Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/27/24

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

Harris, Trump neck-and-neck in every swing state in new polling

I believe I will be able to make a deal between President Putin and President Zelensky quite quickly. What does that look like? I don't want to tell you what that looks like. Okay, that's one way of answering the question. I don't want to tell you what that's like. Donald Trump remaining coy when asked what a deal between Russia and Ukraine would look like, we're going to show you more of what the former president had to say ahead of a meeting today with the Ukrainian president who appeared alongside Vice President Kamala Harris yesterday at the White House. Wasn't that kind of like Nixon's secret plan? Secret plan to end the Vietnam War, yeah.

Right. Oh, there are a lot of polls across. I don't, but every morning there's new polls. I didn't see them today. Well, the Bloomberg polls and their key new polls from the key swing states that crossed overnight. We'll show you the numbers. And we will show you how, once again, the New York Times. The Yenna poll is a dramatic outlier.

That is what happens when you talk to me. In a minute. Voodoo, witchcraft. Welcome to Morning Joe. It's Friday, September 27th. Along with Joe, Willie, and me. We've got a Elizabeth P. Miller here. No, Elizabeth's talking.

Just go. We've done it way too early. White House Bureau Chief of Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kay. Can I get this one? I'm sorry. It's impossible that she was on a red eye. Red eye? Impossible. I don't believe it, Katty. Were you really? Well, I'm never doing a red eye again from I mean, there's no point doing it. And I'm too old. You, of course, are not too old. But there is no point for people born in the decade that we were born in to do it. But my son has come home for a few days and you will fly anywhere at any time.

You're right. Yes, you will. We also have New York Times, Washington Bureau Chief Elizabeth Bumiller. We're so happy to have her here as we go over polls and talk about the difference between the New York Times, and a poll and every other poll. And Sam Stein from the Bulwark. Oh, Sam Stein. Sorry, I was just completely skinned out. Okay, we do have breaking news. We're going to start the show with breaking news. The latest on the tropical storm.

Willie, you've got that. Yeah, it is now a tropical storm, Helene, downgraded this morning after a hurricane, after making landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm. Right now, moving farther inland over Georgia, Helene, it's the strongest hurricane ever to hit Florida's Big Bend region. We're still waiting for the sun to come up to assess a lot of the damage overnight. Forecasters warn it still could bring life-threatening winds and a unsurvivable surge, with waters reaching as high as 20 feet in some places. So far, the impact has led to at least three deaths, one in Florida, two in Georgia.

At least one million Florida customers remain in the dark this morning after strong winds knocked down power lines. Let's go straight to NBC News national correspondent Marissa Parra. She is live for us in Tampa. Marissa, what's the latest there? Willie, good morning. Well, I will say I think you put it very well. It's difficult to tell the full scope of Helene's damage because it is still so dark. So let me report for you what we can see on the ground behind me and then what we're getting online. So first, to give you a little bit of perspective, that is Bayshore Boulevard down there by that stop sign. If you can believe it,

it's a little hard to tell where the street ends and where the bay begins. And that's because you can see, even though this water has significantly receded from where we saw it last night, because we were here yesterday when it was raging, the storm surge was happening as we were speaking live on the air. It has receded, but clearly not enough. This is clearly not drivable. This is not passable. And so what we have heard from people who live here, because this is a residential street, it sounds like it was several feet higher. And we have heard more or less the same across the region, which is people, homeowners have seen water go places they've never seen it go before. And this is in line with what we expected,

record level storm surge, record levels flooding here. But again, the full scope of it remains to be seen. I know that I've gotten videos from people that I interviewed over the last couple of days showing just how much water there was, guys. And I will point out a couple of things. Tampa General Hospital, that aqua fence seems to have held up well overnight. You could see the water on the other side of it that did not penetrate the hospital. And then I want to point out one other thing. This image, this strong image of a rescue happening outside of Sanibel Island. A man and his dog, I guess his sailboat had sunk about 25 miles off of Sanibel Island. And you can see this image, the Coast Guard coming to his rescue.

You can see the chopper behind him. Just an incredible image there. And I will point out one more thing. guard coming to his rescue. You can see the chopper behind him. Just an incredible image there. And I will point out one more thing. We know that there are water rescues happening as we speak in Pinellas County, just west of us. That's a peninsula. St. Petersburg Fire and Rescue told me they've seen several fires, house fires, because as those homes flooded, people did not cut off the power and electric there. So a lot of things that people are going to be waking up to. And of course, we'll be here to report the full scope of it as we learn it, guys. Yeah. And the governor of Florida pointing out there likely to be more fatalities as they wake

up and get out across the state this morning. We'll see shortly. NBC's Marissa Parr live in Tampa for us. Marissa, thanks so much. Let's turn to meteorologist Angie Lassman for a look at where the storm is now. Angie, how does it look? Hi there, Willie. We're seeing improvements when it comes to places like where Marissa is. The state of Florida, we're really going to see things get better and, of course, quieter in time to assess the damage of what they dealt with yesterday into the overnight hours and into early this morning. But places like the southeast, Georgia, stretching into the Carolinas, that's where things are just starting to ramp up. Here's the latest details as of the top of the 5 a.m.

70 miles per hour. So it is, of course, a tropical storm, but it is moving at just an incredible pace, 30 miles per hour. That's why it kind of kept its act together as a hurricane and ultimately still a tropical storm, even though it's well inland across the state of Georgia. A couple of things happening right now. We have the kind of prime environment for some of those tornadoes. So this morning, while it's still dark out, we're really concerned about those tornadoes ramping up. We've seen that tornado watch stay in effect all morning long. It will stay with us through at least 8 o'clock this morning. And we already have some of those tornado warnings happening just north of Charleston across South Carolina.

And there's more where that came from likely as the morning goes on. Notice just all of that heavy rain out ahead of the center of that system. Places like Augusta, you are finally starting to see some improvements as far as rainfall. And again, that's going to continue as the morning goes on. But ahead of it, across the Appalachians, that's where we're really concerned, especially if we get what we call that orographic lift, where we see that airflow working up the side of the mountain. Then we just essentially wring out the atmosphere on already very saturated ground. So the flooding concern is there, along with the tornado risk. It places Greenwood, stretching to Athens. All of that area is going to continue to see these really incredible rainfall amounts through the morning hours as this system works through. Forty-two million people under these flood alerts,

flash flood warnings going on. There will likely be some of these rescues, Willie, happening throughout the morning hours. That is going to be our biggest concern as things improve along the coast for the state of Florida. They're still going to be really concerning across this region. Downgraded to a tropical storm, but still very dangerous. Angie Lassman. Angie, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Joe, you've been through a bunch of these things in the panhandle. Aategory four slamming into the coast is no joke. Now, category four is just next level. It really is. And we've been through one, went through one in Pensacola. Here, we were fortunate and fortunate overall that it did move toward the Big Bend area,

even though Tallahassee, which is inland, was impacted by it to the west. But, yeah, that Big Bend area, if you're looking for the less the least amount of damage and for everybody that's in Florida. Also, the least likelihood of further homeowners cancellations, which is is that insurance. Right. The insurance crisis is there and it is there because storm after storm after storm keeps going into Florida. The Big Bend area will probably rack up the least amount of damage, though, of course, the devastation for many people still really great. All right. Let's turn to politics now With less than six weeks to go until Election Day, polling from Bloomberg News and Morning Consult continues to show a tight race in every battleground state. In the latest survey, Vice President Kamala Harris holds leads within the

margin of error in every swing state but Georgia, where she and former President Donald Trump are tied in this poll. Harris leads by three points among likely voters in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin. She's also up by seven points in Nevada, by two points in North Carolina and by five points in Pennsylvania. And the one race that she's tied in, Georgia. There's the latest Fox News survey of likely voters in Georgia. That has Harris ahead of Trump by three percentage points. That, too, of course, falls within the margin of error. So if you look at all of these, all of these polls, it's a tie. And you talk to both campaigns, they will tell you it's a tie.

Gene, the Harris campaign is very interesting. They're sending out messages. You can tell the specter of the great pumpkin. 2006 continues to rise over the pumpkin patch and nobody is saying we feel good. So like, well, I don't know. I don't know. But we finally we you know, we had a long cross examination last night, Mika and I with a member. And after about 30 minutes of breaking it down, you know, a couple of drinks, they finally broke and said, OK, we feel OK. All right. But nobody's going to say that. All right. How many drinks did it take? For them, two or three and then a spotlight on top of them it was really you know chained to a chair a metal chair but that's fun there is it is please come up

have a drink with us tonight thursday night in washington but seriously they they are they are so scared because what happened in 2016 when everybody was mocking donald trump i know so you you talked to somebody in the heiress campaign and you have to go deep to find somebody who admit yeah polls are kind of breaking in our favor and here here shows again um except for one poll which i won't name um the trend lines have been been fairly positive over the past month no they've been they've been positive if you look at the trend lines, you'd rather be Kamala Harris right now than Donald Trump if you want to win this election, right? Because you look at the long-term trend line and you see that it has crept up, it has crept

up, and then she's getting awfully close to that 50%. Right. And Trump is basically steady. He basically got 45, 46%. Punto. You know, that's it. But he's overperformed his polls in some prior elections. Everybody remembers 2016.

Nobody is going to feel confident. And no one should feel confident because it's going to it's going to be a turnout election right you get if harris gets her voters to the polls they've got the machine out there to do it but if they get their voters to the polls then that's a very different story from if they don't right and and elizabeth you look at these numbers obviously in the bloomberg news morning consult poll, Paul Harris is doing well. The trend lines are very positive. You go back to before she was in the race and it was Joe Biden.

You started to see states like Minnesota, Virginia, New Hampshire suddenly get uncomfortably close. Those those races are no longer close. Trump's basically turning the town off. So it really has. For those that say, oh, it would be the same with Biden, things have dramatically shifted. A major difference. And as Jane says, the trend line is up for her consistently.

We have polling showing that she is doing better on the economy than she was even two weeks ago, that she is beginning to catch up with Trump on her perceptions of who would be better for the economy than she was even two weeks ago, that she is beginning to catch up with Trump on her perceptions of who would be better for the economy. She's out there talking about what a rich guy he is and how she's, you know, that she's a capitalist for the middle class. Her speech recently where she made clear, you know, as he is saying, I'm not a Marxist, I'm not a socialist, I'm not a communist, I'm a capitalist, trying to, you know, show

friendliness towards business. She's got a lot of these tax cuts, a lot of these plans for the young people, $25,000. I don't know where she's going to get the money for this, but she's talking about this $25,000 credit for first time homebuyers, $50,000 for startup new businesses. So she's that she's beginning to make inroads there. But I should say, yes, there's a lot of concern about these hidden Trump voters. I can tell you that there are more newly registered Republicans this cycle than there are registered Democrats, despite the stories we've been running about all the college kids signing up. And there is and Trump is doing in that group. He's doing better among among younger men of color than you would expect. Right. And and and the one thing that we have heard from the Harris campaign, even those that will be cautiously optimistic, is that Pennsylvania

is the new Ohio. Pennsylvania has had a surge in Republican registration over the past four years. So they still believe they can and will win Pennsylvania. But, you know, they feel good about Michigan. They feel good about Wisconsin. Relatively good. You know, it may be a landslide. Maybe they'll win by a full percentage point in both of those states. But in Pennsylvania, they know it's going to be a fight and it's going to be a fight because she's doing better, much better among women and most young voters. But older white men, just like people thought after Biden left the race, more of a challenge pulling them to vote against Trump again. Yeah, I mean, older white men and actually

younger white men, too, also a bit of a challenge. I mean, older white men and actually younger white men, too, also a bit of a challenge. I mean, that number they'll like a lot up past five in Pennsylvania, because you're right. It's the new Ohio. It's the new Florida. It's the state where they see they have the most problems. And of course, then either the concern or the upside, depending on how you look at this from the Harris campaign's point of view, is that Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, people think will break the same way. That's what they've done traditionally ever since 1980. I think there's one exception.

And so if they lose Pennsylvania, what would that then mean for Wisconsin and Michigan? If they win Wisconsin and Michigan, does that mean they're going to win Pennsylvania? But that's why they're putting so much resources into that. But it's men. I mean, I think the real struggle for the Harris campaign is young men, older men, men of color, white men. And they are doing all they can. You can see, I think, will the debate next week will be really interesting to see how Tim Walz reaches out to that group. Doug Emhoff, who I interviewed yesterday, I think we've got a clip of that we can have later on the program. He is making a concerted effort in his own way to reach out to that group.

They know that that's where they know that's where they have a weakness. And Sam, it's so interesting watching Trump yesterday. I don't know how long he spoke, maybe an hour. But it was hatred and vitriol toward, again, Springfield and migrants and these people who are ruining our country, doubling down on on this rhetoric, on these lies. It must be working for them. Well, they would love to talk about immigration for the rest of the election if they had their druthers. The problem they've had is that they've concocted a bunch of racist lies about Haitians and they've distracted the conversation from immigration to whether they're being truthful about immigration. That's a different conversation. But I think it's not a particularly great insight.

They've been banking on young men. They put Trump on these platforms. Most of them are not TV platforms. They're podcasts. They're YouTube videos. They want to generate more enthusiasm among young men, but also young men who have not necessarily been politically engaged before. That's a high-risk, high-reward strategy for them, right? The reason is they haven't been politically engaged, so can they activate them? I will say, we go all over these poll numbers

incessantly. You can drive yourself crazy. I think the more important numbers aren't the polls. It's around the economy. And so, when you have gas prices that are going down a little bit, when you have interest rates being cut, when you have the 30-year fixed mortgage rate that's at its lowest level in a couple of years, those are the things that are going to materially matter more in this election, I think, because it does add to the perception that the economy may be improving, which then in turn gets imparted on Kamala Harris because she is part of the administration. And I thought the most important data point and story yesterday was, in fact, from your paper, which looked at that the view of voters in terms of her ability to handle the

economy, which is usually correlated to the election. And she isn't making improvements there. She can get to a tie with Trump or even better him. I think that is way more important than any Bloomberg morning consult. You don't like Bloomberg morning. Just to circle it all here this morning, they put out the Harris people put out a fundraising email and they chose a certain poll to highlight. It was the New York Times Siena poll because they love the idea of people freaking out because then they can write checks. Let me tell you, I joke about the New York Times Siena poll, but I think I think the Democrats are actually funding the poll. Because every time one comes out, everybody for every day, we must work harder. We must spend more money. So there's been Jonathan O'Meara for some time.

The suggestion that the only way that Joe Biden before, but now Kamala Harris can get to 270 is to go through the blue wall of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. The fact is now let's put up the Bloomberg poll that Sam Stein so derisively commented about. And to show you their their their new pathway, if they do not win Pennsylvania, they feel more confident every day with North Carolina. They feel good about Georgia and they feel good about Nevada. I know that I've got to say that that Nevada plus seven sticks out like a sore thumb. That sticks out to me kind of like Wisconsin plus 14 before the 2020 race where Joe Biden was supposed to win that state. I think it was an ABC poll.

Supposed to win that state by double digits. Nobody's going to win Nevada by seven points. But still, they have several pathways to 270. And they're playing it that way. They are going to go down fighting in North Carolina and Georgia. Yeah, there's no question. There's no one involved in the Harris campaign who thinks they're up seven in Nevada. I think that people think that's a tie. Nevada is one of those states that's always razor thin. It tends to break

Democrat at the last minute. They think it will again. But certainly no one thinks it's going to be that lopsided. I think you're right about the path. They feel very good about Michigan, Wisconsin fairly well. Pennsylvania is, as you rightly have rightly said there, a source of real anxiety. Demographic trends are breaking away from Democrats in that state. There are some prominent Democratic thinkers and pollsters who think in a cycle or two, Pennsylvania might slip away like Ohio and become more of a light red state. But right now, it's a true battleground. It's going to be very close.

But they feel great about North Carolina, as we'll get to later in the show. Donald Trump was asked point blank yesterday about Mark Robinson, the controversial gubernatorial candidate there. And he chose not to disavow. He just suggested, well, I don't know enough about it and walked away. The Democrats continue to tie Robinson and Trump together. And in terms of Harris, her two biggest weaknesses heading into this election were perceived as the economy. And as you guys have just mentioned, polls show that she's really picked up steam there. That speech in Pittsburgh this week has been pointed to the Fed rate cut. Helpful gas prices lowered, people feeling better about the economy.

And the other is immigration. As we're going to talk a little bit later, she heads to Arizona today. One of those states like Georgia, a true toss up, a true toss up. And she's going to talk about she's going to the border. She's going to talk about immigration and she's going to squarely blame Donald Trump for killing the bill that would have helped. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe. Vice President Kamala Harris, as Lamir mentioned, heading to Arizona today for that major speech on immigration. We'll have a preview of what to expect.

Plus, the latest on the calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to deliver remarks at the U.N. General Assembly this morning. Also ahead, President Biden and Vice President Harris met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House yesterday. And now Donald Trump says he wants to meet with Zelensky at the White House yesterday. And now Donald Trump says he wants to meet with Zelensky, too. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. Hello, everyone. This is your favorite president, Donald J. Trump, with some very exciting news. By popular demand, I'm doing a new series of Trump digital trading cards. You all know what they are. We've had a lot of fun with them. It's called the America First Collection.

50 all new stunning digital trading cards. It's really something. These cards show me dancing and even me holding some bitcoins. We are announcing the launch of Trump coins, a true symbol of American greatness. Trump coins are designed by me and minted right here in the USA. I've seen a lot of coins out there using my very beautiful face. I'm a very beautiful guy. I'm only kidding. But they are not the official coin. RealTrumpCoins.com is the only place to get an official Trump coin.

I'm here to introduce something really special. I think you're going to love it. My new Trump watches. We're doing quite a number with watches, and the quality to me is very important. The Trump Victory Tourbillon. This isn't just any watch. It's one of the best watches made. Get your Trump watch right now.

Go to GetTrumpWatches.com. It's Trump time. I will say, Willie, this is politics just keeps moving. It just keeps slipping, slipping, slipping into the future. I will say this is my favorite use of merchandising by presidents since Gerald R. Ford sold his own personalized leather football helmets. And of course, you had Michael Dukakis in 88 with his push lawnmowers that he signed. Right, famously.

Nothing like this. Nothing like this. You know, it's getting very expensive to be a supporter of Donald Trump. You gotta get the digital NFTs. You gotta buy the sneakers. You've got to buy the Bible, of course, the Trump Bible. And now you've got to buy a watch.

I mean, this guy's really asking a lot of his people. Did you love, too, when he called himself a very beautiful man and then pretended he was kidding? You know, one of those watches is actually $100,000. $100,000? $100,000. Yeah, $100,000. $100,000? I just saw that. Yeah. That's crazy. $100,000 for that tour beyond.

A disclaimer on the website notes, the proceeds do not directly benefit Trump or his campaign. Not directly. Not directly. But that each was part of a paid licensing agreement. First goes through PayPal and then to. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Katty, do they do this in Britain? No, but, you know, our elections only cost, I think it's, I figured it out the other day.

It's about 50 million for a whole general election in the UK. So that's kind of bargain basement democracy, right? I mean, ours is cheap by comparison. It's like a state election it's not it's less it's probably one congressional race in new york or california that might win you comptroller of vermont dog walker of burlington we were taking it off as bit about what product he would hawk next yeah i think he's going to get his own version of a cyber truck and do a Trump cyber truck. I think it's going to be blue

sneakers like Sam's. He's already done sneakers. He's already done sneakers. Is that what you're wearing? Okay. Not Trump's sneaker. I was going to say, Elizabeth, there's such a disconnect between those people who are all in for Donald Trump, who sees this like Christmas morning.

The buy a watch. This is very exciting. $100,000 for a watch. Can you imagine if the Democrats were doing something like this? I mean, I saw that the Trump campaign was going after Kamala Harris's necklaces and saying how much they were costing. This is, they weren't 100, this is amazing.

But he's entertaining. Nothing matters. He's entertaining. Let's not forget. And then Kim Arbyn. More kind of seriously, I was speaking to some business people this week who are Trump-leaning. And they say, yeah, OK, well, he says all of the stuff about the immigrants. We don't like that. We don't like his character.

But, you know, things were more stable under Trump. The economy was doing better under Trump. This is not true. But that's whether it's true or not. those are the people who will turn out and vote for him. And that's why the Harris campaign, understandably, is right to be careful and cautious about the polls, because they know that there are a whole bunch of people out there who are prepared to disregard Donald Trump's rhetoric and selling watches and saying, I'm beautiful—

It's the corporate tax cuts. It's deregulation. It's deregulation and tax cuts. It's pretty simple. Aren't business people supposed to manage risk, right? The risk, the added risk is magnitudes greater than the risk. Tariffs, chaos factor, deportation of immigrants, which would rise up wage, push up wage prices. There's a whole load of reasons. But there is some feeling that they know what they had with Trump. Actually, the economy was better. And yes, he says this crazy stuff and sells watches. And that's sort of a joke. But you know what? We don't take any of that. You know, the economy wasn't better for most of those people you're talking to. They've made more money than they've ever made their life because the markets have gone crazy and they've made it passively while they're watching their stocks go up.

They always get more like the Democrats. Tens of billions of dollars. It happens time and time again when when Democrats are in the White House, the stock market goes up. And when Republicans in the White House, most of the time, there are recessions. You look at the I mean, again, this is the thing, Sam, that used to drive me crazy. Even when Trump was president, he kept saying greatest economy of all time, greatest economy of all time. I think probably the New York Times did a study postwar presidents GDP.

Right. Donald Trump pre-COVID was number seven behind Jimmy Carter. But I would be watching MSNBC. I'm just using that as the most extreme example of the people that you would be think would be least likely to repeat Donald Trump's propaganda. And the questions would start. Of course, we know this is the best economy ever. But yeah. And you said they're going, oh, my God. So propaganda has worked even in the mainstream media. Well, he's very good. Let me just say it again. Seventh best GDP post-war.

Yeah, and that's pre-COVID. Pre-COVID. Yeah. Before, I mean, even lower than Jimmy Carter. And yet, dumb people who are looking for permission structure, who are millionaires, who want corporate tax cuts and regulation relief. They're saying, oh, well, the economy was no, it wasn't better. And you talk to one economist after another economist after another economist, they will

say Donald Trump's policies will lead to massive tariffs, massive inflation, and massive debt. Well, there's a couple of things going on here. One is, for all his faults, and there are many, I think he is a legitimately good salesman for himself, right? And he went out there day in and day out prior to COVID. And he would say things like, look at this great economy I've bequeathed to you. The second thing is, to a large degree, he's managed to, or we have collectively managed to, memory hole the COVID year. It's shocking to me how much the electorate and politicians

and Trump himself have just basically been like, we don't count 2020. We just don't count it, because we had this virus, and of course, I hold no responsibility for it, when in fact, it was his management of the virus that exacerbated some of the problems. And third thing is, I think you hinted at it, is that for a lot of people, it's about tax cuts and deregulation. And all the other stuff is just sort of noise. They look at the deportation plans, which would be incredibly disruptive, putting even aside the moral and social fabrics that would be ripped apart economically, incredibly disruptive to just rip 15 to 20 million people out of this country. And they don't even factor that in because to them it's deregulation, it's tax cuts,

it's the idea that we would have someone who would be financially beneficial to them in the Oval Office. And I think that, those three things combined to create this perception of someone who would be a good manager of the economy when the data empirically shows that it's not the case. I mean, there's been report after report. There was one just yesterday showing that because of Trump's plan to put a 10 percent tariff on everything that comes into the United States, every product and the plans to deport up to 15 to 20 million, 11 million people. And plus, you know, his his desire to take more control of the Fed, that would cause inflation to rise by

nine percent to nine percent by 2026. There's numbers there that now that the economy will just say, oh, I don't believe it. And the other thing is, Democrats never talk up the economy the way Republicans do or the stock market because they're so scared. His stock market numbers every single day. And sometimes there's been times where we've seen the stock market break records under the Biden administration. You kind of think, why doesn't the White House just come out and say, look at the stock market? They don't want to talk about it. It's treated as an article of faith in Democratic circles that you cannot talk up how good things are for the fear that other people who don't feel that they are good will say you are out of touch. And maybe that's

the smart idea. Maybe it's a bad idea, but that's just an article of faith in Democrats. Well, Donald Trump has thought that's not a smart idea. Yeah, exactly. Because every day he was talking it up. And every day people would be silent. All right. New York Times, Washington Bureau Chief Elizabeth Miller. Thank you so much for being here this morning. And coming up, social media is a key part of the Harris-Waltz campaign. We're going to take a look at the strategy and why it appears to be more effective for the vice president than it was for Joe Biden. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. because people get bored but they don't get bored with me six and a half hours later lawyers and your carpenters and your electricians and your drivers and you're doing a lot of things. By the way, no beautiful, beautiful F-35 lightnings. Police is blowing up. Russia's blowing up with Ukraine. There's war starting all over the place.

Looks like bad things could happen. Eighty nine percent increase in aggravated assault. All right. That was a recent tip from the Harris campaign. Its social media operation has drawn a lot of attention for its sharp and at times risky strategy against former President Trump. The campaign's most popular TikToks have garnered 164 million views at roughly no cost. Joining us now, Bloomberg 2024 U.S. presidential election reporter Riley Ray Griffin. She is co-author of the new piece entitled How Harris's Campaign Finally Made Biden's Meme Strategy Work. And Riley, let's talk about the launching point. Three words. Explain to all of us how Kamala is brat. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's such an important question, actually, because it encapsulates this broader organic

momentum that the campaign has been able to seize that day that President Biden dropped out of the race wasn't a day that the campaign had a strategy for executing, you know, memeing Harris into the Oval. Right. Ultimately, they had to seize that organic momentum. And Charlie XCX, a British pop star, had posted Kamala is brat. And you immediately saw some of those social media accounts seize that and make it the brand because they didn't have a brand to turn to otherwise. It was incredible to watch some of these memes and these things like her mother's coconut tree, all this stuff that I think some of the Republicans thought could be used against her actually working in her favor. Yeah. Did you fall out of a coconut tree? I mean, was that something that the campaign

could see and seized upon or kind of fell into? Yeah, they've sought to take that momentum, ride the wave, but not ride it too far because nothing is more uncool than taking a meme too far. So they're jumping in, they're jumping out. They are still spending a fair amount on their digital strategy more than four times than the Trump campaign on Facebook and Google.

And part of the reason why is that TikTok meta, they are downplaying political content on their platforms. So there's an adjusting to the algorithms here. It's a new social media landscape. And you really do have to, Kat, you have to understand the social social media landscape, also pop culture. And so while we all heard, you know, Brad, Kamala's Brad, what does that mean? What does that mean? My daughter's trying to explain it immediately connected to our daughter. It didn't need to explain it immediately connected to everybody. And I will say, you look at the numbers, and Riley points this out, numbers just skyrocketed of followers. Yeah, and particularly, I mean, Riley, this is interesting. So are you getting data now on

percentages of people that are seeing the Kamala Harris's social strategy and having a kind of, how it has a positive impact on their likelihood to vote? Because the question is for young people is how many are actually going to turn out, right? 50% of people under the age of 30, I think it was, voted in 2020. They need to get those numbers higher if that's going to be a big part of their base. Do the memes just create a good vibe or do they actually translate into votes? That's the question. We'll see that on election day. I think it's a very difficult art to determine how the digital strategy translates into votes. But one thing that came out this week was Harvard's youth poll.

And actually what they found was that about the same number of young people under 30 had seen Harris memes as Trump memes. But they were playing much better among the youth when it came to Harris. Thirty four percent had said it impacted them positively versus 13% for Trump. And actually, one fourth said that it impacted them negatively to see Trump memes. Sam Stein is Brad. And he has the next question. Are you really? I don't think so.

Your kids did a poor job explaining it, I think. I honestly think that so much of this is two things. One is that Harris, even though she was VP, was really not that well known. And so when you have a new commodity come out and people are, like, introduced to that person, you instantaneously make, you know, ideas about them, you have perceptions about them, and then you meme-ify them. The other thing, though, I think kind of gets underplayed is J.D. Vance. Like, that guy came out and he's making fun of childless cat ladies. And, like, if there's anything that, you know, is perfect fodder for memes, it's cats. And so that, too,

I feel like added to this whole thing. But it is kind of interesting to watch. Maybe you could talk a bit about this. This was the, I mean, the Biden people, when it was Joe Biden, it's the same people, right? Like, it's not like she brought in these crazed internet warlords who are going to memefy her. But it was the same people. And they tried really hard to memefy Joe Biden. It just didn't work. And obviously, it's a different subject

matter you're dealing with here. He was simply less memable. There's only so many things you can aviate about. Ice cream and aviators. Are we memable, Riley? I don't know. Yes. I spent, I don't know if you'd like the memes. Oh my God.

The memes are horrible. But like past couple of years, all the young people that I spend time with, cause I have two daughters, he has four, lots of, they don't, they were so done with politics. They didn't even want to talk about it. And then Kamala Harris came on the scene. And I will tell you, I saw around my dinner table this past summer, the most engaged young people I've ever seen in politics explaining to me, Brat, the question is, again. Well, part of it is that she's not 80 years old. I mean, you know, everybody else is 80 years old, right?

So, part or J.D. Vance. She speaks in short sentences, and I've seen somewhere that that makes her that much more meaningful. It's really funny to watch all of us sit around this table. I know. Why don't we love the audience? You know, one thing,

you mentioned that this was the same team. There were about 100, 200 people that were working out of Wilmington, Delaware on this strategy. They were the same team that was then working on Harris. But one thing I want to note is that they are also taking a page out of the Republican, the Trump playbook here. They're a little grittier. They're a little edgier. They're being the disruptors. They're being the disruptors. They're posting pictures of Donald Trump looking old and tired. That's something that the Republican Party and Trump himself was doing on social media when it came to President Biden. And as we talk

about what's memeable and what's not memeable, we can just say a 59 year old woman who looks at times like a movie star on stage the way the lights hitting her hair and everything else versus donald trump a 78 year old guy who's you know an old donald trump is memeable like he says no no no i'm just saying that if you want why why younger voters might be drawn to Kamala Harris. But, you know, finally, to talk finally about there's always sort of this give and take. As you explain in the article, presidential campaigns are like the most conservative like entities ever. And you have the social media team that's constantly pushing

going for conservative we're not doing our jobs and so it is sort of that back and forth isn't it yeah it's a it's certainly a back and forth and one thing to consider too is x right now purchased by elon musk there is a different dynamic this election cycle than there was in 2020 and then in 2016. Trump advisors have said to me that Musk's purchase of Twitter has changed what they formerly saw as censorship of Republicans and that they're back in a dynamic where they can play better, where they can do more on the Internet. So a lot to see here. But there is that give and take. And both campaigns are trying to be edgy and on the attack. Bloomberg's Riley Ray Griffin, thank you very much for coming on the show.

Great. Thanks so much. And still ahead, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to deliver a speech on border security and immigration later today. We'll speak to one of the lead negotiators of the border bill that Donald Trump squashed earlier this year, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Plus, we'll have the latest on Tropical Storm Helene as it now moves through Georgia. Morning Joe will be right back. They've already clinched the postseason berth. Now trying to nail down the AL East.

And this could do it. And the Yankees win 10-1. And they clinched the American League East for the 21st time in their history. And they finished first for the 50th time since 1903. Ball game over. American League Eastern Division over. Yankees win. The Yankees win.

Everybody loves an underdog story. The New York Yankees, yeah, the Yankees, clinched the AL East title for the second time in three years with a 10-1 win over the Orioles, securing the Yankees a 10-1 win over the Orioles, securing the Yankees a first-round buy in the playoffs and home field advantage in a best-of-five AL division series starting October the 5th. A few hours later in Los Angeles, the Dodgers wrapped up the NL West for the 11th time in 12 seasons. Amazing. Clinching the division last night with a 7-2 win over the

second-place Padres, Dodgers also earn a first-round buy and will open the post last night with a 7-2 win over the second place Padres. Dodgers also earn a first round buy and will open the postseason on October 5th at home in a best-of-five NL division series. It will mark the first time Shohei Otani will compete in the playoffs. That'll be fun. All the MLB divisions now have been claimed, leaving a total of four wild cards yet to be decided. In the American League, the O's already own one spot, with the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals now tied for the final two,

the Twins and Seattle Mariners three games back with three left to play. National League wild card contenders had the night off, heading into the final weekend of the regular season. The Padres already have claimed one of those three spots. The race, though, likely now to come down as we said yesterday to Monday's double header in Atlanta between the Braves and the New York Mets so Jonathan Lemire still a whole bunch to be decided here uh be fun to have Otani in the playoffs after the season he's had still knocking on the door potentially of a 55 55 season Aaron Judge hit his 58th home run by the the way, he goes up on Saturday,

the Yankees do, against Paul Skeens, the rookie phenom pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Yeah, Skeens, one of the best stories of the season. Judge homeward five straight games now, still has a shot at 60, doing it again. We'll see what happens there this weekend. But of course, the main focus will be on the wildcard races. And certainly in the American League, Tigers and Royals do have an advantage, two-game lead with just three, three-game lead with just three to play. So they're looking good there. Nationally wide open. And I know we're all looking at that Monday doubleheader between the Braves and Mets is what could likely decide that spot. There is a chance, though, that that drama may go away. Mets have a

one-game lead and they play the Brewers this weekend. The Brewers have nothing to play for. Meanwhile, the Braves are playing those Royals, who are still battling for a wildcard spot. So it's possible if the Mets can build up a couple-game lead here, Monday will be irrelevant, or maybe they'll have a chance to just win one of those games. We shall see. But it's going to be such a final, fun weekend, and I cannot wait for the playoffs next week, including Otani making his debut. Yeah, it does feel wide open. A lot of good teams, a lot of teams that aren't always there having good seasons should be a lot of fun. Coming up here, we'll be joined in studio by NATO's secretary general as he prepares to step down next week. Morning Joe coming right back.