Former white house political director under president george w. Bush sara fagen. The cook political reports amy walter and politico ranu roger. Its sunday, its meet the press. Good morning. We start with sad news from overnight. Beau biden has succumbed to brain cancer at the age of 46. He was first diagnosed with the illness in august 2013. He received treatment. That was initially successful. The cancer recurred and this month he was admit to a hospital right here near washington. Many viewers will remember this photo from 1973. It shows a bedridden beau watching his dad being sworn in from his hospital bed after a tragic car crash that killed his 1yearold sister amy and his mother mila. Here is beau remembering that event introducing his father in the 2008 democratic convention. One of my earliest memories was being in that hospital, my dad always at our side. We, my brother and i, not the senate, were all he cared about. Saturday night Vice President biden paid tribute to his son. In the words of the biden family, beau biden was quite simply the finest man any of us have ever known. He is survived by his wife halle and two children natalie and hunter. The heartaches for the entire biden family this morning. Overseas, there was a scare for secretary of state john kerry after he was involved in a bicycling accident in the french alps near the swiss border. He had to be airlifted to a hospital in geneva where doctors found he had broken his leg his thigh bone. Hell return to boston later today for further treatment. This comes at a hugely sensitive time for secretary kerry. He was there in europe making a final push to secure a nuclear deal with iran ahead of the deadline at the end of june. Owe had just met with the Iranian Foreign minister. We move to the story that stunned official washington. The indictment of former House SpeakerDennis Hastert over allegations he paid millions of dollars to coverup Sexual Misconduct when he was a male student when he was a High School Teacher in illinois. Pete, lay out what we know now. This is not where the government is still investigating. Theyve done their investigating, they made their case. Number one, the government doesnt claim that mr. Hasterts payment of this money was illegal. He is not charged with whatever happened 30 years ago. That is not anything the federal government could bring a charge on. Two, its well beyond the statute of limitations of the state. What the federal government says once the bank said what are you doing with all this money he started reducing the payments to come under the reporting threshold helping the banks evade credit reporting requirements. When the fbi came knocking on his door he said he wasnt paying the money to anybody, keeping it for himself. Thats what the federal crime is. The federal government says we are not charging individual a with extortion. One is, you have to have a victim and mr. Hastert never claimed he was extorted. Secondly the several officials said they are satisfied this was a cooperative agreement they had that. There was an element of agreement not just flat out shakedown. So why is this illegal . It is his own money but because of this technical violation of the credit reporting rules, and secondly the lie to the fbi. Remember, he is not charged with what he did 30 years ago to this victim. Hes charged with something he did more recently. When will we see him in court . We dont know for sure. Normally, you would have to be brought before a federal magistrate and have the right within 48 hours. Obviously, there is a lot of agreement between his lawyers and prosecutor. Thanks very much. Want to turn to tom davis, former congressman from virginia. In some ways you were a key lieutenant back in the hastert ten yufrmt i have to get your initial reaction. Was there a whiff of this . Dennis hastert became speaker of the house because of scandal that impacted gingrich bob livingston, both in some ways associated with sex scandals. Was there a whiff of this . Not a whiff. Behind closed doors and a lot of things happen behind closed doors, Denny Hastert never got close to the line. He would bring the conversation back. At least as he conducted himself in office he appeared to be a pillar of integrity. Explain how shocked you are. You could have knocked me over with a feather. And other members who served on staff are shocked. No clue to this. Im thinking about the impact this has on the Image Congress has which is poor with the public. Kevin tibbles talked with folks. I wanted to play this one remarks from a yorkville resident at Dennis Hasterts hometown. This gets to the core. Its the norm with politicians running wild with sex scandals money scandals, you know, just basic thievery overall. People say the whole place is full of crooks and creeps and i say no its just a few bad apples. Now its hard to say that. Everything i can tell, thats the way he conducted himself in office. This isnt going to help the reputation of congress or politicians, in general. Certainly illinois had its problems. I know illinois had itself i guess the question is why are we seeing, it feels like we are seeing more of this . Do you feel like there is something in the water . Is it just something about the way Congress Makes people think theyre indestructible to bad behavior. Communication is ubiquitous today. Very hard. 24 7 news cycles people leaking, tweeting. There are very few secrets. Getting into politics, you have to look at your life and say what is going to come out . Everything is offlimits. In the old days this is stuff nobody talked about. Today its news. Let me go to the panel here. Chris matthews sarah amy. Chris, youve been around this town a long time. When you get to this town you wanted to hold members of congress up in high esteem. I want make the case to say mama, i want your kids to grow up to be politicians. 9 approval rating. A big part if congress had gotten something done over the last 40, 50 years, since the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights act, what have they really done . I think people are willing to forgive a little bit of misbehavior on this side though this goes beyond that. This is probably criminal at some point. Then theyll forgive. They may forgive babe ruth for drinking too much when he hits 60 homes runs. Where are the 60 home runs . Just like the assumption in the movies, its been congressmen and people are all rich. They dont all problems. Remember that group of 20 liberals, Barbara Boxer leon panetta. They were all married people with solid marriages. Though hugged together to keep everything together. They were all good people. So theres a lot of really good Straight Arrow members of congress who are loyal to their families and wives and husbands. Its a very clean operation. Prudish operation, most of it. Cases like this pop out. I go with the old rule, i think its better than it looks. I know it is, too. I understand why the public doesnt believe me. It creates a vicious cycle for the institution of congress which is more and more of these scandals come out. Fewer and fewer really great quality candidates want to run for office. Thats what we are seeing s, i think in Public Office today. Being a member of congress is no longer honorable in most parts of the country, which is sad. It is. That will have a recurring cycle. Amy, i want to get to one thing about this hastert thing. How is a guy who had a net worth less than 500,000 in congress end up with 12 million. How did he get so much money that he could pay out millions of dollars. It exposes the revolving door. Denny hastert went downtown and became a speaker and cashed. In he quietly made tons of money which became central to this case. Members use their influence in congress to cash in. Can i make one other point . To move itsway from politics one second. The sadder part of this story, we spend time talking about how bad congress is and bad the bill cosby case was. We talk about the men we dont talk about the victim. Thats where we have to spend a little more time and a little less time about them. This victim tried very hard, sounds like doesnt want to be if you want to be out there would have been out there. Clearly doesnt want to be out there. We dont know the whole story but we do i think we love to focus on how bad congress is how bad this person is we just spent more time talking about the people are affected. Obviously, thats the primary victim here. A lot of the victims are Good Congress people who lead good lives. Absolutely right. Our 2016 campaign special. 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As our colleague tom brokaw likes to say there is the theory of ufos unforeseen occurrences. Yesterday Martin Omalley announced his candidacy. Before him Bernie Sanders of vermont. He just might be the kind of ufo weve seen in the past. We are going to build a movement of millions of americans. Could a rumpled 73yearold become Hillary Clintons most dangerous opponent. . He has a powerful weapon. He can puncture clintons aura of inevitability by beating expectations. I dont look upon this campaign one which you are trying to pick up delegates. Eugene mccarthy mobilized a volunteer army of students who flooded into New Hampshire, shaving their beards, to get clean for gene. Mccarthy surprised second place finish with 42 of the votes was a stunning repudation of president Lyndon Johnson and his vietnam policy. It changes the political picture in america for 1968. Mccarthys upset drew then senator Bobby Kennedy into the democratic race. It pushed johnson out. In 1984 it was littleknown senator gary hart who beat expectations and finished second in iowa to then go on to New Hampshire and stun walter mondale, beating him by ten points. Boy, did New Hampshire come up with a surprising finish tonight. Harts candidacy collapsed, but his victory exposed weakness in mondale. In november, Ronald Reagan carried 49 of 50 states. In 2012 mitt romney beat Rick Santorum, but never recovered from santorums bruising. A populist insurgent is poised to become the latest protest vehicle, pushing Hillary Clinton to the left and potentially exposing vulnerability that could help republicans in the fall. And the democratic president ial candidate senator Bernie Sanders joins me now. Welcome back to meet the press. Let me start with an issue you are going to be dealing with in a few hours. I know youll be flying back from minneapolis to washington for this special senate session, nsa, patriot act session 215. I assume you are a supporter of the usa freedom act. Is that where you are going to be voting . I may well be voting for it. It doesnt go as far as i want it to go. I voted against the patriot rack and reauthorization of the patriot act. We have to be vigorous protecting the American People but we have to protect the Constitutional Rights of the American People. Im very, very worried about the invasion of privacy rights that we are seeing, not only from the nsa and government but from Corporate America as well. We are losing our privacy rights. Its a huge issue. The government is going to be asking Corporate America to keep this data under the usa freedom act. Are you comfortable with that . No, im not. We have to look at the best of bad situations. The question is whether the nsa keeps it. The question is whether its transferred to the phone companies who keep records for an extended period of time. You served under two democratic president s, bill clinton and barack obama. Which one has been a better progressive champion in your view . Well neither one of them have gone as far as i would have liked them to go. Thats one of the reasons why we are seeing the disappearance of the middle class in this country, and a huge increase in income and wealth inequality. That is why we are not dealing with the fact we have 45 Million People living in poverty and why we are still the only major country on earth that doesnt guarantee health care to all people. I have a lot of respect for president obama. I consider him a friend. I disagree with him on issues like the tpp or the extension of tax breaks that bush initiated. I think history will judge president obama a lot better than many other contemporaryies, given the fact he came into office at at time when this country was in terrible shape. You singled out president obama, but not president clinton. I think bill clinton did a very good job. I disagree with him strongly on nafta, permanent normal trade relations with china. Im a strong opponent of these disastrous trade agreements which loses millions of decentpaying jobs. I also very strongly disagreed with deregulation on wall street. I opposed that. When you allow the greed and recklessness on wall street to go unchecked you are going to end up where we are today and eight years ago. When you watch your chief primary opponent right now, secretary Hillary Clinton on some key issues she has changed her position to a more progressive view. On samesex marriage immigration, this is over the last ten years. Nafta on trade, on the iraq war, on cuba. She has moved from a position basically in disagreement with you to a position that comes closer to your view. My guess is do you take her at her word and do you think rhetorically thats enough . I have known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. I have enormous respect for her and i like her. What i hope is that the media will allow us to have a serious debate in this campaign on the enormous issues facing the American People, which is why for the last 40 years our middle class has been disappearing. Why 99 of all new income generated today is going to the top 1 and why we have this grotesque level of income inequality. People say youve been saying the same thing 30 years. Its kind of true. Maybe its bad. I think we need a Political Revolution in this country. I think we need to take on the greed of the billionaire class, on Disastrous Campaign finances. Do you trust these changes Hillary Clinton has made or do you think she is doing it for primary politics . I think thats for the American People to decide. I know where i have been on trade agreements. I know where ive been on wall street. I know where ive been on the keystone pipeline. And secretary clinton will obviously explain her position to the American People. This week you found out what i