JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff.
On the "NewsHour" tonight:
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: President Putin was extremely strong and powerful
in his denial today.
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump sides with Russia, questioning U.S. intelligence on Moscow's
election interference, as Vladimir Putin clearly states he wanted Mr. Trump to win.
Then: outrage at the president's statements from Democrats and even some Republicans.
We break down the political and diplomatic fallout from the meeting in Helsinki.
Plus: inside the mind of Robin Williams. A new documentary explores the life of the late
comedian and his lasting mark on the world.
MARINA ZENOVICH, Director: He needed comedy. He needed the love from the audience. It was
a need.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: President Trump is headed home tonight, trailing clouds of controversy over
his summit with Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
They covered a range of issues in Helsinki, Finland today, but looming over all, Russia's
role in the election that made Mr. Trump president.
White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor is in Helsinki.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: He just said it's not Russia. I will say this:
I don't see any reason why it would be.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: With that, the president of the United States again dismissed American
intelligence findings that Vladimir Putin ordered Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Instead, Mr. Trump suggested he takes Putin at his word.
DONALD TRUMP: I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in
his denial today.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Mr. Trump also bristled at any suggestion that Russian actions contributed
to his victory.
DONALD TRUMP: There was no collusion. I didn't know the president. There was nobody to collude
with.
People are being brought out to the fore, so far that I know virtually none of it related
to the campaign. And they're going to have to try really hard to find somebody that did
relate to the campaign. That was a clean campaign. I beat Hillary Clinton easily.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Even as Putin denied any interference, he also acknowledged he wanted
Mr. Trump to win in 2016.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President (through translator): Yes, I did. Yes, I did, because
he talked about bring the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal. Isn't it natural to be sympathetic
towards a person who is willing to restore the relationship with our country, who wants
to work with us?
DONALD TRUMP: But our relationship has never been worse than it is now. However, that changed
as of about four hours ago. I really believe that.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The summit came three days after special counsel Robert Mueller's office
indicted 12 Russian officials for election cyber-attacks. But the president linked Mueller's
probe to the poor state of U.S.-Russia relations
DONALD TRUMP: I think that the probe is a disaster for our country. I think it's kept
us apart. It's kept us separated.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Putin was questioned about whether he would extradite the 12 military
intelligence agents to face American justice.
VLADIMIR PUTIN (through translator): As to who is to be believed and to who's not to
be believed, you can trust no one. We have to be guided by facts and not by rumors. I
don't know the full extent of the situation, but President Trump mentioned this issue,
and I will look into it.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Putin said that would involve questioning suspects tied to the hacking.
Then the Russian president said he'd discussed with President Trump a unique offer.
VLADIMIR PUTIN (through translator): We can meet you halfway. We can make another step.
We can actually permit official representatives of the United States, including the members
of this very commission headed by Mr. Mueller, we can let them into the country, and they
will be present at this questioning.
DONALD TRUMP: What he did is an incredible offer.
He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators,
with respect to the 12 people. I think that's an incredible offer. OK?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The president blamed both the United States and Russia for the decline
in relations that spiraled after Russia's 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea, its
2015 entry intro Syria's war, and the 2016 election interference.
DONALD TRUMP: I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish.
I think we have all been foolish. We should've had this dialogue a long time ago, a long
time, frankly, before I got to office. And I think we're all to blame.
As president, I cannot make decisions on foreign policy in a futile effort to appease partisan
critics, or the media, or Democrats who want to do nothing but resist and obstruct.
VLADIMIR PUTIN (through translator): After all, I was an intelligence officer myself,
and I do know how dossiers are made up.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: That statement led naturally to the ongoing speculation that Moscow might
have blackmail information on Mr. Trump.
QUESTION: Does the Russian government have any compromising material on President Trump
or his family?
VLADIMIR PUTIN (through translator): I did hear these rumors that we allegedly collected
compromising material on Mr. Trump when he was visiting Moscow. Well, distinguished colleague,
let me tell you this: When President Trump was at Moscow back then, I didn't even know
that he was in Moscow.
I treat President Trump with utmost respect. It's difficult to imagine an utter nonsense
of a bigger scale than this. Well, please, just disregard these issues and don't think
about this anymore again.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Earlier, the leaders strode into the Finnish president's palace for two
meetings, with no set agenda and, in Mr. Trump's words, low expectations. The first meeting
was the just two men with their interpreters.
DONALD TRUMP: Well, first of all, Mr. President, I would like to congratulate you on a really
great World Cup.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Despite no real plan for the meeting, Mr. Trump said there was much
to talk about.
DONALD TRUMP: Discussions on everything from trade, to military, to missiles, to nuclear,
to China. We will be talking a little about China, our mutual friend President Xi. I think
we have great opportunities together as two countries.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: The one-on-one meeting was scheduled for 90 minutes, but went more than
two hours, and led to a lunch with senior aides.
The meetings also came at the end of an eventful week-long trip that saw President Trump berating
allies at NATO.
DONALD TRUMP: Many countries are not paying what they should.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Causing British Prime Minister Theresa May some political heart palpitations.
DONALD TRUMP: I didn't criticize the prime minister. I have a lot of respect for the
prime minister.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And yesterday calling the European Union a foe of America. After all
that, today was what Mr. Trump said could be the easy part. He said he was trying to
improve relations between historic adversaries.
DONALD TRUMP: I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace
in pursuit of politics.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We will return to Yamiche shortly, but, first, fallout from the president's press
conference came swiftly today, as Washington reacted to the historic meeting.
Before the press conference with the Russian president in Finland had even ended, politicians
in both parties were condemning President Trump's words. Some were predictably harsh,
like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), Minority Leader: What the president did is side with our number
one enemy who is attacking the U.S. daily in a variety of ways ,and belittling, kneecapping
our allies, and is just appalling and demands some kind of explanation.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The former CIA director under President Obama, John Brennan, tweeted the
president's remarks were -- quote -- "nothing short of treasonous."
But there were unusually strong words from President Trump's own party, too.
Tennessee Senator Bob Corker:
SEN. BOB CORKER (R), Tennessee: I just felt like the president's comments made us look
as a nation more like a pushover. And I was disappointed in that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In a statement, Senate Armed Services Chair John McCain called it disgraceful:
"No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant."
House Speaker Paul Ryan was less critical, but said that Mr. Trump -- quote -- "must
appreciate that Russia is not our ally."
Other Republicans instead backed up Mr. Trump's concerns about bias in the intelligence community.
REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), California: I think for the president to cast doubt is appropriate.
QUESTION: To cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence community's assessment?
REP. DARRELL ISSA: Cast doubt on the validity of any number of these things. You know, that's
fair.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, also responded, insisting
-- quote -- "We will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our
national security."
The concerns from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue will be waiting for the president when
he returns to Washington late tonight.
We now turn to our two reporters who were there in Helsinki, White House correspondent
Yamiche Alcindor and special correspondent Ryan Chilcote.
Hello to both of you.
Yamiche, you were in the room during this news conference. Do you understand what it
was that led the president to say he could not be sure of what his own intelligence community
has found about the 2016 election?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, President Trump equated U.S. intelligence communities who have said
over and over again that Russia meddled in U.S. elections, meddled in U.S. elections,
with the denial of President Putin, who says that Russia had nothing to do with this.
This is a stunning moment, because President Trump was putting on both -- really on both
playing fields -- on equal playing fields Russia saying that they didn't do anything
and U.S. intelligence agencies, the FBI, CIA, NSA, all saying that Russia had something
to do with meddling in our elections.
After the press conference, President Trump told CBS News that he basically believed what
he said, that he doesn't think that Russia meddled in our elections. He disagrees with
U.S. intelligence chiefs who say that Russia could meddle in future elections.
And what is really important is that the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, came
out with a statement after the press conference saying that he believes that Russia meddled
in the elections.
CNN is reporting that that statement wasn't cleared by the White House. So you have some
back and forth there within the U.S. administration. Another thing that is important is that President
Trump was tweeting soon after.
And just a couple of minutes ago, he was talking about the fact that he really supports U.S.
intelligence agencies, but that he again has this equation with Russia, who's denying that
they had anything to do with this election interference.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Ryan, you have been covering Vladimir Putin in these kind of settings for
the last couple of decades. What struck you about him at today's encounter?
RYAN CHILCOTE: Look, I think his body language and the sequence of events says it all.
President Putin showed up late. He made President Trump late. And when the two did meet, he
walked into the room first. He spoke first. And then -- so we're in Finland, but it looked
an awful lot like President Putin was the host.
In terms of the body language, President Trump appeared eager. He kind of leaned in, in the
direction of President Putin. President Putin sat back in his seat. He looked underwhelmed,
unconvinced as they began speaking.
But then things changed, as they went away for their bilateral talks and the delegation
meeting, when they came back for the press conference, President Putin, you know, seemed
to have gone through an evolution. He appeared energized.
And I think, you know, President Trump, at least optically speaking, it looked like President
Putin had been won over. And the Russians are clearly quite pleased with this summit.
In fact, the Russian foreign minister just tweeted that the summit was fabulous, in fact,
better than super.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Yamiche, while all this is going on, of course, the probe, the investigation
by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, goes on.
They're aggressively looking at what happened in the 2016 election. They have been returning
indictments. They have been -- people have been pleading guilty. But we heard the president
say today that the probe is hurting U.S.-Russia relations.
So where does all this go from here?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, President Trump has been saying over and over again that the Mueller
probe is a witch-hunt.
But, today, he did something completely different, which is that he was on a world stage and
he took that opportunity to then attack Robert Mueller while standing next to the very man
that a lot of Russian intelligence -- that U.S. intelligence agencies say ordered the
hacking of U.S. elections and the hacking of political figures in the U.S.
So, it was not just that he was angry at the Mueller probe, but he was making these statements
while standing next to Vladimir Putin soon after Rudy Giuliani, who is the president's
personal lawyer, talked to The New York Daily News, and said that President Trump shouldn't
be calling Putin a liar.
He said that he also believes the Russian president when he says that he didn't meddle
in the U.S. elections. So, I do think that's really important.
I spoke with Douglas Lute, who is the former ambassador to NATO. He said that he now expects
NATO allies to starting working -- doing on -- working on work-arounds against the U.S.
and trying to figure out what to do, because he doesn't think that those countries are
going to trust the U.S.
He also told me, though, that there is a positive to this meeting. He said that NATO allies
can possibly rest assured President Trump didn't change U.S. commitments to NATO at
this time. He said that there were no troop level changes, that the U.S. is still going
to have the same military exercises with NATO.
So it is something -- he told me there was something positive that came out of this meeting.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, just quickly, Ryan, there were some important policy issues
that came up during the meeting.
What about that?
RYAN CHILCOTE: There were. And, in fact, there were a lot of things that weren't said. And,
in a way, I think that they were more important.
There was no condemnation of the annexation of Crimea, no condemnation from President
Trump about that. In fact, he didn't say anything about Crimea at all, not mention whatsoever
of sanctions.
There was some talk about Syria, but, again, even in the context of Syria, it was more
about how to accommodate Israel's interests in Syria, both what Russia and the United
States could do in that sense. And there was an awful lot, I think -- and this is very
helpful, perhaps, for President Putin -- there was an awful lot of praise from President
Trump in the direction of President Putin.
And, if you think about it, President Trump, you know -- President Putin has been the leader
of a country that has really been in the cold for four years now. And it is absolutely perfect
for him that he can, this evening on state media, air praise from the countries -- the
country that they like to refer as their main adversary.
In Russia, that's worth its weight in gold.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Ryan Chilcote, Yamiche Alcindor reporting for us from Helsinki, thank you
both.
RYAN CHILCOTE: Thank you.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, let's hear from U.S. lawmakers now on both sides of the aisle.
I spoke a short while ago to Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky, who's a member of
both the Senate Foreign Relations and Homeland Security Committees.
We started with the crescendo of reaction to today's meeting and how he sees it.
SEN. RAND PAUL (R), Kentucky: You know, I think it's a good idea for us to have conversation
even with our adversaries.
You know, at the height of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy had a direct
line to Khrushchev. We have always had ambassador even throughout the Cold War. Even during
the years of Stalin, we had an ambassador to Russia.
So, I think it's a good idea to keep lines of communications open. We have nuclear weapons
on both sides. We have conflict in Syria where we're in close proximity.
It would be nice to have help from Russia on North Korea as far as denuclearization.
We have the Ukraine situation. So, no, I think that we won't have any progress if we don't
have any conversations.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I think a number of your Republican colleagues are saying they agree with that,
but they are arguing the president went farther than that today.
Senator John McCain called it the most disgraceful performance he'd ever seen by an American
president.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, John McCain's been wrong on just about everything for the last 40 years.
And I will give you an example. He's such a loose canon and so emotional about issues
that, when I opposed the expansion of NATO, which many have opposed, George Kennan among
them, the most famous diplomat of the last century, opposed to the expansion of NATO
as well, when I was exposed -- opposed to the expansion of NATO, McCain said I was working
for Putin.
And so that kind of comment really doesn't even deserve to be countenanced. And, really,
I think polite company or informed company shouldn't even countenance someone McCain,
who basically calls someone who has an intellectual opposition to expanding NATO, calls them a
traitor.
So I don't think much of McCain's opinions on really any foreign policy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, what about House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was not as critical,
but he said Mr. Trump must -- quote -- "appreciate that Russia is not our ally"?
In other words, the impression that he's saying that came across is the president was simply
too friendly with and too trusting of Vladimir Putin.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, I think the president is different than many leaders we have had,
who basically will litigate things to death and not meet with people.
I think Trump is different, and he's willing to meet with foreign leaders and, actually,
I think you may get a breakthrough because of the meetings. And I think, if this were
anybody else, if there weren't such acute hatred for Trump, such Trump derangement syndrome
on the left, I think, if this were President Obama -- and it could have actually been President
Obama early in the first term, when they were trying to reset our relations with Russia,
that could have easily had a meeting like this -- and the left and the media would have
had a lovefest over President Obama.
So, I think this really shows people -- hatred for President Trump more than anything.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you think President Trump, Senator, was right to essentially accept the
Russian version of events? Vladimir Putin's said, no, we didn't interfere in your election.
And yet the entire intelligence community in this country has concluded the Russians
did interfere. The president today was siding with the Russians. How do you read that?
SEN. RAND PAUL: I'm not so sure I would describe it as siding with the Russians.
I would say that President Trump has healthy dose of skepticism towards our intelligence
community. And I -- I share some of that.
I mean, James Clapper came before the Senate and lied. He said they weren't collecting
our information. That's the biggest bold-faced lie that we have had in decades, and nobody
did anything about it. James Clapper lied to the U.S. Senate about collecting our data.
You now have John Brennan, whose first vote was for the communist party, now calling President
Trump a traitor. And so these people have really exposed or revealed themselves as great
partisans. And yet they had the power to snoop on any American, to snoop on any person in
the world.
And believe you me, they were scooping up everybody's information.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, Senator, it's also the current head of intelligence, heads of intelligence,
who are saying they believe the Russians interfered.
Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, said last week there's no question the Russians
interfered.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Today, he put out a statement, "We will continue to provide unvarnished,
objective intelligence in support of national security."
He's saying he's on guard for Russian interference.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Right.
Yes. And I'm not saying they didn't interfere with the election. In all likelihood, they
did.
There's a guy named Dov Levin at Carnegie-Mellon who looked at this from 1946 to 2000. And
he found 81 times in which the U.S. intervened in elections and about 36 times in the Soviet
Union. None of it makes it right.
But any country that can spy does, and any country that can intervene in foreign elections
does. And so, yes, we have been involved in Russia and their elections. We have been involved
in the Ukraine elections.
And we say it's for democracy, but we don't support the Russian party. We support the
pro-Western party. And we paint ours as if ours is always just on the up and up, but
we get involved in foreign countries' elections.
And so, yes, I think we have elevated this Russia thing to a degree that we are simply
deranged by it. We are accusing President Trump of all kinds of things that I do not
believe he's guilty of.
But did the Russians get involved in it? Yes. And what I would tell the Russians is exactly
what I have told their ambassador and others, is, if you thought it was going to help things,
it's actually backfired, because there can be no rapprochement with Russia, no engagement
with Russia because of the meddling in the election.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Senator, you don't think Vladimir Putin got the best of President Trump
today?
SEN. RAND PAUL: No, not at all, because the thing is, is that we dwarf all other powers
now.
Europe's army, I think, is 13 times bigger than Russia's army. Us plus Europe, we're
probably 30, 40 times bigger. We spend more on the military than the next 10 countries
combined.
There's not even a real comparison between the two. We are the sole remaining superpower.
But I still think engagement is good, even when you are the sole remaining superpower.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, we thank you.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And for a different view, I spoke with Senator Robert Menendez of New
Jersey. He's the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
We began with his overall take on the day's developments.
SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D), New Jersey: Well, just an incredible moment in which an American
president acts more as a supplicant than the leader of the free world, who, on foreign
soil, basically disputes the decisions of his intelligence community, a bipartisan Senate
Intelligence Committee vote as well that made it very clear that Russia interfered in our
election.
And instead of challenging President Putin and say, I know that you were involved in
our elections, you have 12 intelligence officers that have been indicted, and there are consequences
for that, he basically accepts Putin's excuse.
It's just unimaginable. So Putin must be standing there saying to himself, you know, my investment
in 2016 really paid off.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The president did tweet, Senator, later this afternoon. Among other things,
he said: "As I said today and many times before, I have great confidence in my intelligence
people," but then he goes on to say, "We can't exclusively focus on the past. As the world's
two largest nuclear powers, we must get along."
SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ: Well, what the president misses here, of course we'd like to have a
good relationship with Russia and, for that fact, with any other country.
The problem is, you can only have good relationships if you share values. We do not share the value
of undermining democracies, not only in the United States, but across Europe, by cyber-attacks
that the Russian Federation has created.
We do not ultimately share values when you invade a sovereign country like Ukraine, take
over and annex Crimea and continue to disrupt in Eastern Ukraine through Russian forces.
We do not share values when you are creating a humanitarian disaster in Syria by propping
up the butcher Assad.
So those are not the values we share. And so, instead of being chummy with Putin, he
has to challenge Putin. And I'm seriously concerned that we haven't even seen the effects
of what this meeting will ultimately bring with the two-hour session that we know nothing
about.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What did you make of President Putin saying, well, look, the U.S. intel -- he
said, you can send your people over to pursue this investigation. You can come inside my
government and try to get to the bottom of this.
SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ: Well, first, he said he would send people over here. And that would
be like having, you know, those who committed the crime be actually involved in trying to
investigate it, or for us to send people and watch them interrogate their people.
Really? Really? Do we really believe that there's going to be any serious interrogation
of Russian intelligence officers that were directed by Vladimir Putin, from my perspective?
Putin was KGB. He is KGB at his heart. He understands that using the new frontier of
cyber-attacks is the new battle. And so for us to think that he's going to actually engage
in a transparent process, where those who have been indicted by the special counsel
as a representative of the Justice Department is going to be a way to seek justice?
No. He needed to say, you need to extradite those 12 individuals and face justice in an
American court under the rule of law.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Bottom line, Senator, do you think long-lasting damage was done today?
SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ: I believe the president did incredible damage to the integrity of
our national intelligence agencies, to the credibility of the United States in the Western
world.
He went through our allies and gave them all the back of the hand and he gave a warm embrace
to Putin. The Western world must be shocked at what transpired. The message to other entities
in the world is, you can violate the international order, and there will be little consequence
at the end of the day.
And that is a very dangerous message for the United States and for the free world.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator Robert Menendez, we thank you very much.
SEN. ROBERT MENENDEZ: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So how does today's event look to someone with extensive experience in the
U.S. intelligence community and with Russia?
For that, we turn to John Sipher. He had a 28-year career in the CIA and was based in
Moscow during the 1990s.
John Sipher, welcome back to the "NewsHour."
So, as someone with long experience in intelligence, how did you read what you heard today?
JOHN SIPHER, Former CIA Officer: Like many, I was surprised and shocked.
I think our intelligence community, like our diplomats overseas and everybody in the national
security structure, had low hopes for this meeting, and the bar was pretty low for Mr.
Trump, but he still didn't get over the bar.
And for him to say some of the things he said about Mr. Putin in this situation, I think,
was very troubling. I think our intelligence community and our diplomats are resilient,
and they will continue to do their best to provide him the information he needs to make
sensible policies.
But I don't think we have seen a president like this who doesn't seem to take his job
seriously. He takes himself tremendously seriously, but he doesn't seem to focus on the same kind
of issues, the national security issues that those in his administration do.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We took note of a lot of comments today.
One in particular, Congressman Will Hurd, Republican of Texas, he served in the CIA
for nearly a decade. At one point, he said: "I have seen Russian intelligence manipulate
many people over my professional career. I never would have thought the U.S. president
would become one of the ones getting played by old KGB hands."
Is that going too far?
JOHN SIPHER: I don't think it's going too far, but, in a sense, we didn't need Vladimir
Putin as an ex-KGB officer to manipulate Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump's foibles and ability to
be manipulated are pretty clear for all to see.
In fact, I think that's why most people, probably in his own administration, didn't want him
to go to Helsinki for this meeting. He's the leader of the largest, most powerful country
in the history of the world, and he's allowing Vladimir Putin, who has been sticking his
finger in the eye of the United States and its allies for a long time, to be seen on
an equal stage as a great power with the United States.
That's troubling. He probably shouldn't have done that.
But then to make the statements he made following that, actually turning against his own administration
and his own intelligence community, I think it was a very sad day for us, frankly.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we heard Vladimir Putin, remarkably, at one point today point out -- he
said, I was an intelligence agent myself.
What did you think when he had this suggestion that Russia could -- that he would let U.S.
officials come to Russia, interview Russian intelligence officials, and then an about-turn,
Russian officials could interview Americans about the Russian interference investigation
probe?
JOHN SIPHER: Well, I think it's ludicrous.
He has a long history of sort of playing these kinds of games and making it look as if his
country follows the rule of law and has the normal procedures like Western countries do.
And, in fact, that's not correct.
So I think this was, you know, him sort of playing a clever game to try to make it look
like we're on equal footing here, which, in fact, is not the case. We don't need the intelligence
community to show us what Russia has done. They have done it against all our allies and
we have seen it quite clearly over the last couple of years.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you think, John Sipher, the effect of this is on the U.S. intelligence
community? Is this something they just shrug off and look at it and say, well, this is
what President Trump says, it's what he believes, I'm going to go on and do my job, or does
it have some long-lasting effect?
JOHN SIPHER: That's hard so say.
I do think the intelligence community is quite resilient. They put their head down and they
do their work, but they take this very seriously. And they see the president as their primary
customer and they will do almost anything to get the president the information that
he needs to do his job.
But I think it's going to be very hard for them to stay focused and to treat him as a
serious person to exchange with if he equates Vladimir Putin with his own government, and
if he blames the FBI and the CIA and the NSA and all these people as much as he blames
the people who are attacking us.
So they will do their job, they will continue to provide the best support that they can,
but he's not making it any easier for them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And just quickly, finally, John Sipher, there was a criminal complaint
that was released today. This is separate from the Mueller investigation. It came out
of the Department of Justice charging a Russian national, a woman, with conspiracy to act
as an agent of Russia in the U.S.
It's all about her supposedly trying to get close to a gun rights organization, presumably
the NRA, get close to the Republican Party. What are we to make of this? Why is this outside
of the Mueller probe?
JOHN SIPHER: Well, what's interesting here is, is most Western intelligence services
are focused on collecting intelligence to provide to policy-makers, so they can make
good policy.
The Russian intelligence services, like the Soviet intelligence services before them,
are focused on active measures. This is a thing we saw in 2016 against our own election.
It involves manipulating the media, disinformation, fake news, deception, even assassination,
forgeries and the like. What this is, is clearly part of that process. They are more involved
in subversion and trying to use asymmetric means and political warfare to create havoc
and cause problems in the West, more than just using spies and means to collect intelligence
to help Mr. Putin.
So I think this is part and parcel of a wider attack by the Russians against the West. It's
a means of a weaker power taking on a stronger power by trying to affect and take advantage
of its weaknesses.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Former CIA officer John Sipher, thank you.
JOHN SIPHER: Thank you. Appreciate it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: A federal judge in San Diego ordered a temporary
halt to deporting migrant families that were separated and then reunited. The American
Civil Liberties Union asked for a delay of at least a week, saying -- quote -- "Mass
deportations were imminent."
ACLU officials welcomed today's move.
SPENCER AMDUR, ACLU ®MDNM¯Attorney: What the judge said is that they should continue
with reunifications even if the parent has a removal order, and this way, the parent
and the child will have some time to talk over whether the child should stay in the
country to fight their immigration case still.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The Trump administration opposed the ruling. It is under a court-ordered deadline
to reunite more than 2,500 older children with their parents by July 26.
Migrants are still arriving in Europe by the hundreds from Africa. About 450 were allowed
to disembark in Sicily today, after six European Union nations agreed to take them in. Italy
had refused to let the ships dock over the weekend.
Elsewhere, Spanish crews rescued nearly 480 migrants at sea over the weekend. Nearly 17,000
have made it to Spain this year.
One of the European Union's top leaders appealed to the U.S., to Russia and China today to
preserve world order by preventing trade wars. European Council President Donald Tusk spoke
at a summit with Chinese leaders in Beijing.
DONALD TUSK, European Council President: It is a common duty of Europe and China, America
and Russia not to destroy the order, but to improve it, not to start trade wars, but to
bravely and responsibly reform the rules-based international order.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Meanwhile, China complained to the World Trade Organization about a U.S.
threat of tariffs on another $200 billion worth of imports from China. In turn, the
U.S. complained to the WTO about retaliation by China, the E.U., Canada and others for
earlier tariffs.
In Syria, state media and activists report Israeli airstrikes hit near Aleppo overnight.
Nine people were killed. The target appeared to be an air base used by Iran's Revolutionary
Guard in support of Syrian forces. It would be the latest in a series of such Israeli
attacks.
Hundreds of people protested in Nicaragua's capital today against a government crackdown.
Twelve more people died over the weekend, as police and paramilitaries attacked activists
at universities and road blocks. Some 300 have died in the last three months as the
government used force to quash dissent.
Protesters in Chicago are turning out again tonight over the police killing of a black
man on Saturday. Late Sunday, police released body camera footage that showed Harith Augustus
with a holstered gun at his hip, and apparently reaching toward it. The chief said officers
had to react.
EDDIE JOHNSON, Chicago Police Superintendent: You know, these things happen in a split-second,
and officers have to make decisions quickly. They don't have the luxury of looking at video
later. When you see the video, you take a look at it and you will come to your own conclusions.
JUDY WOODRUFF: There's no sound on the body-cam video, and activists are calling for police
to release other footage of the shooting.
Saudi Arabia today banned dozens of video games that it says lead children to harm themselves.
They include versions of "Assassin's Creed" and "Grand Theft Auto." There've been reports
that two young Saudis, a boy and a girl, committed suicide after playing a social media game.
The Blue Whale Challenge is said to urge players to perform various tasks, then take their
own lives.
On Wall Street today, energy stocks sagged after the price of oil tumbled, and that weighed
on the broader market. The Dow Jones industrial average managed to gain 45 points to close
at 25064. But the Nasdaq fell 20 points, and the S&P 500 slipped three.
And in France, hundreds of thousands of people celebrated Sunday's victory over Croatia in
the World Cup finals. The vast throng packed the famed Champs Elysees in Paris to greet
the new world champions of soccer. The team showed off the trophy from atop a double-decker
bus.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": our Politics Monday team gauges the fallout from President
Trump's statements on Russia; a new documentary takes us inside the mind of the late Robin
Williams; and advice from David Sedaris on how to deal with offensive comments.
More now on the reaction to President Trump's press conference with Russia's President Vladimir
Putin.
And to Amna Nawaz.
AMNA NAWAZ: Judy, as we heard, the president's statements this morning prompted tough words
from members of his own party.
We break down the politics now with Susan Page of USA Today and Stuart Rothenberg of
Inside Elections.
Welcome to you both.
We heard the criticism earlier from the president's own party members there. The natural next
question seems to be, and what are you going to do about it?
So, Stu, what are the Republicans going to do about it?
STUART ROTHENBERG, Inside Elections: Well, this could be the straw that breaks the camel's
back, but I think it's more likely not the case for Republicans.
We saw earlier in the program Rand Paul not really criticizing the president. I have a
press release here from Lamar Alexander saying: "There's no doubt Russia interfered in our
2016 presidential election," and that's about it. No specific criticism of the president.
I get the sense that Jeff Flake, John McCain -- Mitt Romney issued a statement, Ben Sasse.
These are the outliers in the Republican Party.
(CROSSTALK)
STU ROTHENBERG: And I think you're going to find Republicans continue to support the president.
I guess we will see.
SUSAN PAGE, Washington Bureau Chief, USA Today: Remarkable When you say McCain and Romney
are the outliers in this party. Of course, they're the last two presidential nominees
of the Republican Party. But it is no longer their Republican Party. It is now Donald Trump's
Republican Party.
And it's proved to be very difficult to shake the hold that Trump has had in a party that's
been redefined in his own image, now, most notably, in attitudes against Russia.
If there's one thing that characterized Republican politics in the past, it's been a pretty hard
line on Russia. We certainly didn't hear that today.
STU ROTHENBERG: Just to add -- that's terrific points.
(LAUGHTER)
STU ROTHENBERG: Just to add, I was looking at a Pew Research Center survey -- actually,
a series of surveys from 2015 to 2018. And the attitudes toward Vladimir Putin have changed
significantly among Republicans.
They're much more approving of him -- or less disapproval of Vladimir Putin and less criticism
of Russia as a threat to U.S. interests. So it's remarkable how the president's attitudes
towards Putin have filtered down in the party and really changed the GOP
AMNA NAWAZ: But there is a consensus now -- let's look ahead to 2018. We're less than four months
away now from the midterms, right?
There's consensus among both leaders, Republican and Democrat, on the Hill, Russia interfered
in 2016. They continue to do so looking forward to future elections, too.
How does that matter moving forward now, hearing what we heard from the president today and
the fact that Republican and Democratic leaders agree they are continuing to interfere?
SUSAN PAGE: I don't think this is a voting issue for Americans.
I mean, I think it's a huge challenge for our democracy generally, but if you look at
the things on which people are going to vote in 2018 in the midterms, just, as you say,
getting so close, I think it is going to be things like health care and the economy and
some of the traditional things that either energize people to get to vote or not to do
so.
I actually think the Supreme Court is a bigger voting issue in November than Russia meddling.
Go forward two years to the 2020 race, where we think President Trump will be seeking reelection,
and then I think perhaps it become a bigger issue.
AMNA NAWAZ: Well, it may not matter to voters, but, Stu, what about to Republican leadership?
Should they be making a bigger deal of the fact that Russia continues to interfere in
this way?
STU ROTHENBERG: Well, maybe they should be. But the reality is, they're so linked to the
president, and they want to avoid criticism of the president.
Yes, you're right, they want -- they're willing to criticize the Russians and Russian interference,
but I just don't think they want to get into the weeds on this. And I think they're looking
at other issues that they hope will be more important in 2018.
SUSAN PAGE: I do think there's one thing.
I don't think we're going to see a big investigation, some new effort on the part of Republican
congressional leaders. I do think this is a little bit of job security for Robert Mueller.
I think it makes it a little bit harder for President Trump to try to in some way fire
the special counsel. And that may be one effect from today's news conference.
AMNA NAWAZ: We heard strong language from leaders in both parties, older members in
both parties, shameful, disgraceful, treasonous.
Is there anything different about this moment? You have talked about being critical of the
president before. Is there anything different about this moment that you might think even
lead Republicans to try to launch a challenge against President Trump?
SUSAN PAGE: I think that's hard to do with this party.
President Trump's approval rating among Republicans is almost 90 percent. The only time a Republican
at this stage in his presidency has had stronger approval within his own party was George W.
Bush immediately after the 9/11 attacks.
So I think it's not that it's impossible there will be a challenge or even a serious challenge,
but I think this is Donald Trump's Republican Party for the time being.
AMNA NAWAZ: You agree?
STU ROTHENBERG: This was a pretty dramatic event today, pretty dramatic press conference.
A lot of gasps after the fact and, wow, I have never seen anything like this. I keep
saying that every week. I say, I have never seen anything like this.
But I guess I agree with Susan about the nature of the Republican Party and their commitment
to Trump. And, no, I don't think it's very clear, at this point, that there is some sort
of revolt with -- inside the Republican Party coming.
It could happen over time. And, look, for the midterm elections, the Democrats don't
need a full-scale Republican revolt. They just need to win swing voters, turn out Democratic
voters. And any leakage from the Republican side is a plus for the Democrats.
AMNA NAWAZ: Talk to me a little bit about some of the dissonance we're seeing just within
the administration now.
You have President Trump going out there and basically saying he believes President Putin.
And then you have his homeland security secretary over the weekend saying, we know that Russia
is interfering.
How do you square those two things, Stu?
STU ROTHENBERG: I think Donald Trump is a bit of an outlier, and yet he's the president
of the United States.
I mean, you know, what can you say? He has his own views. And he will be criticized indirectly,
but nobody's taking him on directly. We can't find very many members of his own party that
are as outraged. That's the thing. There's no outrage.
Even when Lamar Alexander and John Cornyn from Texas make statements about the Russians
interfering in the election, there's no outrage. And that's a problem.
Yes, sure, you can look at administration officials. But if the president isn't taking
decisive action and doesn't express a sense of anger, I don't think anything gets done.
SUSAN PAGE: The president cannot be an outlier in his administration.
STU ROTHENBERG: Right.
SUSAN PAGE: The president defines his administration.
But you see this division with some of his top staffers also on the issue of NATO. The
president came to this news conference, and one of the things that made it so striking
was his language and his posture toward Vladimir Putin was so much friendlier than his posture
had been toward our NATO allies.
After the NATO summit, you had administration officials going back to NATO allies, saying,
we're still committed to NATO. But, you know, this is just President Trump. And then he
does the news conference today and undermines that message.
STU ROTHENBERG: The damage is done. He does the damage, and everybody tries to clean up.
Well, the president -- what the president says matters more than anybody else.
AMNA NAWAZ: We will have to leave it there.
Susan Page, Stuart Rothenberg, thanks for your time.
STU ROTHENBERG: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: A new documentary takes a closer look at what drove Robin Williams,
the legendary comedian and then actor, on stage and off.
The film premieres on HBO tonight.
And, as Jeffrey Brown tells us, the funny man's public persona was often quite different
from the private life.
ROBIN WILLIAMS, Comedian/Actor: This is a quick impression. A Spanish fly.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBIN WILLIAMS: Are there any Spanish people here tonight? OK, we can do it.
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: Madcap, frenetic and lightning fast. On stage, Robin Williams was seemingly
impossible to contain or categorize.
ROBIN WILLIAMS: If you look at a platypus, I think you might think that God must be stoned.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBIN WILLIAMS: God's up there in heaven going, let's take a beaver. Let's put on a duck's
bill, OK?
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: The new documentary "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind" tries to pin
down the man through those who knew him.
DAVID LETTERMAN, Comedian: In my head my first sight of him was that he could fly, because
of the energy. It was like observing an experiment.
JEFFREY BROWN: And through watching Williams himself, his childhood in a well-off family
first in Detroit and then San Francisco, his burst to fame as an alien in the TV comedy
"Mork & Mindy."
ROBIN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Vietnam!
JEFFREY BROWN: His work as an actor in such films as "Good Morning Vietnam," "Dead Poets
Society," and "Good Will Hunting" in 1998, for which he won an Oscar for best supporting
actor.
ROBIN WILLIAMS: If you disrespect my wife ever again, I will end you.
JEFFREY BROWN: And through it all, his own personal ups and downs, substance abuse, troubled
relationships and a pervasive self-doubt, as characterized by his son Zak.
ZAK WILLIAMS, Son of Robin Williams: His pathos was seeking to entertain and please. And he
felt, when he wasn't doing that, he wasn't succeeding as a person. And that was always
hard to see, because, in so many senses, he was the most successful person I know, and
yet he didn't always feel that.
JEFFREY BROWN: Robin Williams took his own life in 2014 as his health began to deteriorate
from Lewy body dementia, a rare brain disease.
Director Marina Zenovich has previously made documentaries about filmmaker Roman Polanski
and comedian Richard Pryor. She says she saw Robin Williams as a national treasure.
MARINA ZENOVICH, Director: He was someone who was immensely talented who achieved fame
very early very quickly. And when you see how talented he was, you understand why that
happened.
And the film kind of explores how fame affects you, how it affects your life, how it affected
him. He always had comedy to go back to. And I think he got -- he needed comedy. He needed
the love from the audience. It was a need in him.
ROBIN WILLIAMS: Come inside my mind and see what it's like when a comedian eats the big
one. Don't be afraid. Come on in.
JEFFREY BROWN: Well, the question is asked at the beginning of the film about whether
his mind just worked faster than everyone else's.
MARINA ZENOVICH: He had an incredibly quick mind. He was intelligent. He was well-read.
He was curious.
You know, it was kind of like a mixture of all of those. And the guy could perform. The
guy could riff off anything. I mean, you know, you have to understand there's a difference
between acting and doing improv and stand-up comedy. Improv is working off things in the
room.
He could work off anything. So you kind of combine all of that, and you get Robin Williams.
JEFFREY BROWN: But you also show a man filled with doubt and insecurities.
MARINA ZENOVICH: He did have a lot of doubt. I mean, a lot of performers do. I mean, I
think a lot of creative people do. It's not a bad thing. We all have doubt.
I mean, God bless the people who can show us. I think people loved how honest he was.
And I think the more he kind of came to terms with his issues of substance abuse and what
have you, the better his comedy got.
JEFFREY BROWN: Inevitably, there's the shocking suicide. The suicides of successful people
have been in the news a lot lately.
How did you decide to handle this?
MARINA ZENOVICH: This film was always a celebration of Robin's life. Of course, we were always
going to talk about the end.
And there is this feeling through the joy, through the comedy, through the laughter,
through the loneliness, the neediness, the sadness, the tears, the comedy, you know,
that we're going to get to the end.
And everybody knows the end. I found it like a portrait of an artist told through his own
voice, trying to understand the creative process. It makes people appreciate the creative soul.
And Robin was a creative soul.
ROBIN WILLIAMS: Why do I stand up here? Anybody?
MAN: To feel taller.
ROBIN WILLIAMS: No.
Thank you for playing, Mr. Dalton.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBIN WILLIAMS: I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things
in a different way.
JEFFREY BROWN: The new film, "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind" is in theaters in New
York and Los Angeles and available on HBO.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight: The term micro-aggression can be a hot button. It describes indirect
or subtle discrimination.
And if you're on the receiving end, it can be as hurtful as anything overt.
If you have been accused of delivering a micro-aggression, you might wonder why, having no idea what
is was you said that was so offensive.
Well, tonight, noted satirist David Sedaris shares his Humble Opinion on what he sees
as an overly-sensitive world.
DAVID SEDARIS, Humorist: I'm the sort of author who travels a lot, 100 or so cities a year.
I read out loud, and then I sign books for three, four, five hours a night. So I meet
a lot of people.
Most of them, I forget, but, every so often, someone will stick. Maybe it's their name
or their size.
With one guy, it's a thumbtack tattooed on his forehead. We have met before, I say. It
makes people feel good to be remembered. I know it pleases me when the shoe is on the
other foot.
"David," my boyfriend of 26 years, might say, and I will just float for the rest of the
day. I like to make people feel good, so, often, while signing books, I will look up
asking, "Haven't we met?"
I get a lot of repeat business, so half the time, the person on the other side of the
signing table will say, "Wow, you have a good memory. It was last fall in Boston."
Of course, I'm wrong just as often as I'm right. A young Korean American woman came
through the line a few years ago. "We have met before, haven't we?" I asked. And she
said, "Right, because all us Asians look alike."
If I could do it all over again, I would say, "Wait, aren't you Akira Kurosawa? And you
were in those Margaret Cho comedy specials, and that Amy Tan movie you starred in and
wrote, because you're somehow Ming-Na Wen and Amy Tan."
I am actually very capable of distinguishing one Asian person from another, except for
my friends Matt and John Yuan (ph), who are identical twins, and have matching haircuts
and eyeglasses and weigh the same. They dress alike, live together and honestly don't care
if anyone can tell them apart. So I'm not going to feel bad about them.
That young woman at the book signing, though, give me a break.
Similarly, I was recently with a friend of mine who is a bit fragile. We were on a dark
terrace looking at the stars when a young woman approached to say she liked my books.
"How nice of you to tell me that," I said. She was a college student, and reminded me
that I had once met her sister, who had since gone back to India to visit their grandparents.
My friend, who was standing awkwardly beside me, then entered the conversation, saying,
"I think I waited on you once at the UPS store I work at."
The young woman's voice turned stony. "No," she said, "I'm afraid that was some other
brown person."
Or some other rude person, I thought, cringing on behalf of my friend, because not everything
is a micro-aggression. Sometimes, people make mistakes, and the big thing to do, especially
when they're obviously fragile, is to say, I get drunk and do a lot of blackout shipping,
so maybe that was me, or something, just to get through it.
My boyfriend and I live in England, and whenever we walk into an antique store together, the
owner will ask, without fail, "So, are you two dealers?" "No," I say, "just homosexuals."
They must think, just like I did when I was chided by the young Asian-American woman,
and my friend had her head taken off on the dark terrace, geez, can't a person say anything
anymore?
So I have made up my mind to retire my snide little "just homosexuals" response, and say
instead, "I can't believe you don't know who I am."
JUDY WOODRUFF: Online, David Sedaris shares a few of his favorite things. You can find
his recommendations for what to read, listen to and watch on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again here tomorrow evening. For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank
you, and we'll see you soon.
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