Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/21/23

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

The Morning Joe panel discusses the latest in U.S. and world news, politics, sports and culture.

What do you say to people back home who may not follow this closely, but just expect you guys to get this very basic function of your job done and fund the government? We're dysfunctional. It's just that simple? That simple. We are so dysfunctional. You know, we've got nobody at the head. Republican Tim Burchetta of Tennessee with a candid assessment of Congress and what is happening or not happening on Capitol Hill. It comes as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will again try to pass a defense spending measure, a measure that typically passes very easily after far right members blocked it from moving forward. Meanwhile, the Senate finally confirmed a top military officer yesterday, an Air Force general that President Joe Biden nominated for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff four months ago. One getting through. We'll show you what Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville had to say about his blockade that's preventing hundreds of promotions because that still stands. Also on Capitol Hill today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with House and Senate leaders hoping to secure more military aid in the fight against Russian forces.

You know, Willie, the thing I would disagree with the congressman is he says we've got nobody at the head as far as the Republicans. They certainly do. They just have a lot of crazy people behind him i mean you know they're six seven ten 15 people and we knew this from the very beginning they're just gesturing they just want to raise hell they don't want to get anything done they don't want to get their business done. Because again, just so people understand, this is about money. It's about economics. It's not about balancing the budget. We've been through it. Republicans don't care about balancing the budget. And they haven't for the past 20 years, especially when Republicans are in the White House. Donald Trump spent more money with this Congress than any president and any Congress in the history of the Republic. But now it's about

making money so they can raise hell. They go, oh, great. They get on TV. They go wild saying, oh, Kevin McCarthy's not a real concern. And they raise money. Yeah, that's all it's about. They want to go online. They can send out, you know, fundraising emails. They can tweet. They can do all this. It's all gesture and it's all crazy Republicans. And who are the people who lose because of this other than their constituents? These Republicans that actually won in Joe Biden's seats, they're the ones that are going to lose in 2024 if this continues. And that's why we're hearing a lot of those moderates. We're going to have Congressman Lawler of New York upstate a little bit from here on. He's in a swing district, a very close race that he won.

He's speaking out. And you don't hear typically Republicans coming out to the press, coming out of these caucus meetings and saying effectively, we're terrible right now. We're a mess. Usually it's Democrats describing Republicans. But you're hearing that from Republicans saying that this is a disaster and it's not clear what Kevin McCarthy does to get out of it. It looks like he caved a little bit to that minority you talked about who, yes, are trying to get fundraising or trying to get podcast audience. Stay famous. Stay relevant. That's what they're doing here. He's not it's not clear how he finds his way out of this and more importantly, how we

fund the government, because the shutdown is a week from Saturday. By my count, that's nine days from now without a clear path out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what happens. Democrats will say this is what happens when you put these Trump Republicans in charge of something. Again, it's just a complete, clear indictment. I see you have the Wall Street Journal there. Wall Street Journal editorial page here. Jonathan Lemire, I heard you talking about it a second ago. But Donald Trump, afraid, afraid to debate.

Definitely. And the Wall Street Journal says, asks a question, lead editorial, why is Donald Trump afraid to debate? And they go through a series of things. But the bottom line is they conclude by saying Mr. Trump's advisers may be telling him he shouldn't appear unless he says something that hurts his legal defense, which, of course, he does. But that's a sign of weakness, not strength. And he'll have to answer those questions eventually. What is the former president afraid of, asks the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Yeah, it's the right question. And obviously it does a disservice to voters, Republican voters, to our democracy if he doesn't participate in these debates.

He should. Period. Full stop. But right now they're sending no signal that he will. He skipped the first debate. He showed no slippage in the polls. In fact, his lead has only grown. He is not going to participate next week, partially because of the personal animosity he has against the Ronald Reagan library, of all places. But now he's sending signals that he won't go to the third one, which is scheduled a month later. And some of his aides have raised the possibility, why do it at all? They feel like if he shows up, all he does is elevate those around him. He becomes subject to their attacks. They feel

like he could get pulled to the right on certain issues, trying to out-conservative someone like Mike Pence or Governor DeSantis or whoever it might be. There remains the Chris Christie factor where they're afraid of perhaps of Christie going at him one on one, which is Christie is telegraphed saying that's what he's born to do at this moment. And we also should raise the possibility of Trump, were he to be the nominee, not participating in general election debates either. Remember what Trump was around at four years ago. So none of this is good for the democracy, full stop. But also it's not good for these other candidates who try to take a swipe at him. And it does seem like Donald Trump, maybe it's an effort to not say something incriminating,

although he does that anyway. It doesn't seem like he's going to participate. He feels like he can do a glide path to the nomination and start thinking about a general election stance with issues like abortion and visiting those auto workers next week. Well, not only that, the Wall Street Journal suggests. I mean, and if you look at what happened last weekend, Willie, where you looked at him, he just got lost. He just blinked and he couldn't even remember one who he was running against in 2024. And then and I know it was almost eight years ago. It was a long time ago.

If you're if you're you know, we've all been around people with dementia, people getting older, people forgetting things. We're just not knowing history. Well, no, it's his history. So if his mind wasn't jumbled at that moment, he would remember that he ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016. But he couldn't remember who he ran against in 2016. So he just slid Obama in there. And he couldn't remember who he's running against in 2024.

So what he did, he just lit Obama's name in there. It's just kind of a catch all. So I guess if you start your career with a racist conspiracy theory about Obama, he's got that back there somewhere. So he's living somewhere in 2011. So I'll just say Obama's name. People seem to like that. But the Wall Street Journal editorial page actually suggests about as much that worried he'd look his age at 77 next to younger candidates? And you know what?

I know for Donald, that line hurts because he's seen the video of how addled he looked and how confused he looked and how shaken he looked last weekend when he couldn't even remember who he was running against. And now you've got the Wall Street Journal editorial page saying, hey, I guess this guy's, you know, he's afraid he can't do this without a teleprompter and he's too old which i guess starts raising questions willie like is this really who the republicans if if if they if they don't look at the four indictments and the stealing of the nuclear seekers and the stealing of war plans and the attempt to steal an election like maybe the wall street journal is suggesting and i think they are hey there's a

reason why donald trump is afraid to debate is it because he's afraid he's getting too old and he may lose his mind like he did that night on stage when he thought he was running against barack obama i mean if you're debating somebody and you don't even know who you're running against in the general election that could cause a problem. I'm not good at this politics thing, but that could cause a problem. I think just throwing Obama out as a stand in for all Democrats, I think that works. You know, it's hard to remember all the names of all the people you've run against over the course of your career. Yeah, it's one thing to stand at a rally with a friendly crowd and to play the greatest hits, to get all the cheers, to have

the music play you off the stage. It's another thing to stand on the stage and be under attack, although I guess it's an open question whether this field even would attack Donald Trump, given the reverence they've shown for him. But to be on a stage, on your feet, having to react and to answer criticism, to answer substantive questions from a moderator, that's probably not the best format for him. And as John says, he's looking at the polling, even inside places like Iowa, where he lost last time, and he's up by 25, 28, 30 points. New Hampshire, and of course, the national polls that show him up 50 points. And if you're playing with that big a lead, why would you mess with that? So it sounds like maybe the Wall Street Journal is trying to bait Donald Trump into getting to one of the debates with the age question.

But if you're advising Donald Trump and you're up by 50, why risk it? I mean, you know, but I guess you just say, I mean, these are perilous times we're living through, Mika. I mean, if you ask Donald Trump, we keep going in this direction, we may start World War II. Which, by the way, I'm glad Katty's here. We can want her family just to be prepared. Katty K might need to know about that. Jim Palmieri's here as well. So we're going to get everybody in in just a moment.

But there's a lot for him to be concerned about when it comes to getting on the debate stage. I mean, he might have his own personal insecurities about looking old. But his lawyers, come on, man, they don't want that guy talking anywhere. If they want that mouth shut for sure. And new reporting suggests he might help himself just a tiny bit by doing that, because Donald Trump is spending a lot of time thinking about the possibility of going to prison, despite what he said on Meet the Press. When you go to bed at night, do you worry about going to jail? No, I don't really. I don't even think about it. I'm built a little differently, I guess,

because I have had people come up to me and say, how do you do it, sir? How do you do it? I don't even think about it. These are corrupt people that I'm dealing with. They're destroying our country. I don't even think about it. All I think about is making the country great, making America great. I mean, I've got the question, how do you do it? How do you do it, sir? But I'm talking about the hair.

Did you see that hair? Well, I can't talk today, but yeah. I'm shallow, but yeah. No, how do you do it, sir? White person walks up to him, sir. Everybody goes, sir. Listen, there's not. How do you get the hair to do that?

It's going in just a variety of directions. It's like a Medusa thing there. I don't know. I would ask him if I saw him had a Donald. How do you do it, sir? I just don't know what there is to get out of a Donald Trump conversation at this point. Well, I got to see the hair. Because he lies so much.

Get the hair. It's just like, got to do a full stop at the lies. You know, inside the lying, though, there's always an admission that's going to send you to jail for even more years. So, I mean, and this time the admission was, no, I don't, I didn't take. No, I know people have said that I took advice from lawyers. And so is that not, can you not do that anymore? That's what people used to say about Donald Trump. But Donald Trump, of course, got rid of that defense by now. Oh no, I didn't rely on the advice of counsel. I thought about overthrowing the federal government all by

myself. Again, this is why his lawyers don't want him to debate. I turn to my brain. All right. However, three sources familiar with Trump's comments tell Rolling Stone that the former president has been hammering his attorneys with questions over the past several months about what prison could look like for him. They include, would he have to wear one of those jumpsuits? Would he be sent to a bad prison? And would he serve out a sentence in a plush home confinement situation? Those questions are in direct contrast with Trump's public comments regarding his legal problems. Trump faces 91 felony counts. Ninety one. Ninety one. That's a lot. I keep this in mind. In four different cases, he has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him. And I say that 91 thing with emphasis because I think about Republicans on Capitol Hill

who who have fallen so far away from their core Republican values. And for what? For a four time indicted rapist? Well, not rapist. The judge, the judge, a judge says, judge says that, that what he did, what the jury found him liable for was what, what everybody else defines as rape. So four time indicted, uh, found liable of sexual abuse, but the judge calls it rapist. Yes. That's okay. It doesn't flow right off, you know, right, right out. But yes, but the judge calls it rapist? Yes. That's OK. It doesn't flow right off, you know, right, right out. But yes, watch the deposition in that case and see how he treats

the attorney. This is a misogynist. This is a disgusting man. Well, stealing nuclear secrets. There's that. But people don't care about that. But I wonder if you would care about your children acting that way. I mean, what gets to Christians in America who... People who call themselves Christians, you mean? I was just thinking that perhaps appealing to what they want for their children might break through. They don't care because what they're doing is they're putting him up as the example for their children. So their words mean, you know. A man who would have sex with a porn star,

use campaign finance money for it, lie about it, then admit it's true, then treat the attorney of another woman who claims he raped her in a dressing room and he's found liable of sexual assault of that woman and defamation. Then he defames her again. Then she goes back to court and he's found liable of def assault of that woman and defamation. Then he defames her again. Then she goes back to court and he's found liable of defaming her again. I mean, do you want your

children to act this way? Yes, I do. They're part of the call. They are part of me. So, so, and the funny thing is at the same time, so many of these people will go out and judge other people, right, for doing one thousandth of that in their lives. These people will hold up this guy is some like latter day prophet. It is, I guess the kids would call it bizarre, really screwed up. I would use another word, but it's early. This is a kid show. It's why we have the Cuckoo Fran and Ollie cartoons in between breaks. A lot of kids tune in and watch this show.

But, you know, Jen, here's the reason why Donald Trump, and we know, by the way, I mean, we know him for a very long time. This guy isn't going on going, oh, I'm built a different way. He worries. He worries. He's not sitting around there. He frets. He's the most insecure guy on the face of the earth behind that facade. And he has to know what even his fiercest defenders on Fox News say, like Jonathan Turley. Ninety- 91 counts. And if he goes 90 and one, he's going to jail for the rest

of his life. 90 and one, he could win 90 and lose one. Every one of those counts, basically, at Donald Trump's age, well, that equals a life sentence. So, so, yeah, the guy's worried. And I can see why if I were, if I were carrying that around or you or any other body, we would forget what decade we were living in too. Just like Donald Trump would be going around, you know, did you get your grocery list? Yeah. Yeah. Obama gave it to me. Are you going to be what your kid played? it right? Yeah, yeah, he plays without balance. I mean, we'd be throwing people's name around. 91 counts. Every one of them is a live sentence. The guy, obviously, is crack.

I think he's losing it, which is why the last thing he wants to do, the last thing his lawyers want him to do is go out and debate because he may give admissions and his political people don't want him to lose his mind on stage like he did last Saturday. The facade is the right word, right? Because that's why you have that's that that that is why this facade of the strong man exists is because of the insecurities behind it. And what I find so interesting about the The Wall Street Journal editorial, I mean, they really threw like all the bait out there. Right. Like maybe he's old. I don't know. Maybe he's scared. I don't know. Maybe that's it. So, you know, try to prey on his on his ego to try to get him to do this. And I mean, with the things that he's scared about in the Rolling Stone interview,

the jumpsuit is just like, you know, just like the ideation of what may be of what may be coming. But Republican voters are allowing all this all to happen. They don't seem to care that he's not willing to debate. And, you know, they seem to be willing to back him anyway. I mean, you see when he does come up against reporters in the Welker interview, he does get himself tripped up. He does get out. He doesn't seem to be able to. He's not able to volley these questions effectively. So you can see why they're not wanting to do that. Plus the legal concerns. Yeah. I also love the question. Will it be one of the bad prisons? There are no good prisons, Mr. President.

There are no good ones. But to Jen's point, all of what Joe and Mika and we've all been saying here is true. But also it's true that his lead remains massive within the primary. We're not talking about the general election. His lead remains massive. And the rebuttal, as we saw again on Capitol Hill yesterday, is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the stuff Mika just laid out. Yeah, yeah. But what about Hunter Biden's laptop? What about all that other bad stuff? What about the Biden crime family? What about Joe Biden being old? Change the subject. And that is the message that Republican voters, primary voters who watch cable TV and listen to certain radio shows, that's what they're being fed, is that none of this is real. The real question is about Joe Biden. I'm just making a note to myself that when I get to 77, I have to drop all of the hair dye

because it doesn't help. Actually, it's still, yeah, no, the strawberry blonde. However much you put on, you're still 77, apparently, which must be very frustrating for him, however much hairspray he uses. Look, you're right. That's what they're being fed up on Capitol Hill. And that's what Republican voters. And if you and I make a point of tuning into conservative news outlets on a regular basis. And the story is all about Hunter Biden and all about the Biden crime family. And you heard it in the questioning of Merrick Garland yesterday,

this kind of sense of outrage and you could call it faux outrage. But anyway, it's there in bucketfuls up on Capitol Hill. I think the question is, yes, he's so far ahead in the polls, but Democrats would be mistaken in thinking that that means that if he were to become the nominee, his support would crumble. Right. Because we're in a 46-46 proposition. And even if he gets the nomination, he's going to have a reasonable shot at winning the White

House. And it's going to be a question of which persuades voters more, the stories about Hunter Biden and the Biden crime family or the realities of what happened with abortion, because there isn't much enthusiasm for either of these candidates as far as we can see. And so you're going to have to have these driving forces and see which one gets those few voters who are left to be decided. Who knows why? Out to the polls. Yeah. And Jonathan Lemire, let's just follow up on that. Think about that logic, as Willie said, on the Hill. You have people on the Hill that are like, yeah, yeah, he he may have raped a woman and he may he may have stole nuclear secrets and he may have a porn star. He may have he may have illegally paid off a porn star and he may have stolen secret documents that show America's vulnerabilities and also how we're going to invade Iran. And he may have actually set up a fraudulent scheme to steal the election.

He may have been responsible for a riot that ended up causing the death of four police officers. But did you see the way Google responded to Hunter Biden's laptop? I mean, they really can do that. And the fact that they can do that is going to be the greatest of mysteries to historians 30, 40, 50 years. They're going to be aghast. This is going to make the McCarthy era look like a walk in the park. Yeah, they have elevated whataboutism to an art form. And one wonders, though, about the electoral dividends they think this could pay in a general election. It's obviously different here in the Republican primary, where most Republicans, just a few exceptions, are loathe to criticize Donald Trump on just about anything. And we're seeing, and I know we'll get into in great detail as the

morning goes on, we're seeing just an utter civil war among the Republicans and the House representatives right now, where a handful of the far-right members are likely going to shut down the government because out of loyalty to Donald Trump and trying to remove Kevin McCarthy from his position. And we are seeing so few challenges to Trump, and they're turning a blind eye to all of this. But they do so in a small media ecosystem. Yes, in that echo chamber, on certain websites, on Fox News, they can get traction there. They can have this conversation among themselves. But there's no sense per polling that it's breaking through the larger electorate. And

there are worry signs for this president as he heads into his reelection year next year. But there remains the sense that none of these arguments are going to penetrate with those independent swing voters who are actually going to decide elections in the handful of states that are going to put the next president in office. And then we combine that with the images of Donald Trump next year, no matter what his hair looks like at the time, sitting in a courtroom, actually sitting in a courtroom. And that's going to resonate, too. And there's a sense that certainly this White House believes that too many Americans will say we can't go through that again. All right. We've got a lot to get to this morning, including information out of Cassidy Hutchinson's new book.

She worked in the Trump White House. We saw her during the hearings on Capitol Hill about January 6th, which is about, you know, probably the worst day of a lot of people's lives there. And she found a story to tell that actually made it worse. We'll get to that. I mean, and it involved Rudy Giuliani. Yeah, no joke. So gross. Assaulting her. So gross.

Well, it's also, I would guess, a crime. Twisted and a million other things. Still out of the jail. We're going to have big moments from a contentious House hearing for Attorney General Merrick Garland, where Republicans pressed him on Donald Trump January 6th and Hunter Biden. Plus, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is our guest this morning. We've got a lot to cover with him, including the continued need for military aid to Ukraine. And did you hear this? There's actually optimism ahead of a meeting today between

the Writers Guild of America and Hollywood Studios. Let's hope. We're going to have the latest on those negotiations. You're watching Morning Joe. Obama. We'll be right now. There is no other place I want to be. Right here, right now.

Watching the world wake up from history. Live picture of the United States Capitol as the sun just starts to peak up. 629 in the morning, the Senate has voted to confirm its first military nominee in months. Yesterday, lawmakers voted to confirm General Charles Q. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's top military position. President Biden nominated Brown four months ago, but Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama has been blocking him and hundreds of other military promotions in protest of the Department of Defense abortion policy. The Pentagon provides time off and reimbursement for service members who need to travel out of state for reproductive health care. Yesterday's decision to hold a vote on an individual nomination circumvented Tuberville's block. The Alabama

senator had threatened to call for the vote himself in an effort to show he's not endangering national security, but Majority Leader Chuck Schumer beat him to it. Tuberville, though, says he will continue his protest. I've called for individual votes on these nominees for almost six months. Instead of voting, Democrats have spent months complaining about having to vote. They want us to use floor time for things like liberal judges, like the one we confirmed a couple hours ago. Senator Schumer could have confirmed these nominees a long, long time ago. Democrats still have never shown me one fact to show that we were behind on

readiness. It's just not true. So to be clear, my hold is still in place. The hold will remain in place as long as the Pentagon's illegal abortion policy remains in place. If the Pentagon lifts the policy, then I will lift my hold. It's easy as that. Senator Tuberville is essentially trying to make himself the gatekeeper of which officers are promoted and who sits and waits. Instead of just getting out of the way and allowing the Senate to approve the promotions that these decorated military officers deserve, the senator from Alabama, unfortunately and wrongly, is using them as pawns.

The Senate will hold confirmation votes today for the new Army chief of staff and Marine Corps commandant. Not clear if there will be individual votes for the remainder of the promotions. And, Joe, there are hundreds of them, literally hundreds. And if they do this one by one, the point to Senator Tuberville is it will take literally months to get it all done. Usually do these in blocks. And for Senator Tuberville to stand there and point his finger at Democrats to blame them for this is pretty rich. Well, it's preposterous. And again, he's holding up. It's so important for us to remember that he's holding up all of these promotions that's impacting families,

that's impacting children of men and women who have dedicated their lives to serving this country in uniform, impacting spouses who already had jobs set up and lined up in other towns, schools lined up. And so, again, it's very callous personally, but it is hurting readiness. And, Willie, there was something that stuck out, really, to show again Tommy Tuberville's complete ignorance of the United States military and where you go for your information on how the military is doing. He said the Democrats have never given me any example, one example of how this is hurting readiness. Go to the Pentagon. Talk to the men and women in uniform that have fought in wars, that have dragged their families around from base to base to base for 20, 30 years. Talk to them. They will tell you how this is impacting readiness for the Marines, for the Army, for the Air Force, for the Navy, for everybody. It's impacting readiness. But he's,

see, it proves he's in this political world and all he cares about is politics, the politics of making America less ready, of hurting the readiness and the well-being of our troops. And he's like, oh, no politicians have told me how this hurts readiness. Talk to men and women in uniform. They will tell you their children will tell you their spouses will tell you this is bad. It's bad for readiness. And it's bad. It's bad for the spirit of the troops. And it's not a partisan question. You can ask a Republican. You can ask Mitch McConnell, for example. He'll say exactly what you just said.

You can ask military leaders across the political spectrum. This is not a good thing. So to spin this as something that is it's a Democrat's fault is pretty preposterous. As you said, let's bring in congressional reporter for The Hill, Michael Schnell. So, Michael, walk us through how this vote came to be yesterday. And I guess the question for a lot of people is if they could have confirmed the new Joint Chiefs chairman with a vote, why didn't they do it four months ago when his name was put forward? Yeah, look, Willie, this story starts back in March. That's when Senator Tommy Tuberville

first put his hold on these military promotions, which has lasted a few months now. Essentially, Senate Democrats have said that they didn't want to hold these one-off votes on these military promotions for two reasons. A, concern that it would set a bad precedent. As you mentioned before, these are typically dealt through on block or through unanimous consent. So there was concern that doing these as a one-off would then change that precedent. And second is timing, right? These votes take a long time. There are procedural votes and then final confirmation votes.

Senate Democrats had expressed concern that going through these, as you mentioned, more than 300 promotions that had been was going to go ahead and force a vote on moving ahead with a single vote for the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. Then Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer got ahead of him and went ahead and did that himself, essentially saying that Senator Tuberville forced them into this situation. And look, it comes at a particularly important time. The current Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, his term is set to expire on October 1st. So if the new Joint Chiefs of Staff was not confirmed by that time, the spot would be vacant, which was a concern among a lot of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. So essentially, this week we went forward. We saw that vote yesterday.

And as you mentioned, Senator Schumer has teed up two more votes on two other stalled promotions. Michael, I mean, there are 180,000 Americans serving overseas in the U.S. military. Many of them will have families. And that's why Lloyd Austin yesterday was talking about the family members. Joe's right. You know, if you want to put your kids in school, if you want to know where your family is going to live, all of these hold up and promotions are causing problems on that front. So it does have a real impact. What's the pushback been against Senator Tuberville from other Republicans in your reporting? Have you had Republicans behind the scenes saying to you that they don't like this kind of strategy that he's deploying or are they falling in line with him? Katty, it's been public condemnation of this strategy from Senator Tuberville. As was mentioned

before, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came forward and said this isn't the way to do it. Other Republican senators have expressed frustration with this being held up because, again, you know, it's interesting because the military and defense, of course, is a key priority among Republicans. Historically, it's been a key priority among Republicans. And this holdup, this blockade by Senator Tuberville has blocked more than 300 military promotions. I mean, let's think about the fact that there was a real possibility on the table that the joint chiefs of staff chairman position was potentially going to be left vacant. I mean, that's a really significant thing. So, yeah, there has been public condemnation from both sides of the aisle, particularly, you know, including Republicans on this blockade from Senator Tuberville. So, Michael, let me turn to an even more

complicated subject, if that's possible, which is this funding, the bill that Kevin McCarthy is fighting, this small group of Republicans holding things up, obviously, is a very narrow margin to work with in terms of votes in the House he leads. Where are they right now? Our friends at Punchbowl this morning are suggesting that McCarthy already has caved to that group in the way he's moving forward with this. What's going on at this moment? And will there be a shutdown in nine days? All important questions, Willie, answers of which are not right now known. We're trying to figure them out up on Capitol Hill. First, talk about where things stand in the House GOP conference. It's true that Speaker McCarthy did have to cave a bit to his right flank last night.

He presented a new proposal for a continuing resolution that giving into those demands from conservatives would bring funding levels until October 31st down to FY fiscal year 2022 levels. That's a number that conservatives had been pushing for. It'll also include a bulk of the House GOP conference's marquee border bill, minus a controversial provision. And it'll include a study and a commission on the federal debt and the federal deficit. Now, the main question is, will this have the votes to pass? And that remains to be seen. Right now, though, it's not looking great. After yesterday's closed door meeting, three conservative Republicans came out and said that they are opposed to the bill. And then you also we also heard from Congressman Matt Gaetz and Congressman Tim Burchett. They're both saying that there are at least seven Republicans right now who are a no on this legislation and,

quite frankly, any CR possible. So that leads into the question of will there be a shutdown? Well, the fact that the House Republican conference can't coalesce around something right now, it's not good for the shutdown odds. No, not good at all. And, Jen, you were you, Jen Palmieri, you were with the Clinton White House and certainly understood when idiots like me banged my head against the wall over and over again. And we were so sure the government shutdown was going to play well. This never turns out well for Republicans. It never does. The reason why is because Republicans are the party from my time

forward that have used government shutdowns for political purposes. Now, we actually ultimately did balance the budget four years in a row. So we look I look back at and go, yeah, it was kind of rough. But, you know, but that's not happening here. These are the same people that raise the national debt more than anybody else in the history of the United States of America. This Congress, these Republicans with Donald Trump did that. So it seems to me I'm curious what your your take is because you were on the other side of the shutdown at the end of the day, though, this doesn't, this, this just hurts every Republican, except for the handful that are using it to raise money and raise their political profiles. Yeah, totally. And they're like in the small ecosystem that they, uh, that the sort of

MAGA Republicans operate in, it works for them. But, you know, a few things on this one. You know, the the American public has been conditioned for the last 30 years that when the government is shutting down, it's normally because the Republicans and there's normally a bad reason for it. But even I mean, allowing for, you know, back in the 90s, not the focus was on was on spending. Remember, earlier this year, the House Republicans made a deal with the White House to lower spending. That's already happened. And now Kevin McCarthy and the agreement he reached last night, he's walking away from that agreement. But, you know, so what what's left here, what's left here is the argument is about Trump. You know, Donald Trump tweeted last night or whatever, Truth Social or whatever he does, to say that Republicans should oppose

a continuing resolution because it doesn't defund investigations involving him. Right? So Donald Trump has now squarely made this about the government shutdown, about protecting him. I mean, people don't like dysfunction anyway, but if the dysfunction is about protecting Donald Trump from, you know, from being held

accountable under the law, that's even, you know, that's even bigger loser for the country, but then also, you know, for the Republicans that are representing districts that President Biden won. He has an uncanny way of making everything about himself. And he's got an uncanny way. This is so important for people right now that are eating paper bags out and breathing into it and catastrophizing. It's also important. Remember, he's got a way of making things about himself. And he's got a way of making the Republican Party lose elections as they have every year since 2017. I won't even go down the list. You can do it yourself. Just go from 2017 to 2023.

They've lost every year. AndS. impeachment with Donald Trump being indicted for four times, stealing nuclear secrets. Ninety one counts. All of this is such a toxic mix for this party. And again, I talk about historians all the time. I'm fascinated by it because I read history, political history, presidential history, and I'm just going to be fascinated to see what the take is on why this party couldn't move past Donald Trump when it became obvious years ago that it was in their best political interest to do so. This was a hot, hot stove that you were told not to touch a million times. It will be interesting to see why you kept doing it. Congressional reporter for The

Hill, Michael Schnell, always good to see you. Thank you for your reporting this morning. And coming up, the Federal Reserve keeps rates unchanged as inflation slows down. So is the Fed done raising rates this year? Well, let's go to the big wall to find out. Yeah, Steve Ratner is standing by to break down Is that the Southwest Wall? what this signals. I said the Southwest Wall.

And guess what? What? He brought charts. Oh, my God. I'm Ricky. 48 past the hour, a live look at Los Angeles. Are you going to say wake up Los Angeles? No, because it's 3.48 a.m. People are coming in right now from their parties and stuff, right? Yeah, they are. That's right.

There may be an end in sight to the Hollywood writers' strike. People close to the negotiations tell CNBC, the Writers Guild of America and Hollywood studios are hoping to finalize a deal by today. The sources did know, however, their deal is not if the deal is not reached, the strike could last through the end of the year. Good, because Willie and I have this story. We want to end today. So, yeah, this has to end. Last night, the groups released a short joint statement saying they've met for bargaining and those talks will continue today. Eleven thousand workers have been on strike for more than 100 days. Actors also joined the picket

line in July, leaving the production of movies and TV shows at a standstill. They're calling for higher pay as well as changes to staffing requirements and protections when it comes to the use of artificial intelligence. So turning now to the overall economy, the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged yesterday, but signaled that at least one more rate increase is on the table. Oh, no. Let's bring in former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner, who has more on this from the Western Wall.

Southwestern Wall. So, Steve, why don't you tell us what exactly what happened with the Fed yesterday? Why did they decide to hold off on raising interest rates? They held off mostly because they've raised them so much that they want to give them a chance to work and bring down inflation. But the more interesting thing about what the Fed did yesterday was it released its projections, its quarterly projections for where it thinks the economy is going. And the good news is that the Fed, like many private economists, raised its forecast for growth this year. If you go back just six months, the Fed thought the economy would barely be growing this year. And now it thinks it's going

to come in at over 2 percent. And it's also going to be around one and a half percent for next year above its previous forecast. And similarly, they expect unemployment to stay lower for longer. And so instead of being up as high as four and a half percent by the end of this year, as it had been projecting, it's now looking at it being less than four percent. And the same thing as you go into the out year. So the kind of the strength in the economy, the really surprising strength in the economy is now being reflected in the Fed's forecast. The implications for that is even though they didn't raise rates yesterday, they did hold out the possibility of another rate hike later this year. And they also, in their projections for interest rates, essentially said interest rates are also going to stay higher for longer. And you can see here

where they were six months ago, where they were three months ago, where they are today, all the way out here. They expect interest rates to stay higher. And what's also interesting and worth pointing out is in the long run, they expect the interest rate they set to stay at around 3%, which implies that mortgage rates that consumers pay will stay also a good bit higher, somewhere between 4% and 5% most likely. And so it just signals that the era of zero interest rates is over. Good for savers, not so good for borrowers. So, Steve, as we move to your next chart, inflation, obviously an economic question, but a big political question as we turn the corner into this presidential election.

There are a lot of good numbers in the economy, but Americans say prices are still too high. So what did the Fed say about its projections for inflation going forward? The Fed said that basically inflation is continuing to come down, as you can see here. This shows you the consumer price index, which came out last week. And so inflation, as we all know, peaked at about 9 percent. And it's come all the way down to as low as 3 percent, actually. This includes food and energy, which is something the Fed likes to take out as it looks at it. And so it is basically

showing inflation outside of food and energy at something above 4 percent. And the Fed expects that to continue to decline, although it does not think it's going to reach its 2 percent target for a couple of years, which is part of why it's talking about interest rates remaining higher for longer. Now, why is inflation not going to probably continue to come down as fast as we see here? It's really driven by wages heavily and wage increases have come down. You can see here, black line is wages coming down. This light blue line is wage increases that people get when they switch jobs. Typically, if you switch jobs, you get a higher, you get a pay increase. And so you can see what the difference was here.

But wages are still rising between 4% and 5%. And 4% and 5% wage increases are really consistent with more like a 3% or 4% inflation rate. And so that is part of what the Fed is saying is that this is going to take a long time. We're not going to see interest rates cut substantially for a good while. So we might get to 2% inflation, but not for a couple more years. It looks like the Fed is saying as we move to your last chart, Steve, not helping inflation is the rising cost of oil and OPEC. The Saudis, the Russians have a lot to do with that. Yeah. So I know you guys were talking about this the last couple of days. So let me put some numbers around that. Basically, the Russians and the

Saudis are really the Saudis and the Russians, you should put it in the right order because the Saudis are the biggest oil exporter in the world, decided to cut production a few months ago. And you can see here OPEC production has dropped about 2 million barrels a day, or 8% over these last few months. And that has had an effect on gas prices, not surprisingly. Gas prices are up 23 percent this year. They're now at an average of $3.88 a gallon, up from $3.50 just back in June. In California, gas prices are almost $6, about $5.80. And this is something that

the White House is worried about, because gas prices are something that you see every time you drive down a street, big posters with the gas price at your local gas station. It's a reminder of inflation that every American sees. And it is one of the big things that drives political sentiment. And we're obviously heading into an election. Boy, Bill Clinton was a big believer of that. You know, those gas station prices, if they were going up, that is, like you said, a billboard for inflation. Steve, before we let you go, we were talking about the riders' strike. I know this is a little off topic for right now, but, I mean, it looks like they may come to a deal. Talk about how important it is for both sides to get a deal. Look, this has been going on a long time.

And as you said in the lead-in, you've had thousands and thousands of writers out of work. And it did not look actually hopeful for a good while. I think at least until this meeting last night, people were talking about it going until the end of the year. And as you also said, if they don't get reached an agreement now, it could do that. And so, look, it's important to get them back to work. It's going to have a rippling effect throughout the industry as networks and other media don't have product to put out. Movie theaters don't have new movies to show and so on. So this is important. But, you know, you put this in context. We are in a period

of more labor, more labor robustness, shall we say. You've got the auto strike going on, which is actually more significant for the economy. That could go on for a very long time and really ripple through the Midwest, also having pretty significant political effects. So it is a time of labor unrest. All right. Steve Ratner at the fabled Southwest Wall, a cornerstone, really, of American journalism for about, Willie, what, 75 years? Oh, come on. We thank you so much, Steve Ratner. Thank you. And Willie, this is great news for us. I mean, we've been working on that pitch. We had to stop. I mean, it's a hard luck story, right? But we're going to

be able to finally pitch it. Based on true events, escape from a Turkish prison. You know, when you're partying with Keith Richards in Turkey and he hands you a bag and says, hold this. Little did we know, we'd spend the next decade in a prison.

He said it was for his mom. He said, I collected some rocks on the beach. It was for my mom. So we got that one. And then we're going to pitch one about a talking key lime pie that... Animated. I'm doing my pitch right here. That starts a social media company and unknowingly unleashes chaos on Western civilization.

This is where Willie and I are going if this strike will just end. And we're going to get so many ideas still ahead on.