Years. We begin with President Trump in paris. Hell be greeted by french president Emmanuel Macron any minute now, and were going to bring that to you live when it happens. But questions about his sons meetings with a russian lawyer have followed him overseas. Weve got a great team to break it all down beginning with nbcs Hallie Jackson, who is with the president live in paris. I know how, hallie, President Trump would love to make this trip, being in paris, the headline of the day. But he himself is still talking about don junior and jareds meeting with the russian lawyer back in last june. Whats he saying . Well, you boil it down, it eventually is no harm, no foul here. Let me read you what the president is saying in this interview with reuters. He can pull up the graphic. He said it was a wild time and we would meet with in m people. It was a 20minute meeting, i guess, from what im hearing. Many people and Many Political pros said everybody would do that, if you got a call and said listen, i have information hillary and the dance dance, most people are going to make that meeting, i think. The president unsurprisingly defending his son here. But worth noting, stephanie, that political experts on both sides of the aisle say, sure, getting opposition research, getting dirt on an opponent is common. It is not common when that dirt is coming from a foreign national, particularly somebody from russia. We do expect to hear about this later on today when the president holds a short News Conference with president macron of france. We almost certainly think he will get at least one question about this. Theres only two, two questions for the french media, two questions from the u. S. Media, but this will likely come up and continue to dominate the day as we get ready for that arrival ceremony. The president is already in paris but theres a bigger ceremony happening in just a couple minutes. All right. Loads to dig through and i have an awesome panel here today. Glen thrush, New York TimesWhite House Correspondent and msnbc political analyst. Steven kornacki back from vacation, my dear friend. And msnbc National Political correspondent and bill coen, a special correspondent for vanity fair. Glen, since youre in d. C. You go first. President trump, his defense basically saying don junior took that meeting, anybody would have done the same thing. What do you make of that . I guess the anybody would have take than meeting is the corollary of the everybody in warsaw and germany was talking about john podesta. Po poed. They wanted that risotto recipe. Exactly. Look, ive been covering politics for a very long time and i can say with some level of assurance very, very, very few people would take that meeting who knew what they were doing and knew what the risks were involved. Its interesting that he would say that. I think thats going to come back to haunt him. Because weve already seen a chain of democrats and republicans and former National Security officials saying absolutely not you dont take that meeting. In fact, there have been instances in which campaigns have been approached by foreign governments and those campaigns have contacted the fbi. So if thats his story and he wants to stick with it, fine, but the voters and particularly people on the hill investigating this are going to have to determine whether or not thats an acceptable answer. My presumption is theyre not going to like that. One story team trump has been trying to say over and over, we have no ties to russia, but bill coen, you have followed President Trump in his career for years and i want to show you some video that nbc uncovered. It shows trump with his son emin at a Birthday Celebration back in 2013 in moscow. Take a look at this thing. Now here they are. I mean, could you make the argument, bill, that, listen, these are just two real estate moguls, yes, this guy might have ties to the government, but thats how these things go. Take yourself back to when you were a banker, when i was a banker. If you took a video of me from ten years ago, i dont know, maybe id be sitting there with someone i dont like very much. Or somebody who may be a client or somebody you want to do business with. Donald trump is living in his own bubble and has for many years, stephanie. Hes never had a board of directors. Hes never had shareholders. Hes never had anybody tell him he cant do anything. He gets away with whatever he wants to do and has been doing it far long time. Why is this any different . Is this a new biggie . Of course it is but not in Donald Trumps mind. In his mind, this is donald trump being and doing whatever it is he wants to do, which hes been doing for a very long time with nobody questioning it. I think this is the first time in his life people have started to question what he does and hes doing his usual attempts to fight back. Glen thrush, i want you to weigh in. New york times had a beautiful outline of what President Trumps strategy has been over the last 24 hours. And i want to pull up this quote. On wednesday morning, mr. Trump discarded pleas from advisers to avoid wading into the tempest over donald trump jr. And posted a fusillade of tweets defending him. By midday wednesday, the mercurial president was telling friends and adviser he believed the situation had improved. I think its getting better, he said. Please, take us inside the white house to his advisers because hes got some top advisers in there who were not part of the campaign, who only met President Trump in the last six months. Whats going on inside of this joint . C coe. Whats going on in general, weve had three straight off camera briefings from Sarah Huckabee sanders at the direct instruction of the president. Hes telling people to turn off the cameras. The bottom line is whats becoming increasingly cheer cloo is the president will do whatever he wants to do, and even his private lawyers, who have been advising them to cut it without the tweets and the loose talk, hes getting ignored. Trump predictably is getting ticked off at him and the rest of the legal team for telling him what to do. What youre seeing here is precisely what has been described and that is a president who likes to do things by himself, who likes to make decisions by himself, and instead of learning from the situation, and hes repeated mistakes with these loose communications, writing his own rule book and getting into trouble, he just seems to double down on his own behavior. The question is how long is this sustainable . And he can go to paris, to germany, to warsaw, but whats going on right now on the hill in term of health care, which he is not intimately involved in but hes waiting with a pen. He is waiting with a pen. Right. We dont know what for instance, we dont know what any of his preferences are in this Health Care Bill. Theyre debating it. He has been for the last i dont know 72 hours a ghost on that issue. You know, and were talking about all this stuff. Its the trouble that waits for him in washington when he returns on the policy front i think thats really going to hand him in. Hallie jackson, youre in paris with the president. He has advisers like gary cohn with him. He was with him at the g20. Yet we look at gary cohns oped today he penned with h. R. Mcmaster touting all the positives that came out of the g20 meeting and he makes no mention of russia. None. And why would they, stephanie . That is not what they want to be talking about. We know that. We know that anytime russia comes up in a headline or in a story or is mentioned on cable news, it infuriates President Trump. It seems natural that his advisers would not mention that meeting with Vladimir Putin, particularly since one of the deliverables that secretary of state Rex Tillerson talked about afterward, that Cyber Security working group, aint going to happen. Not surprising that its not mentioned. Lit likely come up here today when we sort of await this discussion between President Trump and president macron because the two of them are expected to focus on how to handle syria, how to handle the fight against isis. We have been told by Senior Administration official that is the topline agenda item here and you cant talk about Bashar Al Assad and whats going on in syria without talking about Vladimir Putin and how russia plays into that as well. I imagine that will be something that obliquely comes up. As for other policy issues between two of them, i dont expect well hear a ton about trade and climate. At least that was not the expectation cast by the white house. It could certainly given the president s defiance and ditching the Paris Climate Accord something that was very unpleasurable, displeased, the french president macron, and so but, again, i think they want to focus on areas of finding Common Ground, figuring out where they can get along and not so much on these serious and deep disagreements that have dominated the last two times these two leader have met, the g7 and the g20. We know President Trump doesnt like talking climate change, but Steven Kornacki, he does like his family. Axius reported President Trumps lawyers are trying to put together this wall that separated Jared Kushner from the president discussing anything tied to russia. This, of course, because jared is in some level of hot water about not disclosing meetings he had. We know he was in that meeting with donald trump jr. But chris murphy, a democrat from connecticut yes, a democrat came out this morning on morning joe and said if Jared Kushner does not get fired over this, it is an absolute double standard because mike flynn got fired for ties like this. What do you make of that comparison . Well, yeah. Also i think it gets to the bigger question here, where does it go from here . Is there going to be another shoe drop . One of the issues raced by all this here is the benefit of the doubt to the extent the Trump Administration had any benefit of the doubt on this whole question of russia, i think theyve lost that with the revelations in the last couple days. The months of insistence that there were no conversations of any kind, no communications. Now youve seen it, you see wit don junior, now the defense as well. Its limited. This guy is this crackpot publicist who is involved, not quite what it looks like but it raises the question of really . Did donald trump not hear about any of this at all until just a couple days ago or will there be a new revelation that he did, there was some other conversation . Thats where it could go from here i think. This guy is a crack pot publicist, why trust him . Glen thrush, why trust him . Don junior was going back and forth with goldstone in an email exchange. Furthermore, can we accept the premise that, well, they had this meeting and got nothing out of it . Why are we accepting the premise that they got nothing out of the meeting if President Trump himself at the podium said, well, i think were going to have some bad news coming up and we also know that the white house at least or don jr. Was sending us in different directions, changing their statement over the last four days . Why are we to believe yes, the meeting took place and we learned nothing from it . We are not to believe. There you have it. We are to explore. Look, i think whats fascinating about this is the chronology. Lets put this in the time frame. Hillary clinton the day before goldstone sent that email dangling this, Hillary Clinton gave a blistering Foreign Affairs speech in san diego in which she linked trump to putin. Now, it could very well be just a coincidence that goldstone makes the outreach to don junior right after that, but this was very much in the context of what was going on at that particular point in time. And i agree with steve 100 . The article seems to be in that same vein. You know, Jared Kushner is emerging as this thing moves forward in terms of his lack of dan kahn dcandor about the meet that he has not disclosed some of this stuff to even his own legal team, he is indeed in hot water. And the question is how long will donald trump, who does have filial loyalty, continue to sort of have kushner in this unbelievably undefined role . And by the way, when kushner was appointed to this role, which was described to us as the first among equals back at the end of last year, everybody pointed out that exactly this kind of thing could happen. So this was predicted and my question is and nick kristof also raises this on our editorial page today, how long can kushner continue to be in this role in this administration . I think as we move forward hi positions going to become increasingly more difficult to maintain. Bill cohan, final point. You wrote a piece for vanity fair talking about all the people from goldman inside that white house. I mentioned the oped that gary cohn wrote about the g20. Those inside that white house who are not part of the campaign, that are standing by the president , when you look at that oped, that mcmaster and gary cohn wrote today second one theyve written together. What you note most specifically as we said earlier is whats not in there. Are they going to continue to let the president hijack their credibility . And you know what, were going to misrepresent or lead yes, he backed article 5, which he didnt in that speech in the last oped that they wrote or here we have yet again were going to leave out russia. Gary cohn is well aware of russia. That was front and center at the g20. These are the existential questions that these guys who are not with him during the campaign have to face. Why is gary cohn going to allow donald trump to ruin a reputation that hes spent 30 years building up with Goldman Sachs and frankly trying to burnish it by going into the white house to the National Economic council, trying to get a tax cut passed if thats what he believes in. Hes a democrat, working for a republican. Now hes got to be really concerned i think about his rp youation. And thats why i think youre beginning to see these noises about him going to the fed. Hes of course leading the search for the fed chairman pim think he pulls a dick cheney here and become the candidate, the vp, or in this case the fed chairman as a result of the Search Committee hes heading. It would be a brilliant exit strategy. Well take a break. Coming up any moment now, President Trump will be met by french president emanuel macron. Well bring that to you live. Next, Senate Republicans society the reveal their new Health Care Bill just two hours from now, but with some in the gop already voicing their ablute opposition is this bill dead on arrival . Before we go, i have to share a little bit of late night. Stephen colbert weighed in on the white house trying to defend don junior at least anonymously. Another anonymous source said, the kid is an honest kid. Okay. Pump the brakes a little bit here. This kid is a 39yearold man. And i got to say, its never a good sign when the person sticking up for you wants to remain anonymous. Don junior is a good person. Wait, youre not going to use my name, right . For your heart. Your joints. Or your digestion. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. Only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol® we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. And at 4. 95, you can trade with a clear advantage. Fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. They have to get together an get it done. What happens if they dont . I dont want to talk about it because i think it will be very bad. I will be very angry about it and a lot of people will be very upsit, but im sitting waiting for that bill to come to my desk. Got a pen ready. That was President Trump talking about the need to pass legislation to repeal and replace obamacare, a promise we heard over and over on the campaign trail. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell is expected to unveil the text of a revised Health Care Bill this morning after an 11 30 meeting with gop lawmakers. But it is already meeting opposition from some republicans. Heres what senator rand paul had to say about the new version. The Obamacare Repeal bill is not a repeal. The new bill is actually less of a repeal than the old bill. Theyve now taken the bill and made it worse. I will vote against the motion to proceed. Well, there you have one mans opinion. Nbcs kasie hunt is on capitol hill and following the bills progress. Kasie, Mitch Mcconnell, he only needs 50 votes to get this thing open, to debate next week. What are the chances hes going to get support . Yeah. Well, when you say only 50 votes you make it sound a little easier than it will actually be in practice. Rand paul has been pretty much against this process from th