boy, it was fun sitting in for nicolle on this of all days. >> you're special. the highest level of special. >> my thanks to reverend sharpton, bret stephens and david jolly. that does it for this hour, i'm katy tur in for nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts now with chuck. hi, chuck. >> katy, i'm thinking about taking this hour off. do you have time to anchor another hour? >> sure, why not? >> just keep going. >> take it away. you're going to knock 'em dead today. >> thank you. well, it's friday the 13th, who's feeling unlucky these days? the nightmare scenario for the trump/putin summit. tonight, new indictments in the mueller probe. >> the indictment charges 12 russian military officers by name for conspiring to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. >> so why is the president still

slamming the special counsel? >> i call it the rigged witch hunt. >> and still planning to meet with vladimir putin? >> i think i'd have a very good relationship with president putin if we spent time together. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." today's bombshell mueller indictment has dropped just three days before president trump sits down one on one with vladimir putin. putin ordered russia's interference campaign in the presidential election, according to the u.s. intelligence community. he also sits atop russia's intelligence service which today's indictment states in no uncertain terms carried out a multi-faceted hacking campaign led by 12 russian intelligence officials, who targeting the dnc, the dccc, the clinton campaign, a state election board

and an election software vendor. in other words, the president is about to sit down with someone that his own justice department now implies and is now saying that putin is lying to the president's face by denying that russia meddled in the election. how can the president take anything putin says on any other subject seriously? why even go to this meeting? well, president trump is about to sit down with the leader of russia, which according to today's indictment targeted clinton's e-mails the same day that candidate trump said this. >> i will tell you this. russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. >> okay. time stamp, july 27, 2016. well, it looks like russia was listening, according to today's indictment. on or about july 27th, 2016, the russian conspirators attempted

after hours to spearfish for the first time e-mail accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by clinton's personal office. at or around the same time, they also targeted 76 e-mail addresses at the domain for the clinton campaign. july 27th, 2016. president trump is about to sit down with the leader of russia, which was according to today's indictment communicating about the release of stolen material with someone that we now know is trump's friend and advisor, roger stone. we should be clear this indictment does not allege any wrongdoing by any americans. but if you listen to rod rosenstein carefully, he certainly inferred that more indictments are likely. as president trump is about to sit down with the leader of russia, the white house has been mum about the facts presented in today's indictment. in fact in a statement they said in part today's charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the trump campaign and no

allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result. okay. it's an understandable denial. except nobody asked them. why wasn't the white house's initial reaction simply outrage that the russian government interfered instead of just simply defensiveness. as president trump is about to sit down with the leader of russia, he was briefed on mueller's findings. earlier this week as rod rosenstein said. yet after even being briefed about these indictments, the president said this about the investigation earlier this week. >> i call it the rigged witch hunt. i think that really hurts our country and it really hurts our relationship with russia. i think that we would have a chance to have a very good relationship with russia and a very good relationship with president putin. i would hope so. >> so all of that being said, it might come as no surprise that democrats are the first ones calling for him to cancel the summit with putin. why have we only heard

predominantly from democrats. there are a lot of people wondering why the president would still be meeting with putin right now. and one of those folks might very well be bob mueller, because mueller could have easily waited to drop this indictment until after the president met with putin, but he didn't. you've got to ask yourself, why? joining me now from london is nbc news white house correspondent geoff bennett. with me is tonight's panel, charlie savage, maria teresa kumar, and george will, syndicated columnist and msnbc contributor. somebody i plan on seeing a lot over the next five days as we circulate the game coming to washington. geoff, i've seen that the white house says that the summit is still going to happen. are they -- is there anybody inside the traveling white house advocating for a postponement? >> reporter: if they are, chuck, they aren't saying it publicly. look, if you take president trump at his word, he believes

he's deserving of a fresh start with vladimir putin. it would appear based on his public comments that many of the same things that fueled his decision to sit down with kim jong-un, a long-time u.s. adversary and international pariah, that those same things are fueling his decision to sit down with putin. he believes that based on the strength of his mythical negotiating skills, based on the sheer force of his personality that he's going to be able to bring about a result different from past administrations. just looking at recent history, it's not clear that the president will draw a hard line on the specific issue of election interference. you heard the president today when asked cast the russia investigation again as a witch hunt. he said it was based on pure stupidity. he bristled at a question our colleague, kristen welker, asked him about whether or not he's playing into putin's hands by antagonizing u.s. adversaries. just the last time they met it was on the sidelines of the g-20 last summer and the president walked away suggesting that he and putin would work on a joint

cyber security unit. the president only really backing away in the face of international ridicule. just a couple of weeks ago at the g7, he wanted to invite russia back into that gathering and make it again a g8. so what will the president say when he sits across from this table with no aides and no interpreters in the room? i offer that up as a rhetorical question. based on the things that he said in public, it doesn't appear he'll hold his feet to the fire. >> all right, geoff bennett, we'll be watching and see. the president is supposed to be asleep right now, right? i have a feeling he might have some tweeting in him. we'll see. >> reporter: i think you're right about that. >> all right, geoff, i will let you get ready for other news gathering for later tonight. welcome, guys. george will, i want to start with the white house's reaction to today, because we both remembered watergate and there's a great line when bob woodward was asking and talking about, he goes did you call the white

house? he said, well, i did. and the white house said, you know, mr. colson or anyone else at the white house had any knowledge or participated in the deplorable incident and his editor said what did you expect? and he said i didn't ask about that. that's what this white house response reminded me of. >> the devil is in the adjectives. in the statement the white house released, they said no one had any knowing involvement. now, i don't know why they felt they need to put that in there, but it's fair to make an inference. >> i don't know why the first response isn't, oh, my god. >> well, because the president thinks it is axiomatic that good relations, meaning smooth and ammic kabl relations with russia are a good thing, and that's obviously not true. >> when russia gave edward snowden asylum, it was within days that president obama canceled a summit with putin. so there is precedent for this. >> the fact for any foreign government to interfere in our election system and for a white

house, regardless of party, not to be basically saying the house is on fire and this is not acceptable is shocking. the fact that the republican leadership is not basically calling foul is also shocking. the fact that it's only right now democrats is concerning. what is happening right now to our election system, the integrity of our election system. that is what encourages people to participate. our democracy is so strong as long as the american people believe that when they cast a vote it's going to be counted and no one is going to mess with it and that is a huge challenge. >> i guess, charlie, the thing that i'm stuck on is there's actually a political case to be made that it's in the president's best interests not to do the summit. for appearance's sake, going through with it looks like you're winking and nodding. showing some outrage and that you're upset, you sort of get rid of the spotlight, it embarrasses him internationally. that would be a way of punishing him. >> that would be a step that would be premised on accepting this indictment as true, on the findings in it as real as this is not a witch hunt or if it is

a witch huntin, there really ar witches out there. i think trump and the republican establishment that we saw on display in the house hearings yesterday as well and much of the media world is that this point locked in in a way that it cannot pull out of from the narrative that there's nothing to this. the whole thing is a false rigged witch hunt dreamed up by partisans an americans should pay no attention to this. if trump were to say this is terrible, i'm outraged, he would be discrediting his last year of strategy and his strategy instead is just to deep doubling down and tripling down. >> so the director of national intelligence, dan coats, gave a speech where he was asked what would he say to putin at this summit, how would he deal with this. he gave an answer. take a listen. >> my message would be we know what you're doing and we know you know what you're doing and what we are doing. we know you run the shop.

we know you're making the decisions. you can't pass it off to, oh, that's some hacker down somewhere where we don't know. we know what you do. and so you make the choice. but if you want to stay in this tit for tat, we're going to beat you. >> i think what he's saying is also saying that there's going to be consequences. the idea that not only is the president going to meet with putin without leveled consequences is an issue but when you start digging at the 0 tentacles that russia has, it looks like they also interfered in brexit an also interfered in the mexican election. this is widespread. and we need american leadership to step up and say not on our watch. you will feel the blow of the american people if this happens. >> this is not in president trump's dna. why aren't more republicans telling him just get out of this meeting. just get out. i assume bolton -- the john bolton we know from five years

ago would tell him to get out, right? >> the john bolton we knew from five years ago is gone. talk about republican leadership, there's one republican leader. the rest are followers and they're all following the president. there's no independent congressional rivalous institution at all. >> you know what's interesting today, when rod rosenstein -- and i felt like -- i'll tell you how i heard it. his call for bipartisanship was hinting at a bigger shoe that's going to drop and it's going to be rough. we're going to need true leadership to deal with it. first of all, just listen to what he said. >> i want to caution you, the people who speculate about federal investigations usually do not know all of the relevant facts. we do not try cases on television or in congressional hearings. >> just today the president described the mueller investigation as a witch hunt.

your response. >> i only comment on the evidence. the evidence that reflects, is reflected in our indictments and in our charges represents a determination by prosecutors and agents without regard to politics that we believe the evidence is sufficient to justify the charges. >> my apologies, it was a lengthier clip. let me read the clip in particular. it's important for us to avoid thinking politically as republicans and democrats and instead think patriotically. our response must not be on which side was victimized. he's trying, george. >> so back to what mr. coats said. mr. coats was saying in effect in coded language, but not deeply coded, that this is a form of warfare and deterrent is mutual destruction and he's speaking for a nation that's used this before.

>> we opened up this box. >> when you have cyber capacity that can do to a country what it used to take fleets of world war ii bombers to do, destroy physical infrastructure, that was a pretty strong statement by the director of intelligence, who is not, however, the man who is authorized to unleash this weapon. >> charlie, i think part of the problem is and the two gentlemen i'll have on the show later, john brennan and eric holder, who both would say the problem is it isn't mutually assured. we're more vulnerable on cyber than russia is. >> certainly when you're talking about kinetic destruction of material using cyber attacks, which is the reference to our use of cyber attack to destroy iranians centrifuges, there's a separate kind of cyber warfare which is information warfare, which is what would be the tit for tat here in terms of hacking and leaking materials that disrupted the election. remember that we didn't pay that much attention to it here in the

united states, but there was a massive hack of financial documents known as the panama papers, which revealed a lot of hidden wealth, including of a lot of putin-linked oligarchs. and we think that putin blames us for that. we don't know who that hack was. >> you know why he blames us? because there was no americans. there was like four americans total referenced in the panama papers and it conveniently didn't have any other americans. i understand why vladimir putin thinks it was the united states. >> so there may already be some tats for the tit we're seeing here. this is not something that just began with 2016 but that may be more of what dan coats is hinting at than making something blow up in russia. >> so what happens? if he goes in at this point, if you look at -- nato's worst fears were realized. he came in and disrupted the meeting. theresa may's worst fears were realized. he came in and attempted to push her out and realized, oh, nobody wants to be prime minister right now. >> that's called interfering.

>> so do we assume the worst case scenario, that some people fear with trump and putin and that crimea, that trump will show openness on crimea and say, hey, sear yaz yoyria is your met want a part of it. >> that would have serious consequences on the sanctions against russia. but we've already seen the president return from the summit in singapore with the north korean leader and say, well, the problem is gone. the chinese said fine, the sanctions can be relaxed. so there is precedent for that too. >> i think what he's trying to do is basically put us back into the last century where every country was basically acting alone. he feels that america will be stronger boy itself so that we can individually negotiate with russia and china. it's a different world that we're living in. we have to remember that we actually helped craft nato. we crafted international alliances so we can leverage the globalization and have a lot of meat when we go into negotiation

rooms. >> it's not just alliances for the purpose of having a lot of allies at your side, part of the world that he's dismantling is the world of the international rule of law and constraint that binds the hands of the great powers, including the united states. but that the united states generation after world war ii saw as ultimately strengthening the united states and in its own interests that the great powers would respect constraints and that i think trump sees the world very differently. i think he respects strength and does not like constraint in many different respects. >> he's not a small government guy, he's a strong government guy, that's for sure. you guys are sticking around for the hour. we've got a lot more on this major breaking story of the day. a dozen russian intelligence officers being indicted in the mueller probe. up ahead, spy versus spy. we'll talk to someone who knows more about intelligence operations than just about anyone in this country, former cia director john brennan. i have to tell you something incredible. capital one has partnered with hotels.com to give venture cardholders 10 miles on every dollar they spend at thousands of hotels.

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how's your family? kayak. search one and done. i want to caution you that people who speculate about federal investigations usually do not know all of the relevant facts. >> welcome back. that was deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and he may be right, but we've got someone here now who doesn't have to speculate, he does know some of these facts, maybe all of them. we'll see how much he can share with us today. former cia director, john brennan. >> hi, chuck. >> we learned that 12 russian operatives, russian intelligence officers did this. >> military officials. >> this is what's amazing to me. to identify this dozen folks, how difficult is it to identify a russian intelligence officer? just sort of walk us through -- to have identified at least 12

of these folks, and it may be more, but they seem to think they have the entire group of russians that did this. >> remember in january of 2017 when the intelligence community issued the assessment, it identified the gru, the russian general staff, the russian military intelligence, as being the perpetrators of this attack. so at that time we already knew it was the gru. but i think the doj's indictment today is testament to the tremendous efforts and work of the fbi as well as the intelligence community at large in terms of putting together the pieces forensically as well as other intelligence that might be available to identify the exact individuals who were responsible and involved in this attack. >> let's go through some in this indictment, what did you learn today that was new to you? >> well, i think i learned some of the details, but i don't think i learned a lot new. as i said in the intelligence community assessments, we already had most of the essence of the nature of the attack and who was involved. but i think the doj was trying

to make sure they could put things out publicly so that they could really just identify the individuals involved but also protect those source and methods that we need to continue to rely on. >> one of the more disturbing aspects of this indictment was the fact that the attempts to go to the election rolls it looks like were much more sophisticated than maybe we thought. it wasn't just testing to see what they could get. that they were -- they were going to some -- seeing what they could do. maybe they found out they couldn't change the vote and maybe they thought they could. this happened in october. how quickly was the intel community alerted that this was happening? when did you find out that this was happening? was it a couple of weeks later? >> we saw things happening in realtime because by october, the department of homeland security and jeh johnson was actively working with a lot of the state electoral systems and boards and governors. >> sort of watching, is that what it is? almost like cameras were on in

all 50 states? >> our sensors and monitors were here and that's where we understood they were going after voter registration rolls. we were concerned about the types of things they could do. that's why i think some of the pushbacks against the russians in the months, august, september, october might have deterred the russians from doing more than what they might have done. clearly they had some of the capability, they had a presence and it was a question about whether or not they were going to follow through on it. >> what makes the gru better than this than the fsb? >> well, i wouldn't say that they're necessarily better. they have different types of capabilities as well as areas of emphasis. but the fsb, which is the fbi equivalent in russia, the svr, which is the cia equivalent in russia and the gru, those three have very sophisticated and capable cyber efforts that are under way to go after sometimes domestic dissidents inside of russia as well as external efforts. >> were any of these russian officers familiar to you? >> some of the names i'm aware of. >> in that they are just regular

operatives that you would have run-ins with or it would be in things like this or espionage. >> the gru in the last six or nine months or so of my tenure was going through some leadership changes at the senior-most levels. but the gru is very active outside of russia's borders. they have been known to do things abroad, whether in ukraine or other areas of eastern europe. >> why -- and maybe you're not the best person to ask this, but why do you think the americans weren't named now? why do you think they hesitated on wikileaks an hesitated on roger stone when the indictment essentially describes both the individual and the entity? >> i think this is very quintessential bob mueller in terms of being thorough and very deliberate as well as very strategic in his approach. when in february the department

of justice indicted the internet research agency and 12 russian civilians, that was the first shoe to drop. the second one is russian government officials, these military gru officers. i think the third shoe to drop, and again speculating about who, would be u.s. persons who may have been involved. you need to indict foreign officials in order to have a conspiracy. >> today was the essential crime. today was the indictment on the actual -- here's the crime that took place, stolen material, and who did it, right? and so what you're saying is that the american aspect of this would be the conspirators. >> absolutely. the ones that were working with the russians. i think rod rosenstein did a very good job in terms of being very careful in terms of what he said. but this indictment was in no way designed to identify american u.s. persons who may have been involved in this conspiracy to influence the election. >> walk me through the decision process that you guys went through in 2013 when edward snowden got asylum and you pulled the plug on a putin summit. was that the tit for tat? was that the punishment?

>> it was something that the national security council will gather to discuss what is the best way forward on something as serious as that, as the snowden defection. >> that happened and you guys convened a meeting. >> right. and president obama was very mindful of what both the reality and perception would be of a meeting like that and also wanted to send a clear signal to russia about things that are not acceptable. that's why it was very appropriate for the department of justice to announce these publicly today. >> you think it's important to do it before the summit? >> absolutely. it's very important to give mr. trump a chance to bow out of the meeting in helsinki. he decided not to. if mr. trump takes this seriously and treats it like he should as the president of the united states, he should go to helsinki, meet with mr. putin and in no uncertain terms tell him it is incontrovertible that you authorized interference in our presidential election. this must stop and if it doesn't stop, there are going to be some really serious consequences to pay. >> what are the consequences? what are the realistic consequences that you think would change putin's behavior?

>> well, first of all, i think a consequence would be for mr. trump to change his fawning attitude toward mr. putin and to basically call the russians out on a number of things that they're doing, not just in the cyber world but also on their insidious efforts to try to influence events and politics in many countries, whether it be on the brexit vote or other votes inside of europe. but i do think it's important for mr. trump to be able to lay down to mr. putin exactly what those facts are. now, this is a very dangerous time. remember, we have indicted now 12 russian military officials for trying to interfere in the election and influence the outcome. what we can't do is now go toe to go with russia and bring this to war. we certainly can't do that. but we cannot give them a pass. this takes a very deft and sophisticated handling in order to ensure that we get through this very challenging time without sparking some type of major confrontation between moscow and washington. >> very quickly, you heard us

talking about the panama papers. he has always believed -- the panama papers embarrassed him because it exposed him as an oligarch. >> yes. >> he blames the united states, doesn't he? >> we didn't do it. >> between that and the olympics and the doping, this is a motive for putin. >> he looks at things through a prism about how the united states and the cia in particular are doing things to embarrass him and i think he's very paranoid about these things, which unfortunately leads him to do a number of things in response. but the predicate is faulty. >> john brennan, i've got to leave it there. thanks for coming in and sharing your views, much appreciate it. coming up, how much closer does today bring us to more americans getting indicted? we'll talk to the former attorney general, eric holder, about that and the department of justice coming under attack.

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welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with something president trump told the british newspaper, "the sun." he was talking about england's soccer team and he pointed out that our common language is missing something. >> you don't hear the word england as much as you should. i miss the name england, you understand that. i miss the name england. i think that's a beautiful name and you don't hear it very much anymore. but they're playing as england. that's very interesting. >> good point, mr. president, you got us to thinking about what other words we don't hear very much anymore. prush prussi. a, the ussr, prussia.

when's the last time you listened to the wireless or rooted for the brooklyn dodgers or waved your 48-star flag. anyone checked their answering machine lately? you might have rested your feet on a comfy ottoman but it's unlikely it was lyle when you were having a debate about the future of the ottoman empire. think about president trump said the next time you're planning a trip to czechoslovakia. you don't hear the word londinium anymore, do you? great word.

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we confront foreign interference in american elections. it's important for us to avoid thinking politically as republicans or democrats, instead to think patriotically as americans.

our response must not depend on which side was victimized. >> welcome back. as the special counsel investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election rolls on, was that deputy attorney general rod rosenstein signaling that if more indictments are coming, it's going to get uglier and, please, try to take your partisan hats off? joining me now is someone very familiar with how the justice department works, eric holder, the former attorney general under president obama. mr. attorney general, welcome to the show. >> good to be here. >> i want to get your reaction to what rod rosenstein said. i'm sure you agree with the sentiment. but did you get the sense that he's concerned people are about to dig in their heels even more? >> i think he's probably reacting to that which we saw yesterday up on the hill and what we have seen over the past few months where the justice department has been under attack, partisan attack, by people of his own party and making charges that are clearly unsubstantiated. the department of justice is comprised of democrats, republicans, all of whom put

those feelings aside and do their jobs on the basis of the facts that they find and the law that they have to apply. >> i'm sure when you saw peter strzok go through that hearing, you're like, hmm, that's familiar. >> been there. >> you've been there with the house republicans, particularly the house -- a handful of house republicans that sit on -- it's the same group that sits on the judiciary that seems to be part of the trump sort of protective wing there. what did you make of yesterday? >> i thought that strzok, though he had done some things that i think were inappropriate and it was appropriate for him to be removed from the investigation, did a really good job in defense of himself and of the fbi. i thought that the republicans did not cover themselves in glory. the same people. you know, louie gohmert, jordan. let's take up a collection. let's get jordan a jacket. what's that all about? darrell issa. you know, people going at strzok

in ways that are designed to protect the president above all else. protect the president, not to protect the nation. >> so this issue of politicizing the justice department, republicans believed you were there to protect president obama on everything. and whether there was facts to somehow justify the accusation, it just happened there's going to be a belief that there's a group of people here to protect president trump, right? i think there's some -- what we are getting now is now you have the extremes of both parties that essentially believe government is in the pocket of whoever is in power. how do we erase this? >> well, i think we have to keep pushing facts out there. and the reality is that the department of justice by and large, and there have been exceptions, conducts itself in appropriate ways. and when a department of justice gets too close to a white house, that's when the department finds itself in trouble. i think that what rod has done

here, you know, i disagree with some of the tactics that he's used. i think he should push back a little harder, a little sooner, but i think he's done a good job in trying to navigate a pretty difficult political situation. >> you've been a prosecutor, you've been a u.s. attorney, you've done this. prosecutors sometimes want to send a message with timing of indictments or timing of subpoenas or timing of no-knock subpoenas sometimes. mueller could have easily waited until tuesday. he intentionally did not. what do you make of it? >> that's very interesting. clearly this is something, given the fact i understand the president was broeiefed about this. >> rod rosenstein said that on the record. that's a public record. >> this could have been done after the summit. i think this was a message in some ways that was being sent by the justice department at a time that would have maximum impact. i think that on the basis of this, the president should clearly cancel that trip to helsinki unless he's going to take this indictment with him. >> i was just going to say,

isn't there a case to say the other side of it is, here's the evidence, buddy. enough of this stuff. i mean just give him the benefit of the doubt. >> but there's no basis to believe he's ever going to do that. every time they have had some kind of interaction, he's returned from that saying that putin denied that he did anything. he seemingly agreed with what putin said. i don't have any basis to believe that trump would take that indictment or confront putin in a way that would be appropriate. >> you have a long history with bob mueller. >> mm-hmm. >> you, i think, hired him to be a deputy when you were the u.s. attorney here in d.c. what have you seen in this investigation that looks familiar to you and what is different? >> oh, i think this is typical bob mueller. this is thorough. this is precise. it's systematic. each step is built on the one before and leads to something that is to come. we have seen, i think, in this instance now, we have pretty -- i think a pretty complete picture of what happened on the russian side.

>> we really do. >> now the question is whpd on the american side. i think that's the thing we'll probably see next. >> is he equipped for 21st century information warfare? bob mueller. the reason i say this is that you have a president that has seeded the ground in a different way. that facts may not matter by the time they come out. mueller is being thorough, he can't make a single mistake. i think he knows, we make one mistake and the president accuses us of fake news. he can make 17 mistakes, it doesn't matter. i think mueller realizes he's in that there's no -- you're not allowed -- you have to have 100% on the exam. is he prepared for the modern information warfare that i think -- are prosecutors in general prepared for this? >> i think prosecutors, bob specifically, are crippled by the obligations they have to maintain secrecy, only speak when they have the ability to reveal an indictment. and that in this era is not

necessarily an effective way to deal with that. people like me who have served before need to do as much as we can to reassure the american people that what's being done in their names is being done correctly and being done appropriately. >> look, in full disclosure, we scheduled you, i thought we were going to talk about an array of topics, but i want to bring up one non-russia related issue and this is this new call by a lot of progressive democrats that says get rid of i.c.e. what do you make of those calls and what would you say to them? >> i don't think that substantively or politically that makes a great deal of sense. i think i.c.e. needs to be reformulated and reformed, but we need to focus on that which is most important and that's the separation of these kids from their parents. now, i.c.e. played a role in that but i think in some ways you're giving the republicans a gift by saying we're going to have a debate about whether i.c.e. should be abolished and the focus should be on what this

administration did to those children. >> i am curious what you think and sort of if you've done -- if you've had whiplash here. yesterday at that hearing you had republicans trashing law enforcement and you had democrats standing up for the fbi and the rule of law. you know, the characterization of both parties, you know, is -- and i think even cedric richmond said as an african-american man it's not always easy to defend the fbi. >> yeah. and i hope that voters will remember this when republicans in 2018, 2020 try to cast themselves as the law enforcement party, will remember all the things that republicans have done to attack the credibility of well-intentioned, good serving people in the fbi, the justice department and our intelligence agencies as well. >> i bring that up in relation to the i.c.e. thing because i do think that sends a mixed message from democrats sometimes. >> yeah. and i think that there is a substantive concern. it ought to be about those kids. there's a political benefit to focusing on those kids and

that's secondary to the substantive concern. i don't think that we need to be as concerned about abolishing i.c.e. again, that's an agency that needs to be redone and reformatted, but the focus should be on those children. >> eric holder, are you running for president isn't. >> we'll see. >> that means i think i'll have you back on and get more than we'll see. >> okay. coming up, looking ahead to president trump's talk with vladimir putin. will today's event change anything? [ coughs ] ♪ ♪ [ screams ] ♪ [ laughs ] ♪ whoa, whoa, whoa. your one item would be the name your price tool? it helps people save on car insurance. why wouldn't it save me? why? what would you bring? a boat. huh. you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain.

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welcome back. tonight on "meet the midterms" we've got a congressional mystery tied to today's bombshell indictments. here's a fascinating nugget from today's indictment. on or about august 15th, 2016, the conspirators posing as guccifer 2.0 received a request for a candidate for u.s. congress. the conspirators responded and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate's opponent. yes, it's an unnamed candidate for congress, asked for and received stolen opposition research from russian intelligence. so who is it? did that person get elected? we don't know. here's what we do know. guccifer 2.0 posted stolen documents on democratic candidates in at least five florida races. we also know "the new york times" reported hacked information was used in new hampshire, illinois, ohio, new

mexico and north carolina. and we know that three have already denied being the candidate mentioned in the indictment. we don't know, though, who done it. but we will. and we'll all keep looking. we'll be back with more "mtp daily" in just a moment. through dna i found out that i was only 16% italian. he was 34% eastern european. so i went onto ancestry, soon learned that one of our ancestors we thought was italian was eastern european. this is my ancestor who i didn't know about. he looks a little bit like me, yes. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com the new united explorer card makes things easy. traveling lighter. taking a shortcut. (woooo) taking a breather. rewarded! learn more at theexplorercard.com

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with less of the sugar you don't. i'll take that. [cheers] 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. new ensure max protein. in two great flavors. >> charlie, i think it's clear the president wants to keep this summit going. there was an interesting quote today, susan glasser's piece in the "new yorker," it had an anonymous staffer just said it's an amateur boxer going up against muhammad ali referring to trump and putin. putin knows what he wants out of the summit. it isn't clear what the president wants versus what every other republican in congress would like to see or what others want. >> the most dangerous part about

that is that usually the amateur boxer would know he's not muhammad ali. >> and that he was an amateur. this president doesn't believe it. >> this president is going in hugely self-confident, he thinks he's the deal maker who gets everything right and his negotiations with kim jong-un he thought he'd solve the nuclear crisis and he got nothing in exchange for cancelling those military exercises so buckle up. >> george, you wrote this column two weeks ago before knowing about these indictments and you said if it went as well as kim jong-un this is going to be -- i think you used the word catastrophe. >> yes. >> that's a strong word. why do you believe it would be a catastrophe. >> because russia is a serious country and north korea for all its potential for fis which i have is not. russia is also a declining country with public health and economic problems that are severe, it's not the wave of the future but it as a big wave right now and the president the he says essentially well crimea

is an accomplished fact and besides there are lots of russian speakers in crimea and ukraine and people in lithuania, estonia and latvia are going to say a lot of russian speakers here, too. so he can sow dragon seeds all over the place. >> by that logic does that mean we have to go back to the united kingdom? is that a -- spain gets mexico back? >> but i think to the point is that is the biggest challenge. he is ceding power with russia receded. >> middle east, he's basedly back -- trump's got them back in. >> and that's all that putin has. when you talk about what russia has, they have minute rales and bluster but everything else that is on deck for them whether it comes to their economic growth declining, a young population that has nowhere to go except perhaps to cheer for the world cup and ukraine, what he did

with crimea gave him another boost to our president is giving this guy who has no bluster bluster. >> i think he is exposing the weakness in europe right now. europe is a mess. every country has its own problems, migration problems, interference and overhype of the migration prices is impacting it but europe seems to be as much in a mess as we are in washington. >> europe is a mess but not about to collapse. the place where this summit has the to ten tomorrow cause real change in the world is what trump agrees to with regard to a country that isn't a mess, syria. the people watching this will be the kurds, the sdf wonder if this is the moment they get sold out. >> what's fascinating is're. iran is somebody who is an ally

of russia is and at the same time the president wants to isolate them but putin doesn't want to see them isolated >> putin cannot be happy if they get a nuclear weapon. i think he knows that pakistan can get nuclear weapons when it has a per capita income of $400 a year, any nation that wants -- north korea, even lower, they got them. >> >> there's also the question of where they're getting the arsenal from and they there's not necessarily an understanding of where these individuals can get it and they can get it from chechnya and other folks that are part of the web of the former soviet union. >> roger stone, how much trouble is he in? >> he's been letting it bemoan he's likely to be indicted. his presence in that indictment

today is more bread crumbs to where mueller may be going next. the trump republican establishment motif that there investigation needs to be shut down is harder and harder to promulgate. >> charlie, maria, george, i have to leave it there. i'm going to see him a lot. i hope you are enjoying the all star weekend. i can't wait for it. >> you're inviting us. >> we'll be right back

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well, we had a packed show for you. that's all we have tonight and we'll be back monday. more "mtp daily." but if it's sunday it's meet meet -- "meet the press." good evening, ari. >> good evening, chuck. we begin with breaking news. bob mueller indicting russians for hack iing. the biggest developments in this probe since paul manafort's indictment. this is friday, july 13, and the special counsel probe that donald trump has spent his presidency degrading in which house republicans furiously blasted in that nearly ten-hour hearing yesterday in which currently hangs over trump's foreign tour and putin summit, well, tonight there has been the most detailed indictment of russian election meddling in american