this sunday, making the case. >> this is not a partisan moment. this must be an american moment. joe biden frames his campaign against president trump. >> character is on the ballot. compassion is on the ballot. decency, science, democracy, they're all on the ballot. >> with a little help from his friends and his running mate. >> the constant chaos leaves us adrift.

the incompetence makes us feel afraid. now it's president trump's turn. >> joe biden is a puppet of the radical left movement. >> as he signals his campaign strategy. >> i'm the only thing standing between the american dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos. >> my guest this morning, trump campaign senior adviser jason miller and former democratic presidential candidate buttigieg of indiana. plus as president trump continues his baseless attacks on mail-in voting -- >> this is just a way they're trying to steal will the election. >> -- house democrats vote to block some changes that slowed the postal service. >> don't pay any attention to what the president is saying because it is all designed to suppress the vote. and a bipartisan senate panel details the extensive ties between russia and the 2016 trump campaign >> unprecedented amount of russian intervention and a myriad of contacts.

>> i'll talk to the top democrat on the senate intel committee, mark warner. joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker, gerald saeb of the journal, and former republican member of congress scott walker. 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. the democrats came out of their first-ever virtual convention making their case against president trump both by looking to the past with luminaries like president obama and to the future with the woman they hope will become the next vice president, kamala harris. joe biden delivered what may have been the speech of his life, putting to rest the caricature president trump has painted of him as mentally

infirm and not up to the job. and democrats made headway in uniting their often divided party reaching out to republicans and stretching their tent without ripping it -- yet. in short, they're coming out of their convention running the same campaign they did four years ago, more on character and decency than on policy, although this time against an incumbent president and with a nominee with lower negatives. now it's the republicans' turn. president trump will not have the tens of thousands of supporters packed into an arena that he so desperately wanted. the coronavirus settled that. he will have four days to rewrite the democrats' portrayal of him as the great threat to american democracy into one of a president who made america great again, is tougher on crime than joe biden, and is more trusted on the economy. but president trump enters his convention trailing in the polls with the coronavirus still out of control and the economy in tatters, and he's sounding increasingly desperate, perhaps fearful of losing, describing a dystopian view of america if biden wins with the president as the only thing standing between us and the end of american civilization.

>> if our opponents prevail, no one will be safe in our country and no one will be spared. >> president trump ratcheting up his rhetoric after a week when democrats painted a bleak future for the country if the president is re-elected, arguing the american democracy is at stake. >> character is on the ballot. compassion is on the ballot, decency, science, democracy, they're all on the ballot. >> do not let them take away your power. do not let them take away your democracy. >> as he prepares to fight for another term at his convention this week, the president is escalating his assault on biden, who he has struggled to effectively attack. >> i am the only thing standing between the american dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos. >> it is a darker version of a line from four years ago. >> nobody knows the system better than me which is why i alone can fix it.

>> but can the president make the case the election is a choice rather than a referendum on his own presidency? >> if you want a vision of your life under the biden presidency, think of the smoldering ruins of minneapolis, the violent anarchy of portland, the blood-stained sidewalks of chicago. >> but mr. trump is president and those images have happened on his watch. more than 70% of americans say the country is on the wrong track. the trump campaign has struggled to come up with a tone and a message to counter democrats' focus on the pandemic. >> donald trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't, and the consequences of that failure are severe. >> after all this time, the president still does not have a plan. well, i do. >> this week the optics of the virus may be challenging as the president tries to draw a crowd with an audience on the white house south lawn for his speech. and president trump appears to be growing more agitated.

>> if we don't win it's all gone, okay? it's all gone. >> attacking the post office, and escalating his attacks on mail-in voting. >> i don't like this mail-in ballot deal. >> threatening to use law enforcement at the polls, something he can't legally do. >> we're going have sheriffs and we're going to have law enforcement and we're going have hopefully u.s. attorneys and we're going to have everybody, an attorney general. >> and embracing qanon, a conspiracy theory the fbi has called a domestic terror threat. >> i don't know much about the movement other than i understand they like me very much, which i appreciate. i've heard these are people that love our country. >> big mistake. this is a group of nuts and kooks, and he ought to disavow them. >> joining me is trump campaign senior adviser, jason miller. welcome to "meet the press." let me start with how you plan to present your convention, the party's convention. you have nearly 180,000 dead from this virus. we've got 30 million people

receiving some sort of unemployment benefit. the initial jobless claims went back over a million last week as these benefits have gone away, so that's a tough -- that's a tough environment to present an upbeat convention, and yet the president says so. how do you do an upbeat convention with those numbers? >> well, chuck, good morning and thank you for having me on. we're going to see a very optimistic and upbeat convention this week from president trump and our republican allies and from our democratic and independent allies as well. one of the things you will see this week is a complete change in the perception that i believe the media tries to tell what a trump supporter looks like or who a trump supporter is. we're going to talk about the american story, about all the accomplishments that we've had over the last four years with president trump, and what the president's second term vision is going to look like. this is a big difference, chuck, between president trump and his convention this week and the democrats' last week. last week it was a massive grievance fest. we didn't hear about the vision for the future and how their

policies would help people, and there's a reason for that. the reason is they didn't want to talk about the $4 trillion in tax hikes, the green new deal, at a time when we can't afford to stop our economy and our economic growth, they want to throw it in reverse and go back to policies of the past. that's wrong, but you're going to hear a great uplifting message from the president and some of our allies. when i tell you some of the stories you'll hear, there will be breakout stars and supporters of the president and it will be a beautiful story. >> when we hear about the unexpected about the president, we're hearing the unexpected today about the president from somebody with the last name of trump. i want to play a quote from the president's sister. i'll ask you about it on the other side. this is from the president's sister recorded by his niece, mary trump. marianne trump, his older sister did not know she was being recorded, but it was a legally made recording, according to new york state law. here's what she said.

>> his [ bleep ] tweet and the lying oh, my god, the change of stories and the lack of preparation and the lying and the holy [ bleep ]. >> you just made a case here that we're going to hear from unusual people that you wouldn't normally hear from perhaps that are at the republican convention. these are the people that know the president best. they have the last name of trump. are you concerned that this is going to have an impact on those swing voters who are, like, it's confirmation that yeah, even his own relatives think he lies too much? >> no, chuck. sibling rivalries are nothing new in the world. it's been going on since the beginning of time and we heard some pretty pointed commentary from malik obama about former president barack obama. this is something, wonderful you get to the white house, you have family members who sometimes decide to voice their sibling rival riz or frustrations. nothing new. but going into next week, it's not something that's going to be

an issue. >> marianne trump is no ordinary trump, she's basically a retired federal judge, somebody who's sort of been senate confirmed. she comes with credibility. >> chuck, i can tell you that my conversations with the president over the years have only heard him say positive things about his sister, someone who's a very accomplished judge, and i think he's very proud of everything she's accomplished. i do want to make one other point here, chuck. this past week, the president and marianne trump lost their brother, robert trump. he was just laid to rest and had services for him at the white house on friday. and i really do think that it's shameful that the "washington post" came and ran this story yesterday, literally the day after the funeral services for robert trump, just in an attempt to try to tear down the president. to do that right after they laid their brother to rest i think is shameful. >> i want to ask you about another development that happened late this week involving another member of the president's 2016 campaign. it's somebody that you've worked quite closely with.

it's steve bannon. i think folks are quite familiar, he's been indicted on what appears to be -- perhaps he misled a charity and may have taken some money that wasn't meant for salaries and things like that for we build the wall. first thing i want to ask, since you did a podcast with him, have you been interviewed at all by the justice department in this investigation, jason? >> i have not, and from public reports it looks like this investigation was going long before the podcast even started. the podcast and radio show they co-hosted with steve. these allegations are very serious, and i hope that steve has good answers for the things he's been accused of. it's not something i've worked on and i don't know anything about the financial dealings of this organization and how it work theed, and i hope steve has the opportunity to tell his side of the story. >> i want to put up this image. quite a few people involved in the trump campaign in 2016 have had issues with the law. indictments, convictions.

some of these folks you worked with closely. all people involved with this 2016 campaign team in some way or another, found themselves on the wrong side of the law. why shouldn't voters look at this and say the president seems to surround himself with people with shady instincts? >> i disagree with that. i think you take a look at the great people president trump has surrounded himself with, some of the brilliant women and brilliant leaders we have within this administration, some of our cabinet members. i would say overall, the president's had a very good track record of hiring excellent people. there are a number of folks on the list you pointed out who have made serious mistakes in their life that had nothing to do with president trump, and they're going to have to be accountable for that. when you take a look at the president and the people that he's brought onboard and take a look at his senior staff at the white house, whether it be chief of staff meadows and kellyanne conway, stephen miller, these are really solid people who i think work very hard for the

american people every day. i'm proud to call them teammates in this broader pro-trump effort. and i think the president is proud of them as well. >> you were brought back into the campaign i want to say it's about four weeks' time and the pandemic sometimes are a little off. maybe it was a little bit longer, i may have that wrong. but before you got there, the trump campaign had a massive fund-raising lead, advantage over the biden campaign. they began this campaign in the spring with $182 million cash advantage. that is now gone and now the biden campaign is outspending your campaign on television. what happened? was there money that just disappeared? did you guys waste this money in the summer? is this why there's a new campaign team? >> no, not at all. we're conserving money right now and focusing a little more smartly and effectively on the states that are voting early. an important thing for folks to keep in mind is the calendar looks completely different than 2016. the way there's the early

voting, the way there's absentee voting. the calendar starts differently in different states. we're smartly targeting our efforts here. we have reserved $200 million in television advertising from labor day to election day. the biden campaign said they'll reserve and spend over $200 million, $220 million to $250 million, they've only placed about $8 million of that. but chuck, you look at the polls over the last couple of weeks and the 51% approval and we're gaining four points over the last two weeks and the enthusiasm advantage is 2-1 over the biden camp. chuck, you like to look at the numbers and the fath way to victory. we only need to win one of these upper midwest and mid-atlantic states with minnesota, wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania to re-elect the president. we have many more pathways to victories than democrats do. i'd rather be in our shoes than theirs right now. >> your pathway assumes you carry florida. >> we will. florida's trump country. >> every single night of the

convention president trump will speak? >> you will have president trump speaking at various parts through each of the nights. we have some big surprises lined up. make sure you're tuning in, chuck. >> i will be there as all of nbc will. jason miller, senior adviser with the trump campaign. i appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective. thank you, sir. >> thank you. and joining me now on behalf of the biden campaign is former presidential candidate pete buttigieg of indiana. mayor buttigieg, welcome back to "meet the press." let me start with the following sort of assumption here which it certainly appears to me that the democratic campaign coming out of this convention in some ways is very similar to the democratic campaign that came out of 2016. it's a campaign that's focused on donald trump's character, donald trump the person, less on policies that the democratic party is going to be pushing. why do you think you'll win a

character campaign this time when the democratic ticket did not win that campaign four years ago? >> well, it's simple. donald trump has been president for four years and america is very obviously not better off than we were four years ago. yes, this is about character. but it's also about the failed leadership of this president and the fact that our country is doing the worst of any developed nation when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus, that some of our economic numbers are the worst they've been since 1876. and for all that disastrous leadership we're seeing now, also a very hopeful vision about where we could get to. the really amazing thing about watching the democratic convention last week was that we're also being put in touch with the kind of country we could be, the kind of country that joe biden and kamala harris will lead us toward, where everyone has a place, where the big coalition that we're building can move us past this moment of chaos and cruelty.

and i think all of that adds up to the simple fact that the center of gravity of the american people is very much on our side right now. >> well, look, where this ticket is right now and the messaging of it -- here's what candidate pete buttigieg said about nine months ago, take a listen. >> this is no time to get caught up in reliving arguments from before. the less 2020 resembles 2016 the better. vice president biden has been talking about the idea we can't afford to take a risk on somebody new. but i believe history has shown us that we can't afford to take the risk of falling back on the familiar. >> well, i know one of your answers is going to be simply the voters spoke, and i get that, but do you believe your analysis in that time was wrong, that the voters know better? >> well, first of all, joe biden

won the nomination, and all of us who were competing against him are on the same page now. but also think about how much the world has changed just in the few months since i was on the campaign trail as a candidate. and you know, if you told me then that the stakes would have gone up through the course of 2020 i would have asked how that's even possible, and yet here we are with a very clear choice between the kind of chaos and the failures that we're seeing, that are destroying any chance of a good future under this president and a chance for something completely different and so much better under a president biden. >> but this issue of not sort of putting forth more detailed policy prescriptions. that didn't happen four years ago, and there's some in the democratic side that are concerned that not talking about -- look, i get it. the more you talk policy, the harder it is to keep john kasich in the tent. so what is that line that democrats should walk this fall? >> let's be clear.

the policies of the democratic party and the policies of joe biden are abundantly clear. if anybody wants to look up detail you can find all kinds of it on the website at joe biden.com. but it's not the finer points of exactly how we're going to get to defeat climate change or deliver health care to every american. that's in the plan, it's there in great detail. but the question we're about to settle in november is whether we'll do those things. we have a president that's dismantling american healthcare and joe biden who wants to expand it. we have a president who thinks that covid will magically disappear, something he told us would happen in april, and keeps telling us from time to time will happen again, and on the other hand, we've got joe biden who believes that questions of science and medicine ought to be settled by taking the advice of scientists and doctors on eve. on every major issue, the difference so is stark it's almost punching us in the face. the policy differences are so

clear. we also need to talk about the simple question of who we are going to be. this is not just a question of what the federal government is going to do. this is a question of who americans are and what america is. and if you believe that america should be and is defined by democracy, if you believe america has to be a country that makes room for everybody, the choice couldn't be clearer. >> i get the messaging you're trying to do. a lot of times the economy can speak -- can end up overpowering all of those other issues. the president in our poll leads joe biden on the economy by ten points. does joe biden have to close that gap to win this election, or do you think that the future of democracy issue that i think you guys have made a very compelling case about can trump that? >> well, i think all of these issues are live, but let's look at the economy. look, the president is not good at much, but he is very good for taking credit for having rode the tail end of the obama-biden

economic recovery. but even pre-pandemic we were having a lot of trouble, especially in my part of the country, the industrial midwest, manufacturing was going into recession. now we are where we are. the economy is in such precarious shape, unprecedented unemployment numbers, unbelievable pain that people are experiencing. and because of the inaction of this white house, that's likely to get worse as we go into the fall. so if they want to battle on the economy, let's have that battle, but let's also remember that our democracy, our national character and our ability to fight a deadly pandemic are all on the line, not to mention the fact that the united states also needs to restore our credibility around the world. something that's very important both for our security and, in my view, for democracy and other shared priorities around the world. >> very quickly, as the former mayor of south bend, i'm curious. i know you're a visiting fellow at the university of notre dame's campus.

do you think -- if you were the mayor would you want classes to be in-person -- would you want all those students coming into south bend right now with the virus? >> the university worked out a plan closely coordinated with local health officials, but already they're adapting and adjusting because of the reality on the ground around the country, because there hasn't been leadership in washington from the white house, individual universities, individual school districts, counties, and cities have been left to figure out their own game plans and are doing their best. but the reality is we will not fully be able to return to anything like normal until we have a national strategy, a real one, for testing and actual leadership from washington. i'm afraid we're unlikely to get that as long as donald trump is in office. >> pete buttigieg, the former mayor of south bend and the person who won the iowa caucuses when this whole thing started. that actually did happen at the start of 2020. and i know this year feels like -- >> hard to believe it was this

year. >> it is unbelievable. thanks for having on and sharing the campaign's perspective. i appreciate it. >> same here. great to be with you. when we come back, that senate report on russian involvement with the trump 2016 campaign. i'll talk to the top democrat on the intelligence committee, senator mark warner. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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welcome back. welcome back. perhaps it was by design, but almost lost in all the attention paid to the democratic convention last week was the senate intelligence committee's fifth and final report laying out the extensive contacts between russia and members of the trump 2016 campaign. the 1,000-page bipartisan report concluded that russia wanted donald trump to win, that his campaign was eager to accept russia's help, and that the russians saw campaign members as inexperienced and easy to manipulate. but the committee stopped short of concluding that there was a coordinated conspiracy.

republicans said that proved there was no collusion. joining me now is the top democrat on the panel, senator mark warner of virginia. senator warner, welcome back to "meet the press," and we should note not a single republican on the intelligence committee agreed to come on this broadcast. we wanted to have somebody from each side of the aisle to ask these questions to, but senator warner, we will start with you. so i want to start with simply, i know you've said you think americans should read this entire report, but i'm curious, is there a part of the report that you think singularly deserves the public's attention more than any other part? >> well, chuck, first of all, i'm very proud of the committee's work. three and a half years, five volumes, all bipartisan endorsed in a time when there's not a lot of that bipartisanship going around. and as the report laid out in exquisite detail, much more detail than mueller, and we were a counterintelligence report,

not a criminal report. unprecedented contacts between russians and folks on the trump campaign. the trump campaign officials welcomed that help. maybe one of the most stunning was the level of detail of the then-campaign manager, paul manafort, sharing very specific campaign information with a russian agent. we never know -- we'll never know what the russians did with that information, but think about that, a campaign manager sharing with a known russian agent during the middle of a campaign. and as you showed earlier with that kind of rogue's gallery of all these individuals that were part of the trump campaign who have been indicted, i think there have been repercussions from those efforts. >> you guys named constantine kilimnik as a russian intelligence asset. it went further than the mueller report did on that front. and it's that specific piece of information that i want to ask you about regarding this statement from the current acting chair of the intelligence

committee, marco rubio. let me play that statement. >> after interviewing over 200 witnesses and reviewing over 1 million pages of documents, we can now say three things without any hesitation. first, we found absolutely no evidence whatsoever that donald trump or his campaign colluded with russia to meddle in our elections. >> it's that specific there. he said, that it's definitive. how does an active campaign chair sharing information with a known russian agent definitively erase the idea that there was no collusion? >> listen, respectfully, i disagree with marco on that. you will see a whole series of other democrats who wrote a separate opinion where they drew a different conclusion. richard burr was chairman for most of the investigation as i

was vice chair. we decided that we would not join any other comments that we would let the report stand as it is. this is a report that was passed 14 to 1. it's the fifth volume and the other reports were all virtually unanimous where we showed russian interference in social media, attempts to hack our election system. chuck, one of the things that i think would be really important. you saw that put up where you did earlier with all these folks who have been indicted from the trump campaign. >> yes. >> what we should have also listed were all of the trump intelligence officials from dan coates, the director of national intelligence, joe mcguire, the director of national intelligence, both their deputies, michael atkinson -- trump intel officials who all told the truth about the russian ongoing investigation and they were all fired because this president and this white house doesn't want to hear the truth. >> you also seemed to indicate

that the president may have lied to robert mueller in the print interview when he claimed to have no recollection about conversations about wikileaks with roger stone. you write in the report, despite trump's recollection, the committee assesses that trump did, in fact, speak with stone about wikileaks and members of his campaign about stone's access to wikileaks on multiple occasion. however, there's a frustrating amount of redaction in the report whenever wikileaks comes up. is this all because of this julian assange indictment that nobody has seen? >> the intelligence community chose what to redact, but i think anyone who would review the report and see the amount of contacts between stone and wikileaks and the timing of the release of the wikileaks hacked information, i would ask any american to read that and draw their own conclusions. >> and finally, there is a

footnote in here that i want to ask you about because it was an intriguing footnote, depending on how you read it. when asked about donald trump jr.'s communications with wikileaks on this topic, steve bannon is quoted as saying this. i describe don jr., as a guy i think highly of, as someone who believes everything on breitbart is true. number one, why is that footnote in the report and how do you interpret that quote? >> i'm not going to speak to that footnote, but i am going to speak to the fact that the intelligence community ten days ago said that the russians are back trying to interfere in our elections again, that they have a disinformation, misinformation campaign targeted against vice president biden. i think it's incumbent upon the intelligence community to lay out more of the facts of what we know about that disinformation campaign. and my fear is that there may be

americans that are unwittingly promoting that russian disinformation campaign, and i think they need to be briefed so they don't become, frankly, agents, in effect, of this dispositidi disinformation campaign. >> has the senate intel committee been officially briefed on q-anon or not? >> we have not received an official brief that i can recall on q-anon, but the community is -- the community is fairly clear that this is a fringe group, that they feel like they are potentially a threat. and the idea that the president of the united states is embracing these folks and say just because they like him and they love our country is very bizarre. i mean, i don't always agree with karl rove, but karl rove was right. these guys are whack jobs and the president ought to disavow them.

>> mark warner, vice chair of the senate intel committee, democrat from virginia, appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective on this. thank you, sir. when we come back, democrats worked hard to appeal to moderates and disaffected republicans. will president trump try to use his convention to expand his electorate or will he just target his base? we see you....looking out for all of us. but you can't lose sight of your own well-being especially if you have a serious chronic medical condition. at aetna, we're always here to help you focus on your health. because it's always time for care.

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the panel is with u welcome back. the panel is with us. executive washington editor of "the wall street journal" and my longtime partner at the poll, jerry saeb, author of "we should have seen it coming."

"from reagan to trump, a front-row seat to political revolution." nbc white house correspondent kristen welker and the former republican governor of wisconsin, scott walker. governor, welcome to our panel there. i want to start with what we could expect tone-wise and the difference between the two conventions. kristen welker, the democrats made -- made a bet on how to make their convention about basically the virus and character. the tone that the republicans are aiming for here, we heard jason miller say upbeat. what will this contrast look like to the public? >> well, those who have been planning the convention, chuck, tell me they do want to have more live elements, they want this to be upbeat and forward-looking, to your point, how can it be upbeat given the realities on the ground? again, i think what you will hear from president trump and those who speak at the convention is really laying out

how they see the future. the challenge, though, i think with the convention, one, you have some republicans who are jittery about it. there have been so many last-minute changes. the president speaking at north carolina, then jacksonville, now the white house. this will go off without a hitch? republicans saying, look, the democrats did a good job of not having any major technical difficulties. second of all, to the point you've been raising throughout the show, a lot of the speakers seem to be tailored to the base. this is a strategy that worked for president trump in 2016. bill it work this time around? we'll have to see. >> scott walker, there's a lot of people who think there are two ways to look at wisconsin, that it's totally polarized and really, you do have to activate your political base, that's the only way to win. but there are some who say no, there are swing voters here. and if there are swing voters, do you fear this convention won't be talking to them?

>> think they will. i think the president will clearly lay out his plans for the future, talking about how we get america working again and how we keep america healthy again and how to keep america safe. you will hear from people who benefitted from criminal justice reform, you're going to hear from democrats who walked away from their party because it's decades of mismanagement in some of our nation's largest cities. in wisconsin, where there once upon a time were boek-walker voters who eventually went for trump as well, they've got to show how they can get things going in the right direction and contrast that with joe biden, who has outsourced his agenda to the radical left of his party, including his running mate who, according to "newsweek" has got a voting record more liberal than bernie sanders. >> jerry saeb, we heard scott walker saying what the republican goal is, the democrats seemed to go out of their way to present a very moderate picture of themselves on this. and it seems to me that the more

i hear talking points from the right that say oh, that's not what they really are, that's also translation for the democrats must have been successful? one thing that democrats agreed on last week were the two words they wanted americans to hear, chaos and crisis, and that's what we want to counter program the republicans this week. but to your point, the question whether the democrats talked enough about policies to offset these charges which we'll hear all week from the republicans this week, that joe biden has been pulled way by the left of the progressive wing of the party. there was more talk about character than policies and plans. was there enough talk about policies and plans to offset that charge about on the subject of what the biden administration would do, he's going to be pulled way left? >> kristen welker? >> chuck, one top democrat told me it was a big bet by the democrats to do exactly what he was just talking about. the fact that there was so much focus on character. but the reason why they feel as though that was the right

strategy, if you at joe biden's favorability ratings, they are higher than hillary clinton's were at one point, for example. >> right. >> so they really wanted to reintroduce him to the american public, to some of those swing voters. they also made covid the central issue. if you notice, the one area where he did lay out some details in his speech was on the issue of covid. so they believe that's what americans care most about right now. they believe addressing the covid crisis is going to be central to getting the economy back on track. the question becomes, can they keep this momentum going? this is not a typical campaign. the democrats believe this is working. biden is not going to be out in swing states this week, they are going to be engaged in very aggressive counter programming, including with a number of their top surrogates, chuck. >> you know, one thing i don't know if we're going to have this week they think in a convention that had been in-person we would have is a debate about where is

the republican party headed? and i say this in part because of your book, jerry saeb, and in part because i have you on here, scott walker. i want to remind folks what you said, scott walker, when you dropped out of the presidential race four years ago, and i want to butt it with something jerry saeb wrote about in his book, take a listen. >> today, i believe that i am being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top of the field. i encourage other republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive, conservative alternative to the current front-runner. >> and scott walker, this is what jerry writes. by 2016, conservatives were united more by what they were against -- progressives and liberals -- than what they were

for. the door had been swung wide open, and donald trump walked through it. i'm curious if you agree with jerry saeb's analysis there, one, and two, how you have evolved from being essentially anti-trump to supportive of trump? >> five years ago, i didn't know donald trump would govern as a conservative. i think the record is pretty clear. this president has put through one of the largest tax cuts in american history. they're clearly one of the most pro-life administrations ever. they've put in excellent nominees for the judiciary. the regulatory reforms that help small businesses and other employers that brought about the unprecedented economic growth to the point before the pandemic had the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. i look at that and say washington is filled with politicians who say all the right things and don't get squat done. this president may not always talk and tweet the way that i do, but in the end he actually gets things done. i think here in the midwest, we want to have people who don't just talk, but do. i'll take a doer over a talker any day of the week.

>> jerry saeb, i'm sneaking in a break and then i will get more on your book on the other side, i promise, sir. up next, you're going hear many times this week that president trump was handed a broken economy and that he then built the best one ever. when we come back, why that isn't exactly the case. the facts after this.

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week that president obama handed him a crippled economy and he built the greatest economy ever. so we decided to fact check that ending before the covid-19 pandemic hit. we'll start with the broadest measure of economic health and the country's gross domestic product, how much did it grow? mr. obama's second term the average quarterly growth rate was 2.4%. for mr. trump, it was roughly the same, 2.5%, then there's job creation, on average, there were more jobs added monthly in barack obama's second term. 215,000, than there were in mr. trump's first three years before the pandemic hit, 152,000. again, both numbers are good, but they're also quite consistent. again, both numbers are good. there was nothing drastic that changed from one president to the next. what about unemployment? the beginning ofat obama's seco term, unemployment was already down tote 8%. other the next four years, it

almo fell, almost in half, to 4 prepondera4.7%. and theal lowest in 50 years. again, that's before covid hit.e and then, there is the stock market. the indicator president trump cites most often. we'll start with election day 2012. it went to 18,322. a 38% increase in obama's second term. again, the rise continued for mr. trump, increasing another 56% to 28,538 on the last day of 2019. again, pre-covid. look. president trump did preside over strong and growing economic news. and like any president, he took the credit. but the ideahe that mr. trump, somehow, rescued a nation that was struggling economically, when he arrived, simply isn't borne out in the data. we had a robust economic

recovery, and it just kept going. when we come back, the conspiracy theory even carl rhodes says trump should disavow so why won't he? disavow so why won't he? comes naturally, only from nature's bounty comes naturally, i appreciate what makes each person unique. that's why i like liberty mutual. they get that no two people are alike and customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. almost done. what do you think? i don't see it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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plus, get $400 off when you buy the new samsung galaxy note20 ultra 5g. welcome back. a conversation a conversation interrupted, so we had a few minutes. jerry, i want you to sort of raek react to what we saw. and it feels as if, in your book, you make the case that what the party -- that it feels like the party is trying to design an ideology to meet the

group of voters that they have the best chance tat winning, no the other way around. >> look. the message of the book is that donald trump didn't come out of the blue. there was a long arc, for decades, to donald trump, where over time, the republican party and by that, i mean, the people out in the country who are republicans, became more populist, more nationalist. and i certainly agree with governor walker that there have been real conservative elements to the trump governing policy but there are also areas where there's not true. america's role in the world's deficit spending. i had a chance to talk to the president a little by phone yesterday. he's happy with the way he's repositioned the republican party. the question with this election is does this election make that a permanent change? >> well, kristen welker, the president's open arms for this

version of the republican party has put him in with strange bedfellows, i think doesn't do it justice. this qanon business. for the first time this week, the president basic sally said, well, they're for me. they like me so i see no issue with them. take a listen. >> well, i don't know much about the movement, other than i understand they like me, very much. which i appreciate. but i don't know much about the movement. i have heard that it is gaining in popularity. i've heard these are people that love our country. >> kristen welker, are there folks behind the president who are just apoplectic that he went down this road? >> i think that's the right word for it. apoplectic. they want him to firmly denounce this next time it is brought up. they point to the fact that vice president mike pence was asked about this, and tried to put it to rest. but, for a lot of people inside the president's orbit, that's not good enough. they want to hear it from the president, himself. it was a remarkable exchange,

though, chuck, because it underscores a pattern i think that we've seen from this president. which is, they like me, so what's wrong with it? we heard him use similar language in the earlier days when he was asked about vladimir putin, for example. and so, this seems to be in line with the way in which the president responds to these sorts of things. it's not really clear he knew what qanon was or how dangerous some branches of government believe it is. but there is immense amount of pressure, i can tell you, within the president's inner orbit for him to denounce this firmly next time he's asked, chuck. >> ben sasse. qanon is nuts and real leaders call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories. let's be clear. complete bs. they seek to mislead and destroy. liz cheney. lunacy that should have no place in american politics. scott walker, i am aware that when politics can attract some

oddballs. fringy on the left. fringy on the right. sometimes, it does seem the president is always a bit too slow to denounce these fringy people. >> well, conspiracy theories have no place in the republican party, nor in american politics, in general. but let's be clear, the president's initial response where he said he didn't know much about them is like most voters i talked to. i've been traveling in wisconsin, i was on my motorcycle yesterday traveling wisconsin, as well as minnesota. they don't know about this at all. this is something that's largely an obsession of the national media. and some on social media. what they were talking about, though, is joe biden's statements this weekend that if he is elected president, would actually shut the entire country down by as early as january, if that's what his advisers told him. that's what people get worked up about. not things like this. that are, largely, a focus of the washington public. >> i'm not asking from a public perspective. the fbi is calling qanon a domestic terror threat. it seems as if the president --

doesn't matter -- i take your point maybe some people aren't talking about it but it's a domestic terror threat and social media is the tool that recruits these people. >> well, i want to make it clear. like i said, i don't think there's any place in the republican party, nor in politics in general, for these kind of conspiracy theories out there. but what i am saying in terms about the obsession about this, this is not something we are hearing out talking to voters. what they are worked up about is, is joe biden going to keep us locked down in our homes for months and months at a time next year? or are we going to have a way going forward? >> a tremendous panel. i really appreciate all three of you. today, it was terrific conversation. enjoy the convention. before we go, before we say good-bye. quick programming note. please join for our coverage this week of the republican national convention, monday through thursday evenings. we begin on the network at 10:00 eastern, and we begin on peacock and news now at 8:00 p.m. so don't miss that, either. so, with that, we will see you

next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." i think i was just in shock to find out that she's gone. and the cause is a gunshot wound. you just wonder, how could this happen? it seems very surreal. >> a quiet night at home, shattered by a gunshot. a young wife, dying on the floor. >> she wasn't talking. at all.