thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week and i will see you next week. shock and awe trump style. this is ""reliable sources" our look at the story behind the story of how the media really works and how the news gets made. ahead this hour, chris ruddy is here to share what he's been talking about with the president. plus maggie haberman is here on why this was a new low. the worst week of trump's presidency. one summit but two very different narratives. we're here with reactions to the news coverage. first this prediction. when historians look back on the trump presidency they'll say this was the week that something

changed. something really shifted in the conversations about the president. uncomfortable questions moved into the main stream in a big way. trump's odd behavior with vladimir putin is compelling so many people to ask what does putin have on trump? has trump been compromised? all of those people, those experts, those reporters, they are looking at the fact pattern and seeing something strange, even sinister. >> no rational president would act this way if he weren't being blackmailed on some level. >> you can't just dismiss the idea that putin has something on trump. >> i'm not a conspiracy theorist but his behavior is so bizarre and against the national interest that it certainly raises the possibility that something untoward is going on. >> see these concerns are now in the bloodstream in a whole new way.

i don't think there's any coming back from this. josh marshall of the liberal talking points memo put it this way, he said the press conference in helsinki made cautious prominent people start to come to grips with the reality that trump is under control of a foreign adversary. the concern is palpable. will hurd says putin is manipulating trump, and he asks what should we do? of course, the week of walk backs did not inspire any confidence. too many members of the media fell for trump's cleanup act, his double negative excuse but you can't clean up actions with mere words. trump's actions are what have brought us to this place where critics like former cia director john brennan are accusing him of treasonous behavior.

it's been almost week since the summit but it's still shrouded in sek row si. he has not debriefed officials in his own administration. so we've seen some trying to sound the alarm, some by speaking on the record, others by leeking to journalists so it's worth noting what trump did to the coverage. according to the new york post he reacted on twitter, saying the media is going crazy. so now people smarter than me are asking why is trump trying to bring putin to d.c. when his own director of national intelligence says it's undeniable russia is trying to reek havoc over the election process. the warning signs are going off all over the place. you can see journalists trying to trace connections, trying to

get to the bottom of what's going on. but that's really difficult. at the heart of this, the story is a mystery. are reporters covering it responsibility? joining me is my panel now. max, you were a foreign policy adviser to mccain in 2008, romney in 2012, now you're a trump critic. you look at this week, what does it add up to in your mind? >> i think you delivered a very good summary, brian. we are at a point we are debating for the first time in a serious way whether the president of the united states is disloyal to america. whether the president of the united states is an agent of a foreign power. now to be sure we have not had proof of that, but there is evidence of it. and you're seeing very serious people -- this is the kind of accusation in the past was only

made by for instance conspiracy theorists, now you're seeing people very credible, like jim clapper, john brennan, a lot of people to know -- i think brennan was significant because he was cia director during the 2016 campaign and on the receiving end of briefings from our european allies who interaccepted communications. and these people are saying there is something efficiencyfi on here because there is no other way to explain his behavior. and that to me seems like a plausible supposition, even though we have to wait for robert mueller's investigation to conclude before we have any proof of it, if, in fact, the proof is forthcoming. >> is there any other solution besides waiting for the results of the mueller probe? i think a lot of the answers will come out through mueller's investigation but are there any other ways to answer the

questions that are lingering in the air? >> one of the things that's happened here that president trump has done, it's both made our jobs more difficult but it's also, i think, created some problems for him. which is the number of ways in which he has violated norms of transparency. we haven't seen his tax returns. he has not put his bipz interus interests in a blind trust. he is going into meetings without -- you know, without anyone else besides a translator there. all of those things are -- you know, i think if there's some straightforward, innocent explanation for all of these things, it would be a lot easier to get to that if we could see some of this information and the kinds of things that we are accustomed to having when it comes to our public officials. >> i'm worried that our journalism structures and norms are ill suited to this moment in time.

think about this cable news screen, the banner is the same size whether it says cat gets stuck in a tree or trump might have committed treason. are there solutions to that part of the problem? to convey the stakes of what's going on to the audience? >> i think one of the problems, brian, is that right now if you look at some of the polling of people who either support the president or do not, both sides have kind of gone into their bunkers and even though you can take facts and figures and all of that, it doesn't necessarily convince people, so i think it's more important for the media to stand back and try to deliver some type of -- number one, of course, facts but also do it without editorializing. i know that's very, very difficult but it immediately will be disavowed by the other side if they say, oh, it's just those let's say democrats

criticizes the presidents. and you see this, i watch the russian media so it's interesting to see this because there is kind of a mirror imagine, i would say, between the ultra conservative type of media in the united states and what russian media does. there's very much of a loop. so i think, you know, standing as far back as we can and really not getting into the fight, the dog fight, is really important. >> that's a very important point. and yet, you know, i think a lot of people are having a hard time doing that or trying to remain neutral. >> i think the media has really done an -- go ahead. >> go ahead, jill. >> well, i was going to say, i still think that you can do that. and what i would say is, you know, all of this manipulation of the media, of course, has been going on for a long time,

digital manipulation, cyber, et cetera. but i think the american public didn't really realize all of this until relatively recently. certainly 2016 brought it to the fore. so i think the media would be very helpful to people if you say, this is how propaganda is done. in other words, you are being manipulated and you don't have to say by whom, because a lot of sides do it. but to stand back and instead of saying it's your guy or against your guy, just say you are being manipulated by facebook postings, twitter, et cetera, and you have to be a more sophisticated consumer of that information. >> let's show a president trump tweet, whether it's propaganda or not, he said earlier, the fake news media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war. max, do you want war with

russia? >> this is another example of trump feeding the russia propaganda line. this is what putin says, either you have to appease russia or there will be world war iii and trump keeps repeating it. just to follow up on the previous discussion about the media, brian. i think the media has been doing an outstanding job, look at the summit where it was questions from routers and the associated press that got the president in hot water that got the media to ask does putin have something on trump. and the fact that putin didn't really deny it, he deflected rather than denied and admitted he favored trump in the 2016 election, which destroyed one of

the trump lies which is that putin wanted hillary clinton in there because she would supposedly be weaker. so i think the media has done a very responsible job about covering this debate about treason and the compromising information and so far. but it's not going to convince the hard core followers, it's flabber gasing to see that 70-some percent of republicans approved of helsinki. trump seems to be so deep in putin's pocket, this is a turn around. i grew up in the 1980s when republicans were denouncing useful idiots, people wanting to cooperate with russia. now they're the useful idiots. for a former republican like me that's dismay. >> maybe we need to communicate it in different ways if the message is not getting through. karen, go ahead. >> where i would fault the

media, it goes to proportion. especially with social media where small things look big and big things look small. trump is very good at creating distractions or, you know, drawing distractions. so by the end of the week, you know, when his patriotism is being questioned he's back to nfl players on their knees. and by friday we had another story about a playmate and everything does sort of get into the news feed and i think it's really difficult sometimes for news consumers to figure out which of these things is really important and fundamental and which of these things is a distraction. >> i think the dilemma for the media is how do you deal with trump's lies, the fact that he lies all the time in his tweets and says things that are flatly untrue. but in reporting them, you're essentially repeating the lie. that's a problem with the wire services that will say trump says "x" i think on a show like

this or the "new york times" or "the washington post" you have greater context of the stories but trump is a master of getting his lies past the gate keeper and manipulating the media to get his message out, which is why most of the public is opposed to the mueller probe or that the fbi was helping hillary clinton. >> it's a campaign of confusing that keeps rolling on. when we come back, two more experts talking about the defense of president trump how these friendly sit downs have kept the president and their viewers in an alternative reality.

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trump versus trump. one reason why there's such a stark divide in america, such a disconnect between trump's true believer and his detractors is that there are always two narratives about what he's doing. this week there was one summit but two trump stories. let me show you what i mean. when trump publically sided with putin on monday, the press didn't blink. anchors and experts called out the concerning behavior. >> you have been watching perhaps one of the most disgraceful performances by an american president. >> this is nothing short of treasonous because it is a

betrayal of the nation, he is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. >> we are living in a national emergency. >> that was the consensus view. even some fox news stars said trump screwed up. but his most loyal promotors, like lou dobbs said something else. >> trump disappointed the left wing media, i think the president handled himself perfectly. >> even trump new it wasn't perfect because he came out the next day and clarified what he said and said he still supports inintel. that's all the trump media needed to hear. >> the president comes out to clarifies his remarks today. >> he made it clear he had misspoken. >> you have witnessed the single worst 24 hours in the history of your main stream media. >> the guy is doing what he's supposed to be doing and that is

protecting us. >> what do you make of it? >> what was he supposed to do take a gun out and shoot putin? >> there you have it, two trumps for two entirely different media ecosystems. and the result was that the base held. brand new today a washington post abc news post found over all 33% approved. but if you break it down by party you see 66% of republicans approved of his performance. let's bring in the washington corresponde correspondent for washington magazine. what did you see in the protrump this week in the talk shows, radio hosts, web bloggers, were they trying to create confusion or defend trump no matter what. >> it was interesting to see the mild criticism initially from the people at fox news that are

typically pretty much in defense of him, they don't sound unlike his own press shop but that was short lived and everyone got back on track defending himself and giving him the benefit of the doubt in a way that if you are just looking at this on t objectively and taking his statements for what they are this week you really can't do with a straight face. it didn't surprise me because we usually see this from fox news. it's not as though it's a departure from them to take his side. but more and more i think there is just no difference between what his own press shop says, what someone like sarah huckabee-sanders says and what any of the hosts on fox news, they really are just an extension of the white house communication shop to the extent bill shine is now inside the white house. >> to your point the president gave four interviews these week, three of those four were with

his friends. >> you can't call them interviews. they're really conversations where they are allowing him to kind of just spit ball. >> we need a different name for them, i agree. the third one was with cnbc, a friendly chat and the fourth was with nbc "nightly news" david glore, do you think he asked tough questions? he was the only one to find out what happened in helsinki? had. >> it's tough in this climate. he did ask follow-up questions, some firm questions, i would say firm rather than tough. i would tell you something that bothered me if you look at the body language the way they sat there, glore was leaning back, trump was leaning forward. i would like to see him leaning forward to press trump. there were so many times he

could have followed up, like when trump trashed brennan and the former intelligence officials, you know, i think it wouldn't have been out of line to say you just called him a total low life? is that language appropriate? it would have got combative and i'm guessing the bosses at cbs wouldn't have liked it. but this president as you said earlier, demands different kinds of coverage and we have to be firm at every point with him. so i would have liked to see glore be more aggressive. but on the other hand as a network anchor man he has a different posture in terms of institutionally of how he can behave in that interview. the other problem with trump is that you don't get anything from him. cbs was saying they got him to admit he holds putin

accountable. well, he sort of said that, he said he's in charge of the country -- >> i would hold him accountable. he said i would hold him accountable. wait, hold on, he attacked the country. >> but then trump, i don't know if it was before or after because it's all a blur with him, of lies, he said it could be the russias, could be a lot of other people. so you got nothing out of him. i think with trump you need to press harder. i smile because i criticize chris cue mow sometimes on the morning show when he would go after somebody, i think that's how you have to go after trump. >> i'd love for chris or anyone at cnn to get an interview with trump. let me show you one part of the interview where trump trashed the media. >> the level of dishonesty in

your performance is high. >> the press covered the substance and the wording accurately. >> i don't care what they covered they didn't cover my meeting. >> because we weren't in the meeting and we have no idea what happened. >> i was watching that and i was thinking that would be a good time to say, what happened in the meeting, release a readout, transcript. but it's easy so sit here and criticize jeff or the network, but i would say he's a very difficult interview and i was thinking this week while watching this interview and thinking about his performance, the journalist, about pierce morgan, who did an interesting story from air force one during this trip about his interview with donald trump and his time on air force one and he explained -- he's obviously a long-time friend of donald trump, he was on the apprentice, he's not a journalist like you are or i am, but he was very

critical and explained that his approach to that interview is because donald trump is going to say what he's going to say, instead of hitting him over the head i think with a hammer is how he phrased it in the piece, he wanted to get his answer on as many different topics as possible. he wanted to get him on the record as much as possible on as wide array of topics as possible. i think that's an interesting strategy. the key might be to find somewhere in the middle where you do follow up, you are critical, tough when he says things that are outright lies, but tyou don't want to spend th entire time having an argument, i think we have a hard time getting an interview from not just his friends at fox news, there is value to getting him on the record as much as possible on every newsworthy topic we need to hear from him on. >> i'm not sure, getting him on the record we have a concept of you're on the record, you said

this, it means something. i think with trump, that's what i was trying to say, it doesn't mean anything to him. >> you mean on the record, contradict himself the next day. >> immediately. so when pierce morgan gives that strategy of getting him on the record, i think in some ways it's meaningless and you're giving him a forum to run all of this stuff out there he didn't care if it's true or not. >> i disagree. they were sort of having a friendly conversation but i think because he is so rarely interviewed by actual journalists from actual main stream outlets who are going to question him on the sorts of things we want him to be questioned about, i think there is value in just asking him the questions that we think about every day that we wish somebody would have an opportunity to ask him. i'm not saying we should all take what morgan said as like an instruction manual and then only do that.

but i think there is a lot of value to just using that opportunity to kind of ask him about as much that we can ask him about in that time. i think it's easy to sit here and say he should have done this, that, but it's a very difficult interview. it's difficult to keep him on topic. >> that's for sure. olivia, david, thank you both for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you. up next, no reporter knows the president better than maggie haberman, she'll take us inside the press room. and then this week of solidarity among reporters after this.

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almost 250 years ago, two lanterns were hung here to warn of the incoming attack on america. today we have to acknowledge what our president won't: our democracy is under attack again. donald trump praises vladimir putin and meets with him on foreign soil, while rejecting our own law enforcement officials who say putin launched a hostile attack on our last election and is planning to do it again this year. why would an american president want to meet with a dictator who's trying to undermine our democracy? is trump again getting played by putin, or is he conspiring with a man who helped put him in office? if paul revere and other patriots had waited to act until it was safe or politically correct, we would never have the country we have today. it's time for congress, republicans and democrats, to put their political interests aside and act on behalf of our country.

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colleagues at the "new york times" broke this news on friday. news of a secret tape recorded by michael cohen that's now in the hands of prosecutors. on the tape cohen and then candidate trump are talking about reimbursing a magazine publisher for paying off a former playboy playmate that had an affair with trump. yes, that happened. the enquirer is embroiled in this, but that's just part of the story. after this, maggie haberman sat down with me for an interview, her phone buzzed the whole time. i asked her to step back and assess, has anything changed in the 18 months of the trump presidency? >> the only thing i would say that changed in the trump white house is how trump approached the job. in that last year, 2017, when he was aware of being in over his

head i think -- and every president i think comes in feeling that way, ton fair. >> i would, too. >> he ran not as someone who had a lot of government experience. he was more easily swayed by advisers, more easily put in one direction or another. and now, sometime around the turn of the new year you could feel him feeling more embold emboldened, more understanding of what the job was, sort of i got this now and that is what has changed and that's not small. >> tell me if i'm wrong, but sometimes i get the impression you're trying to say to viewers and readers, don't be surprised anymore. this is what we expect from trump. >> right. that's not to say i'm saying accept this and be fine. that's not what i'm saying. but what i am saying constantly being surprised or saying to

yourself why would he do this or looking for deeper motive behind everything -- i'll give you a for instance, he gave this interview to the "sun" notorious british tabloid during his uk swing last week or -- >> you said it was a favor to rupert murdoch. >> it was. and it was not because he had a preplanned strategy of shaking things up or disrupting the global order. he was surprised how his remarks were received. he didn't realize he would be making the news he did, he didn't realize it would have the impact he did being in the host country talking about their politics. when he left the stage in helsinki -- he has said this publically, what's the big deal. there's a lot of assuming trump lies frequently or tells falsehood frequently but he often tells the truth, what's the big deal, i didn't understand what i did. >> he said i thought i did a

great job at the press conference. >> correct. and sometimes he's telling you why he did something. >> the press briefings there's only been a few in the last month, i counted four in the last 30 days. they're happening less often than they used to. >> i think they're questionable value for the administration. for us they are of value -- >> even if she stone walls the whole time. >> i would rather be able to ask an official a question. i don't understand the people who tell us the press should stand up, turn our backs or walk out, what should happen is when dorian fabian passed his question to hallie jackson when he didn she didn't answer her. trump has been dividing and concurring the media, he's exceptional at it. >> how do you convey it in stories and tv segments?

>> all can you do is say it. in stories, it's hard to convey beyond quotes from elected officials, beyond covering the vote in congress. i think what will tell us the degree of difference on this is going to be whether his favorable ratings change with republicans, not just with the electorate overall. i'm loathe to predict there's going to be a change. so all i can do is tell people this is different and explain the ways in why that is. whether that means they absorb it, whether that means it translates to someone else, i have no idea. that's not my job anyway. >> you said on twitter you're taking a break, you said besides breaking news and stories you're taking a break because it's not really helping the discourse. >> i'm leaving the engagement of it. i called it once online an anger video game. and it is. it used to be i think a decent

community space. i liked twitter, i liked engaging with readers in a way as reporters we don't get to. but it had more net negatives. i think the biggest problem with twitter, and i've had it since 2012, is everything is shrunken down to the same size. a complaint about your airline losing your luggage is the same as a presidential statement. with newspaper, photo news, you can tell how the outlet feels about that piece of news. do they consider it important. is it something they're giving prominent placement too. twitter everything is the same across the board, literally. part of the problem, too, donald trump made twitter a place people had to go because he was using it as his main platform.

he enfeinfuss the media with a l of power no one has, he treats us as not just opposition but as equals almost. and by doing that he makes us the story. i don't want to be the story. to some extent we can't help it. but to the extent i can, engaging in twitter is not important. >> you want to put news information into the world. >> yes. >> that's the goal? >> yes. i still look at twitter, the news feeds, i still look at the app on my phone, i'd have a harder time knowing what's going on without it, but i don't want to be with it. >> i hope the executives are listening, there's a value on how to improve the service. >> they see the value in how it runs currently. >> like a sewer. >> i think there is diminishing returns. >> yeah. twitter ceo jack dorsey did

respond to our comments over the interview. you can hear the entire interview with maggie on our reliable sources podcast. up next trump friend chris ruddy, ceo of news max is here. he says there might be missteps being made by a new president. he's be up after this. but mania, such as unusual changes in your mood, activity or energy levels, can leave you on shaky ground. help take control by talking to your doctor. ask about vraylar. vraylar is approved for the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes of bipolar i disorder in adults. clinical studies showed that vraylar reduced overall manic symptoms. vraylar should not be used in elderly patients with dementia due to increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, which may mean a life-threatening reaction, or uncontrollable muscle movements, which may be permanent. side effects may not appear for several weeks.

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welcome back to reliable sources i'm brian stelter. president trump has been trying out a new term to describe the

press in the united states. he still says we're fake news but nowadays he says something else, he's been using the term enemy of the people more often. you can see he did it a couple times in the past week. including this week where he was defending russia while saying the real enemy of the people is the fake media. can we get him to stop using this kind of stalinist rhetoric? let's ask chris ruddy. you're described as a trump confida confidant. i don't know if you like that. >> i think trump friend is good enough. i don't want to overstate the relationship. i'm a member of the enemy of the people. remember that, i'm a member of the press. >> that's what's strange about this. can anyone get through to him and say calling us the enemy of the people is dangerous? >> i think he's used that term before. i think it comes out of emotion, which is he's angry about the

press treatment. you haven't given him a moment to breathe, ever since he was elected people on this network, on msnbc were calling for his impeachment. >> not anchors and reporters, you're talking about guests. >> you guys have been pushing it. when he inherited that job obama had economic growth rates of 1.5%. this past quarter they think it's going to be 4.4, the president thinks 4.8. but it's a 300% increase in about 18 months, i don't think in history we've had anything like this. you never talk about any of the positives. >> we have an entire business division that sits behind you that covers the economy every day. >> they're on at 3:00 and you're on sunday morning and chris and anderson on are blasting him every night.

>> you don't think the russia story is worthy of prime time coverage? >> i think the president made missteps, he admitted he misspoke. but the idea i've heard on your program for the past 40 minutes, max boots saying he was colluding in open daylight, he's engaging in treason, this is beyond belief that president kennedy, i'm sure you liked president kennedy as i did, but he withdrew support to those patriots landing on the bay of pigs. they were slaughtered, imprisoned. he did it at the last minute, people at the time accused of betrayal, treason. >> it was a stain on his presidency. >> we learned from it and adjusted it. >> you're saying he gets credit for the economy but he's still new at his job? >> he is new at his job. he's relatively new president. for 50 years he's been a business guy.

as a business guy, brian, words are not so much as important as the concrete actions of the deal. i think donald trump -- my own view of the putin meeting was that he met with putin and he was expube rent after the meeting because he probably got -- i haven't spoken to him about it, my guess is he got huge concessions, the meeting went better than anyone expected he thought i'm going to be overly nice to this guy -- >> but we don't know. >> we'll see in the next coming months. >> we're going to see russia interfere with the elections in the coming months. >> he's decreased nato, the military. i remember speaking to the president baa before he became president, he said we were at a disadvantage with russia, he didn't want to go into meetings having a week nuclear arsenal. this is not a friend of russia. okay. >> then why did he talk like one? >> because negotiating style.

this is from his business career. he's coming in, he's -- i personally don't agree with that approach. >> what you're saying to the audience is trust us, we'll take care of this. i don't think he's earned the trust. >> i'm saying something different. go beyond the words and look at his concrete actions. >> i agree actions matter more than words. his actions on the world stage were disgraceful because he stood there and didn't defend us. >> do you believe he's colluding with russia? >> i wish i could say no, that's crazy. but i can't say that because he's acting in other ways. >> why would he put people like mike pompeo, john bolton, and james mattis who are all russia hawks in key positions. >> that's a fair point. it's strange he contradicts his own staffers. >> i always felt you were a fair reporter. i know recently you've been accusing the president of all things.

criticism is fine. at news max we have criticism of the president but as long as it's policy issues and not -- i disagreed with his health care plan, for instance, but i think he's done a tremendous job on the economy. he gets sever credit. >> he gets a lot of credit for that. >> where? >> all over the press. >> you don't talk about it on prime time. when was the last time you had larry kudlow on talking about 4.5% growth rates. >> larry kudlow should do more interviews, i agree with you. >> i'll call him. >> can i ask you about sin clare briefly, there was evidence about the sinclaire deal. i know you spoke with the president about it. is he the invisible hand overseeing media regulation right now? >> i think he's quite the opposite. i don't think there's any evidence he got any medals in the fcc. you know that's an independent

agency. and his appointment showed a lot of integrity. he rejected the deal not because he dislikes sin claire, they're eight months delayed in the process, refuse to comply to the most >> they were doing some shady stuff. just to explain to our viewers, they were doing something to secretly own the stations. >> i told the president about my opposition, because sin claire would have reached 77% of u.s. homes. i did not necessarily agree with that point of view, i did not want to see nbc and the rest of the liberal networks owns 70%. i think it would have been very dangerous if nbc was the local news coverage in iowa. but the fcc acted as it was supposed to act, which is an independent regulatory agency and i think it's a credit to the

unanimous decision, bipartisan, it's a template about how government works when the democrats and republicans agree on things. >> i'm glad you're here, chris, and i hope you'll suggest to the president to make more trump aides available. >> next week we do a program on all the president's economic successes? can we do that? if i could get larry kudlow to come on and just talk about that, would you be open to it? >> i am sure a lot of people would love to interview larry kudlow. >> maybe the president would come eon if you discuss his economic successes. >> more "reliable sources" in just a moment. money managers are pretty much the same. all but while some push high commission investment products, fisher investments avoids them. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions

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back now on "reliable sources," with one final thought for the day. sometimes the news is not what is said, it's what is not said. the news is what's not tweeted, what the president is not emphasizing. case in point, does president trump know that the russians are still actively interfering in u.s. politics? does he believe that? it's and open question. and his silence on the matter speaks volumes. cecilia vega tried to get an

answer to this question. >> is president putin still interfering in the elections? >> no. >> everybody out. >> it sounded like he said no, as in no, they're not interfering in our elections. then press secretary sarah sanders at her only briefing of the week claimed he was saying no to answering any questions at all. claiming he just didn't want to talk to the press corps at this moment. but after he said no, he continued to answer questions. so in this case, the news is what trump hasn't said. he's had four or five days to follow up, to make it very clear what he knows and what he believes about russian interference. and yet he hasn't taken that opportunity. you know, his own director of national intelligence, dan coats has been really clear on this point, watch what he said on thursday. >> it's undeniable that the

russians are taking the lead on this, basically they are the ones that are trying do undermine our basic values, divide us with our allies, they are the ones that are trying to wreak havoc over our election process, we need to call them out. >> that's an incredibly important moment from dan coats. but then a few moments later, trump and the white house undermined coats. you remember what happened. press secretary sarah sanders announced all of a sudden that trump had invited putin to washington this fall. of course coats was asked about this on stage, it was one of the greatest journalistic moments of the week, andrea mitchell was handed a note so she told coats about this meeting and it seemed like he was caught off guard, so it seems like the white house is trying to undermine the dni. some of these stories are hard

and confusing to cover and we have to have the time to unpack them, we have to have the time to keep asking these basic questions. we need to keep asking president trump do you realize that the russians are still interfering, they're doing it now. we have to keep asking the questions. but we saw someone cross a line about that this tweak. take a look at this, from emily singer from the website mike, she tweeted out a picture saying that's maria buttina in the background in the oval office with trump. a bombshell, except it wasn't true. it wasn't buttina in the background, it was an nsc staffer. but think then, the damage was done, sanders said it was a case of media hysteria, what singer needed at that moment was an

editor, someone to check, to tap the brakes before blasting this tweet out into the world. that's the only way the press is going to be able to keep asking the questions that are so vital right now. you have questions, i have questions and we need answers and hopefully journalists will continue trying to get them. we'll see you next week here on "reliable sources." russia recoil. >> what have you promised vladimir putin, sir? >> after a week of walking back statements that upended the world. >> the statement should have said i don't see any reason why it wouldn't be russia. >> president trump is still facing fire from all sides. >> i don't think russia interfered in our elections, in fact i know he didn't. >> senator marco rubio is live in moments.