from nbc news in washington, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning, on what is a solemn day of remembrance on this 15th anniversary of the.9/11 attacks. this morning a huge american flag was unfurled at t pentagon to note the attack there, in lower manhattan a moment of silence wa observed at 8:46 a.m. eastern time. that marked the moment wh the very first plane, flight 1 flew into the north tower of the world trade center. immediately afterwards relatives began reading the nam of the victims of the attacks at the trade center. >> lee adler.

>> all told there are six moments of silence this morning, including one for the crash of flight 93 in shanksville, pennsylvania. prident obama made remarks at the pentagon earlier today and he has already observed another moment of silence at the white house. we have a lot to get to this morning including the latest on the presidenti campaign, a slue of new polls nationally and in the battle ground states, interviews with homeland security chief jeh johnson and one of the bush administration's most important supporters of the war in iraq that was prompted by the 9/11ttacks paul wolfowitz. first there was breaking news with hillary clinton and for that and her health and for that we're going to go to my colleague kristen welker who is in new york city. so, kristen, what we do know is that she left the 9/11 ceremony in new york city early. apparently had some sort of episode. tell me more details. >> reporter: she left just after 9:30, you're absolutely right, chuck, a little early. the campaign saying she wasn't feeling well. let me read you the campaign's statement, it says: secretary

clinton has headed to the september 11th commemoration ceremony to greet some of the families of the llen. during the ceremony she felt overheat td to departed to go to her daughter's apartment and is feelinin much better. that is ere we caught up with her moments ago, she left chelsea clinton's apartment which is where i am right now, walked outside unassisted, we asked her how she's feeling, she said she's feeling much better. i think we have so of that video that we'r playing right now. i also askeder what happened, we asked herthat question multiple times, she didn't respon she said insad it's a beautiful day in new york. she did pause to talk to a child who was walking by and then she got into her van and drove off. we don't know where she's heading right now but, chuck, a little bit of broader political context here as we have been reporting there have been republican conspiracy theories about her health saying she is not in good health. the clinton campaign has pushed back strongly against that. so has secretary clinton's physician saying that she is in

fine health in order to serve as president of the united states. we have seeno indication that she's not in go health, she has had a few coughing fits from time to time, she says that's seasonal allergies. we asked her about that just a few days ago, in fact. but there's no doubt that the timing of this unwelcome from the perspective of the campaign. the polls are getting tighter as we have been reporting on all week long. this is not something that they want to be dealing with right now as they head into the final fall fight. secretary clinton just leaving daughter chelsea's apartment after having left the 9/11 memorial early and says she's feeling much better. >> thanks very much. before we go to remembering some of the other parts of 9/11, tom brokaw, you were there, you were for many people the person that was explaining what happened that morning. i know it's seared in the memories of anybody and particularly in washington and new york that morning and here we are in the midst of a presidential election that feels nothing like the mood of the country post 9/11. >> no, that was the longest day of my life, certainly i think

one of the worst daysn america. really launched us into a war in the wrong country at a terrible cost in terms of lives lost and the amount of money that we've spent, 15 years later that war still going on, the could be sequences of 9/11 are felt every daynd families that represent less than 1% of the american population that are fighting that war. i still find that an outrage that the people at the lwer end of the scale are the ones who are raising their hands and going into harm's way. we didn't know immediately what had happened but of course terrorism rose righ to the occasion because of what had been going on with the taliban and osama bin laden in afghanistan. they had had one earlier attempt on the world trade center under successful, this one was beyond belief, frankly, and i kept saying that morning to my colleagues, just tell them what we know. we can't speculate here. and it was a tough day. >> it certainly was. all right. tom brokaw, a lot more on this in the show. tom, thanks very much. earlier today i spoke with homeland security secretary jeh

johnson who of course runs a cabinet agency that didn't exist on 9/11. he was standing a few blocks north of the new world trade center. >> let me start with a grim poll number that came out this week, majority of americans say we are less safe today than we were before 9/11. why do you think americans feel this way? >> that's a good question, chuck. americans have seen the attack in orlando, they have seen the attack in san bernardino, they see what's happening overseas, they see what's happening in western europe, in france and belgium and elsewhere and they are rightly concerned about our current security environment. we're safer now when it comes to another 9/11-style attack, but we're challenged when it comes to the prospect of the lone wolf actor, the homegrown violent extremist and that requires a new whole of government response and public participation and vigilance as well, by the way. >> you know, you said in a recent interview that we have to

be concerned about all rang of attacks, i never categorize anything as low priority, but we have to look at what's high risk and what's ls high risk and spend our time accordingly. so what does that mean? is there just some holes that are always going to be there in our security system? >> no, i wouldn't put it that way at all. we've got people devoted to all manner of threats out there. invariably the high probability, higher probability type of threat, another san bernardino, another orldo, is uppermost on our minds, it is the thing that keeps me up at night the most, but we've got threats from -- you know, in cyber security, we have them -- they have a mission devoted to the potential for a bio threat, a dirty bomb. we have to keep our eye on all of it, but obviously there are things that are higher probability, there are things that are lower probability, but

higher impact and we have to keep our eye on all of it. >>ou know, would you say today are you concerned that syria today i as unstable and as much of a safe haven for terrorists as afghanistan was in thelate '90s and should that concern us considering what afghanistan brought or what happened inside of afghanistan that led to 9/11, should we be concerned that what's happening in syria could lead to a new 9/11? >> chuck, i said in february 2014 that syria had become a matter of homend security. our u.s. military along with our ternational partners have done a good job of taking back territory, taking out the leaders of isil, taking out those focused on external attacks, but, yes, we have to be concerned that syria could become another afghanistan. anytime a terrorist organization can establish rritory, take territory, have a place to head quarter, to train, recruit,

that's obviously a big concern and big homeland security concern, yes, sir. >> one of the other things you've been having to talk about and deal with lately is this threat or perceived threat to our election system. russia apparently is trying to infiltrate in some way, but are they trying to create actual havoc or are they actually to create the illusion of havoc? >> well, the investigation into the various intrusions we've seen, including the dnc hack, still under investigation. i will say this, it would be very hard to alter a ballot count in a national election to change the vote tally just because our election system is so decentralized, there are 9,000 jurisdictions that are involved. i have been sending the message to state and local officials that we ought to do our utmost to protect their online presence, their internet presence and the department of homeland security is in a position to help if they ask. but they have to ask first.

>> today is your birthday and i have a cousin who has 9/11 as a birthday and i know it's awkward for her. how do you handle your birthday? >> well, i always take occasion to remember what happened 15 years ago. i'm here in new york this year, i was in shanksville last year, i spent 9/11 at the pentagon. i don't celebrate my birthday on my birthday anymore, either the day before or the day after, and i'm not sure i will ever be in a position to celebrate my birthday again on 9/11 given the huge impression this day made on me. >> absolutely. jeh johnson, i know it's very personal for you, i know you were in new york city on theay of the attacks and it's a very emotional day as well. thanks for spending a few minutes with me. >> thanks for having me on, chuck. turning now to the 2016 campaign, we have a new "washington post" abc poll that is out this morning has hillary clinton with a five point lead over donald trump among likely voters, 46, 41.

we have new nbc news "wall street journal" marist battle ground polls that we will get to a little later. we begin with what perhaps is turning into a rough weekend for hillary clinton. it' not unusual for the trump campaign to find itself trying to explain a controversial statement made by their candidate, sometimes it's a weekly issue for him. but this weekend it's the clinton campaign that's scrambling for words to explain just what she meant when she took a shot at trump voters, a criticism that immediately drew sharp reaction. >> you could put half of trump's supporters into what i ll the basket of coldeplorables, racis sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, xenophobic. >> at a fundraiser friday night clinton made the remark that republicans hope voters will never forget. >> hillary, they are not a basket of anything. they are americans and they deserve your respect. >> the trump campaign quickly

demanded an apology and tried to capitalize. trump tweeted, wow, hillary clinton was so insulting to my supporters. millions of aming hard working people. i think it will cost her at the polls. >> there is a history of presidential candidates becoming too comfortable in friendly crowds. 2012 mitt romney was caught on tape at a closed door fundraiser dismissing voters with this line that some republicans believe lost him the election. there are 47th of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. there are 47th who are with him who bl that they are victims. >> in 2008 it was barack obama also at a fundraiser talking about how job losses had made working class amicans feel. >> it's not surprising then that they get bitter, and they cling to guns or religion or an tip thee towards people who aren't like him. >> this is what hillary clinton said about obama's remarks in 2008. >> i was taken aback by the

demeaning remar senator obama made about people in small town america. senator baum's remarks are elitist and out of touch. >> running mate tim kaine told the "washington post" on saturday that clinton shouldn't have to apologize, still clinton rushed to explain, releasing this statement, last night i was grossly generalistic and that's never a good idea. i regret saying half. that was wrong. but let's be clear, it's deplorable that trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voic. clinton said something similar this week to israel tv but didn't use the word half. >>'d say you can take trump supporters and put them in two big baskets, there are what i call the deplorables, the racists and the -- you know, the haters. >> it takes democrats and republicans -- >> the comments come just as clinton is trying to show voters her warmer side after a veterans forum where she appeared on the

defensive and lawyerly at times. >> i communicated with classified material on a wholly separate system. >> and it changes the subject from trump who floud erred at the event on substance, his praise of president vladimir putin. >> in that system he has been a leader. >> even sitting down for an interview with larry king on state sponsored russian television where he trashed american institutions. it left republicans scrambling. >> vladimir putin is not a president he is a dictator. >> this is the biggest miscalculation since people thought hitler was a good guy. >> are you still convinced that he is the best choice for national security issues? thank you. >> thanks. >> i want to bring in the panel. this morning tom brokaw is back with us, joining us for the first time audie cornish host of all things considered on npr. stephanie cutter now a clinton supporter and "new york times" columnist david brooks whose book "the road to character" is

now out in paper back. he is dan balz' head line, clinton's deplorable remark sums up a deplorable election season. what was your initialreaction? >> it was a terrible race for politics. we have had a race to the bottom before but this is usain bolt speed to the bottom these two. i was struck by another sentence in that quote about the deplorables that they are irredeemable. there is a reason no religion believes that, if you believe people are irredeemable, they a somehow in a lesser category of human beings and that is a dark, dark world view and that's always been the risk with clinton. as president she could be hard working, effective, efficient, but there is a dark world view that is semi nixonian lurking in there. >> stephanie, tough to defend the remark. is it or no? do you think it's tough to defend the remark deplorables? >> absolutely not. i think that her only mistake is that she said half of his supporters were deplorable.

does anybody around this table have they not seen trump's rallies? have they not seen trump's own remarks? he is attracting certain type of voter. she gave a whole speech on describing them, they are called the alt-right and they tweet racist things, he retweets them, he says it from the stump. from research in this election we know that his own words calling mexicans rapists, criticizing a gold star family, these are the most potent things against him with independent voters. so what she said was not wrong, her only mistake was that she escribed half of his supporters tt way. >> i want to put up a tweet here, the atlantic's tanahisi coats. hillary clinton was right. >> here is what so striking to me ithat what half of his voters are in that category of being i remember redeem blee racist and homophobic and all that. if i'm a hardware dealer in a small town in ohio and i'm

trying to make up my mind you have to wake up the next morning saying is she talking about me? i'm inclined towards trump but is that what her thought about me is? she also did this at a glitzy manhattan high stakes fundraiser so that separates her, i think, from the rest of the country in a way and you could watch her demeanor there, it was all quite jolly, everybody was laughing and applauding at it. i don't think that that's what she needs at this point in her life because out there there are still a lot of people saying i don't quite trust hillary. give m a reason to -- >> why is it, though, donald trump gets credit for being politically incorrect, telling it like it is and hillary clinton -- i think some of her supporters are saying, hey, she's just doing what trump does. >> i think we can put aside for a second that there is a segment of trump supporters which surveys have shown do have beliefs that people can talk about as being islamaphobic and xenophobic and retweeted white

nationalists. what it does is it confirms what his supporters already believe, ght, which is that essentially he is this bulwark against pc culture, he is the one leading the charge against that and they are upset that their concerns are routinely dismissed out of hand as being racist or retrograde and he is the person who has been out there saying, no, no, no, you are perfectly normal something is wrong here and she basically confirmed something they believe which is that democrats don't just think that they are wrong, but like look down on them. >> candidates should not be sociologists or pundits or shou not sit in new york where the fundraiser was held looking down and ming gross generalizations oly not about 50% but about people. even people say repugnant things at trump rallies are complicated and they're driven by complicated fears and anxieties to sometimes do beautiful things or other things. the truism that you hate the sinner but not the sinner applies to politics as well. >> we will take a break. we are going to come right back and have this conversation.

i also have new battle ground state polls in four states. t from the traditional battle ground and two from perhaps an expande battle ground. later, the 9/11 attacks led to the war in iraq. i will talk to a prominent member of president george w. bush's administration, paul wolfowitz. >> mandy chang. >> mark lawrence

weome back. more now on the presidential campaign, we have now nbc journal polls from four states and the results pretty much confirm what we've been seeing over the last ten days. this race is getting closer. we'll start with the traditional battle ground state of new hampshire in a four-way race, clinton leads donald trump by a point. 37-36 among likely voters in new hampshire, not much difference, clinton is up by two. 39-37. by the way, look at the gary johnson number, the highest we've measured inny battle ground state. 15 in new mpire. they have a bend to them. next is nevada, clinton by two points, 41-39 but look what happens when you have a likely voter sample, turns into a trump lead. keep in mind democrats won new hampshire in five of the last six elections and taken nevada in four of the last six so these should be states that favor clinton. let's look at two red states in arizona, clinton and trump are

tied at 37 among registered voters. trump is up 30-48. look at he double digits for gary johnson that governed a neighboring state of arizona in new mexico and in georgia, clinton has a one-point lead among registered voters but among likely voters, it's trump who gains. he's at 44-42. it's worth remembering that democrats haven't won either arizona or georgia since bill clinton won each once. david brooks, i want to start with a column you wrote about this idea of a realignment is coming. politics is catching up to social reality. the crucial social divide is between those who feel the core trends of the global information age economy at tail ends at their back and those who feel them as head winds at the phase and i can point you to this break down in the poll among college educated voters, she's up 20. among non-college ed vucated voters, he's up 20. >> for the last 20 years, if you look how people is behaved, you

can do huge predictions whether they completed college. how often do they vote? how many frien do they have? what's their marriage like. it opens up socially and this is the first election we have seen them reflected in the political polling and so my question and this is really a serious worry, suppose one marc party is less head winds and that would be the republican party and another party is the party of the tail winds, and that would be the democratic party. suppose the partisan realignment over laps with the close alignment and that to me is extremely problematic for what it is. >> isn't that what we see now? >> this is arofound shift because it's representing the college education. we've grown up with republicans at the high end of the income scale and the leaders in american life. this has been turned upside down. i think the big, big issue in this country and this election, cutting away everything else is what david talked about, how do we pull the country back together again?

it's separating and going in different directions and there is not been either candidate whose been able to give a city shining on a hill speech like ronald reagan or i have a dream like dr. ken because they are so determined to separate the country and that is, i think, a terrible prescription for the future. >> it's going to be like that as long as there is identity based partisanship. i mean, i think we've always talked about the different groups that aligned with the parties, but if you think about social media networks, like the idea you see only the news about the stuff you care about delivered to your phone every day, i think the silos of where we live and the silos of the information we're taking in is actually exacerbating the problem. >> there are so many different reasons that we've ended up at this place. some that we can control, some we can't control but i think in addition to the political realignment that's happening, i think that the most pressing issue is whoever wins the white house in november, there is going to be a huge chunk of americans who are going to feel

unpr unrepresented and not heard. >> and angry about it. >> and angry about it. >> look at the reaction -- >> very high unfavorables. so the mandate to govern will be very, very difficult and that's something that hopefully, democrats and republicans will look at each other and say this is it, we got to do something. >> we could have a winner at 32%. everybody is at 42, 43, 48. that's like minority leader government. i think we got to do something about it. mayor rob emanuel of chicago has an idea. every kid that graduates spends some sort of three months in a national service so kids are with kids and just three months would make a difference. >> i thought national service would be a given. we've been talking about national service my whole adult life and i can't believe we're not there. >> i'm involved with anned a a of public service. 250 this year. and by the way, when hillary clinton borrows the line from bernie sanders, we'll give free

college education to families with $125,000 a year, she ought to say and if you get that, you've got to get with your public service when you graduate or two years. it ought to come with a price tag for them otherwise it looks like a government give away. chuck, i think we cannot over state the importance and the effect of social media in this campaign. it's going on even as we speak here and the kind of victory on both sides that's out there and people have a hard time deciding what's real and what's not. >> i want to bring it back to e deplorabl deplorables. against any other candidate against any other year, this is a really fatal mistake for her but have we been conditioned to this harsh rhetoric? i don't think people have been conditioned to rhetoric. if they were, then you wouldn't have a whole segment of the republican party that aren't for trump. i mean, what she really was speaking to were those people, republican voters who haven't

made up their mind because they are very uncomfortable with trump because of the racist words coming out of his mouth and some of his supporters. >> this is a risk if you make it a referendum on trump, you have to walk the line between saying a vote for trump is a bad decision and a vote for trump means you're a bad person. and i think this crossed that line and it's hard to unring that bell. >> i think we've seen that a tie goes to trump, if they both have bad weeks, he benefits. he's gotten closer t because he's suddenly great. >> i have to say there was part of this when she did it and i thought marco rubio did this and ted c cruz tried this, when you try to hit him, when you go name calling for name calling and go down to his level he went. >> yeah. >> because the supporters know what they will get and i think a lot of people made up their minds. i saw a bumper sticker that said i don't know, 2016. what people need to do is what clinton needs to do is make it

so that sticker says clinton kain 2016. >> all right. we'll take a pause here and do a little more on 9/11. when we come back on this september 11th commemoration, the paul wolfowitz grew out of the 9/11 attacks.

welcome back. 18 months after the september 11th attacks, the united states invaded iraq. u.s. invasion easily toppled y saddam hussein. paul wolfowitz was secretary and democrat that returned republican and may feel forced

to vote for hillary clinton in november. paul wolfowitz joins me. welcome, sir. >> nice to be here, thank you. >> i read in a interview you didn't -- you took issue with the architect of the iraq war. why do you not accept that title? >> because i was not in charge. i was not the commander in chief or secretary of state or secretary of defense and national security advisor and more importantly, i thought at the time there was a lot of things that should have been done differently. if you think about it, if we had a counter insurgency strategy, if we had that from the beginning, i think iraq would look like a very different place today and history would look very different instead of waiting until 2007, 2008 to defeat al qaeda and iraq, they could have withibeen defeated. >> you were an advisor to jeb bush. he struggled with the knowing what we know question now, what is your answer? >> it assumes everything we know then we know now.

we knowbout saddam and not part of al qaeda at th time but merged with al qaeda and the leader is there. we know that now. most importantly, we'll never know what the world would be like if saddam was still in power in iraq. imagine if you had an uprising in iraq like took place in syria, you would have syria on steroids. saddam would be more brutal than assad has been. >> that's a big assumptio how do we know that? saddam -- a lo -- >> it turned out -- >> a buster,or instance, there were no weapons of ma destruction. >> he was deceiving the world on that point. >> that's a bigoint to deceive the world on. >> not killingterrorists. he was killing his own people on a large scale. he did it in 1991. we saw what he did. i don't think it takes a lot of imagination to see how he would respond.

we seen what he did. there is a tendency to say it all around the world. if the americans can put a man on the moon, why can't they do x and x is some complicated social problem that's been here for centuries. americans play into that assuming they can solve everything and we're responsible for everything. hillary clinton was actually right when she said a few months ago the united states didn't create isis. bashar al-assad created isis. >> there is another theory that says whatever you want to think of the strong man the fact of the matter as soon as saddam husse was serving a iraq coveri up a lot of bad guys, we lift that rock and all of a sudden chaos ensued. >> he wasn't covering up a lot of bad guys. he was sheltering a lot of bad guys. he had the one perpetrator who the first world trade center bombing at large and zarkowi in

iraq. the -- you know, when i said assad helped to create isis, he did it by driving the sunnis into desperation where isis is the only choice for them. these dictators brutalized their societies. they divide their societies after they collapse and eventually they collapse. there is nothing left to stabilize or take its place. >> go ahead. >> not every dictator is like that. i was ambassador in indonesia when the president was the so-called ao cat, or dictator. there was nothing reasonable left in iraq, nothing reasonable left in syria or libya. >> let me go back to this issue. here we are on 9/11. it was mostly s lly saudis that those planes into the towers,

nobody from iraq. why was that the first action. we went into afghanistan and why didn't we hold saudi arabia accountable? you can make a case a lot mf saudis were funding and fueling these terrorists attacks with saudi money and things like that than anybody in iraq. >> there is a big problem with what the sud diaudis have been and i hope people are right when they say the new crown prince. >> they are harboring terrorists? >> cultivating terrorists but the point is you don't deal with that by going to war. what concerned us about iraq and people want to forget but everybody believes and saddam was doing his best to convince us he had weapons of mass destruction. we knew he had previously had anthrax and he was working on nuclear weapons and made it clear after he was captured he intended to start the programs again once the sanctions were lifted. he was a real danger and that's why there was a focus on weapons of mass destruction and people say after the fact that bush

lied and got us into a war, he wasn't lying. he was saying what everyone believed and, you know, i heard some discussions on your previous panel and i -- but i heard remarkable comment this morning by one of the orphans from 9/11 whose father died and the son said 9/11 brought us together. we need to come together as a country. >> some said -- >> lying when he was telling the truth. >> some could say iraq split us apart. the followup from the iraq war. look at the republican party today. >> i'm not disagreeing. >> more isolation today. >> i'm not disagreeing with that but if you accuse bush of lying when he was telling what everyone believed -- >> let me ask you this then, who lied? is it bad intelligence? somebody got us into this and somebody convinced the united states congress that weapons of mass destruction were imminent in iraq, which is why so many democrats and republican voted for this war. >> i think the original liar is

saddam hussein who discovered he had more. later, it seems he was lying that he had more than heeally did have because he wanted to supposedly deceive the iranians. the fact is every intelligence service in the world, not just the americans, the british, the germans, the french, all believe he had weapons of mass destruction. >> are you -- do you -- are you now concerned that that especially, we were wrong and if you think about the public's lack of trust for government right now, that's one of the reasons. that's one of the things over the last 15 years when you talk about wall street's inability to be truthful and that under mined trusting government. do you believe that? >> look, i think it's done a lot of harm but i think in fact, stating falsehoods like saying bush lied does a lot of harm. i believe if we had a better strategy in iraq from the beginning and if the surge-type strategy was implemented, iraq

would look different. >> how many troops would be there? you think because yove said in the past you thought this is more like a germany and korea situation thanks we probably would need troops for 40 or 50 years. >> the issue isn't how many troops you have but how many americans are getting killed. by the end of the surge very muni americans were getting killed. there is a great risk if north korea starts a war. the u.s. can be a stabilizing factor. it's important to understand and i agree the turn in public opinion on the united states is very unfortunate. i think it will bring us more trouble. we're in danger of learning all the wrong lessons from the st. the lesson that intervention is the only thing that's bad. i think we're seeing in syria the consequence is non-intervention. i think we see in libya the consequence of partial invention. >> is this why you're learning clinton over trump? >> i'm learning against both of them. i find it incredibly

disappointing when the country needs to come together and we have two major party candidates that enjoy so little confidence from the american people. >> paul wolfowitz from the bush admistration, thank you, sir. preciate you sharing your ews. >> when we come back, a reminder how 9/11 changed us, at least for awle and h it will still drive much of ou politics today. >> fir you saw the large flag that was from the top of the pentagon there that was awe inspiring.

welcome back. it's almost become a cliche to say 9/11 changed us. it sparked two wars and heightened security at ballparks and public places and made us all more aware of the threats around the world that many of us face, but for awhile, at least, 9/11 brought us together and made us appreciate shared interests and common bonds and in fact, made it so democrats and republicans simply devastated tried to destroy each other. we brought together firefighters, teachers and journalists to tell us how they saw america change and in some cases change right back. >> september 11th, 2001, resulted in us waking up on september 12th with a phenomenal sense of what it means to be the united states of america. i had the sense that most of us

were reaching into an easily accessible well of resolve, will, strength, car aharacter. >> you saw the large flag from the top of the pentagon there and that was just awe insring. >> literally, when i got there at 8:00 in the morning, we had people in line waiting to buy flags. >> we crawled befo we walked and we walked before we ran. >> no divisions among people. no colors, no religions, no politics. >> the leaders in congress stood togetherthe governors of our states were together. partisanship just seemed to disappear. >> 15 years marks the moment of the country together all but evaporated. >> strong emotions and very strong activities like occurred after 9/11 are hard to maintain. the country seems so significantly divided in a lot of optimism and hopefulness that

we can continue with the great american traditions we've had for so many years. >> america went from a great sense of being part of the same important fabric of clinging together in times of disaster to political fights and a political system that has encouraged division. >> and we did stand together even though some of us had differences, we put those differences aside and said

back now with the panel, tom, i'll let respond first. back on during that interview when we talked about the iraq war and about who is responsible for lying to get us into this war. >> well, lying is a very strong phrase, obviously. i think it's an over interpreted with a wanted to see there. they came into office determined to get rid of saddam hussein in some fashion. there is no question about that. but then when 9/11 came along, it gave them the big opportunity to do that. it was unclear about weapons of mass destruction. the u.n. was not certain about whether they insisted or not. i was in iraq twice before the war began. here is what really troubled me. i would be talking to shiite young people, he was a sunni, remember, saddam was. i want to join jihad and fight

the united stat. what do you mean? you don't come and tell our country what to do. we'll do this on our own. i go into a suke ran by shiite. we don't want you come in here and bringing something that's not been here the last 40 years. so there was not a great uprising that was going to occur when we came in buzz they had been living with him all this time. >> david brooks, it took the democratic party arguably 24 years, 25 years to recover from vietm. to be trusted again with national security and the election of bill clinton in 92. you can argue that really even though carter got in there, it only reinforced the perception democrats can't handle national security. the republican party is still hasn't recovered from the iraq war. >> i agree. the democrats did well in the congressional elections. >> they did but watergate. >> people remember -- the people -- i think parties

recover pretty quickly. what doesn't recover maybe is the position. the positionhat america should be intervening abroad. there is a sweet spot between too much intervention and too little. we swung from here to here and what is striking about the republican party, it's the party of intervention to the donald trump party of non-intervention. there is now no intervention party and the gap in the world that putins exploit, we have a bipartisan consensus not to get involved and that's a problem i think paul is right about. >> she is, because i think that she understands the realities of what it means to be president and the threats that you're facing. but i think you're right, how iraq was handled still has hangover on our policies and our politics today. there was a huge coming together after 9/11. there was support and gathering and bipartisan support for the afghanistan war and then they started to beat the war drum to

going to iraq. there was bipartisan suprt for iraq. that quickly turned. i remember being with senator kennedy, who was one of the only votes agast the iraq war and he said mark my words, this is going to change and within a couple of years it did. look at how much the iraq war influenced the 2004 election. we'll deal with this for a very long time. one of the major questions this week at the commander in chief forum was where was donald trump on the iraq war? so it is a -- it's become a symbol of where you stand in this country and how you're going to -- >> it is interesting that is the public. democrats and republicans don't want to accept anybody that says they are for it and stick to it. let me ask this. >> can we challenge the premise? i grew up in the '90s and i don't remember it being a peaceful time. i feel like it was a pause in civic hostilities. we had a ruthless election where you had half of the electret.

so i'm having a hard time -- >> they didn'thallenge -- they didn't challenge -- the difference is i think we're all concerned. >> yeah. >> that if we have another 2000 election, that you won't see whoever the supreme courts would say is the losing side say okay, we've got to respect the constitution. >> that in fact, because of that election, right? >> because of that or because of everything that has happened since then? one other whiplash moment on foreign policy this week goes not just on the iraq war and are you -- republican party but putin in russia. we haven't brought that up. basically what was driving the -- >> it was an astonishing statement on the part of donald trump, especially the republican candidate for president of the united states he embraces a dictator in russia and says he has 82% approval rating, he's not saying the other 18% are on their way to a log somewhere because the fact is he can have any kind of approval rating he

wants. he just orders it up. there is real issues in russia. one of my longest friends, long-term friends is a russian scholar that spent a lot of time in the last year and said things have never been worse between the two countries, that's a very ominous -- >> on friday, he lives in new york city because hislife is in dange if he lives still in russia. >> yeah. >> that's why. his life is threatened. >> do you think the voters care as much about this putin issue as we in washington do? >> unconsciously. polit politics is a bad odor around the world. politics stinks. you have to compromise to listen people you dislike but you hedge and fudge and it's ugly and sort of the only way to govern a diverse society but in this world and around donald trump's mind, that form of politics is suspect is on the rise. >> all right. back in a moment. we'll have the end game segment. on this first full day of the

back now with the end gam segment. there was one more thing i wanted to bring up before we get to the nfl and that was a remarkable comment about donald trump, that he made this is the last election that sounded similar to a comment we highlighted last year from michele bachmann. take a listen. >> i think this will believe the last election that the republican haves a chance of winning because you'll have people flowing across the borders. i'll have illegal immigrants coming in and will be legalized and able to vote. once that happens, you can

forget it. >> i've been calling him an election armaddon. michele bachmann, rushlimbaugh, one idea of one way to rally republicans to his side but a negative rally. >> it's the upside down version of something people talk about the obama coalition and minority groups and becoming the majority and i think the attempt to say this is the last gsp for white voters isn't subtle. >> that was not a subtle comment. >> donald trump and subtlety. >> it's racial. how about like we're going to be over flooded by brown people. how about trying to appeal to them? trying to win over votes. >> undermine voting that voting group to say your votes, they aren't the real votes. >> not to out the age of some people around this table but some people around this table is to remember the republican party was the party of african

americans. jackie robinson endorsenick son over kennedy. >> dr. king had no better friend than rockefeller for example and if when the candidates started to approach the king family, they said we don't know. andy young said even the maids are white. that of course all changed once the gold water movement takes over. i think the big issue after this election, whoever wins or whoever loses is how these two parties, if they are able to reconstitute themselves as a democrats did with bill clinton and i don't know whether that's possible anymore in the era of social media and all the divisions that are in both parties at this point. i just don't know whether that's possible. >> so today is the first sunday of the nfl season falling on 9/11. sports was a tremends unifying in this country after 9/11. particularly baseball and football, as well. it's going to be an unusual day, i think, for the opening of football season, colin kaepernick and his protest, the seahawks are planning.

it's very interesting more and more sports figures have decided i don't know whatt is,i'm wondering if it's the ali effect, ali's death educated a generation of new athletes to say, maybe i should u my platform differently. >> i hope that's the case. and we saw this happen in the nba. >> yeah. >> last year. and look, i think some good is coming out of this. he's forcing a discussion. his teammates across the league are supporting him and his, you know, real benefits are going to people who are trying to forge change and ensure equal justice. >> can i solute the athletes standing for the anthem? they are expressing faith in the ideas of the country. we have problems but stand in honor of those things. >> we'll make that the last word. that's all we have for today. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

♪ ♪ due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. what's going on, lt? >> an inmate known for deviant behavior prompts an emergency response. >> hey, come here and cuff up. come over here and cuff up. >> another inmate turns his fury on two officers. >> he blew up like a roman candle. he went off. >> i slammed him on to the wall. the other little dude grabbed on to me again. i kind of shrugged him off. >> a new arrival raises serious concerns.