my thanks to matt miller and all our guests who moderate and navigate through these wild times day after day. we're nothing without them. up next, mtp daily with chuck todd. if it's the holidays, it's a special year end edition of mtp daily. good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. as we close the book on 2018 or try to, we're gearing up for a speck. >> caller: -- spectacle unlike any other in modern history. 2019 is going to be wild. why? it's going to be a whole lot about 2020. especially for this president

who filed his re-election paper work the day he took office. think about that. nobody has ever done that before. no sitting president ever launched their re-election campaign that early. everything in the political universe, every legislative decision, every major news story in 2019 will be viewed through the prism of 2020. all this hour, we're going to dive into the big questions that will be answered in 2019 like who will get in. how nasty will it get between house democrats and the president. if things go south on the white house, how are they going to react? we begin with a trump presidency to put it frankly, vulnerable to a re-election disaster. let us count the ways. in a clear rebuke of the president democrats won 40 house seats. the best midterm shows since watergate. the president's legal woes are unprecedented in their size and scope. it ain't just russia anymore. like sharks drawn to blood in

the water, we can see 30 plus legitimate, serious democrat candidates vying for the chance to take trump on. we could see something like we haven't seen in a generation. a serious primary challenge from within the president's own party. this is a president who relishes a fight and is willing to play dirty. on the eve of a mere midterm election he falsely claimed this country was being invaded an politicized the military. he painted democrats as the literal angry mob and he warned donors of violence in his side lost. now imagine what he might do leading up to a contest where his name is on the ballot. like i said, get ready for an unpredictable spectacle unlike any other in modern history. it's right a rn tround the corn. let's bring in the panel.

carrie dan is political editor at nbc news. welcome all. it seems like for us to say boy, 2019 will be wild. 2020. we're still recovering from the mess that is the post-election massacre. what have we learn frds that that tells us how crazy 2019 will be? >> first of all, 2018 will continue into 2019. >> there's no stopping. >> now that democrats control the house of representatives, these investigations are only going to expand into the president. that is also going to be caught up in the presidential election and the primary. i don't think that wii going to see a clear division. i think we'll see more of the same of what we have already seen. only it's going to escalate. >> michael steel previous presidents when they've had a

midterm set back acknowledged it. this one did not. how much harder does that make it for congressional republicans to recalibrate? >> i think every previous president said some reality and humility in accepting a midterm loss. this president only knows one mode, forward, attack, offense. as kneehe feels more threatened is fighting like a cornered badger. i think that will only get worse when he faces democrats in charge of house committees in next year. >> he seems to be oblivious to what happened in november. >> i think it's almost ten million more votes in the popular vote. >> nearly a nine-point advantage. >> that's a large margin. you go into it looking at republicans losing, suburbs in way they haven't lost before and

democrats winni innin inning co educated whi ed white women in they haven't. if republicans can't compete in the suburbs around philadelphia, they can't win. i think the blue wall is being rebuilt because of the she nan begins of this president. >> it's republican voters did not see -- about half of republican voters said this wasn't a referendum on the president and a majority of said they are happy with the results of 2018 election. the republican base has not received any kind of message. what they have heard from the president is we won the senate. they didn't hear like shallacked which is what barack obama said and a thumping which is what george w. bush said. >> it's not i lost the house. it's i held the senate and the house guys that lost, those were the wimps. those were the weaklings who

wouldn't stand with me and that's why they lost. >> if you're a republican senator sitting in a blue state, say colorado, you have to be terrified by that. your fortune is unfortunately tied to donald trump and it's ha r hard to win some of these battleground states. >> the divide between the base of the republican party, donald trump's got a problem. he's so karats caters to this b he's a long way away from the center right independent. >> yeah, i think in 2020 we'll have two issues. we'll have the house and senate races and the presidential races which is a different but same electorate. as far as the base is concerned, the president keeps governing for the base and do the center right independents, do they vote independent. it's going to matter who the

democrats put up. democrats have also not figured out how to run against trump yet. i think it will be very difficult for them because he is a master attacker and it sticks. what he says sticks. >> i do hear that and i respect that. here is my problem with that. i think it's fluke we have a president that lost the popular vote by such a stretch. i think it's a fluke we have a -- >> i don't think it can be duplicated. the way he did that. his electoral vote margin and popular vote deficit doesn't compute. >> that's my point. when you look at wisconsin, pennsylvania. when you look at michigan, the margin there, i just don't think that he's going to be able to win those states with the same

46, 47% he was able to win in the last election. i don't think he will be a i believe to do it. i might be wrong. >> leaving aside the slim possibility that nancy pelosi is the democratic nominee in 2020, there's not going to be a well known democratic nominee than hillary clinton was. >> there's a huge wild card here which is if the economy is not in a strong of a place as it is now, we saw in our latest nbc news poll, we saw a bit of concern from voters about the economy. people saying this past year was good but i'm concerned about next year or two. if the economy is starting a downturn heading into this election, his resilience with those sort of center right republican who is are willing to give him a bit of ground, it's going to evaporate. >> i feel like you are team congress for me. there is members of congress, think of orrin hatch, but the

economy. i call them the but the economy. what do the "but the economy" republicans if the economy starts tanking? who are the ones to watch to see if they walk fully away from him? >> you go. >> i would ask but the economy but gorsich and kavanaugh. the two i would like at are tom tillis. two guys running for re-election in states that are trending. >> colorado is blue. >> those are folks that both on certain issues being willing to demonstrate independence from the president. >> you seeing hints of this ? >> i'm hearing there are members people say they expect their

members to be more vocal, be more critical in the next years. people have told me their members aren't necessarily up in 2020. i think there is a frustration there. the russia probe is getting closer and closer. these investigations as we already talked about are going to expand. if the president and the president hasn't been able to prove that he's able to govern without anything being chaotic. if his base continues -- if his base continues to support him but the base is tightening and tightening and getting back to these center right republicans, they will be critical on how these members respond. >> all right. our last poll shows the base may be down to 34%. big enough to cause problems, not big enough to win elections. you guys are sticking around. with a presidential election on the horizon, when are democratic hopefuls going to jump into the race? we're going to talk 2020

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welcome boack. 2019 isn't just who is running for president but when they will announce. kamala harris said earlier this month that she will make her presidential decision over the holidays. okay. harris needs to make a name for hesita herself to stand out from the pack of senators that are all be going around iowa. sooner may be better for someone like her. on the other hand you have joe biden told reporters that january would be way too early to publicly announce his campaign. he's near the top of the few polls out right now and the thinking may be longer he stays off trail, the longer he can avoid the fray. let's bring back the panel of political experts. it's interesting here, carrie.

ted cruz was first. the senators got in first. the sitting senators. cruz, paul, rubio. then the big jeb bush and donald trump got in in june. hillary clinton announced in april. i think bernie sanders right around the same time. we're in announcement season now, aren't we? >> of course. people are already making trips. people are already working on putting their staffs together. making those kind of early telephone calls to activists in early primary states. we know we'll have debates starting in june. we're not very far out from those debates starting. i think there's an imperative for some of these candidates who don't know what their fund raising ability to be like to get in earlier. one of the big demands of the democratic base is they want someone who can get a lot of small dollar amount donationdon.

i want to make sure i can prove to people i can raise money from regular people and not from super pacs early on in this kpan campaign. >> it seems joe biden and bernie sanders shouldn't think about getting in early. early seems to be not great for them. everybody else need to get in now. >> if you're sitting at the top, you want a shorter campaign. if you're one of the people who are less known, you need a longer campaign. you need to raise your name identification. you need to go through the ri r rigors of it. from the beginning of the campaign in 2008 to the end of that campaign, barack obama was so much better and the rigors helped him be a better candidate in the end. a lot of those names are not well tested, they need to get in early. try to get tested. take a punch and see if you can throw a punch in the primaries. >> elizabeth warren is getting the first vetting, i would argue. she's having to take -- a lot of

people want to say she's showing it. this is your first hit. >> she stepped on the bear trap first. >> it's coming. it's not going to be about who avoids hits, it's about who can survive. >> who can take a punch and get back in there and count punch back. a lot of these guys could have glass jaws. a lot of them come from democratic states that haven't had real contests like this before. >> the capitol hill candidates, there are a dozen of them. whether it's claire mccaskill joked she was in the room with ten democrats and she goes half of them were running. i don't think she was joking. how does that impact the leadership? i think pelosi and especially schumer have a real challenge. >> they do. this challenge especially for schumer started two years ago too. he tried to keep the party

together as much as possible over the past two years. he did a pretty decent job. there were some issues like immigration and some prescription drug things that caused him some headaches. that's only going to escalate. it's not a good sign for any sort of legislating. >> what i thought was great about the poll that came out is it showed us the tiers. tier one was top four candidates. then you had a second tier of the sort of mid-level single digit candidates. then you had the 1 percenters and less which is the other dozen. obviously the big shock was beto o'rourke. >> biden and sanders being at the top is not that interesting. i think it's interesting to look at their favorability within the

party. the democrats still have the warm fuzzies for joe biden. maybe to slightly lesser degree to bernie sanders. they are still likable. the same poll showed that hillary clinton did not have any kind of bounce back. the democratic party is still angry and upset with her. iowa democrats not into michael bloombe bloomberg. you can look at the favorability ratings. i think that o'rourke did show how much momentum he has early. he's got to translate that into doing the work in iowa. >> cornell, november 20, 2006, the buzz name was obama. it was like will he do it? he is clearly the new guy. beto is in that position. >> also remember that barack obama and i was part of that kpa campaign, he was also running

behind hillary 20 points everywhere. >> beto is 20 points behind biden. >> i'm a pollster. the polls now are meaningless. >> o' rourke jumping into double digits in iowa poll is meaningless. >> that's kind of a big deal. >> i'm always curious who is popping in the middle. >> he energizes something in an obama way. you have a lot of insiders running for president now. i like the chances of the outside candidate. >> if you look at this top tier and it's three long time washington senators and i realize beto is a congressman but he's not thought of as a washington insider and he's a generation younger than the rest of that top tier, that's a good place to be. >> beto is young. go to bernie sanders.

a i've been trying to figure out can bernie replicate what he did in 2016? i don't know if he can. >> he never really stopped running. he has a lot more competition. he was the new thing four years ago. i don't have an answer for that. it's going to be hard. it will be a challenge. >> i have a great deal of respect for senator sanders. truth of the matter is, if he couldn't find way to to beat hillary clinton the last time around, i don't see how he hobbles it together and beats this field. i would argue -- >> you don't think he can make the case that the nomination should have been his. she basically jerry rigged it. >> barack obama came out and beat her in that process. how does bernie sanders do better in south carolina? how does he do better in

georgia? >> you just pointed out why that's the most intriguing candidacy if it doesn't happen would surprise me. up ahead, president trump passes with flying colors according to president trump. passes with flying colors according to president trump i just got my cashback match, is this for real? yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go! whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover.

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welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with president trump's report card. he's a model student. just ask him. >> what grade do you give yourself so far? >> i give myself an a plus. i would say i would give myself an a plus and so would many other people. >> seriously. you should see his transcript. >> i think it's now acknowledged what a great job we've done. we get an a plus. >> i've done a good job. >> i would give myself an a plus. >> i did a good job. >> i give myself an a plus. >> they don't give me credit. >> they don't give me credit. >> we have a plus. >> did i do a good job? >> i'm the best. i'm good. >> trump doesn't get any credit. >> i love to get credit. >> that was true statement. honestly, it's clear he does his homework. >> if you go back to the civil war, it was the republicans that really did the thing. >> this is an island sitting in

the middle of an ocean. it's a big ocean. it's a very big ocean. >> there used to not be climate change. there used to be global working. that wasn't working too well. it was getting too cold all over the place. >> we have some bad hombres here and we're going to get them out. >> i told the president if he had a healthieier over the last0 years, he might live to be 200 years old. >> a pluses across the board. we decided to tack on a few more pluses as a holiday gift. ♪ ♪ >> careful with that gpa.

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welcome back. divided government isn't going to be the only thing gumming up works at the capitol in 2019. a lot of members of congress will be angling for a promotion to the presidency. there will be 14 members house and senate thinking about running for 2020. 14 of them. get ready for each of these democrats to try to stand out from the pack. remember what ted cruz was doing. for the republican side, you get my point. out going senator tweeted as we vote tonight, just realized i was surrounded by no less than five presidential candidates and there were only ten of us in there. this is going to get interesting. we are back.

just how bad is it for leadership? >> it's god awful. you're lucky if it stays to i am spartacus. the first act of ted cruz campaign was shutting down the government in 2013. because he lacked the power to do that in the united states senate he forced the u.s. house of representatives to do it which was not fun for those of us working with the speaker in the house republican leadership. you have some basic viss who says he needs to stop joe m manchin. >> they will have to talk about it a lot especially in the era of trump where they will be forced to react to whatever trump is doing on a daily basis

for reporters on capitol hill. the presidential campaign will seep into everything. not just tgovernment but every single thing they say and what they have to respond to on a daily basis. one thing i'll watch out for in the coming year is just immigration. this is what trump ran on. this will be a campaign issue in 2020. these progressive democrats they will give the president nothing. >> let me put a video buffet of the congressional democrats. a montage we put together of them talking about 2020. take a listen. >> that's a very important moral question that i've been thinking about. >> we're seriously thinking about it. we're seriously talking about it with family and friends. >> i do think it's important that there are people running from the midwest. i'm concerning it. >> i'm up for re-election so i will be running in 2020. >> i mean, you know, i don't know. i don't know. i'm not ruling it out.

>> after november 6th, i will take a hard look at running for president. >> it's not an easy decision. we got to determine what kind of grass roots support exists. that's what we're looking at now. >> i do see a path. i am considering it. >> do they all have a first name that's electable? >> we're in a weird time. if you're an outsider, i still think -- i'm still interested about if there's a candidate out there who can be anti-establishment outside of washington, i think it benefits them.

the primary electorate will be for someone who can galvanize their energy and anger. >> they have voting records that will be picked apart and will be fodder. any democratic operative who is not fan of beto o'rourke will put forth he's voted with the president for 30% of the time. it's way of trying to take down an opponent. >> this gets me to larger question here. what is the mood of the democratic primary electorate in that do they want to fall in love or do they want competency? obviously they want both but if you can't get both.

>> polling after polling is we want the candidate who is best position to beat the republican. then in truth of the matter is the candidate they fall in love with. it doesn't have to be. in 2008 hillary clinton was the best candidate to win in all the polling. they fell in love with barack obama. i give a nod to a candidate who can win the heart of voters. >> they can't do this logically. >> no. this is the reason the house democrats were looking for recruits to take over the house in 2008 they went with veterans. small business people. people who had no record in elected office. nothing that you can point to of that's seven-eights of what i wanted. they don't need to be good. they need to be perfect. >> i understand why so many

donor, the race is frozen. it's frozen until beto announces what he will do. donors are in love with him for the fact it's a blank slate. >> it's blank slate. he's proven to raise a lot of money and democrats can fall in love. i honestly believe him when he said during his texas campaign he will not run for president but since then, he's walked back dramatically. i think that's because he realized what he is able to do. >> when is the last time democrats fell in line and won the presidency? when they fall in line or when they fall in love, barack obama, jimmy carter and bill clinton. >> you can make the argument of

kerry. these were not candidates they wanted to be out there. they thought we would stand no chance with beto. stacy abrams and beto transformed their states and brought in new people to this process. >> both abrams and o' rourke had this quality they thought they may have agreed with them 100% on the issues and they didn't. it's very obama like. >> stick with us. might not be only democrats president trump has to worry about in 2020. he's going to get a primary challenger. which republican might take him on. because of smoking.

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i'm 85 years old in a job where. i have to wear a giant hot dog suit. what? where's that coming from? i don't know. i started my 401k early, i diversified... i'm not a big spender. sounds like you're doing a lot. but i still feel like i'm not gonna have enough for retirement. like there's something else i should be doing. with the right conversation, you might find you're doing okay. so, no hot dog suit? not unless you want to. no. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today with td ameritrade®. welcome back. 2019 will be about the vast field of democrats looking to defeat president trump in 2020. it could also be about a handful of republicans who are thinking about challenging the sitting president. john kasich and jeff flake are among the republicans who visited early primary states. they have hinted at a potential run in 2020.

while a number of republican senators who lost to donald trump say they will endorse his re-election efforts, you do have other senators going, you know. take ben sass. susan kcollins says she's open o seeing a challenge to the president from her own party. >> it's really not my choice. it's the choice of those individuals but i see nothing wrong with challengers. that is part of our democratic system. >> panel is back. let me play another clip. here is bob corker. he is another one who could primary the president. he's retiring. here is what he said. >> do you think that president trump should be primaried in. >> we have got to remember what the republican party is. >> that's not a yes or no

answer. >> i don't know -- i want to get away from here and think about it. this is a every day in the h hallway question. what is not happening is the standard republicanism that we have had in our country for many, many years. it's very different. >> michael steel, this is the argument i hear from some republicans who say we know it's impossible to defeat him but somebody's got to plant the flag. what the republican party should be post-trump. >> primaries are way of forcing accountability on a president. keeping them more true to the values of the party and this president has not been true to the values of the republican party. the second way is the chances of a republican premaimary candida running against trump depend on the investigation, the results. if we're looking at a situation where close family members and

associates of the president are indicted, we're continue pi inte special elections. the economy is not doing well, it becomes difficult to make a case and the idea that you might do better with a different republican at the top of the ticket may seem more and more pile i appealing. >> could tom cotton go, i love him but i can't imagine he would win. >> tom cotton is definite -- i shouldn't say definite. he also wants to run for president. >> correct. >> does he challenge the president? i don't know. that gets to your point if trump is so weak then maybe a trump-like figure comes in and -- >> can i jump in on this conversation? >> yeah. >> when you look at some of the post-election stuff and you look at republican voters who cast a vote this time around, they are

much more pro-trump than pro-republican party. i think this is a party of trump. >> we have been studying this data. the trump wing of the party is growing. here is what it was the last time we had it. who republican voters support. do they support the president. 57% more so. are they a trump supporter than republican. 57% of the republicans kwacall themselves that. >> my final point to that. you take him on the same way that barack obama took on hillary clinton by expanding the electorate. what's a republican who can expand the republican electorate. >> if you're looking at a conservative idealist protest candidate whether that's jeff flake or ben sass or a john kasich, that's one thing.

if 2019 goes badly is where you start seeing tom cottons or other republicans who think they may have a future in the party taking this on. >> institutions are not as important as american politics like the rnc and dnc. state parties matter. if they're not allowing a primary challenge to go forward, we're seeing that already. the seeds of that in south carolina. the state party could have power in keeping one of those people off the ballot entirely. >> that's the point here. he's not going to lose the nomination barring something we don't know. the question is, does ben sass want to make a point? >> or the first step in ronald reagan winning was losing the 1976 nomination to gerald ford. >> most sitting president, the last thing they want is a primary challenge. i know he wouldn't want it. this sitting president would probably say great, let's debate john kasich. >> trump is at his best when

he's attacking. >> when he has an opponent. a foil. >> i think early on he did well because of the crowded field of republicans. i think one-on-one with kasich is tougher than you might think. >> he does extremely well at creating a handful of moments in a debate that get replayed over and over. he never wins the debate. he wins the coverage of the debate. i think he's good ant thbout th even when it's a one-on-one. >> i take your point there. he's better about finding a moment. >> i think it's tougher to define that moment with a guy like kasich on the other side. >> the other half of the conversation becomes democrats, i had a presidential candidate. somebody who wants to run say to me, okay, how do i both go after trump and avoid getting sucked into trump? i said that's a great question. i'm thinking you need to answer that question, don't you.

this person says yes. >> a republican primary opponent would have that problem times 100 million. >> the democrats, how do they avoid trump and run against trump? >> we had this moment three or four months ago where the narrative is democrats want somebody who will fight donald trump. get down in the mud. it was like the michael avenatti small boomlet. >> who? >> right. it's like what if a beto or an a amy clowho can rise against it. >> you have to throw the primary voters red meat. >> you have to throw punches all the time. >> you do. >> trump is going to want to be an unofficial referee of the democratic primary.

>> he will want a foil even before the democratic party has chosen one. that's why for the next year it will be nancy pelosi with a bit of chuck thrown in on the side but mostly pelosi. >> he didn't have a good match up against her. >> the next one nastier. he didn't enjoy losing. >> we can have a debate about nancy pelosi's effectiveness. she might be uniquely qualified to take -- think about her generation, she's dealt with men like him her whole life. >> a woman who grew up in baltimore, machine politics. she's tough in a way he hasn't dealt with. >> this may be -- she may be a foyle he regrets. >> and trump going against a powerful woman is not trump's best matchup. >> it never is. he defeated hillary clinton, but in some ways he defeated the

clinton part of hillary clinton. all right. stick around. because then we get to have a little bit of fun. not that this wasn't fun. but it's a new year. you have to make some predictions. we'll share ours in 2019 and get abused on social media for all the predictions, next. giggling/) gotcha! (man) ah! (girl) nooooooooooooo! (man) nooooo! (girl) nooooo... (vo) quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty picks up messes quicker, and is two times more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. (man and pirate girl) ahoy! (laughing) (vo) bounty, the quicker picker upper.

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we're at the end of the year, we're at an end of the year show. i grew up watching end of the year shows. i love the prediction portion, even though they're meaningless. we asked all of you here, who is the one person that's on everybody's 2020 candidate list who will not run? well, three of you said, probably the obvious choice, joe biden. and one of you wouldn't answer, cornell. [ laughter ] i understand why everybody else picked biden. how does biden survive a long primary? can he jump in, in november? there's all sorts of ways, but why are you not convinced? >> we have 30 people running, and so it's -- who knows who's going to jump in? i think it's too easy to say biden. you know, if you asked a lot of people, they think cory booker is going to run. is kamala going to run? >> you think she's less certain

than people think? >> i think it's less person than people think. it's hard to run for president and she just came into the senate. >> i'm going to reverse the question and let you each have something. if you could have three tickets, if you could say one of these three will be the nominee, if you could give you three candidates to pick, who would it be? i'll give you three. who can go first? i'm trying to wrap up a show here. pick a trio. >> beto, kamala and shared brown. >> tim ryan, kamala harris and shared brown. >> i'll throw coklobuchar in there. >> i would love to have a woman, but i'm skeptical, but i'll say harris. >> i'll admit, my three tickets,

beto, warren, and harris would be the three for me. let me go to the other dre dictions here. of bide b, san, sanders and war who will still be an active candidate when we do this show again? >> i said elizabeth warren. there's a lot of skepticism about biden running and the way he's talked about his run has always focused on his family. that's going to be a big consideration for him. for elizabeth warren, she might have the base to keep in. i'm not sure she's going to be the nominee. >> you all said none. >> i can be quick here. i think the front-runner status right now for those three is the kiss of death. i can see none of them surviving. >> they need the next generation. >> you thought sanders and warren will be in? >> yeah. i think that they've done the work. i think they that might not be front-runners but they'll still be in. >> if sanders runs, he ain't

getting out until the convention. >> they're going to make it through iowa. >> the other thing that's going to happen in 2019 is the surprise senate retirement. it always happens. probably more than one. so give me your one? >> i wanted to say mcconnell. >> mitch mcconnell is up, and some democrat is going to raise a ton of money running against him. >> susan collins. she just does not seem to enjoy this end of the year chaos in particular, and the whole year basically. >> i think susan collins also, but i could see the republican from colorado, corey gardner. >> there's a little frustration from tom tillis. i could see him saying i want none of this anymore. >> i buy the tillis before gardner. sass, i definitely agree. all right, guys, that was a lot of fun. thank you for having some fun with me. that's all we have for this

special edition of "mtp daily." we wish you a very happy holiday season. hope your bowl teams are winning. we want to share with you all the people, all of them who make our show happen. an actual credit roll, go. ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ welcome to a very special holiday edition of "the beat." tonight, we'll look at a lot of different things, what lies ahead in the russia probe, we'll break down how democrats are going to fight trump in court, and we'll have some fun with a special year-end fallback. but we begin with robert mueller's probe clearly closing in on someone you may have heard about, individual one, donald trump. more trump associates have been caught up in this investigation as we head into the new year. michael cohen, the man who once said he would take a bullet for trump, he's cooperating with mueller and he's also headed to jail. donald trump'sam