this sunday, when will this end? the government shutdown now in its 23rd day. negotiations going nowhere. >> our meeting did not last long. >> and he just got up and said, then we have nothing to discuss and he just walked out. >> president trump says he can declare a national emergency. >> i haven't done it yet. i may do it. if this doesn't work out, probably i will do it. >> then insists he doesn't want to. >> i'd rather not do it because this is something that congress should easily do. >> with neither side giving in and congress not even in town, is there any way out of this mess? joining me this morning, republican senator ted cruz of texas and democratic senator tim kaine of virginia.

plus, the bombshell russia story. "the new york times" reports the fbi opened an investigation into whether the sitting president was secretly working for russia against the united states. at the heart of the probe, mr. trump's firing of fbi director james comey and evidence that he linked it to the russia investigation. >> i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse. >> the president responds by harshly criticizing comey and other fbi leaders. we'll have "new york times" reporter michael schmidt and ben wittes on what this could mean for the mueller investigation going forward. and joining me for insight and analsds are democratic pollster cornell belcher, peggy noonan, republican strategist al cardenas and nbc news national political reporter carol lee. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this

is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. we have two stories that are driving this day. the first, that explosive story posted by "the new york times" on friday night that in 2017 the fbi opened an investigation into whether president trump was working as a russian asset as the sitting president against interests of the united states. the investigation was opened after mr. trump fired fbi director james comey because he mentioned the russia investigation in his dismissal letter to comey and because the president told my colleague, lester holt, that he fired comey in part because of the russia investigation. now, it's important to note that "the times" says no evidence has emerged publicly that mr. trump was in fact working for the russians when he fired mr. comey. the second big story is this government shutdown now in it's 23rd day and now officially the longest ever. what we're seeing is not so much the consequences of divided government, which voters say they like because each party acts as a brake on the other.

what we're seeing are the consequences of a polarized government with two parties that often don't talk to each other, sometimes can't talk to each other, and right now may not want to talk to each other. caught in the middle, some 800,000 federal employees who are out of work and not currently getting paid. that has actually led some in washington to hope president trump follows through on his constitutionally questionable threat and declare a national emergency. if he does, this would be a national emergency designed to solve his own political emergency. >> shutting down the government is not governing. >> for president trump, the focus on a wall and the symbol it represents to his supporters may be the political crisis he needs to deflect focus from his own legal jeopardy. >> they can name it whatever -- they can name it peaches. i don't care what they name it. but we need money for that barrier. >> but ultimately the shutdown leaves the president boxed in and weakens him for the fights

ahead. mr. trump responded to "the times" story about the fbi's counterintelligence investigation tweeting that it was opened for no reason and with no proof and attacking james comey as a total sleaze. >> are you now or have you ever worked for russia, mr. president? >> i think it's the most insulting thing i've ever been asked. i think it's the most insulting article i've ever had written. and if you read the article, you'd see that they found absolutely nothing. >> the president's mounting legal problems are the backdrop to the shutdown stalemate. mr. trump and democrats are both dug in with no end in sight. >> i don't want to give an easy way out of something as simple as this. >> i'm a mother of five, grandmother of nine. i know a temper tantrum when i see one. >> after floating the idea of a, quote, national emergency -- >> we don't make a deal, i would say it would be very surprising to me that i would not declare a national emergency.

>> on friday the president said he is not olympiplanning to dec one after all. >> i have the absolute right to do it, but i'm not going to do it so fast. >> we need to have an end game. if the end game is an emergency declaration by the president, do it. do it now. >> but most republicans panned the idea. >> tomorrow the national security emergency might be climate change, so let's seize fossil fuel plants or something. >> democrats also see no incentive to negotiate. >> let's put all of this in context, right? the president at this point is holding the american people hostage over his vanity project. >> most republicans are standing with the president for now. >> it is laughable to think that you can seal a 1,900-mile border without some sort of barrier. >> but the shutdown is already causing pain. >> we want to work. we're not pawns. we're not bargaining chips. we're people. >> including for mr. trump's own voters. >> i'm starting to get scared. i've been a trump supporter.

i think he's done a lot of wonderful things, but this is not one of them. >> one white house advisor appeared to compare the shutdown for furloughed workers to a vacation. >> we have a shutdown and so they can't go to work and so then they have the vacation, but they don't have to use their vacation days. and then they come back and then they get their back pay, then in some sense they're better off. >> and joining me now from houston is republican senator ted cruz of texas. senator cruz, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> chuck, always good to be with you. >> let me start with the fact that you're in houston and not here. you're not the only one. i have senator kaine on and he's coming to me from richmond and not here. why isn't the united states senate here, sir? >> well, it's very simple. i'm here over the weekend, as most senators go home to the state and come home during the weekend. i came back to texas on thursday to travel with the president to go down to the border. and so working down here, meeting with stakeholders on the border, meeting with border patrol agents, meeting with i.c.e. officials, meeting with

families who have had family members murdered by criminal illegal aliens, and so i'm down here doing my job. i'll be back in washington on monday. i hope on monday what we'll see is finally washington coming together and opening up the government. what that's going to take is for the democrats to move off the position that they have been taking so far of no compromise, no movement. their extreme position, they have got to be will to give in on. >> does the president need to move? he hasn't moved at all publicly. it's not clear what the offers are other than concrete to steel. >> chuck, that's actually not accurate. the president has said over and over again, i've been in the room when he's said it, that he's more than willing to compromise, he's more than willing to meet in the middle. the reason we have a shutdown is -- let's go back to december. in december the then republican house passed funding for the entire federal government. it included $5.7 billion for an additional 234 miles of steel

barrier. when it got to the senate, chuck schumer and the democrats filibustered that bill. every democrat said no, we will not allow the government to be funded so long as they're building even a single mile of barrier. that's why we have a shutdown. that's not a reasonable position. the president's position has been he's perfectly happy to negotiate, to compromise. he said many times it doesn't have to be $5.7 billion, he could find some other number, but the democrats have said no. the only thing they're willing to consider is zero, zero, zero. that is not reasonable and that's why we have a shutdown. >> senator, you yourself i think in 2017 -- you were lamenting the fact that here you had all republican control of the house, the senate and the white house, and things weren't moving very quickly. he didn't make his case for a wall. he didn't -- he didn't plow the field over those two years to try to make this work, and he tried to jam it in at the last minute. isn't this on the president for his lack of being able to get

congressional republicans to come together much earlier? >> you know, i don't think that's true at all. i don't think it's the president's fault that chuck schumer and nancy pelosi and the democrats are being political. if you look at the two years we had republican control of both houses, we saw incredible forward progress. we saw an historic tax cut. we're seeing booming economic results. we've got the lowest african-american unemployment that has ever been recorded, the lowest hispanic unemployment that's ever been recorded -- >> but my question is about the immigration issue. >> all right, let's take it -- >> he didn't do anything to try to actually get republicans united on this and he jammed it through at the last minute. >> well, but that's not actually right. you remember the fairly remarkable oval office meeting between chuck schumer and nancy pelosi and the president, and nancy pelosi said then, she said, mr. president, you can't pass this in the house. she basically said i dare you, you don't have the votes. he said yes, i do. she said no, i don't, i dare you. so he turned around, took it to

the house which was republican and they passed it. and, chuck, here's the ridiculous thing about the position of senate democrats. this is not substantive. they voted for it before. chuck schumer and every single democrat in the senate in 2013 voted for 350 miles of additional border fencing and border security. they have now shut the government down on 234 miles. and so i think an awful lot of people are asking, well, if you voted for 350 miles, why would you force a shutdown on 234. that is not reasonable, and the president remains willing to come together and compromise but so far the democrats don't want to do that. >> why not open up the government and just -- and move the homeland security debate to the side and debate that while you pay government workers? >> well, the house passed a bill opening the government, funding all of the government and securing the border. the democrats' position can't be

we've got to force a shutdown. we're going to hold -- what the democrats are saying we're going to hold federal workers hostage. you've got my friend tim kaine coming on in a minute, he represents virginia. there are a lot of federal workers in the commonwealth of virginia. if tim kaine and mark warner were to say we're going to put the jobs of the men and women of virginia ahead of our partisan interests, ahead of the fact that our base hates donald trump, tim kaine and mark warner, it would take only five more democrats in the senate to have the votes to say this second schumer shutdown is over. we're reopening the government and we're going to implement common sense border security that the american people want. >> and i think they would say the same thing about you and your fellow republican is and t political base. i want to move to another topic. >> i want to say something on that point, chuck. there is a difference between one side, the democrats, who are saying we will not move, we will not compromise, we will not negotiate, and the other side, the president who is saying i'm

happy to negotiate and what he's proposing, the democrats have already voted for. they're playing politics because they hate trump and that's not a good enough reason for chuck schumer and the democrats to shut down the government. "the new york times" reported on friday night that the fbi after the comey firing because of what the president said, both in a letter to mr. comey and to my colleague lester holt, they opened up a counterintelligence investigation concerned that a sitting president was working on behalf of a foreign agent. how much of a concern is this to you? >> well, i don't know the details of the specifics there. i know what was reported publicly in the media. and i sit on the senator judiciary committee, so we will consider any allegations that come forward. but i'll tell you, chuck, something that is really interesting. you and i work in washington, but i also come back to texas just about every week. i'm back outside the beltway. there is an incredible divide between washington and the rest

of the country when it comes to bob mueller and the russia investigation. the mainstream media, washington is obsessed with it. and when you get outside the beltway, i don't find anybody concerned with this at all. they're concerned with jobs, lower taxes, higher wages, more opportunity. they're concerned with securing the border. so the questions i get are not about the latest obsession and allegations about russia, russia, russia. they're about, hey, when are we actually going to secure the border? when are we going to keep making this country safer? that's going to stay my focus. i'll consider whatever evidence is produced but i'm not going to base it on unsubstantiated media reports. >> how about on the foreign relations committee, "the washington post" is reporting that the president is not sharing what he discusses with vladimir putin behind closed doors. do you think you guys in the senate ought to, for instance, subpoena a translator so that you have a real readout of what the president and vladimir putin

are saying to each other? >> i think it's premature for that. i've seen the allegations. i want to find out a little bit more about what happened there. i want to learn more than just the allegations in the press. listen, i will say if you compare objectively president trump's policies to russia compared to president obama's policies to russia, by any measure president obama was much easier, was much more gentle on russia. you and i both recall obama leaning over on a hot mike and saying just before the 2012 election, tell vladimir i'll have a lot more flexibility after the election. now, there they weren't keeping notes, it just happened to be a network had a camera going. if you compare substance -- for example, trump went to nato and urged the europeans don't let the russians build a pipeline through europe. you want to talk about what actually makes a difference, standing up to russia, that on policy was far, far more important than much of the weakness and appeasement we saw

under obama. >> finally before i let you go, i want to get you to comment on your colleague tim scott's op-ed in "the washington post" about steve king, iowa congressman, who was your national co-chair for president. some in our party wonder why republicans are constantly accused of racism. well, it is because of our silence when things like this are said. king's comments are not conservative views but separate views that should be ridiculed at every turn possible. he questioned why we find phrases like white nationalism to be offensive. where are you on this, sir? >> well, listen, tim is a good man and a good friend. he and i have worked together on many, many issues. what steve king said was stupid. it was stupid, it was hurtful, it was wrong, and he needs to stop it. i think all of us ought to be united, regardless of party, in saying white supremicism is h e hatred, it is bigotry, it is

wrong and i'm going to urge everyone to provide that clarity. >> are you going to support him in the future? >> you know, what i'm going to do is urge everyone to stand for principles that matter. this same weekend in texas, there was a movement from some activists that asked to remove a local official in ft. worth who was a muslim. i spoke out actively because it was my home state, i spoke out actively against that. i said, listen, we believe in religious freedom, we believe in free speech, we believe in diversity. ultimately the voters in the tarrant county gop did the right thing. they didn't remove that official, so i'm going to speak out and engage. when it comes to speaking out against bigotry, whether it is the klan or nazis or anything else, i have a lifetime of standing up to that bigotry and i'll continue it. >> senator cruz, appreciate you coming on and sharing your views this morning. thank you, sir. >> thank you, chuck. joining me now from the other side of the aisle and from richmond is democratic senator tim kaine of virginia.

welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks, chuck. >> why are you guys not here? why aren't you in washington this weekend trying to force a way to open up this government? >> well, chuck, we are trying to work a deal over the weekend to open the government, but i'll tell you why we're not here. i objected to adjourning in the senate on thursday because i have been talking to all of these victims of the trump shutdown. it was president trump who said he would be proud to shut down the government, that it would be on him. he's done that. people are hurting, worrying about missing mortgage payments, having to reschedule medical appointments. so i objected to the adjournment on thursday, which is very, very rare. then i ended up working a doeal with the majority leader that we would be in on friday, the day when people missed their paychecks and the shutdown became tied for the longest ever and the republicans agreed to fast track and pass my guarantee of back pay. i was a co-sponsor of a bill to

guarantee back pay for every federal worker. we got it passed unanimously in the senate. president trump has agreed to sign it. the house passed it friday morning. so i think we should be in, but i was able to get the senate and the house to act to protect our federal employees. i've been on the phone all day yesterday and i'll be on the phone today with republican colleagues trying to find that path so we can reopen government. >> is it time to give the president something here? let me put up a quote here from the virginia delegation, abigail spanberger, who just won from a district that president trump carried. she said this. if i am getting comments and contact from my constituents expressing concern that the democrats are not prioritizing skourt, then i think we can do better. she's obviously concerned that it looks like the democrats aren't for any border security. do democrats have to meet the president somewhere north of where they are now? >> chuck, the willingness of

democrats to invest billions of dollars in border security is not in doubt. in 2013 we did a bill in the senate that ted cruz voted against that was going to invest $40 billion plus over ten years. cruz voted against it, house rips killed it, democrats support border security. in february of this year, we took a deal to the president, $25 billion in border security, 46 out of 49 dems voted for it. senator cruz voted against it. president trump killed the deal. at the end of december, we reached a deal with the republicans, ampl eboaeample bo security funding. in the committee and on the floor we submitted it three weeks ago. president trump put out a tweet that he didn't like it and republicans have fled for the hills. democrats invest over and over and over again in border security. just this week republicans, led

by lindsey graham, tried to negotiate a deal of border security and president trump blew up the negotiations. this is a guy who has prayed for a shutdown. and get this, chuck, who he is injuring? we've got 13,000 fbi agents, more than 10,000 bureau of prison prison guards, air traffic controllers, coast guard folks who interdict drugs, all of them working without pay because of this president's shutdown and yet he says he cares about national security when he's taking paychecks away from hard-working public safety professionals? it makes no sense. all that has to happen is the republicans have to be willing to vote the way they did just three weeks ago, open up government and we'll dialogue about border security. >> it does sounding lik like, t you're willing to support some fencing, barriers, if they call it something else, if it reopens the government. >> we first should reopen government. why punish people who are applying for food stamps because

the president is having a temper tantrum. open government first. but democrats have always been willing to investment in border security. chuck, all we want to do is make sure that it's spent the right way. drugs come in through ports of entry. let's beef up ports of entry. the biggest group of undocumented people in the country come in on legal visas and overstay. if you build a million foot wall, it won't deal with that problem. what we don't want to do is waste taxpayer money on a vanity project that's ineffective that the president said mexico would pay for. but spending massive amounts on border security to keep us safe, dems do it over and over again and it's been republicans that have been blocking it. >> senator, on the campaign trail in 2016 you spent the last two months regularly questioning the president, at that time candidate donald trump's ties to vladimir putin, complimentary ways he talked about things. so you have those questions that you had as a candidate. now you have this story in "the new york times" that as the fbi

worried that the president acted on comey at the behest of the russian government. what does that tell you where things are now? does that mean that democrats should be looking at actually beginning impeachment proceedings? or is this something you think let the mueller probe go first? how much more do you know? >> yeah, chuck, we've got to protect the mueller investigation. you're right, i was very worried about this in 2016 because the president took a public stage in july and encouraged russia to cyber hack the election at the same time as my son and his entire battalion were deployed helping allies on the border of russia protect themselves against russian aggression. i found that highly unusual for any american, much less somebody who wanted to be president. but now what we have is nearly 100 documented instances of ties between the trump campaign

transition and administration with russia, bizarre failure to be honest about meetings and now this indication that president trump has gone to unusual lengths to hide the content of discussions with vladimir putin. but the right answer is, as you suggest, it is to protect the mueller investigation at all costs. let it get to its end. make sure that the results are made public so then we can decide. >> are you at all concerned that the fbi looked like it overreacted in trying to investigate a sitting president this way? this is a pretty alarming investigation, that the sitting president was acting against the interests of the united states of america. >> well, i flip the question around, chuck. i think it's less did the fbi overreact. i think the question is this, they had to have a very deep level of concern about this president to take this step. and that's, again, why we need to protect the mueller investigation. and i think that's going to be a critical issue in the judiciary committee hearings about the attorney general nominee. will you guarantee to protect

this investigation and will you make sure that the american public and congress get the results of it. >> senator tim kaine, democrat from virginia, i have to let you go there. thanks for coming on and sharing your views. appreciate it. >> absolutely. when we come back, we're going to have more on that story about russia, the fbi and president trump. i'm going to talk to michael schmidt, one of "the new york times" reporters ♪ ignition sequence starts. 10... 9... guidance is internal. 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... ♪ family and farxiga,

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there goes our first big order. ♪ 44, 45, 46... how many of these did they order? ooh, that's hot. ♪ you know, we could sell these. nah. ♪ we don't bake. ♪ opportunity. what we deliver by delivering. welcome back. we're going to dig a little deeper into "the new york times" story about president trump and russia. frankly, we think it deserves an explainer so with me are michael schmidt, one of the reporters who broke the story about the counterintelligence investigation about whether mr. president as sitting president was work as an agent for russia. we also have ben wittes, editor in chief of the national security law fare and worked

with mr. schmidt on this story. welcome to both of you. michael, walk us through the piece here. the designation is a counterintelligence investigation. we've always thought of the comey firing and the mueller aspect as simply obstruction of justice, as sort of separate. but we're calling it kourc counterintelligence and it's a bit confusing. why? >> it was a two-pronged investigation. it had a criminal aspect, did the president break the law in trying to obstruct the investigation, interfere with it, and this other russia question. and it's important, as you said, because our collective understanding was much narrower. it was just on obstruction, did the president break the law there. and now we know that it was far broader, it had national security concerns. the fbi was afraid that the firing of comey was a way to help the russians stop the fbi from figuring out what they did in the election. >> are they -- is this still a counterintelligence investigation into whether mr.

trump himself is acting as a russian agent? is that what the mueller probe inherited? >> we know the mueller probe inherited it. we know the mueller probe has spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out what the president has done in office in regards to the investigation. his interference with it, they have talked to all these white house officials. do we know if there is still this belief and aspect that the president is working for the russians? i can't answer that. >> all right, ben, this was all -- the nut of this scoop was based on testimony by now a former fbi general counsel, james baker, and this is what he told congress. this was in "the new york times" story about why they viewed it as counterintelligence. he said not only would it we an issue of obstructing the investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the russians had done, and that is what would be the threat to national security. it led you to write that the collusion question and the obstruction question are now the

same thing. collusion is obstruction and vice versa. explain. >> well, so as mike just described, we had sort of thought of the obstruction investigation as this kind of separate criminal investigation that arose at the time of the firing. in other words, that you had this underlying election interference investigation going on, the so-called collusion investigation. then the president comes along and knee-caps the investigation by firing the fbi director. a few weeks later we learn that bob mueller is investigating whether that's obstruction of justice, i.e. a crime. the significance of mike's and adam goldman's story is that it forces you to reimagine how the fbi understood what it was doing, which as mike just said and as the quote that you read from jim baker reflects, was we had this investigation for

national security reasons of russian activity. then somebody on the u.s. side, i.e., the president of the united states, took some action that kind of looks like they're trying to shut down the investigation. that raises national security concerns about whether we will be able to find out what the russians were doing, whether we will be able to stop what the russians were doing. so the bureau understood, appears to have understood what happened in terms of whether the president was working with the russians. that's a very different thing, and it collapses the obstruction inquiry into that larger collusion inquiry. >> michael, it made me think of another scoop of yours a month ago, six weeks ago, where you had rod rosenstein apparently saying should i wear a wire, talking about the 25th amendment. the question is was he serious, was that sarcasm. when you open a

counterintelligence investigation on the president of the united states and fbi is going to get sign-off from the justice department, one would assume it came from rod rosenstein since he was overseeing it. is that where this may have come from when he was trying to figure out if he should wear a wire? were they trying to figure out how do you investigate the president of the united states? >> they were struggling with that. these two stories take us inside and let us see what the fbi and the justice department were looking at in this critical period of time, a little more than a week in may of 2017. comey has just been fired. the fbi thinks there could be this huge threat coming from them. rosenstein had just provided trump with a rationale for firing comey that wasn't trump's rationale. so the fbi is looking at rosenstein, who's overseeing the investigation concept kaskeptic >> so they were not trusting him at that time? >> he had just provided not what the president's rationale was for the firing, and he's supposed to be overseeing the

investigation. so they're sitting there. they know there's this larger investigation into russia. they know there are these questions about the election. and they are struggling to figure out what to do. and it is in that context that they open this investigation. >> all right. legally, the obstruction question has always been you can't indict a sitting president. maybe they can't even interview him about his actions as a sitting president, but if it's part of counterintelligence, does that give mueller a better shot of subpoenaing the president and having it upheld? >> i don't think it affects the likelihood that a subpoena would be -- would have legs one way or the other. i do think that it will profoundly -- it should profoundly condition our expectations of what mueller's report is going to look like. >> meaning? much more damning? >> well, much more of a continuous story, as in the russians did this stuff to influence the election and here are all the things that we investigated on the u.s. side

that may have been done in support of that. people lying, people doing x, y and z, president trying to shut down our investigation. i think it provides a through narrative potentially to the report that is potentially quite profound. >> michael schmidt, ben wittes, appreciate you trying to help us out here. i think basically now that trump is the hub and everything else is the spoke. russia is the hub and trump is the spoke. >> and it was russia, full stop. does president trump hope the government you could take the treatment of your ulcerative colitis in a different direction. talk to your doctor about xeljanz, a pill, not an injection or infusion, for adults with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. xeljanz is the first and only fda-approved pill for moderate to severe uc. it can reduce symptoms in as early as two weeks, improve the appearance of the intestinal lining, and provide lasting steroid-free remission.

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national political reporter carol lee and republican strategist al cardenas. welcome, all. like everything in the trump era, carol lee, there's always a government uncertainty and then scandal uncertainty. i want to start with this fbi story because on one hand it seems gigantic and on the other hand -- i found it interesting, senator ted cruz did not exactly dismiss the story. i do think it has landed with a level of concern in washington. >> yeah, it was interesting he said, you know, i don't know the details. we'll need to learn a little bit more about this. i'm going to look into it. i think what we've seen, and we saw this a little bit with the michael cohen developments several weeks ago, that the republicans are getting a little bit more nervous. the big questions coming out of this "new york times" report is whether this counterintelligence investigation involving the president, what the status of that is. and then this question of whether -- the question they were asking is whether he was

wittingly working for the russians or unwittingly, under russian influence. we've already seen in some of mueller's indictments that are there are americans out there that were unwittingly under the influence of russians. i think it's interesting that a number of things that all of us have covered and that democrats and the president's critics have used against him on these various data points, whether it's changing the platform at the republican convention or, you know, russia, are you listening, can you get hillary clinton's e-mails, these really raised very serious and weren't just political talking points, they were seen as very serious within the fbi and then eventually that boiled over with the comey firing. so i think we're supposed to see mueller's report soon. and if it is air tight and is of high significance and this particular piece is real, then you'll see republicans like ted cruz get even more concerned.

>> the first thing we can't forget is that this investigation was opened to see what russia's meddling in our election process was all about, what interference was all about and who else may be culpable in addition to russia. we already have hard facts on their involvement in social media and hard facts on a lot of other things. at the beginning there's a lot of speculation that the president's objection was purely political based on the fact that, hey, they're questioning and challenging my electability, and so i'm going to fight back because i don't want people questioning the integrity of my being elected. a lot of other things have happened since. a lot of indictments of people in the president's administration have taken place. all of a sudden, the inquiry looks far more personal than political. and so we're all questioning where's this thing going to lead us to. you know, the fbi is supposed to turn suspicion into fact. that's what an investigation is about.

there is a suspicion as to why would you fire comey? was this beyond just political strategy? and so, you know, we'll see where it ends. we already know that there are a lot of people close to the president involved with russia. whether he personally got involved for whatever reason, we don't know, so we'll see. >> pegpeggy. >> it is astonishing, chuck. we are talking about a major newspaper report that the federal bureau of investigation in america has launched a counterintelligence probe against a sitting president -- >> it's like a bad movie plot. >> you know what, you would reject it if you were a producer. you'd say that's a little over the top. my only thought coming out of this beyond astonishment is the thought that, you know, congress must know something about this because indeed they probably have been dealing with the fbi on this. they know a few things. i also think, my goodness, this mueller report, if this is what we're talking about, could we

please get it out there quickly? >> yeah. it's funny, it's like we're sitting in the shutdown, cornell, and you have this out there. it does color everything that is facing us right now. >> well, you know, two things. one is i want to underline sort of the -- all the people around the trump campaign involvement sort of touching base with russians because we learned that they passed polling information on to the russians, chuck. as a campaign pollster, our polls in our campaigns are sort of what you see, you know, a horse shot of the horse race. it is strategic, right. what we're doing in these polls, we are outlining strategy and decisions and where you should target. and for a campaign to be giving it to the russians, how is that not collusion, right? i don't know if it's collusion in a court, but certainly in the public opinion it has to be. i think it smells like a duck,

sounds like a duck, walks like a duck, it is in fact a duck. it's hard for you to say that's not collusion. >> i'll say this, the other side of the situation here is for some reason the mueller investigation clears president trump. i mean that's a death blow to a lot of democrat hopes as well. >> that's a fair point. >> and the white house is preparing -- you know, they're ready for basically a street fight over this. they're saying that they're going to exert executive privilege and say they want to see the report, they're going to try to block certain portions of the report. >> you've done a lot of reporting on this. do you think rudy giuliani was blindsided that the obstruction -- i can't figure this out. do they know that obstruction and counterintel are the same thing or not? do you think they know this? or knew it until now? >> no. it's hard to know sort of what they know. and i think that from their perspective, that is the biggest problem that they have is that they're trying to go in and they're preparing to wage this battle against the mueller report, they want to write their own report, they want to review

it, they want to challenge it and basically exert executive privilege to cover some of portions of it up potentially. the problem that they have is they don't actually know what they're going in to fight, and i think we've seen that particularly with this story. >> i want to push back here. i don't think most democrats are saying i hope the president colluded. i don't think that's the death wish for democrats. i'm a democrat. i'm a pretty liberal democrat. i hope the president didn't collude because if he did we have some larger, more problems than republican versus democrat. >> especially how well he trashed the fbi. now we know this year and a half long campaign that trashes the fbi and now we have this news, this is disconcerting. >> you know what we're talking about at bottom is what is the story with donald trump and vladimir putin, okay? that's really what we're talking about. and i have to tell you, republicans, democrats, liberals, conservatives, i think we would all like an answer. one question i have is why has

the president kind of bragged that with lester holt and with rosenstein that his reasons for his firing of comey were russia. if you're a russian operative, you're not bragging that your reason is russia. can i say i've never understood this part of the story. >> maybe he needed to let somebody know that he was doing it for that reason. that's the thing. with trump, you just don't know. i'm going to pause it here. we've got some shutdown conversation to talk about as well. so when we come back, we're going to get to that. but first, not long ago republicans loved calling democrats liberal. they didn't mean it as a compliment. compliment. for a while it was hey, who are you? oh, hey jeff, i'm a car thief... what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice.

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welcome back. data download time. when it comes to ideology, there's a degree of difference within the parties, not just between them.

there are conservative democrats and liberal republicans. but here's a question we had in response to data released from gallup this week. among democrats, is the term liberal no longer a dirty word? boy, will that have some impact on 2020. 2018 was the first time a majority of democrats, 51% of them, called themselves liberal. 13% said they were conservative. while only 34% of democrats refer to themselves as moderate. it's quite a change from where things stood when bill clinton was president. in 1994, 25% of democrats called themselves liberal. 25% called themselves conservative. the rest, moderate. it's not just democrats, by the way, who are more comfortable calling themselves liberal. the public overall is more comfortable calling themselves liberal. in 1992, 17% of americans said they were liberal. in 2018, the number is now 26%. a 9-point increase. in the same period of time, the percentage of folks calling themselves conservative remained mostly flat among the electorate

as a whole while the percentage of moderates has decreased by 8 points. hello, polarization. now, this shift in language we use is mirroring the shifting attitudes in our politics. consider issues that used to be criticized add too liberal in the mid-'90s of the only 25% were in favor of marijuana legalization and only 27% thought gay marriage should be recognized. in 2018, those numbers 66% and 67% respectively. bill clinton was the democratic candidate who felt that he had to say, quote, he didn't inhale marijuana, and he was the democratic president who signed the defense of marriage act. these were a big part of his candidacy and presidency. here's further evidence the electorate has shifted leftward. in 199241% of americans believed their taxes were about right or too low. believe it or not, in 2018, a majority of americans, 51% said the same thing. none of this is to say the united states is now some

bastion of liberalism. buts at as the democratic party moves even more leftward in the age of trump, may attention to how democrats handle issues the liberal base is pushing for, like medicare for all or abolishing and replacing e i.c. coming back end game and why the second time around is looking a lot tougher for bernie sanders. >> announcer: coming up, end game brought to you by boeing, continuing for the 250k service members

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>> announcer: end game, brought to you by boeing. continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore and inspire. all right, end game, welcome to blame game. we have the first national polling out. who do you blame when it comes to the government shutdown. our friends at the washington post and abc are out this morning. president trump and the

congressional republicans 53% deserve blame for the shutdown, congressional democrats 29%. peggy noonan, those numbers aren't close. >> no, they're not. but i think what will end this thing -- first of all, i think both sides are obviously dug in. i think this is a moment in which politics is totally triumphing over reason. i think neither party is looking to the country. i think they're both looking to their base. i think an obvious solution is a trade of border security for daca, for the dreamers. so that's the side thing. but i think what settles this whole mess is the public coming forward and saying we're mad at both of you. you are screwing this up. it's been 20 years, get a policy. >> you know, i've got to disagree with you a little bit, peggy, which is not surprising, we disagree with each other sometimes. listen, the polling isn't close. and by 35 points women blame trump and republicans more than democrats. by 20 points independents blame trump. so when you look at this from an

electoral instead of a political standpoint, we had 9 million more voters vote for democrats this past time. from a political standpoint, shutting down your government for an extreme position that the vast, vast majority of americans in fact don't want to have happen, it's not good politics. and it's going to -- and it's only seals your base. what i've said about trump many times before is he is not someone who has grown the republican party. over the last couple of years, he has not made it a bigger tent party. >> al, inside the numbers. here's the thing, and this is where you wonder if there's a perverse incentive structure here. inside this poll, a plurality of democrats say democrats should not move from their mission even if it goes on, 42-37, more democrats want them to stick to their guns than compromise. 58% of republicans want the president to stick to his guns. only 22% want to see compromise.

so the bases of both parties, more people don't want them to compromise than compromise. >> well, you know what, everybody is wearing their team jersey. everybody is supporting their particular base, regardless of the merits of the case. the truth of the matter is, you know, as senator tillis said the other day, democrats voted for the $1.6 billion for the wall just weeks ago. the bill didn't pass the senate but we voted for it. then the president came up with $5 billion and $5.7 billion and apparently didn't give them a reason why he upped the ante. you could settle for a $2.5 billion wall, as peggy said, throw in the daca kids which the president said before, and get government back together again. to me this is putting politics over country, politics over 800,000 workers on both sides of the fence. i think, frankly, they're equally to blame. there's no reason why you can't -- and look, the truth is that this wall is not the

overall answer to anything. it's one of many potential ingredients. and it's just -- it's just in my opinion a silly reason to keep government closed. >> well, look, this is an existential political crisis for the president because there are two things that are just incredibly important to his brand tied up in this. one, that he's a big negotiator and he can get deals done. and two is the wall. and i thought newt gingrich, who was an ally of the president, had this incredible quote in "the washington post" where he said the president's entire reputation and relationship with the base is on the line. and the base is all he has, if you look at his polls. at the same time, you have nancy pelosi, this is her first big mark and she can't afford to screw that up. and so what you see is the white house kind of trying to do this reverse policy making that we've seen them have to do before because the president has announced his end game without actually having a strategy. and what they're going to try to do is pick off these democrats that they think might come around and try -- want to

compromise. whether or not that's going to work, who knows. but the longer this goes on, no one winds up looking good. >> before i go, cornell, you're the pollster in the bunch. i want to pick up a quick straw poll that we had from daily coast. this is our only 2020 comment. it showed here these are activist democrats. i put this up. here are the top five. bernie sanders sits at 11. four years ago bernie sanders had nearly 70% of these folks. what's going on here? >> you also remember michele bachmann won a straw poll. a lot of what bernie sanders, i think, represented was the choice against hillary clinton in the primary. i think some of that was more a vehicle for anti-hillary than a vehicle for pro bernie. >> new is winning, that's for sure. that's all i have for today, a jammed show as you saw. thank you for watching. i really appreciate that. we'll be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

the weekend presidential tweet storm from 1600 pennsylvania avenue, his target, unpredictable. as we enter day 24 of the government strike, is there any ending in sight? >> reports about new questions about the president and his dealings with russia, including fbi report and more. >> new details surrounding a happy 13-year-old jayme closs. after three months in captivity, today her abductor faces the judge. >> history on the grid iron with the first female to ever referee a nfl playoff game. >> another female first, meet the woman who spent more tame in space than any other american. now i