Ill ask republican senator rand paul of kentucky and democratic senator Michael Bennet of colorado. Plus, civil rights leader andrew young is offered olive branches to President Trump in the past. What about now . Ambassador young joins us this morning. And war games. Why did hawaiians get a message that a Ballistic Missile threat was inbound . It wasnt a drill. It was a mistake. The dangers of instant communication in the nuclear age. Joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news chief Foreign Affairs correspondent andrea mitchell, helene cooper, pentagon correspondent for the New York Times, david brodie, host of faith nation on the christian broadcasting network, and msnbc political analyst elise jordan. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television show, this is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. A week that began with President Trump feeling he needed to prove he was mentally fit to handle his job, and ended with him facing charges that hes a racist. Just asking that question is the president of the United States of america a racist, it is deeply uncomfortable. But it is an issue that is now being openly discussed. A measure of just how widespread the reaction has been to his shole comments about african countries can be seen in newspapers and editorial headlines around the country. Issue is not whether president clinton u used salt y language, it is the sentiment behind the language. It left the president forced to hear, if not address, a very uncomfortable question. Mr. President , are you a racist. Ignoring questions at an mlk day on friday after railing against african immigrants from shole countries at a closed door immigration meeting, suggesting that the u. S. Should accept more people from places like norway. Thats what he used his vile and vulgar comments, calling the nations they come from [ bleep ]. The president took to twitter with a vague partial denial saying his comments at the meeting were, quote, tough, this was not the language used. A source close to the president told nbc news, quote, he frequently uses that kind of language. The New York Times reported last month in june the president told advisers that immigrants from haiti all have aids. And said that once they had seen the United States, nigerian immigrants would never go back to their huts. Those comments in private should not be a surprise, given what the president has said in public. Why arent we letting people in from europe . I have many friends, many, many friends, and nobody wants to talk this, nobody wants to say it. Mr. Trump has a history of racially charged episodes that dates back more than four decades. In 1973, the Justice Department sued mr. Trump and his father for discriminating against africanamerican applicants for rental units. Mr. Trump reentered National Politics by leading the socalled birther movement. He gave a birth certificate. Whether or not that was a real certificate because a lot of people question it, i certainly question it. He launched his president ial campaign on the idea that immigrants from mexico were rapists. Theyre bringing drugs, theyre bringing crime, theyre rapists and some, i assume, are good people. And insisted those who resisted white prem sifts and neonazis in charlottesville were equally to blame. You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. On friday, the reaction from republicans was muted, with most Republican Leaders declining to comment. Two republican senators in the meeting put out a statement saying they do not recall the president saying these comments specifically. Another, senator Lindsey Graham, indirectly confirmed them, making it clear in a statement that following comments by the president , i said my peace directly to him. And some republicans did condemn the comments outright. Totally inappropriate, he should apologize. First thing that came to my mind was very unfortunate, unhelpful. That is not the kind of statement the leader of the free world ought to make and he ought to be ashamd ed of himself. But some Senate Candidates who are nervous about trumps base in the primary defended the president. I speak a little salty behind closed doors at times as well and so im not going to throw the first tone on using any language. Ive said all along, the president many times says what people are thinking. Joining me from bowling green, kentucky, republican senator rand paul. Senator paul, welcome back to meet the press, sir. Good morning. You know, during the campaign you lamented the fact that when you got into the race, you were doing things like speaking at howard, trying to show, expand the tent of the Republican Party and try to beat back the stereotype about the Republican Party and you lamented at the time the language candidate trump has used. As president , when hes gone down these roads, youve actually pulled back and youve not gone after him for specific comments. Youve hit him on policy, but not comments. Where are you on this . You know, i dont think the comments were constructive at all. But i also think that to be fair we shouldnt draw conclusions that he didnt intend. I know personally about his feelings towards haiti and toward Central America because when i was not a candidate for president , he wasnt a candidate for president , i went down there on a medical mission trip, did about 200 cataract surgeries and the same in Central America and when we asked donald j. Trump as a private citizen to support those troops, he was a large financial backer of both medical mission trips. I think it is unfair to draw conclusions from a remark that i think wasnt constructive as the least we can say and i think it is unfair to all of a sudden, paint him, well, hes a racist, when i know for a fact he cares very deeply about the people in haiti because he helped to finance a trip, we were able to give vision back for 200 people in haiti. I guess, though, are you more disturbed though by the comment, it is less about the vulgarity and more that he seemed to say, why cant we have immigrants from norway as opposed from african countries . Look, i tell you this, many nonwhite americans hear, oh, so he wants white people, not black people. Right. But i think people jumped a little bit to a conclusion. Lets take the whole scenario and put different words in and say we would rather have people from economically prosperous countries than economically deprived countries, or we realize that there are more problems in economically deprived countries, therefore there is a bigger impetus for them to want to come, then it wouldnt have been so controversial. What i can say is that if you do a poll, and one of the worldwide polling companies did this and asked people in 50 countries, would you like to come to america, about 700 million would come next year, we would double our population. Practically were a great place and practically we have to eliminate. If you look at where they would rather come from, if you live in a very, very poor economically distressed country, youre more willing to come than if youre thats the story, right . Say again . Thats the story of our country. It is the story of our country, but what im saying is you can see why there are more people wanting to come from economically distressed areas and they cant all come. It gets into the valid legitimate debate over how do we choose, do we base it more on merit . There are a lot of questions that this ultimately intersects with policy, and the only thing i regret from all of this, other than i think some people in the media have gone completely bonkers with, you know, just ad homonym on the president , i want to see an immigration compromise and you cant have an immigration compromise if everybody is out there calling the president a racist. Theyre actually destroying the setting and hes a little bit of it, but both sides are destroying the setting in which anything meaningful can happen on immigration. Thats where i want to segue. You said the word merit. The president , this morning, in a tweet said i as president want people coming to our country who will help us become strong and great again, people coming in through a system based on merit. No more lotteries. Define merit. I sit there, is merit political asylum, is merit running away from poverty . What is merit . That is the eye of the beholder word, sir. I think so. I think for a lot of it is intent to work and people who want to work and there are jobs of all different knowledge and skill levels, so, for example, ifware engineer, those are the kind of people that people say staple a green card to their visa, thats easy. If you come here and youre not going to work, you have no merit. Really what i would do is combine not only being selective, but i would have a very significant work and sponsorship. In the old days, maybe 100 years ago, when my wifes grandmother came here, you had to work. If you didnt work, you were in fear of being sent home. There needs to be a little bit of that tough love. So we select out for people who have strong work ethic and i would say, by the way, most immigrants who come here have maybe better work ethic than some of those who are already here. Thats actually usually been the case when it comes to first generation immigrants. Let me ask you something, you seem to say that democrats have to stop calling the president names. Doesnt the president , though, owe an apology for some of this because, you know, look, nia love, the daughter of haitian immigrants, she wants an apology. And he hasnt issued one. There are two different standards here n 2013, Lindsey Graham said the exact same thing the president did, but he used the word hell hole. We cant have everybody coming from every hell hole on the planet here. Now everybody thinks Lindsey Graham is a great statesman, but he said almost the identical thing to the president in 2013. So i think we have a selective remembering and we have decided that and people have wait, wait, wait, wait. Hasnt the president earned but, senator, hasnt the president earned this skepticism on his own . I mean, hes the one tweeting these he has often not helped his case, and i think if he were to further explain or try to explain, maybe not use such coarse language it wouldnt be this way. If we were to have a debate over whether or not we can have an open border with every economically deprived country that is a valid debate. And people are driven here by poverty, but we cant have an open border with everyone who wants to come. We end up having to have rules on our border and we have to be somewhat selective on who comes. I think there was a valid argument in there, but you got sort of queen saltiness coming out and then i think people have misinterpreted that hes a racist. I can tell you, that when i went to haiti, and was doing a medical mission trip, he was very concerned about those in haiti and wanted to help them to restore their vision. I want to talk ask you where you are on the various compromises out there. Ill put up a quick graphic. The compromise bill in the senate, Lindsey Graham and dick durbin there, on the left. Additional money for Border Security, citizenship for dreamers, dreamers parents would be protected but no citizenship, diversity lottery ended but slots reallocated. Can you support Something Like that or do you think thats too to open borders for your taste . I can support a compromise. And, in fact, ive been offering to the democrats a compromise for six months that they have turned their head and sniffed at and said, oh, no, we dont have to give up anything, were going to get what we want. My compromise all along was, those who are here, the kids that came here, parents brought them here illegally, we could internally immigrate them, just count them against the normal totals. So like next year a Million People will come, and if you had 200,000 dreamer kids, have a million minus 200,000 come next year and count the 200,000 as part of the million that would have come anyway. And that way your immigration totals arent going up, theyre staying the same and internally immigrating people who are already here. I think thats a compromise. But the democrats have sort of sniffed at this and said, no, we want just, you know, our dreamer act without anything. But now i think the president has changed the dynamic. There is going to be the dreamers are going to get naturalized, but there is going to have to be something for Border Security and it has to be real and has to be significant because a lot of people, you know, going all the way back to 86, we doubt, people said Border Security it going to come later, it never comes. That is an argument we have heard for a long time. Senator paul, i appreciate that. And it is going to be Perfect Timing because ill get somebody from the other side of the aisle to respond to that. Appreciate you coming on and sharing your views, sir. From the other side of the aisle, who is a part of that bipartisan deal i just asked senator paul about, democratic senator Michael Bennet of colorado, who joins me from denver. Welcome back to the show, sir. Thanks for having me, chuck. Ill start where we just ended so that the viewer can feel it. You heard senator pauls response, avoiding taking a position on your compromise, offering up another version of a compromise, protecting the dreamers for straight up even more Border Security. Ive heard a version of that before too, which is separate out all the other issues. You want to protect the dreamers, fine, lets do it, just for the wall. And some version of the fence. What do you say to that . What i say is that he ought to look at the compromise that dick durbin and Lindsey Graham and rest of us have reached because it is a combination of Border Security, 1. 6 billion that the president asked for his wall, additional 1. 1 billion for Border Security, and at the same time were saying that we should put the dreamers on a pathway to citizenship. There are other compromises as well. This was a hard fought negotiation over four months. I think that it is a middle of the road approach that i hope other colleagues will support. But it addresses immediate concern because, look, yes, you allocate an additional billion dollars to what was asked for by the president. But it is really a oneyear, you know, his concern and ive heard this from others, no, allocate that Border Security money now so that they know it is there. We will allocate it now. We are allocating it now in the bill. I was part of the gang of eight that negotiated the immigration bill in the senate that got 68 votes, which if the house had ever put it on the floor would have passed and i think we wouldnt be in all this nonsense were in right now. That bill, which was democrats and republicans together, the first provisions of that bill were Border Security. I think we put 40 billion of Border Security in that bill, so this idea that somehow democrats arent interested in Border Security is demonstrably false and we should stop talking about it and get on with it. A lot of democrats simply want to say, you know what, dont try to compromise, this should be a clean dream act, nothing else. Let me play a few clips on that. What i was glad to see is that we are moving forward on getting a clean dream act. We need to pass a clean dream act. If you are a democrat who doesnt like a clean dream act, you are going to have some problems. And dont count on me to protect you. Youre on your own with that. That last comment was the deputy chair of the democratic party, senator, saying essentially compromising on daca with Border Security is somehow a negative litmus test inside the democratic party. What do you say to that . What i say is that, look, im for a clean dream act. Ive been one of the first cosponsors of the clean dream act. As i said earlier, the gang of eight immigration bill we passed earlier had a great dream act, but it also had Border Security. And i think it is a recognition that unfortunately the republicans have a majority in the house, the republicans have majority in the senate, and we have a republican president who doesnt seem to appreciate the contribution that immigrants make to this country. I think that the agreement that Lindsey Graham and dick durbin and the rest of us have reached is a principled compromise and i hope people will explore it. There should be more of that in washington, not less, in my view. A lot of democrats have come to the conclusion that the president is a racist after the previous comments and point to a series of things he has said over decades, not just as president. Is that a fair conclusion . I was raised not to call people racist on the theory that it was hard for them to be rehabilitated once you said that. But there is no question what he said was racist. There is no question what he said was unamerican. And completely unmored from the facts. He seems to have this impression that immigrants to the United States, like my mom and her parents, who are polish jews who came here after the holocaust, somehow, you know, come to the United States and just are lazy and the truth is exactly the opposite. You spend any time in neighborhoods across colorado, what you find is immigrants here striving to make this country better, provide for their families, and for the next generation. So i think he has no idea what hes talking about and on the question of what is in his heart, do you have any idea any thought, chuck, that he would have calle