Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/4/24

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

'Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime': Springsteen endorses Harris

here's the pitch swinging a fly ball to right field pretty well hit free look back at the wall he jumps it's gone he did it he did it pete alonso with the most memorable home run of his career pumps his fist as he rounds second it's a three run homer he's given the meds a three to two lead they all pour out of the dugout alonsozo on his way to home plate. They're waiting for him. He hits the plate. He is first congratulated by Nimmo, hugged by Lindor. There are a dozen Mets waiting for him outside the dugout. Pete Alonzo keeps this fairy tale season going with the fairy tale swing of his career. You know, that's just the way the New York Mets do. No, it's actually not how the New York Mets do it. The night before is how the New York Mets do it, where they and the Jets

usually collapse under pressure. Last night, an extraordinary moment for Pete Alonzo, a guy who who's had a lot of ups and downs this year, really hasn't had a great year, a great moment. People were talking about him being traded the first half of the year. I don't think he's going to be leaving the Mets anytime soon. So, the Miracle Mets. I mean, Jonathan Lemire, you know, let's just say here, and I don't say this about every town, all right? But I love Milwaukee. I love the people

of Milwaukee. It's a great city. It's a great town. I hate I hate for them what they had to sit through last night. It was it was sad for them at the same time. The Mets. I mean, the Mets are kind of do. And so this this was a nice turnaround. And the nicest part is the Mets are kind of due. And so this was a nice turnaround. And the nicest part is the Mets are still in it and the Braves are out. There is no Atlanta team to haunt them this playoff series. Yeah, and now they get the Philadelphia Phillies, though. Their other rivalry battle for their territorial rights to New Jersey, I think. And amazingly, the Mets and Phillies have never met in a postseason.

Incredible. And they've played like 1,400 games against each other. So I don't know who Sal Gentile is, or Gentile is, but he writes this about the upcoming series. I fear America as a nation is genuinely not prepared

for the Mets-Phillies division series. I fear America as a nation is genuinely not prepared for the Mets-Phillies division series. South Jersey will be a war zone. Our interstate wah-wah system is at risk of collapse. Our strategic hoagie and tanning oil reserves will be severely stressed. Maura, we may

never know peace again. You know, it's like, don't we have enough anxiety ahead of this election? Cats and dogs living together. You know, it's like, don't we have enough anxiety ahead of this election? Cats and dogs sleeping together. I mean, seriously. An I-95. Yeah, but Pete Alonzo, a Mets star for years, but you're right, never really had a signature moment outside of the home run derbies.

And he's a free agent after the season. Last night, he did. This was a dramatic home run. The Mets were down 2-0. Their bats seemed lifeless. They rallied yet again. Their magic continues. You do feel bad for the Brewers.

We all defended the city of Milwaukee this year when Donald Trump started slagging off of it, we'll recall. But that's heartbreak for them. That's a good team going home. And we now have a really great Final Eight of the baseball postseason. We've got Mets, Phillies.

We have no Astros. No Astros. Division rivals, Tigers, Guardians. Division rivals, Padres, Dodgers. And, of course, the Yankees against America's team, the Kansas City Royals. Well, and you define the America's team as? Whoever plays the Yankees. Exactly. Just we're going to have to be calling the White House later on the day to be worried in this series about the strategic tanning oil reserves. They will be

severely stressed. We have the director of the Economic Council on later. We will make sure we put that question. Very good. I mean, they're very busy week for them yesterday. They averted a strike, which really is pretty remarkable. I'll be asking you more about that in a little bit. Right now, I want to make sure TJ is all right. TJ, you've been a director for a very long time. You've always worn Mets caps and paraphernalia. Last night, finally, last night, TJ, that was your one moment in time. My one moment. They are amazing. We've been waiting a long time for this, and it's exciting. Okay. He seems out of his mind. He really is. He spent a lot of energy last night. He drained from it after that.

He was great. We also have with us Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post and Washington Nationals fans who will not be, along with the Boston Red Sox, in the next round of playoffs. Eugene Robinson. Eugene, I want to get to your column in a little bit, but first I want to show you this. Bruce Springsteen, he announces endorsement of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in a video that was posted on Instagram yesterday. It really was perfect.

And I'm just talking about the words delivered, the location, how he was dressed. I mean, it looked like Spielberg put this together. The eye perfect on every front. And it's actually a pretty good, pretty good tip for anybody running for politics in the future, in the age of Instagram, the age of TikTok, the age of, well, insane madness. Here's Bruce Springsteen sounding very sane. Hi, I'm Bruce Springsteen. Friends, fans, and the press have asked me who I'm supporting in this most important of elections. And with full knowledge that my opinion is no more or less important than those of any of my fellow citizens, here's my answer.

I'm supporting Kamala Harris for president and Tim Walz for vice president and opposing Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. Here's why. We are shortly coming upon one of the most consequential elections in our nation's history, perhaps not since the Civil War has this great country felt as politically, spiritually and emotionally divided as it does then at this moment. It doesn't have to be this way. The common values, the shared stories that make us a great and united nation are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again. Now that will take time, hard work, intelligence, faith, and women and men with the national good guiding their hearts. America

is the most powerful nation on earth, not just because of her overwhelming military strength or economic power, but because of what she stands for, what she means, what she believes in. Freedom, social justice, equal opportunity, the right to be and love who you want. These are the things that make America great. Donald Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president in my lifetime. His disdain for the sanctity of our Constitution,

the sanctity of democracy, the sanctity of the rule of law, and the sanctity of the peaceful transfer of power should disqualify him from the office of president ever again. He doesn't understand the meaning of this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply American. On the other hand, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are committed to a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone, regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view, or sexual identity. And they want to grow our economy in a way that benefits all, not just the few like me on top. That's the vision of America I've been consistently writing about for 55 years. Now, everybody sees things different and I respect your choice as a

fellow citizen. But like you, I've only got one vote and it's one of the most precious possessions that I have. That's why come November 5th, I'll be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Thanks for listening. You know, Gene, there's so many things that were done right there stylistically. But but the words it doesn't he talks about how we're more divided now than any time since the Civil War says it doesn't have to be this way. The common values, the shared stories that make us great and a United Nation or, you know, a United Nation are waiting to be rediscovered and retold once again. And then he says of Donald Trump, he doesn't understand the meaning of this country, its history, and what makes America great. And then at the end, I love how he says to his fans and anybody else watching, hey,

listen, just one guy's opinion. I know people think differently, but this is the most precious thing I have, my vote. And that's why I'm telling you it's so important not only to vote for Kamala Harris, but to beat Donald Trump. What are your thoughts? Well, look, he really does have a way with words, doesn't he? He has for a while. I just saw Bruce and the East Street Band perform here in Washington a few weeks ago, my friend Stevie Vance. They were just in terrific form, and it was such a cross-section. It is a display of Americana up there on the stage that speaks to so many people through the music and especially through the lyrics that are just piercing. He's amazing. And I thought that was a great endorsement.

It really was. It was pure Bruce Springsteen, and I hope people watch it. Now, you know, Donnie, with Mika off the show this morning, I can say what you are. You are an advertising and branding legend. She wouldn't like tell me to be quiet and stop making your head bigger than it is. But let's just teach a role this. And while Donnie talks, just so we can look at the visuals of it.

Talk us through that, Donnie. Why? Why does that the second it hits the screen, why does that appeal to Americans so much? Well, it appeals to Americans for two reasons. Number one, it's Bruce Springsteen. But number two, that is a seat that pretty much anybody in this country can relate to sitting in. That is at a diner, that is in a, every, you know, we all know that diner. And he's wearing the flannel shirt. And he said, there's something about Springsteen that transcends every other celebrity. By the way, that flannel shirt, talk about the consistency. It works because it's consistent with who we know he is. Well, the whole thing is authentic. And that, you know, the whole thing is, and there is, I've been very outspoken, not very

outspoken. I've said many times, you know, step away from celebrities, Democrats. You know, it just puts you in the elitist category. Bruce is in a different place than everybody else. He is not red. He is not blue. He is America. He is red, white and blue.

And there's a trust factor there. And there's an honesty there. And there's an authenticity there. And he's the boss. And I think this is beautifully done. It's well-crafted. It's well-written. But, Joe, you said it best. It's authentic. And I think this is beautifully done. It's well-crafted. It's well written. But Joe, you said it best. It's authentic. And that's what makes it. You know, Mara, there's

also a challenge in there, which is this is what I've been writing about in my songs for 50 years. And it's almost his way of saying, OK, you say you love my songs. You say you love my lyrics. You say like you're a super fan of mine. Okay, well, what you've been singing to, the songs that you've been singing to are exactly what I'm talking about now over these two and a half minutes. Well, I'm really glad you brought that up because first of all, I wish my father was here

who also was a lifelong advertising executive. He was the creative director at Ogilvy & Mather. No way. I started out at Ogilvy & Mather. So you guys could have quite a conversation. He was the guy that fired you. Yeah, I was about to tell you to stop wearing the Baby Gap t-shirts to work. No, no.

He went on to own his own company, too. And he has a long history in the business. But I love watching campaign spots with him because he has such a similar take. And I think what he would say too, is the other reason it works is that it respects the audience. It's not talking down to the viewer. It's saying, you're one of me. You're one of us. I'm here at this table with you sit at my table and I'm going to treat you like an adult. And then I'd say, please do the right thing. You can, it's up to you, but here's why I believe so strongly in this. Come sit with me. And it's powerful. It's also really important because this is a moment where the campaign

desperately needs more male surrogates. It needs more trusted male surrogates to get this message out. And I think that's why Walls has gotten so under Donald Trump's skin, because he's an example of a man who can be strong without diminishing others and without controlling others. And so the more examples we see of that and legends like Bruce Springsteen are directly in that tradition, the better, not just for Kamala Harris, but for the country. I mean, ultimately, this is about between Liz Cheney and Bruce Springsteen saying, you know, this is America. Those guys over there who want to take away your rights, destroy this country for themselves and their pals. That's not America.

This is this is us. You also bring up a great point about where the Harris campaign is right now. And we knew this was going to be the case beforehand. I think we talked about it around the table that when you substitute Joe Biden for Kamala Harris, you're going to be substituting a candidate who actually overperforms among free Democrats, among older white guys in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but underperforms among people of color and younger voters. So that's been switched since Kamala Harris has come on board. And now it is the older white guys in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that that the Harris campaign needs to pick up along with Hispanics. She she needs to gain that. And this is a message to those guys in.

Again, in a diner, as Donnie said, that every one of those guys and all of us understand it is it, an important message to those voters. Yeah. I mean, also, I think a lot of them are primed already to go into that voting booth and say, I cannot do four more years of Donald Trump. Right. I love my wife. I love my daughter. I love my country. I don't really believe in this, but they do need that permission structure. I've been traveling for The Times all year talking to some of these voters, and a lot of them feel like they are alone in this. Well, what does it even matter if I vote? All the guys I know might be voting for Trump. But this says, no, come on in. The water's fine. It is so important. You are so right, because right now that is the concern. The guys that may have voted for Trump in 16, barely were able to vote for him in 20. And they've said it to me. They hate the fact that they're going to have to

vote for this guy in 2024. They don't feel right now. Some of them don't feel like they can vote for a Democrat, let alone Kamala Harris. And this is that's why Bruce Springsteen here, not that one rock star is going to make a difference, but it certainly is the kind of phrase of of the campaign. It's the permission structure. Hey, wait a second. I've listened to this guy for 50 years. I know him. He's a good guy and he shares my values. And if he says she's OK, yeah, maybe when they walk into the booth, they go, yeah, OK, let's do it. But right now, Jonathan, to underline this fact that that that Kamala Harris needs help in in this area. You had more, I thought, very surprising news yesterday and not good news for the Harris campaign that the firefighters who

were Joe Biden's most strident supporters, the firefighters union, follow the teamsters union and decided they weren't going to get involved in the presidential race. Again, it could have been much worse. They could have done what the Teamsters have done in the past and endorse a Republican president. But they did not do that yesterday. Yeah, the Firefighters Union endorsed Joe Biden in April of 2019, in the very early days of his campaign. They were immediately on board for him. Yesterday, they announced they're not going to endorse at all. There was a close vote of its members, and they opted, much like the Teamsters, to not back at all. And that is reflective of what is becoming a growing concern among Democrats and the Harris campaign, that she is indeed struggling with male voters, particularly working class, blue collar,

and often white male voters, and that there are needs to be more outreach to those groups. These are groups that over the last few years have started to break towards Trump. These non-college educated voters are breaking Republican. They're breaking Trump. And it's a growing sign of concern. And by the way, we showed that Tim Walz and J.D. Vance numbers after the debate and showed how it was pretty much a draw, even though Walz's approval ratings went up far more. But you look at the crosstabs of white male voters without a college degree. J.D. Vance won overwhelmingly. So so if J.D. Vance is running around like wall to wall, a lot of America may be looking at the cat memes when J.D. Vance goes to rural areas in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, he's he's getting he's getting warm welcomes. And he's he he messages much better there than Tim Walz does.

He does. A Trump campaign adviser pointed to me yesterday about the firefighters union. J.D. Vance went there and made a pitch. He actually got booed by a lot of people in the room. But afterwards, people gave him credit for showing up, delivered the message. He showed some toughness. He was there. And Heilman, I mean, this is a concern for the Democrats. To Tamara's point, they're looking for these male surrogates. An important one on the left has suddenly been Mark Cuban, who's out there a lot defending the Biden-Harris economic policy. Also, like appearing on podcasts that young male voters might listen to, voters who aren't going to hear the Harris message otherwise. Springsteen might help, too. But this is a growing concern of these voters who might have been for Biden, but now looking at the

Harris-Trump choice, might be leading Trump. You've got this, you know, we've seen this throughout the campaign. It was true when Biden was the nominee, presumptive nominee, and it's been true with Kamala Harris. And not surprisingly, this massive gender gap. And look, Democrats are dominating with women voters as much, in some cases, more than Republicans have been dominating with the male vote. But as you get closer to the finish line here, and you look up and see how close these races are, the Democratic side, the Harris campaign, looks at that gender gap and says, we may have maxed out on women. I mean, they're at the highest levels.

You're going to claim the highest level of female voters, if these trend lines hold, of any presidential candidate in history. And by the way, she's doing well right now. If you look at the polls, other than the New York Times and the poll, if you look at the polls, she's trending in the right direction, poll after poll after poll. The question is, though, for them, do you want votes to be counted four, five days after the election, or do you want to win on election night? Unfortunately, in Pennsylvania, they're going to be counted a couple of days after election, no matter what. At Arizona and Nevada. But if they want this thing over on election night, they are going to have to do better with older white men and with Hispanics. Those are the two areas they need to really close ranks on. on that would be to say that there's a consistent trend in the polling, which is that we are in so many ways back to a better version of the same structural race that we had when Joe Biden was

the top of the ticket, which is to say the blue wall states are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin continues to be the path of least resistance, with Nebraska, if you add Nebraska too in there for Harris. It's interesting that Harris is doing in poll after poll very well in Wisconsin, which even has some people in the Harris campaign going, hmm, because it is older and it is wider, but also obviously maybe more solid, more moderate. She's doing incredibly well with white voters who are college educated. And so, when you think about it, that path, that blue wall path is the way,

again, the path to the least resistance, the easiest way to get to 270 for her. And she has been underperforming in Georgia. I mean, they're all close. These are all within margin of error. All margin of error. But the reality is, if you look, largely because of that Hispanic vote, Joe, in these more diverse states, especially in Arizona, where she's been weaker and so on, they keep looking to those industrial Midwest states. And if you're going to try to get out of that zone where you're consistently up, but you're only up by a point and a half or two points. The way to do that is to try to get a little bit larger share of this white male vote. Yeah. I mean, if the Hispanic vote's 60-40, it's going to be a close race. If it's 65-35, you know, Harris is good. And she needs to pick up five, six, seven points,

about a month to go. And it'll probably happen. We shall see. But what we're going to come to come around to next, we just did the boss next Liz Cheney in Wisconsin. It's quite an event. We're going to show it to you when Morning Joe returns. Republicans were very worked up about Joe Biden, how old he was and his energy level, his ability to lead. But even though Trump is only three years younger than Joe Biden, they don't seem too worried about that anymore. Biden can't walk. He can barely speak. We just had another sock rocket. He can read off a teleprompter.

Shifting production to Thailand. These people need to step rocket. He can read off a teleprompter. Shifting production to Thailand. These people need to step down. They're too old. We like to listen to AM radio. He's old. He's really old. They used to call it TiVo. Now they have TiVo. President Biden is so divorced from reality. Chuck Schumer has become a Palestinian. President Biden really lost touch with all reality. I'm a better looking person than Kamala. The U.N.R.C. is flying. We'll repeat you. There comes a time where you take the keys away from grandpa. They're eating the dogs. The climate decline is degenerative. It gets worse, not better. They're eating the cats. We could give you examples. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

That's an example. Hurrah, MAGA. MAGA, MAGA. The man is non-functional. I'm Joe Biden, and they made me withdraw a bunch of banana oil. Yeah, that's right. It is a bunch of banana oil. Wow.

That was so well done. Wow. I mean, he's got so much to work with. Can you imagine landing from Mars? Every day. Landing from Mars and just seeing that video and go, that's the guy. That's the guy that's running for president that 80 million people are going to vote for.

I've got a better way to think. Can you imagine being asleep like Rip Van Winkle since 2015 and waking up and saying that this is now the reality and that this guy is still being competitive in a race. I mean, we we we forget how how quickly things have changed. I mean, in Gene, we forget. My God, if any politician had had been asked about their policy for taking care of rising crime rates, which we don't have right now. And the answer was a day of violence. We're going to let the cops, we're going to let everybody else engage in a day of terrible violence. And then we're we're going to have bloody deportations.

His words, these sort of things that politician were he or she running for president, for senator, for governor, for congressman, for tax collector, for city councilman, for city councilwoman. They would be out of politics forever. Now it doesn't even make the front page of our newspapers. No, it's incredible. It's incredible. This man whipped up a crowd on on the Ellipse, sent them up to the Capitol to sack the Capitol, to beat police officers with the American flag, to defecate in the halls of Congress, to threaten the lives of members of Congress and his own vice president in order to try to steal an election, to overturn the result of a free and fair election. And that guy is still a viable presidential candidate. What is wrong with us? What is wrong here? There's something that is utterly impossible.

And yet here we are. And, you know, Jack Smith in that filing this this week reminded us that as Mike Pence's life was in danger at the Capitol, he said, so what? Donald Trump sat there watching it on television, on Fox News and said, so what? Just stunning. Absolutely stunning. If that's not disqualifying, what is? Well, and his chief legal counsel came up to him and said Mike Pence was in danger. They were talking about lynching him. And he said, well, maybe he deserves lynching. And you go on and on and on.

And that guy is still competitive. And you try to ask people how they could vote for that guy who said that maybe his vice president deserved lynching, maybe his chairman of the Joint Chiefs deserved being executed for treason because he was not as supportive of his attempts to overthrow the presidential election, who's talked about being dictator for a day, who's talked about a day of violence to take care of crime, a day of violence. I mean, we could go on and on and on. And their answer is so what?

So let's talk briefly about what happened yesterday, because Joe Biden, a man that many newspapers and many Republicans had said completely lost his faculties. We we saw him do some pretty extraordinary things to get Evan out of Russia. I almost said the Soviet Union, but same thing used was was nimble in a way that many other presidents would not have been able to be. And then yesterday we were reporting on the news that a union leader who is a Trump supporter said we're going to shut down the ports and we're going to basically wreck this economy. And here we wake up this morning to find out that Joe Biden once again got his people involved and averted a strike that most people believed would wreck the economy and go through the end

of the year. What happened? Yeah, this has been a they had been on strike for a couple of days and there was going to be significant economic ramifications here had it lasted much longer. Had this strike extended a week or more supply chain issues, economic issues, which would be bad for all Americans, but also bad for the candidacy of Vice President Harris, who the Trump team was already pointing to and saying, look, you're the party in power. You're the one to be blamed if the economy slows down here. The worst kind of October surprise for Democrats. That strike has now been avoided because in large part to the quiet behind the scenes work of this White House, President Biden, still president and deployed, whether it's people to judge, Julie Hsu, Leo Brander and the rest, his senior team on the

working the phones for days and days and days with both the business leaders and the unions trying to get them to a place where they can come to a deal. And yesterday, tentative agreements struck on wages. There are still some issues that have to get worked out, like automation. But even that will resume in January after the election. So this is good news for the American economy. First and foremost, the president continues to support workers. He made that clear yesterday. And it takes this issue off the table for the stretch from the election. And, you know, big political news yesterday as we referenced former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney campaigned with Vice President Kamala Harris in Wisconsin yesterday. Also, something you would never believe if you just awakened from 2015, you would say, what? But then again, in 2014, Donald Trump contributed

money to Kamala Harris's campaign. So anyway, yesterday, Liz Cheney and Kamala Harris were at the birthplace of the Republican Party. Take a look. I volunteered on my first presidential campaign. I already told you how old I am, so I'll tell you. In 1976, when I was 10 years old and I was sealing envelopes for President Ford's reelection campaign, I cast my first vote ever in 1984 for Ronald Reagan. I served in the State Department in both Bush administrations and I served in the United States House of Representatives for three terms including as the third highest ranking Republican in House leadership. So So, in other words, I was a Republican even before Donald Trump started spray tanning. History teaches us again and again that democracies can fall.

They fall to populists. They fall to populists. They fall to strong men, strong men who beguile their fellow citizens with conspiracy theories and false emergencies. As my friend the late Charles Krauthammer taught us, the lesson of our history is that the task of merely maintaining strong and sturdy the structures of our constitutional order is unending. It is the continuing and ceaseless work of every generation. And that responsibility now falls on all of us in this election. We have a shared commitment, a shared commitment as Americans to ensuring that future generations live in a nation where power is transferred peacefully, where our leaders are men and women of good faith, and

where our public servants set aside partisan battles to do what's right for this country. So today, I ask all of you here and everyone listening across this great country to join us. I ask you to meet this moment. I ask you to stand in truth, to reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump. And I ask you instead to help us elect Kamala Harris for president. It's remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. I ask you to meet this moment. It's so funny. You'll you'll you'll have, I'm sure, people on Twitter. You'll have others saying, oh, she's a rhino. No, she's not. She had a 95 percent ACA rating, ACU rating, a conservative rating when she was in the House, as was I, which means we were so

conservative that usually we would make people uncomfortable at dinner parties if they weren't all Republicans. This is not the mushy middle. Dick Cheney, former Republican vice president, not the mushy middle. Right. You can't call Dick Cheney a rhino either. Vice President Mike Pence, also a vice president, not voting for Donald Trump either. Alberto Gonzalez, a man loathed by many on the left. That's what all of these people share. They were loathed at one point by people on the left, by Democrats for being too conservative. They now say Donald Trump not fit to be president of the United States.

Donald Trump's own secretaries of defense say Donald Trump not fit to be president of the United States. Donald Trump's own secretary of states saying Donald Trump not fit to be president of the United States. Donald Trump's own national security advisers, multiple national security advisers, saying Donald Trump not fit to be president of the United States. Hundreds of Republican administration officials in Bush 43's administration, in Bush 41's administration, in Ronald Reagan's administration, Ken Adelman, all of them saying Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States.

We don't need John Meacham here, Maura, to ask if this has ever happened before in modern American politics. It simply has not. And again, I don't know how anybody could see what happened yesterday and see what's been happening over the past several weeks with one Republican after another Republican after another Republican that they they used to pledge their fealty to saying, don't vote for this guy. We know him. We worked for him. He's not fit to be commander in chief. And I think the question is, you know, this this election is going to be decided by a handful of states, by a small number of voters in those states. And it's moments like this that could make that difference. When you go to Wisconsin, when you go to Michigan, when you go to Pennsylvania, in North Carolina, where I was just on assignment, and you have Republicans, not just men, men especially, but also women Republicans who say, you know, if Liz Cheney can stand with Kamala Harris on a stage, maybe I can vote for her,

or maybe I can stay home and not vote for Donald Trump. I mean, this is powerful. I also think it's important because it does something. Liz Cheney is doing something that has not been done, which is to say, you know what? I'm going to stand with this black woman and I'm going to wrap my arm around her and I'm going to say she is a patriot. I am a patriot. I am a patriot. She is a patriot. We are all patriots. This is the coalition of patriots.

That's not about party. Right. That's about democracy. And whatever Donald Trump is doing over there is not about you or us. It's not about America or democracy. It's about him. Yep. And that's a pretty powerful message. I think we'll find out on the trail how it's resonating. I think there's going to be more surrogates

needed. More. The answer is more. Hopefully this has to be the beginning. Right. Is my takeaway, not the end. You know, what Liz Cheney did was courageous. It's courageous because it cost her her political career. So for people who think that somehow she's enjoying that moment on the stage and it accrues to her political benefit, she is now a woman without a party. I will say I, too, like all of these other people, I'm a man without a party. And if you all will just forgive me for just a moment of indulgence here, personal, a point of personal reference, preference or whatever. Privilege. Privilege. It's been a while since I've been on the house. So we we talked about it last week, but I went to the 30th anniversary signing of the contract with America where we talked about

and a lot of people said, wait, you're going to that with those Republicans? And my answer is I love those Republicans. I said, because those Republicans, what we sat about around in the back, we weren't talking about like these crazy cultural war issues. We were constantly asking, how do we balance a budget? What do we do to balance a budget? What leverage do we have? Not over the Democrats, over our own leaders. How do we push our own leaders? How do we push our own appropriators to make the tough choices? And time and time again, we lost, we lost, we lost, we lost, then would win one and then would go back and would shut down the government and we would vote down a rule that would shut down Congress. And I would say Newt Gingrich spoke at it. And as Gingrich said, he said a couple of things that were very interesting. One, he said, you know how he did it? He said, we worked. And it was hard. And it was hard. That's the reason why we're the only Congress, along with Bill

Clinton, balanced the budget four years in a row. That hasn't happened in 100 years. And it was also a team effort. Another thing Gingrich said was, if anybody here is really close to Donald Trump, you may want to tell him how we did it. He goes, do you notice the word we? We did it. And that's something that's missing right now. And so I'm not I'm not thrilled about the fact that my party has turned into what it's turned into. Liz Cheney's not thrilled that her party's turned into. Yeah, we always had, we had crazy people there. We did crazy things. Democrats have crazy people in their party.

Democrats have crazy things. But our North Star was balancing the budget, being responsible with taxpayers' money, protecting the country, and trying to stay out of people's business. And there's not a party that does that anymore. So, no, that wasn't easy for Liz Cheney to do. And it's not easy to be a person without a political party in America. But that's where we are. I want to tell you, you're not a man without a party,

Joe. You've got a party right here. Well, yes. And I've got all my friends at home that are watching right now, family members at home that are watching right now. That's that's our party. That's our party. So here's it through the prism of like what what's the campaign trying to get done over the course of the next little more than four weeks. There's one of the most common misperceptions about undecided voters, is that there's this group of people out there in America who are still trying to decide between voting for Kamala Harris and voting for Donald Trump. There's almost no one like that anymore. There's some, not very many. What there really is a bunch of people, millions of people, some of whom have voted in an irregular way over the last couple of election cycles, and some of whom have never

voted. But their decision is not between the two candidates. Their decision is between voting and not voting. And if you think about the groups that the campaign, the Harris campaign targets in terms of like, who are the irregular voters that we need to turn out who are making that decision? Not somehow they're confused about whether they want to vote for Trump or Harris, but are they motivated enough to come out and vote for Kamala Harris? There's three big groups like that. One group is young voters, the most irregular voters of all. Another group are voters of color who tend to be lower propensity voters and come out in presidential elections, not a lot of other election cycles.

And then there's your group, which is the people that power Joe Biden into the White House in 2020, suburban Republican leaning independents. And Liz Cheney is all about that group is like, are those people going to a lot of them were going to stay home if the choice was between Joe Biden and Donald Trump? They had decided that Joe Biden couldn't do the job for another four years. They do not want to vote for Donald Trump. Now they are looking for I don't want to use the permission structure again, that phrase, but they're looking for a motivating. Can they get to the point where they are like, OK, I'm done with Donald Trump, but can I identify enough with, am I excited enough by, do I have the permission structure, whatever phrase you want to use,

that she has made the sale, and I'm willing to go out and vote for her rather than stay home. By the way, just for people that are watching going, wait, how could they not? How could they not vote for Kamala Harris? What they're seeing, and I saw it this weekend while I was watching football games, commercial after commercial after commercial after commercial of Kamala Harris in 2019 saying that she supported federal funding for transition operations. She's a radical. She's a communist. Well, and they get quotes from her in 2019 where she was trying to be more woke than anybody else in 2019. And I think the campaign's done a good job cleaning a lot of that stuff up. They need to look at the commercials that are being run over and over and over again.

Yes. Because, again, it's not you or me in Florida or New York that they need to worry about, it's the guys in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania that are looking to play. Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta, Arizona. Or watching sports on streaming. Watching sports. If you go to one of those cities right now, one of those in a battleground state, and go to a city and watch sports on streaming, what you will see is a nonstop barrage of that kind of advertising attacking Kamala Harris, trying to make her,

to disqualify her in the minds of all three of those subset of irregular voters. And the question I have for you, Joe, is this, to go back to your point of personal privilege. In past election cycles, there was always the Colin Powell primary. Who's Colin Powell going to endorse? It was always a late October thing. You rattled off a name of a bunch of Republicans who are now basically people without a party. Who are the Republicans in your mind who could move the needle with suburban, former Republican, irregular Republicans who are sick of Trump, need to get an endorsement or an endorsement would matter to getting them out for Kamala Harris. Is there anyone left?

Who do you think W is? He's in a field of one that that would be everything. And, you know, the only the only problem with W is that the second, you know, I criticize W for, you know, spending too much money for being too reckless with war, you know, for deficits. And and all the Republicans called me a commie for for not lining up behind him. And then the second he left office, they were saying the same thing that I said about him. I don't know if W does it or not. He he certainly it wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt. But but maybe maybe again we're not talking big numbers yeah we're talking a small subset so yeah i i think i think he would help but it is important

to think about these undecided voters again that we don't think about uh or that we don't understand how could you be undecided and then all you have to do is realize that there are people out there that voted for Ronald Reagan twice, Bill Clinton twice, George W. Bush twice, and Barack Obama twice, and then voted for Donald Trump. And those are people that are swayed by Bruce Springsteen, maybe swayed by George W. Bush. But again, the main thing is Harris has got to convince them she is not the radical that they're seeing in every football game. It's very easy. I mean, for the Harris campaign, they need to look at the football ads that are being run against them around the clock. And right now, it's what she said in 2019 about taxpayer funding for for transition surgery.

And also, I will say, forgive me for being presumptuous is the first time I've ever been presumptuous in political candidates before. You don't see the joy in the ads for Kamala Harris that you see when she's on stage. You know, we always have advice for people. My advice for the Harris campaign is joy. It's got to permeate, permeate, not just your speeches. It's got to permeate your interviews. It's got to permeate your ads. It's got to permeate everything about your campaign because campaigns are about a contrast. And right now, the joy we saw at the launch of the campaign doesn't always come

through in those commercials, doesn't always come through in the interviews. And it needs to, you know, when you're doing an interview, you don't have to be and I'm not saying she's this way. I'm a serious person. Ronald Reagan was smiling through his interviews all the time. Barack Obama always kept a sunny disposition through his interviews. It's critical that they do that. Yeah, there are moments where she comes off a little too scripted, Democrats fear. So a couple of points here. I mean, they to your they're being outspent by the Harris campaign is far more money than

the Trump campaign. It's these Republican super PACs that are ones that are blanketing the airwaves right now and making a point, defining, trying to define Harris now that she was in 2020. The Harris team is ramping up their own ads. In fact, during the Major League Baseball playoffs this weekend, others are doing ads at Latino voters. They know they need some help there. Certainly, Bruce Springsteen, Liz Cheney, helping with maybe those moderate independent types. And they're about to, to Hyland's list here, young voters, people of color, starting next week, Barack Obama is heading out on the

campaign trail for her, apparently doing a pretty aggressive campaign schedule, trying to get them out, trying to get, because it's about turning out your voters or those who have maybe been inclined to support your party in the past, but aren't sure now. That's where this is about. And we're also, from Democrats, and Joe, you and I have been talking about this in the last couple of days, a real push simply for Harrison Wills to do more, period. Just be out there and go blanket the airwaves, rally after rally and clip footage from one of those rallies. Use capture that joy. Put that in that. We got to go to break right now. Alex is going to have a stroke because we've been trying to get to see Ratner now for 30 minutes. And it's all my fault.

I apologize. Coming up, while President Biden toured storm damages, damage in Georgia and Florida, Donald Trump campaigned in Michigan and lied, actually, about the federal efforts to provide relief to everybody that was impacted by the hurricane. We're going to fact check his comments. Plus, Steve Ratner standing by with charts on Donald Trump's proposed economic plan. The Ratner charts are here. Wake up the kids. We'll be right back. Former President Donald Trump touted his economic plan at a campaign rally in Michigan yesterday, saying the country would make, quote, so much money if he were reelected. In reality, the former president's economic plan would add trillions to the national debt. I mean, just absolutely would be a debt would be devastating. He he already set all records

for blowing a hole in the deficit. Just extraordinary. He during his four years, he added more to the national debt than any president. Well, actually, the aggregate combination of all 44 presidents that came before him after promising to balance the budget and pay down the debt. And now it's going to get worse. For a closer look at the national debt and the economic plans from both Trump and Harris, let's bring in right now former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Reiner. Hey, Steve. So unfortunately, during this century, as we've discussed, neither party has cared about the national debt.

When I left Congress in 2001, we had a $155 billion surplus, had about a $5 trillion national debt. Now it's $35 trillion. Any hope of that reversing from either of these two candidates' programs, proposed programs? Well, reversing would be too strong a word, but one is certainly preferable to the other. But to your point, Joe, let's first put this in a little bit of context and show the mess we're in and a little bit of how we kind of got here. But if you go back to 2007, i.e. before the financial crisis, the Congressional Budget Office actually thought our debt to GDP ratio, which is how we measure the sustainability of our debt, the ratio of our debt to our GDP,

would actually be going down. It was at about 40 percent, thought it'd be going down around to 20 percent. That seems a little quaint now. Then you had the financial crisis. And since the financial crisis, every year, the Congressional Budget Office has projected that the debt would be higher than it thought the previous year. And so now we're all the way up here. We're on present course and speed. The CBO says we could reach 120% debt to GDP, which would be obviously the highest in any recent history, but also the highest in all of our history, including World War Two, when we had to take on a lot of debt for very, very important reasons. So this is what's happened. And how has it happened? A little bit of what you just said, Joe. But just as a reminder, when Bill Clinton left office, we had

a surplus. It lasted for the first year of Bush 43. And then, as you mentioned earlier, taxes, the Iraq war, he sent the deficit up, came down a little bit, but then you had the financial crisis. And of course, we had to do that. You've got to give Obama credit. He worked the deficit all the way down to here. But then, as you also said, under Trump, even before COVID, the deficit was going up as a ratio to GDP. And now it's come down a bit under Biden. So that's where we are. And that's what we're looking at as we go into this campaign. So talk about how much more Trump would borrow. OK, so let's look at the different plans that we have. Donald Trump's plan would basically extend all his tax cuts for everybody,

including the wealthy, exempt Social Security from income tax. He's all add to the deficit. No tax on tips. Lower the corporate tax rate. He does want to repeal the green energy tax credits, but he would add five point two trillion dollars more to the debt over the next 10 years. He has this idea for tariffs, which would offset it. Nobody thinks these tariffs would really happen. Even with that, it would add $2.6 trillion. Harris, on the other hand, has a plan that actually pays for itself. And it's also important to note that Trump's tax plan favors the wealthy. Harris's tax plan favors average Americans. She wants to extend tax cuts,

but only for those making less than $400,000. And she wants to raise taxes on the wealthy, make them pay their fair share, as she has been saying, raise corporate taxes, make them pay their fair share. And so when you get to the bottom line down here, she would only add a trivial amount to the deficit. So she wouldn't solve the problem, but she would at least not make it worse. And so that shows chart three about how Harris limits the new debt. Yeah. So when you add all this up together, you can see over here that Trump would add this five point two trillion dollars to the debt without his tariffs, less with his tariffs. But as I said, no one really believes that's going to happen. And she adds essentially nothing to the national debt.

And you compare that to what's happened under Trump and under Biden. Under Trump, $8.4 trillion, as you said earlier. In fairness, $3.6 trillion of it was COVID-related debt, but still $4.8 trillion of debt. And Biden, a good bit less, especially when you exclude COVID. So it's a much superior plan than anything we've seen for a good while. So so so let me ask you this, Steve. So that that that looks remarkable. First of all, I'm curious about your sourcing. And secondly, if that's all she added to the national debt, would that not make her the most fiscally conservative with a small C president this century compared to George W. Bush, compared to Barack Obama, compared to Donald Trump, compared to Joe Biden?

Yeah, Joe, that's a really good point. We have not had a president, as you saw over there, who didn't add a huge amount of debt to our pile over the last few years. But let me just also, Joe, because I know you care a lot about this issue, close with showing you that we still have a problem. If you look at the 50-year average of revenues, tax revenues, as a percentage of our GDP, you can see that our tax revenues are below our 50-year average now. Our spending is above our 50-year average now. Doesn't work. Doesn't work. So you can see over here, just for example, under Clinton, it did work. You had revenues higher than the spending. But now we're up here.

Can I correct you, Steve? Under that young Republican Congress, you can say Clinton. I guess it's all a matter of perspective. But under that young Republican Congress that forced Bill Clinton to sign our bills, we balance the budget. All right. Well, look, can we agree that there's shared credit? Yeah, we we can, though you were not sharing credit when you talked about neither of you. But in fairness, neither were you. So now we can agree to share the credit. We'll share the credit. I want this is fascinating. And again, it's really fascinating. Give me your sources here. Again,

what are the sources for these numbers? These are congressional budget office numbers. What about the Harris? What about the Harris plan? These are these are numbers that have that her campaign produced, but have been vetted by independent the Tax Foundation, independent scorekeepers of this sort of thing. These are honest numbers. Why? It's again, it is remarkable that here you have Kamala Harris, who has been part of an administration that has just outperformed China. It just lapped China several times over the past four years, has outperformed the rest of Europe, all of our allies, the strongest economy in the world, a $27 trillion GDP, the strongest stock market ever, a 50-year high for the U.S. dollar, more oil production than any country in history,

and now fiscally more conserved than any president this century based on her plan and what it's projected to do. And there's still Yahoo's going around making millions and millions of dollars claiming that she and Biden are socialists. It somehow doesn't wash, does it, Steve? It does not wash, Joe. You're right. The record has really been exceptional. He has done a great job of growing this economy,

as well as imposing a lot of new plans and policies like the IRA that have solved things like help solve things like our climate problem. The Infrastructure Act. It's actually the CHIPS Act. Yeah, it's a really strong record. See, finally, you you and I have been worried about deficits and the debt going back to the Obama administration. We we've been talking about this. Could you explain to people, because it's it's just hard for people to grasp what happens when when we have the crisis, the debt crisis, when the debt bomb goes off and how quickly do things collapse, not only in America, but around the globe? Well, you know, that famous Hemingway line about how he went bankrupt at first gradually and then suddenly. And that could be the scenario here. You could continue to add all

this debt to the pile. And at some point, the markets just back up and say, we don't want that debt anymore. And you have huge rise in interest interest rates you have some other version of a financial crisis we're forced to do stuff that we should be doing voluntarily but doing it under pain and having to do a lot more of it than if we'd done it earlier the other scenario is that we continue to drift along like this and what happens is our interest costs are rising rising rising as a share of our federal spending and it's pushing out all kinds of other useful federal spending and eventually could impinge on things like Social Security and Medicare. But it would do something about it. It would. It would.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, just about every other program would be slashed as we as our economy spiraled out of control. And that's the thing. We still have time to take care of it because we have a strong economy. But when it hits the fan, we won't. It's just, you know, a lot of progressive economists mocked not only me, but people like me for years when we talked about how big spending would lead to big interest rates and big interest rates would lead to pain across all sectors of the American economy.

And then it happened. And all they said were, yeah, we got it wrong. We're sorry. Well, a lot of people suffered because of it. Joe, this is unsustainable. You can't run the country or a business where your revenues are year after year so far below your expenses. You just can't do it. Yep. All right. Morning Joe, economic analyst Steve Ratner. Thanks so much. And go Mets. Congratulations, Steve. Thank you.