defenses in place, the right strategies in place in terms of how to retaliate if necessary. it's clearly one of our top priorities. >> last week you said russia and other actors were exploring vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure and trying to infiltrate energy, water, nuclear and manufacturing sectors. these actions are persistent. they are pervasive. and they are meant to undermine america's democracy. have they succeeded? have you found penetrations in areas? >> well, sure. i mean, we see -- all you have to do is pick up the paper and see who was the latest hack, successful hack. >> this is from criminal syndicates or foreign actors? >> from any number -- attribution is the problem we have. you're not lining up tanks and planes and see where the enemy is. you don't know exactly where it's coming from. we have capabilities to determine that. but that takes some pretty good

state craft in order to define that. so, yes, this is something that is broad and we see it coming from all different sources. criminal organizations can use it. you see this dealing of bitcoin, you see this dealing of money. north korea is pretty famous for its capabilities to gain revenue by hacking financial institutions. so it's everywhere. >> are you seeing any evidence of increased iranian aggression, perhaps in response to the american sanctions and the withdrawal from the nuclear deal? >> well, nothing of major impact, but we see continuous maligned efforts by the iranians which is a lot of what drove the decision on the jipoa which is what we thought originally or what we were told originally when i was serving in the senate. the narrative was we'll have a much better relationship with the iranians. we'll be able to talk to them

about some of the things that they're doing, have a more cooperative effort, so forth. that did not happen. we saw them step up their game in terms of support for terrorist groups in terms of their malign activities, or missile development, a whole range of others, their involvement in damascus and syria. their involvement in yemen. they're firing rockets at our boats in the gulf. they're bad actors and they continue to be bad actors. so there we are. >> north korea. as you know, some of our own intelligence officials have told nbc news north korea is enriching nuclear fuel at secret sites, is making plans to deceive the united states about its nuclear program even as we are discussing denuclearization at the summit level. how does that square with the president's declaration in singapore, that they are denuclearizing?

>> well, i think he was referring to they're going to denuclearize, they made a commitment to denuclearize. mike pompeo i talked to the other day said they continue to make that statement. i'm a reagan guy. came to office in 1980 with ronald reagan. trust and verify. i'm now the verify guy. i still have real hard time trusting our adversaries. i'm not surprised the north koreans might be trying to hide some things, try to be deceptive. that's why we have the verification process, and will need the verification process in place to absolutely ensure that they -- this is classic north korean deflection. we expected that. i think we have the right person in the right place, mike pompeo there coming out of the cia. we know and we have the capability to know what they're doing and we're going to make sure we do it right.

>> is there any evidence, any intelligence assessment that north korea is prepared to give up its nuclear weapons? >> well, it depends on your valuation of the supreme leader. kim jong-un continues to say and some of his people continue to reassert, but time will tell. i don't think we should go forward with the assumption that all this is going to work. but having the opportunity to try to succeed here instead of potentially going to war with a potentially nuclear armed nation and what we evaluated an unstable leader, why not give it a shot? we have the support from the chinese. the sanctions are basically being held. the amount of exports going out of north korea's declined

dramatically. kim jong-un is forced to look at a potential collapse of his economy if he can't do something moving forward with this. and so i think we have some leverage here. we continue to have chinese support. we continue to have russian support on exporting and other nations, south korea and others. and so right now we had the pressure on them to go forward and we'll just see how it plays out. but again, trust and verify, i think i'm starting with don't put in trust until you see the results. and make sure you verify what they are. >> how do you continue the so-called maximum pressure through sanctions when we have, in effect, normalized kim jong-un with a summit with the american president? is it likely that china and russia will continue to adhere to these sanctions? >> i think russia and china see

the danger of north korea being a nuclear armed nation. they have sided with us in this regard. we obviously will be watching what happens. all i can say is what we know today is that they are adhering to the sanctions program and we will continue to assess that. i would say one of the issues here is the -- is coal and oil. their ability to import that has dropped dramatically and that hurts them economically. there are ship to ship transfers that has been hard to interdict and so they are gaining some energy from those ship-to-ship transfers out in the water somewhere in some sea vessels that have been, you know, given a different signal and so forth and so on. but that is not so substantive

that it has bypassed the ability for them to see the consequence of sanctions. >> you said you're the verify guy. we have always been told that north korea is the hardest target. >> it is. >> with so much underground. how good is our intel? how well do we -- >> significantly better than it was. we saw the threat. we knew we had to step up. we have taken significant measures to do so and we are in a much better position. and we will continue to pursue getting in even better position, we have to, if we're going to go through with this process. >> they managed to cheat and fool two previous presidents. >> yeah. >> both parties. >> let's try to make sure that doesn't happen again. >> john bolton suggested that one year was a time line for them to denuclearize. is there any scenario where they could denuclearize in one year? >> it's technically possible,

but probably not going to happen. i think secretary pompeo has clearly said -- this is hard -- this is going to take some time. he has projected a longer time frame. but then it depends on what steps they take within that one period of time that can give us some hope and encouragement that we're on the right track. but it's a much more complicated process than most people think. >> i want to ask you about the president's daily brief, the intelligence brief, the pdb. how frequently does he get the intelligence brief? it hasn't been on his schedule on a regular basis lately. >> lately he's been doing a lot of travel. he was in the oval office this mornling. there is going to be one tomorrow. my principal deputy will be representing me. represented me this morning, will be representing me tomorrow. there were some early cancellations in the last two weeks because there is an awful lot of travel planning and so

forth. but they are relatively regular based on the president's -- now, when he travels, he has a briefer that goes with him that comes out of our shop, putting together the pdb. so that briefer then briefs the president on weekends. if he's not in washington. and also briefs him when he travels. so, just because it wasn't an oval, if he's overseas, he's still getting briefs. if it's a weekend, he's still getting briefs. >> what kind of consumer is he of intelligence? every president takes a different -- some like to read the briefs, some like it orally. can you describe the process? >> he likes it orally. he likes examples. we have -- i have introduced him to directors of our various intelligence agencies for them to come in and present, here's what we do, mr. president. here's some of the crown jewels. here's what we are proud of. so we've given that information

to him. he wants an oral presentation, but we use models. we use charts. we use a number of things. going back and looking at post -- accounts of post briefers, previous briefers, every president takes it a different way. some of them want to read every w0rd by themselves and say i don't need a brief, i read it all. all you can do is tell me. others say, give me the three most important things here. i skimmed through this and so forth. i don't have time for more. with this president we have consistently gone overtime, consistently -- madelein comes to the door, mr. president, you're behind time. i need more time. so he does ask a lot of questions. he does have a lot of curiosity. what he does with that information, of course, is what every president does. they evaluate that in context with all the other information that is provided to them by their staff and their own

thinking. and so our job is to give them the raw stuff, the basic, knowing that that's going to be a part of a broader set of information that comes to the president and advice that comes to the president relative to the final decisions that he makes. >> it occurred to me, did you know beforehand that kislyak and lavrov, the ambassador and the foreign minister, were going into the oval office that day? >> i did not. >> what was your reaction afterwards? we all learned about it in tess. >> probably not the best thing to do. but, no, i was not aware of that. i'm not aware of anything like that since. you have to understand you have a president who did not come through the system, came from the outside. i don't think it was any nefarious attempt there to do anything, but that's history.

>> have incidents like that hurt relationships with other intelligence agencies on sharing information? >> you know, i spend a lot of time interacting with our allies and even with our adversaries on the intelligence level. what i tell them is, look, we have -- even though we may have major issues with which we disagree on policy, it's very important we all have the same basic responsibility of keeping our people safe. to the extent that we can work together for this and this alone ought to bind us together. and we have formed very trusted relationships with people saying we know there's a lot of political stuff swirling around up there. but my responsibility is to keep our people safe. so if we can share with each other and we really have

restored and retained a lot of very good relationships where we just kind of put the news of the day on the shelf and say, what's happening in terms of terrorist threats, counter intelligence, et cetera, making sure we get the right information shared with each other. a perfect example of that is when we notified vladimir putin that we had information about an attack about to occur, very quickly, in st. petersburg, where dozens if not hundreds of people could have been killed. we asked -- and i frankly, i have met with their directors. i said, i'm only here to talk about protecting our people. if we don't agree on anything else, can we agree that if we see a threat to our people or to your people, you will reciprocate with what we're doing, reciprocate in order to stop an attack from happening?

and that is a foundational thing that i think is very, very important and we have to keep our focus on that. >> do you have that kind of relationship with other adversarial intelligence agencies? >> basically it's allies, people -- now, you have to assume the level of trust here. so, you just don't go walk in with the crown jewels. you don't walk in with anything except counterterrorism we're here for one reason, i'm not getting into anything else you're doing. with our five eyes, it's a whole different relationship. we have trust that we can share our information on a whole number of things. but there is a very sharp line. when you step over to somebody, not sure about this one, you don't go anywhere past the ct. >> how good is the mossad to have gone into the ten certificate of tehran and gotten into that building and taken all that data about their nuclear program? >> well, the israelis, they're

pretty good at what they do. [ laughter ] >> and they certainly bragged about it. i want to ask -- well, i'll ask you about a real red line that was crossed with the nerve agent that was used in the u.k., and today the brits are reporting that cctv cameras picked up possible suspects in that case. what is the risk that such action could be taken, such targeted killings could be taken against defectors or other assets here in the u.s.? >> it's a risk. the russians do bold things. and -- extraordinary things. the push back that we had with a combination of our partners against russia on this was very, very important, sending the right signal. but it should have told the world that if you think the russians are trying to be good

neighbors, this is the kind of things they still do. and, by the way, the former director of the kgb is the one leading their nation. and those people usually don't have the kind of training that our presidents have. >> so, again, we should be very wary around the former kgb leader who is leading their nation. >> a lot of things point to that. look, i think anybody who thinks that vladimir putin doesn't have a stamp on everything that happens in russia is misinformed. it is very clear that virtually nothing happens there of any kind of consequence that vladimir putin doesn't know about or hasn't ordered. i think we're pretty sure about that. >> the threats to the 2018 mid terms, how well defended are we in terms of state election boards -- there was a report in maryland that one of the

contractors working -- >> i saw that. >> -- ton the election board wa actually partly owned by a russian oligarch. >> that's a success. we are now learning what is happening out there and doing everything we can to correct it. there is an all of government effort. we will hear things, and that's good. because we want to hear things if they're happening so that we can correct it. and so between now and the election, we just need to do -- assure the american people we're doing absolutely everything we can to make this a clean election. i think we benefit from that. as you know -- i won't sort out -- i mean both parties. there have been elections in places where we've had our own people messing with the result. so, the double benefit of this is if we can put those protections in against outsiders trying to interfere inside, we can also have a much better

reliable system for insiders who try to manipulate that. we have to assure the american people that we have a sound system. it is the essence of democracy. >> the intelligence community has been under pretty sharp political attack from all sides. some of it from the oval office, but not all of it. have there been moments such as those suggested by christopher wray in his interview with lester holt where you even considered resigning? >> that's a place i don't really go to publicly. i mean, you know, i tried to retire twice. >> not very successfully. >> not successfully. i failed both times. but, look, you ask yourself, why did you agree to do this in the first place? what is your intent? and what is your responsibility? and i look at those measures in terms of making decisions as to

how long i would like to be in this business. are there days when you think, what am i doing? yeah. there are a lot more days saying, the mission here is critical. and to be able to be a part of it, be able to feel like you're giving something back to your country, it's a reward. not necessarily a financial reward, but a reward that doesn't come from just a softer, softer job or more income. so i just -- as long as i'm able to have the ability to seek the truth and speak the truth, i'm on board. >> you are a member -- [ applause ] >> please. you were a member of the senate. i covered congress in years past

with legendary members of both parties. >> yeah. >> the american public is pretty turned off on congress, the stalemate. >> for sure. >> the level of debate. what is your response, looking at it from the outside now and someone who was there during the glory days? >> i had the unusual situation where i served two different times in the united states senate. the first time -- it's like having a foot in what the senate traditionally had been, and then another foot in what the senate has become now. in my first stint there, there was bipartisan -- look, we had different opinions and we worked them out and we reached a

conclusion. we had terrific leadership. bob dole, george mitchell had, i think, a very successful relationship. even though we were on a different page policy wise and so forth, in using a process to come to a conclusion. everybody had a chance to offer their amendments. i can't remember how many times george mitchell would say, i know y'all want to go home, but nobody is going home till we finish this bill. now, i know there's 113 amendments still out there. if you want to tell your colleagues you need to stay here saturday and sunday, that's fine. as soon as you guys want to say let's vote, then we'll adjourn. and i think we've lost that now, partly from a procedural standpoint, partly because there is so much animosity between the two groups. things have been accomplished, but i think it could be a much better atmosphere if we could

get some kind of comity in terms of how we work with each other. >> you talked about sticking it out and you don't talk about threatening to resign. i respect that. you have fears that if you were not there, someone would replace you who does not stand up for an independent intelligence community free of politics. >> well, i don't think i should base my decisions on that. i assume they would reach -- there's plenty people out there that could do a good job on this. i came from the outside, not inside the intelligence community. there are skills and knowledge that i don't have. i've got some really smart people surrounding me that do have that experience. it allows me to have more interaction with things that i have had experience with, like going before congress, working with the congress, working within the executive branch and so forth. and even had a diplomatic experience as ambassador, that's helpful to me and something i can bring with that experience

to the job. and so hopefully we're trying to find that right blend of mix, and i hope we have. >> we can only imagine what keeps you up at night. you've been a diplomat and twice a senator. what are the joys of this job? [ laughter ] >> the joy is not a word that i have come across -- [ laughter ] >> people say, are you having fun? i say, what are you talking about? this is not a fun job. i said, it's a meaningful job, but it's not fun. you know, you wake up every morning and i sit down with my senior intelligence mission people and i say -- it's sort of like, okay, tell me the bad things that happened since i fell asleep. i'm flooded with documents, top secret and so forth and so on, classified documents every day. i'm reading about what went

wrong. we get to read about what went right. that's why i grab the sports page from the washington post hoping the chicago cubs have won this night. and the day goes down from there. [ laughter ] you don't get joy, but it's a reward for being involved in a mission that is part of trying to help your country. i just don't think people can understand how privileged we are to be born in this country. to live in this country. i mean, we look at our problems and you look at the world's problems. i mean, we are blessed. we've got to make sure people understand that because for all the bickering and stuff that's going on, there's never been a country like this. there's never been a place where you have this opportunity. we have to preserve that. we have to do everything we can to preserve it.

and being asked, would you help us do that? that's something that's really special. >> well, on that note -- [ applause ] >> that was dan coates, director of national in tell jensen speaking to our very own andrea mitchell. he's the guy standing in the eye of the storm in donald trump's war on the intelligence community. this is his first televised interview. we're going to come back to that. since he was speaking, donald trump has made some breaking news of his own on the russia question again. his press secretary sarah huckabee sanders announcing via tweet that the president has asked his national security advisor john bolton to meet with and invite president putin to washington in the fall, and that those discussions are already underway. here to help us break down the week that is still going, that is still causing ripple effects all over, we are joined by some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us on set, matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department. from the washington post, doing

double duty, white house reporter ashley parker, and white house bureau chief phil rucker and also joining us democratic congressman eric swalwell. we're joined by friend in aspen, chuck rosenberg, now an msnbc contributor. i'm going to start with you. we were sitting here listening attentively to andrea's fascinating interview with dan coates. we saw lo and behold, sarah huckabee sanders had announced that the president wanted his national security advisor to invite putin to the united states. put their heads together. >> talk about mixing the message. >> couldn't make it up. >> the american people this week were quite loud and clear, so were a bipartisan group of senators and members of congress that they don't agree with this president siding with putin, taking putin's side over our intelligence community's side. and now that the response from our president is to invite putin this fall while we'll be in the midst of midterm elections, i

think when will republicans say, enough is enough, mr. president. draw yourself closer to the patriots in our intelligence community and start distancing yourself from this dictator. >> you couldn't make it up. if you as democrats wanted to illustrate how mid rebuke, he is still -- the rebuke isn't over for what he did on monday in helsinki. the senate pass the a resolution 98-0 to say, no, you may not jointly interrogate americans with the russians. it's as though they're in some sort of chamber without oxygen or televisions. eight the president's chief job is to protect and defend the united states. >> do you think that's the job he's doing? >> no. now it's our job. but today the senate -- that was a nice resolution, however, and the house -- >> they acknowledge it was symbolic only. >> the house, we de-funded the election security fund. we had $300 million to go to election security because of what happened with the russians.

republicans voted today to zero that out completely. action speak louder than tweets, resolutions. we have a midterm election coming up. director coates, what a patriot. he is telling us alarm bells are going off. this is the time to batten down the hatches. not bring the burglar back into our house. >> to build on what the congressman is saying, matt, we'll find the exact moment that tweet went out. i think it was somewhere in between him saying that he's concerned about a cyber 9/11 and saying he was not in the loop when donald trump brought russian foreign minister and the ambassador to the u.s., lavrov and kislyak into the oval to tell them he was relieved comey had been fired because he was a nutjob. the dni appointed by donald trump said that it was not the best idea. so literally as his own appointees are sort of gently rebuking the president, as democrats are rebuking him in a full-throated manner, republicans are somewhere in the middle of those two things, we

get this news that putin has been invited to put his head together with the president's national security team. what is happening? >> yeah, and i wonder if the dni knew about that. he didn't know about the lavrov/kislyak meeting. i wonder if he knew before he got on the stage and probably found out from andrea mitchell now vladimir putin has been invited. no one in the u.s. government with the exception of donald trump what he can remember, knows what happened in that two hour meeting. so what's happened over the last few days? we've seen the president in the white house have to come out and repeatedly clean up things the president said. we also on the russian side see the russians putting out pieces of news there. were russian generals talking about discussions they had about an arms control agreement. there was an report today putin raised the idea with the president of referendum in the eastern ukraine, something the president should have dismissed out of hand. he didn't, just like he didn't dismiss this ridiculous out of hand. they're trying to play a game of catch up. they're finding out the president extended this invest

tagts to vladimir putin and they're trying to figure out what to do about it. they don't have the good sense after the beating they took, justified beating they took to back down from it. >> what is going on, though? i have a 6-year-old and i don't leave him alone to play with matches or fireworks. they left this president alone with vladimir putin and it is akin to leaving a 6-year-old alone to play with matches and fireworks. they're going to be cleaning this up for months. >> this is a good reminder at the end of the day, this president on the whole gets what he wants. this has been walk back week. there has been a clean up or correction or -- monday, tuesday, wednesday or even earlier today. >> mcfaul -- >> we knew this morning they were trying to clean up and they absolutely did. even with all of that, this invitation went out or was announced by sarah huckabee sanders and you can be assured and we will report this out, but that is something coming straight from the top. so to go back to your original question, the reason president trump was alone with vladimir putin was because he wanted to be alone with him. he believes that he's a one on

one guy, that that's when his best negotiating deals. the president wanted that, for whatever reason, his aides conceded that to him. >> we are waiting on your write up on this. we have "the new york times" story first. we've got that mr. trump's director of national intelligence dan coates acknowledged frustration about being kept in the dark about the meeting and their respective interpreters. if he asked me how that ought to be conducted, coates said the interview we've been watching, i would have suggested a different way. it is what it is. so even his appointees, in public when they are asked questions by reporters when they are on capitol hill being pressed by democrats and republicans, are telling a very different story. how does this sort of collision, this tension -- i'm from california. we live on the san andreas fault. this is going to blow. we're setting ourselves up for a big one. >> that was such a remarkable interview because of how candid

coates was with andrea. there were four or five answers completely out of sync with the talking points you normally hear from the white house and the cabinet members like pompeo, like national security advisor bolton who talk on and on about the president's leadership strength. as vice-president calls it, his broad shoulders. coates, we heard a much more candid take and he was voicing disagreements with the way the president unilaterally makes his decisions about intelligence, engagement with the russians things that make the intelligence community uncomfortable and the appointee uncomfortable. >> to your point, the most interesting answer i caught in that vein was his response responding to or rebuking the president's comments in helsinki monday. andrea asked him about that. he said about responding to the president, i think he was the first official within the administration, within the cabinet to respond. he said, quote, i was just doing my job. it was important to stand up on behalf of the intelligence community and on behalf of the american people.

do you predict there will be someone who just can't take this any more, the president wrapping his arms and legs around putin and all of them having to bob and weave? >> we tried today in the intelligence committee. we rarely have open hearings. we wanted to test the tweets including members on the republican side. at the opening hearing, ranking member adam schiff and i put a motion forward to subpoena the translator because we know this president has priors, to use a prosecutor's term, of divulging secrets to the russians as he did. negotiating ambassadors to be turned over to the russians. we want to know, did he divulge national security secrets? did he make any secret deals or promises? and we put him to the test and they voted it town. >> why, though? put on the other side -- why wouldn't the republicans want the translator to testify, even -- could you accept a closed hearing? >> we asked for a closed heerlg, that was the motion to have a closed hearing. >> it wouldn't embarrass the president.

you would know what the president said. >> i think half of them will do anything to protect him and the other half it's a home remodel. they're a little wary, do we want to see what's behind the walls if we hear from this translator? >> what do you think will happen? do you think you will hear from the translator? >> i was encouraged joni ernst said the intelligence community should know. if he puts security secrets at risk, some of our assets or sources or methods at risk, we should know what is out there and what we're exposed to. >> chuck rosenberg, i know you were in the room for andrea's fantastic interview. i want to get your thoughts on the breaking news the president has instructed his national security advisor to invite vladimir putin to the white house this fall so that the two national security teams could put their heads together. your thoughts? >> you're right, nicolle. it's right in the middle of the rebuke. it's sort of stunning. i would imagine the dni mr. coates didn't know about it. there doesn't seem to be very

smooth communication between various parts of this administration. before mr. putin shows up, it would be nice to know what the two leaders spoke about in helsinki. there is, as andrea said, a huge gap, a dark side of the moon, a whole bunch of stuff we simply don't know. one word of caution to mr. putin. he probably shouldn't bring his children because they'll be separated at the border. >> i'm sure that that will not be the case. chuck, let me ask you, though, about something we talked about here. i thought that it was stunning that the president who has been at war with the american intelligence community since well before he was inaugurated. it was a hot war. he had that briefing up in new york in trump tower. he was informed about the existence of the dossier and other intelligence about russia. james comey writes about it in his book that it was shocking nobody asked, how do we stop them? how do we prevent another attack? they just wanted to make sure that it didn't make them look bad. if you widen the lens to that

event all the way through what we learned in the middle of dni coates' public interview there, televised on all three networks at least for a little bit, the tv watching president had to know that, to announce a visit from putin with the national security advisor's impromatur on it, your position? >> it's very strange. it's hard to know which end is up at times. i do also recall the president speaking early in his tenure at the cia in front of the wall of honor where stars memorialize those nameless men and women lost in the line of duty. and he spoke only about the size of his inaugural crowd and surmised that everybody there at the cia supported him. it's hard to know which end is up, nicolle. i hope there was some coordination. i hope we know what the two leaders spoke about in helsinki. i hope it's a follow-up on that. it's just hard to know whether

or not this makes sense. >> okay. let's watch the moment when andrea mitchell broke the news on the air and told director coates about the invitation from ambassador bolton to vladimir putin. >> i do want to say we have some breaking news. the white house has announced on twitter that vladimir putin is coming to the white house in the fall. >> say that again. [ laughter ] >> vladimir putin coming to -- >> did i hear you? >> yeah, yeah. >> okay. [ laughter ] >> that's going to be special. >> to be clear, he did not know. matt miller? >> that's no way to run a railroad. there are a lot of reasons why he might have done it. one reason is to get ahead of the russians, one. i was thinking the same thing you did. the interview was carried on all

three networks. we know the president watches a lot of cable. one of the first questions andrea mitchell asked him was about the president's siding with vladimir putin over the u.s. intelligence -- >> you think it was a screw you? >> and dan coates very pointedly in his low, kind of understated way said that he disagreed with the president, wish he hadn't said that. wouldn't surprise me if the president called sarah sanders down to the oval office and asked her to put out that tweet. i'm sure when ashley and phil do their reporting, it happens week in, week out. >> i am not always convinced the white house is that strategic -- >> white houses usually aren't. but this was too weird. they don't read their pdbs, they don't know a lot about history but they do watch cable tv. >> they absolutely do watch cable tv. this is a white house, this entire week has had every incentive to mobilize quickly. so maybe it's possible that on thursday they were finally able to distract from something, but

you know, that would have been more useful or just as useful on monday, flying back from helsinki when they let the president's comments stays out there for 18 hours. if you had misspoken why didn't someone walk back in the plane and correct it with double negatives. every correction has taken awhile. it's a good theory, but i think this would be very quick action for this white house in particular. >> and this is bill shine's first week. how is he doing? >> well, so he started the job and his first trip was that campaign rally in montana which was newsy. and then he went to -- and so now bill shine is settling into his office. we actually saw him in the upper press area of the west wing today and he's trying to get control of his operation. he's going to be leading the coms and the press side of it. there's been a lot of dysfunction the last 18 months and he's trying to take charge. >> i think the mistake is thinking where the dysfunction lies. it's the office with no corner.

jeremy bash said during this hour yesterday we shouldn't let the president's efforts at cleaning up the walk back, the clean up they didn't intend to do. he said what he meant, he meant what he said in russia -- in helsinki on monday standing next to the russian president that he has always said the same thing. he has always expressed belief and faith in the word of vladimir putin. what do you think about the fact that he's now leading credible men like dan coates on this ridiculous sort of hunt for some possible answer that maybe doesn't invite a symbolic rebuke from the senate in cleaning up the specifics when we have this massive information known unknowns, in this two hour meeting? what else could have been done? >> well, take this president at his word. we would be foolish not to. everything he said as a candidate he is doing now. >> right. >> i think we're not helpless.

we sometimes think we're helpless. our founders envisioned you'd have a wrecking ball executive like this and now the question is do we have the courage in the senate and house -- >> they didn't predict devin nunes. i don't think they were moniacle they would have trey gowdy -- >> they want leaders on both sides to push the red button to stop the wrecking ball or the voters will do that for them this november. >> do you think either this trip to helsinki is enough of a flashing red light to use coates language the republicans wake up from this zombie state or this is enough to breakthrough to the american people the question has been asked and answered in helsinki, it has enough -- >> we know who the president is and who he sides with. the question for the republicans is who do you side with. >> all right. keep us posted. come running back. thanks for spending some time with us. when we come back, the u.s. government scrambles the jets to catch up with the russians and all the promises made in that

secret one on one meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. and fbi director christopher wray who leads the other government agency that is constantly at odds with the president it serves lets it be known to our own lester holt that he's considered leaving his post. that story is next. your mornings were made for better things than rheumatoid arthritis. before you and your rheumatologist move to another treatment, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough

it can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts, and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. don't let another morning go by without talking to your rheumatologist about xeljanz xr. your hair is so soft! don't let another morning go by without talking to did you use head and shoulders two in one? i did mom. wanna try it? yes. it intensely moisturizes your hair and scalp and keeps you flake free. manolo? look at my soft hair. i should be in the shot now too. try head and shoulders two in one.

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 and two hours with donald trump, i have real questions about that. why did he not trust john bolton and mike pompeo and john kelly to be there in that meeting? when he was there with that translator, was that translator excused? did he pass written notes to mr. putin and to the russian translator so that our translator would not see it? i don't know. but there is something that is very, very puzzling about this. >> that was former cia director john brennan on the meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. the washington post today reports a more fall out from the meeting with no advisors present reporting that based on a read

out from russia's ambassador to the u.s. who briefed reporters in moscow wednesday, quote, important verbal agreements were reached at the helsinki meeting including major bilateral arms treaties whose future had been in question. he also said putin made specific and interesting proposals -- i'll bet -- to washington on how the two countries could cooperate on syria. no note takers, no advisors, just donald and vlad. the post adds, officials at the most senior levels across the u.s. military scrambling since monday to determine what trump may have agreed to on national security issues in helsinki, had little to no information on wednesday. the panel still here. chuck rosenberg, let me start with you and let me ask you about this idea of known unknowns. we know -- we have learned, it has leaked out that the president and vladimir putin talked about turning over former archipelago to russia mike mcfaul. the white house today, as ashley said, doing a little bit of

clean up on that. we know they talked about what's being reported in the post about joint defense agreements. is there any doubt in your mind that the conversation about election meddling may not have been as black and white as the white house is trying to read out? >> well, nicolle, i'm not even sure it came up. we don't know. the russians know. i'm quite confident they had a pretty good record of what occurred, but we flat out don't know. we would have to rely on mr. trump and his memory and his capacity for telling the truth to get any sort of read out. look, i've been in lots of meetings like this where the prirns talk to one another and staff is there to listen and help, but also to record what happened, to take notes and to discuss it. so it's not really just what the president said to mr. putin. it's also what mr. putin said to mr. trump. both of those things matter a lot and we were on the dark side

of the moon. >> let me, chuck, ask you to connect one more dot from what director brennan said this morning. there are -- there is not a very clear known pattern of donald trump not wanting anyone around him when he's talking to vladimir putin. it's as though he doesn't want anyone to know what they're saying. when they met on the side lines of nato last year, they didn't have any advisors. donald trump didn't even have an american translator. he relied on the russian translator for those conversations and it was on that flight home that they made up the cover story that is now one of the central flash pointed in the obstruction of justice investigation by robert mueller. what do you see as an investigator or prosecutor or law enforcement chief when you see this pattern of not wanting anyone to know, not wanting anyone to see, not wanting anyone to hear your conversations with an american adversary? >> right. so, there are nonnefarious reasons to have a private conversation and lots of times adults do just that.

but to your question, nicolle, there are plenty of nefarious reasons to do that, too. and sadly, maybe i was a prosecutor for too long, that's where my mind goes, that the president has something that he just doesn't want anyone else to know. now, that sounds like a weird thing, right? what an odd thing to say about an american president, particularly when he's meeting with his russian counterpart. but that's where my mind goes. >> it's a good point, phil rucker, because american presidents get used to along with the power and press siege of being president, you have to show the results of your endoscopy when it comes out. this president not only has ridiculous read outs from his physical exams. he has unprecedented sort of, i don't want to call it cover up, but there is a very opaque nature to his conversations with vladimir putin. >> another that's opaque is the tax returns which he won't release and every other president does. you're right about the

conversations with putin. he wants to have them in priechlt. white house officials will say he keeps it tight because he's afraid people inside the government are going to leak. >> he's afraid he's committing treason. >> he leak to "the washington post" about the aides telling him on the note cards do not congratulate putin on his election win, which was not a free and fair election. trump, of course, congratulated putin on the election win. he was beyond furious that leaked out an wants to prevent it in the future and that's why he wanted to be one-on-one with putin in helsinki. but it's incredibly suspicious because we don't know what is said and he's not a reliable narrator of what happens. we know that because he lies and says things that aren't true all the time. >> ashley, is there an example of going rogue or are all of the rogue behaviors more nice? >> we don't know what we don't know and it's possible that he was tough on putin.

>> and nobody found out about it. possible. >> from what we do know the answer is no. the only examples are him being more laudatory, more warm, less tough. >> and more secretive. >> and more secretive than his advisers would like. i want to show you christopher wray. we have a lot of conversations about the president and his al i say, their ongoing hot war against the fbi. christopher wray maybe ripping a page out of dni coats but this happened first. sounding more like coats than a trump lackey, let's watch. >> the intelligence community's assessment has not changed. my view has not changed, which is that russia attempted to interfere with the last election and that it continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day. it's pretty common for me to meet somebody and have them introduce themselves and then say i just want you to know, we're all praying for you.

>> there have also been stories that you threaten to resign. have you ever hit a point on that issue of sources and methods or anything else where you said this is a line? >> i'm say -- as i said, i'm a low key, understated guy, but that should not be mistaken for what my spine is made out of. >> so you have -- >> i'll just leave it at that. >> okay. all right. [ applause ] >> happy to hear that, i pray for you too, mr. director. what do you make of wray's comments? that is the most forthcoming he's been. it's a time, we should point out, that there are -- i think he's someone, it's fair to say, that is respected inside the fbi and around the country by fbi agents and other employees of the fbi, but i think he is so reserved, he's so low key as he

just said, that i think there are still some questions about whether he's going to be the guy that throws his body in front of the daily barrage of bullets from donald trump. >> i think there were a couple of things that were noteworthy from what he said. one, it's remarkable that you see all of these officials who don't even try to pretend everything is okay. he might as well have said, yeah, i threatened to resign over the president compromising national security. >> and so the nunes memo is the first time we know of wray going up to the hill and being rebuffed by paul ryan, by devin nunes and by the president himself who released that memo redacted again with the informant, rebuffed by the same people and the president on twitter announced on sunday that they would indeed out the informant. there's example after example of the white house siding with devin nunes and his other lackeys in congress and not his own hand-picked, appointed head of the fbi. >> that's exactly right. so i think the line wray is trying to walk, he's trying to

send a signal to your question. he's succeeding jim comey, who was a very different personality, flamboyant, very public leaning, was out giving press conferences, talking all the time, many times to his detriment. chris wray is a very different person so he has to send a signal to the people inside the building. at a time the fbi is under constant attack and there is an attorney general not standing up for the fbi, not standing down for the justice department, is laying down over and over in the face of those attacks, wray is sending a signal to the building that he does have their back. you hear stories about him visiting field offices and being very candid. i think he's trying to send that same message publicly. while he's more mild mannered than jim comey and he doesn't have as much bravado, that he has just as big a spine when it comes to standing up to a president who asks him to do inappropriate things. >> chuck, how important is it for christopher wray to get this message not necessarily to the audience there last night but to the women in the fbi that he's

got their back? >> well, it's very important, nicole, but this is not the first time chris has done that. i had the privilege of working with chris in the department of justice more than a decade ago, and he is a quiet guy and he is a reserved guy, but he has a spine of steel. i think that's a fair description. it was his own, but i think it's fair. but here's what he's doing through internal messages, e-mails to the entire workforce. i think he's up to about three dozen office visits now. i believe he's doing another one today. he's taken this message to the field, to the men and women of the fbi, 37,000 strong, and they get to hear from the director. they get to see what kind of guy he is. he's not a loud guy, he doesn't pound the table, but his spine is made of steel and he will not cross a line, he will not do the wrong thing, he will stand for the rule of law. the men and women in the fbi are hearing that, and they need to. >> all right, we need to sneak in one more break. don't go anywhere. no one is going anywhere. we'll be right back.

the line between work and life hasn't just blurred. it's gone. that's why you need someone behind you. not just a card. an entire support system. whether visiting the airport lounge to catch up on what's really important. or even using those hard-earned points to squeeze in a little family time. no one has your back like american express. so no matter where you're going... we're right there with you. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it. don't live life without it.

metastatic breast cancer is relentless, but i'm relentless too. mbc doesn't take a day off, and neither will i. and i treat my mbc with new everyday verzenio- the only one of its kind that can be taken every day. in fact, verzenio is a cdk4 & 6 inhibitor for postmenopausal women with hr+, her2- mbc, approved, with hormonal therapy, as an everyday treatment for a relentless disease. verzenio + an ai is proven to help women have significantly more time without disease progression, and more than half of women saw their tumors shrink vs an ai. diarrhea is common, may be severe, and may cause dehydration or infection. before taking verzenio, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection. verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection

that can lead to death. serious liver problems can occur. symptoms may include tiredness, loss of appetite, stomach pain, and bleeding or bruising more easily than normal. blood clots that can lead to death have also occurred. talk to your doctor right away if you notice pain or swelling in your arms or legs, shortness of breath, chest pain or rapid breathing or heart rate. tell your doctor if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant. common side effects include nausea, infections, low red and white blood cells and platelets, decreased appetite, headache, abdominal pain, tiredness, vomiting, and hair thinning or loss. i'm relentless. and my doctor and i choose to treat my mbc with verzenio. be relentless. ask your doctor about everyday verzenio. you might or joints.hing for your heart... be relentless. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

all right, just to recap some of the breaking news we've been swimming in this hour, the director of national intelligence, dan coats, was being interviewed by our very own andrea mitchell when the news broke from the white house that the president agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between himself and vladimir putin and their national security staffs. the president asked john bolton to invite putin to washington in the fall and those discussions are under way. nbc news has confirmed that dan coats who was on the air at the time the news came out of the white house did not know that vladimir putin had been invited to meet with the security staff of donald trump, the president

he serves. any final thoughts, matt? >> when in the world is going on? >> good as question as any. my thanks to chuck rosenberg, matt miller, ashley parker and phil rucker. that does it for our hour, i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now with the fabulous katy tur in for chuck todd. >> what a day. thank you. and if it is thursday, the president is inviting vladimir putin to washington. tonight, the intel quotient. dan coats sounds off on the president's conflicting statements on the intelligence community. >> well, my thoughts were that i needed to correct the record for that. plus indecent proposal. what the white house is saying now about letting russia interrogate americans. >> unbelievable that they wouldn't confirm that they're not entertaining that for a second. >> we'll talk to one of the