that came out of it. this is just hours after the abrupt end to the second nuclear summit between president trump and kim jung-un. kelly o donnell is joining us from a hanoi with the details. kelly, the foreign minister putting a lot of meat on the bones of what we didn t know. all we knew is that deal didn t happen. the u.s. had demands that north korea was not prepared to meet. tell us what we now know. reporter: well, this was a surreal experience because north korea holding a news conference, how unusual it is. and then to say it is at midnight local time. and so the foreign minister took questions from an asian journalist. and then hallie jackson was there and was trying to get questions answered. and an aide to the foreign minister addressed her in english saying that they would not take questions at least not from u.s. media. but a surreal scene where this
we were traveling commercially and that endangers us. we weren t going to go because we had a report from afghanistan that the president outing our trip had made the scene on the ground much more dangerous because it s just a signal to the bad actors that we re coming. you never give advance notice of going into a battle area. you just never do. perhaps the president s inexperienced didn t have him understand that protocol. the people around him, though, should have known that. that s very dangerous. and then so we re saying, well, it s not only been our safety, that s one thing, but the more important thing is the people who we would be meeting with, our civilians there. our own troops first and foremost, again, they take so many risks for us. we didn t want to heighten the
it didn t matter to the jury because there is so much other evidence against paul manafort that that evidence carried the day. it is fascinating if we step back for just a moment and look at this trump tower moscow deal. the deal didn t happen. the talks stopped before donald trump was elected. even if we are hearing different stories about when they talked. as you look at this through a national security lens, is there a reason for concern here that you see? you know, i mean, i think you want to be careful not to say like there is a deal in russia therefore it is bad. but you have a lot of context here. you have a president who seems to want to take vladimir putin s word over his own intelligence services at times. you have a president who keeps insisting that vladimir putin and the russian government are potential partners and people we should be favorable to. why? they have not proven to be reliable allies, friends of any sort for many, many years.
president s defense there about this trump tower moscow tower was the deal didn t happen, it was an option. he s trying to have it both ways. it almost sounds like we never got the dirt on hillary clinton so therefore its not relevant from a legal perspective, is that a credible defense? no. i think its a problematic defense and i m betting his attorneys are pulling what s left of their hair out as they listen to him make these statements because he s all over the place. he starts out by saying cohen is a liar, none of this is true, the trump tower project in moscow ended in january of 2016, which, by the way, is what cohen told congress in 2017 after the president had been sworn in, so and why is important? its important for two reasons. number one, during the summer of 2016 before he was sworn in, before he was elected, they were discussing the republicans, the plank on how russia would be treated, about how ukraine would be treated at the same time this
that period during 2016 when he was still a candidate, and where it conflicts is this notion that there was never any discussion about a potential deal with russia because clearly that was something that was under consideration. now, what would the president s answer be to this discrepancy. he would argue, look, ultimately the deal didn t happen. that s what you heard him say on the south lawn moments ago, craig, and that s what he s digging into. the fact that ultimately there was no deal. but the challenge, and i think where the focus is going to be is the fact that there was clearly discussion, ongoing discussions between michael cohen. michael cohen briefing then candidate trump about a potential deal with russia, and that s where i think the real challenge is going to be for this president moving forward as he tries to explain this, this major development, this major twist in the russia investigation, craig. natasha bertrand is also with me again, msnbc contributor has been foll