also bluntly, boldly asserted that james comey was not fired for anything having to do with the trump/russia the president himself has admitted that is in fact exactly why james comey was fired. mike pence has bluntly asserted that there were no trump campaign contacts with russian officials during the campaign. that is not true. he has bluntly asserted that he had no idea that mike flynn had a paid relationship with any foreign country's government. that would seem to be impossible. mike pence formed a political action committee in may, which is an unusual thing for a vice president to do. that was may. in june, he hired an a-list private lawyer to represent him personally in the russia probe. and then after weeks of speculation and reporting to the contrary and the vice president's office refusing to confirm one way or the other, eventually the vice president's private lawyer said that mike pence will not use that new pac that he set up as a vehicle to raise funds to cover his legal fees. but, you know, he could if he wants to. the mike flynn story, the mike flynn story is unprecedented in

this is a lawsuit not against russia but against the trump campaign for helping russia.ns this lawsuit, among other things, this is a carefully constructed lawsuit, this may end up being a new way, a whole new avenue by which we might learn through the discovery process whether the trump campaign worked with russia deliberately on the part of the russian attack that was the hacking and the repurposing of all those e-mails and documents from the dnc. joining us now is walter dellinger, former acting solicitor general under president clinton. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. >> i know that you are not personally involved in this lawsuit. i also know that you are an important and busy man. can i ask why you think this lawsuit is important? why you feel it's important to talk about it? >> well, you know, when you have something as unprecedented and audacious as a hostile foreign power's attempt to intrude into our election process, there are going to be lots of harm done, large ones like corrupting our democracy, but also individuals get harmed. while mr. mue

in this administration but he's made a number of blunt, direct, false statements related to the trump-russiap transition had not apply for security clearance for mike flynn's son. they had. mike pence also boldly asserted that james comey was not fired for anything having to do with the trump-rush scsia investigat. the president admitted that's exactly why he was fired. mike pence has asserted there were no trump campaign contacts with russian officials during the kpanl. that's not true. he has bluntly asserted he had no idea that mike flynn had a paid relationship with any foreign countries government. that would seem to be impossible. mike pence formed a political action committee in may, which is an unusual thing for a vice president to do. that was may. in june, he hired an a list private lawyer to represent him personally in the russia probe. then after weeks of speculation and reporting to the contrary and the vice president's office refusing to confirm one way or the other, the private lawyer said mike pence will not use the new pac he set up as a vehicle to raise funds to cover his l

due to testify before the house intelligence committee investigating the trump-russia matter. hopefully they've got a bleep button in that committee in it's going to be on c-span. as president donald trump has had to hire some new lawyers, not just for the legal jobs in the administration, he's also had to hire new lawyers for the job of representing him in the russia investigations. i think we probably should have known from the michael cohen experience what trump like to look for in a personal lawyer. >> you're going to want to watch this next piece of video we're going to show you. he's free on $100 million bail after being convicted on 14 counts of conspiracy and fraud. prosecutors had asked ever him to be remanded into custody saying he was a flight risk but the judge granted bail although he will remain under house arrest with electronic monitoring of his whereabouts. his attorney promised to appeal the convictions. cnbc caught up with mr. dowd just a short time ago. >> get the [ bleep ] out of here. that's what i got for cnbc. >> that's what i got for cn -- that gentlema

under fire and firing back, that was donald trump junior defending himself from accusations of collusion with russiaident trump said he didn't know about his son's meeting with that russian lawyer until recently. critics aren't convinced >> as you can see it's 6:30 and on the rundown it's one of the biggest stories we're talking about at 6:30. tweet us what's on your mind with the #5at630 >>> watching two big story, christopher wray grilled by the senate judiciary committee. he was nominated by the president to lead the fbi. he was a hi ranking official in george w bush justice department and later represented new jersey governor constitutes yes, it is in bridgegate >> we're following the latest developments in the russia investigation. donald trump junior spoke to fox and wanted to clear the air over the controversy surrounding that meeting last summer with the russian lawyer. >> in retrospect i would have done things differently. again this is before the russia mania, this was opposition research they had something, you know, maybe a concrete evidence to all the stories i had been hearing about th

trump jr. said is the whole e-mail chain. and he doesn't respond to that by saying, wait, russia and its government are supporting mr. trump? he doesn't seem shocked. right? he doesn't say, this is part of how russia and its government are supporting mr. trump? what are the other parts? what are the other ways in which they're helping, right? he doesn't react with surprise. he doesn't seem at all taken aback. to hear about this promised delivery of hillary clinton dirt from this emissary from the russian government, he doesn't seem surprised to hear that this is part of the russian government supporting his father in the election. so didn't surprise donald trump jr., nor does this apparent involvement of the russian government in our election apparently surprise or bother paul manafort or jared kushner, it doesn't bother them enough to keep them from taking the meeting, even though they were informed about what it was. looking back on that, for context now, we know that russian attack was well under way by that time, right? this wasn't the start of it. this was about hillary clinton in order to help trump's prospects in the

trump. but that's our life now. two weeks ago tonight the president's then lead lawyer on the russia case, who is apparently disappeared now, two weeks ago tonight it was trump lawyer marc kazowitz sending this stuff to random strangers over e-mail. remember this? f you. you are just such a piece of -- i'm on you now. you're f'g with me. let's see who you are. watch your back b --. that was two weeks ago tonight. that was the president's lead lawyer on the russian investigation. although it should be noted he promptly disappeared after those outbursts. and he was replaced by this guy. >> get the [ bleep ] out of here. okay? that's what i got to say to nbc. >> so we got some new evidence tonight. but this is what the presidency is like now. we have this new evidence tonight from the white house communications director and what he said to the "new yorker." but we have known this about them for a while. we've known this is the way they operate, we've known this is the environment that the president creates around himself. in terms of what's newly important about this tonight, though -- actually, do we have that from last

loose thread for people trying to get to the bottom of the connections of lack thereof between russia and the trump campaign while russia was attacking our election campaign last year. whether or not yew ever cared about that before, tomorrow in the senate president trump's nominee to lead the criminal division of the justice department, he's going to get his confirmation hearing. tonight "the new york times" reports that hey, it turns out he worked for alfa bank. in fact he supervised a review of those mysterious communications between the alfa bank server and the trump organization server. he supervised one of the reviews of those suspect communications that ultimately pushed back on the suggestion that there was anything weird at all in those data transfers or electronic communications between the trump campaign and his client, this russian bank. so that confirmation hearing will be tomorrow. i should mention that this isn't just any nominee. right? running the criminal division of the justice department is a really big hairy deal. among the people who once held that job is robert mueller, who i

trump jr. was quoted as saying a large amount of business came from russia. this was set up as an acquaintance in the miss universe contest held in moscow. so the connections between donald trump jr., his father and russia are actually fairly extensive. from the psychological stand point, if this were the big nothing burger that trump and his team keep insisting it is, he wouldn't be so nervous about it. people aren't nervous about nonscandals. >> mark halperin, that's another layer to the story, reporting that donald trump himself, the president of the united states on the trip back from the g20 helped write and oversaw the writing of the response which was that this was a meeting between donald trump jr. and this russian intermediate about adoption policy out of russia. obviously that's crumbled since then. but the point being, the president of the united states was in the room crafting the response to this which turned out not to be true. >> well, the minute we saw that statement the first one and then the second one a lot of us asked that question, it was

russia, but i never did one. held the missy universe pageant there. amy: to talk more about trump'ss to russia, we're joined by seva gunitsky, and associate professor of political science at university toronto, author of -- pieceently wrote a headlined "trump and the russian money trail." lay out what you found. >> i think in the russia story ,putin israelite and sort of a perfect antagonist for this. if you want to get at the roots of the collusion, you have a look at where trump's wings with russia begin. they do not begin with putin and certainly not with the 2016 campaign. they begin with long-standing financial linkages that trump has going back to the 1990's, even earlier, to russian oligarchs who have been pouring money into his real estate and his casino business for quite some time. amy: layout exactly, and if you can talk about how perhaps this relates to who was in the room with donald trump, jr., donald and kushner,t son, his son-in-law, as well as paul manafort him his campaign manager at the time when they had this meeting that they will all have to be speaking before

president trump: i think it was russia and other people and/or countries. nobody really knows for sure. robert: putin denied the charges and mr. trump is looking for a way to move forward. what does that mean? meanwhile, world leaders discuss terrorism and what to do about north korea's latest missile launch. we explore how trump's america first agenda is being received with peter baker and yeganeh torbati and nancy youssef and doyle mcmanus. >> celebrating 50 years, this is "washington week." funding is provided by -- >> their leadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges of today. and research the technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans. we call them part of our team. >> additional funding is provided by dana fasher cancer institute. new man's own foundation, donating all profits from new man's products to charity and nourishing the common good. the foundation committed to bridging cultural differences, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live

every day about donald trump and russia. how about hillary clinton and ukraine? that's probably a headline that you haven't heard much of, but ever since story broke, about donald trump junior accepting a meeting with a russian attorney in the hopes of obtaining incriminating evidence against hillary clinton, it has some pointing to a story that broke back in january by politico and they're asking why that didn't receive the same amount of attention, let's take a look at the extensive reporting that politico did. i'll take you through one portion of that people are pointing in particular attempting to make that comparison. so the story involves a woman named, the story involves alexandria chalupa, a dnc consultant at the time, tirelessly focused on trump's ties to russia and also paul manafort's ties to russia. she met with ukraine's ambassador at the embassy while conducting the resource. sources say worked very closely with her and that she occasionally shared findings with the dnc and the clinton campaign. now, to be clear

we heard trump's words for putin yesterday in poland. he chided russia for its role in conflicts in ukraine and syria. when it comes to u.s. election meddling, when he was speaking in poland yesterday, trump still seems to question russia's role in all of this. if you look at his tweet storm this morning, it is very clear that trump's mind is still on that 2016 election. he's taking aim at former officials in the clinton campaign saying, "everyone here is talking about why john pod see it refused to -- podesta refused to give the server to the fbi and cia, disgraceful." in terms of the way the president has prepared for the meeting, he's worked with senior advisers to get ready for the meeting with putin. we're told by one white house official that the amount of pages dedicated to this important meeting is just a few. it will still be up to president trump to decide what they talk about, what's on the agenda going into this meeting. >> all right. fascinating. a lot to unfold today. sara murray is there in hamburg to cover for us. thank you. >>> now as pr

>> russia is a adverse rarery -- >> do i think trump is treating them that way? nk we've had eight years of barack obama showing nothing but appeasement towards russia -- >> president trump is not appeasing russia? >> if you look on substance, part of the irony of this media obsession with russia, is that the obama administration began with hillary clinton bringing a big red reset button to russia, saying they were going to reset the relationship with russia so she and obama were going to be friends with russians. that's how they began. if you look at what happened with russia, russia invades ukraine and the obama administration does nothing, utterly ineffect you'll. and john kerry saying he wants to provide putin with -- >> trying to water down a sanctions bill you voted for. >> didn't want an off ramp and the policies of the obama administration were constant weakness and appeasement. one of the best things recently announced was the trump administration's intention to go forward with placing anti-ballistic missile batteries in poland in the czech republic. thos

if you want to get at the roots of the collusion, you have a look at where trump's wings with russia n. they do not begin with putin and certainly not with the 2016 campaign. they begin with long-standing financial linkages that trump has going back to the 1990's, even earlier, to russian oligarchs who have been pouring money into his real estate and his casino business for quite some time. amy: layout exactly, and if you can talk about how perhaps this relates to who was in the room with donald trump, jr., donald and kushner,t son, his son-in-law, as well as paul manafort him his campaign manager at the time when they had this meeting that they will all have to be speaking before the senate committee about next week. >> sure. small to say, this is not change from russia, despite what donald trump says. this has been hundreds of millions of dollars. donald trump son, donald junior, said, almost a decade ago, he said that russians make up a disproportionate number of our investors. we of money pouring in from russia. that is a direct quote. he is been a sort of perfect vehicle for russ

the mainstream media just won't let up despite the public's dissatisfaction a distaste for the trump russia coverage c.n.n. has pushed the trump russian connection story aggressively in the past and in the midst of falling ratings has consistently ranked third behind fox and m.s.m. b. say the president fired back on the mainstream media's lopsided coverage going after. ohmy f.b.i. director james comey may soon be in hot water for releasing classified information as part of his memos and meetings with the president for more on all of this we're joined tonight by a legal media analyst lionel lionel always good to have you with us the headlines there seem to be reading that c.n.n. is losing this war with donald trump but let's talk about his son first what possible legal problems could he have having met with the russian attorney nothing nothing assuming argue i know as we lawyers say that every part of the allegation were correct he met to find dirt this is during a campaign he meets what do you have what do you have for me and at the time remember they were conducting i don't know how many t

i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story, it is an excuse. >> while the president makes the case against himself -- >> but i watched his interview, i read the press accounts of his conversations. i take the president at his word that i was fired because of the russia investigation. >> tonight, the reporting that fuels our knowledge of the investigation. >> breaking news tonight. a blockbuster report from the "new york times." nbc news reporting tonight, "the washington post" explosive report that the president of the united states is currently under a criminal investigation for the obstruction of justice. >> how america learns about this major scandal as the white house shrinks from public scrutiny. "all in" starts right now. >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. this president tells so many lies so oven that news organizations are now employing entire teams of fact checkers to document them for posterity. and because it is so hard to get the simple and most basic truth from the administration, much of what we now know only came to light in

the special counsel overseeing the federal investigation into the trump campaign's ties to russia. so in two separate stories tonight, "the new york times" is reporting that deutsche bank is expecting to have to hand over trump related financial and banking records to robert mueller as special counsel. and, the president is telling "new york times" reporters tonight that if robert mueller delves too far into his finances, he would consider that a red line. he would consider that a violation, never saying explicitly he would fire mr. mueller, but clearly making that threat. if the president fired the special counsel investigating russia after he fired the fbi director who's investigating russia, presumably all h-e double hockey sticks would break loose in washington, presumably. but who knows. the president is clearly threatening to fire the special counsel tonight if he looks into the president's finances. the "times" reporting that mueller is looking into the president's finances. with all that said, the immediate question, and the question that may shape everything that happens ne

i don't know if the trump campaign worked with russia or not. if they did knowingly work with a foreign military intelligence service to attack our election to help trump to the presidency, that is clearly the biggest political scandal in modern american history by a mile. we don't know yet whether it happened or not. not yet. the special counsel is investigating. congressional committees are more or less investigating. and the american news media is investigating. whether or not the trump campaign did it, one way to stab in the heart aggressive american reporting on that subject is to lay traps for american journalists who are reporting on it. trick news organizations to report what appears to what happened. after the fact blow that reporting up. you then hurt the credibility of that news organization. you also cast a shadow over any similar reporting in the future. whether or not it's true, right? even if it's true. you plant a permanent question, a permanent asterisk, a permanent, who knows, as to whether that, too, might be false, like that o

russia over ukraine? i hope we will. and we'll president trumpich ported 97—2 to impose tough new sanctions on russia over attacking? those are critical bars for tomorrow's meeting with president putin. we heard him defend article five of the nato treaty, you were ambassador to nato or the united states, do you think your former nato colleagues will be fully reassured by that? i think you have to give credit where it's due, it was the first time we had heard a com plete was the first time we had heard a complete reaffirmation of the article five commitment, an attack on one is an attack on all. that was positive but he spent more time in the speech criticising the nato alliance than he did praising it. there were veiled criticisms as i understood them of the european union, steve bannon like language decrying the power of government. i thought the speech played well among the far right in eastern europe and poland but i think it was not a speech for western europe where he is right now. he meets vladimir putin for the first time tomorrow, what wo

trump addresses them. we will get the latest. then we will look at russia and the donald trump money trail. stay with us. ♪ [music break] amy: "rebel woman" by sena dagadu. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nermeen: the first meeting of a new presidential election commission was held wednesday in the face of weeks of controversy, seven lawsuits, and new calls for the resignation of its vice-chairman, kansas secretary of state kris kobach. president trump convened the presidential advisory commission on election integrity to look into his allegations of voter fraud during the 2016 presidential election. pres. trump: voter fraud occurs, it cancels out the vote of a lawful citizen and undermines democracy. can't let that happen. any form of illegal or fraudulent voting, whether by , andtizens or the deceased any form of voter suppression or intimidation, must be stopped. than 30ased that more states have already agreed to share the information with the commissionon, and the other stas , that information will be forthcoming.

mentioned i don't remember us being at war with russia and everything's talking about donald jr and emails and meetings as the as this obsession with with trump clinton the election and russia in your opinion is this session hindered actual policy work in d.c. i mean even even now trump appears to kind of be like fluctuating back and forth with well we're going to do cyber security with they were not. in all of this i haven't seen any actual policy at all even attempted to get done i mean maybe health care but other matters like everyone's thinking about this i would actually argue that the goal of it is to stop policy and let me be very specific about it because it's something i know something about in two thousand and thirteen september twenty third i went to lebanon i went to beirut lebanon because i thought call me crazy that the syria thing would turn into something big turns out to turn into something big right so i went over there and i've been watching you know what i think that they don't want people to know and i found this out when i went to syria in two thousand and thirteen from talking to people on the ground the united let's be

and honestly, they really wanted it in russia very badly, politically they wanted it. >> reporter: trump predicting his pageant could even bring russia and the u.s. closer. >> it really is a great country. it's a very powerful country. it's a country that we have a relationship, but not a great relationship, and i think that this can certainly help that relationship. >> reporter: investigators plan to examine the trump tower meeting and the e-mails. on fox news tuesday, donald trump jr., who does not appear in the 2013 video, said he had limited knowledge of the russian family. >> i met emin once or twice and maintained a casual relationship there, talked about some potential deals and that was the extent of it. they really didn't go anywhere. >> but new video and others show the president's own connections. >> what's wrong with you? >> reporter: in 2013, trump appeared in one of emin's music videos. >> you're always late. you just don't have a pretty face. i'm really tired of you. you're fired! >> and wished him happy birthday in a video posted on emin's instagram. >> emin, i can't beli

we begin, though, with the first face to face meeting with president trump and russia's president putin. contrary to some expectations, president trump raised the issue on russia's attack on the american democracy. let's go to jim acosta. he is in hamburg traveling with the president. we're hearing very different versions of events between trump and lavrov. are there different versions we should believe. >> reporter: they are definitely saying americans should believe president trump. president trump did press vladimir putin on this issue of russian meddling in last year's election, but there were also some pretty big issues, including putin's denials of interference. >> president putin and i have been discussing various things, and i think it's going very well. >> reporter: just after the cameras were kicked out of the room, president trump reportedly did what many of his critics thought as unthinkable. the president confronted vladimir putin on u.s. concerns that russia meddles in last year's election. in a meeting that lasted much longer than expected, 2 hours 15 minutes, rex tillers

no, the other question that's been on everyone's mind, did the trump campaign collude with russia, thect of investigations by the house, senate and f.b.i. but according to trump's people, not only was there no collusion, they barely even know what a russian is! >> did any advisor or anybody in the trump campaign have any contact with the russians who were trying to meddle in the election? >> of course not. >> i did not have communications with the russians. >> are there any ties between plump mr. trump, you and your campaign or you and putin and his regime. >> no, there are not. that's absurd and there is no basis to it. >> every time russia is brought up they say, oh, trump! what do i have to do with it? >> trevor: yeah, that's a rhetorical question! ( laughter ) we know that's not true now. one after the other we keep learning about one after the other of the trump campaign that met with the russians after the campaign but none looked quite as bad as the one we found out about yesterday. >> donald trump, jr. admitting he met with the russian during the campaign hoping to get damaging

russia. if during the campaign or since the president's inauguration, members of the trump team have considered altering sanctions on our adversary russia, congress and the american people need to know and have a right to know. democrats have repeatedly expressed concern about the trump administration's friendliness towards russia, specifically when it comes to the issue of sanctions. united states should be putting more sanctions on russia, not considering letting off the pressure. earlier this week, ranking member angle joined losey and with hoyer and introducing the house version of the senate's russia-iran sanctions bill. there are no longer any procedural constraints preventing a vote on the sanctions. the only thing stalling this bill is speaker ryan, and president trump. house republicans should not be providing covers for the administration. speaker ryan should allow the house to vote on the bill and republicans should join democrats in voting for this resolutions of inquiry that will provide congress and americans with important information about the administration's dealings with russ

if the investigation into the trump campaign and potential ties to russia has now taken a turn toward exploring financial connections and business arrangements, right, well, a direct financial and business and political link between the trump campaign chair and someone who the u.s. government is now naming as a major figure in russian organized crime, that is an unsettling thing. at least that must be an unsettling thing for the white house. now, when it comes to these alleged linkages, paul manafort is distancing himself from firtash, telling nbc news there was no real business relationship between them. he said, quote, there was one occasion where an opportunity was explored, nothing transpired, and no business relationship was ever implemented. well, the justice department is after this guy now. he faces up to 50 years in prison, and confiscation of all his many, many, many assets. if he's convicted. and because he has all the money in the world, courtesy of the very nice business deals that putin's gas prom set him up with, dmitry firtash has used some of his gazillion dollars to

it comes as the trump—russia investigation is expanding, it comes as there is an eminent crisis over bunker, surrounding himself with family, with associates like scaramucci and with generals like john kelly. aboutjohn kelly, i mean, what is he bringing to thejob? what‘s the appeal there for mr trump? what trump thinks he brings is what trump values above all else, that is unquestioned loyalty. at homeland security, john kelly has been quite vocal in supporting the very aggressive anti—immigration policies of the trump administration, he‘s been vocal in whipping up the idea that america is under threat, a trump theme. but the question is, whether kelly serves just as a yes man for trump or whether he allied with other pragmatists in the administration, military men like james mattis at the pentegon, hr mcmaster at the national security council. in other words, the idea that the only way to hem in trump now from causing further damage is this effectively military alliance within the executive. did mr trump, you heard mr priebus there speaking about a reset of of the administration, di

sawier this week, we evidence that the trump administration and the trump eagerly intended to collude with russia, a hostile foreign-policy to influence an american election. today we learned a foreign russian agent was also present at the trump meeting. members of congress take a sacred of, i do solemnly swear, and that is to uphold the constitution of the united states with what our responsibility is. the president also takes that both. speaker ryan has avoided any response by the republicans, any positive action to uphold the constitution of the united states. in terms of our electoral system, our democracy. earlier this week, i called upon him to give us a vote on this independent commission. outside independent commission to investigate the ties to russia. --t are the russia's have what do the russians have politically or financially and any personally on donald trump? that he fonds over putin, is recklessnctions, when it comes to article five of nato, the list goes on and on. people have a right to know. maybe it will clear the air. maybe it won't. we know one thing for sure, we have a resp

officials, russia's ambassador to washington told his superiors in moscow that he discussed trump campaignrs, including russia-related policies with jeff sessions during last year's presidential race. that's a big deal because even once jeff sessions admitted that he did have contacts with russian officials during the campaign, despite the fact that he previously denied it, even once he admitted to it, he explicitly said, as attorney general, he explicitly said when he had those contacts with russians he did not discuss the trump campaign with russian operatives or intermediaries. now the post says the intelligence indicates that sessions and kislyak has substantive conversations. including trump's position on russia-related issues. it could be that kislyak was lying to the kremlin and really he didn't talk about anything of consequence with jeff sessions. but this story comes after the president told the "the new york times" he wishes he had never chosen jeff sessions to be his attorney general. after senior trump aides told the times they were stunned when jeff sessions didn't quit follo

part of what trump's contact says is, quote, russia and its government support for mr. trump. as for that attorney he met with keir simmons tracked her down and she denied any connection with the kremlin. >> what was the purpose of that meeting? >> translator: i never knew who else would be attending the meeting. all i knew that mr. donald trump jr. was willing to meet with me. i could recognize the young gentleman who was only present in the meeting for probably the first seven to ten minutes and then he stood up and left the roo room. it was mr. jared kushner, ask he never came back, by the way. he was always looking at his phone. he was reading something. he never took any active part in the conversation. that was mr. manafort. >> they had the impression, it appears, that they were going to be told some information that you had about the dnc. how did they get that impression? >> translator: it's possible they were looking for such information. they wanted it so badly. >> have you ever worked for the russian government? do you have connections to the russian government? >> t

russia meddled in the u.s. presidential election appearing to contradict donald trump's view but no one is sure i think it was russia but i think it was probably other people and or countries and i see nothing wrong with that statement nobody really knows nobody really knows for sure everybody knows that russia meddled in our elections everybody knows that they're not just meddling in the united states elections they're doing this across multiple continents and they're doing this in a way that they're trying to cause chaos within the countries so reflecting on last weekend's g. twenty summit the u.s. president tweeted that after brokering a significant deal on syria it's time to move forward and work with russia but with opposing views in his own team and constant criticism it's unclear if optimism over contacts with russia can last very long and republicans were skeptical about the president's plan to develop a cyber security task force in cooperation with russia senators graham mccain and rubio openly criticize the idea which the president defended on twitter president putin however had a positive assessment of th

trump. like collusion with --mpet everybody uses russia it's not covered like collusion with trump. erybody uses russia and russia uses us. defense comeith puts more money toward defense. all of that should be discussed as well as the one sidedness. host: the article you are doj letg to, exclusive russian lawyer into u.s. before she met with the trump team. it is a lengthy piece and it also talks about a picture in the washington post yesterday showing this lawyer sitting behind michael mccaul, the former russian ambassador -- ambassador to russia when he was testifying last summer. caller: five days after the meeting with donald jr. host: this article talks about that and how she was able to get the seat. .he question is not answered mcfall saying he didn't know who she was until this news broke about her meeting with don jr. an interesting and lengthy piece in the hill. if you go to thehill.com, you can read it there. jim in franklin, tennessee. we are listening. caller: well, let me just say that i think the russians probably tapped a lot of computers and probably got some emails

. >>> president trump's oldest son is at the center of a new revelation about russia. donald trump, jr. met with a russian lawyer in the middle of last year's campaign, and he has offered two versions of what they talked about. cbser, molla-- cbs reporter mola lenghi. >> reporter: the white house long denied any connections between the trump campaign and russia, but now, as you mentioned, the president's on son confirmed that he and other campaign officials did meet with the russian attorney as the campaign sought damaging information on hillary clinton. a june 2016 meeting at trump tower with donald trump, jr., former trump campaign manager, the president's son in law, jered cushmer, and russian lawyer, gnaw talia, has the white house on defensive. >> i would certainly say don, jr. did notclude with anyone to influence the election, i thing i have been very clear, our position is that no one within the trump campaigncluded. >> he said a woman claimed she had information that individuals connected to russia were funding the democratic national committee and supporting m

in russia -- trump. in russia, the media coverage was different. tillerson said -- the state-owned said that the meeting would improve relationship which they said trump was seriously committed to building and in recent weeks the narrative that donald trump has a desire to build a stronger connection with russia has been coming up repeatedly in russian media. pressure from the anti-russian-american establishment which unfairly accuses the russian federation of interfering in its presidential election in which donald trump is partly to blame, the article says. illinois,m madison, democratic line. caller: i did not think the meeting should of happened. no people there and you do not know what was said. trump, trump, that is all he is interested in, money, money, money. problems wherec one of them just resigned. because he cannot keep his money straight. and he has got a son-in-law that was selling green cards in china for a half $1 million. he turned that over to his sister. claiming that it is going to another hotel business. hotel, get money in a t

this is where they will claim that there is a russian scandal, but it's not a trump russia scandal. it's the democrats. and the dossier on trump, that's the real russia scandal. that's from russia and the scandal is about hillary clinton and the democrats. we have known this was coming. now as of tonight we know it is arriving wednesday morning in the senate and the first subpoena has just got out for that. that's all happened tonight. that's all been reported tonight and also the white house spokesman sean spicer resigned today, and anthony scaramucci, and there are many rumors that reince priebus will be next to go, and his former deputy chief of staff katie walsh, she went back to the rny, and the spokesman for the president's legal team resigned, and the man who had been the top lawyer on the russia legal team was apparently replaced, and the guy who replaced him and is the new top lawyer just told us he doesn't believe that trump's business dealings or financial transactions are actually being investigated and then he told us this is the last call we will ever have. it was super

russia to combat election hacking. by last night that had changed. president trump has backed off a plan to create a cyber security team with russia. mr. trump started sunday morning with this tweet about his g-20 meeting with vladimir putin. pew tip and i discussed the security unit so hack and many other things can be guarded. >> if that's our best election defense, we might as well mail our ballot boxes to moscow. >> reporter: by sunday night he was writing a different tune, righting in part just because we discussed a cyber plan doesn't mean it can happen. it can't. it came after a day of criticism not ust from democrats but republicans as well. >> to forgive and to forget is to empower putin, and that's exactly what he did. >> marco rubio said partnering with russia on a cyber unit is the same as partnering with assad on a chemical weapons unit. >> senator cain went a step further to say i'm sure putin would be of assistance since he's the one doing the hacking. he also said russia got away with disrupting while pay nothing penalty. anne-marie? >> brook silva-b

russia wants to be released from sanctions. the trumphas reportedly been lobbying congress to at least relax if not alleviate sanctions on russia. russia specifically would like the magnitsky act and its very specific targeted sanctions to not exist, which we now know the trump campaign was discussing in trump tower with an emissary from the kremlin, even before the nominating convention. russia would like deciding power in terms of what happened in syria. basically in terms of their sphere of influence politics, they want a big footprint in the middle east, the biggest part of their footprint is syria. they've got that. they've got control over what happens in syria. and the u.s./russian agreement last week. the u.s. secretary of state, rex tillerson, reportedly telling russia that what happens to assad now is basically their call. honestly, if you think about russia's strategic interests broadly towards the united states and the way the united states has put the most pressure on russia since the cold war, they would prefer a u.s. state

if you look at trump/russia as one issue. you look at issue number two, ukrainian ambassador paid dnc staffer passing on information. >> right. >> you look at a third issue, fusion gps getting information from russia -- and again who's funding them is also tight with clinton -- of the three which is the worse? then add uranium one to the mix. >> rainy one by far, because it's a crime. to use your public office to confer benefit to a foreign government in exchange for money, it's called public corruption, bribery. the meeting with donald trump jr. vladimir putin, former kgb, could have sat in on that meeting and it wouldn't have been a crime. the constitution gives us the freedom to associate with anybody, including russians, and the freedom to exchange ideas and information from any source, including russians. but there's this myth somehow that every russian is the boogeyman, and if you dare talk with one of them, it's a heinous crime. the fact is there are no crimes here. >> we're talking to left and right, getting informatio