← Morning Joe
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Ted Danson
Have you met All Modern? All Modern brings you the best of modern furniture and decor, and right now through November 20th, you'll score up to 50% off during their Early Access to Black Friday sale. Simplify your holiday entertaining with deals on plush sofas, modern tabletop essentials and more. All on sale at All Modern. Then get them delivered for free in days. You heard that right. Days. That's modern made simple. Shop AllModern's early access to Black Friday sale now through November 20th at AllModern.com hey friends, Ted Danson here and I want to let you know about my new podcast. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes doing this podcast is a chance for me and my good bud Woody to reconnect after Cheers wrap 30 years ago. Plus, we're introducing each other to the friends we've met since, like Jane Fonda, Conan O'Brien, Eric Andre, Mary Steenburgen, my wife and flee from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And trust me, it's always a great hang when Woody's there, so why wait? Listen to where everybody knows your name. Wherever you get your podcasts. My heart is full today, full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me, full of love for our country, and full of resolve. The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for. But hear me when I say, hear me when I say the light of America's promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting. Now, I know folks are feeling and experiencing a range of emotions right now. I get it. But we must accept the results of this election. A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. As part of yesterday's concession speech from Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C. as she promised to keep fighting for democracy, equal rights and the rule of law. Ahead of that speech, Vice President Harris called President Elect Trump to congratulate him. According to a senior Harris aide, the vice president discussed the importance of a peaceful transfer of power and being a president for all Americans, the Trump campaign also put out a statement reading, in part, President Trump acknowledged Vice President Harris on her strength, professionalism and tenacity throughout the campaign, and both leaders agreed on the importance of unifying the country. President Biden also spoke with President Elect Trump over the phone yesterday to congratulate him and to express his commitment to a smooth transition of power. Biden also invited Trump to meet him at the White House, though no date has been set. Biden will address the nation this morning at 11am regarding the election results. And good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's only Thursday, November 7th. Joe, kind of feels like yesterday was Friday, right? I thought it was like end of the week. Yeah, yeah. Well, it, it was, it was a great, I thought it was a great speech by Kamala Harris. I thought she obviously, for good reasons is still, still sort of in that campaign mode. And obviously, though she, again, I think she hit, she hit the marks throughout the campaign and did extremely well. I think she did far better than most people expected her to do at the beginning of that very short and abbreviated campaign. It was such an extraordinarily short and abbreviated campaign. And in the states, you know, you look at, there are a lot, a lot of things to look at across the map that you, you see states like Texas and Florida and Ohio. Those, those have just gone so deeply red compared to even where they were four years ago when Joe Biden was, was getting closer, certainly in Texas and within three or four in Florida. But those states are deep, deep red. Ohio a deep, deep red. Pennsylvania is party registration has gotten far more Republican over the next, over the last several years. The RA close though, Willie in Wisconsin still close in Michigan. Pennsylvania was more like 2 percentage points. We had Democrats winning Wisconsin and Detroit and Michigan yesterday. Pennsylvania still up in the air right now. But that's looking like that's going to go to Dave McCormick, but it's still very close. But there were such transformational changes in this race yesterday. And you know, Jonathan asked at the end of his show, where should Democrats go from here? I'd suggest France for a couple of weeks and think it over 32% of Americans, only 32% of Americans who voted identified themselves as Democrats. Donald Trump won, if I'm not mistaken. I think I saw this in Mike Ellen's newsletter, one of three of votes from people of color. And Donald Trump has put together a working class coalition across racial lines that nobody has done in this country in over 50 years. And so, yes, people need to look back at the campaign and they certainly should feel free to call out Donald Trump for all the things that he said that were shocking and deeply offensive. But if you're a Democrat right now and think that's going to get you elected four years from now, it didn't get you elected a couple of nights ago. So it's again, it's time for the Democrats to look in the mirror and figure out exactly what went wrong. And I think Willie, you and I have been talking about it over the last four years or so. It shouldn't be really that hard for them to figure out exactly where they went wrong. We'll just see if they're self aware enough to do it. Yeah, I mean, this is a massive structural problem now for the Democratic Party. So there's been all this sort of Monday morning quarterbacking about the vice presidential choice and all these things that we traditionally hear that would not have made a difference. Let's be clear about that, about the shortened campaign. That of course, was difficult. Kamala Harris didn't have time to introduce herself in a way that say Barack Obama did. But the fact of the matter is Donald Trump just wiped out the Democratic Party. He would. You sometimes as a political opponent, as you know, Joe, you just have to tip your cap to the other side. Not for the rhetoric, not for the behavior, but for the way he won. The people he brought into his party, the people who felt they didn't have a home, Latino men, some young black men as well, even women, young people. He did much better with young people than most people expected. And that is a big shift that the Democratic Party has to reckon with. And at this moment, I'm not sure what the way back is for Democrats when you've lost, been wiped out. Donald Trump did better in 48 of the 50 states than he did last time around, despite all the everything that was coming at him. So Democrats need to sit and think about what happened. The question will be do they have the will to change? Do they have a message that will be appealing to those people that Donald Trump now brought into his coalition. I don't again, it, I hate Monday morning quarterbacking here. I really do. And I don't want this to be taken as a blanket criticism for the people that were running Kamala Harris campaign because they were great. General Mallie Dillon, just the best on the ground that there is. She was facing though there was a red wave this year. The press got it wrong and the pollsters got it wrong. Two years ago, that wave was somewhere out coming off of Africa and moving across the Atlantic and coming. It just took it two years more to get here. But man, it crashed on shore two to two nights ago. But Jonathan Lemaire there was some reluctance to go there to talk about the things that were concerning Americans that really mattered this year. Illegal immigration, the mass Border crossings. Yes, they put a bill out there and yes, that was good, but there wasn't anything more definitive on it than that. That was something that concerned Hispanic voters. It's something that concerned black voters, that concerned something that concerned all voters. We will talk again. Here is we've been talking about the transgender ad that we kept talking about on this show 30,000 times. It ran over $30 million. And talking about it saying this is going to be a problem in the three states that you need. There's a Financial Times article. They don't understand my life. The Trump campaign spent millions this Financial Times Trump campaign spent millions of dollars on political ads focusing on transgender issues and the final stretch of the race. Kamala is for they them once said Trump is for you. Quote, the ads of transgender stuff were really unsettling to the people, said Deb Dassault, chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin's Ozaukee County, a Republican stronghold in the Milwaukee suburbs. That broke for Trump. I mean, you don't have to be a Republican, though I was a Republican. You don't have to be a conservative, though I was a conservative to understand that seeing ad after ad after ad in NFL football games saying that taxpayers were going to be funding transgender surgeries for inmates. It's not something that's going to play well in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, among men. And yet they just didn't respond to it because they were afraid to respond to it because it might offend some small subset of their base. And the thing is, nobody's saying to be anything but kind to all Americans. This just had to do with responding to the ad and saying, hey, wait a second, that was Donald Trump's policy that they're attacking. But they wouldn't even do that because, again, they're afraid to offend. Always afraid to offend, always afraid to offend on border security, always afraid to offend on so many other issues. They're 32% and they have lost working class America. The question is how long until they understand that this isn't just about tax cuts. This isn't just about economics. This is about cultural markers that matter greatly in these people's lives. Yeah, this is certainly a lot of second guessing among Democrats that they should have had a more robust response to that particular argument. There's a lot of finger pointing in the party right now. But let's be clear. President Biden's, you know, legislative record, robust, but they're even in real time. His West Wing acknowledged they were slow to address two issues. Immigration and inflation, and they feel like they made progress on both. But that was a lasting impression made on voters and the Republicans hammered it home. There's also a similarity here to what we saw in 2016, the first time Donald Trump was reelected, where he appealed to these working class voters who felt like then it was the recovery from the Great Recession this time around, the recovery from the pandemic and the resulting inflation that they felt it was uneven, they felt it was unfair. The elites continued to do well, but the working class suffered. And we saw that at the ballot box here. Not only did Trump continue to do really well with white working class voters, he made real inroads with Latino voters, as we discussed at length yesterday, a little bit with black voters. He also made modest gains in the suburbs. Like it was across the board. It wasn't just 48 out of 50 states that he did well in. As Willie mentioned, he improved his marks in more than 90% of the nation's counties. This was across the board, the victory here for Republicans and for Mika. As for Democrats, Kamala Harris received about 14 million fewer votes than Joe Biden did four years ago. That is a staggering number. And they have a lot of figuring out to do. And that process begins right now to how to rebuild a coalition that seems to be badly fractured. Yeah. And I think, I mean, another part of this just to not make it exactly everything the Democrats did was wrong. I think there was a ton of disinformation out there. I heard a segment at the end of your show how she needed to separate herself more from Joe Biden because he was so unpopular. Why was he so unpopular? Was his presidency a failure? Can I have an answer on that? Was his presidency a failure, Gene? No, it was not a failure, actually. He was a very successful presidency, in my opinion. So, yeah, right. Look, there will be a whole lot of lessons, I think, for the Democratic Party to learn from this election. I think they might take Joe's advice and go into trip to France phase for the next couple of weeks and then really go into the numbers. Why did so many fewer people bother to vote this time? Right. Not just for, but the overall vote totals are lower and a lot of people just didn't show up. That surprised me. And so why was that? I spoke to people who were canvassing in all the different swing states. Some people I knew really well and they were stunned at how disinformed people were that they were talking to. They were just stunned at what they were saying because it was just beyond even close to the truth. So That's a big part of this. It's not all of it. And Joe, I know we need to get to our other guests, but I just think it's if we have to. Obviously, there's a lot of questions that's going to be asked and looked into and really legitimate reasons to look within, for sure. Right. At the same time, the landscape is a sea of voices and websites and places to go for information that is simply not true and then is backed up again and again and again and again until it becomes narrative. You fight on the battlefield that is before you. And so if there is disinformation on the battlefield that is before you, you can run off of that battlefield screeching and crying with your arms thrown up in the air, or you can figure out how to engage in that battlefield and win. It's that simple. And I understand there is a ton of disinformation out there and it is sickening. I understand that. I also understand the disinformation will only be worse four years from now. So the question is, what will Democrats or what will Independents or what will Republicans who don't support an authoritarian starting now, government? What are they going to do right now instead of complaining? Because complaining doesn't get their. Gene, totally agree. We showed the numbers. Gene, if you can, TJ Put the numbers up at the number of people who voted again, if you will. TJ you know, right now, Donald Trump sitting at 72 million. I suppose that number will go up as more votes coming from California, but I guess he's probably not going to reach his vote total from last time, which was 77 million. He had 77 million votes last year and still lost, which means a ton of people attend. Over 10 million people stayed home who voted for the Democrat last time. Over 15 million people stayed home who voted for the Democrat last time. And Gene reports out of Detroit, reports out of Philadelphia that the numbers, especially for black voters, were way down. And when we talked to Reverend Al about a week before, he talked about how when he was canvassing in Detroit, there just wasn't the excitement among black voters for this Democratic ticket. Yeah, there wasn't. And so why was that? And the answer has to be that Democrats were not getting their message through. They certainly didn't get through a sense of urgency to vote. But they, you know, if you don't get the votes, you're not giving people a reason to come vote for you. And so that's the party's got a lot to figure out. I mean, what's going to be when parties get defeated. And this is, you know, this is far from the biggest margin in, you know, this isn't like Reagan in 84 or anything like that. But as John Lemire said, 90% of counties, you know, trending in what for Democrats is the wrong direction, trending in the Republican direction. So when that happens, you need to really look at those numbers, look at yourselves and figure out what affirmative case you're going to make to people that you're going to make their lives better and that you understand them and that you're with them. And that's going to that process, I think probably has already started, it should have and it will continue. But parties in this situation do tend to figure it out eventually. And, you know, that's where Bill Clinton came from after Democratic debacle. So we will see this evolution of the Democratic Party over the next couple of years. Yeah, Willie. Trump even made progress inroads deep blue New York City. He still lost it overwhelmingly, but by a much less of a margin than last time around. And as a few Democrats noted to me last night, we simply shouldn't ignore also, this was a candidate who was a woman and a woman of color. And for some Americans, they simply weren't ready to do that. Donald Trump got 30% in New York City. 30%. He got 7% in 2020. Let's bring in the conversation managing editor at the Bulwark, Sam Stein and author and NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss. Guys, good morning. Sam, I'll start with you just to pick up and continue this conversation. I was thinking back yesterday to what at the time was viewed as a curious visit by Donald Trump to the South Bronx to have a rally back in May. And a lot of people who didn't get it said, what's he doing there? Well, it's clear what he was doing. He was sending the message to people there to Latino Americans, to black Americans, that I see you, I hear you, I care about you, I'm here, I may not win. I probably won't win this district. I won't win New York City, I won't win New York State. But I'm taking the time to let you know I see that. And Democratic Congressman Richie Torres, who represents the South Bronx, a Democrat, is very critical this morning and over the last couple of days of the Democratic Party of the way that they ignored the concerns of Latino Americans. And yes, there may be disinformation out there. Of course there is. But what wasn't disinformation was the fact that groceries and rent and all the things that people need to live their lives every day were still far too high for Americans of every race. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of factors at play here. Obviously, when, you know, 2/3, 3/4 of the country think that the country is on the wrong track, that's not great for the incumbency. Obviously, you know, people felt inflation a lot harder than they felt the rise in their own wages. But on the thing you said about the trip to the Bronx and on the point Joe made about fighting on the battlefield presented, I think one of the things that Democrats specifically, but we generally should recognize is that Trump was very good at sending cultural signals. That trip to the Bronx wasn't really about winning the Bronx. And to a degree it was about signaling to those people, hey, I care about you. It was also about creating these types of moments that everyone would consume. It's why he went to Coachella. It's why he went to Madison Square Garden. As problematic as that rally was, that's why he worked the shift at McDonald's. It's why he jumped in a garbage truck and nearly face planted when he couldn't open the door. It's because they wanted to create these moments that everyone would consume on the Internet. And frankly, Democrats are not very good at that type of organic content creation. It's notable that the Harris campaign, which admittedly was short, runaway and all, a lot of what they were doing was they were bringing creators to their events that the creators could create the content. They weren't putting putting Harris in a position where she was creating the content for the creators. And so that was a main distinction. And Joe's absolutely right. I mean, you have to fight on the battlefield where it's presented. And in these postmortems. I know we're just a day in, but virtually every Democrat I've talked to has said we cannot win if our people are not on these podcasts, these bro podcasts, these right wing YouTube shows, and Fox News, frankly. Because if all the country is going to get, or a good chunk of the country is going to get their information from those people, if those outlets are going to caricature our candidates, we have to combat that caricature. Last point and I'll stop talking after that. I thought one of the more interesting moments in this campaign actually took place in the wake of the hurricanes in North Carolina when there was rampant disinformation, much of it pushed by Elon Musk. And one of the ways in which that disinformation was stopped was when Pete Buttigieg decided to get on the phone with Elon Musk, direct engagement. And suddenly Elon Musk was like, you know what? I talked to Pete Buttigieg. This is actually not happening. We got it fixed and some of it stopped. I think that's proof positive that you do actually have to engage directly the adversarial sources or else what they say about you will take root with the voting public. Yeah. And when you do that, you have to have the answers that makes sense to most Americans. So. Yeah. Were there too many border crossings in 21 and 20? Yeah, there were way too many. There were way too many. We didn't understand. We let it get out. We let it get out of control because we didn't understand just how depressed the situation was in Central America. We didn't understand the number of people going over there. We were caught off guard. And so we turned it around. And after we turned it around, that's when we put this border security bill out there that border agents themselves support. Took us a couple of years to figure it out, and that was terrible. But it will never happen again. We learn from our mistake. Say that, and then, you know, if you're going to go on Fox and they're going to ask you about the 30,000 ads on transgender surgeries for convicts that taxpayers have to pay. Fargo. No, I oppose that. I said I supported in 19 Donald Trump. That was Donald Trump's law of the land. Well, I said it. That was actually his policy. I think we were both wrong. We were both wrong and going for it. Da, da, da, da, da. However you want to do it, whatever issue you want to talk about, you got to be able to say it and make sure that you're willing to stand up to the extremes in your party that are pushing an agenda that puts you, according to Reverend Al Sharpton, outside the mainstream of 80% of people, not only in your party, but 95% of people across America. Let me just quickly say. Let me just quickly say. I 100% agree with that. And it's the thing that Democrats that I've been talking to in the past 24 hours, they say their candidates are too worried about misstating something or offending someone or getting it wrong and getting that turned into some sort of viral moment, when in reality, I think Trump and to a degree, Joe Biden actually have proven that if you create a familiarity with the public, even if you screw up or say something offensive or put your foot in your mouth, the public, if they become familiar with you, will forgive you for that and they'll move on. And oftentimes these candidates are too cautious, too scared of offending, and therefore, they restrict the types of forms and outlets on which they go. But let me quote Reverend Al Sharpton right here from this morning. The Democratic Party is led by beltway insiders and not people on the ground. I exist only as a civil rights leader and I've lasted as long as I have because there is a huge vacuum that must be filled. And so you're exactly right. The Beltway insiders are the people who are seen is out of touch with middle class, working class Americans. Which gets me, Michael Beschloss, to something that's fascinating. I read in the New York Times today. And again, people going there, what are they doing? Why aren't they just saying the Donald Trump is evil? You can do that if you want to lose for the next four years. You can do that if you want to lose for the next eight years. This problem at this point is like the party and whether that's a Democratic Party or whether that's an independent party that fills a centrist role in American politics because right now only 32% of Americans support are identify as Democrats. But Michael Beschloss, the voting coalition that Donald Trump put together, and again, I would suggest not because of the things he said and the horrible statements that he said and the anti Democratic, pro authoritarian statements that he said, but because people were what were they were trying to get away from Democratic elitists. Right? No, I think that's exactly the coalition they put together. I'm sorry, I'm still thinking it's Friday, so I'm talking slower today. The coalition they put together, according to the New York Times, was a working class coalition across racial lines. I remember reading a beautiful book written about Bobby Kennedy. And after the assassination and as that train went from New York down to Washington, D.C. and people waving, black people on one side of the tracks waving flags, white people on the other side of the tracks waving flags. I'm sure you saw it. And as that train went past, they turned around and they went their separate ways. And there has not been an election where they came together and voted again. Now, let's not overstate Donald Trump's support among black voters. He did much better. But make no mistake, among Hispanic voters, they did come together with working class white Americans. So Donald Trump has in 2024 put together a working class coalition of white working class voters and working class voters of people of color. And that is Something if the Democratic Party does not think that is something they need to get under the hood of right now, today, this morning, then they are clueless. Yes, I totally agree with that. And you know, it's beginning to remind me, Joe, you know, you were showing the map of, you know, blue Democratic areas that won on Tuesday versus the red ones. You know, look where the blue areas are. The Democrats are in danger of becoming a regional coastal party. You know, the so called blue wall states. Well, they didn't prove to be a blue wall on Tuesday. So you've got states along the west coast, states along the east coast, couple in the northern Midwest. And the Democrats concede everything else and say, you know, we're going to essentially let that go because we're not going to be connected. So the result of that is that every single presidential election now becomes what it did on Tuesday, a Democratic presidential candidate having to thread the needle of making sure that he or she seizes those few potentially Democratic states. And if you lose one or two, and there was more than that on Tuesday, the Democrats are locked out. I'm not going to go so far as to say it's like the 1920s, but, you know, you grew up in the south, not in the 1920s, but. But in the 1920s, the Democratic Party was a relatively small, white racist regional party that was centered on the south. It was FDR in 1936 that was able to expand that coalition to the cities to bring in black voters. Black voters before the 1930s were not Democratic. Those were the white racists. Whether we like Donald Trump or don't like Donald Trump or approve of everything he says or does, you have to give him credit for what he did on Tuesday. No, absolutely. This was a red wave. This was a potential, a realignment, a movement that could last into the future. And the other thing is, you combine that with his ambition to be the strongest president in American history, plus owning both houses of Congress. How many times did we all say before Tuesday there was probably at least the prospect that the Democrats would control the House if there was a Trump victory. Are the Democrats going to control the House in the next two years? Doesn't look that way at this moment. So you've got Trump owning the whole Congress. I don't want to say owning the Supreme Court, but certainly a friendly compliance Supreme Court, one third of which he appointed. And with a plan to use the Defense and Justice Department and other federal agencies to create more presidential power in the White House than we've ever seen in two centuries. That's what we're facing. And anyone who neglects this is ignoring reality. For sure. Trump won resoundingly. He absolutely did. And just to close out the conversation, I just wonder, you know, moving forward, because it felt like this was missing for many years, actually, and that is how to engage Americans, especially willing young Americans, in civic duty. Something even to national service might be too extreme, but, but something that brings young people together to work toward a common goal. I think young people are fractured and lonely as is. But if you bring people together toward a higher goal that is around the concept of freedom and democracy, that process, to participate in the process of being a part of a democracy and understanding how fragile it is, I think would help a lot in the future because I don't think people were thinking about that in this election. And it may be something that we're thinking a lot about in the next couple of years. Yeah, it's important. And we're about to see for the next four years what that potentially looks like. But I think to cite Congressman Torres again, his explanation in his postmortem, effectively he's a Democrat from the South Bronx, was people who are struggling to pay their rent, people who are frustrated that they can't get the things they want for their family in this country because they're too expensive or the opportunity feels like it's not there, don't have the luxury of worrying about a grand concept of democracy. Right. No. And that's a very, that's a very, very real sentiment. And on the piece of young people, totally agree. You know, they're, they're on TikTok. And whether it's teenagers or college kids or people in their 20s. And Donald Trump is a superstar. We gotta watch this. And it's not about politics. It's not about policy. It's about a pop cultural movement. And they think he's funny because they see a clip or they can't believe he said the thing that you're not allowed to say. I'm not defending that. I'm just saying that's what's happening online. And to quote another Democrat while he's independent, Bernie Sanders, senator yesterday said, quote, it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party, which has abandoned working class people, would find the working class has abandoned them. First it was the white working class. Now it is Latino and black workers as well. That's from Bernie Sanders talking about the party he caucuses with. All right, presidential historian Michael Beschloss, thank you very much. And still ahead on Morning Joe, we're going to talk about what Donald Trump's victory means for the ongoing legal cases against him, NBC's Ken Delanian will break it all down for us. Plus, Steve Ratner is standing by with charts after exit polling showed the economy was a top concern for voters in this election. We're back in 90 seconds. This podcast is supported by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood Federation of America exists so all people can get access to the sexual and reproductive care and education they need. Planned Parenthood organizations advocate for health equity and policies that allow people the freedom to control their own bodies, lives and futures. More than 2 million patients a year rely on Planned Parenthood health center services like STI testing and treatment, birth control, gender affirming care, abortion, cancer screenings and more. 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Shop All Modern's early access to Black Friday sale now through November 20th at allmodern.com hey friends, Ted Danson here and I want to let you know about my new podcast. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes doing this podcast is a chance for me and my good bud Woody to reconnect after Cheers wrap 30 years ago. Plus, we're introducing each other to the friends we've met since, like Jane Fonda, Conan O'Brien, Eric Andre, Mary Steenburgen, my wife, and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And trust me, it's always a great hang when Woody's there. So why wait? Listen to Where Everybody knows your name wherever you get your podcasts. As we've discussed, one of the political realities of Donald Trump's election victory is that he likely will never face any legal accountability for the criminal charges brought against him. NBC News has learned Trump's legal team is now evaluating its next steps to get his four criminal cases resolved before he takes office in January. At the same time, the Justice Department also is looking to wind down its two federal criminal cases against Trump, who has promised to fire Jack Smith, the special counsel looking into these matters immediately. Let's get more detail now from NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delaney. And, Ken, good morning. What else are you hearing? Good morning, Willie. Well, look, looking at the way Jack Smith conducted this case during the election period and even before that, I had the impression, a lot of people had the impression that he was going to try to sprint through the finish line here, that he was going to continue litigating these cases even though he knew they couldn't go to trial right up until the moment that he was fired or that a new attorney general ordered him to stand down. But that's not what's happening. What we learned yesterday is that Jack Smith is in talks with Justice Department officials about how to wind down these two federal criminal cases even before Donald Trump takes office. And they're doing that because the Office of Legal Counsel has decided years ago, back in 2000, that a sitting president under DOJ policy can't be indicted and can't be prosecuted because that would interfere with the operation of the presidency. And so they're going to respect that even before Donald Trump takes office, they're going to try to figure out how to get him out of these cases. There are a few wrinkles here. Obviously, the classified documents case includes two other defendants, and it's been dismissed. But that dismissal is being appealed right now. And the DOJ would really like the appeals court to rule on that because they think Judge Cannon's decision in that case was really bad law. It says they can't appoint a special counsel. So that appeal may continue without Donald Trump in the case. But again, they are looking at ways to wind these cases down. And they may be helped by the fact that Donald Trump's lawyers may file documents making the argument that, look, these prosecutions can't continue. He's the president elect. And then they may respond by dismissing these cases. And the upshot here is that, look, there was no guarantee that Donald Trump was going to be convicted in either of these federal cases. But what it means is that no jury of his peers will get to decide based on the evidence whether he was guilty. And you guys were just talking about disinformation. There's so much disinformation about these cases, which are really very clear. And there's tons of evidence supporting the charges in both of them that Donald Trump hoarded classified information, that he allegedly obstructed justice, that he ordered his subordinates to destroy videos, things that were arguably worse than what Richard Nixon did in the scandal that cost him the presidency. But it looks like a jury is never going to hear and decide on that evidence, guys. And this is part of the reason Donald Trump was running for president to begin with. And it looks like it's going to work out for him. Let me ask you, Ken, about the New York hush money case. There's talk that Judge Mershon may now postpone or get rid of altogether the sentencing, which is scheduled for just a couple of weeks from now in late November. Where does that sit? It's a similar dynamic, except the discretion really lies with the judge here. Donald Trump's attorneys are going to make the argument they already have, that it's not appropriate for the judge to pass a sentence here with Donald Trump having been elected president and ready to take office. And it's really up to Judge Marshan. He can do a lot of different things, but one of the things he could do is just simply put this case on hold until Donald Trump, Trump leaves office four years from now. And that really, that potentiality underscores that there are a lot of questions really about all these cases, including the federal cases, which is, for example, what happens to the evidence? What if Donald Trump gets into office and orders all the evidence to be destroyed? And is there a chance that any of these cases could be resumed after Donald Trump leaves office? Or does the statute of limitation lapse? Lawyers are looking at all those questions. It's not entirely clear. But again, in the New York case, he may not actually be sentenced after all. NBC's Ken Delaney. And thank you very much. So according to NBC News exit polling, the economy was one of the top issues on the minds of voters as they cast their ballots on Tuesday. Joining us now with charts is former treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. And, Steve, you are looking at the metrics, Trump's win. Let's start with the issue of income. What did the numbers tell you? Yeah, of course, Mika. This is at the heart of the matter for almost every American. What is my purchasing power? How much can I buy? What's happening to my standard of living? And so let me show you what actually did happen over the last really decade or so. But if you go back to 2014, and these are all inflation adjusted Incomes, this is what you have after inflation. Incomes rose fairly steadily at about a rate of 1.3% all the way through the Trump administration. At 1.3% may not sound like a big number, but that's after inflation. That's more money that you have to spend. Ignore this. This was a Covid distortion during the Biden administration. You can see that they actually went down for a while. That was that big burst of inflation that we had and that lately they've been coming back and when all is said and done, they were basically flat for this period. And this bothers Americans and they feel that it was even worse because they don't really see these numbers, this chart exactly, but they feel this and they don't quite feel this. And so they basically say inflation is what's hurting them. And in fact, incomes did not do as well in the Biden administration and the Trump administration. We just have to put that out there. So, Steve, let's continue through the charts. So talk about the disconnect between how well America's economy is doing. We hear it all the time. America is in of the world. Every world leader says they would love to change trade places with the United States. The US Dollar at an all time are moving towards an all time high. The stock market at an all time high. S and P at an all time high. Talk about the overall economy. And then this segment of the economy that you say for working class Americans that you think drove the election in Donald Trump's direction, Inflation. Sure, Joe. So yes, as we've talked about on the show, I think as recently as last week, the American economy overall is doing fantastically well. The envy of the world. Everything we've been talking about growth, low unemployment and inflation coming down. But let's talk about how it affects the average American. One of the big things that I believe is lurking behind the fact that you have this huge right track, wrong track, upside down poll numbers that we've all seen so much of is the American dream. And the question of whether the American dream is still there. So let's just look at this one chart. If you go back to 1940, 90% of young Americans would by the age of 35, 30, rather make more money than their parents did. That has come steadily down. Some of that is somewhat natural as we became more prosperous, but it just continues to go down and down and down and down. And now you're down here at 50%. So only 50% of American parents should believe or will find that their son or daughter is making as much or more as they're making at the age of 30. That's not the American dream. The American dream is obviously each generation is supposed to do better than the one before. All right, and then your final chart, Steve, is about industrial wages falling behind. Tell us about it. Well, actually, Mika, before we do that, can I do my middle chart, which we didn't do your middle chart. Which one? Because it's in the same theme of what happens. And all the income inequality that we've had in this country over the last 20 years has led to some very different outcomes if you're a white child born in the bottom 25th percentile. So now we're back to the famous white working class. If you were born in 1978 versus being born in 1992 on an inflation adjusted basis, a child born in 1992 had 6% less income after inflation, all that at the age of 30 than at the age of 27, rather than a child born back here in 1978. So children are in this cohort of a white working class are making less and less and less each birth year that they have. In contrast, for the people at the top, they've actually been making a bit more for each child born. So you have this situation where children of white working class parents are making less each child year after year as they're born. Completely the opposite at the top. So let's also compare millennials to baby boomers. I'm a baby boomer. And see what their different situation is. So if you talk about homeownership, baby boomers, 62% of baby boomers owned a home, 49% of millennials owned a home at the same age of 35. So millennials worse off. If you look at negative net worth, that is being bankrupt. 14% of millennials are bankrupt by the age of 35. Only 9% of boomers were. If you look at wealth, millennials have, on average, 30% less wealth than baby boomers had at the same point in their life. But the top 10% of millennials actually had more wealth than the baby boomers. So you have huge wealth inequality among millennials. So these are all reasons why people feel that the American dream isn't what it was supposed to be. All right, now you can go to it. Sorry, Monica. Thanks so much. Industrial wages. Right, So I just heard some conversation about this, and you can see it right here very clearly. What's been happening. What's been happening is that the relative incomes. Who's making more relative to the average versus less than the average has been shifting. It's been shifting in favor of the coast. We were talking a few minutes ago about the coasts and the blue states, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York. You can see that their income relative to the national average, which was always a little bit higher, has now soared. Up here, the Midwestern states, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, you can see that their incomes, which were a little bit above but basically average, are now well below average. Why has that happened? It's happened a lot because of what's happened to the wages of mostly white working class Americans who work in factories. So here you can see a tool and die maker back in 1980 had almost a 20% higher income than the national average. Today, a tool and die maker has about 15% lower income than the national average. Machinists, metal fabricators, welders and soldiers, soldiers, not soldiers, solders. Their incomes all have gone down to well below the national average. A lot of this has to do with the decline in unionization, the effect of imports. Lots of things we can talk about. But the bottom line is these folks are making a lot less money compared to their other Americans than they used to. And so average incomes in the states are also lower. That explains a lot. MORNING JOE economic analyst Steve Ratner, thank you very much. And coming up on MORNING joe, the Biden administration appears to be preparing for a potential surge in border crossings before Donald Trump returns to the White House. NBC's Julia Ainsley joins us with that exclusive report next on Morning joe. Have you met All Modern? All Modern brings you the best of modern furniture and decor. And right now through November 20th, you'll score up to 50% off during their Early Access to Black Friday sale. Simplify your holiday entertaining with deals on plush sofas, modern tabletop essentials and more, all on sale at All Modern. Then get them delivered for free in days. You heard that right. Days. That's modern made simple. Shop All Modern's early access to Black Friday sale now through November 20th at AllModern.com hey, friends, Ted Danson here. And I want to let you know about my new podcast. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes doing this podcast is a chance for me and my good bud Woody to reconnect after cheers wrapped 30 years ago. Plus, we're introducing each other to the friends we've met since, like Jane Fonda, Conan O'Brien, Eric Andre, Mary Steenburgen, my wife, and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And trust me, it's always a great hang when Woody's there, so why wait? Listen to where everybody knows your name. Wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can set up chores, automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications, kids learn to earn, save and spend wisely. And parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money. With guardrails in place. Sign up for Greenlight today@Greenlight.com podcast. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered. These towns have been invaded and these towns have been actually conquered. Think of we're talking about the United States of America. And we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or at a minimum, kick them the hell out of our country. And force that was now President elect Donald Trump promising mass deportations, quote, on day one of his presidency. Now, NBC News has exclusive new reporting on a potential surge on the border before Donald Trump is sworn in. Joining us now, NBC News Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley. Julia, what have you learned about these promises and what else? Well, Mika, it's interesting, this planning meeting that we're finding out about that Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas had with his his top advisers and heads of ICE and Customs and Border Protection actually took place on Monday afternoon where they said, look, if Trump is elected, we might see a surge between when Biden leaves office and Trump comes in because there's so many immigrants who are going to think they have to come in now. So they started to look at bed space, how many people they could have at the border and whether or not the policies they have in place now that can rapidly deport people who don't apply or don't qualify for asylum could stay in place. Then looking at the reality that we saw after Tuesday night, they're starting to ramp up those discussions even more right now, Mika. They're not necessarily seeing a swarm of people coming, but they're paying attention to chat groups that we at NBC are watching, too. These are chat groups on WhatsApp, where smugglers advertise their services. I want to read you some of the things that they're saying on that on those chat groups. They say after the 21st of January, he'll close the borders with extreme security. These are translated texts that we have. We have until January to enter. My sister is still in Mexico. I can't sleep thinking of her. You have until the 10th of January. There is a chance, a lot of misinformation coming around these chat groups, sometimes from smugglers, trying to tell migrants, now is the time to come. We saw a surge as well toward the end of the Obama administration when there was this fear about Trump shutting down the border. But it very well could be, and there's already one caravan that they're starting to monitor, that we see a sharp surge in migration just before Trump takes office. Hey, Julie, it's Sam Stein. I'm kind of curious about the inverse of this, too, which is the people who are currently here who now fear deportation right away. And I'm wondering if you're picking up any sort of intel on how that's going in the states specifically. Are they looking for resources? Are immigration lawyers now high in demand? Are state governors getting ready for potential clashes with the incoming Trump administration around who can and should be deported and whether state resources should be used in the process? Are we at that point yet, or is that a little bit of a ways off? I think we are at that point because so many of those conversations were happening in the weeks and months leading up to this election. I was just in North Carolina the week before the election speaking with a family where they were having to decide, look, they have an undocumented father. The rest of the family is American citizens. Are they going to, as a family, leave and go to Mexico, a place their children know absolutely nothing about? Also, you talk about the way state and local police are maneuvering right now. There are some police, we've talked to sheriff departments who have said, sign me up. I want to work with the Trump administration to carry out mass deportations. In places like North Carolina, where I met that family, they have a 287 program that compels local law enforcement to work with ICE. But other cities, like sanctuary cities, have absolutely refused to work with ICE when it comes to the people who they are encountering because they think that hurts their relationships with these communities where they so desperately need people to cooperate and to be witnesses to crimes. But we have known, and we reported on this just before the election, that one of the tools the Trump administration would want to use to compel those sanctuary cities to get on board and to hand over migrants and to help them with mass deportations is to withhold federal funding from Justice Department grants to sanctuary cities. So that could be something of a fight that we see gearing up. It was already a legal battle in the first Trump administration but I think a lot of fear in those communities because really the numbers of illegal crossings at the border have gone way down. That could change in the months leading up to this Trump administration, as we're pointing out in this reporting. But it's internally where there's a lot of fear right now. NBC News homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley, thank you very much for being on this morning for your reporting. And still have you met All Modern. All Modern brings you the best of modern furniture and decor. And right now through November 20th, you'll score up to 50% off during their early access to Black Friday sale. Simplify your holiday entertaining with deals on plush sofas, modern tabletop essentials and more. All on sale at All Modern. Then get them delivered for free in days. You heard that right. Days. That's modern day made simple. Shop Allmodern's early Access to Black Friday sale now through November 20th at AllModern Combination.