We have come a long way from build that wall and i promise you were going to build that wall, believe me. Mexicos going to pay for it, believe me, too, as shep said, no new wall has been built. None. In fact, the only thing donald trump has done is hes rebuilt 60 miles of Barack Obamas wall, which really is not going to be that catchy of a chant in 2020, rebuild obamas wall, rebuild obamas wall. Thats what hes doing. He has 60 miles of it. If you ask why that is, i need to underline this fact for some people who dont have the google machine, the reason why the wall was never built when republicans ran washington, d. C. The first two years of Donald Trumps administration is because people like Lindsey Graham said, made no sense, was a waste of money. John cornyn is texas said the same thing. You can build the wall. You can go over, climb under it. Republicans, Mitch Mcconnell had no interest, you know mitch, he can do whatever he wants to do. He kills any plans republicans and democrats have to save american democracy from russian interference. Hes a pretty powerful guy in washington, d. C. Yet, when republicans ran the senate and the house and white house, mitch chose not to fund the wall. Just like the republicans in the house chose not to fund the wall, just like donald trump chose not to fund the wall. He didnt push for it. He had a chance actually. Democrats this is in your google machine, if you want to check on it, democrats actually offered him 21 billion to build that wall. In exchange for a pretty common sense popular reform plan. Donald trump said no. There we are, shep, getting you up to date as shep always does get you up to date. Donald trump doesnt build that wall, mexico hasnt paid for that pretend imaginary wall, but all hes done is hes fixed up 60 miles of wall that was existing under barack obama. There you have it. Good morning, welcome to morning joe. Its thursday, august 29th. I actually can tell because im talking so much, mika has the morning off. With us mike barnicle, Political Writer for the New York Times times, and host of face the nation and reverend al sharpton and washington bbc News Reporter katty kay. I have so many things to get to from the Boston Red Sox only being five games out in the wild cart chase. You can tell how things have changed over the past years, i wont even know what nick is thinking about the new star wars trailer. Its very important. Always want to know what rev and mike are thinking. Katty, lets talk to you. What in the hell is going on in Great Britain . Snow yeah. How long do you have, joe . Yeah. Boris johnson has suspended parliament. He went to the queen yesterday. The queen agreed to his request to suspend parliament. Effectively whats happened is the amount of time for opponents of brexit and opponents of a no deal brexit, the harder form of brexit have much less time now in parliament. The numbers of days they would have to discuss some kind of legislative opposition to brexit has all been shrunk. Theyll have Something Like half the number of days, threequarters of the number of days they were going to have and crashing up to this line of october 31st and the longest Time Parliament has been suspended since 1945 and very unusual and at a time of national crisis. You might think it would be good to have parliamentarians there discussing this crisis. Boris johnson wants to get his no deal through. Hes clearly not going to be a reactive Prime Minister. Hes come in full guns blazing and very proactive. It will be a turbulent few month in british politics. Very turbulent and Boris Johnson getting his cues from donald trump. I dont think it will work well for Boris Johnson. You look at the numbers. The percentage of people that put him into the position of Prime Minister and see how unpopular his party is and unpopular his approach to brexit is, will be very interesting to see how long he actually survives there. Lets go right now and get an update on Hurricane Dorian, now a category 1 storm after lashing puerto rico and the Virgin Islands and could grow into a cat 1 hurricane as it nears florida for the Labor Day Weekend. Je jan nessa, as a floridian, i have been through hurricanes. Talk about the worst possible time ever. Everybody is traveling, everybody on the road. This may cut straight through the florida peninsula and i hear it may even hover over florida a day or two. You said it all, joe. The last time weve seen a hurricane like this was hurricane jean in 2004. You hit it right on the nose here. People are headed out for Labor Day Weekend and this timing will unfortunately hit in the heat of all of that. What is going on is a major hurricane developing, and right now, were seeing an eye that has started to develop here. Puerto rico into the Virgin Islands in the clear here. A band of a few that will linger. The intensification faze, i like to call it a simmering faze that allows the wind speeds to really pick up. Thats why the National Hurricane center has issued another change in the direction of the system here. The humidity also is going to increase also. Its sitting in a body of water thats very warm and will allow wind speeds to increase by 120 miles an hour by saturday. Potential cat 3 by monday, in time for labor day. Were following this system as it makes its way on shore here. Catastrophic flooding and heavy duty rain and storm surge possible all the way into tampa. Watching this very closely. All right. Thank you so much, janessa. Greatly appreciate it and sure we will be back for more updates. As somebody who has been through so many hurricanes in my lifetime and probably go through many more, as the storm is approaching, one of the most important things to know is that your government, whether its your governor, whether its the president , fema, the Small Business association, you know that officials, government officials have your back, that theyre going to do everything they can do to make things work. It makes all the difference in the world. Jeb bush was extraordinarily successful in florida in 2004, bringing florida through four hurricanes and being extremely organized. The next year, katrina came along and that was an absolute nightmare from washington, d. C. All the way down to the mayor. You need to know the governments focused and the governments on your side. Katty, as puerto rico was phasing yet the possibility of another colossal hurricane, donald trump, instead of providing comfort and support, actually chose that horrible time, and it is, it is just a frightening horrible time, where you fear everything you own is going to be blown away into the ocean. Donald trump used that time to attack the people of puerto rico. Its like nothing ive ever seen. Yeah. Youve been there, joe. Spare a thought for people in puerto rico yesterday. The island was mostly spared the brunt of the storm but wasnt able to shake the president s twitter feed. When it was still unclear how hard this storm would actually hit the island, donald trump continued his attack tweeting we are tracking Tropical Storm dorian as it heads, as usual, to puerto rico. Fema and all others are ready and will do a great job. When they do, let them know it and give them a big thank you, not like last time. That includes the incompetent mayor of san juan, exclamation mark. Puerto rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth. Their political system is broken and their politics are either incompetent or corrupt. Congress approved billions of dollars last time more than any place else has ever gotten and it is sent to crooked polls. No good. And they were only given a portion of what was sent to them. Reverend al, theyre talking about relief funds to build Donald Trumps imaginary wall. This is extraordinary behavior. If you look at donald trump, the arc of donald trump over the past few weeks, as weve said time and again, whether Eugene Robinson or atlantic or gail collins writing for the New York Times, it is hard to believe but true that donald trump is becoming even more unmoored from reality, even angrier, even more petulant, even more unsound of mind and spirit, if you look at what hes done even over the past week. His meg lo mania is astounding. Everything is about him, even a storm. When you look at the middle of a people that dont know whether or not something is going to be devastating or not, and all you can see is yourself in the eye of the storm, you cant even see the storm or the impact, youre dealing with somebody who borders losing grip with reality because this president , talking about im the best thing that ever happened in the middle of a pending possible catastrophe should frighten all of us. Then, to take cheap shots at the people by the way, when he went down last time he threw towels at, is just astounding. I think when we look at this kind of behavior, those of us who have been critical of him can say wereadly right about the levels of insensitivity and indignity that he has brought to his office. Mike, ive been sketching out a list and its growing ever longer. You can talk about donald trump attacking victims of a hurricane, and again how not only theres no president in American History that would ever do that. There arent even politics or senators or governors who have ever done such a thing as the storm approached. Again, go back to the end of last week, you have reports he wants to buy greenland, and then he denies hes wanting to buy greenland. Then, he cancels a visit to a nato ally because they wont sell it. And then calls the fed chair the enemy of the United States and calls china the enemy of the United States and calls the leader of china a wonderful and strong powerful leader and a friend. Then, he shows the authority he has to order businesses out of china. The list goes on and on and on. This is just in the past 5, 6 days. You can add to that, joe, and build it in terms of building the wall, just go seize the land from farmers along the texas border, even though its illegal and hell pardon you if you get in trouble for it. You earlier, a few moments ago described this as extraordinary behavior. I would quibble with that, unfortunately for us, for our country, for the people of our country its ordinary behavior on the part of the president of the United States. He does things like this multiple times of the day. Thats our problem. He has normalized bizarre illegal extraordinary behavior. Unfortunately for us and you alluded to this, the hurricane headed towards puerto rico, this is the first time in the history of this country, first time in the history of the United States of america that a president of the United States focuses on revenge rather than healing, and he does it multiple times a day. Focuses on revenge from people who are about to become victims of a hurricane. You know, katty, the back and forth, the blasting out of a statement or the shouting of instructions to employees, and staffers, and then the backtracking, and then, of course, the repeating of the same suggestions, playing itself out once again, and the president , following upon what mike said, ordering staffers to do whatever it takes to seize farmers land and if its legal not to worry about it, he would pardon them, reminds me an awful lot what he told people in 2016 when he was talking about beating the hell out of protesters and if they got arrested not to worry about it, he would pay their legal fees. And then saying, it was all a joke. In a series of tweets, President Trump is denying a report he has offered pardons to those who build the wall in order to fast track the border wall. In the Washington Post he said he was making extreme measures to have the wall built in time for the 2020 election. It hasnt been the first time President Trump said he would consider pardons. I never want anybody to be above the law. The pardons are a good thing for a president. With respect to paul manafort, im not taking anything off the table. Were looking at a lot of different pardons for a lot of different people. Some of these soldiers are people that fought hard and long, and when they get done fighting sometime theyre treated earlier. The power to pardon is a beautiful thing. You have to get it right and get the right people. He clearly likes the power of pardoning. Whether to impeach the president , democrats are concerned through pardons of allies of conservatives convicted of political allies, President Trump has sent signals to help those close to him escape punishment. Mr. Trump has issued 15 pardons so far during his presidency. Speaking to the Washington Post, several democrats said an investigation into trumps pardons throughout his presidency is fair game. Abuse of pardon is an abuse of presidency. A white house official told the Washington Post that trump was merely joking when preemptively floating the idea of pardoning. Thats exactly the argument he used before, it was just a joke. Dana milbank again wrote a column this morning in the Washington Post about the president s quote jokes. They end up not being jokes. Jonathan jonathan omear, he often goes back to his original position, and we can expect him to do that as well. Were going to talk i know youre in boston were going to talk about the Boston Red Sox and looking like secretariat turning the corner at belmont and ready to do that massive charge into history. Before we do that, lets talk about the president. Its been confirmed by another media outlet the president did actually say do whatever you need to do, if you need to be pardoned, dont worry about it, i will do that later. Democrat obviously are very concerned about it as are a lot of independents and moderate republicans, yet i saw a conservative writer say yesterday, this would play very well with the republicans base. Was this perhaps as offensive and undemocratic as it is, as it sounds . Is this the president desperate and playing to his Political Base . As noted before, the white house is spinning this as simply the president offering it as a joke, lighthearted and he doesnt mean it. When he floats things, this is the excuse he uses to walk it back. There is some meaning to it. He said this more than once he would offer pardons to those who build the wall as soon as possible. The wall was his Signature Campaign promise to get it built and mexico was paying for it. It has not been built. They need to be able to point to something as 2020 heats up, they need to suggest progress has been made. They will blame the white house and the president is fighting for it. That is so often the key with this president. Its not about the concrete results, the perception hes fighting for it. Thats what animates the base what were seeing here. As far as the pardons go, it is the power of the president he loves that he can do unilaterally and he doesnt need approval from congress or his own staff. There are times whether in the mist of the Mueller Investigation or not, to take the political temperature down and you shouldnt do this. That doesnt mean he wont. He is toying with something he can do regardless of legality, regardless of the perception, regardless of the bind it would put the Republican Party in, hes considering doing it because he thinks it will be for his political benefit. Right now, the president is concerned about his reelection prospects next year. Many people close to the president say part of the reason why hes acting even more irrational than usual over this past week are the growing concerns about the economy. When you look at this issue of the president building the wall, this was his key promise. This promise defined his presidency. He would joke and say every time energy and the room went down wherever he was, he would just shout out, build that wall, it would be like a band playing its biggest hit. Building the wall and making mexico pay for it and with a code of believe me, its going to happen, believe me, donald trump has to know that thats going to come back to him. Democrats offered him 21 billion to build his wall. He refused it. Republicans didnt want the wall to be built when they controlled washington. So now he finds himself a year out from the election and the only thing hes done, as fox news reports, is hes rebuilt 60 miles of wall that were already existing under president barack obama. So, joe, the wall is the central symbol of his presidency, a physical manifestation of the purpose of his presidency, which is to keep them out. Instead of building the wall and making china or mexico pay for it, there is no wall yet and no money for it yet. What we have here is a problem, this was almost like a condo deal hes doing. Hes sold the heck out of it, granted it, cant find the money and hasnt gotten it built yet. Hes in a bind. In 2016 he wan on needing a wall although we already had a wall on the border and 2021 will be on the wall that doesnt exist. You talk about a failed condo project, this is like a condo project where the rough outlines were sketched it but he could never find investors. Exactly. Let me repeat it again for people who dont remember this, donald trump had republicans running all of washington the first two years. Look at Lindsey Grahams quotes and john cornyns quotes, none supported building a wall. They said it was a stupid thing to do and a waste of money. Even when the democrats gave him 21 billion to build his w