michael mcfaul to moscow and we were sending browder. i am talking big organization saying we were literally getting rid of those people. that was not the thing. he was talking about russian sitting in on asking questions and we would sit in it s not good and they said today it s not going to happen. there is relief among the white house staff that the president were was able to do this thing. as relieved as staffers are, despite the fact that it kept the story going, there s no sign of the prisoners had a change of heart on any of these. it s a fig leaf for the hill, for them to have enough to say he s still my guy. we signed a treaty with russia. bill clinton signed it that we will cooperate on criminal investigations. when putin was making an offer, he was laying a trap will need
bret: getting the interpreter to come to capitol hill and it doesn t seem like that is going anywhere. it would be really inappropriate to interrogate the interpreter. it s an executive function, it s an executive branch privilege thing. it s a bad idea. at the same time, the fact that people forget donald trump, before they walked it back, donald trump in the helsinki press conference touted this idea of this reciprocal deal with the russians where they get to interview browder and mcfaul as a really intriguing offer. that did not inspire confidence that that conversation went as swimmingly as we are being told. i don t take the president s word for it. i don t take his word for it in the nato summit when he said he got people to agree to it and then nato leaders said they didn t happen. it would be good to get clarity. bret: the coverage of that seemed to go off the rails because suddenly we were sending