Found themselves in a feud with donald trump. Theyre set to be honored tonight. Theyll attend the american arab civil rights leagues gala. And Hillary Clinton heads to iowa for an early vote event in des moines. I swear he was here. Joe scarborough made an appearance here on morning joe first look set. But now hes over there where hes supposed to be at morning joe. That does it for us on this thursday. Morning joe starts right now. Good morning. Its thursday, september 29th. You felt the fall yesterday, didnt you . Its here. Feel it this morning. Welcome to morning joe, everyone. With us on set, we have veteran columnist, msnbc contributorMike Barnicle and Political Writer for the New York TimesNicholas Nicky nicky you know what makes us do it louder. Mike barnicle, we have to start here. Boston red sox. A. L. East champ. Backed in but were the champ. The thing is about the sox its incredible. Its like world series. Last place, last place, last place, world series, last place, last place its feast or famine and it has been for a long time. It was a winter night at yankee stadium. It was a muted celebration. Just how did it go . It was a winters night. The hopes of the new york yankees swirling in the outfield
like paper bags. Was timmy there . Timmy was there with me, yeah. Timmy was the one crying in 2003 and you said i cant do this to my kids anymore. Timmy is the one who was crying when aaron boone hit the home run. He was back there in the same seat for the sweep. I have news. This is good news. Hillary clinton was the winner of monday nights debate according to a majority of likely voters. Who said this . Who either watched or hold on. Mike said i heard donald trump say specific several times that he won the debate. I was worried these polls would not bear out this way. That is for sure. Theres more were waiting for. Were waiting for the actual where they stand. And thats the thing. People can say they won this. I think we have a ways to go
before we figure out it will impact the overall race. The online poll found 52 clinton won while 26 neither. 21 donald trump was the winner. And clinton seemed to reassure her base monday night among democrats. 50 said their opinion changed for the better. 2 for the worse. Among the republicans, republicans say 26 changed for the better for trump and 6 for the worst and clinton improved her standing among women. And 53 of people who watched the debate said clinton has the personality and temperament to serve effectively while only 36 said the same of trump. Weve got to wait and see if it actually changes. We had state polls come out yesterday that showed donald trump still doing very well in places like iowa, other swing
states where republicans dont usually do well. The question is its so strange and sort of just starts to sink in as you Start Talking to this person and that, that im starting to wonder whether its going to have a big impact on the long run based on people ive been talking to. All antidotally but we pick up a lot. How many persuadables are there left at this point . Weve known these candidates for so long. The campaign has been going on for 18 months. Is there still a sizable group in the middle to say which one i like . People have strong opinions about these two candidates. People that love donald trump loved his performance the other night. The people that love Hillary Clinton loved her performance. The question is are there enough people in that mushy middle to make a difference. What i hear thats fascina fascinating, i talked to a guy conducting polls out west. He said there arent a lot of undecides left in this race. Youre for Hillary Clinton. Youre for donald trump. Youre for a minor candidate and then theres a big vote that says were not going to vote. I wonder whether those are the people that get reengaged. Maybe i will vote for hillary. Maybe i will vote for trump and then go back into that im not going to vote category. Thats the specific target for Hillary Clinton and her campaign is going after exactly those people trying to make the impression, the solid impression that, look, there are only two people who are going to be president of the United States. Its either going to be Hillary Clinton or donald trump. Its not going to be any of the Third Party Candidates. You dont think gary johnson . Come on. Were going to show this clip in a bit. What is wrong with this guy . He gets 8 to 10 points sometimes. I would ask what hes smoking. Ive been around a stoned guys that are more coherent than he is. They know what london, england is. Its not the same as past years. Usually its the last minute voter. This year its i cant stand both of these people. I cant do it. I cant do it. Its a different dynamic which is why theyre both under 45 or 48 . Speaking of dynamics we have interesting inside information from the campaign, conflicting opinions within Donald Trumps campaign about whether he needs to reset for the second debate. Yes. Yes, he does. The New York Times report says advisers concerned by his lack of focus on the debate stage intend to drill him for round two. The question of whether hes open to putting in the practice is a major concern to some on his team with aides blaming failure on a lack of prep time and advisers being unfocused themselves. The candidate is pushing back against negative reactions. I just walked in, and i saw some of the great people that
represent your state. They said, wow, you did so great in the debate. We understand it. I really love the experience of it. It was amazing. I saw the audience was record setting. I just had a great time and i know you say the polls werent scientific but every single poll that was taken i won the debate and some of them by a lot. Are there polls that say he won the debate . There are online polls. The time poll. The drudge polls which were the question is are they accurate in the general election. Well see how National Polls look. Speculation in the next debate trump will go after bill clintons past scandals. Politico reports that Clintons Campaign has been preparing a response for weeks. That was something you saw him at the end of the debate saying he was going to do it, but im
not going to do. Theres a concern that could backfire. How could it not . I think there is that concern there. I think the bigger concern is how do we get our guy to focus. I read a story yesterday that roger ailes tried to get him to focus and walk through things and he just donald trump would not sit there and focus. Ailes ended up telling old war stories about what it was like in the Nixon White House and i forget, maybe it was chris aliza saying ailes telling old w stories, how could this not be great . Its all donald trump. If donald trump wants to focus and he wants to prepare for the debate, thats fine. I just go to the first page of order of the deal. Its not how hes been doing
business for 40 years. Its not how hes going to do business he says i dont prepare. Thats not what i do. Thats not what makes me successful. I dont prepare for my day. I just show up and see what happens. And thats what hes been doing this whole campaign. Who is going to walk in there and say, hey, donald, you need to change your m. O. That you think has been working for you for 40 years. The lesson he learned over the last 16 months is being himself and winging it has been a reward. Hes become the nominee. Now hes on the doorstep of the white house. His thinking is why would he change . Now, the bit in the New York Times piece that some are questioning steve bannon and Kellyanne Conway. Theyre the ones that righted the ship. Whoever is attacking bannon and Kellyanne Conway are just
bitter outsiders. Those two actually have righted the ship. You can go from the day they started and he has been at least more disciplined in the day in, day out message. But its just like a Baseball Player. If you get a Baseball Player that goes through the entire year and they go through the entire year doing this and that and that before they go up and bat. You know, good luck getting a batting coach to say, hey, dont do that. I dont want you to go up and do this beforehand. Everybody has their routines. Trump has his routine. Its paid off for him up to this point. What do you mean no . Hes ahead in iowa by ten points. You know one thing we dont know because your name has been on the ballot. Every campaign is a mirror reflection of the candidate at the top of the campaign. So donald trump has eliminated, eclipsed 16 other republican candidates. He did it his way. Hes not going to change at this point. This campaign is about donald
trump designed by donald trump, articulated by donald trump. Its who he is. By the way, mika, i know you say its not working for him. I got to tell you, hes doing ten points better than mitt romney was doing in iowa four years ago. Hes doing a hell of a lot better than mitt romney was doing in wisconsin. A hell of a lot better than mitt romney was doing in pennsylvania. A lot better than mitt romney was doing in a lot of states. I think most of us here this morning cannot predict who is going to be the next president of the United States. We can predict that four years ago. Thats true. Lets go to nbcs katy tur at laguardia airport. The Trump Campaign is headed to New Hampshire. I dont know if you heard, theres talk here on the set about concern about how the debate went. Concern about debate prep. Any changes in strategy . Reporter it all depends really on how the polls are. Going forward in the next two weeks whether he significantly
slipped. When donald trump is close in the polls, he doesnt feel like he needs to change and become a traditional candidate. After the debate the other day on monday, ive talked to a number of aides, multiple aides who say they wished he had done more preparation or a lot more preparation frankly. They think that he needs Going Forward more traditional debate prep. That involves standing behind a podium potentially doing knock debates, having a debate coach actually come in and help him with his performance against Hillary Clinton, watching tape from that debate to see how they can improve upon it and also watching tape of clinton to find out how they can get under her skin. The campaign was confident about him going into that debate. They thought he would be president ial. They were clearly knocked off their game early on when clinton started talking about his father and the loan given him to start his business. That was not something the candidate had necessarily expected from what we can tell,
but the campaign does say and multiple aides tell me that they wished he prepared more and they hope Going Forward they can get him to take it more seriously. They do say that one thing that donald trump hates to do is lose. So if those poll numbers go down, thats what i expect youll see him start to prepare in earnest. Katy, thank you very much. Im not sure how you can prepare at this point. You can prepare. You look and see what they did with sarah palin. Its like triage. George bush started prepping in april of 2000. He did mock debates. He was up against a guy, al gore, who was a policy wonk and bush focused on his three or four things so discipline can beat death. You have to prepare. The choices are becoming a little clearer for voters especially as it pertains to millennial voters who might look
for that thirdparty option. Hillary clinton and her campaign fanned out across the eastern seaboard to try to bring home millennial voters. Clinton was in New Hampshire with Bernie Sanders where they talked about the future and issues like College Tuition and debt. Student debt. And clinton got a big assist from the obamas as well. Some of her support with Younger Voters and both the president and first lady had the same message. A vote for gary johnson or jill stein will help elect trump and then that message was doubled down by gary johnson himself. Another blunder. If you thought that aleppo moment here on the set was an outlier. My lord. Take a look first of all, heres the aleppo moment just in case you missed it. Take a look. What would you do if you were elected about aleppo . About . About aleppo. What is aleppo . Youre kidding . No. Aleppo is in syria. Its the epicenter of the refugee crisis. Okay. Got it. Well with regard to syria, i do think that its a mess. I think that the only way that we deal with syria is to join hands with russia to diplomatically bring that at an end. Okay. Typical gotcha media question. Fast forward to last night. Last night this happened during a town hall with msnbcs chris matthew. Whos your favorite foreign leader. Any continent, any country, name one foreign leader you respect and look up to. Anybody. Mine is shimon peres. Im talking about living. Anywhere. Any continent. Asia, south america, africa. Name a foreign leader that you respect. I guess im having an aleppo moment. Anybody in the world you like. Pick any leader. The former president of mexico. Which one . Im having a brain name anybody. Who is your favorite foreign leader. Get him off the hook . Any foreign leader . Merkel. Wow. He could not name anyone. A leader living or dead past or present. Julius caesar. He could not name hold on. How does somebody think theyre going to run for president and
be this ignorant. Completely ignorant of just the most basic things. My children could answer those questions. Hes a protest candidate, right . Im not forgiving him. Im just saying its not why hes there. People voting for him will not vote for him based on strength of Foreign Policy knowledge or deep weakness of his Foreign Policy knowledge. Does he nod read newspapers . Does he not watch tv . You can smoke pot and listen to the radio at the same time. I watched that moment last night. I know hes for legalizing pot. He told usa today in jaune tht he had not smoked weed for seven weeks and would not smoke during the campaign or when hes president. We thought it had happened. Weve all been there. Hes saying hes not smoking weed. That excuse goes out the window. The more serious point is there are enough people in this country who are so dissatisfied with donald trump and Hillary Clinton that are crying out for somewhere else to go. They would love not to vote for either of those candidates but can you vote for him . He would be the commander in chief and he cant name a foreign leader. Thats unbelievable. We havent even gotten to hes one of the harry potters. He may have been the fifth. Kenneth brannon would zap somebody. Amazing. What he did with cinderella is not like anything ive seen before. Have you seen his version of cinderella . Its remarkable i tell you. This wizard would try to zap harry and you forget your memory and thats what hes looking like. Its happening. You really need to watch more harry potter movies. How about trudeau . He lives about eight miles away. He probably smokes pot. Youve seen his old boxing matches he does. Boom. Boom. Its rigged. Its rigged. How are you, nick . Im doing good, joe. Can you believe he didnt know a single living leader. I can have the last performance after aleppo. Hes a protest candidate. So is jill stein. People are not voting for them as having the conventional attributes of a normal candidate. Im not excusing them. Im saying they there are as a vessel for peoples frustration. A vessel with a lot of holes. When we bump in, can we have him use his tongue as he answers. Thats a good one. Are you all done . All right. We havent even got to the Miss Universe stuff. You shouldnt have been
talking so much. Unbelievable. Donald trump says he saved the Miss Universe that had gained all sorts of weight in his opinion. Well get to that. Were going to actually play that out and spend a lot of time on it, so we make sure all of americas women see how insu insulting that candidate is. Also, one of the Senate Democrats who is breaking with the president , connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal will join us. General Michael Hayden and steve case is here to make his endorsement in the president ial race. First, bill karins can a check on the forecast. Gloomy forecast and wet and dangerous forecast this morning. Just got word down around ft. Bragg in North Carolina they have a flash flood emergency ongoing. Eight inches of rain overnight. The little river which borders ft. Bragg to the north is expected to have the alltime highest river levels through the day today. Well watch that situation down here in fayetteville, North Carolina, closely. Tremendous amounts of rainfall coming down around washington, d. C. And toward maryland. 11 Million People under a flood watch throughout the day. Flash Flooding Risk greatest from d. C. Areas to the west where heaviest rain will be in Northern Virginia especially. Were watching Tropical Storm matthew. Now up to 65mileperhour winds. The trend overnight is better for the gulf of mexico. Its looking very unlikely the storm heads your way. We have to watch florida carefully and bahamas through the next five days. And of course the east coast is still in play. Trending a little more offshore overnight. Hopefully it will continue that way and we wont have to deal with that in the days ahead. Washington, d. C. , tremendous amounts of rainfall as we go throughout the day today. Major travel delays