Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/5/22

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

National Republicans stand by Herschel Walker after report he paid for an abortion

And with that, single season home run leader, B.A.L. King. Case closed. And with that, Yankee star Aaron Judge walks into history with a 60-second home run of this season, breaking the American League record set by Roger Maris and Willie, as far as you and I are concerned, I'm sure, breaking the single season all-time home run record because the only people that are in front of him have a massive asterisk because they were all at the height of the Lloyds era and they were all Lloyded out themselves. But Aaron Judge, you know, not only does he set this record, he does it with his mom in the stands and proves throughout this entire process, he's really one of the good guys in baseball today. I'm chuckling just because of watching that shot of his mother. That was just

relief right there. She's been on the road with him she's been for the last couple of weeks it's been this traveling show to see is he going to tie the record 61 will he break it and you could just see her sort of fall back into her chair and say oh finally he did it and not a moment too soon the second to last day of the season today the last day of the regular season so he can breathe a little bit, relax. He did it in the top of the first inning too. So just kind of got it out of the way. As you say now, 62 home runs, the all-time single season American League home run champion. There will be debate about whether he's the real home run champion. Roger Marris' son says yes. Aaron Judge is the real champion. Interestingly enough, Aaron Judge has said no, the record is 73. That's the number that's in the books for now.

I respect that. I'm the American League home run champion. But as you said, Joe, raising two Yankee fans in my house, he's just a great guy and a great role model. And the kind of player who you want your kids to watch and say, yes, that's how you handle success. That's how you handle failure. That's how you're a good teammate. That's how you prepare. That's how hard you work. And that's how you handle failure that's how you're a good teammate that's how you prepare that's how hard you work and that's how you carry yourself through life so couldn't be happier for Aaron Judge 62 home runs now exhale today and get ready for the playoffs and and a

beloved son adopted was asked at a press conference if he was looking for his birth parents. He said, I have one set of parents and, you know, I may not have grown up in my mom's stomach, but I grew up in her heart. And that's that is all all that matters. And I just got to say really quickly, we're going to be talking about this in a minute. And Mika's ready for us to talk about it in a minute, not now. No, this one is good. But I will say Major League Baseball series, they know that Bonds and Sosa and McGuire, they know they cheated. Everybody knows they cheated.

So don't give the record. Don't let the record stand for people you know cheated. This guy did it the right way, just like Maris did it the right way, just like Ruth did it the right way, just like Hank Aaron did it the right way and Willie Mays. Don't reward those cheaters that were setting all these records over two or three years. Yeah.

Yeah. Officially, their names are in the books. There are six seasons with more home runs than Aaron Judge had. All of them, though, as you say, are by Bonds, McGuire, and Sosa, either admitted, suspected, or, well, steroid users. So, yes, Aaron Judge is the kind of guy a Major League Baseball should want to be the face of that home run record. They'll continue to have that debate. There's an asterisk. Baseball fans understand that. You know that. Anybody watching knows. In my mind, Aaron Judge is the real home run champion. He's the champ. I'm biased towards a Yankee fan, but to me, he is the champ. And

the season, Joe, that he put together was 62 home runs, 131 RBIs, and he's hitting about 310 right now. Probably not going to get the triple crown. He's going to fall a little bit short on the batting average. But one of the best seasons in the history of Major League Baseball. And as you said, doing it the right way. Yankees had a chance of time down earlier this year. Not only did they give him a number that was low by comparison to other superstars,

they then, in a weird way, tried to embarrass him by making that number public, thinking that the public would side with him. Didn't happen. Now, big, big payday coming up because let's just say

the Yankees lacked vision earlier this year. So Joe, the Yankees are worth. Go ahead. I was just going to say, make a Forbes magazine just came out to the Yankees are worth six billion dollars. I think Aaron Judge is probably owed one maybe of those billion dollars. At least. Exactly.

We can talk about this with Mike Lupica, who's coming up in just a few minutes so we can discuss this more. We're also following new developments in the Trump documents case as the former president with Mike Lupica, who's coming up in just a few minutes so we can discuss this more. We're also following new developments in the Trump documents case as the former president appeals to the Supreme Court in the dispute over classified materials seized from Mar-a-Lago. We're going to break down what exactly he's asking the court to do. And the October surprise in the Georgia Senate race, how the abortion allegation against Republican Herschel Walker and the broadside from his adult son may or may not shake up that race. And that's where we begin this morning. their support for Georgia Senate nominee Herschel Walker, despite allegations that the supposedly anti-abortion former college football star once paid for a girlfriend's abortion.

In a series of statements yesterday, key voices in the GOP, including former President Donald Trump, accused Democrats and the media of running a smear campaign against Walker with Election Day less than five weeks away. Well, there's only a problem with that. The problem with that is that his own family is coming out. Yeah. His own son is coming out and saying this about him. Quote, Herschel has properly denied the charges against him, and I have no doubt he is correct,

wrote former President Trump, not sure how he would know on his social media site. Trump added, quote, They are trying to destroy a man who has true greatness in his future, just as he had athletic greatness in his past. News, the National Republican Senate Committee is organizing an effort to have Republicans appear with Walker on the campaign trail in Georgia in the lead up to Election Day. Willie. And those details again on Monday, the Daily Beast reported in 2009, Walker gave his then girlfriend nearly six hundred dollars so she could have an abortion. The woman who requested anonymity, citing privacy concerns, provided the Daily Beast with a receipt from the abortion clinic and a get well soon card, she says, was sent by Walker. The Daily Beast also reported it corroborated the woman's story

with a friend, who she told at the time. Walker has called that report a flat out lie. NBC News has not verified the details of the story or seen these documents. Throughout his campaign, Walker has claimed to be against abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk. So it has been extraordinary to watch every Republican group, the National Party, the anti-abortion groups rally to the side of Herschel Walker just reflexively, despite the details of the story and despite this woman who Herschel Walker said yesterday he doesn't know, providing receipts and a check from Herschel Walker. Well, I would say their corruption is complete, but well, that that that was known to Americans a long time ago during Donald Trump's first campaign for president. This is a good sort of and puts a death wish on

him and then makes racist statements about his wife. No, no Republican comes out and condemns him by name. And then the next day, his son comes out. The son of Herschel Walker comes out after this report on this abortion that the son says Herschel Walker is lying about. And the son confirms what we've all read, that he's abused his wife. He's lied about the abuse. He had four children. Four women, never raised any of them. Four children out of wedlock, I think the son said. Never raised one of them. Lied about most of them. He lied about his education. Said he graduated from Georgia. He never did. He lied about working for law enforcement. He never did. He lied about working for law enforcement. He never did. He lied about

working with the FBI. He never did. And from a distance, he seems to be, and I'm being very polite here, he seems to be a deeply disturbed man, incapable, as some of his friends from his hometown said, incapable of running a small Georgia town, let alone being a United States senator. Now, this is evident. This is evident to everyone in the Republican Party. They know that. But the corruption of the party has reached such a level

that even somebody with Herschel Walker's background and and with with the stories from his ex-wife that, you know, he'd abuse her, put a gun to her head. All of this just doesn't they don't even flinch. So, well, let's see what kind of impact this is going to have on the race. Let's bring in the political correspondent for The Washington Examiner, David Drucker. His new piece is titled Walker Abortion Allegations and Tongue Slashing, Lashing from Son. Complicated effort to unseat Warnock. Also with us, we've got the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan O'Meara. I've got to say, David, it's I you know, I think I'm lying to us with the football. I actually did expect one or two Republican senators to come out and condemn this behavior. I also more importantly, I expected quite a few to come out and defend Mitch McConnell and his wife, the soon to be, many of them believe, majority leader and his wife from racist attacks.

But, man, they are standing shoulder to shoulder regardless whatever horrific conduct is taking place. Well, look, Joe, they're focused on winning the Senate majority. Getting into a circular firing squad battle with Donald Trump is not going to help matters at all. Not only will Trump attack them, but possibly some of their candidates. But it's just something that really gets an important segment of the Republican base, a segment that they need to show up on November 8th, upset, and they don't see any value into it. They've been there before. They've done it. And they just don't see that anything good politically comes from it. And right now they're completely focused on politics. I think on the Walker matter, one of the things that Trump has

taught Republicans, and they've talked to me about this over the years, is that when you're facing personal scandal, accusations, whether they're true or they're not true, you can weather the storm if you refuse to concede any ground, refuse to apologize, accuse the left of smear tactics, and you just press on. I think President Trump proved that by winning in 2016. We all know the story. And Republicans have really taken that to heart. The other thing, you know, we say all the time, well, this race could decide the Senate majority. And, and, you know, whether it's an attack ad or not, you know, people talk about the 51st vote in the

U.S. Senate. And that's what this one means. But this this is literally possibly the race that could decide the Senate majority when you take a look at what is happening in other Senate races. And this is a difficult race for Republicans, even though they have so much going for them. When you look at polling, Governor Brian Kemp is on track to win reelection. He's having to work for it, but he's on track to win. And Herschel Walker is in a dogfight with Raphael Warnock, the incumbent senator. And something like this could hurt. Maybe it won't, but it could.

And so Republicans look at the map, they look at the count, and they say to themselves, Herschel Walker won the Republican nomination with 80 percent of the vote or something like that in the primary. We've got nowhere else to go. And so we're full speed ahead. Well, let's talk about the bottom line of this, Jonathan Lemire. Democrats were expecting just a couple of weeks ago to run away with Pennsylvania. That race is tightened up. Ron Johnson moving ahead in quite a few polls. Arizona still a comfortable lead, but that's going to get tight by the end. Nevada, as you've reported, going better for Democrat, going better for Republicans than many people expect. And you look, yesterday, Steve Kornacki looked at all the Senate races. He has it tied right now. And and much of the Republicans hopes are really hinging on winning Georgia

and winning Nevada, taking those two seats from Democrats to get into the majority again. Obviously, this complicates things. And on top of that, talk about the reaction you heard yesterday about not just the allegations, but also, more importantly, a conservative who you go you go on his Twitter feed and he's always talking about Ron DeSantis. He positively he's a very conservative kid. But Herschel Walker's son attacking him, attacking Herschel Walker for being a terrible dad. How does that how does that make this scandal different from the ones that maybe we even saw with Donald Trump? Yeah, let's start there with Christian Walker. We're seeing him now.

A Gen Z, very prominent social media presence, conservative, as you say, pro DeSantis and others really turning on his father yesterday, a blistering video suggesting that he had been an absentee father, that he had ruined the son's life. He had ruined the son's mother's life, Christian's mother, Herschel's former wife, and that saying that his father was unfit for office and that he had lied, lied and lied. And there's a difference right there between what we saw in 2016 with Donald Trump in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape and what Herschel Walker is going through now. Trump's family rallied around him. They were they were there with him and they stood firm with him. And the Republican Party wobbled for a bit, but eventually came back. So far, anyway, the GOP seems to be circling the wagons around Walker. But to the larger point, the

margins in Georgia are expected to be so narrow that even some defection or some Republicans decide to stay home or maybe this turns off some independents or swing voters who are thinking about Walker, that might be enough to cost them that seat. Warnock is obviously his incumbent. He's a very impressive figure. Democrats believe he's a rising star if he can hold off and win this race. That's going to be really close. This doesn't help Republicans, certainly. And to the map writ large, Joe, you're right. Republicans feel like they've suddenly got some momentum again. But after a summer that was clearly heading towards the Democrats, a series of legislative wins. We saw Biden's poll numbers go up. Republicans were self-destructing on a number of things.

Things have gotten tighter. Some of that is inevitable. It's October. Parties come home. We rally around your own candidates. There's always a tightening. But Republicans feel like the issues of the race may be switching again to more economic ones, and they think that is good for them. They feel good about the states you just mentioned, Nevada in particular. Pennsylvania is getting closer, though Fetterman, we should note, still ahead of Dr. Oz, but getting closer there. And they feel good about where they are in a number of states. Georgia remains a question mark. This Walker stuff complicates matters. So, David, in your new piece in The Examiner, you write this quote, some Georgia Republicans are waving off the allegations as immaterial to the trajectory of the Senate campaign. Talking here about Herschel Walker, frankly, all this

is just noise. Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in the Peach State, said in an email at the end of the day, this is a nationalized election Williams, a Republican strategist in the Peach State, said in an email. At the end of the day, this is a nationalized election. Almost everything else is superfluous noise. If you want to stop Biden and the pure insanity of his policies, we have to regain the Senate, a veteran Georgia Republican added, explaining why he is not convinced this drama will sink Walker. Our candidates might not be perfect, but they will do the job. And that's the argument we've heard in the last 48 hours, David, is that the Senate is too important to turn our backs on Herschel Walker now, despite everything we're hearing. And that's what you're going to continue

to hear from Republicans. And in a nationalized election, which so many of our elections are counter to what they were like decades ago, where we would see a lot of ticket splitting and a lot of localized races in midterm elections. When things are nationalized, voters will look past the peccadilloes and flaws of a particular candidate and say to themselves, if I'm upset about rising inflation, if I'm upset about rising crime, and these are some of the issues that poll extremely well with swing voters and independents and everybody else, then I'm just going to vote for the check on the White House, regardless of the package it comes in. Now, in talking to Georgia Republicans yesterday, and I was on the phone talking to Republicans down in Georgia yesterday,

they told me that the allegations were a little bit less concerning if they had to pick than Christian Walker's Twitter tirade, which, of course, we showed a graphic, a screenshot of that. But he went on Twitter and was very specific in criticizing his father for being an absentee father and an unfaithful spouse. House. And Republicans tell me that they worry that that could hurt a lot more than the abortion allegations that were reported by the Daily Beast. And so I think that this is a dynamic to watch. But Republicans are going to try and keep the focus on issues that work for them. And in the fundamentals of this campaign, it's inflation, it's crime. In some cases, it's talking about the southern border and the lack of security there. These are the things that they feel can get them past the finish line in a very close race. And as we know, in midterm elections, historically, at least in

this century in particular, a lot of these races are actually really close. Even in wave elections, the individual races are extremely close. And what gets the challenger across the finish line, it's that feeling among voters, particularly the swing voters that are going to decide Georgia's Senate race. And that's who is going to decide it. That for all of my doubts, I just need to put a check on the White House and I'm going that direction. So as Christian Walker pointed out in his video at the very end, he said this is a candidate issue. It's not about him. It is. And it seems Republicans have made their decision about this candidate a long time ago, knowing everything they know about him.

And that's got its questions in itself. Senior political correspondent for The Washington Examiner, David Rucker. Thank you very much. I mean, they made that same decision about Donald Trump. Dr. Ross, I mean. Dr. Ross, you think about all the people out there. They've made their decision. They don't care. It's clannish, whatever, not with a K, but with a C. It's clannish, whatever.

Whoever's in their tribe, whoever's in their clan, they're going to vote for. Yeah. And it just, I guess nothing else matters. I can't imagine being that type of voter. Yeah. But there are a lot of them out there. So we want to turn now to the latest development in the battle over classified documents.

Former President Trump kept it as Mar-a-Lago home and club after leaving office, after leaving the White House. The former president has filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to allow the special master to review the roughly 100 classified records that federal agents seized from the Florida estate in August. Specifically, the Trump team asked the high court to vacate part of a ruling issued last month by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling allowed the Justice Department to resume using those classified documents as part of its criminal investigation to determine if Trump or his advisors mishandled national security secrets or hid or destroyed government records. The Supreme Court justice assigned to the 11th Circuit is Justice Clarence Thomas. He ordered the Justice Department to respond to Trump's request by next Tuesday.

Yeah, you know, Willie, the Trump team and Donald Trump are trying to defy legal gravity. They went forum shopping in Florida. And though I don't like to criticize federal judges, because I think for the most part, they do their best through their own worldview to rule in the law. We have a district court judge in South Florida not doing that at all. In fact, making a fool of herself, overturned by the 11th Circuit. And now, of course, even stepping on legally, stepping on the special master, I've got to believe this is all their delays and they're succeeding delays. But when you have a circuit, perhaps the most conservative circuit in America, the 11th Circuit, which is sort of the right

answer to the Ninth Circuit out west, you can only delay it so long when the 11th Circuit overturns this district court judge in Florida. And I know Clarence Thomas is is at the top of the briefing and everything. But at the end of the day, they're going to have to convince, I believe, a highly skeptical Supreme Court to reverse the most conservative circuit in America. I don't think it's going to happen. Yeah, the Trump team went forum shopping. The 11th Circuit said no sale. And now you have Judge Cannon still meddling in the special master that she appointed saying, wait a minute, this isn't going the way that it was supposed to go. So now you have Donald Trump. Surely we know him thinking, well, look, I appointed three of those justices.

They owe me a favor. Let's get this all the way to the Supreme Court and see what they can do for me. Let's bring in former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg. Chuck, good morning. So what do you make of this latest motion trying to get this all the way to the Supreme Court? Is it a dead end? Well, probably in the end, this isn't going to work out for Mr. Trump. Willie, let me explain why. First, there's no requirement that the Supreme Court even take this case. The issues are rather narrow and rather modest and, frankly, somewhat uninteresting, at least from a technical legal standpoint. Number two, Willie, even if they take the case, there's no guarantee that Mr. Trump wins. And then third, even if they take the case and Mr. Trump wins, we're really only talking about a process to review documents that's

ultimately going to end up in the hands of the folks who need it, the government doing the investigation. So rather narrow, rather modest. And I think in the end, Joe's instincts are right, as they often are. I don't see the Supreme Court overturning a conservative 11th Circuit on this rather narrow question. So, Chuck, certainly Trump knows Trump team knows geography and knows this would end up with Clarence Thomas. I was hoping you could just talk to us a little bit about the role he could play here. And we should reiterate, he was the lone vote on the Supreme Court against efforts there with documents before. We should also note,

of course, his wife, Jeannie Thomas, just last week reiterated that she believes the 2020 election was stolen. And we know she talked to January 6th committee about her efforts to overturn the results in Wisconsin and Arizona. What do you make of this? And is there any chance that he might give in to public pressure and recuse himself? Well, let me take the first part first. Each of the justices of the Supreme Court, you know, there are nine, oversee different parts of the country for emergency matters. Justice Thomas is assigned to the 11th Circuit, which includes this litigation that we're talking about, Jonathan. But I don't think Justice Thomas is going to rule on his own. If anything,

the Supreme Court would get involved. If anyone gets involved, the Supreme Court as a whole would get involved. And again, I think there's a fairly good chance that they refuse to hear the matter altogether. Should he recuse? Well, you know, it's an interesting question, right? His wife is obviously an election denier. They maintain they have separate lives and separate opinions when it comes to his professional work. And I credit that. But it does raise an appearance question, right? You want judges and justices to recuse when there's an actual conflict, let's say a financial interest in the outcome of litigation. That's not the case here. But often judges step aside when there's an appearance of a conflict. That's up to them. Nobody can force Justice Thomas to recuse. But given the questions that have arisen, it's something he ought to think about.

Now, you know, the thing is, of course, though, this doesn't pertain to elections. It pertains to the classified documents or the documents themselves. So chances are good he won't do that. I do want to just, Chuck, let's underline, though, how thin ice Donald Trump is on legally here. He is right now fighting. He's not even fighting a central issue. He's fighting something that should be basic part of their pleadings, which is that these documents were declassified. That has been his argument. The special master said, OK, put up or shut up. If you declassified him, tell us when you declassified him. Right. This is this is not this is not a massive Perry Mason moment. It's like, OK, you declassified

him. OK, tell us. Yeah. And then I know we're not going to tell you here. And they're actually fighting. And I cannot even believe the special master has embarrassed herself so much to say, oh, wait, no, no, no, no, no. They don't have to tell you whether they declassified them or not. And it's fascinating because, as you know, look at the statute, the classification status isn't in the end, even going to determine whether he's charged or not. Yeah, that's such a good point, Joe, right? So one of the statutes at issue, one of the statutes on which the search warrant was predicated was the Espionage Act passed in

1917. We didn't have classified documents in 1917. The classification system came into existence after World War II in the 1950s. And so it doesn't matter in the end. The important thing, though, and I don't want folks to lose sight of this, is that the government in doing its damage assessment right now, today, tomorrow, can still use the classified information it sees from the home. So that work is ongoing and that's important. But you're absolutely right. When a judge asks you a question, it's not the same as sort of pontificating on television like I'm doing now. You have to answer the question. You have to answer the question. And so when the judge wants to know whether or not these documents were actually declassified, Mr. Trump and his team have refused to answer that fundamental basic question. So

on one hand, it doesn't matter in the end. The case won't turn on the classification status of the documents. On the other, I think their failure to answer the question is quite telling. Hey, Joe, can I add just one thing, which I think is important, but not directly on this matter. I love the opening of your show. I'm a huge baseball fan, but you also have to give a shout out to Albert Pujols, who will finish this season and his career number two all time in RBIs and number four all time in home run. We will certainly do that. We will certainly do that. And by my count, he's actually third, only behind Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. So should he stick around another season and get past Ruth 714? Oh, you know, it's a great question.

You know, I am a huge fan of Albert Pujols, always have been, always admired him. He has said this is his last season that he's not coming back. I respect and honor that. I don't think he has anything more to prove. Joe, one of the great all time players. Incredible. Former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official and baseball enthusiast Chuck Rosner. Thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it. And still ahead on Morning Joe, President Biden heading to Florida just days after Hurricane Ian left widespread damage across the state. We're looking ahead

to what we can expect when he meets with Governor Ron DeSantis today. Do you think Governor DeSantis will let him borrow those white boots? No, I don't think. Tight jeans, white boots. That's like it was straight out of a Nancy Sinatra song, actually. Plus, in the second day of testimony in the trial of five Oath Keepers, we learned in the months before the January 6th attack, the FBI received a tip about the extremist group's plans for an armed fight. The question is, what was that tip?

Why was that tip apparently ignored? Also ahead, Elon Musk announces he's moving forward with his original $44 billion bid to buy Twitter. And this is fascinating, by the way. I guess his lawyers must have told him they got you dead to center legally. And so he decided to move forward with it. We have the latest on the on again, off again saga there. Way too much for it, I think. Yeah.

And more on the history making moment last night in Texas. New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge setting a new American League home run record. Mike Lupica, standing by. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. 62! Aaron Judge is the American League single-season home run leader. BAL King, case closed. It's a big relief. I think everybody can finally sit down in their seats and watch the ball game.

It's been a fun ride so far, you know, getting a chance to do this, you know, with the team we got, the guys surrounding me, you know, the constant support, you know, from my family who's been with me there, you know, through this whole thing. It's been a great honor, you know, and also, you know, Roger Maris Jr., him and his family, supporting and being along for the ride, too. A lot of thanks and congratulations to them, too, for their constant support through this whole process. I know it's a tough situation, your dad's legacy, and you want to uphold that, but getting a chance to meet their family, their wonderful people, and getting a chance to have my name next to someone

as great as Roger Maris, Babe Ruth, those guys is incredible. What a class act. So nice. A complete class act. Let's bring in right now best-selling author and columnist Mike Lupica. Mike, one of the things that irritates me when I'm watching sports, especially European football, soccer, as we call it, is somebody will score a goal and then run away from their teammates and not get hugged because they want the adulation. They want to be on the camera.

Here's the guy. He made it all about his teammates. He crosses a plate. He doesn't, you know, pump his fist, look up into the crowd, hugs every single player on the team before he even looks up into the crowd. What a teammate. What a guy. You know, Joe, I was watching that last night, that receiving line of Yankees, and I imagine that line stretching all the way back to the 1920s and Babe Ruth because, you know, it's kind of cool what Judge has done here.

He's brought the 60s back in baseball, 60, 61, 62. And this sport was built on home runs. Baseball became a big deal in this country in the 1920s when Babe Ruth got there from Boston. He hit 54 his first year in New York, then 59, then 60 in 1927. 34 years later, Maris comes along to break that record. And now 61 years after Maris is 61, in 61, here comes this guy who seems to tower over baseball the way Babe Ruth once did when the sport became a big deal

in the American century. So, Mike, let's talk about whose record this really is. Aaron Judge, as I said earlier, says, I recognize, I acknowledge Barry Bonds at 73 in 2001. To me, that's the record, maybe just flashing some of his humility. Tom Verducci at Sports Illustrated has a great piece today. He writes this, Bonds is the official home run champion. Judge is the authentic champion. One has the official designation. The other is unofficial, but has the prestige of authenticity. Which would you rather have? That's Tom Verducci writing this morning. So where do you stand on this question, Mike? Is this the record? Yeah, it is for me, Willie. I don't mean to date myself, but I'm just looking back at the steroids era in baseball. I remember that year in Dallas where they wiped it away as a bad dream

for Bobby Ewing. That's the way I'm looking at this now. I believe that Aaron Judge is the single season home run champion. And people can listen. People can debate Bonds and McGuire and Sosa all they want. In my mind, Henry Aaron still has hit more home runs than anybody else in history. Aaron Judge has hit more home runs in a season than anybody else ever hit legitimately. OK. And what he did over these last weeks and why it was such a cool thing is he had us hanging on every swing again. It's, it was like this in 61 when Mantle and Maris were

chasing at Ruth and you know, his nickname is all rise and he's right. Every ballpark would rise when he came to the plate and and how about his mom last night i mean was she not every little league month you've ever seen like oh my god did he do it yeah he did it and and it only made the moment more uh perfect for me at least yeah and she spoke for all of us with that just big exhale of relief and certainly for her son who could finally get this off his shoulders um jonathan lemire one last point to make. Hitting in Major League Baseball this year was terrible. So if you put this in the context of this season, in other words, for the last 50 years, the batting averages haven't been this low. Guys are all throwing 100 miles an hour with all kinds

of breaking stuff. And nobody was within 15 home runs of Aaron Judge this year. So he's doing it at a time when hitting is down. Breaking the record makes it even more extraordinary. Yeah, no, you're right, Willie. This is an era of dominant pitching in Major League Baseball. Those relievers come in, they throw hard. Starters are only asked to go four or five innings so they can maintain their velocity throughout. They rarely see a hitter for a third time. So that makes what Judge has done all the more impressive. I'll break from the crowd a little bit here. And I do think that 73 is the record. But certainly the way Verducci writes it about Judge's authenticity,

that resonates. That's well done there. And it is. It's a remarkable, he's a, certainly it pains me to say it, you know, the Yankees, Joe he is a class act, and he handled this well. You could see the pressure really had built on him in recent weeks and then the wave of relief, not just on his mom, but Judge's own face yesterday. He's probably going to fall just short of the Triple Crown, but it's still a remarkable season, one of the best seasons ever. And it should be noted, he cleared the next leading home run hitter by about 20 home runs this year.

That's a huge gap. It shows you he's head and shoulders over the rest of the field. Babe Ruth, the only other player to do that. Yeah, I've got to say, Willie, Lemire was pushing us to put Xander's grand slam from last night in a rain shortened five inning game off the top for a team that has finished in last place now for the fifth time in 11 years. By the way, if you get a chance, read Mike Lupik's great column yesterday. I retweeted it on whether you would rather be the Yankees over the past 20 years or the Red Sox for World Series championships. And but five last place finishes. And it was very compelling. And it's interesting, Mike, some people said, I'll take the Red Sox. But there were some Yankees fans who said, no, I would not be cool being in last place five of the last 11 years. But let's talk

about really quickly. And then we got to, I know Mika is going to say we need to get back to some hard news. Let's go really quickly to the National League East. I followed baseball for a very long time. I've never seen a team like the Atlanta Braves last year. I think there was something like 38-15 after the All-Star break. This year, over the last 110 games, there's something like 83-35. The Mets have had a great season. The Braves, the last two years, second half of the season,

they have been the best team in baseball. Just extraordinary. Joe, you know, their best is as good as the Dodgers' best, despite the games that the Dodgers have won this year. They're an extraordinary team, and they beat a great Mets team. I mean, the Mets are going to win a hundred games and have to go into a wildcard series. And if they win the wildcard series, they're going to have to play the Dodgers because when the Braves had to

act like the champs last weekend in Atlanta, that is exactly what they did. Buckshaw Walters said they pitched better than we did. They hit better than we did. And they're going to win the East for the fifth straight year. I'm telling you, nobody wants any part of them in October. All right, Mike Lupica, thank you very much for joining us. I know we'll be talking about this again soon. And coming up, some of this morning's must read opinion pages, including a take on why the allegation against Herschel Walker likely won't stop Republicans from voting for him. Also ahead, China's president is on track for an unprecedented third term. Because he did so well in his second term, right?

We're going to look at how his growing power is raising concerns about an invasion of Taiwan. Morning Joe is coming right back. 49 past the hour, kind of an ugly commute in Washington, D.C. This beautiful. It's rainy. It's dark. It's cloudy. But it's kind of Harry Potter.

It's still time to go to work. It's beautiful. Welcome back to Morning Joe. It's 49 past the hour. Next week, thousands of Chinese communist officials will gather in Beijing for the party's congress, where they are expected to reappoint Xi Jinping for an unprecedented third term as the leader of China.

And as Xi's power grows, there are concerns that it could embolden him to take control of Taiwan, possibly by force. Joining us now, NBC News foreign correspondent Raf Sanchez, who recently visited the island. Raf, what did you find out? Mika Jo, good morning. We heard from people on the island, both government officials and ordinary people on the street, that Xi Jinping is a different kind of Chinese leader. This is a man who has accumulated an enormous amount of power. He has very few political guardrails at this point. And he's someone who sees it as his destiny to take control of Taiwan. What's also different is that in Joe Biden, you have a U.S. president who is saying explicitly for the first time that he is prepared to send the U.S. military to defend Taiwan, even if that means war with China.

In his first 10 years in power, Xi Jinping has presided over a vast buildup of China's military might. Now, on the cusp of a third term, Xi has pledged to fulfill what he calls the historic mission of China's Communist Party, taking control of Taiwan by force if necessary. Taiwan's foreign minister tells NBC News it's a threat they cannot ignore. The threat is there. The threat is real. Even though we don't know when China is going to launch a military attack against Taiwan, but we have to be very realistically prepared for it. Xi Jinping looks set to get an unprecedented third term as China's leader. Do you believe that will embolden him

to move against Taiwan? That is one factor that we need to look at very seriously. President Biden breaking with decades of precedent by saying he'd order the U.S. military to fight against a Chinese invasion. Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack. Honoring that pledge could mean all-out war between the U.S. and China.

Like Ukraine, the U.S. has supplied Taiwan with billions of dollars in advanced weaponry. But unlike Ukraine, Taiwan is an island, and it may be impossible to resupply if war breaks out. We are in the process of engaging in very serious discussions with our good friend, the United States, to see how we can accumulate enough stockpile for us to fight a war if the war has to happen. So you need materials in place before the shooting starts? We need the material in place and we need high-tech weaponry. To see the threat for ourselves, we traveled to the place a Chinese invasion would likely begin, the Taiwanese island of Kinmen, just six miles off the mainland. So close you can see skyscrapers from the Chinese city of Xiamen looming in the distance. These spikes are meant to stop

Chinese forces from landing on this beach, but they're old. And really, if they're ever put to the test, it's a sign that Taiwan and possibly the U.S. are already at war with China. For now, Taiwanese troops on Kinmen tested and taunted by what they say are Chinese civilian drones overhead. This video of Taiwanese troops throwing rocks was mockingly shared on Chinese social media. China's foreign ministry did not deny Chinese drones were flying in the area. Back in Taipei, these volunteers are preparing for the worst. Dozens of young civilians learning the skills they need to support their people during an invasion.

National survival is the biggest challenge of our generation. After decades of military rule, Taiwan today is considered one of the freest countries in the world. This is something impossible to imagine in China, a democratically elected president arriving in a raucous political rally in the heat of a free and fair election. But the U.S. also has a more self-interested reason for protecting Taiwan. The island produces more than 90% of the world's advanced semiconductors, the microchips that power everything from iPhones to airplanes to smart fridges. Disrupting that supply chain could cause trillions of dollars in economic damage,

meaning chaos for consumers in the U.S. and in China. It would be disastrous for China, too. So China would face large-scale unemployment. It would have the same shortages of consumer and industrial goods that we would face. The question, is that a price Xi Jinping is prepared to pay? Now, experts tell us that if there is war in Taiwan, consumers here in the U.S. would feel the impact almost immediately in terms of fewer goods

on the shelves, much higher prices worldwide. You could have trillions of dollars in economic damage. And that's the risk when Taiwan is such a key part of the global supply chain. But it is also one of the world's key geopolitical flashpoints. Joe. So, Raph, it's been a terrible few years for China. You look at the sagging economy doing worse than it has in decades. You look at a zero covid policy that's been absolutely disastrous and destroyed their supply chain, destroyed exports. They went in and obliterated any pretense that Hong Kong was a financial center of Asia, which it was before the crackdown. You can go down the list. You've had Xi actually go after top entrepreneurs like Jack Ma and others in China.

And the investment climate is worse than it's been in quite some time. Despite all of these failings, do you see the party lining up behind Xi without any challenges to these oversteps on his part? He really is a man who has centralized power in himself in a way we haven't seen in China since Chairman Mao. He has smashed what used to be the collective leadership in China, and he is the man calling all the shots. Joe, it was interesting, the Taiwanese foreign minister said to us, an invasion might start not for the obvious sort of international relations reasons that there's some spark that escalates, but it could happen for Chinese domestic political reasons that Xi could look around.

He could see the covenant he's made with the Chinese people, which is you don't have a lot of political rights, but you have economic growth has broken down. Youth unemployment is extremely high in China. And he might feel he needs to launch an invasion of Taiwan to rally his people around him to try to distract from what, as you said, is an extremely difficult domestic situation in China right now. Jeff. NBC's Raf Sanchez, thank you very much for that reporting. And still ahead, we'll have a look at the stories making headlines in newspapers across the country, plus a live report from Ukraine, where despite all the destruction, there is optimism as Russian forces are struggling to slow the momentum of Ukrainian troops. We'll be right back.