With this traveling white house, not all the baggage is in the cargo hold as the Associated Press puts it tonight, this president heads overseas trailing questions. The latest round coming from the revelation that his eldest son was eager to welcome russian help in the campaign to elect donald trump and tweet Hillary Clinton. Quoting from the a. P. , in private, trump has ranled against the latest russia development. With most of his ire directed at the media, not his son while staffers have grown accustomed to a good news cycle being overshadowed by the russia investigations, trump aides and outside advisers privately acknowledge that this weeks developments felt more serious. From politico, one trump adviser said the white house is essentially helpless because the conduct happened during an anything goes campaign that had few rules. In a predeparture interview with reuters today, the president defended his son don junior saying, i think many people would have held that meeting. Yesterday he called his eldest son a high quality person. The president today also talked about his own meeting at the g20 in germany with Vladimir Putin. He told reuters he spent at least 20 minutes asking putin about russias election hacks. Quoting the president , said did you do it . He said no, i did not, absolutely not. I then asked him a second time in a totally different way, he said absolutely not. On the suggestion his campaign colluded with russia, he said, its the dumbest thing ive ever heard. In the president s other interview of the day with Pat Robertson of the christian broadcasting network, he suggested there was no way putin wanted him to win the 2016 election. If hillary had won, our military would be decimated. Our energy would be much more expensive. Thats what putin doesnt like about me. And thats why i say, why would he want me because from day one i wanted a strong military. He doesnt want to see that. From day one, i want fracking and Everything Else to get Energy Prices low and to create tremendous energy. He doesnt want that. He would like hillary. She wants to have windmills. Okay . He would much rather have that. There are many things i do that are the exact opposite of what he would want. When i hear he would have rather had trump, i think probably not. In fact, the president told reuters he had one regret about an omission when he sat down to meet with putin. Its really the one question i wish i would have asked putin. Were you actually supporting me . The today at the house they continued to support don juniors contention that his father didnt know the about that russian meeting in trump tower last june. They contend he only learned about it recently. But in the face of that, theres this is. Donald trump speaking on june 7th, the very same day his son agreed to the russia meeting. I am going to give a major speech on probably monday of next week and were going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the clintons. I think youre going to find it very informative and very, very interesting. Trump did give a major speech on that monday focusing instead on National Security. Lets at this point bring in tonights starting panel. Four of our veterans on this broadcast. Philip rucker, White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post, Jeremy Peters political reporter for the New York Times ] shannon petty piece from bloomberg and michael crowley, Senior Affairs correspondent for politico. Mr. Rucker, you contributed to a piece in the Washington Post tonight by abby philip, the headline a million miles an hour. Inside Trumps Campaign when trump junior met with russian lawyer. Because its still the story, because it has changed the direction and scope of the investigation and its still germane, take us back as a result of your reporting. What was going on at that time that week, that day . Yeah, so this was a really critical moment in the campaign. It was as the primaries were transitioning into the general election. Donald trump had become effectively the republican nominee but had not yet secured the nomination. There was all this talk about a delegate fight at the upcoming convention. But he was behind Hillary Clinton in the polls. He was getting hit by her. He was underfunded. He didnt have the Political Organization in place. He didnt have any kind of a Research Team in place. And so he was his campaign was desperate for any advantage that they could seize against Hillary Clinton. And that is one of the reasons people who worked on the campaign explained why don junior was so eager to take that meeting to potentially get some Opposition Research about Hillary Clinton even if it came from the russian government. And michael, you did some important writing this week that got a good long ride for you about donald trump jr. And the take away was his love of all things russia and especially all things moscow. Yeah, brian, weve spent a lot of time in the last many months talking about President Trumps relationship with russia and his handful of trips there. But actually, when you zero in on donald junior, hes the one whos been to russia nearly ten times by my count. I was able to be establish eight or nine trips based on his public remarks over the years and even his social media. There are great tweets from a trip he took in 2011 where hes bragging about buzzing the tree tops outside moscow flying under the radar in closed air space. You find quotes from him saying, for instance, that moscow might be his favorite city in the entire world. Hes going over there again and again looking for business to find revenues for Trump Organization and clearly developed this affinity for the place. He even tweeted about how saint basils cathedral in red square was his favorite landmark and he never missed a chance to see it in the city. This guy had a relationship with the city and clearly people in it and russians who saw him i think as someone they could approach, it made him a natural target, if you will, brian, for outreach like this. Jeremy, about the president , you heard the man. He asked putin not once but twice and yet, as president , hes not willing to be as unequivocal as the Defense Intelligence agencies. Thats exactly right. I think the white house had a tremendous credibility problem going into this week and its denials if they didnt mean much before the New York Times started reporting on this meeting with donald trump jr. , they mean almost nothing now. Its a problem because in order to believe that donald trump knew nothing about of this meeting, you kind of have to disregard everything we know about the dynamics of the trump family, how close they are and how closely trump relies on the counsel of the people who have been with him the longest. Its also to kind of defies belief because you would have to believe that donald trump jr. Who felt this meeting was so important that he included paul man for the, the Campaign Manager and Jared Kushner, the Senior Adviser in it in the first place didnt believe it was important enough to tell his father about. I think there are a lot of questions and they all kind of culminate with whether or not you can trust donald trump at his word when he says something didnt happen when his word has been proven wrong time and time again. Shannon, youve written what this story has done in terms of a hit to the president s clout. Right. And i feel like ive written this story a number of times now. Just when you think his credibility or standing with members of congress couldnt go any lower, theres another scandal. Im back to the story of how the president is losing any sort of political capital, any leverage he had in congress to get things done. On the big issues that people vote ford him on, on their health care being too expensive, not having good jobs, worrying about paying for their kids college. The reason who vote ford him put him in the white house, those efforts are being harmed by this constant scandal machine this constant distraction that they create themselves for not being transparent or making misleading statements. The west wing only has so much bandwidth and so much political capital. Each month that goes by, each negative story they spend more and more and more of that. And philip, to shannons point a lot of journalists feel like they have an f7 key for the parts of this story that come up again and again and again. Our mutual friend Maggie Haberman at the types published a piece on the effect of this story on members of the trump family at large about Jared Kushner trying to diminish the importance of this meeting, having had to circle back and report this meeting in the first place. And this kind of cycle goes on. It sure does. I feel like every time i sit down write one of these inside the white house stories, im going straight to the source to look up a word for chaos or disorder or expass prayed or fuming or watching television. It repeats itself and thats what weve seen again this week where the president has been watching a lot of television. Hes been following the scandal closely. Hes been reacting. Hes angry about the headlines dominating it. Hes frustrated that his son, his namesake son is now dragged into it. He feels like its all a conspiracy by the media and by the democrats. Michael crowley two words, policy agenda. Whats left of it and what to make of it in the president taking off saying hell be very angry if health care doesnt get through the under Mitch Mcconnells command. Saying that prior to leaving the country. Brian, you know, republicans after this election were in heaven. Obviously they had concerns about donald trump and they knew he was a loose cannon but had the strong majorities in congress and basically thought trump is going to trump and kind of do his performance art, reality show stuff and were going to pass a bunch of bills and hes going to sign them and its going to be great. They havent passed anything. By this time in george w. Bushs presidency, he had many weeks since passed an enormous tax cut of over 1 trillion if i recall correctly over ten years. They were on their way to getting other things done. And so that agenda is not happening. You know what is happening though, which is really amazing to me, is hes pushing forward with a Good Relationship with Vladimir Putins russia. You would think that any other politician in this situation would be going out of his way to say puff out his chest against russia, im going to stand up to russia. This putin guy, i dont trust him or like the looks of him. Trump is full speed ahead trying to improve relations with russia. You see he continues to resist saying anything critical about him as recently as an interview today, he was asked whether he trusts putin pep wouldnt give a direct answer. Reading between the lines of his answer, he basically said yes. Thats the most remarkable thing about his policy to me right now, brian. Shannon, this story, the donald junior email story was a punch to the gut admittedly and now all this video is surfacing all over the place showing trump prior visits with the russian pop star, the russian pop stars father, the british pr guy. All of it is kind of out there establishing a prior relationship. What has this done, ill ask the obvious, to morale remorse and kind of employee regret . I mean, its another one of those stories that seems to be just when you think it cant get worse, inside the white house, it gets worse and phils great reporting on it today or yesterday, you look at the mood inside the white house and theres a real sense inside the white house of concern. That top officials acknowledge this shouldnt have happened. They are concerned particularly i hear a lot of concern about Jared Kushner. He is one of the few people from the campaign that went inside the white house at a very high level concern about whether he can sustain this or not. But to this foint point we were talking about earlier on the campaign, theres also a sense of people involved in the campaign that for over a year, that was a white knuckled ride of constant chaos, constant controversy and they got through. And that this is just going to be another four to eight years of that. So get ready. Get on board. Thats just the way things are and get used to it. Jeremy, you heard that the train is leaving. I want to give you a few seconds to tell us about that hearing in the senate today. Was the man whose live testimony we all covered the next director of the fbi and did he carve out an independence enough path for himself . I think so. He probably did so without providing the kinds of answers that would make his boss to be believe that he could be somehow disloyal. I do think that one of the most notable points in this whole hearing was some of the toughest questioning came from a republican, lindsey graham. Graham is certainly no friend of Donald Trumps, but it shows kind of where the party is in its head about this problem now. This latest problem, russia and donald trump. And its not a good place, brian. Well take our first break. Panels going to stick with us. When we come back, it was almost two months ago you may recall, minutes after the president was wheels up on his first overseas trip, bad news dropped on russia back home. Tonight with the president airborne again, there are staff concerns about what could break while the boss is away. More on that when we continue. Welcome back. Hey youve gotta see this. Cmon. No. Alright, see you down there. Mmm, fine. Okay, what do we got . Okay, watch this. Do the thing we talked about. What do we say . Its going to be great. Watch. Remember what we were just saying . Go irish see that . Yes im gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. Find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. Welcome back. No one expects you to remember this and there wont be a test, but it was may 19th, 2 30 in the afternoon, air force one was wheels up on President Trumps first overseas trip as president. And then within minutes, a slew of damaging stories dropped including the now infamous revelation that he told the russias the russians that were visiting the oval office that james comey was a nutjob and that firing him took the pressure off of him in the investigation. Well, tonight, white house staffers are worried another overseas trip could be hit with bad headlines back home. Politico is report top west wing aides are exasperated by their limited ability to steer the daniel control and the risk that more damaging news has yet to emerge. Philip, jeremy, shannon, smikle, remain with us. Philip, ill start with you. This is the president who said paris isnt paris anymore. Flying to paris to meet with the new french leader, same age as donald trump jr. Macron who got the better of trump in the famous unending handshake. Trump is a man who appreciates manual tests of strength and skill. A fraught relationship already. What was in it for trump wanting to go on the trip to mark the french revolution and the entrance of the u. S. Into world war i . Yeah, so a couple things. You mentioned that handshake. I was actually the White House Pool reporter in the room for that handshake. It was a really interesting moment. I think its still going on actually. The big picture here, youve got the new french president. He has a reason to want to meet with r with trump. He just survived his own Bruising Campaign where he beat rather a candidate who was very much like a trump. France. So hes trying to win over some of her supporters domestically. President trump is drawn to this moment in part because of all the pomp and circumstance hes going to have in france, in paris on bastille day. Theyre promising a military flyover, a mirkt parade, flags, horses, the kind of show that he wanted to have here in washington for his own inauguration. Once macron told him what this event would really be like, trump got excited and decided he wanted to go. There you have it for the benefit of mr. Kite, it has all those ingredients. This might be a foreign trip to watch. Yeah, its going to be fascinating. You know, trump has been very derisive about france as phil pointed out. Theres a great line, france isnt france anymore. He describes a sort of dystopia in paris where sharia law has run amok and there are portions of paris you cant go into because its too dangerous and its sharia martial law so forth. He seems to detest modern france but the feeling is quite mutual. The recent Pew Global Attitudes poll show trump has a 14 Approval Rating in france. So some of those le pen voters do like him but overall the french people dont. Macron in many ways has styled himself as a kind of antitrump. He defeated Marine Le Pen who was sort of in the vanguard of this populist movement in europe echoing a lot of the trump impulses and macron has been a strong champion of things like internationalism, the Nato Alliance and, of course, the paris climate accords. Hes going to be convening a meeting in paris on the anniversary of those accords which trump has withdrawn from and has made the u. S. A global holdout on. I think theyll be friendly as they stand next to each other. Theres a lot of underlying friction. Jeremy as we bring it backing to this country, about that building behind you, you are always our truth teller about congress. Are we really going to see a new senate or any kind of Health Care Plan and how much work is going to be don