Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/17/24

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Suspect hid at Trump's golf course for 12 hours

It was horror. I mean, this is such a terrible thing to happen twice in our country in a relatively short period of time. And it's frightening to see violence being threatened and used in a political campaign. I worry about threats. I worry about what's being said online about many, many people, not just the former president. And he should be doing, if he were really a leader, he should be doing what he can to calm the waters, not try to just continue to throw red meat out there to get people riled up. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemning the apparent assassination attempt on former President Trump and also reacting to Trump placing the blame for the attack on President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. We'll get the latest on the suspect

and also the political implications in just a moment. And we'll bring you a report from Springfield, Ohio, as more threats fueled by lies from the former president and his running mate forced schools to shut down for a third day. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, September 17th. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Peer Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire and MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle is with us. And we begin this morning with the latest developments surrounding the apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump. According to the federal criminal complaint, the suspect, 58-year-old Ryan Ruth, was in the area of Trump's West Palm Beach golf course for about 12 hours

before the Secret Service spotted him on Sunday and they opened fire on him. Authorities say Ruth did not fire a shot, nor did he have a clear line of sight to shoot Trump. And there's not at all. There was misinformation as soon as this news broke. And it became clear pretty quickly that there was this misinformation that, you know, reports that Trump had been shot at reports in Secret Service knew the direction from which the shots came from. Well, yeah, they did, because they were the only people who fired weapons. Right. So according to investigators, he had a loaded SKS semi-automatic rifle with a scope as well as two bags of food, a food. And when Ruth fled the scene, he left behind his phone. Authorities say cell data

shows he may have been hiding in the bushes from about two in the morning until 1.30 p.m. when he was found. The Martin County Sheriff's Office released this video yesterday of Ruth's arrest. He was taken into custody without incident. Ruth was found driving on the highway nearly 50 miles away from the golf course after police say a witness took a picture of the car he was in. Willie. So that suspect now is charged with two federal counts. They include possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. The charges carry sentence of up to 20 years. Ruth is due back in court for a bond hearing next Monday. He could face additional charges there or as this

investigation continues. Let's go straight to NBC News National Law Enforcement and Intelligence correspondent Tom Winter. Tom, good morning. So let's start with that timeline and what we know exactly. We learned from law enforcement yesterday, as Joe said, the guy didn't fire any shots. He never had a clear line of sight. He was too far away from where President Trump was playing golf. What else do we know this morning? Right. And we know that it was the Secret Service that saw him kind of moving within the tree line there that alerted them to this person being there. And then they saw the gun and the Secret Service engaged with them and fired him at him. And so that's how this whole event really initially started. There's some indication that the Secret Service agent didn't even bother to radio first, just took immediate action,

firing that weapon and then got on the horn and started telling everybody what was going on. As far as the information that you and Mika were referencing, him being at that location for almost 12 hours, what happened was on July 10th of this year, he posts, Ruth posts on Facebook, hey, if you want to contact me, you can reach out to me through WhatsApp and send me an instant message. And that WhatsApp is associated with a cell phone number. They found that, federal investigators found that on his Facebook page. They contacted T-Mobile, which is his service provider, and said, we need everything about this number right now. And there's a system in place for all the major providers that the FBI can reach out in instances

of an emergency or a national security case and say, we need everything right now. We're going to send you all the paperwork. There's a valid warrant behind it, but we need you to drop everything and give us that information. They were able to get that, the FBI CAS team, which is set up to find where cell phones are and to get all the information possible about where somebody might have been. And they determined that he was there in that general vicinity of where he ultimately was fired upon by Secret Service and seen with that weapon at approximately 159 a.m. And then, as you'll remember from yesterday, the shooting happened at approximately 1.30 p.m. So he'd been there for a significant period of time.

A couple of questions we have is how long was his vehicle there? Because you'll remember from the initial reports and then followed up at the press conference, he jumps in his car and then leaves the scene. Now, yesterday, we sent out some of our own colleagues to try to canvas the area and see if we could get any sort of surveillance video from any of the businesses nearby to try to determine some of that information. The FBI was there within two hours after the shooting. So approximately 3.30 on Sunday afternoon, the FBI was already pulling hard drives and surveillance tapes from local businesses to be able to derive their own timeline.

So, Tom, since Butler, which was on July 13th, a couple of months ago now, the Secret Service has added to its protective detail around Donald Trump. But yesterday, the Trump campaign said we need more. Obviously, their argument being, of course, there was another guy in these bushes, didn't get a shot at Donald Trump. Thank goodness. But that something has to change here, given the threats against former President Trump and, by the way, against Vice President Harris as well. So is there a look that people are taking now about changing the way they're protecting Donald Trump after now two attempts on his life? So there's two conversations that are going on right now. Well, you've got one, the acting director of the Secret Service saying we need a paradigm shift. We can't be so reactive. We have to be out there as more of a protective front.

So they're acknowledging that as far as the long term mission of the Secret Service, as far as the immediate need and what you're referencing, what the Trump campaign says they're asking for here is basically to have almost a presidential detail light. And we chatted about this a little bit yesterday. So he's not Donald Trump wouldn't get a communications package. He's not the commander in chief. He doesn't need the secure comms needed that's associated with that ultimate responsibility, including the nuclear responsibility. But is there a way to get it a little bit closer where you're locking down more

areas, where you're in the instance of this golf course, and it's just his hobby, it's not a political statement, but it's very likely, obviously, that Donald Trump will want to golf at his own golf course on the weekends when he's not campaigning. So do you lock down that whole area now? Of course you can do all those things. But the drain on personnel and resources and how much you're relying on local law enforcement is a huge concern. And we're not talking about, well, we've only got 10 days left to Election Day or we've only got a handful of days left. We're talking about 49 days to Election Day. And if you're going to have that as he crisscrosses the country, well, that's going to be a significant drain in places that aren't that have a sheriff's department the size of Palm Beach County in places like New York City as you go to smaller communities.

Yeah. And, you know, this has obviously been an ongoing concern of the Secret Service golf courses. I, you know, since Donald Trump, since Donald Trump came into public office, I would drive past golf courses where I knew he played, including this one. Yeah. And the question I had is why are why is the Secret Service even letting him go out on golf courses? Because, again, a lot of golf courses are tucked away. These Trump courses are on busy roads. This this one especially is on a very busy road. And Carol Linig did did reporting, as did our own Jonathan Lemire, The Secret Service showed a new president, Donald Trump, photos of how you can shoot long range pictures of him while he golfed at his Virginia club and warned that an assassin could kill him the same way. But Trump insisted that the clubs were safe and he was going to keep playing golf, despite the fact that his habit, quote, at the semi-public courses put his life at risk for many years. Anyone who has had any experience with the Secret Service know that it is, in a way, I would say teamwork,

where the Secret Service can do what they can do. They also have to warn you as to when their job is harder or their job is made impossible. And then, you know, if the former president or anybody chooses to take that risk, you know, they can't stop him from what he wants to do. But their ability to protect him goes down in a massive, sprawling golf course surrounded by public. And that's that's the important thing. And, you know, Jonathan O'Meara, you've reported on this. It's, you know, golfing at a secluded private club at Martha's Vineyard or a secluded private club in Kennebunkport or Lago are a secluded private club, you know, Bel Air Country Club or you name it. These private secluded clubs are one thing. But I know you've seen this course. It's a long, busy thoroughfares. And so obviously it's caused some real concerns for years, going back to when Donald Trump first started running

for president. What have you learned in your reporting? Yeah, covering the Trump White House for years, it would see your staff would always be anxious when Donald Trump would go away for the weekend to whether it's Bedminster or Mar-a-Lago to golf, in part because they were afraid of what rich friend he would run into who would plant an idea that they would then have to deal with as he came back to them. But there were also real security concerns, particularly at this course here, which is West Palm Beach, a couple miles from his Mar-a-Lago resort. There's no course at Mar-a-Lago itself. This is the closest one. And that one in Sterling, Virginia. And I remember talking to a senior Trump aide during his

administration who showed me what was a pretty unflattering photograph that a photographer had gotten perched upside a hill outside of the course perimeter, outside of the security bubble. But a photographer had simply set up a spot and took a picture as Trump was playing. And the senior aide said, well, the president's reaction to this, the then president, was that he was unhappy that it made him look bad, his swing looked bad. But he was like, the real concern here is Secret Service has told us that if a photographer can stand there and take that shot, what's stopping a would-be assassin, not with a camera, but with a gun, taking a very different kind of shot? And that has been a concern while he was in office and even more so since then, because as a former president,

he simply doesn't have the security footprint he did while he was in office. So this has been a long running concern. Two final notes here. When President Obama golfed, where he did so for security reasons in part, was it Joint Base Andrews? Was that Andrews Air Force Base, a military installation they could completely secure? So there was less of an issue there. And then we heard from President Biden yesterday, Joe Amica, saying that, yes, Secret Service needed help. They need more resources here. Senator Schumer, the majority leader, says he'll put that in the budget. But House Speaker Johnson has indicated he doesn't think this is a funding issue.

It might be a no-go. Tom, there's one element that's hanging over this thing, and it's the threat level posed to public people in this country, the threat level posed to the nation itself in terms of intelligence. Where is the threat level today? I've never seen it this high in the 10 plus years I've had this job. That is as it pertains to terrorism, the threat from ISIS-K, the threat from foreign terrorist organizations. We have a real threat of foreign directed terrorist attacks. We have the now constant threat of, you know, it's being kind of mocked now because the phrase is being so used, the lone wolf threat.

Somebody who buries themselves in the Internet and finds the conspiracy. And it's like a jukebox. You know, they're kind of just selecting whatever song appeals to them. And so whether it's white supremacy, whether it's ISIS, whether it's all sorts of ideology, whenever anybody does these type of events anymore, when they get to the heart of why they did it, it's never just one thing. And so we're not talking about Muhammad Atta and Al Qaeda and going back 23 years ago. We're talking about people that just find something online that gives them the juice to go out and I want to do something. I want to go after somebody. So you have that constant threat, which is an incredible threat when you think about it.

I mean, what radar was this person on before they were in the bushes outside of Trump's golf course yesterday? And then you've got the more organized threat domestically. You've got Iran, who obviously has a has an interest in killing former Trump administration officials, if not the former president himself. By the way, that threat will continue if Donald Trump loses in November. So that's something that, again, the Secret Service is going to have to deal with. He's a former president. He will get protection. So I've just never seen it this way. And why I'm saying that is based upon people that I've known for a very long time that are in the intelligence, the terrorism community that are talking to people overseas all the time. And frankly, it's the cases. I mean, you can believe me or not that the people that I'm talking to know what they're talking about. But just look at the cases that we've seen the last couple of weeks.

We had somebody arrested in Canada who was indicted on his way to America, wanted to kill Jews just before October 7th, obviously the anniversary of Hamas's attack on Israel. You've had a person who wanted to, who has definitive ties to Tehran, wanted to try to find somebody here, a hitman, to go after former Trump officials. And so you're seeing these arrests, you're seeing these cases. It's not just little things that we hear in the ether. So I think it is an incredibly difficult time. And as the acting Secret Service director mentioned yesterday, this paradigm shift, I think we're in a whole new world. One thing that is occurring that has not occurred in elections past, everybody posts everything on social media constantly. And now there's a history of it. So you know where children of presidential candidates are or what they like to do or what these families like to do. So if you're in the Internet all day

and you want to find that threat, it's there for you to find. That's a real challenge for the Secret Service. NBC News national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter, thank you very much for being on this morning. And former President Trump is blaming Democrats after the second apparent assassination attempt against him. In an interview with Fox News Digital yesterday, Trump pointed the finger at President Biden and Vice President Harris, claiming their rhetoric is causing him to be shot at. He claimed Biden and Harris are, quote, destroying the country, both from the inside and out. He later warned on social media, quote, because of this communist

left rhetoric, the bullets are flying. That's not inflammatory. And it will only get worse. Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, also echoed those remarks while speaking in Atlanta last night. You know, the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. And two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out. Somebody's going to get hurt by it

and it's going to destroy this country, all of us. And I promise I will do my part to tone down the rhetoric. But in particular, the people telling you that Donald Trump needs to be eliminated, you guys need to cut it out or you're going to get somebody hurt. Well, this is what you would call gaslighting of the first order. And let's bring around CEO of the Messina Group, Jim Messina. He served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff to President Obama and ran the 2012 re-election campaign. He's co-chair of the New Democracy Defenders Super PAC, whose goal it is to combat Republican-led voter suppression efforts. You know, I'm not going to even respond to the hypocrisy. I'll just read from the New York

Times this morning. Peter Baker, in his latest analysis for the New York Times titled Trump Outrage in the Modern Era of Political Violence. Peter Baker writes this in part. At the heart of today's eruption of political violence is Mr. Trump, a figure who seems to inspire people to make threats or take actions both for him and against him. He has long favored the language of violence in his political discourse, encouraging supporters to beat up hecklers, threatening to shoot looters and undocumented migrants, mocking a near fatal attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker and suggesting that a general he deemed disloyal be executed. While Mr. Trump insists his fiery speech to supporters on January 6th, 2021

was not responsible for the subsequent ransacking of the Capitol, he resisted pleas from advisors and his own daughter, other family members as well, that day to do more to stop the assault. He even suggested that the mob might be right to want to hang his vice president and has since embraced the attackers as patriots whom he may pardon if elected again.

Jim Messina, this is, again's it's barely even worth responding to. And I I can say that on a personal level. And, you know, him suggesting that I should be executed after he was angry at my covid reporting, which basically was just reading his quotes over six months time, agreeing that that Liz Cheney should be set before a military And his supporters suggesting that the hosts of the ABC debate should be imprisoned. And he welcomes to Mar-a-Lago people who have racist beliefs and among other things, who are not democratic in their values. We're talking about violence here. And again, the real introduction to violent rhetoric in America Richmond, Virginia, where he said both sides were good people, you know, as they burned their tiki torches and chanted anti-Jewish sentiments. You know, J.D. Vance is just the latest symptom of what Trump started.

I mean, he admitted that the Springfield pet thing was made up by him and others to highlight an issue. And now they're on their third day of not being able to go to school because of bomb threats and not having a government because of bomb threats in the city hall. This is what he has wrought upon American politics. And it's now everywhere. His acolytes and his party has just become willing enablers of this. And we're seeing this all over the place. With 49 days left in this election, his supporters have filed over 100 lawsuits around the country trying to restrict voting rights, trying to restrict early voting,

trying to change the laws to favor their anti-democratic movement right as people are going to the polls. We have never seen threats to democracy like these guys and Donald Trump. And in seven weeks, if we're not very careful, he could win again. Jonathan Lemire, we can take, as Joe said, J.D. Vance's comments with a grain of salt. He has to say whatever the puppet master makes him say. But we should point out that he is the elected representative, the United States senator of the people who actually are being put in danger by the rhetoric coming out of his campaign in Springfield, Ohio. But bigger picture here, Donald Trump says the Democrats are the enemy within.

He says they are destroying our country. He's called some of them vermin using apocalyptic terms, which send bat signals, as we learned on January 6th and knew before then, to groups of people about how high the stakes are and what needs to be done to stop them. So thank God Donald Trump is safe. Thank God he was not assassinated in July or this week. But my gosh, there is no comparison on the rhetoric. Not even close. And to be clear, there's no place in this country for any sort of political violence. There shouldn't be any place for political threats of political violence even. But the it is rank hypocrisy and just truly rich to hear from Donald Trump, of all people,

suggesting that the other side is responsible for inciting violence. Now, of course, we don't know what's in the mind of this suspected suspect who was arrested in Florida, nor did we know what happened with the individual who tried to who shot at former President Trump in Pennsylvania back in July. There are sort of incoherent ideologies for both. But what is clear, and we know this, that Trump has inspired violence, as we're seeing here on January 6th. The attacker of Paul Pelosi, which, mind you, that Trump and his adult sons mocked repeatedly afterwards. Trump, even in recent weeks, has used the attack on Paul Pelosi as a laugh line in his rallies. He's dehumanized people, immigrants, yes, also Democratic elected officials with his words. He has called them treasonous and suggested they be executed. No one,

no one in our modern American politics has embraced the concept of political violence or attacking others like Donald Trump. And though there are some in his camp who feel like what things have gone too far in Springfield, Ohio. They see the reports of schools being evacuated, bomb threats to City Hall, bomb threats to the hospital there. But Donald Trump himself, I am told, mulling a visit to Springfield, Ohio, thinks this is a winning issue there

and wants to push this one even further. Jim, there are elements of this campaign that will never end, it seems. And given the age that we're living in, living through politically, hopefully we live through it, the election will not be over on November 8th. It just won't be over. Won't be over, right. Especially if the former president loses. What do you anticipate will happen? A couple things. One, they're going to go right to the courts and attempt to overturn it. They're already having local county officials in some of these battleground states say they won't certify the election if Trump loses. Let

me just say that again. Local elected officials are already saying seven weeks before the election they won't certify if Trump loses. And so this is what we're going to have to deal with. We have to deal with it in the courts. We have to deal in the court of public opinion. And we have to make sure people understand how safe and how actual this system really is and how these these inflaming rhetoric of Trump is nothing but BS. It is really troublesome that a majority of Republican voters now trust Donald Trump than they do their local elected officials, who are, as the governor said earlier on Jonathan's Way Too Early show, these are your neighbors who are volunteering to do election watching and election integrity stuff. They're not some deep state conspiracy here. They're just people trying to do their job. And yet the Trump campaign is

already setting the stage to contest this. Trump's campaign manager said the other day, this isn't over on election day. It's not going to be over till the day it's certified in Congress and we'll take the fight all the way. They're setting this up to have another January 6th like protest. Well, because they again, they they just clearly said that in their words or deeds, their actions are going to drive down the vote. And if that doesn't work, they have been planning, like you said, to challenge a democratically elected candidate and try to, unfortunately, block another peaceful transition. That'd be the second time, only the second time since the Civil War. So before we let you go, I want to go over some quick snapshots, just snapshots of some polls that have been coming in. Yesterday, the USA Today Suffolk poll had Kamala Harris up three points in Pennsylvania.

Major national polls, which a lot of people don't pay a lot of attention to, but just look at the trend lines. Several have her up six points. And yesterday we had to end cell serve the Des Moines register with an Iowa poll that had Kamala Harris within the margin of error there. You look at recent Florida polls and recent Texas polls. Many of those are now within five points. Nobody would have ever assumed this. By the way, Joe Biden was down 18 points in Iowa before he dropped out of the race. So I'm wondering what you make of these trend lines and where you see this race right now. Look, I think the key word here, Joe, is movement. You're seeing movement all over the place towards Vice President Harris. You're seeing it as Democrats consolidate. And most importantly,

these suburban women begin making up their minds, the poll that made me the happiest was the Pennsylvania poll. Every day we do 66,000 simulations of the election and Pennsylvania is the tipping point state in about 70% of those simulations. Pennsylvania is going to be the whole battle along with the other two Midwestern states. Doesn't mean the other battleground states don't matter. You need backup plans. You need Georgia in case Pennsylvania slides. You can combine Arizona with Nevada, et cetera.

But what you're seeing in the national polls is movement towards Harris and yet still a very close race in the battleground states within the margin of error of every single battleground state. Of the seven, all of them are within the margin of error of every single battleground state of the seven. All of them are within the margin of error seven weeks before the election. CEO of the Messina Group and chair of the Democracy Defenders Super PAC, Jim Messina. Thank you very much for coming on this morning.

It's good to see you. And still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll talk to two lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle about a new bipartisan push to uphold the results of the 2024 election, regardless of who wins. But first, The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson joins us live from Springfield, Ohio, as the city faces a growing number of bomb threats after President Trump promoted lies about migrants eating people's pets. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. I'm glad Donald Trump survived yet another attempt on his life, but it's not absolutely it's not the first time, of course. He has also given incendiary comments, blaming Haitian immigrants for eating cats and dogs. I could go on about talking about babies getting killed after their delivery and saying that his opponents were all for that procedure. Racist comments that some said maybe weren't intended, but came across as that calling.

Well, the only reason I'm mentioning any of this is doesn't extreme rhetoric work both ways and that Donald Trump himself should be careful with this. Fox News host Neil Cavuto in an interview with a Republican member of Congress, reminding his viewers of what Donald Trump has been saying on the campaign trail and on the debate stage last week as threats continue to disrupt the city of Springfield, Ohio, after Donald Trump and Senator J.D. Vance's lies about Haitian migrants there. Two more elementary schools were evacuated yesterday, elementary schools because of unspecified threats and information received by local police. That now brings the total to six city schools targeted in the past week.

It was the third school day now interrupted by threats in Springfield since the former president and his running mate spread those lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets and wildlife. The state's Republican Governor Mike DeWine announced state troopers will be providing extra security for the foreseeable future at the district's 18 school buildings. Let's bring in Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. He is on the ground in Springfield, Ohio, this morning. So, Gene, you took a reporting trip there to Springfield to see what the impact has been over these last couple of weeks since Donald Trump and others picked up on this third, fourth, fifth hand Internet meme that the person who posted the picture originally that now says had no information about it, didn't mean to start this and everything that's come from it. What are you seeing there in Springfield? Well, you've just given the report.

There are these threats are an everyday occurrence now. The first thing in the morning yesterday, nine o'clock, there's a bomb threat or some kind of threat at City Hall and a scream like eight police cars and officers and they check it out and nothing happened. It happens, and they go away,

but City Hall is not able to function in this environment. The schools are not able to function in this environment. Two local colleges have canceled classes because of threats. Hospitals have had to be evacuated because of these threats, these unfounded threats that are directly prompted by the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the Republican Party, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. And J.D. Vance, who is one of the senators from the state of Ohio, is effectively disrupting the lives and some people feel threatening the lives of his own constituents. It is absolutely appalling and amazing. And I've never seen anything quite like this. So, Gene, school being canceled in Spring from people at the level of angst or outrage or whatever they're feeling about what is happening to their family because of the schools being shut down in their city? Yeah, I've gotten a sense. Number one, I've talked to Haitian newcomers.

I've talked to longtime Springfield residents. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that this is unacceptable. This situation right now is unacceptable and has to end. Everybody needs to calm down. Everyone needs to reject these stupid, I won't even call them rumors, they're just lies about cats and dogs and geese, and get back to what Springfield was trying to do all along, which is, it's a city that's sort of rebounding after deindustrialization. It's really coming back. There are some big new employers around town. There's more jobs.

There's more economic vitality downtown. There are some projects going on that are bringing life back to downtown. That's what Springfield is trying to do. At the same time, it is coping with a very large wave of immigration, of Haitian migrants primarily who have temporary protective status. Many of them, some of them are longer term residents of the United States who've come to Springfield for opportunity. And so that's something that the city is having to deal with and to grapple with. So I would like to get the bigger picture, Gene, since you're there on scene, because often several things can be true at the

same time. Depending on what you watch or read, you might hear that Springfield is overrun with illegal migrants that are causing lots of problems for the system of the city of Springfield, and it is overrun. That large wave that you were talking about of migrants who are under temporary protective status, if you could address the problems that they are causing for Springfield. And also, is it is it fair to make the to do this type of math? The words of Trump and Vance on the national stage have caused this town to basically shut down at times and fear violence. Or is it more muddled than that? Well, that is certainly true. What you just said that the words of Trump and

Vance have caused this town to largely shut down in fear of violence. And and that, again, is unacceptable to everybody I've talked to here. So Springfield faces what I think everyone would agree are challenges. in over the past decade, an influx of at least 15,000, some people say 20,000 Haitian migrants. As I said, they're not all recent migrants from Haiti, but most of them are. They are not illegal. They are not in any way illegally here. They have temporary protected status. They have a right to be here. And this is the pattern of immigration in America. Immigrants arrive at a certain place and a certain infrastructure gets set up. And so others come to the United States, they know they have a cousin or a brother

or a friend, a neighbor who lives in Springfield and knows there's jobs and opportunity there. And so people sort of cluster. I'll tell you one thing, though, that I did see yesterday, that's so encouraging. And so there's a very good Haitian Creole restaurant that opened recently here in Springfield. And it is thronged with people. It is thronged with not just Haitian immigrants, but longtime Springfield residents who are going out of their way to patronize this restaurant and to show that this is not about some sort of antipathy or or othering of the Haitian migrants. What it is about is adjustment. And it has required some adjustment

on the part of this community and will require more adjustment in the months and years to come. The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, reporting for us from Springfield, Ohio. Thank you very much for your reporting Springfield, Ohio. Thank you very much for your reporting this morning, Eugene. Thank you. And time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. One of the biggest social media companies is moving to ban Russian

media outlets, including the state-owned television network RT. The move by Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is intended to crack down on operations to spread disinformation online. U.S. intelligence officials have said the Kremlin is seeking to bolster former President Trump's campaign. Speaking of Russia, the number of those killed or wounded in that country's war on Ukraine has reached the staggering toll of ruffling one million. As The Wall Street Journal reports, while it's been difficult to pin down the precise number of casualties, the massive losses will have a profound impact on both countries far into the future. And hip hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs was arrested late yesterday after he was indicted by a federal grand jury.

Details of the charges weren't immediately announced by prosecutors. Combs has faced multiple allegations by women accusing him of sexual assault and recently settled a lawsuit with an ex-girlfriend who allegedly suffered years of abuse, including beatings and rape. Finally, in Brazil, a news anchor running for mayor of Sao Paulo attacked his opponent with a chair during a live televised debate. It happened after the two contenders sparred over a sexual harassment case involving one of them. Gracious. Analysts say the event could reshape the race to lead Latin America's largest city. I would think so. Coming up, we'll take a closer look at Donald Trump's

finances and why our next guests have dubbed him a lucky loser. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. The game of Monopoly could have been invented for Donald Trump, wheeling and dealing from his office on Fifth Avenue, surveying his realm from his personal helicopter, striding through his casino like Moses parting the Red Sea. The banks showered him with money. The press almost deified him. But Monopoly is a tricky game.

When you borrow as much money as Donald Trump did, nearly $2 billion, and the economy goes into a tailspin and you can't pay the interest on your loans, the bankers move in and they have. That is a 1991 report from NBC Nightly News with an extended monopoly metaphor. They're covering one of Donald Trump's public financial failures. The events surrounding Trump's first bankruptcy, as well as his others, are covered in the new book, Lucky Loser, how Donald Trump squandered his father's fortune and created the illusion of success. And the book's co-authors, Russ Buettner and Suzanne Craig, join us now. They are investigative reporters for The New York Times and won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on Donald Trump's finances.

Good morning. It's great to have you both back with us on the show. Congrats on the book. Suzanne, so if we could just take a sort of a first, a big 30,000 foot view of this. Obviously, the fact, the idea, I should say, that Donald Trump is this genius builder, this businessman is foundational not just to his personal story, but to the reason he was elected president. The guy from The Apprentice, everything he touches turns to gold. But as Kamala Harris got to last week in the debate, she said Donald Trump was handed 400 million dollars on a silver platter. So what's the truth about the beginning of his rise as a businessman? Well, he was certainly to start with born lucky. He was born into a very wealthy family, and he inherited hundreds of millions of dollars. But he grew up, Fred Trump, his father, was an incredibly successful builder in the outer boroughs.

And Donald Trump took over that empire, and he was born into luck. And he ended up being able to use his father's connections and his father's money to get his start in Manhattan. Russ, there's so much in this book that gives the reader an insight into how over decades Donald Trump has woven his way into American culture and American life. And some of the tells in the book are so glaringly obvious as to Trump's character or lack of character. One of them is he's at the military academy and it's time for the class picture to be taken. And Donald has earned maybe one or two good conduct medals

that would be flashed on his uniform when the photo was taken. But he has another idea on that day. He does have another idea. You have a keen eye. So that day is going to be sort of the, for posterity's sake, it'll be how you're reflected in the yearbook forever. And Donald has some medals. All the kids there were given medals for good behavior, for making their bed in the right

way. But Donald had a friend, Michael Skadron, who had done very well under that system. And his dress uniform was just covered in medals. So Donald, the day that photograph, went to Skadron's room and said, hey, can I borrow your formal jacket today? And that's what he wore. And that's the picture that you still see of him with tons of medals all on there. But they're not his. He just borrowed it. Suzanne, that metaphor, the medals that weren't his, proven in the class picture that he had all these medals.

Is that what he did to so many banks in the 80s going in with false? How did he do it? How did he have a relationship with so many banks when he owed so much money and had already filed for bank? I think there was just such an incredible willingness to loan to him. Why? At that period, because he had his father's backing at a point and they felt that he was wealthy. He had the accoutrements of wealth. He looked wealthy. And, you know, I covered Wall Street for years. The banks will line up to give you money. And then it all it all fell down on them. But they they were taken in. I can't get a car loan. I hear you on that. Jonathan's in Washington. Congrats on the book, guys. Russ, talk to us about the Trump comeback that the piece of footage we brought in the segment with shows, you know, bankruptcy, the things things took a dire turn from him.

How did he pull this off where he was able to set himself back up to being a publicly respected businessman, if you will, and then reality TV star. That happened kind of all at the same time. He sort of, after this 1990 collapse, when the banks forced him to sell a lot of his assets or give them back, he was really doing some small ball stuff for a number of years there. He was trying to get his name on other people's projects. He was trying to build golf courses, some of which he got hung up on zoning boards on. And then all of a sudden, out of the blue one day, he gets a call from the hottest name in television at the time, a producer named Mark Burnett, who had just created The Survivor, which was at that point in time, the biggest show in television. Another show called Echo Challenge. This was a new form of game show that they called reality television. Burnett preferred the term dromality because it wasn't really real.

And he needed an idea. He wanted to move Survivor into the city. And his idea was the jungle would be the city now. And so he called the one person that he remembered, he says, from the art of the deal, Donald Trump, to see if he would do it. He thought it would take him weeks to get an appointment. He thought he would never get there. As soon as he called, Trump picked up the phone and said, come on over. And that day they struck a deal and then began the process of remaking Donald Trump to look like

the very consequential, effective billionaire that they needed him to be in order for the premise of that show, that it was a contest between people to get an apprenticeship with him to make any sense at all. And that process of remaking him not only made him rich, but also gave him the image that was so vital to him running for the White House. Suzanne, has there been any response from Donald Trump to this book? We saw a comment from Donald Trump during the book writing process and we did not hear back. And on Monday, though, we are sorry. On Sunday night, we did hear from him and he sent us a cease and desist letter about the about the article. There is a big adaptation that ran in The New York Times and has also warned us about the book.

But that's all that we've heard from him. But we certainly wanted to hear from him during the book writing process. And we didn't. The new book is entitled... Willie has a question. Go ahead, Willie. Yeah. So Russ and Suzanne, both, I'm curious to get your fact-based take on this, because we've kind of hear as a refrain from people around Donald Trump, including his sons, even used when he's being prosecuted in lower Manhattan, saying, how could New York City do

this to the guy who built the New York City skyline? That's a line they use. So obviously he's got Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. But Russ, what's the truth about how much he has built and how much he has actually just licensed his name to in New York? He hasn't built that much. When you look at the skyline from almost anywhere, you're not going to see Donald Trump's buildings along there. There are other builders that are much bigger and have had a bigger role, especially in the last 40 years. He built a few apartment buildings very early on. He sold, most of those were condos, so he doesn't own them.

He owns the grocery store and the parking lot on the ground floor. And in no way did he remake the skyline. You can see the tall buildings from everywhere. There was a project on the west side that he tried to develop for years. He lost tons of money on that. He ultimately had to give away control of that. And those properties were built by another company, but he insisted that his name be put on some of them. So you see some of that from the west side of Manhattan, but he didn't actually build those. Those were built by another company after he had failed in his plans.

And yet he stands to make, even with his Truth Social stock plummeting, doesn't he stand to make a billion or $2 if he decides to sell in the next few weeks? Yeah, let's see. I mean, first of all, the stock has been falling. So that's a real question mark. And if he sells, it could crush the company. But these are a lot of unknowns. And, you know, the other thing we've been seeing him doing,

just, you know, he's hawking sneakers. He's hawking Bibles. I mean, these are licensing deals. They're not going to bring in a lot of money. We have to remember Donald Trump. He lost a lot of the licensing deals that he struck when he decided to run for president back in 2016. And now he is facing potentially crushing fines, hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. Just think of the New York attorney general's case.

We don't know how that's going to play out if that case is on appeal. But that bill could be coming due. Yeah, wouldn't that suggest that he'd probably sell the stock even if it did great damage to the company, if he could take a billion or two billion dollars out of it? Could be. It would be a real race against time to sell off before the thing plummeted. But we also just wonder, you know, he's had the luck of his birth that brought him half a billion dollars, the luck of the apprentice that brought him another half a billion dollars, this investment on the West Side that produced a lot of money.

You just have to wonder if there's something else that's going to come up in his time of need, as happens throughout his life, to sort of give him a rescue. And maybe this stock is it. All right. The new book is entitled Lucky Loser, How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success. It goes on sale today. Co-authors Russ Buettner and Suzanne Craig, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning.

Congratulations on the book. Good luck with the cease and desist. And still I had. I do think he'll most likely sell the stock. It might crush the company. But with the expenses, if he could get a billion, two billion dollars out of that, that will certainly, that will have to sell a lot of sneakers to get a billion and two dollars.