i'll be back next saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. up next "meet the press" with chuck todd. ♪ this sunday trade war and the economy another escalation as china imposes retaliatory tears on the u.s. the president orders u.s. companies out of china and the dow falls morthan 600 points. >> we're having a little spat with china. a world economy slowed by the trade war. is the back drop is the world sum lt of leaders in france. >> payroll taxes, i've been thinking about them for a long time. >> i'm not looking at tax cut now. on gun background checks. >> we need have meaningful background checks. >> we already have serious backgroundchucks. >> this has been discussed for many years. >> former republican governor

who is challenging president trump and trump critic turned ally david mackintosh. also democratic dilemma. is it enoughf to run against the president's character and competence or do voters want a noman that will radically transform washington? >> i think the bigest risk we can take is to try to play it safe. and team of rivals. an unlikely group prepared to take oimen the air and on the trail. joining me for insight and analysis are eugene robinson. betsy woodruf of "the daily beast." and with welcome to sunday. >> announcer: the longest running shoin television history

this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> for most of this week we wondered whether we should take what president trump says seriously anymore. by the end of the week we were reminded that actions do have real-world consequences. the president was not interested in buying greenland before he was so interested he post poned a trip had the danes wouldn't sell. and stay with me on expapded background checks on guns. er for the president traditionally against them and then for them after el paso and daylighten. against after talking to the head of the nra and then for and then again not. it's a fact or fiction issue. there's no denying the implicatio implications on friday.

the president flirting with this tweet directed at america's business community. our great amare companies are hereby ordered to start looking for an altern toov china. the dow plunge more than 600 points as the president headed to his meeting with world leadersers already nervously eyeing a slowing world econaim threatened fr threat furtherer by trade wars. for better or worse has delivered and now real questions are being raised about whether the united states can be counted on to provide the leadership the world has come to expect since the end of the second world war. >> getting a lot of money in tariffs. >> reporter: as president trump meets with u.s. allies, his own volatility is raising questions about his ability to manage theworld's largest one. the president is ratcheting up his trade war with china, threatening to raise taxes on chinese goods.

>> administrations allow them to get away with taking hundreds off billions out every year and quote u.s. companies to cut ties with china. >> i have the absolute right to do that. >> and attacking the federal reserve chair he appointed again. tweeting my only question is who is our bigger enemy, jay powell or chairman xi? >> if he did resign i wouldn't stop him. >> some of hitz own allies say they're concerned his own focus on the darkening picture could be self fulfilling. he can't seem to stop talking about it. >> the word recession is inappropriate. we're very far from a recession. >> the fake news from whichmany of you are members is trying to convince the public to have a recession. you people want oo recession

because you think maybe that's the way to get trump out. >> reporter: and the president's erratic style has been on full display. by wednesday said tax cut was not on the table. >> i'm not looking at tax cut now. >> he is using language to describe himself. >> somebody had to do it. i am the chosen one. somebody had to do it so i'm taking on china. >> tweeting conspiracy theories and zig zagging policy. reversing on guns. >> i think we can do very meaningful background checks. we have a lot of background checks right now. >> and even on buying greenland. >> we may be going to denmark not for this reason at all. >> on tuesday he cancelled the trip saying based on the danish prime minister's comments that she would have no interest in

discussing the puch purchase of greenland and twnt 20 democrats are already taking advantage. >> witnessing the president of the united states has become more and more unhinged. we know the words of a president matter. they can move markets. >> i don't know what the president is thinking when he says he can hereby orded companies to do this or that. we need an economy that work withes for all of us. >> and joining me from the g7 in france is chief white house spondent. i know this white house at times and republicans don't know exactly how to defend the president and some of what he says. i know the white house has had a hard time finding someone to provide us for this show today and maybe because of misinterpretations off what the president may mean at any given point in time. the president asked about second thoughts of china.

i want you to explain what he really meant. here it is. >> i have second thoughts about everything. >> all right. that certainly sounded like president at least hearing the crit k criticism he's been receiving but paurntly didn't mean hot he said. >> that's according, chuan chuc the press secretary. the president rarely conceded regrets, seems to be signaling regret here and the white house says wait a minute, not so fast. saying the president's regret was 2459 he was not tougher on china and that dayffes weren't more stringent. the way many people read that

way in the room. i can't tell you. i can only look at what the president is saying and doing. the issue is he is saying and doing things kaubt rudictory. in these instances of of the china tariffs, the white house seems to want it both ways in front of two diffant audiences. and you know this, who knows how to read the room and he's in a room and was with other leaders who are jengently pushing back issue of trade. he does not want to be the wrecking ball. in this instance the president wants to portray that he's going along to get along. the french president hoped for a no drama summit. and the white house seem to be sending the message this is still the tough guy who's going to put the tough tariffs on china. in the span of eight hours you

have different on one topic. is the push back that the president is getting, is not tough pushback. boris johnson and thes president met this morning. he said i'm going to make a sheep-like noise and tell you about my pushback. they know they can't come out too strongly against the president. the same thing with prime minister shinzo abe of japan. and said the missiles didn't violate any agreements. and abe very quickly said no, they do violate u.n. agreements and we have a problem with it. >> halle, thank you so much. and the boris johnson back and forth the president was asked about russia coming back and said they had a bit of oo disgreement on that and let it go. joining me now former governor who is mounting a long- shot

primary challenge and mackintosh, the president off the growth. but now plans to support him for reelection. want to welcome both of you. former congressman mackintosh. i want to start with you because this is what you said about not supporting candidate trump. this year is different. this is when you're supporting ted cruz. because there's a mass gulf. their records make clear that ted cruz is a consistent conservative will the shrink the federal footprint and some will say that is exactly what donald trump has done. >> and we were supporting ted cruz then and in the middle of the campaign you mix it up. but what we base our current position is the results. he's governed as a free market conservatives.

deregulating oil and energy industry, deregulating the internet and it's working. the economy is still at 2 and a half 3% growth. that's a reversal. and you see more and more people entering the workplace and getting higher paying jobs. >> you said he's governed as a free market conservative. the cost of protectionism are largely born by american consumers. how can you say he's governed as a free market conservative when he's been issuing tariffs left and right? is your board struggling with this? >> yeah, the tariffs are attacks on the american people. they're a problem. whauts what's going on at the g7. it's the heart of the deal and what we like about the vision on

trade is his goal off 0-0 tariffs. we support that strongly and i've come to recognize these tariffs are his way of forcing the chinese to come to the table. they're costly and we with want them to go away but he's using them to get to that ultimate goal of 0-0 tariffs. >> governor well, kroyou've bee thought off as moderate republican but where you align over the last couple off decades was on fiscal issues. you just heard congressman mackintosh make a case that the president is governing like a free market conservative. >> eno, we're spending moron the deficit than national defense. interest on the debt is the fourth largest item in the federal budget. they're spending money like drunken sailers. a trillion a year. the last budget added $9 trillion to the deficit.

three days ago it went up anothanath $800 billion. you can't keep doing that indefinitely. every household, every governor in the united states as mr. mackintosh knows, has to balance the budget by constitution or necessity and my motto is there's no such thing as government money. there's only taxpayer's money. they've forgotten that in washington and they think it's their money and it's not. >> let me play devil's advocate about the debt. there have been folks like yourself and others talking about if this debt keeps increasing it's going to be a drag on the economy. it hasabon't been a drag yet. why? >> it's going to be a drag not just on the national economy but on the national security because we're effectively relying on other countries to get us out of this terrible deficit position

we're in to forstall going to ba bankruptcy. it's against the economic interests of the american people to keep going in this direction. further morer the president tax on every single issue. in my view it no longer malters what the president says because that may be the first ramble or thought but you can be assured there will be a second and 3rd thought, all of which are different from the first thought. >> i remember during the obama years a lot of conservatives criticized because all these big ideas you're talking about is creating instability in the business kmunlt. it's clear the reason for the slow down is the business community is suddenly nervous because they don't know how the trade war is going to turn out. >> as i mentioned earlier, the key to understanding this is

reading donald trump's book "the art of it deal." i wantb to be your friend and work with you, donald trump. when the deal breaks apart, you get i'm going to impose tarifffes. >> this art of the deal thing gets thrown out a lot. he didn't get an infrastructure deal. >> it worked on replacing nafta. and the only thing blocking that is nancy pelosi and the democrats in the house. >> it's literally nafta 2.0. >> it's a better example in the president's eyes. i think the key thing is to show he's got a vision for the second term and continue with another round of tax cuts. he's deciding which way to go on that. we're going to urge one for

small businesses to give them the same tax break the corporate guys got. >> you're obviously challenging the president in the primary. if you don't get the nomination, does he deserve reelection? >> absolutely not. let me just say i think he does have a vision for the second term and it'ser what steve bannon said. he says if president trump is reelected four years of unadulterated, unrequited payback. mr. trump is going to pay back all his enemies. pay back for what? it's another example of his extreme malignant narcissism. he's only happy when others are losing. he makes sure they get paid 5 and 10 cents on a dollar while his rich banker friends walk off with hundreds off billions of dollars. that's his reputation in the new york business area. >> a bunch of other republicans

are thinking about it. would any of them convince you gt out? >> not get out but i'm thrilled about them getting in. who knows the network withes might even cover republican primary debates. they can ill afford to say they'd cover only democrats. and i hope mores a well. it can only contribute to more robust dialogue and that will be good for the can country. we need assemble rational people. sure the crazed president makes the stock market go down but that doesn't mean we have to like it. >> i think we've shown we can have disagreements without sounding disagreeable with each other. i thank you both. >> thank you. >> thank you, chuck. good to be with you. when i come back, mayor pete buttigieg. pete buttigieg. mayor pete mayor pete buttigieg joins

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welcome back. the panel is here. "washington post" and political reporter for "the daily beast." welcome to you all. i think the best way to set up this conversation is i want to read for you andrew sullivan's take and erick erickson's take. they both agree on one thing, that president had erratic behavior and that's as far as they get. if you can begin even to engage this bizarre, dangerous, deranged and ignorant stream of congsinous and try to discern some logical pattern your brain will break. i'd rather a president whose behavior makes people comfortable than a democrat who wants to take away health care. i'll take his crazy over the insanity the democrats would

unleash on the united states. i feel -- erick erickson rational. i thought i heard that a bit in mr. mackintosh. >> i mean let's see who the democrats wind up nomnoting. the real issue for republicans is simply to call out the fact that the president does not stand in any way for the conservative traditional economic principals that defined the economy for the better part of the last 30 years. i mean what we saw over the last few days is a president who is either mentally unwell or morally unfit. maybe both. it's important to call these things as we see them. you have behavior that is unprecedented in any kind off presidential history in the united states or frankly elsewhere. so when i hear guys like erick say at the end of the day this

is a choice, i'd rather have a candidate on the democratic side who at least doesn't scare me every single morning. >> i feel like this is the entire debate of the 2020 campaign right there. >> and part of what's going on in the background about the president's comments is the way the united states government thinks about our relationship with china has changed dramatically. i can tell you white house officials think it's less and less luikely they'll reach a trade deal and mostly a truce to truce. postponing tariffs and punitive action. it will always hang over heads. because they see china first and foremost as a national security concern rather than an economic concern. >> they've been studying views on china. we're atricered high levels of americans saying they have an

unfavorable drew of china and in the full most say they're okay with china being economically strong. this is why the presidents is able, even in the midst of chaos to have a little bit of latitude where his job approval remains eight to ten points higher than his job approval. >> look at the real world results of donald trump's eratic behavior, whether through mental deficiency or moral deficiency or some combination thereof. look at your 401(k) today. go online and see what happened to it on friday. i'm not going there either. and when i hear people like the congressman talk about the art of the deal. you know donald trump didn't write a word of that including

the title written by tony schwartz whom i went to school. he wrote the whole thing. but what has it gotten the united states? it has made no agreements. gotten us nowhere. and so this idea that there's this master player of four dimensional chess, it's not true. >> if there's one thing you got to understand is he doesn't believe anything is on the level, whether it's the press, whether it's the government. he's always believed -- he doesn't believe anything is on the level, including a conversation he will have with somebody who's an ally. >> and this is a big piece of his economic messaging which he has to juggle touting a very strong economy and keeping the approval numbers high while laying the groundwork for if the this falls apart to say it's the fed's fault, china's fault, congress's fault.

>> when your economy goes south, you blame speculators, the media, someone else. one of the problems i have is they always say you have to separate the signal from the noise and the realityf of the trump presidency is the noise is the signal and it's dangerous. we are blundering our way into a contest with the chinese not about national security. it's a contest of face between two leaders who see themselves as supreme leaders and for which neither is going to easily back down. we ended up in a war in part because we with were try took impose economic embarg oon japan. we should be weorried about china. and they're front of mind at the g 7 and something white house officials are desperate for.

keep an eye out for a bilateral trade dwool the uk. they'd love to say they're going to throw asins to boris johnson to leave the european unikrn towards the e -- uni union end of aulkt. arguably the most important relationship in the world and for white house officials they believe that china is in danger of over reaching in hong kong, concerns in taiwan. the navy spends a huge persencentage of budget in the south china sea. and for trump and his allies to navigate that is complex. >> they're starting to perkulate. we had one. here's one other. >> someone said guy just cleared

your calendar and you have the prum a erer for president and i i'm like you are out of your mind. >> the guy is unfit for office. >> we're watching a full blown meltdown of the united statesf of the united states. he has been melting down like a nuclear reactor. >> by the way officially announced. this is a guy who at one time tweeted if trump didn't win, grab a must ac. >> off t the three might be scaramucci because they know him and who's come out and sort of new yorker fashion and gone all in on the trump is crazy line. it's very interesting how the pushback from other leaders is coming. gentle, measured but it'ser rr

definitely there. >> but it's weak. >> let's just get through this. it is the g6 plus one at this point and that bilateral deal the uk, if they announce something, that is going no water in twear in the house of representatives. >> for the white house even a symbolic win is something they're desperate for. >> i think they thing they're doing johnson a favor. and running against the presidents on character and competence be enough? or will they be expected to be transformed by new ideas? mayor pete buttigieg is next. is mayor pete buttigieg is next

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candidates face their own delmau. whatever differences, president trump needs to go because he's unfit. or is restoration and preservation simply not enough? should the right response be to run on new and boulder ideas. buttigieg from freedom, new hampshire. and let me dive right into that question but ask it this way. the president certainly had some erratic moments. many voters have that safe harborerm harborer mentality, especially during weeks like this. this is especially challenged for any candidate not named joe biden. how do you talk to those voters? >> the president is certainly a problem, a big one but he's not the only problem. ask yourself how a guy like this ever got within cheating distance of of the oval office

in the first place? i would argue that doesn't happen unless the country is already in a kind of crisis and we see it for the fact that as long as i've been alive even when the economy has been growing and quickly, most americans haven't been getting ahead, back to normal is not going to boo a good enough message because normal was not good enough. we're not even debating whether the president iss telling the truth or making sense. and it does matter. as you can see by the way he's created turmoil in global mark wts with his words. we need replace this presidency with something better that actually works for americans or somebody even more unstable could gain power. >> the counterargument is going to be trump was a big risk, somebody we never tried before you're asking voters to take a

big risk in that sense too. i understand exactly the kind of message you're trying to send there but that's the other side of that message which is wait a minute he's new and different. your new and different. >> there's very different versions of what new and different mean. my presidency would be about how americans can actually get ahead in addition to restoring american credibility, you need to explain what we're going to do to make your life better. good news and agree with us for sure on gun safety. with when it comes to the things that are actually going to decide whether your income is going up, whether your haerk is secure, whether there's a good outlook

outlook in your every day life. we need to explain what we rr going to do. out with the old, compelling as it is, is not a complete message. >> right. as "politico" pointed out democrats aren't just going to be able to unwind the trump foreign policy. and did with china or other countries not sure okay they can cut a deal with this president but given what happened with the lasts president, how can i trust this deal? how much harder is it going to be to do a trade pact or multican country pact. >> my focus will be restoring u.s. credibility by holding together in the name of values,

american values that has held at its best and that means standing with the people of hong kong when they're insisting on democracy and leading on climate diplomacy. at the g7 you have world leaders coming together among other things talking about what they're going to do on climate and an american president who doesn't even believe it's a problem. u.s. could be restoring our credibility by leading the world and faing some of the biggest challenges we have to advancing human rights and democracy to things like dealing with terrorist threats be them from islamic extremism or the stemming tide of white nationalism which is not only a problem in the united states but around the world. >> you're going to inhaurt perhaps a bunch of terriariffs have been slapped on china. is your initial instinct to start anew with china.

and theeshue of hong kong as part of a negotiations in any trade palkct? >> certainly they need to know that we stand with them and fehr going to purp trait a repeat, they will be isolate frud from democratic world. we can find areas of cooperation. now obviously the current strategy, i'm not even sure you can call it a strat ag. the current pattern of poking china in the eye isn't working. it's crushing american soy bean farmers and other farmers and american consumers. we're already estimated to be paying 500 to $1,000 more, americans, because of this trade war. i dont know where we're going to get spl of that kind of money. what are we suppose toad to do r

christmas? mine will be holding them accountable for the problems with things like currency manipulations. they're not going to change their fundamental economic model because we pok them. that's why the best way is to invest unour domestic -- and unfortunately we're underinvesting. >> president obama thought one of the ways was to crecreate a trade pact. i know it became a litmus test, you will. i know where you stand on tpp. but putting together a non-china asian pacific alliance. is that the best way to confront china? >> it's certainly part of how we can set global economic cooperation on things that make sense for us. and corporate governance and

environmental laborer expectations weren't being met. the fundamental way to stay ahead of china is to invest unour own competitiveness. if they're investing billions more than we are,en the there's a very strong likelihood they'll be running circles around them. i don't want to see artificial intelligence in the world being led by china knowing their vision is about using technology for the perfection of dictatorship. very different from how things will work in american hands. we have to invest in the future and do it in a way that's as systematic or more than the chinese. >> let me make the final question about the state of your campaign. you took off like a rocket ship. obviously these things eb and flow. what do you say to your

supporters who say when you going to take off like a rocket ship again? people are asking is this a campaign tarepa campaign to prepare to win another time? >> it is not. i'm in it to win. es for and we have exceeded every expectation from the beginning of this campaign when we started with literally four people in a room in soulgt bepd in january and a mailing list smaller than most congressional campaigns. woob rr arrived in the top tier but this is where you really see how amuch this is a distance run and knowing so much is decided in literal the last few days of the caucus and primary campaigns. we have to make sure the key six months or so where the unglamorous work is happening of organizers on the ground and building the relationships, that's our focuses even as it there are day to day ups and

donees. >> there's been a lot of hammering over the debate process and what it takes to meet or not meet it. how do you feel about how they've handled this? >> it's mission impossible to set up a debate structure that everybody can agree on and be happy with. each debate represents an opportunity for our campaign to present our vision and for me to explain why my presidency would be different, why my approach on health care makes sense and why what i will do the right way forward and we're going to focus on our plan and with work the plan and acsuspect the rules as they come to us. >> i have to say i thought i had known every single town in new hampshire. this is it the first time we ea meeting from freedom, new hampshire. when we come back president trump keeps saying the economy is in great shape.

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president trump has been cheer leading but new numbers suggest beneath the public optimism, it's not as strong as president trump suggests and may not be as strong as it ever had been touted. this week we learned that job creation numbers reported nigh labor department were off, like

way off by about 20%. 2 million jobs were created between ape aeral and march 2019. that's f that's 500,000 fewer jobs than estimates showed and they were off compared to gdp. if you goiers showed economy grew at 3%. but 2.5%. still decent but not the 3% cheerleading promised. estimates for 2019, 2.3. and consumer sentiment, which is about how people feel about the conomy dropped six percentage points t the lowest it's rr been since january and it mirrors a trend. one number that might be particularly concerning for this white house.

manufacturing declined in august. it's the first time production has shown a contraction in almost a decade. plus thousand os of jobs have bn lost since february. three pretty important states. so perception is almost as important as reality. they're less likely to spend money and economic trouble would be bad news for americans and president trump's reelection argument in 2020 as well. when we come back three more democrats drop out of the presidential race. now a handful of republicans are eyeing long-shot bids that may make the field even bigger. ay make the field even bigger (vo) diarrhea?

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trump. >> well, it's a tough message to combat, but here's how his fellow primary opponents are trying. >> they don't need someone to say, let's just turn back the clock. they don't need someone to say, it's all just too hard. they need a leader who is not afraid. >> the next leader of our party can't be someone that is a safe bet. >> i think the biggest risk we could take is to try to play it safe. >> eugene? >> so you listen to all those candidates, and they would all tell you, it's early, it's still early. by the standards of our elections, it's not actually that early, but this time it is because joe biden is the clear front runner, and people have questions about him. he hasn't really made the sale with enough of the party, i think. everybody's comfortable with joe biden. but they have questions about his, you know, his ability going forward. he still sort of leads on the

electability question. very important to democrats. but i think there's a sense that he could falter. then someone else would have to rise. we don't know who that is at this point. >> jill biden can be right and still wrong about her husband. the central question for democrats is nominating someone who is electable, who isn't going to scare off those voters who a democrat desperately needs. >> is that you essentially? basically republicans who don't like trump? >> no, look, i think it's a lot of voters who have voted for bill clinton, voted for george w. bush, voted for barack obama. i think it's actually a fairly wide swath of people. look, i think people like mayor pete and elizabeth warren and so on are saying, you know, we have to be change agents because this is a primary fight against joe biden, sort of the incumbent front runner. but the democrat who's going to win is going to have to communicate to the american people a sense of sanity,

balance that they're not there to change the system but to reform the system. that's going to be the winning ticket. it just won't necessarily be vice president biden. >> but the democrats are also going to have to excite the democratic base and bring the democratic base out. >> and there are two schools of thought within the democratic party about this, right? one is, trump is an emergency and we can't take any risks and we need to go safe. that's the jill biden argument. the other, that democrats will make privately, although perhaps not publicly s that the democratic party could nominate an edible arrangement and it would beat donald trump. that's the kind of thing you hear when you talk to democratic strategists. >> there are a lot more people on the democratic side that do believe this. it really turned this week. >> this is part of the difference between the elizabeth warren/bernie sanders message and the joe biden message. biden is arguing that trump is the problem. sanders, warren, some of the other progressive candidates are arguing that trump is a symptom of a larger problem. >> you know, in your party four years ago, there was this debate about, oh, you got to find somebody that can beat hillary clinton. there were quietly a bunch of republican strategists that said

it doesn't matter. anybody is going to be able to beat her. it turned out anybody did. >> i think the real question here is for democrats trying to choose someone to contrast trump, do you pick someone who fights trump on the same type of terms trump likes to fight on, someone who's going to be bold, be a fighter? or do you try to nominate someone who answers the question, what do americans want who want to stop thinking about the president every day? so do you, as the democratic party -- you know, we've talked about can they nominate, as you put t an edible rararrangement beat donald trump? i wonder, can democrats nominate someone who in any other year would not excite the progressive base, but because they're running against donald trump, that progressive base turns out anyway. >> if donald trump is not vulnerable, then why are 20-plus democrats and three republicans running against him? >> but i have to say, i got to play this joe biden ad. he's using polling. i've never seen a front runner do this before. he's using polling to make his case, watch. >> we know in our bones this election is different. the stakes are higher.

the threat more serious. we have to beat donald trump. and all the polls agree joe biden is the strongest democrat to do the job. >> brett, i keep bringing this up. you normally don't talk about polls. you don't talk about -- the only poll that matters is the one on election day. >> it's a weird argument because the moment biden goes south in any poll -- >> which is inevitable. sometimes it just happens. even if it's an outlier poll. >> it's a poor strategy by him. he shouldn't be talking about his polling. he should be talking about his e peer -- experience, his reliability, his decency, the fact he's met every world leader, that he's known on the world stage. >> the other thing to keep in mind, you've seen these ballot test matchups. the trump versus bernie sanders and trump versus elizabeth warren matchups don't look that much different in the numbers. we have a long way to go, but it's way too soon for anyone to really claim, i'm truly the only one. >> i think the edible arrangement trump only gets 38 or 39 against as well.

his number is the same against whatever democrat you put up there. it's the democratic number that changes. >> and democrats are going to be able to argue, look, there's going to be an influx of fund raiding support. as kristen said, the democratic base, they believe, will be energized no matter what just by the fact that trump is in the white house. that number of random democrat versus trump, they're going to say it's strong enough for them, that the biden case may not be. >> gene, does a week like this make it that much harder for pete buttigieg? trump >> you mean because buttigieg is the mayor of a small town. >> too new, yeah. >> maybe, i don't know. he certainly comes across as very different from donald trump. and i actually think he's been on the scene as a candidate long enough now that people have gotten used to him. it's interesting. >> he's not that much longer than emmanuel macron was when he became president of the france. >> excellent point.

i think he's our first millennial world leader. anyway, thank you, guys. what a great round table for this week. that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. i do appreciate that. we'll be back next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." oh! oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7 and maintained it. oh! under 7? (announcer) and you may lose weight. in the same one-year study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds.

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♪ tonight -- the element of surprise. things are not going according to the plan at the g7. the latest on the 11th hour invite for a top iranian official. plus, more democrats abandon their long-shot bids for president as more republicans jump in. form former conservative firebrand joe walsh said he will try to counter trump from the right. and will governor mark sanford be next? he joins me live. and as democrats ponder electability, eli