Transcripts For KNTV Meet The Press 20240713

If this is not impeachable conduct, what is. Republicans defend the president. Where is the Impeachable Offense in that call . The president seems consumed by the hearings tweeting well over 100 times last week alone about impeachment. My guests this morning two senators who travel together to ukraine while military aid was withheld. Democrat chris murphy of connecticut and republican ron johnson of wisconsin. Plus, Deval Patrick gets in the race. I am not trying to climb up by pulling anybody else down. This morning i will talk to the former Massachusetts Governor about getting into the 2020 campaign as joe biden and Elizabeth Warren are slipping in iowa. And county to county. Our first look at five counties that we believe hold the key to the 2020 election. Joining me for insight and analysis are Eugene Robinson columnist for the Washington Post. Danielle letical of the American Enterprise institute. Reuters White House Correspondent jeff mason and wall street journal columnist peggy noonan. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. From nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. If republicans were hoping for a robert muellerlike disappointment, that didnt happen. If democrats were looking for that galvanizing watergatelike moment that hasnt happened yet either. Still the witnesses at last weeks impeachment hearings succeeded in portraying a president as less interested in helping ukraine than improving his own political fortunes. And one who engaged in intimidation even committing the unforced error of attacking a witness during her televised testimony. Moreover the hearings only heightened anticipation for this weeks appearance by Ambassador Gordon Sondland who may feel revised to his story for the second time, some of which came to light just yesterday. Perhaps most important last week revealed just how consumed President Trump is with the hearings despite his repeated claims to the contrary. How much will it all matter . There is little indication that republicans or democrats in congress were moved to change their minds one way or the other. But it is possible that while hearings may have little effect on impeachment, they may have done more to damage President Trumps reelection chances next year. Whoever heard impeachment to me is a dirty word . President trump appears rattled as the impeachment inquiry consumes his attention and his presidency. Impeachment. Impeachment. Impeachment. Impeachment. Impeachment. Reporter the president s is tweeted about impeachment more than 140 times just this week even as he denies he is watching. I hear its a joke. I havent watched. Ive been watching today for the first time i started watching, and its really sad reporter on friday the president attacked the former ambassador to ukraine on twitter as she was testifying. Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in somalia. How did that go . Then fast forward to ukraine. And now the president realtime is attacking you. What effect do you think that has on other witnesses willingness to come forward and expose wrongdoing . Well, its very intimidating. I have the right to speak. I have freedom of speech just as other people do. Reporter yovanovitch argued the president s conduct represents an immediate threat to u. S. Interests. What foreign official, corrupt or not, could be blamed for wondering whether the u. S. Ambassador represents the president s views . And what u. S. Ambassador could be blamed for harboring the fear that they cant count on our government to support them as they implement stated u. S. Policy and protect and defend u. S. Interests . Reporter and witnesses this week have described the president s attempts to use his office for personal political gain, pressing for an investigation into the bidens while withholding military aid and a white house meeting from ukraine. On wednesday the acting ambassador to ukraine bill taylor broke the news of a phone call overheard by his aid david holmes between e. U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland and President Trump. What your staff member could overhear was President Trump asking ambassador sondland about, quote, the investigations. Is that right . Thats correct. Reporter behind closed doors on friday, holmes described the july cell phone call one day after the president s call with ukraine president zelensky saying sondland told trump that president zelensky loves your [ bleep ]. Holmes said i then heard President Trump ask so hes going to do the investigation. Ambassador sondland replied that hes going to do it. Holmes testified that sondland told him the president did not give an expletive about ukraine but only cared about big stuff like the biden investigation that mr. Giuliani was pushing. Do you recall having a conversation i dont recall at all, not each a little bit. And joining me now two senators who traveled to ukraine in september spoke to zelensky. Its democrat chris murphy of connecticut and republican senator ron johnson. I know youre at home there in oshkosh center. Welcome back to meet the press. Let me just start with your reaction to what the president tweeted about ambassador yovanovitch on friday. Good morning, chuck. Well, its always kind of interesting when President Trump was going to the white house leaving atlanta. He said my behavior is caused by you, the constant torment, the investigation. So, listen, i would prefer he not provide that type of tweet. But my concern and let me start out with Something Else here, chuck, because i dont want to argue every point. Something we agree on. We want a safe and secure america. We care about each other. Generally we solve our political differences at the ballot box not in the streets or through impeachment. And i think that is really as we talked the other day, thats the divide that is tearing this country apart. And thats what im primarily concerned about. I want to get into a little bit of the specifics. I want to get you to react to something that the ambassador said about particularly about what Rudy Giuliani was doing. Take a listen to her testimony. I obviously dont dispute that the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time for any reason. But what i do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation. Its a fair question for her to ask. Sure it is. And again i have no problem with the ambassador. She hosted me when i made one of my trips over there. But one thing i want to point out is the damage is being done to our country through this entire impeachment process. Its going to be very difficult for future president s to have a candid conversation with a world leader because now we have set the precedent of leaking transcripts. The weakening of executive privilege is not good. By the way those individuals that leaked this, you know, if their interest was a strong relationship with ukraine, they didnt accomplish this. Having this all come out into public has weakened that relationship, has exposed things that didnt need to be exposed. When i was in ukraine with senator murphy, one of the points i was trying to make as we left that meeting, lets talk about this is a timing difference in terms of funding. Senator murphys on the appropriations committee. We will restore the funding. Senator durham offered an amendment. That same day the funding was released. So this would have been far better off if we would have just taken care of this behind the scenes. We have two branches of government. Most people want to support ukraine. I listen to the Washington Post article lionizing this whistleblower. Listen, if the whistleblowers goal is to improve our relationship with ukraine, he utterly or she utterly failed. All right. Go ahead. Let me pick up on what you said there about all of this going public. Because you actually raise an interesting question about this. Why was the president so insistent that president zelensky had to be public about announcing an investigation . And i ask that because one of the foundations of due process in this country is actually not to publicly announce who youre investigating because you may be investigating somebody whos innocent. And yet the president wanted ukraine to violate one of our great protections in the rule of law and publicly announce an investigation regardless of whether theres guilt or not. Why did he want to go public . Im not sure thats the case. I certainly understand that President Trump wanted to find out what was happening in 2016 and how did this false narrative about russian collusion of this campaign occur . That i know from thats from my first hand testimony. What i also know is that when i sprung that on President Trump in the august 21st phone call, he completely denied that there was any arrangement that ukraine had to do anything before funding was released. Pretty long phone call. We talked about a bunch of other things. But at the very end rae wrapped it up by saying i have a hurricane i have to deal with. But i hear what you are saying, i think you are going to like my decision. So hes already leaning toward providing that funding on august 31st. My guess is this never wouldve been exposed, that funding wouldve been restored and our relationship with ukraine would be far better off than it is today. You seem to blame this on everybody but the president. It was the president s actions. Im not blaming anybody chuck. Well, you are. You are blaming everybody else for the reason we are in this situation. Isnt the president s own behavior which raised all of these yellow and red flags, isnt that why were here . Again, im sympathetic with President Trump as he has been tormented from the day after the election. A quick little quote from the lawyer of the whistleblower. This is ten days after his inauguration. Coup has started. First of many steps. Rebellion. Impeachment will follow ultimately. If this whistleblower was, you know, is to be lionized by the Washington Post, maybe we ought to take a look at who he hired. He could have hired an unbiased officer of the court. Instead he hired mark ziad. Thats not an unbiased officer of the court. There is something going on here, chuck. Thats my point. Somethings going on thats dividing this country. Youre the one that brought up this idea that impeachment was something that the left wanted to do immediately. Im going to quote from you, sir. November 1st, 2016. Youre asked about Hillary Clinton. And you said this before the election. She purposely circumum vented the law. High crime or misdemeanor. You were talking about impeachment before that election with Hillary Clinton. How should i not how should viewer s not look at what youre doing and you are just reacting as partisan that if trump were a democrat youd be ready to convict him . First of all understand thats before an election. I am trying to hammer out the political differences before an election. And by the way i completely agree with that. Weve been investigating the whole Hillary Clinton email scandal, the exoneration of her. That was not an investigation to really dig out the truth. I think it was legit to advocate impeachment before youre criticizing democrats for advocating impeachment days after the inauguration. Youd have to listen to what the question i dont think i said impeachment right there at all, chuck. I was just pointing out what Hillary Clinton had done, and i was hoping that people would not elect her, and they didnt. And thats i think one of the main reasons that she was not elected is what she did with that private server, which is completely intentional. It baffles me that she was not indicted quite honestly. But now that we know based on the struck page text. Let me ask you about partisanship. Why shouldnt viewers assume that you are looking at President Trump through republican lens here because you were already much tougher ready to go to impeachment on Hillary Clinton with no evidence that anything that happened with that server somehow got into foreigners hands when we actually had evidence regarding what happened at the dnc. So i guess what i suggest, chuck, is i got a letter last night from representative jordan nunes asking basically of my telling of events. I will be working on that day. I will lay out what i know in terms of this. Are you going to testify . From my perspective. They are not going to call me because certainly adam schiff wouldnt want to be called by the senate. Theres going to be a separation there. But i think i will reply to that. And i will supply my telling of events which is difficult to do in eight or ten minutes of a show like this. Fair enough. But going back to we are a divided nation. We are highly concerned about that. I am highly concerned about that, i know you are as well. We need to start providing the other perspective. Thank you for coming on and sharing your views. I appreciate it. Have a good day. When it came to trying to get aid for ukraine, chris murphy of connecticut. Chris murphy, welcome back. Sure. First of all, what have we learned so far this week that says and this to me is the bar the democrats have to meet that what the president did was so egregious he should be disqualified from being able to seek a second term. Its an extraordinary measure to try to impeach a president. And you can only use it under extraordinary circumstances. But these are extraordinary circumstances. What we know is that the president of the United States was using the massive powers entrusted to him to try to use tax bayer dollars as leverage to get a foreign country to interfere in an election. You cant do that as an american president. If there were no consequences, then the message would be clear that this president and any other president can use the power of the oval office in order to try to advance themselves politically or financially. And so i think representative schiff is right. If you dont use impeachment for this type of offense, then im not sure what you use it for. And if the president was able to get away with this, if senator johnson got what he was asking for, then he would have just continued to try to use the power of his office to rig the 2020 election in his favor. Senator johnson just volunteered that hes going to apparently speak with at least the republican side of the house intelligence impeachment inquiry right now. And he referenced jordan and nunes. How should the two of you give your information i mean, i say this. There is a speech and debate clause issue. This is legally a little complicated and i apologize for the constitutional lesson here. How should you and senator johnson give your information about what you knew and saw . Well, i think what we knew and saw is pretty clear. We have been public about this from the beginning. Im not sure that anything is necessary other than what weve said. President zelensky dispensed with the formalities of the meeting. He started to immediately talk about the fact that this aid had been suspended. It was that important to him because his soldiers were dying on the front without american aid. And he knew his aid was suspended at this point in time. When is this meeting . This was on september 5th. He had clearly been communicated to at that point that he needed to get these investigations started in order for the aid to be turned back on at the end of the meeting i told him it would be a bad idea for him to accede to Rudy Giulianis corrupt request and he agreed. But at the time we didnt know all of these back channels. Or at least i didnt know all of these back channels regarding this extortion campaign. At what point basically senator johnsons basic argument is the following. Leave this up to the this should be a political discussion and a political argument and a political debate. Hes not alone in thinking that. And thats not just a partisan defense. There are some in the middle of watching this show going i dont like what he did, but its too close to the election. What do you say . So let me tell you why this is different. The president was trying to use the power of his office to influence the upcoming election, right . He was attempting to get a foreign power to destroy a candidate for office who was running against him in 2020. And so this is directly relevant to the sanctity of american elections. If you dont stop a president from trying to rig an upcoming election, then i dont know how we live in a democracy anymore. This is why you had to use this means right now. I noticed you used the word extortion. The Washington Post recorded earlier this week that several democrats have stopped using the term quid pro quo. Instead describing bribery as a more direct summation of trumps alleged conduct. The shift came after the democratic. Among the question put to participants was weather quid pro quo, extortion, or bribery was a more compelling description of trumps conduct. It looks like democrats are looking for the most politically effective language here. This campaign stuff. Should you be using Campaign Tactics to move impeachment . I think we need to explain to the American People why this is so serious. And i dont think theres anything among with trying to youre on house battlegrounds though. I would get it if you told me it was all of america. But its clearly about house. I dont read House Campaign memos. What i know is that my job is to try to explain to the American People why this is so serious. And i think a lot of americans are more concerned with the president s sabotaged campaign against the Affordable Care act than they are with this impeachment inquiry. Two things. Ambassador yovanovitch, what President Trump did, should that be added to the impeachment article . Is that an article . I think thats an interesting question, and maybe the house should consider it. Because, remember, ambassador yovanovitch is still working at the state department. So what the president is basically telling her during her testimony is that there may be consequences to you and your family and your family check if you dont shut up. And the message that is being sent to everybody else who is thinking about testifying is chilling as well. I thought from the beginning that the impeachment inquiry should be narrow so that we can get it to the senate as quickly as possible. But this is really serious. Gordon sondland, is he a credible witness . His story continues to change. And i think hes got to decide this weekend whether hes an american first or a trump loyalist. I am not sure that we can trust his testimony given the fact that we know its already changed. Are you comfortable that youve made up your mind as a juror . I think its okay with the facts on the table you think theres enough to convict . I think that if this isnt impeachable, i dont know what is. But the conduct that i have seen has to be impeachable in a democracy. Chris murphy, democrat from connecticut, thank you for coming on. Im leah. And thats me, long before i had moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. Ive always been the ringleader. Had a zest for life. Flash forward then ra kept me from the important things. And what my doctor said surprised me. She said my joint pain could mean permanent joint damage. And enbrel helps relieve joint pain and helps stop that joint damage. Ask about enbrel, so you can get back to being your true self. Enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. Serious, sometimes fatal, events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. Tell your doctor if youve been some place where fungal infections are common or if youre prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. Dont start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. Visit enbrel. Com to see how yor joint damage could progress. Enbrel. Fda approved for over 20 years. Kermit Fozzie youre on my tv Kermit Fozzie and youre on my tv dr. Teeth and im on both your tvs. miss piggy and of course, moi is on tv. Statler Waldorf nobody cares hahaha dr. Teeth woah woah woah. How are we all on each others tvs . animal me on tv fozzie oh i believe i have the answer. You see. miss piggy the thing on the tv is a portal tv and it lets you video call. all on your tv dr. Teeth ah animal me on tv hahahaha fozzie vo portal. From facebook. Welcome back. Panelists here, right errors john mason. Peggy noonan, danielle pletka, Eugene Robinson, jeff, the president is your daytoday beat. It is. He claims hes not watching this. We did a little twitter, you can monitor his feelings looking at the number of tweets he sends. The line of demarcation, the impeachment inquiry begins september 24th. He didnt average over 200 before then, he now does an average under 200 after. You have seen an increase. Is that the best what i to monitor the president s temperament these days . Absolutely. If you talk to people in the white house and i did in the last few days, people will say, oh, hes fine, hes happy, hes pleased with how things are going in the impeachment trial f. You watch his stream of consciousness twitter feed, you can tell hes rattled. That exposed itself, really, with his tweet about the informer ambassador in the mild of the testimony friday. Peggy, that is what struck me about all this week. You sort of realized, its consumed him. He cant compartmentalize, bill clinton compartmentalized in ways people are like how do you do that . Almost overly so. This guy cant to the point he had to force himself in the hearings owe glow what he did at the shaerg what authoritarian people do. That was just a rough moment. I think it was also very embarrassing and discomforting for his republican defenders in the house and on that panel. Look, of course this thing is in his head. The president has said previously i think we had it on the show, impeachment is like a dirty word for president s. This is a big drama. I think he sees a house impeachment coming. If he watched part of this week, he knows, he knows tv, the testimony was compelling for anybody watching closely. The people who testified were people of stature and accomplishment. What they said was believable, brick by brick, they made a case backing the charge that the president muscled an ally to get a political gift that he wanted. So this was not good for him. And to the extent that everybody in politics is fighting over the middle 10 or 20 of voters, those in that group who were watching would not come away thinking more of donald trump. In fact, danny, i have been of the sense that okay, let me play some of the republican defense of the president. Because i think theyve only been effective at defending impeachment, not for promoting reelection. Take a look at this. Theyve had three hearings, three witnesses with no firsthand knowledge. The two important facts are number one ukraine received the aid. Number two, there was, in fact, no investigation into biden. Were less than a year away from the election. But these democrats do not trust the american public. They cant defend the actions, i get it. Thats their best defense. But that doesnt help the president s reelect. No, you got two things opposing each other. One is he didnt do it. And he didnt do it and you cant convict him and the other is, and you cant because, in fact, hes kind of an idiot. You know. Incompetence defense, how is that helpful, i dont know. Exactly. That is absolutely devastating, eli wrote a great column in bloomberg the one is in opposition to the other. The biggest thing going for the president is at the end of the day its persuasive. That 10 , theyre not watching this theyre not tuned in. I agree, these are very credible people. This was in some ways a brickbybrick devastating. But people have already decided. Jane, thats what democrats have to meet, that high, much higher bar. I thought for the first time the ambassador explained why we should be troubled by this, if ambassadors dont have the backing of their president , this is damaging. Will it penetrate . Well, how can we know at this point . We have had two days of public testimony and it seems like its a lot longer and the temptation to decide, is this having an impact . Is this not having an impact . We dont know yet, we dont know if this will move Public Opinion to the extent. But i thought those were two pretty devastating days of testimony. Again for those who are paying attention. They, you know, they saw two things happening. They saw, you know, these Public Servants testifying in a very credible way, especially ambassador yovanovitch, who had the emotional impact as well. Thanks, in part, to the president s tweet. And they also saw the republicans moving the goal posts at an incredible pace, i mean, i think the goal posts were last seen crossing the mississippi. Theyre somewhere out over the great plains by now. You know, wednesday is going to be a big day with Gordon Sondland. I think are you right, when we say were only at two hearings. A part of seems to me like, they have been revelatory i want to see whats next. Gordon sondland, how nervous is the white house . Number one the criticism last week is the witnesses were hearsay. Sondland is somebody who spoke directly to the president. One of the sources i spoke to at the white house said they have spoken to republicans and things that go well in those swing districts are the following three arguments. Number one, the president did nothinging wrong, number two, this process is not fair. Number three, the president is working for the American People while democrats are obsessed with impeachment. All of those arguments could be hit by sondland testimony. It feels like Gordon Sondland is somebody that it just feels very pivotal. How does he assess his legal situation at this point is my question . Sondland is supposed to appear on wednesday. Hes already changed his story twice. Now, hes got to change it again. Somebody said, though, who says which side asked this question first, did we align then or are you aligned now . He is now in that situation potentially. All of there is only interesting because the president has staked hess defense on this idea that there was no quid pro kworks did i say that right . Bribery, extortion. Thats the real reason they changed it, its hard to say. Whats the word of the week . If he wants to stick his game on that, the answer is no one believes it. But the bottom line is, he did it and do people care . I think the answer is no. I think, im still opened to the idea but particular kind of drama, if it turns out somebody like john bolton comes forward n and has testified. This is a man who was known to american conservatives, who is a fox news thinker and talker. Who has been a serious person in the administration and all of the ukraine charges happened around him and hes a colorful speaker. If he decides, im going to go for it here and give you my full candid assessment of what ive witnessed, that really could be big. That for the 10 or 20 in the middle that can make them shake a little. You are describing john bolton as john dean. And ill leave it there. What kind of look is it for bolt on the make a big money book deem for presumably a tellall book and not tell all to the American People first. Thats not a good look for him. Thats not a good look for him. Im a verizon engineer, and im part of the Team Building the most powerful 5g experience for america. Its 5g ultra wideband for massive capacity and ultrafast speeds. Almost 2 gigs here in minneapolis. Thats 25 times faster than todays network in new york city. So people from midtown manhattan to downtown denver can experience what our 5g can deliver. woman and if verizon 5g can deliver performance like this in these places. Its pretty crazy. Just imagine what it can do for you. And my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. Ahh no, come on. I saw you eating poop earlier. Hey my focus is on the road, and thats saving me cash with drivewise. Whos the dummy now . Whoof whoof so get allstate where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. Sorry hes a baby Danafarber Cancer Institute discovered the pdl1 pathway. Pdl1. They changed how the world fights cancer. Blocking the pdl1 protein, lets the immune system attack, attack, attack cancer. Pdl1 transformed, revolutionized, immunotherapy. Pdl1 saved my life. Saved my life. Saved my life. What we do here at danafaber, changes lives everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. New with a nationleadingg for th 150 billion commitmentss. To infrastructure, were creating state of the art, 21st century transportation hubs, constructing new bridges, bringing highspeed internet to every corner of the state, and committing to lowcost clean energy. With infrastructure built for the future, the companies of tomorrow can thrive here today. See your future at esd. Ny. Gov welcome back. Theres been some big news out of iowa, a new poll shows mayor Pete Buttigieg surging to the top in iowa. Buttigieg is at 25 . Nearly a doubledigit lead over his nearest competitor. Hes gained 16 points in scent. Elizabeth warren and joe biden have slipped significantly. The polls suggest the democrats at least in iowa may be searching for an alternative to warn sanders and biden. Perhaps a more moderate one. Which is exactly the case Duval Patrick would like to occupy when he joined the race last week. He joins me from san diego. He is learning the rigors of this president ial contest. Welcome back to meet the press. Indeed i am. I know its early. Thanks for having me. Let me start with that. Pete buttigieg i would argue sui essentially making similar arguments you had about bringing the country together, that this is a bigger moment than a specific moment here, nostalgia over there. When you hear your message. I hear what ive heard from Pete Buttigieg, i think, all right, subpoena your message already represented . Well, first of all, i want to thank you very much, chuck, for having me on. I was just listening to your previous segments. It feels jarring talking about politic mr. S during the gravity of whats going on. It is. I have tremendous respect for pete and senator warren and the Vice President and the other candidates who are friend of mine, whom i talk with in the course of the race. My entry into the race isnt about them. Ite not trying to climb on top of them in order to do what i want to do and what i think i can do. I think that i have a record of being a bridge builder. I think thats pretty important at a time when not just the party in some respects but the nation is deeply divided and divided, frankly, around issues that where we have remarkably a remarkable amount of overlap in terms of economic anxiety and social tensions, with i we have experienced at different times in our history. I also have a range of Life Experience and professional experience which enables me to come at problem solving from a bunch of different perspectives and youve seen that and i want to tell the American People about that in ma massachusetts. You come. Are you a preparation guys, though, you strike he as somebody that you want to plan in advance. You didnt get in. You were asked in june. You had no regrets. You were asked in ought. My wife looks at it and says, im so glad you didnt run. In october you, you suggest an 11th hour bid is unlikely. I have been aware of efforts to recruit you for years. It is always my understanding you didnt want to put your family through this. So what changed . Well, first of all, you may know, chuck, we were really close a week or two from announcing a year ago and just at the eve, literally, my wife was diagnosed with uterine cancer and that had to be first prayerty. We celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in june and im delighted to say that she is cancerfree, praise god. Excellent. She follows every put and take. It is, really. She follows every put and take every news story much more closely than i and you are right, she has said, watching the debates and so many of our friends compete and contest and the friction that comes from that, that she was glad i was not involved at that time. But she has also been one of the ones listening closely and responding to folks who have said, there is a lane for you, more to the point that the nation needs experience not just a sensibility around bridge building but actually some results in that respect. And you know we are in crisis in many respects here in america and we used a crisis in massachusetts to come out stronger economically, stronger social lid and more fair. Id like to see if those experiences and that aptitude and that skill set can be offered in service to our nation. Its not lost on people that here you are jumping in when there is a fellow massachusetts democrat in the race. And it certainly seems if you dont see eyetoeye on ideology necessarily. Why shouldnt your entry be seen as a bit of a vote of no confidence in Elizabeth Warren . Well, i dont want to go there. Senator warren is a friend of mine and you know she and her husband bruce and diane and i have spent time together privately and socially and i am enormously fond of her and incredibly proud of the campaign shes run. Its been enormously disciplined, i think. But i think you know, we have to we have to keep our eye on our shared goals and not get so hardened around our means and ill just use healthcare as an example. Every single democrat believes and is committed to delivering quality affordable healthcare to every single american, Republican Leadership or not, thats the point. How we get there, there will be and should be robust debate about that. You know, weve delivered in Massachusetts Healthcare to over 98 of our residents. I still dont think there is another state in america that has gotten that far and the whole business of trying to get system costs down is a national challenge. You can get there a couple of different ways and certainly having a public option, which is my preferred approach, maybe medicare is that public option. Thats a way. But the fact is, we cant no one party, no one candidate has a corner on all the best ideas and if you want to make a reform that lasts. Then you have to make room for other points of view to accomplish that ambitious goal. I dont know if you are as independently wealthy as michael bloom bemplth i bloomberg. Is anyone . Are you going to accept supper pac support or money . There is some information that your friends may be putting together a super pac. Not a lot of democrats are crazy about super pac money. Are you going to swear it off or not . Im not crazy about super ac money either. Im not sure if i understand the rules correctly, i dont have a say about that. You can publicly discourage it. I think we need to do catch up. We need to follow and find above source strategies. So are you saying if there is a super pac that supports you, are you not going to tell them to stop . No, im not. I will say that i would like to see any contributions to any pac fully disclosed. Dark money, first of all there is too much money in the system. I will have something to say about that as policy point of view as we get a little further along. But if there is going to be super pac money that supports me, it should all be, the sources should be fully disclosed. Duval patrick, former governor of massachusetts. Crowded field. Welcome to it. Getting up in california. Thats all right. Iappreciate it i recently spoke to a group of students about being a scientist at 3m. I wanted them to know that innovation is not just about that one aha moment. 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Theyre not all five counties, they are crucial. We traveled to two, milwaukee and wisconsin and kent county in micht. In wisconsin, whether or not the state stays red will likely come out to turnout, especially black voter turnout, the vast majority live in milwaukee county, well, turnout in the state overall is down by 3 in 2016 compared with 2012, in fact, mitt romney earned more votes in wisconsin when he lost the state to obama than mr. Trump did when he beat people there. Thats how low the states turnout was. The biggest decline, milwaukee county, it dropped by a whopping 10 . State wide the africanamerican vote whereas down 19 . Then there is the story in kent county, michigan. Obama carried the state that year. Kents biggest city is grand rapids, hometown of gerald ford, avatar of many traditional Republican Voters who associate themselves more with fords moderate republicanism than with donald trump. Kent is chamber of commerce country with a higher percentage of College Educated voters than state wide. So what happened in 2016 . Well, mr. Trump improved on romneys 2012 performance by almost three Percentage Points in Michigan State wide. But in kent county, mr. Trump lost ground by 5. 5 Percentage Points so will these Establishment Republicans return to the fold and support President Trump. I am joined by two of our county to county reporters. Vaughan hilliard and sash sa burns in kent county, michigan. Devon, what are you seeing so far in milwaukee . Reporter good morning, cluck. We are called back in 2016, donald trump won the state by 22,000 votes. Last years governors race, the Democrat Tony Evers beat scott walker by 30,000 votes, here in milwaukee county, its the most diverse county in the state. Its not lost on folks memories around here that Hillary Clinton as the partys nominee in 2016 didnt visit the state a single time. More so i have been repeatedly told its what that state represented, a lack of acknowledgement of the city and its people. Voters say they want their economic sixes to be understood and for the candidates to offer real economic remedies. Chuck. Vaughan, thanks very much. If africanamerican turnout is up there may mean its up in other states as well, tell me about kent county. Hey, chuck. Here in kent county, we have been talking to life long republicans who are now deeply conflicted him. Some have described a political homelessness to me. Many said they dont recognize this Republican Party as a party that they grew up with. And thats in large part due to donald trump. Now, some are following in the footsteps of representative justin amash. Kent county is home to that congressman who left the Republican Party earlier this year is now running for reelection here as an independent. Others say they still identify as republicans, but they would actually consider voting for a democrat in 2020. So that will heavily depend on who that nominee actually is. So well be staying in very close touch with voters here, chuck. Look, im a believer as kent county burke at farmers insurance, we know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. Even a ernie lost rubber duckie . burke you mean this one . ernie rubber duckie cookie what about a broken cookie jar . burke again, cookie . cookie yeah. Me bad. grover yoooooow oh what about monsters having accidents . I am okay by the way burke depends. Did you cause the accident, grover . grover cause an accident . Maybe. bert how do you know all this stuff . burke just comes with experience. all muppets yup. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum when i lost my sight, my biggest fear was losing my independence. Mmm. Good. So ive spent my life developing technology to help the visually impaired. We are so good. We built a guide that uses ibm watson. To help the blind. It is already working in cities like tokyo. My dream is to help millions more people like me. Of millions of americans during in cthe recession. Yo. So, my wife kat and i took action. We started a Nonprofit Community bank with a simple theory give people a fair deal and real economic power. Invest in the community, in businesses owned by women and people of color, in affordable housing. The difference between words and actions matters. Thats a lesson politicians in washington could use right now. Im tom steyer, and i approve this message. The one thing you learn pretty quickly, is that theres a lot to learn. Grow with google is here to help you with turning ideas into action. Putting your business on the map, connecting with customers, and getting the skills to use new tools. So, in case youre looking, weve put all the ways we can help in one place. Free training, tools, and Small Business resources are now available at google. 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Now open in milpitas, off the 880 freeway on north mccarthy blvd. And as for the president , god bless his heart. All right. A little] southern slang there from the now reelected governor of louisiana. We put up the vote board there, gene robinson, John Bel Edwards, the Old School Social conservative economic populist liberal that used to be a big chunk of the Democratic Party. He still sort of has hung onto it and the president didnt have coat tails and he begged for him. Listen to this sound byte. The headlines the next day, trump took a loss. They lift him up a lot so trump took a loss so you got to give me a big win, please, okay . Okay . Well, he made it about him. So it was about him and he lost again, he lost in kentucky, he lost in louisiana. You know, hose, you can make an argument that donald trump not good for the Republican Party. What . Or politically in any sense. There is not in fact a data point that supports him being an improve thetment a Republican Party. Whether its the off year election, midterm election, not a single data point supports the party. Democrats stay on in louisiana, a state that reliably went for trump. He is poison to suburban white voters around, across the country and his numbers there seem to be heading shot and that means the party will head south. Look at what happened in 2018, look at what happened in all the off, off year specials and elections. Its bad for republicans. But that doesnt, isnt there a lesson here,als, for the democrats . I know our job is to see absolutely everything through the prism of donald trump . He wants you to see everything. The person that actually pushes it is him. Thats true. This tells us something, this speech, we havent talked about in. This speech given from barack obama and the Democratic Party. About the play. John bel edwards, i dont want to you are a producer. Thank you. John bel edwards, is that a part of the Democratic Party we dont see anymore . Thats the kind of guy that can win in louisiana. Those people arent represented in the democratic race any more. We sometimes forget we always see the Republican Party shattering or bending under various pressures. The fact is we have been witnessing for about five years the Democratic Party dividing and shattering also, debating what it stand for, thats what 2020 is really about. How far left are we going . Now e, its interesting, Barack Obama Says this on friday, this is still a country less revolutionary that it is interested in improvement. They like seeing things improve. The africanamerican doesnt think we have to tear down the system and remake it. Jeff mason felt like an obvious shot a bit at the left. But its i think you hear him saying that and its not lost on me that its the most pragmatic candidate running so far. Pete buttigieg now serving if iowa. Somebody who is marveling himself in many ways against obama in terms of strategy. Its hard not to strategize it as a hit and bernie sanders, it wasnt a full endorsement of joe biden either. He has been working on that by tying himself to his former boss. It did it. The rise of pete i think is basically its because democrats arent looking for what obama is saying. Somebody a little more small seat conservative about him. Look. If you look at edwards and beshear and 2018, you see that youll these things are very much alive in the Democratic Party. In fact, those candidates are winning. Exactly. What you are seeing in the president ial campaign, i think, is the difficulty of sort of malga mating that in a statement or a Party Philosophy and thats a process that the party is, its having some difficulty working through. And thus finding the right candidate. Is the rise of buttigieg mean that bloomberg and patrick were both right and wrong, meaning they were right about the room between warren, sanders and biden, but theyre wrong there was no candidate campaigning for it . Yeah. They were right to think at a certain point it was fluid. Anything could happen. Anybody who wants that job should be rolling the dice at this point. Im very interested in joe biden as a figure who does stand for i think a sort of John Bel Edwards moderate democratic liberal approach. About whom so many people seem to have doubts, so thats not going to work, so i will go elsewhere. I will try pete. Thats how i look at it. You cant look at the rise and not forget about the electorate. A source in the Biden Campaign told me yesterday theyre very confident they can still win three out of the four early states f. Pete buttigieg wins iowa, they dont necessarily see that as a blow that they cant overcome. I think they would prefer pete over warren in iowa. Basically that i buy. They appreciate taking south carolina. Before we go, a quick programing note. This wednesday, msnbc and the wag post will host the fifth democratic president ial debate. Ashley parker will be moderating. By the way, thats the same day as the Gordon Sondland hearing. So lets just say on wednesday if work is kind of slow, just sit yourself in front of television, because will you have a lot of popcorn to pop and watch. Thats all we have for today. Thank you for watching. Well be the Mental Health safety net is in crisis. I see it every day. People undiagnosed, untreated, and nowhere to turn for help. Many end up here. Our patients are in jails, prisons, psychiatric hospitals and treatment centers. I work for wellpath. Along with over 8,000 professionals, we provide medical and Mental Healthcare services with a Single Mission to be there for those who need us most. Sarahs last tuition payment, sent off. Feeling good . Oh yeah. Now im ready to focus on my project. 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