CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday: Making the case.
JOE BIDEN:
This is not a partisan moment. This must be an American moment.
CHUCK TODD:
Joe Biden frames his campaign against President Trump.
JOE BIDEN:
Character is on the ballot, compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy, they're all on the ballot.
CHUCK TODD:
With a little help from his friends and his running mate.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS:
The constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid.
CHUCK TODD:
Now, it's President Trump's turn.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
Joe Biden is a puppet of the radical left movement.
CHUCK TODD:
As he signals his campaign strategy.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I'm the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos.
CHUCK TODD:
My guests this morning Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller and former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg of Indiana. Plus, as President Trump continues his baseless attacks on mail-in voting.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
This is just a way they're going to try to steal the election.
CHUCK TODD:
House Democrats vote to block changes that slowed some postal service.
REP. NANCY PELOSI:
Don't pay any attention to what the president is saying because it's all designed to suppress the vote.
CHUCK TODD:
And a bipartisan Senate panel details the extensive ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.
SEN. MARK WARNER:
Unprecedented amount of Russian intervention and a myriad of contacts.
CHUCK TODD:
I'll talk to the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner. Joining me for insight and analysis are: NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker, Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal, and former Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Welcome to Sunday, it's Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
CHUCK TODD:
Good Sunday morning. The Democrats came out of their first-ever virtual convention making their case against President Trump both by looking to the past with luminaries like President Obama and to the future, with the woman they hope will become the next vice president, Kamala Harris. Joe Biden delivered what may have been the speech of his life, putting to rest, at least for now, the caricature President Trump has painted of him as mentally infirm and not up to the job. And Democrats made headway in uniting their often divided party, reaching out to Republicans, and stretching their tent without ripping it, yet. In short, they're coming out of their convention running the same campaign they did four years ago -- more on character and decency than on policy -- only this time against an incumbent president and with a nominee with lower negatives. So now, it's the Republicans' turn. President Trump will not have the tens of thousands of cheering supporters packed into an arena that he so desperately wanted. The coronavirus settled that. He will have four days to rewrite the Democrats' portrayal of him as the great threat to American democracy into one of a president who made America great again, is tougher on crime than Joe Biden and more trusted on the economy. But President Trump enters his convention trailing in the polls, with the coronavirus still out of control and the economy in tatters. And he's sounding increasingly desperate, perhaps fearful of losing, describing a dystopian view of America if Biden wins, with the president as the only thing standing between us and the end of American civilization.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
If our opponents prevail, no one will be safe in our country and no one will be spared.
CHUCK TODD:
President Trump -- ratcheting up his rhetoric -- after a week when Democrats painted a bleak future for the country if the president is re-elected, arguing the American democracy is at stake.
JOE BIDEN:
Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They're all on the ballot.
PRES. BARACK OBAMA:
Do not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy.
CHUCK TODD:
As he prepares to fight for another term at his convention this week - the president is escalating his assault on Biden, who he has struggled to effectively attack.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I'm the only thing standing between the American dream and total anarchy, madness and chaos.
CHUCK TODD:
It is a darker version of a line from four years ago.
DONALD TRUMP:
Nobody knows the system better than me -- which is why I alone can fix it.
CHUCK TODD:
But can the president make the case the election is a choice rather than a referendum on his own presidency.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
If you want a vision of your life under Biden's presidency, think of the smoldering ruins in Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago.
CHUCK TODD:
But Mr. Trump is president, and those images have happened on his watch. More than 70% of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. The Trump campaign has also struggled to come up with a tone and a message to counter Democrats' focus on the pandemic.
PRES. BARACK OBAMA:
Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe.
JOE BIDEN:
After all this time the president still does not have a plan. Well I do.
CHUCK TODD:
This week, the optics of the virus may be challenging, as the president tries to draw a crowd with an audience on the White House south lawn for his speech. And President Trump appears to be growing more agitated.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
If we don’t win it’s all gone, ok? It’s all gone.
CHUCK TODD:
Attacking the post office -- and escalating his attacks on mail-in voting.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I don’t like this mail-in ballot deal.
CHUCK TODD:
Threatening to use law enforcement at the polls, something he can't legally do.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
We’re going to have sheriffs and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys, and we’re going to have everybody, and attorney generals.
CHUCK TODD:
And embracing QAnon, a conspiracy theory the FBI has called a domestic terror threat.
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much which I appreciate. I've heard these are people who love our country.
KARL ROVE:
Big mistake. This is a group of nuts and kooks and he ought to disavow them.
CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now is Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller. Mr. Miller, welcome to Meet the Press. Let me start with how you plan to present your convention, the party's convention this week. You've got nearly 180,000 dead from this virus. We've got nearly 30 million people receiving some sort of unemployment benefit. The initial jobless claims went back over a million last week, as these benefits have gone away. So that's a tough, that’s a tough environment to present an upbeat convention, and yet the president says so. How do you do an upbeat convention with those numbers?
JASON MILLER:
Well, Chuck, good morning and thank you for having me on. We're going to see a very optimistic and upbeat convention this week from President Trump and our Republican allies, and actually from our Democratic and independent allies as well. One of the things you're going to see this week is a complete change in the perception that I believe that the media tries to tell about what a Trump supporter looks like or who a Trump supporter is. We're going to talk about the American story, about all the accomplishments that we've had over the last four years with President Trump and what the president's second-term vision is going to look like. And this is a big difference, Chuck, between President Trump and his convention this week and the Democrats last week. Last week, it was a massive grievance fest. We didn't hear about the vision for the future, how their policies would help people. And there's a reason for that. The reason is because they didn't want to talk about the $4 trillion in tax hikes, a Green New Deal. At a time when we can't afford to stop our economy and our economic growth, they want to throw it in reverse and go back to the policies of the past. That's wrong. But you're going to see a great, uplifting message from the president and from our allies. And, Chuck, when I tell you some of these stories that you hear, there are going to be some breakout stars, some people that you would not expect to be supporters of the president. And it's going to tell a very beautiful story.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, when you hear the unexpected about the president, we're hearing the unexpected today about the president with somebody with the last name of Trump, I want to play one of these quotes from the president's sister and ask you about it on the other side. This is from the president's sister, recorded by his niece, Mary Trump. Maryanne Trump, his older sister, did not know she was being recorded, but it was a legally made recording, according to New York state law. Here's what she said.
[BEGIN TAPE]
MARYANNE TRUMP:
His (BEEP) tweet and the lying. Oh my god. I'm talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories, the lack of preparation, the lying, the holy (BEEP).
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
You just made a case here, you know, that we're going to hear from unusual people that you wouldn't normally hear from perhaps at a Republican convention. These are the people that know the president best. They have the last name of "Trump." Are you concerned that this is going to have an impact on those swing voters who are like, "It's confirmation that, yeah, boy, even his own relatives think he lies too much"?
JASON MILLER:
No, Chuck. Sibling rivalries are nothing new in the world. It's been going on since the beginning of time. In fact, we heard some pretty pointed commentary from Malik Obama about former President Barack Obama. And so this is something, unfortunately, when you get to the White House, you have family members who sometimes decide to voice their sibling rivalries or frustrations. Nothing new. But it’s -- going into next week, it's not something that's going to be an issue.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, but Maryanne Trump is no ordinary Trump. She's a, basically a retired federal judge, somebody who's, who’s, sort of, been Senate confirmed. She, she comes with credibility.
JASON MILLER:
Well, Chuck, I can tell you in my conversations with the president over the years, I've only heard him say positive things about his sister, someone who's a very accomplished judge. And I think he's very proud of everything that she has accomplished. But I do want to make one other point here, Chuck. This past week, the president and Maryanne Trump lost their brother, Robert Trump. And he was just laid to rest and had their services for him at the White House on Friday. And I really do think that it's shameful that the Washington Post came and ran this story yesterday, literally the day after the funeral services for Robert Trump. Just an attempt to try to tear down the president. To do that right after they laid their brother to rest I think is shameful.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to ask you about another development that happened late this week involving another member of the president's 2016 campaign. It's somebody that you've worked quite closely with. It's Steve Bannon. I think folks are quite familiar. He's been indicted on what appears to be some -- perhaps he misled -- a charity may have taken some money that wasn't met for salaries and things like that for this We Build the Wall. First thing I want to ask: Since you did a podcast with him, have you been interviewed at all by the Justice Department in this investigation, Jason?
JASON MILLER:
I have not. And from public reports, it looks like this investigation was going long before the podcast even started, the podcast and radio show that I co-hosted with Steve. These allegations are very serious, and I hope that Steve has some good answers for the things that he's been accused of. It's not something that I worked on. I don't know anything about the financial dealings of this organization or how it worked. And I hope Steve has the opportunity to tell his side of the story.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to put up this image here. Quite a few people who were involved in the Trump campaign in 2016 have had some issues with the law. Indictments, convictions. You know -- some of these folks you worked with quite closely. Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, all people involved with this 2016 campaign team, in some way or another found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Why shouldn't voters look at this and say, "The president seems to surround himself with people with, with shady instincts"?
JASON MILLER:
I'd disagree on that. I think you take a look at the great people that President Trump has surrounded himself with. Some of the brilliant women and some of the brilliant leaders that we have within this administration, some of our Cabinet members. And I would say that overall the president has had a very good track record of hiring excellent people. There are a number of folks on that list that you pointed out there, Chuck, who have made some serious mistakes in their life. They had nothing to do with President Trump. And they're going to have to be accountable for all of that. But when you take a look at the president and the people that he's brought on board, take a look at his senior staff there at the White House, whether it be Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, whether it be Kellyanne Conway. I look at people like Jeron Smith and Stephen Miller. These are some really solid people who I think work very hard for the American people every day. I'm proud to call them teammates in this broader pro-Trump effort.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah.
JASON MILLER:
And I think the president is proud of them as well.
CHUCK TODD:
Very quickly, Jason, you’ve been on --you were brought back into the campaign about -- I want to say it's been about four weeks. Time in the pandemic sometimes are a little off. So maybe it was a little bit longer. I may have that wrong. But before you got there, the Trump campaign had a massive fundraising lead advantage over the Biden campaign. They began this campaign in the spring with $182 million cash advantage. That is now gone. And now, the Biden campaign's outspending your campaign on television. What happened? Was there money that just disappeared? Did you guys waste this money in the summer? Is this, is this why there's a new campaign team?
JASON MILLER:
No, not at all. We're conserving money right now and focusing a little bit more smartly and a little more effectively on the states that are voting early. An important thing for folks to keep in mind is the calendar looks completely different this go-around than it did in 2016. The way there's the early voting, the way that there's absentee voting, the calendar starts differently in different states. So we're smartly targeting our efforts here. Keep in mind, we've already reserved almost $200 million in television advertising from Labor Day until the election. And keep in mind when the Biden camp came out and said recently they're going to reserve and spend over $200 million, somewhere in the 220 to 250 range, they've only placed about $8 million of that. But, Chuck, you look at the polls over the last couple weeks. 51% approval in Rasmussen. Our own polls show us gaining by four points over the last two weeks. The enthusiasm advantage is two to one over the Biden camp. And, Chuck, this is because -- I know you like to look at the numbers, you like to look at the pathways to victory. We only need to win one of these Upper Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states with Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to reelect the president. We have many more pathways to victory than Democrats do. I'd rather be in our shoes than theirs right now.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah, your pathway there assumes you carry Florida, and that's, that’s what's it up to. Very quickly --
JASON MILLER:
We will --
CHUCK TODD:
-- is the president going to speak --
JASON MILLER:
Florida's Trump country.
CHUCK TODD:
-- every single night? Every single night of the convention, President Trump will speak?
JASON MILLER:
You'll have President Trump speaking at various parts through each of the nights. And, again, it’s -- we have some big surprises lined up. And make sure you're tuning in, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Okay. I will be there, as all of NBC will. Jason Miller, senior advisor with the Trump campaign, appreciate you coming on, sharing your perspective. Thank you, sir.
JASON MILLER:
Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
And joining me now on behalf of the Biden campaign is former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg of Indiana. Mayor Buttigieg, welcome back to Meet the Press. Let me start with the following, sort of, assumption here, which is it certainly appears to me that the Democratic campaign coming out of this convention in some ways is very similar to the Democratic campaign that came out of 2016. It's a campaign that is focused on Donald Trump's character, Donald Trump the person, less on policies that the Democratic Party is going to be pushing. Why do you think you'll win a character campaign this time when the Democratic ticket did not win that campaign four years ago?
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Well, it's simple. Donald Trump has been president for four years, and America is very obviously not better off than we were four years ago. Yes, this is about character. But it's also about the failed leadership of this president, the fact that our country is doing the worst of any developed nation when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus, that some of our economic numbers are the worst they've been since 1876. And for all that, all that disastrous leadership we're seeing now, also a very hopeful vision about where we could get to. I mean, the really amazing thing about watching the Democratic Convention last week was that we were also being put in touch with the kind of country we could be, the kind of country that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will lead us toward, where everyone has a place, where the big coalition that we're building can move us past this moment of chaos and cruelty. And I think all of that adds up to the simple fact that the center of gravity of the American people is very much on our side right now.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, look, where this ticket is right now and the messaging of it, here's what candidate Pete Buttigieg said about nine months ago. Take a listen.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
So this is no time to get caught up in reliving arguments from before. The less 2020 resembles 2016 in our party, the better. Vice President Biden has been talking about the idea that we can't afford to take a risk on somebody new. But I believe history has shown us that we can't afford to take the risk of falling back on the familiar.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Well, I know one of your answers is going to be simply, "The voters spoke." And I get that. But do you believe your analysis in that time was wrong, that the voters know better?
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Well, yeah, first of all, Joe Biden won the nomination and all of us who were competing against him, I think, are on the same page now. But also, think about how much the world has changed just in the few months since I was on the campaign trail as a candidate. And, you know, if you told me then that the stakes would have gone up through the course of 2020, I would have asked how that's even possible. And yet here we are, with a very clear choice between the kind of chaos and the failures that we're seeing that are really destroying any chance of a good future under this president and a chance for something completely different and so much better under a President Biden.
CHUCK TODD:
But this issue of not, sort of, putting forth more detailed policy prescriptions, that didn't happen four years ago, and there are --
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Well --
CHUCK TODD:
-- some, some in the Democratic side that are concerned that not talking about some -- now, look, I get it. The more you talk policy, the harder it is to keep John Kasich in the tent. So what is that line that Democrats should walk this fall?
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Well, let's be clear. I mean, the policies of the Democratic Party, the policies of Joe Biden are abundantly clear. If anybody wants to look up detail, you can find all kinds of it on the website at JoeBiden.com. But, you know, it's not the finer points of exactly how we're going to get to defeat climate change or exactly how we're going to deliver health care to every American. I mean, that's in the plan. Again, it's there in great detail. But the question we're about to settle in November is whether we're going to do those things. We have a president who's dismantling American health care, and Joe Biden who wants to expand it. We have a president who thinks that COVID is just going to magically disappear, something he told us would happen in April and keeps telling us from time to time will happen again. And on the other hand, we've got Joe Biden, who, you know, believes that questions of science and medicine ought to be settled by taking the advice of scientists and doctors on every major issue. The difference is so stark. It's almost punching us in the face. And so I think the policy differences are so clear. We also need to talk about the simple question of who we are going to be. This is not just a question of what the federal government is going to do. This is a question of who Americans are, what America is. And if you believe that America should be and is defined by democracy, if you believe that America has to be a country that makes room for everybody, the choice couldn't be clearer.
CHUCK TODD:
Look, I get the messaging you're trying to do. A lot of times though, the economy can speak -- can end up overpowering all of those other issues. The president in our poll leads Joe Biden on the economy by ten points. Does Joe Biden have to close that gap to win this election? Or do you think that the future of democracy issue that, that I think you guys have made a very compelling case about, can trump that?
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Well, I think all of these issues are live, but let's look at the economy. Look, the president's not good at much, but he is very good at taking credit for having rode the tail end of the Obama-Biden economic recovery. But even pre-pandemic, we were having a lot of trouble, especially in my part of the country, the industrial Midwest. Manufacturing was going into a recession. Now, we are where we are. The economy is in such precarious shape. Unprecedented unemployment numbers, unbelievable pain that people are experiencing. And because of the inaction of this White House, that's likely to get worse as we go into the fall. So if they want to battle on the economy, let's have that battle. But let's also remember that our democracy, our national character, and our ability to fight a deadly pandemic are all on the line, not to mention the fact that the United States also needs to restore our credibility around the world, something that's very important both for our security and, in my view, for democracy and other shared priorities around the world.
CHUCK TODD:
Very quickly, as the former mayor of South Bend, I'm curious. I know you're a visiting fellow these days at the University of Notre Dame's campus. Do you think -- if you were the mayor right now, would you want classes to be in person, on campus? Would you want all those students coming into South Bend right now with this virus?
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
You know, the university worked out a plan that was closely coordinated with local health officials, but already they're adapting and adjusting because of the reality on the ground. Look, around the country, because there hasn't been leadership in Washington from the White House, individual universities, individual school districts, counties, and cities have been left to figure out their own game plans and are doing their best. But the reality is we will not fully be able to return to anything like normal until we have a national strategy, a real one, for testing and actual leadership from Washington. And I'm afraid we're unlikely to get that as long as Donald Trump is in office.
CHUCK TODD:
Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, people are going to remember, the person who won the Iowa caucuses when this whole thing started. That actually did happen at the start of 2020. I know this year feels like an eternity --
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Hard to believe it was this year.
CHUCK TODD:
It is unbelievable. Thanks for coming on and sharing the campaign's perspective. I appreciate it.
PETE BUTTIGIEG:
Same here. Great to be with you.
CHUCK TODD:
When we come back, that Senate report on Russian involvement with the Trump 2016 campaign. I’ll talk to the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Perhaps it was by design, but almost lost in all the attention paid to the Democratic Convention last week was the Senate Intelligence Committee's fifth and final report laying out the extensive contacts between Russia and members of the Trump 2016 campaign. The 1,000-page bipartisan report concluded that Russia wanted Donald Trump to win, that his campaign was eager to accept Russia's help, and that the Russians saw campaign members as inexperienced and easy to manipulate. But the committee stopped short of concluding that there was a coordinated conspiracy. Republicans said that proved there was no collusion. Joining me now is the top Democrat on the panel, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. Senator Warner, welcome back to Meet the Press. And we should note that not a single Republican --
SEN. MARK WARNER:
Thank you, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
-- on the Intelligence Committee agreed to come on this broadcast. We wanted to have somebody from each side of the aisle to ask these questions to. But, Senator Warner, we will start with you. So I want to start with simply, I know you've said you think Americans should read this entire report. But I'm curious. Is there a part of the report that you think singularly deserves the public's attention more than any other part?
SEN. MARK WARNER:
Well, Chuck, first of all, I'm very proud of the committee's work, three and a half years, five volumes, all bipartisanly endorsed in a time when there's not a lot of that bipartisanship going around. And as the report laid out in exquisite detail, much more detail than Mueller, and we were a counter-intelligence report, not a criminal report. Unprecedented contacts between Russians and folks on the Trump campaign. The Trump campaign officials welcomed that help. Maybe one of the most stunning was the level of detail of the then-campaign manager Paul Manafort sharing very specific campaign information with a Russian agent. We never know -- we'll never know what the Russians did with that information. But think about that. A campaign manager sharing with a known Russian agent during the middle of a campaign. And as you showed earlier with that kind of rogues gallery of all these individuals that were part of the Trump campaign who've been indicted, I think there have been repercussions from those efforts.
CHUCK TODD:
You guys name Konstantin Kilimnik as a Russian intelligence asset. It went further than the Mueller report did on that front. And it's that specific piece of information that I want to ask you about regarding this statement from the current acting chair of the Intelligence Committee, Marco Rubio. Let me play that statement.
[BEGIN TAPE]
SEN. MARCO RUBIO:
After interviewing over 200 witnesses and reviewing over 1 million pages of documents, we can now say three things without any hesitation. First, we found absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia to meddle in our elections.
((END TAPE))
CHUCK TODD:
It's that specific there. He said that it's definitive. How does an active campaign chair in Paul Manafort sharing information with a known Russian intelligence asset, Konstantin Kilimnik, somehow definitively erase the idea that there was no collusion?
SEN. MARK WARNER:
Respectfully, I disagree with Marco on that. You will see a whole series of other Democrats who wrote a separate opinion where they drew a different conclusion. Richard Burr was chairman for most of that -- most of the investigation, as I was vice-chair. We decided that we would not join any other comments, that we would let the report stand as it is. This is a report that was passed 14-1. It's the fifth volume. The other reports were all virtually unanimous, where we showed Russian interference in social media, their attempts to attack our election system. And, Chuck, one of the things that I think would be really important. You saw that, that put up where did you earlier with all these folks who'd been indicted from the Trump campaign. What we should have also listed were all of the Trump intelligence officials from Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence; to Joe Maguire, the Director of National Intelligence; both their deputies; to Michael Atkinson. Trump intel officials who all told the truth about the Russian ongoing investigation, and they were all fired because this president and this White House doesn't want to hear the truth.
CHUCK TODD:
You also seem to indicate that the president may have lied to Robert Mueller in the print interview when he claimed to have no recollection about conversations about WikiLeaks with Roger Stone. You write definitively in the report, "Despite Trump's recollection, the committee assesses that Trump did in fact speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone's access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions." However, there's a frustrating amount of redactions in the report whenever WikiLeaks comes up. Is this all because of this Julian Assange indictment that nobody has seen?
SEN. MARK WARNER:
The intelligence community chose what to redact. But I think anyone who would review the report and see the amount of contacts between Stone and WikiLeaks and the timing of the release of the WikiLeaks hacked information, again, I will, I would ask any American to read that and draw their own conclusions.
CHUCK TODD:
And finally, there's a footnote in here that I want to ask you about, because it was an intriguing footnote depending on how you read it. When asked about Donald Trump Jr.'s communications with WikiLeaks on this topic, Steve Bannon is quoted as saying this: "I'd describe Don Jr., who I think very highly of, as a guy who believes everything on Breitbart is true." Number one, why is that footnote in the report? And how do you interpret that quote?
SEN. MARK WARNER:
Well, I'm not going to speak to that footnote, but I am going to speak to the fact that the intelligence community ten days ago said that the Russians are back trying to interfere in our elections again, that they have a disinformation, misinformation campaign targeted against Vice President Biden. I think it's incumbent upon the intelligence community to lay out more of the facts of what we know about that disinformation campaign. And my fear is that there may be Americans that are unwittingly promoting that Russian disinformation campaign. And I think they need to be briefed so they don't become frankly --
CHUCK TODD:
Gotcha.
SEN. MARK WARNER:
-- agents, in effect, of this disinformation campaign.
CHUCK TODD:
Has the Senate Intel Committee been officially briefed on QAnon or not?
SEN. MARK WARNER:
I -- we have not received an official brief that I can recall on QAnon, but the community, the committee, the community is fairly clear that this is a fringe group that they feel like they are potentially a threat. And the idea that the president of the United States is embracing these folks and say just because they like him and they love their -- our country is very bizarre. I mean, I don't always agree with Karl Rove, but Karl Rove was right. These guys are wack jobs, and the president ought to disavow them.
CHUCK TODD:
Mark Warner, the vice-chair of the Senate Intel Committee, Democrat from Virginia, really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective on this.
SEN. MARK WARNER:
Thanks, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Thank you, sir. When we come back, Democrats worked hard last week to appeal to moderates and disaffected Republicans. Will President Trump try to use his convention to expand his electorate, or will he just target his base? The panel is next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. The panel is with us: executive Washington editor of the Wall Street Journal and my longtime partner with the poll, Jerry Seib, author of the new book “We Should Have Seen It Coming: From Reagan to Trump, A Front-Row Seat to a Political Revolution”; NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker; and the former Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Governor, welcome to our panel there. I want to start with what we could expect tone-wise in the difference between the two conventions. Kristen Welker, the Democrats made a bet on how to make their convention about basically the virus and character. The tone that the Republicans are aiming for here, we heard Jason Miller say "upbeat." What will this contrast look like to the public?
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, those who have been planning the convention, Chuck, tell me that they do want to have more live elements. They want this to be upbeat, forward-looking. To your point, how can it be upbeat given the realities on the ground? But, again, I think what you're going to hear from President Trump and those who speak at the convention is really laying out how they see the future. The challenge, though, I think, with the convention: One, you have some Republicans who are jittery about it. There have been so many last-minute changes, the president speaking at North Carolina, then Jacksonville, now the White House. Will this go off without a hitch? Republicans saying, "Look, Democrats did a good job of not having any major technical difficulties." And then second of all, Chuck, to the point that you've been raising throughout this show, a lot of the speakers seem to be tailored to the base. Now, this is a strategy that worked for President Trump in 2016. Will it work this time around? We'll have to see.
CHUCK TODD:
Scott Walker, there's a lot of people who think there's two ways to look at Wisconsin: that it's totally polarized and really you do have to activate your political base, it's the only way to win; but there are some who say, "No, there are swing voters here." And if there are swing voters, do you fear this convention won't be talking to them?
SCOTT WALKER:
Oh, I think they will. I think the president's clearly going to lay out his plans for the future, talking about how we get America working again, how we get America healthy again, and how we keep America safe. And you're going to hear from people who've benefited from criminal justice reform. You're going to hear from Democrats who walked away from their party because of decades of mismanagement in some of our nation's largest cities. But in Wisconsin, where there once upon a time were actually Obama-Walker voters who eventually went for Trump as well, they've got to show how they can get things going in the right direction and then contrast that with Joe Biden, who has really outsourced his agenda to the radical left of his party, including his running mate, who according to Newsweek, has got a voting record that's more liberal than Bernie Sanders. Look forward. Make the case that Joe Biden's become radical.
CHUCK TODD:
Jerry Seib, we just heard Scott Walker saying what the Republican goal is. The Democrats seem to go out of their way to present a very moderate picture of themselves on this. And it seems to me that the more I hear talking points from the right that say, "Oh, that's not what they really are," that's also translation for, "The Democrats must have been successful."
JERRY SEIB:
Well, you know, look. One thing that Democrats agreed on last week are the two words that they wanted Americans to hear: chaos and crisis. And those are the words they're going to use to counter-program the Republicans this week. But to your point, I think there's a question about whether the Democrats talked enough about policies to offset these charges which we're going to hear all week from the Republicans this week, that Joe Biden has been pulled way to the left by the progressive wing of his own party. There was a lot of talk about character, way more talk about character than policies or plans. Was there enough talk about policies and plans to offset that charge, that on the substance of what a Biden administration would do, he's going to be pulled way left?
CHUCK TODD:
Kristen Welker?
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, Chuck, one top Democrat told me it was a big bet by the Democrats to do exactly what Jerry's just talking about, the fact that there was so much focus on character. But the reason why they feel as though that was the right strategy: if you look at Joe Biden's favorability ratings, they are higher than Hillary Clinton's were at this point, for example. And so they really wanted to reintroduce him to the American public, to some of those swing voters. They also made COVID the central issue. If you notice, the one area where he did lay out some details in his speech was on the issue of COVID. And so they believe that's what Americans care most about right now. They believe addressing the COVID crisis is going to be central to getting the economy back on track. The question becomes: Can they keep this momentum going, Chuck? This is not a typical campaign. The Democrats believe that this virtual campaigning is working. So Biden's not going to be out in swing states this week. They are going to be engaged in some very aggressive counter-programming though, including with a number of their top surrogates, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
You know, one thing I don't know if we're going to have this week that I think in a convention that had been in person we would have, which is a debate about where's the Republican Party headed. And I say this in part because of your book, Jerry Seib, and in part because I have you on here, Scott Walker. I want to remind folks what you said, Scott Walker, when you dropped out of the presidential race four years ago. And I want to butt it with something Jerry Seib wrote about it in his book. I think they're connected. Take a listen.
[BEGIN TAPE]
SCOTT WALKER:
Today, I believe that I'm being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top of the field. I encourage other Republican presidential candidates to consider doing the same so that the voters can focus on a limited number of candidates who can offer a positive conservative alternative to the current frontrunner.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
And, Scott Walker, this is what Jerry Seib writes: "By 2016, conservatives were united more by what they were against — progressives and liberals — than what they were for. The door to a populist uprising had been swung open, and Donald Trump walked through it." I'm curious if you agree with Jerry Seib's analysis there, one; and, two, how you have evolved from being essentially anti-Trump to supportive of Trump.
SCOTT WALKER:
Well, five years ago, I didn't know if Donald Trump would actually govern as a conservative. I think the record's pretty clear. This president and his team put through one of the largest tax cuts in American history. They're clearly the most pro-life administration ever. They've put forward excellent picks, excellent nominees for the federal judiciary. And their regulatory reforms that help small businesses and other employers have actually brought about unprecedented economic growth, to the point where we before the pandemic had the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. I look at that, and I say: You know what? Washington is filled with politicians who say all the right things and don't get squat done. This president may not always talk and tweet the way that I do, but in the end, he actually gets things done. And I think here in the Midwest, we want to have people who we don't just talk but do. I'll take a doer over a talker any day of the week.
CHUCK TODD:
Jerry Seib, I'm sneaking in a break, and then I will get more on your book on the other side. I promise, sir. Up next, you're going to hear many times this week that President Trump was handed a broken economy and that he then built the best one ever. When we come back, why that isn't exactly the case. The facts, after this.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Data Download time. President Trump has repeatedly claimed, as he did again last week, that President Obama handed him a crippled economy and that he built the greatest economy ever. So we decided to fact check that, comparing President Obama's second term with Mr. Trump's first, ending before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. First, we'll start with the broadest measure of economic health, the country's gross domestic product. How much did it grow? In Mr. Obama's second term, the average quarterly growth rate was 2.4%. For Mr. Trump, it was roughly the same, 2.5%. Then there's job creation. On average, there were more jobs added monthly in Barack Obama's second term, 215,000, than there were in Mr. Trump's first three years before the pandemic hit, 182,000. Again, both numbers are good. But they're also quite consistent. Until the pandemic hit, there was nothing drastic that changed from one president to the next. What about unemployment? Has President Trump changed that trajectory? The beginning of President Obama's second term, unemployment was already down to 8%. Over the next four years, it fell almost in half, down to 4.7%. And, yes, it continued to drop under President Trump, to 3.5% at the end of 2019, the lowest in 50 years. Again, that's before COVID hit. And then there's the stock market, the indicator President Trump cites most often. The Dow reacts to elections, so we'll start with Election Day 2012. It went from 13,245 to 18,332 on Election Day 2016, a 38% increase in Obama's second term. Again, the rise continued for Mr. Trump, increasing another 56% to 28,538 on the last day of 2019. Again, pre-COVID. Look, President Trump did preside over strong and growing economic news. And like any president, he took the credit. But the idea that Mr. Trump somehow rescued a nation that was struggling economically when he arrived simply isn't borne out in the data. We had a robust economic recovery, and it just kept going. When we come back, the conspiracy theory even Karl Rove says President Trump should disavow. So why won't he?
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. A conversation interrupted. So we had a few minutes. Jerry Seib, I want you to sort of react to what we saw. And it feels as if in your book you make the case that it feels like the party is trying to design an ideology to meet the group of voters that they have the best chance at winning, not the other way around.
JERRY SEIB:
Well, look. The message of the book is that Donald Trump didn't come out of the blue. There was a long arc four decades from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump where over time the Republican Party, and by that I mean the people out in the country who are Republicans, became more populist and more nationalist. And Donald Trump kind of walked through the open door that I referred to. And I certainly agree with Governor Walker that there have been real conservative elements to the Trump governing policy, but there are also areas where that's not true. You know, immigration, trade, America's role in the world, deficit spending. He represents a significant departure. And I had a chance to talk with the president a little bit by phone yesterday. He's happy with the way he's repositioned the Republican Party. The question of this election is going to be: Does this election make that a permanent change? Or are we talking about an aberration?
CHUCK TODD:
Well, Kristen Welker, the president's open arms for his version of this Republican Party has put him in with strange bedfellows, I think doesn't do it justice, this QAnon business. For the first time this week, the president, he basically said, "Well, they're for me. They like me. So I see no issue with them." Take a listen.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
Well, I don't know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate. But I don't know much about the movement. I have heard that it is gaining in popularity. I've heard these are people that love our country.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Kristen Welker, are there folks behind the president who are just apoplectic that he went down this road?
KRISTEN WELKER:
I think that's the right word for it, apoplectic. They want him to firmly denounce this next time it is brought up. They point to the fact that Vice President Mike Pence was asked about this and tried to put it to rest. But for a lot of people inside the president's orbit, that's not good enough. They want to hear it from the president himself. It was a remarkable exchange though, Chuck, because it underscores a pattern I think that we've seen from this president, which is, "They like me, so what's wrong with it?" We heard him use similar language in the early days when he was asked about Vladimir Putin, for example. And so this seems to be in line with the way in which the president responds to these sorts of things. It's not clear that he really knew what QAnon was or how dangerous some branches of government believe that it is, but there is an immense amount of pressure, I can tell you, within the president's inner orbit for him to denounce this firmly next time he's asked about it, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, it's interesting, Ben Sasse -- let me put up some Republican responses. There have been a few. Ben Sasse, "QAnon is nuts, and real leaders call conspiracy theories conspiracy theories." Here's Adam Kinzinger. "Let's be clear: complete BS. They seek to mislead and destroy." Liz Cheney: "QAnon is dangerous lunacy that should have no place in American politics." Scott Walker, I'm aware that politics can attract some oddballs. Fringey on the left, fringey on the right. Sometimes it does seem that the president is always a bit too slow to denounce these fringey people.
SCOTT WALKER:
Well, conspiracy theories have no place in the Republican Party, nor in American politics in general. But let's be clear. The president's initial response where he said he didn't know much about them is like most voters I talk to. I've been traveling around Wisconsin. I was actually on my motorcycle yesterday in Iowa and Minnesota, as well as Wisconsin talking to voters. They're not talking about this at all. They don't know about this at all. This is something that's largely an obsession of the national media and some on social media. What they were talking about though was Joe Biden's statements this weekend that he if he's elected president would actually shut the entire country down by as early as January, if that's what his advisors told him. That's what people get worked up about. Not things like this that are largely a focus of the Washington bubble.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, I'm not asking from a public perspective. The FBI is calling QAnon a domestic terror threat. It seems as if the president --doesn’t matter -- I take your point that maybe some people aren't talking about it, but it's a domestic terror threat and social media is the tool that recruits these people.
SCOTT WALKER:
Well, I want to make it clear. Like I said, I don't think there's any place in the Republican Party, nor in politics in general, for these kind of conspiracy theories out there. But what I am saying in terms of the obsession about this is this is not something we're hearing out talking to voters. What they are more worked up about is: "Is, you know, Joe Biden going to keep us locked down in our homes for months, and months, and months at a time next year? Or are we going to have a way to be both healthy and safe going forward?"
CHUCK TODD:
Scott Walker, Jerry Seib, Kristen Welker, a tremendous panel. I really appreciate all three of you today. It was terrific conversation. Enjoy the convention. Before we go -- before we say goodbye, a quick programming note. Please join Lester Holt, Savannah Guthrie, Andrea Mitchell, and myself for our coverage this week of the Republican National Convention Monday through Thursday evenings. We begin on the network at 10:00 Eastern, and we begin on Peacock and News NOW at 8:00 p.m. So don't miss that either. So with that, we will see you next week. Because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.