agreements were reached so the question is what were those verbal agreements in fact the head of centcom central command which is the military the military organization tossed with the middle east among other regions of the world the head of centcom was asked in a briefing today is hasn't told you nothing's changed or have you got any new guidelines from the white house and he said no and there's a lot of a lot of speculation in particular on syria some deal might be in the works of a place to us russian cooperation but as yet we still don't know what was discussed and whether the thinks of stanton was discussed which is going to affect geopolitics and that is significant isn't it she had because underneath all of this apparent chaos there is a plan to some extent that donald trump has that he has always said he wants to have a reset with with russia there's a sense that that is what he is determined to achieve but until the details are actually finalized and the as you say with the helsinki summit discussions and so on then there's very little that the u.s. particularly can actually do

the commander of centcom said after the trump-putin summit that he had received no new orders, no new orders from the white house about whether the u.s. military is being ordered to do anything differently in syria than what they've already been doing. now in an interview with abc news, the same centcom commander in fact expressed some concern about these as, hes from the u.s. military which indicates that they seem to think that our two militaries are now pulling on the same side in that conflict. general joseph vodel saying, i want to make sure this isn't something we stepped into lightly. i'm not recommending that. that would be a pretty big step at this point. talking about working the russian military in syria. i'm not recommending that. that would be a pretty big step. now tonight, in response to those comments from america's top military commander in the middle east, the russian government has unleashed an attack on that general, on this american general, the head of centcom, the russian ministry of defense putting out a statement saying, with this statement, general votel disc

military leadership at centcom explained on the record that centcom has no idea what that might be. so if the u.s. military is supposed to be doing something different now around syria, or if military conditions in syria are about to change materially when we have lots of americans there in the middle of it, so far, the u.s. military doesn't know what it is trump might have signed them up for. in terms of any such changes. russia says there's plenty coming. the republicans rejected the efforts to get testimony from the translator. so we will continue to have no record at all of what happened in that meeting. that that, as dan coats admitted, maybe there's a tape. maybe the russians taped trump in that meeting which the russians can use for their own purposes. they can even presumably doctor such a tape if they wanted to if they wanted to make it appear that trump said something in that meeting that he didn't say but they wanted to make it say that he said that. why not? there's no other american who can corroborate what happened. why wouldn't the russians make up something absolutel

the head of centcom suggested in an interview this week while traveling over seas that it would givese to work with the russians on the ground. today we hear from the russian ministry to try to drive a wedge between the president and his generals and saying there's undermining. that's not the message that we're hearing from secretary mattis and others. they believe it would be risky to work with the russians on the ground in syria. >> shepard: thank you. gordon chang is here. author of "nuclear show down." good to see you. >> good to see you. >> shepard: is there any evidence that the north koreans are beginning the process of denuclearizing? >> not yet. >> shepard: as if you think they might? >> they might that really depends on whether trump is really -- >> shepard: you sat in this studio with me for years and you have told me the same thing for years and years. you've said they have one crop, they have one voice in the world. it's through nuclear. without it, they have nothing. so you're telling me there's a chance now that they might be on the road to denuclearization? >> well, w

they went after general votel, the head of centcom that oversees military operations in the middle east. he dis credcredited the officia position of the commander-in-chief. do you know what that is? >> you have to speak with the russian ministry of defense to know. >> you can understand why we're concerned. if it's being reported in the russian press and secretary flake and senator shaheen said they're talking about official positions that the president has outlined. as far as you know, general votel's statements did not violate any information position of the united states, did they? >> you seem to be giving a great deal of credit to the russian defense. >> let me ask you about general votel. >> i don't have -- i have great belief in his truthfulness. >> so you don't believe any of the statements he's read violate any official position of the united states, do you? >> if you would, best approach general votel and the department of defense. >> if i could introduce for the record, there's an interesting article in buzz feed news recently today. that just list as whole series of headlines

you know, the centcom commander, general votel, was asked about the u.s./russia cooperation in syria. he had to tell congress he didn't know what was going on. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, it's been reported, hasn't yet been debriefed on the meetings. i think the strength of secretary pompeo's statement about the russian invasion of crimea is the administration trying to shield itself against very justified criticism about the privacy of the president's meetings with putin. the fact that the white house and the cabinet didn't debrief it, and so the russians are telling the story and we are not. >> what do you make of the news from john bolton that this summit, this next summit with vladimir putin has now been delayed, corey? >> i take that as another sign that the administration is accurately assessing the breadth and depth of the criticism that they're getting about the president's shocking ly siding with president putin, suggesting that he would allow the interrogation of american citizens by the russians and the kind of craziness of the pr

we thought it particularly important people at centcom, defense intelligence agency get their hands on this since they were supplying information to the people on the battlefield, to the people actually fighting in these places but the dia was for a long time blocked. they were not given access to the documents. the cia said simply you don't get it. didn't have to give much of an explanation. there was a long, protracted bureaucratic turf battle. won't bore you with details. the details in most cases are anything but boring. they're really interesting but we don't have enough time to go through all the details. so skipping forward we pushed extensively to get these documents released. they were ultimately a provision requiring them to be released was included in the 2014 intelligence authorization act and that required the director of national intelligence to start releasing these documents to the public. well the dni, then james clapper, was reluctant to do this. tom is going to i think give you a pretty good idea why he was reluctant to do this. so they put out 40 documents here and

middle east, this morning at the pentagon, there was a briefing by the four star general in charge of centcom, that's basically in the middle east. he said there's nothing in the works for more interaction between the u.s. defense department and the russian defense department. on that, they're bound by law not to have a whole lot of interaction, craig. >> hans nichols for us at the white house, thank you, sir. former white house press secretary sean spicer was on the "today" show as part of his book tour. the man once paid to defend the president carefully dancing around this issue of trump's comments about russia. >> do you think the president blew it with vladimir putin this week? >> i'm glad that he clarified his comments, put it that way. >> is that a yes? >> no, i think it's very important to be clear that russia meddled in our elections. >> kimberly atkins, for the boston herald. and natasha bertrand, she covered the trump/russia scandal for the atlantic. she's at the aspen security reform there. that is not a green screen. it is postcard pretty there in aspen, colorado. so, consequentl

we've heard from the head general for centcom. he was asked about this idea of more cooperation between the united states and russia. listen to his answer where he almost professes to be perplexed. >> let me just reiterate, no new guidance for me as a result of the helsinki discussions as of yet. we remain in very good communications with the department here and when that time comes, we'll certainly respond to it. >> reporter: so the pentagon trying to figure out everything as well. i think that's why that interview later today that we'll have shortly between andrea mitchell and dan coats will be so interesting. former senator from indiana and ambassador -- >> indiana! >> and ambassador to germany. and on the framers, they weren't all short. >> but many of them were short. coming from a tall guy like you, hans, we're all short. hans, i know you were watching it and i was watching it. >> yes. >> excerpts from an interview that donald trump had with cnbc in which he criticized the federal reserve raising interest rates and said that