Main event is now over. So that does it for us from hamburg tonight. Rachel will be back on monday, and i will see you again next friday live from iraq where we will take you to the front lines for the final push to drive isis out of the city of mosul. Now its time for the last good evening, richard. Thank you for all that reporting. But you go, i do want to ask you given everything, do you think putin got what he wanted out of President Trump today . I think he absolutely got what he wanted. I think he came in with this intention to have a long meeting. I think he wanted to overwhelm the president , presenting him lots of options, lots of things they could discuss, put some meat on the table for them to start digging right into it and hoping this will lead to more discussions, more followon, and a tighter relationship. Interesting. Richard engel, thank you very much. Absolutely. I am ari melber live in new
york for lawrence odonnell. Now for months, people have been watching to see if donald trump would pivot. Today it happened. President putin and i have been discussing various things, and i think its going very well. Weve learned the president did, in fact, confront putin for meddling in the u. S. Election. They had a very robust and lengthy exchange on the subject. Sergey lavrov coming out and saying that President Trump accepted putins denial. Translator he accepts the things that mr. Putin has said. One Administration Source is telling me that is not accurate. Bear in mind that unless it was tillerson himself, that person was not even in the room. Just yesterday, President Trump cast doubt on the allegations regarding russia. Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows for sure. It was only the russians, and they did so i have aggressively and effectively. At this point, lets talk
about how do we go forward. Yeah, lets. This idea of putting it behind us, i think, is a bit of a fantasy. There was a very clear, positive chemistry between the two. President putin is never going to be your friend. We need to treat him with extreme caution. The meeting is over. President trump and Vladimir Putin held that first meeting today eight months of course after an election that the u. S. Government determined was targeted by russia. And this is the easy part, the talking part. Any president would be expected to lay down a rhetorical marker in the first meeting with an adversary after attempts to interfere with our democracy. And a president who ran on putting America First, a logical application of that slogan obviously requires putting america before russia. But the Trump Administration instead offered a very mixed message, suggesting that donald trump talked to putin about russian interference, but that
and its too important to not find a way to move forward. Too important to not find a way to move forward. Notice that tillerson is treating his ideological conclusion as some kind of universal preference as if everyone thinks russia is such an important partner that its attacks on the United States must be just swallowed. Of course most american leaders have not taken that kind of approach as a given, from President Reagan to president obama, most leaders have not rejected american intelligence and called its conclusions into suggestion just to smooth over relations with this adversary. Mr. Secretary, can you say if the president was unequivocal in his view that russia did interfere in the election . Did he offer to produce any evidence or to convince mr. Putin . The russians have asked for proof and evidence. Ill leave that to the Intelligence Community to address. The answer to that question. And, again, i think the president at this point, he pressed him and then, you know, felt like at this point lets talk about how do we go forward. Thats weird. Tillerson is literally saying the u. S. Intelligence community should answer the russians questions about evidence like our spies are answerable to the people they spy on, and they should provide evidence to the opponents theyre accusing of these attacks. Why would you want to give the russians any clues about how the Intel Community knows what it knows . In court, sure. American citizens have a right to see the evidence against them. This isnt a court. The russians arent honoring our rules. Theyre breaking them. And if this is if this is any road to cyber war, something dick cheney himself suggested, well, you dont publicly tell your own intelligence officials, who of course risk their lives in these kind of wars, to brief the potential enemy. As for tillersons key word
tonight, question, the government he serves already has the answer. Russia meddled in the election. The last administration announced it and acted on it. Congress, in a bipartisan manner, has acted on it. And trump apparently brought it up today while also sowing more doubt about it. Illogical, that position. But perhaps predictable. Shes saying russia, russia, russia, but i dont maybe it was. I mean it could be russia, but it could also be china. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay . She doesnt know if its the russians doing the hacking. Maybe there is no hacking. Once they hack, if you dont catch them in the act, youre not going to catch them. They have no idea if its russia or china or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed someplace. Joining me now is David Filipov from hamburg, germany, michael mcfaul, and julianne smith, former National Securitywhen he read it out. He didnt say President Trump said i was concerned. Are we overreading that . Ive seen that observation because its noticeable, but is it a problem . You know, i worked at the white house for three years. I was in these meetings with both Prime Minister putin at the time and president medvedev. I never remember a kind of construction like that. I never remember a construction where it said it was noted, right, past tense. It was noted that the senate was concerned about this. Why isnt President Trump concerned about this . Right. I just think by answering it that way, this idea that were just going to move along after our sovereignty has been violated, thats not in the american interest. That is a weak response to what putin did last year. Julianne, what did putin get out of this, and why was the meeting so long . Well, i think he wanted to get a smile. He wanted to extend the meeting so that theyd come out afterwards. There would be a lot of questions about what was discussed. There would be some confusion over whos reporting what. He wanted this to look like a Fireside Chat with some old friends. He needs that photo opportunity. He wanted to show that he could basically play President Trump, and i think he did just that. I think trump came in unprepared. I dont think he was well briefed. I dont think his team readied him for this meeting, and i think the end result is that putin got just about everything he wanted from that meeting, including a very, very light touch on russian meddling in our election last fall. And thats a shame because this issue is not going to go away, or this tactic on the part of the russians. Theyre going to do this again. They did it in france most recently. They will likely do it in germany this fall. And i would assume that theyre going to do it in 2018 and 2020 in the United States again. David, you know the old saying, dont know much about history. Rex tillerson bringing up the
chemistry between these two men for whatever reason. Take a listen. The two leaders, i would say, connected very quickly. There was a very clear positive chemistry between the two. I think, again and i think the positive thing i observed, and ive had many, many meetings with President Putin before is there was not a lot of relitigating of the past. David, would you consider it relitigating something that the two men have never discussed before . Thats what we call a leading question, but i dont know how else to ask it. Well, i mean obviously the point of all this was to put all this behind everybody and have a nice picture moving forward, right . So the American People see this picture of, you know, President Trump behaving in a dignified way with President Putin. Now were all going to move forward and not think about this stuff anymore. This whole calculation is great
for russia and maybe great for people in the rest of the world. Americans who are really interested, like my two colleagues here on this panel, didnt get any answers. We didnt get any answers whatsoever. Is putin going to have to answer for what he did . Does President Trump really believe that this Election Hacking happened . But for the people who dont care, they got a great picture of them kind of like wrapping it up. Okay, that was too bad about that. Lets move on. I mean i guess, i mean, ambassador, yeah, some people dont care by definition. Then i guess well, they should care. They might not see the photo in the first place. But last time i checked, the American Public does have issues with russia. I suppose some of the partisan lines of this are changing if putin is a standin for the republican party, but that shift
hasnt completely occurred. And this would be odd ball in the extreme to suggest its a win for a u. S. President to back off an adversary. And lets be clear about when secretary tillerson is saying the two leaders said, we should just move on and forget about the history, forget about the agenda, what is that agenda . That agenda is created by Vladimir Putin. Hes the one that intervened in our elections. We didnt do that. He did that to us. Hes the one that annexed territory in ukraine. He created that as an agenda item. We didnt do that. Hes the one that doubled down and tripled down in his support for assad in syria. Half a Million People have died there. That agenda is created by him. So surprise, surprise, he wants to move on. That is not smart diplomacy. Diplomacy is not a popularity contest. Right. Diplomacy is about defending Americas National interest and defending international interest. Thou shall not interfere in elections in other countries. Thou shall not annex the territory of thy neighbor. We cant forget about those
events. We have to make sure they dont happen again. Julianne, the Russian Foreign minister basically stakes out this dramatic ground. This was headline breaking this afternoon with some pushback as weve noted but saying, oh, yeah, and trump took putin at his word. Take a listen. Translator President Trump has said that he has heard clear declarations from mr. Putin that russian leadership and russian government has not interfered in the elections, and he accepts the things that mr. Putin has said. Whats going on there . Well, this doesnt surprise me at all that we have two conflicting versions of the meeting, and thats why the u. S. Team, everyone should have agreed to bring in more staff, note takers. I know mike mcfaul when he was part of the administration as ambassador or as senior director for russia, he himself would be
in a meeting like that to provide a readout to the press afterwards. We now only have the four principals that were in this meeting with two translators. The two translators are obviously not going to share their notes. So were left with a question. Whos telling the truth . Do we believe the u. S. Administration, President Trumps version of the story, or President Putins version of the story . And neither one of these guys are known to be honest abe. Right. They both have trouble with the truth obviously. Honest vladimir. A Subsidiary Question are what are the Foreign Policy feeling that they can lie about the word of the president of the United States, apparently unconcerned about any reaction, which again if youre for America First and being tough, i would assume one of the benefits of being tough is countries dont get away with lying about what you said moments after you said it. David, going back to you, this is how the New York Times put
it, that they were trying to prevent exactly this kind of thing. I guess maybe it didnt work. Quote, the russians had agitated to include more staff in the meeting. Trumps team had insisted the meeting be small, avoid leaking and competing accounts later. And that was someone speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity, but we have competing accounts, month . Yeah, we obviously were thinking all day about what was going on there. You know, ivanov also threw out american reporters from that briefing like myself even though the thing was broadcast live on russian channels. You know, theres an attempt in Vladimir Putins presidency to whitewash the past, to make things a lot smoother, to present a view of the world that, hey, russia is just a country thats trying to get along. Were not really trying to interfere in anybodys elections. And these Press Conferences really played toward that. Why President Trump needs that is something that is harder to
understand. But what the russians were trying to do was push this whole thing forward. That statement by ivanov, basically saying we confirm there was no hacking and the u. S. President agrees with it. And well be asking everybody we in washington, did President Trump really accept this . Did he really say that . It sounds Out Of This World that he would just go and put it away like that with the entire country interested in this investigation. Ambassador mcfaul, i have the final question for you. It may be the hardest to answer. Going forward, is the Trump Administration taking the position that russia either didnt meddle or it barely mattered, so its all good, or is there a view that to the extent they meddled, it was to help trump . So he doesnt really need to prevent it because it could help him again in the reelect. I dont know the answer to that obviously. I wasnt in the meeting. By the way, i used to negotiate who would be in those meetings, plus one, plus two, plus three. I had assumed that the russians kept the americans out. If this reporting by the New York Times is true, that raises serious doubts about the relationship that the National Security adviser, h. R. Mcmaster has, that the president doesnt even want his National Security adviser in the room for fear of leaks. Thats a big problem. Right, because he wouldnt be leaking if its working. Theres only three people. I mean that to me is very disturbing. I hope we learn more about that. To your question, i dont know the answer with respect to how President Trumps thinking. But i do know the answer with respect to how russia is going to behave. It is naive beyond imagination to assume that the russians or the chinese or somebody in the future is going to only hack is going to only interfere in our elections on the side of the republican party. Right. That is crazy. So rather than debate about, you
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introducing Xfinity Mobile. A new kind of network designed to save you money. The president opened the meeting with President Putin by raising the concerns of the American People regarding russian interference in the 2016 election. Just a day before donald trump, according to Rex Tillerson, was prettying Vladimir Putin on the russian interference in the election, he was publicly the u. S. Intel agencies, who of course as we all know concluded unanimously that russia did in fact interfere. I agree. I think it was russia, but i think it was probably other people and or countries, and i see nothing wrong with that statement. Nobody really knows. I remember when i was sitting back listening about iraq. Weapons of mass destruction. How everybody was 100 sure that iraq had weapons of mass
destruction. Guess what. That led to one big mess. They were wrong, and it led to a mess. That kind of set of comments may be habitual for trump, but it doesnt make it normal. Sally yates, a doj career prosecutor who was Acting Attorney General at the start of the Trump Administration before she left over a travel ban debate, wrote this impassioned response. The president s inexplicable refusal to confirm