reports." remember, follow the show online and on facebook and twitter. one hour until we hear from the president. >> one hour until we hear from the president for the first time since he stood next to a dictator man, accused of hacking into our elections, attacking our elections, and sided with him over his own intelligence community. >> correct. >> quite a day. >> yes. >> chris janice, thank you. we appreciate it. good afternoon from msnbc headquarters in new york. i'm katie tur in for craig melvin. the dam is breaking. the meeting between president trump and vladimir putin could be a breaking point for the gop. and in about an hour, the president will have to face the flood of backlash. he's meeting with republican members of congress and we'll talk to the press. plus, spy games. while standing next to the american president, vladimir putin tried to set a trap for

the man investigating both vladimir putin and donald trump, that man is robert mueller. and he's back on the world stage, choosing his words carefully. only making veiled references to his successor, but how long can that last as he gears up to hit the campaign trail? president trump will address yesterday's vladimir putin meeting. it will be the first time we hear from the president after the tidal wave of criticism to his standing next to putin instead of standing up to him. as both men say, they do not think russia interfered in our election. imagine that. called a betrayal and a disgrace by members of his own party, the chorus is only growing louder today. >> with putin's attitude of putting back the old soviet union, i can only come to the

conclusion that a lot of things he said yesterday about not being involved in our elections, he's a liar. >> feels like the dam is breaking. i was real glad to see people on both sides of the aisle condemning what happened strongly. >> i remain astonished that the president would choose to believe the assertions of president putin over the anonymous conclusions of his own u.s. intelligence and the bipartisan conclusions of the intelligence committee. >> despite the tough talk, there's been no plan, no call to action on how to respond to the president. nbc's peter alexander is at the white house and msnbc's garrett haake is on capitol hill. peter, the meeting with republicans, correct me if i'm wrong, is now supposed to be

about taxes. i imagine at the top he's going to respond to reporters at the very least. or maybe talk with something on his own about that meeting yesterday. >> that's exactly right. sarah sanders tells us the president will begin that meeting. it's supposed to focus on taxes. now he's going to speaking at the start specifically about the helsinki summit he just returned from. it's the first time really we'll be able to press him for more i guess separate from his conversation with sean hannity immediately after his comments yesterday. here's part of what the president said as he appeared to be in effect in denial about all the frustration, the blame being directed, his attention from lawmakers by both sides of the aisle. this morning, he tweeted, while i had a great meeting with nato, raising vast amounts of money, had an even better meeting with vladimir putin of russia. sadly, it is not being reported

that way. the fake news is going crazy. as you know, these are what we call pool sprays. where a representative from the media goes in for these events. today is my turn so i'll be entering that room, the roosevelt room, in about an hour from now. the white house has set out talking points to its allies up on capitol hill today. perhaps moeft notist noticeablyf those surrogates aren't relying on those talking points. one of them was particularly striking. it says president trump approaches talks with russia grounded in realism. i thank is exactly the opposite of the way many people view this right now, feel like his view of russia has not been realistic, giving the russian leader the benefit of the doubt over his own intelligence agencies. >> ashley parker has a whole article today about the behind the scenes, what donald trump was supposed to do and the prep that he had and what he actually did. from your conversations with those inside the white house,

what is your assessment? is that meeting that he had and that press conference that he had, was that the plan all along, or did it catch his own administration by surprise? >> it definitely wasn't the plan all along and did catch every member of his team that i've spoken to so far by surprise. i think you can best describe them as embarrassed, certainly disappointeds an o s disappointed, as one sort of described to me. the bottom line is, despite the urging by his advisers to be tougher in public as he stood beside the russian leader putin. the president obviously again called an audible. perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise because this is a point that he has made repeatedly where he obviously can't separate this idea of collusion with interference. while there's no determination so far whether or not members of his team, in fact, colluded with russia, robert mueller will have the final say on that, there is no despite that russia did interfere in the u.s. elections as evidenced most recently by

those 12 indictments provided by rod rosenstein just last friday. >> the chorus among republicans is getting louder for the president to correct himself, for him to clarify what exactly he meant or for him to at least for the first time separate the investigation into russia from his own personal feelings about whether or not this investigation would delegitimize his own election. of the republicans that are going to this meeting, and there are seven of them as of noon, tell me if we need to update these numbers. so far, only three of them have criticized either the president or his performance or stood by, stood by the intelligence community. those three are congressman eric pulsen, congressman bishop. >> that's right, those lawmakers are going to be in a tough spot. they would love to be associated with president trump and his tax cuts. they would love to make this meeting as it was originally scheduled to be all about the

economy. but they are just the latest republican lawmakers caught in the vice that this president so often puts them in. where he -- on the world stage or with his twitter account, puts forward platforms or puts forward policies that have essentially nothing to do with traditionally republican talking points or platforms. peter mentioned those talking points that the white house distributed today. i've not heard any republican lawmakers using those talks points. i stead what we've heard so far is republican, including those in leadership, pushing back much more strongly in tone and also a little bit in substance, including paul ryan who, this morning, sounded to me a lot more like the guy who was mitt romney's running mate in 2012 then the speaker who's gone out of his way to avoid picking fights with them. here is paul ryan. >> not only did russiaed me until our elections, they're doing it around the world. they did it to france.

they're doing it to the baltics. russia is trying to undermine democracy itself open the mueller issue. i've been clear from day one, he should be allowed to finish his investigation and carry out his work. nothing's changed. >> so, the follow-up question, all these republican lawmakers has been and will continue to be what are you willing to do about it? here's a little bit of what i'm hearing on that front. i think what you may see here is republicans in congress are interested in the idea of putting forward more sanctions against russia. they know they can't go after a president of their own party in any meaningful way. if they can flex their muscles and say we continue to believe russia's a bat actor and we want to do something about it. i heard from senator jeff flake talking about the idea, nothing particularly wind binding, but an opportunity to go on the record in support of the intelligence community. i think that's what you'll see is this idea of working around the president, rather than trying to do something that

confronts him directly, which puts them in a box too, so close to an election. >> it's interesting, i was talking to senator flake yesterday on "meet the press daily" and i was if he was willing to maybe hold up the confirmation of judges over this as he did for tariffs and he said no, it wasn't time for that yet, but couldn't answer on when that yet would become more of a pressing need to do something. one other question to you, garrett, bob corker said the dam is breaking. what did he mean by that? >> well, corker has long before a foil of the president on issues in which conservatives and the republican party led by president trump no longer align. corker's someone who has been against tariffs. he's been a free trader. he has pushed back when the president has strayed away from what have long been sort of dogmatic points on republican foreign policy. and he has been a lonely voice in that regard a lot of the times. was buoyed this morning by hearing so many of his

colleagues, including those who typically defend the president, start to speak out a little bit. as to the question of the dam breaking, whether this substantively changes how a republican-led congress deals with this president is something that has to be proven out over time. how many times have we had conversations about something incredible that the president has said over the last year and a half that hasn't really, beyond a few days in the news cycle, changed the status quo? i think a lot of folks, like myself are waiting to see whether this is another one of those moments or actually something different. >> no doubt. peter alexander and garrett haake, thank you. our guest is with the weekly standa standard. anna palmer is a washington correspondent for politico. guy, welcome, anna, in politico's playbook this morning, you talk about what republicans are saying behind the scenes. a lot of them really disappointed. that's a measured way of putting it with the president's performance yesterday. but then shrugging their

shoulders and saying what should we do about it. >> yes, think what we really saw is frustration behind the scenes, staffers, lawmakers, trying to figure out what to do. i think a lot of them are throwing their hands up in the air, saying, oh this is president trump once again going off script, not in republican orthodoxy. they don't feel like they have a lot of tools in their tool box to actually, you know, affect change or push him on these issues. you saw what garrett was saying, maybe doing some nonbinding resolutions or a little slap on the hand. there isn't any movement within congress among republicans to actually take some big movement or some big action that could put the president in a bind. >> carly, is that true? is there anything they can do? >> well, a lot of things they can actually do. in fact, the weekly standard editors had a piece out today saying that congress can censor the president. there's only one president who's ever been censured, andrew jackson, but he certainly deserves it. short of that obvious lly a

resolution in defense of the intelligence community would be an option. legislation that would trigger harsher sanctions. and legislation that would protect the mueller investigation. they could do all of those things. but, you know, we've seen this again and again and again. how republicans have made this bargain with this president. paul ryan was very, very -- i think he was very forceful but, remember, he's also been, you know, the guy who has enabled the house of representatives, the hearing that we saw, the circus that we saw last week, enabled house republicans aggressively to obstruct and demean and undermine the mueller investigation. so they do have to choose and just simply wringing hands i don't think is sufficient to the occasion. >> take it with a grain of salt obviously because this comes from one of president obama's former senior advisers and when i say "gain of salt" i mean the republicans do this when the democrat is offering up a solution, but this is dan

pfeiffer who tweeted this morning that republicans could pass legislation to protect the mueller investigation, subpoena trump's tax and business records to see what leverage russia may have on him. that would certainly be interesting to see his taxes. pass a tougher sanctions law that doesn't let donald trump wriggle out of them, hold hearings on what has or has not been done to protect america from russia. subpoena the interpreter to find out what trump actually said to putin in private. or pass a joint resolution saying russia interfered in the elections to help donald trump. small chance of any of those things happening, anna, i'm sure. but amy cklobacuher was talking about trying with the interpreter, if that was anything within the realms of her power. >> what that tweet illustrates is what the democratic talking points are. what we try to put in playbook is what is going to happen and i

don't think anything is going to happen. the on thing right now that seals to be tangible that republicans are starting to think about, and i think speaker paul ryan looked at this a little bit in his press conference today is the concept of more sanctions, but as far as passing a bill to protect the mueller investigation, i just don't think is in the realm of possibility right now when you look at a republican controlled congress. >> charlie, let's look at what cia director john brennan -- you yesterday called this a treasonous act -- said this morning. take a listen. >> i think the outcry needs to be strong. it needs to endure. so those republicans on the hill need to do more than just speak out and criticize. they need to act. they need to put pressure on mr. trump and they need to send a clear signal that this is intolerable and they're going to act upon it. >> the "t" word, "treason," is now being used more than anyone has ever heard it used before regarding a sitting president.

what do you make of that? what's your take? >> i think we have to be careful on the houuse of language. there is no question, this was a betrayal. it was a betrayal of american values. it was a betrayal of american government. it was a betrayal of what you would expect the president of the united states to do. i agree it's unlikely congressional republicans are really going to hold him accountable. but there is an element to this that is significant. katie, you have pointed out that the one thing that donald trump fears and hates the most is to look weak. and yesterday, he looked weak. remember when conservatives used to describe people who looked weak on foreign policy as surrender monkeys? that's what donald trump looked like yesterday. he looked like a surrender monkey. he looked weak. he looks survile. and that cuts against his brand. remember, he's supposed to be the guy on the white horse. the guy who's going to solve all

the problems. and he looked like -- he looked like vladimir putin's caddie yesterday. >> so my question is, given all that, he looks like a surrender monkey and he looks weak and he's betraying, that's the word you used, betraying american intelligence, betraying the intelligence community, betraying the doj after this indictment, and that sort of indictment usually does go through, a very detailed indictment with a paper trail. if all of these things are happening, what does that make republicans who are just standing by and allowing him to do that? who's worse in that scenario? >> well, it makes them look like they have looked, you know, for last year and a half. but the problem is, the price tag of their faustian bargain keeps going up. i think they'll watch what the poll numbers suggest. and, again, you know, if your appeal is you're the manlyist man, right, and you fight, and you put america first, and you

never apologize, and then you go on this groveling tour he went on, does that cut against your strength? that's why what the president says in the next hour will be very, very interesting, because this is a guy that does whatever you say about him. he does not want to be portrayed order seen as weak. >> people have called him that in regard to vladimir putin for years now and he hasn't changed. about poll numbers, what does that say about us? betrayal of the country comes down to? does it poll well? interesting question. charlie sykes, thank you, anna palmer, thank you. on thursday, my colleague andrea mitchell will be interviewing the director of national intelligence. dan coats who just rebuked president trump for his comments on russia's interference in our 2016 election, that comment he made, by the way, did not go through the white house for approval. andrea and mr. coats will talk one on one at the aspen security forum. watch the interview live on nbcnews.com and at 3:35 eastern,

again, that is on thursday, and make sure to watch msnbc throughout the day for excerpts and analysis. we're going to keep watching the white house where the president is expected to speak in the next hour and talk about the offer vladimir putin made to robert mueller that seemed to be enticing to president trump. plus, president obama is back in the spotlight this morning, talking about family separation at the border. >> for a mother with the child in her arms, we can recognize that could be somebody in our family. that could be my child. >> that is not the only thing he said. we're going to look at his other comments about the current president. those comments did not mention donald trump by name but they were some of his strongest comments yet about what's going on in america. stay tuned. i tried cold turkey, i tried the patch. they didn't work for me.

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while the word reacts to president trump's performance in helsinki, we want to focus on something vladimir putin said. he had a puzzling, let's call it puzzling proposal for robert mueller. let's work together on the russia probe. >> we can actually permit official representatives of the united states, including the members of this very commission, headed by mr. mueller, we can let them into the country and they will be present for this questioning. but in this case, there's

another condition on this kind of effort should be a mutual one. then we would expect that the americans would reciprocate and they would question officials including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence services of the united states whom we believe who have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of russia. >> rick stengel is a former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public a fairs and an msnbc political analyst. vladimir putin is offering his help, his investigator's help, to our investigators, who are investigating him for interfering or attacking our democracy. >> yes, uh-huh. >> you're laughing. president seemed to be -- >> laughing at your description of it. >> because it's a real description. it's just ludicrous. the president was just nodding along to it and smiling. >> well, that's, you know, one of the many, many, many disturbing things yesterday. >> he also said it was a really

interesting offer yesterday on sean hannity, on that, i don't know, pat on the back fest they had. >> i'm trying not to be sarcastic. what this -- what putin did, one of the things that president putin does in social science they call it double bind theory. they make a proposal where you lose both ways. it's obviously an absurd proposal but it's also the idea that he could potentially, if we were for some reason say yes, penetrate the mueller probe itself, which is obviously investigating his links with the trump campaign. it's kind of a strange classic russian kind of poison pill they do. they're very transactional. they believe in what we call p repriprocity, if you do something to me, i'm going to do something to you. >> the release on friday from robert mueller's team, that's the sort of thing that has to go through the intelligence

community first in order to make sure they're not revealing information. usually that's a process. that indictment was extremely detailed. it had names. names of the russian intelligence officers. it had dates. it had a money trail following the bit coin. it had a paper trail following where d.c. leaks was set up or where guccifer, who he was talking to, that persona online. this is a really detailed document. when donald trump says he doesn't believe the intelligence community, he's also going out and saying i don't believe my doj, who's just released basically all of the evidence they have. >> no, it's an extraordinary thing that he did, of not trusting his own intelligence community. think one thing people need to realize is the reason they have so much detail is that digital forensics is an exact science. i mean, it's better than having a fingerprint. they have your ip address, everything they need to know. it's not that it's subject. i mean, one of the things that was so annoying about that joint

press conference is it's not about president trump asking president putin whether it's true or not. it's verifiably, incontrovertibly true. he has to challenge him about what are you going to do about it, how do we make sure you're not going to do it again? >> if robert mueller is watching this, is he going to be using -- and i know you're not a prosecutor. do you think this is something robert mueller might use to his advantage or use as evidence? i just -- i can't get my mind around why the president -- what the motivations are for the president to stand next to putin and do this. is it just because he truly does want to be best friends with him as he tweeted out in 2013? or is there something much more there? i know it's an unknown and we can't answer it definitively on this show. >> yes. you know, what's been so perplexing about all this, i mean, he was colluding in public on the grandest stage possible. as you say, he was nodding a long to things that an american president should never under any circumstances make any kind of truck with. and the fact he does it in public for some reason makes

people think it's less pernicio pernicious. it's not. >> what about trump at 2:00 p.m., can he say anything that would change things? >> well, i suppose if he tried to put the genie back in the bottle and said i'm going to up sanctions and i do trust my intelligence community and here's what happened in that private meeting. i told putin if he meddles in 2018, we're going to, you know, sanction his whole family. but that remains to be seen. he's obviously trying to heal what happened i would think. >> i wonder because the white house just tweeted, the bottom line, americans want peace, not conflict, nothing would be easier politically than to refuse to meet, refuse to engage, but that would not accomplish anything, and they a tribute that quote to the president. so we'll see. >> yes, he always doubled down, katie, you're right. >> i hate that term doubled down, but you're right, that's what he's doing. of the 26 russians now facing charges related to the interference in the 2016 presidential election, one is now in federal custody. 29-year-old maria butina was

arrested on sunday. she's expected to appear in court tomorrow on a charge of acting as a covert russian agent. and infiltrating u.s. political groups like the nra. it comes just days after the justice department also indicted a dozen russian intelligence officers for election related hacking. we were just talking about that. matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department, joins me now. he's also an msnbc justice and security analyst. matt, the significance of this indictment for this woman, this young woman, who was living here and trying to gain influence within an american political organization, including the nra. >> i think the best way to think of this is as one part of a multifaceted russian campaign to influence the united states policy. and we've seen, you know, through the results of the mueller investigation, their attempts to influence u.s. policy by choosing who the next president would be. this is their attempt to influence u.s. policy by infiltrating the nra and using

it to cut vat relationships with u.s. political officials. one of those political officials seemed to have been donald trump. she publicly asked him a question about sanctions early on in the presidential campaign. one seems to be his son, which whom she and alexander tortion, a russian senior official to whom she was reporting, met with in 2016. while this is not directly related to bob mueller's charge of pursuing interference in the u.s. election, it is a peace of an overall multifaceted russian operation to infiltration and influence u.s. policy making. >> matt there are two named americans in this indictment. will we find out their names? >> i think we'll find out their names in and when the justice department decides to bring charges. if you read the charging document very closely, it's pretty clear they both have legal jeopardy. it wouldn't surprise me if the fbi has already seized their records, maybe interviewed them, subpoena them to the grand jury

in the coming days. if she goes to trial, will we find out their names? there are questions for them. i also think there are questions for the nra. the nra over the last few years has seen an influx of russian-connected money. they've dramatically increased their spending on behalf of president trump versus mitt romney in 2012. and when asked questions about those relationships by the senator who's conducting an investigation, they've declined to kind of open up and tell everything they know. i think there are very real questions about the extend to which, you know, the nra's election spending and their policy preferences have been influenced order infiltrated by russian government officials. one way or the other, whether it's a department of justice investigation, i think there are questions they have to answer. >> could this lead us down the track of the evidence for collusion? i meeran, the daily beast noted this morning in their article this gets as close to collusion, this is as close as it gets to

collusion. they said the reason is because she had help from at least one american in her effort to build back channels between top republican party insiders and the kremlin. u.s. person one again appears to be paul erickson, who sherperred her, advising her on outreach. another american who we don't have an i.d. for as of now. what is your take on that? >> i think it depends what we mean by collusion. it's the shorthand term a lot of us use to describe, you know, various activities by which u.s. persons would assist the russian government. usually we need it to influence the outcome of the election. it could also mean to influence policy making in the united states. this does make it look like an american citizen. we don't know enough about that person's activities yet to answer the quote. acting to influence u.s. policy or least assist these russian officials in influencing u.s. policy. so to the extent that, you know, i think what we're going to have to look for is in the coming

days, this was an investigation they clearly kind of rushed to complete. looked like she was going to move over the weekend. whether domestically or move internationally, we don't know. they may have planned to investigate further, potentially bring charges against her and u.s. persons at the same time. we don't know that but we'll have to look what we find out. >> matt miller, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> in just about a half an hour, we're going to hear from president trump for the first time since we saw him at that podium alongside vladimir putin. we are going to be watching for that and we'll bring it to you as soon as we get it. meantime, president obama is on the world stage or was on the world stage this morning, speaking about russia, immigration and the media. no direct hits at the president, as he didn't say him by name, but he did have a lot to say. should he have gone further? ♪

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what guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future. former president barack obama was back on the international stage this morning talking about the news cycle we live in, racial discrimination and russia. he spoke to mark the 100th anniversary of nelson mandela's

birth in south africa and he urged the people of the world to uphold mandela's ideas on democracy and diversity, values he suggested that are now under threat. >> with each day's news cycles bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines. we also have to recognize all the ways that the international order has fallen short of its promise. in fact, it is in part because of the failures of governments and powerful elites to address the short comings and contradictions of this international order, that we now see much of the world threatening to return to an older, more dangerous, more brutal, way of doing business. >> joining me now, the form are

dire former strategic director of hillary clinton's 2016 campaign, and ken vogel, political reporter for "the new york times." adrian, this is the strongest rebuke i guess we've seen from the president yet when it comes to what's happening on the world stage. he didn't mention president trump by name, but that is going further for him. >> yes, it is, katie. you know, first of all, i just want to say, i think i speak for a lot of americans when i say how much i miss president obama and i miss listening to his beautiful oratory and the way he's able to put a positive light on all the things, the negativity going on. secondly, he did remind all of us that, you know, there is much more that we can do to improve things but at the same time, we are living in a very challenging time, where, you know, as he mentioned in his speech, he didn't expect this to be happening a couple years ago. i don't think any of us expected we would be living in these times.

again, such a stark contrast, obama honoring mandela's legacy, versus what we saw yesterday, trump and putin standing on the stage together where trump was essentially defending putin and criticizes our own intelligence agencies. >> i wonder how aggressive obama's willing to get, given he's going on the campaign trail for some democrats in 2018 and when he's being criticized for how he's handling russia, still tries every time to turn it back to obama and say, well, he didn't do enough, this was under his watch. is there going to come a point where we're going to hear the former president push back more aggressively on that or at least come out and explain himself a little bit more, in more details than we've heard so far? >> the democrats certainly want him to. not necessarily because they feel that he owes an explanation. in fact, his aides have been rather forthcoming and explaining why they did or

didn't do more. but, rather, democrats want him to engage in a more symmetric way with donald trump who of course is much more personal, much more aggressive when it comes to critiquing barack obama than barack obama, even though he's issuing a stern warning here and has at various other points in his post presidency. it's far less pointed and less aggressive than what president trump does. part of that, if he talked to people around him, is because he valued and subscribes to this unwritten rule of former presidents not criticizing the current holder of the office. part of that is because it's just never been, even when he was on the campaign trail, his preferred method of communication and interaction to really aggressively counter punch. it's just not -- his milieu is what we just saw from him, speaking in grand and lofty terms about the american ideal and having a little bit of a distaste for the cut and thrust of daily political campaigning.

>> adrian, is he being pushed to break that tradition, of not naming, not being directly critical of current president? >> well, i think ken's exactly right. there's this sort of unwritten rule that form are presidents don't necessarily go out there and criticize, especially the person who took the office right after them. it's also not in obama's nature to do that. i think he knows that his best value he can bring to the table is campaigning for democrats, going into the midterms, and hopefully giving democrats the opportunity to actually have some level of control, whether it's taking back the house, senate or both. i think that's where he knows his value is. i will say, as a democrat, i do miss having that one central figure who can punch back on trump, who's out there, aggressively, every day. we've got a lot of voices but we don't have that one person who's really out there sort of representing collectively all the democrats. i think once democrats do have control back of one chamber, we'll have that. >> let's play one more sound

bite from today's speech about reality. >> we have to actually believe in an objective reality. this is another one of these things that i didn't think i had to lecture about. you have to believe in facts. without facts, there's no basis for cooperation. if i say this is a podium and you say this is an elephant, it's going to be hard for us to cooperate. >> politics aside, i have to agree. you got to believe in facts. adrian elrod, ken vogel, guys, thank you very much. facts matter. >> thanks, katie. we are still watching the white house. we will be hearing from president trump at 2:00 p.m. it's the first time he will be speaking after helsinki. he has been facing waves of criticism. not just from democrats but from republicans as well. criticism on fox news.

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the white house. nbc's hans nichols joins me now from the white house along with msnbc's garrett haake from capitol hill and nbc chief foreign correspondent richard engel live from moscow along with charlie sykes. rod rosenstein was at the white house earlier today. what do you know about that? >> an official tells me he was here for a regular scheduled meeting. what we don't know about what the president is going to be talking about is he will clarify, simply address these comments? we do know he's getting a lot of advice. advice from allies that typically aren't very critical. for example, in the last hour or so, we've heard from a conservative talk radio host. she's saying the president needs to clarify. now, lindsey graham in the senate is saying he needs to fix it. laura ingraham is also making this point, that he went a little bit too far. and i think if we watch the morning develop, we've seen more and more republicans and importantly conservatives in the media space increase and amp up

their criticism of the president's performance at that news conference. now at 2:00 p.m., he'll be talking about it. our own peter alexander will be heading inside that room. we'll get the latest. >> republicans are still coming out to criticize what they saw yesterday. here was republican senator lindsey graham a moment ago. >> senator, what's your overall assessment about the press conference yesterday? >> i think was a bad day for the president. i think he can fix it. i think he needs to fix it. >> so is that how republicans feel, if he comes out and says something right now, garrett, everything will be fine? >> i don't think that's a uniform opinion at all, katie. part of the problem here is what does fixing it really look like? if what the president said yesterday standing side by side with vladimir putin is what he actually believes. a lot of republicans i talked to really do believe that's essentially what the president himself does believe, as it relates to russian interference.

that if the russians did interfere it doesn't matter, it's a distraction, and it's not something he wants to engage in. i talked to senator flake today who said what does a fix look like, it's just not something that would be credible coming from the president after the fact. now, if the president wants to come out and condemn vladimir putin in stronger language and say he'd be willing, for example, to press for the russians to hand over the 12 gru operatives named in the indictment last friday, that kind of action might speak a little bit louder. a lot of republicans on the hill point to the fact that the trump administration has actually signed off on sanctions against russia, has -- the administration itself has pursued a more muscular policy than the president has. they'd like to see those two things get in line. but it's tough to see how that gets done in one meeting in one photo spray, with a couple of republican lawmakers sitting on either side of it. >> what's interesting, when you look at the statements or the comments that come directly out of the republican's mouths, a

lot of them have to do with, well, the president needs to separate his own election with the investigation. or it sounds like they're saying i can't tell what's going on cat is going on here. are they saying that the president is not smart enough to separate these two thing, and they are trying to urge him the do sor, do they believe that the president doesn't understand that they are two thing, and what is happening? >> well, you heard frit some of the republicans, themselves, bob corker yesterday allude nod the idea na the president can't emotionally separate these two things, that somehow by admitting that what all of the nation's intelligence agencies have said unanimous ly that are russia interfere and that it is for his benefit, that would somehow undermine what he accomplished by winning the white house anyway and it is something that is caught up in his emotional makeup here. you know, the democrats are taking it a step further. you heard this idea that the russians have something on donald trump move from more of a fringe idea to the much more

mainstream talking point. chuck schumer the leader of the democrats in the senate said yesterday if not that, what else could possibly be motivating this behavior, and the congressional republicans have the same challenge that i think that many of us have who cover this administration which is to understand the workings of donald trump's psyche on these issues when his policies and the words that come out of his mouth don't necessarily a align and certainly don't align with what the rest of the party would like to see done. >> richard, you are in moscow, and what is the reaction will there? is this is a -- well, what has been the reaction? >> well, the initial reaction was a lot of oexcitement. you could hear it in the tone that was being expressed by s sur -- sergey lavrov who said it is fabulous and beyond super and beyond super, but today, it is more subdued when you are watching the russian television

stations, the state back channels seem like they don't want to gloat. instead, they are saying it is more of a natural state of affairs, but on the street, there is definitely a feeling that putin is riding high right now. he has successfully host ed ted world cup, and the economy has not been particularly good, but they have had a lot of other things that he has been able to give them pride in being russian. pride when about 3 billion people around the world watch russia successfully hold this sporting match, and then pride when vladimir putin was standing there on the stage and getting praise from president trump, and seeming to many like he had the american president eating out of the palm of his hand. >> and any idea why they would start to subdue it and after lavrov said it was so fabulous? >> well, they are trying to say that this is the natural state of affairs. and for russia, this is a very

important moment, because it was not just one day of getting a great meeting with president tr trump. this is where they have wanted to be. and this is where putin has wanted to be for decades, to be as equals with the united states, and seen as cosouper powers once again and something they have not had since the collapse of the soviet union. >> charlie, what do you want to hear from the president? what should he say at 2:00? >> well, first of all, this notion that he can somehow fix what happened yesterday is ludicrous, because you cannot unare ring the bell. it is like, saying, okay, let's have extra innings, and i would have played the game differently, and look, yesterday, he stood on the stage with vladimir putin and he was given multiple chances to hold him accountable to be tough with vladimir putin, an instead, he chose to betray his own office. i don't know what words he can say that are going to be making a difference, because what you saw yesterday was the real donald trump, and that is what

he really believes, and that is what he thinks and sincere as donald trump is ever going to be, and so, yes, they could come up with talking points and read the talking points, and the republicans could nod along with him, him, but it is not close to repairing the damage that was done yesterday. >> hans nicholls and garrett hague and charlie sykes, thank you very much. we are keeping an eye on the white house where we should be hearing from the president in a moment or two. and the backlash of the comments that he made while standing next to vladimir putin. we will bring that to you as soon as it starts. stay with us. it is time now for your business of the week. awe dena raider was at the top of the game with her jewelry business serving gwyneth paltrow and lady gaga, but when her son was diagnosed with colitis, she had to keep the business afloat

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it is 11:00 a.m. out west and 2:00 p.m. in washington where any moment president trump is make his first public comments since that the extraordinary summit in helsinki, and the one-on-one with vladimir putin accomplished the impossible, finally the democrats and the republicans have something to agree on and this is widespread shock and concern and criticism after the president sided with the russian leader over his own intel agencies and his own doj. some have even suggested that amount amounts to treason, and even today, the leading republicans are having a hard time to explaining away donald trump's e behavior. >> putin does not share our values. we just conducted a year-long investigation into russia's interference into our elections, and they did interfere, and it

is really clear and no odoubt about it. >> if that is what victory looks like as the white house said, we would all like to know what the failure looks like in the mum mitt. it is a shameful performancet it was. >> and we negotiated from a position of weakness and vladimir putin walked away from helsinki with a win. >> it feel likes the dam is breaking and i was glad to see that people on both sides of the aisle condemning what happened yesterday strongly. >> according to axios, the fallout has reach left wing where the officials are embarrassed. and the per for mants defied the guidance. ahead of the meeting, the staff staffers provide him with some 100 pages of briefing materials aimed at laying out a tough posture against putin, but the president ug ignored most of it. trump made a game time decision to handle the summit his way. the one place that you would

think that the president's game time play would be praised would be the conservative media, but all of the way to fox news, the biggest supporters have turned into critics. >> russia's goal was to upend the electoral process, and they hate demdemocracy, and when new gingrich and matt schaap says that he made our presidential apparatus look bad. >> and he has to say that is a all in the past, and it is easy and he could have made ate home run, and he did not, and i am disappoint and he is not the patriot that he should have been yesterday. >> and this is time to look at putin squarely in the eye, and say, you will be punished in 2016 and don't ever think of doing that again. >> but he didn't, and that is what