and jeff bennett, white house correspondent for nbc news. good evening and welcome to you all. robert, i'd like to begin with you. what just happened? what did the u.s. get? what did the u.s. give away? and are you too noting a certain kind of sensitivity in the president's outgoing social media posts tonight? >> here on capitol hill, brian, there is bewilderment in both parties. the president is so unorthodox in his approach to foreign policy that most leaders here on capitol hill are not really sure how to respond. senator bernie sanders on the left said, well, he's encouraging of the diplomacy here, of the peace process, but still wary of how this is playing out. senator marco rubio, florida republican, talking about how the u.s. really can't trust kim jong-un. yet at the white house tonight, they feel comforth the president's position. they believe that by rattling this negotiation process is the only way to have progress. and at this point, they're confident that this is moving forward incrementally, that by engaging kim, they're bringing him into the world. but that's a r

jeff bennett, howard pletka, howard fineman.key people running around the trump campaign that have never been interviewed by mueller, and the belief is mueller would never interview anyone he would potentially indict. manafort, brad parscal, and i'm leaving one out here, cohen, manafort, parscale. >> roger stone. >> roger stone. thank you very much. jeff sessions right now sort of in the cross hairs. everybody hates him on the immigration stuff on the left, and on the left sees him as a last man standing to protect the mueller probe. we'll let people digest that a minute. did anyone get asked about this at white house today, that the campaign manager is calling for sessions to be fired? >> i did and haven't gotten a response. here's the thing, i don't think he would have free llanced this. when i first saw the tweet i thought he was offering this up as cable news catnip as a way to sort of turn the page away from it -- >> like a red flag, like, hey, stop paying attention to border story, pay attention to this. >> yeah, and i fra

and jeff bennett, white house corresndent fo nbc news. good evening and welcome to you all. robert, i'd like to begin with you. what just happened? wh did the u.s. get? what did the u.s. give away? and are you too noting a certain kind of sensitivity in the president's outgoing social media posts tonight? >> here on capitol hill, brian, there is bewilderment in both parties. the president is so unorthodox in his approach to foreign policy that most leaders here on capitol hill are not really sure how to respond. senator bernie sanders on the left said, well, he's encouraging of the diplomacy here, of the peace process, but still wary of how this is playing out. senator marco rubio, florida republican, talking about how the u.s. really can't trust kim jong-un. yet at the white house tonight, they feel comfortable with the president's position. they believe that by rattling this negotiation process is the only way to have progress. and at this point, they're confident that this is moving forward incrementally, that by engaging kim, they're bringing him into the world. but that

jeff bennett at the white house, go inside, my friend. you need not stand any longer in the rain for us. appreciate it. joining me now, erin mcpike and sean sullivan, congressional reporter for "the washington post." welcome to you both. sean, this whole debate is about the president pardoning himself. it started with the leaked confidential memo that was sent to bob mueller by the president's legal team back in january. beyond the pardon question, what do you think are the most critical aspects of this? >> well, it's interesting. when you look at what the arguments are on both sides right now, you have a president who's saying repeatedly over and over there was no collusion, there was no collusion, this is a witch hunt against me. but at the same time, you're seeing an argument from his legal team that says, look, there's no way he could have obstructed. you're hearing rudy giuliani say in theory, if he needed to pardon himself, that could be possible. so on the one hand, he's saying he's done nothing wrong, but on the other hand, you ha

let's bring in the "hardball" roundtable, jeff bennett, shannon pettypiece and jeremy peters. okay. russia's man up in quebec today? he's carrying their water again, even though everybody's watching him carrying their water. >> and it's this huge concession to russia absent any sort of reciprocity. the one thing we do know is it has been vladimir putin's goal for decades to drive a wedge between the u.s. and its allies. whether by design or by accident, the president is bringing that into fruition. it's not as if he hasn't been warned about this. when he floated this idea of a summit between him and vladimir putin, there were people in the white house who warned him against it. yet the president has this warm rhetorical embrace of vladimir putin. >> how can he be head of the free world if nobody is following you, shannon? >> he seeps to like his adversaries more than his friends. like our reporting indicates the sam thing. he has been told by the national security and foreign policy establishment in his own administration, do not do a summit in austria with putin. yet he does it any

following all this dizzying action is jeff bennett. today is sort of record breaking. the president was at it on twitter very early. then he gave a very long impromptu press conference at the white house. then these reactions to paul manafort. what stand out for you? >> let's start with manafort, ali. the president said today he feels bad for his former colleagues lying paul manafort who are facing legal trouble. you saw the tweet this the one you read where the president said he didn't know many of the was a head of the mob. maybe not but a back check on that, look it was no secret when manafort join the trump campaign he had made a personal fortune working for a string of shady figures overseas. the president, you are right, tried to minimize his connection to manafort today pointing out that manafort only worked for the campaign for 49 days when in fact he served as campaign chairman for about five months. he was with the campaign during the republican national convention when the only change made to the republican party platform was to soften support for ukraine. h

reassuring allies that substantive discussions are ongoi ongo joining me is richard engel and jeff bennett. so far to reporters it's been that north korea understands there will be in-depth verification. he also says he's very optimistic that they will agree to major disarmament. how do you think that will go over where you are right now and what do you make of secretary's message? >> reporter: officially the south korean government is getting on board. there was a statement from the government here saying that it understands that the cancelling of the joint military exercises may have been necessary in order to support the talks toward denuclearization. you're seeing the south korean government which is very closely allies with the united states. tryi to make sure there's no distanceenit. there was a lot of surprise here, a by of annoyance that they weren't consulted. wanting to know was it really over? would these military exercise vs to be scaled down. wanted to know what the intention was. today trying to put the best foot forward saying they understand why they might need to be postpo

this, of course, was supposed to philadelph eagles.f the je bennett standing by for us. jeff, give us a bit of a background as to how this all came about, including when the white house found out the phillies' reaction to this and having to plan this. >> reporter: hey, ali. the white house said they learned some time late last week that the eagles would not be able attend this event. we heard sarah sanders today in the white house press briefing accuse the eagles' organization of staging a political stunt, she says, because they tried to reschedule their appearance to next week, a week we know the president will be in singapore. i can tell you based on my reporting, even as the president last night put out a statement and followed it up with tweets this morning linking the cancellation of this eagles celebration to his insistence that players stand for the national anthem, that that was really a political ploy. what really happened, based on my conversations with sources familiar, is that when the president learned that just a handful of eagles players and personnel would sho

. >> joining me, jeff bennett, nbc white house correspondent. betsy woodruff, msnbc contributor.d frank vaglusi with ets risk managementief officer the and msnbc contributor as with el. betsy, let me start with you. i mentioned the trump tower meeting. what we learned from the memo, versus what we heard from representatives of the president over the last many minuonths. how important is that when you look at the memo, all that's in there, that particular piece of information? >> it's important because it speaks to the credibility of jay sekulow, the longest serving member of the president's personal legal team, he's outlasted ty cobb, outlasted tom dowd. the fact that he was willing to go on tv and say one thing, to claim publicly that the president had nothing to do with the drafting of that misleading statement that went to "the new york times," but at the same time prior to having made those public tv statements, he specifically signed a litter saying that, no, actually the president was involved in drafting the statement. thatspokeperson to the presiden. what other things has

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

jeff bennett is live at the white house. also with us is msnbc terrorism analyst malcolm nants. malcolm, you're a military man from a military family. you're taught to sit up straight and listen to your commander in chief. this is something entirely different. >> it absolutely is. and in my family, we were taught to sit up and pay attention and salute the flag so that other americans could have the freedom and liberty to do as they please. however, that being said, anyone who is in the service of this nation, particularly the president of the united states must not only understand that. they must execute that faithfully for the other citizens of the united states. i don't believe that donald trump understands what his role is. he sees that sitting with a murderous, brutal dictator is the equivalent of bringing that dictator to our way of thinking. that's not true. it's the other way around. we are seeing him emulate and show envy of that dictator at the time that he should be showing decorum and honor. >> jeff, one of the things that the president said this morning is that what

want t house, geoff bennett is moneyer toing for reaction there. jeff has anyone commented on this thing? this is a white house that has ied very hard to keep the message on north korea and the successes argued there. but the bottom line is they had a message to put out there and this takes them off track. >>ert that. first, michael cohen, the president is silent so far at least on twitter. the white house isn't commenting. officials previously tried to create distance between cohen and the president for all of the obvious reasons. look, in the paz past president trump signalled that he underseriousness o cohen's legal exposure. you remember the in april, the president cabinet room surrounded by his military generals was asked about the raids on cohen's properties athe time. the president described that as an attack on the nation, said it was a disgraceful situation. so there is that. e other we are tracking here at the white house today of co is rea. the president trying to sell this agreement to the public to a skeptical congress. you heard the presid

geoff bennett at the white house, thank you very much. >> reporter: sure. >>> attorney general jeff sessions' own church is accusing him of child abuse for spearh d spearheading this policy. bringing church law charges, accusing sessions of child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination and, quote, disemnation of doctrines contrary to the standards of the methodist church. as members of the united methodist church we teeply hope for a reconciling process that will help this long-time member of our connection step back from his harmful actions and work to repair the damage he is currently causing to immigrants, particularly children and families. sessions is also criticized for using a bible verse, romans 13, for the separation. so far, sessions and the justice department have not responded to the complaint. >>> demanding action. republicans and democrats in congress are calling on jeff sessions to put an immediate stop to what the white house calls inhumane and unamerican separation of families at the border so they can work on a legislative fix. i'll ask chris van hollen if he has signed on