when you met him, i'm sure he saw something special in you, penn, and asked you to come and join him for those magnificent days. penn jillette, thank you so much. we're so sorry for your loss as we are for the rest of the country. jerry lewis dead at age 91. >> up next, chuck todd and "meet the press." this sunday after charlottesville, president trump makes his both sides are to blame argument. >> but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. >> equating the white nationalists with the protesters. >> excuse me, what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right, do they have any semblance of guilt? >> did the president lose his moral authority this week by failing to condemn white supremacists, the klan and neo-nazis? i'll ask former republican congressman j.c. watts and the former u.s. ambassador to the united nations and one-time mayor of atlanta, andrew young. plus those white

supremacists in charlottesville. >> jews will not replace us! jews will not replace us. >> we'll take an inside look at last week's mayhem and at the men behind the march. >> sadly because our rivals are a bunch of stupid animals who don't pay attention, they couldn't just get out of the way of his car. >> also a debate, is it better to ignore kkk and nazi marchers or for confront them even with violence? joining me for insight and analysis are eugene robinson of "the washington post," peggy noonan, columnist for "the wall street journal," stephen hayes, editor in chief for the weekly standard and former democratic congresswoman, donna edwards of maryland. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: 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. let's say up front that years

from now this will not be remembered as the week steve bannon left the white house. make no mistake, while his departure may have significant consequences in the months to come, it was actually widely expected, even by him. no, this will be remembered as the week for choosing sides. president trump seemed to choose his. though this may not have been his intention, the president's equivocation over who was to blame for the violence in charlottesville allowed white supremacists to claim him as being on their side. here are the covers of three national magazines. while some may seem liberal bias in the mainstream press "the economist" on the right often does reflect international opinion. yesterday demonstrations were held across the country against white supremacy, the largest was in boston where some 40,000 people gathered. 33 people were arrested, mostly for disorderly conduct. to many of us who study this administration, mr. trump this week chose to become the president of red state america over healing the country's wounds.

many elected officials, too, see this as a time for choosing. democrats have it easy, their voters expect them to criticize this president, but republicans appear to be divided. while many, including much of mr. trump's base, are standing with the president, others, including the elected leadership, are desperate to criticize him but quietly waiting for a permission slip from the voters to speak out. all this in another typically chaotic week from president trump's both sides now news conference to bannon's white house exit. >> just days after the president would not commit to keeping him on -- >> mr. bannon came on very late, you know that. i went through 17 senators, governors, and i won all the primaries. we'll see what happens with mr. bannon. >> steve bannon is out, a victim of his own celebrity. captured on the cover of "time" magazine and on "saturday night live" where bannon was the puppeteer pulling the president's strings. >> can i have my desk back? >> yes, of course, mr. president. i'll go sit at my desk.

>> and a casualty of the fights he started inside the white house. now bannon tells "the weekly standard" the trump presidency that we fought for and won is over. i feel jacked up. now i'm free. i've got my hands back on my weapons. that weapon, bannon is already back at breitbart. and he's just the latest in a series of high-profile white house departures. but many republicans in congress believe president trump, not steve bannon, is currently the problem. >> the president has not yet -- has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful. he also recently has not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation. >> what we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority. that moral authority is compromised when tuesday happens.

>> this after president trump blamed both sides for last weekend's violence in charlottesville. >> i'm not putting anybody on a moral plane. what i'm saying is this. you had a group on one side and you had a group on the other and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious. you had many people in that group other than neo-nazis and white nationalists, okay? >> former governor mitt romney is calling on the president to apologize. state forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame. mr. trump's response, though, should not be a surprise. a year ago, bannon was brought in to write a campaign that was flailing after mr. trump refused for days to stop attacking a muslim gold star father. >> i was viciously attacked on the stage of the democratic national convention by mr. khan and i responded. >> 18 months ago, mr. trump failed to confront white nationalists on the campaign trail. >> i don't know anything about david duke, okay? i don't know anything about what you're even talking about with

white supremacy or white supremacists. >> and six years ago, mr. trump launched his national political career with the false claim that the first african-american president was not born in the united states. >> you are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country. he may not have been born in this country. >> to give you a sense of how reluctant republicans are to talk about president trump this week, not one member of the current republican leadership in congress agreed to come on the broadcast this morning. in fact, even the white house was unable or perhaps unwilling to provide a guest right down to the white house press secretary. one republican who is willing to talk is a former elected official. it's oklahoma congressman j.c. watts. congressman watts, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, chuck, for having me back. >> let me ask you that question. why do you think -- why is it easier for you to come out and speak out in the conversation you and i had earlier in the week? you're here this morning. why do you think so many of your former colleagues, who currently are the leaders of the

republican party, are hesitant? >> well, chuck, i said to you early in the week i'm not concerned about what others are thinking or what they're saying. my conscience would not allow me to keep quiet. and when i was asked my thoughts on this issue, i chose to speak out simply because i think all presidents have what we call, what i call right now moments. inevitably republicans, democrats, every president is going to have a right now moment. i think president trump had a right now moment last weekend, and i don't think he responded the right way. now, he probably disagrees with that, but i don't think he responded the right way. reverend martin luther king said i am an heir to rape, rope, fire and murder. and he said i'm not angry about that, i'm not ashamed of that. he said i'm ashamed of those that would be so inhumane that

they would do that to other human beings. and i think that when circumstances like last weekend happened, i think we need more clarity. a president speaks for himself, for his values in those right now moments and he speaks for the values of our country. and you saw the exodus of many people on the business council who resigned, who said those are not my personal values, those are not our corporate values, and those we don't believe are the values of our country. we had someone from the president's faith council that resigned, reverend bernard out of new york. i'm quite disappointed, chuck, that we didn't have more on the faith council to resign or at least speak out. and so i just felt like when you asked me would i, i said that i

would be delighted to come and share my thoughts. >> let me ask you this. it sounds like you think the president has at least temporarily lost moral authority. how does he regain it? >> well, chuck, i think any president always have to have, you know, having multiple advisers and counselors. i think that is critically important. and not only should you have them, you should listen to them. i don't know of anyone that's in his inner circle that would be able to say to him, mr. president, when it comes to civil rights, when it comes to race issues, let me give you some hindsight, some insight and

some foresight on these issues. and i just don't know if there's -- now, he may have and he just doesn't listen to them. but in the last seven months, he's had more than one right now moment. and when you continue to give the impression that you don't understand the magnitude of being the president, being the leader of the free world and you espouse that not only are those your values but those are the values for your country, people around -- not just people in the united states, but around the world take note. >> it feels like we're stuck. the party is stuck politically. we're a little bit stuck as a country if what you're saying about the president, and i think you're not alone in being concerned about this. how are we going to get unstuck if the president doesn't either repudiate his comments or at least take some step in the direction to at least acknowledge that some people misheard him, to be generous? >> well, chuck, first of all, one thing i will agree with president trump on is this, the

racial divide didn't just happen when donald trump got elected. they didn't just happen when president obama got elected. i think they were probably heightened. i think they were probably intensified under president obama. and i think they carried over into the trump administration. but nevertheless, j.c. watts as an elected official, as a leader, if you will, or president trump or president obama, we all have obligations as leaders to not put salt in the wound, to bring a decency and a respect to the table to say, look, we're going to call evil what it is. we're going to stare evil down. and when you've got people who feel like my 2-year-old granddaughter, because of her skin color, would say she should be eradicated or that she shouldn't be on the face of the earth or we don't want to live

in harmony with her, chuck, she doesn't even know those people. and again, when any of us speak to the side of evil or we maybe unintentionally give the impression that we're siding with the evil, that's a tough ditch to get out of. >> if you were still serving in congress and you were in leadership, how would you handle president trump right now? would you still try to work with him? would you -- if he doesn't repudiate, would you just have this uncomfortable distance from him? what's your advice to paul ryan, to mitch mcconnell, to these folks? >> well, first of all, chuck, i think there's been ample opportunity, to use your word, to repudiate the president over

the last seven, eight months and obviously during the campaign, but he got elected so he's the president. and over the last seven months there's been ample opportunity to disagree with the president on many issues. this is not a time for us to be afraid of being tweeted. you know, this is not a time for us to suppress our convictions. i know a lot of those members of congress, and they don't think like that. they don't think the way the white supremacists or the kkk think. however, chuck, if they're silent, they wear the cap of intentionally or unintentionally, they wear the cap saying we agree with that. thank god for ben sasse and rand paul and john mccain and lindsey graham, you know, those members that's come out to say we totally disagree with that. that's not who we are. that's not the country that we live in.

and it's not the party that we want to represent. >> all right, j.c. watts, i'm going to leave it there. former republican congressman from oklahoma. good to see you, sir. thanks for coming on, i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you got it. yesterday i spoke with one of the early leaders of the civil rights movement, andrew young. he was executive director of the southern christian leadership conference. the sclc. he was the u.s. ambassador to the united nations under president jimmy carter, a congressman, and a two-term mayor of atlanta and today he's chairman of the andrew j. young foundation. when i spoke with mr. young, i began by asking him to put this past week in context. >> well, it's a week of misunderstandings. we originally sought to redeem the soul of america from the triple evils of race, war and poverty. most of the issues that we are dealing with now are related to poverty. but we still want to put everything in a racial context.

the problem with the -- and the reason i feel uncomfortable condemning the klan types is they're almost the poorest of the poor. they're the forgotten americans. and they have been used and abused and neglected. instead of giving them affordable health care, they give them black lung jobs and they're happy. and that just doesn't make sense in today's world. and they see progress in the black community and on television and everywhere else and they don't share it. now, it's not our fault. we've had to struggle from slavery, but black -- while they call themselves militants, but they're not militants. they're chicken. we never tried to take advantage of anybody else. our job was not to put down white people. our job was to lift everybody up together, to come so that we would learn to live together as brothers and sisters rather than perish together as fools.

>> it feels like we're in a moment where we're stuck. we're stuck for a lot of reasons. and the president -- you have some have even said there's a growing cabal of folks who said he already lost his moral authority to be a healer in all of this, to help with reconciliation in all of this because of what he did on tuesday. if he called you this week, what would you tell him? how would you tell him to fix this? >> i don't know what i would say because i think he's caught in a trap. i don't think there are any easy answers. >> what's the trap? >> the trap is that he still politicking and thinking nationally, as a nationalist. and so is almost everybody else, including those who are trying

to think back and blame it on the civil war, which is hundreds of years ago. but the problem we have is that we're not living in a nationalist environment, and that's also his problem personally, that he's -- his business is all global. his business is in a global economy and he's trying to run the country from a national economy. >> you just said you don't know what you'd quite -- you don't know how he can get out of his trap, so what would you say to him now if he's asking you for help?

>> i don't know. but, for instance, i think that he made a mistake of thinking that living was easy and it just is not. i mean it's hell to pass a bill, it's hell to change an attitude, it's hell. almost any changes. and i tell you what, i admire his family, and i think that the thing that the president has to do is think of the american people, all of us, as his family. and i try to think of him as a potential leader not only of the united states of america, but a leader of the free world and of the enslaved world. >> you come from the nonviolence movement that was successful. what do you say to those activists, two generations later, who think violence is the right way to do it? >> no, it's more about five generations later, and there were those who thought violence was the right way then. and they're not around. and they weren't killed by white people.

they were killed by their own anger and frustration and their inability to turn down their emotions and turn on their mind. from 4 years old i was always taught -- my father used to tap me in the face to try to get me upset. if i swung back at him, he'd slap me upside my head. he'd say, see, if you start getting emotional in a fight, you're going to lose the fight. don't get mad, get smart. and that's been serving -- that's served me well. and it served me walking in the midst of the klan alone at night without a gun, without police protection. and the only reason i did it was the only ones that were courageous enough to go there with me and who insisted that i go were women and children. the men, you know, hide behind all kinds of militant solutions. but we have to keep our eyes on the prize. and the prize is not vengeance, not getting even, but the prize

is redemption. >> by the way, i also asked mr. young about the confederate symbol debate and he said removing these symbols can sometimes be more trouble than it's worth. he even cited the georgia flag controversy in the early part of this 21st century. he said because of that, the state lost millions and millions of dollars. when we come back, the shocking video of the charlottesville violence shot by a vice news team embedded with the marchers. and throughout the broadcast we'll bring you comments from people we spoke to this week at the kentucky state fair in louisville. >> history. you can't erase history. like it has to be learned so it doesn't be repeated. so why tear it down, you know? >> i think charlottesville is only a symptom of a much larger problem. >> i think it's a little over the top to try to tear down every part of our history because you can't erase it. this kid makes stains like you would not believe

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welcome back. panelists here, washington post columnist, welcome back. panelists here, washington post columnist, eugene robinson.

peggy noonan. former congresswoman donna edwards of maryland. and stephen hayes, editor in chief of "the weekly standard" and a fox news contributor. welcome, mr. hayes. no offense, steve. peggy is now an nbc news analyst, so with that, welcome to the team. >> thank you. thank you. it's good to be here. >> you this week wrote -- you essentially said -- concur that the president essentially doesn't have moral authority right now. can he get it back? >> you know, i think one of the things we were talking about that you showed in your what i thought were fabulous interviews with j.c. watts, who was so bracing, and andrew young, who seemed so wise and at a grandfatherly distance, but the

subtext of the questioning was has the president lost his moral authority because of the events of the past week. i thought about that, and i think the problem for him is that he did not lose his moral authority because he did not have moral authority, and you cannot lose what you do not have. the whole tale of the first seven months of his presidency was i know i'm unusual, i know i'm different, i know i have things that have been offensive to people in my past. however, i'm going to grow into this figure who is the serious, moral, serious guy. this was another moment in which he didn't do that. i'd also just say quickly, one of the baseline things you want from a president during a crisis is you want a calm in the storm. you want a stable center. you don't want a guy who loses his temper, starts talking like this, gets defensive, and just makes everything tear a little farther apart.

>> gene? >> well, you can't lose -- to have moral authority, you have to have a moral compass. you have to have a moral center. and i've seen no evidence that donald trump has that. he flips from issue to issue, from position to position in what he probably sees as a pragmatic way. it's not pragmatic, it's disastrously amoral. and he -- you know, it was maya angelou who said when somebody shows you who they are, why don't you believe them. so why don't we believe that, in fact, there's some ugliness inside donald trump. why don't we believe that? he's shown it to us time and time again and he showed us this week. >> steve hayes, mitt romney wrote a pretty devastating facebook post and he said, whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoyce, minorities to weep and the vast heart of

america to mourn. his apologyists strain to explain what he didn't mean what we heard. but what we heard is now the reality and unless it is addressed by the president as such there may commence an unraveling of our national fabric. >> here i think is the bigger problem. donald trump is pleased with where we are at this moment. so he looks at this praise that he's gotten from david duke and he looks at the emboldenment of the white supremacists. and even if he has said, and said finally on monday that he doesn't endorse what they stand for, he looks around and by all accounts he's happy about this. steve bannon says this was a turning point for the presidency in a positive direction. so it's not just that the president made this mistake, it's that he's compounded the mistake by the way he's handled it since. there's no indication that he's going to do what j.c. watts has asked him to do, what mitt romney wants him to do, that he's going to say, you know what, i repudiate what i said. there shouldn't be any confusion about how i feel about these groups.

he's happy with this. and for those of us who have fought the identity politics of the left for so many years, it's incredibly discouraging to see this embrace by at least part of the right, of the same odious identity politics. >> i'm going to go back with the same question i asked j.c. watts, andrew young, donna, you will start. i ask any of you to jump in. how do we get past this moment? it feels like if he doesn't move, we're stuck. >> well, i'm not sure. i actually think that while the president may not have any moral authority, the country actually does. i think that we can see that over the course of this last week, the demonstrations, certainly the very moving remarks by susan bro, the mother of heather heyer, which was a call to action. that the country has a moral compass, even if its president right now does not. i believe that that is how we move past this. i mean the fact is that we have a president who started in his early days in business to the

birtherism, to the campaign and now as president, he's the same president as he was the same man. and i don't think that's going to change. >> i think donna is absolutely right. i think we should no longer expect what we generally expect from presidents in moments like this. we're not going to get it from donald trump. i think -- i think of ronald reagan, for example, after the challenger disaster when he came on, that beautiful speech that you wrote for him, slip the bonds of earth and touch the face of god. an amazing moment. something i will never forget. we'll never get that from donald trump. we just won't. >> i actually don't think people really, seriously look to president trump for that. they look for a reaction, they're always curious. they look for a statement. for moral leadership, they look the way they looked in charlotte, south carolina, two

years ago when that bible study group was shot up. and the great moral moment the day afterwards was during the bond hearing of the shooter, because the families of the dead showed up and showed who they were as americans and said it was heartbreaking, i forgive you. i hate what you did, but i love you. >> but presidents amplify those moments and he didn't do that. >> but you know what, there are more of us who don't engage in hate than there are others, and that is our moral authority. >> yes. >> all right. that's a nice note to end on, but we'll be back in a moment. you guys will get into more of the politics of things here. we'll get an inside look at the men behind the march in charlottesville. it's a little tough to watch, i'm just going to warn you. >> jews will not replace us! jews will not replace us! >> i'm here to spread ideas, talk in the hopes that somebody

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welcome ba welcome back. sadly, for some time the name charlottesville may be associated with last week's violence. no amount of cable tv coverage could adequately communicate the motivation, anger and fanaticism of these white supremacists who descended on charlottesville, supposedly in the name of defending a statue. but vice news, embedded correspondent ellie reeve with the marchers. we'll show you a few minutes of

the resulting documentary and bring you a discussion on whether and how to confront hate marchers. but a word of warning, this is tough to watch. [ chanting "jews will not replace us" ] [ chanting "blood and soil" ] >> so when did you get into, as you said, the racial stuff? >> when the trayvon martin case happened, michael brown, tamir rice and all these different things happened, every single case it's some little black [ bleep ] behaving like a savage and he gets himself in trouble. i'm here to talk and hope somebody will come along and do

that. someone like donald trump who does not give his daughter to a jew. >> so donald trump but like more racist. >> a lot more racist than donald trump. i don't think that you can feel about race the way i do and watch that kushner bastard walk around with that beautiful girl, okay? >> so the alt-right is very organized. they have a lot of numbers, shields, protective gear like helmets. we've seen tear gas, water bottles, [ bleep ]. >> i should pour it on my face? >> what just happened? >> they maced me. >> who? >> i don't know. communists. >> oh, my god. >> there are people on the ground being treated by the medics. there were people running up the street screaming and crying. there's many people on the side injured too.

it's a really horrific sound. >> i'd say it was worth it. we knew that we were going to meet a lot of resistance. the fact that nobody on our side died, i'd go ahead and call that points for us. the fact that none of our people killed anybody unjustly i think is a plus for us. and i think that we showed -- we showed our rivals that we won't be cowed. >> but the car that struck a protester, that's unprovoked. >> that's not true, and you know that it's not true. you've seen the video. >> i've seen a video. i don't know much about it. >> i understand that you're -- >> can you describe what the video appears to show? >> okay. the video appears to show someone striking that vehicle. when these animals attacked him again and he saw no way to get away from them except to hit the gas. and sadly, because our rivals are a bunch of stupid animals who don't pay attention, they

couldn't just get out of the way of his car, and some people got hurt. and that's unfortunate. >> so you think it was justified? >> i think it was more than justified. i can't believe -- the amount of restraint that our people showed out there, i think, was astounding. >> that was just three minutes of the full 22-minute documentary that you can see online at vicenews.com. when we come back, is it right to physically confront the alt-right or does that merely lead to more violence of the kind we just saw? we'll have that debate. as we go to break, more from this week's kentucky state fair in louisville. >> i thought that the country had resolved a lot of these things back in 1865 or whenever the civil war was completed. but apparently not. >> i think people have got to stop being so thin skinned. i think that people take fault at everything. the political correctness of the country is just getting way out of control. >> in my opinion, our country needs to have god back. (boy) and these are the lungs. (class) ewwww!

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welcome back. i'm joined now by two gentlemen with very different views on how to respond to white supremacists when they take to the streets. mark bray is a dartmouth professor who has studied the antifa anti-fascist movement. they argue it's necessary to confront hate groups sometimes with force. professor bray is the author of "antifa, the anti-fascist handbook." and richard cohen is the president of the southern university law group. he is an expert in hate groups. and he said direct confrontation leads to the more kind of violence we saw in charlottesville. gentlemen, welcome to you both. i'm going to try to have this sort of debatey, so mark bray, i'll start with you. you seem to be a very small minority who is defending the idea of violence, considering that somebody died in charlottesville. why do you defend confronting in a violent way. >> i think a lot of people recognize that when pushed, self-defense is a legitimate response to white supremacist and neo-nazi violence.

we've tried ignoring neo-nazis in the past and seen how that turned out in the '20s and '30s. the lesson of history is you need to take it with the utmost seriousness before it's too late. we've seen the millions of deaths that have come from not taking it seriously enough and we can see that really the way that white supremacy grows, the way that neo-naziism grows is by becoming legitimate, becoming established, becoming everyday, family friendly, wear khakis instead of hoods. the way to stop that is what people did in boston, what people did in charlottesville. pull the emergency brake and say you can't make this normal. >> richard, why do you believe this is a mistake? >> i think it's a spectacularly bad idea to give one group of people the right to silence another group of people. it's contrary to our values embodied in the first amendment. it's likely to drive the people who are trying to censor underground where they may resort to illegal means to express themselves like bombs. and lastly, it's likely to lead to a terrible spiral. we saw that in berkeley, the antifa came and shut down a

speech. the next time the white nationalists brought their own private army. and so where does something like that stop? yesterday in boston, you know, when we saw thousands and thousands of people peacefully protest, that seemed like a much stronger answer to white supremacy than clubs and guns. >> andy young made the point early in the show that essentially there were those in the civil rights movement that wanted to confront violently and he made the not-so-subtle reminder, they're not here anymore. >> well, there's a big difference between confronting fascism and confronting other forms of violence. we can see that during the '30s and '40s there was no public opinion to be leveraged by nonviolent resistance. if you get fascists to be powerful enough in government, they're simply not going to listen to the public opinion that nonviolence can generate. that's the argument for resistance to nazis. the other point that i'll make is a lot of people don't have

the choice whether they can defend themselves or not. we've seen even before this, as you call it, spiral of violence started, there were attacks on mosques. there were attacks on synagogues. a lot of people are under attack and sometimes they need to defend themselves. it's a privileged position to say that you never have to defend yourself from these kinds of monsters. >> it's not an issue of defending yourself. it's an issue of trying to silence other people. no one is saying that, you know, if you're slugged in the face that you have to sit there and take it. the question here is when white nationalists want to walk down the street, should people stop them. that's a very different issue. it's a very peculiar notion of self-defense to say you can censor people. >> some of the criticism of the antifa movement, mark, is you're actually against speech. that you want to shut down this speech and that borders on censorship. >> let's be clear that antifa are not calling on the government to censor anyone. in fact, they resist the notion of turning to the government or turning to the police, who we've

seen have been infiltrated by white supremacists, who have been sympathetic to the court, a return to law and order notion of fascism. so the idea is the real enemies of free speech are fascists. we've seen that historically. they're the ones that if they have their way will shut down speech. it also differs in the sense that anti-fascists see this as a political struggle. they don't see fascism as a difference of opinion or as kind of a different perspective to consider. instead they see fascists as the enemy. i think that we need to come around to that notion, considering there is no doubt what they have done historically. >> richard, i know the concern is that it makes martyrs out of the white supremacists. >> yes. >> and one could argue that the antifa movement helped the president make his arguments of, quote, both sides. >> sure, sure, sure. >> do you buy that? >> well, look, to some degree there was a lot of ugliness that the antifa brought there. i think they play into the hands of the white nationalists who say, look, we are the ones who are embattled. the answer to bad speech is more speech.

we saw it in boston yesterday. >> we've seen that fail historically. fascism cannot be defeated through speech. we can also see that charlottesville did give attention to white supremacy but it's not like your average american can name any of the groups that were out there. instead they were unable to do the things that we see make movements grow. embed themselves in communities, establish networks, express their message. instead we see, and i can tell you from my book, from my research, there's a lot of empirical examples of anti-fascism working and stopping these groups from growing. >> all right, i've got to leave it there. i imagine the debate doesn't stop here. thank you both for coming on, i appreciate it. coming up, donald trump won the white house with upset victories in three traditionally blue states, wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania. we have some brand new polling on just how vote rs there feel. >> it's really hard to move forward right now because a lot of times the damage is done. >> there's no place in the united states for white supremacy.

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. welcome back. we're joined on our panel now by swrul ys krien. he supported donald trump as a candidate and ands as welcome back. we're joined on our panel now by julius krein who supported donald trump as a candidate and as an advocate of new conservative populism. he founded a quarterly journal called "american affairs" which is largely sympathetic to the president's economic and foreign policy agenda. in today's "new york times" he says he can no longer stand by what he calls this disgraceful

administration. and he writes, mr. trump once boasted that he could shoot someone in the street and not lose voters. well, someone was just killed in the street by a white supremacist in charlottesville. his refusal this weekend to specifically and immediately denounce the groups responsible for this intolerable violence was both morally disgusting and monumentally stupid. julius, welcome to "meet the press." you're split with him on character, obviously not on policy. can he get you back? >> no. and the reason is even though they were always directionally correct in some of the policies like trade, et cetera, in their popularity, and i believe they're actually good policies, but they never had a clue how to go about it. even when they had a chance to do it, they did the opposite on the most visible things like health care, et cetera. that's been the problem from the beginning. if you want to do things like trade, you need to actually have some allies on the left, you need to have allies in the business community, and they have done the exact opposite of that and they have torched any possibility of that whatsoever. >> so charlottesville for you was the straw?

>> it was the straw for -- i don't know how it couldn't be a straw for everybody. >> you know, steve, this is -- the question has always been how long can donald trump keep his core. >> right. >> there is somebody -- here's julius, as idealistic as you can he just said he can't even get him back. >> look, we predicted the demise of donald trump at our own peril, right? everybody has done it a hundred times. >> everybody at this table has done it a hundred times. >> i certainly am guilty. having said that, it's a moment when you have somebody like julius who's distancing himself from donald trump, who still believes the policy but has a problem with the man. we've seen, i think, in donald trump taking shots at jeff sessions, for instance, some of the other people who agree with the kinds of policies that julius' publication embraces take some distance additionally from donald trump. the odd thing to me is that at the time when you might expect the republican party broadly to distance itself from donald

trump, it's really not. you have some individual senators speaking out about individual issues, but the organs of the party, the republican national committee, they're embracing him even tighter. and it's a perplexing moment. >> but we also noticed -- we noticed this last week that the president also attacked mitch mcconnell. he's gone after any number of republican leaders. and to hear this week senator bob corker, who has been right down there with him, and to hear him also say this president has a problem with stability, then that signals to me that there's something deeper that's beginning to go on in the republican party. and i think it's tough to separate character from policy. the way that you accomplish policy is by having character in the white house so that you can drive things that need to draw attention from the left and the right. >> one thing we've always overlooked or a lot of people

have overlooked with the trump phenomenon from the beginning and even now, however unpopular trump is after his horrendous failure, the congressional republicans and congressional democrats are far from popular. and the never trump republicans, the pundits, the leadership, they're exactly right with respect to his character, but they have still been wrong about every significant policy decision for the last 25 years, and that hasn't changed. they have also failed to accomplish any of their own self-professed goals. that's why they had no credibility during the election and no one really respects them now and they can't move independently. >> and that's why donald trump won. i think julius is point out why trump won. >> yeah, certainly those policies are very important. i think a big part of trump's base sticks with him for reasons of identity, for reasons of emotion. they're with him. they think he's with them. and to that extent his policy failures i don't think have made a huge difference for those people. i don't think charlottesville will make a huge difference to a lot of those people. some of them will leave, but i think there's a core. and i think we fool ourselves if we think that that has

dissolved. >> core? i feel like he just read your column, peggy. core. you refuse to call it a base. >> yes. base is here, core is here. i feel that's happening with mr. trump's supporters. one of the things i would like to see is that sometimes senators and congressmen on the republican side come forward and they say interesting words and phrases in opposition to president trump. but sometimes they look a little furtive. it's a little side interview off a fundraiser, do you know what i mean? it's badly lit and your head is down. it is time to come forward standing up straight with pride and disagree with what you disagree with. and when you agree with something that he is doing, say and i'm going to support this. but make a very clear distinction between what you see publicly from the president that you don't like and what is going on in washington right now is a bill that you can support. >> yeah, steve hayes, i look at senator ben sasse.

on one hand probably the best columnist in the united states senate. but is that -- but there's plenty of people who are now going your words are great, but they're just words. >> well, i mean if you're talking about his voting record -- >> no, but i'm talking about all of the criticism. >> see, i'm not critical of people like ben sasse. i think he deserves a ton of credit for standing up and making a moral argument about donald trump. i will say it's an odd time for julius to be attacking never trump republicans given what he wrote today. but i think we're missing to a certain extent a bigger phenomenon here. donald trump is running away from the republican party. republicans are trying to hold on to him desperately. >> yes. >> he is saying to them i'm out. i'm leaving you behind. he's purged a lot of republicans from his white house. you look to what steve bannon told my colleague, peter boyer in this week's "weekly standard" and steve bannon said i'm going to go after establishment republicans and donald trump said to him good, i need that. and we know they have a very broad understanding of

establishment republicans. it includes people like ben sasse. >> all right. i've got to sneak in a quick break. back in 45 seconds, end game. i'll show you those new polls out of the states that gave donald trump the presidency, wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania. what do they think of the president now? >> announcer: coming up, "end game" brought to you by boeing. continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore and inspire. ♪ [vo] progress is seizing the moment. your summer moment awaits you now that the summer of audi sales event is here. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during the summer of audi sales event. (gasp) (singsong) budget meeting! sweet. if you compare last quarter to this quarter... various: mmm.

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tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. >> announcer: "end game" brought to you by boeing. continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore, and inspire. welcome back. we have new polling out of three states whose blue to red switch on election day gave donald trump the white house. our nbc news/marist poll shows only 34% approve of the president's job, 35 in pennsylvania, 36 in michigan. all voted in the high 40s for mr. trump. a huge majority in all three states say donald trump's conduct as president makes them feel embarrassed rather than proud. look at those numbers.

63, 64, 64. that's a lot of trump voters in there. julius, i want to give you the first shot out of here and ask you specifically about the bannon exit. does that add to your concern that this presidency is over, as bannon told "the weekly standard"? >> i've always been fairly critical of steve bannon. even though he was directionally correct on some of the policy its, he had no idea how to do it and only made it worse. so i think he should have been gone long ago. the problem is now it's too late. >> where does this white house go? i just don't know where this white house heads next. >> well, i don't know that anybody does. i'm not sure that anybody inside the white house knows where it goes. you know, with bannon out, general kelly can organize things and direct the flow of people into and out of the oval office, but he can't control donald trump's cell phone. you know, whom he calls, what he tweets, and he can't control the president's instincts. >> by the way, what happens tuesday in phoenix?

if he pardons arpaio at a rally in phoenix? >> i don't know. >> look, i do think, you know, he is well on his way to clarifying the 48% of americans who won't vote for him again or won't vote for republicans. the question for democrats is whether we can get to 50 plus 1, and i think we still have some work to do. >> i have to pause it here. that's all we have for today. this is one week i wish we had another hour. thanks for watching. if it's monday, enjoy the eclipse safely. we'll be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." you can see postgame on the mtp facebook page.

and a very good afternoon to you, i'm richard lui in new york city. on this sunday i want to start with breaking news, sad news for those fans of comedy legend of jerry lewis, best known for his slapstick humor. he has died, according to a statement put out by his family. the comedian passed away peacefully in his las vegas home today. lewis was 91 years old. we're going to look back now. nbc's keith morrison takes a look at jerry lewis' life and legacy. >> this is how most people remember jerry lewis. zany, goofy, nonstop hilarity.