this sunday, when will this end? the government shutdown now in its 23rd day. negotiations going nowhere. ti our m did not last long. >> and he just got up and said, then wve nothing to discuss and he just walked out. >> president trump says he can declare a national emergency. >> i haven't done it yet. i may do it. if this doesn't work out, probably i will do it. >> then insists hedoesn't want to. >> i'd rather not do it because this is something th congress should easily do w >>h neither side giving in and congress not even in town, is there any way out of this mess? joining me this morning, republican senator ted cruz of texas and democratic senator tim kaine of virginia. plus, the bombshell russia

story. "the new york times" reports the fbi opened an investigation into whether the sitting president was secretly working for russia againstte the united sts. at the heart of the probe, mr. trump's firing of fbi director james comey and evidence that he linked it to the russia investigation. >> i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse. >> the presidentresponds by harshly criticizing comey and other fbi leaders. we'll have "new york times" reporter michael schmidt and ben wittes on what this culd mean for the mueller investigation going forward. and joining me for insight and analsds are democratic peggy r cornell belcher, noonan, republican strategist al cardenas and nbc news national political reporter carol le welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in h washington longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd.

good sunday morning. we have two stories that are driving this day. the first, that explosive story posted by "the new york times" on friday night that in 2017 the fbi opened an investigation into whether president trump was working as a russian asset as the sitting president against interests of the united states. the investigation was opened ter mr. trump fired fbi director james comey because he mentioned the russiain stigation in his dismissal letter to comey and because the colleague,told my lester holt, that he fired comey in part because of the russia investigation. now, it'smportant to note that "the times" says no evidence has emerged publicly tha mr. trump was in fact working for the russians when he fired mr. comey. the second big story is this government shutdown now in it's 23rd day and now officially the longest ever. at we're seeing is no so much the consequences of divided , governmeich voters say they like because each party acts as a brake on the other. what s we'reing are the consequences of a polarized

government with two parties that ten don't talk to each other, sometimes can't talk to each other, and right now may not want to talk to each other. caught in the middle, some 800,000 federal employees who are out of work and not currently getting paid. thatll has actled some in washington to hope president trump follows through on his constitutionally questionable threat and declare a national emergency. if he does, this would be a national emergency signed to solve his own political emergency. government down the is not governing. >> for president trump, the focus on a wall and the symbol it represents to hispo sers may be the political crisis he needs deflect focus from his own legal jeopardy. >> they can name it whatever -- they can name it peaches. i don't ca what the name it. but we need money for that barrier. >> but ultimately the shutdown leaves the president boxed and weakens him for the fights ahead. mr. trump respond to "the

times" story about the fbi's nt counteligence investigation tweeting that it was opened for no reason and with no proo and attacking james comey as a total sleaze. >> are you nowr have you ever worked for russia, mr. president? >> i think it's the most insulting thing i've ever been asked. i think it's the most insulting article i've everhad written. and if you read the article, you'd see that they found absolutely othing. >> the president's mounting legal problems are tck bop to the shutdown stalemate. mr. trump and democrats are both dug in no end in sight. >> i don't want to give an easy way out of something as simple as this. >> i'm a mother of five, grandmother of nine. i know a temper tantrum when i se >> after floating the idea of a, quote, national emergency -- >> we don't make deal i would say it would be very surprising to me that i would t declare a national emergency. >> on friday the president said he is not olympiplanning to dec

one after all. >> t have the absolute rig do it, but i'm not going to do it so fast. >> we need to have an end game. if the end game is an emergency declaration by the president, do it. do it no. >> but most republicans panned the idea. >> tomorrow the national security emergency might be climate change, so let's seize fossil fuel plants or something. >> democrats also see no incentive to negotiate. >> let's put all of this in context, right? the president at this point is holding the a hostage over his vanity project. >> most republicans are standing with the president for >>now. it is laughable to thinkth at you can seal a ,91-mile border without some sort of barrier. >> but the utdown islready causing pain. >> we want to work. we're not pawns. op're not bargaining chips. we're . >> including for mr. trump's own voters. >> i starting to get scared. i've been a trump supporter. i think he's done a lot ofnd ful things, but this is not one of them.

>> one white house advisor appeared to compare the shutdown for furloughed workers a vacation. >> we have a shutdown and so they can't go to work and so then they have the vacation, but they don't have to use eir vacation days. and then they come back and then they get their back pay, then in some sense they're better off. >> and joining me now from houston is republican senator ted cr of texas. senator cruz, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> chuck, always good to be with you. >> let me start th the fact that you're in houston and not here. you're not the onlyatne. i have s kaine on and he's coming to me from richmond and not here. why isn't the united states senate here, sir? >>well, it'sery simple. i'm here over the weekend, as most senators go home to the ste and come home during the weekend. i came back to texas on thursday to travel with the presint to go down to the border. and so working down here, meeting with stakeholders on the border, meeting wi border patrol agents, meeting with i.c.e. officials, meeting withl fa who have had family members murdered by criminal

illegala ens, and so i'm down here doing my job. i'll be backng in wasn on monday. i hope on monday what we'll see is finally washington coming together and opening up the government. what that's going to take is for the democraff to move the position that they have been taking so far of no compromise, no vement. their extreme position, they have got to be will to give in on. t>> does the president ne move? he hasn't moved at all publicly. it's not clear wha the offers are other than concrete to steel. >> chuck, that's actually not accurateha the presiden said over and over again, i've been in the room when he's said it, that he's more than willing to compromise, he's more than m willing et in the middle. the reason we have a shutdown is -- let's go back to december. in december the then republican house passed funding for the entire federal government. it included $5.7 billion for an additional 234 miles of steel barrier. when it got to the senate, chuck

schumer and the democrats filibuered that bill. every democrat said no, we will not allow the government to be funded so long as they're building even single mile of barrier. that's why we have a shutdown. that's not a reasonable position. the president's position has been he's perfectly happy to negotiate, to compromise. he said many times it doesn't have to be $5.7ll n, he could find some other number, but the democrats have said no. e willingthing they to consider is zero, zero, zero. that is not reasonable andat why we have a shutdown. >> senator, you yourself i think in 2017 -- you we lamenting the fact that here you had all republican control of the house, thsenate and the white house, and things weren't moving very quickly. he didn't makeis case for a wall. he didn't -- he didn't plow the field over those two years to try to make this work, ande ied to jam it in at the last minute. isn't this on the president for his lack of being able to get congressional republicans to

come together much earlier? >> you know, i don't think that's true at all. i don't think it's the president's fault that chuck schumer and nancy pelosi and the democrats are being political. if you look at the two years we had republican control of both incredible aw forward progress. we saw an historic tax cut. we're seeing booming economic results. we've got the lowest african-american unemployment that has ever been recorded, the lowest hispanic unemployment that's ever been recorded -- >> but my question is about tgr imion issue. >> all right, let's take it -- >> he didn't do anything to try to actuall republicans united on this and he jammed it llrough at the last minute. >> but that's not actually right. you remember the fairly remarkable ovalice meeting between chuck schumer and nancy pelosi and the president, alo nancy said then, she said, mr. president, you can't pass this in the house. she basically said i dare you,y don't have the votes. he said yes, i do. she said no, i don't, i dare yo so he turned around, took it to the house which was republican and they passed it. td, chuck, here's

ridiculous thing about the position of senate mocrats. this is not substantive. they voted for it before. chuck schumer and every single democrat in the senate in voted for 350 miles of additional border fencing ander bosecurity. they have now shut the government down on 4 miles. and so i think an awful lot of people are asking, well, if you voted 350 miles, why would you force a shutdown on 234. that is not reasonable, and the president remains willg to come together and compromise but so far the democrats don't want to do that. > why not open up the government and just -- and move debate tond security the side and debate that while you pay government workers? >> well, the house passed a bill opening the governmenunding all of the government and securing the border. theat demo position can't be we've got to force a shutdown.

we're going to hold -- at the democrats are saying we're going to hold federal workers hostage. you've got my friend tim kaine coming o a minute, he represents virginia. there are a lot of federal workers in theh commonwea virginia. if tim kaine and mark warner were to say we're going to the jobs of the men and women of virginia ahead of our partisan interests, ahead of e fact that our base hates donald trump, tim kaine and mark warner, it would take only five more democrats in the senate to have the votes to say this send schumershutdown is over. we're reopening the government implement oing common sense border security that the american people want. >> and i think they uld say the same thing about you and your fellow republican is and t political base. i want to move to another >> i want to say something on that point, chuck. there is a difference between one side,hedemocrats, who are saying we will not move, we will not compromise, we will not negotiate, and the other side, the president who is saying i'm happy to negotiate and what he's

proposing, theemocrats have already voted for. they're playing politics because they hate trump and that's not a good enough reason for chuck schumer and the democrats to shut down the government. "the new york times" reported o friday night that the fbi after the comey firing because of what the president teid, both in a l to mr. comey and to my colleague lester holt, thoped up a counterintelligence investigation concerned that a sitting president was working on belf of a foreign agent. how much of a concern is this to you? >>ll, i don't know the details of the specifics there. i know what was reporte publicly in the media. and i sit on the senator judiciary cmittee, so w will consider any allegations that come forward. but i'll tell you, chuck,th somethin is really interesting. you and i work in washington, but i also come back to texa just about every week. i'm back outside the beltway. aere is an incredible divide between washingt the rest of the country when it comes to bob mueller and the russia

investigation. the mainstream media, washingtod is obses with it. and when you get outside the beltway, i don find anybody concerned with this at all. they're concerned wi jobs, lower taxes, higher wrtes, more opity. they're concerned with securing the border. so the questions i get are not about the latest obsession and allegations about russia,, russ russia. they're about, hey, when are we actually going toecure the border? when are we going to keep making this country safer? that'soing to stay my focus. i'll consider whatever evidence buis produced i'm not going to base it on unsubstantiated media reports. >> how aut on the foreign relations committee, "the washington post" is reporting that the president is not sharing what he discusses with vladimir putin behind closed doors. you think you guys in the senate ought to, for instance, subpoena a translator so that you have a real readout of what the president and vladimir putin are saying to each other?

>> i think it's premature for that. i've seen the allegations. i want to find outa little bit more about what happened there. i want to learn more than just the allegations in the press. i listenill say if you compare objectively president trump's policies to russia compared to president obama's polies to russia, by any measure president obama was much easier, was much more gentle on russia. you and i both recall obama leaning over on a hot mike and saying just before the 2012 election, tell vladimi i'll ve a lot more flexibility after the election. now, there they k weren'teping notes, it just happened to be a network had a camera going. if youompare substance -- for example, trump went to nato and urged the europeans don let the russians build a pipeline through europe. you want to talk about what m actuales a difference, standing up to russia, that on policy was far, far moreth importan much of the weakness and appeasement we saw under obama. >> finally before i let you go, i want to get you to comment on

your colleague tim scott's op-ed in "the washington post" about steve king, iowa congressman, who was your national co-chair for president. some inour party wonder why republicans are constantly accused ofracism. well, it is because of our slence when thi like this are said. king's comments are not conservative views but separate views that should be ridiculed at every turn possible. he questioned why we findli phrase white nationalism to be offensive. where are you on this, sir? >> well, lten, tim i a good man and a good friend. he and i have worked together on many, manyissues. what steve king said was stupid. it was stupid, it was hurtful,w it wasng, and he needs to stop it. i think all of us oug to be in ed, regardless of party, saying white supremicism is h e hatred, it is bigotry, it is wrong and i'm going to everyone to provide that clarity.

>> are you going to support him in the future? ow you what i'm going to do is urge everyone to stand for prin ples thatmatter. this same weekend in texa ere was a movement from some activists that asked to remove a local official in ft. worth who was a muslim. i spoke out actively because it as my home state, i spoke out actively against that. i said, listen, we believe in religious freedom, we believ free speech, we believe in diversity. ultimately the voters in the tarrant county gop did the right thing. they didn't remove that official, so i'm going to speak out and engage. when it comes topeaking out against bigotry, whether it is the klan or nazis or anything else, i have a lifetime of standing up tohat bigotry and i'll continue it. >> senator cruz, appreciate you coming on and sharing your views this morning. thank you, sir. >> thank you, chuck. joining me now from the her side of the aisle and from richmond is democratic senator tim kaine of virginia. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thanks,>>chuck. why are you guys not here?

why aren't you in washingtonth weekend trying to force a way to open up this government? >> well, chuck, we are trying to work a deal over the weekend to open the government, but i'll 'rtell you why w not here. i objected to adjoning in the senate on thursday because i have been talking to all of these victims of the trump shutdown. it was president trump who said he would be proud to shut down the government, that it would be on him. he's done that. people are hurting, worrying abou missing mortgage payments, having to reschedule medical appointments. so i objected to the adjournment on thursday, which is very, very ndrare. then i up working a dolteal he majority leader that we would be in on friday, the dayis when peopled their paychecks and the shutdown became tied for the longest ever and the republicans agreed to fast track and passarmy tee of back pay. i was a co-sponsor of a bill to fguarantee back pay every federal worker. we got it passed unanimousth in

senate. president trump has agreed to sign it. the house passed it friday morning. i think we should be in, but i was able to get the senate and thct house to to protect our federal employees. i've been on the phone all day yesterday and i'll be on the phone todaybl with rean colleagues trying to find that path so we can reopen government. >> is it time to give the president something here? let t up a quote hereiarom the virgdelegation, abigailbe sper, who just won from a district that president trump carried. she said this. if i am getting comments andnt t from my constituents expressing concern that the democrats are not prioritizing skourt, then i think we can do better. she's obviously concerned that it looks like e democra aren't for any border security. do democrats have to meet the president somewhere north of where they are now? >> chuck the willingness of democrats to invest billions of dollars in b security is not in doubt.

in 2013 we did a bill in the senate that ted cruz voted against that was going to invest $40 billion plus over ten years. cruz voted against it, house rips killed it, democrats support border security. in feb ary of thisyear, we took a deal to the president, $25 billion in border security, 46 out of 49 dems vted forit. senator cruz voted against it. president trump killed the deal. at the end of december, wed reac deal with the epublicans, am eboareample borr security funding. in the committee and on the floor we submitted it three weeks ago. president trump put out a tweetk that he didn't it and republicans have fled for the hills. democrats invest over and over and over again in border security. just this week republicans, led by lindsey graha tried to negotiate a deal of border

security and president trump blew up the gotiations. this is a guy who has prayed for a shutdown. and getthis,chuck, who he is injuring? we've got 13,000 fbi more than 10,000 bureau of prison prisonuas, air traffic controllers, coast gua folks who interdict drugs, all of them working without pay because of this president's shutdown and yet he says he cares about national security when he's taking paychecks awa from hard-working public safety professionals? it makes no sense.th al has to happen is the republicans have to be willing did just e way th three weeks ago, open up government and we'll dialogue about border security. >> it does sounding lik like, t you're willing to support some fencing, barriers, if they call it something else if it reopens the government. >> we first should reopen government. why punish people who ar applying for food stamps because the president is having a temper tantrum.

open government first. ntt democrats have always been willing to investn border security. chuck, all we want to do is make sure that it's spentht the r way. drugs come in through ports of entry. let's beef up ports of entry. the biggest group o undocumented people in the country come in on legal visas anoverstay. if you build a million foot wall, it won't deal with that problem. what we don't want to do is waste taxpayer money on vanity project that's ineffective that the president said mexico would pay for. but spending massive amounts on border security to keepsa us , dems do it over and over again and it's been republicans that have been blocking it. >> senator, on the campaign trail in 2016 you spent the last two months regularly quesproning thsident, at that time candidate donald trump's ties to ntvladimir putin, compliy ways he talked about things. so you have those questions that you had as a candidate. now you have this story in "the new york times" that as the fbi worried that the president acted

on comey at the behest of the russian government. what does that tell you where thin arenow? does that mean that democrats should be looking at actually beginning impeachment proceedings? or is this something you think let the mueller probe go first?r how much do you know? >> yeah, chuck, we've got to protect the mueller investigation. w you're right, very worried about this in 2016 because the president took a public stage in july and encouraged russia to cyber hack the election at the same time as my son and his entirere battalion deployed helping allies on the border of russia against russian aggression. i found that highly unusual for any american, much less somebody who wanted to be president. but now what we have is nearly 100 documented instances of ties between the trump campaign transition and administration with russia,re biz failure to

be honest about meetings and now this indication that president trump has gone to unusual lengths to hide the content of v discussions widimir putin. but the right answer is, as you suggest, it is to protect the mueller investigation at all costs. let it get to its end. make sure th the results a made public so then we can nccide. >> are you at all ned that the fbi looked like it overreacted in trying to inenstigate a sitting pres this way? this is a pretty alarming investigation, that the sitting esident was acting against the interests of the united states of america. >> well, i flip the question around, chuck. i think it's less did the fbi overreact. i think the question is this, they had to have a very deep level of concern about this presidt totake this step. and that's, again, why we need eller tect the investigation. and i think that's going to be a critical issue in the judiciary committee hearings about the attorney general nominee. will you guarantee to protect this investigation and will you make sure that the american

public and congress get the sults of it. >> senator tim kaine, democrat from virginia, i have to let you go there. thanks for coming on and sharing your views. appreciate it. >> absolutely. when we come back, we're storyto have more on that about russia, the fbi and president trump. i'm going to talk to michael schmidt, one of "the new york times" reporters ♪ ignition sequence starts. 10... 9... guidance is internal. 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... ♪ family and farxiga, the pill that starts with "f." farxiga, along with diet and exercise,

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44, 45, 46... how many of these did they order? ooh, that's hot. ♪ you know, we could sell these. nah. ♪ we don't bake. ♪ opportunity. what we deliver by delivering. welcome back. we're going to dig a little deeper into "the new york times" p and about president tr russia. frankly, we think it deserves an explainer so with me m arehael schmidt, one of the reporters who broke the story out the counterintelligence investigation about whether mr. president as sitting president was work as an agent for russia. we also have ben wittes, editor l chief of the national security fare and worked with mr. schmidt on this stor welcome to both of you.

michael, walk us through the piece here. the designation is a counterintelligence investigation. we've always thought of the comey firing and the mueller asct as simply obstruction of justice, as sort of separate. but we're calling it kourc 'scounterintelligence and bit confusing. why? >> it was a two-pronged investigation. it had a criminal aspect, did the president break the law in trying to obstruct the at investn, interfere with it, and this other russia question. and it's important, as you said, because our coective understanding was much narrower. it was just on obstruction, end the presbreak the law there. and now we know that it was far oader, it had national security concerns. the fbi was afraid thathe firing of comey was a way to help the russian stop t fbi from figuring out what they did in the election. >> are they -- is this still a counterintelligence investigation into whether mr. trump himself is acting as a russian agent?

is that what the mueller probe inherited? >> we ow the mueller probe inherited it. we know the mueller probe has spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out what the president has done in office regards to the investigation. his interference with it, they have talked to all house officials. do we know if there isti this belief and aspect that the president is working for the russians? i can't answer that. >> all right, ben, this was all -- the nut of this scooponws base testimony by now a former fbi general counsel, james baker, and thisha ishe told congress. this was in "the new york times" story about why they viewed it as counterintelligence. he said not only would it we an issue of obstructing the investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the russians had done, and that is what be the threat to national security. it led you to write that the collusion question and the obstruction question are now the same thing. collusion is obstruction and vice versa.

explain. >> well, so as mike just described, we had sort of though of the obstruction investigation as this kind of separate criminal investigation that arose at the time of the firing. in other words, that you had this underlyingrflection inence investigation going on, the so-called collusion investigation. then the president comes along and knee-caps the investigation by firing the fbi director. a few weeks later we learnhat bob mueller is invesr gating whetat's obstruction of fustice, i.e. a crime. the significance mike's and adam goldman's story is that i rces you to reimagine how the fbi understood what it was ch doing, ws mike just said and as the quote that you read from jimar reflects, was we had this investigation for national security reasons of russian activity.

then somebody on the u.s. de, i.e., the president of the united states, took some action that kind ofelooks like they trying to shut down the investigation. that raisesna nat security concerns about whether we will be able to find outhat the russians were doing, whether we will be able to stop what the russians werdoing. so the bureau understood, appears to have understedd what happ in terms of whether the president was working with the russians. thing, a very different and it collapses the obstruction inquiry into that larger collusion inquiry. >> michael, it made me think of another scoop of yours a month g six weeks ago, where you had rod rosenstein apparently saying should i wear a wire, alking about the 25th amendment. the question is was he serious, was that sarcasm. when you open a counterintelligence t investigation president of the united states and fbi is going to get sign-off from the

juste department, one would assume it came from rod rosenstein since he was overseeing it. is that where this may have come from when he was trying to figure outld if he sh wear a wire? were they trying to figure out how do you investigate the prident of the united states? >> they were struggling with that. these two stories take us inside and let us see what the fbi and thejustice department were looking at in this critical period of time, a little more than a weeky in of 2017. comey has just been .fir the fbi thinks there could be this huge threat coming fromth . rosenstein had just provided trump with a rationale for firing comey that wasn't trump's rationale. so the fbi is lookin rosenstein, who's overseeing the investigation concept kaskeptic >> so they were not trusting him at that time? >> he had just provided not what the president's rationale was for the firing, a he's supposed to be overseeing the investigation. so they're sitting there. they know thers this larger

investigation into russia. they know there are these questions about the election. and they are struggling to figure out what to . and it is in that context that they open this investigation. >> all right. obstruction question has always been you can't indict a sitting president. maybe they can't even intervi him about his actions as a sitting president, but if part of counterintelligence, does that give mueller a better shot ofsubpoenaing the president and having it upheld? >> i don't think it affects the likelihood that a subpoena would be -- would have legs one way or the other. i do think that it will profoundly -- it should profoundly condition our expectations of what mueller's report is going to look like. >> meaning? muchore damning? >> well, much more of a continuous story, as in the russians did this stuff tonc inflthe election and here are all the things that west inated on the u.s. side that may have been done in support of that.

people lyino peopleg x, y and z, president trying to shut down our investigation. i think it provides a through narrative potentially to the report that is potentially quite profound. michael schmidt, ben wittes, appreciate you trying to help us out heri ink basically now that trump is the hub and everything else is the spoke russia is the hub and trump is the spoke. >> and it was russia, full dost. president trump hope the government you could take the treatment of your ulcerative colitis in a different direction. talk to your doctor about xeljanz, a pill, not an injection or infusion, for adults with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. xeljanz is the first and only fda-approved pill for moderate to severe uc. it can reduce symptoms in as early as two weeks, improve the appearance of the intestinal lining, and provide lasting steroid-free remission. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections including tuberculosis.

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(burke) parking splat. and we covered it. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ the panel is here. democratic pollster cornell belche peggy noonan, nbc news national political reporter carol leen and republi

strategist al cardenas. welcome, all. like everything in the trump era, carol lee, there's always a government uncertainty then scandal ui ertainty. nt to start with this fbi story because on one hand it seems gigantic and on the other hand -- i fou it interesting, senator ted cruz did not exactly dismiss the story. i do think it hash landed w a level of concern in washington. >> yeah, it was interesting he said, n'u know, i know the details. we'll need to learn a little bit more about this. nm going to look it. i think what we've seen, and we saw this a little bit with the michael cohen developments inveral weeks ago, that the republicans are ge a little bit more nervous. the big questions coming out of this "new york times" report is whether this counterintelligence investigation involving the president, what the status of at is. and then this question of whether -- the question they were asking is whether he waswo wittinglying for the russians or unwittingly, under

russian influence. 've already seen in some of eller's indictments that are there are americans out there that were unwittingly under the russians. of i think it's interesting that a number of things that all of us have chered and democrats and the president's critics have used against him on these various data points, whether it'schanging the platform at the republican convention or, you know, russia, are you listening, can you get hillary clinton's e-mails, these really raised very serious and weren't just political talking points, they were seen as very serious biwithin the and then eventually that boiled over with the comey firing. so i thinke're supposed to see mueller's report soon. and if it is air tight and is of high significance and this particular piece is real, then you'll see republicans like ted cruz getven more concerned.

>> the first thing we can't forget is that this inveigation was opened to see what russia's meddling in our election process was all about, what intere was all about and who else may be culpable in addition to russia. we already have hard facts on their inlvement in social media and hard facts on a lot of other things. pt the beginning there's a lot ofulation that the president's objection was purely political based on theact that, hey, they're questioning and challenging my electability, and so i'm going to fight back because i don't want peopleg questione integrity of my being elected. a lot of other things have happened since. a lot of indictments of people in the president's administration have taken place. all of a sudden, the inquiry looks far more personal than politica and so we're all questioning where's this thing going to lead us to. you know,the fbi is supposed to turn suspicion into fact. thaton what an investiga is about. there is a suspicion as towo wh d you fire comey? was this beyond just political

strategy? and so, you know, we'll see where it . we already know that there are a lot of people close to the ed president invoith russia. whether he personally got involved for whatever reason, we don't know, soee we'll >> pegpeggy. >> it is astonishing, chuck. we are tking abou a major inwspaper report that the federal bureau ostigation in america has launched a counterintelligence probe against a sitting >> it's like a bad movie plot. >> you know what, you wou reject it if you were a producer. you'd say that's a little over the my only thought coming out of this beyond astonishment is the thouthat, you know, congress must know something about this beuse indeed they probably have been dealing with the fbi on this. they know a few things i also think, my goodness, this mueller report, if this is what we're talking about, could weet please it out there quickly?

>> yeah. it's funny, it's sitting in the shutdown, cornell, and you have this out there. it does color everything that is facing us right now. >> well, you kn, twothings. one is i want to underline sort of the -- a the people around the trump campaign involvement sort of touching base with russians because we learned that they psed polling information on to the russians, chuck. ter, our aign pol polls in our campaigns are sort of what you see, you ow, a horse shot of the horse race. it is strategic, right. whdo we're gll in these we are outlining strategy and decisions and where you should target. and for campaign to be giving is that russians, how not collusion, right? i don't know if it's collusion in a court, but certainly in the public opinion it has to be. i think it smells like a duck, sounds like aduck, walks like a duck, it is in fact a duck.

it's hard for you to s not collusion. >> i'll say this, the other side of the situation here is for some reason the mueller investigation clears president trump. i mean that's a death blow to a lot of d amocrat hope well. >> that's a fair point. >> and the white house is preparing -- you know, they'ref read basically a street fight over this. they're saying that they're going to exertxecutive privilege and say they want to see the report, they're going to try to block certain portions of the report. >> you've done a lot o reporting on this. do you think rudy giuliani was blindsided that the obstruction -- i can't fgure this out. do they know that obstruction and counterintel are the same thing or not? do you think they know this? or knew it until now? >> no.to it's harnow sort of what they know. and i think that from their perspective, that the biggest problem that they have is that they're trying to go in and they're preparing to wage thist against the mueller report, they want to write their own report, they want to review it, they want to challenge it and basically exert executive

privilege to cover some of portions of it up potentially. the problem that they have is know what actually they're going in to fight, and i think we've seen that particarly with this story. >> i want to push back here. i don't think most democrats are saying i hope the president colluded. i don't think that's the death wish for democrats. i'm a dem crat. pretty liberal democrat. i hope the president didn't collude because if he did we have some laer, more problems than republican versus democrat. >> especially how well hehe trthe fbi. now we know this year and a half long campaig that trashes the fbi and now we have this news, disconcerting. >> you know what we're talking about at bottom is what is the story with donald trump utd vladimir, okay? that's really what we're talking about. and i have to tell you, republicans, democrats, liberals, conservatives, i think we would all like an answer. one question i have is w has the president kind of bragged that with lester hol and with

rosenstein that his reasons for his firing of comey were russia. if you're a russian o nrative, you' bragging that your reason is russia. can i say i've never understood this part of the story. >> maybe he needed to let somebody know that he was doing it for that reon. at's the thing. with trump, you just don't know. i'm going to pause it here. we've got some shutdown conversation to talk about as well. so when we come back, we're going to get to that. but first, not longago republicans loved calling democrats liberal. they didn't mean it as a compliment. compliment. for a while it was hey, who are you? oh, hey jeff, i'm a car thief... what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. so get allstate... and be better protected from mayhem...

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>>welcome back. data download time. when it comes to ideology, there's a degree of difference within the parties, not just between them. there are conservative democrats and liberal republicans. but here's auestion we had in

response to data released from gallup thisg week. am democrats, is the term liberal no longer a dir word? boy, will that have some impact on 2020. 2018 was the first time a majority of democrats, 51% of them, called themselves liberal. 13% said they were conservative. while only 34% of democrats refer to themselves as moderate. it quite a change from where things stood when bill clinton was president. in 1994, 25% of democrats called themselves liberal. 25% called themselves conservative. the rest, moderate. it's not just democrats, the way, who are more comfortable calling themselves liberal. the publicoverall is more comfortable calling themselves liberal. in 1992, 17% of americans said they were liberal. in 2018, the number is now 26%. a 9-point increase. in the same period of time, the percentage of folks calling themselves nservative remained mostly flat among the electorate as a whole while the perceage of moderates has decreased by 8

points. hello, polarization. now, this shift in language we use is mirrshing theting attitudes in our politics. consider issues that used to be criticized add too liberal in the mid-'90s of the only 25% were in favorof marijuana legalization and only 27% thought gay marriage should be in 2018, those numbers 66% and 67% respectively. bill clinton was the democratic candidat who felt that he had to say, quote, he didn't marijuana, and he was the democratic president who signed the defense of marriage act. these were a big part of candidacy and presidency. here's further evidence the electorate has shifted leftward. in 199241% of americans believed their taxes were about right ow too believe it or not, in 2018, a majority of americans, 1% said the same thing. none of this is to say the uned states is now some bastion of liberalism.

buts at as the democratic party moves even more leftward in the age of trump, may attention to how democrats handle issues the liberal ba pushing for, like medicare for all or abolishing and replacing coming back end game and why the second time around is looking f a lot tough bernie sanders. >> announcer: coming up, end game brought to you by boeing, continuing for the 250k service members who transition out of the u.s. military every year...

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>> announcer: end htme, bro to you by boeing. continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore and inspire. all right, end game, welcome to blame game. have the first national polling out. who do youlame when it comes to the government shutdown. our friends at the washington post and abc are out morning. president trump and the congressional republicans 53% deserve blame for the shutdown, congressional democrats 29%.

peggy noonan,u thoseers aren't close. >> no, they're not. but i think what will end this thing -- first of all, ibothink sides are obviously dug in. i think this is a moment in which iolitics totally triumphing over reason. i think neither party ishe lookg to country. i think they're both looking to their base. think an obvious solution is a trade of border security for daca, for the dreamers. so that's the side ing. but i think what settles this whole mess is the public coming forward and saying we're mad at you.of you are screwing this up. it's been 20 years, get a policy. >> you know, i've got to dit,gree with you a little peggy, which is not surprising, we disagree with each otsor times. listen, the polling isn't closes and by 35 poomen blame trump and republicans more than democrats. by 20 points independent blame trump. so when you look at this froman electoral instead of a political andpoint, we had 9 million

more voters vote for democrats this past time. from a political standpoint, shutting down your government for an extreme position that the vast, vast majority of americans in fact don't want to have happen, it's not good politics. and it's going to -- and it's onlyeals your se. what i've said about trump many times before is he is not someone who has grown republican party. over the last couple of years, he has not made it a bigger tent party. >> al, inside the numbers. here's the thing, and this is where you wonder if there's a perverse incentive structure here. inside this po, a plurality of democrats say democrats should einot move from t mission even if it goes on, 42-37, more democrats want them to stick to their guns than compromise. 58% of republicans want the president to stick to his guns. only 22% want to see compromise. so the basesof both parties,

more people don't want them to coisromise than compr >> well, you know what, everybody is wearing their team jersey everybody is supporting their particular base, regardless of the merits of the case. the truth of the matter is, you know, as sator tillis said the other day, democrats voted for the bi$1.6ion for the wall just weeks ago. the bill didn't pass the senate but we voted for it. then the president came up with $5 billion and $5.7 billion and apparent didn't give them a reason why he upped the ante. you could settle for a $2.5 billion wall, as peggy said, throw in the daids which the president said before, and get governthnt back to again. to me this is putting politics over ountry,olitics over 800,000 workers on both sides of the fence. i think, frankly, they're equally blame. there's no reason why you k, can't -- and lhe truth is that this wall is not the overall answer to anything. it's one of many potential

ingredients. and it just -- it's just in my opinion a silly reason to keep government closed. >> well, look, this is an existential political crisis for the president because two things that are just incredibly important to his brand tied up in this. one, that he's abig negotiator and he can get deals done. and two is the wall. and i thought newt gingrich, who was an ally of the president, had thisle increduote in "the washington post" where he said the president's entire relationship wi the base is on the line. and the base is all he has, if you look at his polls. at the same time, you have nancy pelosi, this is her first big mark and she can't afford to screw that up. and so what youee is the white house kind of trying to do this reverse policyth making we've seen them have to do before because the president has announced his end gamethout actually having a strategy. and what they're going to try to do is pick off these democrats that they think might come around and try -- want to compromise. whether or not that's going to work, who knows. but the longer this goes o no

one winds up looking good. >> before i go, cornell, you're the pollster in the bunch. i want to pick upaw quick s poll that we had from daily coast. this is our only 2020comment. it showed here these are activist democrats. i put this up here are the top five. bernie sanders sits at 11. four years o bernie sanders had nearly 70% of these folks. what's going on here? >> you also remember michele bachmann won a straw poll. a lotat of ernie sanders, i think, represented was the choice against hillary clinton primary. i think some of that was more a vehicle for anti-hillary th a vehicle for pro bernie. >> new is winng, that's for sure. that's all i have for today, a jammed show as you saw. thank you for watching. i really appreciate that. we'll be back next week, because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

there's a wicked weather weekend in many partsth o country. heavy snow causing havoc in a number of cities and sending a passenger plane skidding off the runway. in all there were seven deaths. we'll have the latest. >> and during the sno weekend at the white house, president trump tweeting some 27 time his targets were all over the map as new questions over dealings with russia gain new attention. >> daynm4 of the govert shutdown, and still no talks, no negotiations, and no end in sight for the millions caughtmen the gove's cross fire. >> and we now know for certain when winter is coming. a date is in place and more clues to the final chapters of "game of thrones." >> and why did this egg