breaking news, one-on-one win helsinki. president trump and vladimir putin preparing to meet face-to-face amid escalating tension between the u.s. and russia. we're live with what to expect from this morning's summit. the light at the end of the tunnel. when will the boys rescued from the flooded thai cave last week finally leave the hospital? king of the grill. where you can find the best burger in america according to the experts at trip advisor. and the best deals of amazon prime day. "early today" starts right now. good morning. i'm philip mena. >> i'm frances rivera.

we begin this morning with news out of helsinki. mr. trump and first lady melania arriving earlier for the breakfast ahead of that highly anticipated meeting as we await the helsinki arrival of president putin. >> and with still no agenda for the meeting it is anyone's guess what each president will walk away with. his repeated attacks on the media and his inability to take in response to robert mueller's latest round of indictments against 12 russian hackers and president trump saying this of putin just ahead of their one-on-one. >> i think we could probably get along very well. somebody said are you friends or enemies. i said well, it's too early to say but right now i'd say we're competitors. but for russia and the united states and frankly the u.k. and other places to get along, with russia and china and all these other places it's a good thing. it's not a bad thing.

it's a really good thing. >> the summit just about to get under way. it's the 2016 election that's on the president's mind. here's the commander in chief tweeted moments ago without ever mentioning putin. quote, president obama thought that crooked hillary was going to win the election. so when he was informed by the fbi about russian metling he said it couldn't happen and was no big deal and did nothing about it. when i won it became a big deal in the rigged witch hunt headed by struck. jeff, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, philip and frances. we all know what hangs over this meeting. russia's attack on the heart of u.s. democracy. it's why you have lawmakers on both parties pressing president trump to hold president putin to account. you can see how his instinct is

to blame president obama first while not really condemning russia at all. while the other issue of these 12 indictments of these 12 russian agents that now stand credibly accused, president trump was asked whether he might ask president putin to hand over those agents, to exextradite them. check out his response. >> the russians who were indicted, would you ask putin to send them here? >> well, i might. i hadn't thought of that, but i'll certainly be asking about it. but again this was during the obama administration. >> reporter: in some ways it's a moot point because there is no extradition treaty between the u.s. and russia. but you certainly get a sense of the president's thinking heading into this meeting. certainly syria, crimea, maybe even a nuclear arms control deal. now, we expect the president and

vladimir putin to speak for about 90 minutes in private with only their interpreters in the room. following that they'll have what's known as an expanded bilateral meeting. we expect the secretary of state, the national security advisor to be there in the room. and following that we'll have that joint press conference, the thing we're all waiting to see here. philip and frances. >> and then after that how will his day wrap up? will the president be then headed back home after this whirl wind of a trip? >> reporter: that's right. he wraps up his whirl wind spin on the world stage here. he heads back later in the afternoon helsinki time after this press conference with the russian president. >> jeff, thank you. well, after the indictments of 12 russian military intelligence officers. concerns are rising whether russian hackers will influence upcoming elections. russian president putin for that

highly anticipated one-on-one, and the threat of election hacking is becoming a top concern here at home. nbc's tracie potts joining us with more on that. >> reporter: will the president ask putin about russian meddling, will he ask for those who have been indicted to be extradited here to the united states? besides of all of that, the concern here in washington and around the country is the u.s. ready? there has been a lot of concern in the intelligence community that russia's not done, they're at it again, that they are still trying to influence the upcoming mid-term elections in november. and with those russians who were indicted last week now the focus is turning into whether or not our election systems, the ballot box, is being protected. the homeland security secretary said over the weekend that there's no hard evidence that any interference by russia would be as expensive as what we saw

in 2016, but they do see rus an special report. >> announcer: this is an nbc news special report. >> let's bring in our colleague lester holt, the anchor of "nbc nightly news." he's been in helsinki for several days now. lester, good morning. >> willie and hoda, good morning. president trump and vladimir putin about to hold their historic talks. both arrived a short time ago at the presidential palace a few blocks from where we are. there's the room. john bolton standing there, national security adviser. we're waiting to see the presidents appear for the first time. they will hold a bilateral meeting, 90 minutes, just the 2011 them, and interpreters, speak among themselves and will later broaden out to bring other staff members in for a working lunch. this is a meeting highly

anticipated. in fact, the tone and some of the topics on the table may have been changing even as the president has been on the road on his european trip. i'm joined in our coverage by kristen welker, our nbc news white house correspondent also ambassador michael mcfaul, who was u.s. ambassador for a couple of years under the obama administration. good to have you both here. kristen, let me start with you. set the scene for what we know is about to take place. >> this is remarkable, president trump, president putin, are going to be alone in a room for 90 minutes, only their interpreters. what are they going to talk about. that's what we want to know. the president has said he will raise the issue of election meddling. he has new energy and fuel if he wants to do that. of course those 12 russians indicted on friday, russian intelligence officials, as part of the broader russian meddling investigation into the 2016 election. the president dismissing the probe yet again this morning. let me read you tweets.

our relationship with russia has never been worse thanks to many years of u.s. foolishness and stupid and now the witch hunt. the russian foreign ministry retweeted that and said we agree. one other tweet. president obama thought crooked hillary was going to win the election, so when he was informed by the fbi about russian meddling, said it was no big deal and did nothing about it. when i won it became a big deal and rigged witch hunt headed by strzok -- one of the fbi agents who has been under a microscope. bottom line here, lester, these tweets were sent out before the critical meeting. it sets the tone. those who want him to be may not feel comfortable. >> let me bring in the ambassador. if the president calls eight witch hunt, isn't it right putin parrots that back and calls it a witch hunt? >> of course. i have no idea why he said that, why he blamed the united states for a worsening relationship.

he didn't mention annexation of crimea in 2013. he didn't mention syria in 2015 to prop up mr. assad. he didn't mention violation of sovereignsey in 2016 scored saying it's all-pro's fault. >> in moscow they have been reacting to what's happening here. what is the read you're getting in moscow, richard? >> reporter: people here are feeling very confident about this meeting, feeling very confident in general. we just saw president trump go through europe in which he criticized nato, went after nato allies and now the meeting is beginning. >> we're seeing the 2011 them here. let's just listen for a bit and

s see. [ speaking non-english ]. >> translator: continue last month into over the telephone with different international sites.

[ inaudible ] >> translator: of course the time just come to basically discuss -- >> a really great world cup, one of the best ever from what everybody tells me, one of the best ever. also for your team itself doing so well. sey watch quite a bit in the united states, we call it soccer, i watched quite a bit of it, the entire final and semifinals. they were really spectacular games and beautifully done, so congratulations on that.

most importantly, we have a lot of good things to talk about and things to talk about. we have discussions on everything from trade to military to missiles to nuclear to china. we'll be talking a little about china, our mutual friend president xi. >> i think we have great opportunities together as two countries. frankly we have not been getting along very well for the last number of years. i've been here not too long. it's getting close to two years. i think we'll end up having an extraordinary relationship. i hope so.

i've been saying, and i'm sure you heard over the years, and i campaigned that getting along with russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. >> i really think the world wants to see us get along. we are the two great nuclear powers. we have 90% of the nuclear, and that's not a good thing, it's a bad thing. i think we hopefully can do something about that. it's not a positive force, it's a negative force. so we'll be talking about that among other things.

>> translator: [ speaking non-english ] >> with that the world awaits and i look forward to our personal discussion which i think begins now. then we'll meet our whole team. you have quite a few representatives and we all have a lot of questions. hopefully we'll come up with answers, most importantly. great to be with you. >> translator: [ speaking non-english ] >> thank you very much. thank you, everybody. thank you, everybody. thank you very much.

>> so the cameras will be ushered out or turned off. the two will get down to the business of some of the topics the president brought up, trade and china, among other things. just brief opening remarks there from the president. as we said, they will do off into a 90-minute session. let me bring in the ambassador. something we haven't spent a lot of time here, nuclear weapons. are there points of agreement? what would be on the table here? >> in 2010 the comes signed the new start treaty reducing the number of nuclear weapons both sides can have. it expires in 2021. negotiations for what happens after that need to start now. i'm encouraged he put that issue on the list. i was also struck by what was not on the list. syria was not on the list,

ukraine not on the list, russian meddli meddling, violation of our sovereignty in 2016 was not on the list. >> there's concerns among some of the president's critics sees going to offer concessions on some of those points the ambassador raises. will president trump scale back sanctions against russia? will he agree to remove some troops from syria? those are some of the things president putin wants to ask for. again, you have both sides lowering expectations, there's not going to be a big deal that comes out of the talks. that's what we're watching for. >> there's more to come. we will eventually see the two in a joint news conference, the first time they will have taken questions together. questions together. we'll have questions in the and you look amazingly comfortable. when your v-neck looks more like a u-neck... that's when you know, it's half-washed.

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recapping our top story all eyes are on finland this morning as the world anxiously awaits for president trump's first official meeting with russian president vladimir putin. president trump is now awaiting his counter part at finland's presidential palace in helsinki coming on the heels of a contentious nato summit. it's now just hours away but there's still no set agenda. according to a u.s. intelligence assessment the russian leader may ask trump, though, to stay out of the conflict in ukraine. an arizona security guard is accused of impersonating a police officer after cops say he pulled over an unmarked car that

had two state troopers behind the wheel. he was driving his personal black dodge charger when he activated police style emergency lights and attempted to pull over the trooper's ford mustang. but they had ran a check on his plates. he was uniformed, armed and also had equipped his car with a siren and a radio scanner. a car chase in california lands a driver behind bars. police say the suspect stole the car saturday night and ran red lights and narrowly missing other vehicles. and tried to take a right turn and failed flipping the car. no one was hurt. the final moments with cars honking, and those blue and white streams filled the air to celebrate a huge win.

an amazing sight to see there from the shachamps all the way the eiffel tower. both teams striking pretty early in the match. they tied the game. there was a brief in game interruption, but when play resumed france fired up the jets and took a 3-1 lead. croatia tried to counter with an attack, but this was france's story to tell. they win the 2018 world cup 4-2. and it came down to serbia djokovic and anderson. anderson stepped up to tie the third set, but djokovic pulled away to seal the victory claiming his fourth womenalden

crown. after serena william's devastating loss she had this message for moms. >> to all the moms out therea ld

ahead of a big day for the trump administration. good monday morning to you. a big day for the trump administration. president trump meeting with putin right now. we have live coverage coming up for you. i want to say good morn to go you. a i'm laura garcia. >> it was a nice weekend. it did heat up. we will see the same thing again today as we take a look