it's earned in every wash, and re-earned every day. tide, america's #1 detergent . this sunday t this hesunday, the battle or hillary clint health care. some republicans say their bill is too harsh. >> i cannot thousands will die. >> this morning i can talk to ron johnson of wisconsin and bernie sanders of vermont. plus, the democrats' loss in georgia leads to calls for nancy pelosi to step down. >> you have to carry this toxic

brand an your back. >> she says she's not going anywhere. >> i think i'm worth the trouble. >> for democrats to win the house do they need a new candidate for speaker? democrats on both sides of the issue join me this morning. also, russian election meddling and this stunning statement from an obama administration official. i feel like we sort of choked. what we now know about what the obama white house knew and when it knew it. joining me for insight and analysis are syndicated columnist george will, helene cooper of the "new york times," nbc news's hall jackson and mark leibowitz. 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 morning. this was a week that brought into no cuss more clearly than ever the hardening of political cultures. one left, right, blue, red,

liberal and conservative. from the election in georgia to debate over health care to the shooting at the republican baseball practice. americans watched their favorite cable channels, clicked on top new s sites and spoke and listened to those who agreed with them. our poll bears it out this week. 38% gave president trump a positive rating. 38% believe the economy has improved and the president deserves credit. 38% believe obamacare is a bad idea. 38% want efforts to repeal and replace obamacare to continue. do you notice the pattern? 38% largely packed into republican districts, maybe just enough to push the republican health care plan and president trump's priorities over the line. it's another data point that says it may be less satisfying to win. than see the other sides lose. >> i'll tell you about the democrats. i am making it hard to get their support, but who cares?

>> americanings distrust in institutions is an old story. now the most basic is crumbling. the trust americans have in each other. >> the democrats are making it divided. instead of working together, they are fighting. >> they are looking out for their interests. >> the democrats are so nasty. >> it bothers me. that we are so separated as a nation. >> the right and left don't just disagree on solutions. they can't agree on fundamental facts. >> we elected trump. we have to take what he says and believe what he says. >> just 26% of republicans believe russia interfered in the presidential election compared with 78% of democrats and 53% of independents. >> they have phony witch hunts going against me. they have everything going. you know what? all we do is win, win, win. >> washington has been captured by tribal tendencies producing a health care debate which is less

debate and more all out rhetorical brawl. >> these cuts are blood money. people will die. >> do you know what blood money is? blood money is the money democrats are raising since the recent attempted massacre of those republicans at the baseball practice. >> on friday hillary clinton tweeted forget death panels. if republicans pass this bill, they're the death party. the hardening polarization of congress led to a process where legislation is crafted by one party in secret over 52 days. some senate republicans acknowledge this is no way to govern. >> i think it's being written by someone, somewhere. i'm not aware of who or where. >> we used to complain when the democrats ran the affordable care act. now we're doing the same thing. >> a long list of health care advocacy groups oppose the bill which would slash medicaid spending in part by putting caps

on how much federal money states receive. all of that despite candidate trump's campaign promises. >> i'm not going to cut medicare or medicaid. every other republican will cut. >> the senate bill will deliver roughly a trillion dollars in tax cuts over ten years and would allow states to drop many of the benefits required by obamacare. like maternity care, emergency services and mental health treatment. in the end, senate republicans are speaking to a single audience. 38% of voters who make up the president's base. >> i think they should vote for the health care bill and then make changes to it as they can because obamacare's bill is dead. >> we have identified eight republican senators whose vote is currently in question as the health care vote draws near. it's not going to fix the problem. for conservatives, rand paul, mike lee, ron johnson and ted cruz.

and senator ron johnson joins me now. he calls himself a no on the health care bill. welcome back to meet the press, sir. >> good morning. not a yes yet. >> fair enough. let me start with process before we get to the substance. you yourself seem to lament how this has gone down. you were lamenting the partisan aspect of this process and you said maybe this is what has to happen. the democrats have their bill and republicans are doing ours and then we'll fix our health care system. it seems to me that you're admitting or you may be admitting that even if you guys pass this bill it's going to be done on a partisan basis and as soon as the democrats get power, they'll do another bill and we have more uncertainty in the health care market. aren't we just banging our head against the wall here? >> chuck, my background is really manufacturing. i'm also an accountant.

and i understand without a good process you're going to end up with good product and process in terms of problem solving starts with information but that's foreign to washington d.c. i'm not of that world. washington d.v. is an alternate universe where people talk about policies void of facts, void of the type of information that youed need to solve a problem so that's my first point right now is we don't have enough information, i don't have the feedback from constituent sys that will not have had enough time to review the senate bill. we should have started the process, reaching out to the democrats. pointing out that obamacare didn't work. it didn't drive premiums up more than double nationally. some places three times has been the increase in premiums. let's acknowledge that and let's repair the damage done by obamacare and transition something that works. >> you just described why this process hasn't worked. you know, for instance, we have this debate about these insurance companies. why are they leaving the market?

here's something that congress doesn't know. they don't know the answer to that question because you didn't hold a single hearing with a single head of an insurance company in the last couple of months. so how do we know? >> we do but nobody wants to really talk about it. we know why the premiums increased. remember president bill clinton talking about obamacare as a crazy season. he started talking about the people busting it working 60 hours a week and they're left with premiums doubled and coverage cut in half. those are the forgotten men and women in this entire debate but we know why the premiums doubled. we have done something in our health care system that you would never think about doing with auto insurance where you would require them to sell a policy to somebody after they crash their car. states that have enacted guarantee for pre-existing

conditions, it crashes their markets. it causes the markets to collapse and premiums to skyrocket. the good news is you can address people with pre-existing conditions without collapsing markets. it's by designing high risk pools. what they have to do is add to this invisible high risk pool but we don't have the courage in washington and the honesty to talk about these things with real information and real facts and go through the problem-solving process. information and agree on achievable goals and then pass the legislation. >> isn't some of the problem here the rhetoric that gets used. i'm going to use you as an example here. i want to play the rhetoric you used during your re-election campaign. >> this is our shot. we're not going to be able to repeal obamacare the next time. this is our shot. >> yes, you bet i would repeal nit a heart beat. >> and then this is what you said in january. this is what you said in january about that rhetoric. >> it's way more complex than repeal and replace. that's a buzz word but it's not

accurate. the point is during the campaign you used that little buzz word and your constituents are hearing that buzz word and they're look at this now and saying you been promising repeal and replace on the campaign trail for 7 years as a party and now you're being realistic in the january statement when there isn't an election coming but isn't this part of the problem that you use one set of rhetoric during the election year and then when you need a pragmatic process, the constituents don't buy it? >> the problem is on shows like this you get a couple of minutes and you have to condense what you want to do. no i would repeal all of obamacare and i would replace it with something that actually works. skyrocketing premiums and collapsing markets and addressing the forgotten market. you said yourself slashing medicaid.

that's washington speak. my definition of a cut is spending being reduced year over year. we don't have the final figures but any projections that i have been working with regardless of the bill, i don't see anything other than reduction in the growth of spending so let's be honest about what we're talking about here. we $20 trillion in debt. over the next 20 years another 129 trillion dollars in accumulated deficit. we're mortgaging our children's future. a compassionate society doesn't improvish future generations for benefits in the here and now. >> your concerns are probably never going to be fully addressed in this bill. what does it take for you, at some point you have to decide whether to do this or not. is the political pressure of saying if you don't do this and you're one of the republicans and you have heard from president trump he hopes his good friends don't tank this bill, how much does that political pressure weigh on you

even though you look at this bill and you see a lot of flaws? >> the reason i left the life i loved in wisconsin was to fix this problem and what i find so disappointing is these bills aren't going to fix the problem. they're doing the same old washington thing throwing more money at the problem and of course we have all the inflamed rhetoric so what i'd like to do is throw sloe the process down and get the information and go through the problem solving process and reduce these room premiums that have been driven up because of obamacare mandates so let's fix the problem but in the end i come from a manufacturing base. i'll look at whatever i'm forced to vote on and i'll ask myself is this better tomorrow than where we are today? is it continuous improvement. >> you don't like this process but you're not willing to delay things to force the process to get better? >> i would like to delay the thing. there's no way we should be voting on this next week.

>> are you going to work to stop a vote next week? >> i have a hard time believing wisconsin constituents or myself will have enough time to properly evaluate this for me to vote for a motion to proceed. so i have been encouraging, leadership t white house, anybody i can talk to for quite sometimes. let's not rush this process. let's have the integrity to show the american people what it is why haven't they listened. >> as you lamented i am out of time. >> have a great day. >> appreciate it. let's turnover to senator bernie sanders of vermont. he's not conflicted about the republican health care bill. he is holding rallies in pennsylvania, west virginia and ohio in an attempt to generate opposition to the bill and says if it passes thousands will die. senator sanders with me now from columbus, ohio. welcome back, sir. >> good to be with you, chuck. >> i want to first address that rhetoric. you tweeted the issue of saying yes you thought people would die

and then senator hatch retweeted and said let it be clear this is not trying to be overly dramatic. thousands of people will die if republican health care bill becomes law. hatch retweeted and said this brief time when we were not accusing those we disagree with of murder was nice while it lasted. any regret of using the rhetoric you used. >> chuck, chuck, what the republican proposal does is throw 23 million americans off of health insurance. what harvard university, what a part of harvard university, a scientist there determined is when you throw 23 million people off of health insurance, people with cancer, people with heart disease and people with diabetes thousands of people would die. i wish i didn't have to say it.

this is not me. this is study after study making this point. it's common sense. if you have cancer and your insurance is taken away from you there is a likelihood you will die and certainly a likelihood that you will become much sicker than you are today. that's the facts. unpleasant but it's true and second of all while they throw 23 million people off of health insurance and defund planned parenthood and raise premiums for older workers, people in their 60s they see premiums that will be 50 or 75% higher they are going to provide some $500 billion in tax breaks for the top 2% to the insurance companies and the drug companies in order to give tax breaks to billionaires. that's what the entire debate is about and one of the things that bothers me 60% of the american people don't even know what is in this health care bill.

>> i want to talk about that process. look i think senator johnson brought up a good point earlier this week that i asked him about which is this idea that obamacare passed with just the democrats. if it passes it's only going to pass just with the republicans and no law is ever sustainable in this town when only one party has a piece of it. when only one party is invested in it's success. if another party is invested in it's failure so my question is, this process has been a mess. is there any way of mixing this process in next week? stopping it, starting from scratch? if the republicans say we'll get rid of reconciliation if democrats come to the table would you come to the table. >> wait a minute.

please don't say come to the table. what the republicans have done and that's what senator johnson said and he's right. we are talking about one-sixth of the american economy. an issue that impacts 2,300 million americans. the insurance companies have not come forward. the american medical association has not come forward. there's been zero debate. all of this is behind closed doors. >> no, i understand that. i hear you on that. i'm saying if there is, if senator johnson gets his way

which is he wants to delay this process and delay the vote and have a process, have a hearing, sounds as if he wants that. if mitch mcconnell says i'm giving up reconciliation because trying to do this on a partisan only vote is damaging overall, at that point are you open to some sort of bipartisan compromise? >> of course. well, we're open to let's have the discussion. that's what should happen. senator johnson is right. there's no way in god's health this bill should be passed this week. people in wisconsin don't know what's in it. people in vermont don't know what's in it. we need a serious discussion and i'm confident that everyone would want to hold that discussion. we're the only major country on earth not to guarentee health care to all people as a right. the affordable care act has problems. deductibles are too high and co-payments are too high and we should address that but something is wrong when we remain the only country not to guarantee health care to all people as a right. i am going to go forward with a medicare for all single payer program and i think that's the direction long-term we should be going. >> let me ask you about where the democratic party is overall. you said you want to go there and that's not necessarily a unified position inside the left umbrella in this country. i say left because you're not

technically a member of the democratic party but why do you think democrats lost that special election in georgia last week? >> it's more than the special election. for the last nine years we lost the senate, we lost the u.s. house. two-thirds of governor's chairs are controlled by republicans. a thousand seats have been lost to republicans and state legislatures all over this country. i'll tell you what i think, i think there is a massive amount of demoralization on the part of the american people with the democratic party, with the republican party. i think the american people in many cases are seeing themselves working longer hours for lower wages. they're worried about their kids not being able to go to college and worried about what's going to happen to them when they're retiring and seeing all new income and wealth going to the

top 1%. there's an enormous amount of pain in this country and people are saying does anybody in washington know what's going on in my life? i'm 60 years of age and i have nothing in the bank and i'm going to be retiring in five years or $50,000 in college debt and i can't find a descent job. do republicans know it? do the democrats know it and we have to say we'll be on the side of the working class of this country. we are prepared to stand up to wall street and the drug companies that rip us off every day and the insurance companies and we're going to fight for an agenda that makes sense. >> i'll leave it there. we'll continue the debate after the break. senator sanders, thanks for coming on and sharing your views. appreciate it as always. >> thank you. >> when we come back the brug civil war inside the democratic party. how how that loss is leading to a debate on whether it's time for nancy pelosi to step aside.

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welcome all. george let me start with you. i want to get to the process part of this.

ron johnson i think correctly stated democrats did their partisan bill and republicans did their partisan bill maybe this is what it takes before the two parties come to solve this together. it is admitting whatever gets passed is temporary. >> the process argument, i don't think the problem is this violates it, you can argue as senator johnson did but the problem isn't that this violates the rule no one seems to remember. the treasury secretary said no large tax cuts for the wealthy. this is a large tax cut for the wealthy. the problem isn't whether you scale back medicare expansion in seven years or three years. those are splittable differences. there's two problems here. one is that we don't take things

back from people once we have given them. once we did. aid families with dependent children and repealed 1935 civil rights act but that took something away from poor people. this takes something away from people that got it and they value it because they've got it now. second, after eight years of debating this up against the fact that expansion of medicaid is exactly what this is about. 55 million people are on medicare and 68 million are on medicaid and we're still arguing about whether or not we should have government control of health care. it's there. >> now it's about reforming it. >> no, the irony here is there is like rhetoric that indicates we have to get back into the private market. >> no, it hasn't been for awhile.

i was very, it was really funny because this morning i snapped awake at 2:45 in the morning and looked at facebook because i was worried about my alarm not going off at 6:30 to wake me up to get here and the first thing was an ad for senator dean heller on facebook to tell people to make sure that he votes for the republican plan. this is senator dean heller of nevada that looked like he was in a hostage video earlier on friday when he said he wasn't going to support the bill as it stands right now and i'm just so fascinated by just how these lines are being drawn right now and it's not over. it doesn't seem at this point to be, a lot of this is about process. >> when you look at who is on which side of the line. you showed the graphic of which senators. >> put it back up.

it's heller, it's collins, it's gardener interesting enough. >> they say gardener is somebody to watch. health care is not just something that becomes an issue in the next election but one that could become an issue down the road, maybe in 2020. he was running the campaign here in 2018 so he is someone to watch. the president is reaching out a little bit. he had phone calls friday with at least one of the folks on the list trying to get people on board but the white house feels like they had some time now. i had them say the vote is not going to happen until thursday. fewer people need to do the outreach too but at the same time this is going to go back. >> it's interesting. i think if mcconnell makes it, he made the argument the base will reject you, i think they're right, they can bluff their way through 2018 on this. i don't know if they can bluff their way to 2020 on this. >> possibly. the more that potentially cuts

into the trump base. you can look at video all day of trump saying over and over again. sean spicer as recently as a few days ago said this bill doesn't really have any effect. >> but the republicans won control of congress on accusing them of cutting medicare. both parties now how to exploit that issue. >> correct. absolutely. but it's the law of the land but also if they repeal this bill it's going to affect a lot of people. >> that's the thing. it feels like they're picking between their base and their constituents. it's like medicaid expansion on one hand george and on the other hand, lose the republican primary. >> repeal and replace obamacare is extremely popular. 80 to 15.

>> a lot of people don't understand what that means. >> of course. and it's a wash in the rest of the country which means i think at the end of the day people are going to wake up and say no matter what we pass it's not repeal and replace it's tweak and move on. >> president going to get this? >> he seems optimistic. he did an interview that's new out today talking about wanting to have everybody come together. he doesn't understand why the democrats and republicans can't hug and make up on this one. he wants it but at the same time he's more hands off than what we saw in the house portion. he was having a ton of congress members to his house. we're not seeing it this time around. >> but that didn't come right away. that came after.

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welcome back. democratic john asock may not have been the only loser.

groups aligned with president trump, speaker paul ryan and former speaker newt gingrich spent a combined $4.5 million in that race simply to tie him to house democratic leader nancy pelosi. the ads made sure that they were indistinguishable and apparently it worked. thaez led some democrats to call that lead some democrats to call for pelosi to step down including congressman tim ryan in ohio that challenged her. he joins me along with congresswoman debbie that made sure that michigan has been represented since 1933. welcome to you both. congressman ryan, you have not been shy about what happened post election there. let me be blunt. if nancy pelosi wasn't leader. if you were leader do you think john osop would be a member of congress today? >> let me first say i don't want

to be leader. this is not about me. i don't want to run against nancy pelosi. i did that in november. i spoke my piece. i got everything out i needed to say but it would be hard for us to say that after $5 million being spent tying that candidate to her that it didn't have some effect and republicans wouldn't still be using this if it didn't have some effect and so it's still being used for a reason and i think that's a discussion that we need to have. now with the health care coming down the pike now and everything that's going on we need to stay united as democrats especially this week because of the travesty that would happen to a lot of our constituents but we need to have a family discussion. i don't need to lead it because i have been pretty clear but if others want to have that discussion, i'm happy to have it. >> debbie dingell, you have seen this a lot over the years. you've seen from the outside

and from the inside. i'm curious of your reaction to what your colleague kathleen rice said earlier this week. >> nancy pelosi was a great speaker. she was a great leader but her time has come and gone. she is a great fund-raiser but if the money we're raising through her leadership is not helping us win elections then we have to have this difficult conversation now. >> is she right? >> no, i'm going to tell you point blank i respectfully disagree with her. i love kathleen. we're in the same class. i never thought we were going to win any of these four seats. i have been around. i am seasoned. these people were selected to go in the cabinet because they were in safe republican seats. two or three months ago i would never have bet we came as close as we did. the cook report did a very independent analysis of this and said we outperformed in all four of these seats by 8%. if we were to continue in those numbers, the republicans should be worried we could win 80 seats next november. that's not going to happen but if you get pragmatic we always

attack the leader. i don't care who it is. i remember when we were attacking tip o'neal. i was young, but i remember it. we love to attack our leaders. either party. >> let me ask you this, i want to start with you because i think i know what tim ryan's answer is going to be. how do you make the case in 2018 to be the change party and create a change election atmosphere if whenever democrat running for a house seat gets asked who are you going to support for speaker, are you going to support nancy pelosi and if she is speaker in 2019 are you sending a message of change to the voter who thinks, oh, i thought we voted that out? >> so i have a lot of things to say about it. first of all i think if each of us doesn't start taking responsibility for the leadership we have and start

acting like a we we're not going to win. that's one of the biggest problems. i care deeply about the issues for the coast. i care deeply about urban issues but also issues in the midwest and tim and i really share that passion of fighting for the workmen and women. we have to stop this finger pointing and each of us has to learn how we're going to become part of the we in the community that's going to win and when people start talk about age, let's talk about that. we elected a 70-year-old as president. bernie sanders is 75, joe biden is 74. the representative government is people of all generations, all ages, we have to come together and each of us has to take responsibility for what we are as part of this we. >> has some of the criticism been too harsh and too unfair? >> what's been unfair is that it's not necessarily her fault. they have spent, i would say, hundreds of millions of dollars against her and as i said during the campaign i got enormous respect for nancy pelosi. she helped me throughout my

career and she was a tremendous speaker. we're talking about health care for everybody today because of the work she has done so this is completely unfair but the reality is, the reality is the fact that we have to go into 2018 with a leader who has been damaged and at the end of the day has to make this decision but let's make no mistake about it. this is not about us having a family fight publicly. we'll have this discussion but the reality is if we're not in power we can't help anybody. this isn't just a fight to have a fight, if democrats aren't in, we talk about the republicans taking 25 million people's health care away from them but if the democrats are in we can

talk about how we're going to help them with their wages, 5their jobs, their economic security, their pensions, reducing their health care bill and energy bills and putting money in their pocket. this is not a fight we just want to have. we have to have these discussions because we owe it to the american people to put us in a position to be able to fight for them. right now we don't control any of the levers of government as senator sanders said earlier so we have to win these elections and put ourselves in a good position to do it. >> i'm going to give you a shot at answering here. it stumped me. do a facebook q and a every friday afternoon and a man by the name of chuck asked the following question what is the democratic parties constituency at this time? what is their mission statement? will they be able to parlay a multitude of causes into a winning graphic for the midterms? have to say, i'll start with you, the democratic party does feel as if it's a coalition of various special interest groups. not sort of one voice. is that a fair decree? >> i know who i'm working for -- the working men and women of my district. that's what we all have to

remember. we're elected to represent the districts that we come from and that's why coming together as the we matters. i don't like this word special interest. since when are working men and women special interests. we need to make sure that every american has all the issues that tim just cared about. everyone has the right to live in a safe neighborhood to make sure that they're going to have a safe retirement. bernie sanders did a very good job of articulating that earlier. we have to come together as we. it's not one person's responsibility. it's all of our responsibilities. >> i think you believe identity politics has been a detriment to the democratic party. >> if you're a marginalized citizen in anyway, shape or form the democratic party is the party for you and that means economically marginalized as well and i don't care about color, man, woman, black, white, brown, gay, straight, we should be working for all of those groups and their economic interests.

the one thing the democrats have is that economic message and senator sanders was very articulate and clear about what we all need to stand for. yes we have to go on these issue of equality and tolerance and fight for people that are marginalized in that regard but what unites all of those groups is an economic message. every one of those people in those groups want to make more in the paycheck they get every two week. they want to pay less for energy bill and less for health care and still have coverage. those issues unite everybody but when we get off on just the social issues. those are important and we need to fight for them. but if we just talk about those and we don't talk about the economic issues, the republicans come in and divide us and then we get what we got in last presidential election.

lower african american turn out in some communities. white voters go and vote for trump. so if we focus on exhibition. put money back in the pocket of people. grow this new economy and democrats good l get back into the ma joir tinchts thank you for coming on and sharing your views. >> great to be with you. >> why amazon's growing influence may consist millions of americans their jobs and why it also may lead to the next jobs crisis that will face politicians on the ballot. >> early warning this is not bs (vo) when i brought jake home, i wanted him to eat healthy. so i feed jake purina cat chow naturals indoor,

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5. >> early warning this is not it didn't just confirm the brick and mortar crisis in america. it signalled a giant disruption in the economy and where people are going to work. but early warning, this is not just an economic issue. it's the next big political problem. the canary at the cash register,

if you will, that could change the way we eventually vote. the number of people working in retail has dropped even as the economy has been recovering. between 2014 and 2016 the unemployment rate fell from 6.2 to 4.9%. despite this the number of people working in retail sales declined during the same period of time. more people employed overall, fewer people working in retail jobs. politicians spent a lot of time talking about disappearing manufacturing and coal jobs but the great retail displacement has been ignored and retail employees millions more than the coal industry. anybody see a press conference about the loss of retail jobs

recently? plus people from all races and backgrounds work retail. they look like the country as a whole and come from all over the country. manufacturing's rust belt. all of this suggests the loss rf retail jobs is on the verge of hitting a crisis point which will make it a hot button issue in our politics. the top ten states for retail are the biggest states in the country. 2.4 million retail jobs. enough of those jobs disappear expect a great retail displacement becoming a growing major issue in 2018 and 2020. another massive economic transformation we're about to see. the biggest issue will be the future of it. the population is growing and the jobs are disappearing. when we come back why did a former obama administration official say the following. i feel like we sort of choked? stop

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welcome back. our panel is back. let's talk about the candidates herement you look at our generic ballot from our nbc wall street journal poll democrats have an 8 point lead. who do you want to have control? so you think that's good for the democrats. but let me show you the 2016 popular vote house race total and how it translated into house seats and as you can see republicans won the popular vote by a point but that allows them, that one point allowed them a ten point spread among house seats. the point is that you do your math and i know math isn't your favorite subject but if you do

your math there it means an 8 point democratic lead still wouldn't be enough to win control of the house as a democrat. they have work to do. >> correct. to talk about the message the democrats might lack here, because as pointed out, these are very specific and pointed messages that every congressional district has to do. i do think that if one perhaps benefit of health care is it would give democrats a message, it would give democrats something to run on in addition to trump, and right now there's absolutely no -- you know, the economic populism that congressman ryan was talking about is as close as you would go these days to that. >> and i think that one of the most important words that debbie said herself, we don't want a leadership fight now. when you talk to people, that's what you hear. this is not the time to get into nancy pelosi's leadership. we have to fight for health care, 2016 coming up.

that said, there is an acknowledgment this is something that needs to be discussed. you look at, for example, who will replace nancy pelosi, not even ryan, there is no succession plan. this is getting out, venting, blowing off some steam. even republicans will acknowledge she's a great fundraiser, she brings in good money for the party, but they love having her in place and that's what democrats have to figure out over the next, if not six months, at least year and six months. >> can i just interject here? because it feels as though the commentary after this georgia election acted as if this was a blue district that flipped to red. it's not. i mean, this was a red district that the democrats came very close to winning, and so i do think that there's a little bit of hysteria here when we think about yet another loss on the democratic side and nancy pelosi must go. god, i love that line about i'm going to start using that all the time. >> worth the trouble. >> worth the trouble.

yeah. it's even better. >> well, this ethical election depicted 145th of one half of our branches of government. only happens if they misconstrue what happened down there. progressives are saying he ran in the primary and won by saying vote for me and make trump furious. then he won and became militantly vanilla campaigning against government waste and i'm going to have a high-tech and all that. if they say that if we only go hard left we will bring people out, if they say we're really more interested in realigning the party for the long term than winning elections in the short term, then what happened in georgia will really matter. >> i think if there is one sure thing coming out of these special elections is that people will overinflate their significance. >> it's true. i guess if you look at it, though, who's got more to worry

about, republicans or democrats? democrats with a message problem or is it the republicans that they are, you know, they are not going to get $30 million every time they can save a house seat. >> to his point, all seats in the special election. democrats point out, yes, we did overperform the numbers, the expectation, and these are seats republicans chose to vacate, they pulled people out of, opening up those seats. that's the line from democrats. from republicans, there's an acknowledgment neither side is going to raise the money they raised in the special and if i have to tell you how many times i heard the phrase special elections are special for a reason this week, i'd have a lot of nickels. back in 45 seconds with end game and the face that booked himself in iowa this week that has the social media world buzzing. coming up -- "meet the press" end game and post game brought to you by boeing. always working to build something better.

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"meet the press" end game is brought to you by boeing. always working to build something better. back now with end game. whiplash this week from president trump on the russia story. now is admitting the meddling and tweeted this yesterday, since the obama administration was told way before the 2016 election that the russians were meddling, why no action? focus on them, not "t." setting that aside, that expose in the washington post and that quote, i think we choked. >> that's huge. i mean, that's huge. but i think you look at it -- on one hand you can sort of understand the position that the obama administration, president obama would have been in. it would have been seen as so political if he had come out at that point and said, look, it looks as if the russians are interfering to help then-republican candidate trump, but at the same time that's why we have leaders, you know. at some point the american

people deserve to have somebody in office who's only in office for three more months come out and say, you know, without political consideration. i just think, you know, the fact that they are saying now they choked is kind of sad. >> august 6th briefing before 9/11 was always known as the red flag that was missed. are we going to look back, that quote of choked, is this a version of that for president obama? >> no, and i think it's sup supremely unfair. a democratic -- where was the action, if the action had been taken, he wouldn't be president. >> it is true. i mean, the ultimate damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. the political environment for as charged as it is right now, and think of what it was in october and november, the other thing is, people expected and obama expected the president to be hillary clinton. and i think that he sort of figured, okay, we can just let

this pass and it will come out afterwards. >> this gives president trump a branch or something solid to hold on to and you have seen that over the last 48, 72 hours, but there's a broader question here, why no action. what action is happening now to stop it from happening again? that is the thing that matters. we did an investigation contacting dozens of state officials that said they haven't heard enough from the trump administration. white house says we have this election fraud commission, which was started because of the president's unfounded claim that millions voted illegally and pointed to things dhs is doing, but the alarm bell is ringing. >> we had somebody show up in iowa this week, you know, hey, when somebody shows up in iowa, you think they are running for president. mark zuckerberg showed up in iowa and posts this. "in iowa i stopped by one of the major truck stops. it's like a small city where truckers on long trips can take a break. even go to the dentist. i asked a number of truckers what they think about self-driving cars and trucks, what they think about the future. everyone i met was skeptical,

self driving jobs would replace jobs for different reasons." you enjoy your share of snark. how does he run for president doing the, wow, look at this, the truck stop. >> that was a parody of how a bubble person writes when he ventures off from the west coast or east coast and sort of discovers truck stops. yeah, i think the messaging might be work if he's running for president, but it's certainly interesting. i do think trump has created a generation of, i would say, male imitators that think with name recognition and a lot of money can run. >> david plouffe, david plouffe is working, president's former campaign manager, is working for the zuckerberg foundation. that's all for today, thank you for watching. we're back next week. because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." you can see more end game and post game sponsored by boeing on the "meet the press" facebook page.

hello, everyone, i'm richard lui in new york city on this sunday. thanks for being here on the pulse of america, where your voice can be heard in real time and here are the stories we want your pulse on today. >> and i'm not voting for something that looks just like obamacare and still doesn't fix the fundamental flaw of obamacare. >> mitch mcconnell facing five republican holdouts on the senate health care bill, more than enough to kill it, and more could join that list. now, if it does become law, states could be asked to take on much more of the health care burden, but will that