ALSO – EXCLUSIVE WITH REP. LIZ CHENEY: HOUSE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO “PROTECT” CONGRESSWOMAN ILHAN OMAR, “ENABLING” ANTI-SEMITISM

PLUS – REP. ADAM SCHIFF EXCLUSIVE: “BEST WAY TO GET THE TRUTH WOULD BE TO PUT THE PRESIDENT UNDER OATH”

MARCH 10, 2019 – Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said today on Meet the Press that former Vice President Joe Biden had “zero” impact on his decision not to run for president in 2020.

During the exclusive interview, his first since announcing he would not seek the presidency, Sen. Brown told moderator Chuck Todd that he has not spoken to Biden since October. “I like Joe Biden. I just haven’t talked to him. And people ask me in almost every one of these states ‘Is Joe Biden getting in having any impact on your decision?’ And my answer was always zero.”

“You can run three different ways. You can run as Eeyore, where you get up every day and, ‘Oh, my God. I gotta to do this.’ And I didn’t want to be that. You can run as the angry candidate. I didn’t want to be that. Or you can run as the sort of optimist, joyful candidate, the way I try to do my job in the Senate. I think I can do that better in the Senate, in continuing to inform this presidential race.”

When asked if the Democratic Party is moving too far to the left, Sen. Brown said, “I think the more important story is how Republicans continue to move to the right … They’ve all followed [President Trump’s] racist actions and betrayal of workers. They followed it like lemmings off a cliff. That’s the story not some degrees of differences between and among Democrats. That’s the real story.” Watch the full interview.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), chair of the House Republican Conference, also joined the program for an exclusive interview and told Chuck Todd that the House resolution condemning anti-Semitism was “clearly an effort to actually protect [Congresswoman] Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)” and accused House Democrats of trying to “cover up her bigotry and anti-Semitism by refusing to name her.”

Rep. Cheney went on to say that Democrats have “become the party of anti-Semitism, the party of infanticide, the party of socialism,” but when asked if President Trump has done enough to tamp down right-wing fringe anti-Semitism, Rep. Cheney said, “I don’t believe this is right or left. I think that this is an issue on which all of us should come together, particularly elected officials, the president, the vice president, members of the Senate and the House no matter what your party is.”

Rep. Cheney also said she would not support President Trump’s reported plan that he may charge U.S. allies hosting American troops the full price of deployments on their soil, plus 50 percent or more. “I think it would be absolutely devastating … The notion that we are somehow now going to charge them cost plus fifty, is really — it’s wrongheaded and it would be devastating to the security of the nation and our allies.”

When asked about President Trump walking away from a deal with North Korea, Rep. Cheney said, “I think the fact that the president walked away from the summit in Vietnam is a very positive thing. I think that that was the right thing to do. We don’t want a bad deal that makes us less safe.” Watch the full interview.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said that former Blackwater chairman Erik Prince was “not telling the truth” during a recent Al Jazeera interview in which he acknowledged an August 2016 Trump Tower meeting on Iran for the first time. “He did not disclose that meeting to our committee,” Rep. Schiff told Chuck Todd. “His interview certainly looks inconsistent with his testimony. Bob Mueller has that testimony already. And Bob Mueller will have to make the decision about whether that rises to a level of deliberate falsehood.”

When asked if Michael Cohen can be taken at his word on anything, Rep. Schiff said, “I don’t think in terms of making the case to the public, and here we’re not making the case to a jury, about what took place that we can rely solely on the testimony of Michael Cohen. We’re going to need corroboration.”

Rep. Schiff also said that Special Counsel Robert Muller should not rely on written answers from President Trump. “The best way to get the truth would be to put the president under oath. Because as he’s made plain in the past, he feels it’s perfectly fine to lie to the public. After all he has said, ‘It’s not like I’m talking before a magistrate.’ Well, maybe he should talk before a magistrate.” Watch the full interview.

Washington Post National Political Reporter, NBC News Political Analyst and Moderator of PBS’ Washington Week Robert Costa, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent and Host of MSNBC’s Kasie DC Kasie Hunt, President of Voto Latino and NBC News Contributor María Teresa Kumar, and former Gov. Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) 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.

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