Theyre lying and you know theyre lying. If this isnt the turn, i dont know what it is. Well and golfing amid a Public Health crisis that killed over 125,000 americans and counting. Infections are surging with arizona, florida and texas as the latest epicenters. Good morning and welcome to morning joe, it is monday june 29th. With us we have White House Reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. Former chair of the Republican National committee now an msnbc political analyst, michael steele. Correspondent and host of kasie dc kasie hunt. And the reverent al sharpton, great to have you with us on this monday morning. The u. S. Has get erred intelligence that russia has offered to pay bounties to those who kill americans. The New York Times first broke the story on friday,s aspects o which have been patched and reported by cnn, the washington journal, and abc news. According to the times large amounts of American Cash at a taliban outpost in afghanistan helped tip off officials. But we have not confirmed the u. S. Verified any bounty payments were made. According to intel gleaned from intergraduatiorogation interrogations, the Washington Post reports that the russian bounties are believed to have resulted in the deaths of several u. S. Service members. Nbc news has not independently confirmed that reporting. Two officials tell the times that u. S. Intelligence officers and special ops forces in afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as january to a suspected russian plot. Officials developed several potential recourse options for russia, including sanctions, but none have been activated by the Trump Administration. The paper also reports two officials said the information about the bounty hunting was well known among the Intelligence Community in afghanistan, including the cias chief of station and other top officials there, like military commandos hunting the taliban. The information was distributed in intelligence reports, and highlighted in some of them. The assessment was compiled and sent up the chain of command to senior military and intelligence officials. Eventually landing at the highest levels of the white house. The paper also reports the Administration Shared information about the assessment with the British Government, as joe mentioned, whose forces were among those said to have been targeted. The times also reports that President Trump was briefed on the findings and the White Houses National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late march. According to the times, the reporting was described in the president s daily brief, a written summary of high level National Security matters. Problem there for the president is that its written. It would be unusual if Something Like this was verbally said to him. Something so explosive. Yet a Senior Administration official tells nbc news that the president was never briefed on the issue because there is no consensus within the Intelligence Community on these allegations. Because against again all the reporting and the sourcing and the white house and trump himself denied knowledge of the russian plot but didnt deny existence of the report. Yeah. National intelligence director John Radcliffe also denied late saturday trump had been briefed, but russia and the taliban have, of course, denied the report. Lets bring in Charlie Savage, who broke this story. Thanks for being with us. The New York Times reporting this was well known among cia and the Intel Community, caused so much concern we notified our allies in britain and the New York Times also reporting this was in the president s Daily Briefing and also the president himself was briefed. Is that correct . I think also could be the same thing there. What we have at this point and were continuing to peel back the onion on this. We have one official telling us this was briefed at the highest levels of the white house. And we have another official telling us it was in the written president ial daily brief document, the written briefing handed to mr. Trump. Whether or not he read it maybe is another question and we are still trying to figure out what they mean when they say he wasnt briefed, assuming there is a grain of truth to that, which is an assumption we have to proceed with, but we have flagged with a grain of salt. More broadly its important to recognize the assessment has been confirmed by many other publications with their own sourcing but the administration has not denied this was developed months ago by the Intelligence Agency, they convened an interagency meeting about it in late march to wrestle with what to do about it. They ordered and commissioned a set of a menu of options of responses beginning at the lowest end with telling moscow we know youre doing this, knock it off, a diplomatic complaint and proceeding up a sliding scale of sanctions and more aggressive steps. And they have not denied that the white house has not authorized any of those steps not even the mere diplomatic complaint. So they seem to have coalesced around a strategy of focussing on the notion that trump was not briefed, whatever that seems to mean and theyre not providing granular detail on whether they dont count having it written in materials in his hands if he didnt read it. But notably trump himself seemed to be casting apersians on the intelligence or the existence of it, scacalled it so called or suggested it might be a hoax, like the russia hoax but that goes beyond the communication strategy developed by the people around him. Joe . Once again, charlie, we have the white house unfortunately having to scramble because the president changes his mind on what lie he wants to pursue me saying that not you as a reporter. Thank you. But its fascinating that at first donald trump said he didnt get the briefing and then he changes his story and starts suggesting that this might be a hoax. And yet, charlie, didnt you say in march this was considered so serious by the Intel Community that the National Security council convened a meeting in late march to figure out how to respond to Vladimir Putins russian government putting bounties on the heads of american soldiers and they came up with several options. None of which have been followed through on by this president. So it begs the question, if they didnt think this was well, let me state it another way. If they thought this intel was so damning that they needed to convene interAgency Meetings so figure out how to respond to the threat, doesnt that suggest right there that, first of all, it was important enough to take to the president of the United States, which, of course, your reporting says they did. And secondly, that donald trump is, once again, undercutting his own intel agencies like he did at helsinki. Certainly saying socalled and saying everyone has denied this, which means the russians denied this, careys echos of the helsinki summit when President Trump said putin had strong denials that russian meddled in the 2016 election which the american Intelligence Community said it did. If the thats what youre referring to. Building on that for one second, late yesterday, 48 hours into this thing, the administration put out a new claim, which was this was never briefed to the president because there was disagreement. There was not a consensus within the Intelligence Community that it was real and a Senior Administration official on team trump putting that out yesterday. And, you know, well continue to explore that and dig into it, but our information is contrary to that. We are hearing that actually, there was not push back or a disagreement among the Intelligence Community that this was real. There were differents a aspects this, different a types of intelligence, signal, and different agencies because of their expertise placed different level of confidence into different types of intelligence streams. So there were disagreements on a confidence level at different aspects of this complicated thing but that is different than saying people just didnt even agree about whether there was any there there, which is the latest message from the white house. Okay. Thank you so much, charlie. Jonathan lemire, the cia station chief in afghanistan knew about it, it was well known by the cia there. It was well known in washington d. C. Taken so seriously they convened a meeting at the end of march. It was put in the president s Daily Briefing. And yet, the president president s going back to what he did in helsinki where hes once again undercutting u. S. Intel agencies, once again undercutting a cia station chief and the findings they found in afghanistan. And deciding to go with Vladimir Putins word that he didnt put a bounty on american soldiers head instead of his own Intel Community. The president , again, knew about this, according to the reporting, in late march. Here we are in late june and the president still hasnt even brought it up with Vladimir Putin who he was calling his good friend two months after he was notified of this. Two months after he was notified of this. Its an extraordinary piece of intelligence, joe. If were to believe that the president wasnt briefed on this, then that raises a host of questions why he wasnt . Was he not trusted with the information or those briefing him afraid of what his reaction would be. But it defied logic that he wouldnt be told about this. Youre right, there are echos of helsinki here. Echos of his repeated deferns to Vladimir Putin. No retaliation, no warning, no stern message sent to moscow. No sanctions, no broadsides at putin since march, since this information came out. There hasnt been anything over the last few days since the story became public, other than denials and an effort by the administration to keep the president out of it. And the president on twitter the last couple days, as you say, sort of denigrating the quality of u. S. Intelligence which is what he did in that summit in finland almost exactly two years ago, but it speaks to a broad pattern of deference to Vladimir Putin. Of course, he spoke admireingly of him during the 2016 campaign, he called for russias help. His relationship to russia was the center of a two year probe let by robert mueller. Since then we have seen, even as the administration at times has moved to be tough on russia, the president himself has been an obstacle to that. He has never wanted to crack down on moscow, condemn putin in some of their lower profile meetings as well. We know they speak on the phone with some frequency. In the last couple months President Trump wanted to invite Vladimir Putin for an expanded g7 meeting over the objections of the other European Countries who were in that group of nations. He wanted to invite Vladimir Putin to the white house soon after helsinki. This seems to be another moment in a pattern where he simply will not challenge Vladimir Putin. Michael steele, thats what makes all of this so consistent with the way hes behaved in the past but also so disturbing. When this first came out, you look at the news, go wait a second, donald trump is in this terrible position because we know hes never going to criticize Vladimir Putin for reasons that perhaps you and i will only learn years from now. But we know that. But hes just gotten word or he got word in march from his intel agents that Vladimir Putin is now putting bounty on the heads of Young Americans and having islamic militants trying to kill Young Americans to get cash from the russians. That was in late march. And this is what donald trump said on may the 8th, a couple of months later. We have this great friendship. And by the way, getting along with russia is a great thing. Getting along with putin and russia is a great thing. Thats donald trump after he had in his president ial Daily Briefing that Vladimir Putin put bounties on the heads of Young American troops. And i just michael, does the white house really expect everybody to be so stupid to believe that they do. You have one of the most serious pieces of intel to come across a president s desk at a time hes trying to invite him to the g7, at a time hes continuing to say that russias a good friend of his, and theyre not going to tell the president . That suggests hes so addled and so mentally deficient they didnt think it was worth their time telling him or that hes a source of the russians and they couldnt trust him. Theres no other good explanation why you wouldnt tell the president that the leader of russia is putting bounties on the head of Young American troops. I will take up that challenge and they they did brief him. I do not believe that something as important and severe as this was left untold to the president of the United States. What i think is disturbing is his reaction to it once he was told. The fact that there has been nothing done. There has been no rebuke officially from the United States and the fact that the white house, even over the course of the president s tweets still has not denied the underlying intelligence that this is, in fact, what happened and this is, in fact, what we do know. And the reality is, the president tweets this is something to make republicans look bad. No, this is something that makes you look bad because the fact of the matter is, youre the one whos in the focus here. This is not a political issue. This is a bounty placed on the heads of american soldiers. You are the commander in chief, all right. So if this isnt about politics. This is about what you do as a leader of men and women in uniform. Who now find out that you are okay with a bounty on their head by your by our adversary. So this is what hes going to have to account for. He cant spin this out. There may be some republicans who will run to his defense, that will be curious to watch. No. You cant i cant sigh that. Come on, now. There has to be a line. Kasie hunt, liz cheney has good questions about this. She was tweeting over the weekend. Shes one republican who wants to know why werent the president or Vice President briefed . Had. They were. Was it in the president ial Daily Briefing . Yep. Who knew and when . What has been done in response to protect our forces and hold putin accountable . What say the republicans at this point, kasie hunt . Are they so morally worn down by this president that they will not have the right answer for the United States of america . Well, mika, we obviously have to put that question to republicans and i think that third piece of what liz cheney underscores there, what is being done, is a question that, you know, every lawmaker has a duty to answer now that they are aware through the public reporting that this was going on. Were still trying to figure out who, if anyone, in congress knew. Why they would have talked to them or not. My colleague, ken dilanian has some reporting that perhaps some were briefed but the ap reporting that briefing is not happening until today. Were trying to nail down the details. But the reality of the story is theres no good answer for the president if he didnt know because his intelligence officials were afraid to bring it up to him and underscore it because they werent sure if he would approve one of the options they had on the table and the times did report there were various potential options discussed. Thats a theme thats come up in this presidency that he hasnt been willing to take actions presented to him or hes doubted the information underneath it. So perhaps thats part of what happened here. But there is no good explanation. Any one of these kind of rabbit holes you go down has its own set of land mines and enormous problems for this president. I think the fact you have liz cheney, who has shown a willingness throughout this administration to push back against the president on matters of National Security. Liberal democrats dont agree with liz cheney or any other member of her family and thats understating the issue on some of this stuff but there are a lot of republicans who have been in that camp historically. I think this is something thats going to put an incredible amount of pressure on them. And it is one more thing, as, you know, there are so many other issues they have to grapple with with this president and his poll numbers are falling, the trend lines are terrible for him. And to have this sort of clear cut moral issue that talks about the men and women that are still on the ground in afghanistan fighting for us every day, the president has potentially known about this for months and he does nothing to protect the