those great people and truly make it great. so, it s a one-time it s a one-time shot. and i think it s going to work out very well. well, reaction and details on the unscheduled presidential briefing. joining me nbc s kristen welker. ben rhodes, former national security advise tore president obama. also eugene scott of the washington post and nbc s ali vittelli. to kristen, first. the president touched on a wide amount of topics. let s get to other highlights. in addition to what you laid out, alex, president trump reiterated his call for russia to rejoin the g7 group. of course it used to be called the g8. i know you played a sound bite to this effect. that was one of the big
i think what surprised me the most was seeing the president completely absolve putin and his reactions on crimea and the american government as well. it seemed he would not acknowledge not only putin s past behaviors but the referral to acknowledge it was wrong. and the refusal to make any moves that would reverse that decision? yes. and other things that have happened regarding russia and crimea. so, ali, this was unscheduled, do you know how this briefing came about? no, but as many meetings with this president, he s the person that says the message the loudest, the clearest. and really, this makes sense for someone who went to the g7 with
preparations at all, ali, that the president may be going through that parented his leaving the g7 early for singapore and the north korean summit? i m not sure about prepping. but what something ben says stands out the president saying i don t need to prepare, i ve been preparing my whole life. and then you have secretary pompeo saying i ve been briefing him consistently. that is when you look at the players and inside politics on this. pompeo is somebody who has been briefing the president daily as cia director. he s someone who kind of earned the name of the trump whisperer because he really did know how to speak trump s language and they did develop a close relationship because of that. i think those conversations are happening. as much as trump is making it seem, oh, i m going off of my gut and past in business, there are clearly preparations going into it that he s been privy to.
russian economy. he s talking tough about something that happened years ago while at the same time, he s talking of letting russia off the hook by letting him back into the g8. if any viewers are wondering why did vladimir putin meddle in our election, what did he get tour it? this is what he got the atlantic alliance split and u.s. president unraveling the post world war ii order where we stand with our allies and we don t pick fights with them. and then putin mentioning he should be brought back in from the cold and i think that s the worst possible signal to be sending now. ben, i m going to talk about your book in a second but right now, i want to bring in eugene scott and ali. eugene, your take away from all of this what most surprised you? i was asking the takeaways.