WASHINGTON — Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., argued Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia interference could implicate President Trump in obstruction of justice, even as she remains hesitant to call for Trump's impeachment. 

"When you read that report in detail and you start out with what happened with Russia, to me, it looks like obstruction," she told "Meet the Press" on Sunday. 

"Maybe Russia didn't use tanks, maybe they didn't use missiles, but the invaded our democracy all the same."

Unlike some of her Democratic presidential primary opponents, Klobuchar hasn't outright called for impeachment. And she repeatedly dodged the question as to whether she supports the House beginning impeachment proceedings to flesh out the case agains the president. 

"The House is going to make that decision and for me, the most important thing is to hold this president accountable. And as Director Mueller himself pointed out in the report, there are many ways to do that," Klobuchar said to host Andrea Mitchell. 

"One is with the process through Congress which includes these investigations with the president is already stonewalling. The second is other investigations that are going on right now including in the state of New York. And the third is pretty straightforward, Andrea, that is defeating him in 2020. And that’s what I intend to do."

The partially-redacted report, which was released last week, concluded that while Trump's campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election activities.”

But after detailing 10 issues where the report investigated possible obstruction of justice, Mueller decided not to charge the president. 

"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," Mueller wrote. 

Watch Klobuchar's full interview below. 

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden began his third White House bid with a fundraising show of force, raising $6.3 million in his first day as a candidate.

The 24-hour total, as announced by the campaign Friday, would best the rest Democratic field to date, topping Beto O’Rourke’s first-day $6.1 million total. Bernie Sanders, whose 2016 campaign helped turn grassroots, online fundraising into a litmus test for party candidates, brought in $5.9 million on his first day.

The former vice president's campaign said it received donations from 96,926 individuals in all 50 states and U.S. territories. Among donations made online, 97 percent were in amounts less than $200, for an average online donation of $41.

Biden’s first full day as a candidate included not just a vigorous online fundraising push, but also a high-dollar fundraiser in Philadelphia Thursday evening.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who helped organize the event, told CNN Friday that that event alone helped raise three-quarters of a million.

“You’re part of the folks that brung me to the dance as they say a long time ago, from ’72 on,” Biden told several hundred donors at the home David Cohen, a Comcast executive. Comcast is the parent company of NBC News.

In his remarks, Biden also made clear that he would be focusing his campaign on rebuilding the middle class, calling it the “North Star” of his candidacy.

“You all are generous and successful people. But I look around at all of you and you’re the same people who understand that there’s a basic bargain that used to exist in this country, that if someone supported the enterprise that succeeded, they got to benefit from it just as well as everyone else. … It’s not the case anymore,” he said. “My north star of what we’re going to talk about in terms of the economy is restoring the middle class, but looking at economic dignity. Not just the GDP. What is happening to people. Do they have security?”

WASHINGTON — With just days left until Tuesday's primary for North Carolina's 3rd Congressional District, the more than two-dozen candidates running are racing to define themselves and gain any edge. 

The messaging from the ads is right in line with the trends from the 2018 cycle — most Republican ads are aimed at hugging President Trump close and portraying a tough approach, while Democrats are largely focusing on health care and the economy.

Here's a roundup of some of the prevailing themes from the airwaves in the race to succeed the late GOP Rep. Walter Jones. 

So many candidates

The GOP field of 17 candidates is so large that even GOP ads are poking fun at the amount of Republicans running. 

"They're identical. They love President Trump, they all shout louder than the rest: 'Build the wall.' But only one can get it done," the narrator says in an ad by an outside group supporting accountant Celeste Cairns.

"So many candidates for Congress. How do you choose? Send a Marine," an ad from Republican Chimer Clark's campaign begins. 

Trump is king

Support for the president is a centerpiece of many GOP campaign ads. 

Chimer Clark's campaign doesn't mention Trump by name in one of his ads, but it highlights how he is "pro-life, pro-gun and pro-wall" as Clark shoots at a target at a gun range. 

One of Phil Shepard's ads promises to "build the wall [and] shut ObamaCare down," adding "We have Trump, we need Shepard." 

And Republican Francis DeLuca's spot includes the former Marine helicopter pilot declaring "President Trump's right: Drain the swamp and build the wall. That's why I'm running for Congress." 

Attacks on Democrats

National Democrats and progressive policies are also evoked by Republican candidates.

In his ad, small businessman Eric Rouse shoots clay pigeons that have statements like "anti gun" and "Green New Deal" adorned on them. 

And an ad boosting pediatrician Joan Perry says her profession will help her take care of "kids" like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders, and ends with a video of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing. 

Democrats lean on bio, experience

The airwaves are far less crowded on the Democratic side—just four candidates have run ads. 

Former Marine pilot Richard Bew, New Bern Mayor Dana Outlaw  and former Greenville Mayor Allen Thomas all are sticking with bio spots that call out to a few key issues to Democrats: protecting Medicare, criticizing the GOP tax cuts, and equal access to health care. 

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidates are responding to former Vice President Joe Biden's decision to jump into the presidential race ... with fundraising appeals.

In the hours after Biden's announcement, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, California Sen. Kamala Harris, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders all reached out to their lists to raise money off of Biden's announcement. 

Booker's email appeal notes that "there is no doubt his decision could shake up the race," and warns that Biden's entry "poses a real challenge for an underdog campaign like ours."

Castro takes a more confident approach, arguing that he welcomes Biden's candidacy because even though he is not a frontrunner, "this country was not built by frontrunners."

O'Rourke's email and Sanders' text-message appeal strikes a similar note, both telling supporters that "today is an important day" to show support. 

Inslee's email points to his embrace of combating climate change, arguing that "with so many voices speaking up, it's up to us to ensure climate change becomes the defining issue of this race." 

And Harris pivots off of praise for Biden and her declaration that "the more, the merrier" in a primary to ask for a donation to help her "cut through the noise and reach more voters" in the crowded primary. 

WASHINGTON — Kate Bedingfield, the deputy campaign manager for former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential bid, argued Thursday that Biden can be the change that Democratic voters are looking for despite being one of the oldest candidates in the field. 

"Voters know Joe Biden. I think they know he's a man of character, he's a man of empathy," she said on MSNBC. 

"And, I think, as Democrats are looking for a change — and frankly, it's voters across  the country looking for a change from what we currently have in the White House — there's no bigger change than Joe Biden."

Watch Bedingfield's full interview with MSNBC's Hallie Jackson, hours after Biden launched his campaign, below. 

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., released 10 years of tax returns on Wednesday, which show that the lawmaker and 2020 hopeful gave $460,000 to charity between 2009 and 2018.

As a U.S. senator, Booker receives a salary of $174,000 a year. In 2018, he reported $152,715 in income and paid $29,446 in federal taxes. That same tax year, he gave $24,000 to charity. In 2017, the senator raked in more income than in 2018 — $429, 983 — in addition to his Senate salary thanks to $275,250 in income from "Rents, Royalties, Patents, and Copyrights." He paid $34,298 in taxes that year. 

Booker released a book in 2009 titled "United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good."

Booker now joins several other 2020 candidates who have publicly released tax returns public. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., released his long-awaited returns earlier this month. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., also released 15 years of returns. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., added 2018 to the 10 years of returns she released last August. In March, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., was the first candidate to release her 2018 returns, publishing 12 years total, and started an online petition that calls on every candidate to disclose their taxes. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, and his wife released 10 years of tax returns in mid-April.

Beto and his wife reported $370,412 in income in 2017, the most recent year available, and listed $1,166 in charitable giving, which is one-third of 1 percent. Harris and her husband made $1.9 million last year, according to her returns, and gave $27,000 to charity. Warren and her husband reported $906,000 in income and reported donating $50,000 to charity in 2018.

LAS VEGAS — Former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that his party can't "afford" to impeach President Donald Trump, arguing that such an effort could backfire politically. 

“If you look at what happened following the impeachment of President Clinton, his popularity rose dramatically,” Reid said. “We have just a short time until the next election. If impeachment proceedings go forward — and they might go forward — I think this country will be spending an inordinate amount of time on impeachment and nothing else. And I don’t think we can afford that.”

The former Nevada Senator appeared alongside former GOP House Speaker John Boehner for an on-stage interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada’s MGM Public Policy Institute.

Prior to the event, the two men had a chance to address a topic that’s historically dear to Reid on the Chuck ToddCast: term limits for judges. Some Democrats have flirted with supporting term limits as both a way to provide a check on the judiciary and lower the stakes of a confirmation battle. 

When asked if it's time to consider term limits for judges, Reid said, “the judiciary itself should take care of it.”  But, he added, "if they don’t do something about it themselves, Congress is gonna step in in the meantime.”

Boehner agreed: “I don’t think there’s any way to legislate this. But I think the Bar Association and these judges need to look in the mirror and determine what makes sense.”

WASHINGTON — As House Democrats weigh the potential costs and benefits of impeaching Trump, it’s worth noting how one of the Founding Fathers predicted impeachment would go.

Here is Alexander Hamilton writing in Federalist 65: 

“A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."

More:

"The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

Back then, Senators weren’t even elected directly by the people. And they were considered to have far more distance from political pressure than they do today, in part because the lack of the two-party structure that dominates modern American politics.

And even so, Hamilton warned that impeachment could “divide [the debate] into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused” and that the debate could ultimately be decided “more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

WASHINGTON — College Football Hall of Fame Coach Lou Holtz is backing one of his former Notre Dame players, Republican Ted Gradel, in his quest to face off against freshman Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood. 

Gradel jumped into the Republican primary for the western Illinois seat on Tuesday with a video that predominately features Holtz telling the story of Gradel's quest to become the starting Notre Dame kicker despite not coming into college with a football scholarship. 

"Americans know what it's like to be up against the odds. We just need our chance and leaders to protect our freedom, opportunity and the values that made this underdog nation the greatest on Earth," Holtz says as video 

"You give Ted Gradel a chance, I promise you, he won't let you down."

After his time playing football, Gradel went into a career as an investor and trader. It's because of that experience, he says, that he decided to run for Congress.

Gradel will have to wade through a crowded field if he wants to win the chance to challenge Underwood, a field that includes State Sen. Jim Oberweis, who was the party's nominee for Senate in 2014 and the party's nominee for the district in 2008 before redistricting shuffled the boundaries. 

Underwood defeated GOP Rep. Randy Hultgren in 2018 by 5 points, despite the fact that President Trump won the district in 2016 by 4 points. 

WASHINGTON—The Democratic presidential field has differing opinions on whether incarcerated felons should be allowed to vote, a divide that surfaced during a handful of candidate town halls on CNN Monday night. 

When asked about his view on the issue, Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders backed the idea of protecting the voting rights of people in jail, even violent felons, pointing to the fact that it's already law in his home state. 

"The right to vote is inherent to our democracy, yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say, Well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote.  Oh, that person did that, not going to let that person vote.'  You're running down a slippery slope," he said.   

"So I believe that people commit crimes, they paid the price.  When they get out of jail, I believe they certainly should have the right to vote.  But I do believe that even if they are in jail they're paying their price to society, but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy."  

Other candidates disagreed, or offered a more qualified answer.

• California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris: "I agree that the right to vote is one of the very important components of citizenship and it is something that people should not be stripped of needlessly...I think we should have that conversation. "
• South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, when asked if those incarcerated should be able to vote: "No, I don't think so. I do believe that when you are out, when you have served your sentence, then part of being restored to society is that you're part of the political life of this nation again.  And one of the things that needs to be restored is your right to vote."
• California Rep. Eric Swalwell: "Some people, like the Boston marathon bombers, those individuals should never vote in America again.”
• Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren addressed the issue Tuesday in a conversation with reporters, saying "I'm not there yet." 

While other issues, like health care and climate change, have dominated much of the presidential debate, many Democrats have previously voiced their support for a related measure—felon re-enfranchisement laws that would grant the right to vote back to former felons who complete their sentencing requirements. 

Harris, Buttigieg, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Warren and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke are among those who back that policy. 

The push comes months after a high-profile vote in Florida last November that gave formerly incarcerated felons the right to register to vote after completing any post-sentencing requirements (such as parole and probation.)