Nation building. And regime change. And a funeral will be held today for an imam and his assistant who were gunned down in queens, new york, over the weekend. Police say the say the suspect at large and that a motive has not been determined. Of course, keep it right here on msnbc all day as we continue to follow that story. That does it for us this morning and morning joe starts right now. Have you gotten him to lift the black list . I dont think donald trump is having any problem Getting Press at this point. I know you have a strong feeling about a free press, are you getting him to change his mind . Well keep our discussions private but thats an ongoing discussion in the campaign. What a beautiful view, i was
sitting here staring at it for a couple minutes. Just all the historical images that come back to you. You see George Washington there in the middle. Remarkable. I think its a monument, they call it. Yeah. If not, we shod coin that. Welcome to morning joe. Were excited here. It took a lot of sort of sweat and we worried about it a long time. Got here a little late. But we got a new set here. You guys like the new set . Comfortable. This is a new set . This is a new set. We had another new set on friday, but this is a new one today. 3. 0. Let me ask you something. What are you fellers over at New York Times doing to upset downled trump so much today . That one is not going to make him any happier. 12. 7 million in cash ledgers
in ukraine. Its our turn this week. Talk about the big story alex burns, maggie. Maggie and alex, my colleagues had a great piece with a fair number of on the record quotes. It was a strong story pointing to the fact that his campaign is a running intervention and people around him are constantly trying to guide him. Stop saying this, stop saying this and stick to the script and attack Hillary Clinton and they cant get him to do it and they turn to us in the media to try to pass the message on to donald trump. Nothing in this story that talked about chaos inside the campaign that we all havent heard. I thought the most damming quote of the weekend was donald trump afterwards attacking the piece, going there are no Anonymous Sources. When it comes to campaign, its just me, its just me. Thats been the problem. The family members. Everybody constantly trying to intervene. Constantly trying to get him to show a little bit of discipline. He just wont do it. Donald trump will get more electual votes but running against them as a loser. Hes just but just talk about. Hes not going to win the election talking about New York Times. Youre giving me absolutely nothing here. The reporting what the times heard is what you have been hearing for months and what ive been hearing for months. The family members are just at their wits end. Everybody is at their wits end. You have to wonder if the people are pointing out to him pretty solid story and running against a false story is still not great politics. But an accurate story when the people around him know its accurate is a waste of time. The Clinton Campaign. Two things they dont want this campaign to be about. Defending the unpopular parts of the past and donald trump is making very easy for them to avoid talking about either of those two things. At least he had a measured response to New York Times this weekend. Here it is. Im not running against crooked Hillary Clinton. Im running against the crooked media. Lately, we have a newspaper thats failing badly. Its losing a lot of money. Its going to be out of business very soon. The New York Times, okay. I love it. These are the most dishonest people. The good news is, i love, you know, i put down failing at New York Times. The newspaper is going to hell. Theyve got a couple reporters in that newspaper who are so bad
with, i mean, lack of talent. But its going to hell. So, i think maybe what well do, maybe well start thinking about it. Yeah, so just you can keep it running and open my mike, we can do two things at once. Yeah, its just, thats a guy who knows he is going to lose. Thats a guy who knows he is going to lose. You Start Talking that way and, again, i dont know that hes ever wanted to win. Its sad. Its sad and pathetic whats going on out there. If you are a republican and would actually like to control one branch of government after this election. That would be great. As usual, i was wrong about something. I thought about eight weeks or so ago that she could not win simply by being not trump. Turns out, no, not really. Shes just not trump and shes going to be president of the United States with a fairly
significant electoral margin. Some bernie people go to the greens and you end up below 50. Even that would surprise me. What is remarkable is that donald trump has, if he has actually fallen even below our expectations, theres a reason why hes been on his absolute worst behavior over his last month kicking around gold star mothers and talking about Second Amendment solutions to Supreme Court justice picks. I can go on and on and on and this is a guy who is in selfdestruct mode. Like he came out of the convention in cleveland which was that angry, nasty convention, but did actually give him a platform. Gave him the nomination and gave him that long speech and then he decided that he was going to
almost selfimplode and hasnt managed to have a string of good days since coming out of cleveland and thats reflected, joe, in the polls. The latest wave of swing state polling that shows Hillary Clinton expanding her lead. She has grown her lead to 14 points in the wall street journal marist. And leads trump in the critical den ver suburbs by as much as 40 . In virginia clinton is up and up in North Carolina, as well, expanding her lead there to 9 . Trump has closed the gap in florida, but clinton still leads there, 45 to 40. And the picture is nearly identical in the cbs Battleground Tracker which puts the race in florida at 44 49. And trump still leads by four in
georgia, though. 45 to 41 . Though other recent polls there have shown hillary ahead. The Clinton Campaign confirms a report that they are boosting stuff in georgia. They see an opportunity to win in that state. Remarkable battleground states that far ahead this morning. The good news for trump is, you take all those states. He is going to win new york state. Hes assured us all along that this is a state he is going to keep in play. Hes going to win new york state. How is that looking . What . Oh. Oh, yeah, believe me or dont believe me, you mean. This poll is out this morning. Wow, okay, id take that back. Hillary clinton is up by 30 points in new york, according to the seena College Research institute. Shes lapping him in that poll. The only poll that shes over 50
in, which is interesting. Hes hemorrhaging republicans. He is losing people who vote republican. He cant get them. If he had just given his Convention Speech every day over and over again for the last few weeks, he would be in a better position right now. Just given his Convention Speech and if he had just talked about. If he had just did what he did in his two speeches in ohio and pennsylvania and stick to script. Again, whether youre talking about the kids or whether youre talking about his campaign advisors, theyve been trying, give your speech, stay on message. And get off twitter. Dont blab on tv. Let your message carry itself. Its something he hasnt been able to do. Look, hes getting absaluolutel slaughtered in these suburb suburbantype areas of philadelphia or youre talking about the suburbs of washington, d. C. , or youre talking about
the suburbs of denver. Hes getting absolutely routed. And hes down double digits in North Carolina. Down double digits in carolina and down double digits in virginia. Wall street journal writes an editorial if trump doesnt clean up by labor day, all men and women for themselves. Its time now, i think. This fantasy that hell get it back in the debates for someone who is so well for the debates. Not going to happen. The deficits are too large. Hes defying currently what we thought about the, you know, the polarized electorkctorate where a 50 50 nation. He got himself down in the 30s and low 30s in some states. New hampshire a state that was his state. Like george h. W. Bush and, you know, 1988. Where she lost her primary by 20. But the thing hes not doing now
at all is giving republicans any sense that hes got a strategy for a comeback. You know, theyre talking like hes ahead. Hes talking like hes ahead when republicans have to by labor day, he has a plan. The thing is, he is talking to himself. He really is. No logic to this. He doesnt have a ground game. He doesnt even have people in the most important counties in america. The swing counties in america to determine who the president s are going to be. Doesnt even have people working on the ground. He called the state director a couple weeks ago and said youre now in charge of, ill just say, state x and the guy said, ive never been to that state before. Youre in charge of it now. Go do something about it. They have no ground game whatsoever. The allimportant state of ohio. A report that they just put up their staff in ohio. I would say one virtue of the weight of his business on twitter is really him talking. Really him talking. When he says my crowds are huge, its got to be the media, i think thats actually a really good insight into how he kind of views the election. He think physical the crowds are big, he should be winning and maybe something wrong with the media or its rigged. Its an accurate kind of world view into where his head is at right now. Its frightening. I remember back at the end of the 2012 campaign, romney people calling and saying we have 35,000 people in pennsylvania. Were going to win. Meanwhile, obama crowds were not as big. And they were actually far more sedate than romneys crowds for the final weekend of the campaign. Doesnt matter. Maybe that was the fallacy all along the primary process, right . That trump kept seeing the primary turn out in those big crowds and, actually, it was small numbers of people who were voting in the primary elections. And that was, you know, always
giving him sort of unrealistic flaw perhaps. A great example in this, too, anecdotal anecdotally. I bet you i have had dozens and dozens of people in the media come up to me and say, i have relatives in pennsylvania. Everybody i know in pennsylvania is going to vote for him. That guy is going to win pennsylvania. I cant believe hes going to win pennsylvania. Well, theyre not talking to any of the 600,000 democrats that are going in, you know, i mean, trump is going to lose 500,000 to 600,000 votes even before he gets out of philadelphia. And hes not going to make those votes up in the rest of pennsylvania. Unless he wins pittsburgh and western pennsylvania by record numbers. And hes not going to do that either. Like this is, this is math. Its math. And there is polling now in pennsylvania that shows that the race is slipping away from trump
there, too. The latest surveys in that state show that clinton is up on average by 9 or 10 . Thats what youre suggesting, joe. While campaigning in altunen n trump gave this call to action. Were going to watch pennsylvania very quickly. Watch pennsylvania. Go down to certain areas and watch and study and make sure other people dont come in and vote five times. The only way we can lose, in my opinion, i really mean this, if cheating goes on. And we have to call up Law Enforcement and we have to have the sheriffs and the Police Chiefs and everybody watching. Because, if we get cheated out of this election, if we get cheated out of a win in pennsylvania, whi is such vital state, especially when i know whats happening here, folks. She cant beat whats happening here. The only way they can beat it in my opinion and i mean this 100 ,
if in certain sections of the state they cheat. Okay. Go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that its 100 fine. Because without voter identification, which is shocking, shocking that you dont have it. Im supposed to be a smart person. I have still, i have yet to understand how you cannot approve voter identification at least in some form. Right . And by the way, trump has added a place to sign up to be an election observer on his home phage. Pennsylvania did have a voter i. D. Law but struck down it interview feared with the hundreds of thousands to combat ballots and the need to combat fraud. The states governor opted not to challenge the judges ruling. Party poll watchers are common during elections. The Obama Campaign deployed poll watchers back in pennsylvania in 2008 including a 28page official manual, joe. Saying it is the media because there is cheating. Maybe the thing, im starting to wonder with all of these polls with the thing that we missed at the end of the primary process was that he was never going to expand beyond the primary rallies and the base he managed to turn out in the winter and the spring and maybe that was just always the reality of his campaign. Its starting to look that way. He never intended to raise the money he intended to raise or spend his own money in a way that you could meaningfully have a get out of the vote apparatus that would get you elected president. Thats what, you know, john meacham back in 2007. I remember seeing barack obama was spending his money on getting out the vote operation and targeting and doing all of
these things. None of them glamorous and none of them sexy. Oh, boy, hes learned from howard deans 2003 run. But, theres something really disturbing here that what he is selling voters is their government is, that even the voting process is rigged and its a scam and theyre going to cheat like Vladimir Putin in russia. When, again, the fact is hes not running a campaign that is built to win. It is like a guy eating twinkies on the couch all day and then being outrun bolt in the 100 meter dash and saying he cheated. It was rigged. Hes not really a functioning stakeholder in the process. No, he is not. So, hes predelegitimizing the election. You can nominees who have had
incredibly difficult times and incredibly gracious and believed in the trustworthy, believe in standing up for the trustworthiness of the system and it feels ever darker. I, again, i thought eight weeks ago, ten weeks ago that the mistake all of us were going to make, once again, is the way we were in november, december, with some exceptions around this table who thought that he was hopeless until the voters got involved. But this is a pretty but this sequence of events feels fairly strong. Topic a in people i have been talking to for about ten days now is the fantasy scenario that he gets out. Just throw that to you two. What do you all think . That he pulls a perot. I think if somebody paid him enough money to get out, hed get out. I qknow that. But also another game we have been talking about for some time and, you know, so he gets 40 . He destroys the Republican Party in the process, but he has, what . 35 million, 40 Million People to vote for him. He convinces him that the election has been stolen and that the process is rigged and he is the victim of it. You can start, you know, whether its an Online Network or a trump tv that way. I mean, theres a play for him that has nothing to do with the Republican Party that he doesnt care about and never has. Hell also blame the establishment. You see the people out there saying the party has taken it away frame him. If trump republicans may have gotten behind him, he may have had a chance. I think watching him perform at these rallies and realizing, again, that for him the trump rally is the campaign. Right. Its the part that he loves. And its his feedback, his polling operation. He goes to these rallies and
looks and sees how certain lines are playing. If theyre playing well at a rally. He keeps going on them and doubles down on them. It doesnt matter to him if its bad in the polling. He cant get out of the box is the problem. The Electoral College is forgiven. The margin of error is so small. All hes doing is subtracting with the way hes behaving. Going to fox news and main stream media and doing rallies in places where he cant win like connecticut or where hes doing really well. Thats why you hear so many republicans talk about cutting him loose come the early fall because hes not in a position to build the party. Heres a question, what happens if trump spends the next couple months at these rallies whipping up the kind of anger hes been doing suggesting that the voting itself will be rigged and there is cheating going on in the electoral system and then he loses. What happens taall the anger he so carefully stoked at those
rallies . Yeah. John meacham thats a real question. To some extent a replay of the 90s. If gary johnson and joe stein get enough to keep her below 50, that was a big, that was an important starter gun in the anticlinton movements of the 90s. And, so, we may be in a position that people will be able to say, no clinton has won over 50 and theyre not legitimate. They stole it. Just begins the delegit muization all over again. I think its the Republican Party that will have the most to clean up after afterhi all is all over. A state of emergency in flood ravaged louisiana this morning. More than 20,000 people have been rescued after historic flood water swept across parts of that state over the weekend and tragically four people, at least, at this moment have died. President obama has signed a
disaster declaration and ordered federal aid to supplement recovery efforts. As many as 10,000 people were in shelters as a result of that flooding. Lets go to bill karins and get more on that. Any relief today . Little bit, joe. Some of the rivers are going down and theyre so high that people wont get back in their homes until wednesday or thursday even to take a look. 20,000 rescues by boat, by helicopter and highwater vehicles. An unbelievable number of people had to be rescued from their home