Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/3/24

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Polls show a changed, close 2024 race heading into Labor Day

Remember, as president, Donald Trump blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers. He opposed efforts to raise the minimum wage. As the president said, he appointed union busters to the National Labor Relations Board. And don't forget, he supported so-called right-to-work laws. I remember a time when Republicans talked about things like freedom. They meant it. They would never turn their back on our allies. But that's not these guys.

Trump and Vance, when they talk about freedom, means government should have the freedom to invade every corner of our life. They talk about small government, small enough to be in your bedroom, small enough to be in your exam room, small enough to be in your library, telling you the things that you should make decisions about. The Harris-Wallace campaign spent the Labor Day holiday speaking to union workers in battleground states. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance took the day off from the campaign trail as we are now just a little over two months away from Election Day. Good morning and welcome

to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, September 3rd, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. Special Correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kay, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and associate editor at The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, and President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass. He's the author of the weekly newsletter, Home and Away, available on Substack. And usually, isn't the day after Labor Day before an election when it really kind of takes off. Yeah, this is it. This is considered to be the start of the campaign, Willie. And things are lining up. Interestingly, we're going to be showing some polling numbers in a minute just to set things up. But, you know, I will I will say the numbers have shifted

dramatically. And in the shifts, I saw one number this weekend over the weekend that showed that women now 45 and under see abortion as the top campaign issue, the top political issue in America over the economy. Trump, you know, saying he's going to be a pro-choice advocate, in effect, using pro-choice advocates words saying, I'm going to be a great champion for reproductive rights. And then he changes when he gets chastened. Then he changes back, says he's going to be against Florida's six week abortion ban. I mean, just all over the place right now, because the numbers certainly aren't going in his direction. And he understands, as he's always understood, that the position that he's responsible for, the terminating of Roe v. Wade, as he said, it is very unpopular going into these final two months of the campaign. Yeah. And he's really known that since Dobbs came down. Let's be honest. Remember after the disastrous midterm elections for Republicans where there was supposed to be a red wave in 2022 and there wasn't, he said outwardly it was the abortion issue. We talked

too much about abortion despite the fact that he appointed the three Supreme Court justices who got rid of Roe. So obviously he knows. And you can tell by his flailing of just in the last few days on the question of when an abortion ban in Florida should start. Six weeks is where it is now. There's that new measure, Amendment 4, on the ballot this November. He's been all over the place on that the last couple of days. But you're right. We've turned the corner. This is the home stretch about two months until Election Day, one week until that huge debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. And as you wake up to the end of summer, here's where the race stands. It's close. It's going to be close. A new poll finding no real big bounce in support for Vice President

Harris coming out of the Democratic National Convention a couple of weeks ago. The latest ABC News Ipsos poll finds the race essentially the same now as it was before the DNC, with Harris up 52 to 46. That's among likely voters. When it comes to attributes, 46 percent of those polled see Harris favorably as a person versus 43 percent who have an unfavorable impression of her. Thirty three percent see Donald Trump favorably, 33 versus 58 percent who have an unfavorable impression of Donald Trump. Fifty three percent of the people in this poll view Harris as qualified to be president compared to 47 percent for Trump. Meanwhile, the gender gap has widened. Vice President Harris now leads by 13 points among women. That's up from six points pre-convention. Donald Trump is up five among men, 54 to 41

for an 18 point gap there, Joe. So again, maybe not a big bounce coming out of the convention that some people in the Democratic Party had hoped for. But when you look at the before and after, meaning with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket and now with Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket, there is a remarkable change. Yeah, there is a remarkable change. And you look at the characteristics, all the things that Donald Trump was ahead of before Harris got in the race. He's now behind. And I think the most striking thing, Mika, that when you're looking and people are trying to sort through this race and what direction it's going, you just look at the favorable, unfavorable. Donald Trump way up upside down by, you know, close to 20 points in the in the 30s for for likable.

And then you have Kamala Harris actually upside. I think it's like 46, 43. That is a huge gap. And the Trump campaign has said and if you see some of just the absolute crazed behavior and it's just it's really it's really almost too much to get your arms around. And I understand that's the idea of it, that they're so the claims are so outrageous. They're there. They're so disconnected from the truth. Trump moving all over the place on issues from abortion to immigration, now saying we need more immigrants in the United States. All of this stuff, the crazy stuff at Arlington.

They're just they're absolutely desperate. And the campaign has said internally they know they can never bring down. They can't make people like Donald Trump. Right. So their goal is to make people hate Kamala Harris. Yes. And that's where we are. As and if they can't get Americans to hate Kamala Harris, then they understand she will win. So you mentioned flip flopping on one of many issues, but one of them was reproductive rights. And the former president continues to struggle on the issue with a series of flip-flops. Evangelicals have supported him in part because of his strong pro-life stances.

But he undercut that support last month in a social media post claiming he would be he would, quote, be great for women and their reproductive rights. Days later, in an interview with NBC News, he was pressed about Florida's six week abortion ban. Well, I think the six week is too short. It has to be more time. And so that's and I've told them that I want more weeks. So you'll vote in favor of the amendment? I'm voting that I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks. So you'll vote in favor of the amendment? I'm voting that I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks. The Republican presidential nominee has now come out against the Florida ballot measure that would extend the time women in the state have to get an abortion. Conservative backlash to his earlier comments was swift, with some on the right warning

Trump was risking losing a key block of anti-abortion voters. He attempted then to clean up his comments on Friday. Watch. Are you voting yes or no on Amendment 4 in Florida? So I think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks. I've disagreed with that right from the early primaries when I heard about it. I disagreed with it. At the same time, the Democrats are radical because

the nine months is just a ridiculous situation where you can do an abortion in the ninth month. And, you know, some of the states like Minnesota and other states have it where you could actually execute the baby after birth. And all of that stuff is unacceptable. So I'll be voting no for that reason. OK, that was just a ridiculous lie. The Harris campaign issued a statement following Trump's latest comments. Quote, Donald Trump just made his position on abortion very clear. He will vote to uphold an abortion ban. So it's so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant.

Jonathan Lemire, there are many, many, many different angles we could take on this. The nine month lie is one that we've seen pervade the Republican Party since the onset of the campaign. It is a complete lie, although it is taken by many Republican followers and MAGA voters whole cloth. Just take it. They think it actually happens because it's said enough and it's echoed enough on different right-wing networks. It's not corrected. The bigger issue is that all of his different answers is what Trump does. It confuses people. Nobody really knows where he stands. And ultimately, nothing matters. It's a bigger part of, some would say, some dangerous trends toward fascism in this country. But for this election, could the lies work?

Yeah, it's certainly more of the firehood of falsehood strategy we've seen from Trump for a number of years now. But it's also reflective of how his campaign is, frankly, panicking about the abortion issue. You know, I have talked to those in Trump world who have said the former president himself has acknowledged privately that he thinks abortion could be the biggest problem his campaign faces this November. We know that though publicly he's tried to downplay it privately, advisors are worried about where this stands. Hence the remarkable flip flops in the last week about Trump here as he's trying to be pinned down about where he stands with this Florida abortion regulation. And, you know, Vice President Harris received some criticism last week after that CNN interview

saying she had changed her position on a few things. There were slight modulations, but Trump deserves that sort of scrutiny times 10 for how he seems to flip-flop on things like this abortion seemingly every day, depending who he's talking to, depending on the latest poll he has seen. And on polls that we should note, it seems like Harris got her convention bounce pre-convention because Democrats were so excited about the change in the ticket. That's when the burst of energy came. And, Katty, we are seeing, though, a few other polls have shown little upticks for her ever since. And also, that 52-46, that's outside the margin of error. We haven't been able to say that a lot, this campaign. Because the race is so tight, it does seem like,

though close, Harris has momentum. And the abortion issue is a big part of it. I love the idea of a pre-convention bounce. That's what we should all be looking for in future. Perhaps we have a pre-show round of applause as well. Look, I think, you know, some of the Democrats that I've spoken to over the course of this weekend have expressed concern that the polls have not gone as far ahead for Harris as they might have expected, given the enormous amount of fundraising, that huge burst of enthusiasm in August, and a very successful convention. And they had hoped that she would be perhaps more convincingly ahead, particularly in the

swing states. Now, if you have to think that because of the Republicans electoral majority, she needs to be six points ahead in terms of the popular vote nationally. She's just about there. So now all the focus is going to be on those swing states. Abortion being a main issue for women coming up ahead of immigration and the economy is incredibly important. Women decide elections in America. They vote in bigger numbers in America. But if it's also going to be an election it did over the course of this weekend in Pittsburgh, that they go into this as the underdogs. That's called murder. That's not happening. And also, as you know, and you've said many times, abortions that happen after 21 weeks or 24 weeks are extremely rare. Women don't want to have an abortion at that point. It means something medically is wrong

and they have to have an abortion. That's not an elective thing that women do casually. And John makes an important point, which is the entire argument the Trump campaign is making about Kamala Harris is that she has no core. She stands for nothing. She said one thing in 2019, and now she's saying something different to be elected. We'll watch Donald Trump in the last week, just twisting in the wind on this question of abortion. Everything that they accuse her of, he is 100 times over. The balance just bounces right back on him. We're going to come back to politics in just a moment. We want to move now to the tragic

developments in the Middle East, where on Saturday, the Israeli Defense Forces found the bodies of six hostages inside a tunnel under the Gazan city of Rafah. Among them, 23-year-old American Israeli Hirsch Goldberg, Poland. All six hostages were captured by Hamas on October 7th, five from the Supernova Music Festival and one from a kibbutz in southern Israel. A forensic examination found that all six hostages were shot and killed at close range. A spokesperson from Israel's health ministry says they were murdered Thursday or Friday. Their bodies were found less than a mile from the tunnel where a 52-year-old Israeli hostage was rescued last week. Hamas claims the hostages were killed by IDF fire, a claim Israel's military says is false and that there was no exchange of fire in the tunnel upon rescue.

President Biden and Vice President Harris both spoke separately with the parents of Hersh Goldberg Poland on Sunday. Biden said, Hirsch's parents, John and Rachel, quote, have been relentless and irrepressible champions of their son and of all of the hostages held in unconscionable conditions. I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express. Hirsch was laid to rest in Jerusalem yesterday. Hundreds joined in the procession and thousands packed the streets to mourn and show support to the hostages remaining in captivity. Later in the day, Hirsch's parents delivered heart wrenching eulogies in memory of their son. The most common word that I've received from people, thousands of messages is Sliha. I'm sorry. Hirsch, we failed you. We all failed you.

You would not have failed you. You would have pushed harder for justice. You would have worked to understand the other, to bridge differences. You would have challenged more people to challenge their own thinking. And what you would be pushing for now is to ensure that your death, the deaths of all the soldiers, and so many innocent civilians are not Meshav, not in vain. How do we live the rest of our life without you?

I pray that your death will be a turning point in this horrible situation in which we are all entangled. I take such comfort knowing you were with Carmel, Ori, Eden, Elmog, and Alex. From what I have been told, they each were delightful in very different ways and I think that is how the six of you managed to stay alive in unimaginable circumstances for so very long. You each and every single one of you did every single thing right to survive 329 days in what I'm pretty sure can only be described as hell. I send each of the families my deepest sympathies for what we are all going through and for the sickening feeling that we all could not save them. Okay sweet boy, go now on your journey. I hope it's as good as the trips you dreamed

about because finally, my sweet boy, finally, boy finally finally finally finally you're free i will love you and i will miss you every single day for the rest of my life but you're right here i know you're right here i just have to teach myself how to feel you in a different way. And, Hirsch, there's one last thing I need you to do for us. Now I need you to help us stay strong. And I need you to help us survive. The news of the killings has led to renewed criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked by reporters yesterday whether Netanyahu is doing enough to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal, President Biden answered no. Just last week, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel's

defense minister slammed Netanyahu over his handling of the situation, saying the prime minister's decisions could, quote, kill all the hostages. The editorial board of the Israeli publication Haaretz is out with a new piece entitled The Israeli Public's Moment of Truth. The board writes in part this. It was Hamas terrorists who pulled the trigger, but it was Netanyahu who sealed their fate. The prime minister likes to think of himself as Mr. Security, but he will go down in history as Mr. Death and Mr. Abandonment, written in the hostages' blood. Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who once again proved himself to be the only man in the security cabinet where there are no men, warned that this decision meant burying the deal wanted to stop the defense minister from being fired,

it succeeded. And this time, too, had the public wanted a deal to happen, there would have been a deal. For this reason, the public must now take to the streets en masse. It must call. It must answer the calls of the hostage families to shake up the country immediately. Time is running out. If there isn't a deal now, they will all die. You know, yesterday we heard some people on the far right, both in Israel and America, being critical of Joe Biden for saying what the world has been saying, for what Netanyahu's own cabinet has been saying, his defense ministers, his intel ministers, that he was not doing enough. Netanyahu is, as you remember, if you watch this show, if you remember, Netanyahu is the same person claiming this holy war against Hamas, who knew Hamas was a terrorist group in 2018, along with Donald Trump. Knew about their secret funding, did nothing about it. Three weeks before October the 7th, Qatar was asked by Netanyahu and his government to continue funding Hamas. It was Benjamin Netanyahu and his government and security forces who left the borders open for the October the 7th slaughter. Was Benjamin Netanyahu in charge when there were.

Bands of terrorists that went through the country, savagely killing people, some having to wait 12, 13 hours. Is it still too soon to talk about that? For help. And they still, Netanyahu and his cabinet still won't explain why he is the man who funded Hamas. That right there, that's the man who funded Hamas. People talk about Qatar. People talk about Iran. It was Netanyahu that kept pushing Qatar to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in propping up Hamas. It was Benjamin Netanyahu that knew about Hamas's plan a year, a year before the attack came. It was Benjamin Netanyahu who enabled and funded Hamas for years. And now he is using that war to stay in power, to avoid prison, and risking a regional war every single day. This crisis

was brought to you by Netanyahu's horrific leadership. And he knows when he leaves, he will be remembered as the worst prime minister in Israeli history. So that's why he doesn't want the war to end. If you don't understand, I promise you, it takes 10 minutes of searching on your Google machine. It takes 10 minutes to understand Netanyahu funded Hamas. He kept the money going. He enabled them. He strengthened them. Also, he could terrorize the West Bank with illegal settlements. Also, he could kill a two state solution. Hamas are terrorists. We've always said they're bloodthirsty, horrific terrorists. But as Harat said, it is Netanyahu who enabled them.

And Richard Haass, when you have Netanyahu's defense minister saying before the killings to Netanyahu in the cabinet meeting. When the world is saying, do the ceasefire deal, when the hostage families are doing the ceasefire deal, when his intel community is saying, do the ceasefire deal, when his defense minister is saying the ceasefire deal and he refuses to do the ceasefire deal, when his defense minister is saying the ceasefire deal and he refuses to do the ceasefire deal. It is it is Netanyahu who refused to do that. So what Joe Biden said yesterday with a no, a gentle no, that that's far, far less than what those closest to Netanyahu said, which was, you are going to have the hostages killed. And Netanyahu, head down, move forward, understanding what everybody understands, that the second this war is over,

his government collapses and there's a chance he goes to jail. Israel on this issue, Joe, is extraordinarily divided. The most recent polls show the country almost evenly split. And Bibi Netanyahu is not going to agree to this deal because, you know, for the reasons you say, his government would come down. The investigations on October 7th would would commence. And more broadly, it would start a large debate about what comes after in Gaza. What do you do about Palestinians in the West Bank? And again, his government wants no part of it. So you have a bizarre situation here diplomatically. I'll talk about

the diplomacy simply because the personal side of this is just so painful. It was so real and raw what we heard at the funeral. But you've got two parties here, the Israeli government and Hamas, neither of whom wants a deal. And you have the United States almost trying to make up for what the two parties lack with its own efforts. And that never works in diplomacy. It just never, ever works. So I think, you know, what we're facing is what we've talked about on this show now almost for a year, that this goes on. This is now a grind. And, you know, this will just continue in Gaza. And what we've seen over the last few weeks is if this were not bad enough, as we're seeing essentially a new front open up between Israelis and Palestinians

on the West Bank, the West Bank is beginning to look a little bit like Gaza. Yes, it is. And calculated. Richard, explain that's calculated. It has been calculated when people say, why didn't Netanyahu like urge Qatar to fund Hamas in Gaza? Because he wanted to keep Gaza over there. And because extremists now run his government, right wing religious extremists run his government. It's important for them that he goes in and does whatever he can to disrupt the West Bank, because he understands with one illegal settlement after another, with mobs running wild on the West Bank, the lawlessness going across the West Bank. He understands that kills a two state solution. This is all. And this is what Israelis understand. This is what Americans need to understand. This is all calculated. It's always been calculated to play to the hard right religious extremists in Israel

to go in and declare war against the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank while funding, again, please, let's all remember, Netanyahu is the man who funded Hamas through Qatar. This is as simple as divide and conquer. The Israeli government looked the other way at funding for Hamas because they whatsoever to grow up that would potentially cause Palestinians to rally around a diplomatic or political path that would create pressures for a Palestinian state, the end of settlements, what have you. So that's why the Israeli government essentially allowed Hamas to thrive in Gaza. Meanwhile, they're allowing settlements to continue on a grand scale. Nearly half a million Israelis live in settlements now in the West Bank. They simply

don't want this process, if you will, to gain any momentum politically. So I think what they prefer is to keep this in both Gaza and the West Bank as a security issue. Fundamental difference, an open-ended security issue. The only relationship Israelis want to have with Palestinians is a security issue rather than a political or diplomatic issue. It's true of Gaza and it's true now of the West Bank. And what worries me, you've got nearly close to three million Palestinians in the West Bank, close to just over two million in Gaza. And what we're looking then potentially is an open ended military relationship in both of these venues, which is terrible for Palestinians and I would argue terrible for Israel as well and consequential for the United States. So against this backdrop, hundreds of thousands of Israelis participated in mass protests over

the weekend over the news of the deaths of those six hostages. Let's bring in NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley live from Tel Aviv. Matt, what are you seeing there today? Yeah, well, these protests, they're about to be starting in a couple of hours right here from where I am. This place has been christened, rechristened Hostage Square. And I was here two nights ago, a little bit after the news came out of those six hostages whose corpses were found dead in the Gaza Strip, those six young people. That is what has inspired such a new wave of anger that is just rolling across the country.

And it was starting here where I saw six mock coffins that were being carried from here all the way down to what is essentially Israel's answer to the Pentagon. And that was where we saw really hundreds of thousands of people screaming really against Benjamin Netanyahu. Of course, they're blaming Hamas, as we've heard. But the anger against Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, is so much stronger today than I've ever seen it before. And last year, I was here even before October 7th covering those judicial reform bills that Netanyahu was trying to railroad into the government. He eventually yielded on them. But you know, this is a man who is used to not being loved by his public. He stays in power because of the divisions that are really deep in Israeli

society and that have been cleaved open once again by the conversation around these hostages. And that is the issue here. Whether or not to defeat Hamas totally or whether or not to free the hostages. And it looks as though, once again, Benjamin Netanyahu is siding with this commitment to completely destroy Hamas, even if it means surrendering the lives of those hostages. That's not me saying that. We've heard that, as you mentioned, from Defense Minister Yoav Galant. He said this repeatedly in more than one cabinet meeting that we've heard about in the Israeli media that have come to yelling, to shouting matches, where he's accused the prime minister of leaving the hostages to die. But this is,

you know, we're about to see another full third day of rage here in Israel. The intention here is to essentially bring this country to a standstill, to arrest everything and get everyone to push Netanyahu to accede to some of these concessions on releasing these hostages. Now, amidst all of this furor, all of this rage and grief that we heard yesterday, including from those funerals of the hostages, including from Hersh Goldberg Poland's funeral. You know, that was just a gut-wrenching eulogy from his mother and his father, still punctuated by politics. But amidst all this, we heard from Benjamin Netanyahu last night. He came out and he started his address to the nation with a very poignant, almost apologetic statement where he said he was asking for apologies from the hostages' families.

But then immediately he pivoted into what became a lesson in geo-strategy. He even had props. He had a map where he showed why his main demand, and this is the thing that has held up these negotiations so much over the past month, is that the Israeli forces, the IDF, remain in a corridor called the Philadelphia Corridor. That's just another name for the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt-Sinai Peninsula. That, and then it's Sarim Corridor, which is a bisecting kind of avenue through the middle of the Gaza Strip, separating north from south. This is a new demand. And though he said last night at length that this was not a new demand,

and he went into a bit of a history lesson about how he has tried to press for Israeli presence on the Philadelphia corridor before under previous prime ministers, this was another lecture to the Israeli public, a public that is very much in mourning, one that wants to see his back, not just see him concede on these concessions, on these negotiations, but one that wants to see his back, not just see him concede on these on these concessions, on these negotiations, but one that wants to see him leaving office. That is what I heard over and over again from these protesters by their hundreds of thousands in the streets and what we're going to be hearing again tonight. And guys, I think for the rest of the week, the anger here is implacable. NBC's Matt Bradley live from Tel Aviv. Matt, thanks so much for laying that out. We appreciate

it. So, Gene Robinson, we heard yesterday from President Biden. He said he believes that they are close to some kind of a deal. We've heard that before over these last several months, many times. He said it's a take it or leave it deal for both Hamas and Israel. Unclear what either side is willing to concede here. But we've had these sort of glimmers of hopes. We've had this diplomacy where you've had American diplomats, including the secretary of state, going to try to broker this deal to no avail. So we're not sure exactly what optimism the president sees other than just trying to express something in this moment. Yeah, I'm not sure either, because

the negotiators do get close to a deal and then the goalposts get moved. And this time, it's clearly Netanyahu who has moved the goalposts with a demand that is unacceptable. The control of that corridor between Gaza and Egypt, it's unacceptable to Gaza, to Hamas, excuse me, that Israel control that corridor. But more important, it's unacceptable to Egypt. Egypt, that's a non-starter for Egypt. So, again, he doesn't want the war to end. And Richard Haass, here's my question. If you look at the long career of Benjamin Netanyahu, he's been prime minister for many years, the longest serving Israeli prime minister, I believe, in the nation's history. Has his policy been, can we say his policy is from the river to the sea? Has he not hollowed out the West Bank in a way that makes a two-state solution, even if everyone decided tomorrow that, yeah, that's the way to go? Hasn't he made that almost impossible?

Hasn't he set Israel on a very different course from that which its founders wished. Of course, they wanted a Jewish democracy in the Middle East. How does Israel remain a Jewish democracy under a one-state solution that absorbs somehow or encompasses five million dispossessed Palestinians. Gene, you put a lot on the table there. You know, it's hard when you speak of Bibi Netanyahu to speak about a consistent, sustained policy. He's an opportunist, and it's one of the reasons he survived politically as long as he has. Yes, he has allowed settlements to grow dramatically. He's not participated in diplomacy. I think there are people around him in his government, and that's what's so stunning, who do believe in an Israel that goes from the river

to the sea. With Bibi Netanyahu, it's hard to know what he believes in, but he's clearly supporting or allowing or tolerating policies that will make it extraordinarily difficult to resurrect diplomacy. The fact that you don't have a partner on the other side, either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, makes a bad situation that much worse. So what Bibi Netanyahu has allowed essentially is drift. Excuse me. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing the consequences of decades of drift. We're seeing it what's happened in Gaza. We're seeing it in the West Bank. And yes, ultimately, I'm not sure you have a one state solution. You may have a one state non-solution, not anything that's formally codified. Just that is a version of what you see today, though the territorial division will continue to

evolve. And yes, it does raise fundamental questions about whether Israel will remain a Jewish democracy. And at some point you got to choose. And Bibi wants to put off that choice. And I think it has real consequences, among other things, in Britain point, you've got to choose. And Bibi wants to put off that choice. And I think it has real consequences, among other things, in Britain, where you've seen the partial arms cut off, and here. It has real consequences not just for Israel, but for its support in the world. Will people continue to be so sympathetic to an Israel that remains an open-ended occupation of these two pieces of land and five million Palestinians? I am not so sure, but that's what increasingly is on the table. And to this point, the White House and we heard from Vice President Harris specifically say they're committed to Israel's ability to defend itself to its

security. But obviously, Netanyahu has been a thorn in President Biden's side and a real obstacle to this deal being done. And we heard from the president and the White House suggesting that a take it or leave it type agreement could be put on the table in days ahead. I think there's skepticism that that's actually the case. It's not like the White House is going to walk away from this

in the months ahead if a deal isn't done this week. It's a hardball tactic. It's an effort to try to pressure Netanyahu to get an agreement done, Joe Mika. But the president's optimism does seem just sort of a note of tempted reassurance to some of the families. There's not a real sense that people that I've talked to that a deal is close to the deal is on the horizon. And certainly that just adds to the

anguish of what we have seen from the family members, including those heartbroken moments from the funeral over the weekend, Joe Mika. Well, and there's been there's been extraordinary frustration from the president, from the administration for six months now, because they have understood that they not only had to to to to work with Benjamin Netanyahu, but they had to work with Benjamin Netanyahu in trying to secure a ceasefire when Benjamin Netanyahu's goals were the same goals diplomatically as Hamas's, and that is to kill any peace deal. Richard Haass talks about a decade of drift that's led to the current state. It's always important to remember that drift has been calculated. He funded Hamas. Netanyahu did.

He and Donald Trump knew where the funding was coming from, the illicit funding in 2018. They let it continue. Donald Trump refused to do anything about it. Netanyahu refused to do anything about it. Netanyahu refused to do anything about it. They continued that funding of Hamas three weeks before October 7th and the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Benjamin Netanyahu sent his Mossad leader to Qatar and said, fund Hamas, keep funding Hamas. And the reasons were very clear. Hamas didn't want a two-state solution. Benjamin Netanyahu didn't want a two-state solution. And his, power base, which now has gone far right. Uh, they didn't want a two state solution. Their enemy and their mind was the West bank because the West bank posed the greatest threat

for a two state solution, dealing with the Palestinian authority, a younger Palestinian authority that would have led to a two-state solution. So you're going to be lied to today. You're going to be lied to by a lot of people today. You're going to be lied to by a lot of Americans today that are on certain cable news channels that are going to be filling up social media. They're going to lie to you. And they're going to tell you that you have to support

Benjamin Netanyahu. And this is the pro-Israel position. I've been pro-Israeli before a lot of these yahoos were even born. And I will remain pro-Israeli. But understand, understand Benjamin Netanyahu's own defense ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu's own intel ministers all the hostages if he continued down this path, as we saw in that Israeli newspaper, but also because his goal of, quote, destroying Hamas was an unachievable goal. That Hamas could be kept out of power in Gaza. And by the way, that's just a bottom line for anybody. Hamas can never, ever, ever run anything again. They need to constantly be on the run. And everybody in the cabinet agrees with that.

But they also said, you've reached the end, Netanyahu. Now bring the hostages home. And when he refused, Mika, when he didn't listen to his defense ministers, when he didn't listen to his intel community, we saw what happened this weekend. And unfortunately, this is what Israel faces for as long as Netanyahu clings to power at all costs. Richard Haass, thank you very much for being on this morning and still ahead on Morning Joe. President Biden joins Vice President Kamala Harris on the campaign trail for the first time since exiting the 2024 race. What he had to say from battleground Pennsylvania. Plus, former President Trump claims he had every right to interfere with the 2020 election. Confession. There he goes again. There's his confession. We'll play those new remarks for you. What is this, Perry Mason?

The Harris campaign is saying in response. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. about like nine different things and they all come back brilliantly together. And it's like, and friends of mine that are like English professors, they say, it's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen. But the fake news, you know what they say? He rambled. That's not rambling. When you have, what you do is you get off a subject to mention another little tidbit,

then you get back onto the subject and you go through this and you do it for two hours. And you don't even mispronounce one word. That is Donald Trump telling a crowd in Pennsylvania the other day. Rambling. Rambling incoherently. Actually, part of a brilliant strategy he calls the weave, Joe. I like how he sort of, he lays it out like it's from a beautiful mind.

Like he's seeing things the rest of us don't see and all the pieces of the puzzle are moving together. And I also love the idea that he famously surrounds himself with English professors from our finest institutions.

Well, I mean, it only makes sense because after all, his great, great uncle went to MIT. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like when I'm walking down to the street, you know, in New York. I'm actually walking down 6th Avenue and I trip and fall and hit my head. And I get up and go, I meant to do that.

I meant to do that. I didn't mean to do that. I just tripped and fell. It also gets to the truth, Jonathan, that everything is in his head. He hears all the criticism. He hears that he's rambling too much. So he projects and gets at it right away and tries to explain it away to a crowd who doesn't know what he's talking about.

He has to respond to everything that is written or said about him. He's undoubtedly watching right now, angry that we're talking about the weave. And he had been recent weeks with President Biden, with President Biden dropping out of the race. The focus was suddenly squarely on Donald Trump's age, Donald Trump's gaffes, his misstatements and rambling in these rallies. So, of course, he has to hit back and invent something known as the weave to justify what he's done, almost selling it like a standup comedian who has a multi-part act, who brings home the punchline via three jokes later, referring to an old one, that callback.

That's what Trump claims he's doing here. You know, I hate to do this because Jonathan is one of the great White House reporters of our time. I mean, you look at what he had Nancy Pelosi say, what he had Vladimir Putin say. Well, he probably should never go actually east of Warsaw. But I will say Donald Trump doesn't hate that we're talking about the weave because it, of course, underlines his theory that everything is is together. It's again, it's like the beautiful mind, everything swirling around. And yeah, I know it works. It works for the words are lifting off the newspapers and he's seeing how they connect.

He's got a sir. He's got it all. He didn't. He did not include a sir. Yeah, that was surprising. Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, Hannibal Lecter and those English professors. Meanwhile, Donald Trump says, how about this, more seriously, he had, quote, every right to interfere in the 2020 election. He made the statement during an interview that aired Sunday night on Fox News

while claiming the dozens of criminal charges he faces connected to the indictments actually helped to boost his poll numbers. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it, you get indicted and your poll numbers go up. When people get indicted, your poll numbers go up. When people get indicted, your poll numbers go down. But it was such it's such nonsense. Just straight up confession there. He had every right to interfere in the 2020 election. The Harris-Waltz campaign issued a statement about Trump's claim.

They're writing everything Donald Trump has promised on the campaign trail from terminating the Constitution to imprisoning his political opponents and promising to rule as a dictator on day one makes it clear he believes he is above the law. Now, Trump is claiming he had every right to interfere in the 2020 election. He did not caddy and quote from the Harris campaign there. No, sometimes Donald Trump is is wonderfully transparent and tells it just like it is. I'm still waiting for the name of that English professor. I would just like to know who it is, that specific English professor who tells him that he's doing so well. He's in a moment where clearly he still has not figured out after five weeks, six weeks of Kamala Harris being the Democratic nominee, how to take her on. And I think when we see him throwing out twists in his abortion line, in his immigration line,

it is a reflection. Donald Trump is transparent. And when he does things like that, I think it reflects how he is trying to find something. He's trying to find some form of attack against the words that he's come up with, haven't done it. His campaign, let's say, when I talk to them, September is going to be the month you're going to see a whole string of very aggressive ads hitting her as being socialist, as being the kind of person who is too extreme for Americans to vote for. But so far, everything they have tried to level at her has not stopped her edging up and catching him up in the polls and surpassing her in some polls. Him in some polls. Joe, do you

remember when we were going to see a more disciplined Donald Trump? Yeah. When you remember that it was like three weeks ago or something. He was he was going to stick to the issues. He would stick to the economy and national security and try to, you know, and that way he was going to he was going to win. And all of a sudden, I you know, that's a very, very distant memory now. He is so all over the map every time he opens his mouth. And it's right. He's trying to find something, throw something against the wall that will stick to Kamala Harris. And he's and he's trying to to get on top of the news cycle again because she has been smoking him. She has been getting bigger headlines and bigger crowds and bigger money. And it just drives him crazy. Well, what's so sad is there are actually commentators out there.

There are people in the mainstream media who suggest that this, you know, switching on abortion, switching on immigration, the thug, the thuggishness at Arlington is all part of some grand 3D chess that Donald Trump is playing. And it's nothing but they're just it's pathetic apologists, even in the mainstream media for Donald Trump. And the fact is that everything they're doing is not working. They're saying Kamala Harris, the first attack was Kamala Harris is a left-wing socialist, right? Now they're attacking her for being moderate. Oh, she's changing all of her positions. She's now a moderate. We can't allow her to be a moderate as they're announcing to voters that she's a moderate. And then that leads them to the flip- attack. And then you're right, Gene, this discipline, this new Trump, he goes out and he says that he's going to be the biggest champion of women's reproductive rights. He undercuts the Florida six week abortion ban, says he's voting against it.

He says he's voting for the legalization of marijuana in Florida. Right. And then he says, we need more immigrants. We need more immigrants because AI and all this stuff, you know, so they're the flip flop attack. How exactly do you accuse Kamala Harris in an effective way in a campaign of flip-flopping, Gene, when Donald Trump has flip-flopped on conservatives, so-called conservatives, they're not conservatives, on right-wing Trumpers, their two top issues, abortion and immigration. He's flip-flopped on both of them. Yeah. And now he's flip-ping in the same sentence. Right. You know, entirely different positions on abortion in the same sentence. So he says, oh, six weeks is that's that's not enough. It's got to be more weeks. But I'm voting against the measure that would get rid of the six weeks of abortion ban in Florida in the same sentence. It's one thing if you say one thing one day and a different thing the next day. You can't really get away with that, but you certainly can't get

away with changing a fundamental position in the same sentence. And just for the record, by the way, his ridiculous claims about Democrats supporting infanticide and that that's what the Florida referendum would do. The referendum, if you read it, specifically protects abortion rights until the point of viability. It's not, you know, nine months and beyond. It's just a lie. It's just lies and lies and lies as if no one will ever call him. Well, on certain networks and websites and you will not hear the lies. You will not hear that it's a lie. And of course, this all comes from a man who is the reason Roe was overturned. He takes credit for that. And that has made life for women in the United States less healthy and for some women a living hell.

Well, thank you. The thing is, the thing is, though, when you're running. You if you have a position, you embrace that position when you start running away from it and then running back to it and running away from it, you cause more concern. And Willie brought this up before, Mika. The pro-life community has supported Donald Trump. And then after 22, he blamed the pro-life community for the 2022 losses. He said the overturning of Roe was stupid, that it was bad politically. And now he's going back and forth. So if there were somebody that said, you know what, I don't like Donald Trump. He's an evangelical. He's un-Christlike. He's really terrible to people all around him. If that's what they're saying, but I'll vote for him because of abortion. And then he does what he's doing now. You know, you freeze some of those people who do what some people I know in 2020 did.

They just stayed home or they wrote in somebody else. Gene, thank you very much for being on this morning and coming up on Morning Joe. From a statement win for the Georgia Bulldogs to USC's upset over LSU and the start of the post-Saven era at Alabama. Paul Feinbaum and Pablo Torre will join us with their first impressions from week one of the college football season. That is next on Morning Joe. We're back in two minutes. Beautiful shot of New York City a few minutes before the top of the hour. Fall is here. Come on. Let's take a look at some of the other stories. Are you happy when it's fall or you kind of get a little sad when it's fall?

I'm sad happy. Sad happy. Yeah, I'm excited about the year. You're sappy. But I'm, yes, okay. I guess it's the same thing. I mean, I guess a lot of people when it when fall comes, you're like, OK, it's right. New sort of year to the top of the hour. So I'm going to take a look at I'm excited about it. I'm leaving. Hold on. You got to let me weave in college football and I'm weaving.

Really? All right. Go ahead. Let's get that time now for a look at some other stories. Making headlines this morning. Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting. Can I just say, whatever season it is, I'm just happy to be with you. Okay, stop that. That's so awkward. Nobody wants to hear that. Everybody wants to hear that.

Y'all uncomfortable? Oh, they're covering their ears. Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Mongolia today, a country that technically should arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine. Mongolia is a member of the International Criminal Court system, which is bound to detain suspects if an arrest warrant has been issued. But Mongolia is highly dependent on Russia for fuel. And the Kremlin said last week it wasn't all at all worried about Putin being handed over to the Hague. A heat wave in Southern California could bring temperatures up to 119 degrees this week. 119. Climate scientists say the summer of 2024 is likely to go down as the hottest or second hottest ever recorded. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass says the city will be opening cooling centers across the area.

And the United States has seized a luxury aircraft in the Dominican Republic that was being used by Venezuela's strongman, Nicolas Maduro. Officials say the plane was illegally purchased in the United States and then smuggled out of the country in violation of American sanctions. The Biden administration is trying to put more pressure on the authoritarian leader following a widely disputed election earlier this year. You know, that looks like Pablo's jet. No, Pablo's jet's a little bigger. Is it? Yeah, and it's got this red velvet inside.

Does it really? He loves it. Yeah, really? He's really, he's into the red velvet. He loves, I guess so, from his corporate jet. It's okay. Turning back to politics now. That's a successful podcast.

Yes, Pablo's. I know. Look at the jet he can find. Jet's velvet. It's amazing that's a successful podcast. Yes. I know. Look at the jet he can buy jets. It's crazy. Expensive. Turning back to politics now, the Harris Waltz campaign spent the Labor Day holiday speaking to union workers in battleground states. NBC News senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez has the latest from the trail in the Steel City. President Biden and Vice President Harris in a rare joint campaign appearance courting organized labor on Labor Day. When union wages go up,

everybody's wages go up. When union workplaces are safer, all workplaces are safer. When unions are strong, America is strong. The vice president saying that U.S. steel should remain domestically owned rather than be sold to a Japanese company. I trust her. The latest attempt to win over blue collar workers in critical swing states. I'll tell you something. Kamala, I are damn proud that we protected the pensions of over one million workers and retirees. Harris visiting Michigan earlier in the day. We are out here running like we are the underdog in this race because we know what we are fighting for.

While her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, hit Wisconsin. Really simple. It's really simple. When unions are strong, America is strong. Recent polls show Vice President Harris doing better than former President Trump nationally and in key battlegrounds by a handful of points, but within the margin of error. Compare that with polling that mostly showed Trump with a narrow edge before Biden's departure from the race. We needed a new spark. Natalie Glaspie and her husband Christian here in Pittsburgh have been union members for decades.

We're a little bit more excited for having a younger, more upbeat candidate that's going to stick up for us. Notably, though he's courted rank-and-file workers throughout his campaign, former President Trump was not on the trail. He is expected here in Pennsylvania for a town hall on Wednesday, and he's hoping an updated indictment in the federal election interference case against him will bring new momentum. Whoever heard you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it, you get indicted and your poll numbers go up.