we're out of time. my thanks to eli, carol, donna and to you most of all for watching. mtp daily with chuck todd starts right now. if it's friday, a bad week gets even worse for president trump. could his latest self-destructive crisis creating move be an effort to distract from impeachment? if it is, katy bar the door. the steady trickle of democrats calling for impeachment could turn into a flood. the trump administration's changes to the census were about one thing and one thing only. increasing the power of white republican voters.

welcome to friday, everybody. welcome to another edition of meet the press. i'm chuck todd here in washington. we begin tonight with a giant mess. surrounding the president's threat to impose sweeping and mass iive tariffs on mexico unls it steps up its immigration enforcement. the question is why now? does it signal the president isn't eager if the impeachment. an administration official says this threat against mexico to impose penalties as high as 25% on all mexican goods was heurrid out the door to appease president trump. one says the threats were left intentionally vague so the white house had an easiy off ramp. evidence that this could be nothing but a bluff. get this, another source said the administration timed this threat knowing that there would likely be a seasonal drop in illegal immigration so the

president can claim credit for something that was already expected to happen. in addition to the policy chaos, there's the blow back. sources tell nbc that the treasury secretary and the u.s. trade representative both oppose the move. business groups were not notified and relevant congressional committees were not even briefed. mitch mckconnell is withholding his support. we have seen other rank and file republicans oppose the mover all together. don't forget, this threat has the added risk of torpedoing the administration's efforts to ratify nafta 2.0. why was this hastly assembled threat rolled out the door? why now? it comes amid an influx at the border but also it comes amid a growing number of democrats calling for impeachment after

bob mueller handed them the baton to determine if the president's actions were impeachab impeachable. that tally has ticked up to 52 democrats and one republican. the democratic chairman were an impeachment inquiry says the believes there is justification. if this is a bluff, the story is a giant political implications for democrats. we're joined by a member of house leadership. it's democrat debby dingle of michigan and if it isn't a bluff, it will have major imp implications for the border. let's begin with congress. congresswoman, i want to just start with what was your initial reaction to the president's announcement last night? >> chaos. total chaos. i am somebody who lives in state that needs a new nafta. what tariffs are an economic

tool to level the playing field for working men and women across this country. what he did last night is one of my problems i said i'd work with him on trade policy. what he did just simply, i'm just totally agast. >> does this torpedo nafta 2.0? >> i want to get back to congress next week. my workers, i've been in a lot of union halls, want the see a trade deal passed. my job is to deliver for them. if he keeps on this path, i think it's a very chance it will torpedo something that he promised the workers in my state he would deliver on. >> they started the clock. i don't want to get off on legislative speak here but essentially what made no sense about last night's announcement is it came on the same day that the administration decided they were getting impatient with you

in congress and saying, step up. let's get this passed sooner. if they wanted it passed sooner then why do what they did last night? >> it makes no sense. i simply can't understand it. i've always been a democrat that said if you do this right, you fix the enforcement on mexico, i'm going to be there helping you get it passed. a lot of republicans started supporting this. he got blown apart today by republicans. some of the most republicans are in the senate. chuck grassley. mitch mcconnell, leader of the senate has with held his support. this is chaos and we cannot rule by chaos in this country. though we seem to be. >> do you think this is related to robert mueller coming out on wednesday? >> we know he's very effective in messaging and we know that -- i think robert mueller on wednesday told everybody, republicans and democrats, do you job. the president always gets very

uptight when he hears people saying things like this and is very good at deflecting on message. i don't know what his timing was. i can't -- my problem with his trade policy, when i'm someone that would be more than likely to help him than not at times, is his inconsistency, the randomness of it and the total chaos of it. >> something interesting when you brought up robert mueller. you thought the message he sent was do your job. what's your job? did you hear open a grand jury inquiry, ie impeachment inquiry? >> i'm one of the people that have -- he told everybody to read this report. if you haven't, read it. i still want the see him testify because i hate parsing people's words and everybody else's. there is a very theme that is throughout this report about how russia is trying to divide this country. i don't want to play into russia's hand and divide this

country more with a partisan impeachment. i am totally schizophrenic right now about all of this different things that are in there. i do think he was telling people that his report is his testimony. people can interpret that report to be what we want it to be, i guess. i have read it. i'm on my third reading now. i think we have to do this in a bipartisan way. i think republicans and democrats have to the responsibility. >> there's one member of your delegation that's a republican that held a town hall and is laying out a case for impeachment much more thoroughlily than any democrat. i'm referring to justin amash. >> i respect him very much. we have been colleagues since i got here. his office was next to mine. i don't agree with him although he and i vote more often on some issues when it comes to -- he's a libertarian. he he believes in protecting civil liberties but he always votes the way he thinks.

he's a very honest. he can drive some people nuts, probably including me some days. i really respect him. >> it's funny that you said you've been schizophrenic about this impeachment issue. i feel like the democratic party in general has. i want to play you some sound from both jerry nadler, speaker pelosi and yourself on this and try to get a sense of where we're headed. take a listen. number one, guys. >> impeachment is a political act and you cannot impeach a president if the american people will not support it. >> we can't impeach him for political reasons and can't not impeach him for political reasons. >> we understand our oath of office to support and defend the constitution of the united states. >> we don't need a divided country when it comes to impeachment. >> you see where i'm getting here. i think the confusion is this and we've had this discussion, i think you and i off the record about the issue of what's playing politics.

not impeaching. impeaching? the last time i feel like your party had this divide was over the iraq war issue where a lot of people were thinking politically and what was good politics in the moment turned to out to be bad politics five years later. >> i'm doing what i think is right for the country. that is i think we have a fundamental responsibility. we take the oath to protect the constitution and if you read that report, i know you've read that report like i have. mueller talks about how russia is attacking the fundamental pillar of our constitution. they're trying to divide us. i'm very worried about howdy vieded -- how divided we are. how do we bring people together to protect this democracy. >> can it be done if the president himself isn't

cooperating? >> he's putting ca inting keros fire. he's refusing to send people up to hill. at some point people will be driven to have no choice. i'd like to think i work for a senator, bob griffin, many a decade ago as an intern. i remember how people -- >> a republican. >> he was one of the turning points. i flew with him back to washington the day he came out and they watched the facts. i think it's very important for us to follow the facts and this nobody is above the law. >> congresswoman, i'll leave it there. democratic from michigan. somebody who always speaks her mind. thanks for coming on and sharing your views with me. joining me now on the other side of this story or the other half of this story is jeh johnson. good to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> let me start with a question about what the president is asking mexico. he wants mexico to improve its

enforcement in some form or another. what can mexico do that it is not doing now? >> good question. well, first i have to say that if you want mexico, a in addition of 126 million people to do something, i don't believe that offending their national honor, trying to browbeat them into doing what you want to do is the right approach through tariffs. in 2014, chuck, you remember the spike we had in early summer. maybe 2014 we had 64,000 apprehensions on our southern border. we had 60,000 in one month. one of the things we did was work constructively with the government of mexico to prevail upon them to put more asset, more people on their southern border with the northern triangle. they did that in july 2014. that was a direct conversation between me and my mexican cou

counter pa counterpart and it was a president to president conversation. we saw a downturn in the numbers after that. by august 2014, the spike was pretty much over and the numbers stayed for low for the next year. 2015 was the second lowest number we saw since 1972. there are things the mexican government can be doing with our help, with our encouragement but through constructive engagement with that country. >> let me you this. last night the acting homeland security secretary when they were briefing us in the press about why they are doing this. he did note that when you compare this month of may, he said there were 4500 people a day that have crossed the border illegally or arrived at ports of entry without documents. he said this would be the highest number in 12 years for any single month of may. i know we're in a peak season here. it's likely to start to go down. i mean, you had said before, you

thought this was a crisis. is it fair to call this a crisis? >> yeah. it's a crisis chuck in a number of respects. first and foremost it's a crisis in central america because of the poverty, violence, the drought there. the lack of jobs. the corruption. it is and has been a crisis for quite a while in central america. when you see numbers at these levels of 100,000 a month, 4,000 a day, it's a crisis in terms of our own border security personnel to deal with it. it's a crisis in the communities on both the mexican and u.s. side to absorb those kinds of numbers, to take in those kinds of populations. it's a crisis in terms of the humanitarian assistance that catholic charities and others are providing in texas. without a doubt, these numbers at these levels are simply not sustainable and not enough people in my judgment are saying

to this president and this administration plainly what you're doing is wrong. we're on target, i'm told, in the month of may to see numbers like we've seen in march and april. >> jeh, i think people did tell him they were wrong and they have been fired. >> this was the president's central issue on which he campaigned in 2016. he's failing at the effort. the numbers we're seeing month to month are the highest we have seen in 12 years. plainly, what he's doing is not working. plainly, my graigrants have not deterred from coming from mexico into the united states and he is not -- he's not turning them around. i believe that people in dhs at white house need to really take a hard look at what they are doing and decide they need to go back to basics and perhaps get some fresh perspectives from people like myself who had to

manage and own this problem for a period of years before they came to office. >> look, it's plenty of speculation as to what's motivated the president to do this. i think there's some that obviously this issue bothers him constantly and he'll get the daily reports about apprehensions and things like that. there's also the issue of robert mueller. it's possible he wants to just send a message to his base. don't forget why you want me here. i'm the only one talking about that issue in way you like hearing and perhaps there's a lot of different ways on this, but this idea that it's a response to the mueller report, what kind of impact would that have on dhs staff, by the way? s . >> first of all, i can't make sense of the decision making process. i was listening to your lead in and thinking it's just another friday in the trump presidency. s >> you and me both. >> i can't make sense of it all. what we're going through right now, in my judgment, has to be

demoralizing to the people in washington and dhs and on the front lines who are trying to adopt a consistent policy, to bring a consistent response and approach to what plainly is an unprecedented in modern times situation. we need to continue to invest in the poverty and violence and eradicate the poverty and violence through what we started in 2016 and the president has suspended th eed that aid whichk is the wrong thing to do. we have to start at the source. this is not a simple, easy, quick fix. >> very quickly, you're not one of those very highly partisan democrats, if you will. i'm curious as you see this debate play out in the democratic party over impeachment, do you have an opinion? >> well, i have been of the view

that this is a matter for the electorate. with an election 17 months away, there comes a point when impeachment becomes an academic act. particularly when you know you need two-thirds of the senate to convict. it should be up to the voters to do their job to decide whether or not president trump deserves a second term. i watched very closely the statement from director mueller. i read his report like debby did, several times. in particularly part two. for the life of me i don't understand what director mueller is trying to tell us. is he trying to tell us but for the policy he would have indicted the president or is he trying to tell us their arguments for and against. i don't have to decide because he can't be indicted any way. the statement on wednesday seemed to suggest it was more the former and not the latter which adds momentum to what i see is a growing effort in the

house democratic caucus to call for impeachment. the sand is shifting. you showed a number of statements but the ground under which they are operating is shifting, plainly. >> that's for sure. all right jeh johnson. thanks for coming and sharing your views. coming up, the growing pressure over that i word. are more centurist democrats about to get on board. nc nc nc nc i switched to liberty mutual,

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we have our panel for today. ruth marcus, deputy editor at the washington post. eugene scott and michael steel former adviser to jeb bush and john boehner. i want to first, i want to get to our impeachment debate a bit. i want to go to the last time the president threatened the border. let me put up number four. he said if mexico doesn't immediately stop, this is march 29th, doesn't immediately stop ul immigrati immigration through our southern border, i will be closing the border next week. that was march 29th. next week happened on april 5th and here was his response. >> because mexico has been absolutely terrific for the last four days. they are a ppprehended everybod. yesterday they apprehended 1400

people. the day before it was 1,000. if they apprehends people at their southern boarder where they don't have to walk through, that's a big home run. we can handle it from there. >> this is why people think this is a bluff. >> he is suggesting his tweets made a significant change. in part because of collaborations between mex aico and the united states. the president knows he has to continue this hard line proeapph to immigration. since he's not been able to deliver on everything he wanted

to such as the wall, he has to pull out something else. >> michael steel. literally, i think we only found one republican supporting what the president is doing. >> you found one? >> yes. lindsey graham. let me show you here. he didn't like this business when the trump administration began. back in 2017, he said about using trade on this. border security, yes. tariffs no. any tariff we can levee, they can levee. huge bar your to econ growth. yesterday he tweets i support president trump's decision to impose tariffs on mexico until they up their grame to help us. mexico needs to do more. he's the only republican i've found that has been supportive. even the chamber of commerce is thinking about suing the president. >> it's the wonder that you get to be a statesman four of the six years you're serving. >> which four years is he a statesman. >> the previous four.

now he's in cycle. this is -- the president has a genuine frustration that he's not been able to make more progress on border security. it was a signature campaign. >> sledge hammer. i've got an idea. let me try this sledge hammer. >> the biggest problem is he squandered the opportunity in his first two years when republican majority in the house and senate. that's when he had the opportunity to get something done. make an agreement to protect the dreamers. much bigger numbers than anyone is talking about. missed the chance. you get the feeling that somebody, make a fox news personality or maybe somebody on his side spins him up that his base expects him to do get something. people from treasury and the business community says this will devastate our economy. this is not the way the world works anymore.

we can't build an economic barrier with mexico. we're far too interconnected. he calms back down. now mexico has turned it around in the past four days. past four days they have been really awesome. >> ruth, it's likely they are creating a summit and by wednesday they say we worked this out and isn't this wonderful. >> the numbers will be down. >> it's hard not to look at this as a political reaction. is it a reaction of mueller? is it a reaction to just failure here? is it both? meaning he knows mueller is having an impact in one place so he better always keep the base happy. >> the thing about this president is you can never tell and it's also both. more likely than not reacting to mueller. he's also reacting to these numbers. he has this sledge hammer and he likes to take it out occasionally and start banging

things with it and sometimes he's going to just wave it in the air and sometimes so he's bluffing sometimes and sometimes he might be bluffing in a strategic way. >> he has plenty of people sort of supportive of what he's doing. >> sometimes he hits down with the sledge hammer so you just can't tell. you don't know how to manage that. >> martha mcsally went public opposing it. what do you do if your john cornyn. he's been largely silent. he's the most effective sub tweeter of any united states senator. what do you do if you're on these border states and you know it's terrible and yet you cannot offend the president's base? >> you have to be concerned about the people who sent you to washington who were outside of your party. i don't understand the focus completely on trying to preserve

the support of the base. i'm talking about trump. he's not at risk of losing the base. what we have seen sitting presidents do is try to win people who were not on the team in the beginning. that's not what the president is trying to do. he's not going to lose that 30 something% percent of the peop who sent him there. >> very quickly, nancy pelosi last night, once again, on jimmy kimmel this time said they're not doing this. it's got to be iron clads. ruth, what is ironclad and what does that mean? does she want 20 republicans to publicly state, okay, speaker pelosi, if you do this, we'll vote with you. don't you have to lay your case out before you find out how iron clads it is? is this just her buying more

time? >> yes and now we can go. ironclad is a ridiculous standard to set out here. first of all, impeachment process includes an inquiry where we should and a perfect world that we're not living in be developing evidence and getting testimony from robert muell mueller. >> the president deserves to be treated innocent before proven guilty which if it's iron clacl you have a guilty verdict. >> that's not the way the document is written. >> there's a mismatch between the rhetoric and crisis. why is she on jimmy kimmel? we know what a crisis looks like. it's pizza boxes stacked outside the offices. up ahead, most of the 2020 democrats are basking in the warmth of california this weekend. impeachment talk is starting the cloud over the race.

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california democratic convention week. while democrats are in opposition of president trump's policy. a handful of candidates have begun to roll out plans of their own. what are you hearing and are there many differences at all? >> reporter: there are some differences. senator kamala harris is on the stage now. i'm going the step out the stage so you can see a bit of what's going on behind me. she started this event talking about how she is the daughter of immigrants. she's been personalizing this issue and taking questions from members of the audience and from panelists talking about her immigration policies and also not being shy about going after president trump and his policies. calling them inhumane. this is something you're hearing from many candidates on the trail. bernie sanders, yesterday in las vegas. he personalized the issue

himself talking about how his dad immigrated from poland and didn't have much money. didn't speak very much english but also came here and also used that as a way to attack the trump administration for their policies. this is an issue that really galvanizing a lot of democrats especially voters. especially they come to california. over a dozen candidates will be he here making their pitch to activists and donors. >> what i want you to watch out for is how much can kamala harris grab and how much does she have the work when it comes to california. good work out there. thank you. up ahead, new revelations about the census citizenship question. a dead man's hard drive. is it the smoking gun? we'll be right back. is it the smoking gun? we'll be right back.

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they pushed to asked about citizenship for the first time ever on the 2020 census. for over a year the trump administration maintained that adding a citizenship question to the u.s. census was only about better enforcing the voting rights act and protecting minorities. that the question was add eed a the written request of the justice department. most have said it will result in an undercount of hispanics and diminish the political power of hispanic powers. no now the aclu says it has proof that is exactly the administration's goal. what is the evidence? it's from a deadman's hard drive. it shows the idea for the question and the early draft of the department of justice's letter was crafted by a republican operative who is widely considered to be the master mind at gerrymandering these days. his name is thomas hofeller.

the evidence was on his hard drives found in his home after his death last summer, including a summer which that he conducted that includes adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census would be a democrats and teena -- advantageous to republicans and their districts. explain, here is my curiosity in is already in the hands of the supreme court. this evidence of the hard drive, is it being considered? does the court already made its decision and this new evidence does nothing. explain where we are in this process. >> the short answer is we don't know. we're waiting for the court to

announce the decision. the session is scheduled to end by the end of june. i'm expecting this to come to the very last day possibly. the very last day of june. we're not sure exactly. we know that they have lawyers has informed the supreme court that the documents do exist. that they are bringing this to a district judge in manhattan at the trial court level and there will be hearing on wednesday to go over whether or not the plaintiffs are alleging that trump administration officials gave either misleading or lied during their trial testimony depositions before the trial about the or giigins of this question. >> you're saying this court fight next week is trying to, what, get standing to do what? to start the trial over?

>> the issue before the federal judge in new york, the district court level is whether or not this is the allegations of the plaintiffs attorneys here. did trump administration officials misrepresent how this question, the citizenship question, how this question came to be and what were the intentions of the administration in asking, include this question on forms that will go out to every household in the country for the 2020 census. it's a question of whether or not the plaintiffs attorneys are saying could there be sanction, penalties involved here and could there be additional orders for discovery that would bring about more depositions, more documents p documents. it's getting very close to deadline. july 1st is when the census bureau has to start for all the paper forms. 1.5 billion pieces of paper including paper form, letters as well as envelopes have to be printed starting july 1st as

it's currently budgeted. they don't get printed by then, it really risks the 2020 census. it puts a lot in jeopardy. >> the question that the supreme court is deciding. this evidence wasn't there when they heard the arguments about this question. it's possible they've already written the opinion. as we know the way -- they may have decided early on which way they would go and assigned who would write the opinion. obviously we're in unchartered we waters here. is the aclu hoping the supreme court will throw it away? just say we've got to consider more evidence. >> i think the aclu would help whatever their strategy is. they want to win this case and for them it would be to for the supreme court to say no. the trump administration is not

allowed to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. whether these documents change whatever possibly a preset opinion of the court, we don't know. we just don't know. it's a black box since they have so much discretion. the thing to watch here is what happens on wednesday at the district court in manhattan. what the judge there, how he handles these claims here and whether or not additional documents, additional information comes out of any order, if the judge were to give out any orders. i think it's really a wait and see period. it comes at a time where it could really throw things off balance. >> the argument that the aclu is making is it was going to harm hispanic voters. how did they make that argument at the time and was there argument how much more straightforward could it have been had they had this evidence? >> the plaintiffs say these documents in which thomas

hofeller, this redistricting strategist laid out a conclusion in 2015 they said if you were to have a citizenship question on the census form and what that means is you have data set of who is and who isn't a citizen at a detail we do not have, that would produce districts that are advantageous for republicans and non-white hispanics. that's what he wrote many this paper. the plaintiffs are arguing there's connection between those conclusions and what the trump administration wants to do. there's separate document, word for word, paragraph, that plains how t -- explains how the use the voting rightsing act to justify adding a question. that's the question the plaintiffs are arguing that he plays some role in adding of this question. >> it is going to be fascinating

to see if the supreme court really feels comfortable going through a ruling on this if they did have a majority to say yes to this question. if they will really go through now in this face of this evidence surfacing when it did. thanks for helping walk us through this story. this is going to be quite the drama in the next month ahead. up ahead, the battle over impeachment and what it could mean for the 2020 race. mean for the 2020 race hey, who are you? oh, hey jeff, i'm a car thief... what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. so get allstate... and be better protected from mayhem... like me. ♪

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welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed. >> obsessed. >> choec. >> mmo. >> i-n-g-h- >> correct. >> so did you catch yesterday's scripps national spelling bee? for the first time in its 94-year history, eight spellers were crowned cochampions. why are we handing everybody a trophy? it's because the bee was beyond words. >> champion spellers, we are now in uncharted territory. we'll soon run out of words that can possibly challenge you. >> that's right. the national spelling bee ran out of words. if only someone had invented a

book with all the words listed like alphabetically. and anyway, this is a historic moment for these self-proclaimed octochamps. it does beg the question, what happens next year if there's another tie? this is the scripps national spelling bee, people. this is not about camaraderie. it's about so much winning which is why i think the octochamps should face off against a new opponent, the speller in chief. contestant, your word is bigley. >> bigley. b-i-g-l-y. y. >> bigley. b-i-g-l-y.

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welcome back. impeachment is what everyone is talking about this week. is it what presidential candidates looking to replace the president the old fashioned way want to talk about? >> still with me, ruth and gene. it was an interesting phenomenon this week. when impeachment is front and center, the presidential candidates suddenly all get sort of blurred. like if we go into portrait mode and it blurs everything in the back and when impeachment is not front and center, then the presidentials can take in. it's going to have a huge impact on the race. >> i think what you're seeing is a kind of slow notion evolution of the presidential candidates towards being willing to talk more about impeachment as a

realistic remedy or at least something that needs to be started. >> but it steps on their messages. >> it steps on their messages but it's a reality that they are going to need to and they are needing to grapple with. i think the phenomenon of robert mueller simply repeating what we could have read in robert mueller's report was really, michael and i were talking about this earlier, reality changing in a way that surprised. >> what, america doesn't read and we're shocked? i hate to say it. >> so the more things like that happen, the more house democrats can make things like that happen so that we have more of these video moments. the more it's going to be both imperative and comfortable for the presidential candidates to talk about it. >> i remember during the '92 cycle, you had the clarence thomas hearings in '91, eugene. it just froze the presidential race completely. it was at a moment. it was the fall of '91. and it was in a moment where there was a whole bunch of other candidates trying to think

traction, some thinking about getting in. all of a sudden, it went on the back seat and bill clinton quietly got to raise a whole bunch of money in the middle of that. so it looks to me if impeachment takes over, good luck to everybody not named joe biden. >> i don't know that impeachment is going to take over in the sense that these candidates won't be able to talk about multiple things. >> i'm not saying they can't talk about multiple things. s who going to be listening? >> when i speak with democratic voters focused on impeachment, there are also democratic votes are and voters who aren't democrats who want to hear solutions to all the other issues, as well. this idea everybody is listening to the same thing and going to these town halls in iowa and south carolina expecting the candidates to address the same issues, that hasn't been what i've found when i interview voters. >> michael, you went through a version of your impeachment which was trump. you worked for campaigns trying to figure out how to break through. everybody wants to talk trump, trump. you were working for jeb bush.

how difficult -- if you're not named joe biden. >> it's impossible. i will say you went back to 1991, '92. if you look back to 1988, the chairman of the judiciary committee handling the bork nominations catapulted to the front of the polls in the iowa caucuses as a result of the exposure he got from the national little televised hearings, and his name was joe bid biden. i think the biggest thing about the brief mueller statement earlier this week was it got many of the kind of lower tier democratic primary democratic presidential primary candidates in favor of an impeachment inquiry. that shifts the playing field in the sense pelosi is playing a waiting game. the clock used to have about 248 days till the iowa caucuses. if the democratic primary candidates are in favor of impeachment. >> do you think it extends the clock? >> yes, you can go right up to milwaukee and they can't say they object to having this take

away their coverage, take away their attention because they're in favor of it. >> do you think there's a deadline when there's a no go on impeachment? >> honestly, i think it depends on the i'm going to be a little wugally here. it depends on the factual development, not just the factual sfleemt like who shows up. >> had the nature of the factual development. >> what subpoenas get honored and what don't. >> if you could get mueller testifying and explaining himself, if you could get mcgahn there, if additional information comes out virtue of these other subpoenas, all of this is potentially reality changing. the likelihood of impeachment and the salience of impeachment and the attractiveness as a political matter gets reduced as you get past iowa and new hampshire. but it may not disappear. >> well, the first presidential debate it will be interesting to see how they handle that question and how biden handles the fact that maybe he might be on the minority on that stage.

ruth, eugene and michael, have a great weekend. that's all we have for tonight. we'll be back monday with more "meet the press" daily. if it's sunday it's "meet the press." bet tote o'rourke and former fbi deputy director and drew mccabe. the beat with ari meber starts right now. >> that is a big sunday show. >> i appreciate it. >> we'll be watching. i hope you have a great weekend till then, sir. >> i hope so. >> welcome to this friday edition of the beat". let me start real simple. for many americans, this was mueller week. the special counsel speaking for the first and only time in his role, but trump attorney general bill barr is clearly pushing ahead to make it sort of barr week. he's got this new interview and this is kind of interesting, it may help democrats because it doesn't exactly rebut critics who say mr. barr acts more like