sided with someone trying to attack that and take that away from americans and so easy for republicans in congress to stand up to the president on this. when they go 97-2 in favor of nato, it is bipartisan, as well. jake, my sense is that trump and his allies were having success in diminishing the mueller investigation. the tide turning against the mueller investigation. i sense that with these indictments and with the day that that s going to stop. and it could give an extra layer of protection to mueller. what republican is going to say let s stop this? you know? the intel is wrong. the chorus is so strong that i would just assume it s going to give extra protection. that would be logical and by the same token it was just today is mono. it was just on friday when president trump s own justice department deputy attorney general rod rosenstein said there s 12 military intelligence officers from russia who were trying to interfere in the election, who cyberattacked the
republican congressional delegation go to russia, try to talk to putin himself. they talked to sergei lavrov, the foreign minister, and force the issue of hacking the u.s. election and trying to do something. we saw that unanimous practically unanimous action on sanctions and to try to push russia and strangle their economy as much as possible over things like this. so yes, i feel pretty sure that congress is going to take some action on this. it s one way, even if it doesn t make an enormous impact, for republicans it s a way to say we did something. i think it s in the past we have seen republicans issue this, strongly worded statements and not change what the president did or check what the president did, but this is something so easy for them to stand up against. voting is most sacred right that americans have and today the president on live television
officials in the united states of america? i want to go to cnn s senior white house reporter jeff zeleny. do white house officials realize how horrified americans are today, democrats, republicans, independents, by the president seemingly siding with putin against americans on the question of an attack by russia on the united states? reporter: jake, it certainly is settling into them and shortly after the news conference i heard from a senior white house official who was asking me how bad is this? that s gone really to be the theme of the day. senior u.s. official, separate official, i was speaking with earlier said this was not the plan. the president was going to talk about election meddling and then pivot to other matters. that certainly didn t happen as we know. the president is about two and a half hours or so into the flight back to washington. already trying to do some explaining. of course, he sent out a message a few minutes ago. he says this. he said, as i have said and man
hoped to accomplish. but should any of this really be a surprise? throughout his campaign, president trump constantly made a moral equivalence of the united states and russia. again, he kills journalists that don t agree with him. well, i think our country does plenty of killing, also, joe. still even with the campaign rhetoric, stunning today when president trump sided with putin over americans including over his own intelligence chiefs when asked who he believed. let s discuss. michelle kosinski, you heard the woman of russian state television crowing about the fact that of course. where brezhnev and the rest failed, president trump destroyed or shaken at least what she called the trans atlantic relationship. what she is talking about is the united states and nato. trump is doing what yeltsin and
try to weaken our commitment to nato but in the end, you know, congress is kind of like the manager or the general manager of the team. president trump is the one on the field every day executing foreign policy. we can t stop him from saying things to undermine the nato and eu and giving the press conference of today. there s limits to what congress can do. is there anything democrats can do? it seems like there s a lot of words coming from you, senator schumer and others. we have even heard people on your side of the aisle talk about president trump being a russian asset. how do you convey to the american people this is a serious issue and not a partisan tug of war? listen. i think for americans that are wondering whether or not the mueller investigation is worthwhile, those that have been listening to some of the propaganda coming out of the white house, this is pretty clear evidence that we need to get to the truth. there are a lot of republicans