Disgusting. It was not the thoughtful presentation from President Trump with putin next to him, and not forceful at all. And the big question that we are asking today is, is the president listening to the tidal wave of criticism from his own party . Nbcs hans nichols is at the white house, and ashley is a political analyst, and Kimberly Atkins from the brld and msnbc contributor and jake sherman a Senior Writer for politico. And before we go, i want to play two sound bites for you. And one is the president yesterday calling this whole investigation, this Mueller Investigation, the investigation into russia a witch hunt while he is standing next to Vladimir Putin. Listen. We have had a phony witch hunt deal drive us apart. This is the biggest wedge. This is the biggest wedge. It is the thing that he told me when he went in, and he said, what a shame. He felt it was very hard for me to make a deal. Because of, you know, all of this nonsense, and much of the case. And he used the word nonsense. You have to understand that you take a look and look at all of the people, and some of them were hackers and then 14 people, and then they have 12 people, and these are not 12 people involved in the campaign and then you have had many other people, and some told a lie, and you are looking at flynn and it is a shame, but the fbi didnt think that it was lying. With Paul Manafort who is really a nice man and you are looking at what sfwog on with him, and it is like al capone. They say that these units were specifically involved in hacking into Democratic Party computers, stealing information, and spreading it to the world to try to disrupt the american election. May i give this to you to look at, sir . Here . Translator interference with the Domestic Affairs of the United States. Do you really believe that someone acting from the russian territory could have influenced the United States and influenced the choice of millions of americ americans, and this is utterly ridiculous. No, i am asking if they tried. So that is sorry, donald trump with Shawn Hannity and not Vladimir Putin and calling it a witch hunt, and then an anchor or journalist from that same network, Chris Wallace going in to do what many thought that donald trump should do which is to hand over the indictment of the 12 intelligence russian officers to Vladimir Putin, and kcon front him on that, and the president did not do that. And ashley, why . Why didnt the president do that . According to your reporting. What was he expected to do and what did he do instead . So, i think that expected is being a little optimistic, but the aides as we wrote were certainly pressing him and preparing him to take a tougher stance towards Vladimir Putin, and to sort of get the president to view him through a more negative prism or at least a more realistic and practical prism, and our understanding is that the president was not just giving ashley, sorry. Hold on one second, because Mitch Mcconnell is making statements on this. Hold on one second. And the evidence that they tried to impact the 2016 election. So make no mistake about it. I would say to our friends in europe, we understand the russian threat and i think that is the widespread view here in the United States senate among members of both parties. One of the 24 Circuit Court judges that we will confirm is andy oldham who is going to be the 23rd judge from texas that is the Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell saying that russia is not our friend and he did not mention the president from what we heard right there, and ashley, again, back to you, and you were talking about what might be expected and expected is too generous a term. Yes. His aides were trying to push him in a direction to the roughly hundreds of briefings materials that we understand that he was given, and the president is also, and he is not known to be a reader, but he does take briefings and information other ways and including sort of the oral briefings, and so he was briefed according to the white house officials before he left the u. S. On air force one on the way over. Here had conversations about how to handle putin with every single world leader in brussels at a nato we were told, and allegedly golfing and tweeting in turnberry in scotland and relieving briefings, so aides were trying to push him again to talk a tougher stance, and to even confront him in the way that we saw Chris Wallace confront him, but the aides also sort of knew that while they could control around the margins, especially to the press conference that we did see free wheeling in helsinki that all bets were off, and the president on his own making as someone told us a gametime decision, and it was a gametime decision that just about no one in his administration approved of. And kimberly, given that he is about to speak in a couple of minutes, any expectation that he is doing to temper what he said or clarify what he said . After all, the white house on the official twitter page is coming out to double down on what happened saying that the president is putting the safe toif American People over politics of the day. Yeah, if past is prologue, that is highly unlike ly that w will see any sort of pivot from the president today. The president clearly believes that he wants to have a Good Relationship with Vladimir Putin even if it is contrary to what his own intelligence officials, american intelligence officials have been telling him for months now about russias role in meddling in the election as well as doing a number of other awful things across the world. The president is doublinging down, and the messaging yesterday was that he is repeating Vladimir Putins claims that, gosh, it is so hard for russia, this Mueller Investigation and so hard for russia to have a Good Relationship with the United States, and perhaps it should considering the fact that they were trying to mess with the United States government in a number of ways bu, but the president is seeing that as bad and doubling down on the Mueller Investigation and using the the friendship with russia, and he wants to cultivate in order to do it even backing an idea that i think that the strangest part of the presser was backing the idea that russia can somehow help the Mueller Investigation or be outsourced to rush sharks and anything that the president has said in the past, and once he gets into the, and settles on the point of view, and whether it is charlottesville or something else, he does not turn around at the end and go back. He is relying on the instincts. And hans, i want to show the view aers and you three things quickly. First, a picture of Jonathan Amir the Associated Press reporter asking the question, and the reaction from the reporters in the room donald trump was answering it, and then the reaction from Donald Trumps own administration, his advisers, john kelly, and jon huntsman, and mike pompeo and his team. Secondly, the daily news cover here in new york, open treason, and remember how donald trump said on the campaign trail that he could shoot somebody on fifth avenue, and here is donald trump on fifth Avenue Holding valentines dVladimir Putins hand and shooting uncle sam. And finally, this is what the president is tweeting about. Trump said that he had better meeting with putin than nato. While i had a great meeting with nato, i had a better meeting with putin, but sadly, it is not reported that way, and the fake news is going crazy. I feel like we are living on earth one and earth two. Well, that is going to be the president s challenge here in a couple of moments and whether or not you believe that he is going to be clarifying the remarks like Laura Ingraham suggested, and she is a conservative talk show host and has close ties with the president. But can you do that without contradicting yourself, and that is the challenge to him sh, the pool is behind me and about to head in and press the president on this very question. The white house has made it clear that he wants a little built of the doover and address his comments in helsinki. You know, you covered him so well in the campaign and one of the hallmarks of the Trump Campaign was the authenticity and another challenge today is how is he going to be awe then the tick and whether you want to say fix it or clarify or whatever doover he want, and how does he maintain his authenticity . And in the earlier, katy, you asked if he had consumed the Media Coverage and he did not make the way from the west wing until noon today and this is plenty of time to digest the media and perhaps watch a little cable tv, katy. And he had an intelligence briefing on the cable this morning and this morning, the intelligence briefing was not there and no reason for why that changed. And scrubbed from the schedule and we should notet that the president has a always had an intelligence briefing in the early part of the meeting and scheduled and then went away and then started to come back more. There are other ways for the president to get intelligence feeds and not just through his daily president ial briefing, but officially, that is on the schedule, and then it wasnt and that is where we stand the now as the president is going to about to try to talk to the press and the American People about what his intentions were with Vladimir Putin. And jake sherman, the response from the republicans s this about the pressure they are feeling or is this a true and awe thuthentic discomfort of th that the president is behaving or a combination of both . If there is any constant over to the last decade, it is the disdain for putin and capitol hill hill. And congress has slapped endless sanctions on them. And something in the last couple of hours the House Freedom caucus, the conservative group of the house of representatives that drives trumps agenda and the ideal lological arbiter forcefully defended him and less defended him, but more criticized the way that the meeting was portray and criticized the media and barack obama and democrats and the left when it came to this meeting in helsinki, and that is the one kind of the group of conservatives that is not on board. And paul ryan said that Vladimir Putin does not have american interests at heart and he does not share our interests, and he noted a long line o litany of sanctions that the white house has put on rush sharks and he says if there are more that need to be put on, we will do that. And he said that is the mechanism to stop the u. S. And russia from kind of having f further relations against the congress will. We will watch out for what the republicans do, and not just what they say. Hans nichols and ashley and all of you, thank you. And now, we welcome in cornell and john. And now, ambassador huntsman is being asked to resign and you work for a pawn and not a president. Time to come home. And his daughter is a anchor on fox and friends on the weekend and severely criticized what the president did yesterday. Should there be resignations . There should be. I mean, the president of the United States should resign frankly, and beyond our own am bas dor, but the reality is that we may see some at the National Security level and career and diplomatic corps who can not accept nor continue to further this president s ad jen dand the president who stood on foreign soil and made us less safe and less secure nation. K katy, this was either done out of deliberation in which case the president of the United States knew that he was embracing interests adverse to our security, or he is unfit. If you are a National Intelligence agent, you wonder if you can wake up and go to work under this president. And cornell, good to have the resignations from the National Security apparatus, and career people there who know what they are doing . Well, you know, the problem isnt the National Security apparatus, the problem starts at the white house and with the president , right. So i dont think that, you know, no amount of resignations or stepping down by people around the president is going to fix this problem, when we know that the problem is in fact the president. He is not taking the briefings and he does not listen to advisers and he has his own interests that he is serving right now, and the only check on that can, you know, it is quite frankly the congress. I am actually heart ened to see some of the republicans even though the House Freedom caucus is defending the president , and some of the staunch republicans stepping out and saying, you know, talking to the our european allies and speaking of the republicans in congress, and sorry to interrupt, but Mitch Mcconnell is taking questions on this. Lets listen. With as i understand it potential penalties if the russians do it again. So, yeah, there is a possibility that we may well take up legislation related to this, and in the meantime, i think that the russians need to know that there are a lot of us who fully understand what happened in 2016, and it really better not happen again in 2018. That is pretty short. Cornell, you were saying about resignations. That is to my point, right . The only fix for this is congress. Right . And so Mitch Mcconnell and speaker ryan, and congress has to be a check on the president , a and the congress can do some things right now, and congress can increase sanctions and, you know, we have watered down the sanction, and the congress can increase the sanctions, and demand that they turn over the indicted russians and congress is the vehicle for the fix for this and we wont get a fix from the white house. They can demand that donald trump, and at the very least see his tax return, david, to see if he has some sort of interests in russia, because there is a lot of people, and there are a lot of people out there scratching their head and wondering what in the world is going on, because Vladimir Putin has something over donald trump . Is this the truth to the dossier, and that question is being legitimately pondered again, and they are wondering maybe donald trump has business interests there that he does not want to damage or maybe money tied up there or they are wondering, does donald trump just like Vladimir Putin so much that he really want ts to be be friends with him the same way that he tweeted about it in 2013 . And this is where the republicans on the capitol hill have categorically failed in the ov oversight of the administrations. The two comments that we heard from mcconnell in the last ten minutes were subtle, but breathtaking, and the message to the western world that we understand the threat with russia and the United StatesSenate Stands with, you and parenthetically even if the president doesnt, and he reiterated what most of us believe but the president does not. And this is where the republi n republicans can not get a with this and cornell is right, the republicans have come out to express condemnation for putin and come out to express support for the Intelligence Community and those are given. That is not the story yesterday. The story yesterday was that the president of the United States refused to recognize either one of those. He empowered putin and denigrated our own Intelligence Community, and the shish th donald trump, and they need to call him by name and not stop short, but call him by name and say that the president of the United States is acting in a way that is adverse to our own security interest, and until they do that, they wont get credit. And why not . Paul ryan is retiring ar and he does not have a dog in the race or the horse in the race, and why wont paul ryan come out or jeff flake be stronger than he is saying and not just that he is disappointed or disgust ord whatever he said, but doing something about it. And he said midterms. Midterms fine, but they are not in it. And he withheld the confirmation of judges for tariffs. For tariffs. And he is not willing to do it for the sanctity of our election, and why is that . So, katy, the answer is because sometimes it is okay to question the sbeg integrity of republicans on capitol hill and just as we question the integrity of this president. Flake has stood out to do so much more than many republicans, but to your point, i would love to to see his resolution include a censure of the United States, and have that debate and ask the republicans to go on the debate there. And cornell, you are hearing the debate, but jump in. And the this is real for the republican, and i am not