y388py y16fy this sunday, the democrats' dilemma. some say it's time to start impeachment hearings. >> we must get behind tse hou of representatives as they pursue impeachment for this president. >> it's not a point of politics, it's a point of principle. >> but speaker nancy pelosi is arguing for pragmatism. >> if you go dn that path you have to have a prospect for success. >> with democrats divided i'll talk to the newest entrant into the presidentialrace, senator michael bennet of colorado. >> i'm not going to say there is a simple solution to a problem if i don't believe there is one. plus barr and grill. after a combative day in the senate -- no.es or >> could you repeat that question? >> attorney general bill barr

refuses toar appe before the democratic house. >> the failure to come to the hearing today is simply another step in the administration's growing attack on american democracy. >> will barr testify? will robert mueller? my guest this morning, republican senator john kennedy of louisiana. also, that curious phone call between president trump and vladimir putin. and the subject they did not discuss. >> did you tell him not to meddle in the next election? >> we didn't discuss that. really, we didn't discuss it. >> and o new nbc/"wall street journal" poll on president trump, impeachment and the leading democratic candidates. joining me forinsight and amaze are eddie gluade jr., eliana johnson, gerald sibb and kristen soltis anderson. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press."

from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this ies "meet the pr with chuck todd. good sunday. morning when it comes to how americans view the mueller investigation perhaps our longtime nbc news democratic pollster peter hart put it best, it's a hung jury. people say president trump is not guilty, but he's notno nt either. 4n our nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, of americans say congress should begin impeachment hearings now or keep investigating to see if impeachment is necessary in the future. while an almost equal 48% say no impeachment hearing should be held at all. ias you mightagine, democrats and republicans describe their impressions of the mueller reportn starkly different terms. in interviews, democrats mostly -- republicans on the other hand sound like mr. trump, witch hunt, no collusion and president e the most commonly used words

pop for dmindependents, russia. as for president trump, his approval rating righthere it's been. 46% approve of his performance, that's up three months from last month. 51% disapproving. look at this. over the past 11 months, mr. trump's approval rating in our poll has sat consistently between and 46%. in short, for all of the teasing mueller headlines, presidential tweets and congressionhe ings, americans have landed right where they started with this president the, clging to their established point of view about him. all of which has left democrats and their 18 to 21 presidentind caates, depending on who is doing the counting, asking the same question robert redford ask at the e of the great movie "the candidate." what do we dono >> it is important that the house step up to its constitutional duty and start impeachment proceedings. >> impeachment is never off the table, but should we start

there? i don't agree with that. >> democrats remain divided on impeachment proceedings. >> we must get behind the house of representatives as they pursue impeachment fors president. pursuing a of us impeachment when we know it is a two-step process makes no sense at all. >> in a new nbc new j"wall streetrnal" poll, just 30% of democrats, 19% of independents and 3% of republicans say there is enough evidence to begin impeachment hearings now. a full 50% ofemocrats say congress should continue investigating to s if there is enough evidence to hold hearings down the road. and tops demo are listening. >> the path of investigation -- >> continue to do the investigation. >> investigations. >> you got to teinvestiga. >> there's reason to dpurgt investigate it. >> but it's not clear how long house speaker nancy pelosi can hold back her members. >> and i say to the american people, did you, did you elect a king or did you elect a president? >> for now democrats have found

a common enemy in attorney general bill barr. >> i do think he should resign. >> he should resign. >> do you think the attorney general should resign? >> yes, i do. that's after this exchange last month when barr ssked about reports that the special counsel's team was frustrated withdow he ha described their findings. >> do you know what they're referencing with that? >> no, ith don't. k -- i think -- i suspect that they probably wanted, you know, more put out. >> in fact, barr has received a letter from robert mueller days earlier expressing his concerns. >>he attorney general of the united states of america was not telling thtruth to the congress of the united states. that's a crime. >> now democrats are demanding to see mueller's unredacted report by tomorrow morning. >> if we don't get that we will proceed to hold the attorney general in contempt. >> all i can say to my democrat colleagues, you got the house, the way you run it will atdetermine a lot about wh happens in 2020. knock yourself out.

>> meanwhile, president trump is threatening to prevent former white hou white house counsel don mcgahn from appearing. >> i don't think i can tell him you can and everybody else can't especially because he was a counsel. >> in a phone call with russia thatem drats say last 90 minutes, president trump tweeted he discussed the, "russian hoax" with vladimir putin. >> he sort of siled when he said something to the effect of it started out as amountain and ended out to be a mouse. >> did you tell him not to meddle in the next election? >> we didn't discuss that. >> joining me now is the latest democrat to get into the presidential race, senatoret michael bennf colorado. he calls himself a pragmatic idealist. senator bennet is joining me from council bluffs where he'll be holding caucuses there in a mere 21 months. senator bennet, welcome back to

"meet the press." >> thankhe chuck. >> tact you're running for president means you're cancer-free. so that is good news as well. >> i really appreciate you having me back. the last time i saw you i had the diagnosis but not the operation. now i know we're cancer-free and moving ahead. >> you're the 18th major candidate into this race. you're the 11th white male. you're the seventh u.s. sotnato. you're even the first coloradan in the race, you're the second coloradan. you look around this field, what is missing that you're providing to this race? >> i think that this -- i think we need somebody who is going to level with the american people about why our system doesn't seem to work for them. why it seems to be getting worse and worse and worse. i've had two tough elections in this swing state. out in the middle of the country where i think we el pretty ignored by what people on the coasts are saying. third, i've got a rcord in the senate of a lot of bipartisan results, but i've been there

long enough to know how to get some things done, but also long enough to know why things don't get done in washington, what needs to be able to -- what needs to be fixed. myconclusion, chuck, was that if we continue down the road we're going down politically, and that's even before donald trump was president. >> yeah. >> over the next ten years we will be the first generation of americans to leave less opportunity not more to the people coming after us. i feel like it's my responsibility as it is every ot american's no accept that outcome. >> pragmatic idealist, ay, some might say that's an oxy moron. both.n't be give me an example of where you think you've got to be a bit more pragmatic in your idealism. onof your opponents in this race, jay inslee, governor of washington. he's proposing to get rid of all coal fired power plants within a ten-year period. it's not that realistic? is that an example of what you're saying isagmatic idealism?

>> i think that actually my ht be reallssible and i think there is a lot of merit in his proposals. i think my suggestion on medicare x that creates a true public option administered by medicare rather than threatening to take away insurancerom 180 million people, 80% of whom like it, all the unions in america that nehetiated for t health care plans. i think the american people have waited long enough for universal health care. >> okay. >>'d say on the idealism side of it it's because i actually genuinely believe that the best -- the best -- the best form of government is self-government. and i -- and i believe that the freest kind of governmentis self-government and that we have an obligation to preserve the demoatic institutions that 230 years of americans have preserved for us, and that our children are going to need to resolve thei differences -- >> right. >> -- but we seem to be so cavalier about destroying. you know, the idea that we're going to run down the rat hole

that the freedom caucus has tan us down ov the last ten years in their tyrannical way i think would be a huge mistake -- >> let me. >> by the way, i think it's a disgrace we lost to donaldrump to begin with. >> yeah. >> now it seems to me we need to way that this work in a is not going to give him a second term. >> well, let's talk about these institutions. it seems as ifio congressl democrats, you're one of them. you would be a potential juror for there were some sort of successful impeachment of the president in the house. it seems to me this is the debate in the democratic party. there is a pragmatic streak in speaker edlosi who seem to be more focused on 2020 than impeachment. other congressional democrats making a similar argument you're making about the institutions, they're wearing away. at some point congress has to stand up tothese things on accountability. where do you fall on this impeachment question and where do you think the party should fall on it? >> you know, i think based on

the polling that you just cited where the o majority people say that the house should continue to investigate and then we should make a decision down the road about whether to impeach or not, and then obviously to convict or not in the senate, think that's exactly right and that what'dowe should you know, mueller should testify. we should have the full unredacted report. i mean, to me, it seems fairly clear from the evidence that he hasom ctted impeachable offenses but we need to go through a process here and see if the american people can be convinced that that's actually the right outcome. >> okay, but -- >> so that we don't -- >> go - ahead. >> so that we don't unnecessarily divide the people that we need to -- whose support weultimately need. >> yeah. >> democrats, republicans and independents to change health re for the american people. to build infrastructure for the american people. to have an pproach to climate -- >> right. >> -- that actually builds on the 70% of american people that

say climate change is real. humans are contributing to it. that is wh -- that is what the broad view is among the american people. >> okay. >> yet we keep losing to climate deniers. we keep losing to people who are taking health care away from the american people. losing to people who are cutting tax cuts do wealthy people and blowing up the deficit. we should ask seoures, why are we losing to people that are adopting policies that are so antithetical to what the american peoe want? >> well -- >> and a big reason for that is that we're not talking toe th middle of the america. we've got a bicoastal bias that is unconstructivek >> let's talabout that. you talk about something called the trump trap. it seems to me when it comes to congressional oversight he may be setting a trap, which is you say no to everything, you erstonewall on evhing and it's going to jam congressional democrats, and it is perhaps setting up a nwin situation. sort of if you want to hold him

accountable, you have to start impeachment. f you don't, you go down this line. how do you avoid that trap? what do democrats do tomorrow if bill barr does that agree to testify, if they withhold mueller, what do you expect the democrats to do? >> well, i agree, first of all, with thes democratat you quoted earlier in the program,u that mer ought to resign. it's disgraceful what he's done. >> do you mean mueller or barr? ry.i'm s barr. barr. he's behaved like trump's criminal defense lawyer instead of the attorney general of the united states. and, by the y, well, in just this week the kinds of things that trump has gotten away with or his attorney general has gotten away with, if barack obama had done one of them, they'd be calling for his head.t the fahey're willing to do that doesn't mean we should go down that rat hole. we should see whether or not -- pressure will bud for the mueller testimony. pressure will build to get the mueller report out and i think we should do all we can to beat

those drums and make sure he does have to come testify to congress and tell us what he found and explain why bill barr's summary of the work that he did, a guy who is admired, at len the old days was admired by everybody, you know, no matter what party they were in. the work he did over two years that demonstrates conclusively that heot could n clear the president of committing the crime of -- of obstruction. you know, he said i can't indict i president so i'm not going to --i' i'm not going to -- not going to say that he committed a crime. >> yeah. >> but based on the evidence that i've seen, i can't clear him for this crime. that means that congress has to do its oversight. >> all right. let me move to if you run against donald trump. ith want to show yoe economic numbers. 3.6% unemploynt. 263,000 new jobs created in april. 3.2% wage increase.

consumer confidence is fairly high. look, there are a lot of voters out there whosay, all right, i don't like donald trump's character, but the economy is humming and i vote pocketbook. how do you convince that voter not to vote their pocketbook if they like this economy? >> i say, no, people will vote their pocketbook. chuck, we're inhe tenth year of a recovery that started in 2009 when barack obama was ypresident. ifou look at the job creation numbers along that trajectory over that ten years it goes just like this. so donald trump is elected in the last two years and i will confess even he couldn't screw up the momentum that we had been going on for the eight years that he got elected. the difficulty is that when you're in a state like mine, , coloradoich has one of the most dynamic economies in the world, not just in america, people still -- most people can't afford housing. they can't afford health care. they can'tafford highe education. they can't afford early childhood education. they can't afford a middle class

lifestyle and donald trump has done nothing to help with that.h nothing top with that. second point i would make is, even if you feel like he's done the right thing by cutting taxes, which i don't because he cut taxes on the wealthiest people in america mostly. even if you feel like he's done the right thing in a regulatory way or taken on china in a way you like, the ct that he has built his entire political career on dividing americans not uniting americans, on destroying -- >> okay. >> -- our institutions, on going after the free press, on violating the rule of law and being proud of that. on playing patsy to dictators like putin and the north koread ator just this week. i mean, here he's saying i'm with him. he says i'm with him. i know he wouldn't do anything to hurt his economy. >> yeah. >> north koreans are starving because of what he andfais ther have done to their economy. >> right. >> so we've -- there are many, many ways that donald trump's threadbare

record is available to us to beat him in nember 2020. it would be a disaster if we lost to him again. >> one of the knocks perhaps that will be used against you in a democraticy primar that perhaps you haven't been a hardcore democratic activist as a unittates senator. i want to put up a report card from a judicial -- liberal judicial group called demand justice. the seven u.s. senators running for president up here. i know you can't see this en. they give letter gdes "a" through "f." you and senator klobuchar got f's because essentially you didn't vote to filibuster neil gorsuch. that will be used to saying yeah you are not fighting the system enough. what do you say? >> yeah, here's what i would say. i have clearly said -- and it doesn't fill me with any pleasure to say this. i have clearly said that i have

not agreed t withhe democratic strategy when it comes to judges. and think the proof is in the pudding. donald trump as a result of what we have done and as a result of what mitch mcconnell hasendone has be able to appoint more circuit court judges and he's got two supreme court justices than any president in the history of our country because he's working with a 51-vote threshold andhe t destruction of the senate's responsibility to advise and consent. the people behind that super pac that are attacking me for an "f," they deserve an "f" because they helped conceiv strategy and they continue to conceive it. the reason i said we shouldn't filibusterorsuch was very simple, gorsuch was a trade of scalia for gorsuch. mitch mccoell not only allowed him, gave him every opportunity to use the nuclear option on rsuch. instead of waiting for it, forcing him to wait for kavanaugh. and my argument was it's going to -- that's going to be when

roe v. wade is at stake. that's when the president is going to be even more popular. that's when the russian investigation is going to be taken up. we didn't have the discipline,l un mitch mcconnell. >> okay. >> we didn't have the discipline to play it strategically. >> all right. >> we were nonstrategic. as a result, when kavanaugh got there, democrats could do nothing except pretend to our fighting.we were i think our base wants -- deserves to have results from us. >> okay. ore important than that, i think the american people deserve for us to have results from us. >> right. >> so you know what? attoeast i've gone the floor of the senate to apologize for my small contribution to those failures, but tse who conceived of the strategy continue to advocate it and continue to attk other democrats. >> oy. >> that disagree with them. i think they deserve an "f." >>senator michael bennet, democrat from colorado, newest entrant into this field, you are proving that it's going to be a vely debate as we move forward. senator, thanks for coming on.

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whatever they went through, they went through together. welcome guys. life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you. welcome back panel is here. eddie glaude jr. kristen soltis anderson, eliana johnson and jerry sibb at "the wall street journal." my partner in crime on the polls. jerry, to you, you wrote about this. it is fascinating it is a divide the democratic party. in a weird way donald trump wants more impeachment talk because it unites his side and iterves as a wedge -- who would think impeaching donald trump would be a wedge in the democratic party but it is. >> i wrotee his arti week ago. the lead was what if donald trump wants democrats to try to

impeach him. i was being facetious. in the days since i'm not sure i was being facetious. it may be literally true.l in our polou see the reason why. 50% of democrats saying let's investigate but not start impeachment hearings. yo30only have of democrats and 28% of democratic primary voters saying, yeah, let's move to impeachment. so youy understand nancelosi's point of view when you see those numbers, which is this is a politically perilous path. ayw do you do it anyw because you think it's the right thing to do? maybe. but don't kid yourself that the party is with you in a rush toward impeachment. they're not. >> eliana, i mean, ica's kind o aign zrstrategy on the trump side, is it not? >> oh, absolutely. donald trump is out on the campaign tra saying that democrats are obsessed with investigating him and even though he was cleared by the mueller report they continuento go d this rabbit hole. i think it's an effective message for him on the campaign trail. trump simply does the best when he's campaigning in opposition

directly to someone or 'smething. thathy you see him honing in on the investigation theme and joe biden, among a host of democratic candidates. he did this with lil marco and lyin' ted and now he's doing this witthe investigations. he needs an opponent. that was the whole strategy behind the witch hunt. wanow if democrats move to impeachment, i think he'll do it pretty effectively with that. >> eddie, it does seem as if th democratic bas it's funny, i'd said the presidential candidates talk to voters, which may be why they're in one place. the congressional democratsab prob hear social media voters more and social media voters are in another place. what do you do? they uphold their constitutional responsibility. >> what is that? >> they have to assert the role and the responsibility of the ngress for oversight. they have to. listen, we have to make a distinction between the bad actor that is trump and the argument since nixon -- many of

the folks participat inhe nixon era. bill barr is a protege ofick cheney. we saw the argument in 1992 with regards to iran-contra. know there has been an argument about unconstrained executive power. congress, if they let this go, and i made this critique of barack obama and all of this executive orders and the like, if they let this go, the basic structure of our constitutional framework will collapse in some ways. so i think it's important that they walk and chew gum at the same time. they got tophold their oath. >> kristen, where are the constitutional conservatives anymore? i say this who were screaming about executive>> overreach. ell, you heard a couple of them speak out during the national emergency at the conclusion of the shutdown, but i think at the momenthere is desire to just see the country move on and clearly voters are not moving in their opinion of based on anything that's going on on capitol hill. what you had this week were -- it was congress sort of pressing bill bar on the fact that robert mueller gave him a "c" on

his book report. it's the sort of thing that i ink most voters are just not changing their opinion of the president or his administration about. >> i want to move toid the prt almost mocking the mueller report with vladimir putin. i mean, i don't know else how you do that. and at's interesting, eliana. i want to put up a poll number how effective it's been about the concern. we asked about concern about future election interference. overall as you see, a majority of the country not that worried about it. 45% worried. but watch the partis splits here. among democrats, 2 to 1 essential worried to not worried about democratic interference. among republicans, nearly 4 to 1 not worried to worried. the president has convince the republican base that either what russia did was okay or that russia didn't do it. >> well, i think themp esis has been on collusion, and that was probably a mistake. i think the emphasis in the

political discussion should have been on the fact that our election waske hac some people, of course, were talking about that, but what we've heard over and over again trump talk about the campaign's collusion. and i think now in the president's conversation with vladimir putin it's very clear that he wants to use the mueller reportve as co to pursue what he's long wanted to do. he talked about this on the 2016 campaign, to frame our relationship with russia. and he wants to have a good relationship with putin. he's doing the same thing with t north korea, b he was stymied in his ability to do this with russia because of the mueller investigation and expressed t that.tion ab now with russia there is aic partular problem because of their interference in venezuela and that goes directly against what we're trying to do there -- >> the president is pretending, though, that there is nothing to see there. >> absolutely. and that's a real problem. what the think president has done is define concern about russian interference in the election with an attempt to undermine the legitima ofis victory in 2016. that's what republicans are essentially buying into it and

the problem with that it seems to me is that there is a legitimate problem here with russian and potentially chinese interference with the electoral process in the country and it's kind of being lost in this debate. it was the most compelling part of the mueller report, was the evidence of russian interference in the election. but it got latively little attention. >> that's why i was obsessed with putting up the independents day when i did all the things. the democratsre worried about obstruction, the republicans are worried about knownd collusion a the people in middle are going hello, russia. >> i think one of the most frustrating things about the debate ov russia is we use words like hack the election. votingne mac really weren't hacked. voters are being told you were brainwashed. that's why you see those partisan divides. a lot of republica voters being told you didn't really want to vote for donald trump, you only voted for donald ump because putin put something on facebook that brainwashed you. have you ever started to win an

argument saying yove been brainwashed? no wonder there is a debate over this issue. >> something happened inor a. >> we absolutely need more security on that front, for sure. >> i think it's important -- of course there is a question around thetimacy of donald trump's presidency, but i do think this. there is a the case in which we need to ask the questn about r 2020 elections. not only are we concerned, at least those of us on the left, concerned about russia, we're also concerned about this fact, the 1982 consent decree that prevented the rnc from orchestrating particularly what happened in georgia withtacey abrams or what happened in north carolina. there are these converging factors that are leading some folks to assume that the question -- that the election itself could be in jeopardy, particularly because we have someone in the office who is prone to cheat. >> t president did, by the way, the president did get a lot of help from a talking point thanks to a "new york times" story.

fbi posing as assistant to meet with trump aide in 2016. jerry, when yo go through this, it was amazing that the run fbi informant actually attended white house meetings. i mean, talk about reinforcing a paranoia that the president has been trying to express for quite some time. >> well, is it panoia or not? that's what we'll figure out. we have moved into a new phase here, which is investigate the r investigat and i think the president and his people hit a fork in the road with the mueller report. they could have just said we've beente vindica we're moving on. let's talk about the economy, by the way, 263,000 jobs created. a or let's goer the people who started this whole thing, we're going to get them. they've chosen that path. >> that doesn't sound like a smart re-election path. that's not where independents are. ink theuld add, if you t controversy over bill barr is over, i think he's deadly serious investigating the origins of the trump campaign -- the investigation into the trump mpaign and as he said, he used the term spying and he said that may have been okay, but i want to know whether it was adequate predicated, and i

think he's deadly serious about looking into that. >> all right. guys, i'm going to pause the conversation here. when we come back, i'm going to talk to a o memberthe senate judiciary committee who questioned bl barr as a small business owner, the one thing you learn pretty quickly, is that there's a lot to learne grow with gos here to help you with turning ideas into action. putting your business on the map, connecting with customers, and gettingus the skills tnew tools. so, in ce you're looking, we've put all the ways we can help in one place. free training, tools, and small business resources are now available at google.com/grow ...or trips to mars. $4.95. denes or the latest phones. $4.95. no matter what you titde, at fidely it's just $4.95 per online u.s. equity trade.

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citi. welcome what's next welcome back. both president trump and democrats know that imsachment ha no chance of succeeding without the support of some snate republicans who so far have shown everyn of sticking by the president. one of those senate republicans is john kennedy of louisiana. he's among many in his party a bit more sympathetic to attorney general bill barr when barr testified fore the senate judiciary committee this week. senator kennedy joins me from a suburb of new orleans, kenner, louisiana. senator, good to see you. welcome back.

>> thanks, chuck. >> before i get tohe committee hearing, i want to get to the president's phone call with vladimir putin and his explanation of what happened in it and get your reaction on the other side. he viewers. it for >> did you address the election meddling issues that came up in the mueller report with mr. putin today? >> we discussed it. he actually sort of smiled when he said something to the effect that it started off as a mountain a ended up being a mouse, but he knew that because he knew the was no collusion. >> did you ask him not to meddle in the next election? >> we didn't discuss that. really, we didn't discuss it. >> what kindlo of opportunity did the president have there in trying to sort of -- there was part of the mueller report that everwiody agrees , which is that russia had a stystematic attempt tornterfere in ou democracy. the president is not taking that seriously with vladimir putin. does that concern you? >> well,n i w privy to the conversation, but i hope what the president did was talk to the -- to the head of russia

about interference in our elections. i mean, russia's been doing it and the former soviet union has been doing it for 60 years, but th 've stepped itup, chuck, and one of the things that's been lost in the mueller report is how aggressive russ was in trying to interfere with our democracy. look, russia is no longer the soviet unio their economy is smaller than new york state. they've got good spies. they've got nuclear weapons and they know how to -- they're good at cyber terrorism. and we've got to -- we've got to check them and we've got to tell them we're not going to tolerate it, and if they keep doing it, we're going to further add sanctions. i'm hoping that's what the president did. >> you say hope. if he said that, wouldn't he share it with the american people? instead he shared vladimir putin said, see, it's not a mountain, it was a mole hill.

it didn't sound like a president that told him stop interfering in our elections. >> it was a mountain. i wasn't privy to the whole conversation.e you'll hav ask the president about that one. >> all right. let me move to the hearing itself. >>er okay. >> afthe hearing you and i talked about calling up bob mueller to testify. you were open to it. senator gram said no. then he sent this letter. should it be interpreted as an open invitation to bob mueller to come testify before your committee? >> yes. let me put this in context. v i've beenry supportive of the mueller investigation. never met the man, but by all accounts he's a od competent, decent man. we have his report. you can debate the rhetoric or the discussion in -- or the spin or whatever you want toiall but the conclusion is no indictment for collusion, no indictment for conspiracy, no indictment for obstruction of justice. now, i think many of my

democratic friends have accepted that. some haven't. many of my democratic friends thought that mueller was going to indict the president. and so the meller report was kind of like a hair on their biscuit, and now they don't know what to do so they're attacking bill barr. and my feeling about it is it's time to move on. ita unders that washington is not the big rock candy mountain and that politics is in everybody's iood, but think we ought to spend a little bit of our time talking about the next generation as opposed to the next election. if i could make one other point, this business of the dispute between the white house and the house -- >> yep. >> -- is dangerous to america's institutions. because if they all to court, they need to work it out. if they all go to court and it becomes a zero sum game, one or two things is going to happen. trump's going to win and that's going to undermine congress' oversight ability. or congress is going to win, the house is going to win and now s

all of aden the new standard is that the house or the senate can ask a president or a presidential nominee anything they want to about their personal life, whether it's relevant to being president or not. >> so what's the compromise? >> i think that's a dangerous precedent. >> what's the compromise? should the white house cooperate more? >> i think the white house and thohouse leadership ought sit down and say, okay, you want this? we'll give you that.ou why do yant this? i don't think the house is in completely good faith. let me give you an example. when the ways and means chairman said he wanted trump's tax returns, he said the reason i want his returns is because i ll help me evaluate how good a job the irs is doing in auditing. now, give me a break, chuck. >> right. >> i mean, if you believe that, you'll never own your own home. nobody believes that. i mean, he's in total bad faith. the president doesn't have to turn over his tax returns. > let me -- ould i do it if i were running for president, yeah, but there is no law that says he has

to. >> let me go on to the issue of interference. should it be a -- >> okay. >> -- crime to use stolen material if it comes from a foreign n a foreig adversary of the united states? should that be a crime? because it's not -- basically if you read the mueller report our laws are blurry on this. >> mmm-hmm. >> so should it be a crime? >> well, first -- >> should you guys be passing this? should it be a crime to use stolen material from a foreign adversary in a campaign? >> well, if you -- you still -- if you make that a crime, you still got to show intent. you got to show mens rea. you know, when the russians spy on y or the chinese or the north koreans, they don't come into your office and say, hey, we're from russia, china or north korea and let me talk to you. i mean, they're very clever. so if youore goingass a law, you've got to be able to -- you've got to require criminal

intent. >> but do you -- so you don't think there should be some safeguard? >> i didn't say that. >> what does that look like then? >> if -- if you're telling me should it be improper or en a crime, presuming you could show mens rea. >> yeah. >> do me for me to use in a sen race material offered by china for rth korea or argentina that matter or venezuela, yeah, i'm willing to look at that, but you've got to show intent. >> and d-you think the - the trump campaign is yet and the republican party as a whole has yet to pledge not to use stolen material. should they? >> well, i'll pledge i won't use stolen material, but i've got to know it's stolen material. if somebody sends me information and i don't know it's coming from rua foreign adversary -- >> so ry giuliani is wrong -- >> then i don't have the mens ra

rhea. >> rudy giuliani is wrong when he says there is nothingrong using stolen information from the russians. >> i don't know if he's right or wrong. i'm not trying to dodge your question, chuck, just don't know. >> ethically should that be wrong? >> if you're asking me, yeah. >> okay. >> i'm not going to use stolen material from russia or china. i don't think -- i don't know anybody who would. but the point is you've got to know it's y.olen. >> oka >> generally when they send you this stuff in a icampaig russia -- to my knowledge russia's never sent me anything in a campaign, but if they did, i know they're not morons, they're not jelly heads they're not going to walk in and say, hi, i'm fromt russia, i've go some information for you. >> before i go, i want to ask you about north korea. >> okay. >> it does appear as if kim jong-u launched these rockets in an attempt to restart negotiations with the united states. if president trump concedes to more negotiations based on that, is that the wrong premise to do, that kim jong-un -- should he be punished for thisad first inste

of rewarded with more talks? >> well, i want to keep talking with kim jong-un. i think -- >> do you think the president's being played? >> no. well, i don't know. i mean, he could be. i n't know. the only person who knows that is kim jong-un. we can all speculate, but i hwould much rat have us be -- talking -- have us talking with kim jong-un than firing missiles r.at each othe now at some point we're going to get down to it. it's going to be whatg re you goin give up and what are we going to give up? i assume the president's working on that. but in the meante -- >> okay. >> -- i think those sanctions are biting and i think they're hurting north korea very hard, and if we can work out a trade deal with china and get china to bera more coopeve -- >> okay. >> -- we can bring kim to his knees. what i hate is having to hurt the people ofh nortrea while we're hurting the knucklehead they've got do their president, but that's the way it is. >> that's the way it is.

licanor john kennedy, rep from louisiana, always appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your views. >> thanks, chuck. >> thanks, chuck. when we come back, the >> thanks, chuck. when we come my ideal cloud? it has to work like air traffic control. tt it's goa let new data integrate with data from our existing systems. ♪ ♪ be able to pull from reservation platforms built 20 years ago. and also be able to use apps to book super-personalized trips on shiny new phones from the future. plus, i need freedom to move my workloads wherever, whenever - but manage it all from right here. and that's the cloud i want. simple, right? expect more from youcloud. ibm cloud. but dad, you've got allstate. with accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates won't go up just because of an accident. smart kid. indeed. are you in goohands? carl, i appreciate the invite here. as my yoker, what am i payi to manage my money? it's racquetball time.

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welcome back. data download time. as you may have heard, the economy is dng great. as president trump likes to reiterate, there are jobs, jobs, jobs. he's not wrong. employment is at a 50-year low at 3.6%, it's the lowest employment rate since 1969 and unemployment has been at or sider 4% for over a year. so the prent should be happy about these numbers, but not just because they show a good economy. they may also be his best hope for re-election. as we showed in our latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, president ump's approval rating sits at a very mediocre

46%. that's 5 percentage points underwater, actually and smack-dab in the middle of the president's normal trading range of 43 to 46% as we've seen in 10 of the last 11 polls. when you look at how they fl out the president as a person, sort of his character taste, it's even worse than his job rating. just 39% of people polled felt positive, 49% negatively. 10 percentage points underwater. what gets the f presidentm 49 to 36? well, the president's favorite line, jobs, jobs, jobs. handling of the economy, a majority, 51% say they approve f his performance, 5 points higher than his overall job rating. that means he could be in rouble if the economy were to slump. as always the president's base is with him. without the bump the economy gives him, b thate would turn

to likely 39% rather than the 46% he sits at now and you can justgine what his job approval rating would be if his person problems weren't always getting in the way. when we come back, end game when we come back, end game an mornings were made for better things thanrh matoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis. ask about xeljanz xr, a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis or active psoriatic arthritis for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. it can reduce pain, swelling, and significany improve physical function. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened. as have tears in the stomach or intestines, serious allergic reactions, low blood cell counts, don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. your doctor should perform blood tests before and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests.

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back now with end game, and i got to put up this interesting excerpt of an interview with nancy pelosi that "the new york times" did, and its nancy pelosi talking about her fear of donald trump accepting election results. let me put up this quote that she gave to glenn thrush. she was talking about the 2018 elections and how she woz worried. if we n byour seats, she says, by 1,000 votes each, he, referring to the president, is t going oh suspect the election. he would poison the public mind. he would challenge each of the races. he would say you can't seat

these people. eliana johnson, this is one of the reasons she's saying she's not for impeachment. you have to win the middle and to beat him in 020, it has to be a mandate so that he accepts the results. >> i tnk she's right. >> it's striking that the speaker of the house believes she has to utter this. >> well, i think she's right. there is evidence in 2016 he was talking about that the system is rigged and i think nancy pelosi, somebody who clearlyunderstands her opponent and she's shown that over and over again. not only with how she's approached impeachment but with how she talked about winning the midterm eleions. >> gerry, could we handle 2000? could you imagine if it's a recount in one state to decide whether donald trump wins re-election or not? >> well, i think we're iner dangerous ttory, that's for sure. could we? i don't know. we were talking earlier about whether institutions are holding in this era we're in right now. so far they have. will they? i'm not entirely sure. the thing is that i think when

you start questioning the legitimacy of elections whether that's at the local level,he state level or national level, then you're in pretty dangerous territory. it's not hard to imagine people in the streets of washington where we are sitting out protesti protesting the results of the 2020 election. i don't like to think about that. >> as soon as the election result came in sort of the disables turned and suddenly the shoe was on the other foot. and i actually think our institutions over the last 2 1/2 years have held up very well. democrats won the miererms. they w seated. they control congress. they're continuing to investigate. the friction between the branchs sp there. people ulated the president might fire bob mueller. he didn't. our institutions are holding. it is ugly. it is messy. there is fricimon. but ultely i have faith that america is going to get through this. >> you put up a nice low bar, but i will give you that, the bar is above the ground. i think. >> michael cohen in his congressional testimony said very clearly that he did not think donald trump would --

would actually give us thepr idency if he lost, right? so what nancy pelosi echoed has been echoed before by someone who sits right next to him. i don't think -- one of the things i think we have to pan out and really ask ourselves the question whether or not our institutions are actually holding up. i think there is an erosion that, shall we say, kind of rot at the bottom that actually suggests that something devastating is on the horizon, at least in my view. >> well, i think something has fundamentally changed. there is this idea that if democrats win in 2020, we will go back to normal. there is no new normal. >> i don't think that there is. i think fundamentally there are things in our society that have changed that won' go back. >> and this to me is the fundamental debate between -- biden and bernie are having it right now. essentially, michael bennet is -- he straddles this argument. the institutions are eroding. it's bigger than trump. biden thinks jt'st trump. >> it's a fascinating strategy.

he is saying basically this is about trump. this is about donald trump. full sto that's what this election is about. it's about american values not about russian collusion. it's mano y mano, me versus him upholding american vps. not only that he can beat donald trump on those terms, but he's already essentially the nominee making that argument. it's a really interesting strategy. >> i think you c put democrats into two camps. there are those who say trump is an aberration and we sily need to beat trump and return to the pre-trump era where politics were bad, but, you know, trump is the real problem here. then there are those who say the whole system is rotten. it's not just bernie campaigning on that. eddie, too, heised his hand. >> i would put elizabeth warren in that camp who have been saying that. she hit obama on that -- >> right. >> on that. saying that he didn't adequately address the financial crisis and that this entire system needs to be overhauled.

>> it's maureen dowd's theme today. she hit everybody. she hit biden. she hit sort of these guys who have always tried to be rational rule followers and it bites them. >> ght. look. income inequality wasn't donald trump's invention. the fact that the planets on its deathbed, it wasn't donald trump's fault. so when we begin to lay out an economic -- an economicha philosophy tthe democrats have been complicit in, right, since 1980 in some ways has devastated everyday ordinary workers. deregulation and privatizatn in some ways devastated the planet and the lives of everyday folks. thatot just donald trump. we're living in the collapse of the age of reagan. and the question is something is dying is something is being born. so these democrats who made a living reconciling themselves th philosophy of reagan -- >> right. >> now they have to figure out what they're going to do. >> let me close the loop here, ough, with you, kristen, which is the morate republican, the

chamber of commerce republican that does not like trump. many of them i think voted for democratic house members. what do they i want? ekethk what they wa i toon ioms.y they've reconciled themselves to not liking the tweets, not liking always the way the president conducts himself but liking the results he's getting on policy and in termsonf ecy. >> do they want to kick him out or only kick him out for somebody like joe biden? >> i don't think they want to kick him out. the democrats have a very small margin of error. >> i have to make that the last word. i see your finger there. that's all we have for today. ank you sincerely for watching. and remember, if it's menday, it's " the press."

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tragedy on the runway as a passenger plane thts russia bursnto flames on a hard landing. at least 40 have died. the susquehanna deploying an aircraft strike route to send a message to iran. >> the day his fixer micha cohen is due to report t prison, president trump ss robert mueller should now not testify before congress. we'll hear from some of the survivors of the 737 that skidded off the runway in jacksonville. plus nasa is shooting star, the photographer who captured o truly of this world images over the past 30 years.ly "eartoday" startsig