Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/8/23

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Trump may try to move Georgia case to federal court

We knew going in what the verdict was going to be. That's why this is going to the appeals court. And we feel, look, I said from the beginning, this is going to the Supreme Court. I said from the beginning, I am willing to go to prison to settle this issue. I'm willing to do that. But I also know that the likelihood of me going to prison is relatively small because we are right on this issue. Former Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro showing loyalty to a man who rarely reciprocates that kind of commitment. It comes as Donald Trump's defense team floats a new strategy in his Georgia election interference case, moving it to federal court.

We'll get an expert legal analysis on this development in just a moment. Meanwhile, the Fulton County D.A. did not hold back in her response to Republican Congressman and Trump ally Jim Jordan. She is accusing the Ohio lawmaker of trying to obstruct her case. Also ahead, Republicans are trying to rebrand on an issue that has really motivated voter turnout in recent elections. We'll tell you what that is. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Friday, everybody. We did it. September 8th. School's starting. It's that time of year. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Had you guys had the first day of school in your house yesterday? Finally. The last in the country. New York City

is the last to go back. They did make it on time. They are excited for the school year. Oh, that's nice. Member of the New York Times editorial board, Mara Gay, is with us. Political investigation reporter for The Guardian, Hugo Lowell, on the set with us this morning. And also joining us this morning, Rogers Chair in the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, historian John Meacham joins us. And so before we dive into the news, Willie, it was kind of crazy at the U.S. Open. It was wild. So the semifinal last night at the U.S. Open, Coco Gauff, the American phenom, the 19-year-old, was cruising through her match. Yeah.

Won the first set. Then early in the second, there was a stoppage of play. If you're watching at home, you have no idea what's going on. The entire crowd is looking up into the upper deck, wondering what is going on. Well, it turned out there was an environmental protest going on. Three of the people, I believe two or three, were taken out pretty quickly by security. And then as this delay went on and on and on, everyone wondered what's going on. It lasted almost 50 minutes, 5-0.

The players went back into the locker rooms to stay warm. It turned out, we learned in an interview right after the play resumed, that one of the protesters had glued his feet to the cement. Glued his feet to the cement. And so they had to figure out how to safely extract the man from the stadium, getting his feet out of the glue. Who does that, Joe? The good news is Coco came back and won in straight sets.

And she is on to the U.S. Open final on Saturday. Weird. Well, listen, if you're going to do that, right, if you're going to glue your feet to the floor and hold up a tennis event, I think you want to do it in flushing because you're the most understanding people in the world. I mean, they're going to be like, OK, you may be slowing us down 45, 50 minutes, but we're with you. No, not at all.

That's the worst place in the world to do it. I remember Barnacle. You remember Meacham back in, I think it was 08. Barnacle glued his hand to the desk protesting something. I don't know exactly what, but that was a wild time. I think it was a Red Sox trade of some kind. And it was 1908, wasn't it? It might have been.

It was 1908, wasn't it? It might have been. It was. It was. They just invented glue. Yeah, they had just invented glue. He thought you were supposed to eat it. Things went downhill from there. But yeah, but some some great tennis last night, Willie. And man, are you ready for some football? Are you ready for some football? The Detroit Lions. Unbelievable. Yeah. Going into Arrowhead Stadium, the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs had their big celebration. They win the Super Bowl last year.

And the Detroit Lions, who we talked about a lot on this show yesterday, when Tim Alberta came on, talking about his piece as a long-suffering Lions fan, they go in and beat the Chiefs. What? 21-20. There's a pick six. Joe, rookie from Alabama right there. Oh, my God.

Getting his first interception and first touchdown of his career. And they beat the Travis Kelsey-less Chiefs last night, Jonathan Lemire. Yeah, I can only imagine what the morning is like in the Alberta household. Congrats to Tim. Yeah, I mean, you can see that the Chiefs were really limited without Kelsey last night. Kadarius Toney, former Giant receiver, dropped a couple of balls, putting that one right near the end of the game. In fact, the interception earlier that we showed went off his hands

into the defender for the pick six. Yeah, I mean, the Chiefs will be fine. They'll get Kelsey back. They might need to upgrade the receiver position elsewhere. But good for the Lions. That's a tough thing to do is to go into the defending champion stadium and win on that opening Thursday night. And they did.

And I know, Joe, you had followed the Lions a lot last year, sort of one of your adopted teams for this season. And they're off to a great start, a year when they actually have some real expectations for once. Well, when you're an Atlanta Falcons fan, you have to adopt whoever's in the house. And last year, the Lions, you know, Jack and I noticed that the Lions were probably the best one in six team. And we kept saying, I said it on the show, they're the best one in six team in NFL history. And they just went on the run last year. This is a team with a ton of heart, just really an exciting way to start. But yeah, you've got, you know, no doubt with the Chiefs, Mahomes,

best player on the team, but the second and third best players on the team weren't on the field of the Chiefs last night. So they'll obviously be in the hunt for a consecutive Super Bowl. But, you know, they're best. I mean, the Lions are for real. Alberta, you know, he's going to have to just deal with it. Maura, anything you'd like to talk about? We've got tennis. We've got football.

You picked the football. You picked the sport. I will just say that, you know, I come from a Detroit family. We've got tennis. We've got football. You picked the wiffle ball. You picked the sport. I will just say that, you know, I come from a Detroit family, so it was very exciting. My father was very excited. He lives within earshot of that stadium, but not the one that the Tigers, or excuse me, the Lions won in last night. I mean, he loves the games.

The tailgating is huge in Detroit, so when they bring it on home, hopefully the Lions will continue their streak. And of course, as a long suffering University of Michigan fan, we'll take we'll take the wins. Take the win. All right. Let's get to the news on this Friday morning. A lot to get to for the first time ever. A group of 13 presidential centers dating back a century is calling for a recommitment to the country's bedrock principles. In a joint statement, the coalition said Americans should respect diverse beliefs, noting that debate and disagreement are central to democracy. It reads in part, quote, Our elected officials must lead by example and govern effectively in ways that deliver for the American people. This, in turn, will help to restore trust in public service. The rest of us must engage in civil dialogue, respect democratic institutions and rights, uphold safe, secure and accessible elections

and contribute to local, state or national improvement. The coalition does not name any elected officials, but there appear to be there a subtle rebuke of Donald Trump, who is accused of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The statement was signed by every presidential organization from Herbert Hoover's to Barack Obama's. Only the Eisenhower Foundation is missing in this. So definitely a firm statement about the strength of democracy, Joe. Yeah, John Meacham, there's been some complaining. You've heard some people I know, and I have too, wondering where some of these presidents are, what some of these former presidents coming out speaking forcefully

against Trumpism, against what happened on January the 6th and the threats to democracy moving forward. This is a step in that direction, isn't it? It is. And, you know, most of these, the presidential libraries where the presidents are still around, you know, where the principle is still there are different than the ones, obviously, that are legacy operations. What's remarkable about this is you have a, I wouldn't even call it bipartisan, I'd call it suprapartisan, a suprapartisan statement that says, yes, democracy is strong. I think more interesting is why they had to do it. It's that democracy is weak. It's resilient, but it is under siege. And these are the scholars, the foundation executives and the presidents themselves who understand the inherent fragility of these institutions.

And I think that it's it says a great deal. You know, if you do what I do for a living, you know, you go back and you you look at what was being said at a given time, you know, looking at the front page of the newspapers to see what the other stories were. The fact that 13 former presidential institutions had to say, hey, democracy is important. Pay attention to it. Tells you a great deal about where we are on this early autumn morning. Well, a couple of things, John, that strike me. Certainly the presidents that are still alive who served in that office from 19, January of 93 to January of 2017, obviously their presidential libraries would not have come out and done anything without their support or their approval. So and of course, Jimmy Carter's as well.

The second thing, too, is I found at times people going to the Reagan library and saying things that that would make Ronald Reagan roll over in his grave, claiming the mantle of Reagan conservatism when it's as far away from from Reagan on certain views as humanly possible. I mean, you can take anywhere from immigration to trade and even guns at the end. I mean, it's it's certainly Ukraine. that while they're not being specifically ideological on one point or another, there is no doubt that when you go speak at the Reagan library, the Reagan library has made it very clear that they do not support what is going on in the Trump wing of the Republican Party. You know, two important things happened this week on this front, the statement that we're talking about and that speech that Mike Pence gave where he seems to have just discovered that Donald Trump's not great for America. But as we've said before, here, we will take you.

And basically arguing that you can choose between Trump and you can choose between classical conservatism. And that's to me an unquestionable thing. And so the great, great issue here is who's listening. And where I get some hope in this is it doesn't take that many of us to tip this in the right direction. Right. These are incredibly close elections. We're talking about numbers are not my strong suit. A couple of million people in five states. Let's say you reached 10,000 of those people. People saw something, realized something, started thinking, you know what, maybe we shouldn't follow a cult of personality off a constitutional cliff. If so,

that's a good week. And you start again next week, because that's what all these presidents also understand, is that democracy is incredibly hard work. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about tiny margins. Just take the example that's been in front of us with Donald Trump, just over 11000 votes in the state of Georgia in 2020, the ones he was trying to flip back. So let's talk about everything going on around the former president in the context of this conversation. Former White House adviser Peter Navarro, an adviser to Trump, convicted yesterday of contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena last year from the House January 6th committee. It took the jury just four hours to find Navarro guilty on both counts he

faced for refusing to testify before the committee and refusing to turn over requested documents. The trial lasted only two days. Navarro's legal team did not present any witness testimony or evidence. Navarro had planned on mounting a defense claiming he was bound by executive privilege. He said former President Trump told him not to cooperate with the committee, but the judge rejected that argument in a pretrial ruling last week. Sentencing set for January 12th now. Navarro faces up to two years in prison. He has repeatedly called this a landmark case based on separation of powers. People like me, senior White House advisors, alter egos of the president cannot be compelled, cannot be compelled to testify before Congress.

Absolute. Yet they brought the case. After the verdict, Navarro's attorney called for a mistrial, claiming the jury was exposed to protesters during a break and they returned the guilty verdict shortly afterward. The judge would not rule on that right away, telling Navarro's lawyer to file a motion to be considered at a later time. So, Hugo, there's so many pieces of this Trump spectacle that we've that we've been witnessing. How important is Peter Navarro to all of it? Number one, the Green Bay sweep is the play he designed to get Mike Pence to try to flip the election and not certify it anyway. And how does it fit into the larger puzzle of everything swirling around Trump? You know, I think just as a side, the fact that the January 6th committee, even though it no longer exists, the fact that their subpoena authority is upheld is, you know, really significant, right? Validating. Yeah. You know, this is more than a

year since it's it's all been litigated and he's finally being, you know, held to account for his willful default and not showing up for the subpoena. There is no widespread immunity to just defy a congressional subpoena. And so I think the fact that this did go to trial and, you know, he was convicted by a jury and about the same time probably it took for Coco Gauff to have a break is, you know, is pretty significant. But it does fit into the wider set of things, right? You know, the grand jury in D.C. is still meeting. You know, it's still taking evidence in the federal January 6th case.

The Green Bay sweep, as you say, you know, was this element in Trump's efforts to overturn the election that was possibly the most kind of covert and the one most insidious because it, you know, pulls in all these operatives from different angles. And so, you know, the fact that this is coming back out again, I think is significant in that sense. He faces real jail time. He'll be sentenced in January, up to two years. I mean, Bannon was sentenced to jail, right? I mean, he's out right now pending appeal. But, you know, this is like a really dumb crime. If you're going to be convicted, if you can be convicted of a crime like, you know, rob a bank, maybe you get rich on the side. You know, this is, you know, not showing up. Moving on to Fulton County. Now, the district attorney, Fannie Willis, is accusing one of Donald Trump's top allies in Congress

of trying to obstruct her case. In a scathing letter yesterday, the DA blasted House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan for his efforts to investigate her state probe. Following Trump's indictment in Georgia last month, the Ohio Republican asked Willis to turn over all documents related to her case, which Jordan claims is politically motivated. In response, the DA wrote in part yesterday this. Your attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and

interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution. Your letter makes clear that you lack a basic understanding of the law, its practice, and the ethical obligations of attorneys generally and prosecutors specifically. Its obvious purpose is to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous partisan misrepresentations. I tell people often deal with reality or reality will deal with you. It is time that you deal with some basic realities. A special purpose grand jury made up of everyday citizens investigated for 10 months and made recommendations to me. For a more thorough understanding of Georgia's RICO statute, its application, and similar laws in other states, I encourage you to read RICO state by state.

As a non-member of the bar, you can purchase a copy for $249. Ouch. Jordan's office has not responded to a request for comment by NBC News. I think she's a little fed up with him. Rightfully so, Jim Jordan. Most people are. A great line there at the end, and certainly for the proof that she's up for this fight. One more that is a legal one, to be sure. And we know this is a sprawling case. There's real doubt as to whether or not the Trump piece of it anyway can come to trial before the election, which I think a lot of people are concerned about because that's the one we know will be on television, people could actually see. But also this moment underscores the efforts by Republicans to try to sabotage it. And we have had that from the beginning, this House GOP in particular, trying to play really fast and loose with the law and with their own authority to try to, whether it's defund the Jack Smith investigation or now even put their fingers in a state matter.

That's dangerous stuff. Well, it's a slow roll way to support this conspiracy that we have are now finally seeing prosecuted. And that's what's so scary. I mean, what happened on January 6th didn't just happen on that one day. And I think what you're seeing in Congress right now from Republicans who are really willing to throw democracy under the bus and some of our institutions under the bus, as well as their colleagues, uh, and the American people is this is about power at all costs. And they're going to protect their number one guy who remains Donald Trump for whatever reason, still can't let go.

And I have to say that I think Donald Trump and his acolytes, his advisors, his supporters have really taken advantage of the fact that this is so unprecedented in American history that I think there's been a sense that, well, surely our institutions will stand. It doesn't take the rest of us to break these norms, to stand up to them. But I think what you're starting to see, and you see this with the prosecution of the January 6th conspirators, the leaders this past week. You see it as well with Navarro's conviction. And now you're seeing this just with the DA simply, you know, really putting out a very strong statement, which is that there needs to be pushback. The pushback needs to be forceful. And I think there needs to be a collective sense that we're fed up with this kind of behavior

and we're going to protect democracy. And you're seeing that and that's really heartening. But it's still disturbing that Jim Jordan, who represents quite a block, let's say, is really willing to throw the democracy under the bus. It has to be said that it's further heartening that even the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, last week said, we're not doing this, guys. He's talking about at the state level when there was a move to get rid of Fannie Willis to impeach her. And they said, that's not how this works. We're not doing this here. That's him. That's Brad Raffensperger and all of them.

And you're talking, you're reporting this morning, Hugo, about Donald Trump in Georgia, perhaps trying to follow sort of the Mark Meadows playbook, which is to say, I want this case moved to federal court. What is the argument for that and how would that change things for him? Yeah, you know, Trump's been weighing whether to have his case removed to federal court in Georgia. You know, that way he gets out of a potentially more adverse jury pool for him and also the cameras in the court issue, which he really does not want. But the removal issue is interesting because it kind of serves two purposes for him. One is basically he can he wants to follow Mark Meadows's line. He wants to use the arguments that are successful.

If Meadows is successful, you know, he's not he doesn't want to do this himself. He wants to repurpose what other people are doing. But also it serves the delay. Right. You know, his overarching strategy. Right. I mean, he's got 30 days from the time of his arraignment to file a motion to to remove the federal court. He is going to do that on the last day. No question about it. I was speaking to several people and Trump's in a cell phone. They're very brazen about this. So I think, you know, he gets two major benefits if he removes. You know, John Meacham, pulling back and looking at the whole situation, of course, you and I both know growing up in the Cold War about the doomsday clock.

I've talked to you before leading up to 2020 about your belief that this country was in the 1850s. Historically, deciding whether to move toward a civil war or to move toward peace. Obviously, the 2020 election, a a a short, short gain for democracy, a temporary gain for democracy, because the guy who was pressuring his attorney general to arrest his opponent two weeks before the election lost. But since then, we've had riots that he inspired. We've had him saying he was going to terminate the Constitution of the United States if he could, if that's what it took for him to get back into the White House. We've, of course, had him stealing nuclear secrets. We've had him stealing war plans. We've had him stealing documents that described America's weaknesses.

We've had him caught in a conspiracy to steal an election. All of the evidence pretty damning. We have his own I.T. director testifying that he tried to destroy evidence that the FBI was trying to get, trying to destroy the tapes. Does that sound familiar? On and on and on. And there is a lot of hand wringing, as James Carver would say, a lot of Democratic bedwetting right now over a CNN poll that has he and Donald Trump tied at 46 percent. that continues to go around, not only about the president, but also the state of democracy and the risks that that democracy faces over the next 18 months? Well, it's the most fragile form of government. If it were easy, everybody would do it. We wouldn't be the longest functioning one, ringing in at almost 250 years, but we haven't gotten there yet. And it's fragile because it's human. It's up to us. It's about our appetites. It's about our

polarization. It's about our interests, our will. And the question we have to decide every hour of every day, and this is this maybe this sounds grand, but it's not, is do I respect the law in wanting to in dealing with you? Because maybe you have something I want. In Donald Trump's case, Joe Biden had an election victory. So what did he do? He had a choice, right? You can either follow the law and lose graciously, go back and try again, which is what has unfolded in this country for a long time, but is, when you think about it, globally a huge exception, right? It's unusual. So the question is, if you have something I want, you know, my basic human instinct is to go grab it. But democracy, rule of law, the Constitution suggests, tells me that I respect

what you have. And if I want it, I try to get it legally. And that's the whole thing. And it's not just because it's the right thing to do, though it happens to be, but it also protects me if I have something you want. And so I think this is a moral question. I think this is about how we are with each other. I don't believe these polls, honestly. I think basically the model is pretty hard to figure out. I don't know if you get called up if you're going to tell the truth to somebody. I think there's a lot of trolling on the Republican side. You're right. 2020 was a step in the right direction.

So was 2022. Let's not forget that. But it's always going to be hugely close. And that's why it's up to every one of us to do it. Historian and, you know, Maura is talking about the skepticism, Maura, really quickly. I'm so sorry. Talking about the skepticism really quickly of polling. I said that to a reporter a couple of days ago. I just, you know what? I don't want to hear the polls. I don't want to hear them because we heard that Joe Biden was going to win in a

landslide in 2020. He didn't. We heard that Republicans were going to win in a massive red wave in 2022, even when we didn't feel it, but we heard it and everybody told us and everybody talked about it. And then it didn't happen. I just again, I just again, I really do wonder, Laura, what voter in suburban Atlanta that didn't vote for Donald Trump in 2020 is going to say, well, you know what? I didn't vote for him in 2020. But now after January the 6th and after he stole nuclear secrets and after he tried to get his own people to destroy his his tapes and after everybody that's testified against him in all these cases are people that he hired himself. And after he said he was going to terminate the Constitution. Yeah. Yeah. I think my friends in Alpharetta and I, we're going to go

knock on doors for Donald Trump. I don't see it happening. Yeah, I actually I totally agree. I think we like to think of polls as as though they're biblical in some way or they're perfectly scientific. It's really more of an art in many ways. It's just a snapshot in time of people you happen to catch on a certain day who may or may not honestly tell you what their feeling is. And then you have to put it into the context of, you know, there is a choice and there will be a choice between two individuals. And on that day, the question is always which voters are the most motivated to show up? How many of them are there? And of course, campaigning matters. Getting out the vote matters. And all of this is to say that there are

probably many Americans who may not be feeling that excited or enthusiastic about voting for President Biden. But on the day of, I think many of them will show up anyway because they certainly don't want the alternative in Donald Trump. I think we've seen that consistently in those polls. And so this is about turnout as much as it is about polls that are up and down on a specific candidate. So I think it's early and you don't want to take polls just by their word and move on. This is about something bigger than that.

There's a context here. Historian John Meacham and the Guardians, Hugo Lowell, thank you very much for being on this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, amid mounting legal bills, Rudy Giuliani gets a little fundraising help from former President Trump. Plus, after consistent election losses, Republicans are trying to move away from the term pro-life. We'll have that new reporting and what's on the table instead. And Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville, who's been blocking military promotions since February,

complained this week about Navy sailors reciting poetry. Our next guest has his own poem for the senator. Roses are red, carriers are gray. How come you're dissing our military every damn day? Admiral James Stavridis joins us with more of his thoughts. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. We are so woke in the military. We're losing recruits right and left. Secretary Del Toro of the Navy, he needs to get to building ships. He needs to get to recruiting.

And he needs to get wokeness out of our Navy. He needs to get to building ships. He needs to get to recruiting and he needs to get wokeness out of our Navy. We've got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker. It is absolutely insane of the direction that we're headed in our military. Oh, my Lord. Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama on Wednesday accusing the Navy of being woke, saying sailors are reading poems over the loudspeakers. Meanwhile, Tuberville's block on military promotions has prevented over 300 service members so far from being confirmed into new positions. Joining us now, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four-star Navy Admiral James Tavridis. He is the chief international analyst for NBC News.

And Joe, I know you have the first question, but I cannot, I just don't understand why Republicans can't figure out a way to deal with Tommy Tuberville. Well, they don't care enough to. They really don't. They're totally fine with the readiness of the United States suffering, obviously. They're obviously by their own actions. You know, I tell you what, if I'm running that conference, I'm getting everybody in a press conference and we're telling Tommy, hey, Tommy, you're not coaching football anymore. We're not talking about X's and O's. We're not talking about whether you go to the Sugar Bowl or the Astro Blue Bonnet Bowl or whatever bowl you want to go to. By the way, they had Astro Blue Bonnet Bowl, I think, last time in 1974. Tommy, this is life and death. This is about

the strength of the United States military. This is about us being able to have leaders in place to project power. Hey, Tommy, this is about having the Marine Corps commandant for the first time in 150 years. This is about having three services, not having a military leader with a full range of power necessary to plan forward. This is about children whose mothers and fathers have chosen to serve in the United States military to protect and defend this country. Children who don't know right now as a new school year starts where they're going to go because promotions have been held up because they're all sitting in limbo. Because Tommy Tuberville is trying to make a point on abortion that even the good people of Alabama are telling him to drop. It's it's just all part of an ongoing attack by the Republican Party against the United States Armed Forces. They love to say we're weak. They want you to believe that the United States of America is weak, that our military is weak? You talk to a Marine,

Juanico, have you spent five minutes with a Navy SEAL or with the recruits that are trying to become SEALs, the candidates in Coronado, an Army Ranger in northwest Florida going through camp? I mean, have you spent any time with these people? You make fools of yourself when you say they are weak, that our military is weak, that you would rather them fight like Russians than Americans. You have betrayed your inner thoughts and the fact that your inner thoughts are really

un-American. What do you call it when a Republican Party says they would rather our troops fight like Russians than Americans? What do you call it when they hold up three service leaders from taking charge to run their services. What do you call it? When a jackass is trying to make a political point that nobody gets, even the people in his own home state, the very conservative state of Alabama don't get when you hold up the Marine Corps from having a commandant for the first time in 150 years. Why aren't the Republicans calling this out? Why isn't everybody calling this out? Let's bring in Admiral James Trevitas. I'm sick and tired of these people tearing down the military. I'm sick and tired of these Republicans tearing down the United States of America. I'm sick and tired of them tearing down our soldiers and our sailors and our Marines saying they're weak

and they're woke. Not to keep repeating a point, but ask 500 Russians in the Wagner group in Syria who tried to bomb rush our troops. Ask them how weak and woke we are. You can't because they're dead. They died within five minutes of trying to bomb rush the United States military, the men and women in the United States military. Admiral, I mean, how long does this go on? When do the Republicans actually start putting readiness and national security ahead of petty political points? Yeah, it's got to start now. And by the way, it just makes my head explode when I hear this trope that, oh, the military is so woke and reading poetry. It is absolutely ridiculous. And unlike Senator Tuberville, I've been on submarines. I've been on carriers. I've been with Navy SEALs. I commanded 150,000 troops in combat in Afghanistan. I've seen our troops forward. Let me tell you what's happening

on ships right now. They are launching missiles. They are sailing around the world. They are conducting real world operations from the Persian Gulf to the eastern Mediterranean, to the Black Sea, to the Western Pacific and the South China Sea. So don't talk about something that you don't know anything about, Senator Tuberville. Point two, Joe, would be, and you kind of picked some of this up, but let's take the Navy as an example. We don't have a chief of naval operations, the equivalent of the commandant of the Marine Corps. As a result, the number two in the Navy is forced to do both that job, the deputy job, the vice chief of naval operations,

and the job of the chief of naval operations. So you're gonna get half of the attention you need on these critical decisions, and, you know, C.1, directing a Navy that's globally deployed in real world operations. And then third and finally, it's a morale issue. And that becomes a retention issue. And if you look at the 300 admirals and generals, every one of them has colonels and Navy captains and petty officers and sergeants that are part of their team. And so, Joe, your point about the children of these, that's not hundreds.

It's not thousands. who have no idea where they're going to be stationed in the fall because the Senate doesn't confirm, all because of one senator using an arcane process in a destructive way. So, yeah, I'm frustrated. I assure you, everybody in the military is. There are so many topics, Willie, that Tommy Tuberrell could take on when it comes to the military. There are a number of bases in his state that he could go visit. And I don't know, talk about, let's say, military pay. You have people serving this country who are on food stamps, who have children.

They can't go for certain jobs because they can't afford it because they're trying to feed their families. But they serve because they love it. And this guy, I mean, Joe was asking what this word is, what the word is for what he's doing. It's destructive. It's undermining to our military. I would go further even. I think what this man, this man right here is damaging our nation's security a number of different ways. And I I'm very concerned that nobody is holding him accountable, especially his Republican counterparts. It's not just you saying that military leadership is saying this man is damaging our military readiness. And Claire McCaskill was on with us yesterday. Of course, former U.S. senator.

She said, of course, Mitch McConnell, of course, leadership could do something about this. Of course, they could lean on Tuberville and say, knock it off. You've made your point. But they're not doing that. And Admiral, the part when you listen to Senator Tuberville in some of these interviews, he's just so glib about something so important. And when he's when he's pushed about it, he says the military is top heavy anyway. We got too many generals. We got too many admirals. This isn't a big deal. Trust me, we're going to be fine. Can you speak to that part of his argument? Absolutely. The number of admirals and generals are distributed, directing a global force of two million people.

And I assure you, the number of admirals and generals is monitored constantly, parsed. We reshape this part of the business constantly. But what the senator is doing here is throwing a huge, huge sledgehammer to try and hit this this tiny fly of a policy irritation that he has. the right word, our ability to conduct forward operations, to do innovation in the military, something we desperately need to be doing right now, hurting our retention and our morale. And I'll conclude on this point as follows. How is Senator Tuberville going to feel five years from now when Senator Leftwing decides that he or she is going to hold up all military promotions because they don't like the fossil fuel policies of the Department of Defense. This will cut both ways. Ultimately, it is an egregious stance he has taken. And our Republican leaders know it. I've talked recently to several in the House in particular. They need to put pressure to make this stop. In a way, for some reason, they haven't.

Retired four-star Navy Admiral James DeVried, it's so great to have your perspective on this, Admiral. Thank you so much. And Mika, Admiral talked about retention just yesterday. Here, as we come up at the end of the fiscal year here in a couple of weeks, the branches of the military say we're going to fall well short of our recruiting goals. Now, this is obviously not the driver of that, the sole driver of that. But when you hear again and again, as a young generation, the military is weak, it's woke. It's not something you want to be a part of. Certainly doesn't help. And our branches outside of the Marines, every branch is falling short of its goals. Coming up, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is warning the flow of migrants into his city will upend neighborhoods and, quote, destroy it.

Reverend Al Sharpton joins us next to weigh in on the mayor's provocative remarks. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. It's 51 past the hour. New York City Mayor Eric Adams this week claimed the city was being destroyed by an influx of asylum seekers from the southern border. Speaking at an event on Wednesday night, the mayor said he did not know how to fix the issue. Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an end to. I don't see an end to this. I don't see an end to this. I don't see an end to this.

This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City. Really strong words. The 21,000 new children of asylum seekers started classes yesterday in New York City, the largest school system in the nation. Ten thousand migrants have been arriving in the city each month, straining the city services across the board. Nearly 60,000 migrants currently occupy beds in city shelters and emergency sites. Mayor Adams has been critical of the federal response to the crisis, saying, quote, we're getting no support. The White House has defended its response to the issue, noting the one hundred and forty million dollars in new federal funds to the city and

state. In addition, a White House spokesman noted that only Congress can reform our broken immigration system and provide additional resources to communities across the country. Let's bring in president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. Rev, the mayor was making it very clear there's no end in sight here and he's at a loss. I talked to the mayor on Monday. We both were at the West Indian Day parade for Labor Day. And he's frustrated not because of any, I think, overreaction on his part is because he's past the limits of what he can do as mayor. And unless the federal government, including the Congress, steps in, there is no end in sight. These people are being brought in, started for political reasons by people like Governor Abbott and others sending people to New York.

And it's way beyond the purview of the mayor to handle this continued influx with the president's services. Now, we can say, calm down, Eric. You don't don't get too much with your rhetoric. But it is a desperate situation. And as long as I've known the mayor, he's never been in a situation that was not within his grasp to handle. Right. This is beyond his grasp. He needs congressional. And you saw that frustration right there.

He went on to say, by the way, the city we knew we're about to lose. Those are the words of the mayor of New York City. the southern border who are seeing thousands of migrants come into their borders need help from the federal government. This is a federal issue that means not only money, but actually fixing the broken immigration process and allowing migrants to work. It takes many months, I believe over six months, to get a work permit if you're an asylum seeker. So how is a city or community supposed to, what are they supposed to do in the meantime? That means you need to provide not only food and shelter, but pretty much all of the needs until people can work. Migrants have been forced in New York City and across the country to take jobs that are

dangerous, whether through construction or you see women on the subway with their babies, sometimes children who you hope to see in school instead. This is a humanitarian crisis. We should treat it as that. But I think that the mayor, I understand his frustration toward the White House, toward Congress. I do not love hearing him vilify people who have come to our shores like many generations of Americans before, seeking a better life, many from desperate situations, from countries that have collapsed. And I want to say this country needs immigrants. Immigrants are the lifeblood of New York City, of America. And vilifying them is not only dangerous, but it really is a betrayal of what this country is meant to be about. And I do not believe that that sentiment speaks for the

majority of residents of New York City. This is a city that can handle this influx with some help. Well, I mean, with some help, but also with some order. You just can't have immigrants coming on buses, undocumented immigrants coming in buses just shipped in. If I were the mayor, I would be complaining to the federal government as well. Fix this problem. This is a problem that's been going on for three years. And I agree with Maura completely. And if you talk to small business owners, they would agree with Maura completely. And if you talk to small business owners, they would agree with Maura completely. For anybody out there that is thinking, oh, my God, we can't absorb all of these

immigrants. Put on your dunce cap. Just put it on. What we can't handle is the disorder, is the chaos in the border, the chaos in the cities. We can't. But we could get Congress to actually pass meaningful immigration reform. And you know who would support that? Republican small business owners, Republican entrepreneurs, Republicans who run family restaurants, Republicans who run family hardware stores, Republicans that run family businesses, Republicans who are desperate to get workers, to get workers. And they complain all the time everywhere I go. I've been asking this for two years. What do you have tables empty here? I know the answer, but I want to hear them say it because we can't find workers. We have to shut down two days a week, three days a week because we can't get enough workers in here.

So, yes, yes, Congress, you Republicans, you would actually have a way to at least extend work visas to people who come to this country, go through a legal process because of your reforms that you're passing. But you got to fund it. You know, and the thing is, it bothers me is these Republicans keep thinking, you know, if we don't do anything, if we don't pass immigration reform, if we don't help small family businesses, if we don't help small family restaurants, if we don't help Silicon Valley tech companies that desperately need high tech immigrants as well with high tech degrees, it's going to help us in the next election. It doesn't. It didn't help them in 2018.

Remember what were they saying that, oh, these immigrants are coming with leprosy to america that that you know that have the vans all coming and oh we're having a you know there's a convoy coming up cw mccall leading it in this it's all a bunch of illegal aliens and they're going to destroy the country democrats won big in 2020 they won big in 2018 when they said that. When they did it in 2020, they tried it again in 2022. It never works. So since it never works, why don't you help your small business owners? Why don't you help high tech companies?

Why don't you help entrepreneurs reform immigration and get these people working, Rev? Not only are you right, the point is that they've used these people, these migrants that are seeking a better life. They're not coming to America because they want to commit crime or because they want to do anything. And I agree they ought not be vilified. They're using them as political props and don't even understand that what they're doing doesn't even help their politics. And I think we can't get away from that. That's why I think the pressure has to be put on the Congress and the federal government to correct this.

And when you have Mayor Adams, not only Matt Adams, you have the mayor of Chicago and the mayor of Houston and others that are saying we can't handle this. And the Congress is trying to figure out how do we get votes out of this. We're dealing with human beings, human beings that can help do work here that others are not doing and that small businesses needed and they need these workers. We are overlooking all of that to try to play some petty politics. And I think it's outrageous. And we need to put pressure on the Congress and others to do at a federal level where clearly governors and others are playing politics with. I will say, though, New York City is a resilient place.

Survived September 11th, superstorm Sandy, the first waves of COVID. I don't know that this is the thing that's going to destroy it. So to your point about the mayor's perhaps overheated rhetoric. But Willie, it is also interesting seeing this be a flashpoint between a Democratic mayor, the biggest state in the country, and the White House. And Biden and Adams were pretty tight allies in Adams's first months in office. But there have been real divides around this. Adams has been sharply critical of the White House's approach beyond just Congress. And it's one that's led to a cooling of that relationship. Yeah, openly critical, relentlessly. And again, again, here, we'll see how this plays out.