hi everyone. 4:00. 10:00 in hamburg, germany. two men obsessively worried about how they're perceived by the citizens and the press sent an undeniable message by the duration of their interlude. donald j. trump and vladimir putin spending two hours and 15 minutes together today. joined only by the chief diplomats and one translator each. president trump reportedly went there on russian meddling according to his secretary of state and for his part vladimir putin reportedly agreeing to a limited cease-fire in southwestern syria. we have reporters with eyes on all of the developments. but first, secretary tillerson spoke to reporters in hamburg after that marathon session. >> the president opened the meeting with president putin by raising the concerns of the american people regarding russian interference in the 2016

election. they had a very robust and lengthy exchange on the subject. the president pressed president putin on more than one occasion regarding russian involvement. president putin denied such involvement as i think he has in the past. the two leaders agreed though that this is a substantial hindrance and the ability of us to move the russian/u.s. relationship forward and agreed to exchange further work regarding commitments of noninterference. >> and for a meeting that started with a hand shake and an american president describing it as an honor to be with putin, this too from the secretary of state. >> there was a very clear, positive chemistry between the two. i think again -- and i think the positive thing i observed and i have had many, many meetings with president putin before, is

there was not a lot of relitigating of the past. >> mr. secretary, can you say if the president was unequivocal in his view if russia meddled in the election or produced evidence? >> the russians have asked for proof and evidence. i'll leave that to the intelligence community to address. the answer to that question. and again, i think -- i think the president at this point he pressed him and then, you know, felt like at this point let's talk about how do we go forward. >> yeah, let's. here's how the secretary's counterpart, sergey lavrov, described that part of the meeting saying that president trump accepted putin's election hacking denial. >> trump raised the topic of elections in the talks thinking that anything that these allegations are groundless. that's what he said.

president trump has said that he has heard clearly from mr. putin that the russian government has not interfered in the elections and he accepts these -- the things that putin -- mr. putin has said. president trump said that in the u.s., there are still some circles who are talking about the russian alleged intrusion and russian alleged attempt to influence the u.s. elections. so president trump and president putin has discussed these issues and all these issues will become matters for our cooperation and the special electoral group that were created towards that. the fourth thing is that we have agreed to expedite the procedure to -- for near -- to the u.s. >> this is the scene right now in hamburg. protests so large that first lady melania trump had to cancel

an appearance this morning. we'll be keeping an eye on that. let's get to our team of reporters. nbc's peter alexander is in hamburg. also joining us, "new york times" white house correspondent peter baker and international affair columnist susan glasser and hans nichols at the pentagon. peter alexander, already i don't know if they're different versions but certainly different nuances on the question of meddling. it sounds like secretary tillerson who is really making his first high profile foray as secretary of state by coming out of the meeting and saying they had great chemistry and how president trump did raise the issue, but sergey lavrov who said that president trump accepted putin's denial. >> yeah, to be clear about that, nicolle, just as soon as we heard secretary tillerson wrap

up his remarks and we heard also from the foreign minister lavrov, we reached out to the white house official who is disputing lavrov's basically the assertion that donald trump did accept that denial from vladimir putin. but be clear in simple terms. this is sort of an agree to disagree moment. this issue remains unresolved. even as the two sides said they had agreed to sort of a working group, a cyber security task force to talk about issues of interference broadly going forward in the future. and the president, president trump, gets to say that he raised this issue as you heard from secretary tillerson. it was robust and lengthy exchange on that topic, that hes from -- that he pressed vladimir putin on it multiple times and when he asked for proof, secretary tillerson said we leave that to the intelligence community. president trump even cast doubt on the intelligence community's only assessment that russia had meddled in the election. at the end of the day i think

people will be able to take away from what they want. others will be satisfied that he brought it up and others are dissatisfied he didn't push forward. in the words of rex tillerson at some word we need to move forward. >> peter alexander, obviously the white house had a very clear strategy for this meeting and i suspect it all week that they were deliberately lowering expectations when hr mcmaster said that the president will talk about whatever is on his mind. i assume they want us to look at the cease-fire in syria as a major deliverable from this lengthy session. is that the case? >> yeah, no, i think that's right. i think the president has always cast himself as a deal maker. he leaves this first significant meeting on the world stage, of course he's had some series of other bilateral meetings in recent weeks and months but this one being the biggest one. he comes out with a deal, a cease-fire in southwest syria. beyond that, of course, i think what was notable is that they got to stay on the message by putting rex tillerson out in

front. while the president we heard yesterday in warsaw and teleprompter, he delivers the message as the white house desires it but when he's asked questions in a news conference sometimes he can get off the message. here today rex tillerson kept him really on topic as it were and beyond that at the end of this day, they get to say, hey, we thought it would go 30 minutes. this thing went 130 minutes. you suspect there couldn't be cooperation look at all the cooperation we had to work at. >> peter baker, you have been a critical eye on many a white house readout from a bilat, with vladimir putin and others. i wonder what you make of the fact that coming right out of this the only two government officials to have been in the room with the two leaders and to read them out told different stories on the very vital question of russian meddling in the 2016 election. >> no, they did. that's very important obviously. and it's not -- it's not atypical of a meeting with the russian officials to come out with the different understanding

of what was said. now, you're right. i mean, literally minutes after this meeting is over you have them providing very different account of whether or not president trump accepted president putin's denial of any involvement in the u.s. election last year. that's not a small point. it's an important point. whether minister lavrov is exaggerating what trump is saying or not, that's an open question. russians are known to spin conversations to their benefit in the past. look at how they handled the meeting between lavrov and president trump in the oval office a month ago. it leaves questions open. and you heard democrats back here in washington criticizing the president for seeming to give equal weight to the american's intelligence conclusions and the russian's conclusions. >> susan glasser, let me bring you in on this with your own extensive body of knowledge of vladimir putin and all things russia, what do you make of the

reference to certain circles? it looked like lavrov was trying to align his leader as a skeptic, that includes every national security and intelligence official that's testified before congress on this very specific question. so what do you make of the positioning and have the russians already one upped the americans in terms of getting out their spin on the question of russian hacking before we did and more effectively maybe than we did? >> well, i think the answer is a little bit embedded in the question there, nicolle. i do agree with you that in fact the russians by disputing in effect tillerson's readout of the meeting have already muddied the waters on this. so they have already ensured it seems to me that the question of trump and what trump and putin really said about the russian 2016 hacking will inevitably be a big part of the news story overshadowing in a way whatever they did agree to on syria which it's still unclear to me exactly how significant that is. there have been cease-fires in

the past that russia and the united states have agreed to. so there's a syria thing, but already here we are once again talking about what really happened in the meeting between putin and trump. if trump's goal was to put that russia controversy behind him, i don't think that's happened as a course of this conversation. by the way, lavrov the russian foreign minister is a veteran of these kinds of meetings and i think, you know, whatever he did, he did very purposefully. and basically, they have now not only confused us as to what exactly occurred between trump and putin but even if you discount what lavrov said and you just listened to what tillerson said by his own account, it was "a" an extremely positive interchange between putin and trump. i think they were clearly making common cause, even at the press' expense in the public repertoire. so it was an extremely positive

meeting between trump and putin, and not a stern finger i wagging about the election and then there was the issue of let's just move on. so trump wasn't in there saying, you know, there's going to be serious repercussions from this or anything of the sort. >> i mean, susan, you make me sort of contemplate with the -- what the optics might have been. if the americans had stormed out, said we couldn't get to the rest of our agenda. we wanted to spend two hours and 15 minutes with the russians because there's so much we can do. we can collaborate on syria. we could collaborate on isis. but if they had actually said we can't get beyond your inability or year reluctance to concede the point what everyone said -- i mean, the optics really are not that great to have spent over two hours with someone and to not have a concession from the russians that no, we'll never do it again. seems to me like a clear loss and a clear failure and you're right. tillerson is not denying lavrov's account. he's sort of staying silent on

the question of whether or not trump accepted his denial or not. he's not de -- i mean, i know we have peters reporting and there's no reason to question it. but it's not clear from tillerson who again is the only white house official who was in the room, it's not clear from tillerson's public comments that trump didn't accept putin's denial. is it? >> no i think your point is very important. if tillerson is denying it, then he should come out and say that, or issue a clarifying statement and that would be very interesting if we're now in a he said/he said situation. but my guess is that you find some way of squaring this circle. these are very skillful diplomats both of them. they're careful with words and there's a way to square it. but your other point is an important one, which is to say why didn't putin -- why wasn't he pressed further by trump? well, trump gave us the answer himself it seems to me in the news conference in poland. even donald trump on the eve of this meeting with putin has not

accepted fully the finding of u.s. intelligence agencies that it was russian meddling. he continues to say perhaps it was other countries as well. so clearly, donald trump is not going to go into this meeting with putin and make a big issue of it. >> and it's surprising i think to a lot of people that he raised it at all. that was the low bar i have been talking about all week. so low it could have been underground. hans, it to bring you in on the question of the temporary cease-fire in southwestern syria because a former obama official with national security responsibilities said to me this has been tried before. how big of a deal is this and how optimistic are folks that you cover that this is a significant breakthrough if it is at all? >> it's not so much optimism because this is a part of syria where the u.s. has virtually no presence. every morning we get flight ops, strike lists and it's almost all along the euphrates valley. nothing really happens there. and in terms of u.s. air power in southwestern syria.

that's why this is so curious. when this first broke i was at an event with the british defense minister. he was dismissive of it because they tried cease-fires before. but when we asked around at the pentagon they said check with state. they didn't appear at least some quarters here appear to know that this was in the works. again, there aren't a lot of operations. u.s. side in southwest syria. all the action is up in the euphrates and in the valley. what you do have in this part of syria is some rebel groups that are challenging the regime, but it's unclear how jordan, the u.s. and russia, the three parties of that are really part of that conversation. so there's a lot we don't know about this cease-fire and it's puzzling on many aspects. >> hans, this is the second time this week they have told you to go check with the state department. i think you should -- i think you should ask andrea for a little bit of her beat since you keep getting the brush-off. >> i clearly need the help. she's a better reporter. >> she's the best.

you are too. my thanks to peter alexander, peter baker, susan glasser and hans nichols. thank you for spending some time with me. when we come back for two men who never met until today, their comments on election meddling sound similar. don't let the photo-ops fool you. donald trump woke up the same way he does most days by taking to twitter. raising a lot of questions before that meeting with putin even started. ♪

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they can be in russia. in asia. even in america. latin america. they can even be hackers by the way in the united states. >> it was russia and i think it could have been other people and other countries. could have been a lot of people interfered. i said it very -- i said it very simply. i think it could have been russia but i think it could have been other countries and i won't be specific. >> put your finger anywhere on the map of the world and everywhere you will hear complaints that american officials are interfering in internal electoral processes. >> i think a lot of people interfere. i think it's been happening for a long time. for many, many years. >> one says tomato, one says tomato. rex tillerson said president trump pressed putin, but his own words raised questions about how seriously he takes the issue. joining me is ambassador nick burns, a former u.s. ambassador to nato who is now harvard's --

now at harvard's kennedy school of government. i know you testified very forcefully and passionately and you said it would be a dereliction of duty for an american president not to acknowledge russia's role in hacking. i wonder if you were satisfied by the readout you heard from america's secretary of state rex tillerson? >> well, nicolle, it's certainly positive that president trump raised the issue directly with president putin. he had to do that to defend our country. it's not surprising that putin would deny it or try to obfuscate it by blaming it on other countries and a you saw general clapper's interview with andrea at noon and that they were united on russia being the hackers. if that's the case i think president trump in leaving that meeting on a call for sanctions against -- he ought to call for sanctions against russia.

he ought to make it hurt and make the russians understand if they planned to intervene in the midterms in 2018 or in the general election in 2020 there's a severe penalty and the advantage to president trump in doing this is that the senate voted 97-2 to sanction russia and the bill is now in the house of representatives. i think that's the appropriate, effective next step. >> let me ask you about how the meetings go down. so we're told that president trump raised the question of russian meddling in our 2016 election at the beginning of the meeting. we are told by the russians by sergey lavrov that putin denied it and president trump accepted that denial. the meeting then went on presumably for another two hours. whose version of the meeting do you accept, that donald trump accepted putin's denial? or this notion that the white house is pushing back against that? because it seems to me that if you went on for another two hours, maybe you said what you had to say to keep everyone in the room. >> well, i think that you're

right, that it all depends on how it was said, with what degree of conviction and strength and frankly if putin denied that he interfered in our elections we should not accept that denial. because we know that he and his foreign minister are accustomed to fabricating information and we also know that our intelligence community is -- it's a rare thing, completely united on what happened. so we cannot accept the denial. the only possible recourse here it seems to me is sanctions. and republican leaders are calling for it. democratic leaders are calling for it in both houses of congress. putin has to understand that's a penalty. you can't get away with disavowing it and expect that our president will take that at face value. >> ambassador nick burns, thank you so much for hopping on the phone with us and spending some time with us. i want to bring in my panel. friday date, the rev al sharpton, president of the national action network along

with yahoo news anchor, and white house reporter jonathan what mere and with us from providence, robert traynham, former adviser to the bush/cheney campaign. i want to start with you. you have been monitoring the russian press and the american press, but they are -- they were the first to sort of report on lavrov's description of this meeting being that donald trump accepted putin's denial. >> yeah, rt tweeted out that they accepted the denial and they went on to talk about the other issues like ukraine and syria. listen, the president walked in with a weaker hand because he throughout the past few months, throughout the election has questioned his intelligence agencies, he has questioned what they have said. what they have unanimously said that the russia tried to interfere in our elections. how can he go in and confront vladimir putin and say, stop it in a serious manner without vladimir putin saying, what are you talking about? of course i didn't do it, but

listen to what you have been saying. you don't even believe your own intelligence communities. there are many similarities, but many differences and one is that vladimir putin will never publicly question or disparage his own intelligence agencies. so from that perspective the president couldn't offer anything other than raising the subject and moving on to something else. >> do you think donald trump thinks that today went well? >> i think he largely does. i mean, vladimir putin has had an outsized place in president trump's mind since 2013 when he was a celebrity developer and reality star. >> when in 2013 he said, i think we could be best friends. >> and retweeting about a beauty pammant in moscow. he is someone that he said was a stronger leader than president obama and of course he has discounted time and time again the findings of the intelligence community that russia was behind the hacking. he raised doubt over and over in part because any suggestion of

election hacking in president trump's mind fuels this talk he might not be a legitimate president. we know he's deeply insecure about the loss of the popular vote and about this too. i think he went in toe to toe with vladimir putin for two hours and 15 minutes. he said something about the election happening which was not a guarantee. yesterday he sort of suggested he may not bring it up. today he did. he was in there. he spent a long time in there. he probably feels good about it. >> i thought all week that the white house was deliberately lowering the bar so low that anything that happened in this meeting would have been viewed as a success. but i think that could obscure the reality which is that no one knows what president trump said when putin denied meddling in our elections and we know there's no discrepancy between what the intelligence services say between what the national security folks, between what what the homeland security folks testified to and the military experts. what is sort of the catalyst for unpacking what under girds that

constant reflex to sort of have putin's back? >> well, i think that the fact is that unless this president, donald trump, comes out and says, all right, fine, he says this, our intelligence forces say something else, i support that and i'm calling on the house to agree with the senate on sanctions and if we find out down the road we're wrong then we can revisit and remove sanctions. anything short of that, then i have to go with lavrov, that he accepted what putin said. because there's no penalty. i mean, if you're in court and a guy says i'm innocent and the judge says, all right, go home, then what are we talking about here? unless there is a penalty here, he accepted it. you have to remember, nicolle, he's in the room with tillerson who got the highest soviet award you can get as a nonsoviet person.

and with lavrov who he told him, don't forget, i fired the nutjob the guy investing this. he referred to the investigator as a nutjob or a nut case. it's crazy. >> robert traynham, so sergey lavrov has been in the room with the president before. he was in there with sergey kislyak who was the russian ambassador to washington. and the rev is right, he said in front of them, firing james comey relieved some of the pressure on the u.s./russian relationship. what do you think went down in the two hour and 15 minute period? give us the positive and the negative. any cease-fire in syria is good news for all the civilians there. >> absolutely. look, starting with the positive you're right. talking about syria and coming one a cease-fire, that's a home run for the president. i suspect and you know this better than anybody else that the president's staff probably

set the bar really low by saying, look, we'll schedule this, we'll tell everyone this is 30 minutes. if it goes 35 minutes that's a home run. if it goes 40 minutes that's a home run. you know what also for the optic sakes let's throw in the first lady, let's try to interrupt the meeting. you know, mr. president, if you feel that the meeting is going pretty well, wave us away. >> you know what reminded me -- you go on a blind date and you have a friend text you ten minutes in in case you show up and it stinks. it seems like a ruse to me. all the spin and optics -- like they were trying to be russian. >> absolutely. but look, the reality is that it worked, right? because look the president's staff knew that if in fact they did not proactively bring up the russian thing, tomorrow's and tonight's headlines would be about the hacking stuff. if he came out in 10 or 15 minutes the headlines would have been that putin rolled the president. so the reality is starting off

with the positive again, i think from an optics standpoint, i give this -- i give the trump white house a b-plus, a-minus. in terms of the substance we don't know. but in terms of the optics i have to give the white house a solid b-plus for this. i think they did a pretty good job. >> all right. we'll take a very quick break. but up next, more dangerous clashes as protesters and police face off near the g20 summit. nbc's keir simmons is right in the middle of it all. he joins us when we come back. there's nothing more important to me than my vacation.

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as 20 of the world's most powerful leaders convene in hamburg, germany, chaos has hit the streets. as many as 10,000 protesters are on the fringes of the summit. police are fending them off with water cannons and tear gas. keir simmons has been in the middle of all of it. what's the scene right now? >> reporter: nicolle, you just -- you have to excuse me a

little bit. because we got a face full of the tear gas before you came to us. but the protesters have taken control of these streets, nicolle. they have lit that fire. and in another direction another fire. let's just point out that that further back is the police front line. the police have been there now i would say for an hour, two hours. not making any progress. because every time they push the protesters away, the protesters, the rioters come back with bottles and debris and pieces of concrete that they're smashing to use to throw and they are throwing them at the police. and then cheering when they manage to push the police offensive back again. let me just show you one thing. there are guys climbing this scaffolding, putting up posters. i guess getting into this building. this is complete chaos on the streets of hamburg. let me just take you in this direction because this is where there have been the most costly

fought battles with protesters. let's look at that fire there. where you can see how little control the police have over this area by the fact that the fire has been able to burn, burn down like that. okay. we're going to go down this street where there have been continuing battles with protesters. as you can see, those are still playing out. there is water cannons being used in anger. but i have to tell you, there have been -- there has been a water cannon firing here for hours. and they haven't managed to take control. we are told that there are stores here -- there you go. there's that water cannon again. you can see that some of the guys -- some of these rioters now are picking up bits of concrete that they have managed

to smash and they are throwing them at the police. look at that scene. look at that street. this is pitch battles with the police and what are protesters and rioters and criminal elements now. we are being told that store shop fronts have been smashed and that property is being taken from those stores. miguel our camera man is just getting a shot -- incredible shot of this police water cannon pushing back anyone who gets close to it. but nicolle, these are stunning scenes when you think that this is happening a mile or so away from where the g20 leaders have been having dinner. president trump, the first lady. >> i want to ask you, have the police lost control of the area in which the protesters were supposed to be having their

protest? because i understand that first lady melania trump had to cancel an event this morning. so i wonder if the police and the authorities have lost control of the territory that was supposed to contain the protests in? >> reporter: well, they definitely lost control of this area. i mean, you know, you can see we have been here now for a number of hours. now, let me just -- i'm going to pause because it did sound as if we were going to get a police -- a police pushing through here. but they -- but they have lost control. just look this way. look at the chaos on this street. another fire further down there. i mean, this is an area that is a distance away from where the g20 is being held, nicolle. i have seen a diplomatic convoy attacked by protesters. i don't think that any of the --

that any world leader was in that convoy. but still, i think one aspect of this is that the police are more satisfied to leave these guys here because they aren't threatening the g20 itself. but it's not the kind of image you have to assume that angela merkel wanted. you can see the extraordinary, continued running battles that these protesters are having with the police. that is what we mean when we say that the german authorities have lost control of this part of this city. >> all right, keir simmons, i'm going to mother hen you and tell you to please please please stay safe. come back with us any more dramatic developments there. still ahead, despite his high stakes meeting today, president trump had other things on his mind this morning calling out of all people on the day he's meeting with vladimir putin former clinton campaign chairman john podesta. more on his bizarre tweet next. ♪

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before the president's highly anticipated bilateral meeting with vladimir putin he gave the world a window into his thoughts on the 2016 election. tweeting, everyone here is talking about why john podesta refused to give the dnc server to the fbi and the cia, disgraceful. end tweet. here what he was referring to was hamburg, germany, attending a g20 summit where apparently everyone was talking about john podesta. well, what do you think about that? >> so i was with the president on his last foreign trip and during that time he received high marks for his twitter discipline. in fact, he barely tweeted at all. if he did it was just photos or standard politician stuff. clearly he's restored the international service plan to his phone. and this sounds much more like him. >> yeah. >> and that this is something it again shows he's unable to get passed what happened last year. that he's trying to shift blame.

again, hours before he's meeting with president putin he's trying to make the democratic side of the election hacking the real story. >> al, rev, i felt this way about yesterday where the adults on trump's staff wanted us to focus on the teleprompter, 35 minute speech and more stuff. but he woke up and went to the press conference and he beat up on the press, called us fake news. he was this wishy-washy, you know, muddied water version of the russian hack which isn't muddy at all in anyone's eyes except his. what do you make of sort of the sunrise tweets this morning? >> i mean, i think that when you -- it's scary in the sense when you think the president of the united states at g20 with all of the concerns we have now, we're looking at the syria situation, we're looking at north korea and all. and he's worried about john podesta? i mean, that's what he's thinking about? and then he's hearing in his head that everybody's talking

about this? >> hearing in his head. >> these are the things in his head he's hearing. but i think that if you look at the fact that he's talking about podesta this morning, he's talking about all of this yesterday. if this is the mentality -- >> you know between japan and the europeans. sort of -- >> we no -- we know he doesn't care about that. so podesta said, thank god he went on vacation with his service plan intact because he wrote i'm on a cross country trip with my wife, pulled in for a pit stop to see our whack job potus real donald trump is tweeting about me at the g20. get a grip, the russians

committed a crime when they stole my e-mails to get you elected president. by the way i had nothing to do with the dnc. god only knows if you'll be raving about my on twitter by the time we get to utah. dude, get your head in the game. you're representing the united states at the g20. so robert traynham, just at a factual level, there was so much wrong with the president's tweets. clearly the plan to vet the tweets through a legal fact checking process a bust. but donna brazile was the chair of the dnc after debbie wasserman schultz so at no point was podesta the dnc chair. as i remember this -- he turned over -- i mean, he was the victim of a crime that was committed against him. so john podesta had always cooperated with law enforcement. where do you start to process everything that's wrong with the way that the leader of the free world woke up this morning? >> so i have a theory behind

this. donald trump knew exactly what he was doing. remember, he's a producer. remember, he knows the television like better than anyone else. i think in his mind, i think he was trying to say, you know what, about this whole russia thing, let me talk to putin about this. but let me throw everyone off the scent here and tweet about john podesta. the reality is that no one outside of washington, d.c. knows who john podesta is with the exception of vladimir putin. so in donald trump's head i think he was trying to produce this from thousands of miles apart. i know that sounds twisted but this is what the president does. he's crazy like a fox. he understands -- remember, donald trump not speaking to us. he's not speaking to the corridor. he is speaking to the people who voted for him and i'm quoting him directly. i can go out and shoot someone on fifth avenue and my supporters will still support me. he's speaking to his base and what's also ironic about this, nicolle, is the tens of thousands of people that retweeted and that liked his comment. so again, donald trump is

speaking to his base. he knows what he's doing here. at least that's my theory. >> i remember traveling with a president and before a meeting, especially one with putin, he would have been getting briefed but pruitt once told our friend and colleague mika brzezinski who he trusts on foreign policy, he said i speak to myself, i have a very good brain, i talk to a lot of people at the appropriate time i'll tell you who those people are. but i speak to a lot of people but my priority consultant is myself. and i have you know, i have a good instinct for this stuff. is robert traynham right? is his brain all he needs before a meeting with vladimir putin? >> well, unfortunately the answer is no. i think -- i say unfortunately because he represents us as americans. he went into the meeting obviously knowing he has to address hacking in some way, shape or form. he went after john podesta and

the russians were the ones who stole his e-mail, hacked into his e-mail so how does he go after podesta and then meet with vladimir putin and go after him? he can't have it both ways. vladimir putin on the other hand does do his homework. did study donald trump very well. knew how to approach him. knew how to bend to his softer side. remember, he called him lightly -- and he praised him throughout the election. listen, this guy is smarter than most people would know and i'm looking forward to meeting with him. so i think going forward, this was an important step for the two to meet. to put this passed them and obviously next year vladimir putin has his own election to focus on in russia and in the meantime the two will probably meet within the next year or so. up next, putin wasn't the only world leader that president trump faced off with today. he and mexico's president got together earlier in the day and despite mexico being a long time ally that meeting might not have been quite as cozy. ks

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back at the g-20, vladimir putin wasn't the only president donald trump had a face-to-face meeting with today. he also met with mexico's preside president. but what was hoped to be a promising reset after past grievances soon turned awkward thanks to that wall again. >> it's great to be with my friend the president of mexico

renegotiating nafta and some other things with mexico. we'll see how it all turns out. but i think we've made very good progress. >> so where do things stand on big beautiful giant wall that mexico will pay for? >> first of all, credit with the shouted question. the wall is still mostly just an idea in president trump's head at this point. there is no major legislation. they have backed off some of the demands in the budget for it. the mexican president's original -- supposed to be their first meeting was going to be in washington which was canceled after at that point president trump said he was forging forward with the wall. but it's still something he talked about and recent lid in iowa, he suggested that the wall could be solar paneled. >> we have that. let's listen to the sweetener,

solar. >> we're thinking about building the wall as a solar wall so it creates energy. and pays for itself. this way mexico will have to pay much less money. and that is good. right? >> that is good, robert? >> listen to what he said there. i was speechless. but listen to what he said. he said it would pay for itself. he said that in the middle of the cheer. so here's what i think. i think somebody went in toto t oval office and said mr. president, you know, maybe the wall could be paid for with solar power. and he got that in his head and probably the next day that's what he said. the reality is that the wall is not going to be built for legal reasons for constitutional reasons, for imminent domain reasons and also as mentioned for budgetary reasons. yet again this is a fantasy that the president is playing to his base and it's even more sad that there is a round of applause

every time he says it because his base doesn't know any better whether or not this is true or faufls. this is not normal for any politician to get away with this, but let alone the president of the united states to speak so declaratively and it be so completely false. >> i think about the american president and the american president's nemesis was bob rumson was running for president by telling everybody what to be afraid of and who is to blame. this is so cynical, but it works with his base. >> it works with his base, but at some point i think that they will get tired of not getting some of the things that he promised like repeal and replace obamacare, like the wall. i mean, you can't play this but so long. i think -- i agree with robert that he is great in if terms ever changing subjects and playing television, but where he falls apart is he seems to have

no real grasp with what is going on and with facts, he has nothing that is even remotely connected to facts. so he sees something on television, he completes it like i've said to you before. let's not forget, this is a guy on black history day commended frederick douglas for the good work he's done who was dead for over a century. so if you're going to do this, at least check the facts of what you will use for an optical diversion. >> all right. we'll take a quick break. e my t. i need an insulin that fits my schedule. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ (announcer) tresiba® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. don't use tresiba® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar, or if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. don't share needles or insulin pens. don't reuse needles. the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which may cause dizziness, sweating, confusion, and headache. check your blood sugar. low blood sugar can be serious and may be life-threatening.

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everything i know when the u.s./russia relationship i learned from george w. bush and

his dog. >> i introduced putin to barney. do you remember barney the little scottish terrier? he kind of dissed him. he looked at him like you think that's a dog? anyway, so a year later, putin says would you like to meet high dog. laura and i were with putin outside of moscow. and i said yeah. and out comes a giant hound kind of loaniping across and putin s bigger, stronger and faster than barney. and, you know, it speaks volumes when you listen to what somebody says. >> so trump should get a hound. >> so it is about size with putin. >> he lacks a certain compassion chip, i'll give him that. in the interview with oliver stone, one of the most telling parts was when oliver asked him if he likes his grandchildren and he said yes, but i never really see him. he's not a guy who will cry over

watching the titanic. so it says a lot when you try to open up his human side and there is not that much there. he's a loner. >> well, he has donald trump. thanks to my panel. that does it for this hour. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> hi, nicolle. >> i missed you. >> appreciate you saying that. i missed seeing you. i'll leave it at that. thank you, nicolle. if it's friday, no one else was in the room where it happened. tonight behind closed doors -- >> president putin and i have been discussing various things and i think it's going very well. >> what really went on today when president trump met president putin. plus can the g-20 leaders work out any solution to north korea? >> i don't draw red lines. >> and trumpcare trouble. >> every other developed country can ask do that, why conditions america?