of course thanks to jeremy bash and john mclaughlin here with me at aspen.at 3:35 eastern this afternoon, right here at the aspen security forum, i'll be interviewing the man of the hour, director of national intelligence dan coats, who has been standing firm about russia's involvement in attacking the 2016 election despite the president's shifting explanations on that point. watch the interview live here on msnbc, at nbcnews.com, or aspensecurityforum.org. >>> coming up, unprecedented. the white house considers letting russia interrogate a former u.s. diplomat. a former ambassador to nato who had her own brush-ups with vladimir putin joins me next right here on "andrea mitchell reports" live in aspen, only on msnbc. your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay conn

right now we hand you off, "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell is live from aspen, colorado, where this woman has been working overtime. >> thank you both so much. >>> good day, i'm andrea mitchell at the aspen security forum in colorado. we continue the coverage, reporting out moments ago from "the new york times," president trump's embattled former personal attorney michael cohen secretly recorded a conversation with then-candidate donald trump months before the 2016 election regarding payments to a former play b playboy model. joining me now by phone, matt apuz apuzzo, one of the reporters who broke the story in "the new york times," and our kristen welker at the white house. matt? >> thank you, and amazing work out of aspen. >> thank you. >> what we know is that michael cohen who had a propensity for secretly taping conversations with his adversaries, also taped a conversation with donald trump about whether or not to make a payment to this former playboy model who claimed an affair. and this payment is super important because ultimately she sold her story about her affair with

coming up next we will head to aspen, colorado. director of national intelligence set to speak at the big confab there a few minutes from now. dan coats in the last week have been clear in their assessment of russian election it appears. he says president trump walks back his own comments on russian meddling. what will direct your say no? that is up to come. >> a fox report now. body camera video capturing the moment sheriff deputies tell a mom that she left her 8-month-old baby in a car in 93 degrees heat. you can see that she appears shops. the baby is okay. outside of orlando, another woman saw the child and called 911. the mother came back more than 20 minutes later. she calls it the biggest mistake of her life and now, faces a child neglect charge. anytime >> jon: pipe in new york city exploded, ten stories into the air. police evacuated tons of people. five people were hurt. the pipe, almost 90 years old. officials say there was some asbestos presence because of the blast. unclear. the boys who are stuck in a cave for two wee

so with me tyson buchan from the aspen institute tyson some really very bitter criticism that donald trump will be meeting members of congress later today is that anything more than a cosmetic measure you know is this is this criticism affecting him in any way well i mean with congress in particular you have to know that it's a very hawkish republican hawkish institution because of the russia just before he went on the summit the senate passed almost unanimously something backing a resolution backing nato they i think their criticism is real the question is will it filter down into his base where he has that direct that instinctual relationship and they are really the key holders in this in this political situation and coming to trump's perspective on all this watch what he may or may not have taken away from this summit that there are those who say for him it's all about his core supporters is satisfying them is his guiding principle would you agree with that i think that's right i mean the thing is is that his core supporters before the twenty sixth election didn't really have an o

in that same interview today dni coats in aspen gave andrea his assessment of the meeting in helsinki. >> moments after the president appeared to be siding with vladimir putin over you, you personally by name, you stood up and spoke out. >> i just felt at this point in time that what we had assessed and reassessed and reassessed and carefully gone over still stands and that it was important to take that stand on behalf of the intelligence community. obviously i wish he had made a different statement. >> in helsinki the president was alone with vladimir putin for two hours -- more than two hours -- with only translators. basically how do you know what happened? you were on the dark side of the moon. how do you have any idea what happened in that meeting? >> well, you're right. i don't know what happened in that meeting. >> is there a risk that vladimir putin could have recorded it? >> that risk is always there. >> meanwhile, the white house has been in the process of trying to clarify another proposal that emerged at that helsinki news conference. on monday you'll recall the russian pr

she's in aspen tonight along with jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. and with us tonight also robert costa and moderator of washington week on pbs. so, andrea, here we all were watching your interview as covered on this network on live television. it occurred to us in realtime this was nothing less than someone at long last in a way putting his job on the line for the cause. were you surprised at that, and were you equally surprised that he was in the dark as much as he was? especially this invitation for putin to come to washington. >> well, that's the way president trump operates. i've seen it with secretaries of state and other cabinet officials completely blind-sided over and over again in the last 18 months by a decision from the president. and in fact members of the white house staff often shutout of a decision that the president makes. that is what is so unique about this presidency. so i wasn't surprised that he did not know. i noticed on friday, of course, when he gave that interview and spoke strongly against the russians, what they were doin

it is postcard pretty there in aspen, colorado. so, consequently, we're going to start with kimberly here this afternoon. kimberly, president trump, he says, now, that there could be another summit. why would president trump have a second summit with putten? what would be his motivation? >> i mean, probably not that different from when he hinted there may be another meeting with kim jong-un after his summit with him in saying that it might even be in the united states. the president wants to put forward this idea that this summit was successful. he wants to say, look, this is why i think we should be working with vladimir putin, not pushing too strongly against it, and he has not only the media, which he likes to rail against on twitter, and he did today, but also republicans, who are really concerned about this, in saying this is not a good idea. republicans wanted him to come out strong against putin, saying we're not going to stand for your interference with our election systems. we're going to hold you into account. and also to

obviously you are in aspen. joining me out front, correspondent for gq and worked for the new yorkers in foreign policy. max boot is washington post columnist. the director of national intelligence was in the dark about what went on in the meeting between trump and putin. he was very open about that. he was in the dark about the fact that president trump had invited putin to come to washington for the summit. plans were in the works. what is going on? >> that is a great question. at one level you can sicite it pure chaos because donald trump is such a horrible manager. i think there is something more sinister going on here because remember donald trump is now being investigated by the fbi for colluding with vladimir putin to effect the 2016 u.s. election. and now he is in effect colluding with putin right now meeting privately with putin. we don't know what kind of agreements were reached there. we are only getting hints right now. the top people in the u.s. government who ought to know including dan coats, they

what are people saying about it in aspen? because, again, he called it incredible on monday. >> you know, i think what my take is and other people we've talked to in aspen, there's another example of this disconnect between you have the president's advisers trying to clean up a situation, issuing statements, you know, saying things publicly, walking things back, and then you have what the president actually meant in real time, which people believe is what he really meant. and then as kristen welker said at the top, you have him doubling down on his strategy by sending an invite to vladimir putin to come to washington to have a second meeting. so i think there's this -- there's these two tracks. there's the president's view and people believe that he expressed it in real time and that's what he really thinks and feels what we saw in helsinki. and then there's people around him who are trying to clean up the situation and are issuing, you know, statements and saying things afterwards to try to kind of get him on a track that th

dan coats was at the security conference in aspen. he said he still has no idea. >> i don't know what happened in that meeting. i think as time goes by and the president mentioned some things that happened in the meeting, i think we will learn more. that is the president's per prerogative -- president's prerogative. if he asked me how that should be conducted, i would have suggested a different way. that is not my role and it's not my job. it is what it is. >> the visit to the u.s. this fall would be putin's first since 2005. in another extraordinary twist, even coats was not aware the invitation was extended. more on that from white house correspondent jeff zeleny. >> reporter: dave and christine, the white house doubling down with the meeting with putin scheduling this fall. john bolton extended the invitation to come to washington. it was clear this was an attempt to the white house talking to a number of officials here that the president making the case he did not make a mistake in helsinki. never mind they have been correcting an

>> so a couple weeks ago, or i guess last week at the aspen security forum, a top microsoft

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meanwhile, in aspen, the directors of national intelligence and the fbi attempted the aspen security forum. both have given very different assessments than their boss has. >> i call it a witch hunt. that's exactly what it is. it's a vicious witch hunt. you know what? it's very bad for our country. >> i've been consist septembent. i think it's a professional investigation conducted by a man that i've known to be a straight shooter in all my interactions with him. >> let me please remind the audience that was christopher wray, head of the fbi, appointed by president trump saying it is not a witch hunt. back at the white house. this is stunning. she did not rule out the president's receptive attitude toward a very odd proposal from vladimir putin. >> he offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. i think that's an incredible offer. >> there was some conversation about it, but there wasn't a commitment made on behalf of the united states and the president will work with his team and let you no he if there's an annou

many thanks for the views that oft times and baka from butlins aspen institute. we're going to get more on the russian perspective now from a moscow correspondent emily sure would and emily the summit yielded very few concrete results what turns reaction. been like all the russians happy about homeless well christopher the reaction here in moscow has been pretty positive across the board. including among those who were actually involved in the summit so russian foreign minister sergei lover off said that the summit had gone excellently better than great so pretty successful assessment there are positive assessment there from him putin was slightly more careful himself he said that it was a good start and the beginning of a process that's what he called it and the media here in russia has been also a little bit more careful even though their assessments have generally been positive one observer i heard this morning on the radio pointing out that the whole press conference yesterday was basically about russian meddling and that it seems that the u.s. is absolutely

eigit's critical that we call them out on that with the elections coming up. >> andrea mitchell in aspen, thank you. >>> now to the immediate fallout, a day after the white house said trump was considering putin's proposal to have russia question americans. we get all of it from chief white house correspondent hallie jackson. >> reporter: brushing off backlash to his one on one, plans now for part two between donald trump and vladimir putin. >> were you aware of that? i just want to clarify. >> based on my reaction, i wasn't aware of that. >> reporter: the news surprising even the president's own director of national intelligence in aspen. >> would you recommend there not be a one-on-one without note-takers? >> if i were asked that question, i would look for a different way of doing it. >> reporter: it would be putin's first visit to the u.s. since 2015 and the first since russia interfered in 16hen defense after a third straight day of putin. >> look at the sanctions i've put on. nobody else did what i've done. obama didn't do it. obama was a patsy for russia. getting along with preside

it is silly. >> i was overtired because i flew back from aspen. i am wide awake after this conversation. appreciate for having this conversation with me, my friend. matt is the chairman of the american conservative union. jeremy bash, thank you for engaging us, as well. gabby and eugene, you were here, too. we'll get to you in a second. i appreciate it. >>> bomb shell report from the justice department about the ways actors are targeting americans. one come s with a warning about election intern feerference. >>> are security leaders doing enough? >>> an update, sadly, on the deadly duck boat crash in branson, missouri. we expect new information soon. we'll pass it on as soon as it comes. you're watching mississippi n bx. -- msnbc. your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. but he has plans today. so he took aleve this morning. hey dad. if he'd taken tylen

that tweet was put out while he was on stage at aspen.body knows in the white house you know where your people are. they knew he was on stage. he was going to get that questioning. you have to wonder why did the chief of staff allow it to happen? why did sarah huckabee sanders allow it to happen? are they testing coats? >> he has been pretty tested already. >> i am amazed. this is not a guy who is a trump guy who he plucked -- he retired once from indiana and came back and won again. he is a serious guy who doesn't really need this. i will throw john huntsman in there, these are serious people who i don't understand at what point do you reach a breaking point. these are not people who need these jobs or have been made by donald trump so they owe him a loyalty. >> the only explanation i have, these people are patriots and they think that if they were to leave the country could be further in trouble. they stay despite the humiliation and the embarrassment that they get. >> that is the core of public service because you are not supposed to s

that came in aspen with dan coats.ction. >> the white house announced on twitter that vladimir putin is coming to the white house in the fall. >> say that again? >> vladimir putin coming to the white house. >> i heard you. i heard you. >> yeah. >> okay. that's going to be special. >> special is one take on that. here is another from "the new york daily news." who's your vladdy? sarah westwood, what does that stunned reaction tell you about dan coats and the decision making within the white house? >> one of the bipartisan criticisms of president trump not just with the helsinki summit, but in general with russia, that president trump has not taken the serious intelligence information by agencies where he installed the leaders. he is not looping in his director of national intelligence dan coats. he is not relying on dan coats for how to conduct the meetings. now it is difficult to see what president trump thinks he might gain by an additional meeting with vladimir putin. all of the controversy surrounding the summit in

european affairs with the aspen institute him but then tyson thanks for coming in the europeans warry trump may make very serious concessions something like recognizing russia's annexation of crimea for instance all those worries justified well to quote the president himself will have to wait and see you know he's been on record basically saying everything under the sun from the citizens of crimea want to be part of russia during the campaign to saying that it was obama was soft on russia that led to the attic sation of crimea and why did he get a pass he's going to be tougher so we have a pen a plea of different perspectives here ok so as you say we'll have to wait and see one of the things you mentioned just there i think was was a twitter quote has been on twitter this morning saying i'm of the other things that relations between the u.s. and russia have never been worse thanks quote to u.s. food and stupidity a reference to his biggest barack obama doesn't that we can though his own position going into talks with i think what we didn't see in the most is the lack of a clear strate

we have broad confusion and chaos, broad dysfunction and here in aspen, colorado, i watched dan coats and the fbi director, chris wrayened many others, their basic message to assembled deep state intelligence assembled on the mountain, we're going to do our jobs and don't know what going on with the president and will try to figure it out. meanwhile, we have a duty to the american people and will try to do it the best they can. that half plausible, because they considered, again, by the journalists and officials and corporate mavens who collect here each year, officials who are patriotic, et cetera, would you knowledge of what the president is doing in private meetings, those jobs are impossible to be done the way they're supposed to. >> a parade of trump administration officials going up there and one by one not able to say what happened in helsinki. >> right. >> finally to you, public knowledge at least a week if not more that trump would be alone in that meeting with putin. did the white house not have a plan in place for the president to debrief aides afterwards? something that's

you were speaking at the aspen security forum earlier this week.s the assessment of china's goals on the u.s.? >> it is realin' credible at a forum facing the range of threats against the united states. china is the most significant counter intelligence threat facing our country. a cia official at the aspen forum said china is waging a cold war against us. china is our biggest threat. and president xi is very busy the last few weeks. he was just in the uae where he signed a bunch of agreements and deals. now he's in africa. he's going to rwanda the first time a chinese president has visited. and he is really investing time and money in relationships with countries that he doesn't criticize. so the media around his visits is positive. and potentially trying to pull countries closer to beijing and away from the united states. >> sam, we packed a lot in there. good information. thank you so much. coming up, candid camera. shocking expose involving an uber and lyft driver who live stream footage after his passengers without them ever knowing. when i re

when he learns about putin coming to washington -- on stage at an aspen security forum, and, two, he still doesn't know what came out of the first summit. he doesn't know what went on behind closed doors. why is he being left in the dark? >> well, you know, it's obviously a really key question, and my reporting today suggests that it's not just the director of national intelligence, it's state department officials whose job it is to deal with russia, people inside the government. i was in contact with one u.s. ambassador in europe today. i asked -- who has to deal with russ russia. i asked what they know about the summit, completely in the dark, he said, completely, absolutely nothing. again, this is not normal. this is not how american diplomacy works. and interestingly, president putin today actually held a briefing for russian diplomats in which he disclosed that there had been what he called agreements, useful agreements, struck in the closed-door private meeting he had one-on-one with president trump. the day before that, the russian ambassador to the united states said the same

and you mentioned chris wray, the fbi director is here in aspen at the aspen security forum, and he himselfsed a question of witch-hunt. he said no, he gets this question a lot, and that is not a witch-hunt. is not a witch-hunt that is being led by special counsel robert mueller. keep in mind chris wray's agents are the ones that are doing this investigation, so he has his agents and his employees who he has to defend at this point. >> i mean, that's pretty incredible, right, to say that there is no witch-hunt when the president obviously says there is one every single time he gets a chance, including tonight. and evan, you're there. you're in aspen where the fbi director is speaking, and i know speaking as you and i are talking. this is going to be crucial, right? we haven't heard from him since the disastrous press conference in helsinki, you know. what are we hearing already as this discussion with him gets started where you are? >> some extraordinary words, erin. look, this is an fbi director who is a little more low-key than, say, james comey. he doesn't want to really make a big fuss

we have to be prepared. >> at the aspen security conference.w, former director of the national counterterrorism center also msnbc national security and intelligence analyst. nicholas, to you. how do you characterize russia? adversary? enemy? something else? how do you see it? >> good morning, alex. rather than putting any one single label, enemy or adversary, any engagement entered into with russia we have to enter into it knowing we are probably talking to somebody whose interests do not align with ours, talking to somebody likely to gain advantage over us and, of course, all of that was true even before we knew about election meddling. i think that's what's given the intelligence community and others longtime russia watchers discomfort about the president's interactions with president putin. it's that we're just not confident all the time that he understands the full range of russian motivations, and this is not to say there aren't discreet things we can cooperate with russia on. certainly in syria are at a point a couple years ago had higher

coming out of aspen, nbc lester holt has more. >> two of president trump's top law enforcement and intel officials with remarkable push back. director of national intelligence dan coats on the president standing with vladimir putin, dismissing intel agency conclusions on russian meddling. >> obviously i wished he had made a different statement. but i think that now that that has been clarified. >> and about that one on one meeting between the president and putin. >> if he hadfere way, but that's not my, its what it . >> is there a risk that vladimir putin could have recorded it? >> that risk is always there. >> and hours after, president trump seemed to deny russia was still trying to meddle in u.s. elections. >> is russia still targeting the u.s., mr. president? >> fbi director chris wray telling me -- >> the intelligence community's assessment has not changed. my view has not changed. which is that russia atted to interfere with the last election and that it continues to engage and malign, influence operations to this day. >> aimed at our political considered quitting. >> i'm a low key

intelligence dan coats, one of several top officials nbc news questioned exclusivy appearing to the aspen security forum where the helsinki summit is very much top of mind. christopher wray said nothing said at the summit chang the bottom line about russian election meddling. tonight, two of president trump's law enforcement with remarkable push back, director of national intelligence dan coats on the president standing with vladimir ng putin dismisntel agency conclusions on russian meddling. >> obviously, i wished he made a different statemenbut i think that now that has been clarified. nd about that one on one meeting between the president and putin. >> if he had asked me how that ought to be condted, i would have suggested a different way, but that's not my role. that's not my jo so is what it is. >> is there a risk that vladimir putin could have recorded it? >> that risk is always there. , >> and hours aft president trump seemed to deny russia was still trying to meddle on in u.s. elec >> is russia still targeting the u.s., mr. president? >> press, let's go. make your way out. >> no,

it's what they do every day. >> catherine herridge is at that conference in aspen which is making a lotf news, catherine. >> for sure. thanks. the deputy attorney general described the cyber threat as persistent and aggressive and made the case that the justice department has a public responsibility to alert the public to all the bad actors working in the space. russian, china, iran, terrorist groups. so when they're looking at information, analyzing information, they have got some tools. they're armored so they can understand what in fact is credible. >> public attribution, foreign influence campaigns can help mitigate the harm caused by foreign sponsor misinformation. when team are aware of the sponsor, they can make better decisions. >> the newly-released justice department report lays out the key elements of the foreign systems that are targeting the u.s. they include attacking voting infrastructure so voting machines and the software associated with voting, also helping politicians damage their opponents think of hacking the dnc and the clinton e-mail campaigns spreading false info

. >>> good evening from beautiful aspen, colorado, site of the , aspen security for the annual gathering of top national security and intelligence officials coming this year amie llout and backlash of this week's trump, putin summit. fbi director christopher wray among those here tonight, i'll be interviewing him at the opening session following this broadcast, but we start with president trump today mustering the tough tone against hevladimir putin tha failed to bring in helsinki on monday over russian rf inence in the 2016 election. the president tried to calm a storm of outrage after he gave putin a pass at the joint news conference, yet today as he worked to repaithe damage, the president may have ended up sewing more doubt what he lieves. hallie jackson has details. >> reporter: late tonight, the president publicly putting ir putin on notice holding him ruersonally responsible foria's attacks on the u.s. election. >> because he's in charge of the country l jue i consider myself to be responsible for ings that happen in this country. >> what diyou say to him? >> very strong on the fa

establishment. >> joining me now from aspen, national security and military reporter.ourtney, good to see you. let's talk about what you're hearing regarding divergence of opinions. >> the panels focus on everything russia, from what i was involved in, russia's influence across europe, to helsinki summit and fallout. the one thing that's been pretty consistent, there's been a lot of surprise at the u.s. and confusion about the u.s. position with regards to russia and with regards to putin. i had a fascinating panel with a member from estonia, someone from ukraine and united kingdom and they talked about these were people who were direct victims of russian aggression, vladimir putin's regime. they talked about the ways that russia is really trying to spread its influence whether it be cyber, disinformation campaigns, the weaponization of social media. of course with ukraine actually invading their borders and really testing the limits of nato and pushing in on nato nations. it's been a really fascinating discussion, alex. >> i can imagine. is there a uniform voice, cour

start with cnn justice correspondent evan perez in aspen. what do we know about this particular recording? >> reporter: well, brooke, this is a recording that michael cohen did apparently talking to the president about a payment to karen macdougal, former playboy playmate that claims she had an affair with then donald trump as a private citizen obviously. this was a discussion that happened before the 2016 election and so of course now this raises a lot of questions. one of the things it raises, why was this a story kept out of the public in the 2016 election during the time, the run up to the 2016 election. if you remember, this was a payment that ended up not being made allegedly by michael cohen or by the president, it was a payment that was made by the publisher of the national enquirer. they bought karen macdougal's story, ended up not using, publishing the story. she was under an agreement where she was not allowed to talk about the alleged affair with the now president. the big question this raises from michael cohen is the fact is th

confirmed that -- and she is one of three reported hackings that we heard from tech people at the aspen security conference, that her senate staff had phishing from the same -- i think it was fancy bear, the same operatives who were trying to hack and successfully did hack the dnc and john podesta. how ominous is this, going into the midterm? >> well, it's really ominous, to consider that the same russian actors may have been involved in trying to hack a vulnerable democratic senator's campaign right around the same time that president trump called for her ouster from the senate. what is also distressing to me as the ranking member on the intelligence committee is to learn about these efforts by the russian hackers from comments by a microsoft employee at the aspen summit rather than be hearing about this from our intelligence community. it shows just how unprepared we are. here we are, ironically, having this first national security council meeting dedicated to this really important topic on the second anniversary of trump calling on the russians to interfere and at a time when his own

>> andrea mitchell sitting on stage at the aspen institute when this comes off.ion there. it is more of a cult of personality than a fully functioning executive branch of what we are accustomed to. it is just not how they get it going down there. it's not a surprise that coats isn't in the loop because this all starts top trickle down. there is no plan. there is no formative strategy. what do you see with the putin summit that will happen in d.c.? that is doubling down on dumb. you don't have this kind of situation on the heels of a mistake with the same person but you do in trump world because he believes you stick with where you are. you keep spinning it and eventually it becomes what you want. i believe this moment in helsinki that you and i witnessed together is different. i think it reverberated in different ways. i think it taps into deeper concerns than what we have seen in the past. but i'm always ready for disappointment. >> the white house also reversed course today on an offer from putin to interrogate american citizens including a u.s. ambassador to r

the newest, near aspen, colorado, ballooning in the past 24 hours. more neighborhoods evacuated this morning. and across the region, thousands of people have been forced from their homes. abc's clayton sandell is in the fire zone in colorado tonight. >> reporter: tonight, the western fire threat is growing, flames darting through smoky skies over colorado toward hundreds of homes. >> flames are like 300 feet tall. >> reporter: the lake christine fire, north of aspen, sparked tuesday by people shooting at an outdoor gun range, exploding in the last 24 hours to over 4,900 acres and still growing. flames closing in on this market. nearly 500 homes are threatened here, three destroyed. one of those belonging to volunteer firefighter cleve williams. his sister-in-law lives nearby. her home survived, but she and her family had only ten minutes to escape. >> i grabbed some of my scrapbooks that i have, my baby books from when my kids were little. >> reporter: in southern colorado, the spring fire is now the third-largest blaze in state history, torching an

i was in aspen last week when this was the surprise, the breaking news. and andrea mitchell was interviewing dan coats, and he handled it very gracefully, i thought, because he was blindsided. but i think we're ending up in a better place. there is a lack of focus in this administration, but there are some good people in this administration. >> and i think there are people who can read polls. we have seen the reaction to much of these dramatic reactions and it hasn't been good. and yesterday, david chalian, i thought of you at 5:00 p.m. when the nbc news/marist numbers came out from michigan, minnesota, and wisconsin here. these are fascinating. the president won michigan and minnesota, but look at his approval rating now -- >> he won michigan and wisconsin, came close in minnesota. >> right, look at the numbers there. 36, 38, 36% approval rating. that is really low. and there are some other numbers here, if you talk about 2020, whether or not the president deserves re-election, more than 60% in each of these states wants to give a new person a chance. an

like if you want to hang out with andrea mitchell and her friends in aspen, go ahead.py about it. >> bret: the establishment. next up, the friday lightning round. tariffs, trump derangement syndrome here in d.c., maybe. plus, winners and losers. ♪ ♪ are you ready to take your wifi to the next level? then you need xfinity xfi. a more powerful way to stay connected. it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi.? a more powerful way to stay connected. it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. ♪ >> i raised 50 and they matched us. i say you don't match us. you can't match us, because, otherwise, we are always going to be behind the 8 ball. >> would you ever get to 500.

catherine herridge joins us live from aspen with more. >> thank you, good morning. voice of the 16 intelligence agencies and told reporters in aspen that russia is an active cyber action but the bad actors including not only russia but china, north korea, iran and terrorist groups like al qaeda and isis that use cyber as a weapon to level the playing field. among the worst case scenarios was taking out the power grid or paralyzing the financial markets. >> i'm concerned about a cyber 9/11. let's say you shut down wall street for a week. what does that do to world markets and peoples investments? an attack on the electric grid in new england in january? people are out there playing this game of chess with us in ways that want to take us down and we have to be better than they. >> one of the big questions in all these attacks is this issue of identifying who is really behind it. it is not as simple as saying the hackers are operating from russia or a proxy nation. you always have to look at who is paying their bills. that's really the source for the best attribution i

i just wonder whether that aspen festival is the right place to be talking about that. if you had concerns, just bring it to the president. but to do it in front of that crowd, i didn't think that was the right way to go. >> jason: congressman, you and jim jordan, mark meadows, john ratcliffe, trey gowdy, i mean, the list is long. you have been trying to extract documents from these people and yet we see them all in aspen, i guess, they didn't take a delta flight or southwest to get there. how is it that -- how does that make you feel when you see them hanging out in aspen but you can not get them to come b to capitol hill? >> it's frustrating. jason, you know why this is happening. you and i tried to bring accountability to the irso commissioner when he was pulling a lot of the same stuff. we tried to actually impeach him. we didn't get the support we needed throughout the entireea house of representatives. i think the same thing here is, we have not yet imposed a sanction on rosenstein. if we say we want these documents, which we definitely are entitled to, set a date

what are they doing in aspen?'s a security forum. >> they should have cancelled. >> they need to come out and need to push back on this idea that the russians were not meddling in our election. we had a president of the united states stand next to the president of russia, the man who our intelligence community has said ordered the attacks on our election, and pat him on the back and flatter him and doubt the fbi and trash robert mueller. maybe this was the perfect week to have this. and let's not lose sight of this. the president has invited vladimir putin to washington, a man who attacked our elections. he's invited him to washington. the midterms are right around the corner. after he maybe comes to washington. this is also a man who has been accused credibly and is believed to be behind the murder of former russian spies in england. this is a man who annexed crimea. he's fostering a coup in montenegro. the list goes on and on. this is not a good, fair broker. >> so if you're putin and you've had the last two wee

. >> welcome back from aspen. believe you were there mixing it up with the elite. >> thank you. >> let's talk about this late-night barrage of tweets from both mike pompeo and the president against iran, really kind of ratcheting up the rhetoric against it. what is the strategy here? why now? >> it reminds me of what trump did with north korea last year in threatening fire and fury and then trying to get to the negotiating table and trying to get a deal, which is still in the works because the north koreans have gone back to their usual, you know, negotiating place where they don't actually give much up. i don't know what is setting off trump now besides that speech. he takes a hit to his personal pride any time he's attacked and he thinks that rouhani is attacking him. so he wants to kind of put him in his place and really inflict some twitter, all-caps, you know, language on him. i don't know if it is going to work but he's going to try. >> it is interesting you brought up north korea because there are those tha

some of the biggest names in the administration showing up in aspen, famous for its gatherings of global elites. tonight, the nation's top spy and the deputy attorney general technically robert mueller's bosque of our making some big news. correspondent tricked on my kristin fisher is tracking of the news. >> there are so headlines coming out of the aspen security forum that is hard to know where to begin. let's start here. the nation's spy chief, dan coats, went rogue and said things that president trump is likely not to be happy about told the crowd tonight that he has no idea what happened in that meeting between president trump and putin. he would have suggested a different way. he also said that the reason he put out that statement defending the intelligence community's assessment of russian meddling was because he felt the need to set the record straight. listen. >> i just felt at this point in time, that what we had assessed and reassessed and reassessed and carefully gone over, it was important to take that stance on back with the intelligence community and the american people. a

rosy, let's go back to that moment in aspen, 2,000 whatever miles away from washington, d.c. so there was a geographic disconnect there, sure. but what does that say to you about the way this administration is running, that the president's chief intelligence advisor was unaware that the president had woken up and decided he wanted to have another summit here with president putin? >> as you pointed out, it's remarkable that the nation's top intelligence official didn't have insight into this extremely important move the president is making, which is inviting vladimir putin to washington. and i think that it speaks to a long-running trends in this administration where there isn't necessarily a lot of coordination between president trump himself and what other government officials are doing. >> here's adam schiff, the ranking member of the house intelligence committee. let's hear what he had to say about that exchange. >> the talks in helsinki were productive, but they were productive for vladimir putin. the reality is we have no idea what this president, our president agreed to

director of national intelligence, dan ats, said today at an aspen institute forum, he's not sure iat was agreed to. >> well you're rigon't know what happened in that meeting. but that is the president's prerogative. if he had asked he how that ought to be conducted, i would've suggested a different way but that's not my role, s what not my job, so it it i >> alcindor: this morning, president trump tweeted saying: "the summit with russia was a e great succesept with the real enemy of the people, the ke news media." went on to say he looks forward to a second meeting with putin, "so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed," including cyberattacks, middle east peace and ukraine among others. ast the overall u.s. commander for the middle e army general joseph votel, said he has heard nothing about anych ges regarding syria, where both american and russian forceo are ed. he spoke to pentagon reporters on a videolink from his headquters in tampa. >> we have received, no, no further direction than we've currently been orating under. >> alcindor: direct collaboratn w

dan coats is on stage at the asp aspen security conference in aspen, colorado.e meeting and he doesn't know it's going to happen. he doesn't know what happened in the first summit. this is the director of national intelligence. number three, donald trump was supposed to say russia meddled in the election. when he was trying to fix that problem, after the helsinki conference, he said, could have been other people also. he cannot, cannot, bring himself to say those words. a lol of hand wringing and privatewards from congressional republicans. they didn't do that much when it came to countering trump. they didn't say donald trump needs to apologize. a few did here and there. they were john mccain, jeff flake, people retiring. last one, mentioned it earlier. there's a second summit. the intelligence community didn't know about this. this came in a tweet from sarah sanders. that's in the fall in the heart of the 2018 midterms. >> home for the holidays. >> there's probably more. those five things are things we're going to walk away from this week, a week from now, a m