>> brennan: it's sunday may 237th on this memorial day tweak end i'm margaret brennan this is "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs we've got breaking news this morning as it looks like that on again-off again meeting between president trump and north korean leader kim jong-un is back on. there's word that u.s. officials have crossed the border into north korea this morning to meet with officials there. after a tumultuous week of international diplomacy, south korean president made a surprise trip across the border yesterday to pete with kim at the nor korean's leader's request that public show of unity and some candid talk behind the scenes appears to set the june 1th summit back on track. >> there's a lot of goodwill. think people want to see if we can get the meeting and get

something done. we've got that done f. we can be successful in the denuclearizationn of the korean peninsula it would be a great thing for north korea would be great thing for south korea. >> the president made those remarks in the oval office where he welcomed home joshua holt just released after two years in venezuelan prison on what u.s. officials consider false charges. we've have the latest on the singapore summit and hear from florida republican senator marco rubio on that and potential trade deal with china. former director of james clapper will join us to talk about his new book. and the president insistence that an fbi spy was planned in the trump campaign. >> we now call it spygate. you're calling it spygate. lot of bad things have happened. >> brennan: immigration with the head of the conservative freedom caucus north carolina's mark meadows.

and political and foreign policy panel will unpack the news of the week both here and abroad. it's all coming up on "face the nation." good morning, welcome to "face the nation." with president trump statement last night that plans for the june 1th summit in singapore were going along very well and south korean president moon saying he is expects the summit to happen. we turn to cbs news correspondent ben tracy for insight into how the leaders of the north and south korea apparently got these talks back on track. ben is just back from north korea joins froes beijing. ben? >> good morning. so this new meeting between the leaders of the two koreas unlike their summit last month was arranged at the last minute and it was kept secret until after it was over. now dim jong-un met for two

hours on saturday on the north koreans side of the truce village. during their talks president moon says that kim jong-un is committed to the complete denuclearizationn of the korean peninsula that he still wants to hold the summit with president trump as originally planned on june 12th. now president moon said that president trump told him if north korea renuclearize will provide security guarantees and economic cooperation. moon also said the u.s.-north korea summit something that could not be allowed to fail. meanwhile north and south korea agreed to hold high level talks next week and regular summit between leaders to include relations. they say they want to implement the agreement that they made at their summit last month that calls for end to hostilities on the korean peninsula eventually a end to the korean war. >> brennan: beal hear from you again about your trip last week to north korea later on in today's broadcast. >> thanks, margaret.

>> brennan: joining us from miami this morning is florida republican senator marco rubio. good memorial day weekend to you, senator. >> thank you. >> brennan: president trump says it looks good for that june 12th summit. could it go ahead? >> it depends. depends what's going to happen. north korea has s a strange place, we're not dealing with italy or france here or -- even sold soviet union. they're playing a game. these nuclear weapons are something he's psychologically attached to. we're not talking about him because of his global and economic power because they have nuclear weapons and long range missiles he knows that. so for him to give that up is going to be very difficult. my suspicion remains that he is going to try to get as much sanctions relief as possible without having to give up his weapons and i think it's going to be a lot of twists and turns along the way to try to get there if it's even possible. i hope i'm wrong. i'd love to see them

denuclearization nuclearize. >> you've been focal about what you think is china out maneuvering the u.s. on trade on north korea as well you've raised your concerns. specifically i want to ask you about this deal with chinese telecom companies, you've been leading the charge against it, president trump says he's got a deal in place to help save this company that's been accused of being a national security threat to the united states. why isn't the white house proposal sufficient to meet your concerns? >> i talked to the president far over half an hour on friday night. i've gotten the crux of the difference between his administration and myself and others on our view on this. for the president he's viewing the issue as company that broke sanctions and he wants to impose sanctions on them and penalties that are stronger than anyone has ever seen before. >> brennan: a $3 billion fine. >> correct f. this was just a company that did something wrong that needed to be punished difference is, i don't view this

just as an issue in the broader context of china that is trying to over take the united states, they do it by our intellectual property, they steal our stuff, then they have to be consequences for that. the only thing china is going to respond to is consequential actions over sustained period of time and putting a company out of business is the kind of consequential action that russia will -- that china will finally see that we are taking this stuff seriously. that is the difference of opinion. i don't just view zte issue alone i view in the broader context of what china trying to do, over take the united states by stealing and cheating and they're not going to stop until they know there are real consequences. >> brennan: what does that mean? sounds like this is a done deal? can congress do anything to block the transaction? >> one of the things will not only put -- not allow chinese telecom companies to in the united states.

all depend on u.s. semi conductors. none of these companies should be operating in this country. they are crewed for espionage, whether it's routers or anything else they embed stuff in there that could be used to spy against us not just for national security. that's how they steal corporate secrets. they steal it from you. and all of a sudden they can do what we can do but they didn't spend any money to innovate then they can surpass us. we're not going to let that happen. we shouldn't. that's why we should have any chinese telecome companies operating in the united states. >> brennan: president going to sign that bill you proposed? >> i believe it will have a super majority. i think most members of congress have come to understand the threat china poses i think there's a growing commitment in congress to do something about what china is trying to do to the united states and this is a good place to start as i said. i think we'll have a super madge joe to do it. >> brennan: you have the president's ear on venezuela policy. we know overnight you saw the

release 69 american after being held for two years in a prison, it was a positive moment in what has been really difficult week between our two countries. is there an opportunity here? >> well, first of all i'm glad that josh hols home he didn't have anything to do with politics. he was a mormon mixary to meet up with his wife and bring her back to the united states they took him as a hostage for over two years. last week they were saying he was head of the cia. >> this has nothing to do with broader issue of sanctions however, those things stay in place. policy has not changed. is there an opportunity, yes. here is the opportunity. venezuela returns constitutional order. they have elected assembly. both of those entities are not allowed to operate by dictatorship. those need to be -- we need to recognize them, those things need to be put back in place, there needs to be free and fair and international plea supervised elections.

our sanctions are built on that. the sanctions go away. until that happens the sanctions remain and will increase. >> brennan: senator, president tweeted yesterday that he thinks it is quote, unquote, horrible law to separate illegal immigrants from their children when they cross the border into the u.s. do you agree it's a horrible law? >> to separate -- i'm sorry? >> brennan: illegal parents from their children to transfer custody when they cross illegally? >> well, ultimately, when somebody -- couple of things need to happen. number one we have a problem that needs to be dealt w. ideal scenario that families be kept together and return to their countries of origin. we sympathize with people that are coming here. america is the most generous country in the world and ideally you wouldn't put people through additional trauma once they came into the united states. >> brennan: will you try to change that law? >> i would be open to changing that law. but the better law to change is to secure our border send clear message that you cannot continue to enter the united states

illegally. it is inhumane not to secure our border because we are sending out a message that sen couraging people to come here. a lot of these people that are crossing with children are being trafficked here. they are being brought here by criminal groups that helped guide them and take advantage of them, brutalize them on the path towards the united states and ability to cross that border is a magnate that is drawing this behavior. >> brennan: you sit on senate intelligence, the president insists there was fbi spy in his campaign. ultimately, is it the job of the campaign to police its own staff and did you see any evidence here that there was a quote, unquote, spy or informant embedded. >> let me say this very clear. if there was someone in that campaign, the fbi or any government agency there to spy on the campaign, on the campaign, we want to know abut that and that person should be prosecuted those efforts should be revealed. i haven't seen any. if it's there, we'll find it.

we want to know about it. the flip side is, if there are people operating in this country trying to influence american politics on behalf of a foreign power, it is the fbi's job to investigate those people. what i have seen so far is an fbi effort to learn more about individuals with history of bragging about links of russia that preexist the campaign. if they are operating near me i'd want them investigated and know about them. that's what i've seen so far. if it turns out to be something different we want to know about it. but it is the fbi's job to investigate counter intelligence and if there are people with known history of potential links to a foreign power and they are operating in the orbit of any political campaign or any political office it is the fbi's job to look at them find out what they're up to. so far that appears to be what happened. if something different happened we all want to know abut that. >> brennan: thank you, senator rubio. >> thank you. >> brennan: we turn to the former director of national intelligence james clapper, he advised president obama for six

and half years including the period when russians were attempting to meddle in the elections. his new book "fast and fears." director clapper thanks for being with us. >> thanks, margaret. >> brennan: let's start where we left off with senator rubio. president is convinced there was a spy or informant in embedded in his campaign. he tweeted this question, why didn't the crooked highest levels of the fbi or justice contact me to tell me of the phony russia problem? can you explain why he says the intelligence community did not inform him of this problem? >> well, i can't say specifically because this would be a judgment reached by the fbi, they may not have felt that the time is appropriate or that there would be any need for it. depending on how this progressed. it's a question of judgment that

fbi would make, tactical judgment to make at the time. >> brennan: as intelligence director you didn't weigh in on whether or not to inform the campaign? >> i did not. i wouldn't have known about informants for lots of reasons. principally confidentiality of the program to protect the individual, identity unfortunately which has been exposed. wouldn't necessarily know about any of fbi's informants nor should that be made known. any more than say cia assets. >> brennan: this is now become a talking point for many defenders of the president. that he should have been informed. from your point of view, is general rised briefing just saying, be on alert for counter intelligence attempts here enough or should the president have specifically warned about this? >> well, again, not knowing exactly what the fbi concerns

were or what they knew, it's hard to say. but subsequently certainly particularly when we became more aware of the russian cyber infusions both campaigns were advised of that. >> brennan: director, you have been critical in your book of the president. in turn has been very critical of you particularly this week. and i want to play for you a little bit of sound that we have here in a statement he gave to reporters. i'll read it to you. we don't have it. he said there's never been anything like it in the history of our country. if you look at clapper he sort of admitted that they had spies in the campaign yesterday inadvertently i hope it's not true but it looks like it is. can you explain what the fbi's intent was here is the president misunderstanding? >> first of all, it is aversion to the use of word "spy" for sake of discussion use that term which conventionally means the use of trade craft using a

formally trained case officer who would mask identity. none of the classical attributes of spy craft, if i can use that term was present here. that is the most benign form of information gathering so to characterize it as a spy or spy gate is part of the narrative directly an at this time call to what i said. >> you said in your book one of the more controversial statements that you made in your conclusion is that russian influence campaign did end up helping to swing the election towards president trump. what did you conclude that on the basis of? you acknowledge it was a very narrow margin of votes that made a difference here? >> first of all i need to stress, margaret, intelligent community assessment that we rendered and delivered published on the 6th of january,

briefing on president trump made no call on whether russian meddling had any impact. didn't have authority or capabilities or resources to do that. but as a private citizen having a good understanding of what the russians actually did and how massive it was and multi-dimensional, how many voters it touched and fact that the election turn on less than 80,000 votes in three states, to me stretches to think that the russians didn't have profound impact could have swung the election. this is not an indictment of anybody who voted for president trump. little an indictment of the russians and serious threat that they pose and their intent to undermine our system. >> brennan: it's not exactly noable whether the clinton loss was direct result of not campaigning -- >> i would call it informed opinion. >> brennan: got it. i want to ask you about north korea, you visited pyongyang a

few years ago today we're hearing that u.s. officials have talked to meet with north koreans to plan this upcoming summit with kim jong-un. what do they need to nail down to make june 12th worth the president's time? >> i think they should nail down what the outcomes are. what are the intended outcomes for both. i do have some thoughts on this. one, i think it would be really good thing to establish normalized conduit for communication. and i've advocate for a long time of having intersections established in pong i don't think and washington at a legal below an embassy whether diplomatic presence nonetheless just as we had in havana, cuba, we had for decades. that is not a reward for bad behavior at all. it's mutually reciprocal and it would give us that presence there more insight and understanding into north korea, provide conduit for information

in to north korea is well give north koreans a sense of security by having official u.s. presence there. i also think they should think about guslis north carolina what the north korean might say when asked, what is it that would take you to feel secure so that you don't need nuclear weapons. one more point ought to think about, when we say denuclearizationn and nuclear -- of the korean peninsula have a two-way street. if the north koreans can assert we have responsibility to denuclearization nuclearize and restrict our nuclear umbrella. or an operational proximity. seems to me that those are things they ought to discuss but the main point i would make is, why not establish a regular conduit of communications. >> brennan: we will see. thank you very much, director clapper. we'll be right back with reporters that look from our ben

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>> brennan: elaborate show last week invited reporter to witness what the north koreans claimed was demolition of the nuclear test site. our ben tracy was the only american broadcast network correspondent to witness it he and his cbs news team began their 15-hour journey to the site on north korea's east coast. >> we're just getting off the bus, this is the train we're going to take to the north korean nuclear test site. that is a special train. these are our accommodations for the next 11 hours. one problem though our government came by said this shade had to be down the entire time. apparently they don't want us to see out the windows perhaps how people are living in north

korea. but we did catch a few glimpses of every day life. the brightly colored apartment buildings and north koreans riding bikes on the street. we saw very few cars on the roads. on the train, waiters in white jackets served elaborate te ten-course meal. unyou can spent experience given that most north koreans live in poverty. we just got off the train, spend 11 hours on the train overnight the next part of the journey is car ride they tell us that will last for about four hours. but our ride in the bumpy dirt road took less than two hours. when we arrived at north korea's america test site the beauty of the setting was a stark contrast was -- this is entrance to tower number two at the nuclear test site where they have conducted five of their six nuclear tests over the last couple of years. you can see they have now strung explosives in there they plan to

blow this up they can no longer use it. [ explosion ] with a series of large explosi explosions, north korea claims destroyed its once treasured testing grounds. used in 2006 to build increasingly powerful nuclear weapons. in its last test here back in september the regime says it detonated a hydrogen bomb. north korea is allowing journalist to, walk up and tell us there is no concern about radiation they have never detected any here at the site. but the one thing they did confiscate from our luggage when we arrived was our equipment to detect radiation. we were led around the once highly secretive site for nearly nine hours watching as the north koreans say they completely destroyed all three remaining test tunnels. they told us we could come double check see with our own eyes if the tunnels have been

destroyed but these are all journal ipsists here no outside experts that can verify what they have done here has made this site unusable. officials say they brought journalists here in order to be transparent. and claim that all this destruction is a sign that what north korea really wants is peace. for "face the nation." ben tracy, cbs news, at north korea's nuclear test site. >> brennan: thank ben and his cbs news team, producer chris and cameraman and editor randy for their reporting. we'll be back in a moment. so sml no one thought much of it at all. people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. they thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldn't that be cool? and that's why exxonmobil scientists think it's

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>> brennan: we've got a lot more to talk about including whether there's an immigration deal to be struck among republicans. we'll be joined by mark meadows who leads the house freedom caucus and take a look at more details of the upcoming north korea summit that appears to be still on. stay with us. we'll be right back. the children of california. tony is a leader , slips through the cracks. sure california's schools are the best in the country. every child in california has a fair shot. i'm tony thurmond, and i'll lead california's fight against donald trump and betsy devos's anti-education agenda. please vote for tony thurmond for state superintendent.

>> brennan: welcome back to "face the nation" i'm margaret brennan. some analysis on the situation surrounding the upcoming north korea summit bring in sue mi terry with the center for international studies and gene lee. the former bureau chief for associated press now with the wilson center. welcome to the show. it sound like we're seeing the diplomacy build just in the past few hours, american diplomat to hammer out whether or not the summit is actually going to happen. what do we read into this? is this a sure thing at this point that president trump and kim meet june 1th? >> i think highly likely. because currently president trump wants this meeting.

kim jong-un really wants this meeting which north korea standards. personally placing trump, i've never seen it as north korea, i've not seen praising u.s. presidents. i think both sides have two incentives to sit down, i don't know if it's going to be june 12th but i think it will happen. >> brennan: it was interesting to hear former director clapper say he thought that this was good strategy that letter that president trump sent this week calling off the summit. is it? does this look like it's actually going to deliver what the president was something for? >> there's been so much uncertainty over the past week. what this past week has done is inject a bit of reality check in this situation and forced all the partners in this circle to reinforce their commitment. we're getting that. we're seeing that commitment from north korea and south korea now we have officials on north

korean side of the dmz, there's no more concrete side that this is going forward than having that group -- that team as reported by "washington post" sitting down with the north koreans to handle the details. >> brennan: looks like the nuts and bolts are still being worked out. did he with hear from south korea's president that kim jong-un wants more definite assurances. what do you get that's more definite than president trump saying we're not looking for regime change? >> not going to -- i'm not sure piece of paper, what north korea meant by security is end of the alliance, usually talked about that, u.s. presence in south korea. what they're looking for, normalization of relations between -- >> brennan: you spent number of years at the cia. we're now seeing american

diplomat in the driver's seat. veterans, diplomat today, kim meeting with the north koreans, what does that say to you? what changes now that we move from intelligence to diplomacy? >> i'm not sure if intelligence is cut off. i'm sure has been brought on because he has experience of dealing with north koreans, but he'll seek clarity because we've been talking definition of denuclearization so far from north korea and washington talking about unilateral disarmament of nuclear weapons. north korea always talked about. i'm sure he's looking for clarity to make sure when trump sits down with kim jong-un we have not as wide gap as we add before. >> you lived in pyongyang did it surprise you that you heard them outright eject -- reject these offers from the united states, private investment as secretary pompeo described it? >> i think that is a face-saving

way, they were insulted by the suggestions by the national security advisor. by the vice president. that they are doing this out of desperation. north korea does not want to be portrayed as poor, desperate th are saying listen, we have nuclear arsenal, verifiable nuclear arsenal we want to come to this as an equal f. there is way to tell their people. you can maintain your sense of pride but i do think they're going to look for economic concessions. i think president moon is the one who stated that language very carefully said economic cooperation. that is perhaps language that you use when you talk about it with the north koreans. >> what you're saying is rhetoric and words chosen here really matter. we have seen -- the rhetoric at different points in the white house, timetable and look very different depending on who it's coming f. pompeo versus national security advisor. >> even when he said north korea you, too, can ate meat.

that was very insulting phrase. you, too, north korea, can become like south korea if you denuclearize. he's very into face. very much about how he's perceived that does matter how we send this message. >> brennan: in the messaging that you've seen from president trump he seems very eager to have this summit happen. but he is not someone who sticks with -- where it's worked against him. has it been in his favor to be this unpredictable? >> i think the last -- when president trump cancelled the summit, i don't think north koreans are used to u.s. president acting that way, that kind of unpredictability sent a message they have to be careful here, too, because we are dealing with unpredictably on both sides. >> the north koreans all along have used his unpredictability as an opportunity. campaigning for president he

said back then that he would sit down with kim jong-un, that the north koreans said, he is not playing by the book. let's take advantage of that. >> north korea has multiple nuclear sites according to u.s. intelligence, some of them underground. fact that they blew up this one site and invited in reporters, is this a typical script? is this theater? what do we make of it? >> we've seen this before and that's important to keep in mind. ten years ago when north korea brought foreign journalists to the nuclear site and blew up a cooling tower, very dramatic images. then secretly started enriching uranium. it is show. it is theater. but it's also meant as a sign, an expression of their commitment to denuclearization, they will use that to say, look what we've done. we want to show you. we have proof that we're committed to this. >> it's a long way to go before we get to complete universal

program because you are talking about tunnels, north korea has hundreds of thousands of underground tunnels, going to be the very challenging issue for us. >> brennan: thank you both very much. we'll be right back with the head of the conservative house freedom caucus, mark meadows. stay with us. a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. morgan stanley

>> brennan: beer back with one of the president's supporters, congressman mark meadows. thanks for join us.

>> thanks so much. >> brennan: just talking to director clapper about what the president calls spygate. you have had a lot of questions about this, the justice department hold this extraordinary briefing with leadership showing some classified materials. i know you weren't in the meetings tell me if you're satisfied? >> to be clear, no documents were shown. so there was a briefing, but, yet, there were no documents that were shown. we're hopeful that that will happen in the coming days as long as we can protect the sources and methods that are for all americans. we continue to see this dragging out of a narrative where we're not seeing documents, not getting the type of transparency that members of congress have requested for seven or eight months. >> brennan: what do you think the fbi did? >> what we do know is that there was indeed a confidential human source, what the fbi would call it, that was actually giving intel not only to the fbi but we

have to did the question, when did it start, we do know that actually those confidential human sources were engaging prior to the official fbi investigation. the question begs, at whose direction. what were they collecting? who were they reporting to because that was happening before fbi actually opened an investigation. so as we know that, we know that from nonclassified sources. there is no question that there was a spy that was collecting information. the definition of that, somebody who does something in secret without the knowledge of another person. >> brennan: in legal standards that's different in terms of how law enforcement works with informants. >> an informant is someone who -- if they had information on you went to the fbi and said, listen, we have this wrongdoing, we're giving you some information. where it was not directed or where the initiation of it was not from the informant.

we know that actually they initiated the contact between members of the trump campaign and at whose direction. and at what point do we as americans say, it is not right to spy on a campaign? whether it's donald trump or bernie sanders it's not right. >> brennan: haven't seen today's back up the -- >> i'd be glad -- i've got nonclassified stuff, margaretf they want to come by my office senator rubio is a dear friend he can come by. we've got text messages that acknowledge the existence of that. >> brennan: people around your campaign or in your office who were being contacted or trying to make contact with foreign powers, would you want that looked into and -- >> sure. there in is another problem. if the fbi knew it was going on why didn't they do a defensive briefing. why did they not go to the nominee, by the way, here is a problem. you've got somebody that you have never met, carter paige who never met the president that is

having inappropriate contact with someone, we want to make you aware of it. why was that never done? still to this date has never been done. >> brennan: i want to ask you as well about immigration. we can talk all day about the other topic. the president tweeted that it's a horrible law to have parents separated from their children if they cross the border illegally. do you agree it's horrible? >> i think it is a horrible law. one of those -- >> brennan: do you want to change it? >> there is real bipartisan support for changing that. here is one of the interesting things. as we've been in the negotiations on trying to fix the immigration problem, this came out just the other day. i can't imagine that it's the law that you have to separate these individuals. now, obviously, human trafficking is a big deal. how do you know that the parents and a family unit we'd have to address that but i think conservatives and moderates, democrats and republicans all agree that keeping a family together is the best strategy. it's something we need to address and will address.

>> brennan: do you see this as part of other immigration reform? we've seen the g.o.p. are fighting within itself over the direction -- >> we're very close on that. i can tell you -- >> brennan: a path to citizenship? >> making sure that those daca recipients do not have to face deportation and that ultimately they can become citizens. now the debate becomes should there be a special pathway. should they go to the back of the line, the front of the line? obviously those are things that we have to negotiate on. >> brennan: do you have an opinion on that? >> i don't think that someone who comes here illegally should get to go to the front of the line. at the same time, as we deal with this, it's an emotional topic. my district is very different from some of my other moderate friends and yet we're having real conversations within the last 48 hours on trying to get a resolution. the president -- >> brennan: what kind of status but not citizenship? >> not even that. i think even in some of the more

conservative bills that have been talked about there is the ability to become citizens. and so that's the narrative that's not really out there and so it's important that we look at all of that. the most important thing is to secure our borders so we don't have to deal with this problem a decade from now. i think that's where we're well on our way. >> brennan: thank you very much. we'll be back in a moment with our political panel. i'm dianne feinstein and i approve this message. i support the affordable care act, and voted against all trump's attempts to repeal it. but we need to do more. i believe in universal health care. in a public health option to compete with private insurance companies.

and expanding medicare to everyone over 55. and i believe medicare must be empowered to negotiate the price of drugs. california values senator dianne feinstein with pg&e in the sierras. and i'm an arborist to negotiate the price of drugs. since the onset of the drought, more than 129 million trees have died in california. pg&e prunes and removes over a million trees every year to ensure that hazardous trees can't impact power lines. and since the onset of the drought we've doubled our efforts. i grew up in the forests out in this area and honestly it's heartbreaking to see all these trees dying. what guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future.

>> brennan: time now for some political analysis. mark land sera white house correspondent at the "new york times." susan glasser has new job since last time we saw already she now writes column trump-washington for new yorker. ramesh ponnuru is the the national review, visiting fellow at the american enterprise institute. paula reid is cbs news correspondent who covers the justice department, the fbi as well as white house and anything else we throw at her. let's start with you, what the president calls spygate. we have talked about so far we have heard that there has been nothing new learned from these extraordinary briefings that happened on capitol hill this

week with doj meeting with republicans and democratic leaders to talk about what happened during the campaign and this probe. what more to learn because congressman meadows says they are about to present new documents. >> no one in the justice department has ever mentioned fact that there could be another meeting. bull really there's always another meeting. they have been doing this for months now. we'll find something, some question about origins of the muller problem, make a lot of noise, usually justice department will eventually agree to some sort of meeting to set the document. then few weeks later the same thing. this was extraordinary set of meeting because here the president threatened to order the justice department to open an investigation and in exchange he got a meeting with the top officials, he got them to sit down with his allies in congress and also he got rob rows entine to agree to investigate this question.

this is pretty successful week also messaging spygate, everybody is talking about spygate no one talking about why several campaign officials have contacts with russians, at least two of them. >> brennan: congressman meadows had been drafting articles of impeachment to get rid of rob rosenstein who you just talked about is that how americans should understand this, the political move or is this something more? people hear spygate they think there is something more to the story. >> two things. first of all, undermine the outcome of the muller probe. one of the things they're trying to do at one point was possibly fire due fee attorney general that is sort of prepared as not politically feasible. it does appear that this most recent wave of demands for documents that they know the justice department would be hard pressed to be able to disclose is pretext to try to proceed with this idea of impeaching rob rosenstein. politically and legally that's probably not actually realistic.

>> brennan: mark landler, i want to give you a chance to respond to the president's tweet because they have been about your story that you cowrote with your colleague saved sanger where he is calling into question some of your white house sources and whether they exist. >> thank you, margaret. the president tweeted yesterday that we in a sense -- in essence made up a source. the issue at question was, would the president be ready to go to singapore for a june 12th summit with kim jong-un. last week on the day the president pulled out when he sent his letter to chairman kim, there was a background briefing held at the white house in the briefing room, a senior official briefed from the podium and was asked that question. the answer he gave was, we have lost a lot of time, there's a lot of work to be done, june 12th is ten minutes from now. and i wrote that this official basically was saying it was impossible to prepare properly for a meeting on june 12th.

so the president tweeted that this person doesn't exist. well, he not only exists he works for the president. i think there's two issues. one the obvious issue the president either doesn't know or doesn't care what other members of his administration are saying. i do think it raises a valid question about the whole notion of background briefings. these are a well entrenched washington custom where you go listen to an official, you don't quote that official by name. we've had long had debates about this internally. at this meeting as most other background sections a reporter did say, can we put this on the record. the white house said, no. but if you were to hold these meetings on the record or insist on that it would be far more accountability you wouldn't necessarily have this kind of strange back and forth that we've had this week. >> brennan: it has been strange one. susan, the north korea summit, you wrote the president is more of deal breaker than a deal maker. in your piece this week. now the summit may be happening after all.

>> that's right. it may well be. i think it's important for everybody to know, president trump has signaled that he is very committed to it. his tweet about mark's story was because there is an internal division inside the president's administration. one take away from that street that nobody speaks for the president. and he has wanted it that way arguably he has termed the united states for first time in any of our memory into sort of at the center of global instability. because it's clear that in the end this isn't being made by one man even if his top advisors say it's not feasible to have the summit on june 12th this he wants to have it it may well go ahead. the broader point, however i think still stands which is if you pull back 16 months into the trump presidency, we no that it's a lot easier for president trump to pull out of deals, to break deals than it is to make them. remember when he said that,

maybe this whole middle east face thing will turn out to be lot easier than anybody thought? well, of course, we're still waiting for them to put out a plan. not to make light of it, of course it's a complicated issue. you still have the president whether it's issue like nasa or domestic policy issues like obamacare. infrastructure, famous infrastructure every week now in washington. struggling for very understandable reasons often to deal with entrenched politics on the world stage i think president trump has shown that he is a newcomer. that he is not deeply immersed in the policy issues and i think the drama over the summit is easier to talk about whether there's going to be a meeting on june 12th or not the underlying issue of whether will give up nuclear weapons that have been at the foundation of the country's national security for three generations of the kim family still very hard to see that happening.

>> brennan: is there a deal to be struck on immigration? >> you know, i do think at the moment what those -- passed by several months ago, there was an opportunity to have democrats agree to wall or at least some kind of border security, republicans to agree with amnesty as minors. but for various reasons that didn't happen. i think the president first encouraged the democrats to think they didn't have to give up anything because he was saying that he wanted a deal so badly then came out with the list of demands including cuts for illegal immigration that were way too much for the political process to handle or democrats to even lot of republicans to accept. time has grown short, hard tore get that kind of deal. i think that once again as susan was saying the deal maker not quite come through here. on this issue of separating parents and their children when they cross illegally. you heard from both senator rubio and congressman meadows that they're willing to move on

this. >> they are the attorney general, jeff sessions may not be willing to move. if he can't get a wall attorney general sessions is the next best thing in terms of deterring people from coming to this country. while his relationship with the president may not be the best, he has been trying to manifest the president's campaign promises on immigration every moment of every day. he's looking at the immigration courts not only staffing them up, he's giving judges quotas, moved more of the civil proceeding to criminal prosecution and he has said publicly he's willing to separate families. other people may be willing to move on this i don't think he is. if this works either deterrent lot of the people who are criticizing him now like lie take credit for that. >> brennan: about those mid terms, ramesh, the plaque of deals hurt the president who sells himself as the deal maker for the party? >> if you look at the polling, republicans have been doing better over the last few months, the generic ballot where people are polled whether they want

republican or democrat in congress that's been moving into the republicans favor. i think lot of congressional republicans are feeling better about that than they were. the problem they have i think is the intensity factor. who is going to actually be motivated enough to show up to vote. right now i they it's pretty clear democrats are more motivated as is usually the case in mid term elections. >> brennan: opposition party, correctly. we'll be right back. thank you very much to all of you. disrupting business and taking on a life of its own. its multi-cloud complexity creating friction... and slowing innovation. with software-defined solutions, like hpe oneview, you can tame the it monster. hewlett packard enterprise. less complexity. more visibility.

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>> brennan: that's it for us today. thank you all for watching "face the nation." on this meghan markle we leave you with a tribute to those members of the u.s. military killed while stationed overseas in the last year. captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by

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