putin and talked with him at some 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. that was former obama cia director john brennan on meet the press today, among those doubting trump held putin accountable, senator john mccain. we know that russia tried to change the outcome of our election last november, and they did not succeed, but there was really sophisticated attempts to do so. so far, they have not paid a single price for that. yes, it s time to move forward, but there has to be a price to pay. why does there have to be a price? otherwise he will be encouraged to do so again, obviously. i mean, does anyone doubt his intentions? joining us now, former chief
john mccain and others strongly support. so there s a little confusion there as to what was talked about with sanctions. of course, we know that putin would love to see some of the things that president obama enacted himself. executive level sanctions. he d like to see those rolled back. maybe that s what president trump was referring to. richard? let s stay on the topic of russia right now. a story that you ve been following here and a new report from new york times about an alleged meeting with the russian national during the campaign season. what do we know about that? reporter: well, donald trump jr. and jared kushner, through his lawyer, both acknowledged there was a meeting, along with paul manafort, who served as campaign chairman at the time in june 2016, so a couple weeks after president trump, then a candidate, secured the nomination, but before the convention taking a meeting at trump tower with a woman who is a russian attorney and the new york times in its reportin
continues to be this weight dragging him down on the russia story. that is the question, how big of a weight might it be, knile, as we look at word sanctions discussed between putin and president trump, was the denial then strongly rebuked by president trump? how does this resinate right now for voters in the heartland and the next election outside of the beltway? so on the one hand, president trump has declared the g20 a great success, but him saying that or tweeting it doesn t necessarily make it so. i think that this meeting with putin was one that the russians have more cause to be happy about than the american side does. the question of how far or how much it resinates outside the beltway, that is a different question. i can understand voters thinking that they have many more pressing issues in their lives and minutia of whether sanctions were discussed, for example, but the problem politically is it s
republican senator lindsey graham and his reaction. it s not the dumbest idea i ve ever heard, but it s pretty close. he gave a really good speech in poland, president trump did, and he had what i think is a disastrous meeting with president putin. nobody s saying, mr. president, the russians changed the outcome, you won fair and square, but they did try to attack our election system. they were successful in many ways, and the more you do this, the more people are suspicious about you and russia. senator marco rubio was more harsh, saying, partnering with putin on a cybersecurity unit is akin to partnering with assad on a chemical weapons unit. kelly o donnell at the white house, good afternoon to you, kelly. the president seems to be reaffirming what the secretary of state, rex tillerson and others have been saying in the readout from that meeting. reporter: well, this was the president s first look person account of what happened with that meeting of president putin.
we had heard from secretary tillerson, who was the other official in the meeting. these were the two people sitting across from vladimir putin and describing what went on during the two hours and 16 minutes. both men are saying president trump went after putin in terms of pressing him, is the word, each of them used, about the hacking. both say that putin denied it. putin is saying publicly that the president accepted his response. u.s. officials are not characterizing it that way, although the president wasn t specific about that. so in many ways they are talking about the same things. there is one area of discrepancy that i haven t been able to sort out yet. i ve asked white house officials for clarification. the president tweeted today that sanctions did not come up and that until syria and ukraine are resolved as issues, they would not come up against russia, whereas secretary tillerson did tell reporters that the president raised the issue of sanctions. he was referring to congres