robert: isolated in his own party, at odds with advisers and as ever, defiant. prident trump ignites a political firestorm over russia. i'm robert costa, we dig into the latest reporting on the igump administration tonht on "washingtonk." president trump: i let him know we can't have this. we're not going to have it. and that's the way it's going to be. robert: under pressure from some republicans and democrats, president trump insists he did confront russian president vladimir putin about election interference. but earlier in the week, he mostly accepted putin's view. president trump: i have great confidence in my intelligence peop but iill tell you, that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. he just said it's not russia.

robert: those statements led to confusion andtooncern on capilll nd raised new questions about the president's handling of foreign policy. does he trust his own administration's intelligence on russia? >> i thi anybody who thinks shavladimir putin doesn't have his stamp on everything that happens in russia is misinformed. robert: now ihe presidents planning another summit with putin, this time at the white house. >> that's gonna be special. robert: senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says putin will not be iited t congress. we go insi the story next.ce anno this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided by -- newman's own foundation, donating all profitsro newman's own products to charity and nourishing the common good.

koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the ethics and excelle fe in journalindation. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator, robert costa. robertood evening. welcome back to "washington week." welcome to our new home. you can be assured that even with a fresh look and feel, our commitment t in-depth conversations remains the same. now, to thethews. fallout from president trump's meeting with russian president vladimirutin has only fueled mr. trump's resolve and he invited opportunity to the white house this fall. but that wasn't the only flash point this week. dan coates, the president's director of national intelligence, gave a candid and revealing interview during a security summi a inen, colorado. when asked about the trump-putin

summit, he had little to sno. >> i don'twhat happened in that meeting. i think, as time goes by, the president has already mentioned some things that happened in that meeting -- i think we will learn more. but that the president's prerogative. robert: and he was surprised to learn a second summit was in the works. >> that vladimir putin is coming to the white house in the fall. >> s that again? [laughter] >> vladimir putin coming to the -- robert: the inter made instant headlines with white house aides wondering if coates was going rogue a national security officials alarmed that the d.n.i. was out of the loop. still, new poll shows republican support for the president's performance in helsinkis sky high. 79% approve and 18% disapprove. some republicans, however, are not cheering. in an op-ed in the "new york times," republican congressman

willd h of texas wrote this. "over the cours of my career as an undercover officer in the c.i.a., i saw russian intelligence manipulate many peoper. i nhought i would see the day when an american president would be one of them." quite a week. joining me around the table this evening, margaret brof cbs news,,yamiche alciyoor of "the ne times," jonathan swan of axios, and dan balz of "the washington post." let's go back to director coates and the question that has gripped washington this week. what is going on at the highest levels of the governmen with the people around the president? margaret, y've spent much o your career covering the state opartment, talking to top national securiticials. what is the reality of what's happening around this president? margaret: the reality is that there is one trump administration polic paper and then there is one that the president carries out and they

don't always match up and no one on the national security teaca honestly tell you with certainty that when the president walks into a room, that he will stick to e principles they've laid out. the president celebrates this aa flexibility, it's an asset when he's negotiated real estate deals. obviously, the risk lev is much higher talking about national security objectives. so this is where it creates tension. you heard that from the.i d dan coates, and looking gobsmacked on stage almost making light of the idea that he, even though he oversees 17 intelligence agencies, didn't know that at one time the russian ambassador and foreign minister wer i goio the oval office and didn't know that vladimir putin would be around the time of the upcoming congressional races. that's not a good look. t at the same time, the d.n.i., i think, was showing here that this was some space between him and the president because he wants to stand with the people in tntligence

community whose work he was dovingdng -- defen on that stage. robert: jonathan, what's the view insidein the west as they're watching that? jonathan: do the twohone calls quickly. first one was literally while it was still going,, goi have you seen this, did you know about this? i didn't know about this, did you kw about this? and the second one was pretty shortly after that, a senior white house official who wasy alre speculating about trump firing coates. this is not having yet p spokeno thsident about it. they're all completely blewd-sided by this inter my understanding is john kelly didn't know about it.th first he knew about it was when he saw it. that's not atypical in thisra adminion. if you talk to anyone at the moment in the west wing, you can get pockets oma infon in a particular silo'd area based on what they spoke to the president, the last time they spoke toshe president two d

ago. but no one feels confident in giving youmparting information. people aren't even pretending to --ight months ago, everyone was giving you these great theories ofyow actua he's really playing 4-d chess, deep insight into how the president thinks. now they're going -- it's a big shrug. they don't pretend to interpret the president anymoreet or prend they know what's coming next. robert: jonathan used the word "silo." is the president isolated as he makes foreign policy and ifor dire coates department know about the invitation to putin, who's driving that second invitation to putin inside the administration? yamiche: i think president trump is absolutely driving everything. the fact that he spent two hours with preside putin alone in a room with only translators, he didn't takeike pompeo or john bolton, he didn't take any topde

-- he said, i'm going at this alone. and the fact that the d.n.i., dan coates, is saying, we'll figure out what was said at some point. atnt some p things will leak out to us -- it's almost like they're waiting for journalists like us and others to tell them what happened. i think as much as we as reporters think we're wonderio how d we get at the information, the people in the west wing, as well as the people working for the president, are themselves kind of searching for information and i think president trump likes this. there's an idea that he fee as though he knows what's best for his administration. i think at the veryng begin there was some idea that he was young -- not young, but not someone w was very experienced at being president or in politics so he needed to haved people aroim to usher him and guide him and now he's ying, i have been doing this job more than a year a and a ha. and this is what i'm going to

do. robert: dan, what's grabbing your attention as you sit down to write your column? dan: the first thi tt grabs all of us, the reaction by dan coates. that is an extraordinary moment to see the director of national intelligence caught by surprise out a meeting with the russian president. we've never seen anything like that and you walk this week back to helsinki and everything that has happened has been out of the ordinary and different than what you would expect. i talked to a person today who had been in a previous administration, in aio s national security position. and he made this observaon, which was, a decision to bring th russian president, particularly this russian president, tohe white house, in prior adminisveations would een done only after national security meeting, principles meeting. he said there seems to be no process in this white house to make these kinds of decisions.

similarly, he said, there seems to bece no p for assessing what happened in helsinki and dan coates was in the dark about what happened in those two hours between the preside and putin. so, you know, as mard,ret s we have a situation in which you have a president and his national security operation going in separate tracks and a white houtaff trying to constrain a president who's determined to make his own rules. robert: we all remain in the dark a little bit about what actually was discussed at that meeting between president trump and president putin? based on your reporting, what have we learnedbout what may have been agreed to by the two countries? margaret: because only the two interpreters were in theoloom, we are the president held a firm line on the conflict in

syria saying he wouldn't draw down 2 the00 u.s. troops there until iran withdraws its forces. that's a pretty indefinite time line. iran is firmly entrenched there but that's relief to israel perhaps, a relief to the president's own national security team t who had beend by the president he wants them out by the next six months so that's aer huge rl from the president but it also was a sigh of relief to many because they feared this was a chip that the presiden might bargain away with vladimir putin when he got into the room and that that would hurt u.s. leverage in the region. but on everythin else, the main message i'm hearing is, the messageas the agreement, the meeting was the agreement, i should say, the next one. there was no major national security abjectiveieved in ukraine, in syria. there were proposals floated, the white house shot down o forceful of them today saying they weren't going to accept vladimir putin's ideho of

ing a referendum to allow russia to annex more territory in eastern ukraine so a push-back from the national curity community to some of the proposals the president said he would take time to think about. bert: what about the confusion in the briefing room this week about whether the administration would send over former u.s. officials, former ambassador to russia michael maul, to talk to russian intelligence officers. the white house steamed conder it -- seemed to consider it and swatted away the idea. yamiche: the fact that the president called it an incredible offer -- i was in helsinki at the press conference when he said putin has really interesting ideas about how we can work together and get at the election interference and all the reportersde were wng, what is that interesting idea and fast forward, weearn putin said if you allow us to interrogate americans, we'll invite mueller to come here and he can talk russian officials

he thinks interfered in your election. sarah sanders said, we have to think aboutt, we'll get back to you on that. a couple of hou later, the state department said, that's absurd, that would never happen. wh you have was two messages, like two messages from the intel community and preside trump, you had two messages from the state department and sarah sanders and 24 hours later sarah sanders cleaned it up and said, no, donald trump does ngr, he won't do that. but the fact had a they were entertaining it in the white house briefingt and t the state department knew quickly to say it absurd, tells you the administration is not on the same page. robert: who's jim mattis in jim kelly? secretary of state pompeo. we have been quiet this week. jonathan: it's funny you say that. i was on the trip, as well, in brussels for the nato summit. when you talk to european officials, they will -- i'mure margaret has had similar conversations -- they have

perfectly normal conversations with jim jim mattis like everything's normal,t's a normal administration and in many senses they are doing normal things. trump has actuallynvested more military resources in europe than obama did so they're quite happy with s the substantive things and mattis it a reassure presence but all comes to the conclusion that this line that has been fed to them for 12 months of don't tweets, paye attention to what we do, that's kind of reaching the end of its use-by date, that line, becau the rhetoric actually matters in lots of different ways and ty know, these european officials and offic klsw, when they talk to james mattis, he's not speaking for the president of the united states, not even semotely. robert: if thahe case, dan, why do they stay? if you're in this cabinet or national security adviser john bolton, why do you stay?

dan: i would say there's a high-minded reason and not--high-minded reason. the high-minded reason is the belief they're sving their country. somebody like secretary mattis, lifetime career in the militaryr duty, h country, they believe in what they're doing and they believe when the president ask s them tove, they should serve. i think they suspect or they believe that they areinact, providing at least some guide rails, that they are, in some way or anoth, being able to reassure allies that there i-- that the is a government that can function effectively. i think the less high-minded reason is that some people are attracted to power and it is very hard t give it up when you have it. and once you get to those positions -- and i'm not ascribing that to any particular individual, but to humantature, that takes it difficult to step aside. nabert: you've spent time interviewing nat security adviser john bolton in the past month. he seemed to try to navigate that, sometimes uneasily, with

you. it's interesting because this is where we get into the policy on paper. when you say from the nationaler security advften says, that is not the policy of the u.s. government. buth leave door open. jonathan: a wonderful line. he said it to you like three times.ex margarettly, yes, that's why i'm asking you why the president's saying otherwise, siy is the pnt saying things that aren't theless of the u.s. government? because it's very, very confusing to european friends and allies that you were just mentioning there. and the reason that the rhetoric matters is not, this is a president who w elected as a disruptor and that's not tcessarily what outcry on these national security matters is about. it's because those guard rails to protecte not only the president from himself but to protect the country and to protect the when you were talking about words mattering for nato, the collective defense premise is what nato is about. protecting each other. if you are drawing into doubt

that montenegro or one of those members is worth defending, then that stops working it doesn't matter if you up defense spending,tif vladimir doubts whether or not you come to defend those countries in the first place. so that's where the words on nato really matter, where the president is also leaving the door open, that conversation with bolton and others on, well, maybe we can talk about parts of ukraine being up for grabs.po yamiche: i to former u.s. representative to nato and he, shortly after the helsinki summit, told me two things. the first thing was that he starts nato allies to crafting work-around of the united states because he thinks nato allies will stop trusting president trump. we saw the leader g omany come out and say i don't know if we can trust the u.s. with trump atel the but also said things could be a lot worse. he didn't change the u.s.'h relationship w nato, didn't pull out troops, didn't change military exercises. there was all this idea coming into theato summit that people

were very worried he would do that in hisng mee with putin and none of that happene so douglas lute was saying, things haven't chaed but it looks crazy. robert: not only in the administration but on capitol hill -- i was at the capitol this week and you see alarm among some republican senators, like jeff flake of arizona. then y t talko others like senator rand paul and they take a different view about the president's actions. let's hear what they have to say. >> we have indulged myths and fabrications, pretended it wasn't so bad and ourndgence got us the capitulation in helsinki. been the senate who hav threecketd -- elected to represent constituents, cannot be enablers of fawlings -- falsehoods. >> the intelligence community was full of biased people.i n't think anybody doubts that the russians were involved

with leaking email and hacking into email but there is question into whether or not the election was legitimate as a way for people on the left to say trump didn't win the election. robert: we have been talking about all of the hawksen around pres trump but it's interesting to note that senator rand paul has been embracing president trump's position on russia. is president trump almost more of a nonintervention libertarian on foreign policy than we sometimes recognize? dan: he may be. his comments during the campaign were contradictory. he's somebody whon the one hand wants to project strength, muscularity, increased defense spending. but in other way as we've seen, he pulls back. he wrestled with advisers over what to do about afghanistan for a very long time and finally agreed with them to put some more troops in rather than his

view was why are we still there, we have been in there 17 years, 18 years, let's get out of there.rl simi with syria, as margaret mentioned. so the president may not know his own mind about these things. he doesn't have a fully formedse e of national security issues. he is a gut player so he responds in certain ways when he's asked aut thingsut he hasn't necessarily thought deeply about them and i think that creates the confusion. margaret: it's a great point. i also think, on syria in parthular, i was speaking w a former obama administration official bell it and -- about it and i asked him what's the difference in the policy and the only thing the obamaon administra official said to me was, at least we felt bad about it, that we weren't intervening on humanitarian -- the matter of two strikes followed through on, pinpoint

by presidented out trump in the wake of two chemical weapons attacks but when president trump wasdi st next to vladimir putin, he didn't say, why are you breaking the deal you made with me in hamburg last year to have a ceasefire zone in t south of the country, why aren't we talking about a humanitaria corridors? secretary pompeo said we would talk about that but president trump was talking about savings lin russia and syria instead of russia bombing hospitals a c theytinue to do. robert: we saw the poll, 79% of republicans support the president's handling of russia this week. is that why we didn't see senatorsa flake's bipar bill with senator chris koons of ote?ware even get a hand wringing about his style but at the end of the day they want to htand with politically. jonathan: they're terrified of crossing him, almost to a person. the profiles encourage retiring, and there's a reason for that.

they know he'sastly more popular than they are. the polling shows it. mcconnell's got a 25% approval and trump's is up in the 80's. most popular republicans president at toint in his presidency. i think he's even passed george w. bush after 9/11 with republican voters so yes, and he also the ability, almost a superpower, take an issue like russia that d get much more orthodox than that in terms of repnglican party b tough on russia, he's flipped on that issue and you can go down the list -- f.b.i., the republican party's view of the f.b.i -- pick your issue. it's quite uncanny. tariffs. republican voters now support tariffs. so, yeah, they're terrified. but just to pick up on that point that we were talking about his foreign policy, i think, yes, he oscillates but his default pition is always, why is this our problem? why is this our problem?

robert: sounds a lot like senator paul. beyo covering the white house, you've spent time covering democrats. let's walk a clip of mgaret's interview with former secretary of state john kerry for a moment. margaretwhat did you make of president trump's news conference with vladimir putin? secretary kerry: i found it shocking. i found it to be onheof most disgraceful, remarkable moments of kowtowing to a foreign leader by an an american president that anyone's witneed. it wasn't that it was just a surrender, it was dangerous.es the ent stood there and did not defend our country, did not defend theru. robert: margaret, sey kerry, that reflects a lot of angst among former obama officials as they watch this. margaret: it does. this is someone who spent a lot of time negotiating with russia. diplomacy with russia is not a toxic idea to him.

that wasn't his objection. it was that the president, standing beside putin, didn't use forceful language and didn't confront and after t fact wit the walk-back, it wasn't believable given that he spoke at length about his belief that all of this is fundamentally a witch hunt and it was intereing to hear secretary kerry describe being in china when president obama confronted vladimir putin for the first time about meddling. robert:iame' each,ve heard the word treason. democratsppear to have turning point. yamiche: i think democrats see this as one of many issues they can use in the midterms to say, look, you should elect use' because be tough on russia -- because we're not president trump -- even though they saidhat wouldn't be their message but there's an idea that democrats see another t add to, it separated famils, tariffs, jobs -- the problem is, what rand paul said and the pol from axios tells us that

republican voters think president trump is illegitimate and they see that as people being mean to him because they don't want him to be president. robert: thanks so much for everyone being here. let me pause to thank the terrific crew at weta. bes new set wouldn't possible without their hard work. our conversation continues online on the "washingtonk "wasw extra." we will discuss the latest reports on the president's long-timeawr, michael cohen, and possible audio recordings o his conversations with president trump. you can find that later tonight at pbs.org/washingtonweek. i'm robert costa. thanks for joining us.

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