Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/17/24

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Vanquished GOP rivals make case for Trump's re-election in bid for unity

Trump changed his schedule to show up earlier to hear both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. Yes, the former president changed his whole schedule so he could watch his defeated rivals forced to sing his praise while he drank a Diet Coke made out of a goblet of Chris Christie's skull. Then we heard from one of those crushed souls, Nikki Haley, who said this. I'll start by making one thing perfectly clear. I hate myself. There's no other explanation. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I know that a lot of you want to meet my little buddy. So if baby doll could come on out here. You fools, you can't have a dog at the same convention as Kristi Noem. Run, girl, run. Fly, be free. Stay away from the gravel.

Night two of the Republican National Convention was about party unity. We'll show you the remarks from Donald Trump's former rivals. Plus, we'll have the latest on the investigation into Saturday's assassination attempt with new reporting on where police snipers were while the shooter was on the roof. Also ahead, the fallout from Democratic Senator Bob Menendez's corruption conviction as top members of the party call on him to resign. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, July 17th. Good to have you all with us, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the hosts of Way Too Early, White House Bear Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, and NBC News National Affairs Analyst and

a partner and chief political columnist at Puck, John Heilman joins us. This lineup is not stacking up the way you want it to stack up. We are not going to talk with Katty about the heartbreak again of England's national team. It was it was it was a heartbreaker. But, you know, it's only been since 1966. England may do it again soon. I mean, do you really need to go back that far, Joe? It's 6 o'clock in the morning. Give me a little time to grieve.

I need a few more days. I need a few more days. That was heartbreaking. Very close. I know, very close. But I see a few Boston Red Sox fans. Let's see, what do we start with today? Mike Barnacle, all-star game last night.

And the MVP was, ladies and gentlemen, boom, Jaron Duran. Wasn't the all. That's not Jaron. Here we go. Here we go. There. Crushed it. Crushed it. Crushed it.

Boston Red Sox, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. American League wins an all-star game again. Yeah, 10 of the last 11 years, the AL has dominated the Midsummer Classic. And this is Jared Duran's introduction to the nation. A guy who, Joe, we've discussed on the show a couple years ago, was a prospect who looked like he was going to flame out, had a few really tough moments in the field where he would lose track of fly balls and the lights and just throw up his arms helplessly. Famously turned it into inside the park grand slam.

But he is a legit all-star. He's double digits, doubles, triples, homers this year. And last night, thanks to this one swing, the MVP. He's the only guy on the team who can get base on balls and steal second in the same situation. Boom, boom. Yeah, he's a tremendous athlete. I mean, seriously, he's a guy, if you walk him,

it's like giving up a double. And you know, Willie, what's so rewarding is, my boys and I have been talking about Jaron all year, and about a month or two ago, we started saying, it's a shame he won't be on the all-star team because he should be on the all-star team the fans didn't know who he was they didn't vote him in but the players did he got in showed everybody just how great he was yeah he's a really exciting player and that was a fun game last night the MLB all-star game is fun but you had Otani

going deep you got the biggest star in the game hitting a home run. You had Paul Skeens, this incredible story for the Pirates, who's just two months after being called up, is starting the All-Star game. The rookie, by the way, dating Olivia Dunn. Yes, the Instagram college athlete star.

Olivia Dunn, so she's an Instagram superstar, LSU gymnast. And he had a 1-2-3. Had a 1-2-3. Well, a clean shutout inning. But he did face Juan Soto, so she's an Instagram superstar, LSU gymnast. And he had a 1-2-3 inning. Had a 1-2-3. Well, a clean inning. Shut out of it. Shut out of it. But he did face Juan Soto. And there's Livy Dunn.

Juan Soto and Aaron Judge of the Yankees got Judge to ground out to third to end the inning. So a lot of great storylines. And Soto with a two-run double, I will say, on behalf of the Yankee fans. Really fun game last night. It really was. And last night, also, some interesting events going on at the RNC. Some people who said that Donald Trump was a threat to America. And what else? Nikki Haley kept talking about he needs to take a test.

Well, that's what she did say. But she changed her tune at the very last minute. But Ron DeSantis was tougher on him, right? Well, because he said a lot of things. Everyone all of a sudden changed. Really? Last night at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump's final two challengers for the nomination took the stage, giving full endorsements to the former president, calling for unity within the party and a focus on President Biden. We should acknowledge that there are some Americans who don't agree with Donald Trump 100 percent of the time. I happen to know some of them.

And I want to speak to them tonight. My message to them is simple. You don't have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him. Take it from me, I haven't always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree. REP. We need a commander in chief who can lead 24 hours a day and seven days a week. America cannot afford four more years of a weekend at Bernie's presidency. Wait, didn't we have that with all that executive time and golfing? Was that what he was talking about?

Well, it's hard to say. I'm so confused by what they said in the primary and what they said last night. J.D. Vance, of course, will be talking tonight. He was the one, of course, John Heilman, who said that Christians shouldn't vote for Donald Trump. But tonight, of course, that will have all changed. He also said some extraordinarily intemperate things about him that actually people like J.D. Vance are now complaining about. So it is fascinating. But yeah. But Nikki Haley, somebody that basically said that Donald Trump is too old and addled to be president of the United States, now offering her strong endorsement.

Yeah, Joe, I mean, look, the people in the in your former party, going back, we saw Ted Cruz and Little Marco last night, too. Little Marco Rubio, who all of you have said incredibly harsh things about Donald Trump. The last time there was a real Republican convention back in 2016, you remember Ted Cruz? You know, there was a floor fight where Ted Cruz said some of the harshest things you can imagine about Donald Trump. This has been the story of the Trump era, right, where people who've been either publicly or privately critical of Donald Trump and said that he was disqualified or disqualified from being president for one reason or the other, then turned around later and capitulated to him. So we've seen it for a long time. There's nothing really surprising about it. But I would say that in the case of Nikki Haley, it's the more it's really more egregious, I think, than almost anybody's because she even compared to this Ron

DeSantis. Ron DeSantis said some critical things about Trump during the primary, but they were well within the bounds of what we have heard in both parties, a nomination contest. You know, your people, you know, Kamala Harris criticized Joe Biden back in in 2020. But Nikki Haley was different. And you guys remember, I, guys remember, I was out there with her in Iowa, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, where her criticism of Trump got harsher and harsher and harsher. And we talked about it a lot on this show. Nikki Haley had found her voice. She was taking a stand. She was going as far in some respects as people in the Democratic Party were to say that Donald Trump was reporting the way

that he behaved in a room with Vladimir Putin. She said things that were not merely critical, but that were the kinds of things that Democrats say about Donald Trump. And the question of what she was at heart was on the table. And I think there was always a school of thought, which was ultimately Nikki Haley is all about Nikki Haley. She wants a future in this party. Eventually, heart was on the table. And I think there was always a school of thought, which was ultimately Nikki Haley is all about Nikki Haley. She wants a future in this party. Eventually she will endorse him. People would say and others would say, no, I think she's really changed. She's found her voice. Well, we found out last night which Nikki Haley, who Nikki Haley really is. So let's just go through some of these. I just looked at some old articles here,

Katty. Nikki Haley told the Wall Street Journal that electing Donald Trump would be, quote, suicide for our country. She called Donald Trump unhinged. She questioned Donald Trump's mental fitness and demanded that he take a cognitive test. And here are a couple of other highlights or lowlights of her campaign against Donald Trump. Of course, many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump privately dread him. They know what a disaster he's been and will continue to be for our party. Donald Trump can't win a general election. Wow. Katty, it's almost like she's Karnak the magician and she can predict the future because she predicted her own future right there.

After saying electing Donald Trump would be suicide for America, after saying he was unhinged, after saying he wasn't all there and he needed to take a cognitive test and he was too old to be president of the United States. She said, you know, some Republicans will say this that worked for him quietly, but then they'll go on to support him. Nikki Haley, meet Nikki Haley. That yeah, that February comment is the particularly telling one. It does represent, you know, everything we have heard over the last what, however many years it's been, almost eight years of Donald Trump. All these Republicans who seem to be afraid of him and have grown increasingly afraid of him because they think that if they don't get his endorsement, they won't be elected or reelected. And Nikki Haley, you know, at the end of her campaign, we all noticed it seemed to have become a much more agile political athlete,

much more confident of her own voice. And we saw her there last night, vaguely trying to thread the needle of saying, well, I don't actually always agree with him. I'm not one of those people who I said I was who I criticized so roundly, who says one thing about Donald Trump, but feels another one, because here I am saying that, you know, I don't always agree with him. But the way the astonishing thing about this Milwaukee convention is the way that Donald Trump has just managed to align the party under his vision and auspices. I don't know what percentage of people are there in Milwaukee who don't love Donald Trump, but I'm not sure that Nikki Haley really does represent the majority of the Republican Party anymore. They have fallen in lockstep with him.

Now, of course, this is the crowd that adores him. But the people who are speaking one after another, maybe they don't like him in private, but you get no sense of that. This is a party that has fallen fully under Donald Trump's thumb. Mike, you and I stood in New Hampshire on the eve of the primary there in a ballroom listening to Nikki Haley. And as John said, it's not unusual for candidates in a primary who criticize somebody to fall in line and support the nominee. But the criticism was not on policy. It was that Donald Trump is diminished. She compared him to Joe Biden, said that he's just not the same guy he was when I worked in the administration, said he had become more unhinged

even than he was before. And the line she kept using over and over was, don't blame me come November if you nominate Donald Trump. He's going to lose to Joe Biden. Don't come crying to me. And now here she is on stage giving a full throated endorsement last night at the convention. You know, when she spoke that night and we were there, as you indicated, in New Hampshire, I don't think she realized then and probably still doesn't realize now what an outlier she is within what used to be the Republican Party. I mean, the Republican Party, its brand is now Donald Trump and has been, I think, for quite some time. And Jonathan, you talk to people in Washington all the time. There has to be an awareness that this is not only unique in this century, it's unique maybe in American political history,

that one individual, Donald J. Trump, has so managed to come in from the outside, from the business world, and completely co-opt, take over one of the two major political parties in the country. He has taken over the party and he has completely reshaped it. Evidence of that, his running mate, J.D. Vance, who is now seen as sort of the MAGA heir apparent, very much of the Trump cloth. There was no effort to moderate here. There was no effort to appeal to a different part of the party. This is pure Trumpism. And we saw it on display. And he is, of course, beloved there in Milwaukee to the point where a couple dozen rally convention goers were seen with bandages on their ears to sort of pay tribute to Donald

Trump and his wound that he suffered, what happened on Saturday. But I think it's interesting about Haley, though, is we heard her say that, look, I disagree with some of Donald Trump, and she tried to create this permission structure. You can disagree with him, but still vote for him. But it wasn't that long ago. Republican primaries, well after it was clear that Trump was going to be the nominee, there were still Republican primaries where a sizable percentage of voters, Willie, were Republican voters were still not voting for Donald Trump. They were voting for Nikki Haley or making some sort of protest vote. And it's not clear if those voters will come to Trump. Some of them during the primary process seemed very open to President Biden. And even if Haley is saying, hey, we should get behind him,

it's not clear that they will, particularly since Trump himself has made no effort, zero, zero effort to try to win them over. Yeah, you're right. Nikki Haley was getting lots of votes, Mika, after she had dropped out of the race, long after she had dropped out in some cases. But there was, it's quite an image last night, quite a tableau that we're seeing there in Milwaukee, where Donald Trump walks into the hall, sits there and watches this

parade of candidates who criticized him in very, very personal ways, calling him perhaps a suicide mission, as she put it into the Wall Street Journal for the country. If he's reelected, saying he's unhinged, saying he's diminished, all these things, watching them come to heal and to support Donald Trump. And in the case of Nikki Haley, as John says, the hope on the Trump campaign is that she can bring with her those people who are skeptical of Donald Trump, perhaps some of those suburban women who will decide the election. Right. Well, we'll see what happens there. Three sources tell NBC News President Biden is getting ready to endorse significant reforms to the Supreme Court. The president is weighing legislation that would establish term limits and an updated code of ethics for justices. to the high court would require congressional approval, which remains unlikely given Republicans'

control of the House and Democrats' inability to break a 60-vote filibuster in the Senate. Joining us now, White House reporter for The Washington Post, Tyler Pager. He was part of the team for The Post. We're first to report this story. Tyler, what more can you tell us? Good morning, Mika. Thanks so much for having me. And that's exactly right. This is a significant shift for the president, long an institutionalist chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has resisted calls from members of his own party to endorse reforms to the Supreme Court. We're expecting him to formally back some of these changes, you know, in the coming weeks. And I think, you know, it's obviously faces long odds of being enacted, would need congressional approval, but it still

shows the way in which the Supreme Court has transformed its public identity over the last few years. Biden resisted these calls in 2020 when running for president. He told Democrats if he was elected, he would institute or bring together a Supreme Court commission to study some of these proposed reforms. They wrote a nearly 300-page report, and then that was it. He didn't really act on it at all. But as we've seen the Supreme Court move further to the right, overruling Roe v. Wade, this decision on Trump's immunity, we've seen its public reputation and Americans' approval of it decline. And we've also seen the president become more critical of it. And that has led us to this

point where we're expecting him to finally, Democrats have long awaited for him to do this, throw his support behind some of these reforms. And Tyler, because they haven't gotten the decisions they wanted over the last several years, many progressives have called for an expansion of the number of seats on the court. The president stopped short of that here. But to what extent is this symbolic in many ways, given the threshold that we just laid out, that you'd have to get 60 votes to do any of this,

and two-thirds, actually, to get constitutional amendments on some of these things? So that's unlikely, given the way our Congress is divided right now. So is this sort of a symbolic signal to the progressive base in an election year? Yeah, absolutely. This is not we're not going to see the president come out in support of court expansion. That is one idea he has long been opposed to and remains so worried about what that would mean going going ahead. But this is absolutely a symbolic measure, something where he wants to signal his views on the court. We are obviously just a few months away from an election. And this is often a time when we see presidents or major party political

candidates roll out new policies or signal their support. But I do think it is still significant that the sitting president of the United States is poised to call for these reforms, particularly term limits would be a monumental change to the workings of the Supreme Court and obviously still has long odds of passing Congress, but still a huge shift for Biden and for the country as they change their opinions of the high court. You know, the and the United States may be, I believe it's one of the only Western democracies, if not the only Western democracy that does not have term limits or their Supreme Court justices. They're just usually is. And so and as far as reforms go, Mika, right now, I, you know, I, I, I great reverence for the court. I have great reverence for, uh, federal judiciary. I think it, it, it continues to act as a leveling wind, even though we,

we may not agree with, with everything that, that comes down the pipe. But that said, right now, the Supreme Court standing with the American people has fallen to a record low. Their credibility is shot. They're seen as a political institution. A lot of this comes because of the Dobbs ruling, a 50-year precedent, a 49-year precedent that about 65%, 70% of Americans did not want overturned. You take on top of that Clarence Thomas and all of the other issues that have been happening as far as, you know,

people finding out that the Supreme Court justices just sort of live by their own ethics rules. There's there's there are no guidelines whatsoever. And so the numbers are really getting knocked down. So an idea like this, which may have been very unpopular 10 years ago, probably because of the lack of discipline by some of the justices on the court and how politicized they and their families have become. Unfortunately, it cast a bad shadow for the Roberts court. So something like this may actually connect not just with progressives, but with a lot of Americans, a lot of ugliness politically. And the Dobbs ruling having an immediate and searing impact on the lives of women across America. Well, everyone to see and an immediate sort of jolt to American politics in a way that has damaged those who have pushed for restrictions on women's access. Taking away 50 years of freedoms. All right. So still ahead on

Morning Joe, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey has been found guilty in his corruption trial. We'll go over what happened in court yesterday and what fellow Democrats are saying. We're also going to be talking about the continued infighting with Democrats and going to be asking how long it will last and to what end, especially when we show you a couple of polls that have been released since this weekend. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be back in 90 seconds. I don't think they can win with Joe Biden. I think the only way is to is to find a way for him to say I'm not running and to replace him at the Democratic Convention in August and hope to God that that gives him a shot. And I frankly can't see how he can he can recover from the kind of sentiment that is out there. It's not new and it's only been made worse by the events of the last couple of weeks. The president,

President Trump has been seen as the stronger of the two men for over a year. And then on Saturday night in that iconic moment when he struggles to his feet, pushes his way through a scrum of Secret Service agents in order to, with blood flowing down his face, raise a fist as a man, as an act of defiance and reassurance to the crowd. You saw how the crowd reacted that that evening. Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove with that analysis yesterday on Fox Business. As the Republicans present a united front at their convention this week, Democrats remain fractured. A group of House Democrats want the DNC to delay its virtual roll call to select the party's presidential nominee. The DNC plans to hold the vote as early as July 21st, initially moving it up to ensure the party meets Ohio's deadline to certify the presidential ticket. But Ohio lawmakers changed that deadline, pushing it past next month's Democratic convention.

Now, more than 20 Democrats have signed a letter saying the early virtual roll call is not necessary, citing growing concerns over the president's campaign. You know, yeah, yeah. Now, this is what's so, so interesting. Mike Barnicle, I'm going to show you some polls here because, you know, my feeling, Mike, is if they just want to say that Joe Biden is too diminished and he needs to step aside, then just say that. But instead, they go, oh, the polls. You and I have heard this. Oh, the polls are 88, Michael Dukakis was what, 15, 16, 17 points ahead. At this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was going on Saturday Night Live laughing and mocking Donald Trump and talking about how lucky she was to have drawn Donald Trump as her Republican opponent. And everybody, everybody, but I'll say a few of us said there was no way Donald Trump could win. No way. Everybody go back and look at the tape. In 2020, Joe Biden was supposedly up by 10, 12 points in Michigan and Wisconsin.

A couple of days beforehand led me to saying I trust no polls. It ended up being very tight. In 22, we heard about the red wave that never materialized. I mean, it's such BS. I really want to use a stronger word. Everybody goes, oh, well, I was the only one that was saying there wasn't going to be a red wave. Really? No. Really? Oh, I knew Donald Trump was going to win in 2016.

Really? No, you didn't. No, you didn't. Because we were mocked and ridiculed repeatedly for saying that Donald Trump could win in 20. Really? No, you didn't. No, you didn't. Because we were mocked and ridiculed repeatedly for saying that Donald Trump could win in 2016. In 2022, everybody was talking about the red wave and we just don't see it. Now we hear from Democrats on the inside. See also Obama supporters saying there's no way he can win. He's down so low. It's all over. Well, here's the latest morning console poll taken on Monday, taken on Monday. Last week, before the tragic assassination attempt, Donald Trump was up by two points. On Monday, it's just a snapshot. Donald Trump up by one point. According to a single day survey, Trump leads by one point

among registered voters nationwide. That's about 2000 plus registered voters. So pretty good sample size. That's within the margin error. And a poll conducted over three days last week. Of course, Trump led by two percentage points. So it's a one point race again, just a snapshot. But here's the deal, everybody. If you're looking at this, don't look at the margins. Look at the fact that it's a tie. This race is tied. Another snapshot poll this one conducted yesterday also shows November's election up for grabs. In the latest Reuters Ipsos National Survey, Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by two points, 43 to 41 percent among registered voters. Again, a tie. Now let's go because people say, oh, well, in the battleground states, he's losing by 87 points. Oh, oh, we must do something, David Axelrod says on CNN.

Oh, there's no way he can win, says the pod bros. Oh, it's all over. Well, OK, so let's go to what is probably his weakest swing state, Georgia. A Fox 5 Atlanta and Insider Advantage survey is Trump leading by three points in Georgia over Joe Biden. Forty seven to forty four percent among likely voters in the swing state. That's Mike. That's that's about as close as Georgia has been over the past several months. And in fact, a CBS poll that was out this weekend showed again a tie. It was a two point lead by Donald Trump over Joe Biden in Georgia, which, again, I saw six, seven, eight points about a month ago.

Now, let's look for a second at what's happened. Of course, we talked about the tragic assassination attempt and the tragic killings at his rally in Pennsylvania. We've talked about that. We've talked ad nauseum about Joe Biden turning in the worst presidential performance ever and the history of televised debates before that. You know, these same people that are saying he must go were telling me he's going to be down 10 points. I have it on good authority that he's going to be down 10 points in all the polls that are going to be coming out. I have it on good authority. You're not being three, down by three points. We had the Lester Holt interview. Everybody called me, oh, well, that's the end. Did you see? He mumbled like Chewbacca at the end. He says, that's the end. It's all over. We're not

going to like Chewbacca. It's done. It's done. We had the press conference. Oh, he said President Putin instead of President Zelensky. Oh, he said Vice President Trump. It's over. It's done. People factored all this in, Mike. They factored it all in. Joe Biden, I got bad news for them and for Joe Biden. Joe Biden wasn't good at talking in 1987.

He has a stutter. When he was humiliated and driven from the race in probably one of the most humiliating endings to a presidential campaign imaginable. 2008, not much better. The gaffes on the campaign trails, the things that made staff members go, aye, aye, aye, what's going on with this guy?

So people know Joe Biden. They factored this in. People know Donald Trump. They factored this in. Now, all this could change in a week. Who knows? But right now, as we said yesterday, we live in a 46-46 country, not a 50-50 country. We live in a 46-46 country.

And the Democrats have got either fish or cut bait. Like if they can't drive Joe Biden from the race, they need to line up behind Joe Biden because there's no middle ground here. You're either united, you know, a house divided against itself can't stand. You're either united or your side loses. They've got to make decisions fast. And all these stories about Nancy furiously going around trying to undermine Joe Biden. It's not working.

I mean, I don't even know if that's true. We keep hearing about Barack Obama and all of Barack Obama's people quietly working behind the scenes to undermine Joe Biden. If they are. That's not helpful. It's not helpful, first of all. And secondly, it's not working with the rank and file base. after all of these historic moments and Republicans are in Milwaukee. They know they're going to win. Just like, you know, Coral Rove said Joe Biden can't win. I understand he's turned in some terrible debate performance. He has trouble in interviews. He always has. But again, I want to see the polling that says that. I want to see the numbers that say that because all I hear is, oh, there's a secret poll. Oh, I've looked at internals of candidates and he's down by 87.

Every public poll that's come out has this race tied, Mike, even after two of the most historic events in recent American political history. Yeah. You know, Joe, I don't know what to believe in terms of polls now, right now, given the volatility out there in this country. I mean, the country was truly shaken to its core over the weekend. That's a given. And each and every day, it seems something happens in everyone's lives that caused them to look at our politics and say, oh, geez, I'm going to stay away from that. But with regard to Joe Biden, I was watching him speak in Las Vegas yesterday, and he clearly is going back to an old proven route for Democrats. He's talking about issues where people live

and talking about what's going to happen if there's a change in administration, if the Trump administration, the Trump-Vance administration succeeds him and the losses that people will endure and losses in terms of what's going to happen to Social Security, what's going to happen to Medicare and Medicaid, what's going to happen to Social Security? What's going to happen to Medicare and Medicaid? What's going to happen to the civil service function in this society where independent people go to work in each and every day for the federal government? What's going to happen to clean air, clean water, food, regulatory agencies

that protect the public and make the public lives more safe, allowed to live more safely because of rules and regulations that are put down? What's going to happen to billionaires? Are they going to become double billionaires or whatever they call themselves, trillionaires, when they make even more money? What's going to happen to the tax code with another tax cut provided by the Trump administration next January or February? What's going to happen to people's lives on a daily basis? How much is the ordinary American going to lose under an incoming Republican administration? People who live on the margins, people who live paycheck to paycheck, what's going to happen to their lives? Are they going to be better off

under a Republican administration? A proven, proven commitment to rich people in this country, proven, as opposed to a Biden administration and sort of an old combination of FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ stuff. What's going to happen to people? That's the question that Joe Biden has to answer. That's the question he was pushing yesterday in Las Vegas. And he didn't look bad. And, you know, John, yesterday at that speech in Las Vegas to the NAACP, he said, I'm all in. Again, he can't be more clear where he's coming from. He sent the letter to Congress. Even after that, members of Congress said we need an answer, make a decision, to which he said, I've made my decision.

I'm all in. He reiterated that yesterday. Those national polls are neck and neck. There has been some slippage, but still mostly within the margin of error in those battleground states. Trump has definitely made up a little ground, but my gosh, those are all winnable, the Biden campaign would tell you. I think what people are seeing, though, is not the gaffes of Joe Biden of the past. They're seeing gaffes as a result of age.

And there are concerns, and polls show this, even within the Democratic Party, is he up for the job? But as Joe says, make up your mind. If he's too old for the job, just say that. But you've got to point to some data that shows he can't win if you're saying he can't win. Right. Polls well before the debate show the Democrats thought he might be too old and that's only increased. But it can't be said enough. Polls show this is a pretty static race. And it just seems so premature that there were

now pundits on Saturday night or Sunday in the wake of that shooting saying, that's it, the race is over. We have this image, this defiant image of Donald Trump, his fist raised, blood on his face, game over. And it's clearly not. This is still a tight race. Now, the Biden team has work to do still. They know that. And that includes fending off voices within their own party. First of all, we're seeing the president go at the coalitions. Yesterday's event was about black voters, the NAACP. Today, he's got an event squarely geared at Latino voters. The Supreme Court push that we detailed earlier in the show is a nod towards progressives. It came from a call he had with them in the last few days. He's

trying to shore up his basis because there are still some Democratic lawmakers out there who want to try to see a change in the ticket. And Joe, that's why there has been real fury in the last day or so about this plan from the DNC to move ahead with this virtual roll call, which many Democrats say, hey, yeah, it was needed when Ohio was trying to game the system and keep them off the ballot. It no longer is because the state pushed off that deadline. And to the Democrats who are opposed to Joe Biden, they feel like rushing this through silences that debate. The Biden team answer is simply saying this is the plan. We're staying with it. And listen to the president. He's not going anywhere and he can still win. He's not he's not going anywhere. He's not. Let me say again, the day after the debate,

I said he needed to consider stepping down. I said, let's wait a couple of days, see what happens, see where this goes. If everybody was right, he was going to lose 10 points. Or if his family and him got together and decided he wasn't up to the job, he needed to step aside. Well, the guy with 14 million votes from Democrats in the primary said he's going to stay. And I know that may make some people that worked in the Obama administration angry. I understand that they didn't like him when he worked in the Obama administration. The stories I could tell, but I won't. I mean, he says he's staying in it. We don't know what's going to happen. He may have another incident, right?

But he's got the 14 million votes. He's got about 90 percent of the delegates. He's decided he's going to stay in the race, even after the worst debate performance of not only his life, but that any of us have seen in our lifetimes from a major presidential candidate, even after the tragic assassination attempt this weekend, even after Donald Trump's heroic response to that, even after all that, we're still a 46-46 nation. And you can whisper to everybody and you can call all the big fundraisers, you call all your billionaire friends and say, don't give Biden any money, which is what's going on right now. Call all those billionaire friends you want to call all of the most powerful people. And, you know, in politics and the media and try to push the guy off the ticket. You can do that. You've been trying to do it now for three weeks. It's not working.

He's saying he's not going anywhere. And if you look at the poll numbers, the people who actually answer these polls who aren't elitist billionaires in Silicon Valley or in the media or in Washington, D.C. are on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, those people are saying, you know what? We're good with a guy from Delaware. We're good with a state school guy. We're good. That's what they're saying right now. Again, politics is fluid.

It could change tomorrow. It could change the next day. The only thing I'm striking back against here are people saying it's over. There's no way you can win. Well, it's not helpful. That's just 110 days under. And the only thing that they're doing is,

I said a couple of days ago, Democratic pollsters are saying the only thing they're doing is they're hurting Joe Biden with some Democratic voters who hear this from Democrats and then pull away from Joe Biden. So MAGA Republicans are a lot of things that perhaps some Americans fear

in terms of the future of our democracy, but they are unified. And that is something that the Democrats are not. And it's, you know, when that debate performance happened, many like you said, let's see what happens. Let's give it a week. Let's see. And the two things that people were focused on was performance and polls. So let's think about that. The polls haven't really moved. Right. So if you think about after that debate, I have tightened up and after that debate performance, I don't know how that happened. OK, it was a horrible debate. It was just miserable. The president, I mean, I can only name a few because he's been on the road since proving himself. But that NATO news conference, which went well past 8 p.m. So nobody can make those snarky comments, especially those on the Trump side.

Watching a presidency that Trump had where he didn't do a lot of work daily. But the NATO news conference showed the depth of his dynamic knowledge around the world as he took reporters on. I mean, the response to every region around the world response to David Sanger. Please give me transcript any transcript from any Donald Trump press conference while he's president of the United States talking on foreign policy and match the transcript and the knowledge, the working knowledge up between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. He confused order to, by the way, it's very funny.

David Axelrod a couple of nights ago was going through what, when Joe Biden spoke on Sunday night, he, he cut a word off and David Axelrod of course had to bring that up. And then got someone's name wrong. And then got somebody's name wrong. So does David Axelrod need to get off of? I mean, this happens. Media people keep going, oh, Joe Biden, confused names. Then they throw to somebody and they confuse the name. We know we do that. But then he also in that news conference talked about his time in the Senate and how that experience has led to his ability to pass historic bipartisan legislation at a time like right now where you would think you couldn't get anything through.

So then after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, he held a message to the nation from the Oval Office telling people to bring the temperature down. I mean, he's doing everything right. He's doing events across the country. Crowds are screaming, we have your back. The question is, are Democrats going to have him back? One Democrat, Barack Obama, because if former President Barack Obama would step up and get behind Joe Biden, that would stop all of this and that would make all the difference. And it seems right now that after everything that has happened, it seems that that unity is more important than ever, because the Republicans, Trump Republicans, are going to steal that unified message from the Democrats. You know, right now it is a it's a choice.

Right now it is a choice. Maybe a couple of weeks ago, there was an idea because everybody was calling, getting a telephone and talking about a broker convention, an open convention. That was the dream. Or talking about Kamala Harris or talking about, you know, Josh Shapiro. That was the dream. That's not going to happen unless unless something really dramatic changes. Joe Biden keeps telling people he told Lyle Sharpton this weekend, he's told Lester Holt, he keeps telling everybody, I'm not leaving this race. And if that's the case, then this race is very clear. It's a choice between Donald Trump and J.D. Vance running the country over the next four years. And Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

So 110 days left, a lifetime in American politics. But at some point, said it last week, Democrats have to come together unless they want Donald Trump and J.D. Vance controlling Washington, D.C. and changing the way Washington works for the next generation. John Heilman, curious about your thoughts, because I know you've heard the same thing I've heard. Oh, the the donors, it's all dried up. Oh, people are calling, saying, you know, it's all over. It's all over. I'm curious your your your take on all of this. As we look again at polls that have essentially showed this race to be a dead heat, at least the public media polls. Well, Joe, I guess I'd say two things. And and one of them is that there's a dimension in the polling, which is public, that that in the discussion you guys have been having so far, you haven't talked about.

And I think it's one where and again, I'm not advocating a position here. I'm just reporting what what Democrats, fellow Democrats of the president, those who are concerned and see a darkening picture, what they point to. They acknowledge what you've just been saying, which is that the floor has not fallen out under Joe Biden. The polls are still margin of error, certainly at the national level and in the battleground states as previously determined. What we talked about is the battleground states. I think the dimension that's missing here and that a lot of Democrats would talk to you about is that there are now a bunch of states in play that weren't in play before. So you can see this in the public polling, New Hampshire, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado. You're starting to see the battleground map is now expanding and it's expanding in a way that's not helpful to the Biden campaign.

Yes. So it's very interesting. Minnesota, New Hampshire, Virginia were already slipping and were already in play before the debate going into the debate. Those three, we had already seen this sort of slippage. So, again, they can say we made a terrible mistake picking Joe Biden as Democratic nominee, if that's what they believe, because he's not strong against Donald Trump. But what they can't say is that those states are slipping because of his debate performance or anything that's happened since then, because those numbers were going south even before the debate. Well, I think that's true in some cases and less true in others, but I'll say that is a this is a concern. Right. And when you think about where the locus of the concern is, it's it's congressional Democrats who are worried. I will say a person whose name has not been uttered so far on the show, who J. Martin, Jonathan Martin reported in Politico this week that Nancy Pelosi, who who is still, according to Jonathan Martin's reporting and other reporting, is still working the phones and is working the phones in a way that's doing what you guys are talking about here that you think is deleterious.

She seems to be convinced that the situation is deteriorating. And Nancy Pelosi has a pretty good feel for for politics and for polling. And again, I just say this is what if you talk to congressional Democrats, what they are worried about, they're worried now about losing the House and they're worried about the notion that the battleground map is expanding, not contracting, that this is what Republicans here in Wisconsin, here in Milwaukee are talking about, is that there are more spreading the field out. And this is what Republicans here in Wisconsin, here in Milwaukee are talking about, is that there are more spreading the field out. And this is where the donor situation comes in, Joe. And again, I'm not arguing for what's right or wrong here, but if it is the case,

and this is something that even people inside Biden world will acknowledge, if large dollar donors decide that they're going to close their checkbooks, not write checks to Joe Biden, he can still rely on small dollar donors and get about halfway to what the numbers are that they needed. But if large dollar donors decide, you know what, we need to save the house, and they start just to redirect all that money, this was a campaign that was relying on both grassroots dollar, low dollar donations, and on high dollar. If the high dollar all moves over to the House, that's going to be another significant constraint on Joe Biden's ability to compete. Yeah. And if the high dollar donors decide to the elites decide to leave Joe

Biden, well, I guess they're going to be contributing either directly or indirectly to J.D. Vance and Donald Trump because that's what happened. Again, John, every one of those points, legitimate points, they've been legitimate points for the past three weeks. And Joe Biden has said he's not leaving under any circumstances. And so, Mika, at this point, I'm wondering, do they want to keep complaining or do they want to start winning? You can't do both. You can't complain. You can't whine. You either follow however flawed they consider him to be. You follow the quarterback in the huddle or you don't. And if they don't, that's fine. They they're basically giving an in-kind contribution to J.D. Vance and Donald Trump. John Heilman, thank you.

Again, does anybody has anybody seen anything? I know we got to go to break, but has anybody seen anything that suggests Joe Biden has decided to step down? No. People just keep asking. OK, because I think a brokered convention would be a very exciting thing. Yeah. I really it's not going to take that risk.

It's not. Yeah, I take the risk, but It's not going to take that risk. It's not. Yeah, I take the risk, but it's not going to happen. So coming up, the New York Police Department is warning of an increase in political violence following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. The NYPD's chief of patrol joins us ahead with a look at the new security measures being put in place across the city. Morning Joe will be right back. Beautiful live picture, the sun coming up over New York City at 654 in the morning. The NYPD is on heightened alert

this week after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. While police stress there are no specific threats to the city, a new memo reminding officers to stay vigilant amid fears of political violence. NYPD brass has met with Secret Service stationed at Trump Tower, where an increased number of officers are protecting the former president's New York City residence. And joining us now, NYPD's chief of patrol, John Schell, and deputy commissioner of public information at the NYPD, Tariq Shepard. Gentlemen, good morning. It's good to have you with us. So, Chief Schell, I said in the lead up there that there were no specific threats that you all are aware of. But when you see something like that take place on Saturday in Pennsylvania, an attempt on the life of one of the most prominent New Yorkers, what does that tell you? How does that change your thinking here in the city?

So this city, everything that happens worldwide, nationwide, always ends up coming back to New York City in one way, shape, or form. And when this happened Saturday, I could tell you immediately our leadership team was on the phone. I was on the beach making a call on the police commissioner, everyone involved to see what can we do right now to move quickly. So Trump Towers, Trump properties. How can we be precautionary just to put up that footprint that we're going to keep some areas safe in the city? And we did that immediately. And again, precautionary, no threats. But that's what we have to do. We don't have a choice in a matter. Deputy Commissioner Shepard, we've heard from the FBI for years now that the

threats that they think about a lot more than they used to are these domestic threats. They worry about political violence. How much has that matrix changed for you all in the last few years? Obviously, you're still thinking about ISIS and extremism from outside the country, but how much more do you think about domestic terrorism? Yeah, well, domestic extremism from outside the country. But how much more do you think about domestic terrorism? Yeah, well, domestic extremism, domestic terrorism, something that we talk about all the time. We work a lot with our partners, our intelligence division. They're always on top of this. And, you know, the bottom line is that you can have plans. There will always be vulnerabilities. And we just got to continue to make sure that our

officers stay vigilant and remind them of these type of things can can actually happen and so you know one of the things we're looking at is how do we continue to improve technology to help us keep you know the city safe these kind of events safe political visits uh dignitary visits how do we incorporate technology into that how do we use our drones more effectively? So we're always looking for cutting edge technology to keep all these events and people safe in New York City. Gee, Shell, threat level, measuring the threat level. It's a daily incidence report, I would imagine. What's the threat level today compared to like four or five months ago? Well, you know, in a city of eight and a half million people, think about it, we're always at some sort of threat level and we're always prepared to move. We have to. So we're always at

a heightened alert, even though there's no specific threat to the city. We're always at a heightened alert because we are New York City. And we always have to be in tune with our intel bureau, federal partners. Every minute of the day, something can happen. And again, we have to move quickly. Just like going back to Saturday, we have to move quickly to put up a posture, a footprint of keeping the city safe and vulnerable targets, in this case, Trump properties, if you will, Trump Towers. So it's every day. Can I ask you guys, I know you don't have any inside information. It's not your jurisdiction. But when you saw what happened on Saturday in Pennsylvania, what were the initial questions that popped to both of your minds when

you saw the layout? You saw sort of that overhead view of how close that barn was to the stage and all of that. What did you think right away? I think we had the same questions that everybody else had. We just have to wait for the after action. After all these incidents, they have what they call a hot wash and they'll go through everything who was supposed to be where. But you got to remember, this is a multi-agency operation and we don't know enough right now to make a determination of what went wrong. We'll get all that and we'll cooperate into our plan in New York City. One of the things I know is that we work very well with the Secret Service. You know, great partner, very competent people there. Pennsylvania State Police, same thing.

So we'll just wait to see what comes out and see how we can make New York City better. But I do want to say that counter-sniper should be man of the year. So calm, under pressure, ice water running through his veins, and he stopped a lot more people from being hurt

out there. So kudos to the Secret Service counter-sniper, because that took a lot of courage and a lot of just cool under pressure to do it. It was. And Chief Shell, what did you think when you first saw this? Well, again, we'll wait for the after-action plan to come out before we critique our brothers and sisters down there. But from a civilian point of view, we have to note the questions. So who had the rooftop? Was there air support? How were the communications?

You're hearing different reports about different things, 86 seconds, 26 minutes, 30 minutes. We have to get the facts before we make an assessment. But to bring it back to New York City, when our former president was in the Bronx, in the middle of a park, we had numerous interactions with the Secret Service. We have a great relationship, like Tariq said, in going over what's the plan, what's the line of a park yeah we had numerous interactions with the secret service we have a great relationship like tariq said and going over what's the plan what's the line of sight there was a building by the pond who's covering that we we know how we did it here with them we did it well how it worked in pennsylvania i guess that remains to be seen and then if something did happen wrong what was wrong let's how do we fix it thank god the foreign president didn't get seriously hurt and just become better.

You know, no plan is flawless. I'll tell you that. Guys, Joe has a question for you. Joe. Hey, Chief. First of all, I agree that the counter snipers seriously. What the. It's hard to begin to imagine what the world would look like if they were not the pros that they were.

And President Trump had had more grievous injuries and other people there had been shot and killed. So I completely agree with you. Extraordinary job on their part. Chief Schell, first of all, it's always an honor to have you here, an honor to have you here for your service to the people of New York City and representing the NYPD, who does so much every day to keep New York safe. Thank you so much. God bless you for what you do. I wanted to ask you, though, every time something happens where a city or a state or somebody comes up short and we did it here on October 7th, asking why, what in the world, where was the IDF? Where was the army? Why did it take them so long to respond? We always go back to the NYPD

and you always have people saying experts. If this had happened in New York City, dot, dot, dot. It's like you guys would have been on it just like that. Let me ask you something just that maybe others can learn from by what you do. I'd love to hear your insights. What did the NYPD do? What did New York City do post 9-11 to become really more equipped at counterterrorism and these sort of attacks than most countries on the planet?

Well, we looked at the whole circumstance and what we were lacking. So back then, we didn't have a counterterrorism bureau. Our intel bureau wasn't this big. So you learn from what happened, and you have to look inward and build out and do it quickly. Enlist professionals of other countries, and you put the apparatus together. And this is where we are today so we're a fast-moving large agency that by virtue of what you just asked about post 9-11 we can move rather quickly with good intel and secure locations quickly like no plan is perfect but the the speed intelligence communication is key to getting it done.

Mr. Shepard? Yeah, same thing. When you see that we stood up, our counterterrorism guys, put the heavy weapons guys out there, made sure that we surveyed the city for what are the most vulnerable places where we need people. But we get a lot of practice in New York City. We get a lot of visits. We have a lot of practice in New York City. We get a lot of visits. We have a lot of events. And so even mistakes that we've made in the past that people may not have seen because the tragedy didn't happen, we've learned from them. So I think when you come to New York City now,

our plans are pretty tight. But as Chief Self said, none of them are without any flaws. But we got a lot of practice and we're usually ready to go here. We meet with our partners on a regular basis, especially when we have major incidents. There's a lot of meetings, a lot of practice and we're usually ready to go here. We meet with our partners on a regular basis, especially when we have major incidents. There's a lot of means, a lot of coordination, a lot of planning. And, you know, we just hope that something like this does not take place in New York City. But if there's an attempt or something does happen in New York City, we'll be ready to go. Hey, Chief Sherrill, let me ask you just for some facts around crime. It's an election season, so obviously a lot of BS flying around everywhere.

People saying New York City is more dangerous. I have people saying, oh, I'd love to go to New York City, but it's just too dangerous. I'm like, dude, this is not 2020. This is not 2021. Look at the numbers. But somehow my dude explanation does not calm their jangled nerves as much as like the real deal, the facts. Can you can you let New Yorkers and Americans watching this show know how crime has gone down over the past three, four years? Crime has gone down. You just said we're New Yorkers. We're tough. Crime is down.

Do we want to be a bigger decrease? Sure. Did life change? I do. They said post 2020. Absolutely. But we've stabilized the city. Crime is coming down. Cops are working hard. And you want to know if you want to come to New York City. Just take a take a walk through Times Square any night of the week. And you tell me people come to the city and safe. So come on down. Eight and a half million people. Joe, you're a New Yorker. You're tough. This is what it is. Yeah. If you look at our transit system, I think January up like 48 percent. We're the most adaptable police department in the country, up 48 percent in January. I think we sit somewhere like eight percent down now. That's a 56 point turnaround just since January. We know what we're doing here. We know how to get it done. And reflective of crime rates across the country, true. According to the FBI,

that violent crime is coming down in big cities like New York. NYPD Chief of Patrol John Schell, Deputy Commissioner of Public Information at NYPD Tariq Shepard. Thank you both for your service. We're so grateful for you being here today. Appreciate it.