[ speaking Foreign Language ] [ speaking Foreign Language ] i think the situation in ukraine is very important. I think that the meetings coming up with russia and ukraine are very important. And theres a possibility that some very big progress can be made. I think its important for ukraine and from the standpoint of russia also, that they work out a treaty and work out peace, because theyve been fighting a long time, too long. And i think theres a good chance that that will happen. Also, with respect to Nuclear Weapons, ive spoken to president putin and ive communicated with him, and he very much wants to, and so do we, work out a treat of some kind for Nuclear Weapons that will probably then include china at some point and yourselves, by the way. But it will include china and some other countries. But we intend to see if we can work something out to stop the proliferation, to stop whats happening. Because we are making a lot and we are renovating a lot and, frankly, the whole situation with nuclear is not a good situation. We ended the treaty because it wasnt being adhered to by the other side. And they want to make a treaty, and so do we. I think it would be a great thing. Its one of the most important things we can do, frankly. So were going to be dealing with russia on a treaty and were focused on nuclear and Nuclear Weapons, missiles, but Nuclear Weapons. And we think something can be worked out. We think they want to do it. We know they want to do it. And we want to do it also. I spoke to china about it during one of our trade negotiations and they were extremely excited about getting involved in that. So very good things could happen with respect to that. I think its very important. The whole nuclear situation, very, very important. Thank you all, very much. Thank you. You have been watching President Trump along side french president macron as the two are overseas in london for this meeting of nato leaders. Hans nichols is traveling with the president and were joined by u. S. Ambassador to russia in the obama administration, and chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times and peter baker joins us as well. Hans, ive got to start with you. As weve been looking at the video now from President Trump and president ma macron, the o bromance doesnt seem to be brewing anymore. They clashed on isis to a degree and then there was these russia comments at the end that were fairly interesting as well. Reporter look, we thought we were watching a press conference but it seemed like couples counseling. At the beginning neither of them were responding to the attacks. Macron clearly not answering directly the attacks that President Trump made earlier this morning, really hitting at frances economy, suggesting that it was totally inappropriate for macron to make the comments about being the brain death of nato. You saw it get tense where the president himself said that sounded like a nonavenanswer w he was talking about macrons answer about the isis fighters. One thing we dont know is whether that press conference was at the end of their meeting. From the initial reports, it sounded like we went in after they started meeting. President trump said that hes had a great meeting with them. Right, spoke for 25 minutes. Reporter thats not a real long meeting. So the press conference after the meeting is longer than the actual meeting. And that gives you an indication that both sides want to play to their base and get their version of events out. So i think theres more reporting to do here. I think one thing thats interesting is what trump is doing here in nato, hes trying to transform it. He wants nato to be a counterterrorism operation and not just focused on russia. Macrons response is and but, and russia. And the president is more in the but category there, really focusing on counterterrorism. I would say probably an extended q a session with the reporters in the room. Peter, when you look at the way that macron listen, he is somebody who it appears wants to be standing up to President Trump or at least to hanss point, be perceived as standing up to President Trump, when he says essentially hes not backing off what he said before that annoyed the president about nato. Reporter macron is sort of fashioning himself in some ways as the leader of europe. Boris johnson is focused on getting out of europe. Merkel is heading into the end stage of her chancellorship. Italy and other place rs consumed by their own domestic turmoil and macron is stepping up. Hes the one strongest voice out there to counter President Trump in that sense. And he has decided to do that. Youre right, the bromance is over. This is no longer than effort on macrons part to flatter and warm up to the president. He has tried to work with him on a number of occasions. Just a couple months ago at the g7 we watched macron try to bring trump and iran together to try to get past the impasse weve had over the Nuclear Program and other issues. I think you see a little bit of frustration on his part that he hasnt managed to achieve as much as he wanted and trump is like, fine, were going to move ahead on our own. Ambassador mcfaul, you also had the interesting moment as it related to isis and the president you could read it as a dig or joke, saying that was one of the best nonanswers i ever heard that the wt suggested that he would send isis captured fighters over to france. How do you read the reactions we just saw . First, i dont speak french so i dont exactly know what president macron said. There was an audio tra translation and our apologies. I know it was very low for our nonfrench speaking viewers, like myself, by the way. But the gist i think was pretty clear and he actually gave a pretty comprehensive answer. I dont quite understand why President Trump said that was a nonanswer. He was trying to underscore the point that the fight against isis is still real. They havent been defeated in syria or the rest of the middle east and its too soon to pull out and just shipping the fighters that weve captured as president joked, well give you as many as we want, is not a solution. So i thought that was actually a pretty important analytic point that president macron was trying to make. We have more coming up, believe it or not. Because the president this hour was set to meet with justin trudeau. Hans, i dont mean to put you on the spot. Is the president running late . Do you think were still going to see that this hour as expected, or no . Reporter i would suspect not in large part because we didnt have a 45minute q a built into the schedule. So i would suspect were running a little bit behind. And we dont know whether or not the president and macron were going to go back to talking. But i can book some of your flights later if you have any other scheduled questions. Appreciate it. Peter baker and ambassador mcfaul, stand by. Because even while the president s meeting with the french president focused on things like nato and russia and international security. Weve seen the president meeting with the head of nato where he commented on impeachment. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are getting ready to make public the report today. And while he didnt talk impeachment in what we just heard, did earlier. None too pleased. I think its unpatriotic of the democrats. Impeachment wasnt spaud uppose be used that way. All you have to do is read the transcript. I call them the donothing democrats. They are hurting our country very badly. The democrats have gone nuts. Theyre crazy. Geoff bennett is on capitol hill for us. And geoff. We have a lot of moving pieces in the impeachment puzzle today. We heard what the president had to say. We are expecting later to see that report in just hours now, that the democrats on the House Intelligence Committee put together. Reporter right. Youre right about that. At some point today we expect that democrats in the House Intelligence Committee will release their findings and we expect theyll take the testimony and condense it into a narrative form to tell the story of how President Trump allegedly pressed his counterpart to open investigations into trumps political rivals that would be beneficial to him in the 2020 election. In the process, so say democrats, he violated his oath of office and undermined national security. Our current understanding is that before that report is made public, the House Intelligence Committee has to approve it. And theyre set to meet tonight at 6 00 p. M. Eastern in the skiff, in the private basement area where the House Intelligence Committee does a lot of their work to approve it. We expect that the committee will vote to approve this report on the party line vote. After that the report gets kicked over to the House Judiciary Committee which has responsibility for drafting articles of impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee, hallie, also tomorrow holds its first public hearing in the trump impeachment inquiry. Theyre set to hear from four constitutional scholars who will give a historical view of impeachment and whether or not President Trumps behavior meets the bar for removal from office. We already have, though, sort of a preview of the republican defense by way of that gop counterreport that House Republicans on the various committees put out last night. What they did, what they offer us really is a toptobottom defense of trump that strings together and formalizes republican talking points to make the case that President Trump did nothing wrong and that democrats are really intent on overturning the results of the 2020 election. So ill read part of it for you. It says despite their best efforts, the evidence gathered during the democrats partisan and onesided impeachment inquiry does not support that President Trump pressured ukraine to investigate his political rival to benefit the president in the 2020 president ial election. The evidence does not establish any impeachable offense. So based on our reading of this document, it appears that republicans, instead of looking at all of the evidence together in the aggregate, what theyve done is separated out specific instances and tried to assign motivations to President Trump would seem perfectly reasonable. Democrats take the opposite view and look at all of the evidence together to plot out what they see as a coordinated Pressure Campaign that meets the bar for impeachment. So all of this is going to come to a head tomorrow at that hearing set to happen at this hour, hallie. And by the way, tomorrow theres also a Senate Luncheon with a very interesting guest who, by my count covering the white house, doesnt always show up to these things. Were talking about Pat Cipollone. Reporter yeah, the white House Counsel who so far has said that hes not going to participate in the democratic impeachment proceedings, hes leaving the door open for future house judiciary hearings, but Pat Cipollone is going to be the guest of honor tomorrow at the luncheon and you can expect what republican senators are going to ask him about. Thats the line of defense that he plans to have for President Trump as this impeachment inquiry moves forward, most likely to a senate trial, expected to happen sometimes early next year, hallie. Geoff bennett, thank you much on the hill. Back with us, peter baker of the times and ambassador mcfaul as well. Lots to discuss here. And antonio, let me start with you on the president and what he said this morning about republicans to geoffs point here, talking strategy likely tomorrow with Pat Cipollone. Really interesting, on the day that the judiciary hearing is going down and the president feels that his gop allies have his back. Watch. I think the Republican Party is right now more united than theyve ever been. There has never been a time where the Republican Party has been more united. This is a witch hunt by the democrats. Theres never been a time when the Republican Party has been more united. Reality check me there. I might find a few other times. But if thats how the president where he thinks his colleagues are on the Republican Party, its up to him. Do you think thats where his colleagues are . You know this party well. Youre right in the thick of it. I think the house is decidedly behind him. I think the senate might be a few more misgivings. But i feel like we already know what the end of the movie is going to be. Were going to go to go through all of the machinations that get us through january. We all know hes going to be acquitted. And if you look at polling, the Public Opinion is not changing and it is highly partisan. And for the speaker of the house she knows thats a dangerous game and thats where we are. So from the president s perspective they are unified behind him. Ambassador, when you have the president overseas talking trade deals we didnt even mention that in his conversation with the french president , talking about the potential for new tariffs there, hes talking about isis and the future of nato, and by the way, hes also talking about domestic stuff like impeachment. How do you think that plays overseas . Well, obviously it weakens the president and you saw from his comments how annoyed he was about it. And he keeps blaming the democrats. You know, President Trump should stop doing things that are wrong and maybe he wouldnt have this kind of criticism. And i find it quite ironic that while hes overseas, he calls the democrats crazy. So he continues to play the partisan game when hes overseas, but if somehow normal business and congress proceeds, thats illlegitimate. So let me ask you this, because youve got to antonios point here, republicans cool lessing around the president. You have senator john kennedy actually, when chuck todd was on the set during the week, about ukraine and this claim that is unfounded that there is some sort of effort to attack the u. S. Elections in 2016. I want to play for you what senator kennedy said this morning and what we heard from the chair of the Intelligence Committee to nbc news overnight. Watch. I was asked if russia or ukraine had tried to influence our 2016 election, and i said both. And i believe both. Every elected official in the ukraine was for hillary clinton. Is that very different than the russians being for donald trump . Would you consider that meddling, though . You mean, youll have to define meddling, but that was something that was publicly out there. A lot of folks, the ambassador, found the comments from chairman bur i think a little surprising based on the reaction to it. So i will put the question to you, is there a difference between elected officials having a preference for a candidate and officials implementing a strategy to attack the 2016 u. S. Elections . Of course. And i find those comments deeply disappointing. You know, its like facts dont matter anymore. Im thankful that i still work at a university where two plus two equals four every day. Not just mondays and wednesdays. Because this political debate is getting completely divorced from the factual evidence. Yes, russia attacked us, they used their Intelligence Officers to steal data and publicize it in a way to help one candidate and not the other. Ukrainian mps or the president having an opinion about who should win based on policy is a completely different thing. And another thing, by the way, if were going to talk about all politicians abroad having views on this or that during the 2016 election, remember a british politician showed aup at a trump meeting, he showed up in mississippi in august at a trump rally endorsing the president. Why do our republican colleagues not seem so concerned about those kinds of opinions that were expressed not in london, but in mississippi . Peter, let me ask you about the white house strategy here, because theres been some talk that youve been hearing that maybe jsen sure would be a bettr option. You had one of the president s new strategists saying that she thought that was and im paraphrasing, also ridiculous. And based on your reporting and many sources in and around the white house, would that change anything strategically for this administration if that were to be something democrats would pursue . Yeah, probably not. You heard the president talk about that, too. He says you dont censure somebody for doing everything perfectly. The difference between this time is that president clinton admitted 21 years ago, eventually after lying for several months to the public, he eventually admitted he had done something wrong and that loud his allies to say he did something wrong, it may not be impeachable. This president is saying i did not do anything wrong and you cannot accept any sort of lesson punishment. A lot of his allies on the hill would kind of like to get to the yeah, we dont like the way he handled this ukraine thing, we dont think that was the right way to approach it but we dont think its impeachable or we think the public should decide. But as long as the president is against it, i think it makes it very hard. The appeal of the censure is that it would be bipartisan. It would be a consensus statement by the congress that something wrong happened, even if it wasnt impeachable. If its not going to be bipartisan, there doesnt seem to be much of a point. I will just say that cl