Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/16/23

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Biden, Xi hold high-stakes meeting in California

Mr. President, after today, would you still refer to President Xi as a dictator? This is a term that we used earlier this year. Well, look, he is. I mean, he's a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who true after what was otherwise a productive meeting yesterday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. We'll have more from their first face to face talks in a year. I will say that is Mika. If I know I don't interrupt, but I will in this case. That clip's kind of burying the lead. What we got. Well, we had a meeting that I thought went extraordinarily well.

Fortunately, we have the wise men here who can tell us love the fact that they're actually they understand that the United States and China, whether either side likes it or not, is we're going to be, in effect, running a large part of the planet over the next half century. As far as the economy, the environment, you name it. And yesterday, it sure was good seeing the two leaders of that country get together, those countries get together and say what they said. But again, we've got very wise people here. I don't think it's wearing the lead. Joe, hold on. I just think it's great that he could say the truth right there in front of him and continue also to try and work together. It's a two things can be true thing. Doesn't need to placate him.

I, I agree with you, Mika. What else do we have today? The latest out of Gaza following the Israeli raid of a hospital which sits on top of a command center for Hamas. The IDF releasing this video of weapons, it says, were inside the facility. Also ahead, the honeymoon period for Mike Johnson might be over as some hardline conservatives are now putting pressure on the new speaker. They've given him a lot of space, though, compared to Kevin McCarthy. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department's Elise Jordan, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four-star Navy Admiral James Tavridis.

He's chief international analyst for NBC News. So let's get to our top story. And Willie, take it away. All right. Let's begin with that high stakes meeting between President Biden, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, that was held in Woodside, California, about 35 miles south of San Francisco, marking their first meeting in just over a year. Xi was quoted through a translator as telling President Biden it is not an option for either country to turn its back on the other. It's also said there is room enough to coexist and to

both be successful and that one country's success is an opportunity for the other. President Biden said he secured agreements on three major issues, including an effort to reduce the direct shipment of fentanyl in all forms from China to the United States. President Biden importantly also announced the two militaries will resume direct contact and communication and that both nations will coordinate on risk and safety issues surrounding artificial intelligence. After the meeting, the president spoke about the progress and about managing the relationship with China. These are tangible steps in the right direction to determine what's useful and what's not useful, what's dangerous and what's acceptable.

The United States will continue to compete vigorously with the PRC, but will manage that competition responsibly so it doesn't veer into conflict or accidental conflict. And where it's possible, where our interests coincide, we're going to work together like we did on fentanyl. That's what the world expects of us. The rest of the world expects, not just in people in China and the United States, but the rest of the world expects that of us. And that's what the United States is going to be doing. So, Richard, let's go big picture first, just sort of the optics of the two men taking that walk through the garden.

And then the deliverables, on the other hand, which is the military communications, which Admiral can speak to in a moment as well. How important was this meeting? How important was even just the statement from President Xi that the world is wide enough, in effect, for both of us to succeed? Look, all things being equal, it's a good day. It's not sexy. It's day-to-day diplomacy. The word you used, I think, is exactly the right word, Willie, management. Things are not solved. These so-called deliverables or agreements, we'll see whether

they're implemented. A lot of life is about implementation, whether anything really changes with fentanyl, whether if and when there is a crisis, the military-to-military channels work, whether there's any change on climate. We go through the list. But the fact that they're meeting high level, they get a better sense of each other. You come away with a slightly better feel for things. I think I think that's healthy. Is it a turning point? Is it transformational? No. But is it all things being equal? Is this sort of thing positive? Is this constructive? The answer is absolutely. And I don't considering how bad relations have gotten, considering the fact we could not get Chinese military leaders on the phone of China using that chaos and a stretched United States military to go into Taiwan, all great fears.

And this quote, I mean, this is you and I have spoken about this before. And she sort of has echoed what a lot of foreign policy people have said when he said turning our backs on each other is not an option. And I realize I'm a nerd, but that is a sexy video right there, baby. I want the leaders of the two most powerful nations who have been at odds, whose military have not been in communication over the last year or so doing this. It's a starting point, but I understand that's all it is. But at least we're at the starting point of rebuilding this relationship. Yeah, 100 percent. And, you know, so much of life, Joe, is compared to what? And compared to a year

ago when visits of cabinet officials were being canceled, when spy balloons were circling the United States, when ships and planes were bumping in the night. This is a much, much better day. And by the way, I wouldn't understate particularly one of the deliverables, this military to military contact. What really ought to worry us is the idea of a miscalculation either around Taiwan or in the South China Sea, which China claims in its entirety as a territorial body of water. So you worry not so much about Tony Blinken and Lloyd Austin and Joe Biden and their counterparts. You worry about goose and maverick flying around in those jets up there. And I'll close with this. I think too much is being made of the dictator comment, you know, sort of saying saying that he's a dictator is

like saying that Jim Stavridis is a short guy. I am. It's a reality. So I would I would say Jim Stravitas is a learned, learned, respected voice, a giant of a man in foreign policy. But go ahead. Yeah, maybe I have picked up a few things along the road of life, but I am a short guy. And and so at the at the end of it all, I think I'm with Richard Haass. It's a good day's work. I think it's probably quite positive, if not a turning point, final thought. I think there's a little bit of chemistry going on here. And that's OK. You think back to Reykjavik and Reagan and Gorbachev and how'd that turn out? Eventually, we stopped the Cold War. Right. Could we look back at this moment? I don't know. Let's hope so. Elise, three, three, three words stuck out to me

yesterday when she called Joe Biden my old friend. You look at what's happening in Israel. And Biden may have to move another one of his old friends off the stage, work with Israelis. But, you know, I've said this for quite some time. I'm so sick and tired of people talking about we want an outsider to run the most important country in the world and the most complicated governmental bureaucracy. We want rock. We want Trump. We want these people who just, again, have no idea. No, no, no. If I'm getting brain surgery, I don't want a guy who's good in action movies. I want a guy who's the best brain surgeon and who's done it a thousand times. And this is this is where we see as far as foreign

policy. There's so many flashpoints that are happening right now. And thank God Joe Biden is in there. I'm just saying that. Thank God he's in there. We saw when Trump left, NATO was about to be blown apart. It's stronger now that it's ever been. We got what, 600 new miles along the Russian border. It's just it's extraordinary, the transformation. And all that is, is that's working relationships, using U.S. power, leveraging it for good. So, again, experience. Who would have ever thought it actually leads to good things? Xi Xi Jinping in particular, 70 years old, he and Biden have, you know, they've had a few spins at the wheel and they have some experience. There's

some shared experience there. I actually loved that he just was honest and said he's a dictator. I think it's good for him politically in America. The American people know he's a dictator. China is a politically contentious issue. There are very few foreign policy issues that actually matter to the electorate. But on both sides, you there are Americans who are infuriated by what they see as China taking advantage of us through trade. And so I think that at the same time that Biden can have the relationship, we need to be talking. He needs to present to the American public that, yes, he's still going to be tough and he still is doing this through a reality based lens. So, Richard, what about Taiwan? They said they discussed Taiwan. To what extent? We don't know.

We're talking about Israel, talk about Ukraine. Taiwan, of course, is the more direct concern when it comes to China. What's your sense of where things stand between these two men now? Nothing changed. For 40 or 50 years, this has been the central issue of the U.S.-Chinese relationship, particularly from China's point of view. It remains the biggest potential flashpoint. This has actually been brilliant diplomacy by the United States and China for half a century. We've learned how to agree to disagree. We've finessed it. We haven't solved it. We talk in certain code.

But the bottom line is we have different views of where things should go. Most important, though, we keep saying we do not want you, China, to resolve this coercively. To use a Middle East phrase, funnily enough, final status is going to have to be determined by the mainland and Taiwan. Our view is it not be coercive. We agree to disagree in the meantime. Xi Jinping talks about it as essential unification for what he calls the rejuvenation of China. It's central to his legacy. But we can't change Chinese dreams here. What we can do is influence their behavior and continue to signal to them that any use of force, any coercion against Taiwan would end the U.S.-Chinese relationship as we know it. It would be terrible for the Chinese

economy, the sanctions and so forth. So my hunch is yesterday, every meeting I've had with Chinese officials over the last 30 or 40 years, you go through it. It's almost like everybody talks in shorthand and you go through it. It has to be said. But I think the bottom line is nothing was changed, and that's okay. We're not looking for a change. And Admiral, it's been this way since 1979, since Mika served caviar and spilled it on Deng Xiaoping's pants, I'll just say. No, that's not appropriate. What's that?

Who among us hasn't? Who among us hasn't? And then tried to wipe it off afterwards, causing perhaps one of the great. By the way, this was confirmed by Jimmy Carter, who said, you know that Mika spilled caviar on tongue, shell, peen, scratch. But anyway, for those who don't understand why she was in that position as a 9 or 10-year-old girl, they opened relations, normalized relations at Mika's house. You know, we had one time we had the Dixie Youth baseball, you know, banquet over at a church down on our street. You also spilled caviar. Was it barbecue sauce?

Barbecue sauce. But going back to 1979, there's always been this sort of this creative fiction. Yeah. One China policy. China, you say what you say. We say what we say. We shake hands. We do this delicate dance. And we we basically we keep the ball in the middle of the table. Yeah. And it appears that and by the way, world peace may depend on that ball staying in the middle of that tape and this creative sort of fiction. But it looks like we got got a little more stabilization on that front yesterday. Yeah, I think that's right. And I'll add to Richard's excellent points a moment ago. Put yourself in Xi Jinping's shoes in Beijing as he watches this debacle unfold in Ukraine. And if you're Xi Jinping, you're kind of asking yourself three questions.

One is, I wonder if my generals are as bad as those Russian generals appear to be. That's a good question. You don't know. Your generals haven't been in combat forever. I was going to say, none of those generals have ever had a shot fired at them. And that's one of the important things that we've seen, is it not out of out of the Ukraine war that she saw Russian generals getting gunned down in warfare? And it seemed just the horrific. I know everybody loves to talk about how Russia is doing well. Russia's. No, this has been devastating for Russia. It set

their military back 30 years. It's exposed them as extraordinarily weak. What I mean, you're right. She carried that message in yesterday as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. And let's face it again. It's an enormous uncertainty for Xi having watched this Russian military break its fence on Ukraine. And then secondly, if you're Xi, you're thinking, I wonder if those Taiwanese are going to fight like hell the way the Russians have. Answer, he doesn't know. He's never been to Taiwan. I've been there. I've met with Madam Tsai, the president. I think I know their military pretty well. I think they'll fight. And that's uncertainty for Xi. And thirdly, he says, your point, sanctions. He watches the sanctions on Russia. They're not perfect. They're a slow moving train.

But he looks in that mirror and says, you know, my economy, it's too big to sanction. Right. We'll see. Yeah. And that's a ton of uncertainty for a man who doesn't like uncertainty. And five years ago, that economy was doing much better than it's doing right now. There's been a series of missteps by the leaders there that have actually put it in a position where, again, not not negotiating from the position of strength they would have five years ago. I want to hold up the official paper of record for Morning Joe, The New York Post. On the front page, a graphic illustration of war crimes, war crimes committed, of course, by Hamas, war crimes that won't be

discussed on college campuses today, war crimes that won't be discussed by haters of Israel today, war crimes that won't be discussed by haters of Jews today, by anti-Semites, about how Hamas knew when they launched the attacks against the Israelis, the terrorist attacks, they knew where they were going to hide. And that was underneath hospitals, inside of hospitals, all around. Any soft spot where civilians are at their most vulnerable, Hamas, the terror group, is going to hide there. A war crime, a war crime that you won't hear about on college campuses today, but a war crime we will discuss when we come back in Morning Joe. Israel is solidifying its hold over Gaza's main hospital. Troops stormed the medical complex yesterday amid claims Hamas built a command center under the building.

In a video released by Israeli Defense Forces, A spokesperson says troops found rifles, ammunition and other military equipment. NBC News has not independently confirmed what's shown in the video. The White House is defending Israel's raid. Officials say U.S. intelligence supports the claim that Hamas is hiding beneath the building. Here's what President Biden said last night. Here's the situation. You have a circumstance where the first war crime is being committed by Hamas by having their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital. And that's a fact. That's what's happened. Israel did not go in with a large number of troops, did not raid, did not rush everything down. They've gone in and they've gone in with their soldiers carrying weapons or guns.

They were told, told, let me be precise. We've discussed the need for them to be incredibly careful. So, Richard, the photograph that Joe showed on the cover of The New York Post, the confirmation from the NSC a couple of days ago, it's really just evidence of what everyone knows. This is what Hamas does, that they hide between civilians. What we talked about yesterday, they hide behind civilians instead of standing in front of them to protect them. And so this is the case that Israel has been making. There have been civilian casualties in Gaza and they're trying to protect them. And so this is the case that Israel has been making. There have been civilian casualties in Gaza and they're trying to avoid them. And that's a terrible thing. And nobody wants to see infants taken off life support machines. But this is what Hamas does. It hides

under hospitals and schools and it hides behind civilians to create exactly the scenes that we're seeing. And by the way, Willie, those those infants that, you know, they're talking about needing fuel. Guess who has fuel? Hamas has plenty of fuel. Plenty of fuel. Look, this is exactly what Israel's up against. And every single military operation the Israelis need to plan, you've got to deal with this dilemma. How do you get Hamas without causing all sorts of collateral damage with civilian casualties. I think the fact that what we're seeing, by the way, is a lot more Israeli forces on the ground rather than using large

bombs from the air. This is actually a good thing. By the way, it was so critical, was it not, last week when they, maybe it was two weeks ago, they actually cut Gaza in half, thereby putting themselves in a position where they didn't have to have the aerial bombardments as much as just, again, going street by street, house by house, room by room, searching for Hamas and their weapons. And most importantly, the hostages. Yes, it's more dangerous for the Israeli soldiers. Let's be honest. But they are willing to take that risk.

They've paid a cost. The number of Israeli soldiers wounded and killed has gone up. But this is in some ways to deal with international pressure that they do this as granularly, as discreetly as they can. There's still big issues. The mega strategic issues Israel hasn't addressed yet, hand off to what two states, we can talk about all that. But this, I think, yeah, I think this is educational. Going back to what Joe said, this ought to be part of the conversation. This just underscores what Israel's up against, the nature of Hamas. This is not a bug. This is this is the feature.

This is what Hamas does and how they do it. And it's what makes the military operation against them so, so difficult. Every single minute you are faced with dilemmas about how to how to how to how to fight a war, a war against this type of unconventional against terrorists. And it's, you know, again, Hamas did this. I'm not Hamas. ISIS did this in Mosul. Amazingly, the entire international community condemned ISIS. You have Hamas, who started this war with war crimes, unspeakable war crimes. They commit war crimes every single day. They hide behind civilians. And the international community condemns Israel. This is this is surreal when you have the leadership of Hamas hanging out at the Ritz Carlton or some fine hotel in Doha.

And they're hanging out and they're calling the shots and they plan this. And they knew what was going to happen when they unleashed this horrific terrorist attack. What was going to happen to the civilians in Gaza? They were going to have to seek medical care after Israel rained hell on them. And how how then would the Israelis be able to clear this hospital? And can you just talk about the sheer impossibility of literally routing Hamas from the largest hospital? Yeah, let's start with the center of gravity militarily here. It's like that old movie, The Graduate, when he gets advice in one word.

It's plastics in the movie. In this scenario, the one word military advice is tunnels, tunnels, 300 miles of these tunnels. Israel cannot avoid shutting that down. Otherwise, they cannot. Admiral, if you're in charge, let's just let's just say this, OK, if you're in charge there, you don't leave Gaza. No. Until that entire 300 mile tunnel network is destroyed. Hundred percent filled in, finished. Correct. And all the terrorists driven above ground and arrested are killed. Correct. And it's it's a mega task. But the right answer is boots on the ground. And, you know, we talk all the time about precision guided missiles and are very precise drones.

The most precise thing on a battlefield is an infantryman with a rifle. And so what you're seeing Israel do, at least your question, is use that very precision guided weapon, the infantry, at cost, as Richard reminds us. But moving them in, that's the only way you can minimize these casualties. But I'll conclude where I started. The Israelis are not going to leave that battlefield until that tunnel system is gone, because if they don't, they can't turn to the mothers of Israel and say, your children are safe in their nurseries tonight. They're going to take out that tunnel system, and they should. So while all this is going on in Gaza, going on in Israel, back here at home, at least one person was arrested during a pro-Palestinian protest outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters. It was a wild

scene last night. U.S. Capitol Police were there. They clashed with demonstrators. At least six officers suffered minor injuries. Protest organizers say at least 100 participants were injured after being pepper sprayed and pushed by police. The group was calling for a ceasefire in the war as scores of Democratic representatives and candidates were inside the building for a campaign reception. Protesters say they wanted to block the entrances and exits to force the politicians to listen to them. Capitol Police posted on social media claiming about 150 people were, quote, illegally and violently protesting. Organizers dispute that claim,

telling the Washington Post they had just locked arms when police responded with, quote, brute force. You know, Willie. Leadership was in there, Hakeem Jeffries and others in there, exits and entrance blocked by the police. Well, and the police, D.C. police, were prepared for this because those same people

had those same violent protests when Assad killed 500000 Arabs during the civil war. And also when tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed by Assad, those same protests, of course, taking place outside the DNC. Oh, wait, I'm getting word from our DNC correspondent. That didn't happen. No, that didn't happen. And how fascinating that the only time we see these protests are after Jews get slaughtered and Jews are trying to defend themselves against the worst attack since the Holocaust. But they have the nerve to act self-righteous when they sat in silence as 500,000 Arabs were slaughtered, including tens of thousands of Palestinians by Assad. You see, it's OK for them. They're fine when Palestinians are slaughtered by

Arab leaders. It's just when Jews try to defend themselves, suddenly it's a war crime and suddenly they're getting self-righteous. It's kind of sickening. Yeah, we're seeing it at the DNC. We're seeing it on college campuses. And let's just talk practically, Admiral, about the idea of a ceasefire. Hillary Clinton wrote that piece two days ago that said that would be a nightmare for obviously for Israel. By the way, there was a ceasefire brief one in place on October 6th. We saw what happened on October 7th. The obvious point is that a ceasefire, Hamas is not going to cease firing. Oh, indeed. And militarily enormous difference. And Secretary Clinton's exactly right. A ceasefire that blankets everything,

that's like the put down your pencils moment on the SAT. It all stops. That's not what's going to happen here. However, Israel needs to use a whole series of pauses, that is the correct phrase, to get humanitarian aid in, to get trucks in, to evacuate these hospitals. And oh, by the way, that ought to be the job of Hamas to get the civilians out of these hospitals and get them down Israeli safe routes, get them out. All that is manageable in a series of humanitarian pauses. But the idea of a ceasefire militarily is ludicrous at this point. And of course, Hamas wouldn't do that because Hamas likes seeing Palestinians killed. That's in fact, they set up their entire defense to hide behind Palestinian civilians. What Willie said yesterday

was so clarifying that U.S. troops do everything they can to stand between the person with a gun and the civilian. Hamas does everything they can to put the civilian in between themselves and the person coming to get them to get retribution for the terror attack that they had before. Richard, even the term ceasefire, if you're an Israeli and you hear the term ceasefire, it's laughable because ceasefire is defined so loosely when you're talking about Hamas. A ceasefire means Hamas rains rockets down on Israel and they can only hope they can shoot them out of the sky before their women and children and grandparents are killed. The term is nonsensical when you're up against a terrorist organization whose charter and whose behavior is to kill Jews and destroy the Jewish state. There's no such thing as a ceasefire. At most, Hamas has tactical pauses. So I think the answer is Israel, though, needs to agree to these pauses in some ways to push back

against the ceasefire, since the ceasefire makes no strategic sense for Israel, given the threat they face. The reason for Israel to embrace the pauses is you need something to beat back these calls for a ceasefire. The pauses make sense on a humanitarian side. If you marry periodic pauses with very careful use of military force, I think Israel and the United States can control at least enough some of the narrative in the UN and elsewhere. And I think that's the goal. And again, then the pressure is on Israel to complement their military strategy here with a larger strategy. And that's the conversation for another day. What does Israel do to deal with Palestinians who are not Hamas? Right. That's and that's what's really been missing from this Israeli government. And that's what I think for President Biden is

going to be the challenge. You and I have talked about it before, but people like me think he ought to go to the Knesset. He ought to put on the table a much larger strategy for Israelis that the United States ought to get behind. But in the narrow, if we're going to we need to continue to push back against a ceasefire. So I think I think this is this is the way to go. And I thought last night the president was very strong on that. Alex, in my ear, said the key words there, a conversation for another day. Richard Austin, retired four star admiral James Trevitas, both giants, I tell you, giants in U.S. foreign policy. Thank you so much for being with us, Mika. Great group coming up. Congress averts a government shutdown. For now, we'll have the

latest from Capitol Hill as another spending fight now looms in the new year amid new debt dissatisfaction with Republican leadership from party hardliners in the House. Plus, Joe Manchin said last week he will not seek re-election to the Senate, but he's not ruling out a run for the White House. We'll show you what the West Virginia Democrat said yesterday in an interview with NBC News. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Demanding of our leadership, put the right bills on the floor with the right policy in them at the right levels and then we'll vote for them but don't act like you're actually trying to get to a correct spending level and don't act like you're actually going to fight on these issues when you plan to fail we've got to fundamentally actually achieve any single thing our voter senate is here

to achieve speaker johnson has now the time over Thanksgiving to coordinate a plan. He said that he needs time now. And I get that. All right. Freedom Caucus members telling reporters they are frustrated over the clean government funding bill that passed in the House with support from Democrats on Tuesday, which did not include spending cuts nor any conservative policy add ons. It comes as the House has recessed early for its Thanksgiving break after Republican members of the Conservative Freedom Caucus revolted and tanked a vote in the chamber yesterday. The vote was for a rule to move forward with one of 12 appropriations bills the House must pass each year.

It just is always exciting on Capitol Hill, Joe. Well, I mean, depends on what you consider exciting. I did like the headline of the Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday. Meet the new speaker, same as the old speaker, Kevin McCarthy would have been torched politically to, to, to pass a clean CR that depended on massive democratic support. Of course, you know, guys throwing elbows around now. So I'm not so sure that there's ever a route back for speaker there. But but yeah, I mean, this whole idea, you know, people going around going, oh, we have a more conservative speaker. No, you don't. It's it's the same thing. It's the same problems.

And and it's it just was all just ring. Let's bring right now the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan O'Meara, and special correspondent for Vanity Fair and host of the Fast Politics podcast, Molly John Fast. Jonathan, before we get we have a New Hampshire poll. It's just absolutely fascinating. impression on on this meeting yesterday with Xi that really finally moved sort of the ball back to the center of the table. Yeah. And it was it was it was about turning the calendar back to November 2022 when the two men met in Bali before the spy balloon, before relations really deteriorated. The White House feels like they've they've done that. And yes, there's a lot of discussion last night and this morning about the president in this Q&A afterwards saying the president Xi Jinping was

a dictator. But by definition, he is. And she and by the way, she took that as a compliment. Do you know what she said? Damn right. She smiled, nodded, high-fived him and then moved on. I mean, although I will say the actual when you're watching the video, the reaction of Secretary of State Blinken when Biden says that he like visibly flinches. So there might be a little bit of cleanup to be done there with Beijing. For the most part, White House officials feel good about it. They feel good about the fentanyl agreement. They feel good, very importantly, about military to military communication being reestablished, some agreements on climate change as well. But more than anything, just the fact that two leaders are there. They do have a personal rapport. They knew each other

years ago when they were both the equivalent of vice president in their respective governments. Taiwan looms as a flashpoint. But this is important. And for this White House, they feel like we can reset things. We can calm things so we can devote our attention to other matters like Israel and Ukraine. Yeah, I think a very good day for Biden. A good day for the United States. A good day for, again, a more stable, stable world order because of this relationship. Speaking of Joe Biden, a couple of days ago, we commented here that Joe Biden just may be the generic Democrat that always fares better than Joe Biden, the actual candidate. That when the election comes, it happens time and again. Joe Biden is always underestimated. Joe Biden wins. That's what he's been doing since 2020. It's what he's been doing since South

Carolina. So I had a reporter call me a couple of days ago. He's doing a story. He said, help me out here. What if you had to pick a number that's most important? Like if you could know any number on Election Day, what would it be? Would it be Joe Biden's approval ratings? And I laugh. They go not even close, not even close because people just sort of like Joe Biden. No, no. I said I said it's irrelevant. It's been irrelevant. It was irrelevant before the so-called red wave On and on and on. And so yesterday, this reporter calls me back and said, did you see the New Hampshire poll? And I said, no. He said, you should look at it because it proves your point.

Here, well, TJ, TJ. Joe. There you go. So I'm not going to tell you how he's doing in the actual poll, but Joe Biden's approval rating in New Hampshire, a very important state, obviously, one that both candidates, whoever they maybe need to win, only 37 percent. Now you match them up with the same people that gave him a 37 percent approval rating, match them up with the election. OK, TJ, this is where you go. Joe Biden beating Donald Trump by five points. And Molly, even if you throw everybody in the kitchen sink and Joe Biden

still ahead, the point being, OK, people just kind of like to bitch and moan sometimes when they're talking to pollsters. But when it's Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the swing states that matter the most, they're just going to break for Biden. I'm not whistling past a graveyard. They just are. Well, we saw this, right? The reason why Biden got the nomination was not because he was the furthest left or even the closest to the middle was because he seemed the most electable. And we've seen this again and again. You know, he goes into these elections and people say, well, he's boring. And, you know, we don't get excited about him. We want some other random candidate who's going to get people excited. The rock. Right. The rock. But the reason why he does well is because people like these Democratic ideas and they think and they've seen him enact a lot of that.

They like the Democratic ideas. They like freedom for women to have power over their own lives. They like 10 year old girls having the freedom along with their parents and their clergy and their their their medical providers to make decisions if they've been raped by illegal immigrants. Donald Trump doesn't. Certainly the United States Supreme Court immigrants. Donald Trump doesn't. Certainly the United States Supreme Court decision, Dobbs doesn't.

And they also, I mean, they like what they saw yesterday. A grown-up dealing with grown-up problems. Like, the takeaway for Donald Trump and she in their first meeting was, I swear to God, Donald Trump, if nobody remembers, said, we had the greatest chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago. She and their first meeting was the Donald. I swear to God, Donald Trump, if nobody remembers, said. We had the greatest chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago you have ever had. We had the had the that was his deliver.

It was good in fairness. Well, it was the molten where it spills out when you cut into it. Very moist. I get it. I love those type of cakes. Was that one of the dinners where classified documents were just floating around, too? I think that was the Japanese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Japanese.

But when they get it, we laugh about it now, when they get into the voting booth, all of those things we talked about, freedom, maturity, and actually a grown-up dealing with huge crises, makes a difference when people walk into a voting booth. And Donald Trump, it's only going to get worse over the next year. Just think how January isn't going to be justified by what's happening in the caucus, in the primaries. It's going to be Donald Trump's legal problems are just going to keep being at the forefront. And so I'm really watching. You're talking about the Dobbs decision, what I let's call them Dobbs dads. And they're those dads who tend to be conservative and they might still be pro-life, but they don't like that the government has gotten involved to this extent and is going to dictate their wife, their daughter's health care. And so that's enough that if Biden can pull those voters,

and I think that he probably will after what we saw just, you know, two Tuesdays ago or last Tuesday. And Donald Trump running around bragging that he, quote, terminated Roe v. Wade. Exactly. And we saw those Dobbs dads, what, two weeks ago, a week and a half ago in Kentucky. We saw them in Virginia. We saw them in that ballot initiative in Ohio. Another interesting element of that poll and some others that came out yesterday, John, is that this is for people worried about Joe Biden, is that Donald Trump really is the best opponent for Joe Biden. These other head to head matchups, Ron DeSantis leads by more than Donald Trump would. Nikki Haley. Oh, wow. Massively way over Joe Biden in one national poll. So Donald Trump, it's not going to be easy. It's going to be close. We already know that. But he very well may be the best chance for Joe Biden to be reelected.

And that's always been the case, even before the 2022 midterms, talking to White House strategists and those who want to get Joe Biden a second term. We're like, well, Donald Trump's the guy we want to see. We want to see. We think that's who we're going to see. That's also who we're going to see. And Republicans had that choice. I mean, they still do. No votes have been cast yet. But right now, Trump is up 30, 40 percent in every single GOP poll. So certainly he looks like it will be him. And the Biden team feels they know it'll be close, but they feel pretty good about that, in part because they know, just like in 2020, there may not be a groundswell of support for Joe Biden, but there will be a groundswell of support against Donald Trump and for certain issues, particularly abortion rights. You know, let's just, what is today?

What year are we in? November 16th, 2023. Remember, I said it here on this date. If Biden runs against Trump and if Biden beats Trump, as I think about the conspiracy theorists will say, Donald Trump was on the ropes and then the Democrats knew they were in trouble. So they started indicting him. And with every indictment, Donald Trump's approval rating in the Republican Party went up. Right. And he's now the latest I saw is he's at 85 percent when he was down to 55, 60 percent before the indictment started coming in. That can be your conspiracy theory if you want. But how screwed up to belong to a party that actually rewards a guy for being indicted for stealing nuclear secrets and stealing elections. But, you know, Republicans have a base problem. Their base controls their party. Right. And so that's why Donald Trump is going to be their nominee. And I'm thinking about with this off off year election and all of the things that they ran on that were losers besides abortion.

Book bans. Right.woke, gas stoves. What do you say? The trans panic, trans panic, right? That your kids are all going to become trans by reading books. By the way, my favorite illustration of how crazy that is, is they had this huge fight in Utah. It was like, oh, my God, these trans athletes are taking over all the women's sports. It's the worst thing in the world. And the governor said. We have four students for the entire state of Utah. Can we can we try to figure this out and do it with compassion? Yeah. It doesn't mean that like guys that transition and into being women post puberty should compete against them. Right.

But we have four students. Let's not have a civil war over four students. But that's the trans panic. Yeah. And they thought that was going to work. Didn't work. Like taking freedom away from women didn't work. Stealing elections, denying didn't. This thing. You're right. It is a baseball like Democrats. What do they do with their base? We'll get back to it in a couple of weeks. I mean, but the Republican base is running the show. They run the show. Yeah. And that's why I mean, the book bans Moms for Liberty's Liberty had a really bad night. I mean, all of this stuff is because Republicans cannot control their base. Their base now runs the show. And so you have these crazy ideas being shopped and Republicans are losing on these ideas. And quite frankly, they should. They're morally

reprehensible. And the government and, you know, it's overreach. People don't want the government in their bedroom and in their schools. And I mean, they want them. And yet, and yet there's actually an outfit called Moms for Liberty who support freedom being taken away from their daughters. I think there should be an outfit called Dads for Freedom that says to the government, you know what? We'll take care of our daughter. Yeah, we'll we'll. Her mother and I will make the decision with our daughter, with health care specialists, with like get out of our lives.

And yet moms for liberty. Seriously. Worried about what? Roberto Clemente books. And you see and you see doctors. I mean, this other thing is that you're undermining doctors. Right. You have doctors leaving red states because they can't practice medicine where there already are not enough OBGYN providers in rural communities. So the saying goes, Democrats hate their base. Republicans fear their base. And that's really playing out right now. And you see, I mean, not the Democrats hating their base as much. I'm not. No, but it's just that's just kind of that's the political, you know, saying it a long time. But if you look at those New Hampshire polls and just how Nikki Haley would crush Donald, she would crush Joe Biden. If the Republican Party actually had a political apparatus that, you know, did some party control and actually was and would strong arm. But instead, you have a political party that each person, top leadership wants to keep their power and not be transplanted by Trump.

Yeah. I will say also, Willie, and I've noticed this since Joe Biden's been president. I'll say it again. The progressives have been extraordinarily patient. They've been the opposite of the right wing extremists. They've actually kept progressives have kept the bigger goal in mind. We need to win elections. We need to have Joe Biden continue to appoint federal judges. We need to win governors. I mean, they have progressives have done the opposite of what the extremes in the Republican Party have done. And it shows because of that, because of progressives working with moderates, they just keep winning elections. I was going to say, look at the results.

Look at last Tuesday. Look at 2022. It goes on and on and on. And to Elise's point, that poll, the New York Times-Siena poll that caused so much panic for Joe Biden, went sort of unnoticed that Nikki Haley in head-to-heads was winning by double digits over Joe Biden, who went sort of unnoticed that Nikki Haley in head to heads was winning by double digits over Joe Biden in those swing states. And yet Republicans are by and large

want to cast their lot with Donald Trump. And now there's been another push. Some GOP donors are eyeing Haley. They might try to throw some more money behind that, but it might just be too little too late at this point, just a few months from Iowa and then New Hampshire. And they're right, Joe, the progressives have been remarkably disciplined and patient. We're seeing a little splintering right now because of what's happening in the Middle East. Certainly, that's something that alarms some people in the Biden world. Are they going to stay with us? Are they going to stay home? But to this point, they're with the president. They have been with the president to this point. And it's, of course, there are issues of enthusiasm going forward. But again,

if Trump's the name on the other side of the ballot, they like the chances. Yeah. But, you know, Molly, the problem with the base in these polls that really won't matter at all. I mean, they just won't. The base is going to vote for Joe Biden. More specifically, he's going to vote against Donald Trump. The problem's not really been with the Democratic base as much as it's been with people of color, especially men, black men, Hispanic men, younger voters. That's been the problem with those polls. And again, you're talking about groups that by and large are going to come home. I seriously anybody who thinks Donald Trump's going to get 22 percent of black voters,

please go to the morning Joe betting site and bet Eleven. Take the under. Yeah, I will take the under. I'll take the under, too. But but again, it's again, just to underline again, progressives. And of course, they they they feel very strongly on some foreign policy issues, but again, have stayed together with the caucus. And Biden has done a lot of progressive legislation. I think it's worth remembering that he has gone in there. The infrastructure spending is huge progressive legislation. You know, they've they're rebuilding trains and bridges and roads. And also, you know, he's worked really hard on student debt. And while the Supreme Court has gotten in his way, he has continually tried to do creative things with student debt in

a way that a president who was more conservative probably would not. No doubt about it. Vanity Fair's Molly Jong fast. Thank you so much, as always. It's great to see you, Molly.