this sunday, president trump and north korea. first, the stunning athounnounct of a meeting with kim jong-un. >> the president will not have the meeting without seeing concrete steps and concrete actions. >> then last night. >> they're not sending missiles up. and i believe that. i believe that. i really do. >> if the meeting happens, will president trump get a deal to reduce nuclear tensions or will kim jong-un get the elevated status he craves? the president makes it official. tariffs on steel and aluminum. >> you don't have steel, you don't have a country. >> many republicans are not on board. >> this plan will kill steel jobs in america. >> some democrats are all in. >> i agree with the president

and his approach on this. >> my guest, treasury secretary steve mnuchin and republican senator jeff flake. a stormy week. the white house denies an affair. then why did the president's lawyer get a restraining order to keep her quiet? finally, she denies she's running. elizabeth warren is sounding more and more like a presidential candidate. this morning my interview with the senator from massachusetts. if you win reelection you going to pledge to serve a full six-year term? joining for are "washington post" columnist eugene robinson. nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell, matt bai, columnist for yahoo news and peggy noonan, columnist for "the wall street journal." welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd.

good sunday morning. to be frank, we're running out of ways to say we have never seen a week like this before. let's review. monday, former trump campaign aide sam nunberg insists he will not comply with a subpoena. by friday, he was apairing before r before the grand jury. tuesday, trump's decision to slap tariffs on steel. wednesday, we learn president trump's lawyer obtained a restraining order to prevent stormy daniels from talking about her alleged affair with the president. wednesday night, mueller has learned that a secret meeting before the president took the oath was designed to create a back channel to the russians. thursday, president trump signs proclamations on the steel and aluminum tariffs. america's allies promise to retaliate. friday, we're all talking about the i alone can fix it president

who announced a meeting with kim jong-un. last night in pennsylvania, the president bashing opponents and praising himself while purpopo d purportedly campaigning. the screaming headlines and seat of the pants decisions is the presidency donald trump promised and the presidency he seems most comfortable with. >> you know how -- remember i used you how easy it is to be presidential. you would be so bored. >> president trump unleashed, campaigning in southwestern pennsylvania. the official reason, a stop for republican rick saccone. the president had another campaign in mind, his own. >> our new slogan when we start running in -- can you believe it, two year from now -- is going to be, keep america great! >> picking familiar targets as

well as a new one. >> can you imagine covering bernie or pol pocahontas? nancy pelosi, you can't have that. connor lamb, lamb the sham. >> the president stunned allies and his own advisers thursday night by announcing he will meet kim jong-un face to face, without preconditions tweeting, meeting being planned. that contradicted what his own secretary of state had said just hours earlier. >> we're a long way from negotiations. i think we need to be very clear eyed and realistic about it. >> white house officials scrambled to explain what exactly the president was announcing. adding new preconditions to the meeting. >> they have promised to denuclearize. we have to see actions take place. >> then walking those preconditions right back. >> they're not sending missiles up. i believe that. i believe that. i really do.

>> there was confusion this week on tariffs. >> your steel is coming back. >> with nearly half of his original white house staff gone or heading for the exit and his presidency mired in a federal criminal investigation, mr. trump has decided he is the only one who can achieve a white house reset. and he is going it alone, acting as his own negotiator and strategist. >> there will be people that change. that always change. >> mr. trump campaigned on being the only one able to strike tough deals. >> nobody knows the system better than me. which is why i alone can fix it. >> now he is tired of being reigned in and ignoring advice from those around him. as if all this weren't enough, the president is dealing with a growing sex scandal involving porn actress stormy daniels. the white house is trying to deny the relationship. >> he denied all of the allegations. >> sigh mul tmultaneously admit that they are trying to silence her. >> conversations can the president about this.

as i outlined earlier, that this case had been won in arbitration. >> joining me now is treasury secretary steve mnuchin, a principal on the national security council. has dealt with sanctions involving north korea. welcome back. >> thank you. it's good to be here. >> thank you for getting up so early on spring forward day out on the west coast. i am well aware how painful that is. thank you. >> just to be with you. >> let me start with something the president tweeted last summer, which is this. the u.s. has been talking to north korea and paying them extorpgs money fe extortion money for 25 years. talk being is not the answer. what changed? >> first of all, let me be clear. the president has been very clear in what the objective is here. and that is to get rid of nuclear weapons on the peninsula. we have been executing all year a maximum pressure campaign. it's been very effective, sanctions have been a big part of that. we have done more sanctions this year than the entire last ten

years. there's no question these sanctions are working. that's what brought him to table. >> let me ask you to respond to something that national reviews editors wrote this weekend under the headline, don't meet with him. they write this. north korean leaders have long sought summits with american presidents as the ultimate means of international legitimacy. what has kim done to deserve this? over the last nine months or so, he murdered, threatened guam and launched missile tests, including two that flew over japan. you cited tough sanctions. national review says how you can review kim with this when he murdered an american citizen, among other things? >> obviously, there's a lot of issues here. i do find it amusing that the president has been criticized over the last year for being too aggressive and many people said he should be using diplomacy. now we have a situation where the president is using diplomacy. but we're not removing the maximum pressure campaign. that's the big difference here.

the sanctions are staying on. the defense posture is staying the same as it is. the president is going to sit down and see if he can cut a deal. >> are there concrete actions the north koreans have to take for this meeting to happen as sarah sanders said? or not? there's confusion there. >> i don't think there's any confusion or there shouldn't be confusion. the president has made it clear the conditions are -- >> they have been met? >> there's no nuclear testing and there's no missiles and those will be a condition through the meeting. >> very -- are you comfortable elevating kim jong-un to this status? he is a dictator. some people think he's a murderous thug, not a leader of a nation. >> this isn't about elevating anybody. this is about the president has been very clear that he wants to do everything possible to protect america and its allies. that the existing situation of testing nuclear weapons

missmis mismis missles is unacceptable. he spoke to nato. more resolutions than before. this is a clear strategy that's working. >> what would make this meeting not happen? there was some officials who anonymously told "the new york times" this was less than 50% chance this meeting would happen. what could knock it off the agenda? >> clearly, if they don't meet their obligation on testing and on missiles, that's obviously a clear condition of the meeting. i would expect the meeting goes forward. i don't know why anybody would be handicapping this at 50%. >> fair enough. let me ask you this. do you believe the north koreans would have agreed to this if they didn't already have -- didn't believe they had the nuclear weapons they needed to have to sort of protect themselves? >> i have classified information of what they have and what they don't have.

so i'm not going to make comments or speculate on that. i do believe the reason a major reason why they're having this meeting is because the economic sanctions have had a very big impact on both their economy and their ability to get pieces of material and other things they need for their weapons programs. >> is denuclearization of the korean peninsula the american policy? is that what president trump is going to demand in any meeting with kim jong-un? >> absolutely. we have been very clear on it. that's the objective. that's what we're going to accomplish. >> any clue yet on where this meeting is going to happen? u.s. soil, korean soil? north or south? chinese soil? >> those logistics haven't been figured out yet. i'm sure we will be working on those issues. >> is there anything you ruled out? is there anything that's been ruled out of those three locations? >> nothing i'm prepared to comment on. >> i want to ask you about the president's rally last night. he made a few comments about

various folks. let me play one about somebody that you have to be in front of in congress quite frequently. take a listen. >> maxine waters, a very low iq individual. you ever see her? did you ever her? we will impeach him. we will impeach the president. but he hasn't done anything wrong. it doesn't matter. we will impeach him. she's a low iq individual. you can't help it. she really is. >> i think you most recently appeared before her committee. if somebody on your staff referred to her that way in public as a low iq person, would that person still be on your staff? >> chuck, you know, i've been with the president in ad campaigns. he likes to put names on people. he did that through the entire presidential election. including all the republicans that he beat.

so these are campaign rally issues. >> is this -- so it's -- you are saying that's acceptable behavior for the rest of the administration or is this unique to him? >> again, chuck, this is something that is at a campaign rally. the president likes making funny names. >> all right. let me ask you -- i will play another clip here about what the president said about the media versus kim jong-un. talk a listen. >> a lot of bad people -- a lot of fake media. look at them. a lot of fake media. fake, fake media. south korea came to my office having gone to north korea and seeing kim jong-un. no. it's very positive. no. >> the image of an american president encouraging boos of the american press corps and discouraging boos of a dictator from north korea. your reaction, sir?

>> as you know, first of all, this president has created lots of news. okay? and there have been lots of misreporting on the president. what you should focus on is, we have had a great week of results. so this is a historic situation of the president meeting with north korea with no preconditions on the united states side whatsoever as well as steel tariffs. this was a big week for our trade and economic policies. we have been focused on for the last year creating solid economic growth. that's been a combination of tax reform, which i think you know, a lot of people said would never get done. 30 years in the making. regulatory relief in trade. the president is focused on economic growth. we're well aware and on our way to our target of 3% sustained gdp. >> i understand you wanted to get back on an economic message. the president of the united states in the past has been a beacon of freedom of the press. instead, last night, he was praising authoritarian figures in china and north korea and

encouraging boos of the american president. do does this mean he will no longer preelong longer preach about freedom of the press and democracy around the world? >> of course, he believes in that. he believes in protecting democracy around the world. that's what we should be focused on, a week of policies. >> you keep saying that's -- if that's what we should be focused on, then why can't the president focus on that? >> i think the president has been very focused on that. >> would you call last night's speech a focused speech on that? >> i wasn't at the rally. don't take these campaign rallies and focus them on that's what it is. >> we should -- should we stop covering the campaign rallies? do you think it's a mistake to cover them, it doesn't matter what he says? if we're to dismiss everything he says at a campaign rally as i think you are trying to imply, then are you saying we shouldn't cover these things? >> you are putting words in my mouth. i wasn't saying you should

dismiss that whatsoever. you should obviously carry them, because these are important moments for the president. this is news. what i'm trying to say is, i'm focused on the policies. the policies have created results. we have had more results in the last year on both foreign policy and domestic matters. what we should be focused on and what i came to talk about were the president's policies. >> he chose not to do that. final question for you. many people, including myself, raise their kids to respect the office of the presidency and the president of the united states. when he uses vulgarity to talk about individuals, what are they supposed to tell their kids? >> again, i will be with my kids this morning and i will focus on what the president is doing to protect the united states, its citizens -- >> he's not a moral -- don't worry about list values, don h

>> i don't flknow why you are putting these words in what i am trying to say. i am very comfortable with what we are doing. i think you are trying to take this out of perspective and implying something i'm not saying. >> fair enough. what do you -- what are you supposed to say when he is using these vulgarities, to kids? >> again, i think you should be fouk focused on the policies. he is using these in the context of a campaign rally. obviously, there were a lot of funny moments on that rally. >> they were hilarious. secretary mnuchin, i appreciate you coming on. i know had yyou had to wake up . that i appreciate. >> thank you. earlier i spoke with jeff flake of arizona. i began by asking him about the president's rally last night. mr. trump's kind words for kim jong-un and his harsh words for the press. >> i don't flow wheknow where t.

he has done this before. referred to the press as the enemy of the people. he stood next to duterte as her frommed referred to the press as spies. wor words matter. we have a record number of journalists being jailed overseas, some on false news charges, echoing the phrases he uses. i don't think it's a responsible thing to do. i don't. >> you have gone to the floor of the senate and given multiple speeches, sort of condemning the different things he has done in the presidency, really less on policy, almost the way his actions -- the way he comported himself. he doesn't seem to listen. >> i think that the risk is that this becomes normalized. we take as normal what is abnormal. we should never normalize this kind of behavior, particularly from the president of the united states. so i think it does real damage long term to the political culture. it really does.

>> should the rest of your party be joining you in this? why don't they? why doesn't -- this gets to point where isn't it getting out of control? >> i can tell you, when -- every question you get in the hallway going to vote is about this. it becomes tiresome. i don't blame my colleagues for saying, hey, i'm just not going to comment anymore. i think it's our responsibility at least at some point when he goes so far to stand up and say, this is not normal, we should not normalize this behavior. >> speaking of something that's not normal, president of the united states sort of out of the -- not quite out of the blue, but bucking his advisers, agrees to this one on one with kim jong-un. you have said there's no good options with north korea. what do you make of this decision? >> it looks as if north korea has come to a point where they believe that they can be treated as a nuclear power. that's what it is about. >> you think he wouldn't be

doing this if he didn't have the weapons? >> right. they certainly don't have -- haven't been able to test enough to deliver a nuclear warhead here. they have a long way to go. but they are at some point where they feel, i think, that they have to be treated as a nuclear power. what i want to see -- i think what all of us want to see is the prep work done for this kind of meeting. i was one who said years ago when president obama during the campaign, during his campaign said i want to sit down, i will sit down with castro. i thought, good, a president ought to never rule that out. the important thing is the diplomatic work that has to go in before such a meeting. a meeting like that would be an after thought, after things are negotiated here. it looks as if that's kind of the opening g ining gambit. that's worrisome. >> given this is something north korean leaders, kim jong-un and his father have craved, a meeting with the american president, has kim already won?

>> it depends on what we do. if we say, step back, what work needs to be done. i can tell you, you don't want to sit down with the leader of north korea and give him that kind of victory unless you put the groundwork in, unless your diplomats have negotiated things. what does this do to our alliance s alliances? what do we -- there are a lot of things, dozens of meetings, high level meetings that need to happen before this. >> denuclearization should be the policy? >> i don't think anybody believes that north korea is prepared to denuclearize. maybe a freeze where they say, all right, we are a nuclear power, let's get security guarantees. denuclearization, if somebody is saying i've heard it suggested that that's what the north koreans have agreed to, i would question that. >> i know you want to introduce -- i want to go to the tariffs issue.

you have a bill you want to block the president's tariffs on steel and aluminum. are you ready to introduce that? do you want to wait to see how many exemptions the administration allows? >> it ought to be introduced now. >> there's not an exemption you are in favor of? >> when you say let's have tariffs but couple that with uncertainty, that's almost worst. those are dual poisons to the economy. tariffs are awful. tariffs married to uncertainty is probably even worse. and to have a president in a position to say, all right, australia, what are you going to do for me? wake up one day and say, you know, let's impose more tariffs here or there, that's an awful situation to be. where one person is basically deciding tariffs go up or down depending on what kind of behavior, is it something else he doesn't like? it's not the way to do business. >> the republican party the party of free trade?

>> it's tough to make that case right now. really. i'm not saying -- not suggesting what the president did wasn't popular in a lot of circles. it is. free trade is rarely popular out on the stump in a campaign. but usually, after the campaign, the congress gets together and says, all right, let's pass trade promotion authority or let's pass this trade agreement. i think we're going completely the wrong direction. we need to aggressively negotiate both bilateral and multilateral trade deals because we're going to be left behind. when we only represent just over 20% of the world's economy, only 5% of the world's population, if we don't trade, we don't grow. we need to trade. >> i know you are going to new hampshire. when people go to new hampshire, it raises questions about running for president. let me ask you this. do you have any regrets about retiring? >> you know, i love the senate. i love this institution. i love the congress. i'm not leaving because any ill

will toward my colleagues or this place. this is a great system of government. >> why are you leaving? >> i just can't as a republican, who believes in free trade, limited government, economic freedom, i couldn't be re-elected in my party right now. somebody who voices reservations about where the president is or criticizes his behavior like last night, it's tough to be re-elected in a republican primary. >> he is running for re-election already. he announced that last night. do you think he needs to be challenged from somebody who espouses your views? >> i do. it would be a tough go in a republican primary. the republican party has -- is the trump party right now. but that's not to say it will stay that way. >> senator jeff flake, republican from arizona, good to talk to you. >> good to talk to you. >> more presidential news than we intended to make. we will break down the president's decision on north

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♪ welcome back. panel is here, eugene robinson, andrea mitchell, peggy noonan and matt bai. national political columnist for yahoo! news. okay. >> wow. >> yes. >> where do we start? >> yes. i want to start with north korea. andrea, let me start with you. this was in politico. it was a blind quote from a former bush administration official nervous about this kim jong-un meeting. "trump does not have bad meetings. he has had bad phone calls. this is going to be a huge victory for kim." how does -- how does any meeting between trump and kim not turn into a victory for the north

koreans? >> it's hard to imagine how it doesn't. first of all, they have had a victory by setting the terms and by having the meeting itself, as you were pointing out. this is what all north korean leaders have wanted. they've wanted legitimacy from an american president. it's not prepared. there was no letter, despite leaks there was. we do not yet know what he is really offering. the treasury secretary with you repeated the phrase, denuclearization, our objective is denuclearization of the korean peninsula. that is a trap. the korean peninsula means we eliminate our nuclear umbrella from our allies. what we want is for him to give up his illegal weapons, not for us to give up our nuclear security umbrella for south korea and japan. this just shows you the lack of, shall we say, competence or familiarity with these details.

they do not have a south -- a north/south korean expert. they don't have an ambassador. their top expert just quit in frustration, i am told, because he could not -- tillerson would not take him to white house meetings. there's no one in the house who knows this issue. >> okay. you know what -- hadn't worked for 25 years. >> sure. i understand that. he says, you know, people say they want diplomacy. they want diplomats running around. we have had diplomats running around. everything got worse. you have to know two things about this meeting. one is, we don't have any idea what's going to happen. you can argue maybe something good, maybe something bad. the other is, though, it's high risk. here is how it's high risk. normally, you are talking to a country, negotiating private channels, getting things going. and as they go well, you get a gift. the gift is the meeting. but you have prewired the negotiation. this is giving the gift and the

reward ahead of time in hopes that it will guarantee good wiring and a good meeting. that's chancy. nobody knows how this goes. >> what happens is the other party takes the gift, says, thank you very much and then starts once again from a maximalist position. what i think is riskier, though, is to have donald trump and kim jong-un hurling insults and threats at each other. >> true. >> yeah. >> and to have a u.s. administration talking about the absurd, catastrophic idea of giving a bloody nose to north korea, some sort of limited strike, that could immediately mushroom into a local armageddon. so i think, great, if they want to sit down and talk, that's better than this alternative, which is where we seem to be drifting.

>> except, i think the best and most interesting moments of the trump presidency are when he throws the orthodoxies to the wind and does a snap, does his own thing. that's what people wanted from him. that's what makes him an interesting president at his best moments. except the problem i have is that he has at every turn shown a really unsettling appreciation for or at least lack of antipathy toward tyranny. and autocracy. if you are going to sit down with tyrants and autocrats, you have to have, i think, as an president, one would think it's a given to have a deep felt conviction about the supremacy of democracy. >> especially if they flatter him. >> you don't hear that from him. >> one quick point is, he wants results. if he would go into a meeting -- i don't think it's a great idea at the front end. if you would go in saying, our experts will work and do -- this is a get to know you. but he wants results. he will be impatient. what is the down side if he gets angry at what he experiences? then it escalates. you have no other option.

>> then you don't have diplomacy to go to because you have exhausted your diplomacy. then things go boom. that's the scary part. >> he likes to come out of meetings with success. i predict he will claim success, if there is -- >> no matter what. >> he will claim success. the actual success will have been had by kim. >> that's what he promised. he's the dealmaker. >> i have to bring up last night's rally. to me, it was a culmination of a week he loved his presidency. this was the presidency he dreamed of. but what was funny is about how he sort of mocked the idea of being presidential. watch. >> yes. >> i'm very presidential. ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight. rick saccone will be a great, great congressman. he will help me very much. then you go, god bless you, and god bless the united states of america. thank you very much.

>> peggy, i want to tee you up here because he went after you. but you are a nice lady. you write about him being a neanderthal. we looked at your column this week. you note this. you say centrists and moderates are trying to wrap their head around him. it's crazy, but maybe it's working. then you write this, crazy doesn't last, crazy doesn't go to the distance, it's an unstable element that when let loose in an unstable environment explodes. if the president is the way he is on a good day, what will he be like on a bad day? it all feels so dangerous. >> yeah. that was a column in which i tried to wrap my head around how many folks in business and folks on the ground in american politics, moderates, centrists look at this white house and they say, in terms of this, this and this, this is kind of working. then i look at this, this and this, his actions, and i think he is kind of crazy. they have to go, it's kind of working.

he is kind of crazy. it causes a certain disquiet and confusion. i have to say in fairness -- isn't disquiet a great word? >> so crazy it just might -- >> that was a very little funny routine. he is not wrong about all those people. >> it was very -- it was spoofy, and there was -- i think he was making fun of the false formality meant to give an air of seriousness to many of our politicians. i would like to note, he seems to think that in this column i called him a neanderthal. i did not. i would not have. i have been studying neanderthals. they had great cave paintings. those paintings spoke of a certain sensibility, a certain artistic complexity. their tribes were organized. i would not call him a neanderthal. >> you got to stop there, guys. when i come back, it's

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neutrogena®. see what's possible. welcome back. is senator elizabeth warren running for president? here is what she says. >> no, aim ni am not running fo president. i am not running for president. i am running in 2018 for senator from massachusetts. >> many have noted her comments are in the present tense, as if i'm not technically running for president at this moment. i may be running for something in the future. warren has been raising her profile in a manner that has some asking, not if she's running, but when she will announce. i talked to senator warren late yesterday. i began by asking her what she thinks of president trump's

decision to meet with kim jong-un. >> i want to see our president succeed, because if he succeeds, america succeeds. the world is safer. but i am very worried that they're going to take advantage of him. and it starts right where you ask this question. and that is, leaders of north korea for a very long time, the kim family, has wanted to meet face to face with a u.s. president. that is a win for them. it legitimatizes in their view their dictatorship and legitimatizes their nuclear weapons program. before they get that kind of prize, we should insist that they make some real changes. verifiable changes to their programs. >> senator, the president would say, hey, we have tried it all sorts of traditional ways for 25 years. it hasn't worked, whether it's having the proper country to country relationships.

none of that worked. what's wrong with trying to shake things up? >> look, i'm in favor of shaking things up if you are sensible about it. the idea of handing them the prize that we're going -- north korean dictator is going to show up in the photograph with an american president, that's the prize. that's the part they want. >> mark warner, one of the original drafters of dodd-frank, you and he are on opposite sides of this legislation that is trying to revoke some provisions in dodd-frank that have do with providing relief, what he says for community banks and credit unions, smaller banks. barnie frank says this is not going to make a serious dent in dodd-frank. why are you opposed to these changes? >> if this were a bill about community banks, i would be all on board. but i oppose this bill because

it's not. actually, i think barnie opposed it as well. >> he does oppose it. he also said he didn't think it was going to do much damage. >> well, but let's talk about that. it takes 25 of the largest 40 banks in america. those 25 got more than $50 billion in taxpayer bailouts. nobody went to jail. it says, let's regulate them as if they were tiny little community banks that couldn't do any danimage to the economy. let's be clear. a quarter of a trillion dollar bank is not a community bank. >> it's not unusual for democrats to disagree. but some are taking issue with the tone you use to disagree with democrats. they were not happy when you sent a fund-raising e-mail and anonymous attacks on you. but here is one blind quote. you want dems to win in all 50 states and the conditions that north carolina and montana agree with the senior senator from massachusetts all the time?

this is the republicans' dream, to see democrats work across the aisle and elizabeth warren kill them for it. how do you respond? >> look, i don't understand how anybody in the united states senate votes for a bill that's going to increase the likelihood of taxpayer bailouts. this bill also makes it easier for banks that discriminate against people on home mortgages, charges more for african-americans or latinos than they do for whites, makes it easier to cheat people who buy mobile homes, that those are the homes they live in. i don't think that a bill like that is good for anybody in america. this isn't democrats or republicans or blue states or red states. i think that we do better as a country and we do better as a congress when we're there to fight for working people and not for wall street banks. >> if you win re-election this year, are you going to pledge to serve a full six-year term?

>> i am not running for president of the united states. i am running for the united states senate 2018, massachusetts. but let me actually make -- underline a point on this. we can't just be a party that says, we're paying attention about what happens every four years. i know there's a lot of anxiety, particularly on the democratic side, about how we are going to deal with donald trump in 2020. right now, this week, the united states senate is talking about a bill that will roll back protections. we've got the dreamers, we've got the tax bill that's gone through. we're still fighting to provide health care for everyone. we have now -- we should be having a gun debate on the floor of the united states senate. it's not only about the election in 2018, where i think we do need to be laser focused. but it's about the fights every

single day. i'm in those fights. that's where i'm focused. >> no, you are not pledging to serve your full six-year term? >> i have no intention of running for president. >> i don't mean to pick on you. >> you do. >> you know how many people have said that over the years, two years before, and have one -- ended up running for president? you see why a lot of people won't believe that answer? >> look, what i'm telling you is that i am in these fights every day, for the people of massachusetts, and for the people across the country. this government is working better and bet ater for a thin e and thinner slice at the top. i am in these fights. i am in this fight to retain my senate seat in 2018. that's where i'm focused. that's where i'm going to stay focused. i'm not running for president. >> no pledge on the six years? >> i am not running for president. >> duly noted. i want to get you to respond to the berkshire eagle editorial.

i will put it up for viewers. were you to test positive -- they want you to take a dna test. were you to test positive for native american dna would resolve the issue while possibly shutting down president trump. should the test come up negative it would be an opportunity for the senator to perform an act rarely seen among politicians. what do you make of that idea? >> let me tell you the story of my family. my mother and daddy were born and raised in oklahoma. my daddy first saw my mother when they were both teenagers. he fell in love with this tall, quiet girl who played the piano. head over heels. but his family was bitterly opposed to their relationship because she was part native american. they eventually eloped. they survived the great depression, the dust bowl, a lot of knocks. they raised my three brothers,

all of whom headed off to the military and me. they fought. they loved each other and most of all they hung together for 63 years. that's the story that my brothers and i all learned from my our mom and our dad, from our grandparents, from all of our aunts and uncles. it's a part of me. nobody is going to take that part of me away. >> senator warren went on to claim she never benefitted from her native american heritage. you can see my interview at meetthepress.com. meetthepress.com. be back with we've been preparing for this day. over the years, paul and i have met regularly with our ameriprise advisor. we plan for everything from retirement to college savings. giving us the ability to add on for an important member of our family.

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end game, brought to you by boeing, continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore and inspire. >> back now with end game. as if we needed more stuff, this stormy daniels situation, it's salacious, predictable headlines. i want to put out what michelle goldberg wrote. it's becoming clear, it's not really a sex scandal and potentially part of an ongoing national security scandal. it's salacious and absurd but we should take it seriously. >> i don't think so. you know how i am on stuff like this. this makes me uncomfortable. we have spent the last three decades saying, we don't care about your sex life. we care about your hypocrisy. you are telling us how moral you are. we catch you being immoral.

donald trump is not guilty of hypocrisy. he has been all over the place saying he has affairs. he bragged about his sex life, likening it to vietnam. >> my gosh. >> trying to evade diseases during the sex. >> saying, i don't have a problem with -- >> look, i have enough reasons on policy and on behavior to be unsettled deeply by this presidency. i don't need this. >> i think there is plenty of hypocrisy going around. the president is lying about the stormy daniels affair. he had sarah sanders come out and tell a story that really made no sense. >> lying every day about important stuff. >> people get that. i also think frankly it raises the question about president trump supports and why the evangelical community, why people who in the past have been aghast at lapses of presidential morality seem to be almost

french at this point. >> i think part of the reason is what matt says about trump never put himself forward as morally exemplary. one of the things that hits me about the stormy daniels story is that it doesn't seem to have an impact on anything. the reason i think is that those who don't like donald trump, it's more confirmation of their dislike. those who like him never had the illusion that this was an exemplary reasoperson. i said who are you electing? they are a junkyard dog. >> access hollywood, that tape proves that people, voters have discounted this. they accept the fact that he was a womanizer and there's a vulgarian in the oval office. i think the lying is an issue. lying from the podium is an

issue. i hate the fact that they are lying about trade deficits. he is misstating the facts. that's important. i do think that transparency and hon he honesty is something we need to expect from our president. >> melania may came about this story. he is feeling isolated, perhaps by his team and suddenly you are not there. this morning the president is tweeting about his legal team. >> generally as president if you are tweeting about changes in your legal team, things aren't going the way you might have hoped. >> very comfortable denying "the new york times" story he is unhappy with his legal team, he name checks them out. >> that's today. >> part of the tweet that came out said, that was by maggie, who was given no access. >> it's the person he calls up first. >> he calls up first. he drags into the office. >> who doesn't like the fact the lawyer that they -- maggie wrote

about him hiring is an impeachment expert. that speaks desperation. >> the word impeachment was in the story. >> they are very worried about where mu where mueller is going. they're in negotiation into how to put the president out there or not. they are worried about the outcome. >> if you were the president's lawyers would you want him in a room with those prosecutors under oath? >> guess what the alternative is? p protracted legal argument which they will lose and something donald trump might be only president to take, take the fifth. that's the equivalent to shooting people on fifth avenue, and get away with it.

>> his only legal jeopardy is -- >> not the silliness of giving bob mueller a -- >> of all days to lose an hour, this was a day we needed an extra hour and then some. >> to avoid being sleepy eyed. >> there's that, too. that's all we have for today. neanderthals, sleepy eyes and all. we will be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." >> you can see more end game in post game sponsored by boeing, on the "meet the press" facebook page.

breaking overnight, president trump's white house promises to train teachers, background checks and a lot more. >> also, five passengers aboard a helicopter that crashed into new york city's east river. >> massive power grab. china's leader now has the option to stay in a tough job for life, prompting feeshs of a strong man for life mentality. >> and a unique avalanche rescue team. >> are you serious? are you serious? >> and