kristen welker at the white house, michael allen previously served as republican staff director on the house intelligence committee. greg miller is with "the washington post" and steve clemens is an msnbc contributor and editor at large at "the atlantic." kristen, what's the latest? >> that is white house in full damage control mode, craig. no doubt about that. this complicates the narrative we've heard from the president and his top officials on down say nothing one with his campaign met with or knew about russia's efforts to try to intervene in the 2016 race or tried to collude with them. look, this is the highest level person, one of the within the president's inner circle who essentially released e-mails today acknowledging that he met with someone who he thought had information that was damaging to hillary clinton and he was told that information came from the russian government. that is significant. in a statement from donald trump's attorney, he says, "in my view, this is much ado about nothing. don jr. had no idea what specific information would be discussed if any. the bottom

michael allen, what did you think when you saw that? >> well, look, i have heard working with you in the white house so policy making via a speech, this was a subversion of the interagency process and the generals were supposed to be doing consultations with and policy making by tweet it's like he rolled out of bed this morning and decided, hey, you know what? i'm not happy with the way things have been going lately. i'm going to shake things up and keep people guessing. you can't help but think this is another product of a larger dysfunctional white house. >> there's some reporting that supports your theory. it comes from politico saying that behind the scenes this started an idea or a seed planted on capitol hill. the report says, quote, this is like someone told the white house to light a candle on the table and the white house set the whole table on fire. said one senior house republican aide -- let me bring hans nichols in for some fact checking. was the pentagon caught off guard by the president's three-tweet policy announcement?

michael allen is managing director of beacon global strategies and david rode is an online news director for "the new yorker." good to see you both. michael, you first. when donald trump jr. released the e-mails about the russian meeting, he said he wanted to be transparent. we are learning there were eight people as opposed to the original four we were told. how does he escape looking like he is hiding something. >> this is truly amazing honestly. those of us in washington know a little bit about scandal politics. damage control 101 is to get out all the information quickly and completely so you will not have a new detail every day for six days which keeps this story alive. >> you know what is interesting? "the new york times" was going to dump the e-mails an then he preemptively, donald trump jr. anyone said i am going to get all these e-mails out and then left a lot of that detail still undone while he was saying, be transparent. pick up your thought. it is a confusing message. >> clearly, he only released it under pressure. another interesting question i have got to say, fred, is who

i'm joined now by michael allen.usly served at the national security council as a special assistant to president george w. bush. good to see you, sir. thanks for being with me, michael. susan standing by and so is catherine. going to get tho them in just a moment. before we get to afghanistan. north korea, again, you specialized in counterproliferation at your time. if you were advising president trump on how to move forward on north korea, what would you suggest to the president? >> i would suggest that we embark on what we're calling coercive diplomacy. when we, the united states, needed to rally the world around iran and combatting its malign influence and, frankly, its nuclear program, we were able to rally the europeans and the asians and others to impose secondary style sanctions. sanks on companies that did business in iran. we need to have the same type of attitude and strategy as it pertains to north korea. it's a myth that we already oversanked north korea and we have no influence over them. we have to do i

katie phang, michael allen, thanks to both of you. >>> and coming up, he speaks. jared kushner defending his actions during the campaign to reporters just an hour after being interviewed by the senate intelligence committee. we will have his statement in full once again, next. you always pay your insurance on time. tap one little bumper and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. liberty mutual insurance. >>> and that was a big moment, jared kushner just a short time ago, speaking to reporters outside the white house for the first time, repeating some of what we believe he told congressional investigators this morning. >> my white house this morning. >> my name is jared kushner, i'm senior advisor to president donald j. trump. when my father-in-law decided to run for president, i served his campaign the best i could. now serving the president and the people of the united states has been the honor and privilege of a life

also with us is former security official with the bush administration michael allen now with beacon global strategies. i want to show you a tweet from president trump just this morning. trade between china and north korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. so much for china working with us. but we had to give it a try. this on the sanctions last week, making the arms deal with taiwan nic robertson mentioned. what happened to this relationship with being friends and now getting tough? >> well, i thit was always a little bit of a fantasy frankly that this would somehow work out for the united states, that china would solve our north korean problem for us. i think what's happened is the president found the talking point he liked. he repeated it a lot and it didn't work out and now we have unhappy trump on twitter. >> russia and china are almost teaming up, almost against trump. they put out a statement. it was as much about the u.s. as it was about north korea calling on both sides to de-escalate. michael, what do you make of that? >> i definitely thought it was an effort to plug further n

. >> thank you to jonathan cape heart, bill kristol, michael allen and carole lee. that does it for this hour. i'm nicole wals and "mtp daily" starts now. >> nicole, how are you? i missed you when you were gone. i hope you missed me when i was gone sbloo of course i did. >> see, i had to just force that out of you even if you didn't. thank you. well done. if it's wednesday, the art of the repeal fails again. >> tonight the health care debate. the repeal only vote fails. can republican leaders come up with anything that can pass the republican senate? >>> plus, defending sessions. >> and i hope sessions doesn't quit, and if the president wants to fire him, fire him. >> republican senators forced to take sides in the trump sessions feud. >>> and why did president trump move to ban transgender people from the armed forces today? >> she's very rude. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. >>> good evening i'm chuck todd in washington. and welcome to "mtp daily." thank you for watching while i was gone and thank you for being here when i'm back. we're following t

joining us now, bill galvin, former fbi assistant direct for for new york and michael allen, from beacon global strategies and a former aide to president george w. bush. bill, what do you make of this mcclatchy investigation and the findings that they were looking at and the ties to foreign businesses, 156 at least, of the companies that he had on his later financial disclosure. >> richard, i really believe that those are things that will be fleshed out as time going on. to make a comment as to the veracity of all of these findings is probably not my purview right now. i think think that is best looked at by the special counsel. with that said, i think we have to look at what the relationship is with the special counsel and the qualities that bob mueller has, the integrity, the ethical performance and character and unquestionable and i think bob no doubt will arrive at a conclusion that is honest, has integrity and will give the right answers, there will be no holding back on his findings. >> michael, as bill was alluding to, the special council and whey might be doing, how much of money

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