what bannon did for trump was to take trump's impulses which trump developed on his own about free tradeand give it a kind of respectable intellectual framework. bannon used to say to trump, you know, you aren't a joke, you are part of a global populist uprising that we see sweeping across you're and great britain. do you remember in the campaign when trump was behind in the polls, who was ahead of him. niger. what did trump say he said we're going to be brexit. >> rose: it is to rise the forces of populism and nationalism. >> who is whispering in his ear telling him all that. >> rose: bannon. >> yes. >> rose: because bannon likes what had in brexit. >> he thinks he is in part responsible for brexit. one of the things -- bannon. one of the things bannon did at breitbart following the model of rene who is this tradition es who believes the path back to enlightenment to convert small pockets of people. what we consider today is thought leaders. bannon took that modeling started a breathe -- breathe parted in texas and los angeles and in rome to influence the vatican and started a breitbart

he is very similar to trump.got his company to license a show and then remove the host so he could host the show. they're very similar. who better to host the show than someone like trump? >> it does seem what donald trump is doing is he is amassing a mini army of people who will go around the table and tell him how wonderful he is but also have that secondary element of looking tv the way donald trump expects a person to look on tv? >> sure. the good suit, the hair product, the wall street look. he is this titan of industry. and scaramucci tries to play that same kind of role. with the relentless sucking up vacuum. he is on fire with how much he lost donald trump. >> there is something about it that is a bit authoritarian. the way people around those leaders talk about it. but it is interesting. i want to turn back to sessions for a moment. one of the things we do see reported in the "washington post." an attempt to undermine bob mueller. to try to cast dispersions. one way they're doing it is by talking about,

in trump world, it is okay to contradict donald trump jr. anyway. >> you know, you have to be a very, very, very flexible lawyer to take on this kind of assignment. these guys have to be nimble, pliable, you know, live. you know how it is. >> thank you, rachel. really appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence. >>> well, tonight we are going to begin with this breaking news from "the new york times" that you've heard reported by rachel maddow. here is the first paragraph of that story. before arranging a meeting with a kremlin-connected russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about hillary clinton, donald trump jr. was informed in an e-mail that the material was part of a russian government effort to aid his father's candidacy according to three people with knowledge of the e-mail. the e-mail to the younger mr. trump was sent by rob goldstone, a publicist and former british tabloid reporter who helped broker the june 2016 meeting. joining us now, jill wine-banks, former watergate prosecutor, ron claim, former chief of

both president trump and you have said that the russian attorney that donald trump jr. with is not a russian government attorney. i'm wondering how do you know that? how can you say that given that it was said in the e-mails that she was, there has been reporting by "the times," and it even seems like the story that she is telling now is evolving. >> well, there is a -- you raise actually an interesting issue. i'm trying to figure out if she was a russian government prosecutor, how in the world did the secret service allow her into a meeting at that point that took place with campaign officials if she was actually a government operative? why would the secret service have allowed that? how did she overstay her visa? that's another question. >> i can tell you that jc miller from the campaign and others from the campaign that we had on the other night were making the argument that at that point it was sort of a busy, chaotic environment in trump tower, and people could get in. i found that hard to believe. >> it shouldn't be chaotic. yeah, i find that -- the secret service

trump goldstone tells trump junior. i can also send this information to your father via rhona, but it is ultra sense tough so wanted to send it to you first. donald trump jr. clearly seems to welcome the offer telling goldstone if it's what you say, i love it, especially later in the summer. now this evening, donald trump jr. is speaking ot about those e-mails and the meet with the russian lawyer saying he would have done things differently. let's take a listen to some of his interview on fox news that aired just a few minutes ago. >> do you tell your father anything about this? >> it was such a nothing -- there was nothing to tell. i wouldn't have even remembered it until you start scouring through this stuff. it was just a waste of 20 minutes, which was a shame. >> did you ever meet with any other person from russia that you know of? >> i've probably met with other people from russia. >> not in the context of actual -- a formalized meeting or anything like that. because, why would i? in the grand scheme of things, how

so imagine trump. he could have been sitting down negotiating with xi jinping today and say let me introduce you to my 11 trading partners in a free trade zone all around your border that we control 40% of the economy. imagine the leverage we have. instead he threw it out. the first day in office. i'm sure without reading it, having been properly briefed on it, knowing anything about it. and now we're trying to basically negotiate with the chinese on korea and on trade without that leverage. people don't understand, anderson, our getting out of tpp was our brexit. it was our brexit from the asian free trade zone. it will have vast consequences. more geopolitical than geoeconomic. >> thomas friedman, it's good to talk to you. thank you. >> you too. revelation that he met last year with a russian lawyer promising dirt on hillary clinton. there's that and there's donald trump jr.'s changing story about it. there's also repercussions. more on all of it now from our jeff zeleny. >> reporter: the white house

trump." government. donald trump jr.'s response back then -- "if it's what you say, i love it, especially later in the summer," in other words, closer to the election. and now this tonight. >> do you tell your father anything about this? >> no. it was such a nothing, there was nothing to tell. >> so, let me ask everybody at home this. why should you, why should any of us believe that? this interview is like, i think his fifth attempt to defend the indefensible. don junior is the latest person in the president's orbit to mislead you, the american people, about their contacts with russia. former national security adviser michael flynn, attorney general jeff sessions, his own son-in-law and top aide, jared kushner, and now the closest yet, his namesake, donald trump jr. so, no one knows exactly where this investigation is going to end up, what it's going to uncover. the president and his supporters have said time and time again that this is fake news! it's a witch hunt! please, it's time to end that garbage. read the e-mails

trump. they are beginning an effort to hold hearings on obstruction of justice and russian interference in our election. that's your committee. do you support this effort? >> well, there is certainly -- no. there certainly ought to be hearings by the judiciary committee in the house as the one in the senate has announced they will do. we have jurisdiction over obstruction of justice. we have jurisdiction over the conduct of the justice department in the lawsuit. we have jurisdiction over all this. we ought to be investigating. >> so you're saying yes to the hearing but no to articles of impoai impeachment. >> it's too early. we have a long way to go in investigation. it may lead there, but who knows. i'm certainly not going to support that now. but i am going to support a strict investigation of everything because it is a direct threat to our democracy. >> all right. congressman, good to talk to you. i appreciate your time. >> president trump leaves behind a white house in disarray. is there

this is president donald trump's lawyer, not trump, jr.'s lawyer. he's in big trouble and has to decide whether he wants his client, the president, to go down with his son, or whether he wants to align his interests with donald trump. i don't think that's in the best interest of the president. >> and you can indict a president's son. >> you absolutely can. you have to wait until he's impeached and then he can be indicted if there's probable cause of a crime, but he could be indicted tomorrow. >> let me go back to susan on. this i thought it was illegal to take a contribution of any sort in kind of in cash from a foreigner, someone from another country or certainly representing another government. how can this guy say we all agree this was legal. i don't think bob mueller is in on that agreement at all. >> that's true. in fact, we don't know everything that's happened. and we also don't know what the legalities may be. it's not up to jay. it will be in the end up to bob mueller and his investigators. so this is at least premature. it's also an intere

donald trump, donald trump jr., and the ago lair offs. i had actually interviewed months ago rob goldstone because i wanted to understand what went on in moscow 2013 when trump went there. and he laid out that there was much more to the visit than people sort of understood. there was a formal letter of intent signed between the trump organization and the agilarovs to build a trump tower in moscow. donald trump jr. was put in charge of that project. ivanka trump flies over to moscow in february 2014 to scout sites for the trump tower. then what happens? russia invades -- annexes crimea, intervenes in ukraine. the us and eu impose sanctions, and the sanctions tank the ruble. and basically undermine the whole project. it's no longer economically feasible. so that's a significant point when we look at trump's interest in lifting sanctions. it may have been a factor in his viewpoint of this. but when you look at the e-mails and you see that it's the agilarovs who are very close to putin, who are providing this -- offering this intelligence to

donald trump jr. if these contacts and conversations with russians were so innocent as is being claimed, the obvious question, why so many lies about them? so how is the white house responding toe this news? cnn's jeff zelany has the details. >> reporter: the white house faced a new round of questions today over potential collusion between the trump campaign and russians during last year's election. fresh off president trump's meeting with vladimir putin, it is another meeting in june of 2016 between donald trump jr. and a russian lawyer that's drawing fresh scrutiny. the russian lawyer, known for her opposition to u.s. sanctions against russia over human rights, said she had damaging information about hillary clinton. the white house on the defensive again today, insisting president trump didn't know about the session in trump tower that came only two weeks after he clinched the nomination. white house spokeswoman sarah huckabee sanders said the president only learned about it in the last few days. >

trump? >> i think both of them need the other. i think macron is trying to cement his place on the word stage as an incredible leader, someone able to deal with trump and maintain a relationship between france and the u.s. which has lasted long before trump was on the scene and will continue long after trump has departed. i think some people have lost sight of that. lost sight of -- they've been focused on the negative feelings about trump to the detriment of the language standing relationship between france and the u.s. >> you know, the french leadership and the french people very much liked barack obama. >> yes. >> he was well liked here both by the people and leaders. >> absolutely. >> donald trump not so much. we know that and it's reflected in the polls. yet, it may be in the end that france gets perhaps more things from this leader than it did the previous leader. if you take the example of syria. france was hoping that barack obama would strike damascus years ago. it didn't happen. fr

the world is in chaos and trump is a kind of symbol of that. amy: can you talk about trump's first?to go to poland before going to the g20 where we understand that the german chancellor angela merkel will be emphasizing the issue of climate change, which donald trump rejects? is absolutely right. the reason he decided to go to poland as he thought the right-wing populist government in poland was more likely to be supportive. we know they bust in protesters there to cheer him on. one thing that trump was to do because he believes in this kind of zero-sum economic gain where asrica must make its gains everyone else's expense, one thing you want to do is weaken the competitive trade. one of those being europe and one of those being china. he sees those as america's big competitors. so by originally supporting the brexit referendum in britain and now by going to poland, he is trying to drive a wedge and stoke up nationalisms in europe and to weaken europe. he thinks it is the best way the united states can make economic gains. that is why he went to poland. as heo knows that as soon arr

had donald trump jr.lished these e-mails that he publish today alone, in the absence of your reporting that apparently pushed him to do it, i think a lot of people might have felt like it was sort of too good to be true from an investigations perspective, in terms of links between the campaign and russia during the campaign, but your reporting on what happened here not only pushed him to do this, can you tell us if your reporting here comports with what he published, that you uncovered similar information to what he published? >> yes. what happened was this morning, we had a story prepared that basically documented a lot of the e-mails in question that we'd been writing about in previous stories. and we notified the white house and we notified donald trump jr.'s lawyer that we were preparing to go with a story very soon, by late morning, and we were asking for comment. they asked for a little bit more time and we gave a little bit more time, but then, at around 11:00, when we were preparing to publish our

president trump has taken a very different look at that. you couldn't think of two more opposite figures in temperament, personality and outlook on life than president trump and president obama. president obama was reserved, not a people person, not given to bombastic statements, sometimes cautious to a fault. sometimes his own staff would grow frustrated by the lengthy policy reviews before he finally came to a decision, but he was a very, you know, controlled, disciplined figure. president trump is the opposite. he's impulse, unrestrained, there are no unfiltered thoughts. he sun managed by his staff, something his supporters think is a good thing, and he has decided to basically govern in the way he ran his reality television show. it's basically a very much ad hoc kind of sometimes unprecedented sort of, you know, type of presidency. >> glasser: yeah, but barack obama, just to offer the counterpoint, came into office also determined to undo george w. bush's legacy and talked a lot about restoring america's standing in the world. obama c

donald trump jr.the invitation and asked paul manafort and jared kushner to be there as well. according to the "new york times," before that meeting happened, donald trump, jr., was told in an e-mail from this guy rob goldstone who he knew, told that there would be compromising information about hillary clinton offered in this meeting and he was informed explicitly in this e-mail according to the times, quote, that the material was part of a russian government effort to aid his father's candidacy. this e-mail message was described to "the new york times" by three people and according to the times, they have not published the e-mail, but they say the e-mail indicates that the source of this potentially damaging information on hillary clinton was the russian government. and then after that e-mail donald trump, jr., accepted the ini have ti ini have i ha-- the invitation he was there with jared kushner. as we were saying at the top of this hour, there have now been two major reports that there were appar

donald trump jr. there's more. at least five sources tell the "new york times" that the reason for this private meeting was the promise of election dirt. that would hurt the campaign of hillary clinton. cnn global affairs correspondent, elise labbot is here and we are joined as well. elise, to you first, what part of this is potentially damaging to the administration in the context of the federal investigation into election meddling? >> well, ana, this is an early indication that russians were seeking out members of the trump campaign. donald trump jr. says he didn't know he was meeting with an introduction from and doesn't say that miss universe pageant was held in 2013 in a suburb of moscow. so in essence, a contact he made in russia, trying to set him up with someone who had info that could help the campaign and so, the question is why didn't donald trump junior report there. and this plays into the investigation swirling, including the special council about contacts and allegations of inclusion be

so january 6, comey is that some of the other intelligence officials went to trump tower to brief trump on the russian meddling in the election. afterward, he pulled trump aside and told him about the dossier. this is collection of reports by a former british spy about information the russians may have on trump. blackmail information and business ties between trump associates and russia. what trump says is that in hindsight, looking back, he thought comey was trying to get leverage. as comey was maneuvering to get his job, it was a play for leverage what comey has testified about, if you talk to folks at the fbi, what they would say is that comey was trying to tell trump, look. there's this information out there about you. the media may be publishing it and we have it and you have a right, you should know about it. to put him on notice about it. that it was not trying to compromise the president. >> i have to talk about vladimir putin. i don't know how much of your interview talked about vladimir putin. a lot of trust, i guess. in the word of vladimir putin when he said he didn't interf

you covered president trump, then candidate trump.his is the way he talks, but painting a rosy picture heading into the meeting. >> reporter: that is the way he talks. look, i don't think we should be surprised to see it was a cordial meeting. it was a positive greeting. this is the first time he and russian president, vladimir putin are meeting face-to-face. it's the first chance they have to size each other up. president trump has hardly made a secret he wants to improve u.s. relations with russia. maybe there's a dip that goes with the carrot. maybe we'll get a sense of that in the readout. it should be no secret or surprise trump wants to build and improve upon. >> matthew chance, one of the things vladimir putin said beyond it was good to meet president trump personally, clearing up the previous claims from donald trump as a candidate, he met vladimir putin, he backed off. president putin made clear it was the first time they met spers personally. he was discussing the problem spots around the world. is that the goal of president

trump discarded pleas from advisers to avoid wading into the tempest over donald trump jr. and posted a fusillade of tweets defending him. by midday wednesday, the mercurial president was telling friends and adviser he believed the situation had improved. i think it's getting better, he said. please, take us inside the white house to his advisers because he's got some top advisers in there who were not part of the campaign, who only met president trump in the last six months. what's going on inside of this joint? c coe. >> what's going on in general, we've had three straight off camera briefings from sarah huckabee sanders at the direct instruction of the president. he's telling people to turn off the cameras. the bottom line is what's becoming increasingly cheer cloo is the president will do whatever he wants to do, and even his private lawyers, who have been advising them to cut it without the tweets and the loose talk, he's getting ignored. trump predictably is getting ticked off at him and the rest of the legal team for telling him what to do. what you're seeing here is

not only did donald trump jr. do something that was completely unamerican, he vie latd a federal election campaign act which says can you not solicit anything of value from a foreign national. and as a former prosecutor, i can tell you that a conspiracy charge of violate that act is very easy to prove. you don't even have to show that a crime was completed. you just have to show he took one step to try to complete the crime and he certainly did that. >> and so now, okay, if that is the case, do you expect what happened in that meeting to come under the mueller investigation or are you saying that this is a separate potential criminal offense that the justice department should be looking into? if that's the case, who could do it? it doesn't seem like jeff sessions is in a position to do it. >> under their instruction that's special counsel mueller was given, he has the right to investigate crimes arising from the trump-russia investigation. this was certainly one of those crimes he could absolutely investigate viol

president trump is en route to the u.s. following the g20 summit following a face-to-face meeting with russian president vladimir putin. they had a long list of issues to tackle. the two agreed on a cease-fire in southwest syria which takes effect in less than 24 hours. u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson who attended the trump/putin meeting said, quote, this is our first indication of the u.s. and russia being able to work together in syria, end quote. and new details in mosul, iraq, where an isis stronghold is on the verge of collapse. cnn's nick paton walsh is reporting the iraqi army is increasingly confident they are nearing the, quote, final stage of the final stage of kicking isis out of the old city of mosul. iraqi television showing pictures of destruction with plumes of smoke rising over the city. a spokesman for the iraqi army saying iraqi forces are, quote, continuing their advance to liberate the remaining parts of the old city of mosul. only a few tens of meters are left for our troops to reach the western b

trump."at's the offer, dirt on hockey gathered by a foreign adversary to help him become president. trump's junior reply, if it's what you say i love it especially later in the summer and from there trump junior and gold stone go on to set up a meeting with what he calls the russian government attorney who is flying over from moscow. then in the next e-mail, the russia attorney. several more e-mails follow before donald trump looping in paul manafort and jared kushner. this is the plain and simple language from e-mails released by donald trump jr. himself as part of his evolving explanation of this meeting which "the new york times" first revealed on saturday. for starters they expose his prior accounts of the meeting as untrue. he wasn't as he first said motivated to meet this woman out of concern for orphans. he certainly did contrary to how he described it on saturday discuss politics. the woman was not offered as some random an dwants of a friend as he first suggested but described as a r

trump was having a great time. poland? try your luck with russia. >> trump and putin, the two leaders finally come face to face at the g20. the president confronting putin on russia's hacking but both sides putting their own spin on what happened in that marathon meeting. >> russia's foreign minister says president trump accepted the denial. >> i strongly pressed putin twice about russian meddling in our election, he denied it. i've given my opinion. >> trevor: president trump handled russia's threat to democracy the way a lazy daddies plins his kid. hey, man, you smoking weed? no! your mom said she meld weed. no! that's what i said. you know how your mom is. come on down, dinner's ready, let's go. ( laughter ) that's how trump is. he's about the mistakes of the future, not the past. >> the president says he's acting to prevent future election hacks tweeting he discussed with putin, "forming an impenetrable cyber security unit with the russians." >> trevor: you know what donald trump did here was basically like som

new details emerge about the june 2016 meeting in trump tower attended by trump jr. and kushner and paul manafort. we know a russian-american lobbyist. welcome to "newsroom." it's 10:00 a.m. in paris. >> and let's get started. it's 4:00 a.m. on the east coast. >> welcome viewers in the united states and around the world. the u.s. president donald trump returned to washington, d.c. friday after two days at the french capital. he and first lady guests of honor at bastille stday. at the center of it all, the meeting that took place in june of last year with the president's oldest son and russian lawyer who supposedly had dirt on hillary clinton. now exactly what was said or discussed in the meeting is not clear. the details keep changing. we now know there were more people in the meeting. twice as many as previously disclosed. o our jessica schneider explains. >> reporter: another player erupts from the meeting with donald trump jr. and the russian lawyer. he disclosed everything there was to know with the several e-mails tuesday. >> as far as you know, this is all of i

donald trump jr.'s meeting with a kremlin connected lawyer during the campaign. deputy white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders saying there is nothing wrong with the president's son meeting with the russian lawyer after being promised damaging information on hillary clinton as first reported by "the new york times." >> i've been on several campaigns, and people call offering information. as i know many of you receive similar calls of people offering information. don jr. took a very short meeting from which there was absolutely no follow-up. the only thing i see inappropriate about the meeting is the people who leaked the information on the meeting after it was voluntarily disclosed. >> if this sort of meeting is normal practice in the campaign, do you know if there were any other meetings that either donald trump jr. or other representatives of the trump campaign had with other russian officials or any other foreign agent? >> i don't know of any other meetings with don jr. but i also haven'

the idea that donald trump, sr. couldn't have known about what happened at this meeting is also bogus when you consider he was at trump tower the day of the meeting. >> you're entitled to your opinion, but not your own set of the facts. the fact is, don, jr. didn't know who this person was. he showed up and she started spew thing nonsense about the dnc. >> we haven't seen any e-mails. that's one of the things -- >> i want to ask jason something. you worked at trump tower, right, jason? >> yeah, of course. >> can you get into trump tower without showing an identification? >> not anymore. >> as of june of 2016 when that place was locked down by the secret service, you could walk in there without showing i.d.? >> there's plenty of times i entered without an i.d. >> wait a minute, jason. the secret service in june, when he's the candidate would allow a random stranger to come to the office? >> if you're escorted by someone. but this was an acquaintance that made the introduction -- he sat down with them, it was a 20-min

, is that a stride for president trump? is that a significant change or not? doyle: that depends on how they shake out. it is to find the sweet spot where they intersect. president trump had to bring this up in that meeting. imagine what we would be talking about tonight if he hadn't brought it up. washington would be on fire. he would be taking flack not just from democrats and critics but half of his own party, so he had to bring it up. it is clear what lavrov and tillerson said, he had no appetite of going over the details of what happened in the 2016 election. they set up a working group to make sure that nobody did this ever again. he wanted to talk about cyber warfare in europe. he didn't want to talk about 2016. and that lack of appetite is very clear. and rex tillerson had to effectively admit that. what i think probably happened if i had to put 20 bucks down, why is lavrov correct? putin pushed back and said it never happened and i didn't do it and i expect there is no response. >> you pointed out this went over tw

that is donald trump jr.. donald trump jr.d nothing came of the meeting because the russian woman he met with wanted to talk about adoption instead of destroying hillary clinton's campaign. that story will probably work for donald trump jr.. as the investigation proceeds because this is not a donald trump jr. story. meaning he is not the person in the most trouble in this story. donald trump jr. is now serving as a very convenient heat shield for his brother-in-law, jared kushner, who was also in that meeting, and was included on the e-mails entitled russia, clinton, private and confidential. the e-mails that set up that meeting. >> donald jr might face some legal liability for soliciting something of value to a federal campaign from a foreign citizen. that is against the law. but it is not clear that law could be applied to this kind of meeting. jared kushner is facing a much more serious criminal liability as a result of simply having received that e-mail. that alone. the e-mail. that is a serious criminal issue. for jared k

michael, did that actually doom him with trump because trump was so proud of being an outsider. >> yeahthink to some extent that's true. these were two people who never meshed at all. in style or kind of the policies they were trying to get at. priebus was supposed to be a bridge, a bridge to congress, a bridge to the washington establishment, to paul ryan who is close to priebus. and the problem is twofold. one as rebecca said i'm not sure that the skill set was there for reince priebus to actually do all of -- be all of that effective in that. but also, if you're going to cross a bridge you need -- you want to cross it. and the president of the united states never did. he never really wanted to be the kind of insider washington legislator that it would take to form those kinds of bonds and those kinds of relationships. so as a result, priebus wasn't a help. so to the extent that the chief of staff could be the enforcer that david was talking about, to bring that kind of sort of discipline to the internal workings of the white house, it's very clear that this president and the people t

right from the beginning trump is going to win. trump is going to win. that's why i like him. i didn't like him that much before, now i love him. dan donovan. thanks, dan. thank you, dan. \[applause] president trump: and lee zeldin who i supported right from the beginning when they said he didn't have a chance of beating a very popular incumbent. and i saw him at a debate and i thought he was going to win but he fought a pretty popular guy and i said i think he is going to win. and he won pretty easily. pretty good. i'm proud of you. great job. and, of course, a legend, somebody that we all know very well, sort of my neighbor, as i consider him a neighbor, but he is a great and highly respected man in washington, congressman peter king. \[applause] president trump: very respected guy. he is a respected man that people like to ask opinions of. i do. congressman king and his colleagues know the terrible pain and violence ms-13 has inflicted upon this community and this country. and if you remember just a little more than two years ago when i came down the escalator with melania

it's not trump supporters or opponents of donald trump.ller will look at this, and bob mueller and his investigators will look at how unusual this meeting was, the fact they lied about it. the fact that paul manafort owed money to pro russian interests when he started to work at the campaign. and i'm sure we'll find out about donald trump's finances and debts that will make this more troubling. >> we'll wait for that. i mean, from my perspective in covering all of this, i feel that taking the meeting comment was perhaps the most revealing comment trump has made so far in his presidency. still to come, forget russian interference. if you take chris kobok at his word, we may not really know who won the election. we'll dig into it more on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ when a fire destroyedwith us everything in our living room. we replaced it all without touching our savings. yeah, our insurance won't do that. no. you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. i recently discovered that a good source of protein.

trump." minutes later trump jr. replied, "if it's what you say i love it especially later in the summer." within a week, on june 9, trump jr. met with a kremlin-connected attorney natalia veselnitskaya at trump tower. the meeting have been kept secret until kushner recently made reference to it in a a form torsion of obtain a security clearance. this is donald trump, jr. speaking out about the meeting that he had with the lawyer, kushner, and manafort on tuesday. >> in retrospect, i probably would've done things differently. this is before the rush of mania, before they were building it up in the press. tuesday, trump junior his father knew nothing about it. >> did you tell your father anything about this? >> it was such a nothing -- there was nothing to tell. i would not even have remembered it until you start scouring through the stuff. amy: but many are questioning trump jr.'s claim reporting to remarks donald trump made on the campaign trail just hours after trump jr. confirmed the meeting with the russian attor

this helps trump and helps putin. trump said all along, we can get so much out of having a relationship with russia. four major areas, a deliverable. maybe a cease-fire, erin mentioned. for putin, russia, central player. big, most important countries at the g-20, russia and the u.s. you know, when actually russia is a very small trading partner for the u.s. many more powerful countries economically, but putin is at the center of the action, and for trump, he says, look american voters, having better relations with russia is worth it. >> and people won't say russia is about the size of new jersey. it's a small -- at least by global standards. david drucker, putin -- trump, rather, would not be the first american president at the beginning of his term has high hopes rejiggering, resetting, if i could resurrect that word again, the relationship with russia. bush tried it. obama tried it, and both of them had no success whatsoever. >> and i think the question going into this meeting and after is whether or not the preside

then candidate trump was at trump tower at the time of the meeting. the white house says he was unaware it was going on and only learned about it recently. less than a week after the meeting, the democratic national committee accused russia of hacking into its computer servers. the following month wikileaks began releasing stolen dnc e-mails. the russian government lawyer, natalia veselnitskaya, denied that she ever promised compromising information about clinton or that she works for the kremlin. "i do not represent interests of anyone other than myself in this situation today," she said. trump, jr., posted the e-mails on twitter to be "totally transparent," but the any timed timed -- "new york times" says he released them only after its reporters told him they had obtained the messages. today white house spokesman sarah huckabee sanders read a statement praising his son. >> my son is a high-quality person and i applaud his transparency. >> reporter: trump, jr., said again the lawyer had no information to provide and wanted to talk about adoption pol

president donald trump. they started meeting over an hour ago and a meeting was supposed to last just 30 minutes. we are waiting to hear whether thear continuing to talk. we will have the highlights as soon as we hear the meeting is wrapped up. >>> we are following other stories. another wrinkle to all of this. disturbing cnn reporting that russia ramped up spying on the u.s. hear why and how the trump administration is responding. and the wolf huffed and puffed... like you do sometimes, grandpa? well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in. so i talked to my doctor. she said... symbicort could help you breathe better, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. symbicort helps provide significant improvement of your lung function. symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like

donald trump jr.aying his explanations, what are you thinking? >> what he said in that e-mail, if it's what you say it is, i love it. the question is what part did he not love or did he take the information and want to hold on to it, not give in saying that this was what he wanted. there are a lot of questions still about what's going on. but, there is a lot of smoke around here when it comes to these e-mails, and at issue -- and i'm going back to something david said. when you look at the support for donald trump, president donald trump right now, yes, his base is supporting him still but there is a little bias, some republicans on the hill that are looking at this askew. but tame you have rob there are people who are putting a lot of stock into this investigation, mueller. and if mueller sees the smoke and finds the fire, we'll wonder will things change. will there be people saying there is something serious, not just owner the democratic side by the republican side. and for both donald trump jr. an

donald trump jr.nd a russian attorney. we'll tell you right after the break. stay with us. noo introducing the easiest way to get gillette blades text "blades" to gillette on demand text to reorder blades with gillette on demand... ...and get $3 off your first order ♪ [brother] any last words? [boy] karma, danny... ...karma! [vo] progress is seizing the moment. your summer moment awaits you, now that the summer of audi sales event is here. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during the summer of audi sales event. i'm lumy bargain detergent shifcouldn't keep up.ter. so, i switched to tide pods. they're super concentrated, so i get a better clean. number one trusted. number one awarded. it's got to be tide >>> 5:33 a.m. on the u.s. east coast. welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is cnn newsroom. good to have you with us. i'm george howell with the headlines. this israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is in pairs l with the french p

to help elect trump president. if you're the russian government, the message that you got back is we love it, we welcome your help and support. we know what happened after that in the weeks and months to come. they hacked republican and democratic entities. relaced in e-mails only pertaining to democratic entities. they welcomed their help. >> could it have been a dangle, matt? >> i think that is absolutely right. what director muler will look at now is the fact they were so eager to take the meeting that is was the candidates son, son-in-law, and campaign chairman. three high placed individual who took time at a busy time to have this immediating and they lied about it for so long. that shows they had something to hide. i think you will want to talk to all of these people and you will not want to take their lies -- if they don't tell the truth to a grand jury they could go to jail. >> what about jared kushner, this is the third time he had to disclose his forms. he still has security clearance, is he in jeopardy o

his biography of donald trump, "the making of donald trump." when we come back, the voting commission has its first meeting yesterday. donald trump addresses them. we will get the latest. then we will look at russia and the donald trump money trail. stay with us. ♪ [music break] amy: "rebel woman" by sena dagadu. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nermeen: the first meeting of a new presidential election commission was held wednesday in the face of weeks of controversy, seven lawsuits, and new calls for the resignation of its vice-chairman, kansas secretary of state kris kobach. president trump convened the presidential advisory commission on election integrity to look into his allegations of voter fraud during the 2016 presidential election. pres. trump: voter fraud occurs, it cancels out the vote of a lawful citizen and undermines democracy. can't let that happen. any form of illegal or fraudulent voting, whether by , andtizens or the deceased any form of voter suppression

the reason donald trump jr.t is precisely because he thought that a hostile foreign country would give information that would subvert an election. that was the relationship. if you think this is the only meeting that took place you're naive about that. >> he did say there was a waste of time because there was nothing in it because tso he thought he was going to get something out of it. >> that's what he said, we have dv by the way, he's also changed his story about the meeting three times. i think we're -- >> what i'm saying we do know that he was going to get dirt. >> we didn't know he didn't get any dirt -- >> listen, you're arguing something i'm not arguing. because he didn't he's saying there was nothing, the intention doesn the conclusion didn't matter it's the intention. >> yeah the intention was made. donald trump saying he's got a lot of dirt on hillary to announce and he called on the russians to release the e-mails and that's obviously where wikileaks did. and i do agree mike, there's a lot left to be

like to be melania trump and ivanka trump.he way he treats women is not the way that the fake media is saying. host: what do you think r president trump's biggest -- what do you think preside -- what do you think are president trump's biggest compliments? -- accomplishments? he has been looking at the stock market, how it is. all the jobs being created. putin,ealing with mr. because we have to deal with mr. putin, the problem with the war in the middle east. i think he's doing a very good job. about putting america to work and bringing money. he works for free. he is not getting a salary. there is not a single senator in -- all of themes are millionaires, and even with the recession in this country, refused tothem has say -- host: maria, stick around. in our next hour, we will talk about congressional salaries. how much they get paid, what how itenefits are, and compares to the president. that will be from 9:00 to 9:30 this morning. a special line this morning for boy scouts and members of their family, 202-748-8003. otherwise

a development trump has fumed about ever since, but still sessions has been one of trump's staunchestrliest allies. and trump would never turn on sessions because as we know, trump is nothing if not loyal. >> president trump on fire about the russia investigation, unloads on his own attorney general. >> president trump said today that he never would have appointed attorney general jeff sessions had he known mr. sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the russian investigation. >> well, sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and i would have picked somebody else. how do you take a job and then recuse yourself? if he would have recused himself before the job, i would have said, thanks, jeff, but i can't, i'm not going to take you. it's extremely unfair, and that's a mild word, to the president. >> seth: what are you talking about? how would he recuse himself before he got the job? that would be like someone trying to get a construction job, and saying their best skill is workers' comp. [ lau

the central point trump wants to make is trump's not to do too thorough a job investigating the trumpe's not to go poking around in his economic dealings, he's not to demand trump's tax returns. ta t everyone works for trump, and that goes to nevada, well, donald trump we need to know is now seeing himself as above investigating. but knowing this isn't true would require a true courses in history. the kind of courses mr. trump skipped on his way to being a billion. he spoke of napoleon with the new york times about the french defeat of 1812 over in moscow. the true mention of that defeat was hub ris, an emporer who thought he could dominate anyone, ended up on an island on the south atlantic without an airport. we must wonder if donald trump thinks he can do no worse than that fate and end up at mar mar-a-lago. that's "hardball." thanks for being with us. all in with chris hayes starts now. >> tonight on all in. >> how do you take a job and recuse yourself. >> mu fallout from the new york times bombshell. >> would that be a breech of what his actual charge snchts i would say, yes. >>

trump embraces.raditional allies seem to have a rough relationship with the president. >> traditional allies are in support of the paris climate agreement. >> something could happen with respect to the paris accord. we'll see what happens. we will talk about that over the coming period of time. and if it happens that will be wonderful. if it doesn't, that will be okay, too. but we will see what happens. >> senator over at the white house they had this big ceremony where the president announced he is pulling out of the paris climate accord. what do you make of him saying today we will see what happens? >> i think the president gets back into the agreement. >> you think he is changing his mind? >> it takes a couple of years to formally withdraw from the framework. there is no immediate legal aspects to his withdrawal. he has been sidelined from the international discussions in regards to climate change. our businesses are at a terrible disadvantage. america's leadership has been severely weakened as a