Of poisonous substances. I do apologize for such a long commentary but id like to stress here that we are absolutely 100 convinced that this will mean they simply dont want to establish the truth and we will insist on it. Josh letterman with the associated press. Thank you. Secretary tillerson, i want to ask you about your conversations with president putin about syria. You have predicted that assad will leave power through a political transition. How will you compel assad to participate in a political transition that leads to his own ouster. Our war crimes charges on the table and how long will the United States meet for russia to come around . And foreign minister lavrov, if i may, your government and the United States government seem to be miles apart on the syria issue, on ukraine and other issues. Did you feel that you cleared up any of those issues you mentioned earlier today since youve had those discussions with secretary tillerson . We did discuss at length the future role for assad, whether it be a future political process or not. Clearly, our view is that the reign of the assad family is coming to an end. And they have, again, brought this on themselves with their conduct of the war these past few years. We discussed our view that russia is their closest ally in the conflict, perhaps has the best means of helping assad recognize this reality. We do think its important that assads departure is done in an orderly way. So that certain interests and constituencies that he represents feel they have been represented at the negotiating table for a political solution. How that occurs, we leave that to the process going forward. We do not think one has to occur before the other can begin. And it will take a pace of its own. But the final outcome, in our view, does not provide for a role for the assad for assad or for the assad family and the future governance of syria. We do not think the International Community will accept that. We do not think the world will accept that. [ inaudible ] . We discussed the issue that, as time goes by and more armnd more evidence is gathered, its possible that the threshold necessary to charge individuals, including Bashar Al Assad, may be achieved. As you know, this is a very high legal hurdle in order to bring such charges against an individual. So i would not suggest to you that all of that evidence is in place, but i think the longer time goes by, its possible that the case will be made and there are certain individuals who are working to make that case. Translator well, as far as im concerned, id just like to say that we do not consider that we are miles apart on many questions on the agenda. Syria and ukraine in our introduction, we talked about the accords and the opening of channels of communication, particularly about ukraine as far as syria is concerned and Bashar Al Assad, we talked today about the history and rex said that he was a new man and hes not interested so much in history. He wants to deal with todays problems but the world is s constructed in a way that if we dont look at the past, we cant deal with the present. And particularly in a situation where a group of countries, western countries, the nato countries were absolutely obsessed with eliminating a particular dictator or totalitarian leader. When it was a question of ousting milosevic, nato followed a huge campaign. It was very blatant and even bombed the place which is certainly a war crime, which ever way you interpret the geneva convention, and they bombed the headquarters. And there were also attacks on trains, the chinese embassy, bridges and so on and so forth that lasted some two months. And after all this, which was very near to weapons of dual purpose, then they ousted him. Then there was a question of Saddam Hussein after the invasion and then tony blair afterwards repented afterwards publicly that all of this was a fake and you all know about that more than we do. And then there was gadhafi. It was to create this dictator had no place in his country and this was second to democracy. We know what happened in libya. The Libyan Government is now under a huge question mark. We spoke about this, or president putin did speak about it yesterday with the italian president and we are both trying to stop the situation of the country slipping into full and legal immigration, gun running and so on. So, incidentally speaking, we have even more recent examples. President bashar was claimed to be under prosecution by the International Accord and president obama decided in order to settle this problem you had to divide the country up into two and the southern part very actively asked for our assistance in dealing with president bashar, that the americans want to see that he should be the head of the states. He kept his word. He divided the country into two parts, according to the american project of the administration of president obama. And that sanctions were introduced against their own on southern sudan. So this insistence on removing, ofteni ousting a totalitarian dictator, we already know what happens when you do that. I dont remember any case of a dictator being removed smoothly without violence. So in syria and i have stressed this on many times, we are not staking everything on a personality, on president assad, as is being done in libya at the moment. We are simply insisting that everybody sits around the table and talks about it and comes to an agreement, as has been enshrined in the Security Council resolution. We want to install dialogue with all the players concerned and we want the syrians themselves, without any kind of exclusion to be represented in this process and removing our ousting a particular personality is not on our agenda. Were talking about the whole of the syrian government. We want it to be democratic and secular as well and we want to see all the ethnic confessional groups in the country to feel protected. Justly represented in all the granchs of government and power. And obviously for that you need a new constitution. We think that then the question the fate of individuals could be dealt with and without any kind of tragic consequences for the state as a whole. Translator thank you very much. I have a question to mr. Tillerson. Did you discuss in todays negotiations the intervention of russia in the u. S. Elections and could you tell us about how the presence of russian cybernauts differs and there was a question about the korean issue. Have you actually thought about setting up a group which would actually look at that kind of thing together . Is that question to both ministers, or what . We touched on it briefly on the issue of cybersecurity and, in particular, on the challenges that it is placing on everyone in terms of a new threat, an emerging threat. But i think i do make a distinction when cybertools are used with countries and how their elections are conducted. That is cybertools. To interrupt weapons programs, thats another use of the tools and i make a distinction between those two. Clearly this is an issue that has emerged in our time which we have yet to come to some conclusion on how we want to respond to that. And so there will be further discussions and it is on the agenda and it is in the agenda that foreign minister lavrov passed to me for us to have further discussions in the future. I can confirm that we are very interested in bilateral cooperation to combat crime in the cyberspace. We have heard about that 18 months ago. We actually proposed to Obamas Administration that we should do something about it. We voiced our concern about Russian Hackers hacking into the entire world and being illegitimate use of these tools and the possibility of prosecuting these people and we said then that we, too, are very interested in our citizens not being victims of cybercrimes and we proposed that we should have a special system of contacts, a special mechanism which would Exchange Information in realtime. And looking at how people are subverting into International Norms in their countries. The president spoke about it but didnt really react at all and then in november of last year it was suggested that we should meet about that and obviously our colleagues agreed but then at last moment Obamas Administration decided not to go ahead with it and to subvert u. S. Relations. I just want to confirm the fact that we are particularly interested in that. We still have that project on the table. We want to renew it. We want to resume contacts with special representatives in the administration of the u. S. And the Russian Federation president s office and engage and commit all the various authorities concerned there may be a result from all of these efforts and we hope that we will be able to close this matter. We have actually bridged this whole idea of a president ial commission. It was put in place by obama but when we looked at the problems dogging the bilateral relations, we thought of looking at the independence of the organization and who could overcome the difficulties and we are looking at how we can overcome these problems above all of the problems created artificially. Secretary tillerson, did you discuss today with president putin or foreign minister lavrov sanctions or other concessions the United States may make for a change in the behavior of the russian government . And also speaking about what you just answered previously, did you present to president putin or the foreign minister specific evidence that the russian government interfered in the u. S. Election . And foreign minister lavrov, if an independent investigation finds that assad attacked his own people with chemical weapons, what will russia do . President putin says theres an effort to blame assad and plant evidence. Did you present that evidence to secretary tillerson today and would russia refuse to consider to any circumstance that results in the ousting of Bashar Al Assad . We discussed no change in the status of sanctions that have been in place with russia as a result of certain actions taken in ukraine, as you know. I think as to the question of the interference with the election, that is fairly well established and i think that has been spoken to on the hill as well with the congress and it is a serious issue. Its one that we know is a serious enough to attract additional sanctions. And so we are mindful of the seriousness of that particular interference in our elections and im sure that russia is mindful of it as well. Well, the state secretary did not threaten me with sanctions, did not threaten me with anything. Frankly, we spoke about the items on our agenda, including whether problems and in fact on the majority of them there are problems and what will happen if the investigation will demonstrate the involvement of the syrian leadership and the chemical attacks. I believe that question is hypothetical. We dont want to try and guess because there has been a lot of historical looking at the tea leaves and coming to the conclusion that bombings should take place. And after the u. S. Missile strike, there was a lot of talk of that. We do not wish to speculate about these very serious matters, the use of chemical weapons, the use or attempts to orchestrate things. We want to establish the truth, the full truth in line with the principles of u. S. And russian laws, the laws of any normal civilized country, the presumption of innocence must reign supreme and i just told you, our instructions to the ocw in the hague, if people put the brakes on, we shall protest. As far as the argument that the u. S. Has inconvertible evidence that we intervened in the u. S. President ial campaign, then i have to say once again that not a single fact has been confirmed who saw those facts. We dont know. Nobody has shown us anything. And we have said to them, show us the evidence for these very slanderous attacks. I know that there are numerous c political or extra political ambitions. That is not the issue. Let us look at that, give us evidence and we will respond. Translator good evening. Id like to ask a question to both our ministers. The Korean Peninsula, the americans have sent a whole Naval Company did you talk about that in your negotiations and the dangers to the particular region . And does it mean that america has some kind of plans for a military Campaign Around the Korean Peninsula . The Carl Vinson Strike group is routinely in the Pacific Ocean and its movements in the pacific are made in a way that is planned by the military planners. There is no particular objective in its current course. The vinson sells up and down the pacific routinely. I would not read anything into the carl vinsons current locations. I would repeat that we, amongst other many questions that discuss the situation in the Korean Peninsula and as far as i remember, we covered all the substantive issues connected with it and we insisted that this situation would only be settled by peaceful means and the denuclearization in the peninsula and there are participants in what used to be called the process and we have a couple of ideas about that. Our trainees and colleagues and we have to unite together and apply exclusively peaceful means. And last question to the american side. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, before these meetings, you said you believed russia was either incompetent or complicit in these chemical weapons attacks. After your extensive meeting with both Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov, do you know which one that is and what concrete thing can be done to rebuild that lack of trust . And minister lavrov, if i could indulge you to answer in english, if you would, sir, President Trump has called Bashar Al Assad an animal. This is the leader your government continues to back. Can you tell us how long russia will be willing to risk the lives of its soldiers and spend its money to protect him . With respect to russias complicity or knowledge of the chemical weapons attack, we have no Firm Information to indicate that there was any involvement by russia, Russian Forces into this attack. What we do know, and we have very firm and high confidence in our conclusions that the attack was planned and carried out by the Regime Forces at the direction of Bashar Al Assad. Translator i can repeat once again that as with the Russian Hackers, socalled, and the instance in syria, we would very much like, through some kind of proper arguments to receive evidence of hacks and so far we have none. Id like to say once again in syria we are working at the request of the legitimate government of a member country of the United Nations and we are against any kind of sanctions initiated by this council of the United Nations and we are combatting terrorism. We want to make sure that isil and the news al nusra forces do get ahold of and they did not actually deal with the mission and that was before the appearance of the Russian Air Force in the country. The American Coalition struck only certain positions of isil but al nusra was always spared and we have a very persistent suspicion that nusra is still being spared so to trigger plan b and try to overturn the regime of assad. I have already mentioned that we have noticed that in iraq and libya and this is due to the pref lens of people who somebody wanted to do that and as far as crimes committed in syria, we will be eager to sort that out and i think that there have to be priorities and the priorities from which youve heard from washington to the effect that the destruction of isil is priority number one. And john kerry and spicer have already said that it is possible to get rid of 50i67isil and kers said that its much more important to deal with isil than assads regime. So i think we think in very like manner here. The Common Threat is absolutely obvious. If it is possible to overcome isil without reversing the regime, then having reversed or turned the regime, it may well be that we will lose the fight against isil. So i think that what we need to do is to use commonsense and fewer emotions. On that, we complete this press conference. Thank you very much. The Russian Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and secretary tillerson wrapping up their joint statements and News Conference underscoring the very, very serious differences between those two countries. Tillerson saying the u. S. russian relationship is at a low point, his words, at a low point. He adds there is a low level of trust between our two countries. He says this kind of situation should not continue given the fact these are the two Major Nuclear powers in the world. The u. S. Cannot have this kind of relationship. Lots to assess. Many issues came up. The differences very, very serious. I want to first bring in our chief International Correspondent christ yiane amanpour. Thats right, wolf. It was a farreaching press conference. But tillerson started talking about the distrust and low point in our relations. The good news, if you want to look at it like that, lavrov confirmed that president putin said that they would reestablish their deconfliction which allows operations in and over the skies of syria without running into each other deliberately, provocatively or anything such as that. That seems to be taken care of. Lau lavrov says we have instructed channels to have people who can talk to each other. He said without emotion. You know, to take care of any issues that arise before they become big and unmanageable. So that sort of mini red line telephone between the two has been established. Then on and on and on the differences about whether they hold or believe that assad used that chemical weapons and if you heard tillerson say, we have proof that assad not only prepared and conducted that attack, he again said it was conducted on the orders of president assad. He kept using his name and saying we have inconvertible proof and lavrov said no and we want an inconvertible objective investigation by the ocw. Now the Trump Administration says on no account that continuing this line that assad has a future there and i thought it was really interesting what lavrov said, again, and theyve said this before, but again he said that we are not wedded to backing Bashar Al Assad. They are not really embracing him but saying they dont like internal or outside investigations into internal affairs. They talked about north korea. Secretary tillerson saying that the Carl Vinson Carrier Group is routinely in the pacific and nothing should be read into that. Lavrov saying that we have to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula we cannot have any more military interventions. He also talked about the hacking that i know youll want to discuss more of. Let me discuss that with dana bash right now. The issue did come up. The russian interference in the president ial election. Tillerson saying that everyone in the United States accepts that it is well established on capitol hill. He says that its a serious issue and went on ta say that potentially it could attract additional sanctions against russia. Right. Weve certainly heard from capitol hill and from in particular, Republican Leaders on capitol hill saying that they just will not stand for what they see is absolute evidence that russia meddled in american elections. He was strong on that. However, i thought the more interesting part of his answer was his nonanswer on a very specific question about not just was russia involved in meddling but did you take evidence that the Intelligence Committee says that it has to Vladimir Putin, to the leaders . He sidestepped that. He didnt say yes or no. He simply said, well, its obvious. We know that it happened and then answered with the sanctions. After that, lavrov said the opposite. He said not a single fact has been con fifirmed. No one has showed us anything. We have said to them, show us evidenceo this and, again, a lot of the president s fellow republicans on capitol hill who say that the whole reason what the Republicanled Congress is investigating in the first place is to stand up to russia and say we know you did this and we will not stand for this. Why didnt the secretary of state bring that evidence to russia and present it to them as a way to show that they are not going to stand for it . I think the fact that he didnt gives some ammunition to people looking for conspiracy theories. Not that there is any there there or we have evidence of collusion, but its certainly a question mark why he didnt take the first opportunity to do this when this issue has been enveloping the american political discussion and really pushing the Trump Administration off course. He said specifically that russia is mindful of the u. S. Position and that it could attract additional sanctions. Lavrov came back and said the secretary didnt threaten me. Thats fine. He didnt have to threaten but he also said he didnt give him evidence, which is surprising. Yeah. And elise labott is with us as well. Elise, on these two issues, the allegation that russia used cyber warfare into interfere in the u. S. Election and Bashar Al Assad used chemical weapons to kill of those civilians, including children, lavrov was consistent on both. Show me the evidence. We dont accept it. Were ready to have an International Investigation but you dont show us any of that evidence. Thats right. Tillerson is almost saying, its a fact. We dont even know to show you evidence. We dont know what happened in the meeting but its clear that tillerson didnt have a smoking gun in his pocket yet hes talking about relations being at a low point, low level of trust. And i thought it was so interesting and so remarkable that these two ministers are sitting there and kind of acknowledging. Usually theres a lot of pleasantries, they say we have differences but were going to work through them and paper over it. These were two ministers that sat there and basically were bickering to one another in front of the press and in front of the world on live television. And i think that maybe the election really wasnt what secretary tillerson was going to talk about. The more immediate issue is syria and how the u. S. Is going to work more cooperatively on this issue. Secretary tillerson came with a very pointed message and said in his press conference that its time for, you know, the russians to end their support for assad, that assad is a liability and russias isolation is only going to increase if they dont kind of get with the program. I thought it was you know, he said russia needs to recognize the reality that assad is going. This needs to be done in an orderly way and i think that you know, when we talk about that the russians are not we hadded wedded to assad, i think secretary tillerson was trying to find Common Ground there. He was there to say we know you have interests in syria. Well help you preserve these interests but this is a sinking ship and well help you get off. These two men, secretary tillerson is very calm, very plain spoken, minister lavrov is this kind of word smith and constant diplomat. You can see even through their bickering that they are trying to find Common Ground together and i dont think its the same with secretary kerry when he would get run around by lavrov. As blunt as it gets. And i think through it all youre going to even though theres so much tension, i think the u. S. Relationship with russia is going to be in a much more honest place now. He did say, tillerson and the others, that they are gathering evidence to bring Bashar Al Assad before International War crimes tribunal to get rid of him and his family, end that reign. And then we heard lavrov say removing a personality is not on our agenda. Michelle kosinski is there traveling with secretary tillerson. What did you make about the interactions between these two men, the secretary of state and foreign minister . Reporter yeah. We know obviously these were Difficult Conversations to have. For four hours they sat down. Half of that time, two hours with president putin. And you know how he is when he speaks. I dont think for that reason this was the time or the place to bring hard evidence. Those accusations have been out there for a long time. The u. S. Has stated clearly what its position is there. I dont think this was the time or the place to level the accusations, to demand action right now. Im sure that secretary tillerson and based on what other u. S. Officials have said, made the point clearly that russia would be held accountable for its actions and how the u. S. Feels about backing assad. I think what you saw in this press conference, it was really interesting, especially in the beginning, theyre wanting to focus and highlight areas of cooperation but the situation is so bad at this point that the best that could come out of this is an agreement after four hours of talks to talk some more. So that happened. I mean, that goal is out there. They now have this working group to try to work on the relationship. But to hear lavrov not accuse others or blame others for assad, not try to deflect, not try to deny it and thats what weve been hearing from russia, you know, denials that the assad regime was behind this, what he did was call for that investigation. Thats kind of his way of hiding today so not being so aggressive as to blame anybody else but to use that full investigation as the kind of deflection point. Not great news but its a softer tone. He did the same thing on the hacking. We dont have any evidence. We havent seen anything. He was able to use that and hide behind for the purpose of trying to work together. I dont think this was the time to for tillerson to try to fight it out in these conversations. Remember, the point of this is to try to find any Common Ground that is possible. You know, this is russia not putting forward any conspiracy theories but at the end you heard lavrov put that out there when he was talking about how he feels the Obama Coalition against isis has failed, saying that they think that the coalition spared al nusra to lead to a reason for regime change. So hes back to blaming the u. S. , formulating these series. What it ultimately does is even though theres some desire for cooperation, it lays bear those very stark differences. Hes not backing away from assad any time soon. He certainly isnt. Michelle is in moscow. Stand by. I want to bring in our military analyst, retired colonel rick francona. Did you hear these two men, did you hear anything to suggest that the u. S. And russia are getting closer on issues as critically important, for example, as syria or is the gulf deepening . Well, as the great correspondents, they have taken all of my talking points, wolf. So i think the key here was the Common Ground that they are not if they have a regime that they can influence that is not Bashar Al Assad, we may have talking points there. But as far as the investigation into the attack that happened on the 4th of april, were so far apart on that. Each side is holding to its positions. If theres going to be an independent investigation, its going to be just what we saw in august 2013. The u. N. Will come in and make their investigation and list a whole string of findings but will not assign blame. We dont need a repeat of that. Plus, the area in which this chemical attack took place has been bombarded daily by incendiary weapons. I dont know what kind of physical evidence well be able to get but they are relying on maybe exchanging information. But i dont think well be willing to share that information. Its probably a little too sensitive. But the other point was, as michelle said, the russians claiming that we were not bombing nusra is flat out wrong. So i think mr. Lavrov was steering things a little toward the russian position, of course, thats his job. Hes the foreign minister. I think the opening, the key that im taking away, they are not related to isis. Maybe we can do isis first and then have a political solution that gets rid of the assad family but probably keeps a secular regime that the russians can influence. I think we can live with that. I want to bring in matthew chance. Hes in moscow for us right now. Matthew, weve learned that the russian president Vladimir Putin is open to trying to reestablish that u. S. russia air safety agreement. How significant is that . Thats what lavrov in this News Conference seemed to suggest, that maybe this can get back on track to avoid any potential for u. S. Russian Military encounter. Yeah. I think its really significant. Its one of the first things that the russians did after the u. S. Missile strikes last week, after the 59 tomahawks hit that syrian air base. They said from now on were suspending that militarytomilitary contact. Its important because it prevents u. S. And coalition and russian airplanes colliding or conflicting in the skies over syria but also and this is crucial, it was the conduit by which the United States military warned the russians on the ground that were incoming missile strikes. So enabled them to get out of the way, move their equipment out of the way, that person out of the way and make sure they were not caught up in those strikes because the last thing the United States wanted is to kill russian soldiers on the ground with these missile strikes. This would have brought them potentially into confrontation with nuclearpowered, nucleararmed russia. That meant it raised the risks in the future to carry out future strikes and so that was important. The fact that its reestablished again on the basis that its used only to deconflict on issues when it comes to attacking terrorists on the ground, al nusra and isis. It is very significant. But let me just speak for a minute about the tone i think that was struck because i think, actually, for a very inexperienced diplomat, which is what Rex Tillerson is, hes only been in the job for a few weeks, he struck a very conciliatory tone, particularly when it came to Bashar Al Assad. Because even though he said it is our view that the reign of assads family is coming to an end, he made it clear that that was the u. S. View. He didnt insist, like he had previously, that russia distanced itself from assad, which was quite a confrontational remark that he made at the g7 meetings the day before. The reason he dropped that insistence is that he was probably told firmly by Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, and firmly by Vladimir Putin in this twohour meeting with the russian president as well, that there was very little chance that russia, who has invested so much money and prestige in backing assad that he was going to turn away. Yes, there is a comment by lavrov that we are not insisting on personally teas but the russians say this a lot. They often say we are not married to assad. Hes the man that they back and the secretary said that they are going to continue to back them. No sign that they are moving away from Bashar Al Assad. Matthew chance, good analysis. Thanks very much. We have a lot more information coming in. Watch this. These are live pictures coming in from the white house where President Trump is getting ready to speak to the news media following a meeting with the leader of nato, the secretary of nato. There will be a joint News Conference in an hour or so from now. Live coverage of that. The u. S. Nato alliance the Nato Alliance once slammed by then candidate donald trump as obsolete. Well hear what he has to say today. This meeting potentially could be awkward. Joint News Conference coming up in about an hour. Our coverage continues right after this. I like that. [ music stops suddenly ] ah. When your pain reliever stops working, your whole day stops. Awww. Try this. For minor arthritis pain, only aleve can stop pain for up to 12 straight hours with just one pill. Thank you. Come on everybody. You cant quit, neither should your pain reliever. Stay all day strong with 12 hour aleve. 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Live pictures here as President Trump meets with nato as his administration is confront being russia. Such a strong contrast to candidate trump who did the opposite. Moments from now, the president will meet with the leader of nato at the white house. Keep in mind this is after President Trump called nato obsolete. Lets begin with this unexpected facetoface of what many are calling the new version of the cold war, russian president Vladimir Putins nearly twohour meeting with the u. S. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Until it happened, it was entirely unclear whether the two would actually see each other in person. Just six days ago, the u. S. Launched a missile strike in syria which russia condemned as Vladimir Putin backs syrian leader Bashar Al Assad. Moments ago, we saw secretary tillerson there in Moscow Holding this News Conference with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov. They were candid about how its a low point, mr. Tillersons own words, especially regarding syria. Russians foreign minister insisted on an independent investigation over who was behind the chemical weapons attack despite the u. S. certainty that syria is to blame, that the assad regime is to blame. Heres more from that News Conference. The current state of the u. S. russia relations is at a low point. Theres a low level of trust between our two countries. We cannot have this kind of relationship. Joining me now is someone who has been inside these highstakes meetings, jon finer, chief of staff for secretary of state john kerry. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. So you have secretary tillerson out on the world stage talking about this international crisis. How do you think he did . I thought secretary tillerson did fine. It was a perfectly credible performance. To be honest, my biggest take away was de ja vu of what was a classical performance of Sergey Lavrov right down to the condescending tone with spiced in biting remarks along, a History Lesson of someone he referred to as essentially as a new person on the stage under in diplomacy and then frequent requests when pressed for evidence to back up american claims, this is a constant russian tactic, both in negotiations and public presentations in part because they know some evidence is acquired through intelligence we cannot just hand over to them. In many ways, this was a very par for the course for lavrov and i thought secretary tillerson performed just fine. Sitting there and watching, because we heard from secretary of defense mattis yesterday echoed by secretary tillerson today absolutely without a doubt that attack in idlib was coordinated, executed by assad and yet Flash Forward two feet sitting next to him is the foreign minister of russia saying, eh, were not so sure. Lets look at the independent investigation. How awkward must that be . You know, brooke, to be honest, there were two areas of agreement that they seemed to have found. One on the need for resuming this decon fliction channel, and another that got a bit less attention but where secretary tillerson said the u. S. Would be open to increasing our military to military contact with the Russian Military. This is something the russians have sought for some time. But the overall time was taken up much more by profound areas of disagreement, as you just described. A total disagreement on responsibility for the chemical weapons attack with lavrov raising the possibility that this could have been something that the opposition was part of and then on the future of assad, with foreign minister lavrov basically saying that they were never going to support a policy that led to the change of a personality and secretary tillerson doing a 180 from his position a couple weeks ago saying that the reign of the assad family is coming to an end. Well, under the column of doing a 180, this is secretary tillersons inaugural trip as secretary of state. Any secretary of state meets with the head of russia and initially putin was not that wasnt on the table. Here you have this 11th hour meeting, lasted about an hour and fifty minutes. Youve been in meetings like these, jon. Who is in there . Give me some color of just the room. This meeting was not confirmed and was somewhat uncertain. We never had a meeting fully confirmed when we hit the ground in any one of those cases. Whats that about . Just playing games . I think its bit of a power play and they will play games with the manifest, meaning who is allowed to attend. They will sometimes say its the only secretary of state plus one of his advisers or maybe only two. The room is small and then you arrive and the room is enormous. So these things tend to happen. To be honest, the most disturbing thing that came out of today and out of the press availability is no sense of a way forward in syria. Neither foreign minister lavrov nor secretary tillerson gave comfort to people hoping that these very significant acts that took place, the military strike and horrible attack by the assad regime may lead to momentum behind the diplomacy. But all we heard is that proposals would be reviewed. We should just mention that tillerson stopped just short of calling assad a war criminal. There is an explosive report that the fbi got this warrant to monitor a former Trump Campaign adviser on the belief he was acting as a Foreign Agent for russia. How big of a deal that is, coming up next. Also ahead, the fates of two members of President Trumps inner circle in question right now. Sean spicer saying he let the president down over his hitler remark in the Briefing Room yesterday and President Trump with strange words about steve bannon, his supposed chief strategist. Is a shakeup coming . Im brooke baldwin. This is cnns live coverage. At safelite, we stand behind our work. Because the ones you love, sit behind it. parents whisper jingle safelite repair, safelite replace. On a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. Your Insurance Company raises your rates. Maybe you shouldve done more research on them. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Switch and you could save 509 on auto insurance. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. So yourhow nice. A party . Ill be right there. And the butchery begins. What am i gonna wear . This party is super fancy. Lets go. Im ready. Are you my uber . [ horn honks ] hold on. Dont wait for watchathon week to return. [ doorbell rings ] whos that . Show me netflix. Sign up for netflix on x1 today and keep watching all year long. Welcome back. Youre watching cnn special live ru coverage. Im brooke baldwin. First of all, as we look at pictures of the white house in the west wing, you see a member of the military, which means the president is in residence. Hes awaiting the arrival of the nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg to be there at the White House Holding this meeting, a News Conference in an hour from now. Its significant because as we watched candidate trump on the trail continuing to call nato obsolete. Were watching that for you. In the meantime, lets begin with this unexpected facetoface meeting in what a number of people are calling this new version of the cold war