i'm ali velshi. i'll be back at 8:00 p.m. eastern tonight. >> i'm stephanie ruhle. i will see you at 9:00 a.m. on monday. right now we hand you off, "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell is live from aspen, colorado, where this woman has been working overtime. >> thank you both so much. good day, i'm andrea mitchell at the aspen security forum in colorado. we continue the coverage, reporting out moments ago from "the new york times," president trump's embattled former personal attorney michael cohen secretly recorded a conversation with then-candidate donald trump months before the 2016 election regarding payments to a former play b playboy model. joining me now by phone, matt apuz apuzzo, one of the reporters who broke the story in "the new york times," and our kristen welker

at the white house. matt? >> thank you, and amazing work out of aspen. >> thank you. >> what we know is that michael cohen who had a propensity for secretly taping conversations with his adversaries, also taped a conversation with donald trump about whether or not to make a payment to this former playboy model who claimed an affair. and this payment is super important because ultimately she sold her story about her affair with donald trump to "the national inquirer" and they never ran the story, it was what's known as a kill and capture operation. the entire organization of "the national inquirer" are long time allies of president trump. by keeping this story out of public view, it made sure that then-candidate trump didn't have to answer questions about an affair in the final weeks and months of the campaign. it's a super important moment. and this tape is now essentially evidence in an investigation

into whether michael cohen helping arrange those payments actually amounted to an illegal campaign contribution. this tape was seized when the fbi raided cohen's offices in april. it's another crazy twist in this case. and to paraphrase jim comey, lordy, there are tapes. >> well,kristen welker, we know michael cohen has not been charged with anything right now, so this is all very preliminary information. but it is going to be a battle over these tapes, whether they represent either lawyer/client privilege or something that actually could be introduced, and whether it could be evidence if there were a charge of a campaign finance violation. >> reporter: and andrea, remember that the president had tried to make the case, his legal team, that whatever was seized in michael cohen's

offices and residences, should be protected by attorney/client privilege. that's the argument that they had been making. look, this is an issue and a story line that has gotten under the president's skin, that has roiled the white house for many months now. there is grave concern about what michael cohen knows and whether or not he's going to share it with investigators. remember, there's this bigger issue of whether he's going to flip and actually start cooperating with investigators. you have the president tweeting, saying that he doesn't think that that is going to happen. that is sort of the last time that the president weighed in on whether or not michael cohen would flip. so there's no doubt that this is going to be yet another complicating issue for this white house, which is enmeshed in a number of different controversies right now, chief among them of course that big foreign policy issue, the helsinki summit with rush's president vladimir putin coming under a lot of scrutiny. president trump battled but defiant, and inviting putin for

a second summit at the white house in the fall. we've reached out to two senior administration officials to get reaction to this huge story by "the new york times," no reaction yet, andrea, but as soon as we get that we'll bring it to you immediately. >> matt, i know you've talked to the lawyers, you've talked to rudy giuliani, who is of course the president's lawyer. what about michael cohen's lawyer, lanny davis? >> the statement we got from lanny davis was, we have nothing to say on this matter. so the story actually puts cohen and his team in a little bit of a box here, right, because if they want to ultimately cooperate with investigators, as they certainly signaled a willingness to do, kind of the fewer pieces of information that come out publicly, the better. ditto for president trump's people. but this is a thorny moment in the cohen/trump relationship.

at one point, remember, michael cohen said i would take a bullet for the president. and this has become a very rocky relationship since the fbi investigation burst into public light in april. you know, what we also learned was that at one point, cohen's lawyers and trump's lawyers actually sort of, you know, talked informally about, how does this end for cohen? is the president going to pardon cohen, is that where this goes? the president's lawyers were very kind of cool to the issue, they were noncommittal. they didn't say, yeah, yeah, we're definitely going to pardon you, sit tight, but they also didn't say no, and that's left cohen kind of twisting in the wind. that's why i think you saw he gave that interview to abc, he said i put my family and my country first. everybody read that as a clear signal to the president and the justice department that given the right situation, he would absolutely be willing to talk. >> danny cevallos joins us, nbc

legal analyst, by phone. what's important to know about this? >> every state has rules about when you can record conversations on the phone. you're either a one-party state or a two-party state. in addition, we lawyers are governed by rules of ethics. in new york, the ethics rules on this are rather hazy. what the rules come down to and when the ethics opinions say is that a lawyer can record a conversation surreptitiously with a client or someone else but they shouldn't make a general practice of doing so. it's interesting that michael cohen, if he was ever aware of that ethics guidance, would record maybe once in a while, or whether he did it as a pattern or practice. but either way, when you record, you do so at your own peril, because you never know if your state is a one-party or two-party state, and additionally, as a lawyer,

whether or not the rules of ethics prohibit recording a phone call. from an evidence standpoint, this is highly interesting, because this is surely part of the evidence that michael cohen would have wanted to argue was attorney/client privilege. now, that's very ironic, if it's a surreptitious recording. from an evidence standpoint it also tends to show it's more likely that mr. trump did know rather than didn't know. >> and matt apuzzo, in your reporting, is it clear to you whether the client, if he is a client in this case rather than a business associate, whether the client, donald trump, knew he was being recorded? >> we don't have any indication that he knew, andrea. in fact our understanding of how this went down was, after the materials were seized by the fbi, the judge gave michael cohen's lawyers the ability to go through and pull out records they said were covered by

attorney/client privilege, and then flag them, and if there was a dispute, the judge would work it out. as part of that review, they found this recording, and then they are the ones who flagged it for the trump team. so they learned about it through that. so we don't have any categorization that trump knew in the moment, that's not reporting we have either way. but given what we know about the provenance of this, we don't have any indication that he knew. >> kristen welker, how is the white house handle all these issues? you've been following it every day. this is a new breaking story. but how defensive do they get, do they shut down, when every element of the michael cohen and stormy daniels and these other rather embarrassing stories break, or in this case, the other news out of the white house has been so fraught with problems, maybe it's a good

distraction. >> reporter: well, i think you make a really important point, andrea, which is that i think there are few issues that put this white house on such defense as the issues around payments to karen mcdougal and stormy daniels. these are issues they don't want to talk about for all of the obvious reasons. one of the things that gets under the president's skin, frankly, more than any of the other issues that he deals with. i think that when it comes to controversy, he's no stranger to that. he doesn't back down from that. but when it comes to these very questionable payments that allegedly went to these playboy models, i think the president really gets his back up. so how they will respond moving forward is a big question mark. take a look at how they've responded, andrea, over this past week to the controversy that's been swirling around this white house, the fallout after the president's meeting with vladimir putin. there have been a series of

backtracks, walking back the walkbacks, clearing up various stories. recently the white house indicating the president was considering the possibility of allowing the russians to question u.s. citizens in exchange for u.s. investigators questioning those 12 indicted russians. sarah sanders yesterday saying the president disagrees with that proposal. but andrea, on monday, the president came out and said it was an incredible offer. so the messaging has really been all over the place this week. how will they respond to this latest controversy? we'll have to wait and see. i can tell you that president trump, leaving later today, he's going to be heading to new jersey, and undoubtedly reporters will be shouting questions at him trying to get his reaction to all of this. >> and just pointing out, there's a tweet from michael avenatti, here's what i said less than two months ago, i demanded the release of what i called the trump tapes then, and i'm demanding the release of them again, basta.

so michael avenatti weighing in. this is not of course his case, this is another case involving patricia mcdougal, one of the other instances that is so fraught with some embarrassment. danny cevallos, as you look at all of this, and the michael cohen tapes and the way those raids went down, do you think that he was signaling in his off-camera interview with abc that he was angling for some kind of a pardon, and of course a pardon could only cover a federal crime, potential federal crime, or sending a warning to the white house that he was about to cooperate with the prosecutors in the southern district of new york? what do you think his game is? >> for people in situations like michael cohen or other individuals like paul manafort, the question of will i or will i not receive a pardon has been a real gamble for any of these

folks, because on one level, if president trump he ever plans--n ever plans on pardoning them, these people may cooperate with the federal government and then the cat is out of the bag. on the other hand, if president trump did pardon these people, politically it would be very damaging for him. someone like michael cohen has no idea and cannot count on the president pardoning him. i have to imagine all the time, while he's not been talking to the president, he has been in communication with the government, at least maybe through his lawyers, and they have a way of making it very clear that things will go very badly for him if he doesn't cooperate. and i'm sure they've whispered in his ear that mr. trump is probably not going to help you out, we're the only people who can help you out. and he's been under tremendous pressure, i can imagine, as a result, because he's had to spend a lot of money on attorneys' fees, he probably

feels if he was going to get a pardon, it should have come by now. i would imagine someone like michael cohen starting to feel a little bit of resentment, because he's not getting the pardon. that's usually when folks decide to cooperate, maybe not initially, but months down the road, when they've spent all their money on lawyers and their homes have been raided and they don't have access to their laptops or phones anymore, they finally decide enough is enough. >> katy tur joins us now in new york. katy, you know michael cohen. what's his thinking, as best you know? >> reporter: i talked to somebody who knows michael cohen this morning and asked these questions, how does michael cohen feel about donald trump, where does he stand with his willingness to cooperate if need be. the blunt reality is that michael cohen is very willing to testify against donald trump if it comes to that. he does not feel any loyalty anymore to the president. this is a man, andrea, who had

once told me -- i'm sorry, repeatedly has told me in the past that he would take a bullet for donald trump. that is not the case any longer. he feels that the president has run him over with a bus, that the loyalty that he feels towards trump was not returned. and now he is very willing to tell what he knows. and he realized, according to the person i spoke with, that what the president's team is going to try to do and is already trying to do, people like rudy giuliani, is discredit michael cohen in the press, because they are worried about what michael cohen might say to investigators. listen, it has been five weeks on monday since the fbi raided michael cohen's home, his office, his security deposit box. 36 fbi agents raided all those

places. he's been handing over documentation, he's been cooperating with his lawyer in this process for five weeks. if an indictment is coming, he realizes it's probably coming very soon if it at all. he's obviously a lot of hope on his side that there's nothing they're going to come up with, but a recording like this could be very significant. it makes you wonder what other recordings are there. michael cohen is known to have recorded a lot of his conversations in that office. if this is one that he has on donald trump, what other ones does he have on donald trump? what else do the fbi agents and fbi investigators and now the southern district of new york have in their possession that could be of use, not only in prosecuting cohecohen, but for robert mueller in the case that he's building against russian meddling? >> and katy, mimi rocah is joining us now who was a prosecutor in that southern district. where do you think these back channel negotiations or informal

conversations are at this stage, mimi? >> hi, andrea. so -- well, they're back channel for a reason, so it's hard to speculating, you know, what they're doing in terms of the cooperation process. but as many of us have said over the last couple of weeks, as katy just said, it's clear michael cohen now wants to cooperate. and the ball, i'm sure, is in his court. i mean, the government is going to -- i'm sure has already said to him and his lawyer that the door is open for you to come in and talk. and he can do that before he's charged. i think he's said something in his interview that he wanted to wait until he saw the charges against him, that's his right to do that, but he can also start talking to them now. the process of cooperation doesn't happen overnight. it's a process, it's exactly that. and it takes some time. you know, i don't think the fact of this recording coming out

now, however it got out, it going to change that process, as we've been saying. that's really something that happens in a confidential way, between the would-be cooperator and the government. but it obviously, you know, highlights that michael cohen probably does have, as we've all been speculating, this shows us he does have information that would be of interest to the government. that would be the biggest hurdle for cooperators, people want to cooperate all the time but they don't have information that's useful. now we know based on this, as we've all speculated, but now we know, he does have information that will be useful to the government. i'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. >> mimi rocah, thanks so much. matt apuzzo, danny cevallos, kristen welker, thank you so much for breaking in on all of this breaking news. we'll be right back with more from the aspen security forum on our groundbreaking interview

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breaking news involving the fact that the tapes from michael cohen indicate the president was on a tape discussing a payment to a playboy model. we'll continue throughout the show with updates on that. meanwhile here in aspen, new reaction to the headlines from the dan coats interview. the director of national intelligence standing by the intelligence agency's conclusion about russia's attack on the 2016 election, despite shifting comments from president trump, especially at the helsinki summit. >> moments after the president appeared to be siding with vladimir putin over you, you personally, by name, you stood up and spoke out. i'm wondering, why did you do that? >> i'm not surprised we're starting with russia.

i was just doing my job. i just felt at this point in time that what we had accessed and -- assessed and reassessed and reassessed and carefully gone over, still stands. and it was important to take that stand on behalf of the intelligence community, on behalf of the american people. >> and joining me now are two nbc news senior national security analysts, the former director of the national counterterrorism center and the former national security adviser to president george w. bush. michael, the dan coats interview, you know bureaucracies and how hard it is to stand up to any president. standing up to this president, that was really an act of defiance by dan coats in a way, but an act more so of loyalty to the agencies he leads. just as chris wray, the day before with lester holt, had insisted on sticking to their

intelligence assessments. >> yeah, first of all, great interview, andrea. >> thank you. >> i think from dan's perspective, and knowing dan, director coats, relatively well, i don't think he viewed it as defiance. i really do think he viewed it as, when i took the oath to be the director of national intelligence, the most classic description of the job is to speak truth to power. and in this case, speaking truth to power was the u.s. intelligence community, patriots from the cia, fbi, across the community, had concluded over and over that russia had been involved in attempting to tamper with the american democratic process in 2016. and that's what he said. and he felt a requirement to do that. and i think he felt that out of a duty to his office, a duty to the constitution, and clearly also a duty to the constitutions and to american allies that had also taken it a bit on the chin over the previous week, to say we are still very serious about this, we do intelligence

seriously, and we know who our enemies are and by saying that, we know who our friends are. >> he was so exacerbated by helsinki, watching the president take putin's side over dan coats by name. and you know, we saw, juan, he felt he had to fix the record and defend the hard work of the professionals. >> i think you're right. andrea, i watched it live, it was a great interview and he was clearly very comfortable with you. you had a great hour-long session with him on lots of topics. but i think to mike's point, he didn't see it as an act of defiance, but given the context and controversy coming out of helsinki, it really was a declaration of independence, independence of the role of the dni to assess intelligence and provide that intelligence not just to the president but also to congress and the american people. he said that in your interview.

he reaffirmed that in at the interview. it's also about russia being the leading edge of an expansive cyber effort that's ongoing. >> right now. >> that's ongoing right now. >> and he said it was led by putin. >> absolutely right. you asked him the question, does what happens in russia come from putin, and he in essence affirmed that. he said basically anything of significance, anything of material that comes from russia is decided by putin. that was significant. and what's so exacerbating, especially the national security professionals i had the honor of working with like michael during the bush administration, this isn't just a question of forensics and what happened in the obama administration. sure, we can look back. but this is on the president's watch now. what are we doing to deter the russians? and the exacerbating part of what happened in helsinki is not just the defiance of the

president's denial, but how to deter putin now and in the future. >> and i would just add, i agree with everything juan said, i think dan did this in the least partisan way he could. he did it in the most neutral, this is an american national security interest. and that's how he intended it. that's how the institutions should be represented by the director of national intelligence. it's increasingly difficult for leaders in the intelligence community to do that. in that sense, he hit a real home run. >> good to see you, michael, juan, thank you very much. joining me on the phone, michael avenatti, attorney for stormy daniels. michael, thanks very much for calling in. i saw your tweet, you've been talking about what you call the trump tapes. how do you think this intersects if at all with your case? >> well, andrea, thanks for having me. on may 30th i coined the phrase "the trump tapes," and i

demanded that michael cohen and his counsel immediately release all of the trump tapes. i stand behind the accuracy of the report in "the new york times" and elsewhere relating to this tape. i'll also tell you that i know for a fact this is not the only tape. i think that this is a very serious matter. and i think that any and all audiotapes that michael cohen has in his possession relating to this president should be released immediately for the benefit of the american public. and they can decide what happens next. >> shouldn't they be turned over to the court first? >> well, the fbi already has possession of the tapes. michael cohen has a copy of anything that the fbi seized in connection with the raids on his home, his hotel residence, as well as his office. so the fbi has had this information for some time. there's nothing stopping michael cohen from releasing the audio

recordings that he made between him and the president concerning my clients, miss mcdougal and others. andrea, i'll tell you for a fact, there are multiple audio recordings. this is not a single recording. >> and have you seen transcripts or have you heard any of these audio recordings or have you seen a catalogue or a log of them that the court has been given? >> i'm not at liberty to get into the details relating to what i've seen or heard. what i will say, as i said back on may 30th, there are multiple audio recordings. and our position is that they should be released immediately. so again, the american people can decide what the next steps are, period. >> and how do you define "multiple"? can you quantify that? >> more than one.

more than one, andrea. but look, i think the biggest problem for the president, and i've been saying this for some time, is that michael cohen is one of or was one of the world's great evidence hoarders, in that he rarely threw anything away. he maintained past cellphones. he maintained multiple audio recordings. he maintained documents, e-mails, and text messages. and from an evidentiary standpoint, that is a very, very bad thing for the president. >> and as we know so far at least, the special master for the court, reviewing all of this evidence, indicated that a very small percentage of that qualified for lawyer/client privilege, correct me if i'm wrong about that. >> no, in fact you're not wrong, you're absolutely right about that. but look, let me say this. we've heard an effort by michael cohen and others around him to,

again, try to change the narrative about michael cohen and what he's all about, and his supposed love of country and patriotism. if that is true, rather than some spin designed to change public perception of him, then he should do the right thing right now and disclose these tapes, disclose this audio so that people can hear it for themselves and decide for themselves what happens. >> michael avenatti, the lawyer for stormy daniels, thank you very much, thanks for joining us by phone. adam schiff, the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee, is here with us here in aspen, at a nearby location. thank you very much, congressman. i know you and other members, democratic members of congress have been asking for the release of these michael cohen tapes. >> well, look, my take on this is that michael cohen should cooperate with the authorities.

he should cooperate with the southern district of new york. and in terms of any public release, i would defer to the prosecutors. it's my hope that he will decide to cooperate. i would imagine that the southern district of new york right now is going through that mountain of evidence that they seized from michael cohen. they probably are not in a position where they can offer a deal to michael cohen until they can assess what evidence they have. the last thing the prosecutors are going to want to do is agree, this will be the limit of your liability pursuant to an agreement to cooperate and then find out that there is evidence of far more serious offenses that they've just effectively given away. so i can understand why it will take some time for new york, the prosecutors in new york, to make that decision. but again, my hope is that he will fully cooperate and we'll have the benefit of this evidence and any other in his possession. >> congressman, i want to switch gears and ask you about some of

the other events. the president has had a rocky week in terms of foreign policy. and one of the things that you did is try to get the house intelligence committee yesterday to agree to subpoena the translator who was in helsinki, the only american witness to that two hour and ten minute conversation between the president and vladimir putin. you were voted down, i believe it was a party line vote of 11-9, by chairman devin nunes for the republicans. how important is it to try to find a record? because in my conversation with dan coats, the head of american intelligence still has not been briefed by the president who is the only person who could brief him, on what was said, what might have been conceded, what conversations might have been had. we understand from the russian side they talked about syria. that involves potential

withdrawal and engagement with iran and the iranian ground forces. we don't know exactly what could have happened in that meeting. how much does that trouble you? >> that's exactly right. it troubles me a great deal. and your interview with dan coats was really quite jaw-dropping. here we had the leader of the intelligence community, and he doesn't know what took place, not fully, in that two-hour meeting with the president of the united states and our adversary. certainly the russians are already representing what took place and topics that were being discussed. apparently one of the topics may have been an invitation to putin to come to washington. but of far greater consequence would be any discussions they had over article v of nato, whether they discussed what would later manifest itself as the president essentially saying i might not come to the aid of montenegro, why should i.

we definitely need to find out. when i raised this in committee, the reaction of the republicans was, we can't possibly subpoena the interpreter. and of course my reaction was, why not, you've subpoenaed everyone else in the government. the one that could offer greatest insight into commitments that were made is one of the most important subpoenas we could issue. if we can't rely on the president to speak candidly about what the russians have done, how can we expect him to speak candidly to his own intelligence agency about any commitment he made in that private meeting? this is why we need to bring the interpreter in. >> at the same time, congressman, the effort by dan coats and chris wray the day before, and rod rosenstein here last night, to stick to their warnings about russia's malign

influence, currently in cyber and in other ways in this election and going into the midterms, are you persuaded that the president has taken that in if, even as he has shifted and seemingly reluctantly now embraced, for now, the intelligence assessment that the russians were engaged in attacking the 2016 campaign? >> i don't know how any of us can have confidence in that. we saw, following the "when i said would i meant wouldn't" display, with white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders when the president said putin isn't targeting the midterms, and sarah huckabee sanders said he meant no, i'm not taking any questions. how can any of us have confidence in this?

i have confidence that dan coats and christopher wray and the justice department are doing the best they can. i certainly applaud the policy that rod rosenstein have announced of the cyber task force, that the justice department will inform the public, inform the tech companies when they see evidence of russian malign activity trying to influence our elections. but no, i don't have confidence in the president. and i think if anything, vladimir putin walked away from the meeting in helsinki with a conviction that as long as russia interferes on the side of donald trump, as long as he helps the gop in the midterms, donald trump will never confront him. that unfortunately was the message donald trump delivered in helsinki. >> congressman be adam schiff, thank you very much. thanks for being with us today in aspen. and in that interview, director of intelligence dan coats issued a stern warning about vladimir putin himself. just as sarah sanders was tweeting that the president has

invited the russian president to come to the white house. >> so, again, we should be very wary around the former kgb leader who is leading their nation? >> i think anybody who thinks that vladimir putin doesn't have his 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. >> joining me now, jeremy bash, msnbc national security analyst, former chief of staff at the pentagon and cia, and bill kristol, editor at large for "the weekly standard." welcome, both. jeremy, dan coats is really putting a lot on the line right now. there's a report in "the washington post" that the president was angry. but coats, very well-allied with republicans in the senate and democrats who respect his work. he seems to, as juan was saying

earlier, really have declared his independence, just to stand by the intelligence assessments of his agencies. >> and he has credibility, because he's not in a political job. but he does have a political pedigree serving as a republican senator, so he kind of gives cover in a sense to the intelligence community professionals when they're issuing their assessments that contravene how the president describes the dynamic with president putin. going back to the issue of a sequel summit, it's very problematic that the president of the united states has not come out of that room and actually debriefed his team, has not debriefed the director of national intelligence. we have no sense whether or not others in the principals level, the cabinet members, don't know what happened in that meeting. that means, number one, secret deals were cut, and number two, there's no way to follow.

in both cases, american interests are undermined. >> from the point of view of governance, a one-on-one meeting is a problem in itself. the translator doesn't have a record of what was said on both sides, she's busy trying to translate in real time. no one has a complete record. michael mcfaul has talked about this, jeremy has, you do a quick, comprehensive debrief as you can get. >> you were the vice president's chief of staff in the white house. >> you dictate a memorandum of the conversation and it goes out to the government so the secretary of state, secretary of defense, intelligence directors, will know about it. i don't believe secretary of state pompeo has had much of a debrief. calling the translator is not a

good idea. but call them up next week, ask them, if they say i don't know much about it, that would be very revealing about the way our government is conducting policy toward our major adversary, russia. so i think congress does have a role to play. they shouldn't waste time with the translator. they need to have hearings with the senate-confirmed cabinet officers. >> we're going to have to leave it there for today. to be continued. bill kristol, jeremy bash, thank you both so much. up next, could it happen here? as british police search for suspects in the deadly poisoning in the uk, america's intelligence chief gives us a wake-up call. this is a special edition, "andrea mitchell reports" live from the aspen security forum, only on msnbc.

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according to three senior officials. joining me now, the former british ambassador to the u.s. ambassador wendy sherman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs who served as a member of the u.s. negotiating team with north korea. and of course negotiated the iran nuclear deal. and nbc reporter courtney cuby. since i'm losing my voice, courtney, tell us about the iranian capability. >> so iran has been laying the groundwork for potential attack against a couple of thousand individual targets that include critical infrastructure here in the united states. it also includes some private industries including technology companies. that includes some u.s. allies in western europe and across parts of the middle east. the united states has reached out to some of these allies to let them know and the u.s. has

been hardening some of their cyber infrastructure to prepare. as we say, andrea, it's not imminent, but they are laying the groundwork should they feel the need to respond. >> this comes as the state department has sent letters to the european -- the big three allies, germany, the uk, france, telling them their companies are not going to be exempt from the sanctions that are being reimposed on iran as a result of the u.s. getting out of the iran nuclear deal. >> that is right. and this is one of the many reasons why the main european countries were very much opposed to the idea of president trump walking away from, potentially killing the nuclear deal with iran, irrespective of iran's bad behavior in the region and elsewhere, the nuclear deal addressed nuclear issues. walking away from that we think was dangerous. one of the implications is there may well be this extra territorial effect on european

banks and everyone else who wants to do business with iran as a result of continuing and fresh u.n. sanctions. this risks being a serious bone of contention between washington and european capitals. the iranians, as you would expect, whether it's in cybersecurity, whether it's in threatening to restart the manufacture of centrifuges, they are putting in place the things they will need to do if the deal collapses and if they decide for their own reasons that they want to go back to the bad old days before the nuclear deal was concluded. >> one of the things that we heard from dan coats yesterday, let me see if we have that tape available, is coats warning about a cyber 9/11 being an imminent threat. >> and so i'm concerned about, we say what worries me at night, i'm concerned about a cyber 9/11. >> what would that look like? >> let's say you shut down wall street for a week. what does that do to world markets and people's

investments? let's say you crash bank of america or wells fargo or whatever and all of a sudden, people are saying, wait a minute, what happened to my account, what happened to my retirement? what about an attack on the electric grid on new england in january that may be sophisticated enough to take it out for three days, how many people will die from minus degree weather? >> the ramifications of all of that, the u.s. has to be prepared. and we can have an escalating cyber engagement with some of these players, russia the most aggressive, but also china, iran, north korea. >> indeed. i think this is of great concern. it always has been, in fact. and the obama administration put sanctions on iran for its cyber attacks and for its cyber -- use of cyber to try to really attack us in many ways and our allies around the world. we shouldn't be shocked, unfortunately, but courtney's

story because we did pull out of the iran deal. what iran is signaling to everybody is, we're getting ready, if you are going to come attack us, we're going to attack you back. we had a panel here yesterday to ask back. we have a panel here yesterday and we are all concerned of the middle east after the terrific interview that took place yesterday and that's the area where he's most concerned. there could be a spark that would set off a conflict in the middle east that would involve iran. there is great concerns of what's coming at us ahead. one last point on this. a shut down of our grids and things here in the united states and wall street but we are also facing vladimir putin being here in the fall before the midterm election. the greatest cyber hacker around because he undoubtedly as the dni yesterday of the man behind

the attack of our election cycle. >> what dan coats also said the u.s. have to step up protection of defectors and other assets here in the u.s. because of the red line that was crossed by russia using that nerve agent against the former russian spy in the u.k. >> well, that's right. the russians are on their maneuvers and they are creating a lot of trouble. one thing particularly for the u.k. is they have over a few years assassinate people they don't like, rich men who are no longer putin's friends in the streets of united kingdom and we don't like it very much. it makes it hard to conduct business with them. that's why we'll be saying if we have a chance to do so in the white house, do not go into another round of putin of giving him a pass of a bad behavior without ensuring the exchange

for that of the recognition that he's getting from the president of the united states. >> always great to see you. wendy sherman and kourtney, great exclusive. thank you so much, we'll be right back. or plan for tomorrow? at kpmg, we believe success requires both. with our broad range of services and industry expertise, kpmg can help you anticipate tomorrow and deliver today. kpmg. welcome to holiday inn! thank you! ♪ ♪ wait, i have something for you! every stay is a special stay at holiday inn. save up to 15% when you book early at hollidayinn.com

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sustainable organization we can be. any time you help a customer, it's a really good feeling. it's especially so when it's a customer that's doing such good and important work for the environment. together, we're building a better california. at the u.n. just now secretary state pompeo says it was a good thing that the president and vladimir putin are

continuing to talk. is it a good thing for vladimir putin to be coming to washington? will they have another one-on-one meeting joining me here in aspen, our california congresswoman and the president of woodrow wilson's center, jane h harman and roberta jacobson. >> jane harman, your take away from the helsinki summit? >> we had the unsummit he. my take away from the summit was no preparations and a lot of grief. if we see this movie again right before the election in washington, it will hurt the candidacy of a lot of republicans. the republican party seems to be moving away from this of the 98

to zip vote yesterday declaring thundershower ambassadors should not be questioned by foreign government was the right thing to do. you know donald trump is now promotining by partisanship. >> a lot of your colleagues who are leaving. the fact that the president would say it was an incredible offer of vladimir putin to be able to have the russians interview people like mike mcfall and other diplomats that he would like. >> like david cramer and others served in positions or done thing that is he believes or the russians believe interfering in their internal affairs. this is a bright red line for

diplomats. it is worrisome to say the least that the president even contemplate that. >> four days to decide. >> it was a nervous four days to some people. the valbue the mission and the people who carry out that mission when i was negotiating with the cubans on opening of diplomatic relations. one of the most difficult things was to make sure that we had the freedom to do our jobs which including not being concerned that we may get turned over by our government for acts that we exited in the course of our job. this is not a hit and run driver or something like that. jane, we only have 30 seconds. your take on the president not having told the national security intelligence adviser that he was going to have a

second summit. >> i thought can coats reaction was perfect. one who has observed up close in personal how much better we do in television products. i am proud of dan coats standing by his people. when he says there is evidence of russians influence in the last election and probably in this election is accurate. >> thank you so much both of you. that does it for us. craig melvin is in new york. >> safe travels back. >> craig melvin here in new york city. we start with the breaking news of potential bomb shell for president trump's legal team on this friday. jaus f just a few moems aments ago, th york times reporting, a tape is

obtained. on the tape they reportedly talk about payments to a former playboy model who says she had an affair with president trump. the time spoke to the president's legal team, rudy giuliani, trump's lawyer, con firchled in a telephone conversation on friday that mr. trump had discussed the payments with mr. cohen on the tape but said the payment was ultimatelily doultimately done. mr. trump had directed mr. cohen if you were to make the payment related to the woman, write a check rather than sending cash so it could be documented. in the big scheme of things, it is powerful evidence mr. rudy giuliani says. joining me by