said in all capital letters, do not congratulate putin on his victory. a source now tells nbc news that chief of staff john kelly is frustrated and deeply disappointed, not with the fact that the president congratulated putin, but with the leaker. and as this is placing out, the president is making it crystal clear to the public what is on his mind today. can you guess where? twitter of course. he s criticizing a range of enemies, the leaker, robert mueller s investigation, and of course democrats. who was barred from today s twitter rant, putin and any actual criticism against russia. strange. following this from the white house for us is my dear friend and colleague kristen welker. please, take me inside. what is going on inside of that white house. i get it. it has to be deeply upsetting if you are john kelly or the president that one of your closest advisers is leaking to
meddling and shouldn t have congratulated president putin and should have raised the issue of the two spies poisoned in the u.k. now what we know to be true is that this is clearly getting under the president s skin, that tweet and evidence of that and a source familiar with the matter tells me john kelly infuriated as well and described as being frustrate and deeply disappointed by this leak. so they are trying to get to the bottom of exactly how this happened. but as you point out, steph, the broader issue here is the president s tone and this juxtaposition at the white house several days ago. they imposed new sanctions against russia for meddling in the 2016 election and then the phone call, the president saying the two leaders could meet, in fact, in the near future. i think he said it three times. but it is important to note if the president wants to push that president obama made a call to putin a few years ago, he did it and to your point, he got harshly criticized, specifical
nielsen and former secretary jeh johnson sat side by side taking a slew of questions from both sides of the aisle and listen to what they said about the president s role when it comes to making sure all state officials understand exactly what the threat of russia s meddling looks like. would it help if the president were to simply acknowledge that this happened in 2016? yes, sir i said he happened but the line that he is drawing that no votes weren t changed. it doesn t mean there is not a threat or do more to prepare. how important is it for the president to articulate and acknowledge this happened so that peek take it seriously? very. the president of the united states is the most visible american, maybe the most visible person on the planet and the things he says and does are watched very, very closely. i don t think the president
include some funding for those first steps to try get the wall going. those steps seem as preliminary steps. but again, they are steps that are satisfying the president for now. it seems like this is poised to move forward and to keep the government open. now it is never a done deal until it is done. we know that. from having monitored these things in washington for a long time. but at this point in time, it seems as though all systems are go in terms of keeping the government open after house speaker paul ryan met with the president here at the residence for about 45 minutes. well that will be good news. because certainly government workers don t want to see another shut down. kristen welker, it is snowing, go inside. thanks for joining me. and it is a snow day at white house but down on pennsylvania avenue, the senate intelligence committee grilling top intelligence and election officials about securing voting systems before this year s mid-term elections. this morning current home
the press, but maybe they are leaking because they think it is a national security issue. reporter: right. and this is broken by the washington post, the fact that the president s briefing notes said in caps do not congratulate, he congratulated president putin any way. moments ago the president weighing in on this on twitter. let me read it to you. he called president putin of russia to congratulate him on his election victory. in past obama called him also. the fake news media is crazed because they wanted me to scory ate him. they are wrong. g getting along with russia and others is a good thing, not to unpack. he is right, president obama did call putin in 2011 to congratulate him. he raised eyebrows when he did that as well. the back drop comes in the wake of russia s meddling in the 2016 election and that is why you have this bipartisan criticism of president trump. those who say he should have raised the issue of russia s