Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/3/22

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

Biden calls midterms a 'defining moment' for democracy amid political violence and voter intimidation

Folks can win if we don't do our part. And if you've got election deniers serving as your governor, as your senator, as your secretary of state, as your attorney general, then democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona. That's not an exaggeration. That is a fact. That was former President Obama hitting the campaign trail hard for Democrats taking on election deniers in Battleground State. That guy is pretty good. He's good at what he does.

He's got a future in politics. Yeah, he ought to keep at it. Yeah, he should. Meanwhile, President Biden makes the fate of our democracy a key issue just days before voters decide who will control Congress and the future path of our country. Also ahead, new polling in several crucial races, including Pennsylvania, where voters are weighing in on the only debate between Senate candidate John Fetterman and Dr. Oz. Plus, there are new details in the plot by Trump's attorneys to overturn the 2020 election. His lawyers had a specific justice in mind, and we'll tell you who that is. And one of former President Donald Trump's top advisors has been granted immunity to testify before a federal grand jury about Trump's handling of highly sensitive government documents that were seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago

home and club in August. We'll have new reporting on that. What? I mean, if he gets immunity, that's if he gets immunity, they're not giving him immunity. So go out and buy him some orange juice. I don't think so. Give it to him for some reason. Oh, boy. And chances are good. Well, we'll see what happens. I don't think so. Give it to him for some reason. Oh, boy.

And chances are good. Well, we'll see what happens. We don't want to get ahead of the story. Let's see. In sports, nothing really willing to report on the sports. Oh, boy. No. I didn't see anything.

I just checked the papers. We're doing so well. Do you see anything? We're doing so well. Looking through the papers. Oh, the Jeff Bills. That'll be good. You complete me.

And bills. You complete me. Yeah. Yes, of the bills. Yeah. Oh, I'm just speaking. This Kyi thing is like you guys yeah come on yeah we're gonna talk about that in depth later i'm just being told the houston astros last night pitched a poor man's no hitter up or they needed four pitchers to do it obviously not comparable

in any way to what larson did in the world series in 19 perfect But it was. He pitched a perfect game, and all you can do is throw a no-hitter. I'm sorry. He's in four pitchers. My God. Seriously. They did pitch a team no-hitter, though, with four different pitchers. The series is now tied 2-2, and it pains all of us to say the Astros are in the driver's seat because Justin Verlander goes tonight.

He's one of the greatest of all time. Then the series goes back to Houston. But there is something about these Phillies. There is something about these Phillies. Not last night. I mean, come on. It's not last night. It's not last night.

Well, there's something about them. How many pitchers do they have? I lost count. Come on. It's like having your smart cousin finish a Rubik's Cube for you. You can't run around the house going, look what I did. Look what I did. Sounds like you have some experience with that.

You got too much sleep. Okay. Good morning, everyone. Jonathan had something to say. Yes, Jonathan. I mean, what? It doesn't even count, really. No, it doesn't.

But I will say this. It's the beauty of baseball. Game three, the Phillies hit five home runs, 7-0 win. They have all momentum. The crowd at that park couldn't have been louder. Last night, a pin could be heard, drop could be heard, even if it took four pitchers. It's a no-hitter.

Only the second one in World Series history. But not comparable. Not even close. Not even close. And now it's 2-2 and two out of the last three. Okay, Jonathan, thank you. Also with us, Professor at Princeton University, Eddie Goulet Jr. No!

And former chief of staff to the DCCC, Adrian Elrod, senior aide to Hillary Clinton in the Biden presidential campaigns. I got one more for you. I'm so tired. Yeah. I got one more for you. Cut off. Yeah.

But hold on. Hold on. So really. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, God. I'm no yeah it pains me to say this but you have to give it to the houston astros backs against the wall like the phillies looked unbeatable crushing ball this is what i love about baseball and let me just say too this is what i love about having seven game series unlike when you start putting in 47 wild card

teams and people are going, Joe, what are you talking about? Your playoffs have been like 1928. That's everybody on Twitter. When I was saying, maybe we shouldn't have 47 wild card players. So great teams can play in best of seven series. This is what happens in best of seven series. You have a team like the Phillies who who are streaking do great and then you have great teams like the astros that get a chance to answer back and now we have an incredible world series to watch right it's a better measure of these two teams and for all of our jokes and we will continue them the astros remain a great great team they've got a great lineup as i said justin verlander one of the greatest to ever do it going tonight. So they're the favorite now. It's two to two. They get two of the three back in Houston with Verlander tonight in Philly. But yes, you're right. The seven game series

lets us really see who the better team is. And as we were saying last night, we have to admit it. The Astros are the best baseball team of the past decade. Much like Jesse James, who's the best person for withdrawing money from banks. Very prolific. Very prolific. Nobody did it better. And we have a great lineup, too. I wish someone would. Columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post,

David Ignatius, joins us as well. David, would you like to join in on the Astros? No. We do not have to give it to the Astros, Joe. That's the main thing I want to say. Okay. David Ignatius, thank you so much. You're a great columnist as well, my friend.

Let's go to the polling now. New polling of Pennsylvania's Senate race shows last week's debate between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz appears to have had little impact on the minds of voters. Forty-eight percent of registered voters tell Monmouth University they will definitely or probably vote for Fetterman, while 44 percent say they will back Oz. These numbers fall within the poll's margin of error and are virtually unchanged from a poll taken before last week's debate where Fetterman struggled to speak at times following a stroke that he suffered earlier in the year. Another new survey from Fox News shows Fetterman leading 45 percent to 42 percent. The slim margin between falls within

the polls margin of error of three percentage points in the race for Pennsylvania governor. Fox News polling has Josh Shapiro leading by 16 points over Republican Doug Mastriano. Want to stop there? Sure. I mean, and who could have seen this coming, Mastriano, when Trump, well, I guess everybody could. Everybody knew he was going to lose. I think the Fetterman polling shows a little bit, and there was one debate, and while we

might pick it apart and look at every detail of it, the voters are still feeling the way they're feeling. Yeah, in some polls. And that's the thing, Adri Adrian, about polling at this point. It is so important for people to get out and vote. If anybody's staying, I'm going, oh, I'm not going to vote because my side is doing poorly. It's it's idiocy because I saw on Twitter yesterday, like a poll that said maybe it's the Fox News poll. Fifty percent of the people who saw the debate said that it's changed their vote. And 20% of those, more of those broke for Fetterman. You really don't know.

All of these races are so close. The races that were supposed to be, you know, Whitmer was supposed to win big in Michigan. That race is close. Hochul was supposed to win in New York. Some people say that race is close. We'll see. And you could you could do it on the other side, too. There's some races where Democrats are far more competitive, you know, Oklahoma and other states than people expected. So do you see any trends? Because all I see is everything tightening up out there. Everything is super, super tight. And what we are seeing, the trends that we are seeing, which I think looks very good for Democrats, is that across the board, Democrats are outperforming their early vote numbers compared to 2018 and 2020. So when you say, Joe, that these polls are

close, what matters is who actually turns out at this point. And when early vote has gone very well for Democrats, that's a very strong sign. Now, we do know that Democrats tend to be a little bit more organized. We are very focused on getting people out to vote early and to vote via absentee. Republicans tend to turn out more on Election Day itself. But the fact that we are outperforming 2018 numbers and of course, 2018 was a very good year for Democrats. I'm not saying we're going to have that kind of year. But I think the story that is not getting told enough is that Democrats are having a very strong show in these early vote numbers.

And so when you combine that with these polls being very, very tight, I think it's going to look a lot better for Democrats on Election Day than what some other people may be saying. Yeah, and again, we just don't know. I mean, you go back to 2016, nobody thought Donald Trump was going to win going into the last day. I mean, you go back to 2016. Nobody thought Donald Trump was going to win going into

the last day. I mean, everybody now says that they did. We said it was possible and people said we were crazy for it. You look at 2020, it was the same thing. The polls skewed heavily in the Democrats favor. And even Kevin McCarthy's team, Republican leadership, said they were going to get slaughtered in the House. It didn't happen. More off elections than not. I remember 98 Republicans were supposed to have a massive landslide. I would say this. Things change so quickly. The next morning, people like what Democrats, Democrats to fight history. And the guy who was supposed to be the biggest benefactor of that huge Republican landslide, Newt Gingrich, was chased out of town four days later. You just never know. So as Tom Brokaw says, it's probably best to let the voters have their say. Absolutely. And then you combine all of that with the fact that, you know, the country is in crisis. We have this feeling that, you know, our democracy is at stake.

So there are the traditional kind of insight about, you know, what happens on Election Day. And then there is this moment where it seems like so much is at stake. So you just don't know it. It all depends on what Americans will do. Yeah. And David Ignatius, it all depends on last night, Joe Biden talking about saving democracy. I mean, I was extraordinarily moved by that. I'm sure a lot of us on this show were moved by that. The question is, and I'm not being flip here at all. The question is, are most of the people that are going out to vote, are they going to pay more attention to that? Are they going to pay more attention to how much milk's gone up and bread has gone up and gas prices have gone up over the past couple of years?

Joe, I thought it was a beautiful speech. It was superbly written. I heard echoes of our friend John Meacham in that speech. I thought it was pretty well delivered, but I'd be surprised if it changed any significant percentage of votes. I think people are dug in. It must be so frustrating for Joe Biden. He's passionate about this. This is his issue.

He thinks his job is to save America from this brink of the perhaps mortal danger to our democracy. He defeated Trump at the polls in 2020. Here he is at this midterm election looking over the brink again. It's obviously frustrating to him. I have to say, one of the painful things for me watching the speech was to think back to Trump, to Biden's inauguration, and to think fixing this problem, this division in the country, that was what Joe Biden was elected for. And two years later,

it's hard to say that we're in a better place. But David, let me ask you this question, though. And I think maybe it's social media. Maybe it's just the nature of politics that people go around trying to own, you know, the libs or do anything that that will grab a headline. I mean, Elon Musk is a perfect example of that. I think if I were worth hundreds of billions of dollars and made spaceships, I probably would be hanging around in the gutters of Twitter. But it seems everybody is addicted to that. But when you look at legislation and that's how we used to judge presidents, that's how we used to judge politicians. Did they get things done? Joe Biden did exactly what he said he was

going to do. And this is not a campaign speech for Joe Biden. I mean, you're talking about a guy that believes everybody go to sleep now. We'll see you tomorrow in regular order, believes that Madisonian democracy is beautiful, that the House takes up something. They debate it. The Senate takes up something. They debate it. They negotiate. They go to the president. He or she signs it. It becomes law. right? Washington used to be about that instead of outrageous press conferences where you own the libs. Well, or memes. You look at the bipartisan legislation that's passed over the past two years. You know, I don't think many people are going to care about that as they go to vote. I don't know why, but that's just the case. But historians are

going to look back. And if you compare the legislation over the past two years to the past, what's happened over the past quarter century, maybe you have to go back to Bill Clinton, defined president that signed as many bipartisan pieces of legislation under law. So it's a solid legislative performance. I think it took longer than it needed to. I think Biden didn't get the momentum that might have been possible if he'd moved more quickly with some of the bipartisan legislation. The CHIPS Act is a perfect example. It just sat there for a year for no reason. He didn't stress that in the speech last night. He didn't make that appeal. He spoke about this fundamental issue of democracy. And I just was struck by what a heavy load Joe Biden is carrying for our country. I

thought there were some super powerful lines in the speech about the lies that are bringing our politics down. But the sense of frustration of a decent man, decent person in the White House trying to solve these problems and so far not having much success. We're going to play a whole bunch of that speech coming up in just a few minutes where he said democracy is on the ballot. We'll show you that in just a few minutes. Meanwhile, Arizona's top race is tightening ahead of Election Day and the race for the Senate. New numbers from the online polling company Civic show a Democratic incumbent, Mark Kelly, and his Republican opponent, Blake Masters, now tied at forty nine percent in the race for governor. Republican Carrie Lake leads Democrat Katie Hobbs by just two points. That is within the margin of error. That one's tighter,

Jonathan. The Carrie Lake thing, we heard that thing was over. I saw polls, five, six, seven points. It's kind of like the Wisconsin senators, right? Senate race, you never know what's going to happen. But Marquette poll, which we're getting to in a second, shows that race tightening up again. I think it's a lot like 2014, but I've never seen a year where everything seems to be tightening up. Mark Kelly, of course, we thought that was going to tighten up because Mark Kelly has to make every race tight. But the Kerry Lake race, most of them within the margin of error, when a week ago it was plus five, plus six. The Arizona race shows that no one party has a monopoly on momentum,

where Hobbs has tightened it on Lake when certainly there had been a discussion the last week or so that Lake was already measuring the drapes in the statehouse. Is Hobbs still actually campaigning or not? She has started to campaign some. She appeared with President Obama last night at their rally. I know we'll be playing a little bit of that later. Did she say anything? She was there.

She spoke briefly. But he, of course, was the headliner. Garbo speaks. And then, but Mark Kelly, that's a race in Arizona where Democrats have started to get nervous in the last week or so, that they feel like he is still a strong candidate. They think Blake Masters is deeply flawed, but you're right. He had a significant lead that has now withered away. He is out there campaigning. No one's pointing fingers at him, but it is a moment where it is sort of this tightening across the board. And we've seen the Democrats pick up some points in the gubernatorial

race, Republicans in the Senate race. And that will be one of the tighter states and most important states going in Tuesday. You know, Willie, it's one of the mysteries of me of this campaign that you you have a couple of things. First of all, that Democrats said that there are all these candidates who are a grave risk to democracy, and they poured millions and millions of dollars cynically into their primary campaigns. Americans, thank you for that. Way to go. Way to make a dangerous situation even worse, Democrats. But then Katie Hobbs, many people believe she may be running against the most dangerous demagogue in America. And if you believe that running against the most dangerous demagogue in America. And if you believe that she's the most dangerous demagogue in America, I don't know.

I don't want to debate her. You'd want to debate her. People that cared about democracy would want to debate her. But Katie Hobbs has been hiding. Like voters don't vote for governors that hide, that are afraid to even go to bait. It's maddening. Well, you have to go confront the lie. And the argument from the Hobbs campaign was, I'm not going to elevate her. I'm not going to give her that platform. She's got the platform. And she then, if you're not there, she's going to have it to herself. And the lies go unchecked. Adrienne, what are you seeing out in Arizona that might tell us more about how some of these candidates, very extreme in the case of Carrie Lake and Blake Masters, who are just hanging in there, to say the least. In Carrie Lake's case, she's been leading lately for most

of the race. Yeah, look, I think we are seeing the fact that a lot of these races are just tied, you know, across the board. And it shows you how, you know, divided our country is and how divided the electorate is. But when it comes to Arizona, I mean, I am intrigued by these Mark Kelly numbers because he's been consistently ahead for the, you know, pretty much the entire race. It is tightening up, but I'm also heartened to see that Carrie Lake is, that race is becoming tighter too. I mean, in some of these states, you can understand Arizona, you can understand maybe like a Lake Kelly voter because some of the reasons we just talked about with Hobbs. But in Pennsylvania, I can't imagine. I mean, I'm sure that they exist, but like who is a Fetterman Shapiro voter or a Shapiro Fetterman voter? You know, there are going to be split ticket voters out there, but it's hard

to really imagine that you would see that in Pennsylvania, but you would also maybe would see it in Arizona. But look, let's remember, Arizona is a very close state. We narrowly won it. We, as in Joe Biden, narrowly won it in 2020. We didn't know until a couple of days after. And I think one of the smart things that Joe Biden said in his speech last night is he used his bully pulpit to remind the American people that we may not know on election night the results.

Some of these states, they don't count absentee ballots and early ballots or early votes until the next day. So he urged Americans to take a step back and let the results come out. I think that's very important because some of these races are going to be extremely tight. You know, in Arizona, they they count one vote a day, go home, have lunch and then come back, sleep for a couple of hours and then come back the next day. And this isn't anything new. I had a friend that ran for governor back in 2002. And I'm like, OK, well, when are they going to figure out who the winner is? I don't know how many votes they counted. 14 votes. Oh, awesome. OK, so how many? I mean, seriously, Arizona and Nevada, I have no idea what they do after elections. It's been a problem for 20 or 30 years.

You also have, though, with Mark Kelly, a guy that was supposed to beat Martha McSally by about 14, 15 points last year and ended up being one or two. He does not does not close strong. He does not win going away. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And I mean, you know, again, I think the appeal about it with somebody like Mark Kelly is he runs with Washington when he needs to,

and he runs against Washington when he needs to. He also understands his electorate very well, and he knows that he's in a very closely divided state. So, you know, again, I'm not surprised

this race is tightened. It has tightened a little bit more than I thought it would on Mark Kelly, but that was also, you know, one poll. We'll see. Everything comes down to voting. And he actually shows up on election day.

Well, we'll stay in Arizona and show you former President Barack Obama in Phoenix, Arizona, last night campaigning with Senator Kelly and gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs. His 55-minute speech was filled with jabs that Republicans like like I mean, you know, it's 55 minutes. But because somebody in this campaign has to speak. Somebody has to speak out. He spoke about Republicans like Kerry Lake and others who pushed Donald Trump's election lies. Take a look here in Arizona. There's no question that that Katie Hobbs is opponent. She's good in front of the camera because she's been doing it for a long time.

Right? Some people don't know this, but apparently Carrie Lake actually interviewed me back in 2016 when I was president. She was a local news anchor. She was doing her job. At the time, I don't remember thinking that she was the kind of person who would push debunked COVID remedies or promise to issue a declaration of invasion at our border or claim without any evidence

that the 2020 election was stolen. I guess that stuff came later because she found it convenient because she thought, well, here's an opportunity to get attention. Listen, if we hadn't just elected somebody whose main qualification was being on TV, you could see maybe giving it a shot. What's the worst that could happen? Well, now we know it doesn't just work out just because somebody's been on TV.

The other day, your own current attorney general, who's a Republican, called the election fraud claims made by Katie Hobbs' opponent horse crap. I'm paraphrasing. He didn't say it exactly that way. He said her whole act about how the election was stolen is a giant grift. Why would you vote for somebody who you know is not telling the truth about something? I mean, on something that important. I don't care how nicely they say it. I don't care how poised they are

or how well-lit they are. I mean, you have people from her own party saying, that's just not true. And yet, it seems as if it doesn't matter anymore. What happens when truth doesn't matter anymore? I think we need that lighting on us, Willie. It's very gauzy. It's like Streisand in some way we were.

Just put Vaseline on the lens. A little cheesecloth. It would help us all out a lot. It gives you a glow. I want. I need. I'm jealous so badly. Eddie, first of all, that's a man enjoying himself on the campaign trail. The former president. It's extraordinary that he has to say the things he's saying, that President Biden has to say the things he had to say last night, which is that there are people out there lying to you and that this really is about democracy. And you've got to put people in office who are not going to disrespect

the results of an election, who are not going to work to stage a coup against the United States government. But that will fall on deaf ears of a lot of people in the state of Arizona. But the hope is that President Obama can speak to enough of those people still sitting on the fence to say this is too important to stay home. Absolutely clear, passionate, right. And coherent, right. It's a coherent argument in so many ways. But what I was thinking was that, you know, a lot of folk who are supporting Blake Masters, a lot of folk who are supporting Carrie Lake, the motivation is Barack Obama. That, you know, you're going to see the deployment of Barack Obama and even Donald Trump, you know, to try to bring this bring the case home in these last days.

But these two people are actually at the heart in interesting sorts of ways of the polarization in the country. So that was really great to see. But we know that his election in 2008, his reelection in some ways was one of the motivating factors for some of the chaos we're experiencing. For some of the chaos. But Eddie, here's what I think when I'm up there, when I see him up there. I'm thinking, there are a lot of people that voted for this guy.

Absolutely. Including Carrie Lake. For a good reason, including Carrie Lake. He could have thanked her. Then they voted for Donald Trump. Like, you know, so I know race explains a lot of stuff on the right. Doesn't explain a lot of stuff in the middle. Like Barack Obama was the first president to get to get elected with a majority vote two times since, gosh, Eisenhower. Right. Right. So that's what that's what I'm trying to grapple with. OK, that guy, you see him up there. He's fantastic. And I was thinking of the Obama Trump voters who were looking at him and I was wondering, do they see past all the craziness and all the lies that

were told about him? And look at that guy and go, yeah, that's the guy I voted for in 2008 in Clinton County, Iowa. Right. You know, I think that's a really important point. But for some reason, even as passionate and convincing as President Obama was last night, it felt as if that was ages ago. Oh, it was ages ago. The time has passed. The kind of reasoned discussion, the kind of the appeal that he represents and still represents for a lot of folk. It seems like the moment is such that I don't know how it how it works, but I understand that middle that you're talking. So, Adrian, this is what I think some of us don't understand enough that I forget all the time, despite having evidence of it my entire adult life.

The same people that voted for Ronald Reagan twice voted for Bill Clinton twice. Same people that voted for Bill Clinton twice voted for George W. Bush twice. The same independents that voted for George W. Bush twice voted voted for Barack Obama twice, voted for Donald Trump once. Yep. This is your life. Your life is to understand these voters and to motivate. What is it that makes somebody, and I'm not being facetious here because there are people out there and there are people that don't watch shows every day about politics and policy. What is it about those voters that will vote for Barack Obama twice and then go, things are going in a bad direction. I'm going with this Trump guy.

Yeah. And don't forget the Bernie Sanders voters in the primary in 2016 who then voted for Donald Trump. I think a lot of it has to do with voters who are voting for the outsider, who they consider to be somebody who's not who's running against Washington, who's going to Washington to fix things. And I'm not going to give Donald Trump a lot of compliments for anything. But one thing that he has done somewhat well is he has still positioned himself as an outsider to Washington, even though he is not. So I think that that's kind of the you know, where where some of that those decisions come from. But it's it's you know, when we look at somebody like Barack Obama, I mean, he's going out there to quote to make the closing argument and to also motivate Democrats. I don't think he's necessarily thinking he's going to change any minds at this point.

But he wants to make sure that every single Democrat and every single independent who intends to vote for a Democrat. I guess there was a stake. Yeah. David Ignatius, you remember 1968, right? Sure do. OK, so, you know, when I came to Congress, Bobby Kennedy, even though I was very conservative, Bobby Kennedy, a hero of mine. I worked with Joe Kennedy and the family to help rename the Justice Department after Robert Kennedy. And I remember there were times where different members of the family, one time Joe, one time Ethel, took me to the side and they said, you're from the South. Yeah. Could you explain something to us? And you could tell it actually has haunted the family,

certainly haunted Joe and Ethel. They said, we don't understand. Can you help explain to us how after Bobby got shot, so many of his voters went over and voted for Wallace? And I couldn't do it. I just heard, though, what just this talk about outsiders, what Adrian said. And I do just wonder if Americans are always looking for the outsider that's going to shake things up, because for people that weren't around in 1968, Bobby Kennedy was politically as opposite of George Wallace as possible. And yet there's so many of those voters that lined the tracks to say goodbye to Bobby, turned around went home and then supported george wallace no question of americans like uh that that person who's an outsider who's who's promises something different you look at joe biden he's uh he's such a decent man but he does represent the washington establishment the career politician i thought the strongest part of of what Biden had to say last night was his implicit appeal to Republicans, where he was stepping out of his comfort lane to say,

complicity is silence. You have to speak up. You have to do something about this. I would have been happy, to be honest, if after the terrible Paul Pelosi attack, Biden had summoned Steve Scalise, Mitch McConnell, other Republicans who were threatened themselves by violence, brought them to the White House and said, as a group, we need all of us to stand against this. I think that would have been not the career politicians move, but something different. But you're right that Americans do look for the person who's different, who's going to suggest change, who's going to disrupt,

whether it's Bobby Kennedy or, I hate to say it, Donald Trump. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe, some potential new legal trouble for former President Trump. First, one of his close associates agrees to testify before a grand jury in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. There's also this new emails reveal how attorneys for Trump saw Justice Clarence Thomas as a key to overturning Joe Biden's 2020 presidential win. By the way, Trump is such such a dupe to believe that because he appoints justices, they're going to rule for him. They're justices for life.

Well, we're going to dig into both of those headlines, plus the latest on the attack against Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. And some of the guests we'll be having on the show tomorrow morning. Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan will join us. Florida Democratic Senate candidate Val Demings will also join the conversation. Plus, Bob Woodward will be here with his new recordings from his interviews with former President Trump. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. 36 past the hour. We are learning new details this morning about the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, including that Capitol Police had a camera monitoring Pelosi's home. But no one was watching it at the time.

Well, that doesn't really. Maybe she wasn't there. It doesn't really. That kind of defeats the purpose, right? There's more to it. Does it? Yeah. I mean, they have almost 2000 cameras.

She wasn't in the house. So in hindsight, yes, someone should have been watching. But they have video of them. Speaker of the House. Second in line. But at least put in a couple eyes on it, right? Okay, well. I don't know.

That's me. NBC News National Correspondent Miguel Almaguer has the very latest. As a hammer-wielding David DePapp smashed his way inside the Pelosi home, investigators say he told them he knew this was a suicide mission. Despite clear security, new court documents reveal DePapp knew that the ring cameras outside the house captured his entry, but defendant remained undeterred. The suspect was inside the home alone with Paul Pelosi for nearly 30 minutes, arriving at approximately 2 a.m. The complaint says a private security guard working near the

Pelosi home the night of the attack saw a man in the area with a large bag. Even after hearing banging though, the security guard never called police. With the Speaker of the House often the target of violent death threats, NBC News has confirmed Capitol Police in Washington, D.C. have the ability to monitor Pelosi's San Francisco home 24 hours a day. But during the attack, no one was watching the feed. The Washington Post reporting after seeing flashing lights, officers rewound the footage and could see the intruder break in. In court, DePap, a Canadian national, pleading not guilty, but authorities say he admitted to crimes. It's clear from his own statements what his intentions were. After the attack, DePap told officers he had other plans. Defendant named

several targets, including a local professor, several prominent state and federal politicians, and relatives of those politicians. Authorities painting the picture of a madman who easily broke into the home of the Speaker of the House. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reporting for us there. You know, J.D. Vance, as J.D. Vance said, the biggest problem here and the biggest danger to Americans, Canadians who overstay their work visa. He literally called. Don't look at the fact. Don't look at the fact that the home of the person who's second in line to the presidency,

a person who has been threatened with assassination for years, never mind the fact that there was a home invasion there and an 82 year old man got his skull crashed. Her husband. Just focus on the Canadians. Blame Canada, as Matt and Trey say. Blame Canada. This is this is Terrence and Philip's fault, according to Butters.

There's some deep South. It's a scourge. Canadians overstaying their work visas. What are we going to do? I mean, seriously, what's that about? If Canadians overstay their work visas, can any child go safely to school in America? Come on.

You do wonder, some of the stupid things these people say, some of the stupid things they say, these Republican, the new breed of Republican candidates, just idiocy. Canadians that overstay their work visa. That's why we're having attempted political assassinations in America. And it's worse.

They're not stupid people. J.D. Vance is not a stupid guy. Ted Cruz is not a stupid guy. They know better. And yet they continue to push conspiracy theories or say, yes, this was bad, comma, but. Yeah. And then we move on to Canadians overstaying

their work visas. Blame Canada. By the way, South Park, the movie, where do you put it? Like, between Citizen Kane and Gone with the Wind. It's at two.

I cannot imagine sitting in a movie theater and watching that. I mean, they change a little every year, but they're all in the top three. Don't eat, don't drink, don't mow your lawn. I mean, they change a little every year, but they're all in the top three. Don't eat, don't drink, don't mow your lawn. I mean, there's some classic stuff in there.

All right, we have other news to get to. Let's talk about the former president, Donald Trump. One of his top advisors has been granted immunity now to testify before a federal grand jury about Trump's handling of highly sensitive government documents seized by the FBI from his Mar-a-Lago home in August. That's according to a new report in The Guardian, citing sources who say the Justice Department's interest with Kash Patel centers on his claims. The documents found at Mar-a-Lago were declassified, as well as how the government's ended up at the property and how Trump's aides and lawyers responded to requests for their return. Let's bring in a reporter on this piece, congressional reporter for The Guardian,

Hugo Lowell. Hugo, tell us more about this. Kash Patel, a central figure in this story. They're granting him immunity. What do they expect to hear from him? Yeah, look, it's really significant. And I think it really underscores the importance that DOJ has ascribed to Kash Patel as a witness, because this is not a decision that the Justice Department takes lightly. You know, this has to go through the top officials over at DOJ, and they have to basically make the case here to their internal kind of processes that they are going to forego, essentially, a case against Patel to try and get a bigger fish.

And in this case, it's almost certainly Trump. And as you say, the focus is on the declassification of these documents because this has become a central issue to the Mar-a-Lago case that has been lingering over ever since the FBI searched the former president's home earlier in August. And this is because the declassification could speak to Trump's intent. If Kash Patel and Trump thought, you know what, we're going to talk about these documents being declassified because it gives us an excuse to say we don't have to return these documents, well, that would potentially be evidence of obstruction. And that's why this is really significant. So tell us a little bit more about Kash Patel, someone who raised a lot of alarms within the Trump White House,

who felt like he was a clandestine operator doing Trump's business outside normal channels. He also has close connections to Steve Bannon. Of course, we know his outsized role in this universe. Tell us about him and why he is so important because his place in Trump's orbit as he now takes this universe. Tell us about him and why he is so important because his place in Trump's orbit as he now takes this deal. Yeah, he's a really tantalizing witness for the Justice Department. You know, he was appointed by the former president as his representative to the National Archives, which meant he was basically in the room with Trump and the lawyers trying to figure out the kinds of documents that were potentially executive privilege, the kinds of documents that were potentially

personal records, and things that might have been responsive to the Justice Department subpoena requesting all these presidential documents be returned to the government. He's also a really close confidant of the former president. I don't think people always realize how close Kash Patel is to Trump. I mean, they speak almost daily. He has a direct line to Trump. You know, Trump changes phone numbers quite often. And Kash Patel is always with his latest phone number. He's always talking to the foreign president, knows exactly what he's thinking. And it's a level of access, actually, that other aides have come to envy to some degree. And I think that shows the degree to which he is

in Trump's inner circle. All right, Hugo, thanks so much for being with us. Great reporting. We greatly appreciate it. David Ignatius, you've done so much reporting on Kash Patel. What can you tell us about him? And what's your reaction to this news? So, Joe, Kash Patel is a fascinating character. He's been probably the most important, consistent crusader on the Trump team against what they like to call the deep state. He did that when he was a staffer for Congressman Devin Nunes. Then he did it at the White House. He was then detached to the office of the director of national intelligence, where he

was trying to rein in this so-called deep state, then went to the Defense Department in the last months, working with the then Secretary of Defense that followed Mark Esper. Since the election, he's been, as our Guardian colleagues said, very close to Trump. I think the importance of immunizing him is that it tells us that they really are closing in on Donald Trump as a potential target. They're seeking the testimony to compel the testimony through this grant of a limited immunity of this close aid. So as to make a tough case against the president. I've been uncertain whether an indictment was coming in the Mar-a-Lago case. It seems more and more likely that that's so, an indictment of President Trump.

Otherwise, why would you immunize Kash Patel? Yeah. And then there's this. A batch of just-released emails reveal former President Donald Trump's attorneys saw Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as key to overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election. A U.S. district judge in California ordered the release of eight emails from Trump's lawyers and others. And Politico was first to report on the contents. The emails include discussions of various legal strategies to convince Republican members of Congress to object to the official certification of electoral votes during the joint session on January 6, 2021.

In one email from Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesbrough to fellow Trump lawyer John Eastman and others dated December 30th, 2020. Chesbrough argued that they should, quote, frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in illegitimate doubt. Realistically, our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by January 6th, which might hold up in the Georgia court count in Congress, is from Thomas. Do you agree, Professor Eastman? Other emails by Chesbrough continue to offer detailed strategy proposals about ways to delegitimize President Biden's victory.

So, David Ignatius, back to you. It is striking, again, just how ignorant Donald Trump is of our system of checks and balances. Yes, Thomas. There are a lot of questions about he and Jenny Thomas, and those are always swirling around. There are obviously a lot of progressives upset about the Dobbs decision, a lot of Americans, a lot of independents. But you look at these cases that involve, the 65 cases that involve challenges to election integrity. Trump and his team went 0 in 65. And Trump kept thinking, oh, because I appointed them, they're going to undermine an election. Same thing with the loyalty question of presidential privileges, where the court, kept thinking, oh, because I appointed them, they're going to undermine an election. Same

thing with the loyalty question of presidential privileges, where the court unanimously shuts him down. You can look at Lindsey Graham thinking that he's going to be able to game federal judges and game the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas said, yeah, let's have a stay to listen to this for two or three days. They listened to the arguments. And then they told Lindsey Graham he had had him. He had to go and talk to the Georgia grand jury. I just had the ignorance of Trump to think since I appointed them, they're going to vote my way has been proven wrong time and time again on these issues involving Moralago, these issues involving the election, these issues involving other Trump criminal proceedings.

I was glad that Biden reached out in his speech last night to Brad Raffensperger, a Georgia Republican who's been threatened physically. The group of people who were standing up for American democracy include a lot of Republicans who have not gone the way that Trump expected that they would. Trump has made that bet. I thought a big part of Biden's speech was to say this issue, the big lie has been tested in every court, every recount, every possible test of whether this big lie has any factual basis has been made. And there is no basis. And then that line in our bones, we know that democracy is broken.

I think that's the way you put it. I thought that was powerful. But your point, Trump keeps misunderstanding that election officials, judges, justices in the end are going to serve their oath. Joining us now, congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. She is an MSNBC contributor. And Jackie, you also have a new report on these emails. What more can you tell us about them? Yeah, well, I just want to dispute something that you just ended with there, David. It's not just Trump who has sort of flouted the norms of

democracy, but these lawyers, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesper, the the the fringy lawyers that were surrounding Trump and helping him in his efforts to overturn the results of the election in the last few months of his presidency, had reason to believe, at least publicly, that Justice Clarence Thomas was going to be sympathetic to their cause. Remember, in December of 2020, Thomas, along with Alito, issued a brief statement after this sort of audacious Texas lawsuit was filed, calling to ultimately throw out the results of the 2020 election in four battleground states. The majority dismissed it. But Alito and Thomas expressed a statement that was sympathetic to

the lawsuit and said that the majority threw it out too quickly. Now, the question, I think, is privately, what reasons did John Eastman and Kenneth Chesborough have to believe that Thomas would be sympathetic to them if they got a lawsuit in front of him? Remember, Thomas does oversee the emergency petitions from the circuit court that includes Georgia. So there was a reason for them to try to tee things up in Georgia to get it in front of him. But at the same time, Ginny Thomas, Clarence Thomas's wife, was also in touch with John Eastman, who was once Clarence Thomas's law clerk. And Eastman and Ginny Thomas were corresponding about efforts to overturn the results of the election as well. Ginny was simultaneously emailing lawyers in Arizona and Wisconsin, state legislatures, to implement this plan that John Eastman had to disrupt the electoral certification and throw out the results.

So it is a very small world here. There was no indication in the correspondence that either of the Thomases were CC'd on any of the emails. But you can you can clearly see now why John Eastman was fighting so hard to prevent the release of these emails. And it's shocking, Willie, the behavior between John Eastman, Jenny Thomas and the efforts to overthrow, throw out a Democratic election for the presidency. I say also their misreading of what Clarence Thomas and Alito did when they they they went along with an opinion in the Pennsylvania case. But they said it's only time the court, I think, wrote anything of substance on these election challenges. They said about the Pennsylvania case, which involved the court in Pennsylvania overruling the state legislature. That raises a constitutional question. And I think they rightly said this raises questions we probably should address now. But even if we did

address them now, it wouldn't change the outcome of the election. So there you have even the two most conservative justices saying, even if we take this question up, which we think we should, there aren't going to be enough votes to change the fact that Joe Biden's the next president of the United States. Yeah. And we've seen now again in the state of Georgia, Jackie, as well, that the Supreme Court smacking down Lindsey Graham a couple of days ago, denying his appeal to have the subpoena for his testimony there thrown out. So what is your that or that he wouldn't have to testify, excuse me. What is your sense of the peril in Georgia for Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham,

all the people around him who clearly, on the record, we've heard the tapes of Donald Trump with Brad Raffensperger. Now we see these emails. We're trying to overturn the results of that election. Yeah, Georgia is certainly seems to be ground zero for any potential legal exposure that this former president faces outside of Fannie Willis's case that she's building right now. There is there are also new indications in these emails that John Eastman himself was aware of potential problems in terms of the legal jeopardy Trump

could face in those emails. And one of them, he actually warns the lawyers who were working with the president's team in Georgia that if Trump signed a certification for a lawsuit that they had already filed regarding voter fraud, which included claims of dead people voting, felons voting, et cetera, that there could potentially be problems because at that point they had already warned the former president that a lot of these claims were fraudulent, that the Justice Department, the evidence that they that experts had preferred that they had were not actually accurate and that if Trump resigned the litigation, he again could be facing some

sort of criminal exposure. So that is John Eastman himself saying that there were concerns that Trump could face prosecution along with the lawyers involved with this. All right. The Washington Post, Jackie Ellamy, thank you as always. We greatly appreciate it. And Jonathan Meir, you wrote the book on the big lie. Talk about these machinations, especially with Eastman. Yeah, Eastman, a central figure here. It was his scheme to place a slate of fake electors, states like Georgia, Arizona, others that would allow. And they're thinking Mike Pence to toss out the results and send it to the House on January 6th. He is someone who is under extraordinary legal scrutiny as we speak. He's in trouble legally.

There are people that I've talked to say say yes, that he very well could be. He has significant legal exposure here. And as a final point to what you've been saying about Supreme Court Justice Thomas, now Trump just expected him to do his bidding. A Trump aide recently told me that that philosophy is one of the things that has gotten Trump into trouble more than just about anything else, where this idea that he expects blind loyalty to himself, not the Constitution, not the government, not the White House, this idea of looking for his Roy Cohn. And he demanded it from James Comey. He demanded it from the White House counsel's office.

He demanded it from judges that he appointed. And those are ended up being those some of the last barriers that held against him during his time in office. Sixty five times. He's owned sixty five in federal cases.. So, you know, I'm an optimistic guy. I'm a positive guy. I think America is exceptional. Mika thinks I'm too optimistic. I think we'll get through this. That being said, you look at a state like Wisconsin where you have an election denier who may actually be the next governor of Wisconsin. And you look at the other loonies that are running up there, the election deniers, there aren't Brad Raffenbergers or even Brian Kemps down there that are going to say,

we are do see in Arizona that are saying, no, no, no. You know what? We're going to let the election results stand. I mean, have you talked to Democrats who actually now believe if the election denier wins and they win in Wisconsin, that that's just a state that Democrats are going to have to write off 24 and 28 and beyond? Well, I mean, Joe, it's very alarming, right? Because when you look at states like Wisconsin and Arizona, where you have two election deniers who, if they win, will be in the governor's offices in those states and they will effectively control the elections, as well as some of their down ballot candidates, too, if the secretaries of states win, who are running in those states, too. So when you are dealing with close races, which, I mean, we'll see what happens in 2024,

but history shows that Wisconsin and Arizona tend to always be very close states. It is very much top of mind. Like, how do we actually deal with a fair election in a state where an election denier is leading that state, especially if something is very, very close? So it's certainly something that a lot of people have their eye on right now. I think it's something that you will see. We're focusing on it now, but right after the midterms, if those people win, it will be even more of a focus. But yeah, it's absolutely concerning. So the stakes in Arizona, the stakes in Wisconsin just couldn't be higher. Yeah. I mean, we all look at the Senate races,

but when you look at this and the governor's races, if you're looking for fair and free elections, that's actually on the ballot in Wisconsin and Arizona specifically. You know, it used to be the issues, right, Joe? And it still is the issues. But now we have this other layer of protecting democracy on top of that and making sure that elections remain free and fair. And that is something that we also an extra layer that we have to contend with in 2024 if these election deniers win. All right, Adrian Elrod, thank you very much for coming on this morning and we'll see you back here again tomorrow. And David Ignatius, thank you as well. And coming up, the Federal Reserve raises interest rates again. Steve Ratner joins us with a look at what it

means for the U.S. economy and the fight against inflation and what might be ahead. Plus, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain joins us on the heels of President Biden's speech last night. Morning Joe is coming right back.