Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/13/24

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Trump says he will not debate Harris again

I'm going to actually do something really unusual, and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies. It's a really interesting thing to watch. Women, I won't be following you around to the hospitals monitoring. And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. By the way, her crowds are zero. Her crowd, she's got no crowds. And I will tell you, the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. They take in the geese. You know where the geese are in the park, in the lake, and even walking off with their pets. My dog's been taken. You will not hear him talk about your

needs, your dreams, and your desires. I always liked him. I'm not gonna watch him anymore. I'm not gonna watch him because he's not legit, what he did. I'm not gonna watch him. And his hair is not as good as it used to be, you know. I'll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. The parents, mom, dad, they're so proud. Come on, baby, you can do it. You saw it. Well, can't do it. She couldn't get it up.

And I pledge to you that I will. My wife hates when I do this. She says it's so unprecedented. Yeah. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Friday, September 13th. Willie, are you ready for the weekend? I am. I love his obsession with David Muir's hair. He's disappointed that the hair has gotten worse, implying that he used to think David Muir has great hair. Went on it at some length about that.

Fascinating. Does he really want to be talking like about hair? I don't know. And then the weave, I don't know. It seems to me that right now the big story is the fact that he doesn't want to debate again. I'd love to get your thoughts on this. It seems to me they could have waited a week or two, but he must have been so traumatized by being so badly beaten that he just wanted to get it out of his mind that he would ever have to be on stage again with Kamala Harris. Yeah, I mean, he objectively got blown out of the room at that debate three nights ago. He knows that his advisers know that Republicans who support him generally have said that on television. Fox News hosts are saying that he knows he got creamed.

And so now he's framing it as the debate was unfair to me. The moderators were too mean. I'm not going to do that again. He doesn't want to get back in the ring with Vice President Kamala Harris. That's the truth. So as you said, Donald Trump officially now is backing out of a second debate with the vice president, despite previously claiming he would participate in one more debate with Harris. The former president said yesterday during that rally in Arizona that because he, quote, won on Tuesday night, he doesn't need another one.

But when a prize fighter loses a fight, you've seen a lot of fights, right? The first words out of that fighter's mouth is, I want to rematch. I want to rematch. And that's what she said. I want to rematch. Polls slowly show that I won the debate against comrade Kamala Harris. She went over to ABC, which, in my opinion, has taken a big hit because these two people were bad news. They kept screaming at me.

I said, why are you screaming? I'm saying to myself, I'm looking at him. I always liked him. I'm not going to watch him anymore. I'm not going to watch him because he's not legit, what he did. I'm not going to watch him. And his hair's not as good as it used to be, you know. So because we've done two debates

and because they were successful, there will be no third debate. It's too late anyway. The voting's already begun. You gotta go out and vote. We got to vote. So North Carolina, two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our debates. You watched it? Did you watch it? And look, I believe we owe it to have another debate. All right. We owe it to the voters.

Because here's the thing. In this election, what's at stake could not be more important. That's Kamala Harris, Willie, on the road in front of yet another massive crowd, despite what Donald Trump says. And here's the problem with everything Donald Trump said in those soundbites. How many people watched the debate? I think it was a pretty big number, like 70 million or something across multiple networks. And so we don't have to actually say, oh, he's lying. Let's fact check that everyone saw it. Everyone saw it. Everyone knows that he's lying. Yeah. And he likes that boxing metaphor about a rematch, somehow framing that as how he won. He doesn't need another one. I think the more apt boxing metaphor is that he

just got his butt kicked in the third or fourth round and he's deciding not to come back out for the next round where Kamala Harris is standing in the middle of the ring, said let's do it again. He wants none of it. Let's continue the conversation with the co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, and managing editor at The Bulwark, Sam Stein. Guys, good morning. Great to have you all with us.

Michael, I'll start with you. Your take as someone who has worked in politics for all of his adult life about what it means when someone suddenly declares they don't want another debate. Yeah, yeah. When you when you come out and try to frame this the way Donald Trump is framing it, after we saw what we saw, right? It's not like this was one of those things that you only heard on radio or you just didn't tune in and missed it. No, a lot of people saw this. We know he's lying.

We know he not just got stung, he got knocked down. And he got knocked down in such a way that he could not get up. So basically what you have is that to keep this boxing metaphor going, the guy on the mat looking up with one hand up in the air, trying to get up off the floor saying, I don't want any more. No mas. And it's very clear why. Because he recognized from the very beginning of that debate, and for me, Willie, it was the moment she walked over and shook his hand. She threw him off his game in that moment because he had no intentions of shaking her hand. He was not going to be the gentleman to go to the center of the ring, if you will, and shake your opponent's hand and to begin the conversation. But she did him one better, went over to him and introduced herself, Kamala Harris. And from that moment, he was not the same. She started off a little rocky, but she found her footing very quickly on issue after issue. And the only thing he was reduced to was talking about ducks and cats and whining

about the fact that, you know, she was lying about his crowd size. That is basically the essence of that debate for Donald Trump. And so, yeah, he's on the mat looking up from the floor saying, I don't want no more. God bless you, Donald, because when you get up, she's going to hit you again. And she's ready. And I think the country is ready for him for her to continue to do that, because I think I heard Mika say at some point earlier this week, we're just exhausted. And I think we're done with all of this. And she has become, as Donald Trump was the avatar for grievance and regression and looking backwards,

she's now the avatar for looking forward and hope. And people see that there is something ahead that they can move towards as opposed to staying stuck where we are. Kudos to you, Michael Steele, for taking our extended boxing metaphor to the Roberto Duran-Sugar Ray Leonard fight with no moss in 1980. Very nicely done there. Eugene Robinson, it is, we saw there just again, the stark contrast. We saw Donald Trump at his rally in Arizona talking about dogs and cats and geese and David Muir's hair. And then cut to two raucous, crowded events, contrary to what Donald Trump keeps saying, for Kamala Harris in the state of North Carolina. Again, just trust your eyes.

Is there a big crowd there? Are they enthusiastic? Are they excited? Yes, the answer is and how gleeful the vice president was when talking about the debate the smile on her face because she too knows how it went in that room in philadelphia on tuesday night yeah she had two rallies in north carolina yesterday one was like 7 500 people the other 17,500 people or something like that. They were huge.

And they were raucous. They were enthusiastic. They were full of joy. They were exactly what Trump and his camp most fear. Look, this debate was, we'll see if it was a real turning point in this election, but it was certainly a moment, a moment that can only be good for Kamala Harris and a moment that can only be bad for Donald Trump. And I imagine that his staff, when he said, OK, maybe we don't do another debate, I imagine they encouraged him.

OK, OK, send that out. Say that today because and put it, you know, let's eliminate the possibility of another debate, because how could they stand another one of those, another beat down like that? I just don't I don't see it. You know, not overtly trying to be mocking because these are really serious times. Nobody made that more clear than Kamala Harris did on the debate stage. But one final note about the debate. I mean, it really was no joke here. It was the Wizard of Oz finally at the end when the curtain is pulled back. His act was dismantled by her face alone and also everything that she said in front of so

many people. It's going to be very hard for the former president to convince anybody except for diehard MAGA, the types of people who will follow him to anywhere. It's going to be very hard for him to convince most Americans that he had a modicum of sense and had any hits during that debate. He was the loser. And for the first time, everyone at the same time saw it. The Wizard of Oz. So let's talk more about the vice president's rallies in North Carolina yesterday. As we mentioned, she received a raucous reception. Huge crowd last night inside the Greensboro Coliseum complex. That was the roar from 17,000 people when she took the stage.

The vice president recapped the debate and pushed one of her core messages of her campaign. On Tuesday night, I talked about issues that I know matter to the families across America like bringing down the cost of living investing in America's small businesses protecting reproductive freedom and keeping our nation safe and secure. But that's not what we heard from Donald Trump. Instead, you know, and I called it at the beginning of the debate, it was the same old show, same old tired playbook we've heard for years,

with no plan for how he would address the needs of the American people. Well, folks, look, it's time to turn the page. Prior to Greensboro, the vice president spoke to 7,500 voters at an event in Charlotte where people began gathering in line several hours before the start time. Once the rally kicked off, Harris highlighted the flood of Republican endorsements that she has recently received. Over 200 people who worked for President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney have endorsed me for president. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congresswoman Liz Cheney are supporting me as well. Because, as they said, we have a duty as citizens to put country above partisanship and defend our Constitution.

I'd say on that point, I mean, it's overwhelming. Sam Stein, her crowds, which is something Trump talked about. He got so I mean, he fell for it. So it was painful to watch how quickly he fell for Kamala Harris kind of making fun of his rallies in a very real and realistic way that he talks about Hannibal Lecter and makes up crap and just throws it out there and really speaks about nothing, but most importantly, does not talk about you, the American people and what he could do for the American people. But even more so, he was very rattled about crowd size, saying that nobody comes to her rallies. And so, again, if anyone wants to check, I mean, there's 17,000

people at one rally alone yesterday and they were going wild. But to a point she was making about the 200 Republicans who are endorsing her. I do think there's a decision to be made by former President George W. Bush and others that are very high level Republicans. And if they truly believe that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, but if they also truly believe that there is a Republican party to be saved, that there is a Republican party to be rebuilt, that there is a Republican Party that should be a part of this democracy that we live in. Isn't the only way to go at this point is to endorse Kamala Harris and let the Republican Party rebuild? I mean, very, very good questions. First, on the rally size, you know, Trump will probably respond

by alleging that this is all AI generated, right? And that this can't possibly be real. Secondarily, on the issue of Republicans supporting Harris, first, it was a little bit disorienting, I got to be honest, to see a massive stadium filled with Democrats cheering the mention of Dick Cheney. 20 years ago, that would have been unfathomable. But we're in a very weird, disorienting time. And Mika, I think you bring up the right question, which is, do certain Republicans,

who we presume or know don't like Donald Trump, want him to fail? Do they feel a moral obligation to not just say they're not voting against Trump, but to make the affirmative case for voting for Harris? Now, Dick and Liz Cheney have done that. Alberto Gonzalez yesterday did that. The question on the mind of people like us at The Bulwark is, will people, we presume, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, will those people who we presume do not support Trump, will they come out and say, in fact, it's good for both the Republic and the Republican Party to see Harris win? Good for the Republican Party in that we need to have a saner version of the Republican Party. And the only way

that that can happen is if we prove that Trumpism finally and fully is a loser. Yeah. I mean, by the way, Donald Trump's not a Republican. Like if everybody just really looked at the reality of Donald Trump, the person leading the Republican Party right now is anything but a Republican and will throw away any issue if it doesn't serve him personally, even abortion. But he's already done so much damage on that that I'd like to point out, Willie, one thing about what Sam said about that crowd of Democrats supporting Kamala, clapping about Dick Cheney. I can tell you, I know personally that there are some Republicans

in those crowd. Republican women especially are gathering together and going to Kamala Harris rallies. And as her campaign and Kamala Harris will will tell you, they are welcome to be there. Yeah, Republicans for Harris is what the campaign calls it. And let's not forget that group of Nikki Haley voters that are potentially up for grabs who say they cannot abide Donald Trump and they need to be convinced that Kamala Harris is the choice. I will say Sam and I are living in the same head space. I watched that clip and I thought, my God, go back to 2004 and an arena full of Democrats cheering for Darth Vader himself, Dick Cheney, who was the arch villain of American politics, according to Democrats.

It's an extraordinary time for sure. So during that Arizona rally yesterday, as we said, Donald Trump continued to push that baseless claim that migrants from Haiti are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. There's a place called Springfield, Ohio, that you've been reading about. 20,000 illegal Haitian immigrants have descended upon the town of 58,000 people, destroying their entire way of life. This was a beautiful community, and now it's horrible what's happened. Enrollment on the state's Medicaid and food assistance programs have soared. Motor vehicle accidents have skyrocketed. Recording of 911 calls even show residents are reporting that the migrants are walking off with the town's geese. They're taking the geese.

You know where the geese are? In the park, in the lake. And even walking off with their pets. My dog's been taken. My dog's been stolen. My dog's been stolen. This can only happen. These people are the worst. As the people of Arizona understand better than anyone else, under Kamala Harris, our country is under a thing called invasion. Did you ever hear the word invasion? Just like a military. It's like a military invasion. We're being conquered and we are being occupied by a foreign element. Officials in Springfield, Ohio, and the Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, again,

say there is absolutely no evidence of Haitian immigrants, not illegal immigrants, Haitian immigrants abusing pets. Many of those migrants are, as I say, are here legally under temporary protected status. Meanwhile, the mayor of Springfield says the city received a bomb threat that used hateful language against the migrant and specifically the Haitian community. Yesterday's threat led to the evacuation of City Hall, two schools and the local motor vehicle agency. Mayor Rob Hugh telling The Washington Post his city needs help and not the hate that's being spread by some political leaders. So it's easy to laugh, Michael Steele, at all of the dog and cat and geese eating that's coming out of the mouth of Donald Trump and all the memes

that he's posting. He's actually leaning into this. He thinks he's got a winner here. But also it has real world implications for people in Springfield, Ohio, for Haitian immigrants who are here legally and for people of color across the country. No, it absolutely does. There are there are some real ramifications here that extend well beyond the jokes. And I think, you know, it's time we hold Donald Trump responsible for this. He is being deliberate in what he's saying. He's been told what the truth is, not just by his campaign, but by officials of both the city and the state. And that state official happens to be a fellow Republican. So this is not some Democrat trying to do politics on the subject there. If someone is harmed or injured and bomb threats are being called in, there are idiots who are following this man who will take action because they believe Donald Trump.

When you use terms like there is a military invasion by these individuals, by these others, you will have people who will respond to that. And it rests on Donald Trump's lips and on his hands what happens. And we just can't sugarcoat this. Yeah, there's some great memes and jokes for sure. But this very quickly turns the corner of becoming serious for the people who live in that community and for Haitians, not just in that community, but in other communities around the country. And, you know, we just it just I don't know, I get frustrated and yet at the same time confused by how something like this takes off the way it does and that people think

so little of their fellow human beings to believe something as insidious and stupid and stupid as this. That could lead to someone being hurt. Yeah. I mean, look at January 6th. Look at this bomb. I mean, these are real events. We don't have it's not, oh, Democrats just exaggerating and they're taking a word out of context and getting hysterical about it because he said this or he said that. No, these things have happened. There are many things now in on the record in our history that have been rested on the lips and on the at the hands of Donald Trump and also the leaders who continue to support him. It's a campaign of constant hatred, constant lies. And for Republican voters and leaders, I just like how long can you do this? Aren't you getting tired? Don't you want your party back?

It's just it's exhausting and it's so destructive. We'll continue this, but still ahead on Morning Joe, we're going to dig into brand new polling that shows Kamala Harris expanding her lead against Donald Trump following this week's debate. Plus, a Morning Joe exclusive. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shares her thoughts about Joe Biden exiting the 2024 race and what it means to have a woman at the top of the Democratic ticket. But first, our next guest says the most important trial of the election is the one you never saw coming. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin joins us to explain your watching morning, Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. Beautiful shot at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. at 35

past the hour. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a new book coming up and morning, Joe, has an exclusive first look at one key part of it. The book entitled Something Lost, Something Gained Reflections on Life, Love and Liberty goes on sale next Tuesday. Clinton was recording the audio book when news broke that President Biden had dropped out of the race for the White House. So she decided to record her first reaction to that monumental shift in presidential politics as an epilogue to the audio version. Morning Joe has now an exclusive excerpt of that epilogue. Take a listen. On July 21st, 2024, when Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Kamala Harris, the dream of seeing a woman in the Oval Office was suddenly back within reach. It wouldn't be me, but it could be Kamala. History beckoned.

But a whole lot of bigotry, fear and disinformation, not to mention the Electoral College, stood in the way. Could we do it? Could we finally shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling and prove that in America there is no limit to what is possible? When Bill and I heard the news that Biden was withdrawing and endorsing Kamala, we drafted a joint statement saluting him and also endorsing her. She is talented, experienced, and ready to be president, so it was an easy decision. After our statement went public, Kamala called us. She was remarkably calm for someone who had just been thrown into the deep end of a bottomless pool. She told us she wanted to earn the nomination. I'm going to need your help, she said. We'll do whatever you need, I told her. Bill and I were both ready to do everything we could to help get her elected.

History is full of cautionary tales, but 2024 is not 2016. Trump's victory then and the ugliness of his presidency woke up a lot of people. There's less complacency now about the strength of our democracy and more consciousness of the threats posed by disinformation, demagoguery, and implicit bias. Some people have asked how I feel about the prospect of another woman poised to achieve the breakthrough I didn't. If I'm being honest, in the years after 2016, I also wondered how I would feel if another woman ever took the torch that I had carried so far and ran on with it. Would some little voice deep down inside whisper, that should have been me? Now I know the answer. After I got off the phone with the vice president, I looked at Bill with a huge smile and said, This is exciting.

I felt promise. I felt possibility. It was exhilarating. When I imagine Kamala standing before the Capitol next January, taking the oath of office as our first woman president, my heart leaps. After hard years of division, it will prove that our best days are still ahead and that we are making progress on our long journey toward a more perfect union. And it will make such a difference in the lives of hardworking people everywhere. For now, thinking about this momentous period, I find myself turning back to where this book began. As Joni Mitchell sang all those years ago,

something's lost, but something's gained. Democrats have lost our standard bearer. We will miss Joe Biden's steady leadership, deep empathy, and fighting spirit. He is a wise and decent man who served our country well. Yet we have gained much too, a new champion, an invigorated campaign and a renewed sense of purpose. You know, we're going to hear from former Secretary Clinton when she joins us next Thursday right here on Morning Joe. the joy the Clintons had, especially Hillary Clinton, in the fact that Kamala Harris had the torch passed to her in how quickly they endorsed her. The Obamas and others took a few days and set it up right. Not that they were thinking about it like whether or not, but they prepared. The Clintons just came out as fast as they could tweet. And one of the many reasons is Hillary Clinton is a huge part of why this moment is possible. And secondly, I think a lot of people felt a lot of buyer's remorse when it comes to

Trump. When you look at the things Hillary Clinton said during the debates, during her speeches, during in the run up to the election of Donald Trump. She was right on so many levels. So there's a lot there. And it all adds up to, yes, joy, this possibility that Kamala Harris, an African-American woman, can beat Donald Trump and become president of the United States. Yes, Secretary Clinton endorsed Vice President Harris very quickly. And in fact, in these last couple of months, has been an advisor to Kamala Harris. If you talk to people around the campaign, there is no one else on this planet right now who can understand what Kamala Harris is going through running against as a woman running against Donald Trump.

What is it like to run against him? And she has been close counsel to her on that. It's been widely reported and the campaign has said so as well privately that Kamala Harris is really leaning on Hillary Clinton as she moves forward. But Eugene Robinson, Kamala Harris also may have learned from Hillary Clinton that she is not necessarily leaning into, as far as Hillary Clinton did, the historic nature of her candidacy, suggesting that it is implied by her very standing on the stage next to Donald Trump that she's not talking about identity. She's not talking about being the first woman president or the first woman of color to be

president, of course, as well. So it's there. People know about it. It's something they admire about her, but she's not making she's not leading with it, perhaps, in the way that Secretary Clinton did. We lost Gene's mic. Sam Stein, I'll let you pick up on that while we figure out Gene's mic. I can fill in for Gene, I hope. Yeah, it was very evident in the convention how little, relative to the other topics, gender was brought up. It was implied that she would be a historic candidate. Harris did not lean into it. It was mentioned, but the metaphor of the glass ceiling was not omnipresent. I do wonder, as I listen to that audio book, and I think back to 2016 and relive that campaign, and one of the great questions that we have sort

of lingering over the next 54 days or so is, are voters really ready to get beyond some of the hiccups that they had with gender? Obviously, some of what happened in 2016 was related uniquely to Hillary and some of the baggage that she had from decades of being in the political arena. But some of it was very much gender. And, you know, when you look at these focus groups, when you look at these polls, when you see Harris on the trail and just how she can, you know, acts and what message you see emphasizes. That is one of the big lingering questions for me is, you know, will the country, will the voters be able to get their minds around the idea of having a female president? Certainly a huge swath of the voting electorate already is there, but is that critical mass in the middle, those people who are undecided, will that be a factor?

You know, Mika, listening to Secretary Clinton talk there about how she felt in the years after the 2016 election about somebody else picking up the mantle, I'm reminded of a long conversation, an interview I had with Secretary Clinton a couple of years ago for my Sunday show. And I asked her point blank, do you feel responsibility? Do you feel guilty at all about what's happened in the years under Donald Trump? And she cut me off. Of course I do. I feel terrible about it. And it haunts her in some ways. And I think that she is fully on board with Kamala Harris and doesn't, I don't think anyway, listening to her there, I don't think she feels any, it should have been me. I think she does

feel that, that she should have won, but she also feels like it's got to be somebody. And let's make it Kamala Harris. Yeah, it's interesting, though, because I think I mean, I really feel the pride in her words. It was I think a lot of women across America were proud to be women when they watched Kamala Harris on the debate stage. It was her moment. And and she took it and she nailed it. It's just funny to me to hear that it's even an issue for some people. And I know it may be that Kamala Harris is a woman of color or she's a woman. Are our Americans ready? And I I immediately think, are they ready? Well, what are they ready for a psychopath?

Are they ready for someone who wants to use the government to commit retribution against all of his opponents for no reason at all? Who wants to destroy our democracy? That's not an exaggeration. That's not rhetoric. That's what he said. That's what he has been doing. And the next time around, as Ann Applebaum has very eloquently stated in a recent piece for The Guardian, for many dictators and want to be dictators, the second chance is when they get in there. And then the second time they know what they're doing. And Donald Trump will make sure that his first presidency looks like a walk in the park. So are we ready for a woman? That's not the question I think that should be asking.

Gene Robinson, I think we got your audio going. It's like, are we ready to have us? I'm sorry. I'm just having spoken to experts, someone who seems to have psychotic tendencies running our government, who has plans to do things that are very counter to our democracy and has already hurt women terribly, monstrously already happening now in this country. Are we ready for that? Like, that's the question. I don't want to hear, are we ready for a woman? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. That's what's gotten us here. I don't want to hear that either. But first of all, it should have been Secretary Clinton. She should have been the first world president of the United States. And I think that, you know, she made mistakes in that campaign and we know all about it. But in the end, I do think that there's some sort of deep seated sexism, misogyny, call it whatever you will, that has not been purged from the American psyche.

And now let's keep in mind that Kamala Harris has already made history. She's already broken a ceiling. She's the first woman vice president. But would you be surprised if this were the actual most important question as we get closer to the election? We could see who's the most qualified candidate. We can see who's the safer candidate. We can see which candidate is going to lead this country in a responsible way, in a forward direction. And we can see which candidate is, as you said, the kind of a psychopath, not a doctor, but who is unbalanced, deteriorating, absolutely unfit to be president of the United States. Yet he is a man and she is a woman. And I think she is right.

Not necessary to lean into that. It is obvious. And I hope that we're ready to cross that threshold. I hope this nation is not still hung up on electing a woman as president. And we will see. I just really hope that. I know. I feel like there was an opportunity with 70 million or so watching that perhaps seeing

how Kamala Harris handled Donald Trump in the debate. Maybe even for some Republicans, maybe her answers might not have been as fulsome on the economy or she might not. You may not like her policies or even the plans that she has, but you can't deny what you saw on the stage was a woman who was completely prepared to speak truth to power and to take on Donald Trump in ways that nobody has been able to. Not a TV moderator, not a candidate, not nobody. She did what nobody can do as a woman. I hope that helps you. The misogynists out there perhaps move the meter a little bit on decisions about whether or not women are capable of leading. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we're going to speak with North Carolina Attorney General and

gubernatorial candidate Joss Stein on whether he thinks Democrats can win the battleground state. Plus, we'll dive into the new book entitled Punishing Putin, which goes inside the global economic war to bring down Russia and explores how the Kremlin is keeping their economy going despite sanctions. Warning, Joe, we'll be right back. Pass to the outside wide open inside the 10. And James Cook takes it in. First and goal from the one-yard line. Into the end zone, walking into the end zone.

James Cook for the touchdown. Buffalo with the 49-yard line. On the ground, breaking tackles. James Cook inside the 20, inside the five, somersaults for the touchdown. Whoa! The great Al Michaels on the call there. A huge night for Buffalo Bills running back James Cook, scoring three touchdowns in the first half of last night's game against the Miami Dolphins. The Bills dominating down in Miami, 31-10 the final score. They have now won 10 of the last 11 games against the Dolphins. But the headline out of this game, serious concerns again about the health of Miami's

franchise quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, left the game the third quarter after suffering a concussion, scrambling up the middle, trying to pick up a first down. His head collided with the chest of Bill's safety, Damar Hamlin. Tua's teammates immediately motioned for medical staff to come out of the field. Tua eventually able to walk to the locker room on his own. Miami head coach, Mike McDaniel, said the quarterback is in good spirits after the game. To his third diagnosed concussion as a pro, he suffered a pair of them during the 2022 season. Sam Stein, too, got a huge contract in the offseason. He is the Miami Dolphins franchise.

But big concerns about not just what happened last night, but given his history, those two concussions he suffered in 2022 were gruesome. I think a lot of people remember what we saw on the field. There were questions about why he was let back onto the field taking those hits. So you really, for his sake, you just hope he's okay. Yeah, I mean, one of those concussions in 2022 was so gruesome that the NFL changed protocol around concussions. This one was gruesome, too. I mean, if you watch it, his arm goes up, a clear sign of a concussion right there. His neck is bent in horrible way. And look, what do we know, right, about how this works for them personally? We're

not doctors. We're here looking at at tv screen trying to medically diagnose what happened that said there's empirical evidence at this juncture about what these successive concussions can do to a human being and the damage that they cause long term and you just watch the stuff and you wonder you know is it worth it like is this it? Obviously, it's a decision he has to make for himself. The organization has to be transparent about the risks associated with it. The NFL should be open about what a concussion can do to a human being's head and brain. But you got to feel for the guy watching this third major concussion in two years. It's horrible. And of course, the instinct of anybody who's competitive,

especially at that level, is just to get right back on the field. He wants to be out there. There need to be guardrails. And they've gotten better in recent years in the NFL, partly because of what we saw from Tua two years ago. But still, the doctors need to intervene here and make sure he's OK before he gets hit again. Let's turn to some Major League Baseball. Sam, I know you're excited about this one. Another walk-off win for the Yanks and the Broncos. All right. All the amazing things Juan Soto has done in his career. He only has one walk-off hit back when he was with the Nationals.

On a 2-2. Grubs one one through into center field here comes birdie rafael's throw not in time juan soto's first walk-off hit is the yankee comes against the red sox juan soto single up the middle giving the Yankees its second straight extra inning walk-off after Wednesday's win over the Royals. The Yankees now have a two-game lead in the AL East over the Baltimore Orioles with 15 to play. Orioles have the top wildcard spot. Meanwhile, the Red Sox, four and a half games back of the final wildcard spot. This is a long series, Sam. Three more games in the Bronx between the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Still time. Still time, as Mike Barnacle would say, if he were here to sneak into that wildcard. Come on. I think of all the annoying elements of that clip you just played. It's got to be the announcer being like, you know, of all the things Juan Soto's never done. Oh, yeah.

Set that up. Okay. Willing it into existence. Shoving it down our throats. You know, you didn't have to play the whole clip. That was a lengthy clip to play. You could have just had the Juan Soto hit, but you had to stuff it down my throat. And no, there's no time.

There's no time for the Red Sox to get in. It's over. It hurts that it's going to be. The final nail will come from the Yankees, but I suppose that's just the way it has to be. You know, Mike Barnicle says he knows when it's time to start putting the shutters up, that the

summer's over. We're turning to fall. Summer is over. Maybe, maybe, maybe this morning he is going out to the garage to start looking for the shutters, Sam. All right, Nico.