Confirmed to nbc news that the white house was made aware of it over a year ago, in early 2019. And in a new report, three officials familiar with that intelligence tell the New York Times that american officials intercepted financial transfers from a bank account that was controlled by the Russian Military to an account linked to the taliban. This afternoon the white house responded, criticizing the media for its coverage, slamming leaks, and defending the president. Since before President Trump assumed office, damaging and oftentimes erroneous leaks seeking to undermine or delegitimize the duly elected president have been published. The president was never briefed on this. This intelligence still has not been verified, and there is no consensus. The president has been briefed on what is unfortunately in the Public Domain because of the New York Times and the irresponsible leaks. More broadly, you know, i would reask the question of whether it was in his material but ask you maybe to defend why the president isnt necessarily reading his pdb when there are these type of issues . The president does read and he also consumes intelligence verbally. This president , ill tell you, is the most informed person and the suggestion that some members may be targeting the president. These are rogue intelligence officers. Members lyft are going after trump is that what youre saying . It very possible could be. Is the Trump Administration taking any action like an audit of the ic . What steps are you planning on taking to try to find the source of the leaks . Make no mistake. The doj has done referrals. 104 on average per year under President Trump. Trumps presumptive fall opponent has now weighed in as well. During his first News Conference in three months, joe biden accused trump of betraying his duty as president. The president ial daily brief is something i read every single day as Vice President. The president read it every day. I was briefed every morning before i got to the white house and then again. So the idea that somehow he didnt know or isnt being briefed, it is a dereliction of duty if thats the case. And if he was briefed and nothing was done about this, thats a dereliction of duty. Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers from the administration. Early this morning 11 democratic members of congress were briefed at the white house by the chief of staff, the National Security adviser, and the director of national intelligence, all of whom have been in the administration for less than eight months. Afterward, the House Majority leader and the Intelligence Committee chairman spoke. The president called this a hoax publicly. Nothing in the briefing that we have just received led me to believe it is a hoax. This was a red flag. It either was not waved, or the president ignored the wave. President truman said the buck stops here. President trump says i never saw the buck. The right people to give the briefing really were not in the room. We need to hear from the heads of the intelligence agencies about how they assess the allegations that have been made publicly. Seven Senate Republicans also got a chance to hear from the administration at another briefing this morning. It was held right after that session for house democrats. One of those republicans later said he believed what the white house had to say. After a very long briefing, im confident that President Trump didnt know about the reporting. There is some confusion in terms of our own intelligence, and it just didnt rise to the level of the president at that time. Two sources tell nbc news that tomorrow the socalled gang of eight, lawmakers the white house usually keeps in the loop on classified intelligence matters, will be getting their own briefing on the bounty issue. The Trump Administration is also trying to navigate the alarming surge in covid19 cases throughout much of the nation. At least 36 states are now seeing a rise in new cases. California and florida are being especially hard hit, both recording over 6,000 new cases each today. On capitol hill, dr. Anthony fauci gave members of the Senate Health committee this warning. Were going in the wrong direction. If you look at the curves of the new cases, so weve really got to do something about that, and we need to do it quickly. Clearly we are not in total control right now. We are now having 40 plus thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around. Today the Vice President and the Coronavirus Task force continued to press the importance of masks. Joe biden today offered his own plan on the coronavirus as he criticized trumps response. It seems like our wartime president has surrendered, waved the right flag white flag and left the battlefield. Today were facing a serious threat, and we have to meet it. You called yourself a cheerleader. We dont need a cheerleader, mr. President. We need a president , mr. President. Today the European Union officially barred travelers from the u. S. Citing concerns about covid19. In this country, eight new states have been added to new york, new jersey, and connecticuts 14day quarantine order for visitors to that area. Theres a total of 16 states that now fall under that order from that tristate region. Across the nation, governors are trying to control the latest surges by pausing or rolling back some of the reopening steps they had taken. 17 states have now moved in that direction. One expert says we may need to do even more. We have wasted, i would say, the last four, six weeks and have not acted with the urgency we need, and now were finding ourselves in a difficult situation where i suspect were going to end up having states with shelterinplace orders and having to lock down again. This is what we were all afraid of, but were running out of options. And here for our leadoff discussion on a tuesday night, clint watts, a former fbi special agent, a distinguished Research Fellow at the Foreign Research policy institute. His recent back is messing with the enemy surviving in a social media world of terrorists, hackers, russians and fake news. Also with us, anita kumar, associate editor for politico. And peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times. Thank you all for being with us. Peter, let me start with you. We played an exchange there from the White House Briefing this afternoon with kayleigh mcenany, the press secretary. She made a statement there that the president , in her words, reads his briefing materials, these classified briefing hes given each day as the president. I know theres been some discussion about whether he does read them. Shes also maintaining that hes not been briefed on this at all or hadnt been briefed on this before reports emerged in the press in the last few days. Is that the white houses official position on this because there are reports out there, as you know, that this was in his president ial daily briefing. The white houses position is that it was not in there . Well, she didnt actually answer that question. She didnt say whether it was or was not in the president s daily brief. She said he was not briefed. It may be a semantic difference where theyre trying to say tit was simply in writing but not orally briefed, it doesnt count as briefed. Im not sure. But she wouldnt confirm or deny it was in his written material. We learned from john boltons book and weve heard from other people who have worked with this president in the past that hes not a particular fan of the Intelligence Briefings. He doesnt seem to want them as often as his predecessors. He doesnt seem to pay as much attention as some of his predecessors. John bolton wrote Intelligence Briefings were often a waste of time because they were often consumed more by President Trump talking to the briefers rather than listening to what the briefers had to tell him. So its possible this was in his briefing package and he missed it, didnt see it. Its possible he was told this and didnt remember it or process it. It is possible, of course, that this information is still being debated within the Intelligence Community. But what we have not gotten, of course, is a sense of urgency from this white house about a situation that sounds so, you know, threatening to our own troops, especially given that, you know, this is a president who took action against iran for threatening troops in iraq. So i think thats, you know, the question. You heard a lot more anger and umbrage at this White House Briefing about the media reporting whats going on with the russians than you did at the russians themselves. So, clint, again, there are lots of possibilities here about what exactly happened, the sort of chain of events here. But the possibility that this was in the president s daily briefing, this intelligence, this material was in there and that he didnt see it, didnt read it for whatever reason, given as peter is saying that theres been suggestions out there for a while, you know, laymen like me have heard that the president may not always read this material. Do the folks who put the briefing together should they have put that into consideration and tried to find another way to get it to him . I think the case is probably that they tried many ways to get it to him. I mean just look at the situation. It seems its been going on for months, and probably part of the reason we know about this in the public is a general sense of frustration within the Intelligence Community with how information is or is not received by the president. Bringing up things the president doesnt want to hear. Being challenged essentially by information coming in from friends or media reports that he likes that he watches on tv, or even in some cases maybe Vladimir Putin himself providing the information to the president that he prefers over his own Intelligence Community. It has got to be a struggle to go in, try and cram all of this information about situations in the world. Youve got a pandemic. Youve got russia. Youve got china. Youve got cybersecurity. All of these issues, and youre trying to get the president s attention. And im not sure that the president , even if he heard it, would entirely understand what this intelligence is thats being provided to him. Anita, im curious what youre picking up from inside the white house from folks in the president s orbit as this story sort of explodes into the public and is being discussed like this. All of the questions it raises. What are you picking up from folks around the president . Are they concerned about this . Well, i mean obviously its another headache. Whether its going to be longlasting is, you know, were just unclear about. They still are divided at the white house how to approach the pandemic as youve mentioned now that states are seeing these surge in infections. So theyve got multiple things theyre looking at, and this is just another headache. The strategy as you mentioned so far as really been to go after the media, to go after leakers, different people, but really not to talk about the subject itself and not to take that seriously as peter said, but also just not really to talk about that issue at all. What theyre doing is sort of deflecting that. You know, his Campaign Today had a Conference Call with reporters. This didnt come up. They were talking about other issues, trying to hit joe biden on a variety of things. Actually, they didnt have one message. They had about six messages. So i think theyre really trying to figure out how to go about dealing with both of these issues and what that message is going to be. And, peter, im also curious what your sense is of how this is landing with the president s party, specifically with republicans on capitol hill. We have that clip we played of jim inhofe from oklahoma saying hes satisfied with the administrations explanation, but youve had a number of prominent republicans, notably liz cheney in the house among others, who have raised some questions saying they want to get very clear answers here about the intelligence, about what the administration knew, when it knew. The willingness of republicans to stand with the administration here as opposed to take a more aggressive posture maybe in trying to suss out some answers, whats your sense of how this is landing with republicans in congress . Yeah, look, this is coming at the end of what has to be one of the worst, if not the worst month for President Trump of his presidency. It started off june 1st with the clearing of lafayette square. The tulsa rally that was a disappointment to him and the rise again of the coronavirus across particularly the south and the west. And now of course this bounty story. I think that a lot of republicans are nervous. Theyre nervous that this president is not leading them into the Fall Campaign from a position of strength. Hes behind in the polls by double digits, and theyre now looking not just at losing possibly the white house but possibly even losing the senate. So theres less of a reservoir of good will there on the part of individual lawmakers. There are still a lot of course who are standing by the president , and they will because they either support him or agree with him or find him politically important. But youre seeing a lot more nervousness, i think, among the republicans. And i think the republicans too this goes to the heart of something thats been a concern of theirs for 3 1 2 years, the relationship between donald trump and Vladimir Putin has always been one thats confused and perplexed his own party, a party that built its bones on bei being tough with russia. Its something theyve long struggled with. Here you have a situation where there are reports the russians may be actually targeting troops, and the president of the United States hasnt shown any indication these concerned about that, only concerned about leaks about that. Clint, there are questions about what actually is in this intelligence, what is the nature of that information that in some way may have gotten to the president or at least been available to the president. Is it very clear cut in terms of establishing that russia was paying these bounties or offering these bounties, whether theres more conflicting information in there. Theres certainly the possibility here, it seems, that more will be learned, that the Intelligence Community will be able to ascertain more. But the White House Press secretary, kayleigh mcenany, today suggested that the fact that this has now emerged in public could hinder that. Whats your reaction to that . Whats your sense of what shes saying . I think its pretty much nonsense, steve. Look, all of the intel agencies make assessments on the information that they have, but that doesnt necessarily change the overall outcome from all of the parts. I think there is little to no doubt that the russians were undertaking this program. I think they have been targeting the United States in many different ways. Youre looking at the gru, the Russian Military intelligence, which has been at a breakneck pace attacking in the uk, throughout europe, syria, ukraine. If you look around the world, theyve been aggressive in every step of the way, and this is just one more step that theyve taken against the United States that they view as weak and a president that they believe they can manipulate. So when you look at it in its sum, the intelligence fits not only in terms of what we might see from the russians, a payback for what they probably feel from the 1980s but also a pattern of them being aggressive around the world. They see america as weak, and they pounce when they see us as week. Anita, its come up here in this decision, this has been politically a rough month for the white house. Its been a rough month for the president. Hes seen his standing against joe biden in the general election polls start to slip. Hes now about ten points behind nationally. Is there im curious, are you picking up any chatter in the white house about any kind of a concerted effort, any kind of a plan to change the trajectory, the political trajectory . Is it something theyre talking about . Is there something they think they can do . Well, for some months now weve been hearing actually, probably more than months, weve been hearing the possibility of a shake juup over at the campa to talk about, you know, how he can turn things around there. Now, we keep hearing that, and that really hasnt happened. Theres been a lot of criticism of the campaign manager, and hes still around, so im not sure that that is really, you know, going to happen. The president s soninlaw, jared kushner, is a fan of brad parscale, so it doesnt look like thats happening. We have seen a lot of Campaign Officials coming back from 2016, and i think one of the reasons is that the president thinks fondly of that time, right . He won when no one thought he was going to win, and so he wants to bring back some of those people who helped him win in some of those states where they didnt think they could. But youre exactly right. There is a sense that they need to get back on track and theres a difference of opinion on how to do that, both with the campaign and especially with the pandemic right now. Do they go a