interview with senator alexander. plus the iowa caucuses. bernie sanders hoping for a big win. >> you could tell how good i feel by how nervous the establishment is getting. >> joe biden trying to proving his electability. >> i'll beat him like a drum. >> elizabeth warren changing tactics. >> i just want to be clear, women win. >> pete buttigieg hoping to regain his momentum. >> it's so important that we're ready to turn the page. >> a wide-open race that may tell us where the democratic nomination is headed. former south bend mayor pete buttigieg is my guest this morning. joining me for gin sight and analysis are democratic pollster cornell belcher. o.k. henderson, rich lowry, editor of "the national review," anna palmer, co-author of politico's playbook and nbc news senior correspondent, tom brokaw. welcome to sunday and a special edition of "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in des moines for the iowa democratic presidential caucuses, this is a special edition of "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning from des moines, iowa, where tomorrow night caucus night, democratic voters will finally get their first say on who they want facing off against president trump in november. we're back again at the west end architectural salvage, a coffee shop that also sells all kinds of great custom and vintage furniture. the other big story is in washington, where senate republicans voted to block new witnesses in president trump's impeachment trial clearing the way for the president's all but certain acquittal on wednesday. both parties will plan to leverage impeachment in november. democrats arguing the witness-free trial was a sham. turning point game friday night with lamar alexander's no vote effectively ending the democrats' hope of introducing new evidence or new witnesses like john bolton. you'll see my exclusive interview with senator alexander in a few minutes. here in iowa, democratic candidates have been making their last pitches to the opening day of the 2020 presidential campaign. normally today we'd have the results of the highly anticipated des moines register poll but its scheduled release was cancelled because of problems with its methodology. welcome to 2020. meanwhile our new nbc news/wall street journal national poll shows the top four democrats leading president trump with joe biden holding the largest advantage at six points. first the candidates need to get past each other, starting right here in iowa. >> our campaign is the strongest to beat trump, raise your hand. >> with the caucuses just hours away, the candidates are making their closing arguments. >> we have one job, and that is just to go out and electorally defeat donald trump. >> the iowa caucus is where we start this path, not just to get rid of donald trump. that's a big one. believe me, after this past week, that is a really big one. >> and sharpening their attacks. >> i believe at a time like this the risk we cannot afford to take is to turn to the same washington mindset. >> i've got more than 8600 votes -- >> for months the opponents of bernie sanders have been reluctant to take him on. now with his rise in the polls in iowa, new hampshire and now nationally, they are beginning to try. >> then there's senator sanders speaking of goals i think that we all share, but putting it together in a politics that feels too often like it's my way or the highway. >> biden, neck in neck with sanders at the top of national polls is downplaying expectations with a sharp ideological divide between the sanders/warren wing of the party and democrats who want smaller scale change, moderate democrats are torn about who to support. >> we need somebody that will appeal to -- broadly to the democratic party. >> i am looking for a moderate, somewhere in the middle a little bit. i think pete fits the bill. >> i feel amy is a fresh face. >> this cycle we have a lot more people who are either truly undecided or at least persuadable in the final hours. >> they're really struggling with this concept of who is the right person out there to beat president trump. >> the angst is palpable. >> it's going to be hard to choose one that will be electable. >> maybe some of the candidates that would appeal to more people in a broad spectrum kind of get shoved to the side just because they aren't saying things that are more outrageous. >> and already resentments are threatening to divide the party. >> joe biden was the nominee? >> i would begrudgingly vote for him. i think he has done a lot of things over the years that are very dishonest. >> as long as it's not trump. >> stuck in washington, the four senators in the race have largely relied on surrogates in the campaign's final weeks. >> bernie, are you there? >> i am here, but i would rather be there, to tell you the truth. >> as democrats worry president trump's almost certain acquittal this week will embolden him. >> they want to nullify your ballots, poison our democracy, and overthrow the entire system of government. that's not happening. >> don't make him worse than what he is now. he thinks he's going to get by doing everything and anything. >> joining me now is presidential candidate pete buttigieg, the former mayor of south bend. mayor pete, welcome back to "meet the press." >> good to be back. >> before i get to the campaign here, what is the practical fallout from the democratic party's failed effort here to get the president through the constitutional process of impeachment? >> well, i think that the critical thing was to take the step of seeking to hold the president accountable. now, it fell to the senate. it looks like the senate gop has always viewed this as a foregone conclusion. and the most important thing that i'm sharing, especially with voters, with caucus goers as i travel through iowa, is i understand the sense of exhaustion that can come from watching this whole process play out, where actually snl's mockery of the trial almost seemed like it was a process that had more integrity than the actual trial having no witnesses at all. it beats you down. but if the senate is the jury right now, we are the jury tomorrow. and however frustrating it is to watch that process, you can't switch it off, you can't walk away and you can't give up because this is actually the year where there is accountability for the president and for a lot of these senators because it's an election year. >> a lot of democrats say, geez, they think he was unfair in '16 and he won and this process was unfair and he won again. some of them might lose faith that, you know, if you try to fight this guy fair, you lose. >> well, i think that we can fight fair but we've got to fight tough. we've got to be ready to go up against somebody who's pulling out all of the stops. >> what makes you tough enough to take on donald trump? >> well, for one thing, i'm not afraid of the kind of nonsense he's going to throw around. i've seen worse forms of incoming than a tweet full of typos. >> but you can't ignore it. you have a way of trying to be above things and it's a healthy -- there's nothing wrong with that, it's what we all want to teach kids and we want to teach people to do that. but he doesn't do that. sometimes you have to be just as pugilistic. >> there are times you've got to fight back and hit back. but the thing about donald trump, he's kind of like a chinese finger trap where the harder you pull, the more you get stuck. he has this way of changing the subject. so in dealing with him, it's very important if he tells a lie, you correct it. if he does something wrong, you confront it. if he attacks you, you push back. but then you've got to very quickly return to what this election and every election is actually about, which is the voter asking the question how's my life going to be different if you're president instead of you. we've got the best answers on all of those questions. we're the ones trying to get everyone a raise. we're the ones trying to protect folks' health care. we're the ones serious about dealing with gun violence, climate change and reforming immigration on issue after issue, a strong american majority, including some independents and republicans is with us right now, which is exactly why he needs to change the subject to himself. >> is there a point where the democratic party tent is too big and it can't accommodate everybody? you've got sanders here on the left, democratic socialism, which is popular with one part of the party. enormously unpopular with another part of the party. that is a fund -- how do you bridge that divide where you've got to get michael bloomberg and bernie sanders supporters in the middle and just being in the middle sometimes, that doesn't work? >> you know, i think that the primary process by its nature magnifies these differences. these differences are real, it's part of the focus of my campaign. >> the differences being socialism and capitalism. >> and you don't have to choose. the point of my campaign is you don't have to choose between the status quo over here and revolution over there. we actually have a pretty well shared sense of values in this party, even from the progressive left through to independents and some forward-thinking republicans. but we've got to be ready to galvanize that majority and not let it get polarized. i think it's the strength of our party that we pull in a lot of people, especially at a time like this, because we are modeling the kind of healing that our country will need in this divided and polarized moment on the day after donald trump leaves office. >> look, there's some angry democrats out there. i want to play this clip of congresswoman rashida tlaib reacting to a hillary clinton criticism of the sanders campaign. here it is. >> you guys remember last week when someone by the name of hillary clinton said that nobody -- we're not going to boo, we're not going to boo. we're classy here. >> no, no, i'll boo. boo! that's all right. the haters will shut up on monday when we win. >> the fact is, look, senator sanders is talking about party unity. he is pledging to support whoever the nominee is. obviously all of you have said that as candidates. but there is real anger out there. hillary clinton is not happy. there is real bitterness. how do you -- how do you bridge that divide? how do you fix that? >> when i'm talking about turning the page, this is part of what i'm talking about. why would we want to relive 2016? i didn't much like living through it the first time. >> do you think hillary clinton should continue these criticisms or would you like to see her pulling back? >> i'm not going to tell her or anybody else what to do. here's what i'm going to do. i'm going to focus on where we need to head not just as a party but as a country. when i'm talking to iowans as we've been doing, especially in the days leading up to the caucus, the focus is not on relitigating a fight from 2016 let alone who said what when about social security in the 1990s. the question is how are we going to protect social security now. how are we going to make sure we're not in a war with iran by the time the new president takes office. how are we going to make sure that one job is actually enough in this country. these are the things that are actually affecting folks on the ground that i'm getting questions about right and left from folks who are so frustrated and so worried about those they love on everything from climate change to mental health. we have got to focus on what every election is about, and it's the lives of the voters, not the lives of the candidates. >> tomorrow night a lot of people may be asked to be more pragmatic. you get there, your candidate doesn't have the threshold and you've got to pick your second choice. it seems as if between you, the vice president, senator klobuchar, elizabeth warren, you're all sort of vying to be the alternative to sanders. that at some point you're going to do that. a lot of voters are looking at you saying i like him, he connects with me, i'm worried he can't win african-american voters. are you concerned that that perception might cost you second place in the caucuses? >> i actually think it's all the more reason why we need to demonstrate strength here in iowa, because a lot of the voters, especially black voters in the south that i'm talking to, they appreciate what's in my plans, but they also just want to know that they're supporting a candidate who can win. i mean nobody is feeling the pain of living under the trump presidency more than americans of color right now. and so there is a fierce sense of urgency about making sure we can defeat him. the process of proving that i'm the candidate to do that begins with the organizational show of force that starts right here tomorrow night in iowa. >> of the top five candidates, only one has ever proven to win african-american voters on a consistent basis and that's vice president biden. not sanders, not warren, not klobuchar, not yourself. why do you think you're held to this standard more so than the other candidates? >> i'd leave that to pundits to figure out. i do think that i come from a city that's had some tough experiences. but in many ways, that's the point. we haven't debated these things or voted on them just from a legislative perspective. on everything from racial justice in policing to economic empowerment, in south bend we've had to roll up our sleeves and work to deliver for a diverse and largely low-income city. we've got a lot to show for it, especially in the fall in unemployment and poverty for black residents, also a long way to go. but telling that story is exactly how i can demonstrate that i will arrive in office determined to bring about greater racial equality and justice in this country. >> do you reconsider your candidacy if you don't finish in the top three? >> i'll let others set the goal posts. let's face it, i need to have a good finish here in iowa. we know it and we're working very hard to do that. >> and thank you again to pete buttigieg, who i spoke to a few moments ago before this show started. let me bring in our panel. democratic pollster cornell belcher, o. kay henderson, anna palmer and rich lowry, editor of national review. kay, you get to start first. this is your territory, we're the visitors here. >> welcome. >> it's always good to have you as our opener. all right. the thing you take away most here is this indecision over this electability issue. >> right. >> there's sanders and then there's that issue. >> right. >> what's happened? >> well, in part it's fueled by the fact that trump is so active on twitter and actually was active in iowa on thursday night. and so he sort of stirs up that angst in people because they see him all over the place, number one. number two, you didn't have a definitive front-runner. you had sanders, who finished essentially in a tie in 2016, who was perceived as sort of a front-runner, as was biden, but neither one of them have been able to sort of sprint out because you had some other people, namely elizabeth warren and pete buttigieg who are able to make inroads here by doing the iowa campaign the traditional way, coming here early, hiring people, talking to iowans. >> so, cornell, here's what -- there's an electorate here that says we're looking for the best candidate to beat donald trump. there's a candidate whose entire candidacy is i'm the best candidate to beat donald trump. if joe biden can't marry his message with these voters who desperately want to hear that message, what does that say about the future of biden's candidacy if he's not at least second out of here? >> you know, i don't buy into that. i'm actually reaching for my obama '08 pen because this guy -- by the way, this is a keeper. this guy was never the most electab electable. he was never the one when you put him up, who's got the best chance of winning for democrats. it was never this guy. but he caught fire. >> he was unelectable. >> him versus hillary clinton, he was never going to be the candidate that was more mainstream and electable. he was black, by the way, so he was never the most mainstream guy. when you look at what's happening in iowa right now and to your point, look, you've got 45% of the monmouth poll who says they're uncertain what's going to happen. so much of the electorate is fluid. i think bernie will probably do -- i think bernie will probably do well here, but biden could be anywhere from fourth to first depending on -- depending on the swing of things. so i think it's wide open. >> it's got to be such a disappointing finish for biden if he is fourth, particularly given the fact that warren and bernie sanders are going to have the money. if you're joe biden and you come in fourth in iowa and go to new hampshire and don't do super well there, that is going to be potentially a death knell for his candidacy. >> people are i don't think aware how little money biden has in comparison. bernie has outspent him in the fourth quarter two to one. bernie spent $53 million, biden spent 23. >> that differential means everything. >> and who's the front-runner? >> biden has always been a weak front-runner except in the national polling. weak in the early states, weak in the fund-raising, weak in the enthusiasm. nothing is more deadly for an electability argument than losing elections. there's a lot of talk about a stop bernie movement. if they're going to stop him, that better stop really soon. if he wins here, he's going to win new hampshire and then he's loose. an unconventional candidate and the establishment carpet bombs him, that might be validating. >> you can do well in iowa, you can do well in new hampshire, but in march when the electorate becomes a lot more diverse, it's the same reason why hillary put him away. so tell me how bernie wins south carolina. tell me how -- he may do well in nevada. >> let's bring this back to iowa. >> sorry. >> we've got the three examples this century of sort of different ways. we have the near tie essentially in '16. you had the -- where obama and clinton broke away from the pack in '08. and then '04 where john kerry -- >> and this really is '04 because you have a republican president that democrats feel great antipathy toward, so that's why you have all this angst. what's different this time around is at this point in 2004, the weekend before, you could feel the momentum moving to the two johns, as it were. >> that's right. the dean screen probably stopped edwards' momentum. >> and gephardt dropping down. it's hard to write a fourth story about the iowa caucuses. >> okay. when we come back, the senator whose vote ended any chance of john bolton or any other witnesses being heard in the impeachment trial. lamar alexander next on why he voted no. as we go to break, some of what we're hearing from democratic voters here in iowa about their eagerness to defeat president trump. >> i think it's an absolute necessity that trump is defeated. >> i would support anybody other than trump right no >> a most people think of verizon as a reliable phone company. but to businesses, we're a reliable partner. we keep companies ready for what's next. 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the question for me is do i need more evidence to conclude what the president did what he did? and i concluded no. so i voted -- >> what do you believe he did? what do you believe he did? >> what i believe he did, one, was that he called the president of ukraine and asked him to become involved in investigating joe biden, who was -- >> you believe his wrongdoing began there, not before. not before? >> i don't know about that, but he admitted that. the president admitted that. he released a transcript he said on television. the second thing was at least in part, he delayed the military and other assistance to ukraine in order to encourage that investigation. those are the two things he did. i think he shouldn't have done it. i think it was wrong. inappropriate was the way i'd say, improper, crossing the line. and then the only question left is who decides what to do about that? >> well, who decides what to do about it? >> the people. the people is my conclusion. you know, it struck me really for the first time early last week that we're not just being asked to remove the president from office, we're saying tell him he can't run in the 2020 election, which begins monday in iowa. >> if this weren't an election year, would you have had a different -- would you have looked at this differently? >> i would have looked at it differently. probably come to the same conclusion, because i don't think what he did -- i think what he did is a long way from treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. i don't think it's the kind of inappropriate action that the framers would expect the senate to substitute its judgment for the people in picking a president. >> does it wear on you, though, that one of the -- i mean one of the foundational reasons, ways that the framers wrote the constitution was almost fear of foreign interference? >> that's true. >> and here it is. >> well, if you hooked up with ukraine to wage war on the united states, as the first senator from tennessee did, you could be expelled. but this wasn't that. this was the kind of -- what the president should have done, if he was upset about joe biden and his son and what they were doing in ukraine, he should have called the attorney general and told him that and let the attorney general handle it the way they always handle cases that involve public figures. >> why do you think he didn't do that? >> maybe he didn't know to do it. >> this has been a rationale that i've heard from a lot of republicans. well, boy, he's still new to this. >> a lot of people come to washington -- >> at what point is he no longer new to this? >> well, the bottom line is not an excuse. he shouldn't have done it. and i said he shouldn't have done it. and now i think it's up to the american people to say, okay, good economy, lower taxes, conservative judges, behavior that i might not like, call to ukraine, weigh that against elizabeth warren and bernie sanders and pick a president. >> are you at all concerned, though, when you seek foreign interference, he does not believe he's done anything wrong. that what has happened here might encourage him that he can continue to do this? >> i don't think so. i hope not. enduring an impeachment is something that nobody should like. even the president said he didn't want that on his resume. i don't blame him. so if a call like that gets you an impeachment, i would think you would think twice before you did it again. >> what example in the life of donald trump has he been chastenned? >> i haven't studied his life that close but like most people that survive to make it to the presidency, he's sure of himself. hopefully he'll look at this and say that was a mistake, i shouldn't have done it that way and focus on the strengths of this administration, which are considerable. >> one of your other reaches was the partisan nature of the impeachment vote in the house, except now we are answering a partisan impeachment vote in the house with a partisan, i guess, i don't know what we would call this -- >> you can call it acquittal if that's what happened. >> an acquittal but essentially also in how the trial was run. a partisan way to run the trial. so if we make bipartisanship a standard, if somebody has a stranglehold on a base of a political party, then what you're saying is you can overcome any impeachable offense, as long as you have -- as long as you have the stranglehold on a group of people. >> well, as far as -- as far as what the senate did, i thought our -- i thought we gave a good hearing to the case. i helped make sure that we didn't dismiss it, we heard it. there were some that wanted to dismiss it. i helped make sure we had a right to ask for more evidence if we needed it, which we felt we didn't. we saw videotapes of 192 times that witnesses testified. we sat there for 11 and 12-hour days for nine days. so i think we heard the case pretty well. but the partisan point is the most important point to me. james madison and others thought there never, ever should be a wholly partisan impeachment. if you look at nixon, when the vote to authorize that inquiry was 410-4 and you look at trump where not a single republican voted for it, if you start out with a partisan impeachment, you're almost destined to have a partisan acquittal. >> bill clinton offered regret for his behavior. this president has not. does that bother you? >> well, there hasn't been a vote yet either, so we'll see what he says and does. i think that's up to him. >> you're comfortable acquitting him before he says something of regret? would that not help make your acquittal vote more comfortable? >> i wasn't asked to decide -- to assess his level of regret, i was asked did he make a phone call and did he at least in part hold up aid in order to influence an investigation of joe biden. i concluded yes. so i don't need to assess his level of regret. what i hope he would do is when he makes his state of the union address, that he puts this completely behind him, never mentions it, and talks about what he thinks he's done for the country and where we're headed. he's got a pretty good story to tell if he'll focus on it. >> in that phone call, there's one thing in the phone call that i'm surprised hasn't been brought up more by others, the mere mention of the word crowdstrike is a russian intelligence sort of piece of propaganda that they have been circulating. does it bother you that the president of the united states is reiterating russian propaganda? >> yes. i think that's a mistake. i mean if you -- if you see what's happening in the baltic states where russians have a big warehouse in st. petersburg, in russia, where they're devoted to destabilizing western democracies. i mean, for example, in one of the baltic states they accused a nato officer of raping a local girl. of course it didn't happen, but it threw the government in complete disaway for a week. we need to be sensitive to the fact that the russians are out to do no good and destabilize western democracies, including us, and be very wary of theories that russians come up with and peddle. >> is it not alarming the president of the united states in this phone call, and you clearly are judging him on the phone call more so than much of his other behavior. >> and the evidence. there was plenty of evidence. the house managers came to us and said we have overwhelming evidence. we have a mountain of evidence. >> and you agree. >> and we approve it beyond a shadow of the doubt. why do you need more evidence? >> do you think it's helpful for the public to hear from john bolton? >> they'll read his book in two weeks. >> and you can see the entire interview with senator alexander on our website, meetthepress.com. what lesson will president trump take from his impeachment and likely acquittal? never do it again, or i can get away with anything. you're watching "meet the press" you're watching "meet the press" fro when i lost my sight, my biggest fear was losing my independence. mmm... good. so i've 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. it's not getting in my way.? i had enough! it is already working in cities like tokyo. joint pain, swelling, tenderness... ...much better. my psoriasis, clearer... cosentyx works on all of this. four years and counting. so watch out. i got this! watch me. real people with active psoriatic arthritis are feeling real relief with cosentyx. cosentyx is a different kind of targeted biologic. it treats the multiple symptoms of psoriatic arthritis to help you look and feel better. it even helps stop further joint damage. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections and lowered ability... ...to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms, if your inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen... ...or if you've had a vaccine, or plan to. serious allergic reactions may occur. i just look and feel better. i got real relief with cosentyx. watch me! feel real relief. ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. and i like to question your i'm yoevery move.n law. like this left turn. it's the next one. you always drive this slow? 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[tina] you're an old lady. dana-farber cancer institute discovered the pd-l1 pathway. pd-l1. they changed how the world fights cancer. blocking the pd-l1 protein, lets the immune system attack, attack, attack cancer. pd-l1 transformed, revolutionized, immunotherapy. pd-l1 saved my life. saved my life. saved my life. what we do here at dana-faber, changes lives everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. everywhere. welcome back. the panel is back and we're going to turn to impeachment and more from our new nbc news/wall street journal poll. a majority of registered voters told us they believe president trump did abuse power by asking ukraine to investigate joe biden by a margin of 52-41 who said he didn't. and by a 53-37 margin, folks tell us that mr. trump obstructed congress by not cooperating with the impeachment investigation so the majority is in favor of both articles of impeachment. look at this, while 46% say the senate should vote to remove the president from office, 49% said mr. trump should not be removed from office. and so this is where we stand. i think i want to give chris murphy a shoutout here, democratic senator from connecticut in "the new york times" today, anna palmer. we were just speaking different languages, fundamentally different languages when it came to what this trial was about. they, referring to the republicans, thought it was about the deep state and the media conspiracy, we thought it was about the president's crimes. >> i guess. but at the same point republicans just were never going to acquit -- were never going to impeach this president. i don't think no matter what happened, senate republicans -- this is the party of trump. i think every single elected official is always looking to win their next election and they see trump at the top of that ticket. >> it's interesting, rich lowry, there were some republicans calling the institutionalists who they had to say something. they couldn't bring themselves -- rob portman, i believe some of the president's actions in this case were wrong and inappropriate. jerry moran, additional evidence or witnesses would not change the material underlying facts that described the president's actions. ben sasse, lamar speaks for lots and lots of us. >> that's true. lamar finally said what most of them thought all along, and i think even though it was counterintuitive, the lamar defense is the correct one. it makes the entirely reasonable and i think correct judgment that this isn't worth removing a president over for the first time in our history on the cusp of an election. >> it's in our constitution interference, no foreign interference. it's literally in our constitution. you have to do -- former governor, republican governor todd whitman tweeted that republicans have lost their moral compass because it's hard to follow morally what lamar says if in fact the president is guilty of this. but i like his policies so i'm not going to remove him. you're morally corrupt. guys, it's in the constitution, right? but how does this play politically? i don't think it hurts donald trump politically, i don't. i think when you look at the nbc -- >> does it help democrats? >> i don't think it matters. when you look at our nbc poll, donald trump still struggles to get above 45%, 46%. that same 46% he got elected with. i think it's a wash. >> kay, i'm curious. marco rubio went a step further than some of his republican colleagues, even calling the actions impeachable. just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office. it feels like that's almost what you hear if you took all of the iowa voices into one, which is collectively that, yeah, they think -- a majority may think that and a majority may also think don't remove him. >> in the iowa context this will be important in the joni ernst re-elect obviously, but i don't think it changes the core message that democrats are going to go after joni ernst on, which is she's in donald trump's party. on the other side of the aisle, we have two freshmen congresswomen in abby finkenauer and cindy ackney and republicans are going after them for supporting impeachment. in a 50-50 country and maybe in a 50-50 state, coin flip. >> i don't know, i just feel like the election is so far away. we are going to have 200 plus news cycles. is impeachment really going to be the thing that voters are going to vote on? if you look at what a lot of these 2020 candidates are saying, they aren't talking about impeachment every single day. >> rich, have we moved, though -- i feel like we're turning into a parliamentary system. republicans are all in on trump. not on ideology, just all in. democrats may be in an all-in anti-trump. this feels very european to me. >> yeah. it's clearly trump's party. but if the reaction of the public hadn't been, oh, yeah, this is something wrong he shouldn't have done it. instead this shocks our consciences. 60% or 70% support his removal, then you would have lost some republicans. i agree with anna. i went to two events yesterday. we're still in the midst of this. i must have heard five hours of democratic oratory. loved every minute of it. i did not hear one direct reference to ukraine or impeachment. >> cornell, nancy pelosi has an interesting balancing act because there's going to be some house democrats that want to continue investigating the president. she's got to pivot to some bread-and-butter issues but she's got to walk and chew gum. >> but she's got to also do her job. i think most people on the right were saying nancy pelosi wants to impeach, nancy pelosi wants to impeach. nancy pelosi didn't want to do impeachment. democrats are doing really well -- >> some republicans keep throwing that quote back. you said it, you said a partisan impeachment is not healthy for the country. >> she has winning arguments. i mean republicans keep trying to destroy health care. you know what really americans don't want? is for obamacare to be overturned. democrats have winning messages. 9 million more people voted for democrats last time around than republicans. we have winning messages without impeachment. to your point, if you're talking about a process, if you're campaigning and talking about process story as opposed to talking about what you're going to do for the american people, you are losing. >> if people really seriously thought this was one of the worst betrayals in american history, it would be worth a candidate mentioning it. a voter would ask a question about it. there's none of that. which i think goes to this is mostly a washington and media phenomenon in terms of the obsession. >> but it's also their job. seriously. it's in the constitution and it's their job. >> let me ask it this way. i thought what both lamar alexander and marco rubio kept pointing out is this is pouring gasoline on the culture wars. this will tell us whether iowa is in play or not. is 2020 going to be about which side of the culture war you're on or pocketbook and how many iowa voters are thinking in which direction? >> yes. >> good answer. so then what? >> but to your point, we are a long way away from november 3rd. and a lot can happen. a lot can happen in the presidency, a lot can happen in congress. and to the point of impeachment, impeachment never comes up in the democratic context with these candidates because everyone understood that the republican-led senate was not going to remove the president from office. >> if biden doesn't win the nomination, this is going to feel like an event from a completely different era. >> you're right, because in some ways it's about biden. if biden isn't the one on the ticket, then it really will feel like the end of the 2016 campaign, not the beginning of 2020. >> to your point on nancy pelosi, and i'm on capitol hill a lot, i think this is not ending in the senate. the house democrats are going to want to hear from john bolton. they are going to want to continue the investigation. i was talking to an operative just this week and they were saying this is not going to be the last time this president is impeached. >> okay. why don't we leave it right there. when we come back, we'll preview the next impeachment. no. how to watch tomorrow night's caucus results. >> personally i'm going to caucus for mayor pete. >> obviously bernie would be the best. >> i've never changed my mind. i've been with joe from the beginning. >> one of my top options would be elizabeth warren obviously and probably bernie sanders. and probably bernie sanders. >>we're here how well does your financial advisor know you? if they saw you on the street would your advisor recognize you? at ameriprise, we see you as more than a client. that's why our advisors care about what's important to you. they offer personalized advice to help you prepare for what's expected and even what's not. giving you the freedom to live financially 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to infections. don't let another morning go by without asking your doctor about xeljanz xr. the one thing you learn pretty quickly, is that there's 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 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 welcome back. data download time. almost as important as who wins the caucuses tomorrow night will be who wins where. how each candidate does with different voting blocs could be an early preview of how they'll do in similar communities in other states throughout this primary season. here's how to watch the results tomorrow night. first, the college towns. johnson county and story county. these are the respective home counties of iowa and iowa state universities. in 2016 bernie sanders won both in his narrow statewide loss to hillary clinton. it's a sign of his power with younger, college-aged voters. we're watching if he can keep a hold on that core constituency and flood the zone over there. then there are the blue collar communities of blackhawk, lynn and scott counties. each is above the state average for manufacturing employment. sanders carried them in '16 but tomorrow we'll be watching to see how joe biden does here. he needs to prove he has the potential to peel off these blue collar voters from president trump that sanders seems to be doing well with. then there's the urban iowa. dallas and polk counties where you have des moines and its suburbs. winning counties for hillary clinton four years ago. these are the most dense population centers with many of the state's most educated and affluent voters. a place where elizabeth warren needs to shine carrying educated urbanites and it's also key for pete buttigieg as well. and finally we'll be watching what happens along the state's western edge. what we're calling the western ag counties. even though they won't turn out a ton of voters, it will be important to see which candidate wins over these prairie populists. they could go with sanders as they did four years ago or perhaps amy klobuchar's midwestern roots will help her gain traction. despite their differences, the one thing that unites democrats is their desire to make donald trump a one-term president. how each of these candidates does tomorrow night could give us a hint at how they'll fare throughout the primary season and maybe even in november. when we come back, joe biden has gone all in here in iowa. there's a lot of talk about value out there. but at fidelity, value is more than just talk. we offer commission-free online u.s. stock and etf trades. and, when you open a new fidelity brokerage account, your cash is automatically invested at a great rate -- that's 20 times more than schwab's. plus, fidelity's leading price improvement on 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(woman) when it comes to digital transformation... verizon keeps business ready. the number of uninsurising.ricans, the cost of prescription drugs, rising. the threat to people with pre-existing conditions, rising. the good news, so is support for the one candidate who'll do something about it. as mayor, mike bloomberg helped expand coverage for seven hundred thousand people, including hundreds of thousands of kids. including hundreds of thousands of kids. as president, he'll lower drug costs and ensure everyone without coverage can get it. that's a promise. and unlike him, mike actually keeps his. i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message. back now with end game. i'm pretty excited. it's groundhog day and an amazing palindrome day. by the way, the groundhog saw his shadow, so it's six more weeks of the impeachment trial. joining the table, tom brokaw. tom, this is your 11th iowa caucus. >> and i lived in the state three times, so i mean i really feel -- >> they keep kicking you out, though. there's a bar stool somewhere in iowa city -- >> the one truism about all of these is the unexpected will occur. i mean that's true of every one that i've cover had during the time. the most dramatic example, bush 41 beat ronald reagan who was practically a resident of this state. but john dean -- howard dean on the saturday before, we were doing "meet the press," taping it, he's a lock, he's got it, finished third. after bob dole beat bush 41, when he was the vice president of the united states. so out there today at this hour, riceville, charles city, cities across the country, across iowa, they're getting up, going to church, talking to each other, they're having coffee, they're trying to decide what they're going to do. and i always believe that when they go to the caucus and they have to stand up and identify themselves in one form or another, a lot of changes will go on then because their neighbors are watching. it's not a secret ballot. so this is going to be a volatile one again. >> tom, kay was telling me some stuff. kay, you were saying because it's not a secret ballot, there's going to be some folks who don't turn out. maybe republicans that don't like donald trump who maybe with w. they would have been willing to show their face but they can't. >> right. if you live in a small town of 2,000 or less, are you going to go to a democratic caucus and stand in a corner and tell all of your neighbors that you're no longer a trump supporter? not going to happen. >> we couldn't agree more. that's part of iowa that's always overlooked in my judgment. it is so public. and the consequences of your decision you have to live with in that small town or wherever you are, out on the farm for a long, long time. what is striking to me when i come back to iowa now, is that it's prosperous in so many way. i was in iowa city and it's booming over there. this city, des moines, for example, has changed profoundly. but at the same time, iowans have not changed in terms of their attitude about what their obligations are. you know, they take their citizenship very seriously and everything that they do, they wait until the end until they have all the facts. >> cornell, you were saying something earlier if you were joe biden right now, you'd take the national poll result that shows sanders inching ahead of him and say, okay, iowa, it's a two-person race, it's me or him. when you look at a two-person race, it's a two philosophical race, socialism versus capitalism. we tested this in our poll. democrats feel positively about both, but among those, check this out, among sanders supporters, 60% have a positive view toward socialism, 12% have a positive view towards capitalism. biden supporters, 31% toward socialism and 41% toward capitalism. this is a fundamental divide that the race will organize itself around, whether that's biden or bloomberg or somebody else. it is going to be sanders the socialist versus some democrat and the capitalist. >> i've got to tell you this. this is the problem, when you talk about electability and who's the best candidate in a general election, i think the challenge for the sanders people is how do you make the case that a socialist is the most electable person nationally? how do you make the case that a socialist makes some of these states in the south more competitive that democrats have beginning to gain. we talk about texas. democrats can turn texas blue or make it purple, how does a socialist do that? >> here's what sanders would say. he'd ignore the sun belt and go right into the heartland and that is where some trump people are nervous that sanders -- sanders can beat him in wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania and here and maybe the math gets different. >> i think sanders, you would think he's going to be the candidate that's most easy for trump to make most radioactive. it's hard to see a socialist winning in a country with 3.5% unemployment. that said, i think he has to be taken really seriously if he wins the nomination as a general election candidate. also, i bet this is what bernie people think, all of us and party establishment, 2016 proved much less about electability than we think we do. >> i really think the question is can bernie sanders convince democrats to hold their nose and vote for them, establishment democrats -- >> suburbanite democrats. >> that trump was able to get in 2016 with republicans that did not like him but voted for him. >> i think frankly among younger voters that's a possibility for him. but with a strong economy it's really hard to see how a lot of people will say i'm for socialism, i want to change this. there are a whole lot of changes going on in the economy around the country. it's more innovative than it's been in my lifetime but very little has to do with socialism. >> obviously there is something here that even iowans are into. >> right. and i think if you looked at the results of 2016, 2020 shouldn't be that big of a surprise. bernie sanders did incredibly well here for a reason. he resonated with about half of the people who turned out on caucus night in 2016. back to the socialism debate, i think it's over. whoever the democrats nominate is going to be labeled a socialist by donald trump. >> they already are. >> real quickly, i'm going to go back to the point i stay on all the time. if you cannot win african-american voters, you cannot be the nominee for the democratic party moving forward, period, hard stop. it's just the math. >> michael bloomberg, he's going to start becoming a factor as soon as iowa and new hampshire starts ending here. is michael bloomberg what accelerates sanders to the nomination or is michael bloomberg the stop bernie sanders candidate? i can picture both scenarios. >> you can game it out right now and say play it that way or the other way. the big question to me is what -- how does he impact the others in the race, right? he's going to have more money. that's not going to be his problem. he's spending more money on operatives but also on ads. how does he make the case to black voters and to hispanic voters? i think that's something to watch in the next couple of weeks. >> the other thing you have to look at, chuck, with the mayor is that he was mayor of new york city three terms and he's done very sophisticated polling. he knows where all the soft spots are out there and he's got the money to throw at it. >> the single most unpopular democrat among democrats is michael bloomberg, tom. >> i understand that. but i also think those rules have changed. i don't think we're a country where we're whetted to one party or another. people are looking for answers and solutions. i've been talking to a lot of iowans who have been asking me what about bloomberg? i've been surprised about the curiosity about him. the one thing about him, he's not just a big pluto dcrat, he' been in the arena. we'll see. >> if it became a bloomberg/bernie race, you'd have the two likely candidates outside the democratic party. it just goes to the disenchantment with party establishments and institutions that you've seen on both sides. >> we've seen the breakup of both parties, they just still have their names. i'm sorry, it does feel that way. >> yes. >> frankly, that's the nature of what we're going through in life. it's not just in politics, it's in social issues, it's in -- it's in the economy. everything is changing. we are a very dynamic country in a very dynamic time. we've got in play young people, middle-age people and old folks like me. >> kay, this is a chiefs state, isn't it, for tonight? >> it is. >> so if the chiefs win -- >> go chiefs! >> a good mood electorate. if the chiefs lose a bad mood electorate. >> kind of. >> bad mood helps, good mood helps? i'm just kidding. thank you, kay. that is all from iowa today. thank you for watching. we'll be back next week from, where else, manchester, new hampshire. because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." good morning, everyone. venture capital loves