DragonI

WALLACE: Let’s start with the breaking news that in June of 2016, there was a previously undisclosed meeting, and let’s up all the players on the screen, Donald Trump, Jr., this was during the campaign, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior advisor, and then campaign chairman Paul Manafort, met at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

Why did they meet and why are we just learning about it?

PRIEBUS: Well, first of all, Chris, I don’t know much about it other than what I’ve communicated with various members there on the screen. It was a very short meeting. It was a meeting apparently about Russian adoption and after about 20 minutes, the meeting ended and that was the end of it. And as far as nondisclosure, look, Jared Kushner put in his disclosure a little prematurely. He has since amended it. All of that is disclosed, and it was a nothing meeting.

So, this is a developing story. I don’t know much about it other than it seems to be on the end of the Trump individuals a big nothing burger but may spin out of control for the DNC and the Democrats.

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you about two aspects of that. In terms of the DNC, are you suggesting that this was somehow a set up by Democrats to try and link them or compromise them with the Russians? And this was before there was any Russian interference in the election. So, why would they have done that?

PRIEBUS: Well, look, why was Fusion GPS involved in putting together this dossier? I don’t know, Chris. And I don’t think too many people know why or how this meeting came about.

What we already knew is that the President of the United States has a particular skill set, that he's identified an illness in Western democracies, but he has no cure for it and seems intent on exploiting it – and we've also learned that 

The G20 became the G19 as it ended. On the Paris climate accords, the US was left isolated and friendless. But given that was always going to happen, a deft president would have found an issue which he could rally most of the leaders. And he had the perfect one – North Korea's missile tests.

So where was the G20 statement condemning North Korea which would have put pressure on China and Russia? Other leaders expected it. They were prepared to back it, but it never came. 

He was an uneasy, lonely, awkward figure at this gathering and you got the strong sense some of the leaders are trying to find the best way to work around him.

Two authoritarian states that will forge a very different set of rules for the 21st century. Some will cheer the decline of America. But I think we'll miss it when it's gone. And that's the biggest threat to the values of the West which he claims to hold so dear.

World Leaders Move Forward on Climate Change, Without U.S.

At a G-20 summit meeting marred by violent protests, 19 other member states broke decisively with President Trump, in a victory for Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

www.nytimes.com|Steven Erlanger, Alison Smale, Lisa Friedman and Julie Hirschfeld Davis

“This is a clear indication that the U.S. has isolated itself on climate change once again, and is falling back while all other major economies step up and compete in the clean energy marketplace created by the Paris Agreement estimated to be worth over 20 trillion dollars,” said Andrew Light, a senior climate change adviser at the State Department under Mr. Obama.