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 foolish.

>> plus, how do you say witch hunt in russian? >> you would say that was a total witch hunt. thank you very much, everybody. >> and where do we go from here? >> translator: mr. president, i'll give this ball to you and now the ball is in your court. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening, i'm katy tur in new york in for chuck todd. welcome to "mtp daily" on this extraordinary day when president trump stood with vladimir putin literally and figuratively. this extraordinary day where president trump praised the president of russia, undermined u.s. intelligence agencies, cast doubt that russia would interfere in our elections, and attacked the mueller probe all while standing with vladimir putin.

this extraordinary day comes just three days after the indictments of 12 russian intelligence officers for hacking the democrats during the 2016 campaign. but today, standing with putin, president trump said he remains unconvinced. >> my people came to me, dan coats 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. 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. >> standing with putin, president trump slammed the mueller investigation. >> the probe is a disaster for our country. i think it's kept us apart. it's kept us separated.

we won that race and it's a shame that there can even be a little bit of a cloud over it. it's ridiculous. it's ridiculous what's going on with the probe. >> just days after 12 russian intelligence officers were indicted for interfering with u.s. elections, the president and putin agreed that there was no collusion. >> there was no collusion at all. everybody knows it. there was no collusion. there was no collusion with the campaign. >> translator: can you name a single fact that would definitively prove the collusion. this is utter nonsense. >> zero collusion, and it has had a negative impact upon the relationship of the two largest nuclear powers in the world. >> just days after 12 russian intelligence officers were indicted for interfering with u.s. elections, putin made his preference in the 2016 election definitively known. >> president putin, did you want

president trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that? >> translator: yes, i did. yes, i did. because he talked about bringing the u.s./russia relationship back to normal. >> and just days after 12 russian intelligence officers were indicted for trying to interfere with u.s. elections, with the goal of helping donald trump, president trump stood with vladimir putin. mr. trump didn't express outrage over the hacking. he did not demand those officers be extradited. he didn't announce new punishment for russia's behavior. but he did praise putin. >> this was a very constructive day. this was a very constructive few hours that we spent together. i called him a competitor and a good competitor he is. and i think the word "competitor" is a compliment.

our relationship has never been worse than it is now. however, that changed as of about four hours ago. i really believe that. >> the question now is who's really benefitting from that change? joining me now from helsinki is michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia and now an nbc news international affairs annual list. also joining me is phil bump, national correspondent for "the washington post," zerlina maxwell and noah rothman, associate editor at comment dairy magazine. michael, let's start with you. foreign minister lavrov today said it was a fabulous -- the talks were fabulous and better than super. is that an understatement for vladimir putin? >> well, better than super, there's a phrase in russian that mr. lavrov used and he's not

usually a giddy guy. he's not a smiling guy and he was today. they got everything they wanted. i think they even got more than they wanted. none of the past behavior, egregious behavior that they have done the last several years was brought up. no mention of annexation. no mention in crimea in 2014. no mention of the support for horrible dictator in syria. and the worst of it all, as you just were describing, when teed up to hit it out of the park for president trump to push back on vladimir putin for what he did during our 2016 presidential election, he chose not to push back. it would have been so easy for him just to say a few words of, you know, we don't want you to do that or we think this is wrong. he chose not to do it. complete victory for vladimir putin. >> michael, i don't speak russian but can you translate essentially what donald trump said today. did he just say to the president of russia, go ahead, do it again?

>> you know, what i really wanting to know is what he said in that private meeting for two hours. we know what he said on the record which is pretty outrageous as far as i'm concerned. no u.s. president -- let's just be clear about this. it's fine to meet with adversaries. we did it during the cold war. it's fine to have summits. but generally throughout the last 70 or 80 years, our presidents have pushed back on our adversaries. they don't make jokes about them like they're nice competitors as the president did. and again, the president of the united states, his job is to advance the american national interest. that was not done today here in helsinki. >> phil, we're going to ask this every single day and i'm not sure anyone can give an answer. why is donald trump doing this? >> you're right, we don't know an answer. there are lots of theories out there ranging from the exotic to the sort of benull. i think one of the theories is that donald trump feels as though any hint that he didn't win the election under his own

merits is somehow a disparagement of him personally. he is the champion, he is the best, he doesn't like this idea na russia helped push him over the finish line although he lost the popular vote and barely got across the finish line himself. but we don't know. i think what was discussed during that private conversation may help answer that question. what was it that donald trump wanted to say outside of the eye of anyone else from the united states that he took that time with president putin. if we knew the answer to that, we might know where he behaves in this way with putin. >> dan coats, his own director of national intelligence, said today that -- basically he pushed back on the president of the united states. his boss, the man who put him in that position. listen to what he said. he said the role of the intelligence community is to provide the best information and fact-based assessments possible for the president and policy makers. we have been clear in our assessments of russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing pervasive efforts to

undermine our democracy and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security. is that going to get the president's attention? it's his own dni basically waving his arms at him and saying, no, no, no, no, no, you're not taking this seriously. >> it's hard to say because it seems like whoever is in front of him in the moment is the person who he wants to please and then is very receptive to whatever they have to say. >> but that does not work any longer because that didn't necessarily apply to what happened in nato. he may say one thing in a private meeting and then tweet something else. with russia he is always consistent. he always flatters, he always praises, he always defers. he has decided to believe a dictator, a dictator known for lying and for committing egregious crimes over his own country. >> whatever the president says in public in this particular case, whether he believes is or

not is less relevant than what he says. he was on that stage in front of the russian president and the press, disparaging his own dni. who now i don't understand how he can continue to serve in good faith. he's lost the confidence of the president. he's been undermined. he said i don't believe my dni, i believe the russian president. if i were him, i'm not sure i i could continue to serve. that being said, i don't know if it -- >> is it a good idea to have someone like dan coats resign? >> i don't think the people that work on critical national security issues should resign. everybody else is fair game for me and that's been my opinion since charlottesville. if you heard what he said during charlottesville and you felt like that was morally objectionable and your job wasn't something as important as the dni then i think you should have walked out. to noah's point, he is contradicting his own intelligence community. on issues like russia, that's the only time where he doesn't try to please the person who is

sitting in front of him. additionally, any of the russian foreign policy interests that he is essentially supporting as he goes out towards nato and trashes our allies and says things that are in line with the russian point of view, those things always contradict that rule that i do think is true, that he tries to please those folks sitting in front of him. >> i'm not convinced that trump actually believes putin. there's no indication that trump really believes russia has no role here. the evidence is overwhelming. january 6, 2017, he was presented with here's the evidence we have at that point. the evidence has only grown since. he has made the strategic decision to assert that he believes putin but i don't know that he actually believes it. >> what's the difference? >> the difference is a president who's lying to the world at large. if the president is essentially equating coats with putin, yes, that is problematic. but i think it's important whether or not he actually believes what he's saying.

>> but he says it. he's on the world stage saying i believe vladimir putin. isn't that just, again, an invitation for vladimir putin to do this all over again, michael? >> michael to me, i'm sorry. i was listening to that. >> it's late there, i understand. >> well, i'm trying to get my head around the fact that he knows the truth and he's lying about it. in some ways that's worse than if he didn't believe it. let's be clear about what we're talking about here, folks. we're talking about russian military officers violating the sovereignty of the united states to influence who is the president of the united states. think if it was a physical act, a different kind of conversation we're having. our president was presented with those facts. he knew everything that was in that indictment. by the way, the president if he's well briefed knows a whole lot more than we know about what happened. and yet he chose again today, time and time again, to not talk

about it publicly. that just does not serve america's national interests. maybe it serves his personal interests, but it doesn't serve the united states of america. >> it is not just that, he is still spouting those same conspiracy theories that he was spouting during the election. listen to what he said when he was asked whether he would blame vladimir putin at all or hold him accountable. just listen. >> 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 to leave the office of the democratic national committee? 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. >> i think in russia they

wouldn't be gone so easily. that to me sounds very reminiscent of what he said in july of 2016. russia, if you're listening, finding the e-mails, which we learned on friday in the indictment, they started looking for those e-mails that very same day. coincidence? who knows. what do you make of that? >> i think that there -- we're running out of answers. we're running out of logical explanations for his behavior. we're landing in a really ugly place which is there is good that is compromising his behavior. we don't know what that is. but all -- his behavior defies logic. when you're talking about regardless of whether -- what country it is, somebody attacked america and he's not standing there and defending us on foreign soil. and while he's not defending us on foreign soil, he's attacking in a partisan way democrats, which is something i know all the norms, we've lost them all, but that's one that i think is very important. we don't go on foreign soil and attack the american intelligence officials or the democratic party. >> absolutely. there are two things that i think really define the political dynamic in america

when it comes to the trump/russia thing. the first is democrats who believe that this results in policy. republicans, i'm one of them, believe that this administration's policy towards russia is admirably hawkish, far more hawkish to his predecessors to a point that we think is appropriate. republicans need to be told that the president's effort to undermine nato, to acclimate americans to the idea of a destabilized nato is precisely what vladimir putin wants and he will test that proposition. >> what do you mean? >> without dwoefining the parameters which vladimir putin with operate, he will test those parameters, everyone does. that's how international relations work. like creating a cross border event in estonia and testing whether or not nato will really go to war. will they? i don't know the answer to that.

>> donald trump also invited russia's investigators to work with our investigators to investigate the investigation about russia and him. i mean at what point do republicans say this is skruft a little bit ludicrous and too much and not just tweet about it or give a sound bite but do something about it? >> yeah. i think that you're going to see more statements obviously from republicans insofar as donald trump is the most popular figure in the republican party and we're in an election year. if he's no longer the asset republicans believe he could be on the trail, you might see a different response in 2019. >> i also would say republican behavior is also becoming a point at which it defies logic. you know, there are certainly facts that were not just in the indictment that we saw on friday but also in the documents released today from the justice department that show that perhaps republicans have some sort of interest that we don't yet know the full extent to which their relationship with russia is problematic. >> if not anything else, i think what we're learning is that politics are being placed over country. party over country at the very

least. ambassador mcfaul, thank you very much. panel stay with us. will the criticism of the president's news conference with vladimir putin go beyond strongly worded letters? it's being called disgraceful, shameful, and that's coming from members of the gop. we just started talking about it. we've got more to come. republican senator jeff flake joins me next. [ coughs ] ♪ ♪ [ screams ] ♪ [ laughs ] ♪ whoa, whoa, whoa. your one item would be the name your price tool? it helps people save on car insurance. why wouldn't it save me? why? what would you bring? a boat. huh.

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get 0% apr on select 2018 lincoln models plus $1,000 bonus cash. i'm a fighter. always have been. when i found out i had age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision. only preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd. that's why i fight. because it's my vision. preservision. also, in a great-tasting chewable. welcome back. the big question now after president trump's stunning performance with vladimir putin today is what will republicans in congress do? after all, this is the same party of the president who famously said, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall.

even speaker paul ryan, who is reluctant to criticize president trump in public affirmed the intelligence community's findings of russian interference and stressed that the president must appreciate that russia is not our ally. arizona senator john mccain went even further saying, quote, today's press conference in helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an american president in memory. i'm joined now by arizona's other republican senator, jeff flake, who also had some choice words about president trump's actions today. senator, thank you so much for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> so my question today, and i think it's the question of the day, not what will republicans say, but what will republicans do after today's news conference? >> well, one thing we can do is reaffirm our support for the intelligence community, for the fbi and doj for putting together these indictments. i can tell you none of my colleagues, and certainly i don't question it. and ensure that russia is held

to account. remember, it was over a year ago that we had to pass sanctions over the president's objection, 98-2. he previously said he would veto any sanction package. so we passed it 98-2 and he couldn't veto it anymore. so i think that we've got to do something similar here. at least express our support for the intelligence community. >> so more sanctions? >> well, obviously we've got to hold russia to account. i don't expect these individuals to be extradited, but we can impose additional sanctions or increase -- find new individuals to sanction in russia certainly. >> what about holding up confirmation for judges for the next supreme court judge? >> no, i don't think that that's the answer. >> why not? >> with regard to tariffs, i had said that i was tired of doing just the president's executive calendar, particularly on circuit court judges, until we got a vote on tariffs.

we did last week, it passed 88-11. it was nonbinding, but i don't think we could have passed a binding vote last week. i think we will be able to do so, however, in the coming weeks. but i do think that it's time for the congress as a whole as a body, certainly the senate, to express its support for the intelligence community. >> do you think that is enough, though, to get through to this president? do you think somebody does need to get through to him? after all, dni dan coats sounded an alarm last week over the weekend before this latest statement that he sent out. over the weekend he sat down with cbs and says he doesn't know if he believes dan coats, he doesn't know if he believes that assessment. today the dni came out with another very strong statement. is it enough just to say we believe in the intelligence community to get through to this president? >> like i said, we can do what we've done before. if the president refuses to impose new sanctions or to treat russia differently, we can. the congress can move ahead. if we pass it with a big enough

margin, the president can't veto it. >> but you've already done that. the message didn't seem to get to the president because after all he stood on a stage today with vladimir putin and denied the assessment of all of our sb intelligence agencies and agreed with vladimir putin, the man who our intelligence agencies said attacked our democracy and our elections. that did not seem to get through to him. wouldn't it be more appropriate to hold up judges as you were doing with tariffs? >> no, i'm not going there yet. i think there are things that we can do to let the president know where we stand. imposing additional sanctions if we need to if that's what's appropriate in terms of response is what we need to do. we can do not just sanctions on russia but pass more legislation. i think we have more of an ump tuesd i impetus now. today i think we reached a whole new level, at least i hope we

have. >> you say you're not there yet. is there something that could happen that would put you there? >> i don't want to go there. we can stay closer to the subject at hand. obviously we have a lot of backlog of judges to go through. they have been held up on the floor so it's a slow-moving train to get these approved and we shouldn't be denying judges on the courts that need them right now. >> but tariffs are okay -- i'm sorry to interrupt but here's my question. what is more important than the sanctity of our elections? what is more important than that? if you're not going to do it for this but you'd do it for tariffs, i'm a little confused about the difference there. >> well, i got what i wanted, the vote on tariffs. i think that we'll have the impetus now to get a vote that actually is binding on tariffs. but we still haven't held up to a large extent the judges moving through, at least on the republican side. i think that we can stick closer to the subject at hand, so that's what i'm going to try to

do. >> why do you think the president refuses to say anything negative to vladimir putin? >> it puzzles all of us. i can tell you it's not just that he won't say anything bad about putin, but he does say disparaging and belittling things about our allies. we saw that at the g7 and again at the nato summit. then we see it, you know, with regard to the russians and what he's willing to do in terms of praising dictators, speaking fondly of them. it just is puzzling to awful us. >> do you think russia has compromising information on the president? >> i have no way of knowing that. i certainly -- myself, i doubt it. but i have no way of knowing that. >> do you have any other reasonable explanation for why he would behave this way? >> i don't. i'm trying to figure it out myself. i think it's puzzled all of us. but it doesn't feel too good, i'm sure, for the intelligence agencies and for the others to be thrown under the bus like this.

it was not a good day for the country. >> do you think your republican colleagues have done a good job of lifting up this investigation and protecting this investigation? there's a headline from politico saying house conservatives are preparing a push to impeach rod rosenstein who's overseeing robert mueller. >> yeah, that's hard to understand as well. i think that rosenstein has done a good job. i think that they ought to be protected. we in the senate passed in the judiciary committee language with the intent to protect the investigation. i don't know if it's constitutional or not, but it was an attempt at least. but i do think that we can do more. speaking out now this week, saying that we support the intelligence community and these conclusions and commit to hold the russians to account would be a good thing for the senate to do. >> what do you want to hear from mitch mcconnell? >> i'd like to hear that we're going to bring something to the floor that reaffirms our support for the intelligence community and their findings.

that's what i'd like to hear. >> have you spoken to him? >> i haven't. i just got in town minutes ago. >> senator jeff flake, senator, thank you very much for joining us today. we do appreciate it. >> thank you. ahead, president trump and vladimir putin's relationship status. it's complicated. alright guys let's go! let's do this. (♪) okay you gotta be kidding me. hold on, don't worry, there's another way. directions to the greek theater. (beep) ♪can i get a connection? ♪can i get can i get a connection?♪ ♪ohhh can i get a connection? ♪trying find the old me

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♪ ♪ welcome back. so how does president trump really feel about vladimir putin? how does he think putin feels about him? well, let's go to the videotape.

>> our relationship has never been worse. however, that changed as of about four hours ago. if we can get along with russia, that's a good thing, not a bad thing. much better if we get along with them than if we don't. getting along with russia is a good thing, it's not a bad thing. it's a good thing, it's not a bad thing. it's a good thing, not a bad thing. there's been nobody tougher on russia than me. there has been nobody tougher. i hope that we're going to be able to get along with russia. i have been russia's worst nightmare. they're probably saying in russia, you know, if we did like this guy, we made a mistake. we'd rather have crooked hillary clinton. >> putin is probably goings are man, i wish hillary won. >> president putin, did you want president trump to win the election? >> translator: yes, i did. >> surprise. does that clear it up? we'll be right back with some breaking news about the arrest

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i'm josh lipton with the cnbc market wrap. the broader market hovering around the flat line for most of the session as gains in financials pushed the dow higher. the dow up 45 points, the s&p dipped 3 points, the nasdaq fell 20 points. in a glitchy start to amazon's annual shopping holiday, prime day shoppers were met with a series of error messages that interrupted sales in the opening moments of the ecommerce giants 36-hour run. amazon tweeted we're working to resolve the issue quickly. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. now back to "mtp daily." welcome back. despite presidents trump and putin dismissing russian interference in the 2016 election today, we just got even more evidence of russia's penetration of the american

political system. we got breaking news late today that a russian national, maria butina, was arrested yesterday in washington, d.c. she's being charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of the russian federation inside the u.s. without registering as a foreign agent. the criminal complaint alleges she worked with a high-level government official to exploit personal connections with u.s. persons having an influence in american politics and infiltrate organizations active in u.s. politics, all in an effort to advance russian interests. joining me now is former u.s. attorney joyce vance and nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. pete, what can you tell us? >> you're absolutely right, those are the main points. now agent is a term that has to be understood. in the law it's someone acting on someone else's behalf. they're not accusing her of being a spy. but they're saying she came here as a graduate student in august

of 2016 with one goal in mind and that is to try to insinuate herself into the political process to advance russia's interest. this is not a robert mueller case. she's not accused of trying to affect the 2016 election by hurting clinton or helping trump. but what the indictment says here is that she became friendly with a number of conservative organizations and a large donor to the republican party and became a member of the national rifle association. the charges don't actually mention the nra, they call it the gun organization, but law enforcement officials say it was the nra. that she organized dinners in washington and new york for people to try to come together and talk about russia's interests, that she got herself invited to the national prayer breakfast. she went to nra conferences. she even got her russian benefactor to come with her to one of the prayer breakfasts last year. she did appear briefly in federal court today. her lawyer says she's not an agent of the russian government,

she's agreed to cooperate with investigators, that she testified for eight hours before the senate intelligence committee. nonetheless, he says they decided to search her apartment in may -- rather in april, i think, and what we're told is the reason they have gone ahead and filed the charges now is that she was preparing to move out of town and so they decided to act on the case now. >> how does this connect to alexander torshin and who is he? >> he is according to the court documents her benefactor. he was a russian legislator, key official in the russian government, a senior official in the russian state bank, and a putin associate. what they say is that she and he coordinated. she would get taskings from him and he was kind of her mentor and the one urging her to get more involved in the american political system. >> pete williams. pete, thank you very much. joyce, what is the significance of an arrest like this in this

moment? >> it's interesting, katy, because this is different than what we've seen from mueller, who's gone to the grand jury and obtained indictments, you know, which don't necessarily involve arresting people in the moment. here the government, and this is the united states attorney in the district of columbia, obtained a complaint which requires having an fbi agent set forth in an affidavit the basis for the government to believe that there's probable cause that a crime has been committed. that's a lot of lawyer talk, but what it means here is that the government probably believed that there was some risk that she was about to flee or leave or otherwise evade their jurisdiction, so they felt the need to act quickly. it doesn't rule out that this is part of mueller's work, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is. and one side benefit of the complaint process is we now have this long and rather detailed affidavit that the agent wrote that lays forth the government's

case against miss butina. >> so senior justice department officials tell us that this is separate from the mueller investigation. at the same time, they also say that the actions taken by this russian national go far beyond election day 2016. does this mean the probe into potential russian interference is widening? what can you tell us about that? >> i don't know if it's accurate to say that it's widening. but the affidavit that's attached to this complaint does indicate that miss butina spoke with mr. torshin on u.s. election day. that they talked about next steps, they talked about who the secretary of state might be, and then she, of course, encouraged him to come to the united states and attend the national prayer breakfast. so there's clearly an ongoing course of conduct and an effort by them to influence u.s. policy that continues after the election of donald trump. of course that was the objective

of their conspiracy all along, to have her involved in u.s. politics in a way that would let her advance russia's interests. >> but there is an indirect connection, at least as of now, to the trump campaign. there is a man named rick erickson who was part of the delegation that was invited, an nra member, part of the delegation invited back to russia and he has close ties to torshin and butina. rick dearborn saying that he was in a position a couple of days ago to begin cultivating a back channel to president putin's kremlin. is there a way where this could end up connecting? >> it absolutely could. and i think that that's bound to be the speculation given the fact that the nra put a lot of money into the campaign. there's been some digging into that. and also in this affidavit, we see miss butina reflecting on

the fact that the n reflera is the biggest sponsors in u.s. elections. undoubtedly we'll have to keep an eye on whether this case somehow merges in the middle with the mueller investigation and whether perhaps it becomes that actual linkage, the collusion between people in the trump campaign and the russians themselves with an effort to use funding or something else to influence an election. it's, i think, premature to go that far. what we have at this part is an effort by an unregistered russian agent to influence foreign policy. >> two unnamed u.s. persons are mentioned throughout this affidavit. will they be named at some point? >> we don't know. it could be that when the u.s. attorney goes back to the grand jury, because i think it's likely that we won't see this proceed too far on a kplancompl. there will be an indictment substituted at some point in the near future. it could include other people. it could include torshin. it could name these two u.s.

americans who could have some culpability depending on what they knew. perhaps their cooperatorcooperal have to see what the grand jury does. >> interesting, thanks joyce vance. ahead, does vladimir putin have dirt on the president? k rey od without the stripes. margo and sam had a vision, brought to life in one coat. whatever your home may hand you, behr through it, in one coat. behr marquee, #1 rated interior paint. guaranteed in 1,000 plus colors. find it exclusively at the home depot. until her laptop crashed this morning. her salon was booked for weeks, having it problems? ask a business advisor how to get on demand tech support for as little as $15 a month. right now, buy one hp ink and get a second at 30% off at office depot officemax

welcome back. tonight "meet the midterms." when we talk about russian interference, it's not just past elections that we're worried

about. >> we assess that rubba russia likely to continue to pursue even more aggressive cyber attacks with the intent of degrading our democratic values and weakening our alliances. >> we will not tolerate russian interference in our 2018 elections. much work has been done, there's more to do. rest assured that we will take the appropriate countermeasures in response to the continued russian efforts. >> they did meddle in our election and they're doing it again in 2018. >> that was two members of the president's cabinet and a top republican senator there. so when president trump publicly undermines them and the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies that russia interfered in the 2016 election, what's to stop them from doing it again? we'll be right back with more "mtp daily."

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time now for "the lid." the panel is back. guys, jeff flake, any reaction? >> yes. i have -- i think america has a reaction to jeff flake. it's baffling. it's baffling to be one of the -- one of 100 people in the united states of america, one of a bare majority caucus of republicans in the senate who has the power to hold donald trump accountable and make the arguments that he made. he was essentially saying that it was like a cop saying there's a guy out there who is robbing banks and stealing cars and shoplifting, but we really just want to focus on the shoplifting right now. it's a baffling -- he's giving up a power and it's not clear why. the republicans in his district have already said we don't want you and so he's not running for re-election and yet he still is unwilling to take any stance. >> it's not like i put the judges on the table for him. he already put the judges on the table when it came to tariffs. so why put the judges on the table or take them off the table really for tariffs and not for election meddling? >> i think if i could get into his head about strategy, it is

that particularly in the wake of the nomination of justice kavanaugh, which has enlivened the conservative base, made everybody really happy, to tether a policy of aggression towards justice kavanaugh that made everybody in the base happy, the corner of russia by holding somebody conservatives like, you could poison that conservative base. >> the base already doesn't like jeff flake. the whole issue is jeff flake has already been rejected by republican voters in the state of arizona. not even running for re-election and not willing to do anything. >> if jeff flake wants to be the voice of reason, he came on the show, thank you, but he wants to be the voice of reason, why not say, yes, we will pass more sanctions, and, yes, this is very serious. >> we don't know the answer yet.

this is more serious. it is clearly something republicans are concerned about in terms of they cannot criticize russia or trump on this issue and fill in the blank with the reason. we don't know that yet. certainly, he could go do something and hold up plenty of things. he chose trade and i think that's politically strategic. again, why are we always talking about this when really it is about patriotism. the next election that comes up, russia may decide to support democrats and what are republicans going to do? it has to be bipartisan when we're trying to protect the integrity of our election and national security. >> that's what i was trying to get to senator flake. this is about our elections and sanctity of voting. if you're not willing to go to the mat for that, what would you be willing to go to the mats

for? >> to their credit, more lawmakers have been very vocal against this president. we have the 2016 sanctions and congress passing new sanctions explicitly that were passed over. >> i don't mean to interrupt! >> a fair point -- >> we have nothing to gird and protect ourselves from another attack. you have in the president standing there and -- whatever he says, basically and inviting vladamir putin to do it again, do the sanctions matter at that point when we don't have proper systems in place to protect ourselves from the election in four months. >> and the way trump uses it is being tough on russia. look at all the things i have done. he uses those sanctions against congress in a way to say i don't need to do anything else. >> having done anything on russia -- >> that's not true at all.

that's very unfair to suggest the extension of lethal aid to ukraine, intercepter gas to poland. >> he wanted to open up the markets to energy. >> part of the reason why they're advocating for the pipeline which presents an opportunity to go around the central european companies and they're saying this is a bad thing and empowers vladamir putin. it's difficult to take these two things and say the president is recklessly conciliatory towards putin and has a cautious approach at the same time. >> a few weeks ago we were sitting in this very spot and talking about whether foreign governments and their allies look at the american government and what trump says specifically. i think there is a contradictions what the administration is doing, what you're talking about and what trump is doing, what you're talking about. we need to get do the bottom why

trump seniority taking a hard line against russia in the same way his administration is. >> the russians have -- on donald trump. >> if they did, it would be more controversial for them not to given the president's conciliatory statements towards moscow. if they have nothing on him and he's offering up these concessions towards them, why? >> this is a word we have not heard used lately, even in the opinion sections of the papers. there is overwhelming evidence that our president for the first time in our history is deliberately or through gross negligence or because of his own twisted personality engage in treasonous behavior that violates his oath of office to preserve and protect and defend the constitution of the united states. was that treason today? >> there's no question president trump has repeatedly put himself ahead of the united states of america. whether that documents treason

i'll leave to the scholars. >> i think the definition of treason is giving aid and comfort to your enemies. >> and knowing all the information in the indictments and information we learned friday ahead of this meetsing is he giving comfort to the person who attacked our democracy. >> there's a longer pause than there would have three days ago. >> technically because it's not treason, with rosenberg, not treason and all the words apply. >> does he meet the legal definition in court? >> gosh, guys. how is this week going to end? it's only monday. thank you very much. ahead. v is for victory. sometimes, bipolar i disorder

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qatar. after that, it is coming here. sort of. the 2026 world cup will be held in the u.s., canada and mexico at today's news conference in helsinki, vladamir putin handed a soccer ball to president trump who then tossed it at the first lady. the message from putin is crystal clear, the ball is literally in the president's court, the eye of the beholder is on him and the question, what will he do with it? has anyone checked that thing for listening devices? that's all for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with more "mtp daily." "the beat starts". >> it's a busy news day or i would do this longer, always a