Morning Joe - NY Gov. Kathy Hochul on Meta settlement, ICE arrests, and Canda trade war

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

August 28, 2026 – 7am: NY Gov. Kathy Hochul on Meta settlement, ICE arrests, and Canda trade war Stars and Stripes employees sue Pentagon over firings USS Lincoln to head to port in Thailand Navy sailor who jumped off USS Lincoln faces disciplinary charges Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) calls for withholding funding from ICE Actors Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly discuss season 2 of their Apple TV show “Dark Matter” To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Beautiful picture at New York City at 7 o'clock on the button on this Friday morning as the Yankees begin a big four-game series against the Red Sox up in the Bronx tonight. It is Friday, August 28th. Welcome back to morning, Joe. I'm Willie Geis. Mike Barnacle, Eugene Robinson, Ali Vitale, still with us. Some of the top stories we're following this hour today marked six months since President Trump started the war in Iran. No signs. The conflict will come to an end anytime soon. The president told reporters yesterday, his administration, does not want to speak to the Iranian regime or meet with them. Meanwhile, the federal judge again has blocked the president's executive order to restrict voting by mail. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled the order could move forward, but did not issue a decision on its legality. The president yesterday escalated tensions with Canada again by signing an executive order to rename Lake Ontario, Lake America.

This comes after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced this week retaliatory tariffs on goods from the United States that will go into effect next month. And META says it will not pay the full amount of its settlement to resolve a multi-state lawsuit unless TikTok and YouTube also implement changes to protect younger users. META did agree to pay up to $17 billion to settle claims its platforms were designed to create social media addiction. But the company says it is withholding $5 billion until TikTok and YouTube also agree to time limits for children. Joining us now on this topic and many more, the Democratic Governor of New York State, Kathy Hokel. Governor Hockel, great to see you this morning. Let's start right there with the decision, the settlement from META, up to $17 billion. The hope was that this now would set the standard YouTube, TikTok, Snap, others would fall in behind,

and that social media would be made safer, especially for young people. What is your take on how significant this move is and what might come next? Well, I would call it an important step in the right direction, Willie, but in New York State we've actually gone further in many respects. I launched an initiative last year, in the year before, and the year before that, to try and rein in the excesses of social media when it came to really destroying many of our children's mental health. And first of all, I want to applaud all the families that step forward here with their stories of losing children to suicide and depression and the young people came forward to help us get to this place.

But I would say an important step, but I think there's still going to be an important role for states and ultimately the federal government someday when they feel like they have time to do something other than rename lakes. I would like to see a better focus at the government level to regulate this and bring in all the platforms. In New York State, all the platforms are covered by our first in the nation rules saying no addictive algorithms can be bombarding our young people under the age of 18. You can have no notifications at all after midnight. Our kids need to get to sleep. And what helped all of this was our separate from the social media company. We don't allow cell phones in schools from the day that child walks, the second they walk in the door to the second they walk out. And that has done a lot to restore the mental health of our students in New York State.

But I think it's a good settlement, but we're not done. We're not done. This fight is not over. Yeah, this may be a good step, but as you point out, many people are skeptical about these companies policing themselves and creating rules that might cut into their profits, which ultimately, as we know, from all the whistleblower documents, is really all they cared about.

The child safety be damned. So what is the role, do you think, of the federal government? You're doing it on a state level, but what could the federal government be doing better to help keep safe on social media. Right. We can, they could just, I'll send the federal government, whoever wants to see it, the New York State laws.

We've done this for years now and focus on everything from banning access to AI chatbots. I mean, these young people are developing relationships. Their first relationship is not with the human being anymore, and we have to save them from that. We also believe that no child should be have their personal data monetized. I mean, these are bombarding our kids. capturing information about them so they can sell them products later. We don't allow that in the state of New York either.

So I would very happily share with the laws we've passed in New York, which is why we were named by Jonathan Hates Organization, the number one state in America for protecting the mental health of young people. I'm proud of that, but we never rest on our laurels, and we're always trying to stay ahead of the next curve because they're out there trying to make money, and I'm trying to protect kids as New York's first mom governor. And we'll see if these other companies fall in line, YouTube and the others.

Let's turn to immigration governor. ICE arrests have surged to record levels this summer, reaching 43,000 in June, 49,000 in July. That's according to newly released federal data. An analysis from the New York Times shows most people arrested last month had no criminal charge or conviction, while fewer than 4% had a past violent conviction. Four percent. Arrests have risen across the country with. Texas averaging more than 380 per day in Florida, more than 230. New Jersey, New Mexico also

have seen arrest double. So, Governor, this data from the federal government confirms what we already knew, which is that this administration is not going after the worst of the worst. We've seen just in the last week these scenes at bus stops around schools in Connecticut. We've seen scenes in hospital rooms where a mother and a daughter were arrested in hospital gowns after getting into a car accident. So what does the relationship in your state anyway look like between law enforcement and the state level and ice coming in from the federal level? Well, let me just step back for a second. You absolutely hit on this, Willie. Everybody who voted for Donald Trump believed he was going after the worst or the worst. That's what he promised. That was a flat out lie.

Because if he was going after the worst of the worst, I would think in the first few months, they would have identified the known criminals or those that they have charged. is against or he will need to be extradited back to their country because of a criminal offense. We're now going after everybody from high school kids on Long Island to people going their job on a farm, the home health care raids. We have devastated the home health care industry in the state of New York when we send back the Haitians who are very good at this work and they have relationships with senior citizens who are wondering why their aid did not show up the next day to take care of them. So what our relationship with law enforcement is, I will say this clearly

because the Republicans are just absolutely lying about my position. New York State will never be a sanctuary for criminals. Full stop. We work with federal law enforcement, including ICE, when it comes to protecting New Yorkers, and that means we'll always have and always will work to get criminals off the streets and in the criminal justice system, get their justice, go to jail, and then go back to their home country.

That's how we do it in New York. But what we had before was there were counties that had relationships with ICE, formal agreements, where they would actually be using local law enforcement for civil immigration enforcement. I'm not talking about criminals. I'm talking about someone who, the only offense is coming into this country. And these are people with temporary protective status.

Maybe they had a green card, a work permit, married to an American citizen. They're going after everybody because they have to hit those inane Stephen Miller quotas. So I've said, and we passed a law, and it went into effect just this week, You cannot have those agreements with ICE to be using local cops for doing your job, ICE. I want local cops focused on local crimes. And crime has gone down dramatically since I've been governor in the state of New York for the last five years.

And it's because I've invested money in law enforcement. We're building trust between communities and law enforcement. It has nothing to do with having our local police diverted from catching the rapists, catching the murderers, responding to an emergency, and doing ICE's job for them. It's an $85 billion agency. I think they can take care of themselves. In fact, I wish they would just disband and go back to the old immigration and naturalization service.

Remember old INS? People trusted them. They did their jobs. This is a rogue policing state that is wreaking havoc across America. In New York, we say no more. So can you prevent the ICE at the federal level from securing agreements with local police forces in New York? I just banned it.

It's against the law now in the state of New York to have these agreements. The federal law that allows the creation of these agreements says subject to state and local laws. State law just changed. So no more, no more. And we had to force every county that was participating. And I would say the vast majority of counties in New York State were not. They were not participating. And those are among the safest counties in America.

So the false argument that the Republicans continue to make, and DHS has been hitting me hard on this, They keep saying I've made New York State less safe. I'd rather stand with the criminals. That is full unadulterated BS. Are they fighting this? Are the feds fighting this? No, they're just trying to fight me on social media. No, they can't stop us.

I already did it. It's done. It's done. Something else that is happening, maybe not quite done, is this trade war that we see with Canada. I'm a New Yorker. I learned about trade what we do on the world stage in elementary school. I know that about 13% of New York trade is done with Canada. I was struck by the fact that Senator Susan Collins in Maine said that she had received carveouts or exemptions from the Canadians' retaliatory tariffs on seafood and fish products.

And I wonder if New York State, if you are seeking any kinds of carveouts to soften the blow on the New York economy. We're doing everything we can to soften the blow. And first of all, it is absolutely appalling that when the war in Iran starts taking a bad turn, he decides to launch a war. war on our best friend in Canada, just to try and divert. And it is so unfair because the communities that I grew up in from Buffalo and then all along Lake Ontario, which is still Lake Ontario, want to make that point, all the way up to Plattsburgh. Our economies are so intertwined. And it's not a foreign country. Those are our neighbors. You know, they come over to our sporting events, the Buffalo Bills games, the Sabres games. Our farmers have great relationships. The manufacturing

that goes on in the North country, reliant on Canadian companies, Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum, and our wineries are suffering. I just sat down at the fair a couple days ago, talked to people who have the vineyards. They said the Canadians just stop coming. So the tourism is dropped in all of our little towns

in the north country. They're not coming. Our relationship on the trade front is appalling now because our costs for our local governments and our farmers and our businesses and people in a grocery store, they're paying more now because of these tariffs. So it just has to stop.

It just has to stop. So I will try to find at the subnational level, relationships where I can find carve-outs, absolutely doing that now. I've spoken to, you know, the premieres. I've spoken to, you know, Mark Carney. When a time when New Yorkers and Americans are experiencing some of the highest grocery prices, highest gasoline prices, highest utility prices,

highest utility rates, and we do get energy from Canada as well. To do something like this is just going to drive more people, I'm telling you right now, to the Democratic line. They are committing such an egregious political mistake as well, because people are going to rebel against this. I will be happy to remind them who is doing this, who drove up the cost in the grocery store when parents are trying to get the food for their kids' deal for their dinner tonight, or when they're trying to buy backpacks and the aluminum lunch pail is more expensive because the aluminum comes from Canada and they had a high tariff on it.

This is what families are dealing with. This is what I'm trying to counter in New York with middle class tax breaks and a billion dollars in utility breaks for people coming in the mail shortly, inflation rebate checks. I'm trying to do what I can put money back in those pockets. At the same time, the Republicans are just sucking it right out because they don't care. They don't care. And, Gene, of course, it's not like these tariffs are strategic in some way. There's no chessboard that we're looking at here. It's a temper tantrum from a man who's offended that Prime Minister Carney and others in Canada

don't bend their knees, don't relinquish their national pride that it won't be a state. All of those things offend Donald Trump. So he slaps tariffs on a neighbor and an ally that raise prices in our country. Yeah, it's not a chess board. It's a checker board that the president just turned over because he wasn't winning. It's insane. Governor Hockel, I'm old enough to remember when there was great pride in the fact that the U.S. Canada border was like the longest unprotected border in the world. And people who live near the border on both sides have intertwined lives.

Is there people who live in the U.S. and work in Canada and vice versa? And people are going back and forth across the bridge all the time. Has that changed? Is that being changed now because of this tension that has been created by President Trump and is a divorce underway? Oh, absolutely. And that's what's so sad about us for those of us who lived on the border and grew up with this expectation you cross the peace bridge

when you go to Chinese dinner in Fort Erie. You cross over to Canada. It's that close. You literally go into Canada for dinner sometimes. And they would come over and go to our fairs and our sporting events and our culturals. Three million fewer Canadians across the border into New York this past year. That's three million fewer people going up to the little shops in Lake Placet or Serenac Lake, or coming to the Finger Lakes, to the wineries, as I mentioned.

And even New York City, some of the hotels are telling me that the Canadians are just, not coming, so they're not buying tickets on Broadway. So they are so offended, Gene. They are, they are so insulted by how they've been treated by someone they considered their friend throughout our existence. And they don't understand. I think it's going to take a long time to heal this relationship. All of us in the states who border Canada, particularly New York here, we have a 430-mile border with Canada. We want to heal the relation. We want to say that's not us, except Donald Trump represents our government to them. And so only when he is gone,

can they understand that that's never who we were? We were never hostile to Canada. We appreciate the synergy that we have between New York State in particular in Canada, the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. I'm doing what I can. We literally launched a campaign again in New York to try and entice visitors to come over

and have discounts and flying flags and just saying, hey, we love you. But I can understand. You try to make my state, if I was Canadian, make us the 51st state, that's pretty abusive. That's pretty abusive to someone who had been a long-time friend. So I'm just asking, do you just stop? Divert your attention to something. Just stop, Mr. President.

Just leave us alone. Try to start putting the genie back in the bottle so we can have the relationships that were once normal through my entire life. I don't know how long it's going to take, but we're not there yet. They're not coming over. You're right. You're right, Governor. Americans love Canada. Just one man in Washington is having a tantrum at the moment. Democratic Governor of New York, Kathy Hochel, Governor, thanks so much.

We appreciate it. Thank you. Still ahead, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut has been speaking with families in his state talking about fears of sending their children to school amid ICE roundups. Senator joins us next on Morning Joe. The three staff members recently fired from the military, newspaper stars and stripes now are suing the Pentagon, the former publisher, editor-in-chief, and a Middle East reporter for the outlet filed a federal lawsuit yesterday, arguing that Trump

administration violated their First Amendment right to speak out against what they saw as government censorship in their reporting. The Department of Defense, which partially funds the paper, fired them last week. The journalists claim it was in response to an interview where they openly criticized what they claim was interference from the Pentagon on their report. of conditions aboard the USS Lincoln. A spokesperson for the Pentagon declined to comment on the lawsuit. Both the DOD and Secretary Pete Hagsith are named among the defendants. Meanwhile, the USS Abraham, Lincoln reportedly is now heading to Thailand after nine

months at sea in the Middle East, where the carrier has spent more than five months in combat with Iran. A Thai government official tells the Associated Press, the ship will make a brief stop for rest and recovery, finally making a port-refer report. call. This comes amid concerns over conditions aboard the Lincoln, including sailors' mental health after a nine-month deployment. And now, one sailor who jumped overboard earlier this month and what his wife described as a suicide attempt is facing discipline from the Navy. Charging documents show he's accused of malingering, which is defined as a service member, quote,

intentionally faking an illness or hurting themselves to avoid work duty or service. He could face non-judicial punishment, including the loss of up to half of his normal pay. The sailor's wife tells MS. Now, I think they're insane for doing this to people who need mental help. Now, an update on the story we first talked about here yesterday, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut calling on his Senate colleagues to withhold all funding for immigration and customs enforcement. This comes amid an increased number of arrests and detainments in his state and, of course, in many others. In the town of Danbury, Connecticut this week, a number of parents were arrested and detained in front of their children at school bus stops. Senator Murphy joins us now. Senator, good morning.

I know you were in Danbury with other officials there. Can you kind of talk about in some detail? We reported it out and talked about it a bunch yesterday, but about what exactly is happening in ICE where kids are getting dropped off at school and by the time they get home from school, their parents are gone. This is the first week of school in Connecticut, and on, I guess it was Tuesday morning, I got a phone call from the mayor of Danbury telling me that ICE had been at the school buses that day. And what they were doing were they were sort of standing back reportedly, according to parents and witnesses, allowing these kids to board the school buses. And then after the kids had boarded the school buses, they were taking the parents into custody. Now, that was done intentionally, primarily, it seems, to traumatize the kids. Because what happens then?

The kids don't know that their parents are gone. They've been disappeared. They go to school. They come back. It's the first or second day of school, so it's already a day, you know, fraught with tension for the kids. And they get off. These are six or seven-year-olds in the middle of the street at a school bus stop, and their parents aren't there to pick them up.

And maybe they walk home and they knock on the door and it's locked. Their parents are just gone. And, you know, this is an attempt to put an entire city into a state of terror. That's the purpose of this action. It's not to keep Danbury safe. There's no evidence that any of the parents that were picked up have, you know, criminal records. And it just has to stop. We know that probably the majority of the parents that were arrested were pursuing legal asylum claims,

meaning they had a right to stay in the United States. and that's true of the majority of the people that they're arresting. So when I say we shouldn't fund this agency while they're behaving this way, I think that's our constitutional obligation is that we should only fund agencies as a federal government that are committed to upholding the law. And they are just not upholding the law across this country. And this new tactic that they're using at school buses in Danbury should be something that no American, whether you support Donald Trump or not, is backing because it is designed

to put kids into a state of terror. and trauma. Senator, it's Ali Vitale. The scene that you're talking about there of kids getting off a school bus and having no parent there is just absolutely heartbreaking. You feel so much for those kids. I think the next question is obvious, which is what can you do to stop it? And since this was happening on Tuesday, do we have any sense of where those parents are? Have you been able to follow them? Has DHS been responsive to inquiries that I'm sure that you're making here? Yeah, so we're trying to track where all of these parents are. And I don't think DHS has been responsive at all.

There are also reports that during these roundups, and this is the most significant enforcement action that Connecticut has seen since the beginning of this campaign, that there was also an individual who was, I guess, thrown to the ground, tased and had a heart attack and is likely still in the hospital today. And we've received no information about his status. So there's just been brutality across the board in Dambury, and my office has had very little success in tracking what folks are doing. You just mentioned the story about Stars and Stripes in which the Department of Defense is firing people who are just telling the truth about what's happening on board these military ships. The same thing's happening in the Department of Homeland Security. We can't get any basic information about what residents of the cities that I represent are going to. through where the parents of abandoned children are, that level of darkness should be unacceptable in a democracy. Senator, there's another element to this that has been a common theme for some

months now, not just in Danbury, but in Minneapolis and throughout the United States of America. And it is clearly and visibly aware to people watching what's going on is that this might be the most poorly trained, supposedly police officering department ever assembled. Is there any way that you can get exactly how these people are trained and who they are? So, you know, what we know is that a lot of this buildup has happened not through ICE, but through CBP. Now, CBP is Customs and Border Patrol. They are trained to patrol the border. They are not trained to do really complicated internal enforcement. And so we are hiring people for jobs that have almost no training on some of the most

sensitive activity that you can undertake. I mean, the reason that people are getting hurt, maybe the reason this individual ended up in the hospital in Dambury is because there are unqualified people out there doing major complicated law enforcement. And that, of course, is in part why you're seeing some of these consequences. with citizens as well, because when you run into a city like this and citizens respond, you are at the same time doing law enforcement and crowd control. And these people are definitely not trained to do any of that.

Now, we made an offer to Republicans earlier this year. We said, listen, if you put some additional training in the law along with some constraints to stop the worst of this illegality, well, maybe Democrats will consider support. some funding for ICE, but Republicans were not interested in compromising with Democrats on any of this, including requiring more training. Senator, this is Gene Robinson. Unfortunately, as Mike pointed out, this is not new. We have four months, for more than a year now, we have seen these excesses by ICE.

We've seen ICE made into some kind of a rogue national police agency that is. ill train that goes way beyond any bounds that has killed American citizens. Is there no response from your Republican colleagues? This is, if the Congress exists for any purpose, it's got to be for oversight of executive excesses and crimes like this, yet we're getting nothing. What? What is the attitude among your Republican colleagues? Well, listen, unfortunately, this line of argument that America is being invaded, that every immigrant to this country is a physical threat to people in the United States of America already, is basically the only idea that Republicans have left, right? They don't have any proposals to solve the cost crisis. They're not willing to stand up to the president to end this war.

They don't have plans to lower the cost of housing. So the only idea Republicans have is that immigrants are a threat to the United States, that they are the reason why everything bad is happening to you is happening. And we need to purge them from our national body politics. So, no, they are not willing to stand up to the president on this, which means the American people are going to have to do something about it in November. Because if we do get power, if we do control the how, of Representatives and the United States Senate, then we can pass laws that constrain ICE's out-of-control

behavior. For instance, we could pass a simple law, put it on the president's desk, force Republicans to vote for it, and maybe some of them would, that would say ICE cannot operate at school buses. Ice can't operate in churches. Ice can't operate outside of daycares. That's a simple law that I think Republicans would have a hard time voting against, and we could put on the floor if Democrats controlled the legislature. come next January. So yes, we can do something about it, but it's probably going to have to wait until after the election. Senator, as we wrap up this discussion, I just have to read a statement from DHS about what's happening in Danbury and across Connecticut. They say ICE does not target

schools, but we will not allow criminals to hide in our nation's schools and put the safety of children at risk. What on earth are they talking about? They're criminals hiding in schools. These are the parents of the kids who are in the schools who are being detained. And according to the federal government itself, four of the people they've arrested, four have some criminal record, though they haven't disclosed what those crimes are. Four? They've picked up 50, 60, 70 people. I mean, that's an admission that the entire argument that they have been making, that they are targeting dangerous people is just not true. The entire purpose of this operation is to put these kids into trauma. It is not to protect Danbury. It has to end. And frankly,

we need, you know, Republicans in Connecticut and across the country. We need big corporations that have stayed on the sidelines to just stand up and say, enough is enough. What we've seen in Danbury should be such a crossing of a moral line that everybody, even people that have supported Donald Trump say it has to end. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, we will continue to talk to you about this. We appreciate your time this morning. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up, the critically acclaimed Apple TV series Dark Matter is back for a second season. Golden Globe nominated actor Joel Edgerton and Academy Award winning actress Jennifer Connolly join us with a preview next. And this weekend over on NBC Sunday today, we will pay tribute

to the late great Dolly Parton with a look back at all of my interviews over the years with Dolly and my trips to Dollywood, where she was always a gracious and charming host talking about her rise from the other side of the mountain where she lived in a cabin with no running water or electricity to have her own theme park, Dollywood, and to become the icon she is. Remembering Dolly Parton this weekend on NBC Sunday today. And we'll be right back here on Morning Joe. The version of us. I just want you and Charlie to be safe.

Even if we find a perfect world, another one of you will find us. Can this be right, 13 Jason Dessons? This one, she's the one you want. Let's go find him. Ooh, that's a look at season two of the critically acclaimed Apple TV sci-fi series Dark Matter. It follows a physicist who's abducted and ends up in an alternate version of his life, forcing him to navigate parallel lives in the multiverse as he battles to return to his reality and to his family. Joining us now the Stars and executive producers of Dark Matter, Golden Globe nominated actor Joel

Edgerton and Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Connolly. Guys, good morning. It's great to see you. Congratulations today on the launch of season two. Joel, it's been a couple of years now since we've seen Jason and Daniela. So can you kind of just remind fans of this show where we pick up the story here? Well, the end of season, you know, season one was the quest of Mike Carrick, sort of trying to get his family back, which he does by the end of season one. And season two, we pick up the family as they've sort of end.

entered into the box, trying to find a safe world and sort of plant their roots, see if they can get some semblance of normalcy, and that's where season one, sorry, season two kicks off and it's not as easy and as peaceful to find a new world as they think it is. I love the premise of this show, and I'm so excited to come and binge watch season two now. But I think that it also feels relevant because as you grapple with the box as the central innovation for your character. You question just because it can be done, should it be done. And that feels really current for a society that is grappling with big tech and advancements

with AI. It feels like it runs on a parallel track. 100%. I feel like this season we're dealing with the consequences of the creation of this technology for all of the characters. You know, it's really changed the way they perceive everything, each other and their marriage for our characters and how they see themselves. And they question how they can move forward and how they can be in this new reality. So let's back up a little here. I've watched a couple of

chapters of season one. And I was in my own mind, I was saying, oh, this thing should have been named a stolen life. Your life is stolen. When you were pitched this series, what did you think about, I mean, it's kind of involved. It's intricate. And it's very interesting and terrific. follow, but it's kind of weird. Weird is good. Weird is good. I mean, what I love about science fiction in general, and particularly this show, is you take an idea that's a little bit sort of unreal or an extension of a true scientific theory and then ask the audience on this leap of faith, what if one person could be in two places at the same time or access their other versions of their life and use it as a way to examine real, you know, universal human

human truths about the questions of how did I end up here with the choices I made? What if my life had turned out differently based on little juncture points in my life? And if I had the chance, would I go and visit a different version of my life and how would that disrupt things? Among other great questions, I think. Yeah, that's like a really human question to grapple with. I don't have to wait to do my binge watch because we have a pivotal scene here from the series when your characters contemplate what to do with the box that serves as the gateway to the multiverse that we've been talking about. Let's watch. Studying it.

Just please hear me out. Yeah. Please. What if I could build an on-off switch for the box? It could stay offline. No one can use it unless we decide. I mean, I thought we already decided that we're destroying it. Don't you think we should stay here just a little bit longer before we go and do?

detonate our escape. I think if you were changing the plan, we should have discussed it. Well, maybe I was worried about how you might react. So, wait a second. Are you saying it's my fault

that you lied to me? I didn't lie to you. But? I wanted to destroy it. But? But... But what? But I...

All right, I can't. I can't. Pawning me. This thing is like... someone reached into my brain, pulled out my dream, and made it real. So this is exactly what we were talking about, not just the ways that it's a conversation about technology and advancement, but it's also between your marriage, the ways that it forces you to push and pull between what to even do with this amount of power and technology. Yeah. One thing I loved initially when I read the script and in the very conceit of the show is that you have this big sci-fi show with all the spectacle and adventure,

but at the core of it is a portrait of a marriage, you know, and I think we go deeper into that in season two. And in this really, you know, incredible landscape, we explore some very real world issues and the conflict in this marriage. And I would just like to repeat, Joel, what you said, Weird is Good. This show is Weird and Good. Severance is Weird and Good.

Strange is Weird and Good. That's it. Weird is good. Season 2 of Dark Matter is excellent, and it's streaming now on Apple TV, stars and executive producers of the show. Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connolly. Congratulations, and thanks for being here today. We appreciate it. Thanks. And still ahead in our next hour of Morning Joe, Lisa Kudrow sits down with Joe to discuss the third and final season of her hit show, The Comeback. Morning Joe's coming right back. Pena has struck out. He was hit by a pitch and hit into a fielder's choice. Pena hits the ball well to left field, and Jeremy Pena has connected on home run number 16 of the season. Almost carried the bat with in the first base.

It's a 4-1 Astros lead. We all love a spicy jalapena. On first with two outs, and that'll get Churio to the play for the second time tonight. Churio goes to right. Face hit Fawn turns into two runs. For Churio number 18. Top of the order now when Jackson Churio has got a great night with two singles and a two-run. Homer in four trips.

Turyo to luck. Caps it with a second home run of the night. It's a two-run shot, and the Brewers with an eight to two lead here in Queens. Rojas singled off the end of his bat. His last time up, he is one for

three tonight. Ground ball to the left side. Riley, it's a second for one. There are two outs, and the batter is Alex call. Chris Sale just needs one more strike. Some of the highlights from around the big leagues last night, including that shutout by Chris Sale, his first

First since 2019 as the Braves sweepers. Braves coming on strong here. Mike, let's just put it out there tonight. Seven o'clock in the Bronx. We start a massive, suddenly massive four-game series. The Yankees lost to the Astros last night. So now there are only two games that separate us in the playoffs. Huge because whoever's on top of that Yankees' Red Sox relationship gets to host a wildcard series potentially.

So what are you looking for tonight as Cam Schlittler, the kid from Massachusetts, goes up for the Yankees against the team he grew up rooting for? Yeah, before I get to that, Willie, I want to tell you, the Chris Sale game was great. A complete game with the break there for the protest at first base. He comes back and gets the final out, and he's one of the great guys playing Major League Baseball. Tonight at the big ballpark in the Bronx, Red Sox versus Yankees, the last time the Yankees faced the Red Sox, it was the small basilica in the back. Bay of Boston, Fenway Park, and the Red Sox swept the Yankees. They won't sweep the Yankees this weekend, but they will at least break the series even. Two to two. There's a double-headed tomorrow. Big game tonight. You're going to be there. I'm going to be there. It's like going

home. So we'll see you tonight and we will win. I mean, Willie, this is a rare moment where we have him outnumbered, right? Two Yankees fans. And we had the governor of New York in here just a few minutes ago. As a parting shot to Mike, she says, go Yankees on her way out the door. You got to love that. That's appropriate. And we just can't believe the Red Sox are where they are, given where they were a couple of months ago. An incredible story in Boston. But we're going to have to put it to rest this weekend, Mike. I'll see it at the ballpark. Still ahead this morning. We'll turn back to our top stories, including the war with Iran, now reaching the six-month mark. We'll also explain the latest ruling on President Trump's executive order to restrict voting by mail. Morning Joe back on a busy Friday morning.

Thank you.