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Ted Cruz says that in Afghanistan, “I don’t believe we should be engaged in nation building.”Cruz, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, blasted Barack Obama’s Afghanistan decision, insisting, “It’s a recognition that what the President has been saying for years, that Al Qaeda is decimated was never true. That it was political spin.” “The reality is we live in an incredibly dangerous world and sadly the failures of the Obama/Clinton foreign policy have made the dangers greater,” Cruz claimed.Todd later asked Cruz, “If you become President though, you’re gonna keep this policy in place of keeping those troops there...

I attended a Donald Trump rally yesterday, October 3, in Franklin Tennessee. I’ve never seen attendance like it. I arrived an hour early and the line snaked around the building then back on itself around the building again – and the people kept coming and coming. They were mostly average working people, I estimate about a third were under 30. All were heartened by the crowd itself. Everyone I spoke to expressed renewed hope for America in this candidate. Eventually, the organizers stopped letting people in and we were all stranded out in the rain. The couple behind me had...

Here's an exchange from Bernie Sanders's appearance on "Meet the Press" on Sunday: CHUCK TODD: Are you a capitalist? @BernieSanders: No. I'm a Democratic Socialist. And, in those five words, Sanders showed why — no matter how much energy there is for him on the liberal left — he isn't getting elected president. Why? Because Democrat or Republican (or independent), capitalism remains a pretty popular concept — especially when compared to socialism. A 2011 Pew Research Center survey showed that 50 percent of people had a favorable view of capitalism, while 40 percent had an unfavorable one. Of socialism, just...

A great video from Meet the Press yesterday where Chuck Todd and the Panel agree that Ted Cruz has positioned himself better than anyone else with a great organization and as an articulate voice that can tap into the so-called ‘outsiders’:

Bernie Sanders said, “I want to move from” Obamacare Sunday on “Meet the Press.” Sanders told host Chuck Todd, “I want to build on the Obamacare… But I do believe that when 29 million people still have zero health insurance, and when many more are underinsured with large deductibles and copayments, and when we pay much more per capita, and when we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, you know what, Chuck? I think we can do a little better.” Todd then pressed Sanders, “So it’s fair to say, yeah, you want to replace Obamacare?” Sanders...

In unmistakable ways over the last two weeks, whether he has intended to or not, Donald J. Trump has started to articulate a way out of the presidential race: a verbal parachute that makes clear he has contemplated the factors that would cause him to end his bid. It is a prospect that many in the political establishment have privately predicted as the actual voting grows closer. In three separate television interviews, Mr. Trump, who has made his standing in the polls a central facet of his campaign message, spoke about what would prompt him to quit a race in...

Donald Trump does not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, but he is supportive of one thing Putin is doing on the world stage. During an interview with "Meet The Press" Sunday, Trump told moderator Chuck Todd that he supports Putin going out and "bombing the hell" out of the Islamic State in Syria, despite that they are doing so to support Syrian President Bashir al-Assad. "I like that Putin is bombing the hell out of ISIS, and it's going to be ISIS. I'll tell you why — Putin has to get rid of ISIS because Putin doesn't want ISIS coming...

Published on Oct 4, 2015 In the full "Meet the Press" interview Donald Trump talks Syria, Russia and when he would consider getting out of the race. Trump's tells chuck todd his view on if Gadhafi and Hussein were still in power and if Assad were stronger, the Middle East would be more stable. Donald Trump: 'Guns or No Guns, It Doesn't Matter' Donald Trump responds to President Obama's comments about the mass shooting in Oregon and points the finger at the problem of mental health. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, when asked if he believes the Middle East would...

Wait a second: wasn't it just this month that Hillary's handlers announced they were going to have her show a warm 'n fuzzy side, with more "heart?" So who was the genius who coached Clinton to announce that as president she would "impose much harsher restrictions" on financial institutions under Dodd-Frank? She'll "impose much harsher restrictions?" Brr! Isn't that the Stone Cold Hillary Clinton whose image was being re-engineered? Clinton made her "much harsher" comment in remarks aired on today's debut episode of MTP Daily in response to Chuck Todd's question as to where she differs from President Obama. View...

In a massive coincidence, every single Hillary Clinton staffer and surrogate who watched the Democratic presidential candidate’s Meet the Press interview had the exact same thoughts, sometimes using identical language.... Now at first, it may appear that these responses were all coordinated in some fashion. However, it would be against the law for campaign officials to coordinate with a pro-Clinton Super PAC director like Brad Woodhouse. So clearly it’s a coincidence that his tweet was identical to Clinton staffer Karen Finney’s.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell came out in support of President Obama’s agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program, calling it a “pretty good deal.” Powell, a retired general who led the State Department under GOP President George W. Bush, said he had vigorously studied the deal and listened to arguments from both supporters and opponents. “My judgment after balancing those two sets of information is that it’s a pretty good deal,” Powell declared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The great concern from the opposition is that we’re leaving open a lane for Iran to create a nuclear weapon in...

Former Secretary of State and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell backed the Iran deal on Sunday. The retired statesman, who played a key role in the push for war in Iraq, later supported Barack Obama for president. Powell made his announcements on NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday. “My judgment…is that it’s a pretty good deal.” Powell said that while Iran could continue working toward a nuclear weapon when the deal expires, the agreement would at least slow that down. “We have stopped this highway race that they were going down.” Powell added that “they get nothing”...

Crisis Managed is not Crisis Ended If you tuned in Sunday morning to see the “inevitable” candidate’s Meet The Press interview with Chuck Todd, you likely noticed the moment of “the big fail.” Yes, the whole segment was another in a long line of Hillary Clinton’s poor performances, but one question really stood out as problematic. Check Todd acknowledged that Democrats are nervous over Hillary’s seemingly endless scandals, and he offered her the chance to reassure them that there was nothing more to the email story:

Don't put that popcorn-popper away just yet . . . On today's Morning Joe, Chuck Todd said he felt that in his Meet the Press interview of Hillary Clinton yesterday, she was signalling to her Dem supporters that there could be more damaging revelations to come on the email scandal. Todd was alluding to the moment in the interview in which Hillary agreed with his characterization of a "drip, drip, drip" aspect to the scandal. When Todd asked whether she could "reassure Democrats that there's nothing else here," Hillary's answer was a very un-reassuring "there's only so much I can...

Carly Fiorina on Sunday defended her assertion that an undercover sting video shows Planned Parenthood officials keeping a “fully formed fetus” alive “to harvest its brain.” At the second Republican presidential debate earlier this month, one of Fiorina’s strongest moments came when she described a gruesome scene from one of the controversial undercover videos. "A fully-formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says, 'We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain’,” Fiorina said at the time. Fiorina’s description of the scene, and her supporting super-PAC’s subsequent use of it in an campaign...

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd asked Republican front-runner Donald Trump, “Can you imagine supporting or being comfortable if a Muslim ever became president of the United States?” Trump said, “I can say it’s something that at some point could happen. We’ll see. I mean you know at some point it could happen. Would I be comfortable? I don’t know if we have to address it right now but I think it’s certainly something that could happen.” Talking over Todd he added, “Some people have said it already happened, frankly, but, of course, you wouldn’t agree with...

CHUCK TODD: ...let's start right with Iran. Is this a good deal? COLIN POWELL: I think it is a good deal. I studied very carefully the outline of the deal and what's in that deal. And I've also carefully looked at the opposition to the deal. And my judgment, after balancing those two sets of information is that it's a pretty good deal. Now, I know that there are objections to it, but here's why I think it's a good deal. One of the great concerns that the opposition has, that we're leaving open a lane for the Iranians to...

As you may have heard, MSNBC has seen some big (and warranted) changes in 2015. Add it all up, and every program that existed from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM EDT as recently as six months ago no long exists. The alterations are swift: A national correspondent (Kate Snow) and a political director (Chuck Todd) will be joining and rejoining, respectively, the 19-year-old cable network. Morning Joe will occupy 25 percent of live (or plausibly live) programming per day. Opinion-based programming––at least after the morning show and before primetime––has been cleared away as a more traditional news focus takes...

Readers may be tempted to respond Join the club, but this is — in the words of the Obama administration’s most eloquent figure, a big effin’ deal. The White House has demanded more authority and jurisdiction over private networks as part of its push to improve cybersecurity in the US, even while it has botched its own network security at OPM, the Pentagon, and even the State Department under both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. The Department of Homeland Security is tasked with auditing the security of federal government networks, but no one at State ever told DHS about...

The latest news show to benefit from Donald Trump is Meet the Press. Capping off a stretch of several strong weeks for the NBC show, Chuck Todd's interviews with the Republican presidential candidate (his only appearance on the Sunday shows) and Sen. Bernie Sanders drove ratings to its biggest audience since February 2014. That easily makes it the most-watched since Todd took over from David Gregory last August. Meet the Press averaged 3.612 million viewers on Sunday, averaging 739,000 more than ABC's This Week and 775,000 more than Face the Nation. Compared to last year when the struggling Meet the...