her. is because her name is alexandria. and my name is alexa. >> now so that everybody else. good to know. let's go with all this. >> a good day to all of you, i'm alexandra witt. north korean officials call nuclear deal talks with the u.s. regrettable. >> it's truly predictable. even the criticism that many people were expressing in and after singapore, that there were no details in the very vague pronouncements and declarations from both pump and kim jong un. >> less than a month after president trump met with kim jong un, questions about whether the deal to denuclearize is about to implode. plus, prove it -- a new report says president trump's attorney

is changing up the rules for an interview with the special counsel. we have new details from rudy giuliani, ahead. also the migrant parents, the government cannot find, and what this means for the children waiting to be reunited with them. but we begin the top of the hour with the breaking news, north korean officials are lashing out at the united states for seeking quote unilateral and forced denuclearization. this in a statement that threatens to blow up the talks between the two nations. north korea's official news agency said officials describe the last 24 hours of meetings with secretary of state mike pompeo as deeply regrettable and extremely troubling. north korean officials pointed to language in the june 12th, trump/kim summit agreement when both leaders agreed to work toward complete denuclearization of the korean peninsula. today's north korean statement contradicts what pompeo said before leaving pyongyang earlier today. >> we had a, many hours of productive conversations. these are pli indicated issues,

we talked about what the north koreans are continuing to do and how it's the case we can get our arms around achieving what chairman kim and president trump both agreed to, which was the complete denuclearization of north korea. there's no, no one walked away from that they're still equally committed. i had a chance to speak to president trump this morning. no, my counterpart spoke with chairman kim during our negotiations as well. we had productive good-faith negotiations. pompeo left pyongyang without meeting leader kim jong un. but north korean officials say a personal letter from kim was given po pompeo to deliver to president trump. nbc news white house correspondent jeff bennett has more on this. jeff with, a welcome to you. is there an explanation to this discrepancy between the north koreans' account and secretary pompeo's account? >> this development certainly comes as no surprise to long-time korea watch who are make the point that the north korean regime is an unreliable partner at best and point to

this cycle of hope and inevitable disappointment when it comes to dealing with north korea on this issue of eliminating its nuclear weapons program. to be clear, secretary pompeo traveled back to the region with a mission. he was there to flesh out the details of that vaguely worded joint declaration that the president and kim signed at the singapore summit just last month. remember the president touted that as a game-changing moment on twitter. he said north korea no long irposes a nuclear threat. he said that americans could sleep well at night that put the pressure on the secretary of state to really produce some tangible results. well now you have the north koreans saying that the u.s. team's attitude was regrettable. and by way of contrast, take a look at how the secretary of state characterized his meetings sometimes after they wrapped up. >> we made progress on almost all of the central issues. some places a great deal of progress. other places there's still more work to be done. we now have a meeting at

panmunjom. set up for july 12th there will be discussions between the folks responsibility for the repatriation of remains. and the process will begin to develop over the days that follow. so very productive conversations. but the process by which we will deliver on the commitments that were made at the singapore summit. >> and alex, i think it's instructive to instill the analysis from our own andrea mitchell. whose voice we heard at the top of the forecast. she covers foreign affairs in the state department day in and day out she makes the point that the president's over-eagerness undercut his negotiator's standing and this was predictable, given that the president's desire to really sell this as a success and sometimes making false claims, is what allowed north korea to sort of puncture pompeo's role here. and trying to bring about some resolution to all of this. i would just add, though, that the north korean foreign

minister in their statement made the point that north korea still trusts donald trump so the north koreans are in many ways putting the ball back in the president's court to change the dynamic here. alex? >> it is an interesting time. we're going to discuss more about this right now. thank you so much, jeff bennett for that. let's bring in evans revere, senior adviser at the albright stonebridge group and former deputy assistant secretary of state for east asia. evans warks this all predictable? given the trump administration's apparent elevated hopes after singapore? and po the point that jeff was saying that so many analysts said this should have been a trump/kim summit. should have been at the end of a long string of negotiations. they definitely were putting the cart in front of the horse here what are you thinking as you nod in agreement? >> i'm nodding in agreement, is what i'm doing. alex, it's good to be with you. indeed this entire process has been unfolding in a somewhat

backwards and unconventional manner. the hard, tough slogging of negotiations with the north koreans should have preceded a summit. should not have followed a summit. we are now as secretary pompeo has just experienced personally in pyongyang, we are now being exposed to the harsh reality of a north korea that in my view, does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons and certainly does not intend to denuclearize in the sense that the united states means that phrase. and i think secretary pompeo did probably as good a job as he could in laying out the u.s. position on denuclearization. on the way forward. on the steps that north korea needs to take. and the response that he got from north korea is that north korean statement. this is not north korea's vision of the path forward. and so that's the harsh reality. >> but evans, i've talked with so many again as to the

definition of denuclearization and how that could have different interpretations based on where you're coming from. >> sure. >> how does denuclearization have different interpretations? doesn't that mean get rid of them? >> in the dictionary it does, and in the u.s. diplomatic parlance, it does. but keep in mind that the north koreans continue to use the phrase "the denuclearization of the korean peninsula." or "the denuclearization of the whole korean peninsula." well there are no nuclear weapons in south korea. so what are they talking about? what they're talking about is the elimination of the elements of the u.s./south korea alliance, the u.s. military presence and u.s. capacity to bring to bear all of its military assets should it need to to defend south korea, including strategic assets. that's how the north koreans define denuclearization. >> a report says that the letter was delivered to, will be delivered from mike pompeo to

chairman kim to president trump. that north korea has not lost faith in president trump. what does that mean? what are they expecting of president trump? and what is he likely to be able to do? >> well if you go back to the statement that came out of the singapore summit, if you go back to the president's press conference, after that summit, and to the president's subsequent comments in which he painted all of they things in an incredibly positive light, and seem to be making concession after concession to the north koreans, my read of this is that that's what the north koreans want more of. they want less talk about denuclearization, less talk about complete verifiable irreversible denuclearization. less talk about all of the things that secretary pompeo probably talked about in pyongyang. and more talk about building relationships, building trust, they want more talk about what concessions the united states is prepared to add to the ones that

it's already made. >> evans what kind of concessions could they still further want? president trump said said we have not made any concessions and yet the joint military exercises that were scheduled with south korea next month, those were canceled. what kind of concessions are they looking for? >> probably at the top of their list, beyond the measures that were already taken, you've named one very important one, are concessions in the area of sanctions, the removal of some of the sanctions and other measures that are imposed on north korea that have been taking a toll on the north korean economy and on its ability to use the international banking system. the north koreans want to hear up front what the united states is prepared to do to, to oil the machine -- >> sweeten the deal. >> sweeten the deal going forward. that's precisely what they want to hear. and they haven't heard very much of that. and my read of what happened in the conversations between secretary pompeo and his counterpart is that secretary pompeo went in there and did

exactly what he should have done. we want denuclearization. we want an agreement on inspections and verification. we want all of the things that were hinted at in that summit declaration. but there was no detail provided. one of the most important things to understand, where we are right now is that we do not have a denuclearization agreement with the north koreans. one of the things that secretary pompeo was trying to achieve in pyongyang was to put meat on the skeleton of this alleged denuclearization deal. >> evans revere, i'm so glad to have you on this breaking news day. thank you so much. new reaction to the "new york times" report which suggests that chances president trump would voluntarily agree to a meeting with special counsel robert mueller, they are growing increasingly unlikely. nbc news white house correspondent kelly o'donnell just got off the phone with trump attorney rudy giuliani and is joining us from berkeley heights, new jersey where the president is staying this weekend with the very latest, literally speaking. what did mr. giuliani have to

say, kelly? >> well this is all about trying to protect the president and to in many ways in a pr sense, undercut the robert mueller investigation in the eyes of the public. in a more narrow sense, what the president's legal team is saying to the special counsel is that in order for the president to agree to any kind of interview, they want to have some information, what basis of a crime has been committed? that they have evidence for that relates to the president. sort of narrowing the scope and saying that you have to be able to connect something that is potentially criminal to the president, in order to justify a sitting president giving this kind of interview. this is the kind of strategy going back and forth where clearly the robert mueller team would like to question the president on a range of topics, his defense team wants to be more narrow about it. in the coming week they plan to put all of this in writing, to the special counsel. there have been conversations happening behind the scenes. and so far, according to giuliani and the legal team,

there has not been a rejection of this idea of providing more specific basis in order to try to negotiate. some terms for an interview. and so in the absence of a rejection, the giuliani team is thinking thil is still a possible way of coping with this issue. the president i'm told, his thinking has changed from when we heard him often say, i would be willing to sit for an interview, i look forward to sitting for an interview. now having some what was described to me as a healthy suspicion for the process and would it be a perjury trap. what comes next? it is a week of busy activities for the president. the supreme court announcement will be made public on monday. the nato meeting and then planning for the vladimir putin summit a week from monday. sources on the legal team say they believe this is a good time while the president is busy on the public stage for his legal team and investigators to try to hash out is there any way to have a narrow list of questions that relate to something like the collusion piece, not obstruction?

their argument is that because of president's interview with our colleague, lester holt, other public statements he's made, the support by the white house to have witnesses testify, by providing documents, they argue that all the answers are in those sorts of pieces of evidence and testimony that the special counsel team already has. trying to urge them to say what more would you need from the president himself to resolve any questions. they don't expect this is something that the special counsel will jump on. this is more leverage and negotiating to try to resolve it. time is ticking. we know of course it's a mid term year and there's been a lot of anticipation of trying to see an end to this. before the election. no, no, no idea from the special counsel side if that's going to happen. we of course checked with the office of special counsel. they are not commenting on this i talked with the former lawyer to the president, john doud, who is not a part of the team any more. he contends that his original strategy of cooperation actually set the conditions for this. by providing all the documents, by encouraging white house personnel to speak to the

special counsel. that they provided everything they need and so the president would be one piece they don't need. that's the legal argument from the president's side. alex? >> kelly o, thank you so much. straight from the phone call with rudy giuliani. joining me on the phone, "new york times" washington correspondent michael schmidt. who co-wrote this piece on the trump legal team's shifting strategy. michael, with a welcome to you. walk us through a bit more of these demands and what prompted the change in strategy? >> well, this has been going on for six months. the president's lawyers having discussions with mueller's office about an interview. and it makes you wonder what's really going on here. are they really just negotiating and trying to narrow the scope of the questions? or is this a delay tactic? to just prolong the investigation and insure that it's mueller were to write a report, that it wouldn't go to congress until after the mid term elections. >> despite the fact that they've been calling for this to wrap it up as quickly as possible. so is this potentially a pr strategy? as well?

and to what end? >> well, that's the thing. is it a legal strategy? is it a pr strategy? what we've seen in the past few months is a ratcheting up in the tension from the trump legal and public relations teams. we've seen the president use "witch hunt." far more than at any other point in his presidency. and we've seen giuliani throw all sorts of things at the special counsel. publicly. different allegations, seizing on the ig report about comey and fbi investigators, saying that mueller is out to get the president. and pushing different theories, at times would say conspiracy theories about the investigation. this has been a different change of posture from what we saw previously. which was a, a an idea of let's not attack mueller. let's cooperate with him. and the sooner that we do that. the sooner the investigation will be over and the cloud will be lifted from the administration. >> michael, how much veracity is

this to the strategy if giuliani tells you in your interview that he's pretty sure that mueller is not going to accept these terms? >> well that's the thing. is that what you know, what's really going on here? is this really just hard-core negotiating to try and get the questions narrow as much as possible? is that what rudy is trying to do here? is he just trying to do that? or is he just trying to extend that? that's something that we can't really make sense of. is that what is the larger play here? we know that the president's lawyers have concluded that the only threat that they see to him is impeachment. that the biggest issue they would face would be an impeachment process in the house, led by the democrats. that's the only issue the president faces. the thing that would dictate what that vote would look like is public opinion. and they're trying to move public opinion as much as possible in the president's direction. and there's some polls that back

up that notion that they've been successful in that area. >> michael, last question, speaking of public opinion, one from the outside here. because i know you tweeted about an email you got from the president's former lawyer, john dowd. kelly was speaking about that. how is he watching this play out? what are his thoughts? >> well, you know, dowd understands the investigation as well as anyone else. he came on last summer after mueller was appointed to lead the president's legal team. and he booked a posture of cooperation. he sold the president on a strategy of the more that we help mueller, the sooner this will be over. the problem is, is that in some ways that has not come true. we are here now more than a year after mueller has been appointed. it's not car that there's any end in sight of the investigation. the president's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, his national security adviser have been charged. mueller has a long list of questions he wants to ask the president. it's clear that mueller is not satisfied with all the

information he has gotten. and he is seeking an interview with the president. so the idea of cooperation, which dowd pushed early on, is still in question. is this a way of, of hurting the president? or helping the president? dowd says today, he says by being as cooperative as they are, they can now make the argument that hey, look, we've done all of these things, we've cooperated with mueller. he's still not satisfied. he is, he is out to get the president. that's the point that dowd is trying to make. >> well michael schmidt. thank you so much for helping us through this developing story. much appreciated from "the new york times." and reports that president narrowing down his supreme court picks to now just three contenders. what are democrats saying about them? that's next. let's do this. (♪) okay you gotta be kidding me. hold on, don't worry, there's another way. directions to the greek theater. (beep) ♪can i get a connection? ♪can i get can i get a connection?♪

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a critical week ahead for the president. starting his pick for the supreme court nomination. happening monday. the very next day, the president leaves for europe meetings with nato allies in brussels and he'll stop in meeting for a meeting with theresa may the prime minister. joining me now, white house correspondent for the "washington examiner" and alex siteswald, reporter for nbc news. i'm curious about the expectation monday when the president unveils his pick for the supreme court nomination. any reporting that you may have on who's taking the lead among the top three that we're showing

on screen. brett cavanaugh, amy coney barrett and ray kethlidge. >> almost like an episode of "the apprentice" in primetime at 9:00 p.m. on a monday. when president obama rolled out his supreme court nominees they were done in the morning. in the white house kind of a typical affair, trump has been building up to this for days. so in these three finalists that we're hearing, one thing that stands out. they're all very young. brett cavanaugh is 53, raymond kethledge is 41 and amy coney barrett is 41. they're all very conservative. cavanaugh comes from the bush administration. he's closely aligned with george w. bush which some people have seen as a potential weakness for him with trump who has had his beef with the trump administration. amy coney barrett is a a mother of seven. that come up in her confirmation

for appellate court judge, keptledge wrote a book about how he likes leadership as a personal kind of lonely enterprise, so less of a high-profile but all three of them closely watched. >> he's a michigander, he likes hunting. >> the president is said he's not interested in selecting a supreme court nominee who is going to engage in judicial activism. what's the message that he's trying to send here? >> i think he knows that this confirmation battling in the senate is going to be extremely difficult. considering all of these are conservative candidates, some more so than the others. but and he's facing this slim majority where really he only has room for one gop defector, if even that. since vice president pence cannot be a tie-breaking vote in this case. so he does need to make sure that whomever he puts foorld is able to carefully navigate the

questions that are going to be asked during the confirmation hearing about issues like and rulings like roe v. wade, anything involving obamacare, all of these hot-button issues that are likely to come up and who the president's supreme court candidate is likely to be pressed on. i think that's why we're seeing him take his time with this. although there really has been a two-week process going into monday's announcement at 9:00 p.m. and why the candidate is ultimately going to be working closely with the white house throughout the confirmation process. being sort of shepherded through that battle and meeting with senators to make sure that they do establish a good rapport with some of those folks who they're definitely going to need the support of, come time for a vote. >> all right. i'm curious, alex, who you think of this group. i want to throw south thomas hardiman as well. he's seen to be as a second amendment extremist. who is likely to get the least

strong push-back from democrats? >> well it's tough to say. i mean i think they're pretty united against anybody that trump is going to put up. but i would say cavanaugh, given his time in washington, he's on the d.c. circuit of appeals. is clearly qualified in the kind of typical sense of does he have the legal experience. he probably has the longer resumé than some of the other nominees. he also is more relationship, just personally perhaps with the senators given his time in washington. and i think somebody like amy coney barrett, who has very strong views on abortion or at least is perceived to have strong views on abortion, that could prevent tougher push-back for her, since roe v. wade is going to be the number one issue focused on during these hearings. >> we have breaking news to get to out of chicago. who do you think is going to get the most support from republicans? >> i think whoever the president chooses. republicans are bound to support although there will be those

three more moderate republican senators, shelly moore cupito and susan collins and lisa murkowsky are going to be closely watched to see if they have reluctance to support this nominee. given their previous rulings and comments on things like abortion, reproductive rights and obamacare. >> thank you so much. gabby, alex, good to see you both. unfortunately i have to make this a little shorter than intended. for all of you happening right now, demonstrators in chicago have shut down part of a major expressway, they're demanding a solution to the city's decades-old problems of gun violence, it's being called a peace rally. a march being led by one of chicago's prominent activist. fare michael flagler. joining me by phone, a reporter from our nbc affiliate, wmaq, who is right in the middle of the crowds. can you give us a sense of how many people are there? i can tell you we're getting an aerial view.

estimates to be in the thousands it looks like. and talk about the message of this rally. >> right, organizers were estimating about 3,000 people it looks a little bit smaller than that. and it was bigger earlier in the day that is started about an hour ago. the marchers gathered here just south of the city. wanting to shut down completely, the inbound lanes of the dan ryan expressway, which is a major, major highway here just south of the city. and really the message here is that they say that they don't want to be ignored any more. what they have presented as the case that this going to be an inconvenience for drivers, but what they face every day they say, in areas in the south and the west side of chicago, under the cloud of gun violence is a greater inconvenience. and that is the message they want out today. they want everyone to know that they are tired of this and that they want public officials to act. and that is the message that we've seen here throughout the morning. and right now, they're pushing towards the center lane, they're trying to close even more lanes of traffic.

the illinois department of transportation as well as the chicago police department said that this would be contained to about one lane and the shoulder of the expressway in the interests of public safety. but so far they're trying to continue pushing over and completely shutting down this expressway. >> i want to let everybody know, usher, as we look at this on the left of the screen, this is the dan ryan expressway. these are the northbound lanes. and usher, we're told that the three main topics, gun violence, joblessness and access to quality education are what these demonstrators are pushing for. there's a history with regard to this particular expressway. it is something that was built in the 1960s to try to separate ostensibly white communities and poor black ones. so talk about the challenges that they have had. i understand there was a little bit of a controversy leading up to the organizers and their dealings with governor bruce rauner. what happened there? >> absolutely. this is an illinois state

highway. these negotiations have been going on for days. even this morning, one of the majoringers here, father michael flager, who has been an activist here in the chicago area for decades, has been a champion for communities of color, who has been feeling the pinch of this gun violence over the last few decades. he said that there was no agreement reached here. to control how many lanes of traffic were shut down. in the interest of public safety. illinois department of transportation has said we need to keep this thoroughfare open. on the flip side, there's been criticism that other similar shutdowns of major thoroughfares in chicago. that were happening on the north side in predominantly white areas, in communities that are not predominantly people of color, they allow shutdowns for a variety of reasons, for marches, for other kinds of events, without issue. and so there's been a lot of conflict here over what the

illinois department of transportation has been asking for and what these marchers are demanding. and what they're really trying to say here is this is going to be an inconvenience, it's an inconvenience needs to be noted until action is taken against the gun violence that they're facing, predominantly in the south and west sides of the city. >> last question because i know you're in the middle of all of this there were concerns that illinois state police would be making arrests along the dan ryan expressway. because they're the runs wunz that patrol this area. they said they intend to. have you seen arrests so far? >> we have not. it has swelled a little in the middle and expanded beyond the parameters of what police wanted it to. but as far as the eye can see in both directions, south and northbound, there's a line of chicago police officers, illinois department of transportation trucks, an artificial barrier preventing these marchers from crossing over and blocking the last two lanes of traffic. so far that seems to have held and there hasn't been any breach from my vantage point, i haven't seen any arrests.

>> from wmaq, our nbc affiliate, usher garakey. democrats say special counsel robert mueller has to meet some high demands to get a sit-down with trump.

new developments this hour in the russia investigation, the "associated press" has obtained a letter from june of last year, written by the lawyers for president trump to the special counsel. unleashing an attack on former fbi director james comey. calling him machiavellien. it comes as the it's written that the special counsel robert mueller needs to prove before mr. trump would agree to an interview that he has evidence that mr. trump committed a crime. joining me now former prosecutor and law professor steven mullroy. the app is reporting an attack on james comby. do ongoing attacks like this does it go against the former fbi direct center does it do the president any good? who wins in this regard? >> it's up to the public to

decide this is a public relations campaign, alex. i mean this is consistent with what the president's team has been doing for a long time now. trying to discredit comey, and the mueller investigation itself. as part of a public relations campaign. it's interesting to note that some of the things that the letter talks about, that are sort of indictments against comey, aside from his leaking memos about his conversations about president trump, the other things, the way he handled the clinton email probe, going outside the chain of command. and some other things, actually sort of suggest if anything, that he was comey was being too harsh on clinton. the indictment against him that he briefed trump on the steele dossier, interestingly, is something that sort of suggests that he was actually trying to help trump. so it's sort of a -- a mixture of things. some things like the leaking of

the memos, trying to paint comey as being biased against trump. other things that they mentioned don't quite add up to that same thesis. >> so by setting these very challenging conditions, giuliani wants to know what mueller has in his arsenal against the president. is this just a smart legal strategy? is it something he even can do? they talked about it being discovery and trying to put together some sort of a defense. but it seems as if you're getting answers to things in an untimely fashion. >> right. well, this has been drug out for a long time now. these negotiations over whether president trump would actually sit down for an interview with the mueller team. have been going on for months and months, and it doesn't seem in light of this new development that it's ever going to be really resolved. short of mueller just issuing a subpoena. which appears under the law that he does have the right to do. applicable supreme court precedent seems to suggest

pretty strongly that he has the right to subpoena cooperation from president trump. >> okay. bloomberg's reporting that mueller has expanded the team to include more career prosecutors. also fbi agents, what does that say to you? how do you interpret all that? >> well if he were actually hiring more people on his staff, that would suggest that perhaps this investigation was going to be taking a lot longer to wind up and maybe they've really found new developments. but as i understand it, he's just drawing on existing resources of staff within the department of justice. and u.s. attorneys' offices, which is actually par for the course. sort of standard procedure. i think the mueller team has been attacked on a number of different fronts legally. they have aggressive opposition to some of their investigations that they have to deal with. and so naturally, being overtaxed with their resources, they're drawing on existing staff resources at doj to help them out. they actually i think are

actually sort of spinning off discrete subparts of the investigation to u.s. attorney's office. which again i think is not at all unusual. >> kind of par for the course as has been the general consensus. yes. >> okay, steven mullroy, thank you for joining us from san francisco. breaking news to go over this hour. denucleari denuclearizing, the deal to denuclearize north korea. the north's official news agency said a deal may be heading downhill now. because the u.s. is demanding unilateral denuclearization. north korean officials are quoted as calling the talks with secretary of state mike pompeo over the last 48 hours, regrettable. joining me now, democratic congressman brendan boyle of pennsylvania. a member of the house foreign affairs committee. okay. with a welcome to you. those sound like a setback to you in the relationship between the two countries? what's been your take on this whole situation with north korea so far? >> unfortunately this is completely predictable. this is what i said what many other experts said.

people who have worked in previous administrations, both democratic and republican. this is essentially the same script that north korea has followed for 30 years. they raise hopes, they talk in conciliatory tones. and then they pull back. the only difference this time is that we had a president who is gullible enough to actually fly over there and sit down for a one-on-one meeting in order to legitimize kim jong un. that is what the kim regime wanted. that is what previous presidents, both democrats and republicans, had resisted giving in to. it's unfortunate that president trump didn't listen to the experts. i know he skofs at experts, but occasionally they are right. and they were right in this case. >> so bottom line, boiling down what you're saying here, do you think the president is being played by kim jong un? i'm also curious since you're on the foreign affairs committee, is there a whispering among members of the committee when they look at the situation, and

democrats may say one thing, republicans may say one thing. out in public. but amongst yourselves, does everyone kind of believe that we're not getting the right end of the deal here at this point? >> you know actually the house foreign affairs committee acts in a pretty bipartisan way. i mean you do have partisan fights every now and again. but i give the senior republican, senior democratic members of the committee real credit. they purposely attempt to strike a tone on the foreign affairs committee in which we look for bipartisan consensus. so you've had that on russia, you've had that on north korea. i don't think any member of the foreign affairs committee that i spoke to and i have a number of good relationships on the other side of the aisle, i don't think anyone was really optimistic that this was going to be a breakthrough. sure, we would like to think that it is possible and hold out that hope. but we were also you know, quite realistic, too. it was really only president trump kind of out there, on a

limb, thinking that somehow this time might be different. >> officials have reportedly told axios, that before another summit between the president and kim could take place in the u.s., north korea would have to show progress toward denuclearization. what do you think of the prospect of kim jong un visiting the united states? there have been reports they might do some sort of a sideline meeting during the u.n. general assembly in september. >> so let's take a step back for a second. what exactly did we get out of singapore? we got nothing. we didn't get an agreement, we got a vague statement where north korea reiterated previous promises. we know what north korea got. they got the status of a bilateral meeting, something they've sought for decades. they also got the united states surprisingly to announce that we would suspend this sort of cooperation that we had in the upcoming military exercises that

we have with south korea. so the north korean side got those two things. we didn't get one thing. why would we want to continue going down this road and now give kim jong un the benefit of a meeting with the president in the united states unless we get something to show that this isn't just some sort of game in which we're being played. which right now, clearly, appears to be the case. >> i want to quickly get to what's happening. the nato meeting in brussels this week. it happens the president leaves on tuesday after announcing his pick for the supreme court monday night. i want to have you listen to what the president said about nato this week. here it is. >> we're paying for anywhere from 70 to 90% to protect europe and that's fine. of course they kill us on trade. kill us on other things. so they want to protect against russia. yet they pay billions of dollars to russia, and we're the schmucks that are paying for the whole thing. >> what is the effect of

statements like this on u.s. allies? >> this is having a pretty deep effect and i think in many ways, this is probably understated here in the u.s. just last week i was one of six members of congress that in bulgaria for 48 hours meeting with colleagues who serve in the european parliament. and whether they were from liberal parties or conservative parties or centrist parties, the level of concern that our allies have right now is at a record high. and if you think about it. we essentially built the post world war ii order this is something that has been bipartisan whether it was presidents truman and kennedy or reagan and bush. the idea that the u.s. would lead the west, that we would lead nato, that we would be a bulwark for freedom and human rights against eastern aggression from the soviet union and now russia that was a bipartisan foreign policy

consensus. along comes president trump and is completely up-ending that. and it is disturbing. i am very worried going into this week's nato meeting. the fact that he is sitting down for a one-on-one with puting in helsinki immediately after the nato meeting if we have a repeat of the performance of the g7 summit, there could be real consequences, especially for ukraine and our nato allies in the baltics. >> democratic congressman brendan boyle of pennsylvania, thank you so much for weighing in. good to so you. thank you. >> the white house communications team gets a new member. is it part of a pattern in more ways than one? i visualize travel rewards. i receive travel rewards. going new places. (oh!) going out for a bite. going anytime. rewarded! learn more at theexplorercard.com

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♪can i get a connection? ♪can i get can i get a connection?♪ ♪can i get a connection? republican congressman jim jordan is firing back at a group of former ohio state wrestlers who say he knew about alleged sexual misconduct by the team doctor but did nothing to stop it. in a new interview he denied the accusations that stem from his time as an assistant wrestling coach. it happened about three decades ago. >> never saw, never heard of, never was told about any type of abuse. if i had been, i would have dealt with it. what bothers me the most is the guys that are saying this thing,

i know they know the truth. >> let's bring a democratic strategist and republican national spokesperson with us. welcome to you both. kailee, with you first. four of the accusers have spoken with nbc news. "the wall street journal" has spoken with a fifth. do you think the allegations should be taken seriously? why would jim jordan say all of them know the truth? why would they all be lying? >> well, because he knows the truth which is that he did not know about the allegations, and if he did, he would have come out immediately to try to resolve the issue. so he has flat out denied this. it's worth pointing out the irregularities here which congressman jordan pointed to. two of the accusers have some pretty colored histories. one served prison time for a fraud scheme involving millions

of dollars. another is the subject of several lawsuits. the firm investigatining this found the democratic funded dossier. they say they reached out to congressman jord ton get an interview, when they reached out to an e-mail address that didn't exist anymore. >> interesting. congressman jordan, don, he's linking the timing of the accusations to last week's judiciary committee with rod rosenstein and with his name being floated for house speaker. do you see any connection? >> you know what, in all objective fairness, there might be. when you run for office and when you seek greater prominence within the leadership in congress, people dig into your history and see if there's anything they can dig up. that has nothing to do with the price of tea in china. the reality is he was an assistant coach when young men were sexually assaulted. he needs to answer about whether

or not he was aware of that. there's evidence that says this happened. the doctor killed himself in 2005 when allegations came to light against him. as an assistant coach -- i was a college athlete. the assistant coach is part of the family. you know what's going on. it would be a stretch to say he was completely unaware of it. and it's not a conspiracy because it's coming out now. that's the nature of politics. >> there were things that were said that the doctor, that he would shower routinely with the boys. that's just unseemly. it is. is that the kind of thing an assistant coach would not be aware of? look, i've never been in a guy's locker room on a sporting team. i don't know. if the coaches milling about in the locker room? >> of course they are. it's a family situation. you spend a whole lot of time together in close and cramped quarters. you travel together. you essentially live together. jim jordan would have known

about it if the gentlemen are telling the truth. as a 50-year-old man, it is not a comfortable thing to come out and say another man sexually oh midwested me when i was in college. i have a hard time believing these men are lying. jim jordan needs to make a serious accounting for that. not to say it's a conspiracy to bring him down. kailee, you're a lawyer like myself. the law firm has a lot of interests. the question on the table is did jim jordan know and did he do anything to stop it? all objective evidence suggests he probably did know and didn't do anything to stop it. >> but he has stated he did not know, and there's no reason to accuse him of lying at this point. but what i do want to ask kailee is how should the accusations effect any potential consideration of congressman jordan as the potential successor to speaker paul ryan? >> well, they should certainly be investigated. speaker ryan has said that.

and don, i want to point something out. no one is looking at the accusers saying you're lying about what happened to you. our heart goes out to anyone who is a victim. they're saying the pay you're painting representative jordan knowing about it and not reporting it, that's not accurate. that's what we're pointing to. i would noelt the several people who have come to congressman jordan's defense, teammates, staffers, a woman who is a widow. her husband was on the wrestling man. her husband was a military man and died in the line of duty. a lot of people have said they don't agree with -- >> it's six people accusing them. their stories align. i think they deserve a fair hearing. >> we have to wrap it up there. we've had a lot of developing news from chicago and everything with north korea. thank you for joining me for this part of the conversation. thank you. at the top of the hour, more news at the nuclear talks taking a turn that some might surprise in the white house. that's next.

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next, three big stories, three potentially significant consequences. first, a troubling fallout from nuclear talks with north korea. america's top diplomat ends two days of talks that pyeongchang calls regrettable. in washington president trump's legal team gets more combative and demands proof of evidence that the president has committed a crime or else. and two weeks trapped.

time running out. the option to rescue the soccer team fade as the air supply is running low. incredibly, the spirits of the children could not be better. a welcome to all of you. i'm alex witt in new york. let's get to happening right now as we begin with this breaking news. north korean officials are lashing out at the united states for seeking, quote, unilateral and forced denuclearization. this in a statement that threatens to blow up the talks between the nations. officials describe secretary of state mike pompeo's demands over the last 24 hours as deeply regrettable and extremely troubling. pompeo reportedly asking the north for complete verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. north korean officials pointing to the june 12th trump/kim summit agreement when they both agreed to work toward complete denuclearization of the north korean peninsula. here's