Former GOP representative Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski interview newsmakers, politicians and pundits about the issues of the day. Thats 1,754 votes ahead in a sdlact h district that has been in gop hands for three decades. The official outcome way not be known until other ballots are tallied and the race could be headed to a recount if the k candidates end up within 1 of each other once the votes are certified. This morning, balderson is claiming victory. Oconnor has not conceded. Regardless, well see a rematch when they compete for full term in congress. Welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday, august 8th. With joe, willie and me, we have Associate Editor of Commentary Magazine noah raufman. Former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst Steve Rattner and National Political correspondent for nbc news and msnbc news, is he still away, Steve Kornacki. But you see this same thing happening. Theyre bleeding. Republicans are bleeding so badly right now in suburbs, and then
personal. i think what he might be doing, joe biden, is similar to what president trump did in 2016. republican voters frustrated that mitt romney didn t push back, did not fight back hard enough against barack obama in 2012 particularly that exchange in the debate over benghazi. it was there for romney and he missed it. for biden there is this sense that hillary clinton in those debates was too meek. didn t push back. was intimidated by donald trump. if joe biden will be fighting joe instead of no malarkey thing. if he is fighting joe and pushing back about his son and pushing back on republican voters maybe there is something there for him. bill: this voter, david, he said biden you are too old for the job. he said you ve been doing this all your life and nothing has changed. then the voters say biden said to him you are too old to vote for me. exactly. there was a certain amount this president has been accused
to use that leverage effectively. he didn t have to create a civil war with the president. yeah, we know the president will go off in a tweet. but you have this coalition of like-minded soldiers who have been out there fighting for this moment where those big policy issues could be put into practice and capitulated. they gave into a tweet. they didn t stand up for the constitution. they gave in to a sly word by the president or fear of a very narrow base and didn t push back. i find that fascinating that with all that building of coalitions and policy, you didn t use it as a soft hammer to push back and redefine the relationship with the white house. i do find it amazing that members of congress that have voting cards walk around in fear perpetually of a negative tweet. tom, let s end with you. we ve all talked about the
riveted. what s the problem? i know it s not technically a perjury track, but he may see things during one of his stops along the tour that s different than something he said in a book and different than in a deposition. that s his b problem. it is. it s a bad look. when an fbi director says things like i didn t have the courage in that moment to stand up to the president or i felt mildly queasy, but didn t push back. you lose respect to people like me that spent half our life or more as some have. you lose our respect. we want you to be a man of more courage to stand up and push back on a bully and he hasn t done it. he s doing it in a book. all right. thank you both. okay. and next, more breaking news. new details about what fbi agents got in the raid on michael cohen. a very significant development of what they got. and john bolton reportedly
well, they did. they wrote their own memo pointing out what is inaccurate in that memo. they did not read it. they did not come out with what s wrong with it. they did. it s in their memos. i m talking about rank and file members could have done that. i think the democrats on the committee felt like there was a line in the sand. factually what you re saying, you said they didn t point out inaccuracies, but they did point out inaccuracies, and now you re saying rank and file people i think the rank and file members have had the opportunity to read the memo and come back and push back on it and they haven t done that. and i think it s going to be an interesting debate because, you know, we haven t read the memo yet. when we read the memo and when we have an opportunity to say, okay, are the democrats right, or are the republicans right but wait a minute. you re doing double talk. what you re saying makes no actual, logical sense. we won t know what the democrats say bec