>> brennan: welcome back the "face the nation." a holiday never stops the news here in washington. if you hope it does. that was as true as ever this week. we'd like the welcome our panel for some political analysis. ramesh ponnuru is a senior editor at the national review and a columnist for bloomberg opinions. susan page is the washington bureau chief at "usa today." jamelle bouie is from legislate and matt viser is from the "washington post." a thanksgiving day subpoena for jim comey. we thought some of these public hearings might be over. it appears based on what congressman gowdy said on our air that at there's public forum might be. susan, what does this mean for

the case, the special counsel, and does the american public need more public hearings on this? >> this about james comey and lore ritz that lynch. they must have thought they were in the clear. it's hard to see this as anything but a stunt as the republicans are about to give up power in the house. it is hard to see this as a really serious effort to conclude some kind of meaningful investigation. >> brennan: well, it was interesting to hear what seemed like an offer, maybe not an official one to, have this deposition be on tape and perhaps edited and released. we'll see if that happens. i want to ask you, ramesh, about something thaty t l into u.s. policy, which is our closest ally has finalized its divorce from the e.u. the u.k. is exiting in tor

theresa may, the prime minister. what do you think this signals? is this a one-off? is this more indicative of the kind of forces we're seeing in the world today beyond the u.s. where institutions are being rattled a bit? >> i think it's got enormous significance on a number of fronts. for one thing, britain's departure from the e.u. and even if this deal is modified or not, it's not going to have the say it once had in the european union. that means the european union is going to have more tendency to be centralized, more tendency to be dominated by countries that aren't as close to us as britain is.it hasmhr brain can anymore with us. that was discussed a lot in the run-up to brexit. this ties britain's hands in their ability to do that. and more generally, the question of the effect on british's politics. if you have a demoralized tori

party, does it help jeremy corbin become prime minister? and it's an example of the con vul gentz of public around the globe. >> brennan: america's searching for gnaw best friend in the e.u., ireland, france, who will that be? but turning back to home, i want to talk about this public spat in some ways that's really unusual between the supreme court chief justice john roberts and the president over whether the courts are being politicized. jamelle, what did you make of the president's public statement here? >> it's strange to see the president antagonize the chief justice this way just after getting a justice on to the court. i think that if the president wanted to ensure that he would have good relations as cases relevant to his presidency reach the court, he wouldn't have done this. i can see why john roberts has decided to push back, indeed there will be likely many 5-4 decisions with the conservative

majority, and creating this political distance between him and the president i think he thinks may provide legitimacy to those decisions when they happen. one thing i think is worth saying is that i'm not sure that the president is necessarily wrong here, as representative gowdy said in his interview. there is sort of an at least informal recognition that partisan affiliation has some weight on how justices and judges make their decisions. there is a reason, right, why republican voters were willing to look past so much of what trump did just to get him in office so he could nominate judges for the federal court system. so i think this is why it's been said in a variety of circumstances and contexts how one thing about trump is he sort of strips the pretense from a lot in american politics. i do think this is a situation where he's stripping the pretense from american politics and saying plainly, look, the justices in the united states while independent is also tinged

by partnership and ideology, and he doesn't like the pack that that means there are judges appointed we prezidents he opposes who will likely be an obstacle to his political agenda. >> brennan: ramesh, do you agree with that? some conservatives have been uncomfortable with his references to the judiciary. >> i'm going to join the jamelle bouie, trey gowdy, donald trump view. i think roberts' comment about there not being obama judges or trump judges were more aspirational than descriptive, but i think part of what's going on here is that the trump administration has a very bad record in court. it has been handed a lot of defeats in court, and one thing we should keep in mind is it's so, for example, the question of jim acosta's press pass, the administration lost that in court, and that was a judge that trump himself hadmothy kelly, bt court judge. so what he's saying is true, but

i don't think it quite gets to the underlying problem is the judiciary as a branch has not been especially tolerant of the kind of on-the-fly, improv sayingsal, whim-driven policy-making we're seeing from this administration. >> brennan: matt, you have been some of the races still going on post-midterms. you already down in mississippi, right? >> yes, mississippi has been fascinating race here. it's the final one we think of the midterms that hasn't been decided. it's definitely taken a racial tinge to it in the wake of cindy hide smith's comments aghtd being willing to sit on the front row of a public hanging in she's running against the first -- the man seeking to become first black senator since reconstruction there. >> brennan: and the president is endorsing her in a tweet today and will be at >> we've got two rallies on tuesday or sorry tomorrow, on monday the eve of the election, and it's her hope is that he

pulls her over the edge. you know, and the president of the united states having to go to a race in mississippi for two rallies on the eve of the election just shows you how close this could be and how worried republicans are. >> brennan: you wouldn't think it would be hard for a republican the win a senate race in mississippi. >> but this has been a different kind of race. we've seen such different strategies by african american candidates in the south in florida and georgia governor's races and now in this senate race because there has been a feeling in georgia and florida that an african american candidate can win a statewide race by appealing to african american voters, not trying to appeal to moderate whites in the middle, which has been the traditional prescription. so this will be a test about whether anything is really changed. >> block voters were very excited about andrew gillum, stacy abrams. hey came closer than a lot of people thought, but they ended up losing, so this is that last one.

>> the decision that mike espy will have to take the large blan and a large and growing population of liberal, educated whites. you can brick those vote, along. mississippi doesn't have that. and, in fact, it has a very inelastic white population that votes routinely for republican candidates. so i think it's a population around 40%, 45%. but even that elasticity in the white vote makes espy's odds really hard even if the gap between a loss and a win is like very narrow, like it's maybe a couple points, but it's so inelastic. it's difficult. >> espy's people have told me they just need to get 25% to 30% of the white vote, which tells you how different strategies are working here. if they can get black voters out in big numbers, which is hard, which is a big task in au election that's taking place five days after thanksgiving, although this race has been

getting a lot of attention. i think people are mobilized and lines are long outside polling places already for abaccept tee tee -- absentee ballots. tee -- absentee ballots. >> brennan: we'll take a quick break. we have more to talk about on the other side of it. we have more from our panel. break. the other side of it. studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection or flu-like symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems. these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. some serious allergic reactions and lung inflammation can occur. talk to your doctor today, and learn how janssen can help you explore cost support options. remission can start with stelara®. explore cost support options. a moment of joy. a source of inspiration.

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is causing some sort of interfighting within the republican party. will we see this move forward in the lame duck? >> you know, it's possible. one of the rare areas where we've seen bipartisan work in the entire country has been criminal justice reform. there have been state legislatures where you've had republicans and democrats, republican governors and democratic governors coming together. president trump is an unlikely advocate of criminal justice reform. it doesn't fit with a lot of the other things that president trump is talking about, but his advocacy of it and his ditching of jeff sessions, who as an attorney general was dead set against this has really increased the chance it's going to happen. >> i'm not sure i would refer to him as an advocate. i see this as president trump is obsessed with wins, with getting legislative win, and so a criminal justice bill, even if it runs counter to his choice of jeff sessions for attorney general, but the entire tenor of his rhetoric for the past two

years runs counter to criminal justice reform, a bill passing would count as a slittive win, and i think he would count it. i don't think he particularly cares about the content of that win. >> he hasn't had a lot of them. >> >> brennan: and to be fair, there is no pledge this will go to a volt in the lame duck. leader mcconnell said they're still reviewing whether that is possible. it is an interesting thing to see floated at this point. will we see, susan, anything substantial move forward during the lame duck? >> well, we hope we don't have a shutdown. that would be one thing. i think the most interesting thing where we might see some kind of result by the republicans on the hill is over the khashoggi killing. and the president's decision apparently not to punish the saudis in a serious way or not to punish the crown prince for what intelligence agencies have concluded was his involvement, his ordering of the murder of a

"washington post" journalist. and we've seen just today senator mike lee, a republican saying intelligence indicates this wasn't a fealg feeling, it was a finding. joni ernst, also a republican, said if that's the case, something should happen. consequences should follow. on that issue, will senate republicans be willing to buck the president, who is quite isolated both in american politics and international politics, with his stance on this issue. >> brennan: can they get any kind of veto-proof majority that would in some way hit the crown prince without severing or hurting the relationship with saudi arabia, a key ally. >> you probably need to make a choice on what your priority is there. president trump has made a decision that he cares more about the relationship with saudi arabia. do other disagree strongly enough to cob front him on that? i don't think we know the answer to that question. it's unlikely. it's not the republican tradition to stand up to president trump, but i on der about this issue which has really caught the concern i

think of a lot of people. >> brennan: and there will be a conversation about the war in yemen and u.s. support for that in some way. any kind of conversation as bernie sanders said he has that bill, the resolution he's floating. i want to ask you, you listen to senator sanders. you have been looking at 2020 candidates. does he talk like one to you? >> the fact he's coming out with a platform for house democrats to sort of live be and do and try to assert himself as a leader in the party heading into 2020, it strikes me as, yes, he does seem very much like a candidate. the difference this time for bernie sanders and everybody frankly is the crowded field that he's going to face. against hillary clinton there was just, you know, a binary choice between two people. this time it's not going to be that way. it's going to be the same problems that republicans had in 2016. where you couldn't -- you had to have twody bates, an undercard

debate and man debate because there are so many candidates. but i do think these next few weeks are vitally important for every candidate thinking about running. we'll probably start to see announcements coming very shortly in the early part of next year so people can begin their fund-raising and try to post a big number in that first quarter. it's going to be an important distinction point, but the democratic party has a lot of issues to sort out and it's going to be a crowded field. >> what's so interesting about the midterm results and really the entire midterm election story is i think it sends important statements about what democratic primary voters might be looking for. senator sanders is running in 2020, not just for 2020, that he will... he has a good chance of doing well, but some of the other people floated, former vice president joe biden, senator sherrod brown, may find themselves at somewhat of a disadvantage because it seems what democratic primary voters looking for are women candidates

and candidates of color. democratic primaries voters, if they had a choice, if they could choose a woman or a anyone white candidate and a a white guy, they've almost always taken one of the other two, that seems to suggest that as we approach 2020, you can divide up the field and rate accordingly based off of identity really, candidates who represent diversity, who may be historic first have an on-paper advantage over those who don't. >> well, democrats want somebody new, democrats usually do. so that might argue for beto o'rourke, who would be a white man. but i do think there is zero possibility that the democratic ticket in 2020 will be two while men. >> senator sanders has another problem going into 2020, which is that hillary clinton was a very useful foil for him as she was for donald trump. the contrast made, the idealism of his candidacy looked better. he'll have not just a lot of candidates in the field, but a

lot of candidates who sound a little bit more like him who are trying to bought wall he had in 2016 and use it for themselves. that's not a problem he had last time. >> brennan: in his book that senator sanders go on to talk about, he in many ways describes winning as not winning the election but enforcing the platform of the democratic party more toward the bro guessive agenda that he in many ways represents. is there more of a progressive party now? did he win? >> he did win. i think he did win. if you look at medicare for all, which means different things to different candidates, that's now a centrist democratic position to have. so i think whatever happens with senator sanders, he's had a big effect. we're talking more about senator sanders than we are about hillary clinton. >> when you think about the fund-raising aspect of it, too, what bernie sanders kept touting, the small-dollar donations, i think that will be the vehicle for which a lot of candidates run. it's what beto o'rourke did successfully in texas, which was to forego corporate pac money and raise money from a lot of

people in small dollar amounts. i think that's another sort of legacy of bernie sanders in moving the party a little bit more in that direction. >> one illustration of how i think sanders has moved the party left is that centrist members of the incoming house class have positions like expand medicaid, have a public option, positions that during 2000 and 2010 were the progressive -- the house progressive positions in health care and those are now the centrist positions in the democratic party. >> the minimum wage first obama term they wanted to raise it to $9. $15 is now the democratic bid. >> brennan: we have to leave it there. more to talk about of course in the future with all of you, but we're going to be in a commercial break and on your airways in a moment.

>> brennan: this video was shot last may when nasa launched its insight mission with the goal of landing on mars. tomorrow the world will be watching to see if the spacecraft can make it through the perilous seven minutes of

terror and land on the surface of the red planet. here to tell us about what we might learn from the mission is nasa's steven clarke, who heads the agency's exploration efforts. welcome to "face the nation." >> thank you. >> what are the seven minutes of terror? >> well, the seven minutes of terror are the time it takes from when the actual probe enters the mars atmosphere until it lands. and the reason it's called "the seven minutes of terror" because it's very hard to land on mars. in fact, only 40% of all landing attempts have been successful. >> brennan: only 40% have actually made it. and the u.s. is still the only country that has done this. >> that's correct, yes. >> brennan: so why are we spending the money to do this? what exactly do you think is going to be learned? >> we're continuing to investigate mars, because mars was formed at the same time as the earth and the moon. and the moore we learn about our neighboring planets, it helps us learn how the earth involved. in fact, we know that mars had

water on the surface, and it had at at most fear somewhat similar to earth millions and millions of years ago, but for some reason mars developed differently, and we're trying to find out why. >> brennan: this is the insight probe, this is not manned. how close are we to putting humans on mars? >> well, we continue to perfect landing techniques using robotic landers on mars. and certainly we're going to be using that technology to develop landers to return to the moon with humans first. and as we learn more on how to do that, we're going to then apply it to mars for our first human exploration of mars after we have etablished presen theno permen the past. with apollo, we landed six times. we're going to return this time and actually learn to li planetn the moon, which is a lot closer than mars, andhen we're

ready, we'll take humans to mars, which is a much longer journey. >> brennan: how many years are out are we from that? >> for the moon, we'd like to return humans in the late 2020s. certainly we'll continue to work through our technology development and see how long that takes. an we're looking at taking humans to mars some time in the 2030s. >> brennan: the 2030s? >> the 2030s. >> brennan: so nasa is one of the agencies that signed off on this climate reported that came out last week. >> uh-huh. >> brennan: there has been a lot of controversy around it, some questions about politics, but you're a scientist. you look at data. how do americanss -- americans understand this warning. >> nasa is one of 13 agencies that provides data to a wide

range of researchers who develop their findings. we've seen through these climate reports that the climate is changing. it's good that we know how it's change sog that we can better prepare for those, more what i would call severe changes that we've seen through the weather. we'll continue to provide rich data for the researchers to come up with their findings, which will then help government really globally prepare for various weather scenarios and how the climate continues to change. >> does learning more about these other plan its like mars in any way help solve angeyou're sing on thisplanet? >> it certainly can. that's why we continue to explore. as we understand better how these worlds formed and why they went through the various evolutions like they did, it can unlock some of the mysteries that we have here on earth that we can potentially apply here and better prepare certainly.

>> brennan: so understanding how mars is formed could potentially help us understand how to do what here on earth? >> well as we learn more about why the atmosphere changed and how it thinned with mars, and if we can better understand the processes that caused that, then if we can apply that to earth and see if there are any similarities, then we may be able to determine ways to maybe even help prevent those things from happening. >> brennan: fascinating. >> it is. >> brennan: and we'll be watching tomorrow the landing around 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> 3:00 p.m. eastern. pacific. we will be watching. good luck with those seven minutes of terror. >> thank you. >> brennan: we will be right back. junior achievement reaches young people all over the world to prepare them for the future of work. we go into classrooms and we teach entrepreneurial skills and leadership skills. when you actually create a business when you're in your teens,

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guess who is bulking up your meaty breakfast burritos? this guy. get my meat lovers with bacon, sausage, and ham. or grande sausage with creamy sriracha sauce. because at jack in the box, whoops, we're all about bulking up breakfast. alright, buh-bye. and we're pretty pumped about it. meaty, baby! up top, jack! ...mondays, right? [laughter] bulk up your breakfast with my meaty breakfast burritos. part of the breakfast burrito family. >> brennan: that's it for us today. thank you for watching. we hope you all had a great thanksgiving. and for those traveling home today, we say, until next week, for "face the nation," i'm margaret brennan.

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dangerous roads and grounded flights. a major snowstorm howls across the central u.s. just as holiday travelers are trying to get home. one of the nation's busiest airports could become a no-fly zone. also tonight, crisis at the border. the crossing between san diego and tijuana is closed after hundreds of migrants breach a fence. a thanksgiving tragedy. in the confusion of a mall shooting police mistakenly shoot and kill a young black man. >> i want the truth. i want justice. for my son. holiday shoppers set an