Donald trump blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers. [ Crowd Booing ] he opposed efforts to raise the minimum wage. As the president said, he appointed Union Busters to the national labor relations board. [ Crowd Booing ] and, dont forget, he supposed socalled right to work laws. I remember a time when republicans talked about things like freedom, they meant it. They would never turn their back on our allies. But thats not these guys. Trump and vance, when they talk about freedom, means government should have the freedom to invade every corner of our life. They talk about small government, small enough to be in your bedroom. Small enough to be in your exam room. Small enough to be in your library, telling you the things you should make decisions about. The Harriswalz Campaign spent the Labor Day Holiday speaking to Union Workers in Battleground States. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Jd Vance took The Day off from the Campaign Trail. We are now just a little over two months away from election day. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. Its tuesday, september 3rd. Along with joe, willie, and me, we have the host of way too early, white House Bureau Chief at politico, Jonathan Lemire. Bbcs correspondent katty kay. Associate editor at the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. And President Emeritus of the Council On Foreign Relations, richard haass. He is the author of the weekly Newsletter Home and away, available on substack. Usually, isnt The Day after Labor Day before an election when it really kind of takes off . Yeah. This is it, right . This is considered to be the start of the campaign, willie. Things are lining up. Interestingly, were going to be showing Poll Numbers in a minute. Ill say, the numbers have shifted dramatically. In the shifts, i saw one number this weekend, over the weekend, that showed that women now 45 and under see abortion as the top campaign issue, the top political issue in america, over the economy. And thats gotten Donald Trump, you know, saying hes going to be prochoice advocate, in effect, using prochoice advocates words, saying, ill be a great champion for Reproductive Rights. Then he changes back when hes chastened. Then he changes back on the Sixweek Abortion Ban. All over the place right now. The numbers certainly arent going in his direction. He understands, as hes always understood, that the position that he is responsible for, the terminating of roe v. Wade, as he said it, is very unpopular going into these final two months of the campaign. Yeah. Hes really known that since dobbs came down. After the disastrous midterm elections for republicans where there was supposed to be a Red Wave in 2022 and there wasnt, he said outwardly, it was the Abortion Issue. We talk too much about abortion, despite the fact he appointed three Supreme Court justices who got rid of roe. Obviously, he knows. You can tell by his flailing just in the last few days on the question of when an Abortion Ban in florida should start. Six weeks is where it is now. There is an amendment 4 on the ballot this november. Hes been all over the place on that the last couple days. Youre right, weve turned the corner. About two months until election day. We have the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Heres where the race stands, itll be close. A Poll Finding no big bounce in support for Vice President harris coming out of the Democratic National Convention a couple weeks ago. The latest Abc NewsIpsos Poll finds the race essentially the same as it was before the dnc. Harris up 52 to 46 among likely voters. 46 of those polled see harris favorably as a person, compared to 33 see Donald Trump favorably. 33 versus 58 who have an unfavorable impression of Donald Trump. 53 of the people in the Poll View harris qualified to be president compared to 47 for trump. The Gender Gap has widened. Vice President Harris leads by 13 points among women, up from 6 pointS Preconvention. Donald trump is up 5 among men, 54 to 41 for an 18point Gap there, joe. Again, maybe not a big bounce coming out of the convention as some people in the democratic party had hoped for, but when you look at the before and after, meaning with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket and now with Vice President harris at the top of the ticket, there is a remarkable change. Yeah, there is a remarkable change. You look at the characteristics, all the things that Donald Trump was ahead of before harris got in the race. Hes now behind. I think the most striking thing, mika, when youre looking and people are trying to sort through this race, what direction its going, you just look at the favorable unfavorables. Donald Trump Way upside down by close to 20 points. In the 30s for likable. Then you have Kamala Harris actually upside, i think 46 to 43. That is a huge gap. Then you have the crazed behavior. Its really almost too much to get your arms around, and i understand thats the idea of it. The claims are so outrageous. Theyre so disconnected from the truth. Trump moving all over the place on issues from abortion to immigration, now saying we need more immigrants in the united states. All of this stuff, the crazy stuff At Arlington, theyre absolutely desperate. And the campaign has said internally, they know they can never bring they cant make people like trump. Right. So their goal is to make people hate Kamala Harris. Yes. Thats where we are. And if they cant get americans to hate Kamala Harris, then they understand she will win. You mentioned flipflopping on one of many issues, but one of them was Reproductive Rights. The former president continues to struggle on the issue with a series of flipflops. Evangelicals have supported him, in part, because of his strong prolife stances, but he undercut that support last month in a Social Media post, claiming he would, quote, be great for women and their Reproductive Rights. Days later, in an interview with Nbc News, he waS Pressed about floridas Sixweek Abortion Ban. Well, i think the six week is too short. It has to be more time. So thats and ive told them i want more weeks. Youll vote in favor of the amendment . Im voting that i am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks. The republican president ial nominee has now come out against the Florida Ballot Measure that would extend the time women in the state have to get an abortion. Conservative backlash to his earlier comments was swift, with some on the right Warning Trump was risking losing a key block of antiabortion voters. He attempted then to clean up his comments on friday. Watch. Are you voting yes or no on amendment four in florida . So i think six weeks, you need more time than six weeks. Ive disagreed with that right from the early primaries when i heard about it. I disagreed with it. At the same time, the democrats are radical because the nine months is just a ridiculous situation, where you can do an abortion in the ninth month. You know, some of the states like minnesota and other states have it where you can actually execute the baby after birth. All of that stuff is unacceptable. So ill be voting no for that reason. Okay. That was just a ridiculous lie. The Harris Campaign issued a statement following trumps latest comments. Quote, Donald Trump just made hiS Position on abortion very clear, he will vote to uphold an Abortion Ban so extreme, it applies before many women even know they are pregnant. Jonathan lemire, there are many, many, many different angles we could take on this. The nineMonth Lie is one that weve seen pervade the republican party since the onset of the campaign. It is a complete lie, although it is taken by many republican followers and maga voters. They just take it. They think it happens because it is said enough and echoed enough on different rightwing networks. Its not corrected. The bigger issue is all his different answers is what trump does. It confuseS People. No one really knows where he stands. Ultimately, nothing matters. Its a bigger part of, some would say, some dangerous trends toward fascism in this country. But for this election, could the lies work . Yeah, its certainly more of the firestorm of falsehoods. Its also how his campaign is, frankly, panicking about the Abortion Issue. Ive talked to those in Trump World who said the former president himself acknowledged privately he thinks abortion could be the biggest problem his campaign faces this november. We know that publicly hetried to downplay it. Advisors are worried on where it stands. Hence the flipflops, as trump is trying to be pinned down on where he stands with the florida abortion regulation. Vice President Harris received some criticism last week after the Cnn Interview, saying she changed her position on a few things. There were slight modulations. Trump deserves that scrutiny times ten for how he seems to flipflop on things like this, here abortion, depending on the latest poll he has seen. On polls, we should note, it seems like harris got her Convention Bounce Preconvention. Democrats were so excited about the change in the ticket. Thats when the burst of energy came. Katty, we are seeing a few other polls showing upticks for Her52 Margin of error. We havent been able to say that much in this campaign because its so close. Harris has momentum, and the Abortion Issue is a big part of it. I love the idea of a preconvention bounce. Thats what we should all be looking for in the future. Preshow round of applause, as well. Id be into it. Some of the democrats ive spoken to over the course of this weekend have expressed concern that the polls have not gone as far ahead for harris as they might have expected, given the enormous amount of fundraising, the huge burst of enthusiasm in august, and a successful convention. They had hoped she would be more convincingly ahead, particularly in the Swing States. If you have to think that because of the republicans electoral majority, she needs to be six points ahead in terms of the popular vote nationally, shes just about there. Now, all the focus going to be on the Swing States. Abortion being a main issue for women coming up ahead of immigration and the economy is incredibly important. Women decide elections in america. They vote in bigger numbers in america. But if its also going to be an election about economy and immigration, he still has an advantage on that. I think the Harris Campaign is right to stress, as it did over the course of this weekend in pittsburgh, they go into this as the underdogs. Thats the best way for them to approach the last few weeks. Mika, you touched on this, but it has to be said again. The idea that Donald Trump has contempt for voters, to suggest that babies are being murdered after they are born aS Part of some Abortion Program in blue states, thats called murder. Thats not happening. Also, as you know and youve said many times, abortions that happen after 21 weeks or 24 weeks are extremely rare. Women dont want to have an abortion at that point. It means something medically is wrong and they have to have an abortion. Thats not an elective thing that women do casually. John makes an important point, which is the entire argument the Trump Campaign is making about Kamala Harris is she has no core. She stands for nothing. She said one thing in 2019, and now shes saying something different to be electable. Watch Donald Trump in the last week just twisting in the wind on this question of abortion. Everything they accuse her of, he is 100 times over. The balance just bounces right back on him. Were going to come back to politics in just a moment. We want to move now to the tragic developments in the Middle East. On saturday, the Israeli Defense Forces found the bodies of six hostages inside a tunnel under the gazan city of rafa. Among them, 23yearold Americanisraeli Hersh goldbergpolin. All were captured by hamas October 7th. Five from the Supernova Music Festival and one from a kibbutz in southern israel. A forensic examination found that all six hostages were shot and killed at close range. A spokesperson from Israels Health Ministry says they were murdered thursday or friday. Their bodies were found less than a mile from the tunnel where a 52yearold israeli hostage was rescued last week. Hamas claims the hostages were killed by idf fire, a claim israels military says is false. There was no exchange of fire in the tunnel upon rescue. President biden and Vice President harris both spoke separately with the parents of Hersh Goldbergpolin on sunday. In a statement, President Biden said, hershS Parents, john and rachel, have been relentless champions of their son and of all the hostages held in an unconscionable conditions. I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express. Hersh was laid to rest in jerusalem yesterday. Hundreds joined in the procession. ThousandS Packed the streets to mourn and show support to the hostages remaining in captivity. Later in The Day, hershS Parents delivered heartwrenching eulogies in memory of their son. The most common word ive received from people, thousands of messages, is im sorry. Hersh, we failed you. We all failed you. You would not have failed you. You would have pushed harder for justice. You would have worked to understand the other, to bridge differences. You would have challenged more people to challenge their own thinking. And what you will be pushing for now is to ensure that your death, the deaths of all the soldiers, and so many innocent civilians are not in vain. How do we live the rest of our life without you . I pray that your death will be a Turning Point in this horrible situation in which we are all entangled. I take such comfort knowing you are with caramel, eden, almog, and alex. From what i have been told, they each were delightful in very different ways, and i think that is how the six of you managed to stay alive in unimaginable circumstances for so very long. You each and every single one of you did every single thing right to survive 329 days in what im pretty sure can only be described as hell. I send each of the families my deepest sympathies for what we are all going through, and for the sickening feeling that we all could not save them. Okay, sweet boy. Go now on your journey. I hope its as good as the trips you dreamed about because, finally, my sweet boy, finally, f