joining me now is robert costa, moderator of "washington week," and carol lee, political reporter whoeported this story. carol, we've seen this coming, and it has something to do with the configuration of the national security cabinet. but it's telling given south korea, the joint exercises. this was a concession to kim jong-un at the table in singapore. without consulting the defense secretary. >> right. and even when we spoke to people inside the white house and they were addressing each of the points in the story, a white house official said, well, you know, mattis knew that it was possible that trump may do something like this. but the president was in the meeting with the leader of north korea, and just made the decision. so he had to then inform another colleague, another administration official that told the defense secretary that this had happened. and you had to then find a way to prepare for that. >> and robert costa, it's the ad hoc way that this administration conducts foreign policy, there isn't a process, they don't have meetings to hash out these issues. this is not the

well, here with us to talk about it tonight, carol lee, our nbc news national political reporter, whose byline appears on this nbc news report. and retired u.s. army colonel jack jacobs, a decorated veteran of combat in vietnam, one of 72 living recipients of the medal of honor, also our msnbc military analyst. welcome to you both. carol, how did we get here vis-a-vis the president and his defense secretary? >> well, i think there's a number of ways in which we got to this point. you know, when secretary mattis came in, he was part of this group of generals that was, you know, supposed to kind of -- in terms of if you talked to people on capitol hill or others who felt like they were a stabilizing force on the president and that they were going to keep him from doing and taking steps that could plunge the country into some sort of chaos or might take u.s. foreign policy in a direction they felt like it shouldn't go. so it was secretary mattis. it was then former secretary of state rex tillerson. and then john kelly, who is now the chief of staff of. so the three of them kind of worked i

david ignatius, carol lee, michael steele. i'm going to go with scott pruitt here, carol.t all of the allegations against him, sort the he's managed his personal and mixed his politics and profession. you now have his home state senator calling, probably saying it's time for him to go. not quite. laura ingraham, a media voice from the conservative side saying it is a time to go. yet president trump seems to almost embrace the fact that everybody hates pruitt, and he almost wants to keep him in there in spite of theed a gagss. is that what's going on here? >> or to spite everybody else. there is definitely elements of that going on here. you have a president who is digging in and defiant as to what he sees a the media establishment and others who are out to get him. it's almost as if he sees some of himself in this -- in what know, the interesting thing to watch here to me media and the commentators do and tuned intoularly and if that drum beats start to really build. that could change his calculus. >> michael l, just as she said that, national review became the latest to s

joining us to break it down, jeff bennett and carol lee, national political reporter and josh gerstein, senior white house reporter with politico and a contributor at the block buster report in the paper yesterday. let's start big here and get granular in a second. what does this represent? you heard from the president's current counsel a moment ago. how much does this represent the legal underpinnings of that team's argument at this point in time? >> clearly it's a shot across the bow at the laying out the interpretation that one might have from the oval office. that says no no not only can you not question me, if i choose not to answer, i have the authority to shut you down. that's a pretty extraordinary statement to issue to a prosecutor, one that most people can't make. whether that would hold up or not is a different question. in this kind of memo, you layout the most expansive interpretation that you can. it would mean wouldn't necessarily hold up in court and we don't know mueller's reaction to it. the difference between him and kenneth star, independent counsel under a differen

joining me for insight and analysis are, nbc news national political reporter carol lee. "nework times" pentagon correspondent he lean cooper. republican strategist al cardenas. and "new york times" columst brett stevens. welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." i >> from nbc ne washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with uck todd.d >> g sunday morning. happy father's day. what kind of week has it been for president trump? to president trump's critics the north korea summit was a self-serving spectacle that achieved lit and to the president it moved the world away from nuclear war. to the critics the gh, 7 summit was an unnecessary insult to our closes alleyieallies. to the president, it was a triumph of american strength. mr. trump megyn kellying it clear the u.s. will no longer plsu the role ofer to greedy allies to the critics the inspector general's report vindicated hillary clinton that he t campaign was campaign of james comey's decisions. to president trump the report fully exonerated him from charges of obstruction of

nbc's carol lee, thank you so much.reading your new reporting at nbcnews.com. >>> coming up, we'll ask new york city mayor bill de blasio if the trump administration as said anything to him about reuniting parents with their kids who were brought to his city last week. plus, a call to end the "carnage" of republican misrule in washington. we'll talk to george will about his scathing op-ed urging conservatives to vote against republicans in the midterms. >>> also, senator jeff flake has been a vocal opponent of the president, but is the senator finally ready to do something to stand up to him? the arizona republican joins us ahead. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. napoleon is duping us! all around louisiana... you're a nincompoop! (phone ping) gentlemen, i have just received word! the louisiana purchase, is complete! instant purchase notifications from capital one. so you won't miss a purchase large, small, or very large. technology this helpful... could make history. what's in your wallet? welcome to

here with us to talk about it tonight, carol lee our national political reporter whose by line appears on this nbc news report and retired u.s. army colonel jack jacobs from combat in vietnam and one of 72 living recipients of the medal of honor and for good reason our msnbc military analyst. welcome. how did we get here with the president and his defense secretary? >> there are a number of ways in which we get to this point. when secretary mattis came in, he was part this group of generals that was supposed to in terms of if you talk to people on capitol hill or others who were a stabilizing force on the president. that they were going to keep him from doing and taking steps that could plunge the country into some sort of chaos or might take foreign policy in a direction that they felt like they shouldn't go. it was secretary mattis and former secretary of state rex tillerson and the chief of staff. the three of them worked in tandem together and would push the president to go in directions that they wanted his policies to go, particularly on iran and the nuclear deal. the president o

joining us, carol lee, who cowrote the nbc news story. also joining us, danny is a val owes. carol, what do we know about these meetings are of interest to mueller's team? >> if you take the seychelles on its own, it is of interest to robert mueller because of the possibility that this was a planned meeting designed to try to create some sort of back channel between trump transition officials and the russians. and it was involving officials from the uae. now, what happened there was that eric opiniok prince says h there to meet with uae officials. he just happened to be introduced to a russian official who was very close to vladimir putin and he had a discussion. he cast it as happen stance. about you the question mueller is looking into whether it was actually happen stance or whether it was premeditated or planned perhaps in a meeting in december of 2016. we know all those players had been in the seychelles around the same time, just a week or so ahead of the inauguration. we are now learning that gerson, who is a close friend of kushner's and was in a december meeting with

nbc's absolutely relentless national security reporters, courtney cube and carol lee are out with a scoop mattis was informed that trump had ordered a pause in military exercises with south korea only after president trump had already promised the concession to north korean leader kim jong un. a defense official said ahead of the north korea summit trump and secretary mattis spoke about an array of topics that could come up in the discussions. canceling the joint military exercises with south korea was not among those topics. mattis was not expecting trump's announcement the exercises would be canceled the official said and as a result mattis did not notify the two commands most directly involved, u.s. forces korea and the south korean military. in fact, mattis found out that trump had canceled the exercises from one of his assistant secretaries early the next morning after the summit had concluded. nbc further reports that u.s. military officials see those joint exercises as "critical to readiness and interoperability in the region." but the president apparently didn't ask them for their

nbc news political recorder carol lee and helene cooper. rich card amass. all right. let me put together this list of just outright misstatements or lies. i well, no, there's no trade war. think that the report esterday may be more importantly than than anything totally exonerates me. some people say he lied, maybe he didn't lie. nafort has nothing to do with our campaign. the democrats have to w.ange their that's their law. president obama lost crimea, e st so you understand. >> every single those things is absolutely not true. the crimea one being the most ridiculous. there's no democratic bill, manafort for three months -- more than almost six months of the caaign. the president himself said michael flynn lied, that's why he fired him. the ig report was of course not about that. bret stephens? it's -- what do you do? >> you have to be a t on mist of falses. ic has been trang in a substance that's identical to my initials. >> your name again is bret . ephe >> right. >> i wanted to clarify. >> i mean, this is a world sort of -- the gray world between clear truths and

but my colleague, carol lee, and i spent some time looking at major national security decisions madeal months. one thing we noticed is that they tended to either be on the opposite side of where second tar m -- secretary mattis' perspective was or in some instances he wasn't even involved in the decision making process. one you mentioned in the lead-in, space corps. a sixth branch of the military, that came up in 2017. in the fall secretary mattis sent a letter to senator john mccain saying how he didn't think it was a good idea to create another branch of service dedicated to space, it just created more bureaucracy. president trump then several days ago came out and said he was directing the military, specifically directing general dunford, the chairman of the joint chiefs, to create a space force despite the fact that secretary mattis had been openly on the record opposed to the idea only months ago. >> we should note here obviously that pentagon national security council spokes people have pushed back on our reporting, calling it silly, calling it ludicrous that general mattis wou

. >> nicolle, carol lee and a colleague went and looked at decisions trump has made and some of his publicronouncements on security issues the last several motz. we found a pretty common thread which was he was making decisions that seemed to be contrary to what secretary mattis had said sometimes in public and sometimes our understanding of what he was recommending behind the scenes. and a couple of them you just mentioned there, you know, last october secretary mattis on the record in a letter to senator john mccain said that he thought the creation of a 6th military branch called space force was a bad idea, it created more bureaucracy and whatnot. a couple days ago, president trump stood up at a meeting and looked at general dunford and said, i'd like you to please create another branch called the space force. another create another branch called the space force. another one was the decision on the u.s. withdrawing from the iran deal. it wasn't a surprise. there was speculation in the media in a president trump was going to pull the u.s. out of it. when he made the decision he made and

thank you, shermichael singleton, carol lee and chris lu, who speaks truth.ll finish with "trump watch." you're watching "hardball." brad's been looking forward to this all week, but how will his denture cope with... a steak. luckily for brad, this isn't a worry because he's discovered super poligrip. it holds his denture tight and helps give him 65% more chewing power. leaving brad to dig in and enjoy the tastiest of t-bones. super poligrip, helping you enjoy the foods you love. with savings on the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your every move and automatically adjusts on both sides to keep you effortlessly comfortable. and snoring.... does your bed do that? for a limited time, save up to $500 plus free home delivery on sleep number 360 smart beds. ends june 30th. the kayak explore tool shows you the places you can fly on your budget. so you can be confident you're getting the most bang for your buck. alo-ha. kayak. search one and done. >>> "trump watch" monday, june 25th, 2018. do you see what he is doing? do you see how donald trump rallies his

national political reporter for nbc news carol lee just posted exclusive details on a close friend of jared kushner's who has found himself under scrutiny from the security council. carol joins us now, tell us about the report. >> sure, well thanks, what we know is that this friend of jared kushner's, a hedge fund manager from new york, his name is rick gerson, he has become a focus of questioning by mueller's team, largely as it relates to mueller's interest in the uae possible influence on the trump campaign and the transition, so he wasn't known before, which we've determined from our reporting is he was a presence at some of the key meetings that we know have been under scrutiny by the special counsel. he happened to be in the seychelles in 2017 around the same time that the meeting that eric prince had with uae and russian officials close to vladimir putin. gerson's spokesperson said he didn't attend that meeting you about met separately with the crown prince of abu dhabi and we know he was present for a meeting that was also under scrutiny that took place in december of 20 16 du

this story that i put together with carol lee and andrea mitchell talks about past cases and what wen expect at the summit. so at president trump's meeting in beijing in november of 2017, there were friendship pins which showed flags from each country that the delegation, these could have listening devices and they might have tracking devices, so you should be wary of wearing them into any place that is a secure location and beware of what you're saying when you're wearing them. there are cases where the chinese are believed to have bugged credentials, hotel key cards of american officials that have been found to have microphones in them. of course american security officials in singapore right now preparing for it, are doing things to prepare. they're warning americans not to speak openly in bars and restaurants around the summit location. it's possible that the chinese could have co-opted, or could have informants working in them. it's a pretty extensive and really interesting way that the chinese are trying to find out what's happening at the summit. despite the fact that they won