amy walter, national editor of the cook political report. al cardenas, former chairman of the american conservative union. and eliana johnson of politico. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, celebrating its 70th year, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >>> good sunday morning. it's his party and you can cry if you want to. however you view what's happened to the republican party over the past year, president trump has managed a hostile takeover or that he's being greeted as a liberator, there's no question now that he has recreated the party in his own image, at least the base of his party in his own image. beyond that, he's struggling. our brand new nbc news "wall

amy walter, national editor of the cook political report. al cardenas, former chairman of the american conservative union. and eliana johnson of politico. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the pr washington, the longest running show in television history, celebrating its 70th year, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >>> good sunday morning. it's his party and you can cry if you want to. however you view what's happened to the republican party over the past year, president trump has managed a hostile takeover or that he's being greeted as a liberator, there's no question now that he has recreated the party in his own image, at least the base of his party in his own image. beyond that, he's struggling. our brand new nbc news "wall street journal" poll shows his rating at a low. 38% approve, 58% disapprove. that's down considerably from where mr. trump was just a month ago in the first aftermath of those hurricanes. it is also the lowest in modern times for a president in the first year of his presidency. and hanging over the president right

amy walters and a democratic pollster and msnbc political analyst. welcome all.t to john kelly's appearance, seems like it's all about the raw politics now, lonnie. >> yep. >> they almost wouldn't invite you into the room because you're a policy guy. no, no, no. we don't have a policy dispute -- it's amazing to me ron johnson's pure honesty. makes the case for alexander/murray's bill essentially but says until i know the house passes it i don't know if we can support it. that's where e are these days? isn't it? >> the bar, real reform. what does that mean. alexander/murray has waivers around state, something like grah graham/cassidy. the question, when is enough, enough to tip them over the edge and comes back to president trump. can he fully embrace alexander-murray to give members in congress what they need to pass this thing. >> and i found on the floor today, exactly what the president told me again here today. and e had whips it out and said the president said -- go ahead and use csrs as a leverage. almost like -- almost like daring the president to contradi

we're joined by our regulars, amy walter of the "cook political report," and tamara keith of npr.hank you for joining us. we start with the topic that obviously we've had to touch on before, a sad one, mass shootings again. we've been on this territory for before. but yet we still have the obligation to really check in with what our leaders are doing and saying, tam, what are the dynamics that play tonight for our leaders in washington when it comes to gun violence. >> tonight chris murphy of connecticut, the senator, democratic senator is giving a floor speech. he's given these floor speeches before. and he is talking about that in the floor speech saying that gun violence continues. he believes, he firmly believes that now is the time to have a conversation about gun control and he is really not satisfied by what his colleagues have been doing am meanwhile i was at the white house press briefing earlier today and it is very clear the white house does not want to have that krvetion. sarah sanders said it is time for condolences, it's time for grief and it would be premature to ta

for more on that, we turn to amy walter, of the "cook political report," and tamara keith of npr.litics monday." thank you both for being here. let's start. we heard a little of this earlier but let's bore in on the president's earlier criticism of mention mention, senate majority leader. the president had mcconnell over to the white house as we saw earlier. over the weekend the president's former chief strategist steve bannon spoke at the conservative value voters summit, combative about mainstream republican senators whom he is vowing to unseat. let's listen. >> all you folks that are so concerned that you're going to get primaried and defeated, you know, there's time for mayor pulpa. you can come to a stick and condemn senator corker and you can come to a stick, a microphone and say i'm not going to vote for mitch mcconnell for majority leader. >> my goal as the leader of the republican party and the senate is to keep us in the majority. the way you do that is not complicate it. you have to nominate people who can actually win because winners make policy and losers go home. >>

and energized amy walter and energized tamera keith. "politics monday."both. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: spain's central government moved to take full control of the government of catalonia today. the province declared independence this past friday, after a referendum to leave spain earlier this month. but the leader of that secessionist move was missing in action today amid tough charges leveled by spain's top law enforcement official. special correspondent malcolm brabant reports from barcelona >> reporter: the police guard at catalan government headquarters was in a relaxed mood as barcelona waited to see whether independence leader carles puigdemont would turn up for work on the day madrid laid down the law on his province's divorce attempt. in the main square, independence supporters like student joan correa, were trying to be defiant. >> i'm here with hope, with hope that we can become an independent state. i think we are. >> reporter: but at the high court in madrid, spain's attorney general jose manuel maza triggered the start of a prosecution

for more on this and other issues on the horizon, we turn to our politics monday regulars, amy walterthe "cook political report" and tamara keith of npr. welcome to you both. it is politics monday. so as we said, the lead story, this terrible thing that happened in niger with the four american soldiers who died, the offshoot of that story that we're also talking about, tam is president trump, the way he handled it. he was asked about whether he-- why he hadn't spoken about it this time last week. and then that has snowballed, if you will, into-- made a phone call to the widow. there has been a dispute about that now. she today said that she thought the president bungled her husband's name. he then tweeted that he didn't. this is not like anything we've seen before, is it? >> no, certainly not that i have seen before. i mean this is-- this is not how would you expect a president to handle a situation like this. the way you would expect it, i mean it never would have gotten this far. but if it did get this far, you would in theory expect a president to say my gosh, i'm mortgagified that

amy walter is national editor at the "cook political report." ben domenech is the founder and publisher of the federalist and ezra klein editor in chief at fox.com. i want to start with you rico, s the blame here, obviously there's blame to go around, where does it lie? >> i think there's a significant blame to be placed on a lot of different place but just first off my family is puerto rican we have many friend and relatives who are there, they're going through incredibly challenging time. puerto rico is different in a lot of key ways from florida and texas, you can't just get the debris out of a place in the same way when it is an island. i think that one of the biggest problems that puerto rico has their infrastructure was not in good position even before this storm arrived. part of the problem in puerto rico is that the politics of the island has been entirely driven by the question of status, what your position is on statehood versus commonwealth verse independence, that led to lot of different people getting elected politically who can tak