it must be epic! thrilling! daring! come ride the incredicoaster. it's going to be simply exhilarating, dahling. this sunday, those russia hacking indictments. >> 12 military officers by named for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. >> president trump says he remains unconvinced. >> i call it the rigged witch-hunt and it really hurts our relationship with russia. >> and still looks forward to meeting tomorrow with vladimir putin. >> i think that we will have a chance to have a very good relationship with russia. >> the question -- is this the right time to hold a summit with putin? my guest this morning, the u.s. ambassador to russia, jon huntsman. democratic senator mark warner of virginia and republican senator dan sullivan of alaska.

plus, confronting allies. president trump threatens nato. takes on theresa may on brexit and praises her rival. >> i actually told theresa may how to do it but she didn't agree -- she didn't listen to me. >> and the gop versus the fbi. peter strzok is charged with bias against president trump in the russia investigation. >> that is bias. agent strzok may not see it, but the rest of the country does. >> and strzok fights back. >> i strongly believe today's hearing is just another victory notch in putin's belt and another milestone in our enemy's campaign too tear america part. >> joining me for analysis, amy walter from the cook political report. hugh hewitt, host on the salem radio network. nbc news political analyst elise jordan. and joshua johnson host of 1-a on npr. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> nbc news in washington, the

longest running show in television history. this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning. well, it turns out it wasn't somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. even before friday's indictments of 12 russian intelligence operatives for hacking the democrats during the 2016 campaign, four u.s. intelligence agencies had already weighed in. the fbi, the cia, the dni, and the nsa all of them had concluded that russians interfered in the 2016 election and they did so with the goal of helping donald trump. in fact, you can view the russian hacking of democratic e-mails, opposition research, turnout models as the watergate burglary of the 2016 election. the political crime of the 21st century. now, as in 1972 it's the penetration of the dnc by hostile actor then it was the nixon white house. now the russian government. and as in 1972 the white house this one was quick to distance

itself from this crime. it was pointed out there were no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the trump campaign. that's true. at least for now, in this indictment. well, president trump didn't do was express outrage over the russian hacking. what he did do was to re-affirm his claim that the mueller investigation is a witch-hunt and tweet that the russian criminality took place during the obama administration and that it failed to respond. what the president didn't do was postpone a summit on monday with vladimir putin. what he did do was signal perhaps that he trusts putin's denials over the findings of his intelligence agencies and his justice department leaving much of the world asking why. >> i think i'd have a very good relationship with president putin. if we spent time together. >> the indictment of 12 mission officers three days before the one-on-one meeting is the most detailed account yet of russian's attack on america's

democracy. >> i briefed president trump about the allegations earlier this week. we need to work together to hold the penetrators accountable. >> but despite that briefing, mr. trump spent the week praising putin. >> he's not my enemy. hopefully, some day maybe he'll be a friend. >> rattling to a alliance established to contain soviet and now russian aggression, nato, insulting the british prime minister in her brexit strategy. >> she didn't listen to me. >> and most notably, attacking his own justice department and the special council probe tasked with investigating russian interference in the 2016 election. >> i call it the rigged witch-hunt. i think it hurts our country and our relationship with russia. >> the indictal fills in the gaps of several extraordinary moments in the summer of 2016. and raises questions about the trump campaign's role in the attack on the united states by a foreign power. first, there's the imfamous trump tower meeting.

june 3rd, donald trump jr. is promised dirt on hillary clinton replying if it's what you say, i love it. especially later in the summer. june 8th, the indictment says russian intelligence officers launched dc leaks.com and begin to release stolen dnc e-mails. a day later, jared kushner and trump jr. and paul manafort, meet with those tied to the kremlin. second on july 27th, russian hackers tried to hack into clinton's server office. it's the same they that mr. trud said this about clinton's e-mails. >> russia, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> mr. trump is consistently questioned the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies. >> president putin really feels and he feels strongly that he did not meddle in our election.

>> he's denied the hacking of the dnc and clinton's campaign occurred. >> she doesn't know if it's the russians, maybe that's hacking. it could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. >> though mr. trump says he'll bring up hacking, on saturday he was dismissive. >> there won't be a perry mason here i don't their. you never know what happens right? >> and joining me now from helsinki the site of the trump/putin summit is the u.s. ambassador to russia huntsman. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you. >> let me start with a simple question -- is this summit still on and if so, why? >> well, listen, it isn't a summit. i have heard it called a summit. this is a meeting. in fact, it's the first meeting between the two presidents. they had one at the g-20s and

the other at the summit. and this is the first time for them to sit across the table and have a conversation and i hope it's a detailed conversation about where we might be able to find some overlapping and shared interests. this has not happened before so there's a lot on our agenda been built up over many years of a relationship that's terribly fraught. so yes, it will happen. and it should happen. >> you -- you obviously are making a distinction between a summit and meeting. is this because we don't have an agenda or we don't have deliverables? one of the things you said before in preparation is if you have a summit you have to have an agenda and you have to have deliverables. does that mean we won't have a deliverable out of this? >> listen, you have been around for presidential summits and i have been around since reagan's visit to china in the early 1980s. no state dinner, no joint statement, no deliverables that are prepackaged. you don't know what will come

out of this meeting but it will be the first opportunity for these presidents to actually sit down across the table alone and then with their teams to talk about everything from meddling in the elections to areas where we have shared interests. you have to remember that russia is a country of 11 time zones. it touches asia and western europe. it's inconceivable we can solve the issues without russia. because of the problem solving it's practically impossible so this is an attempt to see if we can defuse and take some of the drama and quite frankly some of the danger out of the relationship right now. >> how did the indictments of 12 russian military officers on friday change the agenda? >> well, i don't think the details are a surprise to folks who have followed this. that now makes probably almost 30 russians who have been rolled up by the mueller indictment.

that investigation continues and i think the bigger pictures we need to hold the russians accountable for what they did. their malign activity throughout europe as well. that's a part of the conversation that needs to take place. again, chuck, this is why it's so important to get our senior leaders together because these conversations have happened at the local level. i'm on the ground, i'm on the front lines in moscow. they happened at our level but they haven't happened at the senior most levels in the detail that we're likely to get tomorrow. that's why this gathering is important for one reasons. >> two things. will the president ask putin to extradite the 12 military officers and have you formally requested that the russian government do this? we don't have an extradition treaty. have you begun that paperwork? >> well, the fbi office and the embassy no doubt will work on that. i can't disclose any details in that regard. requests can be made, that doesn't necessarily mean that the russians are going to follow through with it.

but we'll see if those steps will be taken. i can't make announcement with you. >> is the president going to make the ask or not? >> i don't know if he'll make the ask. but it may be part of the agenda. may be part of their bilateral meeting together. we'll have to see. it just came on to the agenda on friday. so it's brand new. >> why does it matter that the president have a warm relationship with putin whether you call it a friendship or not? he's -- this is putin's actions they're pretty outrageous, annexing crimea. propping up a brutal dictator, interfering in our elections and poisoning british citizens just recently in the uk. and yet we're bending over backwards it looks line. it looks like we're bending over backwards in order to have a relationship with putin right now. why? >> well, chuck, you just started that long litany, that long list of grievances and it goes on

much longer than that. you have to remember there's a reason why every president in the post cold war period has tried to engage china. every president. it has started a boom and a bust cycle that's left both sides dejected. angry at each other. finger pointing. and it's because we set expectations way too high. >> ambassador, let me pause you there. you said china. i assume you're referring to russia. >> i'm sorry, of course i'm referring -- >> that's what i thought. you're a former ambassador to china. understandable. go ahead. >> the -- i'm sorry, chuck. the redos and the resets, which have largely collapsed. so the objective here is to meet to put our cards on the table. there isn't a thought that's a reset or a redo. we have looked at past history. we have interests, they have interests. and it's a function of seeing where some of the interests overlap. now, they will overlap in the area of strategic stability and arms control where we have a very important arms control

agreement. that's coming due in 2021. russia's in violation of the inf treaty. that's got to be talked about. you have some overlapping interests in syria. where we have come very close to confrontation. we have got some shared interests with respect to the korean peninsula where we both believe in a nuclear free korean peninsula. a strong northeast asia. nonproliferation. these are areas where conceive my we can strike up a conversation, but we have to let history be our guide. these redos and resets only get you so far. usually end in failure. we have to put our cards on the table. we have to remember and recognize some of the malign activity we have been through. >> let me ask you this. does the president buy into the china and russia are determined

to make economies less free and less fair to grow their militaries and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence. does the president buy into this? >> well, it's his team's document. i certainly assume so. with what you have just described i can't imagine anyone would disagree with that assessment. either china or russia. >> on the issue of crimea, can you say that the president is going to stick to what -- to the piece of paper he signed in brussels with the nato -- with the fellow nato leaders when he said that was never -- you know, nothing changes when it comes to crimea. is the president going to sort of stick to his belief that -- or stick to the belief of nato nations that crimea belongs to ukraine and not russia? >> the agenda is the president's. everything will be his call. but i think it's highly unlikely that he'll see any change in

crimea. this was a violation of international law. what we have seen in eastern ukraine is a violation of international law. an ongoing conflict and the two so-called break away republics. we have some real issues. >> but you didn't rule it out. ambassador, i notice you didn't rule it out. you said it's the president's call. so he could very well just -- >> of course -- >> you know what? either though everybody else doesn't think this is a good idea? >> of course it's the president's call, but i think it's highly unlikely that's going to emerge in their conversation as you suggest. there's a lot more to talk about. strategic stability, syria, ukraine, dprk, our bilateral relationship. we have got a fraught bilateral relationship, the collective blood pressure between the united states and russia is off the charts high. so it's a good thing these presidents are getting together. >> all right. ambassador huntsman, i have to leave it there. i appreciate you doing this interview outside. i know that wasn't an easy thing in helsinki.

appreciate it. >> thank you very much. and joining me now is democratic senator mark warner of virginia. the top democrat on the senate intelligence committee which is doing its own investigation into the russian interference. welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you. >> you just heard from ambassador huntsman. you have signed on to the letter with a bunch of other democratic senators calling for the president to either cancel the summit or if he doesn't basically essentially make it a one issue summit. ambassador huntsman number one, doesn't want to call it a summit, but a meeting. have you been reassured from mr. huntsman about what the president will do about putin? >> well, chuck i would feel better if ambassador huntsman was actually sitting in on the meeting. i'm very concerned about a one-on-one meeting between vladimir putin and donald trump. we know that trump doesn't do a lot of prep work for these meetings. he kind of goes in and wings it.

we saw what happened when he did that with kim jong-un. he ended up saying everything is okay with north korea and frankly we have found since that time that's not the case. in putin, you have got a trained kgb agent who does his homework. my fear is that putin could come in with maps of ukraine, maps of syria, and try to cut some deal and frankly take advantage of this president. so i really would feel much better if there were other americans in the room making sure that we make the point that the first and top point of this agenda should be no further russian interference in our elections. >> all right. i understand you don't want the president to do this one-on-one. but let me ask you this. shouldn't -- let me pick up on a point that ambassador huntsman kept making. what's the wrong with the two leaders meeting? yes, we have some contentious issues to discuss, but regardless of your personal views of president trump what's wrong with this meeting?

>> listen, the idea that two leaders two great nations are meeting, absolutely makes sense. but what we have now which was unprecedented is russian intervention in our elections where they hacked into democrats and democratic officials' e-mails. released them to benefit trump and hurt clinton. where they intervened in over 20 states' electoral systems. where they used social media in ways that were unprecedented. and as an american leader and an american administration, wouldn't start a meeting with the head of the country that did that intervention and make that top priority then that meeting shouldn't take place. remember, russia massively intervened, they're an adversary and this president has been completely reluctant to call out that activity and call out putin as a bad actor. that's why we need to make sure at least there are other people in the room. >> let me ask you though about

russia policy. the trump administration has been tough on russia. why does that matter? >> chuck, the president rhetorically has not been tough on russia. as a matter of fact, congress had to take an unprecedented action basically and say, hey, when we say sanctions we mean you've got to actually put those sanctions in place. trump drug his feet on imposing the sanctions. we had to pass legislation that frankly boxed the president in so he wouldn't -- so we would avoid taking that responsibility. >> i want to get into the indictment. number one the timing of the indictment on friday, do you get the sense that the justice department was trying to send a mess sang. >> you know, i had no idea when the indictment was going to come. we're still processing and first of all, we should say there's an awful lot of very good work done here to have this level of specificity in terms of these russian spies and how they acted and what they did specifically. we now have the mueller

investigation with over 30 indictments with five guilty pleas. who knows what next is to come because clearly, with the number of individuals that have said they're cooperating with the mueller investigation, i'm sure he's got more to come. >> i want to know actually what you've learned new and what you said you learned a lot new in this and one of the things i want to ask you about is in the indictment we learned that on the same day -- on or about july 27th that these russian intelligence agents attempted after hours to spear fish for the first time e-mails associated with clinton's personal office and the clinton campaign. and on this -- this happened on the day of this infamous sound bite from then krad trump. >> i hope you're able to find the e-mails that are mising. >> is this a new piece of evidence to you, senator warner? >> well, it appears rather

strange coincidence that the very day that mr. trump calls on the russians to hack into clinton e-mails, well, the russian spies actually tried to take that action. and remember, that call for the russians to act came a few weeks after donald trump jr., his son, his son-in-law, his campaign manager had all sat down in the trump towier the russian agents had offered dirt on hillary clinton. you take that, you take the efforts to reach out to trump aide where they're offering dirt, there's a pattern of behavior that i think at the end of the day i hope mueller gets to the bottom of. >> we learned about a new piece of the time line in the trump tower meeting in between when the meeting happened and when it was set up. the russian operative set up a website called dc leaks.com. literally the day before the

meeting, perhaps that was a way of a proof of what they had to their -- to the folks they were meeting there. is all of this, july 27th and the trump tower meeting and what we have learned now, is that circumstantial evidence of collusion? >> again, i'm going to leave those conclusions to the public. leave those conclusions to seeing what else mueller has -- >> what about you? does that look like collusion to you? >> what i'm saying, chuck, we have got further witnesses we're going to interview. and one thing we do know, just within the public domain, clearly there were a lot of folks affiliated with the russian government reaching out to the whole series of folks within the trump orbit, trying to offer information that's discriminating, bad information about clinton. again, just based upon donald trump jr.'s response where he said he was anxious to get that kind of information. >> you know, reading the indictment and realizing this was more than just stealing of e-mails, it was stealing of

voter files and things like that, the now october 7th frankly what has been told to me was a watered down warning to the american public about russian interference, but that assessment now looks awfully, awfully weak. obviously in hindsight this looks weak. what should the obama administration have done that they didn't do then? >> well, chuck our committee is going to go and it's going through the final stages of the thorough review of what both the obama administration and for that matter the fbi did right. did wrong. i think history will show we should have sounded a much stronger alarm. but let's take the fact, you mentioned, chuck, the election interference. in a regular or normal administration when we see that a foreign government had tried to intervene in more than 20 states' electoral systems and when the current director of national intelligence dan coats have said that the russians will be back, in a normal administration you would have

had a white house designate someone in that white house to make sure election security was a top priority. again, we have had this administration not step up. the congress has. our committee has. and we have put some funds out, we put some bipartisan legislation out. but i think it's abysmal what this administration has not made 2018 election security a higher priority. >> do you believe the 2018 elections are going to be fair? >> i hope they are. but i'll tell you, i think -- i would feel a lot better if there was a concerted whole of government effort to make sure not only at the state and local registrar level but on the companies that manipulate and own the voter files and maintain the voter files behind the scenes, i think we need a real -- we need to really step up our game. >> all right, mike warner, vice chair of the intel committee, thank you for coming on and sharing your views, sir. >> thank you. chuck. when we come back, given what we have learned in the

indictments about russian meddling should president trump have postponed his summit with vladimir putin? ♪ i was able to turn the aircraft around, and the mission around, and was able to save two men's lives that night. my first job helped me to grow up pretty quickly. that'll happen when you're asked to respond to a coup. in 2001, i signed up for the air force. two days later, 9/11 happened. your mornings were made for better things than psoriatic arthritis. as you and your rheumatologist consider treatments, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once-daily pill for psoriatic arthritis. taken with methotrexate or similar medicines, it can reduce joint pain, swelling, and significantly improve physical function. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis.

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and we are back. panelists here joshua johnson. and amy walter, from the cook political reporter. nbc news' elise, and hugh hewitt. i want to start of off from the new yorker. most experts i spoke with were resigned to trump being outplayed by putin. i'm afraid he told me that our guy here is like an amateur boxer going up against muhammad ali. >> we heard from the ambassador that it's just a meeting. so it's not a summit. >> hang on. we went from summit to meeting to detailed conversation. >> so already we know where this is. let's face it.

putin has already won. it's not simply that the president's going over into his part of the world and having this sit down and one-on-one. but the fact is that after these indictments what a president should be saying to everyone, not just to putin, but to the american public writ large, russia did this to divide us. russia didn't do this simply to make sure somebody won and lost. they did this to make sure we lose trust in the political system and the institutions and that's not going to happen. we are america. we may be of different parties, we have different views. but we're a united america. that's what i'm going to say to vladimir putin that you cannot divide us and he can't do. >> hugh, why can't he? >> i think he will. i have much more confidence in the president than anyone at this table because i take a long view. there are 26 soviet american summits, six russian-american -- >> don't call it a summit. >> call it whatever you want,

the worst was '61. but the second worst was obama in medvedev on the open mike, tell vlad to give me some space. what happened after that? we won't know for a year how this plays out and i actually have much more confidence that trump will not be bullied or seeking the approval of anyone because he doesn't seek the approval of anyone ever. >> but you could argue that the preconditions though that president obama set up for putin to feel empowered is what donald trump is doing by going into the meeting on monday. you look at how donald trump the theatrics before the meeting with kim jong-un and how he threatened -- you know, he canceled it, it was back on. he definitely had the north koreans sitting on the edge of their seat about would donald trump lend them that prestige by going to the table. here, donald trump is forcing the issue against all of his top advisers. he has wanted to have this summit. they tried to dissuade him and there hasn't been a principals

meeting available to discuss what's on the agenda with russia. do i don't see how we can expect anything to come out of this. >> i think of the quote from michel angelo our greatest danger might not that be we aim and we miss but that we aim too low and we hit. i just checked the home pages of sputnik and rt both of them refer to it as summit. the russians may view this as the world views this with a little bit more alacrity. the president may be going into this to get what he wants. he may get it. he may just want this meeting to be getting to know you meeting. we need to spend time with people who could be our allies, our friends. he may walk out of there getting everything he wanted. and so might vladimir putin. granted it may not be as visible where the world saw him and north korea shaking hands but they can walk out thinking they're both winners. >> i'm sorry, this is what the president's director of national

intelligence said on friday about russia. take a listen. >> we know you run the shop. we know you're making the decisions. you can't pass it off to oh, that's some hacker down somewhere where we don't know. we know what you do. >> presentation he said a blinking red light comparing it to right before 9/11. so the president is going to try to befriend somebody who director coats said is currently attacking the white house. >> framing it like this, one, putin is not going to admit it so why should i ask him, two, it happened under obama's watch. both of those things are true, but that's not the point. the point is not to say, well, did you do it and then have him say of course not, we don't spy. it's to say we know you did it. we know the names of the people where you're doing it. >> i was reminded last night at

dinner by two veterans of the ic. the russians have been the russians since stalin. they're the same people year in and year out and romney was right in 2012. i think the american media is trying to infuse donald trump with a sort of willful blindness he doesn't demonstrate. >> what the heck are you talking about the media? this is john mccain. this is actual -- this is mark warner. these are serious officials on both sides. this is not the media. that's such a cop-out. >> no. the commentary around -- >> i'm tired of that. >> it tries to make trump look unprepared for be when he has pompeo -- >> it's people inside the white house saying it. hugh. >> the only preparation has been john bolton going over last week and pursuing a policy that's

completely the opposite of what they have espoused in their entire career. >> it's one thing to talk about the spying but when it's turning americans against americans and that was their point is for americans to not trust, not just the political parties and the political institutions but not to trust the fbi and any other institution. that to me is more worrisome. >> can we point out after pierce of the report, it also notes that they mined for bitcoin. bitcoin gets complicated but what that does is you have the computer system that does incredibly complicated computations and it allows you to generate more bitcoin which means that the russian generated money to make this happen. they literally minted money to hack our election system. now, the president is saying well, i don't know if i'm go to ask for extradition is stunning. if someone broke into the bureau of engraving and printing and

stole millions of dollars to create a crime against the united states it would be an immediate call for extradition. they are minting money. >> no surprise in this. i'm saying that the russians are the russians will be the russians and everybody knows it and we should not downplay the fact that trump knows it too. >> the president is not categorical in saying he'll ask the russians to extradite the men. that alone is a gigantic concern, you have to act or i will. >> i think his point is an important one. we should learn from the past. president trump should learn from what happened with president obama, what happened with president bush and he's not. advocates of the foreign policy are saying it's good he's going and shaking things up in nato and going against the grain. why do we support what's going on with russian. >> that's the point. when i come back and talk about do republicans think it's right (burke) at farmers, we've seen almost everything

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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 from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management. welcome back. while some republicans like john mccain have urged president trump to use the russian indictments to get tougher with, is or simply cancel tomorrow's

summit, the republican leadership in congress has been largely silent. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has provided no public reaction and house speaker paul ryan said, quote, we said all along we know that russia meddled in the elections and we're glad the hackers are being held to account. joining me is dan sullivan of alaska. probably the closest state -- >> we certainly are. >> to the country of russia. by the way they're doing a lot in the antarctic too. >> let me play something for you from a colleague of yours on thursday. cory gardner. >> i think we should name russia a state sponsor of terror. i have been on record saying that. >> he said this before the indictaments came out. do you agree with him? >> i think russia is an adversary and what you mentioned in the previous segment it doesn't get a lot of press,

there's a lot of discussion on how the president seems to downplay issues with putin. what doesn't get a lot of discussion is the concrete actions we the congress and the white house have been taking with regard to russia. there's a number of them. rebuilding our military. which we, you know, defense spending actually declined almost 25% from 2010 to 2016. that rebuilding includes the european reassurance initiative. billions of dollars for our troops in poland n the baltics. boots on the ground. second, you know, this administration has given lethal weapons the javelin antitank system to ukraine. president obama never did that. congress bipartisan members of the senate armed services committee wanted to do that. we're finally doing that now. that's serious. >> you realize, senator, everything you're discussing, you guys have forced the administration on this. he himself though rhetorically seems -- does that -- when he rhetorically downplays this

concrete action that you're talking about doesn't it undermine the action? >> look, the javelin system wasn't forced on the president at all. president obama didn't want to do that. president trump, secretary mattis did that. putin understands power. and energy, chuck, we have this great opportunity unleashing american energy. i was in a meeting with senator mccain about a year and half ago with a senior russian dissident. at the end of the meeting i asked him more can we do to push back on putin? the number one thing you americans can do is produce more american energy. we're doing that in alaska with the opening of anwr, lng. so we're doing a lot. it's the white house and the congress together. these are concrete action that putin understands. to your point on the rhetoric, you know, i think that actions speak louder than words. particularly as it relates to vladimir putin and hopefully when the president meets him

they're going to be able to talk these concrete actions that we were taken. >> i know you're close to senator mccain. >> i am. >> he basically says if you're not doing to stand up for this, cancel this meeting. what do you make of that? >> look, i think we should still have the meeting. i don't think senator mccain, you know, said that -- >> what should be the agenda? we know there may not be one, but what should it be in your mind? >> the agenda should be number one, that we should let vladimir putin -- the president and the team should let vladimir putin know if you want a better relationship, if you want, for example, sanctions to be lifted it's going to be up to you. what do i mean by that? don't invade your neighbors and move out of the countries that you have invaded. don't align yourself with the world's biggest sponsors -- state terrorism in terms of iran. don't back regimes bashar al assad. and don't medal in our elections

and our allies. absolutely, that should be the conditions. everyone is talking about we need a better relationship. my view is it's up to the russians. because they need to take actions to get that better. >> you're basically saying president trump better not give in to any of putin's asks. putin may ask to get american troops out of syria, putin may ask to lessen the sanctions to crimea and give back the compounds that we took away. so if the president gives in on any of those things, what are you going to do? >> if the president is giving in on lifting sanctions without putin taking action i think that would be a mistake. now the president has mentioned other areas you saw ambassador huntsman talk about other areas of possible cooperation. one that the president highlighted in his press conference with theresa may was on nuclear proliferation. i mean, i think if we can make progress on nuclear proliferation which right now the weapons of mass destruction proliferation threat is very significant. getting russian cooperation on

that would be important. so there are things outside of the direct relationship, but if he wants a better relationship marley -- particularly wants a lifting of sanctions he's got to take actions to make that happen. >> i want you to comment on something -- somebody who i believe was a colleague of yours at the state department, nick burns. he was an undersecretary during the bush years just like you. and this is what he tweeted this week. trump's trip to europe is the single most chaotic and destructive of an american president. he's put us at odds with the eu and disparaged germany and undermined may. he's a wrecking ball. the americans have been diminished. do you agree with him? >> i have a lot of e -- as miration for him. we're an ally rich nation and like china, russia, iran, they're ally poor. they know that and they have tried to undermine our -- >> why isn't the president

helping? >> well, look, i think the nato summit turned out pretty well. there's always drama that comes into the summits. i helped president bush prepare for some of his summits. there's always drama but at the end of the day that summit turned out well. you had the president fully recommitting to our focus on nato. very importantly we made progress on the 2% gdp spending which, you know, couple of years ago all -- most countries were declining their defense spending including us. even the president raising this issue of energy in germany and russia was important. so i think overall it was a successful summit. >> senator sullivan, i appreciate you coming on, sharing your views. sounds like you're taking the president's signature at his word, not necessarily his rhetoric. >> i like actions more than words and i think on that fro frofront russia's listening. >> there's my takeaway. >> we have a lot of work to do. >> thanks very much. >> thanks very much. later with the panel in "end who would have thought,

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welcome back. "data download" time. we have a grand slam for you, from nationals park right here in washington, d.c. home to this year's major league baseball all-star game on tuesday night. the last time they hosted the year was 1969. wow, america was a different place and so was america's pastime. think of how much more diverse. 74% were white. 15% african-american and 11% latino. this according to the baseball researchers. well in 2017, the player census read 63% white. just 6% african-american. obviously that's down from '69. but nearly 30% latino. obviously, players from country like the dominican republic in particular and venezuela have driven a lot of the change in the game. of course this trend also reflects the growing latino

population right here in the united states and as the country's population has moved towards both the south and the west again, baseball has followed suit. believe it or not, in 1969 in had never been a -- there had never been a major league team in the states of florida or colorado and one team in texas, the houston colt 45s turned astros. if you build it or if you move there, they will come. now, we've got the miami marlins, tampa bay rays, second team in texas, texas rangers. colorado rockies and the arizona diamondbacks. all as the populations of the states have obviously grown rapidly. regrettably taking your family out to the ball game is more competence than in 1969. back then you can get a lower level ticket to the all-star game for just 12 bucks. in today's dollars by the way adjusted for inflation it's at $2. guess what, this year, the lower level ticket is going to run you about $350 face value. i'm not talking about behind

home plate by the way. even though the attendance has ticked down slightly it's a pretty good news story over a generation. we still got more than double the amount of fans showing up for games today than in 1969. an average of 14,000 per game back then. and an average of just over 28,000 today. and finally who's most likely to be tuning into the game tuesday night? well, it wouldn't be d.c. if we didn't slide some politics in. our friends at simmons research found 35% of republicans say they're interested, a slight edge over both democrats and independents who are 29% each. but even in this politically divided town there's one thing we all agree on this week. we're going to root for the hometown, let's go nats and root for the home league, let's go national league. coming up back to the studio with the panel and "end game." >> coming up, "end game" and "postgame." brought to you by boeing. continuing our mission to

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from nationals park to here. it was great. look, i want to get back to the investigation and something rod rosenstein said to me that was hinting at more to come and more divisiveness to come. take a listen. >> it's important for us to avoid thinking politically as republicans or democrats. and instead to think patriotically as americans. the blame for election interference belongs to the criminals who committed election interference. >> amy walter -- >> good luck with that. >> yeah, we know that the -- that the potential for indictments of actual americans are coming. and that sounded to me like a man very worried about where this is headed. >> look, we don't know where this is going. neither do most americans so what we're filling in with the gaps we don't know is are partisanship. if you like the president, you don't trust this process. what you feel even about the russians whether it's a serious issue this is a "washington post" poll asked the question, do you think that russian

efforts to influence the election was a serious issue only 13% of republicans believe it's serious. >> republican senator johnson said we have -- said this week said it was blown out of proportion. >> so we aren't going to agree. it doesn't matter what comes out. these in terms about how you feel -- these numbers about how you feel about mueller and russia are baked into the cake. >> well, let me speak as a doj alum. i'm proud of the department of justice and what i take away if you colluded with american, given the capacities that were demonstrated in the indictment we will get you. we know everyone who colluded whether or not -- if they're not yet revealed, put your hand up and run to the special counsel because we know everything that happen. >> something else happened this week. it was the peter strzok hearing and for some reason it was decided to put it in public which made it have a show trial feel. house republicans we'll see what you guys think if they covered themselves in glory or not.

take a listen. >> i don't give a damn what you appreciate, agent strzok. >> how many times did you look so innocent into your wife's eyes and lie to her about lisa -- >> mr. chairman, this is outrageous. >> by the way i'm a dentist. okay, so i read body language very, very well. you've got -- you got very angry in regards to the gold star father. that shows me that it's innately a part of you and a bias. >> elise, most of the hearing was speeches. and in fact at one point peter strzok said can i respond to the question, no. he was told. peter strzok committed some -- he obviously had some problems and he appeared to at least let some of this stuff get to him a bit. what the heck was that? >> it was political theater. it was a circus that both sides weaponized for their own purposes. we didn't learn anything new at the end of the day. after sitting through i think it was eight, nine hours of the

theater, what new information actually came out of it? we just know this is going to continue to rip the country apart as they dig into their bias and seize on to the sides that appeal most to their impresses. >> well, it also doesn't help us rehabilitate the image of the fbi or get down to what's actually happening at the fbi, whether there are any changes that need to be made. remember that news conference that chris wray the director gave last month in response to the inspector general's report. before he started to take questions he talked about the work that the fbi has been doing in the less ten months, rescuing more than 1,400 children from predators including one who is 7 months old. they stopped the terrorist plot against a mall in miami. against fisherman's wharf in san francisco. they're doing this amazing work from an outdated building, the j. edgar hoover building. that's a legitimate conversation to have about fbi about whether the politics motivated the

investigation. a worthwhile question that needs to be answered. >> we learned that the fusion gps dossier was given to bruce ohr. it came up in the question. >> it came up in jim jordan's head. >> it was not contradicted by strzok. >> look, we're running out of time here. it didn't -- he was told what he couldn't say by the fbi, hugh. >> we'll find out in the end how it all came together. but one investigation. i ask everyone to wait on everything until the end. >> that's all for today. thanks for watching. and remember, if it's sunday it's "meet the press." >> you can see more "end game" and "postgame" sponsored by boeing on the "meet the press" facebook page.

. this week return ship, encouraging those who have been out of the workforce to come back. pl plus, howie lieu from the start table and a silicon pine near tries to right the news. can he convince our report snerds those reporters are mit technology reviews rachel mets and joe mann from reuters in the this week on press here. >> good morning,