Sanctions bill. President trump called on russia recently here and elsewhere to cease its destabilizing activities. Very soon President Trump will sign legislation to strengthen and codify the United States sanctions against russia. And good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington where the Washington Post is reporting that President Trump played a direct role in trying to obfuscate the meeting between his son and the russians. The question is, did the president know he was concocting a false account . And what are the ramifications . It happened on Board Air Force one on the way home from germany. President overruling his staff, taking charge of his statement about don jr. s meeting with that russian lawyer. That air force one flight took off one day after President Trumps meeting with Vladimir Putin in hamburg. Joining me now, Kristen Welker at the white house and carol ann, part of a post team that broke the story. What are the ramifications of this, of the president taking charge, which is similar to the mo we have seen. He seems to be his own Communications Director. Is this more important because it involved the Russian Investigation . Absolutely, andrea. It is a lot of lawyers around town, including some of the president s own advisers, advisers to the trump team are scratching their heads because this was in the words of a person i spoke with unnecessary and it puts the president and his inner circle in more legal jeopardy. Again, keep in mind this is the president directing family members and his son and aides to conceal a piece of information about the president s campaign and its contact with russians. And that is that effort to conceal is something that bob mueller, im told, will absolutely want to look at. Anytime you mislead or attempt to lie about something, a prosecutor who is looking at obstruction is going to want to know why and how that came to be. And to Kristen Welker, we know that john dowd, one of the president s newly hired, more recently hired lawyers, said in a statement that this was fake news, incorrect and misinformed of no consequence back when the whole thing started, when that story was concocted. Thats right. And jay sekulow saying key details are wrong. Here is the bottom line. Neither of them are outwardly disputing the story. And it really breaks with and counters with what we heard from jay sekulow two weeks ago on meet the press when he said the president had nothing to do with drafting that statement. We have reached out to the white house for comment as well. They are referring all questions to the president s outside counsel. Bottom line, to the broader point here, this is yet another russia related headline. The last thing that this administration wants right now, particularly as they try to have a reset here at the white house. The president having his new chief of staff sworn in yesterday, retired general john kelly, who is making it very clear there is a new sheriff in town. He decided to oust the Communications Director, anthony scaramucci, in the wake of that profanitylaced rant in the new yorker against Reince Priebus and steve bannon. He wanted to reset the tone here. I think this is an unwanted headline at the time that they were trying to get on solid ground. So there will be fallout throughout the day. And, again, some tough questions for Sarah Huckabee sanders later on today. And, kristen, you know air force one so well. You look at the different compartments, the staff was trying to work on this, and was apparently recommending that it be just a clear cut statement. And it was the president who got into it. Why didnt somebody say, sir, you should not be involved in this. This is something that we want to insulate you from. Based on my conversations, it is not abnormal for the president to want to be engaged in the details of statements that pertain to his family in particular. But white house statements that he feels are of this level of import. I was told at times in the past they have had to nudge him, explain to him, look, he doesnt necessarily need to be engaged in every single detail and in fact in some cases it is best if he isnt. I think thats part of the push and pull and that were seeing exposed in this reporting by carol an her colleagues. And, carol, here it is, less than 24 hours after john kelly takes over. And when your story broke, it is, again, a leak. Part of his commitment is to plug the leaks. Well, i think kelly has a bigger responsibility actually beyond leaks. Scaramucci as you know famously said he wanted to kill all the leakers. And certainly the president doesnt like leaks. But kellys role and job and responsibility is much bigger, which is order. Getting people to be disciplined and as many advisers have said to me, the first person he has to bring in line is the president. In this instance, the president is going with his gut. Every person we spoke to and it was a large team of reporters, every person we spoke to said this president believes hes the best advocate, best lawyer, the best publicist. And here he just decided he was going to make the call. And legally it is a bad idea and somebody needs to be able to communicate that to him and temper him and well see if kelly can do it. It is a big job. Thank you so much. Carol ann, from your exclusive story today and of course Kristen Welker, our colleague at the white house. California senator Dianne Feinstein is the top democrat on the Judiciary Committee and joins me now. Thank you very much, senator. Good to see you. Thank you for being with us today. Good to see you. Well, Lindsey Graham already spoke out on the today show saying this is really damaging, that in contributes to the impression that bob mueller will have to look at, that there was an attempt to cover up or mislead. We dont know how winning the president was. What do you think the impact of this is, if it in fact as reported the president was part of this misleading story, this misleading account of that russia meeting. If that proves to be true, and i think senator graham wouldnt say it without some strong indication that in fact it is true, and that he wrote he rewrote a statement to obfuscate the purpose, the real purpose of the meeting, that is a problem. Now, well have to wait and see. I have no clue what he said. But i do know this, andrea, i wish we could get away from these things. From my position, i see what is happening in the rest of the world. And i have deep concern about our inability to focus on real problems and real problem solving. And before you can get away and look at russia and north korea and all the other threats, which were all really concerned and have been reporting on, you have this these distractions from the white house and the ongoing investigation. Is there any legal issue that would arise from the president contributing to a false statement in contrast to what his lawyers were telling the public on meet the press and elsewhere. Well, i cant answer that. But certainly it is one more fact of something that he should not have been doing. And let me Say Something about general kelly, he is an adult, he knows the world. He has supervised 250,000 employees and a whole field of battle. I think he knows what hes doing. And one of my hopes is that in addition to being a chief of staff, he can be not a copresident , but a man whose advice is valued. The president mentioned to senator grassley and i, when we went in to see him over a course of how much he valued general kelly and what general kelly has done and general kellys thinking on matters. So my hope is that general kelly will be more of a participant in some of the big things. Russia, if it is true, russia is mounting troops on the border of European Countries with a star tank division. We ought to know that. We ought to be doing something about it. We certainly ought to say the time has come to talk to north korea and stop this and talk with the subject to no preconditions, but sit down and negotiate a solution. Because everything i know is that there is no military answer to this. If you if for a moment, if you look at what the dmz is today, 750,000 north korean troops behind that hill line at the end of the plane, and those hills stunted with rockets, we have 28,000 troops there, and seoul is 25 minute drive to the dmz. There is no military solution. A war would mean the death of hundreds of thousands of people. And it makes no sense. So we and isolating a nation, in my view, and my study of history, does not work. So a Top Notch Team should reach out, and say we are ready to sit down and talk with you, north korea. And do this at the highest levels. And in fact, i wanted to share with you, Something Else that Lindsey Graham said on the program today, it is a lot of talk about a first strike. We know there are military plans. We have military plans for everything. And particularly for north korea. Especially given new intelligence analysis from dia that we were two years wrong about when they might be able to put the warhead on that missile and miniaturize it. This is what Lindsey Graham had to say today to matt lauer. Every military expert says there is no good military option. Theyre wrong. There is a military option, to destroy north koreas program and north korea itself. Are you saying it is okay to use military option that immediately endangers the lives of millions of people in that region . Im saying it is inevitable unless north korea changes because youre making our president pick between regional stability and Homeland Security. I dont know your reaction to that. My reaction is that Lindsey Graham should get a classified briefing like the ones i have had. And sit down with secretary mattis, which i have done. Okay. I think i understand, especially after interviewed the general last week what the implications are, because of the artillery, the millions of people, what the implications would be. There is more to it than even that. It is all classified. But we know much more about these weapons and where they are. And what the difficulties are. Thats all i can say. One of the things ive been reporting not to put you on the spot is that were talking about tunnels here, were talking about mobile launchers, were talking about launchers that now missiles launched with solid state fuel, not liquid fuel, so theyre not on the launchpad for so long. Let me pause it, it is hard to target them, hard to take them out or know were getting everything out. China may know more than we do. But we dont know a whole lot about what is happening underground. Leaving that all i can say, andrea, is that youre correct. Thank you for that. Youre welcome. Lets talk about russia, because the president has yet to sign the sanctions bill. It was a veto proof majority, 982 in the senate, he doesnt have a whole lot of choices here and Vice President pence has been giving very strong, explicit speeches in estonia, in georgia, as he travels around the region. Is there any question about what the president needs to do on the russia sanctions . No. And i think what Vice President pence has been doing is very helpful. He has stated the position clearly and distinctly. And he is in an area where the russians practice military intimidation and may be setting up to do so again. So i think his visit is very timely. I think thats one thing that is working. With respect to the white house, we really have to get away from all of this stuff every day. We really have to go to problem solving. And the best people should be brought forward to do that problem solving. And i think the president ought to really put together, if he hasnt already, some high level teams of people who are militarily knowledgeable, government knowledgeable, about what is going on in some critical places in the world today. And fashion plans to deal with it. They dont have to be announced right away. But my sense is that this isnt happening. And i dont think anybody wants to, in this country, wants to be america caught when were not ready for it. So i think almost day by day, i have the saudi ambassador in a few moments ago talking about yemen, where we had 10,000 children die from cholera. And that whole saudi advance is going very badly in that sense. And these are things that we ought to be concentrating on. And solving these problems instead of, well, you know, this meeting or that meeting and changing views and tweeting and creating an instability where there should be stability. Speaking of stability, i want to ask you about Jeff Sessions. Youre the top democrat on the Judiciary Committee with oversight. The attorney general is going to be speaking publicly for the first time in a couple of days in atlanta, at a Law Enforcement conference. This comes after the president was rebuked by Police Chiefs for what he said on friday. Suggesting that police ought to be tougher against suspects. And not observe the protocols against harming suspects as theyre being arrested. First of all, Jeff Sessions, should he stay as attorney general . What about rumors he might be moved over to homeland or some other agency . Well, Jeff Sessions has done nothing to deserve termination. And i dont always agree with him, thats true. But i really disagree using him as a political pawn. The president can transfer him to Homeland Security. But if the purpose is what many of us think it is, and thats to stop the investigation of bob mueller and his team, that will not work. Because i believe that will be something that none of us can condone. And it could well be the beginning of the end of the short presidency. I dont want that to be the case. But this is the red zone. And no president should enter it without knowing fully what the repercussions are. I think that could not be clearer. Thank you very much, senator feinstein, always good to talk to you. Thank you. Coming up, the revolving door at the white house, it just keeps spinning. Anthony scaramucci out after less than two weeks, actually six days officially. B bill kristol joining me next. But when family members forget, trust angies list to help. [ barks ] visit angieslist. Com today. I own my own company. I had some severe fatigue, some funny rashes. Finally, listening to my wife, went to a doctor. And i became diagnosed with hodgkins lymphoma. That diagnosis was tough. I had to put my trust in somebody. When i first met steve, we recommended chemotherapy, and then we did high dose therapy and then autologous stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, he went on to have progressive disease i thought that he would be a good candidate for immune therapy. Its an intravenous medicine that is going to make his immune system evade the tumor. With chemotherapy, i felt rough, fatigue, nauseous. And with immune therapy weve had such a positive result. Im back to working hard. Ive honestly never felt this great. I believe the future of immunotherapy at ctca is very bright. The evolution of cancer care is here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com Appointments Available now. Could be preventedrrent with the right steps. And take it from me, every step counts. A bayer aspirin regimen is one of those steps in helping prevent another stroke. Be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. President trump, excuse me, again ignoring continued west wing turmoil, taking to his favorite megaphone, twitter, to tout stock market numbers and slam the socalled Fake News Media, writing stock market could hit all time high again, 22,000 today. Was 18,000 only six months ago on election day. Mainstream media seldom mentions. Only the Fake News Media and trump enemies want me to stop using social media, 110 Million People, only way for me to get the truth out. This after another turbulent day at the white house following the ouster of his Communications Director when he tweeted a great day at the white house. Joining me is bill kristol editor at large for the weekly standard. Should we say we talk about the stock market all the time, our colleague, steffi ruhphanie ruh ali velshi, the stock market is not the overall economy. But it is an indicator and is a psychological boost, no question about it. Maybe the market is going up because people are happy to see john kelly in there and order could be. The economy has been decent in six months and pretty good in six months since President Trump took over. Hard to believe it is the policies hes put in place pause there havent been that many. But it helped keep his support at a decent level of 38 or 40 . I think political scientist view, 46 of the vote, stock market goes up 15 , 20 , unemployment 4 , where would you expect the president s approval today . 55 maybe . Hes putting a huge price. It is a big myth hes doing fine, voters dont care about all of this. They want a white house that is competent, honest, and rule of law abiding and doubtful some percentage of reluctant trump voters, he has his core base, some are reluctant, few democrats, looking at this white house saying this isnt the way we think a white house should be run. Usa today and gallop had the numbers the last few days, hes underwater in pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, which he won by 77,000 votes to, you know, put him over the top. Were all obsessed with the hard core trump supporters. Some are unusual republicans. Worth looking at that. Most trump spoupporters a lot we reluctant. They have a sense that is he governing at all . What is happening . And also the sense that you just cant