Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/18/24

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Gov. Huckabee Sanders slams Harris for not having biological kids

We would have been now having so much money coming out of the energy. We just have the best. We have Bagram in Alaska. They say it might be as big, might be bigger than all of Saudi Arabia. I got it approved. Ronald Reagan couldn't do it. Nobody could do it. I got it done in their first week.

They terminated it. Check that one out. Bagram. Check that out, Willie. If you get your Google machine. Yeah, let me do that. Check it out. Alaska. I hear there's some of the best moose hunting in all the world in Bagram. Imagine if Joe Biden. Alaska. Oh, wait a second. 24-7. Bagram left. That would be Afghanistan. Bagram. Alaska.

Bagram. Afghanistan. To the right. Yeah. No, I think he may have confused Alaska and Afghanistan. Not a slip of the tongue either. You said it five or six times again. Closed with check it. Google it. Find it. Check it. Look it up. Weaving either. He said it five or six times again and closed with

check it, Google it, find it, look it up, take it to the bank. One thing he's right, though, Joe, Ronald Reagan did absolutely nothing about Bagram. So that that part of it is true. Thank God. Thank God he's so much better than every other president ever, he says, except for the other 45. So that was a campaign event in Michigan last night where he repeatedly confused Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, known as ANWR. Yeah. With Bagram Military Base in Afghanistan. It happens. It happens. You know, front page of The Times today. A couple of fascinating stories, Willie. We're going to be talking soon about this.

But, man, the Mossad using pagers. Oh, my God. And pagers to have simultaneous explosions all across Israel. I mean, all across Lebanon with Hezbollah terrorists who have been raining missiles down on Israel now for months, months after months there. And then we're also going to be talking about, we've talked about this issue an awful lot, but Willie Instagram making some pretty significant changes, child safety changes in their in their app, which, of course, is something that so many so many Americans, so many parents have been concerned about for so long. Yeah, a long time coming for a lot of people, especially if you have young kids between the ages of, I don't know, getting them so young now, 10 and teenagers as well. And finally, making some of these changes that people have been pleading for for a long time. We'll see if it makes a difference. And on that other story that we're going to dig into deeply, we'll have a report from Israel,

just a stunning attack by Mossad. It appears they're not taking credit for it, but it seems pretty clear that it was Israel to blow up thousands of pagers. And if you read into the details of this and we'll get into it, it wasn't something that happened yesterday. It was something that happened along the supply chain of when these pagers were made and then purchased by members of Hezbollah. So just extraordinary. We'll get into the details of that as well. And tell me about the cultural significance, not only music and culture, of Diddy and for those like me who may not be as well versed in his place in music history? He did. Well, first of all, the details laid out in this indictment, Turn Your Stomach, is absolutely appalling what he's accused of having done over

almost two decades. But yeah, I mean, Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy Records, his partnership with Biggie Smalls early on in their career before Biggie Smalls was killed was a turning point in hip-hop music in in mainstreaming hip-hop music along with Jay-Z he Diddy and Jay-Z came up kind of at the same time in New York City and from different parts of the city but Diddy was more than a rapper he was a producer he was a CEO he sort of expanded the idea along with Jay-Z again of being more than just an artist controlling your your own business, controlling your own empire. But along the way, it appears, according to this indictment, he has pleaded not guilty. He's still in jail, was given no bail.

He's in federal prison right now. Along the way, sexual abuse is the allegation, trafficking, and really, really appalling details in that indictment. Well, he faces it looks like he faces life in prison if convicted. And there's no bail. I mean, it's he could be inside a prison for the rest of his life. We'll have much more on that straight ahead. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, and MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle is with us as well. So our top story this hour, another moment from that Trump event in Flint, Michigan, to show you.

This is Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders taking a swipe at Vice President Kamala Harris for not having her own biological children. Not only do my kids serve as a permanent reminder of what's important, they also keep me humble. You can walk into a room like this where people cheer when you step onto the stage and you might think for a second that you're kind of special. Then you go home and your kids remind you very quickly you're actually not that big of a deal. And ours are pretty good at it. So my kids keep me humble.

Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. Whoa. What is their obsession with women without children of their biological connection? Yeah, I mean, Kamala Harris is the stepmother of two children with her husband, Doug Emhoff, Cole and Ella Emhoff. They call her Mamala. They consider her as much a mother as their own. In response to Governor Sanders' comments, their biological mother, Kirsten Emhoff, wrote on social media, quote, Cole and Ella keep us inspired to make the world a better place. I do it through storytelling. Kamala Harris has spent her entire career working for the people, all families. That keeps you pretty humble.

Yeah. What is this exception? I mean, honestly, it's just cruelty. They really first. First of all, you know, you're turning off an entire population of people. They just don't want those voters. They are playing for a very small subset that relishes the cruelty. First of all, it's fascinating that Sarah Hukaba Sanders still can't pronounce Kamala Harris's name correctly.

That's the first thing. For the other, you want to make them the other. Continue to mispronounce their name like everybody seems to do on Fox News when they know better. It's Kamala. I will talk to Republicans that will say Trump Republicans that will say Kamala. That's interesting. Why do you mispronounce her name when you know it's Kamala? Make it seem like they're the other. So she starts there. Kamala doesn't have children, doesn't have her own children. And, you know, Willie, it's so patently obvious that it's just to be hateful. That's what they do. They just do this to be hateful because they know the truth. They have heard the children, Doug's children's mom say time and time again that they're all part of a blended

family. You know, not everybody, I guess, is perfect, like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Donald Trump. I guess Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, maybe they're just perfect. Yeah. A lot of us, a lot of us stumble through life. A lot of us have blended families. A lot of us figure out how to make blended families work. But I've just got to say politically, there are a lot more people who may have blended families, a lot more people who understand what Kamala Harris and Doug are doing. There are a lot more people who understand, you know, again, blended families than people who are just self-righteous and mean and hateful. And it does go back. I mean, they keep playing into Tim Waltz's hands where Tim Waltz says in Minnesota,

the golden rule is mind your own damn business. They don't win any points here. They just make people independent. So this goes, oh, why are they so hateful? Why are they attacking a woman because she doesn't have any biological children? There are quite a few of those out there, and it's not a sin against God or humanity. And we've lived in this strange era for the last decade or so since Donald Trump came out of the political scene where there's a virtue in being cruel, where you win points for being mean, for being a there are other words we'd use off the air, but for being a jerk. And that's that's the virtue in and of itself. And you get high fives and get

retweets and people amplify the thing you say. But all that happens to both of your point inside the bubble. So she got laughs and cheers in that arena among hardcore Donald Trump supporters. But other people outside say, wait a minute, a lot of women don't have children, not by their own choice in some cases. And in many cases, because it's a life that they've chosen for themselves. Stay out of it. None of your business. And I think Vice President Harris, whatever you think about her politics, has done pretty damn well in her life. And it is strange, Mike Barnicle, too, to hear people who profess constantly their Christianity and their virtuosity and yet constantly judging people for this one political moment to get

an applause line inside an arena at a Trump rally? I think it strikes a lot of people that it's so small. Yeah, it makes them so small. Never mind the fact that if you asked any American, give me the top 10 issues on your mind today that you're dealing with in terms of your family or your job or your issues politically, what are the top 10 issues? I doubt whether the fact that the vice president's family situation would be one of them. People do not care about that. But again, to Joe's point, I mean, there's a lot of blended families in this country. And to your point, the fact that she has no children by birth is meaningless because she is a mother. She does take care of children in that blended family. And she's like a lot of

other women in this country, a lot of other families in this country. But it is just so small of an approach. It really is. Mika, I want to hold up the Wall Street Journal. And first of all, look at that incredible supermoon. It jumps out at you over Osaka, Japan, supposedly going to be one of the biggest and brightest in this year. And then over here, though, the really the lead story today, you look at what happened here and look, look what happened in Iran with with the bombing there and the killing of a leader of Hamas. It seems that that Mossad can do what they want to do when they want to do it and where they want to do it. Which leads to the question, why on October the 7th? It makes that question. Why on October the 7th do they know about an attack coming for a year?

Had all the warning signs and did nothing and still haven't explained it and still haven't explained it. And by the way, the neverer here is Bibi Netanyahu's rabid cabinet are now trying to get rid of the defense and intel agencies or have since 1948 and religious extremists who really don't care about the military, but are always undermining, always trying to undermine those in the military and intel community and lifting up Bibi Netanyahu. And so even while this is going on, they're still trying to get rid of the competent leaders inside of Netanyahu's cabinet. Instead of going after the guy who was responsible for Hamas's funding, its growth, its illicit collection of funds, on and on and on. Well, the precision and the magnitude of this attack raises those questions to an even higher level if that's possible. The militant group Hezbollah is blaming Israel for an unprecedented

attack that involves blowing up hundreds of pagers across Lebanon. NBC News international correspondent Raf Sanchez has the details. Explosions like this across Lebanon. As the Hezbollah militant group says, hundreds of pagers belonging to its members detonated simultaneously, calling it a massive coordinated attack and blaming Israel. Look again. The explosion injures the man with the pager, but causes almost no damage around him. Lebanon says almost 3,000 people were wounded, including the Iranian ambassador, and at least nine killed, among them several children. Iranian-backed Hezbollah uses pagers to avoid Israeli surveillance, Israel refusing to say if it was behind what appears to be

an unprecedented intelligence operation. Have you ever seen anything on this scale before? No, no, I haven't. It really is a remarkable sort of milestone in the pantheon of intelligence security activities. Hours earlier, Israel said it foiled a Hezbollah assassination plot using a landmine. The latest escalation in a conflict many fear is now spiraling towards all out war. NBC's Raf Sanchez reporting there this morning. The New York Times is reporting Israel was behind the operation. American officials and others briefed on the matter. Tell the paper Israel hid explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese made pagers that were imported into Lebanon. NBC News has reached out to Israeli officials for comment, but Israel has not yet commented on the incident. Joining us now, columnist and associate

editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius, who's writing about this this morning, and retired CIA officer Mark Polymeropoulos. He's an NBC News security and intelligence analyst. Guys, good morning, David. I want to talk about the larger implications of this in just a moment, but Mark, can we just talk about the practical questions about how Israel, how Mossad pulled this off, getting into the supply chain. What else do you know about that? So, well, you know, this is a Mossad is giving us a master class on covert action. You know, in my 26 years at CIA and I was involved in operations like this, I've never seen anything in terms of the exquisite nature of such a kinetic intelligence operation, both in the lethal aspect of it,

but also in the supply chain. And this really does kind of give the notion that Israel has restored its deterrence. It's instilling fear in its adversaries. So what did they do here? Well, Hezbollah had switched their communications methods. You know, they believed that the Israelis would be able to intercept cell phones. So they moved back to pagers. You know, think of The Wire, you know, the great TV show taking place in Baltimore. And so Israel then took a look at how Hezbollah was going to, in essence, import these pagers,

and they got into the middle of this, in the stream. We're not sure exactly how. It's a Taiwanese company with a Hungarian subsidiary. But Israel was then, on an enormous scale, thousands of pagers able to implant explosives and then come up with a means to, in essence, detonate them via a page. It's really an intelligence operation for the ages. And I really do think it restores the Israeli deterrent capability of instilling fear

in its adversaries. This was lost on October 7th. You noted, you know, really rather catastrophic Israeli intelligence failures. But in many ways, Mossad is back now and they are actually showing almost, you know, total domination of Hezbollah in the intelligence sphere. Yeah. And the message from Israel, we can find you and get to you wherever you are, including on your hip. So, David, you're writing this morning in a piece that is headlined The Ominous Implications of the Pager attack against Hezbollah. What do you think happens from here after what is, among many other things, an embarrassment to Hezbollah? So, Willie, I wrote that this operation is like an incredible James Bond thriller.

Hundreds of pages exploding at the same moment across Lebanon, doing enormous damage, destroying this internal communications network. One problem is that Hezbollah gets to write the next chapter by determining how it responds. U.S. officials believe that Hezbollah is confused by what's happened, panicking. Everywhere around the fighters, people are dying because of the communications devices they were carrying. But at some point, Israelis believe they're likely to retaliate. And the question will be whether Israel can contain that retaliation the way it did in the most recent instance of heavy cross-border fire where they just sent their Air Force in to take out Hezbollah rocket positions before they could really get started. Will they be able to do that again?

If not, there's the fear we've all been worrying about for nearly a year now, since October 7, that this conflict could explode into something much bigger, a devastating war across the border between Israel and Lebanon, which would leave Israeli cities, major centers of population as targets, could devastate Lebanon and then could expand wider to neighboring countries. U.S. officials hope that's not going to happen. They were in touch with the Iranians. I'm told yesterday to convey the message we had nothing to do with this. We weren't aware of it beforehand to try to stabilize the situation. But I think the U.S. commitment to help Israel if it gets into a really deep scrape with Hezbollah to stand by Israel remains as strong as ever.

But these next days are going to be dangerous. So, David, I wonder, you look at how Iran, you look at how Hezbollah has responded to past attacks by Israel. And it's quite clear they haven't had the stomach for a regional war. Iran doesn't want a regional war right now, at least if you judge by what's happened over the past month or two. They respond, but they respond in a very measured way that they know is not going to amp things up. We heard the same thing with Hezbollah a few weeks ago after an attack. They're saying we've responded when they really didn't

do much of anything at all. So we're all good now. But it seems that neither Iran nor Hezbollah wants that regional war. Is that your read? Joe, that's certainly my read, the read of both U.S. and Israeli officials, Hezbollah and Iran have not wanted to go all the way into conflict that they know would be devastating for them. The question is how you remain on the edge, how you display enough force that you still seem credible to your followers without displaying so much that you get clobbered. One problem for Hezbollah at home in Lebanon is that it appears now to the Lebanese people to have tied Lebanon's fate to Yahya Sinwar and Hamas, who were really on their last legs in Gaza. Hamas on Monday just said it wants a long war of attrition. Any hopes that the U.S. ceasefire

and hostage release deal could quickly take place, I thought were dashed on Monday. So Hezbollah is getting drawn ever deeper into this war, which really began with Hamas and Israel, a Sunni group as opposed to Hezbollah, which is a Shia-led group. So, you know, I think that the choices for everybody couldn't be higher. The U.S. retains enormous military force in the region to try to deter Iran. But again, I've learned to be careful about making predictions about the Middle East. I would watch and wait for the next couple of days. Yeah. And to echo what David said, I was in the White House in the aftermath of this stunning operation there in Lebanon. And the U.S. officials stressed they knew nothing about it. They were

later informed after the fact by Israeli officials. So, Mark, let's talk about this. This is a remarkable tactical achievement, but the strategy seems less clear from analysts this morning. What is your take as to why this happened? And more importantly, why now? Because as noted, there has been such concern about an expansion into a wider war, the region already holding its breath to see what Iran might do in retaliation for Israel's last strike. Now the ante has only increased. So an operation like this, you know, can have two possible, you know, effects. One is you do something called Operation Preparation of the Environment. That's Israel is going to launch an operation in which they so destabilize the Hezbollah fighters and that follows

with an Israeli ground incursion. And that did not happen here. So in my sense, it's something a bit different. This, to me, is a signal to Hezbollah that, again, Israel has total dominance over kind of the intelligence domain and that, you know, that they know where every Hezbollah member is. You know, Hezbollah operatives are going to have their heads on a swivel. It instills fear and it's a message to Hezbollah and to the rank and file in particular that a wider war is certainly not in their interests. You know, in some ways, the Israelis often escalate to de-escalate. So I think this might have been part of their strategy. You know, the diplomacy between where Amos Hochstein, a National Security Council official, is in Lebanon trying to mediate. The diplomacy was going nowhere. In some ways, this can actually push the region forward because neither side's

won a wider war. And the Israelis have certainly shown to Hezbollah the costs of this. All right. Thank you so much, David Ignatius and Mark Palmaropoulos. Greatly appreciated. By the way, Willie, it seems to me I overlooked the most important story in front of the Wall Street Journal. And it should speak to our own Mike Barnicle. Oh, what? First golden bachelorette wants a man who grocery shops. Well, that would be Mike. That's Barnicle. I know Mike's taken.

He's more's taken. I'm just saying more than taken. Maybe Mike can be a consultant for the Golden Bachelorette because, Mike, you you you go grocery shopping for and right. I go multiple times a week, Joe. I am a rank supermarkets up and down the East Coast for you if you'd like. And I can certainly be of value to them. You're a market. OK, well, through and through. Sometimes several times a day, Ann just says, why don't you go pick something up at the grocery store? Go to the farthest

one from our house. Did your dad ever go grocery shopping? No. My dad grocery shopped. He loved grocery shopping. Every Saturday morning, the kids would pile in the station wagon and we would go.

And yeah, my dad. We had a grocery budget. My dad loved grocery shopping. And we had to put stuff back. Because my dad, anyhow. Yeah, well, Jonathan, same with you. Did your dad grocery shop? No, he did not.

My mother did the grocery shopping. But I do. Well, you just be going like this. Well, I did the grocery shopping. But I do. Well, you just be going like this. Well, I do the grocery shopping in our house is what I was suggesting. And, yeah, I mean, and Mike and I, look, we have spent many an hour comparing market baskets in the greater Boston area. We could bring that to the viewers this morning if you'd like, but I know we're up against a break. No, we are up against a break. I don't go grocery shopping,

but we make Donnie Deutch go grocery shopping. Yeah, oh, right. Okay, still ahead on Morning Joe. Ohio's Republican... Had to train him a little bit. Ohio's... Some of the things he brought back, we're like, Donnie,

we don't use that in our house. Ohio's Republican Governor Mike DeWine is calling on Donald Trump and J.D. Vance to stop spreading misinformation about Haitian immigrants eating pets. We'll show you those new remarks. This is our next guest says he went to Springfield, Ohio, to report on a story that isn't happening.

The exotic cat eaters of Springfield, Ohio. A pretty long story about a thing that didn't happen. The great Kevin Williamson coming up in 90 seconds. You say that you have a responsibility to share what your constituents tell you, but don't you also have a responsibility to fact check them first? Well, I think the media has a responsibility to fact check the residents of Springfield, not lie about it. I've got residents of Springfield who are coming to me with a dozen different problems. They've been talking about it for months or in some cases years.

The American media totally ignored it until they showed up to fact check what some people were saying about pets. So there's one story out there from multiple people, by the way, multiple, multiple people have come to my office, have said on video they talk about the pet story. And that's all the American media wants to talk about. And, of course, the American media goes into Springfield, dives in, harasses everybody who dares to complain about the condition of the town. That is not journalism and that's not seeking the truth. That is bullying on an industrial scale.

And I think the media ought to be ashamed of itself. So those comments are, you know, about eating dogs and things are very hurtful. They're very hurtful for these men and women who work very, very hard. They're obviously very hurtful for their children. They're hurtful, but are they also fueling these threats? Well, look, as the mayor said today, Mayor Rue, he said, you know, before this, you know, we had Haitians here for three years, four years, and we did not have any of any of these.

If these comments that are baseless, that are being made by former President Trump and Senator Vance, if they were not being made, would those threats stop? Well, I don't know. I can't predict what would happen, but the statements are wrong. I've said they were wrong. The mayor has said they were wrong. And frankly, I need to stop. Yeah. So that's the Republican governor of Ohio. And we've heard it from the mayor. We've heard it from city officials. And again, as far as, you know, the fire hose of falsehoods where, you know, and what autocrats do where they just lie repeatedly and then they gaslight you. So you're supposed to get confused. It really didn't work. But at the end, J.D. Vance goes, oh, this is all the press wants to talk about. They should be ashamed of themselves. They should have done

the fact checking. The press did the fact checking. And what the press found out is that these Republican officials are saying that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are liars. It's what they're saying. And why is the press talking about it? Because Donald Trump talked about it in the debate, because Donald Trump talks about it in his speeches after the debate, because Donald Trump said he's going to Springfield. And while Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are lying and J.D. Vance is putting his own constituents lives in danger. They just keep at it. J.D. Vance keeps at it. And again, here we have the gaslighting. Here we have the gaslighting. Oh, they should be ashamed of themselves. So you have somebody lying, putting putting his own constituents lives in danger, having his own constituent schools shut down because he keeps lying about this, having the hospitals in his own state shut down and his constituents not able to use those

hospitals because he keeps lying in the middle of a presidential campaign. And he says somebody else should be ashamed of themselves. That, my friend, is what the kids call gaslighting. Mika, how many how many bomb threats have there been? About, I'll say, 30 bomb threats, more than 30 bomb threats in the city since last week, including threats to elementary schools. Another thing that's doing besides gaslighting is threatening the media not to cover a story when a Republican nominee lies like a rug. Well, he keeps talking about the story. Right. He keeps talking. So you don't want us to cover the fact that you are lying and making up stories that are endangering the lives of people. OK. And spreading these lies into debate that 60

million plus people watched. Right. And then saying you're going to talk about it on the campaign trail and then saying you're going to go up to Springfield. Anyway, they have a network that will not say any of this, by the way, that won't even cover the story. So they've got their own amplification. It's the same thing with January 6th, where they'll go, why are they talking about January 6th? It's not it's much ado about nothing.

I've heard a lot of people say it was nothing. And yet Donald Trump keeps talking about January 6th. He keeps talking about his January 6th convict choir. Anyway, Governor DeWine yesterday said dozens of state troopers to be stationed across the city schools for the foreseeable future. Again, all because of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance's lies. Joining us now, national correspondent for The Dispatch, Kevin Williamson, also with us, White House correspondent for Politico and co-author of the playbook, Eugene Daniels. Kevin, your new piece is incredible. Then again, Kevin, all of your pieces are incredible.

There is a line, though, for a Southern state school like me, a guy like me that stuck out where you you wrote you wrote that you were surprised at a guy that was basically this smart, that has the education that he has. Yeah. Would resort to these lies when he knows better. And that's what every time I look at members of my former party that went to, you know, Yale and Harvard and Stanford, so I'm like, wait, they could be doing so much as a conservative. They could be helping this country so much as a conservative. And instead, they follow Donald Trump around and spread his lies. Yeah. You know, Donald Trump being a serial liar is not exactly new,

so I don't think we have to probably dwell on that too much. J.D. Vance being a serial liar is a relatively new development. So maybe we should talk about that some. What's really interesting to me about this is that, you know, J.D. Vance wrote this very famous book called Hillbilly Elegy. And the hillbillies who moved to Ohio to work in the factories were actually a lot like these Haitians. They came from one of the poorest places in the Western Hemisphere. The locals complained that they didn't understand the local culture. They didn't speak the language. They didn't fit in very well, even down to the urban legends about the hillbillies living off a diet of possums and roadkill and things like that and squirrels. So J.D., of all people, is someone who's well-placed to understand the way in which these legends can really slander and libel and hurt a community.

And the people on whose behalf he purports to speak right now have their schools closed down. They have their college closed down. They've had to cancel public events, a big annual cultural festival they have. It's going to cost their economy a lot. And as I note in the story, this is all about something that actually isn't happening. No one in Springfield seems to think it's happening. I didn't talk to one person who believed any of these stories. And what's even worse about this is that there are real issues related to immigration in Springfield. You've got a town of 50 to 60,000 people that's had 12 to 15,000

immigrants from a desperately poor country that is very culturally different from the United States move there. Of course, there are going to be issues associated with that. But rather than talking about the things that are actually going on in Springfield and the things that can be done to help to improve the situation for everybody, we're having this crazy conversation about dogs and cats. And these guys have the temerity to complain about people calling them weird when they're obsessed with this weird cat eating story. And I have to imagine that someone who's not a political obsessive watching the debate and then just Trump out of nowhere starts shouting about they're eating the dogs,

they're eating the cats. That had to be a really weird moment for normal people. Yeah. So, Kevin, in your new piece and entitled The Exotic Cat Eaters of Springfield, Ohio, a pretty long story about a thing that didn't happen. You write in part this. Springfield, like many similar cities, had been suffering from a declining population and economic stagnation when it joined a number of other Rust Belt cities in an effort

to actively recruit immigrants to settle there. The town fathers may not have had 12,000 Haitians in mind, but that is what they got. And the results were pretty good. Contrary to the rhetoric you hear from Vance et al., unemployment went up, not down, and wages went up. Employment went up. Employment went up and wages went up to the case against the Haitians. Isn't that their welfare malingas or cat eaters or even that they are illegal immigrants who came here thanks farewell speech to America on January 19th, 1989, where he talks about. The importance of immigrants in the American story, the importance to us economically, culturally, spiritually. And it is so fascinating. Your story echoes that, that yet this isn't neat. It's not clean. These people are here legally, but there are going to be some bumps along the way. And yet you could say that about the Irish, about the Germans, about

the hillbillies, as you say, one wave after another that comes to America. They settle in. They create jobs. The economy grows. And as Ronald Reagan said, and America gets younger. Yeah, in fact, they did say exactly the same things about the Irish and maybe less so about the Germans. Although if you look at some of the rhetoric in the 19th century with the German immigrants down there, you know, some sort of similar stuff as well. Look, I understand that immigration can be disruptive. I'm from West Texas. You know, we're a border state and our current border situation is a real mess. It's something that needs to be got hold of. This isn't in defense of anyone's border policies or anything like that. But it's a matter of what we might quaintly, biblically call bearing false witness against

an entire population of very poor and vulnerable people. And J.D. Vance should know better than this. And it also, I don't think it actually even serves his interest. They want to talk about the real issues there that are related to immigration. But you can't really have that conversation with everyone just shouting at each other about cat eaters. It's it's a bizarre time, but we live in bizarre times. Kevin, good morning. I have to underline something that we've reported and kind of move past quickly, which is that there are Ohio State

troopers standing outside of elementary schools in Springfield, Ohio, this morning to protect little kindergartners with their backpacks. There are pictures of it. You can look, you can see the video because of what J.D. Vance and Donald Trump have been pushing because of the threats that have come in because of that. So what is your sense of how this gets cooled off or how the temperature is ultimately turned down? Because, boy, it sure doesn't seem like Trump or Vance is backing away from this. Sure. I think that after the election and the national attention goes away, that a lot of this stuff will stop, as I understand it. Most of the bomb threats and stuff seem to be coming from outside of that community. So they will get back to doing what they've been trying to do for the last couple of years, which is to work toward ways to mitigate

the effects of the real problems that they have there. You know, they've had to hire, for instance, a bunch of extra ESL instructors and interpreters for schools and also hospitals and things like that because a lot of the Haitians don't speak English or don't speak English very well, and they need some help with that. Driving is a real issue. Apparently, you know, the Haitian driving culture is a little bit more casual in terms of its in terms of its observation of the rules. And of course, there was this terrible accident a couple of years ago in which a Haitian immigrant was driving recklessly, hit a school bus and killed a kid. So that's kind of what really began to bring some of this to the to the forefront.

So they're going to work through some of those things. They're going to work in terms of, you know, cultural education, getting people to understand local norms better and that sort of thing. But it's probably important. It's important to remember that these Haitians are there working and working legally under temporary protected status. So they're not, you know, people who have just hopped over the border and are working off the books in some, you know, factory or farm somewhere. That's not what the situation is at all. Yeah. And, you know, it's important also to remember that there are good people in Springfield who don't want to be drawn into this. The father of the young boy who was tragically killed in that accident. Yeah. Actually, he went before city council and said, do not do not try to use my son to spread hate. And that was an accident. That was a terrible, tragic.

It was a terrible, tragic accident, but said, do not use my son's memory to spread hate. It is not who he was and it's not who we should be. So national correspondent at the dispatch, Kevin Williamson, thank you very much. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you. Kamala Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris, talked about this while she was doing an interview with reporters with the National Association of Black Journalists yesterday. For anyone who questions whether or not she does interviews, she did one yesterday and took many questions. And here's her response to the situation in Springfield. It's a crying shame. I mean, my heart breaks for this community.

You know, there were children, elementary school children, who it was school photo day. You remember what that's like? Going to school on picture day? Who are dressed up in their best, got all ready, knew what they were going to wear the night before. And had to be evacuated. Children. Children. Children.

A whole community put in fear. And one of the reporters who conducted that interview yesterday is right here, Eugene Daniels. Eugene, nice job. Let's start with that, with the vice president's response to what's happening in Springfield. And I will say that was some of the more powerful words and body language that we've seen from her on this issue. Yeah. On really any issue, right? I think the thing that was really fascinating is when I wanted to see if she would talk about a policy implication, right? That whether what was happening in Springfield and more importantly, the racist conspiracy theories that have been spread about it, was it this irredeemable racist situation or were there actual policies that could help what

was happening in Springfield? Kind of to what Kevin was saying. And she took the opportunity to do what you saw, which was not just talk about the dangers of the language, but also get into how people who want to be in charge of this country shouldn't be doing this. And the way that she did it. Right. And this is something that black politicians have to balance. And white politicians, politicians don't when they talk about race. If she has to be able to tell black people, people that look like them, like Haitian, Haitian immigrants, that this is terrible. And I my heart, like she said, her heart breaks for them, but also for those that are watching white people that are watching who maybe are in a different place when, when you're thinking about race, who don't think about it in the same way that she does

that everyone should be upset about it, right? That it's not just about black people feeling scared and Haitian Americans in that community feeling scared and being worried about taking their kids to the Haitian American community center or what have you. But like that, everybody should be concerned about that. And I thought that was a really interesting way of her navigating race as she has, what, 48 days left in this election. Yes, certainly one of the through lines of her interview yesterday was the warnings about political rhetoric and they can inspire violence. You know, she talked about January 6th, talked about the assassination attempts against Donald Trump. But as you said, I think the biggest theme was race. Yeah. And in particular, sort of a message towards men, young black men who she she knows Donald Trump is trying to win over.

And she has to say she made it clear yesterday. We played some sound earlier in the morning. She's got to earn their vote. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, she she has said that before, even when she sound earlier in the morning. She's got to earn their vote. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. I mean, she, she has said that before, even when she was just the running mate, but it was on these podcasts that they were doing specifically to get to black men. This is a business partner for LeBron James. He has this podcast. She went on there, they sat down and talked for like 20 minutes. So she said things like this before, but this is different, right? She's the head of the ticket. And to say it to, and this is why it's really important for, you know, organizations like NABJ to make

opportunities like this for Black reporters, because you only get this kind of conversation with a Black politician if you're doing it with Black reporters, honestly, right? And so the question about how, what she would do for Black men in the economy, she got to that. But like you're saying, she did talk about needing to earn their vote because there have been accurate complaints from the black community for a very long time that politicians, including Democrats, come and see them the last three months before an election, a presidential election. Don't do much during the four years and then come back again or, more importantly, take their vote for granted. And she is trying to make clear that that's not how she wants to operate. All right. White House correspondent for Politico and co-author of the playbook, Eugene Daniels.

Thank you very much for coming on this morning and coming up. We're going to speak to a leading health expert about the latest head injury suffered by the Miami Dolphins quarterback and the NFL's protocol for treating concussions. Plus, the U.S. is seeing a surge in mosquito borne illnesses. Dr. Vin Gupta joins us to explain what might be to blame and how you can stay safe. Morning Joe, we will be right back. The Miami Dolphins placed their franchise quarterback Tua Tungavailoa on the injured reserve list yesterday after he suffered the third diagnosed concussion of his NFL career. According to league rules, the former first round pick must spend at least four games now on the injured list. His latest head injury happened while Tua was scrambling for a first

down during last Thursday's loss to the Buffalo Bills. He immediately appeared dazed with his arms propped in an unnatural position, but ultimately was able to walk off the field under his own power. Joining us now, NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta. Dr. Gupta, always great to see you and lots to talk to you about this morning. But it's been hard to watch, especially in the case of Tua. He had a couple of years ago, these just like fencing, I think it's called, right? When your arms voluntarily kind of lock up in the air. And then because these guys are competitive, they want to stay in the field. They get up and try to kind of walk off under their own power, often staggering. But as a physician, what do you see in a moment

like this? Well, it's hard to watch, Willie, what do you see in a moment like this? Well, it's hard to watch, really, because to your point, this is the third time this has happened for Tua since 2022. And what we know from the literature, it's not surprising, is that the more you have hard head impacts because of football or maybe because of other contact sports, the risk that person will have for chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a lot harder. That's CTE syndrome that we now are talking a lot more about amongst football players that die prematurely. So there is a link now between this risk that now we're talking more about and CTE that unfortunately people die too young for from football players. And that's what

too is at risk for. And that's why the NFL changed their protocol in 2022. We now have dynamic kickoff that changed the game just this year to minimize these high impact hits. And yet we've seen an increase in 20 percent increase in concussions on the field since this protocol has changed, maybe because we're talking more about it. Yeah, Joe, I mean, the NFL has taken precautions in the last year since this really discussion about CTE came up and they don't hit as much in practice and they wear the bubbles on their helmet in practice. But at the end of the day, as you know very well, if the 225 pound safety is running downhill at you and there's a collision

head to head during a game, there's no helmet that's going to protect you from that. Yeah. 225, 240, 250 pounds. The players keep getting bigger. The players keep getting faster. The players keep getting stronger. And Willie, you and I have talked about this. I mean, talked about it before that it that, you know, all those collisions are like car accidents. Well, if players are going to go out and do it and people are going to watch the game, which they are in record numbers, it seems to me there has to be an off-ramp for players like Tua, a guy that, you know, we love, you know, our family loves, an Alabama grad.

And we love him so much as a player. We just, it's too painful to see this happening again and again. You know, when two seasons ago, after he had two concussions and just terrible shape, people were saying then he should never play again. He's come back. He's playing again. And now we're talking about eight weeks from now. Aren't there, Willie, a lot of veterans, NFL Hall of Famers that are saying,

hey, Tua, football's not worth it. You need to take care of yourself. Yeah, we're seeing that in ways we probably wouldn't have seen in the past because we've seen this so much for Tua in particular. You have guys who played the game who are saying, dude, this isn't worth it. But man, he just signed a huge contract, more than 200 million dollars face of the franchise. They've invested so much in him. The likelihood that he walks away from all this seems small. So is there anything else that can be done here, Dr. Gupta, by the NFL? As I said, they've taken all these measures over the

last decade and change. What else would you like to see? Well, you know, we need to continue to empower medical staff on the field. I think there was prior to 2022, we weren't talking enough about this. I think we saw it. We were all very aware that this was a problem. But now medical staff on the field are much more empowered than they were just even two years ago. They need to continue to be able to pull players off the field, be able to actually remove them from playing if they're worried, even if there isn't a red flag symptom like loss of consciousness or fencing in the case of Tua, to say, no, you got to step out of this game and we're going to mandate that. That's number one. Number two, I think this needs to start a broader conversation, Willie and Mike, on youth football. What we've seen now, there's

now data showing that youth football, tackle football amongst kids six to 14 years of age, 15 times higher risk of hard impacts to the head, even with all the appropriate safeguards in place. So we're seeing this even from a young age. So I was talking to a professional football player the other day about Tua, and he was telling me that, okay, this is his third diagnosed concussion, and yet the number of times he's gotten hit in the head during games they don't consider them concussions but it's almost like an weekly basis that's right and and that's the problem here Mike is concussions episodic concussions this might be surprising no link between episodic concussions in

this case two or three over the last two years, and the development of CTE. And yet, if you're getting chronically hit week in, week out in football, that is the link between that chronic exposure and CTE. At any age? We don't know. So we don't know what happens at youth football. We know that there's a lot. We're learning a lot more. And what we're learning is concerning versus, say say flag football, which is a lot safer, but we only have

the data set for NFL players. And that's unfortunately what we're seeing here is that chronic exposure week over week, high risk. And, and Willie, you know, it's so disconcerting to see people that we remember as young men are heroes now Now walking around in their 50s with canes and not remembering things. I don't know if you saw a heartbreaking story about the Heisman Trophy reunion. It's like a family. They come together every year the weekend of the Heisman Trophy. And it's one story after another story after another story about the football heroes we look up to as kids whose wives were having to

hold them by the arms and explain to them who they were seeing and what they were doing. It's so, so often this ends in tragedy. Yeah, especially with that older generation didn't have any of these safeguards. And as you and I experienced when we played high school football a million years ago, when you got hit like that, you would say your bell got rung and you literally would see stars. You remember this, Joe? And you kind of like stagger around. You might come out for a play, but you didn't want to come out for a play because then they might bench you. So you just kind of played through it. And that went on for generations and generations. So to Dr. Gupta's point, you have to change the culture around that stuff. A couple more quick ones for you, Dr. Gupta. Mosquito-borne illness, CDC reporting West

Nile cases rising in 30 states. What do we know about that? Well, you know, this is something, again, mosquito-borne illnesses, it's something that's been on the back burner the last few years. We've been talking about respiratory viruses. This is something that mosquitoes can transmit, usually between August and September. EEE, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, something similar but a little bit more serious. Basically, if you live in the North Atlantic or the Gulf Coast, this is the prime transmission season, Willie. This is high mosquito season. What we're seeing here is a spike in these cases, causes a flu-like prodrome type illness. But in a small subsection of patients, we're seeing neurologic symptoms, seizures can be quite serious. So why does

this matter through the end of September? If you live in the North Atlantic, places like Massachusetts, that's why they have that, not a curfew, but a voluntary, hey, try to stay in after 6 p.m. at night. That's when mosquitoes are breeding. DEET and picardin, you want to make sure, especially kiddos, they're going to be going to the playground. You want to make sure that you give them insect repellent, mosquito repellent with DEET or picardin. Stay safe. Okay, good advice there. We're also rolling into flu season here, and COVID seems to be lingering, making a bit of a comeback here. There is a new booster, a new vaccine coming out, though. That's right, and so I like to tell all my patients here, end of September into middle of October, Willie,

that's the right time to get both these shots. COVID and flu, you can get them at the same time. Important to get it. We're seeing a thousand deaths week on week from COVID. Again, we don't talk about it anymore. That's a lot. A bit of good news, too. One final story here that just broke this morning. NPR reporting exclusively that overdose deaths in the United States are down 10.6 percent over the last year. Obviously, this is a plague in this country. What do you make of that number? You know, I think that's the direct result. One of public health messaging. We were just talking about that regarding concussions that works and that's working now with overdose deaths, getting Narcan in the hands of people, making sure that it's over the counter, easily accessible.

And how do we use it if we see somebody on the street that might have had an overdose? It's working. Public health education, giving the tools directly to the people. It's working. I think it's going to probably take a couple of years, but it's like we're seeing some anecdotal evidence here, some anecdotal evidence there. You know, crime rates going down significantly. Companies saying, hey, you need to come back in and be in our community. And we need to hear Amazon. We need to hear five days a week. I know there are a lot of workers that are upset of that. I know there are a lot of parents with young, younger adults that are say, oh, thank God,

they're going to go back in the office and have a social component to their lives again. And then you see overdose deaths going down. I'm wondering if we're seeing bit by bit the connecting of some dots that maybe suggest we could be moving out of the horrors and the hells of a once in a century pandemic. Joe, I share your optimism, Joe. I think that this is a great sign. One of social connectivity, being in person again, to your point, return to office. We think that means something for mental health. And then, too, just a better. To me, the Narcan accessibility of Narcan, the fact that overdose deaths are declining is a direct sign that actually empowering people to care for their health, having a better health system.

What the pandemic did was give us tools directly in the at home environment to care for their health, having a better health system. What the pandemic did was give us tools directly in the at-home environment to care for ourselves. So that's having a real impact here. But yeah, I 100% agree with your point. All right. NBC News medical contributor, Dr. Ven Gupta, thank you so much for coming on this morning. A lot to talk about.