Somebody just said your hair looks different today. I said, well, i was standing under the wing of air force one doing a News Conference early this morning, a very unfortunate News Conference, and the wind was blowing american president s reacting to a space disaster, domestic and international terrorism, a massacre in a church and another at a synagogue. 11 people were murdered on saturday and hours later the commander in chief was cracking jokes about his hair. Joe, before we go to the news, we have to ask where are we as a nation right now . Whats going on . Well, whats going on, its a national reckoning. For two and a half, three years you have had a president and a candidate running for president who after charlottesville preached moral relativism and equated neo nazis with those that were protesting against neo nazis. You have had somebody who has been calling hispanics breeders. Somebody who has been calling himself a nationalist and neo nazis have come out praising him for that, praising him for other actions. He has refused steadfastly to attack White Nationalists. He has refused to call back his attacks against all the people who, of course, had bombs sent to their homes, their residences and businesses. This is a national reckoning. So, mika, you know, in a week people get to make a decision. Is this the america they want to live in . Because right now the only constitutional check against this sort of abhorrent behavior again, a guy really a guy who was sending a message by time and time again tweeting about baseball or talking about his bad hair day there, that was done intentionally to send a message to White Nationalists. This doesnt bug me that much. Im going to watch a baseball game, im going to tweet about baseball. Im just im just not im not going to let it occupy my day. I mean, mika, you tell me, where do you think we are . Well, the optimist in me said we would survive trumps behavior, the system will hold. The system will hold. We just need to laugh at him, you said, and wait for him to leave the stage, but Donald Trumps behavior over the last week represents perhaps the lowest point in a presidency filled with so many low points we cant count them. In the face of terrorism and deadly violence, trump has committed act after act after act that shocks the conscience, and he has completely abdicated the role that we expect, that we need our president s to play at such moments of National Crisis. His refusal to call his predecessors after bombs were sent to them, his rallies, his twitter attacks, blaming the media and amazingly continuing to provoke and churn up hatred against those who are targets of his bombs. Its unbelievable. It really is. His engaging in petulant punditry instead of unifying the country. Complaining that the latest horrible news interrupted republican momentum in the midterms. Really . Hes tweeting about baseball, bullpen strategy the very same day of the synagogue slaughter, as if to send a message, as you said, joe, to his adoring White Nationalist fans that the murdering of these worshippers was not even a concern. Thats the message it sends, to be clear. But then again, this president had already joked earlier about canceling his rally not because of the mass shooting of jews, but because he had had a bad hair day, like a flip joke that women make. We will survive donald trump, i guess, but once again, he has shown his true self, this time in the face of violence and death, and i am confident that history will judge his performance over the last week harshly. Voters need to be a part of history and they should do the same. Youve got your chance. So with this on this important morning we have National Affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc John Heilemann, he is the cohost and executive producer of show times the circus. Professor at Princeton University eddie glaude jr. Editor at large of the Weekly Standard bill kristol. Former Justice Department spokesman, now an nbc justice and security analyst matt miller and correspondent for gq magazine julia yaffe. Thank you all for being with us this morning. Julia, lets start with you. Youve been the target of antisemitic attacks, some of the most vile during the campaign that any of us have seen, and its the same the same things that we were reading on this mass murderers websites were being sent your way week in and week out during the campaign. Talk about your reaction and also about the piece you wrote about the difficulty of pinning the blame on this on anybody specifically, but stepping back and talking about a bigger look at the culture that this president has created. Yeah. So, you know, when i first heard about the synagogue shooting my First Response was i mean, other than shock was anger because back in 2016 when i was starting to get this stuff, by the way, on the anniversary of my familys emigration here from the soviet union fleeing antisemitism and i remember thinking back then when donald trump refused to denounce these people or send them a message that this was that he didnt want his fans or his supporters behaving this way, i thought this is what happens when his wife didnt like something written about her failed skin care line. What happens when things get a little bit more serious, when these people become more emboldened, more heartened, in a country where they can easily go to walmart and buy an ar15, you know. I kind of my response when i saw the what had happened in pittsburgh was anger because you could have seen this coming a mile down the road. Julia, in pittsburgh its specifically personal to you because your family actually emigrated from the Old Soviet Union to the United States, and you all were those refugees that this mass murderer actually was spewing hatred about. That this was, yes, an act against jews but also he specifically mentioned his hatred for refugees. Sounds sort of familiar these days, doesnt it . Absolutely. Im so glad you pointed it out. This isnt just an attack on jews, this is an attack on immigrants. This man, the flames of his hatred were fanned by a president who kept talking about this caravan of refugees, as if they were terrorists or as if they were coming to commit atrocious crimes in our country, which theyre not. You know, as if and as if this was being paid for by some shadowy jewish lobby led by george soros. I think i think thats really important to point out, that this isnt just about and i think the Jewish Community needs to understand that, too, that this isnt just about us, this is also about immigrants, which we all were at some point. Exactly. Which we all were. By the way, mika, when julia talked about george soros and sort of that antisemitic trope that has been trotted out by trump, also trotted out by members of Congress Talking about how a rich jew was actually funding these immigrants coming to the states. Or buying an election. You had Kevin Mccarthy tweeting later deleting this tweet that he didnt want tom steyer and george soros buying the election. You had Chuck Grassley the republican head of the Senate Judiciary committee saying that he thinks its likely that he believes that george soros is doing this, this sounds like something he would do. Again, that was not his standard of proof with Christine Blasey ford, but thats another story. And, again, mika, as the news of this cooked up phoney caravan story thats promoted by donald trump and fox news, members of congress attaching that to george soros and making it sounds like, again, an antisemitic trope that a jew, mika, was somehow responsible for buying these people and having them march up to the United States, antiimmigrant rhetoric, antirefugee rhetoric. The same sort of rhetoric used, again, by the mass murderer. Exactly. And julias latest column in the Washington Post asks this, how much responsibility does trump bear for the synagogue shooting in pittsburgh . She writes in parts, culpability is a tricky thing and politicians, especially of the dem goj i can variety know this very well, unless they go as far as organized documented state implemented slaughter. They dont give specific directions, they dont have to. They simply set the tone. In the end someone else does the dirty work and they never have to lift a finger let alone stain it with blood. The pipe bomb makers and synagogue shooters and racists who mode a woman down in charlottesville were never even looking for trumps explicit blessing because they knew the president had allowed bigots like them to go about their business, secure in the knowledge that they dont really bother the president. His role is just to set the tone and their role is to do the rest. But, bill kristol, of course it doesnt bother the president. And weve seen evidence time and time again. You can look at charlottesville, you can look at when he called himself a nationalist. His staff will give him pretty words to go out and read. He will halfheartedly read them and immediately go back on that because you can see time and time again he always has to send the message to White Nationalists, im not going to criticize you. I may not be on your side, i wont say that, but i want you to stay on my side. Yeah, and just the whipping up of the flames, especially on the caravan, on the refugees, you know, that directly was cited by the murderer in pittsburgh and that was done by him, by members of congress, as julia said, by fox news who is obsessed with it for two, three weeks and obviously, you know, the killer is responsible for the killing, but others are responsible for creating a climate and in this case particularly triggering i agree with what mika said also earlier, one really wonders about what damage is being done to the country. Ive been fairly optimistic about the institution, us surviving trump, the institutions hemming him in, the culture responding to him, but ive got to say that the degree of hatred, i mean, hes things that were previously there, i suppose, but suppressed, repressed, you know, discredited and discouraged, obviously they did flare up at times, there have been many mass murders of minority groups in u. S. History and in the last decades, too, but still the degree to which he has done real he and his supporters now are doing real damage and some of that can be undone by people saying, do you know what, we got caught up in the heat of the moment, with he got caught up on our beliefs of immigration as an issue, with he thought the border wasnt secure but were going to dial it down. People and fox news hosts, senators, the president of the United States could say im sorry if i inadvertently encouraged a climate thats unhealthy. We need to all step back. We have all americans. Do you know who said it . Nikki haley who is in the Trump Administration has been more critical of donald trump, has said the truth about we need to call our political rivals opponents to the enemies, we cant say people are evil, we know what evil is in the world, but thats not what other americans who disagree with us are, thats not what george soros is. Nikki haley has said that. Again, you talked about fox news. Unfortunately you look at lou dobbs who were spreading conspiracy theories himself. You wonder why Rupert Murdoch and his family, immigrants, why they allow lou dobbs to continue working on that channel spewing the hatred and the conspiracy theories that hes spreading. Im a free speech person and im not for being super fastidious about calling people to account about things that are said in the heat of the moment and so forth. At the end of the day i think fox with its evening lineup, fox business with lou dobbs, the routine stuff that is said there, people who work at fox, the management of fox, the shareholders of fox, the Corporate Board of fox really need to look in the mirror and say, are we comfortable with this . Were making money, obviously no one wants a board of directors to be micromanaging, you cant say this on the 8 00 p. M. Show, but are they comfortable with the overall effect that fox news and news business, and i said this as someone who was on fox news for ten years, are they can they defend what their effect on the culture . Its fascinating you and i bringing this up because i remember at the height of glenn beck you and i talking about roger ailes and i know a lot of people are thinking its the same as it was then. No, it wasnt. When glenn beck got into conspiracy theories, he was calling me saying he has gone over the line. He said the same thing to you. I mean, there is you cant tell a lot of people cant tell, John Heilemann, there is a huge difference between whats going on at fox news today and what was going on at fox news five years ago. When you look at lou dobbs and some other people it is completely off the rails. You could say the same about Donald Trumps rallies and the people who are there. Im shocked, really i am shocked, that americans after bombs were sent to all of these targets were chanting lock her up of hillary and were chanting cnn sucks when there are a lot of working class people at cnn, a lot of middle class people at cnn who Never Get Close to being on air there that could have been victims and were most definitely targets of those bombs. Right. And yet the hatred continues uninterrupted and this guy i just i cant even call him president this demagogue, this nationalist, he refused to even try to temper his crowds. Refused to even call the former president s and secretaries of states and cia directors to offer condolences and assurances that he was going to do his job as president to protect all americans. Joe, what he said was and they are, i believe, the two most kind of landmark signal repulsive words of last week, which were ill pass when the president was asked on friday after the bomber had been or the alleged bomber had been arrested, whether he was planning to call barack obama, michelle obama, bill clinton, Hillary Clinton and the other people who had bombs sent to them, the president stood on white house grounds and said ill pass. Thats what he said about that. That sends a signal that is as profound as anything that the president could say. The president is obviously a racist, obviously a demagogue, condones antisemitism, stokes up nationalist hatred. You asked whats happened at fox ne news. Whats happened is the same thing thats happened to the Republican Party. Whats happened to it is they were both corrupt, bankrupt institutions that were hollowed out and waiting to be taken over by donald trump. They have now been taken over by donald trump and they are in a much worse, much uglier place than they were five years ago, ten years ago. They were in pretty ugly places back then but they are in a much uglier place back then and its because of this guy that youre pointing to on friday, that was his reaction when he was asked if he was going to be the minimally president ial, minimally human thing to reach out to people who had bombs mailed to them, leaders of the opposition party, former president s and public servants, whether he was going to call them, he said ill pass. Not only that, he is on twitter attacking tom steyer over the weekend after the bomb had been sent to tom steyer, after the bomber had been the alleged bomber, the suspected bomber had been apprehended, President Trump is on twitter attacking tom steyer. I dont care what you think about tom steyer, its ridiculous. Its not only that he didnt call him not ridiculous appalling, despicable, depraved. He goes out to a rally on friday night and participates happiliy, smiling in a lock her up chant about Hillary Clinton who just had a bomb sent to her in the mail. He got on twitter the next day and was tweeting about tom steyer who just had a bomb sent to him in the mail. Its not a question of whether its president ial behavior or not, its not minimally Human Behavior in these circumstances and the effect that it has on his followers, on his devotees, on his base is of course corrosive and dangerous. Of course. Yeah. And, by the way, mika, its dangerous. You look at the person that sent the bombs last week with all the trump stickers on his van. This had always been a troubled person, donald trump didnt make him troubled, but it was a troubled person that used to used to go on social media talking about food and other topics. When donald trump came on the scene suddenly his obsessions, his hatred it turned to Donald Trumps opponents and of course, that is what demagogues do, they set off and they trigger people just like that. And if you dont like this you have a choice to put a check on this. You just need to vote. You can vote early or you can vote on tuesday, november 6th. The suspect accused of opening fire in a pittsburgh synagogue over the weekend leaving 11 people dead is due to appear in court later today to be formally charged as the Community Comes together to begin the healing process. The department of justice has announced it will charge the suspected gunman with 29 federal counts including 11 counts of obstructing the exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death. Attorney general Jeff Sessions has said the charges could lead to the death penalty. The gunman had a history of online postings, focusing on conspiracy theories and antisemitic hate speech. In the hours before he allegedly carried out the shooting he claimed that the hebrew immigrant aid society, a humanitarian Nonprofit Group that assists refugees brought immigrants to the United States to carry out violence. He also frequently posted about the migrant caravan, a major talkin