what is the russia story? i just always hope, will mueller get to the bottom of this? will we some day know what we're talking about when we say those words, the russia story. >> from washington, author and nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. and in houston, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell. andrea, we'll get to the passing of barbara bush in just a moment. but given your expertise, i want to get your take on this meeting between mike pompeo, the cia director, nominee to be secretary of state, inside north korea with north korean dictator kim jong-un. the president of the united states confirming that that meeting took place this morning on twitter. what's the significance here? >> oh, it's enormous. this is the highest level meeting since madelyn albright in october of 2000 went to pyongyang. i was on that trip. that was the meeting with kim jong-un's father, kim jong-il. and they were actually moving towards normalization. not ending the armistice and