we covered it or tried to straight down the middle. that topic, the national emergency we were facing as a people, nowhere to be found on the list of their top security priorities today. that s right, brian, and it goes beyond that one night in the oval office. for the last 40-odd days, president trump has only been talking about one crisis and that s the crisis that he sees at the southern border with illegal immigration. and yet we heard today from the intelligence professionals, from the people that president trump himself appointed to lead our nation s intelligence agencies that there are much greater crises elsewhere, that there is a crisis in north korea, that there is a crisis in syria still with isis, that there is a crisis with iran, and that there is a real growing crisis with china and russia perhaps converging to really do danger
out the threat from russia, today we learned that trump has apparently had another previously undisclosed private exchange with vladimir putin. that s in addition to a similar exchange back in 2017, the summit in germany, and their one on one in helsinki. this is from the financial times. they re reporting it today, quoting a russian government official, that trump and putin talked for about 15 minutes at the last g20 gathering in argentina and that they discussed a number of foreign policy issues. the paper reports that once again no translator or note taker from the u.s. team was present, and the state department has declined to discuss any details of the meeting. well, today the director of national intelligence was asked about these private meetings. according to press reports, donald trump met privately with vladimir putin and no one in the u.s. government has the full story about what was discussed.
and isis. trump has gone to great lengths to avoid casting russia and putin as adversaries for starters. here now a reminder of what he has said about the kremlin s efforts to interfere in our elections and society and what his intelligence team said today. i have great confidence in my intelligence people, but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. is russia still targeting the u.s., mr. president? thank you very much. the kremlin is stepping up its campaign to divide western political and security institutions. we expect russia will continue to wage its information war against democracies and to use social media to attempt to divide our societies. not only have the russians continued to do it in 2018, but we ve seen indication that they re continuing to adapt their model and that other countries are taking a very interested eye in that approach. even as the intel chiefs laid
hour, president trump s friend of 40 years, roger stone, appeared in federal court today. hard to make out all that s being said there, but he entered the court through a crowd of both protesters and supporters in court he entered via his lawyer a plea of not guilty. counts of obstructions, witness tampering, lying. the charges stem from the mueller investigation into russia. during the hearing stone said later. a departure from the kaleidoscopic3 appearances he has made in different venues, different outfits, on different networks since his arrest before dawn on friday. stone did manage to get his signatures nixon wave in. then about an hour after the hearing, stone called in to the korns the conspiracy theorist alex jones on info wars to again trash the case against him. this is a lynching. this is a legal lynching of me because i appear on infowars, because i m friends with alex
senate majority leader mitch mcconnell put forward an amendment urging that troops stay in syria and afghanistan. also, the congressional budget office stands by its conclusion that the shutdown cost our economy $11 billion, twice the money trump wanted for his wall, even though the white house doesn t agree with that figure. here with some perspective on presidents facing their own internal challenges, john harris, editor in chief and co-founder of politico. before that he was a veteran of the washington post, and surviving the white house, he went on to become a biographer of bill clinton. john, tharngz for conks for com always. we tend to forget that the president lost two big ones early on. keith schiller, his kind of go-to guy, nypd veteran. hope hicks. he then went for the first two of three chiefs of staffs. that can make a very big difference. his circle only tightened from