captioning sponsored by cbs >> brennan: it's sunday, april 28th, i am margaret brennan and this is "face the nation". >> there is breaking news overnight as we have learned more about the gunman who opened fire in a synagogue in southern california. one victim is dead, three are wounded. we will have the latest. >> looks like a hate crime. hard to believe. >> hard to believe. >> former vice president joe biden makes it official. >> we are in the battle for the soul of this nation. >> brennan: and the name calling has already begun for the president. >> can you imagine sleepy joe? crazy bernie. >> brennan: coming up this

week in washington, a tale of two committees. as attorney general william barr prepares to testify before the house and senate judiciary committees. president trump can't seem to stop talking about the russian investigation. >> i never told don mcgahn to fire mueller. if i wanted to fire mueller i would have done it myself. >> brennan: senator judiciary chairman lindsey graham says she done with mueller but that's not the case in the house, where democrats are in power and the party is split on the call for impeachment proceedings to begin. we will talk with graham and house judiciary democrat cedric rich man w all of the focus on the 21 democrats running for real estate, we will look at the trump reelection strategy, campaign manager brad. >> plus an interview with iranian foreign minister javad zarif and have analysis on all of the news of the week coming up on "face the nation". >>

>> brennan: good morning and 0 welcome to "face the nation". we begin this morning with another attack at a house of worship, this time in poway, california, outside of san diego. cbs news correspondent jonathan industry lot at this reports from poway, jonathan what can you tell us? >> >> reporter:, good morning, margaret, what we know in morning, police toiferg suspect as john earnest, a 19-year-old nursing student with no prior criminal history, in what is believed to be his manifesto, earnest says he was inspired by other recent hate crimes. >> witnesses say the gunman stormed congregation a bad screaming anti-semitic slurs before opening fire with a semiautomatic rifle. >> he took the life of 60-year-old glory gilbert and seriously injured the temple's rabbi, israel goldstein who attempted to speak with the shooter before he fled the scene. >> earnest later called 911 to

turn himself in and while searching the home he shared with his parents police believe they discovered a clue to his intentions. >> we are aware of his manifesto, which we are in the process of reviewing to determine its validity at this and authenticity. >> the author calls himself a white supremacist and says he took, inspiration from the synagogue and a mass shootings. >> earnest has been booked on one count murder and three counts of attempted murder. he may also be charged with a hate crime. the fbi is here on the scene assisting with this investigation. margaret. >> brennan: jonathan vigliotti, thank you. we turn now to the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, south carolina's senior senator lindsey graham. senator, good to have you here in the studio. >> thank you. >> brennan: we just heard about this tragic shooting. it was an ar-15 style semiautomatic weapon, hate crime

seems to be seem to be on the rise in this country. what dot we need to do to combat this, prevent it? >> well i think somebody interdicted the shooter thank god and it could have been boston but i think in california you can't buy a gun until 21 so let's find out how this guy got the gun, what his motives were and i am a big supporter of protective orders allowing local law enforcement to go to a judge if there is ample evidence someone is been ago danger to themselves or others. about 15 states have such laws. i am trying to get a national grant program to incentivize states to pass laws, to allow local and law enforcement to go to judges to take guns out of hands of people that are showing really disturbing signs or dangerous signs and i think in parkland that would have made a big difference here, i don't know. >> brennan: we will continue tto follow the details as we learn more about what happened there. but i want to talk about what you are preparing for this week. >> right. >> brennan: attorney general barr will be answering questions

for first time really in detail about the mueller report. i know you said you are done with it. >> uh-huh. pretty much. >> brennan: but what is it you are going to try to focus in on with this hearing? >> well, he gave a four-page summary. does summary, does the report indicate there was no collusion between the trump campaign and the russians? i think the idea that this president obstructed justice is he turned over a million documents to the special council counsel, almost everybody around him testified. i can't think of one thing the president trump did to stop mueller from doing his job. he never claimed executive privilege. my point of view, i have heard all i need to really know and i want to look and find out all of this happened. >> brennan: but on that point of attempting to obstruct justice or not, the president seems to want to continue to litigate this, because he came out this week and said and denied he had ever thought or e white counuthatre don mcgahn,

directly contradicts sworn testimony that was in the mueller report, where don mcgahn said he almost quit he was so pressured to fire the special counsel, who do you believe? >> i think it is all just ateresident that he is changing a version of someone is lying. >> if you going to look at every president who pops off at a staff and, you know, asks him to do something that is maybe crazy then we won't have any presidents. >> brennan: but in terms of the firing this was don mcgahn white house counsel being pressured to fire the special counsel. >> but he can't. i don't care, i don't care what they talked about. he didn't do anything. the point is, the president did not impede muller from doing his investigation. >> brennan: and it doesn't trouble you that president is changing his version of events? >> i don't -- i don't care what a happened between him and don mcgahn, here is what i care about, was muller allowed to do his job? and the answer is yes. name one thing that they did to

stop muller from doing his job. if you can't, then there is no obstruction. >> brennan: will you call him agn testify? >>e? b: ahe l sel is. >>am not go reli it. n't know how clear i can m didll the russ i absurd. i fought hard as hell to make sure that mueller could do his job and introduced legislation to make sure he couldn't be fired. it is over. >> brennan: but in terms of this report, it was not just the obstruction of justice that you seem to be saying you are over. all of the details in here about russia and what they tried to do, what they did succeed in doing in terms of -- >> that's a different conversation. >> brennan: isn't that worth -- >> 100 percent. >> brennan: a conversation? senator marco rubio said this week he went so far assay they had the ability, they were in a position to alter florida voter roles back in 2016. >> i think that is the point.

there are two things i i am going to look at. what did they do and are they trying to do it again and how do we stop them? i think that is something we all need to focus on. and how did this start? >> brennan: isn't the president focused on that enough? >> yes. he has a good team around him. he had has a good team around him to make sure we harden our infrastructure but what marco said is a bit stunning i never heard that before so i want to make sure that intel and a judiciary and homeland security that the three committees are working together to harden the infrastructure against russia or anybody else interfering in 2020, and russia is still up to it, so the take away for me is that they were very involved in the 2016 election, they are coming at us again. i would like to stop them and one way to stop them is to make them pay a price. >> brennan: you are talking about this from the level of seriousness that we did not hear from 0 jared kushner senior advisor to president. way tonight play to you some sound when he was speaking this

week about the russia probe when he said it was actually more damaging to have the mueller investigation. listen to what he said. >> quite frankly the whole thing is just a big distraction for the country and when we look at russia did, buy some facebook ads it is a terrible thing but i think the investigations and all of the speculation that happened for the last few years has had a much harsher impact on democracy than a couple of facebook ads. >> if you look at the magnitude of what they did and accomplished i think the ensuing investigations have been way more harmful. >> brennan: is he nine highing the threat to national security? >> well, i like jared a lot but he is leaving out a big detail. the russians hacked into john podesta's e-mails, the campaign manager for the democratic a candidate for president. the russians had hacked into hillary clinton's- candidate of the democratic party. can you imagine what we would be seeing if the russians or the iranians hacked into the presidential team, of the republican party? so, no, this is a big deal. it is not just a few facebook

ads. they were very successful in pitting one american against the other during the 2016 campaign by manipulating social media and they actually got into the campaign e-mail system of the democratic party. and an attack on party should be an attack on all, the russians are up to it again and here is what i tell president trump. everything we have done with the russians is not working. we need more sanctions, not less. >> brennan: more sanctions now? >> now. before 2020, because clearly they don't have the message sploovment. >> brennan: i also want to ask you about some of the remarks you have made in the past, because we know as democrats start talking about the details of the mueller report combing through it and already calling for impeachment proceedings to begin again against the president of the united states here is what a you said back in january of 1999 when you were helping to lead the impeachment of president clinton. >> the point i am trying to make is you don't even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your jobn't in constitutional

republic, if this body determines that your conduct is as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. thank god you did that. because impeachment is not about a punishment. impeachment is about cleansing the office. impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office. >> brennan: do you agree? >> i was a lot younger. >> it sounds like some of what you are characterizing here, saying everything in the mueller report, it may not be great but it doesn't reach the level of being able to prosecute -- that's different from what you described there, which was to say, behavior of a president, the cleansing of an office. >> well. >> is important. >> it has to be a high crime or misdemeanor, not defined by the prosecution team, but by a political body called a house of

esves,pprod te. so there was an article imenai n for lgde oath about having sex a with monica lewinsky, i voted against that because i believe a lot of people would lie to protect their family if they were blind-sided about an misdemeano. what president clinton did is interfere in a lawsuit against him by paula jones and a others, hide the evidence and encourage people to lie. so to me, he took the legal system and turned it upside down. but it doesn't have to technically be a crime. what president trump did here was completely the cooperate in an investigation, a million documents, let everybody, the special counsel wanted to talk to be interviewed, don mcgahn was interviewed for 30 hours. i believe the president did nothing wrong. whether you like him or not i will leave that up to you, but this is -- >> brennan: but even the pressuring don mcgahn to fire the special counsel -- he may not have done it. >> if you are going to let that be the standard of impeachment

that you have a an interaction between a white house counsel and a president that you find uncomfortable, then we will have nobody serve, so here is the deal for me, we actually have to do something, bill clinton lost made, you think this office needs to be cleansed, impeach him, it is up to you, if you think donald trump deserves to be impeached, then impeach him. i don't. >> brennan: quickly before you go i want to ask you about a your old friend, joe biden. >> yes. >> brennan: vice president, throwing his hat into the ring, president trump seeming to suggest she too old. what do you think? >> well, you know, that's up to the voters to decide. i think president trump is very vibrant and a i know joe biden, if you travel with joe biden you won't think he is do old. here's the problem for joe, does he fit into the democratic party of 2020? i don't know. he is a good man, i like him a lot. i disagree with him on policy. i hope he doesn't apologize for the life he has lived, because

he has lived a good life but if he starts apologizing for all of the policy positions and decisions he has made throughout his life, that will be disappointing. i don't know how he fits into this party, but i do know this, he is a good man and it would be, he would be a strong candidate. >> brennan: senator graham, thank you. >> brennan: we turn now to the louisiana democrat cedric richmond and sits on the house judiciary committee and supports former vice president joe biden, he joins us from new orleans, good morning to you, before we get to those issues i want to quickly ask you about the shooting in california. these hate crimes are on the rise in this country, this shooter self identified as a white supremacist, what should be done to combat this? >> well, first of all, my prayer and thoughts go out to the family and it is just a reminder that words as leaders in this country have dire consequences, so whether we are talking about the police shooting or talking

about gabby giffords, whenever we talk about parkland or talking about entry of -- tree of life it is our responsibility to deal with it, we have been calling on not onlmmittee o h te rise in hate crimes, especially under this president. we just held a hearing in judiciary where we talked about this. i think that the rhetoric plays a part in it, the access to high capacity assault weapons plays a part in it, and i think we just have to do better as a country. >> brennan: you were one of the first to come out and to endorse the former vice president joe biden for president. i am curious as to why you think that at this moment in time he is the right democrat to unify the party and to represent it at a time when many are calling for generational change or just for the candidate to represent the country in a more diverse fashion. why do you think he can do that? >> well, what i look at is the

entire body of work, two if you look at the video he released and you can see the passion. you see the reason why he is running and that's because we live in a country that we don't recognize. we live in a country where em are working harder and they owe more. we live in a country where people don't have the access to achieve their wildest dreams and for their children to reach economic dignity and their parents toly out their lives with economic dignity, respect and independence, so we are fighting for soul of the country and one thing i learned in politics very early, you can't govern if you can't win and i believe joe biden won, one is the best person to represent the democratic party but i think she the best person to win. >> brennan: lindsey graham was on this program as queue heard and he called it absolutely absurd to accuse the president of obstruction of justice, he says this is a closed matter. you possibly will get to ask questions of attorney general barr this week, is ate closed matter for you? >> is it?

>> absolutely not. this president has attempted to collude, if that's the word he wants to use. he attempted to obstruct justice at the least at the boston he obstructed justice and i believe that is the judiciary committee's responsibility to dig into it. now, 0 senator graham points to president clinton who sat down, put his hand on a bible, took an oath and testified under oath, this president did not do that. and it is clear why he didn't do that, his counsel has said over and over again, they just don't believe in his ability to tell the truth. and we see that during his presidency. so you can't compare this to other reports or other hearings or other impeachment process. we have not heard from this president under oath, so the best person we can hear from is attorney general barr to find out why, one, his summary of cliff notes version was so different from the facts and, two, why won't he just release the unredacted report. >> brennan: speaker of the

house nancy pelosi said though to move forward with impeachment proceedings it needs to be bipartisan, you haven't seen a single republican come out and say they would support an impeachment, so is there a closed matter for you? do you personally think impeachment should be considered? >> i think it should. i think it is best way to get all of the facts out. i also believe that at some point we have to hear from this president whether he lies to us or not we need to hear from him under oath. but, look, my sole focus right now is to make sure he is not the president next term, and what we do this term, we need to, one, learn from the facts what russia did, make sure that the president has not obstructed justice but more importantly, we need to make sure he does not win reelection and that's part of the reason why ibei am suppoe president joe biden to beat him. >> brennan: and to be clear, you support impeachment now? >> look, it's chairman nadler's

decision how far we go with impeachment .. i would just tell you i am comfortable going either way. i am a lawyer by trade. i am very concerned about this president's fitness for office. i am very concerned about the crimes that i believe that he has committed or that the report certainly suggests that he has committed so i am fine going either way but my goal is for him not to be president next term. >> brennan: all right. thank you very much, congressman. we will be back in a moment. >>

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the digital space, in marketing, you have had no political experience up until 2016. >> other 0 than being an american. >> brennan: but then you became a campaign manager. this time around a. >> yes. >> brennan: so is this really about marketing? is that what political campaigns are about these days? >> winning a reelection is a lot about marketing, advertising, understanding data and analytics, building out the foundational structures in understanding the president's message and how to deliver it. there are considerable things that come just from young on how to build out the infrastructure to be able to communicate with millions, 10s of millions of people and how to effectively spend five, $6 million. >> brennan: five or -- >> minimum, minimum. >> brennan: i heard you say at one point up to a billion. >> it could i am talking about all of the infrastructure like the republican party will spend money, outside party will spend money. we p we still have a long 19 months to go. >> brennan: raised from -- >> small dollars, 95 percent of all of our money comes in through small dollars. one nice thing about small dollar donations it lets people

connect and know they are buying into the movement 0, or prospecting numbers now, or numbers people have never seen before, i have pulled, 40, 50 million direct contacts by election day, i hope. >> brennan: what does that mean direct contact? >> every campaign tries to go out and generate data, how do i connect to you? how do i connect by cellphone and e-mail so i don't have to run an advertisement and pay cbs to get to you. i can just contact you. >> brennan: that's e-mail addresses that's -- >> cellphone numbers and right now we are already passing 30 some million and on course to go to 40, 50 million which will be almost every person to voted i can call them. >> brennan: explain how that fills fits in the digital strategy i am in rural iowa and want me to vote for president trump are you targeting me specifically? >> yeah. so what i do -- >> brennan: you are chaining your message based on where i live? >> i can go say here is a voter in minnesota that if i know i get, you know, 26,000 of these perfect people to show up that didn't show up last time, i can flip that state. so what i do, go find them now.

we are spending millions of dollars a month, light years ahead of any campaign in history to build a foundation of who we need to market to, to understand and what to say a to them and how to deliver to them. >> brennan: where? where are you most focused? >> there are some key states, obviously we have to go back and win michigan again, pennsylvania, wisconsin, we plan on also being in minnesota very soon. i think new mexico is in play in 2020. i think new hampshire. i think we continue to grow the map. i think nevada, you know, even colorado. and so those are states we did not win in 2016. i think are open for 2020. >> brennan: but the idea in the past as a you 0 brought up tv ads is the traditional way or has been oral lis where you have someone going out and having face-to-face or door to door contact. like how much of the ground game is still part of the strategy for you now? >> a huge amount. we are sitting on the largest ground game in history. i will give you numbers n 2016 we had 700,000 about volume fears, we plan on 1.6 million volume

deeres for 2020. >> brennan: going door to door? >> well all different kind of things, connected to technology through the phone, through apps and other developments and ditch things, some may have block parties and engaging in social media and some people might be knocking door to door. think every single metric we are looking at getting bigger, badder and better in, than 2016 but this time we are not trying to prove we can do something, the president has proved he has done it and now we just have to deliver what he has done. >> brennan: we will have more of our interview with brad parcel in a moment. stay with us. >> strange forces at work? only if you're referring to gravity-and we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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like plants. ♪ >> brennan: somur stations are leaving us now but we will be right back with more of our interview with brad parscale, our political panel and iranian foreign minister javad zarif. stay with us. >>

>> brennan: welcome back to "face the nation". we continue our conversation with president trump's campaign manager brad parscale. around the time of the shutdown, the 35 day shutdown we went through, there were fund-raising ads to supporters saying, you know, send a brick to nancy. >> yes. >> i love that idea. >> brennan: nancy being speak over the house, of course. and this was a way to raise funds. >> yes. >> brennan: how successful was it? >> oh, that was great. that was -- you know, a campaign like that could raise three, $4 million. you know. >> brennan: from the small dollar. >> small dollar donors. >> how does that work? >> they want a to be a part of the activity and they want to be involved and this is a way they got to buy a to brick and get it labeled with their name and extent to nancy pelosi's office 0 and say build a wall. you know, it is a way for them somewhere in the middle of

nebraska .. who is so far from the seasonal that wants to be involved this is a way for them to put 25, $40 and say look i want to make a difference. we do that with t-shirts and hats and sold, closing on selling or 1 millionth maga hats, 45 bucks each, $45 million. do the math. the president trump has changed the way in, changed the way in which merchandise, rallies, the entire experience of being a part of the political movement, he has changed it. >> brennan: but beyond the branding, the value t to you campaign weiss is you maintain -- >> i retain information and we get to keep .. the net proceeds. >> brennan: but i am curious, how does that affect the messaging? i mean if these are people who feel motivated enough or want to be active, activists enough to o give on a particular issue, is the president changing his messaging to match that or -- >> no. >> brennan: -- or is his agenda driven by the white house? >> no. so you are kind of twisting that

a little bit. >> brennan: well, explain it. >> so what happens is, the president sets his policies, these are what they are. now, his policies have a range of things. one person at, you know, 1,300 elm street could really care about immigration, but a 1305 elm street they could really care about tariff policy. now that doesn't mean we are changing what the president's message is to them. we are showing them the part of the men that is right for them. >> brennan: and how much of do you actually know about someone based -- based on -- do you know how they voted in the past and what they -- >> the republican party has a data trust one of the largest databases in the world to to understand who people are and can provide a universe of people attached in the social media and and/or possibly by text message and other ways hey these. >> these are the people that you are speaking about. >> brennan: how many rallies will we see president trump out there doing? >> a lot. >> brennan: how involved is he in some of these decisions? on messaging? >> soy always explain it like

this. he is the captain of the ship. he is the engineer of the trump train. he is the campaign manager, the communications manager, the finance director, coalitions director, all things. my job is to be the trump conductor. my job is to keep the cars together and keep them running on time and get them to the place they need to go. >> brennan: you 0 are a disrupter, the president likes championing that but also talking to people like karl rove, a bush advice soar. >> yes. >> brennan: since you have come to washington, so to speak has that changed you? >> yes, it has changed me. i have a lot less faith the system. you don't understand how swampy it is until you get here. i think as a disrupter, though, yes, in the history, you know, i think that those who don't understand history are due to repeat it and in a positive or negative way and for me not to understand what every predecessor of mine did and how they understood and what they thought, regardless of the

technology at the time would be doing a disservice to my boss. >> brennan: so do you coordinator with karl rove? >> it is not a coordination, it is a learning process. hey, what did you do, tell me stories. what were the worst moments you had? what were with the best moments if you did it over again, what do you think you would do? how would you handle this situation? you know, education, there is not a lot of people running around that won elections. on the republican side or the democrat side. i mean, in the last guy to win a reelection is karl rove and -- in 2004 for a republican and before that, it was reagan that won reelection, so it is not like there is a club you can go to and it is just all of these reelecting winning campaign managers. >> brennan: so they are telling you how to build out a ground game. >> you are saying that. i am asking them for historical context. if they don't know what i know and some things i don't know what they know. but they have had to live through it and karl has given me some great things, afterwards, he would say you know what? if i did it again i would have

done this or wouldn't have done that. and hindsight is a great weapon to have when you are up in front of it again. >> brennan: so you like the establishment but sometimes? >> i don't like the establishment, i like the diversity of knowledge and i am going to use all i can to help get president trump reelected again in 2020. >> brennan: brad parscale thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> brennan: we will be right back with our political panel. >> strange forces at work? only if you're referring to gravity-and we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

but one blows them all out of the water. hydro boost from neutrogena®. with hyaluronic acid to plump skin cells so it bounces back. neutrogena® >> brennan: we now turn to our pocal par me ysis. mammons decratic strategist and a host on hill

tv, lani chung is a policy expert and fellowl report and mark hndler covers white use and f licy for "new york times". congrats to you ongoing to london. i understand you are going to be the new london bureau chief. >> margaret, thank you. invite they back, i, bakley talk all about prince harry. >> don't forget about meghan markle. >> the star of -- >> brennan: we do hope to have you back at this table. i want to start us off on this launch this week, it happened, joe biden made it official. we have been talking about it for so long. but he chose an interesting way to say what inspired him. i want to play for you some of his ad. >> -- and that's when we heard the words of the president of the united states that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. >> he said there were quote some

very fine people on both sides. very fine people on both sides? those words, the president of the united states assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. and in that moment, i knew the threat to this nation was unlike any i had ever seen in my lifetime. >> i was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to robert e. lee, a great general, whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals. >> brennan: amy -- [laughter.] where do we go with this? why relitigate charlottesville? and on the president a's response there, but also is this the right way to launch a campaign? >> is this where the democratic party should be focused right now? >> a painful moment in a political life. >> it is pretty clear that from

that video we have got a couple of things that we understand about joe biden. one, unlike other people in this race, joe biden is only running because donald trump is president. i think regardless if it were president ted cruz in office, bernie sanders would be running, elizabeth warren would probably be running, those folks are running much more as revolutionary candidates that believe this system itself is broken and needs to be fixed. but, what biden is saying it, the system isn't broken but the person in charge is broken. i will bring us back t to normal situate and what we thought were agreed upon american values, that you don't say a people who show up at a rally with white nationalists that that is okay. but you are right. then we are getting back into the fight where the president really loves to play, which is the debate over who has the values of america? who is -- where do the cultural, what are the cultural touch stones that relate more to voters? and that's where democrats are

-- they have tried this. hillary clinton tried it. it was not as successful. the challenge for the president -- i am sorry, the challenge for the vice president is to be able to make the transition to the next piece of this, which is, who is going to keep america moving forward, especially on economics? who has the answer a for the middle class? that's what apparently he is going to be doing in the next couple of days as he goes to pennsylvania and lays that out. >> brennan: jamal what do you think as a democratic strategist, using this as a motivating principle? >> oh i think it is the right thing, i think a lot of democrats agree that what the president is doing is giving, what president trump is doing is giving aid and comforts, cultural aid and comfort to white nationalists, and that is something that a lot of democrats and a lot of americans who who are not democrats are very uncomfortable with, so the framing of that is right, vice president got off to a strong start, he raised a lot of money and put a good team in place. a i think a lot of democrats feel more comfortable about that. the question for the vice

president, the vice president biden is, a lot of democrats aren't just looking for a change in management. they are looking for a change in direction and the idea that we are going to go back -- he said at one point he wanted to tell american's allies that america is coming back, the america they knew was coming back and for a lot of democrats, they don't think the america we knew is that great of a place. there was still all of the economic strife and a lot of that is what produced donald trump. so the question is, not about taking america back to something but where are we going forward with america? i think if vice president biden can capture that voice he could. >> brennan: i think revolution versus restoration. lonnie, what do you think about the president here? and he suggests in some way biden is playing to the president's strength or at least a tool he likes to use. >> i think he is, i think the president really understands his base. i think in a way that few presidents have understood the base electorate that supports him with. successful presidential campaigns are when the person meets the moment and the

question for joe biden, is he the right person for the moment we are in? i think that's the question everyone is asking. she a decidely 20th century candidate in a 21st century campaign and i think the big question is going to be, you know, this launch i think was splashy for message but is he going to stay on that message? is he really going to come to this middle class economics question? a hard thing to do when you have a 3.2 percent growth rate, low unemployment and they feel the strains a of economic anxiety some of them are still there but by and large the economy has done well. so i think the vice president, vice president biden has got to figure outdoes he stay on this track of sort of continuing to be provocative or does he come back to these bread and butter economic issues? and i think that will be a much more difficult challenge for him. >> i will have to say there are a lot of americans who are, while they may have jobts they have jobs making less money than they made before i am from michigan from auto workers used to make 30, $40 an hour and now2 is real money to people so i think we do have full employment

but full employment at what wage? >> brennan: mark, when you heard the president even just at this rally yesterday, which he attended rather than go to the correspondents, dinner here in washington he returns to the 0 familiar message of immigration and economy, economy seems to be the thing that the republicans are most confident about. and that he wants to run on here. so is there a way for democrats to puncture that? >> well i think lonnie, that is going to be to the quandary for democrats, the most recent economic number that came out late last week was really strong. and i think it put to bed the idea that this is an economy on the discussment of a slowdown or even a recession. i think six months ago a lot of democrats thought that that is the election they were going to be running into. and that once you puncture the myth that trump has a winning economy, then all of his other flaws become far more apparent. now it looks like he may, in fact, continue to run with a strong economy and i think that makes the democratic challenge a

great deal harder and i think that is why it was interesting last might at the rally, he could have gone a number of different ways, at previous rallies that coincided with the white house correspondents association dinner, he has been very anti-press, he has really given a very red meat speech. this by trump standards was less red meat than we have seen and more focused on the economic record. he really went through it very methodically and very seasonalcally and i think that is, systematically because that's because they recognize they have a fairly strong case to make. >> not to bring up the bad memories from 2012 from the romney campaign but i do remember that was the case that the romney case made throughout 2012 was don't focus on the president himself and his -- what he is doing as a president, focus on the economy, the economy, the economy and it was true when you 0ooked president obama's record in terms of his job approval rating on the economy, much lower than his overall job approval rating? >> of course focus on the thing he is weakest on. but what we found was that, and

this happened with george w. bush as well, the overall approval rate okay the president, how people feel about the president was more important in terms of its sort of predictive value than how they felt the person was doing handling the economy. this president is completely different. his overall approval rating of how people feel about him as president has always skinly been eight, nine points lower than his handling of the economy. and so, you know, voters we are humans, we go into the voting booth, there are a whole bunch of conflicting things going on in our minds. the economy in and of itself is one piece, but it is not the only thing that voters use to evaluate whether they want to see this person spending another four years in the oval office. >> brennan: mark, one of the things we haven't heard really any of the democratic candidates do is explain their vision for america's role in the world. many of them have though signed on to i won't restate the iran nuclear deal but at least on that one specific issue, how important is it we start to hear

about this on the campaign trail? >> well, i think we can stipulate that in primaries, except in years where the country is truly at war during the iraq war, for example, foreign policies generally is not a driving issue. it can be a driving issue in a general election but again not every time, once in a while. i think the interesting thing that the trump administration does, though, is it actually puts democrats in a little bit of an awkward position on foreign policy, because some of the issues that president trump has tended and positions he has tended to take actually resonate with democrats, staying out of foreign conflicts, endless foreign wars. the trade policy again is quite resonant with some significant portion of the democratic base. so i think if you are a democratic candidate and squaring off against president trump, the old arguments democrats used to make about republicans, don't really apply and i think they need to find a language that sort of matches up well with america first, with

free and fair and reciprocal trade agreements. this is language that the democratic foreign policy elite recoils at, but voterstulyit myl to voters and not only republican voters. >> brennan: here is what president trump said is joe biden's vulnerability. >> i am so young, i can't believe it i am the youngest person. i am a young, vibrant man. i look at joe, i don't know about him. i don't know. >> brennan: 72-year-old president, 76-year-old vice president, joe biden, 77-year-old bernie sanders. this is not generational change. >> this is not generational change. and it may not be the country's interest in generational change but interested in something is about a change in direction,, you know, we talked about this foreign policy question that mark was mentioning but built on a house of tissue paper because donald trump's fundamental no t tt m. is another example. he just said i am young.

he could have just left it at i am vibrant and a he may have been okay but the problem is, they lie even when the truth is a fret decent thing. >> yeah. >> wait we do have to leave it there. i am so sorry. lani but w we want to have you back for further conversation. is this a moment, we will return with our interview with javad zarif, iran's foreign minister. >> ♪

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>> brennan: tensions have been high between u.s. and iran since president trump quit iran nuclear deal. in the past weeks they have climbed even higher, the u.s. labeled iran's military a terrorist organization and demanded other countries son purchasing its oil. we sat down with iranian foreign minister javad zarif. >> we do not want conflict. we resist. but we are not seeking confrontation. we don't believe that president trump wants confrontation. but we know that there are people who are pushing for it. >> brennan: military confrontation? you don't think will happen. >> i don't think military confrontation will happen. i think people have war prudence than allowing a military confrontation to happen. buink the u.s. administration is putting things

in place for accidents to happen and there has to be extreme vigilance so that people who are planning this type of accident would not have their way. interests. >> brennan: interests? >> what do you mean -- >> ambassador bolton -- netanyahu. third -- ben salmon. these people want confrontation. and i believe it is important for the prudent people, for the grownups to prevent confrontation. >> brennan: but you and i sat down and spoke just a year or more ago. you said that your president refused to meet with president trump here in new york. do you regret that now? >> no, we don't. we cannot meet somebody who is not respected, who has violated this country's international

obligations, who has withdrawn from agreements. we have 150 pages of carefully negotiated agreement, a multilateral agreement endorsed by the security council, by the, where the united states is a permanent member. so if the united states does not respect that, what would it respect? >> brennan: the trump administration as i mentioned is ramping up pressure, the designation of the irfc as a terrorist organization is going to squeeze iran's already troubled economy even further. what is the impact going to be if this happens and as the u.s. says may 2nd is the deadline for the rest of the world to stop buying iran's oil? >> well, it will show to the iranian people that the united states is not worthy of being a negotiating partner. that's what it will prove. it depends on whether europe as well as other members of the

jcpoa want to leave their destiny in the hands of an administration that does not respect its words. we will survivor. we have survived tougher days. >> brennan: the secretary of state has said, look, if you just look at the facts on the ground, 603 american service people killed by iran, he attributes this and the ieds have maimed american service people in the battlefields, he looks at that, and he looks at what is happening in syria and yemen and look we are just recognizing facts. that's his explanation for this designation. >> well, with iran he is wrong booze they have aligned themselves with the wrong people in our region, and they cannot accept that they are suffering defeat because they simply chose the wrong side. >> brennan: you are talking about what is happening in syria? >> everywhere. they have spent far more money than anybody else, $7 trillion according to president trump. >> brennan: when i spoke with

president trump in february, he said that he was going to keep u.s. troops in iraq to watch iran. >> and immediately heard from the iraqis that that is not how they see the presence of u.s. forces. >> brennan: did you hear that -- >> i have been to iraq. i stayed in iraq for five days. i have been to five cities. i met among the people. and i was welcomed by them. i went to public places. president trump went to iraq, to a military base and left from the same military base within hours in the dark of night. our president went to iraq and stayed there for three days, went to public meetings, in three iraqi cities, now you tell me who is welcome in iraq and who is not. >> brennan: did you hear that as a threat from the president? >> i think the iraqis heard that as a threat from the president. >> brennan: the secretary of state, when he was testifying

before congress specifically said that there is absolutely no er are ties between iran and al qaeda. it brought up this question of whether the u.s. is going to try to use some kind of authorization for military force to strike iran on the basis of that type of terrorism. >> well, the last i remember, 15 of the 21 9/11 terrorists were saudi citizens, not from iran. >> brennan: you are not concerned that the u.s. is -- >> i am concerned about -- >> brennan: possibly striking -- >> i am concerned about hidden agendas some people are following. i know the president trump had iran on a campaign, ran on a campaign 0 promise of not engaging in anymore foolish wars. i know that some of the people have different agendas. >> brennan: our full interview with foreign minister javad

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>> the court:. >autistic,. >> brennan: that's it for us today. thanks for watching. until next week, for "face the nation", i am margaret brennan. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org (male announcer) the following is a paid program for crepe erase.

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