Welcome to the No Spin News. I'm Monica Crowley in today for Bill. Bill will be joining us in just a couple of minutes to give us his take on the Trump Putin summit and the reaction to it, which has been predictably hysterical. 

We've got a lot to get to so let's get right to it. If you were a space alien and you came to Earth yesterday and you came from the furthest reaches of a remote galaxy and you tuned in to the news coverage of the summit between Presidents Trump and Putin you would have gotten the impression that the American president had lost his mind, B. had given the keys to the country to a hostile power and C. deserved to be impeached, incarcerated and committed to a mental institution. The reaction was so over the top hysterical that you would have thought the President of the United States had overnight turned into Neville Chamberlain and the entire national press corps had turned into Linda Blair in The Exorcist. This is not to say that the president didn't make some mistakes. He did. For example, he suggested a moral equivalency between the United States and Russia where there isn't one. And also by seeming to suggest, that he was open to believing Vladimir Putin's denials about Russian interference in 2016 when everyone knows that Vladimir Putin is a professional liar and killer and thug. But the president also had hours of conversations with Putin about a number of global crisis points, including Iran, North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, Islamic terrorism, the Middle East more broadly and so much more. These are all areas of potential cooperation between the United States and Russia. 

Also, we don't know what was said privately they had over two hours of conversations together with just an interpreter present. It may very well be that Donald Trump reamed Vladimir Putin over his election meddling in 2016, we simply don't know. I would hope that the president would have said to him privately, point blank you know what we should have a more cooperative relationship and I want that and I'm trying to work toward that but I can't get there if you all are going to continue screwing around with our elections. My predecessor Barack Obama told you to quote knock it off. He was a 90-pound weakling, as you know, I am not so I mean when I say, if you don't knock it off there will be serious consequences. Again, we don't know what was said privately, I hope he said something like that and perhaps we might find out. But it was Trump's public comments that set off his opponents and even some of his supporters sent them clear off the deep end. Take a look. 

"First of all I just have to say I'm sick to my stomach, I'm really feeling nauseous." 

"Stunned, gobsmacked." 

"We're hearing words like I feel sick. This is frightening. Calling it an abomination." 

"Shocking stunning, genuinely stunning." 

"What is going on." 

"Unbelievable!" 

"Astonishing, just astonishing." 

"It is astonishing, it's heartbreaking and it represents a pivotal turn in our nation's history." 

"It's time for Americans to be out on the streets." 

"There are people protesting in the streets every day in the 70s. Why is that not happening now?" 

"When do you see a shadow government come out and say we cannot side with the government." 

"As an American citizen, I just personally think today is just an incredibly depressing moment in our time, in our history as an American."

"Was this a new low? Josh Campbell, I appreciate you both being with us on what has been a really difficult day for for for this country and frankly for much of the free world ahead." 

"He didn't even meet his own low bar for not screwing this up." 

"It is an absolute disgrace. It's a parody of a disgrace this entire week of President Trump abroad has made Hillary Clinton seem all the more precious."

"All he had to do was not you know put on jammies and crawl under the covers with Vladimir Putin and he couldn't do that."

Like I said Linda Blair in The Exorcist. I'm surprised their heads didn't come clear off their bodies. Then there was former CIA Director John Brennan who took to Twitter to call the president beelzebub. And worse he tweeted, "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican patriots, where are you???" 

Three question marks on that. Reminder we are still in the early days of the investigation into the internal targeting of Donald Trump, his associates and his campaign by the FBI and potentially others. And John Brennan may have some serious explaining to do which may explain his insane attacks. And this is nothing short, this tweet, nothing short of insane, his insane attacks on the President of the United States. Personal hatred between them, absolutely. But maybe Brennan's tweets are preemptive strikes to try to deflect attention away from himself and any potential role he may have had sitting atop the CIA. And I was thinking about something last night that I just want to put out there. It may well be and I don't know but it may be that Trump does not want to fully endorse the intelligence community's findings on Russia because if he were to do that it might open a door to Robert Mueller and his investigators. Think about that for a second. If he says yes, I fully endorse the intelligence community's findings that Russia fully meddled in the 2016 election, of course then he thinks that that implicates collusion somehow. It does not. But take it a step further and think about it this way, Mueller's team might say, oh, so you agree with the intel community that Russia meddled. Great. What do you know? What else do you know? 

For political reasons, maybe Donald Trump doesn't fully want to go there yet until the Mueller investigation has been completed. Just a thought. Moscow has long been trying to screw with our elections and our domestic politics, this has been going on for decades certainly since the advent of the Cold War and so this is nothing new. It's certainly not unique to 2016 just because Donald Trump was a candidate. It is true now that they have cyber weapons so the meddling is at a whole other level but this is basically the same old drill. This is what great powers do, they screw with each other. And by the way a handy reminder, when Barack Obama was president his administration interfered in the Israeli elections and the Kenyan elections and those are two sets of elections that we know about. We don't know what other elections his administration got involved in. Again, this is what great powers do, like it or not. 

But that's also why the president should have said something about it yesterday. The core of any president's real power is his moral authority. And I would have liked to have seen President Trump exercise some of that while he was standing next to Putin, while all of the international cameras were rolling. I agree with the president's attempt to try to reset the relationship with Russia for a whole variety of reasons and do it in an effective way rather than the failed way of President Obama and Mrs. Clinton and so far this president has been extremely aggressive on Russia, on sanctions, on expulsions, on arming the Ukrainian forces, he has been tough. And if Putin checks out of Eastern Europe or if he helps draw down the bloodshed in Syria or if he helps us on North Korea and Iran nobody will remember yesterday's comments at all but Donald Trump can do one thing to turn this perception around, he can separate out collusion, which didn't happen, from Russian meddling which did. That costs him nothing and it could gain him enormous credibility going forward. The Russian shenanigans didn't change one vote never mind changed the outcome of this election. He won fair and square so he really has nothing to lose. He loves this country, he knows what he told Putin privately and again as I theorize maybe he's playing his cards close to his vest on the intelligence community because he doesn't want to give Bob Mueller an opening. 

Haters are going to hate on him no matter what and I'll just end with this because this I know, with President Trump he almost always ends up on top and being right. Joining us now on the line from Ireland is our other Fearless Leader Bill O'Reilly. Bill welcome! And we'd love to get your thoughts on your reaction to the reaction to Trump and Putin. 

"Ok I'm over here in Westport, Ireland today and I was reading the Irish papers which are very liberal papers so they basically parrot what The New York Times and Washington Post say it's pretty much that. There are two stories in this. The first story is, how Donald Trump handled his negotiation explanation to the world. And the second story, is how the U.S. press is using that to push its get rid of Trump narrative. So those are the two stories. Let's start with President Trump. The mistake he made was, he didn't hold a factual press conference, he held a, what word am I going to apply to this, it was too all over the place, it was too disorganized.

“So the president should have, and his advisors should have written this up for him, gone out there and said look here are the facts and here's how I come down on the facts. We believe that Russian meddled in the 2016 election by hacking into the Democratic hierarchy as we reported yesterday and still nobody else has reported this. Trump had spent a lot of time on the assertion that Hillary Clinton got hacked, OK by the Russians and nobody's reported that yet. It's important because if that's true, Mrs. Clinton got away with a felony. Now, he should have said to the world we believe that Russia did it and I have discussed it with President Putin and I have made my opinion known that it can never happen again. President Putin denies it happened but we believe it did and it can never happen again. That's it. That's all he had to say. It would have been really strong to the point. Now the idiots who think that he could have insulted Putin or he could have you know belittled him or demeaned him in a joint press conference that would have been the end of Russia and U.S. relations, as you pointed out. OK. That would have been it.

“So you can't do that. But he could have been factual, he could have stated what the United States believes and what Vladimir Putin believes. He could say, he said he didn't do it but I made it clear that we believe that Russia did it. I wouldn't of used Putin, I would have used Russia, not personalize it. OK. If he had done that, he would have disarmed his critics but this is the important point on this whole arch over the story, the left now believes they are not going to get Robert Mueller to say that Trump colluded himself. They believe that. So therefore, their dreams of impeachment went up in smoke about a month ago particularly with Peter Strzok It is over. I have nicknamed Peter Strzok, 'Reasonable Doubt Strzok', so in a criminal case you have to have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt because Peter Strzok was the lead investigator, there's reasonable doubt and that will never go away, therefore there's never going to be any kind of valid Trump did something was not going to happen. So the left knows that, so now they've pivoted and they said well he's incompetent, he's incompetent, Trump is incompetent or he's a traitor, which is absurd. Insane. But this is the kind of stuff, oh this is astonishing, you know that was a good montage that you used, this is as crazy, this is astonishing, all right fine. You don't like how he did his press conference? I don't either but am I saying that he's a traitor and that he needs to be impeached because of that press conference, that's insane, so I would never do that because I'm a logical fair-minded person. I know why the left is doing it. I know why the New York Times is doing it, I know why the Washington Post is doing it, I know why the Democrats are doing it. They want them out. They don't care about the press conference, they want them out. And the Wall Street Journal and others who have been more fair to President Trump they recognize that he didn't come across very well in the joint press conference. So that's the story right there. What else you got for me, Monica?" 

No, I wanted to ask you two questions said just popped into my mind as you were speaking, Bill. You've known Donald Trump a long time, yesterday on the program I was talking about my experiences working with President Nixon in the early 1990s long after he had been president but watching him operate with foreign leaders was fascinating. Knowing Donald Trump as you do, so you think he was fully prepared? In other words, did he do his homework? I'm sure his team presented him with the kind of statement that you suggested he made, the kind of statement that I suggested he made, but is he the kind of guy to really focus and do the work that needs to be done before going into a meeting like this and then before going into a public presser like that? 

"I can't answer that question in a fair manner because I simply don't know. What I can say is that Donald Trump is usually emotional in his responses to everything. He hates this Russian collusion stuff, he hates it. All right. It's more important for him for the Russian collusion investigation to go away, than it is for the USA to punish Putin. Let me repeat. It's more important to Donald Trump the person, that the Russian collusion investigation go away than it is for Donald Trump the president, to punish Putin. Therefore, Trump wants to diminish. That's the key word, diminish, the Russian interference into the election. He doesn't want to blow it up. He doesn't see any positive stuff going forward and he hates this situation. He wants to diminish which is what he attempted to do and it failed because you can't diminish it, there are too many people homing in on the issue. But when you have a guy like Carl Bernstein, the former Watergate reporter on CNN saying that Trump should be impeached because of the press conference, any sane person, any person all right, would go, 'what?' Impeach for what? What are you talking about? So when it gets that extreme, it just makes Trump angrier and angrier and angrier and he allows his emotions to get the best of him." 

You know Bill, I've written the on the comparisons and differences between presidents Trump and Nixon, knowing Nixon as well as I have and as you were talking I just thought it is an interesting comparison that the two lines of attack, that the line of attack on Nixon-Watergate, the line of attack on Trump-Russian collusion and there were obviously vast differences there, there were provable crimes in Watergate and so on. But both of those lines of attack went directly to who those two men are at their essence. Both men really prided themselves on being very strong American patriots. And I think when you look at Donald Trump's reaction to this I think you're right and I think it gets to even something deeper psychologically with Trump that his very patriotism is being questioned and that's why he reacts emotionally and I don't blame him. He's got every right to but that's why he reacts emotionally. 

"It is more than his patriotism, in my opinion, it's that he believes that his victory is being marginalized because of this phony stuff. Number one, he thinks it's phony all right. He doesn't think that the Russian hacking is phony, but he doesn't think it's that important. Just as Nixon didn't think the way the plumber break in was that important, difference is that Nixon was much more methodical than Trump, Trump's more emotional than Nixon. But for the country, all right what we're, what we're experiencing now is, we got to get Trump out of office. And that is now melded a major political party, the Democrats with the major force of information flow, the media. And so they have now seized upon something that was not so great for the American people, that press conference I don't think it was good for the American people. But so what? As you said in three weeks or four weeks nobody will even remember it if something comes out of it. OK. But they're using that, say OK we can't get Trump out of office because of the collusion stuff, that's not happening. Now we'll say he is so incompetent or he's in the pocket or he is this or he is that and that's why you saw the mass hysteria. And here's another interesting point for people who are wondering why the conservative medium, some of whom turned on Trump. The reporters who have supported Trump in the past or the analysts, the commentators they get nervous, they get nervous. OK guys like Sean Hannity they're going to hang until the end. OK. But a lot of the marginal ones, the ones that said you know what maybe I'll support Trump because I kind of like some of the stuff he's doing, are starting to get scared because the crescendo of hatred has now reached a level never before seen in our lifetimes. Never. Way worse than Nixon. OK. 

And they get nervous and that's why they do what they do. The politicians in the Republican Party, they're getting nervous, they're going you know what, maybe we're not going to win this or maybe something's going to come out. And I don't want to be on the wrong side of it. So that's why you're getting a lot of backbiting from Trump's own people and you know look it's sad for the country, you know I'm here in Ireland and they love Americans here, Irish people love Americans. They don't follow this like Americans do. Believe me they don't follow it that much. But there's a there's uneasiness about Donald Trump. There's an uneasiness about the United States right now and in Ireland and all over the world it's not a calm, good time for us, even though the economy is good, even though we're making some strides in a lot of areas to improve the world, people are uneasy and that's what's happening." 

And it's interesting because we saw two main disrupters on the world stage yesterday Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, Donald Trump was elected to be a disruptor. But as you say the extent of the disruption and the speed of it, Bill is putting some people off balance.

"And Putin won this whole Russian thing as I wrote in the column and I hope everybody reads that column. Putin won. So he won and that's it. And so what we have to do now is to make sure that the Russians never do anything again and if they continue to misbehave to punish them very harshly. Tomorrow, I just want to plug that I'm going to be doing the whole show, Monica was so nice to fill in for me today and yesterday. I'm going to be doing the show from Ireland tomorrow and Thursday. And so we all have a lot to tell you and I'm going to do some reaction from our listeners, BillOReilly.com Premium Members because they're all you know involved with this very intensely, so thank you again Monica you're the best and I hope you had a good time." 

It is always my pleasure, Bill. Thank you. And by the way Bill's put up all these fantastic pictures of his trip to Ireland at BillOReilly.com. Bill have you also posted them on social media? 

"Some of them, but you know I'm not a big guy that kind of guy. But I put a few hours with some funny captions but it's you know, there's some serious stuff going on that we want to talk about tomorrow, not in Ireland, I mean I'm going to tell you about my trip but I'm not, it's not Irish centric, it's America centric there's other stuff going on in the country that I'm picking up on that we'll get into tomorrow as well." 

OK fantastic. Thank you so much, Bill. Enjoy the rest of your time in Ireland and check out BillOReilly.com for all of his fantastic pictures and of course Bill will be here tomorrow anchoring from Ireland. Thank you so much, Bill.

Well let's see. So I want to tell you about a couple of other stories that caught our eye today including Rod Rosenstein. What is up with Rod Rosenstein. He of course is the deputy attorney general, he's number two under Jeff Sessions. Also, what is up with Jeff Sessions. Where is he? Where's Waldo? 

Well, we don't know where the attorney general is except on the side of a milk carton apparently. What is up with number two?! Rod Rosenstein Rod Rosenstein is the swamp, so when everybody says to me well but Trump appointed Rod Rosenstein he can't be that bad. Well yeah you can because he's a swamp and the fact that he released the names of the 12 Russians and that indictment just a couple of days before President Trump was scheduled to meet with Vladimir Putin. I mean look it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the timing on that was all about, it was all geared to pressuring President Trump to ring it up with Vladimir Putin and take him on aggressively, which the president was likely to do in private anyway but Rod Rosenstein made it a point of going public. So, there were people who were quite unhappy with Rod Rosenstein including, I would assume the President of the United States, a lot of Republicans in Congress are very upset with him as well. 

Now, we've got two House Freedom Caucus leaders Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows who are taking some action. They have written a letter to the DOJ Inspector General, Michael Horowitz to investigate whether Rod Rosenstein actually threatens congressional aide. They made the request in this letter like I said to the IG and they wrote this quote, "This notion Mr. Rosenstein threatened to use his official investigative powers as deputy attorney general to retaliate against rank and file staff members for sending written oversight requests raises concerns he has abused his authority in the context of this investigation." The letter goes on that they want this investigated as to whether or not Rosenstein use the force of his office to intimidate congressional aides who are and members of Congress who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional oversight power. So we'll see where this goes, Rosenstein of course has denied threatening anybody. But then again, he is the swamp, so good for Meadows and good for Jordan for at least taking some action. 

Moving along now to the southern border we have some very good news. Guess what? As of mid-April, the National Guard has been deployed to the southwest border and so far they have apprehended nearly 11,000 illegal aliens and they've made deportable alien arrests, nearly 11,000 of people who have entered the United States illegally across the border. That's according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, this was originally reported in The Washington Examiner. The National Guard's presence also helped to lead to the interception of more than thirty-three hundred others who were turned back before they could cross the border. Excellent work. The Guard's deployment has also led to an additional nearly twelve thousand pounds of marijuana being seized as a result of their work. There are over 16 hundred National Guard troops at the border assisting with surveillance maintenance related operations. Once they see illegals entering the country crossing the border They alert U.S. Customs and Border Patrol that then intervenes and takes action. So you know who predicted all of this a long time ago. Take. 

"The president orders the National Guard to the border something that your humble correspondent who's been calling for since 9/11. So today I went on The Glenn Beck radio program and Beck and I talked about it. Roll that."

"Who was the first human being in the media to call for the Guard on the border, you know who that was." 

"Sean Hannity." 

"No." 

"It was Tucker Carlson." 

"Right after, right after 9/11." 

"Oh Laura Ingram."

"No, it was me. Right after 9/11 we put up exactly the same plan. And I'm sure that Donald Trump remembers this, Donald Trump instituted yesterday. Exactly the same, identical. All right. So why did I want to do it? Because after 9/11 we obviously had security concerns about terrorists infiltrating into the United States and everyone knows that the easiest way to get here is to come across the southern border. There's no easier way. So I said you know what let's put the Guard down there and back up the border patrol and stop not only terrorists coming here but also millions of illegal aliens who have been coming here since Ronald Reagan's administration and all of these narcotics." 

Beck giving O'Reilly a little jazz there, that was fun. But yes Bill did call for positioning the National Guard on the border right after 9/11. And finally, we have a president who is serious about doing it. That National Guard deployment by the way is funded through the end of fiscal 2018, so it'll go through September 30th and we have to make sure that that is funded going forward. Great work by the National Guard. Great work by the Border Patrol. Thanks you guys for everything you do for keeping this country safe and sovereign. 

All right let's get the message board, read you some mail. 

David H. 

"To hear Monica recount her first encounter with Vladimir Putin as an aide to Nixon makes the analysis so much more relevant. Who would have known? Kudos Bill and Monica, as always on point and accurate." 

Thank you, David. 

Let's see. James R. On the message board.

"I have to agree with, Bill, you did a great job Monica delivering your take on the events of the day without getting hysterical. Like so many of us fed up with the low information comments on Trump's performance so much irony and so much misinformation that is effectively working against him. " 

Absolutely true.

Jermain H on the message board. 

"Wow what a what a new experience to be Nixon's aide beside the Russian a Putin in 1993. How old were you Monica?" 

I was two, Jermain. I was a child prodigy. 

"I totally enjoyed your brilliant commentary tonight." 

Thank you. 

"It seems we have some of our own professional liars here, as in Peter Strzok, maybe he can get a job with the KGB. I don't think Trump is soft on Putin, he just met the man and Trump is trying to schmooze him. I do think Trump is soft on Hillary and can demand Hillary's server, he should." 

Amen to that, Jermain.

And via email, William Marshall in Jacksonville, Florida. 

"With all the indictments that have been revealed so far specifically the Russian operatives, couldn't have all of them been discovered without a special counsel. Isn't that what the FBI is supposed to be doing every day?" 

Good point, William! Why do we need Bob Mueller and a whole 20 million dollars special counsel investigation? We don't, we got an FBI. Oh, that's right the FBI has been tainted and corrupted. 

Finally, I just want to remind you Bill O'Reilly's brand-new book called "Killing the SS: the hunt for the worst war criminals in history" is out on September 18th. I cannot wait to get my own inscribed copy, O'Reilly better inscribe me one, I'm a World War II maniac so I cannot wait for this book. You will get a free gift when you preorder it at BillOReilly.com.

Also, keep in mind half of our Premium Members are now watching this the No Spin News on our TV apps, I don't really know what I'm talking about here but all the cool kids are watching on the TV apps like Apple TV Roku Amazon Fire TV again all the cool kids turning into the No Spin News on our TV apps. So check it out.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Bill is back tomorrow from Ireland, I'm Monica Crowley, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much.

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