Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/1/23

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Rafah crossing partially open for potential evacuations

this is all one fight. And we have to respond in a way that recognizes that. If we start to peel off pieces of this package, they'll see that. They'll understand that we are playing whack-a-mole while they cooperate increasingly and pose an ever greater threat to our security as well as to that of ours and partners. Secretary of State Antony Blinken laying out the importance of financial support for both Israel and Ukraine. That's in response to an Israel-only aid package from House Republicans that also came with a catch.

We'll look at where that fight is headed. Plus, the director of the FBI is warning the Hamas terror attacks could inspire extremists here at home, calling it the greatest threat to the United States since ISIS. And we'll have an update on Donald Trump's civil fraud trial ahead of testimony today from one of his adult children. Also ahead, we'll explain the latest labor dispute.

This one is being dubbed Pharmageddon and how it could impact people's prescription drugs, whether or not they get them. I could be serious. Will there be a pharmacist there when you go to get your prescriptions? Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, November 1st, everybody, along with Joe, Harry and me. Yes, we have. You were really good. I was nervous. I always get nervous. Look at Willie, guys. That's Harry.

I can't tell the difference. Way to go, TJ. He kind of looks like Harry. With a touch on... Who's the down-by-the-river guy in Saturday Night Live? Lil' Farley in there. I don't see that.

That's really bizarre. So I was on YouTube for a couple of days searching Harry Styles dance moves. And those are all right out of his canon. Excellent. Right there. Awesome. He's not executed the way he did. I'm proud of you.

That's why we can't separate you from Harry. What's amazing about that is you get to work with SNL wardrobe and wig for a couple of hours a year. You're on SNL. And then they just strip it from you and it's over. You don't get to keep that? No. You know they work with O'Meara every morning. That's a different thing.

It's in his contract. Nice work. That's hard and scary. The Today in his contract. I didn't realize that was a way. All right. So, no, nice work. That's hard and scary. Shout out to the Today Show team and the SNL team. SNL. No, it's an artistic event. So, Jonathan Lemire is with us. The Calmness and Associate Editor of Washington Post, David Ignatius.

When is it himself, by the way, last night? He did. He walked around Washington trick-or-treating. I am David Ignatius. Dressed as a journalist. Oh, trick or treat. Always. All right. I'll send you the jumpsuit, David. You can David Ignatius. Dressed as a journalist. Oh, it was a great costume. Trick or treat. Always. All right. I'll send you the jumpsuit, David. You can wear that next year. I'd like to see that. All right. Let's get right to the news. The border between Gaza and Egypt is now partially open.

These are live pictures from the Rafah crossing where ambulances are now passing into Gaza for the first time. This as the territory's hospital system is on the verge of collapse. The border reopened this morning after Qatar helped broker a deal. Now hundreds of foreign nationals who have been stuck in Gaza are waiting to enter. It's not clear how long the Rafah crossing will remain open. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli defense forces are continuing their ground offensive, pushing deeper into the territory. There have been reports of Israeli troops clashing with Hamas. Israel has also acknowledged it carried out yesterday's deadly attack at Gaza's largest refugee camp. A series of airstrikes caused widespread damage in a

densely populated neighborhood. Israel says it was targeting Hamas infrastructure and killed dozens of terrorists, including a commander who they say was an architect of the October 7th attack. Palestinian authorities say hundreds of civilians were injured or killed in the airstrikes. But Israel has yet to confirm the number of casualties. NBC News also cannot independently verify the numbers. And this is the chaos and the confusion that leads to a lot of the fighting around the world about this as to who exactly is doing what to whom. But the understanding is that a lot of Hamas terrorists use these people as human shields. Well, they use Gaza civilians and long have used

Gaza civilians as as in hospitals and you name it, refugee camps. They've used it to shield themselves from attacks. And therein lies David Ignatius, of course, the problem for Israel. How do you root out Hamas? How do you destroy a terrorist organization that has no problems burning your babies alive and raping your children and gunning down kids that are at concerts when they use, literally use Gazans as human shields, use hospitals as shields where they can conduct operations underground, where this is, again, this is how they fight. So an Israeli dies, that's good news for Hamas. A Palestinian dies, that's good news for Hamas. That's how they live. That's how they fight. So, yeah, an Israeli dies. That's good news for Hamas. A Palestinian dies. That's good news for Hamas. That's that's how they live.

That's how they think. But you wrote a column talking about just how horrible the Palestinian, the state of Palestinians has been for a very long time. And how Hamas, starting in 2005, was able to hijack Palestinians yearning to be free. So I tried to describe how this yearning that Palestinians have. And it's been true for many decades. I was going back into the early 80s in this column. The yearning they've had for dignity and self-respect has really in recent years been hijacked by Hamas and turned to purposes that we see have horrific consequences. I just wanted in this piece to try to suggest a little bit of the humanity of Palestinian civilians who we're seeing in these very painful images from Jabali refugee camp and others.

Many of these are civilians. They love their kids as much as you and I love ours. Watching urban warfare is always so painful. It's just something, wherever it happens, it's just terrible to watch. Israel's faced this question before when it was conducting what it thought were legitimate military campaigns. I watched this in Beirut in 1982. I watched it in Lebanon in 2006. Secretary Blinken made the point in his testimony campaign, even against the most despicable adversary.

And I think Hamas certainly qualifies as that. But it's a terribly difficult dilemma for Israeli commanders. before the pressure on them internationally to stop this action before they've achieved their goal of really rooting out Hamas military leadership, I think is going to grow. The pressure for a second front coming from Lebanon, it may grow significantly on Friday when the leader of Hezbollah speaks in Lebanon. So that's something we need to keep our eye on. I know the Israelis are. Well, you know, it is extraordinarily difficult, urban warfare. It is in our time. It was in the past. It was, I mean, you look at the fire bombings of Dresden.

You look at Tokyo, where actually the bombings of Tokyo actually more deadly than the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the number of people that were killed there. Civilian fighting has always been, or fighting wars among civilians in urban centers always. It's been heinous and it's caused so many moral dilemmas. I do want to ask you, David, we started by talking about the crossing into Egypt and making the Palestinian cause even more difficult is the fact that Arab nations in recent years have been great about putting out press releases about their support for the Palestinians. But they don't like the Palestinians. Let's just say it right here.

I'll say it right here. Sisi doesn't want any Palestinians in this country. You look in Jordan, you look again across most Sunni Arab nations. Things have gone from bad to worse for the Palestinians over the past 10, 15 years because Arab nations said we don't want them. And in fact, that's why the Abraham Accords actually started doing something the United States had not done before or that Israel had not done before. Israel is setting up peace deals with the help of Jared Kushner and the Trump administration, where they just worked directly with Israel and the UAE, Israel and Bahrain. Of course, what what really may have started all of this is the fact that now the Biden administration was getting close to an Israel Saudi Arabia deal where the Palestinians for the first time cut out of the equation.

Can you please explain to our viewers? And I really I don't know the answer. I know you do, though. Why? Why? When and why do the Arab nations turn on on the Palestinian people? Why is it that Sisi in Egypt? It was so hard for us to convince him to open up the border, to let Palestinian refugees go in with their families and live safely. So part of it, Joe, I think is exactly what you said, that other Arab nations are afraid that Palestinian influx would be destabilizing. Certainly, that was the case in Lebanon, where Palestinian refugees ended up becoming a decisive force in the country and led to civil war. There's also a desire to keep Palestinians in the area that they claim is their homeland, not let Israel push them out to some other space. So I think it goes down to basic domestic security concerns.

I do think, as you say, that the Abraham Accords were really important in changing the dynamic where the Arabs finally became genuinely open to dealing with Israel. One important thing that we've watched in the last week is the UAE warning Israel through its statements to the United Nations that this wonderful accord between the UAE and Israel may be in danger. The UAE is strongly called for a ceasefire at the U.N., expressing its concern about continuation of this fight. I just would note one other thing, Joe, that our viewers should all keep their eyes on. Secretary Blinken said yesterday in his Senate testimony that he thinks after this war ends, and we hope it will end soon, the only way to provide security in Gaza is for Arabs that care about the Palestinians to come in and support new and better Palestinian government governance so that Hamas, a group

really of terrorists, isn't running the place. It's run by more decent Palestinians who can do a better job of running Gaza. We'll see if Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, other Arab nations are willing to help in that project that Secretary Blinken described yesterday. If they are, then we can finally maybe see a path out of this. If they refuse. I don't know. I don't know where this goes. And, you know, it's interesting about about that, Willie, as I've talked to some some people in the region who have said when I suggested this possibility a couple of weeks ago, I said, well, what about you? When led peacekeeping force of Arab nations that could go in there? And the response was not what I expected.

We'll do it. But the United States has to be all in. We need your hand. We need your leadership. You guys can't just sit there and let it just go back and forth. If the United States is in, this person said, I could see Sunni Arab states going in as peacekeeping forces to protect the Palestinians and help them set up a government that's not run by terrorists. And it has been since 2005. Right. Gaza has the excuse me, the Gaza has been run by Hamas since 2005. And speaking of American leadership on this question, as expected, the White House has come out against the House Republicans aid package for Israel, the one we were talking about yesterday. That plan includes fourteen point three billion dollars in emergency funding, but rescinds that same amount of IRS funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. That funding was earmarked for additional IRS agents to go after tax

delinquents. The Office of Management and Budget says President Biden would veto the Republican proposal if it comes to his desk. A statement from the OMB reads in part, quote, the bill fails to meet the urgency of the moment by deepening our divides and severely eroding historic bipartisan support for Israel's security. The president has made it clear he wants an aid package that includes funding for Israel, Ukraine, efforts to contain China, and additional support for U.S. border security. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday both highlighted their support for voting on a whole supplemental package. Also yesterday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with House Speaker

Mike Johnson for about 25 minutes to discuss the president's funding request. The secretary called it a, quote, very positive meeting, but shared no additional details. So, Jonathan, yesterday you had Mitch McConnell coming out with a position that we sort of talked about on this show yesterday, which is that this kind of funding is not subject to offsets. The fact that Mike Johnson, as his first act, really his first major act and speaker said, OK, we'll vote for support from Ukraine as long as you help us defund the IRS. Yeah, this is emergency aid. This is not how this usually goes. It's not going to be offsets. They're not going to pay for us. It's going to be it's meant to act urgently to give into a nation, Israel, an ally in need. And the politics of this

just don't make much sense, except when you look at it as Speaker Johnson nodding to his conservative base and in particular, those handful of Republicans in the House who got him that job by ousting Kevin McCarthy. This is a nod to them, though most of those in that group oppose aid to Ukraine. That's not part of this this is just israel uh and they are all some of them don't want to see the u.s being spending money for any overseas aid now this is not going to go anywhere the president has already said he'll veto it it's not going to get through the senate they're going to jam this up they're going to restore a lot but it's going to slow down it's going to slow down the ability to get u.s aid to israel at a time when they need it

but you know i don't understand willie. I mean, the only people that would like this bill other than Mike Johnson's, Mike Johnson's small group of people there, a bill that stops funding for Israel, stops funding for Ukraine, stops funding for the border, stops funding to protect Taiwan from China would be anti-Semites who hate Israel and hate Jews, tax cheat billionaires, illegal immigrants and Vladimir Putin. I'm serious. I mean, how do you put that on a 30 second ad if you're a Republican? Swear to God, those are the four categories of people who would would be glad if this bill continued to languish. And that's Mike Johnson's first move. Yeah, it's his first move. And also, as the IRS came out yesterday and suggested, we would actually lose money on this because you're collecting so much less in tax that you would. It's not even an offset because you're losing money in the process. It doesn't even make sense

on that basis other than a SOP to donors or to that small group of people who gave him the job. So, David Ignatius, the president has said, obviously, I'm not going to sign anything like that that comes to the bill. It's not even going to get through the Senate. Let's start there because it's not just Democrats, but Mitch McConnell that oppose this as well. What's your sense of how this will shake out and how it looks, frankly, to our ally Israel? Well, really, I've always thought that the bipartisan support for Ukraine aid would continue. But I get more and more dubious as I watch behavior like the new speakers. I just was in Ukraine three weeks ago, the day before the Gaza war started is when I left. And I'll tell you, Ukrainians say straight

up, if the United States doesn't support us, we are in real trouble in continuing this war against Russia. Here are these brave Ukrainians suffering terrible casualties. They're doing the fighting. They're asking for what, in terms of our total budget, is a relatively modest amount of military support to keep fighting. And it is astonishing to me, as they head into winter and the difficulty of this battle, that they're being, in effect, nickel and dimed by the Republicans in Congress. I just wish those people could see a little of what you see when you visit Ukraine and see the bravery of these people. I can't imagine they would continue to resist supporting this aid at a time when Ukraine needs it. And it's also a moment where President Biden

now is the clear winning politically about being strong on Israel. Right. With the Republicans opposing him. And look, the strike at the refugee camp yesterday, this is not like the hospital explosion. There's no ambiguity here. Israel said they ordered that strike.

Right. And that's a calculation they made and there'll be blowback in the region. But right now, and this is something the U.S. has warned Israel about, of course, be careful about the response. But there's no question the president has been in and will continue to be in on Israel while the Republicans now look like they're waffling. Well, Republicans are waffling.

I mean, they basically screwed Israel for three weeks by playing games inside their own caucus. And while people are burying their dead in Israel and while Jews continue to have to endure a global war against them, you've got Republicans playing games and Republicans blocking aid to Israel, Republicans blocking aid to Ukraine. Let's face it. Not all of them. No, we've talked a lot about Chairman McCaul and most Republicans wanting to support Ukraine. But make no mistake, there's a small wing and it apparently is the dominant wing of the leadership now that's actually rooting for and most Republicans wanting to support Ukraine. But make no mistake, there's a small wing, and it apparently is the dominant wing of the leadership now that's actually rooting for Vladimir Putin and want Vladimir Putin to win,

if only by blocking aid to Ukraine. And then, of course, they don't want to fund the border. They bitch and whine about the border nonstop. They've got a chance to spend more money on border protection to stop this flow of illegal immigrants. They're playing games with that spend more money on border protection to stop this flow of illegal immigrants. They're playing games with that and they're playing games on China. I hope it's worth it for them. Again, I'm not sure who they think they're helping. The entire safety of the world.

But this is the problem when you're a radical and you're in a little bubble surrounded by other radicals. Right. You don't know the consequences of your actions. The Washington Post, David Ignatius, thank you very much. Thank you so much. Next, in just 60 seconds, the first member of the Trump family will take the stand today in the two hundred and fifty million dollar civil fraud trial against the Trump organization. This is the punishment phase. We'll tell you who is expected to testify and when the former president himself is slated to take the stand. We're back in one minute. Boy, he got mad last time. Who is expected to testify and when the former president himself is slated to take the stand? We're back in one minute. Boy, he got mad last time.

Not good. 22 past the hour today. The first member of the Trump family will take the stand in the New York $250 million civil fraud trial. Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to testify today. I don't know if I don't want to lead with him. Eric Trump will take the stand tomorrow. Ivanka Trump and former President Trump will

testify next week. I haven't seen him in a while. Have we seen? I haven't seen him in a while. Not as much as he had. Oh, he does like stuff on Insta. He doesn't do it that much anymore. It's not good when he does it. Something's up. Something's up. He doesn't feel good or something anymore. It's not good when he does it. Something's up. Something's up.

He doesn't do it much. He doesn't feel good or something. He's got a nice, very excited. He is excited. No, there's like, yeah, a hyperactivity or something. He's up here. Yeah. Anywho. You read it.

You read it. Go ahead. Let's keep going. The former president has continued to rant. I'm sorry to even bring that up. Well, I follow. I kind of watch. I know you do.

I can't help it. I know. All right. Continue to rant about the case online, including this truth, a social post, where he called out New York Attorney General Letitia James and posted her picture in court. Now, there's a limited gag order on the case, but it does not cover speaking about the attorney general or the judge. Wow. He's immature. Let's bring in NBC News legal analyst, Catherine Christian.

Can we get a breaking news on that? He's immature. He's a five-year-old. It's just, wow. Let's bring in Catherine Christian. She's a former assistant DA in the Manhattan DA's office, also with us as president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. Catherine Christian, very seriously, what do you think the Trump children will be able to add to this? Or do you expect them just to plead the fifth all day long? Well, assuming they don't plead the fifth, right, because if they do, that actually will hurt them.

Typically in a criminal trial, it does. No comment. But in New York, in a civil case, the judge, in this case, the judge or the jury can infer by that taking the fifth that what they would have said would have been harmful to them. That's why they didn't answer the question. So you say you say it'd be harmful, harmful to the outcome of the civil case. Yes, the civil they take the fifth. The problem, and I was thinking about this coming in here, if you're one of the kids and you know they've been cutting corners and they've been cheating at their father's behest and their father has been lying about how much he's worth, really you're faced with, if you want to be safe and you don't want to commit perjury, I mean,

you're faced with pleading the fifth or committing perjury. So pleading the fifth may be their only route. Right. I always say that if you lose a civil trial, you lose money. If you lose a criminal trial, you might lose your liberty. So that would be the advice that I would give a client said, well, you know, you take the fifth and you'll probably lose because it'll be held against you in the civil trial. Right. But at least anything you say won't be used against you because you haven't said anything. Right. And if you commit perjury in a civil trial, then you lose money and you get sent to jail.

So what about is OK, so pleading the fifth in a civil trial, you're saying is actually, it doesn't have, it has more repercussions. For the civil trial. Yeah. But what about saying I don't remember? The I don't recall. Yeah. Well, it has to be legitimate. I don't recall.

They've got documents. You can't just like, I don't recall. I don't recall. I don't recall. It'd be one thing if you said, were you at the party on the night of October the 14th, 2019? It's another thing to say, here's this document with your signature on it. Well, what they can't say I don't recall to is, is that your signature? Yes.

So a lot of the questions might be, the attorney general already knows the answer to. Were you at that meeting with so-and-so? Yes. And was so-and-so and so-and-so there? Yes. And is that your signature? Yes. Are you familiar with that document? Yes. That's a financial statement of the company. So not they're not going to say, yes, we intend to defraud. It's really about getting them to admit under oath facts they can't deny. And once they have the signature, Willie, on a document that is clearly fraudulent, well, they just introduce, they say, okay, we'll submit that evidence, and boom, the jury

sees they signed a false document. I don't recall. Maybe this will refresh your memory. So, Catherine, we've seen a lot of Perry Mason. Exactly. So let's take just a step back and remind our viewers what exactly we're talking about here, which is the accusation here is that the Trump children, I don't hesitate to call them children. He's Don Jr.'s 45 years old, but the that they participated in a long running scheme here to inflate the assets and do all the things that Donald Trump is accused of.

So what role did Don Jr. allegedly play in all this? Well, it's because the courses of actions that they falsified, the organization and the defendants falsified the business records with the intent of the fraud, filed false financial statements with the intent of the fraud, and filed insurance applications with the intent of the fraud. So Don Jr. and Eric and Allen Weisselberg were in charge of the company when the president was in the White House. Ivanka got out of it when she went to the White House, but she was part of it before the White House. So they were, you know, and they've said these in interviews, we're in charge of the company. So how, if you're in charge of the company, you're not aware of the business records, the insurance applications. Something while she was in the White House.

Yes. She also was part of a hotel deal and allegedly negotiated loans. So they can't really now say we really were hands off. Daddy did everything. So it's very hard. So Reverend Sharpton has discussed Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump ran the business while dad was in the White House. You've known the Trump family here at New York Characters for a long time. Give us a character sketch, if you will, of Donald Trump Jr., what he's going to say today. Well, Donald Trump Jr. is very loyal to his father. I used to see him all the time at Banner Room. By the way, Rev, can we do pre-politics kids and post-politics kids?

Because I will say pre-politics, at least when I saw him out in social settings, very charming, very respectful, very deferential to people. No, very deferential, very nice, wanted to talk, could chit chat. When they got political, it was a little more guarded, a little more. Well, I saw dad did a tweet against you, but you know, we're really not enemies. We just disagree. It was a little more trying to play diplomatic. I think the biggest challenge for Donald Jr. is that they have always played to the audience of one, their father.

And when he gets on the stand, he's playing to the audience of one, a judge. If he gets on the stand and plays to the audience of his father he could get himself in a lot of trouble that yeah i mean that's a brilliant insight because of course the one who hasn't been doing that recently rev is ivanka because she and jared have gone off and you know they have their you know they have their own life and jared's always had you know you can talk about the money with the Saudis, but Jared's always had more money. His family's always had more money than Trump has had, something that always graded on Trump. But you see that separation a bit more.

But you're right. The boys more, the men more endangered, I would think, because of that audience of one. Everybody that plays in that audience of one gets burned. Yeah, they want to please dad. And I mean, even in casual conversations, they want to please dad. If they get on that stand and please dad, they are going to have the wrath of that judge. And I think that's the danger, you know, Donald Jr. has. And, you know, I had Michael Cohen on politics nation the other night.

He has told horror stories about how they defer to dad. Ivanka was different because she was the only one of the kids that didn't need dad's money to survive. Right. After she married Jared. And Trump Jr., of course, has also become the family's emissary to the real far right. Right. With the one with a political future of his own. People think he also took that meeting, of course, with the KGB. And Ivanka is no longer a defendant. Remember, she had her attorneys who were able to successfully win an appeal on her behalf. Explain this is the punishment phase. What are you looking for?

Not only in this testimony from the kids, which is obviously adding drama and intrigue to it. But in terms of the pace of this trial, as a decision is made into how much Donald Trump should pay, because that's what's being decided? Yes, because the attorney general is requesting $250 million. People refer to it as damages. It's really a penalty. Do you think that will happen? If the judge finds them liable, I think he will probably give two hundred fifty million dollars in disgorgement. That's what it's called, to pay back for the money that they enriched themselves with. Rev and I are smiling at each other because we don't think he's got two hundred and fifty million dollars to give. No, I don't think he has. And I think it'll be appealed and then go on and on.

That's right. Yes. When does he pay if he gets found liable? Well, if it when he finds $250 million to pay a judgment, people who can't pay, there's a judgment attached. So anytime something's in your name, like a house or something, you're going to have to give it to the people who you owe money to. Would he have to sell like at Moralago, for instance? Well, remember, his businesses certificates were canceled by the judge. Now that's been stayed by an appellate court. So basically, again, if the AG wins all the appeals, the businesses will be dissolved. All of the Trump organization's businesses.

Wow. OK, NBC News legal analyst Catherine Christian. Thank you very much for your insight. And by the way, I just want to say that for people that say, oh, this is this is the judicial system being weaponized against Donald Trump. He was ripping everyone off. People have been talking about this for 20 years, like 20 years before Donald Trump ever went into business, ever went into politics, Rev, everybody I ever talked to in New York who did business with him said he was ripping them off. He was cutting corners. He was defrauding banks.

People have been saying this for 20 years. So anybody that says, oh, this is a judicial system that's being weaponized against Donald Trump, they're just ignorant and have's being weaponized against Donald Trump. They're just ignorant and have no idea what they're talking about, at least in this case, because New York business people for years have been talking about how he defrauds banks and how he cheats and cuts corners and all his business deals. And many tabloid stories have been about his business practices. I mean, going back years before I ever thought about going in politics. And and he tried to play. He was slavvy, savvy and a good businessman.

Everyone, everybody said he was slick and he was a hustler. Everybody who's been inside his New York City apartment and Trump Tower. And that's thousands of people know that he inflated the size of that and other things. Thirty thousand square feet. All right. Coming up, it's day two of Pharmageddon. This is a nightmare. This scares pharmacy workers across the country walking off the job. It's part of a three day strike to protest working conditions. We'll take a look at the impact on people getting their medications. It could be a problem for me, Willie. You know, Mika has that.

She lays out the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and she fills up the container. You're joking? I'm not. This is going to be tough. Yes. This is going to be tough. Also, this is a big story, Farmageddon.

Why one of our next guests is calling Mike Johnson's election as House Speaker a gift to the Biden campaign. You know why they're saying that? That's coming up. Because it is. On Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Very superstitious

Nothing more to say Very superstitious The devil's on his way Baby, soon as it's us The devil's on his way He had two at-bats over the last month. And he probably didn't think he was going to get any in this World Series. And then Garcia reaches back, grabs his oblique. And life changed quickly for Jankowski.

He's got the Rangers ahead 7-0. And now Simeon crushes a ball back to left field. Gurriel to the wall. Goodbye! It is a rout in game four. It was 10-0 Rangers at that point. They now are just one win away from the World Series after putting on an offensive show against the Arizona Diamondbacks last night.

That was Marcus Simeon. He had five RBI, including a two-run triple, and that three-run home run you just saw helping power Texas to a 10-run lead by the third inning. Corey Seager also hit another big home run. Rangers beat the Diamondbacks 11-7 for a two-game lead in the series, three games to one. Nathan Ivaldi will try to clinch the all-wildcard fall classic tonight in Phoenix against Zach Gallin in a rematch of game one starters. Mike Barnicle is here with us.

Rangers on the brink, Mike. First World Series, they've been to three of them now. This will be the first in franchise history. Yeah, Nate the Great on the mound tonight. Why can't we get players like that for Boston? Hopefully he'll end it because this has been painful to watch. It's baseball, but it's been painful

to watch. Game one was great. Game one was great. Game one was great, but it's time to go home. And it's time to put the shutters on the windows. Storm windows. Storm windows. I was going to say. It's bad.

And, of course, Nate Evaldi just had one of the great pitching performances in World Series history, actually in a losing cause back in the 2018 series against the Dodgers. He's a fire-red diamond back. He's not the guy I would want to see on the mound tonight. No, he's been so good this postseason as well. And Zach Gallin is Arizona's ace, but he's on the mound tonight for them. But he struggled a bit

this October. And the Texas Rangers undefeated on the road these playoffs. They're 10-0 on the road. And they have a chance to finish up tonight in Phoenix for their first title in franchise history. They're doing it without Garcia, who's out for the rest of the series. Scherzer also out for the series, but they won big last night. By the way,

I don't think we've talked about Michigan, have we? Have we not talked about Michigan and stealing the signs? The Wolverines? Oh, yeah. Football, man. They're in trouble, aren't they? I guess so. Yeah.

I don't know. Is going to another team's game and scouting it? I guess I don't know why that's so bad. Don't ask a Patriots fan. Buying one ticket always behind the bench of your next opponent and learning what the signals are. I like it. Stealing them. You know, I like it. All right. Belichick approves. But it could. Jim Harbaugh was about to receive a lucrative contract extension there, and that's now a doubt. So there is some could

be repercussions for this. OK. Another big story we're following this morning. Pharmacy workers at CVS and Walgreens have reached their breaking point. Pharmacists at both companies have now launched a series of walkouts over what they call increasing workloads. And you can see it if you go to my guy. We've been seeing this for that's crazy here in CVS. You cannot get a prescription. You have to go there at least three times. And the app is always wrong. And they're making billions and billions of dollars. Yeah. They're cutting employees. The ones that are left there working are always overmatched. It's just it's bad. Again, it's just another example. And we see it time and time again. You see in the health care system where so many we see it time and time again. You see in

the health care system where so many Americans can't even get a doctor. You can get a physician's assistant. You can have the best insurance insurance in the world and you'll never see a doctor. They have too few employees. They do. It's insane. The lines are 15, 20, 20 people long. You wait for 45 minutes to get your prescription. They have too few. And that's going to lead similar to another great industry in this country, the airline industry. Right. Too few pilots. Now you're scaring me. Too few flight attendants. Too few TSA agents. I was going through JFK a week or two ago. It was on a Friday. One line, one TSA line. And the lines just went around the

airport. You're sitting there thinking, of course, that's a government deal. But again, you're sitting there thinking, especially on business, everything, everybody's so obsessed about squeezing the last cent out so they can have good earnings reports every quarter. They're all playing for Wall Street. Nobody gives a damn, not only about their customers, they don't give a damn about what's good for America. You look during COVID, we found out, oh, wait, we're the Chinese and the Indians are making like 98 percent of our pills. We don't have pills here. If China, we don't make masks here. We don't make ventilators here. We don't make anything here because everybody is squeezing the last penny, the last point zero zero one cent out of every profit curve. And Jonathan here,

I guarantee you, we all go to different pharmacies in different states. Yeah, I'm all have the same problem. And that is CVS and Walgreens and everybody else continues to slash, not because not because they have money problems, but because they want to make bigger and bigger and bigger profits. And people are going to die because you can see these pharmacy workers are so harried or so exhausted or so strung out that they're going to make mistakes. Yeah, it's a universal experience right now. And I'd add, this also comes, pharmacies having these slowdowns and shortages at a moment where people are supposed to be getting their flu shots

or getting their COVID boosters, and you're supposed to be getting that as pharmacies as well. That's another potential consequence. We've had days at our pharmacy where they're just closed altogether. We couldn't get people to come in and go, well, I need the thing today. Well, we're going to try to send it to the other CVS or the other Walgreens. There's no guarantee it's going to happen. And you feel, just as you do with flight attendants and pilots, you feel for the people working.

You're so grateful for them to be there, but they're stretched to the max. Let's bring in CNBC's Juliana Tattlebaum for more on this. So, Juliana, where does this strike stand? Might it be resolved anytime soon? Well, you've really hit the nail on the head when it comes to what these pharmacists and pharmacy technicians want out of this walkout. The walkout has been dubbed Pharmageddon across social media platforms. And essentially, pharmacy workers are fed up. It's not so much about pay. It's about the growing workload and lack of staff, exactly as you outline. Employees are being asked not only to fill prescriptions, but to field phone calls, administer

vaccines, deal with walk-ins for vaccines, and also deal with insurance companies. So there is so much being asked of these pharmacy workers and pharmacy technicians, and they want to improve the safety of their working environment. We don't have an exact number on the number of participants in the walkout. I've seen stats ranging from hundreds to thousands of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians participating. What we do know is that the American Pharmacists Association, the industry's largest professional organization, has come out in support of the employees that are walking out. The organization said in a statement on Monday that it stands with every pharmacist who participated in the walkout. The bottom line is that we support every pharmacist right to work in an environment

with staffing that supports your ability to provide patient care. So far, the pharmacies say that they are taking measures to improve working conditions and retain talent. To your question about what happens next and whether we see resolution, one key thing to bear in mind here is that these employees are not unionized. So that may make it more difficult for them to stand united. And that stands in contrast to some of the other walkouts that we've seen across other industries recently. These two companies, I'm telling you, the decline has been significant over the past, I don't know, two years or was COVID the excuse. And now they're just you cannot get a prescription. You have to go two or three times. You have to go to two or three different places.

I don't for families that have kids that are or anybody dependent on several medications. That's a full time job. job, just getting the medication. It's crazy. So, Juliana, where do you see this going? I mean, do you think it could get to the point where the pharmacies have to shut down because there's a complete walkout? How far are they willing to go? It depends on how many employees participate, I think.

It remains to be seen how many will join the movement. And again, I would just come back to this point that they're not unionized, which could work against those employees that are protesting. And maybe this leads to unionization. Certainly, it's something that labor activists and labor advocates are watching. Interesting. Juliana Teitelbaum, thank you very much. Mike, let's talk about let's talk about I was talking about how corporations will try to squeeze every last penny out. And here, CVS and Walgreens obviously got rid of a lot of workers just so they make more money.

This is all about, also about consolidation. We all, growing up, we all had pharmacies, neighborhood pharmacies that we could go to. CVS or Walgreens were doing this. We could go to a neighborhood pharmacy. Those have, for the most part, disappeared because CVS and Walgreens have basically crushed all competitors. The pharmacies is an interesting story. Willie pointed out, and it's actually true, I've experienced it myself, pharmacies closed on Sundays. Oh, yeah.

Some pharmacies are closed on Sundays. I mean, chain pharmacies. And that's astounding to me. I mean, you need your medicine, you need your medicine. They don't have workers, right? But the number of workers that have left, and to Mika's point, they're down to like three or four people working behind the counter, one answering the phone, one handing out prescriptions. The lines of people waiting for the prescriptions can reach 10, 15, 20 people. They have now, in some pharmacies, CVS and Walgreens, I think, have now a dedicated hour where you can't get your any medicine during the course of the

day because they've got 45 minutes to an hour that they they're opening later having lunch. I'm seeing. Look, just a week ago in D.C., I went into a CVS with my daughter and there was one person there, one. And she seemed, quite frankly, like completely depressed and overworked and actually like in a state of denial about her reality. And she kept saying, you know, you just need to come back later. Just check the app. Just check the app. Just it'll be ready at five. And then we check the app and it's Tuesday at 515. It makes you wonder if people who work in the pharmacies, for CVS or anybody else, big pharmacy companies, if they're paying attention to what the UAW just got done in Detroit with the automobile manufacturers. Unionization still works if it's done properly. Well, the biggest problem, Rev, is that, again, you've got consolidation to such a degree that they crush all competitors.

So there's no competition and and and then they basically screw their their customers because customers have nowhere else to go and they put it again on their their poor employees or who are just overwhelmed yeah overwhelmed by the number of people that are coming at them no that that is exactly what happened what what we've seen is squall green, in effect, big box your local pharmacies like we complained when Walmart did it and they consolidated at the expense of the consumer. online, or are they not taking care of you properly? They want you to complain about the overworked one that's left there rather than complain about the way they have set this situation up. And I guarantee you what they're going to try to do here is give the people that work there a little more money instead of doing what they have to do, and that is hire more people.

Right. All right. Still ahead, an arrest has been made in connection with the anti-Semitic threats made against Cornell University's Jewish community, who police say claimed responsibility. Plus, FBI Director Chris Wray says anti-Semitism is reaching historic levels in the U.S. and that the Israel-Hamas war raises potential for attacks on Americans. We'll dig into Wray's new warning next on Morning Joe. All right, 54 past the hour, a Cornell University student faces up to five years in prison for allegedly making threats against the school's Jewish community. 21-year-old Patrick Dye was arrested and charged yesterday after federal prosecutors say he posted violent messages on an online message board last week. In those anonymous posts, the writer threatened to, quote,

shoot up the school's Jewish student center and murder any Jews he saw on campus, including babies. Prosecutors say they traced the messages to die through his IP address, and he later admitted to being behind the threats. He is scheduled to make his first appearance in court today. You know, Willie, we've been talking about the threats on campus to Jewish students. And, of course, we're concerned about Muslim students as well facing any backlash. We saw the horrible story about the young child that was stabbed to death. Christopher Ray, though, FBI director yesterday in testimony said that even though Jews make up a little more than 2% of the population, 60% of the threats, and I think he said hate crimes, 60% are targeted toward Jews. So the Jewish people stand alone, of course, as we know they do, in threats made against them. And it continues. And it continues. We were just talking

during commercial all over the world, all over the world. It's happening. I mean, overnight it's happening everywhere on college campuses. It's happening. Yeah. And this it's not veiled. It's explicit anti-Semitism. and that's a student at an Ivy League university who felt okay somehow posting that he wanted to go kill Jews including babies as a student a 21 year old student at Cornell and to your point Joe Christopher Wray was testifying at a Senate Homeland Security hearing yesterday that Hamas terror attacks in Israel could inspire other terrorist attacks including ones by violent extremists here in the United States. He testified alongside Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Director Wray said the FBI is investigating several threats in this country,

including a man in Houston who was studying how to build bombs and then posted online about killing Jewish people. In just the past few weeks, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West. Al Qaeda issued its most specific call to attack the United States in the last five years. ISIS urged its followers to target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe. Here in the United States, our most immediate concern is that violent extremists, individuals or small groups, will draw inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks against Americans going about their daily lives. That includes not just homegrown violent extremists inspired by a foreign

terrorist organization, but also domestic violent extremists targeting Jewish or Muslim communities. I will say that this is a threat that is reaching in some way sort of historic levels, in part because, as you know all too well, the Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum. Homegrown violent extremists, foreign terrorist organizations, both Sunni and Shia, domestic violent extremists, and in fact, our statistics would indicate that for a group that represents only about 2.4 percent of the American public, they account for something like 60 percent of all religious based hate crimes. And that is the statistic Joe was just talking about. Join us now.

Former Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch, he served as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Middle East subcommittee and is now CEO of the American Jewish Committee. Congressman, it's good to have you with us again. It feels like since this hideous, heinous, barbaric attack of October 7th, it's somehow been a call to action in some ways to anti-Semites around the country and around the world. But we're talking here about the United States, as I said, just coming out explicitly out of the shadows on college campuses, in forums online, walking through Times Square and talking about killing Jews. Yeah, the testimony yesterday by Christopher Wray brings home just how significant the threat is at this moment. But your point is the most important. This didn't just arise out of thin air. On October 7th, the horrific attacks by Hamas, killing, slaughtering 1,400 people in just the

most barbaric ways possible and filming it on GoPro cameras so they could take credit and do exactly what Christopher Wray talked about yesterday, broadcast it. They wanted people to know how despicable, how thoroughly awful what they did was, the way they slaughtered women and children, in order to try to inspire others to do it. It's the reason that on college campuses and around the country, it's just unconscionable that there is anyone that could march across their campus or professors that could send letters that praised what Hamas did. What Hamas did on its own was the worst act of violence against the Jewish community since the Holocaust. But more than that, it was intended to try to inspire

more terrorism. It's why we all need to come together to fight it. It's not just about fighting Hamas in Gaza and stopping Hamas from spreading terror there. It's about coming together and not tolerating any support for that kind of just horrific, horrific terrorism. And Congressman, you're right. There were college professors who praised this, but unfortunately, there were too many people, too many college presidents that were tongue tied, that had nothing to say, did not how did not they would know how to respond against attacks against any other group. But they had absolutely no idea how to respond against this attack against Jews, against anti-Semitism. And so they just stayed quiet, which shows you the amount of hatred that people in many of those

communities quietly had for the Jews. And I want to talk about the global scale of this for a second. I want to talk about the Wall Street Journal's lead editorial yesterday talking about the global war against Jews. Let's talk about, if you will, what happened in Russia, where people are chasing after Jews, basically saying, bring us the Jews. Talk about what happened in Germany. Talk about last night, the German cemetery that was burned. Talk about, you know, what happened in Charlottesville. Jews will not replace us. This is a global war against Jews. Right. And the and the synagogue that was burned. You can go all around the world and point to point to certain acts of anti-Semitism. But your your point is really

important. It's this is global and it requires Germany. Yeah, I was in Germany just about 10 days ago. I met with German students, Jewish student leaders in Germany in 2023, who told me that when they walk across their campuses, people scream gas, the Jews at them in Germany in 2023. There, the German government responded immediately in defense of Israel's action against Hamas and in support of the Jewish people. That's what we need to see. That immediate response we need to see everywhere, Joe, you are right. University presidents, others, leaders in business, leaders across our society shouldn't sit back and wait. They can't equivocate. There's no

justification for what happened on October 7th. And they need to speak out with moral clarity against the terror attacks and in support of the Jewish communities who all across the world feel threatened. Now is the moment for them to speak up and speak boldly. Put that number back up for a second, if you will, TJ. Since the raping of Israeli women, since the burning of Jewish babies, since the shooting at point-blank range of Jewish babies in their cribs, since the burning of Jewish grandmothers, anti-Semitic incidences have gone almost 400%. As Willie said, this is not hidden. People are not ashamed to hate Jews. People are not ashamed to be anti-Semitic. Mike, they're running straight into it. They're admitting it, and they are proud that they hate Jews. They are proud. They are part of a war, a worldwide war that has been fought for thousands of years to eradicate Jews.

And Hitler did a pretty, pretty repulsive job at getting to that, to what he called the final solution. Six million Jews in Europe, slaughtered, executed, eradicated by Hitler. And here we are in 2023 in Germany and Jewish kids are hearing shouts of gasp the Jews on college campuses. Off of everything you just said and off of everything that we've lived with, certainly in the headlines since October 7th, history stands as testimony to the fact that this is not new. This is ageless anti-Semitism. The attacks on Jews, ageless. The question is, is it a disease? Is it a disease without a vaccine now, Congressman. How do we how do we attack a disease like this that seemingly is historic, endemic? It it bursts up, you know,

every periods of time. What do we do? Right. Well, first, first of all, there needs to be a global response to what is a global problem. My grandparents came to this country fleeing pogroms in Russia. That is an effort to slaughter Jews. It's what Hamas did. It's exactly what they were trying to accomplish. It's what their mission calls for. It's what we saw in Russia just this week, the other day, which was a mob looking to kill Jews. What we need to do is make clear, first of all, on college campuses and a lot of people in politics watch your show. You guys know that. In what world, in what world did it become a progressive value to defend terrorists who slaughtered women and children, burn kids alive,

cut people's heads off? How is that? Let's start with that. But also also let's just admit there's been anti-semitism on college campuses for decades we've been talking about it on this show i talked about it on my last show i talked about it in congress about how jewish kids were targeted in one way or the other on elite college campuses for decades joe right now there are kids, look at what happened in Cooper Union, kids being barricaded in. Right now there are students across America who sit in classes with kids not knowing whether the kids next to them are going to go out right after class and march in a protest in support of Hamas terrorists who want them dead. That's different. That's what we're seeing now. The moment, this moment calls for bold action. The administration is acting.

They need to enforce every single part of their national strategy to combat anti-Semitism. The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education have key roles to play, critical roles to play, but people in power cannot tolerate a culture that accepts anti-Semitism on their campuses or anywhere else in society.