Steve Kornacki (2:16)

Yeah, I mean, look, there's A couple aspects of the Trump thing we're looking at, I mean, obviously is to the what extent is this election a referendum on him and what does that mean? There's also just, you know, when he won last year, he did it with this very unique new, different Republican coalition. We've never seen it before. Much less white, more divers than we'd ever seen in a Republican coalition.

Yasmin Vasugin (2:38)

A big surge amongst Latino voters, Latinos in particular.

Steve Kornacki (2:40)

Yeah. And so one of the biggest, even.

Yasmin Vasugin (2:42)

Amongst some black voters too.

Steve Kornacki (2:43)

Yep. And Asian American as well. And so the question has been how much of that was a Trump only phenomenon. Voters who were willing to vote for Trump for particular reasons, but not the broader Republican Party. Here's the broader Republican Party's first chance to show, hey, some of this is about us too.

Yasmin Vasugin (3:01)

As we're kind of looking ahead to Tuesday, you can't help but think about the fact that we are in the midst of this immigration upheaval. Is that something that seems to be coming through in some of the polling that we're seeing amongst non white voters?

Steve Kornacki (3:14)

Well, I think there's two questions and I mean, let's maybe take New Jersey as the example here because it's seen as the tighter of the two gubernatorial races. And New Jersey is one of the states where Trump made his biggest gains between 2020 and 2024. He still lost the state, but he did like 10 points better in 2024. And it was keyed heavily by Hispanic voters, also by Asian American voters. There are six cities in New where the population is like 3/4 Hispanic, at least 3/4 Hispanic. And these are places where Trump did 20, 30, 40 points better in 2024. So the question there, hope for Republicans, for Jack Schittarelli in that race, is to try to get obviously that Trump support. Democrats have a secondary concern though, and that is turnout. So while Trump did great in those areas as a Republican in 2024, Democrats problem before that had been low turnout.

Yasmin Vasugin (4:08)

Got it.

Steve Kornacki (4:09)

Among Hispanic voters. They were doing better in terms of the percentage of the vote they were getting. They just weren't getting much turnout.

Yasmin Vasugin (4:14)

So let's talk a little bit about New Jersey and then I wanna talk Virginia. Right. Those are the two big governor racers that we're looking at. And you mentioned Jack Cittarelli, Mikey Sherrill. How is it looking right now? Is it as close as it was a couple of days ago? And do we know why it's so.

Steve Kornacki (4:29)

Close talking to people in New Jersey? This is where you get into the subjective thing of talking to Each sort of party, off the record. But the sense I get is each side are a little more confident than they were a few weeks ago. Republicans are a little less confident. And I think that has to do with polling that they're seeing, but also polling that I think we can see in the public, too. There has been a sense, this is shared by Democrats and Republicans in New Jersey, that Mikey Sherrill has underwhelmed as a candidate. The Democratic establishment got behind her in the primary, really united behind her in the belief she was the most electable Democratic candidate. She's from a suburban congressional district that had traditionally been Republican. She has this background as a helicopter pil. Navy pilot. Right. All this would be a big part.

Yasmin Vasugin (5:14)

Of her ad campaign.

Steve Kornacki (5:16)

Helicopter. So there was a sense that all these things would be great strengths for her. She struggled in a number of ways. One of which has been used in an ad against her where she was asked in an interview show simply, what would the first thing you do as governor be? And she kind of stammered and had a non answer. And the Republicans just turned around and clipped that and made it an entire 30 second AD. If you could pass one piece of legislation, what would it be?

Yasmin Vasugin (5:42)

Wow. I would love. That's a really good question because there's so many that are coming to mind right now. But right now I would love at this point to pass legislation to. As a.

Jack Cittarelli (Impersonated) (5:58)

You're kidding me, right? You want to be governor and you can't answer that question? We have skyrocket electric bills in a state people can't afford. We need to fix New Jersey. I will.

Steve Kornacki (6:07)

So I think there was a sense that these sorts of things were taking a toll on her, and it was really feeding Republican optimism in the early part of October. The polling we've since then, though, has shown that that lead she has remains pretty stubborn. We're talking mid single digits, maybe high single digits. Cittarelli has struggled to get past the mid-40s in polling. And so I think now Democrats are sort of looking at that. And I think what they're feeling is that there's this broader Trump issue where there's just voters in New Jersey who don't like Donald Trump who are gonna take this election and they're gonna use it as an occasion to vote against Trump's party. They're closed off the Chitter rally. So Democrats are really feeling more confident. That's the case.

Yasmin Vasugin (6:47)

And then we got Virginia. And I think there's a couple factors playing here in Virginia which I think are interesting. The government shut down severely affected by the government layoffs over the last couple of months. Since Trump took office in January, hundreds of thousands of people of workers have been laid off working for the federal government living in the state of Virginia. And it's also often a bellwether. We should be completely transparent. We have this election book that we get every year for the politics unit that you, of course, contribute greatly to. And in reading this, I find out that oftentimes the person who's in the White House the opposite is elected as governor, except for one time in Virginia's past. So what's it looking like now in Virginia?

Steve Kornacki (7:27)

Well, that's the thing. Sometimes we can overthink these things and we can slice and dice them too much. But in both of these states we're talking about Virginia and New Jersey, there's a very pronounced trend of exactly that. Whoever is the president, their party usually seems to pay a price in these governor's races, which come the year after the presidential election in New Jersey. What what Republicans have been hopeful would offset that is that the governor in New Jersey is a Democrat, Phil Murphy. He's term limited out. He's not popular. So Republicans have hoped that would sort of counterbalance the Trump factor. In Virginia, you got a Republican governor. He's also term limited, Glenn Youngkin. And the issue, though, again here, when you talk about Trump being the president, you talk about the shutdown. Virginia's become a blue state. Trump again made some Progress there in 2024. He improved in 2024. One of the obstacles, though, that Republicans have, you took it like Northern Virgin outside of Washington, D.C. like a third of the vote statewide at least, is going to come out of a very narrow set of counties and cities that are right there. These are places filled with federal workers. And these are places that in federal election, that is in elections for the presidency, have become overwhelmingly Democratic. I mean, a lot of times when you're talking about the federal workforce living in Virginia, you're not talking about swing voters, you're talking about Democrats in a lot of cases. But these are voters in some cases that Youngkin was able to make inroads with in the governor's race in 2020, able to get these voters to separate their feelings about Trump, the national Republican Party from the state, state issues. Richmond, that kind of distance for Republicans now is just much more difficult. There's also just Winsome Sears, the Republican nominee in Virginia, has, I think, brought baggage into this race that Youngkin didn't bring, just in terms of some positions she's taken Some comments she's made in the past and I think has made her a bit of an easier mark for Democrats to go after than they were able to do with Youngen.

Yasmin Vasugin (9:20)

Do we know why she has not been endorsed by the president as of yet?

Steve Kornacki (9:25)

Well, I think you have to wonder at this point. You know, the polling is not encouraging for her. So if you're Trump and you're looking at a candidate who's down probably about 10 points in any given poll right.

Yasmin Vasugin (9:34)

Now, he doesn't wanna endorse someone who may lose.

Steve Kornacki (9:36)

There you go.

Yasmin Vasugin (9:37)

Yeah. Can we talk New York City?

Steve Kornacki (9:39)

You got it.

Yasmin Vasugin (9:41)

I mean, how can we not when we're sitting here in 30 Rock in the middle of Manhattan, right? You've got Zohar Mamdani, kind of this Democratic socialist. You've got former Governor Cuomo running as an independent, and then Curtis Lewis. It look like Mamdani was the breakout, right? He was gonna win this thing full out.

Steve Kornacki (9:58)

But now I think it's volatile. Look, Mamdani benefits from. He's the Democratic nominee in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. His main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, is very unpopular. Remember, had to resign as governor a few years ago. And the opposition that exists to Mamdani is spread out. It's not just Cuomo. There's also Curtis Sliwa, the Republican. So divided opposition, unpopular main opponent and Democratic nominee. This is still a very potent combination that Mamdani has, and I think he's definitely the favorite still in this race. Where the volatility comes in is that it's been four months now since Mandani won the Democratic nomination. Newest poll out just yesterday from Suffolk University has Mamdani leading with 44% of the vote. This is the Democratic nominee in overwhelmingly. New York, after four months to consolidate things, is still in the mid-40s. What's very interesting. What's interesting to me, though, is when you look, this poll we're talking about is Suffolk. They polled in September, Mamdani by 20. They polled this week, Mamdani by 10. Mandani's support level is like identical in the two polls. He had 45% support in September, he had 44% in this new poll. So he's not losing support, he's just not gaining new support. And that even comes as Eric Adams got out of the race. And instead, that support really did kind of funnel, it appears, to Andrew Cuomo to cut it down to 10. So it just. If there's further consolidation here, I think there's vulnerability for Mamdani as long as he's still sitting in that mid 40% range.

Yasmin Vasugin (11:33)

What are you doing this week before election day? Walk us through your schedule. Cornek.

Steve Kornacki (11:37)

I just, you know, this is like I stare at spreadsheets, I'm looking at maps, I'm looking at spreadsheets, I'm looking at counties, independent cities in Virginia, I'm looking at municipalities in New Jersey. And we're just trying to find, remind ourselves of the things we know, find things we don't know. I always say every election that I do, I go into it with less and less confidence because the more you learn this stuff, the more you realize you'll just, you'll never understand all of it.

Yasmin Vasugin (12:03)

Steve Kornacki, thank you.

Steve Kornacki (12:04)

I'm looking forward to next week. Thanks.

Yasmin Vasugin (12:07)

All right. We are gonna take a quick break. When we are back, the catastrophic hurricane Melissa making landfall in Jamaica. We'll be right back.

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Yasmin Vasugin (13:29)

Welcome back to here's the scoop from NBC News. So Hurricane Melissa has made landfall in Jamaica as a Cat 5 storm and it's already the most powerful storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season. By this morning the National Hurricane center already warned it was the quote, last chance to protect your life. Now in the hours since the storm hit the island with estimated maximum sustained winds of 185 miles an hour, Hurricane Melissa is now tied as the strongest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic basin and it's now barreling towards Cuba with forecasters warning of life threatening winds. Severe weather across much of the Caribbean. Visitors residents of Jamaica stranded as officials say the storm will cause life threatening damage. So with That I want to bring in Erin McGarry, who is the executive editor of the NBC News Climate Unit. Hey, Erin.

Erin McGarry (14:20)

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Yasmin Vasugin (14:21)

So I want to be forthcoming with our listeners. And every morning we have this conference call, this editorial call in which reporters, correspondents, heads of units get on and they tell everybody what's happening in their unit. Right. You got on this morning and. And what you said was kind of terrifying about how strong this storm is and the damage it could cause on these smaller, especially islands. What are we looking at right now?

Erin McGarry (14:54)

I work with a team of amazing meteorologists here who I'm not a meteorologist. I said Play 1 on TV, but they are constantly looking at data and I translate it into television. Here's what's important. Here's what we need to listen to. And I got folks that. Because it nearly stopped me in my tracks. We'd been watching this thing intensify for days, Right. It's been sitting at a five for a couple days, which is kind of unheard of.

Yasmin Vasugin (15:18)

So it's been sitting at a five because it hasn't hit land at all. And that's what would slow it down or decrease the categorization.

Erin McGarry (15:26)

True. And it's been going at 2 miles per hour.

Yasmin Vasugin (15:29)

Okay.

Erin McGarry (15:29)

So it's not because hurricanes don't move on their own. A weather system has to pick them up and move them.

Yasmin Vasugin (15:34)

Right.

Erin McGarry (15:35)

And that wasn't happening. But because of the way the ocean is, the water is. It was just feeding itself.

Yasmin Vasugin (15:43)

So it was sitting at a five. Right. And it's kind of been churning towards Jamaica. Right. And we hadn't gotten a reading since yesterday.

Erin McGarry (15:51)

Correct.

Yasmin Vasugin (15:51)

Hurricane hunters hadn't made their way inside the storm since yesterday.

Erin McGarry (15:55)

Right.

Yasmin Vasugin (15:56)

But we got another reading this morning. But there was some drama when it came to what the hurricane hunters found and how their trip went.

Erin McGarry (16:04)

We were waiting for those hurricane hunters to go in and have real time data. Twice now, the hurricane hunters have had issues because this is such a strong sort of unpredictable storm. Sunday, I'll start with noaa, our NOAA Hurricane Hunters, because you have noaa, and the Air Force NOAA on Sunday had to pull out because of turbulence, so they had to cut their mission short. Today we just found out that the Air Force hurricane hunters, they had to pull out and go back to Curacao, which was their home base. So when you're watching and we show it on air, their path while they're flying into it, oh, they're making, you know, their route. This is what they're getting. They Started doing circles around the eye. And our team, other folks, were wondering what was happening. And then they left because they were sustaining damage and they were worried it was too dangerous. And so they pulled out of the storm.

Yasmin Vasugin (16:50)

That's not something that normally happens.

Erin McGarry (16:51)

No. And now we've had two planes, and.

Yasmin Vasugin (16:52)

That has never happened because these planes are built to withstand high winds. To go into a hurricane, that's their job.

Erin McGarry (17:00)

But to, you know. To fly through hell. Right. To get to it. Yeah, that is her job.

Yasmin Vasugin (17:05)

So some would say we haven't seen a ton of hurricanes this season. They say, okay, a hurricane's coming, but it's curving out to the right. Right. It's curving out to the Atlantic and off it goes. Nothing's hitting the United States.

Erin McGarry (17:15)

And we've seen a lot. We're on M. Right. So we're already on M, but we just haven't been hit. So we've just been in the US So lucky that weather systems have just taken it and. Correct. Curved it out, you know, to the east. So it's been close. We've had strong hurricanes. Erin, out there as five. We've just so lucky in the US that they haven't hit the US which is kind of rare. And we have had several. We're on M already, Melissa. We're not done yet.

Yasmin Vasugin (17:41)

I think what's interesting about this storm too is it was a tropical storm and then it became a Cat 5 hurricane. And it didn't take a lot of time.

Erin McGarry (17:51)

No, it exploded.

Yasmin Vasugin (17:53)

How much is that connected to climate change?

Erin McGarry (17:57)

100%. And we always talk about rapid intensification, and this went through extreme rapid intensification, which is 70 miles per hour. The storm increased 70 miles per hour in 24 hours. So it went from a tropical storm to a cat 4. And it's with these extremely warm sea surface temperatures. So in that area, the sea surface temperatures are 2 and a half degrees above average. So during the rapid intensification of Melissa, the storm was drifting. Right. And it was sitting over that bathwater. Sitting over that bathwater. These conditions were made that warm water made up to 700 times more likely because of human caused climate change.

Yasmin Vasugin (18:40)

Wow.

Erin McGarry (18:41)

So up to 700 times more likely that warm water, which then led to that rapid intensification because of human caused climate change.

Yasmin Vasugin (18:50)

So it's directly correlated. It's directly connected.

Erin McGarry (18:52)

You bet.

Yasmin Vasugin (18:53)

How does warm water work to create this hurricane?

Erin McGarry (18:57)

It then generates more precipitation in the atmosphere. So warm water releases heat and heat helps fuel thunderstorms. You know, we don't have A lot of thunderstorms in the winter, right? It's when it's really humid and it has that moisture in the air. So with that heat, ocean content, there's a lot of moisture in the air. It's really thick. You can swim through it right in the ocean. So that heat is what helps fuel the hurricanes. You need that warm, moist air and you suddenly have a whole ocean full of warm, moist air. If it was a little drier, a little cooler, you wouldn't quite have that spark.

Yasmin Vasugin (19:34)

What are you gonna be watching tonight?

Erin McGarry (19:36)

So Cuba for sure, but just how fast it moves across Jamaica and then that rainfall. So I mean, we know that wind devastation, but we're not gonna know the scale of it, Right? So the communications are going to be down. We're not going to have, you know, video coming out of there, which is so helpful. Right. So it's that rainfall amount and that will have satellite projections so that will know what is falling. Even if we don't have people on the ground reporting that, we at least will be able to know through satellite how much is falling. So that's really what we're looking for tonight. Oh my gosh. In the mountains they are getting. It makes me almost teary, 30 to 40 inches, because that's just, you know, it's catastrophe. A humanitarian disaster.

Yasmin Vasugin (20:19)

It's a humanitarian disaster.

Erin McGarry (20:21)

I mean, that's what we're most concerned about. Which took our breath away this morning.

Yasmin Vasugin (20:25)

Arama. Gary, thank you.

Erin McGarry (20:28)

Thanks for having me.

Yasmin Vasugin (20:30)

All right, let's get to some headlines. President Donald Trump is in Japan, the second stop on his three country Asia tour after a morning meeting with newly elected Prime Minister Sanay Takachi. He made a show of US Strength abroad addressing American troops aboard the USS George Washington. Next up, South Korea, where on Thursday Trump is set to sit down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping for high stakes tariff talks. All eyes will be on whether those negotiations thaw tensions or just add a little more heat to this trade war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli military to launch powerful strikes in Gaza just weeks after a cease fire took effect. An IDF official saying that the command is a result of Hamas allegedly attacking soldiers in an Israeli controlled area of Rafah in southern Gaza. Hamas saying it had, quote, no connection to any incident there. And NBC News has not independently verified the attack. The cease fire deal that took effect just weeks ago, which included a swap of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, had raised hopes of ending the fighting. But with today's renewed strikes, Hamas's military wing says it is postponing the return of another body because of the, quote, violation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing that the US Military conducted three lethal strikes on four vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean this morning, resulting in the death of 14 people and leaving one survivor. The vessels were targeted because they were allegedly trafficking narcotics along known routes. Hegseth, who referred to the victims as narco terrorists, stated the action was part of President Trump's escalating campaign against drug cartels, which has now killed more than 50 people in 11 strikes in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. The number of those killed linked to the actual drug trade is still unknown. The administration is catching heat from both sides of the aisle, with lawmakers growing increasingly frustrated over what they say is radio silence from the White House about these strikes. According to six sources who spoke with NBC News, Amazon says It's cutting about 14,000 corporate jobs and is blaming the robots Kind of Executives are tying the layoffs directly to Amazon's growing love affair with artificial intelligence. Senior VP Beth Galetti said the goal is to make the company leaner and more efficient, as AI is becoming what she called the biggest game changer since the Internet. CEO Andy Jassy had already hinted this was coming, warning that generative AI could soon take over a lot of the mundane stuff humans do now. The pink slips hit departments like HR and Amazon Web Services, part of a bigger reorg to funnel more resources into Amazon's shiny new obsession. Building the future with AI, even if it means fewer people around to build it. You may have heard that 10,000 steps a day keeps a doctor away. But according to new research, the distance needed to take a step towards wellness may be shorter than you think, especially if you're a lady of a certain age. A new study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine tracked more than 13,000American women over the age of 62 for more than a decade. The findings Things might take some pressure off your fitness Tracker. Walking just 4,000 steps once or twice a week was enough to cut the risk of developing or dying from heart disease by 40%. The takeaway is simple. Consistency matters more than perfection. So if that 10,000 step goal feels out of reach, do not sweat it. Lace up, get moving when you can, and remember, every step really does count. Speaking of getting your steps in, if you were at Game three of the World Series last night, you may have been on your feet for a very long time. The game was a nail biter stretch into 18 innings, lasting 6 hours 39 minutes. Louisiana. Dodgers Freddie Freeman hit a walk off home run that liberated both teams from what can only be described as MLB purgatory, also giving The Dodgers a 2 to 1 series lead over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Erin McGarry (24:23)

Freeman sends a fly ball to center field.

Podcast Narrator (24:25)

Freddie Freeman has ended it.

Yasmin Vasugin (24:28)

To be fair, everybody should have seen this coming. Brad Paisley, the herald of extra innings, sang the national anthem last night, which was an omen of to come.

Steve Kornacki (24:38)

O say can you see the last.

Yasmin Vasugin (24:44)

Time that Paisley Sang before an 18 inning World Series game was game three back in 2018. So the next time that you see Brad Paisley on the World Series docket, bring sneakers and maybe grab an energy drink so you can hunker down for the very long haul. All right, that is going to do it for us at Here's a scoop from NBC News News. I'm Yasmin Bissougin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, then like us, back wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you tomorrow.

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