Morning Joe - Morning Joe 10/8/24

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Harris undergoes a '60 Minutes' grilling as Trump sits it out

Would you meet with President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a solution to the war in Ukraine? Not bilaterally without Ukraine, no. Ukraine must have a say in the future of Ukraine. As president, would you support the effort to expand NATO to include Ukraine? Those are all issues that we will deal with if and when it arrives at that point. Right now, we are supporting Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russia's unprovoked aggression. Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kiev right now. He talks about, oh, he can end it on day one.

You know what that is? It's about surrender. Well, it on day one. You know what that is? It's about surrender. What is about surrender? And I mean, you look from the very beginning, Mika, of the of the invasion of Ukraine. And you had Donald Trump talking about how brilliant Vladimir Putin was as he was slaughtering people as as the troops came into Ukraine. Yeah, that was just part of Vice President Kamala Harris's interview with 60 Minutes. We're going to have much more from that wide-ranging sit-down and the program's explanation of why Donald Trump did not participate.

Meanwhile, the former president made another disparaging remark about migrants, suggesting that some of them have bad genes. What does that sound like? I'm sure that whoever the host was pushed back hard on the use of genetics. That's sort of straight out of the Nazi playbook. And I know that all Republicans will also speak out against that today. For sure. Yeah.

Plus, as the southeast continues to recover from Hurricane Helene, another potentially catastrophic storm is headed for Florida. We're going to bring you the latest on Hurricane Milton, which is expected to make landfall late tomorrow. Tampa and the surrounding areas are bracing for what could be a historic storm. And we're tracking that throughout the morning. Tampa could really get hammered. Willie, welcome back. Thank you, Joe. We had a lot of news yesterday and we wanted you to come on to talk about Vandy. Very pleased you were there. But first, before we get there, I just, I mean, what do we say, Willie? The Nobel Committee has

done it to us again. Why do we keep submitting, Joe? Why? Well, I mean, in this we say, Willie? The Nobel Committee has done it to us again. Why do we keep you and I, Joe? Why? Well, I mean, in this case, it's even worse. You and I, we jot down an idea on the back of a napkin on it. I think it was Chick-fil-A in Bessemer. We were driving through it. Literally, we were driving through Bessemer, Alabama, 18 years old, Jimmy Buffett. And I think a former third baseman for the Birmingham Barons. And we're going to end. And Willie just says, I got this idea on DNA and he scratches out.

And I thought that waiter was looking at us kind of funny, right? We left. He picks it up and he submits it to the Nobel Committee. And now they win the Nobel Prize. Yeah, we had the triple. You've heard of the double helix. We had the triple helix DNA. We had all sketched out. There was a little Chick-fil-A sauce on there, a little mayonnaise from the Chick-fil-A sandwich, number one meal, some crumbs from the waffle fries. It was all there. We've just got I guess we've got to be more careful. But also, I just feel like, Joe, when you challenge the establishment the way we do,

when you're a renegade, when you're an iconoclast, it scares people. And so I think it's probably high time we stop even putting ourselves up for the Nobel. It's high time we stop this, Joe. I fought the law and the law won, right? You heard the old song, Eddie Cochran song, there's Eddie Cochran and then the clash. And it's the same thing with us in science, you know, this happens every year. This would be like giving a Nobel Peace Prize to a president who hadn't really even become president yet. Okay, stop.

You just don't do it, Willie. Now let's talk about Vandy. Congratulations. You guys beat us. The thing is, you know, there are a lot of times when Alabama, you know, Alabama doesn't lose a lot, but when they lose, you go away and you're angry. Oh, that player did this, and why did the coaches do that?

In this case, Alabama can't do that. Vandy, your offensive scheme and your quarterback, who's going to be playing on Sunday, as you can tell, look like Mahomes at times. I mean, you guys beat us from the first play. You actually dominated us the whole game. You know, I was there, Joe. I was so lucky to be there.

That's the greatest win in the history of Vanderbilt sports by a long shot, to beat number one and to beat Alabama. And as I said to you, the reason it's so special is because of the ultimate respect you have for Alabama. My kids were with me and I said, look, if nothing else, you'll get to see Ryan Williams play. You'll get to see Jalen Milrow play. This is going to be a great day. But there was also something in the air because our team has played really well this year. And I think you're right. It didn't feel that was me at the end of the game. That's me hugging our athletic director, Candace Story Lee, who was in school when I was.

She played basketball there, done a great job along with Clark Lee, the head coach. I was truly in shock. My daughter took that video. Yeah, I'm still in shock on the field looking up at the scoreboard. But you're right, Joe. It didn't feel fluky. It wasn't a Hail Mary. It was a sustained effort.

And I think, you know, this quarterback, Diego Pavia, is incredible. He's a transfer this year. Our coach, Clark Lee, who also played at Vanderbilt and came over from Notre Dame, is great. The student section was full and full of energy. It was an amazing, amazing day. You know, Joe, if you're from the South, you know what Vanderbilt is in the SEC. Great school, great city, good at a lot of sports, but not the one that matters in the South, which is football. And so to do this, you know, we feel like we steal a couple of wins in the SEC every year. It feels a little different now

with this coach and this team. And that was as big as it gets. And when the kids took the goalposts and you're seeing it here and paraded not across the street, but three miles down through Nashville on the lower Broadway with a thank you Metro Nashville police with a police escort and dumped them into the Cumberland River. Nate Bargatze, who's a huge Vanderbilt fan, was hosting SNL. He throws up the anchor down in his monologue. It sort of all came together on a special, special day for us fans. And we hope we keep it rolling. Congratulations. I didn't know Nate was a – who, by the way, his George Washington sketch remains one of the funniest things. But he's one of the funniest stand-up comics out there. I didn't know he was a Vandy guy. That's awesome.

Yeah, he's from Nashville. Yeah, and one final thing, too, Willie, is that, you know, your coaching staff. And this isn't a knock on our new coach or our new coaching staff. But the reason why this isn't a fluke, doesn't feel like a fluke, is your coaching staff outcoached us the entire game you you all were always two steps ahead of our so I say that just to say this shouldn't just be one win this shouldn't just be because you got a good quarterback from New Mexico State Vandy looks like they're built for speed for a long time yeah Clark Lee this coach is really

really good he He's entering the phase now where he's got his own players in the system. And now we've gotten greedy at Vanderbilt, something we've never done, Joe. We think we actually should be 5-0 and ranked like fourth or fifth in the country. We lost a double overtime at Missouri two weeks ago, a game we probably should have won. Should have won that game, yeah. And then a fluky loss the week before that. So it's an exciting time. But as you know, it is such a hard league. You go, wait, how good could we be this year?

Then you look down and here comes Texas. Here comes LSU. You know, it gets no easier. Right. But it was such an exciting day. And thank you for being so gracious about it, Joe. It was a thrill. Well, listen, we were so thrilled. I mean, we weren't thrilled.

So this was Joe through the whole game. I was thrilled for you. But then he was happy for you guys. But Jack and I, through the entire game, Jack would go, what is going on? That's all they said. I would say, what the is going on? Keep that out. For the entire three hours. And at the end of the game, we just said

they out coached us. They outplayed us. They deserve to win. And, you know, it's so funny after the Georgia win last week, I had said, said on, on air, it felt like a loss because we just looked horrible the second half. And so Alabama has a lot they need to figure out. But, Vandy, I'll tell you, I'm very excited. I'm really I like it when good schools, really good, great academic institutions like Alabama do well. So Vanderbilt doing well, that sends a great message, I think, to everybody across the South, across the nation, even though, yes, that was a hard loss to take.

But, you know, we, you know, it's Vandy's time, right? Yeah, and, you know, that was, it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime moment. Sitting behind us in our seats was a woman who's been coming to Vanderbilt Games for 77 years. And she was sort of having, in that second half, a little bit of quiet prayer, a little bit of reaching back and holding hands, and just emotion from someone like her, for me, who's been following the team for 32 years, hoping for a day like that, for it finally to come. So hopefully good things ahead for these

Commodores. And you got to share it with your kids along with Mika, Willie and me. We've got the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, who has no such stories to tell about his Columbia football team. Also Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. And if we started talking about how great Jaden Daniels was, Gene, we would not stop until 645. So we better get into the news. But I want you to know we're going to get there because this guy and you saw it the

first moment he walked onto the field. Jaden Daniels walked on the field the first day. And again, my son and I are watching. And we go, that guy looks like he's been there before. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. He looks like he's been there before.

Every game he passes another test. This week it was against a really good defense. Like, no problem. problem okay i'll just have to play this way i'll have to play that way he is amazing he's absolutely amazing and um look at this guy i mean he's uh you know look it's five games in the the washington commanders The Washington Commanders are four and one. This is, they haven't been four and one since I think maybe 2008 or something like that. I mean, they haven't, this is, this is just amazing. And the city is electric about the Commanders. And I got to congratulate Willie, though. I mean, I saw, you know,

I tuned in when I saw Diego Pavia was trending. I thought it was like a new, you know, a new striker for Barcelona or something like that. And so I searched around, I found the SEC network and I was like, whoa, this is amazing. So, Willie, I'm so glad you were there. Congratulations. Thank you, Gene. One last thing on Pavia, Joe. We got to see him for a minute before the game, and he was pretty locked in. He said, how are you feeling?

He said, quote, we're getting ready to surprise everybody but ourselves. He thought that they were going to win that game. Oh, my God. That's great. I love that. And by the way, Alex tells me that Gene is right. Washington, first time they've been four and one since 2008. OK, we're going to now turn to news and politics. By the way, we're tracking Hurricane Milton. So you can see that in the corner of our screen.

We'll dive into that as well as we're 24 hours away from that making landfall. But to politics now, there are 28 days until Election Day. And last night, CBS aired its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Now, the program has interviewed the candidates in every presidential election dating back to 1968. But Donald Trump backed out this year. And before airing the interview with Vice President Harris, 60 Minutes began with a note about Trump. Here's part of that explanation. It's been a tradition for more than half a century that the major party candidates for president sit down with 60 Minutes in October. In 1968, it was Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. This year, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump accepted our invitation.

But unfortunately, last week, Trump canceled. The campaign offered shifting explanations. First, it complained that we would fact-check the interview. We fact-check every story. Later, Trump said he needed an apology for his interview in 2020. Trump claims correspondent Leslie Stahl said in that interview that Hunter Biden's controversial laptop came from Russia. She never said that. Trump has said his opponent doesn't do interviews because she can't handle them.

He had previously declined another debate with Harris. So tonight may have been the largest audience for the candidates between now and Election Day. You know, I've got to ask Jonathan Lemire. Well, before I ask, just I think it's fascinating. I being fact checked. I love when people fact check me. I really do. I love if I make a mistake. I want to know what I said that was wrong. People can disagree with me. Opinions are one thing. But I want to be fact checked. If I if I say something wrong, I want to know that. Like most adults that I know are the same way.

The fact that Donald Trump and his vice presidential nominee are so horrified at the prospect of being fact-checked suggests, well, it's the tell that they're still lying this week about the 2020 election. They're lying in a way that is very destructive for the people of North Carolina and South Carolina about hurricane relief in a way that's getting in the way and in a way that that Republican governors are pushing back against them on. They're lying about dogs and cats being eaten in Ohio when the Republican governor there is saying that's a lie as well. The lies continue over and over again. But he doesn't go on because of the fact check. Right. Why are they scared of fact

check? Because they lie all the time and you literally can see every day them lying on the campaign trail. Then he says he doesn't go on for an apology. He wants an apology from Leslie Stahl for something that never even happened. Again, deranged, disconnected, deluded, whatever you want to call it, or maybe just scared. And then finally, he says, Kamala Harris, this is really bizarre. I can't sit down on interviews because she doesn't know the issues. Again, as Hyland always says, it's either confession or projection. Here, Donald Trump is the one who skipped the 60 Minutes interview. First time in 50 years a candidate has done that. And there's the one that refused to do a debate even on Fox News, even on Fox News, who many hosts on that network are echoing Donald Trump's disinformation. They can't do a real interview. And there's actually one of their most popular hosts suggest that civil war is better than voting and that they need to move past voting. And yet she's willing to debate him there and he refuses to do it. So last night as I was watching this, I started asking John, like, what's going on, man? Like what I've heard from people inside his campaign.

I know you have, too, though they're very careful. A real frustration that they have no idea what this guy is going to do. He doesn't do the things he should do to win. And they can't control him at all. What are you hearing? Is there an understanding on his part that he is no longer up to sitting for serious interviews where people challenge him? Is he is his age, as Peter Baker wrote in The New York Times yesterday, really preventing

him from doing serious interviews? The debate, not doing the debate. I'm really, I'm dumbfounded because this is just not the behavior of somebody who wants to win an election. No. So two things here. First of all, Vice President Harris did receive criticism, as we well know, in recent weeks for not doing many interviews. And look, some Democrats are really anxious, saying, look, she needs to do more. That is now changing. She sat for 60 minutes.

That aired last night. Today, she's with The View, Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert. She did a popular podcast over the weekend. She's really ramping up her own media appearances. And again, she's been consistent, saying, hey, I want a second debate with Donald Trump. Trump is the one who said no to the debate. And Trump is the one who said no to 60 Minutes. And there are a couple of things at play here. First of all, we heard J.D. Vance, as you alluded to in the vice presidential debate, being upset, saying to moderators, wait, I thought you weren't going to fact check me when they did, even modestly, because he was lying about something. And of course, now Trump did not want to submit himself to the fact checking last night. And this is something his aides have grown more and more frustrated with their inability

to steer him. And I know people watch this will say, well, no one can ever control Donald Trump. And that's largely true. But there were moments earlier in this campaign where Susie Wiles, Chris Lasavita, the longtime Republican operatives who are running the campaign, were able to instill at least some sort of messaging through Trump. This is what we want to talk about this election. Now, it was much more effective when their opponent was President Biden than it is Vice President Harris. But even that is now gone. Trump just says whatever he wants.

He only sits for friendly interviews. They ask him. I was talking to a Republican over the weekend saying if he would just talk about the economy every day, and even though the metrics are still good, but a lot of Americans don't feel it, they're like, if he would just talk about the economy every day, we'd win. But he can't, Willie. He can't and he won't. He wants to relitigate past grievances with Leslie Stahl. He wants to say racist things about migrants. He wants to just fight and they can't keep him on message. And right now there's a refusal for him to be challenged whatsoever, both in interviews. And I'm told, and I think Joe's heard this as well, even by his aides, he simply won't listen to them anymore. He does only what he wants to do. So Jean, to

Jonathan and Joe's point here, Donald Trump is speaking only now in the echo chamber, exclusively in the echo chamber. He's preaching to the converted at rallies and in the interviews that he does do. You look at 60 Minutes, whether Donald Trump likes the interviewer or not, what are you going to get? Fifteen, 20 million, probably at least people watching that. The idea of this election is to convince some people who may be sitting on the fence and people in the suburbs to come to your side to persuade them. He's just not doing any of that. So it's fair to ask strategically what he's thinking here with four weeks left until Election Day. What is his plan? How is he going about this? And by the way, as we talk about his outrageous and disgusting lies,

we're looking at on the bottom right of our screen, this hurricane that's coming, Milton, which is massive and is likely to be catastrophic. And he's still out there telling lies about the federal response to the previous hurricane, which Republican governors and mayors and senators are having to go out and rebut and saying the feds are doing their job to help us. Yeah, those lies about the hurricane are worse than disgusting and- Dangerous. They're really unforgivable, especially given that the second monster hurricane is now barreling down on Florida,

and all he can think about is how to lie about the federal response to Helene, which was a total disaster in southern Appalachia. You know, 60 Minutes was an opportunity for Donald Trump to talk to Republicans, maybe the suburban Republicans and right-leaning independents, who just aren't sure they can vote for this guy again he's just he's so he's he's crazy he's exhausting um he you know january 6th they just they they can't quite get there uh and it was a chance to to speak to them and reassure them that he would be actually a different person because he because he is Donald Trump and

we know who he is. But he didn't take that that opportunity. Somebody I know quite well always says that politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. He had a chance to do addition on 60 Minutes and he just passed it up. Yeah. And instead, he was interviewed by Laura Ingram, who asked him if he was going to assure people that he would respect the rule of law. And she, she said, a lot of people think you're going to lock up political opponents and, you know, suggest there's been this story that you're talking about people in the media, people that he didn't like, you're going to lock them up. And you're not going to, basically, you're not going to do that, are you? And he said, well, basically said, yeah, a lot of people want me to do that. They think it's a good idea. So, so she pushed back hard, right? She pushed back and she's, she's, she's, she's done that two times. Sean Hannity's done it on the dictator comment. And they keep saying,

you're not really going to do this. Are you? And he goes on and says, yes, he is. And, and that's what he's doing is Willie said, speaking said, speaking to the echo chamber and and a dark conspiratorial echo chamber. And we're going to get to it, but also sounding very much, you know, I how do you say it? I mean, he's talking about genes and that the that that immigrants have bad genes. It's kind of kind of fascist. I think the Nazis will have more about those disgusting comments, as well as Kamala Harris. More from her on 60 Minutes when we're back in just a moment. As we mentioned, Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a major Category 4 hurricane. The National Weather Service says it has, quote,

explosively intensified, becoming the fourth strongest hurricane ever recorded by pressure in the Atlantic Basin. Milton is expected to weaken slightly before making landfall near Tampa Wednesday night. In anticipation of the damage, President Biden already approved an emergency disaster declaration and issued a memo confirming FEMA does have enough funding to support response efforts to both Milton and the ongoing recovery efforts to Hurricane Helene. Ahead of landfall, the state of Florida also has issued mandatory evacuations for several areas. Tampa's mayor not mincing words last night for those who ignore those orders. Helene was a wake up call. This is literally catastrophic. And I can say without any dramatization whatsoever, if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you're going to die.

That's the mayor of Tampa saying you're going to die if you don't evacuate. Let's go straight to meteorologist Michelle Grossman. Michelle, what's the latest here? Hi there, Willie. And Mayor Castor is right. We are looking at a catastrophic situation, life-threatening as we go throughout the next day or so. We have a little over 40 hours before this makes landfall. We are looking at, once again, an overachieving storm linked to that climate change. It's moving through a supercharged gulf with really warm waters just fueling this storm. Look at the latest numbers. We're looking at 155 mile per hour winds. This is a big storm. It was a category five storm earlier this morning. Now still a very strong storm at category four. We think it will make landfall as a major hurricane

or will at category three. Whether it's a category four or category three, we will see. But it's moving northeast at 12 miles per hour. This is the expected path as we go throughout time here, staying strong as a category four storm through tonight into the early part of Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon. And there's that expected landfall anytime between tomorrow night at 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. on Thursday. Again, this isn't set in stone, but it will be around that time and we will continue to follow that for you. But we are looking at the potential of some life threatening conditions because we're looking at 15 inches of rain, if not 18 in some spots, a 15 foot storm surge that is unsurvivable. Also looking at 100 mile per hour wind gusts. Tropical alerts stretch

from the Carolinas all the way down to the Keys. You need to heed these warnings. Again, only about 43 hours left before this makes landfall. And we again, Willie, are looking at 15 feet of storm surge as we go throughout this landfall. Back to you. Listen to your local officials. If they're telling you to get out, you still have time. Do it now. Michelle Grossman. Michelle, thanks so much. And Mika, this is obviously an area that is still picking up the pieces from Hurricane Helene and the devastation it brought over several states just less than two weeks ago. Yeah, no, this this looks pretends to be absolutely horrific. And there have been meteorologists on some networks literally in tears reporting about this.

So we're going to we're going to track it, especially because they they got hammered this year, but also a couple of years ago. Another terrible hurricane. You look at Cedar Key a few weeks ago, wiped out. And now Cedar Key, Tampa. I mean, you look at Tampa, it's one of the worst places in the United States to have this sort of a storm surge going in as far as being heavily populated. So I know so many people in Tampa hoping that it moves in a direction that will spare lives and spare just the fact this may be the most damaging, most expensive hurricane in American history if it continues on this path. Yeah, we'll be tracking it throughout the morning. We're going to go back now to politics.

And of course, we talked about Donald Trump, who said he was going to do the 60 Minutes interview. It's part of what happens in presidential campaigns at every presidential campaign. They do an interview in October. Donald Trump then canceled, and his reasons were full of false allegations about 60 Minutes. But Vice President Harris did participate. And here are some of the exchanges with interviewer Bill Whitaker. You want to expand the child tax credit. Yes, I do. You want to give tax breaks to first-time homebuyers.

Yes. And people starting small businesses. Correct. But it is estimated by the Nonpartisan Committee for Responsible Federal Budget that your economic plan would add $3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade. How are you going to pay for that? Okay, so the other economists that have reviewed my plan versus my opponent and determined that my economic plan would strengthen America's economy, his would weaken it. My plan, Bill, if you don't mind, my plan is about saying that when you invest in small businesses, you invest in the middle class and you strengthen America's economy.

Small businesses are part of the backbone of America's economy. But pardon me, Madam Vice President. The question was, how are you going to pay for it? Well, one of the things I'm going to make sure that the richest among us who can afford it pay their fair share in taxes. It is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations. And I plan on making that fair. Let me tell you what your critics and the columnists say. OK. They say the reason so many voters don't know you is that you have changed your position on so many things.

You were against fracking. Now you're for it. You supported looser immigration policies. Now you're tightening them up. You were for Medicare for all. Now you're not. So many that people don't truly know what you believe or what you stand for. And I know you've heard that. In the last four years, I have been vice president of the United States and I have been traveling our country and I have been listening to folks and seeking what is possible in terms of common ground. I believe in building consensus. We are a diverse people, geographically, regionally, in terms of

where we are in our backgrounds. And what the American people do want is that we have leaders who can build consensus, where we can figure out compromise and understand it's not a bad thing, as long as you don't compromise your values, to find common sense solutions. And that has been my approach. You are sitting here with us. The Trump campaign canceled an interview that they had agreed to, to participate in this broadcast. What do you make of that? If he is not going to give your viewers the ability to have a meaningful, thoughtful conversation, question and answer with you, then watch his rallies. You're going to hear conversations that are about himself and all

of his personal grievances. And what you will not hear is anything about you, the listener. You will not hear about how he's going to try to bring the country together, find common ground. And Bill, that is why I believe in my soul and heart. The American people are ready to turn the page. Vice President Kamala Harris on 60 Minutes last night. So, Joe, barring the fact that the other choice from president believes in nothing except for his own self-interest and was a Democrat and donated to Kamala Harris's campaigns at one point. Putting all of that aside, how do you think she handled that question? Well, you know, I thought it was great. I mean, I'm a conservative. I've always said Donald Trump's

not a conservative and he's not. And the news outlets that are always running running interference are not conservatives. Yesterday, I quoted Edmund Burke. I quoted Russell Kirk, quoted Ronald Reagan. And I go back to this answer, Gene Robinson, where she's talking about seeking consensus. She said she talked about seeking common ground and Americans want leaders who build consensus and compromise. And of course, that requires that is as as Cain said, I think it was when the facts change. I changed my mind. What do you do, sir, is the question. But you were so lucky, Gene, you missed my my history of conservatism 101 class yesterday. I heard it, Joe. I did hear it. I did hear it. Well, you also you also quoted my friend Charles Krauthammer at length. And yes, I heard it. The best. I love Charles. I love Charles.

A real conservative hero. And Charles, by the way, as I was reading through Charles again through the weekend, a man whose writing I so deeply loved. We discount the written word too much these days and think, oh, gee, when we write, it doesn't matter so much. Charles is speaking to us and speaking to conservatives and speaking to Trump voters, speaking to those who claim to be conservative. Charles is speaking from beyond to them in his words. Even today, if they just want to read what Charles Krauthammer said, I think the great conservative mind of our time has said about Donald Trump, but more importantly, what he said about government. But one of the things that the vice president just said that it's almost lifted directly from the conservative mind. Russell Kirk, the introduction to the seventh edition, his final edition of The Conservative Mind.

Russell Kirk talked about what conservatism was. And he said it's conservatives look at custom and convention conventions forged by compromise and consensus over time and applied prudently. And then at the end, he said, whether we attach ourselves to the party of progress or the party of permanence depends upon the circumstances of the time. And that's what Kamala Harris just said there. She's basically saying, yes, I said what I said in 2019, 2020. A lot of things happened. A lot of things changed. I've traveled the country. I'm going to do what Russell Kirk said in the conservative mind. Seek consensus, seek compromise, be prudent over time. This is something that real conservatives would applaud, Gene. But for some

reason, many who claim to be conservatives simply aren't doing that. They are going in the radical direction that Russell Kirk and Edmund Burke and real conservatives warned about. Right. The Republican Party right now is not a conservative party at all. And I thought that was a particularly effective answer that Vice President Harris gave to the question of why she had changed some of her positions. I think it's by far the best answer she has given, and I predict she will give it over and over again because it's a good answer.

And it's not just what conservatives, conservative thinkers have said over the years and the centuries. It's what Bill Clinton did. It's what popular, effective presidents have always done, which is to understand what's possible and to do what's possible and not to try to do the impossible. And I just thought that was a really effective and powerful answer to a question that a lot of people who are kind of on the fence have been asking.

Conservatives that I have been corresponding with particularly raise the point, well, she's changed her position on this and that. You know, look at the way the positions have changed. They have changed toward the center, and there's a reason for that. And that's really something what do those conservatives say gene what do those conservatives say about donald trump's position on abortion it changes every two minutes he was pro-choice he was pro-choice his entire life he decides to become pro-life he brags about terminating roe v. Wade. Then he says, oh, wait, I'm going to be a big champion of women's reproductive rights.

Then he attacks DeSantis' six-week abortion ban. Then he flip-flops again. How can you even talk about somebody else's changing positions when you have Donald Trump on an issue like abortion flip flopping every day. Right. And when I bring that up, they just say, well, that's Trump being Trump. Well, no, no, that's crazy. That's crazy is what it is. And and dishonest. And you can't trust a word that comes out of his mouth. And again, this should be anathema to the Republican Party, certainly of my youth, the Republican Party of most of my life, simply would not tolerate

this sort of person as an official, much less as president and presidential nominee. Yet here we are. Maybe someday we'll have the Republican Party again. And that would be a good thing, by the way, for the Democratic Party. That would be a good thing for progressives to have their ideas challenged by a serious conservative party. But but that's not happening right now. Yeah. I mean, you even had the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, yesterday, not just enabling, but encouraging and rationalizing Donald Trump's behavior, all these lies he's been telling about the hurricane response and well, he's unpredictable. And that's what people like about him. So let's talk about Vice President Harris, Jonathan. We saw the clips from 60 Minutes, tough, fair questions about her record. Tough, fair questions about the first three years of immigration policy under this administration.

Today, as you mentioned, she'll be on The View. She'll be on Howard Stern. And then ending the day with Stephen Colbert. Governor Walz yesterday taped an interview with SmartList, the boys over at SmartList podcast. What is the strategy here? You've got that one big sort of tentpole interview in the middle with 60 Minutes and perhaps some friendlier environments today. Yeah,

Walls also sat in an unfriendly environment over the weekend with Fox News on Sunday, and he taped an interview with Jimmy Kimmel as well. So they're really ramping up the media appearances here. And we've talked about on the show, some fair, some not. There's a lot of criticism that she hasn't been doing enough interviews. The campaign would push back to that saying, well, first of all, we are doing a lot of local interviews, but also this campaign is still brand new. And we're still, you know, remember, she only became the nominee, de facto nominee back in July. You know, there are other things she had to do. But I think they recognize that because of that short window, and even though

she's been vice president for a few years, poll after poll suggests a lot of Americans simply don't know her. Bill Whitaker mentioned that last night on 60 Minutes, that 20-odd percent of Americans still feel like they don't really know what drives her. And I think she and her team are now embracing that and recognizing we need to address that. We need to make sure people do get to know her. And also, they point to the focus group data they have that after she does these interviews, people like her more. It's a skill set. She's good at it. And they're realizing we need to do more of it. Same with the governor, her running mate, who, of course, got the job because he was so good at interviews and then oddly was put on a shelf for several weeks. I'm told he'll be out there a lot more going forward. Yeah. I mean, Joe, this argument that

Kamala Harris does not sit and do serious interviews. Well, now let's just hold up 60 minutes. She sat for 60 minutes. Donald Trump ducked it. Donald Trump ducked 60 minutes. Donald Trump ducked the debate. Donald Trump is ducking any serious interview now because I guess he's thinking he's not up to it. It has to be a confidence thing because, you know, in 16, he would call anybody, anytime, anywhere. You couldn't keep him off of shows. He loved it.

Now, for the first time, that's why I asked the question at the top of the show. Like, what's going on there? Because this is not how a guy acts if he wants to win the presidency. I do also want to talk about Tim Walz really briefly. I thought, Mika, last night he was in command. He looked good. He looked nervous, you know, in the the vice presidential debate. And none of us know you get shot out of a cannon as governor of Minnesota or are you get on this national stage with the Klieg lights on you. Nobody knows how they'd react. And chances are good most people would would react pretty poorly at first. Tim

Walz last night looked like he had his footing, looked firm, looked in control and looked confident. And it was a good step forward for him. It was a good night for him. He did what a vice president should do, a vice presidential candidate should do, and reassured everybody that he was steady, that, yes, quote, he was a knucklehead. He exaggerated on a couple of different things back decades ago. But he's not lying about eating dogs and cats. Right. And he's not lying about hurricane relief. And he's not lying about Trump winning the 2020 election like this week. So I think most people probably like what they saw with Tim Walz last night. And by the way, we have a poll coming up. New York Times Sienna poll, which is usually about 30 points off. So we'll see what it says this time. So I thought he also did a great job on Fox News when he was interviewed

as well. He's definitely found his footing in these interviews, again, being shot out of a cannon just like Kamala Harris. And as far as Donald Trump not doing 60 Minutes and not doing another debate, another instinct I have about this just from knowing him. And you remember how obsessed he was when he was picking his first cabinet and picking people around him. It was all about looks. And I don't think he likes the way it looks when the two are contrasted on the screen, like during a debate or in an interview. I just don't think he fares well and he knows that. He has always had a great gut instinct about his image, what works for his image,

what doesn't work for his image, the branding part of it all. And he obviously, that blink thing just I think you're right. I don't think he wants to be stacked up next to Kamala Harris because they don't think he likes what he sees. You know, he he obviously thinks a lot of her or else he wouldn't have contributed to her in 2014 and wouldn't have said the positive things about her that he said. All right. Coming up, Israel is expanding its ground offensive in southern Lebanon. We'll have the latest on the operation as tensions continue to rise across the Middle East. Morning Joe, we'll be right back.

Before you joined the ticket, you called Republicans weird. And that's sort of become a rallying cry for Democrats. Why do you think that label stuck? I was really talking about the behaviors. Being obsessed with people's personal lives in their bedrooms and their reproductive rights, making up stories about legal folks legally here eating cats and dogs, they're dehumanizing. They go beyond weird. Because I said this, it becomes almost dangerous.

Let's debate policy in a real way and let's try and find an objective truth again. You could say a lot of things about Donald J. Trump, but what no one can say is that he's predictable, right? There's real value in having a commander in chief at a dangerous time like this. Having someone that our adversaries see as unpredictable, that he may indeed be willing to use the appropriate measure of force. That has a great deterring effect. And that's what happened. Of course, this isn't theory. That's what Donald Trump achieved in his first term. As I mentioned earlier, that's House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday touting former President

Trump's, quote, unpredictability, rationalizing his behavior. Joining us now, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four star Navy Admiral James Stavridis. He's chief international analyst for NBC News. And importantly, this morning, the author of the new book, The Restless Wave, a novel of the United States Navy. That book is out today. Admiral, great to see you. Cannot wait to talk about this book in just a minute. Sure. May I ask you, though, sir, about unpredictability? We know financial markets don't like unpredictable leaders. What about allies of the United States? Oh, they hate it.

And, you know, the saying in finance is money is a coward, meaning it flows away from unpredictability and danger. And it's the same with alliances. And the less predictable you are, the more likely it is that your allies will start looking for other options. And potentially the greatest comparative advantage for the United States is this glittering network of allies. Not only NATO, but Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea. Together, we comprise 65 percent of the world's GDP, Willie. We don't want to scare them away. We want to be solid, steady and reliable. What are you hearing from leaders around the world, military leaders, but also diplomatic leaders about the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House?

Just on that very question of alliances and predictability. Yeah, precisely the concern. And I'll leave the domestic political calculus to experts on Morning Joe. But in my wheelhouse, cyber alliances, warfare, all of that network, there is deep concern about specifically that the unpredictability. Let's remember North Korea. One minute, it's little rocket man who's going to face fire and fury. And the next minute, they're exchanging the most beautiful love letters in the world. You can't run a foreign policy like that. You can't maintain alliances and you cannot be ready for the world that is coming. Yeah. One foreign capital that would like more predictability

for the United States would be Kiev, of course. Let's turn, though, to the Middle East. We've heard from President Biden a couple of times now in recent days offering some thoughts as to what Israel's response to Iran should be. He's warning against targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, later suggesting some of their energy and oil production should also perhaps be off limits. What do you think an appropriate response would be here? And we should note, there's no sense at all that Prime Minister Netanyahu will listen to President Biden.

Your final comment is quite correct. I think there are three big target sets, Jonathan. One, you mentioned the nuclear facilities. The problem there is it's an incredibly hard target. They're deeply buried under granite. They're scattered around Iran, which is three times the size of Texas. Very hard, very hard target set. You mentioned energy problem there. Iran produces three, five percent of the world's oil and gas and energy. And therefore, you're going to kind of bend, if not crack the global economy by knocking that out. So I think option three is

probably where they land, which is go after the military industrial complex. That's where the mullahs are building the ballistic missiles that threaten Israel. Go after those production facilities. Go after the storage. Go after the command and control. Throw in a few targeted, shall we say, eliminations on the side. Do some cyber. Put that package together. I think that's what you're going to see in the next few days.

What about those nuclear facilities, Admiral? We've heard former Prime Minister Bennett of Israel say we need to go after nuclear facilities. We've heard some people here in the U.S. suggest the same. What's your view on that? I'm respectful of Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister. He's a serious thinker. And you can lay out a coherent case to go after the nuclear sites now. Personally, if I were advising the Israelis, I'd say it's not time. Go after the command and control. Go after the air defense systems, Willie. Prepare, ultimately, if you have to go after those nuclear facilities.

But at this moment, in this moment, conduct a proportional strike and go after the weapons systems that targeted Israel, principally the ballistic missile sites. Let's turn, Admiral, to the book, The Restless Wave, a novel of the United States Army. You bring a lifetime of knowledge and experience to this story. Your 14th book, your third novel. Yeah. I bet you never thought when you were coming up in the academy that you'd become a great novelist.

But here we are. Tell us about this story, kind of the theme of a great power war. Yeah. Let's start with a quote from the most quotable person in history, Winston Churchill. He said, the further you want to look into the future, the more you must want to look to the past, meaning you can learn a lot from history. So the idea of the book is it's a novel, so it's readable. It's a love triangle set against the backdrop of the first of the Second World War in the Pacific. It's about great power conflict in the Pacific. You know, we don't have to imagine how terrible a war between the U.S. and China would be. We've seen one between the U.S. and Japan. And it's a book about back to Ukraine, Jonathan. It's a book

about new technology sweeping the battlefield in the early days of that war. Last thought, the Easter egg inside the book is that it's loosely based on Dante's Inferno. Admiral, I'm always fascinated by David Ignatius's novels because he writes things in his novels that he could not write. He writes things in fiction that he could not reveal in nonfiction books. Talk about some of the areas that you went into that the readers will be fascinated by that you may not have gone into if you had to attach names, dates, facts to. Yeah, I'm on a slightly safer ground than my good friend David Ignatius, because, of course, he writes contemporary fiction. What's happening today, a lot of it highly classified. Fortunately, and this is another reason to use the idea of historical fiction in the restless wave, we're able to explore how these new technologies get into the fleet,

get into battle. And the one I love in the book is the story of code breaking, of cryptography. Joe, it was the cyber and cybersecurity of its day. And you see how in order to attain that level of code breaking, the U.S. Navy had to go not to the six foot four inch beautiful looking admirals like Nimitz. They had to find squirrelly little captains who probably looked like Admiral Stavridis in his day. And these were slipper wearing, bathrobe wearing Captain Joe Rochefort, who cracked the codes of Japan and delivered the victories at Midway and Lady Gulf. A brisk read full of history. It's called The Restless Wave, a novel of the United States Navy. It is on sale today and it is excellent. Retired four star Navy Admiral James DeVitas. Admiral, thanks as always. Congrats on the book.

Good to see you.