Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/13/23

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

Trump vows to root out ‘vermin’ in second term

They said, sir, do you want a trial with or without cameras? Now, most people would say without. I say the opposite. I want this trial to be seen by everybody in the world. The prosecution wishes to continue this travesty in darkness. And I want sunlight. That's a nice way of saying it. Isn't that pretty? I want sunlight.

I want everything exposed to the public. And let's let the public decide, because I want cameras in every inch of that courthouse. Careful what you wish for. No, he doesn't. We've got a lot to cover from that speech on Saturday, including some frightening comments from the front runner in the Republican primary. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's

defense team will present its case in the civil fraud trial. We'll tell you who is taking the stand later today in New York. Also ahead, it appears the new House speaker is not ready to move forward with the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. We'll go through that new reporting. Plus, we'll play for you the surprise announcement from Republican Senator Tim Scott. One of the five candidates who was just on the debate stage last week. We'll also bring to you the very latest out of Israel and Gaza. Good Monday morning to you.

It is November 13th. And with us, we have the host of way too early White House peer chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department's Elise Jordan, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Richard Haass is here, president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation. Reverend Al Sharpton, founder of the conservative website The Bulwark. Charlie Sykes and co-founder and CEO of Axios. Jim VandeHei is here this morning. Joe, a lot to talk about in a jam packed of scary stuff speech by former President Trump over the weekend.

Well, I mean, there's a lot to talk about. I mean, he just reveals more about himself. The Washington Post, of course, reported a few, I guess, last week that Donald Trump basically was making an enemies list and said that if he were elected president of the United States, he would use his position as president and start going after Democrats, start going after political enemies, start going after. And it sounded like arresting even even his former lawyers who no longer defend. So you have all that talk, but you've always had this fascist talk coming from him. And and it was just a week or two ago that the Anti-Defamation League and many others were concerned when he was talking about immigrants, quote, poisoning the blood of America. And, of course, that's again, it's just sort of calls for racial purity, which, of course, I find absolutely fascinating since we are a nation of immigrants.

I mean, Donald Trump, as Donald Trump himself knows, what were they called? The drumps. What were they? The what was his last name? Drumpf. I think it was the drumps. The drumps came here from Germany when just having a name, Drumpf, and being from Germany was seen as anti-American and seen as poisoning the bloodstream of America. And now we're going we're just going full on Hitler talking about talking about vermin. And of course, it's so interesting. I don't know who his spokesperson is, but, you know, one of these fat white pink boys that likes to talk tough because, oh, it's just they're triggered. They're triggered. We will crush them.

Uses they will be crushed. Their lives will be crushed. people, a bunch of fat white pink boys, a bunch of phony populists that are going around talking tough and unfortunately making threats that we, those of us who love democracy, those of us who actually believe in the American experiment all these years later, have to be worried about. Yeah. And you look you look again, you look at the language of Donald Trump, you look at what Donald Trump says he's going to do, and you go back to Maya Angelou's saying that when somebody tells you who they are, believe them the first time. We have to believe him. And we also have to believe that this is the most important election probably since 1864. We try to either call him out on the lies that he puts out there or not cover just frivolous stuff that he says that is lies.

But in this case, you have to look. Amid a rise in anti-Semitism across the United States, Donald Trump echoed the dangerous language of infamous fascist leaders in a social media post on Saturday, Veterans Day. And then again at a rally later in the day, Trump vowed to root out the, quote, vermin within the country. Take a look. In honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister,

dangerous and grave than the threat from within. I mean, it's really unbelievable what what what he says. And Carlos Lozada in The New York Times this weekend wrote Trump is running as an overtly authoritarian candidate. The illusion of pivots of adults in the rooms of a man molded by the office long gone. He is dismissive of the law, except when he can harness it for his own benefit of open expression, except when it fawns all over him of free elections, except when it produces the results that he liked. He has called for the termination of the Constitution based on his persistent claims of a 2020 electoral fraud and in a new term would use the Justice Department

as an instrument of vengeance against political opponents. We know who Trump is and what he offers. That's a pretty good summary Dyke, pretty good summary of a guy who is running as an authoritarian. No doubt. And I think what you talked about earlier is the most important point. We always get sidetracked sometimes by the rhetoric that Trump uses.

He's been very, very specific with us about what he's going to do. The New York Times has done a fabulous series with Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage, detailing that. And everybody watching this should look at it because it's using his words to show what a second term would look like. We have reporting this morning that what's different if he wins is that he's going to come into office with an army of 40 to 50,000 people ready to staff the government. He's not going to have the restraints of cabinet officials who disagree with him. He's going to do everything he can to purge anybody who's

professional staff who's been there a long time. And he's going to have a year's worth of vetting. They're doing surveys of these people. They're asking them about their ideology, books they've read. Name one figure who you believe captures your spirit, your political philosophy. I think the obvious answer there for a lot of them is going to be Trump. And if you answer Trump, you pass this loyalty test, then they can put you into the bowels of government where the action happens. It's one thing to have rhetoric. It's another thing to take the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and put in there people who believe what Trump believes so that you can do the things that

he says he's going to do. So I won't just assume he's saying these things and it's bombast. He's going to come in hell bent on doing it. And this time there's going to be a much more organized government to be able to do it, which is why I do think this is the most important election of our lifetime, because the contrast is massive. And I think both sides would come in with teams ready to do what they want to do. And Richard Haass, I mean, you've seen this around the world. You've seen this from people like Orban, what he has done, where he has run off any press that opposes him. He's started by doing tax, whether it's going after them for bogus tax reasons. He's regulated them out of business. He's run them out of Hungary. And then they've taken over and the state runs,

again, the state runs media. So he doesn't have opponents. He's done the same to his political opponents. And so you've seen this threat before. But again, with Donald Trump, you even take the FCC. He said he's going to bring all of that power into the White House so he can decide what newspapers, what TV shows, what networks he likes, what networks he doesn't like, and then, you know, take him off the air if he doesn't want to take him off there. And again, this, along with terminating the Constitution, this is what he is promising already.

Yeah, we see it in places like Hungary. We see it in places like Turkey. It's interesting, Joe, we're living at a time where the big foreign policy stories are what? The invasions of democracies by Russia against Ukraine and Hamas against Israel. But the history of democracy is the greatest threats to democracy. And actually, the one thing Donald Trump said here that was right is the greatest threats to democracy are not external invasion. They're internal erosion of democratic restraints, of institutions, of norms, of laws. And that's what Donald Trump represents. As great a threat as we have from China, Russia, you name it, the real threat to this country is from within. And

I think you've just heard it. So speaking of Orban, also at that New Hampshire rally, Donald Trump praised Hungary's authoritarian president, something that's become a staple of Trump's recent speeches, and then went off teleprompter, again Orban. Did anybody ever hear of him? Probably, you know, considered very powerful, very powerful. They were interviewing him two weeks ago, and they said, what would you advise President Obama? The whole world seems to be exploding and imploding. And he said, it's very simple. He should immediately resign, and they should replace him with President Trump.

Yeah. Charlie, I don't know how to break this to Donald, but he keeps getting confused about who's the president of the United States. In fact, The Washington Post and The New York Times both have had articles out over the past couple of days about how now Republican opponents are starting to take all of all of the times that Donald Trump's gotten lost on stage, all of his gaffes, all of his confusions. The fact that the poor guy still doesn't know who the president of the United States is keeps going to a guy who was last elected president over a decade ago. And we're hearing it more and more. And now Republicans are going after all the gaps and all of the confusion that this poor, poor old guy's having. Yeah, I mean, there have been a series of gaps, but I think it's a mistake to focus on the gaps. I think we ought to focus on what he is telling us he intends to do.

I mean, to Jim's point, on a daily basis, Donald Trump is laying out what Trump 2.0 would be. And his praise of Orban, I mean, he may have gotten the presidents wrong, but the significance of that is not the gap. It's really his admiration, his deep admiration, his ongoing admiration for the world's authoritarian thugs, his admiration for Chairman Mao, his admiration for President Xi and Vladimir Putin, his intent to turn the government into a weapon of revenge and retribution, the plans, the detailed plans for massive deportations and concentration camps. I mean, this is one of those moments where we have to distinguish between the white noise and the blinking red flares that are going up every time this man speaks. So Donald Trump is in fact, I mean, we can regard him as the orange clown, but he's deadly serious here. I mean, a clown with a flamethrower still has a flamethrower. And Donald Trump is escalating his rhetoric on a regular basis. You would think that having wrapped up the nomination, he might try to be a little bit more reasonable, move toward the center.

In fact, what he's saying is, no, what I really want to do is, you know, I am an authoritarian. I am an election denier. And this is what I plan to do to the federal government, to the constitutional norms. And I think we need to take him deadly seriously. Absolutely. And we've already seen what he has tried to do at the end of the last election. Still thinks he won that. The biggest news, of course, out of all of this overarching are Trump's plans to create an authoritarian government to change to really change this democracy out of a democracy. There is good reporting on those plans and the people he plans to bring in the data he's putting together. But, Rev, I'm just curious if you've noticed this obsession with Obama and wonder if there's something there. I mean, President Obama has promised President Biden any support that he

needs in the campaign. And we know where it all began with Obama and Donald Trump and everything about the birth certificate and other things that he tried to float out there. Is there some sort of subtle obsession with Obama here coming out? Because this is the fifth time maybe he's. I don't think it's subtle. I think it is an obsession. Is it? It's a clear obsession.

Let's remember Donald Trump went from a failed TV reality star into politics as the face of the Bertha movement. Right. His whole race trying to gear up this anti Obama with real race tinged implications is what brought him to the party. And I think that obsession has never left him. He sees Biden as immaterial is us against them. But all of the racial implications of that. And I think subconsciously he's playing to that with his audience. And we're really running against them.

But we're running against Obama. He just doesn't have the mental discipline to hold back and remember that it's Biden he's running against because he's really focused on them. That's where the vermin thing comes from. That's where everything he's saying as running as an autocrat comes from. We have to stop them. That's where the vermin thing comes from. That's where everything he's saying as running as an autocrat comes from. We have to stop them. I'm going to line them up. I'm going to mow them down and we'll lock them up. It's them against us. And Obama, that black president, is exactly what the problem is. I don't think it's a subtle or mindless obsession at all. I think that's who he is. And on the gaffes, I mean, it's probably under the category of too little, too late. But Governor DeSantis's campaign has

really tried to amplify Trump's misstatements in recent weeks. And there aren't many things that the Biden and DeSantis camps agree on. But every time DeSantis tweets something about that, the Biden campaign retweets it because they're saying that this is what it is. And they're obviously trying to negate any concerns about the current president's age. But at least let's shift back to the policy here. And again, to Jim's point earlier, if you haven't read The New York Times piece over the weekend, please do about what Trump is saying he's going to outline for a second term on immigration. It is building camps. It is raids. It is sweeps. It is trying to change the definition of citizenship in the United States for birthright citizenship,

saying that children born to immigrants who are here illegally shouldn't be considered United States citizens. And also, there's not going to be people in place to stop him. There's no guardrail anymore. There's no Mattis. There's no Kelly. It's just pure loyalist. Well, that's what scares me, because the risk that he's actually affected this go around. And we really got lucky as democracy last go around that he was so ineffective and had so many blundering people appointed. And he didn't have the real hardcore people in place to tear open the bureaucracy.

But this go around, I'm not so sure. You look at how the Heritage Foundation is so involved in this push and they're adding their institutional heft to it. And that's really concerning. And if anyone wants to consider heritage mainstream, if they're processing this kind of federal personnel system, that's really called the question. Oh, my God. The Heritage Foundation used to be mainstream for for conservatives after Ronald Reagan got elected. That's really where we're so much of those ideas got elected. There's nothing Reagan ask about this Heritage Foundation. I'm sure Charlie could go on about that for quite some time and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But but Jim Vandai, I just want to go back to you and just say, yeah, I mean, he is Donald Trump is he he's planning it all out. And the problem is when he starts talking about these camps for illegal immigrants, when he starts talking about all these other things,

he's actually preying upon something that that middle class voters, that swing voters, that independent voters are actually worried about. And that is a chaos at the southern border. Yeah, I mean, you listen to this conversation and then you look at the polls like there's a lot of people who are very susceptible to this. A lot of people out there who feel like the immigration laws are way too loose and that the effects of that are are bad for society. You look at the polls on who do you trust on immigration? He crushes Joe Biden. Who do you trust on crime? He crushes Joe Biden. So we should make no mistake that there

is 50 percent plus of the country that's very, very open to this message. And I think the reason to listen to what he says and to understand that he's going to be way more ready is that there's at least a 50-50 chance he can win the presidency. No matter how ludicrous some people might think that is, the numbers are unmistakable. And I think that's why the work that the Heritage Foundation, like you guys, yes, this is not the Ronald Reagan Heritage Foundation, but this isn't the Ronald Reagan Party anymore. The party is very much Steve Miller and Donald Trump, at least the apparatus. And that's what's different this time around. You're going to have think tanks. You're going to have manpower. You're going to have ideas. You're going to have lawyers. You're going to have bureaucrats.

That one of the things they talked about doing that's alarming people at DOD, they want to go through and they want to scrub the generals and the flag officers and figure out, are they sufficiently loyal? Why do they want to do that? Because some of the greatest handcuffs that were imposed on Trump in the latter days of his presidency were by people like General Miley and others, or Milley and the DOD saying, we're not going to do that. We will not do these things. Well, what happens when you have 40, 50,000 people in the positions that actually make things happen in government say, hell, yeah, I'm with you on that. Then things actually get done. It's not just rhetoric. It's action.

And that would be a pretty radical shift in the direction of the country, doing things with government, viewing laws in ways that have not been done and not been viewed under the previous presidents of the United States. You know, we're going to play for you one more moment from that speech in New Hampshire, where Trump again mocked the husband of Nancy Pelosi for being savagely beaten. And some breaking news out of the UK, a reshuffling of the current prime minister's cabinet. He has a former prime minister returning to the government. Major news that broke just before the show started. We'll tell you what that is. We're back in one minute.

You know, we had no terror during my administration. The only terror we had was Nancy Pelosi, who's a crazed lunatic. She's a lunatic. She is a crazed lunatic. What the hell was going on with her husband? Let's not ask. Let's not ask. I'll withdraw that statement. By the way, she's got a wall around her house. Obviously, in that case, it didn't work very well. What the hell happened to Nancy Pelosi's husband? He, guy in his 80s, almost got beaten to death by somebody that fed in to Donald Trump's crazed conspiracy theories. That's what happened

to Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, who suffered grievous harm, grievous, grievous injury. And, you know, Charlie Sykes, I mean, this is just again, it's a glorification of violence. I've gotten quite impatient over the past year with professors wringing their hands going, oh, it's not fascism. Oh, it's not this. Oh, it's not. Really? I mean, it is so hard to separate. You know, you look at the acts of Mussolini, who actually rose to power when what did they do? They charged government buildings. What did Mussolini talk about? Poisoning the blood of Italy with Jews and and with immigrants and with gypsies.

I mean, you can go down the list and here you have the glorification, the mocking, the ridiculing of a man in his 80s being almost beaten to death. And Donald Trump is laughing about it. And we know who he is. But who are the people in the audience who are laughing, who are cheering, who are applauding the brutal assault and almost killing of a man in his 80s? Who are those people? Yeah, this is the scary part, isn't it? Is that, in fact, as Jim points out, this taps into something.

Look, this is six. This is six stuff. But it is consistent. Donald Trump has a fetish for violence. He's encouraging the fetish for violence. One of the themes that runs through some of the things we've been talking about is his real appetite for brutality and for cruelty. You know, during that speech, he once again, you know, talked about his enthusiasm for immediate death, the immediate death penalty. This is something that he has cultivated. And the fact that it gives millions of Americans a dopamine hit or even more Americans look at that and go, OK, maybe what America needs is a strong man, a strong man who is going to punch our enemies in the face. And also what's interesting is kind of the self-contradiction, because Donald Trump says that during his presidency there were no acts of terror. Well, of course they were.

And they were domestic acts of terror. So earlier in the show you played the clip where he said, you know, the greatest threat to America doesn't come from abroad. It comes from within. And that's true. And he is pouring kerosene on the fire, telling Americans the real enemy is not abroad. The real enemy is your fellow Americans. Look around you. Those are the people that are the vermin. Those are the people that we must attack. Those are the people that we must that we must fight against. And that is dangerous. But it is this cultivation of brutality and this fetish for violence that is really alarming. But it's

really central to what what he is selling right now. It is Jonathan. Talk about talk about that, if you will, because he has for some time. I mean, you know, after after the hellacious terror attack against against Israel and the taking of hostages, he started calling the thugs that beat cops up on January the 6th, started calling them hostages. But he's used violent language throughout his presidency and throughout his post-presidency. And it continues. And again, as Jim says, as Charlie says, it's only intensifying. It's almost like he's saying, OK, I'm going to run on this. I'm going to run being an open authoritarian who praises Orban, who praises Putin, who calls Putin brilliant, who praises Xi, who praises Hezbollah, saying they're very smart. Again, it's like it's like

almost like he's not almost like he is. He's tearing down all boundaries between good and bad, right and wrong, democracy and authoritarianism. And it's intensifying by the day. And we should take him at his word. This is what he will do in a second term. And this, of course, we can trace this back to the 2016 campaign, the violent rhetoric where he would urge his supporters to beat up protesters at his events. We know that he considered unleashing the military on protesters during the George Floyd in 2020. There was uprising during the Black Lives Matter movement. We know in terms of what he would do next time around, we have touched upon the immigration policy, but his aides have openly mused about invoking the Insurrection Act on Inauguration

Day. Were he to win again to try to quell protests, people who are trying to stand up against him? He is he is nodded to all those dictators you just mentioned, Kim Jong Un as well. He uses them as role models here. He is his rhetoric has grown increasingly more erratic, but also increasingly more violent. And when he does, he gets cheers from the crowd. Right. And he has stood with the January 6th rioters. He has said he has appeared with their choir of convicts and he has said he would pardon them, almost all of them, and deemed them hostages. Mika, it's very clear where a Trump presidency would go, where he'd win again. And he's using all these trials and these serious,

91 counts against him, serious charges. He's using them to gain more traction with his following as the victim. While much was made of last week's New York Times Santa poll that found Donald Trump leading President Joe Biden in five of six battleground states, won by then-candidate Biden in the last election, it's worth noting another takeaway from that poll, the effect one independent candidate is having.

When the poll included Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as an option, nearly one quarter said they would support him. According to an analysis by The New York Times, voters who dislike both major party candidates, a group known to pollsters and political campaigns as double haters, have been instrumental in the outcomes of the last two presidential elections. And there are now more than twice as many of them as there were four years ago. Jim VandeHei, I think the way this is leaning

seems to be surprising some. Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's maybe less to do with Kennedy himself and much more to do with the double hatred, like the flip side of Trump having this really solid base is that 60 percent plus don't want him to run, don't want him to win. It's very much I think. Remember, people aren't data points to win. It's very much, I think, remember, people aren't data points. People are humans. And when you're scared, some people respond to strength. And that's probably the play that he has. But there's just a lot of unhappy people out there, both with Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They want something else. So when somebody like Kennedy comes along who is articulate, controversial,

but articulate, you can see people gravitating towards him. And it probably cuts, I think, at the end of the day, more against Biden than it does Trump. But I think it speaks to the uncertainty out there. I think it really speaks to this hunger. My belief, we've talked about it a lot of times out there, is I still think we spend a little bit too much time on kind of the crazies on both sides. And I think 70 percent of most people out there are just are normal. And I think normal people would like a normal like a normal president. They would like something different. They would like they would like something with a with a different tone and maybe different policies. And that's what Kennedy will try to tap into. But the fact he's at 24, like something's happening. I know, Bobby, there's nothing normal.

No, I don't. We're all sitting here going. His positions border on lunacy on on so many things. He is a he is he is a master conspiracy theorist. The difference between him and Donald Trump is Trump really doesn't believe it. Donald knows he got shellacked. He knows this. He knows Joe Biden beating. It's what drives him every day. It's what it's what it's what makes him a snowflake every day. It's what triggers Donald Trump every day.

He knows Joe Biden just whipped him at the polls. RFK Jr., he believes it. He believes his conspiracy theories. I mean, again, I know Bobby, and I've known him for a while, and I like him. But that's some crazy, I won't say it at 630, that's some crazy stuff. Even his family agrees with that, what you're That's some crazy family agrees with that. But his family agrees with it. Even his close friends agree with it. That is a that is some kind of crazy on those conspiracy theories. And what's so interesting about it is the more I think Rev, the more people know RFK Jr.,

the more it cuts against Donald Trump because they're both preaching from the same crazy testament of one conspiracy theory after another conspiracy theory after another. I mean, and it's it's it's it's wacko. So you go in and you listen to what he says about these conspiracy theories and he gets in the middle of a campaign, he's going to suddenly make Ross Perot look like a very sane, stable, calm, cool headed, independent candidate that that ain't that ain't coming from Joe Biden's voters. That's going to come straight from Donald's voters. No doubt about it. I mean, we thought it was bizarre when Ross Perot thought about what happened at his daughter's wedding in his own mind. That is mild compared to what Robert Kennedy. Let's let's remind let's remind viewers. Let's remind viewers. He thought the Black Panthers had scaled the walls of his estate

to try to to try to stop his daughter's wedding. He still got got 19%. 19% of the vote. So the difference, though, between Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy is using your and my annoying show business is Donald Trump doesn't believe it. He'll get on stage and go through the act, and then he'll smile at you while he's going through the wings back to the dressing room. Robert will get on stage and give you the wildest conspiracy theories and then get in the dressing room and try to convince you that he's right about the conspiracy. Yes, he really believes this, which makes it more dangerous. The only good news is he takes away from the conspiracy theory crowd and voters because

they will go to him. They clearly don't want anyone sane and balanced as as in Joe Biden. So I think clearly it is the polls are right in this case, I believe. Robert Kennedy. Yeah. And at least that's one of the reasons why the Trump campaign at first was saying nice things about Bobby Jr. Now they're going after him. Well, yeah, I guess it's going to take away from his crazy percent. You know, Joe, I think we cannot dismiss the crazy percent of the vote because it's what is going to fuel the these primaries, the Iowa caucus. I remember back in 2016 when I was working on Senator Rand Paul's bid, I you know, and it looked like Iowa.

It was I want to go for Rand. I mean, Ron Paul in 2012 and very libertarian leaning. And then, you know, it gets down to that Iowa caucus voter and they want to go for someone a little bit crazy. And it's the crazy one that wins. And so that is what's driving and fueling our political scene right now. And we need to we can't ignore it. We have to pay attention to it and look at it for what it is. In a big way. Jim Vande Hei and Charlie Sykes, thank you both very much for being on this morning. And coming up, we'll get to Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signals a potential deal to free more hostages from Hamas.

We'll show you what he had to say on Meet the Press and get reaction from Richard Haass. Morning Joe is coming right back. Well, without you, it's no use. I can't see what you see when I look at you. So breaking news out of the United Kingdom this morning, where former Prime Minister David Cameron is back in government amid a reshuffling of the United Kingdom this morning, where former Prime Minister David Cameron is back in government. Amid a reshuffling of the current prime minister's cabinet, Cameron was seen entering 10 Downing Street today to take over as Britain's new foreign secretary. It's it just feels so much like 2011 all over again. Again, the move follows the firing of Home Secretary Suella Braverman. Her ouster was widely expected after she attacked London police, said they favored pro-Palestinian protesters, and wrote all of that in an op-ed for The Times of London last week.

Now, of course, Cameron served as UK Prime Minister from 2010 to 2016, and the current Foreign Secretary will move into Braverman's role, of course, Fleet Street, as well as the paper of record for Morning Joe, the New York Post, crushed that the former prime minister selected was not Boris Johnson. But more on that later. First to Richard Haass. Richard, fascinating developments for a party right now and a prime ministership that certainly has read the polls and sees that they're going to get crushed in the next election. So we're starting to see pretty

dramatic reshuffling of the cabinet. This is about as dramatic as it gets, isn't it? Yeah, it's to get rid of the former home secretary. This is she was, if you will, going back to our previous conversation. She's the Tory crazy and she's positioning us when she wrote that op ed, she knew she was going to get booted. She's positioning herself for the long term for a leadership bid in the Conservative Party and bringing Cameron is basically bringing, quote unquote, the grownups back in. And this is the way for the Tories to try to staunch the bleeding as they head into an election where, as you say, the polls are heavily against them. I just remind people that David Cameron is the guy, though, who also lit the

fuse on Brexit. There's nobody in today's Conservative Party in Britain, shall we say, almost a little bit like today's Republican Party here who hasn't had to adjust, given the politics. All right. I mean, the difference of it is, of course, making the Labour Party right now with Keir Starmer running it is light years ahead in polls of the Tories. If there were an election tomorrow, there'd be a massive, massive landslide. But getting back to the last conversation, Braverman would be more like sort of the Stephen Miller of Britain. Exactly. Well, I wasn't I wasn't saying that to be funny. She just that's that's what she's trying to be. And that's what she's. And now here's another parallel that, you know, conservatives in Britain duck because she's going to run most likely to be the next party leader.

And if she if she wins that, what what's happened to the United States where the Republican Party is lost in 2017, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23? That will start happening to conservatives in Britain. We'll see if they can learn from the mistakes of conservatives, so-called conservatives in America. I seriously doubt it. All right. We'll be following that to Israel now. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed a possible deal yesterday to free the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7th. Speaking on Meet the Press, Netanyahu attributed any movement toward an agreement to Israel's ground defensive in Gaza. Take a listen.

So is there a potential deal, Mr. Prime Minister? Is there a potential deal? There could be, but I think the less I say about it, the more I'll increase the chances that it materializes. And it's a result of pressure, military pressure, the extraordinary work that the IDF is doing, putting pressure on the Hamas leadership. That's the one thing that might create a deal. And if a deal is available, well, we'll talk about it when it's there. We'll announce it if it's achieved. Do you know where all of the hostages are being held right now, Mr. Prime Minister?

We know a great deal, but I won't go beyond that. A Biden administration official confirmed to NBC News a potential deal would release about 80 women and children in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and teenagers held by Israel. However, the prime minister cautioned that any deal would not include a ceasefire on the part of Israel. He said a, quote, different authority must govern Gaza once the war is over, but did not say whether he would accept an international force to do so. Richard Haass on a number of levels. How is Benjamin Netanyahu managing this, given what some would say is a bit of a crisis in leadership? Everyone would say that. Trying to be careful with my words. He's trying to attribute the possibility of a hostage deal to Israel's use of force. I think it would be more attributable to an exchange.

I think there's that. Second of all, we've seen some slight adjustment. Let me emphasize the word slight to Israeli military behavior. The idea of openness to these short pauses and so forth. But we're still seeing, you know, obviously harm done to civilians. The most interesting thing of what the prime minister had to say over the weekend is how far apart he and President Biden are on what comes after. He is talking about a prolonged Israeli occupation, open ended. And he dismissed the possibility of the Palestinian Authority, the one potentially, potentially, one would have thought, acceptable Palestinian leadership to play a role, not just in the West Bank, but in Gaza. And what's so interesting about that, Mika, it shows in Israel, both in

his government, zero interest in a two-state solution. That's right. And increasingly in Israel, I think what we're seeing is, and I underestimated this myself, the impact of October 7th is, you know, to put it bluntly, there's no doves in Israel right now. So it's not just the government is extreme and there's no interest. Indeed, they're now talking about having settlements in Gaza, just to give you an idea. They had to get rid of a minister who talked about using a nuclear weapon. It's not just the extremism of the government. But I think what we're seeing in Israel is real disillusionment. I don't know. Maybe that's not a strong enough word. But the whole idea of a Palestinian entity. The visceral reaction to October 7th.

And the idea is, right, that there's no Palestinian leadership you could ever trust to live alongside Israel. Now, they don't have an alternative. Right. What's that's not long term. I mean, there's zero alternative that's been articulated. We essentially what the Israelis are saying. We know what we don't like. We know what we don't want.

We haven't figured out what it is we want and we haven't figured out how to bring it about. Well, I mean, and of course, you can again, we we we have to add context to this and perspective to it to say that you look what was being said in the United States after September the 11th. burned, kidnapped their children, their babies executed with riddled with bullet holes while lying in their crib. So right now, again, right now may not be the time that all Israelis are going to run together and say, let's figure out a two state solution, especially with the Palestinian authority that is old, that is corrupt, that is despised by most Palestinians anyway. You can't have free elections in the West Bank. Why? Because Hamas would win there today. Hamas would win there today. So you've got an old, corrupt, decayed Palestinian authority that's got to be replaced. I must say, though, and let me

let me sound like an arrogant American, and I will. If the United States of America is doing all we're doing, Jonathan Lemire, to help Israel right now, who because of Benjamin Netanyahu and the clowns that he brought into his government, Israel couldn't do for themselves on October the 7th. And we have a say. We have a big say down the road, whether if there are Israelis there, and I believe there will be again down the road after Hamas is rooted out and destroyed, that will move towards a two-state solution again. We have no other option. We have no other option. And if we're looking at a United Nations led Arab peacekeeping force in Gaza, again, we're talking down the road, then that's something that the United States is still

looking over the horizon saying this is what needs to happen. Now, of course, people can editorialize a, oh, well, that'll never happen because, well, no, it's September the 12th right now for Israel. It may take a little while for things to move forward. But of course, I've just got to say, based on what I hear from you and your reporting inside the White House, Benjamin Netanyahu's probably, if the White House is right, probably not going to be around to be making these decisions that he's talking about on Sunday talk shows right now, because the Biden administration and the rest of the world, including Israel, is planning for a post Netanyahu Israel that many believe will come sooner rather than later. Yeah. Netanyahu himself is very fond of making the September 12th analogy. Whenever he's pressed about what happens next, he's very like, we're still September 12th.

Right. And therefore, our focus is simply to strike back. But you're right, Joe. I mean, those in the White House, they recognize this could be weeks or months. This is not going to be overnight. But they do think Bibi Netanyahu's time in office is probably limited because of his poor polling numbers, because he's being blamed for what happened on October 7th. And the White House is a good reason. Yes. And the White House has been very clear eyed in every statement from President Biden, Secretary of State and others that the U.S. wants a two state solution. They have not wavered on that at all. Richard, let's get the other half of this, though, in terms of right now the reaction of the Arab world to what we're seeing in Gaza, particularly some really hard images, some really

hard stories coming out of the hospital there, which has become sort of the epicenter of the fighting. Israel says Hamas has underground bunkers where their terror leadership is hiding. But of course, we're seeing newborn babies taking off of the ICU unit. Really, really hard stuff. What are you seeing right now in terms of the reaction elsewhere in the region? Well, the rest of the region is watching this. It's inflaming it to some extent. Obviously, there's no moving forward with the Saudi-Israeli normalization. That's on long-term hold, though that's still the most powerful potential change in the region.

I'm worried about potentially Jordan. Obviously, questions of Egypt. And then we'll have to see whether the war expands to Hezbollah. Let me say one thing, though, about what President Biden could do. Remember, take a page out of Bibi Netanyahu's book. What did Bibi Netanyahu do? He went to the Congress and he undermined Barack Obama's or argued against the Iran deal. What I would recommend that Joe Biden do, go to the Knesset, go over the head of this prime minister,

go over the head of this government and basically talk to the Israeli people and say, OK, let's talk about how we conduct this military operation. But more of it, let's talk about the long term. I understand October 7th. And Biden has tremendous political capital with the people of Israel, more than the prime minister of Israel. I would say this is the moment he should go back to Israel, talk to the Israeli people and try to frame this issue and take basically. That would be bold. Let's usher Bibi Netanyahu off the stage sooner rather than later. Bibi Netanyahu is not acting in the best interest of the United States. I would argue it's not acting in the best interest of Israel. Richard, so you think it has to be President Biden to do that, though? I'm just curious, what's your assessment of Secretary Blinken and his efforts so far to negotiate?

Again, the Israelis have no illusion. Secretary of State is an important figure. Tony Blinken's a really decent man. I think he's got the lead on this issue, but he's not a substitute for the president of the United States. It's Joe Biden who has the heft in Israel. You know, cabinet figures at some point basically can deal with hostage type things, can deal with the minutia of policy. But if you're going to speak to the Israeli people, if you're going to change where Israel's behavior, either in the short run about how they conduct the military operations, rethinking the question of a long-term occupation, talk about a two-state solution, reigning in the settler violence, reigning in settlements. That's not the job of a secretary of state. That is the job of the president of the United States. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. There is chaos reigning right

now. And you look at Gaza, you look at the West Bank, you look at the region, obviously, so many problems. But, Richard, I believe that in time, again, it will take a while. There will be a solution there. Before I let you go, what's your other position here? You're golf, whatever. Good morning, Joe. Roger Bennett of golf. This is a pivot.

The chief golf. Isn't there like usually some tournament around Thanksgiving? What do they call it? Don't they get like pros together to do scrambles or something like that? No, at the Haas Thanksgiving every November, there's the Thanksgiving Open. And even though golf courses in the Northeast have basically begun to close down and you have temporary greens, we get out there and play no matter what the weather, no matter what the temperature, we get a nine holes every Thanksgiving. That's

what you're referring to, Joe. That sounds horrible. Yeah, that's absolutely fascinating. So since there are no golf tournaments, let's talk football. You are also Morning Joe's New York Giants correspondent. How are the Giants doing? How did they do yesterday? I think the good news about the Giants, Joe, is the season is now more than halfway over, and we are on our way to possibly one of the top two or three draft choices. And I think that is the – it's been a rough season for New York football. Giants,

Jets. I think the Giants, though, may be the biggest single disappointment in professional football this year, maybe next to the Pats. Oh, my gosh. But the Giants, if one looks at expectations versus performance, I don't think it gets any worse than this. There's no doubt about it. I expected far more from the Giants this year, far more from their coach. They just haven't come through, Mika. And you it's something Mika and I talk about all the time on Sunday nights. It seems these days. Yeah. OK, Richard, thank you very much. Coming up, we'll have a look at the looming government shutdown. House Republicans have a, which is being called a laddered continuing resolution. We'll explain what that is and if it has any chance of passing.

Plus, new reporting on a closed door meeting where Republicans and the new House speaker discussed the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. That's all straight ahead on Morning Joe.