Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/14/22

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

The Morning Joe panel discusses the latest in U.S. and world news, politics and sports.

Mr. President, I don't know how to tell you this, but we've moved on. We can't have you on the show anymore. What? What did I do? Was it the insurrection? No. The impeachments? No.

Blackmailing Ukraine? No. Charlottesville? No. Didn't make wall? No. The murder? What?

Kidding. It's because you lost. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I have a big announcement. November 15th. Hey, don't push me off. I have a big announcement and it's not what you think. I'm running for president again. It is official. Trump has lost Republicans the Senate again as Democratic incumbents in Arizona and Nevada beat back their Trump back challengers to win Democrats the majority in the Senate. Don't even need to get to Georgia now at this point. We'll have the latest on where things stand with the House as well. Plus, Vice President Mike Pence speaks out in a new interview calling Donald Trump's tweet about him during the January 6th insurrection reckless, saying the president endangered him and his family. The question this morning is the Justice Department listening?

And President Biden is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping right now behind closed doors. Their first in-person meeting since Biden took office. The president saying the superpowers have a responsibility to show the world we can manage our differences. The leaders are expected to hold a news conference in just a few hours. We'll be watching for that. A lot going on and a lot happened over the weekend. It really is. It is. It's hard to explain to people who don't follow politics closely or in this case, people that don't have a historical perspective. Just how extraordinary the news Saturday night was that Democrats had maintained the Senate, that the House is closed for the first time since 1934. Now, that was FDR's first midterm.

Yeah. That since 1934, that the party in power did not actually lose any state legislators, state state legislatures. And Joe Biden may may just actually do something that people haven't done before in this situation. Pick up a governor or two. I mean, there are so many presidents that have fallen. And it's it's really it's interesting, too. You have people going, well, how could the media have gotten this so wrong? How did that? Well, you know, a lot of times we kept talking about the red wave. We also said it didn't feel like a wave to us. But you have to understand, you do look back at history. It is a pretty wise thing. Instead of just trusting Twitter and what people on one side think, you look back at history and see how things have gone for the past, oh, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 years.

But all of those expectations were denied. And, you know, I will say, like we were saying on this show, it didn't feel like a red wave. It just it felt it felt to too many divergent trends going. And that's that's what I really wasn't sure what to expect. But I had a very dark feeling about it in terms of very far right. Extreme Republicans taking control. And but then in the end, when you look at what happened, you saw that Joe Biden actually had his finger on the pulse of politics, talking about abortion, holding a speech on the importance of democracy.

And I just think people, even those who were extremely disturbed by the January 6th insurrection, they may have had a lot of other things on their minds walking into that voting booth. But then you think about what happened to Paul Pelosi in the week before the election. And I think that refreshed people's minds that, wow, our country's changing and my vote counts. And a lot of people voted for democracy. Well, they really did. And let's bring in really quickly right here to continue this conversation. White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein, the co-founder of Axis, Mike Allen, former White House communications director under President Obama, Jennifer Palmieri, who's the co-host of Showtime to Circus and also founder

of the conservative website, The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes. And Sam Stein, just following up on what Mika said, I can't help. There's there's no there's really no polling that shows this right now. But I really do believe that the attack on Paul Pelosi and the callousness of Donald Trump and Kerry Lake and so many other Republican leaders response to callousness of it, where they not only dismissed political violence in America, but seemed to laugh at it, mock it, use it as a political punch line, really did connect January 6th. And that political violence, which may have seemed to be in the rear view mirror, connected to where we were last Tuesday when people went out to vote. Oh, I completely agree with that. I think it was all part of the same thread. Look, I don't know if anyone said the attack on Paul Pelosi convinced them to go to the polls and pull the lever for Democrats. I do think that people put it together with a number of preceding issues that you outlined and said, look, we want

some sort of normalcy. We want politics not as a blood sport. We want candidates who will just speak to the common issues and not engage in attacks with each other all day long on various social media platforms. And I think that ultimately did help the Democrats in this race. It was, you know, this is sort of a trite way to talk about it, but every president in a midterm tries to create a contrast election rather than a referendum, right? That's what you want to do to win your midterm, because usually voters at the halfway mark say, I'm tired of what's happening and I want to change. What Biden and Democrats managed to do, maybe not because they were gifted or talented,

but because Republicans helped do it for them, is they created a contrast election between the two parties. Some of it was about democracy, but some of it was just about plain old crudeness and how we conduct ourselves. And ultimately enough voters in these Republican districts, this is where it was won. It wasn't won in Biden districts. This was won in Trump districts. Enough of these independent and Republican voters said they were done with all that and decided to vote for Democrats. Yeah. And Charlie Sykes, poor Charlie, every two years I call him at midnight and I go, Charlie, you know Wisconsin better than anybody. What's going to happen? And Charlie always tells me what's going to happen. He told me and he told me in 2020, he said Biden has enough. He's going to get enough out of Milwaukee. He's Biden's going to win this thing. And then you called the governor's race and the Senate race. sign about two days out, I get my hands on a poll from a businessman with a lot of money who wants to know what's going to happen. Took this poll with a mammoth sample size.

And and most of those numbers were right. But the one that jumped out at me was in Wisconsin, perhaps the politician. And I mean this as the highest compliment. Perhaps the politician with the least charisma in America was up two points in this poll. And that was that was Governor Evers. And when I saw that number pop out and all the others looked about right to me, that number popped out. I said, my God, people in Wisconsin want normalcy. That means people in America want normalcy. supercharged political environment of Wisconsin. Explain how remarkable it is that a man is as normal and straightforward as Evers wins in the most tumultuous times of Donald Trump.

Well, you're absolutely right. And it's really not an insult to Tony Evers to say he lacks charisma. But this was a vote for normalcy. Look, what was the midterm about? It was about abortion, extremism, Donald Trump and a pushback against denialism. And Tim Michaels, the Trump backed Republican candidate for governor, was an election denier who would have turned over control of the election process to partisans. Look, what's really extraordinary about this is looking at the trends. Milwaukee's vote was actually down, but Tony Evers managed to turn out massive numbers of votes in Dane County. And the Trump effect can be seen in the suburbs, in the so-called wow counties, where the Republican,

this used to be the Republican, you know, vote creating machine. And since Donald Trump came on the scene, it has been in decline. And there's no indication that it's bouncing back for the Republicans. So Tony Evers wins this race by more than 90,000 votes, which by Wisconsin standards is a landslide. He got 27,000 more votes than Ron Johnson, which means that if Mandela Barnes had gotten the same number of votes as Tony Evers, he would have won that Senate race. Unfortunately, he got about 50,000 votes fewer than Tony Evers, showing that in Wisconsin, people will split their ticket. But you're absolutely right. This really turned on the abortion issue, on the Dobbs issue, and on election denialism. And I have to tell you that Republicans here are very openly saying that there's no way that Donald Trump is going to win Wisconsin on the current trajectory and that it's time to move on from Trump. Now, they're saying that whether they will do that, of course, is a completely different question.

So here's how we got to Democrats retaining control of the Senate. It happened Saturday, late Saturday night, when the Nevada race was called for Catherine Cortez Masto, long considered one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents. She narrowly defeated her Republican challenger, Trump-backed Adam Laxalt, to give Democrats 50 seats,

with Vice President Kamala Harris being the tie-breaking vote. Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly of Arizona gave Democrats seat number 49 when his race was called the night before, defeating another Trump-backed candidate, Blake Masters. The Senate, being decided, takes some of the focus away from the Georgia Senate runoff, which decided the majority back in 2020. Kershaw Walker still waiting a long time now to see whether or not he wins that race. There are still votes left to count in Arizona this week. In the state's largest county, Maricopa,

election officials estimate there are still up to 95,000 ballots to count in the race for governor. Over 170,000 votes remain statewide of those ballots. Republican Kerry Lake needs nearly 60 percent of the vote to overtake Democrat Katie Hobbs. Last night's batch of votes favored Lake, but not enough for her to claim the lead. Lake trails Hobbs by just over 26,000 votes this morning. Of the votes left to be counted out of Maricopa County, over 70,000 are early voting ballots, which have so far favored Hobbs. So we're still waiting on the race for Arizona governor, But Carrie Lake not having an easy time, as she claimed she would. Well, I mean, it's definitely going to be tight. It's going to

go. It's going to go all the way to the end. She got about 52 percent of the votes from last night's bat. She now needs to get between 58 and 60 percent of the vote in the in what comes out tonight. But, you know, she would be the last person standing in a major race that was an election denier. Because voters in the six battleground states where Donald Trump tried to reverse the 2020 election results rejected election-denying candidates, every one of them, in this year's midterms. It's the latest sign that Americans are just saying no to Trumpism. The Washington Post writes candidates for secretary of state in Michigan, in Arizona, in Nevada, who had echoed Trump's false accusations, lost their contests. A fourth candidate never made it out of his May primary in Georgia, in Pennsylvania.

One of the nation's most prominent election deniers lost his bid for governor, a job that would have given him the power to appoint the secretary of state and Wisconsin. The election denying contenders loss in the governor's race effectively blocked a move to put election administration under partisan control. Also notable, that election denying Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor. Wow. He conceded last night. Doug Mastriano lost to Josh Shapiro by 14 points. Took him five days to acknowledge that he didn't win, but Mastriano shifted his tone about the election in his concession statement. And he said, it's difficult as it is to accept these

results. There is no right course but to concede. This is important. Which I do. And I looked at the challenges ahead. Josh Shapiro will be our next governor. And I ask everyone to give him the opportunity to lead and pray that he leads well. So this is another thing we didn't completely predict. I mean, the Democrats winning, election deniers losing, election deniers conceding. Well, and look at this New York Post cover. The New York Post deniers denied voters punish Trump backed candidates. Wow. Deniers denied. It is extraordinary.

Let's keep that up. It is extraordinary. Just extraordinary. How didn't matter what state you were in. It didn't matter what swing state you were in. If you were an election denier, the voters came out and said no to you. And and and, you know, Jen, Paul Mary, I'd say it's extraordinary, but actually it's not. The American people said enough. And, you know, there are a couple of things. There were huge. I'm talking about

people on Twitter and I go, oh, why did people predict there might be a red wave? Because like a hundred years of history, first of all, but also people going, well, why did they say abortion wasn't an issue? I remember you and me and me going, what's with all these polls before that were saying abortion was only a 5% issue? We didn't believe it, but it was one poll after another poll after another poll. But then you looked at those exit polls and two things rang true. One, abortion was really up their high. And secondly, the one that really caught my eye early Tuesday night, 80 percent of Americans said they had confidence in American democracy and in the political system and that their votes would

be counted fairly. Eighty percent. That's remarkable. It made a difference. People people voted against Dobbs. They voted against Donald. They voted for democracy. It pretty much comes back to that for democracy against deniers. It is you know, I was in Maricopa County over the weekend and it is I mean, if there's anything I mean, if there's any stat that tells you that the Republicans have got to change their tune and why, you know, why you see Republican candidates conceding. It's that stat that you just said, 80 percent of people actually, even with two years of Trump and all of these Republicans saying that the election was stolen and people, you know, a majority of Republicans in the Congress voting to overturn the presidential election, leaders in the parties making this one of their core issues,

people still had faith in elections. And, you know, Maricopa County, that board of supervisors there doing heroic work every day with their press conferences, beating back the conspiracy theories, taking them on directly, saying why they're not true, you know, just being really transparent all along the way. And, you know, even Carrie Lake, who stands out there as the most ostentatious, you know, sort of effective in terms of her communication skills at communicating around election tonight, even she like we'll see what happens if she does indeed lose. But even she is starting to back up a little bit on her on her rhetoric. Even she is saying like, well, there's incompetence. I hope it's not malice. She was more aggressive on Thursday and Friday talking about how Trump

Republican candidates aren't doing well when the vote is being counted. And maybe it's unfair because they prefer DeSantis Republicans, things like that. And even she's backing up because, you know what, like it's not working. It's not you know, this is the message. It is not working. Not only is it not working, it's a toxic message. She had an opportunity to follow a conspiracy theory on another network and she just refused to take it. She also put out a message yesterday telling her followers to be patient and to let the professionals that are doing their job finish doing their job in safety and security. I also take that as a good sign. I will say it, too, as a Baptist. We will take. Right. We love conversions. We love conversions. And if you're telling your followers to be respectful to election officials, I have a lot of friends who are election officials across America.

You know what? Take it. Take it. You take it. Mike Allen, I love I love how you've summed this up. And that is especially we're talking to swing states, obviously, in the swing states, extreme defeat, moderation, nation. It really does play out that way in the six or seven swing states, doesn't it? No, Joe, that's exactly right. And to bolster your earlier point about people wanting normalcy, a spoiler for you, most people are normal. This is something that Jim and I have written a lot about at Axios, that most Americans are not marinating in Twitter. Most Americans are not participating in these extreme events. You could call this the make it stop election because it's clear that people who were not tuned in, who tuned in late, they said, make it stop. Two stats about

this that Sam Stein and I were just talking about that say it all. One, the Cook Political Report had 36 toss up house races in the end. Donald Trump endorsed five toss-up House candidates. He went zero and five, not a single one of the Trump-endorsed toss-up candidates won. And second, in NBC and others, the national election poll, they asked people who were voting, which party is too extreme? 50% Dems too extreme, 50 percent ours too extreme and exactly split America. They exactly split America. I've got to say, you remind me, it's, you know, everything I learned, I learned from Paul McCartney.

And people always, you know, McCartney was asked in the 80s, why are you why have you always been so optimistic? Why are you an optimistic guy? And I've said this on the show before. And and McCartney said, because, you know, there are a lot of good people out there. I see good people out there all the time. And I think we've got them outnumbered. And I will tell you, when you said most people are normal, it reminds me of that McCartney quote. I think we've got them outnumbered. Now, I do want to ask this. Sam Stein in Florida, we do it pretty simple. We do it the simple way in Florida where. No, we do. We do. If you get an early vote, you count an early vote. Right. Right. And so by the time election night comes at 7, 10 p.m., you know about how a third of the vote came down in the state. And by 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night, we usually have the elections

called. Right. I wonder. And by the way, I'm not knocking Arizona. I'm not knocking Nevada because they're following the laws that the state legislature passed and the governor signed. I'm just wondering why in the world now that they're they're Democratic legislators running Michigan and I think they may have won the House in Pennsylvania. Why don't more of these states do what Florida does, count all the early votes early, and be able to announce who won your state by 10 o'clock, so this isn't dragging out into the next week? Well, you know, the history of Florida, obviously, is that what happened is they passed a series of laws to shore up their election system after the 2000 recount, right? They said, we don't want to go through that again. We want to make it more transparent. We want to make it more professional.

They did it. And now Florida has one of the best counting systems in the country. Pennsylvania Republicans blocked the ability to count ballots that were received prior to Election Day until Election Day, which led to all the confusion in the 2020 aftermath. So you're absolutely right. If you're in a state legislature in one of these states that takes forever to count, a very simple fix would be to change the law, change the state law, and fund election workers. Allow these people to do their job early, but also get more people to help with the counting.

It would clear up a lot of confusion. It would completely take the legs out from the conspiracy theorists. It's a simple act to do. Unfortunately, it has not been done in a couple of states, but, you know, hope springs eternal, I guess. And we still wait. Mike Allen, thank you very much. And coming up on Morning Joe, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is our guest this morning. After this weekend's Nevada results helped Democrats maintain control of the Senate. Plus, House Majority Whip James Clyburn joins the conversation as the balance of power in the House still remains undecided this morning. Also ahead, it's been almost two years since the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

And former Vice President Mike Pence finally admits he was angry with then President Trump. We'll show you his new remarks and we'll take a look at the growing calls within the Republican Party to postpone this week's GOP leadership elections. Just just wallow in it. Why don't you fight in public for about a month? That ought to help out. You're watching Morning Joe. Or maybe not. Get them over with.

We'll be right back. Now we see 2022. His candidates are putting Republicans in a position where they can lose again. You see what was supposed to be a runaway red wave year. You see it tightening and tightening. The House was, oh, yeah, we got a red wave coming. It sounds like, well, you know, if we get a good sprinkler system. We'll run through the new signs.

We might not see a red wave in November. The prospects of this red wave in November, which should be massive, but looking like it's going to be a bit more tempered. New reporting on the specific signs Republicans hope for a red wave are receding. If these numbers hold over the next couple of months, then it's less likely that you're going to have that massive red wave. It's still the case that they're likely to end up in control of the House of Representatives, but the notion of a red wave, gone. I can say this with confidence.

I will never ask a potential donor to contribute more than I already have given. I run a tight ship. I respect our donors. There are two things I don't do. I don't waste money and I don't lose elections. But here's what happened to us. Election day, our voters didn't show up. We didn't get enough voters. It's a complete disappointment. I think we've got it. We've got to reflect now. What didn't happen? I think we didn't have enough of a positive message.

We said everything about how bad the Biden agenda was. It's bad. The Democrats are radical, but we have to have a plan of what we stand for. You know, I feel like I need to give a public service announcement here to lobbyists on K Street. I know that when I was in Washington, I didn't really hang out with you that much. I didn't go golfing with you. I didn't go to like football games. I just didn't. I just didn't do that. I'm kind of, you know, cranky.

I don't get out very much. That said, I do feel I do feel the need is a public service to you. Lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and across America, CEOs across America. If you want to watch your money burn, if you want to pick a political party that will literally burn millions and millions and tens of hundreds of millions of dollars of your money, that guy, he can do it and the Republican Party can do it. They wasted so much of your money. But here's the good news. Instead of talking about inflation and and talking about, oh, I don't know, the recession, talking about things that actually impact their lives every day. They talked about trans swimmers with your billions of dollars. OK, so if that really bothers you, well, good on you. You sent out mailers from Florida to Washington state, from San Diego up to the farthest reaches of Maine. They burned your money yet again. They wasted your money in 18.

They wasted your money in 20. They wasted your money in 22. And they keep getting more extreme. You give them money and they find really extreme issues. And then they just, they light a match and put your billion dollars here. And that, of course- You've been very helpful this morning. Do you think I've helped out? Yeah, that's sweet. Because I'm trying to make up

for not spending a lot of time with him. That was Senator Rick Scott's message to fellow Republicans. Save yourself, save your money. January of 2021 versus his excuses on Friday for losing. But he said he'd never lose elections. No, he just did. So he's going to have to, you know, adjust.

Kind of lost big elections. I want to go back right now if we can. It really, again, it's crazy how much money they lost. But Charlie Sykes, I'm going to go back to you. We played a clip going into the break where we were all saying it didn't feel like a red wave because it didn't feel like a red wave. And two polls that I saw the last week when everybody was talking about the red wave that stuck out. One was Barnes. The great Marquette poll had Barnes won two points behind.

They nailed it. And the second thing I did was I listened to John Ralston. And I will say these right wing freaks and also just Trump, Trump propagandists were mocking and ridiculing John Ralston saying, oh, he's doing this because he hates he hates laxalt and oh, I mean, on and on and on. But if you looked at the good polls, you could see things were breaking in a lot of different directions. I guess here's my question. Like, how could it be that certain websites and certain news agencies got suckered by all of those phony Trafalgar polls, got suckered by all of those Republican polls, all got suckered. Like, I'll be honest with you. I expect some sites to follow it because they play to right wingers and right wingers believe Mitt Romney was going to beat Obama by 11 points.

So if they want to bathe in stupidity and ignorance, they can. I was surprised, though, when I look at 5 eight, which which I now go to because they're the best. They don't even have Trafalgar up. And they'd say there's a Republican public. Wait, this is propaganda. Why are you putting this? And I really think it threw off a lot of people in the media. They followed those right wing garbage polls. No, you're right. Look, I mean, there's a lot of confirmation bias. There's a lot of wish casting there. But there are a lot of media bubbles as well. And I think the Republicans got themselves caught in all this. But I was thinking about, you know, the and the conventional wisdom had shifted, you know,

very radically toward the red wave. And it was sort of the, you know, pundit hive mind out there. But I was thinking about something you said earlier in the hour about the reaction to the Paul Pelosi attack, because in the last couple of weeks, one thing that that you started to see was that the Republicans had really internalized the idea that nothing matters. They could mock the attack on an 82-year-old man. They could look the other way when Donald Trump is, you know, throwing ketchup against the wall and attacking people, you know, calling Mitch McConnell's wife Coco Chow. They believed there were no consequences for any of their extremism, their election denial, the bad taste, all of those things. And really, you know, what this election was about was telling them, no, in fact, there are consequences. We are paying attention and and you're scary. You people are scary.

Right. And people like Rick Scott are out there, you know, complaining about it. Well, look, Rick Scott was was at the table. He was the guy that floated the idea of, you know, changing Social Security and Medicare, all of those things, rather than talking about the issues that most people actually wanted to hear about. But I do think that the Republican Party talked itself into believing that they were living in this sort of Trumpian, it doesn't matter what we do or say world. And now we wake up and realize, no, actually, people want normalcy. And people were paying attention to your lunacy and your extremism in the last couple of weeks. Yeah. And, you know, it's important to remember Rick Scott voted against certifying the election. And the guy still was put in charge of the Republican Senate committee.

It really it really was just just staggering. But there is there is, you know, I've been saying for a couple of weeks, gravity is returning. You look at what's what's happened. You look what's happened to Infowars. You look what's happened to a lot of these other people that were election deniers. You look in the courts, the federal judges, one after another, after another challenge based on lunacy and not the law thrown out repeatedly. And now you look, just as Charlie said, you look and there actually are consequences because, you know, it's so funny that Rick said that because before the election

we'd just look at each other after it said does nothing matter anymore? You can mock an 82-year-old man and that's when I asked who were these people who raised you and it ends up that a lot of good parents raised a lot of good

people, not because Democrats won and Republicans lost. Right. But because election deniers, people who are trying to undermine American democracy, people who were mocking the attack of an 82 year old man. Those people lost. And we've tried to be very careful, very careful to talk about you have Senate Republicans and and and for the most part, they follow McConnell's lead when it comes to election denying and they don't do it. Then you've got the House Republicans and a whole lot of crazy candidates, Republicans, Trump Republicans paid. And the attack on Pelosi sort of inflamed that bad, ugly, nasty, un-American behavior, which, as Charlie said, we have been watching time and time again, a situation that appears to have no consequence.

Yes, does nothing matter. It does. Gravity returns. Gravity returned and the voters provided consequences. With us, we have U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, and presidential historian John Meacham joins us this morning. Thank you all so much for being with us, John. First of all, I tried to put this into perspective with my kids, my adult kids. This is not like Jimmy Carter talking about nuclear proliferation with 10-year-old Amy.

I've been trying to explain this to my 34. I love Jimmy Carter. I'm just saying, but I'm trying to explain it to my children and people close to me about how remarkable this election is. I really can't because There doesn't seem to be any historical parallel. No, there's not, because there's not a lot of parallel to the forces you're talking about that were in contention. I think what this week shows us is that fundamentally Americans are devoted to the Declaration of Independence. I don't think a lot of them went in the voting booth or marked their ballot thinking about Thomas Jefferson, though I wish they would. But I think they understand that America is at its best when we expand rights, when we build, and not when we tear down. And that's quite explicit in jobs. It's quite explicit in

having your right to vote count. You know, for the first, I hate to put it this way, but for a lot of white Americans, 2020 was the first time they actually saw a world where their votes weren't going to count. Suddenly, what we did in our native region, Joe, for so long was going national. And I think people said no. They understood instinctively the franchise. They understand that having it's very hard in American politics and life to have a right or a program and then take it away. And Roe versus Wade, whatever you believe about its morality, it's in the complicated arguments around it. It was settled law in the country from 1973 until 2022.

And so it was part of the infrastructure of American rights. The right to vote for white folks has been part of the infrastructure. And suddenly in 2020, 21, 22, not only did you have this coarse and terrible tone you're talking about, but you had people trying to take things away. And I think the country said on Tuesday and in this season that, you know what, we are about living into the declaration. We're not about pulling away from that promise. And, and Katty K, why, why don't we talk about also Joe Biden? And, and just, it's, it's so funny. I still look at some of these memes on, on Twitter over the weekend. I'm like, oh, you guys didn't get the message. That didn't work for you.

You can say he's not with it. You can say he's too old. Fell off a bike. You can say, oh, my God, he fell off a bike a couple of months ago. You can say all of those things. And none of them broke through in the states that matter most. None of them broke through. Like, here's a guy who has made history with the Democratic Party. And we talked

about the fact that people that slightly disapproved of Biden's performance as president, they still went with his party. Independents went with Joe Biden and his party. And and I heard Paul Begala say it over the weekend. It's pretty remarkable that every midterm election is to check the party in power to put brakes on the party in power. This is the first midterm election where voters put brakes on the party out of power. They're like, no, no, no. We're going to keep them out of power because they're insurrectionists, weirdos and freaks. Yeah. I mean, you might want to check the party in power, except for when the party out of power is trying to take away your right to an abortion. Has Donald Trump on the ticket and actively

inserting himself in the campaign in the last week. And you have people in the party in power in the last week responding to a hammer attack on an 83-year-old man in a way that just clearly turned most voters off. And I think, you know, you put all of those things together. But you also, I mean, that weekend I spent just before the election down in Virginia's 7th with Abigail Spanberger and Yesli Vega, going to those two candidates' rallies was a real lesson in why one side won and the other didn't. Abigail Spanberger spoke about local issues. She was speaking about. OK, Las Katties, just on the point about Joe Biden, it's so interesting because you just ask I ask Democrats who constantly are concerned about Joe Biden. Maybe think he shouldn't run. Maybe he shouldn't come and campaign with me.

Like exactly what are you looking for? Exactly what did it what is it that you want that he's not giving you? Because legislative wins, check. Foreign policy wins. What he's doing in Ukraine, we don't talk about it enough. It's masterful. Probably in the process, along with strengthening NATO, of saving the world from a fascism and a dictator and the aggression that is taking over Ukraine. And what he's doing for Ukraine is nothing short of masterful. And then you look at his political gut. Everybody else said, look at this, look at this, look at this. Oh, my God, we're going to lose. He focused on abortion. He understands the importance of women's rights. He always has. And he stays with it. He

stays true to it. And he focused on democracy. He held a speech on democracy. Everyone was like, oh, did you see the speech? He's not talking about this. He's not talking about that. He knew what he was doing. What more do people want? Who else is out there? Please tell me. Well, you know, it's interesting, John. There were so many times over the first year where progressives would say, see, you can't count on Republicans. You can't do business with Republicans. They are evil. You've got to run over them. And every time Biden said, let's try to figure out, we'll take it one at a time. And I'm not saying all progressives, but Biden heard this, as you know very well.

You're a friend of his and you work with him some. But Biden heard this all the time. He's so naive. He thinks it's 1984. It's not 1984, 85. You can't work with the other side anymore. It's too harsh. But he did. He got a lot of legislation passed and he talked about democracy. He talked about abortion. I heard one podcast after another talking about how stupid he was for doing that. There of the Democratic Party. Josh Shapiro talks about all things. He talks about democracy. He talks about abortion. He talks about crime. He talks about inflation. But it seems that Biden Biden made all the right calls. If you look at the exit polls, but but never got any of the credit. It seems to me the more we get into the Biden presidency, the more we realize he has that great, great skill that Ronald Reagan had. He's always underestimated. And his enemies always underestimate him.

From Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin, they always underestimate him at from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin. They always underestimate him and it ends up costing them at the end. Yeah, exactly. It's the George W. Bush, right? He is misunderestimated. And that has continued throughout the decades, right? Joe Biden has been left for political dead since 1987, again and again and again. And I guess that makes sense, except, wait, he's the president of the United States and he just pulled off something that you can argue about how much credit he gets, how much whatever. But let me tell you what we'd be saying if it had gone the other way right now. Let's say what all the, you know, everybody with

a podcast would be saying right now if if it had not gone this way. And I think, you know, he's about to turn 80 years old. He comes out of a border state. He comes out of a political world where I continue to believe that his political world, which was ours until 2017, was a this figurative debate, this figurative conversation between FDR and Ronald Reagan. And we had that was the American consensus. It wasn't a consensus on specific policies, but it was a consensus on the realm of the possible. And there are problems with that. Right. You know, we always have to be able to imagine more. And I understand that. But by and large, for those decades in which we defeated a Great Depression, defeated fascism, won the Cold War, helped bring down the Berlin Wall,

created remarkable prosperity, managed to expand civil voting rights, women's rights, rights for groups that felt marginalized before. You know, and I'm not I'm not trying to do a triumphalist narrative here, but that's just what happened. Right. Did it take too long? Yes. Is it not over? Of course it's not over. But President Biden comes out of that world where the public sector could make a positive difference. And it's doing that again now. And he's, believe me, he's not going to change from that belief that's that that is him and the country will decide in a couple years whether they want more of this or not but as i've said a lot you know joe biden is an upside down iceberg you guys know this 95 of what he says in private he says in public and i'm not even sure i could findety five percent of what he says in private, he says in public.

And I'm not even sure I could find the five percent. You know, what you see is what you get. And maybe there's a little profanity, but not much. So look, he's the president of the United States. We'll see what we'll see what happens to the approval rating. But look, American democracy is stronger today than it was seven days ago. And Joe Biden gets a lot of credit. Yeah. Charlie Sykes, we'll give you the final word. Well, it is interesting. Look, you know, Joe Biden is old and he's showing it.

And that's not going to get any better. But Democrats don't have a plan B. What they do have, though, after Tuesday is a pretty impressive bench, whether you're talking about Westmore out of Maryland, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Jared Polis in Colorado. So while Donald Trump is in the process of burning down the Republican bench, you're seeing the rise of a very, very impressive Democratic bench that will be the next chapter after Joe Biden. All right. OK, Charlie Sykes and John Meacham, thank you both. We've got a lot of news coming up, some major updates from the war in

Ukraine. And also there has been a shooting on the campus of the University of Virginia, three dead. And as of the start of the show this morning, the gunman was still on the loose. So we'll have an update on that also coming up. the Trump effect boiled down in a single house race. We'll speak with the Democrat who just won her race in a district in Washington state who had a 98 percent chance of losing before Donald Trump got involved. We'll explain that. Plus, we'll go live to the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, for the latest on a highly

anticipated meeting between President Biden and the leader of China. Morning Joe will be right back. President Joe Biden is meeting right now with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia. It is the first face-to-face meeting for the two leaders since Biden took office. Here's some of what the president States to play key roles in addressing global challenges from climate changes to food insecurity. And for us to be able to work together, the United States stands ready to do just that, work with you if that's what you desire. So, President Xi, I look forward to our continuing and ongoing open and honest dialogue we've always had. And I thank you for the opportunity.

Joining us now from Bali is the host of way too early White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. And Jonathan, from the Chinese leader, a lot of talk about the relationship being at a crossroads. What are they trying to get to here? Yeah, the relationship between the U.S. and China at its lowest point in decades, Mika, and there's a rising tensions between Beijing and Washington providing the backdrop for this summit taking place here in Bali on the sidelines of the G20 summit. There is a long agenda here. Trade, North Korea, U.S. trying to push China to further isolate Vladimir Putin in Russia, and of course, Taiwan. And that's all going to be addressed right now behind closed doors. We briefly heard

from President Biden and Xi Jinping earlier. They both struck a more hopeful note, suggesting that it was important to meet face to face. This is their first meeting since Biden took office. They need to find some areas of common ground, some areas where they can get along, some areas where they can establish some rules of the road, because there is a fear that if that can't happen, if it can't happen soon, the two world global superpowers may soon be engaged in a full on Cold War. So we'll be hearing from President Biden in a little while when this summit wraps up. We'll have a news conference. I've got to dash over there shortly. But both sides, at least to start, signing somewhat of a hopeful note. But U.S. officials don't expect much in the way of concrete accomplishments here. They think talking at all is a first step and an important step,

and they hope it'll lead to further meetings down the road. Jonathan, what else can you tell us about what you've seen since you've been over there regarding, well, how the rest of the world is looking at Biden, looking at the United States now? Obviously, President Biden goes over there much more empowered after these historic midterms. Yeah, we heard from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on that very point a few hours ago where he said that a number of the world leaders he's met with and he had spent the weekend in Cambodia at a summit there, a number of world leaders had said that they saw the midterm results. And Biden has come out saying, I feel stronger. He feels emboldened with the wind in his back. You know, usually these summits in Asia tend to be every November. And there's been a number of cases where presidents will come off

a poor midterms and then fly overseas to try to seek refuge in international affairs, foreign policy. They have a lot more autonomy than they do in domestic politics. But for Biden, this has become a bit of a victory lap that he knows he's got the wind at his back at the moment. But it also is the case for Xi Jinping, who just, of course, received another five-year term ahead of the government there. And one more note, who's not here at the G20? Vladimir Putin. A couple of weeks ago, Russia had signaled that he would attend. U.S. officials, up until a few days ago, thought he was as well. But Putin has bowed out in the wake of another humiliating defeat on the battlefield.

So there'll be a lot of talk here about rallying the world behind Ukraine. But Putin himself, a no show. Jonathan Lemire, thank you very much. We know you have to run to the news conference. Let's bring in the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, joining us now. And, Katie Kaye, why don't you jump in with the first question? Hey, Richard. I'm looking at this relationship. It's rarely been worse. There's almost no communication between Washington and Beijing at the moment. And the Biden administration's theory of the case was that you could compartmentalize the relationship, kind of sideline some of the hard stuff, but try to keep dealing with things like climate change, preventing further pandemics. If this moment in Bali were to produce some kind of

reset, how would that approach to dealing with Beijing change? That's the right question. I think it's off to a good start. Just, Katty, think for a second, the contrast between when senior officials of the two countries met just over a year ago in Anchorage. It was a public display of recriminations and accusations. And what we just saw from President Biden, we didn't hear the part from Xi Jinping, but much more respectful, much more traditional diplomatic, if I may say. I think both sides basically want to put a floor under this relationship. And that's what you can, I think, hope for here. No deliverables, no agreements that are specific or hard. But I think you'll see the

institutionalization of more dialogue and each side will signal to the other what matters the most. We're going to want to see a little bit of Chinese restraint on Taiwan. We're going to want to see the Chinese pressure North Korea, which has been shooting off missiles at all of its neighbors. We're going to want the Chinese to continue to pull back from its support of Russia. Chinese are going to want to see us exercise to pull back from its support of Russia. Chinese are going to want to see us exercise some restraint or discipline again when it comes to Taiwan. And I think each side is going to walk away with a slightly better understanding of what matters most to the other, not hard agreements. But this is actually potentially something of a foundation. As I think Jonathan said, this relationship has been sinking literally for

decades. And if just getting something of a floor under it, I think would be in the interests of both sides, given everything each government has to contend with. Richard, you know, the U.S. is still coming back on the world stage after four years of President Trump. How important is it for the leaders to not just see President Biden do well in the midterms, but to see that democracy is being upheld for the election deniers to be defeated? Is that is it that level of detail that people are, you know, the other world leaders are paying attention to? It's really interesting because the answer is it matters a whole lot to our foes, just countries like China. I think actually the idea that the United States was on

the ropes we were going to do ourself in. It's not the case. It's not simply that President Biden shows up with a little bit of wind in his sails here at his back, but it shows the Russians even more and the Chinese that any efforts, the Iranians, to sow mayhem in the United States may not be working. More important probably, it's reassuring to our friends. They look at us and they basically say, over the last couple of years, this is not the United States we thought we knew. How can we depend upon you? Big article in the New York Times today about Japan, about how it's increasing its defense spending. One of the reasons, no longer confident in American reliability. I was just in South Korea about a week ago. What's the big conversation? Can they depend on American nuclear forces to be there if North Korea is threatening them?

All of this is a consequence of January 6th, the radical departures of the Trump years. So the normalcy and the fact that normalcy in American politics seems to be on the ascendant actually is a really powerful message to our friends. There's something of a sigh of relief you're hearing around the world from America's partners.