back with me tim neftaly, mike shields, admiral john kirby., i know earlier you said it was awfully naive for jared kushner to embark on something like this, so david, i'm wondering, you know, your point of view. is this naÏvety or something else behind wanting and proposing this kind of private line of communication? >> look, i want to be fair. in all these stories there has been no evidence so far of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. and it's more of these actions that are -- i agree with admiral kirby. it's, you know, either naive or something more nefarious, but it's unusual. the failure to disclose these contacts, meetings with russian officials and then a separate report, reuters reported there were two additional calls between jared kushner and ambassador kislyak that the white house had not disclosed. so, they may be innocent. there may be no conclusion but the failure to disclose these calls and these meetings and communications efforts, it keeps the story rolling forward. >> and that's part of the big problem, is it no

john kirby is with us near washington.d, the chancellor is as you know campaigning for reelection right now. put her comments which were very strong into context for us. >> they certainly are very strong. they also are causing a big stir in germany as well with people openly asking what does that mean for the transatlantic alliance? what does this mean for the u.s. and germany. angela merkel is on the campaign trail. however she's also a very reserved politician. she doesn't make off the cuff remarks. she will have thought very carefully about what she was saying and also the context in which she was saying it in. and it really seems as though during the past week with president trump's visit there to europe both to brussels and to italy that certain things were said that really alienated the ge germans as far as trade is concerned. especially some of the things that he said about some of the other nato partners which is why the germans then said look, we have to take things into our own hands. i think ma merkel means that

john kirby, you saw dana bash's report about the fake russian document that fbi director at time jamesey knew he had. it clearly influenced his decision making to go public last july in that extraordinary news conference on hillary clinton e-mail server. >> i wouldn't want to get ahead of director comey and his thought process. clearly we will never know. really, if this thing leaked, what it would have done. there is no way to predict that. take a couple of steps back and think about if this reporting is true, what it means. not the threat of a leak, but just the perceived potential after leaked document that we knew was fake in advance. and what that could do to the investigation and to the election. this is the degree to which the depth to which the russians doubted the system. that's the big story. >> if that documented leaked to the public, there would have been a whole bunch of anti-hillary clinton folks conservative media others that would have believed there was some conspiracy going on between the attorney general and hillary clinton campaign to cover up any wrongdoing on her

john kirby, you're a former spokesman for the pentagon as well as the state department. the president said the meeting with the russian foreign minister in the oval office was very, very successful. he didn't go into any elaboration on the controversy that has erupted. that some classified information could have been compromised as a result whaf of what he told the foreign minister and the russian ambassador, but he did tweet this this morning. he said as president i wanted to share with russia at an openly scheduled white house meeting which i have the absolute right to do facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety, humanitarian reasons, plus i want russia to greatly step up their fight against isis and terrorism. then he tweeted a little bit later, i have been asking director comey and others from the beginning of my administration to find the leakers in the intelligence community. give us your analysis of what has unfolded now since last night when the story first broke in "the washington post." >> it seems to me like this is just you indicati justificati

john kirby and elise are still with us. john, the notion, the theory is that with this iranian fear that the saudis, egyptians, the moderate sunni arab states have, maybe you bring them into this peace process. they have a lot of money to contribute that the p palestinians, whether it the west bank and working together with isreal and the united states, you can come up with some sort of two state solution. that's the u.s. goal right now. >> yes. he's clearly trying to use iran as a unifying element. he's putting his finger on the sunni whchlt you sunni. when you put your thumb on the scale in terms of the muslim faith like that, you are making it a little bit harder to get long-term peace in the region which is what he says he wants. i also think, again, you've got to think of domestic politics and isreal don't really lend themselves to finding a so collusion to the israeli/palestinian conflict. it could take some time. but you notice what you didn't hear. you didn't hear either guy talk about the two-state solution. that's

strong words, john kirby, from -- she doesn't simply throw out words casually.etty precise. >> very measured. very deliberate. it is an extraordinary statement. her prime minister came out later and says that u.s. policies are against those of the european union. i haven't heard that rhetoric in a long time. through nato, providing a force multiplier for forces around the world and increased our national security here at home. it is extraordinary to me that our strongest ally in the continent, germany, would feel that way. >> i remember in brussels, at the end of nato summit, she had a speech which she said this is not a time to build walls, it is time to tear down walls. that's because of the mexico border wall. new president of france, emmanuel macron, called the state-run russian today and sputnik news organizations. organs of influence and prop began saturday whi propaganda while standing right next to putin. is it unusual to see someone stand up to putin in that way? not necessarily a u.s. official to stand up to putin in that way? >> understandable in the

. >>> let's bring in our specialists and john kirby, let me start with you. surprisingly we didn't hear president trump call this manchester attacker a radical islamic terrorist. he came up with a new term evil loser. what do you make of that shift? >> i don't know if it will be a long-term shift. he chose to use evil loser. think he's trying to find a word that denigrates and delegitimizes him, stock right out of a time as a ceo and reality game show host. that said, i think if you're looking for something that really can matter to these jihadis, and i'm not an expert on their lexicon you want to pick out a word like murderer. they have murdered moris lambs than any type of islam and it's against the teachings of the koran. murderer, if you're looking for another word it better than evil loser and if it works and it delegitimizes them, it will resonate with western audiences but i'm not so sure if it will resonate with jihadis. >> stunning testimony from the former cia director john brennan. this was the most explicit testimony we've heard so far from direct

joining me now, david horowitz, editor of "the times of israel," arsalon iftikar, and john kirby, cnnormer state department spokesman. john, let me begin with you, as you saw live as we did, the images of the president making that historic visit to the western wall. he's navigating quite a lot right now. >> yeah, this is a big trip, and today's certainly a very significant part of that trip. this is as tricky as it gets from a foreign policy perspective, there's no question about that. peace between the arabs and israelis, palestinians in particular, and the israelis has bedeviled countless administrations before him, so this is tough. this is really hard. and what he needs to try to do, i think, in this visit is see if there is an opening, if there is even a chance to begin to start talks again. we haven't seen much leadership on both sides of this equation in terms of being willing to stop the violence, quit the incitement, stop the building of settlements. this is a chance for him to see if this is an opening, if that is possible. >> david, you wrote about this in an opinion piece

i think one of the things you're going to see is what john kirby was talking about, a lot of the europeanountries first of all will work closely together with one another. it's an interesting thing for european cohesion. the europeans are working together a lot more closely at least the continental european ones. but you're also seeing them gravitate towards asia more, countries like germany with a big export sector and in terms of climate policy trying to deepen and forge relationships with china specifically. tomorrow you have the chinese prime minister going to berlin and having meetings with angela merkel. going to be develops very interesting what those two will be talking about, what sort of agreements they'll come to in light of some of the things merkel has been saying about the trump administration and if the president does make good on his campaign promise to get out of that captain climate agreement. >> fred pleitgen in london, amy, thanks so much. important discussion. coming up, a devastating suicide blast during morning rush hour. at least 90 people are dead. the death toll

in our cnn military analyst and retired air force colonel sed brick leighton and retired admiral john kirby. bold words from the secretary of defense. the goal to annihilate isis. this is an accelerated operation. no longer simply going to surround isis strongholds. they're going to go in there and crush them. >> yeah. this was a different approach. what he said was actually they are going to surround the strongholds and then strangle them from outside and within. in other words, not letting them escape bombings and then to live another day. that is a different tactic than what has been previously done against isis. and he also spoke about more delegation of authority. and that the president has delegated it at the appropriate level so they can move faster or a little bit more with more agility. he talked a little bit i think framed sort of what's different now than how it was done under the obama administration. >> cedric, is it going to make a difference? they've made steady progress over these last several months in this war against isis, but it's by no means over. >> that's right, wolf.

that's what needs to be cleared up, but i'm exactly where john kirby is. estigation go forward. let director mueller do his job and his team do their job and see where the chips fall. >> i want to -- can i switch gears,ed a airline kirby. i want to talk to you about this horrible terror attack in manchester that we were reporting on last night and all today on cnn. president trump responded by calling people -- the people responsible evil losers. we don't have to play it, but i just want to get -- they said it was the president's decision to use that word. >> yeah. >> what's your reaction to his choice. >> not the word that i would have used. a better word to describe these -- these people, if you're going to use a word is murderer. it's against the teachings of muslim -- of islam, it's against the koran to murder, to take a life, an innocent life and that's what they are doing and we saw that, you know, in spades here with what looks like an isis -- at least an isis-inspired attack. i would have used the word murderer, a word they don't like and i don't kn

joining me is john kirby. thanks very much.l in the relationship. i wonder, though, you've been on trips like this before. will the president and his team get a different, more critical message in private? >> i think it's possible that at lower staff levels they might hear a little bit more. i want to caveat by this by saying i don't know what the third party nation was that provided this to the white house that was divulged to the russians. it's possible that they could hear it at the lower level. i doubt seriously it would come up in face-to-face meetings with president trump and benjamin netanyahu. it probably would have already occurred by other means but i don't think it will be a major sort of issue when they sit down to talk. >> i notice with interest today, i'm sure you did as well, president vladimir putin, generously offering to provide a transcript of the meeting to help out the president. it struck me that this was state-sponsored trolg state-sponsored trolling by the russian president. >> i'm not sure whether he ta

. >> rear admiral john kirby, david rhodes, mike shields, tim neftaly, thanks to all of you. we will hear from you very soon. we have so much more straight ahead in the newsroom and it starts right now. >>> we travel the world to strengthen long-standing alliances and to form a partnership among nations devoted to the task of eradicating the terrorism that plagues our planet. >> president donald trump speaking at a military base overseas in italy before boarding air force one ending a five-nation, nine-day swing and heading home into a cloud of new reports on the russian investigation. this time, involving the president's own son-in-law. jared kushner accused of considering -- creating a secret communication back channel with the kremlin. plus -- what the first lady revealed about herself and her marriage during this trip. cnn newsroom starts now. >> all right. this is the cnn newsroom. i'm fredricka whitfield. thanks for being with me. >>> this is cnn breaking news. >> this breaking news the white house responding to an explosive new report involving the president's son-in-l

i want to go to john kirby who you of course know and our viewers know. he was the state department spokesman, also spokesman for the pentagon. john, let me give you a chance to respond here to michelle's reporting. she was the one who told two senior state department officials that a statement had come out from the secretary of state. so the state department didn't know about it. it came from the white house. how shocked are you? >> i'm stunned. i mean i think it just speak to a level of dysfunction at the state department in terms of at least the communications effort that i think is truly remarkable. i can't remember a single time -- and i worked for two secretaries of defense as well as a secretary of state where the principal, the cabinet official put out a statement, a public statement about something this big where the communications staff and the staff in general wasn't aware, wasn't tracking it, wasn't helping edit it, wasn't pushing it out. >> does it open the door to the fact of whether the secretary of state even knew? >> i think it probably --

chris cillizza and john kirby. john, from your perfective of messaging at the department of state, what do you make of this, the response from the white house and your understanding of what might have been shared and how important it is? >> i think from a messaging perspective and i think they are trying to treat this as a pr problem, which it is an intelligence problem, no question about it, and they are trying to stuff the answer into a shell that they created by the president getting this out there. i mean, you got h.r. mcmaster, secretary tillerson out there trying to put context on this, a nondenial denial and then you have the president coming out in tweets this morning and saying, hey, it is no big deal. that it is a big deal, you don't have to look further into the fact they put out their s information about it. this is in fact something major. >> all right. so the president just tweeted again. let me read this to you. we'll see if we could get it on the screen. i have been asking director comey and others f

global affairs analyst, david row and diplomatic analyst, john kirby. good evening to all of you gentleman. what are you hearing from your sources tonight about this bombshell report? >> from myself and jake tapper, two former officials knowledgeable say that president did share classified information with the russian foreign minister, the russian ambassador. the information did not directly reveal the source of the intelligence. but intelligence officials tell cnn there is concern that russia will be able to figure out that highly sensitive source. there is some disagreement as to how far the president went. this intelligence relates to what is known as special access programs or s.a.p. which cover some of the most highly classified information and is protected with unique access and security protocols. as you know, don, with intelligence often there are different views, different analysis. and what we're told is that some are more concerned about the degree the president went with this information than others. but the concern remains, did he go far en

. >> out front, john kirby, jewel yacht kai yam, rick santorum, and mark preston, our senior politicalst. senator santorum, the former cia director using the word "treeson" to describe the bra broad situation. what do you say? >> i think he's said those who go on a treesonist's path. i think he's made it clear that he wasn't accusing the trump campaign, he saw no record of collusion and that's what the white house was responding to. the fact that the russians have reached out to the trump campaign, tried to recruit people, that is new news. although i'm not sure it's great news -- it's unusual. i think the russians for a long time have been trying to influence elections and wouldn't be surprised if they've tried to recruit all kinds of people in the past. >> he did say it was enough to go to the fbi and say that investigation should be started. >> agreed. and look -- >> which doesn't happen with other campaigns -- other candidates' name. >> i'm not saying that there isn't evidence to be investigated and there should be an investigation, but i don't think we need at this point as the di

. >> i'm going to bring in john kirby. when he was asked about the word honored, why would he be honored to talk with him. sean spicer said, look, it would be diplomatic piece to this. what would the diplomatic piece to this be. >> maybe he's sending a message to the president of china that he needs to be aggressive in terms of what they are trying to get done. i frankly don't think there was a lot of craft put into this. i think he just said it. i don't think he could explain why he said it. it was an inappropriate use of the word honored. here's a man racing towards nuclear weaponry to challenge the existence of not only south korea but partners rejob. so using honor is inappropriate in that regard. >> there is no current diplomatic pieeace. >> am i mistaken to say that. but what do you make of this statement that this invitation tr a visit to the president of the philippines who does not have a good human rights record to say the least he's killed thousands of people. i'm going to get your reaction on the other end. let

talking to john kirby, spokesperson for state and defense, he was trying to not entirely calling out rex tillerson because he said things happen quickly and you just have to hustle and have the meeting and roll, do you think -- how much fault do you put on the secretary of state not having the american res there? >> i think it may be because they are new. maybe because many of the people have come from business where it's a different mentality. you're almost trying to do things privately. i think it's very important that high officials of the world's most important democracy are always open to the press because by being open to the press, it's important to understand they are being open to the american public. the point here is not that it the press hz some kind of privileged role. the point is that the press transmits the dealings to the american public and we believe in that because we believe in democracy. >> we should be there. even if it's quick. thank you very much. good to see you as always. more breaking news. the president fired national security adviser says he will plead t

so let's discuss with cnn military and diplomatic analyst admiral john kirby.kesperson for both the state and defense departments during the obama administration. and cnn politics reporter ed tor at large. let me begin with a little sound from mr. trump during the campaign trail. roll it. >> people taking the fifth amendment. four people plus the guy illegally did the server. >> that was september. is this another case of the president's past tweets or remarks on the trail? >> it is. he says and does many things that he then says and does the exact opposite and has little price to be paid. but when you say things like that, i think donald trump is channel iling what the bulk of e public thinks about when someone pleads the fifth. obviously, local reasons to do so of what most peel are pleading the fifth. for donald trump, no direct issue here with flynn. though what flynn knew when e he knew it, what donald trump knew about michael flynn, remember this is one of the first guys donald trump hired. this is one of his closest al allies. this is a guy on november 1

joined by retired admiral john kirby and elise. ked both of you last week before the trip started to give me thoughts on what you thought were the biggest challenges facing the president. john, you told us staying strategic, staying on message and staying engaged were big challenges. >> he had a strong -- he was able to stay out of the details on the peace process. but the unifying message came by villifying iran. right when they were reelecting a moderate president. the way he has couched terrorism, no talk about the social economic and political factors that go into radicalization. so i think he's mixed there. on message, yes, he was very disciplined. i think he gets an "a" for staying on message. i would have liked to see him do a press conference. yes, there's risk but i think that would have been useful. then staying engaged, i go back to what i said earlier. i think he fell flat. he had a chance in brussels to show american commitment and leadership and he didn't do that. he complained and nagged about defense spending. it was

joining us now cnn military and analyst, retired admiral john kirby and am bass sor dnicholas burns.tlemen, thank you. perfect guests for this. you can call them advisors, you know, support, whatever. we're thinking about putting more boots on the ground. we all know in this discussion that means they're going to be in harm's way. they're going to be part of the fight. do you think this is a moment for the u.s. to reconsider the decision to get more involved and put more people at risk in afghanistan? >> yeah. i think this actually does underscore the importance of what's going on in afghanistan and the need to continue to support the resolute support mission, which by the way is also a nato mission as well. so i don't know that this attack itself is going to or should actually lead to specific decisions in terms of troop numbers, but it certainly underscores the importance of the continuing mission to continue to advice, train and assist afghan national security forces. you might have seen chris in the press conference this morning. they praised the afghan national security forces a

this, cnn military and diplomatic analyst and former state department spokesperson, rear admiral john kirby when i'm building you up, kirby. it takes away from the whole heft of the moment. >> made my day, made my day. >> tell us, when you look at this trip, just from the onset, give us a good plus-minus here in terms of the potential advantages here and the concerns. >> look, i think it's very commendable and laudible, in fact, that he's going to rijad for his first part of the trip. it shows where he wants to place his priorities and gives him the opportunity to delve into and develop, at least articulate, a long-term strategy for the mideast and get through the shia shif s shia-sunni challenges that are there. i think he has some opportunities. he also has some great strategic opportunities when he goes to europe, because you have now countries that are shaken a little bit with his comments on nato and the development of multilateral institutions, those same institutions that have secured european safety and security for 18 years. he has an opportunity to shore that up. i hope he takes i

especially in public, john kirby. this has enormous potential impact. >> yeah.his story isn't going anywhere. now spicer has the ultimate excuse. hey, talk to the president's lawyer. i'm not a hundred percent positive but i'm betting that the lawyer is not talking much either. so the press is going to have nowhere to go but these hearings and testimony. they won't get answers from the white house. this story will continue to fester. can i say, you have to do violence to the english language it call jim comey a show boat. he has been nothing but straight-laced. i think everyone will be very much interested in what he has to say. >> i actually disagree. >> yeah. >> that jim comey is not a show boat. jim comey -- >> i do too. >> has shown a great thirst for the lime light for a public official during his career. his performance in terms of the hillary clinton investigation, you know, violating justice department pro calls protocols l attention to himself and the investigation. i think the president may be on to something in the accusation that jim comey is a show b

let's bring in analyst and retired admiral john kirby and journal affairs columnist.ted states donald trump told the crowd we will not lecture you. then in europe, filled with the room of america's closest allies, elect the lectured them. >> 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be paying for defense. this is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the united states. >> all right. that may be an important message to get more nato contributions from the nations. tony, what about the difference in the messages? saudi arabia telling them we will not lecture you and in europe with the closest allies, a scolding really. >> the difference is stark. what it comes down to can nato, it is counter productive. we want our allies to do more. since the summit, they have done more. they stopped decline in defense spending. it is slowly rising. the problem when this president lu lectures them in a sense their home, it is counter productive. he is not popular with european publics. the more he presses in the way, the

fwlor ya borger, david chal lan, laura coats, a former federal prosecutor and john kirby, our c cnn military and senior analyst and the pentagon. laura, it sounds like a threat the president tweeted directly to the former fbi director and people are already raising concerns about obstruction of justice, witness tampering. >> it is. it presumes a couple of things before i can get quite to the criminal description or definition of a threat. he said he's better not do this. statemented would be districtly contra directly to what trump said. legally it hasn't yet risen to the level of an actual climb, but in terms of obstruction, listen. we know that congress wants to hear from james comey even as a private citizen. therefore your statement to threaten somebody to with hold information from an actual hearing could be intimidation if not a threat. >> he has not to hide. if they were taped, he's fine, because he believes he did what he was supposed to do. >> think ho dump. fine, let her talk. it double matter to us. powe har opposite of what's happening with comey, which means they're trying to be

>> i'm curious, john kirby, you worked at the state department, pentagon, diplomatic back channels havehe obama administration wanted to have a nuclear deal with iran there was a very secret back channel. talks with iranians, world's number one leading state sponsor of terrorism that obama administration authorized through oman. that's where they were having a -- that was top secret. did you know about that back channel? >> i did not know about it. and that's fine with me. >> we're talking about the sitting administration. yes, back channels have a purpose. and yes it's been done before. by the sitting administration. what is hard to understand is why would an incoming administration with access to whatever information they wanted from national security council, pentagon, state department, at a moment's notice with all of the support they need, why do they need a back channel? unless they were doing something to undermine the obama administration. we have one president at a time. >> and there's a difference between a back channel, gloria, as you well know, and then establishing communic

jeffrey toobin joins us, kirsten powers, paul begala, allen de dershowitz and john kirby.dmiral, how big of a deal is it for the attorney general not to have included the russians and others? if it was just the russians, i would see that being a bigger problem than the idea of him just not including anyone, thinking according to him that he didn't have to. >> i agree with you on that. in the context of everything that was going on over the course of the summer and through the election season, to not list them, to not put them on there, i do think that's significant. i think that was a mistake, he should have put them on there. that said, and you probably just saw the justice department just put out a statement saying that he specifically was advised not only by his own staff, but by the fbi investigator that was doing this -- helping him fill out this form that he didn't need to list every contact he had in the business of being a senator. i also don't think there was any maliciousness here or intent to conceal. i think the staff was just trying to churn through a very cum

joining us is retired navy rear admiral john kirby who had an up close view as a naval officer.th us one of president reagan's lieutenants if not admirals, jeffrey lord is joining us. admiral kirby, there's two issues here. and they shouldn't be conflated. one is u.s. intelligence sources or law enforcement sources or somebody leaking information about the manchester investigation. then there's the president disclosing information to the russians in the oval office. >> you are right. those are two separate types of leaks of information. i'm not saying that either one is a good thing. we do need to make sure we keep them separate. you have some -- i would suspect lower level law enforcement officials putting out information to the press about this ongoing investigation which could put the investigation at risk. maybe even potentially put lives at risk as they are trying to prosecute the conspirators of this bombing. you have the president releasing in a very unscripted, unregulated way apparently very sensitive intelligence shared with us by another nation. then later announcing

joining us now john kirby, along with suzanne hennesy. david drucer and matt lewis.uzanne, i want to start with you because of part of your moonlighting on the blog last night, you laid out in great detail why this story is significant and i want to take off a few quick points with you. you say this is not a garden variety breach. explain. >> we always see partisan bickers after breaches of classified information. this is really something different. this is about sources and methods in government. these are things that could compromise the ability to gather intelligence moving forward. it appears this is not our own sources but that of a foreign ally. that could have cascading national security conferences. >> the white house said they did not share sources of methods, but they are accused of sharing what could lead to that. >> certainly, there is an optics concern. there is also a question about the specific intelligence. to the earlier reporting out of the washington post, u.s. intelligence officials were actually concerned that this was the type of intelligence or

cnn and diplomatic analyst john kirby, a former state department spokesman at the pentagon, as well. evan perez, first to you, manu was saying that democratic senators intend to push the fbi director on the subject of hillary clinton's e-mails and the investigation into such. your reporting is that james comey is actually pretty excited to talk about this today. >> a little too far there, john, but i think he is pretty anxious to try to get some of the stuff off his chest. he believes that a lot of people misunderstand what happened last year. obviously, the democrats and hillary clinton believed he cost her the election, but he believes that it's perhaps a bit more complicated simply because he believes he had to tell congress that there were new e-mails found and that the fbi was taking a new look at those e-mails just a few days before the election. he assumeded that she was going to win. everyone assumed that she was going to win, and he felt that the fbi would come under tremendous, tremendous criticism if that came out after the election and after she had won. obviously, things

intelligence and security analyst, former cia operative, and cnn military and diplomatic analyst john kirby, a former spokesman for the state department. admiral, i want to start with you, because what the white house is telling our jim sciutto is that they called around after this meeting to check on how classified the information was. how sensitive the information was that the president shared. and the white house says that no one expressed any kind of alarm, no one at that meeting, including general mcmaster, who says he was there last night, expressed any kind of alarm. so, they don't see a problem, according to the white house. >> well, somebody must have been alarmed enough, john, to make a call to the intelligence community to find out the level of classification of what they said, and it must have tipped somebody off, because they wouldn't have made that call in the first place. i also think it's important to remember that according to reporting, anyway, that it was a good back-and-forth between the white house and the wi"washingt post" before that story was posted last night, so no

here with us is retired admiral john kirby, our cnn military and diplomatic analyst. let meet be precise, read the exact quote of what the president told bloomberg news. if it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, i would absolutely. i would be honored to do it. if it's under the, again, under the right circumstances, but i would do that. and then he said, most political people would never say that, but i'm telling you that under the right circumstances i would meet with him. we have breaking news. that's the president of the united states. >> well, he was right about that, wasn't he? >> he certainly is. >> i'm stunned by the word honored. this is a brutal dictator who is starving his own people to try to build a nuclear program to then threaten the rest of the world and region. so that stuns me a little bit. i'll tell you, though, that i think what you're going to hear from sean spicer today, he'll pivot very hard on this if the circumstances were right. i can't imagine that he's not going to constantly try to stress the fact that the president gave himself a

. >> john kirby, tony blinken, appreciate it. thank you, fellas.ks to you, our international viewers for watching. "cnn newsroom" is next. for our u.s. viewers we have a cnn exclusive. an fbi employee goes rogue and marries the isis terrorist she was meant to investigate. how did that happen? "new day" gets after it. >> the trump administration, are they on the verge of another health care defeat. >> we're getting closer and closer every day but not there yet. >> people with pre-existing conditions. >> we have one plan going through. it's getting better and better and better. >> i can't imagine what the right conditions would be for a meeting between our president and kim jong-un. >> obviously he's a smart cookie. >> the president understands and will do whatever is necessary under the right circumstances from the threat they pose. >> the white house is rolling out the red carpet for all these human rights violators. >> announcer: this is "new day" with chris cuomo and alisyn camerota. >> good morning. white house turning up pressure on house repub

we have cnn military and diplomatic analyst retired rear admiral john kirby, also with me, cnn global affairs analyst and former deputy secretary of state tony blinken. y you, john, i should mention worked at the pentagon and state department. help me talk about, really dissect these comments from president trump. he was taking these nato leaders to task, saying that -- he said 23 member nations are not paying what they should be. he was schooling them right in front of them. >> yeah. to be clear, this isn't a new message that president obama made, president bush before him, five secretaries of defense now who have made this case, but it was extraordinary to me to see him be so bellicose about this and so specific about it in what was supposed to be an opening welcoming ceremony right there at the 9/11 memorial. so, i think the setting was extraordinary and the message was perhaps i think much more stronger than the nato allies would have expected on this particular day. >> than all of us expected. and tony, i think the setting being extraordinary, as john mentioned. it was near a twi

throughout the floirt team national and steve hall with retired lieutenant jerlg u-mark hurten john kirby jim skrut p.o. and harvard law professor allen dershowitz. jim i know your communication devices have been blown up with people you've been talking to what's the reaction you're getting. >> the reaction is exasperation and dep deep concern. on a number of levels. one here because it's classified information. that's obvious. two, that the russians were the ones to receive the classified information. a prime adversary in the view of the u.s. intelligence community today. three, that it appears to relate to a sensitive intelligence sharing relationship which is very difficult to build over time there are countries you share bell with as a matter of i inss uk, france, et cetera that's natural. there are others that you don't want public because of the nature of those relationships. that country doesn't want it public that it's sharing this sensitive information with the u.s. those three things make this particularly serious. a former senior u.s. intelligence official described it to me th