this sunday, credibility crisis. president trump's unapologetic defense of his unsubstantiated claims. >> as far as wiretapping, i guess -- i, you know, this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps. >> did president wiretap mr. trump? the former head of u.s. intelligence. >> there was no such wiretap activity. >> the speaker of the house. >> i have not seen any evidence of this. >> the republican house intel chair. >> we don't have any evidence that took place. >> the top democrat on the house intel committee. >> thus far we have not seen basis for that whatsoever. >> now fbi director james comey is set to testify before the

house tomorrow on those spy claims and russia's role in the 2016 election. the ranking democrat on that committee adam schiff of california joins me this morning. plus the budget blueprint, sharp increases in spending for the military, sharp decreases in domestic programs for the poor. >> we want to give you money for programs that don't work. i can't defend that anymore, >> president trump's budget director mick mulvaney is here this morning. and health care fight, can president trump win over enough republicans to get his bill through congress. i'll talk to one republican no vote this morning senator susan collins from maine. joining me for insight and analysis are george will, yamiche alsindor and anchor of bbc world news america, katty kay. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press."

from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in washington, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning it was in the late '60s that the term credibility gap first gained currency as people grew increasingly skeptical about president johnson's gains in vietnam. now two months into his presidency, donald trump is facing similar growing distrust. we began with such claims as whether his inauguration crowds were larger than president obama's, they weren't has met metastasized into something far more consequential. the president and the white house have spent two weeks redefining and never retracting mr. trump's insistence that president obama had him wiretapped and surveilled and even revived it on friday taking a swipe at the national security agency on president obama for listening in on angela merkel's phonconversations anth policy of ready, fire, aim took an incident with the white house claim that britain's spy agency worked with president obama to spy on mr. trump.

tomorrow fbi director james comey will testify before the house intelligence committee where he will be asked about the spy claims as well as about russian meddling in the 2016 election. the president's credibility issues are growing just as he's struggling to sell his agenda to congress. >> as far as wiretapping, this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps. >> president trump claiming president obama had him wiretapped despite unambiguous statements. >> we don't have evidence that that took place. >> now the british are livid after sean spicer used the white house podium to traffic an unverified claim by a fox news commentator that it was britain's spy agency that monitored mr. trump on mr. obama's behalf. >> he's able to get it and there's no american fingerprints on this.

>> he's able to get it and there's no american fingerprints on this. >> the british agency calls it nonsense. utterly ridiculous. the white house is refusing to apologize, quote, i don't think we regret anything. >> all we did was quote a very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. >> he's referring to fox commentator andrew napolitano, but on friday, fox news distanced itself. in the two weeks since mr. trump tweeted the allegations, the president and his aides just can't let it go. >> the president has already been very clear that he didn't mean specifically wiretapping. he had it in quotes. >> i don't choose too it right now. >> president trump's wiretapping claims are straining his credibility with republicans just at the time he needs a united party to push his agenda through congress, and two months into the trump presidency, that agenda looked stuck in the mud. the president's revised travel ban, blocked again, this time by

federal judges in hawaii and maryland. >> i think we ought to go back to the first one and go all of the way which is what i wanted to do in the first place. >> health care legislation on the rocks with the house vote scheduled for thursday, the president promises he is getting republicans to yes. >> every single person sitting in this room is now a yes, and we made certain changes. >> those changes recommended by the house budget committee giving states the option to require able-bodied medicaid recipients to work in order to get medical care and further limiting medicaid spending and freedom caucus conservatives say they need further changes before they support the bill. >> i've been very fully articulating my problems for about two weeks. so i don't know that any of those have changed. >> but every time this bill is changed to placate conservatives they lose risking another moderate in the senate. >> we want to be there for our constituents who have received the benefit of medicaid expansion. >> in addition to health care,

there's president trump's budget. the budget blueprint calls for significant increases for the defense department, homeland security and the department of veterans affairs while making huge cuts in discretionary spending, the epa, and the state, agriculture, labor departments and all of that take big hits in the budget. joining me is the debt director of office and management and budget, mick mulvaney. sir, welcome to the show. >> thanks for having me. >> do you take the president at his word that he or his associates were wiretapped? >> i'm the numbers guy. i'm sitting here doing the budget and i'm not involved in the wiretapping issue. >> on one hand, are you concerned that eroding credibility on that issue makes your job harder? >> listen, those of us who see and work with the president every day believe him, trust him and have no difficulties like the folks in the press do. >> you think this is just a press thing? you don't think this is a difficulty for folks that can ke the president at his word on health care. he's made, hey, take my word for it and i'll ma the changes and

some of these folks are out on a limb on it. >> i was in that meeting thursday or friday, i lose track of the days and he had cogent argument, and it was a credible discussion and i don't have concerns with those things. >> you said this, you're not the first person to say something like this, but remember, a budget is more than just a spending document. it is also a vision document. explain the vision that does whack a lot of domestic programs some of which are a lot that people benefit from and put emphasis on security. >> the vision is that this is what the president ran on and he's trying to do something that politicians are not very famous for which is actually following through on his promises and if we go back and look at his speeches and talk to him directly and say what's important to you. look for the message that the president was trying to deliver. that meant more money for defense. more money to secure the border. more money for law enforcement

generally and more money for veterans affairs and private and public school choice and that's where we spend more money. at the same time the president was very clear that he did not want this to add to the deficit this year. so when we added that $54 billion for defense we took that money from other places. that's the vision. more money for what the president said without adding to the deficit. >> he said we'll take care of those people. he will not let people be not taken care of and you've seen story after story of specific programs, take appalachia, programs that benefit his voters that he is taking a whack at here. why do that? >> some of the stories are grossly wrong or nearly grossly wrong. all of the stories about how we cut meals on wheels. the program that we proposed to eliminate for meals on wheels accounts for 3% of the meals on

wheels funding, but step back -- >> you're getting rid of the whole block grant that that provides. >> the block grant only provides 3% of meals on wheels money and that didn't get broadly reported. step back to what you asked the question and what about the trump voters? the president knows who his voters are. his voters are folks who pay taxes, as well, for the first time in a long time you have an administration you have an administration that has compassion for both sides and not where the money goes, but the compassion of where the money comes from. could i as a budget director look at the coal miner in west virginia and say i want you, please, to give your money to the national government to give to the national endowment of the arts and we got to the point where we can't do that. you owe $60,000 in the government and so do i in terms of the debt and the president said let's take care of both sides of the equation. >> some of the cuts seem to be counterproductive to the president's message on infrastructure. you want to do a bunch of spending on infrastructure, and you're cutting the vehicle manufacturing program, and the extension partnership that

provides assistance to small and mid-sized manufacturers to get off the ground to create jobs in these very counties that need the jobs. why cut these programs and why do it before you've even come up with the infrastructure plan? >> sure. because when we look at the infrastructure, we think we'll do health reform, i think this week, as a matter of fact, in the house and tax reform after that and that moves infrastructure probably to summer or early fall. so what we did with this budget is go through and find out where we thought the infrastructure money was not being spent as efficiently as it possibly could and let's take it out of the discretionary budget with the intention of putting it back with the infrastructure bill. it's a better allocation and better use of the resources. >> you said one of the president's goals was not to add to the deficit as it is, but this budget will have a deficit, is that fair to say? >> the deficit before we came into office was going to be $4 88 billion this year and after we spent on defense, on border enforcement, law enforcement, veterans, the deficit will be

the same. we plussed up the spending and we increased the spending on the president's priorities without adding to that number. >> all right. i want to play something, this is candidate donald trump throughout the last year. >> i do want a balanced budget. >> we owe $19 trillion, we have to start paying it down. we have to start balancing budgets. >> these people are talking about balancing budgets 35 years from now? we can do it, believe me, much quicker. we can do it quickly. >> he even made a pledge to get rid of the debt in eight years. okay, if you're going to do this, very, very quickly, nothing in this budget goes close to balance. the fact that you're just even doing neutral to what the deficit was last year is not progress. >> what a budget blueprint is and this is fairly traditional, chuck, for the first year of a new administration, obama did it and bush did it. what this is is a spending outline and all it is as you mentioned in the intros the discretiony spending parof thbudget is only 25% of what the government spends anthe

other 75% roughly is what people call entitlement spending. in may we'll address the ten-year budget window, tax flows and larger approximately policy changes and health care reforms. >> are you pledging a balanced budget in may? >> no, we're trying to get it to balance within the ten-year budget window which is what the house and the senate would have in ten years. >> the goal is to have a balanced budget in ten years and you will add to the debt every single year for the next ten years. >> it's very difficult -- >> that's not what candidate trump said. candidate trump said this will be very easy. as it turns out this is not easy and it's complicated, too? >> it is a very complicated budget process when your entitlements and your mandatory spending is driving most of your budget deficit. for example, you could cut the agriculture department to zero, hhs to zero, hud to zero, the fbi to zero and you'd still have a deficit this year. so over the course of the next decade we'll have to look at the mandatory spending side in order

to figure out a way to make changes to the way to spend money. >> have you figured out a way to pay for the trillion dollar infrastructure yet? >> no. in fairness, one of the neat things about having a businessman in the office and the private sector is they've brought ideas that i don't think government has contemplated before, public-private partnerships and really create id ideas. listen, i'm a deficit hawk. it's why i think i got the job and the more i hear about the infrastructure plan the more comfortable i'm getting. >> speaking of being a deficit hawk, the ceiling, we hit it on friday and we'll need a couple of more months. you were a tough nut to crack on the debt ceiling when you were congressman mulvaney. >> yep. >> why should people who are like minded with you who said i'll give you the debt ceiling, but i want real cuts and real deficit reduction and a real plan. at one point you said i'll raise the debt ceiling and you're not making that this time, are you? >> i voted to raise the debt ceiling before as most people in

congress have traditionally. you go back to the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, and the debt ceiling debate has been used to step back and say okay, why do we have a deficit problem? why do we have a debt problem and how can we fix it and we'll come up with ideas to raise the debt ceiling and try to address the long-term reasons that we have a debt in the first place. >> you're not someone who voted for a lot of budgets when you were in congress. why -- this doesn't look like a budget congressman mulvaney would have supported? why would you support keeping the deficit. i feel like congressman mulvaney would not be supporting the numbers that this shows. >> the administration is different than members of the hill, the house and the senate. every house member as i used to be, has a constituency that we have a group of people back home that we represent. senators represent the whole state and there's also a lot of special interests and lobbying involved and the president is not beholden to any of that. the president represents everybody. lobbyists were not consulted and

special interests were not and this is a budget for the entire nation because that's when he represents. >> as you put together this budget do you look back and say maybe i shouldn't have voted that way. >> no. i always thought i did the best job i could to represent the folks in south carolina and i think we put out a good budget. >> i want to wrap up with one final question, when will you be able to propose a balanced budget? what year? >> it's mid-may anwe'll have the larger budget. >> the first term? >> i don't know yet. i honestly don't -- because we don't know what health care reform will look like and we don't know what tax reform will look like and what it will do with the budget and those are the really, really big picture items that we won't know for a couple of months. >> mick mulvaney, thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me. now to the issue of health care. president trump is working hard to get the republican support in the house and the health care plan to get through the house, but the obamacare replacement

does face tough opposition in the senate, as well, if all 48 senators who caucus right now as expected, the president can only afford to lose two republicans. right now there are only two four republican know nos. rand paul, mike leigh who say the bill is too generous and susan collins who argues it is too harsh and susan collins from maine joins me now. welcome back to the show. >> thank you. >> you were very tough on the house bill. you were unambiguous when it came to your vote. very simply, what would it take to get you from no to yes? >> we have to deal with three issues. the first is coverage. under the house bill 14 million americans would lose coverage

next year. that rises to 24 million over the next decade. second, we have to do something about the fact that the house bill disproportionately affects older, rural americans. the congressional budget office has estimated that a 64-year-old who is earning $26,500 a year would see an increase in his or her cuts from $1700 to $14,600. that is unaffordable, and third, we have to do something about the medicaid changes which ship billions of cuts to the states and to other people who are insured. >> do you believe health care is a right? if so, it is a right that the government is responsible for fulfilling? >> i believe that as the practical matter, people have a right to health care in that if they're sick and they go to a hospital, they're not going to be turned away and federal law requires a hospital to come to an emergency

room and that is the least cost-effective way to treat an individual who does not need emergency room care. so there's a lot that we can do to reduce the costs of health care by, for example, using managed care for the medicaid program. >> let me ask you a couple of questions on the president's budget. is there any part of the president's budget that you support? >> yes. i do think that we need an increase for our veterans and we need an increase in military spending because readiness has suffered, but i think we'll have to do a more gradual increase. one of the most disturbing parts of the president's budget is his slashing the funding for the national institutes of health. we have been making tremendous progress in the increasing nih's budget and that has helped us to develop effective treatments and new cures for very expensive

diseases, and if we're serious about reducing health care cuts, the last thing we should be doing is cutting the budget for biomedical research. >> where do you get the money though? that's going to be the fundamental question is, you know, there's a lot of these programs that i think a lot of people can individually make a case for, and i think what the white house would say is hey, some of these maybe they are good programs that could be done better, but we have a financial problem in this country. we have a rising national debt. we can't seem to get under from under an annual deficit. where do we find the money? for instance, can we afford a massive tax cut? >> we do have to scour the budget and tax reform does not necessarily mean that we're going to have a significant reduction in revenues. it's possible to come up with a tax reform bill that is more pro-growth, simpler and fairer

and does not substantially reduce revenues. senator bi cassidy and i have a health care bill and we're looking at different pay fors for that bill including some that were included for the affordable care act and some others, as well. so we need to scour the budget. there are duplicative programs that need to look at everything, but i'm worried about the outlines of the budget that have been submitted. i would point out that i've never seen a president's budget make it through congress unchanged. >> that's for sure. let me ask you about the president and the issue of credibility. he continues to believe that he was somehow, either he or his associates were wiretapped or under surveillance and it was ordered by president obama. you also have access to various intelligence, is there any way that that statement, to your knowledge, is true? >> i have seen no evidence

supporting that statement, and what we need is evidence. if the president has evidence of that i would encourage him to turn it over to the house and senate intelligence committee. we're in the midst of a big investigation of russian activities in our country, and we want to look at this allegation, as well. >> can you take the president at his word? >> yes. do i think the president gets everything right? no. but i want president trump just as i'vwanted every other president to be successful because he is america's president. now that doesn't mean that i support his policies and it doesn't mean that i'm going to be with him when i think he's wrong or has misstated what the facts are. >> if he's wrong about this allegation, congressman tom cole said that president trump owes president obama an apology.

do you concur? >> well, i'd like to first get to the bottom of before saying what should be done. i don't know the basis for president trump's assertion, and that's what i wish he would explain to us in the -- on the intelligence committee and to the american people, and i do believe he owes us that explanation. >> senator susan collins, republican from maine. i will leave it there. senator collins, thank you for coming on the show and sharing your views. >> thank you. when we come back, tomorrow, big day in washington. hearings begin for supreme court nominee neil gorsuch and fbi director james comey testifies on russia's role in the 2016 election and those wiretap claims made by president trump likely will come up. we'll be right back. constipation,diarrhea, gas or bloating? she does. she does. help defend against those digestive issues. take phillips' colon health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes? wow! try phillips' colon health.

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welcome back. panelists here. syndicated columnist george will is making his 52nd appearance on "meet the press," but it's his firssince 1981. have you been? have y been on another show that i don't think about. yamiche alsindor of new york times and katty kay, and i will give you the first word and that is on the president's credibility. at what point does it become a president on capitol hill when you are trying to sell the health care and sell the budget? >> there is a much bigger credibility problem and secretary tillerson in the far

east in korea raised the possibility of preemptive war against the ballistic missile program with north korea, that means that there is not a trivial possible they some time in the life of this term, this presidential term the president would have to come and say because of the intelligence services tells me x, y and z. these are the people that you don't trust and we don't trust and we're not sure about you particularly so it's hard to hermetically seal the loss of credibility. >> robert, do they understand this or are they not thinking about this? >> my sources inside of the white house tell me that the president reviews news organizations information sometimes even more than intelligence information. >> so we're more important than the presidential daily brief? >> he gets the presidential daily brief and if you look at

the tweets that started the whole wiretapping situation and it was part of a breitbart article and now he's watching judge napolitano on fox news and digesting all of this information rather than just the intelligence brief and he's disseminating it publicly. >> katty, i think about him with the house republicans this week going no, no, no, i'll make the fixes for you, you have my word on it. >> the question is how valuable is that word which is what we've had members of both republican and democratic parties asking quite publicly this week when they refuted fm the idea that there had been wiretapping that the president, and it was very interesting susan collins, she didn't answer the question, do you trust him? she said, do i think everything he said is right. that's a precarious position for him to be in. >> there was this observation, yamiche, and he said this, it's very easy to have a good meeting with trump.

he's very pleasant in person, he'll promise you the world and 48 hours later he'll betray you without a thought and he won't even know he's betraying you. you don't know when to take the president at his word. >> that that means and the people that are our allies are sitting down with donald trump and they might have a great meeting with him and when they get on the plane to go back to their respective countries they can tell he might betray them and that was interesting, too, when i was waiting for senator collins say, i do trust him. he's someone that when he says something he'll do it. he made these promises, i believe in these promises. she said nothing that came close to that. when i think about the credibility issue as a whole, i think about the fact before he was president and before he walked into the oval office this was someone who came into politics because he thought president obama wasn't born in the united states and the central park five were guilty and those things are not lost on people including his own party, and only think about the fact that these are the credibility issues he has. >> you've had exactly that with

two very important american allies. theresa may came here and thought she had a good meeting and she got to the plane, went back to europe and wakes up and the executive order had been issued and trump never even thought about that. they were apologized to this week ovethe whether the gchq had spied on the president, if you apologize to your fe and you roll back the apology it never goes down very well. you are left in a worse position than where you were originally. >> when the president stands next to angela merkel treating this wiretapping flippantly and a joke, he was standing next to someone who grew up in east germany when the stasi was listening all of the time and it's not funny to people. >> not to her. >> and probably won't be funny to americans over time. >> one thing i keep hearing from people in the foreign policy community and diplomats is who will shape the white house in the coming months? >> we know steve bannon, the chief strategist is there and

you look at this rising force in this white house who wrote about it in today's post and dina pal from goldman sachs, gary cohn from goldman sachs. >> the new yorkers. the new york liberals. >> and they see it as a moderate force and a lot of people in the foreign policy world are saying, can dina pal, can gary cohn, can they have more influence in the coming months? >> we'll see. all right. we'll discuss this. i wanted to get to health care and now we'll do health care in the second when you guys come back, but first, the house intelligence committee does hear from fbi director james comey on russia tomorrow and about those wiretap claims. the leading democrat on the house intelligence committee adam schiff joins me next for a preview. i know, we need to talk about this. it's time. it is a big decision for us... let's take the $1000 in cash back. great! yeah, i want to get one of those gaming chairs with the speakers. oh, you do? that's a surprise... the volkswagen 3 and easy event,

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welcome back. when fbi director james comey testifies before the house intelligence committee tomorrow we can expect to hear about two stories that have dominated the news. one, evidence that the russians interfered with the 2016

election, perhaps on behalf of the trump campaign and two, the committee has asked the fbi to turn over any evidence it has to support president trump's allegations of the wiretap of trump tower prior to the election. congressman adam schiff is the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee and you will see him a lot tomorrow and he joins me for a preview. congressman schiff, good to have you. >> thank you. >> let me start with your two witnesses tomorrow, the agency security director mike rogers, what do you hope, what light will be shed tomorrow, do you hope? >> i think for a lot of americans this is the first time to really tune in to exactly what the russians did and what the investigation involves, and i'd like to walk through with both directors. what do we know about the russian operation? what was its breadth? we know it was hacking and dumping of documents. we know their slick use of their media campaign, but more than that, i think we want to share with the country why we are so concerned about the issue of u.s. person involvement.

were there u.s. persons that were helping the russians in any way? was there any form of collusion and what can we do to protect not only ourselves in the future, but our allies are facing the same russian onslaught. >> if this is an investigation by the counter terrorism and fbi, what do you expect director comey can say publicly? >> on the issue of collusion he is limited on what he can share and how the russians operate in europe, what techniques they use and what we should be on the lookout for our investigation and in europe and other places, we see them use the natives of foreign countries that are intervening and how they use paid social media trolls. so the full range of russian intervention and what that looks like and so i think flushing out why this ought to matter to americans, i think people need to understand we are in a global war of ideas. it's not communism versus

capitalism, but it is authoritarianism versus democracy and putin is very much at the vanguard of that movement and that ought to concern all of us. >> let me ask you. you received information on friday from the department of justice about president trump's claims on wiretapping. what can you tell us? were you satisfied with the information they provided? >> well, i got a classified briefing on that response and they delivered it after most of us had left town, but once again, no evidence to support the president's claim that he was wiretapped by his predecessor. i have a lot of respect for susan collins, but i have to differ with her on this. we need to get to the bottom of this. there is nothing at the bottom. >> do you think director comey will say that? >> i suspect he will. we have to put an end to the goose chase. what the president said is patently false and the wrecking ball it created has banged into the british allies and german allies and continuing to grow in terms of damage and he needs to put an end to this. i suspect what's really at root

here, chuck, is this is just how the president does business. maybe this is the way he conducted his real estate business with half-truths and sometimes no truths and a lot of bluster. that, in my opinion, is no way toun a business, but it's in no way to run a country. it's dangerous to us and it's alienating allies and as george will so correctly pointed out, when there is a crisis with north korea and iran and what not and every president has one in their term we need to be able to believe our president and he's making it very, very difficult. >> i want to get to the point of, look, collusion is sort of what hasn't been proven here between whatever the russians did and the trump campaign. in fact, the former acting director of the cia who was mike morel who was a supporter of hillary clinton. he essentially reminded people it took director clapper on his word that says there has been no evidence that has been found of collusion. are we at the point -- at what point do you start to wonder if there is a fire to all this smoke?

>> first of all, i was surprised to hear director clapper say that because i don't think you can make the claim categorically as he did. i would characterize it at the outset of the investigation and there was circumstantial evidence of collusion. there is direct evidence, i think, of deception and that's where we begin the investigation. now i don't want to prejudge where we ultimately end up and of course, there's one thing to say there's evidence and there's another thing to say we can prove this or prove it beyond a reasonable doubt or there's enough evidence to bring to a grand jury for purposes of criminal indictment and there is certainly enough for us to conduct the investigation. the american people have a right to know and in order to defend ourselves, we need to know whether these circumstantial evidence of collusion or direct evidence of deception is indicative of more. >> i want to get to the witness list here. you have subpoena power if you choose to use it. has congressman nunes, you can and congressman nunes ed to come to an agreement on that.

is he willing to use subpoena power? >> there will be people we need to bring before the committee who may not be willing witnesses and if we'll do this credibly and right now we're the only game in town, we and the senate intelligence committee, we'll need the power of compulsion. i still think we have a lot of spade work to do before that. you don't want to bring the witnesses in before you've reviewed the evidence that you want to question them with. you may only get one shot at the witnesses, but we'll have to do that. >> you seem far behind. the senate intel committee has asked roger stone one-time adviser, he's been ordered to preserve documents to make sure he doesn't destroy any documents and perhaps he is going to be subpoenaed by them. have you done that with any -- have you formally sent letters to potential witnesses to say hey, you need to make sure you have saved any documents related to the campaign or russia? >> we were the first to send letters to the u.s. government to tell them to preserve

evidence. >> what about outside? mike flynn, carter paige and roger stone. >> we've not yet sent letters to individuals. it's a good practice. i'm not sure that if someone wants to hide that letter will have an effect that it ought to, i think in some respects we're ahead of where the senate investigation is, and in some respects they're ahead of where we are. i do think, look, at the end of the day the real question where the rubber will really hit the road is as you suggest when we have to use compulsion to get documents that we need, to bring in witnesses. i hope the answer is going to be yes from the majority. i also do think -- >> right now you have not been given that authority. >> well, we haven't -- >> you haven't asked for it. >> to subpoena certain witnesses, but we will be. there are a lot of witnesses. >> devin nunes agrees with you on this? >> well, he'll have to -- otherwise we don't -- >> which means he doesn't yet. >> i don't want to say that. we hammered out a very detailed scope of agreement that allows us to look into issues like

collusion with u.s. persons with the trump campaign. that's what we wanted, that's what we got and we have to hold them to that commitment. >> adam schiff from the house intel, we'll be watching your hearing. thanks for coming on today. >> the one thing that may be more responsible than anything for the current state of polarization for american politics. before we go to break, this note, centuries from now when rock 'n' roll is merely one chapter in the history books there may only be one name that you have time to associate with rock 'n' roll and that name may very well be chuck berry. he was the genius who created the kind of music that paved the way for elvis presley and countless white rockers to become mega stars, "johnny b. goode" and "roll over beethoven," chuck berry died yesterday. even a "truck-cicle."

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♪ ♪ welcome back. "data download" time. in an issue i've been spending quite a bit of time on how the misuse of data has been destroying the political system. campaigns aim to win the middle. if you won the middle, you won the election. now campaigns are using or abusing big data to identify and mobilize like minded voters rather than using it to make

arguments that change minds. so how bad has this polarization gotten in the last 20 years? according to pugh in 1994 there was a great deal of ideological overlap in the two parties. 36% of republican voters were more liberal than the typical democrat and 30% of democrats were more conservative than the typical republican. just 8% of republicans and 6% of democrats were more conservative than the liberals of the opposite party and guess what? we've seen the same shift on elected officials. based on the initial analysis of voting records, there were 137 house members who fell in the ideological middle ground with voting records somewhere between the most conservative democrat and the most conservative republican. in 2013 that number was down to four. let's go to the senate. in 2002 there were seven members, in 2013, zero. so as you can see in the last 15 years we've seen a complete

hollowing out of the political center and this coincided with the advent of microtargeting in 2004, then advanced by team obama and now, of course, everybody usees it. look, the electorate and politicians alike used to be conditioned to know that the middle mattered. that's why big deals in washington were bipartisan. tax reform in the '80s and welfare reform in the '90s. flash forward to 2010, democrats passed health care without a single republican vote and right now republicans appear poised to try to do it the same way, but look, there is good news in this. big data can be used to fix the very problems that it helped create as long as there is a political will to do it. the incentive structure has to change where we persuade the middle again because then elected officials who win by persuasion suddenly want to make deals. when we come back, how far are democrats willing to go in opposion to president trump? are they ready to become the new party of no?

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welcome back. panelists here, yes, director comey is testifying tomorrow. yes, we have neil gorsuch in his first confirmation hearing, but i think the biggest story next week will be the house vote on thursday for health care. george, where is this headed for republicans? >> they don't know yet because usually in legislative deal making it's an additive process, i support x if you support y, i'll support you if you support me and that's how coalitions

grow, that's how government grows. in this case, however, addition is subtraction. because the big issue and the heart of obamacare is the expansion of medicaid. 20 republican senators represent states that expanded medicaid. add synthetics bench and they heart of obamacare is the expansion of medicaid. 20 republican senators represent the state to expand medicaid, absent that expansion, human holes are in the budget. three republican governors all over the ideological spectrum. they say, hey, careful of the medicaid cut. >> mainly because only people lose their health insurance, is that shock wave into the parties because there's some things that are complicated for maybe voters to understand. losing nor health insurance is not very complicated. either you have it or you don't. a lot of trump supporters, while they didn't like the ideas of forced to have insurance, idea that you might lose it, the idea you need it, is sincere for a

lot of people. >> it's about house republicans who have gone on the conservative statewide, with the effective worry, went from hell mode to possibly yes, but there's moderates in the house who are saying, hold on, why should i sign my name to it? where's it leave me in two years? >> colorado poll out this week shows here's the president's approval rating among all republicans, 83% favorable ratings, but among all voters, 55%, unfavorable. you're a republican senator, what do you do? listen to the republican base that loves trump, or your overall realize, oh, my gosh, majority in colorado don't trust him or are not satisfied, go with my own? >> it's not just republicans, but the president. who has ownership of the health care bill? tweaking it with the caption, doing things they want to do to get it through the house, but in the senate, is the president going to rally behind it?

speaking to the president before ig august ration, he wanted insurance by everybody, not driven by philosophy. the team, talks about infrastructure and taxes, they did not get elected there to do health care first. >> is the debate over about health care? some have the fight, you know, we shouldn't issue of right or privilege, the senator said, the debate's over, provide people health care. >> before the obamacare legislation was passed, 50% of every health care dollar, the government's been deeply involved in this forever, and only becomes more so. >> i think what i was listening senator collins talk about, not wanting to say health care is a right, in some ways, think about bernie sanders, but in theory, the point, we're paying for health care whether we like it or not. take away medicaid and feel like we're not paying for it, you're

paying for it when people go show up to the emergency room and pay for it in the hospitals, providing them care anyways. >> all right. quickly. filibuster. democrats force the filibuster? >> no. there's going to be enough democrats up for re-election in conservative state and decide this is not the fight they want to have now. they may have a fight in the second, but not now. >> easy to be by partisan on this ticket. >> in almost any other period, they'd be consumed, but talking to progressi ivive activists in washington, it's russia, trump, wiretapping allegations, the focus on difrent issues. >> and health care. all right. back in 45 seconds with end game and a viewer's alternative version of a segment we heard last week. yes, we pay attention to what you have to say. stay with us. coming up, meet the press end game. i don't want to pry... dad. but have you made a decision? i'm going with the $1000 in cash back. my son...

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2 united club passes... priority boarding... and 50,000 bonus miles. everything you need for an unforgettable vacation. the united mileageplus explorer card. imagine where it will take you. "meet the press" "endgame" is brought to you by boeing, always working to build i want to continue quickly. we talked about this, whether democrats can -- is it the right strategy or no? you've covered this for 30 years, the answer to that used to be no. perhaps it's better to be the party of now. >> it is better in a sense is energyizes the base, get the election, you can't do an election without the base. used to be that american

politics took place within 40 yard line. i still think it's 40. >> anybody win that way? if they don't think they win that way, whether they do or not, this is the way they act why they act? >> when i talked to both, u.s. representatives saying we should be the party of no. mainly because they feel the base is watching this saying we need to stick to our ground, not go and try to make compromises when it comes to health care, but they are pushing a single payer system. facing people who are frustrated thinking they should be like the tea party and they should really stop. >> what i'm at the capitol, the democratic party, who are the leader of the democratic party? we know there's leader schumer and pelosi, but who is the soul right now of the democratic party if they are the party? senator warren? hard to tell. >> democrats in the last six years the obama presidency said, didn't do the republicans any harm being the party of no.

case in point. maybe we try that too. >> finally, it's not often we do viewer mail here. actually, we never do it, and it's not a habit, but this week is an exception. as you remember last week, we took a toupg in cheek look what it's like if we applied repeal and replace obamacare language to repealing and replacing american sports. supports was in a death spiral since on any given date, 50% of all teams are losers. throw soccer in, losers and ties. it's important to give players greater access to home runs, touchdowns, slam dunks, choose the success best forever them, and teams need the ain't to cross state lines as giants and jets did moving to new jersey. one viewer wrote to offer perhaps a conservative alternative to the examples. >> because of sports' death spiral, the san francisco giants athletics, dodgers, and padres leave just the los angeles angels of anaheim as the only

baseball team in california, and without competition, angels increase prices 160%. senators incyst sports is a basic right for citizens and noncitizens alike and all states must have sports. in order to cover everyone, the nhl is forced to set up a failing team in new mexico, subsidizing teams like that and others forcing prices to rise for all hockey fans. everyone will be mandated to buy season tickets to the home team's whether they want to or not. anyway, see, we can have fun here. that's all we have for today. we'll be back next week when i guess the big ten teaches the sec another lesson. if it's sunday, it's "meet the pre press". you can see more end game and post game on the mtp facebook page.

i've never committed a crime in my entire life. i never thought that a small lie could spin out of control. it was just beyond a nightmare. >> this is the cost. >> a cage. a cage is for animals. human trafficking? are you kidding