diarrhea, hair thinning or loss, vomiting, rash, and loss of appetite. corey calls it her new normal because a lot has changed, but a lot hasn't. ask your doctor about ibrance. the #1 prescribed fda-approved oral combination treatment for hr+/her2- mbc. this is not the show we thought we would have and i didn't get enough time with my friends and thank you for watching. "mtp daily" starts now with the fabulous steve kornacki in for chuck. >> thank you, that is very kind. i appreciate that. and if it is friday, the president comes out guns blazing. ♪ ♪ good evening. i'm steve kornacki in new york

in for chuck todd. welcome to "meet the press" daily and we're one week out from the release of the mueller report and it is becoming increasingly clear the president will remain defiant and both are looking to 2020 for the ultimate vindication. the day after joe biden cast his candidacy as a mission to purge the nation of trump, the president delivered a red meat speech at the nra annual meeting and it felt like the first draft of the stump speech you could expect trump to be delivering throughout the 2020 campaign with prominent mentions of the russia investigation. >> they tried for a coup. it didn't work out so well. [ applause ] and i didn't need a gun for that one, did i? >> spying, surveillance, trying for an over-throw and we caught

em -- we caught em. >> america's future has never been brighter and yet democrats have never been angrier, especially now that their collusion dilution has been exposed to the world as a complete and total fraud. >> the remarks came moments after he doubled down on the strategy of fighting congress's investigations by instructing aides not to testify. >> with all of this, with all of this transparency, we finish, no collusion, no obstruction, right. then i get out the first day and they're saying let's do it again. and i said, that's enough. we gotta -- we have to run a country. we have a very great country to run. and frankly when i go through it with the house and the senate and we have no collusion, no collusion, no obstruction, no

obstruction, then we have -- again we have to go through it. this is a pure political witch hunt. nobody has ever done what i've done in their first two years, so if i'm guilty of anything, it's that i've been a great president and the democrats don't like it. which is a shame. >> democrats are responding with an increasingly aggressive warning to trump officials who refuse to cooperate with the investigations. >> congress has the responsibility and i would say the obligation to hold individuals in contempt who do not comply with the lawful subpoena and who do not produce documents and ought to be prepared to imprison them. >> i agree with my colleague rep david cicilini we need to do what we need to do, whether it is subpoenas, hearings, fining people and if we have to, put people in jail. i think that we should do that. >> whether that is contempt citation, whether that is going to court and getting a -- that citation enforced, whether it is fines, whether it is possible

incarceration, we will go to the max to enforce the constitutional role of the legislative branch of government. >> we have got a lot to unpack here. both politically and legally. chuck rosenberg, a msnbc contribute your and former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official and nick con fis cory and political reporter at "the new york times" and mia wylie a legal analyst and senior vice president for social justice at the new school and john pod horowitz is a editor at commentary magazine. thank you for being with us. and let me start with you, chuck, this fight that is now set up with subpoenas flying from congress to all sorts of folks in -- or who have been in the trump administration, the president and the white house indicating they don't want to comply and they're going to tell people not to comply with any of these. democrats are saying, look, this is an effort from the white house to bide time legally if you play this out a little bit.

how much time can trump and the white house buy with this strategy. >> if they want to litigate every subpoena and assert executive privilege they could buy a lot of time. there is always contention between a congress and any president and not unusual to see tensions over the provision of information and witnesses. as we're seeing here. i think the white house has to be careful not to overplay its hand because that may have political implications and more panelists are more qualified than me to talk about. >> that but that could be used as a delaying tactic and you might see that here. >> and let me bring it to the panel on the politics. there are a couple of different ways to look at this and we put this up on the screen and abc and the washington poll got a poll, a couple of interesting findings. there is the bottom line question, should congress impeach the president and 37% saying yes and 56% say no. another finding on the president's honesty and openness

during the investigation, put that one up, too. do we have that? we don't have that one. well a majority saying he was nout fully honest during the investigation and also a plurality in the poll believing that trump's actions as the investigation was playing out amounted to obstruction of justice. so let me start on that piece of it, nick. you've got this sort of split finding, a plurality is saying, yeah, the president broke the law here. majority is saying, don't impeach. there is a bit of what we saw with bill clinton right there. >> there is. but the first thing you learn as a campaign reporter on the trail is people's beliefs about politics are not ordered and structured in the way they are to professional and party leaders and presidents. people believe some contradictory things and if you want to average those out, what you could say is that people say, look, the way to solve this or settle it is in an election. >> and that is the question for democrats then. if your looking at -- impeachment is political process and it always is so from the

political standpoint and you're a democrat, the country believes some pretty negative and dire things about trump and his conduct during this investigation. his honesty in general. but they're say this poll and consistent what we're seeing lately, don't impeach. is that encouraging for democrats to take to voters in 2020. >> both things could happen. democrats would walk and chew gum at the same time. this could be a poll about the effectiveness of william barr's strategy on how he prefaced both the mueller report in his four-page summary which many of us as lawyers believe was a misrepresentation of the report, not necessarily the outcome but of the report itself. and secondly the press conference in -- before the -- we all got to see the actual report. so i think to nick's point, the question for democrats is given the cynicism, given the fact that many americans believe that trump has misbehaved in some form, how much more do you make

sure that they get the full story in the form of hearings, which is a little bit of a different question from the impeachment question. i think the way democrats have been trying to tee this up, at least many of them, is we have to make sure we're building the facts for the american people so they could understand what is happening here and then make a decision on impeach. >> so john, that is the other side. all of the subpoenas and investigations, if you are the white house and looking at this poll today on impeachment, you're saying, that is good news and that you kind of want to hope the democrats go down the impeachment route. but if the next few months are dominated by headlines of the administration defies this subpoena and refuses to comply with that subpoena, does that create political risk for the white house of being seen as stonewalling. >> i think it creates as much political risk for democrats in the house and on the campaign trail as it does for the white house. because if it appears that they are going over the same territory again and again and again and again, then we have the mueller report and the mueller report says he found no

collusion with russia, that trump can go out and say look at what they're doing. they are impeding the proper governance of the united states by obsessing over this, i let this report go, i let -- i didn't fire mueller and they can't let it go and if you think that is not a successful message, "the washington post" poll tells you that message has bite and teeth. secondly, one thing not being discussed is it is not usual for white house officials to be subpoenaed and to go before the house. the white house, the executive branch and the legislative branch are co-equal and the legislative branch administers and surveys and advises and consents and gives budgets to the cabinet department. the white house is the president's personal office. they do not work for the house, the house does not have -- has not historically had access to white house officials without the president magnanimously saying they could come and talk to them. so that is -- that is a twist

here. when they say we're going to subpoena people and throw them in jail, there is 200 years of american precedent that said congress does not have that authority over white house officials who work for the executive office of the president. >> i am getting a strong sense that mia has something to say in response. >> i would say two things. one, i think john just demonstrated my point about the power of barr's framing of the report because the mueller report does not exonerate donald trump on conspiracy. it said it found no evidence. and that there were several things that impeded that. but going back to the legal point -- >> it said it does not exonerate -- it said specifically it d not exonerate him on obstruction and it said they found -- >> he said he could not establish and he laid out in the report three very specific reasons why he did not have the ability to fully investigate. but put that aside because the issue of oversight here, where the robert mueller report very clearly outlines a potential

case of obstruction for congress to take up using its constitutionally given authority of oversight of whether a president has abused his authority in this case which is a different legal standard from criminal. you don't have the ability to use executive priv -- privilege as a matter of law to shield the white house from the ability for congress to assess whether to impeach a president. that simply turns the constitution on its head. >> let me take the question of obstruction from two different angles. one legal and one political. on the legal one, chuck, let me start with you because you said something interesting this week. this was a brookings event you were being interviewed by ben wittes and he said leaving aside -- talking about the tradition and guidelines in place for a long time and you can't indict a sitting president and he said if you put that aside would you as a prosecutor bring an obstruction case? a legal case against this president and your answer to that was yes. >> yes. it was a simple one-word answer,

yes. but it is a big aside and putting aside you can't charge a sitting president also including the fact that some will argue when the president acts within his article 2 authority those acts are lawful. i don't know subscribe to that. but let me talk as a prosecutor for a moment. if you just look at volume 2 and people really should read volume 2 because it is fascinating and compelling, and you look at ten episodes of obstruction, some of those by themselves, if we're not talking about let's say a president but the ceo of a bank, if you are not talking about trump but some guy named smith, if you make those substitutions, those acts, those episodes in and of themselves, forget in the aggregate constitute in my view obstruction of justice. and so mueller's hands were tied in two ways. one, you can't charge a sitting president so therefore you can't recommend charging a sitting president. but the obstruction case that they detail in volume 2 is extraordinarily compelling in my view, legally and factually.

>> that is a legal opinion. now politically, nick, here is my question when you look at the poll that 37% say go ahead with impeachment and that number has fallen and so far not going back up. do you think that has something to do with the fact you split this report in half. you have the collusion side and then you have the obstruction side. how did trump handle this investigation around the last two years. and if you look at what was out there in sort of republican consumption in the last two years, is trump a russian agent, does putin have a videotape, did he swear loyalty and all of these things that were discussed in major prominent venues for two years, to the general public, even with this legal question about obstruction, is the overall effect of the mueller report to be under-whelming given where the hype was. >> i think it is hard for the average reader to look at mueller report and understand all of the things that are being said and not said in it. so if you read the second volume closely, i think it is essentially an open invitation

to make impeachment proceedings and i think it is also true, however, that democrats don't actually have to make this decision right now. that two things could happen at once. the candidates for president could go on the trail and talk about health care and abuses of power and a president who is out of control in their view, and people on the hill could do their investigations. and i think that the first category is going to get p-- ge more attention and the second group of people have findings and things that turn up, that is fuel for the folks on the campaign trail. and if in eight or nine months the investigations yield something truly new and terrible, they could say, time for impeachment. >> in terms of trump, you see him embracing this in a speech today. is this something he wants to run on in 2020, does he want democrats doing investigations and having this impeachment discussion at least taking place on the base. >> well i think he does. and i think that that is partially exculpatory and he's saying you go right ahead and

talk about russia for nine more months, it is not real. one of the reasons that i was so angry, he said, you can believe him or not believe him, is i didn't do it. so you came at me, you yelled at me and you said i was putin's puppet and you talked about the steele dossier and none of it was real and yet i let this go through to the end, you people are crazy. you're nuts. you won't let this die because you can't -- you can't surrender the dillusion. is that a good message? the only reason i say it is a good message is the 37%. his approval rating is somewhere in the low 40s. that means a whole bunch of people who don't approve of his presidency really don't approve of impeachment as a -- as a process. so he's got reach in -- this gives him reach to the very people that he needs to maybe like him a little better, to pull the lever for him in november 2020 that he doesn't have from his own performance. >> chuck, i want to get to you in very quickly here, a bit of a

pivot but there is news this afternoon and you're the perfect person to ask about this, washington post report that broke in the last hour talking about a phone conversation that took place between donald trump, rod rosenstein and this was when the -- folks remember last fall the story broke, had rosenstein suggested the idea of wearing a wire. this is after trump's firing of comey back in 2017 so after that report is this phone call and rosenstein according to the "post" tells trump he could land this plane when it comes to this investigation. a lot of folks reading different things in this. what do you make of it. >> i believe he was quoted as saying the president would be treated fairly. now that treated fairly comment doesn't concern me. if you rob the bank and when we indict you for it, you are treated fairly and if you didn't rob the bank and we don't indict you for it, you've still been treated fairly. what concerns me, steve, is the structural issue. whether somebody who is perhaps a witness in the case, but certainly in charge of the investigation, should be talking to the subject of that

investigation. and a lot of is bound up in a complexity which is that the president is the head of the executive branch and rod rosenstein works for him. i think rod should answer these questions on capitol hill. rather than read something nefarious into the land the plane comment, i would like to hear what rod has to say under oath while testifying before the congress. >> okay. chuck rosenberg, the last word in this segment. thank you. nick and maya are staying with us. the democrats are issuing subpoenas, the president fighting back. we're on the verge of a constitutional showdown. i'll talk with a house oversight committee member about what is next. and plus biden versus bernie, the battle for the democratic party and could either bridge the divide twenty sent rift and progressive. stay with us. the ones who see ay that make those who live in it feel a little safer. who see the efficient shape and design of the ocean's wonders

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health choices. we have to be able to use our medical knowledge to give our patients the information that they need. the number one rule is do no harm, and this is harm. we must act now. learn more. text titlex to 22422 welcome back. and as we said, some congressional democrats are going as far as to threaten jail time for trump officials who do not comply with their subpoena

requests. that is something they could even do. joining me now is california congressman ro khanna, a member of the house oversight committee which had interview requests denied by trump associates. congressman, thank you for taking a few minutes. we played the sound from one of your colleagues floating that idea, of hey, if these trump folks will not comply with the subpoenas, they should be threatened with jail time. is that something democrats in congress are talking about and is that even something democrats in congress could have any ability to do? >> well first it is important to understand how unprecedented this is by the trump white house. yes, the executive branch always has a conflict with congress. but in the past the clinton administration, obama administration has allowed white house aides to testify. now we do have the power to hold people in contempt and as hillary clinton's op-ed recently articulated, sam erwin, during the watergate hearing, actually threatened to send the sergeant of arms to get people and put

them in prison if people didn't testify. >> the sergeant of arms, capital jail -- is that something you are actually talking about? >> well, i think it is something that congress has the inherent power to do but usually what happens is the white house, even the nixon white house cooperates. they realize that they don't want to take something nearly that far. and i would hope that a lot of these individuals wouldn't want to be held in contempt of congress. that they wouldn't want to escalate to that point and do something that every other white house did which is to testify and respect the separation of powers that our constitution calls for. >> but there have been fights before. there have been fights that are stretched out for years over the question should the subpoena be respected or not. one colleagues jackie speier, democrat from california, she said ultimately the power of congress to hold somebody in contempt is symbolic, ultimately. do you agree with that? >> i think it is symbolic but it has real-world consequences.

if you ask most americans with a future career aspirations is doesn't look good to be held in contempt of congress and it isn't a signal of transparency so i think people here are conflicted between what is good for their own standing as citizens, what is good for their own career and loyalty to a president and it is unfortunate that the president is forcing his own staff to have that kind of a choice. >> you said in an interview you felt the trump administration was trying to run the clock. i've mentioned we've seen before administrations defy subpoenas, it gets kicked over to the court and there is an example with harriet myers during the george w. bush years she defied a subpoena in june of 2007 at the white house request. it did go through the courts. the courts did tell her to testify. the testimony took place in june 2009. two years later. >> you're absolutely right. and i think that is their strategy. the difference is other administrations do that in isolated cases like george w. bush did with harriet myers.

here you have a systematic attempt to prevent any witness on any topic from appearing before congress. and we've never really seen anything as blatant as what this white house is doing. >> this -- this sets up the decision of you and your democratic colleagues to try to pursue investigations here. this fight that is now been precipitated over subpoenas, it figures to keep the question of the mueller report and your reaction to it in the news, in the front and center of political debate for a while, there is a new poll out today raising the question of should donald trump be impeached for this. and it was 37% yes, 56% no. is there -- we saw this with bill clinton 20 years ago. is there a move-on message there for democrats in congress and in that finding? >> steve, i don't think so. i think most americans want to hear from bob mueller. they want to hear from the white house aides about what happened. and they should make that judgment for themselves once they hear testimony. but i do think it is important

to note that the house democrats, we passed sweeping gun safety legislation, we've passed sweeping campaign finance legislation. and we're focused on health care, jobs and infrastructure. those things don't often get the media attention. but the house democrats are focused on a positive agenda for the country. >> i get it. i'm just wondering, because i remember when the barr summary of the mueller report first came out, and i heard a lot of democrats, excuse me, out there saying well, you know what, essentially it is just as well because every voter i talked to is not talking about russia and not talking about mueller, they are talking about health care and jobs and they're talking about the economy. you're even saying right now it sounds like you're having difficulty getting the message out on those fronts. does that factor into your strategy going forward and should it? >> no, because we have a constitutional duty. and most americans do believe that we should hold the president accountable and make sure there is a clear message that no one in this country is

above the law and if there were things done that aren't technically illegal, then maybe we need to strengthen the laws so it never happens again. i believe when people elect you to congress they expect do you do two things, to work on the positive agenda for people and also expect you to uphold your duty of office and hold the executive branch accountable. that goes back to federalist 51 in madison's understanding of congress. we have to do both. >> congressman ro khanna, democrat from california. thank you for taking a few minutes. >> thank you for having me on. and ahead, joe biden then and now. he's in the presidential race and he's facing a bit of controversy over actions he took decades ago. is the outrage warranted? will it cost his campaign? we're heading over to the big board straight ahead. protein... to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. (straining) i'll take that. (cheers) 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. in two great flavors.

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i understand that -- look, i'm not going to judge whether or not it was appropriate, whether she thought it was sufficient, but i said privately what i've said publicly, i'm sorry she was treated the way she was treated. i wish we could have figured out a better way to get this thing done. i did everything in my power to do what i thought was within the rules to be able to stop things. >> welcome back. that was joe biden talking about his recent conversation with anita hill about her treatment before the judiciary committee

which biden shared during the 1991 clarence thomas supreme court confirmation hears and the demographics and the ideology and the identity of the democratic party not what it was when biden first entered politics and this could loom in his presidential campaign. controversies from, for instance, the 1990s or about things that happened in the '90s so we thought we would take a look at what the politics were like back then on some issues that have become potential hot buttons for biden as he runs for president in 2020. so let's take this anita hill/clarence thomas 1991 she stepped forward with accusations of sexual harassment and biden and democrats were against thomas' confirmation but hill said the deck was stacked against her before the judiciary committee. politically this after the judiciary committee hearings is where the country stood on confirming clarence thomas. in the moment folks watched those hearing and they sided with thomas, more than two to one supported his confirmation

after the hearings and look at the breakdown. it waep-- it wasn't just republs or independents, a majority of democrats ended up supporting clarence thomas confirmation and there was a bit of a gender gap but strong majority support and one of the reasons was that clarence thomas enjoyed very strong support from black americans who many of them are democrats but they sided with him in this so overall there was very strong support for clarence thomas in the moment. after the hearings there was a backlash. a female-driven backlash and female democrat candidated emerged in '92 and they called it the year of the woman and they invoked anita hill and a year later the public opinion had done a 180 and asked in october of '92, who do you believe? and hill 44% and thomas 34% and democratic politics after the hearings but during the hearings the political climate different.

and this issue coming up for biden on the campaign trail, his crime bill that bill clinton signed in 1994. a generation ago. 25 years ago. a lot of folks now on the left saying it is draconian and has costs on it, and biden being apologetic for it. again let's take a look. it is hard for people not around to remember this is the back drop for the crime bill in the 1990s. the violent crime rate in 1994, 25 years ago was 714 per a hundred thousand and over a million aggravated assaults and these are the declines over the last generation, how much the violent crime picture in this country changed over the last quarter century. dramatic drops. how about this in 1994, you took a poll, our nbc poll in the spring of '94, what is the top issue facing this country, more than a third said crime was the top issue. so when that crime bill passed

in 1994, it was broad support from democrats, there was some republicans who joined. it had two-thirds support from members of the congressional black caucus. very different politics, very different back drop in 1994. so it is interesting, you're in politics as long as biden with a record as long as his, it is interesting how the politics can change. it is interesting how the back drop of how the world works can change. any way, coming up, joe biden reports record fundraising and that cash comes with a potential warning and plus looking at the deep democratic divide between biden and bernie. that is next. so, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. the united states postal service makes more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country.

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welcome back. former vice president joe biden has been in the 2020 race for just 36 hours and his campaign, though, said he's already scored a big win. biden's team announcing late today it has raised $6.3 million in the first 24 hours of his candidacy and touting it is more than any other presidential campaign so far in the 24-hour period. it is unclear, though, just how much that number was from small

donors. joining me now, nbc andrea mitchell reporting on biden since his time in the senate. thanks for taking a few minutes. this is become the new metric in politics. it used to be first quarter fundraising and now it is first 24-hour fund raising. biden's reporting number would put him at the top of the list, o'rourke and sanders and harris behind him. and they are saying 97% of the donations were under $200. you're learning more about who and what makes up this biden total. what are you finding out? >> well a little bit more. they've been a little cagey about this so we want to drill down on it. $4.4 million i'm told of that $6.3 million were online donations of which 97% were $200 donations. so we still don't know how many was small donors but 97% of the $4.4 were small donations. that is important. people they could go back to. you know better than anyone that

this as the new metric because it means people like bernie sanders who is the gold standard if you will, no pun intended, he has the best online fundraising. we saw a number recently of $18 million. and these are people he could keep going back to over and over again which is why we all think that bernie sanders will -- no matter how many head winds in any of the particular prime dates stay into the end and a thorn in the side to whoever who is challenging him for front-runner status down the road. joe biden having not campaigned for so many years and not done it digitally and not online and not gone to this new form of fundraising, had to prove something. they knew that. and that is why they wanted to post a big number. beto o'rourke came out and congratulated him on it and what we've seen also is bernie sanders tweeting -- rather tweaking him if you will in the last 24 hours for having a big dollar fundraiser last night in

philadelphia hosted by a lot of prominent pennsylvanians and the mayor and bob kasie and governor rendell and hosted at the home of the executive vice president of comcast which is our parent cooperation. so he's trying to do it both ways. we'll have to see what the numbers turn out to be when they finally report them. >> and andrea, quickly, we mention the 1991 hill/thomas hearing came up with biden was on the "view" and he said he feels bad for the way anita hill was treated but not the way he was chairman of the committee treated her. you covered it back then. how does that ring to you? >> well that frankly does not ring true to those of us who were there and to the democratic congress women who complained bitterly at the time that he cut off the hearing too soon because they said it is a deal he cut with john danforth, the republican steering him through the hearings and a deal made in the men's senate gym.

so that rankled. you may recall a few days before the hearing the house women did something that had never been done, we covered them as they marched from the house to the senate and barged into the senate democratic caucus lunch, the tuesday lunch demanding answers as to why the hearing wasn't going to be extended longer and actually asking at that point to postpone the hearing so that anita hill could get more of her witnesses together. she had three witnesses who never were able to testify because bidden gavelled down on that sunday and she had a polygraph test never committed as evidence. >> andrea mitchell, thank you for taking a few minutes. and joining us now, democrat from new york, joe crowelly, the chairman of the house democratic caucus. thanks for taking a few minutes. let me start with you on this question. it sort of hangs over biden's candidacy and he represents and has lived through a different era of american politics, a different era of democratic politics and his career spans eras. but the democratic party is changing.

has the democratic -- has the change of the democratic party outpaced joe biden? can he win in today's democratic party? >> it is a great question, steve. i think our party is in a constant state of change for the better and if you look at the last election, the congress is more diverse than ever and more women from the democratic party in congress than there were just two years ago. more women of color. more people of color and diversity as well. so i think that is a positive thing. i would have like to have seen joe biden been more -- more direct and say, listen, i'm sorry that happened under my watch. i was part of that. he's kind of left a hole here to be kind of torn a little bit more. i do think it is smart of the campaign to get this out early and to get through this and i think he needs to get to this at some point in a more determined way. >> this is i'm sure not a pleasant memorial b

pleasant -- memory and i've heard people say your primary defeat to alexandria ocasio-cortez is a warning signal for joe biden in 2020. do you think it is? >> i don't think that is really the same case. i don't think could you look congressional district by congressional district, in my case, any replacement was taking one democrat and replacing with another. same thing in boston and sa-- se thing in detroit and minneapolis. so i think we have to look at what was successful in winning back the house of representatives was in those interface districts where democrats, men and women, women of color took seats from sitting republicans and turned them blue. that is who put democrats in the majority. when it comes to joe biden, one of his great appeals is in pennsylvania. is the rust belt where he speaks that language. and i think those are the voters that we need to win back in order to win back the presidency. >> and i take your point and that is certainly a major message here from biden. i'll win pennsylvania if you nominate me. but it is getting nominated.

it is running in a primary. it is having -- and in your case a democrat run against you, in his case democrats will have 20, 30, 500 other options here. the fact that there was energy behind a self-described democratic socialist enough to defeat you, does that say anything about the energy in that democratic elect orat in 2020. >> again, i think we have to look at this and i think -- books being written about my primary and i think people will be delving into it for quite sometime but i don't think you could take a congressional district and say, uh-huh, that is the trend of the nation right now. i do think it is important. and the election of alexandria ocasio-cortez to the house was a historical significance and i don't detract from that at all and i give her kudos for that. but i think we're talking about a national campaign. in states that care about health care, i shouldn't say states --

people care about health care and they care about the middle class, the inability to afford college and those are things that really bring democrats together. it is the things that bernie sanders is talking about, it is things that joe biden, kamala harris, elizabeth warren and so many others are talking about. so i think we have to look at this really as a national campaign and not a campaign in the bronx and queens of new york. >> joe crowley, former congress from new york. thanks for taking a few minutes. >> thanks. and coming up, as jooi-- as biden takes on the president over charlottesville, donald trump doubles down on both sides. a wealth of information. a wealth of perspective. ♪ a wealth of opportunities. that's the clarity you get from fidelity wealth management. straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor

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and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. zyrtec muddle no more. mr. president, do you think still think there were very fine people on both sides? >> i've answered that question. and if you look at what i said, you will see that that question was answered perfectly. and i was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to robert e. lee, a great general, whether you like it or not. people were there protesting the taking down of the monument of robert e. lee. everybody knows that. >> okay. that was donald trump this morning defending his charlottesville response. going to take a quick break. the panel will be back and a lot to talk about with them. stay with us. at fidelity, we help you prepare for the unexpected

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and maya and john are back. we show the the clip this morning biden launching his campaign and invoking charlottesville and the president responds. maya, it is interesting on a couple a couple of levels. for biden, building that launch message around want to rewrite health care. not an issue. more of a national mission. but also, it struck me, we talk so much about trump's approval rating, being in the very narrow range. there are a couple of moments when it slimmed to the very bottom. charlottesville, the top of that list. >> absolutely. one of the things that i think was brilliant about biden's vd, it recognized both that the nation wants to be called to its better angels. i do believe that. especially with the rise of hate. we've seen anti-semitism, islam phobia, gender identity. it has been a tremendous issue

for many, many in the country and i think americans are generally tired of it. and unfortunately, donald trump has stoked some of that. and even the revisionist history about his statements around charlottesville don't help him. i think what's important about what joe biden did, he needs for electability, part of what hillary clinton didn't have was the turn out of black vote. particularly in in milwaukee, in detroit. that is an important demographic for him and he does have some challenges to overcome it at least in terms of of history. not necessarily his likability. h his history. and he has to speak to the base. >> we put up the fundraising numbers. the first 24 hours, it looks like he'll be the top of the list among democrats when it comes to that. he's running in first place in the polls.

there's been some scrutiny last few months. his numbers have taken a hit in terms of favorable, unfavorable. he is in first place. front-runner, joe biden. >> i asked president clinton, president jeb, president rudy, all these people who were front-runners over time. it is very hard to sustain it over time and having a lot of money doesn't necessarily get you anywhere in the end. at least it shows that the fears of he would have no constituency are perhaps unwarranted. i think he has a clear path to the nomination. only half the party are self-described liberals. half are self-described moderates. and i think he has more of an affiliate with the older group who have some sense of him as an inhair or the of obama's traditions that. >> the primary if it were to

come to that. it is that i will beat trump. charlottesville is one of the ways to show democrats, these issues. these are how i'll raise them. today you see how trump might respond. how do you think it will cut in the general election? >> the polling suggests he is the democrats' best choice to beat trump. he beats him by 7 to 10 points in these head to head match-ups. these are all theoretical. if you want it, trump needs to be opposed by a figure who looks like he's big enough to take him. so biden was vice president of the united states. we saw him decimate paul ryan in 2012. using the technique on his rivals in 2016, contempt, name calling, laughter. >> he rattled paul ryan. we know he has the tools and we know he has the sort of size, and now the question is, can he,

biden, restrain his bad impulses to overtalk, to use his hands, to say vulgar things, to kind of speak, say one sentence too many. and the one sentence is one too many. if he can restrain himself, the message to democrats is saying, i'm going to talk big. i'm requestigoing to change the direction of the country. i don't want it to be the country that trump makes it. he has a big message, not a little message of he has to be undercut it. >> we've seen the areas where there are questions about. it is biden vulnerable. it was physicality. we've got the anita hill controversy. that's come up a few times. bussing from the 70s. i'm looking at him now and saying the scrutiny of the last three months has lowered his

numbers with democrats. he is not cratered them. he has not done a lot of damage. maybe the next wave of this is elizabeth warren. we saw them teeing it up. bankruptcy bill, you're too beholden to that kind of establishment. >> how it will play out is a different question. i think we heard him signaling vulnerability when he made the statement, i'm one of the most progressive candidates in the race which will call attention to what is your platform should some really complained about the obama administration not being sufficiently progressive on policy. he has to deal with that. that is that's a primary issue. that will get teed up, also with kamala harris as well. >> we have six hours of debates and people will want more.

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that's all for tonight. we'll be back with more "meet the press." don't miss reverend al sharpton. he conservatives down with the leading contenders to talk about inequality in manager. you can watch not just black and white. that's tomorrow on msnbc at 8:00. and be sure to watch "meet the press" on your local nbc

station. senator amy klobuchar will be on. good evening to you, ari. >> good evening. we begin tonight with breaking news. the breaking news on this friday evening, a new mueller related story and this calls into question the performance of rod rosenstein. a new story hot off the presses of the "washington post." it accounts for a time when mr. rosenstein was trying to save his job. you may remember "the new york times" account about him wearing a wire. you see the headline in the post. i can land the plane. how he tried to mollify trump and save his job. he made that effort or at least try to resign with dignity. he began by one account, getting teary eyed as he had a call with president trump. right before that, you'll see