My guest this morning, democratic congressman eliot engel of new york. One of the Committee Chairs leading the house impeachment inquiry. Plus, scenes of ethnic cleansing by proturkish forces in syria. We saw for the first time alleged atrocities carried out by turkishbacked arab militias. This after President Trump orders a pullback of u. S. Troops. Were getting out of the endless wars. Have to do it. Giving turkey essentially the green light to attack the kurds. My sitdown with mr. Trumps First Defense secretary, general james mattis. Isis will resurge. Its absolutely a given that they will come back. Ill talk to republican senator rand paul of kentucky. Finally, trump, biden, and the politics of character assassination. Wheres hunter . Is there a limit to what voters will accept . Joining me for insight and analysis are michael schmidt, correspondent for the New York Times. Peggy noonan, columnist for the wall street journal. Democratic pollster cornell belcher, and ashley parker, White House Reporter for the washington post. 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. We do have a lot to get to this morning including the growing support for impeachment and President Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani now reportedly being investigated for his lobbying work in ukraine, but were going to start with breaking news from syria where turkey has unleashed a brutal assault on our allies, the kurds. That invasion came after President Trump essentially gave turkey the go ahead. And nbc news chief Foreign CorrespondentRichard Engle is reporting on scenes of atrocities carried out buturkish backed militias. Richard is covering this from Northern Syria. Richard, youre on the phone with us now. Just tell us what you have been seeing. Chuck, things here are developing very rapidly. U. S. Officials are increasingly concerned. We have so far seen a turkish assault, that is the way thats being reported, as a turkish assault against the kurds, but its much, much more than that. The turks are now using militia elements, extremist militia elements were told that u. S. Intelligence believe includes former members of al qaeda, including and former members of al qaeda. Those forces are advancing. Yesterday, those forces themselves released a video, some people might find disturbing, apparently executing a kurdish man by the side of the road. Celebrating, telling their colleagues to film them. We are told those kinds of executions are continuing today. And then in a very disturbing development, u. S. Officials tell us that those same militias, the ones that include al qaeda and isis members, have advanced even further in track vehicles. Theyre advancing close to u. S. Forces. U. S. Forces tell us that unless those forces withdraw immediately, they risk coming into contact with u. S. Troops. U. S. Troops say their lines of communication, their actual supply line between them and the kurds, are at risk of being cut off. This is a very serious situation. It has turned a corner because of these extremist militias. Also here on the ground, the situation is deteriorating rapidly. Kurdish officials tell us one of these prison camps Holding Hundreds of family members of isis, isis supporters, has been broken into, and that the detainees inside have managed to escape. We just came from a prison and saw that every day now, there are riots and attempts to escape at the prison where we are. So the situation is not how it has been portrayed over the last several days as a conventional turkish assault, but one that involves militias. One that now is bringing those militias right on the doorstep of u. S. Forces. Richard engel with some very disturbing developments there. Richard, stay safe. As you cover this story, and thank you for bringing that important information. Look, President Trump is under fire, even from republicans, for pulling u. S. Troops out of Northern Syria. The other battle the president is fighting is impeachment, and its also the direct result of his own actions. In that case, hes accused of using the power of this office to interfere in ukraine with Rudy Giuliani as his personal emissary. We may see the most serious constitutional crisis since watergate. An illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bull [ bleep ] impeachment. President trump lashing out as he grows increasingly isolated. Impeachment. I never thought i would see or hear that word. With regard to me. The New York Times reports that the president s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is under federal criminal investigation into whether he violated foreign lobbying laws in his work in ukraine. The president seemed to quickly try to distance himself. Well, i dont know. I havent spoken to rudy. I spoke to him yesterday briefly. Hes a very good attorney, and he has been my attorney, sure. There is some confusion as to whether or not you still consider him your attorney. Is he your attorney . Yes, and hes a great gentleman. He was a great mayor. I know nothing about him being under investigation. Two of giulianis business associat associat associates, who helped investigate joe biden in ukraine, were arrested late wednesday, charged with allegedly funneling foreign money into u. S. Elections. This investigation is about corrupt behavior. Deliberate law breaking. Accord to the indictment, the two men donated money, violating legal limits, to then congressman pete sessions, referred to as congressman one, asking him for help to remove or recall the u. S. Ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. Sessions then wrote a letter to secretary of state pompeo asking him to consider terminating her ambassadorship. Parniss and fruman disguised the source of a 320,000 donation to a protrump super pac. I dont know those gentleman. You were in a picture with them. Where. I have a picture with everybody. Maybe they were clients of rudy. On friday, yovanovitch testified that Rudy Giuliani and President Trump forced her out of her job because her anticorruption efforts in ukraine frustrated their political goals. Why did you recall her . I heard very bad things about her. I dont know if i recalled her or somebody did, but i heard very bad things about her. Republican senators, especially those in tough reelection fights, have ducked direct questions on ukraine. Is it appropriate for a president to ask a foreign power to investigate his domestic political rival. I would say i dont know we have that information in front of us. You know what i said before. This is about youre not answering the question. We want to hear from you. Joining me is the chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, eliot engel, one of three Committee Chairs leading this house impeachment inquiry. Welcome to meet the press. Thank you. Great to be here. I want to start with normally what your days are filled with, the Foreign Affairs of this country and whats happening. You saw Richard Engles report from what hes seen on the ground and what we have seen there. It seems as if all of the concern people like yourself, bipartisan lawmakers, had expressed is now happening. What can we is there anything to be done now . Well, i hope that the house will vote for my bill. I have two bills that were putting up this week, and its bipartisan, by the way. Mike mccaul is the Ranking Member of my Foreign Affairs committee and hes doing this with me. Its a bill, and what it essentially does is first of all, it condemns the president s policy with regard to the kurds. Which is very important. And slaps sanctions on turkey and all the people involved with whats going on. What does that do, though . Are sanctions at this point going to do anything . The president threatened sanctions on friday. It didnt stop the turks from doing what theyre doing. No, its not going to stop, but we have to have some kind of response. Chuck, i can think of nothing more disgusting in all the years i have been in congress, than what this press is allowing to happen with the kurds. They have been our loyal and faithful allies for so many years. And after this, who again would trust the United States to be an ally of them . Who would think that it pays for them to align themselves with us . Nobody. This is going to make people flee from us. And its just absolutely disgraceful that the president of the United States is facilitating all of this. I hate to put it in these terms but is it too late to do anything . Lets say the president said, you know what, i have seen this video. I want to stop this. At this point, we would be putting our troops in harms way with the turks. We could mitigate the damage, but of course, its spiraling quickly. And whats happened, of course, is a lot of isis prisoners, we have gotten reports they have been released or escaped. And so this is just the tip of the iceberg, and if we think this is terrible, i predict were going to have many, many more days, weeks, and months of terrible things like this. I dont know what it is with President Trump. He likes strong men. He likes to associate himself with people like erdogan, who is the leader of turkey. But that is not what the United States should be doing. Two things. Is turkey turkeys technically a nato ally, so its technically an american ally. Are they asking like an american ally . Theyre acting just the opposite. Theyre acting like a russian ally. They are buying Russian Missile systems. Not buying the United States missile systems. Should we kick them out of nato . I think its something that needs to be considered. How do you have a nato ally who is in cahoots with the russians when the russians are the adversaries of nato . If you go back to the end of world war ii, the United States prevented all these countries, including turkey, from falling into the soviet orb. And so how ironic now, 75 years later, turkey is looking at the russians like theyre the best friends in the world. Erdogan is a bad guy. And im disgusted at the american president would feel comfortable with someone like erdogan. Let me move to the impeachment inquiry. A couple things. Ambassador yovanovitch, what did you learn from her that you think the American Public needs to know . Well, first of all, the ambassador has been a highly respected career ambassador. We have many, many of those in the state department. From the time she came to ukraine, she was harassed, and they got rid of her. And she didnt know im saying things that are generally known because im not really allowed to say what happened are we going to see the full transcripts at some point . I think at some point. Of all of these folks. Kurt volker, these eight and ninehour sessions, are the American Public going to read these transcripts . I think the American Public shood. I think they have a right to go, and i think we need to open the door and let the fresh air come in. Thats what the democrats are trying to do. The president , of course, at every turn, is trying to stymie us, every turn is trying to make, disregard us. You know, remember when you were a kid and you learned the different branches of government . Checks and balances. Well, take that all and throw it out because the president doesnt think that the congress has any right to check and balance the executive. Gordon sondland, the ambassador to eu, now a, says he wants to testify despite the administration encouraging him not to, and b, is saying on the no quid pro quo comment in his text, he was essentially saying that was the president. Hot do you make of ambassador sondland sort of taking a step back, it seems . Let me say, first of all, im delighted hes coming in and we think it will be this thursday. Im anticipating, im looking forward to hearing what he has to say because hes key. You understand why the ambassador to the eu was the point person on ukraine . I dont. You have not gotten an answer to that question . No, it doesnt make sense, because obviously, he shouldnt be. But apparently, he has close relations with the president , and the president liked him. You have said youre fine if there is a vote in the house impeachment inquiry. Why not at this point . Why not put everybody on the record . Republicans and democrats. Everybody seems to want to be on the record, so put them on the record. We can go on the record by actually having impeachment hearings. I dont know that we need another step to push it further back. Does it bother you to vote . Doesnt bother me to vote, but the republicans would rather talk about anything else than about whats really happened. So they throw this out that there should be a vote, if we had a vote on that, they would come up with six other things that need to be a vote. I think there needs to be a impeachment inquiry and we need to stop the delay tactics of the republicans. Congressman eliot engel, one of three Committee Chairs running the inquiry, thank you for coming on. Always a pleasure. Joining me now is republican senator rand paul of kentucky. He also sits on the Foreign Relations committee on the senate side. Senator paul is also the author of the new book the case against socialism. Senator paul, welcome back to meet the press. Thanks, chuck, for having me. Let me start with the news of the morning. I hope you caught our report from Richard Engel and what hes seen on the ground. I know where your views are philosophically, and i want to get to that in a minute, but are you concerned this decision was too hasty, and it sort of created a more chaotic situation than necessary . Well, i think one of the things about the arab militias that turkey is using that your reporter reported on, its interesting that some of them are from the free syrian army, which was our ally for seven years, which shows how messy this is. Turkey is an ally, the free army was an ally, and the kurds have been allies. Its a complicated, messy situation, but a lot of people are not acknowledgic turkey was coming in one way or another, and 50 soldiers would simply be in the way and be a trip wire to a much worse outcome, so i think the president was right in moving 50 soldiers out of the way of an onslaught of tens of thousands of turkish troops. Why are you so convinced of that . Im not going to get to whether it was exactly 50 and all of that, but it does seem as if our soldiers being there was serving as a deterrent to erdogan for a period of time. They were until they werent. They were until the turks decided they were coming. They gave us forewarning they were coming and the president made a judgment that i think most military commanders would agree with, that you dont go to war with 50 soldiers. They dont deter anything. Once the turks said they were coming, it would have been foolish to leave 50 soldiers in the wakes of tens of thousands of people coming across the border. This is a 100yearold war between the turks and kurds. Realize, the president is asking is it in our National Security interests to somehow figure out how the kurds can live with the turks . The other interesting thing that people dont mention is all the kurds arent the same. The iraqi kurds are cooperating with turkey to turn in Kurdish Worker Party officials they see as terrorists. The iraqi kurds are turning over some of the kurds aligned with the syrians. Im glad you brought this up. When you were running for president , you actually you had a proposal on how you would handle the situation at the time, and i want to play it for you. Because im curious if you still hold the same view. Take a listen. I would provide armaments to the kurds as well. In fact, i would go one step further. I would promise them a homeland and a state, but i would do it in congentian with talks with turkey. It would be a threeway discussion, but i would like to get the turks involved as well. An interesting proposal. Youre not alone in that. A lot of folks would argue at some point the kurds need a home. Have you shared that idea with the president . I havent talked specifically about it, but they kind of do have a homeland. Theres a kurdish region in iraq. What i was referring to iraq, and i do agree with that sentiment, but heres one of the interesting things. As we have gotten stability in iraq and the kurds have selfcontrol, theres 1800 turkish businesses that are part of iraq that are controlled by the kurds. Its a Prosperous Oil region, and it works pretty well, but these kurds dont actually get along with the syrian kurds so well and many of the syrian kurds have been trying to break off part of turkey into an independent country. Its been going on for really close to 100 years. Many of the kurds in syria actually were expelled or exiled from turkey in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. The question we have to ask is and i have to ask, am i going to send the sons and daughters there to die to try to figure out how the kurds and turks can get along . I dont see that in our national interest. And we should vote on it. We should vote on it in congress and declare war if thats what people want. Senator, what do you i get that. What about that line that says america made a commitment to these folks. You may not have agreed with that policy decision at the time. But abandoning them could lead to a worse outcome. And look, thats these are not easy decisions. But what do you say to that line . But you know, what President Trump said was not im committed to making a kurdish homeland in syria. What he said is were going to wipe out isis, which was the benefit als