Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/26/23

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

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

You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than hitting a whale with your boat. There has only been, listen to this, one such whale killed off the coast of South Carolina in the last 50 years. But on the other hand, their windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before. Nobody does anything about that. They're washing up and show. I saw it this weekend. Three of them came up. They wouldn't, you wouldn't see it once a year. Now they're coming up on a weekly basis.

The windmills are driving them crazy. They're driving. They're driving the whales, I think, a little batty. And they're washing up on shore at levels never seen before. And they want to stop your boats one in 50 years. Can you imagine that? Donald Trump yesterday in South Carolina, continuing his weird war against windmills. We'll have more from his rally yesterday, including another moment where he seemed to be confused about his opponent. This is at least the second time in a week.

Plus, Trump's former defense secretary is defending outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley after the former president suggested General Milley was a traitor. Also ahead on Morning Joe, President Joe Biden is expected to make history today as the first sitting president to join a picket line when he visits autoworkers in Michigan. We'll have his latest comments about the strike and where negotiations stand right now. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the clock is ticking. Congress is divided on how to avoid a government shutdown before Saturday's deadline. Today, the House and Senate are expected to take two different paths on a funding solution. Can they get it together? Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, September 26th.

Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, professor at Princeton University, Eddie Glaude Jr., former White House director of communications to President Obama. Jennifer Palmieri, she's the co-host of the new MSNBC podcast, How to Win 2024. And also with us this morning, Rogers, chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University. John Meacham joins us now. So, Willie, we got a lot to talk about, but we have the former president who seems to be getting a little bit, I don't know, confused sometimes about who he's talking about, what era we're in, whether we have fought World War One or World War Two or we're headed into World War Three. Seems like he's a little bit, I don't know, off center.

The whales in the windmills. That was even for him a real tour de force. We can talk more about that. But Donald Trump has been back on the campaign trail. He was in South Carolina yesterday talking to a rally about 400 people in Somerville, his first event in that state since July. During a speech that lasted about 40 minutes, Trump talked about the 2016 presidential race and appeared to confuse his then opponent Jeb Bush with former President George W. Bush. You know, the beauty was when I came here, everyone thought Bush was going to win. And then they took a poll and they found out Trump was up by about 50 points. Everyone said, what's going on right here? They thought Bush because Bush supposedly was a military person. Great. You know what? He was a military. He got us into the

he got us into the Middle East. How did that work out? Right. So Jonathan Lemire, he was talking, of course, about George W. Bush, but conflated him with Jeb Bush, who was the governor of Florida in March of 2003 when the United States went into Iraq. But for all the talk about Joe Biden's problems and his age and everything else, if you sit and watch not just those clips, but the 40 minutes in South Carolina, some red flags there. I mean, Trump's right about the windmills in the whales. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Fact check. True on that. No, you're right for the it's a couple of things here. First, there's a lot of discussion about President

Biden's age and whether or not he seems to be slipping at all, whether he's still up for the job. And there was a moment last week where eyebrows were raised, where at a fundraiser the president had in New York City, he told the same story twice, seemingly not remembering that he had told it the first time. That said, President Biden has been able to do the job and his record speaks for itself. His aides are very quick to point that out. I think we've been giving Donald Trump a pass too much because he's always sort of, frankly, spoken like a crazy person. And many times, if you read the transcripts of his speeches, they're very hard to follow. And he's so all over the place, it's tough to pin down what he actually means. But these red flags, these verbal missteps have only picked up in the last few weeks. And you're right. I mean,

the windmills in Wales, things are nuts. The World War II, not from reference last week, we had this one confusing the Bushes. The list goes on and on and on. And one does wonder, as much as polls suggest that voters don't care as much about Trump's age than Biden's, he is only three years younger than President Biden. And if Biden is going to be questioned about his fitness for the job, then voters should take the same look at Trump, who has been all over the place in recent weeks and seems to be, and his social media posts reflect this too, under increasing pressure and strain from all the criminal cases. And aides say that as well, that it is weighing on him much more than he'd like to portray. Well, that's the real point here. I think, Joe, for all the, I mean, the whale thing was bizarre.

He said the windmills are driving whales crazy. So they're washing themselves up on shore. He's projecting again. But the point is, this is a man not only who is advancing in years, clearly, as you watch those performances, but he's got a lot on his mind having nothing to do with whales or Jeb Bush or Obama or World War Two? I mean, he's projecting. I mean, he usually projects himself only to people that he's running against now. He's going out and projecting himself on Wales. So, yes, Donald, it's the Wales who are crazy right now. There is a Wales that are. But think about this. And it goes back to what we said yesterday, which is which is Joe Biden sitting there playing by Marcus of Queensberry rules and going the GDP is going to rise by two point four nine. I mean, that's how I talk. OK, but I'm not running for anything. He needs to do better. All right. All right. He needs to he needs to start hitting Donald Trump back.

There's a reason why those polls are looking the way they are, because they all talk about Biden being too old. Biden needs to start talking about Trump being too old. Listen, this is not hard to do. He doesn't have to wait for the writers to get off the picket lines to write his material. Because everybody, this is what Donald Trump thinks and what he thought over the last two weeks, that he ran a primary contest against George W. Bush in 2016.

And he beat him, even though George W. Bush had gotten us into the Middle East. And then he thinks, alternatively, that he ran the general election in 2016 against Barack Obama. And he said last week, nobody thought we could beat Barack Obama. But we did. He stumbled around with Obama's name. And then he went on to say he beat Barack Obama. He was going to beat. Oh, no, that he beat Barack Obama in 2020 as well. And then, of course, on to the part about where Joe Biden was going to get us into World War Two in 2024. The reason why those numbers are higher and the reason why people are comparing Hunter Biden's laptop to stealing nuclear secrets is because the Republicans have been hammering Joe Biden over this nonstop. And the White House has considered itself above the fray. This is like Mike Dukakis in 1988 using his push lawnmower while George H.W. Bush was going around talking about how polluted Boston Harbor was. And talking about, you know, going from one flag factory to another flag factory.

And John Meacham, by the time it was over. Right. And and you had Michael Dukakis gone above this. I'm not going to respond to that. I mean, you've written 41's biography, you know, by the time Dukakis finally started responding to those attacks, he'd lost like 20 points in the poll. His 20 point lead was evaporated. And now you've got the Biden people sitting back talking Bidenomics while his son's being trashed and while his age is being trashed. And here you go. I just want to repeat for you because I know you're a historian and I'm sure you never knew this. Donald Trump says he ran against George W. Bush in the primary and beat him, ran in 2016, ran against Barack Obama in the general election. Nobody thought

they could beat him, but he beat him, ran against Barack Obama in 2020 and beat him, no matter what the press and the pundits say. This is a guy who is terribly confused. And again, we don't hear that so much because the Biden campaign is playing by Marcus of Queensberry rules. I'll say one thing, though, one of the great primary races ever would have been George W. Bush versus Donald Trump. That would have been a cage match. Who can't you imagine? Excuse me for cutting you off. Yeah. That would have been over in five minutes. Like Donald Trump would have started talking

and George W. Bush would have looked at him. He would have gone, and I'm the one that's supposed to be dumb. What are you talking about? And he would have gutted him. George W. Bush would have finished Donald Trump's campaign in five minutes. But go ahead. No, I think that, too. I think that George W. Bush is the one Republican who could have undercut this populism. He worried about the populism. He talks about

how what happened late in his administration helped create the conditions for this. He's he's clear eyed about it. But look, I think the thing that worries me the most is not what Trump says when he's confused, but what he says, unconstitutional, anti-democratic assertions that he's making about what he wants to do if, in fact, he returns to power, which is a entirely plausible possibility. And so the focus, it seems to me, of all of us, the task of citizenship should be what is he saying? What does he want to do? And we're talking about somebody. And I just we can't say this enough. Right. It's like the daily office. It's like morning prayer. We should just always say this. There was a mob attacking the capital of the United States, something that did not happen in 1860, 61, but it happened in 2021 because of this bizarre and yet all too real political power and reach that Donald Trump has. And we can wish it away, but that won't make any difference at all. I had a seventh grade history teacher said if sands and butts were candy and nuts,

we'd all have a Merry Christmas. I know. And so we could say, but, but, but doesn't matter. Right. This is a real political, constitutional unfolding crisis. And it's tiring. I mean, who wants to wake up and think about Donald Trump more except for Donald Trump, of course? Well, John, if I can interrupt you here, this is our task. I want to talk a couple of specifics with you, John. First of all, he's talking about the execution of Mark Milley.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he would have been executed in prior day simply because Mark Milley wasn't going along with his plan to overthrow the government. And yesterday he ranted that he was going to take over NBC and MSNBC if he won the 2024 election. He was ranting on on his social media posts and claimed the networks are the enemy of the people. This is, of course, a phrase that Stalin used that after Stalin died, Khrushchev said it was such a dangerous political in the Soviet Union, such a dangerous political phrase that he outlawed the use of it. And he said that NBC and MSNBC should be investigated for country threatening treason. So here we go, John. In two days, he threatens to says the the chairman of the Joint Chiefs probably should be executed. And then he says

that the news network that that is most critical of him should be taken off the air. This is not a reach. I could go back and talk about Nazi Germany and I do it. I do it without any concerns whatsoever. And if people can't start drawing the parallels, well, you're just stupid or you have your head in the sand or you're one of them. But I'd rather look at Orban and what's going on today in Hungary, because what he's done has been systematic. He started with the public, sort of the NPR stations, took them over. They became voices and arms of the state. Then he started going over the newspapers. He had he basically he regulated or taxed one independent newspaper after another independent newspaper out of existence. 100 percent of the newspapers there are basically state run, state owned through these kind of third party supporters, these industries.

And he's done it with broadcast to 80 percent are basically Orban's deal. He's he's got he's got almost complete control over the news media. They send out the message for them to follow and they all follow it. There is no freedom of speech in Hungary. And so. Just do do I think that Donald Trump's going to be allowed to line people up against the wall and shoot them? No, he'd like to. No doubt. I know him and I've known him for a long time and we can see this. He would like to.

He's not going to be allowed to. But if he says, I'm going to take the FEC and I'm going to bring it into the White House and I'm going to decide who's going to be on TV and who's not going to be on TV. Believe him. That is something that Republicans, 50 percent of Americans are supporting him right now, despite the fact he steals nuclear secrets and he steals war plans and he says he's going to terminate the Constitution. So, sure, don't let him shut down TV stations. That's where we are. Yeah, and that to terminate the Constitution, that's that's the key phrase here.

That's what he says he wants to do. And then there are the folks who say that people like the two of us, all of us are we take him to literally not seriously. Where do we start? A mob attacked the capital of the United States to overturn a free and fair election. The president of the United States pressured officials in the various states to find him votes so that he would win. So that's not hyperbole, right? That's not cable news, liberal fury in the morning. It's just true. And if you can't handle that, then the entire experiment is at risk and the entire experiment is at risk. And that may sound overly grand or dramatic. No. But as you were saying, it's just the case. And I don't think we do. We do ourselves no favors, whatever, in pretending that these are

not live, use a fancy word, illiberal, anti-democratic, unconstitutional forces that he, Donald Trump, embodies, promulgates. And this whole election, the Constitution. Think about this. The Constitution, if the numbers are even remotely true, is going to come down to a couple of hundred thousand people in five states. Right. That's that's where we are. And so to some extent, the appeal has to be. If you are one of these folks in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, in Arizona, if you're there, think about it. Do you want to terminate the Constitution? And if you do, you better be sure your team's always going to be in power, because the point of law is that it protects you from me and me from you. And the strong always become the weak. Yep. And the power, what's being used right now by Trumpers could be used 20 years from now by people on the far left.

It are just by some crazed independent billionaire who decides to run for office. We need checks and balances today in the United States more than ever before. And Donald Trump wants to blow down the doors on every check and every balance. How many times do we need to learn? What does he need to say? How much farther does he need to go? Well, I mean, you look at, you know, if you believe these polls, half of Americans still support him. I'd love to talk to him and love to figure out why they support him. They have no good answer. I'm sorry, Joe Biden's old. So I'm going to vote for the guy who says he's going to terminate the

Constitution and execute the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. That's not even a joke. And steal and steal nuclear secrets and steal, you know, and be accused of rape by a judge who said he raped a woman. I mean, it paid illegal payoffs to a porn star who who stole war plans to invade Iran, who went around bragging to campaign members that he had classified material that he couldn't declassify. So he shouldn't be showing them, but he showed them anyway. I mean, that's who people want. Somebody who's stealing nuclear secrets, somebody who wants to terminate the country. Well, that's where we are right now, Willie. I will say again, following up on what John said, he talked about illiberal democracy and he said,

and that wasn't too much of a reach. No, again, going back to Orban, as you know, Hungary's leader Orban, after stripping power away from the press, after stripping power away from from the judiciary, what did he say? He said Western democracy doesn't work. Western democracy doesn't work. We are proud to be an illiberal democracy. And that's where they are. And that's where they keep going. And that's where Donald Trump will take the United States of America if elected. And he's just the kind of leader that Donald Trump has explicitly touted him, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un with the love letters. He likes that kind of guy. He wishes he could be that kind of guy. And Eddie, just to echo what John and Joe and Mika all just said,

we got to believe the guy. This isn't 2015 where he's a game show host up there telling jokes and it's amusing in some ways because it could never happen. He's shown that he tried to do it while he was president. And we know that if he's elected again, it'll be a lot easier for him to do a whole bunch of this stuff because there'll be no General Kelly. Right. There'll be no General Milley. There'll be no General Kelly, right? There'll be no General Milley. There'll be no General Mattis. There'll be no people whose first principle is to protect the country and the Constitution and the democracy will be to serve this guy. So when he talks about wanting to execute Mark Milley, when he talks about terminating the Constitution, let's not

forget he asked his attorney general to arrest his opponent in October of 2020, Joe Biden, before the election. These are all things he fantasizes about and will be much easier for him to carry out if he's elected again. Absolutely. The guardrails are gone. And the way his rhetoric sets the stage to increase the intensity of our political season. And it actually, I think, increases the specter of violence. Right. So when he says, you know, back in the day, General Milley could be executed. He's actually sending messages out there. It's a kind of mob boss kind of formulation. And then Paul Goldsor will echo it. Right. And so I think it's really important. And Joe makes an interesting point, an important point that the Biden

administration, the Biden campaign has to go after him, but they have to do it in such a way that they don't wind up looking like Dukakis in a damn tank. Right. They got to do it in their line, in their lane. But we have to begin to hit the threat head on because it's not just simply policy. It's existential. It's visceral. It's in the gut. And what John is saying has to be interpreted in a way that it hits viscerally, hits in the gut. For two years now, officials, law enforcement officials, government officials have warned me they're really afraid of the thought of political violence heading into this election here, particularly with these indictments against Trump.

And one wonders this seemingly threat against Mark Milley, where does that stand in terms of violating Trump's gag order as well? That could be held against him. But Jen Palmieri, to the point of what the Biden administration should be doing, they are going to be speaking about threats to democracy this week. The president's going to be in Arizona. You're paying tribute to his friend, Senator McCain, as well as once again, warning about what could happen. But to Joe's point earlier, should my and let me ask you, drawing upon your communications background here, should President Biden and his team also be highlighting these missteps from Trump, raising the mental acuity, his fitness for office?

The cover of The New Yorker this week is Biden, Trump, Pelosi, McConnell, all four obviously senior citizens. Not a flattering look. But the fear is that White House aides I've talked to, they say any time the issue of age comes up, fairly or not, it's bad for Biden, even though, of course, they can be making the same points for Trump. I know what Joe thinks. Help me, Jen. Oh, my God. That's loser talk. Right. Because it's like it's also it's also the biggest issue that's there. So and he has and Biden has started talking about it more, which I think is good. And and joking about it, whether the president himself points out, hey, this guy is also old and also having and also misspeaks. Like, I'm not sure that I would use the president for that.

But but I think that there is know, I do have a concern. So let's look at the NBC poll, for example. Biden's favorability dropped three points to the lowest ever in the NBC poll. OK, three points is not a lot. It's in the margin of error, whatever. But you look at trends. Normally, when your favorability rating drops, you can point to something like gas prices went up or there's some problem that explains why there is a drop. In the last three months, nothing's really happened that should make the president's approval rating drop.

Right. There's nothing sort of outside of politics that's happened. So I think the Republican attacks might be having an impact, As you know, as you noted, the stuff about Hunter might be having an impact. That suggests you should be fighting back. You don't have to use a president for that. There are surrogates. There are people who can go on television who are not the president that can be making the points that Joe did earlier. Now, for the president, but I think also the way that the White House is looking at this is we have 13 months between now and November and the election in 2024 to recreate or create a new majority coalition that will vote for Biden. And they think what you need to do now is you need to make sure those people know that there is a good reason to vote for Joe Biden because everything he's accomplished and will do, not just because Trump is bad. And if you just do Trump is bad, that's going to drag everybody down and make everybody feel like their choices are bad and they want people to feel good about this choice and they want to do that work now.

I think you can do both things at once. I think you can do that work because, by the way, a lot of that happens through digital ads or other kinds of communication. And the president can be talking about what, you know, today he's going to the UAW. He can really hit really hard. First president of the United States to go to a picket line. It's a sacrament for union workers, for a president to do that. He can hit Trump really hard about what he didn't do as president to help these people, you know, on substance. And then you can have other people that are making this argument about how incredibly unfit that he is. You know, if you great points all, I will say what I learned very quickly in politics is if you run away from an attack ad, if you run away from an attack, you lose. It always catches you from behind. You always lose.

If you go right into the attack and use it and pummel it and turn it against your opponent, you win. I've seen it happen time and time again. I remember being attacked in 1996 for being part of those mean Republicans who cut Medicare. And the AFL-CIO spent hundreds of millions of dollars attacking Republicans who cut Medicare, even though even though the Medicare trustees said we had to lower the rate of growth on Medicare or else it would go bankrupt in seven years. So we did the right thing. My friends who were freshmen that year with me, they ran away from the attack. I ran straight into it. And after being attacked in my first debate, I said, you know what? Every debate from now on, I'm not going to talk about education. I'm not going to talk about defense. I'm not going to talk about anything. I'm going to talk about why I had to lower Medicare costs. And that's all I'm going to talk about. Win or

lose, I don't really care because I'm going to you're not going to be able to lie about me. And so I did it throughout the entire campaign. I told this story to some people on the show before. Right before the election, I got a phone call. It was Glenn Bolger, public opinion strategy. He asked me, Congressman, what are you doing on senior citizens? I panicked. I thought, oh boy, maybe I shouldn't have talked so much about Medicare. I asked Glenn why. He said, because of the 150, 200 people that we've polled for, members, you have the highest number among senior citizens. It's outrageously high. What did you do? I said, Glenn. I told him the truth.

I told him that I won by another massive landslide. Nobody ever ran against me again. That was the end. Basically, no Democrat took me on after that. I ran two more races unopposed by Democrats. And Jim, that's why I think they need to go straight into the fire. And if I were Joe Biden, I wouldn't let an opportunity go up. If somebody asked about Donald Trump, I'd say, well, you kind of you need to ask Barack Obama that question because that's who he thinks he's running against this year. Or if it's about the Republican Party, I don't know. But talk to Donald Trump.

He says he beat George W. Bush in 2016, says he beat Barack Obama in 2016. I mean, you got to hammer it, hammer it, hammer it. And then after that, you can turn and actually tell people how well you're doing. But I want to underline this point that you said. Joe Biden's numbers, regardless of what the polls are saying, are not going down because the economy, because I can show you numbers that say that three out of four Americans think they're doing pretty well right now in the economy. His numbers are going down because this he's too old message has stuck. And the White House has had their head in the sand.

And if they want to get on the right side of numbers, they've got to confront this head on. Because this president has succeeded in historic ways. If you look at the midterm election, if you look at bipartisan legislation that has passed, he's done more than any president this century. You look at a lot of economic data, it's positive. They just they look at Joe Biden and they hear what Republicans and Fox News and Donald Trump are saying all the time. They're like, yeah, he's too old. It's too old. We aren't a vital nation anymore.

They've got to fight that head on. So I think that I mean, you know, he did last week. Right. He did. But it just it can't all be on the president. Right. That's right. I mean, that's part of it. Like he needs to he needs to be president and he can't take all this on. All Donald Trump has to be is a candidate. And Donald Trump is acting as if the general election has started. And, you know, and when that when that happens, then you need people other than the president that are, you know, all over MSNBC and all of their other cable networks that are hammering these arguments.

And, you know, it just they can't have it all just rest on on Biden. Yeah. And as far as timing goes, Willie, also, if you go back to 2012, the Obama campaign, that election was over by May of 2012. They had so defined Mitt Romney as this cold hearted industrialist that allowed people to die because he took away their life and health insurance. It was over in May. And looking back a year later, they all said it. Everybody said it. This race was over in May because they defined him. That's why I'd usually say 13 months. It's plenty of time. It's not plenty of time. Like what happens between the nap between now and the end of the year is going to

determine who who's who's in the best shape to win the election next year. And right now, everything is breaking against the president because, yeah, his team, I don't expect the president to do this all by himself. He's got it. He's got a big team. They need to start focusing on Donald Trump and screw Bidenomics. Focus on the guy who's threatening American democracy, wanting to shoot, wanting to execute chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and wanting to shut down free speech. And that's an argument that the president has made, but in private to donors. He was here last week in New York for the U.N. and at an event on Broadway.

He was very explicit, doing effectively what you just said, which is this. This election is about democracy. If this guy wins, we're going to lose what we've had in this country for 240 years. And Jonathan LeMire, he's trying to walk that line. Look at all the stuff I've done. Here's the economy. Here's record low unemployment, et cetera. You can go down the list, but also explain the stakes of this race. And maybe he needs to do it more explicitly. But the word you hear in all that polling is fitness. Is he fit for office? Is Joe Biden fit for office? Well, in his case, that's a physical question, I guess. But for Donald Trump, that question could be asked in terms of is this a

man who should be sitting in the White House again, given everything we know he's done and now he's telling us he plans to do? Yeah, it's a moral question. Certainly, to your point, the president has ramped up his attacks on Trump somewhat in recent weeks, more in those private sort of small donor settings. I was in a few last week here in New York when he made that same case. But not to disappoint Joe again, but the those close to the president say that his campaign is not going to really ramp up until early next year, that this is that this is a pacing issue for him. But it's also they feel that right now the best thing they can do is simply be president and that therefore let the Republicans sort of tear themselves up.

They were banking, however, on the GOP primary field to take a lot more swipes on Trump than they have. That's the part of their strategy that hasn't worked out yet, is that they thought that would be a brutal infighting there in the GOP. And those there who want Trump's job haven't gone after him. And I would just say, though, that that's part of the concern here is because Trump is moving to a general election. I think we'll start to hear a little more from Biden in that too, maybe even today, starting with those auto workers.

But it's going to be a slow ramp up for this team. I mean, I think there's a lot to be said for that, that there's a strategy there. He does have to do the business of being president. I think that there's another Republican debate coming up. Hopefully, I'm sure they will do some of their own work for them. At some point, they have to compete against Trump if any of them want to get traction in the primary. But most importantly, it's for Democrats.

Instead of going about Joe Biden's age, flip the equation, go after Trump. And then when they say Joe's old, say, yeah, but look what he's done. It's the bottom line right there. Democrats need to get more aggressive and they need to stop worrying out loud because they have a great track record. But Joe Biden, John Meacham, final thoughts for this block? Well, 60 years ago, roughly, Ronald Reagan gave a electrifying speech for Barry Goldwater. It became known as a time for choosing. And this is a time for choosing. And it's speaking as a citizen. This is what we have to decide.

Do we want a constitutional democracy with all of its imperfections? Or do we want one man government, one interest government? And it's not much more complicated. My own view of this is that any policy disputes we have should be subordinated to wanting an experiment or a more perfect union to continue. It's not always true, but it's true today. Historian John Meacham, thank you very much for coming on this morning. We appreciate it. And coming up, a defiant Senator Bob Menendez refuses to step down after being indicted

on corruption charges. Did you see the gold bars? Good Lord. You know, how many people charges. Did you see the gold bars? Good Lord. You know, how many people, you know, that like have gold bars in their house? It does not look good, even as... And whines of cash, like just whines of cash. And John Fetterman's campaign said

that they turned back the donations. Let me tell you something. Hundreds stuffed in envelopes. Democrats, a growing number, are calling on him to resign, which says a lot on a number of levels. Who are you? What are you thinking if you're out franking? And they pushed you out of Congress because a right-wing radio host accused him of doing things not proven.

And this guy is stealing Swiss gold bars. And he's got hundreds of thousands of dollars in his house. Guilty. And Democrats are going, well, we really don't know what to do here. No, some Democrats are calling for him to resign, by the way. Perhaps we should wait. We're going to hear how he is. But they didn't wait for Al Franken, did they?

No, they didn't. That was bad. And we said so in real time. Still believe that. We'll hear how Menendez explained where the wads of cash found stuffed in his jacket came from. I can't wait to hear this. Plus, the government shutdown is just days away with no agreement in sight. We'll get new reporting on what Congress is prepared to do as many federal workers and agencies brace for impact. That's bad news for those federal workers and agencies.

It is worse news politically for Republicans. So keep driving off that cliff, baby. Programming note here. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson will be our guest tomorrow morning. We'll get more on the chaos and lawlessness that she witnessed inside the Oval Office. And the smoking jackets. Oh, boy. And Meadows off the wagon.

You're watching Morning Joe. Meadows thought the hard seltzer wasn't hard. All right. I want my savings. Sad it's all. My picture of Washington. Another dreary day. It's been raining, Eddie, for what, five consecutive days here in the New York area?

Yeah. It's enough. Yeah, it's enough. It's enough already. It's 640 in the morning here on the East Coast. Over in Jersey, Senator Bob Menendez refusing to step down, even as a growing number of Democrats are calling on him to resign. Senator Menendez held a press conference yesterday where he said

he has no plans to give up his Senate seat and denied any wrongdoing. The New Jersey lawmaker also attempted to explain the nearly $500,000 in cash prosecutors said was found in his home stuffed in envelopes and hidden in clothing. For 30 years, I have withdrawn thousands of dollars in cash from my personal savings account, which I have kept for emergencies and because of the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba. Now, this may seem old-fashioned, but these were monies drawn from my personal savings account based on the income that I have lawfully derived over those 30 years. I look forward to addressing other issues at trial. Meanwhile, two more Senate Democrats have called on Menendez to resign. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio said in a statement, quote, Senator Menendez has broken the public trust and should resign from the U.S. Senate.

And Senator Peter Welch of Vermont said in part, the shocking and specific allegations against Senator Menendez have compromised his capacity to be an effective senator. And last night, in an appearance on Inside with Jen Psaki, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi also called on Menendez to step down while comparing the situation to indicted Republican Congressman of New York, George Santos. If, in fact, we're going to say that if you're indicted, you should resign. We have a situation in the House, as you know, from the state of New York, that that would hold to. But right now, sadly, because of the challenges that we face,

because the skepticism that exists in our country about governance, about this Republican Party that doesn't believe in governance, doesn't believe in science, so wants to take down everything in order to give tax breaks to the wealthiest. We've got to stay focused on that. And for that reason, it'd probably be a good idea if he did resign. So Nancy Pelosi calling on Menendez to resign, Joe, the New York Post not buying the argument from Senator Menendez that he had all that stuff hidden because of the history of Cuba. You're our expert on this, Joe, due to the fact that you have an underground bunker full of gold bars. And as Senator Menendez said, just for a rainy day. Well, and that's what I that's me. I've got the gold bullion on one side because I was an Atlanta Braves fan.

And, you know, we went to see the Braves play a lot. And we were like, if that team can get beaten that badly, who's to say that the authorities won't come and beat us that badly and take all our money? Then I got the gold bars, right? The gold bars are really heavy. Sometimes, though, I do curls with them, you know, because I want to be in shape and everything.

You can do a lot of different things with gold bullion and these gold bars. But I have those because I've been an Atlanta Falcons fan since 1966. And you see them getting slaughtered on the field, and you're just sitting there going, well, if that could happen to them, that could happen to me. So his Cuba explanation makes perfect sense, doesn't it? And when the Falcons gave up the 28-3 lead in the Super Bowl, you went out and bought a bunch of survival seeds.

It started to get weird after that. Listen, I had Glenn back come over and personally deliver in a Brinks truck survival seed. I said, dump her there, Glenn. So the survival seed, we got AR-, so yeah, I keep gold bars and bullion and cash in my house. Come on, Willie. Come on. Not buying it, are you, John? The best part of the indictment is the detail that after Centerman has received the gold bar, his Google search history reveals he Googled how much is a gold bar worth. So it does seem like the senator who has gotten out of trouble before faces a tougher hill to climb this time, Eddie. And I think it is interesting

that we're starting to see some Democrats pressure him to resign. There's a couple of days of silence. Senator Fetterman was the first to go there. Now we have Senator Welch from Vermont, as well as we heard from our former House Speaker Pelosi, Senator Brown from Ohio, starting to have some names add to that roster. The White House has said they acknowledge this is a serious accusations, but they're going to stay out of it for now. Yeah, you've got the half a million dollars. You have the gold bars. You have the influence peddling, it seems, with Egypt. All of this against the backdrop of the crisis we face as a democracy, whether it's an ethics issue or whether it's a criminal issue. Given the crisis we face as a country, he has to step down. It seems to me. It just has to. Well, I mean, and you know, the crazy thing is, Mika, I mean, nobody here is old enough to remember this but me,

but when we had the abscam trials, you actually had members of Congress that would take cash and they would shove it in their pockets so much that they were out. They looked like the Michelin man when they were like leaving the office. And when they were busted by the FBI, they said, oh, no, no, no. We're just conducting our own interview, our own investigation. And that's that's what Menendez is like. It's just good to see that some Democrats are stepping out. And I think it shows at this very difficult time, Jen, that, you know,

Democrats can see things and put political affiliation aside. And if something appears to be untoward and unethical and not what the job is in Washington, they say it like it is. And we have some really powerful Democrats calling on him to step down. First of all, I have to have a shout out to the Morning Joe DJ for playing Darkness on the Edge of Town leading into the from Springsteen leading into this segment about the Jersey, the Jersey senator. I mean, that was and they didn't even play the lyrics. They just did the music. It was like nuanced. It was just oh, it was so good. Don't forget Governor Phil Murphy. Governor Phil Murphy,

who's like Senator Menendez's actual governor, on Friday came out and said that he should resign. But I don't think, you know, just as Trump is not, you know, I don't think Menendez is going to resign just as Trump continues to campaign and run for president under indictment because, you know, the you know, he has proven himself not to really be a man of integrity. And this is if he if he resigns, it's a it's probably it's he views that as an admission of guilt. And, you know, he's been down this road before. He doesn't seem to care that it, you know, hurts confidence in the in the Senate. It hurts confidence in public officials. So I don't know.

It's good that people are holding him accountable this way, but I don't know that he will actually do it. Yeah. So Congress returns to Washington this morning with less than five days to reach an agreement to avert a government shutdown. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy still faces an uphill battle as hard right conservatives in his party are looking to use the shutdown as leverage for spending cuts. Meanwhile, the Senate will begin moving ahead with its own short term solution. Let's bring in NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale. Ali, what's the latest you're hearing on the negotiations so far? Yeah, no better news than what I brought latest you're hearing on the negotiations so far? Yeah, no better news than what I brought to you yesterday, Mika. The idea that lawmakers,

even though they worked over the weekend on the House side, don't seem any closer to a true consensus. We did hear from Speaker McCarthy yesterday, though, who continued to sound notes of optimism. I think what's going to be fascinating this week, though, is, yes, watching the ways that McCarthy still tries to herd the cats within his conference, but also seeing the ways that they end up interacting with this Senate plan that Schumer and other key leaders are still trying to cobble together. I was told that staff on the Senate side are still working through the night to try to come to what this agreement could look like. And again, we're talking about a continuing resolution here, something that would just keep the lights on for an extra 30 or maybe 45 days to buy these folks some time to actually do these appropriations bills. They are not fast processes here. That's why they're in the time buying business. But if McCarthy were to take this lifeline that the Senate could extend to him, yes, it would help on the government funding front, but no, it would not help him in terms of actually keeping his job. Because just the very word continuing resolution or a CR, as we shorthanded on the Hill, is something that could have several of his members,

including Matt Gaetz, trigger a motion to vacate, fire him from his job, and then you're back in a chaos standpoint. I think that's the thing that I'm generally keeping in mind here is that the shutdown is one piece of this, but the back half of it is the open question of if McCarthy will keep his job. And look, Lemire asked a good question this morning on way too early. If not McCarthy, then who? I'll tell you what I told him, which is I have no idea. But the chaos for some of these conservative members is truly the point. And that's chaos, certainly in the House. Well, Ali, some veterans that you've spoken to say they're worried about facing greater difficulties and getting care within an already strained system. So certainly

there'll be real chaos if there's a shutdown or if there are major cuts. What more are you hearing? Yeah, that's exactly right, Mika, because while the political chaos is one thing that we often focus on here, shutdowns are bad for Americans. I've covered so many of these not in Washington, outside the Beltway. People are really hurting. And here's the thing. Shutdowns make things worse because they cause new problems, but they can also make old problems even more dire than they already are. Watch. We started advocating for this VA clinic back in 2003. It took Tino Adame more than two decades to get a new VA clinic in his hometown

of Stockton, California. We used to go to meetings and we started joking about hopefully it'll open up before we're pushing up daisies. But it's not just about getting a new facility. We need this clinic to open with doctors, fully staffed. This rural community about an hour from San Francisco falls prey to a national trend. Veterans struggling to access health care because there aren't enough providers to see them. We have the longest wait times anywhere in California. If you're in Stockton, you have to wait 80 or even 90 days, even 100 days. I talked to a veteran recently who wasn't able to get a refill on his diabetes medication. He ended up losing his leg.

Harder says that here, the number of working primary care physicians has been cut in half just this year alone. As of 2022, more than 2,500 VA facilities face severe occupational shortages, a 22 percent increase from a year before. The resulting backlog, wait times and rarely returned inquiries are why dozens of veterans like Adame, as well as caregivers like Leslie Stotz, packed into this town hall on a Friday afternoon here. My husband, he's a Vietnam vet. He's 100% disabled. Before the coronavirus pandemic, her husband's care was consistent. So you've seen that the system can work. It worked very well. And then when COVID happened, everything just changed.

Any call or concern was never answered. So you're basically playing a game of telephone with your husband's health care. Yes. The local VA is working to alleviate staffing shortages with increased physician pay while expanding access to telehealth. We're here to help you today. We're here to help you Monday, Tuesday, whenever. They're overloaded. There's a lot of red tape. And Hart is petitioning the administration in Washington for help.

But inaction from Congress could make this worse. What does this VFW town hall have to do with the government funding fight? I think this is a little bit of a canary in the coal mine. Not only would it not fix it, it's going to make it a lot worse. And in the meantime. Heartbreaking because we know what we've done in the military. The government promised one thing, but it is not fulfilling it. And look, you heard what Tino said there at the

end of our piece. He calls it heartbreaking to know that he's served. And now these institutions that are supposed to serve him are doing anything. But I will say harder is trying to in this funding fight, put an amendment in the VA appropriations bill that would better study just the scope of this issue. You got to understand a problem before you can start solving it. But certainly while petitioning the VA, he's trying to do that. But again, if furloughs happen at the VA level, this only makes a bad thing worse, Mika. NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale, thank you very much for that reporting this morning. And coming up on Morning Joe, while Donald Trump's legal team fights a gag order requested in his federal election interference case, our next guest argues, quote, Biden needs

to talk about the Trump prosecutions before it's too late. We'll explain the risk of remaining silent straight ahead on Morning Jail. I get a little bit closer to feeling fine. He's got a daughter he calls. Was when I came here, everyone thought Bush was going to win. And then they took a poll and they found out Trump was up by about 50 points. Everyone said, what's going on right here? They thought Bush because Bush supposedly was a military person. Great. You know what? He was a military.

He got us into the he got us into the Middle East. How did that work out? Right. As you know, Crooker Joe Biden and the radical left thugs who have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent, leading by a lot, including Obama. I'll tell you what, you take a look at Obama and take a look at some of the things that he's done. This is the same thing. The country is very divided. And we did with Obama. We won an election that everyone said couldn't be won. We have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country,

who is cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead, and is now in charge of dealing with Russia and possible nuclear war. Just think of it. We would be in World War Two very quickly. Willie, that's it's really frightening. Later that night, he and it was really it was jarring. He talked about the steps that Joe Biden was taking that would lead us into the French and Indian war. And I'm just here to tell you, we don't want any of that, right?

The steps on the beach? No, no. And then he, yeah, the steps on the beach and we won't do it. But anyway, that guy's confused. He again, you if you just sit in there going, what did I just see? You saw Donald Trump, who believes that he beat George W. Bush in the 2016 Republican primary. And then he beat Barack Obama in the 2016 general election. And then he beat Barack Obama again in the 2020 election. And in 2024, Joe Biden is leading Russia and will take us into World War Two, complete with the QAnon music in the background. Yes. So, I mean, listen, I know World War II ended 78 years ago, but he's been busy. He's been busy.

No reason for him to know that, you know, we beat the Japanese and the Germans. Yeah, we're looking for Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, and World War III on those. 0 for 3. Yeah, we're looking for Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton and World War Three on those over three might be time to retake that the cognitive test with the man, woman, camera, camera, whatever that one was. But the more serious point is two things. First of all, the attacks on Joe Biden are about his age. Those are very real. Democrats have questions about his age, as we've been discussing this morning about whatever his cognitive ability may be. My God, watch Donald Trump in public. I know his supporters don't care. They go along with it. But watch the 40 minutes, really watch the 40 minutes he spent in South Carolina. And just ask yourself if that man, if that is a man who is fit mentally, we're talking about here for office. And the other thing is he's distracted, Joe. If you had 91 felony counts against you and

you had your entire next calendar year and beyond probably tied up with very serious federal cases that could send you to jail for the rest of your life, you might be distracted, too. Yeah, let's remind like what makes an indictment. I mean, it's not this. They talk about the weaponization of the Justice Department. No, no. Yeah, there are peers that have chosen to in four different cases. Ninety one counts. Ninety one. Right. Well, you get the 91 counts because you have people all around Donald Trump that have supported Donald Trump to the bitter end. Talking to the feds, talking about how, you know,

he stole nuclear secrets, how he did all of these other things, how he tried to obstruct justice, how he tried to tell people, hey, you didn't see any of this, you haven't seen any of these boxes, trying to tell his IT person to destroy the tape. So yeah, fascinating, very fascinating

if you like crooks running your... Jonathan Lemire.