those from italy, sweden, uk, canada, european parliament and poland, ukraine, the ambassador from latvia, czech republic, uk, minister from estonia and canada incredibly impressive group of legislators. so thank you all for traveling here, some from quite far away to share your knowledge and experiences. for years russia under vladimir putin has engaged in activities aimed at destabilizing democracy in europe and the united states.

nathan of canada, european parliament and poland, hannah hopko of ukraine, and ambassador calnias of latvia, czech republic, minister kate rosimona of estonia and canada. an incredibly impressive group of legislators. so thank you all for traveling here, some from quite far away to share your knowledge and experiences. for years russia under vladimir putin has engaged in activities aimed at destabilizing democracy in europe and the united states. the kremlin leverages an asymmetric arsenal that includes

unesco's intangible cultural heritage since two thousand and eight long with the song festivals in latvia and estonia choral singing as an essential part of the baltic republics identities and histories so we like to say that we sang our way to free them we had the singing revolution at the end of the eighties and that have a huge amount of songs that are about freedom that are about our identity the song festival is itself a tradition. and that focuses heavily on tradition but today's lithuania is a very modern country that draws newcomers one reason maybe the old town of vilnius lithuania is an innovator with information technology europe's largest bloc chain center opened here in twenty eighteen its engineers work on refining data encryption bilious is art scene is also fresh vibrant and confident designers like you ya knows their work a uniquely baltic touch their ideas reflect nature's influence patterns with drops of water and waves. i was traveling around baltic sea and i was trying to find out what is really baltic. and i think yes the lakes and woods it's truly baltic is. a littl

they threw a new declared itself independent of russia for the first time along with the stonier and latvia all three of them lie on the baltic sea and say gather they make up what is known as the baltic states. if you any unless the soviet union twenty eight years ago and finally became a free republic choral singing is one of the country's population dishes and they love the festivals too so what better way for the locals to celebrate this milestone in history than with a music festival of bega better than ever before. cause. you some twelve thousand people crowded onto the stage at the song festival in vilnius the massive choir struck up the lithuanian national anthem and for a few minutes the country stood still and listened. i being here in person to hear it was a special experience for many lithuanians. was everybody was very excited and i am very i think citing the five nights i am such a big test it's a big part of such a crowd of people sitting here having was moved up in just the best emotions you feel this area unity you are evil and the vibe. that's crazy it's crazy. everywhere

there's elections in latvia and sweden happening soon. what best practices are you seeing among our european allies? what tools do you think the state department can and should be using and how should we be doing as you put it everything we can to push back on likely election interference by russia to our vital allies as well as to our upcoming midterm elections? >> it's a good question. we, the united states government, i'll -- my previous organization, intelligence world, did a great deal of work with our european partners, with the german election, french election. trying to help identify threats and vectors, good, solid intelligence sharing. i think that's an underpinning so they understand the threats, sometime's america's better positioned to see them and observe them than some of the other countrys that are smaller with fewer resources and then i think it's also important and begun to do this that countries begin to share the actions that they observe, that is not only the precursors and indications and what took place, to download

that's highly relevant since in this year alone elections will occur in georgia, latvia, sweden, and brazil among several others, not to mention our own mid-term elections in november, u.s. mid-term elections. we've convened a distinguished grouch leaders to discuss long term strategies and tools that we together must use to begin to implement resilience of democratic nations to future such actions. very briefly, let me tell you what the atlantic council has done to track and expose the kremlin's influence since 2014. we've done reports like hiding in plain sight which used open source information to expose russian soldiers in ukraine's east and democratic defense against disinformation which laid out recommendations for governments platforms and civil society to fight back. the kremlin's trojan horse series exposed networks in france, germany, greece, spain, italy and uk and done transatlantic convening including last year's forum which we will host again in october of this year and then we did a berlin 360 open source summit where we brought together citizen activists and journalis

westphalia peace prize is being awarded but the first time it's going to so many people the leaders of latvia lithuania under stonier came to accept the honor but the real winners by the citizens of the baltic countries. in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine they formed a human chain stretching hundreds of kilometers to demonstrate for independence from the soviet union. after independence they went on to join the e.u. and nato today they're held up as role models for european integration germany's president praised the nations as an example of the european ethos. minds arms and only together are we strong. we need each other as partners and friends and. that is the conviction we share. and i believe our common hope remains that this won't be forgotten on the other side of the atlantic. lithuania's president said it's time for europe to be responsible for its own defense today we challenged internally and externally. we're challenged against our values ever again vendors our unity pointed words from the lithuanian leader has many questions hanging over the european project on the transatla

greece, bulgaria, finland, the latvia,ingdom, france, everywhere. we implement all of these controls of the goods coming inside the single market. we suspect the norms and standards and security protections. also, these are already implemented in belfast. for the goods coming from the rest of the united kingdom into northern ireland, from veterinary controls, animal controls, they're all .mplemented in belfast already us,hat is at stake just for protecting the integrity of the these market, implement controls somewhere. i'm not speaking of a border, i am speaking of controls. i will try within the next few re-dramatize these controls. they are safe to controls, custom checks. we will see where and when we can implement these controls, to ensure that there is a market area and is not a question of the border to be clear, i want to respect -- we want to respect the united kingdom unity, the institutional order of the united kingdom, but we have to implement controls somewhere, if there is no border area and that is a point. in any case, mrs. may recog

wildfires are raging across the baltics on parts of northern europe better known for cold weather latvia's had to evacuate a village as it struggles to stop a huge peak five months of drought a forced it to declare and national emergency and sweden is suffering its worst drought for seventy four years it needs help to prevent a bigger disaster now as more. firefighters in sweden say their battle for control is far from over remarkably nobody's been injured by the dozens of wildfires. the government's appeals for help from other countries italy france and norway have responded by sending water bombing helicopters and planes as well as emergency personnel reeling in albania that fact i don't dislike government is ready to take all necessary decisions and supply all needed resources our duties to support all agencies so that they have what they need to get the fires under control and therefore the government is following this event closely every minute every day. and usually high temperatures across the whole nordic region up to thirty three celsius coupled with virtually no rain for several

in latvia, volunteers are joining the national guard in record numbers. and in norway, a hit tv show imagines a future under russian occupation. that may be a stretch, but for many in europe, nato is seen as more vital now than ever. richard engel, nbc news. >>> now to the price you pay for many of the things you buy for yourself and your family. president trump is threatening to dramatically ramp up his trade war promising tariffs on $200 billion worth of chinese exports. that's on top of the tariffs that kicked in last week. as nbc's tom costello reports, american families could start paying more for everything from food to furniture and a lot of other stuff in your home. r: fm the grocery isle to the hardware store to your next oil change, america's trade war carries the risk of inflicting real economic damage and costing americans real money. >> the administration has put anywhere from a 10% to a 25% tariff on chinese goods coming into the united states. it's likely that at least some of that cost increase will be passed along to consumers. >> reporte

earlier kerber powered past latvia's elaine alston pengo in straight sets to reach her second wimbledon final and although the thirty year old german has never won the title before she is a two time grand slam winner. france had into sunday's world cup final against croatia determined not to choke in the same way they did at euro two thousand and sixteen similar to this tournament friends were strong favorites to win the euro final but they came up short losing to portugal one nil in paris six players from that team lined up in their semifinal when it gets belgium but they believe they've learned from their mistakes and are confident they can win the world cup to add to france's nine hundred ninety eight triumph. just have to know i really hope not to lose this final and to have some good vacations afterwards because my whole days after the year two thousand and sixteen final were not good at all i still have not fully digested it now i know the taste of defeat in a final and it's not good it's very bitter we will not approach this fine the same way that we approach the euros when franc

right which we're about that in a minute but first let's see a bit of how it's made it's made in latvia and with all the latest technology in motion capture and you're going to see that and also meet some of our head and he said protagonists. a commentary on current global politics in an exaggerated than humorous manner. well known politicians such as emanuel kong. who appear in unfamiliar roles. his russian colleagues can be seen quite frequently. the three d. animated series is programmed with unity across platform game engine the characters are played by actors who are filmed with motion capture technology which time is our most valuable thing care so. to be able to develop things as fast as we can and show the results in a really nice and quality way good times the show is produced for d w in riga latvia one per week. the first of the dialogue and songs are recorded in the sound studio. sound good. meanwhile five three d. animators create the backgrounds and props for the videos. they use the game development engine which is also used to program successful games such as super mario

latvia, estonia, from poland, from ukraine, from canada.talk about russian intervention in their elections. this is not a pattern russia just took on with america. they've taken on all of the west because they realize in the realm of cyber incursions and misinformation and disinformation it's asymmetrical warfare and russia's pretty good at that. so there was a lot of evidence from our allies today and concerns that mr. trump might be willing to weaken on his resolve. >> you're the ranking democrat on intelligence, senator. you've got as much clout as any democrat. it's not as much as, say, richard burr, your chairman, on intelligence. how would you -- if you and richard burr got together on that committee, could you insist on seeing those notes of the translator today in that two-hour meeting? >> my hope is we could get a look at the notes in a classified setting. my hope as well is that the senate will act. the senate did act before trump went off to these meetings in a 98-2 vote reinforcing our commitment to nato. if we don't act in some

latvia is at 2%. they're spending what they need to. glad that the president is raising this issue with the nato countries. many of them are not pulling their full weight. but the president makes it sound as if they're supposed to contribute 2% to us somehow for their defense. what the commitment is, is to spend 2% of their gdp on defense, which will make them a more valuable part of nato. and about 8 of the 29 are doing it. some of the countries are coming closer. many are making great strides. but they are concerned about the rhetoric. >> do they have a right to be concerned? >> yes, they do. >> so when you're in a meeting with them, and you are clearly somebody who is critical of the president, but you're representing the u.s. and they say they're concerned, what do you say? >> well, we assure them that in terms of congress, we passed legislation frequently, talking about our commitment to nato. we are are certainly committed in the congress, and we talk about how, you know, statements are made. sometimes they're walked back. but for

the kremlin in the baltic states in ukraine according to the nato strad com center of excellence in latvia genocide says its director saraf excellence is researching the information confrontation calling the two wolf i would have done a lot of look at what russia has been doing over the is and we see that a lot of our knowledge is actually were relevant to what is happening in the us because obviously for anybody who's been watching the methodology s. have been more or less there for some time according to the nato strike come center use of social media as a military tactic is part of the so-called draw some of doctrine named after the current chief of russia's general staff the goal is permanent and rest in chaos within an enemy state achieving that with information warfare rather than military engagement is a preferred way to win it gives you a plausible deniability and. it was quite a significant change i think in that mix because typically russian theoretical thought was more about traditional military conflict rather than this what does it mean to have information campaigns at the cen

he is probably looking ahead to ratcheting up pressure on lithuania, latvia, and estonia.ion, kevin? seniorseveral administration officials have begun laying the groundwork for that meeting with vladimir putin and president trump on july 16. look, i think a lot of folks are drawing the comparison the between the meeting in singapore and the upcoming meeting in helsinki. i think we should note that on there are the midterm elections and other issues, but are the national security perspective of the u.s. involvement in a host of regions around the world, as well as the energy sector. we have seen the president 's tweets in terms of the energy sector. tom: what do people you speak with say when these meetings are one on one only with translators? we saw that with north korea. will we see a one on one with putin with no one there to record what history says? kevin: we don't know. witheeting in singapore translators, there was questioningnd folks whether or not president trump would be able to have the ability to stay on message. following that meeting, those same people said t

those countries stricken with drought this dry year and i'm thinking particularly of belgium denmark latvia this curl of clouds coming out of the east does contain pretty heavy showers and they are drifting this general direction now for the rest of europe will freeze no it'll curl around a sudden france and spain and the islands in the west and mary give you a few big shows which could be sundries well now none of these make his particular difference the temperature temperatures by their easily middle twenty's low thirty's in places it's nice warm mid summer i will say it has been particularly dry so the encroachments this rain will be welcome though it is slow moving ahead has have the potential for a bit of flooding and of course the first gets into poland and germany and didn't really try to get much further west and that in the next two days it remains dry to the west remains dry right way down towards the north coast of africa that's right the mediterranean be hard pushed to see anything that resembles as you like a shower and there's the the forecast for tuesday's thirty's around the

rematch of the twenty six team final which or you might want to her earlier kerber powered past latvia's yelling austin pengo in straight sets six three six three to reach her second wimbledon final and although the thirty year old german has never won the title before she is a teacher round was. friends had into sunday's world cup final against croatia determined not to choke in the same way they did at euro two thousand and sixteen similar to this tournament france were strong favorites to win the euro final but they came up short losing to portugal one nil in paris six players from the team lined up in their semifinal win against belgium but they believe they've learned from their mistakes and are confident they can win the world cup to france as one nine hundred ninety eight triumph. over moment but they have to know i really hope not to lose this final and to have some good vacations afterwards because my whole days after the euro two thousand and sixteen final were not good at all i still have not fully digested it now i know the taste of defeat in the final and it's not good it's

we lag behind countries such as madagascar, latvia, bulgaria, and so on.ed access to full fibre if we're going to get ahead of the technological revolution post—brexit. and i wonder if the minister will explain to the house why currentlyjust 4% of premises are connected to full fibre, and why the government's failed to even set a date to respond to the national infrastructure commission report, which has set out a pathway to achieving nationwide fibre access by 2033? the house will know that in may 2018, the chancellor announced the government's full fibre roll—out, so 15 million premises connected by 2025 is the plan, and a nationwide network by 2033. full fibre will enable speeds of over 500 megabits—per—second. can he confirm that he's backing the chancellor of the exchequer's other call this week, which is to switch off every copper phone line in the uk so as to force telecom firms to improve their rural broadband speeds? he declared himself ignorant of that suggestion. a liberal democrat thought rule communities were losing out. and are people in such

the kremlin in the baltic states in ukraine according to the nato strad com center of excellence in latvia genocide says its director saraf excellence is researching the information confrontation comment to wolf i would have done a lot of look at what russia has been doing over the is and we see that a lot of our knowledge is actually were relevant to what is happening in the us because obviously for anybody who's been watching the methodology s. have been more or less there for some time according to the nato strike come center use of social media as a military tactic as part of the so-called draw some of doctrine named after the current chief of russia's general staff the goal is permanent and rest in chaos within an enemy state achieving that with information warfare rather than military engagement is a preferred way to win it gives you a plausible deniability and. it was quite a significant change i think in and i mixed because typically russian theoretical thought was more about traditional military conflict rather than this what does it mean to have information campaigns at the cente

the baltics and the northern nordic region a part of the world better known for its cold weather latvia's had to evacuate a village as it struggles to stop a huge peat fire months of drug have forced it to declare a national emergency it's the worst drought in sweden for seventy four years and it needs help to prevent a bigger disaster that in baba has more. firefighters in sweden say their battle for control is far from over remarkably nobody's been injured by the dozens of wildfires. the government's appeals for help from other countries it's really france and norway have responded by sending water bombing helicopters and planes as well as emergency personnel reeling in albania that fact i don't dislike government is ready to take all necessary decisions and supply all needed resources our duties to support all agencies so that they have what they need to get the fires under control and therefore the government is following this event closely every minute every day. and usually high temperatures across the whole nordic region up to thirty three celsius coupled with virtually no rain for

kremlin in the baltic states in ukraine according to the nato strata com center of excellence in latvia genocide says its director saraf excellence is researching the information confrontation comment to wolf i would have done a lot of look at what russia has been doing over the is and we see that a lot of our knowledge is actually were relevant to what is happening in the us because obviously for anybody who's been watching the methodology s. have been more or less there for some time according to the nato strike come center use of social media as a military tactic as part of the so-called draw some of doctrine named after the current chief of russia's general staff the goal is permanent and rest in chaos within an enemy state achieving that with information warfare rather than military engagement is a preferred way to win it gives you a plausible deniability and. it was quite a significant change i think in the end i mixed because typically russian theoretical thought was more about traditional military conflict rather than this what does it mean to have information campaigns at the c

include poland with 1.9%, these additional countries have agreed, 8 other countries, britain, estonia, latviaand, romania and the u.s. >> right, what that means is those countries are not going to be taken as much advantage of us as they have in the past and that will-less son the defense spending an we can spend on other things for our nation and this is very much president trump's america first policy and what nato really -- political organization more than any kind of military organization, it yields political influence in a large way but its political organization has migrated into almost a proxy for the globalist agenda and so you have these almost socialists, socialists nations that are part of nato, not paying fair share and you've got this globalist agenda that is happening over in europe and that's part of president trump's rightful outrage is that they have to pay fair share and we are defending them and we stopped the russian bear for many years and we still have 50,000 troops plus deployed throughout europe. >> can i ask you about that, though, we have the meeting coming up on mon

. >> and you brought up latvia, and you hear stories about the nations and the concern from them about the u.s. commitment. russia meddling in their democratic processes. >> they want a reafter fir ration of the -- reaffirmation. they deploy aircraft in our region. >> it is bet tore deter a war than to fight one. that is what nato has been about since 1949. >> is vladimir putin a friend, a foe, or a competitor. >> right now i would see him as a foe. but remember i was able to get a russian brigade to join with nato to bosnia. they were very effective and helpful. i made several trips saying the effectiveness of russia joining us in the partnership for peace. stopping the ethnic cleansing in bosnia. we need to open the door with russia and not in the way of whatever oil they're giving to germany, but in the way to create better relations to have some mutual trust and confidence as we go forward. russia can play a key part in that. >> thank you, always a pleasure to have you with us. we appreciate it. >> one of the things you heard from the general and angus king, is that the united stat

nato battalions deployed in oland, lithuania, latvia are not affected by brexit, and brexit does not put that relationship into question. still, the nature of the eu/uk relationship in defense is bound to change. what does that mean? as a member state you can shape the european union's action in diplomacy, development or defense. the uk will no longer be able to do that because it has decided that it wants to leave the eu and to leave the council of minister, the european council. this is simply the consequences of the uk's decision to leave he european union. but, ladies and gentlemen, we share similar values with the uk. e both promote a rules-based nternational order and we will continue to face the same global terrorism, cyber attacks, disinformation campaign and broadly the establishment of our continent. not a single european country can solve these challenges alone. this is also true for other kind of challenges such as climate change, poverty, migration or financial crisis. building on all this our partnership in defense and security should be big in scope, we should incorpor

what you see with latvia, lithuania, poland, those countries are doing exactly what president trump ising. put your shoulder to the wheel, stand there with us. >> yes that is true. >> jason: us having nato as part of our role. >> number two, more importantly when our troops are over there it is united states power that is important. if you want to be the world leaders, we have to continue to show that. >> we've always been that. if making sure that things are fair and balanced. donald trump putting america first is what he campaigned on, it is what he is doing. >> jason: thank you so much. we appreciate it. coming up on the special edition of hannity, trump is going after the left. democrats calls to abolish ice. more and that's next. ♪ matt: whoo! whoo! jen: but that all changed when we bought a house. matt: voilà! jen: matt started turning into his dad. matt: mm. that's some good mulch. ♪ i'm awake. but it was pretty nifty when jen showed me how easy it was to protect our home and auto with progressive. [ wrapper crinkling ] get this butterscotch out of here. progressive can't protec

only for a meeting 2% of gdp target when it comes to spending greece, u.k., estonia and latvia. else happened this morning and i want you to listen to the exchange with the nato secretary hans stoltenberg. >> a country is getting its energy from the person you want protection against. >> you have to understand that we stand together also we are stronger. >> but this is making russia richer. cheryl: talking about the natural gas pipeline under construction. this is going to increase russia's energy experts, natural gas exports to the e.u., in particular to germany. that is what he's talking about. what you make of the comments, antwan? >> what i think they made a good president breakfast this morning, this is once again donald trump almost embarrassing the united states on the world stage. cheryl: buddies fighting for the u.s. taxpayer. he said that in that meeting as well. >> our president's visit to nato is a chance for restoration or our allies the united states will advance on the floor no matter what that will be. his behavior is quite frankly unpredictability. the united st

i've talked today with the foreign minister from latvia, the prime minister from estonia, baltic states on the front line with russia. i asked them about their concerns about president trump meeting with president putin and they said look, as long as he goes in firm and as long as he's clear that anecking crimea is illegal slorngs he says getting involved in ukraine cannot be done they're going to feel comfortable with that but at the same time these leaders felt that while president trump was saying in a way that president obama and president bush hadn't done on this 2% of gdp, they did feel that that was an important message to amp up. but i guess my take away -- and i spoke a member of the romanian delegation as well, is that there is a feeling that there was agreed two days in advance the final communique that it was agreed by secretary of defense mattis, secretary of state pomp pompeo. all agreeing these diplomats told me than in wales in 2014 and in warsaw in 2016 so if there is concern now the way president trump is handling this, that is a communique that is ready to go to leade

you have other countries like poland, latvia, other countries on the border, greece, as well, that ismeeting the president's goal, mostly because it's economy has shrunk so much the last years. in terms of its allies, he has had a good work relationship with the french president, and i expect we see him working as a mediator between trump and the rest of the nato alliance. david: you mentioned this nato meeting and the putin summit bookend the trip. what is the risk that this alliance could unraveling, particularly with ukraine and crimea, because we have sanctions specifically targeted at vladimir putin on these issues? bill: there was a question on what the president would like to get out of his meeting with in and crimea and ukraine not a big part of the worry is the meeting in europe. putin would just like to have that face-to-face with president trump to provide him some legitimacy and gives them a chance to talk about easing sanctions. there is concern president trump may start to write off the russian occupation of crimea and other activities in eastern ukraine. he has talked a

john mccain talking about then candidate trump's suggestion that the baltic republic, lithuania, latviaa, subject to russian pressure or threats need to pay more as nato members if they expect to be defended. >> that is an open invitation to vladimir putin to attack. the leader of the nato alliance, the creator of the nato alliance shows weakness or uncertainty, it destroys those structures of deterrence we worked more than 65 years to build up. >> all this comes back to article 5 of the nato treaty which declares an attack on one member is an attack on all. since nato's founding in 1949 it has been invoked just once, to defend the united states after the attacks of 9/11. >> thank you very much. our next guest says nato allies better pay up, a bill in the senate aiming to make that happen. welcome back, republican senator mike lee. we want to take a look, the top economies in europe and who is paying up and making this commitment because it is a goal to get to 2%, germany is at 1.24, france, italy and spain still far off. how do you intend to change that? >> 5428 nato allies are meeting

five countries out of 29, we'll have eight this year when romania and latvia join the 2% club.ance and germany that are not. so critically important. he's pushing them and pushing them hard. you're right. president obama did it going back to president bush and the defense secretaries as well have pushed hard for this. so i think the president is trying to see some sort of movement from the europeans, the nato allies on this issue. >> neil: he's not seeing a lot of movement. so i'm wondering, that shows a certain amount of arrogance on their part to assume he's going to make a big deal of it but we don't have to do it. >> we have 35,000 troops in europe. nato is important to us, too. it's our troops forward deployed, close to crises in europe and north africa and the middle east. so it is important to us. it's mutually beneficial but we have to have people doing their fair share and the president is right to make a stink about this and he probably will. but there's other things on the table, too. for instance, the president could bring up iran sanctions. we pulled out of the ira

how do we say to the baltics, estonia, latvia, lithuania, who have meddling and hacking going on from the russians that we don't believe the russians are doing it? how do we say to the netherlands who are concluding their investigation on the downing of the malaysian airliner where russia murdered innocent civilians in a commercial airliner and came out and firmly pointed the finger at the russians with the president of united states not doing that. this deeply damaging statement that the president has made of not believing the intelligence community which clearly congress is on record of believing needs to be reversed the. president needs to understand he has damaged foreign policy. >> do you believe the president has, negotiation what you say, damaging our country, a country he says that it's always america first, do you think he gave a green light to russia yesterday in that press conference to meddle in 2018 and in 2020? >> he's giving them a pass which gives them the ability to continue all the things they've seen. >> that's a green light, right? >> we don't have to do a traffic

in those years, we lived in latvia, where i was born. russia, in vienna, in gue, inress, -- in prau berlin. port lisbon, back to russia. there was a lot of back to russia. i went to a soviet school as the only foreigner. i was in the fifth grade. brian: how is your russian? ms. kennan warnecke: it is good. brian: what is the story about your father being interred in germany? ms. kennan warnecke: he was in berlin when the war started and the germans rounded up everyone in the embassy. plus any other strays they could find. ,o there were journalists there it was not just embassy people. they were taken out to an imprisonedesort and for six months. then they exchanged the journalists. they had a dramatic crossing on the waters, on a swedish ship. brian: where were you during those six months? ms. kennan warnecke: there were mysteries in my childhood. one was why my mother decided to move to bronxville, new york. it has never been clear to me. before that, we were staying with my father's sister in illinois. they are before, i had gone to sc

if you are latvia and georgia, you are fighting the reality on the ground. you are going to lose some of your sovereignty to russia if nato falls apart. the comment that is the president made yesterday to the secretary general of nato are shocking if you are one of the countries and rely on european strength in numbers. we heard from the german chancellor beyond being awkward with the american president, she harkened back to recent history in this continent when germany was under russian occupation. it's a real thing and it happened a generation ago. when you talk to the leaders, there is a real fear that europe is falling apart. ask prime minister may how that is working out for her. it is falling apart because they voted at a small charge in for trump to withdraw from the european union. we know that president trump not only supported that, but he supports some kind of dissolving of the european union in the name of america first trade. the reality is on the ground for countries like georgia that fought wars with russia in the last decade. this is terrifyi

that's highly relevant since in this year alone elections will occur in georgia, latvia, sweden, and brazil among several others, not to mention our own mid-term elections in november, u.s. mid-term elections. we've convened a distinguished grouch leaders to discuss long term strategies and tools that we together must use to begin to implement resilience of democratic nations to future such actions. very briefly, let me tell you what the atlantic council has done to track and expose the kremlin's influence since 2014. we've done reports like hiding in plain sight which used open source information to expose russian soldiers in ukraine's east and democratic defense against disinformation which laid out recommendations for governments platforms and civil society to fight back. the kremlin's trojan horse series exposed networks in france, germany, greece, spain, italy and uk and done transatlantic convening including last year's forum which we will host again in october of this year and then we did a berlin 360 open source summit where we brought together citizen activists and journalis

in latvia, worried about russians coming in and realized that united states already allowed crimea to be meddled with, you're going to feel very vulnerable. every nation for itself. we're going to be in one hell of a mess. >> ambassador burns? one hell of a mess? >> sure was. i felt that the president treated nato allies almost with contempt today, picking fights with germany, demanding they reach defense spending levels now, not by 2024, agreed date. then 2% is not good enough, raise budgets by 4%. wasn't even remotely serious. it's important we don't normalize this. first american president since well before harry truman to not believe that nato is central to american national security interests. what made us great is military alliances last 75 years, ability to trade, keep a worldwide trading system together and promote democracy around the world. the president is doing none of that, in fact he's overturning all of that. radical revolution and it's hurting america. you saw that today. >> use the word contempt, hear the ambassador use that, we saw u.s. allies, the leaders walked out

extremeextrem extremely anxious because trump already equivocated about article 5 if lithuania or latvia is attacked or subverted, nato allies should jump in and help. now trump seems to be rowing back from there. there's a context to this. we had a war in georgia in 2008. a covert war launched by russia in the east of the country in which 10,000 people have died. this is in europe, where we're talking now and we have a history of putin doing something rather unexpected after major sporting events, bear in mind the world cup ends on sunday so all eyes next week once trump and putin leave will be to see what they do next. >> this is not an abstraction for ukraine or the baltic states. and the president arrived 30 minutes late to the scheduled meeting at nato that was designed to discussion russian aggression toward ukraine. he arrived late to the meeting. christiane, the president in the air coming here to the united kingdom. you talk about the notion of whether or not the president will disrupt the world order. part of that world order, yes, it's nato but part is also the special relatio

/11, after the united states was attacked and did big concern is what happens if russia goes into latvia? what happens if russia goes into estonia? take a listen to candidate trump in 2016 talking about that very thing. >> the countries we are defending must pay for the cost of this defense. and if not, the u.s. must be prepared to let these countries defend themselves. we have no choice. >> when you hear that, does that concern you? >> well, yes. september i really don't believe that trump wants to pull out. i believe that rudeness is just an imitation of strength. and when you put your political opponent in a corner they bark a little bit including angela merkel. i just think he could have had these very conversations behind the scenes. he set it up perfectly, he is aggressive on china. doing i think a lot of right decisions in china. if we don't deal with china as an export economy, we never will as a consumer economy. he said i'm dealing with this. you have to do these things. he didn't do that. i mean, this is more of a tactical problem for him i think than a substantive problem. yo