Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Came out and supplied South Koreans with a number of those in his own administration by the fact he would meet with kim jongun. The parallels go on and on. The Secretary Of State just hours later came out and said there would be preconditions for President Trump meeting with the president of iran. But this comes against the backdrop of the president and a number of his top aides really escalating the rhetoric. Threatening to impose new sanctions. To criticize iran sharply for its acts of terrorism. The president of iran not responding to the president s offer for a meeting. Instead, he decried what he called United States illegal pulling out of its ran nuclear deal. The stakes for the president couldnt be harder. Because the president really railed a number of allies. Lawmakers on capitol hill when he pulled out of the nuclear deal. A lot of those people saying look, that is what was holding iran to account. Keeping iran in check. Preventing it from developing a
nuclear weapon. This is a much different course the president is taking. Will what we heard yesterday make any difference . Will it start negotiations . Well have to see. But bottom line, stef, again, the stakes very high after he pulled out of the iran nuclear deal. Whats the administration or the white house saying about these reports that north korea is working on new missiles . Well, weve reached out to a number of officials here, stef, and officially the word from the white house is that the white house doesnt comment on intelligence. But you can bet that theyre watching all of this very closely, very carefully. We know that the Secretary Of State, mike pompeo, has had follow up meetings to that original meeting that President Trump had with kim jongun. The secretary talking to his counterparts there in north korea, trying to get the negotiations ongoing. Of course there was that big moment last week when we saw the remains brought back of some of those who served in the korean war. But what happens next . What are the other deliverables . Mike pompeo has been on capitol hill testifying he believes negotiationings as are moving f. Is that the case . The Administration Working very closely on this as well because obviously high stakes with north korea. Even so, theres a pretty big gap. And the summit was a huge success. North korea is no longer a threat. Remember, thats what the president told us. I want to bring in my panel. Its an excellent one. Steve clemens, hes a washington editor at large for the atlantic. Noel noelle is a political strategist. Steve, what is it about the summits thats so attractive to the president . I think donald trump looks at it as a big show. Hes going to be the star. Hes able to do something weve seen over and over again which is deploy this dr. Jekyll and mr. Hide approach. So hes good cop and bad cop both. We see him disconnected from many of his own cabinet
officials in terms of what policy is. Were all desperately trying to know what the policy game is and only donald trump knows it. Its a sus speps game. Hes the center of the action with these controversial leaders around the world. Are the president s oneonone meetings with these leaders making it easier or harder for his team, for his administration to try to make progress . Because do you guys remember when Mike Pompeo First went and had that Surprise Meeting . I think it was over easter in north korea . And across the board people said what a great development. He has been handed a Garbage Sandwich and he has to clean up so much. None of us should be surprised anybody who jumped on the trump train, at the end of the day, hes in it for largely himself in business and in life. In business and life. He doesnt have an important part of the presidency is managing processes. He has no interest in managing the process or building strong teams. I think hes realized in his
presidency thus far he hasnt been able to push meaningful legislation through for example, around health care, Building Bridges Of Progress and making a team effort. I think hes discovered now where hes happiest are the places he believes he can exercise his independence through Executive Orders or through Foreign Policy. The problem with that is hes a deep deeply ill informed man and hes impatient. What you see now is hes courting kim, rouhani and putin and undermining leaders like may and merkel. Even in courting then, hes not winning for the American People. Steve, i want to ask you about the Weekly Standard editorial that said our hope is that the president s comments on iran do not foreshadow another ill judged attempt at personal diplomacy that ends up saving a vicious regimes well deserved demise. Okay, so their argument is the president essentially took the pressure off north korea when it
hurt the most and they can do the same on iran it think about it. We know that iran is crippled economically right now. Well, look, there are different cases. In north korea, he gave kim jongun what kim jongun wanted, which was a big press moment. Kim jongun has proceeded in the direction north korea was going to do, protect its regime with icbms and nuclear warheads. In the case of iran, we had an extraordinary agreement not based on trust, not based on the personal chemistry between barack obama or john kerry with the iranian leadership. It was based on not trusting each other and trying to forestall something where we were on a Collision Course potentially leading to war as iran proceeded towards Nuclear Weapons capacity. Donald trump took that away in a remarkable moment. Its just like when he walked away from tpp and gave asia to china essentially. I think in this case where youve got donald trump essentially now trying to make it his game with the iranians, i
i want to play part of what the president said. Theres nothing wrong with meeting. We et in, as you know, with chairman kim. Havent had a missile fired off in nine months. We got our prisoners back. So many things have happened that are positive. But meeting with people, i had a great meeting in my opinion. Of course the fake news didnt cover it that way, but i had a great meeting with President Putin of russia. I believe in meeting. I would certainly meet with iran if they wanted to meet. If the president says his approach is working, do average republicans agree . Do they care if a bunch of Foreign Policy experts and analysts say its terrible . Or do they say hes the president , i believe him . I just hope were not being fooled. I hope were not being played for fools. Donald trump has a negotiating style. Its not a republican style. It is a donald trump style. As a republican and as me being
the voice of gop on this panel, it is confusing because what we have mike pompeo, i trust mike pompeo. Hes got a proven record. A stellar man. Great knowledge of policy. When hes saying like with the meeting with iran, we need to have these things in place before we the preconditions before we had the meeting. Then we had our very own president. A republican president. Saying ill take a meeting, no preconditions. Which Going Forward, which person do we believe, which policy is the gops policy. This is why youre seeing so many problems within the white house when they issued a statement. Because the president of the United States who is a republican, can come out and basically go against the statement that the white house has put out. This is a very confusing time not only for you guys but republicans in general. We had Great Respect for pompeo. Listen to what he said. It is not the same thing, it is what donald trump says. Where do we go. Where is the line . Where do the republican strategists come out and say this is what were going to do Going Forward and it works . And what is the answer . Because the traditional republican was never or was not initially a trump supporter. The traditional republican went through about 16 different options and then basically said im going to go with him over hillary clinton. If you look at President Trumps hardcore base, theyre not traditional republicans. So where are republicans as they look at trump and Foreign Policy . I feel like theyre vacillating. The idea with donors, this is my claim to fame within republican politics. I deal with a specific type of donor. Its called the bundler. Theyre usually very smart. Theyve made their money because theyre good at what they do. Think the majority of the bun e bundler, at least i know, worked with, are wearing the suit of
the riddler. They know its a Negotiation Tactic he has, but i think a lot of them wonder, and its not saying im not saying anything bad about trdonald tru. But i think a lot of them generally wonder where is the substance or where is whats the program . Whats the deal, whats behind it. If its a Negotiation Tactic, whats the makeup behind it, whats the substance behind it, and is it working, did it work with north korea, is it working, are we being played for fools. I dont know. Steve, i can think of a strategic beast who certainly has a program. His name is Vladimir Putin. Russia is on the rise. Russia feels like theyre the moment of stability. China also sees itself in the same way. Particularly with iran,
remember, russia was a partner with the United States, and i think Vladimir Putin has positioned very well to be essentially the broker of stability, the broker of what happens here, in more and more cases, not just iran, but many other cases. Right now were seeing in the middle east, were seeing in asia, even with north korea, russias playing an increasingly prominent role as the United States has become the unpredictable partner. The Pressure Building where donald trump and i think everything nicole said about pompeo is correct. Hes looked at as an unreliable supplier of Foreign Policy deliverables. To the degree that becomes a more important issue, putin is going to be there to try to help him i think. To someone who says im not listening to your nonsense, stop calling the president unreliable, the Republican Party stands with him. Two hours later, mike pompeo says yes, we have conditions. The president threatens a Government Shutdown over the
wall while Republican Leaders say no thats not going to happen. Trump said the u. S. Could leave nato and mattis says we are 100 committed to nato. Donald trump is a performance artist. First and foremost, hes going to play to the audience right in front of him and go to the easiest thing he thinks he can win hits around. Everyone behind him, whether the gop, the white house or the pentagon, has to clean up the mess. Look at what happened in some races. You had people who didnt know whether to side with donald trump or not side with democrat democrat in republican primaries and the trumpendorsed candidate ended up winning. But is that a National Strategy . No, but whats happening is this, its working so youve got youve got a mixture of the republican doneers. Youve got the establishment. Youve got people with common sense. Youve got people that are 100 tied to trump no matter what. Remember what he said he could walk out and shoot someone and they still i do remember that. Now the 3d printed gun, you wouldnt find out. All right, were going to leave it there. Coming u, President Trump and his legal team, they keep moving the goal post when it comes to clusion. Remember, no collusion, no collusion. What their shift in their Talking Points could signal in the special counsel investigation. Because of that shift, you knew this was going to happen, the late night shows are digging into mayor giuliani for saying just that, collusion not a crime. I dont even know if thats a crime, colluding about russians. I dont even know if thats a crime . Youre his lawyer. Youre supposed to know what the lawy law is. Thats like your doctor going, i dont even know if thats a disease, bleeding from your eyeballs. I dont know. Who knows. Due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. So if theres a better treatment than warfarin, im up for that. Eliquis. Eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. Plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. Eliquis is fdaapproved and has both. So whats next . Seeing these guys. Dont Stop Taking Eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an Artificial Heart Valve or abnormal bleeding. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. Eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. Tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. Eliquis, the number one cardiologistprescribed blood thinner. Ask your doctor if eliquis is whats next for you. Me. Dan, how crucial is it for mueller here . Its important for the legitimacy of the investigation because of all the attacks that have, you know, been levied against him. I think, as you point out, in the leadup here, this trial is not related to russia and its not related to the russia investigation. But there are some things that we might be able to glean from the trial that do relate to that russia investigation. Such as . Including who manafort was dealing with, what russian officials he was dealing with, what relationships he has. We know about constantine calominik. We know he had a loan from oleg delaspa, another oligarch. Were going to learn the details about manaforts financial swae situation. And what this Indictment Charges is he made a lot of money from ukraine and internationally, and then that dried up, and then he
had to figure out a way to fraudulently obtain more money to keep up with his lifestyle. But if he was the campaign manager, during the time when he was essentially broke and owed a lot of money to russians including darapasca, hes very susceptible to infiltration our stance on russia at the Republican National convention when Paul Manafort was the campaign chair. What are you looking for . And a month after that infamous meeting in trump tower correct. When donald trump jr. Met with a group of russians who were trying to peddle dirt on hillary clinton. Ma manafort was at the meeting. Thats material to Robert Muellers investigation. To the extent he wants to continue to harp on conspiracy and aiding and a bbetting as charges he can level against the trump campaign. I think, you know, one of the interesting things here is why hasnt Paul Manafort pleaded
out. Why is he hanging in there on this . I dont know the answer to that. He could be betting the president will pardon him. He could be afraid of retribution from some former clients. At the end of the day, hes 69. Hes going to look at possibly spending the rest of his life in prison. Thats going to focus his mind. It could well be mueller will make one last attempt during sentencing if manafort wants a more lenient sentence. Hell have to offer something he Hasnt Given Mueller so far. It might pertain to his Financial Transactions with clients in eastern europe. And deals he knew involved people with the kremlin. I have to ask you about trump and his team sort of moving the goal post on collusion. I mean, if i had a dollar every time the president said no collusion, i could roll, you know, Paul Manafortstyle. As the president tweeted this, collusion is not a crime. But that doesnt matter. Because there was no collusion
except by Crooked Hillary and the democrats. Now this comes after jay sukalow and giuliani said this, listen. Collusion is not a crime. Theres not any evidence of collusion here involving our client. I have said that over and over. Collusion is not a crime. The only crime here is hacking. And it is ridiculous to think that the president hacked. Lets make something clear. He hasnt said that over and over again. He didnt start saying that until yesterday. Why would the president even send out a tweet saying collusion is not a crime when, for months, he said no collusion, no collusion. Why suddenly draft this tweet . Because they have some information the only explanation i can come up with, they have information that theres thats going to come out and they have it now that there is evidence of collusion. And they want to get out in front and say collusions not a crime. Of course, the word collusion is not found in the federal code. But conspiracy is a crime. What weve seen from muellers indictments are two different theories of how to charge what we call collusion. So it is not a situation where this has any merit and the only explanation is they are trying to spin as they have done repeatedly in advance some information thats going to come out, whether its from the New York Times or whether its at this trial, maybe rick gates, theyve learned about what he has told mue