welcome back to hardball. more now on our top story. according to the new york times president trump s former personal lawyer michael cohen secretly recorded a conversation in 2016 with then candidate trump regarding a payment related to playboy model karen mcdougal. following his meeting with russian president vladimir putin in helsinki on monday. the question is no matter how damaging the cohen story, will it provide a much needed distraction from the president regarding helsinki? let s bring in our round table. never before in american history would you suggest that a story like today s about donald trump and his lawyer and the phone call and the payments and the
the u.s. government don t seem to know what was agreed upon in helsinki on monday, and he made the point that i think is an important point, which is, look, this conversation about him, about ambassador mcfaul and the other americans that president putin said he wanted to question as part of his very interesting proposal to essentially also deal with the 12 indicted russian military intelligence officers indicted by robert mueller last week, so ambassador mcfaul said to me, well, listen, this is what we know about was discussed privately between president trump and president putin, this cockamamy allegation. what does that tell you about what we don t know in that meeting? and i think that s a very important point. this is very, very worrisome to people who are worried that they just don t know what the president of the united states has agreed on behalf of thesuze
article s going to talk about the fact that even people inside the u.s. government don t seem to know what was agreed upon in helsinki on monday, and he made the point that i think is an important point, which is, look, this conversation about him, about ambassador mcfaul and the other americans that president putin said he wanted to question as part of his very interesting proposal to essentially also deal with the 12 indicted russian military intelligence officers indicted by robert mueller last week, so ambassador mcfaul said to me, well, listen, this is what we know about was discussed privately between president trump and president putin, this cockamamy allegation. what does that tell you about what we don t know in that meeting? and i think that s a very important point. this is very, very worrisome to people who are worried that they just don t know what the
welcome back. today marks the end of a really bad week for president trump. it began with that disastrous press conference with russian president vladimir putin in helsinki on monday and ends with an invitation on the table for putin to come to washington. in between, the white house tried to walk back or clarify the president s position on all things russia, including, of course, whether the president believes russia interfered in the 2016 election. but the people around him were a lot more definitive. he s got his view, he s expressed his view. i can tell you what my view is. the intelligence community s assessment has not changed. like terrorism and other national security threats, a malign foreign influence threat requires a unified strategic approach across all government agencies. it was important to take that stand on behalf of the intelligence community and on behalf of the american people. obviously i wish he would have made a different statement. let s bring back toda
we re happy to say an the arthur of the new book, happens to be jermaine, from cold war to hot piece, an american ambassador in putin s russia. jonathan la mere is back with us. you may have seen him questioning presidents trump and putin in helsinki on monday. do i know the people to surround myself with r o what? 34r6r789 ambassador, in addition to what heather earnhardt just said, closer to what governments say in this event, here s your former boss, john kerry. the administration needs to make it unequivocally clear that in a million years, this wouldn t be under consideration, period, full stop. not something that should require a half second of consultation. dangerous. again, ambassador mcin all, that s the kind of thing governments say. were you surprised to not get someone reflexively watching your back at the top of the government white house today?