Transcripts For WRC Meet The Press 20240714 : comparemela.co

I think fwhoowere in the position. Adam schiff, rick scott of florida, and tom steyer. Plus politics. President trump calls a black congressm congressmans district a disgusting rat and rodent inf t infested district. Joe biden promising a less polite performance this w time. Ell see. Joining me is rich lowery. Helene copper. Welcome to sunday, its meet press. The longest running show in television history, this is meet the press. With chuck todd. If democrats squinted just hard enough they could say they got what they wanted from robtt moo Robert Mueller this week. Sey said it i wrong to accept assistance from a foreign government. Ot exonerate not fuueller did e president. No he was not cleared of obstruction of justice, yes, mr. Trumps business dealings with russia during the campaign, and no the investigation was not a witch hunt if is also true that muellers six hours of reluctant testimony, repeating or riconfirming what was alt released what was produced to the public months ago faile to produce a cant pull your eyes away mont. Wednesdays hearing exposed Congressional Republicans as more interested in things other than the russiane. Interferenc and it is continuing at this very moment. For now the next move again is with the democrats as they debate among themselves once again whether or not to move ahead with impeachment proceedings. Were watching the temperature rise. T were quite at boiling point, but were close. Everyone was waiting for mueller, but after his halting and somewhat reluctant performance t i is problematic is annder statement. What is the citation, sir. Now theyre waiting for House Speaker nancy elosi . Are you trying to run out the clock . No, lets get sophisticated about this. Theyme out of wednesdays hearing not ready to budge on impeachment. But they dont seem ready to rule it out, either, and the waiting game is nothingnew. For nearly two acquires they havuated. First for muller to complete his investigat tn. Release Mueller Report as soon as possible. Then for the unredacted version. Congress must get the full unredacted report anteevidence. N then to hear from mueller himself. In terms of bob mueller, he will have to testify. And now a new hurdle from the house judiciary chairman, jerry nadler. If our committee isgoing to recommend articles of impeachment to the house, we must make the strongest possible case to our public. Democrats are divided between peach now progressives and wait and see moderates, their united against mueller. He lied three tim he pointed out in the report, why didnt you charge him with a report. When christopherteel lied, nothing. Trump is not above thelaw, but he certainly isnt blow it either. Over the course of myicareer have seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The russian governments effort toer intre in our election is among the most serious. A day later, a Bipartisan Senate report detailed those efforts showing the election systems of all 50 states were targeted by russia in 2016, t that report from the Senate Intell committee se s to be where outrage ends. Mitch mcconnell again blocking consideratioof bill put farce mothly by democrats. They spent two years hyping up a experience theory about President Trump in russia. That is a far cry fr where mcconnell and other republicans were in 2016 and 2017. Let me just speak for myself. The russians are not our friends. They need to pay a price. S it i unacceptable that russia or any other country but russia meddled in our elections. Period that ist right there. Joining me now is adam schiff whis chairman of the house chej committee, welcome back to meet the press. Thank you. Referee having a few days to have the hearings sink in, im sure you reviewed the transcripts as well. They welcomed russian help, built it into the game main plan, and then lied about it and that there was multiple acts by the president that constitute ststruction of jue. This was essentially a campaign and president focused by greed. I found his temperature chilling and most chilling the fact that they confirmed that the rush shaps have neverhe stopped t campaign. The acceptance of foreign help, the willingness to reive , may become a new normal under this president and that ought to alarm every american. Quite a few people observed that your half of the hearing seemed to animate mr. Mueller a little more. He seemed to give more on since ers than he did in the first part. It made some of us wonder would the obstruction charges be easier for americans to understand if they had seen pret senation of theit crime lf first. You were part one but you came as part two of part two of muellers testimony. I think there may be a number of reasons why the testimo in theecond hearing came more naturally to the special council. This animated his wor for decades, that is protecting the country, and i think he is most concerned that were not rising to the challenge of protecting our elections and our democracy. And so you could see him become the most passionate about that. I think that we could go second hat he r the questions would respond to. We understood the dynamic a little better than if we had been up to bat first. James comey announced, Robert Mueller, the report was he submitted in tspring. It was seasons, it took essentially four months. Obviously you wish it had been oner. Could you have done more to make it happen sooner . Im not sure what more we could have done. Of course bill barrithheld the report as long as he could. He wanted the narrative baked in as long as possible in is the same reason it took so long to get mueller. The American People have to realize it is not the evidence, it is the summary of the evidenke. I would li to see the evidence. I would like to hear from the witnesses before we make a decision about charging the president. I think where we are is stri described is preliminary to a u judicial hearing. But yes, it is taking too long, but that is largely byde the gn of the president. Was there any part of his testimony that you found yi unsatisf . I wish that he had testified in a more narrative fashion. The words didnt need to be coaxed from him as much as it did. You were hoping bring it alive . I think it came alive more through very short questions and ar answers rather than a great deal of description. I thinknt going i the hearing, we should not have too many expectations because we know the substance of his testimony. Most people have had it filtered by the misleading characterization. There was a linguistic debate. You said we are a at preliminary stage of an investigative all right, is this impeachment or not . And youre not there yet, why . I think for the purposes of the proceeding it is a potential impeachment and i say that because what we say, what we ask of the constitution, is what is the function of how we describee soing . And right now the most important thing is we really set it for the course. And i think we are. Where we will get to for an impeachment, get to a decision, lets diindict the preshent, impeac the president , we have to be oky, but we should be able to make the case to the American People and i like to see the evidence so im confident that we can do that before we say were ready to charge the president of the United States. That is unsatisfactory to so. Pelosi has set an extraordinary precedent. That clear evidence, meticulously collected, that a president has confirmed when she calls crimes against the constitution does not con city substitute sufficient grounds for this gets to the argument that says regardless of what you think the outcome is in the senate, t nt press if. Ntde do it. Look, there is, i think, a great weight to the argument that this is the strongest form of senture that we have. What message does that. Losing that, having the president ui acqed, and having an adjudication that it is not simple. I think that is a preordained case for the American People, i want to make sure that is true. It will occupy the nationals time. I there a moment when were too late. It is justiceni de. They are doing everything they can to obstruct the congressional investigation, having on instructed justice, so there may be a point in the fall where we decide ok, heis violating a different part of the constitution. That will not be a crime or a misdemeanor. It is misdeaning in office. So this is why i say the president is doing everything he n to get us into impeachment. That in list be an impeachable. Fess you dont want there to be a deadline youre saying . Im saying there will be a deadline because we will either get the answers we need or the presidits obstruction be so complete thathat itself backs becomes a ground for his impeachment. Chairman of the intell committee, thank you for coming on. Joining me now is senator rick scott of florida. Welcome back to meet the press. Good morning, chuck, how are you doi . m good. I want to start with the Senate Intelligence Committee Report that was just released the day after the report. They carried into at least 2017, in an attempt to intrude at some point all 50 states where the russians extracted information,. The russians say that russia ran china. Gent. Ve to be very di when i was governor, i allocated dollars for Cyber Security and dollars for our separately elected county supervisors. We passed a provision with the ndaa. Look the russians arethere and re going to try to get into our system. It seems like thede presi even did it, if they did it theyre not being deterred. The president himself poopoos this, how will we get deterrents if thed president wont st up to him . Lets look at the facts. President obama did not dohehat hould have done and thats why the russians were able get into two counties in florida. The Trump Administration put a lot of effort into 2018. So a lot of effort into this, but but youre avoiding the part, the president mocked in front of a worldudience when a reporter asked did you ask vladimir putin, did you tell him not to lterfere in the elections. Letsok at the Trump Administration and what they have done. Lets look at their words and actions. They have been very aggressive to make sure there is no influence for any oer country. And theyre going to do, and not jure russia, the going to try to impact their elections and be diligent. You brought up two counties. It was the state of illinois, the state of florida is anonymous in here. There is a lot of speculation based on simir eporting that it is likely state two referred to in this eport in florida. Did you learn new information from this report that you did not know as governor at the time. You have never read that report . No,av i h had briefings. We know they tritw to get into counties in florida. They didnt have any impact on the election. I put a lot of effort in to ma t suy could not get into the election. We had our Cyber Security experts, and we also allocated dollars to our supervisor of ouections. Y were talking about briefings you got. Did you get direct briefings in 2016 or was it through other channels that dhs contacted florida . Not directly to me, but in 2018 in my election i reached out to homeland security, fbi, and doj to make sure it was nothing they had. They told me at t time they had no infiltration of our system at the time. When did you find out about the 2016 infiltraon . It really happened this year. And so i have gotten briefings, and bottom line is they got into o counties, they had no impacts, they didnt change any voter registration, voter rolls, we put a lot of effort in to make sure that couldnt happen. You talk about changing votes. If it is an influence campaign or worse they have taken voter information, it is not influencing the votes, iis he concern that voters wont see their names on the voter rolls. That they will be turned away there. They already got a bunch of information from the state of illinois. How do we prevent this in 2020. I think the secretary of work s office wants to together to make sure this doesnt happen. We did it in florida. We made sure we worked with d. O. J. To make sure it didnt happen. The russians are here and other countries,heyre going to try to influence our flexielections heyre doing the same thing in europe. You spent a lot of time, energy, and resources trying to win over nonwhite voters in the state of florida in your elections for governor and the senate. You learned spanish, youspeak spanish, the president spends a lot of time on his twitter feed tryio racially divide the country, does that under mine efforts in the republican state of florida. I first think it is important he talk to everyone. Running for election or when youre elected you represent everybi y. On friday t with a group of can chinese americans. I think we do everything we have to bring this country back together. Why doesnt the president think that. Doing this is just stoking racial resentment left and right. He did it multiple timesnt this mo alone. He thinks this is good politics inside the Republican Party. Do you think it is good politics in the Republican Party . Said s look at what h and why he did it. Congressman cummings sat there and attacked our Border Patrol agents, all righ this reminds me of what that justifies a racial resentment tweet inr ponse . Is that president ial leadership . Well no, i look, i didnt do the tweets. I cant talk about why he did what he did, but im disappointed in people like congressman cummings who is attacking Border Patrol agents who are trying to do their job without the fundingh t democrats will not give them. I have been to the border, i lked to Border Patrol agents, i know they care about these individuals. We have to gem them the o resources to deir job. Its not lost on me that you were harsherou on elijah umming than on the president on what he has done. I understand the politics ofit, but do we ever heal if each side goes into the corner. If ire with him,ly disagree with him. I will disagree with him when i disagree with him. He is not happy with it, ofno course but just like on puerto rico, im going to do what is in the best interest of my state. Im disapporeted when people a out there attacking Border Patrol agents . Would i like everyone to come together and work gether . Thats what im trying to do in my state. The country is divided because of a lot ofgs thin i will leave it there, senator rick scott, most senators that used to be governors probably prefer the governor title anyway. Thank you for comiing on. Do kevin, meet your father. Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin Kevin kevinke vin kevin trusted advice for life. Kevin, hows your mom . Life well planned. See what a Raymond James Financial Advisor can do for you. But dad, youve got allstate. With accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates wont go up just because of an accident. Smart kid. Indeed. Are you in good hands . Lets go we carry flowers thasignifyion why we want to end the disease. E and we walk so that y, there will be a white flower for alzheimers first survivor. Join the fight at alz. Org walk. Fifty years ago, humanity went to a place it had never been. A place without rivals, hostilities, or cultural differences. The eagle has landed that place wasnt 240,000 miles away, one small step for man for a few momet s, it was right hereme, one giant leap for mankind over 4lp00 people from ibm apollo 11 get us there, re today, we ary to take the next giant leap, wherever it may lead. Welcomeback. We have rich lowry. Av wea great set up here and he wrot this. Know that youre likely going to fall short, and you may improve the chances of reelection. If they choose not to impeef, they run that risk. But do they have the democratic dill lem ma, right . Where is the wrach from . It seems they are coming from inde of a bubble. We didnt here in a in 2018. You talk to members, theyre not getting gone calls saying you better impeach or you lost us. It is not spilling out. Lets talk to a democrat here. Is there season saying im going to vote against him . No, we have our hot set up this year. I dont think yun time the impeachment issue has been raised. Theyre saying are we going to spend all of our talk talking about peachment. You dont worry about it . We dont have enough to say in pressdense, but talking about the issues for the tax cut for the rish, the issues of racial division. We win when we talk about health care, infrastructure, good quality jobs, those are the core democratic values. What democrats care about is beating trump. Thats what they want. Are you convince thad impeachment helps trump . I think the compromi at moment is a cat situation where it is kind of dead and it is kind of alive at the same time. If they really start an inquiry will they say there are no articles. And you look at the poll last ek there is a swath of issues with democratic support. Y would they focus on one thing that does not have political support. I think the order their american doesnt really understand anyway. I think in the end, and im not tag about the left part of the base, i think they are interested in whatever gets don mcgann on the stand. I think it is something people are not in tune with except for the interior of the democratic party. The president is insisting on trying to insert himself into the show today and yesterday we theseta ats. What do we have up there, guys . Lets get the initial tweet. As proven last week, the border is clean, efficient, and well run. The cummings district is a disgusting rat and rodent infested place. If he spent more time in baltimore maybe he could clean it up. We know what he isg, doin he committee is doing. Oversight he is creating the ultimate distraction for the entire Political Community which is race. Yes, this the tern rain that he is that he is on. Despite the fact that people give him credit for what he is doing on the economy. The governor made this point. Where do you want to fight . For democrats that is health care, that is where they want to be fighting, the president doesnt want to fight here because they will make unforced errors. It is too far to the eft. The stoking of resentment. That is not what it is about. He has a fact pattern that does not support that very well. I thi