♪♪ >> my goodness, i must say you go back through vladimir putin's greatest hits and the contempt, he works the body language, right? you see those shows that have the body language readers you need that for putin because he's trying to send a message, but willie, the body language when barack obama was president, he was always slumping. it's always to send a message. he's always sending a message. we saw with the interview the other day. >> the same body language with keir simmons with barack obama. legs spread a little bit, nonchalant attitude rolling his eyes. in this case when keir was asking the questions, rolling the eyes of potential death of alexie navalny, rolling the eyes of cyberattacks on the united states that fits in and folds in

today. >> also hearing from both leaders in separate press conferences, which is unusual. in about one hour. president joe biden will become the fifth u.s. president to sit down with russian president vladimir putin. the meeting in geneva this morning will be the highest level face to face talks between the two nations in three years. along with joe, willie and me, we have washington anchor for the bbc, katty kay. pulitzer prize winning columnist and nsnbc political analyst eugene washington and associate editor for the washington post, david ignatius. >> and we're all here. >> loving it. >> this is fantastic. >> it's really, really good to have everybody in person and be able to connect. here is how this morning is expected to play out. a lot is going to happen. the meeting will take place in a lake side mansion in geneva's largest park. president putin is expected to

arrive first at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. we'll see if that happens. followed by president biden shortly thereafter. after being greeted by the swiss president, the three leaders will then appear together before the cameras where only the swiss president is expected to make remarks. then, the meeting, secretary of state tony blinken will accompany president biden for the first phase while putin will have his foreign minister. each side will also have a translator. the meeting will then expand into five senior aides on each side. it's expected to last about four to five hours with some breaks. after the meeting, president putin will hold a solo news conference followed by president biden. the two leaders first met in 2011 when he said he looked into president putin's eyes and told him he has no soul. and clashed again in 2014 when

biden speaking for the obama administration condemned russia's annexation of crimea. and today there is another list of issues on the table. a lot of them. from hacking to election interference to human rights. and we have a big lineup this morning to help sort through all that is at stake. including, former secretary of state hillary clinton, former defense secretary and cia director, leon panetta, former national security adviser and u.n. ambassador john bolton, and former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul, who was with biden for his 2011 meeting with vladimir putin. >> so, david ignatius, i saw an op-ed yesterday in "the wall street journal" that was basically saying that biden was all talk and no action. brought up things like ukraine, georgia, you go down the list. and of course it was all the list of terrible things that vladimir putin has done since

2008. no american president has really had the answer to georgia, what we do with crimea. they threw in south china sea, just sort of little garnishing there. a lot of difficult issues here. not just for this president but for any president. what do you do with a problem like vladimir putin? >> so this has really devilled american presidents. putin is a tough customer to deal with. he doesn't want predictability. he wants volatility. he's a little bit like donald trump in that way. he likes to throw a grenade and see how you react. he's got a chip on his shoulder that now must weigh a couple tons. you can see that. one of the reasons he always slouches he has so much on his shoulder. >> by the way that chip, is 21 years old. we were talking a decade ago about the chip he had on his shoulder. i think mika and i back in 2010,

around that, saw lavrov being interviewed by david rimnick. seriously this is decades long. >> he wants to be taken seriously, to be recognized as a leader of a great power, which is soviet union was and russia barely is, i think defines putin. i think joe biden did something really smart in speaking directly to that need that putin has by saying he's a worthy adversary. i'm going to sit down with a worthy adversary and the thing that putin wants most seriously to be taken seriously. we'll get together for a summit and see if there is productive business beyond that that they can do. i suspect actually we'll come out with several agreements, already an agreement to return masters, going to be a positive development. >> gene, going back to barack obama, when he called him a regional super power, that may

have accounted for some slumping. >> oh, i think so. >> also more seriously, just feeding in to that deep resentment. >> that was a different approach to putin, right? try to sort of diminish him a bit. and take -- let a little air out of the putin ego. but that didn't work either. the fact is russia has to be taken seriously. they have, what, 9,000 nuclear weapons. and russia will always have to be taken seriously. and i always think back to putin saying what a great disaster it was that the soviet union di solved, the soviet empire dissolved. >> the great tragedy of the 20th century. >> exactly. and he sees himself as kind of czar of all russia. >> right. this meeting was biden's idea,

the initial reach-out was made in april. willie, on monday, joe biden said he will make it clear to putin what the redlines are and if he chooses not to cooperate, acts in a way that he has in the past relative to cyber security and some other activities then we will respond. so he's going in there hot. >> yeah. the question is what does that mean? if he crosses the redline as putin has many, many times just in the last few weeks in the cyberattacks what is the american response. if you look, part of this entire trip for joe biden has been showing the contrast from the last four years. >> yeah. >> and bringing america back as the president put it. you watch that clip from helsinki where jonathan lemire asks the president to say sitting on the stage with vladimir putin that he shouldn't interfered in the election and the disgraceful response where donald trump wouldn't do that. this is about in many ways for joe bide on the stand up there not on the stage with putin because there won't be a joint presser but to stand up there and call out publicly vladimir

putin for all the things he's done. >> yeah. to a large extent for joe biden, the audience for this is right here in the united states, not necessarily around the world, and a moment for him to reset and show as he has done in so many ways that he is not donald trump, he's not his predecessor and going to be tougher on russia. the question is what does be tougher mean? what are the tools left in the american tool box in the western tool box they haven't yet used. things like the biggest issue on the tile is cyber. we have seen the ransomware attacks pick up enormously the past few months. is that something he's going to bring up? >> you mean like countermeasures? >> like countermeasures. >> it seems to me at this point another round of sanctions does absolutely no good. you're going to have to have a counter reaction to a cyberattack. >> right. there's some talk about taking sanctions out against, getting closer to putin himself. so if you really sanction the people who are very close to putin, would that then get back

to putin. that haven't been done yet. so that's one possibility. but i think the countering of cyber measures is the one that american intelligence officials are weighing if these attacks -- and is it possible that putin thinks actually you know what, i've created a monster that might have got a little out of control and i want to reign in, he has an interest in reigning in. >> his latest comments and talking to keir and others talking about trump being remarkably brilliant and he was playing to an audience that was not pro-biden. let's bring in former u.s. ambassador to russia, now director of the institute for international studies at stanford and an nbc news international affairs analyst, michael mcfaul. he is in geneva at the site of the summit. >> mr. ambassador, thanks so much for being with us. as -- >> sure. glad to be here. >> someone who knows vladimir putin so well, you have been barred from going into his country, why don't you give us

your thoughts about what are the tools left in the tool box for joe biden to push back on vladimir putin? >> well, great to be with you all at a decent hour with me, usually it's very early in the morning in california when i'm with you. couple of things. first of all, you've got to contain and engage at the same time. that's my view. so i think it's right for president biden to meet with vladimir putin today around try to figure out if there are a limited agenda they can cooperate on and strategic stabilities talk, arms control, that's the top of the list. maybe syria might be a breakthrough as well here if you look at the delegation that the russians brought. they have their syrian chief adviser in the meeting. that's a good sign to me. but you got president biden has to be careful, too. david said very rightly, what does putin want? he wants do be respected.

well; respect in my view should be earned. you don't just give it away. he has to be very careful not to be too respectful. i don't like the word worthy adversary by the way. he's not worthy. he invaded crimea. he hacked our elections. he supported mr. assad in syria. those are not worthy actions. so i think he has to engage when he can and then homework after geneva is develop a grand strategy a multiple-prong strategy for containing punt's belligerent behavior around the world including here in europe and in the united states. in other words, it's a lot like the soviet era. engage when you can and contain when you must. >> so, mike, this is david. i'm just wondering whether you think biden has already given too much away with the comment about the worthy adversary, other atmospherics first. second, the biden people say their goal fundamentally is a stable and predictable relationship with russia.

i wonder whether you think that's even possible. >> well, they do say that and they say that because they don't want to deal with russia. they don't want any crises. they want to focus on the domestic agenda. they want to focus on china. and i understand that logic, right? no more headaches from russia. i don't, if i have to predict, i don't think it will work because vladimir putin wants to be in the mix. the build up of the soldiers he had in ukraine was a bit of a station identification to say, no, you're not going to freeze me in place. i'm going to be a player here. and therefore i think they have to be careful with that language. engage, be respectful, you don't want some shouting match here in geneva, but you also don't want to sound too chummy. the word normalization also is a word i don't think is appropriate for u.s./russia relations at this time. >> ambassador mcfaul, it's

willie geist. the fact that putin is showing up first, biden second. you thought that was important. also, the press conference a lot of people wish there had been a joint press conference so that joe biden, the president, could have the moment that donald trump passed on in helsinki to call out publicly in front of the world vladimir putin for some of the things he's done. you did not like the idea of a joint press conference. why not? >> well, first, it's great that putin has to come first because he's always late. i remember a summit i was with barack obama in 2012 he was 40 minutes late for that meeting. so that's a coup for the protocol team for biden. another footnote, willie, the fact that they have note takers in the room, secretary blinken and foreign minister lavrov i think that's great too. the press conference -- that's a change, exactly, mika. we want somebody to be taking notes. and you also just to be serious about it, you want somebody in

the room who knows the portfolio in case putin goes into some crazy es tearic thing and most certainly did that to president trump. does anybody know what a m lat treaty is? my guess is no. putin brought that up with president trump. had he had fiona hill in the room she could have answered that question for him instead of the mistake he later made in the press conference about that. on the joint press conference, i think it's a mistake for two reasons. one, i don't think putin is worthy to be on the stage with president biden. i really don't. and to have that imagery of two equal leaders, i think sends the wrong message. and two, as you were talking about earlier, remember putin is not con trained by the facts. he says whatever he wants. he plays the what aboutism game. he compares things that are not comparable and i see on my twitter feed fairly often says don't feed the trolls. so why feed this troll?

why give him that chance to play the what aboutism game. i just don't think that's in america's national interest. i think the president should speak directly to the american people after his meeting. i think that was a wise decision. >> yeah. very wise. >> not mincing words at all. ambassador mcfaul in geneva, thank you very much. wow. >> jack and i, my 13-year-old, we talk about it. >> jack brought it up. >> he said, okay, all right. >> it's a mutualist legal system treaty. >> thanks, jack. >> we talk about those a lot. >> yeah. we need one. >> once you get jack going, he won't stop on the m lat treaty. >> i want to put something out there i think some people missed. this vladimir putin and maybe i have something in common with him after all, these are approximate lateness to meeting tallies. >> this is rudeness. >> i got to say, this is very rude. and i'm working on being more

punctual. let me tell you, i would be 4:15 early to any meeting with angela merkel. 4:15 late to that merkel meeting in 2014. >> at what point does chancellor merkel just walk out? that's what i want to know. i'm shocked she waited 4:15. >> it's a whole thing to establish and assert some sort of strength. >> my whole thing is ten minutes late, i'm gone. so you can talk to yourself. >> when i was a foreign correspondent, we had -- >> the show started ten minutes late. >> when i was a correspondent in south america, we had a scale. so, you know, you would wait maybe 20 minutes for foreign minister. and okay, half hour for head of state. but that was kind of it. >> honestly, for the folks who were putting this together, for the teams working on this, very

big coup to have putin come first. so biden isn't sitting there waiting and waiting because he's not going to do that for him. and i think michael mcfaul is absolutely right, putting them on the same stage would ghinish joe biden's stature in the world, something he's gone on this trip to reclaim for the united states of america. >> right. >> let's go to moscow now and nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons. keir, what's on tap today? set the scene for us? >> reporter: hey, mika. i think that question that you raised about whether president putin will be late for the meeting is a really good one because a lot of this, of course, is about optics, as well as about the detail. now, president putin hasn't landed yet. he has less than an hour to get from landing to the meeting, but if he is on time or kind of on time, then i think that's an interesting -- it will be an

interesting reflection of his mentality going into this meeting with president biden. and feel like a small victory for the biden team to get him to actually just turn up on time. we're monitoring how the russians are reporting and what they're saying about the summit ahead of the meeting. sergei lavrov, the foreign minister asked by russian journalists what's the mood responded very good this morning despite according to the russian media, the russian forward delegation, if you like, was delayed by 45 minutes landing in order for air force one to be able to land. on board that plane was sergei lavrov also the press secretary dmitry peskov, the russian ambassador to the u.s., chief of the general staff. doesn't seem to impacted their mood, but there is some posturing this morning. dmitry peskov asked about the

way they viewed this summit saying -- talking about the u.s. wanted to contain russia, saying statements about containment don't ease the atmosphere ahead of the summit. and some indications from the russians about the kind of things that perhaps there may be agreement on. so talking about the ambassadors who, of course, are not in moscow or in washington right now, the chief -- the foreign policy adviser for the kremlin saying the sentiment is that depending on the results of the summit, the ambassadors may return to the capital. so don't be surprised if that is one of the pieces of news we get later today. just that simple thing that the u.s. ambassadors to moscow and the russian ambassador to washington are going back to their posts, if you like. and then just some color, guys, ahead of our meeting we actually had to quarantine for almost two weeks with multiple tests. we're hearing that the russian

delegation have had multiple tests according to the russian media maybe three to five and they're talking about just serious measures being taken to protect both presidents. >> keir, this is gene robinson. you have an amazing interview with president putin. so from that interview, did you get any sense at all that we might be surprised by putin's demeanor today? that he might be less scratchy and combative and less of a chip on his shoulder than we expect? or do you think it will be pretty much -- well, what do you expect? >> reporter: that's a great question. i think it depends with president putin kind of how you approach him in some ways. i mean, clearly one of the touchy issues is going to be that president biden has to confront him on human rights and alexei navalny, and that is a tricky one. of course, you saw in my

interview that president putin doesn't want to say alexei navalny's name. i think we have a clip of that interview that we can play, if we have that ready. do we have that ready, guys? we can have a listen to that to how that exchange went. >> will you commit that you will personally ensure that alexei navalny will leave prison alive? >> translator: look, such decisions in this country are not made by the president. they're made by the court. i proceed from the premise that the person that you have mentioned, this same kind of measures will apply, not in any way worse than to anybody else who happens to be in prison. >> reporter: his name is alexei navalny. people. >> translator: i don't care. i don't care. >> people will note that you wouldn't say he will leave prison alive. >> reporter: it does partly depend on how the biden administration approaches this. it could be that behind closed

doors when the cameras aren't rolling you get a different kind of putin. we wait to see. >> yeah. >> keir, just an atmospheric question, which might lend some insight into what today is going to be like, what it's like to be in the room with vladimir putin, just we're talking at the top about his body language, both with president obama and frankly with you during the interview. what is it like to sit across from him and to meet with him? >> reporter: yeah. listen, i think when you sit across from him to interview him, in some ways you get the performer. you get the guy who is up for combat and knows that he's being recorded. i think for me one of the interesting aspects was after the interview and i mentioned this on monday, was after the interview, when we had a conversation and as i said then, away from the cameras, he was still leaning in, trying to make eye contact with me and one of the issues that he was bringing

up, i wasn't asking him questions anymore, that he was bringing up was continuing to try to urge me to believe him that opposition groups here in russia are being funded by the west. and as i said then, maybe that's the former kgb officer trying to use his powers of persuasion, but i think it's also worth considering whether president putin isn't just a threat but feels threatened. i say all that because i think it is important from the u.s. side, from the diplomatic side, to understand exactly who you are dealing with. you know, i think it is possible to picture president putin inside the walls of the kremlin behind me, feeling under pressure at times, if you like, believing the things he says, like, for example, that the opposition here is funded by the west and that is a useful insight into how from the biden

side they use their powers of persuasion. >> well, and of course, former kgb agent because there's so many people post cold war who basically got their badges of honor by funding opposition groups behind the iron curtain. so, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean everybody is not out to get you. nbc's keir simmons, thank you so much live in moscow. >> thank you. >> really a great insight. because if you're vladimir putin and again, you know after the wall falls that you hear of one group after another group after another group funding opposition leaders and forces and printing presses behind, you know -- behind the iron curtain, then, yeah, of course he thinks, he

still thinks that's what they did then, that's what they're doing now. his entire life is shaped by him burning files for the soviets and east germany in 1989. >> and the game was playing right around the world. you had proxies of the the soviet union being attempted with assassination in various countries around the world. of course he's going to -- just look at his behavior during covid. this is a guy who spent most of covid in lockdown reportedly you had to get through a special desanitized tunnel to see the guy. he saw nobody. he takes his security incredibly seriously and takes the security of russia very seriously. and he's very aware that the united states would like to see him diminished as a public figure. my concern about this meeting is that at the moment vladimir putin gets off that plane and goes into that summit meeting, he's already won to some extent. he doesn't need to get anything. all he needs to do is go back to moscow. the very fact that he's being

called to geneva and even if we don't see them at a press conference, he can go back and say i got that summit meeting. the americans are taking me seriously. joe biden is taking me seriously. would he love to have joe biden come out and say, yeah, you can have your sphere of influence in ukraine and belarus, sure. he's not going to get that. the meeting itself is a win for vladimir putin. >> that apparently is vladimir putin's plane landing in geneva. >> he is coming. >> he's early. >> you get it from all sides. this is nothing new for biden and they certainly understand that. but he's being attacked by some trump people for not having the joint press conference, which of course seriously if you work in the trump administration, you need to be quiet about summits with vladimir putin. you have no grounds to stand on. but, there are other people who say he shouldn't have even met with vladimir putin. i personally just don't understand that. except in extreme cases.

you meet with adversaries. whether you call them worthy adversaries or enemies. you get a chance to meet with them, you meet with them. richard nixon met with moa. >> that's the point, joe. russia is just too dangerous. and recent years been too volatile, too aggressive not to try to find some way to have stable, predictable relations. that's the phrase that the biden team is using. i think he is giving putin some of the respect that he craves. if that leads to better behavior, acts more like an adult, that's a net plus for the u.s. >> does he want to act like an adult? does he -- >> he wants to be unpredictable. >> it's worked pretty well for him. so does he really want to -- >> also, playing by the rules of the rest of the world makes the

rest of the world take a closer look at the fact that the united states and their partners in europe have $40 trillion of gdp and he has $1.4 trillion of gdp per year. >> that's the core question we should think about this summit. does he really want to enter into a more modern, stable, predictable relationship with the united states? >> why would he? >> how would it benefit him. that's what they're going to probe. they're going to look at the possibility of some regional agreements where russia has been taking a step forward on syria. we would do something cooperatively. i expect there will be a return of ambassadors, which is what normal countries do. so to step back toward normalcy, but your point is right. why would he give up this kind of crazy man's slouchy snarky, putin that's worked well for him. >> well, we'll see. often we talk a lot about negotiations and discussions and what looks like a good

discussion. we're talking about it, if you come out and both sides are angry, chances are they really actually addressed some stuff and got into it and it might have been a productive meeting. >> as katty says, putin is broadcasting exclusively back home. joe biden is sending messages to united states and around the world. he knows who he's talking to and it's his audience back home. >> let's bring in the author of the book "the world a brief introduction" richard haass and staff writer at the atlantic magazine anne applebaum. richard, i remember more than one time dr. brzezinski would get pulitzer prize winners and foreign democracy thinkers on this show and mack them pakistan

wants to be like the united states or oh so and so wants to be more like the united states. and dr. brzezinski would always say you have to look at what the leaders in that country want for their country, what they need for their country and often it's radically at odds what the united states wants for their own. i ask you the question, we've been talking about around this table this morning, why does it benefit vladimir putin to play by the rules? he's done well the past 21 years making up his own rules, breaking them, creating a new set of rules why one american president spends four to eight years chasing him around. >> absolutely. and i think one should never forget that vladimir putin's principle purpose is to remain in power. his goal is to remain the leader of russia for as long as he continues to breathe. that's it. so he's not interested in

becoming more like us or more open. he's not interested in developing a real modern economy because that could set in motion trends, economically and politically, that could threaten his domination of the country. so that's what we have to understand. we're not going to change him. he's not going to democratize. he will pay a price for keeping political prisoners in prison. his principle role and goal is to stay in power. where he might be willing to compromise are things that are not central to that, for example, all the cyberattacks on the united states, the ransomware. that's a useful tool but that is not tied to his maintenance of power. the biden administration needs to distinguish where are the areas we could potentially move putin. where are the areas we're simply banging our head against the wall. >> as we watch vladimir putin's planegeneva, and

everybody is looking at his swiss watches to see if he is lined up to be on time for the summit meeting. anne applebaum, i want to ask you -- >> and he is. >> joe biden for the west what is a successful outcome to this summit? >> i think a successful outcome is when either biden whispers in his ear or says so clearly after the press conference that there are limits to what we will tolerate. there are limits to what we will tolerate in terms of repression of dissidents, in terms of using russian hackers to attack the united states, in terms of allowing ransomware criminals to attack american pipelines from a base inside russia. and it may be that we have to say some things cheerily. look, here are what the consequences will be if you do x or y. here is our strategy going forward. i would add also to what richard

haass just said, really important element to understand about putin, is absolutely he's right, that what he really wants and his main concern is to stay in power, but part of how he defines staying in power is he believes that he also needs to underline democracy, not just democracy specific but in general, the idea of it. he needs to -- the russians to believe that there's no alternative to him. and so, much of what he does, whether it's intervening in u.s. elections or whether it's supporting extremist leaders all over europe and indeed all over the world, a lot of that is designed to make sure that there is a constant level of chaos outside of russia so that russians will continue to support him. that is also something about him that's not going to go away. his dislike of democracy and his dislike of us isn't nationalist. it's ideological and we need to understand that and have a clear response to it. >> richard, we have been talking

this morning about the urgency of president biden to show consequences, that there will be consequences for shutting down the largest oil pipeline in the united states or meat processing plant or go down to hospital, go down the list. what does that deterrence look like, though, to vladimir putin? it hasn't been sanctions up to this point. is it turning out the lights in moscow. what does that mean to show that there will be consequences? >> i wish i had a better answer for you, willie. yes, there's potentially more sanctions against putin's inner circle, conceivably more draconian economic sanctions. the problem with turning the lights out in moscow, in an unconstrained cyber conflict between the two countries, we've got an enormous amount to lose. unlike nuclear weapons, almost like nuclear weapons, cyber can become a weapon of mass destruction. we're extremely vulnerable. so, yeah, we can hurt russia. that's no doubt. but in turn, they can really hurt us. so we have got to be extremely

careful about essentially going into an unrestrained, unregulated cyber escalation with them. i would think one other thing we could do, though, is put out certain information. i don't know exactly what we have, but the more details we can put out about corruption, about privatization of wealth for mr. putin and his budies to embarrass him at home, i would make that a priority. >> to follow up on what willie was saying, when we talk about whispering into putin's ear, that there are limits, there are redlines as joe biden already said, what do you think are the retaliatory measures that the united states could and would take against putin that biden can kind of follow up that whisper with? if you do x, we will do y. what's the y? >> if you harm or kill another

dissident, we will quadruple our support for russian dissidents abroad. if you use cyber warriors or criminal attack to attack a pipeline, expect one of your pipelines to be attacked, too. keep it absolutely -- i understand richard haass's concerns. keep it absolutely within the same bounds. but there needs to be some kind of -- there needs to be some kind of equivalent response to these actions. so far all of our responses have been on the back foot or retrospective sanctions, a few people here, a few people there. we need to have a list of things that they can expect to have happen in each case. if you do x, there will be y. >> two quick questions for richard and anne. one weapon that we demonstrated pretty remarkable is after the ransomware attack on colonial

pipeline, the crypto currency that had been sent to the ransomware demanders vanished, which means our ability, the nsa's ability to go into these super secret accounts and just take the money is there. was that a demonstration to putin that he has to be careful? and second question, i was struck during the interview with keir simmons with the way in which putin continued to talk about the pro-trump protesters on january 6th as if they were almost his people. and i'm curious whether you, too, think he's going to continue to play that card against the united states, work the trumpites to make trouble for biden? >> well, david, on the first of your questions about our ability to capture some of the crypto assets, what's not clear to me is how much of that was a one off and how much was a demonstration of across the board capability.

what i don't think -- i certainly don't know whether we have been able to do that in repeated cases. i don't think so yet. i'm hoping we have that ability, but i'm just parking that as a question. then also, as you know better than anybody, if we were able to do it here, there's things they can do on the other side to make it more difficult. my guess is this is going to be one of those action, reaction sorts of things. but any time you can show the people on the other side are somewhat vulnerable, i think it's a good thing in going after -- in particular going after these non-state actors though i doubt it's going to necessarily deter putin all that much, particularly as your second question, i would be interested what anne has to say, what his goal is to get money or really in some ways simply to disrupt. >> so, i think if in answer to the second question, yes, i think he will go on verbally and perhaps in other ways supporting anti-democratic, anti-systemic

actors in the united states, not just because of what the effect might be in the united states, but because that is, as i was saying, is part of his overall strategy, which is to prove to russians that democracy doesn't work, that american democracy is chaotic, that it leads to violence, that it's not something russians should want or desire or aim for. remember, this is a leader for whom his worst nightmare was something he's already seen unfold in ukraine in 2014 when there are mass street demonstrations calling for democracy and opposing corruption. and those street demonstrations successfully overthrew an autocratic president and substituted brought a new wave of democratic elections to ukraine. that is what he is afraid of. so any way in which he can show russians that democracy is a failure helps him. and that's why, by the way, russian television repeatedly shows the demonstrations on january 6th, focuses on them,

talks about them endlessly, talks up, you know, conflict inside the united states, because that's the message that they want russians to hear. >> gene robinson -- >> can i just add a point on that. >> go ahead. >> i'm sorry. i think there's a difference between putin exploiting january 6th and causing it. one of the many, many reasons we can use on january 6th commission is to get a sense of to what if any extent foreign involvement really caused the events. all the authoritarian regimes, china, russia, exploit these images and beam them to their own people and say, see, this is why democracy is the same an anarchy, did the same thing during the arab spring. my own guess is if all were ever known, we have done a lot more to undermine our own democracy than vladimir putin has ever done. he's just happy to exploit it for his own domestic purposes. >> richard -- >> and here comes -- before the question to richard, here is

68-year-old vladimir putin who was born, if you were curious about such things, in 1952. of course we all know he worked for the kgb, was in east germany in november of '89. >> he's kind of on time. >> he is kind of on time. >> just saying. >> he's on time. got his swiss watch on right now. and the legend has it that he continued burning as the wall was coming down and east germany was closing up shop as a communist country, he continued burning files until the furnace burst. but made to save the files that got dirt on his german counterparts. he in '99 became prime minister. was prime minister until 2004. 2004 was president. and has, gene, of course; since that time been the defector leader, whether he moved from president to prime minister.

>> exactly. he was sort of czar. >> he is a czar. and he is most likely czar for life. >> i think he probably is. one curious thing and question for richard haass, he -- during the keir simmons' interview, he spoke about china. he talked about that developing relationship. and he was mostly complimentary, mostly nice talking about china. is his -- not his end game, but his next game essentially making russia kind of a junior partner to china in the sort of aher to tear yan cluster facing the democratic cluster. is that where he wants to be, richard? >> tactically he obviously sees advantages being close to china,

they can push back in a way to evade sanctions. in a long run, i don't think china and russia are naturally partners. russia has all this empty territory. china has millions of its citizens that are inside russia, shall we say, without formal documentation. i'm not -- i actually think the biggest question about putin will be his legacy. and he has hasn't institutionalized anything at home and left russia to the internal pressures the fissures within the country and nationalism and externally among other countries to defeat china. in the short run it's tactically useful but i'm not sure strategically this makes great sense for russia because it would be very much a junior partner. >> richard and anne, stay with us, if you will. we have jonathan lemire. sword the they're going to jam his cell phone so we need to get

him while we can. >> let's go to geneva, jonathan lemire is there in the travel pool with president biden. good morning. set the scene where you are. president putin has arrived. his motorcade is moving toward the villa we're seeing there perhaps for an on time arrival. what are you seeing? what happens from here. >> it seems like a rare moment of punctuality. i'm sitting in president biden's motorcade. we're outside his hotel. we will be rolling shortly as well to the summit site. and the run of show is as follows. both leaders will arrive separately. be greeted by swiss president. the three men will then have an official welcome. we expect just the swiss leaders to be there. then we will have president putin and president biden meet for a small event just joined by one aide each and an interpreter. we expect to hear from both men then briefly.

the press corp. will be in the room for those remarks. i'll be part of that. then we're off. and it will be four to five hours or more behind closed doors with these leaders. eventually more aides will join the discussion and then we will have each leader, putin first, then president biden delivering news conferences this evening. timing is very much to be determined. there's a sense from the american side this summit could run quite late. >> so jonathan, what is the posture of the white house with this meeting? we have been talking so much about vladimir putin's side of it, what he thinks he can get out of this, what he may have already gotten out of it just by the fact that there is a summit here. what is the white house looking for today? >> well, the white house is deliberately set expectations low when it comes in terms of deliverables. concrete achievements. but and they certainly are not looking to have any sort of reset, which is what we heard through president obama and his connection, relations with russia. certainly we don't expect deferential tone from president

biden we heard from president trump three years ago in helsinki or george w. bush staring into president putin's eyes. we can safely rule that out. i think biden and his team broadcast all week, though, that he's going to talk tough to putin. he's going to tell him to knock it off about whether it be election interference or the cyber hacking or giving safe harbor to these hackers that are provoking these ransomware attacks that have become so prevalent. biden is not going to shy away from talking about alexei navalny. an aide told us on air force one yesterday coming in from brussels to geneva, the russians suggested that topic would not be on the table, this aide said there's nothing that's not on the table for an american president and they want their -- expect bide on the go toe to toe with putin. >> i think we learned a couple things about getting putin to turn up on time. first of all, make sure he has to get there first. because when you can't play that power game of keeping somebody

waiting, he actually turns up on time. same thing happened in switzerland and newly minted swiss citizen, good on my people for keeping the clock running. very pleased about that. one question if i can just take a question to you, anne mentioned the notion of russia kind of not having alternatives. but we've seen recently a pick up in strategic cooperation between china and russia. to what extent is that a concern and driving some sense of urgency from the american side that they want to make sure that russia continues to feel it doesn't have alternatives rather than feeling, actually you know what, we do van alternative to that democratic model you're selling us and it's a very well financed model over in beijing and that's going to work fine for us. >> in my conversations with administration officials, katty, i have not heard that framing of

it. again, i see it -- the relationship between russia and china as useful for both countries in a very limited way. i think it was mike mcfaul earlier said what this administration really wants is to see the u.s. relationship with russia quieted so the united states can focus on its relationship with china and meeting the challenge posed by china, which is qualitatively bigger and qualitatively different than any challenge that emanates from mr. putin. again, i guess i don't see that as critical. what i see as really critical for joe biden going into this is to what extent is he going to emphasize the domestic nature of russia and put that at the center of what we do. i don't think he's going to be wildly successful if he does. or to what extent does he focus on certain behaviors of russia in cyberspace, in ukraine, potentially against nato, what

have you. and he basically tries to deal with that. that's a more conventional foreign policy objective. there we have a slightly larger set of tools to influence things. and that to me is the real question. do we take a more traditional approach to russia, as in some ways suggested by the fact we're willing to meet with putin, to have a summit. basically treat it as a slightly more normal relationship rather than as something exceptional where our goal is to transform the place, which is simply not going to happen. >> jonathan lemire, david. just one last question before this historic meeting starts. what are you seeing, if anything, in terms of the mood of the biden team? we talked a lot about body language this morning, get any sense of the body language of the president, of the people around them? how do they seem to be feeling this morning our time? >> david, we haven't laid eyes on the president yet today but we have obviously seen him all

week long at a number of these summits and certainly aides are very pleased with how things have gone so far and they report that the president himself is as well. in fact, reveling in this finally have this face to face diplomacy after having to do it for months via zoom, you know, become greeted so warmly by these long-time american allies, leaders of europe, who were so rattled by his predecessor, donald trump. how many times did we hear the phrase my friend joe, the g7 in cornwall or the last several days in brussels nato and eu. we were told the president was prepping for this summit as he would any other he had in his nearly 40 years as international globe trotter, whether foreign relations committee at the senate or vice president. he was reviewing the materials, talking to close aides. he was relaxed. he was confident. he was ready to do this. this is something he's been looking forward to a long time. they wanted to schedule the putin summit early in the

administration to deconfront this head on early to move on to other things including down the road china. >> i mean, he's been doing this for 40 years. the only parallel i can draw is with another president would be nixon, who, of course, starting in '53, as ike's vice president, had been on the global stage for two decades. >> but always the understudy. this is his show finally. >> right. >> it is. i will say, though, that that experience is valuable. even at times if one thinks he's made mistakes, especially on the world stage, i mean, he has a real sense of what he's doing, of who he's talking to. he has studied these people. i would think that joe biden in some ways, you know, he doesn't have a filter sometimes and he says what he thinks like he's a killer. >> he wouldn't say that again, more careful. >> he might be obviously will be more careful in this meeting, but it will be more -- it will

be interesting to see exactly how much he addresses with vladimir putin face to face, straight on, getting right to the issues. the things that are going wrong that need to stop. >> well, there are a lot of issues obviously. we need to worry about the homeland and russia's attack, cyber security attacks, against our homeland. >> top of list. >> and there's syria, obviously, which remains a serious problem. then as you move out from there, there's obviously central and eastern europe. and then as you move out from there, there are things that are going on inside of russia and which will probably be the last things that biden gets to. i'm curious, anne, and i'll -- since i'm going to reference richard haass here, i'll let him follow up, richard, one of richard's chief complaints about u.s. foreign policy over the past 20, 25 years, at least since 9/11 has been our

obsession with that one region and that one region is the middle east. instead of doing the pivot to asia, instead of focussing on india and instead of focussing on other areas of world, i wonder as we sit here and obsess as we have not only over this past week but over the past five years, over a country with, again, gdp of $1.4 trillion a year compared to the west's $40 trillion a year. whether we are once again obsessing on the wrong country or the wrong region when obviously the great geopolitical battle will be whether his rivals are ultimately allies will be between the united states and china. >> i certainly understand that point of view, and there's absolutely something to it. you know, russia should be a kind of third ring problem and a

third rate issue. in fact, obama tried to treat it that way. i think he made a reference to putty, second rate power, he tried to dismiss it. the trouble is, the trouble is that it is russia who is obsessed with us. i mean, very specifically us. our democracy, our system, what we say, how our leaders speak. and by the same token our allies. so how democracy works in france or germany or italy or spain is also of great interest to russia and russia is interested in trying to manipulate disagreements and divisions inside all those countries to its own advantage. and although that is not a long-term strategic problem that we might -- it is something that we do have to deal with now. as we saw in 2016, you know,

russian hack of the democratic national committee and the leaking of emails can affect our elections. and so therefore, thinking about russia is something -- it's something we do have to do if there were a way to get through it in order to focus on the bigger stories we would have to. but look, we're a country that has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. we need to think strategically that china strategically about russia, you know, we need to have a longer-term idea what we want to happen on borders of europe, policies for latin america, for central america. simply there's a big agenda in front of us. and russia is a country that's going to keep coming up because of its interest in us. >> yeah. i would actually agree with what anne said. russia is still a super power in the nuclear realm. we can never forget that. it's still a great power when it comes to european security. we saw the painful demonstrations in ukraine.

we have seen it in georgia. there's still a threat opposed to nato and western europe. it's willing and able to use force effectively, violently and recklessly and irresponsibly the middle east. it's a great power in the cyber domain both because of its capabilities and its lack of inha bigs. so i think it's on the agenda. we have to deal with it. it's more of a negative force. almost everything russia does is a problem. it doesn't contribute to the resolution of international problems, whether it's climate change, but is a force to be reckoned with. >> and following up on what anne said, just because some of us may not see russia as our enemy, does not change the fact that russia sees us as their enemy. and we have to act accordingly. >> yeah. there so some countering to the past four years, you know, to a president that publicly revered vladimir putin. we do have to sort of reallocate the way we communicate with the

world, what this relationship really is. richard haass and anne applebaum. thank you very much. we're going to get a quick break in before the meeting kicks off. former secretary of state hillary clinton will be our guest and former defense secretary and cia director leon panetta will also join the discussion. plus, former national security adviser to president trump, ambassador john bolton, former deputy national security adviser for president obama, ben rose. >> i think they have a band together. >> the new reporting president trump and his allies went in order to pressure the justice department to investigate trump's false claims of election fraud. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. liberty mutual customizes car insurance

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do you think russian president putin is worthy. >> the answer is no, i don't. >> never before has an american president played such is subservient role to a russian leader. it's not only dangerous, it's humiliating and embarrassing for the rest of the world to see. it weakens us. i have met with him. he's bright. he's tough. and i have found that he is, as they say, when i used to play ball, a worthy adversary. >> all right. welcome back to "morning joe." we're covering the biden/putin summit. right now we do have word that vladimir putin has arrived and is on time, which is actually news. >> this is news, breaking news, in and of itself. >> it's brilliant in terms of the team on the white house side

getting this meeting put together, setting it up this way because putin often has world leaders waiting on him. that's not going to be the case here today. so one tone has been set. >> we have former ambassador to the united nations and also former national security adviser john bolton with us. mr. ambassador, did the russians ever keep you waiting? we know they kept john kerry waiting. >> i hate to put this to rest, but in my first meeting by myself with putin and russia he was right on time. >> what? >> sorry to disappoint everybody. >> angela merkel we had a 4:30 delay. we went down the list of all the things he had been late for. >> don't mess with bolton. >> i will say that while i was horrified by much that went on regarding russia over the past four years, i would always go back -- i'm serious about this -- i would go back and see

that you were consistently a hawk against putin, consistently warning about vladimir putin. so you're a perfect person to ask this question, does he really -- is there any hope of containing vladimir putin? does he have any incentive to play by the rules the rest of us play by when you look at what he's gotten up away the past 20 years, keeping one president after another chasing him. >> i think there's a very fair question whether authoritarian rules believe in playing by anybody's rules other than their own. >> exactly. >> this talk of a rules based international system is effectiveness, frankly. i think you can deal with putin. the question is whether biden will pursue the correct policies. >> what are those policies? >> biden made a significant mistake the replacement for the

new start treaty by agreeing to a five-year extension of the existing treaty. it was a bad treaty in 2010 and hasn't gotten better with age. i think he has bungled the pipeline issue by saying he's against completion and operation of the pipeline. but then suspending the sanctions. and i don't think his responses on various russian cyberattacks have been adequate. i think that sanctions are nice but i think to establish deterrence in cyberspace, which is no different from any other domain of human activity, you have to take steps that impose pain on russia. >> so what would president bolton do? >> in cyberspace? >> focus it down. >> if you were going into this meeting -- >> i wouldn't go into this meeting. >> okay. if you were going into this meeting on cyber security, what would you say? how would you say it? >> i would say we understand what you're doing. you've carefully said well it's not the russian state making these attacks on our elections

or ransomware, the rest of it. but we know you're responsible for it. and if it doesn't stop forthwith, we'll take steps that you'll regret. >> like what? >> like taking cyber offensive actions against them. look, the obama administration tied the hands of the united states in complex decision making rules that made offensive action very hard. cyber defense is critical, but you will not establish structures of deterrence unless we take offensive action. >> so, let me ask you about the key issues that we're going to hear today on the global stage, syria, georgia, crimea. how do you approach those three? >> well, let's take the eastern european issue. the fact is i don't think that the united states had a strategy in the trump administration and i don't think we have one now to deal with the gray zone between what i'll call the eastern border of nato and russia's western border. >> hold on one second right now. it is four minutes after 1 in

geneva, vladimir putin is arriving for his meeting with joe biden. president joe biden. and willie geist, making -- we have been making notes of the fact that he has kept leaders waiting, other than ambassador bolton. and one or two others. but on time today. >> a brief photo op with the swiss president there. we expect president biden now to arrive shortly, about ten minutes from now. there will be a little photo opportunity between the two of them and then they will go inside for a meeting, which the white house said could last four to five hours or for however long it takes. >> we have ben rhodes and garry kasparov with us. i want to circle back to a question i have for you. because i think garry kasparov agrees with you. explain why now is not the time for an american president to meet vladimir putin. what is your objection to any american president meeting with him right now? >> well, i think you have to know what your strategy is on the key issues. i think, for example, on eastern

europe, we're in a very, very dangerous period, not just with respect to russian forces along the border on the eastern ukraine or the illegal annexation of the kremlin, but what's happening in belarus. i think there are opportunities there as well. i think the only way we're going to have stability in eastern europe is to close the gap between nato and russia. we either admit these countries to nato or we concede they're going to fall under russian dominance. you need a plan to think about how to get there. you need a plan in dealing with russia on certainly on the nuclear negotiations question. you need a plan in cyberspace. i'm not saying there's a time that's better earlier, better late. it's better when you're ready. >> let me ask you this question. i would normally agree with that. let me ask you about the fact that vladimir putin for the past four years, despite the fact that you took a tough line and in their defense republicans in congress took a tough line. >> exactly. >> a lot of other people did,

even when donald trump was saying embarrassing things about russia, mike pence sounded like he was ronald reagan circa 1987. so that said, it would seem to me to make sense any president who followed donald trump to go over there, meet, forgive me for sounding like a republican, but saying there's a new sheriff in town. we're not exactly sure how this relationship is going to sort out, but i want you to know a page has been turned and if you step over a line, we know exactly what we're going to do yet. we're still figuring things out. but if you step over a line, it's not going to look like the last four years. would that be a fair approach for any president to take? >> that may be what he's going to take, but putin comes into this meeting. he knows exactly what he wants. there's no ambiguity in his mind. he's been on this track a long time. so, the idea that he's going to be impressed by joe biden saying, hey, i'm not donald trump isn't going to cut it. what he's going to look for is what the performance.

and admittedly it's only five months in, but the performance has been weak so far. >> let's bring in right now former deputy national security adviser to president obama, ben rhodes, also chairman of the renew democracy initiative, former world chess champion garry kasparov. we always put former world chess champions above anybody that's worked at the white house. so ben, i'm sorry. we'll get to you second. actually i'm doing this for a sequencing reason. i know that garry has the same position as ambassador bolton about this meeting and then ben, i'll tell you why you think now is the good time for the meeting. garry, let's start with you. you said this is a meeting that shouldn't have happened yourself. why is that? >> absolutely, yes. you're right. i couldn't agree more with ambassador bolton because for putin, a summit was the goal. so, he got what he wanted despite all these crimes and attacks. but for democratic leader, the leader of the free world like biden, a summit isn't the goal

itself. he's not supposed to be representing america and again, the free world, by just accepting putin's terms. because talking isn't a goal. american national securities, global economic stabilities, maintaining the international order, that is also a goal. and biden cannot advance those things by normalizing putin and his hostile dictatorship. that's what this summit does, it normalizes putin. i'm not comfortable hearing the story about russia being an enemy. it's putin's mafia. and it's not russian national interest to confront the united states, but putin confronting america, as for every dictator, it's the ultimate goal because he cannot justify his endless stay in power without creating enemies. and of course now putin is thrilled. look at his picture because its summit is good for him. this is exactly what he needs to show everyone he is a big boss and everything from it, as you

mentioned, was about trump. but biden, it's not good for biden but it was good for the united states. it's not about him and to give such a gift to a killer who attacked the u.s., you have to make the case to the american people and biden hasn't even tried to explain why he's meeting putin. and i'm not buying this story about it's, oh, we can look for areas of common interest. there's no common ground with putin because if you talk about, oh, maybe we do deal in afghanistan doesn't mean that putin can offer you something in afghanistan in exchange for him invading more of ukrainian territory. >> right. so, ben rhodes, i don't want to upset you or ruin your morning, but i think i actually probably will agree with you here. i think after four years of donald trump -- and i say this as a cold warrior -- i think it is a good time for an american president to be there republican or democrat to go there and say, hey, we're here to turn the page.

i certainly understand the concerns as i'm sure you do, too, of garry and also ambassador bolton, but what are your thoughts about the timing of this summit, why it needed to go forward? >> look, i very much understand those concerns. and it's for those reasons we were quite cautious in the obama team to not have a big pomp and circumstance like this. however, i think here is where the biden team is calculating, this is the beginning of their presidency. there's an enormous range of issues that have to be dealt to with respect to russia. most negative. what he's doing in ukraine, cyberattacks, dissidents in russia. i think their calculation is, look, we are on our first big foreign trip here. we're going to sit down with the core of the democratic world at the g7, outline here is our agenda. we're going to sit down with nato, outline here is our agenda is very focussed on russia,

ukraine, focussed on cyberattacks. then we're going to go informed by conversations with our allies, which is part of turning the page from trump, right? it's not just that he's parachuting into a summit with putin, he's been working methodically over the course of this week with our allies demonstrating that for the first time in years there is some united front between the world's democracies. he's taking that into the room with putin. if he can lay out very firm messages on those different issues where we have serious, serious concerns with everything that russia is doing while exploring are there some areas where given the size and complexity of this relationship we can at least have a working level set of discussions, then i think they're calculating this is worth doing in part because in the russian system there's really only one decision maker. so unless you're able to sit down and lay all this out for him, you're going to be having a bunch of much less productive exchanges at lower levels. it's not without risk. i do worry that it gives putin

something he wants which is the big splash on the world stage, but the reality as anne applebaum said, putin will keep coming after us irrespective if there's a summit or not. how much can you deliver in terms of messaging in this meeting. they'll come, president biden, with tough words and be very welcome by the world's democracies. then we'll see where this goes from here. but i don't think there's any reason to not explore what you can get done here. >> gene robinson. >> i have a question about the mechanics of the meeting both for ben and for ambassador bolton, you guys who have been inside the room. so, it's going to be biden and putin but also sergei lavrov, the russian foreign minister, tony blinken, the u.s. secretary of state. will they talk? will they participate in the meeting? or will it just be putin and biden? >> take notes. >> going back and forth between the translators. >> i think it's likely in the

first meeting it will be the two leaders doing most of the talking but sergei lavrov has been foreign minister for a million years and knows putin well and knows when it would be appropriate for him to interview. tony blinken worked for biden for 20 plus years. it will be a very comfortable conversation, by the end among by the four of them. the key is to see how long this two plus two meeting proceeds or whether they go into a larger meeting. the longer the small meeting proceeds the more likelihood they're actually talking something significant. >> ben rhodes, respond to gene, if you will. >> well, i think the bigger agenda talking about nuclear arms control, talking about humanitarian access into syria which is on the agenda, you want a bigger group of people there because they have to follow up on a lot of these discussions on the most sensitive matters. on potential u.s. offensive cyber response, on whatever warnings joe biden wants to

deliver about certain russian actions inside of ukraine or the interference in our democracy. i'm sure he's going to want to do that in a smaller setting. with president obama, usually a bigger meeting for a period of time and then a longer, smaller meeting where it was just the plus one person in the room. and in that smaller meeting, it's really just the two presidents talking. the reason you have the tony blinken there and lavrov is that they need to read out the discussion to other officials, not because they're there participating. so at the end of the day, and this is again how the pattern has been done with putin over the years by a lot of leaders, you have a sensitive message you want to deliver, you'll do that in that skinny down meeting. >> we're looking at live pictures of motorcade of president joe biden about to arrive at the villa where president putin already has arrived waiting. there will be a photo opportunity briefly for the two of them before they go inside this meeting we have been talking about. ambassador bolton, you have done a lot of this over the course of your career. you've prepared presidents for

meetings. you've been in the room for meetings. you said president trump was not prepared in helsinki, president putin did not view president trump as an equal. how do you prepare a president different for other meetings with vladimir putin? what's unique about this kind of a meeting with this man? >> well, with president trump doing any preparation would have been a start. i tried to talk about -- [ laughter ]. >> i tried to talk about nuclear arms negotiations on the plane watching the fifa world championship. so, i didn't do very well on it. but i have no doubt biden is extremely well prepared. i think that's been his pattern over the years. what i wish he were more prepared with what his strategies are. and i think that's the key question here. there's no problem with saying to putin here is what we think. but then what are you going to do about it next? if your rhetoric is not followed by clear action, you would have wasted this meeting. >> right. but here just to maybe push back about against your criticism of this meeting, which i

understand. i've heard it. it elevates putin to an extent. you don't want to do that. but if you look at the way joe biden leads, he's a face to face guy. he's going to have said to vladimir putin face to face, here is what's not acceptable anymore and here is what's going to happen or you're not going to like what happens if this happens again. he's going into this meeting with the intention, i think we all believe, in protecting our democracy. and aren't there some things that need to be said face to face given what has happened over the past four years? >> i'm not denigrating face to face meetings at all. i'm saying if you want to make them effective, you have to have something you expect to come out of it. they're lowballing expectations. that's probably the right thing to do. >> sure. >> but it's also why you have telephones, foreign ministers, national security advisers. you can make these points a lot of different ways. there are things we want from russia. i think it should be a very high objective of american foreign policy to split russia from china which is tricky because

china is the existential threat to us in the 21st century. we obviously have problems with russia, but we don't want to see the two of them move closer together. >> can i ask a followup on that, obviously nixon and kissinger that was their obsession, that was obviously what led to the opening of china, one of the obsessions. how do we move forward with that? how do we trooi anogu late the two? i'm sure vladimir putin doesn't want to be china's junior partner than nato's junior partner. >> i think it's worse for russia than being the junior partner. you have the south of you in china a very overpopulated country with very few natural resources. far eastern russia, underpopulated country with a lot of natural resources. how do you think that's going to end if they're not careful? now, the russians don't see that danger, at least they say they don't. i think there's an opportunity there. i think cooperation in the arctic may be a way to do it.

>> looking now -- >> katty? >> ben, to some extent when you have a summit and watching biden arrive at this summit meeting as he gets out of the beast, is there some danger for the white house in this that you're upping the ante by virtue of having this summit. putin is getting what he wants, he gets the meeting with the president of the united states of america. if joe biden now sits down in that meeting and says here is the red line on cyber, let's take that as an example. another attack on a key piece of american infrastructure, we will retaliate. after having had this summit, the white house has to retaliate, doesn't it, because otherwise you've given putin the win of the optics of having the summit without coming away with some kind of tangible gain necessarily yourself and then if you don't retaliate either -- >> just really quickly before you answer, this is president

biden meeting with swiss president in geneva switzerland, neutral teterritory, and he's walking in now after a quick photo op where we may hear from the swiss president, but we will not hear from putin and biden. they're going to go in and get to work on the meetings. and this is joe biden's arrival at this incredible summit. >> yeah. so, ben rhodes -- >> sorry, katty. >> respond to katty if you can. >> yeah, no, katty. there's a number of risks. the first is you do have to be prepared to respond with whatever warning you lay down for vladimir putin. recognizing that he's very likely to cross your lines. whether it's in the cyber domain, whether it's in ukraine. and he's also very likely to deny that he's doing so. my experience in meetings with putin is he spends most of the time debating you denying the very fact that you're presenting him with. i'm not in eastern ukraine. i'm not responsible for these cyberattacks.

you're going to hold them to account for he himself is not going to acknowledge. the other danger is coming out of it the russians may want to put a good spin on this summit. they agreed to normalized relations. everything is going to move back in a more stable direction. when their behavior itself is perpetually destabilizing. what they're doing to alexei navalny and belarus and trying to turn democracies against each other and turn us against each other in our democracy here. so i think they have to be careful to not allow kind of positive spin come out of this before we can verify that russia is taking steps to move in a different direction. i think that's why you saw joe biden go out of his way to say -- to turn the ronald reagan truism inside out and say we're going to verify and then trust because i think they know that's the trap with putin. >> and i would think, joe, there is a lot of traps in a conversation with putin because he does that. he behaves that way, where he takes it off completely on a tangent. very much like president trump where it's i don't know what you're talk about. these things are -- you do these

things. where it becomes completely nonsensical conversation. so there's got to be a strategy going in in terms of not being put in that position, biden not putting himself in a position where he has to try to explain to vladimir putin what is going on. i think he states it. >> ben rhodes just said it, it's not trust but verify. it's verify well with them verify -- you never really get to trust. i think that is -- i think that is unique, though, ambassador bolton, mika and i were talking to diplomat yesterday, major diplomat yesterday who we were trying to get sort of the pre-game, of what they thought the pre-game was. and the response was, well, vladimir putin lies. he lies all the time. and lavrov -- because i was talking about lavrov. you talk about lavrov and most people who dealt with him sort

of smile. says he does very well with a weak hand. and the response was he does very well with a weak hand because he will look you in the face and he will lie and he knows he's lying and he knows that you know he's lying and he just doesn't care. so really the whole trust but verify reagan slogan just will never fit here. >> i don't think it will. and remember, what putin is coming in with with his defined agenda, he knows that biden is going to go through the laundry list, don't attack our elections, don't kill alexei navalny, don't do this and he's going to say, fine. i don't have anything to do with that. his answer on navalny was priceless. his health condition was the responsibility of the prison. that's amazing when you think about it. so, i don't think anything is going to throw putin off his stride here. the question is whether biden has something that he's going to follow through with after this meeting is over. >> correct. >> david ignatius, that really is important.

katty and ben were talking about what really the disaster would be, the foreign policy disaster would be where you put down a red line and then you ignore it. we'll get to that in one second. mika set it up with. >> this is the remarks by the swiss president. the only one who is going to speak here during this photo op. >> let's listen in. we're fortunate that three or four people at the table can translate this. i am not one of them. >> well, they're going to -- >> i defer to willie and mika and katty, of course, but they're going to speak in english soon. >> he's welcoming each leader and then he will do the same in english.

[ speaking in foreign language ] mr. president of the russian federation, mr. president of the united states of america, on behalf of the swiss government, i would like to welcome you to geneva, the city of peace. it is an honor and pleasure for switzerland to host you here for this summit. and in accordance with its tradition of good offices, promote dialogue and mutual understanding. i wish you both presidents a fruitful dialogue in the interest of your two countries and the world. best wishes and good-bye.

>> president biden, vladimir putin headed in for the meeting now. best wishes and good-bye. >> good-bye. i'm getting the hell out of here. i am not responsible for anything that happens after this. >> i'm shaking hands and not looking in the eye. >> i'm going to get into that deeper later on. but david ignatius, getting back to the question, the real problem would be here is if a red line were drawn inside of this meeting, and then ignored after that line was crossed, of course. we all remember the obama administration, of course, remembers putting down that red line in syria and then ignoring the red line. it's something that they heard about for the rest of the administration. joe biden obviously was there when that happened. and one suspects he will want to avoid that happening this time.

>> joe, that's the danger is that this meeting will set a new platform, new enabler for punt's adventurism. putin has been displaying contempt for the united states, for norms of international behavior now really for ten years. i'm enough of a child of the cold war that when you have a dangerous adversary, the sight we just saw of the two presidents meeting, shaking hands and having a normal dialogue and establishing their positions, their red lines, if you will, strikes me as beneficial. i do think that even with somebody as unpredictable, volatile, dangerous as vladimir putin, having contact, being able to enunciate clearly our positions is valuable. we've talked this morning about body language. body language in that moment

can't read a whole lot into it, but it was formal. if anybody looked relaxed, it seemed to me it was joe biden. >> yep. >> putin's hands were clinched and biden seemed like that old guy that we know, pretty much at ease with himself. i think we'll see. this is going to be a long meeting from what we're told. it could be three, four hours or more, extended agenda. we'll see what comes out of it. and more as ben rhodes and others have been saying, what the process of implementation of monitoring is. i think is good that these two sit down and begin to frame whether it's possible to have something closer to normal relationship, but it's the followup, it's the way in which we're consistent about our values, about maintaining red lines. putin, as we have seen, is a person who will grab a little and then grab a whole lot more. so, i think it's going to be crucial for biden to show that

he's not a president with whom that will be successful. as i think back on all the cold war summits that i watched, maybe surprisingly the person who seemed to have the best handle on how to prepare for them, how to think about them strategically, was richard nixon. he very much had a game plan going into each summit. i think about my conversations with mika's dad, mr. brzezinski, so many years about the russians, about dealing with them. i'm hoping that with jake sullivan, with secretary tony blinken a similar process of thinking, what do we want strategically? how do we want to get to where we would be in a better position down the road can happen. because that's crucial, successful presidents have done that. >> dr. brzezinski, don't trust, verify, still don't trust category. >> what he would spend a lot of time doing is really understanding the psychology of the person he was dealing with, whether it was at camp david he would spend many times walking

in the woods with each leader and really understanding them fully as a person. and psychologically where -- meeting them where they are, to understand how to act strategically with them, you have to know them. >> what separated your father from so many other leaders is he did not take the fdr approach where he thought the personality meant anything. he would try to figure out strategically what was going to happen, but he understood at the end of the day being buddies, it was the last thing he was interested in doing. >> no. >> and he always talked about how you had to look at the other leader to see what was in their selfish best interest and then negotiate from that point. >> yeah. he did some pretty good messaging, too. i remember probably the most famous picture of him standing in the pass looking down in afghanistan sighting along the

barrel of an m16. i thought that was pretty good. >> that was good messaging from dr. brzezinski. that was a picture. you know, it also bears repeating as we're watching this summit, that katty kay, often a summit will end and then you'll hear a lot of people get on television and say it was a success or failure and how shocking people on television being completely wrong. i remember 1986 you would have thought the united states was closing up and going out of business because reagan said no to gorbachev about giving up a weapons system that people in the media hated, had contempt for. and i think history proved that, in fact, that was an extraordinarily successful summit but you wouldn't have known it at the time. so, sometimes you say no, go away from the summit, and some remarkable things can happen. >> and perhaps saying no is what would benefit biden coming out

of this summit because if the purpose of this summit as you've been suggesting, joe, is the reset from trump, then quite a lot of saying no to putin will be part of that. i'm thinking back at previous summits where american -- well, trump met kim jong-il and what did that give the united states? it's not the same but there's always a risk for america when you send your american president out, and what are you coming away with that is the benefit. especially with somebody like putin who wants chaos, who wants and as we said who will deny. he'll do the cyberattack and you mentioned that you have to retaliate, but what happens if putin just completely denies that there's any kremlin involvement. he will do. then what? then we attack their -- so you have to be prepared to think, okay, we will go after a russian

pipeline in response to this. >> and on that point, ben rhodes, i think people watching this morning want to know what's going to happen if another oil pipeline is attacked? what happens if a meat processing plant is shut down? what happens if my hospital goes dark because of a cyberattack? that's a practical question that's impacting people's lives in america more than a lot of these sort of grand, global strategic questions right now any way. so, what is the answer from your point of view? what should joe biden be telling putin this morning? and what should he -- what should the strategy be? how hard can you back on a cyberattack? >> this is the central question and it's definitely what people like jake sullivan and tony blinken had been preparing president biden for. it gets to the psychology, too, you were talking about with putin, part of the problem with him he governs a circle of corrupt cronies who is enriching himself, destabilizing the west and less about the grand

ideologic competition of the cold war which framed u.s./soviet relations and more about personal profit in his capacity, and maintain power and discredit and divide democracies so that doesn't pose a threat to him. so if there's chaos in the cyber domain, that suits his purposes. so i think the messages that -- i also agree putin is going to deny it. he's going to say we know nothing about this. we don't know who these people are. of course we'll work with you to crack down on this. and i think what biden has to say, look, number one, we know where this is coming from. so, i don't care what you have to say about this. i'm not listening to your what aboutism on this. we know that there are cyberattacks made from within russian soil and we believe governments should be responsible for cyberattacks and ransomware attacks emanaing from your soil. if you don't go after these people, we will. and we have cyber offensive capabilities and we can deploy as well. i think on that score biden is

going to be ambiguous. he's going to deliver essentially a warning. not overly telegraphing what the punch would be but saying if you don't cut this out, we're going to take our own actions as well. and that's the message he wants to leave putin with. >> yeah, ben. isn't the message you either take care of it or we will? >> yes. >> and by the way, if it comes from your country, we're holding you responsible whether you deny it or not. >> that's right, joe. that's what's so important because, look, i mean when you see these reports that there are these criminal networks, ransomware attacks from within russia and whether or not the kremlin is involved, i think a lot of us are quite skeptical that there's anything that happens in the offensive cyberspace from within russia that the kremlin isn't at least aware of. i mean, they're either allowing this to happen or participating it, whether that distinction even matters at this point given the way in which vladimir putin governs his country, i don't know. so i think you're right. the message is, look, if it's coming from within russia, we're

going to deal with it one way or another. you can deal with it in partnership with us, and start to try to establish some norms for what governments are expected to do to stop cyberattacks from within their soil. but if you won't deal with it, they're going to be a series of consequences for you running the gamut from cyber responses and sanctions from the united states. >> mr. ambassador, we should take the approach and personally should have taken it with north korea with china, you either take care of north korea or we will. we don't want to do it. it's in your backyard. we would be mad as hell if you came to mexico. >> oh, wow. here we go. >> take care of your problem or we will. >> we're looking at the meeting as it's going to take place. these are the players the main players of the meeting that will be happening for the next several hours in geneva. president biden, a vladimir putin. then we have tony blinken on the u.s. side and sergei lavrov on

the russian side. expecting to have the first part of this meeting with just these four players. >> so, ambassador bolton, if you want to take us through the four people we're seeing here, you can. you're dealings with them or if you want to just answer that question, take care of the problem or we will. >> well, i think that's one way to approach it. remember, putin has already laid several traps for biden here. one of them being, we'll cooperate. you think there are cyberattacks coming. he made the same offer to donald trump in helsinki in 2018. >> this is somewhat of a press conference, if you don't mind, mr. ambassador. let's just listen in.

>> little chaotic situation here. there's no interpreters in there right now, so the questions that are being asked aren't necessarily going to be answered without the help of an interpreter. obviously right now vladimir putin looking a little more impatient as time goes on. we're not exactly sure why they

opened this up. mr. ambassador, as you said, they didn't have to open this up. >> yeah. this is very interesting. and i think for putin, the longer it goes on, the better. i'm a little surprised that biden allowed it to happen since he apparently didn't want a joint press conference. but i want the library. that's what i want. >> i do. i want that as my backdrop for my zoom calls. but here is the situation. they did not want a joint press conference. and you saw that crush of reporters kind of trying to get into the room right before this shot. i wonder what happened. >> neither of them -- since we've been watching neither putin or biden answered a question. >> they have been talking back and forth. there has been some conversation back and forth. >> looks like they have been speaking a bit. >> look at the body language. look at putin. >> biden looks just fine, thank

you. >> almost getting a smile from vladimir putin. he doesn't want to give much. >> just wondering whether blinken is say to the organizers, let's wrap this up. they're resolutely not saying anything, either of them. >> so mr. ambassador, go ahead and answer the question that we posed to you before this. it doesn't look like we're going to get any comments from them. >> yeah. no. i think the fact is that putin has laid some traps for biden here. and the same one that he laid for trump. so you can talk about u.s. criminal procedure looking into ransomware attacks from russia. but it's going to be in response putin saying, well, good, extradite some of your criminals to us like bill brouder and others. so biden needs to be careful how he handles that. since he had advanced warning, i

suspect he will. >> trying to get the press out of the room. saying go away, please. >> let's bring in former direct of cyber security, chris krebs. always great talking to you. of course, chris, we always get the head of cyber security, former heads of cyber security to talk about at international summit. but it actually is a central role here. and we've been talking over the past 30 minutes, 45 minutes about vladimir putin's denials saying, oh, we had nothing to do with this. he made the same denials. offered the same cooperation during the trump administration. but of course never did that. how easy is it for the white house to trace the origins of whether it's ransomware or attacks on other u.s. systems? >> you have to think about things in a pyramid. the top you have the so mist kated adversaries, that hit solarwinds and the bottom of the

period you have these criminal actors not quite as skilled, but they've got a lot of room to run domestically. we just are not where we need to be in terms of defenses. >> why not? why not? >> it costs money. cyber security is a cost sink for a generation. doesn't generate profit. >> let me ask this question and this really goes to both of you. i keep using these numbers because we just -- we don't put our power in perspective. we have gdp of $21 trillion a year. russia has a gdp of $1.4 trillion a year. so have they wildly overinvested in this area and we have wildly underinvested in this area? start with you, chris. >> from an offensive perspective, our cyber operators versus their's, i think we're better. we're definitely one of the top in the world. but from a defensive perspective, from a business, you talk about gdp, we're more dependent on the internet than they are.

they could disconnect from the internet and wouldn't have these massive problems or challenges that we have with pipelines and food supply. >> but you said we're good offensively. >> yeah. >> a president could deliver a message to putin, listen, here is the deal, do it again, we're going to -- you're going to start seeing sectors of your economy melt down and we're going to make it hurt and we're going to let the world know why we're doing it. and we're going to point straight at you. we're going to cause you pain. we don't want to do it. but we can. is the united states in that position? >> we have those capabilities. and we tested them previously. >> why are you smirking? >> look, you don't -- >> because you can't say too much publicly. i know. we don't talk about this enough, do we? we always talk about the united states as victim. and i wonder sometimes if our leaders are always back on their heels because of that. >> but we also don't go tit for tat in cyberspace. we don't go one attack for the other. you don't trade that way.

>> right. >> there are over levers of power that we can pull, and that's what you saw over the last couple weeks with the g7, right? >> right. >> the work has been done here. >> right. >> whether it was in cornwall or brussels. you have the united front with the g7 coming in saying ransomware is a national problem. seeing ransomware as a heads of state at a g7 meeting is surreal. i never would have thought we would be at this level. but here we are. the work has been done. and i think really the outcomes to be looking for is not any proclamations or statements coming out of the session but a month from now ransomware has dropped off. >> you have been sounding the alarm about ransomware attacks for a long time, you see the colonial pipeline and the hospitals and down the chain. we're aware of the problem. how much better are we at defending than a year ago, two years ago? >> you know, it's hard to measure. i don't think that we're at

anywhere near where we need to be. but the awareness is there now. the calls i've gotten, i'm sure the calls the ambassador has gotten, the board level, the ceo level awareness because of colonial, because of jbs where they hit the capital centers in our economy, you know, it's a sad statement of affairs that when they were hitting hospitals in the fall it wasn't that big of a deal. but now they have taken away the gas out of the tank, i am seeing a pivot, an awareness and we should see improvements, but i do anticipate whether it's the administration or the congress you will see requirements and regulations in a very near future. >> so ambassador, president biden goes in right now perhaps, he's saying to president putin, if you do it again, here are the consequences. it happens a month from now, a pipeline shuts down, meat processing plant goes down, then what from the point of view from the united states? >> well, honestly, this is an area where the united states and others need to do a lot more

conceptual thinking, not every cyberattack is equal to every other cyberattack. you have attacks that are at the level of war and i said beginning in 2016, that russian efforts to affect america's elections are an act of war against the constitution. but, acts of war i'll call it at the highest conceptual level, espionage, at a lower level, thievery and vandalism at a level below that. that's what you need to think through before you try and establish the appropriate structures of deterrence and therefore what the response is. what russia is doing here is what they call hybrid warfare. it's not the same as what we have gotten used to in the conventional sense or the weapons of mass destruction sense. we need to do a lot more thinking about this. and we have made progress, but we're still behind in my view. >> so, before we let you go, mr. ambassador, we've been told that you have to leave. so before we go. >> i don't know who could have said that. >> i want to try to find this

picture. >> no. >> i just had it, yes. >> no, it's okay. >> it's a splendid picture right here. can we get this? >> no. >> this is dr. brzezinski and the subtle art of diplomacy. >> i was in that exact spot about two years after that in the reagan administration and i asked them to take me there but they didn't have a rifle for me. >> that was interesting talking to dr. brzezinski. he dealt a good bit with the reagan administration. i didn't know that. he and william casey had quietly worked behind the scenes. >> and he lived for a time, at least, right behind ed niece. >> oh, no, still. >> still next door. >> with dana their daughter and knew them very well. >> mr. ambassador, thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you very having me here. >> we greatly appreciate it. ben rhodes, david ignatius

has a question for you now. >> so, ben, i just want to ask you you've been through so many of these summits, what's the best case we could have three four hours from now, what's the worst case? >> i think the best case is essentially, look, part of the best case is something negative, that joe biden delivering tough messages and that being very clear and him coming out and saying, necessary turning of the page after the last four years, i went in there and here is what i said on alexei navalny, on belarus, on cyberattacks, on all these issues. but then i also think there's some very specific things that they're hoping to kind of get some progress on. is there some movement towards return to discussion on nuclear arms control? is there movement in terms of keeping a border crossing open into syria to get assistance to refugees? is there some semblance of a common view on something like returning to the iran nuclear deal? i think what, you know, tony

blinken and jake sullivan are trying to establish with this meeting and their recommendation to president biden to do it is can we both push back on russia while also not having this set of tensions overtake our presidency, overtake our foreign policy, so that we're in a constant cycle of escalation with the russians? can we instead get back to a place where we have very strong differences, we're laying down some very clear warnings and messages on the things we disagree with, but there's a capacity to work together on some other stuff and capacity for the united states, frankly, to focus on other big ticket items like the china competition, china at times confrontation, like climate change. i don't know if they're going to be able to do that because vladimir putin gets a vote. but the best case scenario for them is, yes, there's an appearance it was a tough meeting and they delivered some tough messages, but there's a relationship that is capable of with standing that and having some cooperation in other areas even as we're going to have to go to the mat with the russians on a lot of occasions in the

next few years. >> all right. ben rhodes, thank you very much. the biden/putin summit is officially under way. what we just saw in the past few moments was a planned photo op where president biden and vladimir putin sat putin sat al their top aides, secretary of state tony blinken and sergey lavrov. reporters are trying to ask some questions. you can see the two main players like, oh, my gosh, maybe wanting to answer them but, nope. they held their tongues because the plan is now for them to go into several hours of meetings, maybe bring in their advisers, maybe not. we'll see. and then afterwards vladimir putin will hold a news conference on his own and then joe biden, president joe biden, will hold a separate news conference. that was the plan. they are not to appear together speaking together. joining us now democratic congresswoman slotkin of

michigan. she previously served as a middle east analyst for the cia and also served as acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. is a member of the armed services and homeland security services. russia was sort of your area when you were serving. first of all, what do you make of these meetings on the whole in there's some criticism that maybe president biden shouldn't be, you know, putting himself on par with vladimir putin. at the same time some others believe a page needs to be turned from the past four years. >> i think it's good. we've always talked to the russians. in the height of the cold war we talked to the soviets. it's a good thing when nuclear powers have conversations. i think it's great they're not appearing in a press conference together because everything putin dreams of is to be considered an equal of the united states. the loss of the cold war never happened, and he's trying to regain his role as the pure competitor of the united states. it's not true. we've talked about it all

morning. it's not true, but this is for him to play back home for his election. and i think it's a good thing we're not appearing side by side. >> and well played by the white house to have putin arrive first, because he often makes world leaders wait, which is sort of a power play in itself. and, oh, what a surprise, he was on time. wants to get it done. so what are the goals and what are the pitfalls, the potential pitfalls? >> i think there's been low expectations coming out of the white house on what will actually happen -- >> but we have some serious challenges with russia? >> we do, we do. i think it's to put down a marker we're not going to take the cyber attacks over and over again. it's to put down a marker that we're going to take law enforcement action, we're going to take action so they should be taking action against groups there. if not there will be consequences. i think, more importantly, i think the issue of cyber attacks have seeped into the american consciousness in the past month. they've hit our gas. they've hit our video games. they've hit our hot dogs. i mean, americans are asking me

about this -- farmers are asking me. >> hit the video games. it's over. >> people are asking me at the ground level what we're going to do about it, and they don't see how we're responding. i think we need to think about something like an arms control conversation with the russians, with the chinese, that it's just not okay that these things go on and there's not a systemic approach, a punishment, carrots and sticks, the way there is in arms control. i think a lot of us are thinking we have to communicate not just quietly, privately on the classified side and punch back but publicly have a response because americans don't know what their government is doing. they punch back. >> what do you do with an adversary that doesn't care about all that? you tell him there's going to be consequences and he rolls his eyes? donald trump was a little bit easier to work with from the point of view of vladimir putin. there have been some sanctions, sure, but i continue and here i sit for all these years. how do you handle him differently than another

adversary? >> it's like talk softly and carry a big stick. the punishment has to be painful. and we have imposed sanctions, but we all know there's always things people care about. always. it's just figuring those things out and goes after those things and, frankly, taking a more aggressive push towards the russians than maybe some are comfortable with. >> is that his money? >> his money. his friends' money. his organizations. travel. his whole thing is being perceived as a world leader. maybe we don't allow him and his staff to travel as much. they don't get invited to these international conferences. they're not part of the team. >> does that have to be a retaliation like for like against russian cyber at some point? saying earlier, you don't do tit for tat but at some point if they do a colonial pipeline again, does america have to strike back against russian interests? >> we do but it isn't. chris is exactly right f. they hit our electrical grid of michigan in the middle of winter

and killed 25 old people who froze to death in their homes, the american doctrine is not to strike back and attack 25 of their old people in russia. we don't have a dock continue around cyber attacks. we need to get one right quick. >> this is the new frontier. i've been talking to high-level officials in the obama administration. they he were like, this is it. so how safe are our systems, our grids, our transportation, our phones? >> i talked about it a little bit earlier about the pyramid. you have to separate out the state actors, the intelligence agencies and the military operations versus the ransomware. in consequences associated with the state actors, with the government actors, that's why we haven't seen pipeline attacks previously from russian state actors. we're seeing them from criminals. the criminals don't have a set of consequences attached with them. so what we've got to do is figure out how to take the criminals off the playing field.

we can do that with our law enforcement teams, our intelligence community and have the russians take care of it. in the meantime we have to continue improving defense so there's no question if these criminals were able to get into colonial, a russian sophisticated actor and chinese sophisticated actor could do the same thing. i do not sleep well at night with that in mind. >> elissa, you say we need a plan of approach when these happen, that there isn't one right now. that's not good. >> one of the things chris and i and others worked on, frankly, during the trump administration was a national cyber director, someone who could be the point of contact. right now who is the 911 call going to when there's another attack? it's like an alphabet soup of government agencies. you need one person who is responsible for -- >> cyber czar. congresswoman elissa slotkin and chris krebs, thank you. great to have you both on this really important day. we have a lot more ahead on this history making morning.

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[sfx: revving trucks] pilot over radio: g complete. how do you introduce the larger-than-life gmc yukon? with the world's biggest tweet. the next generation gmc yukon. premium that's made to be used. welcome back to "morning joe." it is the top of the hour, and there you see it, the meeting of the day. vladimir putin and joe biden meeting face-to-face in geneva, switzerland. a quick handshake, and then they headed right in. they are meeting right now with secretary of state tony blinken and the russian counter part sergey lavrov also in on the meeting. four men at the table talking about key issues pertaining to the u.s./russia relationship, if there is one. if that's what you call it. there you see kind of the

reporter video spray of the room, getting some pictures of what this meeting will look like. they did not comment. reporters tried to ask questions, and they were quickly led out of the room, somewhat forcefully, because there were a lot of them. and right after this moment they went in to meet alone. so welcome back to "morning joe." it is wednesday, june 16. katty kay and eugene are still with willie, joe and me. we want to welcome in someone who has had her share of meetings with the russian leader in the past, former secretary of state hillary clinton joins us. it is very good, a great honor, to have you on the show this morning. >> so, secretary clinton, it's good to have you with us. just your view of what you've seen so far in the leadup to the summit as someone who has met with vladimir putin, how would you be preparing, what should the united states expect out of this meeting?

>> well, willie, and mika and joe and everyone, i think you've seen a very deliberative process that president biden and his team have gone through. i think that meeting with all of our european, nato, g7 allies and colleagues before meeting with vladimir putin was a smart move in part because i think that president biden will be bringing messages. he also, i believe, from what i've seen and heard, received some very important support for the agenda that he wants to raise with putin. i think it's clear, and you have already had some excellent panelists on discussing this, that it is a difficult undertaking because we have a lot of business that we have to take care of both around the world and here at home.

putin is the great disruptor. he has a clear mission to undermine democracies, first and foremost, the united states. as president biden has said, we are in a struggle between you a autocracy. where there can be cooperation we welcome that. on climate change, for example, and also on nuclear proliferation, on working in some way to get our arms around the threat posed by seener and other issues. but he has to also make clear that putin's strategy over the last four years of literally just ridiculing the united states, undermining us, allowing as well as overseeing attacks on our election structure, on our energy delivery system, on so much else has to stop.

>> madam secretary, you've had quite a, shall we say, a rich history, with vladimir putin. you talk about a reset but, of course, the bigger takeaway is that he was enraged that you took a tough line against him. he held a grudge against you. much of the disruption the 2016 campaign was centered around the fact, many people believe, that you had spoken straight and spoken up to him on the international stage. given those facts and what you know about him and how you all have such a remarkable relationship, do you think it is a good idea to have the summit right now? and is there any hope of joe biden getting a deliverable that would make this summit worthwhile? >> well, joe, i think that's a

critical question, and i believe the answer is yes. obviously we won't know until it's over. but when we tried to do the so-called reset, we had three very specific goals in mind. number one, we needed to enlist russia in our efforts to try to put a lid on the iranian nuclear program. we wanted a new nuclear treaty, the so-called new start agreement, and we wanted help in supplying our troops in afghanistan by being able to do over flights of russia. we got all three of those things. now, there is a continuing challenge from putin because even when you get an agreement about something that you think is in the interests of the united states, he's going to continue to prod, undermine, and literally try to make our lives difficult, as we know. we don't have trump being, in

effect, a spokesperson for putin any longer. we have a president who will stand up and defend american interests. so i think there can be some cooperation. i personally would like to see a resumption of negotiations about nuclear arms. we know that russia has been really pushing forward with tactical nuclear arms, posing great dangers. i would like to see a process where russia is involved in negotiations that i hope eventually would include china because although we don't talk about it as much as we should the threat of nuclear weapons and their spread, and i hope never their use, remains a key threat. and then we've got to have some kind of process about cyber crimes and cyber attacks. and i thought a number of commentators have made an excellent suggestion that we look for a geneva convention, if you will. bring the world around what we're going to do to protect

ourselves and to draw some lines about what's unacceptable when it comes to the use of cyber weapons. >> yeah, we just had congresswoman elissa slotkin on the set talking about the need for a cyber czar or someone, really, in charge of this because it is that serious. that we've lost four years, really, what chris krebs said as he was leaving the set, that we've lost four years in this new landscape for war. madam secretary, you know joe biden well. i'm trying to get a sense of what this will look like in the room right here, right now, between biden and putin. we know a lot about putin's personality. what are some of the facets of joe biden's life, his personality, his experience that might actually lend a hand to getting some sort of success or deliverable out of this meeting? >> well, mika, you're absolutely right. we've lost four years and the

fact that president biden will come very well prepared, he has a very strong team around him, i think it will be cutting to the chase. when you deal with putin one-on-one or in a bilateral setting, especially while the cameras are there, you're going to see a lot of what i saw clearly as mansplaining but also showing a sense of, you know, almost indifference and even a little disdain toward your counterpart. the last meeting i was in with him as secretary of state was with president obama at the g20 in mexico. he kept us waiting for 45 minutes. it was a deliberate attempt to try to, in some way, gain an upper hand. none of that will happen now. i think that the way this has been stage managed, a quick

handshake, no photo spray that goes on and on where people can say things, getting in and out of the room, getting down to business, no joint press conference, those are really strong diplomatic signals about what it is we expect. we expect an open, straightforward conversation and that's joe biden at large. let's talk about what we're going to do going forward, vladimir, because clearly we've sanctioned you. if that doesn't stop you and stop you from letting cyber criminals attack our infrastructure whether it be our energy delivery system, our hospitals or whatever else, you are going to face even more serious consequences as the national security adviser, jake sullivan said, you will see consequences and unseen consequences. i think his long history with foreign relations, what worked, what didn't work, watching the

disaster of the trump presidency and basically giving a green light to putin to do whatever he wanted to help elect trump i think will see a much different approach. when you talk about deliverables, whether they come out immediately today or whether what is talk about is an agreement to continue talking, that, in itself, moves to the predictability that the biden administration is trying to put into place. there's no fooling long with cyber any longer. we have to be much more focused and that's both the public and private sector in our own country. if i could just quickly say, look, when you take an oath to serve the united states, you take an oath to protect and defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. we never thought we had to worry about domestic enemies. we never thought we had to worry

about people who didn't believe in our democracy, in our constitution, in our separation of powers, in our institutions. and, sadly, what we've seen over the last four years and particularly since our election in 2020, is that we have people within our own country who are doing putin's work. now whether they are witting or unwitting, they are doing his work to sow distrust and divisiveness, to give aid and comfort to those within our country who for whatever reason are being not only disruptive but very dangerous. so i think president biden knows he has to work on both fronts. we have problems here at home. we're not well organized. we're not focused on the future. we're not making the tough decisions we need to make. we're letting partisanship, frankly, interfere with patriotism, and we have to lay down some markers for putin and follow up with them. >> and president putin, of

course, leading up to the summit has been using that as a wedge, don't lecture me given what happened on january 6th. reviewing your history with vladimir putin, madam secretary, you had a line in 2008 after president bush said i looked into the eyes of the man and i saw the soul. you said of putin he was a kgb agent by definition, he does not have a soul. that was during the 2008 campaign. you wrote in a memo in one of your last days as secretary of state to the white house effectively saying don't give this man the attention he craves. don't give this man a presidential summit. if you deprive him of that oxygen, you deprive him of everything he needs and wants. how do you balance that, secretary clinton, delivering the message that needs to be delivered to this man, to vladimir putin, and not elevating him to the point he wants to be elevated? >> the problem is that, willie, trump has elevated him. trump from the very beginning

even when he was running in 2016 basically lifted up russia and lifted up putin against our own country and our own president, and that behavior and that rhetoric continued. so it's difficult to say let's turn the clock back and go frr where i thought we were when i left being secretary of state to today. he's attacked our country with relative few consequences. he invaded ukraine. he now basically has troops stationed on the border in ukraine, posing a continuing threat to ukraine. he has been the major partner along with iran of syria and the horrific treatment that we have seen over these years of the bombing and other attacks on

civilians and attacks driving others out of their homes. we can't turn the clock back, but i think what president biden understands is he wants to sit across the table as i have done with putin and basically look him in the eye and say, okay, let's figure out where we can work together and climate change, these kinds of issues. let us tell you what we are no longer going to abide and there will be consequences. and don't test us. and then let's make sure you understand that the united states is back. we are not going to be endangered and undermined by people who for whatever combination of reasons look to you because you're an authoritarian and they in some way liked that. they wished they were, that democracy weren't so messy and difficult. you have to understand where we are today and where we intend to go. i think that's what president

biden is not only prepared to do, what he's doing as we speak. so, sadly, we not only lost four years, we emboldened putin. we gave him a green light. i never thought i would see what we saw where we had a president who derided our intelligence agencies, who basically dismissed the hard work of countless federal officials who took that oath to serve the united states. so we have to start where we are and i think that president biden and his team understand that and that's exactly what they're doing. >> madam secretary, it's katty kay here. throughout his trip in europe and indeed throughout his presidency, president biden has been framing this moment as the challenge of democracy against

autocracy and saying your democracy is looking flawed. in 2016 america was demoted from a perfect democracy to a flawed democracy. meanwhile, you have china saying, okay, well, we have a model that perhaps might interest you more. and they are saying that at the moment to moscow and we're seeing closer ties strategically between russia and china. what could joe biden do either during this meeting or when he comes out of the meeting to try to address that challenge of stopping a country like russia drifting closer to china and other countries, drifting closer to china as they look at america and american political dysfunction? >> that's a really critical question, katty. you're right that part of the longer play here is to try to communicate clearly to putin that we understand he might be tempted by getting closer to china. that hasn't worked out so well

in the past. and there is a different road for putin. what putin has not done is to really unleash the intellect, the creativity, the scientific know-how of the russian people. and people who look at russia see all of the missed opportunities. i mean, they have a vaccine nobody wants and they have fewer than, i think, 15% of the people vaccinated, which is just one signal that there is so much more russia could be doing to build up russia. but if you look at their long border between russia and china, chinese people are colonizing parts of russia. they're crossing the border. if you look at the role that china is beginning to play, which is to have more and more presence and influence in central asia, russia has always considered that to be part of its bigger neighborhood. so what the united states really is trying to offer to russia is

for putin to somehow recognize that there's a big future not just for him personally but for the russian people, the russian nation, by investing in the people, by creating more opportunity. now he may be psychologically incapable of following through on that because it might be, in his view, seen as somehow a threat to really create more opportunity for his own people. they could, therefore, be more in opposition or critical of him and he can't stand that, but i think you have to play this on a constant level. what is china doing. how does china threaten russian interests, not just other interests, but most importantly we have to rebuild the american system in a way that attracts people again. and if you look at the polling that was done during biden's trip and in the aftermath, about

75% of the people in europe and elsewhere really liked what they were hearing from joe biden. so he's beginning the process of rebuilding our own image and reality in the world and then we use that to try to figure out how to play off the threats from both china and russia. >> gene robinson? >> madam secretary, whatever tough message president biden delivers to president putin, what are sticks and carrots he offers, is our political system so broken that it can't back him up? does congress have his back, do you think? whatever message he gives to president putin. >> gene, that's the critical question that i think those of us who follow politics and know the perilous state we are in

because of the denial and divisiveness we're seeing way too much of, i think that on this, yes. there has been, as you rightly know, a big flirtation by some on the right in the republican party with the putin model. they really resonate to the authoritarianism, and they find that kind of macho approach to everything quite attractive. so will there be some who take positions like whatever he does, it wasn't enough, or some who say it was too much? of course. i still believe -- i guess i want to believe and i have to believe -- that the core of elected officials in our congress will back up our president in not only speaking firmly but also making clear there will be consequences if

the kind of behavior, particularly with the cyber attacks, continues. but actions speak a lot louder than words, and what we need is to reorganize our federal response. so, as you heard in the earlier panel, there is a 911. congresswoman slotkin is 100% right. who do you call? we also, frankly, need legislation that creates incentives and support for the private sector to do more to protect themselves. we need a government response, a better, more coordinated private sector response but that can only happen if we have a unified view and if the congress is will to pass the legislation, if the biden administration understands the regulatory changes that will be needed so we do a better job protecting ourselves in the first place.

we have overwhelming cyber capabilities were we to use them. nobody wants to get in to that tit for tat that god knows where it might lead. but russia and putin understand that and so they're going to keep probing, keep pushing, until they get stopped here at home and over there. and that's what we have to have an understanding with the congress about doing. if they have keep after us they have to pay a bigger price. we know how to inflict that. i think the biden administration has taken smart and important steps. and i'm sure he's saying, you know, vlad, what we can do. you know what we can do to you. you just have to be prepped to accept even more serious consequences. why do you want to do that? let's figure out how to get to

an even place with more predictability and start a process so we don't slide into disastrous cyber consequences where our nuclear controls, air traffic system, all of that might possibly be put at risk. >> and, finally, madam secretary, hearing willie read your very clear-eyed view of vladimir putin as you were leaving your post as secretary of state in 2013 puts in sharp relief how badly our american presidents have miscalculated vladimir putin over the past 20 years. you have, of course, george w. bush's infamous phrase which, of course, was in 2001. so i think he gets a little more grace for trying to pull russia in to the community of nations, but said he looked into putin's

eyes and saw his soul. of course seven years later vladimir putin invaded georgia. then you had that hot mic moment where barack obama was saying, hey, after i get elected i will have a little more space and we can do some more things there. some miscalculations during the obama administration and, of course, donald trump's administration speaks for itself with helsinki and i'm wondering have we learned our lesson that with vladimir putin, as joe biden has said, he's looked into his eyes, there is no soul there. and there is no trust but verify. there's just the united states taking a constant hard line against him. >> you know, joe, it's a constant calculation and that's true in diplomacy generally and particularly true with putin. i remember a meeting president

obama and i had with then president but clearly front man for putin in new york and he was there with his ubiquitous secretary lavrov, national security adviser and i and general jones. it was just literally the six of us. and the purpose of the meeting was to show the russians we had absolutely verifiable intelligence about what iran was doing in developing its nuclear weapons capability by building some very hard and underground facilities and the russians were surprised. i remember that moment so clearly. number one, they were surprised they didn't know and, number two, they were surprised we did know and we were confronting them with it. it opened to the door to the negotiations that i was involved

in in getting the u.n. security council to impose global sanctions on iran. i tell that story because you have to keep talking with the russians. the way they calculate their own interests is not the same as ours. but you have to keep trying to get them to see interests as somewhat in common. i think you can't be starry-eyed or totally turning your back. you have to walk what is an uncomfortable but necessary path. how do we calibrate, get them to do something, stop them from doing something? how do we impose costs if they do do something? joe biden has learned a lot, as we all have. putin made it his mission to deny me the presidency in part

because i did raise issues that were uncomfortable with him. i did speak out about the oppression and, frankly, the rigged elections in russia because i think you need both an inside and an outside game. you need a public and a private approach to putin. that's what joe biden gets. and that's why he's behind closed doors right now trying to get the measure of where putin is today. not where he was 5, 10, or 20 years ago. where is he today and what are the best levers we can do to protect and defend our country and our friends around the world. >> all right. former secretary of state hillary clinton -- >> fascinating interview. thank you. >> thank you so much for being with us. we so greatly appreciate it. >> thank you, secretary clinton. >> so, willie, she really did -- she touched on the difficulty of dealing with vladimir putin.

it's not enough to just say we're taking a tough line. we're not going to meet with him. she talked about it being a path -- >> uncomfortable. >> a very difficult, uncomfortable path where you're constantly having to calibrate and recalibrate. >> and there's a reason she wrote that memo. i asked her because she did write about it publicly in 2014 where she said don't give him a meeting. don't give him a presidential summit. don't do all the things -- all he wants is attention, elevation on the world stage. deprive him of that oxygen. that was her message. that's why i asked her today if she supports this presidential summit to turn the page, but it's that balance of how do you not elevate him and still sit with him and deliver the message. still ahead jonathan la mere joins us live with his reporting on what happened with that press scrum that we saw outside the villa. he was right in the middle of it. plus, former secretary and cia director leon panetta will be

our guest. also ahead we'll tell you why 21 house republicans voted against honoring police officers who responded to the january 6th capitol riot. the insurrection. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ sometimes you wanna go ♪ ♪ where everybody knows your name ♪ ♪♪ ♪ and they're always glad you came ♪ welcome back, america. it sure is good to see you.

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welcome back to "morning joe" as we cover the summit in geneva with president biden and putin under way inside that very building. >> willie, i just -- i'm just wondering, would you like to go on a trip to russia with jonathan lemire anytime soon? >> no. >> have tea maybe in the kremlin? >> no. i'll go as far as brooklyn to meet jonathan lemire but i'm not going to moscow. >> that's a lot.

>> he had another interaction with the czar this morning. >> it began in helsinki and continues now in geneva. joining us white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lemire in a travel pool with president biden in geneva and he joins us now by phone. jonathan, since we spoke to you last there was something of a brawl, and i don't think i'm overstating it between security, primarily russian security and the press pool. you did get your way into the pool for that photo spray we saw. you asked president putin why he fears alexei navalny. what happened next? >> reporter: willie, when you grow up on the lower streets of massachusetts you know how to handle your streets in a scrap. and that is what we just had. i'll just set the scene for you. the two leaders are here. we're in geneva and they were meeting -- beginning their private one-on-one meeting, just joined with one aide each. and the two principles from russia and the white house, of

course, were lining up to bring us in. there's a little bit of jockeying for position. you want to get the best shot you can, ask a question of the leader. this was at a different level and the russian security forces were trying to keep u.s. print poolers out. a lot of pushing and shoving, people being crushed up front, screaming. it got really ugly. it's also very hot here. u.s. officials aimed to get us in. not every member of the press pool did, which is a terrible thing. i was able to sort of burst my way in. i put a shoulder into a russian guard in order to do so, i kind of stumbled into the room and i sort of shrugged and president biden saw me and started laughing. and we then proceeded to ask a couple of questions. i was a tv pooler asked president biden if he could trust president putin, and he nodded affirmatively. the white house has since put out a tweet say that go biden

was just nodding at the press and not respond to go that particular question. so that is interesting that they're walking back that interaction. i had two questions to president putin who looked right at me, and i asked him, indeed, if he feared navalny or what he would do if ukraine gained admission to nato and he just stared blankly at me and didn't say anything and we were pushed right back out of the room. >> okay. >> all right. >> did he have dead eyes when he stared at you? >> when he makes eye contact, it's somewhat scary. he holds eye contact but he's otherwise expressionless. >> let me ask you, jonathan lemire, what was more frightening, that moment when he was giving you that cold, blank, harsh stare, or at the end of the 2001 world series when you were watching him in a yankees bar and you screamed yankees suck as you ran out of the bar?

which one was more fearful for you? >> reporter: joe, as i've said to you before in a time of trial and crisis you be true to yourself. even after terrible terror attack on september 11 and i was watching game seven in a bar on the upper side of manhattan i'm not going to cheer for the yankees. this is, shifting back to the summit briefly, we're not going to see the leaders for a long time. this is now hours worth of closed door diplomacy and we likely, the u.s. reporters, won't see either of them until they emerge from their respective news conferences. there's no real when that will be. the white house thinks four hours or so. it could slide longer than that. putin will go first and biden as each leader tries to shape their own respective merit on what happened here today. >> all right. the associated press' jonathan lemire, thank you so much for your extraordinary reporting. be careful, if that's even possible for you.

>> thanks for awkwardly pushing your way into the room and falling. joining us now capitol hill correspondent, host of "way too early," kasie hunt. and former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst joe ratner is with us. >> why don't we go to kasie first for a second. a question was asked of hillary clinton by mika about whether joe biden can count on the hill backing him up in taking a tough approach toward vladimir putin. the republicans on the hill, even when trump sort of wandered off into never-neverland during his meetings in meetings with putin maintained a tough line against russia, did they not? >> they largely did. there's a handful of extraordinarily pro-trump folks who perhaps -- >> had some boundaries crossed. >> by and large, yes, this was the one area where republicans

were willing to stand up to the former president. and if asked him the question in the hallway, no, i think we need to take a tougher line on russia. it's a tricky thing and i'm interested to see if this continues because they are now so concerned about being criticized by the former president if they'll continue to do that. so far i don't see any signs that they won't. >> steve ratner, you've taken a look at the state of russia's economy. a lot of geopolitical dominance is based on economic dominance and how does russia fare? >> i'll show you some charts that puts some bars around the numbers you threw out which are correct about the size of russia's economy. so when you look at the g7 the u.s. is on the left at the $21 trillion number and drops off rapidly from there, japan, germany, uk and so on. russia not a member of the g7, you see russia with an economy

slightly smaller than canada's. >> can we stop there for one secretary? >> put a frame around it. >> we just hear so much, as my grandmother would say, bellyaching about the united states of america. i will say -- keep that chart up -- over the past 50 years there have been ups and downs and gdps of every country. the united states, the republican administrations, the republican scandals, through democratic scandals, the united states economy has remained nothing short of an economic miracle and it just continues to gre. >> and it just continues to grow and in comparison to russia it grew 2%. before the pandemic they grew 1.3%. the other issue is completely unbalanced. roughly a third of their economy is oil and gas. john mccain famously said it was a country attached to a gas station.

>> as only john mccain could say. >> as only john mccain could say. we're like 8%. it is one of the weaker economies around but doesn't stop them from causing mischief. let's turn to military spending. if you look at what their military spending is on the face of it, it seems like a pretty small number. the u.s. and then china is trying to catch up. between india and saudi arabia and how you do the math maybe $70 billion to $150 billion in dinss how they spend their money. they have a military force that is almost the same size as ours. secondly, and if we go to the next chart, you can see how they cause mischief in international markets because they are the second largest exporter after us.

export half as many arms as we do and they have a huge nuclear arsenal with more nuclear warheads than we have. you have a small economy and a large military force and the ability to create a lot of mischief around the world. >> let's bring in former defense secretary leon panetta. it is so great to have you with us, mr. secretary. i'm sure you heard steve ratner's review of our military mite versus russia's and the rest of the world. i'm curious how you assess the threat from russia. >> i think the main threat from russia is that we're in a new chapter of the cold war and putin has read weakness on the part of the united states and has taken advantage of that going into the ukraine, into syria, libya, and interfering with our election institutions

here. the real problem is that russia has been aggressive in this period of time and the united states really has not stood up to russia during that period as well. and i think that is the difference with this meeting between putin and joe biden today. >> secretary panetta, you've been clear one of the principle emphasis should be on the cyber attacks that have come out of russia. you said president biden needs to make it clear to putin you will pay a price, period. what is that price, in your view? >> i think the cyber attacks, the ransomware that have gone after our infrastructure, the pipeline, the meat distribution systems, really impacts on our national security. and the point that joe buy depp

biden has to make is the united states will not tolerate russia or anybody else attacking our infrastructure in this country and that this has to stop and if it doesn't, that they will pay a price. what kind of offensive capabilities we have in our cyber arena. i do think it's very important to make clear to the russians that what they have been doing in terms of cyber attacks on our country is not tolerable, will not be accepted, and we will respond if they continue. >> and what do you do with an adversary like vladimir putin who doesn't seem to care when he hears rhetoric about paying a price? he says, okay, you're going to slap more sanctions on me? i can live with that. how do you make clear the price is new, the price is different, and it will actually cost him

this time? >> well, that's the main point. for too long the united states has not stood up to putin and made clear where the red lines are and what lines should not be crossed in the relationship between the united states and russia. if joe biden is successful in making clear where those red lines are, then i think there's an opportunity to try to see if there are areas where both russia and the united states can work together. but it has to be from a position of strength. the only way you can deal with putin is from a position of strength. if you don't make clear that there are areas we are not going to tolerate in the future in terms of our relationship and we will respond if necessary then europe rating from a position of weakness. i don't think that's what joe biden is doing.

the united states economy is doing well, we're dealing with covid but, more importantly, he's reaffirmed all of our alliances, the g7, nato, and strengthened our alliances in europe which is probably the most important thing the united states could do in terms of saying to russia, look, this is not just the united states. this is the united states plus our strongest allies saying to russia do not continue to try to undermine the stability of the united states or, for that matter, europe. >> you know, kasie hunt, there's a reason why the soviets so desperately tried to divide nato and the united states. there's a reason why donald trump, what he was doing with nato, was so dangerous on the global stage and we're seeing this week the effects of reversing that pattern of disruptive and dangerous behavior.

>> that's actually my question for you, secretary panetta, because one of the things looming over this summit, and it was a question that was asked of president biden earlier this week about january 6th and what's happening with our own democracy here in the united states of america and how that may reflect, frankly, some russian attempts to encourage that kind of division, perhaps even that kind of violence. vladimir putin talked about it in his interview with keir simmons, how we dealt with the protesters. how much does our political division at home hurt us with vladimir putin and hurt the president in this meeting? >> i don't think there's any question that divisions within our country and what we saw happen on january 6th at the u.s. capitol sends a terrible message to the rest of the world about the strength of our democracy. so there's no question that russia will do everything it can

to undermine the stability of the united states. that's been their primary goal as long as i can remember. it's to do everything necessary to try to undermine our democracy. so if they see weaknesses within the united states, particularly with polarization that we now have in this country and the existence of domestic terrorism that we saw in frightening colors on january 6th, they're going to take advantage of that. they're going to try to continue to divide americans because in their view that is the best approach to trying to weaken the united states of america. we have to be aware of that and take steps not only to strengthen our alliances abroad but wise up and strengthen relations in this country as well between republicans and democrats so that rather than

fighting each other we're working together on security issues. >> former secretary of defense leon panetta, thank you very much for being on this morning. and up next new documents show former president trump repeatedly pressed the justice department to bolster his false claims about election fraud. we're digging into that new reporting after a final break here on "morning joe." stay restless, with the icon that does the same. the rx crafted by lexus. get 1.9% apr financing on the 2021 rx 350.

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i think this is a new low for this crowd. they now are part of the insurrectionist mob. they brought enormous dishonor on themselves in not honoring the brave men and women who defended the capitol of the united states, everybody in it, but also defending the symbol of democracy in the world, not just here in the united states. shameful moment. congressman jerry connelly of virginia reacting to 21 house republicans who voted against honoring the police officers and first responders who protected

the capitol on january 6th. these are the names of the 21 republicans who voted against the measure which will award congressional gold medals who fought to stop the violent attack on the capitol, the insurrection. some of those who voted no objected to the words temple or resurrection in the resolution arguing that it could have pending trials on those involved in january 6th. four gold medals will be awarded to the police, the smithsonian institute and will be displayed with the names of all law enforcement agencies who helped that day. >> kasie hunt, 21 republicans voted against honoring these police officers who risked their

lives. >> it's -- it's astonishing. >> they have to walk into the building. it's right over here across the street from us. you walk inside and there are people standing there to make sure they're safe and they could walk past the metal detectors and they'll have to look at those people and say i don't think you deserve an award for fighting to save my life on january 6th. you have to ask them how they look those people in the eye after this. >> it's sinful. it's also just -- if they -- it's putin-like to make the argument that oh, i didn't like the semantics. i didn't like a few words here so i'll vote against honoring the police officers and that's something that putin or lavrov would make. it doesn't pass the straight face test. >> and vladimir putin is trying to encourage the exact division that's on display on that screen right now because our political division here at home helps vladimir putin who as steve has

outlined, they have the ability to mach a lot of mischief. they may not be able to stand up to us, but our weakness is strength for them. >> that's an anti-police vote that's very clearly and explicitly and the truth is we all probably could have given you the 21 names that were going to be on the list when you put that up there, but they so fear any acknowledgement that january 6th was an attack and they so fear the facts of what happened on january 6th that they can't acknowledge the heroism of the officers. >> paul gosar, liz cheney tweeted he helped him put his gas mask on inside the chamber as they were being attacked. helped him put his gas mask on while those cops were putting their lives on the line in front of god knows what. >> it is so deeply personal, not just anti-police, and they're voting against these people who were there helping them from

this. >> every time you hear the stories, hear the police officers talk about what they experienced -- >> the trauma. >> it's so much worse than we even see in that footage. >> these -- these people, of course, have continued to downplay police officers being beaten by american flags, the symbol of everything that this country stands for, being used as a bludgeon against police officers. it's just disgusting. >> also former president trump and allies pressured the jeffrey, and that's according to newly released emails turned over by the justice department to the house oversight committee. kasie hunt, explain this and what can oversight do? >> so i think the key piece of this particular story is an email that jeffrey rosen, the

deputy attorney general -- he was the -- he was coming to be the acting attorney general sent where there was a forwarded email chain that included mark meadows and the then white house chief of staff engaging in a conspiracy theory about italian technology and could he please investigate it and mr. rosen very carefully writes out exactly what happened. i saw this. i -- here's what i did, and here's what i didn't do. memorializing exactly that because we were all going to read that email. >> and the italian space laser conspiracy theory. >> marjorie taylor-greene yesterday went to the holocaust museum and apologized for past remarks and i think that's a good thing. so, like other members, if they get the opportunity to go to the holocaust museum to do that, i know a lot of people said it doesn't matter, but it does matter that people go to the holocaust museum. it doesn't matter when people

make mistakes, jane, and let's just take it one mistake at a time and this is a mistake that she apologized for and i put that in the good column. >> don't agree. >> there's so much -- [ laughter ] >> but it is a good thing to apologize for making, you know, offensive nazi holocaust comparisons that were just gross -- grotesque. >> the disinformation that exists to have to do something -- i mean, i'm sorry. what? you went there and learned something you didn't already know? >> with where have you been? >> under what rock have you been? >> this is the direction we want other members to go. go to the holocaust museum. >> she's 47 years old, somewhere in those 47 years she has already learned the horrors of

the holocaust. >> she is a grown-ass woman. >> oh, wow. >> we encourage -- we encourage members to go to the holocaust museum. >> final thoughts, willie, about what's happening right now. >> to be a fly on the wall right now inside that room for the next four or five hours with those two men. we'll get some readout, but man, to be there and to see it is president biden delivering the message that these experts and analysts have suggested he needs to. >> and from willie, joe and me and all of us in washington, that does it for us this morning. msnbc's special coverage of president biden's summit with vladimir putin continues right now. ♪♪ ♪♪ . as we come on the air this morning we are almost at that 90-minute mark in the