Morning Joe - Ukraine's Patriot missiles run critically low

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

August 21, 2026: 7am — Ukraine's Patriot missiles run critically low 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.

A lot picture of the White House at 704 on this Friday morning. Leaders of the United States Navy reportedly are considering renaming an aircraft carrier that was slated to honor a Pearl Harbor hero instead now after President Trump. That's according to two U.S. official. The ship's still under construction, but it was set to be named the USS Doris Miller. Doris was the first black service member to receive the Navy Cross. He saved lives during the attack on Pearl Harbor when he defended. his fellow sailors by manning an anti-aircraft gun. He worked in the mess as an attendant,

but hopped on the gun even though he wasn't trained. Credit was shooting down at least one Japanese plane and pulling several wounded service members to safety on that terrible day. The ship would be the first aircraft carrier named after a black enlisted sailor. Discussions about changing the name to instead honor President Trump reportedly have been ongoing for months. aircraft carriers are typically named after presidents. The Navy did not respond to a request for comment. So Jonathan Lemire, Doris Miller, or Dory, as he was known, an extraordinary act of heroism and courage defending his fellow sailors that day.

Aircraft carriers, though, typically are named after United States presidents. It would be nice, though, perhaps, if they focus more on the men and women aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln right now, for example, that's finally headed home. rather than worried about anti-woke agendas in the Navy. Yeah, and the president and the Secretary of Defense came and bringing themselves to acknowledge the poor conditions there on the USS Abraham Lincoln. You're right to note that traditionally aircraft carriers are named after presidents, but this was in the works.

It would have been a historic renaming. And, I mean, let's be honest, this is a president who is obsessed with putting his name on things, that this would, you know, whether it's the Kennedy senator, and his team is still trying to forge forward with that, to remaking the White House, to, you know, the list goes on and on and on. We track it nearly each and every day here that Trump is obsessed with his legacy. And we should also note that if this were to happen, it would be the latest example of this Pentagon, under Secretary Higgseth, under President Trump, pushing out, you know, the memories of some heroes,

veterans who were, you know, of color, who were black or Latino or the like. we have seen, whether it's the website or the, you know, some of the memorials there, the plaques at the Pentagon itself, we've seen bases be renamed, sort of a whitewashing. I choose that term deliberately of, you know, who actually has represented this country, who has sacrificed for this country, who has performed heroically for this country. They're trying to, Joe, they're trying to push that out of the story, the history of our nation's military in favor of older white men, in this case, potentially President Donald J. Trump. Well, and in this a war hero.

I mean, straight out of a movie. An extraordinary story that Americans have known about for some time. I've also talked about Pete Hagsith is so obsessed with DEI and

so crazed by engaging in these exercises, obsessing over the color of people's skin, obsessing over their gender, obsessing over all of these things that I thought we were trying to get away from when woke one or whatever AOC called it was over. But no, he is obsessed.

Like when you have Chapy James, a guy, an American hero, a general who actually flew more combat missions than any other American soldier in the history of the United States. Flew more combat missions. His picture's taken down. Really, Pete? Really. You're taking out, and war heroes being erased? And I don't know. I'll have to check up on this.

Yes. We do name things after presidents, whether it's carriers or whether it's airports. But, Willie, don't we usually wait until they retire? So it doesn't look so untoward. So can you imagine if somebody went to Bush 41 and said, hey, listen, we were going to name this carrier after a Pearl Harbor hero. But we've decided to push his memory to the site. We're going to name it after you.

I think 41 would have had a stroke in the Oval Office. 43 the same, all of them. Nobody would have done this. And again, airport, you name it, everything being named after Donald Trump, while he's still president. Usually you wait until you leave and then people decide to honor you. It's truly bizarre. And again, it's, you know, it's what authoritarian leaders have done in other countries for years. But we don't do it that way in the United States.

It's not until now. No, and by the way, George H.W. Bush, who actually was shot down during World War II, was there, obviously, famously. I'm sure they had to twist his arm and fight and claw to get them to even name it after him. He probably gave them a list of a thousand other men who deserved it more than him before ultimately allowing them to do it. Yeah, I mean, and on what grounds at this moment? We're in the middle of this war that appears to have had no point to it. It's costing us lives. It's costing us money.

It's costing us time. And the president is so obsessed, whether it is, as John said, the Kennedy Center, these airports you point out, and the sycophants around him proposing highways be named after him. And they should put his face on Mount Rushmore. And let's make an amendment so we can run a third time, all this stuff just to kind of massage his ego. And in this case, again, this is not DEI. This is not wokeism. This is a war hero. This is not the promotion of someone who doesn't deserve to be where he or she is.

This is a man who was a hero, objectively a hero, and was honored as such in real time for what he did coming up from the mess and shooting down a plane on a gun he was not trained on before dragging his fellow sailors to safety. So we'll see while this nets out. Maybe they name a different ship after him. But again, another case of Pete Higgsett and others just doing what they're told by this president. 10 after the hour here. Let's talk more politics here, the midterms on the way. New York Times editorial board is out with a new series now tracking 12 categories of Democratic erosion in the United States, that's small D Democratic, highlighting the worrisome steps. It says President Trump has taken toward undermining American democracy. Measureing on a scale from 0 to 10 with

zero representing a strong, though imperfect democracy, and 10 representing a true autocracy, the board has moved one category, at least, manipulating the law to stay in power up to level three. The Times editorial board explains Trump has pushed Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps, back legislation that could restrict voting, and raise questions about whether legitimate ballots could be rejected. Constitutional scholars and democracy experts tell the times they worry about possible voter intimidation and efforts to block certification of election results, adding Trump's gerrymandering campaign has likely shifted the House competition at least 2.5 percentage points toward Republicans. With the president already taking steps like this for the midterm elections, the time warns

if Trump succeeds in perverting the results, as they write, he could be emboldened to take similar steps in 2028. Joe. All right. right now the author and staff writer for the Atlantic and Applebaum and also former host of Hardball Chris Matthews. And you've written about this repeatedly two classic books that have the timing of which could not have been better to help us explain, help us understand what's going on in the United States. Talk about what the Times is doing with their editorial board pieces and also where you see the pendulum swinging. Yesterday, I just, just as a footnote,

I've got to say David Rode added actually cautious optimism on some fronts because the courts have been standing up against some of these election year shenanigans by Trump. So first of all, I'm really glad you're talking about this because it's still undercovered as a subject because people imagine that elections are canceled because something blows up and the results are blocked and everybody cheats and so on. But actually, in quite a lot of declining democracies, elections are massaged and manipulated rather than canceled. And you can see the Trump administration attempting to do this in real time right now.

And some of the tactics they're borrowing from states. We have, of course, in the United States, we have state-level issues like this, and some of them they're borrowing from foreign countries. I mean, I think the ones, the two that worry me the most, One is gerrymandering, which you mentioned, because if you think about it, trying to carve out electoral districts so that one party will win is about the most undemocratic thing that you can do. And at the state level, we've seen that it creates, it gets elected people to state legislatures who don't owe anything to the people. They can be as crazy as they want. They only have to appeal to a small number of partisan voters.

sometimes they get involved with local businesses. They don't really have to care what people think of them because they're going to be automatically reelected. And, of course, we have a version of that in Congress as well. And the second thing is you can also see the Trump administration beginning to kind of prepare a narrative. You know, state election officials have been getting letters from the Department of Justice, warning them of criminal consequences

if too many illegals vote in the elections, as we know, illegals almost never vote. There's literally, you know, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny percentages of people who've even tried. And you can see them preparing to create a, create a situation of chaos or crisis after the election and saying, you know, we told you this is going to happen. For one second. Could you explain this? Because it draws a perfect parallel with what you wrote in Twilight of Democracy, where Orban kept talking about the Muslim invaders, the Muslim invaders. And then everybody looked around and they said, wait a second, there are no Muslims here. What are we going to do? Let's go after LBGTQ, right? So they,

they create a boogeyman that does not exist, but that actually worked for a while until people realize that the Muslims weren't flooding in to Hungary. You're saying that same thing is happening here with them saying, oh my God, illegals are voting, illegals are voting. Talk about that. And the parallels with Orban. It is, you're right. It's exactly the same technique. So you scream about a problem that doesn't exist. And in this case, of course, there are illegal aliens living in the United States, but there's almost no evidence anywhere in any state of them actually voting.

Because if you think about it, if you were illegal, why would you even try to vote? And for all kinds of reasons, the states all have systems where they can check people's citizenship. It's just not true. But they're trying to create this boogeyman, you know, illegals are voting so that, if they lose an election in Georgia or if they lose an election in North Carolina, they can say, oh, it's because of the illegals voting, and maybe they'll try to seize voting machines or reverse the results they've already done. They've already seized voting machines in Georgia and Fulton County in a kind of fake attempt to relitigate the 2020 election. But you're right,

it's distracting people with a fake threat. You know, here is a threat you need to be worried about. And of course, if millions of illegal citizens were voting, we should. be worried. But it's not true, but they repeat it as if it were true. And again, this is exactly what Victor Orban did. You're right. And not only him. And then you have the consequences, which is that they are then able to challenge the system itself. So Chris Math does let's get your take on this? Because it seems to me that it's a two-part play. There's the way the administration could try to meddle with voting beforehand, whether that's putting ICE agents on the streets or the National Guard or other intimidation tactics, whether of voters themselves or, as Ann noted, potentially local officials.

And then part two is what happens afterwards, that if the results they don't like, they just won't accept them. And they've been trying to cast doubt ahead of time. So at least a portion of the people might think, well, this is illegitimate. And then we're in a real constitutional crisis. Yeah, John, I think a couple of things. I think in macro terms about this election, I think 26th this November is going to be a significant election. I look at the House. I still think it's going to be big numbers. I don't agree with Charlie Cook around 15.

I think it's about 30. I think it's a sweeping election potentially. Right now we look at the United States Senate. That is also in play now. If you look at Maine, if you look at North Carolina, certainly in Ohio, they're in the windcom for the Democrats it looks like. If you look at Iowa, you look at Texas and Alaska, it looks like they are possible wins. possible loses in the Senate, Michigan, of course,

and I also think in New Hampshire with Sununu running, John Sununu, very popular name right now in New Hampshire. I think it's going to be money. They've got a huge amount of money, Musk money, all kinds of Republican money. They have a great opportunity for a national campaign, and this is classic. Carl Rove talked about the, we had a debate recently.

And I have to tell you that the last, Joe knows this. In the last minute, in an election, they will pull out somebody from West Palm Beach, somewhere and say he's been he's a member of Congress who's going after pages in the in the U.S. Congress. And they'll get a story like that and turn it into a major national story like Willie Horton. I think they're quite capable of that.

I think they can go after the Democrat communists, as they call them, DSA people. They're going to generalize the Democratic Party as being part of that. Trump's already doing it. I think they got a lot of money and they got a good, bad story to sell for the American middle. And I think they're going to do that. It's not tricky stuff. They've got secretaries of state are not going to bow down and take this crap from this administration and this political party. I think they're going to hold fast like Revenzberger down in Georgia.

They're going to fight for their jobs, which is really giving honest results of elections. And the only problem we've got with the immigration issue is, of course, what happened in New Jersey, which is a complete foul up up there in their system of registering voters and putting people online to vote who should. They shouldn't have been voting and shouldn't have voted. But they're not here in the country illegally. But I really think it's going to be macro numbers. We're going to get election night. We're going to cover it.

It's going to be like a big story what's going on. It's going to be surprises in the United States Senate. Probably the Democrats can very possibly win the Senate as they win the House. That's the big story. The granular stuff about redistricting in Texas and in California, excuse me, that's too granular. there. That's not the way elections move. They're going to move because of a massive American determination that Donald Trump should not be

president, that this war should not have been fought, and it's Donald Trump's war. I want to give him a name? How about Trump's war in Iran? How about give it to him? Give it to him and BB. And I think that's what the Democrats should do. I wish the Democrats would come alive and also have their surprise, because I'm sure

the Republicans are going to have a surprise this October. It's going to be something big and nasty about the Democrats. And John Howman, President Trump and Republicans know all this. They know that the House is, I'm not going to say it's gone, but it's in peril and perhaps even the Senate, though, a steeper climb. And that's why you see some of this softening of the ground with conspiracy theories and talk about the vanishingly rare phenomenon of illegal immigrants voting, things like that. So they can say after the fact, as we've seen before, obviously, that the election was somehow rigged against them. Yeah, Willie, and of course, I never want to diminish the power of money in an election that Chris Matthews was talking about.

But I'll tell you up here in upstate New York, which is pretty purple. I just drove down the street the other day. And the price of gas at my local mobile is $4.3 or $4.8 a gallon. And I just looked it up back in January of 2025. It was $3 a gallon. So that's a, my math's not always great, but that's a, I think, a $33. percent increase in the cost of gas. And I think that that's the big, the big structural factor that might overcome any kind of

campaign tactics that the president and his party roll out. But I want to go back to Ann Applebaum and ask this question. And which is, you know, ever since Orban lost, the Hungary example has been cited constantly by people in our business. And you hear a lot about what had Orban, despite his kind of iron. and grip on the country, what did he do wrong to make himself vulnerable to getting beat that way? Which you don't hear about as much. And I don't know the story of it all. And I'm hoping you do is what was going on on the side of the opposition? What did the other side do to take advantage of

the mistakes that Orban was making to be able to capitalize on it the way they did in that election? They did two things. First of all, they had a charismatic leader who spent a year and a half. going round and round and round the country. This was really retail politics. Meetings after meeting, after meeting in the same town. He had a kind of truck with speakers in the back, and he would drive it from village to village and make speeches. You know, he couldn't, this is a country where he had no access to mainstream media of any kind,

just a tiny, tiny, a little small amount of free press on a few websites. And so they used, you know, real-life grassroots organization, physical. campaigning to show up. And then I'd say the second thing, and this is maybe even more relevant to our election, is that he made the connection between the corruption of the regime and the kind of thing you were just talking about, the fact that living standards were dropping and Hungary was becoming poorer. You know, because they are rich, they are stealing from you, look at them in their fancy cars and their expensive houses, and that's why you don't have money. And actually, in the case of Hungary, it was true because they'd, you know, they were, they were, they were

making money off of, you know, giving themselves government contracts, the ruling party. And that narrative was turned out to be very powerful because people could see it. You know, we're losing. They're winning. They don't care about us anymore. Remember, Orban had been in power for 16 years. And I think there's a lesson there for a lot of Democrats. So Chris Matthews, let's talk about that lesson. The idea of corruption as being an effective tool on the campaign trail. And we've heard it from Senator John Ossoff, who has been very good at creating these viral moments. We talked earlier about the one from this past weekend about White House aide Natalie Hart,

but he's also the one who sort of coined the phrase Epstein class and suggested that could be a shorthand for the rich getting richer through corrupt means, you know, being able to skirt law enforcement for a long time. And he points to the oligarchs, you know, who have enriched themselves, thanks to President Trump, many of whom are in Trump's own. family or are the family members of his closest advisors? Yeah, I think there's a way to do what John Howman mentioned about, certainly the power of the gas price at the pump.

When you look up and see the number, you see how much money you're spending every time you fill your tank, sometimes twice a week if you're a working guy and have to travel a long distance. Put that in the heads of the, if you're a Democrat, I guess. If you put that in the head of a person, wait a minute, at the same time, I can't afford to make the bill at the end of the week, the gas at the end of the week. the gas at the end of the week. Look what the president's doing.

He's making trillions of dollars on crypt. And I keep thinking all this grifting going on all the family members and Jared Kushner. And every time they go over, they come back with a check. I mean, how can these guys be negotiating our national interests at the same time they're picking up a check from some Arab country over there? Why, they are always making money. Trump's crowd are always making money on us. I have to pay the bill. I think if you bring it together, that would take some intelligence by the,

the Democrats, by the way, to actually do it, they actually bring that home, this grifting, and bring it home to the person's home-owned bill. They have to pay. And I think if they do that, they would have an effective counter to what Trump's probably going to be up to, thanks to Steve Miller in that crowd.

They're going to come up with something dirty. They're going to try to make all Democrats into something like the Marxist wing of the DSA. They're going to try to make it really bad and they're going to make it nasty like they did with the going out to the trans kids in the last election. Just remember, people on the sidelines of an NFL game,

all of a sudden they're watching this new ad in the third quarter of the game. Where'd that ad come from? What's all this about? As Carl Rove told me, the Republicans are good at that last six weeks where they come up with something really nasty like Willie Horton. By the way, his name was never Willie in his whole life. They came up with the name Willie because they wanted to sound black. Excuse me.

They are very good at confecting this stuff. And I can see they can do something with the DSA, and they're going to make them into real Marxist, they're going to play the game. Personally, I think AOC is as American as Apple Pie. It won't work with her. It may work with some others, but I think they're going to get nasty, and I think it's going to be a really great close.

Remember the ad against Kamala Harris two years ago about the surgeries and prisons and all of that stuff? Chris Matthews, thanks so much. The Atlantic and Applebaum. Thank you both. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll go through new polling, showing why a deep red part of Arkansas could be a political game, for Democrats. Nominee Hallie Schafter in that state Senate race will join us to discuss her possible

path to victory against incumbent Tom Cotton. Plus, Democratic Congressman Roger Christen Morthy of Illinois is standing by will talk to him about his trip to Ukraine and why he's pushing the United States to study that country's high-tech defense. Watching Morning Joe, we'll be right back. As we've been reporting extensively, the war with Iran has severely depleted U.S. weapons. stockpiles impacting battlefields beyond the Middle East. That includes new vulnerability for Ukraine in its fight against Russia. MSNOW reporter Nick McCool has more. In Ukraine's capital, this is what it looks like when Russian missiles get through. A horror show lighting up the night and leaving unspeakable suffering behind. This woman's grandson was just killed in an apartment

building, one of the latest casualties in a war that has stretched Ukraine's air defenses dangerously thin. Well, with the missile interceptors, Ukraine, unfortunately, is in a very bad way. Ukraine relies on the Patriot air defense systems to help defend against Russian missile attacks, but their stockpiles running low as Moscow ramps up attacks. The Institute for the Study of War says Russia launched at least 376 missiles last month. At least 437 civilians were killed in July alone, according to the UN. On Thursday, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelenskyy urging allies to provide more interceptors, but the U.S. needs them for the Iran War II,

and President Trump has walked back a commitment to allow Ukraine to build their own. It's a hard thing to give away that kind of technology, and I don't think this would ever happen, but, you know, those people, that you give that technology, they can someday turn on you. You know, that is possible. If the Ukrainians can endure and persevere with their own attacks, they'll get through this. But the level of suffering has gone up, and I think in the winter will go up much more. All of this comes as Zelensky weather's a growing political crisis, with corruption watchdogs probing several government officials.

And then there's his old defense minister. Mikhailo Federov, whose oustra last month sparked days of protests. Fedorov now calling for wartime elections in an apparent challenge to Zelensky's leadership. Zelensky's term as president expired in 2024, but Ukraine's constitution doesn't allow for elections during martial law, which has been in place since the start of the war. Back to you. MS now is Nick McCool reporting and joining us now member of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Congressman Roger Christen Morthy of Illinois. He recently visited Key for a firsthand assessment of the war and Ukraine's defense efforts. Congressman, thanks for being here. Tell us what you saw,

particularly in terms of drone manufacturing there. Well, I had two observations. One is that their drone strategy is incredibly sophisticated, and I had a chance to tour their drone factories and operations centers, which are dispersed throughout Kiev and Ukraine. And we can tell take a page out of their playbook and learn from them in that regard. And then secondly, as your setup piece mentioned, the ballistic missiles from the Russians are being targeted at civilian areas. They're targeted at civilian infrastructure, including energy infrastructure. And unfortunately, because of this illegal war in Iran, the shortage of patriot missiles not only affects us, but of course our Ukrainian partners who are now almost defenseless against these ballistic missile attacks.

So, Congressman, the president, we saw in that package there to float the idea of supplying Ukraine with the technology to make patriots. He's since backed off that and that would take years anyway. So Ukraine's had to sort of ramp up other options. There's been reporting. They've asked Elon Musk for access to Starlink in Russia, which would allow them to better target, you know, Russian men. missile batteries, particularly sort of the mobile ones on trucks. But so far, Musk has said no. There's more thought they might use AI power drones, which would be a leap. And I think many people feel very risky here. As you see this conflict, how else could the U.S. be helping? What other options

Ukraine have? Well, you're right about turning on Starlink in Russia. That would be a game changer in terms of allowing for much more precise targeting, especially of those missile launchers. The The idea being you go after the archer, not just the arrows in terms of the ballistic missiles. I think that the issue of the co-production of the missile technology is still on the table. I think it's something that we should strongly look at. The Ukrainian defense industrial base is incredible at this point. They have the skilled talent. They have the ability to make certain components cheaper and faster.

than we can. And given our worldwide shortage of many of these important munitions, at the least we should phase in the co-production of some of these Patriot missiles as well as attack them's and so forth. If not directly in Ukraine, then in allied countries very close by so that we can rush those munitions to the battlefield. In Congress, let's shift now to the Iran War. We've heard from the president himself and some top administration officials, including the Treasury Secretary, that the new play is extreme economic pressure, believing that that could bring Tehran finally to the negotiating table in a serious manner. But details have been very scarce. Has Congress been told anything about what this

would look like, including whether it would be sanctions and other pressure levied on those nations that do business with Iran? To this day, which President Trump has been reluctant to target, which includes Russia and China. No, China, I'm sorry, Congress has not been informed. And I think that this issue of extreme economic warfare right now is premised on the notion that somehow our economic pain tolerance is much higher than the Iranians. And I think the Iranians believe exactly the opposite. The collateral consequence of this is that my constituents and others are feeling the pain

every day. They're seeing $4 gas. They're seeing various industries now start to slow down and job losses. And so, you know, essentially, unfortunately, the president is now seeing the effects of the Iranians, almost possessing an economic nuclear weapon, and that is control over the state of Hormuz. I just say one last thing, which is we are in not weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, giving the Iranians, increased leverage at the bargaining table with regard to this war and basically continuing to lower our tolerance for the economic pain because the Iranians know that they have us right where they want us. And we are signaling to the markets every day and canceling renewable energy projects, the Department of Energy that we are going to continue to be under the control of the

Iranians. Democratic Congress and Roger Christian Morthy of Illinois reporting to us back from a trip to Ukraine. We appreciate a Congressman. Thanks. Thank you. Coming up earlier, we spoke about the Senate race in Texas. Up next, we'll look at another

race in a deep red state where polling shows a much closer than expected contest. Democratic nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Arkansas. Hallie Schaffner will join us. And as we had to break coming up this weekend over on NBC Sunday, today, guest will be country superstar Luke Combs, a live event down in Nashville, played a few songs

for us in front of a live audience of our viewers, just off this year's leg of his tour where he did three sold out nights at Wembley Stadium to cap things off of his number one album. The biggest stars in country music, one of the biggest stars in all of music. Luke Combs coming up this weekend over on NBC Sunday today. And we'll be right back here on Morning. The midterms right now, I'm worried because the generic ballot's over six. That's advantage to the Democrats. I'm worried that I'm not seeing the clear message from Republicans. What is the plan of why you should stay in the majority?

What is your economic plan going forward? What are you touting as the successes that you've had already? I'm worried about certain states. That's former Republican Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, without warning about his party and the midterms. It comes as polling suggests the raise for U.S. Senate. in deep red Arkansas has unexpectedly become much more competitive. We have Democratic nominee Hallie Schaffler. She's challenging two-term incumbent Republican Tom Cotton. And the new survey of likely voters show Schaffner with a slight lead over Cotton. It's within the margin of error

and it's only one poll. But that's the sort of poll we haven't seen out of Arkansas in a very long time. And Hallie Schaffner is with us. Now, hey, Hallie, Thanks so much for being with us. We've been talking this morning about farmers. We've been talking about Scott Bessent blaming and other people blaming farmers anger on like the Green New Deal, which never passed. It's just bizarre results. But you're from a family of six generations of Arkansas farmers. And you have talked. You made this campaign about how farmers are feeling the economic crunch, how they're angry at how the economy has turned sideways. Talk about that and talk about why you got into this race. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me this morning.

I really appreciate it. You know, I think what's really resonating with folks in Arkansas is my story and how it's very much like the story of hundreds of thousands of Arkansasans. I mean, I am a six-generation Arkansas farmer. I'm also a wife. I'm the mom of a seven-year-old boy. I care give for a parent with dementia. And you're right, I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't closed my family's 150-year-old farm last year because of the farm crisis, which means I have quite literally lived

the rising costs and the broken system. And so I decided to fight back and to be the kind of senator who's going to fight for Arkansas instead of Washington, which let me tell you is a sight better than what we have in Senator Cotton. So tell me specifically what's happened over the past, year or so. It's been so devastating, not only to Arkansas farmers, but farmers across America.

Yeah. Well, I mean, farmers, we are looking at the last several decades, honestly, but certainly the last 12 years of Senator Cotton, who voted against the farm bill. And we're asking, is Washington actually working for us? Because as farmers, especially, we're having to take bailouts every single year because the government is taking our markets. They are going to war and it is increasing all of the input costs that we have. You know, we've lost 25% of the family farms in Arkansas, 15,000 across the nation. We now lead the nation in farm bankruptcies and farmer suicides. And we're looking at Senator Tom Cotton. We're saying, what are you doing for us? So, Hallie, good morning. I'm curious what else you're hearing on the campaign trail.

Obviously, farming is one piece of the story, but there's so much more going on. with the rising cost of everything for people going to buy groceries and to buy gas and everything else. So why do you think you've broken through clearly looking at this polling in a way that has surprised a lot of people? What has been the core of your message? It's really about knowing what the cost of life is in Arkansas. I mean, it's true. In Arkansas, we're a low-wage state, so we're simply not making enough money. And everything costs too much. And when we talk about gas prices specifically. I mean, we're talking about our farmers are going to the field to harvest corn right now. And diesel is almost $5 a gallon. We've got to be able to fuel our tractors.

We've got to be able to fuel our combines. But we're also a rural state. I mean, most of our families, we're driving 30 minutes to an hour to get anywhere. The grocery store, school, the doctor's office, we're really struggling. And we're asking the question, why? I'm simply a real Arkansas who's speaking to these issues. And like we say in Arkansas, we're an independent-minded state. And you don't have to change your party to want to change your senator. So, Halley, let's talk about Arkansas. Obviously, it's a proud military tradition there in that state. Tom Cotton presents himself as a hawk on many issues, you know, and certainly is a booster of the Pentagon and those who serve. The Iran War, how much of that is an issue right now for

voters in that state who might reflexively be inclined to support a commander in chief, particularly a Republican commander in chief at a time of war, but who have seen very little progress made in the Middle East. And back here at home, the result has simply been rising prices, including at the gasoline pump. I mean, right now it's simply that Arkansasans are struggling. Tom Cotton has wanted to go to war with Iran for 12 years. He finally got the war he wanted, and we're paying for it. And it does seem to us, like we are struggling for a seemingly endless and very expensive war that is costing the taxpayer a billion dollars a year. And at this, a billion dollars a day, and at the same time, farmers are asking, well, why is it that we can pay a billion dollars a day

in Iran? Why is it that we can give Argentina a $40 billion bailout? But we can't help Arkansas farmers in an industry that's literally our largest. All right. Democratic nominee for you. U.S. Senate in Arkansas, Halley Schafter, thank you so much for being with us. Hope you can come back soon. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. All right. John Heilman, you know, hearing her talk, and of course, Arkansas, obviously, it would be extremely difficult for any Democrat to win. But just hearing your talk, I'm reminded the type of candidates that win elections and the type of Democrats that are going to have a good chance of doing something big this year. You listen to her talking about diesel. Right now, you know, they're harvesting corn.

Diesel, $5 a gallon. The cost of fertilizer up. Both of these things because of an unnecessary war in Iran. I mean, Donald Trump's appeal was we're going... to not fight unnecessary wars overseas. And she brings in, really, just again, I'm not saying she's going to win, but you just look, and she talks about this unnecessary war, the cost of diesel, the cost of fertilizer, a $40 billion bill out to Venezuela,

all of these sort of things. The former politician in me is like, okay, for somebody running against an incumbent party, this is like Christmas Eve. This is lining up too much. And then you add on top of that corruption how much Trump and his sons are making through crypto deals, through Pentagon deals. All of this adds up to something that Democrats should be able to just open up, walk through

the door, take the majority. You know, Joe, absolutely. And it's funny, I had an email from somebody who saw Halle Schauchner at an event, fundraising event last week. And it just popped up in my inbox and someone who is very savvy who said, I don't know if she has a chance to win in Arkansas, but she has incredible communication skills and candidate skills. And she really knows what she's doing in that race. And again, I agree with you. It's going to be, it's got to be an uphill fight there, given the nature of the state. But to your point, I think if we had had a conversation on January 21st,

20, 25, and we took Kamala Harris out of the conversation. And we said, well, what is, you know, Donald Trump has had a lot of defects, obvious things that were wrong with him as a candidate. But what is it? Why do people vote for Donald Trump? They would have said, well, the clear things were that Donald Trump said he's going to lower prices on day one. And he's been telling us for a decade that we're not going to get any more ridiculous

and ill-conceived military adventures abroad. Those are like, I mean, headline things that defined the Trump brand and particularly were core to his message in 2024. And the fact that those two things for people who are not obsessed with politics are not focused on it all the time, but those are things that pretty much anybody in America who voted in 2024 could have told you were what Trump was running on and that he's not just failed but failed so spectacularly at both of them. the opposite. You know, I was talking about my gas, for the gas prices up here in upstate New York,

where I live, and you and I were texting about that earlier. But the war is another one where it's just, there's no way to spin it. I mean, there are lots of discussions you can have about national security and what has gone wrong in that war. But getting into it in the first place was a betrayal of a core element of Trump's brand. And I think when you start to think about why the The political opportunity is as big as it is for Democrats. That's what it boils down to is those two central, large issues, and they're connected, costs and the war. Up next, President Trump returned to the White House 19 months ago, but to this point, he and his administration continuing to blame Joe Biden for the economic issues in this country. Plus, we'll explain how the war with Iran did achieve regime change, but not the kind the Trump is.

administration had planned morning joz coming right back