It was such a nothing, there is nothing to tell. I wouldnt have even remembered it until you start scouring through the stuff. It was literally a wasted 20 minutes, which was a shame. Family values. Up against a mandatory court deadline, the administration reunites migrant families and children after being separated for months. But hundreds more remain in custody, these childrens fate unknown. Its terrible. The case, the immigration case itself is already confusing and very difficult. Add on top of that weeks or in some cases months of having been separated from your child. And coming home. North korea turning over what it claims are the remains of 55 American Service members killed during the korean war. The first tangible result of promises kim jongun made to President Trump at that singapore summit. Theyre coming back to the United States. We have many others coming. But i want to thank chairman kim in front of the media for fulfilling a promise that he made to me. Good day, everyone, im Andrea Mitchell in washington, where President Trump is extolling the latest news on Economic Growth and the return of what could be the remains of 55 Service Members from the korean war. But he is not answering questions about those reports, confirmed by nbc news from a knowledgeable source, that his long time former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is prepared to tell prosecutors candidate trump was well aware of that top Level Campaign meeting in trump tower with a group of russians before it happened in june of 2016. Mr. Trump, responding today only on twitter, quote, i did not know of the meeting with my son, don junior. Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam, taxicabs maybe . He even retained bill and crooked hillarys lawyer, gee, i wonder if they helped him make that choice. A lot to unpack there. Then, resisting any urge to speak to reporters after the president s only public event so far today. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Reporter mr. President , is Michael Cohen telling the truth . Is Michael Cohen telling the truth . Mr. President , is Michael Cohen telling the truth . That of course our own kristen welker. The president is scheduled this afternoon to lead his First National security meeting in the white house situation room on how to prevent russian meddling in the upcoming midterms, despite the president s frequent description of the Mueller Probe as a witch hunt, a phrase also picked up this week by his National Security adviser john bolton. Joining me now, nbc White House Correspondent kristen welker, msnbc National Security contributor Michael Schmidt, and msnbc legal analyst mimi rocah, former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of new york. Kristen, the choreography today clearly reflecting bill shine, the new former fox executive, brought in from Fox Television previously, to be the deputy chief of staff and communications director. This was not a scrum or a gaggle, nothing like that crazy moment on the north lawn when you were all chasing him a good half hour a couple of weeks ago. Reporter in one sense, andrea, this was far more orderly, youre absolutely right. This was meant to allow the president to take that victory lap on the economy, to showcase those strong gdp numbers. And remember, andrea, put it into context, its the second time this week that we have seen the president in one of these impromptu victory laps. We were given a happen hours notice before todays announcement that the president would be coming out on the white house south lawn. Earlier we were given the same amount of notice when he came out with the president of the European Union to talk about a trade deal. Bill shine doesnt want the president answering a lot of questions, clearly, andrea, because weve shouted questions in both instances, the president not taking the bait and answering. One of our sources confirmed overnight that Michael Cohen is prepared to tell whomever asks him about that meeting with don junior. The fact that President Trump knew about it beforehand. That of course flies in the face of everything the president and this white house has said on this beforehand. I spoke to lanny davis, Michael Cohens attorney, when i asked if he was actually going to flip, he said, look, i dont endorse the word flip, however Michael Cohen is prepared to tell want truth. So President Trump not answering our questions yet about that very critical topic. And of course it relates to russian meddling, it relates to russias attempts to interfere in the u. S. Election. We will hopefully have another shot later on today when he departs for bedminster, andrea. And Michael Schmidt, youve got a lot of reporting, you and your team as well, that Robert Mueller has been asking people about the whole issue of the president s tweets and whether that could play into a potential obstruction issue. Give us the background there. Yeah, so the president has said a lot of things about james comey, the former fbi director, Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, on twitter. Hes gone after them, hes tried to undermine them. And what the investigators are looking at is how those tweets line up with the president s conduct in private. As the president was trying to pressure these guys about the investigation, trying to get them to do different things, trying to get sessions to reassert his control over the investigation after he recused himself, in it cocomeys case, g to get comey to undercut the investigation. Why was he trying to say these things publicly . Was he trying to obstruct the investigation and could mueller take all of these pieces and tie them together into a larger narrative about the different efforts the president undertook to impede the investigation . Mimi rocah, i want to talk about the Michael Cohen factor and what may or may not be happening. Don juniors legal team has responded to what was reported overnight, saying that donald trump jr. Has been professional and responsible throughout the mueller and congressional investigations. We are very confident, he continues to say, of the accuracy and reliability of the information that has been provided by mr. Trump junior and on his behalf. This to the point of whether or not there was any coordination with his father before, during, after that meeting, which was only one floor away in trump tower. And we know from other records that the president , thencandidate donald trump, was there in the Trump Tower Office that day, and then had even more opportunity to speak to his son because they went offsite to a campaign luncheon. So what would be the significance if these reports are true about what Michael Cohen is supposedly asserting . Andrea, its incredibly significant. This is huge. If the government can prove, and im using those words carefully, ill get back to that in a minute, if the government can prove that donald trump knew about the meeting with the russians ahead of time, knew at least generally the purpose of the meeting, and gave it the goahead, he is smack dab in the middle of a conspiracy to defraud the United States by the process of Fair Elections with the russians. Now, lets go back to what i said, which is if the government can prove that. And thats where Michael Cohen comes in. Michael cohen may know this, he may have it in his head, he may have intentions to say it. But what the government needs is a witness. A witness is evidence. And the way that Michael Cohen becomes a witness is to become a cooperator with the government. That hasnt happened yet. As far as i know just from reports, theres no indications that its even on that path yet. Hes indicated he wants to but he hasnt gone down that road yet. So that needs to happen. The government would need him as a witness to testify in court. And then they would never rely just on him for that. They would use other corroborating evidence, some of which we know about, but there may be much more that either the Southern District or mueller knows about. But no one should underestimate how big this is, if its true, in terms of putting trump in the middle of a criminal conspiracy. And if the government can prove it, weve seen Rudy Giuliani not only in the last 24 hours but in the last couple of weeks, try to muddy up Michael Cohens reputation and soil him, if you will, as a potential witness. And if they dont have a corroborating witness, they need some other sourcing for that. I want to play candidate trump speaking to Peter Schmidt and maggie haberman, whats the date on this, michael . Last july. So this is when he was president , july of last year, the famous wish i hadnt hired Jeff Sessions. If i knew he was going to recuse himself. It was a remarkable evening, i was at the aspen security conference with people from National Security, people were saying Jeff Sessions was so humiliated he would have to quit right now, and of course he did not. Lets play the tape. It must have been a very important must have been a very unimportant meeting because i never heard that. It sounded like a very unimportant meeting. So unimportant meeting, sound like an unimportant meeting. Michael, that is synced up with what don junior said when he was testifying to the congressional committees. Correct. Theres a lot of folks under oath who say he did not know, don junior saying the president didnt know about it, other folks, i believe Jared Kushner testifying to the same thing. The president obviously maintaining that he knew nothing about it, including after it came out. Now, one of the questions mueller is looking at is how the president or the role the president played in crafting a statement on a flight from europe to the United States last july on air force one. We, the times, it gone to the white house about this. We were about to write about the meeting. And the president helping to put together a misleading statement about that. Was the president trying to obstruct the investigation, sending the investigators off the scent of the trail of evidence, by, you know, essentially putting out false information about the nature of the meetings . What happens is, the white house puts out a statement, they have to amend it several times, and eventually they sort of recanted about the meeting, initially not. So kristen, finally, youre going to have a National Security meeting today. They have been roundly criticized for not having done a governmentwide effort to try to stop election hacking. Were going to talk about this a little later because we already have some evidence of one democrat who has faced an attempted hack by the russians, claire mccaskill, in a key senate race. But the fact that the National Security adviser talked about it as a witch hunt this week in a statement where he revoked the invitation to vladimir putin, that is so astounding because the National Security adviser is supposed to be the person supporting the Intelligence Community or at least, you know, assessing their report. And they have been consistent repeatedly, as we know, that there was real russian meddling and it was to try to help Donald Trumps election. Reporter it was stun to go re stunning, andrea, to read that, john bolton calling the investigation a witch hunt. The president has a new legal team now. Remember when he was represented by john dowd, ty cobb, they said, look, we dont want you engaging with, attacking in any way, shape, or form, Robert Mueller and his investigation. That will be the fastest way to get it over as quickly as possible, we want to be honest brokers in this. We have seen the president and officials on his team start to attack Robert Mueller more aggressively, refer to this as a witch hunt. All you have to do is look at the president s own twitter feed to look at the increase in his tweets really aimed at the special counsel. Its mixed messaging, andrea, on this day when hes going to hold that critical meeting on election interference. Well know what specifically comes out of it and what steps are going to be taken moving forward, andrea. Kristen welker, thanks so much. Thanks to all of you, Michael Schmidt, mimi rocah. California congress mman joins. Youre a former prosecutor. Don junior testified and, strangely, cited Attorney Client privilege to shield conversations with his father, a privilege that does not exist. Does Congress Need to hear from him again now if these Michael Cohen assertions can be backed up . Well, we certainly do. We ought to bring him back in. I think we should extend an invitation to Michael Cohen to come back in. But i dont have much confidence that the majority will go along with any of this. After all, we knew that there was a call sandwiched between don juniors efforts to talk to Emin Agalarov in the setup to this meeting. We wanted to find out was this don junior talking to his father about the meeting. There would be a simple way to find out, we could subpoena the records, and the majority wasnt even willing to subpoena the phone records. Beforehand, when it was still being set up, with their former friend and someone they had dealt with during the Miss Universe pageant in moscow. Exactly. It was part of a pattern, andrea, where hope hicks wouldnt talk about, for example, what went into the fabrication of that statement that the meeting was about adoptions. Corey lewandowski wouldnt talk about it. Steve bannon wouldnt talk about it. And unfortunately our majority was happy to not have them talk about it. But we do need to get answers. I hope and expect bob mueller is getting answers. The implications of this, and i agree completely with your analysis, are huge. It goes to the issue of conspiracy and potentially brings that right to the president s feet. It also goes to the issue of obstruction of justice. If the president in any way encouraged his son to lie under oath to the senate about this or to the house, it would not only go to obstruction but it might go to subornation of perjury. The implications are very serious. Vladimir putin today at a conference in south africa suggested that he would like to have the president visit him in moscow if theyre ready to meet there. Sarah sanders responded saying that trump looks forward to having president putin in washington after the first of the year although hes open to visiting moscow upon receiving a formal invitation. This goes back to what john bolton put out yesterday, just before secretary pompeo testified at what turned out to be a withering bipartisan attack by the Foreign Relations committee on the secretary of state. He put out a statement saying, the president believes that the next bilateral meeting with president putin should take place after the russia witch hunt, his words, is over, so weve agreed that it will be after the first of the year. Now, our reporting is that this retreat on the putin fall summit in d. C. Was at the behest of the republican congressional leaders who had seen the president earlier in the day and said this could be a Midterm Election disaster. It certainly could be a Midterm Election disaster for republicans. But more importantly, it could be a terrible sequel disaster for the United States. But we have to remember this about john bolton. When john bolton was auditioning for a position in the Trump Administration, he went on fox news, and thats how you do audition for positions in the Trump Administration, and he suggested that the russians may not have hacked the dnc t krchc that it may have been a false flag operation by the obama administration. I mean, that i think for conspiracy theorists, even they looked at that theory and said, wait a minute, i dont even get that. But that was what john bolton was putting out when he was seeking this position. So the fact that he would now call it a witch hunt is distressing but not at all surprising. I think the back and forth on a future summit between putin and the president shows now just how much putin feels hes in the drivers seat with this president. He can essentially throw cold water on his coming to the white house, something that any other world lea