Is eroding our nation from health care to the criminal justice system. Plus the impeachment muddle. Democrats approve rules that could make it easier to impeach President Trump. I no longer care to argue about the nomenclature. So why are supporters and opponents of impeachment so unhappy . Also, and boldon makes three. President trumps Third National security advisor is out. We were set back very badly when john bolton talked about the libyan model, and he made a mistake. Amid the constant chaos, ill ask a member of the Republican Leadership in the house, liz cheney of wyoming, whether she thinks the world is more stable since donald trump became chief. Joining me for insight and analysis are Hallie Jackson, helene cooper, former republican governor of North Carolina pat mccrory and former senator from missouri, democrat claire mccaskill. Welcome to sunday, its meet the press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning, to quote the great yogi berra. Its getting late early out there. Yes, there were still 10 candidates at thursdays debate and, yes, there may be even more at the next one. But for now at least it feels as if we have a top three. Joe Biden Bernie Sanders and elizabeth warren. There are 141 days before the first votes are cast in iowa, but if anything the gap between the frontrunners and the rest of the field only seemed to grow on thursday evening with biden dominating the partys moderates and warren and sanders fighting for the progressives. The democratic race has turned into a contest between incrementalism and structural change, between the inside game and the change the game insurgents. So did anyone win . Heres one take. Elizabeth warren won the democratic primary debate, exciting the progressive left, while joe biden won the general Election Debate offering the safelternative to President Trump. Despite some verbal stumbles and an unsubtle reference to his age. I dont view it as anything. I think he just got his facts wrong. Joe biden deflecting questions about his age, after this attack by Julian Castro on whether his Health Care Plan automatically enrolls the uninsured. They do not have to buy in. They do not have to buy in. You just said that. You just said that two minutes ago. You just said two minutes ago that they would have to buy in. You said they would have to buy in. They dont have to buy in. Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago . Its not clear castros attack was correct on the substance, and it certainly appeared to backfire with other candidates quick to defend biden. I thought that was so personal and so unnecessary. Do you think it was fair to suggest that joe biden has lost it . No. Castro is denying that he was implying biden is declining with age. What i was pointing out is that he had denied saying the words buy in even though he did say the words buy in. Other candidates have carefully brought up the age question. Theres a lot of people who are concerned about joe bidens ability to carry the ball all the way across the end line without fumbling. Before pulling it back. Forgive me if my football metaphor about fumbling the ball is being taken out of context, but the reality is, is i want to get into the end zone. While wounding castro, the line of attack could also hurt biden by giving a permission slip to critics who want to put his age in the center of the debate. How do you ultimately overcome this . Carry the ball over the finish line. Are you releasing your medical records that address concerns yes. What the hell concerns, man . You want to wrestle . On friday biden millenialed to release his medical records before the iowa caucuses. Though biden struggled at times, especially on issues of race. Play the radio, make sure the Television Make sure you have the record player on at night, the phone. Make sure the kids hear words. So far bidens general election argument has been durable, with the debate shifting leftward in the primary, biden is challenging warren and sanders on the cost of their health care proposals. Will middle class taxes go up . Will private insurance be eliminated . What families have to deal with is cost, total cost. I dont doubt their motives. But its going to cost over 3. 4 trillion a year. How can that possibly be done without raising taxes . And questioning beto orourkes proposed mandatory buyback of assault weapons. Hell yes were going to take your ar15, your ak47. Were not going to allow it to be used against fellow americans anymore. I frankly think that that clip will be played for years at Second Amendment rallies with organizations that try to scare people by saying democrats are coming for your guns. And joininge now from houston is former congressman, democratic president ial candidate, beto orourke. Congressman orourke, welcome back to meet the press, sir. Good morning. Good morning. Look, senator republican senator poat toomey, you heard the chris coons comment at the end of the package. Pat toomey tweeted the following. I agree with chris coons. This is an awful and extreme idea. Thankfully theres not enough support in congress to do it. But this rhetoric undermines and hurts bipartisan efforts to make progress on common sense gun safety efforts, like expandingg background checks. He went on the record, a few other democrats went on with blind quotes. Theres a lot of hand wringing about what you said, agreeing with your sentiment but concerned that the rhetoric is going to actually backfire. What do you say . I think this just shows you how screwed up the priorities in washington, d. C. , are. I think whats truly awful is a 17monthold baby shot in the face with an ar15, as happened in odessa. Whats truly awful is 22 People Killed in a walmart the saturday before School Starts that next monday, buying their school supplies, innocent of any crime or any threat to this country, in fact living in one of the safest cities in america, el paso, texas, hunted down by their ethnicity with a weapon that was designed for use on a battlefield. Talking to those doctors and trauma room surgeons who treated those victims in el paso, they said these are wounds of war, that highimpact, highvelocity round, when it hit their systems just shredded everything inside of them. I refuse to accept that. And i refuse to even acknowledge the politics or the pulling or the fear or the nra. That has purchased the complicity and silence of members of congress. This weak response to a real tragedy in america, 40,000 gun deaths a year, weve got to do something about it. Im proposing that we do something about it. Explain how your change of heart. To be a bit harsh here, what you just said about sort of the weakness of washington, you used to be one of those members of congress who used to advocate this very careful wording on guns. Where did you go wrong . No, i reject that, chuck. So in texas, in every single one of the 254 counties, no matter how red or rural or big and blue, i was showing up talking about an assault weapons ban in that state, a proud gunowning state, because i also know its a proud responsible gunowning state. And folks said that is the third rail of politics in texas. You can never talk about it. So ive been talking about these issues throughout the state. But youre right, on august 3rd in el paso with 22 People Killed, dozens more grievously injured, i could no longer accept that that would be enough because theres still more than 10 million assault weapons, weapons of war out on the street. And if we agree that theyre dangerous to sell and we should stop selling them, then we also have to agree that these are instruments of terror that are still out there and have to be brought back home or they are going to be used against us. And thats what weve seen in el paso, in midland, odessa, in sutherland springs. Those are just three communities in texas. You heard at one time, i believe, it was Vice President biden offered up and he said dont forget the constitution. So let me ask it this way. What is your interpretation of what the Second Amendment allows and what the Second Amendment does not allow . Ill put it this way. This is something that were able to do through the Commerce Clause and this is something that is not prevented from wouldnt prevent the United States from doing by the Second Amendment. So this is constitutionally sound. This is absolutely necessary if we care about the lives of our fellow americans. And heres something i want to tell you. Going to a gun show in conway, arkansas, stopping at a bucees in katy, texas, yesterday, listening to owners of ar15s, republicans, who come up and say, you know what, i own one of these guns, dont need it to hunt, dont need it for selfdefense. This is the right thing to do and i would gladly give it up because i also have kids in school and fear for their safety or i have grandkids and want to make sure the country is safe for them. So not only is this constitutionally sound theres support beyond the Democratic Party to include republicans, independents, gun owners and nongun owners alike to do the right thing. Very quickly, i am curious that youve gotten a lot more attention for saying what you did. You were supporting mandatory buybacks before but now youre getting this focus because of how you said it. Theres been some coverage of you recently going, hey, congressman orourke is in his blanket stage, you know, referring to the fact that you will curse occasionally on the stump. Do you find it a bit frustrating that it takes sometimes thee at rick theatrics to get the attention of the press corps and the American Public . I think what people wanting us to do and what im trying to do in this campaign is just to see things as clearly as i possibly can and speak as honestly as i possibly can without triangulating or polling or focus Group Testing what the message is. Just call this out for what it is, absolutely wrong and unacceptable that we have People Killed in this way in our communities and People Living in fear in america today. I reject that fear, and i want to go forward with a bold, ambitious proposal to make sure that were safe in our communities, safe in our homes, safe in america again. Is the debate about Vice President biden and the concern about his fitness to take the fight to President Trump, a, is it a legitimate debate, and do you have concerns . Oh, no, i could care less about that, to be honest with you. I was listening to your opening package. Who the hell cares, right . Youve got tens of millions of people who cannot see a doctor. In texas where i am right now, largest provider of Mental HealthCare Services is the county jail system. Youve got ten years left within which to confront Climate Change or it is all over for all of us. Youve got kids in cages, families who have been separated. Theres some really urgent issues weve got to be addressing in this country right now. The last thing i care about is joe bidens age or some inner party fight between candidates up on the stage. Weve got to be talking about the big things that people in this country care about. Very quickly, if you were president right now and you had a growing epidemic of people vaping and possibly getting sec or dying from it, what would you be doing right now . A temporary recall of all of these products . What would you be doing . I think thats a great place to start. I think youre seeing a playbook pioneered by big tobacco over the last 50 or 60 years trying to hook kids on something that will ultimately kill them being employed by the vaping industry. We need vigorous gulati. We need to treat this as a true Public Health crisis and respond with the urgency that it demands. Weve got to make sure no one is able to buy their way into our economy with pac checks or lobbyists to write the rules in their favor, as tobacco has done, as pharmaceutical corporations are able to do, as the nra has been able to do. Weve got to stand up for people and especially for kids right now. This is an urgent issue. Congressman beto orourke coming to us from houston, texas, be safen the trail and thanks for coming on and sharing your views. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And joining me now is democratic president ial candidate senator cory booker of new jersey. Senator booker, welcome back to meet the press. Its really good to be here. Before i get into some of the specifics of this campaign, i want to quote something from Maureen Dowds column this morning in the new york times. The headline says are democrats doomed. She writes its a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron about a moron. Trumps faux authenticity somehow makes the Democratic Candidates seem more packaged, more stuck in politicianspeak. You and i were discussing this before. This debate process is very rigid, lots of people on stage and all of that. Are you concerned . She seems concerned about the picture that the country is seeing right now of the Democratic Party. Are you . No, not at all. Look, ive had some friends of mean in the press send me headlines from this time in a president ial election in 07 and you just see how theres going to be sort of a scrimmage going on right now within our team. It may not be the message not the message, but it may not be the exact spirit thats going to be on that stage because your seeing a natural competition of ideas. So im not worried. We have to go through this. Its part of the process. Its a good thing. Youre seeing some of the best political talent in our country. And i have a lot of confidence. In fact im making the case that we are going to choose somebody thats going to be able to unite the dispirit voices of our party and bring a united front to this president. It does seem as though youre trying to bridge a divide that pears to some of us between, say, warren and sanders and Vice President biden of being incrementally aspirational. Meaning like, look, its baby steps. The goal is medicare for all, as you say, but youre not saying youre going to get there tomorrow. It seems as if that message is hard to wedge in here. People either say, hey, no, give me an electable guy or give me the transrmation. Yeah, look, i cant stand these people that say these bright lanes. For me, i think, i feel it when i talk to really good people on that stage that i know that there is a unifying message here. Look, we are a nation with a savagely broken health care system. This is the party not the guy thats trying to take it away thats in the white house right now. Since the Affordable Care act, the number of insured go down significantly. Were trying to say everybody should have Health Insurance and were going to fight to get there. We can put the ideal out there but walk and chew gum at the same time. I want to put up the poll numbers this week. Among democrats on medicare for all, among democrats them prefer building on obamacare 55 , replace it with medicare for all 40 . I imagine Many Democrats say that because they remember the political trauma of what it took. Its not as if obamacare was easy to implement, easy to get passed. Do you think you have to take that into account how hard it would be to get medicare for all implemented before you propose it . You know, when i walk around and actually have conversations with people, this is where youre right. Maureen is right about the political sloganeering. I think most people have multiple views of what medicare for all is in the first place. Americans are very frustrated with our health care system. Prescription drugs are ridiculously too high especially relative to other nations, as close as canada. We have a system that seems bureaucratic. People have to fight with their insurance companies. So i think folks just want this broken, expensive system that, boy the way, incentivizes all the wrong behavior. Dont go to a doctor, ration your drugs. We need to fix this system and i think that we are the party thats putting forth a vision to do just that. Right. But do you worry that youre scaring that either youre doing one of two things, overpromising something that cant be delivered. Right. And at the same time also scaring independents who are fiscally frightened by it . Im not worried. 2018 was an election that turned in many ways on Health Insurance. We knew the stark contrast. One party is trying to make it better thats going to bring progress and another party thats trying to kill it, take it away, cut your benefits or end obamacare and your protections from preexisting conditions. Up spent a lot of time on stage with Vice President biden. Are you concerned about his ability to get the ball over the goal line, as you said . Well, number one, anybody on the stage, anybody that i was with the other night would be a better president than the one we have. Is everybody ready . Is everybody physically up to it . I think that, again, if i thought somebody else could do the job better than me, i would not be running. I know this for a fact. This is not just about one office, this is about getting rid of Mitch Mcconnell as the majority leader. This is about state houses and governors houses. At the top of americas ticket in our party we need someone that can energize and capture the moral imagination of this country. I believe im the best person to do that. I want to put up some headlines after all the debates. Youve gotten really good debates. Booker reminded democrats that hes a gifted communicator. Second, he did well on wednesday ni