>> she's ready to do this job on day one. >> joe biden picks his running mate. >> your next vice president of the united states kamala harris. >> the first woman of color ever on a national ticket. >> we need a mandate that proves that the past few years do not represent who we are or who struggling to find a consistent line of attack. >> she left angry. she left mad. there was nobody more insulting to biden than she was. >> how will this ticket fare with progressive democrats?

>> this morning my interview with senator bernie sanders of vermont. plus our brand-new nbc news/wall street journal poll on the eve of the democratic national convention, also as covid relief talks break down. >> perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gave a damn. >> president trump says no deal, no new postal service funding for mail-in voting. >> it's very simple. how are they going to do it if they don't have the money to do it? >> sabotaging the mail in order to help his re-election chances what we've never seen before is a president saying i'm going to actively kneecap the postal service. >> as president trump struggles as home he secures a big agreement in the middle east. i'll talk to national security adviser robert o'brien. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news hunt. former homeland security secretary jeh johnson, carol lee and charles benson from our nbc

affiliate in convention city, milwaukee. >> welcome to sunday and our coverage of the democratic national convention. it's "meet the press". from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. normally on the sunday before a national political convention we'd be inside a sports arena right now anticipating cheering crowds, boisterous protests and even anticipating colorful balloon drops, but not this year, not before this year's unconventional convention or next week's republican gathering somewhere in america, this year's conventions, like everything else, have been up ended by covid-19. one thing that has changed here, though is the pre-convention naming of the running mate with joe biden picking the odds-on favorite of the role. biden will try to do something

that has not been accomplished since 1992, defeat a sitting president and they begin with a bit of a head start. our brand-new nbc news wall street journal poll shows joe biden withnt lead over president trump 50-41, while that's down a bit from last month, overall, the numbers look pretty stable when you look at this race over the entire summer. but interestingly, among biden voters only 36% say their vote is more for biden. while nearly 60% say they're voting primarily against mr. trump. overall, interest in this election is extraordinarily high. 79% of all voters right now in august, 83% of democrats and 85% of republicans and all of these voters say they're highly interested in this election, those are october numbers normally. the bottom line from our republican and democratic pollsters is this, while president trump needs to pull

another inside straight to win this election is not yet a done deal for biden and all this past week the president made it clear that he's willing to hobble the postal service and impair the mail-in voting which he fears will help the democrats in november. >> the mail-in voting will be catastrophic and make our country a laughing stock all over the world. >> tafter an urgent warning to dozens of states that it cannot guarantee all mail-in baltds will be counted. dejoy acknowledged unintended consequences to service arguing cuts were necessary because our financial condition is he tryin mail-in voting. >> no, not at all. the steps that he's taking are trying to stop the tremendous losses that have taken place for many, many years. he's trying to make it great

again. >> mr. trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence, that mail-in ballots lead to melania have requested mail-in ballots in florida. polls show that people who want to vote by mail tend to vote for vice president biden so this say political calculation. >> what we've never seen before is a president say i'm going to try to actively kneecap the postal service to encourage voting and i will be explicit about the reason i'm doing it. >> meanwhile, president trump is struggling to respond to the biden-harris ticket who are hammering his handling of the virus which 58% of all voters disapprove of. >> let's institute a mask mandate nationwide starting immediately and we will save lives. >> other countries are following the science, trump pushed miracle cures he saw on fox news. >> mr. trump and his campaign are struggling to define harris. the republican national committee argued liberals revolt

against biden-harris ticket. >> she will have to hide her time as a prosecutor from the anti-police left. before saying her pick shows radical extreme i was have seized control of the democratic party. >> she's radical left and now she tn the u.s. senate. >> the president called harris nasty, a mad woman and renewing the racist birther conspiracy theory he pushed for years about president obama. >> i heard it today that she doesn't meet the requirements and by the way, the lawyer that wrote that piece is a very highly qualified and very talented lawyer. i have no idea if that's right. >> he wrote an article saying there could be a problem. oakland, california. >> joining me now is the independent senator from vermont, bernie sanders. senator sanders, welcome back to "meet the press," while this is

a convention sunday and we want to talk about the campaign, i want to start with the postal service, you've spent a lot of time in your career fighting on behalf of the postal service in different ways, fighting to make sure stuff doesn't get cut. this is a topic you are well versed in. so let me ask you this about what we're seeing right now. on one hand the united states postal service is telling states they can't handle the increased capacity of mail-in voting and on the other hand we've got reports of sorting machines going away, no more overtime. what are we witnessing here, senator sanders, legitimate reform of the postal service or sabotage? >> chuck, what you are witnessing is a president of the united states who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote.

so what trump is saying is we're going to do everything we can and this is not me talking, this is what trump himself said. loo to think, as you know that trump is a pathological liar. he lies all of the time, but i have to admit that the other day he was very honest. he said, look, we want to kill mail-in balloting. we don't want millions and millions of people to be able to cast their ballots through the mail so we'll destroy the postal service. we'll defund it. they can't vote. i guess that he thinks that a suppressed vote, a lower voter turnout will work for him and help him win the election. this is a deliberate e for the to defund and destroy the u.s. postal service so that people cannot engage in mail-in ballots. that's not bernie sanders talking. that's what donald trump is telling the american people and it is an outrage, chuck, because this campaign is education, ing.

>> think the question now is what does congress do? what can you do? the house is you're hearing some word that the house democratic leadership is thinking about bringing the house back early to deal directly with this postal service crisis. do you think that's a good idea and do you want to see senator mitch mcconnell do the same thing? >> absolutely. i think what the democratic leadership in the house, nancy pelosi and others are talking about is exactly right. this again is not a debate about the postal service alone. that's important. this is about the right to pa participate. chuck, earlier this week, here in vermont we had our primaries. we had the largest voter turnout in primaries in vermont history. most of the people voted by mail-in ballots. it worked just fine. we can do this in every state in

this country, so i would urge speaker pelosi to bring back the house. we will do everything that we can to get mcconnell to bring back the senate. this is a crisis for american democracy. we've got to act and act now. >> you know, your colleague brian schats, democrat in hawaii saw trump messing with it is more impeachable than the ukraine thing which was super impeachable. he's going to try to cheat. i guess, what do you call what the president is doing when he said that he's hoping this lack of a deal on the postal service means no mail-in voting? what do you call it? >> i call it undermining american democracy, and chuck, what i hope is that everybody knows my point of view. i am a strong progressive, but this campaign is not about whether you're progressive or

moderate or conservative. this campaign in the deeper sense is whether we respect the sacrifices the men and women died in defending american democracy against the president who really quite openly is trying to undermine our democracy and i hope the american people come together, progressive, moderates, conservatives to say sorry, mr. president, we may have our disagreement, but in america we are a democracy. everybody is going to vote and we're not going to let you get away with what you're doing. >> what would you tell voters right now that want to vote by mail that are nervous? >> i would tell them, look, the average voter is put in a very difficult position. you are more than familiar with the fact that there are states which have discouraged mail-in votes and urged people to come to the polling places and some of those people have become sick. so the average person is put in

this terrible quagmire. yes, i want to vote and participate in democracy, but i'm afraid to go out. the people who man the polling stations often are older people. they are afraid of spending an entire day of dealing with voting. what i would say it people is stay tuned. in one way or another, we want to make sure that the people of this country have the right to vote and donald trump is not going to undermine our democracy. >> when you say stay tuned, what does that mean? do you really believe congress can act to hamstring the president here? he seems to control the -- >> we will do everything that we can in every way that we caniss. this really is an issue where ideology shouldn't get in the way. >> i don't care if you're a conservative, moderate, whatever you are. if you believe that people have a right to vote and in a pandemic should not have to put their lives on the line to go

into a polling station, you know what? you will have to support the full funding of the postal service and make sure that people can participate. >> all right. i want to talk about tomorrow night. you're speaking on the same night as john kasich. first of all, what do you make of that, number one, and give us a preview of your speech if you don't mind. >> only if you don't tell anybody, chuck, all right? just keep that between you and me what my speech is. what i'm going to be talking about are a couple of things, number one what i just referred to is that this is a campaign about whether or not we maintain american democracy. we have a president and it's not just the postal service. you will recall that not so long ago trump said maybe we should delay the election. i'm behind in the polls, let's delay the election and earlier than that, maybe if i lose i may not want to leave office.

this is a president who has used federal agents in unmarked cars to round up people exercising their constitutional right to protest. so this is a campaign about democracy, but i'll tell you what else it is. right now, as we speak, chuck, and we don't talk about this enough. with 30 million people having lost their jobs since the pandemic and since those $600 checks have ceased to come, what you are seeing in all over this country is people in economic desperation. you're seeing people who today in america, the richest country on earth unable to feed their kids and worried about being evicted from their homes. you are seeing people who cannot pay their bills and have no health insurance. what we are lookinglute horror . what congress has got to do is not only fund the postal

service. we've got to maintain those $600 checks. we've got to make sure that people get at least $1200 to pay their bills and obviously trump and mcconnell have done nothing in that regard. >> let me ask you about one aspect of the democratic party platform, there is one reference we can find to medicare for all. i'm going to read it here. we are proud our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the affordable care act and those who supported medicare for all approach. all are critical to ensuring health care is a human right. it is the only reference we could find to medicare for all. how do you feel overall about the party platform and do you feel like you've got enough of your views represented in it? >> well, chuck, as you may be aware i am not the candidate. so my views are not the dominant views, but what i will credit strongly of the biden campaign

towards what joe and i talked about this and he and i agreed that we should have task forces dealing with some of the major issues facing this country including the economy and health care and climate change and education, et cetera, and the people on those task forces work very, very hard and i'm not here to tell you as a strong advocate for medicare for all that we got everything we wanted. we truly did not, but i think if people look at the outcome of those task forces to find the reality that if those task force proposals are implemented. you know what? joe biden will become the most progressive president since franklin delano roosevelt and that of this moment is what we sne need. >> kamala harris, this is joe biden's future of the democratic party, perhaps a future

president and a future nominee is she a future member of the progressive party. >> almost all progressives understand that in this moment we have got to do everything we can to come together to defeat donald trump who in my view is the most dangerous president in the history of this country. as i have said many, many times the day after biden is elected we will be working with the grassroots people of this country, with working people, to stand up to fight for an agenda that works for working families and not just the 1% and that most certainly includes medicare for all. so we are going to rally the american people around an agenda and i look forward to doing that the day after biden is elected. >> very quickly, in the state of wisconsin, kanye west is trying to get on the ballot and one of his petition signatures that apparently right now is being

used to get him on the ballot is signed this.f a -- the mickey mouse apparently signed this petition signatures. i just want to confirm that that is not you, sir. >> i cannot confirm mickey mouse. that, i don't know about, but i can tell you i certainly did not sign that petition. >> okay. >> senator bernie sanders, we look forward to hearing what you have to say tomorrow night and again, how do you feel about sharing the stage with john kasich? >> john will do his thing, i will do my thing. i expect there will be different type of speech e bes, but we ar united in the standing that trump has to be defeated and biden has to be elected. >> all right. bernie sanders, the progressive independent senator from vermont, the runner-up in this democratic nomination fight that

we all witnessed here. thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective, sir. >> thank you. >> when we come back i'll talk to national security adviser robert o'brien abou the ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ find a stock basedtech. on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading techn for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. we're all doing our best to keep each other safe.

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welcome back. from joe biden to nancy pelosi, the praise has been pretty universal. last week president trump announced that israel and the united arab emirates also known as uae would establish full diplomatic relations making the uae only the third arab state after egypt and jordan to officially recognize israel. it was a significant achievement with broad implications for the middle east and one of the many issues among also the russian interference in our that i want to discuss with my next guest and joining me now is president trump's national security adviser robert o'brien. good to have you on the program again. in announcing this agreement the president portrayed it as an

icebreaker, if you will, for israel to normalize relations with other countries in the region particularly gulf states. what kind of time line should we expect? is this months? is this years? who will be number four? >> well, thanks, chuck. that's a great question. let me answer, before i do, it's a bit of a bittersweet weekend for the president and we had the remarkable accomplishment with the accords and he lost his brother robert when was his best friend and i want to extend my condolences to the family as they mourn robert trump's passing. last week was quite an accomplishment and it was a result of very hard diplomacy, much of it being quarterbacked by the president of the united states itself on calls with bibi netanyahu and muhammad bin zayed and it took courage by other leaders, as well. as you indicated there have only

been three of these peace treaties since israel's founding and it's a hoististorical accomplishment. we fanned out as soon as this was announced and i've been on the phone with leaders in the region and the president has jared kushner has, secretary pompeo has and we are quite hopeful that we can build on this momentum and i can't give a time line because these are the toughest negotiations in the world to broker peace within israel and the arab and islamic world and we are confident that we think there are a couple of other countries that will get onboard soon and i'm curious about that. >> i'm saudi arabia, because they're the guardians of islam, do they end up the la could they be next? >> it's possible they could be next. islam, as you know, chuck, are the king of saudi arabia, the

keeper of those two sites and the other two sites are the al aqsa mosque and king hussein of jordan supervises that. one of the great things about this agreement is you will now have direct flights from those fantastic airports in abu dhabi and tel aviv. we will have arab and muslim pilgrims coming to jerusalem and coming up to the mount and worshipping at the al aqsa mosque and we think that will be a great confidence builder and i'm hoping that king salman and mbs, muhammad bin salman see that development and realize this would be great for saudi arabia and it will be great for the arab people and the islamic world, as well. so we're hopeful. we'll have to see what happens, but we're talking to a number of countries in addition to saudi arabia. >> i'm curious, you know, there seems to be a little bit of -- i don't know if it's an intentional misunderstanding or not. the uae says they feel comfortable making this deal because israel will not be doing

annexation. prime minister netanyahu has made it clear, he made it clear this morning in remarks this morning about this that israel did not have to pledge to do anything, and did not have to pledge not to perhaps annex parts of the west bank. let me ask you this, does the united states believe israel is entitled to annex the west bank? >> well, what we've said all along is the con turs of the west bank have to be decided by negotiations between the israelis and the palestinians and president trump and his vision for middle east peace put out a map and that map was the starting point for negotiations and we decided to have peace between the israelis and palestinians is for them to come to the table. there are some facts on the ground and settlements there that are durable and longstanding and there may have to be some land swaps and that's something that's been considered all of the way back to oslo, but

i think in the meantime we are confident and it will not extend sovereignty and that's what part of this deal is about. i understand prime minister netanyahu's view that ultimately there are parts of the west bank that israel would like to have and there are probably other parts along the borders that palestinians would like to have and that's why you would have a negotiation, and i'm hoping that this uae deal with israel and other deals with israel will encourage the palestinians to come to the table because we want a two-state solution and we want to see the palestinian gdp double and we want to see a great state of palestine living in peace next to israel. that would be fantastic. >> your loss at the u.n. at the extension of an arms embargo on iran and given how much the -- few allies the united states had on their side on this issue, do you at all look at this? wouldn't the united states be in a better position to extend this

embargo on iran if they had remained the iran deal and is that a big diplomatic mistake? >> i think it's exactly the opposite of that, chuck, and getting out of the jcpoa and showing our allies and partners in the region who are terrified of iran that received $150 under the jcpoa in sanctions relief and they didn't take that money to improve the lives of ordinary iranians and they took that money and engaged in proxy wars with syria, yemen and other jcpoa was the predicate for this fantastic deal between uae and israel. look, the only people -- you have thomas friedman coming out with an unqualified endorsement of the deal which i never thought i would see president trump being endorsed by thomas friedman on this deal and david ignacious and others, and the only two people wereç the we s

stayed in it. >> want to move to the issue of russian interference. it was an alarming thing that the dni put out that russia is actively still involved in trying to denigrate the democratic campaign in particular. the president likes to say and you have said that this administration somehow has been tough or russia than the last administration. let me ask you this, if you have then why is it a policy failure that russia is still interfering in our elections? >> well, i think the dni report was reallyefore is it details t the influence and the efforts of china and of iran to denigrate president trump and to make sure that he's not re-elected. it also talked about the russian interference. as i said and the president made very clear, we're against every foreign party trying to get