Morning Joe - Trump meets with Japan's new prime minister

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

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1150 in Los Angeles. Perman sends a fly ball to center field. Our show's going back before the catch strikes meet. Bernie Freeman has ended it. It's a repeat hero with the last word on a game three classic. You know, last week, we said that Otani may have had the greatest playoff game ever in 121. years of World Series baseball.

I've got to say last night that may, he may have had that game again. And if there's ever been a greater World Series game, I'm not sure which one it was. In 121 years

of the Fall Classic. We have run out of superlatives to describe Shohei Otani. And the game itself last night, a game that frankly just ended a short time ago. After nearly seven hours in the field in Los Angeles last night, you just saw it. The Dodgers, Freddie Freeman, ended one of the longest games in World Series history with that walk-off home run in the 18th inning. By the way, one of the nicest guys in baseball.

I was earlier in the day in a conversation about whether he's a Hall of Famer. He absolutely is a Hall of Famer. MVP, Gold Gloves, great guy. And now two wins away from his third World Series title. That's Freeman's second World Series walk off Homer in his many seasons. seasons. Of course, he ended game one of last year's fall classic with that home run against the Yankees. But the story is Shohei Otani. Otani tied a 119-year-old World Series record with four extra base hits last night, going four for four with two home runs before drawing five consecutive blocks. They would not pitch to it. Four of those intentional to become the first major leaguer in 83 years to reach base nine times.

in any game. The last reliever in the Dodgers bullpen, right-hander, Will Klein earned the biggest win of his career, added to the L.A. roster just ahead of the World Series. Klein had never pitched more than two innings in a single outing, but last night went four scoreless frames. The Dodgers outlast the Blue Jays 6 to 5. They lead the series now two games to one, game four tonight, game five tomorrow. So the Dodgers have a chance if they win both to win the title at home for the first time since 1963. And Joe, let's mention O'Tani

the stat line again. Four for four, two homers, two doubles, three runs, three RBIs, five walks, four intentional, and he pitches tonight in 14 hours. It's the starting pitcher for the doctors.

Really, what can you say? I mean, this is a border war, man. America versus Mexico, team U.S. A-1 with Otani and Tay Oscar. So you had a Japanese superstar, a Dominican superstar leading the Dodgers. Of course, globalism has reached, you know, reached the Major League Baseball, like farming and like, you know, Silicon Valley. But you look at that game last night.

I mean, it's just, yeah, just extraordinary. Well, it's amazing, you know, waking up to seeing these texts. I hope you're watching this. but I watch what. And then I go on Instagram and I see friends who are actually there and the words they're using

are so for the thought and you realize that you missed history in the makeup. I was curious, John, who's pitching tonight? Because how many arms

do they have left in the bullpen? What happens if he can only go five or six tonight, you know? I mean, Otani obviously exhausted. Well, let's put it this way. Near mortals would be exhausted.

Sean Hay Otani probably will be fine. He was. He had cramps last night, leg cramps. I read. But yeah, No, they emptied out their benches. Yeah, exactly.

And they didn't know what's going to, what's going to happen to it. For sure. The Blue Jays pitch Shane Bieber, who's been pretty up and down this postseason, although I'm sure he was in his hotel room bed sleeping hours before this game even ended. So he should be well rested. But for the Blue Jays, what a gut punch loss this is. They're one one in the series going into last night. They had a couple different leads during the game, I believe they're up 4-2. The later up, they're up 5-4.

Butani, of course, the one to tie at the 7th. inning, then they match zeros for another full game before Freddie Freeman walks it off. Now, was last year's walkoff when Freddie Freeman hit the home run, then ran and hugged his dad in the stands? Yes. The guy who had, yeah. He gets Nestor Cortez and the Yankees, Freeman, the very emotional scene afterwards, winning game one at home with that walkoff.

Now he's done it for second straight year. It's unbelievable. You know, it's like the human pitch clock. He's done more for baseball and to get more folks back into baseball. if anything else, right? Yeah. And John Highland's here, right? I believe he is.

John, now John, until last night, John was a Brewers fan, but he's just, he converted last night in about the 17th morning to being a Dodgers fan. Of course, you were born in L.A. You've been a Dodgers fan your entire life. The only question is,

were you able to go the duration, all 18 innings? I'm embarrassed to say the answer to that question is, yes, because I'm a lunatic. And, you know, you thought that, just in the annals of Freddie Freeman, you know, that walk-off in last year's World Series was, we will now recall, a walk-off grand slam. And you thought, even in Freddie Freeman's career, you'd never see anything greater than that. And now you've seen something greater than that with Freddie Freeman. I have not, Joe, and all you guys, I've not seen anything. You know, I lived in San Francisco

Although a Dodger fan through and through, I lived in San Francisco during the Barry Bonds era. And I never thought I'd see a hitter who routinely was getting intentional walks when no one was on and no one was out. And you realize that by the seventh inning of last night's game, I turned to friends here and said, you know, they're not going to pitch to Otani for the rest of this game. It doesn't matter what the circumstance is.

He's so dialed in, you know, having been at that NLCS game where he hit the three home runs in L.A. to beat the Brewers, I was like, well, you know, he's going to come back home here and, you know, we'll see whether he's still locked in. Man, was he locked in? Two home runs and a double right out of the gate. The guy, no one has gotten him out in Dodger Stadium in the last two games of the postseason, the final game of the NLCS. And this game, what do you do tonight? Not only is he going to be starting pitching, but what? Blue J pitcher is going to want to throw a strike.

I mean, literally one strike to show, you know, Tani. There's never been a hitter, steroid zero, non-steroiser, there's never been a hitter, who's as dialed in as he is right now. And it's really something, even if you're not a Dodgers fan, it's something to witness, you know, nothing will bear it before. Yeah, you know, to follow up what you were saying about the intentional walks, John Lemire, I mean, many people consider Greg Maddox to be the great, you know, one of the greatest pictures over the past.

generally, 30, 40 years. And, you know, they'll ask Maddox. You know, you knew how to pitch everybody, but how did you pitch to Barry Bonds? He goes, oh, that was, he was the easiest one to pitch to. And they're like, what? He goes, I walked him every time. And, and, but he was, he goes, no, wait, I'm serious. And I just thought steroids are no steroids.

How could any batter be that good guessing pitch is big? I mean, that thing's coming at you, you know, 100 miles an hour can break any way. this is the only other time. The only other hitter that I can think of that pitchers just were scared to pitch to and intentionally walked him four times. Yeah, and doing so last night with no one on base, just putting him on. We can't pitch to you.

I believe, to Hammond's point, in his last two home games, he's reached base 12 consecutive times, which is an extraordinary stat. And then tonight, he's probably going to pitch those. He's going to start the game. He's going to pitch the top of the first. And I would not be surprised. If in the bottom of the first, he leads off,

the Blue Jay simply put up the four and say, go ahead, take first base, we can't pitch to you. So you see we have Jonathan Lemire, Jonathan Martin, John Halman, and coming up, we have Jonathan Carl. So it's an easy morning for us to start off here. President Trump is in Japan for a second day as he continues his nearly week-long trip across Asia. He will meet with business leaders in Tokyo after wrapping up remarks to U.S. troops aboard the USS George Washington, where he praised the Prime Minister of Japan. This woman is a winner. So, you know, we've been.

become very close friends all of a sudden because their stock market today and our stock market today hit an all-time high. I have such respect for Japan and the country, and now I have a really great respect for the new and incredible prime minister. I have to say this, the first female prime minister in the history of Japan. Earlier, the leader signed two agreements, first on trade, operating. few details, but promising to work toward a, quote, new golden age of the U.S.-Japan alliance. The second aimed at securing the supply of critical minerals and rare earths amid concerns about China's near monopoly on those assets. The president and prime minister also met with families

of Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korea decades ago, with Trump saying the U.S. will do everything in our power to help them. Overall, the day has been full of pleasantries and praise. President Trump congratulated the Prime Minister on being the first woman to hold that office and said the two countries will do, quote, tremendous trade together. The Prime Minister, meanwhile, announced she is nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and also presented him with gold-themed gifts, including a golf-themed gifts, excuse me, including a putter

owned by assassinated Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Of course, he's very close to Abe, who was the first person they called him after his election in 2016, and this continues. It's close relationship. But Jonathan, so much chaos

going on domestically of the United States, so much chaos going on in Washington, D.C., so much chaos going on in the streets of whether Chicago or wherever Donald Trump decides, that he's going to such chaos. That said, you look on the international stage.

It's strange. He had really tough, ugly relationships with allies in the first term. Second term, he's close to Stormer in the UK. He's got a good working relationship with Macron in France. He's got a good relationship with the Chancellor of Germany. NATO Secretary of General was there when he had a... I mean, you can go down the list. And now, of course...

Beavis his tune. Same thing with Japanese. leader, new Japanese leader, too. Pretty good relationships with our allies. It's the most striking element of this presidency at least nine months in Joe, which is that he's much more of a foreign policy-focused president. He's playing for a legacy. He's not subtle about it. He wants the Nobel Peace Prize. They don't deny that. In fact, they say it openly every day. I think that works so far as the economy is doing okay. I'll tell you what, though, this issue with Argentine beef is starting to seep into the groundwater, especially in sort of rural states. I think a lot of people

are kind of wondering, if you don't follow politics that closely, your view of Donald Trump is that every day he's either on a foreign trip or meeting with a foreign leader in the Oval Office. It's one of those two things. And if you don't follow the stuff that closely, you're kind of wondering, well, why is he always talking about Argentina or Japan or the Middle East? Like, how about my crops, how about my job? How about my... Price is affordable. Price, I think, as long as the economy is sort of hanging in there, and he's, our stock market is an all-time high today, which is his metric for how the economy is doing. I think it's okay. But boy, I'll tell you what, if you go into the midterms and you're all foreign

policy all the time, because you're playing for your own second-term legacy, the voters at some point are going to have something to say. Well, again, as long as the economy is doing well, and of course, you could argue that there are, don't argue, there are two economies. There's the economy that drives the stock market, the economy of the magnificent seven stocks, the tech monopolies, fueled by AI. You take those out. The stock market's not looking quite so great. It's looking a bit tepid, in fact, GDP driven, the overwhelming majority of Steve Ratner shows is driven by the top 1%. So you are right. When things are going well, Jonathan, and you're knocking on doors and campaigning, the foreign policy work that is so important, let's just say right here, which is so

important. It's not what voters necessarily want to see all the time. When the economy starts to go down a bit, if cattle farmers are having problem with the importation of Argentine beef or tariffs or whatever it may be, then right. Suddenly, there's a grousing about things like that. There's a grousing about tearing down the east wing of the White House. There's the grousing about, you know, why are you thinking about building all these monuments in Washington, D.C., when we can't even afford to pay our rent every month. Yes, certainly. It has been striking how foreign policy focus he's been in recent months. But this is a sort of precarious moment, though. The government is still shut down. We know about the health care costs surging. Snap benefits are going to expire

at the end of this week. That's sort of been people in both parties saying, well, this is the moment where things are actually going to get very real. We're seeing with air traffic controllers, but for a lot of average Americans, this is the next few days when this shutdown is really going to start to get painful. And with images of President Trump overseas, not paying attention to those things, perhaps not, you know, ignoring the plight of farmers, including poor soybean farmers like Scott Bessent, that this is challenging, that this will be come back and could possibly. I'm, actually, I'm surprised that Besson was able to leave his crops on Sunday and do the shows. Yeah, it's really tough. He said, I'm hurting just like you got. Oh, my God. I've been to

Charleston. And I don't recall soybean farms south of Broad Street in Charleston. Yeah. Hard to say. Maybe I missed them. I don't know, but you know, John Hyland, there's a through line here, and that is Donald Trump loves doing what Donald Trump can do by himself. You've seen other presidents do this in the past, not quite to this degree, but when, you know, when they have another party that's running Congress, they'll do things across the globe. They'll do the things that they can do. And whether for Donald Trump, it's traveling across the globe, it's trying to make peace deals. And again, a lot of this very important work. Nobody's minimizing that at all.

But that's something he can do without getting anybody else's approval. We are all shocked to find out. You can actually knock down the White House without anybody else's approval. Knock down the east room of the White House without anybody's approval. You can now because the Supreme Court is just sitting back doing absolutely nothing, you can levy tariffs if the first of the third branches are asleep at the switch. I mean, all of these things he can do retro, I mean, do on his own, he'll do them. And so this works for him much better than sitting at home trying to figure out how to end a government shutdown.

Right. I guess I'd say just there's two things to say about that. One is that, you know, the question that we've all been asking for a while, which is when does the fortune of the political fortunes of the Republican Party start to diverge from Donald Trump's? Everything has been for such a long time, the Republican Party has been tightly tied to Donald Trump. And even though Trump has often been more self-interested than interested in the party, they still have kind of risen and fallen together. As we get further into this administration, it's getting clearer in terms of Trump's behavior and in terms of the way voters kind of think about this, that those things are starting to diverge a little bit. That doesn't mean the Republican Party has started to deviate from Trump very much. They haven't yet, but they will, it seems to me increasingly, you guys, as it seems obvious that he's not that focused on their performance. He wants to keep control of Congress, obviously, because he realizes it will be a problem for him if he doesn't. But he's not weighing in here, right?

Republicans have been crying out for him to engage on this government shutdown for a while, and his basic attitude has been, this isn't my problem. The other thing is that, you know, to J-Mart's point, I actually think we're a little behind the curve here in terms of these issues getting into the groundwater. Trump's numbers on the economy are not good. Mika keeps pointing out on the show every day, the extent to which affordability has become the central issue in American politics. I think a lot of this stuff already is in the groundwater, and we're seeing a lot of voters across the spectrum starting to turn against the whole Republican and Trump-driven economic agenda. It's just not that popular right now, and it's not improving with the kind of ways

that Trump is behaving right now on the world stage? Well, it's interesting even when there are quite a few surveys that have the president in the 30s, at 40, low 40s, even at the ones that are 33, I mean, 43, 44 percent. He's underwater on the economy in a way. He's never been underwater on the economy before. But, you know, Jamar, it's interesting. I mean, there's something, you know, called gravity. And it applies to politics.

Whether Donald Trump wins, whether Republicans win. in 26 or losing 26. They can make all their third term hats they want. Steve Bannon can go out and try to freak out people that are watching his interview. One more news cycle for Steve. All they want. Right, right. They can do that all they want.

He's not going to get a third term unless he wants to defy the United States Supreme Court. Because Amy Coney-Barrant has already said in an interview, the Constitution says you're only have two terms. John Roberts isn't going. So these Republicans,

at some point are going to say, okay, thank you very much, Mr. President. And now, on with a countdown. Who's going to lead our party next? And you're going to start to hear the L word here sooner rather than later, which is lame duck. Which is a word you don't hear very often, even though he is a lame duck. Right. But I think you're going to start to hear that more. Look, next week you're going to have four elections, three of which the Gov races in Jersey and Virginia and the ballot measure in Cal

California, are going to make pretty clear that there's still significant energy behind the kind of democratic backlash to Donald Trump. The fourth one right here in New York. By the way, do you think the government shutdown has allowed Abigail Spanberger to jump to a 12-point lead in Virginia? I think it's a combination of a lot of things, but certainly including the government shutdown. And not just that, but the laying off of federal employees, you have Russ votes saying the

riffs begin, the reductions in force begin. and basically doing wheelies, you know, the fact, they're laying off federal employees. Yeah. Who live in Virginia. Very harsh. Many of which who live in this. And what's stunning about it, Joe, is the Republican incumbent governor, Glenn Yonkin, and the nominee for governor, don't say a word about it.

They just take it. It's just, it's the craziest thing. And in the New Jersey race, Mikey Cheryl, who by all measures, has been running just a deplorable race for governor, saved by Donald Trump, bragging about kids. the tunnel that would actually help New Jersey voters and their heinous commute times. It's a gift for her, and it's a reminder that in Jersey and Virginia, much as in 2017, by the way, there's one issue. And the one issue is the asteroid headed toward Earth politically, and that is Donald Trump. That's all that drives half of the electorate. But guess what? If you're a Democrat, those folks show up in

special elections and off your elections and all space. Hamburger and Cheryl have to say is Trump, Trump, Trump, and their voters show up. All right. Still ahead on morning, Joe. Speaker Mike Johnson says the Democratic Party is now the party of Zoran Mamdani. We'll dig into that attempt, which is a GOP strategy we have seen before. Also ahead, Jonathan Carl joins us with his new book, Retribution, that reveals some of the big moments that ended one man's presidency and brought another back to power. Plus, California is planning to send its own election observers to monitor federal poll watchers next week.

We'll have the latest on that fight. As we say yesterday, if they're smart, for every one Justice Department observer, they have four. Right there. There you go. Jay Martin, you know, across the Redneck Riviera, we had like 200, we had like 200 different voting places. Yeah. Our team in my first year had four poll watchers. At every place.

Well, this is also a GiotV gift, by the way, for the Democrats. Of course. They don't want you to vote. You show up and defile what they're trying to do it. They're playing into their hands. Okay, we also have a very exciting announcement for our viewers. Today, we are launching our totally reimagined newsletter. The tea spilled by Morning Joe will feature the latest takes on what's driving the day in news, politics, sports, music, entertainment, and so much more.

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That guy's a real slacker. Okay. You can scan the QR code on your screen to sign up now or go to MSNBC.com slash the tea spilled by Morning Joe. right back. Almost half past the hour. T.J. is out early. It's good.

Yeah, he's on it. Hanging out to the helicopter. He's on it. Yep, we're high above New York City. How's it feeling up there, T.J.? It's feeling good. Yeah, people are coming to work. You know, TJ, I can't believe you're flying over to New York City right now.

Last night, a lot of people don't understand. Last night, you were on the storm chasing plane that went in the 175 mile an hour winds. And now you're on chapter four. Yeah, that's how we do it. That's how we do it here. That's how you roll. Wow, this is so bad. Okay.

Republicans are working to make New York City. Buddy, almost as you believe in it, though, right? You're almost like, it kind of sounds. like, you know, apocalypse now, right? You're right? Yeah. I'm going to do the news now.

Okay? And then at some point we want to talk about the firing of L.S. Coach. I missed that over the weekend. Was that news? No. I didn't say anything about that.

It's a little more pop porn popping in your brain this morning. That's all in the tea. You've been working on the tea like crazy. Like, all right. Spill it. All right. So, here.

Here we go. Republicans are working to make New York City mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani the face of the National Democratic Party. And he says thank you. House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday pointed to the self-described Democratic Socialists as the future of the party, saying the left has been taken over by its progressive wing. On Friday, there was a little bit of a seismic shift in politics. All of you noticed it over the weekend. we saw our clearest sign yet that this radical insurgent movement in the Democrat Party

is succeeding, and they are ending what has always been known as the Democrat Party in America. After a months-long pressure campaign from the far left, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries finally relented. He gave in, and he gave his endorsement to the socialist running to be mayor of New York City. The House Democrats have chosen aside. They were forced to by that far left that they're so terrified of. And they've shown the world what they really believe. There is no longer a place for centrist and moderates in their party. So tell me, Mike, what do you believe?

What do you believe, Mike? Balance budget. We balanced budget four years. Mike, you have the biggest deficits ever. Ever. You pass biggest government spending plan ever. You want to slash health care for people in your districts. What do you believe in?

What do Republicans believe in? People with masks jumping out at people on the street and stealing them into cars without saying who they are, what their rights are, or anything like that. Let's see how that works. That's a good one. Is that that, that's not a 90-2 issue. Oh, I know. Beef coming from Argentina, a country that the president wants to bailout, right? That's a big one.

Mike likes the bell out right there. To be an American that bails out, Argentina. Now, is it a $20 billion, I'm confused? Is it a $20 billion bailout or a $40 billion bailout? It's not that popular in Shreveport, I don't think. They don't like it in Shreveport. No, but I'm calling for it in Shreve. You know, one of the most dangerous cities in America, by the way, Shreveme.

Per capita, it's not pretty. Yeah, it's not pretty. But if you're a cattle rancher and you get up like at 4 in the morning and you're working to, you know, do your job, you're kind of not, you're so busy trying to get food on the table. And you find out that beef's being imported. You walk outside. Then you dig a little deeper and you read about the bailout. You see the cows? And they're singing the soundtrack to Avita?

That's exhausted. And not ours, not many Potemkins, but the one they just didn't learn. And they're soccer fans all of a sudden. And they're soccer fans. Talking about soccer all damn day. The cows are kicking soccer. There's the World Series going off. Ryan Kelly's been fired.

They're talking about soccer. Anyway, so I think we digress. So what they do is that's what they, that's what Republicans believe in. But one thing Republicans have done, you got to give them credit. They are consistent. So now they're trying to say, oh, they're all communists. Okay. This has happened before.

Back in 2015. Rudy Giuliani said Barack Obama had been influenced by commas since he was nine years old. That same year, Senator Ted Cruz, called Obama the world's most powerful communists. Now, this is not, by the way, Jay Mott, a Ted Cruz imitation. No. But this is a red, this is a red bait in southern politics. It's like Hal Eifflet. Yeah, well, cracking, cracking, best Halifled story ever.

He's at a state dinner with Ronald Reagan about halfway through the dinner. He goes, Mr. President, you can eat your dessert. Ronald Reagan goes, no, Senator, would you like? Yes, or I think of a lot. Made out their own heart. 80% people don't know who hell will have fun is. But anyway, you get the point. And a few years earlier, then Congressman Allen West,

who many people have been talking about, talking about being vice president for Mitt Romney, said that he had heard. that up to 80 House Democrats were members of the Communist Party. John Heilman, this commie thing that Mike Johnson has been doing tried and not so true because it doesn't seem to work. Barack Obama often called a socialist or communist crushed Republicans time and time again. Yes, I mean, like, look, I mean, the finest tradition of red baiting, we're back there for sure.

And of course, you know, I don't want to be too hyper-rational about that. this, but, you know, why it would be, just on the merits, why it would be Zora Mamdadi is the face of the Democratic Party, as opposed to Abigail Spanberger, or as opposed to Mikey Sheryl, who are, you know, other prominent Democrats who are standing in these off-year elections, makes no sense whatsoever. And look, guys, you know, we know the Democratic Party has a lot of problems, but among its problems are not Bernie Sanders. You know, who's been one of the most prominent Democrats over the past couple decades, and has been one of the most prominent Democrats over the past couple decades and has been an avowed socialist for quite a while, or at least

a crowd Democratic socialist. This is a thing Republicans have tried for a long time. Again, Democratic Party has plenty of problems, and Republicans have succeeded in exploiting them. But the notion that you're going to try to paint the entire Democratic Party with the brush of the mayor of New York City, it does not seem to me that it's necessarily going to wash, although I don't think that's going to stop. A lot of Republicans are trying to do it over the days, weeks, and months ahead. And it wasn't that long ago. They tried this with Bill de Blasio. And Bill de Blasio, you know, with mayor in New York City, didn't exactly become a national figure, not quite the foil that

Republicans had hoped. Election Day, one week from today, Mamdani leads the polls. So they've seemingly tightened some against former governor Andrew Cuomo. But this is certainly, Mika, not a new strategy here to try to paint Democrats as communists. In this case, Madani is a Democratic socialist. But we'll, and there is a thought that he could provide something of a useful foil to President Trump. There's certainly a thought that the White House has been saving their efforts to go after New York City until Mom Dani is elected. But, you know, at the end of the day, this is Speaker Johnson making this point, as opposed to actually calling the House back into session. They've been out and out for more

than a month as the government shut down the case. Congresswoman. Yeah, won't swear on a Congresswoman that allows him to get the 218 vote to release the obscene files. They certainly don't want that to happen. But, Jim, at the end of the day, Mom, Donner, Donnie, who's name I got right that time? Nailed it. Zoron. Can I just call him, sorry? Sure.

Zoran, or the mayor. I'll call him Mr. Mayor. That's like so much easier down the road. His honor. He's a great political athlete. Just like Reagan was a great political athlete. Barack Obama was a great political athlete. Barack Obama was a great political athlete.

Donald Trump is a great political athlete. It doesn't matter what their ideology is. Doesn't matter whether they're left, center, right, nationalists. I've seen it time and time again. And it's what. said he learned from his high school coach you know he was calling his own plays it was fourth and like five state championship on the line he goes to the sideline and the coach says you call the

place he goes coach you call i he goes he says don't call the play call the player who's your best player on the team that's who you go to it's the same thing with politics doesn't matter what their ideology is this guy's a great player right zoron he knows how to play politics just like Donald Trump knows how to play politics. And so he's going to probably crush everybody. The early numbers are insane. Yeah, no, he's a formidable candidate. He is a socialist. He will give Republicans a foil and he will try to push the envelope on things. I think he's also someone who's very ambitious to and somebody who's going to understand what is and is not possible, especially in the first year of his tenure. And I think somebody who's developing a relationship with the

governor of New York State who's going to have a significant say over what happens in New York. York City. But Joe, I think you nailed it. This guy is somebody who's got real chops. And that transcends what you stand for right or left or somewhere in between. And I think that's why he's poised to win, why he won so conventionally in the primary earlier this year. Governing, different than politics, as we know. But if he can apply his talents to governing that as he has the campaign trail, he's somebody that's going to be formed. One fast thing. It's going be interesting on election night because you're going to have two Gov races where Democrats are likely going to win, say what. Later in the night, you're going to have a ballot measure

which will pass convincingly in California, which is a big win for Gavin Newsom. It's going to be fascinating to see how much the right keeps the focus on New York City. They're going to try to, but it's going to be very hard when you have the governor of Virginia right across the Potomac. If she wins, you got a centrist Democrat winning there. You got a centrist Democrat across from the number one medium market. in the world, if Mikey Sherrill ends up winning. So you've got those two. You've got the California ballot measure that, again, the Trump White House has, like, drawn

even more focused to by the stupid Justice Department thing they're talking about doing to try to spook voters when, as Jay Martin said, just going to inspire him. So, yeah, Democrats are going to be said, yeah, you know, we're a diverse party, unlike you guys. You just do what Donald Trump says. We just selected two moderates and a socialist. Yeah, and New Jersey as well will benefit from the, ill-fated get-out-the-vote effort here by Republicans because of the Justice

Department monitors. Yes, Democrats are going to be able to point to a big tent. And they'll also be able to say, like, look, it works in New York City is different than necessarily what the party is nationally. And we, the Republicans will try. We heard it with Nancy Pelosi. They'll try to pick, you know, one liberal face to make them the representative of the whole party. It's not going to work. Democrats, assuming they get the wins they expect, we'll be able to say, look, we represent a lot of places. Coming up, Jonathan Carl joins us at the table. with his new book on the quote campaign that changed America.

That is straight ahead on Morning Joe. We'll be right back. without permission to the White House. I told you we should have made him put down a security deposit. Let's ringing right now, ABC News, Chief Washington correspondent, bestselling author, Jonathan Carl. He's out today with a new book title, Retribution, Donald Trump, and the campaign that changed in America, which takes a look back. Trump's improbable return to the White House last year and the ripple effects of that election

on both the country and their swirl. I'm going to ask about the book, but I just think, I just think, because shit happens so fast now. There was a week, like last month, where Donald Trump said you should go to jail twice. And the first time, I think he said, by the way, you ought to take your wife to this beautiful life. It's safe and a wife. You and your beautiful wife should go and have dinner. Like, try to explain to Americans that are sitting there trying to sort through all of this. Like, you're right there.

Explain to them how Donald Trump could go from saying you should go to jail to. giving you dinner suggestions with your lovely wife. I mean, it was, and I'm serious. It was literally in the same minute, same 90 seconds. He said, you know, I asked him a very simple question. Pam Bondi had talked about she's going to crack down on hate speech. They're going to prosecute hate speech in the wake of Charlie Kirk. And I asked him basically, a lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech.

And she really, you know, what do you think of that? And then she said, maybe she'll go after you. You've got a lot of hate in your heart and goes off on this. Because that is what people say about John. Yeah. I mean, constantly see it from here. And then later in the day, in the Oval Office, the same kind of thing. But I'll tell you, Joe, as soon as it was over, as soon as the interaction with the press was over, the camera start leaving the Oval Office.

He calls me over to the Resolute desk and says, we're okay. Yeah. And he says, thank you, Jonathan. Thank you, Jonathan, on the way out. After he had just told the world what a terrible year. He's going to tell on me so much of his performative. But it's not great for safety. Somebody's saying it's great for safety, and that is the thing he doesn't understand is, for him it's shtick. For you, it's death threats.

Right. I mean, and everybody hears what he says obviously in front of the cameras. The other things I go through, I spend a great deal of time in this book to try to get as much detail as I could about his interactions with Biden because there were several interactions beginning with Butler, shortly after the shooting in Butler when Biden calls him. Then there are a series of other calls and meetings and leading to January 20th. And in all of these interactions, he couldn't be friendlier and more infusive with Joe Biden. The guy who he later, who he calls a corpse, puts up the auto pen, says it's the worst president we've ever seen. Somebody said it was like a golf club clubhouse. Well, like when they get together during the transition, that it's just, yeah, it's just there's such a disconnect. I want to ask you about Jonathan Lemire asked Nancy Pelosi a question on Morning Joe. That's a good question. He did with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, and I then get thrown out of the room.

It's pretty ugly. But not after asking Nancy Pelosi about Joe Biden's continuation of the race. That is a question on this show that sort of precipitated events in that campaign. And you write about it. And it was what was seen by Biden and people around Biden as the knife in the back. Maybe not even in the back. And your question was about whether or not Biden should get out of the race. and she said, well, he's got a decision to make.

He had made the decision. He had announced to the world, and he had snapped and said, no, no, no. Also on this show, by the way, enough of this, no more talk of this. So right after that, that was on this show, she goes to have a secret meeting with Joe Biden in the White House. And they don't even want the people in the West Wing to know about it. So Annie Tomasini, who is like the kind of almost a member of the Biden family, arranges for Pelosi to come in, you know, through the residence. Secretly, nobody knows.

They go up to the Yellow Oval, which is, you know, room that Nancy Pelosi and the residence, which Nancy Pelosi said she had only been in a couple of times in her entire life. Right. And they have this long meeting. It's the last time the two of them speak. As the meeting concludes, and, you know, Pelosi's not telling him directly to get out, but reiterating the message that she said to Jonathan,

that these two devout Catholics take out their rosaries and they say a prayer together. And Pelosi leaves it is the last time that they had any meaningful exchange of words. It's remarkable. A remarkable story. Moving forward, Joe Biden announces he gets out of the race. Nancy Pelosi gets out in front and supports Kamala Harris. And you report that, Barack Obama called her, basically asking, what the F did you just do? Yeah. So the two of them had been basically working to try to get, you know, Biden out of the race. And they had been, and they had been adamant that when he gets out, we need to have some kind of a process, whether it be a mini flash primary, something, a meeting of delegates,

something, something. And don't just add it over to Kamala. Don't just hand it over to Kamala. And they had had a pact on this. And, you know, she gets out and everybody endorses her within hours. You know, Shapiro, Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, they're all endorsing her within hours. Pelosi actually waits until the next day, but she sees that there's nothing to hold the tide. So she puts out the endorsement, gets this phone call. I actually spoke to somebody who overheard the phone call. And what Obama says is basically, what, Nancy, what was that all about?

and clearly irritated. Now, I've spoken to people close to President Obama who say he was just kind of giving her joshing with her and giving her hard time. I've spoken to another person who, you know, person who, you know, very close to Pelosi, says, no, she was pissed off. She was angry. I mean, sorry, he was angry. The clear message was, why did you do that? I also report that at right about the same time Pelosi talks to her husband, Paul Pelosi. And Paul answers the phone by saying, Kamala?

No. You did what? What? Kamala? Because they'd never been friends. Yeah. Look, look, neither of them, I mean, there were doubts from both of them, obviously, that she was the strongest candidate.

But bigger than that, they thought that it would be a very bad look and not good for her campaign if she was kind of just ordained. So moving forward to Trump's taking power again, the very title, Retribution. Yeah. Talk to you have new reporters. about how the Department of Justice very quickly became under his thumb and did, followed his marching orders. So this to me is a fascinating and underappreciated story that the, we all know that obviously the Department of Justice was taken over by the Trump legal team essentially.

But in the days and in fact hours before Trump becomes president, he's still wrapping up his legal cases. He, Jack Smith has to unwind everything. He has to finish his final reports. They go to court to try to stop him from doing his final reports. What's the need for a final report? He goes on, he fends off those challenges, does it, then they go to court to try to keep them from becoming public. They're given an opportunity, the Trump legal team, to come and have a look at the final reports, Jack Smith's final reports, before they come out. This is on January 3rd, 17 days before the inauguration. And they're told, this is Emil Bovi and Todd Blanche. they are told they have to come to Jack Smith's offices in Washington

to this annex building way behind Union Station and they can review it there. It can't be sent to them. They must come at this appointed time. And then before they can go into the conference room, they're told you have to leave your cell phones outside. These are the guys that are about to take over the Justice Department and fire everybody that had anything to do with this case

and they're kind of being treated like, in their views, as kind of common criminal defense lawyers. So when Bovie, Bovie is the one that first goes into DOJ, you know, within hours of the inauguration, because he doesn't need to be confirmed. And he is effectively running the show. And it is, to a degree, a reign of terror. It's like we are going to go and purge everybody who had anything to do with any case involving Donald Trump or even any of the January 6th rioters. and it's a it's a stunning transformation from defense attorney, common defense attorney, to maybe one of the most powerful figures we've ever seen walk the halls of the Justice Department. John, for folks who are watching this right now, they know you as a prominent TV figure on a different channel,

but they don't know perhaps that you also have covered Donald Trump when you were a cub reporter at the New York Post. You've known Donald Trump perhaps longer than anybody else in the White House press and we're going back for 30 plus years. The question I think all of us had, that all of us get almost every day from people, is this. And I want your view on this. Will Donald Trump voluntarily leave the presidency in 2028? Everything you know about this man all these years, you interact with them still almost daily today in Washington.

You see him in person. You talk to him. Tell me where you think this all ends. So there's a two-part answer to this. One is I do think that the reason why he keeps bringing up Trump, 2028, he's got the hats. He shows everybody to come to the White House. I mean, it's trolling. It is absolutely trolling. And frankly, Steve Bannon, who was the one that really started to get this going, is trolling not just, you know, Trump's critics and Democrats. He's also trolling J.D. Vance.

Bannon privately, not a big J.D. Vance fan at all. And by the way, John, before you got here, we were talking about how Donald Trump is going to be what every president the second term is a lame duck. One way to not be a lame duck is to print out Trump 2028 hats and have your lieutenant saying, oh, he's not going in here. Yeah. So that's the thing. I don't think that Trump has any designs on actually staying, you know, past the end of this term. He tells people privately, people close to him. No, no, I'm, you know, I'm done.

And he also, by the way, he's started doing this thing where he will, especially you go down in Air Force One, he'll go to people and say, so what do you think, J.D. or Marco? J.D. or Marco. He brings up Marco's name unprompted every time he's asked the question. But here's the thing. I don't know how he voluntarily goes lame duck. I don't know how he, at what point does he actually make it clear? No, I'm not running. And it's one of these guys or it's that guy.

And now all the attention shifts. I covered the Obama White House. Right. You know what it's like in late 2015, 2016 when you're a lame duck. Nobody pays any attention. Certainly not the kind of attention Trump wants. So I don't know how he voluntarily passes the baton. I don't think right now he's serious about staying another term, but how he walks away.

I think a lot of it depends on 2026. I mean, if Democrats take control, and I'm not saying this facetiously, we may see Donald Trump, you know, visiting Saudi Arabia and other countries and his golf courses a lot more. Yeah. All right. But he's already doing the lot. We're going to.