Transcripts For WRC Meet The Press 20170129

Come to me. Ill talk about all of this with President Trumps chief of staff Reince Priebus live this morning. Also, how should the democrats respond to the president . Get along when they can or all opposition all the time . Ill ask the man who was Hillary Clintons running mate senator time kaine of virginia and the presidency and the press. President trump calls the media the Opposition Party. The dishonesty, the total deceit and deception. And his chief strategist says the media should just keep its mouth shut and listen. Are we looking at the Worst White House press relationship since nixon . Joining me for insight and analysis are pulitzer prizewinning author doris goodman, columnist for the new york times, Michael Steele and kimberly strasel, columnist for the wall street journal. Its meet the press. From nbc news in washington the longestrunning show in Television History celebrating its 70th year. This is meet the press qwest with chuck todd. Good sunday morning, you heard that right. We are beginning our 70th year on the air and a yearlong celebration and well have more on that later in the show. The new Trump Presidency was met with frustration, anger and protest, but unlike last weeks massive demonstrations yesterdays were spontaneous and had to do with an action by President Trump. It prevented some muslims from entering in the country led to people with permanent resident status being detained in airports and that led to protests at airports around the country. Many others at airports around the globe en route to the United States were simply told to go home. The wild scenes in airports included seatac where authority his to use pepper spray yesterday, a judge in brooklyn blocked part, preventing those that were detained at u. S. Airports during the early hours of this order. The scenes at american airports were a whirlwind the trump precedence they sought proposals on everything on foreignmade goods to the mexican wall to the ditching of the Transpacific Partnership trade deal, but was this travel ban that had the most immediate repercussions. [ cheering ] at airports around the country, celebration after judge ann don olly at the Federal District court in brooklyn cited imminent danger of irrepable danger would arrive in the United States with valid visas or refugee status. The emergency stay followed a day of country after at least 375 travelers were either prevented from flying or barred entry to the United States. It is unconstitutional and it will be overturned. Hamid darwish who worked for the u. S. Military as an interpreter and engineer was held at new york airport until granted an airport. When i came here they say no, and they treated me as if i break the laws, i do something wrong. On friday President Trump suspended it for 120 days and closed the borders for three months and barred Syrian Refugees indefinitely. Mr. Trump establisheded a religious test for refugees from those muslim countries allowing an exception for christians and others from minority religions. Its not a muslim ban and were prepared to work it out nicely. You see it at the airport. The executive order is not only unamerican and its unconstitutional and flies in the pace of equal protection and violates the statutes and acts of congress, the immigration nationality act. We also believe it may violate the commission against torture. It may also, we believe, violate the first amendment. In his first week in office President Trump unleashed a flood of executive action on immigration, the environment, abortion and trade. This administration has hit the ground running. Also this week Via Executive order mr. Trump attempted to start the process to build a wall along the u. S. Mexico border, signed another order to cut off funds for sanctuary cities and criminal actions committed by alienses. To pay for the wall the administration floated a plan to put a 20 tax on american likely pay more for all kinds of imports and some conservatives in congress are pushing back. Senator Lindsay Graham tweeting any policy proposal which drives up costs of tequila, coronas is a bad idea, mucho sad. For those when like corona, im going to protect the price of corona. Busy nine days. Joining me is mr. Trumps chief of staff Reince Priebus. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me, chuck. I want to start on timing of the executive order and to implement it immediately. Was there any thought given of creating a 72hour grace period, a oneweek grace period in order to allow Border Patrol agents to understand what the rules are, allow agencies to allow federal agencies to understand what the rules are. It seems a lot of the chaos yesterday could have been avoided had you grace period. Why was that not included . I dont think you want a grace period because people who want to do bad things to americans would move up their travel days before the grace period is over. Its one of these things and if you ask a lot of the people at the customs and Border Patrol youll rip off the bandaid and you have to move forward. It wasnt chaos. The fact of the matter is 325,000 people from Foreign Countries came into the United States yesterday and 109 people were detained for further questioning. Most of those people were moved out. Weve got a couple dozen more that remain, and i would suspect as long as theyre not awful people that they will move through before another half a day today and perhaps some of these people should be detained further, and if theyre folks that shouldnt be in this country theyre going to be detained. So apologize for nothing here. Okay. You dont think that anything there was no decision ou in advance to some of these agencies. Why not . Chuck, of course were working with the agencies. We were working with the agencies for a long time and im not going to get into every conversation that was had, but this was not an executive order that was signed by the white house and suddenly transferred to the department of Homeland Security. They know full well what was going on and they conducted themselves yesterday perfectly pursuant to the order. One of the things in the order is to include green card holders and that is something that there has been a report that the department of Homeland Security recommended it not include green card holders. Why did the white house choose to overrule the department of Homeland Security on that one. We didnt overrule the department of Homeland Security. As far as green card holders moving forward it didnt affect them. If youre coming in and out identified by the Obama Administration as the seven most dangerous in the world in r affirmed by congress multiple times then youre going to be subjected temporarily with more questioning until a Better Program is put in place over the next several months. This is something that 75 , 80 of americans out there agree with. We dont want people that are traveling back and forth to one of these seven countries that harbor terrorists to be traveling freely back and forth between the United States and those countries. You did Say Something at the beginning of your answer and it seemed like an aside. This order does not impact any green card holders from these seven countries. Of course, it does. If youre traveling back and forth youll be subjected to further screening. Of course. Are you going to do that to american citizens as well that travel in and out of these seven countries . I would suspect it if youre an american citizen traveling back and forth to libya youre likely to be subjected to further questioninghe come to an airport. Why are you confident thats constitutional and ill ask it this way because green card holders they go through extreme vetting to get the green card, and number two, when they get the green card theyre entitled to all of the protections that citizens do. Im not suggesting that. I understand that. Are you, by having to put an extra hurdle for a green card holder to get into the country how are you confident that doesnt violate their rights and doesnt end up making the order unconstitutional. First of all, its not affecting green card holders. You keep saying you said it does if you would just slow down for a second and listen i could answer your question. Understand that, but youve twice confused me so im trying to understand the clarity. Its because you dont stop talking, chuck. I love you, but let me answer the question. If youre a person this isnt order. The executive order doesnt affect green card holders moving forward. I said that. What im suggesting is customs and Border Patrol, i would suspect f they have a person traveling back and forth to libya or somalia or yemen i would suspect within their discretion they might ask a few more questions at jfk or some other airport when someone is coming back and forth within their Discretionary Authority as a customs and Border Patrol agent and what im saying is that i would suspect that most would agree that that would be a good thing to do. What im not suggesting to you that that is in the order moving forward. Im suggesting that within the discretion of the cbp that those questions would likely be asked. Okay. You say it doesnt affect green card holders moving forward, but you said it does impact green card holders from those seven countries. Those two things dont compute. No, it computes, chuck, because theres Discretionary Authority that a customs and Border Patrol agent has when they suspect that someone is up to no good thats traveling back and forth to libya or yemen. Im not suggesting its in the order. Im suggesting that at every level in an airport a customs and Border Patrol agent has the authority to use their discretion to ask questions. Were off on a tafrmgent that has nothing to do with the executive order. Let me ask about the executive order because the countrys chosen and i know you say these were countries codified by congress and chosen by the Obama Administration, but heres what im confused about when you look at those folks who have committed terrorist acts in this country, killed americans, pakistan, saudi arabia and egypt. Youve had more terrorists come from those three countries than any of the seven that you have. In fact, in the case of saudi arabia, more have come from saudi arabia to kill americans than the seven countries combined. Why was saudi arabia, pakistan and egypt not included on this list if you are so concerned about this issue . We are concerned about the issue, chuck, and thats why we put the seven countries initially into the executive order that were identified previously by congress, by both the house and the senate and the Obama Administration as being the seven most watched countries in regard to harboring terrorist, but you bring up a good point. Perhaps other countries needed to be added to an executive order going forward, but in order to do this in a way that was expeditious and in a way that would pass muster quickly, we used the countries that have been codified and identified by the administration and congress. You bring up a good point and perhaps other countries need to be added, but this was all done for the protection of americans and waiting another three days and waiting another three weeks is something that we dont want to get wrong. President trump is not willing to get this wrong which is why he wants to move forward quickly and protect americans. And just to clear things up, the Trump Organization has business ties in a couple of the countries that were not included including saudi arabia. Did that have any impact on why saudi arabia was not included on the list . Of course not, chuck. Just like i said very clearly. The countries that were chosen in the executive order to protect americans from terrorists were the countries that have already been identified by congress and the Obama Administration. That does not mean that other countries wouldnt be added later to a subsequent executive order, but again, this what were talking about out of 325,000 people trying to find a proverbial needle in a hay stack was accomplished yesterday with a little over 100 people detained for further questioning from these countries. People are moving out of the system and moving obviously is going to be, i believe, a very smooth and effective operation for the safety of americans across the country. Move on to a couple of other things. There was an issue on friday, the white house put out a statement on holocaust remembrance day, and there wasnt a mention of jews in the statement of the victims of the holocaust that the majority of them were jewish. Many of us thought it was an error. You guys were there early and then it turns out it was not. John padhoritz, a conservative commentary wrote this. The final solution was aimed solely at the jews. There was no proud way to offer a remembrance of the holocaust that does not offer that simple fact. To, quote, all those who suffers is to scrub the holocaust of its meaning. Mr. Priebus, do you understand why many jews were offended by the white houses to note that the holocaust was about eradicating the jews . I recognize, in fact, obviously, that that was what the holocaust was about, any its a horrible event and obviously, a miserable time in history that we remember here at the white house and certainly will never forget the jewish people that suffered in world war ii, and obviously, still incredible wounds that remain in a time in history that was of great, incredible, horrific magnitude and everyones heart here is impacted by the memory of that terrible time, and so for the record, thats the case. Certainly we dont mean ill will to anybody. Does the president regret . Theres no regret not acknowledging the pain that we acknowledge it. But you didnt we acknowledge the horrible time of the holocaust and what it made from the statement did. It was horrible. Im telling you now thats the way we feel about it and its a terrible time in history and obviously, i think you know that President Trump has dear family members that are jewish and there was no harm or ill will or offense intended by any of that. But you dont regret the statement . You dont regret the words that were chosen in the statement and the words that were not included . Im trying to clear it up for you. Everyones suffering in the holocaust including obviously, all of the jewish people affected and the miserable genocide that occurred is something that we consider to be extraordinarily sad and something that can never be forgotten and something that if we could wipe it off of the history books we could, but we cant, and its terrible. I dont know what more to tell you. One last question. An execve president reorganized the National Security council and, look, he can put anybody on it that he wants. What im curious about is why is the top intelligence official in the country and the top military official in this country not a fulltime member of the National Security council and the Trump Administration . They are. If you read the order, chuck, theyre invited to be attendees of the Security Council at any time that they want to no, that is not what it said. It said when its necessary essentially it looked like it was invite only. So youre saying every National Security Council Meeting should include the chairman of the joint chiefs and the director of national intelligence. Theyre included as attendees any time that they want to be included, chuck, if you read the order. So it is not correct then because in the order it says it is as needed. If you read the order theyre invited as attendees to the Security Council at any time. All right. Ei for the president we had a lot of other stuff to get to, but its been a busy morning. Hopefully well see you again soon, sir. You bet. When we come back, how should they respond to President Trump . Go along when they can or scorch opposition . Ill speak t welcome to the world 2116, opposition . Ill speak t you can fly across town in minutes or across the globe in under an hour. Whole communities are living on mars and solar satellites provide earth with unlimited clean power. In less than a century, boeing took the world from seaplanes to space planes, across the universe and beyond. And if you thought that was amazing, you just wait. I cant wait for her to have that College Experience that i had. The classes, the friends, for it, that student debt is the one experience, im glad shell miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. Ameriprise today, i am helping people work better. And also feel better. I am helping hospitals personalize treatments using billions of data points. And working with medtronic to predict the highs and lows of diabetes, hours in advance. And i am working with orreco to use Biomarker Data to boost the performance of athletes. Hello, my name is watson. Working together, we can outthink anything. Welcome back. Panelists here. Nbc news Michael Steele, and kimberley strassel, and i thought it summed up pretty well in the Washington Post where he said this week was everything Trump Supporters could have hoped for and everything trumps opponents could have feared. Kimberly strassel, what say you . This is a president that will fulfill all of his Campaign Promises and take action. This is also a president who sometimes allows his own missteps to get in the way of his successes. He did a lot of stuff this week that was important and good for the economy, but some of it was overshadowed by back and forth over attendance and crowds and voter fraud and diplomatic tiff with mexico and well see if there is any greater discipline going forward. Discipline, tom dont know, but then again donald trump doesnt mind the chaos. You know, chuck, one of the points i actually make in my book is from a systems analyst named lynn wells who said you shouldnt think in the box or out of the box. You should always think without a box. What he meant by that is the world is seamlessly integrated where telecommunications and climates are interwoven. Think about the policies. One of the things is we want to keep immigrants out. That is coming from Central Africa toward europe and not actually from mexico, from Central American the northern triangle. Both are hammered by the same problem, population and Climate Change. The collapse of smallscale agriculture. Where does this Administration Come up full scale against . A Family Planning technology being extended by the u. S. Government and Climate Change is a complete myth. Now lets talk about the wall. We p mexico by building a wall. How Many Americans know, i dare ask, chuck, does President Trump know that if you play into mexico from baghdad and dam afblg ascus. We have created a seamless north American Security envelope. How will the mexicans feel about keeping that going when were building a high wall . Same thing with economics. Trump says well have a 20 tariff on mexican goods. Okay. Whats going to happen . Prices will go up to american companies. Remember what happened on 9 11. On 9 11 the supply chain that goes from canada to mexico completely collapsed and completely disrupted our auto industry. What will happen if prices go up . American companies will build those factories here . And you know what theyll do . Theyll robot size them. Thats been the fear. I think in some ways mr. Trump is a magician. The important things that happened this week were the executive orders. The very things hes talking about and up and understandably in the things he said about the press and his tweets about how many people were in the inauguration. Hes deflecting. Its like slight of hand. The thing that concerned me was the whole relationship with the president. Its one thing for the president to get over the people and use tweets and stats and its another thing to get into criticism. Lbj said if i walk on the Potomac River the press will say the president cant swim, but when he denied how many people were in the inauguration youre leading into the territory of eisenhower is the worst thing to do is deny the incident and he denied the in his presidency for the rest of his life. Let me get into the ban here. What was interesting is they were trying to draw up a ban and President Trump said its not a muslim ban, but there is you have to get Rudy Giuliani saying yeah, he was trying to out how to enact the muslim ban without being a muslim ban. There is a lot of republican discomfort and theyre expressing it by not saying anything, not praising it and not denouncing it how much patience domain stream republicans have . That is the test. Theyve been patient on a number of things. You have the president floating a Million Dollars on spending and infrastructure. You have certainly the controversy with mexico even though folks are all about the wall, they recognize exactly what you laid out, tom, in terms of the effects of it. Here you get into this space which has its own level of complications and republicans in large measure would like the administration to slow down, to be honest. Theyd like to take another day or two to think it through so you dont have the pile on that weve seen with this current decision. The exchange with you and rice about the green cards. The order says what the ord says and so you can say what you want about what you thought the green cards were in or not in, but the reality is that republicans and others are looking at whats on the paper and thats what people will be responding to. So there is this hesitancy right now. The green card thing is pretty straightforward. The point i think he was trying to make is if you have a green card you will not be kept out of the country, but you will not be subjecteded. That may not be constitutional and thats where the order may get stayed. This is not unprecedented, by the way. Barack obama put a pause for six months on refugees coming from iraq back in 2011. I dont remember protesters and i dont remember lawsuits. So i think the bigger question, if this is a temporary pause which is designed for us to improve and look at our vetting processes and indeed temporary, i dont necessarily think thats an outrageous idea and the bigger question is implementation. Did you get it right from the start . Thats what people are nervous about. Chuck, some each if donald trump believes them. I think we always have to remember them. One thing is true. We live in an age where there are 65 million migrants traveling around the world and that is the most in history according to you. There is a need to sit back and say how do we respond to that, what is the commercial interest we have, and the historical commitment. You do that carefully and it seems to be one of the terrible signals we may be sending is to a lot of people is just dont go there and lets remember, this is an iphone. Right. The guy who conceived this iphone was conceived by an immigrant to the university of wisconsin. His name was abdul fatah jandali, he was steve jobs biological father. He was from syria. With that ill pause there and well have more conversation after an interview with my next guest. Well be back in a moment with the future Vice President of the vo do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light. Do not go gentle into that good night. Ng, listerine® total care strengthens teeth, helps prevent cavities and restores tooth enamel. Its an easy way to give listerine® total care to the total family. Listerine® total care. One bottle, six benefits. Power to your mouth™. Welcome back. Democrats are still trying to figure out how to deal with President Trump and joining me for his first sunday morning interview since losing the election to donald trump and mike pence is Hillary Clintons former running mate virginia senator tim kaine. Senator kaine, welcome back to meet the press, sir. Chuck, good to be with you. Let me get your reaction to the executive order and Reince Priebus defense of it. Is there any p pausing pausing the Refugee Program that you support even if you dont support how President Trump worded it in this order . Well, chuck, ill just go right to what reince said. He demonstrated complete confusion about what the order did because he went back and forth in the interview with you over whether it did or did not affect green card holders. It does affect green card holders and theyre being caught up in it. It affects people on special immigrant visas like interpreters who helped the u. S. Military in Foreign Countries and now their lives are at risk and weve given them a special status to come to this country. Who would help the United States if they knew we would abandon them when theyre trying to come here . Its a religious test, as you pointed out. It imposes a different burden on muslims than others, and the irony is not lost on me that it was issued the same day as the white house issued their holocaust proclamation that unlike any Previous Administration removed all reference to jews. So you put a religious test on muslims and you try to scrub reference to jews in the holocaust remembrance, this was horribly, horribly mishandled and so its not a pause thats a tough charge, senator. Do you think its more than a coincidence that it all happened on friday . I think all of these things are happening together. When you have the chief political adviser in the white house, steve bannon who is connected with a News Organization that traffics in White Supremacy and antisemitism and they put out a holocaust statement that omits any mention of jews. Remember, earlier administrations have done these statements and the first thing you do is you pull up what earlier statements have said and the earlier staples, president obama, final solution was about the slaughter of jews. We have to remember this. This is what Holocaust Denial is. Its either to deny that it happened or many holocaust deniers acknowledge oh, yeah, people were killed and it was a lot of innocent people, jews werent targeted and the fact that they did that and imposed this religious test on muslims in the executive orders on the same day is not a coincidence. Let me ask you something that you tweeted yesterday. You said this, if we turn our backs on widows and orphans fleeing the very evil we despise. We do not defeat our enemies, we surrender to them. Howard dean retweeted you and said tim thshgs is great, but the dems in the senate actually have to do something about this stuff. You are being left behind by your base. How do you respond to governor dean on that . The implication being democrats arent doing enough. Were doing plenty. Two weekends ago on martin senators led save our health care rallies all over the United States. Tens of thousands of people participated. My colleagues and i were thrilled at this massive peaceful protest last weekend to hold the Trump Administration accountable. Many of us participated in that. We are Holding Trump nominees feet to the fire, demonstrating to the world that many of them are either unqualified or extreme or ethically challenged and ill tell you, chuck, i have never seen calls to my office from folks the way ive seen them over these cabinet nominees and thats because a lot of us on the democratic side are casting a spotlight on what theyre doing. The notion that, you know, theres a base and elected officials. Were all in this together. Heres what we think. Heres what we think. The Trump Administration is posed to do horrible danger to our country, our values, our people and our reputation and were going to do everything we can in congress, in the courts in statehouses, online and in peaceful protests to make sure that this administration doesnt hurt the country that we love. Does this mean that youre not going to work with them when you can . Let me tell you something. Ill give you an example. I voted for generals kelly and general mattis to be part of the National Security team. Secretaries of Homeland Security and defense. So i voted for them. Why . Because the National Security council is critically important to our thinking about challenges and the national the council sadly has some really questionable people on it. The National Security adviser general flynn is a prorussian conspiracy theorist. The administration added steve bannon with his ties to a News Organization that traffics in antisemitism and White Supremacy of the National Security council. So we put general kelly and general mattis in place, Many Democrats supported them because we want to save this count where heres another example. Okay. Eight years ago, democrats and president obama made a major investment in the infrastructure in that country, no republicans supported it, but democrats did it and it helped the country and if President Trump wants to do that well work with him on it. Hopefully maybe a republican will vote for it this time. Were not closing the door on doing whats right for the good of the country, but right now we think this administration poses a real threat to the reputation, our values and our people and were going to battle. Let me ask one final question here, youre a former dnc chair. Who would you like to see run the party . I know a lot of obama and clinton veterans are behind tom ter perez, the former labor secretary. I have not done an endorse am yet, chuck, and ill it will you why, theyre an emergency brake on the administration. They dont give house do have tools and i decided is my highest and best use is to be a hardworking senator and focus using the tools weise have in the best way we can to check this administration. Doing other things like getting involved in the dnc is just not the big priority for me right now. I dont want to take my eye off the ball in doing what i need to do to protect this country. You could send a message to the democrats that you dont see it as important of a vehicle right now as other organizations. Ill tell you what, chuck, if i wasnt in the senate i would be very engaged in the dnc matter because its important, but i should be spending every minute i have working with my colleagues whether its the russia investigation, saving the Affordable Care act, making sure we dont put somebody out of the mainstream on the Supreme Court. Thats what i need to be focused on right now. There is a lot more i want to get to, but time saulz an enemy. Look forward to talking again. I appreciate you sharing your press, we gave you a preview. We may be looking at the worst relationship with the white house and the press corps since watergate. A man who covered watergate for us, tom brokaw who is celebrating his first 50 years at nbc news. He joins us as we here at meet when it comes to healthcare, seconds can mean the difference between life and death. For partners in health, time is life. We have 18,000 people around the world. The microsoft cloud helps our entire staff stay connected and Work Together in real time to help those that need it. The ability to collaborate changes how we work. What we do together changes how we live. Say hi to xiidra, lifitegrast ophthalmic solution. The first eye drop approved for the signs and symptoms of dry eye. One drop in each eye, twice a day. Common side effects include eye irritation, do not touch the container tip to your eye or any surface. Remove contacts before using xiidra and wait for at least 15 minutes before reinserting them. If you have dry eyes, ask your doctor about xiidra. Only abreva can heal it in as few as two and a half days when used at the first sign. It penetrates deep and starts to work immediately to block the virus and protect healthy cells. Dont tough it out, knock it out, fast. Abreva. To capture investing ideas that instantly gives you stock prices, earnings, and dividends. An equity summary score that consolidates and 7. 95 online u. S. Equity trades, lower than td ameritrade, schwab, and etrade, you realize the smartest investing idea isnt just what you invest in, but who you invest with. Back now with the panel. We just spoke with a doris. Whats interesting there, is as far as the white house is concerned they have another idea of who the Opposition Party is. Heres donald trump from earlier this week in an interview with the christian broadcasting network. Think the media is the Opposition Party. The dishonesty, the total deceit and deception makes them certainly partially the Opposition Party. Absolutely. I think theyre much more capable than the Opposition Party. The Opposition Party is losing badly. What do you think the president s doing here, doris . Is by highlighting the media as the Opposition Party is it a way of delegitimizing the democrats each more . They are nothing. I dont have to worry about them, i just worry about the media. The concern i have about the democrat dechls right now is they have to analyze honestly why they lost and they didnt lose just in washington and they cant just be an Opposition Party in washington. I dont know how they can because they like government too much. They have to become a reverse america, as lincoln said you have to figure out where you came from to know what to do next. It cant just be antitrump. They have to reach out to the values of the Democratic Party. Its going to be hard, but theyve got to have a positive it didnt work in the campaign to just be antitrump and its not going to work on the opposition either. Doris put her finger on it. Two weeks after barack obama was inaugurated and im sitting at the rnc thinking what do i do with this . I have a base thats disturngz functional and the message is all over the place. You have to figure out where you came from and where we came from was the desert. 06, 08. So the messaging is critical. Right now those who are running for the chairmanship of the party dont have a galvanizing message. They dont have a way to animate the base. The base is going in one direction. Right. The Party Leadership is standing still, and then those other democraho watching this whole episode and going okay. Well just wait and see. That is not a good space for the democrats right now. Single most important moment this week politically which was largely overlooked was the meeting that donald trump had with Union Leaders on monday. The bricks the trades. The pipe fitters. The sheet Metal Workers and you didnt see a single aflcio member there and he is trying to steal that base. By the way, those Union Members came out hugely enthusiastic from that meeting, and if democrats dont remember that those are the people that they need to keep onboard because part of the problem here, lets not forget is the policies. Why are they thrilled with donald trump . Because he signed executive orders on the Keystone Pipeline and on the dakota. Line. Okay, well, this was this is heretical to guys like howard dean. The ted kennedy and harkin they would have loved this. You connect with them in the gut level and theyre not interested in the details. To doris point democrats have to connect to the gut concerns and take them to a more progressive direction and that will take a rethinking of the whole platform and agenda. The democrats did that after goldwaters huge walloping. They had think tanks and reorganized and rethought and it could be a challenging moment, but unless they understand what happened it wont work. Wye went from think tanks to grassroots and that was the difference. Does anybody know who the leader of the Democratic Party is . No, but this is always the problem. Its a vacuum. The torch has been passed to a new generation. Its got to be out there. Nobody goes to grab the torch. All right. Were waiting. Im going to take a quick pause. We are back. Before we go, remember to check out the podcast. I talked with Ari Fleischer about whether the media is an Opposition Party and its a fascinating conversation. You wont want to miss it. Youll find it in itunes and the Apple Podcast app. When we come back, the republican partys struggle your body was made for Better Things than rheumatoid arthritis. Before you and your rheumatologist move to another treatment, ask if xeljanz is right for you. Xeljanz is a small pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. Xeljanz can reduce joint pain and swelling in as little as two weeks, and help stop further joint damage. Xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. Dont start xeljanz if you have an infection. Tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. Start and while taking xeljanz, and monitor certain liver tests. Tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. Xeljanz can reduce the symptoms of ra, even without methotrexate, and is also available in a oncedaily pill. Ask about xeljanz xr. This car is traveling over 200 miles per hour. To win, every millisecond matters. Both on the track and thousands of miles away. With the help of at t, Red Bull Racing can share critical information about every inch of the car from virtually anywhere. Brakes are getting warm. Confirmed, daniel you need to cool your brakes. Understood, brake bias back 2 clicks. Giving them the agility to have speed precision. Because no one knows like at t. Safety doesnt come in a box. Its not a banner that goes on a wall. Its not something you do now and then. Or when its convenient. Its using stateoftheart simulators to better prepare for any situation. Its giving offshore teams onshore support. And its empowering anyone to stop a job if something doesnt seem right. At bp, safety is never being satisfied. And always working to be better. Back with the panel once again. Voter fraud, didnt get to that. Mexico, the border and didnt get to that and then there was this leak, audio leak from the republican congressional retreat when they were clearly having a session about, all right, how obamacare and kimberly strassel, everything leaked out nothing said was surprising. They realized, theyre worried about the politics and theyre worried about making it affordable and worried about everything that they should be worrieded about, but it served as a reminder to me, they better not rush. Look, if im a republican leader im probably thrilled that this came out and leaked and it shows that they are focused on the right questions. They may not have all of the answers yet. Who can . This is a very complicated market, but theyre talking about what do we do to make sure the most number of people have this and they have very good ideas that theyre debating back and forth and they look like people they are deliberating over the issues that you would Like Congress to be deliberating over. Also still more debating needs to be done and potentially give us a little bit of a grace period in congress to work on this. Heres the rub. Youve had six, now seven years to figure this out. So the in a room in philadelphia at this stage, having a discussion about how youre going to replace the very thing that youve been fighting against for the last six years is a problem. So in one sense, yes, the leak is a good thing. I dont think thats true. Oh, come on. Youve been telling your base, youve been telling the country, were going to repeal and replace and the one question everybody asks is what are you replacing with and now youre having the discussion . You are so straightforward. Thank god for you. Lets call it what it is. For a guy that won the presidency and now theyre struggling to get the second paragraph. Think about isis. Im going to wipe isis off the face of the earth. To do that we have to take mosul and we need deep sunni cooperation and what did they do yesterday . Tell the iraqis and take the field and die for what you believe in. Good luck wit the real problem with President Trump is his support, his base are the ones most likely to be hurt unless this thing is done right. When Social Security was passed the republicans thought they could go against it and they started putting suits against it the in 1936. Roosevelt won by this huge majority because people already had it and they didnt want to lose it. It is difficult for many people out there to be worse than it is right now. Oh, it is. It does appear that republicans, whatever they replace it is going to be a permanent infrastructure for healthcare in this country which is something that you could argue they were fighting against for a while. Look, i think what people underestimate or miss is when you look at the broad planks of what is going to happen. Of course, they know what theyre going to do, youre going to have insurance you can buy across state lines and have tax credits for certain people out there, theyll get the mandates and requirements to bring costs done. A lot of this is about deta and how you actually deal with the mess that exists now and the cost. And theres cost. And the cost. Exactly. Big government. All right. I can take another quick break. Well be back with 45 seconds and were marking meet the press 78th year and tom brokaw is celebrating his anniversary, his first 50 years at nbc news. Coming up meet the press endgame and post game brought to you by boeing, always its okay when you see Something Different to have questions. A good question is a great start to understanding. Take a little time out of your day to learn something new about someone else. All the greatest adventures start with an interesting question. The more you know. Meet the press endgame is brought to you by boeing. Always working to build something better. This is nbc bringing you the latest these. In the north, south, east and west. Its Americas Press conference of the air. From washington. The worlds longestrunning television program. Meet the press. Celebrating its 70th year. If its sunday, its meet the press. All right. I could watch that open over and over again. This morning were beginning our 70th anniversary celebration. Yes, its been 70, went on the air in 1947 and we are the longestrunning show on television, take that bart simpson and who better to kick things off than the man celebrating his own anniversary. Tom brokaw is, marking 50 year on nbc and so hes the bridge that connects these two celebrations. Tom, youve been thinking about all of this a lot. Your career, the span of it all, whats it all mean to you . Well, one of the things im thinking this morning is the first time i appeared on meet the press was a sunday morning after the saturday night massacre, chuck and meet the press as i was growing up the high church of washington talk shows and i continue to do this in a completely bipartisan fashion and you have maintained that standard all along and what were seeing once again is the importance of a on. Ive seen a lot of transitions and ive never seen one quite as seismic as this one and so many things are in motion domestically, internationally and otherwise and it would require on the part of the press, those of us that do this is taking another view. When we talk about the press and talked about it earlier in the show about the comparisons between the white house and the press that was very similar to nixon and the press corps. In fact, im going to throw to a brief highlight from your special tonight that is very meet the press centric that is from those nixon years. Here it is. At his last meeting with the White House Press, i quoted legal experts who said executive privilege does not apply in impeachment proceedings. My question is this, arent your statements to that matter historically inaccurate or at least, misleading . Principle of confidentiality is concerned, that principle still stands. The Supreme Court ruled against nixon. This appears to be the final day of his administration. In august 1974 he became the first president to resign his office. But we met several times again including in 1988 on meet the press. Do you see anything that you might have done differently . Well, i suppose i could have treated the press better. I wasnt looking for that necessarily. But then they might have treated me better. There you go, tom. That was a fascinating i wonder if one day a former President Trump might say the same thing . You know me, chuck, the unforeseen will occur. Im not sure thats going to be part of it, but i do remember after i asked that question and i worked hard on getting all of the legal experts to reinforce what i thought would be the zigler came to me and took me apart because i had been disrespectful in his words, to the president. It was the president s last appearance before the White House Press corps. We we we are in a very different set of circumstances in part because there is a lot that is not known and it plays out and everyone has a kind of philosophical investment in what is going on. So im going to be interested in how this particular phase of the Trump Presidency plays out. What the consequences may be. I think theres something worth remembering here. The members of the senate who are republicans are going to have to go back and run on the trump policies and their various states and theyve got to be thinking about that, as well. Thats for sure, and as you know, the campaign of 2018 is probably going to be upon us sooner than we think. Tom, thank you, sir. Remember, a special broadcast, tom brokaw at nbc n 9 00, 8 00 central. Who needs football . You have brokaw. No football, brokaw. Thats all we have for today. Well be back next week because if its sunday, its meet the press. You can see more endgame and post game sponsoreded by boeing on the meet the press facebook page. By boeing on the meet the press facebook page. Bp engineers use robotic ultrasound technology, so they can detect and repair corrosion before it ever becomes a problem. Because safety is never being satisfied. And always working to be better