this sunday, another mass shooting in texas. >> opd is advising there is an active shooter. >> a man goes on a rampage, shooting at people from vehicles in midland and odessa. >> the subject stole a mail truck, ditched his car, and there were other victims after that. >> we'll have the latest. plus tracking hurricane dorian. >> what you're looking at right now is a horrifyingly perfect tropical machine. there is nothing in its way. >> the hurricane charting an uncertain path. >> if you've lived in florida, you know it can turn fast. >> with residents from florida to the carolinas forced to get

ready. an update this morning from acting fema administrator peter gaynor and republican senator rick scott of florida. plus renewed questions about whether joe biden's gaffes. >> i mean what is it i said wrong? >> raise legitimate concerns about his age. >> if you're concerned, don't vote for me. >> does any of this matter if biden is facing a president who lies and confuses facts. >> may god bless the memory of those who perished in toledo. and generation gap. why are all three leading - democrats 70 or older? i will ask julian castro. joining me, former homeland security security chief, jeh johnson, and former nbc news senior producer, shawna thomas. it's sunday, september 1st,

"meet the press." >> this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning on this difficult labor day weekend. we are going to begin with two big stories. the mass shooting in midland, odessa, texas, and hurricane dorian. let's start with the shooting, when a man fled in midland and hijacked a male truck and started shooting people. police killed the shooter, a white man in his 30s. the gunman was killed by police. garrett, we don't seem to know about the motive or about the shooter, what you have learned so far overnight and this morning? >> chuck, this started, as you said, with an attempted traffic stop, somewhere along the highway between midland and odessa. the shooter turned around and fired out his window, a rifle or

a long gun. then it ended here in odessa, and somewhere along the way the shooter hijacking a mail truck and shooting folks along the way, and then the shooter came into the movie parking lot and he was shot and killed here. a 17-month-old girl was hit by shrapnel, and we don't know very much about the suspect at this point. police have not released a motive or his name. we are hoping to get more information from police at a news conference this morning, but the city of odessa waking up this morning as the latest community to experience something like this, you know, and it seems like it's every week. >> in the state of texas, and i know you are a native texan, and

governor abbott, he's a gun rights advocate in general, and this is now becoming a familiar scene for him. he and other texas lawmakers at all having second thoughts about some of their policies? >> ironically, chuck, today, september 1st, a number of new gun provisions go into effect that make it easier to carry your weapon at a church or leave it in a vehicle at a school, and texas loosened it's gun laws orr the last session. governor abbott did put in place a commission after the el paso shooting, and i suspect he will continue to be under pressure today, as are all the politicians back in washington to do something about this. it's a very republican area, and 70% ted cruz part of the state, and governor abbott very popular

among the republican base here in texas, and we are left where we always are, wondering what will happen after these aside from discussions. >> thank you. and we are turning to hurricane dorian, and they are preparing for whatever comes their way from florida to the carolinas. we go to maria. it's one of those things everybody sees now, and the general path makes it looks like we are going to duck this. are we that confident? >> i wouldn't make that mistake because it's a far-reaching type of storm, but the center may stay offshore. i will show you that in a second. regardless it's headed for the bahamas as a category 5 storm, and winds of 160 miles per hour continuing to move to the west at 8 miles per hour, and that puts it 225 miles east of west

palm beach. the watches are in yellow. we could still see affects of the gusty winds along the coast, but the core center headed for the bahamas likely to stay a category 4 as it moves across, and that's 140-mile-per-hour winds in this area over 12 to 24 hours. this is going to be devastating. at that point we expect it to begin that turn to the north. the center stays off the coast, but you can see a major hurricane still in the forecast for overnight tuesday into wednesday, and that will drive wind and waves along the east coast, and by thursday, you need to pay close attention to this forecast, and approaching the outer banks from thursday into friday, still as a hurricane. we look at the models to see how much in agreement this path looks and right now it's all in agreement with the models for the next 24 hours. most of them take the center of the storm off the coast. as i mentioned, it's

far-reaching affects including the ralph, and the models keep the center off landfall, a big heads up into the carolinas later this week. >> thank you, maria. president trump, of course, canceled his scheduled trip to poland so he could monitor the storm from camp david and his golf course in virginia, and joining me now is the acting fema administrator, peter gainer. >> how are you? >> i am okay. let me start with the difficulty of preparing for this storm and the fact that now half the atlantic coast will have to prepare for the storm, how difficult has it been tracking this storm? >> the storm has been particularly difficult, a lot of uncertainty. it's going to be a slow mover as we get close to the florida coast. again, the time is now for

residents to really prepare. that's our message, use the time available to you. it's going to impact florida and georgia and the carolinas and now is really the time to make those preparations and be aware of the conditions, the changing conditions in this track in the storm. >> a lot of people are going to see these graphics that are now showing the modeling as if this storm is just going to barely touch the coast. obviously i am guessing you have concern that people will let their guard down. how dangerous is the storm still even if it just brushes the coast of northeast florida and southeast georgia? >> the mistake is they follow the thin black line and think that's the exact location the storm will be in. you have to look at the cone of uncertainty. if you look at that it covers the majority of florida, and as you go north, great parts of georgia and the carolinas, we

are not out of this just yet. you have to be aware of your surroundings. this storm will bring tropical-force winds, and hurricane-force winds, and storm surge, and it may make landfall and it could stay right off the coast but the danger is there. >> you are the confirmed deputy, and a permanent was nominated in february and that has been stalled in congress. are there things that limit -- do you feel as if your abilities are in an acting capacity? how limiting is it? >> no limits. when i took this job over from mr. long, there was minimal transition and disruption, and really no problems whatsoever. i have a great team behind me. there are 200 fema employees behind me and they represent

20,000 fema employees that are battle tested from 2017, and they are ready and we are ready to go. fplt >> i know you said the moving of money from fema's budget to the border fight was a small slice and you have plenty of funds there. congress will ys fi the cougher after a disaster, but does moving that money around, does it hurt some preparation? >> it doesn't hurt preparation, but i am not going to say there's no risk. we managek everyday. moving money has risks. our preparation for this season, 2019, we assess that all the time, and right now we are ready and have all the funds we need. >> you testified before congress a couple months ago in the aftermath talking about a strategic plan for fema in the next four years and you said three main goals were to build a culture of preparedness, and

ready the nation for catastroph catastrophic disasters, and when i read through your testimony there, it was not about mitigation as much as it was about getting local authorities ready to deal with these things th themselves. how much focus should we have on a adductation. >> we were allowed to set aside 6%, and you know, chuck, we spent a lot of money post disaster. we need to make that investment p pre-disaster, and this year we will start using some of the money to reduce the risk and threat to infrastructure before disaster strikes. that's the model that we all

embrace. >> i know this is the first hurricane where you have been in the seat there at fema, and good luck, sir, and here's hoping this thing gets out to sea in a hurry. >> i concur with that. thanks, chuck. >> joining me now is governor rick scott of florida, and he went through his share of hurricanes. welcome back to "meet the press." >> yeah, we went through quite a few. i have lots of experience. >> this is a familiar path of a hurricane in that it looks like hurricane matthew, which scared the living day lights out of a lot of florida, and just missed there. what is your message to northeast floridians, and everybody is watching the model, and the average floridaen is going, oh, out of the woods? >> first of all, it has moved a little to the west and so it's

closer to florida than they anticipated last night when i went to bed. the bottom line is, you need to follow this. look at the cone of uncertainty. we are going to have significant rain and storm surge, and hurricane force winds, and this is a big storm. if this turns right at the last minute and goes due wegst, you have to say, am i ready? do i have food and water? should i have evacuated? don't take a chance, because they think this is where it's going to go but it could go due west and hit right into florida. >> in eight years of hurricanes, you have seen pretty much every corner of florida, and now looking back what are some things -- if you could sit here and say i want all this money to prepare the state of florida to handle this better, what would

that look like? what would mitigation look like if you had all the funds in the world to protect florida from these storms? >> first off, i want to make sure money doesn't get wasted. i have a bill right now to try and make sure with debris pickup that we spend the money right, but with regard to mitigation, we have to make sure we are not building where we know there's significant risks, and so like, we have pictures of mexico beach, and that's an easy one -- >> i am glad you brought that up because i want to talk about that in that a minute. >> we had houses along the coast and then the road and houses on the other side. if they are going to rebuild there, they have to rebuild in standards, and we do have the standards now. if you look at most of when irma hit, we did not have as much damage on anything built after

andrew. make sure all the standards are met, and if there's new one, we all remember the house -- chuck, remember that house on the beach that withstood everything? >> yeah. >> and when i talked to the owner, he only spent an extra $30,000. some places where we had the 30-mile stretch where irma hit in the keys, and most of it was pweuplt befo built before andrew. there's always something you can do better, and i want to make sure the money is spent well and people build up to standards. >> when congress comes back i have the feeling gun regulation will be more front and center, and "the new york times" added up the shoots in the month of august alone, 51 deaths. we know the names of the cities as if they are markers, you say

el paso, parkland, pulse, we know what all that means. >> we have talked to the president and the white house and mitch mcconnell and others, and i think they ought to look congress comes back? >> i've talked to the president, the white house, i've talked to mitch mcconnell and others. i think they ought to look at what we did in florida after parkland. >> that's a model, you think? >> here's what we did. we sat down immediately within three days, we sat down with law enforcement, mental health counselors and educators and said what would really work? and so we passed historic legislation within three weeks. one is a red-flag law that says if you have threatened harm to yourself or somebody else, then through law enforcement and through due process, through the court system, all your weapons can be taken away. and then on top of that, we said every school in our state will have law enforcement and we're going to have more mental health counselors, and set up a process to where we can really evaluate problems before they happen.

the problem we have is, chuck, we've got a problem in this country. we've got young men for whatever reach, totally different than when i was growing up, no one thought about doinghave to figu this out and get guns away from mentally ill people, people who want to harm others or themselves. >> one of the debating points, and i know some people are for expanding and there's different degrees of the expansion, and where are you in this? >> when i was governor, we found there was not enough coordination with the mental health illness issue getting on to the background check, and we worked on that. there's lots of proposals out there, and i will review all of them. chuck, i can tell you, if you want to have an impact, do what we did in florida and do the red flag laws. parkland is an example. the fbi had prior knowledge, had a tip and did nothing about it. to this day i have been asking,

did they do anything about it? was anybody reprimanded? nothing. same with the shooting at the airport in florida, and nothing has happened that i can tell to anybody. >> big picture, though, do you think we have too many guns in circulation, and if you do how do we get them out of circulation? >> chuck, i believe in the second amendment. i don't want to take guns away from law abiding citizens and i want to focus on those that have mental illness. >> you don't think there's too many guns? >> i think -- let's take all weapons. there's too many people that have mental illnesses that we are not addressing and they have access to weapons and they should not. >> rick scott, former governor, and he has been through his share of hurricanes. thank you for coming on and sharing your views. >> when we come back, do gaffes

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welcome back. this was supposed to be the year of generational change in american politics, particularly for the democrats. with far more millenials and gen xers than baby boomers, you might expect the presidential candidates to look something like the people electing them. instead we very well could ending up with a presidential matchup between donald trump, who was born at the start of the baby boom era and will be 74 on election day and joe biden who is too old to be classified as a baby boomer and will be 77 on election day, two weeks shy of turning 78. right whinbehind him are elizab warren, who is 71 and bernie sanders who will be 78 and was born before pearl harbor.

all came of age in their 20s during the age of aquarius. but the age of aquarius itself is 50 years old. for biden, whispers about his age have grown louder, especially given some recent verbal faceplants. but the question is in the age of trump, is it possible to have the biden gaffe conversation without having the trump lies conversation? >> do you have a reaction about the war hero? >> we've got to go, guys. >> joe biden, defending a war story he has told on the trail to a "washington post" podcast on thursday. >> i don't know what the problem is. i mean what is it that i said wrong? >> biden said he was in afghanistan as vice president when he was asked to pin a silver star on a navy captain. >> he said, sir, i don't want the damn thing. do not put it on me, sir. please, sir, do not do that. he died! he died! >> but as "the washington post" reports, almost every detail of that story appears to be incorrect. it's the latest verbal slip-up

in a campaign that's already full of them. >> poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids, wealthy kids, black kids, asian kids. >> in new hampshire last saturday, biden told reporters -- >> what's not to like about vermont? >> biden has been gaffe-prone for decades. president trump just three years younger than biden has made his own mistakes. >> may god bless the memory of those who perished in toledo. >> but he is trying to make biden's age an issue. >> joe biden has truly lost his fastball. >> but do biden's gaffes, verbal slip-ups and conflations matter in an age of a president who lies? according to a count by "the washington post" president trump has made more than 12,000 false and misleading statements since taking office. in just the past month, on the border wall. >> the wall is well under construction. it's being built at a rapid pace. >> on the economy. >> yesterday we had the strongest dollar in the history of our country. >> on family separations.

>> i am the one that kept the families together, okay. you remember that, right? >> on isis. >> we wiped out the caliphate 100%. i did it in record time. >> even on his wife and kim jong-un, who the white house now says have never met. >> the first lady has gotten to know kim jong-un and i think she'd agree with me. >> last december biden told a crowd, i am a gaffe machine. but my god, what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can't tell the truth. >> i think he's just an ideal candidate despite the fact that he makes gaffes. he's a human being and that comes through. >> while his gaffes may not matter to voters, some of biden's opponents are already indirectly making the case that his age should. >> people are looking for a new generation of leadership. >> we've got to put together a picture of what america will look like, how we're going to fix things, not looking backwards and saying wasn't it nice when. >> with the top three democrats all 70 or older, it's not clear that so far democratic voters

are listening. >> i'd say if they're concerned, don't vote for me. >> joining me now from san antonio is former housing secretary and democratic presidential candidate, former mayor of san antonio, by the way, joul januaulian castro. welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> good to be with you, chuck. >> before we get to the campaign i want to talk about what happened in your home state there, odessa and midland. this is now the second mass moh.ting just in texas this it's been quite a bit just in the last couple of years. let me ask you this. if you're president right now, congress is coming back, what does your response look like? >> if i were president right now, i would do two things. first of all, i would maximize executive authority to do what we can to keep our families safer from gun violence. for instance, we would immediately redefine who is a firearms dealer so that anybody who sells more than five firearms in a year is clasfied that way and has to conduct universal background checks. we would also push legislation

in congress to get common-sense gun safety legislation done and put as much pressure on the swing state republican senators who are up for re-election in 2020 to get them to go with something that we can compromise on, at least universal background checks. i think we can do more than that in the future. but this kind of inaction and the talk that we heard today from i think that was senator rick scott, it's the same old thing. it's happy talk and this promise that we're going to do something. we're going to look at it, but they never actually do it. you were talking about gaffes and lies. the biggest lies that the president has told include that he would do something about universal background checks. he said that twice after parkland and then after el paso and dayton. he's gone back on his word. those are the biggest things that count for this president. >> as a texan, how do you change the conversation about the

culture of guns? meaning as you know, you know quite a few probably friends in texas who hear all this and say, yeah, but it's going to turn into gun confiscation or it's going to turn into me not being able to have the gun that i want. how do you impact the culture on this? >> well, look, you're from florida. there are a lot of folks watching out there from states where a lot of folks go hunting, they go sporting. but oftentimes it's actually hunters and folks that shoot on a range that understand that you don't need these weapons of war, the ar-15 and other similar weapons. i think more and more many of them get it. sure, i agree that there are a certain percentage of people that somehow fear that one day the government is going to try and take over the entire country somehow and they're going to need their weapons, but that's actually a minority of people out there. that's not a majority of people. and the most poignant moment over the last several weeks happened right after dayton,

which was when governor mike dewine got up there to talk about what had happened and the crowd of republicans, democrats, people from different political stripes started to chant "do something, do something, do something." more and more people here in texas and across the country want congress and their politicians to do something. >> by the way, with you outlining what you would do now, do you feel as if you have to bring the country together on this? meaning you do as much as you can get done without making it politically divisive? or do you push the envelope a bit? >> well, look, we know that it's already politically divisive. there's no way to get around that. but i do think that when you're in public office that you have an obligation to make the case. you have to be honest with your constituents, with the american people. and the thing is, on this issue of commense gun safety legislation, people know the arguments.

they know where people stand. this is not a new argument. i was thinking about yesterday evening texas and how much gun violence we've had. but you think back to 1966 and charles whitman at that ut tower and when that happened what a shock to the system that was. people have been talking about these things for a long, long time. and so i think we need to get universal background checks done, a renewed assault weapons ban and limiting the capacity of these magazines, at least that. >> let me turn now to the presidential race. simple question. are you surprised that the democratic party of today, that the three most -- that the three front-runners right now are all over the age of 70? >> i don't know if surprised is the right word. first of all, the folks that you're talking about are very talented individuals with tremendous experience. but what i hear out there and what i think is going to show itself as we get closer and closer to the iowa caucus is that people do want a new generation of leadership.

you know, for democrats that are out there, what i hear is a lot of anxiety about, hey, we need to beat donald trump. how are we going to beat donald trump. well, if you take a look at the modern era of presidential campaigns, when democrats have won, it's because they have taken a bit of a risk, whether it was kennedy in 1960 or carter in 1976 or barack obama in 2008. and we need to get people off the sidelines in 2020. i believe that i can reassemble the obama coalition and then supercharge that so that we can go back and win michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania and then also get the 29 electoral votes of florida, the 11 electoral votes of arizona and i believe even the 38 electoral votes of texas. i'll just say, chuck, the other day i was in iowa. i met a young woman who said that she was going to turn 18 before the iowa caucus. she said i'm excited to get registered to vote and to go and

caucus for you. those are the kinds of things that i'm hearing out there among young people. if we're going to win this election, we're going to have to get young people involved and get people off the sidelines. >> if joe biden is the nominee, do you have any concerns? >> well, i think that joe biden would be a much better president, of course, than donald trump. if i didn't think that i would be a better president, i wouldn't be running this race. but i think that he would be a much better president than donald trump. i also believe that just on issues, joe biden and i have some disagreements. we talked about our disagreement on immigration on the stage at the last debate. i also believe that he hasn't gone far enough on health care. we need to base our health care off of a medicare system and then allow for a private option. so we have real disagreements. but i won't argue with folks that say that any of the democrats that are running or that will be on the stage in houston in a few days would be better than donald trump. >> secretary castro, i've got to leave it there. it's been one of those weekends, busy weekend. thanks for coming on and sharing

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get real relief with cosentyx. back now with the panel. former homeland security chief, jeh johnson. andrea mitchell and shawna thomas. before we get to politics, congress is coming back, the gun issue, jeh johnson, you have dealt with the gun issue in different ways in the department of homeland security, and 51 people died in august, and on the last day of the month we get

the reminder in case anybody was letting el paso and dayton fade. >> feels like time it might be different. my sense is as though public opinion and congressional opinion are moving in the direction of doing things consistent with the second amendment. this is a knuniquely american problem and requires a national solution, and particularly now that we are back in an election cycle, republicans will want to be in a position to say they have done something on this, and the timing of the latest tragedy as congress is coming back into town suggests there will be a certain amount of momentum. >> what is your sense? >> it's a t-- to me it's like

terrorism in a way, people get used to it and that's what you don't want, but i am afraid that that's what is going to dictate what congress does. >> the only glimmer of hope i had this week was talking to senator chris murphy from connecticut, and he's an important advocate and he said he has been meeting throughout this recess since el paso, and he's been meeting with white house staff and talked with the president at times, and maybe there's give because of the politics, and 97% approval in many polls for background checks, and then today, september 1st, texas laws are changing so you can bring guns into churches and the open carry

into schools. there's so many political and cultural arguments. >> shawna, you are a native texan. do you buy the idea -- if texas changes the conversation then america will? >> yeah, and we see them struggle on how do you change this and make it work, and guns being able to keep guns in your car at a school, that's something that is a law already. because there's so much focus on this and it's an election cycle people are going to get scared and go to their base, and i am not sure that means something will happen in the next couple of months. >> timing is everything. the legislative session in florida was actually in session after parkland which is why the

pressure was able to happen. >> and the kids went to tallahassee right away. >> yeah. >> if we see people marching in the streets in washington, d.c. when the senate is back and the house is back, maybe something on red flag laws or background checks happen, but i am not seeing anybody rallying people like that. >> let me pivot to the discussion of joe biden, gaffes versus lies. dana millbank making the case that the gaffes do matter, and he's the lamborghini of gaffes, and another saying lay off joe biden's gaffes. and peter from "vanity fair" wrote, even when there are much more important things happening in the world and that's just

where trump wants his strongest rival to be. do you buy that? >> in part. but what the biden people will say, are saying, look, what is getting through to the people is that this is a guy that cares, he cares about that soldier that didn't want to take the medal, and he conveyed three different stories and the "washington post" pointed out how many ways he got things wrong, and that didn't matter to the voters. we don't know yet how it's going to play, and so far the polls are not focusing on these things as much as we in the media or other people in the media may be, and the fact is donald trump, as somebody who misspeaks through lack of knowledge and lies and other kinds of problems is the standard that whoever the democratic nominee is going to run against, and what biden has to be concerned about is getting the nomination, and the biden

folks will say you are not looking at other candidates who are making mistakes on the trial. >> that does seem to be a fair point. the comparison to trump is a shield? >> i would give joe a break. he's a storyteller, and he makes his points through stories and he's probably thinking let's not get the small details in the way of avery powerful story. i would give him a break on this. apparently the person on whom he pinned the middle acknowledged he actually got the medal. the point is he trying to make is to demonstrate the heroism. and one of the best inaugural

addresses in modern history closed with a story of a world war i hero named martin. though nothing he said in the address was technically wrong he conveyed the impression that he was buried in arlington but he was buried in wisconsin, and the point stands that the point was american heroism in a time of war. >> danny, that's an interesting comparison. there's a part of biden that is more reaganesque. >> first of all, i think it's important for all of us that know joe biden for a long time, this is a joe biden hallmark. number two, i don't agree that donald trump is a shield. the president is a liar and i am too, who cares, is that the bumper sticker?

it doesn't work. i think people are looking for relief from donald trump, not somebody who is slightly better than donald trump. i also think that his age is an issue, and not because i have any prejudice against older people, god knows as i get older, but because this is the energy of young people will matter. >> shawna, why do you think the youngest supporters seem to go for the oldest candidates? >> well, it's interesting. the thing you hear from the people on the campaign trail, biden is the only one that can beat donald trump, and they don't care if that person is young or old yet. that may shift as we condense the group, but that's what they are hearing. when it comes to joe biden, the

uncle joe situation, it's interesting because we are living in the age of donald trump and that's changes how we p perceive and cover joe biden, when trump lies it's about google and google changing votes and making me scared about things, and when joe biden lies, it's about he's understanding heroism. context is important. >> context and [farmers bell] (burke) at farmers insurance, we've seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything. even a "three-ring fender bender." (clown 1) sorry about that... (clown 2) apologies. (clown 1) ...didn't mean it. (clown 3) whoops. (stilts) sorry! (clowns) we're sorry! (scary) hey, we're sorry! [man screams] [scary screams] (burke) quite the circus. but we covered it. at farmers, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two.

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it was a reminder that democrats do have a legitimate shot at flipping the upper chamber in 2020. they need to net four seats for a 51-49 majority or just three if democrats take the white house. so let's take a look at their path. these three states are the democrats' best opportunities. colorado and maine, they both went blue in '16. while president trump won arizona, democrats pikds picked up a senate seat last year. texas, north carolina and georgia, which now has two senate seats up in 2020. they're all seeing demographic changes that favor democrats. then there's iowa, which has been hit hard by president trump's trade war. finally there are some longer shots, but don't sleep on them. kansas and montana are very red, but both elected democrats to statewide office in 2018. and in a wave year, don't overlook kentucky and south carolina. both could be in play, especially with incumbents that democrats like to beat up. democrats also have some seats they'll have to defend like michigan where president trump won in '16 and alabama where

senator doug jones is seeking re-election in a state the president won by almost 30 points. the bottom line is this, it won't be easy for democrats to win the senate, but all of a sudden they have a lot of potential paths to get there. none of them are easy, but ♪ can i get some help. watch his head. ♪ i'm so happy. ♪ whatever they went through, they went through together. welcome guys. life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you. but allstate helps you. with drivewise. feedback that helps you drive safer. and that can lower your cost now that you know the truth... are you in good hands?

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back now with "end game." you saw the senate map there. dani, we have a republican retirement scroll that we put up. johnny isakson has had some health challenges, sean duffy is the latest also this week. he's got a child that's coming that's going to have some health

challenges. john shimkus. three republicans walk away this week. it's a trickle that feels like is this about to become a flood of retirements? there was one congressman who tweeted over the weekend, a republican, who said he thought there would be eight announced retirements in the first ten days of september. >> well, when i started on capitol hill, we were in the minority. we worked in the senate. being the minority in the senate is not that bad. being a minority in the house, there's just no reason to come to work. and so i'm -- i get that. if they think that the republicans are not going to take back the house, then there's just no reason to hang around. it's miserable. >> this becomes self-fulfilling when you walk away like this, though. >> that's probably true but at that point you're thinking about yourself. plus we've said this again and again. these have become awful jobs. the executive branch is where everything is happening and capitol hill, they don't get anything done. >> but they can't even -- democrats can't get their best candidates to run for the united states senate. i want to put up stacey abrams

who said no to this new georgia seat and said it immediately. what's remarkable about stacey abrams is how comfortable she is talking about other potential places she could be on the ballot in 2020. take a listen. >> i certainly would. i mean, i don't want to be coy. there are those who advised me against saying that out loud. but the reality is, of course, the work that i want to see for america, the progress i want to see us make, i would be honored to be the running mate of the democratic nominee. >> by the way, i have to say it's sort of refreshing when an ambitious politics says yes, of course. everybody who said they didn't want to be a running mate has lied, right? >> and it's so clear that she would be -- is available, is making herself available, is not endorsing anyone now, and is so smart and connects with people so well and is such an extraordinary figure. the real headline is that nobody wants to run for the senate. >> right. >> you've got these governors and former governors, hickenlooper is an exception.

but there is really no appetite to be a senator, especially not if you're in the minority. but even if you are in the majority, the senate isn't getting anything done. they are completely gridlocked. >> you've got to raise $25 or $30 million for a job -- >> you may or may not get anything done and be in the minority still. georgia, abrams lost by less than 2%. texas, beto lost by less than 3%. there is some room here. my team has talked to the dccc. they are targeting six districts in texas. three had republican retirements. that is more than they targeted in 2018. they opened an office in austin. so there are people who see this map as wide open. >> sure. >> but i think abrams like raising her hand is definitely interesting. i just kept thinking since everyone keeps talking about her in conjunction with should biden announce her to be the vice presidential nominee or something like that, she's 100 that be right now and everyone knows it. she's owning it and that's interesting.

>> look who put the first lizzo reference on a sunday "meet the press," shawna thomas. i want to end on a more serious and depressing note. somebody noted on twitter, jeh johnson, we have had more governors apologize for wearing black face than we have black governors in america. what does that say about 2019? >> that's interesting. >> i'm referring to kay ivey, the governor of alabama. she came out and released this herself. auburn university found some evidence of this and she released the audio that confirmed that she participated in black-face skits at a sorority. she did apologize, put her statement up. i offer my heartfelt apologies for the pain and embarrassment this causes and i will do all i can going forward to help show the nation that the alabama of today is a far cry from the alabama of the 1960s. we have come a long way for sure but we still have a long way to go. should governor ivey still be in office? >> virginia is a distant memory

and he's still there, the lieutenant governor is still there. blackface was part of a culture at some period of time. and why you put it in your yearbook is beyond me, because your yearbook is something you live with for generations after. >> doesn't it tell you that they didn't think it was a bad thing? >> they didn't think it was a bad thing, obviously. the statement from the governor of alabama i thought strikes me as a reasonably forthright, candid statement. whether she survives, i don't know, but she probably will. >> i guess the question is should these folks -- >> there are probably a whole lot more politicians out there who did things like this as recently as the '80s that we don't know about because it's buried in some yearbook somewhere on somebody's shelf. >> dani, should there be a statute of limitations? >> well, i think that's up to the judgment of the people for politics. i think that the troubling thing about this is that in each case

we've seen it become a political ax to grind. this is an opportunity for people to learn something. this is an opportunity for people to advance a particular set of understandings about how to behave with respect towards people. it should not be an opportunity to get somebody out of office immediately. >> shawna, there's a generation of people that just say what? if you're under the age of 40, you can't accept this blackface business. >> in the case of governor northam, that happened in the '80s. that's where that yearbook was from, it waepsn't the '60s. >> and medical school. >> and medical school so he wasn't 19 years olds. so you're wondering what is he thinking about what does being black mean and what is america right now. >> well, it certainly means we have a lot of educating to do of this country on race in america. still have a lot of educating. that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. enjoy the rest of your labor day weekend. remember, we will be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

please pray for us i'm begging y'all. my baby is only four months old. please pray for us >> dorian is on a slow and devastatingly march towards the united states as the outer bands are already hitting florida and multiple strikes on the bahamas overnight. get ready for days of danger from dorian. >> on the heels of odessa's mass shooting, we are learning more about the victims. seven people lost their lives and more than 20 were injured in america's latest massacre. >> actor kevin hart suffers major back injuries in a car