dan alexander, welcome to the "newshour". i want to ask you about some of your latest reporting. you looked specifically at secretary ross' calendar, specifically between february and november of 2017. those were his first few months in office. what about that time raised red flags for yo >> we started looking through it and, immediately, you can see there are dozens of meetingom withnies in which secretary ross that did financial interests or ties to the company. there are also meetings with foreign leaders that have oversight over businesses that he owned at the timhee, and are also meetings with sovereign wealth funds that previously mped millions of dollars into secretary ross' private eqitu funds. >> so look specifically at one day, for example, may you detail in your reporting, it's a busy day for the secretary, has meetiith foreign officials, a trade hearing, some calls. there's one lunch you hone in on, one that lasts in longer than any other meeting, a lunch with the c.e.o. of a railcar manufacturer called greenbriar companies. why is that significant? >> it's shocking w

intelligence dan coats should resign in protest and disgust alexander your thoughts. coats himself publicly ignored the calls for him to resign he issued that statement yesterday as you said doubling down on his latest finding saying that it was russia behind it twenty sixteen elections and even saying that russia is continuing its efforts to undermine the american demand for the mocha see in this statement he also say it said today that he is willing to provide objective intelligence to serve the u.s. national interest and that doesn't seem like he was getting ready to resign and they are many and the intel community people such as. for example the former cia director and secretary of defense in the obama administration urging coats to stay saying that now it is more important than ever to have if you say in voices around the president was not a phenomena reporting from washington thank you well donald trump's predecessor of barack obama is in south africa right now where he's been giving his highest profile speech since leaving the white house obama was asked to giv

tomorrow peter alexander and andrea mitchell sit down with kirstjen nielsen and dan coats. you can also watch live on nbcnews.com as they happen. check out nbc news' twitter handle for more details. >>> coming up, how maria butina indicted on charges of being a secret russian agent infiltrated the inner circle of conservative american political groups intend on advancing russian interests. you're watching msnbc. alice is living with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. she's also taking prescription ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor, which is for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive her2- metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole was significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus letrozole. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are pre

dan coats was america first yesterday. >> clint, good to see you, thank you. clint watts, a senior fellow at the foreign policy institute. a quick programming note, our colleagues, lester holt, peter alexander, and andrea mitchell head to the aspen security forum for exclusive interviews with the fbi director and director of national security intelligence dan coats. we'll bring you the news from those interviews right here on msnbc and on nbc news starting thursday. up next, president trump is getting praise from some remembers of the republican party for actually sitting down with vladimir putin. we're going to hear from one of those lawmakers, thomgs massey, after the break. >>> president obama delivered some of his harshest criticism yet of president trump without actually naming him while speaking in africa today. >> each day's news cycles bringing morehe head spinning a disturbing headlines. it is in part because of the failures of governments and powerful elites to squarely address the short comings and contradictions of this international order that we now see much of the world threatening to return to an older, a more dangerous, a more brutal way of doing business. we've got to cons

alexander is sitting down with kirstjen nielsen. and andrea mitchell with director of national intelligence, dan coats. it'll be a blockbuster. we'll bring it all here on msnbc and nbc news. you can also watch live on nbc news.com as they happen. >>> all eyes on that. all eyes, too, on the folks with me on set. nancy cook, along with national political reporter sahill. the secretary finds this troubling. >> what is interesting is, he said he never called out the president by name, as you noticed. he was really sort of talking about tech companies should take responsibility and so should americans. that's something we saw with a lot of the criticism of what president trump did and how he interacted with putin. people were really loathe to call him out by name. we saw that with senator tom cotton, who is the president's ally, who also srt of ccondemne the activity but didn't call out the president. >> we have a poll out showing just how americans feel about russia and vladimir putin. 68% believe they're not friendly, an enemy, basically, either unfriendly or an enemy to the united states, essentially. that's up since february.

security forum, nbc's peter alexander sitting down with dhs secretary kirstjen nielsen and nbc's andrea mitchell has the exclusive with the director of national intelligence danop crashed this morning. her salon was booked for weeks, having it problems? ask a business advisor how to get on demand tech support for as little as $15 a month. right now, buy one hp ink and get a second at 30% off at office depot officemax i'm ray and i quit smoking with chantix. i tried cold turkey, i tried the patch. they didn't work for me. i didn't think anything was going to work for me until i tried chantix. chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. chantix reduced my urge to smoke. i needed that to quit. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these.

alexander there in aspen, colorado. thank you so much. again, we have more in depth interviews from aspen today, as we mentioned, andrea mitchell interviewing dan coats there. you can watch that 3:30 p.m. eastern. msnbc and nbcnews.com. >>> meanwhile, on capitol hill, republicans who are up for re-election here in a few months, they are trying to move past russia. they're not getting a lot of help from president trump and the administration. you'll remember earlier this week when the president was trying to walk back those remarks in helsinki on russian meddling. he was supposed to be meeting with lawmakers in his own party about taxes with an eye towards the midterms. jake sherman is a senior writer at politico. and kimberly atkins is back with me. she is of course the bureau chief there for "the boston globe" there -- boston herald, excuse me. jacob, i want to start with you. something we're expecting to see, as i understand it, in less than an hour. affirming their opposition to making former ambassador michael mcfall and other officials available for questioning by the kremlin. how significant is this? and i would imagine this is something

peter alexander in aspen, she said, look, this is really not just a dhs problem, we need the whole government engaged. the fbi is doing things, but there is no presidential leadership, kristen. dan coats gave a remarkable speech in which he said the russians are continuing to interfere in our politics. they are on social media, they are on twitter and facebook. it would just take a few keystrokes for them to turn their attention to the election infrastructure. what that requires is a strategy to deter the russians. donald trump has not taken action against the russians geopolitically or with sanctions. what he has done is eliminated the cyber security coordinator job from his national security council. so perhaps today after this meeting he'll announce some new steps. as of today, though, kristen, i could not get the white house to tell me who is in charge of coordinating the effort to prevent foreign election interference. >> and that's remarkable, because as we have been saying, it's really just 100 days out at this point. i want to talk to you about the messaging, ken, because that's a part of this as well. we of course listen very carefully to what the president says in addi