disappoint you. >> we're going to be asking mr. chairman, if it's okay with you, we're going to be asking the fbi and the department of justice to give us those documents that may or may not have been exchanged between mr. orr and agent strzok. i think that's something this committee would like to have and see what those -- if in fact there were documents, what the heck they were. i've got a minute, i'll yield it to -- >> sir, you're going to love this and it's going to upset the vote. i have been instructed that the fbi has now told me that i can answer questions about the receipt of the document so i will defer, mr. chairman -- >> how convenient. >> the gentleman may proceed with his questions and you may answer. >> may i confer with counsel briefly to see if this is completely unbounded or if there are any limitations on what i may say. >> let's ask the one you've been told you can answer. >> let's hear the answer to this one. >> which question, sir. >> the one on the table about the documents. >> the documents we received from a different source in the

initial batch in mid-september. >> wait, wait, wait. no, no, no. i'm not understanding. you said you got -- go back. did you get documents from bruce orr. >> yes, at some point we received material from mr. orr. >> you got documents from mr. orr. what were those documents? >> we received documents from mr. orr, not me -- excuse me, sir. >> i can maybe it make it simpler. agent strzok, was it the dossier? >> sir, what i am authorized to tell you in response to a question did you receive any documents from bruce orr, the fbi has directed me that i may say that not me, the fbi received documents and material from mr. orr. >> did you? i appreciate that. i appreciate that. but you did not from mr. orr. >> no. >> but the fbi did get documents from bruce orr. >> yes, sir. >> did they get the dossier from

bruce orr. >> my direction from the fbi is i may tell you the fbi received material from mr. orr. >> this is amazing. this is amazing. so nellie orr -- >> i'm as frustrated as you are. >> nell owe orr works for fusion, works for glenn simpson -- >> regular order, please. let us bring the director of the fbi to answer those questions. the gentleman cannot answer. asked and answered. >> the american people -- >> asked and answered. he cannot answer. >> the gentlewoman -- regular order is -- >> i understand, mr. chairman. regular order. >> the fbi has now instructed mr. strzok that he can answer additional questions and mr. -- >> agent strzok -- >> jordan has official time to get the answers to those questions that he earlier was thwarted in getting. >> has the fbi also given you permission to say if glenn si simpson is the name that you use in the e-mail where you say simpson. >> i don't believe they have given me guidance.

my most recent understanding of the guidance from the fbi is in response to the question of whether the fbi received documents from mr. orr. the angeswer is yes, they did. >> has the fbi given you information to tell me whether you knew nellie orr worked for fusion at the time you were meeting with her husband? >> sir, to my knowledge the fbi has not directed me or allowed me to respond to that. >> all right. i yield back. thank you. >> the committee will stand in recess until immediately after this series of votes. good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily" almost right on time as they take a break in an extraordinary hearing that many of you have been following all day. we've been following it all day. it's taking a little bit of a break. we expect it to come back. they have to do a little voting in the house of representatives. we'll keep our eyes on it when the members do come back and we'll bring you some of the fireworks of what's happened in case you have missed some of the

day. we know some of you actually work during the day and may have missed some of this stuff. if you've been following the hearing today, some of these fireworks you've already seen. for some of you, you haven't seen it. so this is a day that arguably in the minds of many may have empowered vladimir putin. why do we say that? it's not just president trump wreaking havoc at nato, it's also the republican allies in the house of representatives sometimes looking shameless about it to undermine the investigation into vladimir putin's election meddling. all day on capitol hill republicans have raked one of the fbi's top agents, peter strzok, over the coals for sending personal anti-trump text messages during the election as the fbi's russia investigation was getting under way. the president and his allies have seized on those texts for months as smoking gun proof of bias and corruption inside the fbi, which of course comes as the president pushes conspiracy theories about a so-called criminal deep state and a so-called rigged russia

investigation. at this hearing strzok has been threatened with criminal contempt, he's been dressed down by multiple republican committee members and one republican invoked strzok's failed marriage in an effort to impugn his character. another went after his polygraph records. after a fiery exchange with house oversight chairman trey gowdy when he specifically asked about his text messages, strzok all but said enough of all of this. take a listen. >> i can assure you, mr. chairman, at no time in any of these texts did those personal beliefs ever enter into the realm of any action i took. furthermore, this isn't just me sitting here telling you you don't have to take my word for it. at every step, at every investigative decision, there are multiple layers of people above me, the assistant director, executive assistant director, deputy director and director of the fbi and multiple layers of people below me, section chiefs, supervisors, unit chiefs, case agents and analysts, all of whom were involved in all of these decisions.

they would not tolerate any improper behavior in me any more than i would tolerate it them. that is who we are as the fbi. and the suggestion that i in some dark chamber somewhere in the fbi would somehow cast aside all of these procedures, all of these safeguards and somehow be able to do this is astounding to me. it simply couldn't happen. and the proposition that that is going on, that it might occur anywhere in the fbi deeply corrodes what the fbi is in american society, the effectiveness of their mission and it is deeply destructive. >> mr. chairman, i have a motion. i have a rule 11 motion. >> but the only thing missing there was a quoting of one joseph welch by saying "have you no deechcency, sir." trey gowdy ripped into strzok for a text message about stopping trump's candidacy. here's more from strzok. >> you need to understand that that was written late at night off the cuff and it was in

response to a series of events that included then candidate trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero. and my presumption based on that horrible, disgusting behavior that the american population would not elect somebody demonstrating that behavior to be president of the united states. it was in no way unequivocally any suggestion that me, the fbi, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process for any candidate. >> strzok told the committee that the reality of the 2016 election should dispel any allegation that the fbi was trying to take down the candidate. who won? >> in the summer of 2016, i was one of a handful of people who knew the details of russian election interference and its possible connections with members of the trump campaign. this information had the potential to derail and quite possibly defeat mr. trump, but

the thought of expressing that or exposing that information never crossed my mind. >> folks, you have to view today's hearing in light of what's happened these last 36 hours. president trump did trash nato, he shrugged off putin's meddling in our presidential election and now his allies in congress are holding what some say looks like a show trial. all of it comes just days before the president meets one-on-one with putin. right now the president doesn't seem very interested in pressing putin about the attack on our democracy. so who benefits from everything i just mentioned? some might say just one person, putin. what does that say about today's hearing? well, here's one way to look at it. >> the honest truth is that russian interference in our elections constitutes a grave attack on our democracy. most disturbingly, it has been wildly successful sowing discord in our nation and shaking faith in our institutions. i have the utmost respect for congress' oversight role, but i

strongly believe today's hearing is just another victory notch in putin's belt and another milestone in our enemies campaign to tear our country apart. >> let's bring in sahil kapur, zerlina maxwell and john podhoretz. okay. sahil, what is today's spectacle? what have we witnessed? >> it is the perfect rorschach test of this entire russia investigation. if you came in thinking peter strzok was the villain and was up to no good, there's plenty of material there that you can use to validate your view. if you have a different view, if you heard the questions about him on the other side, which is that the fact that the fbi disclosed and discussed this investigation into hillary clinton in ways that demonstrably hurt her while concealing the investigation into donald trump and his campaign and potential investigation -- i'm sorry, potential collusion, coordination with russia in ways that would have hurt him if that

was disclosed, if this was a conspiracy by the fbi, it was a pretty lousy one. >> but i think it's important to say, you just ran all this noble strzok, you know, talking about -- this is a guy who's escorted from the fbi premises a month ago. this is a guy who the inspector general of the justice department said had exposed bias in his own personal e-mails and texts using a government phone. he says he doesn't have bias. the i.g. of the -- the inspector general appointed by obama or was inspector general during obama years as well as the trump years said he could not say that bias did not affect peter strzok's behavior here. robert mueller fired strzok from his investigation. >> in that same i.g. report he said they know that his bias didn't impact the larger investigation. >> but mueller had to have him removed from the investigation a month in when he found out about these texts between him and his

former mistress, lisa page. >> which he did before they went public. >> well before. >> which is a very important fact. >> it is, except my point is strzok was a major figure in the trump and hillary investigations from the summer of 2015 through the mueller appointment in 2017 and mueller said, oh, this is bad news, you've got to get out of here. so before we celebrate his wonderful testimony about how no one and he has no bias and no one has any bias, the facts of his own conduct need to be known. >> actually, though, that is a question i have. why is this public today? the investigation -- why is this in front of tv cameras? we're in the middle of an investigation. why ask him questions he can't sglarns because this is what happens when the conservative media infrastructure bangs a certain drum and a certain message and then the mainstream media often is forced to cover that controversy that the right-wing media has been focused on for many, many, many months. this hearing was not for cnn or

for us here at msnbc, it was specifically for the audience at fox news. they believe that peter strzok was completely biased and this investigation is a witch hunt. so what republicans did today was reiterate that message and grill him so that they can show it tonight on television and the audience that already is preconditioned to believe that he is corrupt and this investigation is corrupt, they're going to be fed that specific message. this was for them. >> and the real issue of bias there, to john's point, if i can pick up on there, it can neither be proven or refuted. so they cannot rule it out but they're not accusing him of this either. this is where you can get to a he said/she said. while the house is investigating and bringing peter strzok for this long inquisition, the people they're not bringing in, manafort and gates, don junior, jared kushner, that is the investigation that is undergoing and they're investigating the investigators. they prefer that. >> john, this is the part of this that i'm sort of -- there's no part of holding this hearing

that feels responsible. this feels like an irresponsible action by trey gowdy. >> i think you cannot look at the release of the i.g. report on the hillary clinton investigation that mentions all of this and say that the fbi and not just about trump but about hillary clinton, this report was savage about james comey, the head of the fbi, and his conduct in the hillary clinton investigation, whether or not that had a material role in changing the results of the election. so what this goes to -- >> why isn't james comey up here today. >> he should be. >> he has been, hasn't he? >> because the new news -- >> but my point is if it's about that, then it's the wrong person. >> the new news in the i.g. report was the discovery of these texts that mysteriously never made it to congress. congress had subpoenaed and had gotten all this information on what was going on in the midyear exam, which was the hillary term, and the operation -- grey

goose, i can't remember what it was called, the trump organization. for some reason some of these texts from strzok did not make it from justice to congress and when the i.g. report came out, they had this thing where strzok said to his girlfriend, we'll stop it. now, okay, you want to say that that's innocent, that's fine, you can't presume that it's innocent. it sounds weird. he's the number three -- he was in the hillary clinton room. >> the point is he did not go and do anything that would align with anything he said. >> that is the exculpatory part of his story and the fact that the trump investigation remained silent before the election and hillary was obviously partially undone by the revelation of the investigation into her. >> i want to go back. >> so that's his defense and it's a good one. i'm not saying it's not. >> i think that there is a larger -- that there is an agreed-upon larger good government aspect that could be conducted here. let me play you this -- today was a circus. today has been a circus.

>> it was awful. >> it hasn't been a good government moment. take a listen. >> i don't give a damn what you appreciate, agent strzok. i don't appreciate having an fbi agent with an unprecedented level of animus working on two major investigations during 2016. >> if it's so frustrating, answer the question. >> if you'll allow him to, i'm sure he will. stop interrupting him. >> i can't help but wonder when i see you looking there with a little smirk how many times did you look so innocent into your wife's eye and lie to her about lisa page. >> mr. chairman, this is outrageous. >> the credibility of a witness is always an issue. >> mr. chairman, please. >> mr. chairman, this is intolerable harassment of the witness. >> what's wrong with you, do you need your medication? >> look, this committee is always filled with the people that leadership doesn't want to see in front of donors. i hate to say it. whether it's the democratic side

or the republican side. this committee gets filled up with those folks and it gave us that hearing. >> that was an ugly moment. i knew that comment about the medication was coming and still it's jarring to hear it. it's still like, wow. >> the american government on display. >> that is all irrelevant. his affair, all of that is irrelevant to whether or not the alleged bias impacted his conduct in the investigation. it did not. and so i think that the hearing should have been over several hours before it was because we went over the same text messages over and over and over and we get the point. he said the word "impeachment." >> it does seem like it's being done for television cameras and i'm shocked that that happens. >> it's a congressional -- any time a congressional hearing makes it to a network like msnbc, it is not a good moment for democracy, because as bismarck said about negotiating with, i think, france, it's like a sausage factory. you don't want to know how the sausage is made. >> in the house of

representatives in america? it's the worst parts of the sausage. >> and strzok's defense of his we'll stop this was in his view, we was the american voter. he wasn't speaking we as the fbi. again, people can believe whatever they want about this. >> it was weird. the texts are weird. >> one congressman pointed out that there were many, many republicans at the time that said worse things about president trump. >> but he is an official of the fbi investigating candidates and he is also under the provisions of the hatch act, he is not supposed to be -- >> he was trying to draw personal views and professional -- >> what part of today was bad for vladimir putin? >> nothing. >> none of it. his goal is to divide americans from within. this was a spectacular showing of success. >> and i think that was his intention in the hack in the first place. it wasn't necessarily explicitly to elect donald trump. >> no, no, no, i think he hit the laottery on that. i think it's to sow discord and

he's been successful doing that. >> and that predates trump. >> whatever you think about trey gowdy, he is retiring, he's leaving, he's leaving the congress. he's a very excitable and hot tempered guy, but he's earnest and he wasn't doing this for -- he's not getting anything from the cameras for doing this. he's got a thing. he thinks that he has been misled. now, louie gohmert who said the thing about the affair, that's scum. that was a scummy, loathsome thing to do. he's a loathsome politician. it's everything you hate about politicians rolled up into one. gowdy is a different story. a lot of democrats don't like him. >> absolutely he's doing it for the cameras. you don't do what he did today or the 11 hours of grilling hillary clinton on benghazi unless you care about the cameras. >> right now he has retired from congress, he is not running in 2018, he's not making a campaign commercial. he wants to go and practice law. he's done with washington. >> it's interesting to sort of

try to moderate this, but i do get the sense that gowdy is trying to both appease the angry trump constituency on his committee and at the same time try to bring others around, well, the investigation does matter. >> he's still chairman of that committee. he's still a republican in the house of representatives. he would not be there if he didn't reflect where the conference was on some level. it's true that in certain ways he has tried to build some bridges, at least in the way of accepting the intelligence community's findings without equivocation that russia meddled for the purpose of electing trump. devin nunes has not accepted that. trey gowdy has. in some ways he will go there and try to build those bridges and sometimes he will still be partisan. >> right. is it monday trey gowdy, sunday trey gowdy, tuesday trey gowdy. >> he's an excitable person. >> let me bring in another voice as we continue this conversation. chuck rosenberg, a former senior

fbi official, and a u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor. chuck, let me just start with it's been an extraordinary day for an agent of the fbi. your first impressions. >> well, not just an agent of the fbi, a current agent of the fbi. very often we resist having folks -- line folks like pete strzok testify in front of congress. i think what happened today is a good illustration why. this is not about policy or getting to the truth, this is about both sides posturing and trying to score political points and having an active fbi agent in the middle of their shooting match. >> was peter strzok basically not -- because the fbi put so many parameters about what he could say and what questions he could answer, was he sort of had his hands tied behind him or he had come across as really not -- there were times he came across as not being forthcoming.

is that the fbi putting too many clamps around him if he was put in this situation? >> that's a fair question, chuck. he was hamstrung. that wasn't his doing, that was the doing of folks at the general counsel's office at the fbi and his superiors. again, that's why you don't want line folks testifying. you particularly don't want them testifying when there's an ongoing criminal investigation. there's lots and lots of reasons we don't talk publicly about ongoing criminal investigations. pete knows the answers to these questions, he's a smart guy, he's a good agent. i don't condone what he did, by the way. please don't mistake any of that as praise for his judgment because i think his judgment was appalling. pete can answer these questions if given the opportunity, but they ought not to be answered publicly and ought not to be answered during the pendency of an ongoing criminal investigation. there's a time and a place for those answers. it wasn't today and it wasn't at that hearing. >> i want to let others chime in for a second, but answer me this question which is a similar

question to what i think the republicans on this committee are trying to get at, which is how much damage can one agent do if he chose to? >> well, if you're talking about how much damage could pete strzok do, it's a lot and here's why. the fbi, the department of justice, i was a federal prosecutor for a long time, has to deliver two things to the american public in every case it brings. it has to deliver fairness, actual objective fairness, and it has to deliver the perception of fairness. so even though the inspector general found that there was no taint to the investigation, that people did not act on their personal views, there nevertheless is enormous damage to the institution because there's a perception that our agents were unfair. and so when you have to have both and you only have one, you have a huge problem, chuck.

when you look at the clinton e-mail situation and how clinton folks feel, right, zerlina, versus how trump partisans also feel, there's this sense of the fbi somehow messed this up. >> well, we've been through this before with the fbi in the 1970s. the fbi came under withering assault because of revelations about director hoover's behavior and the investigations into radical organizations and things like that. and i think the fbi recovered pretty quickly then. >> quicker than i think folks expected. >> a lot of people expected. i think it can recover relatively quickly now. i do think that the -- when we get to this, the original sin or the actor who is the one who is going to hold the most historical blame is james comey. because i think at every turn in the course of this process, he did things that, you know, to create -- he did everything

wrong in some ways. if he was going to close the investigation into hillary, he should have closed it and not had a press conference. he had a press conference in which he said i could have indicted her but i didn't. then he said no one would have indicted her but she was incredibly reckless using a standard that should have led to oar indictment. then he closes it and reopens it and then they open this investigation into trump and he ends up in this bizarre position getting fired and writing a book and giving testimony. and all of this comes back to comey. strzok is kind of -- but i think here, i think we've got to be careful because it was the department of justice's own investigation that said that strzok has cast a shadow on these -- on these investigations. >> in pure hard core political terms, big win for trump today, is it not? what could mueller say that somehow makes jim jordan go, you know what, boy, i was -- i went down that rabbit hole of peter strzok and that was a mistake. >> it's a win for trump in that

his party has changed the topic. it's changed the subject from the investigation itself to try to investigate the investigators and that has contributed to this ka public opinion where republicans disapprove of bob mueller. i think his disapproval numbers have gone up by double digits. i think democrats are very much behind it. i think independents support this for the most part. >> when independents, if they ever shifted the other way, this investigation would end in a hurry. >> and the bottom line is voters are not looking at this as a top issue for them in the elections. it just doesn't rank. it doesn't affect their daily life. they tune out the day-to-day. i think once this investigation concludes, whatever the outcome is, the report, the indictment, voters' minds may change then. >> you know who is following this? president trump has found time between nato, the uk and preparing for putin. he had a tweet today about lisa page, who at first wasn't going to comply with the subpoena and now she's voluntarily going to ending up in congress. he tweeted this. as i head out to very important

nato meeting, i see that fbi lover agent lisa page is dodging a subpoena and is refusing to show up and testify. what can she possibly say about her statements and lies. so much corruption on the other side. where is the attorney general? and then he included fox news. he just threw it in there. >> i don't like that he's calling her a lover. diminishing her in that particular way is gender to me. i'm not calling it out sexist. i'm not calling for a march on washington. you're looking at me. but he just -- it's so -- the bar is so low for this president and so i think we still, even though that is a minor offense, say that it's inappropriate for a president to talk about an fbi agent that way regardless of who she is. >> totally. >> chuck, let me get you the last point here. how's the fbi sort of repair its image going forward here? this has been damaging, whether fair or not. we've already discussed whether this hearing should have been in the public -- we have all of

that. but that toothpaste is out of the tube. how does the fbi recover? >> it takes some time, there's no question about it. this is a cyclical thing as one of your guests pointed out. they have been through fair and strong criticism before and they have recovered. what i'm about to say i mean with all my heart. not only are they going to recover again, they're fine. if you ask folks in any community in america about the fbi, the fbi is doing great work day in and day out. they're finding missing kids, they're doing public corruption cases. this is one thing at one time. now, it's a big thing and i don't mean to diminish it, but agents ashlds tround the countr there are 13,000 plus around the country and around the world, they're doing terrific world and finding missing kids. as long as they continue to stick to their charter, to do their work, they're going to be fine. they are fine. >> chuck rosenberg, i appreciate it. thanks for your time today. you guys are stuck with me so you have to stick around, which means i know you have something to say, john. >> i'll say it. >> after the break, i promise.

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it helps people save on car insurance. why wouldn't it save me? why? what would you bring? a boat. huh. welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with president trump's upcoming meeting with vladimir putin. the president said that he will indeed bring up election meddling and then a reporter asked what happens if putin denies it? >> well, he may. i mean, look, he may.

what am i going to do? he may deny it, it's one of those things. all i can say is did you and don't do it again, but he may deny it. you'll be the first to know. >> all right. he asked what am i going to do? well, what can president trump possibly do to show vladimir putin he means business about not interfering with our democracy? i mean when you think about it, there really isn't anything to do at all, except main increase sanctions against russia, invest in better cyber security, appointing an election integrity czar. discourage show trials like we saw today. believe the cia, believe the fbi, believe the department of homeland security which said russia meddled, believe the office of the director of national intelligence which said russia meddled. agree to an interview with robert mueller or acknowledge that the meddling actually happened. the president could do any of those things. you decide what the chances are that he will. what are you going to do? we'll be right back. so, i have . i'm 85 years old in a job where

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welcome back. after scolding fellow nato leaders over defense spending and asking what good is nato, the president did reaffirm u.s. support for the alliance today. >> yesterday i let them know that i was extremely unhappy with what was happening, and they have substantially upped their commitment, yeah. and now we're very happy and we have a very, very powerful, very, very strong nato, much stronger than it was two days ago. >> but it's not clear the president actually extracted any of the concessions he was looking for. now president trump is in the uk to meet with british prime minister theresa may, who he's also clashed with a bit in the past. meanwhile the president tweeted out a very nice note from kim jong-un and claimed great progress being made. of course this all comes as mr. trump gets ready for his one-on-one with russian president vladimir putin. i'm joined now by ian bremmer, president of the eurasia group.

i've got a little bit of breaking news from our friends across the pond at the sun. they claim this world exclusive and i want to get you to quickly react to it. donald trump warns theresa may that her soft brexit blueprint will kill any future trade deal with the united states, and then they have this quote from an interview with the president. so he did an interview with "the sun." if they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the european union instead of dealing with the uk. so it will probably kill the deal. president trump inserting himself into theresa may's domestic politics. ian. >> trump also said that he had told prime minister may how he would have done brexit and that she didn't listen to him. so what do you do? look, there's lots of reasons why the uk is not going to get a separate trade deal with the united states. first of all, incredibly difficult to negotiate a deal, a new deal with this

administration on trade. ask the canadians, ask the mexicans, ask the japanese why they're so reluck tanctanreluct. secondly, the brits do not have the people even to negotiate their brexit deal. the trade professionals are trying to hire and train those people now. we are many years away from their ability to start negotiating new deals and now trump said he wouldn't negotiate it if they moved forward with the may deal. so there are so many reasons why this deal is not going to happen but certainly it's rubbing a little salt into an extremely wounded uk prime minister who's had an absolutely abysmal week. >> how is this not the end? did he just -- i mean whatever you think of president trump, if you're in parliament and you're a member of theresa may's party, the conservative party, you say to yourself, the special relationship is done if we do this. >> oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. there's no question that there's no special relationship right now between the u.s. and the uk.

though trump is clearly much more unhappy with the germans broadly on defense, on trade, on energy, and with merkel specifically as a leader than he is with the uk or with prime minister may. and also keep in mind nobody in the conservative party wants this job right now. it's a poison chalice, right. so if she were to have a vote of confidence in the conservative party right now, she would actually win it. >> she's survive simply because you don't want to do it in the middle of this. that would be the argument? >> yep. >> don't change horses in midstream. >> yep. >> let me ask you about fallout from nato. i know behind the scenes there are a lot of official u.s. channels trying to calm allies down. what have you heard? >> the meeting was hijacked by president trump when he's in the room. he only wants to talk about the issues that he wants to talk about. wasn't using his advisers.

didn't come armed with a lot of accurate facts. pressed the germans most hard, but pressed everybody. and the final conversation that he said came to agreement came to absolutely no specific agreement from any government that was in attendance, though there was a desire on the part of american nato allies to say we're working on this. i mean kind of sort of calm him down without offering anything. the good news is while they didn't offer anything, trump didn't threaten anything, right? i mean certainly trump's style of dealing with nato is a little different from obama's. i think we can say that safely. but in terms of actually threatening to leave nato, to not adhere to article 5, which says that there would be collective security, america would defend their allies, to maybe pull out u.s. troops in germany, at no point in the meetings did he threaten any of the allies that he was going to do any of that at any particular

time. and absolutely allies were worried that he might do that. >> so, ian, it strikes me that everything trump has done with this nato meeting was done for public consumption, less for private consumption. >> yeah. >> so that takes us to vladimir putin. >> yeah. >> and that one-on-one. how else do you explain the president's public nato behavior if it doesn't involve vladimir putin? >> i do think one of the reasons why trump might not be giving any ultimatums to nato is because this meeting is happening right before putin, and so he wants to show, yeah, i'm on board with the alliance, i'm pushing the germans and others to spend more. i'm criticizing them on this pipeline that goes directly to russia, which is he is absolutely right to criticize the germans on. but he at the end of the meeting then undercut himself by saying, well, maybe if we have a better relationship with russia that pipeline won't be so much of an issue. he is clearly setting himself up

to have a fantastic meeting with putin. when he said at the beginning of the trip right before he left that maybe the best meeting would be with putin, that's true. i mean, you know, theresa may doesn't want him there. the nato allies don't want him there but putin is looking forward to seeing him in helsinki. >> and putin seems to have an agenda. he has something he wants to get out of this, a couple things he wants to get out of this. we don't know what the president wants out of this. what can you tell us? what does putin want out of this summit? >> the fact that he's meeting with bebe netanyahu, i'd be interested if netanyahu has a meeting right before he meets with putin that would be an interesting last message about what he wants in this meeting so that's interesting to watch. >> that's having to do with syria and iran specifically. >> could be on palestine, could be on arms. it's a useful channel to deliver any message from putin to trump. but secondarily, we know that

trump wants to remove u.s. troops from syria against the advice, strong advice of secretary mattis. putin would be delighted with that. we know that trump has privately told the allies that ukraine is corrupt. he never says that about russia. he'd like to come to some sort of terms of saying crimea was bygones be bygones. i could easily see him saying something that feels like formal recognition. let's put sanctions behind us and let's be more constructive. it's very clear trump wants to get on a much better footing with putin, and yet the trump administration's policies towards russia are actually in their substance much harder line than the obama administration's were in terms of sanctions, in terms of providing weapons for ukraine. i mean on a whole host -- in terms of throwing diplomats out. and we can't ignore that because trump is president. he could have stopped those policies from happening. >> it's a -- it's the most fascinating conundrum that we

deal with. it's the administration speaks with one voice on russia except for president trump. >> except for president trump. even people that have left the trump administration at high levels have said to me privately, we can't understand what's driving him on russia. >> well, there's plenty of people that have versions of the answers to what they think the answer is, but ian bremmer, we will leave it there. thank you, sir. this is right in your wheelhouse, nato, putin summits, busy week for you. a live look at capitol hill. the strzok hearing is set to start again after a brief recess. we'll keep an eye on it and hear from our panel one more time. coming up, a nasty governor's race and the rage against the latrine. it's the ford summer sales event and now is the best time to buy. and check out the all-new ecosport. protect those who matter most, and make the summer go right with ford, america's best-selling brand. now during the ford summer sales event, get 0% financing for 60 months on a

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bruce rauner, who's taking a swipe at his democratic challenger, j.b. pritzker. both of these guys are billionaires. $76 million has been spent on ads in the illinois gubernatorial race. it dwarfs every house, senate and gubernatorial race nationwide this cycle. they have been going after each other on the air waves since well before they won each other's respective primaries. when you have a long nasty race with piles and piles of cash laying around, you get toilet bowl ads. we'll be back with more "mtp daily" after this. that hearing, by the way, is about to get started. it was here. i couldn't catch my breath. it was the last song of the night. it felt like my heart was skipping beats. they said i had afib. what's afib? i knew that meant i was at a greater risk of stroke. i needed answers. my doctor and i chose xarelto® to help keep me protected from a stroke. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem.

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trial of the mueller investigation commences. that will be the -- >> scheduled to commence. >> scheduled to commence. >> you never know. >> it's the 26th of the july is supposed to be when the paul manafort trial starts. one of the reasons that there. haven't seen anything. now we're going to have a trial, that will stem some of the stuff going on in congress. there will be real news. an actual event in the mueller investigation. we'll see what happens from there. >> i said this before, one crime everybody agrees was committed, the theft of podesta e-mails. >> who was co-conspirator, who knew about it, was communicating with wikileaks at the time. could have been roger stone or

folks of that ilk. >> mark meadows is questioning mr. strzok. some people want to hear that i imagine. >> my experience, i can think of examples, not that i participated in, where members if there's an on-going case say and field office wanted to enlist the public's help and would talk to the media about getting a lead on a kidnapper. there are times that might occur, i want to be careful to frame what i said. >> you would never talk to anyone outside of the fbi about the russia investigation at all. >> i have never spoken to any member of the media about the russia investigation. >> have you spoken to anyone who is not in the media and is not part of department of justice or the fbi about the russian investigation. other than witnesses. >> the u.s. intelligence community. >> all right. so you talked to the cia? >> the u.s. intelligence

community. >> would that include the cia? >> potentially, i don't think i can answer specifics of who i talked to. >> i'm going to ask questions you can't answer that are not specifics about the investigation. in doing so i need you to give me clear answers. are you aware there was a meeting between director brennan and senator harry reid where he shared certain intelligence with senator reid on august 25th, 2016, are you aware of that? >> not to my recollection, i am not. >> then the text message between you and miss page a few days after that on august 30th when you said here it comes, when senator reid sent a letter to director comey, what would you have been referring to. >> my recollection is senator reid had been making a lot of comment, i don't know if it was public comment or comment to director comey. >> they weren't public at that

time. are you aware in your e-mail dated january 10th where you acknowledge the fact that harry reid knew about the dossier prior to sending the letter, are you aware of that e-mail from you? >> i don't know that i was talking about the steele material that you refer to as the dossier. i would have to check my notes. >> i need you to check your notes and report back. we have evidence that would suggest that. >> the date was what? >> august 25th was the briefing with harry reid. >> 2016. >> he sends a letter to director comey which we have acknowledgment of by director comey and by you and lisa page in text messages that would suggest you were aware of that, so the cia director briefing harry reid, and the indication is that they talked about the dossier, and we get that indication from an e-mail from you from january 10th. >> that's not true.

the first recollection i have of material from the material produced by mr. steele was mid september of 2016, so i did not know or have information of that material certainly from any other source prior to mid september. if memory serves. >> you had not seen it until mid september? >> my recollection is mid september, and again, i have to defer -- >> i want to be clear on the record here. you are not aware of a briefing that took place between director brennan and senator harry reid on august 25th. >> that's correct to my recollection, i was not aware of that meeting. >> let me go a little further. we have four or five other documents that would indicate the white house was notified at least four different times about this investigation. do you think that would be appropriate during an on-going campaign that the obama administration would be kept up to speed on a russia collusion investigation? do you think that would be appropriate? >> sir, you're mixing a couple of things.

it would be entirely appropriate for the white house to be aware and concerned about what the government of russia was doing with regard to elections. >> that was not my question. i agree. i have a bill that i encourage my colleagues to talk about russian interference, where we can make sure that didn't happen. we're talking about investigation that would include collusion being talked about with the white house. we have evidence that would suggest not once, not twice, not three times but four times it was discussed with people in the obama administration. were you aware of any discussion that took place with regards to russia collusion investigation that took place with the obama administration's executive branch? >> so i want to ask you, sir, when you say investigations, are you talking about investigations i'm not saying there were or were not, investigations of u.s. persons or potentially investigations of a russian sitting in the ukraine? >> of u perso.s. persons associ

with the trump campaign. >> what was the time frame you provided? >> any time between july 31st and november 8th when the election happened, you're not aware of any. that's your sworn testimony. >> about specific identities of people there. >> i wasn't asking about the people, i don't want to know the people, i want to know did it happen, are you aware of conversations that happened with obama administration officials. careful how you answer. >> i am certainly aware of conversations that occurred with obama administration officials. i'm aware of a variety of conversations that took place across the u.s. intelligence community talking about the russian efforts. i am aware that my recollection and understanding, again, i was not present at any briefing, my understanding is that there were not discussions in identities of individual u.s. persons who may or may not have been the subject of investigation. >> i think you're parsing words. >> you asked me to parse words.

you told me to be careful. the only way i can do that is by parsing. >> the chair recognizes mr. richmond for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. against the wisdom of my grandmother that said when you see a circus going on, don't jump in the middle of it, expect people not to call you a clown, i will ask questions anyway because i think this is a circus. and the problem is that it is a distraction from real issues we're talking about or should be talking about in this country. we have asked this committee to have a hearing on the fact that we still have not renewed the voting rights act. we have had no hearing. we asked the committee to have a hearing on daca where we are putting at risk dreamers who

make this country a better place. but we've had no hearing on daca. we've asked for hearings on the fact that we are separating infants and toddlers from parents with clearly now no ability to reunite the family. we have sick and maniacal things going on, and we spent six hours with 20% of congress locked in a room bashing someone in hopes that we can discredit a law enforcement investigation. in my wildest dreams in my entire life, i never thought that i, a young black man, would be defending the fbi. but we were always taught that we have to believe in the system, that the people who take an oath and swear to protect. people that protect our communities and protect this

country on foreign land, that we give them the benefit of the doubt in their honesty and integrity and the fact they want justice to be served. we have these hearings but won't have hearings to really look at russian collusion. we can't even get the administration to admit that russians played a part in hacking our election. so when we look at what we're doing, we're wasting precious time. i can go down the list september 7th, of 2017, sent a letter about daca. on october 22nd of 2017, sent a letter to the committee asking to have a hearing about the las vegas shooting, and what we could be doing as the judiciary committee to make sure that that doesn't happen again. >> just quickly interrupting, senator richmond in the middle

of questioning peter strzok. i want to bring in allri melber. you have a special guest from today's big hearing. seamless transition. the baton is yours. >> we will continue coverage of what's been a dramatic hearing day with hours left. tonight as chuck was saying, i am joined by the top democrat at the hearing from the judiciary committee, he stepped out to speak with me. let me catch you up on what's going on. democratic staffers hoisted pictures to bring the thing to its opening. there's basically photos of people that pled guilty in this case that led democrats to say it is not a witch-hunt. we'll show you the defense of the mueller probe he was once part of. >> this investigation is not politically motivated. itot