that trump merely reiterated that he cancelled a formal meeting with putin due to ukraine/russia conflicts. the former council for national security and cnn national security analyst. always good to have you here with us as we try to pick apart what we're seeing here. what's fascinating is it's not the first time that the president has gone after his intel chiefs. these are his hand picked team, but that doesn't stop him from saying you may have facts, but i have my own views. what's remarkable, though, is the pedestal on which et he puts these strong men, all the while disrespecting his own intel chiefs. how damaging is that moving forward? >> it's really bizarre as someone who used to work with the intelligence community to watch how this has unfolded. over the course of his presidency, we have seen two things. he's been very consistent about rejecting the intelligence community's assessment that russia was trying to influence, did conduct a cyber hostile