In homestead, florida, where ie grup, the conditions are horrible. They are. On jining a lautd that would kill coverage for preexisting conditions. R am in favo of preexisting conditions. So drop the lawsuit. So, we will drop your aspect of the lawsuit. And his biggest regret as president. If you could have one doover as president , what wouldt be . And how mr. Trump thinks impeachment c impact his reelection opportunities. If hell keep mike pence on the ticket and whether hes prepared to lose the election. This morning oneonone withen presidtrump. Plus, the democrats ashee into the first debates, joe biden and Pete Buttigieg confront difficult questions on race. Joining me are nbc News White House correspondent kristen welker. William baker, chief correspondent for the new york times. Wall street journalist peggy noonan andlanhee chen of Stanford University welcome to sunday and a special edition of meet the press. Announcer from nbc news, the longest running show in television history, this is aed special ion of meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. Its safe to say were at one of the prift points of20 the election cycle. S at thee time, democrats will unofficially hear the starting gun for their nomination fight wha 20idates face off for two nights of debates this wming week in miami. Even though het be there, President Trump will be a dominant presence at tho debates. One way or the other, the 2020 election will be a referendum on donald trump. The president will argue hes a successful business n turned president whos created a strong economy, appointed conservativeu dges, ended unnecessary regulations and established a sense of strong and, yes, feared america around the world. In short, helargue hes made erica great again. Democrats will say hes a bigot whos praised neonazis, caged children, lied shamelessly and embarrassed america before the world. In short, theyll argue hes unfit for the office. I sat down with President Trump fridaymorning phofor an intervi that touched on, well, everything. We startedec with his dion just hours earlier to call off a retaliatory strike after iran shot down an unmanne american drone. Mr. President , welcome back to meet the press. Thank you. Let me start right in. Ap what hned last night . Well, you had a situation that was very bad because the night before they shot down an unmanned drone. And the unmanned is a very big factor. The fact there was not a person on it, a u. S. Person on it or anybody. And that had an impact on me. I said, well, you know, we got a little problem. And i think they did it on purpose because they understand that they will be hit very hard if that were a plane with a person in it. And i think they knew that there was nobody there. So, we had a very modest but pretty heavy attack scheduled. And this was a preplan you had. Something that if you did something they were sort of readymade plans. We had many of them. I have so many targets, you wouldnt believe. We have targets all over. Did you green light something or had you osaid, if we d it, ill do this . What was the order . Nothing is green lighted until the very end because things change. So you neval gave a f order . No, no. We had something ready to go, subject to my they came in, they came thisou abt a half hour before and said, were about ready to go. I said, i want a better definition were planes in theair . No, no. They were about ready to go. No, but they would have been pretty soon. Things would have happen to a point where you wouldnt turn back or couldnt turn back. So, they came and they said, sir, were ready to go. Wed like a decision. I said, i want to know something before you go. How many people will be killed . In this case iranians. I said, how many people are going to be killed . Sir, id like to get back to you on that. Op great pe, these generals. They said came back, said, sir,ma approly 150. And i thought about it for a second. I said, you know what, they shot down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call t, and here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have ithin a ace probably half an hour after i said go ahead. And i didnt like it. I didnt think it was i didnt think it was proportion te. Do yonk they were trying to provoke you . No, i dont think so. And it was very important to them dont forget you dont think they intended to get you to respond . Militarily their economy is shattered. Shattered. Whats the the inflation is through the roof. Worse than anyplace theyre living n well. Do you want to do a separate deal with iran or get everybody invoed in the same deal, get the russians,chinese. I dont care what kind of a deal. It can s barate or total. Its oneonone talks you and the ayatollah or tt it doesnt to me. Anything to get you to the result, they cannot have a nuclear weapon. Its not about the straits. A lot of people cover i incorrectly. They never mention they cannot have a nuclear weapon. Theydse it. And theyre not going to have a nuclear weapon. Did you send a ssage last night . Reuters is reporting you sent a message to the iranians saying, i dont want a war. I want to talk. I did not send tha message. Send a message right nowto the ayatollah. Its fake news. Send a message right now to the ayatollah. Itn woube much different from that message. Which is . Im not looking for war. Objecte is, it will be lit rags like youve never seen before. But you cant have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk good otherwise youll have a bad economy for three years. No not as far as im concerned. No preconditions. And youll talk anyway . Here it is. You cannot have nuclear weapons. If you do, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time to coue. Do yo feel like you were being pushed into military action by any of your advisers . I havewo groups of people. I have doves and some hawks. You have some seriouss. Hawk john bolton is an absolute hawk. If it was up to him, he would take on the world at one time. I was against going into iraq. For years and years. Before it ever happened, against going into iraqi. I was a private citizen. I was against going into the middle east. Chuc we spent 7 trillion in the middle east right now. What would candidate trump have said about a president who on hi watch had iran shooting down a drone, a venezuela dictator thumbing his nose at you, no resul on the border. Let me what would candidate trump say. The border is doing great. Mexico has been fantastic. Theyve been trying to get a deal with mexico for 45 for 45 years they couldnt get a deal. I got one in one day. We agreed in one day. Co meust moved 6,000 people to their southern border. 6,000 troops to their southern border. The border is working out well and the wall is being built. People dont like to talk about well have 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year. Thats hard because the democrats dont want to approve it. We just beat them in a big lawsuit, as you know, in washington and d. C. We jusbeat them in a big lawsuit doesnt it worry you your border numbers are worse than obamas . No, people are coming up because the economy is good. Obama had a lousy it was a dead economy. Let me show you this chart. You see that chart . Yeah. Ts the Unemployment Rate from the peak of the recession. Your economy is great. Im not saying its not great. Bu this recovery started and in the 28 months youve been president and the last 28 months of obamas pridency, he averaged more new jobshan your first 28. Thats because he started off with such a bad base. Okay. I mean, he hits but is it not chuck, you have to laderstand, nobody was working. The whole p was a disaster. And i dont ive never take that awayryut its easy because when that turned they pumped a tremendous amount of money into e economy. He also had a Federal Reserve person who kept the Interest Rates low. I do not. Sounds like you do now. No, no. He raised them far too fast. Your threat to demote him. Do you think thats had an impact . I never threatened to demote him. There was talk you threatened to demote him to the number two spot. I can do that. Thats not a threat . I he the right t do that but i havent said that. What hes done is 50 billion a month in quantitative tightening . Thats ridiculous. He raised Interest Rates too fast. Do you think its going to hurt your reelection . I think the economy is so strong, well bowl through it but im not happy with his actions. No, i dontthink hes done a good job. If he didnt raise rates obama had very low rates. Obama was playg with funny money. I wasnt. Im playing with the real stuff. Let me ask you this. Wait, wait. Obama had somebody that kept the rates very low. I have someone that raised ths ratery rapidly, too much. He made a mistake. Thats been proven. And yet my economy is phenomenal. We have now the best economa ybe in the history of our country. Just to finish off. When i took over this country, the economy was ready to collapse. You take a look at the numbers. It was ready to collapse. And if i didnt win i just showed you the numbers. It wasnt ready to collapse. You showed me the Unemployment Rate. Take a look at your gdp, optimism, all of theen charts wh i took over, from election day on, you show me one chart i did well in that too, but im not talking about that. Take a look at the optimism charts, it went from 57 to 92. Ure right. Youre right. Optimism, youre right. Optimism is a bi part of success in business. You were always hard on obama. You didnt think he was enough of a cheerleader. He was not a cheerleader. If you could have one oder as president , what would it be . It would be personnel. If it would be one doover, i would nohave appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general. That in your mind yes. Is bill barr your i think hes a very talented you always said, wheres my i had many, many lawyers. Roy was one of them. He was a tough guy. Cut from the same cloth, do yo think . Bill barr is equally as tough. Hes a fine man. Hes a fine man. Th e job hes done is incredible. Hes brought sanity back. I think s real. I dont think, i know. Hes respected. He loves the department of justice. He saw what was happening. He has done a spectacular job. Now hes in the process of doing mething and i stay away from it. I really i stay away from it. But i think he feels that whats happened in this country was a very bad thing a f very bad our country. Thats part one of my interview with President Trump. Since theres a lot to unpack, well unpa it inbitesized chunks. Let me bring in my panel, peggyn noon kristen welker, peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for the new york times. First takeaway, peter. Youre jousting him in an interesting way. Its interesting hes letting you do this. Most president s wont allow you to push him that way but thats the only way you get him to talk. I think he likes that. I think he doin. And i hes enjoying giving you his case for reelection, as you already outlined, basically. Hes runningmyhe econo despite all the things obama had done wrong. Hes the one who will be tough on iran when obama just gave away the store. The question is whether the results are going to end up being there november 2020. As you said, wall is not built. Border crossings are up. N ca he make enough of a case on obamacare. E already made foils. His fed chair can slow down the economy. Democrats hurt him at the rder. Jeff sessions, worse mistake he made. Those are people to blame if things arent going right. Let me start there, chuck. He mentioned Jeff Sessions, but he first said personnel. Thought that was notable. Look at how this week evolved. Hes grappling with iran butdo nt have a defense secretary in place. Hasnt had a Permanent Defense secretary for six months. Hes dealing with whats der, this at the bo decision to pull back on his that of i. Krmplgc. E. Deportatid taking aim at Jerome Powell and dangling the possibility of demoting him to the second spot. Youre starting to see him line theexcuses, but it continues to plague him as he makes these critical choices. What did you see there, peggy . All correct. I agree with everything you said but mostly what i saw was he loves this. He loves talks. He loves interviewing. Hes loaded for bear. Hes thought out the forrays hes going to take in the future. I thought the most interesting thing heid was, i have doves and i have hawks. Explaining his iran decision this week. I think the American People will be sympathetic to that decision, sympathetic to the declared reasons for it. And sympathetic or supportive of the idea hes thinking about this and hes got a lot of different people and he listens to them and then he makes a decision. Ill tell you, i dont believe he ever would have ordered the strike. The person iveed intervi and known for a long time and his position on this, but he he was reveling in the fact he had everybody confused. Thishe was t classic articulation of trumpian democracy at work. I mpian diplomacy at wor mean. You think about it this way. Theres a piece of leverage, that maybe hes created and he doesnt allow people to really s know what he thinkings. And so he may or may not exercise or use that leverag he uses that to bring his adversary to the table. Youve seen it with north korea. Uve seen it with china. Youve seen it with mexico. Now youre seeing it with iran. And it is in many ways its become entirely predictable. The unpredictable has become predictable. I think youre right. I think if you look at trump from the campaign, you look at the donald trump we know about sot wanting to get entangled in the middle ea it was very unlikely he was going to launch that. Was that a confident president or is he trying to show too so much confidence because hes nervous about the economy. He is nervous about iran. He is nervous about the border. Hes nervous about Jeff Sessions, which is code for igations and mueller. Look, as you said, he Just Announced his reelection. Hes eager to get out in the fight. But theres this insecurity that fuels this cocky kind of persona he likes to project to the public. Es always been this idea that he hasnt done enough to impress the elites, even at the same time he lkes to bash the elites. I think this a is part parcel of his appeal, peggy has written oout this, to a lot of americans whout there feel the same way. You guys are looking down on me, but im doing okay he. Why do you treat me this way . Chuck, i wrote this phrase down when you asked him about the economy. He said, t were going bowl through it. I thought that was striking. Ist not sort of the word or the term that you would i use youre feeling really confident about the future prospects of the economy. Thats a grinder comment. Im going grind my reelection. Exactly. I saw a president at the white house this week and in your interview, internally conflic d conflicted. How to seem tough and not get mired min theddle east. Coming up, more of my President Trump interview. The battle over preexisting of those and all children in migrant camps. Theyre in terrible shape down there, mrpresident. Down there in homestead, florida, thats where i grew up, the coitions are terribnd alarm beeping o welcome tour busy world. Where we all want more energy. But with less carbon footprint. Thats why, at bp, were working to make energy s thatcleaner and better. Were producing cleanerburning natural gas. 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Trying to make medications more affordable is important, but if washington isnt careful we might leave innovation behind. Lets fix the system the right way. Innovation is hope, and the last thing you want to lose in life is hope. Welcome back. Continuing now with my interview with President Trump. As youle see, w hit a lot of topics in this part of our sitdown, starting with the crisis on the border. I want to ask whats going down with these children in the migrant camps. The stories are horrible, mr. President. You have children without their parents. H youave kids taking care of kids. Y yeah. ve read these reports. I know people are coming to ky. You think this is the democrats problem. Well forget it. Why arent you doing something about it. Are you ready . Theyre in terrible shape down there, mr. President. Down in homestead, florida, where i grew up, the conditions are terrible. I agree. Do something. And its about enthat huawei for a long time. Do something. And preside obama built the cages. They said i built them. Do two wrongs make a chuck, listen for one second. Spras for president obama, i took over separation. Im the one that put i together. Whats happening are the cartels and all these bad people are using the kids. Theyre its almt like slavery. Lets not punish the kids more. This is the kids are getting punished more. Youre right. And thien has be happening long before i got there. What weve done is created weve ended separation. You know, under president obama you had separation. I was one that ended it. Now, i said one thing. When i ended it, i said, heres whats going to happen. More families are going to come up. And thats whats happened. But theyre really coming up for the economics. Once you ended the separation but i ended separation. I inherited separation from president obama. President obama built they call them jail cells. They were built by the obama lets talk about, your administration, youre not doing the recreation, not even schooling these kids anymore. You got were doingc a fantas job under the circumstances. The democrats arent even approving giving us money. Wheres the money . You know what,he democrats are holding up the humanitarian aid. It looks like these kids are being used as some sort of s it hostage . Well, they are being used. They are being used b by very people on t