president putin at his word when putin denied russian meddling in last year s election. take a listen to what reince priebus said on fox news sunday. the president absolutely did not believe the denial of president putin. what the president did is he immediately came into the meeting, talked about russian meddling in the u.s. election, went after that issue at least two separate times. this was not just a five-minute piece of the conversation. this was an extensive portion of the meeting. reporter: priebus comments came a day after several administration officials given multiple opportunities to correct the record, to refute putin s claim, declined to do so. back to you. athena jones at the white house, thank you. president trump now appears to be backing away from the idea of forming a cybersecurity unit with the kremlin. sunday morning he tweeted, putin and i discussed forming an impenetrable cybersecurity unit so that election hacking and many other negative things
but first, let me take you to twitter where the president was very active this morning talking about, you guessed it, his conversation with russian president vladimir putin. he said, and i m quoting now, i strongly pressed president putin twice about meddling in our election, he vehemently denied it. i ve already given my opinion. later he tweeted: putin and i discussed forming an impenetrable cybersecurity unit. okay. so that election hacking and many other negative things will be guarded. now, the latter obviously raised a lot of eyebrows on capitol hill liken that to having the fox watch the henhouse. check out what florida senator marco rubio tweeted. he said, look, partnering with putin on a cybersecurity unit is akin to partnering with assad on a chemical weapons unit. but secretary of state rex tillerson is trying to explain the administration s thinking. the election interference really shows how complicated the use of these types of tools are becoming.
that s absolutely insane. who is that just saying, there it is. that was me. david, can you jump in and talk about this. i mean, this, i m speechless. again, two days in a row i m speechless. here s the tweet putin and i discussed forming a cybersecurity unit so election hacking and many negative things will be guarded. say what? jonathan, i have known you a long time. you re never truly speechless. but the level, the level of absurdity that we ve seen over the last couple days with the president saying everyone at the g20 is talking about john podesta and not turning over service to the cia. everything in that tweet was wrong. his inability to even say anything strong or assertive to donald trump about, to putin about putin attacking the united states. you have lindsey graham and other very few, just a very few other republicans coming out against this now saying we re going to create a cyberworking
him has a message to say this about cybersecurity. i know this will raise a lot of eyebrows let me show this. vladimir putin and i discussed forming a cybersecurity unit so election hacking and many other negative things will be guarded. so what is the thinking behind this? here is rex tillerson with a bit of an explanation. the election interference really shows how complicated the use of these types of tools are becoming.we have to find a way to begin to adjust that and it is not going to be only about russia. it will be about an international engagement as well.chris international engagement indeed. still the administration s willingness to coordinate with the kremlin on cyber is going to raise eyebrows but white house officials saying listen, slow down. it doesn t mean it is the end of the election meddling story.
countries. why can t president trump himself bring himself to say what ambassador haley and others are proclaim being russia s election meddling? here s former cia director john brennan. he demonstrates good negotiating skills when it skms to mr. putin. it comes to mr. putin. two days before warsaw, he gives president putin the opportunity to point to the failures of u.s. intelligence. i think he ceded that ground. also before he met with mr. putin and talked with him at length which i m glad he did he said it s an honor to meet president putin. an honor to meet the individual who carried out the assault against our election? to me it was a dishonorable thing to say. president trump appears to be backing away from the idea of forming this cybersecurity unit with the kremlin. he tweeted, putin and i discussed forming an impenetrable cybersecurity unit so that election hacking and many other negative things will