good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. \s. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. i'm katy tur in for nicolle wallace. it looks like robert mueller gets the last word on trump's claim that the russia investigation is a witch hunt. just days ahead of trump's first summit with putin, deputy attorney general rod rosen tine today announced a dozen new zips in mueller's probe. 12 russian military officers is charged with hacking the democratic national committee. hillary clinton's campaign and voting technology ahead of the 2016 election. >> today a grand jury in the district of columbia returned an

indictment presented by the special counsel's office. the indictment charges 12 russian military officers by name for conspireing to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. according to the allegations in the indictment, the defendants worked for two units of the main intelligence director rat of the russian general staff known as the gru. the units engaged in active cyber operations to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. the conspirators corresponded with several americans during the course of the conspiracy through the internet. there's no allegation in this indictment that the americans knew they were corresponding with russian intelligence officers. >> the indictments place the blame for the 2016 election meddling squarely on the shoulders of the russian state. not as donald trump has previously alleged, china, a

400-pound man or "other people in other countries." according to rosen tine, the president was briefed earlier this week that the indicts were coming but trump and his white house have offered no condemnation of russia, putin or the individuals charged. in fact, trump has continued to repeatedly praise putin throughout his foreign trip and ma line the investigation. calling it a witch hunt as recently as this morning. >> i think i'd have a very good relationship with president putin if we spend time together. i may be wrong. other people have said that didn't work out. i'm different than other people. i think we're being hurt very badly by the, i would call it the witch hunt. i call it the rigged witch hunt. i think that really hurts our country and our relationship with russia. i think 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. >> let's get right to the ken

dilanian, national security reporter for nbc news, frank figliuzzi, former fbi assistant director for counter intelligence, former chief speaks plan for the justice department, matt miller and joyce vance. >> given trump called this a witch hunt and given rod rosenstein briefed him on this indictment days ago, what does that say to you how seriously donald trump is taking this investigation? >> he's taking it serious lis in one way, i think he's always taken this very seriously if that he's been clearly concerned about the aspects that relate to him, the onstruction of justice he's under investigation for. the other part he's never taken seriously as an attack on the united states. he cares about anything that might affect him. he cares about implications of wrong dong by people around him but whenever it's discussed as an attack on the united states and our democracy, an attack on the way on our free and fair elections, you see this

defensiveness from him and this need to lash out against the investigators. and it is remarkable i think that days after he was briefed on this indictment, when he knew it was coming, when he knew there would be public evidence unsealed about a russian conspiracy to attack our elections and just before he went to meet with vladimir putin, he was still attacking the investigators and making excuses for the russian government. it is at best an irresponsible course of action by the president. >> matt, given that, if he was completely innocent of all the charges and if this really was nothing for him, if he was not involved in any way or his campaign wasn't involved in any way, if he knew he was innocent, why would he not be able to take this seriously and say this is a very big deal and i want to get to the bottom of this. why can't he separate those two if he is innocent? >> well, the best theory that you can give, the best possible explanation for his behavior he just thinks all of these allegations about russian meddling whether there was any collusion between his campaign

or not, but just account allegations of meddling somehow dampen the impact of his win and they ascribe his win to the actions of the russian government and not to what he thinks is the brilliance of his own campaign. that's the best possible explanation you can give for it. the other explanation is he did something wrong or knows people around him did something wrong. i'll say to your point about if he is innocent, why doesn't he take this more seriously. the other thing you would say, if he's innocent, he has nothing to hide. why does he keep delaying and talking with the special counsel both about what he knows about what happened in the campaign and what he did, what he may or may not have done to obstruct the investigation into the campaign activities once he became president. >> ken, the timing of this comes a day after the peter strzok hearing that contentious hearings where republicans tried to make him the boogeymen and two or three days before trump's meeting in helsinki with vladimir putin. >> katie, as ben wittes said

today it's an incredibly strong move by federal law enforcement. the entire intelligence community. because this indictment really just flies in the face of everything that donald trump has been saying about as you just said. what's more, we have a little bit of breaking news here. dan coates, direct he of national intelligence explicitly called out russian hacking and asked what he would say to putin. he said that he would say we know what you're doing and we know how you're doing it. we know you run the shots. we know you're making decisions. you can't pass it off to some hacker down somewhere where we don't know. we know what you do. you make the choice. explicitly calling out that as nbc news reported putin directly supervising was personally involved in this election interference operation. donald trump knows that. that's not in this zimt but it's in the intelligence he's been briefed on and it's explicable -- we can understand why he wants to say it's a hoax that his campaign was col

includinging with the russian election interference effort. why is he unwilling to come to grips with the fact a foreign government interfered with our election to prevent it from happening again. >> there is more news coming out of this indictment. some connecting of the dots that we haven't been reporting till now. on page 13 of the indictment, frank, the mueller team talks about when d.c. leaks an election leaks, the domains were made. it says this, on other about june 8th, 2016 conspirators launched dc leaks.com which they used to release stolen e-mails. before it shut down around march 2017, the site received over 1 million page views. the conspirators falsely claimed that it was started by a group of american hackivists when in fact it was starred by the russians. june 9th the day after this website was creates that was that trump tower meeting with

done junior, jared kushner, paul manafort, the russian lawyer. >> we don't know what the nexus is other than proximity and time but if you read through this indictment and every america who cares about the threat to america should read it carefully. it's a great read. put down the spy novel, pick up the indictment and read through this. when you look at the passage you're talking about, you can see that there's great effort made to deceive, ob fuss skate by the russians, pretend to be something they're not, pretend to blame it on americans and then we see the proximity in time as that's going on, we have campaign officials for trump sitting down, breaking bread, meeting with russians the proximity of that, i don't believe net coincidences. we're seeing that play out in

all the meetings we know of. >> that seems to be a theme among federal prosecutors, i don't believe in hunches is what chuck rosenburg told me earlier today or federal investigators i should say. there's also this. it's interesting, as well talking about trump campaign official or someone who was in contact with trump campaign officials talking directly with guccifer 2.0 who this indictment names, as well as a russian. the conspirators posing as guccifer 2.0 communicated with u.s. personas about the release of stolen documents on other about august 15th, 2016, the conspirators posing as guccifer 2.0 wrote to a person in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of donald trump. thank you for writing back. on or about august 17th, 2016 they added please tell me if i can help you anyhow. it would be a great pleasure to me. ken, back to you for a moment. that's roger stone, right.

>> yeah, and we know that because roger stone this has been reported ob previously and roger stone took it upon himself to release screen shots of these messages still on the web. you can find them. they read verbatim like this exchange. roger stone said he never communicated with any russian intelligence official. this indictment suggests that that is not the case. he may not have known it. clearly he was communicating with russian intelligence. >> joyce, the white house has released a statement on therein today. and they say that the charges include no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone in the campaign. and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election results. that's what we've been saying all along. let's be clear. this indictment doesn't say that's not what they're going to find. the investigation is still ongoing and if you ask pete williams, our justice reporter, he makes it clear that there is more coming. >> i think that that's absolutely right. rod rosenstein when he announced

this indictment today, did not look like a man who was delivering the last chapter in a book. it was clear that he was in the middle of the story. we've now seen the irs indictment which talks about social media manipulation by russia. here we have the russian hacking piece with a little glimpse manufacture roger stone and perhaps others. it would be very unlikely if mueller did not have additional indictments to drop here. but katie, what's so disturbing about the white house's statement is that they only seem to be concerned with risk to the white house, with risk to trump from this investigation. and they miss the bigger picture. that russia attacked this country as certainly as japan bombed pearl harbor. this was a cyber attack on our elections and the president of the united states doesn't seem to be concerned as long as mueller doesn't indict people from his campaign. >> does mueller pay attention to the president's reaction to the white house's reaction? >> i suspect he pays attention

to the reaction of a lot of people. you know, federal prosecutors do something caused tickling the wire in drug cases or other cases where they have wiretap. you see the reaction that defendants or subjects have as there's activity during a wiretap and perhaps as it's revealed and taken down. so mueller is definitely looking how people here react to the announcement of this indictment because the most important element of the case if there will be cases against american citizens or others will be whether they had knowledge and intent, whether they were unwitting dupes for russians or knowing participants. you know, this indictment makes it very clear in the conspiracy count that is naming people who are indicted today but that there are others who are known and unknown to the grand jury. mueller will be deciding whether there are other co-conspirators. >> talking about roger stone for another moment because his name has been swirling around this so much, one thing that i think is

interesting are so far as far as we know, he has not been interviewed by the special counsel. any reason to believe he could be cooperating? >> yeah, his public per season nap certainly doesn't seem to lend itself to cooperation. that's not what i'm getting from him. i'm thinking he's not been interviewed yet because they're saving this up. they are building their case and there's only going to sit him down when they're ready to present document after document evidence after evidence. the white house, fox news, rudy giuliani can come out today and say this somehow problems that there's no evidence involving trump or campaign members. but what we do see in reference to u.s. persons like roger stone are that they're knowingly engaged with a hacker presenting stolen property, stolen data and they're exchanging, they're in a conversation with these people. so it may not be that they knew that they were russian intelligence officers. it may not be they knew they were russians but they knew they

were dealing with some for of criminal conduct. >> july 27th, matt miller is a date that keeps coming up, the date that donald trump asked russia, if you're listening, find hoda kotb's e-mails. let's listen to that moment. july 27th, 2016 in the middle of the democratic national convention. donald trump comes out, holds a press conference at his doral golf club in miami. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. > i was at that press conference. it raised red flags for me. i said are you serious? does it not give you pause to ask a foreign government to hack nook anybody's e-mail in the u.s. let alone a political opponent and he said no, no, no, it does not. you're just trying to save clinton towards me and then reiterated again i'd love to see those e-mails. now we're learning fromming this indictment that on that very day after hours so presumably after

donald trump said that, for the very first time according to the indictment and they say for the first time in this, there was a spearfish mr. effort by the conspirators named in this indictment to the hack into hillary clinton's e-mails. >> that was a damning moment for the president when it happened and it's become only more damning with the benefit of hindsight and the benefit of finding out just what was going on in the campaigns. we've since pound out in the spring of 2016, donald trump's campaign was approached by someone who said that the russians had obtained hillary clinton's e-mails. in june of 2016, they were approached by a russian attorney seemingly acted on the kremlin's beautifully who offered to share information after an intermediary said the russian government wants to help your campaign. the president then goes out and asks for russian intelligence services to hack hillary clinton's e-mails. we know that very same day they jumped into action. it's astonishing if you think

about it. the gru, the russian military intelligence service was essentially acting as donald trump's personal concierge. he asked them to get her e-mails and they jumped to respond. >> frank, you don't believe in coincidences but could this be a coincidence. >> highly unlikely. >> who was jumping in a second ago. >> i wanted to say your questioning of donald trump looms very important because you gave him a chance to say i was just kidding, it was hyperbole. he didn't take that chance. he's on the record saying i meant what i said. i wanted them to get the e-mail. whether he knew that they were going out to get it, apparently according to the indictment or not, can you imagine if barack obama or george w. bush had made a statement and found out later that foreign operatives tried to steal something pursuant to that statement? can you imagine them not addressing it in public, not being grilled about it? it's incredible. >> trey gowdy's head might explode if that happened.

>> talking about rudy giuliani who never shied away from getting involved in anything, he's got a statement today. the indictments rosenstein announced are good news for all-americans. the russians are nailed. no americans are involved. time for mueller to end this pursuit of the president and say president trump is completely innocent. joyce, it sounds like he's saying the president's a target of this investigation. >> it does sound a little bit that way. and rudy gufl as a former u.s. attorney knows or should know that prosecutors don't like to give defendants and in fact, under the u.s. attorney's manual, do not give defendants whether they're targets or subject a clean bill of health because you don't know where the evidence might go in a case. but this was really damage forth president. you participated in that press conference where he called for russian participation. he then tried to cover up at least this one meeting in trump towers. and this really brings the obstruction case into focus

because one of giuliani's complaints has been you can't obstruct if there's no underlying crime. well, now we're seeing whether trump is guilty or not, there was in fact underlying activity by russia and that really casts obstruction and trump's efforts to end the russia investigation into a whole new light. >> ken, matt, joyce vance, guys, thank you very much. frank, stick around with us. coming up in the wake of today's indictments some democrats are calling on trump to scrap his summit with putin. so far the white house isn't saying anything has changed. we'll look what we can expect. plus, memo to congress. rod rosenstein appear to be fed up with shenanigans like yesterday's hearing on capitol hill. his hessage to lawmakers trying to meddle in an ongoing investigation next. aise to meddle in an ongoing investigation next. message to l to meddle in an ongoing investigation next. take that pen should

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>> i know you'll ask will we be talking about meddling and il absolutely bring that up. i don't think you'll have any gee, i did it, i did it, you got me. there won't be a perry mason here i don't think. you never know what happens. but il firmly ask the question. >> on the heels of a dozen new indictments in robert mueller's russia investigation, trump's reluctance to condemn vladimir putin for election meddling has led to calls from both sides of the aisle for trump to cancel his summit with putin days away. republican senator john mccain just put out this statement. despite repeated warnings from our nation's top intelligence and military leaders, the kremlin's efforts to weaken our institutions have continued

unabated. with insufficient action taken by the administration or congress to strengthen our cyber defenses, safeguard our election systems and deter further destabilizing activities. president trump must be willing to confront putin from a position of strength and demonstrate that there will be a serious price to pay for his ongoing aggression toward the u.s. and democracies around the world. if president trump is not prepared to hold putin accountable, the summit in helsinki should not move forward. joining me now from london, white house reporter jonathan lew mere and theer evan mcmullin. he ran as an independent candidate for president in 2016. "new york times" op-ed columnist and msnbc contributor bret stephens and former republican congressman david jolly. jonathan, let's start with you. you're there with the president. any word whatsoever from the administration on this summit with vladimir putin changing,

not happening on monday? >> the president left england a short time ago. he has since landed in scotland and making his way to his golf course in turnberry where he is spending the weekends before that summit in finland on monday. in fact, sarah sanders recently said that summit is still on. that is still planned for monday. there's been no change to that itinerary in light of today's indictments it shows you this president is always shadowed by the russia probe and the questions of possible involvement with his campaign with russian officials in 2016, whatever links he may have to putin will be that much at the forefront as we go into monday. you heard the president say yesterday at nato, again today, in his press conference, his rather wild press conference was prime minister may he is going to talk about election meddling with vladimir putin. i'd like to point out, he has never pressed him before.

he saw him in germany last year. he was with him in vietnam at a summit there last fall. neither time depress him on i was there in hanoi when he told us putin said he didn't do it, and trump said and he believes himself he didn't do it only to later suggest he would side with his own intelligence agencies over the russian president but there's going to be, as the weekend goes on, further calls for this summit not to happen but the white house wants it to. >> that statement from the sarah sanders came out as i was asking you. good for being on that. jonathan. evan, given that the president this morning called it a witch hunt and given he's known about the indictments for days, he's still going. he hasn't yet condemned the russians, condemned the state, even said a word about it publicly. do you think he's going to take it seriously when he sits down with putin? are we supposed to trust that he's going to push him? there's not going to be a note taker there as far as we know. only a translator.

>> i think we're all still in the space where we're applying traditional expectations for a u.s. president to donald trump. that's a mistake, and john mccain who i have an immense amount of respect for i think is being very diplomatic and the statesman that he is by making that strong statement what the expectations for trump should be. the reality is that trump continues to cover for putin. he's doing putin's work against nato, against the european union. he's calling the investigation a witch hunt even on the day that 12 new indictments of russian intelligence officers are announced. the president is in my viewed under some sort of influence by putin that prevents him from behaving like a regular president. >> he babes this way because donald trump does not believe in the liberal international order that the united states created

in the wake of world war ii and that we sustained over all of these generations. >> does he not believe in the sanctity of our democracy, as well. >> i don't think donald trump believes in liberal values as you and i understand it. i don't mean liberal in the progressive left wing, liberal as in free speech, tolerance, pluralism, democracy, civil rights. and so on. he believes in something much closer to what putin calls sovereign democracy. nationalism. protectionism. it's why both of them find people like angela merkel in germany and theresa may in england weak, despicable, and are seeking to undermine them. it the ideological affinity between putin and trump is actually rather strong. i mean, we'll find out what bob mueller has to say about collusion on a tactical level but the real collusion is ideological. >> why are republican voters embracing that. >> this is one of these moments

we have to be very careful to not get drawn into a debate over president trump's psychology. what we saw today from rosenstein is a moment in american history. we should be unequivocal in our response and the president of the united states should be unequivocal. the monday meeting should be canceled. the bilateral meeting with putin. we should eject russian diplomats and bring our diplomats home from russia. the president is not going to do that. the president has known for days about this. and he did not pivot in the press conditions today to change his message nor is he changing the meeting. what americans should feel today and i say this carefully, but we should feel fear. the department of justice today issued a statement on behalf of the united states government saying that one of our greatest adversaries in the world, russia, had intelligence agents interfere with our elections. note that when the department of justice alleges that, that is a position, a statement of the top law enforcement agency in the united states. we should be fearful about the

allegation. we should be fearful about the statement of facts but about at the end of the day we should be most fearful that we have a president who has known about this and did not change his behavior. >> to those conservatives watching right now, let me ask them a question. if the facts were the same but barack obama were president, if we just indicted 12 russians for interfering in our election, and yet president obama was going to meet vladimir putin and doing so against the advice of so many members of his own party, would the suggestion that there's a possibility of collusion, what would republican leaders be saying today. >> i know. remember in 2012 when president obama had that hot mike moment about after my. >> after my election i'll have room. >> republicans went berserk and ran campaign ads. to conservatives is watching this, just apply the same standard to donald trump that you would have applied to

president obama. >> what does it say about our institutions that donald trump is siding with a dictator or is more lined ideologically with how a country should be run with a dictator than he is with how we actually run things and the democracy that he was born and raised in. >> that's right. i think he is aligned with a dictator, an lined with the broader authoritarian movement, anti-democratic movement in the world led in part by vladimir putin. yes, that's where he is. that's not where our country is, not where most americans are. thankfully, much of our institutional system is still working well. i think congress, the house is failing, the senate's doing better. the department of yuts is doing pretty well. when you have a president that repeatedly attacks these institutions, they come under pressure that eventually starts to create cracks. >> but enough americans are out there that embraced a man who was even siding with vladimir

putin during the election and saying these things during the election and talking about a global conspiracy, et cetera, enough to put him in office. there is fear among democratic strategists and democrats behind the scenes that the blue wave is not going to be such a wave in the fall. so what do you say to that if you believe everything is still okay? be. >> i am hopeful that call it a blue wave or whatever kind of wave you want. i call it an american wave. i'm hopeful that the american people have seen what's happening now and will say this is unacceptable, this threatens our sovereignty, our ability to elect our own leaders and hold them accountable. i believe that the american people will respond to this in a way to collect the president through congress. let me say the president is still underwater with his approval rating. yes, there are millions of people who came out and voted for donald trump. we are as a nation climbing a learning curve here. we've never face this had exact sort of thing. the media's facing or climbing a learn curve.

political leaders are climbing a learning curve. some of them refuse to. american vote ares are. we as a nation are climbing, rising to this challenge. i believe we will rice. >> are you that optimistic. >> no, because it turns out people fall prey to fascism easily. you just have to look at turkey, argentina, all kinds of examples. we are not immune. it can happen here. you're right that some institutions have held up pretty well. the courts, the senate, certainly looking at what happened with peter strzok the other day. >> the is a loss. >> not the house. one of the things that happens is that because trump's outrages come so fast and furious it, becomes so hard to keep track of them. stalin's famous line is the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic. one presidential lie is an outrage but a thousand of them, who can remember. >> he's muddied the waters and made it impossible to keep up. whenever you report on all these

things it, looks like you're piling on. when in reality you're trying to keep up. jonathan, any preparations whatsoever going to be changed over the weekend given this announcement by rosenstein? >> not that we've been told. our reporting indicates the president will do some preparing this weekend while in scotland at the golf course. katie, i know you know it well. he also plans to have time to relax. we expect him on the links, some of his family are there. the first lady is there. and that he departs under night as planned to helsinki for what will be the longest meeting he has had with vladimir putin. he will be one-on-one with him for a while which is the translator. later on there will be a few aides in the room. as he has said, he goes into this with no set agenda. he's going to talk about arms control as he said, he'll talk a little bit about the meddling. we'll see how he does that. that makes people nervous. this is a summit happening without a real purpose but

almost a summit happening just to happen. that the president was so drawn to the idea of the one with kim jong-uning in singapore and he's told aides since then he loved how it dominated the news that he wants something similar here. and that while we'll take him at his word he wants to have better relations with russia, he thinks that's better for the world, its will raises a lot of questions why do it now. >> there's one report i read over the weekend or a couple days ago from phil rucker talking about how the president was brag is there were more cameras at the kim jong-un summit than there were at the oscars. as if that was a good thing. read the tweet where the president said he wanted to be best friends with putin. jonathan, lemire, good luck out there. evan mcmullin, thank you. rod rosenstein's strong message for anyone getting ahead of themselves when it cops to the status of robert mueller's

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i want to caution you, the people who speculate about the federal investigations usually do not know all of the relevant facts. of we do not try cases on television or in congressional hearings. most anonymous leaks are not from the government officials who are actually conducting these investigations. we follow the rule of law. which means that we follow procedures and we reserve judgment. >> once more for the people in the back, we do not try cases on television or in congressional hearings. a rather pointed comment from the deputy attorney general this afternoon and a timely one, as well. consider strzok's testimony yesterday. allies of president trump made him out to be the boogeymen of

the russia investigation. although he provided con next tore are for the messages that got him in trouble in the first place, many on the right are using his e-mails to dismiss the investigation as a hole. keep in mind what we just heard that people who speculate about the federal investigations usually do not know all of the relevant facts. here's what the former new york mayor thinks "peter strzok's testimony was a disgrace. it taints the entire mueller witch hunt. president trump is being investigated by people who possession pathological hatred for him, all the results of the investigation are fruit of the poison tree and should be dismissed." frank figliuzzi is back with us, and joining brett and david at the table, reverend al sharpton, president of the national action network and host of politics nation here on msnbc and jess mcintosh, former adviser for the clinton campaign. wow, that giuliani statement.

what did you think of republicans yesterday and hair performance was peter strzok. >> they behaved like children. it was a humiliating day to be a republican. we saw it time after time. this was not about getting answers from strzok. even goodlatte said each member gets your five minutes but strzok doesn't get to answer. it minded me how mccarthy suggesting the benghazi was about hurting hillary poll numbers not actually an investigation of facts. >> when he admitted and lost the leadership. >> that's what we saw yesterday. this has been part of the incremental strategy of both trump, yes, those in congress who go along with him to undermine the integrate of the investigation. when we saw rod rosen tine stood, that clip you just played where i wondered is he on his way out, is he risking saying i'm going to move in this direction and make a statement on behalf of law enforcement and the integrity of the country despite what the president and congress might do to me as a

result of that. but the reaction is important. not just what he said. trump's reaction and congress' reaction is not to condemn. it's two the defend and to try to undermine the integrity of the investigation. >> there's news and we can hopefully put it up on our screen that house republicans are trying to prepare paperwork to impeach rod rosen tine. we don't have the that. we'll try and get that to you. i mean, does that say it all to you that they don't want this man who is in charge of the mueller investigation to continue on? >> i think that when you look at the fact that this man said what he said about we don't try this on television, we don't try it in hearings. now there's some republican members of congress that want to have him removed. at the same time, you have a president that wants to put on the supreme court someone that says presidents ought not to be investigated. we're moving, moving very close to where there is no

accountability in this country. that's very dangerous. and i think that we've gone beyond left, right, liberal, conservative. we're talking about what is the fundamental tenets of country. i was teasing i feel like i'm getting older because i'm agreeing with brent and tarting to read his columns in "the new york times." i mean, are we actually saying that president trump was told that have 12 russians were going to be indicted with that knowledge, he still called this a witch hunt after being told this went on to europe and began there badgering and he's going on anyway to meet with the russian president. he shouldn't meet with him unless he was going to depend he extradite those 12 russians to stand trial. he should bring someone from the justice department when the aides are allowed in and say would you extradite. i know we don't have the an extradition agreement but would you do it. that would be the only way he

could justify meeting with putin. i wouldn't hold my breath till she gets finished talking. i'm beginning you something that's suggesting the only way that you could remotely justify trump meeting with putin. >> jess, what do you think. >> trump can't stand up to angela merkel or theresa may when they're in the room with him. i have no hope. >> that is so true. >> he trash talks them. >> when the camera is involved, he can beret someone. >> he's a coward, he has this strong man, bully appearance but he doesn't like firing people. he won't do it. it's tough to fire somebody. it's not a pleasant thing to go through. he's not willing to. he'll tweet while you're sitting on the tarmac. i was happy we saw that spectacle yesterday. i think it's important every now and then for what happens in the conservative echo bubble to spill over into reality every now and then. if you tune in to conservative media outlegs, you hal hear

nothing but strzok and page as evidence that the fbi is hopelessly corrupt. the second that spills over into actual reality, where you are hearing from both sides where facts are introduced where the man himself is allowed to talk what he did or said and why, it becomes immediately an apparent their house of cards is flimsy. >> when you mentioned mccarthy referring to kevin, i was thinking of a very different mccarthy. >> me, too. >> that's what it really felt like. >> are you prepared to go that far and make that comparison? >> there was a mccarthyite hearing. >> joe mccarthy. >> joe mccarthy. >> in which a public servant, a fallible human being, was accused of representing some kind of deep state conspiracy that's exactly what joe mccarthy said about the state department, that it was controlled by comists and nefarious agents. the good thing about that hearing it gave agent strzok an opportunity to simply apply

common sense and logic for the first time. >> let's play some of what he said. he tries to put the tests into context. that's so important to remember what was happening at the time he was sending texts and also probably think back and wonder what republicans were saying publicly at the time. first, let's listen to the texts where he is referring to nato. listen. >> i would encourage you as i forget who i said this to earlier this morning, you need to read these texts in the context of what was going on at the time. so when i make the comment about trump having no idea how destabilizing his presidency would be, that came on the heels of a speech where then candidate trump said he didn't know the whether or not the united states should honor its commitment to mutual dwinsd nato. >> i appreciate that. >> sir. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. mr. chairman. >> mr. chairman, may the witness be president obamaed to answers? >> no, no, no.

>> he should be permitted to answer his question. >> everyone will suspend. i told the gentleman he could answer briefly. he has answered briefly. >> he has not finished answering. > we will now turn to the gentle woman from washington, d.c. for her questions. >> notice they cut him off whether he started to put the texts into context. listen to the other time, we will stop him text. here's what was happening when pete your strzok sent that message. >> i think it's important when you look at those texts that you understand the context in which they were made and the things that were going on across america. in terms of the texts that we will stop it, 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 effect somebody demonstrating that behavior to be president of the

united states. it was in no way unequivocally any session that me, the fbi, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process. >> think of the context he gives. hey, frank, what do you make of the context he gives? >> yeah, so listen, clearly they didn't want to hear the truth. they couldn't handle the truth as jack flickal son would say to you. but a couple thoughts. first, if people are wondering what kind of man is this pete strzokking? what does he do for a living? what kind of work is this counter intelligence division capable of that he comes from. read the indictment and you'll see the kind of amazing work that fbi people do every single day. secondly, katie, i've thought long and hard about yesterday's hearing. i watched most of it painfully and reading it in the context of today's indictment. and i think what we're seeing is

a significant from pure political interest which is obvious and saving their own butts moving into an atmosphere of fear. i sense increasing fear and when you look at the indictment today, what i'm intrigued by is we're talking a lot about the hacking that went on into the dnc, we're talking about hacking into hillary's e-mails and others but read the indictment and look at the democratic congressional campaign that was hacked into. we need to know more about that. what did the russians do whether he they were inside the network and the systems of the congressional campaign. why were they doing that? what members of congress on the republican side may they have been sift a sifting and what are the concerns of those republican members when they attack this investigation what, do they think or know that may have aided them that links back to russia. >> weren't republicans trashing trump at this time. >> they were. here's where the republican

strategy breaks down. even if i impugn trump's character, he was removed from the investigation, it does not absolve the culpability of the russian lose interfered with the election or donald trump's behavior. there's only one person of those three, trump are, russia and strzok willing to go under oath. it was peter strzok, not donald trump. >> when we come back, clean up on aisle 45. now that trump's left england, who is left cleaning up his latest diplomatic mess? and the safey for "most parallel parallel parking job" goes to...

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relationship in terms of grade the highest level of special. so we start off with special. i would give our relationship with the uk, and now especially after this two days with your prime minister, i would say the highest level of special. am i allowed to go higher than that? i'm not sure. it's the highest level of special. they're very special people. it's a very special country. >> the highest level of special means i'll trash you to a newspaper, i guess. as thousands of protesters flooded the streets of london, the visit was quite the departure from the typically close rapport between the two countries. vladimir putin could not ask for much more. our panel is still here. brett, you're laughing. >> yeah. it just reminds me of the scene in spinal tap. he takes it to 11. the highest level of special. and it's so especially absurd given that he's like some kind

of guest who ambles into your home, peas on your persian carpet, destroys your family urn, wrecks your furniture says send me the bill and doesn't pay. that's the nearest equivalent i can -- >> is that saying yeah, i stomped on his couch? >> i didn't call eddie murphy special after he did it. i mean, that's the absurdity. for him to stand there. this is the most widely circulated newspaper in england. >> it's a murdoch newspaper. >> and for him to do this interview and then to stand there with her and go through what you said, he's a bully. he can't stand in front of someone and confront them. i've marched at him for decades. every time he sees you, he's like he's your best friend. he called me after he won the election. he does not confront you face to face. >> he called me for me to get fired publicly. he called me two weeks later and

said we should be friends. >> right. >> seriously, on the phone. >> after he called for you to be fired. >> after he called for me to be fired. disgraceful. >> listen to the new york times editorial. no sorry nato. trump doesn't believe in allies. in mr. trump's world there's no longer any concept of alliances. one finds not friends and enemies but fans and enemies. fans are those who are loyal to you no matter what. they never expect reciprocity. enemies are also valuable because they help you solve problems. you can assert your power by breaking them or befriending them. >> there's a little bit more than that, though. i think that's entirely correct that's the way he sees it, but there's the added element of the strong men that he worships. putin may be a fan of his. he certainly sees him as useful when it comes to keeping up with the united states. i don't know if he likes or respects or says anything particularly great about donald

trump, but trump worships him. the same thing happened with kim, with north korea. he's not a fan of trump's. he says terrible things about donald trump all the time. but donald trump -- >> a very honorable man. >> he just worships the strong men. >> it's the man he wants to be. >> he doesn't believe in our allies, but he does believe in strategic allegiances with dictators. that's terrifying. >> pentagon goes into damage control mode to reassure nato allies. if that sounds familiar, look at these headlines. pence launches midwest damage control mission. that's july 11th. trump officials kick into damage control mode with canada. june 11th. seeking to heal a riff, tillerson pledges new aid to afri africa. trump returns to crisis over kushner as white house tries to contain it, may 2017. i sense a theme.

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boy, it was fun sitting in for nicole on this of all days. >> you're special. >> the highest level of special. >> my thanks to our panel. here's a new thing for me. that does it for this hour. i'm katy tur. nicole will be back monday at 4 a.m. eastern for deadline white house. mueller indicts. let's play hardball. good evening. i'm steve car knack can i in for chris matthews tonight. 12 kremlin officials with russia's military intelligence agency are facing charges in the united states. in an indictment filed today the 12 defendants are charged with