Former chief of staff as c. I. A. And department of defense now an Nbc News National Security analyst jeremy bash. And washington anchor for bbc world news America Katty Kay who cheers for england who will win the world cup four years from now and host of Andrea Mitchell reports, Andrea Mitchell. Congratulations to france for their victory in the world cup. We are coming up on some big news events the next 15, 20 minutes. Vladimir putin is arriving right now from russia where he was the host of the world cup. And hes arriving in helsinki. Hes going to be meeting with donald trump. We will see him and the president of the United States over the next 15 to 20 minutes. But before we go there, lets try to put into context what exactly has happened this weekend and what the backdrop is for this meeting that has caused him a great deal of concern across washington, d. C. And the world. David ignatius, i want to start with you, how do you put into context weekend where the president of the United States calls our closest allies of the European Union, our chief adversaries and then dismisses Vladimir Putins attempts to undermine american democracy, which we now have in bold, living colors. Its just like dna evidence on a gun. We have the forensic evidence. Our Intel Community knows exactly what the russians did. We know who did it, why they did it, when they did it and how they did it and yet you still have donald trump trying to blame the United States for Vladimir Putins attempt to sub merit american democracy. How do we digest all this on the eve of this meeting . Joe, i put it together this way. I thought trumps comments over the weekend in his interview with cbs calling the European Union a foe was a bizarre end to one of the least successful trips to europe by an american president that i can remember in my life time. Every stop he was making trouble for others but really making trouble for himself. He arrived in helsinki with an image of alliance in disarray. Vladimir putin, many people said the most successful world cup ever, something that gave joy to the russians and the whole world. Mueller did with the blessing of our Intelligence Community on friday in releasing this indictment is an extraordinary step. People talk about the deep state. This isnt the deep state. This is just the state. This is the United States of america saying to Vladimir Putin. Were not asking you to stop. Were telling you to stop. Were telling you to stop because we know what youre doing. And the wonderful thing for viewers to think about is what is putin wondering as he heads toward this meeting room about what else america knows. If we were to put so much detail in that indictment, how much else did we hold back . How many of their operations are compromised . How many of their tools are now exceptionally useless . So it was a significant effort i think to protect the interest of the United States regardless of what donald trump does over the next few hours. Well, i just would ask that anybody who has any questions about the United States of americas investigation into what happened in 2016, do yourself a favor, go on google. Look up the indictment, the detail is absolutely stunning. And again, it tells you exactly what the russians did, how they tried to do it. And its in such vivid detail that David Ignatius is right. They know were on to him and they cant use the same methods again. Despite having this glaring evidence blinking in front of his eyes, this weekend donald trump did not criticize Vladimir Putin, because he never has, instead, this is what he said about the European Union, our closest allies. I think we have a lot of foes. I think the European Union is a foe, what that do to us in trade. You wouldnt think of the European Union but theyre a foe. Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a foe of economically certainly theyre a foe. But that doesnt mean theyre bad. It doesnt mean anything. It means that theyre competitors. They want to do well and we want to do well. And were starting to do well. You know, mike barnacle, weve talked about it before. The European Union remains our closest economic ally, our strongest economic ally. They also remain our Strongest Military ally with a military budget larger than chinas and far larger than russias and donald trump actually singles them out first as americas foe. As someone on Russian State Television said last week, this is something that russia could not achieve during the cold war, but we are now achieving a split between the United States and europe because of donald trump. Joe, youre absolutely right. This whole episode is surreal. Part of it began on friday with that aforementioned indictment, 29 pages, 11 counts, incredibly insightful peek into russian intelligence operatives and what they were trying to do to the United States of america. An investigation led in part by peter stroke, fbi agent who was on the stand in that horrendous republicanled hearing on thursday. And richard, as we get ready to see president putin emerge from his plane, it occurs to a lot of people that he has already achieved success. Hes gotten a free pass from the president of the United States in his invasion of ukraine, the fourth anniversary tomorrow of shooting down the malaysian airline, disrupting and declaring war on the american political system and here he is on board with the president of the United States side by side. And hes also on the cusp of essentially making Bashar Al Assads position in syria permanent. This is extraordinary for putin. Whatever his plan or his hopes were, this has far exceeded them. No way any russian president could agree this disarray of the western alliance by the leader. Any normal president would have done two things over the last week. One, he could have made sure that the foundation of the alliance, u. S. european relations looked robust heading into a summit. Thats a foundation of strength. Two, all these indictments were to come out from the Justice Department, he would use that as ammunition to go after a russian president and say this has to stop. Here is the price youre going to pay for what youve done and here is the price youre going to pay if you do it again. That would be something that we would call a normal president. And i think we have to accept we have anything but. Donald trump is more of an outlier as the 45th president than any of those 1 through 44 that came before him. And hes not only an outlier of the other 44 president s. Hes an outlier of most of the people that served for him in this administration. We now have Vladimir Putin coming off the plane, getting ready to meet donald trump. Just little background on putin. Of course, he was a career kgb agent. He became Prime Minister in russia in 1999, acting president , 1999 to 2000. Served his first president ial term from 2000 to 2004. His second president ial term from 2004 to 2008. And then of course he became Prime Minister for the next four years and then assumed the presidency ever since. And during that time from 2008 to 2018, over the past ten years, he also between his attempts to intervene in western democracies like the United States and france, hes also invaded two countries, georgia and ukraine. Its been quite an active 18 years for a man who has seen actually over the last 18 years by many metrics become weaker, but the weaker russia gets the more resentful they become the more they try to subvert western democracy. Yeah. It was those actions first the actions in georgia and then particularly in ukraine and the annexation of crimea that led to the concerted western effort to awe industry size russia. What you have just seen is president putin walking in from the cold, out of that plane and into the embrace of the american president , effectively, who is saying im going to hold a one on one summit with you. The years of russia being seen as a pariah by the west, donald trump seems to be saying those are coming to a close. Im prepared to deal with you one on one. Im prepared to have this big fanfare with you. Well look at issues like syria. Well look at potentially easing american sanctions around the issue of crimea, accepting the annexation of crimea which nobody else in europe does. This is a huge coup who is president of the where the russian economy is doing badly, who actually has a very poor hand but has played it incredibly effectively at not very much cost to russian public in order to exert his influence around the world. And this san extraordinary reward for somebody who just a couple years ago was really seen as somebody nobody in the west would be prepared to do business with. Well, and of course one of the slides, one of the great slights that Vladimir Putin felt is when barack obama called russia a Regional Power. Donald trump mentioned repeatedly that he believes it was a great mistake. You know, i think one of the more surprising things for me was the fact that after fridays indictment, an indictment that began proved beyond a shadow of doubt, beyond any reasonable doubt that Vladimir Putin tried to do exactly what the head of our Intelligence Community said he tried to do, tried to subvert american democracy and is still trying to subvert american democracy, that after that indictment came out with stunning detail, we actually had House Republicans say they were going to move to try to impeach Rod Rosenstein which say what you will, it makes them look like theyre doing Vladimir Putins bidding. Why in the world would you want to impeach a man that brought forward information on charges that proved to americans and proved to the world and proved to Vladimir Putin that russia has tried to interfere in american democracy and is still trying to interfere in american democracy. That is depressing. I will say there were some leading republicans including trey gowdy who cant seem to pick a side, but at least hes on the side of protecting american democracy this weekend, there were some republicans that did not kowtow to Vladimir Putin and russia this weekend. And i suppose we can take that as a win. This first clip is from trey gowdy. This is an attack on all of us. Our elections are just that, margaret. Theyre our elections. Republicans and democrats are free to fight among and with themselves, but that fight ends at the border. And i would ask the president to give some serious consideration. Your first request of Vladimir Putin needs to be tell us which airport we can pick up the 25 russians that tried to interfere with the fundamentals of our democracy. If you really claim you had nothing to do with it, then you should be as shocked as we were that your military was being used to impact our election. Tell us where youre going to extradite those folks because an american grand jury indicted them for undermining our democracy. Okay. So, great job by trey gowdy there. Jeremy bash, here is the problem. Just a week or two he was talking about the need to end the Mueller Investigation. If we had ended the Mueller Investigation when he said the Mueller Investigation needed to be ended, then we wouldnt have had this information coming forward now. And this information opens up an entirely new set of questions that must be answered. So we can figure out how the russians tried to interfere in the American Election and if any americans, which the indictment seems to claim suggests there are, if any americans were involved in that process. Now, this weekend after this damming evidence came out, you now have Rudy Giuliani saying, oh, yes, this is terrible. Now we no the russians did this. And this is great information to have. Now lets end the Mueller Investigation. Of course you have the president of the United States calling the Mueller Investigation a witch hunt. This investigation is not over. It is far from being over. And yet you have republicans on the hill trying to impeach Justice Department officials that are showing americans and the world that russian spies, the gru, is trying to undermine american democracy. Weve now indicted 25 russians to undermine american democracy. We indicted the president s campaign manager, the president s National Security adviser, the president s assistant campaign manager, the man that the president said was one of his two top Foreign Policy advisers. We have five guilty pleas already. Weve opened up an entirely new phase of the investigation on friday and we dont know where its going to go. More questions are now raised than ever before, and yet you have Rudy Giuliani saying this investigation must end. Its a good thing there are some republicans, jeremy, that actually have come out and said we need to see where this investigation leads us. And more should, joe, because the only reason why trumps lawyers and trumps allies on the hill want the investigation to wind down because of course they are frightened to death as to where it might lead. Im so glad that youre talking strongest possible terms about what the mueller indictment actually shows. The one word we got to retire is meddling. Meddling is something thats anowing, something thats bothersome, something your motherinlaw does. This was a sophisticated military attack using Cyber Weapons on our country. We have to talk about it in those terms and the response from the american president sitting face to face alone with the russian president has to be in those terms. It has to say the president has to say Vladimir Putin, we know what you did. We know what you did two summers ago and we need you to stop. We need you to cut it out and there will be retributions. Of course i dont think anybody on this panel today, i dont think anybody in our country actually believes the president is going to do that because in fact what were seeing from the whole last week of diplomacy is in fact putins return on investment. Well, his return on investment and, again, lets just for people that havent actually read the indictment or even red news stories on the indictments, maybe theyve just seen a stray tweet here or there and want to talk about a witch hunt, again, let me be clear, if you just go on google, if you use the google machine and just spend 60 seconds, you will find that the United States of america, our military, usa, remember that when we were for the American Military and the american Intel Community rooting out russian subversion . Remember when we all were for that . That was unifying . We were actually against russian aggression. There was a time when we all were. If you go on google, you will see that Vladimir Putin is lying. Weve got a president who wont call him out on it, and our military and our intel agencies, the best in the world, the most powerful in the world, the strongest in the world, the smartest in the world, we have you can see in the indictments, we know what the russians are doing, we know how they did it, we even know what computers the russian agents were sitting at, what key strokes they used, what buildings they were in. We even know what their slang terms for the buildings they were in. We know everything about what the russians tried to do when they tried to subvert american democracy and yet the president tweeted about what he called, quote, the rigged witch hunt. The rigged witch hunt. Which by the way uncovered all of putins lies. Uncovered the dirty, ugly truth of what our Intel Community has been saying for two years now, that the russians tried to subvert american democracy. By the way, that Intel Community, not the deep state, these are people donald trump appointed himself. But this is what he tweeted earlier this morning, quote, president obama thought that crooked hillary was going to win the election, so when he was informed by the fbi about russian meddling, he said it couldnt happen, was no big deal and did nothing about it. When i won, it became a big deal and the rigged witch hunt had struck. He went on to write our relationship with russia has never been worse thanks to many years of u. S. Foolishness and stupidity and now the rigged witch hunt. Andrea mitchell, it should not be surprised that tweet was liked by the Russian