i will mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name. a sitting congress member indicted for insider trading creating another midterm headache for the gop. trying to trap him into perjury because you don t have a case. president trump s lawyers rejecting robert mueller s terms for a sit-down interview in the russia investigation. russia responding to a new round of sanctions. we go live to moscow. do you know how the fire started? i have no idea. i was asleep. police say that man started a destructive wildfire in california that is still raging out of control. welcome back to early start. i m phil mattingly. i m christine romans.
said on a split screen. the white house reluctantly imposing sanctions on a regime that we are not talking about the mueller interview. the russia sanctions. you have senator rand paul presenting a letter of introduction of donald trump to vladimir putin. two different optics. very different optics. coming on the same day. the other element, you assume the white house would rather impose sanctions for chemical weapons than election meddling. that is the thing that president trump thinks is delegitimizing his entire presidency. he would rather do chemical weapons. this is like something out of di dickens. something you don t hear about much. slapping russia with sanctions on the same day. not the kind of thing we heard
absolutely nothing to do with the poisoning of the skripals in the united kingdom. and the u.s. sanctions are totally illegitimate. what we have to remember is this all comes out of the feverish political atmosphere that is at play in the united states, particularly after the summit in helsinki between president trump and president putin of russia which president trump is perceived as weak compared to the russian leader. it shows how much pressure there is building in the u.s. right now to adopt a much tougher stance toward the kremlin. it comes from that, phil. a lot of pressure. this is the first round. a second round of sanctions could be triggered in a couple of months. matthew, thank you. let s bring in zach wolf live from washington. good morning. on the subject of the sanctions on russia, it is as if we have
interfere in our elections again. midterms are less than 100 days away. this bill is very straightforward. it says that if after the election, the director of national intelligence finds that the russians have interfered in our election, there will be automatic very tough sanctions. would require no action from the president or from congress after that. that s right. i mean, we re in the process of negotiations right now, but that is the whole idea to deter interference. you think mitch mcconnell would be willing to let this come to the floor? mitch mcconnell has indicated this is one of the measures he s looking at but you raised a big question, this is kind of the test over the next three weeks about whether or not the republican leadership in the senate and the house is serious about protecting the 2018 elections and serious about protecting our democracy. we re going to have some hearings coming up, but if those hearings are not followed by real action, then they ll be sayi
the midterm elections in november, but at times it seems we are no closer to defending our election systems from outside meddling. a bipartisan piece of legislation that aims at slapping russia with sanctions should they interfere in any upcoming elections is gaining widespread support on capitol hill. it s called the deter act. it was introduced by senators chris van hollen and marco rubio and would require the u.s. to impose major sanctions if a foreign government meddled in any federal election. democratic senator chris van hollen of maryland joins me now here in studio. senator, it s great to see you. thanks for coming in. great to be with you, kasie. on a sunday night. we talked about it before on this show. in the wake of tehelsinki, is seems to be gaining new momentum. yes, after the performance of president trump with president putin, people became very concerned that the president s not going to protect the integrity of our elections and we also know from dan coats, the