paying for a large portion of their defense. they were taking advantage of the united states and therefore, of course, they like biden because now they will be allowed to return to their old ways of ripping off our country end quote, and of course, looming on the president's schedule is his wednesday meeting with president vladimir putin. that's the firstmeeting between the two men. we will not see the trump publicly backing the kremlin over american intelligence. the biden team has announced that the president will hold a solo press conference after his meeting with putin, so we will not be seeing him side by side with putin taking questions along with the russian president. joining me now is "washington post" senior washington correspondent phil rucker, he's also an nbc political analyst, and the coauthor of the best selling book "a very stable genius, donald j. trump's