Created for himself and his party over a border wall that is not popular enough among the public to create any pressure on the peoples house. This humiliation caps another devastating day of headlines about Donald Trumps subservience and secrecy when it comes to russia. The New York Times today revealing key details of Donald Trumps first facetoface encounter with putin in germany. Just a few months into his presidency. Including this stunning account of what took place just afterward. From that report by peter baker, who joins us on set today, quote as mr. Trump was on air force one taking off from germany heading back to washington, he telephoned a times reporter and argued the russians were falsely accused of election interference. While he insisted most of the conversation be off the record, he later repeated a few things in public and little notice to size. He said he raised the Election Hacking three times and mr. Putin denied involvement. But he said mr. Putin also told him that, quote, if we did, we wouldnt have gotten caught because were professionals. Mr. Trump said, i thought that was a good point because theyre some of the best in the world at hacking. Asked how he weighed mr. Putins denials against the evidence that had been presented to him by mr. Comey, john bronnen and cia director and james clapper, then director of national intelligence, trump said mr. Clapper and brennan were the most political intel chiefs he knew and comey was a leaker. Wow. Here to suss todays development some of our favorite reporters and friends, former u. S. Attorney and former senior fbi official Chuck Rosenberg. Jeremy bash, chrs at the cia and pentagon and at the table, peter bakers here, chief white house corespondent for the New York Times and kimberly atkins, all msnbc analysts and contributors. I have to start with you because this is your reporting. This is new to me, this is the first time i read in your pages just what length the president went to, not just to accept putins denials of everything he been told by u. S. Intelligence, but to convince you and your colleagues of the same. Wow. To buy into the argument, well, if he says theyre too professional to be caught, that must be tree and we couldnt have caught them. We the americans arent good enough to catch the russians. In fact what the intelligence and fashionists have told us over the year is the russians at a certain point in 2015, 2016 were acting so brazenly, they didnt care if it was known they were showing off to their american counterparts. So the fact the president was accepting president putins explanation was a rather striking thing. That was my colleague, and he mentioned in his book, i told everybody i would mention his book on cyber warfare, worth picking up, but this conversation is relevant to what the president s state of mind was on that flight back from hamburg germany on air force one. Something else was happening that day as well n that very sim flight hes dictating a statement back to other colleagues of mine at the times about the story theyre about to break at the trump tower meeting from 2016 with don why are, Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner meet with russians on the promise of getting incriminating information. Lets hit pause, not to recreate this day, joe becker and investigative reporters pressing on donald trump jr. To answer questions about how that meeting went. Just remind us, that was really sort of the dam that broke, that really, mark corralio, longtime republican strategist quit over the lies that were crafted on that airplane. Everybody on that airplane involved in crafting the lie that came out of the white house that day has been of interest to Robert Mueller in the obstruction probe at least. That was as big of a watershed moment in the effort to obscure and obstruct potentially the investigation into russia meddling than anything else. The key to both issues of collusion and obstruction, right, President Trump said again and again there was no collusion. And yet at this meeting they took the meeting on a supposed promise of getting assistance from moscow. The email sent to don jr. Says, the russian government is supporting your father and we would like to give you incriminating information about your opponent. He says i love it. That by itself indicates at least an openness to collaboration, cooperation with russians as part of their campaign. And then as you say the statement that President Trump drafts on that flight home says, this is a meeting about russian adoption without mentioning anything about the fact it was really intended at least to collect information for the purposes of the campaign from the russian government. Jeremy bash, if the crime of conspiracy was committed over a period of days, including this one, and the crime of obstruction was committed over a period of days, including this one, this could be a day that ends up in a report of incredible significance. Just tick through the same events and tell me if im missing some perfectly logical for i think another thing hand just before he got on that plane, i think he dismissed the american translator and chitchatted with Vladimir Putin using only Vladimir Putins translator before i ghe got on airplane. Could that have happen . Plus picking up the phone and calling peters colleagues saying he believes putins denials and getting up and crafting a lie about the meeting at trump tower . Its definitely cultivating when you see Vladimir Putin in his head, manipulating his thoughts, what comes out of the president of the United Statess mouth. Its a very creepy denial if you think about it, that if we didnt do it, but if we did, were so professional, we would have gotten away with it. Can you imagine interrogating a possible rapist of murder, who said im so good, if i had done it, would i have gotten away with it. For the president of the United States to cred that creeit that denial, say that would be the analysis of what the adversaries are up to shows you just the extent Vladimir Putin has been able to manipulate Donald Trumps very thoughts about this issue. I think it goes to the heart of the issue, which is why. We know there was a lie. The question is why . Why is it he wanted us to all believe that the trump tower meeting was about adoptions . Adoptions fundamentally is about the ma knitsky act. Magnitsky act is about sanctions. Sanctions relief is what donald trump wanted. Its what his administration is doing at this hour with respect to deripaska. And as you and i talked about on friday, they, the trump administration, needed sanctions released on financial institutions. Chuck rosenberg, can you take me through this time period from the perspective of the fbi, which we know now based on last fridays reporting in the New York Times opened a counterintelligence investigation into this president on the suspicion or out of the desire to make sure that he wasnt wittingly or unwittingly working on behalf of russia . These three actions seem very much like they would have been part of what would be under scrutiny in that investigation. You bet, nicolle. By the way, i like jeremys description of a creepy denial, hollow denial. It really, truly rings false. But to your question, prosecutors look at context. They love color. And heres the color to what happened here. A private conversation with putin requests that the american interpreter give the president his notes of that meeting. Another meeting where the only interpreter present was the russian interpreter. All of this to me is indicia of guilt, guilty conscience, guilty mind. What it makes me think of are two meetings the president had with comey. One was designed to be one on one where they had dinner and the president asked for comeys loyalty. Comey described that in detail. But the other meeting in some ways is even more interesting in which the president threw everyone out of the room except for comey, and then told comey what a good guy Michael Flynn was and how he hoped the fbi director would go easy on him. When you want to do something nefarious, you skinny down the room. If i wanted to rob a bank with you, nicolle, i wouldnt ask you in front of your panel. I would ask everyone else to leave. The president keeps having conversations like that with putin and without other americans present. Why . Jeremy bash, want to take a stab at that. Why . Well, i think there are two possible explanations. One is he wants to conduct secret diplomacy that would be seen by other u. S. Officials as compromising american interests. Whether its undermining nato, resisting sanctions, whether its on what he ultimately did in syria, which was a unilateral hasty pullout. I know we will talk about syria later in the hour. Theres another rational which he wants to talk about how theyre both going to fashion the cover story, explanation for what russia undoubtedly did in 2016. Maybe its a superficial conversation. Hey, hey, vladimir, i want to back you up. I want to be able to say you denied what you said you did. I dont believe you did it, and im going to back you up. You know, i know some people want to say its also them conspireing about other aspects of a conspiracy. I dont think we have evidence or information about that. But chucks point is fundamentally right, which something was discussed either on policy or intelligence that the president of the United States did not want his senior most officials to hear. He knew they would be in a position to undercut the fundamental premise of what Vladimir Putin was trying to sell to the american president. Chuck, we learn about things like this from peter and his colleagues reporting that on five occasions that are detailed in peters article, donald trump met with Vladimir Putin and no one really knows what was said. Greg miller had some reporting in the Washington Post along those same lines. We learned from news reports like yesterdays and also the New York Times that he talked repeatedly about pulling out of nato. I had reported during that time to the trip to europe, our affirmation of article five was in the speech, he took it out. Aides put it back in. He took it out. Finally on the last stop he said it. Is it safe to assume every person involved in the crafting of Foreign Policy, actual policy and statements, has been into that Interrogation Room in mont muellers offices . Its safe to assume that, nicolle, absolutely. If youre bob mueller again, what you need is context and color and the folks who add context and color are the folks who were either in the room or thrown out of the room. There are conversations that hand before, during and after. And you have to have all of that. You mentioned before mark corralio who resigned after being witness to that conversation on air force one. Hearing about it. Im sorry, mark wasnt on that trip but he was on the phone getting instructions from, i believe, hope picks. Im sorry, i misstated that, hearing about it. But i would also ask mark what happened before and what happened after. And you would ask everybody else who was on the plane, on the phone or who talked to anybody who was on the plane or on the phone. Investigations sweep broadly. By necessity they have to. By the way, thats why they take a long time. I still maintain that theres more to do on the counterintelligence side regardless of whether or not bob mueller drops a partial or interim report any time soon. Chuck rosenberg said on this Program Shortly after new years, it was alarming, he said i dont mean to be alarming and when Chuck Rosenberg says that, everybodys alarmed. But this idea that the countrys Law Enforcement agencies had to think about or at least take into consideration the possibility that they had to protect the country from the president is so stunning, and i think people are still processing the reality of that. You covered this building. What is the effect of that report . Well, they expressed outrage publicly but i think it raises larger questions, which is to say the president has spent a lot of times in the last few months beating again and again no collusion, no collusion and basically he sold a lot of people on the idea hes right. And a lot of people who in fact dont even like him have said in the last few months, maybe mueller doesnt actually have anything on collusion. We dont know what mueller has or doesnt have. This brings that back to the floor again, if you look at what greg miller reported the other day and my colleagues reported on the fbi counterintelligence investigation. It just raises questions and here you had a spectacle of the president of the United States being asked, do you or have you ever worked for the russians, and him taking offense to that. Whether he has or not, just the very fact were discussing it obviously is damaging for the president. Can it also bring into focus that he is certainly acting like someone whos working for the russians. I agree with chuck and everybody that asserts we dont know what mueller knows but we have to assume mueller knows a whole lot more than we do. We see pieces of it when you all report it but we dont know everything he knows. Do you think that anyone inside this white house is prepared for the fallout, should it come to be wittingly or unwittingly hes been a russian agent the whole time . I dont think so. How can you prepared for something this unprecedented . And we are seeing the president has been putting forward these sort of cover stories. I think what chuck said is right or jeremy said is right, fashioning these cover stories. Remember when he ran, he first got into office, he kept saying no, no, i should talk to russia. Wouldnt it be great to be friends . Wouldnt it be great to have this great relationship . It seemed from that point he was laying this groundwork in order to continue to talk to Vladimir Putin to have an excuse as to why hes doing it and hes continuing to do that. The problem now we not only have the Mueller Investigation, we have House Oversight thats going to be doing investigations into this. You have very robust reporting from news organizations breaking this down and its a lot more difficult for him to keep up this cover story, even with Vladimir Putin and former kgb, whos very good at planting things in his head to facilitate that story. It will get harder and harder and more difficult for the white house. Jeremy, i ask this because its getting harder and hearder for people inside the administration to say theres nothing there. The first time i saw cracks in the kinds of conversations im sure peter has a lot more of than i do was after helsinki, when the president s closest allies said you know what, maybe youre right, maybe there is something there. You heard it again after he took up the putinesque defense of soviet adventures in afghanistan, if you will. You heard it again around these stories the friday reporting in the New York Times, weekend reporting in the Washington Post, peters great story today and nato piece. What do you think the breaking point is for anyone who ever wants to work again in Public Policy . I dont know the answer to that because every time i thought there had been a breaking point, its been stretched. Its been expanded. And i wonder also about Foreign Policy hawks on capitol hill and elsewhere, what theyre willing to tolerate with respect to the president s undermining of americans Foreign Policy and our Nato Alliance structure. Its the reason fundamentally jim mattis left the pentagon, because he could no longer count the way the president was handling american Foreign Policy. What struck me as i reflected over the times story about the counterintelligence investigation is whats straining our constitutional et afass, what is so challenging to our system of government is we never had a situation in which the commander in chief, the president of the United States, was in fact deemed to be a potential threat to National Security, because after all, what would you do about that . He was elected president. How can you handle that situation, save going to congress and asking them to think through the process of removing a president from office. And the president does have a defense here, which is im commander in chief and i can conduct american Foreign Policy in a manner i deem appropriate. However, i think theres a limit to that. This has come up in the bar hearings. Theres a limit to president ial power and National Security. If that action by a president has been corruptly obtained, if its been obtained by bribe, i dont think he has that power at all. Chuck, let me give you last word and put you on the spot as i always do, what happens next . I dont know what happens next, nicolle. I appreciate you putting me on the spot like that. But heres what i imagine happening. I can imagine what might happen next. The Mueller Investigation continues. Remember, they just extended the im sorry, sentencing date for rick gates by two months and they continued their grantd jury for another six months. So we know theres more stuff left to do. We also know prosecutors in the Southern District of new york have a number of financial investigations at which they are looking closely. Finall