Trump Invites Putin to Washington; Senate Rejects Proposal to Allow Americans to Be Interrogated by Russians
CAMEROTA: President Trump extending an invitation to Russian president Vladimir Putin to come to the White House in the fall. This as our nation's top spy chief says Russia is engaged in ongoing election interference before our midterms. A suspected Russian foreign agent is accused of trying to sway U.S. politics through the NRA. And police in the U.K. are still searching for the two suspects accused of poisoning a former Russian spy and his daughter and accidentally doing so to two other civilians. Let's bring in former ambassador to Russia under President Clinton, Thomas Pickering. Ambassador Pickering, it is great to have your expertise with us this morning.</s>THOMAS PICKERING, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: Thank you.</s>CAMEROTA: What do you think of this timing? Is this the right time to invite Vladimir Putin to the White House?</s>PICKERING: I think we're at a point now where we need to distinguish between a policy that has communications with Russia, which I support, and the man who has to deliver those communications, who seemingly quite inept in his ability to do that. And that ineptitude should not be a roadblock to talking with President Putin, despite what we all know and believe to be bad actions on the part of President Putin. You need to talk to your enemies. You need to talk to the people who can help resolve problems. Problems don't get resolved by making them worse by the failure to communicate and we are where we are now, in part, because we have failed to communicate. And I wish I could say that to you with the confidence that the president would somehow change, would use his staff, would think together with them about the problems and issues and how to resolve them. The public has a right to know but it has a right to know at a time and under a set of circumstance that promote U.S. vital interests. And the president has to be an arbiter of that. I think he should have said more about the general directions in which the policy is going. I think he should use every occasion to talk to President Putin about intervention, interference in our elections process.</s>PICKERING: And to use the power of his office to tell President Putin that he will take further tough steps.</s>CAMEROTA: Do you have any sense from their one-on-one meeting in Helsinki that that happened?</s>PICKERING: No more than you do. We all depend upon what is being said about that.</s>PICKERING: I wish the president could articulate a little better where he intends to go. On Ukraine, on Syria, on nuclear weapons, on certainly intervention in our elections, those are all important questions for the president to articulate and to build confidence in the American people. The notion that the intelligence chief did not know about this is, in my view, a clear instance of poor internal communications, even if stuff moves quickly. But it is not a reason not to continue to try to resolve the problems with Russia.</s>CAMEROTA: But you've spelled this out. But let's put a finer point on it of what Vladimir Putin has been up to in the past few years. So here are some of the things that he has done that are hostile. The attack on our 2016 election; the U.K. nerve agent attack that now has sickened three and killed one; attempt to interrogate Americans, including a former ambassador to Russia. As you know, he threw out that suggestion and for many days President Trump considered it; the invasion and annexation of Crimea; backed the rebels who shot down MH17 and there have been mysterious deaths of journalists and his political opponents, as you know. So, Ambassador, you were ambassador to Russia for many years. What is Vladimir Putin's end game? What does he want on the global stage?</s>PICKERING: It is quite clear that Vladimir Putin wants to promote Russia as an equal copartner with the United States for more in resolving and, indeed, settling the world's problems.</s>CAMEROTA: But he is not just a problem solver, right? Doesn't he want more than --</s>PICKERING: He's a politician. He wants to stay in office in his own country. And a lot of the policies he is pursuing are designed to achieve that, just as some that President Trump is doing. So we need to distinguish quite frankly the notion that bad behavior by someone who is clearly not working for U.S. interests, President Putin, is not the reason not to talk with them. But I wish we could do so with somebody who had the capacity, the understanding and the depth that could approach those particular problems in a way that could lead to their resolution rather than merely promoting his own kind of narcissistic traits before the American public. But the president we've got is the president we've got. And the problems we have with Russia are the problems we have with Russia. And letting one stand in the way of trying to resolve the other is not, in my view, in U.S. interest. Look, not talking never gets you anywhere.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes. I understand what you're saying. So you're a fan of communication and you're a fan of talking and you wish that we had somebody who was behaving in a more traditional and transparent way. But since we don't, are you concerned about what you've seen this week?</s>CAMEROTA: -- everything that unfolded in terms of the president saying one thing and then making 180-degree turn and saying the opposite and all of the stuff that we just laid out, including wanting to interrogate somebody who served, as you did, as ambassador to Russia. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much does this worry you?</s>PICKERING: It worries me like 9.5. Look, I'm joining this morning in a statement made by the American Academy of Diplomacy, that says any effort to put diplomats in a position, where their diplomatic immunity that they were given when they protected and defended American interests in Russia or in any other country, should be immediately discarded as a way of proceeding. It is really a dumb idea. It puts us and our diplomats under huge pressure all around the world that someday the American public or the American government may turn on them and say, hey, you're now before a court of justice in country X and country Y. That doesn't cover crimes. But it covers defending U.S. interests. And Michael McFaul, who I know well, is a great defender of U.S. interests. The Russians didn't like what he did. But he said the truth and he tried hard in whatever way he could to see if he could affect a difficult situation. That's where President Trump ought to be, working hard to change a difficult situation with President Putin. And look, short bursts of -- put it this way -- silence on both sides may send messages but long-time notion that we are going to demonize a process that could find an answer to the question, despite all the ineptitudes we have seen and despite all of the things that you lined up, that President Putin has done, to which we object, those are important considerations in our national interests. And I would still say, hopefully, have a better president, hope he's better prepared, hope in whatever way we can that he comes forward --</s>PICKERING: -- with useful ideas, hopefully find out a little more about what he's doing. All those are deficiencies. But should those deficiencies affect the vital interests of the United States in ways that mean, in fact, we are not communicating with a country that we will need to communicate with over a period of time? I still accept the view that it is important to keep those lines of communication open, however we can.</s>CAMEROTA: Hope springs eternal.</s>CAMEROTA: Ambassador Thomas Pickering, you are an optimist. Thank you very much.</s>PICKERING: Thank you very much.</s>BERMAN: So Thomas Pickering is a guy who has seen everything, been around everything, seen everything. You ask him, how worried is he about the U.S. communications and the message President Trump is sending toward Russia now on a scale of 1 to 10, and he says it worries me like 9.5.</s>CAMEROTA: Yet he thinks that we do need to keep talking with Russia and with Vladimir Putin. And he said he will be releasing that letter. He'll be very happy to know that the White House has now once, yet again, reversed its policy or whatever they called it, reversed its consideration of having an ambassador be interrogated --</s>BERMAN: Sarah Sanders says she thinks that the offer by Putin was sincere. She talks about the sincerity of Vladimir Putin. So what kind of message is that sending? The kind that worries Thomas Pickering like 9.5, he says. So what is the White House going to do next? How will they try to dig themselves out politically here? We have insight from a reporter, who has got sources all over the West Wing. Maggie Haberman is with us.