Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/6/24

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

Nikki Haley to end presidential campaign, ceding GOP nomination to Trump

Biden and Trump won the most delegates tonight, but they aren't very popular, which is why poll sites were handing out stickers that said, I reluctantly voted. Meanwhile, today, Taylor Swift got on Instagram and encouraged her 282 million followers to vote, which backfired when everyone voted for the blank space. All right, Super Tuesday in the books, and Donald Trump now has 1,057 delegates. That's roughly 11 for every criminal charge he's facing. He is now about 150 delegates away from clinching the Republican nomination.

Vermont denied Trump a sweep yesterday where Nikki Haley won with just over 50% of the vote. What did John Heilman say? He said, this is what you're going to be looking at. Vermont and American Samoa, if you want to know where this race is going. And I don't understand it. We're going to be talking to John Heilman

a little bit later on. He's going to explain that. He's in a little too early, though, on the Democratic side. President Biden is cruising toward his party's nomination with a high stakes State of the Union address taking place tomorrow on Capitol Hill. But Biden did have his first 2024 loss last night with entrepreneur Jason Palmer winning the caucus in American Samoa. Fewer than 100 ballots were cast in that contest. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, March 6th. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire and NBC News national affairs analyst John Heilman is here. NBC News and MSNBC political analyst, former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill. She and Jen Palmieri are co-hosts

of the great MSNBC podcast, How to Win 2024. You know, I love Christmas Eve. You do? I really do. I love Christmas Eve. And this feels like Christmas Eve. Oh, good. Families all together. Did you get me a present? Yeah, I get you a Hobson shot. Oh, no. Oh, my God. This must go right back there. I will not use a shot collar.

It must go right back there. No. I've never had one before. We're 24 hours out from Humping Gate game and you're back into the shot collar. No, whenever Joe wants me, he comes. He's 120 pounds and he just starts humping. So Hobson wants you all to himself. Basically, if you and Joe.

Right. Okay. I mean, he can't even. Hobson's right there. Right. Okay. You're saying Hobson prefers Joe to you? No.

No, the opposite. No. If I hug Mika. Yeah. Oh. See, that's why I need that. There's jealousy. I could be hugging her and just go.

Just joking, kids. He's my security dog. So basically, when you hug Mika, it provokes the compact. Yeah. I know people have this problem, and someone's going to help me out. I'd love some advice. There's Hobson. I don't want to use the shop.

Hobson is a good-looking dog. And very sweet. The size of a Shetland pony, actually, if you look at it. All right, guys. Steve Kornacki's here. Let's straighten out. Steve Kornacki here. He doesn't want to talk about dogs.

He wants to talk about maps. And, you know, we all have our thing. And this is Steve's thing. So go ahead, Steve. At the big board. I'm excited. Well, no offense. I am allergic to dogs.

Oh. Boo. I'm allergic to you. It's like a beautiful dog. I have nothing against the dog. He's hypoallergenic, so he'd be OK. When people say they're allergic dogs, you just cut the conversation off. Talk about your mouth. Well, hopefully not allergic to this big board. But what we see here, as you mentioned, Trump right now emerging from last night with 1057 delegates, though we should note there are still some that have yet to be allocated in some of these states.

So I think that number is going to rise a bit. It may it may hit 1070 a little bit north of that when all is counted. And that is significant on the Republican side because of this, the magic number of twelve hundred fifteen delegates. That is what is needed to formally claim the Republican nomination. And again, if you were to add another dozen or so delegates there to Trump's total, if you were to look at these results last night and then look ahead to next week, what states are voting next week? It is Georgia. It is Mississippi. It is Washington state. It is Hawaii caucus closed primary in two states in the South, where we can show you here in a second,

Donald Trump wasn't just winning last night in the South. He was winning by very, very large margins. Long way of saying between these four states next week and where the delegate total is likely to end up when everything is tallied from last night, Donald Trump is on track to have a very good shot of clearing that threshold one week from last night on March 12th. We'll see if Nikki Haley is still in the race then, but that is now on the docket potentially for next week. But looking at these results from last night, you were talking early in the primary season, Nikki Haley, her line, you know, you heard was she's getting 43 in New Hampshire, 40 in South Carolina. She was calling it, quote, the 40 percent.

She would say that was 40 percent consistently in these primaries not going for Donald Trump. Well, that number is not what we were seeing last night. It started in one of the states that if Haley were having a really good night last night, and I think if she were getting the kind of energy that she did have in New Hampshire and South Carolina, a state like Virginia would have been a ripe target for her. You've got big population dense northern Virginia, a lot of suburbs, a lot of voters with college degrees. These have been sort of her bread and butter. And take a look here. She loses this thing by 28 points. That's a worse showing than she had in South Carolina, worse showing in New

Hampshire, even though Virginia more demographically favorable to her than those states. You go south to North Carolina. I don't think a lot of folks, including the Haley folks, probably thought they were going to win North Carolina. But there's areas in North Carolina, the Triangle, the Charlotte area. There's college areas where it looks ripe for her. And look at this. She's going to lose the state by more than 50 points last night. You see it in Tennessee last night. She doesn't crack 50. No surprise that she lost Alabama, but only with 13 percent of the vote. You go to Arkansas. She couldn't crack 20 there.

And then I think the biggest noteworthy state last night just on this front is Texas. I mean, look at this. She's going to lose it by 60 points. And again, we just talk about the areas Haley had been doing relatively well in early in southern New Hampshire, in South Carolina. She won a congressional district in South Carolina. The suburban areas, there's a lot of suburban areas around Austin, around Houston, the Metroplex, Dallas, and a lot of suburban areas around the state that, again, on paper, you look at the demographics and you say, well, look, Haley may not win Texas, but she can start picking off some districts here. And I mean, just getting clobbered, Haley was in these suburban areas. Take a look here. You know, Collin County, north of Dallas, she's losing it by 45 points, you know, 52 points. Take a look

here. Zoom up. It's a little small one, but take a look here. This is one of the wealthiest counties in Texas. She's losing it by 57 points last night. So you add all of this together. She did pick off a win late at night in Vermont. You know, and we said we were going into this thinking if Haley had a shot anywhere, the probably Vermont was top of that list. She does get a narrow win. She does get the ability to say she won a state. But if you add up all the votes that were actually just California's results, too, it's a closed primary, but under 20 percent there and more votes to be counted. And I point that out because one thing we've been tracking is just what was the cumulative vote

last night? If you added together all of the primaries, all the caucuses and the Republican side, what share of the vote was Haley getting, given that she'd been using that 40 percent as sort of a talking point in the campaign trail. Currently, and again, with a lot of votes that come in California, she's running at just under 24 percent. It's about 23, excuse me, just under 23 percent. It's 22.8 percent right now. And again, as those California results come in, if they keep up where they are, that number could fall earlier. So essentially, that 40 percent she's been talking about on the campaign trail heading into last night, last night translated to just a tick over 20 percent for her. All right. Hey, NBC, Steve Kornacki, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it.

You're the best. We have a terrier poodle coming your way as thanks from your friends at morning joe it sheds and a shot collar to go with it no no you who would ever ever use one of those ghastly things willie um you know despite the fact that donald trump is doing uh very well last night and and his his side of of of the ring uh a side that's lost seven years in a row and is sure to lose again this year if Democrats work hard and independents work hard. He kept trashing America like that's Donald Trump's message. You know, Ronald Reagan would talk about how we were a city shining brightly on the hill for all the world to see. Donald Trump's message is America

sucks. It was America sucks before he got elected. It's America sucks now. He talked about American carnage even after he got elected. He lied about an illegal invasion when Barack Obama and Joe Biden had rates at 50 year lows when he was going in in January of 2017 for illegal border crossings. But last night, over and over again, we're a third world country. Oh, are we really? Oh, I didn't know that third world countries had unemployment below 4%, two years running for the first time since the 1960s. Inflation down to 3.1%, historically low. You look at our GDP, compare that to the rest of the world, not third world, first world. We're doing better than all of our friends.

We're doing better than all of our allies. We're doing better than all of our people who consider themselves to be America's enemies. Our economy is stronger than ever relative to the rest of the world. Our military is stronger than ever relative to the rest of the world. Culturally, we are stronger than ever relative to the rest of the world. And I'm not being flip when I say look at Taylor Swift in Australia. Look at the clothes that people are wearing in China. Look at the fashions people are

wearing across the United States. More powerful culturally, more powerful economically, more powerful militarily than ever before. And I don't know. I'm an American. So I'm kind of proud of that. And we fret about a movement that is based on the proposition that the United States of America sucks. That is Donald Trump's message. That sucks. That is Donald Trump's message. That is Donald Trump's message. And I will say Fox News goes around talking about how America sucks or Newsmax talks about America sucks. They're liars. They are liars. They will find a trans athlete that competed in a race two years ago, run it all day and forget to tell everybody the jobless rates are lower now or that Donald Trump is indicted anytime since the 1960s. Or they won't talk about the survey. So say, oh, oh, my God, they let somebody read a poem on a ship. We're too woke to fight a war. And then they will ignore one study after another

study after another, another study that shows, let me say it again, the United States militarily, far from being woke and weak, more powerful relative to the rest of the world's militaries than any time since 1945. That's a crazy thing. Donald Trump's campaign is based on so many lies. To me, the most offensive is that we're a third world country, that our economy sucks, that our military sucks, that our democracy sucks. When in fact, just the opposite is true. We are the greatest in the world. I'm proud to be an American. This is the greatest country

in the world. And yet Donald Trump wins votes. What's wrong with you people? Why do you hate America? Why do you vote for a guy that says America is terrible? That it's a third world country? When, Willie, all the evidence is to the contrary. This is why they lose every year, because they run campaigns dedicated to trashing the greatest country on the face of the earth and that was exactly to your point his speech last night his victory speech which he looked exhausted by the way i don't know what's going on i i feel sorry for kind of muttering it's just so beaten up muttering through a meandering speech but that was exactly you're exactly right he talked about our economy being a disaster,

which is actually not true at all. Yes, inflation is too high. There's no question about that. It's ticking down, but still too high. But Joe just laid out every metric. Our economy is not, in fact, a disaster. He said we stopped producing oil after I left office. We're producing more oil than we ever have

in this country right now. Could you stop and say that again? Because I have Yahoo's come up to me. Fox News says Joe Biden outlet not real. OK, they don't talk that way. Maybe I'm projecting my voice onto these college. I mean, like you and I said, you'll hear this for people with advanced degrees. And you go, no, actually, could you read the financial fake news?

Could you read the Wall Street Journal today? It will tell you America is drilling more oil today than ever before. And when it comes to natural gas, our biggest problem is we got too much. Yeah, we got a glut. Carnage. And when you hear it, he'll lay out all of your carnage. He'll lay out all these lies in that room to applause and cheers. So it's resonant in some way. People have access to the facts who can easily know the truth. And maybe they do know the truth.

And it's willful cheering on these lies because when did rooting against the United States become a punchline? I don't know. Claire, but the truth is he has no rationale for his campaign unless there's a story that America sucks, which it does not for the record. And if it doesn't and he's not coming in to rescue us from something, then there's no reason to vote for him. Yeah, well, let's go back and think about what his rationale was in the first place.

Has he ever had a rationale? His only rationale is he thought it would help his brand. He's a marketer. He's a liar and a marketer. He Republicans who went to the White House when he was president would come back and I would go over and talk to them and go, well, how was it? And they're just like, he has no idea what is going on. Republican senators. Yeah. Republican senators would go to the White House and they'd come back like they do a meeting on health care. And they'd come back and they'd go, he has no idea what the law does. He has no idea what it is.

So this is not somebody who cares about anything other than himself. And the sad thing is that grievance, he figured out marketing grievance was the most powerful thing he could market in America, because there are a lot of Americans and we need to realize this who believe they've worked hard and played by the rules and somehow it hasn't worked out for them. They can't afford to retire. They can't afford to send their kids to college. And they were looking for someone who was going to tell them, you know, you've been screwed over. And by the way, you know, the irony is this is a guy with gold gilt toilets. But be that as it may, that's that's what's going on here. Certainly what happened in my state. But I got to tell you, last night, I think, was not a good night for Donald Trump.

I know we spent a lot of time talking about how you won. But you know how many states that Donald Trump won by more than a 70 point margin to you know how many states Joe Biden won by more than a 70 point margin? Every single one but two. Right. So the party is united on the Democratic side and they're going they got a big war going on in their party. I mean, I guarantee you Trump's going to win that war, but they still have a war. And we're guys, we're just getting some significant news and reports that Nikki Haley has called for a news conference at 10 o'clock Eastern time this morning. Some reports that she may suspend her campaign. We haven't confirmed that yet at NBC News, but she will speak at 10 o'clock this morning. The expectation may be that she's moving on now from this campaign. Exiting the race. John, jump ball.

Go. I'll go first. It's rare to be high onto the punch, right? It's rare to be high onto the punch. It's like the Hobson of... Shut up. Just eagerly moving into... If he got the ball first, I would never get it back.

That's the lesson that I've learned here. First on... Instead of the Hobson, we'll call get it back. That's the lesson that I've learned here. First on... Instead of the hops, we'll call you the Kobe. I don't like that. On Haley, yes. And the Wall Street Journal is reporting that she will not immediately endorse Donald Trump. So we will see if that changes in the days and weeks ahead. But certainly, look, she did put up a win last night.

She won Vermont. She won the District of Columbia over the weekend. But she also sort of gave voice to this part of the Republican Party that simply doesn't want to go back to the chaos of Donald Trump, that sees that as an electoral loser. And Haley, night after night, would point to polls that suggest she would beat President Biden somewhat handily in the November race, at least in a snapshot of polling we see today. That's simply not the case for Trump, where that's a much, much closer race. And I think that she, to her credit, stayed in this race and gave also a voice to these criticisms of Trump to audiences that otherwise wouldn't hear them. And I think we're seeing that reflected in some of these

Republican primaries who heard Haley on Fox News, who heard Haley in conservative media, and who realized that they simply don't want to go down that path again. This was inevitable. This is Trump's party still. The GOP is not ready to turn the page on Trump just yet. But Haley did her role in exposing some of those weaknesses that Trump will have to address before November. And we can confirm now at NBC News, Nikki Haley will drop out of the race during those remarks at 10 o'clock Eastern. John, just some percentage. Nikki Haley won Vermont, as has been pointed out. But she also won 35 percent in Virginia, 30 percent in Minnesota, 33 percent in Colorado, 41 percent in Utah can go down. Those are not insignificant percentages of the Republican Party saying we don't want Donald Trump.

Could you imagine Barack Obama running a third time, getting anything less than what Joe Biden's getting, 95 percent? The point we've been making since Iowa, what would happen if Barack Obama had run for the Iowa caucuses in 2016 or something. Look, I will say, just to your point earlier, Nikki Haley wins. Her big victories in this race turned out to be Washington, D.C. and Vermont. And as you know, as Joe Longstanding is, Montpelier and DuPont Circle go, so go the Republican Party. Those are not the places you want to win if you are going to be a Republican nominee. But I do think your point really is right.

You know, I watched a little Fox News last night, and no less a liberal than Karl Rove was on making the list of those numbers. And he was very pointed last night. You know, even if it, whether it's in places like North Carolina, where the numbers will be small or places where whether she took somewhere between 40 percent, 25 percent, 20 percent. Any of those numbers, if Donald Trump can't reclaim pretty much all of the Nikki Haley vote, Republican Donald Trump can't afford to lose votes.

We actually have that. Can we show it? Yeah, please. Oh, yeah. All right. So reacting to last night's Super Tuesday results, senior adviser to former President George W. Bush, Karl Rove, warned that Donald Trump could be in trouble in November if he can't bring Nikki Haley voters back to his camp. Team Trump ought to be concerned about unifying the Republican Party, because as we see in the in these states, a third of the vote in Virginia, 43 percent of the vote in Massachusetts going to Nikki Haley, a quarter of the vote in North Carolina.

Maine has now dropped down to about a quarter of the vote, but it was 31 percent for Nikki Haley, Vermont, 48 percent. There's still some work to be done to unify the Republican Party. You know, when I was a younger man, I wasn't as calm as I am now. And if I had ever gotten in primary results that had me giving up a third of my primary voters as an incumbent or 40 percent, there there would have been cabinets in my filing cabinets in my office that would have probably been kicked over. It would have been a scene from Spinal Tap. Maybe there's a sandwich or perhaps Hammer of the Guides. I would not have been happy. People don't understand, Claire, that haven't run before how bad those and we're just saying this.

I would like people are sent for an incumbent. How bad those numbers in your primary, if you give up 40 percent in your primary or 33 percent in your primary, that's just really bad for the general election. Really bad. And the point is really important here. First of all, primary voters are not general election voters. Right. They are the most intense voters in the spectrum. They feel most strongly about their candidate or they feel most strongly against a candidate. So that's why the primary showing this kind of schism in the Republican Party is really good news for Joe Biden. I mean, we can talk about uncommitted voters in Minnesota or Michigan, but they're sending a message and there's no indication those folks aren't going to be voting for Joe Biden in November.

I don't think those are people that really think Donald Trump, by the way, by the way, in Michigan. Did you see what Donald Trump said yesterday? Like, let's talking about Gaza. Let's just finish him off. Yeah. The guy that talks about the Muslim registry. You know, he said, let's just finish the problem off. And he's the guy that that moved the embassy to Jerusalem, talked about a Muslim registry. Seriously.

Yeah, he's this is this is a real issue for him. And Joe Biden, I mean, I'm not saying Joe Biden doesn't have to work hard in terms of keeping the coalition together and talking to those people that didn't vote yesterday that only vote in November. But this is really a problem for Donald Trump. And then, you know, the great thing about it, he I don't think he even sees it. I don't think he, I think he's too busy saying, is it quite orange enough? Right. You know, does it need to be a little bit that, that, that latest hair dye really bothering you? Like, did you see it last night? It's like, it's like it has a light coming from it that says carrot. Yeah. It's crazy. Hammer of the gods go. Well, just to, just to go back to where we were before, here's a relevant comparison, right?

In history, when Jimmy Carter got challenged by Ted Kennedy in 1980, people say, Ted Kennedy, you know, I didn't come close to winning the Democratic nomination, but Ted Kennedy destroyed Jimmy Carter's chance of winning the general election. That's a kind of conventional wisdom view. If you go back and look at those primaries, Ted Kennedy did about as well as Nikki about as well as Nikki Haley is doing now. And it's people will say, well, you know, it's different. He was not, Donald Trump's not an incumbent president, but to your point, he is effectively, it's like the right prison to analyze the way that a primary can hurt someone is it's not a contested. This is a guy who came into this primary as a quasi-offended. He's owned the party since January 2016.

He's owned it. Yes. And so you think about that's what this foretells is, you know, Nikki Haley is, you know, in one scenario, a plausible scenario, is doing to Donald Trump or has done to Donald Trump, could end up doing to Donald Trump, what Ted Kennedy did to Jimmy Carter in 1980. And that was not a close nomination fight.

Carter mopped the floor with Kennedy throughout the primaries and caucuses. I think one other thing, to go back to something we were talking about earlier. Donald Trump's message of America sucks was powerful and potent in 2016. It allowed him to do things that people thought he could never do. He took over the Republican Party, came out of nowhere, ran the table. There are a lot of people in America who believe America does suck and think that there was an America in the 1950s or 1960s when it was a less diverse America, when white people ruled everything, when women were still in their place, all of that, that kind of nostalgia candidate that trump was grievance and nostalgia for an

america that was supposedly great back then and now sucks it was enough to make him president in 2016 the difference now it's the same message right it's he's just he bet it's your again i go back to fat elvis it's fat he's just it's it's it's fat elvis playing the hits that he doesn't recognize. The country, his party have not wholly moved on from, but it's not 2016 anymore. And it's like, and the energy level, I feel like I've been on like the low energy Donald beat this year. The energy level, he's not just Fat Elvis, he's Flaccid Elvis. He's like, he's just playing this kind of like, this slow paced, kind of lazy, kind of tired version of these hits. And they go over in the room and the crowds are smaller and the energy is lower. And it's not 2016. It's a retread, but it's also like a low energy retread.

And that's the big difference now. Right. Well, and you also look at a guy who, and we've known him for a long time, we see considerable collapse mentally in many ways. When he gets up on stage, and for any of us that have had loved ones, parents, friends, who've lost their ability, getting the early onset of dementia or whatever it is. You know, you look at Saturday night, his face twisted and contorted as he's trying to finish his sentence, having trouble completing words.

It's, you know, he's not what he was. And it's, you know, you can read. I know you won't, but you could read The New Yorker article and the interview of Joe Biden. That's going to go and Oshkosh. But if you really want to know the truth, if people have time for the truth, read that article. It was exactly my experience with Joe Biden, spending a couple of hours with him. Guy knows the world. Guy knows the map. He knows it's forward and backwards. As I was sitting there talking to him, I was wishing Dr. Brzezinski

could be there because those two, my God, they had incredible conversations in the past and they still would be having incredible conversations. I mean, he just but there's no doubt Donald Trump is in a different universe than Joe Biden. Just Joe Biden knows who he's running against. You read that article. That's the other thing you never hear. By the way, you're right here. I'm throwing the ball to you. Look at this. He runs across from shortstop. I know. I was ready. I was in position. I got it.

He just grabbed it. This is revenge. This is my revenge tour. High on the go. No, no. No, please. I was just chipping one small thing in my jacket. All right, go ahead.

There's no question that, first of all, Donald Trump, let's remember, is only a couple years younger than Joe Biden and is showing real signs of decline. People around him, they're stage managing him much more. He speaks at far fewer events than ever before. The concern of fatigue and misstatement, and there's been a number of those. He's also under an extraordinary amount of strain. His first criminal trial starts in a couple weeks. He has to pay about a half billion dollars in various fees. And by the way, he eats badly.

He lives badly. He doesn't exercise. He's sitting all day. It's the opposite of he eats badly. He lives badly. He doesn't exercise. The other issue all day. It's the opposite of Joe Biden, who exercises every day, is on a pretty tight diet. I mean, actually does what you're supposed to do. Ice cream aside. Yeah. And I mean, Trump at most plays a little golf. The other issue is his campaign doesn't have any money. And that's another thing that's going to really loom large here as we go forward. This is the week where the general election truly begins. Right. Super Tuesday, State of the Union.

This is when it's Trump, Biden. The Biden camp and Democrats are dwarfing Republicans in terms of the money they have on hand. And in a campaign that's going to be two plus billion dollars, that is a significant advantage to turn some narratives around. And the money that Donald Trump does have is going to his legal bills. Yeah. He's holding up and hustling his hardworking voters, supporters to pay off his legal bills. Can they pay the civil? No, no, they can't pay that. Not legally. They can't. They can't. Right. Right. They can't pay what he owes. What about family members like Jared, who got his Saudi money? Oh, well, Jared could help Jared. Yeah. Jared has sitting on plenty on plenty. He did his

tour in the White House and came out the other end with a gajillion dollars. Speaking of grift. And now they're talking about Elon Musk coming in and a big check. Don't forget. But do you really think that he knows he's a grifter? Elon Musk knows he's a grifter. I'm not sure

what Elon Musk knows. How liquid is Elon? Okay. It depends if he's microdosing that day. Yeah. Oh, my God. Still ahead. I just go back to that. Speaking of microdosing.

Good cue. Speaking of my side. Just step in. Whenever you talk about the Trump and Biden comparison, I just want to keep everybody on the apples to apples comparison. Read that New Yorker article. There's never a moment where Joe Biden says he's running against George W. Bush or running against someone.

It's like Trump almost every day. I mean, literally almost every day where it confuses, forgets that he's running against Biden versus Obama. Almost every day you see some video where Trump makes that mistake. And Biden, who's supposedly the senile one, you never see that happen. And again, is Joe Biden the perfect candidate? Look, we all acknowledge he's not. But it is the case. He has the presence of mind to know who he's running against. And that's a good apples to apples comparison.

And not only that, he knows who the Speaker of the House is. Yeah, and a lot of other things. He doesn't got Nikki, Nikki, Nikki. Yeah. Nikki, Nikki, Nikki. He's speedy. Nikki Haley. He doesn't do that.

And I will tell you something else. Apples to apples. And I'm dead serious. It's a damn shame that Donald Trump won't submit to this because he's such a coward when it comes to politics. But it would be great to have Joe Biden right there, Donald Trump right there around any table and say there's no shouting, there's no this, there's no insults. We're going to ask you about policy and actually have them talk about because Joe Biden, like I said, can take you around the world

a hundred times. You ask him what's happening in Sudan. He's going to take you through it and what the United States should do, what his administration's doing. You ask him about what's happening in Ukraine. He's going to give you about five different angles looking at it. I'm serious. Donald Trump, he'll tell you, I would end the war tomorrow. And that's a crazy thing that is so maddening when it comes to issues. Donald Trump has never known them, Claire. Not like the senators, the Republican senators that said he knows nothing. They say that because he's never made it his business to understand anything. There is no comparison between Donald Trump and Joe Biden when it comes to knowing the

facts you need to know to be president of the United States. None. And the thing, remember, 16 members of Donald Trump's cabinet are saying don't vote for Donald Trump. OK, 16 members of his cabinet are saying Donald Trump is not the guy. Meanwhile, you've got Joe Biden and we know the real job of president. It's not, he could win a jeopardy contest about policy. Joe Biden could, but that's not what the president's role is. The president's role is to surround himself with the best and brightest people to execute policy and to, and to assert his judgment at key moments, his judgment, his judgment is great. And he's, this is shown by the people he surrounded himself with.

Compare and contrast that to what you would see with a Donald Trump second administration. He learned his lesson. He didn't want anybody that's smart enough to tell him he's wrong and he can't do something. He is going to have a cabinet of sycophants that are going to bend the knee and do whatever crazy town thing he thinks should be done. Say whatever crazy town thing he thinks should be done. Say whatever crazy town thing he wants to be said. So it is such a contrast that people need to keep front of mind. It's really a huge difference. And by the way, when he says I would Trump says I would end the

war in Ukraine tomorrow, that means he would cave to Vladimir Putin and give him whatever he wants. That's how he would end it. But to Claire's point, we're talking about cosmetics and a lot of that's important. Is this guy too old? And look at the way he speaks. That's important. But listen to the substance of what they're saying. Listen to what Donald Trump was saying last night. It was lie after lie after lie about the economy. Everything he said about our economy was wrong, whether it was employment data or oil production. That scares me. He's making up a story about this country so he can come in and ride to the rescue. A story that's not true. He's talking about these secret flights of 300,000 migrants that have been dropped into the United States to raucous applause in the room.

He's writing and telling a story that is not true. Listen to the substance, the cosmetics, the superficial part about Joe Biden, how he walks, all that stuff. That's interesting. And if you think that's important, that's up to you. But listen to what they're saying. FDR ended the depression, won a war against Nazism and Japanese imperialism. He didn't walk so well. So, I mean, again, you can focus on what you want to focus on. But I mean, it's really crazy. I will say, Mika, as Willie was saying,

Trump lies. It's lie after lie after lie after lie that we really need more people on other networks and this network on every network. When Donald Trump starts doing that to do what Neil Cavuto does and he'll just pull out of a speech, say, listen, I have to tell you, he said the election was stolen. There's absolutely no evidence for that. Sixty three courts. And then he goes down the line, said the economy is worse than it's ever been. None of the numbers show that the economy is actually stronger than anywhere else in the world. That's what Neil does at 4 p.m. on Fox News. Steve Doocy does it a good bit as well. Democracy depends on people at every network doing that. I know. The problem is there are more anchors and hosts who do the opposite and promulgate the lies. But you are right. It would

help if a news host would deliver the news as fact. With Nikki Haley exiting the race later this morning, the general election essentially starts today. Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville will join us with his analysis. Plus, as Joe mentioned, cash strapped. Donald Trump meets with billionaire Elon Musk. What we're learning about their reported discussion. Also ahead, independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona says she won't be seeking re-election. What that could mean ahead of November in that critical swing state. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back.

We are a nation that just recently heard that Saudi Arabia and Russia will repeat. Do. This is what you hear from the administration. They tout the unemployment rate coming down, more people getting into the workforce. It's a promising sign for sure. Jobs added 15 million of them, 10 percent since Biden took office. Wages are finally moving up 15 percent. Again, another promising sign. The stock market hitting record highs and new home sales prices. OK, this for most Americans, this is the largest asset that they'll ever own. If you owned a home when Biden took office and you still own it today,

you are seeing appreciation of that asset. That was Fox News host Sandra Smith highlighting President Biden's economic accomplishments. She did go on to point out the hardships Americans are feeling when it comes to food costs, gas and credit card debt. Those are the three issues that are real issues. Credit card debt, gas, groceries. We were talking about that yesterday. But the Biden-Harris social media account seized on the moment, tweeting out the screen grab and writing, thanks, Fox News. And again, Neil Cavuto's done this. He does. Steve Doocy's done this. There are people on Fox that have done this. Brad Barrett, six o'clock, has done this as well. Absolutely.

The president is expected to tout his economic achievements in his State of the Union address tomorrow. Joining us now with charts on those numbers is former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. Steve, what you got? Good morning. Good morning. Well, look, I think Sandra Smith or Neil Cavuto could probably come up here and do this as well as I could. Oh, please.

Steve. That's a transparent attempt. I wasn't. Steve. Who was the shot caller? Shot caller. The car industry. This was not a plea for sympathy.

It sounded like it. So let me at least tell you how I see all of this, because there is a lot of good news that the president should and will be talking about, I'm sure, tomorrow night. So let's start with jobs. So since Biden took office, the economy has created 410,000 new jobs a month. And, yes, some of that was coming out of COVID. So if you back out COVID, 290,000 jobs per month. This is more jobs per month than any president has created in history. Hey, Steve, I'm sorry. My earpiece just went out.

Could you repeat that last line again? Yeah, we didn't hear that. Even after you take out the COVID recovery, this is more jobs per month than any president has averaged in history. In history. You mean in history? You're like what? In the 21st century? In like recorded history. Presidential. Well, I don't know what happened during George Washington, but it's more jobs. Recorded history. Yes. OK, there we go. OK. OK. OK. So we're looking Okay. Okay. Okay. So

we're looking at your next chart. You're looking at wages, right? Well, I'm not quite up to wages. I know you're excited. I know we want to get to wages, but let's talk about the overall economy because that job growth has fueled a lot of economic growth, 8.6 percent cumulative GDP growth in his first three years, more than Donald Trump in his first three years. Second only in recent history, recent history to Bill Clinton, who took office, as you'll recall, as we came out of a recession and got a bit of a bump from that. Oh, you want to talk about wages? We just actually let me just say one quick word about inflation. We do have about wages. Actually, let me just say one quick word about inflation. We do have to acknowledge there was inflation at the beginning of the Biden term.

We were coming out of COVID. Pretty bad. The economy was reopening, had a bit of inflation. But look where we are now. Last year, 3.1 percent. That is a little bit higher than recent presidents. But in the strike zone and coming down and looking ahead, economists expect this will be below 3% by election day. But even with a bit of inflation, Mika, to your question, let's look at what's happened to wages. So even after adjusting for inflation, the average American has 2.9% more income today than he or she had before Joe Biden took office. But what's even more interesting in a lot of ways is look where that income has been dispersed. If you were at the bottom quartile, if you were among the poorest, least well-off Americans, up 6.3 percent. If

you're among the wealthiest Americans, up just 0.2 percent. And what that means is that it may not be huge, but income inequality got lower under Joe Biden. Well, and Steve, we always talk about how it's always about trend lines. I mean, this this has got to be one of the first times in the past 50 years that we've seen that sort of shift where the rich weren't getting richer and the poor weren't getting poorer. Yes, we've had we've had a move toward income inequality really going, certainly going back at least 30 or 40 years. And this is one of the first times that you've started to see it narrow. That is true. And so that is another another thing to be said about the Biden presidency so far. I get that right. And what do we have next? What's your next chart going to show us?

So let's talk about the about economic sentiment. Look, Biden has obviously a huge amount of accomplishments besides this, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, Build Back Better, prescription drug prices. We could go on and on. But and we all know consumer sentiment was pretty tough. And so you can see that when he took office, since he since he took office, consumer sentiment went down, down, down like that. This is the average. Interestingly, of course, what you think depends on where you sit. Democrats always more positive, Republicans less positive, opposite sure under Trump. But consumer sentiment bottomed back in 2022, and it has recovered pretty substantially. And so you can see on average,

consumer sentiment went up 28 points, Democrats up 25, Republicans actually even up a little bit more, even though still less optimistic. And so to the question that we always talk about, why is this not in the polls? Approval rating for Biden's handling of the presidency, yes, it went down, down, down. But look over here, and I don't want to cling to small hope, but it does appear it has turned up his approval rating on average. This is real clear politics data for his handling. The economy has gone from 40 percent to 47 percent. So many people believe there's a lag effect, that it takes a while for good news, especially about inflation,

to be picked up in consumer sentiment and then to translate into better poll numbers. And maybe we're beginning to see a turn for the president here. So, Steve, taking all that data, everything you just told us, when you hear Donald Trump last night say our economy is in shambles, we're a disaster, the world is laughing at us, all of those things. What is your assessment of that take and how is the American economy doing in total right now? It's extraordinary, Willie, that the former president can get out there and say stuff on any subject that has no relation to reality. As Joe likes to say, said at the top of the of the hour, our economy is the strongest in the developed world, the strongest pretty much across the world. It has outperformed probably what any economist would have guessed. Low unemployment, high job growth, inflation coming down,

unbelievably strong economic growth, no sign of the recession that many people thought was coming. This is an economy, frankly, that many presidents would dream of having. There you go. Would you say better than Ducey? Morning, Joe. Better than Caboodle. Steve Rat you say better than Ducey? Morning Joe. Better than Caboodle. Well, I mean, better than Ducey, better than the Caboodle by a long way.

I love the charts. The charts are amazing. Everyone loves them. The kids love the charts. I give my kids, speaking of Christmas, I give them Ratner charts. Stack them up high. Stack of charts. Open them up.

And frame those, too. Thank you, Steve. Okay, coming up, we're going to read. They have also, when my kids were young, I would actually get them and laminate them, and they would be their breakfast maps. Oh, wow. So they would be things they'd- You know, college kids are doing it, too.

They used to get the Belushi poster with the college sweatshirt. Instead, now campuses across the country, Ratner's charts. It's not a bad merchandising idea for the Biden campaign. I ought to make some placemats and sell them as merch on the website. He's going to want to cut. All right, Steve, thank you. Coming up, we'll read from the latest op-ed by the Wall Street Journal editorial board entitled The GOP's Third Gamble on Donald Trump. Morning Joe will be back in a moment. I believe in my approach, but it's not what America wants right now.

I love Arizona and I am so proud of what we've delivered. Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done. I will leave the Senate at the end of this year. All right. Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona says she will not run for re-election this November. First elected in 2019 as a Democrat, she left the party and became an independent in 2022. She most recently served as one of the lead negotiators on the failed bipartisan border bill and appeared to be facing an uphill reelection battle. Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego is running for her soon to be open

Senate seat, along with Republican Carrie Lake. both praised Sinema for her service to the state of Arizona. Claire. Well, here, listen, this is a woman who's going to have a very mixed legacy. Yeah, really mixed. She did some things that, frankly, were real head scratchers, particularly, you know, the memorable moment where she kind of curtsied when she said no on minimum wage is something that really stuck in a lot of people's craw in terms of the Democratic Party. And also her some of the stuff on some of the tax stuff was very bad that she would stand up for carried interest. You know, that was crazy. I don't know what that was crazy. I don't know what that was about. But I do think as much as maybe some people listening don't want to hear this, she did do some of the hard work in terms of negotiating

deals to get stuff across the finish line. And people who are willing to compromise and meet in the middle are in short, short supply in Washington. And I fear that after November, they're going to be in even shorter supply. She worked harder at getting along with Republicans than she did the Democrats because she wanted to make deals. She wanted to get things passed. And, you know, that's what she wants her legacy to be. I think, frankly, her legacy is going to be very mixed. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward, though. So, you know, one of your review about this, she's now who we've got a contested Senate seat there. Um, Carrie Lake, interestingly,

uh, tried to move to the middle. She's kissing up to cinema and trying to make friends with Meghan McCain, doing all that stuff. She had a lot of problems, Kristen cinema, but would she a better candidate than Gallego for against Carrie Lake in that, in that race? Well, you know, first of all, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think the problem with third party races is there's not enough of folks there to make it credible. She was going to have to get a pretty healthy percentage of Democratic votes and an even healthier percentage of Republican votes to win. I think it's a contrast. And I don't think Carrie Lake can clean up on aisle five. I think she's made such a mess in terms of how bad she has handled all the MAGA stuff and how

much she's been just keeps videotaping, slavishly adoring Donald Trump. I think I don't. And it'll be interesting to see what Sinema does in the race. I predict she will not endorse Carrie. All right. Still ahead. We are following breaking news this morning. Hours from now, Nikki Haley is set to drop out of the presidential race after her disappointing Super Tuesday results. What this now means as President Biden and Donald Trump head for a general election rematch. Morning Joe will be right back.