Morning Joe - Morning Joe 11/5/24

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Trump and Harris make their final pitches before Election Day

It was invisible, as always. They'd begun to vote in the villages of New Hampshire at midnight, as they always do, seven and a half hours before the candidates rose. His men had canvassed Hart's location in New Hampshire days before sending his autographed picture to each of the 12 registered voters in the village. But from there on, it was unpredictable and invisible. By the time the candidate left his Boston hotel at 8.30, several million had already voted across the country. In schools, libraries, churches, stores, post offices, these too were invisible.

But it was certain that at this hour, the vote was overwhelmingly Republican. On election day, America is Republican until five or six in the evening. It is in the last few hours of the day that working people and their families vote on their way home from work or after supper. It is then at evening that America goes Democratic if it goes democratic at all.

All of this is invisible, for it is the essence of the act that as it happens, it is a mystery in which millions of people each fit one fragment of a total secret together, none of them knowing the shape of the whole. What results from the fitting together of these secrets is, of course, the most awesome transfer of power in the world. Yet, as the transfer of this power takes place, there is nothing to be seen except an occasional line outside a church or school, or a file of people fidgeting in the rain, waiting to enter the booths. No bands play on Election Day.

No troops march. No guns readied. No conspirators gather in secret headquarters. The noise and the blare, the bands and the screaming, the pageantry and the oratory of the long fall campaign fade on election day. All the planning is over. All the effort spent. Now the candidates must wait. Perfect words to start the show with on this Election Day, Tuesday, November 5th. That was from Theodore H. Weitz, the making of the President, 1960. An estimated 79 million Americans have already cast a ballot.

And today, those who will vote in person will add their voice. Polling places in some states are already open at this hour. And in a race that most believe is the closest in U.S. election history, it was only fitting that residents in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, who cast their balance for president shortly after midnight, went with an even split. Three votes for Vice President Kamala Harris and three for former president Donald Trump,

along with Joe, Willie, and me. We have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, NBC News and MSNBC Political Analyst, former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, is with us on this momentous election morning.

And on this momentous election morning, as you said, Mika, the race is as close as anyone can remember in modern American history. If you believe the polls, Willie, then we are deadlocked at a tie. If you look at the New York Times aggregative polls, it's a tie. If you look at their final New York Times Sienna poll, it's a tie. If you look at their final New York Times Sienna poll, it's a

tie. If you look at the Washington Post's aggregative polls, it's a tie. There are a few that are outside the margin of error. One for Harris that has her up four, four and a half from yesterday. The Harris campaign obviously feeling very good this morning that they have just enough to win this. The Trump campaign has been confident all along, not quite as confident as they were before, but certainly those that are supporting them, every bit as confident as well. So something has to give. Yeah, that's right.

We talk about how the polls have been not particularly accurate over the last couple of cycles, but when enough polls over enough weeks tell you the same thing, it's fair to say that this is a margin of error race. And it really is when you look at those seven battleground states, they could tip either way. This could be a long night, a long week where we're still counting the votes, or it could be a landslide in one direction or the other if somebody wins all seven of those states. So we're standing on the precipice of something. And I do watching Vice President Harris's day of rallies yesterday, and we'll contrast

it with Donald Trump's, all the anxiety we keep hearing about and it's real among voters about which way this election could go clearly has turned into energy and action and purpose for people who have gone out in droves to volunteer for Kamala Harris, to knock on doors. They had more volunteers than shifts. They had to find other jobs for people to do. So yes, of course there's anxiety. Yes, people are worried about which way this could tip, but people have done the right thing, which is to get into the fight and try to make a difference. And you're starting to hear as we get near the end, Jonathan O'Meara, some anecdotal evidence that

follows up when you hear 900,000 Harris volunteers knocking on doors across Pennsylvania. I heard last night from someone who was a Republican in Texas, turned into a never-Trumpeter, but didn't tell anybody, moved up to Pennsylvania. Nine knocks — but had voted Republican his entire life 9 knocks on the door from Harris people every 3 days when he finally voted to say OK, I'll vote. His wife had not voted 9 more knocks until the wife went to vote and and he said that was not the remarkable part of the market will part was

a life long Texas Republican voter who moved to Pennsylvania didn't get one knock on the door from anybody the Trump campaign from any Republican now, maybe maybe all the rules of the past don't apply in this election with Donald Trump. He breaks all the rules all the time for politics and it works for him. But if the ground game is important as we've all been. But if the ground game is as important as we've all been led to believe the ground game is important,

even Trump people will tell you it's worth half a point. It's worth three quarters of a point in close races. And as Willie said, because all of these races are so tied, a one, two percentage point margin in all of these states means a landslide for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Yeah, each state is so tight, but they all could break one way.

We don't know. It's a great contrast there in terms of the ground game. The Democratic team started under President Biden and then Vice President Harris has built it up. It's just enormous. They have more volunteers they know what to do with. They have their stories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,

there's going to door after door after door, and the Republicans know where to be found they have their stories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin is going to door after door after door and Republicans know where to be found Republicans outsourced a lot of their ground game to Elon Musk to other groups and there's also a difference between a volunteer knocking on the door a Democratic volunteer who believes in the cause versus someone who's paid to be there and maybe phoning it in and that's really important. I'll say Eugene talking to people last night, there's

still some confidence from the Trump team, though there's less than there was say before that Matt Grigori rally 10 days ago. Last night, between last night and early this morning, I texted with over a dozen senior Democratic officials from the Harris campaign, the White House, the DNC, and some state parties to a person. All say this race is very close. To a a person they say look we have work to do today to a person they say all things seem to be breaking our way to a person they all say we think there's a path for a narrow win and they all knocked wood after they said that right across their fingers and toes and everything like that you know so here's what's so interesting because we know that the polls are never exactly right.

They're a little bit off. And it seems likely that if there's something going on under the surface that's not being picked up, maybe reproductive rights is a bigger issue than people think. Maybe democracy is a bigger issue than people think because that was the case two years ago in the midterm. So it's not just happening in one state, it's happening in all the swing states. And so if they're all that close, you know, just a movement of a couple of percent that we're not picking up can actually mean a landslide.

I think it's more likely that a bunch of the swing states go one way or the other way than, you know, a total mix in half and half. So James Carville said several weeks ago, he said right now it's about four to three. That's not how it's going to be on election day. It's going to swing six or seven to one side. And the only thing I would add to what you said, Jonathan, in our talks with the Harris campaign over the past several weeks, two weeks ago, two weekends ago, they said, it's grim. It's grim. We have a lot of work to do and we don't know if we have time. Last week, they said, okay, we're going in the right direction. Early last week, they said,

we're going to catch him. And I will say over the past two or three days, and I'm just reporting here, not jinxing anybody out there, so nobody screams. If the Red Sox, by the way, are up 19 to 3, Jack and I know to say, this isn't over yet. Thank you. I will say, when we talked to several sources high in the Harris campaign, for the first time, these veterans of 2016

who were traumatized by the Hillary Clinton loss said, we're going to win. They recognized that. We are going to win. And they say that knowing we got it wrong in 2016, we're not going to get it wrong this time. We are going to win. And the one note of caution is that we have seen two previous cycles. Donald

Trump is very good at turning out voters on Election Day and that there is still a sense that could happen. Maybe there is that surge of polling of voters turn out. To this point though, those low propensity voters they're banking on, this time around, Mika, mostly young men, they're not seeing signs they've been out there. Maybe that will change today, maybe maybe I won't but right now as we start this election day to Joe's point I was hearing the same last night as well this is the most confident Democrats have felt they're knocking on wood they're not taking anything for granted it is gonna be a long day ahead but they feel good about

where they are and I think the biggest issue so many of them said to me is when this all settles we're gonna look at each other and realize it was about daubs all along. Reproductive rights, women's rights were what this election was about. So that's first of all, I'm gonna ask Claire about that, but we have the candidates making their closing arguments and even from last night, the contrast could not be more stark. And I know we've been saying that for the past few days but when we show you their final speeches before even today's, if there are any things scheduled for today, it is just unbelievably different and dark and we also have JD Vance trying to spin a

pun or spin a tale about the garbage comments that have been made that started with the MSG rally and it ends up calling Kamala Harris trash. So very different closing arguments between the two sides, Claire McCaskill. But the question will be, my belief is that women and men who get it will be the beacon in this election, but will it be enough? Well, there's two things in the last two weeks. Well, really three.

You have the ground game, which we talked about. And let me just make sure everybody understands. Our side is using seasoned veterans who have worked the ground game cycle after cycle after cycle, and they have advanced their processes as they've learned what works and what doesn't. And the Harris campaign has spent multiples on the ground game than what has ever been spent before.

More than double, in fact almost triple on the ground game compared to previous cycles. On the other hand, the Trump campaign is using Elon Musk, who thought the brilliant idea was to get data by paying people $100 to sign a piece of paper. I'm not sure that's going to work out for the guy who wants to always be the smartest one in the room. The second thing is how you close. And what you're talking about, Mika, is a big deal, because the only voters out there who haven't made up their mind are what we call field voters.

And they get a sense at the end of the campaign, they're not digging down into climate change policy. They're not looking at what is gonna really happen with tariffs. It's how a candidate makes them feel. And I gotta tell you, if you watched Donald Trump over the last week, how he made you feel was, is this real?

Can this guy actually be a serious candidate for president? Versus Kamala Harris, who absolutely oozed presidential poise, dignity, joy, hope, all the things, and unity. There's a place for everybody at her table. I feel really good. Let's see it. Let's look one last time at that contrast. Vice President Kamala Harris, Donald Trump

taking their final pitch to voters in several campaign rallies yesterday. The moods, the messaging, starkly different, to put it mildly. Harris offering optimism, hope, Donald Trump closing out his final campaign hours, literally, at 2.13 a.m. this morning, going after his opponents and paying a bleak assessment

of the future. We are optimistic and excited about what we will do together and we here know it is time for a new generation of leadership in America. For the past nine years we have been fighting against the most sinister and corrupt forces on earth. Instead of stewing over an enemies list, I will spend every day working on my to-do list on your behalf. A crazy, horrible human being, Nancy Pelosi, who cheats like hell.

She's a crooked person. She's a crooked person she's a bad person. Evil. She's an evil sick crazy bad. Oh no. It starts with a B but I won't say it. But in two days we are gonna take out the trash in Washington DC and the trash's name is Kamala Harris. Now tomorrow women all across America of every age, both parties are going to send a loud and clear message to Donald Trump. Whether he likes it or not.

I am not going to be a leader who thinks that people who disagree with me should be put in jail. Our stupid generals, our terrible generals, you know the guys up top like Millie, like Kelly, real losers, Kelly was dumb as a rock. My pledge to you to always put country above party and self. Adam shifty shift. I call him pencil neck. He's got the smallest neck I've ever seen. He's got about a four

and he's got the biggest head. So I don't know how the neck can hold the head. He's an unattractive guy, both inside and out. This is about a future with freedom and opportunity and dignity for all Americans. I will prevent World War III from happening. I know all the players. And it's a very good chance that it will indeed happen. The level of enthusiasm is five times greater than their level. They have no level of enthusiasm enthusiasm they don't believe in her

and momentum is on our side i mean we're certainly on the tour three yard line and the only way we can blow it is if you blow it i've given you the ball i mean you gotta go and vote. And make no mistake, we will win. So nothing particularly new there, Mika, from Donald Trump, same old stuff, same old insults, same contrast we've been showing on this show for what?

I don't know, two years, four years, since he jumped back in and decided he was gonna run again. Another thing to look at there was just the enthusiasm. The crowds at Kamala Harris's rallies were large. They were enthusiastic. Donald Trump playing to smaller houses, showing up two hours late for his events,

crowd kind of shuffling out at hour two of the speech. So these are things, anecdotally, things that give you a feel of where we are on this election day. And a feel for who he is. About to use the B word for Kamala Harris and kind of playing with that. That is and that for Nancy Pelosi and also you know in the past couple of days it's really hard not to forget the vulgar gesture that he made. I just don't see women going in and voting for that I see women voting for the

women across America now who have struggled and died at the hands of Donald Trump's abortion bans because of the lack of access to health care the health care he denied them I see them voting for their daughters I see them voting for their sisters and and men as well who really get it. I don't see them voting for this man. I don't know. You add on top of that last night, Claire, the guy that wrote Hillbilly Effigy, the guy who had said Trump was America's Hitler, the guy who said Christians could never vote for Trump, the guy who had said Trump was America's Hitler, the guy who said Christians could never vote

for Trump, the guy who put himself out there as conservative but different, that is a guy who last night called Kamala Harris trash. And if you could, over the last several weeks, if you could name about 10 things that the Republican ticket could do to drive women voters away, to drive Hispanics away, to drive older voters away, they've checked every one of those boxes. It's nuts. I mean, if you look at it, they have our strength of Kamala Harris as women voters, right? So what do they do the last two weeks of the campaign?

They spend most of their time offending women voters. And keep in mind who they have to get to the polls to win. They have to get young men. Low propensity voters, young men. By the way, they have to get young men. Kamala Harris has to get women my age. Now I don't know who you're betting on, but... But who's more reliable and responsible?

All I know is when I was running, I was told don't waste your time on college campuses. Get your you-know-what to nursing homes. And there was a reason for that because the reliability of older voters and the reliability of women in this election when every day they say something that women go, no, no, you're a jerk. I'm not voting for you. You're a jerk. For sure. We already know. Joining us now from a polling station in Philadelphia, NBC News Chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander, who's covering the Harris campaign, and from West

Palm Beach Florida NBC News correspondent Von Hilliard with the Trump camp Peter will start with you what are you hearing from the Harris team this morning. Well, good morning to you guys on this election day we are finally seeing folks with a little in person game day line arriving here early polls open up across the state of Pennsylvania at 7 o'clock this morning, I'll tell you I've had a series of conversations with Harris folks over the course of last 24

hours and much like we've heard from Kamala Harris herself they are feeling particularly good I was struck by a conversation I had with Harris ally who formally served on the Clinton campaign for Hillary Clinton in 2016 who said in those waning days leading up to the election back then they felt like they were losing altitude after James Comey's announcement among other things but right now that it feels very different they feel like they are still

rising frankly this person said to me if this election were in another week we think we need to do even better, but they feel as Harris herself has said particularly good right now and you really had a sense of that last night as she was there on the rocky steps in front of the art library here in Philadelphia Harris herself saying it was a tribute to someone who starts as the underdog and climbs up to victory, 10's of thousands of people in attendance and they got there early with

paraphernalia all of their gear with a sense that they were witnessing history for some some moms who had their daughters on their shoulders history that had been delayed what was striking to me in particular is that Harris really hasn't leaned into the historic nature of this campaign over the course of the last of many weeks, she hasn't talked about the potential to being the first female American president but last night some of her top surrogates Oprah

Winfrey among them did saying yes, she can that the crowd joined her in repeating before will I am saying a new riff yes, she can much like yes, he can that he delivered before the 20 before 2008 campaign for Barack Obama there. Another Harris ally telling me at going into today they would rather be in her heels than in his shoes so really there is a sense of confidence. They're projecting right now and a lot of it is because of what they've already

seen as they've been on the ground 90,000 volunteers as you know well knocking on more than 3 million doors across the battleground states and Harris herself joining that effort just yesterday in Reading, Pennsylvania doing a little bit of surprise door knocking as well and you're talking about the Madison Square Garden rally about how some of the Puerto Rican vote they feel strongly is leaving Trump if it was supporting Trump before coming to Harris right now she

drove an hour out of her way making a detour from Allentown to reading yesterday with Alexandria cause you court has to go to a Puerto Rican restaurant hoping to really hammer home that point on a state that has a huge block of Puerto Rican voters, many of whom say they're planning to support Harris's go-around. All right vice president Harris will watch the results come in from our alma mater Howard University in Washington today

NBC's Peter Alexander busy day ahead in Philadelphia Peter thanks so much. Let's turn now to Vaughn Hilliard. He's of course covering Donald Trump. Vaughn, good morning. Hey, good morning, Willie. So it begins here in West Palm Beach, Florida. Donald Trump has returned after his final rally last night

in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is where he will alongside former first lady Melania Trump be voting in a matter of hours in Palm Beach before making his way back to Mar-a-Lago where I'm told he's gonna be holding down with campaign advisors and other allies. Roger Stone, one of those, for example, telling me he will be at Mar-a-Lago this evening

before making their way potentially to the West Palm Beach Convention Center where the gathered press and other supporters, they're expecting thousands of them, will convene for election night festivities and we very well could see Donald Trump tonight. But this is a moment here for this campaign where a reckoning has played out over the course of the last week that Donald Trump in the fashion that we have become accustomed to became his free-wielding self in the most vulnerable, transparent of ways, suggesting

at a campaign rally here this weekend that he would put a Herschel Walker in charge of the U.S. defense shield system. He has openly said that he would put Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of healthcare policy in the United States, even overseeing vaccines. He has openly suggested, as he did last night, that he's 95% confident he's gonna win this election. And he has said that he would win California if there were real vote counters.

This here is a moment for this campaign where I was talking with a key Trump campaign battleground source who was telling me that one week ago, there was much higher confidence about where they found themselves positioning wise, especially with the first several weeks of early voting coming in. They said that they saw lower propensity voters, voters that haven't even voted in the last two presidential elections, were turning out in a greater share than they had previously.

Yet, what they watched was their candidate come out uncensored, begin to make questionable decisions in terms of the rhetoric that he used, denigrating Kamala Harris' low IQ, calling Nancy Pelosi a crazy sick person, going on the attack against his former generals, Milley and Mattis and John Kelly. And this, the battleground source is telling me they were already in a deficit when it came to the ground operation that you guys were talking to, telling me specifically that this campaign, this go around in the key battleground states had half the resources that they did in 2020.

So instead of knocking on every door in a neighborhood, they were having to choose one or two doors to knock on and they were at a disadvantage. And if they were to win tonight, it'd be because of the MAGA grassroots support that Donald Trump has built over the last nine years. But that is putting a lot on Donald Trump and the movement and the supporters, especially those that didn't even show up in 2016 or 2020, guys.

All right. NBC's Von Hilliard with Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida. Von, thanks so much. You know, it's important to remember in 2020, the turnout operation that they'd put together, that they put together, they put together over four years while Donald Trump was president and Brad Parskals went out and found about nine million voters that had not voted in previous elections. And that actually made the race much closer.

They just don't have that this year. Again, you know, voting, you know, knocking on one door in a neighborhood instead of the Harris people who are knocking repeatedly day after day after day after day. And again, maybe, maybe there will be some magic, MAGA magic that rises from the pumpkin patch post Halloween and maybe it puts him over the pumpkin patch post Halloween, and maybe it puts him over the top.

I mean, again, you look at the polls, the polls all say this is an extraordinarily close race, but all I can tell you is what I've heard my entire life, what Claire's heard her entire life in campaigning, what the Trump campaign has told me themselves, and that is when the race is tied, turnout operations are worth half a point to a full point. And if that is the case, and these races aren't actually this close, which, again, let's remember,

the polls were really wrong in 22. They were really wrong in 20. They were terribly wrong in 16. Again, I can't say it enough, Fox News and so many other people thought in 2012 that Barack Obama was going to be routed. If it is, the polls all say it's tied. If it's tied, then we're up late tonight. If instead there's a two or three point shift in either direction, which is what every pollster says margin of error. Yeah. You know, that could mean the landslide for one side or the other.

Yeah. And John, it's for the for the Harris campaign. It's a ground game that has been built for months and months and months first for Joe Biden. And the interesting thing, as you touched on earlier, was the overconfidence of the Trump campaign perhaps leading to their lack of ground game. When they were running against Joe Biden, they were talking about winning New Jersey and Virginia and how high can we run up the score? All of a sudden, Joe Biden steps aside, Vice President Harris steps in, enthusiasm goes up among Democrats.

The Trump campaign says, uh-oh, we thought we were going to win in a runaway. Now we've got to fight. Yeah, they went into the Republican National Convention in July in Milwaukee coming off of the first assassination attempt, believing that they were going to win in a rout. And then President Biden, a few days later, stepped down from the top of the ticket.

And I think it's worth spending a moment dwelling on the fact that Vice President Harris has done all this in 107 days. It's 107 days, that's the entire duration of her campaign. And she obviously entered the race with a lot of altitude you know had a lead had a command performance in that on our convention and then her first debate but we saw things even out here again the trump team which was rattled a little while there really felt good for most of october and these last two weeks have changed the changes

we're actually starting to see the vote totals come in. That's most important, of course, but also the feeling around the race changed. And as someone in the Trump orbit put it to me yesterday, the hubris of the Madison Garden event, where he wanted this victory rally event in his backyard, in the city that had ignored him, the city that had belittled him, he wanted to show it to them and have a media spectacle. Well, he got one, but for all the wrong reasons, from the Donald Trump campaign's perspective,

and that the line about Puerto Rico is what broke through. And Harris people tell me last night that they have tried so many messaging in the last few months. They had some success with 2025, obviously on daubs, but other arguments they were making weren't breaking through that moment, though. The Masswood Garden Rally race broke through

and helped change things here in the final days. November surprise, October surprise. Still ahead on Morning Joe, this election day. We're going to get live reports from battlegrounds across the country as in-person voting gets underway. Plus, presidential historian John Meacham joins us with what he says is his biggest regret about Donald Trump and a warning of what could happen if the former president returns to the White House.

We'll also bring in, of course, Steve Kornacki from the big board with a look at what he's watching for this morning. See how mad he was last night? You know, he always comes in with whiskey bottles. And usually you're fine with him carrying the whiskey bottle. Last night he's throwing it against the wall. There's a poll that comes out of New Hampshire. Yeah, I don't understand it has Harris up by 28 points he's not getting it

and so it's kicking in the glass. Yeah, he's going is whiskey bottles will give him the space. Come on I'm looking for a look at where is cornacki will say we also have Harris Waltz campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dylan she's going to be our guest as well you're watching morning Joe. God's we're right back in 90 seconds while he went there. So tonight I ask you one last time, are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we believe in freedom?

Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it? You're going to say, Kamala, you're horrible at your job. You don't know what you're doing. You're a low IQ individual. We want smart people. We want cunning people.

We're dealing with the smartest people in the world. We don't want you negotiating nuclear deals because you don't know what the word nuclear means. Kamala, you're fired. Get the hell out of here. From the man who got crushed in his one debate with Kamala Harris and was too scared to do another one, literally just down to the final hours, insulting women across the board. Joining us now on this Election Day, Roger's chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University, historian John Meacham, and author and NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss.

Good to have you both. So, John, you have a guest essay in the New York Times opinion section this morning entitled I'm a Presidential Historian. This is my biggest regret about Trump. What is that? It is a big list, so I had to focus on one. I thought for a long time, and my friend Michael was right long before I was,

which is often true with Beschloss, which is kind of one of the annoying things about him. Yeah, yeah. But I thought Trump was a difference of degree, but not of kind. I thought this was if Huey Long had become president, if George Wallace had become president, and that he was a recognizable phenomena

within the American story, an embodiment, yes, of our worst impulses, but the fullest manifestation of things we had seen and dealt with. What he proved to me in the post-election period in 2020 was that he was a unique threat. Strike the verb tense. He is a unique threat to the constitutional order because a lot of American figures who had a lot more reason to attack election results, starting with Andrew Jackson in 1824 and moving through Nixon in 60 and

Humphrey in 68, Gore in 2000, Senator Clinton in 2016. They all had a lot of oxygen if they wanted to do something terrible, but no one did because ultimately they respected the rule of law. The former president does not. No. And that's what makes him the unique threat. Absolutely unique because he is proven. This isn't just chatter on an election morning. He has shown us. If we believe, we live in an age of enlightenment.

We are supposed to obey reason over passion. That was the point of Madisonian democracy. He has shown us what he is. If not for Mike Pence, it is hard to know where we would have been the last four years. If not for President Biden, it is hard to know where he would have been the last four years. And so, let's just not do this. So, what happens though, John, as historians tell us, and then we'll get to Michael, what happens if Donald Trump loses tonight? Let's even say he loses convincingly, and there's no evidence that he will do that.

Not at all. We don't know what's going to happen. But let's say he does. Even in that best-case scenario for the Harris people and for what you're talking about here, we still have an electorate, 70 million plus, that will be voting for a man who said he was going to assassinate for treason, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs

because he didn't support him on January the 6th, who said just in recent days he was going to execute Liz Cheney with a firing squad, nine guns pointed and shooting at her face, a man who has said that he was going to shut down CBS because he didn't like how they edited an interview, a man who said he was going to be a dictator from day one, a man who said he was going to terminate the Constitution, a man who said he was going to use the Army and he was going to use

the National Guard on his political opponents. I could I literally could go on all day and yet you talk to Trump voters and they'll go, he didn't say that. Wait, now I didn't hear him. And then you say, well, here's the quote. And then they'll go, he didn't mean that. So there is a, there's something far, far more long lasting than just Donald Trump, the candidate, there is a sort of Russian embrace of

disinformation, a radical disvaluing, devaluing of truth over the last nine to ten years, and a complete ignorance on civics. And what the term Madisonian democracy even means, what checks and balances even means? What judicial review even means? What the rule of law even means? How do we as a nation, even post-Trump, how do we reach those Americans who apparently didn't go to civics class, who apparently didn't go to civics class, apparently didn't learn the basics of this constitution, and have just been overwhelmed with this information over the past nine years.

We're on trial. Donald Trump is not the only person on the ballot. We are. The American citizenry is on the ballot. And all the lines that come to mind, right? All the steak-freak of American patriotic conversation. A republic, if you can keep it. Washington said in the farewell address, a republic cannot endure in the absence of religious

and moral principle. It is not just about the letter of the law. It's about the spirit of the law. And enough of us, and this is precedented, enough of us have to decide that we're willing to lose a round in order to keep a larger experiment going. And the good news there is that for a quarter of a millennium, we were willing to do that. That doesn't mean we will do it going forward, but it does mean that we have the evidence of the ages on our side.

My view is that history should not be comforting in this moment, right? This is not dorky Zoloft, right? This is, but it can be inspiring. Which by the way, can I just say I listen to all your pods your podcasts and and and the reviews underneath do say four stars dorky so law yeah I'm all in count me in I'm trying to also the steak frieze thing made me hungry but go ahead okay I'm trying to get some pharmaceutical sponsorship so I'm hoping that works.

But it can be inspiring. So 55 years ago, a man from South Carolina will appreciate this, a man from Alabama, Georgia will appreciate this. Who would not have wanted to be on the Pettus Bridge with John Lewis and Hosea Williams? And there were be on the Pettus Bridge with John Lewis and Hosea Williams? And there were people on the Pettus Bridge going down into those troopers. If everybody who now says they would have been on the top of the bridge would have been,

guess what? They wouldn't have had to be on the top of the bridge. And so we have seen this country change. We can see it. We can change it again. And that's an inspiring thing. It should not be comforting because this is really, really hard. We have only been a multiracial democracy since 1965. Right. When everybody goes into vote today, for those who go into vote, think

about that. That not the first time somebody went in and voted in a multiracial democracy was 1968. This is a young, fragile experiment, and we should treat it that way. We certainly should, and Willie, in the spirit of John Meacham, I mean, when people are confused or walking around as if there's sort of an ambient, days around Americans. Quiet of pain. How does that, does that, do I get the function? ambient. And you're doing a day's around. Quiet. Yeah, how does that does that do I get the fire should go there. I just stayed in bed.

Evergreen state. So Michael bash loss. But let's see if he's going for a pharmaceutical bill like a chance here's your moment. Right. Michael you and John and other great historians often talk about hinge days in history hinge moments in history and we could go through them all over the last 250 years in this country. This does feel in many ways like a hinge day which is

to say we're going down one of two very different paths by perhaps tomorrow morning. Yes, and that's what if historians in the future are allowed to write books, and by the way that question is open this morning, and if people are allowed to go on television and say what they think in the future, which again that question is open this morning, in the future, which again, that question is open this morning. In the future, historians are going to look back on this day and say, this is the day that America made a choice between freedom and democracy on one side and authoritarianism and dictatorship on the other. Hey, Michael, can I restate something for you? It's not that historians won't be able to write those books.

It may be that the billionaires and the corporations that own the publishing houses will refuse to print those books. We have seen that with the LA Times. We have seen that with the Washington Post. I will not get into details. We have even seen that with other countries, liberal democracies who so fear Donald Trump that they are already preparing, already preparing for the worst. We see billionaires on Wall Street who six months ago expressed contempt for Donald Trump.

People that walked away from him after January the 6th, saying that he was bad for American democracy, who are now preemptively kowtowing to someone they fear will be an authoritarian leader. So this is not high drama. This is the reality we live in. Who would have ever believed three weeks ago that the Washington Post, who rewrote the rules of journalistic history with Woodward and Bernstein by keeping politicians accountable, who would have ever believed a few weeks ago that the Washington Post would have written an opinion endorsing Kamala Harris and their billionaire owner would scuttle it a few days before the election because he was so fearful that a Vengeful Donald Trump would go after his business not just the Post but Amazon, his AI business.

Who would have believed that? But now that's the world we live in. Yes. It is and that's what happens when strongmen come to power. That happened in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s, Germany in the 1930s. Certainly has happened in Hungary, and Viktor Orban, of course, is one of Donald Trump's most notorious heroes.

He said we should follow that model, and so it may be. And this is what happens when America begins to go toward dictatorship. And I think all of us, you know, talking right now, we would have all said, I'll speak for all of us. And if I'm wrong, correct me. If we had discussed this 20 years ago, and we had said one of the two major party nominees

is promising, just as Joe was saying, suspend the Constitution, pit the Justice Department, the Defense Department against political enemies, and run this country out of the White House, telling businesses what to do, small businesses, labor unions. It's all done by one leader in the White House giving orders. We would have said that person could not get 50% of the vote. As we speak this morning, the polls that you were all talking about say that a presidential

nominee, you have to give Donald Trump credit for this. He's been very straightforward. He has said, if you elect me, you're going to get violence, you're going to get dictatorship for at least a day. He has made very clear what's going to happen violence, you're going to get dictatorship, for at least a day, he has made very clear what's going to happen. That's a campaign promise. And what I cannot understand is that half the country seems to think that that's fine. John, meet some final thoughts.

We're on trial. Everything that everybody here, you served in the no noblest body. In the legislative world, please. This I love you John me. People's House. House the. It's on the it's what it's what it's worth saying that if the House of Lords. If did he say? If the—

If the republic ever dies, it will die in the United States Senate. But here, one thing that might have happened— Because they're all old and tired, but go ahead. But here's what may have happened. The floor of the United States Senate, when it confirmed Republican justices outside the vernacular of ordinary protocols, gave us a Supreme Court that gave us a radical decision that is most likely going to turn this election. My final thought is we people bled, people died, people suffered for the right to

vote and without the vote, without realizing what's at stake and it's not marginal tax rates and it's not electric vehicles, as important as all that is, this is about are we gonna have the ability to live lives of purpose and prosperity under the rule of law or are we not as Michael says?

All right. Well, we told that we had Beschloss and Meacham. We didn't get to Hayes-Tilden. Oh my God. That's tomorrow. We have presidential historians. Wait, wait, wait. Let's hope that's not tomorrow.

We do not want to talk about a disputed. Zoloft. Presidential historians, John Meacham and Michael Beschloss, thank you both very much for being on this morning. Thanks guys. And coming up, we're going to dig into how the outcome of the presidential election could impact U.S. foreign policy. Britain's ambassador to the United States, Karen Pierce, will weigh in on that along

with Richard Haas and Ed Luce of the Financial Times. Morning Joe will be right back. Our message to Kamala Harris is very simple. The citizens of this country, they are not garbage for thinking that you're doing a bad job. The citizens of this country are not racist for thinking that you ought to close down that damn southern border. The citizens of this country are not garbage for wanting to be able to afford groceries and a nice place to live. But in two days, we are going to take out the trash in Washington, D.C. and the trash's name is Kamala Harris.

No, no, no. You know, Claire, usually they leave themselves some easily wiggle room to say, I wasn't talking about Kamala Harris. No, no, no. You know, Claire, usually they leave themselves some weasely wiggle room to say, I wasn't talking about Kamala Harris. Yeah, he didn't mean it. He went and paused and said, and the trash is Kamala Harris. That's the closing argument at the last event for the guy who wants to be vice president of the United States. So set aside all your feelings about what they believe in and all of that.

You know, one of the things that's most important for a president and vice president is judgment. What is your judgment about what will work on any problem you're facing? JD Vance is facing a problem that the women of America do not trust these two guys. That's the problem they're facing. If they didn't have that problem, they'd be ahead right now. So the judgment that went into the decision to say those words should speak volumes to anybody out there who hasn't voted yet. It should tell you all you need to know.

This guy's judgment is so flawed, he goes from calling this guy Trump, Americans, Hitler, to calling Kamala Harris trash. Right. Something's wrong there. That's really radically wrong. And Joe, to Claire's point, if you watch that full clip, he said, the campaign told me to just keep it when the lines were leading. But I'm going to tell you what I really think about Kamala

Harris. That was the preamble to what he just said there. That's what he thinks. And it is, again, that's what we've always said about the Trump campaign. It's always a game of subtraction and not addition. I just, again, I will never understand it. There's a campaign they could have run

where they could be ahead easily right now. Instead, we're sitting here saying the race is tied. Democrats are feeling very good right now I don't understand why there's been no reaching out it's like let's offend as many women as possible let's drive down with our most hardcore base on on you know QAnon 4chan guys that hate women let's do that yeah and if they win, if they win, I just, I keep thinking of Abraham Lincoln's quote that without public support, without public opinion, nothing is possible. So are they going to run the country as a 46, 47% presidency?

No, it doesn't work. No know it doesn't work that way and so you know Trump has been that way for 3 cycles now but change that what is wrong with this guy. It's wrong with this guy he's you know we supposed to be smart. He wrote a book. He said Trump was America's Hitler, he said he said that Christians should not vote for Donald Trump. He said he could never support Donald Trump because what he says about immigrants and about the other. Exactly but I've seen ambition and politicians but I just

know this is something else. You know they're eating cats and dogs in Springfield in his state which is a lie his constituents. His Republican governor tells him it's a lie. His Republican governor tells him it's a lie. The Republican mayor tells him it's a lie. He doesn't ever even bother to go to Springfield to see for himself. The sky is just awful. To the comments of Kamala Harris being trash, I defer to the great Nicole Wallace, who said that was the dumbest political move I've ever seen. And I worked for Sarah Palin. Claire McCaskill, Eugene Robinson, thank you both very much.

Go, Jafes! We'll see you all tomorrow. Again? One more time. What can I tell you? Mahomes gets hurt, comes back. Comes back. He's again. What can I tell you? The homes gets hurt comes back. And what about Washington? Hey, just incredible. Daniels, he just all he does is win, win, win, no matter what. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn of South

Carolina will join us to discuss the significance of this election and what is at stake if Donald Trump is reelected. Plus we'll go live to several key battleground states where the races appear to be neck and neck. Our own NBC reporters will break down what to expect. Morning Joe will be right back on this election day. For the last few weeks my team has been telling me we're doing good, we're doing good, just go out there make sure people know what a disaster Kamala Harris has been, make sure people know how great Donald J Trump is and that And that's, that's the message I've been carrying forward.

But you know, it's the last day of the campaign. And I think today I'm just going to say whatever the hell I want to.