thanks for watching. i'll see you back here next saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. until then, keep the conversation going. like us on facebook.com/politicsnation and follow us on twitter @politicsnation. up next, "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> this sunday, the democrats dilemma, some say it's time to start impeachment hearings. >> we must get behind the house of representatives as they pursue impeachment for this president. >> it's not a point of politics. it's a point of principle. >> but speaker nancy pelosi is arguing for pragmatism. >> if you go down that path, you have to have a prospect for success. >> with democrats divided, i'll talk to the newest entrant into the presidential race, senator michael bennet of colorado. >> i'm not going to say there's a simple solution to a problem if i don't believe there is one. >> plus barr and grill, after a

combative day in the senate -- >> yes or no? >> could you repeat that question. >> -- attorney general bill barr refuses to appear before the democratic house. >> the failure to come to the hearing today is simply another step in the administration's growing attack on american democracy. >> will bill testify? will robert mueller? my guest today john kennedy of tuesday tuesday. also the curious phone call between president trump and vladimir putin and the subject they did not discuss. >> did you tell them not to mettle in the next election? >> we didn't discuss that. >> and the new poll on president trump, impeachment, and the leading democratic candidates. joining me are eddie glaud jr., gerald seib, and kristen anderson, political columnist

for the "washington examiner." welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning. when it comes to how americans view the mueller investigation, perhaps our long-time nbc news put it best, it's a hung jury. people say president trump is not guilty, but he's not innocent either. in our new nbc news "wall street journal" poll 49% of people say congress should begin impeachment hearing now. while equal 48% say no impeachment hearing should be heard at all. democrats and republicans describe their impressions of donald trump in starkly different views. republicans sound like mr. trump, witch hunt, no collusion, and president are the most commonly used words.

for independents, just one word stood out to us, russia. as you'll see in a moment, democrats are split on impeachment. president trump's approval is right where it's been, 46%. up 3 points from last month. over the past several months, mr. trump's approval rating in our poll has sat between 43 and 46%. for all the teasing mueller headlines, president tweets, and congressal hearings, americans have landed where they started with this president. all of which has left democrats and their 18 to 21 presidential candidates asking the same question robert red ford asked fe end of the movie "the candidate," what do we do now? >> it's important to start impeachment proceedingings. >> impeachment is never off the

table, but should we start there? i don't agree with that. >> grats remain divided on whether and when to begin impeachment proceedings. >> we must get behind the house of representatives as they pursue impeachment of this process. >> the idea of pursuing impeachment makes no sense at all. >> in a "wall street journal" poll, 30% of democrats and 19% of republicans say there is a chance to begin impeachment now. and top democrats are listening. >> the path of investigation -- >> continue to do the investigation. >> investigation. >> you've got to investigate. >> there's reason to further investigate it. >> but it's not clear how long nancy pelosi can hold back her members. >> i say to the american people, did you -- did you elect a king, or did you elect a president?

>> for now democrats have found a common enemy in attorney general bill barr. >> he should resign. >> he should resign. >> do you think the attorney general should resign? >> i do. >> that's after this exchange last month when barr was asked about the special counsel's findings. >> do you know what they're referencing with that? >> no, i don't. i think -- i suspect they probably wanted, you know, more put out. >> in fact barr received a letter from rob mueller days earlier. >> the attorney general of the united states of america was not telling the truth to the congress of the united states. that's a crime. >> democrats are demanding to see mueller's unredacted report by tomorrow morning. >> if we don't get that, we'll proceed to hold the attorney general in contempt. >> all i can say, you've got the house. the way you run it will determine a lot about what happens in 2020. knock yourself out. >> meanwhile, president trump is

threatening to prevent former white house counsel don mcgahn from appearing. >> i don't think i can let him and then tell everybody else you can because he was a counsel. i would say it's done. >> on friday in a phone call, the russians say lasted 90 minutes, president trump tweeted he discussed the, quote, russian hoax with vladimir putin. >> he actually sort of smiled when he said something to the effect that it started off as a mountain and it ended up being a mouse. >> did you tell him not to meddle? >> we didn't discuss that. >> joining me now is the latest democrat to get into the presidential race, michael bennet of colorado. he's joining me from counsel bluff where i believe they're holding presidential caucuss in a mere 21 months from now. welcome back to "meet the press." the fact you're running for president means you're cancer free. i want to get that -- so, that is good news as well.

>> well, i really appreciate you're having me back. with the last time i saw you, i had had the diagnosis but not the operation. now i know i'm cancer free and we're moving ahead. >> let me ask first about your candidacy. you're the 18th major candidate in the race. you're the 11th white male. you're the second coloradan. you look around this field. what was missing? what is missing that you're providing to this race? >> i think we need somebody who's going to level with the american people about why our system doesn't seem to work for them, why it seems to be getting worse and worse and worse. i've had two tough elections in this swing state. out in the middle of the country where i think we feel pretty ignored by what people on the coast are saying. and third, i've got a record in the senate of a lot of bipartisan results, but i've been the there long enough to know how to get some things done but also long enough to know why

things don't get done in washington, what needs to be able to -- what needs to be fixed. my conclusion, chuck, was that if we don't down the road we're going down politically -- and that's before donald trump was president -- over the next ten years, we will be the first generation of americans to leave less opportunity, not more to the people coming after us. and i feel like it's my responsibility as it is every american's not to accept that outcome. >> pragmatic idealistic, okay? some might say that's an oxymoron. give me an example of where you think you've got to be a bit more pragmatic in your idealism. one of your opponents in this race, jay inslee, is proposing to get rid of all coal fire power plants within a ten year period. is that an example of what you're trying to say? >> i think that might actually be really possible. and i think there's a lot of merit in his proposals. i think my suggestion on

medicare x that creates a true public option administered by medicare rather than threatening to take away insurance from 180 million people, 80% of whom lichen the unions of america. i think the american people have waited long enough for universal health care. i would say on the idealism side of it, it's because i actually genuinely believe that the best form of government is self-government. and i believe that the freest kind of government is self-government and that we have an obligation to preserve the democratic institutions that 230 years of americans have preserved for us and that our children are going to need to resolve their differences. but we seem to be cavalier about destroying. the idea we're going to run down the rat hole that the freedom caucus has taken us down over the last ten years in their ran

the tyrannical way would be a disgrace. i think it's a disgrace we lost to donald trump to begin with. it seems to me we need to approach the work that's not going to give him a second term. >> let's talk about this institutions. it seems as if congressional democrats -- you would be a juror if there was a impeachment of the president in the house. there's a pragmatic streak in speaker pelosi who seems to be more focused on 2020 than impeachment than there is other congressional democrats who say -- making a similar argument that you're making about the institutions are wearing away. at some point congress has to stand up to these things on accountability. where do you fall on the immaterial impeachment question and where should the party fall? >> i think based on the polling you just cited where the majority of people say that the house should continue to

investigate and then we should make a decision down the road about whether to impeach or not and then obviously to convict or not in the senate, i think that's exactly right. that's what we should do. mueller should testify. we should have the full full unredacted report. to me it seems clear from the evidence that he has committed impeachable offenses, but we need to go through a process here and see if the american people can be convinced that's actually the right outcome so that we don't unnecessarily divide the people that we need -- who support we ultimately need, democrats, republicans, and independents, to change health care for the american people, to build infrastructure for the american people, to have an approach to climate that actually builds on the 70% of american people that say climate change is real, humans are contributing to it. that is what -- that is what the broad view is among the american

people yet we keep losing to climate deniers. we keep losing to people who are taking health care away from the american people, losing to people who are cutting tax cuts for wealthy people and blowing up the deficit. we should ask ourselves why are we losing to people that are adopting policies that are so antithetical to what the american people want. and a big reason for that is that we're not talking to the middle of america. we're just -- we've got a bicostal bias that's unconstructive. >> let's talk about that. you talk about something called the trump trap. and it seems to me when it comes to congressional oversight, he may be setting a trap which is you say no to everything. you stone wall on everything. and it's going to jam congressional democrats. and it is perhaps setting up a no-win situation. if you want to hold him accountable, you have to start impeachment. if you don't, you go down this line. how do you avoid that trap? what do democrats do tomorrow if bill barr does not agree to

testify, if they withhold mueller? what do you expect the democrats to do? >> i agree first of all with the democrats that you quoted earlier in the program, that mueller ought to resign. it's disgraceful what he's done. >> you mean mueller or barr? you mean barr, right? >> i'm sorry. barr. he's behaved like trump's criminal lawyer instead of the attorney general of the united states. in just this week, the kinds of things trump has gotten away with okay r his attorney general has gotten away with, if barack obama had done one of them, they would be calling for his head. that doesn't mean we should go down that rat hole. i think we should see whether or not -- pressure will build for the mueller testimony. pressure will build to get the mueller report out. and i think that we should do all we can to beat those drums, make sure he does have to come testify to congress and tell us what he found and explain why bill barr's summary of the work that he did, a guy who is

admired -- at least in the old days, was admired by everybody no matter what party they were in -- the work he did over two years that demonstrates conclusively that he could not clear the president of committing the crime of obstruction. you know, he said i can't indict a president so i'm not going to say that he committed a crime. but based on the evidence that i've seen, i can't clear him for this crime. that means that congress has to do its oversight. >> all right. let me move to if you run against donald trump because i want to show you these economic numbers. 3.6% unemployment, 263,000 new jobs created in april, 3.2% wages increased, consumer confidence is fairly high. look, there's a lot of voters out there who say i don't like donald trump's character but the economy, but i vote pocketbook. how do you convince that voter

to not vote pocketbook? >> people will vote their pocketbook, but we're in the 10th year of recovery that started in 2009 when barack obama was president. if you look at the job creation numbers along that trajectory over that ten years, it goes just like this. donald trump is elected in the last two years and i will confess, even he couldn't screw up the momentum that we had been going on for the eight years he got elected. the difficulty is when you're in a state like mine, colorado, which has one of the most dynamic economies in the world, not just in america, people still -- most people -- can't afford housing. they can't afford health care. they can't afford higher edge caution. they can't afford early childhood education. they can't afford a middle class lifestyle. and donald trump has done nothing to help with that, nothing to help with that. second point i would make is even if you feel like he's done the right thing by cutting taxes -- which i don't because he cut taxes on the wealthiest

people in america mostly. even if you feel like he's done the right thing in a regulatory way or taken on china in a way you like, the fact he has built his entire political career on dividing americans, not uniting americans, on detroying the institutions, ongoing after the free press, on violating the rule of law and being proud of that, on playing patsy to dictators like putin and the north korean dictator just this week. here he's saying i'm with him. i'm with him. i know he wouldn't do anything to hurt his economy. north koreans are starving because of what he and his father have done to their economy. so, we've got to keep our eye -- there are many, many ways that donald trump's record is available to us to beat him in november 2020. it would be a disaster if we lost to him again. >> one of the knocks perhaps that will be used against you in a democratic primary is that perhaps you haven't been a hard

core democratic activist as a united states senator. i want to put up a report card from a liberal judicial group called demand justice. it's the seven senators running up here. they give letter grades. you and senator klobuchar got f aes and you got f's because you didn't the vote to filibuster kneel gorsuch. you voted against him in confirmation, but didn't vote to filibuster him. that will be used to saying you're not fighting the system enough. what do you say? >> yeah. here's what i would say. i have clearly said -- and it doesn't fill me with pleasure to say this. i have clearly said that i have not agreed with the democratic strategy when it comes to judges. and i think the proof is in the pudding. donald trump, as a result of what we have done and as a result of what mitch mcconnell has done, has been able to appoint more circuit court judges and he's got two supreme

court justices than any president in the history of our country because he's working with a 51-vote threshold. and the detruks of the senate's responsibility to advise and consent. the people behind the super pack that are ak at thatting me with an f, they deserve an f because they receive that strategy. we shouldn't filibuster gorsuch because he was a trade of scalia for gorsuch. we allowed mitch mcconnell to vote -- not only allowed him, gave him every opportunity to use the nuclear option on gorsuch instead of forcing him to wait for kavanaugh. and my argument was that's going to be when row versus wade is at stake. we didn't have the discipline -- unlike mitch mcconnell -- we didn't have the discipline to play it strategically. we were nonstrategic. and as a result when kavanaugh

got there, democrats could do nothing except pretend to our base that we were fighting. i think our base deserves to have results from us. more important than that, i think the american people deserve to have results from us. i've gone to the floor of the senate to apologize for my small contribution to those failures. but those who conceived of the strategy, continue to advocate it, and continue to attack other democrats that disagree with them, i think they deserve an f. >> senator michael bennet, democrat from colorado, newest entrant into the field. you are proving it's going to be a lively debate. >> it should be. >> stay safe on the trail and keep healthy. >> thank you. >> when we come back, the democrat's next move and the curious trump/putin phone call with no mention of russian interference and mocking. snacking should be sweet and simple. the delicious taste of glucerna gives you the sweetness you

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panelists here. jerry, i want to start with you. not only did our poll show a divide and you sort of wrote about this. it is fascinating. it is a divide in the democratic party. >> yeah. >> in a weird way, donald trump wants more impeachment talk because it unites his side. who would think impeaching donald trump would be a problem in the democratic party. >> i wrote a column saying what if donald trump wants democrats to try to investigate him. let's investigate but not start impeachment hearings. you have 28% of democratic primary voters saying yeah, let's move toward impeachment. you understand the nancy

pelosi's side. do you do it because you think it's the right thing to do? maybe. but don't kid yourself that the party is with you in a rush toward impeachment. they're not. >> it's a campaign strategy right now, is it not, on the trump side? >> absolutely. donald trump is out on the campaign trail saying democrats are obsessed with investigating him and even though he was cleared by the mueller report they continue to go down this rabbit hole and i think it's an effective message for him. trump does the best when he's campaigning directly in opposition to somebody or something. that's why you see him homing on the investigation theme and joe biden among a host of democratic candidates. he did this with little marco and lying ted and he's doing this with the investigations. he needs an opponent. that was the strategy behind the witch hunt. if democrats move toward impeachment, i think he'll do it effectively with that. >> it seems as if the democratic base -- it's funny -- i've said the presidential candidates talk

to voters which may be why they're in one place. congressional democrats here social media democrats more. social media democrats are in another place. what do they do? a. >> they uphold their responsibility. >> what is that? >> that is they have to assert the role of the congress for oversight. we have to make a distinction between the bad actor that is donald trump and an argument we had been facing since nixon about a unitary executive. there are actors in this current drama that are in some ways the children of many of those folks who participated in the nixon era. bill barr is a protege of dig cheney. we know there's been an argument about unrestrained check tif power. kong, if they let this go -- and i made this critique of obama. if they let this go, the basic structure of our constitutional framework will collapse in some ways. so, i think it's important that

they walk and chew gum at the same time. they've got to uphold their oath. >> where are the constitutional conservatives anymore? i say this -- who were screaming about executive overreach? >> you heard a couple of them speak out during national emergency, at the conclusion of the shutdown. but i think there's desire to see the country move on and voters are not moving in their opinion of the president. you had this week, congress pressing bill barr on the fact that robert mueller gave him a c on his book report. it's the sort of thing that most voters are not changing their opinion of the president or his administration about. >> i want to move to the president mocking the mueller report to vladimir putin. i don't know how you do that. i want to put up a poll number here is how effective it's been about the concern. we asked about concern about future election interference. overall, as you see a majority of the country not that worried about it.

45% worried. but watch that partisan splits here. among democrats, 2 to 1 worried to not worried. and among republicans, nearly 4 to 1 not worried to worried. the president has kwunsed the republican base that what russian did was okay or that russia didn't do it. >> i think the emphasis has been on collusion. and that was probably a mistake. i think that the emphasis in the political discussion should have been on the fact that our election was hacked. some people were of course talking about that. but what we've heard over and over again was talk about the trump campaign's collusion. and i think now in the president's conversation with vladimir putin it's very clear that he wants to use the mueller report as cover to pursue what he's long-wanted to do. he talked about this on the 26 campaign to reframe our relationship with russia. he wants to have a good relationship with putin. he's doing the same thing with

north korea. but he was sometimemied because of the investigation. with russia there's a particular problem because of their interference in venezuela and that goes directly against what we're trying to do there. >> the president is pretending though there's nothing to see there. >> absolutely. and that's a real problem. >> i think what the president has done is define concern about russian interference in the election with attempt to undermine the legitimacy of his victory in 2016. that's what republicans are buying into. the problem is there's a legitimate problem here with russian and potential chinese interference with the electoral process in the country. it's being lost in this debate. it was the most compelling part of the mueller report was the evidence of russian interference in the election. but it got relatively little attention. >> it's why i was obsessed with putting up the independents today because the democrats are worried about obstruction, republicans are no collusion, and those in the middle are going russia, hello.

>> one thing that's frustrating is the idea we use words like hack the election. voting machines weren't hacked. what it comes down to is voters are being told you were brainwashed. that's why you see the divides. you have republicans being told you only voted for trump because putin put something on facebook. have you ever tried to win an argument with someone by starting it with you were brainwashed. >> something happened in florida. it may not have been hacking, but something happened in florida. >> we absolutely need more security on that front for sure. >> i think it's important of course there is a question around the legitimacy around donald trump's presidency. there's the case we need to ask the question about the 2020 elections. not only are we concerned, at least those of us on the left, concerned about russia. we're also concerned by this fact, the 1982 consent decree that prevented the republican,

rnc, from orchestrating particularly what happened in georgia with stacey abrams or what happened in north carolina. there are these converging factors that are leaving some folk to assume that the election itself would be in jeopardy particularly because we have someone in the office who's prone to cheat. >> the president did -- by the way, the president did get a lot of help from a talking point. investigator sent investigator posing as assistant. it was amazing the one fbi informant attended white house meetings. talk about reinforcing a pair paranoia the president has been expressing. >> is it paranoia or not. we've moved into a new phase which is investigate the investigators. i think the president and his people hit a fork in the road. they could have said we're moving on. let's talk about the economy.

263,000 jobs created or let's go after the people who started this whole thing. we're going to get them. and they've kind of chosen that path. >> that doesn't feel like a smart re-election path. >> i would add if you think the controversy about bill barr is over, i think he's dead serious about investigating the investigation into the trump campaign. he used the term spying. i want to know whether it was adequately predicated. >> we're going to pause the conversation here. when we come back we're going to talk to a member of the committee who questioned bill barr this week. >> tech: at safelite autoglass, we know sooner or later...

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welcome back. both president trump and democrats know that impeachment both president trump and democratics know that impeachment has no chance without republicans. john kennedy was among many of his party who were sympathetic to bill barr when he testified this week. senator kennedy joins me now from new orleans. good to see you. >> thanks chuck. >> before i get to the committee hearing, i want to get to the president's phone call with vladimir putin and his explanation of what happened in it and get your reaction on the other side. let me play it for the viewers. >> did you address the election

meddling issues? >> we discussed it. he actually sort of smiled when he said something to the effect that it started off as a mountain and it ended up being a mouse. but he knew that because he knew there was no collusion. >> did you tell him not to meddle in the next election? >> we didn't discuss that. >> what kind of lost opportunity did the president have there in trying to sort of -- there was a -- there's a part of the mueller report that everybody agrees with which is that russia had a systematic attempt to interfere in our democracy. the president is not taking that seriously with vladimir putin. does that concern you? >> well, i wasn't privy to the conversation, but i hope what the president did was talk to the head of russia about interference in our elections. i mean, russia's been doing it and the former soviet union has been doing it for 60 years, but they've stepped it up, chuck. and one of the things that's been lost in the mueller report is how aggressive russia was in

trying to interfere with our democracy. russia is no longer the soviet union. their economy is smaller than new york state. they've got good spies. they've got nuclear weapons, and they know how to -- they're good at cyber terrorism. we've got to check them, and we've got to tell them we're not going to tolerate it. and if they keep doing it, we're just going to further add sanctions. i'm hoping that's what the president did. >> you say "hope" but if he had said that, wouldn't he share that with the american people. instead, he shared that vladimir putin said it's not a mountain, it's a moll hill. that doesn't sound like a president who told him to stop interfering in our election. >> it was a mountain and i wasn't privy to the whole conversation. you'll have to ask the president about that one. >> let me move to the hearing itself. after the hearing, you and i talked about calling up bob mueller to testify. you were open to it.

senator graham had said no. then he sent this letter to bob mueller. should this be interpreted as an invitation to bob mueller to come testify before your committee? >> yes. and let me put this in context. i've been very supportive of the mueller investigation. never met the man. but by all accounts he's a good, competent, decent man. we have his report. you can debate the rhetoric or the discussion in it, or the spin or whatever you want to call it. but the conclusion is no indictment for collusion, no indictment for conspiracy, no indictment for obstruction of justice. i think many of my democratic friends have accepted that. some haven't. many of my democratic friends thought that mueller was going to indict the president. and so the mueller report was kind of like a hair on their biscuit. now they don't know what to do, so they're attacking bill barr. and my feeling is it's time to

move on. i understand that washington is not the big rock candy mountain and politics isn't everybody's blood, but i think we ought to spend a little bit of our time talking about the next generation as opposed to the next election. if i can make one other point, this business of the dispute between the white house and the house is dangerous to america's institutions because if they all go to court -- they need to work it out. if they all go to court and it becomes a zero sum game, one of two things is going to happen. trump's going to win and that's going to undermine congress's oversight ability. or congress is going to win and all of a sudden the new standard is that the house or the senate can ask a president or a presidential nominee anything they want to about their personal life whether it's relevant to being president or not. >> so, what's the compromise. >> and i think that's dangerous. >> what's the compromise? >> i think the white house and the house leadership ought to

sit down and say okay, you want this. we'll give you that. why do you want this? i don't think the house is in completely good faith. let me give you an example. when the ways and means chairman said he wanted trump's tax returns, he said the reason i want his returns is because it'll help me evaluate how good a job the irs is doing in auditing. now, give me a break, chuck. i mean, if you believe that, you'll never own your own home. nobody believes that. he's in total bad faith. the president doesn't have to turn over his tax returns. would i do it if i were running for president? yeah, but there's no law that says he has to. >> let me go on to the issue of foreign interference. should it be a crime to use stolen material if it comes from a foreign adversary of the united states? should that be a crime? because it's not -- basically if you read the mueller report, our laws are blurry on this.

so, should it be a crime? should you guys be passing this? should it be a crime to use stolen material from a foreign adversary in a campaign? >> if you do make that a crime, you've still got to show intent. you've got to show minz rhea. when the russians spy on you or the chinese or north koreans, they don't come in your office and say hey, we're from russia, china, or north korea and let me talk to you. they're very clever. if you're going to pass a law, you've got to require criminal intent. >> so you don't think there should be some safeguard -- >> no, i didn't say that. >> what does that look like then? >> if you're telling me should it be improper or even a crime, presuming you could show minzrea for me to use in a senate race

material used from russia or argentina for that matter, but you've got to show intent. >> do you think the republican party as a whole has yet to pluj not to use stolen material. should they? >> i'll pledge. i won't use stolen material. but i've got to know it's stolen material. if somebody sends me information and i don't know it's coming from an adversary -- >> so, rudy giuliani is wrong when he says there's nothing wrong with using stolen material from the russians? >> i don't know whether he's wrong or right. i don't know what the law is. you're asking me should we have a law. frankly, i haven't researched. chuck, i'm not trying to dodge your question. i just don't know. >> ethically, should that be wrong? >> if you're asking me, yeah. i'm not going to use stolen material from russia or china. i don't think -- i don't know anybody who would. but the point is you've got to know it's stolen. >> okay. >> and generally when they send

you this stuff in a campaign, if russia is -- to my knowledge, russia's never sent me anything in a campaign. but if they did, i know they're not morons. they're not jelly heads. they're not going to walk in and say hi, i'm from russia, i've got information for you. >> before i go, i want to ask you about north korea. it appears kim jong-un launched these rockets as attempt to restart negotiations with the united states. should he be punished for this first instead of rewarded with more talks? >> well, i want to keep talking with kim jong-un. i think -- >> you think the president is being played? >> no. well, i don't know. i mean, he could be. i don't know. the only person who knows that is kim jong-un. we can all speculate, but i would rather have us talking with kim jong-un than firing misms at each other. at some point we're going the to

get down to it. it's going to be what are you going to give up and what are we going to give up. i assume the president's working on that. but in the meantime i think the sanctions are biting, and i think they're hurting north korea very hard. and if we can work out a trade deal with china and get china to be more cooperative, we can bring kim to his knees. what i hate is having to hurt the people of north korea while we're hurting the knuckle head they've got for their president, but that's the way it is. >> that's the way it is. senator john kennedy, republican from louisiana. always appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your views. thank you very much. when we come back the one thing president trump is counting on for re-election and how that just got better for him. ♪ applebee's bigger, bolder grill combos. now that's eatin good in the neighborhood. hi, what's this social security alert? it's a free alert if we find your social

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>> welcome back, data download time. as you may have heard, the economy is doing great. as president trump likes to reiterate, there are jobs, jobs, jobs. and he's not wrong. unemployment is at a 50 year low. at 3.6% it's the lowest since 1969 and unploumt has been at or under 4% for over a year. so, the president should be happy about these numbers. but not just because they show a good economy. they may be his best hope for re-election. as we showed in the latest poll, president trump's approval rating sits at 46%. that's 5% under water. it's below the normal ranging.

when you look at how they feel about the president as a person, it's even worse than his job rating. just 39% of people polled felt positive about the president as a person. 49% felt negatively. 10% points under water. what gets the president from 39 to 46. to repeat the president's favorite line, jobs, jobs, jobs. when asked about the handling of the economy, 51% approve of his job performance, 5 points higher than his overall job rating. that means he could be in trouble if the economy were to slump. without the bump that the strong economy gives him, his base would likely turn into just 39% rather than the 46% he sits at now. and you can imagine what his job approval rating would be if his personal problems weren't getting in the way. when we come back, end game and what nancy pelosi just said about whether president trump would even accept the results of

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not go to respect the election. he would poison the public mind. he would challenge each of the races. he would say you can't seat these people. eliana johnson, this is one of the reasons she's saying she's not for impeachment. you have to win the middle and if you beat him in 2020, you have to beat him by a lot. it has to be a mandate so that he accepts the results. >> i think she's right. >> it's striking that the speaker of the house believes she has to utter this. >> well, i think she's right. there is evidence in 2016 he was talking about that the system is rigged and i think nancy pelosi, somebody who clearly understands her opponent and she's shown that over and over again. not only with how she's approached impeachment but with how she talked about winning the midterm elections. >> gerry, could we handle 2000? can you imagine if it's a recount in had one state to decide whether donald trump wins reelection or not? >> well, i think we're in dangerous territory, that's for sure. could we?

i don't know. we were talking earlier about whether institutions are holding in this era we're in right now. so far they have. will they? i'm not entirely sure. the thing is that i think when you start questioning the legitimacy of elections whether that's at the local level, the state level or national level, then you're in pretty dangerous territory. it's not hard to imagine people in the streets of washington where we are sitting out protesting the results of the 2020 election. i don't like to think about that. >> but there's been a lot of questioning of the legitimacy of the 2016 election not coming from republicans. as soon as the election result came in sort of the tables turned and suddenly the shoe was on the other foot. and i actually think our institutions over the last 2 1/2 years have held up very well. democrats won the midterms. they were seated. they control congress. they're continuing to investigate. the friction between the branchs is there. people speculated the president might fire bob mueller. he didn't. they thought they might sit on the report, they didn't. our institutions are holding. it is ugly. it is messy. there is friction. but ultimately i have faith that america is going to get through this. >> you put up a nice low bar,

but i will give you that, the bar is above the ground. i think. >> michael cohen in his congressional testimony said very clearly that he did not think donald trump would -- would actually give up the presidency if he lost, right? so what nancy pelosi echoed has been echoed before by someone who sits right next to him. i don't think -- one of the things i think we have to pan out and really ask ourselves the question whether or not our institutions are actually holding up. i think there is an erosion that there are, shall we say, a kind of rot at the bottom that actually suggests that something -- something devastating is on the horizon, at least in my view. >> well, i think something has fundamentally changed. there is this idea that if democrats win in 2020, we will go back to normal. >> there is no new normal. >> i don't think that there is. i think fundamentally there are things in our society that have changed that won't go back. >> and this to me is the fundamental debate between -- biden and bernie are having it right now. but essentially, michael bennet

is -- he straddles this argument. he's like, the institutions are eroding. it's bigger than trump. biden thinks it's just trump. >> it's a fascinating strategy. he is saying basically this is about trump. this is about donald trump. full stop. that's what this election is about. it's about american values not about russian collusion. it's mano y mano, me versus him about upholding american values. he's acting as if he's not only that he can beat donald trump on those terms, but he's already essentially the nominee making that argument. it's a really interesting strategy. >> i think you can put democrats into two camps. there are those who say trump is an aberration and we simply need to defeat trump and we'll return to the pre-trump era where politics were bad, be, you know, trump is the real problem here. then there are those who say the whole system is rotten. it's not just bernie campaigning on that. eddie, too, he raised his hand. >> there are several others. i would put elizabeth warren in that camp, who have been saying

that. she hit obama on that -- >> right. >> -- saying that he didn't adequately address the financial crisis and that this entire system needs to be overhauled. >> it's maureen dowd's theme today. she hit everybody. she hit biden. she hit obama. sort of these guys who have always tried to be rational rule followers and it bites them. >> right. look, income inequality wasn't donald trump's investigatintion. the fact that the planet is on its deathbed, it wasn't donald trump's fault. so when we begin to lay out an economic -- an economic philosophy that the democrats have been complicit in, right, since 1980 in some ways has devastated everyday ordinary workers. deregulation and privatization in some ways devastated the planet and the lives of everyday folks. that's not just donald trump. in some ways, what we're living in is the collapse of the anyone of reagan. and the question is something is dieing and something is being born. so these democrats who made a living reconciling themselves to the philosophy of reagan -- >> right.

zblsh. >> -- now they have to figure out what they're going to do. >> let me close the loop here, though, with you, kristen, which is the moderate republican, the chamber of commerce republican that does not like trump. many of them i think voted for democratic house members. what do they want? >> i think what they want is the economy to continue growing like it is. i any they have sort of reconciled themselves to not liking the tweets, not liking the way the president conducts himself, but liking the results he's getting on policy and in terms of of the economy -- >> do they want to kick him out or only kick him out for somebody like joe biden? >> i don't think they want to kick him out. the democrats have a very small margin of error about who they nominate. >> i have to make that the last word. i see your finger there. that's all we have for today. thank you sincerely for watching. and remember, if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." >> tech: at safelite autoglass, we know sooner or later...

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