Trade adviser and republican senator of south dakota. What should happen to scott pruitt, a hero to conservatives and target for liberals and favorite of President Trumps. Hes done a fantastic job and i think hes a fantastic person. Now with growing scandals, how long can the epa administrator hang on to his job . Saving face. Mark zuckerberg heads to capitol hill for tough questioning over the misuse of facebooks data. My interview with a key player in the facebook drama who says more than 87 Million People could have been impacted. I think it could be higher. Absolutely. My sitdown with christopher wiley. Joining me for insight and analysis of president ial historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and New York Times pentagon correspondent Helene Cooper and charlie cook of the cook political report. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. From nbc news in washington the longest running show in television history, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. President trumps latest motto could be if at first you succeed do it and do it again. When he ran for president mr. Trump sense the countrys mood was changing and adopted more nationalistic themes and time to score the border, china was ripping us up, time to get tough again. Only he could fix it so it was time to make America Great again. Mr. Trump did it his way with a loyal base of supporters now facing challenging poll numbers with the midterms and mueller investigation, rather than trying to broaden his appeal hes hunkering down hugging his base once again to protecting an embattled epa administrator e. Hes delivering what his base wants and once again hes doing things his way. If you have a baby on our land, congratulations, that baby is a United States citizen. President trump is refocusing his attention on the nationalist policies which he campaigned on, attempting to shore up good will among base supporters and conservative media that influences them. On immigration, frustrated only 33 miles of new fencing is funded under the 2018 congressional spending bill, angering some supporters. As i see it right now tonight, the wall is never going to happen. The president announced a surprise plan to work with governors to send up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the border. Until we can have a wall and proper security, were going to be guarding our border with the military. Ill look at it as kind of a show. And return to the unsubstantiated campaign claims he used. Women raped at levels never seen before. On trade the president is threatening another 100 billion in tariffs on goods from china. We cant continue to allow this to happen where hundreds of billions of dollars is taken out of our country. Echoing populist rhetoric he used on the campaign trail. Didnt they say were going to lose the trade war . Were already losing the trade war, folks. The Dow Jones Industrial average touted about my trump as a symbol as success in office has fallen more than 4 since he announced new tariffs on march 1st. Im not saying there wont be a little pain. And the political backlash among republicans on capitol hill has been intense. Senator ben sas called the president s plan the dumbest possible way to do this. And some white house aides have suggested mr. Trumps proposed tariffs shall simply a negotiating tactic. They are carrots and sticks in life but he is ultimately a free trader. Even on his embattled epa administrator scott pruitt, the president is taking cues from the base instead of his own advisers. Pruitt is facing questions about his ties to a lobbyist from whom he rented a capitol hill condo, request for special perks and raises for his aides against the advice of the white house. You didnt know they got large pay raises. I didnt know until yesterday. Many of the white house professional staff led by john kelly have advised the president to fire pruitt, hes a conservative star and allies launched a coordinated campaign to save his job. He has become outside of trump, the single biggest target the american left so far the president has listened and pruitt has his public confidence. Scott has done a fantastic job. I think hes a fantastic person. And joining me now from West Palm Beach florida, President Trumps chief trade adviser dr. Pete er navarro. How are you this morning . Im pretty good. It seems as if the administration wants to have it both ways, telling the chinese were serious about tariffs and these are coming and heres the list but then telling the public, no, no, its a negotiating ploy. Which is it . Its both, mr. Todd, basically what we have here is a situation where every american understands that china is stealing sour intellectual property and forcing transfer of technology when companies go to china and by doing that, they steal jobs from america and factories from america and we run an unprecedented 370 billion a year trade deficit in goods. This is an unsustainable situation. What weve done in a very measured way over the course of many months is develop a plan to make the situation significantly better. That plan is being implemented and includes both tariffs to recover the damages that china inflicts as well as investment restrictions. We are proceeding in a measured way and those tariffs will be imposed in those investment restrictions will be imposed. At the same time, there are discussions that are going on with the chinese with ambassador Robert Lighthiser and secretary mnuchin but we need to understand when we go back to 2003, when we begin to talk about these issues and talk has not been cheap, its been very let me ask you, how do you expect the chinese to take the tariff threat seriously if youre publicly saying its a negotiating tactic and that were not serious about it, per se, we want to talk, but you havent also really made it clear. What specific action do you want from the chinese to prevent these tariffs from being implemented . I dont believe if you played back what i said just a minute ago that i said was a negotiating tactic. Its not. Were listening to the chinese. Were willing to work with them and this government through bush and obama and now the courage and vision of donald trump, were willing to listen to the chinese but were clear eyed about this. Were moving forward on a measured way with tariffs and with investment restrictions and we want from china and what we want from china is very clear. We want fair and reciprocal trade and want them to stop stealing our stuff and guard intellectual property not take it from us. In your monolog at the beginning of this you played a clip from the president. We had already lost the trade war. Well, bush and obama over the course of 16 years bagsically stood by why we lost 70,000 factories and millions of manufacturing jobs and manufacturing base. Whats at stake here, mr. Todd is the industries of the future, artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing. Its not just economic pr prosperity it is also National Security. Have profound military implications. I understand all of that and heard the complaints for years from many of these industries but never let me ask this thats what im what specific action, how will we know that china is changing its behavior . What is it that china give me the specific action that maybe the president and xi announced together that will tell the American Public the chinese arent stealing intellectual property anymore . Lets be again clear eyed about this. Its one thing for the chinese to admit publicly to a policy. Its another thing for the chinese to actually implement that policy. And we had a number of years ago with president obama agreements about not stealing our intellectual property through cyber theft. How is that working out . Not very well. For the American People and i think i dont think mr. Todd theres any disagreement between you and i about the fact that china is engaged in these egregious practices, the only debate is how we go about solving them. But every american understands that every day of the week, china comes into our homes and businesses and Government Agencies and the damage is on the order of about a billion dollars a day. When you add to that damage, the billion dollars a day and the trade deficit and goods, we face, this country is losing its strength and wealth even as china has grown its economy from one trillion since 2002 to over 12 trillion today sure. Not many people in the midwest Many Republican lawmakers including one ill have in a minute dont like this tariff policy. Let me put up with ben sas, a republican from nebraska said. Hopefully the president is blowing off steam again. If hes half serious this is nuts. The president has no plan to win right now and threatening to light american agriculture on fire. Thsz the dumbest possible way to do this. What do you say to the criticism youre getting from the midwestern senators and governors of both sides of the aisle who are panicked about the agricultural industry. Let me be very clear about this, when the president announced the additional 100 billion in tariffs, he also announced that he was directing sonny purdue, secretary of agriculture to immediately implement a plan to defend American Farmers does that mean buying soybean crops the chinese wont buy . Its up to them to implement the plan. The details will be rolled out. Let me say this, mr. Todd, how cynical it is for the chinese basically rather than respond graciously and stop doing all of the bad stuff they are doing to attack American Farmers. I think thats going to be a wakeup call for americans about just weve changed now our designation in the National Security strategy of china to a strategic competitor. What does that mean . It means that they are in competition with us over economic pros pesht and National Offense and this is a competition the president takes seriously. I want to ask whats going on in the west wing. Does john kelly have the president s confidence, the story says kelly has threatened to resign on multiple occasions, its sort of a weekly event. His declarations and expressions of moment tri frustration. Have you heard of john kelly threatening to resign, mr. Navarro and can you say the president still has confidence in him . John kelly has gotten up in the morning to serve america. He serves the president , he has the president s ear. He runs the west wing well. Thats all i know, thats all i see. What you dont see about him sometimes is the light and humorous side of him. Hes a funny irish guy sometimes but he has the confidence of the president and getting the job done. When you read stuff in the Washington Post quite frankly, thats fake news most of the time. All right, i think that expression is a pretty unfair thing to say about a major News OrganizationWashington Post. Thats a cheap shot mr. Todd, that is not a cheap shot because if you look at the newspapers that i read every day across the spectrum, the Washington Post in my judgment tends to attack the president more than any other newspaper in its news stories. You can do anything you want in your editorial but you cannot do that in your news stories. The term fake news is not exactly a way to hold up the first amendment, especially when the russian government just this morning is calling fake using that phrase. I used to deliver the Washington Post in high school and bethesda, chevy chase and that was a good paper back then. Its not right now. Peter navarro, ill leave it there, thanks for sharing your views, i appreciate it. My pleasure. Joining me now republican senator from south dakota mike rounds. Appreciate the opportunity. Before i start i know you wanted to respond to the trade comments but i want to ask you about syria. The state department indicates that there appears to have been a chemical weapons attack by the assad folks and they they say the blame is on the russians for ak quee he issing. Saying this is fake news, this idea there was a chemical weapons attack. Thats why i brought up that phrase just now our adversaries are using the exact phrase. You supported an air strike the last time syria did this would you support another one . Do you think the president needs to respond in the same way he did a year ago . He was a new sheriff in town and needed to set the agenda making it clear if we draw a we had line in the sand were going to honor that red line. So what youve got right now today is hes an office for more than a year and hes got to send a message once again that what he said he meant. I think we wait until the secretary of defense puts together his proposals. He lays them in front of the president and the president needs to have the good advice and what his options are and then i think he should act decisively and i think hell hold not just syria but make it clear that he believes russia is also responsible sf. What are the consequences of not acting with the same toughness he did a year ago. If he lets this go, what message does that send to putin and assad . Thats the problem we have right now. We have to be consistent. I dont care whether youre talking trade policy or our policy in the middle east, you have to be consistent. So he started out with the right policy. He was telling people look, youre going to be held accountable for what you do. It was appropriate a year ago and it would be appropriate today but lets get all of our facts together and be prepared and do our strategic planning, lets allow the military to be in a position to where we can be effective in the way we respond. Dont get pushed into doing it based on putins terms but on our terms. So lets get everything put together first and then act zee s decisively. The tariffs will be economically very tough on south dakota agriculture. That im aware of and i understand thats the possible youre coming from there. Were you reassured from what you heard from Peter Navarro just now. Former governor purdue ive known him for 15 years now, hes going to do everything he can. He understands how critical it is to have a good Foreign Policy but also one that allows force us to continue to expand our exports particularly in ag, one of the bright spots when it comes to the export challenges weve got in this country. He has limited tools available to him in a case like this. Were talking about a lot of money that goes down on the speculation of having a tariff m put in place. In south dakota, small state, its our second largest crop. We produce enough soybeans to where if you drop the price by ten cents based on the speculation of having china put a tariff on, a ten cent reduction per bushel is about 24 million a year for a ten cent reduction in the price of soybeans. Thats happening right now. Theres a lot of people that want to hold china accountable for the intellectual issue. This is a constant in the Technology Theft and these issues. How would you propose going about it . What are tools to be used if negotiation hasnt worked. And i think you hit it on the head. In this particular case we have options available to us. Lets quit fighting with mexico and canada. They are our allies, weve actually got a pretty Good Relationship with nafta. Rather than going nafta and starting there, tpp, the Trans Pacific partnership, we had 11 other countries in the pacific rim area who would rather do business with us than china. We stopped that negotiation a year ago. Do you think that was the biggest mistake, we wouldnt be in the same place we are today . I think the president thinks we can get a better deeg if we do it individually. Lets get those done. If we have 500 million that like to trade with us, they are around china. Do you think china doesnt fear the possibility of having the United States having relations with all of those countries right around the area that they are trying to expand once again into . They are one road or one road within belt approach, which is trying to take care and control all of the sea lanes and shipping lanes in the south pacific. They are putting in military bases to do that. If we have trade relationships and military relationships with those other countries, that stops china in their efforts. I want to ask you about a similar sort of framing of a question i asked about syria. What are the consequences if the president threatens tariffs and doesnt . Does the world see the president as a bluffer . Hopefully it doesnt come to that. Most certainly we dont want to see the president put in a position where he doesnt have to exercise a tariff if he xnt have to. Hes correct in that china clearly has been cheating when it comes to how they are doing business with the rest of the world. Were not the only ones, i have no objections with what the prtd long term trying to fix the relationships with china and holding them accountable. Intellectual property in particular, they are stealing from us. So but lets be clear, strategically, number one, we need other trading part anywheranywhereners to help pick up the slack and this is important. He needs to explain to the American People what his end game is and where does he want to go and whats the final goal. What does winning this tariff fight look like . Final question, scott pruitt a lot in the news. I can put up some of the allegations that come out against him as far as how hes conducted himself in office with lafrish security detail, first class flights, things like that. Do you think he should still be epa administrator . I do. Why . Because hes following through with policies that the president said he wanted to implement what does ethics matter . Tom price did less an was fired. The reason why all of the emphasis is on mr. Pruitt is because he is executing these policies and they are not popular policies with a lot of people but he is executing the policies this president said he would put in place. Does that justify this behavior . Any time you start taking a look at all of the different activities an i dont know how much is overblown or accurate. Im not going to call it fake news. In some cases well overblow s