read what he wrote. it's amazing. i'll see you tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. eastern. here's a program note. this thursday we have special coverage of james comey's testimony. i'll be inside the hearing and live on capitol hill. follow me on twitter at gretta. check out that facebook page, behind the scenes video and much more. "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. >> donald trump, the russians and carter page, this is "hardball." ♪ good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. this thursday the senate intelligence committee questions former fbi director james comey on what the president said to him about loyalty, about general michael flynn, and about whether the fbi was investigating the president. it's all about the russians and what they were up to in 2016 and what role, if any, donald trump's people may have played in encouraging them. as our guests tonight we have

the associated press has called a key figure in the controversy, carter page. page will join us shortly. first in the news breaking late today. the intercept is reporting that the russian military intelligence group executed a cyber attack on at least one u.s. software supplier. the report indicates that russian hacking may have penetrated further into the u.s. voting systems than was previously understood. in fact, just an hour after the story was posted authorities announced the arrest of the contractor who allegedly leaked that report, according to nbc news. joining me is ken delaney, intelligence reporter with nbc news. does this mean that the russians were trying to manipulate the voting itself, the counting of the vote? >> there's no evidence of that. intelligence sources say this document, while interesting, doesn't tell them a whole lot they didn't already know. it just adds further details that the russians were trying to hack into the voter registration system. so this document alleges that they sent, for example, 100

spear fishing attempts to election officials, trying to get into their systems, and that they successfully hacked a contractor that worked on voter registration systems. what's interesting is it appears the russians could have done a lot more. for example, changing voter registration files so that when people showed up to vote they weren't allowed to vote. but that didn't happen. just to be clear, this document makes no allegations about changing of votes and they say thoutcome of this hack is unclear. the other fascinating thing, the justice department announced charges against a 25-year-old contractor. we've confirmed that this woman who worked for the nsa, 25 years old, had just gotten clearance, mailed this document to the intercept. a remarkable story. >> j. edgar hoover would be very proud. last night on nbc, vladimir putin said that american jour l

journalist megyn kelly had no right to ask him about charges his regime was repressive and killed journalists. let's watch. >> many americans hear the name vladimir putin and they think he runs a country full of corruption, a country in which journalists who are too critical could wind up murdered, a country in which dissidents could wind up in jail or worse. to people who believe that, what is your message? >> translator: i want to say that russia is developing along a democratic path, that is certain, and no one should have any doubt about that. why do you feel you have the right to ask us these kinds of questions and do it all of the time, to moralize and give us lessons on how to live? we're ready to listen to comments when it's done constructively with the goal of establishing a relationship, creating a common environment. but we will absolutely not accept when these sorts of things are used as an instrument

of political conflict. i want everyone to know that. that's our message. >> wow, i'm joined now by carter page, former adviser to the trump campaign. who do you agree with there? is vladimir putin right in saying we have no right to question him? >> chris, if he were asked that question once, that would be fine. if he's asked that or if there's allegations constantly every day in all of the major newspapers in the united states and in all of the major cable networks, after months and months and years and years and decades on end, then it becomes a little old. you could imagine if someone -- >> sure but if it's truie it should be old. do you believe he does kill reporters who he doesn't like? >> i don't know anything about that. >> you think he's innocent of that? >> i think that -- it's interesting, with the january 6th intel report, one of the big things they're talking about is that the russian government

shouldn't put out certain, quote unquote, propaganda. all of the russian artie and sputnik, the information in there, at least about myself, was infinitely more accurate. >> you don't believe r.t. is a propaganda arm of the russian government? >> all i know is that the information they were putting out was -- >> you're a russian expert. what do you mean you don't know whether they're a propaganda arm? >> it's infinitely more accurate -- >> is it propaganda? >> it's equally propaganda -- less prop began is tick than radio europe, radio for liberty which in september and november was repeating the dossier. >> i'm getting the opinion that vladimir putin believes and maybe you do too that the bad relations between the united states and moscow right now are caused by american media. >> no. that's -- >> he seemed to be saying that.

>> no. i think that's one symptom of a larger illness which goes back many, many decades. >> do you think we should have better relations with russia? >> absolutely. >> is that why you went to work for trump? >> i believe in a lot of -- >> you like what trump was saying? >> more broadly in terms of his foreign policy. i think he's really trying to make some significant steps forward. what he was saying -- >> as a russian expert, that's how you got in the door, right? >> it's funny. i'm always branded as such. the number of times i talked about russia proportionally is minuscule, partially because these false allegations started against me from the very beginning. >> anyway, let's talk about putin again. he also suggested the 2016 hacking might have been carried out by an american intelligence agency. let's watch that. >> translator: they can even be hackers by the way, in the united states, who very skillfully and professionally shifted the blame as we say onto russia.

there's a theory that kennedy's assassination was arranged by the united states intelligence services. so if this theory is correct and that can't be ruled out, then what could be easier in this day and age than using all the technical means at the disposal of the intelligence services and using those means to organize some attacks and then pointing the finger at russia. >> what do you make of that? >> well, let's see what happens with these allegations regarding the fisa warrant. >> he said if the cia killed kennedy which i don't believe is true, then they might have done the hacking, not him. do you think he did the hacking and has come up with this story about conspiracy so get out of it? do you believe he did hacking? >> i've been hacked. >> do you believe that the russians hacked into the dnc and the rest of the effort to try to manipulate this election? >> i'm not fully convinced of that. >> you're not? >> i think january 6 was largely a political stunt. >> what's that?

>> just the -- two weeks before the election without much basis, i think there's a lot of -- i have a lot of questions about that january 6th report. >> the report, the -- >> the dni report. >> let me ask you about trump. so in other words, the whole american storyline, that 17 u.s. intelligence agencies that said the russians hacked into our system and tried to manipulate our election, you don't believe? >> i think that's -- i haven't -- all i know is that the accusations against myself which is a part of this over all intel story was totally false. >> let's talk about it then -- >> if they got that wrong -- >> let's talk about the encounter you had with kislyaki the russian ambassador. you met with him during the convention. fair enough. here's how jd gordon described that meeting. quote, page and kislyak spoke at

some length about how to improve relations between the two countries on issues like counter-terrorism and energy security. carter told him we should have a new chapter of u.s./russia relations that built on common goals and there's no need to keep up this hostility. is that true? >> i don't recall that conversation. there were brief interactions that -- >> that's not a brief interaction. >> i never had any -- >> when you say it was a casual hello, how are you, and at the same time you said you made a deal at the end of the meeting that was off the record. >> no. no. that was the deal from the beginning. everyone in that meeting was -- >> i never shook hands with somebody and had them say this handshaking is off the record. >> no. everyone in that meeting, it was agreed that it was -- >> how was that agreement struck? >> well, it was announced at the beginning. >> who made the announcement? >> i actually came in late but that was speaking to the organizers. >> who were the organizers? >> i forget their --

>> no, you were meeting with a bunch of russians, including kislyak at the republican convention and you don't remember who invited you to the meeting? >> i can't even recall. >> you can't recall being invited to a meeting with the russian ambassador? >> it wasn't a meeting with the russian ambassador, chris. it was meetings with ambassadors around the world. >> this is what's squirrely about your argument. it was no big deal, it was hello, how are you but it was off the record and we agreed to make it off the record. what's off the record. in journalism off the record has a particular meaning. you can't use it in a story. you can know it but you can't use it. >> there's a lot of meetings, think tanks, et cetera, that sometimes are not for attribution or off the record and that's the -- >> was it a sensitive discussion? >> no. i think it's just -- >> why would you say off the record? >> to allow people to have an open discussion without having it broadcast on national television. >> did you talk about sajsz? >> no. >> you didn't talk about sanctions. did you talk about improved russian relations with the united states? you're talking to the russian

ambassador. >> i can't recall. >> did you talk about ukraine and their sanctions because of that? >> definitely not. >> you didn't talk about that? >> no. >> you didn't talk about the stories that the nca had been hacked into? >> this hasn't even happened yet. this was a week before. >> what was the conversation about you say it's off the record? do you remember the conversation? >> the most interesting conversation -- >> at the republican convention -- >> there were a lot of policy discussions in general throughout that week. to me that was the thing that i was most focused on. unfortunately, we're not able to talk about that. >> let's try to put this in the context of your thinking, carter. you're a phd. >> right. >> in what? >> central asia. >> you're an expert in that part of the world over there, crimea. you joined the campaign, eddie cox, lawyer in new york, helped you get in the door. what was your motive? you liked trump's general world view, nationalism? >> it's not nationalism. >> nothing wrong with it.

what do you like about him? >> i liked -- the russia issue frankly is very similar to the iraq issue in the 2008 obama campaign. he wanted to start a new step forward in terms of what was going on in iraq, pulling out from this constant conflict we've had over here. my view -- and i have always believed that and i believe this to this day, he has tremendous potential to actually do that, and i think there's -- >> that's a pretty worthy goal. >> absolutely. >> well -- >> unfortunately we can't talk about that because it's -- >> you're one of the names like manafort and flynn i keep hearing about. it struck me from the outside looking at this that what you guys were trying to do with trump's leadership was to try to restart our relations with russia and try to avoid a second cold war. you're shaking your head yes or no? i can't read you. >> it's not that central of an argument. >> what were all these meetings

about? why were you brought into the campaign if it wasn't because of your russian expertise? >> i can't speak to that, chris. i have done a lot in international relations going back throughout most of my life since serving in the navy, since u.s./russia arms control and negotiations in the pentagon. i've done tens of billions of dollars of energy deals. >> so you won't tell us about what happened in the meeting because you don't remember or you don't care? it's a big part of the story. you don't think it's important to tell anybody this? >> i think it's not an important part of the story. >> it's important enough for you guys to say this is off the record, nobody talk about what happened at this meeting. >> being respectful of discussions. >> you made charges about people coming after you. you seem okay to me but you're blaming people coming at you because you're catholic. now, i find that quizzical. why would you say something like that in the 21st century,

anti-catholicism in american politic politics. explain. >> there were interactions were members of the clinton campaign which -- where i got that impression. >> what did they say? >> it's a long story. >> give me the short version. what did they say against you that made you think it was about religion? >> i think there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. i've get into it. >> no. here you are. you've said this and i find it hard to believe. there are arguments about same same sex, abortion rights. these are gumths we're all familiar with. we argue about them in the public square. there's nothing weird about it. there are good arguments. people argue. what's the argument that you felt was coming against you? >> well, i've had a number of discussions with madeleine albright, and she had -- you know, i had mentioned a number of times the fact that i got my masters in national security in georgetown and one of the things that i was really inspired by being back after having spent four years with the naval academy, government institution

where it's non-religious is -- >> they have a famous school there, very famous school. >> and i was inspired to being part of the catholic community. suffice to say, i just didn't -- there were issues from that discussion where i didn't feel comfortable. >> i think she was raised catholic anyway. you felt it was anti-catholic and this whole thing you think is anti-religion? >> look, it's hard to differentiate when there was definitely a lot of hatred sent against me. the catholic thing is actually something which is covered under the civil rights act. >> if it's true. and you think it is true. you think you're the victim of religious prejudice? >> i think there's a lot of prejudices. but to me the bigger prejudice, the more immediate thing, is the bigotry and xenophobia against russians. i think that's unfortunately been -- >> my big question in this whole thing, if his goal, the candidate you supported, trump, if his goal was to re-establish

something beyond the cold war, a good relation between us and russia, if that was the goal and all these meetings that went on with manafort and flynn, you won't tell me what happened at them, if the whole purpose was rapprochement between these two great countries, why wouldn't you brag about it instead of hiding with all this stuff about immunity and fifth amendment rights and executive privilege. kellyanne conway is talking about it. everything is trying to be about hiding. why are you hiding if the grand purpose was peace? >> chris, it's been an ongoing assault. >> why don't you just say what you were doing? why are you hiding the meetings? the russian ambassador at the republican convention when they're shifting language about ukraine and all kinds of stuff in the platform and you won't tell me what the meeting was about. >> the meeting was about nothing. >> why is it secret, off the record? >> because the russians have

been lied to with nato expansion as a key element. they were told at the end of the cold war that we're not going to expand verbal, it was nothing legal -- >> not even the baltic states were going to join nato. was ukraine really on the verge -- >> gorbachev and reagan. tip o'neal was involved in terms of helping push this forward. in terms of helping to encourage steps forward. >> you felt that was a threat to russia? >> well, i think if the was a better relationship, could you imagine if tip o'neal tried doing what harry reid tried doing to me. >> what did he do? >> sending a letter to the fbi director saying please investigate this guy because he owns a few shares in gas. can you imagine? >> let me ask you your bottom

sentiment about this. you think the united states and russia should get together, you think that was the whole effort, all the trump people were involved in that? >> i don't think that's the whole effort. >> what is it? what's the elephant in the room? >> it's a fake elephant, chris. >> you're meetings, the secret meetings, didn't accomplish anything, nothing happened? >> absolutely not. >> nothing. >> i was a small fry in this. >> you have a goal which is to improve our relations with russia. manafort was somewhat related, flynn was related to that. what were they all doing? >> i think it's totally -- >> you're with vladimir putin last night with megyn saying there's nothing to it, nonsense. you agree with putin? >> i haven't seen anything and it will be interesting to see if anyone comes out with anything. >> comey thinks there's something and he'll be testifying thursday. brennan thinks there's something there. all our intelligence agencies believe the russians messed with us, meddled in our election, and you don't agree with that? >> i hope we find out about the

wire tapping that was done against me. >> keep fighting your fight. help me out a little here. thank you, carter page. >> thanks. coming up, president trump's unmored reaction to the terror attack in london. he used the horror over there this weekend to take a shot at the mayor of london and to make the argument for his original muslim ban again which even his allies say could hurt his case in court. that's ahead. plus we're three days away from one of the most anticipated congressional hearings in a long time. as i said, fired fbi director james comey is going to fire back when he testifies about whether trump pressured him to drop the investigation of michael flynn. also the whole question about whether he promised trump he wasn't under investigation. questions of obstruction of justice flying at us on thursday night. and a stunning report in politico that president trump's ser senior foreign policy team was blind-sided. they were sure president trump would reaffirm protecting members of nato.

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welcome back to "hardball." now to the president's response to the terror attack in london which killed seven people. his first tweet pushed his his travel ban to be reinstated.

then he offered support to the people of britain. he also attacked the mayor of london personally, sadiq khan. quote, at least seven dead and the mayor of london says there's no reason to be alarmed. in fact, the president took the mayor's words out of context. he was referring to the presence of more police officers in the streets. let's watch what the mayor actually said. >> just like terrorists are constantly evolving, finding new ways to disrupt us, harm us, attack us, the police and experts and all of us are finding new ways to keep us safe. london will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. no reason to be alarmed. >> that's what he meant by no reason to be alarmed. president trump doubled down again, tweeting, pathetic excuse by london mayor who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement. mainstream media is working hard to sell it. sarah huckabee sanders denied the president took the mayor's

words out of context. >> the president directly misrepresented what the mayor of london said. >> i don't think that's true. the media wants to spin it that way. >> you think that's what he was saying? >> look, i think that the point is, there is a reason to be alarmed. we have constant attacks going on, not just there but across the globe, and we have to start putting national security and global security at an all-time high. president trump has been very clear that's his priority and he's not backing away from that. >> we're joined by washington correspondent for the bbc katie kay, msnbc security adviser analyst and chief foreign correspondent richard engle. we all came across the bad news that in belgium that's an area which is trouble for that country. it's seething with radical slammislam

i islamism. people retreat to that area as a safe area. does london have something as dangerous as that in its geography? >> reporter: um, actually it does. there are quite a few very angry communities here when you talk to police and security sources. they talk about a pool of around 20,000 people who have some form of radical ideology and that they prioritize the most urgent cases and they say they are watching at any one stage 3,000 people as persons of interest. so that's a pretty large pool when you're talking about a country of about 65 million. so unfortunately, yes, there is a radicalization problem, and i think it was evident today. more details emerged about the attackers who carried out the london bridge attack, and one of them was part of a very well known extremist group, a group

that is openly professed its sympathy for isis. in fact, one of the attackers who has been named by authorities appeared in a british channel 4 documentary expressing his sympathies for very radical ideologies. he had been known to police before. in fact, neighbors said that they had tipped off police that he was a dangerous person who was trying to recruit children to his cause. so there's a lot of soul searching going on in this country, not only about the depth of the problem of the radicalization but also about the police response. nobody wants there to be blanket surveillance, nobody wants there to be targeting of muslim communities, but if people come out and are expressing radical views and the neighbors come and tip them off and nothing is done, there does seem to be a problem. >> richard engle, thank you so much from london. let me go back to catty kay now. let's talk about london a bit. i know you're over here all the time, but what -- theresa may is

up for re-election. he talked tough the other day, i thought appropriately. the question is, is there a tougher policy britain could be following, more trumpian than they're following? >> theresa may came out and said enough is enough. it's not clear what that means in terms of policy. when she was home secretary she was accused of diminishing the number of police. >> that's what the left in london is saying. >> i think people who are in counter-terrorism have said that was the case. you need police at the right time in the right place. if these are going to be home grown terrorists and the three attacks we've had in three months it seems that they were actually british citizens, we're going to rely on muslim communities. if those muslim communities do give warnings to the police and then those warnings are ignored it makes it much harder. >> this is like minority report, how in the world do you know when a person who is radical as hell, mad at the west, mainly

religious but mainly attitude. it could be misfits, it could be all kinds of reasons people do what they do, brain soup we call it, how do you know they're going to go running with a knife and kill people. they didn't buy bomb equipment. they one day made a decision to let themselves die in a cause that they found themselves taken by, how do you stop that if you're a cop? >> it was low tech and soft targets but in this case it was done by a team of three people. now, that's a lead for investigators because they had to coordinate. they had to communicate, they had to rent a vehicle. >> they didn't have to. they used social media but they could have talked on the phone. they could have met at a park. >> but all of those things give investigators ways to listen to -- >> were they agitated by online moolahs? >> it's almost a certainty that they were radicalized and recruited online. though it's a low tech attack, it's ahigh tech recruitment

effort. >> why knives? >> there is not much access to guns in britain. >> this is an argument against the trump position. he said if they had guns it would have stopped them. if these guys with their motivation, if they could have gott gott gotten semiautomatic weapons they would have gotten them. you spray people. back to the president. in a series of tweets since saturday night, president trump pushed for his travel ban to be reinstated. shortly after the attack he tweeted, we need the travel ban as an extra level of safety. that seemed to contradict the language from his surrogates who took pains to say it's not a ban. this morning the president said people, the lawyers and the courts, can call it whatever they want but i'm calling it what we need and what it is, a travel ban. and the justice department should have stayed with the original travel ban, not the watered down politically correct version they submitted to the supreme court. for months by the way trump's aides and advisers tried to argue that the plan wasn't a

travel ban at all. let's watch some of that. >> this is not a travel ban. this is a temporary pause that allows us to better review the existing refugee and visa vetting system. >> i want to go back to the issue of this travel ban. >> first of all, it's not a travel ban. when we use words like travel ban, that misrespects what it is. it's a vetting system to keep america safe, that's it, plain and simple. >> president trump's tweet, if the ban were used -- >> he's using the words that the media is using. >> those are his words. >> jeremy? >> justification for this was that over the next 90 days terrorists were going to be streaming over the boreder. that was 120 days ago. obviously they've been able to do the vetting but the ban was unnecessary. i think that's going to hurt their argument in court. then the president today saying his justice department took the wrong position. he's in charge of the justice

department. >> there's been a lot of attacks on britain that have been thwarted. why is britain getting targeted? >> we have a large number of people who went to syria or who can't go to syria. we have a radicalization that goes on inside prisons, radicalization that happens in schools and we have a large muslim population linked to libya and libya is the new breeding ground for islamic militants. those are the populations these are coming from. >> thank you. up next, with three days to go before james comey's blockbuster testimony, reaction to what we heard tonight from carter page and a preview of coming ataxes. this is "hardball," where the action is. i'm leaving you, wesley. but why? you haven't noticed me in two years. i was in a coma. well, i still deserve appreciation. who was there for you when you had amnesia?

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here's what's happening. bill cosby's defense attacked the credibility in the first witness in the comedian's sex aassault trial. lawyers challenged why the woman waited 20 years to come forward with allegations the star drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1996. cosby is on trial for allegedly drugging and molesting andrea constand in 2004. he has repeatedly denied all allegations. an orlando man shot and killed five co-workers before turning the gun on himself. police say he was a disgruntled

employee who was fired in april. back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." we learned today that president trump will not use his executive privilege to block former fbi director james comey from testifying before the senate intelligence committee. that's this thursday. here's white house deputy press secretary sarah huckabee sanders. >> the president's power to exert executive privilege is very well established. however, in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the senate intelligence committee, president trump will not assert executive privilege regarding james comey's scheduled testimony. >> comey has delivered bombshell statements in the past. he once detailed how the bush white house pressured john ashcroft into authorizing a surveillance program that was questioned by the justice

department, this is while ashcroft was hospitalized. let's watch. >> this was a very memorable period in my life, probably the most difficult time in my entire professional life. i was very upset. i was angry. i thought i had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man. >> although we did not find clear evidence that secretary clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. >> i have been authorized by the department of justice to confirm that the fbi, as part of our counter intelligence mission, is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the

trump campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. as with any counter intelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. >> i'm joined by california democratic representative eric swalwell who's a member of the house intelligence committee. what did you make of carter page on the show tonight? he denied everything, denied the russians were involved with meddling, denied any role by americans, the trump people. absolutely denied any substance of the meetings he had with kislyak, the ambassador from russia, denied everything. there's nothing there, he was arguing. >> chris, i have heard straighter answers from 3-year-olds with their hands in the cookie jars. it was perplexing. we hope to hear from him in our committee's investigation. >> when are you going to get to carter? >> hopefully soon. we have documents that we would like to have him produce. we're going to interview other

relevant witnesses and review other relevant documents, but we just want to know if people were talking to the russians at the time of their interference campaign, what they were up to, what the russians were up to, and then we'll draw conclusions after that. >> what do you make of him saying he had a meeting with kislyak and the guy gordon was there, the naval commander. i think a credible witness who talked about it. then they had all these meetings about how to improve russian relations, deal with everything, blah blah blah, and then saying nothing happened, that's what he said tonight, he doesn't remember any of that. the memory loss is -- how do you deal with memory loss with these people, claimed memory loss? >> memory loss seems to be affecting a number of people on the trump campaign team and who are now serving in the administration. look, chris, it is not against the law to have relationships with foreign nationals, but russia is a different type of foreign country. it's a foreign adversary, a country that was attacking us, so we want to understand what was the nature of these relationships, how deep were the

personal, political and financial ties, and also understand just exactly what were these u.s. persons associated with the trump team doing while russia was attacking us. >> scale of one to ten, how much you trust comey when he says something. >> ten. i don't believe he's trying to intentionally deceive or out for anything other than to follow the evidence. >> he'll be a great witness on thursday for the senate side? >> i think he will illuminate just whether the president crossed the line, whether the president was pressuring him to end the russia investigation, whether the president wanted him to let his pile of michael flynn off the hook and also whether the department of justice was stone walg comey if he was making additional requests for additional resources. >> apparently he's been told he's not allowed to bring documents with him but he certainly has a memory and would seem to be able to describe everything he put in those me s memos. >> and you heard his testimony a few years back about the interaction with the attorney

general at the hospital bed. moments when you interact with the president, chris, you never forget them. i've met presidents obama, bush and trump and you hang onto the details when you interact with them in your own mind so i don't expect his memory is going to be an issue. >> it's going to be something thursday night. it's like john dean again. thank you so much, u.s. congressman. up next, president trump blind sides his own foreign policy team. we are like the leaders of the world, the head of the free world we like to say. we were and have been. then he goes over there and says we're not looking out for you guys anymore, you're on your own. that's what he did over there in sicily. you're watching "hardball," where the action is.

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welcome back to "hardball." two weeks ago president trump dressed down his european counterparts for not paying their fair share, spending enough on defense. that lecture didn't rattle our allies. it was what the president didn't mention that rattled them.

u.s. commitment to nato's article five which says an armed attack on one member of nato is an attack on all members. politico magazine is reporting that president trump's national security team was blind-sided by his speech because he appeared to delete the mention three of his advisers spent weeks on that speech to make sure it was included. it was not until he started delivering the speech that his national security team realized trump had failed to include the language reaffirming the so-called article five provision. with major consequence or informing them in exchange. susan, thank you. you know, i've got a little

thing at the end of the show but the idea of being the free world has been our pride, we're the world's democracy, free elections, self-determination, the values of the west which we've been able to extend through africa and latin america. a lot of countries in the world look to us as a model, and security is at the heart of that. also, the russians never liked nato because it works, because it worked. it kept germany in our hands and eventually got germany entirely in our hands, brought the baltic states in. i don't think we're ever headed for ukraine but i don't know, they don't like nato. >> they don't like nato. somebody said to me the corks were popping in moscow when president trump refused to reiterate his commitment to article five. why did that matter? well, because of course of trump's own rhetoric during the campaign. and it was trump who called into question our commitment to this thing which by the way, the united states is legally obligated to this treaty which we have. president trump on the campaign said nato was obsolete. those cabinet officers you

mentioned have spent the last four months begging, cajoling, trying to convince our allies in europe, no, no, he didn't really mean it, it's fine, they got president trump to say, okay, nato is no longer obsolete. but they've tried multiple times, and my reporting has shown this, to get him to explicitly affirm this. they thought they had one, this internal argument. they had a draft of a speech written, ready to go, signed off on by h.r. mcmaster. >> what i found striking was the way our european allies reacted to this. at this point the gloves are off. >> they took it seriously. >> incredibly se ly seriously. they were going to see how it was going to go, talk him down backstage and see what would work. well, it didn't work. >> talk him down from a cliff, he's about to jump out a window, that's the way it sounds. >> that's exactly how they feel. first of all, i think it bears

repeating that article five, this mutual defense thing, has only ever once been called into action. >> 9/11. >> for 9/11. it was actually in our defense. but what happened -- >> we have a time problem here. i'm sorry. >> i'm just going to say this. general mattis has to run to australia and tell everybody, bear with us, bear with us, bear with us. the problem is people are going to tolerate this now but if it continues, if he continues to say these things about nato, a marriage dies about two years before it's official. at some point we're going to need them symbolically and maybe practically to come to our aid. if the president continues in this behavior, our european allies may not be there for us. >> it's a group effort. the roundtable is sticking with us and up next these people will tell me something i don't know. be right back. hear the difference versus oral b. in a recently published clinical study, philips sonicare diamondclean outperforms oral-b 7000, removing up to 82% more plaque and improving gum health up to 70% more. its sonic technology cleaning deep between teeth.

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for media studies, one thing i tell people is be careful what you do on social media, because it can come back and bite you. harvard university announced today they're withdrawing their offers of admissions for ten students who were in little facebook group in which they tweet -- they basically did all sorts of means that were incredibly inappropriate, sexually and -- >> oh, my god. how did they -- >> well, what shows is no matter how smart you may be, if you're dumb on social media, that's it. >> of course, we all know there's a british general election on thursday which you may not know it is the first over 25 years where the sitting american president doesn't have any of his major campaign team helping out the parties. >> so we're not meddling. >> for once, we're not meddling. >> susan? >> when i was reporting that story about nato, the thing i heard that was the most intriguing from multiple sources, but we need to know more about it, so all your listeners tell us, the private

dinner with the european leaders and president trump was even more stressful and negative than the public speech. >> great to know that about our leader. when we return, let me finish with trump watch. you're watching it, "hardball." brian, i just need to know if the customer app will be live monday. can we at least analyze customer traffic? can we push the offer online? brian, i just had a quick question. brian? brian... legacy technology can handcuff any company.

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trump watch monday june 5th, 2017. leader of the free world. and we meant it.

all those years the democratic west as democracy expanded into latin america and africa, into asia. human rights and self-determination and elections, we led that push. we were the good guys. and now i don't know what mood donald trump was in this weekend, but his tweets say he was in a bad one, with london hit by terrorism saturday, he saw it as a chance to sell the travel ban and knock the mayor of london someone he's come to dislike. the problem is the pettiness is big-time with trump, the same one that tweets the cheap shots just got back from europe where he jettisoned to standing with other nato countries if we were attacked. why would he put word out there that we're not a faithful member of the group of countries that stood against soviet russia. why do we advocate leadership of a winning team and alliance with europe that succeeded in keeping peace. why the anger. why the pettiness. why the cheap shots and all those allies which spent years

having on the same side. we're watching u.s. foreign policy take the form of donald trump's psyche. you have to wonder when the weird is going to come and actually become dangerous. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight, on "all in" -- >> why is the president picking a fight with the mayor of london right after the city was hit with a terror attack? >> i don't understand why donald trump is trying to undermine a man who's trying to protect the people of london. it makes no sense. >> tonight at london, why the president of the united states is lashing out at the city's mayor. at the courts. at democrats. and at his own executive branch. plus, new reporting alleges russian hacking days before the election at the department of justice announces an arrest. then, comey day is coming. >> the dinner was