accountability on racial justice that he has shown. but that is why you don't stop marching. you don't stop talking. you don't prejudge anything. but you don't stop it from proper judgment. that does it for me. thanks for watching. see you back here next saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. until then, keep the conversation going. like us on facebook.com/politics nation and follow us on twitter. up next, "meet the press" with chuck todd. this sunday, battle lines. michael cohen tells congress what he thinks of president trump. >> he's a racist. he is a con man and he is a cheat. >> and provides new areas for investigators to look at from jared and ivanka to mr. trump's tax returns. republicans attack cohen. >> you lied. >> he lies. >> you are a liar. >> liar, liar, pants on fire. >> and president trump tells a conservative conference what he thinks of all of the investigators. >> and all of a sudden they're

trying to take you out with bull [ bleep ]. >> i'll talk to the vice chairman of the senate intelligence committee, democrat mark warner and jim jordan. plus democrats and activists are arguing over impeaching the president. >> impeachment of this corrupt and lawless president is the first step. >> impeachment is a divisive issue in our country and let us see what the facts are. >> debating purity tests for democratic members of congress and disagreeing over what's more important to them in 2020. a candidate who shares their views or one who simply can beat president trump. and finally, no deal. the president walks away without an agreement with kim jong-un on nukes and sanctions. >> sometimes you have to walk and this was just one of those times. >> so what happens now? joining me for insight and analysis are helene cooper. pentagon correspondent for the "new york times" and matt bai from yahoo news.

nbc news national editor heidi prezbela and editor of commentary. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning. to be fair we've lost count of the number of times we've been tempted to say that this or that week was the most consequential of the trump presidency, but this week certainly is worthy of consideration. consider we saw president trump's former lawyer and fixer michael cohen testify before congress about alleged illegal activity by mr. trump as president. we saw house republicans ignore all of cohen's charges and fiercely attack cohen's credibility. we saw the hanoi summit with kim jong-un fall apart with no agreement. we saw an emerging controversy over how jared kushner received his top secret security clearance. we saw the house vote to reverse

the president's national emergency declaration. yesterday we saw a president who seemed both energized by his crowd at a conservative conference and simultaneously unnerved by everything that's happening around him. in the longest speech of his presidency before an adoring cpac audience, mr. trump was eager or maybe desperate to talk about every success and every controversy and every grievance of his presidency. negotiating with china. i'm building the wall and we got rid of the individual mandate. religious liberty. lying james comey. socialism. the collusion delusion. those cara vans. a national emergency. we're being invaded by drugs, by people, by criminals. phony charges of russia, russia, russia, russia. >> the manic performance complete with expletives seemed like a fitting end to a week like few others in mr. trump's presidency. >> what i heard this morning, president trump is waiting for the mueller report. >> with mueller's report expected any day, president trump delivered an agitated,

122-minute speech to conservative activists on saturday, railing against the special counsel. >> now robert mueller -- [ applause ] -- never received a vote. >> and his own justice department for leaving mueller in place. >> and as you know, the attorney general says i'm going to recuse myself. you put the wrong people in a couple of positions and they leave people for a long time that shouldn't be there and all of a sudden they're trying to take you out with [ bleep ], okay? with [ bleep ]. >> he also attacked his former lawyer michael cohen. >> he's a stone cold killer. he's a brutal man. >> i am no longer your fixer, mr. trump. >> in a riveting public spectacle this week cohen turned to his former boss and signaled a new phase in the russia probe. cohen alleged that president trump paid hush money to adult film actress stormy daniels, a crime while in office. >> there are 11 checks that i

received for the year. >> he alleged that roger stone alerted mr. trump ahead of time in july of 2016 that wikileaks e-mails were coming. >> rona graf yelled out that roger is on line 1. >> as well as jared kushner reviewed his false testimony to congress last year about the trump tower moscow project in advance. >> because mr. trump had made clear to me through his personal statements to me that we both knew to be false and through his lies to the country that he wanted me to lie. >> cohen also said federal prosecutors in new york are looking at what the president said to him after they searched his office last year. >> this topic is actually something that's being investigated right now by the southern district of new york, and i've been asked by them not to discuss it. >> and cohen directed congressional investigators toward potential key witnesses including the president's former employees and family members. democrats were quick to seize on

the president's alleged crimes. >> we saw evidence really of a crime spree. >> while some democratic activists pressed for impeachment. >> impeachment of this corrupt and lawless president is a first step. >> top democrats are putting the brakes on insisting that for now, they will continue existing investigations, but stop short of calling them impeachment hearings. >> not one person, not one person on our side even mentioned the word impeachment. not one. >> instead it's republicans seeking to energize their base who are enthusiastically embracing the "i" word. >> impeachment. >> impeachment. >> yesterday it was michael cohen laying the predicate for the democrats and the crazy impeachment plans. >> joining me now is mark warner of virginia. welcome back to "meet the press". >> thank you, chuck. >> you also interviewed michael cohen this week. i think you had him the day before his house testimony. >> nine hours. >> nine hours. fair enough and we had pretty much an eight or nine-hour

public hearing so how was the exchange behind closed doors from what the public saw on wednesday? >> first, let's realize that this is a guy who was back before us because he had lied to our intelligence committee about the fact that the ongoing negotiations on a tower to be built in moscow went way beyond what he said and frankly what donald trump said, and i do think it's curious that mr. trump has spent more than a decade trying to build a building in moscow, didn't get much traction, suddenly becomes a candidate for president and he's got all kinds of offers. >> is that the only thing he lied about that you know of right now? >> we've got the three things that are in the public domain that i think we need further investigation. how long were the negotiations going on for a trump tower in moscow. obviously, beyond january did they go beyond even the convention and the president's lawyer rudy giuliani said they may have gone on all of the way

through the election. i think most voters would have liked to have known that piece of information before they voted. secondly, this allegation -- >> is that a crime, though? >> not necessarily a crime. i'll let lawyers make a determination on that, but it would be a relevant fact that a candidate for president was trying to negotiate with a foreign power, russia offering the leader of that foreign power, putin, a $50 million free penthouse. i think most americans would say that's a relevant piece of information. the other two pieces of information we need to know more on is mr. trump said he didn't know about the wikileaks dump of information detrimental to clinton. mr. cohen says he was in the office when trump took a call from julian assange right a day or two before the dump of the information. we need to find out if that's true or not, and then we also heard testimony that donald trump jr., at least, indicated to donald trump about the

infamous now trump tower meeting that included his -- the president's son, the president's son-in-law, the president's campaign manager. again, that meeting was not about russian adoptions. it was about offering dirt on hillary clinton. we need to find out if all those things are true. >> was your entire focus of your portion of michael cohen only about the russia portion or did you also spend time in the trump organization and the various outside of russia parameters that you've been focused on? >> some of those facts came up. some of the tawdry and inappropriate behavior, some of the payoffs, but that was not something that we focused on. our investigation is the only bipartisan investigation that is still focused on counterintelligence. what happened in 2016, what level of collaboration, collusion, how do i make sure it doesn't happen again in the future? >> why do you believe michael cohen is suddenly telling you the truth when he lied last time? >> this guy does not have a lot of veracity. we need to get documents. we are receiving additional documents from him to prove or

disprove, but i'd also say donald trump doesn't exactly have a great record of telling the truth, as well. >> i want to play something that your -- that the chair of the committee said not too long ago, richard burr. take a listen. >> i'm not sure how to put it any clearer than i said it before. we have no factual evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. >> what does that mean? no factual evidence? >> again, richard burr and i have worked together very well and will continue to work together. i think there is enormous amount of evidence and what you do with that evidence, where it leads -- i'm reserving my judgment. >> is it fair to call it circumstantial right now? >> let's go through the litany of what we know. the ongoing negotiations about trump tower, well into the campaign. i believe the fact that mr. trump knew about the dump of the wikileaks material. the fact that clearly the meeting at trump tower meeting which was not described appropriately in terms of offering dirt. the president's campaign manager

sharing information, polling information with the russians. the earlier instance where russians were offering through one of the campaigns papadopoulos information, to me, that's all evidence. where that evidence leads in terms of a conclusion and we still have other key people to come back, i'm going to reserve judgment until i'm finished, but there's no one that could factually say there's not plenty of evidence of collaboration or communications between trump organization and russians. >> there is a report in the "washington post" that indicates that your committee and the house intelligence committee that one other angle to michael cohen's testimony has to do with a pardon. or pardon shopping. and what more can you tell us about the issue? are you investigating whether a pardon offer was serious or not to michael cohen? >> chuck, i cannot comment on what went on in the classified setting. >> why? i say this because at some point it's starting to become, you know, it comes across as innuendo when you can't say certain things and yet we see reports about it.

>> when we receive information in a classified setting we will investigate things that come up in classified settings and there will be an appropriate time to have the reveal, but when we hear things in a classified setting that's the duty i took on as vice chairman of the intelligence committee. >> you won't say whether this washington post story is correct "washington post" is correct? >> i won't comment about it. >> i want to play a sound bite by the president yesterday. take a listen. >> if you use your rights and you use your power, article 2, it's called obstruction, but only for trump, but nobody else. >> he's basically saying his firing -- this is about the firing of james comey, that you cannot interpret that under any way as obstruction. is that fair? >> well, again, i'll let lawyers make better judgments but i'll tell you this. an investigation into the

president, his organization and his campaign, involvement with russians, a foreign power and a foreign adversarial power and a power that this president has said nary a negative word about, a russian despot that he, frankly kowtowed to in front of the whole world in that hearing -- in that public testimony, public hearing in helsinki, i think that's all inappropriate. and the notion that this president has done everything possible to undermine that investigation from firing comey to trying to undermine mueller to me that does not seem appropriate. >> do you believe a russian conspiracy without an actual evidence of a crime being committed, of a crime being committed is enough to oust him from office? >> you're going to get me into those conversations where i've not reached a final conclusion. what i do know is this. i've been around politics a long time just as you have. >> yeah. >> i have never in my lifetime

seen a presidential campaign from either party have this much outreach to a foreign country and a foreign country that the intelligence community and our committee has validated intervened massively in our election and intervened with an attempt to help one candidate, donald trump and to hurt another candidate -- >> it sounds like you've made a conclusion. you're close to a conclusion. >> those are the facts that we've all agreed to on a bipartisan basis. what level of cooperation, collusion, cooperation, we've clearly got repeated efforts from the russians. we clearly have evidence from donald trump's own son saying he would welcome that information, but again, i'm going to reserve my final judgement until we collect all of that information and candidly, some of the people we want to see are still caught up in the mueller criminal investigations and those criminal investigations need to conclude before we get a chance to talk to him. >> mark warner, the top democrat on the senate intelligence committee, thanks for coming on.

sharing your views, sir. much appreciate it. >> at that michael cohen hearing, they defended president trump largely by attacking cohen who has admitted to lying to congress and no one was more on message than the ranking member of that committee, jim jordan. >> when you have a history of lying over and over and over again and frankly, you don't take my word for it, take what the court said. take what the southern district of new york said, cohen did crimes that were marked by a pattern of deception and that permeated his professional life. >> a pattern of deception for personal greed and ambition and you just got 30 minutes of an opening statement where you trashed the president of the united states of america. >> republican congressman jim jordan of ohio joins me now. congressman jordan, welcome to "meet the press." >> good to be with you. >> why do you think trump hired

michael cohen as a close confidant for the last decade? >> he said it was a real estate deal ten, 12 years ago. why he hired him, i don't know. michael cohen is going to prison in two months for four crime, one of which is lying to congress and yet the democrats made them the star witness, the first announced witness of the 116th congress is a guy who is going to prison for lying to congress and guess what? he came in last wednesday and did what? lied to congress. six different times. >> the president of the united states, the lead attorney for him and unofficial political adviser for a decade. >> i don't know about a -- >> you just described. you just described. we can --? >> he took credit for launching a campaign single-handedly. >> does it bother you that donald trump kept this man as a confidant for everything you've described him as, why did he keep him as a confidant? >> you'd have to ask -- >> does that bother you? >> not really. >> why? >> it just doesn't. what i know is what the president's done is two years as president of the united states. the democrats never seem to want to talk about this. think about the two years under president trump's leadership. taxes reduced, regulations

reduced, economy growing at an unbelievable rate, lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. gorsuch and kavanaugh on the court and out of the iran deal, hostages home from north korea and a new nafta agreement coming. that's what i focus on is the amazing record that we've seen under the leadership of president trump and you guys want to talk about a lawyer that worked for him for ten years and told all kinds of lies and six of which he said on the witness stand last week. >> do you believe michael cohen when he said there was no collusion with russia? >> i believe a few things that michael cohen said, my name is michael dean cohen and i believe that. >> do you believe he's never been to prague? >> that's something you can verify. you can look at passports and look at travel and that undermines the whole dossier which remember was the basis for this whole crazy investigation to begin with. >> that isn't the fact. >> it's a big fact. >> it's something -- >> we've had this debate before. >> it is something that you

believe but it has not been proven. >> they got the fee is a report to spy on the trump campaign. >> it was never proven. when you got these papers released to the public you found out that that wasn't the truth. >> yes, it is. yes, it is, and they didn't tell the court that the clinton campaign paid -- never forget what happened there. the clinton campaign paid the law firm perkins who hired gps and hired a foreigner and what did that foreigner do? >> you left out the republican donor that got the whole thing. >> put the dossier together that the fbi used to get the warrant to spy on the trump campaign. >> why do you not want this investigation concluded by robert mueller? >> i want it concluded. i want it over with. >> you continue to question it and interfere with it so how is it ever going to end if you question and interfere with it? >> i'm not questioning and interfering with it. it's going to be public. the president said he wants it to continue. at some point there will be some investigation and the attorney general bill barr will decide, will follow the law and release what he wants to release or maybe release the whole thing. that's going to happen. we all know that. >> you want it completely

released? donald trump jr. does. >> yeah, i'm open to whatever the attorney general decides. he should follow the law and the regulations. i tend to think these would err on the side of the transparency and i'm for that all along. i want the 302s, i want that information released so we get to the bottom of it so the american people can know what happened when they launched this thing. >> do you believe they interfered with the 2016 election? >> everyone said -- >> do you believe it? >> of course, that's what the intelligence committee has told us, but there is -- >> do you believe they did it to try to help donald trump win? >> who knows why they did it? but there is zero evidence -- >> do you believe it's possible that russians for their own foreign policy reasons wanted trump not clinton? >> i don't know. i mean, they can do whatever they're trying to do, who knows what their motives were? what i know is there is not one bit of evidence to show any type of coordination, collusion, conspiracy whatsoever between the trump campaign and russia to impact the election, but -- but

there is all kinds of evidence to show that the clinton campaign worked with russians to impact the elections via the whole thing i just described where they hired the perkins coie law firm and hired fusion and hired a foreigner, christopher steele who communicated with russians and put together the fake dossier. >> why do you think that donald trump hired paul manafort with ties to russian mobsters, and why do you believe that he was hired to work for free for the trump administration? >> i don't know. >> he had ties with the russian government. why does -- does that deserve scrutiny? >> it's getting all kinds of scrutiny for goodness sake. mr. manafort's been indicted. it's getting all kinds of scrutiny. >> do you believe it deserves scrutiny? >> that's what the special counsel is doing. that's his call not my call. so, yeah, if they're looking at all of that that's fine, but that's not what this wednesday was about. this was a guy coming in who has zero credibility and who has lied and is going to prison for lying and one of those lies was lying to congress previously and guess what he did? he came in front of congress and told at least, at least six

different lies. >> you were very concerned about a lot of the lying. does it bother you that paul manafort, george papadopoulos, michael flynn, michael cohen, all these people around the president, all these people around the president has all been convicted or pled guilty to lying? to either investigators or congress. there are a lot of liars around the president, why? >> here's what bothers me most. jim comey, director of the fbi fired. amy -- andy mccabe fired. >> you're upset that he was fired? >> no, listen, lied three times under oath and andrew mccabe is under investigation and demoted and left by the investigation by the justice department. peter strzok, demoted then fired. lisa page, fbi counsel demoted and fired. two of those people kicked off the mueller team. >> why does the president surround himself with people who can't tell the truth? you're not answering my question. why does not president surround himself with people who can't tell the truth to law enforcement or congress? >> where have you seen an agency who all five people, launched and ran the russian investigation, have either been

fired, demoted or left the fbi, the top people? >> again, you haven't answered the question. why has the president surrounded himself with people who cannot tell the truth to law enforcement or congress? >> the president's surrounded himself with people that maybe he shouldn't, i don't know, but when he was running his campaign mr. manafort was there and part of the campaign and he was involved with republican politics before. why he selected him i don't know. what i am concerned about is our committee is supposed to be the government oversight committee and we're supposed to look at abuses when government agencies do the kind of things i think they did at the top level of the fbi that's what i'm focused on. >> i'm curious to hear what you have to say about this comment by michael cohen. >> i'm responsible for your silliness because i did the same thing that you're doing now for ten years, and i can only tell people the more people that follow mr. trump as i did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that i'm suffering. >> are you at all concerned you're blind to something here? >> no. no. my focus is on getting to the

bottom of things, getting to the truth. that's what we're supposed to don on the oversight committee when we do investigations. that's my focus. as i said the record under the president's leadership is simply amazing. the things accomplished for the country economically and in a host of areas, and foreign policy as well. >> can you say the president has not always told the truth on russia? >> i don't think the president has lied about russia at all? >> not once? not about the trump tower moscow project? he didn't mislead the country on that? >> even james comey, when we deposed said up until the day he was fired there was no evidence. no single bit of evidence to show any type of -- >> why do you think the president didn't want to tell the country that he had a trump tower moscow deal in the works? >> i don't know that. the president said one thing and then you've got michael cohen saying something else. >> jim jordan the top republican on the oversight committee. i'm guessing with he do this again. >> we will. >> thank you very much. when we come back the

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and even movie tickets. just say get "dragon tickets". welcome back. panel is here. matt bai from yahoo news and helene cooper. pentagon correspondent for "the new york times." our nbc news, heidi prezbela and appearing on "meet the press" for the first time which is an error on my part, john podhoretz, editor of commentary. i feel like i'm saying this. you're the first timer so i'll give you the first shot at this. i want to put up peggy noonan from this weekend because it was a fascinating column overall sort of trying to explain trump world and also what she saw. here's what she writes on the cohen hearings. what is amazing, though, such a rebuke and such an attack on the essential nature of a president and by an intimate had no equal in our history. there was a cancer growing in the president. he didn't say richard nixon was the cancer.

j. pod? >> okay. so michael cohen, if the fdny, southern district of new york or whoever hadn't broken down the door of his hotel room in the regency hotel, you know, in the summer of 2018, would he have said these words that he said this week? of course not. he threw himself on the mercy of the world that hates trump having spent ten years doing nothing but defending trump. so his, you know, his moralistic attack on trump has to be taken with, you know, not a grain of salt, but a mountain of salt. having said that, the weird thing i think about the cohen testimony is that despite jim jordan saying he was a terrible liar, in some ways he helped trump on the larger question of russia and impeachment by saying that trump did not formally -- did not say i want you to lie to congress by saying that he had

attempted to purchase the videotapes mentioned in the dossier and had decided from that experience that they did not exist. so, you know, that and a couple of ore other things as somebody who said i hate trump now and he's terrible and everything is terrible, and if he is such a confirmed liar, why didn't he say trump told me to lie? if he'd said it, trump would be subject to the possible charge of subornation of perjury, but he didn't say it. >> heidi, michael cohen's credibility increased because he bailed trump out of a few things. >> he did. to john's point there were a number of cases where he actually defended the president against pretty nasty accusations swirling around like the elevator tape. rumors he had somehow hit melania in the elevator. so he built up his credibility

because he was 100% trashing trump and especially on the collusion he didn't see collusion. so he wasn't 100% trashing the president and that made him more credible on the new things that he did bring to the table which was the news here that there had been hush money payments and not just one, that were made throughout the entire course of this presidency. he also suggested that there is another separate criminal investigation going on at the sdny. he said there were things he couldn't talk about and tantalizingly, he mentioned the final conversation with trump as something that was in that scope and that he couldn't talk about. >> that was that, matt, and we have this story that maybe it's a pardon that they're doing. let me ask this. impeachable? is he john dean? john dean brought the end of the nixon presidency. did michael cohen? >> not in that particular -- look, i agree with you guys. he's a liar and you have to know this and take that at face value. i thought -- and i agree with peggy nooning on this. it was the portrait of the

president he painted particularly in his opening statement that i thought perhaps is more damaging in the end than any particular thing on which he exonerated the president. talking about the president looking at him and saying if i was going to go to vietnam, do you think i'm stupid? the president who he says never indicated he loved the country or wanted to make it better. this is a guy who spent years and years at his side. i think there is a lingering, cumulative impact of that intimate portrait and damning a portrait by someone so close to the president. that's by itself is not impeachable. i do think we'll get to impeachment at some point because i don't think democrats will hold themselves back before 2020, and i don't think it matters and nothing will drive this president from office and you have to think of him. he's not nixon. as i said, he's marion barry. a guy who loves -- he loves it, right? he wants the fight. >> he does. >> helene, this was great, "washington post" on wednesday. why did house republicans just attack cohen and not defend trump? here is what one anonymous white house republican said. truthfully it is tough to ignore some of the gross and immoral

behavior by the president said one senior house republican. but there's no defense is because there is no defense. >> that was one of the extraordinary things that came out of the michael cohen hearings, no, you didn't hear people saying trump isn't a racist and you didn't hear people saying let me defend the president and you heard him doing a consorted -- a concerted effort to go after cohen. that, you know, to break down his credibility is clearly the republican strategy. one of the things -- you know, i used to cover buddy seeyancey. you completely blew me up, that's a great comparison. one of the things that i thought was a little bit sad about the reaction to the cohen hearing is that the united states -- people in the united states now are so in their respective camps. you have the left way off to the left and nobody is listening to facts or anything like that that's presented. people are not coming out and saying, wow, he said this, he said that.

it's all been baked into the process and people hear what they want to hear. >> i think jim jordan set out the course for the republican party from here on out which is i don't want to talk about any of this. i want to talk about tax cuts. i want to talk about the economy. i want to talk about foreign policy. what we have here beginning in 1998 when bill clinton got into so much trouble, polling started separating out the president's personal job approval from his work job approval, remember? clinton's numbers went way down on his personal job and stayed there, but his work job approval was high. this is the track to re-election for trump if there is a track to re-election for trump and if the nations were convinced that the news is good and trump's character has nothing to do with whether or not he is managing the country effectively they will have a case to make for his re-election and that requires them to say i don't want to talk about any of this. >> final point. >> when it comes to impeachment, just listen to jerry nadler, the

chief democrat on the judiciary committee and he says point blank, got to have more republican party. we saw what happened with nixon which was bipartisan. we've seen it with nixon and clinton. >> which means they're not going to impeachment until they have evidence to impeachment. what do you want more? a progressive, and a candidate better positioned to beat president trump? that and more on the 2020 race when we return. and more on thee when we return that's not a bug, that's not a bug! (burke) hit and drone. seen it, covered it. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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we will enact a federal jobs guarantee to ensure that everyone in this country is guaranteed a job. [ cheering ] >> that was bernie sanders in brooklyn yesterday. so the accent really fit. his first speech since launching his 2020 campaign. on friday it was washington state governor jay inslee who got into the race and tomorrow it will be john hickenlooper officially announcing. so whoever wins the democratic nomination will face a president with a loyal and resilient base of support. in our latest nbc news/wall

street journal poll taken before all the news about cohen and north korea, the president's rates stood at 46%. tied for the highest showing since he was president. and 52% disapproving and he's on the higher end of what's been a trading range in the low to mid-40s. last month we had him at 43% with 54% disapproving. so is that good enough for re-election? joining me now are our gurus, the nbc news/"wall street journal" polling partners of republican bill mcinturff and democrat fred yang. let me put up generic ballot, always, we know and it's just a generic ballot, but a generic democrat has 48. president trump has 41. bill mcinturff is that a yellow flashing yellow light or red light? >> it's a yellow light, you're behind and so is bill clinton in the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. the president is in the ball game.

the other thing you remember, last month that was a minus 14 down to this minus seven a year ago and it was minus 16 and it's getting closer and i think that that's a good and positive thing for the president. >> flashing yellow light, but that also means he has to do everything to win it and it may not be enough, and one of the hallmarks of the trump presidency is he really hasn't expanded his support beyond the base of people who elected him in 2016, and yes, he did win the electoral college, but he only got 46% of the popular vote, and then in a two-person race which we still may have, 46% doesn't probably win you the presidency. >> it's interesting then. what do democrats want? this is one of the questions we asked here which is among primary voters, they want someone that's closer to their views -- this is among democrats or somebody who has the best chance to beat donald trump? 56-40. a majority want someone closer to their views. believe it or not, four years ago, nearly 80% wanted someone a

bit more pure while 20% were in the pragmatic wing. bill, did that surprise you? >> no. because four years ago it was the anonymous republican. this is president trump enormous democrat intensity against him. if you showed the republican numbers four years ago or eight years ago about obama they looked just like that. 40% want to beat obama and majority i want somebody to agree with me views and primary voters and both parties are ideologues and they want want to see someone they're excited about. >> bill would say it all of the time. republicans aren't looking for the most electable. they're looking for the most electable conservative. is that what they're looking for? not necessarily the most electable purely, but the most electable progressive. >> i think from other polling data, and i would have to say that's a fair characterization. i would also say that it's not just a binary choice with so many different candidates running on the democratic side and even if you're taking the progressive issue, there are so many different progressive

issues a candidate can try to get a hold of. so many people and one important thing, there will be one more super bowl before there is a vote. there is a long time to go. >> i want to say there was a headline in george wills' column that was better than putting up the poll number. and a week of divisiveness and both parties, and he said democrats, his headline, democrats are having a bad week and howard schultz is having a good one. howard schultz thinks that's his opening and they think they'll go with a sanders like and trump is over here with his committed base and is this a week that's a reminder that democrats can give an opening to a howard schultz? >> there is so much time left. because there isn't a nominee to coalesce around we'll have different groups. you know, different issues, different sectors fighting for influence. but in our poll whether you wanted to defeat trump more or

you wanted who is closer to his issues nine out of ten were voting for donald trump against democrats. i think our party comes together next year. >> there is a poll number from nbc, wall street journal. 38% say they want a third party and that's the highest in a 16-year track. so obviously this is a country that guess what? since 1989, democrats have become more liberal and all-time record and republicans have become all more conservative and more moderate and there is certainly an impulse in the middle of the country that sees some other option between the two parties. >> it's funny you put it that way. i want to put you guys a bit on the spot here. president trump is you've been honest and truthful on the russian investigation and we had it split up by where people get their news on television on the cable front. well, let me put it up up here. the president had been truthful

or honest on russia. among fox viewers, 84% of fox viewers until the president has been truthful among msnbc viewers and cnn viewers, that's 1%. these are small samples and we can debate that, but that does tell you something major. what does it say to you, tread? >> it tells us that you get your reality from what channel you watch. >> what does that mean for how this -- does that mean that the michael cohen hearing while as significant as it was, bill, as far as maybe the legal case and everything that we're worried about here that the country's made up their mind or that the partisans have made up their mind? >> i hate to say this since you do a weekly show, but one of the main things you learn as a pollster is, please, our country comes to a steady state and it's very hard to change. all of the russia news and all of the korea and all of the stuff, i think we can do the same survey next week and the numbers would be within a point of each other. and you just have to in some ways ignore everything that happens and look at longer term trends and the longer term trend is the country sort of said they've sort of decided what they think about russia and

until there's a heck of a lot more fact -- >> right. >> this country is nowhere near where it needs to be to impeach the president. >> like cooper said in the previous segment, i think most partisans have decided what the truth is right now and that's in terms of the cohen and mueller report, we'll have to see what actually happens in the mueller report for people to have a reaction to the mueller report. >> there is a group of people that ignore social media all week long. fred yang and bill mcinturff, thank you very much. later in the broadcast, the collapse of the nuclear disarmament talks with north korea so now what happens? ent th korea so now what happens? but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that.

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welcome back. data download time. what characteristics are democrats looking for or not looking for in a presidential candidate? the answer may come in our new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. this month we asked voters about certain kinds of characteristics that would make them enthusiastic or comfortable and what characteristics would make them have some reservations or uncomfortable about a certain candidate? we'll do other characteristics next month and throughout this election season. across the board democrats were enthusiastic or comfortable with a candidate who is african-american, a woman candidate, a white male, someone gay or lesbian.

on the flip side only 33% of democrats were comfortable with someone over the age of 75 as their nominee and only 45% were comfortable with a potential socialist president. i can think of a few democrats running for president or at least thinking about it who fit one or both of those descriptions. by the way, while the margins vary, voters are in line overall on those questions. so where are the splits between democrats and everyone else? 67% of democrats would be enthusiastic or comfortable with a muslim president compared to just 49% overall. only 37% of democrats are okay with an evangelical christian versus 54% overall and only 31% of democrats want to see a business executive, and i wonder what that's about. overall, that number is 56%. look, as we get further into this process, keep close attention to what democrats and the country overall have said. they don't want someone over 75 and they don't want a socialist. we'll be testing other

characteristics like people who are hispanic and an asian-american president, woman of color, military leaders and yes, billionaires. they'll be coming to a data download near you. when we come back, what the president said about the death of student otto warmbier. is he really taking kim jong-un at his word? >> coming up, "endgame," brought to you by boeing, continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore and inspire. -we're doing karaoke later, and you're gonna sing.

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endgame brought to you by boeing. continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore and inspire. back now with "endgame" and an awkward end to the north korea talks, and i say an awkward end. i want to set aside -- walking away from talks could be a good thing. so let's put that aside, but it was the otto warmbier stuff that really sort of left a horrible taste in the mouth of a lot of people. here was the president on thursday talking about otto warmbier, the now deceased student who died essentially in the hands of the north korean govern t government. here is the president on said this in hanoi. >> i don't believe that he would have allowed that to happen. it just wasn't to his advantage to allow that to happen. he tells me he didn't know about it and i will take him at his word. >> here's the president yesterday trying to explain those comments.

>> i'm in such a horrible position because in one way i have to negotiate. in the other way i love mr. and mrs. warmbier and i love otto. a lot of what i do with respect to north korea and any success that we hopefully have, and we've had a lot we're given no credit. >> we have been respectful during the summit process. kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son otto and responsible for cruelty and inhumanity and no praise can change that. you know, helene, it puts a spotlight on human rights is just not part of this president's foreign policy. >> it's not part of his dna, and i think that's -- that's unfortunate. i was so prepared, you know, i think overall trump in vietnam on this north korea summit did okay. there was a lot of fear before he went that he was going to again, at the pentagon in

particular they were terrified that he was going to talk about pulling troops out of south korea, that he could put any number of things on the table. he did not. his north korea policy, if you take out all of the tweets and if you take out all of the inflammatory staples a inflammatory statements and rocket man is sound and a lot of people buy into that national security experts and he does this otto warmbier statement which is skcompletely preposters and it sounded familiar to him standing in helsinki talking about the american intel community and he talked about vladimir putin who had nothing to do with interfering with the american elections and of course, he believes them and he believes mds on khashoggi and one after another. one thing you have to do as an autocrat is have a conversation with him and he is quick to, you know, there is a level of -- of understanding, of kind of the personal pain that he might be inflicting that doesn't seem to be there.

>> there was a time on the conservative side of the american political divide when the republican party in particular was -- was split between people who believed in fighting a moral foreign policy in which you talked about the west values versus saying the soviet union's and human rights and pushing for human rights and the other side of the right which was a rail policy right, and you have to deal with the world as it is. don't be a fanticist and you have to deal with the bad guys and you take them as they are. the rail politickers would never -- this was a real fight they would never have gone out and said that the russians didn't know that they were torturing andre sokerov or throwing people in the gulog. these were tough people, real people and you have to deal with

them in a cold eye fashion. trump has completely obliterated this, so he goes and says nice things about evil people which doesn't help unless you believe that flattering them, flattering people who are beyond the reach of flattery, i would imagine is the way to get them to do what you want. >> that's what works with trump. >> right. >> if flattery works with him he assumes flattery works with others. >> to john's point, we all politique and that is how he's talked about muhammad bin salman. he was taken strategically because if you look at the timing of it, it was three days before kim jong-un was about to test a missile for the first time in three years. this is a well-known tactic of the koreans which is -- north koreans which is strategic hostage taking. count this as yet another time where this president is not just

trying to butter up dictators and strong men, but doing it in defiance of our own intelligence. >> presidencies, take on the personalities of the president always, and i agree to something. there is nothing inherently wrong with walking away from a negotiation. i don't think that's a problem and this is going to sound harsh and this is a presidency entirely without empathy because he seems to be for all appearances, a person who is entirely without empathy. whatever his strong suits or weak suits, he does not have the ability to feel personally and deeply the suffering of others. he never exhibits that, and i think that's what cohen was getting at in his testimony and it's what comes across in moments like this in north korea. >> david brook, the theme of his column, who didn't love donald trump when he was a kid? that's all for today. thank you for watching. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday it's "meet the press." ♪ ♪ (mom) is that for me?

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