[ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ]

[ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ]

>> i think the situation in ukraine is very important. i think that the meetings coming up with russia and ukraine are very important. and there's a possibility that some very big progress can be made. i think it's important for ukraine and from the standpoint of russia also, that they work out a treaty and work out peace, because they've been fighting a long time, too long. and i think there's a good chance that that will happen. also, with respect to nuclear weapons, i've spoken to president putin and i've communicated with him, and he very much wants to, and so do we, work out a treat 'of some kind for nuclear weapons that will probably then include china at some point and yourselves, by the way. but it will include china and some other countries. but we intend to see if we can work something out to stop the proliferation, to stop what's

happening. because we are making a lot and we are renovating a lot and, frankly, the whole situation with nuclear is not a good situation. we ended the treaty because it wasn't being adhered to by the other side. and they want to make a treaty, and so do we. i think it would be a great thing. it's one of the most important things we can do, frankly. so we're going to be dealing with russia on a treaty and we're focused on nuclear and nuclear weapons, missiles, but nuclear weapons. and we think something can be worked out. we think they want to do it. we know they want to do it. and we want to do it also. i spoke to china about it during one of our trade negotiations and they were extremely excited about getting involved in that. so very good things could happen with respect to that. i think it's very important. the whole nuclear situation, very, very important. thank you all, very much. thank you.

>> you have been watching president trump along side french president macron as the two are overseas in london for this meeting of nato leaders. hans nichols is traveling with the president and we're joined by u.s. ambassador to russia in the obama administration, and chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" and peter baker joins us as well. hans, i've got to start with you. as we've been looking at the video now from president trump and president ma macron, the o bromance doesn't seem to be brewing anymore. they clashed on isis to a degree and then there was these russia comments at the end that were fairly interesting as well. >> reporter: look, we thought we were watching a press conference but it seemed like couples counseling. at the beginning neither of them

were responding to the attacks. macron clearly not answering directly the attacks that president trump made earlier this morning, really hitting at france's economy, suggesting that it was totally inappropriate for macron to make the comments about being the brain death of nato. you saw it get tense where the president himself said that sounded like a nonaven-answer w he was talking about macron's answer about the isis fighters. one thing we don't know is whether that press conference was at the end of their meeting. from the initial reports, it sounded like we went in after they started meeting. president trump said that he's had a great meeting with them. >> right, spoke for 25 minutes. >> reporter: that's not a real long meeting. so the press conference after the meeting is longer than the actual meeting. and that gives you an indication that both sides want to play to their base and get their version of events out. so i think there's more reporting to do here.

i think one thing that's interesting is what trump is doing here in nato, he's trying to transform it. he wants nato to be a counterterrorism operation and not just focused on russia. macron's response is and but, and russia. >> and the president is more in the but category there, really focusing on counterterrorism. >> i would say probably an extended q&a session with the reporters in the room. peter, when you look at the way that macron -- listen, he is somebody who it appears wants to be standing up to president trump or at least to hans's point, be perceived as standing up to president trump, when he says essentially he's not backing off what he said before that annoyed the president about nato. >> reporter: macron is sort of fashioning himself in some ways as the leader of europe. boris johnson is focused on getting out of europe. merkel is heading into the end stage of her chancellorship. italy and other place rs

consumed by their own domestic turmoil and macron is stepping up. he's the one strongest voice out there to counter president trump in that sense. and he has decided to do that. you're right, the bromance is over. this is no longer than effort on macron's part to flatter and warm up to the president. he has tried to work with him on a number of occasions. just a couple months ago at the g-7 we watched macron try to bring trump and iran together to try to get past the impasse we've had over the nuclear program and other issues. i think you see a little bit of frustration on his part that he hasn't managed to achieve as much as he wanted and trump is like, fine, we're going to move ahead on our own. >> ambassador mcfaul, you also had the interesting moment as it related to isis and the president -- you could read it as a dig or joke, saying that was one of the best non-answers i ever heard that the wt

suggested that he would send isis captured fighters over to france. how do you read the reactions we just saw? >> first, i don't speak french so i don't exactly know what president macron said. >> there was an audio tra translation and our apologies. i know it was very low for our non-french speaking viewers, like myself, by the way. >> but the gist i think was pretty clear and he actually gave a pretty comprehensive answer. i don't quite understand why president trump said that was a non-answer. he was trying to underscore the point that the fight against isis is still real. they haven't been defeated in syria or the rest of the middle east and it's too soon to pull out and just shipping the fighters that we've captured as president joked, we'll give you as many as we want, is not a solution. so i thought that was actually a pretty important analytic point that president macron was trying to make. >> we have more coming up, believe it or not.

because the president this hour was set to meet with justin trudeau. hans, i don't mean to put you on the spot. is the president running late? do you think we're still going to see that this hour as expected, or no? >> reporter: i would suspect not in large part because we didn't have a 45-minute q&a built into the schedule. so i would suspect we're running a little bit behind. and we don't know whether or not the president and macron were going to go back to talking. but i can book some of your flights later if you have any other scheduled questions. >> appreciate it. peter baker and ambassador mcfaul, stand by. because even while the president's meeting with the french president focused on things like nato and russia and international security. we've seen the president meeting with the head of nato where he commented on impeachment. democrats on the house intelligence committee are getting ready to make public the report today. and while he didn't talk impeachment in what we just heard, did earlier.

none too pleased. >> i think it's unpatriotic of the democrats. impeachment wasn't spaud uppose be used that way. all you have to do is read the transcript. i call them the do-nothing democrats. they are hurting our country very badly. the democrats have gone nuts. they're crazy. >> geoff bennett is on capitol hill for us. and geoff. we have a lot of moving pieces in the impeachment puzzle today. we heard what the president had to say. we are expecting later to see that report in just hours now, that the democrats on the house intelligence committee put together. >> reporter: right. you're right about that. at some point today we expect that democrats in the house intelligence committee will release their findings and we expect they'll take the testimony and condense it into a narrative form to tell the story of how president trump allegedly pressed his counterpart to open investigations into trump's political rivals that would be beneficial to him in the 2020 election.

in the process, so say democrats, he violated his oath of office and undermined national security. our current understanding is that before that report is made public, the house intelligence committee has to approve it. and they're set to meet tonight at 6:00 p.m. eastern in the skiff, in the private basement area where the house intelligence committee does a lot of their work to approve it. we expect that the committee will vote to approve this report on the party line vote. after that the report gets kicked over to the house judiciary committee which has responsibility for drafting articles of impeachment. the house judiciary committee, hallie, also tomorrow holds its first public hearing in the trump impeachment inquiry. they're set to hear from four constitutional scholars who will give a historical view of impeachment and whether or not president trump's behavior meets the bar for removal from office. we already have, though, sort of a preview of the republican defense by way of that gop

counter-report that house republicans on the various committees put out last night. what they did, what they offer us really is a top-to-bottom defense of trump that strings together and formalizes republican talking points to make the case that president trump did nothing wrong and that democrats are really intent on overturning the results of the 2020 election. so i'll read part of it for you. it says despite their best efforts, the evidence gathered during the democrats' partisan and one-sided impeachment inquiry does not support that president trump pressured ukraine to investigate his political rival to benefit the president in the 2020 presidential election. the evidence does not establish any impeachable offense. so based on our reading of this document, it appears that republicans, instead of looking at all of the evidence together in the aggregate, what they've done is separated out specific instances and tried to assign motivations to president trump

would seem perfectly reasonable. democrats take the opposite view and look at all of the evidence together to plot out what they see as a coordinated pressure campaign that meets the bar for impeachment. so all of this is going to come to a head tomorrow at that hearing set to happen at this hour, hallie. >> and by the way, tomorrow there's also a senate luncheon with a very interesting guest who, by my count covering the white house, doesn't always show up to these things. we're talking about pat cipollone. >> reporter: yeah, the white house counsel who so far has said that he's not going to participate in the democratic impeachment proceedings, he's leaving the door open for future house judiciary hearings, but pat cipollone is going to be the guest of honor tomorrow at the luncheon and you can expect what republican senators are going to ask him about. that's the line of defense that he plans to have for president trump as this impeachment inquiry moves forward, most likely to a senate trial, expected to happen sometimes early next year, hallie. >> geoff bennett, thank you much on the hill.

back with us, peter baker of the times and ambassador mcfaul as well. lots to discuss here. and antonio, let me start with you on the president and what he said this morning about republicans to geoff's point here, talking strategy likely tomorrow with pat cipollone. really interesting, on the day that the judiciary hearing is going down and the president feels that his gop allies have his back. watch. >> i think the republican party is right now more united than they've ever been. there has never been a time where the republican party has been more united. this is a witch hunt by the democrats. >> there's never been a time when the republican party has been more united. reality check me there. >> i might find a few other times. but if that's how the president -- where he thinks his colleagues are on the republican party, it's up to him. >> do you think that's where his colleagues are? you know this party well. you're right in the thick of it. >> i think the house is decidedly behind him. i think the senate might be a

few more misgivings. but i feel like we already know what the end of the movie is going to be. we're going to go to go through all of the machinations that get us through january. we all know he's going to be acquitted. and if you look at polling, the public opinion is not changing and it is highly partisan. and for the speaker of the house she knows that's a dangerous game and that's where we are. so from the president's perspective they are unified behind him. >> ambassador, when you have the president overseas talking trade deals -- we didn't even mention that in his conversation with the french president, talking about the potential for new tariffs there, he's talking about isis and the future of nato, and by the way, he's also talking about domestic stuff like impeachment. how do you think that plays overseas? >> well, obviously it weakens the president and you saw from his comments how annoyed he was about it. and he keeps blaming the democrats. you know, president trump should stop doing things that are wrong and maybe he wouldn't have this kind of criticism.

and i find it quite ironic that while he's overseas, he calls the democrats crazy. so he continues to play the partisan game when he's overseas, but if somehow normal business and congress proceeds, that's illlegitimate. >> so let me ask you this, because you've got -- to antonio's point here, republicans cool lessing around the president. you have senator john kennedy -- actually, when chuck todd was on the set during the week, about ukraine and this claim that is unfounded that there is some sort of effort to attack the u.s. elections in 2016 . i want to play for you what senator kennedy said this morning and what we heard from the chair of the intelligence committee to nbc news overnight. watch. >> i was asked if russia or ukraine had tried to influence our 2016 election, and i said

both. and i believe both. >> every elected official in the ukraine was for hillary clinton. is that very different than the russians being for donald trump? >> would you consider that meddling, though? >> you mean, you'll have to define meddling, but that was something that was publicly out there. >> a lot of folks, the ambassador, found the comments from chairman bur i think a little surprising based on the reaction to it. so i will put the question to you, is there a difference between elected officials having a preference for a candidate and officials implementing a strategy to attack the 2016 u.s. elections? >> of course. and i find those comments deeply disappointing. you know, it's like facts don't matter anymore. i'm thankful that i still work at a university where two plus two equals four every day. not just mondays and wednesdays. because this political debate is getting completely divorced from

the factual evidence. yes, russia attacked us, they used their intelligence officers to steal data and publicize it in a way to help one candidate and not the other. ukrainian mps or the president having an opinion about who should win based on policy is a completely different thing. and another thing, by the way, if we're going to talk about all politicians abroad having views on this or that during the 2016 election, remember a british politician showed aup at a trump meeting, he showed up in mississippi in august at a trump rally endorsing the president. why do our republican colleagues not seem so concerned about those kinds of opinions that were expressed not in london, but in mississippi? >> peter, let me ask you about the white house strategy here, because there's been some talk that you've been hearing that -- maybe jsen sure would be a bettr option. you had one of the president's new strategists saying that she

thought that was -- and i'm paraphrasing, also ridiculous. and based on your reporting and many sources in and around the white house, would that change anything strategically for this administration if that were to be something democrats would pursue? >> yeah, probably not. you heard the president talk about that, too. he says you don't censure somebody for doing everything perfectly. the difference between this time is that president clinton admitted 21 years ago, eventually after lying for several months to the public, he eventually admitted he had done something wrong and that loud his allies to say he did something wrong, it may not be impeachable. this president is saying i did not do anything wrong and you cannot accept any sort of lesson punishment. a lot of his allies on the hill would kind of like to get to the yeah, we don't like the way he handled this ukraine thing, we don't think that was the right way to approach it but we don't

think it's impeachable or we think the public should decide. but as long as the president is against it, i think it makes it very hard. the appeal of the censure is that it would be bipartisan. it would be a consensus statement by the congress that something wrong happened, even if it wasn't impeachable. if it's not going to be bipartisan, there doesn't seem to be much of a point. >> i will just say that clinton lied under oath so there's a little bit of a difference. and secondly, i think censure is something that is more real than we all think. >> thank you so much for being with us. as we start off on yet another very busy monday morning here, i appreciate you all joining us. we have a lot more to get to, including a new controversy coming to a head over the investigation into the investigation on russia with the man leading the justice department apparently pointing to a problem with the key finding. we're inside the agency with the reporter who broke that scoop. plus joe biden using his campaign bus to run over some of his opponents, somehow accusing one rival of stealing his health

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explosive report, going inside the clash between william barr and the doj's watch dog. we're talking about the look of how and why the russia investigation started in the first place. this thing is dropping in less than a week and the ag is taking issue with one of the conclusions. bill barr is disputing the finding about the fbi's russia investigation, apparently telling associates he disagrees with the conclusion that the fbi had enough finfo back in 2016 t launch an investigation. president trump has given his opinion on the thing from over in london. check it out. >> i haven't seen it. i purposely stayed out of it. we have a great attorney general who is a very fair man. the ig report is a very important report. if what i read is correct, i read it in your newspaper. if what i read is correct, that

would be a little disappointing. >> joining me now is one of the reporters who broke the story, the "washington post's" dev lin barrett. thank you for being with us. setting aside the white house has said they no longer describe to the post, talk about the potential damage here of such a remarkable dispute on a key issue here between the attorney general and the folks underneath him sort of writing this thing. >> right. and what we're told is that barr is overall fairly complimentary of the inspector general process but he takes big issue with this one conclusion and it's in some ways the most important conclusion in the thing. the conclusion is that there was a valid basis for the fbi to begin investigating george papadopoulos in july of 2016. that is how a lot of this starts. so for the attorney general to disagree with that is a pretty important and meaningful conflict, and it will be very

interesting to see how it plays out inside the justice department, but also the fbi because they report to the justice department. >> interestingly, you write that in these private conversations about the horowitz wrote, they argue that other agencies such as the cia may hold significant information that could alter the conclusion on that point, according to people familiar with the matter who talked to the post on the continue of anonymity. why the cia? >> one thing to keep in mind is that horowitz has looked at millions of documents, but his look only extends to the justice department and the fbi. horowitz's investigation does not encompass any other agencies. what barr is arguing is some version of look, it's fine for you to think that, but you don't have all the information in front of you because you don't have what the cia has and some other intelligence agencies have that could change that conclusion.

frankly, i don't think horowitz has been swayed by that argument so far, but that is the conflict, the tension in those discussions. >> the department of justice in a very response to nbc news when we asked for a comment on your story, described horowitz's report as excellent work, said that the investigation is a credit to the department of justice, but basically said rather than speculating, hold off and wait until you see the report for yourself. is there any strategy that you can discern to some of these associates talking with the paper about barr's concerns ahead of its release here? >> well, look, i think this entire issue is incredibly fraught and consequential for the justice department. you're talking about was the fbi and was the justice department, were those agencies authorized -- did they conduct this investigation of a presidential campaign and ultimately a president on a rational, appropriate basis. that is a big loaded question and barr is still clearly still skeptical that the answer to that is yes. but whatever they come out with, this report is going to, you

know, propel this political debate down the road over how and when the fbi should investigate presidents and presidential candidates. and obviously the implications and consequences of that are pretty big. >> devlin, great reporting as well. we appreciate you being on the show. thank you. big demonstrations are expected in london with thousands of people protesting the president as he gets ready to meet with the canadian prime minister. we're live in the streets as activists get ready to march. first, today reminder, it's giving tuesday. people are giving their voice and time and advocacy to support causes they care about. after the craziness of cyber monday and black friday, like fighting climate change. today is part of a global generosity movement founded on the simple idea of encouraging people to do good. it happens to be one of my favorite days of the year. coughing

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back live, we're taking a look at wall street. check it out, the dow is down about 400 points. that's about 1%. stocks tanking across the board after the president's comments on china and the prospects or maybe lack thereof of a trade deal. dom, we often see the president move markets, in this instance it appears that his comments are doing so in a negative way for now, right? >> it is, and the reason it's so surprising for folks right now

is because it's been such a long time since the market has seen any kind of downside momentum. we did hit record highs just the day before thanksgiving. a lot of this was baked into with expectations for incremental progress on trade, whether it's phrase one or new negotiations, whether it's a physical visit, something like that was going to happen. that's the reason a lot of stock traders have been buying up stocks. if the prospects are now dampened, that is the reason we're seeing volatility. and the places we're seeing the most downside action today are in companies that are perhaps more tied towards the chinese company or have a lot of business dealings there. industrial companies that service a lot of chinese companies and maybe computer chip companies because of all of the laptops and other tablet computers that are made in places like china. but again, the reason why we're seeing it is because of those trade comments. it just goes to show you how

much of an expectation there is for this administration that they get some kind of an incremental trade deal done. that's the reason things are going down today. >> we want to make you back to london because president trump is talking iran now after first saying no, he didn't support the protesters, then tweeting he did. let's listen for a second. >> we're looking for freedom and we are fully in support of them. so just in case anybody had any questions, we haven't been asked to support them financially, which i assume that's what the question was, just to make sure everybody stood it. it's an honor to be with a friend of mine who just had a great election victory. congratulations. >> thank you. >> and he's done a very good job and we actually have a very good relationship. a good relationship in terms of our countries. we're working on the usmca. we're trying to get nancy pelosi to put it up for a vote. if it gets put up for a vote, it passes. but so far she hasn't decided to

do that. it's up to her. it's actually a single individual, the speaker of the house, it's that person's decision and she's the speaker of the house and it's a great deal for canada and mexico and the united states and it's a lot of jobs for everybody. and it replace as deal that's a lousy deal, and i can tell you what i would say for the united states, the deal that we have right now is terrible, nafta, terrible. it's been a terrible deal for the united states. so we look forward to being able to vote, take the vote on usmca. it's been there for a long time and at some point, perhaps, the president of mexico -- we have a wonderful man there, he really is. he's been a wonderful man. they'll get tired and the prime minister will get tired and they'll say look, let's forget this deal. and i could understand it if you did. it's been sitting in congress now for six or seven months. it's a great deal for everybody.

so hopefully they can get it done and get it done fast. and it's one of the few transactions i think all three countries benefit really as a unit against the world if you look at it. it really is a unit against the world. and that's the way we looked at it right from the beginning. so we hope that's the case. again, congratulations. we're going to be talking about a number of suggests, including additional trade, and the military and the military presence. and it's great being at nato. we had some real success, i think, in some successful talks having to do with nato. as you know, a lot of the countries have stepped up and they're putting in at least 130, probably $131 billion more. and that's great. and they have commitments for $400 billion. so it really has become a force. and as we've discussed in the past, there's going to be great flexibility shown now with nato. we can go to other parts of the

worl, n world, not just one focus. we need a lot of focuses and we need a lot of focus. we'll be looking at other forms of terror, we'll be looking at other countries, we'll be looking at countries that are aggressive and not just one particular part of this world. so i think nato has become a very big factor over the last two or three years. you've been involved, i've been involved. and a lot of good things have happened and it's great to have you here. thank you very much. >> congratulations. >> thank you. it's a real pleasure to be sitting down with president trump. the relationship between canada and the united states is incredibly strong. i don't think it's ever been stronger. our work together on the usmca as we move forward toward ratification has been tremendous and it's been a great process working between your team and our team, working with the mexicans as well. we know that we're here for

nato, the 70th anniversary, extremely important. the american strength in ensuring that people are stepping up in terms of their military investments is certainly something we've recognized in canada. we're increasing our defense investments by 70% over these ten years because we know that making sure that everyone is there to step up and deliver is really important. we have an intense forward battle group in latvia and we're leading the command mission . this is just a great opportunity for me to sit down with the president and talk about the many issues in which we align and work together. [ speaking foreign language ] >> that sounded very good. any questions? >> reporter: mr. president, climate change is a top priority

for the prime minister here, as well as for president macron earlier. we've not heard you talk about it on this trip and it doesn't appear to be on your agenda. >> i think about it all the time. obviously climate change is very important to me and i've done very many environmental statements over my life and i believe very strongly and very crystal clear clean water and clean air. that's a big part of climate change. i also see what's happening with our oceans where certain countries are dumping unlimited loads of things in it. they tend to float toward the united states. i see that happening and nobody has ever seen anything like it and it's gotten worse. but it's very important to me also. but i want clean air and clean water would be number one and number two. very important. >> reporter: are you concerned about rising sea levels at all, sir? >> you know, i'm concerned about everything, but i'm also concerned about nuclear proliferation, which i think is

a very important topic and it's a topic that we're going to discuss today. the whole situation with nuclear to me is very, very important, as we've been discussing today at the various meetings that we've had. i think that's something that has to be taken care of and it has to be dealt with very strongly. >> reporter: mr. president, are you happy with canadian defense spending as it is right now? >> well, they're moving up and they're moving up sub stanchly and starting to do very well economically and that has something to do with it. yeah, they're getting up to a level that's getting to be very acceptable. they have been under the 2%, obviously, but they're moving up. we discussed it. i'm satisfied. >> reporter: do you plan to discuss. [ inaudible question ] >> we'll be discussing that, yes. >> reporter: what is your message about huawei and using

it? >> we found a security problem with it and canada is going to make a decision at some point. but we find -- i just speak for the united states and we have the ability to do a lot of things. we've actually advanced very far on 5g, much further than anyone knows. we have a lot of action going on with respect to 5g. we're not using huawei and some of our great companies are getting much involved with 5g right now. but no, we found a tremendous security problem with respect to huawei. >> reporter: mr. president, you were asked about russia and china and some sort of agreement. your description of those conversations that you had with those leaders doesn't really mesh with what they said publicly. >> it's not what they said publicly?

look, we've had discussions and we've also had communications and i can tell you on behalf of both they would like to see something done with it. now, does that mean they'll agree to do -- i'm the one that terminated the agreement and i terminated it because they were not living up to it and we don't want to be living up to an agreement and they don't. and so it wasn't fair. but it was also a very obsolete agreement. it covered things that, frankly, didn't matter anymore. we are looking at doing a new agreement with russia and we're looking at doing a new agreement with china and maybe the three of us will do it together. and they do want to do it. i can tell you that with china, we were in a trade meeting and the subject -- i broached the subject and they were very excited about it. they would like to do it. we may do it with russia first and then go to china or may do it altogether. or it may not happen. to be honest with you, maybe it won't happen. but we are spending a lot of

money on nuclear and we have new nuclear and we have tremendous renovations of our older capability. and i have to tell you, i see the kind of damage that we're talking about and the kind of power that we have, and it's a very -- it would be a very sad day if we ever had to use it. it's a very good thing if we could do something to stop making that, fixing that. we'll see what happens. now, there are other countries, but in terms of the world, we're number one by far. russia is number two and china would be number three. china is not -- china will be pretty even over a period of four or five years. but it's a tremendous expense for them and everybody, the destructive capability is really unacceptable. so we'll see if we can do

something. i think russia and i think china would like to do it very much. >> reporter: member countries and allied countries in the past delinquent for not meeting the 2% standard. where would you put canada in that? >> slightly clinic went. some are major delinquent, some are way below one percent and that's unacceptable. and if something happens, we're supposed to protect them and it's not fair and it never has been fair. we are talking to germany tomorrow and they're starting to come along. they have to. they have to. otherwise, if they don't want to, i'll have to do something with respect to trade. and with trade i have all the cards. we have built something in the past three years that's been incredible. you've seen it. we're up $21 trillion and china

is down about $32 trillion. and as you know, for years i've been hearing that it was 2019, and in 2019 china is going to become the largest economy. well, that didn't happen. we're much larger than china now because we've gone up and they've gone down. and they've had their worst year in 56 or 57 years now. by far, they've had the worst year that they know of. and we don't want that, frankly. but what they were doing was wrong. and i think they're going to stop it. and they want to make a deal very badly. yes. >> reporter: on that question, would you commit that if there's a country that's delinquent, as you put it, in paying for their defense spending, would you commit a president of the united states to defend them if they were attacked? >> well, i'm going to be discussing that today. and it's a very interesting question, isn't it? and it also depends on what your definition of delinquent is.

for instance, if you have a country that's paying only 1% and you have some that are paying less than 1% and they shouldn't be, if you have some that are paying less than 1% and they're wealthy countries on top of everything. now we go to a new year and they don't pay and now we go to yet another year and they don't pay. well, now i ask you, do they have to pay for the back years? so why is it that they owe us for this year, but every time a new year comes out, they don't have to pay? it's wrong. it's not right. you could go back 25 years -- i won't do that with canada, of course. but no, you could go back right from the beginning where they were short of whatever goal it was at the time. it's 2% now. 2% is very low. it should be 4%. 2% is very low. but you have something well short of that. but they were short of it the last year and the year before

and the year before. so they're short all these years, in theory you don't just say that's okay, you don't have to ever pay. they really owe all that money from the past. that's the way i look at it. if germany, as an example, is paying 1% and they're supposed to be paying 2%, you're talking about billions of dollars, well, that means that last year, the year before, all of those years they would owe us money. you're talking about -- really, you're talking about trillions of dollars. nobody has ever brought that up. they just keep talking about the present. so if they're short one year and then you go to the new year, they never talk about the year that they didn't pay. but they actually in theory owe us that money. it's not fair. it's not fair. >> reporter: with regard to china when you met the prime minister in june, you talked about trying to help with the two prisoners that are canadians that are in china.

>> well, i have and i think we've made progress. and i had mentioned that to president xi, as you know, because it was a big subject at the time. and i just hope they're being treated well. but i put in a very, very strong word for those two prisoners. i haven't spoken to him recently to be honest with you. >> reporter: mr. president, if canada does not meet the 2% standard, should it have a plan? >> we'll put them on a payment plan. we'll put canada on a payment plan. i'm sure the prime minister would love that. what is your number? >> the number we talked about is 70% increase over these past years, including for the coming years, including significant investments in our fighter jets, significant investments in our navel fleets. we are increasing significantly our defense spending from previous governments that cut. >> where are you now in terms of your number?

>> we're at 135? >> 1.3? >> 1.4 and continuing to move forward. >> they're getting there. they know it's important to do that and their economy is doing well and they'll get there quickly, i think. and look, it's to their benefit. >> the president knows as well that canada has been there for every nato deployment. we have consistently stepped up, sent our troops into harm's way. we're leading in iraq. we're leading in nato -- no latvia. we continue to step up, like most of our allies. there are some countries that, even though they might reach the 2%, don't step up nearly as much and i think it's important to look at what is actually being done. and the united states and all nato allies know that canada is a solid reliable partner that will continue nato and defend our interests. >> we do have tremendous coordination with radars, all

the different things technologically. tremendous coordination between canada and the united states. >> president trump to turn back to impeachment. you met with mark penn last month. what did you learn from that meeting and what advice are you get? >> we are winning so big. we lad our biggest fund-raising month ever. we've had -- last quarter was unbelievab unbelievable. the impeachment hoax is going nowhere. the republican party has never been so unified as tuesday now. i have never seen anything like it. i used to tell you, the one thing, republicans are better politicians, have better policies but the democrats do stick together. the democrats like open borders, they like sanctuary cities, a lot of things that are not good, but they do stick together. well, the republican party on this whole impeachment hoax has been like glue because they know it's a hoax, the way of hurting

the republican party. beyond me, it's a way of trying to hurt the republican party and a lot of great people. the people aren't standing for it. a lot of these democrats talk about how much of an emergency everything is and then they go away for two weeks. they went back to their districts and they are getting hammered in their districts. they see what's going on, especially the trump districts where i won by a lot. i have districts where i won by a lot. you people know it better than anybody. we had a lot of great elections recently, the two big victories in north carolina, i told you before. in kentucky we won everything other than the governorship and the governor i brought up almost 19 points and won by -- lost by just a few votes and louisiana was a long shot. it was less than 1%. came up 12 or 14 points. a lot. we won everything else.

by the way, in mississippi we won the governorship, a very close ration. it was tied going in, two days before. i went up. we made a speech. we had a rally and he won by a lot. we have a wonderful governor in mississippi and everybody else won. both candidates won a lot. we have never had the spirit that we had. i don't think we've ever had the spirit that we have right now in the republican party and the impeachment hoax is what's done it. so that's the way -- honestly i think you people know that better than anyone. >> the dow is down over 400 points. the china trade deal -- >> it's not -- let me tell you. when we picked it up it was about 16,000 or 15,000 and now almost at 30,000. it's going to be at 30,000. i have to tell you if it's not

going to be a good deal, i'm not signing a bad deal. we have picked up record numbers in our stock markets. that's the way i feel. vi to make the right deal. i'm not going to make a deal that's not going to be great for our country. it can't be an even deal. if it's an even deal, it's no good. china -- other presidents and leaders of our country have really let us down. they let china get away with something that should have never been allowed to happen. billions an billions of dollars a year were lost, by people who didn't care. we rebuilt china. i give china great credit and i don't even blame china. our people should have done what they did. what they've done. we've lost $150 billion and $200 billion and $400 billion.

they rebuilt china with the money they took out of the united states. that's where they were, that's where it is. now we're taking in billions of dollars in tariffs. by the way, they're eating it. remember, you used to tell me how it will cost us -- they're eating that money because they don't want to lose their supply chains. i don't want them to lose their supply chains, but if it happens, it happens. that's where it is. they want to make a deal. i like the deal we have. the deal we have could get even better. i can do it all by myself. we'll see what happens. we're at a critical stage. they've called us today, and they've called us yesterday. we're having on going discussions. and we'll see what happens. but if the stock market goes up again, i don't watch the stock market. i watch jobs. jobs are what i watch. i watch making the proper deal. we've been taken advantage of, the united states by china for so many years at numbers that, if you were doing this, you wouldn't have believed it.

i came in. i looked at numbers for -- ever since the founding of the -- china's entrance into the world trade organization, the wto -- >> we appear to have lost the audio from president trump. i'm going to ask my control room to listen in. we'll bring it back to you. say that again. dropped out right as the president was talking about the dow dropping on the china trade war discussions. the president suggesting he might not sign a trade deal. >> mutually we look at it as a group. i think they have to look at it as a group, bill. i would look at it as a group. i think it's very unfair when a country doesn't pay. so most likely i'd do something with respect to trade. but that's one of the things

we'll be discussing today. i have to look at it as a group. a country is delinquent, not paying. something happens to that country. i think it's an unlikely circumstance. i would do something having to do with trade much more so than what you're suggesting. >> back to impeachment for a second. is it your belief now that there will be a senate trial, sir? >> i have no idea. i think they're making a mistake if they do that. that's okay. they do it, they do it. i think it's a disgrace. i think the democrats should be ashamed of themselves. if you look at impeachment and the word impeachment. a nice conversation with the president of ukraine. the conversation was perfect. two conversations, they were both perfect. they were transcribed, both perfect. this is what you're going to

impeach the president of the united states on. the republicans have never been stronger, never more unified. the democrats have gone crazy: some day in a very long distant future, you veal a democratic president, a republican house and they'll do the same thing because somebody picked an orange out of a refrigerator and you don't like, so let's go and impeach them. it's no good. that's not the way our country is supposed to be run. >> have you selected a site for the g7 summit next year? >> we really have, and i think it's been more or less announced. we're going to do it at camp david. we'll be doing very special things at camp david. it's nearby. it's close. we're going to give very good aks is to the press. we'll have a little bit of a washington i think deliverance. it will be at camp david which is the place that people --

>> your decision to leave syria and leave the kurds will affect nato? >> no. not only have we not left the kurds. we're working with the kurds, we have a very good relationship with the kurds. and we've taken the oil. i've taken the oil. we should have done it in other locations. i can name four of them. we've taken the oil. that oil is what they lived off of. that was going to be taken away from them. but now our great sold evers are right around the oil. we've got the oil. if we didn't have it, they wouldn't be able to survive. the kurds wouldn't be able to survive. >> -- you maintained in a number of these sessions that you've done nothing wrong with your conduct with ukraine. why won't you permit the secretary of state or the acting white house chief of staff to testify? >> i would. i would like for them to testify. these are very unfair hearings. these give these unfair, witch hunt hearings -- as an example,

i just heard today, they get three constitutional lawyers. it's all nonsense, just wasting their time, and we get one. okay. nobody needs to know anything about constitutional law, but they get three and we get one. that's not sounding too good. that's the way it is. for the hearings, we don't get a lawyer, we don't get any witnesses, we want biden, we want the son, hunter. where is hunter. we want the son, we want schiff. we want to interview these people. they said no, you can't do it. we can't do it. so when it's fair, and it will be fair in the senate, i would love to have mike pompeo, love to have mitch, love to have rick perry and many other people testify, but i don't want them to testify when this is a total fix. you know what a fix is? it's a fix. just think