Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/14/23

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

House set to vote on two-step funding plan to prevent shutdown

Good morning. It's six o'clock on the East Coast. Welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, November 14th, and Congress has until Friday to pass a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown. And Speaker Mike Johnson might get some support from House Democrats on his two-step strategy to avoid that shutdown. We'll explain that plan. Plus, special counsel Jack Smith responds to Donald Trump's push for cameras in the courtroom in his federal election interference case. Meanwhile, the former president's eldest son takes the stand again in the civil fraud trial against the family business. We'll get legal analysis on that testimony and we'll have the latest out of Gaza on the efforts to evacuate patients at the largest hospital, which Israel says sits above a Hamas command post. And you look at the papers today and that's really that's the headline on so much. It's it's about the fact

that the Israel Israel forces in Gaza reach the hospital. This is in on The Wall Street Journal talks about as conditions worsen. The lead in The New York Times hospital shakes as guys in Gaza as fights rage at the doorstep. And it really does really for for both sides. It feeds into suggestions of what both sides are accusing the others of war crimes on, whether it's Israel going after that hospital because they believe that Hamas is actually committing war crimes by hiding behind civilians, having a vast network of tunnels right under these hospitals and other civilian targets that they are certain would not be bombed by Israel. It makes, obviously, the situation there so much more complicated for, first of all, the Israelis who are trying to root

out the terrorists, but also to try to figure out what's underneath there. So we're going to be covering that throughout the morning. Also, David Ignatius posting from Israel that we've heard that deal between Israel and Hamas to free dozens of hostages, maybe up to 100 women and children. They are actually closing in on that deal. So we may hear some good news on that in the next few days. Let's hope that's true. And to go back to the first part of what you were talking about, that is the central dilemma of the war, where Palestinians are saying to Israel, militarily stop attacking civilians. Israel's saying stop building your command centers, Hamas, under hospitals and under schools. So we're seeing that play out right now.

We'll get to that in just a bit. But we do want to begin this morning with new revelations in the Fulton County election interference case against Donald Trump and 15 other co-defendants. The Washington Post and ABC News have made public excerpts of videos of former Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell. Watch now as Ellis recounts a conversation with one high ranking Trump adviser where he said the boss is not leaving the White House for any reason. I emphasized to him I thought that the the claims and the ability to challenge the election results was essentially over. He said to me in a kind of excited tone, well, we don't care and we're not going to leave. And I said, what do you mean?

He said the boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power. And I said to him, well, it doesn't quite work that way, you realize. And he said, we don't care. The video comes from a series of recordings in which Ellis was required to lay out everything she knew that the prosecution could use in exchange for a plea deal. NBC News did not obtain the videos. They've not been independently verified. Ellis is one of four co-defendants in the sprawling Georgia RICO case that accepted a lighter defendants in exchange for information. Sidney Powell, another lawyer who accepted a deal, discussed in her proffer

session a meeting with former President Trump where he was told he lost in 2020. Were you ever around when someone, anyone told Donald Trump that he had lost the election? Oh, yeah. Who? Pat Cipollone, Eric Hirschman, Derek Lyons, all thought he'd lost. Was that in the December 18th meeting? Yes. What was President Trump's reaction when, I guess, this cadre of advisers would say you lost.

It was like, well, they would say that and then they'd walk out and he'd go see. This is what I deal with all the time. Powell also discussed her scheme to seize voting machines from across the country, said she talked with the former president often while carrying out her plans. Both she and Trump now claim she never represented him. The Washington Post also reported Canada Chesbrough, a key figure in the plan to use fake electors, told prosecutors he briefed Trump on the attempt to falsely certify his win in battleground states. Chesbrough's statement personally ties the former president to the elector plan. The Fulton County District Attorney's Office has refused NBC News requests for comment.

Trump's lead attorney in Georgia said this about the report, quote, If this is the nonsense line of inquiry being pursued, and this is the type of bogus, ridiculous evidence D.A. Willis intends to rely upon, it is one more reason that this political travesty of a case must be dismissed. That comes from an attorney for Donald Trump. Let's bring in former U.S. attorney, MSNBC contributor Barbara McQuaid, NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hilliard, and the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Vaughn, I'll start with you. You've been covering this very closely.

It is striking to see these two attorneys, these two women who were so brash during the 2020 election with their claims of a stolen election being humbled now that the law has caught up to them and that they've cut a deal with prosecutors. What is so striking is to see these two on video saying this. And this is the part that I keep coming back to, that I was at Trump's counter rally to the debate last week down in Miami there. And folks to this day, I mean, one gentleman telling me that he's locked and loaded, ready to go, a real hot civil war in his words. You know why? It's because of people like Jenna Ellis in Sidney Powell. Sidney Powell standing there after presser after presser suggesting she was going to release a crack and there was an international cabal that was at the heart of overturning the election and taking it from Donald Trump. Jenna Ellis, you know, her timeline is a little a little off base.

But in Arizona, she was down there with Rudy Giuliani making the case to Speaker Rusty Bauer to overturn and allow the Arizona legislature to give Donald Trump the win in Arizona. So to hear this to the extent that Trump loyalists hear from these folks and see these proper videos, I'm not sure. But it hits at the heart of the argument for the cameras being in the courtroom for the federal election interference case, because these are compelling and they're revealing. Jonathan, you wrote the book on on the big still. Tell us about these two players and the significance of them stepping forward now saying it was all a lie and specifically that Donald Trump was told by his lawyers. Many times. By his lawyers many times. He lost the election. Yeah, and that's the most important point, which we'll come back to in a second. But in terms of just refreshing people's memories on these two attorneys, Sidney Powell,

the Kraken, Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani made up the heart of Trump's legal team after the 2020 election. They worked with John Eastman and Kenneth Chesbrough on not just the fake elector scheme, which, of course, is central to the federal January 6th case, but also these other measures, whether it was voting machines or challenging the results or filing lawsuits, which they had right to do. Those were all, without exception, defeated in court. But they propagated the big lie. And that is, to Vaughn's point, what people are still believing. Three years later, people still believe that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. Polls

suggest the majority of Republicans don't think that Joe Biden was duly elected. And that's the poison here that they injected into the American political bloodstream that is not going away. And now certainly Ellis and Powell, you know, their testimony here that they were aware that the election was not in fact stolen, that they told Donald Trump. Now, that may get into whether Trump's mindset, whether he truly believed or not that he won or lost. And I reported in my book and others have as well that Trump did at times privately concede that he lost, telling Kellyanne Conway at one moment, how could I lose to this bleeping guy, meaning Joe Biden? And though the Trump team is trying to downplay the significance of these two lawyers testimony, there's a limit to what they can do. And there's

a sense that Ellis and Powell are just part of a chain that could lead to others flipping in Georgia as well that would endanger the former president further. Well, let's take that to Barbara McQuaid. How valuable is this testimony? Is it to get others to flip? Or do you think that some of the things we're hearing from these two individuals, how can it be used in the trial? How useful and valuable will it be?

Well, I think the purpose of recording their statements is just to lock them in so that they can't change their story later. What we'll see at trial is their live testimony. And so they will discuss all of these things and more and, of course, be subjected to cross-examination. But they revealed some very important things already that we heard just in these excerpts. And perhaps there's more, the fact that Donald Trump was aware of the fact that he lost the election, really important. They had meetings with him where they disclosed the plan, according to Kenneth Chesbrough, and a statement that Dan Scavino, the deputy chief of staff, said, oh, haven't you heard? He's not leaving under any circumstances. And I think

that rebuts the claim that he thought that he had legitimately won the election. And so I think that's important. I think there's one other important dynamic here, and that is having people on the inside admit that it was all a con to the extent that a jury presumes a defendant to be innocent. You know, hearing the evidence of a prosecution says one thing, but to hear people say, yes, I have pled guilty. I am accepting responsibility. And I was in on it on this. And here's how it went down. That can be very valuable for a jury to hear. All right. Special counsel Jack Smith's office is arguing against having cameras in the courtroom during former President Donald Trump's upcoming federal election interference trial,

saying the former president wants a, quote, carnival atmosphere. In a filing yesterday, Smith's team wrote, there's a, quote, constitutionally sound broadcast prohibition that has governed federal criminal trials, no matter the defendant, for decades, and that there is no reason to depart from common practice. Media outlets, including MSNBC's parent company, NBCUniversal, are arguing for the trial to be televised. Initially, former President Trump's attorney told the special counsel's office they took no position on televising the trial. But over the weekend, the Trump team changed course,

asking for the trial to be broadcast while accusing the special counsel of wanting it to proceed in secret. At this point, the trial is unlikely to be televised, given that federal criminal proceedings have never been aired on television. What's more, Judge Tanya Chutkin has repeatedly stated she will treat Trump like any other criminal defendant and that broadcasting his trial would be a major departure from the norm. What do you think, Joe? And secondly, it's going to be really hard to treat him like any other criminal defendant, but I guess she can try. I mean, he gets special he gets special treatment. The minute he walks in the door, he is Secret Service. People can't put him in jail necessarily without the Secret Service. I mean, how does this work? How is he treated like a normal person?

Donald Trump wins when Donald Trump is able to play the disruptor. Right. When he's able to go outside of a courtroom and yell and wave his arms and tell America what just happened inside the courtroom. And we've seen it. We saw it with Robert Mueller. I'm afraid we're seeing it now with Jack Smith. People are saying just buy the book, buy the book. Let's go buy the book. Head down. We're going to do this just like any other case. It's not any other case and it's not any other defendant. And and the key, it seems to me, Barbara McQuaid for transparency in this case is paramount. I'm really surprised and really

disappointed that Jack Smith is talking about head down. No, no transparency. Let's just do the case like we do every other case. Americans need to see this case. They need to see it because the rule of law is under attack and they need to see what's happening when a former president is being tried and possibly convicted for the crime of trying to steal an election. Don't you think? Well, what we would like to see is different, I think, from what we can see. I'd love to see this televised because I think otherwise Donald Trump will misrepresent what's actually going on in the courtroom. However, what Jack Smith is saying is that we don't want it to be televised. He's saying the judge lacks the authority to televise it. Federal Rule of Procedure 53 prohibits cameras in the courtroom. And so any advocacy on this issue has to be taken up at a different level with the judicial conference, the group of judges who make up the rules for what happens in court. Her hands are tied.

But can't he make a motion to do that? Can't he move to get that done? The judge lacks the authority to do this. I think what the media companies are arguing is that she should strike down the rule as unconstitutional. So if she makes that finding, then I suppose so. But other courts have already found that it is. And so I think that she lacks the power to do that. What the place to advocate is with the judicial conference to change the rule. And they have time to do that before this trial begins. So the Trump campaign is trying to downplay alarming comments made by the 2024 Republican frontrunner over the weekend, which echoed the words of 20th century fascists on social media. And then later at a rally on Saturday, Trump vowed to, quote, root out his perceived political enemies who said live like

vermin within the. That's what he said. live like vermin within the confines of the country. That's his quote. In a statement to the Washington Post afterwards, a campaign spokesperson hit back at those drawing parallels between Trump's words and the words of dictators by using more extreme language. He told the Post, quote, those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly grasping for anything and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House. So just stop there. Let's. Yeah. Their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House. Well, that makes things better. And Willie later on, he said, well, I meant sad existence, not entire existence. I mean, it's a distinction without a difference.

But I mean, how ridiculous that a guy comes out, a fat white pink boy, who's trying to talk tough for for for a fake populist who's going around spreading hatred and trying to overturn American democracy. And his response to to it, to to Trump grasping back at a Nazi reference from the 1930s, is to say these people that are criticizing him are going to have their entire existence crushed. I mean, are these are these, you know, where where do you find people so vacant and so desperate and just lacking any any center, any core, they would talk about people's entire existences being crushed. Well, it's a job requirement, as you know, to work for Donald Trump. All those things you just lay out be obsequious, echo exactly what he said.

And in this case, it's not a reach. It's exactly the thing that Adolf Hitler said. He used the term vermin. So that's a statement of fact. And it's just playbook 101, right, for a dictator and authoritarian to dehumanize your opponents so that you can do things to them that then seem at least to your supporters fair and just in some way because they're not human. And Vaughn, it's been striking once again to see the lack of response from any Republicans at all on any of this. I think it's almost a given here at this point. They've been asked, and we've been down this road for almost a decade now. Can you believe what Donald Trump said?

Oh, I don't want to talk about the campaign. I don't want to talk about Donald Trump. We're focused on other things. Can you believe that he suggested General Milley should be executed? Oh, I didn't hear the comment. We know this, but my God, they won't talk about this either. Because it's what we were living through for all these last years is that Donald Trump could very well be in the White House for four more years. And, you know, he's already vowed to destroy Kim Reynolds, the Iowa

governor, you know, and for the constituents back home in the state of Iowa, when you see your governor being threatened like that, you know, that's a hostile place and environment to be here. You know, the one time that I was invited onto Donald Trump's plane this year, it was from Waco, Texas, back in March. And, you know, I work with these campaign staffers, including this press secretary, on a daily basis. And what is so striking this go around is just how keenly aware this campaign team is to have only loyalists on their staff. There are no Alyssa Farahs this time around. There is nobody that is trying to do good from within. When he got back on the plane after that rally in Waco, Texas, which there were a lot of questionable remarks made by the former president,

he got back on the plane and everybody applauds. Great job, boss. And he puts his hands up in the air like that. And that is what the former president wants to hear. And frankly, when he sees polling numbers like he does, he has every right to feel good about his position right now. He wants to be treated like the dear leader. And Jonathan Lemire, that's also a preview of what we'll see if he's reelected in his cabinet and the people who he surrounds himself with. We did hear from the White House on this, though, yesterday on these vermin comments. Yeah. And the White House has really upped their rhetoric against Trump, criticizing Trump in the last week or two. We reported we reported the last week or so that they were mulling that shift and, well, they have done it, that they have decided to draw the contrast as

much as they can. They've been really sharply critical of Trump on comments like this, but also his stance on abortion, other political issues as well, as a year out with a likely, with a Trump-Biden rematch so likely, they're not wasting any time. And some felt they should have made this move sooner. I know Joe does, but they are doing it now, where they're trying to draw these contrasts. But to your point, it is going to be purely loyalists in the next Trump administration, were he to win again. We spent a lot of time yesterday talking about the 2025 project, as they have deemed it, and Trump's immigration proposals, draconian to say the least, which are going to involve raids and camps and, frankly, un-American measures to try to rid the nation, in their words, of illegal immigrants.

And that is what is coming here. It's not just rhetoric. It's going to be rhetoric followed by policy. And certainly we have heard Trump since 2015 use subhuman terms to describe his political foes. And we're seeing that again here with the with vermin over the weekend. And there's no sign of it stopping. Yesterday afternoon, he said in a post on social media that he would institutionalize special counsel Jack Smith, the current deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, as well as former DOJ prosecutor Alan Weiss. And Joe, just quickly, the Vermin comment was not an ad lib, was not a slip. He posted the exact comment to his social media site as well. This is a story he wants to tell now. Yeah, it is a choice. It is a another line that's crossed another time that it's shocking, but not surprising. And again, I'm glad the White House is doing what what they're doing.

It makes it makes sense when somebody apes Adolf Hitler and apes Mussolini, when they lift words from 1930 fascist speeches focused at dehumanizing Jews, When they talk about executing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he would not go along with a military coup. When they talk about institutionalizing the second he's elected, and this was just yesterday, institutionalizing people at the Justice Department because they're pursuing investigations against him. When he talks about terminating the Constitution of the United States of America, then yeah, yeah, I think I think Jonathan Amir, the White House, is really doing what we were talking about yesterday. They're focusing on Donald Trump's words. It's one of these cases, institutionalizing people in the Justice Department

that you don't like, and he makes that threat yesterday after lifting Hitler and Mussolini's words, what they use to describe Jews and other enemies of their fascist regimes, when he's talking about terminating the Constitution, when he's talking about doing all of these things, and when he has such extreme remarks on fallen soldiers,

saying he doesn't respect them, he doesn't understand why, he calls men and women who gave their lives to the United States losers. Well, you know, it's a good thing he's bringing it out. And I just want to say, I want to underline again that I think it's Donald Trump's words that he's doing now. And, you know, he's got an old act. This is like Elvis 77. It's an old act. He's near the end. And so what does he do? All he can do is keep re-upping for the shock value. And he wants to re-up for the shock value. So we'll talk about him and other people will talk about him. What he doesn't understand is it's a double edged sword. Those very words he's using are now being put together by a campaign that's going to beat him again. And they're going to

beat him with his own words. And we talked about abortion yesterday. Donald Trump bragging. I am the one who terminated Roe v. Wade. I am the one that killed a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body. I am the one that took freedom away from your daughters, from your wives, from your loved ones. I am the one that crushed 50 years of freedom. I mean, those him bragging about doing all of that. And leading little 10 year old girls being raped by illegal immigrants and having to flee the state of Ohio. Because of what Donald Trump did and he's bragging about that. That's going to be a long fall for Donald Trump. Yeah. Trump, since 2015, has had this political trick where he he's speaking a way that's just ambiguous enough that people can read into what they want. He can dismiss it like, no, no,

I was joking or I was exaggerating. But we have seen that his believers, his supporters take him at his word and they believe him. And we saw that is what fueled January 6th, their belief in his words about the big lie. And what we're seeing here is- And by the way, they're in jail. They are in jail. And by the way, they're in jail, Jonathan, aren't they? They believed him. And do you think there's another group like that that's going to believe him too?

Or do you think they're going to be willing to sit in jail for a guy who sits fat, dumb and happy at Mar-a-Lago running for president, making money while these working class Americans are rotting in jail because they bought into his lie? Well, there is a sense that his when he's called for protests in recent months, they have been sparsely attended because his true believers are already locked up. But to your point about words, his words being used against him, which seems to be the Biden campaign playbook right now on things like abortion, on things like extremism, on things like threats of political violence, those words are being used against Donald Trump. And we should also note, of course, his words are also going to be the first time used against him in the court

of law, that also we're going to see him on trial next year amid a campaign potentially being held legally accountable for those same words. So Donald Trump Jr., his son, testified again yesterday in the family's New York civil fraud trial, this time as a witness for the defense. The trial is mostly in place to determine what the punishment will be, since the judge has already found Donald Trump and his adult sons guilty of fraud. During his testimony, Don Jr. praised his father as a visionary, an artist, and a genius. He described the former president as someone who, quote, creates things that others would never envision. This is true. Trump Jr. attempted to paint a picture that the properties

are extremely valuable and that the company actually underrated them in statements. Those are the statements the judge has already deemed fraudulent. Trump's eldest son failed to provide any evidence to support his claims while the prosecution has presented spreadsheets, financial statements and more to the contrary. So, Barbara, it just seemed with Don Jr.'s testimony, there wasn't wasn't a lot to take away from that, nor was there a lot to take away from the other kids. I think Eric made one one pretty significant admission. But other than that, did did did the prosecution get anything or did the state get anything out of the testimony of the children? I think they did.

Subtle points, but I think they did. I think that they got some evidence that lenders rely on these statements of financial worth. We heard that from Ivanka Trump and we heard that from Eric Trump. I think we heard some evidence about Donald Trump's involvement in the valuation of these properties, as well as some of the children. And that is important for this phase where some of the other claims require proof of intent. But I think largely, as we just heard, this case is all about the amounts. And so that's going to come down to what's on the documents as opposed to whatever flowery

description Donald Trump Jr. gives of these various properties and shows, you know, gauzy images of beautiful ballrooms. What it's going to come down to are the numbers. And, you know, numbers don't lie. These numbers are nuts. There's a Willie, there's a massive spread on the value of. And back to Briarcliff. Yeah. What? Briarcliff, just a massive spread on what he valued them at and what what the court has and the witnesses have said the value of it is. I mean, this isn't really hard to get at. I mean, you you you you look at Donald Trump. And again, we're talking about something that's already taken place.

He's already found him to be a fraud, you know, to have committed fraud. But, you know, there are appraisers. There are property appraisers that will tell you how much a property is worth. And, you know, Donald Trump and well, nobody else can just add 400 percent because his name's on there. Yeah. Yeah. And it's almost comical to watch them attack appraisers, these guys who have no political interest in this whatsoever, who are just guys with calculators assessing property, saying that they are somehow corrupt. I mean, you had with a straight face. Donald Trump has said this, too. But Eric Trump suggesting by their math that Mar-a-Lago, the beach club where Donald Trump lives, is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of one to two billion dollars.

That's their assessment. Obviously, the assessor had it down like 18 million. It's probably worth more than that, actually, but it's probably not worth a billion dollars. But that is Trump math for you. Wow. Former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuaid and NBC's Von Hilliard, thank you both. And still ahead on Morning Joe, after initially criticizing Speaker Mike Johnson's plan to fund the government, President Biden and Democrats now say they are open to it. We'll have the latest from Capitol Hill as the shutdown deadline looms. Plus,

tens of thousands of people are expected to participate in a March for Israel today, a rally in Washington, including Jewish groups from Chicago flying out to attend the event on the National Mall. We'll get a live report from O'Hare International Airport. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. It's funny how you just break down. It's a live picture of Chicago at 533 in the morning. As the Israel-Hamas war continues to rage, tens of thousands of people are expected in Washington today for the March for Israel rally. The march's organizers say they expect about 100,000 people

to attend the rally to show solidarity with Israel and to bring awareness to the rise of anti-Semitism across the world. Today's rally comes as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched at the Capitol two weeks ago to demand a ceasefire in the war. Joining us now from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago is NBC News correspondent Maggie Vespa. Maggie's been talking with synagogue groups from Chicago who are heading to D.C. from O'Hare for today's rally. Maggie, good morning. Hey, Willie, good morning. Yeah, that's kind of a drop in the bucket as far as the mass migration that is taking place literally coast to coast today, as you set up to

100,000 people expected in D.C. coming from across the country. I mean, we're here specifically in Terminal 3 of the O'Hare Airport because we're waiting on a local rabbi, along with several members, adults from his congregation and high school seniors who want to travel, are traveling to D.C. later today to show. And this is the message that we've heard from sort of communities, Jewish communities and congregations across the area that we've talked to, that they want to show that they will not be cowed, they will not be scared, they will not be silenced by the rise in anti-Semitism across the country. And our team, our network has been sort of touching base with those communities, again, across the country. In Columbus, Ohio, for example, our local affiliate

there reporting two busloads of students from Ohio State University are traveling to D.C. early this morning. Similar stories out of Raleigh, up and down the East Coast. And then we have a lot of flights coming in from the Midwest and the West Coast, specifically, according to the Jewish United Fund, who, by the way, is subsidizing a paying.k.a. paying for a lot of these trips for Jewish Americans across the country, we have close to a thousand people from the Chicago area alone who are planning to travel to D.C. About half of those, we're told, are adults and leaders specifically within the community. And then we're also told hundreds of them, to kind of reiterate that earlier point, are students, a lot of high school students, a lot of college students. And as you know, we've covered the rise in anti-Semitism specifically on college campuses across the country. So a lot of these people, the majority that we've talked to

see today's march at the U.S. Capitol as the chance to kind of deliver that mass message that again, they will not be cowed and they will not hide amid that very jarring and terrifying rise, of course, of anti-Semitism across the U.S. So promises to be a huge showing. We're going to speak to some of those who are getting ready to board these flights to D.C. later on this morning. People coming from across the country, including right there in Chicago. NBC News correspondent Maggie Vespa. Maggie, thank you as well. And guys, we'll be joined tomorrow by Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the ADL, who has organized what is shaping up to be a massive rally today in Washington. Well, it's so important

for that message to be sent across America, across the world. And Willie, I will say, was really heartened this morning in The New York Times reading about a march in Paris, 100,000 people marching in Paris, a place that is fraught with anti-Semitism in many cases coming from Islamic radicals. In France, more so than in the United States, where you have the extreme left and the extreme right showing signs of anti-Semitism and pressuring Jews in America, whether they be on college campuses or just trying to live in communities or you look in Detroit and the head of a synagogue brutally stabbed to death after the October 7th attacks. But the people of Paris stood up, 100,000 of them, and protested against anti-Semitism in France. That is so important. When we see one European country after another European country,

forget the lessons of the Holocaust. Absolutely. Yeah, we've seen it, so much ugliness in the last month or so in terms of anti-Semitism, just out in the open in the streets right here in New York on college campuses and European capitals as well. So we will see, though, a show we believe we hope will be a massive and peaceful display today in Washington. All right. Coming up, we're going to be joined by Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks on the heels of a bipartisan delegation he led to Israel over the weekend. Also ahead, after eight seasons, the circus aired its series finale on Sunday. We'll show you an ominous clip from the final episode that reveals quite a lot about the current state of our politics. Plus, one of our next guests says Democrats shouldn't let up on abortion rights. Molly Jong Fast will be here with her new piece for Vanity Fair. Morning Joe will be right

back. They respond to Trump and they look back at Trump's presidency and said, hey, my wages were higher. Inflation was lower. We weren't at wars all over the place. Maybe the guy's a jerk, but he's a badass and the world fears him. He's a badass? All he does is complain about people. A whiny, vengeful, backward-looking billionaire. That is just not like a... That's forward-looking. Right, that's forward-looking.

I want to take on the administrative state that's driven this country into the ground. He's not talking about taking on the administrative state to help people's lives. He's talking about going after the people that were mean to him. He says, oh, I'm going to have the DOJ target Bill Barr because he was mean to me. I'm going to have the DOJ target John Kelly because he turned on me. I'm going to have the DOJ target Jeff Smith.

That's all he talks about. He doesn't talk about helping people. That's not true. But here's my question. You have a MAGA lawyer who likes to come on your podcast, Mike Davis. Here's what he has suggested are the top priorities for Trump's attorney general. One, fire the deep state executive branch. Two, indict the whole Biden family. Three, deport 10 million people, kids in cages.

It will be glorious. Four, detain people at Gitmo. Five, pardon every January 6th defendant. What do you think about that five-step plan? I think it's fantastic. All five? All five. We're going to start the largest deportation program in history. All 10 million must must leave. Wow. Pardon that exchange with longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon from the final episode of the circus. Joining us now, one of the now former co-hosts of the circus, political strategist

Mark McKinnon, plus MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle and special correspondent at Vanity Fair, host of the Fast Politics podcast, Molly Jong Fast. You know, Mark McKinnon, and we talked about this earlier, it used to be sort of a bob and weave where Donald Trump would say something extreme and then back off and go, oh, no, no, I don't mean that. I don't mean that at all. Now they're all just coming straight. It used to be Bannon would say something crazy and Trump and his people would say, no, that's not the case. No, they're aligned now. I, you know, Bannon said four years, seven years ago, I'm a Leninist. I want to tear down the state. Well, Trump's with him now. Trump is a Leninist. Trump wants to tear down the state. They say they want to arrest the entire Biden family. They want to arrest people,

even his former lawyers that that turned on him. I mean, this is just full on fascism and they're proud of it. That's what's remarkable, Joe. Molly and I were just talking about it. There's no secret to the secret plan. Believe them when they tell you what they're going to do. I mean, Bannon went on to say that this movement's moving on beyond Trump, the Trump in his view is a moderate. So, you know, talking about the greatest deportation in history, it's pretty chilling. And as you said, the remarkable thing about it is that they're not hiding the ball on this. So everybody should know Team Democracy. It's time to suit up. Yeah. And Willie, it is again, they're they're they're admitting the quiet part out loud. And now Trump's even got to where he's he's lifting he's lifting words and phrases from Hitler's speeches.

Yeah. The vermin term. Remember, he said, I am your retribution to his supporters. And now not just not saying that in some vague way, Molly, but now specific plans from people who presumably would be close advisers in the administration about how they would go out carrying out that retribution. I mean, you just heard Steve Bannon take it for what it's worth. He's a podcaster who's probably going to jail soon. Don't negative my podcast. No, no, no. What I'm saying, obviously, though, influential in the MAGA movement. The fact that he's just saying out loud, yeah, we should just pardon all the people who attack the Capitol, the people who beat up cops on January 6th. Let's pardon. Trump has said that, too, by the way.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Republicans and Trumpists have these ideas. They are not popular with the general electorate. Right. They're not. We see this again and again. We saw this in the 2023 off your election. These ideas are not popular. Ballot initiatives by Democrats overperform. We're seeing, you know, this you saw Santorum say Democrats get to run on sexy ideas like legalizing marijuana and abortion. OK, but they're popular. That's what they are. They're popular ideas.

And meanwhile, on the Trump side, you have Republicans running on Trump's retribution, deporting people, putting people in Gitmo. These are not popular ideas. So isn't isn't the one of the larger questions that the country confronts or has to confront is when will America stop this table can recall the summer of 2015 when Donald Trump maligned John McCain, maligned his service, maligned his career. Everybody I know said, well, that's it for Trump. You know, anybody who says that about John McCain, that's it for Trump. Well, it wasn't. And it isn't up until this moment in time. He can be up in Claremont, New Hampshire over the weekend on Veterans Day, calling Americans vermin. Yeah. On Veterans Day,

maligning democracy, outlining exactly what he intends to do. He says the truth out loud, his own truth. Believe him. Why? Why do we sit here? Why does the New York Times and other major publications not start confronting this? You're right. It's time to suit up. But it's well past halftime. Yeah. I mean, we're in the fourth quarter here. Exactly right. Exactly right. Time to get on the field. It's it's what's remarkable is we know from 2015 how that story ends. We know how this one could end. So we've gotten the preview. Let's go. So, Molly, it seems to me you're right.

These are not broadly popular ideas, but they are popular among his base. And this is going to be a base turn on election like we've never seen before. Because at least right now, independent swing voters seem like they're unhappy with both choices. And let's just set the motivations aside for that for the moment. So what can the Democrats do? Tell us how can they turn out their base? Because we've seen a raft of polls and reporting in recent weeks that some of the usual Democratic voters just aren't that enthusiastic about this ticket. Right. And what's interesting about these polls, and again, I think throw the

polls out, but in these polls, there is good news for the generic Dem, right? That number does really well. And that's saying that the Democratic brand is actually not in bad shape, right? Despite the fact that there's a lot of talking, you know, a lot of pundits will say the Democratic brand is tarnished. It's not. The Democratic brand is really the only thing that's come out of this that is doing well. And we're seeing it again and again in the special election. Democrats have popular ideas. They're not too crazy. You know, Republicans went too far.

Right. Trump has went too far. You know, mainstream voters don't like the abortion stuff. They don't like feeling the government is in their bedroom. They don't like it. It's too much. And so and especially like the trans panic, you know, that also did not work for Republicans. You know,

the book bans Democrats just want, you know, the mainstream voters just want normal. And I think Democrats are doing that. I love that. The trans panic. I're snowflakes. I had I always, you know, 22, I had Republican strategists in Colorado go, hey, what are you going to do this year? You're not going to believe it. People in this state. I won't say the state. It would reveal the guy because he runs. Yeah. The Republicans sort of operation in this one state. People in this state are going to get 20 different pieces of mail on trans athletes taking their daughter's position in track and a huge. Yeah, it went on and on. And I sat there going to myself, I said, wait a second, aren't these the guys that have been bitching and moaning about the fact that the Democrats aren't talking about inflation.

The Democrats aren't talking about crime. The Democrats aren't talking about the southern border. And they have this bizarre obsession, almost like the speaker has this really strange obsession on homosexuality. And now men doing what they want to do, considering adults in their bedroom, is going to be the collapse of Western civilization. I don't know who obsesses about homosexuality so much. And there's like an accountability system.

Yeah, they got this porn sharing service between him and this guy. It's all very, it's all something. Somebody helps convert people. And then, yeah. You got all of this stuff going on, Molly. And a swirl of funny thing happened on the way to every election in 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. All of these hot button issues, whether it's the southern border or whether it's abortion or whether it's trans athletes, you name it, book burnings, whatever, whatever Republicans wanted to do. They all failed because Republicans always have lost, always underperformed.

Even the House, where they barely squeaked by a year before. Kevin McCarthy said they're going to win 50 seats. No, they didn't. Why? Because they obsess on these freakish things that a small percentage of their base obsess over. Yeah. And they made a person, Speaker of the House,

who was so out of the mainstream. They could have made someone who was more of a mainstream candidate for Speaker, and instead they picked Mike Johnson, who is who has all of this religious writing, who is nowhere where a mainstream voter is. And I think that they're going to pay for that. I mean, they cannot they just cannot temper the far right. And so they cannot appeal to mainstream voters. And this is one of the problems with Trumpism. You just can't keep

control over this far right fraction. There's also like, oh, go ahead, Mark. I think Mike has it right. I mean, I don't think voters are going to sleepwalk through this. They know what the nightmare is now. They might be napping right now, but I think I think by the time we get to next year, the stakes are going to be so clear. People are going to be they're going to be jumping out of windows to get to. Why aren't the Democrats more to the point on all of this, though? Why are the Democrats sort of sleepwalking as this was always going on around us? Well, like I said, I think they're napping. I think they're going to I think they'll be up in time for next year. The three points that can I answer that? Oh, I'm sorry. Go, Mike. Go, Mike. And then I'll answer why it seems like they're

sleepwalking. But go ahead, Mike. The three points that you just mentioned, Joe, you know, the trans panic, the book burning, abortion and everything like that. Why don't the Democrats say, hey, this party, a particular slice of this party, the dominant slice of this party, the Republican Party, they want to fool around with your family. They want to come into your house and tell you, no, you can't do that. No, you can't do around with your family. They want to come into your house and tell you, no, you can't do that. No, you can't do that with your child. No, you can't do this with your with your kids in school. And Andy Beshear did that. Yeah, he did. And he won by much larger margin. And he won in the state of Kentucky, where Donald Trump won by 25 points.

Yeah, yeah. So that's quite a lot. I will say, so first of all, the White House, several things here. First of all, the White House is doing, has started calling it out. You know, last year I was talking about how, you know, these people, these extremists should be called what they are, weirdos, insurrectionists and freaks, right? The White House started talking about MAGA and President Biden added, and I think it was the smart move,

ultra MAGA. It may not have rolled off the tongue, but ultra MAGA tells you, tells you about the type of people that are there. And I bring up Mike Johnson, who, you know, he says, oh, my, you know, all you need to know about my worldview and my governing stance is just read the Bible. The Bible is my guy. And as David French said, and I say this only to say, understand there's going to be a pro-life leader in the Republican Party. So but they got a really extreme leader there. And as David French says, a guy that knows a thing or two about the Bible, David French said. His rise to power in the House is the antithesis of everything Jesus ever talked about. He came to power on the big lie. He chose the biggest lie told in American political culture since McCarthyism.

He embraced it and he took it on his shoulders in the house, trying to get other people to buy into the big lie. Again, not God's will, a lie. You're not going to read about that in the Sermon on the's trying to stop that war from growing faster every day. So that's that's a full time job. We learned last week how involved he is in making sure that Ukraine doesn't go sideways. He's completely occupied with that as well. He's also, of course, meeting with President Xi because he's kind of having to worry too much right now about the possibility of China. President Xi listening to people like Tommy Tuberville and President Xi listening to other Republicans and thinking that now is the time to go into Taiwan. And by the way, that's what Chairman McCaul said, what Tommy Tuberville is doing and what Republicans are doing play right

into President Xi's hand. So Joe Biden is right now trying to stop three regional wars, which all can be connected from China to Russia, to Iran, to Hamas, to Hezbollah. And suddenly we are in the middle of World War III. So right now he may not be quite as focused about the trans panic in the Republican Party. He may be more focused in trying to stop World War III. Mike, what do you think? Well, I'll tell you what I think. That very few of us and very few in the media really pay enough attention to the weight that this president carries each and every day. You mentioned most of it. Right now, he is carrying two twin towers of tyranny, one in Donald Trump here domestically, the other Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, who is perhaps the biggest obstacle to a two-stage solution that

exists today. So the president has that on his plate. He's got a meeting tomorrow with President Xi, Premier Xi in San Francisco. He's got that on his plate. But he has every hour of every day something that comes across his desk. None of us can comprehend the weight of the presidency every hour of every day. And as he would tell you, if he were here today, it's amazing how every country in the world looks to the United States for help, for solutions, for just almost anything you can think of every single day. You read every newspaper in the country, read every newspaper in the country about President Biden. Within the first two paragraphs, they'll point out he's in his 80s. No kidding. He knows how old he is. You couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Someone 45 years of age

couldn't do what he does every day, but he does it. Let me tell you, Mika and I have talked to so many diplomats and world leaders over the last two, three years, and they all say the same thing. They all say that the guy has a feel, has a grasp for geopolitics, strategies, all the angles, and he gets it. And, you know, I understand that doesn't sell well on some right wing podcast. I understand people don't want to tell the truth on other news channels because it may hurt their ratings if they actually tell the truth about President Biden there. I'm just telling you on foreign policy, talk to the foreign leaders. They will tell you Biden understands in many cases what's going on in their region better than they understand. I've heard it time and again. He has brought NATO together and he's brought the world together.

And the thing is, this is the most I'm going to lose it. Literally, I'm going to lose it. Like they bring up his age. You bring up his age. He's 80 years old. He makes jokes about his age. And yet he's working on every level, foreign and domestically. And then you're you're are you making the argument is one making the argument that, oh, he's 80. Therefore, a voter is going to vote for Donald Trump. Like that's the choice. By the way, Donald Trump is 77. And and it doesn't make any sense. Even when he was in office, he had executive time where he just sat off the room in the Oval Office and he would watch cable news around the clock where Biden is working around the clock on foreign policy. And he's getting Biden's 80. Donald Trump says veterans are losers. Biden's 80. Donald Trump steals nuclear documents. Biden's 80. But all Trump calls countries as whole countries. Biden's 80. Trump's nuclear documents. Biden's 80. But all Trump calls countries asshole countries.

Biden's 80. Trump's a racist. I mean, come on. You can even say Biden's 80 and he oversaw and managed the largest, the largest expansion of NATO in U.S. history and has managed an extraordinary, extraordinary effort in Ukraine. And I just have to say, finally, Mike brought up Benjamin Netanyahu. If that insults anybody, what Mike said, the Israeli people believe and the Israeli people trust Joe Biden a hell of a lot more than they trust Benjamin Netanyahu. OK, so we're going to draw a breath. There's so much to say here, Willie, because it's the insanity that you hear every day on other networks, the insanity you hear on right wing podcasts.

There's so much to sort through. And it just is insane. But I will say I Molly said something a while back. I just have to let people who are who are all lathered up and catastrophizing over still over New York Times, Siena polls. You know, there are articles written going, yes, well, you know, this election was really great for Democrats. But was it really great for Joe Biden? And Molly, you were talking about the generic Democratic brand is doing well. Willie, what we found over time is Joe Biden, he is the generic Democrat.

Usually you go generic Republican or Democrat versus whoever's on the ticket. With Joe Biden. That's why he won last time. Because there's not the drama there. Because he's not in everybody's face all the time. Because he actually doesn't make being president of the United States about himself. He promised to be boring. He's back there and they're not really thinking about him, but they think about the generic

Democrat. And we've seen it time and again. We saw it in 20. We saw it in 22. We saw it just a couple of weeks ago in 23. These red waves that are supposed to crash down on Biden never crashed down on Biden or his party. And I would be hard pressed. Maybe there's a historian out there watching that can tell me when you have a president that not only won his

first off year election, but also won three years in a row. Hardly ever happens. I can't think of a time that it's happened. You always get elected, and then there's always a counterbalance from the other party. Biden won in 20, Biden won in 21, Biden won in 22, Biden won in 23. Pretty good for a guy that the right says

doesn't know politics. And even as you hear Democrats fishing around panicking about those polls you just referenced, maybe we should put Gavin Newsom in there real quick. We need somebody young and vital. The White House and the president would say Gavin Newsom is great. I already beat Donald Trump. I have evidence. There's actual evidence that I can beat Donald Trump. Everything else is speculation and wish casting. So they still believe that they have the upper hand, that they can win. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be close, just as it was last time. And Mark McKinnon, I was asked you as someone who's run

successful presidential campaigns to look at this from the Biden campaign's point of view, which is you've got good economic data that they're going to try to lean on. And then you've got this binary choice with a guy who's telling us, as we've been talking about for the last hour, every day what he would do to the country if he were put back in the White House. Well, that's it's so stark. I mean, what you want is a clear choice. And could there be a clearer choice between these two guys? I mean, the guy who's who has negotiated Ukraine and Israel and brought us through a time of international crisis the way he has. I don't think anybody else could have done that. He's the only one that had the history internationally to

bring the NATO together like it has. So listen, elections are all about choices. And we can talk about this, that, and the other. But at the end of the day, it looks increasingly like it'll be Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And that choice is pretty goddamn clear. Yeah, absolutely. Political strategist Mark McKinnon, Vanity Fair's Molly Jong fast. Thank you both very much for coming on this morning.