this sunday, the democratic divide. joe biden -- >> for a socialist you've got a lot more cfidence in corporate america than i do. >> -- faces off against leaders of the party's progressive wing. >> i've actually never met anybody who likes their health insurance company. >> i who wrote the damn bill if i may say so. >> at the top of the democratic field, with trailing candidates still trying to break into the top tier. this morning i'll talk to former texas congressman beto o'rourke. >> hell yes we're going to take your ar-15, your ak-47. >> and senator cory booker. >> we have systemic racism that is eroding our nation from

health care to the criminal justice system. plus the impeachment muddle. democrats approve rules that could make it easier to impeach president trump. >> i no longer care to argue about the nomenclature. >> so why are supporters and opponents of impeachment so unhappy? also, and boldon makes three. president trump's third national security advisor is out. >> we were set back very badly when john bolton talked about the libyan model, and he made a mistake. >> amid the constant chaos, i'll ask a member of the republican leadership in the house, liz cheney of wyoming, whether she thinks the world is more stable since donald trump became chief. joining me for insight and analysis are hallie jackson, helene cooper, former republican governor of north carolina pat mccrory and former senator from missouri, democrat claire mccaskill. 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, to quote the great yogi berra. it's getting late early out there. yes, there were still 10 candidates at thursday's debate and, yes, there may be even more at the next one. but for now at least it feels as if we have a top three. joe biden bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. there are 141 days before the first votes are cast in iowa, but if anything the gap between the front-runners and the rest of the field only seemed to grow on thursday evening with biden dominating the party's moderates and warren and sanders fighting for the progressives. the democratic race has turned into a contest between incrementalism and structural change, between the inside game and the change the game insurgents. so did anyone win? here's one take. elizabeth warren won the democratic primary debate, exciting the progressive left, while joe biden won the general election debate offering the

safe alternative to president trump. despite some verbal stumbles and an unsubtle reference to his age. >> i don't view it as anything. i think he just got his facts wrong. >> joe biden deflecting questions about his age, after this attack by julian castro on whether his health care plan automatically enrolls the uninsured. >> they do not have to buy in. they do not have to buy in. >> you just said that. you just said that two minutes ago. you just said two minutes ago that they would have to buy in. you said they would have to buy in. >> they don't have to buy in. >> are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? >> it's not clear castro's attack was correct on the substance, and it certainly appeared to backfire with other candidates quick to defend biden. >> i thought that was so personal and so unnecessary. >> do you think it was fair to suggest that joe biden has lost it? >> no. >> castro is denying that he was implying biden is declining with age. >> what i was pointing out is that he had denied saying the words "buy in" even though he did say the words "buy in."

>> other candidates have carefully brought up the age question. >> there's a lot of people who are concerned about joe biden's ability to carry the ball all the way across the end line without fumbling. >> before pulling it back. >> forgive me if my football metaphor about fumbling the ball is being taken out of context, but the reality is, is i want to get into the end zone. >> while wounding castro, the line of attack could also hurt biden by giving a permission slip to critics who want to put his age in the center of the debate. >> how do you ultimately overcome this? >> carry the ball over the finish line. >> are you releasing your medical records that address concerns -- >> yes. what the hell concerns, man? you want to wrestle? >> on friday biden millenialed to release his medical records before the iowa caucuses. though biden struggled at times, especially on issues of race. >> play the radio, make sure the television -- make sure you have the record player on at night, the phone. make sure the kids hear words. >> so far biden's general election argument has been durable, with the debate

shifting leftward in the primary, biden is challenging warren and sanders on the cost of their health care proposals. >> will middle class taxes go up? will private insurance be eliminated? >> what families have to deal with is cost, total cost. >> i don't doubt their motives. but it's going to cost over $3.4 trillion a year. how can that possibly be done without raising taxes? >> and questioning beto o'rourke's proposed mandatory buyback of assault weapons. >> hell yes we're going to take your ar-15, your ak-47. we're not going to allow it to be used against fellow americans anymore. >> i frankly think that that clip will be played for years at second amendment rallies with organizations that try to scare people by saying democrats are coming for your guns. >> and joining me now from houston is former congressman, democratic presidential candidate, beto o'rourke. congressman o'rourke, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> good morning. >> good morning.

look, senator -- republican senator poat toomey, you heard the chris coons comment at the end of the package. pat toomey tweeted the following. i agree with chris coons. this is an awful and extreme idea. thankfully there's not enough support in congress to do it. but this rhetoric undermines and hurts bipartisan efforts to make progress on common sense gun safety efforts, like expanding background checks. he went on the record, a few other democrats went on with blind quotes. there's a lot of hand wringing about what you said, agreeing with your sentiment but concerned that the rhetoric is going to actually backfire. what do you say? >> i think this just shows you how screwed up the priorities in washington, d.c., are. i think what's truly awful is a 17-month-old baby shot in the face with an ar-15, as happened in odessa. what's truly awful is 22 people killed in a walmart the saturday

before school starts that next monday, buying their school supplies, innocent of any crime or any threat to this country, in fact living in one of the safest cities in america, el paso, texas, hunted down by their ethnicity with a weapon that was designed for use on a battlefield. talking to those doctors and trauma room surgeons who treated those victims in el paso, they said these are wounds of war, that high-impact, high-velocity round, when it hit their systems just shredded everything inside of them. i refuse to accept that. and i refuse to even acknowledge the politics or the pulling or the fear or the nra. that has purchased the complicity and silence of members of congress. this weak response to a real tragedy in america, 40,000 gun deaths a year, we've got to do something about it. i'm proposing that we do something about it. >> explain how -- your change of heart. to be a bit harsh here, what you just said about sort of the weakness of washington, you used

to be one of those members of congress who used to advocate this very careful wording on guns. where did you go wrong? >> no, i reject that, chuck. so in texas, in every single one of the 254 counties, no matter how red or rural or big and blue, i was showing up talking about an assault weapons ban in that state, a proud gun-owning state, because i also know it's a proud responsible gun-owning state. and folks said that is the third rail of politics in texas. you can never talk about it. so i've been talking about these issues throughout the state. but you're right, on august 3rd in el paso with 22 people killed, dozens more grievously injured, i could no longer accept that that would be enough because there's still more than 10 million assault weapons, weapons of war out on the street. and if we agree that they're dangerous to sell and we should stop selling them, then we also have to agree that these are instruments of terror that are still out there and have to be

brought back home or they are going to be used against us. and that's what we've seen in el paso, in midland, odessa, in sutherland springs. those are just three communities in texas. >> you heard at one time, i believe, it was vice president biden offered up and he said don't forget the constitution. so let me ask it this way. what is your interpretation of what the second amendment allows and what the second amendment does not allow? >> i'll put it this way. this is something that we're able to do through the commerce clause and this is something that is not prevented from -- wouldn't prevent the united states from doing by the second amendment. so this is constitutionally sound. this is absolutely necessary if we care about the lives of our fellow americans. and here's something i want to tell you. going to a gun show in conway, arkansas, stopping at a buc-ees in katy, texas, yesterday, listening to owners of ar-15s,

republicans, who come up and say, you know what, i own one of these guns, don't need it to hunt, don't need it for self-defense. this is the right thing to do and i would gladly give it up because i also have kids in school and fear for their safety or i have grandkids and want to make sure the country is safe for them. so not only is this constitutionally sound there's support beyond the democratic party to include republicans, independents, gun owners and non-gun owners alike to do the right thing. >> very quickly, i am curious that you've gotten a lot more attention for saying what you did. you were supporting mandatory buybacks before but now you're getting this focus because of how you said it. there's been some coverage of you recently going, hey, congressman o'rourke is in his blanket stage, you know, referring to the fact that you will curse occasionally on the stump. do you find it a bit frustrating that it takes sometimes thee at rick -- theatrics to get the attention of the press corps and

the american public? >> i think what people wanting us to do and what i'm trying to do in this campaign is just to see things as clearly as i possibly can and speak as honestly as i possibly can without triangulating or polling or focus group testing what the message is. just call this out for what it is, absolutely wrong and unacceptable that we have people killed in this way in our communities and people living in fear in america today. i reject that fear, and i want o go forward with a bold, ambitious proposal toake sure that we're safe in our communities, safe in our homes, safe in america again. >> is the debate about vice president biden and the concern about his fitness to take the fight to president trump, a, is it a legitimate debate, and do you have concerns? >> oh, no, i could care less about that, to be honest with you. i was listening to your opening package. who the hell cares, right? you've got tens of millions of people who cannot see a doctor. in texas where i am right now, largest provider of mental

health care services is the county jail system. you've got ten years left within which to confront climate change or it is all over for all of us. you've got kids in cages, families who have been separated. there's some really urgent issues we've got to be addrsing in this country right now. the last thing i care about is joe biden's age or some inner party fight between candidates up on the stage. we've got to be talking about the big things that people in this country care about. >> very quickly, if you were president right now and you had a growing epidemic of people vaping and possibly getting sec or dying from it, what would you be doing right now? a temporary recall of all of these products? what would you be doing? >> i think that's a great place to start. i think you're seeing a playbook pioneered by big tobacco over the last 50 or 60 years trying to hook kids on somhing that will ultimately kill them being employed by the vaping industry. we need vigorous regulation. we need to treat this as a true public health crisis and respond

with the urgency that it demands. we've got to make sure no one is able to buy their way into our economy with pac checks or lobbyists to write the rules in their favor, as tobacco has done, as pharmaceutical corporations are able to do, as the nra has been able to do. we've got to stand up for people and especially for kids right now. this is an urgent issue. >> congressman beto o'rourke coming to us from houston, texas, be safe on the trail and thanks for coming on and sharing your views. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. and joining me now is democratic presidential candidate senator cory booker of new jersey. senator booker, welcome back to "meet the press." >> it's really good to be here. >> before i get into some of the specifics of this campaign, i want to quote something from maureen dowd's column this morning in "the new york times." the headline says are democrats doomed. she writes it's a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron about a moron. trump's faux authenticity somehow makes the democratic candidates seem more packaged,

more stuck in politician-speak. you and i were discussing this before. this debate process is very rigid, lots of people on stage and all of that. are you concerned? she seems concerned about the picture that the country is seeing right now of the democratic party. are you? >> no, not at all. look, i've had some friends of mean in the press send me headlines from this time in a presidential election in '07 and you just see how there's going to be sort of a scrimmage going on right now within our team. it may not be the message -- not the message, but it may not be the exact spirit that's going to be on that stage because your seeing a natural competition of ideas. so i'm not worried. we have to go through this. it's part of the process. it's a good thing. you're seeing some of the best political talent in our country. and i have a lot of confidence. in fact i'm making the case that we are going to choose somebody that's going to be able to unite the dispirit voices of our party and bring a united front to this

president. >> it does seem as though you're trying to bridge a divide that appears to some of us between, say, warren and sanders and vice president biden of being incrementally aspirational. meaning like, look, it's baby steps. the goal is medicare for all, as you say, but you're not saying you're going to get there tomorrow. it seems as if that message is hard to wedge in here. people either say, hey, no, give me an electable guy or give me the transformation. >> yeah, look, i can't stand these people that say these bright lanes. for me, i think, i feel it when i talk to really good people on that stage that i know that there is a unifying message here. look, we are a nation with a savagely broken health care system. this is the party -- not the guy that's trying to take it away that's in the white house right now. since the affordable care act, the number of insured go down significantly. we're trying to say everybody should have health insurance and we're going to fight to get there. we can put the ideal out there

but walk and chew gum at the same time. >> i want to put up the poll numbers this week. among democrats on medicare for all, among democrats them prefer building on obamacare 55%, replace it with medicare for all 40%. i imagine many democrats say that because they remember the political trauma of what it took. it's not as if obamacare was easy to implement, easy to get passed. do you think you have to take that into account how hard it would be to get medicare for all implemented before you propose it? >> you know, when i walk around and actually have conversations with people, this is where you're right. maureen is right about the political sloganeering. i think most people have multiple views of what medicare for all is in the first place. americans are very frustrated with our health care system. prescription drugs are ridiculously too high especially relative to other nations, as close as canada. we have a system that seems bureaucratic. people have to fight with their insurance companies. so i think folks just want this broken, expensive system that,

boy the way, incentivizes all the wrong behavior. don't go to a doctor, ration your drugs. we need to fix this system and i think that we are the party that's putting forth a vision to do just that. >> right. but do you w that you're scaring -- that either you're doing one of two things, overpromising something that can't be delivered. >> right. >> and at the same time also scaring independents who are fiscally frightened by it? >> i'm not worried. 2018 was an election that turned in many ways on health insurance. we knew the stark contrast. one party is trying to make it better that's going to bring progress and another party that's trying to kill it, take it away, cut your benefits or end obamacare and your protections from pre-existing conditions. >> up spent a lot of time on stage with vice president biden. are you concerned about his ability to get the ball over the goal line, as you said? >> well, number one, anybody on the stage, anybody that i was with the other night would be a better president than the one we

have. >> is everybody ready? is everybody physically up to it? >> i think that, again, if i thought somebody else could do the job better than me, i would not be running. i know this for a fact. this is not just about one office, this is about getting rid of mitch mcconnell as the majority leader. this is about state houses and governor's houses. at the top of america's ticket in our party we need someone that can energize and capture the moral imagination of this country. i believe i'm the best person to do that. >> i want to put up some headlines after all the debates. you've gotten really good debates. booker reminded democrats that he's a gifted communicator. second, he did well on wednesday night. third debate, probably his best performance so far. hasn't translated into the polls. the three front-runners are the three front-runners and it seems like there's a bigger gap between those three and the rest of you. what's your diagnosis of why you haven't caught on yet? >> well, we have. >> okay. >> where it matters. you know and you're sophisticated enough to know politics. the polls have never been

predictive this far out. if you're polling ahead, you should worry because we've never had anybody that's polling ahead this far out that went on to the presidency. the people that usually win are younger, dynamic candidates that are considered long shots. carter, bill clinton, barack obama. but here's something more interesting to note. on the ground in those states where you're going to have 300,000, 400,000 people in iowa deciding with caucus rooms, we have more endorsements from state legislators than all the top five polling candidates combined. in other words, the people on the ground in iowa who are seeing what's happened, are going to be in those caucus rooms are choosing my campaign. we have a better organization than just about every other candidate. we're going to beat this through organizing and building a team that will win. >> the senate is back. there might be some gun legislation. senator pat toomey is trying to get his background check bill in. you said something interesting at the debate about we're letting too many things -- the

perfect metaphor you used. you're pushing for manndatorned buybacks. >> the only major bipartisan bill to pass under this president was one i led in the senate with dick durbin for criminal justice reform. the bill didn't get a lot done that i wanted to and will continue to fight for but thousands of people have been liberated from prison. you talk to those folks who are out of prison -- >> you take what you can get. >> you get as much off of the table as you can. one thing i will not allow to happen for the rest of my life is to let this debate be framed by the corporate gun lobby who was been stultifying our national conversation on guns. overwhelmingly the majority of americans agree on bold action and the carnage that's happening, not just on the awful mass shootings that we see but every single day we have in the aggregate a mass shooting destroying communities, lives, families. >> democratic senator cory booker of new jersey, i know you've got to get to some

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welcome back. the panel is here. former republican governor of north carolina, pat mccrory, former democratic senator from missouri, claire mccaskill, nbc news chief white house correspondent hallie jackson and helene cooper, pentagon correspondent for "the new york times." i'm going to start with this headline. actually we'll start with a series of headlines. dan balz' analysis piece. for most of the night, biden's time to shine. and then at some point "the washington post" decided to change their headline to the following, claire mccaskill. for most of the night, biden weather a volley of attacks. i start this way because it does seem as if biden's debate performance got worse and worse

the longer we've gone from thursday versus people that watched it in the moment, like dan balz did from soup to nuts to the interpretations of it on social media after. what say you, claire mccaskill. >> there's a critical mass of insiders and talking heads, and i'm one of them, that i have to call myself a talking head now. >> yes, you do. you can't criticize us anymore. >> that's true, that's true. but there is this narrative that people are really holding on to. i will tell you, people that will decide this election that watched that debate thought joe biden did fine. you know, the ones who like him still like him. i think some were offended at what julian castro did. the most important thing that joe biden did in that debate was crystallize the health care debate. do you want a choice, americans, between what you have at work and a public plan, or do you want a government plan? and that, i think, will be the defining debate as we go forward to iowa. >> i guess the question i have, media narratives, pat mccrory,

if people are watching a debate through the prism of is he going to survive this debate? >> well, remember, the democrats' strongest argument for the presidential campaign is we need someone to be presidential. but the fact of the matter is i as a republican would love to see as many democratic debates as possible because i watched the entire debate while changing back and forth to the carolina panther e, but i don't think anyone showed a presence of being presidential. there was no strategy, no vision. there were bad jokes. there were a look of details. there was some confrontation the first part of the debate, but from there on out everyone went to packaged comments, which you and i have been in many debates. we know what that's like. i just don't think the democrats are getting any -- making any progress in being the president among the ten people on that stage. >> i would say that president trump has so changed the definition of presidential that that's -- i don't see how you

can say that, because -- >> it's easy to say. >> -- everybody standing on that stage, i didn't see anybody doing any of the sorts of things that president trump has done in the last two and a half years when you talk about the definition of presidential. so i think that -- i think at the very least everybody, all ten of them on that stage met the very low, low bar that we now have for that word. i think the issue, though, is still a question of if you're watching that debate, if you're one of the lefties, the people on the left of the democratic party, then you thought that vice president biden completely self emalated. if you're one of the moderates, you think he did perfectly fine. everybody still seems to be in their respective corners. >> i sense that too. >> from a policy perspective, i think this debate did a couple of things. i think it crystallized where the candidates stand on the health care issue.

it became very clear depending on what you want, you found a candidate that would or would not match you. the other piece of it is, that moment, hell yes, we're going to take your ar-15s. i cover the white house. there are those familiar with those negotiations happening on gun legislation and expanded background checks who are acknowledging that was simply not helpful. the congressman can say to you i refuse to acknowledge politics. that is not pragmatically tentative in the eyes of people working on this. that's a moment that lasts a lot longer than those three hours. >> claire, i want to show you some poll numbers here. among democrats the mandatory buyback program is extraordinarily popular. it's not 74% support. now look at it among independents and you start to see it declining support but basically one to one among independents. now look at it among republicans. 2-1 essentially against it which gives you an overall support number of 52-44. this to me seems to be the trap for democrats, if you will. this is an extraordinarily

popular, and it's growing in popularity and it may be a case where the public is ahead of the politicians. but what about -- you've been in that senate. what about is chris coons and pat toomey right about this? >> this is really what you started with. there's two things here. do we want to get things done and reassure the american people that their democracy works, or do we want to continue to be inspirational only with policies that, frankly, are not realistic in terms of the way our government is set up? they're not going to get done. we're not going to have a medicare for all program in four years. that's not going to happen and bernie knows it. i admire him for pushing this and trying to get us to talk more about those that are left behind in health care. so this is about pragmatism versus inspirational, aspirational stuff. and on guns, people are so frustrated and mad, this is what the rips aepublicans are missin. this is what donald trump is doing, he's committing political malpractice because everybody

wants universal background checks, everybody, including nra members. the fact they can't do that is pushing everyone to say we've got to do even more because they can't even do the baby steps because of the nra and donald trump being totally under their thumb. >> pat mccrory, mecklenburg county, the charlotte suburbs, background checks are probably popular among those republicans. >> probably. >> and so it feels that republicans have their own trap here to win back suburban voters versus the base being in another. >> the district 9 race there was the charlotte race which was more moderate to liberal, but then there was the fayetteville base, the same district three hours away where trump campaigned and he swung 2,000 votes talking about what republicans would consider extreme ideas on health care, on immigration and now maybe on guns. so it's that blue collar vote in the rural areas of states like missouri or north carolina that this could make the difference. and trump is the one surrogate right now not just for

presidential campaign but for future senate and house selections. who are the surrogates for the democrats who are going to go out and spread this message that you're hearing in the democratic debate? >> donald trump motivates democrats too. >> we're going to see a lot of people if they can't run against trump run against beto o'rourke's comments. >> absolutely they will. but there are so many americans that it just really does epitomize what frustrates a lot of people about congress. and people who don't -- most people are not going to be the sort of congressional, you know, tacticians that people like senator mccaskill may be and not see why it is so hard to get this done. all they can see is washington is standing in the way and gets nothing done. >> i think that's the real frustration is that it's nothing. up next, a drone attack on a up next, a drone attack on a major johnson & johnson is a baby company.

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welcome back. when president trump fired his third national security advisor this week, the hawkish john bolton, one republican who was not at all happy was congressman liz cheney of wyoming. she engaged in a sharp twitter change with senator rand paul who cheered the departure tweeting that he was a big loser and his motto seems to be terrorists first, america second. congresswoman liz cheney, the number three republican in the house, joins me now from rock springs, wyoming. congresswoman, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks very much, chuck. great to be with you. >> let me start with sort of a

30,000-foot look at the world right now. india and pakistan are warning of a nuclear confrontation over kashmir, turkey is poised to choose russia over nato which it joined almost 70 years ago and japan and south korea are in a trade war and have terminated their intelligence-sharing pact. these are allies i'm speaking of here. do you feel as if the globe is more stable with president trump as commander in chief now than it was three years ago? >> oh, absolutely, there's no question. when you look at the situation that president trump inherited when he came into office, when you look at what we had seen happen, for example, across iraq and syria when president obama withdrew precipitously based on a political timetable, we had the rise of the caliphate, we had the rise of isis, president trump's decision-making and leadership changed that. one of the most important things this president has done is dedicate the resources necessary to begin rebuilding our defense department, rebuilding our military. under barack obama you had eight years where our military did not

get the resources it needed while our adversaries built, deployed and in some cases now have weapons systems that we cannot defend against. so there's no question but that the world is safer, that we're in a situation where american leadership has come back. it's important that we continue down that path. >> if american leadership has come back, why are india and pakistan closer to a hot war than they were before? why is japan and south korea -- i mean that would be a situation, frankly, that i don't think any previous president would have allowed to fester the way it has festered. that's the type of things that you would wonder if maybe that's why we've had so much trouble keeping a national security advisor. does none of this trouble you? >> look, first of all -- well, first of all, with respect to ambassador bolton, you know, ambassador bolton has served this nation honor blably in a number of positions but any president has the right to have the people around him who he decides. the only people who are elected

are the president and vice president. everybody else is staff, they serve at the pleasure of the president, the same with all the cabinet officials so i think that's very important to point out. secondly i would say that there is no question but that the world is a very dangerous place. america faces a grave and complicated global threat environment. i think it's more dangerous than at any time since the end of world war ii, but the way in which we are responding to that, the way we are dealing with it, the extent to which president trump has been willing to walk away from dangerous deals. when he came into office the united states was a party to the iran nuclear accords, the united states was a party to the inf treaty. both of those agreements were agreements that made us less safe. the inf treaty only restricted the united states because the russians cheated and didn't restrict the chinese. the jcpoa, the iranians have cheated and continue to cheat and we saw this horrific attack yesterday on the saudi oil facilities. >> i'm curious -- >> yeah, i think -- >> what should be our response

to that in particular? and i say this because do you believe this was -- this came from yemen or do you believe this was -- and if it was iranian inspired or iranian directed or the iranians did it? where are you on this? >> look, i think secretary pompeo's statements yesterday were absolutely right. i think it's very clear this was the iranians. >> do we need to provide proof? >> it's a very significant escalation and i would say we ought to do several things. first of all, i would say we should deny the visas for the iranian delegates who are planning to come into the united states, to new york next week. >> the foreign minister, every one of them? >> absolutely. absolutely. secondly, i think as her first step as our new u.n. ambassador, kelly kraft, who's a terrific new u.n. ambassador ought to offer a resolution for snap-back sanctions to say, listen, it's

very clear the iranians because of a number of things we've seen recently, including the secret warehouse that the israelis found and revealed, where it's clear that they have now begun and continue their enrichment activities, expanded their enrichment 48[ they're operating in total violation of the iranian nuclear deal and we ought to have those sanctions snap back. when you have entities like the iranians, like the taliban who continue to attack american interests as the iranians are doing, who continue to kill americans as we've seen in the case of both the irgc as well as the taliban and their ally, al qaeda, it's very important for us to send a message you have to choose. you can either do diplomacy or you can attack america and attack our interests. but we know you're not serious about diplomacy if you continue to have the kinds of attacks we've seen over the last few days. >> all right. the fact that you want to make sure they don't even get visas to attend the u.n., i know where you are on my next question which is the idea of the president sitting down and talking with the iranians.

that is -- it appears that the reason for the split between mr. bolton and mr. trump was over the idea of easing some sanctions in order to begin some talks with the iranians. do you think it's a mistake to talk to the iranians on any level? >> i think it would not be the right approach now, particularly in the aftermath of the attacks that we saw on the saudi oil facilities. we've got a maximum pressure campaign on the iranians that this administration has put in place that is absolutely working. what we ought to be about right now is making sure the iranians understand that they are isolated and the world community will not abide by this kind of activity. >> i hate interrupting over a satellite because it can sound ruder than it's intended to be. but the iranians are still -- are still now -- now they're trying to make nuclear weapons and trying to do things faster. how has maximum pressure worked if it's accelerating their

efforts to get a nuclear weapon? >> look, the iranians have very clearly been feeling a huge brunt of these sanctions. i think that it's important for us to make sure they understand that they cannot have a nuclear weapon, that the world will stand against that, that they cannot -- you know, during the -- when we were part of the iranian nuclear agreement, the iranians were doing all these things. there were no serious real verification measures hat agreement rememb agreement. remember, chuck, they didn't have to reveal any past nuclear. they were able to verify themselves at their military sites. so what we know about what they have been doing we know in part because of what the israelis have done from an intelligence perspective but the iranians have continued to foment and support terrorism across the globe, continued their ballistic missile development. the sanctions now that this president and this administration have put on are biting, they're hurting, they're feeling it. the people of iran you're seeing

increasingly the people of iran saying, listen, we don't want part of this, we don't want to be a pariah state. the iranians ought to understand and recognize we're not going to abide by an iranian nuclear weapon, we're not going to allow that to happen. they need to come back to the table to negotiate. these sanctions will continue to be strengthened and feel increasing pressure until they do that but we're not in the business of doing what barack obama did where he sent pallets full of cash, for example, to the iranians to bribe them to come to the dpoesnegotiating ta >> you're speaking more stridently on this than president trump is. he does seem to be open to this. >> you may want to say that, but i think if you look at the way this president has operated and look at the extent to which he was willing to walk away from this agreement and look at secretary pompeo's statements from yesterday, i think particularly now in the aftermath of this attack, we have to be absolutely clear that the iranians are isolated and we're going to build an international coalition of support for putting back the

sanctions that ought to be in place against them. >> let me ask about this rand paul business and let me ask you to respond to the fact -- to it this way. "the washington examiner" headline, liz cheney slams rand paul adds supporting terrorists because he opposes war. the writer is criticizing you for basically saying she should engage with him on the merits of his idea, not slander him with pro terrorism. calling somebody pro terrorist, do you admit that's probably a little overboard? >> look, i think if you look back at what senator paul has said over many, many years, he's very different from where president trump is on these issues. president trump puts america first. senator paul whenever given the opportunity blames america first. if you look at what he said about why we were attacked on 9/11, if you look at what he's said, he's blamed america even for world war ii. president trump doesn't believe that. senator paul does. and look, i think fundamentally

at the end of the day this is about substance and policy. senator paul tried to get elected president. he was able to get only less than 5% of the vote in the iowa caucuses, as you well know. his views are not views that are shared widely, certainly among republicans and among the american people as a whole. and they're dangerous views as well. >> are you running for the senate? >> pardon me? >> are you running for the senate? >> i have not got any announcements to make this morning, chuck, but i'll be sure to let you know. >> well, that sounds like a thinking about it. as we go, congresswoman liz cheney, thank you for joining us this morning and sharing your views. i appreciate. >> thank you. a quick programming note, nbc news has created a new reporting unit that is dedicated to covering the environment. starting today nbc news, msnbc and telemundo will prevent a week-long series called "climate week-long series called "climate in

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welcome back. data download time. another major storm has hit the bahamas, just two weeks after hurricane dorian flattened homes and killed more than 50 people. if it feels like big weather events are becoming more common in the last few decades, it's because they are, and it's not just hurricanes. since the 1980s, the number of tropical depressions getting big enough to acquire a name has been growing. there were 93 named storms in the atlantic in the 1980s when i was growing up in florida. 110 in the '90s. a whopping 151 in the first decade of this century, and the tally already sits at 149 for the current decade and we are still at the peak of the 2019 season. we're likely to surpass that 151 number before the end of october. and while some people debate the seriousness of the climate threat, one thing is crystal clear in the data, it's becoming a fiscal nightmare. since 1980 there have been 250 weather events costing a billion dollars or more.

that's adjusted for inflation. and almost half of them, 111, have occurred in this current decade. and look at how the costs have gone up. in the 1980s, there were only 28 high-dollar weather events. at a cost of, say, about $172 billion. now look at this decade. 111 into early 2019 costing more than $761 billion. then when you tally it all up, the costs are likely to end up at three-quarters of a trillion dollars or more. and then of course there is the human cost, the number of fatalities from extreme weather thaz climbed from 2800 in the '80s to almost 5200 this decade and does not include hurricane dorian. here's the point. if there was something else that was costing around a trillion dollars a decade, thousands of lives, most voters would notice and demand for lawmakers to do something to control that cost. what's more, climate change doesn't respect america's red/blue divide.

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back now with "end game." john bolton and trump not getting along -- first of all, every relationship donald trump engages in eventually ends sometimes like this. but what message is this sending around the world? >> i think that's a tough one. clearly trump -- i mean there's a standard message which is trump doesn't hold on to his national security advisors very

long. you know, you have -- we are on our third defense secretary, we're on our second secretary of state, we're now about to head to our fourth national security advisor. that's one message. but i think this is bolton, and it's -- everything is different when you're talking about john bolton, because john bolton was viewed globally as a war hawk. i think you saw a huge sigh of relief around the world when he stepped down as national security advisor because it sort of removed that whole threat that we've all -- that a lot of people thought we were going through about there's a war with iran, you know, right around the corner. you know, that immediately went away. and so you see what just happened yesterday with saudi arabia. there's a whole long -- there's a long list of reasons behind that, but at the end of the day i think you can see iran starting to flex its muscle a little bit more. >> hallie, how concerned is the

white house that bolton will become a negative surrogate of sorts? >> he has already started to lay the groundwork for that. the day he got dismissed he was texting multiple reporters personally talking about his side of the story and very publicly promising more to come from him, so he is going to be back on the scene in a way that h.r. mcmaster, who our reporting is, is having conversations with the president again, is not. but you talk about how john bolton was seen as a hawk globally, also in the oval office. president trump knew that's who john bolton was. president trump claimed he liked that about john bolton. our sources tell us that is part of why john bolton left was this disagreement over iran and whether toes sanctions for president trump to set up the conditions for a meeting. liz cheney, the congresswoman, says to you that the president has been very tough on iran but look at what the president has said for months, including, chuck, to you back when you interviewed him. he said he would meet with rouhani with no preconditions and was willing and open to do that. secretary of state pompeo said the same thing. >> pat mccrory, liz cheney wants

to deny all visas to the iranians. by the way, donald trump has not tweeted about that issue. he's been tweeting about a brett kavanaugh story that's in "the new york times." >> i'll tell you one issue we're not talking about is drones. drones is the new warfare. this attack in saudi arabia using drones. as a former member of homeland security advisory commission, i'm worried about homeland security now that the enemy is using drones. we better bring that up for discussion from a defensive and offensive standpoint regarding both homeland security and the middle east. and also, the presidential debate, it's going to be interesting in foreign policy, claire, you can respond to this, how different are the democrats on trade and other foreign policy issues than the president right now versus maybe the divide might be in the republican party between the cheneys and trump. >> how do you pick a side between president trump and john bolton, claire mccaskill.

>> i don't think you do as a democrat. that's an open, festering wound in the republican party between the liz cheneys of the world and others who are not as hawkish as cheney and bolton. on our side, it's just we want to go back to the normal of taking care of our allies and joining forces with our allies and not being besties and inviting taliban to camp david or having putin -- i just think that we will go back to -- if the democrats win, if a democratic nominee wins president, we'll go back to the normal of taking care of our allies. >> before we go, there's a new book out about the confirmation process of brett kavanaugh. there's a new accusation. in this reporting, claire mccaskill, there's an indication that the fbi background check that was done on the second accuser, the woman from yale, it wasn't done completely now. there was always suspicion on your side of the aisle. you were in the senate then. what should democrats do now, given this new information? >> i'm not sure honestly.

you know, that was such a mess. and what it did for those of us who were running, it crystallized how bad washington is. >> yes, it did. >> so if you were of washington at that moment, frankly the party didn't matter as much as the fact that you were part of that mess. and the mess really occurred because the information that needed to be investigated came out so late and then it looked like a kneecap, even though there were reasons it was late. i'm not sure good ones. but if the information had come out early, i think you could have seen a full-throated fbi investigation, but this isn't going away if the fbi never even bothered to talk to people surrounding this woman's allegation. >> and one thing, again, the president is tweeting about this. not about iran, not about -- >> he thinks it's a winner. >> thank you, guys. that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

this strike is about us. it's about standing up for fair wages. >> we believe that we presented a strong offer to the uaw. >> on strike more than 50,000 general motors workers are now on strike as of midnight economy, and what it means for you. locked and loaded. president trump issues a stark military warning in response to the attacks on saudi oil facilities as prices spike right now. we're live in the region new details in the brett kavanaugh controversy, but how much did authorities already know and later today, the woman who alleges that she was raped by t