Is, either the president is way too naive to be commander in chief or hes way too willing to believe the word of autocrats who murder political opponents. Naivety is beautiful in a baby, but not in the president of the United States. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is tuesday, october 16th. Willie geist, just like a baby. Naive as a baby. Im not a baby. Babies are sweet. Youre not a baby, willie. Im not talking about you being a baby. Im talking about the president being a baby. Youre baby, but in a different way. A hgb agent who goes around believing political opponents and killing journalists, you heard him had right there. He was naive as a baby. And now this khashoggi murder, hes being naive as a baby there. Willie, what do you think about this . Weve got a commander in chief who is a baby. Basically naive as a baby. What he may have done is give the saudis the idea for the rogue killerss explanation or announce it before it was supposed to be announced with this idea that was cooked up to explain it to the rogue killers. So what youre saying is not a baby, just incredibly cynical and doing the dirty work for autocratic killers. Were going to get to a mix of big stories today. General jim mattis reacts to President Trumps suggestion that hes a democrat who needs to study up on nato. Thats delicious. Plus, democrats just spent the last few days talking about bill and Hillary Clinton. And Elizabeth Warrens plans for 2020. Are they missing the message just days ahead of critical midterms . Yes, they are. Guys 22 days. Note to self, we dont need hellry right now talking about Monica Lewinski being an adult at the age of 22 when she was taken advantage of. Bad move. Please, no matter what you think of it, dont come after me. Just please, put the knife down. Go to the phone banks, please. Aye. Stay away from blenders in your kitchen. Call people up, democratic voters. Dont hurt the cause. Thank you very much. That is all. Speaking of the midterms, republican Chris Collins is running for congress while out on bail. That seems very appropriate for republicans in 2018. Could the from transform can confident win reelection while facing charges . You have the other one out in california, the guy who blamed his wife, got mad because the navy wouldnt give him an allexpense paid trip to italy. It was all the wife. I think that guy is running like third reich commercials against his opponent. If the third reich had gone after muslims. Antion muslim rhetoric in that campaign right now just completely over the top and he can win the race. Not third reich, but you know what im saying. Yes. Antimuslim commercials. Speaking of commercials, have you seen the latest commercials from the guy running against ted cruz . The its the burgers and stuff, that old guy. I love it. From an outside group, not from his opponent. If you can get a positive reference about whataburger in at the same time that you are sliding white castle for being the home of, you know, the yankees, thats pretty good. Did you see that commercial can yet, willie . I did. Its a good one. Its from the same one we played earlier in the week. And i would throw crystal out in the mix as long as were talking about mini burgers. I was going to see, if ted cruz is knocking whataburger and hes embracing white castle and he cant just have one barnacle is a yankee and barnacle has to know that mana from hiveeaven, its a crystal burger, when youre finished you go through the mall parking lot, you stop at the chickfila and then you take a left and go into the whataburger parking lot and thats what i call lunch when im in pensacola right there. Thats terrible. I could watch that all day long. Can you put that up right now, alex . That might be too much to ask. We have a lot of news to get to. What about john oliver making fun of mikas pig . I like that. Do we have that one . Can can we put that one up right now . Because that was disturbing. All right. Lets get to the news. Now to the latest in the disappearance of Washington Post columnist jamaal khashoggi. President trump spoke with saudi king solomon yesterday and offered up this explanation to reporters. I just spoke with the king of saudi arabia. Who denies any knowledge of what took place with regard to as his Saudi Arabian citizen. We are going to leave nothing uncovered. With that being said, the king firmly denied any knowledge of it. He didnt really know, maybe i dont want to get into his mind, but it sounded to me maybe maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows. All i can do is report what he told me and he told me in a very firm way that they had no knowledge of it. He said it very strongly. His denials to me could not have been stronger that he had no knowledge. And it sounded like he and also the crown prince had no knowledge. It wasnt like there was a question in his mind. The denial was very, very strong. Maybe, maybe rogue, i mean, willie geist, maybe rogue killers. This is along the lines that ted cruzs father killing jfk. I mean by the way, did he i didnt see the rest of that press conference. Did he blame ted cruzs father for killing khashoggi . Not this time. Seriously, so he takes he not only he plants a conspiracy theory. So he says rogue killers and just hours after that nbc report, the saudi arabia government is discussing a plan to sdmit admit khashoggi was killed in the consulate. Two of those people tell nbc news the saudis are putting together an explanation that would absolve solomon of giving him plausible deniability adding he was told close to those with saudi leadership that the kingdom would claim that rogue operatives killed khashoggi during a terrorist attempt that went write. Nbcs recording advances early reports that the saudis will claim khashoggi was killed in an interrogation gone wrong and President Trump was asked about that yesterday, as well. Unauthorized interrogation, does that sound i just dont know. Im going to have to see what they say. And were working very close with saudi arabia and with turkey and theyre working together to figure out what happened. And they want to know what happened, also. So a lot of people are working on it. A lot of people. And well be bound very much by that. Well see. I heard that report, but nobody knows if its an official report. So far, its the rumor of report coming out. Meanwhile, secretary of state mike pompeo arrived for a facetoface meeting with solomon to find out what happened firsthand whats going on. Gene, let me ask you about this. Im interested in the role that Jared Kushner played in all this. We know hes very close to the crown prince. I want to know how much he discussed with solomon and if together they cooked up this idea that it was rogue killers who killed khashoggi if, in fact, he was killed. I want to know, too, willie. Funny thing, we havent heard a peep from Jared Kushner who is perhaps the person in the administration with the direct line to mohammed solomon. But we havent heard any answers there. Look, this rogue killers explanation, this is absurd. You know, a team of 15 guys equipped with a bone saw show up in istanbul for this intersection and thats some sort of rogue operation . It seems very clear from what we know or what we think we know that this was a pretty elaborate plan that had to be authorized and everything we know about mohammed ben solomon and the way he operates, it suggests nothing like this would have happened without his direct approval. So this it sounds like this is the cover story and i think the president gave us a preview. Maybe he got a hint from the king. But i think he gave us a preview of what the story is going to be later today. And think about what the saudis are saying if, in fact, theyre going with this rogue operative. Theyre saying all we intended to do was abduct, torture and interrogate this journalist. We just didnt mean to kill him. Thats supposed to be the great news. We were just going to lure khashoggi in. We were going to interrogate him and take him back to saudi arabia and imprison him. But right now, the saudis and donald trump find themselves in a position where theyre desperate to keep investment going into saudi arabia. Donald trump is democracy pratt to do whatever he can to basically play pr man for the saudis, just like he wanted to play ppr man for putin. He started on this show back in december of 2015 apologizing, mike barnacle, for Vladimir Putin being a murderer of journalists and being a murderer of political adversaries. Im sorry, there is no explanation that donald trump makes a lot of money from the saudis and he doesnt want to upset them. Just like the russians poured a lot of money into donald trump and the Trump Organizations coffers over the last decade of so. This isnt about Foreign Policy. This isnt about human rights. This is about Trump Organization money. Well, joe, the outlines of this story are Pretty Simple and theyre very familiar. Its a line you just outlined and its similar to his reaction to putin. This story also has to do with the 110 billion arms sales to saudi arabia. Clearly more of a priority to the president of the United States than the National Integrity of the United StatesForeign Policy. Mike pompeo is in saudi arabia today. Hes going to meet with king solomon and with his son, the crown prince, mbs. And here is what hes going to do. This is an ageold story. Hes there to make their story a bit better for when it finally comes out, probably later today, from the kingdom. And it will be, as you outlined, its going to be a rendition gone awry that they ended up killing the guy. And theyre going to get away with it, too. They are going to get away with it. The question is, heidi, what happens on the hill . Weve heard rand paul and some others who usually are obsequious to donald trump and cow tail to him, Lindsey Graham of late, being very critical of the saudis. Are there enough republicans to cross the president when you have saudi leaders who are murdering Washington Post journalists . You would think that this would be the red line. We thought the red line may have been the tariffs. But in this case, yes, Lindsey Graham and several other republicans were strong in saying that the repercussions had to be severe. However, joe, it was within moments that the president really allowed mbs and the saudis to have this plausible deniability undercutting their own secretary of states ability to go over there and be effective in his meeting, as well. Like you said earlier, the only realistic outcome now would be that pompeo is put in a position of having to rubber stamp whatever the saudis explanation is. Who goes to an interrogation with a bone saw. But that this was some kind of an interrogation that the saudis had no idea was going to lead to these consequences and a killing. So the implications are really, really significant because weve talked since the beginning of this presidency about the potential impact on human rights. That begins with journalists. I remember vividly a train trip when i talked to a group for international, who told me it was within months of Trump Taking Office that they saw the worldwide threats to journalists going up. And this is kind of the in the extreme what is happening now in terms of human rights, not only to journalists, but in several hot spots around the world. Well, and look at the very places, mika, that donald trump calls leaders friends. Vladimir putin and russia. Journalists are murdered there all the time. Opposition leaders are murdered there all the time. You look at what is obviously happening in saudi arabia, what happens in the philippines. Other people mockingly. And, actually, not even mockingly calling journalists enemy of the people, but actually start to go pair it. Donald trumps language, even assad in syria now starting to parrot, trumps language, enemy of the people. Trump is parroting stalins language when he does that. Youre looking at potentially a dead journalist. Here we have turkey trying to be good good guy, the white hat here. Yet, mika, more journalists last year were killed or imprisoned in turkey than any country in the world. So it is getting more dangerous by the day for journalists across the world and now apparently even journalists who work for the Washington Post now have to worry about governments like saudi arabia abducting them, killing them, and cutting them up with bone saws. Look, this is vintage trump, sewing doubt,. Propping up dictators, and people who are clearly on the side of wrong. Look at him in the face of this, accusations that every day point more to what happened. And hes so in doubt and protecting them and saying maybe it could have been this or maybe it could have been that. He is showing extreme naivety on the world stage and it makes him look like a weak leader. He does look so weak and so pathetic, just like he did in helsinki. A bumbling idiot. You have a guy who is scared of kgba agents, not man enough to stand up to them and not man enough to stand up to saudi sheikhs. Thats what we have in a president . Whatever they have on him better be worth it because he looks like a bumbling idiot. Its just money, i guess, though. Is this what donald trump promised people . I thought he was going to be a strong leader. Instead, hes cowtailing and heading these autocrats killing journalists in the light of day. Thats not who we are. Still ahead on morning joe, donald trump books a decidedly smaller venuer for his appearance with ted cruz. No, no, i have to correct you there. Fake news. Donald trump this summer said he was going to find the largest arena in the state of texas, sell it out and campaign for ted cruz, the same man who he believes his father killed jfk. Thats what he promised this summer. Willie, is it cowboys stadium . Texas a m . It had has to be jerry jones temple. Maybe the aggies. Their stadium holds like 102,000, 103,000. That may be it. It may be that. Man. The 12th man. It will be amazing. Cruz and trump going to go out on the field. The 12th man going to be going crazy. 102,000 texans with whataburgers in the right hand. Screaming. Screaming for the president. Ive got to book me a ticket to College Station, mika. This is exciting. Were going to talk about the optics of that and that memorable political ad. Wait, wait, mika. Yes, breaking news. What . Im just hearing now from our College Station dispatch hes not going to be going there. No. It appears he will be about 2,000, 93,000 short of 102,000. So well get to that great ad about whataburgers. But first, bill carkarins with check on the forecast. Dallas to ft. Worth, flash flood watches continue. And its cold. Only in the 40s this time of year in texas. Its rare. But you can see where all the rain is this morning, north of san antonio. Airport delays are likely. We have wet for weather for louisiana and back into areas of mississippi. In california, santa ana winds will be gusting today. We didnt get any of those big fires. Lets cross our fingers and hope we can get to today, too. And how about the middle of the country . The cold air is with us. Right now, were at 28 degrees in kansas city. 32 in wichita. We have freeze warnings in place. So its a sunl up morning from chicago to detroit. So todays forecast, the exception to the rule is the southeast, tampa, 94 degrees today. Well have 90s all the way up through savannah today. A nice day from d. C. Through the northeast. I know a lot of people lost power in maine last night. Strong storms went through with gusty winds. Well continue to track our change of seasons. If youre in the southeast, youre one of the only People Holding on to your summer warmth. New york city, the rain is over for a couple of days. Fool, cool, chilly air is moving in. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Ching morn well be right back. Oh, look. Another antiwrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair works in just one week. With the fastest retinol formula to visibly reduce wrinkles. Neutrogena®. Takes more than just investment advice. From insurance to savings to retirement, it takes someone with experience and knowledge who can help me build a complete plan. Brian, my certified financial planner™ professional, is committed to working in my best interest. 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All i need access, tools, connections. Highspeed connections. Is the world ready for me . Through internet essentials, comcast has connected more than sixmillion lowincome people to lowcost, highspeed internet at home. Im trying to do some homework here. So theyre ready for anything. A triple meat whataburger liberal, what does that even mean, ted . Everybody i know in texas likes a whataburger. Just as a consumer, im a big fan of eating white castle burgers. I like their burgers. I dont even know what that is. Theres not a white castle within 900 miles of texas, ted. Maybe up in canada. Maybe up in canada, but not texas. Oh, my lord. President trump said he would personally campaign in the Texas Senate Race tweeting i will be doing a major rally for senator ted cruz in october. Im picking the biggest stadium in texas we can find. Awesome. And i confirmed in the break, it is kyle field,