Plus, the president s lawyer, john dowd, says its time to end special counsel Robert Muellers investigation. Are we seeing a change in white house tactics from cooperation to confrontation . My guest this morning, republican senator marco rubio of florida, democratic senator Sherrod Brown of ohio, and representative mike conaway of the House Intelligence Committee. Also, the democrats big win in pennsylvania. It took a little longer than we thought, but we did it. Conor lamb wins a district President Trump swept in 2016. You know, thats a wakeup call. Was this a rare red district win for the democrats or a sign of a coming blue wave . We have the latest numbers from our new nbc news wall street journal poll. Joining me for insight and analysis are amy walter, National Editor for the cook political report, jonah goldberg, Senior Editor for national review, eliana johnson, National Political reporter for politico, and the anchor of nbc nightly news on saturdays and telemundo, jose diazbalart. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning to, quote, the great character penny lane in the movie almost famous, though without the jazz hands. Its all happening. Attorney general Jeff Sessions fires Andrew Mccabe, whos been a target of President Trump for months. Mccabe, along with former fbi director james comey, are the two people best positioned to know whether the president obstructed justice in the russia investigation. President trumps attorney john dowd says he wants to see special counsel Robert Muellers probe shutdown. President trump formally joins his legal teams response to the porn actress stormy daniels, claiming in court papers shes violated a confidentiality agreement, but by doing so, the president effectively admits he was a party to paying off miss daniels to keep her quiet. Against this flurry of activity over the last two day, and that doesnt even include tuesdays firing of the secretary of state Rex Tillerson on twitter, we have a brand new nbc news wall street journal poll with mixed news. On the one hand, the president s numbers are up a notch. 43 approve of his performance, 53 disapprove. A fourpoint increase since we tested in january. Its the best mr. Trump has done in our poll since september. At the same time, though, the republican partys numbers have slipped since january by a margin of ten points, 50 to 40, voters say they would prefer to see democrats control congress. Back in january the democratic partys lead was just six points. But we begin with the white houses escalating assault on the russia probe. With President Trump tweeting last night, the Mueller Probe should never have been started, adding, it was based on fraudulent activities, he claims, and again he called it a witch hunt. The president is making his most aggressive moves yet to shut down the russia probe. A dramatic shift in his legal strategy. On saturday, mr. Trumps attorney john dowd called on Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein to, quote, bring an end to the alleged Russia Collusion Investigation manufactured by mccabes boss james comey. The statements from the president and dowd are the clearest sign yet that the special counsels job may be in danger after months of dropping hints. Id like to see it end. Look, the whole russia thing was an excuse. Theres absolutely no collusion. That has been proven. The campaign against mueller and the Justice Department has been cheered on by mr. Trumps defenders in the conservative media. If Rod Rosenstein had his way, we wouldnt know about any of these scandals. People now need to be held accountable. Democrats are hitting back. On saturday, the democratic leader of the senates russia investigation, mark warner, tweeted, every member of congress, republican and democrat, needs to speak up in defense of the special counsel, now. I just think this is outrageous. The department of justice, the fbi should be independent. Another sign the administration is trying to delegitimize the russia investigation, the 11th hour firing of former deputy fbi director Andrew Mccabe on friday night. Just 26 hours before his formal retirement following a recommendation from the fbi. Mccabe has been a target of the president for months. He got from 500,000 to 700,000, whatever the number was. Got that money for the wife. Did you ask who he voted for . He has had some troubling behavior and by most accounts a bad actor. Hes also a key witness in the russia probe. Has there been any curtailment of the fbis activities in this important investigation since director comey was fired . Maam, we dont curtail our activities. On friday, mr. Trump called mccabes firing a great day, tweeting, sanctimonious james comey was his boss. And made mccabe look like a choir boy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the fbi. Mr. Mccabe is accused in an Inspector Generals report, which is not yet public, of not being forthcoming under oath about his decision to let fbi insiders talk to a reporter during the president ial campaign about the investigation of the clinton foundation. In a statement, mccabe dismissed the charges, quote, i am being singled out and treated this way because of the role i played, the actions i took, and the events i witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of james comey. Joining me now from miami is republican senator marco rubio of florida. Senator rubio, welcome back to meet the press. Good morning. I know its been an extraordinarily busy time for you both locally and nationally. I want to try to get to a number of things with you. But let me start with Andrew Mccabes firing. Was he treated fairly . I dont like the way it happened. He should have been allowed to finish through the weekend. That said, look, theres an Inspector General report thats due and work thats being done. After he had retired, if that report would have indicated wrongdoing or something that was actionable, there are things that could have been done after the fact. 48 hours to go before retirement, i would have certainly done it differently, given the fact theres still this report out there that hasnt come in. Are you concerned about damage this does to the fbi, to the office of professional responsibility, who apparently made this recommendation, and the Justice Department itself . Yeah, i just dont like this whole back and forth between the people outside the fbi and in it. These agencies, the fbi, the cia, all these agencies are made up of thousands of people who are out there working every day. You know, the field offices around the country, many of whom are far removed from any of this drama in washington. Theyre just out there doing their work every single day. I would hate to demoralize the workforce and hate to discourage new people from coming into that. I just dont like the whole tone. I dont like the fact theyre in the news every day. I think both sides of this debate have done this from time to time. There was certainly a lot of criticism of comey from democrats when they didnt like how he handled the hillary probe. So theyre not above reproach. There are ways to hold them accountable, but i think we need to be very careful about taking these important entities and smearing everybody in them with a broad stroke. Youre on the Senate Intelligence committee. Andrew mccabe says he believes he was fired because of the role he played and the actions he took and the events he witnessed in the aftermath of james comeys firing. This apparently is based on testimony he gave to the House Intelligence Committee. Do you believe the Senate Intel Committee should call mccabe back to testify . Potentially. But ultimately, people have to understand our probe is different from the special counsel. Our probe is about election security, about the methods, about breakdowns in our Intelligence System if they happen in terms of identifying russian interference. Were not a criminal justice probe. Were not prosecutors. We are looking at what happened, how russia did it, and what we can do in the future to prevent that sort of interference in our election. So thats what were focused on. To the extent he has something to contribute towards that, we should talk to him again. The other stuff about collusion and the like, in the process of looking at everything, you may or may not run into something about that, but thats the special counsels focus. The president tweeted about the special counsel late last night. He said this, the Mueller Probe should never have been started and there was no collusion and no crime, it was based on fraudulent activities and a fake dossier paid for by crooked hillary and the dnc and improperly used in fisa court for surveillance of my campaign, witch hunt. Is there anything about that tweet you think is factually correct . I would say this about the special counsel. The special counsel is not simply looking at collusion. Theyre looking at the entire thing and what happened with regards to russian interference and whether there was any u. S. Laws broken in the process of russian interference in the elections. Thats what theyre looking at. Its not a collusion probe. Its much broader than that. Now, obviously once you open that up and start looking, you can go in one direction or another. You go where the evidence takes you. Thats what i support. I support going wherever the evidence and wherever the facts take us. And again, thats why leaks are bad. Thats why all this other speculation out there is bad. I remain confident that the special counsel is going to conduct a probe that is fair and thorough and is going to arrive at the truth and is not going to go down rabbit holes that are not places that we need to be going. I want to ask you about this news about Cambridge Analytica and frankly the news that facebook may have known in the summer of 16 that 50 million, sort of the profiles of 50 million facebook users were somehow in the hands of a Political Consulting firm, really without their knowledge. They have testified before your committee. Have they been forthcoming to you . Do you think facebook has told you the extent of everything that was done with their users . No, i dont. And i think weve learned that the hard way. Every time weve spoken to them, its kind of rolled out as more coming out. These companies have grown very fast within the span of less than ten years. Theyve gone from being a novel idea to a major corporation. Im not sure if the sort of Institutional Knowledge about the responsibilities, both legal and ethical, that come with that have kept pace with their growth. Their growth has been a lot faster than perhaps their ability to mature institutionally from within on some of these challenges theyre facing. Another part about it is sometimes these Companies Grow so fast and get so much good press, they get up high on themselves, that they start to think theyre perhaps above the rules that apply to everybody else. So well learn more about this in the days to come. But yeah, im disturbed by that. Im disturbed by the fact facebook has created filters to help the Chinese Government censor and are begging to get back into china. By the way, were going to see the reelection, probably put that in quote, of Vladimir Putin today in russia. We found out what he did in britain. The brits, the germans, were standing behind them, but the president himself hasnt been as confrontational himself as many. Theres proportionate responses to putin, but he doesnt even respond well to that. What should be done to get putin to stop doing what hes been doing . Well, ultimately, when it comes to the uk incident, i mean, thats an attack on an ally and a nato nation. Im not saying that the response should be a military response, but i most certainly think it should be a comprehensive and coordinated response. Our allies, if we truly have an alliance with the uk that involves other countries like germany and france, all the members of nato, all of these nations should be coming together with a collective response, whether its additional sanctions or additional diplomatic actions, combined with some other perhaps nato buildups and protective status increments. All of these things should be done in conjunction and together. Theres got to be a collective response to this. Vladimir putin is a costbenefit analyzer. Hes now going to weigh the cost and the benefits of the action he took, feint benefits outweigh the cost, hell do it again. He could do it again here inside the United States. All right. I finally want to ask you about the tragedy down at fiu, a school thats very important to you. Frankly, my hometown. Its been a tremendous source of pride for south florida. But i want to ask you a question that an anguished uncle of a victim alexa duran is asking this morning. Why they had to build this monstrosity in the first place to get children across the street, then they decided to stress test this bridge while traffic was running underneath it. Obviously theres a lot of investigating to do. But that frankly, thats the first question i think a lot of people have. Why were they testing this the way they did it . Well, i dont think its clear that there was testing going on. I think what we do know is that there was work ongoing. Theres these rods that go inside, like cables, and they were being tightened. They call it, you know, posttension application. And it is during that work that the bridge collapsed, beginning on the north end. Obviously, whether the work was the cause of it or not remains to be seen. I think clearly just from a laymans perspective, the fact they were working on it actively at the time of its collapse leads you to believe it could have. The ntsb is on site. Theyve already taken samples. Theyre going to take entire chunks of that bridge for testing. Were going to know why this failed and primarily for the purposes of making sure it never happens again. But its going to take a while. These are not quick investigations. But we will know the truth, and we will know it in its entirety. All right. Senator rubio, i know its been a tough week for you down in south florida. Thanks for coming on and sharing your views, sir. Thank you. And joining me now is the republican who has been in charge of the house version of the russia investigation for the Intel Committee, congressman mike conaway of texas. Congressman, welcome to meet the press. Good morning. My first sunday morning show ever. I should be at church and sunday school but im here with you instead. I appreciate that. My apologies to your pastor on that front. Let me start with something Andrew Mccabe said following his firing because it involves the committee that youre a part of. He said, the release of this report, referring to the Inspector General report on his conduct, was accelerated only after my testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed that i would corroborate former director comeys accounts of his discussions with the president. Can you tell us if that sentence, if its true thats what mccabe did in front of your committee . I dont know how the Inspector General got access to that testimony in front of our committee. If he did, im unaware of it. So ill have to run that to ground. But i dont know how the Inspector General would have gotten that unless he got it from mccabe. In terms of his testimony in front of us, i dont know how the ig would have gotten that. So theres no way transcripts of Andrew Mccabes testimony are going to end up in the hands of, say, the white house . No, theyre not supposed to. Theyre not supposed to under any circumstance . I mean, yes. We could vote to have that happen, but that was Committee Sensitive information that should have stayed within the committee. If the Inspector General got permission to do it, he didnt ask me to do it and had to have gone a different route. How would you characterize mccabes testimony to you . You know, i had previous some experience with Andrew Mccabe. At the time he was giving it, youre listening to it, trying to analyze for voracity and those kinds of things. But hes a guy thats not used to being questioned like that. Hes the guy thats usually questioning someone else. He was uncomfortable, but i thought he was tried to tell us you thought he was forthcoming . You felt like he was trying to tell the truth . To the extent that we knew it. But if that proves to be incorrect, then that was a bad judgment on my part. Nothing he said, we said, well, mr. Mccabe, thats clearly wrong. Xyz. We didnt have any kind of confrontation like that. Do you understand why people people think hes being treated unfairly in the Public Square . I dont have access to the personnel records the fbi does to see that. The president of the United States targeted him for over a year. That created this cloud over him. Yeah, but i dont know what he did to all the facts will come out. Its pretty unfair of us to speculate at this point. But its an appropriate use of the bully pulpit . Was it fair for the president to single him out like that . It made it so that he was in an untenable position, did it not . If he did his job, if he told the truth, then he wouldnt have been you know, well see. Again, we dont have access to actually what he did or didnt do. Weve got both competing narratives going on out there. The facts will support one or the other. Did he back up comeys contention that he was fired because of the russia probe . When . During his testimony to you, mr. Mccabe. He wasnt fired when he testified to us. No, did he back up mr. Comeys contention that mr. Comey said the reason he was fired, he testified he thought it had to do with the russia probe. Did Andrew Mccabe back up james comeys testimony . Its been a while since i sat through that testimony. I havent read it recently. We were focused not so much on that, as that feeds into the collusion issue. Our committee was not charged with answering the collusion idea. We werent focused on that idea. Id have to go back and check. All right. Youre now saying your committee was not focused on the collusion idea. You said on monday in a conference call, at the end of the day, we believe that the broader evidence available to us was that they, referring to the russians, favored her, Hillary Clinton, over him, donald trump. And the main issue was to sow discord. The next day you reversed that statement saying, no, no, no, they were trying to help donald trump. Definitively, what is your conclusion on this . Well, everybody gets to make up their own mind. What we did with the ica, which is what drove those comment, and i got us off on the wrong track, quite frankly, is that we wanted to look at the analytical integrity throughout that process of the ica. We agree with most of it. Well have a second report on that effort, but the idea that putin wanted to help trump, that came out of the ica. We dont believe that was supported by the standard trade craft of analytics. Each of us gets to make up our own mind. What we said happened. Only putin knows for sure what he was doing during that time frame. He might have changed his ideas across that, you know, sixyear but you just said your job wasnt to figure out if there was collusion in the committee. Thats right. Okay. Then why is devin nunes claiming, well, theres no evidence of collusion if you didnt even investigate this aspect of it . Well, thats i dont understand. Say that again. Devin nunes is saying there has been no collusion. No evidence of collusion. No evidence of collusion. Right. But if youre not investigating collusion, then you havent sought the evidence. We didnt investigate his obstruction of justice issue. Thats what we investigated. Was there collusion between the Trump Campaign and the russians or was there collusion between the Clinton Campaign and the russians. Did you interview George Papadopoulos . No, we did not. If you didnt interview George Papadopoulos, somebody who apparently is the person that triggered the investigation because he was bragging about potential access to damaging information on Hillary Clinton if you didnt interview him, just that one, and theres other people you didnt interview, how can you draw this conclusion definitively . He got outside the opportunity for us to interview him when he was charged and got caught up in the Mueller Investigation. Were trying to stay away from the Mueller Investigation and not confuse that or hurt it one way or the other. That part of the timing. The other issue is we couldnt feel a real good link between papadopoulos himself and his braggadociousness and the Trump Campaign. He was at the edge of the circumstances. And then after he how do you know that if you didnt interview him . All the information we got about him, talked about him, he was not somebody that seemed to be a player in the long term. Do you regret trying to draw a conclusion on collusion . My apologies, thats a tough phrase to say. Do you now regret trying to draw a conclusion about collusion . No. Well, we havent drawn that. What we said, chuck, is that we found no evidence of it. Thats a different statement. We found no evidence of collusion. Tom rooney, whos a member of the Intel Committee, said the committee has gone off the rails, and he says weve lost all credibility and were going to have to issue probably two different reports unfortunately, and no one is really going to hes implying no one is going to know what to believe. Is he right . Youll need to talk to tom about that. What i believe is by thursday i hope the democrats will fold in whatever it is they want to put in the report, the report were drafting at this point in time, and well have that one report. I think the issues is with respect to what the russians did cyberwise, social mediawise, theyll agree with. What our system needs to do to protect itself in the 18 election, certainly the 2020 election, that the democrats will agree with that. Theyll disagree with us on whether or not he found evidence of collusion. They can have that section written in there differently. Well have one report that will answer much of the questions we wanted to. The collusion issue, we found no evidence of it. The democrats think they have. Theyve not shared that with us, if they have. Ive shared all my evidence weve got with them. If theyve got evidence of collusion, they havent shared it with us. The blockbuster story about Cambridge Analytica make you want to reopen the investigation . No, its a different issue. Why is it a different issue . They worked for the Trump Campaign, had potential contracts with the russians, manipulated facebook data. Is this not part of your investigation . Why wouldnt you want to reopen the investigation to focus on it . So if there was criminal activity there, then thats the Justice Departments responsibility. I dont have criminal prosecutorial tools to make that happen. Were already confident that the russians meddled in the campaign. We also know Going Forward that they have likely so youre done. No reopening of this investigation under any circumstances . Hang on. The oversight responsibility Intel Committee is ongoing. Well always watch what putin does or doesnt do. Well always watch what these other actors around the world do. The oversight capables are ongoing. If something came up that caused us to look at something, absolutely well look at that. Mike conaway, i have to leave it there. Republican from texas. Thanks for coming on, missing church this morning. Hope your pastor forgives you. I dont need my pastors forgiveness. I need jesus christs forgiveness. Fair enough. When we come back, is President Trump finally trying to shut down the russia investigation . Were going to break down with the panel. Stick around. Man i was born in a hurry. The world made war, my parents made love. And i screamed into life. Did mom give me too much freedom . Did dad make me lust for too great an adventure . My scars and bruises tell their own story. So heres to you, mom and dad. Freedom and adventure. Ftheres flonase sensimist. Tchy and watery near pollen. It relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills dont. And all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. Flonase sensimist. I had a very minor fender bender tonight in an unreasonably narrow fast food drive thru lane. But what a powerful life lesson. And dont worry i have everything handled. I already spoke to our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. Which is so smart on your guys part. Like fact that theyll just. Forgive you. Four weeks without the car. Okay, yup. Good night. With accident forgiveness your rates wont go up just because of an accident. Switching to allstate is worth it. Welcome back. Welcome back. Pa panel is here. The nbc nightly news saturday anchor, jose diazbalart. Amy walter. National editor for the cook political report. Eliana johnson for politico. And jonah goldberg, Senior Editor of national review. Wow. I got to start with a couple of new tweets from the president. He seems to be unloading again on mr. Mccabe and the Mueller Probe. He said this, this morning. Spent very little time with Andrew Mccabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I dont believe he took memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying james comey. Then he adds, why does the mueller team have 13 hardened democrats and zero republicans. Another dem recently added, does anyone think this is fair, yet there is no collusion. Eliana, the president has declared war on the Mueller Probe again. Setting that aside for one second, i actually think that the president is doing great damage to his cause because the Mccabe Firing, from what we know, was recommended by career officials. The president stepping in to this is doing great damage because it is making it look like a political action. Yes, it was ultimately decided by Jeff Sessions, but i do think had the president stayed out of this, he would have had the facts on his side. Sessions would have had the facts on his side. Marco rubio not liking how this was done. Yeah, it was done badly. They peeled out the investigation to mccabe from the larger ig report. There is a theory among some that this was done in some ways to save the Mueller Probe. Thats the irony here, right. To save sessions, which in turn saves mueller. If sessions had not fired mccabe, trump could have used that as a pretext to fire sessions, put in somebody who then fired rosenstein, and then it becomes like a nursery rhyme going all the way down. So the irony here is that, you know there are a lot of ironies here. There are also a lot of democrats who dont like Andrew Mccabe. They think he helped cost hillary the election. Which is what he supposedly lied about. What hes being fired about is helping trump get the clinton email story into the New York Times. One last thing on elianas point. The poll you have out today has trump up ten in the generic. A lot of that split has to do with the fact that a lot of suburban republicans dont like this drama. It turns them off. This is going to overshadow the republican efforts to get ahead. This feels like were about to see mueller and trump clash and its an explosion. Like it feels like this whole thing is head to head. And if that happens, what an explosion it will be. If he goes through and takes out mueller, the reaction is going to be huge on all sides. Is it . Yes. You know what i think . I think were living in like a different timespace continuum in the United States. Maybe anywhere else. Were living in what catalan writer called the emotional spasms of twitter. Every emotional spasm that comes out is something that the world reacts to, and yet, its like, are we living in a different time and space right now because of twitter . And hes used twitter often to make these threats that never get followed up on. Right . This has been his so we dont he could be doing all of this, and there is no actual clash. Its just a clash on twitter. And this debate about the merits of anything now has become impossible to have because its not empirical, its emotional. So half of the country is going to believe or 40 of the country believes that mccabe was railroaded. Another 40 believe he had it coming to him. Without the ig report. And it really doesnt matter. Because we have now pushed our sides and when you have john brennan and james comey coming out on twitter and it was like a blow torch. Look, lets put the brennan quote up because it was unbelievable. He said, when the full extent this is brennan talking to the president. When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat andy mccabe but you will not destroy america. America will triumph over you. I think we know what he feels. I think brennan needs to stay off twitter. Comey needs to stay off twitter. These guys would all behoove themselves to stay off twitter. Starting with the president. Samantha power responded to that tweet by saying, you dont want to make enemies with john brennan, which is a really dumb thing to say because it fuels this argument that the deep state is out to get this guy. And comey is threatening the president about what hes going to say in his book. On twitter. Exactly. To amys point, you know, i think im sorry what did i say . Yeah. Just the evidence. You were saying a lot of this stuff doesnt come to fruition with the president , but i think what people around the president fear is that with the firing of Rex Tillerson and all these rumors of who else is going to be fired that the president is feeling more comfortable in his skin, feeling more comfortable in the job, and that more things are going to come to fruition that he will step up and fire h. R. Mcmaster, get rid of more of his cabinet secretaries. Hes simply beginning to trust his instincts more. A year into the job, feeling more selfconfident than he was a year ago. I think were going to have an 800number where people get to call in and pick which cabinet secretary they want to fire. You laugh. I dont know at this point. It does feel as if, you know, you talk to one set of people and they think the wheels are coming off this administration. You talk to another set and its exactly the presidency they wanted. But the fact of the matter is i dont know if our institutions can handle what trump is doing. You step back and look at the world. Strong men are getting stronger. You talked about the election happening today in russia. We already know the results of that election. Election. Make sure its in quotes. A country that likes our facebook likes more than we do. Venezuela has a sham election 20th of may. Cuba just had a sham election. Chinas strong man is going to stay stronger. Yet, thats the big view. Yet, we cant seem to see if our institutions are going to survive the emotional spasms of twitter. Its a great line at this point. Amy . Remember, though, that the fbi still is more popular than the president. But the president is more popular than his party. And this has been the challenge all along. What the president s doing, its very hard for his party to come out against. So this idea youre going to see republicans coming forward and trying to be sort of a moderating influence, until the president does anything, is going to be very hard to do. Jonah, you heard it in marco rubios voice. Hes clearly disturbed but hes trying not to get emotional. One of the greatest disconnects in life is talking to congressmen and senators off the record. Versus on the record. Im not talking about marco rubio, just generic. The way they talk about the trump white house, the sense of chaos, sort of like sense of concern. Like a kid from a dysfunctional family that dads in the ripple again when twitter starts going again is palpable. Then you get them on camera. Most of trumps policies divides the gop rather than attracts independents and moderates. The other thing thats difficult is republicans have no agenda this coming year. Its difficult for them to say, focus on this, our agenda, as opposed to the distractions coming out of the white house. Were going to get to that in the next round of the panel. Red fox called, he wants the ripple comment back. When we come back, one of ten Democratic Senators trying to hang on to seats this year. In states President Trump won in 2016. Sherrod brown of ohio. It was my very first car accident. I called usaa and the first thing they asked was are you ok . they always thank you for your service, which is nice because as a spouse you serve too. Were the hayles and were usaa members for life. Cohigher ad higher parents arent perfect, but then they make us Kraft Mac Cheese and everythings good again. We fought to find common ground, and we found it, almost everywhere. Democrats, republicans, independents. Each of us americans. Welcome back. That was Democrat Conor Lamb on tuesday night after winning a Pennsylvania Congressional district that President Trump won in 2016 by nearly 20 points. Republicans were already nervous about their prospects in the house. Tuesdays results suggest more districts than they thought are vulnerable. The senate picture has always been a cloudier one for democrats because ten of them are running for reelection in states that donald trump carries, but lambs victory has them thinking maybe they can take back the senate too if their redstate democrats are survive reelection. One of them is Sherrod Brown from ohio. Senator, welcome back to meet the press. Good to be back, chuck. Thank you. I saw on twitter your wife said you got a haircut yesterday for this. I appreciate that. Carlos in garfield heights. Good man. We sat there waiting for an hour and a half. He knows everybody in garfield heights. Maple heights and the city of cleveland. All right. Just a little bit of okay, go ahead. Fair enough. Senator, let me start. You brought it up. Before i get to the political landscape, what should congress do as an institution in looking into the Mccabe Firing . Well, you said something earlier about as i was listening to the show from the studio in cleveland about how what members of congress say publicly and what they say privately. What democrats say privately and publicly about this president and the dysfunction and the immorality is the same thing, but i hear so many grumble about his ethics. I was with a ceo the other day who said hes never seen a Business Leader or political leader who calls his employees or her employees names. I think that i think at some point, republican enablers in the house and senate are going to say publicly what theyve been saying privately, and thats when things change and we see a president back off this kind of name calling, not telling the truth, sending out these tweets, all that. Do voters in ohio care about the russia investigation right now . I think that a lot of people do. I think people what they care about is they see a president who is engaging in that name calling, and they know people know he doesnt tell the truth about a whole lot of things. I think people overwhelmingly wonder about President Trump when he calls everybody else names, including people in his own party, but he never, ever criticizes putin. So i would guess 70 , 80 of people in ohio, including trump voters, really do wonder what exactly it is between putin and trump that we dont know details about yet. You know, it was interesting to watch conor lambs campaign. He didnt run against trump, per se. In fact, would embrace some things, policywise, that the president was pursuing. Whats your pitch to the trump voter in ohio that says, you know what, i dont like i may not be happy with his style, but i think hes delivering . Well, conor lambs district is right on the southwest edge of pennsylvania, between from the state line to ohio is only a few miles because its the northern part of wheeling and that area in west virginia, across that part of ohio. So i know that district in that sense. I know what kinds of people live there. His race didnt particularly surprise me because conor lamb, what did he talk about . He talked about pensions. He talk about the health care. My state alone, 200,000 people are getting opioid treatment right now because they have the Affordable Care act. Conor lamb knows that. He fought for the Affordable Care act and said, no, im going to stand the way of repealing. He fought for a trade policy. He wasnt around to vote against nafta like i was, but he knows what these steel the steel enforcement enforcing steel trade laws mean to his district and all of my state. He knows what pensions mean. I was in cleveland yesterday with 200 pensioners that will see 40 , 50 cuts in their pension in large part because of what wall street did. It was my idea to set up this joint house Senate Bipartisan pension committee. Had our first meeting last week. 60,000 ohioans could lose 40, 50. What this town doesnt understand, chuck, is that workers 30, 40 years ago sat down at the bargaining table, gave up dollars for the future so that they would gave up dollars today, money theyd like for their families, but gave those dollars up so that in the future they would have economic security. Thats been taken away. Thats the kinds of things conor lamb talks about. Thats the kinds of things ill be talking about and working on. And that makes all the difference in the world regardless if youre a trump voter. Its interesting. I wonder how concerned you are about your own credibility, being able to fight for these voters. Because here was Hillary Clinton and what she said earlier this week while giving a talk in india. Take a listen. I won the places that represent twothirds of americas gross domestic product. So i won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign, make America Great again, was looking backwards. Senator, i heard you describe in those border communities there between ohio and pennsylvania, it sounded like Hillary Clinton was talking about those people. What do you say to that . I say that i dont really im not going to look back. I dont think voters or citizens in my state particularly care about the 2016 election, whether it was hillary or donald trump. Well, then answer me this. What does she not get . Im not going to come on your show and analyze what hillary gets today or not and what she got in 2016 or im not going to analyze how donald trump keeps talking about Hillary Clinton. I think thats all pretty bizarre. He just keeps reliving i mean, chuck, when i won my first election many years ago for state representative, and i remember for like three or four days, i kept talking about the election, how great i was for winning the election. Then i realized nobody cared. So i stopped doing it. Maybe the press ought to stop covering it and maybe hillary and trump ought to quit talking about it. The election is over. It is time that we move on. We ought to be working on infrastructure and pensions and all the issues that matter in places in conor lambs district and in my state. Thats why people voted for him. Thats why people in the end will vote for me and democrats that stick to those issues of fighting for consumers and fighting for health care. Senator brown, im going to leave it there. I think youre wrong. I think we all are stuck in this time warp where were going to have to relive the 2016 election over and over and over again. Help us get out of it, chuck. You have a pretty loud microphone. Im half teasing. I think we all want to get out of the 2016 election anyway. Thank you very much. Thanks. When we come back, will what happened in pennsylvania this week stay there . You were made to move. To progress. To not just accept what you see, but imagine something new. At invisalign®, we use the most advanced teeth straightening technology to help you find the next amazing version of yourself. Its time to unleash your secret weapon. Its there, right under your nose. Get to your best smile up to 50 faster. Visit invisalign. Com to get started today. Weeds. Natures boomerang. At roundup®, we know they keep coming back. Draw the line. One spray of roundup® max control 365 kills to the root and keeps weeds away for up to one year. Roundup®, trusted for over forty years. With moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis . How do you chase what you love do what i did. Ask your doctor about humira. 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But it may also be time for republicans to start hitting the panic button. Our new poll shows the gop could be in for a very rocky midterm season this fall. As we mentioned, the president s Approval Rating is actually up four points from january. While those who want to see republicans in charge of congress is down, giving democrats a doubledigit tenpoint advantage. And republicans are losing support among groups they typically rely on to push them over the top. Since january, republicans are down three points among all white voters, down six with voters who live in gop districts, down seven with suburbanites, and down nine with whitecollar workers. The gop is also down doubledigits with young voters. All of this played out last week when democrats pulled off the upset in that special election in pennsylvanias 18th congressional district. A place donald trump won by nearly 20 points less than 2 years ago. And come november, republicans will have a lot more districts just like it to defend. Districts home to a lot of the groups that our poll shows republicans are now struggling to hold on to. There are 97 republican districts where President Trumps margin of victory in 2016 was less than 20 points. 44 of those are even more suburban or urban. 90 of those are younger on average than p. A. 18. And 96 of 97 are more racially diverse than in congressional district. Republicans were already worried about suburban districts in big metro areas from orange county, california to northern virginia, to houston, thats where Hillary Clinton actually won districts. Now they have to start worrying about suburban districts and a lot more smaller to midsized cities, places like virginia beach, lexington, kentucky, little rock, arkansas, and omaha, nebraska. In short, our new nbc news wall street journal poll shows pennsylvania 18 may be less of an outlier and more a sign of things to come. Well be back in a moment with end game, and something in our poll that weve never seen before that could be hugely significant in november. Announcer coming up, end game and post game brought to you by boeing, continuing our mission to connect, protect, explore, and inspire. Made gill 1 shave in america. Now get gillette quality at lower prices every day. Brought to you by more than a thousand workers in boston. Were proud of giving you our best. Gillette the best a man can get. Customer service d. Maam. This isnt a computer. Wait. Youre real . With discover card, you can talk to a real person in the u. S. , like me, anytime. Wow. This is a recording. Caller really . No, im kidding. 100 u. S. Based customer service, here to help, not to sell. Where were changing withs . Contemporary makeovers. Then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. Who has the upper hand now . Start winning today. Book now at lq. Com. [thud] [screaming crying] [screaming crying] [phone ping] with esurance photo claims, you could have money for repairs within a day. Wow that was really fast. Thats insurance for the modern world. Esurance. Click or call. End game brought to you by boeing, continuing our mission to protect, connect, explore and inspire. Back now with end game. And something that showed up in our new nbc new jersey poll. In districts currently held by the democrats, democrats prefer democrats 56 to 32. Thats not surprising. What is surprising in the congressional districts that we polled in all held by republicans right now, the generic ballot is dead even, 46 46. Weve been looking at the congressional ballot result since 2010 and beathard parties have always led in their own districts theyve held and theyve always led by double digits just as the democrats do now. To show our polarization, this one poll will be an outlier. It could be a rough sign for republicans. Amy walter, what was extraordinary about it, it was basically identical result that connor lamb had. I was about to say we have seen it actually, it was in pennsylvania 18 where the generic ballot, when you ask that question right before the election, was 42 42 in a district that trumpcare i had by 20 points. The challenge for republicans right now isnt just that the president isnt popular and has lost popularity even in districts that he won in 2016. The party is unpopular and the issues are unpopular. What connor lamb talked about and senator brown raised this about the issue of health care is going to be a big issue in this election. And the irony is democrats lost the house in 2010 on obamacare. Republicans could lose the house in 2018 by trying to repeal obamacare. How do you like them apples, jonah . Health care, ive heard this, too, that on the trail its not russia. Its not trade. Its health care. Yeah. And also if you talk to republicans over the last three months, they all would say once the tax cuts thing actually manifests itself, when people see in their paychecks we saw in pennsylvania 2018, the dog didnt bark. Thats why at the end, saccone, the republican candidate moved to theyre coming for your bibles. He thought that would work instead. That has to be terrifying to a lot of swing districts. If i were a district that i won, a republican candidate won narrowly in 2016, the paa 18 thing is the equivalent of watching the rivers turn to blood. Youd think about bailing . Pretty hard. What do you have, taxes, taxes, taxes . That thats it . He a thats what you talked about eliana. Where is the agenda . I dont think there is one between now and the november elections which makes it difficult for the republicans. The problem they face is they didnt pass a reconciliation bill. Which means they need 60 votes to get anything through the senate. Frankly the house, anything that passes the Republican House is too conservative to get through the senate, which needs sort of oatmeal mushy type, you know, compromise legislation. And so i think there is nothing happening in terms of legislation between now and the elections, which leaves the headlines, trump tweets, you know, the sort of circus of the executive branch. One quick point, though. There are a lot of democrats, i hear them on your cable show all the time saying democrats need to put forward an agenda. I think thats nuts. They dont need to. Theyre doing great. Their agenda is unpopular. There is no agenda between now and november, deal with the dreamers. 5th of march was supposedly their end date. The court stepped in. Why dont we deal with the dreamer issue . It seems like everybody is in agreement it should be dealt w. No one is talking about it because they dont have to. I want to change the subject to facebook here. If facebook were a senator and we treated facebook as an individual, heres what senator facebook heres what we would put up in questioning senator facebook. Senator facebook in november of 2016, your founder says the idea that fake news on facebook won the election is pretty crazy. Senator facebook in 2017 you admit malicious al qaectors did spread bad news. Content reached 26 million americans. Then march 18, senator facebook, we found out 50 million users had their data from facebook somehow ended up in the hands of a Political Consulting firm. Facebook has a problem. They do. And its beyond this. Its also this idea that they cant control this platform that they created that these bots are out there now, whether it is an on twitter or facebook, and driving a lot of this. They cant or they dont want to. Thats whats really unclear. Is it that the technology has gotten away from them . Or is it that they just dont want to spend the money to do what they need to do to make this we end nbc news last night with the story, the New York Times says they have seen evidence when they say they are going to destroy the data, they didnt. But they sent them a strongly worded letter. Facebook said, you must do this. Check a box here if you did it. The weird irony is facebook is the home of everyones sentiment their most sentimental part of their lives, pictures of kittens and grand kids, vacations, love letters to themselves and everybody. Meanwhile the corporation, its like they have aspergers. Theyre trying to turn human beings into commodities. Theyre products, yeah. You know, even though facebook is now accused of having played a role in helping the Trump Campaign, i do think theyre a microcosm of why the president was elected. They have the smartest people in the country working for them. Every ivy league graduate wants to go work at facebook yet they are an example of the failure of elites to sort of do their jobs. Great point and its a good one to end on. A lively panel. Thank you all. Thats all we have for today. Enjoy those that umbc game. Sorry nba fans. Well be back next week because if its sunday, its meet the press. Announcer you can see more end game and post game sponsored by boeing on the meet the press facebook page. When heartburn hits fight back fast with tums chewy bites. Fast relief in every bite. Crunchy outside. Chewy inside. Tum tum tum tum tums chewy bites. Cohigher ad higher parents arent perfect, but then they make us Kraft Mac Cheese and everythings good again. I accept i dont i even accept i i used thave a higher risk of stroke due to afib, a type of irregular heartbeat not caused by a heart valve problem. But no matter where i ride, i go for my best. So if theres Something Better than warfarin, ill go for that too. Eliquis. Eliquis reduced the risk of stroke better than warfarin, plus had less major bleeding than warfarin. Eliquis had both. Dont stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily. And it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. Im still going for my best. And for eliquis. Ask your doctor about eliquis. Welcome to kasie d. C. Im kasie hunt. We are live from washington every sunday. Tonight, Spring Cleaning in the Trump Administration. Rex tillerson gone. Andrew mccabe, gone. Is the special counsel far behind him . And what about other key members of the Trump Administration . Senator chris van haul enjoins me live to talk about what all of this means as the Foreign Policy obstacles mount for the United States. Plus, democrats pull off a serious upset in trump country. New polling just out today shows why pennsylvania could be just