chris dickey has been watching all of this and is more expert than any of us in the middle east. chris, vladimir putin has -- in defense of donald trump, was president obama and the obama white house that let putin take control in the air over syria, and once he was there really ceded a great deal of control and leverage to the kremlin. >> look, nobody, no american president, not obama, not trump, wanted to get deeply involved in syria. putin took the opportunity to consolidate his position with al assad and the him taker bases he has on the mediterranean to build air bases and to develop a presence on the ground, in the middle east that really russia has not had before, and he wants to keep that. does he like assad? i think probably not particularly, but the obama administration made the mistake and hilary clinton made the mistake several times of saying that assad was going to go, he had to go and he didn't go. so it left assad in power and basically the obama administration in an embarrassing and painful position. the problem now is that finally, eventually obama built up neces

chris dickey is here with me. today theresa may is facing challenges in parliament, in her party, over brexit, over her separation from the european union and over her negotiations in part exacerbated by the trump visit. >> well, yeah. really, trump is a classic bully. he likes to strike out at people. he knows they're not going to be able to hit back. theresa may really can't hit back. the various nato leaders and g7 leaders, they can express a little irritation, but they are trying to be america's allies. he calls them foes. who does he flatter? who does he say he wants to be friends with? kim jong-un, vladimir putin. and you really have to wonder about what he is thinking in all this. you know, the word that keeps coming to mind after looking at the negotiations with kim jong-un in korea and the one on one with him and the way that ended up is sucker. i think president trump is essentially a sucker in these negotiations. maybe he's good at real estate, but when it comes to negotiations with other world leaders,

. >> joining me now is chris dickey, veteran journalist for the daily beast here with me in helsinki. chris, your response? >> well, i think in front of the whole world right now, we witnessed the collusion of donald trump and vladimir putin. that's really what we were looking at. however you want to interpret it. was trump taking direction from putin? absolutely. had he met for two hours and ten minutes with putin and is there evidence he didn't really understand what was being discussed, that he department really have any background on the issues being talked about? absolutely. you can -- when putin came out, he articulated one after another point after point and anybody who knows the history and environment for the various issues, whether syria, ukraine, investigations of past murders by putin's secret services, knows what crap that was. but donald trump does not. and for 2 1/2 hours he listened to that and came out and talked about his own election and hillary clinton. and defended vladimir putin against the intelligence services of the united states of america. if that's not coll

. >> chris dickey, i want to turn to you. i'm not going to ask you about michael cohen, but what the president has been tweeting about this week. the specter of election interference was raised in the president's twitter feed i believe on tuesday of this week. he said, i'm very concerned that russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming election, based on the fact that no president has been tougher on russia than me. they will be pushing very hard for the democrats. they definitely don't want trump. you and i last spoke, you were in helsinki, we were listening to that news conference the president gave with president putin and you and i both heard with our very own ears president putin saying he would have preferred having president trump in office. what's your response to what the president tweeted this week, chris? >> the only reason that vladimir putin would do anything to help the democrats would be to give donald trump an alibi. because it is so clear that putin got his most devout wish when donald

chris dickey and kal perry and jeff bennett. he's enumerated those three things, the issues of syria, of crimea and meddling in the election as well. we have seen the president of the united states talk about these issues over the course of the last few days. and in so doing he has been looking back, he's used the excuse these were all things that happened at least initially under the presidency of barack obama. that is his go to now as we've seen it over these last few days. >> it's fairly remarkable, david, that the president we've seen is condemning democrats, former president barack obama. however, not grappling with, not condemning president putin and russians by all accounts was a nefarious act, an attack on the heart of american democracy, meddling in and interfering with the 2016 election as we now know by both the senate intelligence committee to really tip the election in favor of donald trump. particularly listening to something chris dickey said that one of the things the president and putin might try to arrive at is

andrea mitchell is at our camera location not far from chris dickey. andrea, two hours with just translators. now, a chance to sit at a table with some of the faces you know and are aware of to say, in effect, let's review what we went over in private. >> reporter: one hopes that there is a very quick review. but a complete review of what they discussed in private. and there is an agreement on what they discussed with pompeo and bolton. pompeo and bolton have been hard liners, skeptics about russia in the past. they and others in the administration have not been entirely comfortable, according to reports, that the summit was even taking place. many of the president's advisers, john kelly perhaps, a the table, who has not been as important an adviser in recent months, not happy that the summit was even scheduled. the president, as you know, brian, agreeing to it at putin's suggestion in a march telephone call, where the president ignored his aides' advice to not congratulate putin on his, quote, re-election. it was not a democratic re-election. not only

let's bring in chris dickey. >> name more familiar to folks in europe. >> becoming more and more familiarrage right wing movements, far right wing movements, some of which have been very successful in italy and austria and elsewhere. i think now he wants to also reingrashiate himself with trump after the unfortunate things he said about the trump administration before leaving it in the fire and fury. >> do you think steve bannon will be successful. police are preparing for a massive protest as the president is here. >> this is the nation of brexit, which was the first breach in the wall of common sense in global politics. and he was very much part of that and indeed the russians were part of that. he's part of that picture and right now they think they are on a roll. he wants to take maximum advantage of it. >> you mentioned brexit and the president also talked brexit this morning and asked about that and how he thinks the uk should be moving forward. this is a moment that the president is stepping into as we've talked about that is really critical for this country. over the next few days

. >> we were talking with chris dickey about it.erlusconi -- where the leader is -- they deny reality and they have a whole bunch of people who believe the reality given to them by donald trump and his associated media. i want to come to jason johnson to that point. this is another rupert murdoch outlet. here's donald trump claiming that an interview he did on tape with the sun is fake news. take a listen. >> didn't criticize the prime minister. i have a lot of respect for the prime minister. unfortunately, it was a story that was done which was generally fine, but it didn't put in what i said about the prime minister. i said tremendous things. fortunately, we tend to record stories so we have it for your enjoyment if you like it. it's called fake news. we solve a lot of problems with the good old recording instrument. >> the recording instrument to him saying the thing he said. but the sun responded -- we stand by our reporting and the quotes we used, including those where the president was positive about the prime minister. they'r