universal. everybody gets them. if you can't get laughs doing dick jokes, get out. you're awful.. this is cnn breaking news. >> hello, and welcome to cnn's special coverage of the historic summit between u.s. president donald trump and russian president vladimir putin. i'm jake tapper in helsinki. >> i'm christiane amanpour. we're just hours away from that face-to-face meeting happening in the building right behind us which is the presidential palace. >> they have met twice before. >> they have indeed. >>en ot sidelines of other summits. this meeting without any senior aides is present has some allies and lawmakers what might get said, what could get promised

misunderstanding without witnesses there and ultimately people are concerned about how the former kgb agent mr. putin might it be able to manipulate the outcome to his advantage, a source says there is no set agenda, christiane. here is what mr. trump told cbs. >> what's your goal from the putin meeting? >> i'll let you know after the meeting. i have absolutely -- it was mutually agreed. let's have a meeting. i think it's a good thing to meet. i do believe in meetings. >> in looming over the summit are the zixtz 12 russian military intelligence officers accused of hockeying the democrat computer networks during the presidential campaign and releasing stolen information to influence the outcome of the u.s. presidential election. >> the russians who were indicted, would you ask putin to send them here? >> well, i might. i hadn't thought of that but certainly i'll be asking about it. again, this was during the obama administration. they were doing whatever it was

during the obama administration. >> joining us right now our white house correspondent kaitlan collins and international diplomatic editor nic robertson. president trump is awake and not surprisingly he's tweeting. here's one of the tweets "president obama thought crook hillary was going to win the election when he was informed by the fbi about russian med ding he said it couldn't happen and no big deal and did nothing about it. when i won it became a big drooel deal and the witch hunt edded by strzok. that is not an accurate description of what happened. any way, shape, or form. >> tell us what was the accurate description, jaking. > i mean, there have been books written about it. but the obama administration was aware of the interference going on and they did try to take several steps including a joint statement put out by the intelligence chiefs in october. >> we understand president obama

also told them to knock it off when he met president putin. >> there is a description of a meeting where he was stern and told him to stop. putin denied that they were interfering. it gets deep and complicated. >> just to continue there have thread, at the collect quers press conference when jim an costas was trying to ask him a question apparently jim yelled one to the president as he was leaving, will you tell president putin to stop interfering and president trump said yes, il. >> it's so much more than what the president says to putin. it's how he says it. he said whether he ever he denies it, i believe him saying he believes he believes russia didn't meddle in the election. it's about trump confronting him over this election meddling. from his tweet this morning, we're see tag what his mind-set is going into the meeting. he's saving his harshest criticism for barack obama

instead of the russian intelligence officers who attacked the election and instead of for putin. we're seeing the president's mind-set. and it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that the president is going to confront him and tell him to stop meddling in american elections. >> president trump did identify one group of people as the enemy of the american people. except he wasn't referring to russian military intelligence officers. disrupting and interfering in the u.s. election. he was refer together journalists can reporting on it. >> he did. he's also referred to the european union as being part of a problem for the united states, which may come as a surprise for some of those members because president trump, the european union many of those members are members of nato and president trump said he got on famously with the members of nato and they've done so well to raise money in a short space of time. for the eu, this come as a shock. going back to your point, kaitlan, about the mind-set of trump going into this meeting

and how he framed how he framed his putting to president putin last time about the meddling at the g-20, the first time he had the face-to-face meeting with putin. we only learned about the framing of how he framed the question from the russian foreign minister who are happened to be in the room and he framed it in terms of essentially some people are saying this but there isn't any evidence for it. is he going to get beyond that this time. last time he framed it as it's somebody else's problem. >> a couple of observations. we're a network that talks about facts first. we have to hue to the facts. no matter what kind of tweets. hel sink can i has a proud proud history of human rights, fremont press and is probably not surprising the main newspaper here has big ads taken out saying mr. president welcome to the land of the free speech. it might have said olympiad presidents because mrs. putin is

equally if not worse about the press than trump is. amnesty international has taken out ads saying make human rights great again aimed at both sides of the picture. i think i really door wonder, we don't know the agenda. i think president trump was alarmingly hans honest when he said to cbs i don't know the agenda and will know it afterwards. ask me afterwards. most people believe it is a good thing for the president of the united states and the president of russian to sit down and try to a, talking about really important issues, syria, the middle east, ukraine. >> the arms control, all the rest. what's worrying western leaderses is will president trump stick to the western line? will he defend the western alliance line when he's in that room with president putin. that is an actual open question given account fact that he's often talked, you know, considered sort of a a gran dies

his foes and sort of insult his alliance. that's what we should look for today. >> concessions that appear to be afterwards off the cuff, the concessioning that appeared to have little consultation with kim jong-un about ending joint military exercises with south korea. right now you have the baltic nations across the sea from here, if latvia, lithuania, estonia, sort of a trip wire for any russian aggression coming into nato territory. there's concern for amongst nato partners right now there may be some concessions about that and president trump was asked that question, wasn't he, when he was at nato. he made may be. >> he said perhaps. which is stunning. if you see what john bolton his national security adviser said yesterday, he was asked about all three of those possible concessions withdrawing troops from the baltic states. he said that's not on the table, recognizing crimea as part of russia. he said that's not the policy of the united states and withdrawing troops from syria.

bolton can be say all these things but it doesn't matter because when trump is in the one-on-one for 90 minutes, it's anyone's guess we'll say to him. the idea the president is going to be sitting down with putin, the stakes for this were already high. now that we have the 12 indictments, the stakes are that much higher. the idea any american president would sit down with a russian president three days after that occurred and not take him to task for it which we do not believe president trump will be doing is stunning in and of itself. >> what you were saying it often seems as though the trump administration and president trump are reading from two completely different books whether he it comes to where the u.s. stands vis-a-vis russia and where the u.s. stands vis-a-vis nato. you hear from the u.s. ambassador to nato, secretary of state, others, a very traditional line about the importance of the nato alliance, how russian is a geopolitical foe of the united states. that's not what you hear from

president trump. >> it was extraordinary to see during the nato summit, there were reports coming out of rush yao that russian guests on russian state television were saying, i never thought in my lifetime i would see an american president doing what the russians have tried to do since 1949. >> they're thankful. >> which is collapse nato and the western alliance. president trump the leader of the western world standing up for western values and the western alliance. meantime, of course, and this whole meeting has been given this terminology summit which raises it perhaps beyond in fact what it's going to be. it is a meeting for a couple hours. there is no fixed agenda. usually in summits there are clear fixed agendas. how will it be viewed in russia? putin comes to this with his global isolation really sort of now fraying away because he's just come off sam kylie is joining us from moscow, a brilliant globally watched world cup that will everybody says

went phenomenally well and has done so much to rehabilitate not just putin but russia itself. sam? >> reporter: yes, christiane. i was among those hose were concerned, for example, about the problems of racism among the russian fans, fascist symbolism being used and songs being use bid russian fans, heavy handed approach by the police during the world cup. it has been a very positive carnival atmosphere right across russia in a number of different stadiums, many, many hours part by plane. and train. so from that perspective, russia has really enjoyed an international renaissance as a tourist destination. simultaneously, christiane, and you've hinted at this already, from the russian perspective in terms of the wider doctrine in terms of strategy, chaos in the ranks of rivals or the enemy is considered victory by the russians similarly, donald trump

seems to take a similar approach. he keeps wrong footing his own administration. he does wrong foot his allies regularly. and sometimes he might indicate to places like north korea that he is just potential lis irrational or irascible fluff to make good on the threats of forced to rid the region of nuclear power. in that context, they're very similar approaches in terms of creating chaos. where the difference will lie at this summit is if vladimir putin and the russian media have drawn attention to this he's meticulous in terms of preparation. he's a former kgb agent, he has phenomenal memory. he handles press conferences here annually that go on for many, many hours with statistics, flying off the top of his head and accurate nonfallacious statistics. i think mr. trump is going to have his work cut out when they meet in the one-on-one.

>> thanks for that. president putin will want one thing above all and that is relaxation of western sanctions and very heavy american sanctions. >> it's unclear whether or not president trump will betology grant that or even honestly if he has to fight congress toes achieve that. coming up, president trump has just tweeted our relationship with russia has never been worse thanks to many years of u.s. foolishness and stupidity. now the rigged witch hunt. we'll dive into that. still ahead donald trump and an-vladimir putin's meeting it stoking concerns in washington. we'll discuss with our political panel. stay with us. jardiance asked: when it comes to managing your type 2 diabetes, what matters to you? you got a1c, heart, diet, and exercise. slide 'em up or slide 'em down. so let's see. for most of you, it's lower a1c. but only a few of you are thinking about your heart.

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welcome back to helsinki, finland. we're live from the sea pool. >> and just behind us, of course, is the finnish presidential palace where the meeting between presidents trump and putin will take place, hosted by the finnish president. don't forget helsinki has a proud and long tradition of being the place where real cold war tensions were sort of tried to be sort of worked out during that era. it's still today coming back to its role. >> back in the united states officials are concerned about the sit down or summit or whatever it is between donald

trump and vladimir putin. many officials even in the trump administration are concerned that president trump might be to be soft on his russian counterpart especially when it comes to pushing back on the fact that russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. mr. trump's former opponent in that election, hillary clinton took a shot at empty trump using his favorite platform twitter and tweeted "great world cup. question for president trump as he meets putin, do you know which team you play for?" then there's democrat adam schiff the top democrat on the house intelligence committee. he believes putin already has a distinct advantage here. >> putin is getting a lot just by taking there meeting. part of the reason for this indictment is to stigmatize those involved in interfering in our election. putin is essentially an unindict co-conspirator. not just any. he's the risk master of this conspiracy and he's going to be

sitting down at the table with donald trump. and trump is basically saying that indictment is just a witch hunt. that's a great gift for vladimir putin. so i think if kim jong-un can eat the president's lunch which i think he clearly did, it will be a very easy matter for vladimir putin. >> so republican lawmakers are slightly plor subdued but still believe the president should be wary. >> i think it's always helpful when leaders of nations talk to one another. to me, it would be counterproductive just to ignore that orator avoid that possibility. on the other hand, i think the president should be clear-eyed who he's dealing with. putin is an autocrat. he's a thug. he does not respect the rule of law, obviously he doesn't respect our democracy and wants to undermine it at every chance he gets. but on the other hand, there are common nats here in terms of our

desire to fight islamic extremism around the world. >> joining us from london right now is commentator and republican strategist doug high and from washington, d.c. political analyst and west columnist josh rogin. christiane are, contract western leaders looking to this summit or meeting or whatever it is and they're worried. european leaders, u.s. allies are worried. >> i was just thinking as we've been reporting all the facts that they are worried, let's run over why they're worried. just over the last week, in the last week, president trump has been to nato. there, he you know, beat up. there's no kind word to say, he beat up on the alliance. quite rightly demanding that they pay up their 2% for the military alliance but going over the top and particularly singling out angel that merkel and saying she's controlled by russia. that was an unusual

unprecedented and undim theic and untruthful thing to say about her. then he comes over to britain. before he gets to his meeting with prime minister, remember another ally, the special relationship, essentially pours i don't know, cold water, gives a shocking to prime minister theresa may by saying she's wrecking brexit, her deal will mean there will be no u.s. trade deal, praising her rival boris johnson in front of her saying he would make a great prime minister. then he tells cbs that the eu is a foe. so all of this together makes the allies very concerned and worried that when mr. trump meets with president putin who has tried since he came into office to destroy the western alliance, weaken it, they're worried that he holds the western line and doesn't give away too much to mr. putin. >> doug high, let me ask you, what do you think the reaction would be among republican officials in washington, d.c., senators and members of the house, if a democratic president

were doing what president trump is doing in terms of at the very least unsettling the nato alliance, he said that nato is as bad as nafta. and embracing i think it's fair to say or at least not being particularly harsh towards putin. how would republican officials, mitch mcconnell, paul ryan, et cetera, react. >> if you go back to when barack obama said he would be willing to meet with kim jong-un with no preconditions all hell would break loose if a democrat did the same things. that also includes being very insulting to the queen in the way he treated her. that also means referring to the press yet again as the enemy of the people. as we see we president trump this i'm okay, you're okay diplomacy with the despots and insulting allies means and i can tell you, jake, i've been in london right now, sweden, cairo and france over the past three weeks. when president trump says this constant refrain that the world is laughing at us, political leaders, business leaders or

taxi drivers that statement is not true. >> josh, you did some interesting reporting a few weeks ago that is relevant to today. tell our audience what exactly happened between the swedish prime minister and president trump whether he it came to discussions about the role of the united states and sweden in nato. >> that's right, jake. this is just one of the many examples that sort of supports the frame that i think christiane was exactly right to say which is that you russia's strategic goal is to separate the united states from its liberal international order infrastructure and from its allies and in that respect, president trump has been doing russia's work for it, not just this week but for months and perhaps for his entire presidency. what he did with the swedish prime minister is he heard that sweden was a partner of nato and not actually in nato and he speculated perhaps joked maybe the united states should try that. okay? and it wasn't taken as a joke by the swedish prime minister.

he was concerned about that statement. in a subsequent meeting i-reported he asked french president macron would he leave the eu if the u.s. gave france a better deal on trade. and, of course, that's not something that french president macron would do. it shows that the president in private is saying pretty much the same things he's saying in public. he doesn't believe that the international world order and the western transatlantic alliance is working to the benefit of the united states. he thinks it should be shaken up. he agrees with president putin. when you think about how is president putin going to outmaneuver president trump, they basically agree with each other. he doesn't really have to trick trump into anything. he just has to encourage president trump to fulfill his already existent and prevalent desires to shift u.s. policy away from long-standing alliances and towards closer reeses with russia. >> you know, doug, i just want to sort of push back on you. i think the president was really

nice to the queen of all people he loved the queen and said she reminded him of his mom. i think he was. maybe there was a little protocol, a stumble or whatever. i think that meeting it probably went off really well. i want to know from you two, what do you think of the lasting effect of this presidency on the western alliance. >> clearly the big picture is, does president trump come away from there week of meetings with nato, britain and now here in helsinki strengthening american leadership and strengthening america's commitment to the 70-year alliance that's powered this world since the end of world war ii or as others have suggested former u.s. nato officials, does he sort of sign the death warrant for american leadership around the world. >> you know, christiane, that's a key yes. there are two schools of thought. one i hear from trump supporters is that you know what, not much has actually changed in american foreign policy.

if you look at our policy towards russia, the documents signs at the nato summit, beak we have consistency and continuity. the other school of thoughts is trump's statements his public interactions and what he's doing behind the scenes amounts to erosion of american influence especially soft power in all country countries. i tend to lean towards at second explanation. i hear around europe that there's a lack of confidence in america's leadership, a lack of confidence in america's reliability and all of these countries that depended on american leadership are now hedging and seeking alternative approaches. that's going to have very long-term ekes in my opinion. >> doug, i wonder what you think the future of the republican party is when it comes to foreign policy. obviously, this is now the trump republican party. he's put his stamp on it in terms of breaking with orthodoxy in terms of free versus fair trade. and other policy issues. is the republican party now a

party that are questions nato, questions international organizations and seeks alliances, friendships with validity mir putin? >> i think that's a part of the party. there's also the part in washington, d.c. that i hear so often from members of the house republican conference which is what they say publicly is not what they say privately. privately they have grave concerns about the direction that this president is going in whether you're talking about the north atlantic treaty organization or trans-pacific partnership. what they say publicly is very different because they're reacting to their voters who overwhelmingly approve of trump. as long as donald trump is at 89 or 91% approval with republican primary voters and i can say this as you know working for eric cantor who lost a prizing primary a few years ago, that weighs in those members minds very much and why they're not critical of him publicly though they sure are privately. >> that's a key thing for the world to understand, donald

trump and the republican party, which is the president trump is not popular with the american electorate. he's under 50% when it comes to approval rate. he's incredibly popular with the republican party. >> interesting, i think a lot of the world leaders who he interacts with have taken into account the sort of trump factor. they're quite shocked and discombobulated every time a tweet comes out that seems to pile on to his allies and kiss up to his foes but there is a certain amount of trump factor that's being taken on board which is why i keep trying to figure out how over archingly destabilizing is this or is it not. >> he is a disruptor. that's what he was elected to do. we have an idea of what seems to be at stake at the summit for president. president putin has his own agenda at this meeting. we'll have analysis of what the russian leader may hope to gain. stay with us.

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helsinki, finland where the summit takes place behind us in the presidential palace. we're just a few hours from this meeting or summit or whatever it is. not surprisingly president trump is up and tweeting, just moments ago he tweeted "our relationship with russia has never been worse thanks to many years of u.s. foolishness and stupidity and now the rigged witch hunt." just to take a second here, he's blaming the bad u.s./russia relationship on the u.s. and the investigation into russia's cyber attack on the united states, not on russia's cyber attack of the united states. pretty astounding. > something we'll put to our guests. >> he arrived in helsinki sunday after a trip to the uk and to the nato summit in brussells. president putin is not expected for another three hours as for the meeting, president trump says he has low expectations and that he does knot know what's

going to happen. they have a long issues they could talk about in a very short time. their meeting is expected to last about an hour followed by a working lunch. >> jake, let's put that overarning point to our guests, we interviewed you a couple of weeks ago when you broke some really important news about ukraine and the ability to sort of push back on corruption. ukraine will be a very big topic presumably given crimea and the russian invasion. first i want to ask you what jake just read out president trump's tweet. how appropriate is it, how accurate is it to blame the current terrible state of affairs and some say it's even worse than during the cold war on the u.s. side, on the western side? >> well, look, the west has made mistakes. nobody is saying america has made mistakes. all countries do in foreign policies but there is you know,

the fact that the u.s. got cyber attacked, the fact that crimea was -- the fact that the war is still going on in ukraine is not the fault of the united states. this is the policy adopted by vladimir putin. we're sitting in helsinki in, '97, boris yeltsin, russia's first democratic president met bill clinton here. it was a very different summit. yes are, the mistakes were made at that time, as well. but you know, there was a hope and expectation ta russia would go in the direction of the west. they would become a normal friendly country. vladimir putin set them on the path of revenge and restoration. he was the first well before trump to formulate the idea make russia great again. his entire tenure as president has been carried under that slogan. what actuallyup set him most in

the previous relationship with barack obama was obama's statement that russia was simply a regional power that, putin was behaving like a bored kid at the back after the classroom. trump is rewarding putin's craving for that sort of sense of importance. geopolitical greatness. he doesn't mind if america is an enemy is, an adversary as long as he's recognized an equal which is what trump said. russia is a competitor. >> if this summit is will almost an official declaration of we recognize you as an equal, which is what many russia experts and sounds like you're saying, as well has already happened. the fact of the summit is all putin can really hope for because there is a recognition even after the cyber attack on the united states and other countries throughout europe and the annexation of crimea and the war and who is at this times in the ukraine including the downing of a malaysian air

flight he's being embraced with open arms. what more does putin want and hope to get out of this? >> he wants -- there are things he wants on the sort of symbolic television picture side which he can sell at home. and there are things more real he needs. so he obviously wants the pictures, the photo ops. here i am, you know, isolation clearly didn't work. we're an equal, recognized and respected. he wants trump effectively to walk in. putin is an operative. he's a professional kgb operative. he's been trains in how to play to people's vanities and weaknesses. and there's a lot of it around. he will want trump to walk into effective if ily recognizing russia's sphere of influence. the biggest change is that trump will say look, ukraine is the most corrupt country in the world. russia is a big nuclear power. you're telling me the cnn fake news, the economist all telling

me russian is an adversary. i'm making america safer and we want to jeopardize that safety by sticking for corrupt ukraine. that will then assign ukraine's russia's sphere of sphere of influence. second thing is the lifting or some form of lifting of sanctions. and we've already seen -- this is a very different europe. okay? america might not lift sanctions because of the internal debate and fight between the congress and the president. but the atmosphere is very, very different in europe. we have victor or bahn, the hungarian president saying sanctions are very harmful. we want them lifted. we have italians who's northern league who effectively quite pro-putin and pro kremlin. so obviously, this some european countries will be reading and looking at trump's statements carefully. if president trump doesn't stick

for sanctions, the argument will be what are we doing sticking and harping ourselves. and look, we don't know about collusion. but there is certainly an alliance. and you know, we're used to talk during the cold war about useful idiots those ho went along with the deaf socialism. we now have the president of the united states doing exactly what putin needs and wants him to do. whether there was collision or not is beyond the point. there is an alliance and interest in that both men and this was putin's biggest point, is that the post cold war order needs to be revised. it doesn't work. and we have the u.s. president basically saying the same thing. >> you have a book for those who want more of the wisdom of arkady request, the invention of russia. >> the rise of putin and the age after fake news. sort of topical. >> thank you so much. coming up next, donald trump is

not the first u.s. president to meet with a leader of this country whether it's russia or the soviet union. we'll look at how other american presidents tried to put on the charm with lis predecessors and with putin himself. stay with us. hlis predecessors d with putin himself. stay with us. is predecessors an with putin himself. stay with us.

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>> welcome back.

we're looking at live pictures of the arrival of i believe this is president trump and his entourage, individuals traveling with him including his chief of staff john kelly as well as other officials at the trump white house. they are arriving officially in finland for this summit. let's take a look as we watch these pictures and see who comes out of the limousines. obviously, this is considered a rather high stakes event. president trump will be meeting one-on-one with vladimir putin. we're told translators will be there but no one else. a lot of people in washington, d.c. very concerned about what might happen behind closed doors. >> indeed they are. right now the president is arriving for breakfast with the finnish president at his residence. i believe that's melania trump who just got out of the car. they'll be meeting both the president and his wife. she has a new baby, so she's not expected to stay there for very

long. she has to look after her baby. she's very, very new. >> you president trump on the left in the shadow there. you can see him arriving at the residence of the finnish president. let's listen to see if we can hear anything. >> snooki think they may have passed the microphone moment now. a hidsup to you all i'm going to be interviewing the finnish president in a couple hours time and i'll report back to you what he said to president trump and president putin. interestingly, because of these incredible difficulties, the tension going on between the west and russia now, the finnish president has taken on the

mantle of finnish presidents of yet ter year and encouraging this kind of dialogue between the u.s. and russia. >> i want to bring in global fairs analyst max boot and cnn u.s. security analyst steve hall both in new york to talk about this meeting christiane. >> look, we're all trying to figure out the big picture of this meeting. how do you think, we don't know whether there's going to be a joint press availability, whether there's going to be a joint statement from both presidents. the u.s. wants it. we've just heard from the russian president's spokesman dimitri pes could be that even that isn't clear yet much less an agenda for the actual talks. so max, how do you think this is going to play out today? >> i think this was extraordinarily dangerous because here you have a president who knows very little about world affairs and has by all indications done very little homework going into this meeting against a russian president who has spent nearly two decades in

office who, has met with three previous american presidents. and who is a wiley and veteran kgb operative who knows how to manipulate foreigners and bend them to his will. i have no idea what's going to happen. but i would say that i have pretty much zero expectation there will be a good outcome, meaning that president trump will forcefully confront putin about his interference in our election about his murder and attempted murder of individuals in the united kingdom, war crimes in syria and so on. i have very little hope that that will happen. my only question going into this is, how bad is it going to be, how much praise is donald trump going to ladle on vladimir putin, how many concessions is he going to make. i guess we'll find that out in a few hours time. >> we just saw secretary of state pompeo and national

security adviser ambassador john bolton walking into the residence for the finnish president. steve hall, what is your concern where what might happen at this meeting? what's the worst thing that can happen? >> well, the best is already sort of happened for putin pep gets the meeting which is a big win for him. gee politically, the west for the last couple years ever since russia has been behaving badly on the international scene has been very marginalized, isolated. the idea that the american president comes in and says okay, yeah, i'm going to having this meeting with him is exactly what he needs, exactly what he wants to follow down this line of russia becoming a great power again. i think we stand absolutely nothing to win, the united states does. really the leader, what used to be referred to as the leader of the western world, the american

president really holds all the cards. we don't need russia for very much. there's been a lot made of vladimir putin being this master manipulator because of his time with the kgb. he was the director of the fsb, the internal service. i think he's going to treat trump like a life form he's familiar with, an oligarch. he sees trump as a rich guy. in oligarch can is in russia, you're allowed as a rich person made rich by russia, to do whatever it is you want. i think that putin and russia helped enrich donald trump over the years. i think that's the kompromat, the compromising information that might be held over donald trump during these meetings. that's my concern. that's the worst case scenario that i would have for this. >> so let me ask both of you to sort of weigh in on the bigger picture. i understand what you're saying about the psychology between the experience president putin and how they may treat each other. but on the big issues you say we

don't need russia much. clearly russia backed by and with virn created the longevity of assad and backed one of the worst dictators, the most brutal murderer that we're dealing with on an international stage right now. the annexation of crimea and destabilization of the western alliance. just a week or so ago, at russians did mock exercises 70 kilometers from hel sink can i just to say and show that they can. do you not think that there are really crucial issues first max and then steve, that the president could push putin on and actually needs to? >> well, there's no question that there are crucial issues christiane. you're right to point out all the ways in which russia is a troublemaker on the world scene and which they are a destabilizing influence from ukraineton syria. and other hot spots including in

our own political system with the director of national intelligence saying a few days ago that all systems are blinking red in terms of russia and other foreign interference from n our political process. these are vital issues which the president of the united states needs to lay down the law to vladimir putin and say listen buddy, if you continue going this way there will be serious repercussions. does anybody imagine that donald trump is going to do that? he comes into this meeting bizarrely enough as kind of a supply can't to putin. as steve hall pointed out, we're vastly more powerful and don't need russia for a lek of a lot. we need to make clear to russia they will be punished for their misbehavior about the way to do that is to maintain our 2000 troops or so in syria. the way is to maintain a united front in europe with allies to stand up against russian

aggression. donald trump spent the last several days taking a wrecking ball to american relationships in europe. and so you know, that's my concern with the summit is no question that there is a reason to talk to russia. russia is an important player even though not as important as they used to be. they need to be recognized for what they are which is an outlaw state, rogue regime. putin needs to be recognized for what he is, a global criminal, somebody who should be treated with contempt, not with the respect at that point in time donald trump routinely accords to him. >> if i could, you're right in the sense there are things that need to be discussed with russia. but here's what russia does and they're expert at it. they put themselves in a situation, they insert themselves in a situation like syria where there is no fundamental russian interest beyond being the person, the kingpin, the entity that can solve the problem which then requires the united states and other western nations to say okay, we've got to deal with

russia because they already put themselves in that situation. they're good at that. you don't need a summit to talk about that. nuclear arms treats is another good example, important issues we definitely need to be talking to the russians about it. you don't need a summit. what you need is well read experts doing these things for years and years, whether it's it's middle east policy or nuclear arms issues. those folks need to get together with the russian counterparts. you don't need pageantry or a piece of reality television which is what trump wants to have there. in doing so, you give russia and putin an advantage. >> all right, steve hall and max boot. we're going to take a quick break. more of our coverage live from helsinki. stay with us. find the remote yet? nah. honey look, your old portable cd player. my high school rethainer. oh don't...

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you're looking at pictures right now from president trump's working breakfast with the president of finland. you can see at the table the secretary of state and the national security adviser and others. let's listen in. >> meet anxious negotiations with president putin. >> thank you very much. and we very much appreciate finland. we very highly respect your country. our relationship has been a very good one. and our personal relationship has been very good. and enjoyed being with you a couple of days ago. nato has never been stronger. and it was a little bit tough at the beginning and it turned out to be love. it really was a great meeting

that we had. and brought everybody together. and i think very worthwhile. i appreciated your support and your help. and i will say again you treated us beautifully. thank you very much. thank you. >> mr. president, what's on the agenda for putin today. >> i'm going to see him in a little while. we'll do just fine. >> reporter: what was the last choice to. >> we think finland is a great country. we had a fantastic meeting a few days ago. some of you were there. it was a very successful meeting. nato has never been more together. people are now agreeing to pay and we were having a lot of problem with a lot of people not paying as the president will tell you. and they're paying and they're paying more rapidly and i had i nato's probably never been stronger than it is today. so we had a fantastic meeting.

now we're capping it with being in finland. and the hospitality has been fantastic. thank you. thank you very much, everybody. >> president trump meeting it at a working breakfast with the president of finland. christiane, i have to note president trump repeatedly suggesting that he had just been with the finnish president at the nato meeting in brussels. >> finland is not in nato but has a sort of partnership for peace. it's on the outskirts but not formally in nato. >> it's not a member of nato. >> no, it's not. importantly, president trump kept saying nato is strong, nato is strong. that's important before he goes into meet vladimir putin. he did also say everybody's paying up more quickly and they're not. they're sticking to their 2014 commitms. >> thanks for joining us for

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this is cnn breaking news. >> greetings and welcome to cnn's special coverage of the meeting between u.s.