Morning Joe - Trump pressed for details on $5,000 pledge

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

September 11, 2026: 7am — Trump pressed for details on $5,000 pledge 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.

When America's in trouble, Americans respond. And I got to see it firsthand. It's an amazing country. And I remember seeing the recruitment numbers, the volunteer numbers. I mean, it was unbelievable how many people joined our military, like flooding the military with people saying, I want to serve. It was a remarkable moment. And as Dan said, it's deep in our core.

And I believe that going in. I saw it firsthand. And so, yeah, these firefighters were tired. It's like going to ground zero. Seeing the firefighters and policemen. It's just unbelievable what they did. The sad thing is the third of our nation has no clue what we're talking about. They never witnessed this sacrifice and the courage and the dedication to serve a neighbor in need. That is really a challenge for our generation to tell future generations about the courage and the sacrifice. sacrifice. And the love, as John Meacham said, for those that firemen didn't even know as they rushed into the building to save lives of strangers. There's a beautiful shot of Lower Manhattan right now. Mike, Barnacle, is here with us. Mike, I was just telling the panel that when I call you during holidays, you were very happy, but beleaguered.

because you've got 16 kids running around your house. Yeah. Kids and grandkids. I'm wondering, how do we tell them the message of not only 9-11, but of 9-12, when we came together as a country looking at the stories of love and sacrifice that we saw across the horrors of that day? You know, Joe, I think what we're doing here this morning, what we've been doing since 6 a.m. when it came on the air, is exactly what we ought to be doing. We ought to be telling the stories of those lost and the survivors, their survivors.

We just had the wonderful woman with Willie talking about her brother who was killed on 9-11 in the building. There were so many survivors and the children of the survivors. There was a magnificent piece in the Atlantic magazine this week or last week by Sally Jenkins about fire lieutenant Kevin Dowdell, head of rescue four, of Queens, a legend in the fire department. And the title of the piece is the man who refused to sit on the sidelines. He left two sons. One son went on to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. His other son is a school teacher, both very successful and his wife, his widow. They remember Kevin Dowdell every single day, and they act on his behalf every single day. And they act on his behalf

every single day, and they are among hundreds of the survivors of September 11th, the children of those who died, the children who remember the stories of their parents, are either a mother or a father loss. That's what we have to do. We have to tell their stories. Everybody loves to hear a story. This is a tragic story, but it's a wonderful story. The part of it is a wonderful story. the children who are succeeding in this country, this country that was attacked that day, forget about what happened that day in terms of who the enemies are. We have enough enemies in this life of ours. We should concentrate on the heroes who died and they're surviving children and grandparents and whatever.

The heroes of 9-11, so many. I want to just really quickly, John Lemire, talk about the memorial, the beautiful memorial. and you said something off camera that people don't know, and I think they should know, and something that Mike Bloomberg doesn't talk about at all. But so much of that museum, so much regarding 9-11, you know, it's been funded by Mike Bloomberg,

most of it anonymously. Yeah, I mean, obviously we associate Mayor Giuliani with his heroic performance. It was heroic. on September 11th and the days there afterwards. But he left office at the end of that year, and Mike Bloomberg was elected, and he was tasked with charging of rebuilding Ground Zero,

and there was a lot of questions as to what that place could ever look like again. And then remembering what happened that day. And he was mayor for 12 years, and that neighborhood transformed under his watch. And indeed, the memorial was built. Stuningly beautiful. I took my sons there this week.

First time they visited it, and they were both to deeply move. and the museum as well. And Bloomberg has been, he has spearheaded it. He's been the chairman. He's been the benefactor of it. And yes, a lot of what he has done is done off camera. A lot of what he has done is done quietly to support that memorial,

but also funds that benefit those who were impacted that day, the heroes of that day, the families who lost a love on that day. So he certainly deserves a mention on this anniversary as well. And I've been asking what we should do. Well, it is happening because your sons went to see the memorial this week. my youngest son went with his friend down to see the memorial this week and is just so extraordinarily moving. Let's also bring into the conversation, MS now Justice and Intelligence Reporter Ken Delanyan and former acting FBI director at the start of President Trump's second term,

Brian Driscoll. Brian, I want to ask you how we're doing in 2026, after 9-11, of course, You remember, everybody remembers the thousands and thousands of questions that were asked. How could we have not seen this coming? How did we have a failure of imagination? How do we prevent the next attack from coming? As the Wall Street Journal editorial page said today, first quarter century, we've done okay. There hasn't been another attack. And a lot of people might say, well, of course there wasn't. Now, I remember in the days following 9-11 and the weeks following 9-11, you know, you look at one survey after another, about two-thirds, three-fourths of Americans said there's going to be another terror attack like 9-11. That hasn't come yet, but are you concerned now that we're letting down our guard?

There's a level of concern, but it's not extreme, right? I trust the folks that are serving every day to protect us. I know they are leveraging the best that they have available to them. To do that, I witnessed the evolution of the Joint Terrorism Task Force from the pre-9-11 that you mentioned approach where there was collaboration, a collection of intelligence, and then post-9-11, the silos that pre-existed, We're collapsed. And we all met at the center line, shook hands, and moved forward with a bias for action and a common purpose. And that's still happening today. Yeah. Ken, what about you? What is your reporting showing? Are we doing everything we need to do to prevent the next attack?

You know, Joe, there's disagreement on this question. But I talk to a lot of people for a story that I recently published who are even more pessimistic than Brian is about the state of affairs right now. Because the FBI, for example, has been hot. followed out. More than 1,100 special agents left the FBI, including Brian Driscoll, last year. Some forced out, some of their own volition because they don't want to work for this director. And a lot of those people did counterterrorism. And there was decades and hundreds of years of experience that walked out the door. And that's happening at the CIA and other places. And then you have FBI agents being required to go on immigration raids and walk the streets with D.C. police. Those are people who used to be working on counterterrorism. So resources taken away.

the complexity of the threat right now. There's al-Qaeda offshoots in ungoverned spaces. We don't read about it in the headlines anymore, but in the Sahel region of Africa or in Somalia. And then you have new technology. A lot of people are very concerned about the threat from drones. I mentioned in the story that there's a company in the U.S. that sells a flamethrower attachment. This is a legal product, by the way. That goes on a drone. And there was a case where actually three Americans bought this thing because they were trying to mount a coup. in the Democratic Republic of Congo that wasn't, they weren't terrorists, but a lot of people are concerned that we don't really have great defenses against, for example, a drone attack,

a drone carrying a bomb. So there's some deep concern out there about how we let our guard down. I think a flamethrower attached for a drone, I think we can kind of agree. That's probably a poor idea. Brian, just I guess with the, to piggyback on what Ken was talking about, the threats that are out there now. We remember in 2001, there had been a lot of warnings, alarms flashing about Al-Qaeda. This is posing a threat. It's a little different now. you know, but we are seeing a time of great instability, war in the Middle East, war in Europe. What are some things that you are concerned about that keep you up at night? The next threat could be.

And also threats from Iran, Iranian leaders saying we're going to strike in America. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I want to recognize what Ken said. The loss of senior leadership and subject matter expertise from the FBI is devastating, but it's not debilitating. There are still people there and in the other agencies. swinging the bat to keep us safe every day. However, there are things that keep me up at night. Of course. Every administration has their priorities. That's the way it goes.

I understand that. We all accept it. But with the current administration's priorities, there's a reallocation of personnel and funding and the counterterrorism division. It feels that. Is it a priority? Yes, it is a priority. But there are, again, with the loss I just mentioned, but also the reallocation of personnel working immigration or violent crime, all righteous endeavors, but you got to take from somewhere. Yeah. What keeps you up at night? The advancement in technology and how it's being leveraged by adversarial and bad actors, a somewhat a lack of education of our youth and exposure to,

lesser known terrorism organizations like 764, which is a nihilistic, a on extremist organization that just wants to watch it burn, and they leverage child exploitation and just brutal techniques. Let's go back to your first, you talk about the new threats. You're talking about like drones, drone attacks? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

I think there, I have. somewhat of a concern that we're a little bit lucky and not good in certain ways. That said, I know that the Bureau is kicking the ball down the pitch, so to speak, as far as enhancing our ability to use technology. The current deputy director mentioned the other day that they're leveraging AI to co-late threats, to identify them and work them faster. And that's a good thing. What's the level of expertise involved, if there is any, in keeping up with the ease with which people can communicate with each other by texting, by whatever today, as opposed to even five or six years ago in terms of threats made?

I'm sorry, can you clarify? If there's a terror cell in this country, young people from wherever they are, but they're a terror cell. their communications with each other in terms of the ease of the communication. Whether on WhatsApp or Signal or... So it depends. Sometimes it can be very difficult depending on the platform they're using. So if they're using a platform like Telegram or WhatsApp, signal is very difficult to break through. Also, it's very difficult to identify a threat that you can't see.

So the threat of the lone actor, the lone wolf, that you just don't know about because you don't have the intelligence leading you into that cell, like you said, that's troubling. So you mentioned AI as being a tool, but what is it also as a threat? There was a report this week out of the New York Times, I believe, a story about how, I think it was arthropic, stopped an effort. They thought that AI was being used by scientists, especially to develop a biological weapon. And they were able to snuff that out. But that, tell me about how that could also be something a tool for terrorism, not just for law enforcement. It's terrifying. So AI is being leveraged. not only for creative propaganda, but also to motivate and to ideate on different creative ways to wreak havoc.

And again, it's unfortunately it's something that a lone actor can do, especially with the advanced models as they continue to become more advanced by the day. It's a real concern, and I will say that's one of the few areas. like for biological attacks. It's one of the few areas where I've even heard leaders in Silicon Valley say, yeah, we've got a real problem there. That's a real concern. Ken, talk about New York City and how since 9-11 its security apparatus has grown the way it has.

It's really remarkable, and I'm not an expert on the NYPD, but I've followed this closely enough to know that the NYPD has become almost, it's an intelligence agency, first of all, that rivals the CIA in some respects when it comes to threats to New York City. They've got operatives all over the world. They've got an intelligence network that finds out about everything that's happening in the country. They learn from attacks in other cities. They're a learning organization, and they have technology deployed and officers deployed, I think, unlike any other city, to detect the next threat. And they've certainly foiled a number of plots.

All right. former acting FBI director Brian Driscoll and MS now Justice and Intelligence reporter Ken Delanian. Thank you both very much. Thank you all. Thank you very much for this morning. Appreciate it. And still ahead on Morning Joe, we're going to speak with the head of the International Association of Firefighters. Plus, we'll turn to the midterms and President Trump telling supporters that he's getting a little bit tired of politics.

Morning Joe is coming right back. Are you going to campaign harder than you've ever campaign? The hardest I ever campaigned because I had a win was the last, I took four months, no empty days, no empty hours. I made speeches all day. I didn't want to have fundraisers. I had the money. I didn't want to, which is a big advantage. I was able to raise a lot of money, and I have a lot of money.

I spent my own money. But I took four months, 120 days. I didn't have one. But isn't this just as important, Mr. President? I mean, your whole legacy is not. It's never as important. Look, I'm campaigning for other people. When you say my legacy, I'll be a block. I'll end up being a blocker. I'll block all their bad stuff for two years. It won't be the same, but I'll be a blocker.

What can I tell you? I'm going to be a little bit brief because last night I spoke for two hours. Like going over the same material again. So what I'm going to do tonight is a little bit different. We all love this. music, right? We're going to get a little music. I'm going to stand on the stage at the end with our great opera star, Christopher Machio, and he's going to sing America the beautiful Nesoderma, and all I ask of you from the Phantom of the Opera, and we're going to have a good time listening to music because I'm getting a little bit tired of politics now. Okay. All right, President Trump,

with that message to the audience at his party's so-called midterm convention. Also getting tired, perhaps the audience itself, since his speech, the previous night, drew in essentially only what an average primetime audience for Fox News rates. Interesting. Joining us now, contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, Molly John Fast. So the audience was a little sparser than perhaps he might have expected there at his event. And in terms of viewership. Yeah, I mean, it's striking when you look at the numbers that Dr. El-Said, the candidate for Michigan

Senate, actually did better numbers at that same time slot a few days earlier, which is sort of surprising. Like you're saying El-Said outrated Donald Trump? Yeah, a little bit, a few days earlier. But, I mean, I just think that when you look at these numbers, it's not like people are tuning in for it. Right. Yeah. And then you looked at the crowd. where there were some people.

Yeah. It has been a decade. Well, yeah, of course. And I mean, the thing is, I was explaining to somebody a couple weeks ago. It's like, you know, the routine, you know, people lined up in 16 around buildings and 20 around buildings to seem.

And you saw the crowd's a little sparser in 24, but we know the act. we know the routine. You look at it now. And I said, this happened to Reagan in 86. You look at it. And now you go, oh, that's where the rabbit is. It's not really in the hat.

Okay, that's how he does it. And so this is, he's getting tired of it. Yeah, Trump himself. By the way, just so people know that are watching, I ask you all the time. I say, what's going on? His heart's not in it anymore. He's not really, he's just not.

he looks like he's getting tired. And last night, he told Laura Ingram, and he told the crowd, kind of tired of politics. Yeah, tired of politics. And he was asked even more bluntly about whether he'd work as hard as ever before.

His answer was, no. No. I mean, it's just... By the way, it's been a brutal, brutal decade for everybody. Of course. And, Mr. President, we're all, tired.

And for him... We're all tired. And for him, sitting at defense tables, like the summer of his election. And everything has just been a constant fight. As Maggie everyone always said, he fights to survive every five minutes. And at some point, you get to the end of the line there.

And what he did, I think it's what's very telling there is that 24, as he said it, he was fighting for his existence. He was fighting to stay out of prison. Like that was the motivating factor for that campaign. And look, it's always been this way. When he's not on the ballot, we always talk about how his supporters don't necessarily turn out for him. But when he's not on the ballot, he views it a little differently.

And it's not as existential. And we're seeing that play out again now. Well, and Mike, he just said, she said, is it going to be as important to you? Or is it going to be important to you? You goes, well, no, I'm campaigning for other people. That's always a problem. And I think he also knows there's another truth about this Republican Party. They do much worse when his name is not on the ballot.

When his name's on the ballot, people that don't usually vote in elections, people that don't usually vote for Republicans, they come out to vote for Trump. But they're not going to vote for candidate Schmo in, you know, wherever. You know, he has always been the only element in his own solar system. Right. The idea that he would care about any other candidate really care about any other candidate, to me, is absurd. He only thinks about himself.

And pardon me for saying this, as we're talking about him, but to talk about him in the context of American politics on this day seems not to fit what I'm thinking and not to fit what I'm feeling. And I suspect most of you feel the same way as I do. We're talking about Donald Trump because he was last night, you know, on TV saying it's going to be short tonight. I'm only going to speak for an hour and a half instead of two and a half hours. But there's so much more to this day than Donald Trump. as he was speaking, you know, all I could think of, this has nothing to do with Donald Trump, but I was thinking, just came into my mind a woman named Amy Sweeney, who I knew,

she was a flight attendant on American Airlines, the first American Airlines plane to crash into the North Tower. She was from Act in Massachusetts. She had a family, and she was on the phone giving information about what was happening on the plane as that plane headed into the North Tower. And my preference would be to talk about people like Amy Sweeney and her family today rather than Donald Trump. Well, there were so many heroes that day. Yes. And so many flighted. And we've been doing that for an hour and 40 minutes and we will continue to do that. And we will also talk about what's happening in the world right now when the president of the United States in the middle of,

I think, one of the most consequential elections in recent history said, I'm tired of politics. And I'm going to pay you for my vote. And I'm going to pay for the vote. And that's the second part of this, Mika, that is really telling that he comes up with this idea that even Republicans yesterday were saying it was nonsense. After the convention, President Trump was pressed by ABC reporter Rachel Scott about his pledge to pay Americans $5,000 if Republicans retain control of Congress. Take a look. Mr. President, on the checks, the U.S. is still, your economic policies are working. Why do you need an incentive for people to turn out the vote?

I think what you're going to do, I didn't do it for turning out the vote. I've done it as a reward for people having to put up with five years and four years of a horrible, a horrible situation caused by Biden. offered checks during the tariff refund checks. And that didn't happen with your president. On Iran, your network and you're the worst. Questions about the plan are also starting to come within the president's own party. Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, deeply, deeply concerned about this. Put out the statement saying the idea would be extraordinarily costly.

More than a trillion dollars adding the tax and spending decisions should, quote, not appear to be tied to election results. There also were a lot of people from sort of the freedom. caucus also saying the same thing. We've got $40 trillion debt, $40 trillion plus debt. This would be more devastating. I'm going to say also, I'm tired of Republicans talking about where the socialists and the communists are. Because first of all, Cato Institute, not a left-wing institute, says that Donald Trump has already seized control, part control of 30 companies. There's a very socialistic move. I can't think of another administration that

has done that. But he's already seized control of 30. then Vance comes out to size he's going to pay people at home, right? Which, of course, very interesting because all I've been hearing from people on the right is Gavin Newsom is evil because of home health care. And there's fraud in home health care. Fine. Let's stamp out the fraud and not do that. But, you know, the complaint was, oh, Democrats are paying people just to stay at home. Well, now Van says, let's pay people to stay at home.

And again, it's like, okay, so you're going to pay them money? You're going to pay for the vote? You're going to pay $5,000 for the vote. We're going to seize companies. I mean, who's a socialist here? Yeah. Seizing the means of production, I never thought I would see. But actually, Trump has taken stakes in public companies, which is something we did not have

much precedent for. I was struck by the sort of, when you look at Trump in this moment, one of the things that I think that his unreality problem, the fact that he lives in an information bubble, right? He doesn't seem to understand that he's polling at historic numbers, right? That he's polling under 40%. I just don't think he cares. But I really don't think he cares anymore.

But he's so focused on these renovation projects, these sort of reflecting cool. That's going to cost some money, too. And gluing gold stuff on the wall of the oval. Let me ask you about the $40 trillion debt that you just mentioned. you were a member of the last Congress that balanced the budget. How did you do it? What would you do today with a $40 trillion? I mean, you know, the thing is, you have to, you have to do, you have to get both parties together,

and you have to do things that neither party wants to do. And you've got to put your head down. And, I mean, I'll tell you, a good place to start is you've got to figure out, first of all, how are you going to save Social Security? It's going bankrupt. Yeah. How are you going to save Medicare? You know, the trustees are saying that Social Security's on the rocks.

Medicare is going to be on the rocks. How are you, how are you, you know, are you really going to continue extending Trump tax cuts for billionaires and multinational corporations? No, the Trump tax cuts have to be, we've got to get rid of it. And I will say this, yes. So 9-11, as a defense hawk, as a guy who grew up in a family that were Republicans because my dad was a defense hawk, work for Lockheed. We believe in a strong America. We can't keep spending trillions of dollars. stupidly on the Pentagon. We've got to be leaner and we've got to be meaner. We've got to stop

sending up multi-million dollar missiles to shoot down thousand dollar drones. We've got to prepare for this century of warfare instead of building Trump-class battleships that like would have been suited to fight in like 1980. But not right now. The waste and the fraud and the abuse that the Pentagon is absolutely astronomical. So, yeah, we've got a cut everywhere. If you have a $40 trillion debt, if we don't do it, now, I mean, the numbers are out there. Molly, people's social security checks are going to start getting slashed, you know, five, six, seven years from now. They're going to get a third of what they're getting now. Though we're running out of money, you're seeing interest rates continuing to go up. Those are going to continue to go up. Because,

the things I've been warning about for 30 years. And can you do it? Yes, you can do it. But why did we do it in the 1990s? We did it in the 1990s because the Democrats passed a tax cut that we Republicans didn't like. Republicans, we cut a lot of spending that Democrats didn't like. And the economy grew. Those three things. You've got to cut spending. You've got to get rid of the Trump tax cuts and you have to have an environment that allows small business and entrepreneurs to succeed, to grow, to build companies, to create new jobs, to raise tax revenue. So I'm going to piggyback on what you just said as a Republican saying, because you're technically a Republican stillish, right?

Independent. Well, wasn't Republican. I would call myself a conservative independent with a small C. But you're saying that we need to reverse these insane. tax cuts. And I agree. And then I would also add that we need to take off a tax on the consumer, the tariffs. Of course. Which have made everything more expensive for working people. They're inflationary. Their taxes, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, not a left wing rag. Yeah. Says tariffs are taxes. That's right. And they're regressive taxes. And they're being paid for

by people who have the least. They hurt the people who can afford to pay them the least. And that's the crazy thing about this. John, this administration was going to be a populist administration. They are the least populist, the richest, the most powerful. They get the tax cuts. They get the doors thrown wide open to them to the White House, to Congress. You know, working Americans are getting screwed. And by the way, if you don't believe me, talk to every Republican or every Democratic pollster. Ask them what the polls are saying right now. Ask them what people in focus groups are saying right now, they're saying we're getting screwed. Nobody in Washington is listening to us. Diesel hit $6. A lot of people in New York City and L.A. may not understand

what $6 diesel gas means for the election, but it means a lot. It means a hell of a they can tell you what that means in Middle America. They can tell you what $4.50 gas or home heating oil, what that means in New Hampshire. Or what groceries spiking or rent. Or, you know, the interest rates on mortgages just keep going up because of our debt and because of inflationary tariffs. Yeah, and I think the diesel. And because of massive runaway spending in Washington, D.C. No question.

And just for a moment on the diesel, it's not just the paying the filled the trucks. It's what are these trucks transporting? That's all goods all over the country. And that cost is going to, there's be such a ripple effect because of this. And the situation, there's news this morning about the Houthis, seizing another waterway in the Middle East, which is going to hurt Saudi Arabia's ability to get energy out. Price is going to continue to go up. It's a spiral right now. And to your point, this administration has done nothing to address it.

In fact, its moves, the war, the tariffs, et cetera, have made it worse. And this was Trump's signature campaign promise he was going to bring prices down. He has not. They've gone the other way. And he has surrounded himself with billionaires, many from the AI and tech sector. And therefore, we talk about this all the time. He used to have such a touch, a feel for the electorate, or at least his base, that's gone. Well, and it's gone on part because he's checked out.

And he says, he said, I'm tired of politics. Molly, stay with us. We'll be right back with more morning, Joe. And coming up, 25 years after September 11th, the lessons of that day are still shaping how firefighters prepare for disaster. the general president of the International Association of Firefighters, Ed Kelly, who is on the ground in the aftermath, will join us. We'll discuss the changes he's seen and what protections are still needed for those on the front lines.

Morning Joe, we'll be right back.