ALSO – EXCLUSIVE WITH FORMER DHS SECRETARY JEH JOHNSON ON BORDER SECURITY: “I AM NOT IN FAVOR OF SEEING LESS FENCING,” NOT “APPROPRIATE” FOR PRESIDENT TO INVOKE A NATIONAL EMERGENCY

PLUS – EXCLUSIVE WITH FORMER ACTING SOLICITOR GENERAL NEAL KATYAL ON MUELLER PROBE: “IF THIS IS A WITCH HUNT, MUELLER’S FOUND A COVEN”

FEB. 24, 2019 – Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said today on Meet the Press that “Michael Cohen is going to jail for lying to my committee” and he plans to re-ask the questions that “he felt he needed to lie to us about” when he testifies before the House Intelligence Committee this week.

“We’re going to want to get to the truth, allow him to correct the record,” Rep. Himes told moderator Chuck Todd during an exclusive joint interview alongside Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.).

When asked if the House Intelligence Committee can find bipartisan cooperation on issues surrounding the president, Rep. Himes said, “Well, one obvious answer to that question is that the chairman is no longer Devin Nunes … Devin is part of that group, and it’s not a huge group — part of that group in the Congress that is really fully dedicated, facts be damned, to defending this president.”

Rep. Himes also said that the Mueller probe has become political. “The question of the Russian interference and the possibility of collusion by the president and his people has twisted our politics into something unrecognizable for the last two years, including behavior on the part of the president, attacking the FBI, attacking Bob Mueller. You know, everything about this has become political. The way to end that, of course, is for the truth to be out there.”

When asked if the RNC is rigging the rules to prevent a primary challenge against the president, Governor Hutchinsonsaid, “This is President Trump’s RNC … He appoints the chairman. So obviously there is something that is pro the White House and the administration … With President Trump’s record, with what he’s accomplished, it’d be very difficult for somebody to mount a successful challenge at this point.” Watch the full interview.

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson also joined the program for an exclusive interview and addressed the alleged domestic terror plot by a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant. Secretary Johnson said, “There is a rise in the levels of extremist, violent behavior, directed not just at people based on race, but I think what’s new is directed at people perceived to occupy a certain political ideology.”

He continued, “Leaders lead, and people really do listen to their leaders. And the level of dialogue is deviating downward, the civility of our dialogue is deviating downward, such that individuals like this Coast Guard lieutenant feel emboldened and perhaps even entitled to take matters into his own hands and carry out acts of violence.”

“It’s incumbent among all our leadership across the spectrum to raise the levels of our civil discourse to discourage violence,” Secretary Johnson said.

When asked about the ongoing debate over border security, Secretary Johnson said it was not “appropriate” for the president to invoke a national emergency to fund a border wall but that he is also “not in favor of seeing less fencing than there is now. I think that we need to continue our efforts at border security, smart border security, smart investments in use of the taxpayers’ dollars in border security.” Watch the full interview.

Former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal and former Deputy Independent Counsel under Ken Starr Solomon Wisenberg also joined the program for an exclusive joint interview to break down what to expect from the coming Mueller report. “If this is a witch hunt Mueller’s found a coven at this point,” said Katyal. “We’re starting to already see the outlines of a Mueller report that does look like he is alleging some sort of conspiracy,” he said.

When asked whether President Trump should be allowed to read the Mueller report, Wisenberg said, “It’s perfectly fine … I don’t see any problem with that. The problem will be if the president orders [Attorney General William] Barr to do or not to do something about the report. That’s when you’ll have a problem, and I don’t think Barr will stand for that.” Watch the full interview.

Republican Strategist and Senior Partner at Squire Patton Boggs Al Cardenas, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University Lanhee Chen, Distinguished Senior Fellow for Demos and Demos Action and NBC News Contributor Heather McGhee, and NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and Anchor of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports Andrea Mitchell joined the broadcast’s roundtable for insight and analysis on the week in politics. Watch the full panel.

Read the full transcript of Meet the Press this morning and follow the show on Twitter and on Facebook for the latest.

PLEASE CREDIT: NBC NEWS’ MEET THE PRESS WITH CHUCK TODD 

• Mandatory credit to NBC News’ Meet the Press on first reference.
• The onscreen Meet the Press credit must be clearly visible and unobstructed at all times in any image, video clip, or other form of media.
• Embedded web video must stream from the com media player with the unobstructed credit as described above.