this sunday, media bashing and the russia connection. president trump thrills supporters with his attacks on the press. >> a few days ago i called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are. they are the enemy of the people. >> but could his media attacks be designed to distract attention from those disturbing russia stories that just won't go away? i'll ask republican tom carton of arkansas who sits on the senate intelligence committee. also, those angry town halls. can republicans afford to ignore the growing opposition to repealing and replacing obamacare? plus, meet the new boss. former labor secretary tom perez elected the head of the

democratic party. >> where were you in 2017 when we had the worst president in the history of the united states? >> but the party's growing progressive wing is not happy. i'll talk to tom perez about healing a divided party, and our brand new nbc news/wall street journal poll. the bad news for president trump, an approval rating at a historic low. the good news, his supporters are as enthusiastic as ever. joining me for insight and analysis are jerry gerry saeb of the wall street journal, helene cooper of the new york times, and eliana johnson of politico. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history, celebrating its 70th year this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. our first look at how the

public feels about president trump in our brand-new poll out this morning. the president's approval rating stands at 44% with 48% disapproving. that is the lowest rating ever recorded in our poll at this early stage of a presidency. it took president obama 32 months to fall into negative territory and george bush 42 months to fall under rocky water. mr. trump's approval rating suggests a durable floor of support for him. that support comes almost entirely from republicans who approve of the president by 86% and democrats disapprove by exactly 86 to 9. it is independents that put him under water. they disapprove by a nine-point margin, 38 to 47. one issue that doesn't seem to hurt the president right now at least in the eyes of his supporters are the reported ties he and his aides may or may not have with russia. whenever stories break on that

subject, press bashing which is always part of the president's arsenal seems to escalate. >> i'm against the people that make up stories and make up sources. >> it's a tactic with a pattern. the president's attacks on the media repeatedly have directly followed reporting on russia. on january 5th, nbc news reported on the intelligence report. on january 6th, president trump tweeted i am asking the chairs of the house and senate committees to investigate top secret intelligence shared with nbc prior to me seeing it. on february 16th, president trump spent much of 77-minute news conference attacking the media. >> russia is fake news. this is fake news put out by the media.

the leaks are real. the news is fake. >> on thursday night, media outlets reported that reince priebus asked the fbi to publicly discredit a new york times story on russia after the fbi's deputy director reportedly told him it was overblown. on friday, the president went after the press. >> i want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. it's fake. phony. fake. >> trump administration officials acknowledge on friday that white house chief of staff reince priebus did ask deputy director andrew mccabe to push back on news stories about contacts between trump aides and russians during the campaign. days earlier priebus had said this on "meet the press". >> i've talked to the top levels of the intelligence community, and they've assured me that that new york times story was grossly overstated and inaccurate and totally wrong. >> later on friday the washington post quoted both house and senate intelligence committee chairman saying that administration officials also enlisted them in conversations with reporters.

conversations that priebus also mentioned on "meet the press". >> and in fact, devin nunez who is on the house intelligence committee went on the record after he was informed by the fbi as to that story, and what did he say? he said it was total garbage. >> the drip, drip, drip is making even some republicans in congress wary. on friday republican congressman darryl issa who was narrowly re-elected said he was open to a special prosecutor to investigate russia interference in an election. >> you can't have someone, a friend of mine, jeff sessions who was on the campaign and who was an appointee. you're going to need to use the special prosecutor's statute and office. >> senator tom cotton of arkansas is a member of the select committee on intelligence and would be involved on any senate investigation of the trump administration's ties to russia. he got an earful from arkansans

who called for repealing and replacing obamacare. >> do your job. do your job. do your job. do your job. do your job. >> quite a week for you, senator cotton. >> fun week in arkansas. good to be with you. >> nothing wrong to be a part of democracy in action. >> any time you can get 2200 of your constituents to come out is a good thing. >> are you concerned with the white house contact, in particular the fbi and the chairman of the senate intelligence committee since your committee announced its investigating all of these allegations of russian interference in the election. >> let's step back. russia is not our friend. vladimir putin is kgb, has always been. a senate intelligence committee, as long as i've been on it, have

been examining russia's attempt to undermine our interest around the world. we have said that we will undertake in a bipartisan fashion an inquiry into everything that russia tried to do in our election process last year. if that leads to potential contacts between trump associates and the russian government, then we'll explore those, as well. one of the things i did before i left for home was have an hours-long hearing on these matters. i am confident we'll proceed wherever the facts take us. what you're talking about is what reince priebus said last week. this is not something the white house has tried to conceal. let's take that cnn article. i'm not going to confirm or deny anything on these stories because these leaks of classified information could do real harm to our national security, but let's take it at face value. the fbi went to president trump and reince priebus and said that reports of contacts between trump associates last year and

russian intelligence officials were grossly overstated. isn't it reasonable for the chief of staff to then say to the fbi director are you going to say anything to correct the record on this since everyone is running around washington making these allegations? i think that's a perfectly reasonable response. the fbi have reasons why they don't call balls and strikes on the stories because we don't want to let our adversaries know what we know and what we don't know and how we know it. if you take everything at face value, i don't think there's much alarming. >> let's go to the issue of the white house trying to enlist the chairman of the two intelligence committees and in particular, senator burr who has already announced an investigation. was that appropriate? >> reince priebus said last weekend devin nunez was saying this on the record. the white house was trying to ensure that the media had more access to information. that's what the cnn story said about reince priebus. >> were you contacted by the white house? >> i was not. >> if you had, would you have talked to the media at their request? >> chuck, i try to refrain from

comment on what's happening on the arms services committee because i want to stay on the right side of the line about classified information which frankly, i wish more people in the media and more of the obama holdovers in the administration were doing. >> mike warner who is the vice chair. the intelligence committee works differently than any other committee. it is truly bipartisanly run. mike warner had concerns about this idea that the white house contacted senator burr that it could call into question about whether this will be a fair investigation. >> i think there is no doubt this will be a fair inquiry. we are well under way and it's been conducted in a bipartisan fashion and democrats and republicans have been working well on it and there is a limit to what we can discuss publicly and the eight democrats know what we learned and i would encourage them to tell the other 40 democrats in the senate what they may and may not want to be saying so they don't get over their skis making false allegations or other allegations.

>> before you said this to go to the recess to go back home that it was a hearing. was that a hearing that you had with director comey? is that how we should describe that? >> i will want discuss what we may or may not -- >> you called it a hearing. >> every time we meet i call it a hearing. we had an hour's long hearing on these very topics. >> i want to ask you about the darrell issa being open to a special prosecutor. what point is it in the best interest of the country to sort of take it away from elected partisans at this point whether it's a commission. i know a select commission, outside commission or a special prosecutor. where are you in this? >> i think that's way, way getting ahead of ourselves here, chuck. there are no allegations of any crime occurring and there's not even indication that there's criminal investigations under way from the fbi as opposed to the investigations of the intelligence bureau.

if we get down the road that's a decision that attorney general sessions can make at the time. >> the senators are getting calls on their own. you called during your campaign against mike prior. you called for a special prosecutor for the irs. how does this russia allegation, when does that rise to that level, in your mind? >> i think that's far down the road from what our inquiry might reveal in the intelligence committee and that's something that can be decided down the road and right now there's no credible evidence of these contacts beyond anonymous sources in the media and anonymous sources can't always be trusted. >> anonymous sources is how we find out about a lot of scandal. >> anonymous sources said bannon confronted john kelly and is not true, you cannot credit stories that are based on anonymous sources. you should look into them if you're in a position of responsibility, but you can't simply credit them. >> let me talk to you about healthcare. you got an earful from town hall. tell me your big takeaway from that. does that say -- you've been one of these advocates saying we can't repeal obamacare until there is a replacement that the

public can see. does that make you more determined than ever to say slow down. get this replacement right before the exuberance on repeal? >> we have to get health care right. our health care system has had problems going back decades and obamacare didn't solve them and it didn't because the access to doctors is still strained. what we saw over this past week is anxiety and stress that americans feel about health care. i know families that have been helped by obamacare that feel that anxiety and stress and i know families that have been hurt by it and health care is a stressful thing and when we repeal obamacare we have to get it right and we have to make sure that our solutions deliver personalized care for all americans that they have control, choice and freedom over their health care. >> that promise sounds good. do you understand why some people think that's an impossible promise to keep? to make it affordable, make it

wider. it seems like you're selling something that can't be done realistically. >> i know a lot of americans are skeptical about their government on a whole host of issues and they should be given the poor performance from recent years from our government, but i think we should trust the american people. we can make our health care system more flexible and more personalized and more affordable for everyone and still address the problems that obamacare and the coverage for pre-existing conditions and so forth and that's what we'll do. >> john boehner in a speech said they're not going to repeal obamacare. they'll end up repairing it. is that how they'll end up looking to a vast majority of people that it's basically a repair of obamacare with a conservative vision? >> we've had four elections about obamacare. >> and we're not going to have a fifth one, are we? >> in three of those elections the republicans won big victories because we promised to repeal obamacare and to fix the system once and for all. we would not keep faith from the

american people if we did not keep our word from the elections. >> senator tom cotton. i'll leave it there. good to see you sir. appreciate it. >> as republicans have been greeted at town halls, many democrats are simply calling for all-out resistance to everything that president trump touches. >> we are going to dump trump! dump trump! >> as long as the president continues down this path, there is nothing democrats can work with him on. >> let resistance plus persistence equal progress for our party and our country. >> so that was the backdrop to yesterday's election of former labor secretary tom perez as chairman of the democrat committee. he defeated in a close race that was closely watched. many supporters made their displeasure clear when donna brazile, the outgoing chair

announced the results. >> little did they know that tom perez was about to announce that keith ellison was going to be his deputy chair. with the democrats in their weakest position in 100 years, the first job will be to unite the party and try to lead them out of the wilderness. mr. perez joins me now from atlanta. mr. chairman, congratulations. >> thank you, chuck. it's great to be with you. >> let me start with the fact that that was a pretty divided room, all intraparty elections can feel personal and feel petty, but the fact of the matter is you do have sanders supporters from the primary who were skeptical of the clinton wing of the party and see you as nothing more as an extension of that, how do you unite this party without making it an anti-trump party as a way to unite it.

>> i thought we had a great day yesterday, chuck, and deputy chair ellison and i, we were there together. we were united, and our unity is our greatest strength and frankly, our unity is donald trump's greatest nightmare. he's already tweeting this morning about the election being rigged and frankly, he ought to be looking at the u.s. election last november through special council. what we saw yesterday, chuck, not only in atlanta where the democrats were gathered, but we saw up in delaware great examples of how we are putting our activism into action. we had a special election there for the state senate seat, and the state senate hung in the balance. it was a tie. a lot of money was invested in that race by both sides, and we had 500 volunteers coming in. our revolution, the dnc, grassroots activists, all coming together and we won that race that's the energy and the most frequent question i get is how do we translate energy into action?

yesterday was a great example not only here in atlanta where congressman ellison and i and the entire family of democrats came out very united, but in delaware, we've got a race right here. >> okay. >> in cobb county, georgia, for district 6, and we'll do the same thing here. so i'm very excited about the road ahead. we need to make sure we're electing candidates from the school board to the senate and yesterday was the state senate. >> let me show the hole that you're in as a party and the hole which is surprising considering you had the white house for the last eight years. since 2008, here's the financial hole. the republican national committee has outraised the democratic national commit we barack obama as the president of the united states and head of the democratic party by over $200 million over that eight-year period. and then look at the results. you know them. a loss of 11 senate seats, 63 house seats and 12 governorships and nearly 1,000 state legislative seats and i know you've been talking about this grassroots approach, grassroots approach, but the fact is this

party got gutted while you had a democrat in the white house. >> well, we have to rebuild our parties in the 50 states and the territories and that's exactly what we're going to do. we also have to redefine our mission. we not only elect the president of the united states, but we elect people from the school board to the senate and everywhere in between, governors, secretaries of state, treasurers and attorneys general, and it started yesterday in delaware, and i'm very excited about that, and i think there's an acute understanding that where we fell short is that we didn't invest enough in those state parties. when we lead with our values and when we lead with the strong infrastructure and when we make house calls and live in every zip code and i've traveled ten states over the last five days,

chuck, and that's why my voice is scratchy. >> right. >> the democratic party hasn't i still want to be the candidate for guys with confederate flags and pickup trucks at the time, it was we can't beat george bush unless we go to a broad section of democrats. replace bush with trump this and could be active today, that you lost touch, rural america, you think you lost touch, culturally or economically or both? >> i think we have to underscore that economic message. in ohio, i went out there, talked to voters, and what they heard from donald trump is i'm going to bring your coal jobs back, that's a lie. what they heard from us was that, you know, we -- vote for us because we're not him. and we have to make sure we're

communicating our affirmative message. we stand for good wages. we stand for social security. we stand for retirement security. we brought this nation medicare. the republicans are trying to voucherize medicare and privatize social security. donald trump wants to eliminate overtime pay for people. donald trump wants to -- he doesn't care about raising the minimum wage. we have to communicate these messages consistently in every zip code because i learned in my trip across this country during this campaign, a lot of people do feel forgotten and we will not allow that to happen. we will be in every zip code. >> you're out there, i think even the words impeachment was thrown around a lot during yesterday's democratic gathering. and this idea of resistance, even hillary clinton calling now for resistance of the party. if that's the message, does that mean -- is that a signal to the senate and house democrats, you can't work with president trump, no matter what he proposes?

>> he hasn't proposed anything but chaos and carnage. >> but he's talking about a trillion dollar infrastructure proposal, something that bernie sanders has been talking about for a decade. >> we see no evidence of anything constructive from this president. hours into his presidency, he made it harder for first time home buyers to buy a home. a few days later, he tried to make it harder for people to save for retirement. he nominates someone to head the labor department who wants to gut overtime pay. he's continually talking one way, but i judge people by their actions. look at the ill advised and frankly racist executive action against muslims. he has governed from the far right in everything he's done. and i'm -- >> are you comfortable with the democrats being known as the party of no now? >> the democrats are the party of opportunity inclusion. we are going to communicate our message whether through lawsuits, like the state

attorneys general did, to stop the muslim ban, whether it is through actions yesterday at the polls in delaware, and hopefully april and congressional six right here in georgia, we're going to communicate that message that we are the party that lifts your wages, we are the party that preserves your health care, we are the party feegting for ed ing fighting for middle class security. >> i got to leave it there. congratulations on your new position. and we'll be watching and probably see you on the show again in the future. later in the broadcast, more on the angry town halls. >> they're not getting what they need. >> are we looking at a brief burst of enthusiasm or is this the beginning of a durable movement on the left that will be felt at the polls in 2018? and then generational warfare. it is the baby boomers versus the millennials, fighting to shape the future of the country. i'll explain coming up. future . future . i'll explain coming up.

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welcome back. panelists welcome back. panelists here. jerry saeb, top washington editor of the wall street journal. eliana johnson, national political reporter for politico and ranesh ponnuru, senior editor for the national review and a columnist of the bloomberg report. as we always do, we ask the white house for any of a number of senior officials to join us this morning especially cabinet secretary, we ask for them. instead of suggesting a senior administration official or secretary, the white house offered a press secretary and so we declined. let me go to the senator cotton interview. gerry, it has to do with the senate interview, and he's not ready to go the darrell issa route yet. >> he was very vocal on the need

for an investigation and not independent in the way darryl issa said it, but what they've been asking for is a special select intelligence committee in congress, and i think this is where this conversation is going. i think republicans have resisted, but i think they're sending the signals in and senator cotton sent one to you that optics will require an independent investigation. >> helene, it's interesting that he referred to the director comey that meeting that sort of got everybody, referred to it as a hearing. i'll take it at his word that he refers to all meetings at intel as a hearing, but it confirms at least that we knew what the topic was. >> yes. yes, it does. i think it clearly was a hearing, but i think this also shows that we're -- i think we're at the very beginning of what's going to be a long, long story. we're just seeing the tip of it now and this will go on for quite a while, and i think that's one of the issues that has the trump administration so

worked up. i think president trump is understanding that this will not go away and it will continue and that's part of the reason why he's starting to make the intelligence community and the press part of the opposition party and part of the enemy. this way he can try to discredit what comes down as it does come down. >> one dynamic worth watching here is do increasing numbers of republican congressmen decide that it is in their interest to punt this issue to punt it to the administration. >> i'm going to go in the way back machine in the meet the press way back machine. the issue was whitewater and it was democrats wringing their hands and all party control and patrick moynihan came on "meet the press." take a listen. >> is it time now for attorney general janet reno to appoint a special prosecutor. >> yep. yep. nothing to hide. do it.

get on with other things and get some good lawyer working on that issue while we all go ahead on other things. >> hearing moynihan's voice, everybody getting a charm out of that. eliana, the date on that and the time stamp on that is interesting to me. january, '94, almost a year into the presidency and whitewater was sort of this nagging issue and eventually you could tell democrats got tired of it and that was moynihan going the punt as ramesh noted. >> there are similarities in that this is eating up an enormous amount of oxygen in washington. republicans in particular have something they want to get done. this is when they're supposed to have the most political capital and this time is getting eaten up with scandal. on the trump side, you know, i think you're seeing despite what trump talks about his hatred for the press. he's obsessed with the press. he needs the press, and in this

case the white house's attempt to manage the media narrative around this completely backfired. it was done in a really ham handed way. >> that's the problem the white house may have got themselves here. >> it's not unusual for national security officials to reach out to news organizations to talk about stories and steer them on what they see is the right path. this was not a national security story. this was a political story and that's the difficulty and the issue we're talking about right now. i think you're right. the reality is as helene suggests, we're at the beginning of a long road of an investigation of what russia did and didn't do in 2016 in the campaign context. >> the other thing i would add, you know, is the conclusions could be entirely different things here. the stories have been dancing around. was there a quid pro quo between the trump campaign and russia? or trump has set himself out with his bizarre unwillingness to say anything negative about vladimir putin and his hiring of paul manafort who had done business in ukraine for a pro-russia guy. it could be that trump actually in the back of his head has done

what similar presidents have done which is he wants a reset with russia. he has an illusion that he can reset relations with russia and has a psychological reset button in the back of his head and it could be nothing. >> there's also another explanation here, helene, in all of this is that the president as candidate trump if others were messing around and having improper context they may have kept him out of the loop which may explain why he gets so upset. there's always another explanation. >> there's always another explanation and that is certainly one of them. one would think that -- >> do you think protest too much? >> no, you're playing the -- you're playing devil's advocate which i appreciate, and i think that's quite possible. what concerns me more, i think, is just the demonization of the media as the opposition party. that, to me, smacks of someone who is worried that something else is coming down the line,

and if he turns the media into the mouthpiece of the democratic party then it's just us against them. i wonder whether that is what's going on here. >> well, i think all of us agree, i don't think we all feel like enemies of the state or any of that stuff over the opposition party and speak of the opposition party, when we come back we'll talk more about the actual opposition party and the democrats. in a moment, we'll speak to the governor who will be the democrat the party may be looking for in 2020. we'll be right back.

welcome back. despite the election of tom perez as dnc chairman yesterday, democrats are on the outside looking in at nearly all levels of government. the party bench is weak after the electoral shellacking it took during the obama years. john hickenlooper of colorado is the current governor who won both of his gubernatorial terms in 2010 and 2014, two of the worst years for democrats nationally in their history. his state is increasingly blue in a region of the country that has been a surprise growth area for democrats over the last decade. he's also a frequently whispered name in the early stages of the sweepstakes for 2020, i'm sure he loves me saying that. governor hickenlooper is here. welcome to "meet the press." >> great to be here. >> let me start the question that i ended the tom perez. the democrats being the party of no and anti-trump, that doesn't seem to be your comfort zone. is it moving too fast in that direction, in your opinion?

>> i'm not sure it's moving that fast. there is a lot of anxiety, anger and protest going on. you look at someone like tom perez. he lived through bias and prejudice. he's spent years fighting for social justice and civil rights, and he also as secretary of labor did more to think about how do we reeducate people for the next generation of jobs than just about anybody? he's a constructive person. he's got lots to criticize and that's part of his job, but he brings a broad background to the job. >> i hear you, but you have hillary clinton saying resistance. using that actual word which for a clinton, any clinton just seems like a shock to the system, but you heard chuck schumer say dump trump. he's the senate democratic leader. a week after the election, he was saying if we agree with him we'll work with president trump and that seems to be gone, and is that going to bite the democrats at some point? >> well, i don't know. i think some of them, people

like senator schumer has got to be thinking back to when president obama was first elected and within a couple of weeks that same kind of anger was being used against him and they would do anything to beat him, and they would take every single possible opportunity to try to embarrass him and make sure he's defeated during his reelection. i think you can't blame anybody for being that upset, and also there's been a lot of problems in the first month of the first month of the administration. >> let's talk about your political victories at times. you're a guy that's defended fracing. you're a guy that's been a proponent of charter schools and is that one of the explanations that why you as a democrat have been able to win in years that the democrats haven't? is it things like that, challenging preconceived notions? >> part of it is i've been blessed to have a lot of very smart, hardworking people, many of them young people who work their fingers to the bone on these campaigns and it's a tough job.

part of it is i came from a small business. i understand jobs, and i really understand what it's like to be laid off. i was out of work for a couple of years and we built a company that hired a lot of people and being able to talk about jobs when so many people feel like they're not being heard and really try to listen. when i campaign i don't tell people so much what i think. i try to hear what they're feeling. >> it's interesting to hear you talk about being an entrepreneur, owning a small business. again, fracing, charter schools. there are some republicans in blue states that talk about those issues, too. my point is that, is it -- are you sending a subtle message to the democratic party hey, you marginalized yourselves a little bit? >> no. i think there are lots of places. colorado was the first state where we actually found a way -- we brought all of the oil and gas industry together with the environmental community and we found a way to put a cap. every single well gets visited every year to make sure there is

no leakage. it's about collaboration and that's part of the background of the restaurant business and part of the west, the mountain west is people through experience, you have to work together to really make progress. >> all right. you're the governor of colorado. so marijuana will always be a question from a national reporter. let me ask you this on the regulation side. the federal government has never enforced the federal law which has allowed colorado to set up the recreational use business. there is a new attorney general and we know jeff sessions as a senator was opposed to it. you're blessed as a governor to have senators from both parties, that's always a good thing no matter who is in charge. what do you hear from your republican colleagues about whether jeff sessions will enforce federal law and shut down recreational use marijuana businesses. >> i opposed it and most elected officials did. voters passed it. it's in the constitution. i took a solemn oath to support our constitution. it's the sovereignty, the states have a sovereignty just like the indian tribes have a sof rentee

and the federal government does. >> you don't think it's clear that the federal government could stop you. you don't think it's a clear-cut case? >> certainly. it's never my choice to be in conflict with federal law. let's make that clear. >> okay. >> senator gardner had talked to mr. sessions before he was confirmed, senator sessions at that point, and was led to believe that senator sessions said, you know, enforcement of marijuana wasn't going to be a -- wasn't worth rising to the top and becoming a priority. and the implication was you don't have to get -- don't go crazy on this. obviously things might have changed and we have to see what happens, but there are over 60% of american people are now in a state where either medical or recreational marijuana is legalized and it's become one of the great social experiments of our time. >> if this were put on the ballot today, would you now support it? >> i'm getting close.

>> i don't think i'm quite there yet, but we have made a lot of progress and we didn't see a spike in teenage use. if anything, it's come down in the last year and we're getting anecdotal reports of drug dealers. if you get rid of the black market, you get addictions and unintended consequences of legalized marijuana. maybe the system is better than what was admittedly a bad system to begin with. >> john hickenlooper, democratic governor from colorado. thank you for coming in. i know you're here for the governors meeting and you have more meetings to go to. >> you bet. >> appreciate you coming on. when we come back, the new generation gap. remember anti-vietnam and impeach nixon scenes from the '70s? a lot of yesterday's protesters are today's trump supporters. seriously. that's next. and now, i help people find discounts,

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we are back. data download time. it will come as no shock that americans are divided over donald trump's presidency, but it's the generational gulf between how baby boomers and millennials, our two biggest generations, view this new administration, and it may have the biggest long-term political impact. in our new nbc news/wall street journal poll 52% of baby boomers approve of the job donald trump is doing so far while 58% of millennials disapprove. on president trump's temporary

travel ban, 54% of boomers say it's a necessary safeguard against terrorism while 59% of millennials say it's unnecessary and goes against american principles. on the affordable care act, 47% of boomers call it a bad idea while 48% of millennials say the opposite. some of this goes back to the divisive election we saw in november. boomers came out for donald trump while millennials failed to show up for hillary clinton. the generational divide goes beyond explicitly political issues. take foreign trade. 44% of boomers say it has hurt the united states while 50% of millennials say free trade has helped this country. so why does all this matter? politics of today is always setting up the politics of tomorrow. the baby boomers of yesterday, weren't they on the left? you never fully know. maybe baby boomers are happy with the first part of the trump presidency and providing them a solid floor. the future of the country will be in the hands of millennial

voters and they don't like a lot of what they see from this president or his policies. the question is when does that become a problem for the boomers who have helped keep many of these folks in power. when we come back, some startling evidence of how the two major parties are switching sides on key issues. on. so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. they offer free cancellation, in case i decide to go from kid-friendly to kid-free. now i can start relaxing even before the vacation begins. your vacation is very important. that's why booking.com makes finding the right hotel for the right price easy. visit booking.com now to find out why we're booking.yeah

we're interrupting regular programming, getting a tape from president trump speaking at the governor's ball at the white house. >> i will also want to congratulate and thank a truly great vice president of the united states, and his wonderful wife, karen, and wherever you are, mike, stand up, just for a second. mike pence. so i can say that after four weeks, it has been a lot of fun. but we have accomplished almost everything we started out to accomplish. the borders are stricter, tighter, we're doing a really good job general kelly has done a fantastic job militarily. as you know, we have a fantastic team. a-team. and i'm getting some good reports. there are big problems in the world, you know that very well. but we're very happy with the way things are working. and, again, we have made a lot

of promises over the last two years and many of those promises already are kept. so we're very honored by that. and i -- thank you. thank you. thank you. i just want to salute and toast the governors, the great governors of the united states. they have done an amazing job. such an easy job you have. so easy. but you have done a fantastic job and your families and wives and everybody is here. i've seen daughters come tonight. i've seen wives. i've seen -- all i know is everybody is lovely. and we're going to have a wonderful evening and tomorrow we're going to meet and discuss things like perhaps healthcare will come up. perhaps. and i think we made a lot of progress on that. we're going to have a speech on tuesday night, and we're going to be speaking very specifically about a very complicated subject. everybody is different. every state is different. and different requirements, but i think we have something that is going to really be excellent.

and as most of you know, the obamacare had tremendous problems. i won't say in front of the democrats, i'll just say it to the republicans, it doesn't work. but we're going to have it fixed and we're going to repeal and replace and i think you're going to see something very, very special. and for all of you, and even tonight, because we have tom price with us, if you see something or want to discuss it, we don't have to discuss all friendly stuff, we can discuss the healthcare, might as well start, but tomorrow morning we're going to meet and have some pretty big sessions on healthcare and other things, whatever son your mind. i hear this is a record number of governors, 46, and that's the highest number that have ever shown up this evening. so with that, i would like to toast the great, great governors of the united states. thank you.

now i know it is inappropriate, but i would like to ask a friend of mine, i just destroyed his political career, from the other side, a man from mine, i just destroyed his political career, from the other side, a man from virginia, i've known him a long time, and he's a very good guy, governor terry to come up and make a toast. where are you? come on up. [ applause ] >> well, good evening. let me first of all, on behalf of the nation's governors, i want to thank the president and first lady. we have found out this is the first big social dinner of the calendar, and i think they did that out of respect to our nation's governors, so if we -- >> governor of virginia speaking

after president trump addressed the governor's ball. it's been acalled ritzy, a leve down from what is a state dinner, reaching across the aisle, having a leading democratic governor speak, this after president trump gave the opening remarks as well as a toast to all the governors from across the country being called, by the way, this event, the theme, a spring's renewal. this as they try to get together, this ahead of tuesday, where president trump will address congress, and he alluded to that, so they have many issues in front of them, of course, the one he mentioned is health care specifically. the aca. and obamacare. all right. stopping in very quickly, this as the nation's leaders gather at the white house, president trump addressing them at the white house. the first big event, big first g gala held at the white house being led by the first lady, and president trump, of course, in

support. now, back to regular programming. republicans more of the protectionist. >> that's where you see that weird split you talked about within the republican party as well. you see the more highly educated republicans shifting away and grassroots people coming from the ones who are by their very nature more afraid of free trade and feel their jobs are going overseas. it's so weird to watch this, watch this happening, to watch this gop become the party that is supposed to be opposed to the tpp. i find this funny. >> there's another split democratic voters are more profree trade and republicans are not. >> that's true. quickly, obamacare, town hall, i thought what was clear to me is that tom's language on health care changed. candidate tom would probably not have said those kind words about obamacare as he is now. >> people talk in the republican primary and in the general

election about there was so much end thursday yac-- enthusiasm for donald trump that journalists dismissed the energy. you are seeing the energy and passion shift to the democrats now. it would be dangerous for people to dismiss that. >> you know, i think if we learned anything in the last few years, don't dismiss energy in crowds at political events, tea party, trump rallies now, affordable care act, obama care. it means something. you know, we saw in the poll, chuck, support for obamacare is ticking up. probably a natural reaction. >> the idea, too, which president trump put out, protesters are paid. it's not being bored out. >> if you spend money to throw a party and no one shows up, you wasted money. does it matter if they are paid, they are showing up. >> we have reporters there interviewing, and they talked to almost everybody at this national meeting, and all --

every single one was a constituent. these are not necessarily, you know, professional paid protesters. >> the central fact of the politics of health care is people fear disruption in their health arrangements imposed by washington. that used to work for the republicans when obamacare was doing the disrupting, but now it's working against them. >> they will all miss the days when everybody blamed hmos. anyway, back in 45 seconds with end game, and why having one of the most famous names in the world may not protect you from immigration agents if you're muslim. we'll be right back. coming up, "meet the press" end game and post game. brought to you by boeing, always working to build something better. only nicorette mini has a patented fast dissolving formula. it starts to relieve sudden cravings fast. every great why needs a great how.

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welcome back. it's "end game" time. perhaps sometime this week we'll get the revised welcome back, perhaps sometime this week we'll get the revised temporary travel ban from the trump administration. i think, though, they keep running into internal legal hurdles so it's pushed back, but there's a consequence here. this story here, headline, ali's hometown paper, of course, the late ali, but his son questioned by immigration officials, mind you, born in the united states, his lawyer said that officials held and questioned ali jr. for nearly two hours repeatedly asking him, where did you get your name from, are you muslim? i put up this story, today's "new york times" had the

following piece. immigration agents discover new freedom to deport under trump, and then this statement here, morale amongst officers increased since signing of the orders, saying the yun yours representing i.c.e. and border patrol agents in a joint statement after president trump issued executive orders on immigration. point is, something clearly changed in some of these, and it is -- these are stories that are not going to be politically helpful to the president. >> and one of the things, they have to do, if they are encouraging this freelancing by sort of the least restrained elements of these bureaucracieb, they have to pull back in where it's going to discredit all policies more than, you know, it's going to cast it in the least possibly flattering light. >> this is somebody born in the united states. >> yes. >> one of the things, i think, republicans and conservatives worry about is some of the things the trump and trump administration has done actually undermines the things he cares about, about most, and i think that this is a great example.

immigration hawks, in particular, national review is one of them, trump has a tendency to undermine his case, and this is a great example. >> well, i think that maybe the combination of those stories and the court action on the travel ban suggested that maybe going slow here, a little slower on a subject this sensitive is a smart court. it's not like the idea of taking a tough every line on immigration is not politically unpopular thing, but how you do it does matter. >> all right. i'm going to leave it there as we leave you this morning, a programming note, we have live coverage of president trump's address to congress tuesday, beginning at 9:00 eastern where i'll be joining my colleagues, lester holt and tom brokaw. that's all for today. back next week because p it this sunday, it's the sunday after miami beach 2, but if it's this sunday, it's "meet the press." >> see more end game and post game sponsored by boeing on the "meet the press" facebook page.

due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. an inmate launches an attack on another, leaving the man battered, bloodied, and on the way to the emergency room. >> if he was my friend, i would have comntinued to maul. >> now a detective has to get to the bottom of it. >> i've seen several fights in the jail,