is tightening up, and it's tightening up on both sides. Yeah, it is. There are things in these polls and the polls, not just the CNN poll, but the others that can give heart to both parties. I mean, you know, Ron Johnson is an incumbent senator. It's very, very hard to knock off an incumbent senator. And it looks like Mandela Barnes is much closer than folks might have thought. Johnson usually wins by just a little, but it's unclear whether he's going to win this time.

Similarly, Ohio should have been a complete slam dunk for Republicans had they nominated a normal Republican. We wouldn't be talking about that race, I think. They nominated J.D. Vance. And while, you know, that, again, that poll we just showed shows a gain for Vance. The fact that this race is tied two weeks before the election is just amazing in Ohio. That's unusual. And I think it shows that, number one, Tim Ryan is a good candidate. Number two, J.D. Vance isn't a very good candidate.

You've got actual data now coming out of Georgia with very heavy early voting. So people are trying to look and see who those voters are. Are Democrats getting a heavy vote from African Americans? Are they getting women and young voters out who might not be, you know, every time voters in midterm elections. That race is extremely tight, obviously. But I think these heavy numbers are probably making Democrats a little bit happy and Republicans a little bit nervous. And it's going to be a wild night in a couple of weeks. It really is. We're not going to know.

Certainly the composition of the U.S. Senate and might have some questions about the composition of the House going late, late into Tuesday night. Yeah. And Jonathan Lemire, again, let's take a couple of more states. We just saw Georgia, a couple other states. We just saw Georgia there deadlocked still in that poll. It's going to be tight. New Hampshire getting tighter in a recent poll than most expected. The Republicans had even pulled up stakes in New Hampshire, thought Maggie Hassan had it going away. Perhaps she does. But look at this poll. She goes from an 11 point lead in September to a three point lead in October.

That's an Emerson poll. Again, just one poll. But, you know, she's an incumbent. You want to be over 50 percent in every poll that's taken. That's uncomfortably tight. But again, you look at Georgia and you can look at Pennsylvania, you can look at other states, early voting, just completely setting new records. Georgia, especially, we had heard about Jim Crow 2.0 in Georgia. It sure doesn't look that way. Major League Baseball moved the All-Star game because the obstacles to voting were supposedly so egregious. But they're setting records down there. Georgia voters are setting records. You look at the early voting in Pennsylvania. The interest in this race seems to be extraordinarily high for a midterm

election. Yeah, we saw that polling yesterday that shows the enthusiasm really high on both Republicans and Democrats, extraordinarily so for a midterm election. On Georgia, some voters talking to their say that those voting restrictions are actually a motivator to get out there and make sure they get their ballot counted. But this is in this final fortnight, Joe, this is about as close and as scrambled as we can get in terms of the Senate. We should all brace ourselves. We may not have a winner Tuesday night. We might not know who controls that Senate for several days, depending on recounts and, of course, the possibility of that runoff in Georgia. But I was talking to senior Democratic officials yesterday, Joe, and quickly hitting on just a couple of states here. New Hampshire, they're

aware of that poll. They're alarmed by the number, but they think she'll hold on, that Hassan will hold on. They feel like the infrastructure there is strong enough. It'll be a narrow win, but they're still feeling pretty good about that. Wisconsin's harder. They do worry, as Gene said, how difficult it is to knock off an incumbent senator. Tim Ryan has run about as good of a campaign as you can in Ohio. The institutions there, that's a state that has trended red. Democrats are hopeful, but they're not banking on that. They do worry that he may fall just short. But at minimum, Ryan there in Ohio, because he has been so competitive, Republicans had to pour money into that state, which means that's money they can't spend elsewhere, which could help Democrats elsewhere on the map. The last two, Arizona is one where that Senate race, Kelly still has a

decent lead. Democrats in despair, though, about Kerry Lake and that governor's race, really questioning the campaign strategy from their candidate, Katie Hobbs. And then, of course, there's Pennsylvania. Tonight, a debate that's going to matter. And I know we're going to talk about it more in a minute. But right now, Democrats do say this, that although Oz has closed the gap as national trends seem to favor Republicans, he's never caught Fetterman. Fetterman still has a lead. And Dems that I spoke to yesterday feel like Fetterman has stopped his slide. They think if he's good tonight, they like his chances. They still feel good about Pennsylvania. Well, let's talk about tonight. Fetterman and Oz face off tonight. It'll be their first and only debate in this race. Much of the focus, of course,

has been on Fetterman, who suffered a stroke in May and has struggled at times to speak clearly in public events. In a memo sent out yesterday, Fetterman's campaign acknowledged the disadvantage heading into tonight's debate. His campaign wrote this. We'll admit this is not John's format. If we're all being honest, Oz clearly comes into Tuesday night with a huge built in advantage. We are prepared for Oz's allies and right-wing media to circulate malicious viral videos after the debate that try to paint John in a negative light because of awkward pauses, missing some words, and mushing other words together. That's from the Fetterman campaign caddy really managing expectations going into this debate last night. There is going to be, for the first time that I can think of, closed captioning, which means the questions will appear behind the moderators on a monitor so that Fetterman can read them.

Oz's responses and answers will also appear on a monitor behind the moderators so that Fetterman can read them before he responds. Yeah, I can't remember the eve of a debate where one side has gone into it saying effectively, yes, we could lose this debate, but we're still going to win the election and lowered expectations to the degree that they have done. I mean, even specifically talking about those awkward pauses, what he does might maybe mushing two words together. It's clearly an attempt on the campaign's behalf to set expectations very low in the hope that

any performance that John Fetterman gives is actually then better than what the public might have been led to expect. We've seen him in interview performances like this. That NBC interview, yes, there was a closed captioning. And I think perhaps once people get used to that, I mean, what else are you going to say? There is closed captioning in front of him. But I actually felt that his answers in that NBC interview, he was fluent. He gave to the point answers. He was deliberative. He didn't actually seem to struggle overly with more than one or two words. So I think if he can perform as he did in that interview and the audience gets used to the closed captioning,

because during the course of the whole debate, it's just going to be there in the way that audiences tend to get used to something visually. At the first, it's a shock. But then once you've got used to it, it's there. I think he has a chance to actually outperform the very low expectations that his team have deliberately set for him going into it. It's still going to be a tight race. I mean, Oz seems to have done a reasonable job in the suburbs of raising issues like crime, of talking about inflation and the economy, he seems to have done a reasonable job of catching up. And you're right.

Part of the reason I think Fetterman's campaign did that interview with Dasha Burns, who will be with us a little bit later in the show, is to prepare voters for what they're going to see tonight. How much, Elise, when you spoke in those focus groups, how much did Fetterman's health weigh on the minds, if at all, of these voters? Fetterman's health was the number one concern that voters had about actually if they were going to pull the plug and vote for John Fetterman if they were undecided. There were some voters who were going to vote for him because he's a Democrat, because they want Democrats to keep the Senate. But then you got those swing voters that you really need to capture. And it wasn't just the stroke. Fetterman had a reputation as a bit of a loose cannon previously. And so coupled with the

stroke, they question his judgment and they want assurances that he's ready to take the reins of a six year job. Yeah. And there is there will be some voters, Joe and Mika, who step in there and have to think through that, whether Fetterman's health is enough of an issue to change their vote. We should point out that the focus groups at least conducted came before the Fetterman campaign did release some more information about his health. Some medical reports. Yeah, that is the debate tonight, though. Anything can happen during the I think they only have one debate. So it's a lot at stake. I like the managing expectations. I love when campaigns manage expectations. We saw Herschel Walker do it. Yeah. Yeah. Now Fetterman's going, you know, we we don't even know how to use a

microphone. I mean, it's a serious idea. Do we have to turn the power button on the microphone? And do we talk directly into it? Or do I turn completely around? This is what you need to do. You need to manage expectations. Fortunately, though, I have such low expectations on me wherever I go. It's not a problem. Let me ask a serious question here, though, if I can if I can make one up very quickly to try to cover my tracks. Jonathan Lemire, we we we've been talking the past week about the fact that Donald Trump deliberately, deliberately played the expectations game on states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, where he knew they didn't count votes the way we count votes in Florida, which is you count the early votes first. I'm curious, do you know, do they still have those systems up there? Are we still going to be waiting a week

and a half to see who won the Pennsylvania race, who won the Michigan race, who won. Well, let's like let's look at Arizona and Nevada. These states, even in the best year, like after the election day, they'll count one vote, go out, take a break for lunch, eat a ham sandwich, come back, build some Legos. Then they'll count another vote. Then they'll go, OK, we're exhausted. We're breaking. And then they go home. Then, like, seriously, Arizona and Nevada always historically take forever after Election Day. Do you know, are we going to be going through the same thing or have they reformed their systems in any of these states to actually count early votes early. So we know on election night who wins. Yeah, it was striking back in 2020. I was still the associate press at the time.

And as they're waiting for the vote results from Arizona, the election officials would go to Phoenix Suns games after counting one or two and then come back three hours later and then then resume their job. There is a sense that there is, first of all, there will be fewer votes this time around than in 2020. So there is an off year election. It will not be as many. The turnout, though high for a midterm, not as significant as a presidential. So that will speed things up. A number of states have tried to put processes in place to make things quicker. But no, there is an expectation, speaking to Democrats yesterday as part of the same conversation, that they don't think they're going to know in a few key states right away, particularly because

how close these margins are going to be. Obviously, campaigns have the right to challenge. There'll be rights for petition for recounts. So in some states, you've got to pay for that. We know Donald Trump didn't want to in many. So we will have a pretty good idea Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning, perhaps more likely. But no, we're probably not going to know definitively who has won some of these races, Pennsylvania in particular, for at least a couple of days. May not be a week and a half this time, but it won't be right away either. That's what we should prepare ourselves. And Joe, some bad news in the state of Pennsylvania. They can't start even opening

the mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. on election day. So they've got to get them ready for scan. They open it starting at 7 a.m. That takes a long time. They get them ready to scan. Then they scan. Then they're counted. So it's going to be a long day or several days. You know, there's really no excuse for that in the state of Florida. I've said this before. We usually know by 8, 9 p.m. Who's won the state, even in presidential elections, because we count the early votes early. Democratic governors have done that. Republican governors have done that. This happened pre-Trump. And of course, there were a lot of people trying to get the state

legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania to change those rules. There's no excuse unless you want to say the system's rigged. Let people know by nine or 10 o'clock who's won the race. And in these days of election denialism, there really is no good reason for state legislatures and governors to not approve systems, to let them count the early votes early so people in the state know who's won. And politicians who want to undermine American democracy don't get the chance. Still ahead on Morning Joe in just a few minutes, Rishi Sunak is set to give his first remarks as Britain's new prime minister.

We'll get a live report from London. I think we've been reporting too much on London. Jonathan Lemire just said Fortnite a couple of minutes ago. Seriously. Plus, a look at the biggest takeaways from last night's debate for Florida governor. We'll be joined by Charlie Crist, who faced off against Ron DeSantis. Also this morning, what we're learning about the first day of jury selection in the criminal tax fraud trial against the Trump organization. That's the one in the state of New York. And Adidas is reportedly planning to cut ties with Kanye West following a slew of offensive remarks by the rapper in recent

weeks. Weeks. It took them weeks. We'll have the latest on the corporate backlash. You're watching Morning Joe. You, of course, are seeing images from the Morning Joe blimp, which we've, of course, really. When did we institute the Morning Joe blimp? I think it was after that movie Black Sunday, which we both thought was a really cool, cool movie. Bruce Dern, he crashed the blimp into the Coliseum. And we thought, wow, Morning Joe needs a blimp like that. Yeah, and we've crashed a number of them since then in the spirit of that movie. It's been expensive, but I think worth it for shots like this. Great, great, great promotional value. Not the good, not good,

but at least they spelled morning Joe, right? And so there we have Captain Ron, who, by the way, The only people who think this is funny is Joe and Willie. I'm really surprised, Willie, that he got his license back after the last episode. I'm literally going to put the two of you in the hall. A live look outside Buckingham Palace this morning. Willie had a response. No, he didn't. Captain Ron rescued us in Turkey in 73. I got out in time to, to like buy band on the run.

So I owe this guy. Yeah. Well, the rules are a little different in the UK. After he got out of prison, he immediately got his license back. So we're feeling good about where he is right now in his personal journey. All that you guys just said, along with this, Rishi Sunak is meeting with King Charles right now to be formally appointed as Britain's next prime minister. Isn't that what he said to Liz Truss? After that, Sunak will be making remarks outside of Downing Street.

Let's see how this one goes. Let's bring in Sky News anchor and NBC News contributor Wilfred Frost, who is at the British Parliament. Safely on the ground. Hi, Wilfred. Wilfred, we've done this before. A lot. Recentlyely on the ground. I will. We've done this before a lot recently. Talk about today. Well, we've done this, I know, all too recently, and we hope this goes for longer than six weeks this time. And the main challenge, the immediate challenge for Rishi Sunak is to deliver political stability within his

party, because without that, he won't be afforded the time in office to do anything at all. And I think with that in mind, the biggest focus today is this afternoon when he starts to appoint his cabinet. And we expect him to learn from the mistake Liz Trust made, which was just to appoint her closest allies in cabinet. So when things started to go wrong, suddenly the rest of the party didn't stick by her side. He's expected to appoint a broad church cabinet from all sides of the party. We don't quite expect Boris Johnson to be there himself, but his close allies likely to get decent jobs. The speech he's due to make in Downing Street as soon as he gets back from Buckingham Palace

provides us a slightly different opportunity for him. Sunak's always been seen as someone who's competent but perhaps not relatable and this speech will give him a big audience but perhaps more importantly a forgiving audience and a chance to connect with the nation properly for maybe the first time. And after today, they won't be forgiving. It'll be divisive again. He'll have to answer for the

economic travails the country faces. And the speech today gives him that one-off window, perhaps, to try and connect whilst people are willing to allow him to do so. Wilfred, tell us a little bit for American audiences who don't know who Rishi Sunak is and what his background is. We were just watching him there. Tell us a little bit about him. He strikes a whole range of firsts in British politics. But give us more of a sense of who he is, where he comes from and how he might be suited for this job at this moment. Absolutely. So he's the youngest prime minister for about 200 years, age 42, the first British Asian prime minister, the first prime minister

of colour, all factors, of course, that are reason for great celebration. Interestingly, he only became an MP in 2015, and then he occupied the second biggest office of state, Chancellor of the Exchequer, by 2020, a stratospheric rise. And it's fair to say that he was kind of adored initially as Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he outlined various support packages during the pandemic. And then oddly for someone who rose so quickly, he kind of faced scrutiny after his rise, as opposed to before it. And in the last year or so, some of the issues he's faced have been the issue that he's incredibly wealthy. He worked at Goldman Sachs and then at a hedge fund, then met his wife whilst doing a Stanford MBA. And she's the daughter of one of India's richest billionaires. He's the founder of the tech company Infosys. Together, Mr. and Mrs. Sunak

are worth about $800 million, not ideal when the country's going through a cost of living crisis, of course. And as I said, his time in the finance ministry, though short, did see him come across as competent, pragmatic. He's then echoed over the summer leadership race the need for fiscal conservatism, which has earned him further points, given that Liz Truss did the opposite and it went so poorly. But he's still not that well known and only been an MP for seven years and has to prove credibility as much as anything. All right. Sky News anchor and NBC News contributor Wilfred Frost live from London. Thank you very much. And coming up, grading President Biden on energy. Our next guest says ignore the misinformation oil slick that Biden is making some real progress.

We'll explain that. He also goes into where the United States is when it comes to drilling, when it comes to oil independence. Fascinating numbers and an ever shrinking reliance on Saudi oil and also the devastating impact the Russia war with Ukraine is having on Russia. Europe's just not dependent on Russia like it used to be. Also, Steve Ratner is going to join us with charts on a shift in the race for control of the Senate. Also ahead, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, will join the conversation. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. Forty four past the hour, representatives from multiple NATO countries say Russia's allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory is a pretext Russia has created for possible escalation.

In a rare joint statement, diplomats from France, Britain and the United States rejected what they called, quote, Russia's transparently false allegations. A dirty bomb refers to a device made of traditional explosives that sprays radioactive material. To date, Russia has offered no proof of Ukraine's alleged plans, and the Ukrainian foreign minister has called Russia's statements lies. The news follows confirmation that Russia's defense minister and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke multiple times between Friday and Sunday with U.S. officials saying Sunday's talk was meant to delineate the red lines that Russia might cite to try and justify the use of a nuclear weapon. Obviously, things going from bad to worse for Russia. You look at what's happening on the battlefield. It's going terribly in the south,

going terribly, of course, in the east. You also look economically at what's happening, what was supposed to be actually leverage. And we've said this for some time here. That is Russian gas and the cutting off of Russian gas to Europe was supposed to be leverage. Actually, all you do is when you cut off gas supplies, when you make it more difficult, when you start wars. You just have people in Europe looking for other markets and they're doing that and they're looking to the United States. So once again, Vladimir Putin's attempts to weaken NATO have strengthened NATO. Vladimir Putin's attempts to leverage energy has actually worked against him and actually

drawn Europe closer to the United States. And by the way, there's so many misconceptions right now about what's going on as it pertains to energy, to gas, to oil. We wanted to clear it up. I read a great article. I believe it was in Fortune and wanted to bring in Lester Crown, professor in management practice and senior associate dean at Yale School of Management. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and also former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst, Steve Ratner. Professor, let me begin with you. And my gosh, there were so many points in your Fortune article. I almost feel like we have to do lightning rounds. I'm going to read these statements that you would never, that people would never know listening to the gibberish and the talking points coming from the far right. So let's start with

this one. Number one, the United States is now the world's largest oil producer and needs almost no Saudi oil. The United States has already cut its imports of Saudi oil by 90 percent over the past decade. Explain that to people who may not know that fact. Yeah, that's pretty impressive that we've cut it back. It was about two million barrels, perhaps a decade ago. Now we're down about 350,000 barrels and we're selling oil to Europe. We could keep it and be 100 percent self-sufficient. We produce more oil right now than the Saudis do. As an aside, I think very few viewers would remember or even have heard that, in fact, we used to own 100 percent of Aramco. And in a moment of panic after the Yom Kippur war, we wound up surrendering it at nominal prices to the to the Saudis because they were felt humiliated with the success of Israel.

So it's a U.S. U.S. control is extraordinary. We're doing very well. And that's that's to the obviously the suffering of Russia and Putin's agenda. He can't really sell his oil other than at a steep discount, a thirty five dollar a barrel discount. And he's the least efficient producer in OPEC. It's right. Let's move through. Yeah, let's move through some of these others. By the way, it was the Nixon administration that panicked and gave gave that away. The second point, federal leases. This will be shocking to people. Everybody hold on to your seats. My friends at The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which I love reading every morning in National Review.

So I love reading. Hold on to your seats. Federal leases under Biden far exceed those under Trump. We hear drill, baby, drill professor all the time. Let me say it again. Federal leases under Biden far exceed those under Donald Trump. Explain. That is pretty astounding, but they're up by a third. The federal leases alone, the first year of Biden versus the first year of Trump, we, of course, don't have the numbers in from the second year. But it's basically around 2,500 starts under Trump and we're up to about 3,600 under Biden. So that's quite a jump and perhaps to the dismay of some environmentalists. But they certainly have opened up federal lands. They haven't used all the industry, hasn't used all the leases that are available to them. And that doesn't even

get to offshore, which is a big lead. All right. So let's go to number three. And this is really astounding. And again, this shows how stupid the Russians have been over the past several months, the miscalculations. This will be historians will see this as as really one of the great geopolitical blunders of our time. So let's talk about that war's impact, which I alluded to earlier. The United States already provides more gas to the EU than Russia did at its peak. And now the EU buys 80 percent less from Russia than they did before Russia's attack on Ukraine.

This is devastating for Russia, is it not? It absolutely is devastating. Eighty six percent of Russia's gas was being sold to the EU because they had to. Putin smugly said, well, we're just going to pivot east and sell it to India and sell it to China. And macroeconomists at universities around the world, the IMF and many in the media believe that they didn't realize that gas is not fungible. That natural gas, it's it's it has to it's a vapor. It has to go through pipelines. He doesn't have those pipelines to go into China, India. So that's just sitting in the ground. And who's filled it? Like you said, Joe, the U.S., the U.S. now sells more gas to to the EU than Russia did at its peak.

Russia is now down to about 9 percent coming into the two remaining pipelines. And that's really hurting them. Oil and gas is two thirds of his economy. Here's another shock. Here's another shock, because, you know, of course, there are people that are saying that Biden should be impeached for, let's see, the student loan program should be released because he had to land on his jacket last week. They're also talking about the strategic petroleum reserve. This is the most radical thing ever. Nobody's ever done this before. But Joe Biden, how could

Joe Biden do this? Why, my God, what's going to happen when we go to war? He has left us vulnerable. I remember every president, you talk about it here, every president's done this before, including, oh my God, locusts descending from the heavens, Donald Trump. He did it himself. Explain. Absolutely, Joe. You get an A plus, by the way, on studying this article. You know it better than I do. That's exactly right. He's done it, Trump done it four times. We could list, if we had the time, 15 different occasions where presidents have done it, and they weren't natural disasters or natural disasters. Trump did it in COVID because production was down. Trump did it when they had the Iranians

bomb the Saudi refinery. It's regularly we go to that as a bank, and by the way, so do other oil producing countries and replenishing it is the smart thing to do especially at the pricing he has in mind exactly and again we're talking about the strategic petroleum

reserve which Biden has tapped into but he said it at a price like you said that when we replenish it, capitalists are going to make money. Nothing bad about that. At least not here on Morning Joe. We like people in America making money. Explain. No, that's that's the idea. It would be using forward pricing about seventy dollars a barrel, which would guarantee that the industry makes money and we replenish this at a very reasonable price.

And that's similarly to the oil price caps, which we probably won't be able to get into. But the G7 is going to allow a very, very small margin of profit for Russia. The Saudis panicked and formed a sadly collusion with with the Russians. Needlessly, we were never targeting Saudi or OPEC in general, just Russian oil for that, these oil price caps. And that would be around a price around there, a little higher. Professor and Joe, I want to mark the moment. Joe, you just got an A plus from a Yale professor. You are something never afforded. You know, they don't, you know, really, they, you know, I've walked onto the campus of Yale before and they've escorted me off. I sat just here to try to buy a T-shirt.

I applied to Yale Law School. I swear to God, I get the letter back. It's very thin. You know, it's bad news, Willie. I open it up. You know what they say? Dear Mr. Scarborough. Yeah.

No. Tough, but fair. Tough, but fair. Tough but fair. I want to ask you, Professor, about what you just mentioned, what you call the cartel between the Saudis and the Russians in OPEC plus. Cutting production by two million barrels a day. That was seen by some here as a political move against Joe Biden, October surprise. What really is the impact of that? Will it cause gas prices to go up the way some people have said? Well, this is another place where highly conflicted energy analysts or confused energy analysts are saying, well, the market commands that. The market's very tight. We've never had

these kind of cutbacks in a tight market. No justification for it. They're making returns that Tiffany would like to get. Most OPEC nations, especially the Saudis, they're making 75, 80 percent returns when the price was $80 a barrel as it was a week ago. The Saudis panicked. I don't know if they're afraid because of these oil price caps that we now see consumers forming a cartel that they're going to suffer. Who knows why they wanted to help Putin or if they want to bring Trump back in, which is some suspected. This is the classic October surprise. But the prices should come down in gas. But the refineries are the stranglehold here. What we find, if you take a look at the last year,

we have a 360 percent jump in refinery profits, unjustified. Even the rest of the oil industry is not being up by a third. So there's something suspicious there. And they say, well, we've had shutdowns. You look at the shutdowns. It's 100 percent mismanagement, maintenance problems, nothing to do with the Trump or Biden administration policies. There's something weird going on with the middleman and the refineries that hasn't been discussed. All right, Steve, you've listened to the case. You've read the article. What do you make of it? I think I think the professor makes some very good points. I think the substance of what's happened with U.S. energy policy during this crisis has actually been fine from the standpoint of trying to keep prices as low as possible for producers, for consumers, whether it's reducing oil, releasing oil from the SPRO, the Strategic

Petroleum Reserve or other steps. I think the major problem the administration's had and why I suspect the professor wrote the article is perception and its rhetoric. And Biden, in fact, did come to office with the rhetoric about making a very quick transition away from oil and gas and toward renewables. And what we're finding out and the Europeans are finding this out in spades because they were trying to make an even more aggressive transition away from oil and gas to renewables is it can't happen that fast, that the world is still highly dependent on oil and gas. And you have to have policies that accommodate that while also trying to affect this transition to the renewables and to the less climate affecting types of energy. And so what the

administration is being tagged with is highly rhetorical. And some of it was symbolic. He did, I think, put in a temporary pause on oil and gas leases when he came in. And obviously, the Republicans are going to try to tag him with that. And so that's really the issue. There's nothing the administration has done that has hurt our oil position or energy position or the world. In fact, it's helped it in a number of ways. But it's got an image problem. Well, this is you hear constantly conservatives. They're upset about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. So there shouldn't be calls for concern in terms of national security, even though it's at a 38-year low. That's right. It's easy to replenish. And we'll be doing that in these, as Steve is going to explain to us, in these backdated futures prices market, that it would be a very reasonable price.

And it's easy to replenish. And people are saying he's not replenishing it three weeks ago. Now that he is, the same critics are saying, oh, he shouldn't be replenishing it. It's ridiculous. But I think what has been missing. It is. One thing that has been missing to add to Stephen's analysis is that people are confused in both parties and frankly, in this industry, the role of liquefied natural gas is a technology that was there since the turn of the last century, but it only got commercialized in 2016.

So what we're providing to Europe is more expensive, but it is you can ship LNG. Russia doesn't have LNG. That's why they have to send it through pipelines. But what Germany did in terms of Joe's list of miscalculations, nobody saw that Germany would create six massive conversion plants, which they will finish in the next month and a half that will take gas from all over the world, Algeria, Norway, everywhere in LNG form. And that's well, green friends, whether you like it or not, we need about three or four more LNG plants in the United States of America. It would revolutionize things. It is part of the transition. And I just want to say for people on the left and the right, the transition is coming. Even oil producing countries think they're going to run out of oil

maybe by 2040, maybe by 2050. And they're moving desperately to transition. So you can accuse people who want to transition away from fossil fuels of hugging trees. Even the Saudis understand that's where the world's going. Professor, one final thing. At the risk of lowering my A-plus down to a B-minus or so. You have a good grade right now. You should stop while you're ahead. While the Saudi, after the Saudis had actually cut production, I talked to some some people from oil producing countries and they were shocked.

They were shocked, even though they worked closely with with the Saudis, because they're saying what you said, which is this is a bad economic move for the Saudis, that they were already making a lot of money. Oil was already at 80. This they thought it was unprecedented. So many people tried to walk them back from the brink and they made the move anyway. So economically, can you underline just how bad this move was for Saudi Arabia in the long term? Forget the short term. Forget the election. Just as a strategic move. Talk about how stupid it was for the Saudis to do this economically. Well, thank you, Joe. And Mika, we all guessed wrong. He just knocked it out of the park. He is secure of an A-plus next semester, too. I didn't think it was worth the risk, but it was worth the risk.

You're exactly right, Joe. This was incredibly foolish for them strategically. No self-interest. They produced oil. They extracted it at $22 a barrel. Very cheap because of all U.S. technology, by the way. The Russians, it's $46 a barrel. It's much different.

So they were making tons of money, very high in profit margins. But what this has done has put a spotlight on the sweetheart weapons deals that we won't have time to get into now. But Senator Blumenthal and Congressman Ro Khanna have proposed this bicameral legislation. It's very powerful to take a look at something that none of our real allies have. The EU doesn't have it. The UK doesn't have it. Australia, Israel, Canada, nobody has a deal that we have now with our aerospace industry, where we are transferring, as we speak, we're transferring the most sensitive weapons systems, everything short of the nuclear code. And I'll explain later why Ash Carter won't be able to comment on this, but Ash was very disturbed about

this, the former Secretary of Defense, as this became public, this happened since 2017, I should argue and make clear, is they have the they own the production. They own the intellectual property. We never have done that before. They own the financial control of these weapons systems. In 18 months, we will not be able to control our most sensitive weapons systems that we have given to the Saudis. And the supposed jobs we are creating, these 150,000 jobs, guess what? It's all in Saudi Arabia. There are a few hundred jobs in the U.S. And that's why they really lose on this. We have to put a pause on that weapons deal, Joe. And that's why this is strategically stupid to them for the Saudis, in addition to the fact that it's costing them money in the oil markets.

Is now who are they going to do business with to replace that weapon system at Russia? Russia's going to Russia's relying on Iranian drones. That's that's their more of Iran is even more of an enemy to Saudi Arabia than they are to us. They have very few options now. They've made a huge strategic mistake. Associate Dean at Yale School of Management, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, grading on a curve this morning. Thank you very much. Great to have you on. We'll love to have you back. Continue the conversation.