the closed-door meeting. >> i did not: with russia, nor do i know if anyone else in the campaign who did so. i had no improper contacts. i have not relied on russian businesses, and i have been fully transparent in providing all requested information. charlie: donald trump jr. and former campaign chairman paul manafort will also appear before the judiciary committee this week.joining me from washington, robert costa from the washington post and moderator of "washington week," on pbs, susan page of usa today, and hugh hewitt, of "the hugh and frank bruni of the new york times. tell me about the appearance today and what might have been this week with respect to the testimony. >> i think jared kushner did about as well as anyone could in a difficult situation, charlie. i read his entire 11 page letter over the air so that commuters could hear it. it was not denial. it was specific and details. it was explanatory. for those trying to give trump the benefit of the doubt, they would find it comforting.i found it interesting that he said he has never met sergei gore called for -- before. i

in russia. she was referred to as a russian government attorney and the emails laid out that this was on behalf of the russian government efforts to assist donald trump. ocks the legs out from underneath of the stool where they propped up the argument where they say they never met with anyone from the russian government or affiliated with that government or acting on behalf of the government. witchhunte cries of and all of the talk of russia trying to assist the president's andaign was a witchhunt there was nothing there, just a cockamamie scheme, this shows that they actually knew that the russian government was interested in trying to help the trump campaign. host: the president says that he has nothing to do with this. >> that is right. he praised the transparency of his child and said that he ,efers people to his counsel his criminal defense that he has hired. that donaldsaid trump was not aware of this, even though it took place just one floor below his office and that paul manafort and jared kushner, a senior advisor at the white house, was involved. he may not have been dir

friendship with the president of russia and feel the need for reassurance. he gave what his staff wanted him to give them, a robust speech in the center of warsaw. very pro-polish, and he said russia needed to be confronted on destabilizing activity in ukraine and syria. by the end of the day, he had a press conference where he was not on script and seemed to get -- basically to give an entirely different message. he was asked again, do you believe russia meddled in the election last year and what would you do about it? he said i think it was russia, it could have been some other countries, nobody knows for sure. again, casting doubt on it. and attacking president obama for not doing more about it even though president trump is not sure it happened. and then he mentioned the iraq war intelligence fiasco. these mixed messages are an interesting product of his first day. susan: it is the full spectrum of donald trump. you have the obsessive, micromanaging partisan figure. and then this bombastic speech. i want to ask you about this speech. donald trump seems to have embraced the full on cl

revolution. reporter: they accuse the u.s. of humiliating russia are expanding nato to russian borders and supporting revolutions in former soviet states and satellites. he advocates by fighting back against the west with asymmetric war. you talk about introducing geopolitical disorder. actively supporting dissident movements. extremism, racism this seems , much more. >> exactly. we are supporting any kind of national, including russian. you are doing the same thing against us. >> nick schifrin joins me now. i am pleased to welcome him to the program. the first part of the program is how russians see vladimir putin versus how americans see vladimir putin. >> i think this goes to white russians, when the u.s. tax russia, russians see it as an attack on their identity. over the last 15 years, putin has brought relative stability to russia. anybody old enough to remember the 1990's will remember the economic and political chaos. that is the first step. the second step is re-creating russian traditions like the orthodox church, pre-soviet traditions, into a level of pride in shared religio

any than either ofth you, he fears that the independent counsel will investigate things beyond russia. he fears -- charlie: meaning the building of his financial empire? mark: right. he fears his children will be dragged into this in a way that will be bad for their lives and he fears that people will start cooperating with the independent all sorts ofting potential problems. charlie: to save their own skin. and: to save their own skin obviously he fears that this he could donything to be considered a great president. charlie: and ruin re-election? mark: oh, sure. he may fear substantially more least at aut at minimum, those things. john: don jr. is now dragged into the middle of this, jared is dragged into the middle of this, dragging at least by marriage his daughter into this so they're already in middle of this now. and it's also the case that depending on how you define things outside the scope of russia and again there's some question about the things that trump says, well, if he starts finances, that's outside of -- i think he defines the russia thing is what calendar year16, 2

state visit to france this week. when he returns to washington, he will find russia is still dominating the news. on thursday, senate republicans released the newest version of the bill to repeal and replace the affordable care act. joining me now, megan murphy, the editor of "bloomberg businessweek." and from washington, mike allen, the cofounder of axios. and yoni appelbaum, the senior editor for politics at "the atlantic." it has been a heck of a week. i heard the president before he left for france was frustrated and lashing out over the fact the russia story will not go away. i have heard it suggested by some he saw this story involving his son as perhaps the worst development and worst day of his presidency. we have new developments. more new developments today. we have heard the president has hired a new criminal attorney, ty cobb. megan: they have been looking for someone to come in for some time now to be the enforcer on this probe, figure out how they will react in terms of rapid response, as well as making sure people adhere to a similar storyline going forward. yo

elections and the cyber hacking and attacks russia has been carrying out in the united states. there is a desperate hope from the foreign policy community in the u.s., from members of congress, that the president will take this opportunity to say to putin to knock it off, to send a clear signal trying to interfere in our elections is not acceptable. we do not know if the president is going to go that far and say that, because he has shown hesitation about making a big issue over russian interference in the election. the feeling of those close to the president is he is concerned it will undermine his presidency if he acknowledges russians played a role in influencing the election. collusion aside. just with fake news and tweet bots, that sort of interference by the russians could be enough to rattle or delegitimize his presidency. that is the concern. alison: there has been reporting president trump has tasked the national security council to come up with bargaining chips, something he can bring to the meeting to use. what would something like that be? shannon: one could be syria. there is

-- at an objective or read, the u.s.-russia relationship is as bad as it's been since under -- charlie: vladimir putin has said so. ian: and the entire establishment in the u.s. has also said so. everyone says trump is flip-flopping on china, he says they are an enemy, flip-flops on nato, all these things, yet on russia he is consistent. i want to find a way to work more closely. charlie: is it because he has a grand strategy or something else? ian: i was discussing this with richard haass on the council of foreign relations today. we are both a little flummoxed. you can definitely say trump likes the strong man. he likes erdogan in turkey, he duterte in the philippines, he likes xi jinping in china, he likes people who get things done. you definitely can say about trump that he also is very transactional, so he's willing to put his chips in to see if you can get something done and then see how they fall. that was with obama, when he first met obama in the oval office, and with xi jinping. also the fact that obama's relationship with putin was damaged in the end, so there's

collusion between the trump campaign and russia. said these aoregon mill show there is no longer a question of whether this campaign sockesought to collude with a foreign power. joining me from washington is shannon, a correspondent for bloomberg news and ed o'keefe. he is a congressional reporter for "the washington post," and a contributor to cbs news. welcome to both of you. donald trump junior said he released these emails so he could be totally transparent, but it was only because the emails were about to be released by a newspaper. >> that is right. the "new york times" got these and he rushed them out. we appreciate the transparency in putting it out there, but it demonstrates the clearest links yet between officials in the russian government trying to talk to the trump campaign about potentially damaging information about hillary clinton. in the words of mark warner, all of the denials over the past year or so from trump and his sons, that there was no attempt to talk to rush about any of this are now cast aside by the proof that the president's son tweeted out today and sh

department of homeland security which would take him out of the russia if you wish he has reduced himself of, do -- issue which he has refused himself -- recused himself. he would be in charge of ice. i don't know if they can pull that one off because he can only appoint sessions as an acting department of homeland security secretary, and we have a problem with who we replace him with. charlie: will john kelly be able to contain scaramucci? jonathan: that is a great question. scaramucci has learned a lesson this week, and we will see a much more low price on -- low-profile anthony scaramucci. that will be happening under any circumstance. charlie: the fact the president respects general kelly so much, does that mean he will be able to rely on general kelly? answer the question, who can say no to the president? jonathan: that is a great question, because general kelly is a military man. one of the things the president likes is that when he says he wants to go in a direction, general kelly secured in that. it is an open question whether or not general kelly will go into the oval office and

with the probe on the russia investigation under special counsel bob mueller, his frustrations he aired this week with jeff sessions, the attorney general. yes, he did have all the republican senators into the white house after the built in the senate collapsed earlier this week. and he indicated he want something done. but getting to that goal line has proven so difficult, and the president has not necessarily played a constructive role in getting it to a success. he will say those kinds of things, but there has been little follow-through. i think we have to be skeptical there will be presidential follow-through. i think the senate will try to do what they can do. senator mcconnell, the majority leader, kind of reached the end of his limits earlier this week. while there will be a vote next week or effort to have a vote to put a bill on the floor, it is not clear they will even be able to succeed getting the bill on the floor. jeff: as you have noted, there has been a little bit of a change in strategy for the president. he was very involved with the house and house members and c

in our elections and the cyberattacks that russia has been carrying out in the united states. there is a desperate hope of a foreign-policy community in the u.s., from members of congress, that the president will take this opportunity to say to putin , as president obama said, knock it off. send a strong signal trying to interfere in our elections is not acceptable. we do not know the president will go that far and say that because he has shown hesitation about making a big issue about russian interference, and the feeling of those close to the president say he fears it will undermine his presidency be really eight knowledges that russians played a role in influencing elections. collusion aside, but with fake news and tweet bots, that sort of interference could delegitimize his presidency. alison: there has been reporting that president trump has tasked the national security council with bargaining chips, something to bring to the meeting to use. but with something like that be? shannon: one could be syria. there is this desire to try and strike a deal in syria, so if you go work ou

the strategy for dealing with the russia probe in the midst of all that. i think they need to create a clear separation between the president and the governing part of the white house. and the russian investigation part of management control and move down both those tracks simultaneously. that is where we will be for a while and that has not been very effective. we will have to figure how to separate scandal management from governance and put some things on the board. charlie: do either of you know, speaking of the russian probe, an answer to why the president is so resistant to this probe, other than there is something that is damaging to him, whatever it is? jerry: at a minimum, there is a trump style that says basically, you give no quarter when you are under attack or under siege. you give no ground. is that because there is something working in the shadows? or because he's afraid that not fighting everybody every step of the way is a symbol of weakness? i don't think we know which of those it is. david: it is either something is bad there or trump knows no style, other than the

., jared kushner, ivanka trump. if he starts moving to do business dealings in connection to russia. so you can imagine a situation where the family members would have quite an incentive to stop the investigation before it uncovers things that cause a potential problem. charlie: the shifting factions in the white house, it is really hard, because they are not united on issues that are necessarily consistent. for example, bannon was said to be opposed to the hiring of the new communications chief. according to the reports i read. whereas, others you would think would not have an opinion, were in favor of it. jonathan: that's true. i mean, one of the key dynamics at the moment is that steve bannon and reince priebus have become allies of convenience in a feud against jared kushner and ivanka trump. that is probably in terms of the hottest conflicts in the white house, that is probably right at the top. and jared and ivanka distrust reince priebus, they think he is incompetent, and they want him out of the job. to the extent which steve bannon sees them as ideological enemies, he wants to

disagreed with him when he proved not to be effective. but the russia scandal came along and all of a sudden, a lot of people in his inner circle and his own family are embroiled in very serious scandals. charlie: and a fight for survival. josh: a scandal that trump himself inflamed by firing james comey, the f ei director. -- the fbi director. charlie: advised by jared kushner to do that. josh: that is what my white house sources tell me. that steve bannon had warned against it. warned against firing comey. what broadband and back is that just before trump left for his foreign trip in may, attorney general jeff sessions had recused himself. rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, decided that they needed to impose a special counsel and chose robert mueller. a very serious man. a real threat to the president. if he's done anything wrong -- it only happened because he fired comey. i think trump awoke to the danger that the russia probe posed to him. he sent bannon back from saudi arabia to try to stand up some kind of outside legal war room to fight harder. he knew that the lawyer