Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/17/23

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Israeli troops continue to search Gaza’s main hospital

The long-awaited ethics report on Santos came out today. Investigators found what they called substantial evidence of criminal wrongdoing. And the report claims, among other things, Santos used campaign funds on personal items like Sephora cosmetics, trips to Atlantic City, and even OnlyFans. Turns out they don't sell fans at all. The name of the site is very misleading, but. Republican Congressman George Santos providing an awful lot of material for the late night shows. We'll go through a very damning ethics report. That was just the tip of the iceberg there from Jimmy Kimmel and showed the response from the New York lawmaker who says he's sticking around.

We'll see if he can talk about that in just a minute. Also ahead, we'll have the latest from the Middle East. Israel says it has more evidence Hamas is operating out of a hospital in Gaza. It comes as the IDF recovered the body of a hostage near that facility. And we will recap another diplomatic day on the West Coast for President Biden, where he met with the leaders of South Korea and Japan. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, November 17th. With us this morning, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, former chairman of the

Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, an assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief for The New York Times, Elizabeth Bue Miller. So let's dive right in this morning. Israeli troops continue to search Gaza's main hospital. For more evidence, Hamas is operating out of the building. Yesterday, Israeli defense forces released this video of what they say is a operational tunnel shaft. They also say they have found Hamas weapons there. NBC News cannot independently verify those claims, but we have been able to verify the location shown in the video is just outside of the hospital building. Israel says there have been no casualties since its raid began on Wednesday. The hospital had to shut down over the weekend due to a lack of fuel and supplies. Still, hundreds of patients

are inside and need medical care. The fuel shortage also has caused Internet and phone services to collapse across the Gaza Strip. The breakdown of communications network, which is crucial for coordinating and deliveries, will keep the United Nations from getting aid into that territory today. So, Joe, the IDF says the Israeli government now evidence that Hamas was working out of that hospital. And obviously, it would be great if Hamas would use some of its fuel. It has big reserves of it to keep that hospital running. Right. No doubt about it. Front page, New York Times talking about Israel coming through the Gaza hospital for evidence of Hamas using that hospital. What did The Times find?

The Times, our international editor, Phil Pan, and our Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Hinsley, went on a tour of the hospital with IDF forces with them the whole time. They said they saw a shaft, a dark shaft that seemed to be leading underground. But you couldn't. They were the Israeli forces didn't want to go into it for fear of the booby traps. And Phil and Patrick reported that you couldn't. It seemed to go underground, but they couldn't go into it. So they couldn't completely verify the claims that these were tunnels. Now, we also know from our sources, from administration officials, from intelligence gathering that they say, yes, there are tunnels underneath that hospital.

And the administration says these are our own intelligence sources, not the Israelis. Right. And this is where the fight goes now. where you're going to have Israeli troops eventually having to lower themselves into shafts, trying to figure out how to work through the tunnel networks, not only to seek out Hamas, but obviously to look for the hostages. Yeah, I mean, there are people in this world whose sad job it is to study warfare in tunnels specifically. There are academics who study this, and it'd be useful. I've spoken to a couple of them, but it's incredibly difficult. What the Israelis are thinking of doing, but it's incredibly difficult. What the

Israelis are thinking of doing, partly because of what Elizabeth said, that these are booby-trapped, some of the hostages may be in there as well, and so there's a risk to the hostages potentially. This is not an easy feat. I think we have had the perception over the last few years that the Israeli military and the Israeli intelligence services were almost invincible. They had this reputation for being so powerful and so all-knowing. And the events of October the 7th revealed certainly that the intelligence was not invincible. And now the Israeli military is going to be tested in a way that is very difficult for any military. This puts person against person. And Israeli military forces have not been training very extensively over the last few years in urban combat.

They haven't been doing simulations of tunnel raids in big numbers for a long time. It's really, it's extraordinary. This is very difficult. This is not easy. Yeah, isn't it extraordinary? This is, I mean, this is what the United States learned how to do over 20 years leading up to Mosul, where we had to guide warfare, you know, street by street, building by building, room by room. And it's extraordinarily difficult.

But again, as Katty said, here you have the Israelis who used to, you know, know how to do this. Let's just say it. Netanyahu was so busy taking the fight to the Supreme Court and the rule of law that they stopped focusing on their main enemy. They stopped focusing in every way and they stopped focusing on the enemy in Gaza and instead was obsessing over allowing extremists to settle in the West Bank. In every single way, they have left the Israeli people vulnerable. And it's not like we started hearing this on October 8th. I started hearing from people in Israel throughout the year that the that the secular, secular Israelis who had been the backbone of defending the nation were being pushed out. And it was extremists, religious extremists who really didn't give a damn about things like the military or or, you know, Mosul. I think I think, Joe, the points that both you and Katty raise

speak to the idea that you have a situation where the politics overwhelms the process and the information. And that becomes the way in which things are dictated and outcomes are determined. And so you lose sight of the mission because you're concerned about the politics. And you just referenced what Netanyahu is going through domestically. Meanwhile, you have a policy in which he does not want to engage on the two-state solution. He takes that off the table.

So there is no intelligence gathering with respect to, okay, so what happens? What's going to happen? You take that off the table, and you have this concentration of forces. With respect, I mean, let's just say it. It's not his to take off the table. Israel is there because of us. It's not his to take off the table. It's not his to take. He's the one who put Israel in this place.

I'm just saying. And we're the ones that are going to keep Israel fighting, going to continue to support them. We have every right to tell Netanyahu and anybody else that if you want our support, if you want our continued support, you're going to take care of the West Bank. But Biden has started to say he's told them to protect Palestinians on the West Bank. But that's now, Joe. I'm talking about what before now, before before we got to October 7th. Of course not. And you had Israeli policy was not to engage on. Oh, right. No, of course. Of course not. And you know, the Israeli policy was not to engage on. Oh, right. No, I know. I'm talking about now. But now now it's I don't know how much the Israelis in Netanyahu are actually listening to the Biden administration.

I mean, they the administration was pushing very hard to delay the invasion and they delayed somewhat. But the Israelis are not taking all the advice the U.S. is giving at all. And so and now the U.S. is stuck with what we're seeing is pulling back and saying, well, they have the right to defend themselves. They have a moral obligation to defend themselves. But we have they have got to they have got to watch out for civilian casualties. And now we have 11000 Palestinians dead in Gaza. We believe it health ministry. Whose numbers are those? Those are the health ministry numbers, so we don't know. The Hamas numbers.

But even last night, Netanyahu on American television was pressed on whether he would still support a two-state solution, would support a two-state solution given everything that's happened and given what is going on right now in Gaza. And he would not. He wouldn't. I mean, just look at it. He's standing in the way of the only thing that could lead to some sort of silver lining out of this horror.

Hard to imagine a worse face for Israel right now than Bibi Netanyahu. sees him on the screen, except those working in his cabinet, understand, Willie, that every step he takes is a move to preserve himself politically. Everyone knows he's the guy that let Israel down. He's the guy that allowed October 7th to happen. He's the guy that for years was so focused on undermining the rule of law in Israel that he actually compromised the forces there. So who says that? Who says that? Not some guy in Washington, D.C. That's what the Israelis say. And if the Israelis say it, imagine how horrible it is across the rest of the world. The question is, at what point does he leave and allow Israel to have a new start so everything they do is not looked at through a lens of suspicion?

And polling supports what you just said, which is that Israelis are united without question because they came under attack on October 7th, but they're not united around Bibi Netanyahu. They're united around their nation. And Jonathan Lemire, to the question of the president and what he can do here, he does have some levers to pull. He does have some weight to throw around here because of the United States' support of Israel. So what is your sense right now of the balancing act he's been pulling for more than a month now, which is unequivocal public support and private pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu on the way he's prosecuting the war and on the way he's behaving in the West Bank. Yeah, and that was the White House plan from the beginning. President

Biden would hug Netanyahu close right at the start of this, his trip to Israel, but also to create that space for him to chide and push if needed. And those pushes have picked up in pace. It doesn't look like he's enjoying that hug. No, you can see his facial expression. He's like, seriously, do I have to do this? My God, OK. It is always carefully. It's always carefully said that these two men have known each other for a long time.

It's never been added that they've liked each other a long time. President Biden has not been a big fan of Prime Minister Netanyahu for quite some decades. But this was the idea. That was not the hug. If we can go back to that picture, that was neither the hug at the end of when Harry met Sally or you got mail. I don't. That ain't Tom. That ain't Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

Oh, the best. Casablanca and then when Harry met Sally. I know that ain't Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Oh, the best. Casablanca and then When Harry Met Sally. Love Actually, The Hugs at the Airport. That ain't this. Love Actually is a polarizing movie choice here. As we go into the Christmas season and we're talking about Middle East peace, next we're going to tackle the second most controversial question of our time, and that is whether Love Actually is the greatest movie ever or just pure, unadulterated sap. So let's get back to this.

I'm a huge Love Actually fan, but go ahead. Yeah, I'll take the other side of that. But let's take, let's get back, but not now, not now, later. But let's get back to. There may be no later for you. Jonathan Lemire, thank you so much. Incredible. Go ahead. Go ahead. So back to you. Thank God. Let's get back to what's happening there in the Middle East. Yes, we've heard the administration still unequivocally publicly saying Israel has the right to defend itself.

But there are the worries behind the scenes have really grown. And the frustration with Netanyahu has grown. And we've been reporting for weeks now, the White House is already planning or plotting for considering a post-Bibi Israel. They see the poll numbers. They see how unpopular he is. The opposition leader has come out this week calling for Netanyahu to step aside. There's no expectation that's going to happen immediately. There's a sense he will be allowed to steer this first phase of the war. But as the civilian casualties mount, and you're right, we can't take Hamas's numbers precisely right. But there is a sense from neutral observers as well, those numbers are high,

that they understand this is a difficult situation for the U.S. to keep fully backing Israel in every phase of the war. They're hoping they'll slow down. They're hoping this will remain a targeted search. But there's some frustration in the deal there, that temporary pause deal to let the hostages out, which was seemingly close a few days ago. Now, now, Joe, seems further apart. Right. And there's some independent there, some independent numbers that that are close, I think, to the numbers that Elizabeth, you were talking about. I think the United Nations has taken a guess at it. The United States government's taken a guess at it. And they're saying it's in the thousands. We don't know exactly. But yeah, they're bad. They're very, very, very disturbing. Yeah. Very bad. Very disturbing. And Michael, just getting back to the to the two state solution.

You know, there was this belief during the Abraham Accords and I thought it was cynical at the time that. Israel could make peace with the UAE. Israel could make peace with the Saudis. Israel could make peace with Bahrain. Israel could make peace with everybody and just pretend the Palestinians weren't there. We said it at the time. It's like you think you can work around. I said this to people in the Trump administration, you think it can work around the Palestinians? They're not going anywhere. And it underlined two things.

One, that the Israelis were cynical and were doing everything they could to ignore the Palestinians plight. And the second thing is it's not really reported as much, just how much, just how much the Palestinians neighbors just detest them, have no use for them, haven't had any use for them for a very long time, don't want them in their country and are willing to actually team up the Sunni Arab nations, team up with Israel. Right. And at the expense of the Palestinians. And now this is blown up for the entire region. And now they're paying in Jordan. They're paying in Egypt. They're paying in Saudi Arabia, again, for not tackling this issue head on. And all I'm saying is when we get through this first phase, however long, next month or so, and Netanyahu's moved aside, the United States just has to say, yes, we support your right to defend yourself, to destroy Hamas. But we also are going to demand the other end of that is it's not going to be easy to do now.

But at some point, you've got to move to a two state solution and take care of the chaos that's going on in the West Bank. I think you're right about that. I think in the end, when you so we're talking in a post Netanyahu Israel, you're going to have a merge, presumably, as was reported. You know, the opposition is already beginning to position the Israeli people want that change. You're going to have a momentum or an energy behind that. So the work in the region will have a greater incentive on the heels of all of this now to get behind that two-state solution in a way that before October 7th, they were disinclined to do for their own particular reasons. That is the one thing that's going to come out of this, people hope, that there's,

basically, this is the only viable solution out of this mess. It's a two-state solution. And, you know, we were, this has been discussed for the past month, that this is the one thing that will come out of this disaster, is that this is the only way forward. And increasingly, people will see that in the Middle East. And, you know, and interestingly, the Times had a really interesting interview with Hamas leaders a week or so ago. And they basically were feeling so, so isolated in the region. And they launched this attack as kind of a last resort because they felt completely abandoned by everybody else

and realized that this was the last thing they could do. And American politics is moving this way, too. I mean, it's interesting that this was the last thing they could do. And, you know, American politics is moving this way, too. I mean, it's interesting that even before the October the 7th attack, Gallup polled for the first time earlier this year that amongst Democrats there was more sympathy for Palestinians than there was for Israel. Since the attack, 60% of people under 30 in this country say that America shouldn't be arming Israel

in the way that it is at the moment. And that's a shift taking place in American politics that I think if you had a two state solution that was actually viable with a leader in Israel that actually seemed to be doing something for Palestinians, not just constantly against them, that could actually help American could help the White House, too. There's pressure building in this country for that, too. You know, like Osama bin Laden, when the towers fell, Hamas actually has been victims of catastrophic success, as the saying goes. And they left Israel, its allies, even the Arab nations with no alternative to move away from them and move towards a future solution. And that means for Sunni Arab nations, they can no longer cynically ignore the Palestinians' plight. And they're going to have to work together in the region, along with Israel, the United States,

and everybody else to move towards a two-state solution. It might be helpful if Israel stops the illegal settlements, because every illegal settlement they just set up at this point makes the entire process that much uglier down the road. And they've been doing that for years now. When we come back, a follow up on yesterday's conversation about how I don't know why, but my old party just loves to hate the United States of America. You know, it used to be we'd raise flags, we'd sing we're proud to be Americans. We go America's greatest country in the world. Hell yeah. Now, Donald Trump's constantly trashing the United States of America, constantly trashing the

military, constantly trashing our law enforcement officers and the intel community. And we've got a speaker that says the United States is to pray sort of a Sodom and Gomorrah and that Jesus is coming for us. How do you rule a country that you think so little of? We'll talk about that when we return on this happy, happy Friday. Beautiful picture of the United States Capitol, 621 in the morning, the sun just starting to think about coming up on a Friday morning. A new report by Rolling Stone looks into House Speaker Mike Johnson's views on American culture, which he calls, quote, dark and depraved. In an October prayer call just last month with the World Prayer Network, weeks before he became Speaker of the House, Johnson talked about an America facing a civilizational moment. The only question is, is God going to allow our nation to enter a time of judgment for our collective sins, which his mercy and grace have held back for some time?

Or is he going to give us one more chance to restore the foundations and return to him? We will not be able to do it without the Lord's help because there's so, the flesh and the mistrust and the sin and everything is so great here that this is going to have to bring people to their knees. And I look, I believe God is about to do something. Do you have time to answer the question? Did you say any more about the issue of this could be a time of judgment for America?

Well, I mean, I don't, I'd be, I'd say I'd preach for the choir on this Zoom call or maybe the honor choir. You all know the terrible state that we're in. The faith in our institutions is the slowest it's ever been in the history of our nation. The culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable at this point. You know, the church attendance in America dropped below 50% for the first time in our history since they began to measure the data 60 years ago. And the number of people who do not believe in absolute truth is now above the

majority for the first time. So one in three teen girls contemplated suicide last year. One in four high school students identifies as something other than straight. We're losing the country. Where to begin there, Joe? There's so much. America is irredeemable. It's dark and depraved. Just to let's lift ourselves out of the subtext. He went on to say, really, what he's talking about here is that we have gay people in America. He said one in four high school students say that they are something other than straight is the way he put it. So he's very worried about that. But also, I just have to say, Joe, he said the faith in our institutions and doubt about absolute truth. This is the man who helped to lead the attempted coup against the

United States government and overturned the 2020 election. He's very worried about faith and institutions. Willie, he ran the big lie on Capitol Hill. Yes. He's about that Jimmy Swagger, right? And then go to your motel room and start like faxing around, you know, conspiratorial documents. It is it is the hypocrisy. I there's so much hypocrisy to go back to, whether it's Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, whether it's Jimmy Swaggart. There's so much hypocrisy to go to here about a guy, again, trying to undermine our institutions. The guy who's

trying, who led in the House of Representatives, the attempt to undermine the United States Constitution, an American presidential election and an attempt to basically end American that our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen took into battle over 200 years to defend this country. The hypocrisy, the hypocrisy in the words of, I think it was Homer Simpson, when somebody accidentally threw communion water in his eyes. It burns. It burns. There's so much hypocrisy here. That's part one. Part two is, I just have to go back to the question I asked yesterday. I'm serious. Why do Republicans hate America so much?

I'm an evangelical. I believe whether people think it's crazy or not. I believe, you know, what the gospels say. I believe what the Serm mount says i believe in jesus we're all sinners we're all fallen right but i'm very optimistic about america's future because i see the good in people i see the good in this country it's interesting he's he's like trying to dig statistics about i don't't know, drag queen shows or something. What I see is that not so long ago, teenage pregnancy at an all time low in America.

That's something that we always heard about, you know, the Southern Baptist Church growing up. Child poverty over the past year at like a 50, 60 year low. Like our economy doing well, a lot of things going in the right direction. But I've got to say, if he's worried about pews emptying out, talk to young people. And so many will tell you. And Russell Moore's talked about this with Christianity Today. They're emptying out because they don't want to go to a church where preachers worship Donald Trump instead of Jesus

Christ. Yeah. So he represents the fullness of the emergence of the Christian nationalism that sees America through a very different gospel than the one that the man they profess to follow, Jesus, preached. In fact, as reported a few about a month or so ago, where you have now evangelicals thinking that, well, we can't follow the teachings of Jesus because they're too woke. Right. All right. What about Jesus becomes woke for guys like him? And weak, woke and weak. And Don Jr. and other people around Trump said, oh, the whole thing about turning the other cheek, that's too weak.

That's too weak. That doesn't work anymore. So they banned the Bible in some districts in Texas. Yes. When you start banning the Bible and things like that, when you start reimagining the the concerns that people had about Catholics in this country for a long, long time. Getting them close to power and where, you know, with their papist tendencies would be the thing that animates the government. What's this? What what is this? I would say to the speaker, could you before you open your mouth the next time, could you go and read what the founder said about religion?

Number one in this country as they were forming. But number two, go read their stories and understand what kind of men they were. They weren't the kind of Christians that you think they were, that you've make them out to be. Many of them, they were deists, some were atheists, and yet they created this thing that you're now trying to reimagine in a way that even they tried very hard to avoid. And so I think to your point about the pews in the churches, the fact is no one, whether you are 30 years old or 90 years old, want to hear that from a political leader. Well, you know, that's my next question for you. What is it? What percentage of the of Americans is this appeal to?

I mean, a large percentage of the Republican Party now. Yeah, about a third. Evangelicals. But it turns off. Does it? I mean, Ron DeSantis. And that's the vast majority. See, that's it turns off. Does it? I mean, Ron DeSantis seems to give a vast majority. See, that's it. It turns off. And this is why they keep losing elections, because they're focused on their third of their party, their 40 percent of their party, which makes up about 20 percent of the electorate.

And Ron DeSantis ran a campaign based on the idea that a lot of Americans were up in arms about exactly the kind of thing that the speaker has just been speaking about. And where is he even in the Republican primary polls falling like a stone? Workism doesn't work. It doesn't work. Nobody cares about it that much. They don't want it in there. I think that's such a smart point that people don't want. It's not what America was founded on.

But can I just say that because we need to pull back and say that. So you have this supercharged Christian nationalism saying America is the next Sodom and Gomorrah and that the government's turned its back on God when the very guy who's done it has turned his back on the Constitution, the truth and God by leading the legislative branch. But we have to talk about the Supreme Court. I mean, Leonard Leo is an extremist and he's an extremist in his views about the Constitution and Catholicism. I mean, it's an extreme view of Catholicism that has put extremists on the court that has led to the overturn. I mean, nobody talks about this enough, but we are talking about this happening in the House. This is the Supreme Court. I mean, nobody talks about this enough, but we are talking about this happening in the House. This is the Supreme Court. I mean, is every appointee Catholic there on the Republican side? I think I think one may have converted to becoming an Episcopalian, a good waspy Episcopalian. That might be Gorsuch. I don't know. But they're all Catholics. They all have a view of of of abortion and other issues that have led them to overturn against.

All sort of public opinion polls, and I would say against pretty good, strong 50 year precedent to overturn the right to abortion. Well, again, it's the reimagination of judicial constitutional principles in a religious way. And so that's the connection that that sort of draws these these individuals to this space. Now is their hour, their time to do these things. But is it? Look at what has happened since Roe v. Wade in the last year. State after state has reaffirmed the right to abortion. And there are now there's no less abortions now in the United States than there were before. So they had their moment. But, you know, the people have spoken, I would say. But that's the ultimate check. Except for the Supreme Court will dominate American political life and life and our bedroom lives for the next 30 or 40 years because they are young and they will be there for a long time.

I mean, it seems to me that this in a way is one of the things that always strikes people from the outside looking at American elections is how you cannot win an American election unless you profess your faith, particularly your Christian faith. So isn't this just a logical extension of that? Wasn't this inevitably going to happen that if you have to say, I am a Christian and I believe in God and Jesus in order to be elected in this country, how does that? Well, Biden does. He's not a Leonard Leo, but he's not a Leonard Leo Catholic, but Biden professes his faith. But he doesn't wear his faith. But he doesn't talk about it all the time.

He doesn't wear his faith as a political shield. There isn't a lot of room in American political life for the kind of atheism that you were talking about was there amongst the founding fathers. No, I mean, there isn't today. You're right about that. But what's important— Well, by the way, the founders didn't go around saying, hey, everybody, I'm a deist. Right. There were politicians, too. They play both sides. There is no doubt it was a more secular approach to government.

That's that that change started changing, actually, in America at the turn of this. Well, I want to get to Jimmy Carter. But like in the 19th century, there was sort of a great reawakening. It turned its back on a lot of the sort of the classical thought. But remember, the founders came out of an environment in England that at that time that they wanted to make it very clear that we're not going to fall into the trap that the Brits fell into with, you know, the fights over religion and the wars and things like that. So while they were they were men of faith, they wanted to create something in which that would not be the dominant thing, that that would be the driver of the politics of the nation and all the other aspects of living here.

So they that's how they why they wrote the document the way they did. Well, and I've got to agree with Elizabeth, Willie, that this distorted view of the gospels, it plays to a very, very small crowd, even evangelicals like myself and Russell Moore, David French, go down the list. People that have been going to Southern Baptist churches their entire lives are scratching their head. But, you know, it really goes back. Nobody wants to really talk about this. But in our church, it really goes back to 1979 when I was in high school going to church. You know, my parents sent us to church three, four days a week. That church and every other Southern Baptist church was pro-choice.

Yeah. They actually had at Southern Baptist conventions, they actually passed pro-choice resolutions and continued to confirm that view up until Jerry Falwell and three Republican operatives decided that they needed an issue to pry working class Americans and Catholics, working class Catholics away from the Southern Baptist president of the United States, Jimmy Carter. Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell said, we are going to make. Listen, for those who have ears to ear, ear, listen to this. They said, we're going to make abortion a religious issue. We're going to make this an issue that's going to drive working class voters away from the Southern Baptist Democrat into the arms of the Republican Party. So they did that. And suddenly abortion became a litmus test, not just for being a conservative, but in the most perverse sense ever, really in the most perverse sense ever. If you see what's happened over the past 45 years, to being a Christian. When my grandmother, my mother, my aunts, people who grew up

and whose existence was shaped by the Southern Baptist Church and by the teachings of Jesus Christ never held these views because, well, the church didn't hold these views until. People who did direct mail for Republicans decided this would be a great issue in 1980. And boy, has it become one. Mike Johnson embodies that. I mean, you can go back 20 years to some of the things not only that he said in interviews where he said, you know, gay marriage would lead to people marrying their pets as a thing he said many times, but also just as a lawyer. And believe me, I got to say, that is a leap.

Speaker 1 I got to say, I'm just you know what? There are your pets and the Southern Baptist Church. when we had people obsessing over certain things, we'd take them to psych, go, you're doing okay, friend. Do you need to talk privately with a pastor? Because you sure are taking up a lot of time in Sunday

school obsessing over marrying your pets. None of us are thinking that. I'm telling you, just like Donald Trump with his beauty pageants, everything else, projection, projection. I mean, it's all it's just overcompensation, man. That's all it is. There's a lot of protesting, doth protesting and all of that. But Speaker Speaker Johnson, obviously, I just want to underline the comments we played from Rolling Stone were not from 20 years ago where he was a lawyer.

It was October 3rd. It was three weeks before he became the speaker of the House. Now, not many people knew who he was on October 3rd, but they sure do now. And we just heard the view he has of America on a number of issues, but more broadly, that it deserves God's wrath for all the things we just talked about. So coming up, we're going to turn the page a bit. Nikki Haley appears to be benefiting from a shrinking field in the Republican presidential primary creeping up again in another poll. We'll tell you about the new donors she's also picking up and show you where she stands in that latest poll out of New Hampshire. Morning Joe coming right back. Beautiful shot on a Friday morning. Beautiful live picture with the sun now up over the White House. Six forty two on a Friday morning.

Nikki Haley is picking up more campaign cash and support in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Some donors who previously have backed South Carolina Senator Tim Scott are now shifting to Haley after his exit from the race this week. Meanwhile, billionaire hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin, who gave millions to Ron DeSantis for his campaigns for Florida governor, told Bloomberg TV this week he is, quote, actively contemplating backing Haley. A new poll by CNN and the University of New Hampshire released yesterday shows Donald Trump with a commanding lead in the state at 42 percent. But Haley, the clear second choice at 20 percentage points, six points higher than Chris Christie. So, Joe, Nikki Haley has had a couple of good debates, particularly that last one with just five of them on the stage. She certainly shined. I guess the question is, does any of it matter given the margins Donald Trump has?

I mean, you know, 42 percent matters. And it matters in the fact that I mean, imagine Barack Obama was running to be Democratic nominee even this year in an open field. Would he be getting 42 percent? I'd be getting 85, 90 percent. There's still a lot of doubt in the Republican Party about Donald Trump and Nikki Haley at 20 percent is pretty good. I will say if if a donor and I'm sure you'd be the same with me, if a donor said they were actively contemplating supporting me and I was sitting across the table. I do this. Yeah. Okay. That's what I do.

I'll be here. Yeah, I'm not going to. You keep actively contacting. Just write the check. Write the check. But I think they're going that way. I mean, with Chris Christie or DeSantis out of the race, this race suddenly becomes a 10 point. Yeah, but they haven't.

And here's the thing. You drop out in an environment like this, Joe, the politics dictates, in my view, you drop out, you endorse. Right. So you drop if you Tim Scott, you drop out, you say, I'm dropping out and I'm supporting Nikki. Right. I'm dropping out and I'm supporting Christie. You cannot in this in this campaign with Donald Trump at 42 percent in New Hampshire and

much more in other jurisdictions and locations, you cannot hedge your bets with the donors, the political actors. You have to be precise and you have to be very clear. It's the only way you whittle this thing down. Right. This wants to set itself up to be a Trump-Haley battle, but you still have men on the stage who won't give that air and let it breathe. You have donors who won't let it breathe. Actively contemplating is not actively doing. And so the reality of it is none of this matters until they make it matter. It's nice headlines

and it looks good. She's sitting at 20%. But at the end of the day, Donald Trump still is the nominee of the party until they prove otherwise and they're not proving otherwise. Here's my question

about the Republican Party. All the polls show that she does better against Biden than Trump does. Easy. All the polls. All of them. She Biden than Trump does. All the polls. Easy, yeah. All of them.

She's done very well in those debates. You know, she's done something that's very hard for women candidates to do. She's put down Ramaswamy in a way that's very cutting but amusing. She doesn't offend people, right? Right. So what is with your party that they don't see this? Trump is going to be facing four trials next year in the middle of the campaign.

They don't care about that. What they care about is what Trump wants, what Trump's doing. That's their avatar. That's where they feel their retribution comes. He is the one who's going to make it right the way they want it. Nikki Haley doesn't

do that in their view. Nikki Haley. Yes, she was in administration, but she's not all the way Trump. Right. Chris Christie certainly is not. So the reality for a lot of his supporters is why would I go with light when I've got the real deal. Even if light might beat the president? Purism over practicality. It's purism over practicality, but at the core of it, and this is something that clearly has been reported, they genuinely believe

this time next year Donald Trump will be getting ready to go back to the White House. They keep losing. And they keep losing with Donald Trump. And they've lost every year since 2017 consecutively. Let's bring Sam Stein, White House editor for Politico. Thank you. And they keep losing.

And so losing with Donald Trump for some better than winning with somebody else. But Nikki Haley does clearly outshine Donald Trump in the general election. I will say, though, sitting at 20 percent, rising up from what, maybe seven, six, seven, eight percent a couple of months ago and being there in November. I'd take that any day of the week. Yeah, there's a path here, right? Like it wasn't visible a couple of weeks ago, but you can see it starting to form. I don't think it's a particularly great path, but it's there. And if you add up the three non-Trump candidates, 20, 14, 9, that's 43%. Trump's at 42%.

Now, it doesn't work that way, right? It's not like every vote who moves on from Ron DeSantis is going to back Nikki Haley. They'll probably back Donald Trump. But there is a path. Now, I will say the electability argument, that's a powerful one. But obviously, Republican voters don't buy it. And you mentioned the trials. They're telling pollsters they don't care.

Right. Maybe they just tell you. I got a lot of family members and friends that were all in for Trump in 16 and 20 who loathe him now. I'm not so sure they admit that to a pollster calling him up. Yeah, that might be the case. I've thought about that, too, whether these polls kind of overstate things for him. I will say what we were able to report on the trials, which I think actually plays into

this a little bit here, is it's not that they're just ignoring the trials. The trials are actively helping Trump in the primary. Primary voters rally around him because they think he's being targeted by his political opponents. And they feel empathy for him. We know this because the Club for Growth, a conservative group that was opposed to Trump. Please don't call them a conservative group. Sorry, a group. They used to be a conservative group that used to worry about balancing the budget and debt.

For the purposes of this conversation, a group that was opposed to Trump, their allied PAC ran focus group ads going after him on his legal troubles. And the most fascinating thing was they all backfired. Four of the ads they put together, three of them actually increased support for Trump. The fourth one just kept things normal. And that's why you see none of these other primary candidates using Trump's trials against him in the course of this primary. It is just not touched because it actually works for Trump. Because he has successfully made those trials about them. He has successfully transferred his victim to a judge.

But polls show, at least our polls show, that if he's convicted, that changes things. Oh, yeah. That changes things considerably. And then you're talking about the general electorate. I'm talking about the primary where the actual process of it is. The Republicans have a very high, high bar for turning on Trump. OK, if he's only indicted for stealing nuclear secrets from the United States of America, we're good with that. He's convicted. Maybe. So.

So, Jonathan O'Meara, it is interesting that what Sam was talking about, it is true that Donald Trump was sort of in a shaky position until the Manhattan indictment came down. Then his numbers started to go up. They've continued to go up with every passing indictment. It is fascinating that you look now, maybe starting to ebb a little bit. And I'm just curious if there are no more indictments between now and New Hampshire. That's a big if. This race could get close, could get tight. Yeah, Trump was really wounded, let's recall, after the 2022 midterms,

where there was real talk of the party moving away from him. DeSantis just had this huge win in Florida. Some Trump advisers tried to get him to hold off his announcement, which was coming a week after the midterms, because so many of his candidates lost and there was real momentum against Trump there. But Trump went forward with it because his bet was he needs to run to stay out of jail. And what he didn't count on, but what has now happened, and he has, as you guys just noted, done very effectively, is transfer the prosecutions against him and making them about his supporters. They can come for me. They can come for you. Look at

this. It's this deep state witch hunt. You're right, though. There seems to be a little bit of a closing, but we shouldn't overstate it about where this race stands right now. Nikki Haley deserves credit. She has clearly become the best alternative. DeSantis still seems deeply damaged. But as Sam just mentioned, polling suggests that for so many of these candidates, their second place choice is Trump. So they may go to Trump if DeSantis bows out or if Christie can't make it to primary day or whatever it might be. So this is still Donald Trump's race to lose, no question. And then we see when the trials start. And at the moment, there is a belief, probably just the one, the January 6th federal election trial, that will start and conclude,

and maybe even if there's a conviction, get to sentencing before election day. Now, that wouldn't happen before the primaries, but that is something that would certainly have to factor in to any sort of general election day. Now, that wouldn't happen before the primaries, but that is something that would certainly have to count. We'd have to factor in to any sort of general election calculation. We really speaking of the general election, Sam, we really do see a divided Republican party here with, again, a former president getting 40 percent, a guy who's supposed to be running this massive movement nationwide. You look at the New Hampshire polls, the Emerson polls from earlier this week in New Hampshire, New Hampshire, obviously an extraordinarily important state in the general election. It has been since 2000. So Biden only has a 37 percent approval rating there, still

beats Donald Trump by five percentage points in New Hampshire. Right. I mean, I think it's woefully premature to start talking about Biden's weaknesses in the general election right now, because we just don't know what the political landscape might look like in half a year, let alone three months. Now, there are clear vulnerabilities, right? I mean, we see it time and time again, age questions, stamina, enthusiasm among the base. I mean, we see it personified in protests outside the DNC. That doesn't mean that things won't change. And of course, the Biden people are hoping for the change. The big variable for me is not just,

you know, can Biden shore up his base? Can he actually effectively find a retort to this issue of age, which isn't going away, obviously. It's what happens with these third party candidates, too, on top of that, and especially in a state like New Hampshire, right? Huge independent streak up there, big libertarian streak up there. You know, does someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. come in and really pull 5%, 10%? I don't know. Cornel West, he's making big plays in states like Michigan, for instance, to the Arab, Muslim American, and black American populations there.

Does that take away 2% to 4%, 5%? I mean, in these states, we're talking about margins of victory that could be in tens of thousands. That is a game changer. Elizabeth, you never know which way the independent candidates are going to cut. Well, you don't know. I mean, he takes the RFK Jr. Takes as much from more from Trump, potentially given his stance on, you know, anti-vax and

just his very extreme positions. So it's just hard to tell. I mean, Cornel West obviously takes more from Biden. But Trump, you know, it's so interesting about Trump. He was praising RFK Jr. as this great guy. And all of a sudden, you know, he turns on him. But it looks like he's going to take votes away from it. It's like night and day.

That's amazing, Willie. Donald Trump actually turning on somebody that he wants praise. Never seen that before. Who could have seen that coming? All right, guys, thanks so much. Elizabeth Bue Miller, Sam Stein, thank you both. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.