they certainly should address him, but they should also have a lift america up session. and which they tell us how they can, how they will, and how they plan to lift us out of the mess we're in. i'll be looking for that tuesday night. that does it for me. thanks for watching. i'll be back here next saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. up next, "meet the press" with my colleague, chuck todd. this sunday, the impeachment battle. >> they're pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bull [ bleep ] impeachment. >> as support grows for impeachment, most republicans stay strong for president trump. >> the american people are not going to stand a partisan witch hunt. >> some, though, stay silent. >> let's say i don't know thought we have that information in front of us. >> and reports emerge that the feds have opened a criminal investigation into rudy giuliani's work in ukraine.

my guest this morning, democratic congressman eliot engel of new york. one of the committee chairs leading the house impeachment inquiry. >> plus, scenes of ethnic cleansing by pro-turkish forces in syria. >> we saw for the first time alleged atrocities carried out by turkish-backed arab militias. >> this after president trump orders a pullback of u.s. troops. >> we're getting out of the endless wars. have to do it. >> giving turkey essentially the green light to attack the kurds. my sitdown with mr. trump's first defense secretary, general james mattis. >> isis will resurge. it's absolutely a given that they will come back. >> i'll talk to republican senator rand paul of kentucky. >> finally, trump, biden, and the politics of character assassination. >> where's hunter? >> is there a limit to what voters will accept? joining me for insight and analysis are michael schmidt, correspondent for "the new york times." peggy noonan, columnist for the

"wall street journal." democratic pollster cornell belcher, and ashley parker, white house reporter for "the washington post." 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. we do have a lot to get to this morning including the growing support for impeachment and president trump's personal lawyer rudy giuliani now reportedly being investigated for his lobbying work in ukraine, but we're going to start with breaking news from syria where turkey has unleashed a brutal assault on our allies, the kurds. that invasion came after president trump essentially gave turkey the go ahead. and nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engle is reporting on scenes of atrocities carried out buturkish backed militias. richard is covering this from northern syria. richard, you're on the phone with us now. just tell us what you have been

seeing. >> chuck, things here are developing very rapidly. u.s. officials are increasingly concerned. we have so far seen a turkish assault, that is the way that's being reported, as a turkish assault against the kurds, but it's much, much more than that. the turks are now using militia elements, extremist militia elements we're told that u.s. intelligence believe includes former members of al qaeda, including and former members of al qaeda. those forces are advancing. yesterday, those forces themselves released a video, some people might find disturbing, apparently executing a kurdish man by the side of the road. celebrating, telling their colleagues to film them. we are told those kinds of executions are continuing today. and then in a very disturbing development, u.s. officials tell us that those same militias, the ones that include al qaeda and isis members, have advanced even

further in track vehicles. they're advancing close to u.s. forces. u.s. forces tell us that unless those forces withdraw immediately, they risk coming into contact with u.s. troops. u.s. troops say their lines of communication, their actual supply line between them and the kurds, are at risk of being cut off. this is a very serious situation. it has turned a corner because of these extremist militias. also here on the ground, the situation is deteriorating rapidly. kurdish officials tell us one of these prison camps holding hundreds of family members of isis, isis supporters, has been broken into, and that the detainees inside have managed to escape. we just came from a prison and saw that every day now, there are riots and attempts to escape at the prison where we are. so the situation is not how it has been portrayed over the last several days as a conventional

turkish assault, but one that involves militias. one that now is bringing those militias right on the doorstep of u.s. forces. >> richard engel with some very disturbing developments there. richard, stay safe. as you cover this story, and thank you for bringing that important information. look, president trump is under fire, even from republicans, for pulling u.s. troops out of northern syria. the other battle the president is fighting is impeachment, and it's also the direct result of his own actions. in that case, he's accused of using the power of this office to interfere in ukraine with rudy giuliani as his personal emissary. we may see the most serious constitutional crisis since watergate. >> an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bull [ bleep ] impeachment. >> president trump lashing out as he grows increasingly isolated. >> impeachment. i never thought i would see or hear that word. with regard to me. >> "the new york times" reports

that the president's lawyer, rudy giuliani, is under federal criminal investigation into whether he violated foreign lobbying laws in his work in ukraine. the president seemed to quickly try to distance himself. >> well, i don't know. i haven't spoken to rudy. i spoke to him yesterday briefly. he's a very good attorney, and he has been my attorney, sure. >> there is some confusion as to whether or not you still consider him your attorney. is he your attorney? >> yes, and he's a great gentleman. he was a great mayor. i know nothing about him being under investigation. >> two of giuliani's business associat associat associates, who helped investigate joe biden in ukraine, were arrested late wednesday, charged with allegedly funneling foreign money into u.s. elections. >> this investigation is about corrupt behavior. deliberate law breaking. >> accord to the indictment, the two men donated money, violating legal limits, to then

congressman pete sessions, referred to as congressman one, asking him for help to remove or recall the u.s. ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. sessions then wrote a letter to secretary of state pompeo asking him to consider terminating her ambassadorship. parniss and fruman disguised the source of a $320,000 donation to a pro-trump super pac. >> i don't know those gentleman. >> you were in a picture with them. where. >> i have a picture with everybody. maybe they were clients of rudy. >> on friday, yovanovitch testified that rudy giuliani and president trump forced her out of her job because her anti-corruption efforts in ukraine frustrated their political goals. >> why did you recall her? >> i heard very bad things about her. i don't know if i recalled her or somebody did, but i heard very bad things about her. >> republican senators, especially those in tough re-election fights, have ducked direct questions on ukraine. >> is it appropriate for a

president to ask a foreign power to investigate his domestic political rival. >> i would say i don't know we have that information in front of us. >> you know what i said before. this is about -- >> you're not answering the question. we want to hear from you. >> joining me is the chair of the house foreign affairs committee, eliot engel, one of three committee chairs leading this house impeachment inquiry. welcome to "meet the press." >> thank you. great to be here. >> i want to start with normally what your days are filled with, the foreign affairs of this country and what's happening. you saw richard engle's report from what he's seen on the ground and what we have seen there. it seems as if all of the concern people like yourself, bipartisan lawmakers, had expressed is now happening. what can we -- is there anything to be done now? >> well, i hope that the house will vote for my bill. i have two bills that we're putting up this week, and it's bipartisan, by the way. mike mccaul is the ranking

member of my foreign affairs committee and he's doing this with me. it's a bill, and what it essentially does is first of all, it condemns the president's policy with regard to the kurds. which is very important. and slaps sanctions on turkey and all the people involved with what's going on. >> what does that do, though? are sanctions at this point going to do anything? the president threatened sanctions on friday. it didn't stop the turks from doing what they're doing. >> no, it's not going to stop, but we have to have some kind of response. chuck, i can think of nothing more disgusting in all the years i have been in congress, than what this press is allowing to happen with the kurds. they have been our loyal and faithful allies for so many years. and after this, who again would trust the united states to be an ally of them? who would think that it pays for them to align themselves with us?

nobody. this is going to make people flee from us. and it's just absolutely disgraceful that the president of the united states is facilitating all of this. >> i hate to put it in these terms but is it too late to do anything? let's say the president said, you know what, i have seen this video. i want to stop this. at this point, we would be putting our troops in harm's way with the turks. >> we could mitigate the damage, but of course, it's spiraling quickly. and what's happened, of course, is a lot of isis prisoners, we have gotten reports they have been released or escaped. and so this is just the tip of the iceberg, and if we think this is terrible, i predict we're going to have many, many more days, weeks, and months of terrible things like this. i don't know what it is with president trump. he likes strong men. he likes to associate himself with people like erdogan, who is

the leader of turkey. but that is not what the united states should be doing. >> two things. is turkey -- turkey's technically a nato ally, so it's technically an american ally. are they asking like an american ally? >> they're acting just the opposite. they're acting like a russian ally. they are buying russian missile systems. not buying the united states missile systems. >> should we kick them out of nato? >> i think it's something that needs to be considered. how do you have a nato ally who is in cahoots with the russians when the russians are the adversaries of nato? if you go back to the end of world war ii, the united states prevented all these countries, including turkey, from falling into the soviet orb. and so how ironic now, 75 years later, turkey is looking at the russians like they're the best friends in the world. erdogan is a bad guy. and i'm disgusted at the american president would feel comfortable with someone like

erdogan. >> let me move to the impeachment inquiry. a couple things. ambassador yovanovitch, what did you learn from her that you think the american public needs to know? >> well, first of all, the ambassador has been a highly respected career ambassador. we have many, many of those in the state department. from the time she came to ukraine, she was harassed, and they got rid of her. and she didn't know -- i'm saying things that are generally known because i'm not really allowed to say what happened -- >> are we going to see the full transcripts at some point? >> i think at some point. >> of all of these folks. kurt volker, these eight and nine-hour sessions, are the american public going to read these transcripts? >> i think the american public shood. i think they have a right to go, and i think we need to open the door and let the fresh air come in. that's what the democrats are trying to do. the president, of course, at every turn, is trying to stymie us, every turn is trying to make, disregard us. you know, remember when you were

a kid and you learned the different branches of government? checks and balances. well, take that all and throw it out because the president doesn't think that the congress has any right to check and balance the executive. >> gordon sondland, the ambassador to eu, now a, says he wants to testify despite the administration encouraging him not to, and b, is saying on the no quid pro quo comment in his text, he was essentially saying that was the president. hot do you make of ambassador sondland sort of taking a step back, it seems? >> let me say, first of all, i'm delighted he's coming in and we think it will be this thursday. i'm anticipating, i'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say because he's key. >> you understand why the ambassador to the eu was the point person on ukraine? >> i don't. >> you have not gotten an answer to that question? >> no, it doesn't make sense, because obviously, he shouldn't be. but apparently, he has close relations with the president, and the president liked him. >> you have said you're fine if

there is a vote in the house impeachment inquiry. why not at this point? why not put everybody on the record? republicans and democrats. everybody seems to want to be on the record, so put them on the record. >> we can go on the record by actually having impeachment hearings. i don't know that we need another step to push it further back. >> does it bother you to vote? >> doesn't bother me to vote, but the republicans would rather talk about anything else than about what's really happened. so they throw this out that there should be a vote, if we had a vote on that, they would come up with six other things that need to be a vote. i think there needs to be a impeachment inquiry and we need to stop the delay tactics of the republicans. >> congressman eliot engel, one of three committee chairs running the inquiry, thank you for coming on. >> always a pleasure. >> joining me now is republican senator rand paul of kentucky. he also sits on the foreign relations committee on the senate side. senator paul is also the author of the new book "the case against socialism." senator paul, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks, chuck, for having me. >> let me start with the news of

the morning. i hope you caught our report from richard engel and what he's seen on the ground. i know where your views are philosophically, and i want to get to that in a minute, but are you concerned this decision was too hasty, and it sort of created a more chaotic situation than necessary? >> well, i think one of the things about the arab militias that turkey is using that your reporter reported on, it's interesting that some of them are from the free syrian army, which was our ally for seven years, which shows how messy this is. turkey is an ally, the free army was an ally, and the kurds have been allies. it's a complicated, messy situation, but a lot of people are not acknowledgic turkey was coming in one way or another, and 50 soldiers would simply be in the way and be a trip wire to a much worse outcome, so i think the president was right in moving 50 soldiers out of the way of an onslaught of tens of thousands of turkish troops. >> why are you so convinced of that? i'm not going to get to whether

it was exactly 50 and all of that, but it does seem as if our soldiers being there was serving as a deterrent to erdogan for a period of time. >> they were until they weren't. they were until the turks decided they were coming. they gave us forewarning they were coming and the president made a judgment that i think most military commanders would agree with, that you don't go to war with 50 soldiers. they don't deter anything. once the turks said they were coming, it would have been foolish to leave 50 soldiers in the wakes of tens of thousands of people coming across the border. this is a 100-year-old war between the turks and kurds. realize, the president is asking is it in our national security interests to somehow figure out how the kurds can live with the turks? the other interesting thing that people don't mention is all the kurds aren't the same. the iraqi kurds are cooperating with turkey to turn in kurdish worker party officials they see as terrorists. the iraqi kurds are turning over some of the kurds aligned with the syrians.

>> i'm glad you brought this up. when you were running for president, you actually -- you had a proposal on how you would handle the situation at the time, and i want to play it for you. because i'm curious if you still hold the same view. take a listen. >> i would provide armaments to the kurds as well. in fact, i would go one step further. i would promise them a homeland and a state, but i would do it in congentian with talks with turkey. it would be a three-way discussion, but i would like to get the turks involved as well. >> an interesting proposal. you're not alone in that. a lot of folks would argue at some point the kurds need a home. have you shared that idea with the president? >> i haven't talked specifically about it, but they kind of do have a homeland. there's a kurdish region in iraq. what i was referring to iraq, and i do agree with that sentiment, but here's one of the interesting things. as we have gotten stability in iraq and the kurds have

self-control, there's 1800 turkish businesses that are part of iraq that are controlled by the kurds. it's a prosperous oil region, and it works pretty well, but these kurds don't actually get along with the syrian kurds so well and many of the syrian kurds have been trying to break off part of turkey into an independent country. it's been going on for really close to 100 years. many of the kurds in syria actually were expelled or exiled from turkey in the '20s, '30s, and '40s. the question we have to ask is and i have to ask, am i going to send the sons and daughters there to die to try to figure out how the kurds and turks can get along? i don't see that in our national interest. and we should vote on it. we should vote on it in congress and declare war if that's what people want. >> senator, what do you -- i get that. what about that line that says america made a commitment to these folks. you may not have agreed with that policy decision at the time. but abandoning them could lead

to a worse outcome. and look, that's -- these are not easy decisions. but what do you say to that line? >> but you know, what president trump said was not i'm committed to making a kurdish homeland in syria. what he said is we're going to wipe out isis, which was the benefit also of the kurdish people who live in that region. bl, that's to be debated. but i would say, isis has been militarily defeated and whether they come back or not is conjecture at this point. but what i would say is this, we have to debate in congress. my oath is to the constitution. my oath isn't to some promise that somebody thinks we made for a kurdish homeland. we should vote. and here's the reason why we won't vote. they don't know twhoo to declare war on. we're doing to declare war on turkey, on the free syrian army, which was our ally for seven years, on assad? to tell you the truth, what needs to happen is we need to exert our leverage and pressure to bring all sides together, and ultimately, it's probably in the

kurds' best interest to be asidelined with assad. as long as we continue to say assad has to go, we're never getting to a peaceful situation. assad is staying. if he were aligned with the kurds and they were giving some semiautonomy in the region, it could develop as it has in iraq. what if the kurds were under syrian sovereignty but had a semiautonomous region? you might find some peace with that and syria would guarantee they're not going to have incursions to turkey, which means everybody needs to be at the table having this discussion. >> quickly, the president at the same time this week quietly sent more troops to saudi arabia and claims that the saudis are going to pay for those troops. are you comfortable with the u.s. military being treated almost like a mercenary force for the saudis? >> i'm not. in fact, i would withhold troops and arms from the saudis until we see better behavior. i think our arms are uniquely belong to the american people and that we shouldn't be sending them to the saudis until we see

a change in their behavior, but it's inconsistent to say we're not going to be there for endless senseless wars and then to have them in saudi arabia. one of the things that bin laden said motivated him is not a justification, obviously, it was terrible and he got what he deserved, but one of the things that motivated him were troops in what they considered their holyland. i think having troops in saudi arabia becomes a magnet for the crazy jihadists around the world to motivate them to attack again. >> on the issue of impeachment, what's been going on, are you disturbed at all by the role rudy giuliani has been playing as a private citizen here, possibly dabbling in a foreign affairs in ways that frankly is now being investigated, but there seems to be almost a shadow foreign policy that he might have been running. does that bother you at all? >> what's interesting is both sides seem to be doing the same thing. if anything is consistent here, it's that both parties have tried to involve themselves in ukraine. four senators, democrats, wrote

a letter to the ukrainian government and said if you don't keep investigating trump, we may reconsider our bipartisan support for your aid. both parties seem to be doing this. i think that's why ultimately the american people are going to throw up their hands and say biden tret threatened the aid. i understand that they could get gas lit and think it's all equal and both sides of it, but i'm talking about specifically -- >> it's an argument. i think it is an argument that they're both doing the same thing. >> do two wrongs make a right? >> what i would do is wouldn't give them any aid. i wouldn't give them any aid becausee don't have money. we're borrowing the money from china to send it to ukraine. i wouldn't give them the aid, period. i wouldn't say you get the aid if you do x for me. i would say we don't have the money. let's take care of stuff at home. let's build roads and bridges in america. >> are you comfortable with the role rudy giuliani has been playing? >> i don't know enough about what he's been doing. i know he traveled over there to try to seek information on hunter biden's corruption. i think a lot of people see the

$50,000 a month hunter biden was making and it doesn't pass the smell test. most people do think there waw corruption involved with him, and i hope we get to the bottom of it. >> i see you wanted to get that in there. you think it's perfectly legitimate for the president to use his personal attorney to go to a foreign country and seek help for a political campaign? >> i think it's equally as legitimate as the democrats going there and saying hey, we should investigate trump. they really did. menendez -- >> we're talking about paul manafort. they were talking about paul manafort, who was doing shady business, who is now in jail for the business he was doing. >> democrat senators -- >> is that not legitimate? >> here's the thing, if you're going to condemn trump, you need to condemn the democrat senators. anchl everybody is going after president trump. somebody needs to evaluate a letter from four democrats who said to ukraine, if you don't keep investigating trump, we will reconsider our bipartisan support for aid. that's a threat. and that's the same kind of stuff they're accusing trump of, but nobody is talking about that the democrats are doing exactly the same thing. >> unfortunately, i'm out of

time. senator rand paul, good luck with your new book. thanks for coming on and sharing your views. i appreciate it. >> when we come back, my sit-down with president trump's first secretary of defense, jim mattis and what he has to say about the u.s. withdrawal from syria. the u.s. withdrawal from syria. ind, the different. subaru presents the underdogs. these shelter dogs still love unconditionally. they're just hoping to find their human, who does too. to help, subaru is establishing national make a dog's day to ask you to please consider adopting an underdog, or do something extra-special for your dog. and with their pick washington selects, montez sweat sweat? in the nfl? not on our watch. old spice's superior defense against sweat that's my last name. in the nfl.

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welcome back. it was last december that retires general jim mattis resigned as president trump's first defense secretary. he did so over policy differences including the president's decision then to withdraw u.s. forces from syria. and his rejection overall of international alliances. general mattis is also the author of a new book, call sign cay us, learning to lead. i sat down with him yesterday morning before we learned of the alleged atrocities richard engel has been reporting on and i asked for his assessment in northern syria. >> what we see is the continued reliance that we have on allies. the fight against isis was fought largely by the syrian democratic forces. we have lost during several years of fighting in syria, for example, less than a dozen

troops. each one a tragedy, but the syrian democratic forces primarily the kurds, have lost well over 11,000 killed, over 23,000 wounded. you see how we are fighting this enemy. doing it in a way by with and through allies that spreads the loads. so it's not just the american people, the american taxpayer, the american troops carrying the full load. are we still doing this fight now or have we just pulled back and it's up to the kurds on their own? >> well, it's in a situation of disarray right now. obviously, the kurds are adapting to the turkish attacks. we'll have to see if they're able to maintain the fight against isis. it's going to have an impact. the question is how much. >> how would you turn this around now if you could? >> that's a very good question, chuck. a very good question. you turn issues like this around based on trust. and reinstilling trust is going to be very difficult for the americans at this point. >> there's a movie called

charlie wilson's war, that the theme of it is, has to do with the americans walking away from the mujahadin in afghanistan, and of course, we all know what happens 20 years later. how concerned should we be about abandoning an ally like the kurds that maybe 20 years down the road this comes to bite us. >> i think secretary of state pompeo, the intelligence services, the foreign countries that are working with us, have it about right. that isis is not defeated. we have got to keep the pressure on isis so they don't recover. we may want a war over, we may even declare it over. you can pull your troops out as president obama learned the hard way, out of iraq, but the enemy gets a vote, we say in the military. in this case, if we don't keep the pressure on, then isis will resurge. it's absolutely a given that they will come back. >> is turkey an ally? >> turkey is a nato ally.

absolutely. >> nato ally, i understand that officially. are they acting like an ally right now? >> well, nations have interesting, and they have legitimate security concerns about what has happened with the the active insurgency inside turkey. i think that what we have got to do is try to find the common ground. turkey's security is not enhanced by the pullback of the american forces. >> turkey doesn't know that, do they? >> turkey has a different view of it. that's where diplomats have got to figure out a way forward. >> you were head of the pentagon right now, i'm curious how you would react to a troop saying the following. this is what a distraught soldier on the front lines fighting alongside the syrian defense force. i'm ashamed for the first time in my career, said the distraught soldier. american troops are doing nothing, jut sitting by and watching it unfold. the president's decision, he doesn't understand the problem. he doesn't understand the repercussions of this. are you concerned about troop morale? >> we're always concerned about troop morale. we have an all volunteer force.

what we have to remember is every one of this soldiers, sailors, airmen, coast guardsmen, marines, they have voluntarily stepped forward and looked past all the hot political rhetoric and rallied to the flag. we have to always be concerned with this. we have got to have policies that make sense on the front line. mostly that make sense in terms of the defense of the country. the troops are committed. they have signed a blank check, payable to the american people with their lives to defend this experiment that you and i call america. and so their views on matters of policy are important to us. and how do we bring them onboard and keep their heart and soul committed to the mission? it's always critical. >> are you concerned that while the country speaks with one voice on a governmental level when it comes to russia, that the political leader is gnaw? >> yeah, i won't make political assessments right now. the military job is to protect this experiment, this america, and the american people will decide who the political leaders

will be. i have lot of faith the american people will be represented by the right political leaders. >> i'm curious how you handle all of the recommendations you get in the media to speak out. as you know, there's probably a column every other day where somebody says put up some headlines prom some of them. you have seen them. it's time for these officials to come to the aid of their country. trump is in freefall. we need insights from kelly, mattis, now. those who work with trump must tell congress what they know. first, if congress subpoenaed you to try to find out what you knew about decision making processes when it came to ukraine or other things, would you cooperate? >> well, i would have to know specifically what it was about. i obey the law, and i have obeyed the law my entire life. so that's not the issue. but again, remember that the defense department stays outside of politics for a reason. there's a long-standing tradition why you do not want the military to be engaged in

politics. i realize some individuals have done so. but again, only in washington could i resign publicly over a matter of policy -- >> you feel like your resignation letter is pretty clear, what you think. what more do you need to add is you're saying? >> it's a page and a half long. it talks about our security being tied inextricably to our alliances. i don't know what more i can say about how i think we ought to treat allies and we should treat those who are adversaries. >> is america safer today because of this decision in syria? >> that's a complex question. i would say america's always safer when it builds the trust and a sense of reliability among our allies that we're reliable. >> when you have said if you feel like you need to speak out more, you will. you'll know what that looks like. >> mm-hmm. >> that seems to think that you do have more to say. you just don't believe this

period of time is appropriate. >> well, chuck, i have a lot of faith in the american people. they know how to vote. they don't need military generals telling them that they think this political assessment is the one they should go with or the other one is, that sort of thing. especially as corrosive as the political debate has grown in the country. this would be the worst time, i think, for military people to step out like that. also, the constitution, i think, is a very hardy document. i have a love affair with the u.s. constitution. i used to read it about once a year and found something new in it. >> i always carry one with me. all the time, because you need it. >> i had a pocket version myself. i didn't carry it all the time, but i carried it a lot of days. >> i need it more often these days. >> we all need it today. >> i also asked whether president trump had ever asked him to meet with rudy giuliani. mattis said unequivocally, no. there's much more on this interview, and you can see it in its entirely at

meetthepress.com. >> when we come back, impeachment, syria, the presidential race. lots to get to. panel is next. this seat is reserved for the restless. those who need to move. and roar. and ride. up, down, over. powering through. this seat is for those that get down in it. into the fray. the arena. this seat is not for spectators. ♪ gladiator ( ♪ ) ♪ gladiator >> vo: my car is my after-work de♪ music ion zone. >> vo: so when my windshield broke... i found the experts at safelite autoglass. they have exclusive technology and service i can trust. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ "fine. no one leaves the table "fine! we'll sleep here."."

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panelists here welcome back. panel is here. democratic pollster cornell belcher. peggy noonan, ashley parker, white house reporter for "the washington post," and michael schmidt, correspondent for "the new york times." had that big scoop over the weekend on rudy giuliani. welcome to all of you. before i get to turkey specifically, peggy, jim mattis. what do you make of what he said and what he didn't say and what he was trying to imply? >> oh, solid american opposed to what he thinks is a foreign policy blunder being made by the administration in northern syria. i think he was frank about one of his central concerns, which is how the allies and friends of the united states view this decision. to abandon people who have long been our friends. what did he not say? i think it was pretty clear. he did not want to get into his experiences of and observations of the president he served as secretary of defense. one wonders if he will ever

decide it would be a good time to speak in a very candid way. or if he feels constrains, perhaps, by his position and the possibility of doing any damage. i'm not sure how he's thinking. >> a marine is a marine. and i think he views himself as a marine first, not a political worry. >> i thought the interview was brilliant, and a lot of things he said but didn't say right out in front. one of those things that came through for me was we are weaker now because of these actions. he didn't say it, but this is basically cut and run. america is cutting and running from an ally who fought for us and ultimately, that's not going to make us in the long run stronger. that's going to make us weaker. >> ashley, look, the republican criticism of this decision, liz cheney, impossible to understand. lindsey graham, puts this presidency at risk. marco rubio, grave mistake. john shimkus said pull my name

off the i support trump list. those were the warnings. this morning, we have the reality. what happens next? they criticized the decision. now what? >> that's why you have seen so much concern going forward, because of what was reported this morning. i have to sort of reiterate how stunning it is to have republicans break with this president on anything. so to have them come out and give that degree of criticism means there is deep, deep alarm under the surface. they never, ever break with him. what next? i don't know. there's talk of bipartisan sanctions that could -- >> eliot engel talked about it. >> that could have a veto-proof majority. there's that. but at a certain point, what the president responds to most is his base. and so if he thinks that his base is going to move on this or he's going to lose them, that is the thing where you see him take a stance and retreat back. i think that's what he's going to be looking for. he's going to be looking for polls, for his base, looking at the response at his rallies more

than he's looking at what leader mcconnell says, frankly. >> what group of people are most important to donald trump right now? the senate republicans. >> you think this is a big deal? >> but why do you ask them to carry more for you? those are the people that stand between trump and the end of impeachment. that's it. there's no more mueller. there's nothing else. you know what the house democrats are going to do. so why ask more of them in the situation? >> it's an odd thing. i can tell you, also, i think it is legitimate to be asking why did this happen? how did this happen? a phone call with turkey's leader erdogan. >> peggy, this is twice now. it was right after an erdogan phone call. the first time, he announced that it was after an erdogan -- i asked general mattis, what is it about erdogan. he said that's politics, i'm not going to get into that. but erdogan clearly has -- he has the playbook on how to

encourage the president to his point of view. >> yeah. it looks to me, i don't know enough to say this, but one has the suspicion the president was rolled. i'm sorry, but the president of turkey wants something. he says can i have this? and the president of the united states says sure. and there are repercussions and implications on this decision that were perhaps not imagined. >> i'm going to put up something susan glasser in the new yorker wrote. >> sorry, i'm just here to amuse cornell. >> let me put up what susan glasser wrote, because it sort of merges the two issues of impeachment and the syria situation. add this particular moment, the republican fury at the president over the decision seems like an almost incomprehensible act of hypocrisy, how is it different than trump's threatened abandonment of ukrainians and his apparent blackmailing of them for personal political reasons? >> they are and aren't different. the images you saw today, you have militias executing people

on the side of the road, but what we saw with ukraine, with the president asking for a favor, asking for a foreign government to potentially intervene in digging up dirt on a rival, and let's put that in context, coming on the heels of we know russia meddles in the 2016 elections with the goal of helping the president and assessment of his own intelligence community he duant always accept. that's also destabilizing and a different threat to the nation. it's an open invitation to any foreign country to meddle in our elections and you have the president coming out, publicly calling on them to do it, on russia, ukraine, china, and there's no repercussions and it's destabilizing to democratic institutions. >> about the one republican i could think of who would link these two things is mitt romney on the senate side. it's not going to be a surprise to me if more start publicly linking this type of foreign policy, sort of a rogue foreign policy. >> that's the other thing about the call with erdogan that just doesn't make sense. it is that same issue that is at

the root of the ukraine problem. and that is a call with a foreign leader in which things are discussed that maybe don't line up with the country's feeling about our foreign policy. things that, you know, secret deals. you know, trying to work the system. so amid an investigation, an impeachment investigation into that issue on ukraine, you go ahead and you do a deal with turkey. >> oh, by the way, there's a link. rudy giuliani. rudy giuliani has a client that erdogan is really interested in who is a turkish gold trader in turkey. never mind ukraine. i mean, the irony that rudy actually ties these two phone calls in some way. >> i spent a lot of this week trying to understand giuliani's clients. it's really hard to get your head around. i mean, i really struggled. but at the root of it is this problem. you can't have the president's lawyer out there doing business with foreign countries. there's just a reason why you don't mix those two things together.

>> we have to pass a law to prevent this in the future, right? >> if the president needed investigators, he's in charge of the checkative branch. he has an fbi, a cia. why did he need rudy giuliani to do it? >> it's called corruption. >> that question is probably going to be at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. i'm going to pause it there. when we come back, the growing support for an impeachment inquiry. who is for it? who is not quite ready? that's next. performance comes in lots of flavors. there's the amped-up, over-tuned, feeding-frenzy-of sheet-metal-kind. and then there's performance that just leaves you feeling better as a result. that's the kind lincoln's about. ♪ i need all the breaks i can get. line?

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welcome back. data download time. according to our latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, most people have moved closer to supporting impeachment, but not republicans. 24% of all americans polled believe there's enough evidence to remove the president from office right now. 31% want an inquiry. 39% say there is not enough evidence to even start the inquiry. now it's not too surprising here

republicans are the outliers with more than three quarters of republicans saying there's not enough evidence to start a former inquiry, but there are different types of republicans that we noticed in our poll. among so-called trump republics, people that support trump before they're a republican, 91% of them say there is not enough evidence to even investigate. but among folks that say they're republican before they're a trump supporter, which is about 40% of the party, only 58% say there is not enough evidence. see? a 33-point gap. these, quote, party republicans, they're kind of like the senate republicans. this is the group you have to watch because if their support continues to erode, then you would see a fundamental challenge to this presidency. when we come back, end game. trump versus biden and the politics of character assassination. how much is too much? you just saved a bunch of money by switching your boat insurance to geico. it was easy. folks, can it get any better than this?

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your busome things are too important to do yourself. ♪ get customized security with 24/7 monitoring from xfinity home. awarded the best professionally installed system by cnet. simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today. back now with "endgame" and some sunday morning news. we are going to assume it was designed to consume. hunter biden's lawyer put out a fairly lengthy statement of what is going to be commitments about how he would conduct business, any resigns from the chinese hedge fund already claiming that he hasn't made any money out of that yet. here's what the lawyer says. hunter makes the following commitment. under a biden administration he will readily comply with any and

all guidelines or standards a president biden may issue to address purported conflicts of interest, or the appearance of such conflicts. it's interesting to me, cornell, that for a campaign that said that they weren't going to bother addressing anything hunter biden they have now decided to address it. >> well, it's interesting because they have pushed the trumps have pushed hunter biden out front in this conversation. and as you saw with senator rand paul, it's like muddying up the water. and i'm a political hack. this is what i do for my living. and i know when you can't win an argument muddy the waters. and that's what you have going on right now. and it's a shame that hunter biden is stepping down when no one in the trump world steps down. no one in the trump world breaks ties for their business interest. in fact he's got his lawyer running around the globe, you know, representing america but also representing his business interests. it's a terrible double standard.

>> responding to trump this week. i want to -- peggy, i know you want to jump in. i want folks to see how president biden earlier addressed president trump's attacks on them. >> he's targeted me and my families with lies and distortions and smears. and his lying is matched only by his manifest incompetence. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> peggy, it is that the biden campaign has been trying to find that balance between trying to mitigate the damage that they think trump's doing, and at the same time not letting trump dictate the message but trump's been dictating the message. >> yes. trump is the president. he has that mega phone. i think joe biden has been on the back of his heels, not sure how to address, not sure what exactly precisely to defend and what to concede. but i have to tell you, cornell, i disagree with you a little bit. i don't think this is merely a muddy the waters story.

this is a story that at least half the american people understand the hunter biden story as a story of the swamp, the elite, buddy buddyism, using your family influence to do well in life. the american people don't like it. >> how did it come from the trumps though? it's sort of an awkward charge coming from the trumps. you say it with a cheshire cat smile. >> i'm so relieved to hear it was. that's an interesting question, i think is how i'd respond to your question. but it's asimmetrical warfare and it's not necessarily fair but it is reality and it is the fact that the president whose children are still working abroad and have dealings abroad even when they said they wouldn't feels perfectly fine and sort of one of his greatest political talents is he feels perfectly fine to go in and make the case against hunter biden. it's worth noting as we all note in our stories that there is no

evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the bidens. and that goes to muddying the water. but it also goes to peggy's point is that is it swampy? absolutely. and when you talk to the people who came out and voted for trump, was because they felt like they were playing by one set of rules and the people in washington are playing by another. >> he was a pretty big trump supporter, did a lot of work for him who shared with me the whole point of voting for trump was to get rid of the political dynasties. he was there to get rid of the bushes and the clintons. i didn't vote for him to get rid of the political dynastys. >> his enemies or his opponents are still struggling to figure this out. they still can't figure out how to run the play against him. biden's sort of going back and forth here. they've known about these issues for at least two years that we're going to come up about his son. they knew he was running for president. and here they are in the middle of a primary, and they still

didn't know what to do. no one's figured it out. >> it's overwhelming. that's the problem. usually in politics you have one or two really good negatives and you pound those negatives over and over. you have a dozen a day that -- half of the stuff this president does in a week if clinton did it or if bush did it or if obama did it, it would ruin them. >> but if biden can't figure it out now, he's going to do it for another year? >> but we don't have to figure it out because in quinnipiac poll he is at 40%, close to the 39% -- >> i am not going to show them now because we are out of time, but biden's numbers haven't budged. thank you for watching as always. i really appreciate that. we'll be back next week, i promise. because if it's sunday it's "meet the press," and hopefully the nans are going to the world series. ♪ k. i promise. because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

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♪ welcome to "kasie dc." i'm geoff bennett. tonight things fall apart. as u.s. troops ready to depart northern syria turkey's troops advance. and things grow desperate with reports of isis sympathizers leaving camps and a key ally in the region put at risk by another ally. plus, impeachment intensifies as a former top ambassador testifies and another ambassador plans to tell congress it was president trump who told him there was no quid pro quo. and later tom