WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:08.260 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Isolated in his own party, at odds with advisors and, as ever, defiant. 00:08.260 --> 00:14.290 align:start President Trump ignites a political firestorm over Russia. I'm Robert Costa. 00:14.290 --> 00:20.260 align:start We dig into the latest reporting on the Trump administration tonight, on Washington Week. 00:20.260 --> 00:22.910 align:start PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) I let him know we can't have this, we're not 00:22.910 --> 00:26.520 align:start going to have it, and that's the way it's going to be. 00:26.520 --> 00:31.120 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Under pressure from some Republicans and Democrats, President Trump 00:31.120 --> 00:37.470 align:start insists he did confront Russian President Vladimir Putin about election interference. 00:37.470 --> 00:41.760 align:start But earlier in the week, he mostly accepted Putin's view. 00:41.760 --> 00:44.760 align:start PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) I have great confidence in my intelligence 00:44.760 --> 00:52.140 align:start people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his 00:52.140 --> 00:55.890 align:start denial today. He just said it's not Russia. 00:55.890 --> 01:00.910 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Those statements led to confusion and concern on Capitol Hill and raised 01:00.910 --> 01:05.380 align:start new questions about the president's handling of foreign policy. 01:05.380 --> 01:10.050 align:start Does he trust his own administration's intelligence on Russia? 01:10.050 --> 01:12.470 align:start DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DAN COATS: (From video.) I think anybody who thinks 01:12.470 --> 01:17.490 align:start Vladimir Putin doesn't have his stamp on everything that happens in Russia is misinformed. 01:17.490 --> 01:23.370 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Now the president is planning another summit with Putin, this time at the White House. 01:23.370 --> 01:26.870 align:start DIRECTOR DAN COATS: (From video.) That's going to be special. (Laughter.) 01:26.870 --> 01:31.110 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Putin will not be invited to 01:31.110 --> 01:37.820 align:start Congress. We go inside the story next. 01:37.820 --> 01:47.370 align:start ANNOUNCER: This is Washington Week. Once again from Washington, moderator Robert Costa. 01:47.370 --> 01:52.630 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Good evening and welcome back to Washington Week. And welcome to our new home. 01:52.630 --> 01:57.930 align:start You can be assured that even with a fresh look and feel, our commitment to in-depth 01:57.930 --> 02:01.180 align:start conversations remains the same. Now, to the news. 02:01.180 --> 02:05.420 align:start The fallout from President Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin has 02:05.420 --> 02:11.930 align:start only fueled Mr. Trump's resolve. And he invited Putin to the White House this fall. 02:11.930 --> 02:15.390 align:start But that wasn't the only flashpoint this week. 02:15.390 --> 02:19.160 align:start Dan Coats, the president's Director of National Intelligence, gave a candid and 02:19.160 --> 02:23.730 align:start revealing interview during a security summit in Aspen Colorado. 02:23.730 --> 02:27.030 align:start When asked about the Trump-Putin summit, he had little to say. 02:27.030 --> 02:30.980 align:start DIRECTOR DAN COATS: (From video.) I don't know what happened in that meeting. 02:30.980 --> 02:34.420 align:start I think as time goes by, and the president has already mentioned some things that 02:34.420 --> 02:39.850 align:start happened in that meeting, I think we will learn more. But that is the president's prerogative. 02:39.850 --> 02:44.350 align:start ROBERT COSTA: And he was surprised to learn a second summit was in the works. 02:44.350 --> 02:47.730 align:start ANDREA MITCHELL: (From video.) That Vladimir Putin is coming to the White House in the fall. 02:47.730 --> 02:53.000 align:start DIRECTOR DAN COATS: (From video.) Say that again. (Laughter, applause.) 02:53.000 --> 02:55.930 align:start ANDREA MITCHELL: (From video.) You -- Vladimir Putin coming to the -- 02:55.930 --> 02:57.820 align:start DIRECTOR DAN COATS: (From video.) Did I hear you -- yeah. 02:57.820 --> 03:00.870 align:start ROBERT COSTA: The interview made instant headlines, with White House aides wondering if 03:00.870 --> 03:07.240 align:start Coats was going rogue and national security officials alarmed that the DNI was out of the loop. 03:07.240 --> 03:12.750 align:start Still, a new poll shows Republican support for the president's performance in Helsinki 03:12.750 --> 03:18.120 align:start is sky high. Seventy-nine percent approve, and 18 percent disapprove. 03:18.120 --> 03:21.180 align:start Some Republicans, however, are not cheering. 03:21.180 --> 03:26.850 align:start In an op-ed in The New York Times, Republican Congressman Will Hurd of Texas wrote this, 03:26.850 --> 03:31.940 align:start Over the course of my career as an undercover officer in the CIA, I saw Russian 03:31.940 --> 03:36.930 align:start intelligence manipulate many people. I never thought I would see the day when an 03:36.930 --> 03:42.310 align:start American president would be one of them. Quite a week. 03:42.310 --> 03:46.820 align:start And joining me around the table this evening, Margaret Brennan, moderator of CBS' Face 03:46.820 --> 03:50.790 align:start the Nation, Yamiche Alcindor of the PBS NewsHour, 03:50.790 --> 03:56.650 align:start Jonathan Swan of Axios, and Dan Balz of The Washington Post. 03:56.650 --> 04:01.640 align:start Let's go back to Director Coats and the question that has gripped Washington this week: 04:01.640 --> 04:08.440 align:start What is going on at the highest levels of the government with the people around the president? 04:08.440 --> 04:12.800 align:start Margaret, you've spent much of your career covering the State Department, talking to top 04:12.800 --> 04:18.750 align:start national security officials. What is the reality of what's happening around this president? 04:18.750 --> 04:22.970 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: The reality is that there is one Trump administration policy on 04:22.970 --> 04:27.460 align:start paper, and then there is one that the president carries out. And they don't always match up. 04:27.460 --> 04:32.020 align:start And no one on the national security team can actually honestly tell you with certainty 04:32.020 --> 04:35.330 align:start that when the president walks into the room that he will stick to the principles they've 04:35.330 --> 04:38.390 align:start laid out. The president celebrates this as flexibility. 04:38.390 --> 04:43.300 align:start He says this has been an asset when he's been negotiating real estate deals. 04:43.300 --> 04:46.850 align:start Obviously the risk level is much higher when we're talking about national security 04:46.850 --> 04:50.730 align:start objectives. And so this is where it creates this tension. 04:50.730 --> 04:56.480 align:start You heard that from the DNI Dan Coats, and looking gob-smacked on stage, almost making 04:56.480 --> 05:03.170 align:start light of this idea that he, even though he oversees 17 intelligence agencies, didn't know 05:03.170 --> 05:07.730 align:start that at one time the Russian ambassador and the foreign minister were going into the Oval Office. 05:07.730 --> 05:10.660 align:start And he didn't know that Vladimir Putin was about to be warmly welcomed around the time 05:10.660 --> 05:13.960 align:start of the upcoming congressional races. That's not a good look. 05:13.960 --> 05:21.950 align:start But at the same time, the DNI I think was showing here that this was some space between 05:21.950 --> 05:26.210 align:start him and the president because he wants to stand with the people in the intelligence 05:26.210 --> 05:29.350 align:start community whose work he was defending on that stage. 05:29.350 --> 05:33.670 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Jonathan, what's the view inside of the West Wing as they are watching all of that? 05:33.670 --> 05:37.570 align:start JONATHAN SWAN: Well, I got two phone calls in pretty quick succession. 05:37.570 --> 05:41.870 align:start One -- the first one was literally while it was still going, going are you seeing this? 05:41.870 --> 05:46.630 align:start Have you seen this? Did you know about this? I didn't know about this. Did you know about this? 05:46.630 --> 05:51.680 align:start And the second one was pretty shortly after that, was a senior White House official who 05:51.680 --> 05:58.410 align:start was already speculating about Trump firing Coats. This is not having yet spoken to the president about it. 05:58.410 --> 06:02.550 align:start They're all completely blindsided by this interview. 06:02.550 --> 06:06.120 align:start My understanding is John Kelly didn't know about -- the first he learned about it was 06:06.120 --> 06:12.370 align:start when he saw it and sort of went, oh, OK. So that's not atypical in this administration. 06:12.370 --> 06:16.960 align:start They are -- if you talk to anyone at the moment in the West Wing, you can get pockets of 06:16.960 --> 06:22.300 align:start information in a particular siloed area based on what they spoke to the president -- you 06:22.300 --> 06:25.220 align:start know, the last time they spoke to the president two days ago. 06:25.220 --> 06:29.210 align:start But no one feels confident in giving you -- imparting information. 06:29.210 --> 06:34.630 align:start Like, people aren't even really pretending to -- you know, eight months ago everyone was 06:34.630 --> 06:39.900 align:start giving you these great theories of how, oh, actually he's really playing 4-D chess and 06:39.900 --> 06:45.880 align:start deep insight into how the president thinks. Now they just sort of go -- it's a big shrug. 06:45.880 --> 06:50.570 align:start They really don't even pretend to interpret the president anymore or pretend that they 06:50.570 --> 06:53.660 align:start know what's coming next. 06:53.660 --> 06:56.310 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Yamiche, Jonathan used the word silo. 06:56.310 --> 06:59.040 align:start Is the president isolated as he makes foreign policy? 06:59.040 --> 07:03.110 align:start And if Director Coats didn't know about the invitation to Putin, who's driving that 07:03.110 --> 07:06.450 align:start second invitation to Putin inside of this administration? 07:06.450 --> 07:09.890 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: I think President Trump is absolutely driving everything. 07:09.890 --> 07:12.950 align:start And the fact that he spent two hours when he was supposed to spend 90 minutes with 07:12.950 --> 07:17.420 align:start President Putin alone in a room with only translators -- he didn't take the people that 07:17.420 --> 07:21.270 align:start are close to him, he didn't take at least Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or John Bolton. 07:21.270 --> 07:24.960 align:start He didn't say, I need to have at least my super top aides with me in this room. 07:24.960 --> 07:27.550 align:start He said, no, I'm going to go at this alone. 07:27.550 --> 07:32.950 align:start And the fact that the DNI Dan Coats is saying that, well, we'll figure out what was said 07:32.950 --> 07:36.280 align:start at some point, at some point things will kind of leak out to us, it's almost like they're 07:36.280 --> 07:40.710 align:start waiting for journalist like me, you, and Jonathan, and others to tell them what happened. 07:40.710 --> 07:45.380 align:start I think that as much as we as reporters think that we're wondering, OK, how do we kind 07:45.380 --> 07:48.660 align:start of get at the information, the people that are in the West Wing, as well as the people 07:48.660 --> 07:53.030 align:start who are working for the president are themselves kind of searching for information. 07:53.030 --> 07:55.370 align:start And I think President Trump likes this. 07:55.370 --> 07:59.800 align:start There's this idea that he feels as though he knows what's best for his administration. 07:59.800 --> 08:03.790 align:start I think at the very beginning there was some idea that, you know, he was young, and he 08:03.790 --> 08:08.770 align:start was -- or, not young, but he was not someone who was very experienced at being president 08:08.770 --> 08:11.290 align:start or in politics, so he needed to have people around him that 08:11.290 --> 08:14.710 align:start would kind of usher in and kind of guide him. 08:14.710 --> 08:17.180 align:start And now he's saying, look, I've been doing this job for more than a year and a half. 08:17.180 --> 08:19.890 align:start I know what's best, and this is what I'm going to do. 08:19.890 --> 08:24.060 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Dan, you're writing your Sunday column about Coats and President Trump. 08:24.060 --> 08:28.370 align:start What's grabbling your attention as you sit down to write that and you talk to your sources? 08:28.370 --> 08:32.130 align:start DAN BALZ: Well, I mean, the first thing that grabs all of us is what we just saw again 08:32.130 --> 08:37.440 align:start with that reaction by Dan Coats. That is an extraordinary moment, to see 08:37.440 --> 08:44.040 align:start the director of national intelligence caught by surprise about a meeting with the Russian president. 08:44.040 --> 08:48.940 align:start We've never seen anything like that. And you walk this week back to Helsinki, 08:48.940 --> 08:54.710 align:start and everything that has happened has been out of the ordinary and different than what you would expect. 08:54.710 --> 08:57.520 align:start I talked to a person today who had been in a previous 08:57.520 --> 09:02.390 align:start administration in a senior national security position. 09:02.390 --> 09:09.180 align:start And he made this observation, which was a decision to bring the Russian president -- 09:09.180 --> 09:15.160 align:start particularly this Russian president -- to the White House in prior administrations would 09:15.160 --> 09:20.440 align:start have been done only after national security meeting, principals meeting. 09:20.440 --> 09:26.350 align:start He said, there seems to be no process in this White House to make these kinds of decisions. 09:26.350 --> 09:32.470 align:start Similarly, he said there seems to be no process for assessing what happened in Helsinki. 09:32.470 --> 09:36.470 align:start And Dan Coats was in the dark about what happened in 09:36.470 --> 09:40.490 align:start those two hours between the president and Putin. 09:40.490 --> 09:46.430 align:start So, you know, as Margaret said, we have a situation in which you have a president and 09:46.430 --> 09:52.240 align:start his national security operation going in separate tracks, and a White House staff trying 09:52.240 --> 09:56.660 align:start to constrain a president who's determined to make his own rules. 09:56.660 --> 10:00.160 align:start ROBERT COSTA: And we all remain in the dark a little bit about what actually was 10:00.160 --> 10:03.050 align:start discussed at that meeting between President Trump and President Putin. 10:03.050 --> 10:06.760 align:start Based on your reporting, what have we learned about what has actually been agreed to or 10:06.760 --> 10:10.060 align:start may be agreed to between these two countries? 10:10.060 --> 10:12.970 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, because only the interpreters were in the room, the top 10:12.970 --> 10:16.800 align:start advisors are relying on what the president is retelling. 10:16.800 --> 10:20.600 align:start And from what I'm told from my sources, the president was insistent that he held a firm 10:20.600 --> 10:26.100 align:start line specifically on the conflict in Syria, saying that he wouldn't be drawing down the 10:26.100 --> 10:30.680 align:start 2,000 or so U.S. troops there until Iran withdraws its forces. 10:30.680 --> 10:35.460 align:start That's a pretty indefinite timeline. Iran is firmly entrenched there. 10:35.460 --> 10:40.130 align:start But what that does is that's relief to Israel perhaps. 10:40.130 --> 10:44.060 align:start It's a relief to the president's own national security team who had been told at one 10:44.060 --> 10:47.030 align:start point by the president himself: I want them out within the next six months. 10:47.030 --> 10:50.100 align:start So that's a huge reversal from the president. 10:50.100 --> 10:54.150 align:start But it also was a sigh of relief to many because they feared this was a chip that the 10:54.150 --> 10:58.730 align:start president might bargain away with Vladimir Putin when he got into the room, and that that 10:58.730 --> 11:03.080 align:start would hurt U.S. leverage in the region. 11:03.080 --> 11:08.090 align:start But on everything else, the main message I'm hearing is the message was the agreement -- 11:08.090 --> 11:12.320 align:start the meeting was the agreement, I should say, the next one. 11:12.320 --> 11:17.530 align:start There was no major national security objective that was achieved in Ukraine, in Syria. 11:17.530 --> 11:19.860 align:start There were proposals floated. The White House shot down, 11:19.860 --> 11:22.820 align:start pretty forcefully, one of them today, saying that they 11:22.820 --> 11:26.580 align:start weren't going to accept Vladimir's Putin's idea of holding a referendum that would 11:26.580 --> 11:29.660 align:start essentially allow Russia to annex more territory in eastern Ukraine. 11:29.660 --> 11:33.450 align:start So a pushback pretty hard from the national security community to some of the proposals 11:33.450 --> 11:36.620 align:start that the president said he was actually going to take time to think about. 11:36.620 --> 11:40.250 align:start ROBERT COSTA: What about the confusion in the briefing room this week when you were 11:40.250 --> 11:44.120 align:start there, Yamiche, about whether the administration would send over former U.S. 11:44.120 --> 11:47.290 align:start officials, like former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, to talk to Russian 11:47.290 --> 11:51.900 align:start intelligence officers? The White House seemed to consider that, then swatted away the idea. 11:51.900 --> 11:56.600 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, the idea that -- the fact is, the president first called that 11:56.600 --> 11:58.970 align:start an incredible offer. I was in Helsinki at the 11:58.970 --> 12:01.950 align:start press conference when he said: Well, Putin has really 12:01.950 --> 12:04.770 align:start interesting ideas about how we can get at this election interference stuff and has 12:04.770 --> 12:07.310 align:start interesting ideas about how we can work together. 12:07.310 --> 12:10.180 align:start And of course, all the reporters in the room are thinking, well, what is that interesting idea? 12:10.180 --> 12:14.350 align:start Fast forward, we learn that Putin was essentially saying: If you allow us to interview 12:14.350 --> 12:17.720 align:start and talk to and interrogate Americans, including the former U.S. 12:17.720 --> 12:21.430 align:start ambassador to Russia, we'll invite Mueller to come over here and he can talk to some of 12:21.430 --> 12:25.030 align:start those Russian officials that he thinks interfered in your election. 12:25.030 --> 12:29.810 align:start Sarah Sanders said -- when asked about this very bluntly, she said: Well, we have to 12:29.810 --> 12:33.070 align:start think about it. We're going to get back to you on that. 12:33.070 --> 12:37.200 align:start A couple of hours later, the State Department said, that's absurd. That would never happen. 12:37.200 --> 12:40.200 align:start So what you had was two messages, kind of like two messages coming from the intel 12:40.200 --> 12:43.040 align:start community and President Trump. You had two messages 12:43.040 --> 12:45.790 align:start coming from the State Department and Sarah Sanders. 12:45.790 --> 12:49.100 align:start And finally, about 24 hours later, Sarah Sanders cleaned it up and said: 12:49.100 --> 12:52.560 align:start No, President Trump does not agree with that. He's not going to do that. 12:52.560 --> 12:55.760 align:start But the fact that they were entertaining it in the White House briefing and that State 12:55.760 --> 12:59.320 align:start Department knew very quickly to say it was absurd, tells you that, again, this is an 12:59.320 --> 13:01.730 align:start administration that's not on the same page. 13:01.730 --> 13:04.540 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Where is Defense Secretary Jim Mattis? 13:04.540 --> 13:07.670 align:start Where's Chief of Staff Kelly? Where is Secretary of State Pompeo? 13:07.670 --> 13:10.230 align:start I mean, we keep hearing that they're the guardrails in this administration, 13:10.230 --> 13:12.800 align:start but they've been pretty quiet this week. 13:12.800 --> 13:14.880 align:start JONATHAN SWAN: Well, it's funny -- it's funny you say that, Bob. 13:14.880 --> 13:17.750 align:start Like, when -- I was on the trip as well. And when -- I was in Brussels for the NATO summit. 13:17.750 --> 13:21.830 align:start And when you talk to European officials, they will -- and I'm sure Margaret has had many 13:21.830 --> 13:25.290 align:start of these same conversations -- they have these perfectly normal conversations with Jim 13:25.290 --> 13:30.520 align:start Mattis where he -- it's like everything's normal. It's like we're dealing with a normal administration. 13:30.520 --> 13:34.290 align:start And actually, in many senses, they are doing normal things. 13:34.290 --> 13:38.880 align:start Trump has actually invested more military resources in Europe than Obama did. 13:38.880 --> 13:43.840 align:start So they're quite happy with some of the substantive things. And Mattis is a very reassuring presence. 13:43.840 --> 13:48.740 align:start But they've all come -- they've all come to the conclusion that this line that has been 13:48.740 --> 13:52.920 align:start sort of fed to them of 12 months of, don't listen to the tweets, ignore the tweets, pay 13:52.920 --> 13:59.630 align:start attention to what we do -- that's kind of reaching the end of its use-by date, that line, 13:59.630 --> 14:05.420 align:start because the rhetoric actually matters in lots of different ways. 14:05.420 --> 14:08.780 align:start And they know -- these European officials and other officials know that when they talk 14:08.780 --> 14:14.360 align:start to James Mattis, he is not speaking for the president of the United States -- not even remotely. 14:14.360 --> 14:18.110 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Well, if that's the case, Dan, then why do they stay? 14:18.110 --> 14:22.210 align:start If you're in this Cabinet or you're National Security Advisor John Bolton, why do you 14:22.210 --> 14:25.680 align:start stay? You've studied administrations for years. 14:25.680 --> 14:28.930 align:start DAN BALZ: Well, Bob, I would say there's a high-minded reason and a not so high-minded 14:28.930 --> 14:32.360 align:start reason. The high-minded reason is a belief that they are serving their country. 14:32.360 --> 14:36.520 align:start I mean, somebody like Secretary Mattis, you know, lifetime career in the military -- 14:36.520 --> 14:39.730 align:start duty, honor, country. They believe in what they're doing. 14:39.730 --> 14:43.860 align:start They believe that when the president asks them to serve, they should serve. 14:43.860 --> 14:47.970 align:start I think they suspect, or they believe, that they are, in fact, providing at least some 14:47.970 --> 14:55.380 align:start guiderails, that they are in some way or another being able to reassure allies that there 14:55.380 --> 14:59.850 align:start is -- you know, that there is a government that can function effectively. 14:59.850 --> 15:03.900 align:start I think the less high-minded reason is that some people are attracted to power, and it 15:03.900 --> 15:07.330 align:start is very hard to give it up when you have it. 15:07.330 --> 15:10.690 align:start And once you get to those positions -- and I'm not ascribing that to any particular 15:10.690 --> 15:15.540 align:start individual but just to human nature -- that that makes it difficult to step aside. 15:15.540 --> 15:19.350 align:start ROBERT COSTA: You've spent some time interview National Security Advisor John Bolton in 15:19.350 --> 15:25.010 align:start the past month. And he seemed to try to navigate that, sometimes uneasily, with you. 15:25.010 --> 15:29.010 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it's interesting, because this is where we get into the policy on paper. 15:29.010 --> 15:32.120 align:start When you say from -- the national security advisor often says, well, that is not the 15:32.120 --> 15:36.450 align:start policy of the U.S. government, but leaves the door open to that policy -- 15:36.450 --> 15:38.860 align:start JONATHAN SWAN: A wonderful line. A wonderful line. 15:38.860 --> 15:40.780 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: It's a wonderful line. And you say -- 15:40.780 --> 15:42.770 align:start JONATHAN SWAN: He said it to you, like, three times. (Laughter.) 15:42.770 --> 15:44.510 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: Exactly. And you're like, well, yes, this is why I'm 15:44.510 --> 15:46.800 align:start asking you why the president is saying otherwise. 15:46.800 --> 15:49.010 align:start Why is the president saying things that aren't the policy of the U.S. government? 15:49.010 --> 15:51.940 align:start Because it's very, very confusing to the European friends and allies that you were just 15:51.940 --> 15:56.190 align:start mentioning there. And the reason that the rhetoric matter 15:56.190 --> 15:59.980 align:start is not -- this is a president who was elected as a disruptor. 15:59.980 --> 16:05.140 align:start And that's not necessarily what the outcry on these national security matters is about. 16:05.140 --> 16:09.670 align:start It's because those guardrails are in place not only to protect the president from 16:09.670 --> 16:12.960 align:start himself, but to protect the country and to protect the institutions. 16:12.960 --> 16:18.160 align:start I mean, when you were talking about words mattering before NATO, the collective defense 16:18.160 --> 16:24.040 align:start premise is what NATO is about. You know, protecting each other. 16:24.040 --> 16:28.790 align:start If you are drawing into doubt that Montenegro or one of those members is worth 16:28.790 --> 16:32.100 align:start defending, then that stops working. 16:32.100 --> 16:35.810 align:start It doesn't matter if you up defense spending if Vladimir Putin doubts whether or not 16:35.810 --> 16:39.250 align:start you'd come in and defend any of those countries in the first place. 16:39.250 --> 16:43.300 align:start So that's where the words on NATO really matter, where the president is also leaving the 16:43.300 --> 16:46.790 align:start door open -- that conversation with Bolton and others on, well, maybe we can talk about 16:46.790 --> 16:50.320 align:start parts of Ukraine being up for grabs. 16:50.320 --> 16:53.570 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, I spoke to Douglas Lute, who is a former U.S. 16:53.570 --> 16:57.330 align:start representative to NATO. And he, shortly after the Helsinki summit, told me two things. 16:57.330 --> 17:01.470 align:start The first thing was, that he expects NATO allies to start crafting workarounds of the 17:01.470 --> 17:06.550 align:start United States, because he thinks that NATO allies are going to stop trusting President Trump. 17:06.550 --> 17:10.300 align:start We saw the leader of Germany come out and say: I don't know if we can trust the U.S. 17:10.300 --> 17:14.540 align:start with Trump at the helm. But then he also said, things could be a lot worse. 17:14.540 --> 17:18.720 align:start He didn't change the U.S.'s relationship with NATO. He didn't pull out any troops. 17:18.720 --> 17:22.070 align:start He didn't change any military exercises. There was all this 17:22.070 --> 17:26.020 align:start idea coming into the NATO summit that people were very worried that 17:26.020 --> 17:28.780 align:start he was going to do that in his meeting with Putin, and none of that happened. 17:28.780 --> 17:32.360 align:start So Douglas Lute was saying, yes, it looks kind of crazy in some ways because of all the 17:32.360 --> 17:35.580 align:start things that President Trump is saying, but that things haven't changed. 17:35.580 --> 17:39.030 align:start ROBERT COSTA: And they're also watching all this not only in the administration, but on 17:39.030 --> 17:43.750 align:start Capitol Hill. I was at the Capitol this week and you see the alarm among some Republican Senators, 17:43.750 --> 17:46.990 align:start like Jeff Flake of Arizona. And then you talk to others, like 17:46.990 --> 17:50.520 align:start Senator Rand Paul, and they take a much different view about the president's actions. 17:50.520 --> 17:53.420 align:start Let's hear what they have to say. 17:53.420 --> 17:56.540 align:start SENATOR JEFF FLAKE (R-AZ): (From video.) We have indulged myths and fabrications, 17:56.540 --> 18:03.030 align:start pretended that it wasn't so bad. And our indulgence got us the capitulation in Helsinki. 18:03.030 --> 18:10.550 align:start We in the Senate who have been elected to represent our constituents cannot be enablers of falsehoods. 18:10.550 --> 18:13.210 align:start SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-KY): (From video.) Absolutely, I'm with the president on this. 18:13.210 --> 18:17.920 align:start The intelligence community was full of biased people, including Peter Strzok, McCabe, 18:17.920 --> 18:23.630 align:start and dozens of others. I don't think anybody doubts that the Russians got involved with leaking email and 18:23.630 --> 18:28.200 align:start hacking into email. But there is a question of whether or not the election was legitimate. 18:28.200 --> 18:33.270 align:start And all of this is a sideways way for those on the left to try to delegitimize Trump, 18:33.270 --> 18:36.410 align:start and to say he didn't really win the election. 18:36.410 --> 18:39.850 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Dan, we've been talking about all of the hawks around President Trump. 18:39.850 --> 18:43.170 align:start But it's interesting to note that Senator Rand Paul, that Libertarian, more dovish wing 18:43.170 --> 18:48.290 align:start of the Republican Party, has actually been embracing President Trump's position on Russia. 18:48.290 --> 18:51.880 align:start Is President Trump almost more of a non-interventionist Libertarian on 18:51.880 --> 18:54.980 align:start foreign policy than we sometimes recognize? 18:54.980 --> 19:00.400 align:start DAN BALZ: Well, he may be, Bob. His comments during the campaign were certainly contradictory. 19:00.400 --> 19:07.130 align:start He's somebody who on the one hand wants to project strength, muscularity, increased defense spending. 19:07.130 --> 19:12.140 align:start But in other ways, as we've seen both as a candidate and his instincts as president if 19:12.140 --> 19:14.970 align:start not necessarily the policies, is to pull back. 19:14.970 --> 19:20.570 align:start I mean, he wrestled with his advisors over what to do about Afghanistan for a very long 19:20.570 --> 19:27.010 align:start time, and finally agreed with them to put some more troops in, rather than his view is 19:27.010 --> 19:31.160 align:start why are we still there? We've been in there 17 years, 18 years. Let's get out of there. 19:31.160 --> 19:34.590 align:start Similarly with Syria, as Margaret just mentioned. 19:34.590 --> 19:39.720 align:start So the president -- the president may not know his own mind about these things. 19:39.720 --> 19:47.560 align:start He doesn't have a kind of fully formed sense of national security issues. He is a gut player. 19:47.560 --> 19:52.320 align:start So he responds in certain ways when he's asked about things, but he hasn't necessarily 19:52.320 --> 19:56.620 align:start thought deeply about them. And I think that creates the confusion. 19:56.620 --> 20:01.530 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: And I think it's a great point. I also think on Syria in particular, 20:01.530 --> 20:05.020 align:start I was speaking with a former Obama administration official about it. 20:05.020 --> 20:07.990 align:start And I said, really, tell me, what's the difference in the policy here? 20:07.990 --> 20:10.870 align:start Because a lot of this looks very similar. And the only thing the 20:10.870 --> 20:15.140 align:start Obama administration official said to me was: At least we felt bad about it. 20:15.140 --> 20:18.120 align:start At least we felt bad that we weren't intervening in any humanitarian -- 20:18.120 --> 20:20.000 align:start ROBERT COSTA: So in the actual details, it's the same? 20:20.000 --> 20:22.430 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: On the details it's the same. 20:22.430 --> 20:25.230 align:start The matter of two strikes actually being followed through on, those pinpoint strikes 20:25.230 --> 20:27.720 align:start that were carried out by President Trump in the wake of two chemical weapons attacks. 20:27.720 --> 20:32.790 align:start But when President Trump was standing there next to Vladimir Putin, he didn't say, hey, 20:32.790 --> 20:37.030 align:start by the way, why are you breaking the deal you made with me in Hamburg last year to have a 20:37.030 --> 20:40.740 align:start ceasefire zone in the south of the country? 20:40.740 --> 20:43.900 align:start Why aren't we talking more about the humanitarian aid corridors and things like that? 20:43.900 --> 20:47.980 align:start Secretary Pompeo is out there saying, we're going to talk about that. 20:47.980 --> 20:51.840 align:start But President Trump was talking about saving lives with Russia in Syria, instead of 20:51.840 --> 20:55.330 align:start Russia bombing hospitals, as they continue to do. 20:55.330 --> 20:58.810 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Jonathan, we saw the Axios poll, 79 percent of Republicans support the 20:58.810 --> 21:02.400 align:start president's handling of Russia this week. 21:02.400 --> 21:05.690 align:start Is that why we didn't see Senator Flake's bipartisan bill with Senator Chris Coons of 21:05.690 --> 21:09.150 align:start Delaware even get a vote in the Senate? 21:09.150 --> 21:12.150 align:start Republicans may be handwringing over -- about his style, but at the end of the day they 21:12.150 --> 21:15.150 align:start still want to stand with him politically. 21:15.150 --> 21:19.260 align:start JONATHAN SWAN: They're terrified of crossing him, almost to a person. 21:19.260 --> 21:24.680 align:start And the profiles in courage are retiring profiles in courage. And there's a reason for that. 21:24.680 --> 21:28.880 align:start And it's because they know he's vastly more popular than they are. 21:28.880 --> 21:34.900 align:start The polling shows it. It's -- McConnell's got a 25 percent approval and Trump's is up 80s. 21:34.900 --> 21:38.890 align:start Most popular Republican president at this point in his presidency. 21:38.890 --> 21:42.950 align:start I think he's even passed George W. Bush after 9/11 with Republican voters. 21:42.950 --> 21:48.570 align:start So, yes. And he also has the ability to -- it's almost a superpower. 21:48.570 --> 21:52.560 align:start You take an issue like Russia, that it doesn't get much more orthodox than that in terms 21:52.560 --> 21:58.210 align:start of the Republican Party being tough on Russia. He has flipped that party on that issue. 21:58.210 --> 22:02.680 align:start And you can go down the list. FBI, the Republican Party's view of the FBI. 22:02.680 --> 22:07.180 align:start Pick your issue. I mean, it's quite uncanny. Tariffs. Republican voters 22:07.180 --> 22:12.210 align:start now support tariffs. So, yeah, they're terrified. 22:12.210 --> 22:16.430 align:start But just to pick up on that point that we were talking about his foreign policy. 22:16.430 --> 22:21.270 align:start I think, yes, he oscillates, but his default position is always: Why is this our 22:21.270 --> 22:23.930 align:start problem? Why is this our problem? 22:23.930 --> 22:27.040 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Sounds a lot like Senator Paul. 22:27.040 --> 22:30.020 align:start Yamiche, you've, beyond covering the White House, have spent a lot of time covering Democrats. 22:30.020 --> 22:35.600 align:start Let's watch a clip of Margaret's interview with former Secretary of State John Kerry for a moment. 22:35.600 --> 22:38.540 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: (From video.) What did you make of President Trump's 22:38.540 --> 22:41.100 align:start news conference with Vladimir Putin? 22:41.100 --> 22:44.290 align:start FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: (From video.) I found it shocking. I found it to be 22:44.290 --> 22:50.160 align:start one of the most disgraceful, remarkable moments of kowtowing to a 22:50.160 --> 22:54.220 align:start foreign leader by an American president that anyone has ever witnessed. 22:54.220 --> 22:59.230 align:start And it wasn't just that it was a kind of surrender; it's that it is dangerous. 22:59.230 --> 23:06.840 align:start A president stood there and did not defend our country. He stood there and did not defend the truth. 23:06.840 --> 23:10.210 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Margaret -- then I want to get Yamiche's take on the 23:10.210 --> 23:13.950 align:start Democratic Party -- Secretary Kerry -- I mean, that reflects a lot of angst 23:13.950 --> 23:17.480 align:start among former Obama officials as they watch all this. 23:17.480 --> 23:21.110 align:start MARGARET BRENNAN: It does. And, you know, this is someone who spent a lot of time negotiating with Russia. 23:21.110 --> 23:26.590 align:start Diplomacy with Russia is not a toxic idea to him. That wasn't his objection here. 23:26.590 --> 23:30.490 align:start It was that the president standing beside Putin didn't use forceful language, didn't 23:30.490 --> 23:36.730 align:start confront, and then after the fact this walk back -- it wasn't believable, given that he 23:36.730 --> 23:41.230 align:start spoke at length about his belief that all of this is fundamentally a witch hunt. 23:41.230 --> 23:44.720 align:start And it was interesting to hear Secretary Kerry also describe being there in China when 23:44.720 --> 23:48.610 align:start President Obama confronted Vladimir Putin for the first time about meddling. 23:48.610 --> 23:52.050 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Yamiche, we've heard the word treason this week from Democrats. 23:52.050 --> 23:56.980 align:start The Republicans are having their own debate, but Democrats appear to have their own turning point. 23:56.980 --> 24:00.860 align:start YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, I think Democrats see this as one of many issues that they can 24:00.860 --> 24:05.200 align:start use in the midterms to say, look, you should elect us because we're going to be tough on 24:05.200 --> 24:08.190 align:start Russia, because we're not President Trump -- even though they said that wasn't going to 24:08.190 --> 24:11.340 align:start be their message over and over again. So there's this idea that Democrats 24:11.340 --> 24:15.440 align:start just see another thing to add to this -- separated families, tariffs, trade, jobs. 24:15.440 --> 24:19.180 align:start All these things that the Democrats kind of want to argue about. 24:19.180 --> 24:24.440 align:start The problem is that what Rand Paul said and the poll from Axios tell us that Republican 24:24.440 --> 24:28.510 align:start voters feel as though people think that President Trump is illegitimate. 24:28.510 --> 24:30.800 align:start And because of that, that's why they're being mean to him. 24:30.800 --> 24:33.840 align:start And they see that as people being mean to him because they don't want him to be president. 24:33.840 --> 24:36.190 align:start ROBERT COSTA: Churning dynamics in both parties this week. 24:36.190 --> 24:39.640 align:start We'll keep an eye on it all. Thanks so much for everyone being here. 24:39.640 --> 24:42.710 align:start And let me pause to thank the terrific crew here at WETA. 24:42.710 --> 24:45.540 align:start This new set wouldn't be possible without their hard work. 24:45.540 --> 24:49.990 align:start And as always, our conversation continues online on the Washington Week Extra. 24:49.990 --> 24:53.650 align:start We will discuss the latest reports on the President's long-time lawyer, Michael Cohen, 24:53.650 --> 24:58.040 align:start and possible audio recordings of his conversations with President Trump. 24:58.040 --> 25:02.350 align:start You can find that later tonight at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek. 25:02.350 --> 25:38.740 align:start I'm Robert Costa. Thanks for joining us.