'94 crime bill that led, whether they intended or not, to a disproportionate amount of blacks and browns being incarcerated, some for decades, certainly for years, in what was also targeted. i think we have to have one standard, and everyone needs to come clean because many people were hurt and victimized, and we need to be clear on what we're doing with criminal justice and who can be honest about it. that does it for me. thanks for watching. i'll see you back here next saturday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. up next, "meet the press" with chuck todd. this sunday, impeachment showdown. >> the meeting will come to order. >> hearings begin with new revelations tying president trump closer to events in ukraine. >> mr. sondland responded that president trump cares more about the investigation of biden which guiliani was pressing for. and evidence of intimidation by president trump of a career diplomat even during her testimony.

>> i mean i can't speak to what the president is trying to do, but i think the effect is to be intimidated. >> democrats say their case is clear. >> if this is not impeachable conduct, what is? >> republicans defend the president. >> where is the impeachable offense in that call in? >> despite his denials, the president seems consumed by the hearings tweeting well over 100 times last week alone about impeachment. my guests this morning, two senators who traveled together to ukraine while military aid was withheld. democrat chris murphy of connecticut and republican ron johnson of wisconsin. plus, deval patrick gets in the race. >> i'm not trying to climb up by pulling anyone else down. >> i'll talk to the former massachusetts governor about getting into the 2020 campaign, as joe biden and elizabeth warren are slipping in iowa. >> and county to county, our first look at five counties that we believe hold the key to the 2020 election.

joining me for insight and analysis are eugene robinson, columnist for "the washington post," danielle pletka of the american enterprise institute. reuters white house correspondent jeff mason. and "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan. 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. if republicans were hoping for a robert mueller like disappointment, that didn't happen. indemocrats were looking for that galvanizing watergate like moment, that hasn't happened either. still, the witnesses at last week's impeachment hearing shows a president more interested in his own political fortunes and engaged in intimidation, even committing the unforced error of attacking a witness during her televised hearing.

ambassador sondland may feel the need to revise his statement again. perhaps most important, last week revealed just how consumed president trump is with the hearings, despite his respeeted claims to the contrary. how much will it all matter? there's little indication that republicans or democrats in congress were moved to change their minds one way or the other, but it is possible while the hearings may have little effect on impeachment, they may have done more to damage president trump's re-election chances next year. >> impeachment to me is a dirty word. >> president trump appears rattled as the impeachment inquiry consumes his attention and his presidency. >> impeachment. >> impeachment. >> impeachment. >> impeachment. >> impeachment. >> the president has tweeted about impeachment more than 140 times just this week. even as he denies he's watching. >> i hear it's a joke. i haven't watched. >> i have been watching today for the first time. i started watching. and it's really sad.

>> on friday, the president attacked the former ambassador to ukraine on twitter as she was testifying. everywhere marie yovanovitch went turned bad. she started off in somalia. how did that go? then fast forward to ukraine. >> now the president in real time is attacking you. what affect do you think that has on other witnesses' willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing? >> well, it's very intimidating. >> i have the right to speak. i have freedom of speech, just as other people do. >> yovanovitch argued the president's conduct represents an immediate threat to u.s. interests. >> what foreign official, corrupt or not, could be blamed for wondering whether the u.s. ambassador represents the president's views? and what u.s. ambassador could be blamed for harboring the fear that they can't count on our government to support them as they implement stated u.s. policy and protect and defend u.s. interests?

>> and witnesses this week have described the president's attempts to use his office for personal political gain. pressing for an investigation into the bidens, while withholding military aid and a white house meeting from ukraine. on wednesday, the acting ambassador to ukraine, bill taylor, broke the news of a phone call. overheard by his aide, david holmes, between eu ambassador gordon sondland, and president trump. >> what your staff member could overhear was president trump asking ambassador sondland about, quote, the investigations, is that right? >> that's correct. >> behind closed doors, holmes described the july cell phone call one day after the president's call with zelensky, saying sondland told trump president zelensky loved your ass. holmes said i then heard president trump ask, so he's going to do the investigation? ambassador sondland replied that he's going to do it. holmes testified that sondland told him the president did not

give an expletive about ukraine. but only cared about big stuff, like the biden investigation that mr. giuliani was pushing. >> do you recall having a conversation -- >> i don't recall, no, not at all. not even a little bit. >> joining me now, two senators who traveled to ukraine in september, spoke to president zelensky about the withheld security assistance. democrat chris murphy of connecticut and republican ron johnson of wisconsin. senator johnson, you join us from your home in oshkosh. welcome back to "meet the press." let me start with your reaction to what the president tweeted about ambassador yovanovitch on friday. >> good morning, chuck. i thought it was kind of interesting when president trump was leaving the white house going to atlanta, and people were talking about his behavior. he said my behavior is caused by you, the constant torment, the investigation. so listen, i would prefer he not provide that type of tweet. but you know, my concern, and

let me start out with something else here, because i don't want to argue every point. something we agree on, as americans we all share the same goal. we want a safe, prosperous, secure america. we're passionate, we care about each other. generally, we solve our political differences alt the ballot box, not in the streets or through impeachment. i think that is reallydentially as we talked the other day, that's the divide that is tearing this country apart. that's what i'm primarily concerned about. >> i want to get in a little bit of the specifics. i want to get you to react to something the ambassador said about particularly about what rudy giuliani was doing. take a listen to her testimony. >> i obviously don't dispute that the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time for any reason. but what i do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation. >> a fair question for her to

ask. >> sure it is. again, i have no problem with the ambassador. she hosted me when i made one of my trips over there. but one thing i want to point out is the damage being done to our country through this entire impeachment process. you know, it's going to be very difficult for future presidents to have a candid conversation with a world leader because we have set the precedent of laking transcripts. and by the way, those individuals that leaked this, if their interest was a stronger relationship with ukraine, they didn't accomplish this. having this all come out into public has weakened that relationship, has exposed things that didn't need to be exposed. when i was in ukraine with senator murphy one of the points i was trying to make as we left the meeting, let's minimize this. this is a timing difference in terms of funding. senator murphy is on the appropriations committee. we will restore the funding. i came back and talked to senator durbin. he offered an amendment. that same day, the funding was released. so this would have been far better off if we would have just

taken care of this behind the scenes. we have two branches of government. most people want to support ukraine. we're trying to convince president trump, and so the whole -- again, i listened to "the washington post" article lionizing this whistleblower. if the whistleblower's goal is to improve our relationship with ukraine, he utterly or she utterly failed. >> let me -- >> go ahead. >> let me pick up on what you said about all this going public. you actually raise an interesting question about this. why was the president so insistent that president zelensky had to be public about announcing an investigation? i ask that because, you know, one of the foundations of due process in this country is actually not to publicly announce who you're investigating because you may be investigating somebody who is innocent. and yet, the president wanted ukraine to violate one of our great protections in the rule of law and publicly announce an investigation regardless of whether there's guilt or not. why did he want to go public? >> i'm not sure that's the case.

i certainly understand that president trump wanted to find out what was happening in 2016 and how did this false narrative about russian collusion with his campaign occurred. that i know because that's from my first-hand testimony. what i also know is when i sprung that on president trump in my august 31st phone call, he denied any kind of arrangement that ukraine had to do something before he would release the funding. this is what has not been reported from the phone call. at the tail end, a pretty long phone call. we talked about a bunch of other things, but at the end, he wrapped it up by saying ron, i have a hurricane i have to deal with, but i hear what you're saying. we're reviewing this. i think you're going to like my decision. he was already leaning toward providing that funding on august 31st. my guess is this never would have been exposed, that funding would have been restored and our relationship with ukraine would be far better off than it is today. >> again, you seem to blame this on everybody but the president. it was the president's actions -- >> i'm not blaming everybody. >> you are, you're blaming everybody else about the reason

we're in the situation other than the president. isn't the president's own behavior which raised all of these yellow and red flags why we're here? >> again, i'm sympathetic with president trump as he has been tormented from the day after his election. quick little quote from the lawyer of the whistleblower. this is ten days after his inauguration. coup has started. first of many steps. rebelium. impeachment will follow ultimately. if this whistleblower is to be lionized by "the washington post," maybe we ought to take a look at who he hired. he could have hired an unbiased officer of the court. he instead hired this man who said starting of events. that's not an unbiased officer of the court. there's something going on here, that's my point. something is going on. what's dividing this country -- >> let me ask you this. you are the one who brought up this idea that impeachment was something that the left wanted to do immediately. i am going to quote from you,

sir. november 1st, 2016. you're asked about hillary clinton. and you said this before the election. she purposely circumvented the law. this was willful concealment and destruction. i would say yes, high crime or misdemeanor. you were saying -- talking about impeachment about that election with hillary clinton. how should i not -- how should viewers not look at what you're doing here and you're just reacting as a partisan that if trump were a democrat, you would be ready to convict him. >> understand, that's before an election. i'm trying to hammer out the political differences before an election. by the way, i completely agree with that. we have been investigating the whole hillary clinton email scandal. the exoneration of her, you know, that was not an investigation to really dig out the truth. it was -- >> i think it was legit to advocate impeachment before the election. you're criticizing democrats for advocating impeachment days after the inauguration. >> you would have to listen to the question. i don't think i said impeachment

right there at all, chuck. so again, i was just pointing out what hillary clinton had done, and where was hoping that people would not elect her, and they didn't. that's i think one of the main reasons she was not elected, is what she did with that private server, which was completely intentional. it baffles me she was not indicted, quite honestly, but now that we know based on the strzok/page texts. >> why shouldn't viewers assume that you're looking at president trump through republican lens here? because you're already much tougher, ready to go to impeachment on hillary clinton with no evidence that anything that happened with that server somehow got into foreigners' hands when we actually had evidence regarding what happened at the dnc? >> so i guess what i suggest, chuck, is i got a letter last night from representative jordan and nunes asking for basically my telling of events. i'll be working on that today. i will lay out what i know in terms of this -- >> are you going to testify? >> now, you know, they're not

going to call me because certainly adam schiff wouldn't want to be called by the senate. it's going to be a separation there, but i think i will reply to that and i'll supply my telling of events, which is difficult to do in eight or ten minutes on a show like this. >> fair enough. >> but chuck, going back to, we're a divided nation. i'm highly concerned about that. i know you are as well. we need to start understanding the other person's perspeski spective. >> senator johnson, republican from wisconsin, thank you for coming on and sharing your views. >> have a good day. >> joining me now is the democratic partner of ron johnson when it tried to get aid for ukraine. chris murphy of connecticut. senator murphy, welcome back. >> sure. >> first of all, what have we learned so far this week that says, and this to me is the bar the democrats have to meet, that what the president did was so egregious, he should be disqualified from trying to seek a second term. that's the bar you have to meet, is that right? >> it's an extraordinary measure

to try to impeach a president. these are extraordinary circumstances. what we know is that the president of the united states was using the massive powers entrusted to him to try to use taxpayer dollars as leverage to get a foreign country to interfere in an election. you can't do that as an american president. if there were no consequences, the message would be clear, this president and any other president can use the power of the oval office in order to try to advance themselves politically or financially. and so i think representative schiff is right. if you don't use impeachment for this type of offense, and i'm not sure what you use it for. and if the president was able to get away with this, if senator johnson got what he was asking for, and no one raised any questions about it, he would have just continued to try to use the power of his office to rig the 2020 election in his favor. >> senator johnson just volunteered he's going to apparently speak with at least the republican side of the house intelligence impeachment inquiry right now and referenced jordan and nunes. how should the two of you give your information?

i say this, there's a speech and debate clause issue, there is separation of power. this is legally a little complicated and i apologize for the constitutional lesson here. how should you and senator johnson give your information about what you knew and saw? >> well, i think what we knew and saw is pretty clear. and we have been public about this from the beginning. i'm not sure that anything is necessary other than what we have said. president zelensky dispensed with the formalities of the meeting. he started to immediately talk about the fact the aid had been suspended. it was that important to him because his soldiers were dying on the front without american aid. >> he knew the aid was suspended at this point in time, right? when is this meeting? >> he knew the aid was suspended. this was september 5th. he had clearly been communicated to at that point he needed to get the investigations started in order for the aid to be turned back on at the end of the meeting, i told him it would be a bad idea for him to aseed to rudy giuliani's corrupt request and he agreed, but at the time, we didn't know all of these back channels or at least i didn't know all the back channels that were happening regarding the

extortion campaign. so we didn't talk about the details of sondland and volker's communications during that meeting. >> at what point -- basically, senator johnson's basic argument is the following. this should be a political discussion and a political argument and a political debate. he's not alone in thinking that. and that's not just a partisan defense. there are some in the middle watching this show going i don't like what he did, but it's too close to the election. what do you say? >> let me tell you why this is different. the president was trying to use the power of his office to influence the upcoming election. he was attempting to get a foreign power to destroy a candidate for office who was running against him in 2020. and so this is directly relevant to the sanctity of american elections. if you don't stop a president from trying to rig an upcoming election, then i don't know how we live in a democracy anymore. that's why you had to use this means right now. >> i notice you used the word extortion. "the washington post" reported earlier this week that several democrats have stopped using the

term quid pro quo. instead, describing bribery as a more direct summation of trump's alleged conduct. you said extortion. the shift came after the democratic congressional campaign committee conducted focus groups in battlegrounds in recent weeks, testing words related to impeachment. one question put to them was whether quid pro quo or extortion was a more compelling word. it looks like democrats are looking for the most politically effective language here. this is campaign stuff. should you be using campaign tactics to move impeachment? >> i think we need to explain to the american people why this is so serious. i don't think there's anything wrong with trying to -- >> in house battlegrounds. i would get it if you told me it was all of america, but it's clearly about who this is playing to. >> my job is to explain to the american people why this is so serious. i think we have a challenge. i think a lot of americans are paying attention to their pocketbooks, more concerned with

the president's sabotage campaign against the affordable care act than this. >> two things. ambassador yovanovitch, what trump did, should that be added to the impeachment articles? is that an article? >> i mean, i think that's an interesting question. and maybe the house should consider it because, remember, ambassador yovanovitch is still working at the state department. what the president is basically telling her during her testimony is there may be consequences to you and your family and your paycheck if you don't shut up. the message that's being sent to everybody else thinking about testifying is chilling as well. i thought from the beginning the impeachment inquiry should be narrow so we can get it to the senate as quickly as possible, but this is really serious. >> gordon sondland, is he a credible witness? >> his story continues to change. and i think he's got to decide this weekend whether he's an american first or a trump loyalist. i'm not sure we can trust his testimony given the fact we know it's already changed. >> are you uncomfortable it sounds like you have made up

your mind as a juror? >> i think it's okay with the facts on the table. >> you think there's enough to convict. >> i think if this isn't impeachable, i don't know what is. i have to wait for the articles of impeachment, but the conduct i have seen has to be impeachable in a democracy. >> chris murphy, thank you for coming on. >> coming up rng while you were relaxing yesterday, there was more testimony in the impeachment inquiry. some of it very damaging to the president' story. the panel is next. frequent heartburn? not anymore. the prilosec otc two-week challenge is helping people love what they love again.

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welcome back. panel is here. reuters white house correspondent jeff mason. "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan. danielle pletka, and eugene robinson, columnist for "the washington post." jeff, the president is your day-to-day beat. he claims he's not watching this, but twitter is like you can monitor his feelings. just looking at the number of tweets he sent. look at this chart. the line of demarcation, the impeachment inquiry begins september 24th. he didn't average over 200

before then. he now doesn't average under 200 after. you have seen an increase. is that the best way to monitor the president's temperament these days? >> absolutely. if you talk to people in the white house, and i did in the last few days, people will say, oh, he's fine. he's happy. he's pleased with how things are going in the impeachment trial. if you watch his stream of consciousness twitter feed, you can tell he's rattled. and that exposed itself really with his tweet about the former ambassador in the middle of the testimony on friday. >> peggy, that is what struck me about all this week. just sort of realize, it's consumed him. he can't compartmentalize. bill clinton compartmentalized in ways that some of us are like how do you do that. this guy can't do that at all, to the point he had to force himself -- >> into the hearings. >> what he did at the hearing was what authoritarian people do. that was just a rough moment. >> i think it was also very

embarrassing and discomforting for his republican defenders in the house and on that panel. look, of course this thing is in his head. the president has said previously, i think we had it on the show, impeachment is like a dirty word for presidents. this is a big drama. i think he sees a house impeachment coming. if he watched part of this week, he knows, he knows tv. the testimony was compelling for anybody watching closely. the people who testified were people of stature and accomplishment. what they said was believable, brick by brick, they made a case. backing the charge that the president muscled an ally to get a political gift that he wanted. so this was not good for him. and to the extent that everybody in politics is fighting over the middle 10% or 20% of voters, those in that group who were watching would not come away thinking more of donald trump.

>> and in fact, danny, i have been of the sense that, okay, let me play some of the republican defenses of the president, because i think they have only been effective at defending against impeachment, not for promoting re-election. take a listen. >> they had three hearings. >> the two most important facts are the following. number one, ukraine received the aid. number two, there was in fact no investigation into biden. >> we're less than a year away from the election. but these democrats do not trust the american public. >> they can't defend the actions. i get it, so that's their best defense, but that doesn't help the president's re-elect. >> no, look, you have two things opposing each other. one is he didn't do it, and he didn't do it, and you can't convict him. and the other is, and you can't because in fact he's kind of an idiot. you know, he didn't know what he was doing. >> the incompetence defense. how that's helpful, i don't know. >> that's devastating for his defense. eli lake wrote a great column on

this this week, outlining that the one is in opposition to the other. the biggest thing going for the president is at the end of the day, is this persuasive? that 10%, they're not watching this. they're not tuned in. i agree, these are very credible people. this waps in some ways a brick by brick devastation, but people have already decided. >> jane, that's what democrats have to meet. that high, the much higher bar. i thought for the first time the ambassador explained why we should be troubled by this. you know, if ambassadors don't have the backing of their president, this is damaging. will it penetrate? >> well, how can we know at this point? we have had two days of public testimony. and it seems like it's a lot longer, and there's a temptation to decide, is this having an impact, is this not having an impact? i think we don't know yet. we don't know if this is going to move public opinion. but you know, i thought those

were two pretty devastating days of testimony. again, for those paying attention. you know, they saw two things happening. they saw, you know, these public servants testifying in a very credible way, especially ambassador yovanovitch, who had the emotional impact as well. thanks in part to the president's tweet. and they also saw the republicans moving the goalposts at an incredible pace. i mean, i think the goalposts were last seen crossing the mississippi. they're somewhere out over the great plains by now. >> you know, wednesday is going to be a big day with gordon sondland. i think you're right when you say we're only at two hearings. part of me is like, you know what, they have been revelatory already. you feel like, i want to see what's next. how nervous is the white house? >> one of the criticisms last week is the witnesses who did testify were talking heresy. sondland is somebody who spoke directly to the president. one of the sources i spoke to at

the white house said they have spoken to republicans and things that go well in those swing districts are the following three arguments. number one, the president did nothing wrong. number two, this process is not fair. and number three, the president is working for the american people while democrats are obsessed with impeachment. all of those arguments could be hit by sondland testimony. >> it does feel like gordon sondland is somebody that -- it just feels very pivotal. >> how does he assess his legal situation at this point, is my question? sondland, he's supposed to appear on wednesday. he's already changed his story twice. >> twice. >> now he's got to change it again. >> somebody said, and who says which side asked this question first? were you lying then or now? he's now in that situation potentially. >> yeah, but all of this is only interesting because the president has staked his defense on this idea that there was no quid pro quo. did i say that right? >> just use bribery or extortion. that's the real reason they changed the language. it's hard to say.

>> if he wants to stake his game on that, the answer is no one believes it. but the bottom line is, he did it. and do people care? i think the answer is no. >> i think i'm still open to the idea of a particular kind of drama, if it turns out somebody like john bolton comes forward and has testified. this is a man who was known to american conservatives, who is a fox news thinker and talker. who has been a serious person in the administration and all of the ukraine charges happened around him, and he's a colorful speaker. if he decides, i'm going to go for it here and give you my full candid assessment of what i have witnessed, that really could be big. and that, for the 10 or 20% in the middle, that could make them shake a little. >> you're describing john bolton as john dean. and i'll just leave it there. >> what kind of look is it for bolton to make a big money book

deal for presumably a tell-all book and not tell all to the american people first? that's not a good look for him. >> i have a feeling we'll hear from john bolton before the end of the year. >> when we come back, what deval patrick's entry into the presidential race tells us about the field. field. and...whatever this was. because we make our meat with the good of the deli and no artificial preservatives. make every sandwich count with oscar mayer deli fresh. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. i wish i could shake your hand. granted. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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welcome back. there's been some big news out of iowa this morning. a new des moines register poll shows mayor pete buttigieg surging to the top in iowa. buttigieg is at 25%. nearly a double-digit lead over his nearest competitor. he's gained 16 points since september. elizabeth warren and joe biden have slipped significantly, and they're bunched together with bernie sanders. the poll suggests democrats at least in iowa maybe at least searching for an alternative to

warren, sanders, biden. perhaps a more moderate one, which is the space deval patrick would like to occupy when he entered the race last week, and he joins me now from san diego. he got up early with the time change. he's learning the rigors of this presidential contest. governor patrick, welcome back to "meet the press." >> indeed i am, hi, chuck. how are you? >> i'm good. >> thanks for having me. >> pete buttigieg, i would argue, is essentially making similar arguments you have about bringing the country together, that this is a bigger moment than a specific policy issue here. nostalgia over there. i'm not -- i mean, when you hear your message, and i hear what i have heard from pete buttigieg, i think, all right, isn't your message already represented? >> first of all, i want to thank you very much, chuck, for having me on. i was just listening to your previous segments. it feels a little jarring to be talking about politics given the gravity of what you were talking about just now. i have tremendous respect for mayor pete as i do for senator warren, for the vice president,

and other candidates who are friends of mine and whom i talk with in the course of the race. my entry into the race isn't about them, and i'm not trying to climb on top of them in order to do what i want to do and what i think i can do. i think that i have a record of being a bridge builder, and i think that's pretty important at a time when not just the party in some respects but the nation is deeply divided, and divided, frankly, around issues where we have remarkably -- a remarkable amount of overlap in terms of economic anxiety and social tensions, which we have experienced at different times in our history. i also have a range of life experience and professional experience which enables me to come at problem solving through -- from a bunch of different perspectives, and you have seen that. and i want to tell the american people about that in massachusetts.

>> you come -- you're a preparation guy, though. you strike me as somebody that you want to plan in advance. you didn't get in. it's interesting. you were asked in june. you said you had no regrets not getting in. you were asked in august. you said my wife looks at it and says i'm so glad you didn't run. in october, you suggested an 11th hour bid was highly unlikely. governor, look, i have been aware of efforts to recruit for you years. it's always been my understanding that you just didn't want to put your family through this, so what changed? >> well, first of all, you may know, chuck, we were really close. i mean, like, you know, a week or two from announcing a year ago. and just at the eve, literally, my wife was diagnosed with uterine cancer. and that had to be first priority. we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in june. and i'm delighted to say that she is cancer-free, praise god. >> excellent news. >> she follows every put and take -- >> it is, really.

she follows every put and take, every news story, much more closely than i. and you are right, she has said, watching the debates and watching so many of our friends compete and contest and the friction that comes from that, that she was glad i was not involved at that time. but she's also been one of the ones listening closely and responding to folks who have said there is a lane for you. more to the point, that the nation needs experience, not just a sensibility around bridge building but actually some results in that respect. you know, we are in crisis in many respects here in america. and we used a crisis in massachusetts to come out stronger economically, stronger socially, and more fair. and i would like to see if those experiences and that aptitude and that skillset can be offered in service of our nation. >> it's not lost on people that

here you are jumping in when there's a fellow massachusetts democrat in the race. and it certainly seems as if you don't see eye-to-eye on ideology, necessarily. why shouldn't your entry be seen as a bit of a vote of no confidence in elizabeth warren. >> i don't want to go there, senator warren is a friend of mine. she and her husband bruce and diane and i have spent time together privately and socially, and i'm enormously fond of her and incredibly proud of the campaign she's run. it's been enormously disciplined, i think, but i think we have to -- we have to keep our eye on our shared goals. and not get so hardened around our means, and i'll just use health care as an example. you know, every single democrat believes and is committed to delivering quality, affordable health care to every single american. republican leadership are not.

that's the point. how we get there, there will be and should be robust debate about that. you know, we've delivered in massachusetts health care to over 98% of our residents. i still don't think there's another state in america that has gotten that far. and the whole business of trying to get system costs down is a national challenge. you can get there a couple different ways. and certainly having a public option, which is my preferred approach, maybe medicare is that public option. that's a way. but the fact is, no one party, no one candidate has a corner on all the best ideas. if you want to make a reform that lasts, then you have to make room for other points of view to accomplish that ambitious goal. >> i don't know if you're as independently wealthy as michael bloomberg. i assume you're not. >> is anyone? >> but are you going to accept super pac money or super pac

support? there's been a lot of speculation that perhaps some of your partners or friends may put together a super pac to help you catch up. not a lot of democrats are crazy about super pac money. are you going to swear it off or not? >> i'm not crazy about super pac money either. i'm not sure that i'm -- if i understand the rules correctly, i can even have a say about that. >> you can publicly discourage it. >> but look, i think we need to do some catch-up, so i think we have to follow and finds all sorts of above board strategies to do that. >> if there's a super pac that supports you, you're not going to tell them to stop? >> no, i am not. i would say i would like to see any contributions to such a pac fully disclosed. first, i think there's too much money in the system and i'm going to have something to say about that from a policy point of view as we get further along. but if there is going to be super pac money that supports me, it should all be the sources of that should be fully

disclosed. >> deval patrick, former democratic governor of massachusetts. a crowded field. welcome to it. getting up early in california, that, sir, i appreciate as well. >> that's a part of it, chuck. thank you. >> when we come back, where the presidential race is likely to be decided. a unique look at how we're going to cover 2020, up next. ey don'ts to this thing. (announcer) verizon knows you love live music and sports. we got to be this far away from the stage. (announcer) that's why we give you access to more jaw-dropping experiences, including nfl games and events. i have never had a vip experience before like that. probably the best moment of my life. (announcer) switch now and you'll get access to thousands of tickets on us and get up to $750 toward our best phones. because the network more people rely on gives you more. itso chantix can help you quit slow turkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first

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welcome back. data download time. we're introducing a new initiative here at "meet the press" we're calling county to county. we're going to be in five counties that are likely to decide this election. maricopa, beaver county, pennsylvania, and miami-dade county, florida. follow these counties, you'll have a better understanding of where the electorate is headed. we're not saying they're all five swing counties but they're crucial to understanding this election. we traveled to milwaukee county in wisconsin and kent county in michigan. and wisconsin, whether or not

the state stays red, will involve turnout. turnout in the state overall was down by 3% in 2016 compared with 2012. mitt romney earned more votes in wisconsin when he lost the state to obama than mr. trump got when he beat clinton there four years later. that's how low the state's turnout was. and the biggest decline -- milwaukee county. it dropped by a whopping 10%. now, state-wide, the african-american vote was down 19%. then there's the story across the lake in kent county, mish mis, which mitt romney won in 2012, even though obama caried the state that year. kent's biggest city is grand rapids, home town of gerald ford, avatar of many traditional republican voters who associate themselves more with ford's moderate republicanism than with donald trump. kent is chamber of commerce country with a higher percentage of college educated voters than state wide. 35 to 28%. what happened in 2016? mr. trump improved on romney's

2012 performance by almost three percentage points in michigan state-wide, but in kent county, mr. trump actually lost ground compared to romney by 5.5%. will these establishment republicans return to the fold and support president trump? i'm joined now by two of our county to county reporters, vaughn hillyard in milwaukee county, wisconsin. --a burns in michigan. >> good morning, chuck. recall back in 2016, donald trump won the state by just 22,000 votes. and last year's governors race, the democrat tony eebers beat scott walker by 30,000 votes. here, it's the most diverse county in the state, and of course, it's not lost on folks' memories around here that hillary clinton is the party's nominee in 2016 didn't visit the state a single time. but more so, i have been repeatedly told it's about what that decision represented. a lack of acknowledgment of the city and its people. voters here say they want their

economic situations to be understood and for the candidates to offer real economic remedies. chuck. >> vaughn, thanks very much. if african-american turnout is up there, it may mean it's up in other states as well. dasha, tell me about kent county. >> hey, chuck. good morning. here in kent county, we have been talking oo lot of lifelong republicans who are deeply conflicted. some describing political homelessness to me. some have said they just don't recognize this republican party as the party they grew up with. that's in large part due to donald trump. some are following in the footsteps of justin amash. kent county is home to that congressman who left the republican party earlier this year and is now running for re-election here as an independent. others say they still identify as republicans, but they would actually consider voting for a democrat in 2020 though that will heavily depend on who that nominee actually is. so we'll be staying in very close touch with voters here.

>> dasha burns, vaughn hillyard, i'm a believer as kent county goes, so goes michigan and maybe so goes the election. when we come back, end game and the result of yesterday's governor's race in louisiana. more rough news for president trump. (burke) at farmers insurance, we've seen almost everything so we know how to cover almost anything. (bert) even a "not-so-handy monster." (johnson) what is going on in here! i can't hear myself think! (grover) what does it look like, sir? i am here to help you with your water heater. (johnson) oh! [sighs defeatedly] (grover) do not worry sir. i also fix cars! [johnson groans] (bert) grover is a monster of many talents! (burke) and we covered it. at farmers, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. (bert) mmm. ♪ we are farmers. ♪ bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum for your worst sore throat pain

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xfi advanced security. if it's connected, it's protected. call, click, or visit a store today. and as for the president, god bless his heart. >> all right. a little southern slang there from the now re-elected governor

of louisiana. let's put up the vote board there, john bel edwards really sort of an old-school social conservative economic populous liberal that used to be a big chunk of the democratic party. he still sort of has hung onto it, and the president didn't have coat tails and he begged for him. listen to this sound byte. >> and the headlines the next day, lift him up a lot. you got to give me a big win, please, okay? >> well, he made it about him, and so it was about him and he lost again. he lost in kentucky, he lost in louisiana. you know, you could make an argument that donald trump is not good for the republican party. >> what? [ laughter ] >> in any sense. >> yeah. how is that going.

in fact, there is not a data point that supports him being an improvement for the republican party. whether it's the off-year elections, the mid-term elections. >> and democrats stay on a louisiana estate that went for trump. he is poison to suburban white voters across the country, and his numbers there seem to be heading south. and that means the party is going to head south. look what happened in 2018, what happened in all the sort of off, off-year specials and elections. it's bad for republicans. >> but isn't there a lesson here also for the democrats? i mean, i know that our job is to see absolutely everything through the prism of donald trump. but -- >> he wants you to see everything. >> i know. >> the person who actually forces it is him. >> but this tells us something. the speech we haven't talked

about this, but the speech that was give in these comments from barack obama this week about the democratic party. >> i was about to play them. >> no, that's okay you're a good producer. >> but john bel edwards is that part of the democratic party that he was talking about that we don't see anymore. those people aren't represented in the democratic race anymore. >> we sometimes forget, i think, that we always see the republican party shattering or bending under various pressures. the fact is we have been witnessing for about five years the democratic party dividing and shattering also debating what it stands for. that's what 2020 is really about. how far left are we going? >> barack obama says this on friday. this is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement. they like seeing things improved. and i think it's important for us not to lose sight of that. jeff mason, felt like an obvious

shot a bit at the left. but i think you hear him saying that, and it's not lost on me that it's the most pragmatic candidate running so far, pete buttigieg, that is now surging in iowa. >> yes, and somebody who's modeling himself in many ways in terms of strategy. it's not hard to interpret president obama's comments there as a hit as bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. joe biden's been working on that on his own by tying himself to his former boss. >> the rise of pete i think is basically -- it's because democrats are looking for what obama is saying. somebody a little more just smallcy conservative about him. >> if you look at edwards and bashir and 2018, you see that all of this is very much alive in the democratic party. in fact, those candidates are winning. what you're seeing in the presidential campaign i think is

the difficulty of sort of amalgamating all of that into one candidate, into one sort of statement of a party philosophy. and that's a process that the party is having some difficulty working through, and thus finding the right candidate. >> is the right of buttigieg mean that bloomberg and patrick were both right and wrong? meaning that they were right about the room that there was between warren, sanders and biden? but they were wrong that there was no candidate campaigning for it? >> they have right to think at a certain point it was fluid. anything could happen. anybody who wants that job should be rolling the dice at this point. i'm very interested in joe biden as a figure who does stand for i think a sort of john bel edwards kind of moderate, democratic liberal approach. but about whom so many people seem to have doubts like that's not going to work so i better go elsewhere.

i'll tree pete. that's how i read it. >> but you also can't look at the rise of pete in iowa and forget about the importance of the african-americans to the democratic electorate. a source in the biden campaign told me yesterday that they are very confident they can still win three out of the four early states. if pete buttigieg wins iowa, they don't necessarily see that as a blow that they can't -- >> oh, i think they would prefer pete over warren win in iowa. that i buy. all right. before we go, a quick programming note. this wednesday msnbc and "the washington post" will host the fifth democratic presidential debate. it'll be in atlanta. the debate begins at 9:00 eastern time. that's the same day as the gordon sondland hearing. so let's just say on wednesday if work, you know, is kind of slow, just sit yourself in front of the television because you'll have a lot of popcorn to pop and watch. that's all we have for today. thank you for watching. we will be back next week,

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♪for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home.♪ the united states postal service goes the extra mile to bring your holidays home. ♪ welcome to "kasie dc." i'm geoff bennett. tonight no rest for the weary. capitol hill usually quiet on the weekends. buzz is on with new testimony, new depositions and new angles as we prepare for another nonstop week of impeachment. we get information from figures with first-hand knowledge about the fateful call between president trump and president zelensky and what set off alarm bells for trump appointees. and later with gun safety measures totally stalled between the congress and the white house,