Republican nomination. Much more in a moment with chuck todd and katie tur. And a sunday sit down with one of the worlds most interesting minds, malcolm gladwell. And now the host of the number one podcast on itunes. He is the master of what some call pop science. It is pop science. I answer the criticism saying it is not a criticism, its true. It is a point, right . A fascinating sunday sit down with malcolm gladwell. And the new photograph that may answer one of the great mysteries of the last century. What happened to Amelia Earhart. Lets begin with the story breaking overnight about the Trump Campaign and rushz and a meeting only now coming to light. Kelly odonnell live at the white house where the president is already tweeting this morning. Kelly, good morning. Reporter good morning. The president woke up back here at the white house after a suspenseful, consequential trip to poland and the g20. Now only a couple days since his meeting with Vladimir Putin and a new link surfaced between the president s name same and a russian lawyer. Back in the u. S. President trump can unpack a new, more personal connection to Vladimir Putin after their face to face in germany. But another russia connection is hitting close to home. New york times reports the president s eldest son, done junior, held a meeting at trump tower with a russian lawyer with ties to the kremlin back in june, 2016. Soninlaw Jared Kushner was also there along with then Campaign Chairman paul manafort. The meeting had not been known publicly. Trump junior said in a statement he asked jared and paul to stop by for what the president s son called a short, introductory meeting. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children which was ended by the russian government. The president s son added Adoption Program was not a Campaign Issue and there was no followup. A lawyer for kushner tells nbc news he previously updated his security clearance filing to list contacts with foreign officials, including this meeting with a russian person, which he briefly attended at the request of his brotherinlaw. It is an honor to be with you. Reporter aides say the president pressed putin about his alleged role directing Cyber Attacks on the u. S. Election for about 40 minutes during their thursday sit down, telling reporters on air force one. I think President Trump handled it brilliantly. Reporter he skipped the chance to explain himself. Rex and i had a tremendous meeting yesterday with president putin. Reporter while Vladimir Putin who denies any wrongdoing suggested. Translator i think he was satisfied with my answers. Reporter this is so much on the president s mind, he is already tweeting about it in a series of messages this morning. He writes i strongly pressed president putd twice about meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. Ive already given my opinion. We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move on. Couple pieces of information that are new. He said he pressed him twice. Something we hadnt heard before. They talked about the issue 40 minutes during a 2 hour, 16 minute face to face. Kelly odonnell starting us at the white house. Thanks. Chuck todd, monitor of meet the press, katy tur kofrd candidate trump, now an anchor at msnbc, author of a book about time covering the Trump Campaign called unbelievable. Out in september, available for preorder now. Good morning. Let me start with you in d. C. , playing off tweets from the president. Basically backing up tillersons accounted saying trump went in, first thing he talked about, pressed putin whether or not there was meddling, said, quote, did you do this. It was described by tillerson camp as a heated exchange. Thats one description of the meeting. The other side from Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov that came out and President Trump accepted our position we didnt do anything and in fact kplan complained his opponents were exaggerating the issue. What are we to believe without confirmation of either . President trumps tweet says it all. Ive already given my opinion. We know the opinion he gave 24 hours before meeting Vladimir Putin while in poland when he said could have been russia, could have been somebody else. Then questioning the intelligence community, bringing up the no wmds in iraq controversy. I think we know his stance and he just made it clear, ive already given my opinion. He didnt restate it. We know what his opinion is. The question is how many republicans are comfortable with the idea to move forward. That was tillersons message, now trumps message. Can you just move forward with russia without doing a severe punishment over what they did in 2016. The Trump Administration would like to. The question is will the rest of the Republican Party go along with it. Katie, theres no moving forward with two congressional investigations and bob mueller special counsel looking at it. The tweet from President Trump, ive already given my opinion. What exactly is his opinion . At times he says it was russia, maybe it was china, we dont really know who it was. Who does he believe did this . I think his opinion is just that, he doesnt want to accept the information he is being given, which is that putin or d ordered a hack on our electoral system. He was given a chance as chuck said 24 hours earlier by our own hallie jackson, can you say did i fintively russia interfered in the election, he refused, could be china, anybody, nobody knows. Thats where this president stands. It is notable that he will not publicly doubt Vladimir Putin, but he will publicly doubt the assessment of our intelligence community. Thats something that we have not seen in american politics before, certainly not when the president is standing on foreign soil. With the polish president , bringing up failure of wmd, recalling that for the world. Chuck, this new report kelly referenced on front page New York Times about donald trump junior and Jared Kushner, after he clinched the republican nomination with attorneys with ties to the kremlin. The first rech ladies and gentlemen of a private meeting we didnt know about. Whats the significance . It could very much be what he said it was. This happens on president ial kpans, intermediary says you have to meet with so and so. It is possible it is all innocent. The problem is theres a habit or pattern of Trump Administration officials going oh, yeah, i forgot about this meeting with a russian. Oh, yeah. This all came about because of refiled reports, refiled forms, ethics forms that Jared Kushner and others have said about this meeting. Now, im also fascinated by two different responses we got from first donald trump junior giving a bland explanation for it, he was just meeting on a specific issue having to do with russian adoptions. Later, the president s legal team comes out with a more conspiratorial statement that somehow connects it to the people that put together the steel dossier and all that. I am saying why do you have two different explanations and that makes the initial report more damning because of the way they responded. Even one white house source said it may have been a setup, could have been the russians, could have been the democrats creating a cloud of suspicion. Thats how they do things, they dont have a united front, havent presented that. Theyre so inexperienced in the political realm and partially because they feel theyre constantly playing defense. So they have one set of lawyers coming up with a new plan on the fly and done junior saying one inning and the president will come out and say a third, everybody will have to scramble and figure out what the actual explanation is. We have seen it time and time again, most notably when it came to firing of the fbi director james comey. We got a number of different accounts, one that completely contradicted from donald trump what his press aides were saying to the press and the Vice President was saying to the press 24 hours before. This is partially because a lot of them are not very experienced in politics, partially because as chuck said it could have been that don junior and folks didnt know what the protocol was, who could be coming to knock on their door, say hey, lets have a meeting. It is naivety. Health care on the plate in front of them. Katie, chuck, thank you. Chuck is joined exclusively by former cia director john brennan and republican senator lindsey graham. Catch katy on msnbc live at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. Shes sticking around for highs and lows of the weeks. Lets look at other headlines. Firefighters out west having extremely difficult time getting the upper hand on several raging wildfires. Extreme heat covers vast swathes of the region. Steve patterson is in Santa Barbara county with more. Good morning. Reporter willie, good morning from an area the ash is falling so thick that it appears like snow. One of the Biggest Challenges battling the latest fire is resources. Firefighters are spread between 15 major fires across the state of california. This latest fire broke out while crews were already battling one of the largest, less than 30 miles away. Now some of the same crews are in a race against time against flames that are very aggressive. Wildfire tearing through the hill side. The raging Whittier Fire bursting overnight. Flames so far scorching brush, burning trees, setting a highway ablaze. Crews struggling to keep up. A big fire, very unpredictable with weather conditions, heat, wind. Reporter on saturday, the fire threatened 80 campers that couldnt immediately flee a nearby ranch. Fortunately, firefighters got everyone to safety before the campground was torched. Kind of lucky. All we have is camping stuff. Reporter fueled by scorching temperatures burning across 11 states. North of Whittier Fire, 200 homes vaukted when the alamo fire doubled in size. Im really scared. Theres a good chance our house is going to go. Reporter low humidity, strong winds, high temperatures fueling a blanket of flames along the countryside. There goes the shed. Reporter in northern california, at least ten structures were destroyed by the fast moving wall fire. Seeing a fully engulfed home at this time. Reporter in all, more than 3,000 firefighters battling blazes in california alone. In british columbia, canada, close to 170 fires are burning across the province, forcing nearly 7,000 evacuations. And heat is powering it all. Seering record breaking temperatures in southern californias third heat wave this year, 122 in palm springs, 103 in rancho kuk plurng a. Fast moving flames fueled by heat with no sign of slowing down. All of this while another fire broke out, this time in Los Angeles Alta power plant, severing power to 140,000 customers in the middle of the dangerous heat wave. Crews have made some progress in restoring power to some customers, but it is one more problem that crews have to deal with in the middle of the skyrocketing temperatures. Willie . Hope they get relief from the weather at least. Thank you. Overseas, a ceasefire in southern syria is in effect as we mentioned a moment ago. President trump tweeted about the ceasefire which was one of the items to come out of the meeting with russian president Vladimir Putin. There have been several ceasefires through the six year war, none loosed long. Actor nelsan ellis, best known for playing in true blood died. Tributes pouring in on social media. Manager says he died of heart complications. He was just 39 years old. And heres a story makes me wish i practiced more when i played high school basketball. James harden resigned with the Houston Rockets in a record deal, four year extension worth an estimated 169 million. That averages out to more than 42 million a year. Added to his current contract, he will earn 228 million over six years. In the final year, he will make more than 570,000 per game. Good morning. Im krystal klei. A nice forecast for our sunday. Temperatures around the low to mid 80s. 86 in center city and 84 in lansdale. Allentown, a high of 83. Sunny conditions throughout, and heres the best news. Low humidity today. 85 for the forecast high in trenton. Atlantic city at 81 this afternoon. Smyrna. 85. And Rehoboth Beach at 81. Enjoy this nice sunday. Rain returns to the forecast on monday. Straight ahead, highs and lows of the week, including Vice President pence getting hands dleem y of some nasa equipment. And the kite border that glot a surprise lift from a giant humpback whale. Under the influence of the influencers. Why some of your favorite social media personalities could be selling you a product without you knowing it. All coming up on sunday today. As we head to break, photo of the week. Fireworks lighting up the night sky over washington, d. C. On the be a powerful force. Nature valley be the you who doesnt cover your moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Be the you who shows up in that dress. Who hugs a friend. Who is done with treatments that dont give you clearer skin. Be the you who controls your psoriasis with stelara® just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. Stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. Some serious infections require hospitalization. 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Did you want to come in, maybe snoop around a bit . Thats why im here. Wouldnt it be great if everyone said what they meant . Ooh, i smell onions the citi® double cash card does. Only citi lets you earn 1 cash back when you buy, and 1 as you pay. The citi double cash card. Double means double. Did any bag of dog or buy cat food at petsmart we give a meal to a pet in need . Help us reach our goal of donating more than 60 million meals so hungry pets across the country get to eat. Buy any bag, we give a meal to a pet in need. Petsmart for the love of pets. Look who is here doing the highs and lows of the week. Katy tur. The first high goes to Vice President mike pence and sneaky impressive twitter game this week. Thursday, the Vice President visited Kennedy Space center in florida along with the states junior senator marco rubio. One photograph from their day caught fire online. Look closely, shows pence touching something labeled critical space hardware with giant printed warning do not touch. Social media had a few things to say about that image. The Vice President seemed to enjoy it, tweeting sorry, nasa, marco rubio dared me to do it. Senator marco rubio tweeted back, in fairness, i warned the Vice President you break it, you own it. Damn the man. Damn the man, right . With President Trump away at the g20, the Vice President had free time. He got on photo shop and went in for another round, tweeting okay, so this isnt exactly the first time this has happened. Nasa put out a statement saying the equipment was due to be cleaned and it was fine for the Vice President to touch it, the Space Program was not compromised. Sense of humor from Vice President pence. Didnt see that coming. Didnt see that coming. Love the hand below the warning. How do you do that . How do you put your hand on it . I think it was a troll test. See if they jump on this and he got the better with it with the porcupine at the end. The midland rock hounds, Minor League Affiliate of oakland as turn an infield pop up to triple. He pops one up, the infield converges around it, drops the ball. Heads up, he is hustling all the way. Sees the third baseman was drawn from the bag. Gets all wait to third. Technically error on the first base man. Were going to call this maybe the first ever infield triple. First thing they teach you playing Little League baseball, sprint out of the box, never know what will happen. You teach fielders to call it. I got it, i got it, i got it. That is every Little Leaguers dream. Every batters dream that someone will make that mistake. Sometimes a guy lays down with a bunt and gets a triple. Never know what happens. Next high to the favorite flower girl of Summer Wedding season. Thats the lovely 92yearold georgia ian a, dropping flower pedals walking down the aisle at the granddaughter of her wedding. She insisted she be a central part of the day. The walk in music, by ed sheer and. The flower girl who lost her husband a year ago said she was thr