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While president trump mentioned the gang of ms-13 four times, he made only a passing reference to russia itself, referring to the country as a rival that challenges our interest. that was it. while exiting the chamber, he was caught commenting on that politically charged house intelligence committee memo. i hate this, it's scare crow stuff about the investigation. let's watch. >> don't worry, 100%. >> it's all a distraction. i'm joined by host joy reid. ron ragan.

To give up on a single-centered world. >> reporter: analysts say it's likely putin playing politics at home. that he might feel that he has to tell russians publicly that trump and his team are being antagonistic towards russia because of certain passages in trump's security plan. in a speech on monday, the president made a passing reference to russia. >> we also face rival powers, russia and china, that seek to challenge american influence values and wealth. >> reporter: but the president's strategy document, which was drafted by his national security team, delivers a much stronger rebuke of ...

Did not amount to collusion and the trump campaign. an attorney for the russian billionaire who pushed for the meeting between a russian lawyer provided cnn with e-mails and documents to make that argument and the new information is intended to contrast with that initial e-mail pitching the meeting to trump jr. which as you know promised damaging information on hillary clinton. the e-mail between the russian lawyer natalia veselnitskaya and publicist rob gold stone the morning of the meetinged a asked for a russian american lobbyist to be added because of the adoption issue. a five page talkin...

Letter aimed at comey and his investigation of trump and trump's world? was it a passing reference, do we know? was it more detailed than that? how much does this letter suggest that was on the president's mind? >> reporter: sure, so again, we haven't seen the letter. we have just spoken to people familiar with it. but our understanding is that this letter sort of laid out the president's frustrations and grievances with director comey. as we said, the story was very little explicitly focused on russia, other than e other than the language we actually saw in the final statement that the presid...

Know about the contents, how much was this original letter aimed at comey and his investigation of trump and trump's world? was it a passing reference? was it more detailed than that? how much does this letter suggest that was on the president's mind? >> sure, so again we haven't seen the letter. we've just spoken about it. our understanding was this letter laid out the president's frustrations and grievances with director comey. as we said, the story, it was very little explicitly focused on russia other than the language we actually saw in the final statement the president put out where he e...