>> john huntsman will be in the room for half the summit. he actually was very careful, he said don't call it a 1usummit, because they're trying to downplay that. he said there's no preset agenda, it's just time for a detailed conversation., okaynd i tink that's -- what cheuldn't confirm was weather the russian meddling and what happened, he couldn't say that, he didn't say definitively if putin would look the other way in crimea, he ddn't see definitively what would happen in syria. d in the kim jong-un summit, nobody knew what he was going to offer canceling military operations with south korea. sogo nobody knows what'sg to happen until it happens. >> the president has been tweeting this morning and he's been critical of thebaa administration, and he's going to ask to expedite getting these individuals. individuals. >> the first time he was askex@k when streaming... gaming... and watching turns into waiting... you know you need fios. the 100% fiber optic network so you get more speed for more devices at once. and now's a great time to swit

>>reporter: john bolton, john huntsman. he was an ambassador to singapore back when he was in his mid-30s so he is well steeped in diplomacy and can give the president a real perspective on how to deal with a character like vladimir putin. chief of staff kelly also involved in the conversations. the president likes to say he's spent his entire life preparing for conversations like this but he will need every piece of dealmaking talent to do something with vladimir putin because we know this guy's history. and while they have met before, he is looking for something here and he believes that he holds a lot of the cards in this deal so we'll see where it goes. >> you mention the fact he's met before and that is the case, twice and they've had numerous phone conversations. eight, as many as maybe 10. do you get a sense of how the president sizes him up? >>reporter: as john bolton said, no one in the white house is overburdened by nacvetc. they know who vladimir putin is. they know his history. they know how he operates. how he

for those tuning into the transit and a very important interview chris wallace has with john huntsman, that will air later. we will join "fox news sunday" in progress. meantime, it's 9:10 p.m. in helsinki and watching the president's motorcade head out from the airport to the president hotel. john roberts with us on the ground in helsinki. thank you very much. great reporting from john. and he will be on staff starting early tomorrow morning as things begin. it will be the press conference that john talked about, beginning at 9:30 a.m. eastern tomorrow morning. by the time folks wake up, much will have already happened. >> thanks for joining us and covers throughout the night and early morning hours of the helsinki summit. "fox news sunday" continues now. >>chris: i mentioned the - - these sanctions are not going to disappear until there is movement in terms of settling out these ongoing issues with you say another thing the u.s. needs to do at the summit generally is to hold us accountable for its meddling in the 2016 election. as you well know, the justice department announced a new

as we're waiting to see the president and first lady, ambassador john huntsman earlier was kind of not using that term, saying that it's not a summit in the sense that there's going to be an official dinner, that there's not -- there really hasn't been a lot of lead-up. there's not already an agenda on the table. nothing is going to be signed. and the president had seemed to be kind of down playing this. are they referring to it as a summit? >> anderson, that's what's an interesting thing. i guess it depends on what your definition of summit is. the president said in that message this afternoon as he was flying on social media on twitter, he did call it a summit. it's been called a summit throughout. in a briefing with reporters about a week or so ago, the white house called it a summit. the difference here is this. ambassador huntsman was saying there's not going to be a signed statement coming out of this summit, a signed mutual agreement between russia and the u.s. but the down playing of this importance of the summit is actually pretty interesting because the reality here is, ander

. >> but john huntsman, u.s. ambassador to russia, is taking sides with the u.s. intelligence community on election meddling. >> we have an election coming up in november, and if there is meddling in the election this november like we saw in 2016, we're not going to have much of a relationship left. >> and democrats on capitol hill remain skeptical that president trump will even address the matter. here's what senator mark warner said in an interview earlier. >> i would feel a lot better if ambassador huntsman, who i have a lot of confidence in, was actually sitting in on the meeting. i'm very concerned about a one-on-one meeting between vladimir putin and donald trump. we know that trump doesn't do a lot of prep work for these meetings. he kind of goes in and wings it. we saw when he did that with kim jong-un. he ended up saying everything is okay with north korea, and frankly, we found since that time that's not the case. >> here with us now to help set the stage for tomorrow's summit, we go to helsinki. that is where we have chief correspondent bill neely and j

s hotel a number of staffers, the us ambassador to russia, john huntsman and the chief of staff giving a thumbs up as if they're going into these meetings optimistic. we will see the pres. and first lady emerge in a moment, a high-stakes summit getting together with vladimir putin for the first one on one. and other summits in recent months over the first year and a half of his presidency and a lot of international travel. you see the first lady on one side of the vehicle and the president of the united states, donald trump entering the official residence of the finish president. see if we hear anything from the president. his staff was in the hotel waiting for the president's motorcade to get going. after this breakfast with the finish president, there we go, let's listen in. >> you are hearing a little bit of natural sounds, the two presidents greeting each other, mostly a diplomatic nicety. let's kick things off right, not the major business at hand. a few hours from now donald trump sits down with the russian president, 90 minutes in the presidential palace behind me. that is the p

i will throw john huntsman in there, these are serious people who i don't understand at what point doeach a breaking point. these are not people who need these jobs or have been made by donald trump so they owe him a loyalty. >> the only explanation i have, these people are patriots and they think that if they were to leave the country could be further in trouble. they stay despite the humiliation and the embarrassment that they get. >> that is the core of public service because you are not supposed to serve the president. you serve the united states of america. i completely agree the idea that you are being ham strung in your position. it's not just shock and awe. i think you saw what it is like every time the president tweets. everyone's reaction is the same of okay. i think when that happens it's not just about an ego boost. it is about your main job is to inform the president and he won't ask for a suggestion of what to do let alone listen to it. if you are wondering why there is back and forth between the lawyers and personal attorneys and the mueller probe, do you want that surp

i'm told this will b a slightly -- and the ambassador of moscow, john huntsman. there's little sense that we'll know what's going on directly between putin and trump or why year one of them wanted to have a sum. trump said today, well, this may be the easiest meeting of all. >> yeah, he has said that before. it's interesting, if he's going to have that expand meeting like you said, why the meeting for just them. steve, i think that's a real good question. >> don, first of all i've got to echo everything that susan said. this whole idea about meeting individually with vladimir putin, not a good idea, just common sense. i wouldn't advise you or anybody to sit down personally and private with vladimir putin, it doesn't end well. it's just not a good idea. the bigger political question is, why hasn't somebody told trump, if you meet with him alone it's going to exacerbate the issue with your allies of the united states and every where. it leads the impression, there's some sort of secret agenda. everybody on the right's going to say, well we know what that secret age

john huntsman, the u.s. ambassador to russia says the two of them sitting down and talking will be a good thing. listen here. >> the purpose is to reduce tension in the bilateral relationship. the president has been remarkably consistent from the campaign through two when he was elected picture to the instructions he gave me when i came out. we need to reduce the tension in the relationship. we need to take the danger out of a bilateral relationship. a relationship that contains 90 percent of the worlds nuclear weapons. >> we will get a chance to ask the president and president putin about all of this because they'll be holding a joint press conference tomorrow morning. 930 eastern time. i am surprised to say the least that the two leaders decided to do this. the questions they will face tomorrow, will define the word, uncomfortable. >> that is to be expected. the president i think is facing criticism, for this interview. >> when he was at the summit in brussels he came right out and he hit german chancellor

john huntsman, u.s. ambassador, to moscow, here in helsinki earlier today.sunday", chris wallace asked him about the hint at one point, as to whether or not crimea will be accepted for the russians to keep for good. there is the exchange. >> can you are sure our viewers, can you assure the american people that the president will not recognize russia's annexation of crimea that he will not pull u.s. troops out of syria and he will do nothing in the meeting to weaken the nato defense alliance? >> the president is the chief negotiator, not me. he is a good sense of what the issues are pretty good sense of where he wants to go. he wants to improve this bilateral relationship and he wants to find ourselves on the same page and some of these common interest areas. >> how about the common interest areas, sir? >> well, i think the ambassador is good at understanding that he is probably not going to build to protect what transfer will say in the meeting. -- predict what trump will stay in the bp but we cannot accept crimea as part of russia. because they have to acce

ambassador to russia, john huntsman, someone in a meeting like that to make notes and to be able to brief the national security community afterwards. but the president decided he only wanted a translator there. >> this is absolutely unheard of. in terms of the presidency. and our foreign policy. to have the president of the united states sit down virtually in secret with our prime minister adversary, russia and putin, not have anybody else in the room except interpreters, and furthermore, then not come out and really brief the american people and the world as to what was discussed in that meeting. so now we're getting different interpretations, putin, is describing what they agreed to, what they talked about at the same time, this president has really not presented any kind of summary as to what he discussed behind closed doors. that puts the united states at a terrible disadvantage in terms of the relationship, not only with russia, but with the rest of the world. i think the rest of the world is growing increasingly distrustful of this president and what he's up to. and that means that

pompeo, the chief of staff john kelly at the white house, john bolton, national security adviser, john huntsman, u.s. ambassador to russia and others. it seems we are getting closer to this president conference getting started. >> we will let you take your seat. there's stephen miller as well. we haven't seen something like that for some time. there's sarah sanders. we don't know who that person was who had that. >> that's sergei lavrov there. >> if that's accurate, for all we know that could have been a question. we just don't know. it sounds pretty innocuous, what about the nuclear test ban treaty? that's one of the things we understand is under discussion today. that's just talking now from far across the river, just in front, not being in the room. >> hard to know what the person was holding up the sign. we don't know. obviously, the -- it looks like this is about to take place. the principals are now on hand. >> we are seeing the kremlin spokesman. >> wasn't he inside the lunch? >> he was in the lunch. i don't believe he was originally scheduled to be there. originally, it was three on eac

our ambassador, john huntsman. trying to get members of congress to come over to enter into direct discussions. no way to deliver a dove message. than deliver it in person. the russians need know that we take seriously their interference in the election. we believe they did it. we believe they had evidence that they did. we deliver that message clearly. talked about syria, ukraine, and, nuclear weapons and the whole range of issues. but probably, the most of the time. a lot of the time. i would say, of the many hours that we spent in discussions. dealt with the issue. >> they claimed on russian tv they could easily hack night. what's your reaction to that? >> well, i mean -- at the request of the embassy. i did an interview with the russian media outlet. and, a question was posed about why we carried burner phones. when we traveled to russia. and they said why can't we cooperate bertter on cyberissue. we can cooperate better when you quit messing in our elections. obviously when we travel there, we know the russian

ambassador john huntsman and secretary kelly and john bolton, steven miller, bill shine.t press secretary and others as they file into the room. sergei lafsh -- lavrov, you will see him, one of the leading spokes people and negotiators on behalf of the russian government and vladimir putin. so here we are, sandra, as we are about to get underway with the two leaders about to enter the room. >> sandra: and the president saying our two countries, frankly, we have not been getting along well. i really think the world wants us to get along, bill. and putin for his part says the two remain in regular contact. they talk about phone. they've met at several international events. and speaking through his translator, the russian president said the time has come to have a thorough discussion on various international problems and sensitive issues. the two world leaders making indications they were going to have some big talks today and surely they did. and here they are. let's listen to the president of the united states and the president of russia, vladimir putin. >> thank you so mu

ambassador john huntsman, u.s. d at the very end, john bolton, national security adviser. vladimir putin opposite the president. they have finished their private meeting, just the two men and their translators. they are now in a working lunch in which they will try to fit everything they talked about in private within the confines of the two countries' policies. the president just said to reporte reporters, i think it is a good start, a very good start. >> we figured it would be something optimistic coming out in the very beginning, and a very good start sounds like a veg. >>> welcome back to "cbs this morning." here are three things you should know this morning. u.s. and korean officials are meeting today to continue talks about repate rariating the rema of u.s. soldiers. mike pompeo said they will continue the search of the 5,000 americans still missing. >>> a deadly wildfire is threatening yosemite national park this morning. the ferguson fire has incinerated more than 3300 acres since friday and is only 2% conta

john kelly. white house chief of staff. and jon huntsman. john bolton.mir putin flanked by his aides as well. waiting for the pool here to assemble. does not appear the leaders will take questions right now. they'll be sitting with their delegations here and coming back for a press conference we expect in about 90 minutes. for now, i'm george stephanopoulos in helsinki. >> this has been a scial rt from abc news. >> good morning, bay area. let's get up and get going. >> this is "abc 7 mornings." >> and right now at 6:30 more on the helsinki summit. president trump wrapping up that meeting with russian president putin. the two expected to hold the joint news conference and we will bring it to you when it starts. >> the battle over straws in san francisco, city leaders will push for a ban today but some local activists are saying not so fast. >> the dream job for all of us that are sleep deprived. how you can get paid to sleep. >> looks >> got to be a catch. >> you can see drew and jessica are here. >> we're tracking the great start, beautiful shot of the s

john. and now, ambassador huntsman is being asked to resign and you work for a pawn and not a president. time to come home. and his daughter is a anchor on "fox and friends" on the weekend and severely criticized what the president did yesterday. should there be resignations? >> there should be. i mean, the president of the united states should resign frankly, and beyond our own am bas dor, but the reality is that we may see some at the national security level and career and diplomatic corps who can not accept nor continue to further this president's ad jen dand the president who stood on foreign soil and made us less safe and less secure nation. k katy, this was either done out of deliberation in which case the president of the united states knew that he was embracing interests adverse to our security, or he is unfit. if you are a national intelligence agent, you wonder if you can wake up and go to work under this president. >> and cornell, good to have the resignations from the national security apparatus, and career people there who know what they are doing? >> well, you know, the pro

ambassador to russia john huntsman say that. senior administration official assert that.e u.s. president to go with really no idea of what the commitment is going to be or what you want to achieve. just to have a chat. you legitimize vladimir putin by doing that. prior presidents only to big summits when there is something agreed to beforehand not just to have a social call. i think putin is a cany operator and knows what he wants. he has been in power 18 years. wasn't to remain in power and wants to sucker the united states into helping him maintain that power and to extend russia's power reach throughout the middle east. so i think there are a lot of pitfalls here the president could fall into. i know he is being well prepared by bolton and pompeo but i am concerned about the language that the administration is using prior to the summit. >> bill: we'll watch it carefully and we'll be in finland on monday. >> sandra: high-level talks between two world leaders about the situation in syria. what we can expect from the face-to-face between the israeli prime minister and the

ambassador john huntsman, chief of staff general kelly, they are all there.ah palin -- i'm sorry, sarah sanders was there. bill shine was there. they all walked in, i presume that the russian delegation will follow. liz: one issue that will likely come up too whether or not the president draws back sanctions of companies in russia, now under u.s. sanction launched in 2014 after the russia stepped into crimea and ukraine, that will be the big elephant in the room. stuart: one of them. liz: what the president will do about sanctions. it's hurting russian economy, now growing less than 2% annually. stuart: that's what they want to give. liz: nobody wants them to do that. stuart: here they are, we will watch all the way through. >> thank you so much. start working, i guess. distinguished, mr. president, ladies and gentlemen, negotiations with the president of the united states donald trump took place in frank and businesslike sphere, i think we can call it a success. we analyze the current status, the presence and future of russia key issues of global agenda. qui

the president is firm, i mean, in fact, i felt that it was good that he had secretary pompeo, john huntsmang people to be there. what i don't want the president to make concessions on sanctions, on nato exercises, you know, putin is going to want some of those nato exercises deceased and i worry about the president, i think the summit with kim jong un was a positive step, but at the same time i did not like that concession on allowing exercises between the united states and south korea to be canceled. maria: mary kissel weigh in. >> i seem to recall that you were a big fan of appeasement with north korea in prior administrations, that didn't turn out very well, what lessons have you learned from that experience and how do you apply that to this meeting with putin? >> well, i never was for appeasement. what i did with north korea was get american soldiers out, get american prisoners out, look, i think the summit with kim jong un was the right step because negotiating with north korea from the bottom up didn't work, i admit that, so you take a gamble with the president going from the top to t

pompeo, chief of staff john kelly and the president there as well as john bolton and you see the u.s. ambassador to russia jon huntsman sitting next to john bolton across from vladimir putin and the putin staff as well. these are the larger bilateral meetings that have i guess taking place. i'm assuming now control room, correct me if i'm wrong, this is live, is that right? so we can now assume that the one on one meetings, david, have ceased. they went on for more than two hours. these are the larger group meetings -- >> how important are the breakout meetings like this. >> they are important in one sense. they won't probably won't further deepen the conversation very much. but they will pick up on what was said in there. they'll learn more about what each person is coming from. there's been a real issue if you've only got two people in there talking to each other and two principals and two interpreters, no notes kept. nobody -- thousand do we know what actually was said, what they were communicating. it's really striking to me in the opening statement that putin made that -- and the translation of it, there were at

national security advisor john bolton and jon huntsman, the u.s. ambassador to russia, as well as on the russian side sergei lavrov, the russian foreign minister, and then a press conference at 9:30 eastern time. it's interesting that there is no formal agenda, but really, you know, what is to be discussed is all out there. it's all about war, if you like. it's about syria. it's about the invasion of ukraine. it's about the annexation of crimea. it's about nuclear weapons, arms control, how to stop a nuclear war, how to mend fences and relations between the united states and russia, which are almost an all-time low. remember, this is the first summit between the presidents of the two countries in eight years. in one respect, you know, vladimir putin has already won. he was sanctioned. he was isolated. he has wanted this meeting for the last 18 months. he is now getting it, and that will begin his partial rehabilitation. he will sit down one-on-one with the most powerful man in the world, donald trump, and he will be treated as an equal. so much lik

one bilateral, and expanded bilateral in which advisers including translators and ambassador huntsman, johne how they elaborate when they take the microphone in a few minutes. >>> dow is down nine points. let's get to rick santelli for the santelli exchange. >> good morning. i would like to welcome professor charles libson you were telling me some of your observations from israel today with goings on in helsinki, what do you think it will accomplish, and will part of it be with regard to germany, nato, energy, how do we put this all together. >> first thing is the russians are not going to back away from the pipeline of germany. they're not backing away from that we can put pressure on the inju germans, there's nothing the ri russians will do we want their help keeping the iranians -- >> i guess my question to you, it seems to be the most low-hanging fruit actually because maybe you could get mr. putin to at least acknowledge this is a major irritant and something needs to be done. >> right i think the way you do that is you say if there's more hacking, and apparently this year there's been

john,nk you. joining me now, the u.s. ambassador to russia, jon huntsman.mba mb>> apleadoassure tsao be with. >> chris: itaant tort with president trump's comments t ummimitco this week in helsinki. he he is. he te u.k.n rmoil, and isoewt have b e uldit of them all, who wo >> chris ambassador, do you for the president's meeting with putin as the easiest he has this week? aassador huntsman: i would say the president isur ec e pncersiiedent iedn recent ye. putiexperisienced nmiegotiator. ig otith h ipproh ase all of his subject thinking in terms ryh veintelligence operation. tr experienced and wise t the world. for theth president, challenges are certainly there, but i think he is genuinely looking forward to sitting across the table and trying to lashhellective bloode charts hi. ot good for the united states and is not goodrhr : t rea tson i ask is that you briefedbe the media re the president left forro pe and here is some of what "the ball really is in russia's court on the president will continue to hold russia accountable for its malign activities" burie

the president will go into the meeting with putin tomorrow after being briefed by john bolton on many occasions. jon huntsmanr people come in with the attitude of look come a very strong nato is witnessed by the summit declaration last week. we've got sanctions on you. we know what you're up to. we just had the indictment of 12 russian agents in the election meddling investigation. it is time for you to start playing ball with us. you have a better chance of a good relationship in getting some of the things you want then you do if you fight against us. jon huntsman said opening a line of communication coming in outcome and i down the tension is at the meeting is all about. survey live frog said establishing better lines of communication is a real goal. president trump said russia is the numbers vary, but better get along with russia than not get along with russia. >> you certainly do get the sense that the president is at least setting up the idea that it is better to get along and that's what we want to have happen. >> we had a snippet from an the president said had fairly low expectations for his meeting a

meeting begins, the staff will include jon huntsman, mike pompeo, john kelly, john bolton, fiona hill's interpreter will be there as well. we are joined by jeffrey edmonds . he is a former russian director for the national security council. through, we just ran your thoughts on that group of people? guest: it's a pretty standard team. ambassador huntsman has done a good job in balancing both the need to engage the russians and the relationship we have had. i think the national security adviser, he might have sim internal conflicts. he tends to be rather hawkish and i don't know how he feels about this. fiona hill is exceptional. she understands vladimir putin very well and understands the issues as well as anybody. was a former brooking team member. she wrote a book on food and that is one of the standard reads on understanding of. she spent a lot of energy and really understands his background, his motivations, the context in which he became president of russia. interpreter, talk about the role of the interpreter. his the summit comes from a national security background? who does the

the conversation. >> chris: senator john mccain has called with the russians did and meddling in our 2016 elections "an act of war." it wasn't? >> ambassador huntsmanit was a malign activity. an act of war? it depends on who's describing what an act of war is. i know that john mccain, somebody i have meyer and revere, somebody who has been an inspiration to me through my career on issues we disagreed on over the years, he has a very hard line towards russia and i respect that and it doesn't surprise me that he would say that. but i think what's important ios november and make sure we have the kind of dialogue, which we will begin tomorrow. >> chris: and to put them on notice? >> ambassador huntsman: to put them on notice, as we have already in our meetings at a diplomatic level. that's why tomorrow's session is going to be important. november is looming and we have to make sure we can navigate this relationship through the months ahead if we're ever going to get around to arms control, syria, dprk, ukraine and bilateral. >> chris: so how do we measure what happens tomorrow in helsinki? should we even expect any specific breakthroughs? what does suc

are looking at a major moment for figures inside this administration such as ambassador huntsman in moscow and john bolton and as well as the continued discussions that you have been having with republicans. the president outlined a warm and embrace of russia -- now you continue in this administration, you are in essence of supporting this position. it will be interesting to see who stays and who quivels. >> you are talking about fiona hill, she's a member of the national security counsel, a career person. interesting she was brought because she was not expected to be at this summit. how must someone with all of her experience with moscow be looking at this kind of dynamic. >> i can't imagine she's pleased. that's the job i had in the white house at the first year of obama administration, it was good that she's finally there. you are sitting in the room with a potted plant, you are not interacting or negotiating. whatever the prebrief they had with president trump before the press conference, that's how it works. you sit around your adviser and you say here is the question that we think you are goi

well as who is accompanying president trump, including his chief of staff general john kelly as well as ambassador jon huntsmans the u.s. ambassador to russia. as we mentioned, the politics of this back in the u.s. very much casting a shadow over this, virtually every democrat has called on president trump to cancel this meeting as a result of those indictments that were announced by deputy attorney general rod was in star and against12 russia spies, the united states and against those 12 russians. vonnie: thank you, kevin cirilli. we are waiting for the two leaders to come into the room. stay tuned to bloomberg for that joint news conference. we will bring it to you live. coming up, part of our exclusive interview with larry fink. what he thinks a trade war could hit equity markets hard. this is "bloomberg." ♪ mark: live from london, i mark barton. vonnie: in new york, i am vonnie quinn. we're keeping an eye on helsinki, finland, where on a trump and vladimir putin will be coming out to the podium. up 2.6%america beating, almost no, one of the top performers in the s&p 500. out by theged consumer unit which p

also chief of staff white house chief of staff john kelly is there and the u.s. ambassador to russia jon huntsman. this lunch is a continuation of the summit in helsinki. earlier the two presidents met just one on one and here they are with their advisors the media was led into the room for a very short period of time and then let out of the room so that the talks could continue. thank you and. oh. wait. the leaders then started talks with there but the diplomats as part of the summit program are to seal it to try and go was there for us. so that meeting lasted two times longer than originally expected and we were told we don't want to fill the first who are these thank you oh large the orders that we heard mr cummings on the phone that she was on we don't say that there was a great start to the summit. and here's a sneak peek of the preparations made for the joint lunch enjoyed by the presidents and their teams here we are in the kitchen at the presidential palace and healthy. we now expect the final news conference to take place shortly before their private meeting vladimir putin and double tru

john, thank you. >>> joining me now the u.s. ambassador to russia, jon huntsman. ambassador, welcome back to fox news sunday. >> thank you, chris, pleasure to be with you. chris: i want to start with president trump's comments coming in to the summit this week in helsinki. here he is. >> i have nato. i have the u.k. which is in somewhat turmoil and i have putin, frankly putin may be the easiest of them all, who would think. >> do you view the president's meeting with putin as the easiest he has this week? >> i would say that the president is our most experienced negotiator elected president in recent years. putin similarly is a very experienced negotiator. he's an intelligence operative. that's how he approaches all his subjects, thinking in terms of an intelligence operation. they are both very experienced and wise to the world. for the president the challenges are certainly there. but i think he's genuinely looking forward to sitting across the table and trying to reduce the tension in a relationship where our collective blood pressure is off the charts high. an

jon huntsman, the ambassador, john bolton the advisor, have no idea why we are having this summit. hasn't told them. it's a secret one on one meeting. this is not a summit with deliverables. there may be vague statements, i take andrea's points. it will be totally a more fuss, unenforceable. all we no is trump is going to walk out, declare victory, some important objective has been achieved, but we will never know. in fact, the administration itself has no idea what it wants to get out of this. >> betsy woodruff, is that essentially all this is, another media show? we've seen the reports in the wake of singapore, for example, that president trump said, oh, hey, looking there were more cameras here than at the oscars, for example. is that all there that's here? >> i have no doubt that is the central idea for the coverage. it is as significant as what happens in that conversation. i think that is part of the reason the mueller indictment is such an important preface to this event. it is very much by design those were laid out at the granular level how much we know about russian hacki

i'm struck by the fact that trump's aides, jon huntsman, the ambassador, john bolton over the weekendd we don't know what's on the agenda of the summit. i'm calling it the seinfeld summit. it's a summit about nothing. the american president doesn't know what he wants to achieve. the old quote goes, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. >> yeah. which is of course the fear of so many right now as we're waiting for donald trump to arrive and meet with vladimir putin for what he calls a summit. for what the united states ambassador to russia calls a meeting. let's bring in right now u.s. senator from the state of connecticut and also member of the judiciary committee, senator blumenthal. thanks for being with us. i'm curious what your reaction is to the shocking amount of forensic evidence, the detail that actually places the proverbial gun in the hand of vladimir putin in the undermining of american democracy and what the next step should be for the united states senate, the united states house, and the united states president. >> the forensic evidence and the alle

the ambassador to russia jon huntsman is questioning why it's being called a summit at all. and national security advisor john bolton says they are not expecting any concrete deliverables. >> reporter: president putin has met with u.s. presidents in the past, in fact this meeting with trump will be his fourth u.s. president that he has met with, but this will be the first time that they have an extended one- on-one private conversation what are some of the pit falls of such a meeting? >> reporter: well, you know there is a chance that president trump could make concessions, like we saw him do with north korean leader kim jong-un. in fact, he surprised many by suspending those joint military exercises with south korea. so he could scale back nato military exercises which are designed to deter russia or loosen russian sanctions. the president's advisor says is he calling the shots and he is going to talk about whatever he wants to. and both sides have agreed that this meeting is going to be unstructured, which means some room for miscalculations, especially because putin, a former k.g.b. chief is known for his

while john bolton suggested that it was not going to have any deliverables while jon huntsman, the u.s. ambassador to russia, said to chuck todd on "meet the press" yesterday, this is not a summit, it's a conversation. the president called it a summit with a capital "s" in his tweets yesterday. so he's looking at it as a summit. that's given vladimir putin exactly what he would desire, which is a summit with an american leader who's not met with advisers in a deliberate way to come up with an agenda, to come up with deliverables, to come up with exactly what they want to come out of this meeting. >> andrea mitchell, we'll talk to you again here in a few minutes. >> and let's talk indictments, everybody. ahead of today's trump/putin summit, national security adviser john bolton said the president was not blind sided by bob mooueller's indictment of 1 russian intel officials. >> he was perfectly prepared to have it come before the meeting with putin. i would say, in fact, it strengthens his hand. it shows that the justice system, the department of justice are aware of these russian effor

huntsman and a number of others. >> in the news afternoon of fox news, you heard john roberts, the white house correspondent who with said the president threw america under the bus. there was criticism and straight news reporting for sure. you wonder if the president takes that to heart or needs a sit-down with friends to bolster his -- let's talk about "the wall street journal." journal has been critical on the president on trade and taking him to task. details from the talks in helsinki whill spill out. monday's joint conference was a personal and national embarra embarrassme embarrassment. does the president take these things to heart? >> i think he does. he takes things to heart when it comes from allies and people who have supportive of him in the past. when "the wall street journal" comes out and newt gingrich said you need to remedy this immediately. and the banner of putin dominated the summit, not trump. if he does see them, it will be bothersome. he needs to remedy those things. it is interesting to see today how the white house and trump moves to clean up the mess he made in helsinki. will he hold a press

the ambassador to russia, jon huntsman, is questioning why it's being called a summit at all, and national security adviser john bolton says they deliverables.ting any concrete >> president putin has met with u.s. presidents in the past. in fact, this meeting with trump will be his fourth u.s. president he has met with, but this will be the first time they have an extended one on one private conversation. what are some of the pitfalls of such a meeting? >> you know, there is a chance that president trump could make concessions, like we saw him do with north korean leader kim jong-un. in fact, he surprised many by suspending those joint military exercises with south korea. so he could scale back nato military exercises which are designed to deter russia or loosen russian sanctions. the president's adviser says he is calling the shot, and he is going to talk about whatever he wants to. and both ssoing om room for miscalculations, especially because putin, a former kgb chief, is known for his ability to be charming when he wants to be, and we have seen es offve work on >> going back to that interview with jeff glo

huntsman should resign. secretary of state mike pompeo was in the room with the president yesterday. john bolton was in the room with the president yesterday. nikki haley was not. normally that team would be on television this morning promoting the president's success. or if there was a misstep amid some success, they would be on tv cleaning it up. they are nowhere. do we read anything in there beyond the fact they can't support it? any indication any of them will go? >> they don't want to be in the business of amplifying this and there's not a great way to make an argument for it, so they're stuck. then you have the same question that you had earlier about republicans and bringing forth people who you may still want in the administration to guide this process. these are the people you may want there to guide this process. maybe their line is his rhetoric exists in the weird bubble outside their policy they're making so perhaps that becomes their line in the future. even though we see some outrageous stuff, which i do not advocate. like the president's words have power regardless. but it

had the baghdad to moscow, jon huntsman saying that president trump absolutely was going to call president putin to account for this. you had the national security adviser johnear ago saying that the russian hacking was akin to an act of war. where was national security adviser john bolton today? i do think there is a significant question about how do they go forward? >> let's be honest, the president around the president have no idea what the president is going to do from moment to moment. it's why you have the press secretary lying from the podium time and time again and having to backtrack saying i haven't spoken directly with the president about it. nobody around the president knows what he is going to do. they give him briefing papers. he doesn't read them. he goes with his gult it might have gotten him elected president but it embarrasses the country on the world stage. >> that's the point especially because we do tend now -- we are living in such a divisive and partisan moment in washington. i just saw somebody tweeting the only thing that matters now politically is whether republicans respond and are prepared to do something about it. let's step back

john bolton, .he national security adviser he downplayed the expectations for anything really specific to come out of this meeting which he said is unstructured. another interesting comment from jon huntsman, the ambassador to russia who said, i have heard of the talk but it is just a meeting. then president trump called it a summit. we do know, and this has been confirmed in the last hour president trump and president putin will have 90 minutes of one on one time together with only their translators present. it is something democratic lawmakers and others in the united states are fearful of their what could happen in the meeting, without that aids and national security types. and we have the expanded meeting with aids. we will hear more when president trump and president putin give a press conference. i think it will be a very interesting day. ramy: we are looking forward to see what happens with that. ros krasny, thank you. meantime tried tensions -- trade tensions for the wto are likely to top the agenda at the summit between european and chinese leaders. tom mackenzie is watching this. are we expecting any significant movement on any of these issues? tom: this year we could actually g

you have mike pompeo, john bolton, john kelly, my own dad who is a part of this jon huntsman.ou look at their careers and the expertise they are bringing into what is about to happen, all of them are about what is best for the united states. have you got to imagine the advice he is getting is the right advice. what ultimately comes out we will wait to see. obviously what's best for us. steve: mr. putin is about to come out of the airplane and come downtown stairs. ainsley, give us the logistics how this works. takes about half an hour to get to the presidential palace. then what happens once they arrive? ainsley: once they arrive at the palace they will sit down for that scheduled meeting. our president was supposed to leave his hotel at 5:40. the president has not left the residence yet. the meeting was to take place in a little more than 10 minutes. obviously, that's not going to happen. i have think this will all push it back at lease 30, 45 minutes. after that meeting together for an hour and a half, originally we were hearing they were only going to meet for 30 minutes to