So, we will drop your aspect of the lawsuit. And his biggest regret as president. If you could have one doover as president , what would it be . And how mr. Trump thinks impeachment couldimpact his reelection opportunities. If hell keep mike pence on the tiet and wheth hes prepared to lose the election. This morning oneonone with President Trump. Plus, the democrats as we ad into the first debates, joe biden and Pete Buttigieg confront difficult questions on race. Joining me are nbc News White House correspondent kristen welker. William baker, chief correspondent for the new york times. Wall street journal peggy noonan and lanhee chen of stanford university. Welcome to sunday and a special omition of meet the press. Announcer frbc news, the longest running show in television history, this is a special ition of meet the press with chuck todd. To good sunday morning. Its safe say were at one of the prift points of the 2020 election cycle. At the same time, democrats will unofficially hear the starting gun for their nomination fight when 20 candidates faceff for two nights of debates this coming week in miami. Even thoughe wont be there, President Trump will be a dominant presence at those debates. One way or the other, the 2020 election will be a referendum on donald trump. The president will argue hes a successful businessmanenturned pres whos created a strong nconomy, appointed conservative judges,d unnecessary regulations and established a sense of strong and, yes, feared america around the world. N. Short, hell argue hes made America Great agai democrats will say hes a bigot whos praised neonazis, caged l chen, lied shamelessly and embarrassed america before the world. In short, theyll argue hes unfit for the office. I w sat downth President Trump friday morning phofor an interv that touched , well, everything. We started with his Decision Just hours earlier to call off a retaliatory strike after iran shot down an unmanned american drone. Mr. President , welcome back to meet the press. Thank you. Let me start right in. What happened last night . Well, you had a that was very bad because the night before they shot down an unmanned drone. And the unmanned is a very big factor. The fact there was not a person on it, a u. S. Person on it or atybody. And thhad an impact on me. I said, well, you know, we got a little problem. And i think they did it on purpose because they understand lthat they wil be hit very hard if that were a plane with a person in it. And i think they knew that there was body there. So, we had a very modest but pretty heavy attack scheduled. And this was a preplan you so had. Thing that if you did something they were sort of readymade plans. We had many of them. I have so my targets, you wouldnt believe. We have targets all over. Did you green light something or had you said, if we do it, ill do this . What was the order . Nothing is green lighted until the very end because things change. So you never gave a order . No, no. We had something ready to go, subject to my approval. They came in, they came this about a half hour before and saidwere about ready togo. I said, i want a better definition were planes in the air . No, no. Ou they were ab ready to go. No, but they would have been pretty soon. Things would have happened to a point where you wouldnt turn back or cok. Dnt turn bac so, they came and they said, sir, were ready to go. Wed like a decision. I said, i want to know something before you go. How many people will be killed . In this se iranians. I said, how many people are going to be killed . Sir, id like to get back to you on that. Greapeople, these generals. They said came back, said, sir, aroximately 150. And i thought about it for a second. I said, you know what, they shot down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call it, and here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within aho half an after i sai go ahead. And i didnt like it. I didnt think it was i didnt think it was proportionate. Do you think they were trying to provoke you . No, i dont think so. And it was very important to them dont forget t you donnk they intended to get you to respond miliirrily . Theconomy is shattered. Shattered. Whats the their inflation is through the roof. Worseacthan anypl theyre living not well. Do you want to do a separate deal with iran or get everybody involved in the sam deal, get the russians, chinese. I dont care what kind of a deal. Be separate or total. Its oneonone talks you and the ayatollah or it doesnmatter to me. Anything to get you to the result, they cannot have a nuclear weapon. Its not about the straits. A lot of people cover it incorrectly. They never mention they cannot have a nuclear weapon. Theyd use it. And theyre not going to have a nuclear weapon. Did you send a message last night . Reuters is reporting you sent a message to the iranians saying, i dont want a war. I want to talk. I did not send that message. Send a message right nowth t ayatollah. Its fake news. Send a message right now to the ayatollah. Itouldnt be much different from that message. Which is . Im not looking for war. If there is, it will be objecte lit rags lik youve never seen before. But you cant have a nuclear weapon. You knt to tal good otherwise youll have a bad economy for three years. No preconditions . I not as far concerned. No preconditions. And youll talk anyway . Here it is. You cannot have nuclear weapons. If you do, you can live in a shattered economy for a long time to come. Do you feel like you were being pushed into military tion by any of your advisers . I have two groups of people. I have doves and some hawks. You have some serious ohhawk j bolton is an absolute hawk. If it was up to him, he would take on the wod at one time. I was against going into iraq. For years and years. Before it ever happened, i was against going into iraqi. I was a private citizen. I s against going into the middle east. Chuck, we spent 7 trillion in the middleast right now. What would candidate trump have said about a president who on his watch had iran shooting down a drone, a venezuela dictator thumbing his nose atyo no results on the border. Let me what would candidate trump say. The borderis doing great. Mexico has been fantastic. Theyve been trying to get a deal with mexico for 45 years. For 45ears they couldnt get a deal. I got one in one day. We agreed in one day. 6mexico just moved 00 people to their southern border. 6,000 troops to their southern border. The border is working out well tand wall is being built. People dont like to talk about it. Well have 400 miles of wall built by the n end oft year. Thats hard because the democrats dont want to approve it. We just beat them in a big lawsuit, as you know, in washington and d. C. We just beat them in a big lawsuit doesnt it worry you your border numbers are worse than obamas . No, people are coming up because the economy is good. Ob ama had a lousy economy. It was a dead economy. Let me show you this chart. You see that chart . Yeah. Its the Unemployment Rate from the peak of the recession. Iur economy is great. Im not sayis not great. But this recovery started and in the 28 months youv president and the last 28 months of obamas presidency, he averaged more new jobs than your first 28. Thats because he started off with such a bad base. Okay. I mean, he hits but is it not chuck, you have to understand, nobody was working. The whole place was a disaster. And i dont ive never take that away but its very easy because when that turned around, they pumped a tremendous amount of money into the economy. He also had a Federal Reserve person who kept the Interest Rates low. I donot. Sounds like you do now. No, no. He raised them far too fast. Your threat to demote him. Do you think thats had an impact . I never threatened to demote him. There was talk you threatened to demote him to the number two spot. I can do at. Thats not a threat . I have the right to do that but i havent said that. What hes done is 50 billion a month in quantitative tightening . Thats ridiculous. He raised Interest Rates too fast. Do you think its going to hurt your reelection . I think the economy is so strong, well bowl through it but im not happy with his actions. No, i dont think hes done a good job. If he didnt raise rates obama had very low rates. Obama was playing with fny money. I wasnt. Im playing with the real stuff. Let me ask you this. Wait, wait. Obama had somebody that kept the rates very low. I have someone that raised the rah. S very rapidly, too muc he made a mistake. Thats been proven. T and ye my economy is phenomenal. We have now the best economy maybe in the history of our country. Just to finish off. When i took over this country, the economy was ready to collapse. You take a look at the numbers. It was ready to collapse. And if i didnt win i just showed you the numbers. It wasnt ready to collapse. Yh sed me the Unemployment Rate. Take a look at your gdp, optimism, all of the chartsi whn ok over, from election day on, you show me one chart i did well in that too, but im that. Lking about take a look at the optimism charts, it went from t 57 92. Youre right. Youre right. Optimism, youre right. Optimism is a big partsu of ess in business. You were always hard on obama. You didnt think he was enough of cheerleader. He was not a cheerleader. If you could have one doover as president , what would it be . It would be personnel. If it would be one doover, i would no have appointed Jeff Sessions as attorney general. That in your mind yes. Is bill barr your i thinks a very talented you always said, wheres my i had many, many lawyers. Roy was one of them. He was a tough guy. Cut from the same cloth, do you think . Bill barr is equally as tough. Hes a fine man. ss a fine man. The job one is incredible. Hes brought sanity back. I think hes inal. I dont i know. Hes respected. He loves the department of justice. He saw what was happening. He has done a spectacular job. Now hes in the process of doing something and i stay away from it. I really i stay away from it. But i think he feels that whats happened in this country was a very bad thing and very bad for our country. Thats part one of my interview tth president rump. Since theres a lot to unpack, well unpack it in bitesized chunks. Let me bring in my panel, peggy noonan, kristen welker, peter baker, chief white house corrk pondent for the new yor times. First takeaway, peter. Youre jousting him in an interesting way. Its interesting hes letting you do this. Most president s wont allow you to push him that way but thats the only way you get him to talk. I think he likes that. I think he does. And i think hes enjoying giving you his case for reelection, as you already outlined, basically. Hes running the economy, despite all the things obama had done wrong. Hes the one who will be ough on iran when obama just gave away the store. The question is whether the results are going to end up being there november 2020. As you said, wall is not. Built border crossings are up. N heake enough of a case on obamacare. He already made foils. His fed chair can slow down the economy. Democrats hurt him t at border. Jeff sessions, worse mistake he made. Those are peoplef to blame i things arent going right. Let me start there, chuck. He mentioned Jeff Sessions, but he first said personnel. I thought that was notable. Look at how this week evolved. Hes grappling with iran but doesnt have a defense secretary in place. Hasnt had a Permanent Defense secretary for six months. Hes dealingith whats happening at the border, this decision to pull back on his threat of i. Krmplgc. E. Deportai ta aim at Jerome Powell and dangling the possibility of him to the second spot. Youre starting to see him line up the excuses, but it continues to plague him as he makes these critical choices. Hat did you see there, peggy . All correct. I agree with everything you said but mostly what i saw was he loves this. He loves talks. He loves interviewing. Hes loaded for bear. Hes thought out the forrays hes going to take in the future. I thout the mostinteresting thing he said was, i have doves and i have hawks. Explaining his iran decision this week. I think the American People will be sympathetic to that atcision, symptic to the declared reasons for it. And sympathetic or supportive of the idea hes thinking about this and hes got a lot of different people and he listens to them and then he makes a decision. Ill tell you, i dont believe he ever would have ordered the strike. The person ive interviewed and known for a long time and his position on this, but he he was reveling in the fact he had everybody confused. This was the classic articulation of trumpian democracy at work. Trumpian diplomacy at work, i mean. You think about it this way. Theres a piece of leverage, that maybe hes created and he doesnt allow people to really know whahes thinkings. And so he may or may not exercise or use that leverage. He uses that to bring his adversary to the table. Youve seen it with north korea. Youve seen itnaith chi youve seen it with mexico. Now youre seeing it with iran. And it is in man ways its become entirelybl predicta the unpredictable has become predictable. I think youre right. I think if you look at trump from the campaign, you look at the donaldmp we know about not wanting to get entangled in the middle east, it was very unlikely he was going to launch that. Was that a confident president or he trying to show too so much confidence because hes nervous about the economy. Iran. Nervous about he is nervous about the border. Hes nervous about Jeff Sessions, which is code for investigations and mueller. Look, as you said, he Just Announced his reelection. Hes eager to get out in the fight. But theres this insecurity that fuels this cocky kind of persona he likes to project to the public. Theres always been this idea that he hasnt done enough to impress the elites, even at the same time he likes to bh the elites. I think this is part and parcel of his appeal, peggy has written about this, to a lot of americans eeo out there f the same way. You guys are looking down on me, but im doing okay here. Why do you treat me this way . Chuck, i wrote this phrase down when you asked him about the economy. He said, were gng to bowl through it. I thought that was striking. Ist not sort of the word or the term that you would use if youre feeling really confident about the future prospects of the economy. Thats a grindercomment. Im going to grind my reelection. Exactly. I saw a president at the white house this week and in your interview, internally conflic d conflictedto how to seem h and not get mired in the middle east. Coming up, more of my President Trump interview. The battle overg preexistin conditions and all of those children in migrant camps. Theyre in terrible shape down there, mr. President. Down there in homestead, florida, thats where i grew alarm beeping welcome to our busy world. Where we all want more energy. But with less carbon footprint. Thats why, at bp, were working to make energy thats cleaner and better. Were producing cleanerburning natural gas. And solar and wind power. Daand wherever your y takes you. We have advanced fuels for a better commute. 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Continuing now with my interview with President Trump. As youll see, we hit a lot of topics in this part of our sitdown, starting with the crisis on the border. I want to ask whats going downith these children in the migrant camps. The stories are horrible, mr. President. You have children without their parents. You have kids taking care of kids. Yeah. Youve read these reports. I know people are coming to you. I know you think this is the democrats problem. Well it. Orget why arent you doing something about it. Are you ready . Theyre in terrible sha down there, mr. President. Down in homestead, florida, where i grew up, the conditions are terrible. I agret. Do somng. And its about enthat huawei for a long time. Do something. And president obama built the cages. They said i built them. Do two wrongs make a right. Lichuck, en for one second. Spras for president obama, i took over separation. Im the one that put it together. Whats happening are the cartels and all these bad people are using the kids. Theyre its almost like slavery. Lets not punish the kids more this is the kids are getting punished more. Youre right. And this has been happening long before i got there. What weve done isreed weve ended separation. You know, under president obama you had separation. I was one that ended it. Now, i said one thing. When i ended it, i said,seres whatoing to happen. More families are going to come up. And thats whats happened. But theyre really coming up for the economics. Once you ended the separation but i ended separation. I inherited separation from president obama. President obama built they call them jail cells. They were built by the oma lets talk about, your administration, youre not doing the recreation, n even schooling these kids anymore. You got were doing a fantastic job under the circumstances. The democratsn are even approving giving us money. Wheres the money . You know what, the democrats are holding up the haimanitarian. It looks like these kids are being used as some sort of is it hostage . Well, they are being used. They are being used by very bad peoplethe other side. As political they are getting paid. Money is being made using them because our laws are so bad.