Morning Joe - Trump defends GOP convention after Paxton's criticism

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

October 1, 2026: 8am — Trump defends GOP convention after Paxton's criticism  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.

I would say that the Republicans don't have much going for them this cycle. The polls all suggest that. The mood of the country suggests that. They do have more money than the Democrats do, which could be spent wisely, one would imagine, to help them. But this 69% number that you show there on cost of living, I don't think much is going to change on cost of living over the next month. It could change a little.

Things have turned around a bit in the street of her mood. But I think that Republicans have to worry about is that opinions have solidified and not in their favor. I'm very proud the job we've done. We've done a job. But I've done a very bad job of explaining. I saw Rachel talking about it. I've done a very bad job of explaining how good the country is doing. We're doing better than any country in the world economically.

You're going to see Europe. Europe's a mess. Other countries are not doing as well. Even President Xi, first thing he said to me, wow, you've done a good job. He said that in Chinese, by the way. I think that's about the best description I can say. President Trump saying he needs to do a better job of explaining why the economy is in good shape, while Fox News chief political analyst, Britt Hume, says the economy is hurting Republican chances.

Good morning. And welcome to morning, Joe. It's Thursday, October 1st. Happy October 1st. Congratulations, first of all, on the Yankees. Congratulations, well. Congratulations. We pitched and we hit, which we haven't done all year.

You guys pitched for a while and did not hit at all. And didn't hit. And we, our manager, John Lemire, made sure that our guys that were pitching well, he took out for the guy who's pitched the worst over the last two months. And it cost him every night. How he could have, how his little computers and his little computer nerds? Oh, boy. Like upstairs could have made that call.

It just shows you how stupid their analytics are. How stupid they are for believing in their stupid analytics in every situation that you take out your aces both nights and put in your worst pitcher. I would love to know what, like, floppy disk they put in to get that answer. Yeah, two days in a row. First, tolling game one, graying game two, both pitching well. The manager makes the exact same change at the exact same time, the fifth inning goes to a lefty who has been bad for a month, and both times got burned, got beat by both guys.

And it is. And then afterwards, we had veteran players in the clubhouse publicly in a really unusual way, angrily denounced the organization's reliance on statistics. That felt like it was more aimed at the general manager than perhaps the manager, but a really ugly way to end the season. Well, and I've got to say, they spent the first half of the season ruining the batters, Sam, with their little hit, you know, pitch hit and throw. routine that they had, bat stat or whatever they called it. And you can see it last night. And you know, we were all in the same socks text chain together saying don't take Sonny out. Forget your little analytics. They wouldn't do it. They stuck their noses in their computers. And they humiliated the Red Sox by not leaving their starters and at least give us a shot to

win a two to one game. So I had no idea that the playoffs happened. Do the playoffs happen? Do the playoffs happen? Yeah. Yeah. We lost. I must have missed that. Okay. I'm a little bit worried. Somebody's hacked into your computer because you were texting. That was not me in the text or I blacked out, one or the other. I'm a little bit worried.

Yeah, I'm a little bit worried that 37 game stretch where we were awesome may have hid some of the problems here. And I'm a little bit worried that our best player may be made of paper machet or at least his wrist and hands, Roman Anthony. So there are two. Well, you can't really be our best player if you can't take a check swing and not have Yeah, you know, if your job is to swing the bat, if your job is to swing the bat, it's not good that you get hurt swinging the bat. Yeah, and that's what's happened to him throughout, Willie. It's pretty incredible.

So you have in the National League, I'm surprised the Cubs well. Yeah, they were taking care of pretty easily. They didn't hit either at all. And then you have another game today, Braves, Phillies, which will determine who moves on there just one game today. Padres to meet the Cubs last night. And we should stop and shout out the Chicago White Sox back down the American League side. They have lost 100 games or more in the last three seasons, including two years ago.

They went 41 and 121. Two years ago. And now not only in the playoffs, but they dispatch, thank goodness, with the Houston Astros. So they move on now and play the Guardians who they battled with down the stretch in that division. They're two very evenly matched teams. Man, you have the daily double as a Yankee fan. The Yankees win. Astros lose.

Goodbye, Astros. I mean, the White Sox playing well in part because they have got on their side. Yeah, that's true. Because of the police are. So, yeah, I mean, White Sox Guardians, division, we have two division rivalries here. White Sox guardians on one side of the American League. And then Yankees raise. I mean, the Braes will have home field.

Aaron Judge's health remains a question. But look, the Yankees did everything right in this series. I mean, the Red Sox did everything wrong. Everything wrong. That's part of the story. But we shouldn't take away from the Yankees. Like, it was unbelievable. Freed nearly as good last night.

And they came up with timely hitting. And now they saved Garrett Cole for game one of that series. They didn't have to run him in this series. So he starts next and the rotation gets up again with Schittler after that. It'll be very interesting. And, Miki, going back to what Donald Trump was saying, I love this whole, oh, it wasn't, you know, we haven't communicated it well. You know, they lie when telling the truth would be better.

They can lie about January the 6th. They can lie about rigged election. They can lie about everything else. It ends up what they found, Mika, is they can't lie about grocery bills. They can't lie about gas bills. They can't lie about diesel bills. They can't lie about the cost of living. They can't lie about how much somebody has.

to pay for rent. They can't lie about how things are more expensive today than they were when Joe Biden left office. They just can't lie about it. So they found themselves in this position where suddenly they can't lie, even about whether somebody goes to an Atlanta Hawks game. And boy, what about that? That guy was warned. He was warned not to use the text that just made him look like a jackass in front of the world. He used it anyway. Because facts, they don't think facts matter, but facts matter when people get their receipts from the grocery bills. And it's costing them so much more today than it did even when Joe Biden left office. Michael Schnell is coming up with more reporting on that story about the senator with his stupid lie story about the wrong

team. Also with us, co-host of the rest of politics podcast, the BBC's Caddy Kay is with us this morning. So President Trump is heading to Texas today to promote his economic agenda. The president was in the state just three weeks ago for his midterm convention. During that event, he said he would visit Texas two or three times to help get Attorney General Ken Paxton elected to the U.S. Senate. Paxton is expected to join the president at his event today. But it comes after the attorney General criticized the president's convention in leaked audio obtained by the New York Times. Paxton was speaking last week to a small group of conservative donors and lobbyists. In the recording, which is very muffled, Paxton is asked, do you feel like he's a little bit of a drag?

Paxton responds. So to be honest with you, the numbers, when we did that convention, it dropped our numbers. Everybody's numbers dropped right now. Yeah. not good. A Paxson advisor dismissed the recording as manipulated nonsense. Yeah, because you're a liar. You're a stupid liar.

But you can go ahead and do that nobody believes you. Just like they don't believe what the DHS says when the DHS lies about shooting people. But that's just what you do. So good luck with that. Let's see how it works in November. Here's how the president responded. Well, I haven't heard that. But I can tell you that the convention was amazing.

as you probably know. We had 107 million views. Think of that. We had over 100 million views, I think of the, the NFL had 25 million views. So we had four times what the NFL did. This is all nonsense. He's wildly exaggerating ratings for the convention.

He always does this. The two NFL games that aired during the convention drew under 44 million viewers. He drew about 7 million across all the networks that it analyzed. So there you go. And Kady Kay, so he's going down to Texas with a guy who said that he's actually hurt his standing the last time he went to Texas.

Donald Trump's constantly talking about what a bad political candidate, Ken Paxson, is. This just sounds like a lovely relationship. Yes, this is going so well, isn't it? He must almost be wondering why he got rid of John Cornyn in the first place who would have won Texas for the Republicans pretty handily. on the exaggerating, he's been doing this for ages. It's getting quite tiring. It's very old school. His obsession with TV ratings, actually what he was referring to was social media impressions.

I don't know that he knows the difference, but he's clearly, as you say, wildly exaggerating the numbers. He has to go to Texas because he made a mistake on Texas. The story of Donald Trump's presidency at the moment and of his involvement in the midterm elections is one largely of incompetence. These are problems of his own making. tariff war with Canada is of his own making. The Iran war is of his own making. The problem in Texas is of his own making. He doesn't need to be in a position. The Republican Party doesn't need it to be in a position, which is why you've got people like Jerry Baker at the Wall Street Journal now writing that they have full Trump derangement syndrome. They came in supporting the

president, but they have seen a series of own goals by the administration, whether it comes to domestic politics or around the world, that are putting America and the Republican Party and himself in this position. Now to that new reporting on Republican Senator Eric Schmidt, ignoring warnings about the texts his team received from the Justice Department connected to Jack Smith. So according to a source with direct knowledge of the conversation, the senator was told that the texts were unvetted, but he used them anyway. What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game on February 3, 2024, the day after Willison Wade announced their affair.

I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin Clark was playing. Could it then be that University of Iowa's the Hawkeyes? That might be the confusion over the names of the team, but perhaps you should have looked at it more carefully. Willie, what would you say if I told you that you were, in fact, the person who lit the match on the Hendon Burke? What would you say? Don't take this personally. I would suggest you're a complete moron. Yeah. What would you say if I mean, seriously, the guy, and the guy, again, this is, this is a perfect little microcosm of the entire Trump area. You live in ignorance.

You sound Facebook, getting his info. You lead with lies. You spread it around. You spread the lies around. And then after you're caught lying. Yeah. They live in a post-fact world, right? They think they don't have to live by facts.

So after you're caught lying, he still shamelessly continues to spread the lie. You're right. It's a perfect snapshot. Incompetence, dishonesty, and then being completely unapologetic. Shameless. Having no, and shameless, having no integrity and saying, I made a mistake, I lied. I apologized to the person I lied to, which I think is how a lot of us were raised to behave. So now we have learned staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee explicitly warned Schmidt's team.

The texts were unvetted and that it was their responsibility to verify the information. Let's bring one of the reporters on this story. MS now congressional reporter Michael Schnell. Michael, good morning. So walk us through a little bit about how this happened. We talked yesterday morning about, wow, what terrible staff work this was. Where did this begin? What was the source of these text messages and how did it fall apart?

for Senator Schmidt. Yeah, Willie, I think a lot of people after seeing that hearing were asking how exactly did this information get in the hands of a United States Senator and then get disseminated on such a large stage in such an incorrect way. So my colleagues, Caroline and Kendallaney and I, we sort of dug into this to figure out what was the pipeline of this information. And what we learned is that it started at the Justice Department, and the Justice Department shared that information along with other pieces of information with the Senate Judiciary Committee. I'll note it's not uncommon for small pieces of information to be shared between the DOJ and the committee, particularly on important investigations.

But some folks has noted that the large swath of information that have been shared recently from Trump officials is a bit suspect. So the information came from the DOJ. It went to the Senate Judiciary Committee. And then essentially what happened was Eric Schmidt's team had gone to Judiciary Committee staffers and said, we're looking for any information that may show a nexus between Jack Smith's investigation into President Trump's efforts to tamper with the 2020 election, and that Georgia investigation by Fawney Willis looking at his efforts to tamper the Georgia

election results. And the judiciary committee said, well, we have this piece of information. We have these text messages, but explicitly warn the Schmidt team that these have not been vetted. And when I say they are unvetted, it means that their importance in this situation, in the context that they were presented, was not confirmed. Clearly, Schmidt's team took that on anyway, and then the question was, did they fact-checked or not? I think we have learned that answer based on the hearing that they didn't because he disseminated this information, insinuating that Jack Smith was at the Atlanta Hawks game when he was really at the Iowa Hawkeyes game, just a little while away at the University of Maryland.

And so just, I mean, a lot of folks asking how did this happen? He was warned, but he used them anyway. MS now, MS now congressional reporter Michael Schnell. Thank you for that report. We turn now to a big issue impacting women's health. As we usher in October today, it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And for more than three decades, actress Elizabeth Hurley has also used her voice and her platform to raise awareness for money and breast cancer research. And now the Estee Lauder companies and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation are launching a new five-year, $15 million global. research initiative focused on breast cancer in younger women, an area that has been significantly underfunded. And Elizabeth has been a global ambassador for Estee Lauder Company's breast cancer campaign for decades. And we appreciate that. She joins us now. I want to talk about this sort of new ramping up into research in breast cancer and younger women. Why is that important now?

Well, I think it's been really frightening for everyone at the rates in which there's been a rise in breast cancer and younger women. It's actually rising twice as fast in women under 50 than it is for older women. But when I talk to younger women, I still have a lot of people saying to me, oh, that's a disease for older women. Right. Young people don't get breast cancer. And the awful thing is that we now know that they do. Right. The research that we have are showing that breast cancer diagnoses among women under 45 have have risk.

an 11% and there are more numbers that back that up. So what do you want younger women to know about their breast health? Well, I think every woman of every age should become very familiar with their own breasts. That's been a message that we've been saying for all the time that I've been with the company. Being aware of your own breasts means particularly in younger women who may not yet be old enough for general screening is we've always said familiarize your stuff. yourself with your own breasts so that if there's a change, you'll notice it and you can then go to your

doctor and talk about it. Because when you're very young and you're not getting regular screenings, that's really one of the only things you can do, as well as also maybe taking a risk assessment and finding out what genetically is in your bloodline and seeing if there's more particular reason why you should be breast aware. But we really think everybody should be breast aware. Right. And the genetic screening and all these new ways of knowing, what your risks are, what your risk level is, can be so helpful to saving your life. You know, you've been doing this. You're Elizabeth Hurley. I mean, you could do anything, and you've been doing this for 30 years. What keeps you so committed to this specific awareness campaign?

Well, when I started back in 1995, and I was asked by Evelyn Lauder to help her with this campaign. And I wanted to do it right then and there because I just lost my grandmother to breast cancer. and in those days no one talked about breast cancer. And that's what Evelyn said to me. She said, women are dying all over the world and no one is talking about it. We want to change that. So we started, as well as raising money for research,

really talking about breast cancer. She co-invented the pink ribbon. Breast Cancer Awareness Month became very important for us. But over the decades, there is now, people know about breast cancer now. We've shouted it from the rooftops. Everybody knows about breast cancer. They understand what the pink ribbon is.

And treatments have improved. So much has improved, but still one in eight of us will be diagnosed with breast cancer in our lifetime. It still kills more women than any other cancer. And it's still a very serious problem. And now understanding that younger women are being so affected by this, which is why I'm just so proud that there's this new initiative to help younger women in particular and try and find out. They're going to examine all the facts around. onset breast cancer and try and translate that into ways that'll help people to try to find out the risk factors, to try to find out, is there anything people can do to help prevent it,

to try to find out the best treatments for this particular form of breast cancer. Because unfortunately, with younger women, it can be found later and it can be a much more aggressive cancer. So it's going to have different challenges, and that's what we're really hoping this initiative is going to help us understand more about it. I bet 30 years ago it wasn't as easy to talk about this issue as it is now. So, I mean, and there's so many different ways in which you can get to people. Hopefully this campaign will raise more awareness, especially on younger women.

So tell us what's next for you in this campaign because you're doing something kind of special today right here in New York City. We are. We're going to light the Empire State Building Pink for breast cancer. And we've been doing it for decades. And they're a great partner with us. And it's always been to us lighting these sort of icon. iconic buildings pink has always really said to people, you know, someone's listening to you, someone's aware, someone's fighting for you. And particularly now, I hope young women see it this

year and really understand that now people are really focusing in on them and that we really hope to ultimately save lives. Well, thank you very much for coming on Morning Joe and thank you for the work you're doing in this space. Elizabeth Hurley, thanks very much. And coming up on Morning Joe, an update on the president's attempt to stifle the first. Amendment, our chief legal correspondent, Ari Melberg, weighs in on that straight ahead. Plus, in a partisan address yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegesa said the Trump administration has achieved a cultural shift within the U.S. military. We'll show you those new remarks seemingly focused on culture war issues.

We'll be right back with much more. Morning Joe. Welcome back. Defense Secretary Pete Hegsteth yesterday gathered hundreds of U.S. troops to deliver what he's calling a state of the force address. In it, Secretary Hegessef laid out his vision for the military, touting his firing of dozens of admirals and generals, and using slurs to describe groups of people that he does not believe have a place in the military. We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that. no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals, just warriors.

The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in with testosterone testing on top. Diversity is not our strength. Unity is our strength. The number crunchers say we've fired 10% of the generals and admirals, across the force. And that number sounds about right. And I know because I directed it that we've also reduced the overall number of general officer slots by an additional 10%. So yes, 20% reduction across the board. Now the media calls that a purge. I call it accountability and long overdue. We can also call it juvenile and offensive. Secretary Hengseth announced several new initiatives to the Pentagon, including an effort to study the future of warfare that will be

led in part by Elon Musk, a new autonomous warfare warfare command for robotics, as well as a military office that's focused on religious programs. Today, at my direction, I'm establishing the Office of Religious Affairs. Starting today and for Secretaries of War, after me, the Office of Religious Affairs will report straight to the top. no staff filters, no bureaucratic dilution, a direct line to the secretary. This is not going to be a paper pushing shop. It's going to have real teeth.

They'll protect budgets, demand infrastructure, and strengthen religious support. The experts, our chaplains, will finally have an advocate at the highest levels. Policy and resources will serve the mission, not smother the mission. as Psalm 3312 extols us. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Yet again, another moment where Secretary Hedgeseth uses explicitly Christian rhetoric to describe the military. It's a non-denominational Department of Defense, to be clear. And this comes, of course, at a moment where many observers would argue that he has made the military weaker by firing so many experienced generals and admirals,

passing over others for promotions, those who tend to be candidates of color or women. And again, as the Pentagon is bogged down in a war in Iran, and our munitions continue to run low. Next, here on Morning, Joe, we're going to go through the Trump administration's latest attempt to restrict the press, just a week after a judge ordered the White House

to restore access to news outlets. Keep it right here on Morning, Joe, for that and more. A live shot of the White House there with accompanying construction cranes. And we have learned that the White House has removed CNN from the press pool covering President Trump's trip to Texas and Oklahoma today, escalating its ongoing dispute with that network. A memo from the White House shared Sunday showed that CNN had been scheduled to travel with the president today. But the network was then left off the updated guidance that was published yesterday for today's Trump events. The move comes a week after a federal judge blocked Trump's effort to ban CNN, MS now, and Politico from the White House after the White House stopped CNN from flying on Air Force One during Trump's trip to Tennessee last weekend, despite the network having been scheduled to provide the pool coverage. Now, earlier this week, the three outlets asked a federal court to block the White House ban until the case is resolved, saying the administration has persisted in unpredictably and inconsistently.

implementing its ban, despite a judge's restraining order, including selectively barring CNN from media duties. For more on this, let's bring in MS Now anchor and chief legal reporter Ari Melbur and MS Now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Our thanks to you both. Ari, starting with you, we've had the author of the New Time magazine cover story of President Trump earlier today. And in that piece, Stephen Chung, the communications director, actually sort of spells out the thinking here. I'll just read you his quote. He says the judge basically ordered them to renew their access back to the White House, meaning those three outlets. But that's different than allowing the pool into the events in the Oval Office or on Air Force One. So that seems to be the play here. They'll let

the outlets back on campus, but not give them the pool access they had been scheduled. I think that's right. And the headline is the rule of law held. The journalists did return to the White House, as we've covered and I think our viewers know, in short order, under court supervision, that's bad for a White House, particularly one that campaigned on ending cancel culture and supporting free speech, but actually had to be forced by another branch of government to just allow basic press access. So they lost that first round, rule of law held. That's the big headline. But the news, as you mentioned this morning, is them the White House trying to find other ways to perhaps uphold the letter of the most recent injunction while violating what most people

might call the spirit of the First Amendment. Now, in all fairness, is that next step lawful? It may be under the current case law in a different case regarding the AP, which did recognize that a White House has more leeway when dealing with other sort of smaller parts of press access. The Oval Office being mentioned, the plane being another example, where even if we forget that we're dealing with such an anti-free speech president, which he is, and he admits to, you could imagine a different administration making what we might call neutral decisions to say we can't let anyone into this or that space, and we've thus narrowed it. Is that above board? Is that on the level? You know, I try to call it like I see it. It seems pretty bad faith,

given the spirit of the ruling, but it may be technically legal, and we cover this issue fairly, even though, as we know, MS now is a party of the litigation, if it's technically legal, then they can experiment with ways to do what Donald Trump has admitted, which is trying to target press that he doesn't like, which seems very unconstitutional, un-American in spirit. But they might find some narrow avenues. That, of course, will also be litigated. This is the president, of course, who claims he's the most transparent in history.

That's obviously not the case. I am told by a person familiar with the process, there likely will not be a TV pool. today at all because CNN is their turn. They're not being allowed to go. So it looks like the networks are continuing to ban together as we saw last week, which I think is a heartening development. We'll keep you posted on that. Lisa, meanwhile, you're following a development out of the DOJ, which filed a judicial misconduct claim yesterday against several federal judges in Minnesota after they publicly critiqued the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis. Lisa,

what more can you tell us? Well, Jonathan, this is not the first time that the Department of Justice has filed a judicial misconduct claim against judges that have run a foul of them. They have a pending judicial misconduct claim, for example, against the judge who ruled that they shouldn't let planes holding a bunch of alleged train the Arago members leave for El Salvador. He alleged that they may have been in violation of their order. He tried to instigate contempt proceedings. Whether he can continue down that road remains to be seen. It's actually on appeal right now to a circuit court.

But nonetheless, they have filed a judicial misconduct claim against him, too. This is the first time, however, that they've gone after judges for speaking to the press. And I think one thing that's really notable here in this article is that, as you mentioned, it's not just one, it's not just two, it's several judges. In fact, it was all but one of the then seven active judges on Minnesota's federal trial court. And two of them were nominated by President Trump in his first term. Both of them, by name, made statements. But neither of them, by name, appear in this complaint.

The complaint singles out. two of them, one nominated by President Clinton, the other, the former chief judge Patrick Schultz, who was not only on the bench for 20 years is a former Justice Scalia clerk. If you go into his chambers, you will see signed photos of him not only with the late justice, but with the chief justice John Roberts. I don't think that this judicial misconduct claim has a ton of merit to it, but one of the things I think people should know about it is what remedy the Department of Justice is seeking. They want every single one of these judges, again, all but one, an active spot on the current federal court in Minnesota recused from any case whatsoever involving

the Department of Homeland Security. This is a court that had two habeas petitions, meaning the kinds of petitions brought by people in detention before it, over a three-month period in 2025. Flash forward one year during Operation Metro surge. You knew what that number surged to, according to the New York Times? More than 1,100. This is a court that was entirely overwhelm and overrun by an emergency of this administration's own making. And nonetheless, when they choose to speak out, what does the administration do? They say, not only are you in violation of judicial ethics, but the right remedy is you shouldn't be in charge of any cases involving DHS whatsoever. So if this administration were to conduct another operation like that in Minnesota and get their way,

who would decide those cases? Where would they go? You would have a federal judiciary entirely clogged and no judges to decide it, which may in fact be exactly what they want. The way to get their way is to get judges out of the way. And I hope that our viewers can see what it is that they're asking for and why it is a ongoing threat to the rule of law as well as to the right of the judges to speak in keeping with judicial ethics about the rule of law and judicial independence. Well, we're really glad you brought that story to us this morning. Ari, while we still have you, We want to get your thoughts on a moment that, well, we've had a lot of fun with this morning. The moment two days ago with Senator Schmidt were thinking he had a gotcha with Jack Smith,

but he, unfortunately for him, mixed up the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes. And it is an embarrassing one and so telling, as we've been talking about, about this moment because he made a mistake, but he didn't back down. And just simply acting with, you know, impunity, I guess. and just sort of an embarrassing behavior, but yet no apology at all. Yes, he wanted a big moment. He got it, but not the way he wanted. I'm reminded of the classic aphorism from Dr. Dre.

When you diss Dre, you diss yourself. And in this case, Jack Smith had his facts straight, and the effort to impute his credibility didn't just fail. It wasn't like sometimes you ask a question of hearing and it goes somewhere else. No, it really blew up in a spectacular fashion. And then the reason why this gaff, if we want to call it that or this Washington moment, connects back to something real, is that we see how far those Republican members of that committee have fallen because on Jan 7th, they were running for cover and safety away from these violent, later convicted,

seditionists and attackers. They were protected by the Capitol Police who Jack Smith worked with and has told us in his testimony he planned to call as witnesses. And while we can be very fair and say that in the other case against then ex-president Donald Trump, it never went to trial, he was legally presumed innocent, you know, on those claims, we all know and can see what happened because he pardoned the violent people. So Republican senators who that day needed cover for their safety and claimed on the record, including on the Senate floor, and dramatic testimony that we all saw and covered, that enough was enough, that that was bad, that, as McConnell said at the time,

It should be a criminal matter to explore whether the president was culpable. They're the ones now trying to impugn someone who led the very probe to deal with some of that criminality. They've really fallen a long ways. And the air ball, if you will, on that sports round to questioning, kind of showed it. Airball, I get it. Well done. So, all right, you'll also be on the ground in Maryland this weekend, where MS Now will exclusively live stream the sold-out power-to-the-people music festival. So this inaugural event aims to use music to bring people together and promote civic engagement.

Curated by Grammy winner Tom Morel, raised against the Machine fame. The One Day Festival will be held this Saturday and also features performances. Listen to this list. Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Public Enemy, as well as special guest Bruce Springsteen and more. All right. Tell us about what viewers can expect. Yeah, MS Now is working on this. We're very excited.

As mentioned, it's inaugural. This is a key time as people think about their voting rights. It's already sold out, but all of our viewers, as mentioned, can go on the MSNow YouTube. In fact, if you go on there right now, you can Google MS Now on YouTube and put yourself a reminder to be able to see it where we'll stream it. I'll be down there covering it. We'll be talking to some of those artists. I know this channel, Morning Joe, has a lot of interesting cultural and artistic figures. Joe, of course, loves rock and roll and at MS now.

we're always trying to keep our eye out and our ears open to what's happening out there, not only in, of course, news, but also culture. And so I think this is going to be a great in-person gathering that everyone can also enjoy from the comfort of their weekend viewing at home. If you, again, go on MS now YouTube to sign up for it, and we're going to see what really a tremendous lineup has to offer. It hits from classic rock, some contemporary rock, a couple other genres, Joan Baez, Cypress Hill.

So we're honestly really excited to do it, and everyone can check it out, and we'll be bringing back next week what we learn from some of the artists. All right, we're eager to hear a great, great roster at the Power to the People Music Festival, which will indeed be streaming live

this Saturday on MS Now's YouTube channel. It starts around 1 p.m. MS Now, chief legal reporter, Ari Melver, thank you so much. And, of course, we'll be watching The Beat. That's weekdays at 6 p.m. Eastern right here on MS Now. Thanks also to MS Now,

single league reporter, Lisa Rubin. Great to see you. Up next here on Morning Joe, we'll bring you the latest developments surrounding the war with Iran. We're back in just two minutes with that and more. As the war with Iran officially enters its eighth month, Iranian officials indicate yesterday that they receive an official U.S. response to their latest proposal to end the fighting and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The officials did not say what the response contained, but it comes after President Trump rejected a proposal from Tehran just last week. It also comes, as a U.S. official tells MS. Now that Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the Iranian foreign minister and other officials visiting New York for the United Nations General Assembly to immediately leave the United States early Monday morning and a sign that talks had broken down yet again and that trust between the two sides remains very low.

Iran's foreign minister had remained in the U.S. as indirect negotiations continued. You'll recall he met with Witkoff and Kushner on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. But the U.S. officials said, Secretary Rubio kicked out the Iranian delegation who had overstayed their welcome. Ungo was over, so it was time for them to go. No end to this war in sight. It will be right back with more morning, Joe. Welcome back. We're keeping an eye on the White House later today. President Trump will hit the road.

Heads to Texas for a manufacturing event with no TV pool in tow. because it would have been CNN's turn, and the networks are boycotting because CNN has kicked out of the pool by the White House. And then President Trump going to Oklahoma, and to be sure, it's near the border, so of Texas. So his rally will get some coverage there in that media market, but a strange choice to go to a deep red state. And he's got a tough uphill message to sell about the economy. We're talking about that new AP poll today. Only 26% of adults think he's doing a good job on the economy, and only 17% say he's doing a good job on the economy. and only 17% say he's doing a good job on the cost of living.

Those are extraordinarily low numbers and going to be a real problem for Republicans as voters are beginning to cast their ballots early for this election. We are in October now. That does it for us this morning. We'll see you again tomorrow at 6 a.m. Easter for another morning, Joe. Money, power, politics with Stephanie Rule is up next after a short final break.