Morning Joe - Trump says bombing Iran could continue after midterms

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

October 2, 2026: 7am — Trump says bombing Iran could continue after midterms 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.

Pegzeth got up in front of the official flag of not compensating for anything to lay out his plan to take our military to the next level. 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. Worst Dr. Seuss book ever. That is. You know, that is such a beta display. It really is. Yeah. I don't know. Willie, do you know how alpha mel to talk like that? I mean, that guy, he went full beta with an American flag behind him, too. And it's what these guys do. It's like they're always trying to overcompensate. Like, why doesn't he start running beauty pageants or something like that? It's just such a beta thing to do. He did go on another rant about testosterone, too. He's very, very worried about. Did he really? every tea talk i just joe i we say it again you and i grew up in locker rooms and fraternity house i just dudes did not sit around and talk about their testosterone and all this other stuff these guys

are obsessed with it's getting no weird out of not to talk about it you didn't talk about no grabbing things like that yeah no it's it's it's very weird the overcompensation willie is so strange and again just constant constant talk about testosterone for a guy who's like how old is missing. It's like it's not like he's in the villages or anything like that, so I don't understand the obsession. Anyway, well, we'll be praying for him. Jesus loves you and I do too, and we're going to be praying that you're going to get through this. He's 46 years old. He's 46. Yeah. And he's very obsessed with testosterone. Very concerned about testosterone. Look at him. Very concerned. Oh, he's so pretty. So pretty. So baby. So bait.

Oh, my God. Well, yeah, it's kind of slick. What's in there? Is that WD-40? Oh, look, oh, he's tough. Yeah. All right. Jacket.

What's happening? Hey. Hi, guys. No weirdos. No goofballs. No freaks. Wee. God.

Like, who? We have this glamour real here. It's just raise him to love with her. It speaks for itself. You know what else speaks for itself? Tomorrow. The happiest day in the world. Oh, there we go.

Reverend Al's birthday. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. Having a birthday tomorrow, I'm working during my rally. Of course you are. No rest for the weary. No, I tell people I'll be 72, but I'm far from through.

There you go. I like that. I accept that. I'm far from through. I work out every morning. No need to check his testosterone levels. Wait, no. 73 is going to be 73.

Where's the cake for me? We can do it, but 72. You're far from through. So what are you doing on your birthday? Well, you know, I have Nash-action Network rallies every Saturday in Harlem. I'll be there. The governor and the mayor coming by. Right.

And then I do my show, Politics Nation, tomorrow night. I work on my birthday. James Brown told me you never take a day off because they will always say you're yesterday's news. So I do what I do every day. Always nipping at your heels. I always give Molly something to work on. All right. Well, we're grateful for you.

And I hope you have a great, great birthday. Thank you very much. All right, Rev. And Willie, we were just talking to Claire about that guy from Missouri, that lughead, that he's just making shit up in senatorial meetings about basketball game. First of all, you knew it was suspect when he suggested anybody would go out of their way to watch a game with my Atlanta Hawks playing. I've been a Hawks fan, unfortunately, my whole life. And I can tell you, people do not go out of their way to watch the Hawks play.

They're much improved, good young roster. They had Trey Young back in 2024. Maybe he thought the Jack Smith was going to watch Trey Young launch those threes. But, yeah, your point is well taken. And by the way, Senator Schmidt is now canceling interviews, one with Dasha Burns, our friend at Politico. Oh, really? He canceled that interview because he didn't want to face questions about his gaff that has caught fire and been viewed by tens of millions of people across the country. The Hill reports those text messages from-

It's worse than getting caught at a cold play concert. I mean, this is going viral like crazy. Yeah. Yeah, this one has really broken through. and the Hill this morning is reporting the text messages from Jack Smith and his staff that were reviewed by Republican Senator Eric Schmidt's team, never even mentioned names of basketball teams. Earlier this week, Senator Schmidt accused the former special counsel of attending Atlanta Hawks basketball game in February of 2024, suggesting he was in Georgia somehow to collude with the Fulton County District Attorney who was investigating Trump separately. Turns out Smith was at an Iowa Hawkeyes game in Maryland, not at an Atlanta Hawks game. And he said, by the way, he has never met Fannie Willis.

According to the Hill, it appears Schmidt's team was largely focused on the date in trying to figure out which games Smith may have been attending, chose the date, and worked backwards from there looking at the schedule. There are a few texts exchanged the day of the game. The messages primarily show Smith's staff doing real-time coordination, how to find their seats in the arena, which was not in Atlanta. It was in College Park, Maryland. There also were other signs sprinkled into text messages received by the Senate Judiciary Committee that the prosecutors were fans of Iowa Hawkeye's superstar Caitlin Clark,

but Schmidt's staff said they did not receive those texts about Clark. As we reported yesterday, staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee explicitly warned Schmidt's team. The texts were unvetted and that it was Schmidt's. and his team, their responsibility to verify that information, but they were looking for something, chasing something they read on Facebook. Joe, he was not in Atlanta and has never met Fannie Willis. I mean, seriously, they go on Facebook and chase down rumors that, of course, unverified. And you saw, of course, Grassley start, you know, start with a rumor. And that ended up leading him nowhere.

Let's bring you to the conversation. Chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, Peter Baker, and contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, Molly Jong Fast. Peter, this is just, we said the other day, there's such a microcosm of everything in the Trump administration. First, make stuff up. Secondly, when you get caught, start yelling and huffing and puffing and double down. And third, even after you've been.

exposed as lying, show absolutely no shame. In fact, celebrate it with people in a crazed media ecosystem that will repeat the lie and pretend that you actually get the better of Jack Smith. Yeah, it's kind of the triumph of the conspiracy theory culture that seems to be, you know, ascendant these days in American politics. You assume the things you see on the internet are true and then you look for ways to simply, you know, verify your preconceived ideas. And it was a pretty crazy idea to begin with, even if you thought there might be some truth to it. Like, this is how they're going to coordinate in a basketball game. I mean, it just seems really odd that they would take it that far.

And then presented on nationally televised congressional hearing. This is not about serious inquiry. It's about partisan game playing. And it's about, you know, gotcha, gotcha politics. And, you know, certainly there's enough of that going around in Washington today. It's not just Trump. But Trump, I think, has encouraged it because, remember, he came to office on the power of spreading the lie about Barack Obama's birthplace. That was how he came to power. It used to be that

people in power tried to quash conspiracy theories and lies and untruths. Instead, now, they're part and parcel of the political game. Well, this hearing did give us. I mean, this is going to live forever. The Hawks, Hawkeyes, Gaff. We also, of course, I love a picture of John. Senator Kennedy holding out the posterboard that really got you look in his face that he had to wipe off. And, of course, the Senator Britt reaction was there. I love that one. By the way, that's really good. That Oxford Scholar, you know. Yeah, yeah. Oxford Scholar. He should have known better, I suppose. But he changed his accent, by the way. When MAGA came in full force, he went from, I am supporting Senator John Kerry, because I believe.

You went from that to, you know, what he is now. Which, very richly entertaining. I mean, yeah. I love the accent. It's just not his. It's not his. And just another, this is yet another example of just being subservient to President Trump and also to being post-fact, which they are fine with.

They embrace these conspiracy theories. And it's all about the gotcha. And that's sort of what you've been writing about your last piece of the time. It's sort of this mean girl's presidency where it's just about the put down no real substance. I can't imagine voters care. So I think one of the problems we see in this administration is that Donald Trump is the principal, and there's not a lot of, it tends to be, you don't have a, like normal administration, you would have different fiefdoms, you would have ideas, they would be wargamed, they'd be thought out,

people would try to poke holes in them, they would try to sort of see what would happen if you would put something in practice. Where here you have a White House that is focused just on a principle, right? a mean girl, for lack of a better word. And then you have other people around them who are trying to please them, who are trying to give them information that makes them happy, like a Natalie Harb, or you have people who are trying to sort of, you know, so you're not getting, you have a principle who's not necessarily getting what's really happening in the world.

And that creates a problem. And so you see that Donald Trump sometimes says things, which can't possibly be right, right? And you see that he has maybe a very rosy sense of what's actually happening. And when you, I mean, a great, if you read the Maggie Haberman book, regime change, Jonathan's one of Maggie Haberman book, there are so many examples of people editing information to go to Trump, of people trying to please Trump, of people trying to sort of get the idea of what might make him happy and do it even before. And I think that is because the White House is such a simple social structure. Well, he's been, he's been so hurt.

He's been so damaged politically by the fact that he, He doesn't have people around him to counterbalance some of the information that he's getting. He doesn't have competent cabinet members around him. If he had competent cabinet members around him, he wouldn't have gone to war in Iran. He just wouldn't have gone to war in Iran. There is no way if he had, let's say, Mattis in there, or if he had Bob Gates in there, or if he had a Colin Powell-type figure in there, they would have said, Mr. President, no, because the second you go in, they're going to close the Strait of Hormuz.

You just don't want to do this. But he hasn't done it. And who's been the most damaged by that politically? Donald Trump has. I will tell you, even when I was in Congress and Bill Clinton was president, Bill Clinton was president. He had the power of the presidency. But I will tell you, we Republicans were in the majority and had a pretty big, pretty big majority. Do you know who everybody stood around back in the chamber?

You'll remember him's name, Jack Murtha. Because Jack Murtha, even in the minority. had power. And so this power in Congress was dissipated. You had new, you had Republicans that were running, you know, the committees that really matter, appropriation committees. You had Jack Murtha. But it's what Washington's supposed to be, right? So everybody balances everybody out, everybody compromises when a really bad idea comes up. You don't have a president who has nobody he's saying, no, Mr. President, you shouldn't do this because of A, B, C, D, F, G. In the Maggie and Jonathan book, the most remarkable part is he was just going around making

up numbers on tariffs. And at one point, when he wanted to sort of throw a bone to Shee, he goes, so tell me, what, how much? Or what are the tariffs on China? And when they gave him the number, he was like, you know, let out an excellent, and go, holy cow! Are you kidding me? It's that high?

just didn't know because there's no system in place. And he's not being served well by his own decision to not be served well. And that needs to change for his sake and Americas. I think the beginning of understanding with this president, this is not an administration. This is a court. Yep. And what you have are all the people trying to... When you say a court, you mean like a medieval court. He's the king. Jugglers outside. You're courteous. And what you have are people... candidates for that. We know some people who are to juggle with it. What you have are cabinet members essentially trying to please the king. And no one wants to speak truth to power. No one wants to say anything that is not welcome. So you have all these people from the Secretary of Defense to the

secretary of the Treasury and so forth essentially putting, they've got to know, at least one hopes they know, that it can't be true. And there's also, Joe, as you said, there's no process. Ultimately, presidents need systems to protect them from themselves. We went to war in Iraq in some ways because George W. Bush did not let his system work. He went to war in Iraq without a formal meeting at the NSA. This entire administration, you read how we went to war in Iran, it was a casual and formal lack of process. And there was no one in the room who had any experience or any understanding of the country we were going to go to war with. presidents need to be protected from themselves.

Right. This president more than most. Because he has such strong biases. Many of them are, shall we say, at odds with reality. He hasn't done a lot of governing before he became president. And he has less protection. And as a result, we have what we have. It goes back, Peter Baker to when he was running for office.

I said, hey, Mr. Donald, when you're making a big decision and you're in the White House, who are you going to have there to bounce the idea of? He goes, well, I'm pretty smart guy. I said something only whines of I'm kind of the smartest guy in the room. So I'm just going to ask myself. And I don't know if I said it then, but I thought that, whoa, boy, that is very bad. Because I'm a big believer. And somebody gets to Congress.

They say, what do you do? I said, I always have people around you. That'll tell you no. Always make sure you're the dumbest guy in the room. Always make sure that, like, when you have an idea, you have got to fight through people in your own office. before that idea gets out the door and gets to the floor. And that way, you know it's a strong idea and you're going to win. There's none of that in the White House this time.

There was a little bit of that in the first term, but absolutely none now, Peter. And tell me, when did he make that decision? Yeah, I think the second term is, in fact, the story of how much changed since the first term with staff around him, with advisors around him, right? So a lot of the things he's doing this term have surprised people, shocked people. They've gone further than he went in his first term. people like, wow, why this time, not last time? I think in part because last time he did have people who provided contrary advice, you know, John Kelly, Jim Mattis, you mentioned, some others,

and they, you know, restrained him, and he didn't have the confidence perhaps yet to overrule them. This time he wanted to make sure he had people he thought were more loyal, people who were going to try to facilitate what he wanted to do, not stop him from doing what he did. And I think that, you know, look, it's always hard, I think, to tell the president no. It's always hard, and Richard knows this better than I do, but it's always hard, I think, even under a normal administration for people to say to the president, you're heading down the wrong path. Hey, by the way, Peter, by the way, Peter Baker, you know, Joe Biden had that reputation. It was very hard to tell Joe Biden no.

Barack Obama, the biggest complaint about Barack Obama, as he always thought he was the smartest guy in the room, always thought he was smarter than the generals, always thought he was smarter than the CEOs. George W. Bush, he wouldn't even talk to Colin Powell before he went into Iraq because he knew Colin he was asked why. He said, well, because I knew he was against Iraq. No, that's when you want to talk to him. Would you know they have been there before and they think it's a mistake? So I only bring all of those presidents up that I'm not saying the earth is flat and comparing them to Trump. I'm just saying you've studied presidencies. This is an ongoing problem, isn't it?

Yeah, the best chiefs of staff, the best national security advisors, they find ways to make sure that contrary opinions get to the president, right? They don't try to shave down the differences and get to a single recommendation because then you haven't given the president a chance to think through what the options are. And part of the problem in Washington is even when you get to options, sometimes there's sort of fake options, right? A Pentagon will say, here are your three options. Here's the top one, which is unreasonably big, the small one, which is unreasonably minus. And so what they call the Goldilocks option is the one in the middle that they really want you to do, right? And that's not really giving a president a chance to absorb information, make considered decisions. I think you're right.

Obama, Biden, I've heard this about every president to some extent. Now, Trump obviously is different than every other president because everything in his administration is kind of on steroids by comparison. But you're right that the dynamic is not new. And the best president is try to get around that, try to get around that bubble that they live in and seek other kinds of information. Yeah. All right. Peter Baker with New York Times, as always, thank you very much. The other thing that all these presidents have in common, they were deeply irritated by Peter Baker. You know why? Because he was doing his job. No, I'm serious. I'd gone, Eddie. You know, I've talked to the presidents and they all, that Baker guy. Damn. What is wrong with him anyway? What is wrong with him? You won't give me a fair shake. I do hear that. I've heard that. I've heard that. I've heard that for two decades now. Peter Baker, thank you so much and still have a morning, Joe.

As many Americans keep struggling with higher cost. Our next guy to say companies are helping rip people off. We're going to talk to a top economic expert and consumer advocate about that. But as we go to break, Willie, who do you have this weekend on Sunday today? Joe, got a good one this weekend. Four-time Grammy winner Lizzo is my guest. You know her from all those hits over the years. Now she's written a children's book that tells her. own story of playing the flute growing up as a classical flute player and how she turned that into her superpower into a big pop and hip hop career. She's really smart, really fun to talk to. She's been through a lot the last couple of years. We get into that as well. Great conversation with Lizzo coming up this weekend over on NBC Sunday today. And we'll be right back here on Morning

Joe. From groceries and rent to airfare insurance, even event tickets, Americans are paying more for just about everything. Our next guest is exposing how some companies are, quote, reinventing the rip-off, using AI surveillance algorithms and high-tech pricing to find new ways to charge more and to raise their own bottom lines. Joining us now, economics expert and consumer advocate, Lindsay Owens. She's the author of a new book a lot of people are talking about. It's called Gouge, the end of a fair price and what that means for your wallet.

Lindsay, good morning. It's great to have you in the show. say, I even was shocked by a lot of what I read in your book. I think a lot of people will be, too. The idea that a company can charge two people, two different prices for the same item, or the idea that Uber knows when your battery is low and they know you're pretty desperate for a ride, so they might hike up the price. You talk about Walmart and Starbucks and McDonald's. So can you just kind of explain, first of all, how AI plays into all this and how these companies are doing it? Yeah, absolutely. Prices for everything are.

are going up right now. And there are a lot of reasons for that. There are the tariffs. There's Trump's war in Iran. But my book really peaks at this reinvention of the rip-off from corporate America. It used to be that pricing was simple. How much does it cost to make something,

add a profit margin, put a sticker on it? Now it's a highly engineered science. Let me give you some examples. Children's museums are charging toddler moms like me more for admissions on a rainy day when We know we're looking for shelter for the storm. Expedia is charging people from wealthy zip codes more for the same hotel room. Walmart is building new smart cart technology that charges you more for mayonnaise once they

know you've got tuna in your cart. These are coming for every line item in Americans' budgets, and it is really emptying our pockets. And it's coming, Lindsay, from the places where people do their most shopping. I'm thinking about Walmart in this case as well. I mean, you just touched on one example, but I think most people, when they buy things on Amazon or Walmart's app or website, they're not, they assume there is a set price that they and everyone else are paying. So how does this AI technology work in that way? Yeah, so this concept of surveillance pricing, this is the idea that companies are taking a peek at individual characteristics of you, your browsing history,

purchase history, how long your mouse hovers over an item, maybe your income, your zip code, your race even, and they're using all that information to set a price uniquely personalized to you. They're trying to assess your willingness to pay. And this combines two things Americans absolutely hate, understandably, being spied on and being ripped off. But this is no longer about the cost of making a good or bringing a good to market. This is about a new corporate credo. The right price is the one that they can get you to fork over. And, Lindsay, I mean, again, some of these examples are just so striking, the idea that

insurance companies might be flying drones over neighborhoods to figure out if they can increase the premiums on your house or trip booking platforms that raise prices for users based on their IP addresses. So you think things like that, the geography of it, and you just mentioned things like potentially race and age and such. this feels like profiling that maybe Congress could get involved. Is there going to be sort of potentially a legal aspect to this? Yeah, absolutely.

Look, right now there's something interesting happening in politics for the first time since I got to Washington. And that is that Democrats are edging out Republicans on the economy. This is not a story of Americans suddenly feeling like Democrats are great on economic issues. it's a story of Trump really tanking the party's reputation on the economy. But nonetheless, this presents an opportunity. And when Democrats get the gavels in the new Congress, if they take the majority, they should not focus on investigating what's going on with the Kennedy Center. I think if they want to be meeting Americans where they are and doing resonant investigations,

they should be bringing in the corporations that are reinventing the rip-off and emptying Americans' pocketbooks and holding them to account. I think Americans are very interested in hearing from the CEO of Walmart who tells his investors that he loves that his new chat bot Sparky is raising cart totals by 40%.

So I think they have a lot to answer for right now. The American people know who is behind these high prices. Corporate America is a big culprit, and I think Democrats will be very smart to conduct investigations into these issues. Lindsay, one of the most disappointing things that you talk about in your book, and as someone who loves a loyalty program, you know, you get a free gift at your birthday, right?

You have your points, you know, it's like that Seinfeld thing with the free sub, you know, the card for the free sub. I love that stuff. But it turns out what you're saying here is that loyalty programs allow companies actually just to collect data from you and decide how much to do. charge you, but also to sell your personal information. So it's not really a free sub, is it? Yeah, the loyalty penalty is just really brutal to find out about as a consumer who's hooked on loyalty programs. But what we see in the research is when you log into your loyalty program,

you are handing over detailed data about your purchase history. And of course, as companies know, you're a sure thing. They really stop offering you those discounts for, throttle them and sometimes even hike prices. There was a great example of a Washington Post reporter who got his Starbucks loyalty data. Once they figured out he was hooked on caffeine, he was always going to spring for his latte. The discounts quickly fell by the wayside. But this is also a very profitable book of business for companies. Kroger, for example, not just selling groceries. 30% of net operating income comes from their alternative profits book of business, which includes the data that they collect and sell about you from their loyalty program.

Lindsay, your book is getting a ton of attention and it prompted an open letter from the president and CEO of Walmart to talk about some of what you write in the book. And it's a long letter, but I'll just read to you one piece. He writes this, we do not set different prices based on who you are or the time of day and we won't. Your income, your shopping history, urgency or what we think you could pay will not change the price. We will hold our shopping tools.

that same promise. What do you say to that? Yeah, always interesting to get a Fortune 500 CEO weighing in on your work. But look, Ferner says one thing to Walmart consumers. He says another thing to investors. He says quite another thing to the Patent Office. I've done the research. I've dug in. And Walmart is building a verifiable arsenal of new technologies to squeeze consumers. This used to be a company focused on everyday low prices, not anymore. What he's saying about what Sparky is bringing in their chatbot for the consumer or for the company by upselling you and making sure you leave with as much as possible in your cart, the new smart car technologies they are building, the tracking they are doing to figure out how old your kids are,

and whether or not your car is heavier when it leaves the store. This is a new frontier in corporate profiteering. It's emptying Americans' wallets. It's really infuriating. And we've really lost our way from fair, honest, transparent pricing in markets from years past. The new book, Well Worth Your Read, is Gouge. The End of a Fair Price and What That Means for Your wallet, it is available now. Author Lindsay Owens.

Lindsay, thanks so much for being here this morning. We appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me. Coming up, President. Trump has found a new way to cash in personally. He's offering investors an invitation to an exclusive dinner if they drop big money into his meme coin currently worth $2. Details on that when Morning Joe comes right back.

Beautiful picture of the United States Capitol just before the top of the hour. Coming up here on Morning Joe, why the Department of Justice is reviewing President Nixon's Watergate scandal. Yes, Watergate. Those details next on Morning Joe.