Art institute of chicago. Whether youre in the classics, theres a place to catch live music. Chicago is music heaven. From the music to the theatre, architecture, art closed captioning and other consideration for extra provided by hersheys miniatures. Thats it for extras mansions and millionaires chicago. I want to send a big thanks to our host, the city of chicago and to chicago. Its time for me to have one more slice of chicago deep dish pizza and send it back to universal. Thank you, michael. That is going to do it for us this weekend. For the latest intermeentertain headlines, head to extra. Were going to leave you with the trailer for black panther. Have a great weekend everyone. Well see you monday. You will not be able to stay home. You will not be able to the plug in, turn on and cop out. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will be live. Welcome home. President trump and the lack of civility in politics. A week that began with a fight over what President Trump said to a grieving widow. He must have known what he signed up for. How can you say that to a grieving widow. Didnt say what that Congress Woman said. Ends with two former president s criticizing the current one without mentioning him by names. Politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication. If you have to win a campaign by dividing people you will not be able to govern them. My guests on civility, health care, tax cuts and attack on u. S. Soldiers in africa, Chuck Schumer and republican senator Lindsey Graham. That republican civil war. There has not been a more destructive presidency than george bushs. More evidence that the Republican Party is showing signs of splitting in two. And in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal we ask female senators to share their me too stories with meet the press. He slammed the door and lunged for me. I have a story. He looked at me and paused and said did you bring your knee pads. Remarkable stories of what happened to powerful women early in their careers. Joining me for insight and analysis are tom friedman, daniel pletka. Robert costa for the Washington Post and cooper, pentagon correspondent for the new york times. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. From nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, celebrating its 70th year this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. This was a week when attention should have been focussed on issues with real life consequences, future of health care, tax cuts and ambush that resulted in four American Service men being killed but it was a side show what President Trump reportedly said to the widow of one of the Fallen Soldiers that dominated the headlines and illuminated the erosion. The battles that President Trump engages in with democrats, media and members of his own party appeared to prop two former president s and a former nominee. The latest twitter cable cat nip soap opera began when President Trump claimed incorrectly that he alone among president s made a point of calling and comforting the families of those who died in defense of the country. Most of them didnt make calls, a lot of them didnt make calls. When even condolences to gold star military families became politicized. Didnt say what that Congress Woman said. Didnt say it at all. Florida Congress Woman says the president told the widow of Sergeant Johnson that your guy knew what he signed up for. He doesnt need to talk about what people sign up for. That is unconscionable. Mr. Trump rather than going out himself sent his chief of staff to clean up the mess. It stuns me that a member of congress would listen in on the conversation. If you want to get in a debate that is something highly inappropriate. Last night all five living former president s gathered in texas to raise money for hurricane relief, an effort they are calling the one america appe appeal. The heart of america without regard to race or religion or Political Party is greater than our mr. Trump taped a video message, as well. Through this effort all five are playing a tremendous role in helping our fellow citizens recover. It was a show of unity after a week in which president s bush and obama broke the expresident s code of silence and indicted President Trumps brand of politics without mentioning him by name. Bigotry seems emboldened, politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories. If you have to win a campaign by dividing people you are not going to be able to govern them. Echoing another rebuke of President Trump this one by senator john mccain. Half baked nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems. While the white house chose not to respond mr. Trumps former chief strategist steve bannon did respond on an attack on president bush friday night and called for open revolt inside the Republican Party. He has no idea whether he is coming or going just like when he was president of the united states. There has not been a more destructive presidency than george bushs. And as for the president himself, he so far as only responded directly to senator mccain. People have to be careful because at some point i fight back. Im being very nice. At some point i fight back and it wont be pretty. Joining me now is republican senator Lindsey Graham of south carolina. Good morning. Lovely morning. I know you always love being here on weeks like this. You were tough on candidate donald trump. In fact, i think right before you got out you called him a race baiti ing religious bigot. You heard what president bush said. Where are we . He won, i lost. President bush is still popular in the Republican Party. But donald trump couldnt have won without rejecting the last 16 years really when you think about it. There were a lot of people like bush running in our primary and all of them got creamed. Clinton was not the greatest candidate. If president obama what what the American People wanted to continue then trump wouldnt have won. I say to both former president s i admire president bush a lot. President obama, i dont think any of us get why President Trump won. You dont understand yet . I think i do. You just said you didnt think. I think president bush im more in the bush camp on Foreign Policy. Mccains speech was about not going down the bannon road. When you look at who is around President Trump he has more people like john mccain and Lindsey Graham than bannon. In the primary he rejected basically the bush model of Foreign Policy and in the general election thats on substance and that is fine. When did civility become an issue. When did this idea of it is more important to land that bunch . Thats what i argue with both former president s were referring to. It became part of the discourse when it came down the escalator. The first thing donald trump talked about was pretty tough and he never stopped and he won. What does that say about us . It means we want somebody who is not traditional and we are sick and tired of the status quo whether it being obama or bush and people felt so bad about their government they had nothing to lose. They were going to pick a guy that was rich and liked being rich and says im going to make you rich, a guy who says im tired of being all over the world involved in business except ours. Look at this week and ask why couldnt he take the high ground . Thats what it is. Its not about to me business, the customer is always right and in this the grieving widow is always right. I guess i ask why do you think he couldnt take the high road . It start whd they criticized have you reached out to the four Fallen Soldiers families and then he brings up president obama. No doubt that president obama and Michelle Obama are heart broke every time a soldier fell on their watch and having been around President Trump a lot lately that he loves the military. General kelly tried to give him advice about how to talk about these things. President trump may have delivered it inartfully. I can promise you this if president obama was on the end of the phone i would not have politicized this like Congress Woman wilson. There are no winners here. None. Everybody is trying to sit here and find blame in the other side. The winners are the American People to have four young men that would be willing to go and leave their family to a place out in the middle of nowhere to fight terrorists so they dont come here. I urge President Trump lets talk about the four soldiers. How about time on who they were and why they did what they did and all those like them. I want to know and a lot of people want to know why they were there. I will go through a quick timeline because we dont know a lot. On october 4 we were told that it was Counter Terrorism training. October 5 it was a reconnaissance patrol. October 6 we were told they were there to establish relations with local leaders. John kelly on october 19 three days ago said i actually know a lot more than im letting on but im not going to tell you. John mccain had to threaten a subpoena to get john mattis to talk to you guys briefly. What more can you tell us about why we were there . They are going to brief us next week as to why they were there and what they were doing. I got insight on why they were there. I can say this to the families they were there to defend america. They were there to help allies and there to prevent another platform to attack america and our allies. Senator mccain is frustrated. We dont know where we are at in the world militarily so john mccain will try to create a new system to make sure we can answer the question why we were there and how many soldiers are there and if somebody gets killed there that we wont find out about it in the paper. John mccain and i think general mattis will come up with a new process i hope. You used alarming words when you said we dont want the next 9 11 to come from there. You are making the case that this is all part of the same war that you guys authorized in 2002 that the same war that you authorized that we thought was about afghanistan and then it turned to iraq and then used for lib libya, for syria and now another continent. I dont think the isil affiliated forces have capability to attack united states. You had a government that fell replaced by the taliban or government that invited International Terrorists in. So what i worry about africa it becomes the new platform for people to come to, the ungoverned spaces of africa is where terrorists will come and there are some groups within this system of terrorist groups in africa that would attack our allies. There is no victory here. I say this because this is a week we got raca. We make a substantial progress against isis in syria and iraq and now it is whack a mole and they are popping up here. This goes to the same thing we had ten years ago pushing al qaeda back but then al qaeda reformed with a new name. Its a generational struggle. If you dont think it is a generational struggle you dont understand the war. It is spreading throughout the world particularly africa. If you think it is done in a short period of time if you take off means of how you fight this war there is an authorization that limited the war based on time, geography and means i would vote against it because the war is morphing and going to places that we havent heard of before. We will follow the terrorists wherever they go. We will use whatever moo means we need to with partners to destroy them and most people are not ready for that but i am. Are we going to need a new war authorization. Sounds like you are arguing no. I am arguing that the current authorization is enough. The military determines who the threats are. They come up with the engagement policy. If we dont like what the military does we can defund the operation. I didnt know there were 1,000 troops. John mccain is right to tell the military because this is an endless war you have to tell us more and he is right to say that. You have come on this show numerous times and said russia needs to be punished. You passed a tough sanctions bill. There was a deadline of october 1. It is not october 1. It is october 20 and sanctions have not been implemented. Why . I think the Trump Administration is slow when it comes to russia. They have a blind spot on russia i cant figure out. I can tell you what happened in 16. At what point is that circumstantial evidence . Wherever the Russian Investigation takes us it will take us. In 16 they interfered in our elections. In 18 and 20 they are coming back against us. What are the rules of engagement . Did what they did in 2016 amount to an act of war . We are really not weld together as a nation in terms of threats we are facing from the cyber arena. Russia will get worse if not better. Go after russia because they are coming after us. How do you hold them accountable . Congress will have a way to hold the president accountable. I think he is beginning to understand threats we face better and better each day. Thanks for coming on. No four letter words this time. The day is not over. Fair enough. Well see what my next guest thinks. Joining me now is Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of new york. Welcome back to meet the press. Good morning. I want to start. As the Senate Democratic leader have you been briefed . Sgr was jack reed briefed . I dont believe he was either. He sent a letter along with john mccain demanding that they come in and brief them. I understand that. If you get this briefing and you heard what senator graham believes this is part of the larger battle against radical islamist fundamentalism and the spread of it taking place in africa, what does this mean for the war authorization . Senator graham didnt know we had a thousand troops there. Did you . I did not. What it means for the war authorization is i agreed with senator paul that we ought to look at this carefully. We are in a brave new world. There are no set battle plans. You dont declare war and fight three weeks later. Having said that the constitution says congress has the power to declare war. If you are in a long term war congress ought to keep that. We need to reexamine this. We are on an aumf that extends 16 years from right after we were attacked at the world trade center. I would be for reexamining it. Absolutely. There is no easy answer. The answer we have now is not adequate. How do you describe it any other way than never ending war . Look, terrorism and technology has allowed terrorists to do bad things to us. Our military is very, very good and thats why we are having such success in syria and iraq. Let me stop you there. Why is that considered a success . I say it this way is because it seems we had success in afghanistan until we didnt. We had success in iraq until we didnt. We had success and now popping up in central africa. The point i guess is how do you define success because it seems short term victories are just that, shortterm . Two years ago it looks like isis would have a caliphate. When they had territory they could get money out of big cities. They cant do that. Can they try oo hurt us . Yes. To say that we havent won the war isnt to say that we havent had some successes. I will move to health care. It seems as if the democrats are a lot more enthusiastic about the bipartisan deal between senators alexander and murray than republicans are. So let me ask you this. Its clear that they want the administration wants a little bit more in this deal in order to get these payments back to the insurance companies. So what are you willing are you willing to do more . This is a good compromise. It took months to work out. It has a majority, 60 senators supporting it. We have 12 republicans. I urge senator mcconnell to put it on the floor immediately this week. It will pass by a large number of votes. That will put pressure on the house because lets not forget what this bill does is prevent premiums from going up 20 even more in some states. That falls on everybodys back. And if republicans think that if premiums go up they are going to avoid the blame he is wrong. For the substantive reason preventing premiums going up, but because the republicans are in charge and should be coming up with the solution and senator alexander did we should pass it. And pass it now. You can always say i wont pass it unless this happens and democrats says i wont pass it unless that happens. We can get together in a bipartisan way. The president called both senators murray and alexander and said come to a solution. And then they come to a solution. The right wing attacks it and backs off. Thats not leadership. Thats the whole problem. The president is not leading on issue after issue after issue. He should stop tweeting and start leading. Roll up his sleeves and solve problems. Dont attack socalled enemies. That will reduce the coarsening of the debate that you correctly point out. Let me ask you specific on health care the issue of creating Association Health care plans something he did an executive order on and something they would like to see become a part of the deal that loosens regulations that allow for the creation of this. The democrats are not in the majority in congress. Dont you almost have an obligation that you probably have to give a little bit more since the republicans are the ones in charge . We gave on copper plans. The republicans always wanted copper plans. These are minimal plans. We didnt like it. I remember during Health Care Debate presiden