Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/28/24

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Harris has slight edge over Trump in new polling

We have the ability to turn the page on that same old tired playbook because we are exhausted with it. These people are for real. You know the cows are going to disappear. No more cows. No more anything. These people are crazy. We are ready to chart a new way forward yes, we will be joyful in the process. What is happening with the whales? I've read about this. The wind is rushing. The things are blowing. It's a vibration and it makes noise.

You know what it is? I want to be a whale psychiatrist. It drives the whales freaking crazy. We have an opportunity before us to turn the page on the fear. They want me to say, oh, Detroit's great. Oh, it's so great. You know, it needs help. So I said it needs help. And people said, oh, he wasn't positive. I can't be positive. And the divisiveness that have characterized our politics for a decade because of Donald Trump. We're the garbage can for the world.

We are. We're a garbage can. We're like a garbage can and they dump their criminals. This election is about two extremely different visions for our nation. I had the greatest resorts in the world. I could have been extremely happy. I could have had those beautiful waves smack me in the world. I could have been extremely happy. I could have had those beautiful waves smack me in the face. I could have had the beautiful suntan. This white, white skin could have been tan and beautiful. We are a new generation of leadership that is optimistic and excited about what our nation can do together.

We have to finish it off with a big victory on November 5th. We will be a nation in decline no longer from the day that happens. Wow. Some of the very different messages coming from the two campaigns over the weekend. Stark difference. And that didn't even include what came out of Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden. We're going to get to all of that in just a moment. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, October 28th. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Beer Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kay, is with us this morning. President of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton is here, and CEO of the Messina Group, Jim Messina.

Jim served as White House deputy chief of staff to President Obama and ran his 2012 reelection campaign. So with just over a week until Election Day, new polling is showing Vice President Kamala Harris with a slight edge over Donald Trump. A new ABC News poll among likely voters has Harris up by four points, 51 percent to 47 percent. That is within the margin of error. The poll also shows Harris ahead of Trump among key demographics. Let's go through them. Harris leads Trump by 30 points among Latino voters, a group that Biden won by a similar 33 points in 2020. According to ABC News exit polling, Harris also has a 19 point lead among suburban women, a six point gain from Biden in 2020. Among black voters, Harris is outperforming

Biden's 2020 margin with black men by 14 points and by seven points with black women. With college graduates, Harris has a 10 point gain from Biden in 2020. When it comes to white men with college degrees, Trump won the group by three points in 2020. But now Harris is winning by four points in this poll. And for white women with college degrees, Harris is winning by 14 points. That's more than Biden in 2020. On top issues, Harris leads by six points when it comes to looking out for the middle class and by 10 points when it comes to health care. Harris leads Trump by 11 points in being seen as having the mental sharpness

it takes to effectively serve as president. And her advantage widens to 29 points on having the physical health to serve effectively. Most voters see her as honest and trustworthy, likely to understand the problems of people like you, to share personal values and to be trusted in a crisis. Meanwhile, more voters think Trump is more likely to say that things are not true. The poll also found registered voters are more than twice as likely to call Donald Trump a fascist than to say the same about Kamala Harris. Joe, what do you make of these numbers? There's a lot of other information to bring in. And also what appears to be the closing argument by the Trump side and that contrast with the Harris campaign. We'll start with the last question first. Yeah, Donald Trump could win. Everybody in his campaign thinks he can win. Every Republican in America, except those that are

quietly voting for Kamala Harris, are running around saying he's going to win. Every Republican in America, except those that are quietly voting for Kamala Harris, are running around saying he's going to win. They have I haven't seen a side this confident since Mitt Romney's side in 2012 knew he was going to beat Barack Obama. And they just kept saying that they were they were so sure they were going to win that it was Mitt Romney and Karl Rove who were shocked on election night and knew something had to be wrong with numbers because they weren't winning. So the bubble inside Trump world is overwhelming, saying that Donald Trump is going to win this race. And again, reminds me so much of 2012. Everybody was shocked actually when Barack Obama ended up winning and

winning easily. We don't know where we are here. It's tied. That is that is the latest. That is the latest of polls. Of course, the last NBC or the last New York Times Siena poll that came out several days earlier had it tied, but also had her breaking, had things breaking her way. And so hard, hard to say which direction the poll is going. I will say, though, on the closing on the closing arguments, I just again, I've always believed that and I've told Donald Trump and the and the distant past and other people in his administration, politics is about addition. It's not about subtraction. And I surprised myself by still being surprised by how negative, how exclusionary, how racist

the attacks against Puerto Rico, the attacks again against Hispanic against Hispanics, echoing what Donald Trump said years ago, that Hispanics were breeders. And so it's still surprising to me that any side in any campaign in any part of American history would act that way. But they are just they're completely confident they're going to win. But Jim Messina, you know, this ABC poll, again, the latest poll, it'd be interesting to see if other polls follow it. But you have trend lines going the way the Harris campaign would obviously want to be. Same thing with Sienna. Sienna had, even though it was tied, had some trend lines where late breakers were breaking dramatically towards her. I think the number I keep going back to, and it's a number that I have been looking at for three years now, if Donald Trump is going to run,

and the number is 47. Donald Trump is at 47%. Donald Trump is at 48%. There was a time when people were cheering the 20% that Bobby Kennedy was going to take off the board to make 47 percent enough. That's not happening now. So I guess if Harris does win and she has a four point lead like 51 to 47, everybody's going to go, you know, why? Of course, you idiots. He was never going to get over 47%. Maybe we'll be saying that. But I still think that's the question for Donald Trump to win. This is not even 40 years ago. He's going to have to get 48, 49 percent most likely in the national poll for a lot of reasons.

Demographic shifts. We're not going to waste our viewers time with. But but still, that's where I'm still stuck. He's got a hard ceiling. How does he win with 47 percent of the vote nationally, even as you project that toward electoral college votes? Joe, he doesn't. And you're exactly right. The weird thing is someone should call his campaign and explain your math to them because they have been stuck at 47, 47 and a half per year. And yet, Joe, what is their closing argument? Their closing argument in a race where they desperately need another point, point and a half, maybe two points, is to ostracize those same voters, to end with anger, to end with racism, to end with an argument that only their base

could appreciate and not even all their base. So it's just, you know, campaigns, you and I have talked about this a lot, are contrasts. And you can't end this campaign better if you're the Harris campaign. What you want is very clear optimism, hope and the future over the anger of the past. And Donald Trump is giving you that repeatedly. And, you know, don't believe you and I look at the NBC poll by 10 points. Late breaking voters are moving to her and you can tell why, because she has a message to them. Is it close? Of course it is. Is it always going to

be close? Of course it is. But what you need to do at the end is move your voters to vote and to get the persuadables to move at the end. And right now it looks like from early vote numbers and from polls, she's doing that, Joe. That's what I don't understand. Again, I just never understood the anger, the hatred, the whole idea. And I guess the problem is the party is motivated by one central theme, and that is own the libs. What they don't realize is when that's their theme, you have conservatives like me, more conservative than anybody that spoke last night. You can say that about Liz Cheney to balance the budget four years in a row. I mean, you know, fought for conservative issues, actually believed, unlike J.D. Vance, that you push back against Russian aggression. So you want people like me that even if they're not Republicans anymore, just go, OK, well, that's fine. You want guys and guys in Wisconsin, older guys in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania going, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

But last night was was bizarre and confusing as the final final weeks have been. It's optimism versus pessimism. It's joy versus rest, retribution and rage. So, yeah, that's what I just did. This is what I just didn't understand about calling Puerto Rico a floating pile of garbage, you know, attacking the United States as he has. But anyway, I want to I want to I want to go back, though, Jim, because you're so perfect for this because you were there in 2012. I think you and I would agree this race is tied. We don't we don't know which way it's going to break. But it's crazy. I don't know if it's opposed, but. Donald Trump, the people around Donald Trump, the Trump campaign, everybody else, they have been crowing that they've got this in the bag for three months now.

And again, I see no data. I see no data privately. I saw no data publicly to suggest that they've got this in the bag. And it just seems like a repeat of 2012 when they were saying the same thing about Mitt Romney, that he was going to beat Obama by seven points. And it just never happened. This has got to seem like deja vu all over again to you. Oh, absolutely, Joe. And, you know, at the time, I remember the Romney campaign telling reporters, look at our rallies, look at the momentum, look at the excitement of our base. And that stuff doesn't matter. What matters is sheer, cold, hard numbers. And when you look at who is early voting in Atlanta, when you look at who is early voting in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, it tells a very, very different story.

And, you know, there's this 10-mile square square-mile logic-free zone called Washington, D.C. And in Washington, D.C., people are like, oh, look at the momentum Trump has. Show me that from the data. Show me that from the breaking numbers in the NBC poll. Show me this ABC poll, the numbers Mika laid out. I mean, the number I thought was the most amazing, Mika, was the six point lead for her on middle class who fights for the middle class. That's a really important number for these late breaking voters who are mostly economic voters. And so, you know, you just can't look at this and say he has this in the bag.

All they are trying to do is display confidence and try to display strength because it's all they have left, Joe. Well, you know, the last couple of polls have shown not just ABC poll, the last couple of polls show. And I think the New York Times-Siena poll has also shown, you know, who cares about people like you? Who cares more about people like you? And she's winning it and she's winning it pretty comfortably. So, again, I don't understand the confidence. Now, listen, I'm going to say this one more time. I think the race is tied. I have no idea what direction this race is going in.

And so I'm genuinely confused as why everybody around Donald Trump, Donald Trump, everybody in that sort of stratosphere says they're going to win this easily. It's going to be a landslide. I don't understand it. You never know. And you know what? When you make the mistake of thinking that you've got it in the bag, which I never even when even when I was up 25 points in polls, I never let my staff think anything other than we were down five points and we didn't have enough time to catch up and we had to get out and work throughout the night. So we ended up winning by 40 points. I mean, that's how you think. But I'm saying this not so much for Republicans who say, oh, he's got it in the bag. I'm saying this for Democrats who

are believing this because I'm hearing this. I'm hearing calls from people go, oh, it's not from the campaign. The campaign has a steely eyed optimism. But I'm getting calls from a lot of other people. Some people on the show. Oh, it just seems so bad. And I just keep going. I just it reminds me of 2012. Yeah. You don't know who's going to win. Look at these clips from 2012 Fox News. The voters vote, the counters count as the candidates and their supporters hold their breath. We will take you through all of it. Well, I have great respect for our decision desk, and I see that they're very happy in Chicago, but I've got to tell you the Romney camp has real doubts

about the call that's been made by us and I guess other networks about Ohio. They do not believe that Ohio is in the Obama camp. I just got an email from a top Romney person. I said, do you agree with our call? He said, not really. You went through this in 2000. You almost went through it in 2004. Do you believe that Ohio has been settled? No, I don't. I understand what Carl's saying, but if you look at some of these counties that are still left out there, there are votes, a lot of votes left for Obama. Here's what we're going to do. Karl Rove said that we should figure out what the deal is with this decision desk.

The decision desk is in a different place. And I showed you earlier in the show, in the 6 o'clock hour, what it takes to get there. Megan, I will escort you down the steps here so you can go interview them. All right. Watch your step. Thank you. Thank you. I don't want to fall in front of all these millions of people. Okay. All right. Watch your step. Thank you. Thank you. I don't want to fall in front of all these millions of people. OK. All right. So this only tells part of the story, Mika, but go ahead.

Go ahead. Well, I think one of the things. Well, first of all, that doesn't prove the opposite's going to happen. I know that's not what you were presenting there here. That's why that's why I said it's going to be a tie. Exactly. I'm saying it's a tie right now. I was just validating that. I think also explaining some of what you're hearing is a sense of discouragement that it is so close, given the darkness and the threats, the serious threats to democracy and to people on the Trump side. Right. Right. Right. So, Jonathan, I'm here. I show I want to show the clips just to show that that that again, that doesn't really fully explain the bubble that the Republican Party was in in 2012. But we talked about it a good bit. They talked about it a good bit afterwards, even had some. We're going to have to reassess and reboot the campaign. Yeah. I'm part of the party that really went well for me, didn't it? And so so but but behind the scenes, stories and I know you you were reporting on this. Other

people were stories behind the scene about the Romneys, everybody in the camp because they'd just been listening to right wing sources throughout the entire campaign. They couldn't believe that they weren't crushing Barack Obama by the seven, eight points that Gallup, Drudge Report, their supporters, everybody was saying beforehand. And so I hear this, I hear this brash confidence from the Trump side that I've been hearing now for three months. And I'm like, you are you whistling in the dark or you're whistling past the graveyard? Are your numbers? So maybe again, maybe they win, maybe they win. But I've seen no data whatsoever to suggest that they have the confidence. And my warning would be for either side. If you're sitting there telling everybody you've got it and got it, you've won, man, that is the wrong stance to be taking a week out.

Yeah, the Romneys famously in 2012 had a rally, I believe at the airport in Pittsburgh on election eve and a huge crowds. And they turned to each other and said, the Romneys themselves are senior staff. Like we've got this. They lost Pennsylvania. They lost the election. It is easy to fall into that bubble, to just talk to people who agree with you, to just watch news sources who are saying the things you want to hear. That was the case in 2012. It's even more so now. Things are that much more extreme and fragmented. And we know Republicans have that much less of a relationship with the truth now than they did even 12 years ago. This race is tied.

You're right. The Trump campaign is extremely confident. They were thrown in July, August, when the vice president took the top of the ticket. But since then, they feel like we've still got this in the bag. And that's what last night at Madison Square Garden was meant to be a closing argument, but almost a victory rally. And we'll get into just how offensive and racist so much of last night was. But that's how they feel things are right now. The vibes are with Trump, but vibes are not votes. And we just went through the data in that ABC News poll, which is, I think, the best poll Harris had in a while in terms of demographics, counter the

narrative that she's losing support among black and Latino voters. That poll suggests actually she's running as well as Biden did, maybe even a little better. We're seeing also in the early voting, the data, a real gender gap in a number of these states from a day or so ago, 14 points plus more women voting in Michigan, 13 in Pennsylvania, 12 in Georgia, 10 in Wisconsin, nine in North Carolina. Those are five of the seven battlegrounds. And that the Harris team, Mika, yeah, they believe that's the secret here. OK, the hidden vote is not going to be. They believe the young men breaking for Trump. Some of that might happen. They think it'll be overwhelmed by women, some maybe quietly,

but breaking for Harris on abortion rights and other issues here in the last week. I think we've sort of set the scene of the state of the race. And now we have a lot to get to, including the litany of hatred and darkness at Madison Square Garden last night. Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris in Kalamazoo. Wow, what a difference. And also we have some incredible stories of women with reproductive emergencies happening right now that have gone dreadfully wrong. That's all I had. We're back in 90 seconds. Twenty three past the hour. Welcome back to Morning Joe. Donald Trump held a rally yesterday in New York City at Madison Square Garden.

His supporters packed the arena for what the Trump campaign called a closing message to voters. The setting was interesting given the history. The event featured nearly 30 warm up speakers, some making extremely offensive and racist comments about immigrants, Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris. A radio personality received cheers from the crowd when he said, and I won't say the word, effing illegals get everything they want. A described lifelong friend to the former president called the vice president the Antichrist and the devil, all while waving a crucifix on stage. Another speaker compared Harris to a prostitute with pimp handlers.

And a former Fox News host mocked the vice president's racial identity, sarcastically saying she is impressive as the first Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ, former California prosecutor ever to be elected president. There was also a comedian who made extremely vile so-called jokes about Latinos and Puerto Rico. So what we're going to do here is we're not going to feed into hate and play it all. But there is a few striking moments that cut through. We're going to play for you two of them. So you get a sense of just how crude the rhetoric was coming out of the rally. Take a look. Believe it or not, people, I welcome migrants to the United States of America with open arms. And by open arms, I mean like this.

It's wild. And these Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that. They do. They do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that. They come inside just like they did to our country. There's a lot going on. Like, I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally

a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico. Okay. All right. Okay. We're getting there. And so you heard the laughter in a statement. The Trump campaign senior adviser tried to do a little damage control with Puerto Ricans, saying, quote, this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign. As a quick related aside, yesterday, Vice President Harris was promoting a new plan to help Puerto Rico's economy during her rally in Philadelphia. Pop stars Bad Bunny posted Harris's pledge to his 45 million Instagram followers, as did Jennifer Lopez. As for the former president, he took to the stage two hours later

than he was scheduled, delivering his usual lies and threats to his opponents, including calling his opponents once again the enemy from within. We're running against something far bigger than Joe or Kamala and far more powerful than them, which is a massive, vicious, crooked, radical left machine that runs today's Democrat Party. They're just vessels. In fact, they're perfect vessels because they'll never give them a hard time. They'll do whatever they want. I know many of them. It's just this amorphous group of people. But they're smart and they're vicious. And we have to defeat them.

And when I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy, becomes a sound. Oh, how can he say? No, they've done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within. But this is who we're fighting. So, Rev, the reason why there are many who are very concerned about those comments is because Trump means what he says. When he makes a threat, he has immunity. He would be coming into a second term. And if you look at how the rise of autocrats around the world, often the second time is the charm because they have a sense of how to manage the situation and bring in Cinco fans, surround himself with Cinco fans and not people who ultimately held the line last time around, like Mike Pence. cut through about Puerto Rico, so unbelievably degrading this event was to immigrants and to human beings who live in this country as free American citizens or legal immigrants. I think that was what was so striking to me is that this comedian said this early in the night

and no one got up, including Donald Trump, and denounced what he said. There was a statement released later by the campaign. How do you let someone get on the stage and say something like that? And no one refutes it as people in the audience laughed and cheered. It cut through, didn't it? I got calls all night because we work very closely with Puerto Rican leadership. And it reminded a lot of them of when Donald Trump was president and there was a real big storm that had destroyed part of Puerto Rico. He went down and threw towels at them.

So it was consistent with what he said. But let's also go to what Donald Trump himself said last night, that some of the black men groups that I've been debating about why they can't be with Trump. He said I could be laying out in the beach with my white white skin getting tanned. I mean, this is Donald Trump's mouth saying this. So I said to those on the fence, this is not a real racial signal. My pretty white, beautiful white, white skin. Donald Trump said this last night at his homecoming. So when people said that this was like reminiscent of the supremacist rally in 1939, the Nazis. I think that it lived up to that. I agree with Joe, though. They cannot get comfortable on the Harris side. I was around in 12 and was involved, but I ran in four. And I remember after John Kerry won nomination, we thought it was over.

I campaigned for Kerry all over. We were headed into Boston and in the in the plane talking about who should be in the transition team. Some of us had been surrogates and we landed in George Bush one. So they should not find comfort. But people ought to see the people they're running against openly make racist statements, including Mr. Trump with his pretty white or beautiful white skin. And that should motivate people to come out yesterday. And Joe, in a moment, we will be showing Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris in Kalamazoo. And what a difference that was. Take it. Yeah. And I will say, too, and I feel like, again, this this all of this probably makes

Jim Messina twitch. Jim, by the way, I got to go to Jonathan O'Meara in a second. But I just have Like, again, this this all of this probably makes Jim the scene at Twitch. Who, Jim, by the way, I got to go to Jonathan Muir in a second. But I just have to say, Jim, I remember in 2022, we were we are on the special set. We were talking to you and we kept saying, oh, everybody's saying there's a red wave. We don't see it. But is there a red wave? And what are you going to be looking for tonight? You said, well, first of all, I'm not going to get in front of a TV until eight o'clock. I'm going radio silent. You never know what's going to happen. I think that's what I'm going to do. I think that's a brilliant idea. But again, and I'm not just saying this for Democrats who the campaign's working so hard.

They're working extraordinarily hard. Like I said, they've got a steely eyed confidence. They're exactly what Democrats want. But I know you're getting calls from bedwetters. I'm getting calls from bedwetters like, you know, said, oh, are we going to lose? You don't know. And I'm so glad that Reverend Al brought up 2004 because I was on the phone with a senior member of the Kerry staff. At about 6 p.m. and they were talking about cabinet positions. We've got this locked up. We've seen it. I will tell you, in 2016, I was talking to one of Trump's top people who came by 30 Rock. He went through the slideshow and he said, looks like we're going to just come up short. We're going to lose Iowa by two points. We're going to lose. And he went through all the states they were going to lose and why they were going to lose. But it was off the record. Then later the night of 2016,

I talked to somebody in the Clinton campaign at about 630. And they said, yeah, these are our numbers. We're going to win six out of seven swing states. We may win seven out of seven swing states, we may win seven out of seven swing states. Again, nobody knows nothing. And so people running around telling you who's going to win this, I'll tell you who's going to win it. Who's going to win it? Who is who works the hardest the last seven days and gets their voters out, right? Absolutely, Joe. I go back to Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. Shut up and do something. Stop worrying about the polls. Stop worrying about what other people are saying. Go out and make phone calls. Do postcards. Hit the doors like that's what we have to do.

We're in a tide race. You run for the tape. You build a contrast and you turn your vote out. And that's exactly what the Harris campaign is doing. And, you know, I thought last night was all about for the Trump campaign arrogance. It was about trying to just have a celebratory moment way before anyone should be dancing. This is when you turn the vote out and talk to swing voters. And I promise you, there was nothing in four hours of that rally last night that talked to any swing voter you and I have ever met. Well, and that's the thing. This should have been a rally talking to swing voters in in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin. And instead, we saw just the opposite. You know, Jonathan, I will say there are a lot of Republicans that have come out today,

Trump supporters today to go, oh, yeah, that comedian, what he said. Oh, that was bad. Don't listen to him. That doesn't know. He was standing in front of a Trump Vance sign. He continued to speak. Nobody called him out. You know what? I guess three, four hours of speakers afterwards, as Reverend Al said, nobody called him out. And the reason they didn't call him out is because Donald Trump himself has attacked Hispanics through the years. We know what his opening campaign speech was talking about rapists from Mexico and and and and and criminals. But we also know he called Hispanics breeders himself. He said they're breeders when they come

to our country. And so what was said last night was right in line with what Donald Trump has been saying for years now. Yeah, it's been a long time dream of Donald Trump's to headline Mouser Garden. He did it last night. He wanted the spectacle. He wanted the attention. He got it, but he got all the wrong headlines coming out of it.

And, Caddy, to Joe's point, I mean, there's a permission structure. The comedian was not the only person on stage last night to say offensive things. Certainly his comment about Puerto Rico broke through the loudest. Let's remember, of course, three million people live in Puerto Rico broke through the loudest. Let's remember, of course, three million people live in Puerto Rico. Those are U.S. citizens.

Those are U.S. citizens. And there are a lot of Puerto Ricans who live in battleground states. Yeah. And Senator Fetterman tweeted out before the rally was over, in fact, shortly after those remarks, look, there are a quarter of a million Puerto Ricans who live in Pennsylvania alone, three quarters of whom can vote. So that's what that's about 180,000 votes. Joe Biden won Puerto Rico by 80,000 votes. I mean, that's a good chunk of them could be. It makes a difference. Every little bit of it makes a difference. I think you're right about the permission structure. And if you look at some of the other speakers last night, you know, Stephen Miller saying America is for Americans and Americans only, reminiscent of what we heard in the 1930s in Germany. And then I think some of this, the confidence that I'm hearing set against that, the confidence that I'm hearing, and I was texting yesterday with somebody from the Trump campaign, that they think the only state

they might lose is Wisconsin out of the battleground states. And they are dependent on young men, as he said, they're dependent on young men to drive up their turnout. But then you look at these early vote numbers and it's predominantly women who are turning out in such big numbers in some of these states. I think that makes a huge difference. I think some of this, I think you're right, is the bubble. As Joe was suggesting, is there a bubble inside the Trump campaign that is feeding this? Yes, the race is tight. I would like. But they do have to depend on these young men getting out on the bubble to an extent. And I totally understand that all of these things can be true at the same time. And it's close. But because I was one of those people calling you, Joe, I'd like to defend myself.

I think a lot of people are seeing that rally at Madison Square Garden, seeing all those people doesn't mean he's going to win the race. But my point is, it's discouraging that so many people would gather and rally to hate to hate speech in America, that it's discouraging and it hurts that people who have family in Puerto Rico who are Puerto Rican Americans who are American citizens are hearing hate like that. It's discouraging, Joe. And I do want to show Michelle Obama in Kalamazoo. But I just think it's important to look at the situation. And it's not just, oh, my gosh, about the race. It's, oh, my gosh, how did we get here? How did we get here where a stadium of people come to hate?

That's a different country, a different time. You know how you get past that? How do you get past that? Work harder, vote. Yes. And win. That's how you get past it. I want to I want to I want to really quickly because Jim, see, and I say, oh, you want a message that brings people together. I want to quickly read a message that brings people together. It was Ronald Reagan, father of the modern Republican Party, in his last speech to America. This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America's greatness. We lead the world because unique among nations, we draw our people, our strength from every country in every corner of the world. And by doing so continuously, we renew and enrich our nation while other countries cling to the stale past.

Here in America, we breathe life into dreams. We create the future and the world follows us tomorrow. Thanks to each new wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity. We are a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas and always on the cutting edge and always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future. If we ever close the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost. And you had Hitler talking about Germans for Germans. And last night you had speakers talking about America for Americans. And here in Ronald

Reagan's final speech, he says, we are new. We are forever renewed, forever strong because we open our doors to the rest of the world. And he says if we ever closed that door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost. Yes. My Republican friends, that is a closing statement. Yes. Yes, it is. And we'll get to the closing arguments and the location in just a moment. But Vice President Kamala Harris spent her entire Sunday in Philadelphia making a pitch to black and Latino voters. She visited a church, a barbershop, a bookstore and a Puerto Rican restaurant before holding a rally at a youth basketball facility. During her address, the vice president slammed her opponent for his dark rhetoric and promised to win the election.

We have an opportunity before us to turn the page on the fear and the divisiveness that have characterized our politics for a decade because of Donald Trump. We have the ability to turn the page on that same old tired playbook because And we are ready to chart a new way forward. And yes, we will be joyful in the process. Philly, we've got nine days, nine days, nine days left in one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime. And we know this is going to be a tight race until the very end. So we have a lot of work ahead of us. But we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work is joyful work. And make no mistake, we will win. We will win. We will win.

For the next nine days, no one can sit on the sidelines. There is too much on the line and we must not wake up the day after the election and have any regrets about what we could have done in these next nine days. We are fighting for a future of our nation where we tap into the ambitions and the aspirations and the dreams of the American people. We are a new generation of leadership that is and excited about what our nation can do together. And the great thing about living in a democracy, as long as we keep it, is that we, the people, have the power to choose the direction of our country and its leadership. The power is with the people. The power is with the people, not one man. Rev, I'm sorry, but talk about taking you to church, taking you to church.

Mika's talking about the grimness that she saw at the rally last night in this campaign and being troubled by it. I just know one of your favorite Bible verses is weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And joy cometh in the morning to those who study to show themselves approved, a worker who's not ashamed in front of the Lord. Weeping may endure for a night. If you're looking at that rally and it depresses you and the campaign, it depresses you. But work hard because joy cometh in the morning. And the key word you're saying is work hard, because when you see just imagine if you are a Puerto Rican child, a black child looking at that rally at the guns, you should not become depressed. You ought to be in many ways energized that we've got to stop this. I looked at that and said, I can now look at how Jewish

kids looked at the 1939 rally in Madison Square Garden. That pain has to be turned into you being empowered. And that's we've got a few days left to turn that around when people will openly and proudly go and fill up Madison Square Garden and say the things they said. It makes it should make you go to work, not go in your shell. Right. And you really do wonder parents who are proud Americans who are raising their children to be proud Americans who are from Puerto Rico. What do they say to their children after hearing that is really I mean, my God, I just makes

me sad as an American that Puerto Rican parents that Americans who are from Puerto Rico are having to talk to their children this morning before they go to school so they won't be bullied because what was said at Donald Trump's rally last night. Let's bring in managing editor, the bulwark Sam Stein and the MSNBC Tribune author of the book, How the Right Lost Its Mind. Charlie Seichel. Charlie, your book, book title just says it all this morning. Again, everything that Ronald Reagan taught this Republican Party, our Republican Party, that led him to winning 49 states, that led him to a landslide victory in 1980, that allowed him to bring Americans together as as as he led the Reagan

Revolution. All of those ideas were thrown out years ago, years ago, was being irrelevant. They seem more relevant today than ever before, because if you want to reach an older man in Wisconsin, that's not how you do it. You do it by talking the way Reagan talked. And when it comes to immigration, talking about a country that opens its doors to the world, who still believes that it is a city shining on a hill brightly for all the world to see. That's Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. That's how we used to think when our Republican Party was our Republican Party, when it was Reagan's Republican Party. You know, for the last nine years, I have used that passage and read it to two folks who are saying that somehow this is a continuation of conservatism or what Ronald Reagan talked about.

Ronald Reagan, you can't even imagine those words being spoken in Madison Square Garden last night. You can't even imagine any speaker saying anything remotely like that. Now, you asked an interesting question. What do the parents of Puerto Rican children tell their children about what they heard last night. What does any parent tell any child about the kind of hate and vulgarity and offensiveness and racism and insults that you heard last night? This is a hell of a hell of a closing argument that we're seeing right now. And I hope that we don't get numb to it, because what you saw last night was was was not a disciplined or a coherent campaign. This is Donald Trump's id. And we need to take that both literally and seriously.

The threats he's making, the insults, the culture he's created. And I guess that that's really what struck me. And to Mika's point, you know, that that after nine years, he has created a political culture where you can fill Madison Square Garden with people who listen to that and say, yeah, that's the message I like. Forty seven percent of Americans think, yes, I'm OK with this. I'm OK with the mass deportations. I'm OK with the attacks on Latinos and Puerto Ricans and Jews. And, you know, talking about pimps and the attacks on Kamala Harris. I mean, this is a dark moment that we have right now. But I'm really glad that you're playing kind of the split screen of the closing arguments of the two campaigns,

because I don't think the contrast could be much starker. So, Sam, let's talk a bit more about Kamala Harris and what she has to do, because a lot of time gets spent speaking about Donald Trump. And indeed, she spends a lot of time speaking about Donald Trump as well. She's got this big speech on the Ellipse tomorrow night, on Tuesday night, a week out from the election. And the choice, I guess, for her campaign that they have to make is how much of this time is spent, as they have done over the last week or so, directing some of the message to Donald Trump and the threat that he poses and how much of it is spent on her agenda and what she would offer to Americans. I know there's some debate within the campaign about the balance that is right for that.

What are you expecting from tomorrow night? Yeah, there is debate in the campaign. Obviously, she's leaned in more heavily to the Trump contrast in recent days and weeks. I think part of that is because, frankly, it's been presented to her on a tee, right? When Trump says the enemy within and he references Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, when John Kelly says, yeah, he's fascistic, when we get these anecdotes about his praise of Hitler's generals. I mean, how do you not swing at that pitch, right? At the same time, if you look at any of the ad data and what they're running television ads on, it's pretty much economic focus and stuff like that, trying to sell her in an affirmative sense.

So it's more of an either and, not an either or. Tomorrow night, I think she's going to make the contrast. And the key, I suppose, for her is can you, I mean, the setting is the ellipse, right? Like the setting is this is where Donald Trump incited the insurrection on January 6th. That's not accidental. They want to have that contrast. The question she has is can she tie that contrast into an affirmative case for her campaign? Can she say to the voters, look, this is why you have to vote for me, because, you know, these are the

things at stake and I can do X, Y and Z. Let me just add one thing. I know the question was everything's about Trump and we should talk about Harris. I do need to say that to Charlie's point, to Mika's point, the thing and this is is something for Harris to consider too, tomorrow night or Tuesday night. Yeah. The thing that was striking about yesterday to me was what wasn't there, which was eight years ago, four years ago, if Trump had held a rally in Madison Square Garden, I suspect there would have been a huge backlash in New York City, counter protests, anger, things in the street, nothing there. Nothing didn't happen last night. Leading up to the rally, what we saw, in fact, was the CEOs have warmed up to Trump. A major publisher of a newspaper, Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, pulled the endorsement.

The people who are the guardrails or would have been the guardrails in past runs are not there right now. And I think for Harris on Tuesday night, that is a point she can make, which is, look, we are the guardrails. This is it. And Trump is talking about enemies within. He's talking about using the military against American citizens. If we vote for this, he will have the license to do it because he ran on it and we voted for it. That's his mandate. And if she can make that case tomorrow night, I think that might be effective. Well, and again, the the anticipatory kowtowing to a guy who's saying he's going to be an autocrat is the first step. Right. As Washington Post. As Tim Snyder said.

But you've got billionaires running The Washington Post, billionaires running The L.A. Times, billionaires running X, who are all in this sort of preemptory bowing to Donald Trump. I've got to say, this is just me. You could you could be upset about that. But if I'm running against that guy and those three billionaires, it's going to be a fun final nine days because it's the billionaires versus us. It's the billionaires versus we, the people. We can win. We they can have their billions. They can buy their newspapers, but we the people can have the final word. And one final thought, too, on this this this this final week, week and a half. The October surprise has been what Donald Trump has said. Yeah. The National Guard, the military, after his political opponents pushing back would be able to say, you don't mean that, do you? Yes, of course I mean that. And he continues to say it. So again,

we end this segment where Jim Messina and I began this segment. 47 percent, 48 percent. How do you get above the 47, 48 percent? Because he's going to need to most likely to win this race. Right. And so that's the big question. And we'll see. Jim Messina, thank you very much for coming on this morning. We truly appreciate it. We'll see you soon. Coming up, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will join us with her reaction to Donald Trump's rally and the racist remark heard about Puerto Ricans. Plus, former First Lady Michelle Obama makes the case for Kamala Harris during a rally in Battleground, Michigan. She took the house down. We'll bring you the highlights from yesterday's NFL games, including a miraculous Hail Mary touchdown. Do you see that, Lamar? Yes, exactly. Whoa, my daughter was there.

Pablo Torre joins us in the studio with that and the Dodgers and Yankees and New York for game three of the World Series tonight. We're back in two minutes. On first down, Jameer Gibbs with an opening. And Gibbs with great speed. Down the sideline. Jameer Gibbs, one man to beat. He'll beat him.

Touchdown. Now hands it off Jacobs. Touch to the outside. Josh Jacobs inside the 20. The 10 to the end zone, touchdown. Just got the snap off. Cousins, rifle shot over the middle for Pitts. And Kyle Pitts gets loose again.

And he's got his second of the day. Top of the side ends in this set. Nix. Saws off the arm strength and a one-handed grab. Herbert. Sideline throw. And the catch is made. It's Len McCarkey.

He took it away from Alante Taylor. And McCarkey is in for a Charger touchdown. Winston going for it all for the end zone for Tillman. He's got it. Fake it to Barkley. Hurts. Sets. Throws.

Looking for the home run ball. End zone. Devontaeley. Hurts. Sets. Throws. Looking for the home run ball. End zone. Devontae Smith. Touchdown. Comes down to one last play. And it's going to be getting longer by the second. You're all the way back at the 30-yard line. Now you can step into it.

Here comes the Hail Mary with the game on the line. And the ball is caught. It's a miracle. Come on. TJ just said that's backyard football. That's like, like, like when we were younger playing in big flats, New York and the snow and running around and somebody would whip the, the frozen their their football like 40 yards and bounce off a piece. Nobody would believe this happened in the NFL, but it did. Oh, my Lord, what a play. What a player in Jaden Daniels. Those are some of the biggest touchdowns from across the NFL yesterday,

ending on the last second Hail Mary that gave the Commanders an improbable, almost impossible 18-15 victory over the Chagobiers. That's bringing right now the host of Pablo Torre finds out on Metal Art Media, MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre. Pablo, we could talk about the teams that really stood out, the Lions and the Browns. We could talk about the Deshaun Watson-less Browns. We could talk about the losers of the day, which you've got to say the Cowboys. At this point, it's surreal.

It really is surreal. Or I think the biggest loser yesterday, Aaron Rodgers and a Jets team that coming into the season, some were predicting we'd go to the Super Bowl, a good Jets team overall, but you cannot hand the keys to somebody as volatile as Aaron Rodgers and expect him to bring a team together. That's what's happened. And so we can talk about those winners, we can talk about those losers, but we have to talk about the guy that I would put, at least for the first half of the season, as the league's MVP.

Jaden Daniels, I'll be the first to admit, I thought he was good at LSU. I never saw this coming. This guy has been nothing short of extraordinary. No, and there's a messianic aspect to him, Joe, simply because of the recent, and actually, let's just go forever history of this franchise. This is a team that could not feel good about their name, their mascot, their owner, their performance, their history of quarterback. And you have a guy who comes from the clouds

and drops mana like this. And I just want to point something out for this play, for those who weren't necessarily sort of following the X's and O's here. There was a dude on the Bears, number 29, I believe, who was taunting the Commanders fans. And that happens to be the same guy who tips that ball that then flips backward into the hands of that receiver for the Commanders and gives, of course, this game winning Hail Mary to this. Instant karma going to get you, baby. Oh, it's it's it's also I believe this is a fireable offense. You know, there are ways to defend this play.

This is the business school case study for what not to do on a play like this. And it's just one of those things, Joe, speaking of the karma of all of it, it's just one of those things you don't expect to happen to you when you're a terrible franchise. And so this moment with Jaden Daniels as the symbol, more than the guy responsible, this was a bunch of mistakes. It's just the sort of feeling that you've been waiting decades for. And of course, they're feeling it in that building. So, Pablo, certainly, as mentioned, the New England Patriots are terrible, but yet they still beat Aaron Rodgers and the Jets, probably ending their season. And as Joe mentioned, that was one of those Sundays where,

with the exception of the Chiefs, who just keep finding a way to win, it's one of those Sundays that shows that anything can happen. And the Deshaun Watson, Les Browns, let's talk about them for a second. Jameis Winston. Beat the Ravens, who I think many had thought were going to be the Chiefs' strongest challenge in the AFC. Yeah, look, everybody, I say this to you guys as often as I can, everybody short of Kansas City is actually fairly mediocre. There's a lot of weakness. There's a lot of interchangeability, a lot of fungibility. And so when you talk about, OK, here's Jameis Winston replacing, as I always say to you guys, the most morally compromised quarterback in NFL history, Deshaun Watson, who had blown out a ligament and is out for the season.

You see that, OK, wait a minute, the Baltimore Ravens, who are all penciling in for a deep AFC run, maybe we should actually consider them in the class of teams that are all kind of like each other. But to me, I mean, John, the idea that I just want to go back to the Patriots and Jets for a second. Aaron Rodgers, OK, this is a guy who was favored to win two of these last three games. They've lost not just two of the last three. They've lost five in a row. And this is a guy who has, as Joe is alluding to, the reins to an entire franchise. And currently there is no slump buster, as they call them in sports like the New York Jets.

The Patriots were a team whose coach called them soft to motivate them desperately recently. And of course, all you got to do is go and play Aaron Rodgers at this point in 2024. And you feel quite good about yourself, too. Yeah, the Pats won with their rookie quarterback getting hurt. So let's let's move to the World Series. Do we have to? Yes, we do, Pablo. That's why you're here to talk about your Yankees having lost two heartbreaking games in L.A., including a devastating one for them. But yeah, serious shifts to the Bronx. There is a path Yankee fans like yourself are surely talking themselves into why they can still be alive. Tell us. Yeah, look, I haven't talked to the representative AOC who's somewhere around here.

I follow Yankee fan. I believe that we look at the back page of The Daily News and you're like, oh, there's there's there's promise here that, you know, this is you don't need to relive this slowly. A walk-off grand slam to lose game one, Freddie Freeman. You know, and then, yeah, stuff like this happens. The argument for the Yankees at this point is that the last time a team went down 2-0 in the World Series and then came back to win happened to be 1996, happened to be the New York Yankees against the Atlanta Braves. And this Yankee team, as I always say on paper, has all the talent they need. The issue here is that Aaron Judge is a clinic himself in how baseball is a deeply mental game.

He might get booed tonight. I hope he does not. But I have seen a lot of things happen in the Bronx. And if you're going to hit below 120 in the World Series, and if you're going to chase a pitch out of the zone four out of every 10 times you see it, it's, this is, this is a, I dare, I don't like saying this. This is one of those things that changes how you see a person, especially because the mythology of the Yankees is.

And New York City is, the lights get brighter, you get better. The exact opposite is happening to him. And it's a giant crater in the middle of a lineup that should be so much better. So, so, so, so, so much better. Well, let me just say, when the Kligelike saw on Pablo Torre, he shines like a flaming supernova. Pablo Torre, thank you so much as always. We love you.

Let's bring in right now NBC Sports soccer analyst and founder of Men in Blazers media network, Roger Bennett. Roger, we're at the top of the hour, and we should be talking about the future of the constitutional republic we call America. I can talk about that with you, Jim. Let's instead talk about soccer. Go.

Oh, stuff the Yankees. Week nine of the Premier League season. It's a weekend of heavyweight mano a mano. The biggest game of the season, a battle of American owners. You've got LA Rams, Stan Kroenke, and this perpetually aspiring Arsenal football club welcoming Liverpool, your Boston Red Sox owners, Joe. Fenway Sports Group, two title contenders,

flashing a bit like Jadon Daniels and Caleb Williams. It was Arsenal who opened the scoring on nine minutes. Ben White casually slapping a careless whisper of a pass for Ewok assassin Bukayo Saka to whip down the pants of his defender. Ah, delirious football

made to look easy. Liverpool though are tenacious under their new Dutch ball king manager Arne Slot. A flick-on finished by Virgil van Dijk, nonchalantly saying game on in Dutch scouse. From another set piece, Arsenal retook the lead. This is an ingenious play. This is like NFL meets Premier League football, inaudible at the line of scrimmage. And a goal that felt like a winner, but Liverpool so resilient.

81st minute. It all went a bit Washington Post editorial board for Arsenal. Liverpool carved them open. Oh, that's the Egyptian king, Mo Salah, bringing the boom like big justice. And it ends 2-2. Big point for both teams. But across London, LA Dodgers own Chelsea 22 year old scamp Cole Palmer

despite having the haircut of Jim Carrey and Dumb and Dumber is announcing himself as a transcendent poet laureate against Newcastle oh he just carved the game open he was electric he carved them with that pass and then summoned the winner blasting the ball a bit like freddie freeman dodgers that should actually fly over cole palmer to replace her tanny now chelsea win 2-1 god bless you todd burley you genius and your league leaders manchester city beating bottom club southampton 1-0 this like watching the Chicago Bulls try and hack a Shaq Shaquille O'Neal. Erling Haaland still scored, got the M1.

Manchester City move to the top of the table. Joe, remember this. Democracy dies in darkness. All right, Roger Bennett, thank you very much.