president trump. and i hate that because i really like what he's doing regarding north korea, putting them on notice about no missile will ever be used to hit america. i like what he's doing in afghanistan. he took on assad. has a good plan regarding isil. when it comes to russia, i am dumbfounded. >> good morning. >> first of all, i have to say we all are, senator. this morning especially after, mika, a weekend of bizarre stories. >> wow! >> and then the defense. >> revelations. >> i get it. did i not say there's going to be a perry mason moment where they say i did it, i did it? that's what happened this weekend. >> welcome to "morning joe." big morning today. veteran columnist. msnbc contributor mike barnicle. mike. >> no, no, no, no. >> let's continue. let's continue. >> it may be summer. >> no, no. >> but there's no vacation from

this. mike barnicle. >> senior political analyst mark halperin, harold ford jr., former aide to the george w. bush white house and state department's elise jordan. michael schmidt, columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. new questions about the motives behind meetings between the president's son, donald jr., and changing explanations for those meetings. he was promised damaging information about hillary clinton before agreeing to meet with a russian lawyer with reported connections to the kremlin. the meeting took place june 9th, after trump had won in indiana, but still facing a long, grueling fight for delegates. the paper sources three advisers to the white house briefed on the meeting and two other with knowledge of it.

they met at trump tower and included trump jr., then campaign chair paul manafort, jared kushner and the lawyer, natalia veselnitskaya. >> exactly. show those pictures again. this story, just for those of you out there that want to start hash taging fake news, which donald trump jr. has been doing a great bit lately, #fakenews. i wondered why he was amping it up. now maybe we know. those of you who want to talk about fake news as we move forward this did not come from an intel agency. these new york time stories all confirmed by people who work for donald trump. we can go forward now. >> rob goldstone told "the washington post" he arranged the meeting at the request of a russian client and also attended. more on goldstone in a moment. on saturday, donald trump

jr. told msnbc news, quote, we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children. >> he cares about children? >> that was active and popular with american families years ago and since ended by the russian government but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up. i was asked to attend the meeting by an aacquaintance but was not told the name of the person i would be meeting with beforehand. >> okay. so, mark halperin, notice that the first explanation on saturday, it's about adoption. it's about the kids. their statement on saturday says absolutely nothing about, as "the new york times" says, dirt offered on hillary clinton. >> a lot of interesting things here. one of the things that's not explained is why he said what he said saturday and was forced to change his story. >> forced? >> forced to change his story by

seemingly what the "new york times" was able to learn. whoever is helping "the new york times" with these stories seems to be doing it in a way like maximum damage on at least donald trump jr. even if you accept his sunday version. accept his sunday version, ask no questions, have no suspicions, he is in a world of hurt. >> no mention of hillary clinton in the saturday statement. but when the times reported sunday that trump was told russia had damaging information on clinton, he replied with a much longer statement. i was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance i knew from the 2013 miss universe pageant with an individual who i was told might have information helpful to the campaign i was not told her name prior to the meeting. i asked jared and paul to attend but told them nothing of the substance. >> stop right there. mark, you've dealt with these people. we've dealt with these people. how likely is it that don jr. would have called paul manafort and jared in, with all the

meetings and all the things we knew about on how that campaign ran, how likely is it that don jr. would have said, hey, i've got this meeting, guys, come to my office. i'm not going to tell you what it is. middle of the campaign. >> it's not totally impossible. even if you accept their version of the events, the fact that they had this meeting and failed to disclose it is phenomenal. it's possible that such a thing could occur the way they describe it, but unlikely. >> extraordinarily unlikely. this is not how they did business. >> one of the keys to the story in "the times" is the line that three advisers to the white house were briefed on the meeting, indicated to "the times" that the meeting did occur. that would seem to indicate that they feel that donald trump jr. has placed his father in some position of peril. >> at least his father is going to protect him.

oh, wait. no. no. actually, they put out a statement saying i know nothing. you know what? i was not with fredo in vegas. he was setting up those deals on the side. >> all right. i'll continue. >> okay. >> we had a meeting june 2016 after pleasantries were exchanged the woman stated she had information that individuals connected with russia were funding the democratic national committee and supporting ms. clinton. her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. no details or supporting information was provided or even offered. it quickly became clear she had no meaningful information. she then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of russian children and mentioned the magnitsky act. it became clear to me this was the true agenda all along and the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting. i interrupted and advised her that my father was not an elected official but rather a

private citizen and that her comments and concerns were better addressed if and when he held public office. the meeting lasted approximately 20 to 30 minutes. >> about the length of the bill clinton/loretta lynch meeting. >> goodness. >> david ignatius, this is fascinating. his defense says we thought she was coming in to give us information. thought she was going to collude with us and give us bad information on hillary clinton. but when we found out that she did not have damaging information on hillary clinton and could not collude with us and it was about adoptions, we called an abrupt end to the meeting. this is a defense? i'm with mark halperin. what did don jr. find out between saturday when he lied and sunday when he was forced to tell the truth? and why was he forced to tell the truth? >> he clearly discovered that others were putting out a true

account of what happened and that he had to square his account with it or look like he was lying. i just would note on this question of adoptions, the reason that then emerged after the initial dishing dirt on hillary clinton, it's not about adoptions. it's about opposing what's called the magnitsky act, an attempt to hold the regime of vladimir putin accountable for the death of an anti-corruption crusader named magnitsky. this has been a key thorn in putin's side. this woman was coming even on the best analysis to argue the case of putin against this american legislation, attempting to hold him to account. this revelation -- there have been so many but i think this is really significant. it's so early. june 2016, it's so direct. a known kremlin propagandist.

paul manafort, whom we are just beginning to learn -- there will be a series of revelations, i'm just sure, about manafort. final point, interesting, what's the lead at the white house? that don trump jr. said my father knew nothing about this. don jr. is falling on his sword saying my father wasn't aware. and, again, i think we'll have more such statements from others. >> and then there's this. if you look at it this way. government officials first learned of the meeting when jared kushner revised a security clearance form that failed to disclose the controversial meeting. the third kremlin connected russian that the president's son-in-law has failed to disclose on government forms, meeting with russia. kushner did not disclose a private meeting with the russian ambassador and also failed to disclose a private meeting with the head of russian state-run

bank closely tied to vladimir putin. lawmakers are questioning whether the president's son-in-law, a top white house adviser, should be granted security clearances after this third revelation. kushner is one of several trump associates who offered on the record or under oath omissions or falsehoods about meeting with russians. also on the list, vice president pence, mike flynn, jeff sessions, the president's son-in-law and now don jr. >> forgot to disclose it after meeting with the russian ambassador. he met with the head of a russian-run bank with close ties to vladimir putin. he forgot to disclose it. he met with a russian lawyer for the purposes of attending a meeting in which dirt was going

to be dished on hillary clinton, while they were still trying to lock down the republican nomination. he forgot to disclose it. lawmakers on capitol hill now understandably are asking whether he should ever get a security clearance. where does this go and of what interest might this be to bob mueller? >> well, this story, which is done by three of my colleagues, it pushes the issue forward. because if jared kushner was just a regular government employee, there's no way he would be able to keep his security clearance if there had been this many misstatements about his meetings. so it's clear he will continue to have one because the president would like him to have one. but if he was a regular government person, that wouldn't happen. the other thing here is that don jr. told us in march that he had not met with any russians in his capacity with the campaign, that

there hadn't been any of that. it's not just a revised statement from saturday to sunday. but it's the fact that in march he said there had been nothing like this at all. >> and, michael, this continues to happen. the attorney general of the united states, forgetting meetings with russians. don jr. forgetting meeting with russians. by the way, don jr., a guy who several years ago, said that most of the trump money came from russians. and this was a guy that set up the meeting, was connected with the miss universe pageant, a billionaire, had a client who was a billionaire in russia. this was a pretty complex relationship, intertwined relationship. there's no way don jr. did not remember this meeting took place. there is no way that kushner did

not remember this meeting took place. there is no way that paul manafort did not remember this meeting took place. they lied in disclosure forms and lied to the media. >> this comes back to march. so, by march, it was clear to the trump campaign that this russia issue was not going to be going anywhere and it was going to be around for a while. so, what doesn't make sense here is why they didn't just take all the meetings that they knew about and said, look, got nothing to hide here. here are all the meetings. here say list, and put it out. it would have taken the issue, a lot of the oxygen out of it. what we have here is the fact that even in march, when they knew that the russia issue wasn't going to go away, they told one story and they continued to revise it. as democrats would say, they would say, look, if there's nothing to hide here, they certainly created the perception that there is. >> so, elise, on top of it, there have been every step of the way questions about russia.

and questions about why trump doesn't seem to want to be sharp about the truth about russia. how could they forget these meetings, given the fact that russia has been a key question since before trump even won the presidency? >> i think we need to look at the timeline of how all of this has unfolded and the timeline in the context of this election. so this contact happened in june, early, before the convention. then you look at how -- at the convention, they ramped up, changed the language. this is a concerted effort about arming ukraine. mike flynn was setting up meetings with kislyak. all of this was starting. donald trump at the same time was saying very publicly, very loudly at a press conference, i want the hillary clinton missing e-mails. so i thought that president trump was pretty detached from all of this, that he was just letting lieutenants run rogue.

but i wonder if president trump himself had made this a priority, that he wanted those e-mails and his minions were essentially trying to fulfill that request for him. >> russia, there are 30,000, when did he say that? >> july i believe. >> wikileaks and russia, saying if you do it you'll be rewarded by the american press. >> six month noots trump presidency, the tentacles of russia story is strangling his presidency. in terms of getting anything done legislatively in congress. it's precluding anything from happening. no? >> every time he's on a roll, it gets stopped and lindsey graham, aptly and correctly saying that to form a cyber security plan with russia seems odd, to go forward -- >> republicans have finally found their voice. >> for donald trump jr., who i happen to know and is a friend, the thing i don't understand is

what was his intent going into the meeting? if you read his statement -- you've said it, joe. you've glossed over it quickly. if his intent was to extract or find information damaging to her campaign and then said she quickly changed subjects, it became clear to me all along this was her true agenda. if tha it was not going to attract him to the meeting, what was attracting him was the collus oichl collusion. >> he wanted damaging information. >> would he have asked paul manafort and jared kushner to talk about, as important as americans adopting russians may be, would the two top advisers join him in the meeting? at some point he has to answer that question. to add to elise's point, anybody with information would be rewarded by the american press. remember, we all said on the show -- jumping around a bit but

jared went on to find, reportedly, secret ways to meet with members of the russian government. you have the president and the white house smiling with the russian ambassador and russian president removing the american press. it seems odd. >> and saying in that meeting, we find comey. he was a nut case. all the pressure is off of us now. >> just had fired comey. >> that's what he said to the russians. >> even if you want to meet with him, why would you choose that day? choose the day after you fire comey to have them in and say he was a bad guy. we got rid of him. >> so many within the trump administration and trump family apparently think the russians are our friends. >> and strong leaders. >> what is the most difficult thing to explain is why do they keep meeting with high-ranking russians, or russians with close ties to vladimir putin or russians doing vladimir putin's bidding and they continue to lie before the united states congress, they continue to lie under oath.

they continue to lie on disclosure forms about those meetings. >> and they continue to try to undermine the media who is reporting on this. >> they can't even -- in this case their dupes that go #fakenews, they can't even do it. this story -- oh, wait. the call came from inside the house. there's somebody inside the white house leaking this. this is not from outside the house. it was all confirmed by people who work for donald trump. mark halperin? >> david ignatius, i want to ask you about something that's important that "the times" story doesn't get into. don jr. says that the president of the united states didn't know about this meeting. you can bet that vladimir putin knew about it, right? >> the lawyer has very close kremlin ties and it's unlikely to me she would have reported on her efforts to lobby the top

officials of the trump campaign about russian positions without reporting that back. i think one reason this surfaces is that she probably is a person who is subject to u.s. surveillance. >> exactly. >> so her conversations, her travels, her later discussions about who she met with and what they said are probably notable facts. >> so there's a flow of information now that is dangerous to the trump administration of u.s. intelligence intercepting things the russians are saying. presumably, the russians are delighting in what's going on. right? >> we're only in the imagining stage now but this is june 2016. donald trump has just shown that he's going to win the nomination. a russian plan that's been, you know, pretty low key, collecting information, penetrating servers, according to the dossier compiled long ago. parts of it may be false. parts may not. at that time in midsummer, the

russians begin changing the nature of their operations in the u.s., begin to think about helping one candidate. in addition. they always wanted to hurt hillary clinton. these are the things that mueller, it's going to take him months and months to get to the bottom of. donald trump said after his hamburg summit it's time to move on. guess what, folks, the country is not going to be able to move on until we have a clear factual accounting of this by the congressional intelligence committees and special counsel of robert mueller. >> we're not moving on. in fact, our song going to the break should be karen and richard carpenter's "we've only just begun." >> do you think general mcmaster and general mattis are on the same page with regard to the russians as it seems most of the white house staff are? >> i know that general mattis has been much more suspicious in opening to the rugs than donald

trump was. during the campaign it was one of his campaign promises. that said, i separate in my mind the benefits in this period of great tension between the u.s. and russia of having some context, some dialogue, some ability to speak about things that can be done in common in syria and ukraine and the larger question of russian covert action against the united states. it's like during the cold war. just because there's a terrible threat doesn't mean you stop talking and i think jim mattis would probably say it's good to be talking. >> michael schmidt, what dots can you connect, if any, between these new regulations and president trump's meeting with vladimir putin, the outcome and concern even among republicans that he was rolled? >> well, what i found interesting here is that this is a meeting that the government just found out about recently. the best of our knowledge, this is not something that's been on

the fbi's radar, dating back to the end of last year, the beginning -- this is something that came up from manafort's lawyers that they disclosed to congress. this mean this is will force mueller's investigators to go dig into this. they're going to want to talk to everyone in the room, look through any surveillance that they have, to see what other clues there can be and pull on the threads here. so, i think when folks say oh, it's going to take mueller a year to get to the bottom of this and whatever, i think what they fail to miss is that things like this will continue to come along and threads will continue to be pulled on. and this will go on for probably much longer than we ever thought. >> finally, mike schmidt, final question, what exactly what pattern is on your tie? cherry bombs or teardrops? >> teardrops.

i got this from a professor once. >> yeah, okay. all right. well, he must not have liked you. >> i think it looks very handsome. >> it looks good. i like the teardrops. >> you should speak. have you breakfast on your suit. >> i'm hungry. much more on this developing story. republican senator pat toomey, who says his party is having a hard time coming up with a consensus on the health care bill because they didn't think that trump would win the presidency. senator amy klobuchar and senator chris coons. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. so, your new prescription does have a few side effects. oh, like what? ♪ you're gonna have dizziness, ♪ nausea, and sweaty eyelids. ♪ and in certain cases chronic flatulence. ♪

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this morning saying putin and i discussed forming an important cyber security unit. >> i'm sure vladimir putin could be of enormous assistance since he's the one doing the hacking. >> it's not the dumbest idea i ever heard but it's pretty close. he gave a very good speech in poland, president trump did, and had what i think is a disastrous meeting with president putin. tillerson and trump are ready to forgive and forget when it comes to cyber attacks on the american election of 2016. nobody is saying, mr. president, the russians changed the outcome. you won, fair and square, but they did try to attack our election system. they were successful in many ways. and the more you do this, the more people are suspicious about you and russia. >> wow! senators john mccain and lindsey graham reacting to the president's series of tweets about his meeting with russian president vladimir putin.

senator ben sasse of nebraska tweeted this. this obviously should not happen and obviously will not happen. why the president of the united states would tweet it is inexplicably bizarre. senator marco rubio of florida tweeted that vladimir putin, quote, will never be a trusted ally or reliable, constructive partner, partnering with putin on a cyber security unit is akin to partnering with assad on a chemical weapons unit. short time later, some 13 hours after his original tweet, president trump ditched the idea. >> and a few hours after his treasury secretary said it was a wonderful idea. >> quote, the fact that the president -- president putin and i discussed a cyber security unit doesn't mean i think it can happen. it can't. but a cease fire can and did, referring to southwestern syria. >> how would you like to work for this guy and be the treasury

secretary, get your marching orders, go out and say this is a great idea and then he just chops you off right at the knees an hour or two later? >> it's a stupid idea. could never happen. >> poor secretary mnuchin, no one was more behind everything president trump did and get the legs -- >> somewhere sunday afternoon it became a horrible idea. >> so many reasons, wow, this is unbelievably unprecedented. i can't even begin. >> with us now, republican senator pat toomey, here to defend the idea of letting vladimir putin run our cyber security unit. >> it's a good idea for the fox to guard the hen house. >> what? >> i take it you agree with john mccain and everybody else, lindsey graham? >> i thought he put it well. >> it might be the dumbest idea. >> when the president says let's just forgive and forget on the

cyber theft that he's actually weakening the presidency. do you agree with that also? >> i do. i think -- look, the meeting with putin, i think, was a big disappointment. after a great speech in warsaw, which we were hoping for, waiting for. we got it. and that meeting with putin was a problem. >> what's your biggest concern about it? >> the biggest concern is vladimir putin needed to come away from that meeting understanding that he's going to have to pay a price for his aggression in crimea, his aggression in ukraine, for his aggression in the american elections and a president let him know squarely, you're going to pay a price. here are some of the features. a tough sanctions bill that just passed the senate. i'm looking forward to signing it. it's still time for us to provide defense resources for the people in ukraine. and until your behavior changes, these things don't get reversed. that should have been the message. >> that would have been good. harold? >> pat, to your point, it was

fascinating that none of that happened. we have obviously seen the reaction of mccain and lindsey. are other colleagues of yours expressing -- is this a more commonly held feeling about not only russia but other issues? >> we'll find out more tonight. we're back after being gone for the fourth of july week. i think the vote on the sanctions tell you something. >> 97-2. >> it significantly shifts power and authority from the white house, from the presidency to the congress. it takes away the president's unilateral ability to lift sanctions, for instance. i don't know the last time we did that but it's in this bill. there's a reason it's contentious in the house. >> does this impact health care and -- that's what i was really trying to get at. >> i'm sorry. i think the answer is it doesn't. >> it does not?

>> enough problems with health care, that's a big challenge for us, obviously. what's going on in this other space does not directly affect that. >> senator, is it appropriate for a presidential campaign to solicit or accept negative information about arrival from a russian national? >> no, that doesn't strike me as appropriate. >> i was going to say, that is a leading question. >> what's wrong with it? >> it encourages countries to come in and undermine our democratic process. and these countries have great capabilities to do that sort of thing. i don't think we want to have that happen. >> what does it say about paul manafort and donald trump jr. and jared kushner that they sat in the meeting, the purpose of which -- >> the intent -- >> this is breaking news. i think this came out over the weekend. how many people were in this meeting? i think we're going to find out what happened in this meeting.

we're going to learn a lot more about it and we should. >> 97-2, that was the vote? >> i think so, yeah. >> while you're proceeding on that bill, that basically strips a piece of presidential power from the president of the united states, what kind of pushback, if any, do you get from the white house or did you get from the white house? >> i've gotten zero on this. i have a great deal of interaction from the white house. >> did they lobby you before the bill? >> no, not at all. but full disclosure, no big surprise, i spend most of my work on domestic issues, economic, fiscal, tax and health care and have very extensive interactions with the white house in those areas but i didn't hear a word from anyone about the sanctions. >> one more question about this. we'll go to david ignatius and get to health care. what message do you have for your republican friends in the house who, right now, are being lobbied by donald trump to weaken or strip out key provisions of your sanctions bill that you passed 97-2? >> first of all, follow your

instincts here. i think my russian -- my russian. my republican colleagues in the house understand very well that vladimir putin is no ally, no friend. he is an adversary. that say permanent situation with respect to putin. and we have -- the consensus in congress better reflects where the american people are on this. this is the right thing to do. >> david ignatius? >> senator, your state, pennsylvania, was one of the crucial states in getting donald trump elected to the electoral college. i'm curious what you're hearing from your constituents. we talk on this show, we talk in washington about these issues. but it's always a bit of a p puzzle how much this conversation is penetrating the voters out in the country. what are you hearing from voters when you talk to them about russian meddling and the election, about trump's contacts, those of his associates with the russians? are people getting worried about

this? >> somewhat. but i'll tell you, i did a town hall meeting last week and the issue that came up, time after time, was health care. that's the front burner issue. i think there's some concern in the background about other things, including russia, certainly. but health care has been the dominant issue. >> so, to that extent, the conversation that we're having still hasn't really in the country as a whole? >> not to the same extent health care has. again, this most recent meeting, we learned a lot about it over the weekend. it's quite new. >> let's turn to health care. >> sure. >> what are you hearing from your constituents? >> as a general rule, and i think joe will back me up on this, you tend to hear from people who are angry. >> what are they angry about? >> people who think you're doing a good job don't usually call you. >> of course, with harold, everybody loved him. flowers thrown at his feet. >> never any criticism. >> in all seriousness, though? >> i think there's been a lot

that's been grossly mischaracterized about this bill. i think much of what people have heard is inaccurate. we're hearing a very vocal protest from people who don't like the direction we're heading in. >> what's inaccurate? >> i would say the characterizations of medicaid are widely inaccurate. >> the republican governors are wrong? >> yeah. look, republican governors like having a lot of free money thrown at them. that's a fun position to be in. >> it's not like they can build ferris wheels. it's to take care of the poorest among us. >> the obamacare decision that adult, able-bodied, working age people with no dependents would qualify for medicaid for the first time. obamacare promised 90% of that to be covered. so that's been attractive for a number of governors. our suggestion, our legislation is that over the course of seven

years, we will gradually transition to the point where states are paying their conventional share. less than half. federal government will still pick up the lion's share of this, but the states will eventually get to the point where they're paying the same portion for this category of medicaid eligibility for all the other category. >> do you disagree with the cbo's assessment that 22 million americans will lose coverage? >> it's widely speculative. if you dig down into the cbo score, how do they come up with these numbers? several million, they assume that if people are no longer required to, by the individual mandate, they'll decide to abandon free medicaid. free health care for your family under medicaid but if you're not forced by law to participate, i'm out of here. i think that's implausible at the very least. >> if you can't speculate on the cbo's numbers, can you tell us what the numbers are? are you concerned? >> i look at the substance of this. what are we doing here?

we keep the entire program intact, the new eligibility program intact, ask states to pay their share. maybe as important as all the rest, in the eighth year, we actually require that the program begin to grow at a slightly slower pace so that we have a chance of actually keeping up with it. joe, i've always been concerned about the growth of our entitlement programs. they are driving the fiscal train wreck we're on. medicaid is the single biggest driver of this. and someone needs to tell me, what is a more responsible reform for a giant out of control entitlement program than a slight curb in the rate at which it goes at a point in the distance future. >> why aren't we doing that with medicare? why is it we're going after the poor? >> you've got to start somewhere. >> why are we starting with the poor? >> this is the biggest of the problems, joe. it's growing most rapidly. contributing 70% of our budget deficit right now.

it's the one that's in our lap because of obamacare. i think we do need to make reforms to medicare. we need to make reforms to social security. i've been making this argument since 1988. >> i know you have and you're one of the few that you have been as consistent as a few others of us talking about entitlement reform. i'm just concerned that the one entitlement reform we start with is for the poor. let me ask what these cut does to your rural hospitals. what happens if you're in williamsport, pennsylvania, or western pennsylvania? >> these are cuts in the rate of growth. rural hospitals will be able to manage this. by the way, some of the important things -- >> have they said that to you, that they're fine? or are they complaining? >> some more so and some less so. the reality is there are whole new ways that some of our health care providers are discovering tremendous opportunities for savings. upmc, insurance, independence,

lehigh valley network. using data for people who will be likely to develop expensive and problematic health concerns, finding ways to intervene early. there's tremendous innovation that can happen if we allow it to happen. we need to put this on a sustainable path. that's what this legislation attempts to do. >> pat toomey, thank you for joining us. if you're feeling uneasy about how trump's presidency affects the u.s.'s standing in the world but can't put it into words, the incredible piece of analysis straight ahead on "morning joe."

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over the weekend, this clip took the political world by storm. political editor for australian network abc. watch this. >> what we already knew, barry, that the president of the united states has a particular skill set that he has identified an illness in western democracies but has no cure for it and seems intent on exploiting it.

we've also learned that he has no desire and no capacity to lead the world. the g20 became the g19 as it ended on the paris climate accords, the u.s. was left isolated and friendless. given that that was always going to happen, a deft president would have found an issue around which he could rally most of the leaders and he had the perfect one. north decrey's missile test. so, where was the g20 statement condemning north korea, which would have put pressure on china and russia? other leaders expected it, they were prepared to back it, but it never came. there's a tendency among some hopeful souls to confuse the speeches written for trump by the man himself, made some scripted observations in poland about defending the values of the west and is in a unique position, the one man who has the power to do something about it. but it's the unscripted trump that's real, a man who barks out bile in 140 characters, who

wastes his precious days at president at war with the west's institutions like judiciary, independent government agencies and the free press. he was an uneasy, lonely, awkward figure at this gathering and you got the strong sense that some of the leaders are trying to find the best way to work around him. donald trump's a man who craves power because it burnishes his celebrity, to be constantly talking and talked about is all that really matters. and there is no value placed on the meaning of words. so what's said one day can be discarded the next. what did we learn? we learned that donald trump has pressed fast forward on the decline of the united states as a global leader. he managed to isolate his nation to confuse and alienate his allies and to diminish america. he will see that power to china and russia, to authoritarian states that will forge a different set of rules for the 21st century. some will cheer the decline of america but i think we'll miss it when it's gone. that's the biggest threat to the values of the west, which he claims to hold so dear.

>> some pretty tough words. >> yeah. there seems to be a consensus that the president at the g20 meeting was a man alone. the question now is whether the diminished role of america that he defines, is that going to be forever? you know, what has he done? what has he done to the presidency, to the role of the presidency, the image of the presidency, to the status of the united states and the world with our allies? are we america alone now as opposed to america first? >> david ignatius, we've been asking how world leaders will respond to the donald trump of twitter and the donald trump of official statements and the -- trying to figure out -- >> scripted versus unscripted. >> the reports out of hamburg this past week seem to be that they tried to figure out a way to simply work around him so the g20 did become the g19. >> i think that workaround is one of the most important

takeaways from this meeting. the rest of the world is going to keep doing its business. merkel said it very bluntly. united states is the outlier on climate change, might have said the same thing about globalization, and we're going to keep doing our business. it was no accident that the europeans sign aid trade deal with japan to continue their business even as this was going on. the worrisome thing is that even as the united states is more distant under trump from its traditional allies, from groups like the g20, there is this new closeness between trump and putin. where they go into a meeting and trump seems to accept, endorse what he's hearing from putin, that comes up with what people deride as a joint cyber police effort, somebody like -- joint missile defense with north korea. that's the picture we have out of the g20. alienation from our traditional

allies. closeness to an adversary. >> you know, i guess it shouldn't be surprising from the experiences that we've been witnessing in the early stages of this presidency and during the trump has a very snap reactions that are often not the reaction you want to have. he can be played. and his -- he reacts to everything. so can you imagine that meeting? >> well, again -- >> i worry very much. >> it seeps he will be play -- seems he can be played more autocrats than leaders of western democratic countries. >> the guy from stral said it best. the fact that they didn't have a joint statement about north korea after meeting for two hours and 15 minutes, you have to ask what did bill clinton and loretta lynch talk about on the airplane? what could the president of the united states and the president of russia talked about for two hours and 15 minutes that would

not have a joint statement condemning north korea. >> do you know why? because vladimir putin didn't want to have a joint statement condemning north korea. he ran the meeting. he got everything that he wanted out of it, and donald trump capitulated on every point. >> and they announced perhaps the formation of a cyber security -- >> which vladimir putin would help with. if you looked at all of this from a distance, you might even think that vladimir putin and the russians have something on donald trump. it's crazy. i don't know. >> i also think this cyber security thing that trump announced on twitter, i think that that might be putin making vicious fun of him knowing he'd fall for it and announce it and then get completely landbasted for it. >> we need to go to break, but this goes back to december 2015. we're interviewing donald trump on the air, and it is the first time that donald trump compares

vladimir putin favorably to barack obama. says he's a strong leader. barack obama is a weak leader. we say what about the assassinations? there's assassinations of journalists? well, we kill a lot of people here too. it was as if he was scared to say anything negative about vladimir putin. then after he was president of the united states bill o'reilly went down the same line of questioning a year later. and he once again said, well, yes, vladimir putin has killed a lot of, but our soldiers in iraq killed a lot of people too. comparing assassinating journalists with u.s. soldiers fighting in iraq. ? thoughtful republicans, thoughtful democrats who want to run for president can look at the events of the past weekend and see a lot of room to run against donald trump just on foreign policy. >> they might want to save their party.

>> what does proovladimir putine on donald trump? >> a new report that says donald trump junior met with a russian lawyer after being promised information that could help his father's campaign. what the campaign and the chief of staff are saying about it. a millie dresselhaus doll! happy birthday, sweetie! oh, millies. trick or treat! we're so glad to have you here. ♪ what if we treated great female scientists

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still ahead, how president trump's son don junior made a potentially damaging report from the new york times much worse. we'll ask a former justice department spokesman what it might mean for the multiple investigations now underway. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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are there any ties between mr. trump, you or your campaign and putin and his regime? >> there are not. >> he won't say, well, i say this. we hear experts. his house cat at home once said this is what's happening with the russians. it's disgusting and phony. >> did anyone involved in the trump campaign have any contact with russians trying to meting with the election? >> absolutely not. >> i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate a time or two in that campaign, and i did not have communications with the russians. >> was there any contact in any way between trump or his associates and the kremlin or cutouts they had? >> i joined this campaign in the summer, and i can tell you that

all the contact by the trump campaign and associates was with the american people. >> i have nothing to do with russia. to the best of my knowledge, no person that i deal with does. >> no coalition whatsoever -- was anybody involved with trump and anybody involved with russia in the 2016 campaign? >> no. >> there was no collusion. there was no coordination. now i think the issue is officially dead. >> oh. but the trump team's russia amnesia seems to continue this morning. "the new york times" reporting on another previously undisclosed meeting. this one between donald trump junior, jared kushner, paul manafort and a russian lawyer. and donald trump junior just wants everyone to know that they were there to get information helpful to the campaign and harmful to hillary clinton. so that's the intent of the meeting. it turned out to be about something else, but he wants to clarify, they were trying to undermine hillary clinton by

getting information from a russian lawyer. am i correct? >> you actually look at the statement, and donald trump junior actually admits in the sunday statement which was, boy, quite a change from the saturday statement, that they were promised collusion when they weren't provided collusion to hurt hillary clinton -- >> they seemed to lose interest. >> they ended the meeting abruptly. i've got to say, we've got so much to go over, but something that just keeps pulling at me, and i hope "the new york times," and i know you do too, digs into this more deeply. i want to know what happened between saturday when donald trump junior said this is all about adoption -- >> who could be against adoption. >> we all love adoption. we all love adoption. and sunday when suddenly it was not about adoption but it was about collusion and getting information from the russians

that was harmful to hillary clinton. and the statement completely changed from being about adoption to actually having adoption being the reason why he shut down the meeting, because it was about the russians providing harmful information about hillary clinton to donald trump junior, paul manafort, and jared kushner. >> senator cotoomey was here an said improper to get information from the russians about information about a local rival. and he said we will find out what happened in that meeting. and that reality relates to the two competing accounts that donald trump junior gave over the weekend unlike some things in washington that remain mysteries. senator toomey made clear and republicans say it, this will not remain a mystery. >> and disgusting and phony is donald trump about a month after that meeting called allegations

that they met with russians. the attorney general said he never met with russians. kellyanne conway said it never happened. mike pence said there were no meetings between russians and the trump campaign during the campaign that they only met with american people. donald trump said no person had met with any russians. that was in february of 2017. >> and then poor reince. >> reince priebus also said none. there were no meetings. >> but still with us, mark, harold, elise, and david. joining the conversation, associate of the washington post, eugene robinson, and matthew miller. >> the reason this is an important thing is because of what young donald trump junior said about this meeting. he says i was told her name prior to the meeting. i asked jarod and paul to

attend. we had a meeting. a woman stated she had information that individuals connected to russia were funding the democratic national committee and supporting mrs. clinton. no details were provided or offers and it became clear she had no meaningful information. she then changed subjects regarding the adoption of russian children. if he went into the meeting to learn information about the russians. >> you don't forget this. >> if you're on a campaign and you've been questioned, hopefully this creates an avalanche of memory for everyone. i cannot imagine meeting with a person who is connected with the kremlin with hopes of learning information about my own campaign that i forget. >> this started six months ago. you know that everybody in the

trump administration when the troern general of the united states gets busted for not admitting that he had met with russians privately, everybody immediately has to be thinking, okay, wait, oh, wait, i met with that kremlin backed lawyer who said she had dirt on hillary clinton. and they still don't disclose it for months? >> one of the keys to these important stories in the times, the saturday and sunday story is the internal leaking in the white house to the times in terms of trying to protect, clearly, the president of the united states from the actions of his own son, donald trump junior. so saturday the story says one thing. the times then gets back to him at some point on saturday and says well, we have this. he then comes up with a statement from coming inside the white house. >> from the white house. >> let's spell it out. "the new york times" reports that donald trump junior was promised damaging information

about hillary clinton before agreeing to meet with the russian lawyer who reported connections to the kremlin. the meeting took place june 9th. trump was facing a long grueling fight for delegates. three advisors to the white house briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it. they met at trump tower and included donald trump junior, then campaign chair paul manafo manafort, jared kushner, and the lawyer. rob goldstone told "the washington post" he reranged the meeting at the request of a russian client and also attended. here now are trump junior's -- >> the russian client was somebody involved in helping to sponsor trump's miss universe pageant. >> in fairness, he said he accepted the meeting because he was told they might have

information helpful to the campaign. >> and damaging to hillary clinton. >> but i think it's bad. i'm just quoting it directly. >> yes, it is bad. >> here now are donald trump's changing statements. on saturday he told nbc news we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children that was active and popular with american families years ago and was since ended by the russian government but was not a campaign issue at the time, and there was no followup. i was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person i would be meeting with beforehand. no mention of hillary clinton in the saturday statement. when the times reported on sunday that trump was told they had damaging information on clinton, he responded with a longer statement. i was asked to have a meeting by an acquaint nans i nigh fru miss universe pageant with an individual who i was told might

have information helpful to the campaign. i was not told her name prior to the meeting. i asked jared kushner and paul to attend but told them nothing of the substance. we had a meeting in 2016. after pleasantries were exchanged the woman stated she had information that informatio informations connected to russia were supporting miss clinton. her statements made no sense. no details were provided or even offered. it became clear she had no meaningful information. she then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of russian children and mentioned an act that it became clear to me that this was the true agenda and all along the helpful information was a pretext for the information. i interrupted her and said my father was not an elected official but rather a private citizen. >> he admits in this statement,

which is just confounding, when we thought that the russians were going to come and give us information and help collude to hurt hillary clinton, we wanted to take the meeting. but the minute we found out she didn't have that information and it was about adoption, i called the meeting to an end. >> can't waste time on policy in that campaign. i find it interesting that this goes back to the 2013 miss universe pageant in moscow. what went down at that pageant that is still dogging the trump campaign to this day? why is there -- it surfaces in dossiers. the president is calling comey and complaining and denying rumors. i just find it interesting that this moscow pageant is still part of this story line. >> i think you're onto something. that's my gut. >> and i think it may go back before that as well.

eugene, a lot to sort through here. one of the most fascinating parts is the call came within the white house. there's somebody inside the white house between saturday and sunday that i suppose called "the new york times" and said hey, you don't have your story right. actually, jared kushner, paul manafort and don junior were actually talking to this lawyer about collusion. >> it's an extraordinary change between saturday and sunday. and i think you're onto something there. why in the world unless he -- unless under extreme duress would donald trump junior issue a statement con fezzing to attempted collusion at the very least. i mean, it's just -- i've never seen anything like this. but then again, we've never seen anything like this completely unfit administration that demonstrates that fact every single day.

this is -- this will be fodder for all of the ongoing investigations. my question is and this is kind of obvious to anybody involved in politics, but there's no way that the campaign chairman paul manafort and jared kushner have a half hour or ten minutes or five minnesota outs to meet with an unnamed person to talk about something they don't even know what the topic of the conversation is in the middle of a presidential campaign. that is ridiculous. >> and by the way, the campaign was chaotic. they had very few people. it was run and gun. the last thing he would do is take your three top lieutenants and gather for one meeting in the middle of a campaign and keep them locked down in something they didn't know about it. >> impossible. >> matt miller, he's reince

priebus responding to the story, and then i have some questions for you. take a listen. >> there's a meeting apparently about russian adoption. and after about 20 minutes the meeting ended. that was the end of it. and it was a nothing meeting. what's developing from that meeting, if you look at the article that circa put out, is that the individual that set up the meeting may have been affiliated with fusion gps which is an opposition research firm that's being subpoenaed and talked to by the senate judiciary committee about their role in putting together that phony dossier that people know about in regard to the president i don't know much about it other than it seems to be on the end of the trump individual a big nothing burger but may spin out of control for the dnc. >> fusion gps, footnote, they were blaming fusion gps as late as yesterday morning. >> right, and then backed off

that. >> explain fusion gps. >> it's a research firm established by a lot of investigative reported that it's been reported did opposition research on trump first for a republican client and then democratic. like a lot of time when this administration is under siege, they tried to create a distraction. i think they probably dropped that and the white house chief of staff, his job is to get out the facts and say he couldn't talk about it. yesterday he went halfway. >> what are the most damaging aspects of these revelations so far and the legal implications? >> the most damaging thing is what donald trump admitted to in the statement. it is a crime to solicit or accept anything of value from a foreign national in a campaign. now, the thing of value has never come up in this context before because we've never had a

campaign like this that potentially colluded with a foreign government. in other cases bribery and extortion cases thing of value doesn't have to be money. it has to be something tangible but not money. it could be accepting information. he's potentially confessing in a statement to committing a crime, and i think if you're bob mueller, you look at that and the lies, the repeated lies, the changing statements from donald trump junior, from other people connected to the administration including the president himself, and you're going to realize the only way to trust what any of these people say is to put them in the grand jury, put them under oath, where if they lie, if donald trump junior has the kind of shifting statements to a grand jury, he'll go to jail for that. >> looking at donald trump junior's words in itself, you're saying what you see is him admitting to a crime? could you define the crime again, please? >> it's potentially a crime

under campaign finance law you can't accept a thing of value. usually that's thought to be donations. it was an extension of a law that was set to bar foreign donations but in other cases, it's been defined not just as money, not just as something like a plane ride or something like that. but it could be other things. sex has been defined as a thing of value in some cases. it's something mueller could look at. this meeting is soliciting a thing of value. would that be by itself something that might bring an indictment? unclear, but when you look at everything elts else, it's potentially something along with all the people who have misled, not told the truth on their statements under oath, it's one more potential charge that you add to a growing list facing a lot of people connected to the administration. >> and mike, as we talked about don junior, we talked about the 2013 miss universe pageant as a

backdrop. you also have to look at donald junior, and keep remembering that quote that he made. that most of their money comes from russia. >> for their profit dealings. >> most of the donald trump organization's money and some of their best clients come from russia. >> and as it was pointed out, there's something surrounding that beauty pageant in moscow several years ago. but david, you've been around a while, and in term of the common sense test, passing the common sense test, the statement by donald trump junior, the revised statement yesterday, he says, quote, i was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person i would be meeting with beforehand. so he doesn't know who he's meeting with, and yet he invites jared kushner and paul manafort to the meeting. that to me does not pass the common sense test. >> i agree, mike. what we think he knew was that he would hear something that was of value to the campaign.

i just want to note, this is what happens when criminal investigations begin to gather momentum. from what we know, this all began when jared kushner amended his disclosure form to admit that he had been at this meeting in june, 2016. he had not had that on the form before, so he adds that to the form. suddenly that's part of the record. there were five people at that meeting. that requires each of them and their lawyers to think what about my client? i think that's what we're seeing. attorneys are advising their clients you're going to have to get straight from the prosecutes on this and get more facts out so donald trump junior's version changes over this 24-hour period, but -- >> and david, who wrote that statement for him? he doesn't have an attorney yet. who wrote that state for don junior? >> that's a really good

question. is that somebody on the kaz wits team? is it another attorney? we don't know. what we do know is this is now getting serious. this is a criminal investigation. people are becoming aware their statements are going to get matched up against others. how did this start? it started because jared kushner's lawyer said you need to change your discloture fosur. >> and it picked up momentum when somebody inside the white house most likely between saturday's new york times article and sunday's new york types article said they're not telling you the truth. >> you mention the money from russia tie. this is the quote. accept 2008 donald trump junior gave the following statement to the bridging u.s. and emerging markets real estate conference in manhattan. and he said this. in terms of high-end product influx into the united states, russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets same in

dubai and certainly with our project in soho and anywhere in new york. we see a lot of money pouring in from russia. >> what was the date? >> september, 2008. >> that's back when donald trump was a democrat giving money left and right to democrats. >> as david mentioned government officials first learned to the meeting in the previous few weeks when jared kushner revised a security clearance form that initially failed to disclose the controversial meeting. this is the third kremlin connected russian that the president's son-in-law failed to disclose on government forms. he did not disclose a private meeting with the russian ambassador and failed to disclose a private meeting with the head of a russian-state-run bank closely tied to vladimir putin. >> how serious is this?

the third nondisclosure of meetings with russians with close ties to vladimir putin and the kremlin? >> i think this is quite serious. one imagines that from jared kushner's point of view he could say, well, a courtesy meeting with the russian ambassador and exchanging pleasantries. that meeting with the head of, i think it's a bank chaz kremlin-linked bank, is quite something different, i think. and that plus this meeting with the sort of mobbed up government russian lawyer puts jared kushner in a troublesome spot specifically because he didn't disclose any of this. how do you forget all of this? how do you think all of this is trivial or unimportant given the context of the investigations that are going on? there seems to have been an

attempt to deceive. there now seems to be an attempt to correct the record up to a point, and there definitely is a deep interest in what was discussed in these meetings and why. >> wow. harold in. >> harold ford, good morning. two questions for you. one, you questioned whether or not there was illegality here. are you suggesting that maybe the person they met with, the person connected to the kremlin might have been offering information about the campaign, perhaps in exchange for changed policy around an act, and two, you make an interesting point over the weekend. trump will feud with someone together over a personal slight. we have dealt with that in the last week or too, but if you violate the nation's sovereignty, let's let bygones be bygones. what do you mean? >> on your first question, when the trump campaign accepted the meeting as trump junior admitted in his statement, it was with

the expectation that they would get something, and the russian lawyer went into that meeting clearly hoping to get something in return. that was some potential favorable treatment for the adoption act. i think those questions are what investigators have to look at. your second question, we've seen trump feud forever with rosie o'donnell, b-list celebrities. he's now feud wing with the med and the hosts of this program. when you look at what he did last week in his meeting with vladimir putin and then his tweets, vladimir putin violated the sovereignty of this country. and he did it on donald trump's behalf, and donald trump seems to taken by the fact that putin was willing to help him that he's not willing to stand up for the country. while he'll feud with celebrities and anchors and news host, if you violate the sovereignty about this country, as long as you're trying to help

him, he's willing to move on. that's apparently what he wants to do with putin as it relates to the hacking last year. >> matt and eugene, thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump proposed and then backtracked on a plan to create a u.s./russian cyber security act. >> what could go wrong with that, right, harold? >> i can't think of thing. >> but not before drawing criticism from members of his own party who maybe got him to realize that that is the stupidest thing they've ever heard. >> do you think steve mnuchin still thinks it's a great idea? >> it's so scary. >> poor steve mnuchin. >> he pushed him out to the end. >> all right. peter sal ek sander reports on that ahead from the white house. plus member of the judiciary committee joins the table. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪

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important step forward in a what we want to make sure is that we coordinate with russia, that we're focussed on cyber security together, that we make sure that they never interfere in any democratic elections or conduct any cyber security, and this is like any other strategic alliance, whether we're doing military exercises with our allies or anything else. this is about having capabilities to make sure that we both fight cyber together which i think is a very significant accomplishment for donald trump. >> oh, my gosh. treasury secretary steve mnuchin defending the proposed cyber security link with russia. the president then backtracked on the idea a few hours later. joining us from the white house, peter alexander. peter, what happened? >> reporter: that morning, mika. the bottom line here is this may

go down as the shortest lived presidential initiative in modern american history. the president began yesterday with a series of tweets. these were a first person account of his face to face with vladimir putin highlighting among other things how he strongly pressed putin on russian mettling. we discussed an cyber security so things will be safe. that bold proposed partnership left several top republicans in disbelief even ridiculing the idea. here is john mccain and lindsey graham. >> the president, again, tweeting this morning said putin and i discussed forming an inpenetrable cyber security unit so election hacking and many other negative things would be guarded. >> i'm sure vladimir putin could be of enormous assistance in that since he's doing the hacking. >> it's about the dumbest thing i've ever heard.

he gave a really good speech in poland and had what i think is a disastrous meeting with vladimir putin. two hours and 15 minutes of meetings, tillerson and trump are ready to forgiver and forget when it comes to cyber attacks on the american election of 2 6 2016. nobody is saying, mr. president, the russians changed the outcome. you won fair and square, but they did try to attack our election system. they were successful in many ways, and the more you do this, the more people are suspicious about you and russia. >> reporter: senator ben sass, a republican tweeted this. obviously should not happen. it will not happen. why the president of the united states would tweet it is bizarre. rubio tweeted vladimir putin basically will never be a trusted ally or reliable constructive partner. he writes partnering with putin on cyber security unit is like partnering with asaad on a chemical weapons unit.

steve mnuchin was touting the effort of the u.s. fighting cyber together with russia as a significant accomplishment. those were his comments just yesterday morning but basically 13 hours after first boasting about it, the president ditched this idea altogether writing the fact that president putin and i discussed a cyber security unit doesn't mean i think it can happen. it can't. >> what? >> mika, back to you. >> wait. peter, i -- >> reporter: that's the time line. 13 hours. >> okay. peter alexander, thank you. i don't even -- i don't know what to say about that. joining us now member of the judiciary committee, amy klobuchar of minnesota. also with us former chief of staff and department of defense jeremy bash. okay. let's go to the donald trump junior story. because i -- that tweet thing is

just such red meat for everybody to mock and ridicule. we'll let it speak for itself. donald trump junior's statement about going to potentially get damaging information about hillary clinton with this russian lawyer is that potentially a crime? >> well, if individuals in the campaign were conspireing to undertake a criminal action, potentially either receiving a contribution from a foreign adversary or engaging computer crime, hacking, those are federal oh fens. then they took an overt act by meeting with the russian lawyer. then, yes, you have potentially incriminating activity. >> senator klobuchar, as a member of the judiciary committee. >> when you look back, it seems like every single person that tried to take this on whether it's james comey or sally yates warning the white house about the former national security

advisor's actions, everything that happens, they end up as road kill, and then every other person who seems to get involved in this from the trump side somehow ends up meeting with the rugs, whether it's jeff sessions, the former national security advisor, and now you hear that the three top people surrounding the president at that time, his campaign chairman, his son, his son-in-law, went to a meeting with someone whose purpose was to give them dirt on hillary clinton. and so what concerns me is that this has reached the high e levels now, and that is why we have a special prosecutor. as a former prosecutor, i'm not going to opine on what this means and if this is a crime or what happened. but we are getting very close to a serious, serious matter here. >> jeremy, you spoke about how the intelligence committee views trump and the things he's said. give me a sense. what would have been racing

through the minds of defense officials after listening to trump who so we might form a cyber security unit with russia. >> well, if you look at the director of national intelligence's 2017 annual statement where they put out to congress all the threats facing the united states, the number one issue, it's on page 2 of the assessment, i was just reviewing it, is cyber security and the number one culprit is russia. it says that russia is at full scope cyber active. the idea that we would work with the culprit, the people who are our adversary in an effort is the fok guarding the hen house. >> this is just like having maybe not the fox and the hen house but the russian bear guarding the american honey. you're saying 17 intelligence agencies have firmly established that russia has been trying to hack us. we know they've been hacking on the private side as well. that's why congress on a vote of 97-2 in the u.s. senate, we put

forward stronger sanctions. this weekend the president went the opposite way. he basically met with vladimir putin, said he was honored to meet with him, and did not take this on in the serious way. that's what concerns me. because you can't then form a unit with the people that are trying to hack you. >> do your republican colleagues still support the burr barner effort to investigate this? >> i'm not hearing any pushback. >> senator, what do you make of the secretary of state's suggestion that the u.s. and russia shares basically goals in syria? >> we have always believed that you have to continue to meet with russia and talk to russia. that's not the issue. the issue here is that vladimir putin listens to power. and when the president comes in with mixed signals saying he wasn't sure, other countries have also done this. that's not the kind of message that we want to send to someone like vladimir putin. there's no problem with them meeting. i think they should meet. it is the fact that the president didn't take this on

and didn't come to that meeting with a bill signed into law with tougher sanctions. that would have been coming from a position of strength, but instead the white house is lobbying in the white house of representatives tolessen that bill. >> senator amy klobuchar, thank you. jeremy bash thank you as well. still ahead, senator chris coons chains the discussion. we'll be right back.

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coming off the g-20 summit the president tweeted out a video yesterday. we'll play part of it for you now with no comment. >> why? but that's what we do. we comment, right? ♪ ♪ joining hand in hand ♪ make america great again >> there's something sort of russian about that. >> um, i think i heard the russian version of that in "the

hunt for red october "when it was leaving port, right? >> like up with people. >> you think it's more up with people than -- >> a little of both. >> than moscow. >> of per scope. >> okay. still ahead this morning. so much more to talk about. we're going to be doing the second half of the show in russian for good reason -- >> ahead on "morning joe" -- >> i want a clear message to russia that you'll pay a price for undercutting democracy. and if president trump doesn't embrace this, i think he'll be empowering the russians and betraying democracy. i can't say it any clearer than that. >> a new report claims the white house is moving to weaken a bill that imposes sanctions on russia. members of congress are having none of it. that's next on "morning joe."

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mika we have anniversaries past us. yesterday was the one-year anniversary of donald trump. now general michael flynn was on the short list to be president of the united states. >> probably wouldn't have turned out great. >> probably not. more importantly for the republic and for the free press -- >> and the fake media. >> and the survival of the fake media of which we are the corner stone, these two seized control and they promised us not only bread and circuses but to increase the velocity of news by 150% per day, and you guys have done that. >> you have. >> thanks. >> authors of the politico play

book join us. >> what's going on today? >> looking at anything interesting? >> yeah. i think the big news that we need to pay attention to is there's basically three weeks left for donald trump to get anything done on capitol hill for almost the rest of the year. september, october, they're going to be dealing with the debt ceiling. they need to do government funding in september and likely in december. what we're hearing across the board that a lot of these priorities are frozen because of infighting in the administration. the debt ceiling is not likely to come up before the august recess. a lot of things are frozen, and things don't look so great from capitol hill, something i said before and still believe. >> and anna, lawmakers returned this morning and all eyes once again on russia, a series of bomb shell stories in the new york times this weekend. >> yeah. absolutely. i think you're going to start hearing a lot of senators and house members coming back today, tomorrow, the frustration with

donald trump. another distraction. there's a bipartisan bill that's been moving through congress on sanctions at the 97-2 in the senate. there's been disagreement the v majority of members of congress want to put in more sanctions, not work more closely like president donald trump suggested over the weekend through twitter. >> so, jake, while we were talking, the president tweeted. he just can't simply imagine that congress would dare to leave washington without a beautiful new health care bill fully approved and ready to go!" >> he should use his imagination because that's what's likely to happen. i don't see how this gets done. the july 4th break has given donald trump a lot more opposition on this bill. basically members from the moderate part of the party to the very conservative part of the party are against this. mitch mcconnell is beginning to talk about a bipartisan compromise. about 13 days before the august

recess. i just don't see any way this gets done. >> mark -- jake, what's going on with mcconnell and ryan? how is their relationship as they try to navigate these difficult weeks? >> i think the main thing -- the main thing is ryan leaves mcconnell to his own devices. when he asked about the senate process, he was asked for comment, ryan was, and he said i don't weigh in on mitch's process. he doesn't weigh in on my process. they operate very differently. ryan is trigger-happy to a degree, and he has to respond to members of his house republican conference who want quick action on a lot of things. mcconnell is very into the slow bleed. he doesn't mind letting things sit out there, letting the process kind of go underway and see where things end up. they're very different people. squaring their two styles is quite difficult. >> jake, good morning. congrats on the book that you guys are working on. we'll come back to that in ten seconds. with regard to this gulf between

the republican governors and republican house members on health care you mentioned, jake, that it's unlikely anything gets done before then in july. what has to be bridged? we had pat toomey on earlier, and he sounded more optimistic on something being able to happen. what has to happen for a beautifully furnded health cand to happen? >> i think jake would agree with me on this. i think they are very, very far apart on getting any kind of a deal that could get done in the senate that then the house republican conference, which is much more conservative, would actually go forward with. there's the medicaid expansion. there's a lot of other things. the longer it's out there, we've written about this a lot. the more and more likelihood that it actually doesn't get done is just -- it just reaches a tipping point, and it's very hard. >> alice. >> you mentioned your new book. congratulations. >> thanks. >> who do you think will emerge as the most interesting characters in this book, the first book about the first two years of the trump presidency

and how congress is maneuvering to get anything done if they do get anything done. >> other than mike barnacle, of course. >> mark, who has written a book or two with some success, kind of hit on a big part of the process, which is the ryan mcconnell relationship. there's undoubtedly the freedom caucus and their resistance to -- they're helping the president in resistance to the leadership is a big part of it. capitol hill is oftentimes the most fighting, the most intrigue, the relationships, fuds, power grabs, and that's what we're trying to highlight in this book in the three hours a day we have left after all the playbooks are out. >> mike. jake, in the august recess coming up, will we reach real boiling points between the hill and the white house over the fact that nothing is likely to get done before everybody goes home again? >> it gets a big problem for

republicans. they do not want to be talking about this health care bill. particularly if it doesn't get done. there's been frustration with kind of what signalled the white house has been doing. do they want to do tax reform? is health care reform going to be their priority? i think the big thing that we're starting to see is that it's just the must do legislation. it's no big ideas that are coming from the trump administration for anybody to run on or to say that we have any actual victories. >> i just want one quick point on that. what do you go home and talk about in august if you are a republican member of congress? you go home and talk about the investigations into trump, which are going to come up ad spz nauseum. you won't be able to talk about tax reform, health care reform. there's nothing that trump has done that you will be able to talk about in an off year over a five-week break. >> thank you both. congratulations. good to have you back on the show. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> there's still much more ground to cover on the developing story surrounding donald trump jr. the "new york times" says the president's son met with the

russian lawyer after being promised information that could help his father's campaign. now he is offering differing explanations for that meeting. plus, senator chris coons says vl vladimir putin has declared war on the international order. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪

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>> there's only one person in washington that knows for sure what happened, and that's donald trump. i like what he is doing regarding north korea, putting them on notice about no missile ever being used to hit america. i like what he is doing in afghanistan. he took on assad. he has a plan regarding isil. when it comes to russia, i am dumbfounded. >> good morning. >> i have to say we all are, senator. this morning especially after a weekend of just bizarre stories about adoption and then the defense. i did it. did i not saying that there's going to be a perry mason moment where somebody just says i did it, i did it. that's what happened this weekend. >> good morning. it's monday, july 10th. welcome to "morning joe." big morning today. with us we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnacle. senior political analyst. >> no, no, no. >> he is getting -- >> let's continue.

>> maybe some of it. there's no vacation from this. mike barnacle. >> okay. senior political analyst for nbc news and msnbc mark halperin. former democratic congressman harold ford jr. former aide to the george w. bush bhous and state department's alice jordan. michael schmidt, and columnist and associate editor for the washington post, david ignacious. we have a lot to get to this morning. there are motives between meetings between the president's son, donald trump jr., that he took during the campaign. especially in light of his changing explanations for those meetings. the "new york times" reports he was promised damaging information about hillary clinton before agreeing to meet with a russian lawyer with reported connections to the kremlin. the meeting took place june 9th after trump had won in indiana but still facing a long, grueling fight for delegates. the paper sources three advisors

to the white house briefed on the meeting and two other with knowledge of it. they met at trump tower and included trump jr., then campaign chair paul manafort. jared kushner and the lawyer natalia -- >> let's stop right now. before we go any further, and we'll get right back to it, but show those pictures again. this story just for those of you out there that want to start hash tagging fake news, which donald trump jr. has been doing a great bit lately. _#fake news. i was wondering why he was amping it up. maybe now we know. for those of you that want to talk about fake news, this did not come from an intel agency. these "new york times" stories all confirmed by people who work for donald trump. all right. we can go forward now. >> rob goldstone, who was a publicist, said he arranged the meeting at the request of a russian client and also attended. more on goldstone in just a

moment. so on saturday donald trump jr. told nbc news, "we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children." >> he cares about children. that's a crime? >> that was popular with american families, and was since ended by the russian government brsh it was not a campaign issue at the time. there was no follow-up. i was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but i was not told the name of the person i would be meeting with beforehand." >> mark halperin, notice, the first explanation on saturday, it's about adoption. it's about the kids. their statement on saturday says absolutely nothing about as the "new york times" says, dirt offered on hillary clinton. >> a lot of interesting things here, and one of the things that's not explained is why he said what he said on saturday and then was forced to change

his story. >> forced. >> forced to change his story by seemingly what the "new york times" is able to learn. whoever is helping the "new york times" with these stories seems to be doing it in a way like maximum damage on at least donald trump jr. even if you accept his sunday version, accept his sunday version, ask no questions, have no suspicions, he is in a world of hurt. >> no mention of hillary clinton in the saturday statement. when the times reported sunday that trump was told the russia had damaging information on clinton, he replied with a much longer statement. i was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance i knew from the 2013 miss universe pageant with an individual who i was told might have information helpful to the campaign. i was not told her name prior to the meeting. i asked jared and paul to attend, but told them nothing of the -- >> let's stop right there. mark, you have dealt with these people. we've dealt with these people. how likely is it that done jr.

would have called paul man yman and jared in? with all the things we knew about how that campaign ran, how likely is it that don jr. would have said, hey, i have this meeting, guys. come to my office. i'm not going to tell you what it is. middle of the campaign. >> it's not totally impossible. even, again, even if you accept their version of events, the fact that they had this meeting and failed to disclose it is finish nominal. it's possible it could have occurred the way they describe it, but it's unlikely. >> it is extraordinarily unlikely. this is not how they did business. >> one of the keys in the story in "the times" today that we're addressing now is the line that three advisors to the white house were briefed on the meeting indicated to "the times" that the meeting did occur. that would seem to indicate that they feel that donald trump jr. has placed his father in some position of peril. >> well, at least -- >> and they're trying to -- >> at least his father is going to protect him.

oh, wait. no, no. actually, they put out a statement saying -- >> can i -- >> you know what, i was not with freto in vegas. he was setting up those deals on the sides. you know? >> after pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated she had information that individuals in russia were funding the democratic national committee and supporting ms. clinton. her statements were vague, ambiguous, and made no sense. no details or supporting information was provided or even offered. it quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information. she then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of russian children and mentioned the magnisski act. it became clear that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting. i interrupted and advised her

that my father was not an elected official, but, rather, a private citizen and that her comments and concerns were better addressed if and when he held public office. the meeting lasted approximately 20 to 30 minutes. >> about the length of the bill clinton-loretta lynch meeting. so dave, this is fascinating. his defense is we thought she was coming in to give us information -- thought she was going to collude with us and give us bad information on hillary clinton, but when we found out that she did not have damaging information on hillary clinton and could not collude with us and it was about adoption -- >> that's what i hear when you read it. >> -- we called an bankrupt end -- abrupt end to the meeting. i'm with mark halperin. what did don jr. find out between saturday when he lied and sunday when he was forced to tell the truth and why was he forced to tell the truth? >> he clearly discovered that

others were putting out a true account of what happened and that he had to square his account with it or look like he was lying. i would note that the reason on adoptions the reason that then emerged after dishing dirt on hulk hulk, it's not about adoptions. it's about opposing what's called the magnitski act, which is an attempt to hold the regime of vlad peer putin accountable for the death of an anti-corruption crusader named magnitski, and this has been a key thorn in putin's side. this woman was coming even on the best analysis to argue the case of putin against this american legislation attempting to hold him to account. this revelation -- there have been so many that i think this is really significant. it's so early, june 2016. it's so direct. a known kremlin apologist,

propagandaist who comes saying i want to give you stuff about hillary clinton. it includes jared, the campaign manager, paul manafort, about whom we are just beginning to learn there will be a series of revelations. i'm just sure about man afort. what's the lead at the white house? the lead is that don trump jr. said my father knew nothing about this. i mean, don jr. is falling on his sword saying my father wasn't aware. again, i think we'll have more such statements from others. >> we have much more ahead on this developing story. add this kremlin-linked lawyer to the list of russians whom jared kushner secretly met with and failed to disclose. we'll break down how the new revelations about donald trump jr. tied directly to the president's son-in-law and top advisor. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. with hydrogenated oil...

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>> we are rerng more about jared kushner's meeting with a russian official. government officials first learned of the meeting when kushner revised a security clearance that initially failed to disclose the controversial sitdown. this is the third kremlin connected russian that the president's son-in-law has failed to disclose on government forms meeting with a russian. the "new york times" reports that kushner did not disclose a private meeting with the russian ambassador and kushner also failed to disclose a private meeting with the head of a russian state-run bank closely tied to vladimir putin. lawmakers are questioning whether the president's son-in-law who is a top white house advisor should be granted security clearances after this third revelation. kushner is just one of several trump associates who have offered on the record or under oath omissions or falsehoods about meetings with russians. also on the list, vice president mike pence, michael flynn,

attorney general jeff sessions and now the president's son don jr. >> michael schmidt, so jared kushner met the russian ambassador of the united states. forgot to disclose it. he met with the head of a russian-run bank with close ties to vladimir putin. he forgot to disclose it. he met with a russian lawyer for the purposes of attending a meeting in which dirt was going to be dished on hillary clinton while they were still trying to lock down the republican nomination. lawmakers are asking whether he should ever get a security clearance. where does this go and of what interest might this be to bob

mueller? >> well, this story, which is done by three of my colleagues, it pushes the issue forward because if jared kushner was just a regular government employee, there's no way that he would be able to keep his security clearance. if there had been this many misstatements about his meetings. it's clear that he will continue to have one because the president would like him to have one, but if he was a regular government person that wouldn't happen. the other thing here is that don jr. told us in march that he had not met with any russians in his capacity with the campaign, that there haven't been any of that. it's not just the revised statement from saturday to sunday, but it's the fact that in march he said there have been nothing like this at all. >> michael, this continues to happen. the attorney general of the united states forgetting meetings with russians. don jr. forgetting a meeting with russians. by the way, don jr., a guy who

several years ago said that most of the trump money came from russians. this was a guy that set up the meeting that was connected with a miss universe pageant and a billionaire, had a client who was a billionaire in russia. there is no way paul manafort didn't know this by march it was clear this issue was going to be around for a while. it doesn't make sense here why

they didn't take all the meetings that they knew about and said, look, got nothing to hide here. here are all the meetings. here's a list. you know, and put it out. it would have taken the issue and taken a lot of the oxygen out of it. what we have here is the fact that even in march when they knew that the russia issue wasn't going to go away, they told one story and they continues to revise it. as democrats would say, they would say, look, there's nothing to hide here. they certainly created the perception that there is. >> coming up on "morning joe" russia's coming crash. a new book says the russia federation will fall just as imperial russia did in 1917 and as soviet russia did in 1991 and putin is to blame. the author explains next on "morning joe." plus, member of the senate judiciary and foreign relations committee chris coons will be our guest.

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>> over the weekend this clip of the australian political analyst took the political world by storm. chris olman is the political editor for australian network abc. watch this. >> what we already knew is that

the president of the yates has a particular skill set that he has identified in illness in western democracies, but he has no cure for it and seems intent on exploiting it. now, we've also learned he has no desire and no capacity to lead the world. the g-20 became the g-19 as it ended on the paris climate accord. the u.s. was left isolate and friendless, but given that that was always going to happen, a deft president would have found an issue around which he could rally most of the leaders, and he had the perfect one. north korea's missile tests. where was the g20 statement? other leaders expected it. they were prepared to back it. it never came. there's a tendency among some hopeful souls to confuse the speeches written for trump with the thoughts of the man himself. he did make some interesting scripted observations about defending the values of the west, and he is in a unique position. he is the one man who has the

power to do something about it, but it's the unscripted trump that's real. a man who barks out orders in 150 characters, who is at war with the west institutions like the judiciary, independent government agencies, and the free press. he was an uneasy, lonely, awkward figure at this gathering, and you got the strong sense that some of the leaders are trying to find the best way to work around him. donald trump is a man who craves power because it burnishes his celebrity, to be constantly talk and being talked about is all that matters, and there's no value on the meaning of words. what is said one day can be discarded the next. donald trump has pressed fast forward on the decline of the united states as a global leader. he managed to isolate his nation, to confuse and alienate his allies, and to diminish america. he will cede that power to aught

tarn states -- some will cheer the decline of america, but we'll miss it when it's gone, and that's the biggest threat to the values of the west which he claims to hold so dear. >> mike, some pretty tough words. >> there seems to be a consensus that the president at the g20 meeting was a man alone. the question no you is whether the diminished role of america that he defines is that going to be forever? what has he done? what has he done to the presidency, to the role of the presidency, to the image of the presidency, to the status of the united states and the world with our allies? are we, america, alone now as opposed to america first?

the g20 did become the g19. >> i think the work-around is one of the most important take-aways from this meeting. the rest of the world is going to keep doing its business. merkel said it very bluntly. the united states is the outliar on climate change. she might have said the same thing about globalization, and we're going to keep doing our business. it was no accident that the europeans signed a trade deal with japan to continue their business even as this was going on. the worrisome thing is that even as the united states is more distant under trump from its traditional allies, from groups like the g20, there is this new closeness between trump and putin where they go into a meeting and trump seems to accept, endorse what he is hearing from putin that comes up with what people deride as a joint cyber police effort.

somebody likened it to joint missile defense with north korea. that's the picture we have out of the g20. ail alienation from our traditional allies and closer to -- >> trump has very snap reactions that are often not the reaction you want to have. he can be played, and his -- he reacts to everything. can you imagine that meeting? i worry very much. >> it seems he can be played more easily by autocrats than leaders of western democratic countries. >> the fact that he came out of the russia meeting and they didn't have a joint statement about north korea after meeting for two hours and 15 minutes, you have to ask the question, we asked the question rightly so,

what did bill clinton and loretta lynch talk about for 20, 30 minutes? what could the president of the united states and the president of russia talk about for two hours and 15 minutes that would not have resulted in a joint statement condemning north korea? >> you know why they didn't have a joint statement condemning north korea? because vladimir putin didn't want to have a joint station condemning north korea. he ran the meeting. he got everything that he wanted out of it. donald trump capitulated on every point. >> perhaps the formation of a cyber security -- >> which vladimir putin would help run. if you looked at all of this, from a distance you might even think that vladimir putin and the russians have something on donald trump. it's crazy. i don't know. >> coming up on "morning joe" would it be a good idea to team up with vladimir putin on cyber security? that's what president trump first suggested before backtracking following an avalanche of criticism from his own party. from the senate foreign relations committee, democrat chris coons will join us. we'll be right back with more

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>> what he did is bring up the election meddling. he wanted to basically look him in the eye and let him know that, yes, we know you meddled in our election, yes, we know you did it, and cut it out. i think president putin did exactly what we thought he would do, which is deny it. i think that is what it is. they are always going to have two different stories on this. this is russia trying to save face. they can't. they can't. everybody knows russia meddled in our elections. what is the foreign policy impact we'll start with the outcome of the meeting, although

i'll want to get to the donald trump jr. revelations. how did the putin-trump meeting go, senator? >> well, i think on this question of confronting vladimir putin on his interference in our 2016 election donald trump stepped up to the plate and whiffed. the idea that we're going to simply agree to disagree and move on i think steps aside from confronting the very real challenge, which is that vladimir putin and his russian intelligence agencies fully intent to interfere in our next election in 2018 and 2020. former fbi director comey testified to the senate that given that russia has paid no serious price at all, we can expect them to attempt and probably succeed in interfering in our next elections. imagine how much stronger that confrontation would have been if president trump had presented putin with a signed law that imposed tougher sanctions on russia for their inappropriate and unacceptable interference in our election.

>> okay. so it didn't go well. donald trump jr. now saying his meeting with a russian was about adoption and then another statement saying it was about damaging information about hillary clinton, but then it didn't turn out to be that so they ended the meeting. just from his statements alone, what do you take away, especially as a member of the judiciary committee? >> well, for a group of folks that have nothing to hide about their interactions with russia, they certainly seem to have been hiding a lot. the idea that these three individuals, the president's son, the president's son-in-law, and the president's campaign manager organized a meeting in order to get the fruits of cyber hacking into their opponent's campaign is strongly suggestive of potentially criminal activity and the idea that they failed to previously report this despite being required to do so suggests

that they may well be some inappropriate action, some conspiracy, or some obstruction. i can't reach those conclusions as to whether it is or isn't because i don't have that evidence in front of me. it certainly suggests based on the "new york times" reporting that this is the sort of thing that bob mueller should be looking at closely and if we can do so without interfering with bob mueller's independent investigation, we should do so on the judiciary committee as well. >> okay. alice jordan. >> you have spoken about your concern that russia is attempting to isolate the united states, and republicans have historically been concerned about a foreign policy of isolationism. yet, we're seeing, you know, this switch where russia is somewhat successful putting us more in isolation. >> the policy of america first is increasingly turning out to mean america alone.

i'll remind you that president trump's strategy for how to confront north korea's aggressive nuclear weapons program, one of our top national security challenges is to try to organize world pressure on china to get china to put pressure on north korea. to his trumpeting nationalism and economic isolationism frankly did not go over well with the g20, and the final communique makes it clear that on some key issues, the united states is increasingly isolated. >> the tweets about a cyber -- clab rative cyber security. what -- can you comment? >>. >> it's like having a conference

with el chappo. the idea that somehow how to fight cyber security is to join a joint coalition with exactly our most capable cyber adversary, it's -- it defies description. >> all right. >> senator chris coons, thank you. >> thanks a lot. we have deputy editorial page editor of the washington post ruth marcus. >> thanks for having me. >> and also with us author and historian richard laurie, his new buook is putin, his do you feel and russia's coming crash. most people look at vladimir putin as a man who has amassed more power than most anybody else on the global stage, but you say what happened to russia in 1917, what happened to the soviets in 1991 is coming putin's way. why? >> well, because putin had one great chance for historical greatness for himself and for his country, which would have been to change russia from a top-down authoritarin political

economy to one based on high tk and surely they're full of intelligent people, and he could have done it when russia was awash in oil money around 2004, 2005, 2006. he blew his great historical chance. that's his downfall. that will lead to russia's coming crash because one piece of news that got buried in all the hooplah in hamburg was volvo has decided to not make any more gas cars soon. gas is on the way out. putin has staked his bet on a dying horse. now why did putin do that? that's an interesting question too. putin is ultimately a kgb man and a kgb mentality. that doesn't mean, as john mccain is always saying, that he is a brutal thug. the essence of kgb is suspicion. suspicion shading at times into

paranoia, which is an unhealthy state of mind. putin couldn't trust the world to let him make that change in russia. he felt if we were letting people into nato like estonia, latvia, poland, it was only to encircle him. if there was spontaneous uprisings in kiev and ukraine, they weren't spontaneous uprisings, and there are no spontaneous events. there's always somebody behind everything. >> and always the paranoia. ruth, there's so much that happened this past weekend. once again, with russia, on saturday we're talking about don jr.'s love for adoption. exactly. then by sunday something -- again -- that's the big question. what happened between saturday and sunday where don jr. had to completely change his story --

>> they were having a meeting how to make sure russian babies are well taken care of just shortly after the candidate gets the nomination just fell a tu turnip truck. i don't see any turnip trucks in front of trump tower. that was evidently not true. the truth comes out. this is the lanny davis bill clinton era lesson. if you have some bad news to get out, once they find out you are having the meeting with the russians which you said 100% you didn't do, you got to get it out. this one is really bad. >> they got it out, but also -- >> it's really bad. >> also like bill clinton, though, it's sort of a rolling admission. they're still lying. they're still lying about jared and manafort and -- who was the third? not knowing the purpose of the

meeting. who was it? he said -- >> don jr., jared, manafort. >> well, manafort, and jared didn't know what the meeting was about. >> why did the chief of staff come out and say it's a meeting about adoption. nothing burger. get the facts before you dig yourself in further. >> it's like the treasury secretary being made a fool of on cyber security. >> oh, my gosh. >> are it shows almost a contempt for the american public to just not be honest, to try to do your job and give correct information to the american public who are paying for your salary. >> we've got more details now on the players involved. >> she had been involved in the miss universe pageant and represents russia pop star amina

-- father is a wealthy real estate developer and sponsored the pageant in 2013. according to forbes, once sought to build a trump tower in russia. those plans were never came about. as for the lawyer, "the times" says she represents powerful players in russia. her clients include state-owned businesses and a senior government official's son whose company was under investigation in the u.s. at the time of the meeting. a senior law enforcement official tells "the times" that her activities and associations had previously drawn the attention of the fbi. she has for the past several years been a leading advocate around the world to fight the magnitski act sanctions intended to rebuke russia for human rights abuses. >> what's your guess? does vladimir putin know about the two new york sometimes stories? >> he is happy right now. he is running for president himself. this is -- everything has to be

seen as part of his 2018 presidential campaign run. i disagree with the position that he is going to come back and bug the elections in 2018 and 2020. if putin says don't bug the elections in 2018, if that was part of the conversation with trump in germany, there won't be any election bugged. if i was going to bet money, i would say we can almost count on a bug-free 2018 election because he is so happy. the other thing i think he is going to do fairly soon, he will play the snowden piece. putin will give him back to me. he said that early on in the campaign. it got lost in the general -- >> richard, so you think that putin will calm down with his

election meddling state-side. >> if it serves his purposes, will he do it. if he sees a reason not to do it, it won't happen. >> ruth, have you been surprised by the republicans pounding donald trump this weekend for his summit meeting? lindsey graham said that he -- >> disaster. >> it was disastrous, and that he was actually harming the office of the presidency. >> i think -- am i surprised? they're good at using adjectives. they're not as good at following through with actually action. i mean, i thought what lindsey graham said yesterday was exactly right. i'm curious about what richard thinks. it seems to be a disastrous meeting. putin should be just sitting back there and smiling because it's all about he said, he said, and based on trump's previous failures to really be forceful or even accepting of russian involvement, one size version of the event is much more credible than the other.

the story here is where republicans that are critical of the meeting follow through with actions, including on the sakes bill. >> i was going to ask you, how important is it that the house republicans don't buckle, don't do vladimir putin's bidding, and don't follow-up? how important is it they follow-up with the senate sanctions bill that passed 97-2 instead of listening to donald trump who is asking them to -- >> it's only important if we want to just sit back and hope that things are good in 2018 and hope that vlad pleer putin is happy and stays out of things in 2020. they need to step up. >> all right. >> absolutely, i agree totally. i think lindsey graham spoke very eloquently. i haven't been so moved by a republican in quite a while. >> lindsey. the book is "putin, his downfall and russia's coming crash." richard laurie, thank you very much. ruth, stay with us if you can. up next, former white house press secretary jay carney joins the conversation. keep it right here on "morning

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intrzero alcohol™.ine® it delivers a whole mouth clean with a less intense taste. so it has the bad breath germ-killing power of this... with the lighter feel... of this. try listerine® zero alcohol™. >> i trooy to stay out of politics. i don't profess to be a political savant, so i leave the politics to other people, and really lean into the issues that i care deeply about. >> that was ivanka trump late last month describing her approach to working in the white house, but at the g diagnosis 20 summit in germany on saturday, she briefly took her father's place at a meeting with other

world leaders. a photo of ivanka sitting next to the chinese president and british prime minister -- wow. was that where is that where her father was supposed to be sitting? >> yeah. it drew a lot of criticism. some people suggesting -- used the word banana republic. president tweeted this morning when i left conference room for a short meeting with japan and other countries i asked ivanka to hold the seat. very standard. angela merkel agrees. if chelsea clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother as her mother gave away the fake news, the country would seychelle see for president. >> i don't think so. >> the conservative media -- fox news would be blowing up if chelsea had done what vaughn ka did. >> what is standard about that? nothing. >> there's nothing standard about it. >> was that planned? was it just fun?

impromptu? >> just happened. >> just happened. >> you have a vice president, i know the treasury secretary is there, gary cohn was there. you sad secretary of state. several other people could have sat there and should have sat there. with us now, the former white house press secretary jay coney, senior vice president at amazon. we'll get to the third annual amazon prime day. first politics. weigh in on -- >> what about that? >> i'm speechless. >> really? >> look, i think the normal protocol if you're talking about just the item you mentioned would have been secretary of state. that's standard, i think. somebody very senior in the government represents the united states abroad in that situation. but i'm obviously here to talk about something else, but for me it's all of this kind of stuff is damaging in that it's distracting from -- distracts the united states from getting its business done.

>> what about this weekend? the news in "the new york times," how do you parse through that don jr.'s statements on sat and then the confession on sunday? >> i issei i'm pretty glad i'm not briefing today in the white house. it would be very hard to answer some of those questions. >> they won't be briefing either. >> they may not be. i think the standard handling of any of this is to push it out to lawyers, keep it out of the white house. they haven't done a very good job of that. the president obviously brings it back home every time he tweets, which i think is distracting. >> just to get part of this way, i've ordered an echo show on prime day, okay? but the second part of my observations to you, is this war against the press that the trump administration is conducting. you mentioned briefings. how do you feel about what's going on? you know, not on tv, it's crazy. i've been on both sides as you know.

i covered the white house -- there were days i would drive into work for my 7:15 meeting listening to you guys and cursing all the way in because i was so frustrated. and frustration with the press when you're in the white house is a standard condition. but that and that adversarial relationship is natural. i worry about the assault on objective fact. i think that there's real danger for the country and for the democracy if we can't at least agree that there are some facts that are not subject to spin or dispute. >> and it is constant. >> media organizations that invest a lot of money and put correspondents at risk to bring us the news from around the world do it for the right reasons and they're not always right, they get stories wrong. they have to correct them. but they're real journalists doing real jobs. >> this press office, how do you feel it's being run with sometimes audio only, sometimes no briefings?

>> when you're inside, again, it can be an unpleasant task, but i think it's important for the american people and for folks around the world to see someone accountable up there answering questions on -- it's not the president himself or herself, you know, on behalf of the president. almost every day. we did it almost every day. and, you know, it's not always fun. it can be contentious, but i think it matters. >> jay, not from the point of view of the american people but simply from the political self-interest of the white house, are they handling this smartly with their war on the press and their keeping the president away from answering questions? or would you advise them to do it differently? >> i think attacking the press is always effective when the press, the media, are viewed dimly by the general public. >> it's therapeutic. >> it can be therapeutic. i think ultimately it cob counterproductive because it sucks so much oxygen out of the room when you're trying to get

things done. eve an two-term legislator, trying to get legislation passed and time is passing quickly. >> you know, mika, jay talking about going into the white house, listening to the show, cursing all the way. >> cursing. >> it reminds me of something that david axelrod said to us i think probably around august 2009, and he said that somebody in the press office, not you, but somebody in the press office said to him, why are you friends with those people? like they're bashing us every single day, and david laughed and said, you should have heard how tough they were on the bush administration. it was vicious. and that's a grown-up talking, saying it's what marlin fitzwater wrote about 20, 30 years ago, which is they never give you a break. they hammer you. that's the press' job. they go after you and challenge you, and that's something that this administration has not

gotten from day one. >> honestly, i've never seen more lies come out of a press office, i mean, blatant lies, unimportant lies that kind of point to a bigger problem. which is really disturbing. but when i was -- when he was talking about cursing his way into the white house every morning it made me think of how he caused you the curse on the air. >> we're not talking about that. >> oh my gosh. >> that was back in the day. the same thing happened to "the washington post." they claimed the administration was happy with your coverage at all. you know, the bush administration wasn't happy. >> it was a different kind of friction. >> the obama administration wasn't happy. nobody's ever happy with the press coverage they get. >> if an administration is happy with the press coverage it's getting, the perez is not doing its job. it is the constant condition. but you made a really important point about the -- i'm going to call them misstatements coming out of the white house. when you -- i had this with the clinton administration.

we were covering them together. when you cannot trust a press office or a white house to give you accurate information, when you have episode after episode when they are giving you inaccurate information, then you never get the benefit of the doubt, you never get a break, and that's the situation -- we've been in the situation before, but boy are we there now. >> jay, we'll get to amazon prime. i just have one last question. the crowd size news conference, would you have done it? >> day one. >> day one. >> it's unimaginable to me because in 3 1/2 years as press secretary nobody at the white house ever asked me to lie. >> i need you to wouk out there and tell thm my crowd size was bigger than obama's and the crowd size the bigger than what the press is saying and they're lying. i knee you to say tho that now. >> sir, that would be a huge mistake, it would set the wrong tone. >> but i need you to do it. >> sir, i can't. it's hard to get no but you get the chief of staff and everybody behind you and you say no. for his sake.

>> i have to tell you, a horrible thing happened to me this past weekend. mike barnicle and mark halperin told me about alexa. >> i love it. >> and so i've got him now. you just walk past and -- >> and you say give me this and it shows up. >> i'm here today, i don't do a lot of this anymore, but because beginning tonight at 9:00 p.m., tomorrow is prime day, third annual prime day for amazon. i work for amazon now. i think probably most of your viewers are prime members. there are tens of millions of amazon prime members in the country. it basically is a big thank-you to customer myway through the year for them to get unbelievable deals over 30 hours because 24 wasn't enough. the alexa products are new. >> are they take your information and spying on you?

>> you have to proactively tell it to turn on. >> is jeff bezos worry about president trump taxing him more after his recent tweets? >> at amazon we pay all our taxes. we've been pressing congress for years far uniform across the board collection law so everybody collects sales taxes in every jurisdiction. that's supported by a majority of republicans and democrats, by the obama administration, the trump administration. we'd just like to see it get done. >> what kinds of deals will be on prime? did i pay too much for my echo show? >> well, now is an opportunity to buy more for your friends. >> get out of here. come on. >> by the way, i was going to say this today, i didn't know you were coming on because i don't know until somebody shows me who's coming on. >> still doesn't know. >> barnacle ruined me because it does change. i walk into a room, elvis costello. boom. >> i've been at amazon a little over two years. i didn't know this. half of what people buy on amazon is not amazon products, they're from third-party small

and medium sized businesses. >> do you curse on your way to work at amazon? >> never. i'm very lucky to be where i am. >> okay. >> thank you, jay. >> thanks, guys. >> that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. i never curse at work either. that's not true. good morning. i'm rustephanie ruhle. we have a lot to cover starting with a family link. the president's son admitting he met with a russian lawyer who claimed to have dirt on hillary clinton changing his story from just one day before. don jr. tweeting about it just moments ago. and president trump suggesting a joint cyber security effort with russia and pulls it hours later after it is ridiculed by republicans. >> it's not the dumbest idea i've ever heard but it's pretty close. plus, they're back.