he joins me live. finally, how much fried food can you get for 50 bucks at the iowa state fair? it turns out way too much. joining me for insight and analysis this morning are jeff greenfield, contributor to the daily beast, molly ball of the atlantic, kimberly strassel and eugene robinson of "the washington post." welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning. when he first began talking about running for president, a lot of people dismissed him, including myself. but there's no denying that donald trump has completely shaken up the republican race. topping national and state polls, drawing 24 million people to the gop debate and simply dominating the coverage so far. i caught up with trump yesterday in des moines, iowa for his first face-to-face interview. i wanted it to be less about personality and more about substance. we touched on a lot of issues,

furtherism, isis, immigration, ronald reagan and much more. let's get to it. starting with his standing of the conservative movement. some of the criticism on you from conservatives is you're not a real conservative. when you hear that, you know, someone will argue on social policies you're not a real conservative. is it just different brands of conservativism that's out there and you just have a different brand or do you think they have a point? >> i think they have a point from years ago but they also had that same point with ronald reagan who was a democrat with a liberal bent. ronald reagan became not just a republican but a conservative republican. not the most but a pretty conservative republican. he is someone i knew and liked and he liked me and helped him. i think when you get right down to it, people do evolve on different issues. and i've -- you know, i'm pro-life and i was begrudgingly the other way. i have to say when those questions were asked and that was many years ago, i wasn't a politician. >> should some form of abortion

always be legal? >> for me i have exceptions. rape, incest, if the mother is going to die. and ronald reagan had those same exceptions and many republicans had the same exceptions. >> what about the health of the mother? >> i said if the mother is close to death. i'm talking about death. if, you know, because then you sort of say, well, maybe she's not -- >> what is the constitutional right between the -- between the mother and unborn child? whose constitutional rights matter more? >> my statement on that happens to be -- you know, if the mother will die and you're going to know that. the problem with the life, if you say life, what does life mean? you have a cold and you're going to end up having an abortion? i have the three exceptions and pretty much the standard three exception many republicans have. >> you were pretty -- you were somewhat defending planned parenthood earlier this week. it struck me that there was a time planned parenthood was not seen as a very political organization. do you ever -- were you over a

donor? >> i don't know. i mean, i don't know, but it's possible. i give to so many chuck, i give to so many organizations over the years hundreds of millions of dollars, so i don't know. i don't think so but it's possible. >> it wouldn't have surprised -- >> look. planned parenthood has to stop with the abortions. a lot of people consider it an abortion clinic. the five tapes or the six tapes, i think they were outrageous. i think they were terrible, disgusting by any standpoint, and they have to stop. >> does it bother you they were edited? >> i don't know about them being edited. whatever i saw was terrible. i mean, it was terrible. in particular, i didn't like the attitude of the people. they talked about it almost like we're making widgets or gadgets and it was inappropriate. >> you would not shut -- you don't think there should be a government showdown shutdown over planned parenthood? >> i wouldn't fund it if they have the abortion going on. it's a big factor. you hear all different numbers.

they say it's 3%. other people say it's 85%. that's a big difference. >> will you shut down the government over this dispute? >> i would not fund if they're doing abortions. >> but as you know, there could be a stalemate in congress. is it worth shutting down the government? >> it's something i'd have to think about, to be honest with you. i don't want to give a hard and fast answer to that. it bothers me greatly they're doing the abortions. at the same time, women's health issues are very important to me. >> let's go foreign affairs. you want to knock the hell out of isis. how? >> i want to take away their wealth. for years i've been saying, don't go into iraq. they went into iraq, destabilized the middle east. it was a big mistake. now we're there and you have isis. i said this was going to happen. i said iran will take over iraq, which is happening as sure as you're sitting there and isis is taking over a lot of oil in certain areas of iraq. i said, you take away their wealth. you go and knock the hell out of the oil, take back the oil. we take over the oil, which we should have done in the first place. >> what you're talking about is ground troops, maybe 25,000.

>> we'll have so much money. what i would do with the money that we make, which would be tremendous, i would take care of the soldiers that were killed, the families of the soldiers that were killed, the wounded warriors. i love them. they're walking all over the streets of new york, without arms, without legs and worse than that. and i would take care of them. they pay -- >> so, america should take over these oil fields. shouldn't be given to the iraqis? >> we can give them something but we should definitely take back money for our soldiers. we have soldiers decimated, so badly hurt, the wounded warriors, and killed, of course. we have soldiers so badly hurt and killed and i want their families to get something. we got nothing out of that war. we spent $2 trillion, chuck. we had thousands of people killed. wounded warriors all over the place. they got nothing and they can't even say we had a victory. >> who do you talk to for military advice right now? >> well, i watch the shows. i really see a lot of great -- you know, when you watch your

show and all of the other shows and you have generals and you have certain people -- >> but is there somebody -- a go-to for you? every presidential candidate has a go-to. >> probably two or three. i like bolton. i think he's a tough cookie, he knows what he's talking about. jacobs -- >> you mean ambassador bolton? colonel jacobs? i >> he's a good guy. i see him on occasion. >> you wrote this about saudi arabia, it's the world's biggest funder of terrorism. saudi arabia funnels our petro dollars, our very own money, to fund the terrorists. while the saudis rely on us to protect them. what are u.s./saudi relations going to look like under a trump administration? >> i'm not a big fan. >> they treat women poorly. >> the primary reason we're with saudi arabia is we need the oil. we don't need the oil as much. if we let our people really go, we wouldn't need the oil at all and let everybody else fight it out. saudi arabia's going to be in big trouble pretty soon and they're going to need help. if you look at yemen and border, you don't have to be an expert

to know that's a long border. they're not going in for yemen. they're going in for the oil, saudi arabia. saudi arabia is going to need help. like it or don't like it, people back saudi arabia. what i really mind, though, is we back it at tremendous expense. we get nothing for it and they're making a billion dollars a day. >> we have a running theme. you believe the u.s. should -- you're okay with the u.s. being the world's police -- >> we should at least be reimbursed by extremely wealthy countries. >> you want to turn our force into a mercenary force? >> not at all. we are a debtor nation. we owe -- now it's $1.9 trillion. i've been saying 1.8. it kicked in. it's soon going to be $2.4 trillion. that's like a point, whether you believe in the great economist or not, that seems to be a point of no return. that's where we're on steroids. we'll be there very soon. why are we doing all of this? these are wealthy countries. they will give us, if we have

the right messenger, they will give us. it's like this horrible deal with iran. you would have the prisoners back years ago. >> iran would still get money. >> do you believe that, chuck? >> let me ask you -- >> no, no, let me -- >> i understand a lot of people are critical of the deal. but what deal could you come up with that wouldn't give iran money? >> i would never -- i would have told them up front -- >> no sanctions relief? >> we will never give you back your money? we will never give you back your $150 billion. that's number one. number two, before we start negotiations you have to give us our three prisoners, now it's four. when it started it was three, now it's four. you have to give us back, without question, you have to give them back. you know, what you don't want them, we do. it's psychologically good. it will help us make a deal together that's good for you. but i would have told them up front, will you never get your $150 billion back. they are going to be such a wealthy, such a powerful nation, they're going to have nuclear weapons. they are going to take over

parts of the world you wouldn't believe. and i think it's going to lead to nuclear holocaust. i will say this, the people that negotiated that deal, mainly kerry and his friends, are incompetent. >> what do you do on day one, though. >> i've heard people say, we're going to rip up the deal. it's tough to say you're going to rip up a deal because i'm a deal person and when -- >> you make -- >> but i will tell you, i will police that deal. i've taken over some bad contracts. i buy contracts where people screwed up and it's a bad contract. i'm good at looking at a contract, finding things within a contract, even if they're bad. i would police that contract so tough that they don't have a chance. as bad as the contract is. i will be so tough on that contract -- >> so the deal is, in a trump administration, you're just going to be -- >> well, it's very hard to say we're ripping up. the problem is, by the time i got in there, they will have already received the $150 billion. do you know if the deal gets rejected, they still get the money? which is something i found out a week ago. i couldn't believe it. if the deal is rejected, they still get all of this money.

iran is going to be unbelievably powerful, rich and israel in big trouble. israel is in big trouble. obama has really let israel down. >> if you get evidence they're working on a nuclear weapon, you order air strikes immediately? >> i don't want to really say. i would be so tough -- i don't want to really say. if i win, and i'm leading in every single poll, even you will agree on that, right? local, national, iowa, new hampshire, everything. if i win, i don't want to really be talking too much about -- obama talks too much about what he's going to do. we're going to raid here, do this. general mcauthor, general patton, they didn't talk. >> i got more trump interview coming up. jeff greenfield, former correspondent with cbs, molly ball, politics writer for atlantic, kimberly strassel and u gene robinson. the trump campaign contacted me