nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. donald trump today left his entire national security team with a clear choice. align yourself with the commander in chief who stands by an american adversary, or resign in protest of the president's refusal to accept the universal assessment of the american intelligence community about russia's role in interfering in the 2016 election. here's the president's stunning embrace of vladimir putin. >> thank you. question for each president. president trump, you first. just now president putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. every u.s. intelligence agency concluded russia did. who -- my first question for you, sir, is who do you believe? my second question is, would you now with the whole world watching tell president putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again? >> so, let me just say that we have two thoughts. you have groups that are

wondering why the fbi never took the server. why haven't they taken the server? why was the fbi told the leave the office of the democratic national committee? i've been wondering that. i've been asking that for months and months and i've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. where is the server? i want to know, where is the server and what is the server saying? with that being said, all i can do is ask the question. my people came to me, dan coates came to me and some others. they said they think it's russia. i have president putin. he just said it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be, but i really do want to see the server. but i have, i have confidence in both parties. i really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but i don't think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server. what happened to the servers of

the pakistani gentleman that worked on the dnc. where are those servers? they're missing. where are they? what happened to hillary clinton's e-mails? 33,000 e-mails gone, just gone. i think in russia they wouldn't be gone so easily. i think it's a disgrace that we can't get hillary clinton's 33,000 e-mails, so i have great confidence in my intelligence people, but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. and what he did is an incredible offer. he offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. i think that's an incredible offer, okay? thank you. >> strong and powerful. some of us call him a killer. a former national security advisor donald trump told me today that the president's performance in moscow made him wonder for the very first time if there is, quote, something else there when it comes to

donald trump's knee jerk defenses of vladimir putin. this former advisor also tells me that it's clear john bolton and secretary pompeo have not been able to breakthrough to the president on behalf of the intelligence community and adds the disdain for the intelligence community started during the summer of 2016 when he first started receiving classified intelligence briefing. this former advisor saying today, quote, it doesn't matter that the agencies are now led by his people. it's part of his ongoing war against intelligence. the response from democrats? former national security officials and even a growing contingent of republicans was harsh. here's senator john mccain who writes, quote, no prior president has ever a based himself more abjectly before a tyrant. not only did president trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary, but speaking for america to the world our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are. a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. american presidents must be the champions of that cause if it is

to succeed. americans are waiting and hoping for president trump to embrace that sacred responsibility. one can only hope that they are not waiting totally in vain. and former cia director john brennan holds nothing back tweeting, quote, donald trump's press conference performance in helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. it was nothing short of treasonous. not only were trump's comments embacilic, he's wholly in the pocket of putin. patriots, where are you? we took at stab at answering brennan's question. from across the political spectrum the answers are behind us. it sounds like the president may have heard the noise, tweeting this a few minutes ago. as i said today and many times before, i have great confidence in my intelligence people. however i also recognize in order to 3wi8d a brighter future we cannot exclusively focus on the past -- as the world's two largest nuclear powers, we must get along. helsinki 2018.

wow. michael joins us now, former homeland security administrator bush administration, reclaiming our cyber security in the digital age. you and i served in the post-9/11 era. our former colleague general hayden has called russia's attack on the 2016 elections a political equivalent of 9/11. can you fathom an american president standing against the person who carried out a 9/11-style political attack on our country and refusing to accept the assessment of his own intelligence agencies? >> i have to say the response was an attempt to distract and deflect rather than acknowledge what i think is been proven beyond any possible doubt which is the russians did engage in information operations designed to freak our election. we heard that not only from the intelligence community, but we've seen it in the indictment that special counsel mueller issued recently that gives with

incredible detail a road map of what the russians did. so, you know, i understand that president trump has been about his 2016 election, but it really beggars briefly you're not going to confront the facts which are overwhelming and recognize the russians are not our friends in this. and we need to be very strong in standing against their efforts to manipulate our electoral process. >> you and i are friends, so i hope you take this in the spirit in which i proffer it. but isn't it a little more than -- i mean, deflecting and distracting is, hey, look over here, the economy is rocking and rolling. this is an outright rebuke of the men who head and the men and women who head his intelligence agencies. how does gina haspel stay on the job? how does dan coates stay on the job? he has now rebuked their professional assessment in russia's role in meddling in the 2016 election. >> i hope that dan coates and gina haskell stay on the job. dan coates stood up and was

clear about -- >> let me read that. so, he put out a statement in response to the president's press conference today saying, quote, we have been clear in our assessments of russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing pervasive efforts to understand mine our democracy and will continue to provide unvarnished and protective intelligence in national security. it rings true to the statements clapper and comey put out after they briefed donald trump in the transition. i just want to press you and get your clear answer on whether this is something more than distracting and deflecting from his own appointees heading these agencies. i can't imagine president bush questioning you. >> i can't engage in speculation about why the president doesn't want to acknowledge this except for the fact that he appears at every turn to be insistent that somehow anything that talks about russian interference casts a shadow over his election.

but i'll leave it for other people to do the psychology. to me what's important is not just what happened in the past, but what do we do going forward. we've got elections coming up. our elections in other parts of europe, parts of europe. we've got to make sure we are prepared to defend our electoral integrity and our political process. >> do you think we took a step anywhere close to forward today? the president responded to an american journalist by saying i don't believe my own intelligence agencies, i believe this guy, vladimir. >> i think most americans are going to believe the intelligence agencies. i know the people who are responsible -- >> do you think the president's millions of twitter followers and the viewers -- that press conference today was bill shine's first big messaging exercise on the world stage, and i want to agree with you, but i don't think i can. i think donald trump supporters and the viewers of fox news probably believe donald trump's version of events. >> maybe i'm a little more

optimistic. i think most americans do believe the intelligence community here and i do think that the people who are, you know, responsible for our electoral process and for our cyber security fully understand what the threat is and they're activated to do what they need to do, although i still think we have a long way to go. we're not by any means out of the woods on this yet. >> you are a consumer of the intelligence about threats to the home land and the post-9/11 era. can you think of an example where a president or person in your role just flat out rejected the universal assessment of their own professionals? i mean, is there any parallel in history to what we witnessed today in helsinki? >> you know, i would say this, nicolle. i saw people sometimes press and question on intelligence analysis, and there have been some notable instances where in retrospect, perhaps something was overstated. what's remarkable here is in the presence of an adversary, rival -- not just a competitor.

this is not the world cup. this is a country that is in many ways hostile to our allies and to our own interests. in the presence of putin to be basically soft pedaling what putin did is quite remarkable. as i said elsewhere, i remember the criticism when president obama appeared to be apologizing for the u.s. and i think donald trump, among others, called it an apology tour. we seem to be having a replay of the apology tour in helsinki. >> wouldn't this go beyond -- that was distinct in that he was acknowledging sort of known noenz, if you want to borrow one of our former colleague's terms, secretary rumsfeld. donald trump is making up events out of whole cloth. there seems to be a difference between a new president going abroad and apologizing for obvious and known foreign policy in his view miss takes. you and i were part of them to address the elephant in the room. and the president standing before an american adversary and saying, i believe what he says, not what my own intelligence --

it seems to be a very distinct act what happened today in helsinki from obama's speech, i believe that was in the middle east. >> well, it follows from that if you're going to criticize what president obama did, you should obviously not be endorsing this. look, i'm sure there is going to be an effort to somehow reframe this or replay it in a way that kind of minimize it. but obviously it is a little elm barsi barsing -- a little embarrassing putin strut on the stage with an offer and get applauded for it. >> secretary, it's nice to see you. thank you for joining us. joining us is michael mcfaul, ambassador to russia and nbc affairs analyst. i gobble up your tweets. they're sort of a life line in these topsy-turvy times. i'm dying to hear your take on what we saw today. >> i was a little active today. >> it's good. we all are.

what are your thoughts? >> you know, i want to be diplomatic, but i thought it was appalling. i can't think of a better word. this was so easy, nicolle, this was so easy for president trump. we had such low expectations for this summit. all he had to do, just push back a little bit on some basic things to look like he was defending america's national interest, our sovereignty. and instead, he chose very deliberately not to push back on vladimir putin and on the contrary, lavish praise on him. you know, i just look at this not as a democrat or republican thing, but how did the performance today advance american national interests? and i can't think of one place where that happened today. >> can i just disagree slightly? i think the bar was even lower than what you describe. all he had to do was not put on jambies and crawl under the covers with vladimir putin and he couldn't do that. he didn't have to push back at all for his supporters and all

the republicans we put up before to simply give him a pass. he didn't even meet his own low bar for not screwing this up. so take me inside. i mean, i spoke to a former advisor who was part of those early intelligence briefings with the president, said he always had a hardwired skepticism for the american intelligence community. and he said for the first time after watching the president in moscow today, he thinks there is something else there that triggers donald trump's reflection i have constant defense of vladimir putin. does that ring true to you? >> i don't know the answer to that. that's why we need mr. mueller to finish his work. but it is very strange. we've never had a president, ever speak this way about an adversary. and let's be clear. vladimir putin is an adversary. he's not a competitor, you know. he is an adversary and yet our president today went out of his way to praise him. and when it was just teed up for

him, very colorful language, by the way, you know, you are not a diplomat. when it was teed up for him just to say the very basic things, he chose deliberately not to do it. and that's what is striking to me. i've been in those briefings with president obama right before he walks out to do one of these interviews. everybody knew what the question was going to be. he's sitting there with his top advisors. i know some of those people. i know their views on this, and yet he chose to do something else. it's very bizarre and i think tragic. >> let's go there, because vladimir putin did on the dossier, and the idea of vladimir putin having compromising information about the president, because let's face it, a lot of people hypothesize it's something personal for donald trump. let's watch and talk about it on the other side. >> translator: yeah, i did heard these rumors we allegedly collected compromising material

on mr. trump when he visited moscow. my distinguished colleague, let me tell you this. when president trump was in moscow, i didn't know he was in moscow. i treat mr. trump with utmost respect, but back then when he was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me he was in moscow. let's take st. petersburg economic forum, for instance. there were over 500 american businessmen. the high ranking ones, i don't remember the last names of each and every one of them. do you remember, do you think we tried to collect compromising material on each and every single one of them? well, it's difficult to imagine. not a scale of this. please disregard the issues and don't think about this any more again. >> just push it out of your silly little head. since you told me i was undiplomatic, what putin is talking about there is what some people refer to as the pee tape,

salacious information in the dossier. we collected compromising material. he threw that out there today. your thoughts? >> well, i thought his answer was very curious, he never denied that they had that material on him. all he said was, i wasn't briefed on when mr. trump was there in 2013. by the way, when i was ambassador, and when we would brief congressional delegations, other high-ranking officials, we'd tell them about russia's tremendous capabilities to gather that kind of intelligence, including at the ritz carlton. you need to understand that every phone call you make, every message you send on e-mail and every movement you make, even in my own house, every movement i made, i had to assume was being recorded. now, i don't know what was recorded, but i do know that they have the capacity to do so. one other anecdote, by the

way, i was at the ritz carlton with president obama in july 2009. that was his first summit then with president medvedev. in order to have a confidential conversation in that hotel, we built a submarine-like structure that had no connectivity to anything in the suite that we then crawled into to have a conversation, just to give you a sense of what can happen -- what we thought could happen in the ritz carlton. >> i traveled with president bush to -- not even in russia, where vladimir putin was in attendance and we had that kind of security. >> right. >> so the idea that putin isn't spying on everyone is ludicrous. let me ask you where we go from here. we now have the american intelligence community and the political appointees who run those agencies laying under the bus today having to defend themselves in the integrity of their work product from the american president who took vladimir putin's word over theirs. where do those men and women go after today? should they resign?

>> you know, that's a hard question. >> why is it hard? why is it hard? tell me why it's hard. because the reason they were there, even anthony scaramucci said, was to protect america from donald trump. why is that a hard question? >> right. >> it's been answered, hasn't it? >> well, those that have resigned and some of those people that i know are still working there -- these are some of the people i've known for a long time. their argument is always, well, if we leave, it's going to be worse. now, i think that's a false proposition. i disagree with that analysis. you remember this from working in the white house. when you're in the bunker there and you're cut off from people like you and me, they're not listening to us right now, right? they're on air force one right now. they think they are serving america's national interest, standing there, sitting there like potted plants. i guarantee you, none of the people -- i shouldn't say that. my assessment is of most of the people in the room today, when they were listening to the president, they disagree with him. but they get up tomorrow and they think, well, if i'm not

here, it's going to be even worse. >> that is absolutely right. and i think we've all had some lesser experience than what those aides had to have had today watching this president. ambassador mcfaul, we're so grateful to have you on all days, but especially today. let's turn to our panel matt miller is a former spokesman at the department of justice, now a national security contributor for msnbc and prolific tweeter himself. john cyber, cia officer who ran operations in russia, contributor eddie princeton university washington post, ashley parker. ashley, let me start with you. your colleague phil rucker has been tweeting this leg of the trip. unbelievable press conference, i read jonathan swan was also in the room. said there was a palpable sense of shock at the president's answer that we played to the a.p.'s jonathan lemire at the top of the show. your thoughts on helsinki. >> sure. on the one hand there were indications of this, that this

might not go exactly according to script. if you look at the president's tweets, if you looked at his past comments, but to get into the spectacle, it is one thing to criticize your justice department, your fbi, the democrats, the opposition party, the quote-unquote, fake news media on twitter, from the white house, in the united states. it is another thing to do that, not just when you are abroad and you know there is that old saying that sort of politics stop at the water's edge. but when you are abroad at a summit standing next to russian president vladimir putin, one of our biggest geopolitical foes, and that is what president trump did. and the spectacle is that putin, who as you know, a former russian spy chief, he has a very good kind of dry dead pan face. there were moments in the press conference he saw a flicker of delight, he couldn't believe the

president with cameras trained on him was saying what he was saying. >> john, i'm not sure you agree. there is an avalanche of you know what rolling down at warp speed toward donald trump over this summit. republicans, even the dni are throwing bucketsful at him. >> so what, we've seen this before. remember last year when the president made his comments about charlottesville and we saw an avalanche of republicans criticizing him? nobody reef signed and a week later everybody in the republican party moved on and acted like nothing happened. we'll see if the republicans are actually willing to hold him accountable long term, whether they're willing to start calling the administration official up to capitol hill next week to explain what happened, to explain what the president's been saying behind closed doors to explain how he's coming to the policy with respect to russia. i'm guessing we won't see any of that. i'm guessing you'll see them put out statements. they know today like charlottesville was such a disgrace, that they are going to have to answer to their voters. there are going to be some republican voters who are a little appalled by what the president did so they have to

put out a statement. i guarantee what they're hoping is they say one thing and this goes away and they don't have to answer for it again. >> how dz thoes this go away -- late charles hammer said in his book, if you get the politics wrong nothing else matters. there is a reference to the former soviet union. if you get the russia question wrong -- if vladimir putin picked our president, does anything else matter? how do you move on in a week if you've got the most stark evidence to date that donald trump is on team putin, not team america? >> you're asking me? i think this is really a tough thing for our intelligence agencies and our national security professionals. there is a general cynicism anyway. with politicians there is the view in the intelligence community. you can lead a policy maker to think intelligence, but you can't make them think. but what's happened here, this is the first time we've seen a president who actually doesn't seem serious about his job.

he doesn't seem serious palomino his oath. he doesn't seem serious about national security issues. it's all about him. it's going to be harder going forward. all of those professionals think if i do my job and provide him with information, at some point we're going to turn the corn earn. it's clear there is no corner to be turned. >> let me press harder. it's more than that. intelligence professionals that service this president view him as their most important client. they want to serve him better. all these stories ashley and her colleagues written about the p.d.b., it's more than that. they don't think about keep doing my job, if i keep doing my job better. do they continue to innovate their intelligence product or look at what happened today is throw up their hands? >> it's a resilient place. they're going to put their heads down and do their work. they are going to try to do a better job. >> to what end? >> i'm with you. to me, i long ago saw what this president was and i long ago

believed he is what he appears to be. and so there are going to be people who just, you know, probably should leave. >> would you tell your -- you wrote that -- let me put up a piece from your piece in the atlantic, why american spies worry when trump meets with putin. for the intelligence collector, the worry is the more trump denigrates western values and displays a sense of personal dishonesty the less the u.s. looks like a better option. why risk your life to provide information to the u.s. president who doesn't understand the stakes and the work of his security profession. can you draw that out for our viewers? people don't understand that lives are on the line, especially for allies that provide american intelligence operatives may not have access to in dangerous parts of the world. they don't have to share it with us, but they do because there are professionals among intelligence officials. he may not understand that or may willfully be trying to blow that up. >> there are intelligence partners we work with overseas,

british, australian -- >> f ibis. >> a lot of countries provide us stuff we can't get otherwise. we need to take it seriously. if you denigrate that, you're making it difficult for them to do. those of us who work in a clandestine service, the one thing we have going for us is we represent the united states of america. it's really easy when you work for a corrupt country to look at the united states as a place that i can go if i have information, i'm upset with my boss, the corruption in my country. it's going to be a lot harder for our officers to collect that kind of information when we look like one of these third world dictator ships in some senses. >> that's our question, eddie. do we stop being -- john mccain's statement is interesting. and i've traveled all over with him in 2008 where, among his daily calls were calls from others who depend on not just america, but lyndsay kaine, others who would make sure america would stand with the

countries who had russia as an adversary. it seems like in john mccain's statement was a subtext we may have stopped being who we thought we were today. >> absolutely. ill ustians a illusions are shattering around us daily. we saw in clear stark terms today the crisis the country faces. donald trump, what he did today, suggested that he is not committed to the oath he took, that the country -- the country that many people have so much faith in -- that the country is on the precipice. we've turned our attention away from the tmz video. we gave them a break. when it came to the kahn family, we gave him a break. now here we are on the national stage undermining nato. fundamentally challenging the role of the country and the world. if you want to soft pedal like

the secretary did in our earlier segment, if you can't say -- >> deflect and distract. >> what he actually represents as a threat to the country, then you are complicit. >> do you agree with that? >> i do. we have been in a national crisis since he became president, and i felt a little bit like a dope this morning. i watched this and i was appalled and surprised and shocked. but we really shouldn't have been surprised. >> that's why it's so interesting, the former national security advisor from the campaign, this started in the summer of 2016 when he first went in and started taking selfies with the people who briefed him. this is not new. >> the surprising thing would have been if he came out today and held vladimir putin accountable. there is no evidence leading -- to lead us to wleechl he woubel do that. there is no low bar to clear. if he did collude with the russian government in some way, vladimir putin knows that. forget the kompromat.

he asked him to do it publicly in the middle of the campaign. >> and they did it. ashley parker, you write some of the best tick tocks. what sort of information is trickling in from advisors how this came to be today? he had to expect the question like the one from jonathan lemire. he seemed prepared to say, i'm with him, vladimir putin. >> so, we're still reporting this out, but to put it mildly, this did not go according to script. although the president's aides and advisors know enough to know he was likely going to veer off. and our understanding was that they prepped him. they showed him hundreds of pages of documents they urged him to be very tough on putin. and privately they were saying to allies, you know, here are the parts we can control, sort of maybe a generic statement that comes out after the meeting. but they sort of said, look, when it comes to the press -- in advance of the press conference, but they said when it comes to

this press conference, all bets are off. we have no control at that point. >> let me put up all the people he's blamed for election meddling. democrats, obama, china, the 400 pound person in his basement, other people in other countries. i'm guessing his staff was prepared for any one of those. but maybe not all the p.d.a. for vladimir putin. >> they had some inklings, yes. >> ashley parker, we look forward to the rest of what you report out today. thanks for spending some time with us. when we come back, donald trump and vladimir putin team up against bob mueller's investigation. the president embracing putin's proposal to form a joint u.s./russia investigation that includes investigating american citizens. also ahead, more firsts in helsinki, the president attacks an fbi agent and his former political opponent. of course he did. stay with us. you're turning onto the street when you barely clip a passing car. minor accident - no big deal, right? wrong.

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>> translator: we can -- representatives of the united states, including the members of the this very commission headed by mr. mueller, we can let into the country and they can present this questioning. in this case there is another condition. this kind of effort should be a mutual one. then we would expect that the americans would reciprocate and they would question officials, including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence service of united states whom we believe are -- who have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of russia. and we have to request the presence of our law enforcement. >> what does he not understand about good guys and bad guys? i'm sorry. how about that for an offer? russia, helping to get to the bottom of campaign collusion.

collusion with russia, under putin's grand scheme robert mueller's team the good guys would be allowed to observe russians, the bad guys, question the 12 intelligence officers indicted by the good guys on friday. donald trump, though, called that an incredible offer. of course he did. once again, reinforcing "the new york times" reported after the indictments that trump, quote, is almost wholly untethered from his administration when it comes to dealing with moscow. given the response from russia today, here's a question worth asking. is robert mueller the last guardrail between trump and putin? we'll give you the first stab at this. republicans who are loath to criticize the president have re-upped their statements of support for the work bob mueller is doing. i watched fox on friday after the indictments and i didn't hear many republicans criticizing the indictments of 13 russians. and i'm wondering if you're

hearing anything in terms of some of the more moderate republicans sort of pulling back from criticizing mueller. >> there is an interesting contrast between the president's legal team, rudy giuliani tweeted shortly after that indictment came out that the mueller probe needed to be shutdown, and republicans on capitol hill. sort of one of the big flash points the last couple of weeks has been the role of rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who is in charge of mueller's investigation and the friction between himself, the d.o.j., and republicans in congress who are trying to sort of investigate the investigators, by trying to force rod to turnover documents related to the inception of the russia investigation. rosenstein has resisted that, and now there are some voices in congress that have been calling for his impeachment. however, there is some pretty influential republicans with strong conservative bona fides who have been opposed to that. probably most notably, trey gowdy who is on his way out not running for reelection, who said

he didn't know why rose enz stein would be impeached. there is this interesting friction within the republican party. i think it is something that is not going to go away. it will be percolating. broadly, the fact mueller was able to emphasize in this indictment no americans have been charged with collusion is something i think that has quieted a little of the concern, at least republicans on capitol hill. >> rosenstein seems to be -- seems to have acknowledged with a close circle of his own advisors that he had to get himself on a little more offense. he's still dodging and weaving bullets from all the lunatics in the republican party, especially in the house republican side. but he knew what he was doing on friday. i'm guessing he had a sense of the president's reaction because he'd been briefed about the indictments before he went over there, crawled in his jammied and got under the covers with vladimir putin. what do you think is going on, they know everything going on inside the mueller investigation who knew very well how those indictments would look

juxtaposeed against the president's wedding dance with vladimir putin today? >> i think he's declaring the department of justice independence. i think he's doing it in the way the department can, which is with facts. they can't come out and defend themselves against the president's attacks by talking about what they're investigating. they can't leak things out, but they can roll out indictments when they have them. and it wasn't a coincidence that the indictment was released on friday, before this big summit. you know, i don't know that they've scheduled it for the three days before the summit, but they obviously knew it was happening and they didn't delay it. there is no reason they needed to have it on friday versus this week. >> that would have been something they could have faced criticism from the other side, right? if they delayed it to make the president look good in russia. >> they absolutely could have. one of the things rosenstein said on friday that i thought was so powerful, which is we had named the victims of the hack in the indictments. they were obviously hillary clinton and the clinton campaign because we thought the entire american public was the vick it have. our elections were the victim.

what did you see donald trump do today instead? he went over to russia and while he was excusing vladimir putin, he attacked the victim. he attacked hillary clinton. he attacked the investigators that are investigating this case. and you see this distance -- >> yeah. >> you see this between the president and the justice department. why can't he just accept these indictments, these aren't about collusions, these are about the russian side. he can't accept anything bob mueller does because it might be his son, might be his son-in-law, it might be him. once he accepts one piece of bob mueller's investigation is valid, he owns the next piece as well. >> how is this playing in moscow? for vladimir putin to have brought donald trump so far away from his own political appointees in the intelligence community, so far from his own justice department to literally stand and say exactly what vladimir putin says about russia's attack on the 2016 election? >> we have to unpack this here. there are a number of things. on one hand, of course, trump is the chaos candidate.

this is perfect for moscow. this is perfect for putin. this is what he's wanted all along. and to break the bond between western europe and the united states. at the same time, too, the russians have to worry a little bit about this president. he is a little bit off the reservation, who knows where he can go with these things. a little bit with the indictment here, the justice department dealing in facts, i think there is some stuff here that is a shot across to putin. the amount of intelligence in this indictment, they have specific names, specific ranks. >> that's scary. >> makes you wonder if you're in moscow, how much do they know about what we're doing? how much deniability can we have? we often talk about putin, his deniability as implausible deniability. he'll just deny things, complete nonsense stuff. in this case they have to worry about what the u.s. knows here. >> betsy, let me come back to you because i did notice this was the most detailed indictment unsealed so far in the mueller investigation. there's been a lot of analysis from legal experts that he's held a lot of information out of

these indictments and that this was the most we've learned about both the methodology of the investigation, to unpack and unravel the forensics going into the investigation were revealed more in the friday indictments than we've seen before in previous indictment. >> that's right. and that's certainly not a mistake. when it comes to counter espionage investigations, particularly to indictments of hackers, people who engage in internet and computer crimes, attribution is one of the most important things that prosecutors can do. it's a key part to the success of a counter espionage effort that you can show your work, that you can demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that we as the united states are able to assess which individuals took which specific steps, at which specific points in time as part of a hack targeted at american citizens. the reason attribution is so important to cyber security experts that it's viewed as one of the only deterrents that exists when it comes to this

type of computer crime. many hackers are less likely to engage in computer crimes if they know that they will eventually be found out. part of the reason that hacking can be such a potent crime to commit, whether you're talking about state-backed actors or non-state actors is because of the anonymity. so naming names is incredibly important here and that is why this indictment is significant. look, nobody is going to get extradited to the united states despite putin's comments at the press conference today. that is basically unthinkable. so the text of the indictment in and of itself is really important and that's why mueller seems to have crafted it the way he did with just that granular level of detail. >> eddie, our friend dave ignatius writes, how did the americans find out all these facts? >> right. >> what other operations have been compromised and houch else do they know? -- how much else do they know? what do you think the president knows about just how much mueller knows about the original crime? and i guess what i'm asking you

is, do you think there will be any sort of effort to shield the mueller probe or shield the justice department in letting trump just sort of know what he sees on fox news and not much else? do you think this could have a chilling effect on how deep they get with the president? >> i hope not, or i hope -- i'm not sure. >> that's what we hope for. >> well, i hope that mueller can continue doing what he's doing. and i do know that trump has -- he behaves like a man that is deeply afraid, he's scared. with this 29-page indictment, there is a question whether it's going to putin or coming back to the states. you know this better than i do. whether or not he's coming back to the states to see which americans colluded, who participated or co-participate ed in this stuff. i think trump is really scared. trump's narcissism is such -- it knows no bounds. he can't make a distinction. i'm shifting a bit. he can't make a distinction

between the idea of him colluding and the idea of the russians actually attacking the country. to the extent to which he can't make that distinction, he's going to meddle in something. he's going to behave in such a way to try to disrupt it. so i just hope -- my hope is that mueller can continue to do what he's doing. >> you're an expert. what do you think -- do you think there is a natural reflex to not tell the president everything that we know about -- i mean, if they think this may end in some discovery that someone close to the president or the president himself knew about what they were doing to help him, do you think they want the president to know everything they know? >> the instinct of the intelligence community is to tell the president all he needs to know, and all that we have to the extent that he needs it to do foreign policy and national policy. however n this case because it's a counter espionage investigation, the fbi plays a role here, too. if the intelligence community has information that impinges on counter espionage investigation, there may be choices -- this is tough -- to hold back certain information or to decide, you

know, maybe without even knowing it yourself, what to give and not give. in this sense the fact trump doesn't like a lot of information or can't process information may be good for him. >> put it in writing, he doesn't read it. we also know in the oval office with sergey kislyak and ambassador lavrov he shared classified information. he told them he was glad he had that nutjob comey off the radar, he got rid of him. he shared intelligence. there is a pattern of sharing. again, i don't know if it would be reflexive or deliberate, do you think he's getting all the russian intelligence? >> i know the intelligence community started trying to establish a relationship telling him what they knew. that's why jim comey briefed him on the dossier. he told them -- >> he lost his mind on twitter. >> i know there are concerns at the justice department now what is happening with information in this investigation. >> that gets leaked to house republicans, leaked to fox news. >> there is the professor in

london who helped the fbi with its investigation, the informant. his name became public. every source he worked with is now worried. every investigation he worked on is now burned. i know there is a very real concern that information that goes to the president through either through direct means or through congress, through house republicans eventually becomes public and hurts the probe. >> betsy, any chance there would be a leak investigation involving the president and that sort of information super highway to fox news and his allies in the house republican judiciary committee? >> the likelihood of investigating the president is unlikely. there are questions about the relationship between the white house, white house officials and particularly devin nunes and the house intelligence committee. we've seen a significant amount of sort of what appears to be quite a cozy relationship there. and that's something that, of course, has people concerned. part of the reason that the justice department has come to such loggerheads over and over with capitol hill over these document requests, including requests from the house oversight committee and the house judiciary committee, the list kind of goes on and on, is

because there is this understanding or almost resignation to the fact within the d.o.j. that if they give a document to capitol hill, it will leak by the time the ink is dry on the paper. it's a matter of minutes before these documents go from the hill to fox news or to other conservative media outlets. and of course if you're in the justice department and you're working on an active investigation, that's a prospect that is extremely galling. >> and one senior justice department official said to me there is not a lot different about information requests from the hill, but what's so different is that it all gets leaked to conservative media outlets within minutes as you just described. everyone staying put. when we come back, donald trump's long troubling creepy history of doubling down on his defense of vladimir putin.

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what's your biggest competitor, your biggest foe globally right now? >> well, i think we have a lot of foes. i think the european union is a foe. what they do to us do to us in trade. you wouldn't think of the european union, but they're a foe. >> we wouldn't think of them because they died alongside americans in the war. what is going on? this is -- is there anything left? i've asked this question before, never of you. is there anything left on vladimir putin's honey-do list for donald trump? after this, is there anything left? >>. eu sucks. i believe vladimir. i joked about giving back poelanpo poland. >> we ought to look at donald trump and listen to what he says. when he was running for president he was saying these same things and we didn't believe it could be true. >> you teed it up.

i'm going to run my favorite reel. >> putin's a killer. >> there are a lot of killers. there's a lot of killers. you think our country is so innocent? he's running this country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country. but again, he kills journalists that don't agree with him. well, i think our country does plenty of killing also, joe. the man has very strong control over a country. now, it's a very different system and i don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system he's been a leader far more than our president has been a leader. >> so there you have it. what? what do you do? what do you do with a man who is hard wired to defend putin and attack our european allies? >> i don't know what you do. one thing i do know is how the russians run intelligence operations. what they call active measures, what we saw in the 2016 election. most intelligence operations

collect information to provide policy makers information to make policy. the russians focus on subversion, of going after your weaknesses. this is the deception, the disinformation, the fake news, the media manipulation, yes, the assassination. all of these things together are what they do. but the one thing you have to remember underlying all of this and it's been this way in their doctrine since the soviet union is they have human sources helping them direct the stuff. the knowledge that they have of our elections and how to play off our parties and all that stuff, that doesn't just come from good guesses. that comes from having sources inside that tell them where to go and what to do. and that's the shoe that's going to have to drop here. hopefully. now, it's an intelligence service so their job is to keep this stuff secret. but we're seeing the outlines through the indictments, the stuff on cyber, the troll farms. let's hope also we start to see what are some of the people behind this and pushing this. >> there's the conventional wisdom emerging that donald trump could be found guilty of

obstruction, collusion, and the republicans in the house won't vote to impeach him and the senators won't vote to convict him. do you think there is any -- i don't buy that because i think donald trump's base was so small that donald trump himself didn't write a victory speech so i think the idea that his base is unbreakable is ludicrous. but do you think that there is any sort of political play here for democrats to speak more effectively to the 60%? to speak more effectively to the republicans to found their soul for the four minutes it took to type out a tweet today and express their gall at what they saw in helsinki? >> there's probably more democrats can do. really i think to this political question about what republicans will do at the end of the mueller investigation, i think partly it's going to depend on the politics, but a lot of the politics i think, and i think i really hope, will be driven by the facts. how bad -- how bad the facts that mueller comes up with, what they show. whether they show collusion by the president himself or the people very close to him. but i think the real question is really for -- you know, i'm glad

that dan coats put out a statement today kind of correcting the record. responding to the president. it was kind of -- it was such an embarrassing moment for coats. but it's time for some people in the administration to step aside. i get the balancing act they all have to do. mike mcfaul talked about it quite eloquently. they think they're helping things that would otherwise be worse. at some point they have to leaf the white house and tell what they saw. what we see publicly, it's probably ten times worse privately. >> it's like rebooting your cable box. it might take something like that. i want to read you something. jonathan swan tweeted i just have no words. as press in this room, we are all sitting here speechless and stunned. trump cast doubt over the u.s. intelligence community. and endorsed putin's due nile. while putin spoke forcefully lying, trump nodded along.

there's no way of sugar coating or spinning this. pick that up and juxtapose that to what happened friday, the mueller indictments of 13 russians, which was certainly a message which the president could have brought, it was something the u.s. government did. the justice department is part of the executive branch of government. >> it's important not to miss the bizarre significance of the fact that as soon as the president was asked about russian meddling, he immediately went to this server. the server has been a fixation of the president for months and months, and the reason he's talking built is because there's a conspiracy theory that potentially maybe the democrats were actually the ones who engaged in some sort of false flag attack on themselves and released their own e-mails as a way to distract from their own candidate. that argument as goofy as it sounds is one that was actually made by the president's campaign during the election. the fact that the president pivoted to that conspiracy theory, which is totally unsubstantiated, is itself

really an extraordinary moment. he immediately went back to and reverted to the way he talks about these issues that get him in trouble, which is this this fancical thinking. this was based on facts, information that was gathered through a robust investigative process. the fact that president trump sees that as potentially debatable or not necessarily true and still wants to raise questions about this server conspiracy theory is all you need to know. the president just doesn't want to accept the reality of the facts about russian intervention in the 2016 campaign. >> and he never met a conspiracy theory that he didn't love as much as he loves vladimir putin. betsy woodruff, thank you for spending time with us. we have to sneak in our last break. we'll be right back.

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i could talk to these friends all day but we're out of time. my thanks to matt miller, john sipher and eddie glaude. "mtp daily" starts right now with katy tur. >> i felt you missed a lot on friday and then today happened and i thought, wow, did friday even happen? >> thank you so much. >> it makes me wonder what's going to happen next? >> it's always something. right, my friend? >> that's right. nicolle wallace, thank you very much. welcome back. if it's monday, president trump stands by his man. tonight, red flag. the president is standing with the russian president while trashing his own country. >> i think that the united states has been foolish. i think we've all been