box to put this in. there really isn t one. there isn t a context. this is all new when you add it all together in the context we re seeing. the president, as you say, who is decrying the practice of flipping, not just decrying flipping but saying i got a lot of friends who were in criminal trouble and pressured to flip. how many presidents go out there and tell how many friends they had facing criminal charges. how many times you have a president attack again his attorney general saying he doesn t have control of the department. by which he means he doesn t have control of the threats to me through these investigations. this is just one week. so, you know, the trump presidency has been basically everything that people predicted it would be. it s been a wild ride and we re not even anywhere close to where it could still end up. yeah. not to be too pat and quoting winston churchill, it s not the beginning of the end but after this week i think it s safe to say certainly the end of the
volatile trump rallies. i think the president has sent a message to despots abroad that you can attack the press. we ve never had a president attack the press on foreign soil. both of us manage newsrooms with people who cover governments that don t like the press. it s i can t tell you how concerning it is that this president has essentially told those governments you can beat up the press. you can call them enemies of the people. how can my correspondent in cairo who covers a government that s often an tig nisk to the press, how can he make the case for the first e-mailed and the power of amendment and the power of the press when we have a president of the united states who says the things he says about the press. don t miss this conversation. it s 7:00 tomorrow eastern time rights leer on cnn.
or is it time to walk down into the office and get it done? no, i think ari, i think there s still some maneuvering going on here. but this tells me, for sure, this is exactly why the attorney, michael cohen, recorded his client. that s an extraordinary thing. i ve been doing this for 35 years, and i ve never done it, except as a prosecutor when i was trying to investigate both the lawyer and the client. then i would send the lawyer in and say who s cooperating and say, hey, record your client. that didn t happen here. and you saw even the tweet saying from the president saying it s outrageous that my client i mean, my lawyer, michael cohen, would record me. but there s a reason why he did it. because he has seen, before, this president attack, attack, attack. and knowing that, he s got these tapes in his pocket, along with documents and maybe some other
about what everybody else has said today that this was just a sad and dangerous day for our democracy. the president had a chance to stand up to vladimir putin and he just didn t do it. anderson? you think about ronald reagan even turning to gorbachev and saying trust but verify. and he said it in a funny way that got a laugh, if i recall correctly, but, you know, it s tough and it sends a message. that s right there. is a lot of ways the president could have confronted vladimir putin and he chose not to do any of them. jim, thanks very much again. one question runs through this entire story, one word, really, why. why can the president not seem to confront vladimir putin over this? why can the president attack our allies, attack theresa may, not to her face, of course, in the pages of the sun tabloid in england and to her face saying she is a wonderful woman. attacking angela merkel, but again not to her face. he always does this kind of stuff, same with the prime
correctly, but, you know, it s tough and it sends a message. that s right there. is a lot of ways the president could have confronted vladimir putin and he chose not to do any of them. jim, thanks very much again. one question runs through this entire story, one word, really, why. why can the president not seem to confront vladimir putin over this? why can the president attack our allies, attack theresa may, not to her face, of course, in the panls of the sun tabloid in england and to her face saying she is a wonderful woman. attacking angela merkel, but again not to her face. he always does this kind of stuff, same with the prime minister of canada, trudeau attacking him for attacking the white house behind the president s back, something the president knows a lot about. joining us now is retired army lieutenant colonel ralph peters. he joins us now. colonel peters, as someone who has shared your concerns over how president trump would handle this summit, i just wanted to