Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning 20240702

from five swing states that is concerning for democrats and the white house. we'll go through those numbers on a potential 2020 rematch. and there is new reporting for donald trump's plans on revenge if he gets a second term in the white house. >> he has already figured out who he is going to arrest. >> wonderful. >> it's about as authoritarian as you can get. also, the biden poll numbers, they looked about as bad as barack obama's in 2011 at about this time. barack obama was losing to mitt romney in several swing states. we still have a long way to go. also ahead, we'll tell you about the potential key endorsement for florida governor ron desantis in the republican presidential primary, as donald trump will be on the stand today in the $250 million fraud trial against his company. plus, we'll show you what ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy had to say about the state of the war and his invitation to donald trump. and we'll have the latest on the diplomatic trip overseas by u.s. secretary of state antony blinken, as arab leaders are calling for a cease-fire in gaza. with us, we have the host of "way too early," bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. president of the national action network and host of "politics nation," reverend al sharpton. columnist and associate editor ft. "washington post," david ignatius. co-host of showtime's "the circus," nbc news national affairs analyst, john heilemann. and rogers chair in the american presidency at vanderbilt university, historian jon meacham joins us. >> great lineup. >> my gosh, hello. good morning. >> there's a bit of a meltdown yesterday in democratic circles all over the place. >> very worried. >> my phone melting down. >> exploding. i was telling people, be mindful. >> is that what you were saying? >> you have to be mindful. a long way out. you know, president romney was doing extraordinarily well at this point. the last gallup poll going into the race had mitt romney up by 11 points over barack obama. it didn't turn out that way. i think these polls are very important. i think the white house should be scared as hell. if you're running for president or any office, you should always be scared as hell. >> yeah. >> i ran scared 20 points ahead. i ran like i was 20 points behind. but these polls that came out yesterday shows they have areas they really need to work on. is it something that people should be freaking out like they did yesterday? no. >> yeah -- >> but it's a good indicator. what i love about polls, mika, and i know you're saying, what did you love about polls? it's not what they were a predictor of what was going to happen. i always looked at trend lines. >> yeah. >> that's what always mattered. i went from being up from 20 to being up by 15, i immediately said, where am i losing support? if something broke in another way and i was losing support in a certain area, i got over to that area. joe biden is having real problems right now holding traditionally democratic support. that's what we should look at the polls about, not that they're predictive. >> what is a little traumatic for democrats, if they are freaking out as much as you feel they are, is that the contrast between these two candidates is like nothing i think we've seen in history. it's a little depressing in terms of the mood out there, in terms of disinformation, right-wing media, and a number of narratives that may have sunk in, that joe biden has to push back against. many of them are flatly untrue. we're not dealing in the same reality. >> what does that mean? what does that mean? work harder. it's what it means. >> all right. >> it means, work harder. if people are lying about you, work harder. american democracy is on the line. work harder. if you have a guy who has said, "let's suspend the constitution of the united states because i didn't win," work harder. i mean, if you've got people lying all the time -- i mean, once again, this "washington post" article we're going to get to, wow, he goes there. >> it's not like joe biden hasn't given them material to work with. >> well, yeah. give some reasons, knock on doors, reason to make phone calls. give some reason to reach out to their neighbors. that's how you win elections. >> let's get to what we're talking about here. in the latest "new york times"/sienna college survey, donald trump leads president joe biden in five of six battleground states won by then candidate biden in the last election. if the election were held today, the polls show registered voters in arizona would go for trump by five points, 49% to 44%. in georgia, trump's lead is six points, 49% to 43%. in michigan, trump holds a five-point advantage, 48% to 43%. in nevada, trump leads biden by 11 points, 52% to 41%. in pennsylvania, trump leads by four points, 48% to 44%. e only battleground state biden would retain, according to this poll, is wisconsin. >> wisconsin trends older and wider, and, weirdly enough, those are the only voters biden hasn't bled support from. >> voters say they trust tmp more than biden to handle key issues. on the economy, trump is favored by 22 points. on immigration, his lead is 12 points. on handling the israel-hamas war, trump holds an 11-point edge over biden. and on national security, trump's lead is 12 points. >> let's stop for one second. >> can we stop right there? >> if you look at the israel-ham war, you have donald trump, who 11-point favored by voters, 11 points. he has called hezbollah terrorists smart. he is complimenng the terrorists, and he is attacking israel. he's up plus 11. what does that tell you? the economy is bizarre. >> this is interesting. >> i'm not going into the numbers now. inflation has been a problem for biden. by every other measurement, joe biden is doing so much better. donald trump had a miserable four years, if you look at his numbers. again, these things don't matter to voters. you know, in politics, as kissinger once said, perception is reality. what the biden white house better figure out quickly, why is perception so upside down? >> by the way, biden is favored by 9% on the issue of abortion. despite there being just a three-year age gap between the two candidates, 71% of the polls respondents say biden is too old to be an effective president, while only 39% say the same about trump. this is while donald trump is trumping around the country, literally making no sense on stage, sweating bullets, and forgetting who he is running against. >> not just that. let's keep the numbers up. donald trump, the guy on the right, often poor g forgets whe is. people have to go to him and whisper, "no, you're not in the city you said you were in." he also continually forgets who he is running against. saying he is running against barack obama. perception is reality. the perception is every time joe biden gives a speech, you know, from the very beginning, right-wing trump supporters on tv and also online, they'll cut the part of the speech and make him look like he is an idiot or he doesn't remember what he is saying. there are so many times i go and look. sometimes i'm like, oh, geez, that's not good, yikes. but, you know what? most of the times i'm looking, and i go, wait a second, he didn't fall asleep. he closed his eyes. he was praying. i'm thinking about the hawaiian fires. if you looked at, like, ten seconds of the clip, 20 seconds of the clip, it was all what we all do in memorial services at times when we're overwhelmed. again, perception is reality. from the very beginning, you've had trump people, and people on certain cable news networks, you know, they'll try to find any clip, and they've hammered this home. again, you can whine about it, or you can push back against it. fight harder. work harder. perception is reality. right now, perception is screwed up. >> 53% of those voters also say they have been personally hurt by the current president's policies, compared to 35% who have been helped. on the flip side, 51% of the same voters said trump's policies have helped them, while 34% say the opposite. this is the reason our phones were exploding yesterday. >> yeah. >> people really, really freaked out and upset. >> yeah. >> it does beg the question, you know, if there are democrats out there who are concerned or even moderate republicans, about the difference between donald trump and joe biden, i think the real concern here is disinformation, the electorate being poisoned. i mean, it's not like the contrast between these two are republican and democrat, conservative versus liberal policies. >> right. >> i mean, president biden had accomplished a lot in his presidency, and there are those who would say it is even historic. and then you have a guy with 91 counts against him, liable for fraud, liable for sexual abuse. i mean, i could go on for four hours. >> judge said he raped a woman, yeah. >> that's where the concern is here, that there's a lot of different layers of things going on. >> well, yeah. again, though, perception is reality. i had people going, yeah, but this, yeah, but that, it doesn't matter. perception is reality, and stop your whining. the poll numbers are the poll numbers. they're just poll numbers. still a year out. i'll tell ya what, they're getting worse. it reminds me of a basketball game where you're watching one side that is, you know, seemingly doing everything right. the other side horribly, you know, has a 23% shooting percentage from the field. they go into halftime, and it's tied. the team is only down by two, three points, and you go, oh, boy, wow. okay, everything seemed to break for one team, and they're still only tied at halftime. that's what i'm thinking about the poll numbers, john heilemann. you look at the bipartisan legislation biden has done. you look at the good news on the economy, on many, many fronts. you look at what's happened with nato. a lot of good things to say about what's happened with joe biden, yet, here he is three years later, you know, a lot of things going right for him. donald trump, 91 counts against him. he's talking about, you know, getting rid of the constitution. he is getting crazier on stage. he's going to say he'll arrest people when he is president of the united states, suspend the constitution of the united states, et cetera, et cetera, and he is ahead. i don't know how this gets better moving forward. it's not like donald trump hasn't been crazy enough to be punished by voters, to be unfit to be president of the united states. >> happy monday. thanks, joe. this is a very cheerful way to wake up here on a monday morning after -- >> it's just a poll. >> well, i think that's the point. i'll tell ya what the biden white house is not worried about and what democrats out there shouldn't be worried about. one set of polls. you made this point. the fact that these polls say what they say, it's one set of polls. don't worry about it. it's also not that trump is, quote, ahead in five of those six battleground states. they are -- all those polls are very close to or within the margin of error. they are essentially statistical ties. those are not things to worry about. things the biden white house worry about and democrats who support biden should worry about, these polls are part of a pattern. they've been across a lot of polls, across a lot of weeks now, a lot of months. to your point about perception being reality, it's also the perception that's sunken in in a deep way, joe biden's age, the relative strengths and weaknesses of donald trump and joe biden on certain sets of issues and certain sets of character. character traits is something that worries the white house. another thing that worries the white house and should worry the white house and democrats, is this erosion of support with core democratic constituencies. again, not just in this poll, but in poll after poll after poll. joe, you have this -- in this poll right now, joe biden among voters under 30, joe biden is up by one point. think about that for a second. democrat running against donald trump, he's up by one. donald trump right now in these polls across the six states has 22% support among from time to times. historically low support levels for joe biden among african-americans, hispanics. if he doesn't fix that, he will lose to donald trump. that's something the white house has been seeing erode over the course of the last six months, to a very worrying degree. this poll puts a very stark spotlight on tse problems. the attribute problems and talk about the erosion of core constituencies in the democratic coalition, those are the things to worry about. the white house is worried, and democrats should not be panicking, but they should take those things seriously. >> yeah. by the way, i want to talk about the young voters in a second, reverend al. there's been the thought that maybe joe biden is too old, or maybe it's this issue, that issue. i'll tell you, i know a few young voters who can't buy a house and haven't been able to buy their first house for years now because interest rates are too high. before that, it was covid. there are a lot of different things going on. if you want to look at the part of the economy where, actually, reality is reality instead of perception is reality, it's high interest rates keeping people out of buying homes. young people, people, say, under 40, are disproportionately impacted by that. but i want to talk about people of color, reverend al. if joe biden were to give up 22% of the share of black voters to donald trump, that would be the highest percentage anybody, any republican candidate got in the post civil rights era, since '65. for all candidates, donald trump for god sake. i mean, the most racist candidate we've had running for president since george wallace. >> well, not only the most racist candidate, i think the most racist president. when you look at what he did in office that disproportionately impacted blacks and other people of color. the problem is that you must do as you said at the beginning of the show, joe, work harder. there will be two ways to react to these polls. you can give your theories on why they're wrong, why they're polling wrong, who they're not reaching, this, that, or the other, or you can say, let's accept the poll and go to work and see where we can turn it around. you know, i was blessed in my young years to hang around muhammad ali. he used to tell me that he liked anglo dundee, his trainer, in the corner between rounds, telling him he was losing even if he was winning. he said, because even if i was in the fight, in the way i was scoring in my head, it didn't matter. it was what the judges said. it doesn't matter to the democrats what they think. it matters if that's what they're saying we're at, they need to work harder. they need to stop making excuses and rationalizing, and go to the base, including black voters, and pull ahead. it's that simple. >> stop whining. start working. i know there are a lot of democrats out there that are working quietly, but you have to work harder. that's just the bottom line of it. and i agree, rev, in my first race, i was down 20, 30, how 40 points. the last weekend, i was ahead by two, three. i was scared when our staff said, oh, you're ahead. i went, we're 20 points behind! work harder! we're going to lose. i have to have that. rocky would talk about the eye of the tiger. that's what you need. fight hungry. fight hard. democrats have to stop assuming that just because donald trump is so crazy, because this election is going to end american democracy as we know it, that everybody has that message. you have to figure out, figure out how to move those votes if you're a democrat and if you are a joe biden supporter. jon meacham, i'd love for you to give us perspective. i talked about 2011. at this point in barack obama's re-election campaign, exactly where you have joe biden right now, you actually had mitt romney. people were talking about how mitt romney was doing so well against barack obama, the guy that donald trump thinks he's running against this year. actually, this was i 2011 in the fall, where romney was ahead inlorida. romney, you know, was ahead in a lot of different states. obama, of course, ended up winning, but you go back to 2011. i always talk about 1979. you had ted kennedy beating jimmy carter by about 15, 20 points. they're just polls. there's a year to do. i'm curious, what is your historical perspective on all this, and what should democrats do? >> well, i think, historically, you know, insert clever joke here, ronald reagan always used to say, i asked president dewy about the fficacy of polls. snapshot in time, as you've been saying. but it is significant. it is significant because, i think, and this is -- and this is the historical view, not the horse race view -- if you step back a little bit, what this poll shows is that there is not just president biden who is on the ballot and being judged, it's really the entire constitutional order, right? it is the american set of political institutions, their capacity to deliver, or lack thereof. that's what's here. if you think about it, presidential politics tends not to be a referendum. it's a choice, right? you don't just -- no one came to the country and said, "do you want donald trump to be president," right? it was a choice. that's clearly going to happen, and i think it all comes into focus. that's the tactical side. i think strategically, when i read these polls, i thought, there is a significant number of people who are not in maga land, who have profound doubts about the capacity of american democracy to long endure. because, as you laid out, there are innumerable facts here, almost innumerable facts, about president biden's job performance and what has actually delivered. we are sitting here talking about this while there are two hot wars unfolding in the world that are connected in a global sense, that will, in many ways, help determine the nature of how my kids grow up. and if there is any question in someone's mind about whether president biden versus president trump should be in power there, then that person is probably not all that reachable, unless they think about it. i think that's the key point here. president biden is a kind of stand-in for the american system. there are a lot of particularly young people who have profound doubts about that system. and the argument that has to be made, and i realize it's not, you know, huge call here, but it is reality, as churchill said, this may be the worst system of all, except for all the others. and i think that that -- i don't think this is about telling people. you can't tell 71% of the people that they're wrong about a certain characteristic of a public figure. you have to show them. you have to show them. this is a show-tell question. you have to show them. for those of us who believe in the constitution, who believe in this flawed and fallible system, we need to continue to show and make the case that having a president who embodies the values of a constitutional order is vitally important to have that person and not someone who has told us what he wants to do t which is to terminate it and take venn vengeance. >> you see polling, especially among younger voters. later on, i'll be reading from peggy noonan's weekend "wall street journal" op-ed, where he talks about how israel needs a new leader for this fight. but there is a line that stuck out, talking about how so many young people don't believe in american democracy anymore. peggy writes, if you're in your 20s now, you've been taught throughout high school and college to view the world within a certain framework. white privilege, western imperialism, the whole woke agenda. she goes on to talk about, every time you try to defend america and america's goodness, you feel like you're chasing ghosts. that certainly has had an impact. also, it's government missteps.. or go back to the last century. look at ken burns' vietnam. you figure out a lot of reasons why donald trump won in 2016 in the first place. you look at what's happened on wall street, all of the wall street scandals. what happened in 2008. you look at what happened with hurricane katrina. you look at what happened time and time again, and there has been this ongoing belief that the american system is not working. of course, in part, that's because that's all people focus on, is the negative side of things, as they do their podcasts and do their primetime cable shows and do all these other things, running down the system. well, over 20 years, that scar tissue builds up, and people start believing, well, maybe american democracy doesn't work unless my side is in power. that's exactly where republicans, trump republicans got. american democracy doesn't work unless my side is in power. and i think that's where we are with a lot of americans, and there are a lot of people, non-maga people, who have heard this time and time again over the years, and they start believing it. i don't want to bore you, but i'm just going to say, our economy is the strongest in the world. there is not a close second. our military is the strongest in the world, not a close second. cu culturally, there is not a beater country in the world. hard power, soft power, economically, we're the best country in the world, we are. we're leaving china in the dust. russia, please, they don't come close to competing with us. yet, the problem is at home. we hear this time and time again, the problem is at home. i'm speaking not of the polls, i'm speaking to what john said about how a growing number of americans don't believe in the greatness of western democracy, american democracy. they want our country to be like hungary. how is it working for hungary? not well. it just isn't. freedom, democracy, i'll say it, yes, capitalism, all of that works together to make our country stronger than any country on the planet. not a close second. that's another message joe biden needs to drive home, and he can't be afraid to go against his own far-left base that may want to just focus on what is wrong with america. there are a lot of things right with america, and he should talk about the next year about what is right about america. do it with a smile on his face. do it being proud about the fact that this country has fed and freed more country, but we have problems. we have to address our problems, but democracy works. this constitutional republic works. he should be proud about it. john lemire, you want to talk to david ignatius, ask him about this. he was writing about this a month ago, before anybody wanted to talk about it publicly. i know you want to talk to him, but i'm curious, what's your thoughts? what's the reaction from the white house on what came out yesterday? >> yeah, i mean, the white house has some defiance and defensively. pointing out that things have looked bad in the polls before for this president, both as candidate and since taking office. they point to the 2022 midterms. democrats did well. they point to a number of special elections, off-year elections where democrats do well. there's more coming tomorrow night, of course. but the numbers are stark. there's real alarm among democrats outside of the west wing. the six battleground states, as and georgia, are two that biden flipped in 2022 from republican. there's a sense those may have arrived ahead of schedule. biden aides concede, those two both will be hard to keep this time around. the two that really bothered them, michigan and pennsylvania. pennsylvania, you know, biden is from next door in delaware. he spends more time in pennsylvania than any other state, by far. there are some demographic trends, particularly in the western part of the state, that may be breaking away from democrats. no democrat can win without michigan, and i'm not sure this poll captures the unhappiness in muslim-american communities there in the handling of the israel-hamas war. then nevada, 11 points. that shows also that nevada is a snapshot as to how younger voters of color, in particular, don't seem impressed by the west wing. we should be clear, we are a year out, david ignatius, as joe mentioned. you know, mitt romney was doing well in the polls this time around in 2011. that said, 2019, joe biden was up on donald trump in this exact same set of polls. but to that bigger picture argument, and this is what con bounds so many democrats, who are just like, well, how can we be talking about anything other than donald trump fueling an insurrection, that donald trump tried to overthrow the government, that donald trump is sitting for four criminal trials, that donald trump has all of this baggage, that he sided with putin, whatever you want to say? he's done all of these things, how can we be talking about anything else? how can he be ahead? yet, the big picture arguments seem to be less relative to a lot of americans than the day-to-day stuff. what's your read as to what could happen next? >> john, i find these numbers confounding. i think back three years. joe biden was elected because he was the guy who was going to bring the country back to the center, to its balance. this american republic had gotten out of whack, and trump was seen as the candidate of crazy. biden beat him. in the terms, biden was solid. the party of crazy did badly in 2022. that's slipped away, and i'm unclear why. if you look at president biden's last month, he's had a pretty good month in terms of leadership. i think his leadership on the israel-palestinian conflict, as painful, as savage as it's been, has been good. he's stood up for israel, but he's also whispered in israel's ear, "be careful. exercise caution." similarly, the u.s. economy, which biden gets blamed for, when you look at the numbers, is doing amazingly well. the bad things that were predicted generally haven't happened. there's something else going on here. the overwhelming numbers on both sides, democrats and republicans, who think the country going in the wrong direction, that tells you something. it tells you something about, as jon meacham was saying, a deep uneasiness, almost a gloom among the country. somehow, bidn has to find a way to animate the excitement and enthuiasm he tapped as a man of the center, a man who would put the country back together, quickly. he has to do it soon and reverse these perceptions. otherwise, we're really heading toward what i fear will be a cataclysmic election next year, and it will be -- one final thought -- one of the most negative campaigns, i expect, that we've ever seen in our lifetimes. just, you know, slinging more mud in both directions. it's really biden's best hope, is to go so negative, so hard on trump, that enough of it sticks that he manages to squeak through. i think we're going to have a nasty campaign season. >> john heilemann, you have, i think, brilliant insight when it comes to why democrats aren't more fired up about the threat of donald trump. tell it to our viewers. >> to what david was saying, i think, you know, you can characterize 2022 a slightly different way, which is, you know, biden had a degree of appeal to a bunch of people in the electorate, but a lot of the enthusiasm and the turnout, the fierce way that democrats and non-aligned democrats, but anti-trump voters, turned out in 2022 was because they thought donald trump had been president for four years. he was seen by black voters, a lot of hispanic voters, young voters, people around the country, they've seen what he could do in four years, and they thought another four years of donald trump was an existential threat. they rallied around joe biden as the most credible and plausible opponent to trump. what a lot of democratic strategists and people inside the world that now are doing a lot of, not just quantitative but qualitative work in the field, doing focus groups, talking to these democrats voters and asking them why they don't love joe biden. why they look at the state of the economy, biden's accomplishments, everything else, and why are they not with him. why has he eroded in the groups? what they find, confoundconfoun everyone on the panel is going to say, are you kidding me, but average, normal, working, everyday americans, democrats are asked in focus groups and say, "well, donald trump is not going to be the nominee. we don't have to worry about that." it is helpful to remind people, we talk about donald trump's poll numbers all day long on cable, and no one -- not no one, thank god, but few people are paying attention. it's a year out. back to why these numbers don't matter much a year ago is most voters do not tune into presidential politics until around labor day of an election year. what they know, basically, is donald trump is in court, right? that guy got arrested, is maybe going to jail. that guy could never be the republican nominee. if you don't think trump is going to be the nominee, you don't see it as an existential threat yet. >> right. >> you can afford to be loose in your support for joe biden because, yeah, trump will never be the nominee. that's impossible. democrats in the white house, they hear this all the time. they hear it all the time. they have to turn that around. >> i'm actually laughing because what's so funny is you talk to republicans, and what you hear from republicans is the same thing about joe biden. they think, you know, that there is this great conspiracy. they're like, biden is not going to run, so who are they going to put up? we know he is not running. he is too old to run. it's not just rank and file republicans. it's like the republican elite. they are so certain that the democrats have a hook and ladder play, that they're passing it, then they're going to lateral to somebody who is going to run down the sidelines and score the touchdown for democrats. they're going to be caught flat-footed. i say to my democratic friends, donald trump looks like he's going to be the nominee. i say to my republican friends, the democratic party can't run a conspiracy. you go to, like, one of their lunches, they can't even get your ham sandwich order right. no, there's no great conspiracy that they're keeping under wraps right now. joe biden is running for president, and the more people suggest that he doesn't, the angrier he gets. that's the reality. but you do have democrats that don't think trump is ever going to make it, and you have republicans who think joe biden is never going to make it. >> or wish, maybe, they'd find someone else. joe biden has beaten trump. he's the one person who has. that's proven. jon meacham, moving forward, we'll talk about this throughout the four hours this morning, but what do you think americans should be focused on in the months to come compared to what they might be focused on? >> i don't think president biden is on trial here. i think we are. i really do. i think this is a test of citizenship. i think john put it really well. i think a lot of people are not, blessedly for them, as immersed in all of this as most of us. you know, when republicans criticize president biden, it's like having someone in a burning house talking about the fire safety violations of a house that's not on fire across the street, right? >> right. >> so i just think it requires two beats of thought. it requires saying, "okay, i don't agree with, you know, 25% of what's going on or whatever the percentage is, but, you know what, he's not going to break the law. he's not going to storm the capitol." does that sound like we're lowering the bar? maybe. but we're human beings. we have proven in the last six years that we are capable of making terrible public decisions. one of the things the founders gave us is the recognition that it is hard to get things done in this country, based on their view that most of what we would want to do we shouldn't do. >> yeah. >> i think we just have to take -- we have to take a beat here. remember, president biden woke up this morning worried about a wider war in the middle east, you know, in the most unstable region in the world, involving the global economy, possibly nuclear war, the most ancient religious rivalries in the world, while there is an elemental struggle reminiscent of what led to the bloodiest century in history unfolding in ukraine, because of the appetites of a dictator. he's got a lot to think about. and i think citizenship requires a certain amount of empathy for that. maybe that doesn't get the job done. maybe we're just in such a foul humor that, let's see what the authoritarians can do. but we saw what the authoritarian almost did. if we lose this, it's really hard to see how we get it back, the united states of america. >> so that test of citizenship, joe, i find it hard. this is naive maybe, but i find it hard to believe that american voters will vote against women's health. i find it hard to believe that american voters will vote against jobs, whether you like his poliies or not. inflation reduction act, chips act. i find it hard to believe american voters will vote against global security, leadership, and not being embarrassed around the world. nato, ukraine, israel. i find it very, very, very hard to believe that voters will not vote for a president who didn't start an insurrection. i find it very hard to believe that they will vote against a president who has humanity and empathy and doesn't insult people and act in a cruel way. i find it hard to believe that american voters won't vote for someone who is a patriot, who loves his country, who doesn't have a crush on authoritarian and steals documents to show to his authoritarian friends. i just find it very hard to believe that, unless the electorate has been poisoned by disinformation, that we're going to have this test of citizenship, we're going to fail. i find it hard to believe. >> if you find it hard to believe, all i can say is, if hillary clinton were here -- >> i hear you. >> -- she would say, then you've already forgotten about 2016, mika. >> no, i believe it's possible, but i'm finding it hard to believe. i'm hoping that people vote for america. >> we talk about 2016, but let's talk about 2020. you had 77 million people vote for a guy who proved himself to be reckless, out of control, radical, a guy who spent the entire year undermining american democracy because he knew he was going to lose. 77 million people, lying about american democracy, saying the election was going to be rigged because he knew he was going to lose. then what happened? well, two days before the election, he was still telling his attorney general, ordering his attorney general to arrest his political political opponent's family. 77 million people voted for that guy. if he gets elected in '24, it will only be worse. don't take my word for it. take his. he's already said he's going to arrest democrats after he gets elected. we're going to be talking about that "washington post" article, where he promises to be authoritarian. he's already promised to suspend the constitution of the united states. now, he's talking about what he's going to do when he gets elected, to turn america into an authoritarian state. >> jon meacham, john heilemann, thank you, both, for being on this morning. coming up, hours from now, donald trump will take the stand in the civil fraud case. this is the one where the judge has already found him and his co-defendants, his sons, liable of massive fraud. anywho, what will his testimony reveal, and could it decide the fate of his business empire? we'll get a live report from the courthouse. plus, see the moment republican presidential candidate chris christie got booed on stage by a maga crowd in florida. >> think it bothered him? >> nope. how the former governor responded to being heckled. quote, netanyahu is an albatross around biden's neck. that's from ed luce of "the financial times." we'll be back to explain in a moment. my name is marie. i'm 49 years old and i'm a business owner. i own a lemonade and ice cream shop in florida, so i can feel and see that my lines have gotten deeper just from a year out in the sun. i'm still marie and i got botox® cosmetic. i did 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(vo) whichever. get your competitve offer at opendoor.com. ♪♪ [ crowd booing ] yeah. well, now it feels like home. thank you, all, very much. what a shock, you're for trump. i'm going to fall over dead. now, look, look, every one of those boos, every one of those cat calls, every one of those yells will not, sure, will not solve one problem we face in this country, will not solve -- and will not, and will not make this country better. your anger, your anger against the truth iseprehensible. >> there you go. >> preach it, brother. >> presidential candidate chris christie over the weekend responding to the boos and jeers from the pro-trump crowd at the freedom summit. >> they call it the freedom summit. >> you love freedom? >> you have a guy they're praising in donald trump that talked about terminating the constitution. a guy who is saying he is going to arrest people just because he wants to arrest them. said he's going to arrest general mark milley. >> he loves the j6 choir. >> says he is going to arrest ty cobb, his former attorney, just because. the freedom summit, those people are jokes. every one of them that booed are jokes. he goes out, and, you're right, he goes out, and he has the people who pummelled police officers with american flags that he praises, that he calls hostages. how sick do you have to be to actually go to an event and boo somebody for criticizing donald trump at the, quote, freedom summit? how sick do you have to be to praise a man who supports rioters who beat the hell out of cops? and led to the death of four police officers, if you ask their families, led to the death of four police officers. yet, they say they support freedom? it's the opposite. they support a tyrant, a guy who promised he wants to suspend the constitution, and a guy who has said, "i'm going to start arresting people after i'm elected president of the united states." >> also found liable of being a massive fraudster, and that's where we'll go next. >> also, a judge saying he is a rapist. freedom to rape, is that what they support? >> a porn star. >> you like that? seriously. how low can you go? donald trump is scheduled -- >> pretty low. >> -- to take the stand today. >> pretty damn low, all of you. >> in his $250 million civil fraud trial. the former president will have to defend his actions as head of the trump organization and deny allegations he ordered his subordinates to falsify financial records and inflate his wealth. "the new york times" reports trump is deeply personally enraged by this trial. by the fact that his children have had to testify. >> they're in their 40snd 50s, i think. >> he may not be able to restrain himself on the stand. >> he can't anywre. >> he reportedly held practice sessions over the weekend to prepare for today's testimony because he's so upset. >> so angry. >> joining us now -- >> well, he's been caught doing something that people have been knowing he's been doing for 40 years. >> from outside the courthouse, former litigator and legal analyst lisa rubin. what can we expect today? >> reporter: i think, mika, you are exactly right. part of what we're really looking for today is seeing whether former president trump either deliberately or not deliberately loses his temper, as he is being examined about the core issue in this trial, which is, whether he, his adult sons, allen weisselberg and others in the trump organization intended to defraud the lenders with whom they were dealing and with whom they sent the statements of financials, which is a 360 picture of his financial status. trump will disclaim again and again, as michael cohen warned us, that he had any involvement in that. to the extent there are discrepancies, that's somebody else's problem and what the accountants should have checked. what i'm watching for is whether trump slips up and gives indication that he was, of course, the one who signalled he wanted this to happen. why? having the world think that he was a multi-billionaire, dealing with people who thought he needed it the most. >> one of the things i'll be looking for, and i want you to address this as someone who knew trump when he tried to play more liberal than democrat, is that he always bragged about how he was self-made, how he took nothing and made himself something, even though it wasn't true. his father had given him hundreds of millions of dollars. how does he get on the stand today and contrast his self-made, i was this savvy, brilliant, self-made billionaire, with now saying, i really didn't know a lot what was going on, the accountants did it, and i was 6 feet away from it? and does -- second part of the question, does the prosecutor go at whether you being the self-made, brilliant guy is the true trump, or whether you just happened to be the ceo of a firm that kind of took a life of its own and you had nothing to do with the details, even though you knew every check written in the company, which side of that does the prosecutors do? >> reporter: i think trump is going to try to bridge the distance, rev. he is going to say, i was immersed in my real estate business, right? i was self-made to the fact i was focused on building this empire and the assets. what i wasn't focused on was the nitty-gritty of the financial reporting. i left that to weisselberg and the accountants at all times. of course, allen weisselberg himself on the stand, he had every incentive to pitch a narrative that is much more in line with trump's than what the attorney general wants to get out of him. one of the ways i think they'll exploit that trump knew what was going on is by showing him a series of documents and other people's testimony that is designed to remind him of meetings and other interactions that he had, where he boasted about the value of his assets, which insinuates that he was, in fact, deeply involved in the creation of those values. that includes meetings that he took with people from "forbes" or meetings he took with insurance underwriters, where he'd make a guest appearance, so to speak. the last 15 minutes, he'd just brag about the size and scope of his empire. >> all right. former litigator and msnbc legal analyst, we'll be watching today, lisa rubin, thank you very much. secretary of state antony blinken is wrapping up his trip to the middle east as he tries to quell tensions amid the israel-hamas war. yesterday, after meeting with arab leaders in jordan, blinken made two surprise visits to the west bank and iraq. in the occupied west bank, he met with palestinian leaders and reassured them that the u.s. is working with israel to minimize harm to civilians in the gaza strip. this as the palestinian authority is calling for a, quote, immediate halt to the war. blinken also reiterated america's support for a two-state solution and condemned extreist violence in the west bank. >> david ignatius, talk about where we are right now. talk about how joe biden and antony blinken are doing this delicate balance. >> i thought blinken's trips yesterday to the west bank and iraq were perfect examples of how this administration, led by president trump but with blinken as his key associate, are doing the hard things, are going to the places that are dangerous. for an american secretary of state to go to ramallah, almost in a state of insurrection against israel, angry at america, takes a lot of guts. same thing with going to baghdad. the leader of one of the militias said before blinken arrived, antony blinken, son of the jew, don't you dare come here. we threaten the balances. an elaborate statement. blinken went anyway. he said, we have an interest in a stable iraq. he warned the shiite militias to be careful. the two things i see blinken focusing on for president biden are deterring a wider war that would be driven by iran's proxies. that's why you go to baghdad. he says, "i'm here to show, don't do it." secondly, the key question the day after, how on earth can the international community help put gaza back together after hamas is defeated? it is going to depend a lot on palestinians who have to do the work in the west bank, the palestinian authority, and there is blinken focusing on it. i commend the diplomacy. it is one of blinken's best period, i think, as secretary of state. >> absolutely. joining us now, editor at "the financial times," ed luce. in your latest financial times piece entitled, "net nmsz is an albatross around biden's neck," you write, in part, joe biden s hitched his fortunes to a man, benjamin netanyahu, who is co-creator of the ghastly dilemma with which israel is now faced. the problem with biden's bearhug strategy is he has no veto on the israeli prime minister's actions. the tool he wields isinfluence. america's goal remains the two-state solution, yet netanyahu's life work has been about making the two-state solution impossible. israel's military plan to remove hamas has to be linked tohe political settlement that will come afterwards. israel's next battle would be then the west bank. ed, my question to you is, what else could joe biden do at this point? he went in there, and not only did he give the bearhug to benjamin netanyahu -- >> well, he was bearhugged. >> yeah. and he was bearhugged, you're right, by netanyahu. >> couldn't push him away. >> also, you know, i mean, he went in there and sat with the -- i've never seen a president, am i wrong, sit in a war cabinet meeting on live television. >> first time. >> he made it very clear, i'm going to stand with you, but i'm going to see exactly what's going on here. you better not screw up. >> yeah, i mean, biden has been doing the right things. don't get me wrong. but as david mentioned, there is a day after problem here. because the military action we're seeing in gaza is a link to what the political process will be afterwards. netanyahu and biden have diametrically opposite views of what that should be. so this isn't just something that you put off until the end of the war, until hamas has been eliminated. this is intimately linked to how you win that war. so that's a problem for biden. it's not something you can blame on biden for a second. biden has to deal with the world as it is, and the world as it is, netanyahu is israel's leader. i do think, though, that the money that we're giving to israel, of course, $4 billion annually, but an extra $14 million is coming from congress, has to be linked by a pledge by netanyahu to stop trying to light the tinderbox in the west bank. i mean, it's one thing dealing with gaza. >> right. >> if you deal with gaza and west bank at the same time, turn this into a two-front war, and we're seeing so many provocations in the west bank, that is going to be disastrous for israel's security and also biden's plan, which is the right plan, for a two-state process to be put back in play. >> you know, david ignatius, i know you have a question for ed luce. i have to say, you look at the news out of the west bank, it's bad. joe biden talked about the radical settlers that have been radicalized and are just going in and committing acts of violence against palestinians who have lived there. no moral equivocation here. said it from the very beginning, israel has to -- we have to support israel destroying hamas, and then we have to fight for a two-state solution. right now, what is happening today, every single day in the west bank, is making the second part of that equation harder. i'm wondering if netanyahu knows that and is not going to do anything to stop it. >> i applaud biden and blinken for speaking out against the violence, attacking the palestinian civilians. that is dry tinder, and you can have a much worse crisis than we do now if palestinians are in radical revolt. ed, when i look at the polls in israel, i see a really catastrophic fall for netanyahu. benny gantz, coalition partner, is out almost double bibi's numbers. israelis say, as soon as this war is over -- talk about the day after -- the day after, they wan elections to get a new prime minister. i'm wondering whether biden needs to understand the depth of israeli feeling, that bibi has let them down by the failures that led to october 7th. >> i imagine president biden does. the polls are stark. the israel democracy institute showing only 18% of israelis want netanyahu to stay on as prime minister. here is a prime minister who is not, i think i'm correct in saying, attended a single funeral yet of anybody who was killed on october 7th. can you imagine if that were biden? he would have been to every single funeral. this is a prime minister who blamed everybody else, shin bet, the reservists who volunteered to defend israel. he's blamed everybody else, except himself, for what happened. his responsibility for building up hamas is documented and well understood, and building down the alternatives. how do we see, eventually, the back of netanyahu? i don't know how that happens. he is the houdini of israeli politics. he gets out of these again and again. this time, the consequences of him staying on and what he might do to stay on, to cling on to power, is too grave for israel's security, for america's interest in the region. i hope and pray that somebody like benny gantz or another israeli figure will find a way of maneuvering netanyahu out of power. he is an obstacle for biden and everybody else. >> great insight, ed luce. thank you very much for coming on this morning. >> thank you so much, ed. this weekend, peggy noonan wrote in her "wall street journal" column that netanyahu has to go. i want to read a little, david ignatius. if the gaza operation continues, it is even more important for israel to face the fact that benjamin netanyahu is the wrong leader for this crucial moment. his own country doesn't trust his leadership. he sapped the israeli people's strength the last year by forcing them into a deeply damaging dispute over a power grab, sundering what unity they had. his actions have smeared israel in the eyes of the world as increasingly undemocratic. he has been aggressively deaf on the rights of the palestinian people. sometimes, a leader has too much history. everything is being remade now. all the pieces are moving on the board. israel's meaning must be made new. it'd be good for them to have a new person the world could look at, fresh through their own words, and sift them. even if this person isn't much better, an unknown variable might shake up this in a way that benefits civilization. the u.s. in its support of israel is tied to this discredited man in a way that does not help. it is a mistake for israel, for them to allow him to continue. you can't help, david ignatius, but seeing every time the leader of israel goes out to talk about its latest offensive in gaza, or the latest development there, you're seeing a man who is deeply unpopular across the world. more importantly, deeply unpopular in israel. air mong his own people. it has to be a terrible drag for israel and this offensive against hamas. >> peggy noonan, as usual, gets this just right. israel needs to be made new after this horror, this absolutely shattering experience of october 7th. israel wasn't prepared, for which the reaction was slow. to come into a country that prime minister netanyahu had been dividing politically in a way i've never seen in 40 years of covering israel, anything like the divisions that preceded october 7th. israel must be made new. i think israelis understand that. america's job as israel's ally, partner, you know, forever friend, is to help that process of becoming new, becoming strong, becoming as wise as possible. these are huge problems. they really are going to need our help. sometimes stern, you know, tough love from the united states. i can't imagine that the netanyahu era as we've known it isn't ending. i won't say over. it isn't ending. >> yeah. >> david ignatius, thank you very much. before we get to the top story, we have two leaders that have talked about this. first, hillary clinton in 2016 was very clear about what was going on between israel and the gaza strip and what was bound to happen. >> and hamas, yeah. >> former president obama recently spoke about it, as well, explaining the four or five truths that we have to hold at the same time. here's hillary clinton in 2016. take a listen. >> remember, israel left gaza. they took out all the israelis. they turned the keys over to the palestinian people. what happened? hamas took over gaza. so instead of having a thriving economy with the kind of opportunities that the children of the palestinians deserve, we have a terrorist raven that is getting more and more rockets shipped in from iran and elsewhere. >> senator, i read -- >> wow. >> not exactly sure why bernie is trying to interrupt. jonathan lemire, 2016, once again, seven years ago, there you have hillary clinton, over seven years ago, hillary clinton predicting exactly what was building up and what was going to happen on october the 7th. >> she saw it coming. benjamin netanyahu did not. that is clear. i had reporting last week, to the conversation of a moment ago, about how the biden administration is starting to talk about a post bibi israel. they can see the polls. they're talking to israeli leaders there on the ground from a variety of political perspectives. making no effort, of course, to nudge netanyahu out. that is another country's democratic process. but they can get a sense of what is the landscape there, and they don't believe, i'm told, that netanyahu, likely, survives politically after this first phase of the war. we should note, to quote ed luce, netanyahu has been the houdini of politics, and he's survived in the past. no one is guaranteeing this, but there is the sense here, and those i speak to in the west wing and elsewhere in the administration, that this probably will be the end of netanyahu. now, that could be months from now. whenever this phase of the war is deemed over, but they do believe that some significant, some significant changes are coming. i think the secretary of state's trip, though admiral, joe and mika, underscores the challenges ahead. one of the ap's state department correspondents, one of the deans of the beat, noted he's traveling with the secretary, and the tepid response from the arab leaders, who were calling for a cease-fire. israel is rejecting that. israel won't do humanitarian pauses to let hostages out. they say it'll only happen if hostages are released. tricky days ahead. >> it is so great antony blinken is there. arab leaders will side by the palestinians, even if they've treated the palestinians like dirt. arab leaders have just done it. they're great with the press releases, not so great when it comes to actually helping the palestinian people out. they've been making peace with israelis while keeping palestinians at an arm's length. this hypocrisy that comes from arab leaders, please, had enough. but antony blinken has to be there. he has to keep talking to them. he needs to keep moving toward peace. i just wanted to bring there right now, legendary ad man, donny deutsch. we could play so many clips from hillary clinton in her debates with donald trump, where she's prescient. we played that clip with bernie sanders. again, i'm not exactly sure why -- >> maybe he just wanted to talk. >> -- bernie tried to interrupt and what he found objectionable with what hillary clinton one saying about hamas. but when hillary clinton last week said, i think she was at rice university with norah o'donnell, she said, "we can't allow a cease-fire to take place because hamas will use that to build up and attack the israelis again." a lot of people on the left so enraged, how could hillary say that? 2016, she was telling them all what was going to happen. in fact, it did happen in october, and, unfortunately, as mika said, hillary clinton saw it coming in a way that benjamin netanyahu and his extremist government -- >> how is that possible? >> -- did not. >> look, the world would have been a different place if hillary won in 2016. look, for all those who are saying we should have a cease-fire. i want to remind them, last week, one of the leaders of hamas said, "we are going to keep coming. we've killed jews. we're not going to stop until we kill every single jew. we obliterate israel." yet, some of the woke generation, some of the kind of soft and squeezey people want a cease-fire. look, i used this analogy last week and will again. if somebody was outside your door and had already killed one of your children, and they said, "we're going to stay here until we kill all your children," would you have a cease-fire and back down? would you say, "okay, time-out"? i just don't understand. the same way, joe, you've used the analogy so wonderfully, after september 11th, it was september 12th, and they took out what would have been the equivalent of 50,000 people in this country, would we have backed down? >> never. >> never. yet, israel -- >> never, donny, donny, let's carry through on this. we would never back down, just like we wouldn't have backed down on december 8th, 1941. we've never backed down after pearl harbor. i mean, we had, again, couple thousand americans killed at pearl harbor, right? the israelis had the equivalent of about 50,000 people killed. we fought a four-year war, and we set tokyo on fire. we dropped two atomic bombs. we destroyed them. wewar-making machine. in so doing, we killed hundreds of thousands and hundreds and thousands of japanese. we did the same thing in germany. >> and the answer is -- >> you know why? hitler had to be defeated. time and time again, there were peace overtures that fdr had with germany. hitler wanted to make peace. there were people saying, we should make peace with japan time and time again. fdr said no, we have to destroy hitler. we have to destroy japan's war machine, or they will just come back at us again. it's the same thing that israelis are saying right now. >> one thing that history has shown us, unanswered aggression breeds more aggression. it's that simple. >> yup. >> israel is held -- and we talked about this a lot -- to a completely different standard, that they're not allowed to defend themselves. that is frightening. >> israel, mika, has always been held to different standards. >> yeah. >> always. i wanted to show you the front page of "the new york times" to talk about our lead story. it's not the marathon. new york marathon, always exciting. your daughter ran it last year. >> she did. she is doing boston this year, but carly was out watching and supporting everyone. beautiful day in new york city. >> it's an amazing day in new york. here, the lead story of "the new york times", something that got a lot of democrats talking yesterday, a lot of democrats, voters in five battleground states favor trump over biden. let's turn back to that. the latest "new york times"/siena college survey which shows donald trump leading joe biden in battleground states which were won by biden the last election. registered voters in arizona would go for trump by five points. 49% to 44%. in georgia, trump's lead, 6 points, 49% to 43%. in michigan, trump holds a five-point advantage, 48% to 4 4%. nevada, 11 poin, 52% to 41%. in pennsylvania, trump leads 48% to 44%. the only battleground state biden would retain, according to the poll,s wisconsin. there, he leads trump by two points, 47% to 45%. voters in those states also say they trust trump more than biden to handle most key issues. on the economytrump is favored by 222 points. joe biden was just, you know, announcing gdp of over 4%. >> on handling the israel-hamas war, 11 points is trump over biden. >> attacking israel. praising hezbollah. >> trump is favored by 9% on the issue of abortion. >> let's bring in the founder and director of the non-partisan politics, larry, and carol lee from washington. larry, so glad you're here. i had a lot of people calling me yesterday, texting me yesterday, they were all in a lather. it's almost like they thought the election was in a couple weeks instead of a year. i know you always keep things like this in proper perspective. i've got to say, a couple numbers eye-popping here. one i'm holding up in "the new york times" is nevada, a double-dit lead for donald trump. that certainly speaks to younger voters, people of color, hispanics breaking away from joe biden. also, the other number, of course, 22% point lead when it comes to economics. obviously, the bidenomics argument sort of fell on deaf ears, didn't it? >> yeah. you know, what you said first really matters. one thing i've learned over the years, not just since 2016, is democrats actually believe poll numbers and think they're predictive. republicans dismiss them all and get angry about it, and then go out and do whatever they're going to do. there was a lot of panic. it's really unjustified. although, the poll, while i could quibble with some of the numbers, and i have and i will if you want me to, the poll is a useful warning to democrats about the job they have to do. the fact is, they have their work cut out for them. the economy is the key to all of that. look, yes, it's two presidents, but one is a former president, all right? the other one is the incumbent president. american presidential elections are almost always about the incumbent president. even a former president, as deeply flawed as donald trump, is the alternative that people turn to if they're upset at the incumbent president about, a, b, c, d, e, f. the economy is most of the reason why biden is having the troubles that he has. fortunately for him, the election is a year off. it takes a long time for people to absorb new economic realities and new numbers and new trends because they don't believe them at first. they don't feel them at first. give them enough time. >> you know, larry, there is, actually, some polls that voters should be paying attention to pretty soon. you're in the state where it matters. i remember when i ran the first time in 1994, the rnc told us, you guys, we should have a pretty good year. look what happened in virginia in '93. look what happened in new york city. you see time and again, these off-year elections are often very predictive. talk about virginia and how that actually could show us what next year may -- again, it's a trend line for next year's elections. >> yeah. i'll give a preface first, though. yes, they are often predictive and often not predictive at all. the problem is, you never know which it is after you see the results. a million things can change between now and next year. but, you know, clearly, the party that wins, the virginia legislature and other elections will have something to boast about. it'll energize their volunteers and their party activists. democrats probably need the energy more than republicans do, simply because they go into a panic a bit easier than the republicans do. so if virginia goes fully republican -- >> if -- want to ask about the -- >> carol lee, chime in. what do you think is happening in terms of the economy versus people who were polled and their version of the economy, their reality? there seems to be a disconnect on a number of levels. >> absolutely. one of the things that we've seen the president and his team try to do is play this longer game, mika, in the sense that their belief is that they can educate people about what the president has done for the economy. as they do that, then they'll start to feel better about the economy. their perceptions of it will match up more with the realities of the numbers that we're seeing. to do that, they've decided to take this gamble on labeling the economy bidenomics. that's the president's big campaign message. their theory is that as this goes on, that voters will start to feel better about things. the president, therefore, owning the economy and saying that, for better or worse, it'll eventually pay off in 2024. they think they have a good story to tell. the problem that they have is it is not working right now. even allies of the president are frustrated with this messaging and think that it was a mistake. we're told that the president was initially a little bit skeptical about doing this because then, you know, feeling like it might backfire on him. alies of the president are saying, look, bidenomics, what does that mean? it is unclear. also, it's not something that people are resonating with. it's not the message. we talked to congressman clyburn, a close ally of the president, who said, i don't like this. he said, people don't think about things in terms of economics. it's not a message that's getting to people. they think about, how much is my grocery bill costing? how much is gas? can i afford a home, to send my kids to college? that's what the president should be talking about in the view of allies, not labeling it as embracing the economy, including things out of his control, like interest rates and inflation and things like that. >> housing. >> really did. i mean, the bidenomics argument didn't work. by the way, mika was talking about steve. >> no. >> not larry, but talking about steve. we were calling for steve scalise -- >> thank you. it was in my head. >> just to explain. >> my point, larry, is that we're dealing with, i think, a dangerous atmosphere. a good example of that, and looking at these poll results might be reflective of the dangerous atmosphere. a good example of that may be that leading members of congress still argue whether or not joe biden won the election. that's the world we're living in. >> you saw the steve scalise clip. >> scalise had a huge fight with a sunday host about whether or not joe biden won the election. that's where we are right now? we can show it. >> let's play the clip. >> this is what i was talking about. >> can you say unequivocally the 2020 election was not stolen? >> what i've told you is there are states that didn't follow their laws. that's what the u.s. constitution requires. >> that's not what i asked. can you say unequivocally the 20 election was not stolen? >> joe biden is president. i know you and others want to talk about 2020. we're focused on the future. >> i know joe biden is president. i'm asking you a different question. can you say unequivocally the 2020 election was not stolen? >> what i've told you, and you've seen this, there are states that didn't follow the laws that are on their books. >> so you refuse to say, unequivocally, the 2020 election was not stolen? >> so you want to keep rehashing 2020. we're -- >> i want an answer to the question, yes or no? >> -- threats to this country. we've asked -- look, we've talked about this before. again, will you acknowledge that there were states that didn't follow the actual state legislative enacted laws on their books, which the u.s. constitution says they're supposed to do? >> i know that every court that looked at whether the election was stolen rejected the claims. i asked you a simple question, now the fifth time, that you can't appear to answer. can you say unequivocally that the election wasn't stolen? >> there were a handful of states that didn't follow their laws, and the rest did. >> yes or no, was the 2020 election stolen? >> what i've told you is joe biden is the president of the united states. >> so he can't -- >> i just can't. >> he won't answer that question. of course, george came back -- and, by the way, people were like, how do we handle donald trump? we don't know how to handle donald trump. >> layer of lies. >> that's how you handle the lies. you stop the fire hose of falsehoods, right? you don't ask the question once and then move on to a thousand other questions. you keep asking that question. because what did you hear? george came back, and he was right. there were over 60 federal courts that said that the election wasn't stolen. what steve scalise is talking about there is pennsylvania, which donald trump and his lawyers took all the way up to the supreme court. and what did alito and thomas say in a concurring opinion? there weren't enough votes, even if -- even if, for argument's sake, donald trump was right with his argument, there weren't enough votes to change the outcome of the race. yet, the lies continue. so, larry, the question is, i think for democrats, also for members of the media, i think george answered the second question pretty well there, but how do you run against opponents that won't even acknowledge what the federal courts and everybody else seem to know to be the truth? >> the facts. >> and the facts. >> look, you point that out over and over again. i know that republicans don't care about what history says about them, but they're going to be condemned as a group, with a few exceptions, liz cheney, adam kissinger, mitt romney, but the vast majority will be condemned by history. >> i hope. >> that they have undermined democracy. they have threatened the republic with what they've said and done, and they are afraid of donald trump and won't stand up to them. as far as i'm concerned, it disqualified the bunch of them, it really does, and it ought to for everybody else. >> "the new york times" chief political analyst posted this chart, shows that voters think biden is too old for office compared to donald trump. you go down there, and you see, it's grown by 37 points since 2020, compared to 21 for trump, those who believe biden doesn't have the mental sharpness rose. for donald trump, it dropped. let's look at this clip, though. look at these clips of donald trump not knowing where he is and thinking he's running against a guy who stopped running for president over a decade ago. >> as you know, crooked joe biden and the radical left thugs who have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent, leading by a lot, including obama. we have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country, who is cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead, and is now in charge with dealing with russia and possible nuclear war. just think of it. we would be in world war ii very quickly. >> thank you very much. very big hello to a place with we've done well, sioux falls. thank you very much. oh, is that right? sioux city, let me ask you, how many people come -- how many people come from sioux city? viktor orban, anyone ever hear of him? probably, like, one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world. he's the leader of -- right? he is the leader of turkey. hezbollah is very smart, all very smart. hezbollah and hamas. hamas, has anyone ever heard of hamas? hamas terrorists. >> i've heard of hamas. as ali g says, it tastes great if you put it in the right kind of dip. >> all recent clips. >> donny deutsch, by the way, those are the last three months. this guy thinks he is running against barack obama. he can't figure out what city he is in. he's saying that terrorists are great organizations. by we really could have shown more clips of him just getting lost and distracted, confused on stage, talking about how barack obama is his opponent this year. >> yeah. look, you have to keep playing it and saying it, repeating it. one thing i want to pick up on when you talk about age is going the other direction and talking about young people. you were talking about this last hour. what is wrong with young people today? i'll tell ya the answer, this thing, tiktok. that's where the world gets their news from. when you see things, and you touched on this, that young people, he's basically tied biden and trump. young people in this country 18 to 24, a guy who wants to -- who is completely against abortion, a guy that wants to throw the constitution upside down, young people are okay with it. young people think socialism is an okay word. they think capitalism is a bad word. young people, when asked, do you think hamas was justified? 18 to 24-year-olds, in doing what they did as a result of what's going on in palestine, 51% said yes. yes, it is justified to chop people's heads off. one of the reasons, the main reason is they're getting everything from this. i'm holding this up, tiktok, owned by china. just think about that. i don't know -- you know, every generation goes, what happened to the young people? i always had faith. this young generation is just fallen, and they can't get up. i sound like a crusty old guy, but you look at every data point. they are clueless. one of the reasons they're clueless, because they had their heads stuck in tiktok all day long. >> carol, i wanted to revisit the polling, and there is a postscript here. "the new york times" added another story based off of the poll it posted. so far, the indictments against donald trump have not hurt him whatsoever in the republican primary. however, in those same swing states, the same six battlegrounds, if trump were to be convicted and sentenced, and there is a belief that the january 6th federal election interference trial will be concluded at some time next year before voters go to the polls, well, this survey suggests that in those six states, his trump support would drop, on average about those about six points in all six points, putting just about all of them, with the exception of nevada, back in biden's column. that's another thing to keep in mind. those close to president biden believe in this series, that a conviction would change the equation. people you talk to, what's your take? do you think that's true? >> yeah. i mean, jonathan, you know this, too, the white house's view of this is that once there is a head-to-head, very clear matchup between president biden and former president trump, that people are going to look at that choice and, when it's there glaring in reality, they will make the choice to lean toward biden. that is something that people close to the president have said for a while now. these polls are sort of still theoretical. now, when it comes to president trump's legal troubles, one of the things that we've seen is a white house is a campaign that holds them at arm's length. that thinks voters are going to assess them negatively on their own. they don't need to fan the flames there. one of the things that i think is worth looking at going forward is what we've seen from the biden campaign is positive messaging, achievements, things they think is working with the economy, explaining what he's accompanied while in office. we haven't seen them lean in on going a little bit more negative, trying to define trump. there is a belief that former president trump is already very well define and had they don't need to do it. but when you look at the polls and the things that voters are feeling, when you dive into the specific numbers, there is this question of, you know, would this -- would the biden team now start to look at that and think, maybe we should lean into democracy and really paint a picture for people of what a second trump term would look like, things like that. those are the questions i know people around the white house, people who are allies of the president are asking and wondering about, if it's enough right now to only try to turn voters around on the economy. if there should be a more aggressive, second front on going after former president trump. >> shouldn't they also deal with this age question, when you look at all of the examples that we showed this morning of trump stumbling, not knowing which city he was in, stumbling on other things. i think one of the things people are afraid about today as he testifies, if he is under a real intense interrogation, he may not remember what case he's at. he has five cases. if i was in the attorney general's office, i would lean into where he would almost start defending cases that are down the road. he may not even be able to distinguish between the prosecutor in georgia and the prosecutor here on the civil case. they're both black women. i would be, if i was doing biden's stuff, playing on that. he is really showing signs of his age. for them to let this age question only go on biden, i'm talking about the biden people, to not balance that out, it's showing how out of whack trump has been acting, is political malfunction. >> nbc news managing editor in washington, carol lee. founder and director of the non-partisan center for politics at the university of virginia, larry sabato. thank you, both, very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," we will play for you former president obama's comments on the israel-hamas war. and richard engel joins us live from jerusalem with his new reporting on the war as israeli forces move farther into gaza. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. into every sip and sign. ♪♪ fastsigns. make your statement. as americans, there's one thing we can all agree on. the promise of our constitution and the hope that liberty and justice is for all people. but here's the truth. attacks on our constitutional rights, yours and mine are greater than they've ever been. the right for all to vote. reproductive rights. the rights of immigrant families. the right to equal justice for black, brown and lgbtq+ folks. the time to act to protect our rights is now. that's why i'm hoping you'll join me today in supporting the american civil liberties union. it's easy to make a difference. just call or go online now and become an aclu guardian of liberty. all it takes is just $19 a month. only $0.63 a day. your monthly support will make you part of the movement to protect the rights of all people, including the fundamental right to vote. 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relieves pressure and instantly adapts. sleep better. live purple. right now save up to $900 off mattress sets during purple's black friday sale. visit purple.com or a store near you today. >> tech: cracked windshield on your new car? you don't have to take it to the dealer. purple's black friday sale. bring it to safelite. we do more replacements and recalibrations than anyone else. >> customer: thank you so much. >> tech vo: schedule now. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪ welcome back to "morning joe." it is 37 past the hour. a beautiful shot of the white house this morning. former president barack obama is weighing in on the conflict in the middle east. in part of an interview on the "save america" podcast, released in full tomorrow, former president obama acknowledged points of view on both sides of the fighting. take a listen. >> if there's any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity. and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas, that what hamas did was horrific and there's no justification for it, and what is also true is that the occupation and what's happening to palestinians is unbearable. the problem with the social media and trying to tiktok activism, trying to debate this on that is you can't speak the truth. you can pretend to speak the truth. you can speak one side of the truth. and in some cases, you can try to maintain your moral innocence, but that won't solve the problem. and so if you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth. you then have to admit -- [ applause ] -- nobody's hands are clean. that all of us are complicit to some degree. i look at this, and i think back, what could i have done during my presidency to move this forward, as hard as i tried? i have the scars to prove it. there's a part of me still saying, well, was there something else i could have done? that's the conversation we should have having, not just looking backwards but looking forward. and that can't happen if we are confining ourselves to our outrage. >> joining us now from jerusalem, nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel. richard, why don't we start there. i'm curious what you thought of former president obama's comments. i felt he was responding to a lot of different reactions to what is happening in that region across america even. >> reporter: well, i think he made a lot of very important points. i think one of them is something that donny was just talking about earlier, social media. social media, tiktok, x, former twitter, basically allows you to make one point and makes one point at a time. that is not helpful, not effective. you need the context. you need history. you need a little reading to do. it is not all black and white. a lot of times, in the media and in this media era of -- this era of social media, we sometimes act like, you know, we're putting red capes in front of bulls. people say, oh, the palestinians are all right, and what israel is doing in a genocide against the people of gaza strip. or israel is totally justified in doing what it is doing, and it should carpet bomb gaza because it suffered a horrendous terrorist attack. you need to understand the history. you need to understand how gaza became gaza. there was a war. 1948. israel, right after the holocaust, israel fought a war of independence and won. it was attacked by the arab world and won. the people who were displaced in that war, 750,000 people, palestinian people, many of them were pushed down into gaza. that's why when we talk about the refugee camps that are being attacked in the gaza strip, they don't look like refugee camps. they look like cities. these are concrete buildings because they'd been there 75 years. then there was another massive war, 1967. similar scenario. the arab states attacked israel. israel won. israel expanded greatly, took over the west bank, golan, and sinai. the reason the people in gaza don't want to leave right now and are afraid to leave and don't want to all go to egypt is they're afraid the same thing is going to happen to them again. they are going to be pushed into egypt and never come back. so without understanding that history, which you can't convey in an x tweet or in a tiktok video, but it doesn't take that much. we've been talking about it a minute or two, and it's not that complicated. you need to understand it. from the israeli side, you have to understand, they believe that they've tried. they've negotiated with the palestinian authority. they have negotiated with hamas. they fought -- this is the fifth war that i've covered between israel and hamas. what happened on october 7th was vastly different with a vastly different death toll and with hostages still being taken. there is a desire here to say, we need to do something different. we need to do something that we have not done before. the path they have chosen is to go into a ground war in gaza with street to street fighting. you asked me a couple of days ago, joe, you asked me, what happened to the moderate voices? where are all the moderate voices in israel who don't think that this is a wise course of action? well, this weekend, i went looking for them. i spoke to veteran journalists, to people who used to be on the peace camp, and their voices are being drowned out just like they were drowned out in the united states after 9/11. anyone here who says, well, maybe a massive campaign in gaza, trying to fight hamas inside the tunnels is only going to lead israel down a path of getting itself stuck in another vietnam, anyone who says that these days in israel is called a coward, a called a traitor, is called someone who is not patriotic. >> richard, i'm curious, because there are a lot of questions about the netanyahu regime, and benjamin netanyahu himself, where he can hold on to power, and whether he is qualified to do so. does he have the support of the israeli people? putting that aside for a second in the states, this "new york times" poll showing more americans support donald trump' leadership when it comes to handling foreign policy and national security. i'm just wondering, because you have been a war correspondent covering hot zones during a trump presidency versus a biden presidency versus other presidencies, what do you make of these numbers? >> reporter: can i tell you the framework that i've used for this years to try to understand the rise and fall of political leaders? german social scientist, max vapor, who lived at the tush of the century, described legal leaders, the law says you have to follow them, and if you don't, there are consequences. traditional leaders who don't follow because of the law, not that they have anything written down, similar if you don't follow them, these are consequences. family leaders or religious leaders. then there are charismatic leaders. charismatic leaders, people follow them because of the strength of their personality. generally, societies go for charismatic leaders when they feel that the traditions are being ignored or the traditions in society no longer correspondent with how they understand traditions. they don't believe that the laws correspondent to how they think the laws should be. so they reach for these charismatic leaders, which only come around every so often, because they transcend traditions and the laws. legal cases against them generally have very little impact because they are looking for these kind of superstar, charismatic figures. generally, people around them try and hitch their wagon to them. they always make mistakes because they think they're smarter than they are, or they think they can control them, or they can address their narrow agenda. they always get it wrong because the charismatic leaders are only in it for themselves, only operating on their own frame of reference. >> all right. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel, thank you very much for that analysis this morning. you know, last week, the house passed a resolution condemning the support for hamas and hezbollah that we're seeing on many college campuses. the resolution urges university leaders to denounce all forms of anti-semitism. utah republican representative owens introducedhe measure saying, quote, hateful acts of anti-semitism are spreading like wildfire across american college campuses. some examples, at cornell, campus police had to protect the university's center for jewish living after online threats to jewish students surfaced. near tulane, a jewish student was hit with a flagpole after he tried to grab anisraeli flag from pro-palestinian protesters. at columbia, an israeli student was physically attacked with a stick on campus. now, three jewish students are speaking out in a "new york times" op-ed, writing that what's happening on college campuses is not free speech. joining us now are the op-eds authors, gabriel diamond of yale, talia, junior at cornell, and julian letterman, a senior at brown. thank you, all, very much for being on this morning. thank you for writing the piece. gabriel, i'll go in order of how i introduced you. what do you think should be done, though, to deal with anti-semitism that seems to be roiling across college campuses? >> well, first of all, thank you for having us on. i think there's a lot that can be done. what we're seeing now is a lot of colleges and universities are being reactive to what's going on on campus. they're issuing statements, tying to essentially cover for what has been a massive failure because they've allowed terrorist sympathies to brew on campus. they've allowed for radical voices on campus to create a hostile culture. these students are condoing terrorism and justifying violence. in many cases, they're inciting violence. in the video with the columbia student, students are getting hurt, assaulted. at tulane, columbia, an israeli student was assaulted. cornell, students are scared to go to class. we're seeing that at harvard, as well. a student who was harassed by a number of students with the scarves in front of them, preventing the student from getting to class. there's a lot that can be done. the universities need to step up. they need to deal with professors appropriately, disciplining them, and in some cases, dismissing them. we also need for universities to cut funding to student groups that are supporting and glorifying terrorism, because these behaviors are unacceptable. >> do you believe that the average student who is on campus marching, free palestine, from the river to the see, even understand what the issues are, or is it just this -- or is so much anti-jew hatred? >> it's interesting you ask that. i don't think i can necessarily speak to other people's beliefs. what i canyou, you're chanting for an revolution. innocent civilians to be killed. you should know what you're saying before you get up and tell someone that their family and friends should be slaughtered in cold blood. you're calling for jews on your own campus, across the united states, across the world, to be slaughtered in cold blood. if you're able to get up and say that you should know what you're saying. >> many of us have different views, i think all of us have to condemn what happened on october 7th and many of us are saying we don't want to see children killed in gaza. what i want to z you, what has been absent, i read the column, the op-ed you three wrote. i haven't seen the surrounding communities of those college campuses condemn the violence, because we can debate the issues, but the fact that you have students being physically attacked or threatened with violence, where are the faith leaders, the activists, in your communities, these colleges are in somebody's neighborhood, where are they rising up and saying, wait a minute, we're not going to tolerate the violence. i may not agree with you on the issue but we shouldn't be physically attacking people because they're jewish or muslim. >> absolutely and we've seen a complete absence of support on something that should be morally clear. right now, we have a situation in which there was a moment on, in a country, in this world, where people were slaughtered, civilians were slaughtered, women were raped, people were brutalized, people were kidnapped, children taken away from their parents. this is moment of moral clarity, it should be a moment of moral clarity. colleges have a culture of ethics that they're required to uphold, a responsibility to uphold, they're leaving jewish students behind. that continue to hold hostages in gaza and they say that's okay, an act of palestinian resistance. >> the op-sed online for "the new york times." titled, what is happening on college campuses is not free speech. thank you very much for joining us and for writing that. coming up, donald trump is said to be building a list of people he plans to punish should he win a second term. we'll have that new reporting from the washington post straight ahead on morning joe. n. welcome back. a new report from washington post reveals former president donald trump and his allies have started mapping out specific plans to use federal government, the federal government to punish his critics and opponents if he wins a second term to the white house. the plan has been dubbed project 2025. trump has named individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute. those people include former chief of staff john kelly, former attorney general bill barr, former attorney ty cobb, former joints chief of staff, general mark milley. a person familiar with the matter said trump has also talked about prosecuting officials at the fbi and justice department, additionally the post reports that the former president's associates have drafted plans to potentially invoke the insurrection act on his first day in office to allow trump to deploy the military against civil demonstrations. joining us now is one of the co-authors of that new report from the washington post, isaac, thank you so much for reporting on this. tell us what else the former president plans to do if he wins re-election. >> reporter: >> simply put, he wants revenge. he wants to use the power of the federal government to punish his critics and what's the crime they commit td, it's the crime of criticizing donald trump. and but the big takeafrom our reporting is not that he's saying this, is that the people who are around him who are angling for a job in his second term are starting to come up with detailed implementation plans to actually do that. so that means they'll be staffing the white house with people who will carry out those orders and they'll be limb nating the traditional insulation between the white house and the justice department, to clear the way for trump and his aides to be directly involved in criminal prosecutions. >> isaac, one of the other really attention-grabbing parts of your story is the insurrection act that hasn't been invoked in quite some time to say the least, president trump and his team considered it in the summer 2020 during the george floyd protest. you got a new report they may try to invoke it again to quell the uprising against his election and inauguration, tell us about that, how serious is this, are they confident it can survive legal challenges and how unprecedented it would be. >> that is exactly right. trump has said publicly that he regrets not deploying the military in the summer of 2020 and if given another chance he would not hesitate. his associates specifically jeffrey clark, the former justice department official who viewers will remember as co-conspirator 4 in the federal case and a co-defendant in the georgia case, jeffrey clark's hearing this and is starting to work on a plan on day one prepare a justification to invoke the insurrection act which would empower the president to deploy the military domestically against civil unrest, temporarily suspending. you could try that to challenge that in court, but the reality on the ground would be, not exactly martial art but something in the neighborhood. >> the washington post, isaac, thank you for you reporting. donald trump will take the stand in his civil fraud trial. we'll have live coverage from inside and outside the courtroom we're back in 09 seconds. ck in s doing extraordinarily well at this point, not only before a year before the election, the last polls the last gallup poll going into that race, mitt romney up by 11 points over barack obama, it didn't quite turn out that way, so i think these polls are very important. i think the white house should be scared as hell if you're running for any office. i always ran scared 20 points ahead. these polls that came out yesterday, shows they have areas they really feed to work on, something that people should be freaking out like they did yesterday, no. but it's a good indicator, what i love about polls, is that not they were a predictor of what was going to happen, i looked at trend lines, that is what mattered. if something broke in another way and i was lossing support in another area i got to that ar. joe biden is having real problems right now, holding traditionally democratic support and that's what we should look at these polls. >> i think what's just a little bit traumatic for democrats if they're freaking out as much as you think they are, the contrast between these two candidates is like nothing we've seen in history and it's a little bit depressing in terms of the mood out there, in terms of disinformation, and a number of narratives that might have sunk in that joe biden has to push back against. we're not dealing in the same reality. >> what does that mean? work harder. that's what it means. work harder. if people are lying about you, work harder to get out the truth. if american democracy is on the line, work harder. if you have a guy who said let's suspend the constitution of the united states because i didn't win -- work harder. if you've got people lying all the time -- and donald trump once again, this washington post article, he just goes there. >> give some reasons to knock on doors and make phone calls. that's how you win elections. >> let's get to what we're talking about and the latest "the new york times" siena college survey, donald trump leads president biden in five of six battle ground states. if the election were held today, the polls show registered voters in arizona would go for trump by five points. 49% to 44%. in georgia, trump's lead is six points, 49% to 43%. in michigan, trump holds a five-point advantage. 48% to 43%. in nevada, trump leads biden by 11 points. 52% to 4 #%. in pennsylvania, trump leads by four points. the only biden would retain according to this poll is wisconsin. >> interesting wisconsin trends older and whiter and weirdly enough those are the only voters that biden hasn't bled support from. >> voters in those states say they trust trump more than biden to handle most key issues. on the economy, trump is favored by 22 points. immigration, 12 points. handle the israel-hamas war, trump holds an 11-point edge over biden and on national security, trump's lead is 12 points. >> one second here. if you look at the israel-hamas war, you have donald trump, 11-point favored by voters, 11 points, he has called hezbollah smart. he's complimenting the terrorists and he's attacking israel and he's up plus 11. the economy, again, just absolutely bizarre. i'm not going into the numbers right now. inflation has been a problem for biden, but by every other measurement, joe biden is just doing so much better. donald trump had a miserable four years, if you look at his numbers over the four years, but again, these things don't matter to voters. in politics, as henry kissinger said perception is reality and what the bidenen white house has to figure out quickly why is perception so upside-down. >> biden is favored by nine points on the issue of abortion. 71% of respondents say that biden is too old to be an effectsive. this is why donald trump is trumping around the country literally making no sense on stage, sweating bullets, and forgoting who he's running against. >> not just that, let's keep these numbers up, donald trump the guy on the right often forgets where he is, people have to whisper and tell him, you're not in the city you said you're in, he also continually forgets who he's running against, he thinks he's running against barack obama. keeps saying he's running against barack obama. perception is reality, every time joe biden gives a speech from the very beginning right-wing trump supporters on tv and also online, they'll cut a part of the speech and make him look like he's an idiot and so many times i go and look, oh geez, that's not good. yikes. most of the time i'm looking, wait a second, he didn't fell asleep. i was thinking of those hawaiian firefighters, ten seconds of the clip, 20 seconds of the clip, what we all do in memorial services in time when we're overwhelmed, but again, perception is reality. they'll try to find any clip and hammer it home. fight harder, work harder, because perception is reality and right now, per sense is screwed up. >> those voters also say they have been personally hurt by the current president's policies compared to 35% who have been helped. we'll talk about that. on the flip side, 51% of those same voters say trump's policies have helped them while 34% say the opposite. and this is the reason our phones were exploding yesterday. people really, really freaked out, enough said, and it does beg the question, you know, if there are democrats out there who are concerned or even moderate republicans about the difference between joe biden and donald trump, i think the real concern here is disinformation, the electorate being poisoned. i mean, it's not like the contrast between these two are democrat and republican. conservative versus liberal policies. president biden has accomplished a lot in his presidency and some would say it's historic. a guy with 91 counts against him, liable for fraud, liable for sexual abuse, i mean, i could go on for four hours. >> the judge said he raped a woman. >> that's where the concern is here is that there are a different layers of things going on. >> again, perception is reality and when people going, yeah, but this. it doesn't matter. perception is reality. stop your whining. the poll numbers are the poll numbers and they're just poll numbers. still a year out, but i tell you what, to get it worse, it reminds me of a basketball game you're watching one side that's, you know, seemingly doing everything right, the other side is horribly, has a 23% shooting percentage from the field, they go into halftime and it's tied and the team looking so bad is only down by two, three points, you go oh, boy, wow, everything seemed to break for one team and they're only tied at halftime. i'm thinking about these poll numbers, john, you look at the bipartisan legislation that joe biden has done, you look at the economy and what's happened with may toe, lot of things about what's happened with joe biden yet here he is three years later, a lot of things going right for him and donald trump 91 counts against him, he's talking about getting rid of constitution, he's getting crazier every day on stage. he said he's going to suspend the constitution, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. and he's ahead. so i don't know exactly how this gets any better moving forward, it's not like donald trump's not been crazy enough to be punished by voters to be unfit to be president of the united states. >> well, happy monday. thanks, joe. this is a cheerful way to wake up here on a monday morning. i tell you what the biden white house is not worried about and what democrats out there shouldn't be worried about, one set of polls, the fact that these polls say what it says, one set of polls, not that trump, quote, ahead in five of those six battle ground states, all those polls are very close to or within the margin of error. things that the biden white house worry about is that democrats, these polls are part of pattern, across a polls across a lot of weeks now, months, to your point about perception being reality, perception that sunken in a deep way about things like joe biden's age, like things about the relative strengths and weaknesses of donald trump and joe biden on certain set of issues and character at any rates that's something that worries the white house and another thing that should worry the white house and democrats is this erosion of support with core democratic constituencies. voters under 30, biden is up by one point. think about that for a second, a democrat running against donald trump, up by one. donald trump right now in these polls across the six states has 2% support among african americans. historic low support levels among african americans, hispanics and young voters. if biden doesn't fix those problems with those voters he'll lose to donald trump. this poll puts a very stark spotlight on those particular problems. those attribute problems and the erosion of core. >> i want to talk about the young voters in a second. reverend al, because there's been the thought that maybe joe biden's too old, it's this issue or that issue. i know a few young voters who can't buy a house and haven't been able to buy their first house for years now because interest rates are too high, before that was covid and so there are a lot of different things going on, if you want to look at a part of the economy, where actually reality is reality instead perception is reality it's high interest rates keeping people out of buying homes and people under 40 are just disproportionately impacted by that. but people of color, reverend al, if joe biden were to give up 22% of the share of black voters to donald trump, that would be the highest percentage anybody, any republican candidate got in the post-civil rights era, since 65, and for all candidates, donald trump, the most racest candidate we've had running for president since george wallace. >> well, not only the most racist candidate i think the most racist president when you look at what he did in office that disproportionately impacted blacks and other people of color. the problem is that you must do as you said at the beginning of the show, joe, work harder, there will be two ways to react to these polls, you can give your theories on why they're wrong, why they're polling wrong, who they're not reaching, or you can say let's accept the poll and go to work and see where we're weak and turn it around. i was blessed in my young years to hang around muhammad ali, he used to tell me he like his trainer, in between rounds he was losing even if he was winning, he said even if i was in the fight and the way i was scoring in my head it didn't matter, it's what the judges said. it doesn't matter to the democrats what they think. they need to work harder and stop making excuses and rationalize and go to the base including black voters and pull ahead. >> yeah, stop whining, start working. lot of democrats out there who are working quietly but you got to work harder. that's just a bottom line of it. and i agree, rev, in my first race, i was down by 20, 30, 40 points, the entire race the last weektsdz the poll came out had me one point ahead. i was going crazy. we were 20 points behind, work harder, we're going to lose. you got to always have that, you know, rocky would talk about the eye of the tiger, you got to fight hungry and hard. you got to fight and democrats have to stop assuming just because donald trump is so crazy, because this election is going to end american democracy as we know it, that everyone's got that message, got to figure out, got to figure out how to move those votes, if you're a democrat and if you're a joe biden spotter. coming up, we'll go live to the courthouse in lower manhattan where former president donald trump is expected to take the stand today. a full preview of that is straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪♪ yeah, well now it feelts like home, thank you all very much. what a shock you're from trump. i'm going to fall over dead. now, look, now, look, every one of those boos, every one of those cat calls, every one of those yells, will not keep -- will not solve one problem we face in this country, will not solve -- and will not make this country better. your anger, your anger, your anger against the truth is reprehensible. >> there you go. presidential candidate chris christie over the weekend responding to the boos and jeers from pro-trump crowd at the gop freedom summit. >> the freedom summit. you got a guy at the freedom summit, a guy praised in trump who's talking about terminating the constitution, a guy who's going to arrest people, said he's going to arrest general mark milley. says he's going to arrest ty cobb, his former attorney, just because. just because. the freedom summit, those people are jokes, every one of them who booed are joke. he goes out and he has the people who pummelled police officers with american flags, that he praises, that he calls hostages. how sick do you have to be, to actually go to an event and boo somebody for criticizing donald trump at the, quote, freedom summit. how sick do you have to be to praise a man who supports rioters. and led to the death of four police officers if you asked their families. led to the death of four police officers and yet they say they support freedom. just the opposite, they support a tyrant, a guy who promises he wants to suspend the constitution and a guy who said i'm going to start arresting people after i'm elected president of the united states. >> and found liable of being a massive fraud ster. >> freedom to rape? is that what they sport? seriously, how low can you go? pretty low. pretty low. former president trump is expected to take the stand today in his $250 million civil fraud trial. he'll have to defend his actions as head of the trump organization and deny allegations that he ordered his subordinates to falsify financial records and inflate his wealth. "the new york times" reports that trump is personally enraged by this trial. by the fact that his children have had to testify, several people who have spoken -- >> they're in their 40s and 50s. >> he may not be able to restrain himself on the stand. he reportedly held practice sessions over the weekend to prepare for today's testimony because he's so upset. joining us now -- >> he's been caught doing something that people have known he's been doing for 40 years. >> lisa, rubin, what we can expect today? >> mika, you're right, the part that we're looking for today is seeing whether former president either deliberately or not deliberately lose his temper as he's being examined about the core issue in this trial, whether he, his adult sons, allen weisselberg, and others at the trump organization intended to defraud the lenders and insurance companies with whom they were dealing and with whom they sent his statement of financial conditions. trump will disclaim again and again as michael cohen warned us that he didn't have any involvement in that. what i'm really watching for today is whether trump does slip up and give indications of course he was the one who either directed this or signaled that he wanted this to happen, why, because having the world think that he was a multibillionaire was more important to him than telling the truth, particularly when he was dealing the people that he needed money from the most. >> coming up, a new report says american troops suffered serious injuries in a secret war, and there's silence for the pentagon. we'll dig into that, straight ahead on "morning owe." e. what if my type 2 diabetes takes over? what if all i do isn't enough? or what if i can do diabetes differently? 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"morning joe." will be right back. joe." will be right back i work at the end of the production line with metal that weighs 600 tons. i never thought i'd be a welder but i cannot think of a better job. we're currently working on ships to train our merchant marines. and ships to transport cargo and supplies. joe biden is bringing manufacturing back. creating good jobs and standing up for workers. pretty much everyone who i work with got their job because of joe biden. every day i'm out here working with the team, i know he's out there working for us. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. at humana, we believe your healthcare should evolve with you, and part of that evolution means choosing the right medicare plan for you. humana can help. with original medicare you're covered for hospital stays and doctor office visits, but you'll have to pay a deductible for each. a medicare supplement plan pays for some or all of your original medicare deductibles, but they may have higher monthly premiums and no prescription drug coverage. humana medicare advantage prescription drug plans include medical coverage, plus prescription drug coverage. and coverage for dental, vision, and hearing, all wrapped up into one convenient plan. plus, there's a cap on your out-of-pocket costs! humana has large networks of doctors, hospitals and specialists across 49 states. so, call or go online today and get your free decision guide. humana - a more human way to healthcare. hi, my name's steve. i lost 138 pounds on golo and i kept it off. so with other diets, you just feel like you're muscling your way through it. the reason why i like golo is plain and simple, it was easy. i didn't have to grit my teeth and do a diet. golo's a lifestyle change and you make the change and it stays off. golo's changed my life in so many ways. i sleep better, i eat better. took my shirt off for the first time in 25 years. it's golo. it's all golo. it's smarter, it's better, it will change your life forever. when migraine strikes you're faced with a choice. ride it out with the tradeoffs of treating? or push through the pain and symptoms? with ubrelvy, there's another option. one dose works fast to eliminate migraine pain treat it anytime, anywhere. without worrying where you are or if it's too late. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. allergic reactions to ubrelvy can happen. most common side effects were nausea and sleepiness. migraine pain relief starts with u. ask about ubrelvy. learn how abbvie could help you save. over a decade ago, the son of a top hamas founder and leader, wrote a book about becoming an informant for israel. he's now speaking out against the terrorist group. take a look. >> what i see today we're not far from world war iii, very similar events are happening. holocaust is not only measured by the numbers of the people who died, it's how it's done and why it's done, what motivates. and when the world stay silent in the face of the nazis as they saw it on the rise, they started it as a point of view, very similar to the antisemite or antisemitic movement. today we have the same silence. we are not making ourselves very clear that antisemitism and this movement justify the slaughter of the jewish people. if we fail this time, again, it will be our second time and it will be another world war. this is my prophecy. >> co-founder of the group, i am a voter, thank you so much for being with us this morning. really striking words there, tell us a little bit about how this came to be, tell us more about this individual we just heard from and why he's talking now. >> yeah, thank you for having me. you know, i think he was born as a son of the co-founder of hamas and he knows this organization inside-out and after serving some time and saw their brutality against their own, against palestinians, against other members of hamas and ultimately defected to try and prevent further violence, to prevent suicide bombings. there's this overwhelming sense of he knows what's coming. he knows what this organization wants to do and i think he feels like he's screaming at the to which his lungs and they're not taking him seriously. i was moved by his determination to fight for something better, to hear him unequivocally denounce antisemitism. i was very moved. we had a very long and very frank conversation about the goals of hamas, what will happen, you know, if there was a cease-fire, when they will stop, his feelings about the propaganda and, yeah, it was very, very move zblg let's play more of what he had to play and what he told you what he thinks would happen if indeed there were to be a cease-fire now. >> a premature cease-fire is, is a problem and it will not lead to peace. in my opinion it will lead to more violence, why, the voices, first of all, you know, those for cease-fire are in denial, they don't want bloodshed, they want the problem to finish now, just like somebody sweeping the dirt under the rug, you know, they don't want to face reality and get the job done correctly. by the way, hamas is counting on this majority of emotional people, they think hamas did not understand this, hamas orchestrated this entire thing based on the specificity of the free world and how vulnerable we are when it comes to the human life, because we praise life but hamas doesn't care, true peacemakers are the ones carrying the guns now in gaza strip confronting this enemy. those are the ones who are fighting for peace, because at this moment, a cease-fire is cowardness, it's not bravely and it's escaping responsibility. >> he doesn't mince words when he speaks about the brutality of what hamas stands for, what it has done, my question for you is, was the level of atrocities, the horrors on october 7th, was he surprised at all at just how terrible they were and secondly, is he putting himself at risk by speaking out like this? >> i think that he believes in the importance of truth right now, especially in context of all the misinformation we're seeing online and knowing how much money these other proxies are putting in sowing divisions across the social media platforms, spreading propaganda, trying to indockery nate and hamas is not mincing words, their intent on is to annihilate israel and the jewish people to build an islamic state on top of the rubble of the ruins and go after all western values and not stop. again, i think -- that in context of the cease-fire question, right, is this idea, of course, everybody wants other than hamas for there to be less death andless suffering but hamas has expressed no political agenda, no assurances that they'll release the hostages or they'll comply with the cease-fire. there was a cease-fire before october 7th, they violated it. when he went into detail about all of the work they've done to build tunnels they want more death in gaza because it garners more sympathy for their mission and allows them to continue to arm themselves, this is corruption and this is horrible evil people who are using human shields and using every terroristic tactic to conduct in ideological war. seeing it in contrast in the rise of jewish hatred around the world this is not accidental. this is exactly what they wanted. >> thank you so much very much, you can watch more of her interview on her instagram page. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." 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i may be. the imagination is the capacity by which we measure what is or what ought to be possible. is peace possible? a ment of ease in a disastrous year? the imagination is an engine of creation. it supplies the terms of our longing, our wishes, appetites and needs. what do i longfor? what do i bie myself to lack? one thing driving me to this rite is the desire to no longer be alone,he need to no longer simply call out, but to be answered back no matter what the message might reveal. and not by the human chorus that is always on everywhere singing judgment, indignation and fear. and the former poet laureate of the united states joins us now. it is an honor to have you on. it is simply beautiful to read your words. it's a memoir and a reflection of where we are with race in america. can you tell us the microcosm of your life that tells that story? >> sure. the book invited me to look backward to the generations i descend from. my father's family in sunflower, alabama, and his experience in world war i and returning to the south as a farmer, my uncle's experience in world war ii and my dad's experience as a career air force airman. and some of the opportunities certainly that he encountered and that i benefitted from as a child but also some of the quiet struggles that he endured that i was never aware of until after his death until after i inherited many of his papers. i wanted to think about the quiet terms of belonging that we accept in america, the terms of our american imagination is how i think of it, and try and tease out a sense of what we mean to one another, what informs or inhibits us from what we might or could mean and then to think about what we might begin to do with one another to open up different kinds of possibilities. >> were any of your hopes, dreams or imagination changed by the experience of writing this down? >> there's one thing that looking toward the archive and thinking about my own life that emerges for me, and it was a little bit chasening. i'm going to give it to you in bold terms, but it is a quiet through line in our collective imagination. it's that in this country there are some who we perceive to be free, people who appear to descend from histories of power, of ownership or dominion over others. the myth of this status is that it's something that is not inherited, but almost like inalienable from someone's very person. the result is that many acts and pacts, things like war and things like enslavement. then there are others that we default to the notion or terminology that they are not free, but freed. by that i mean, they descend of the history of people who have been acted upon by the free. there is a different set of possibilities. there is a different ceiling on what can be expected or even challenged. i think these categories make us work harder no matter who we are. either we're working to defend the status that we claim on one of america's many hierarchies or we're working to ascend, maybe leverage what we can against others. i think it's effort that could be expended elsewhere. there are things we could be building together as opposed to trying to keep one another in their place. >> we're joined by walter isaacson and reverend al sharpton. walter, you have the next question. >> i'm a big fan, tracy, of your memoir "ordinary light." this one has a very spiritual quality. your last lines echo faulkner a little bit. i don't know if it's intentional, but it's where is the pass, is it up or is it ahead or is it behind us or is it within? to what extent were you talking about history in a spiritual sense that comes from your experiences? >> i think it's inevitable, at least from my experience of defending blacks in the south, that history is intertwined with a sense of spiritual conviction, the vocabulary of the soul, the vocabulary that we are inviolable. there are people who have managed to build great things to support one another to innovate different forms of belonging and community. so thinking with my ancestors was a big part of this book. the meditative practice that was described in that little excerpt from the book was really an attempt to draw myself closer to that spirit presence which i don't believe is gone. i actually believe that all of our ancestors are working still with us on this big project of liberation, which is not yet finished. >> tracy, walt and i are going to have a fight, because i'm a bigger tracy smith than than he is. in reading your book and your work through the years, i related because you talk about sunflower, alabama, my mother was from alabama. i feel like we kind of know each other. what i want you to elaborate on because i think it's important, it's free versus freed. it really defines where people approach this conversation that you're advocating that we really have in this country. because those of us that come from those who were freed just look at the world and the country different than those that were always free and their ancestors were free. elaborate on that and why it was an important part of the book. >> it's important to understand where we're starting from. we have a lot of conversations in this country about putting the past behind us and dealing with the present, but it's hard to avoid what we were born into. i tell about visiting a small community in kentucky and reading my poems about a civil war soldier's experience, a black civil war soldier. after the reading, a white woman came up to me and said i'm so moved by these historical voices and they remind me of something i need to get for you. she went home and came back. i said what happened? she said i wanted to get you this recording of my grandmother telling stories she had been told as a child, songs that had been important to her growing up in kentucky, but i want you to know my grandmother would never want to hurt you. suddenly i realized these are these old kentucky songs and they have framed me and my ancestors in a way that's going to be hurtful for me. but i think of that story with a kind of hope because that woman came back. she also in that time between the reading and returning had realized some of what she inherited might not any longer be useful and maybe it's time to begin to frame a new view of who we are to one another. that's what i'm hoping to do by looking at these categories and working our way out of them. >> the new book is "to free the captives." tracy k. smith, thank you so much for coming on the show and writing the book. we appreciate you. we are two minutes into the fourth hour of "morning joe." 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. we're about one hour away now from donald trump taking the stand in the $250 million fraud trial against his company. the former president will have to defend his actions as head of the trump organization and deny allegations he ordered his subordinates to falsify financial records and inflate the size of his wealth. we'll get a live report from the courthouse in just a moment on what's expected today. that comes as the political world has been focused on the new "new york times" survey which shows donald trump leading president biden in five of six battleground states won by then candidate biden in the last election. registered voters in arizona would go for trump by five points. in nevada trump leads biden by 11 points. in pennsylvania, trump leads by four. voters in those states also say they trust trump more than biden to handle most key issues, especially the economy where he is favored by 22 points. joining us now, director of polling at the institute of politics at harvard university, john dellbolt. we'll get to you in just a moment. walter, i need to understand what's going on here, because joe and i were getting a lot of calls yesterday from democrats freaking out about these poll numbers. i don't attribute them to joe biden or donald trump. i attribute them -- and correct me if you think i'm wrong -- to this moment we're in in history where the environment has been polluted by so-called news organizations that don't cover the facts, disinformation, the fire hose of falsehoods that donald trump has brought to the table during the time of his presidency, among many othering things corruption, bare that is less than patriotic and also the four different indictments against him, liable for sexual abuse, liable for fraud. and yet we still have this environment that literally puts these two men against each other as if they are equals in some way. i understand the poll numbers, but that doesn't make me feel good about where america is headed. >> absolutely. and that polarization has made it harder for things to change politically. it seems to me every time trump gets indicted, it solidifies his support. people look at this poll and say, oh yeah, but remember that romney or reagan was way behind at one point. we're in a different age, and things don't seem as fluid. it doesn't seem like there's a middle that has a reasonable look at all the facts and is trying to decide. what frightens me about this poll is that people are dug in whichever way they're dug in not based on changing facts. >> minnesota congressman dean phillips cites biden's age as one of the reasons -- one of the reasons he launched a primary challenge against the president for the democratic nomination. he pointed out biden's sagging poll numbers and encouraged others to pursue primary challenges as well. >> we both struggle with the same thing. we like joe biden, right? >> absolutely. >> and we think he's done a good job. >> okay. >> ruth bader ginsburg did a good job, but did not know when to quit. >> yes. >> that's why you're here. >> that's why i'm here. 83% of democrats under 30 want a different nominee. a lot of politicians lie, but the numbers don't. it's still not too late to jump into this race. i wish we had more competition instead of a coronation. i don't understand why people are so hesitant to do what the country needs so desperately. >> i think it's kind of obvious why they might be hesitant. first of all, joe biden has beaten trump. can you name someone even on the republican side who has done that? no. that's number one by far. secondly, his presidency, whether you appreciate his policies or not, has been one of the most robust in terms of its accomplishments in modern history. so i would be nervous about being the democrat who wants to take the race away from him and be the person who loses to trump. who wants to do that? >> mika, to put the polls into some context, there's certainly a series of signs that the 2020 coalition is weakening. however, the fact that younger people are roughly within the margin of error in a lot of these swing states according to the "new york times" poll yesterday, the optimistic person would say that president biden has, i believe, led the most youth forward accomplishments in a generation, $127 billion in student debt, significant progress on gun violence, on climate change, the largest investment in climate change, on marijuana reform and a host of other issues. so the opportunity i think over the course of the next year when the campaign spent hundreds of millions of dollars communicating these issues is an opportunity to improve those numbers with one of the under performance being with young people who just haven't tuned in. the problem i hear from younger people is a growing level of cynicism over the last several months even on the back of the 2022 midterm election which was so successful for democrats. think of the opposite of reagan's trickle down where the problems of the other generations are now trickling down on their shoulders. they are the most vulnerable in having to deal with that. that's something that has them questioning at this point who's the best candidate whether it's a third party to move this generation forward. i think once the campaign moves to talk about accomplishments things could hopefully change. >> jonathan lemire, when donald trump won the presidency, most people could not envision what his leadership would look like, but we now know what his leadership looks like. part of his leadership would be the overturning of roe for a million different reasons along with the help of leonard leo. i'm trying to imagine voters in the voting booth, especially democrats, moderate republicans or anybody who likes this country who wouldn't make a decision for america, because that would be the decision ultimately when you get in there, for america. for women's rights. why wouldn't they make that a vote for women's rights? wouldn't they want to make a vote for democracy? again, that's the difference between these two candidates. it's not like policy differences. it's literally for or against democracy, for fairness, for humanity, for empathy, how about for leadership in the world or even an effective presidency that works on a bipartisan basis. that again is a vote for biden and not for trump, who may be going to prison. at the same time, isn't that the choice? and how do you explain these poll numbers? >> trump is a rarity, because he is running for president, not incumbent but has a presidential record. we have seen his very public conduct since then, january 6th, the criminal cases and the like. it's certainly been the biden theory that when it comes to a binary choice in the privacy of a voting booth next fall, people, independents and swing voters can't bring themselves to vote for donald trump and they will for joe biden. the problem democrats have is getting people motivated to get to the polls at all. if everything's bad, maybe they stay home. we know trump supporters feverishly are going to run and turn out. we know what a donald trump presidency would look like. we also know what another four years of donald trump would be like if he were to take office again. the biden camp, they're not talking about the criminal cases. they've started to draw some more contrasts recently in terms of biden versus trump. what should be their approach? >> i think that walter really laid it out in a way that strikes me as the core of my concern. that is that we're not looking at a normal election. we've never had a presidential candidate who was president that's under four indictments, 91 felonies and a civil case. i'm talking about real redefining what is appropriate and what is within the norms of american politics. so those that want to support trump are really saying we need to refashion what a candidate, what a president ought to be. we're talking about a guy that a judge has already said has done fraud. i think it's about what are the norms. we've always debated abortion, affirmative action. but we're debating whether or not there are guardrails in american politics now and whether or not a president can take office that has already said i'm going to arrest and prosecute my enemies. it's voting for america as we know it and what it's supposed to stand for or voting for something else that we don't know. it may be made up in the back of some card playing room by donald trump. that's what this election is really about. >> i want to turn it back to you. i just heard what the reverend sharpton said, which is all these indictments. yet, every time there's an indictment, it seems that trump's numbers go up. do you think that a conviction would finally break the bubble or something? or is this something that's immutable in these supporters? >> i think that certainly is uncharted territory. i think in this current moment perhaps we're spending too much time talking about the convictions and not enough time talking about what happened from january 2017 to january 2021, which is that record. when we speak to younger voters, that's the record that made them turn out in record numbers in 2020 and 2022 and also in 2018 and what young voters in particular, which is a critical voting bloc, is they've seen a series of rights being pulled away. the messages i hear in focus groups is that we keep on voting and we keep on getting our rights taken away. therefore, they're not believing in the system. what i would say is democrats need to recognize that. they need to help people see that through politics and government we can have renewed stability in this country and that president biden can be a peacemaker, both domestically and around the world. >> they want to feel safe. we know what a trump presidency looks like. we also know what a biden presidency looks like. on the world stage, my god, joe biden cleans donald trump's clock when it comes to navigating two wars at the same time, trying to get nato together to form a robust partnership that really works toward the safety of the world. and then you have donald trump who was at the very, very most a despicable embarrassment on the world stage who brags that he would take dirt on a political rival from another world leaders. unpatriotic is an understatement. what are you seeing especially in young people as it pertains to the wars and the latest between israel and hamas? >> one other point is, yes, we see the difference between the biden and trump presidencies. i'm not sure a lot of america sees that, specifically younger people. they're 39% less likely today than they were during trump's administration to follow the news on a regular basis. we can't assume younger people recognize the important work that's been happening over the last three years in the white house. but, yes, they are quite concerned about the president's position currently as it stands in israel. that's really no secret, specifically coming from the young progressives. to put this into context, what americans are asking for is to protect all humans, whether they're on one side of the border or the other side of the border and for the president to be a peacemaker and protect the innocents is essentially what young people are saying. currently, according to polls, they question whether or not the u.s. policy is actually making the middle east more violent. i talk about that in the "new york times" today. they also question whether israel the last few weeks have been too harsh. that's what's on the minds of younger people. they need to connect people with government and show the importance of engagement. >> john della volpe, thank you so much for being on. and coming up, donald trump's revenge tour is already in the works. we'll go through the reporting on what he and his allies have planned for a second term. plus, we'll discuss with a legal panel focused on protecting the rule of law. also ahead, we'll tell you who is suing mark meadows over false election claims. "morning joe" will be right back. la cims. 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>> thank you for having us with you this morning, mika. american democracy, the constitution, the rule of law are the clauses of our times, and they are righteous causes if ever there have been righteous causes. the nation's legal profession is uniquely positioned and uniquely obligated to support and defend the constitution and the rule of law and american democracy. george and barbara and i feel that the conservative legal movement in particular has a special obligation to stand up and defend american democracy and the rule of law, but we feel that the conservative movement has failed to do so over the past eight years. it has not responded. it has not stood up and defended the constitution and the rule of law against the extraordinary constitutional and legal excesses of the trump administration and frankly the former president himself. we believe it's time for a new conservative legal movement of the kind that existed 25, 30 years ago when the conservative legal movement first began to respond to the exigencies of our times. >> so, george, as judge luttig pointed out, donald trump has flouted the rule of law. he did it throughout his presidency. he's doing it now. he'll do it today at his civil trial in new york city, where he will no doubt speak against the judge and against the attorney general and do whatever he can within the parameters of the gag order. he doesn't care about the rule of law. he doesn't care about the 91 counts against him. he doesn't care about the documents he stole. so if donald trump wins the presidency again, what happens to the rule of law, and how do you create a new conservative legal movement with donald trump as the frontrunner? >> thank you for that question. we are absolutely determined to get our message across to everyone about the dangers of a second trump term. the thing about it is that we've seen governments in the past engage in abuses or illegalities within the united states and elsewhere. but this time it's the program. i think that's reflected in today's "washington post" article that talked about trump wanting to use the justice department to prosecute his former allies, people who staunchly supported him. in fact, there was an article last week in the "new york times" that talked about how they don't trust the federalist society, that the federalist society to them now is part of the deep state. that's because many people in the federal society, myself includes, and those law professors who argue that trump is disqualified from the presidency because he incited an insurrection. they're all federalist society members, all on the right. the problem is the federalist society does not actually take positions on things and it is divided. there are trump people in the federalist society. what we're trying to do is create an organization that is strictly focused not on all the other issues that conservative lawyers have been focused on over the years but is focused on preserving the rule of law and protecting the rule of law. for that, we actually join forces with other people who believe that. they may not believe all the policy things we believe in or believe how to interpret the constitution, but we do believe the importance of following the rule of law and making sure it applies to everyone, including former presidents and presidents. >> we hear the phrase rule of law. i guess you could put it on a bumper sticker, but i'm not sure if people sit there in the morning and say rule of law, rule of law. how do you bring it down to specific things that people would care about? >> as a former legislature and lawyer, i'm concerned with this undermining and now very blatant undermining that goes beyond trump with legislators not worrying about undermining courts, just ignoring court decisions. of course after 2020, 60 court decisions that said the election of 2020 was sound but also undermining elections, supporting elections, the rule of law. i mean, if we aren't going to support our election system, if we aren't going to support our election officials, that undermines the faith in our systems. we have to get back to supporting this whole structure of our law and rule of law or we don't have these democratic systems that we all as legislatures say that we believe in. i think it's very important that the legislatures, many of whom are lawyers, also are held to account for this and that they stand up and say, yes, when i run for office, if i win or lose, it's going to be okay. i had close elections. i won some of my elections by about 400 votes. you have to be able to win or lose, it's over. >> george, when you talk about the 2023 rule of law summit, will it go beyond next year's election, whatever outcome may be? the reason i'm asking is, say donald trump is defeated, you still have now state attorney generals elected that operate in the spirit of trump, prosecutors, on and on. so trump may not die even if he is defeated. >> absolutely. i agree with that. what is at stake is beyond the one deranged man. we need to stand up for the next ten or 20 years at least. i remember five years ago, we called it checks and balanced, an organization i and a few others formed a few years ago. the questions were donald trump criticizing his attorney general for recusing himself from the mueller investigation and criticizing special counsel mueller. those are small potatoes compare who had what we later saw. if you told us in 2018, we'd see a president fomenting an insurrection, calling for the suspension of the constitution, being convicted of rape after he left office and being indicted four times and yet arguing that he is being politically persecuted when if any one of us had done that, we'd already be in jail. it was beyond our comprehension. this goes to the fundamental aspect of what makes america america. when people look at america, they think of the rule of law. but that brand is being damaged, and we need to help restore it. >> you don't want to have legislatures thinking this is their way to get ahead, to get elected, to get nominated in any party to ignore the rule of law. so election deniers have to be rejected in any party. >> judge luttig, obviously these are weighty issues this nation is going to face the next, year and a half and beyond. when donald trump takes the stand in new york as part of his civil fraud trial, drawing upon your experience, what do you anticipate will happen? what sort of tests present this judge in that case to try to keep donald trump in line? we know how erratic and unpredictable and frankly volatile he can be on the stand. >> the former president is testing the judiciary and the courts in the united states and the courts of the states more than any other party before the courts has ever tested the courts in all of american history. the former president's conduct, his rhetoric is unprecedented in all of american history. never before has anyone, let alone a president of the united states of america, spoken so virulently against the federal judiciary, the courts and even the individual judges who are presiding over his own case. this is an extraordinarily irresponsible tact for the former president to take, but it's the tact he has taken every day of his life and every day since the first moment of his administration. the courts have the power to manage the former president so as to ensure that his trial is consistent with due process and that justice is administered, whatever that justice may be. >> j. michael luttig and george conway and barbara comstock, thank you for being on. we have live pictures of the federal courthouse. former president trump will be taking the stand. he has attended a great deal of this specific trial, this civil trial, this $250 million civil trial against him. he didn't have to be there. he didn't have to sit there and watch it, but he showed up because this one really gets to him. today he must show up. today he must testify and answer questions. we'll be following as the proceedings begin and have a live report coming up from the courthouse. by the way, the publisher of mark meadows' book is suing him for nearly $2 million over false statements about the 2020 election. the legal action is in response to an abc news report that meadows received immunity for his testimony to a grand jury called by special counsel jack smith. meadows reportedly told smith's team and jurors he repeatedly told trump in the weeks after the election that the allegations of significant voter fraud were baseless. in its lawsuit, all seasons press says meadows violated their agreement regarding false statements. the publisher singles out a chapter in the book that begins, quote, i knew he didn't lose. the publisher also cited the report for causing sales to precipitously decline with only 60,000 copies sold of the first printing. i'm just curious if they're going to retract the book. are they going to put out some sort of changed book? because this is part of the problem. this is how this crap gets baked into the national narrative when you let lies go unchecked. so you published a book where clearly your author is lying and you have an agreement about false statements. how are you going to fix that as well? i'm just curious. coming up, we go live to the manhattan courthouse where donald trump will take the stand today in his civil fraud trial. plus, volodymyr zelenskyy does not mince words when asked about his will to continue his country's fight for freedom from russia. we'll play for you what the ukrainian leader had to say in an exclusive interview with nbc news. also ahead, what the new york times is uncovering about a secret u.s. offensive against the islamic state and its devastating consequences for american troops involved. you're watching "morning joe." n" s and all of our stuff where we want to go. but, our cars can't take us e with unpaid tolls. vehicles with overdue, unpaid tolls may not be able to renew their registration until outstanding balances are paid. payment assistance is available. visit bayareafastrak.org/ase so go pay your unpaid tolls y and keep your wheels on the ! president zelenskyy, thank you so much. before you go, if you want to share what keeps you going? do you ever feel defeated? >> i have a lot of power, but even feeling strong and have a lot of energy, it doesn't mean we want to fight all our lives, because the price is high, like i said, because the war takes the best of us, the best heros, the best men, women, children. that's it. but we are not ready to give our freedom to this [ bleep ] terrorist putin. that's it. that's why we are fighting. that's it. >> ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy on "meet the press" yesterday. kristen welker asked him about former president trump's claim that he could end the war in ukraine in less than 24 hours. zelenskyy said he would need just 24 minutes to explain to trump why he can't bring peace. the howitzer is one of the u.s. military's most sophisticated cannons. it's critical to ukraine's war against russia because it can take out enemies. but its blast is seven times louder than a jet taking off. take a listen. so the u.s. used those cannons from 2016 to 2017 to defeat the islamic state in syria and iraq. gun crews fired thousands of high explosive shells, the most since the vietnam war. it was all in an effort to avoid sending in a large number of ground troops. now a "new york times" investigation found many of those servicemen came home plagued by nightmares, panic attacks and in a few cases hallucinations. joining us, is dave phillips. he has been awarded the pulitzer prize twice for his reporting. tell us about what you learned about the impact of these cannons and the amount of noise they make upon being detonated. >> like you said, the u.s. wanted to avoid a big ground war, because we had gotten out of iraq just a few years before. so they created a strategy where they were only going to put a few small artillery units on the ground and have them fire hundreds of rounds a day. when these soldiers and marines came home, they were having all kinds of problems, depression, sleeplessness, panic attacks. what made it difficult is in a lot of cases this looked like ptsd. the symptoms are almost identical. but it wasn't ptsd. these guys had been injured by their own weapons. there are a lot of weapons in the u.s. arsenal that produce a similar type of blast, heavy machine guns, shoulder-fired rockets. what we found is these weapons may be really dangerous to the people that are using them. >> let me ask you this, because your paper has also reported that the m777 howitzer is being used by the ukrainian military and they're having trouble with it. tell me what lessons from your report apply to the ukraine situation today. >> in a lot of ways, it's a really difficult injury to spot. you may fire dozens of these rounds and not experience seeing stars or passing out or obvious signs of a brain injury. but over time what happens is you'll get symptoms that in many cases look like psychiatric symptoms, sleeplessness, depression, panic attacks. so when they're coming back, understandably the people supporting them may not think this is a blast or a brain injury. they may think this is combat fatigue or ptsd. this is especially important in ukraine right now, because they're using a lot of the highest charges, the most powerful blasts, because they need to get that round as deep as they can into enemy territory. if you use the most powerful charge, you're going to get the most powerful shock wave. what we found with these guys in syria is that could have really lasting consequences. >> obviously these weapons are part of ukraine's effort to repel russia's invasion to reclaim their territory. give us an update right now as this conflict has somewhat slipped from the headlines because of all that's happening in the middle east. give us a sense where things stand in this fight with time running out to make more progress before the winter weather sets in. >> i think probably where things stand in terms of artillery is that it is just as important as ever on both sides. also i should note that these same or similar types of weapons are being used by the israelis right now against gaza. conventional wisdom is that right now ukraine is going to head into a winter stalemate and they'll hold those lines largely using weapons like artillery. so is there going to be a break for infantry troops? probably. but during the wintertime is there going to be a lot of artillery fired? i think we should expect that. >> the new reporting is entitled "the secret war, strange new wounds and silence from the pentagon." "new york times" military correspondent dave phillips, thank you very much for your reporting. as we've been saying all morning, just moments from now donald trump is going to be testifying in his $250 million civil fraud trial. we might see him come through that corridor and enter the courtroom. we'll take it live. what he reveals on the stand could likely threaten his business empire. we're live outside the courthouse with new reporting next on "morning joe." with new next on "morning joe." burger and fries... soup and salad. thank you! like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. with voya, considering all your financial choices together... can help you make smarter decisions. for a more confident financial future. hey, a tandem bicycle. you can't do that by yourself. voya. well planned. well invested. well protected. i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. thanks to skyrizi i'm playing with clearer skin. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. with skyrizi, nothing on my skin means everything! ♪ nothing is everything ♪ ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save. in a crisis caused by a terrorist massacre. warning civilians to clear out, while hamas forces them back. allowing in food and water, which hamas steals. all right. so here we have former president trump. he's speaking at the manhattan courthouse where he's expected to take the stand today in his civil trial. he's trying to argue that he didn't inflate the size of his assets. take a quick listen. >> -- political opponent attack ads by the biden administration. there are polls that i'm leading all over the place. it's a very unfair experience. this trial is ridiculous. the numbers are much greater than on the financial statement, and we've already proven that. they say mar-a-lago is worth $18 million. mar-a-lago is worth anywhere from 50 to 100 times more than that -- >> okay. so you can take him down with history dick laos attorneys. again, he's arguing something that's already been decided. so it's already been decided by a judge after the attorney general filed suit, $250 million civil suit against donald trump accusing him of inflating the size of his assets like his apartment or mar-a-lago, and the judge has found him liable on that, along with his codefendants. this is the penalty phase. this is the part where they figure out exactly how much trump should pay for being a fraudster. let's go straight to nbc's vaughn hillyard outside the courthouse in lower manhattan. you might have heard the former president, vaughn, talking about this, of course, being political and all about his poll numbers. somehow he wants to deflect from reality. what will happen today? >> right. the question is, when he actually takes the stand here, mika, we should note under oath he will be taking the stand. how does he answer prosecutor's questions here. for anyone who has followed new york real estate over the last six decades, donald trump built his notoriety as a real estate tycoon. today for the next several hours he'll face direct questions from the new york attorney general prosecutors the stake of the actual financial condition that the donald trump, his children and the accountants from the trump organization purported the company to actually be valued at. those are the questions that donald trump is going to be forced to answer here today. what you see from donald trump is inside of the courtroom, in the several days he has sat in and listened to other witness, him sit quietly and take it in, before leaving the courthouse. just like you heard him, railing against the new york attorney general, letitia james, railing against the judge here. he's already had two fines placed on him for violating the gag order. for donald trump he's going to try to make his case that the onus was on the banks and the insurers, not on the company to attest to the actual value of the trump property assets. >> nbc's vaughn hillyard, i know you need to get in there. thank you very much. let's bring in former watergate prosecutor jill wine-banks, she's one of the co-hosts of the sisters in law podcast. first of all, donald trump has been lying as he has shown up at this trial to watch it because he's so angry about it because it hurts his business, not just later when he's given whatever the penalty will be, but it kind of freezes the business right now, does it not, given that there is sort of an arbiter in place and somebody who has to check everything thing. and when you're found liable of a case of this magnitude, i'm wondering who would want to do business with you. he does have to be there today. what do you expect today from his testimony? >> there's a big difference between lying outside the courtroom as he just did and lying in the courtroom. in the courtroom it's perjury, and that is a punishable offense. so i think he's going to make some big mistake. i think it will not only hurt his case, it will hurt his campaign because i expect the prosecutors to have documents that disprove anything he says, and that they will confront him with those documents and people will see it. so it will hurt him in that. plus, if he loses control, which is almost guaranteed given his past behavior, and his behavior on the campaign so far where he's mistaking names and places, if he does that in the courtroom, once again it's going to hurt his campaign as well as his legal case. >> do you expect this to go beyond today? i know we're still waiting to hear ivanka trump's testimony. so there's that. >> she's not till wednesday, so it could go longer. and i think that since she is now scheduled to be basically the last witness, i'm assuming they have some dynamite documents to disprove anything she says. although, given her testimony before the january 6th committee, which was preting damaging to her father, i think she's going to tell the truth and won't need that disproving by documents, but i'm sure they're prepared for that. you don't want your last witness not to be a really strong and compelling witness. it is the last thing that will be in the mind of the judge who is determining this, and he has already determined that the fraud happened. you correctly pointed out, this is just the damages phase. >> how long do you think the damages phase goes given the fact that trump does tend to have a reputation for making as many delays as possible? >> well, i think this judge is having none of that. so i don't think his fake delays are going to go very long. i do expect he will have some defense to offer, but again, the judge is cutting off some of the nonsense. so i don't think there's going to be that much more because the facts are the facts. the three principle defendants have already testified. so there's nothing more that they're going to say. so who are they going to bring in? they have already had their accountants say this is what we got from them. i don't see a huge defense here. >> former watergate prosecutor jill wine-banks, thank you very much. stay right here with msnbc for full coverage of trump's day on the stand as he testifies -- forced to testify in the civil fraud trial, $250 milon

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