stay right where you are because now it's time for "up with david gura." this is "up," i'm david gura. tensions running high between pyongyang and japan. two months after the hanoi summit fell apart, president trump is trying to salvage what he has called a special bomb with north korea's dictator. we're hours away from a big deadline. bill barr has until tomorrow morning to respond to an ultimatum from the house judiciary committee where he could be held in contempt of congress. not surprising, the white house is standing behind the attorney general. >> they have a right to do a little oversight. that's fine. but they're not a judge and jury and they're not law enforcement. >> new reporting this week on the blurred lines between donald trump's life as president and

donald trump's life as a businessman. from apartments rented to foreign didn'ts with state department authorization to a liquor billal mar-a-lago. and how he's responding to joe biden biden's. >> i'd be happy if it were joe, sleepy joe. >> it is still unclear how much all this is going to be about policy versus personality. >> what a freaking clown car i found myself in, right? i'm over here working around the clock to give you free college. oh, look in there. beto o'dork did parquer in a starbucks.

judge judy playing flute and speaking clingon. i'm not supposed to say this as a democrat, but speak english. frick. >> former chair of the national bar association pac, tina greer, political of science from for fordham university, and vice president of campaigns at the center for american progress. we begin this morning with north korea. the country test-firing a number of tactical guided short-range weapons on saturday. president trump continuing to downplay that provocation. anything in this very interesting world is possible, he writes. but i believe that kim jong-un fully realizes the great economic potential of north korea and will do nothing to interfere or end it. he also know i'm with him and does not want to break his promise to me. deal will happen.

>> destiny pictures presents a story of opportunity. two men, two leaders, one destiny. will he shake the hand of peace and enjoy prosperity like he has never seen? >> that was the second round of those talks collapsed with north korea refusing to disimagination their nuclear weapons and united states refusing to ease sanctions. president trump maintains he has faith in the relationship he brokered in singapore in june of last year. >> i was really being tough. so was he. we went back and forth. and then we fell in love. no, really. he wrote me beautiful letters.

they're great letters. we fell in love. >> "the new york times" this assessment of president trump, weapons we the question is kim jong-un trying to flip the script on president trump? >> featuring president donald trump and chairman kim jong-un. in a meeting to remake history. the future remains to be written. >> as the gang in new york helps themselves to doughnuts, i'm going to turn to joe, a nuclear security analyst. flip the script. help us understand what you think is going on here. this is not a provocation that it could have been. it's not enter continentuld not ballistic. >> he launched ten short-range rockets and one new short-range missile he put in that pack.

this is a signal to donald trump. kim and his advisers are very smart. they understand us better than we understand them. he knows trump is vested in this scenario, this image you just described of a leader, a successful dealmaker but trump has presented kim with an untenable offer. he, inspired by john bolton, is basically demanding kim dismantle everything, nuclear, chemical, biological, all his missiles before the u.s. will do anything. so, kim is trying to nudge trump back to the bargaining table. he's saying, look, here's what i can do now. but i can do more later. he's like the glenn close character in "fatal attraction." he will not be ignored. this is not the end of this process. you can't just keep trump -- trump can't keep kim quiet for the next 18 months. that's the signal kim sent yesterday. >> all but the bunny. scott, let me --

>> after that intro? >> yes, i have to start with you. you have this president continue in north korea. as he continues to hammer on that, hone in on that, it showcases a ignorance about the ram fiction of the test this weekend. >> ignorance is bliss with donald trump. we're back at square one. we've had two summits, a lot of rhetoric. donald trump's tweet, i don't know what that meant. i don't know what that was. that went above me. maybe he's super intelligent, a really bright guy but the reality is, we're at square one. there is no way in this world that north korea is going to give up its nuclear arsenal, at least not completely, despite the economic uplift being promised by america. look at what it's gotten him. it has gotten him on the world stage. it's gotten him attention from russia and china and the president, right? and he has not had to give up one thing and he is telling his people that economic uplift is coming but we're not giving up

our nuclear weapons because there's a direct marriage between those two. it doesn't take a rocket scientist, forgive the pun, to conclude he's going to play this thing out until he can't play it anymore. by the way, if there's a new president, there's going to be a new strategy. but if you look at the history of nk and america, all of our prior presidents, we've seen this scenario before. it's want channot changing. >> he's gone proudly alone. he wanted to broker this one-on-one relationship with kim jong-un. you've seen his advisers step back. john bolton uneasily at the hanoi summit. how alone is he now? we watched last week as kim jong-un took a train to russia to have a sitdown discussion with vladimir putin. he's tried to bilateral approach. >> we're back at square one. i would say we're worse off than square one. >> we're behind square one. >> definitely.

now he's elevated kim to the national stage of being a world leader and backed off on sanctions. it's a complicated place. it's the most complicated. there's a lot of complicated issues trump has tried to go alone and screwed up, health care among the top of them. but, look, this is a place where you really need to be able to be having staff talks, staff-to-staff talks to be able to move sanctions forward, to be able to move on the humanitarian side forward. we hear this on every issue in every country that our state department employees do not know how to move forward on any level. because what they are hearing internally, the orders they're gettingings, do not match what trump -- i would like to say say, but tweets. >> steve beegen, the point man from this administration would have more latitude to take the lead on all of this. we wondered about this in the abstract, how he would be able to deal with this, but when you

look at what has happened over the weekend, he's been sidelined by his boss. >> there are people that know how to get a deal, and the special envoy to north korea is one of those. he gave a speech at stanford university where he outlined a step-by-step deal. north korea eases somewhat, we reduce the sanctions somewhat. north korea reduces more, we do a peace treaty. that's the way to get a deal. at hanoi he was pushed aside by john bolton and john bolton convinced trump to go big. give an all or nothing offer to kim. it was too big. it was one kim could not accept. you saw the talks collapse and now kim is trying to get trump back to the negotiating table. there's a deal to be made there if trump would push pobolton

aside. >> we heard from otto warmbier's mother, she was in washington, d.c., commenting on them. otto warmbier has been brought up during the negotiations, most recently about hanoi when the president was asked about his death when he was in vietnam. she's not blind. she's not ignorant to the way this government operates. >> i'm going to say something i want our viewers to sit with this. we have a president who's bragged about many things but he's bragged about not reading. i think that's really important. when we're dealing with someone like north korea, we have two fundamentally understand -- we have a president who's elevated a dictator to the equal playing field as all the other world leaders. he wasn't there before. he was ostracized. now you see him meeting not just with donald trump, but with putin. when you have the late otto's mother saying, this is a man who is -- she compared him to

hitler. she says he's a monster's monster. and the fact the president of the united states is choosing kim jong-un over my late son, you have to realize this is not only a bridge too far, but this is something so insidious at the highest level of power, we should be more than alarmed. so, there's the diplomacy piece, policy pieces but going back to what george washington warned us about, the framers warned us about, we can never have a president that choses foreign interests over their own sovereign power. we saw is that with -- how many examples do we need for this president to consistently choose not just other foreign entities but dictators where people behave and cohort with dictators as well. that's so troubling. also the fact that he doesn't understand or respect history or

the office that he holds. >> cooper, i want to draw from your experience on capitol hill. your sense of the level of patience they have with the president doing something like this. lawmakers have been passive in the face of all this. minor indignation but they seem fine with the president pursuing this avenue. >> that's been par for the course on almost everything this president does. when people ask congress members, like mitch mcconnell, his answer is, we'll see what happens. most of them don't believe anything will come of it. even if something does and they disagree with it, republicans are so entrenched with donald trump right now, there's no way out for them. there's no way to credibly oppose anything he does without worrying about being tweeted at, called a name, primaried with someone, the alt-right coming at them, fox news. their position is silence and

believing this stable genius who does everything by his gut will somehow deliver them everything they're promising. by the way, remember, it wasn't that long ago when he declared on twitter north korea is no longer a nuclear threat. >> i want to circle back. they're worried about a self-serving thing. they're worried about keeping their job. >> no doubt. if he fails, they don't want to go down the hole with them so they take a hands-off approach. >> it's worse than silence. mcconnell keeps getting quoted over and over, we'll see what comes out of the white house. as he has no active hand. you're a member of the leadership -- >> you can stay silent all day long on the titanic. >> last question, joe, let me ask you about a policy thing. the president said, this has been a success in a way because there hasn't been a testing. we haven't seen the testing of the long-range missiles or nuclear missiles but is his argument lessened by the fact we have seen a weapons test?

>> a little bit. maybe the distinction is lost but kim did not violate with this test any promises he made trump. this is not a medium or long-range missile test. he hasn't tested a nuclear weapon. technically he hasn't actually violated any particular agreement with the possible exception of an inter-korean agreement he made. so, it's a modest step. it's a little nudge. kim's strategy will work. he knows trump wants him to be quiet or make a deal. he's not going to be quiet. i think eventually we'll see them back at the negotiating table. >> good to see you, especially when i know you're running the tacoma park 5k. >> i am. i have my shirt on underneath. he called that phone call with president putin. what trump wants you to know about the potentially good, no great relationship he wants to have with russia. eat relationsho have with russia we're carvana, the company who invented

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this is "up." jerry nadler is chair of the house judiciary committee and he's given bill barr a hard and fast deadline. he wants the full unredacted mueller report by 9:00 monday morning. the justice department has pushed back on that, defending the redactions and deciding not to charge president trump with obstruction of justice they point to a memo that says a sitting president cannot be indicted. that same memo has this key

quotation. the framers themselves specifically determined that the public interest in immediately remroo removing a sitting president whose continuation in office poses a threat to the nation's welfare outweighs the public interest in avoiding the executive burdens incident thereto. democrats argue they need to see the full mueller report to do their job. meanwhile, president trump dismissed the russian investigation as a hoax call in a phone call with president vladimir putin. the president tweeting, very good call yesterday with president putin. tremendous potential for a good/great relationship with russia, despite what you read and see in the fake news media. look how they fooled you on collusion. on capitol hill this week, the attorney general vigorously defended the president in a hearing that featured three democratic candidates for president. >> you look at the totality of the evidence. that's what i learned when i was in law school. you look at the totality of the

evidence and the pattern here. >> the challenge we now have is that we're going into an area where you seem to not even be willing to be in the least bit critical in your summarizations. >> if any u.s.s attorney's office around the kurngts the head of that office when being asked to make a critical decision about the person that holds the highest office in the land and whether or not they committed a crime, would you accept if they had not reviewed the evidence? >> that's a question for bob mueller. he's the u.s. attorney. he's the one who presents the report. >> but it was you who made the charging decision, sir. >> let's want start with that fiery exchange. we'll get back to that. but this deadline. there's a question about the sharpness of the teeth with the deadline, the threat of contempt of congress. what's going to happen tomorrow at 9:00 if bill barr doesn't show up? >> democrats will have to hold him in contempt. at the end of the day, this

doesn't mean anything. donald trump has exposed a fundamental flaw in our checks and balances system. at the end of the day, congress asks a subpoena, holds you in contempt, the attorney general has to prosecute you. the attorney general will not prosecute himself or his boss. congress doesn't have any mechanism to force accountability. in the past, when i was at the oversight committee, investigating obama, in our negotiations, even when things melted down, there was a good faith understanding that we never doubted president obama's belief in the checks and balances system. we never believed that he didn't think congress was a co-equal branch of government. this president doesn't care. even with barr ignoring a subpoena to appear as a witness, he blew it off. we saw this week the death of one of the checks and balances and that's a very dangerous thing. >> we start with exposing that fundamental flaw. if this is going to be the

playbook, what resource do democrats have? with this the mueller report with other documents, other individuals they want to see. >> it is the breakdown. it is the breakdown of the checks and balances. i feel i'm on this show regularly saying, i think we hit a moment here. i guess now maybe we -- >> another moment. >> -- we might have hit a moment where we say, that was the total breakdown. i feel democrats are in a tough position right now. i don't envy the position that speaker pelosi is in and other leadership is in. there are clear violations. they are blowing them off. there's collusion out in the open and there's total disregard for checks and balances. this is not only in the right of the house but in the best interest for the country to have these things out in the open. the question keeps coming back to impeachment. pelosi has been weighing this out in the public. i think she's right that it would be a very hard political battle for democrats to really own that just because of the

camps and the polarization and the total dismissing as a whole in the country of anybody who you don't believe is actually on your side. it is a really tough political question. but it's even made tougher by the fact that the evidence is so clear and it's out there and the mueller report gives us a road map. >> before we saw the redacted report you had bill barr come out and talk about it. we're facing something similar now, which it seems the tides are turning a bit. we could see bob mueller up on the hill. how deleterious is it to our understanding of that report if we see him testify, if we have him testify before that report? >> it won't be deleterious at all. let me get back to one thing. there is another branch of government that the democrats have to figure out whether they're committed to the proposition, the constitution and the welfare of this country, and that's the judiciary. throughout the last two years you will see that an independent

judiciary has kept this trump administration in check most of the time. supreme court may be different and has been different, but now they've loaded that up. but this is about whether the democrat it is are committed to the proposition. if he doesn't show up tomorrow, if he doesn't turn over the report unredacted with an agreement that only the eight can see it, go and look at it, if they don't do that, they can hold him in contempt and also file suit and get an independent federal judge to take a look and see whether it should be released unredacted or not. federal judge reggie walton in d.c. in a similar situated lawsuit has said, maybe i need to see it unredacted. >> the fact that -- >> the fact that -- >> the fact that no one has seen the full report. we're still going on a report that's redacted. that doesn't mean all 435 mechanics of the house and 100 senators need to see the report but members of the committee do.

the fourth branch of government is actually the need yeah. the democrats, unfortunately, have so much on this president. the solution, everything is so obvious. unfortunately, it's a lot for american public to take in and they just oftentimes, it seems like the democrats are picking on the president needlessly. >> stand up for the fourth to say during the course of that barr hearing, the fact that letter came to light is -- >> this is the time the media should be the fourth branch. >> i wouldn't hold back one bit. now is the time to go hard. >> we'll leave it there. when we come back, former vice president joe biden's campaign rollout could be opening up a rift for the democrats. can the party stay unified heading into 2020? heading into 2020? t's not my jo" t's not my jo" that's because right where you live, there's a need for your time and skills and effort and talent. please consider volunteering and feeling that feeling that you helped someone today.

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we'll spend time looking at the biden effect. how other candidates have responded to the former vice president's decision to run for the nomination. "the washington post," joed joe biden's strong debut puts pressure on other candidates vying to challenge trump. vice president biden is polling at the top of the field on the

platform of connectability, connecting with working class in swing votes that donald trump won in 2016. for more progressive kaebds that's presented an opportunity. candidates like bernie sanders and elizabeth warren see the president as something deeper, a party overtaken by trumpism and a party cleaved by partisanship. simply ousting trump is not enough. each and every candidate is grappling this question. how hard should they fight their own party when they're trying to defeat the president. a great piece and highlighting the fact that joe biden talks about this as an aberration. the trump presidency is an aberration. your key reaction to that. >> you, joe biden, need to read a book. >> that's your message today. >> read, everyone, read. >> pro-reading.

>> i'm the pro-reading candidate. here's the thing, this is who our nation is. when president obama loves to say, this isn't who we are. this is exactly who we are. we've been separating children and families since our inception. we've been making sure poor people can't get a chance in this country for generations. it's unfortunate but the brochure of america is never what the reality of america has been. we're at this critical moment where donald trump has been celebrating all the divisions and the disgusting history we have. we're finally having to actually face it. things that people thought we would do in the obama presidency and we didn't do. we're at this very critical moment. the reason why this democratic primary is so important is because we're trying to figure out as a party, do we go with the status quo to just try and beat trump and sort of become this party that's, well, let's try and capture, disaffected whites the last time they voted for a democrat was jimmy carter or do we go with this new collection of people who want progressive politics and policies who live not just in the cities but also in the suburbs because they're getting

kicked out of cities and of a more collective universal idea of what america looks like. joe biden in many ways is using this quasi-coated make america great again. that's what the political science professor thinks this morning. >> i was a political science major but never a professor. let me say this as former democratic party chair and someone very active in politics. i understand your position but biden's polling shows otherwise. biden's polling shows there are democrats 50 and over who are moderate to conservative who want a candidate like that. >> true. >> he's also appealing to people of color and even tearing into bernie sanders' base with young people. that's why he's at 38% right there. everybody else. look at the other great candidates like o'rourke and kamala harris. they've dropped six or seven points because of joe biden.

the challenge for biden and the democrats is, america wants a moderate president from the democratic side, too, because if you look at every polling, they want to move the country forward. if you're far left and far right, we're not moving forward. we're standing right here. >> therein lies the rub. if they want a centrist democratic in the primary. . that's a totally different story. >> he's running as centrist and polling far ahead -- >> can he stay there? >> i'm not sure he can. >> there's a lot of excitement in the intensity about excitement for voting is actually across the board for democrats. so, i think that is a big piece going into the general election, is that democrats will have the excitement there because democrats are very excited right now about the field of candidates. people like a lot of different candidates. i think a bit of the biden bump came from the fact that he actually announced like he hadn't announced he was president in the polls up until

now. you're right, he's polling from a lot of different places. >> and polling from those other candidates. >> everybody is polling from other candidates. >> but biden is at 38%. he's polled -- >> he also has name recognition. the reason he does with older african-americans is because he studied under barack obama. we have to think about the type of policies not just biden supported in the past but what are we doing in the forward? his idea of the future of the country -- granted, i don't think all democrats are progressive by any stretch of the imagination. that's a primary conversation. if we look at the distribution curve, more people are in the center. i don't know if he's necessarily the person that fundamentally understands the changing party and the -- >> he's all they got, though. >> i want to go to you lastly here. new member of the democratic party. what are you looking for here? >> you're welcome. >> oh! >> i'm not a professor.

i didn't major in anything. i didn't go to college. >> an ekt doelgecdotal perspect >> with biden, the case people are try to make of the negatives of biden while trying to promote themselves and cut through the noise is tough to do sat the same time. the more candidates, easier for known quantity, universally regarded as authentic, compassionate, presidential. he doesn't have to convince him as presidential. people already view him that way. those are powerful qualities that i think supercede individual public policy positions or even his exhaustive history. those other 20 kaebtcandidates g to beat them, they can't just talk about joe biden without talking about themselves. >> when you juxtapose him with trump and all that he represents, he looks like a

really attractive -- >> you like joe, don't you? >> i wish he was 20 years younger. >> i'm going to get the tweet replies. >> we just have to win. coming up, the president's staff members racking up a $1,000 bar bill at mar-a-lago, what were they drinking and why did the taxpayers pick up that tab? did the taxpayers pick up tt tab? weeds are lowdown little scoundrels. don't stoop to their level. draw the line with the roundup sure shot wand. it extends with a protective shield and targets weeds more precisely. it lets you kill what's bad right down to the root while guarding the good. roundup sure shot wand. got weeds in your grass too? try roundup for lawns. kills weeds, not the lawn. roundup brand. trusted for over 40 years. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase sensimist relieves all your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion,

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to introducing products faster... to managing website inventory... and network bandwidth. giving you a nice big edge over your competition. that's the power of edge-to-edge intelligence. several lawsuits make the case the trump family is profiting off the presidency. reuters reporting the state department allowed seven foreign governments to rent property at trump tower in new york in 2017. they got that authorization without approval from congress and that is a potential violation of the constitution's emolument clouse which bans u.s. officials from accepting payments or gifts from foreign governments without congress' say so. the washington trump hotel

remains under scrutiny. congressional democrats' emolument say they can rent it. pr propublica, $1,000 mar-a-lago bill, 249 days in total spent by the president at trump properties. we'll get to the bar bill in a moment but there's a story about renting out property to foreign governments, the emoluments cases working their way through the courts as well. this is a rich vein that continues to be richer. >> i remember the very first time i was on this show with you, we were talking about this. >> and defining emoluments for the first time. >> and talking about the fact we were trying to wrap our mind around the fact that the president is staying at his own properties. he may not be paying for his room bull at the secret service,

staffers, he's making money off this. he does read because he made printout of who stays at his hotels. when you say 249 days of him staying at a trump property, that means 249 days of him making money off the hundreds of people possibly who have to stay wherever he moves. and that, to me, is so egregious. we know that initially he got into this campaign just to make money on the back end, but now he realizes the real money to be made is with him and the rest of his family making money off their own personal businesses. jimmy carter, as i say all the time -- >> the old peanut farm. >> -- his grandfather's peanut farm because he didn't want it to appear he was going to make some money. now we see donald trump building more businesses. we're not talking about ivanka getting patents from china, we're not talking about them expanding their empire whilst president. >> richard blumenthal on the

heels of that emolument decision, this decision is a tremendous victory and common sense reading of the constitution. the court soundly rejected the president's absurd argument that he is above the law. where does this leave democrats in congress? we were talking about the length of these legal proceedings, there is recourse through the judiciary but this takes time. where are we when you look at the landscape of all this? >> they're in a wait and see mode. anything going through the courts is going to take time. that's the downside of forcing legal action, the likely scenario is the end result will happen after president trump has left office or about to leave office. you don't get any immediate relief. you don't get that accountability in real time we're looking for. it is encouraging there is some semblance of a check and balance from one of the branches of government right now they are moving these cases forward. they're not dismissing them. there's not saying there's no standing. they're not saying president trump and his lawyers aren't right. they're upholding their

responsibility to hold the executive accountable. it's encouraging we have at least that last vestige left but it will take some time. >> another correction. i said emmitt flood. bar bill, tequila patron, woodford. your reaction to this, the fact you have members of administration bell withying up to the bar in march-a-lago afte meeting with president xi. >> if they had -- can i say hell? they had a heck of a party. they had a heck of a party. i'm glad i missed it, but if i wasn't republicans, i would have loved to have been a part of this party, high-end liquor. it seems they're cheap and $1,000, you know, they could have split it up two ways or three ways or random act of kindness versus put it on the

taxpayers. i was trying to calculate what part of my taxes went to that $1,000. but it doesn't really matter. but it is the culture and the personality of this administration and the fact that donald trump approved it through the state department just shows that their view of the world and the taxpayers isn't what's good for america, even as minute as this is, isn't what's good for america, it's what's good for them. >> isn't this the great condo of donald trump? make america great again, talking to middle america on hard times. this guy is wining and dining on their dime, the biggest penthouses, best hotels, golfing 245 days on the job and they're paying the bill for this. >> and this is a donald trump property. >> i represented sdpraunrestaurd bars in my legal career and they have a budget for write-offs for customer service. they could have written this off. >> donald trump doesn't respect

the people at his rallies ultimately. he knows he's always wanted to be with this type of crowd. everything about his life has been trying to climb up that ladder. >> he seems them as his putzes. >> appreciate it. up next, he's accused on social media platform of censoring members of the far right base. how donald trump is going out of his way to defend conspiracy theorists and why social media companies could be playing right into the president's hands. companies could be playing right into the president's hands pnc bank has technology to help make banking easier,

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we all know president trump has a penchant for walls and he and his administration are stonewalling, trying to fence off the executive and justice branch. on friday bill barr not only defied a congressional subpoena to turn over the full mueller report, he skipped a hearing with the house judiciary committee. facebook banning a number of extremists from its instagram and facebook platforms. taylor has written about this for "the atlantic" and walk us through this decision-making process. there have been complaints, people up in arms about what members -- i guess there's no memberships, what those in the alt-right have written and done on social media. why did they react now and how thought out was that decision by the companies?

>> it was very thought out. in fact, you know, they did it -- they had a whole embargoed press release. it was very planned. this type of negative extremism online is reaching a fever pitch. these people are exploiting every platform. and facebook is trying to avoid that they didn't do enough to combat that stuff in the 2016 election. >> introduce us to the rogue's gallery. who they decided to target and remove. >> louis farrakhan, alex jones, and laura loormer, and milo yiannopoulos. >> you see the president's twitter feed. what do you make of his reactions so far and what does it tells you about the contours of this debate? >> yes, also, he banned paul vanwaszen. >> you want him to retweet it

twice. >> yeah, was memorializing himself on twitter yesterday. i mean, yeah, the president has given a voice to all of these people. you know, he's re-tweeted accounts that are qanon conspiracy accounts, representing ideas that these people have perpetuated for years. i think that's a problem for these companies. that's why facebook and, you know, twitter are so hesitant to do anything about this. because they're scared of getting in the president's crosshairs. >> scott, how scared should they be? there is this debate about, if this is something that the company, a company should do. and there's this broader conversation about regulation of social media, the role that government should be playing here. is it appropriate, as you see it, for a company to be taking a user off? >> whether it's appropriate or not, it is the sign of the times, if you will. look at facebook and twitter, or rather, facebook is facing billions of dollars of fines, not only here, but around the country. they cannot be an unwilling prisoner of creating a platform of hate. hate speech has never been free speech, at least for people that

look like me. it usually comes along with violence and pain and suffering. so i also think that this hits their own bottom line, but they've made a judgment that instead of paying these fines, they want to do something to look affirmative, because there's oversight here in the state as well as in europe, and they've been paying a lot of money out. this is a step, but my biggest concern, especially as a lawyer, is the first amendment. where do we begin and where do we end, if you will? it's a slippery slope, as many commentators have said. >> taylor, you cover this so well. and you write about this in your most recent piece. something like this happens, and an individual who's been targeted goes on to another platform. there are other places for this kind of speech to go to. so how effective is this kind of ban? >> it's effective. i mean, the irony is all of these people say they're being silenced. it's a massive internet. you can set up, you can go anywhere else. >> there are other platforms. >> exactly. the problem is that these people are exploiting these platforms. that's the problem. they're using them for these

nefarious, i guess, ends. so yeah, i mean, it will be effective in the sense that it will stop some of that, some of the trickle-down extremism. what instagram hasn't done and facebook has sort of struggled to do is contain some of the less prominent people. it's all of these homegrown activists and conspiracy theorists specifically in groups, and facebook groups that are still spreading all of this stuff, whether or not their leader is there. >> and whether they file a lawsuit, those supporters, whether they'll file a lawsuit saying they want to hear from those individuals on this platform, not another platform. >> got it. kurt, how does this ecosystem feed another? we're hearing, investigate the investigators. that's the clarion here. you see things that percolate in this other tier, shall we say. they find their way up to the president's twitter feed, but also the discourse surrounding the re-election, surrounding the campaign in 2020. that's the real peril here, isn't it, the normalization of all of this. >> i remember, it wasn't that long ago, that the far corners of the internet were really

regarded, they were not the daily topics that we would talk about on shows like this with one another. here we are, halfway into the first term of donald trump and they are daily topical conversations that the president of the united states routine lip gives a voice and a microphone to amplify homegrown conspiracy theories. >> retweets them! regularly. >> and it's not that they just exist in facebook or on twitter. you know, they draw from everywhere. and they're really talking to one another, ultimately. it's this narrative that there are forces, dark forces that are against us, that are stemming from the liberal left and the media, and we must call together and create these platforms that we can talk to one another, we're not alone. that's really the message. whether it's breitbart or fox news or donald trump's twitter, the conveying feeling is they're trying to create a community of people who are victims of these horrible conspiracy theories and by talking about them and spreading them, they're fighting back. that's how he did it. >> the message of the hour has been that folks has been

reading. that's begun to change, as well. when you look at again who the president's retweeted, these are jinlgs that a s individuals who aren't household names, they aren't news sites in any defined way or places where people would go for news. >> and a lot of these people, they got more prominence by us talking about them when they have been banned. alex jones probably breaks through for more people because he did say the shooting in sandy hook was a hoax and they were crisis actors. and a lot of people understandably reacted to that. but what i think tkicked them off, they have been under attack, saying, you have silenced our voice. and trump totally feeds into this. saying, you have silenced our voice, make it more equal. so the fact that they have been -- that they have actually now decided to kick them off, i think shows how much there's been a pushback from like the mainstream. that like we just cannot be --

we can't engage -- it's a bad business decision. like, it's a bad business decision for companies to engage in the platform that gives as big of a platform to the spear theorists. >> last question to you. there's this divide between washington and silicon valley, it's a geographical divide but a sill softic ica philosophical one as well. what does this do to that? where does that leave these two sides and this debate over regulation and who is in control of what? >> the regulation thing will be a big thing. the people in d.c., unfortunately, you know, don't totally understand these platforms. they don't have a lot of influence. and i think that's also why some of these tech platforms and people that work at facebook and instagram feel frustrated. the they feel like they're being punished and i don't know, that they're victims. everyone thinks they're a victim. >> you ever see a congressional hearing about social media platforms? >> so cringy. >> so cringy. >> they have no idea what they're talking about. >> but they haven't taken the

time towns it, to realize it, to hire staff. if they really want -- >> good luck teaching a 72-year-old white guy -- >> we can't even get on it, they're so old. they're still on blackberries. >> that's so true. >> a lot of them use social media. >> their staff does, at least. >> taylor, great to see you. thank you so much. thanks also to a. scott bolden and christina grier who was with us earlier. and up next, a brand-new nbc news "wall street journal" poll. fresh insight into how americans feel about president trump fog the release of the mueller report, the 2020 candidates and a whole lot more. that is just ahead after this break. t more that is just ahead after this break. luckily for him, he uses super poligrip. it helps give him 65% more chewing power. leaving brad to dig in and enjoy. super poligrip. going back to the doctor just for a shot. with neulasta onpro... ...patients get their day back... ...to be with... ... family... ...or just to sleep in.

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well, this is "up." time david gura. we all know president trump has a penchant for walls. and this week he and his administration are stonewalling. they're trying to fence off the executive branch and the justice department as congressional investigations go into overdrive. on thursday, attorney general bill barr not only defied a congressional subpoena to turn over the full text of the mueller report to congress, he skipped a hearing on the mueller report before the house judiciary committee. that committee's chairman, jerry nadler, responded with another subpoena for the report. it's due tomorrow at 9:00, the same day treasury secretary steven mnuchin has to decide if he will release the president's tax returns. the administration has made it clear, it's going to fight any subpoena from congress.

>> we're fighting all the subpoenas. look, these aren't like impartial people. the democrats are trying to win 2020. they're not going to win with the people that i see. and they're not going to win against me. >> well, it's a dilemma for the democrats, but elijah cummings, the chairman of the house oversight and reform committee suggests congress has the tools to chisel into the administration's metaphorical mortar. >> there is no tool in our toolbox that we should not explore. we will look at all of those tools from a very practical standpoint. it may be that we want to just deal with fines. i don't know. but is it either fines and/or prison? >> threat of fines could be more toothless than it sounds. if congress were to find officials like attorney general bill barr in contempt, it would be up to a u.s. attorney and the justice department -- of course, led by bill barr -- to prosecute said officials and the department is not likely to act

when the official's noncompliance is at the direction of the president. where does that leave things? speaker of the house nancy pelosi has an option that she continues to see as far less palatable. >> i do think that the path of investigation and getting more information and you never know that one thing can lead to another. impeachment is never off the table. but should we start there? i don't agree with that. >> impeachment would also be toothless one would assume because of the composition of the u.s. senate and the support president trump enjoys from its members. so impeachment could harm democratic prospects in 2020. the house speaker has a fine line to walk to not alienate her base. at the same time, that may be why she is taking a page from the gop playbook, using what politico calls a benghazi/trump strategy, allowing democrats a chance to navigate around the thorny impeachment question while still showcasing their majority and flexing their investigative chops. the thinking goes, according to the article, democrats might even uncover some wrongdoing

along the way, just as the 2020 presidential race heats up. joining me this hour, mike peska, he's the host of slate's podcast, the gist, and also the author of the book "upon further review," selina maxwell is an msnbc political analyst. beth fouhy is an editor for nbc news and cnbcmsnbc's politics a eliot wims lliams is with me as well. let's take stock of where we are. showing all the walls that have been erected between congress and the justice department. 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning this comes around, i think it's unlikely we get this unredacted report. where the we go from here? >> let's talk about how we got here. i back in 2007 was working for the senate on the u.s. attorney investigation and was in the administration during the obama administration for fast and furious, for the whole time. i've seen this from both sides. and i think back then, and just a little quick historical lesson, there was at least a recognition on the part of both parties that congress and the

executive branch were co-equal branches of government, right? that does not exist today. and that is entirely a function of the president of the united states, coming into office and saying that about presidential harassment and we're going to block all subpoenas and i've already been investigated, which he hasn't, by congress. but i've already been investigated, so why am i submitting this. with that framework, you can look into how we got everything this week, from barr's testimony to the flap over don mcgahn and so on. it is a sort of systemic attempt to block and thwart any sort of investigation by a co-equal branch of government. that's how we got here. where we go from here, i don't know how we go from here. congress, obviously, as you said in the tease, has lots of tools in its disposal. some of them are toothless, in effect, like the attorney general is not going to arrest himself. that would be something. >> i would pay to see it, but like, it's just not going to happen. so congress needs to assert that it is a co-equal branch of

government. and continue holding the hearings and having tempt chairs, without the fried chicken. >> there you go. you didn't like congressman cohen's gimmick there? >> it's not even fried chicken. it's like kentucky baked chicken. they changed their name from kentucky fried chicken to kfc, because it's not fried. >> in light of what eliot's describing, but you had this moment where lindsey graham is going to call john roberts to talk about the fisa courts. there's a disrespect, as you're describing, a blindness towards the separations, the co-equality of all of these branches. >> and lindsey graham also said he wanted to reopen hillary clinton's email investigation. >> it was a day that ended in "y," that lindsey graham said that. >> no, we are in a crisis. although it's a cliche of putting the frog in the cold water and having it heat up gradually and you don't even realize it's happened until the frog's dead. i feel we're regrettably at this

place. things are happening very slowly, incrementally and it keeps building and building. so what is the course that democrats take now to assert the legislative branch? i mean, nancy pelosi has been very strong. she has told her people to continue with the investigations. she gave an interview where basically she said, you know, the attorney general has lied to the united states -- to the american people. she is holding back on impeachment, which is probably the right course at this point. she's not going to tell them to give up on the things that they are doing. but where do we go. where is there the neutral power to resolve all of this? it does not exist, except at the ballot box in 17, 18 months. >> selina, where do we go, as you see it? >> first, it would be really nice if we remembered that republicans who are elected in congress, they actually have a role to play in this, too. >> it's their government, too. >> and while we criticize democrats for making this political calculation, republicans have been making a political calculation since the beginning, that's what they're doing in this moment. so i think the fire that we have

for democrats and our encouragement for them to hold this president accountable and perhaps start impeachment, we also have to hold republicans accountable for their inaction, because they're betraying their oath of office. they were also elected to govern and to hold the executive branch accountable. they're a co-equal branch. everybody has said that. i think that we forget republicans when we have this conversation. and they should not get away with answering absolutely no questions about why the mueller report documented crimes committed by the president while he is in office. and the fact that they have no issue with that whatsoever. >> but the lindsey graham, the senate judiciary committee that he says he wants to have, isn't about the substance of the mueller report. it's literally, he wants to call mueller and barr to testify, to fight each other in front of the american people. >> who's retelling of the phone call was most -- >> to continue with the spin. and that's what this whole thing has been. it's been so obviously a cover-up, it's almost insulting. because william barr and team trump think we are as dumb a

they are pretending to be. >> we have really intractability here. this is one example of this, of the stonewalling, of the blocking of all of this, but it's a wider thing. it's more endemic than that. >> if i were to speak to republicans, i probably wouldn't be able to convince them with anything in terms of, oh, turn around on trump. he's been bad for you. they think he's been good for you. . i would talk to senate republicans and say, why are you being so willfully impotent and giving away your potency? and not just this, but the fact that we've gone months without a cop f confirmation of a secretary of defense. and all of these senators are saying, it's fine. it's fine if you lie to us, it's fine if you don't listen to our subpoenas. it's fine if you don't give us the nominees that you want. and they're just leaching away all their power. it's kind of a shame and pathetic, if you are a republican senator, to allow this to happen to you.

i don't know why a republican senator would do it. i don't know if taxes and judges are worth it. >> here's a word that's lost all meaning, and that's institutionalist. you look at bill barr and what happened this week and what mike's describing this week, these republican gray beards who have been on capitol hill for a long time, that term has lost all meaning. >> because a lot of us had faith that bill barr would be the institutionalist. the problem is, we have enough data to know what the president expects of all of the lawyers around him, including the attorney general of the united states. we know what he expected of sessions, and we know what we expected of whitaker, and now barr -- but he's given him that. he had a choice to make and he could have been the path of being the independent or the more independent attorney general and chose not to go there. >> but to zerlina's report, you said the mueller report disclosed crimes that the president committed. you know, mueller whiffed on that. he gave the republican senators, basically, any republican elected official, the ability, the path to say, we don't have to do anything about president trump. >> and he now, beth, is the man with the greatest agency in all

of this, isn't he? the question of whether or not he's going to testify, that continues, i guess. and bob mueller might come on capitol hill to address some of these points, but he has someone that has real determinism in this moment, i guess as he always has, but it seems particularly more acute now. >> bob mueller? >> yes. >> i think he whiffed. at some point, even if he's brought up, it's going to feel like kind of that door has shut. >> making his way back to the dugout. >> $30 million worth of investigation only to come up with a very inconclusive determination. >> i don't think he whiffed. >> here's the thing. we have to always remember that manafort's tax evasion actually accrued more money coming into the government than the mueller report actually cost to -- >> that's right! >> the mueller report cost like 50 -- >> we have to remember that. and so while i think it made it more difficult right now, because mueller didn't come down unequivocally on one side or the other, but he was -- his hands

were tied. he can't come down on one side or the other. >> well -- >> and i think if you read the words in the mueller report, not the spin, not the analysis of people like us, you actually read the words, he is telling the congress, the president has committed these crimes. he went through each element, you know, each obstruction count, and each element, and some of them, he's meeting all three, right?! >> you say -- >> so mueller the telling us and telling the congress that the president has committed crimes, i cannot indict and you have to do your constitutional duty to impeach. that's what he's saying. >> that's exactly what he did. impeachment is a political process. and it's maybe the democrats perceive it as bad politics to go ahead with it, but "a," they might be wrong, "b," so what? "c," the politics of a moment can change. i am not advocating. i think the basic rule of thumb that an impeachment followed by a nonconviction would be bad for the democrats, i believe in that. but so what? mueller doesn't have to take that into consideration.

all mueller has to know is, the information is there. you guys do it. >> the important point is, it doesn't matter that there's crimes or no crimes. we're getting hung up on what it took to meet the reasonable doubt standard, which is a very high burden. it's the president of the united states who engaged in misconduct. even if you can't charge it criminally, it is a problem. and that's for congress to decide. but just the, he didn't make a decision, i actually think is a wrong framing of it, because he did. he laid out all the elements of misconduct, even if it doesn't rise to what would meet the statute. >> we're going to come back here in just a moment. brand-new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll emphasizing the major divide when it comes to impeachment. nancy pelosi issuing a warning to her fellow democrats when she says it is just not worth the risk. s when she says it is just not worth the risk ...you can do no wrong. where did you learn that? the internet... yeah? mmm! with no artificial preservatives or added nitrates or nitrites, it's all for the love of hot dogs.

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura with some brand-new polling data. the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll has just been released and it shows the public remains divided over the outcome of robert mueller's investigation. 60% of americans say president trump has been dishonest in the russia investigation, while only a third believe the mueller report clears the president of wrongdoing. the poll also finds the president's job approval is on the rise. it's now at 46%, up 3 percentage points since march. americans surveyed are also split on impeachment. nearly half of respondents oppose it. the other half want immediate impeachment hearings or more investigations. the poll shows a significant partisan divide on all of these questions, no surprise there, either, perhaps.

house speaker nancy pelosi says impeachment is not off the table, but she cautioned against it when she spoke to glenn thrush for a profile in "the new york times" today. thrush summarizes her message to her caucus, quote, do not get dragged into a protracted impeachment bid that will ultimately get crushed in the republican-controlled senate and do not risk alienating the moderate voter who is flocked to the party in 2018 by drifting too far to the left. i'll start right there with beth fouhy. you see the data there on impeachment, you hear what nancy pelosi has to say. we were talking about this a little bit earlier. when i look at this polling data, what's striking to me is how little it's moved. month after month after month, there's the fanfare of the embargo being lifted and you look at the numbers, and they're mostly the same. >> for the entirety of trump administration, his approval rating has been within four to five points depending on the poll you're looking at. very little change. the partisanship have been consistently there. the independents are with the democrats, though, that is something that nancy pelosi and others are going to be looking

at. the fact that right now, independents are basically siding more on the democratic side. they are who elected the democratic congress in 2018. and that is the point that she's making to glenn thrush. that's why we won the house. and why would you drift too far to the left in the presidential race, jeopardize those seats. the problem with that, though, as we all know, is that the energy of the party is on the left, the energy of the passion is on the left. it's very hard for these candidates who are trying to go in, the hickenloopers of the world, amy klobuchar to say, i want to be the guy who's going to reach across the aisle and work with republicans. democratic activists don't want to hear that and nancy pelosi knows that. >> zerlina, i'm struck by how people just don't seem to care about dishonesty. 60% say the president was dishonest. that's not broken down by party lines. that's if all americans surveyed for this particular poll. and yet, i guess that's the second point. and yet. >> i think that's one of those things that is baked into the cake, even though i hate that expression. everybody knows that president trump is a liar, because we see it every single day.

we see the reality -- it's almost like a split screen. you see the reality and you see him saying the opposite. and this happens every single day. so i think we're conditioned to understand that he is not telling us the truth in any circumstance, or almost any circumstance. but at the same time, evening it's interesting that the base of the democratic party right now, in the policies that people are putting forward in their campaigns, they actually have majority support. so i think that there's sort of a disconnect in the analysis at times, because we say the party is swinging too far to the left, when the policies that they're outlining actually have majority support across party lines. so i'm talking about medicare for all and paid maternity leave and universal child care. those are things that are actual popular, according to a cnbc poll, a recent cnbc poll, that they polled specific progressive priorities. so i think that the democratic party has to walk that fine line between promoting the progressive policies that are popular without getting branded as socialists, like the trump

folks want. and again, they're lying, so, so going back to that, i think, you know, they're going to try to make all of the democrats into bernie sanders, but the only one who is bernie sanders is bernie sanders. >> aoc. >> well, she hasn't endorsed bernie. so let's give her space to speak for herself. >> let's go back to that glenn thrush piece with nancy pelosi. i'll read a quote. we did not engage in some of the other exuberances that exist in our party. safe to say, i think exuberances relate to what zerlina is talking about there. perhaps medicare for all, the green new deal. >> exultancies. i think nancy pelosi is right, it will probably come to nothing if the senate doesn't convict. and that has to be the overriding concern and i understand the politics. but everything after that, there are some counterpoints to what you were saying, zerlina, for instance, is the party so progressive? joe biden is by far and away the front-runner. he hasn't articulated any policies. so do we know it's that

progressive? and it seems like the basic premise underlying why not to impeach, other than that basic truth i articulated, you won't get a conviction, is that it will somehow damage the democrats e democrats' standing otherwise. there's a lot to dispute that. you don't know if you go ahead with the impeachment and more comes to the fore if the public won't change their mind if trump won't overreact, or if the two won't be separated. why is it that the public will perceive impeachment as one thing and the policies they might like as another thing. so maybe we'll see a poll that says, i think this impeachment is a waste of time, but i want to vote for the guy that's going to protect my health care? why can't both of those things be true? >> i'm struck by impeachment as a concrete thing. i was out in new hampshire this week going to events, listening to what voters were asking about. impeachment was something that came up, because it's something that you can reach your arms around and talk, be a thing you're opposed or in favor of. so 48% saying congress should not impeach trump. it's a way of coalescing this

conversation that's been happening about the dishonesty of the president and how he's comported himself in this job. that's changed the conversation a little bit, hasn't they? >> when people think of impeaching the president, they think of removing the president, and those are two very different things. the president, let me say it once more with feeling, the president will not be removed from office by this congress, because it requires -- or at least today, based on everything we know today, because it requires the support of senate republicans, that's a fact. that's not wishy-washy, deep-state moderate selling out. it's just a fact. they're not going to do it. now, the house might have a majority that would impeach the president, right? i think when it gets to all of these questions of polling, and it's funny, to paraphrase obie one kanobie, the day after -- >> if only you were here yesterday. >> i've never been one for politics, but on all of these polling questions, really what matters is, what do suburban white women in wisconsin and philadelphia and miami and wherever think about all of this, right? it's these big questions of do

60% of americans think that the president -- okay, look, we're going to be partisan and divided. it's just going to happen. but as an electoral consequence, what do the folks in cleveland and toledo, what did they think about this? to break this down further? >> and that is paramount on nancy pelosi's mind. when she's asked about aoc, i would paraphrase her, ocasio-cortez, of course, elan omar, the progressive women that have jumped to the fore in this freshman class, she in an interview said, that's about five people. she wrote them off. she's concerned about keeping those purple seats. aoc will have her seat for the rest of her life, if she wants it. the folks in those purple districts who beat republicans are not unless they can deliver to their constituents. getting bogged down in an impeachment process, as far as pelosi sees it, will allow that to happen. >> it seems to me that the white house kind of wants impeachment, because they always play to their base. and as i look at this poll with 29% saying mueller clears the

president of wrongdoing, i also think of obie wan kanobie saying, who is the greater fool? the fool or the fool who follows the fool. >> may the fourth be with you. >> so what's holding them back? and where does that leave the minority leader chuck schumer as he looks ahead to 2020? leader s he looks ahead to 2020 >> tech: at safelite autoglass, we know sooner or later... every chip will crack. this daughter was home visiting when mom saw a chip in her windshield. >> mom: honey is that a chip? >> tech: they wanted it fixed fast so they brought it to us. >> mom: hi. >> tech: with our in-shop chip repair service, we can fix it the same day... guaranteed. plus with most insurance a safelite chip repair is no cost to you. >> mom: really? drive safely. all right. ♪ acoustic music

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are you weighing at all running for senate, if that doesn't work out? >> being a senator would be meaningful, but i would hate it. >> that's former governor of colorado john hickenlooper saying he is not interested in running against republican senator cory gardner who is seen as vulnerable in 2020. he's not an outlier. more high-profile politicians are declining to run for the u.s. senate and we're starting to see more retirements as well. on saturday, republican senator mike inzee spoke to reporter in gillette, wyoming, where he used to be the mayor and says he plans to retire from congress at the end of his term. that makes him the fourth senator and the third republican senator who has decided not to run for re-election. the 75-year-old says he wants to spend some grandkid time in these next two years, after traveling two decades back and forth to washington, d.c. and around wyoming. senator inzee joins republicans

pat roberts, lamar alexander, as well as pat udall. this week, stacey abrams made it official she is not interested in running in georgia. let's start with the mike enzi retirement. this opens the door, liz cheney, the number three republican in the house, now eyeing this. is this something that she wants to do? as she, i guess, casts her eyes that she could be the next speaker of the house. >> her profile has risen substantially since 2018 election. she's one of the only women, house republican women, she's sort of grabbed that mantle, as sort of representing the party, representing women in the party. they would be very lucky to get her, to recruit her into that seat. but let's face it, wyoming's going to elect a republican regardless, if it will be liz cheney, it will be someone else. the bigger problem, as you pointed out, is that a lot of folks who -- chuck schumer has been recruiting to run in 2020 for the senate, are opting out, making that -- making the prospect harder for democrats to reclaim the senate. and if they do not win the senate in 2020, even if a democrat is elected president,

most of the agenda just grinds to a halt. >> because why? talking to john hickenlooper had been it seems like he would hate the job, like, the senate's a mess, it's broken, et cetera, et cetera, is that the only reason why -- >> as long as mitch mcconnell is majority leader, it's a terrible place for republicans and democrats. you were making that point. republicans aren't doing much in the senate, because mitch mcconnell controls the entire agenda. he controls the entire message. there's very little for any of them to do, frankly. that's why we're seeing so many democratic senators running for president. they had to get out of the senate, because they're so bored there. >> stacey abrams, let's talk a little bit about stacey abrams. i'll start with you. she kli she declines to run for senate. you have these individuals who have so much momentum baked in. there was such enthusiasm within the party for her to run. what do you -- how surprising is it to you that she wouldn't -- >> i'll say three words to you, president mario cuomo, right? in 1992, everybody -- there was -- the momentum was there, he was this exciting, youngish

governor of the state of new york, he had the plane idling on the tarmac and everything and he didn't run. people choose not to run for office for different reasons all the time. so it's -- i would caution against reading too much into that decision. look at -- and this is piggy banking on some of the things that beth had said. look at the map for republicans. you have 22 seats open now, three retirements. wyoming, tennessee, kansas, are all going to have like primaries. now, what happens in primaries is often you get some crazy stuff that comes out. back to 2012, where literally there was a national conversation on legitimate rape. >> yes. >> those terms were used by a knucklehead candidate, because they elected somebody who had no business being a major party nominee. so that's the kind of stuff you get, you know, in these primaries. and so, it's early. cory gardner himself didn't announce, and he's up for election in colorado. he didn't even announce until february of that year, in 2014, when he ran. so who knows what's going to happen. but i think we're, you know, i

think it's spelling doom for chuck schumer, my former boss -- >> thank you for making the -- >> but spelling doom for the democrats. but i just think it's early and a lot of things can happen on the primary stage, but also just nationally. >> zerlina, what is chuck schumer looking at at this point. i think after the last election, nancy pelosi, the house speaker, got a lot of praise for the candidates she was able to assemble to run in those races across the country. the democrats didn't get the senate. there were plenty of people who thought that maybe chuck schumer should not be the one running the caucus in the senate as a result of that. what's on his plate? how big a deal is this for him as he tries to find people to run in these races. >> that's part of his role as the leader of the democrats in the house. and i think that recruiting candidates, a diverse slate of candidates, is really important. that became true in 2018. you need people who match the district they're running in. and you had a lot of first-time candidates. so i think that, you know, you know, while he's struggling to find people, i think some people are going to step up and

volunteer, just like they did in 2018. because after 2016, basically all american women look at donald trump and say, if he could be president, i could be anything. because he has no qualifications or experience and he's failing at the job. every single day. he's lying, he's, you know, acting like a child on twitter, every single morning. when you look at that, as an example of, this man can be president? then i certainly can run for congress or the senate. >> mike peska, is the senate reparable? i think back on my high school debate days, you could do parliament and there was the house and the senate and the senate was always cooler. few peeer people and now in rea life you get a bigger office and fewer people to compete with. it's lost its luster and can it get it back? we've talked about all the ways it's broken and what a drag it is to be there. >> i like that criteria. what was the better one to do, a model congress, right? i think that mitch mcconnell -- i had a lot of bad suits back then. >> i think mitch mcconnell is

the most consequential political figure of the last 25 years, right? he ruined everything. he made the senate the place where you just want to go and do nothing. and i do think it's a big problem. i think it's a big problem. i can't, on an individual level, tell stacey abrams she's wrong. she's a person, she has agency. she has self-diagnosed that the senate's not the kind of place that matches her skills. but if you taking abrams and julian castro and beto o'rourke who aren't running against corn cornyn, and list all of these people, all these prominent people who could raise a lot of money and have excellent political skills who are declining, it is bad for the democrats and part of the reasons to go back and unwind it is that mitch mcconnell made it this way. >> all goes back to that. coming up, our producers have listened to the latest sunday sound so you can stay right here with us listening up. mike pompeo mike pompaking the this morning reacting to north korea's latest weapons test. we'll have the latest, when we come back. 'll have the latest, e come back. they really appreciate the military family and it really shows. with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good,

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welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. moments ago, secretary of state mike pompeo addressing the growing tension in north korea, just a day after kim jong-un upped the antewith north korea's first weapons test in a year and a half. >> we still believe that there's an opportunity to get a negotiated outcome where we get fully verified denuclearization. chairman kim has repeated that and repeated that quite recently. so we hope that this act that he took over the weekend won't get in the way. we want to get back to the table, we want to continue to have these conversations.

the sanctions, the global sanctions put in place by the u.n. security council, they're still in place. so clearly chairman kim has not been able to get precisely what he wanted, but we hope we can get back to the table and find the path forward. we're further along than we were a year ago and we hope we can continue tho make progress. >> two months after the hanoi summit fell apart, president trump is now trying to salvage what he has called a special bond with north korea's dictator. mike peska, i mentioned the word "hope," you heard the secretary of state say that several times throughout the course of that. this is not a condemnation of what happened over the course of the weekend, a president who has said time and time again, the litmus for the success has been the lack of testing. this was an intercontinental test, not a nuclear test, but it was a test. and here we're just hearing happy talk about hope for this going forward. >> yeah, maybe the president is going to move the grading line once more. probably, he will. i wonder at what point it accrues to his detriment that

his policies have been a failure, but also his description of those policies have clearly been a lie. if i had to guess, i would say, none at all, right? because that has not been what the history has shown with the trump presidency. i just think north korea is this intractable problem and what trump did was he just kind of changed the balance on how it's intractable. it was this intractable problem where we didn't meet because you don't meet with someone who's willing to deal. he did mean insanely according to someone who's ever put together one of these summits and it still didn't work. it's just as bad as it's ever been. so i guess we could say that please don't take trump at his word at all when he says that progress has been made. but to judge him a little generously, it is an unbelievably difficult problem. >> certainly, it's intractable, it's unmanageable, and initially, that is what was attractive to it about president trump. the guy who always wants to make the deal, this was the way to do it. i go back to what he said in that hanoi press conference, which was a long disposition about prospects for press in the

immediately, how quickly he turned from the failure of that summit to the next intractable deal he could try to broker. where does h leathis leave us? >> i hope alive. >> well said. >> this could always get worse, so i just want to say that. but i think, you know, this is one of those moments where it terrifies me, because he doesn't understand the underlying policy details or the history. he doesn't listen to his advisers. so even if mike pompeo is saying one thing in a meeting, it doesn't mean that donald trump is going to internalize that and go out and behave in accordance to that directive. i think, young, donald trump in this moment is somebody whose inexperience is actually putting the nation's security at risk. and so i think that that's always going to be true, as we head into the next election. i think democrats actually need to lead on the fact that they have more foreign policy experience and actually put some of those issues out in the forefront. >> beth fouhy, one of the principles in this conversation over the last few years has been

otto warmbier and his family, principles as well, and they were in the box at the state of the union speech. they were brought up in the press conference, i just mentioned in hanoi, and cindy warmbier, the mother of the late otto warmbier spoke at the hudson substitute this week and criticized the approach that the administration has taken, saying you can't do diplomacy with a regime like this one and that was something that mike pompeo was asked about by jonathan carl this weekend. let's take a listen to what the secretary of state had to say. >> i want to play you thing that cindy warmbier had to say. she's the mother of otto warmbier, who died after being imprisoned in north korea. she made an emotional appeal to keep up the pressure. take a listen. >> north korea, to me, is a cancer on the earth. there's a charade going on right now. it's called diplomacy. how can you have diplomacy with someone that never tells the truth? >> so from everything that you

have observed here, i mean, do you really think that kim jong-un is negotiating in good faith? >> well, first of all, i've come to know the warmbier family and cindy in particular is an american warrior. she's a noble, wonderful, gracious woman. so the tone in her voice, the sound in her voice, i have enormous sympathy for. make no mistake, the united states continues to apply pressure. the u.n. sanctions continue to be enforced. we're speexpending a lot of ene to do that. we think it's important, we play out very diplomatic opportunity, every opportunity we have to have these nuclear weapons to verify that, without the use of force. we think every effort ought to be made in that and we continue to work towards that. >> beth, she used the word "cancer" when she was making those remarks and he talks about the pressure being applied. there was a moment when david knanakamura of "the washington post" asked about this and the president really punted, in fact, said that the leader of north korea probably had no

knowledge of the fact that it happened. that the leader had told him that and the president was going to believe that. we all know that to be so far from what could be true. >> and not only that, but yesterday, after the missile launch, president trump said, i am with him about kim jong-un. i mean, he is -- i can't imagine how the warmbier family felt seeing that. it is -- i hate whataboutism. we do that too much in politics and sometimes in news, but can you imagine the reaction of republicans if after a missile launch barack obama had said, i am with the dictator leader of north korea. it would have been -- talk about impeachment proceedings getting started! >> right! >> president trump is, for some reason, in this -- in his mind, this is possible. and that's why mike pompeo is representing his boss there on television, making it sound like it can be so. i am not a diplomat, this is not something that i can predict. but given the track record, given what we know of north korea and kim jong-un, it's very unlikely. >> when we come back here, former vice president joe biden

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about once-weekly ozempic®. atop three recent polls as other democrats fight to stand out in a crowded field. senator kamala harris making waves this week with her questioning of attorney general bill barr, senator elizabeth warren also standing out with her student debt plan, but she also going after joe biden and his ties to the financial services industry. senator bernie sanders is also drawing attention to the former vice president's record, including his stance on the war in iraq. senator sanders is campaigning today in iowa where we find vaughn hillyard. vaughan, tell us understand what is on tap. we were talking about the way bernie sanders has tried to draw a distinction between his candidacy and vice president biden's. how are you seeing that on the trail? >> reporter: good morning, david. well, that conversation that you guys had took place about joe biden and whether his past would

come back to hurt him. bernie sanders is trying to use his own personal past to help him and make that case that, yeah, there may be younger, fresher blood in this race, at the same time i'm the candidate that unlike joe biden, who voted against the iraq war, voted against nafta and he explicitly said that, not only on the airwaves this morning but over the last week, he has called joe biden a good man but said when you look at the two records there shouldn't be a question over who is the most progressive record. he is bringing this up on the campaign trail as evidence that he has lived this, that he has lived a life of progressive values and that you know that what you are going to get from him. today we are in osage, iowa, a town about 3,600. we are at the mitchell county fairgrounds, there is no swine unfortunately in here, but bernie sanders is going to be using this as a backdrop for his first major agricultural speech or i should say first major policy speech and it's on agriculture, on rural america,

essentially talking about fair trade deals, talking about rural healthcare, rural education and i think it's interesting, we don't have an advanced copy of that yet to share but in the next hour or two he's supposed to be delivering that and that's where a lot of the question is. if somebody like bernie sanders wants to win iowa and put that into the democratic column again, what is the distinction between the trade policy of bernie sanders versus donald trump. there is a lot of questions to be had that we're looking for answers on. >> vaughn hillyard in mitchell county, thank you very much. bernie sanders in iowa, vice president joe biden in south carolina today. let's go back to kamala harris, i mentioned that exchange she had with bill barr and something she talked about with rachel maddow on the show on yesterday. let's find out what was elucidated in that exchange with the attorney general. >> he talked about the fact that, oh, you know, barely 10% of the report has been redacted. well, why did it take you so darn long to redact the thing? you could summarize the thing in two days and it takes you that

long to redact it? and when he then makes a statement to say that the president can shut down an investigation because he doesn't like the way it's working is absolutely ludicrous. >> wednesday was a marathon, after lunch looking at these 2020 candidates, why your reaction to what you saw from the questioning. my reaction was they had pre a.m. abls what they wanted to get, even senator klobuchar had that. >> she got right to it and it was a spirited babbling and forth. the question was nimble, move quickly and you saw the attorney general getting caught offguard which is what you would hope when you have somebody in the hot seat. >> we did see that, it definitely brought kamala harris back to what is she is good at, ties, close interrogation, we also saw that when she integrated brett kavanaugh. kamala harris came out of the gate fast and strongly when she entered the race back in january. she has faded back a bit, one could say, you knew, we are all so obsessed with mayor pete or

whoever is the new face in the crowd every single time somebody gets in, but in reality it's because kamala harris doesn't make a lot of news. she's quite cautious, she's really very careful about where she goes, sort of how she steps. i think people are looking for ail little bit more spontaneity from her, a little bit more passion, that's what i'm hearing when i've been on the campaign trail around her and all these democrats in places like iowa are kind of shopping at this point, looking for the right candidate. they are excited about kamala harris but don't quite feel like she's bringing it yet. >> here is the thing, getting back to my having worked on that committee i want to talk about the poetry that was that, that round of questioning, because she did two things, there were two kill shots or at least wound shots. one was did you ask the president of the united states -- pardon me, the president of the united states ask you to investigate anyone. >> suggest, intimate? >> right. she had -- >> the thesaurus was out. >> he has no answer because we all know based on what we know

about the president he probably did at some point. he has done it before. number two, did you review the evidence independently which is actually because he was making an independent prosecutorial judgment which is very rare, normally you get an recommendation and the ag would say up or down or whatever. and the answer was no. the beautiful thing there was that it was both substantive and political wrapped up in one and she sort of nailed it. if her name were not kamala harris but were jamal harris or something we would literally be fanning her with palm fronds right now. >> we would. >> anointing her with garlands because the greatest senate moment in american history. >> ten seconds. >> except for when she is in her comfort zone in a hearing or in a prosecutorial situation she's great. i have seen her and we all have a couple times almost pandering to the crowd, saying i'd like to think about giving felons in jail a vote or maybe we should do medicare for all. i'm not sure she's as -- >> joe biden has done the same, just not run away from his former record.

>> he also has eight years as vice president. it's not just the gender i would say. >> it's never just the gender. >> i'm saying -- >> hi. as a woman of color at the table i have to say -- >> last one to you. >> as the woman of color at the table i have to say her being cautious is a result of living in a black woman's body. >> amen. >> for her entire life. you have to be cautious because you have to be twice as good to get half as far and she knows that. that's her lived experience so i'm here to tell you that is correct. it is factual. that is also my lived experie e experience. >> will that win the presidency? >> i don't know, because we have never had a woman president. >> i was only talking about the politics of it. >> it gets back to this likability that is all tied into the gender question. >> leave it there. thank you for making that point. conversation continues in the green room. >> joe joined. >> he last hour, i mentioned he was running in the takoma park 5k. here he is on twitter saying he made his race, finished it in 35 minutes. congrats to voe.

sports update here on "up." that new nbc news "wall street journal" poll tells us how the electorate feels about impeachment. how do lawmakers feel? nancy pelosi urging members of her caucus to be cautious. jamila jie pal, her response up ahead on "a.m. joy." befojamila jie pal, her respons

befobefore .

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