Go on, bakari. They lied already. And ana has a good point. My question to scott is, lets play the what if game. An what if this was barack obama or Hillary Clinton . You would be hollering from high heaven how this was treason and ready to start impeachment hearings. Because they have an r beside his name which is a problem in the country today, youre willing to give them excuses. George bush said it best, this is soft bigotry of low expectations. Strip the gop from it and lets make it an average, ordinary american, period. And what donald trump is doing, what donald trump jr. Is doing, what ivanka is doing, what the family is doing, Paul Manafort, michael flynn, the list goes on and on and on. Its unethical at best, treasonous at worst and they sold the United States down stream. Whether or not they knew it, ask the question that we asked nixon, when did the president know it. Thats the question. Kevin madden, im going let you respond to that. Last word. No, i think bakari has some passion behind this. I think its indicative of just how i think passionate so many of the president s opponents feel. But you know, clearly i side with scott, as esaid earlier, which is the white house clearly has a challenge on their hands when it comes to changing peoples minds about this, and the drip, drip, drip of information is going to continue to be a challenge. They have to get out in front of it and tell their story better. Kevin, you and i have been working together for a long time. I remember working on the Obama Campaign when we were working for cnn and covering this. Can you imagine what republicans would be saying to bakaris point if this was Hillary Clinton or barack obama and not necessarily what the news would be reporting, but what the republicans would say someone like Scott Jennings or other republican supporters. What do you think they would be saying if the shoe was on the other foot about this situation. No, absolutely. What we have seen both on both sides. The partisan tribalism on both sides at its zenith. I would argue to bakari, i worked for the candidate who said that our number one geopolitical foe was russia. He got laughed at. We were mocked. Youre right. Those same candidates right. I just wish there were more bakaris out there admitting we were right and theyre looking hypocritical now. Guys, let me tell you this. If it had been john podesta and Chelsea Clinton doing it, i would be saying exactly the same thing that i am saying today. The first thing we have to do is defend the democracy and the integrity of our elections. Shiite partisanship down. Scott, im three minutes over on this segment. I agree with ana. I have said from the beginning, the russians tried to meddle in the election. Im not sure we know they needed a colluding partner to do it. Thats why the investigations exist. I believe the russians clearly the Intelligence Community believes they tried to meddle in the election. Thats what the purpose of these investigations is to find out what happened. The fact that people are saying they want to talk to the committees and the investigation bodies is a good thing. You need to tell that to the white house though. He was the good news for little boy trump. He can get pardoned. Jared kushner wants to talk to the investigators. Jared kushner is not the president. I dont see an unwillingness to cooperate which i think is important. Its easy to cooperate after you lie. Thank you all. I appreciate it. See you next time. This is our breaking news tonight. A report donald trump jr. Was told in an email last year that the russian government was trying to help the Trump Campaign according to the New York Times. The email reportedly sent by the man who reportedly helped set up a meeting between trump jr. And a russian lawyer who might have information about Hillary Clinton. What will tonights breaking news mean for the fastmoving russia investigation . Were going to talk about all of that. Lets get right to senior political analyst mark preston, political commentator mike shields, former chief of staff to Reince Priebus at the rnc, and max boot, a senior fellow at the council on Foreign Relations and the author of invisible armies. So much to discuss. Bombshell news tonight from the New York Times. Heres part of what they are reporting about this meeting between a russian lawyer and donald trump jr. , Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort and a russian attorney. Before arranging a meeting with the kremlin connected russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, donald trump jr. Was informed in an email the material was part of a russian government effort to aid his fathers candidate sid according to three people with knowledge of the email. What does this mean for the investigations into the Trump Campaign for possible collusion with the russian government . Well, a couple things. One you said, what will we be focusing on . We will not be focusing on issues here in washington, d. C. Want to focus on health care and tax reform and infrastructure, what have you. What it does do for the investigation though, it gives another jolt in the arm for those who believe that trump or some of his associates and advisers did do some business with the russians or tried to do business with the russians to try to affect the election. We dont know that to be true and have to be very careful about that. Having said that, this is yet another selfinflicted wound and i think thats very important for viewers to know. This was the Trump White House. This was trumps own son who has put him in this position at this point in his presidency. And when it really comes down to it, don, is that republicans here in washington right now, not even democrats are extremely frustrated because they dont want to be asked tomorrow when they all return to washington and walk the halls of congress what they think should happen given this latest bombshell. Mike, i want to bring you in here. Let me ask you what you make of the reporting before i read the statements from donald trump. The president , and donald trump jr. Yeah, first of all, the reason we know about this is because of the leak. A leak from an investigation thats going on looking into this, what that tells me if they thought there was something illegal going on here, they wouldnt be leaking it to the New York Times. They would take it to a judge. We dont know who the source is, mike. Right. Exactly. Its a leak of an investigation. That doesnt help an investigation to get in the New York Times. If they thought something had happened here. You dont know if its from the investigation. It could be from a person in the white house. Okay. Its someone who is familiar with the investigation. Said it came through the investigation. The second thing i take you back to is june of last year. There was a huge scandal going on with the Clinton Foundation how they were selling access in speeches. If someone comes to the campaign and says i might know something about that, its not unusual for someone to take a meeting say hey i want to find out what you were talking about. Obviously they werent vetted correctly. I think scott and kevin were both right in the last statement that the campaign made mistakes when it came to vetting things. Theres a lot of things that sort of slip through the radar. The speaker of the house and a senator who didnt remember meeting with a Russian Ambassador and later remembered they met with him. The one thing i will say, i sort of disagreed with mark that now were talking about russia because of this latest thing. My guess is the press would have been focused on russia even if this hadnt happened. Thats the troubling tenor of the way the coverage of all this happens. I want to make something clear here. The article from what i have read, it says nothing about this coming from the investigation. It just, it says people with knowledge of the email. Go ahead, max. You know, the comments of mike shields i think underline why after a lifetime as a republican after serving as a senior Foreign Policy adviser in three republican campaigns i am no longer a republican. I am disgusted with the way the Republican Party is behaving. What we are seeing is that donald trump puts his own selfinterests over the interests of the United States. You saw that just a few days ago in hamburg where he refused to press Vladimir Putin on his meddling in the u. S. Election. In fact, he tried to explain and excuse it away, refusing to believe what the u. S. Intelligence community has said, and he even cooked up this cockamamy scheme to engage in socalled cooperation with russia on cyberissues, which is the like the fox guarding the hen house. Republicans are not outraged. Theyre trying to make excuses for the white house and donald trump even when we see evidence of collusion come into clear view with this jaw dropping meeting that don junior, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, the high command of the Trump Campaign. Theyre meeting with a russian leader connected to the kremlin to get dirt on Hillary Clinton and still republicans are making excuses for this. Its time to come clean. Its time to put the interests of the country over the interests of the Republican Party. Do you want to respond to that, mike . You just said evidence of collusion. There is no evidence of collusion. People have been looking read the New York Times pick up the New York Times. I did read the New York Times. I read all three articles. Theres three articles which is where i got the other statement i had. Was from one of the previous articles about this. I did read it. Theres no evidence. If there was evidence of collusion, thin we would have a different story here. This would be something about a legal case. There is something called an investigation right. Person in question. Bob mueller was appointed about two months ago. The notion that this case should have been concluded by now is ridiculous. The watergate investigation took over a year. We shouldnt have the bob mueller because of people like reach conclusions. You decided what was guilty. People like me . Yes. Im reacting to the evidence, sir. I dont know what youre reacting except youre biased in favor of donald trump. What im saying you just said you had bias against donald trump. No. I was a lifelong republican. I spent 30 years as a republican, and i quit the Republican Party in disgust when donald trump got elected because i knew morally complicit in the outrageous conduct of donald trump. And youre an example of that moral complicity right now. Okay. Look, the fact of the matter is donald trump jr. Said he would cooperate. Hes going to cooperate if asked to do that. Hes got to get his story straight first because he keeps changing his story. Youre making my point which is youre so angry about in that you indict everybody. Youre right. I am angry when i see i am angry when i see an american president you know, i think everybody should be angry when they see an american president , a republican who seems to be pursuing a russia first policy who seems to be pursuing the interests of Vladimir Putin over the interests of nato, the u. S. And our allies. Really . Was he pursuing that interest when he added montenegro to nato or when he reinforced article 5, the number one thing Vladimir Putin doesnt want to do, helping the russians out when we bombed syria in direct controversy of what i would referred you to i would refer you to his conduct in europe just a couple of days ago when he refused to accept the when warsaw reaffirming article 5. One at a time. If you read what he said in warsaw, he said russia participated in destabilizing activity. But when he actually met with Vladimir Putin for more than two hours, he came out of that and he basically seemed to accept putins ridiculous denials of meddling in the u. S. Election. And right now donald trump and the white house are trying to water down a strong sanctions bill that the senate has passed against russia. Theyre essentially protecting russian interests. Donald trump shows a lot more interest in this imaginary phony scandal claiming there are millions of illegal votes cast for which there is not an iota of evidence. He has appointed a commission to look into that. He has no interest in finding out anything what putin did to subvert the american electoral process which is a fact, which is the unanimous conclusion of the u. S. Intelligence community. Mark preston, i need to get you in here. To maxs point where he says don junior needs to get his story straight, this is the third statement. You can put up the statement tonight. Theres a third statement from donald trump jr. Tonight. Hes tweeted a number of times from his new lawyer where he basically says he did nothing wrong. That he didnt know what the meeting was about. He didnt know what it would turn out to be, if the information was reliable and on and on and on. It does appear that theres a certain degree of denial and then all of a sudden, the evidence a reported evidence comes out from the New York Times and other news sources and then theres an admission and then the story changes. It appears to be a pattern of sorts. It certainly does. Let me try to thread the needle between max and mike right there because that was a fascinating discussion. Its amazing. I do believe and maybe im wrong max is probably still a republican at heart but is extremely frustrated by donald trump as the president and the leader of the Republican Party. That in itself is fascinating. We have to be judicious in how we use our words, collusion, illegal because we dont necessarily know. On the other side of that coin is that the supporters of donald trump like to go out and obfuscate the facts. They like to try to confuse the issue. Theyll talk about Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation and thats fine. Were not talking Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. Were talking about the leader of the free world and the commander in chief. Were talking about the president of the United States. To the point of changing stories, weve seen this. When you talk about a pattern, we saw michael flynn, the fired National Security adviser was not necessarily truthful in what his relations were or his discussions were with the Russian Ambassador. We also saw that Jared Kushner had had to change or at least amend his forms to get his top secret clearance. We also saw the attorney general, jeff sessions, during his confirmation hearing not reveal that he himself had met with the Russian Ambassador. They all have answers or excuses for doing so. But you have to wonder when you see all this smoke, what i dont understand is why people get upset when we look for the fire. I have to say the response from the president s team tonight is that asked for reaction in the New York Times report, mark corallo, spokesman for president trumps outside legal team reiterated their earlier statement and said the president was not aware and did not attend the meeting. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. When we come back, much more on breaking news. Donald trump jr. Reportedly told in an email last year that the russian government was trying to help his Fathers Campaign. Whats next in the russia investigation . You wont see these folks they have businesses to run. They have passions to pursue. How do they avoid trips to the post office . Stamps. Com mail letters, ship packages, all the services of the post office right on your computer. Get a 4 week trial, plus 100 in extras including postage and a digital scale. Go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. Breaking news tonight, donald trump jr. Reportedly told in an email last year that the russian government was trying to help his Fathers Campaign according to New York Times. Here to discuss, columnist nicholas kristof. What is your reaction to this . Don, this is huge. I mean the last few days have been enormous with the revelation of the russian lawyer after the Trump Campaign denied eight times that such a thing happened. But now tonight, find out that trump, that don trump junior knew that this was a russian government effort to damage Hillary Clinton and thus ipso facto interfere in the u. S. Election and then to embrace it to go ahead with the meeting, the closest parallel i can think of is that in year 2000, the Gore Campaign received george w. Bush materials and what did they do . They immediately called the fbi. This is material that is actually coming from an adversary power attempting to affect the outcome of the election. What do you do . You call in two of the most senior aides and you see what you can get out