Overseas. One, a stark warning of war. A grim picture of the dooming options with north korea. And why is putin stockpiling so much military gear in russia . Then, is this the ultimate fake news tale . The white house may have helped c concoct a huge news story and smearing a young murdered dnc staffer. But can the details of this lawsuit be believed . Welcome to the lead. We begin in breaking news from our money lead on wall street. Lets take a look at the big board where the dow industrial average closed just shy of an alltime high of 22,000. The nasdaq and s p hit record highs in july despite turmoil in washington and international tensions. The president tweeted about the dow this morning, saying, quote, stock market could hit alltime high again, 22,000 today was 18,000 six months ago on election day. Mainstream media seldom mentions, exclamation point. In georgia today, President Trump would sign into law very soon the tough sanctions the president passed on to russia and delivered at the white house last friday. Very soon President Trump will sign legislation to strentstren strengthen and caudify u. S. Sanctions against russia. People are concerned that President Trump might not sign the sanctions into law, although they have enough votes to override should the president veto the measure, or if the president does nothing at all and just lelts it sit, it will become a law in ten days automatically. His ambivalence on the sanctions is intriguing coming alongside a deafening silence after moscows retaliation of those sanctions. The most aggressive move by the kremlin against washington since the final years of the cold war. Since the move by putin, the president has had plenty to say about the news media, about republican senators, about Democratic Senators and more. But the president has had nothing to say publicly about putin or that move. Nor has the president had anything public to say today about a different russiarelated story. President trump, quote, personally dictated that initial misleading statement from his son donald trump jr. When first asked about that june 2016 Campaign Meeting with the russians. We now know that the encounter happened because an associate of donald trump jr. Offered to get him a meeting with a russian government lawyer who was promising incriminating information about Hillary Clinton. But that initial statement about the meeting was misleading. It suggested that trump jr. And the lawyer had, quote, primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children, unquote. Now, that statement did not mention the purpose of the meeting and had to be updated after the New York Times obtained more evidence about the meeting and offered many more details. The times had reported, of course, that President Trump personally signed off on that misleading statement which, at the time, one of the president s attorneys told me was not true. The New York Times also reporting that the president personally signed off on the original statement that donald trump jr. Issued on saturday, that one that required a followup clarification because it didnt disclose the idea of opposition research. Thats not true. First of all the president did not sign off on a statement . No, he did not. The statement was issued by donald trump jr. The president was on return from his trip to the g20. These are stories out there, people can say whatever they want, but the fact is its just not true. Today, however, we found out from the post that the president did more than look at don jr. s misleading statement, he dictated it against the advice of his advisers who favored a full disclosure about the meetings, suspecting all the information was going to come out, anyway, which it did. Asked for comment just a few minutes ago, the White House Press secretary acknowledged what the president s lawyer denied, acknowledging that the president did play a role in the drafting of that misleading statement. The statement that don jr. Issued is true. There is no inaccuracy in the statement. The president weighed in as any father would based on the limited information that he had. To be clear, of course, the statement that don jr. Issued that was dictated by the president , according to the post, was misleading. It did not even remotely acknowledge the purpose of the meeting, which was donald trump jr. Wanting to meet someone billed as a russian government lawyer with one specific purpose, to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton. A meeting attended, by the way, by Jared Kushner and Campaign Chair paul manafort. Now you, as a citizen, you should expect a much higher standard of truth than the one that the White House Press secretary just enunciated. If a meeting takes place so Campaign Officials can get dirt on a political rival from the russian government describing that meeting as being about adoption and not mentioning the purpose of the meeting, its not true. Its inaccurate. Its so misleading as to be a lie. And you as a citizen, you have every right to wonder, why would the president hide the truth and be inaccurate about this . Why would he want to hide from you the facts of this meeting which they insist was innocent . And, as always, what does any of this have to do with making America Great again . So how does the president s just weighing in, as we learned today, square with what weve been told in the past about the formulation of that initial misleading statement . Cnns jim acosta is looking into this evolving story line from the white house. Reporter yes, the white house said, the president was involved in the crafting of a misleading statement that initially obscured the true nature of his son, donald trump jr. s meeting with a russian lawyer during the campaign. There is no inaccuracy in the statement. The president weighed in as any father would based on the limited information that he had. Reporter the questions came after a Washington Post story reporting that the president dictated the Statement Released july 8 for trump jr. , then inaccurately claimed the meeting was focused on russian adoptions. We primarily discussed a program for adoption of russian children that was popular with American Families years ago and was since ended by the russian government. Three days after that statement, trump jr. Released four pages of his own email showing the russian attorney planned to show information that would, quote, incriminate hillary and would be very helpful to your father. Talking on air force i the other day, the president was saying they were talking about the adoption stuff which was actually a big thing at the time but Nothing Happened. A story he was still using at a News Conference the following day. I guess they talked about as i see it, they talked about adoption and some things. Adoption wasnt even part of the campaign. But Nothing Happened from the meeting, zero happened from the meeting. And honestly, i think the press made a very big deal over something that really a lot of people would do. Reporter asked about that initial misleading statement from donald trump jr. , white house outside counsel jay sekulow insisted the president was not involved. By the way, i wasnt involved in the statement drafting at all, nor was the president. Im assuming that was between mr. Donald trump jr. , between don jr. And his lawyer. Im sure his lawyer was vovl involved, thats how you do it. You know that. To put this on the president i think is incorrect. The involvement of his son is a concern in the russian involvement. If it is true, it certainly is a concern, but i dont know that it is. If we had the emails available to us, you would understand the whole meeting wasnt about adoption. The email chain shows it was about the russian government wanting to help the trump campaign. I dont think the statement helped don jr. I dont know what role the president played, if any. Heres what i would suggest. That when you put out a misleading statement, its going to be hard to convince people to stop looking at other things. The other big question lingering here at the white house is whether the president would sign a bill that would limit his ability to ease sanctions on russia today. The white house said the president would sign that legislation. Congressional leaders were not concerned the president would veto the bill. The measure has enough support in congress to override the veto. Getting back to donald trump jr. s statement, for all the talk about the new chief of staff here bringing order and discipline to the white house, there is another thing in short supply here, and thats honesty. Jake . Lets turn it over to senator flake of arizona whose new book is rattling more than a few cages today. It is entitled conscience of a conservative, a rejection of destructive politics and a return to principle. Senator, thank you for being here. I have a different conscience book at home by barry goldwater, it looks a lot like this one. Obviously the content different. Congratulations. Thank you. Lets get to the news of the Washington Post reporting and the white house confirming that President Trump played a role in drafting this initial misleading statement about donald trump jr. s meeting with the russians. Whats your reaction . I was surprised to hear that, but i know that the committees of jurisdiction, the Senate Intelligence committee on a bipartisan basis is looking at this, as they should, and im sure bob mueller and others will as well. But it was a bit of a surprise. What about the fact that you have the president s lawyer going out there and telling people he did not play any role at all in the drafting of the statement, and now were told that he did, and then also just the issue of the fact that the statement was misleading . They said it was about adoptions, and as we know, what Lindsey Graham just said, the purpose was to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. Does this meeting have a credibility rap . I would agree with lindsey in that regard. Its tough to tell people not to look elsewhere if they dont believe that youre giving the full story. But well leave it to the committees of jurisdiction. Im glad we have a Bipartisan Committee looking into this, Senate Intelligence committee, and theyre committed to doing it and others are as well. Sarah huckabee sanders, White House Press secretary, was asked today if the credibility gap, the transparency and honesty issues, were hurting the republican agenda. Take a listen to what she had to say. I think whats hurting the legislative agenda is congress ability to get things passed. What do you think . Thats a pretty fair criticism. First and foremost, its our responsibility to pass things. We have, i think, reached the limit of what we can do on health care with just our party. Well be reaching across the aisle and perhaps we should have started that way, but thats where were going. What do you think of the new chief of staff, retired marine general john kelly . Im glad hes there. I think its a good start and the measures that have been taken so far will give us more confidence that well see a little less chaos over there, and that will help. That will help. Lets turn to your book. You have a comment in here which was really fascinating. There is a lot of criticism about the president and his behavior and how republicans, conservatives, specifically, have dealt with him. At one point you write, quote, to carry on in the spring of 2017 as if what was happening was anything approaching normalcy required a determined suspension of critical faculties and tremendous powers of denial. Thats a pretty strong thing to say. What do you think republicans, conservatives, americans should be doing . Well, there are two parts of conservatism. The first i would argue is policy. Weve always adhered to limited government, economic freedom, individual responsresponsibilit. Barry goldwater felt the party was strained from those issues and thats why he wrote the book he wrote. Were republicans taking up an unfamiliar banner that, you know, is populism. In some cases xenophobia, antiimmigration, protectionism. Thats not familiar to us, and i dont think that is a governing philosophy. So on the policy side, i think we have an issue, but also being conservative means, particularly in foreign policy, that youre steady and that youre measured in your use of diplomacy and force, and predictable and that we embrace our allies and recognize our enemies. And that, i think, has been lacking and im concerned about that. Ive heard from many republicans on the show and also just talking in the green room who think that, in fact, the president s point of view is embracing our enemies and giving the stiff arm to our allies in a lot of ways. For those of us who were raised in the cold war and having the soviet union and now russia adopting some of the same attitudes as the soviet union, that was the existential threat. And now to be seen as, you know, being more friendly or more trusting and to distrust our own institutions of government, our intelligence communities, just seems foreign to us. And i think it should seem foreign to us. I think we need when we see that, to speak up more often. Senator, stick around. Were going to take a very quick break. When we come back, well talk more about your book. Stay with us. Done. Rs. Supercool notebooks. Done. Thats mom taking care of business. But who takes care of mom . Office depot office max. This week, filler paper just one cent with five dollar minimum purchase. Taking care of business. Pepsoriasis does that. It was tough getting out there on stage. I wanted to be clear. I wanted it to last. So i kept on fighting. I found something that worked. And keeps on working. Now . They see me. See me. See if cosentyx could make a difference for you cosentyx is proven to help people with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Find clear skin that can last. 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Ladies, you know when you switch, you get my bombdiggity discounts automatically. No duh, right . [ chuckles ] sir, you forgot keep it. Youre gonna need it when i make it precipitate. What, what . What . Were back with republican senator of arizona thats drawing a lot of attention this week. The subtitle is a look at subjective politics and principle. You talked about some principles that americans need to get back to. Lets talk about destructive politics because youre quite critical in the book, and also you have been critical in real life about some of the things that President Trump has said. His mockery of a disabled reporter i could go on but its only an hourlong show. What do you think political leaders need to do when he does things that are indecent . Let me just say this didnt start with President Trump. I was in the house from 2001 to 2012 13. During that time we had a republican stand up during president obamas state of the union and yelled you lie. Weve seen things like this and i talk about it in the book. When Gabby Giffords got shot, a year later she came back during the state of the union, she was going to resign the next day, and i sat with her and she couldnt stand on her own, still, at that time, so i helped her up during president obamas applause lines. I started getting texts and emails from republicans saying, why are you standing . The president is speaking do you agree with the president . And just this shirts versus skins attitude that really predates President Trump. And so but i think weve just gotten coarser and coarser. I talk in the book about things like the birtherism that was put forward. By President Trump, mainly. And sheriff joe pyle sent investigators to hawaii and then had a press conference after he was defeated, still saying it was a forged birth certificate. This was in december of last year. A terrible thing to do and to prolong, and i think that that rejection of destructive politics, weve got to reject that. As a conservative, thats just not what conservatives should do. And i mean, weve got huge problems to solve in this country, the biggest, in my view, is our looming debt and growing deficit. We have 20 trillion in debt. Well be over a trillion dollars a year in deficits coming up soon, and we know that the only way to solve that is for both parties to sit down and share the risk. Every decent budget agreement weve had in the past 40 years is when republicans and democrats, you know, reagan and tip oneal or the grand republicans act or the budget deal of 87, when republicans and democrats say, lets share the risk and do it together. To say youre conservative and say, im not going to even deal with entitlement spending, and put that off, we cant do that anymore. You need 60 votes in the senate to do just about anything. If youre not under reconciliation, and were going to be there soon, and we should keep that. The president is calling for us to get rid of the filibuster. That woul