The Note: Beyond summit, Trump must assure Russian interference won’t happen again
The TAKE with MaryAlice Parks
For those Americans worried that Russians purposefully attempted to disrupt and influence U.S. public opinion in the run-up to the 2016 elections and that they might try to do so again, President Donald Trump offered few reassurances.
It feels historic and perhaps unprecedented that U.S. law enforcement officers and members of Congress could repeatedly sound the alarm, saying foreign state actors attacked American institutions, and the commander in chief would respond so cavalierly.
The day after the Justice Department announced new indictments against Russian military officers, President Trump’s team focused on what the legal document did not say. It did not, for example, include charges that Americans knowingly helped the hackers.
Two days after the indictment, President Trump blamed a private American political organization for not having better cyber-security.
Perhaps in his meeting today with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump will lay down the hammer, express fury or threaten retaliation. Perhaps tomorrow he will tell Americans the full force and strength of the U.S. government and military will be working around the clock to make sure Russians cannot meddle again. While there’s little indication of this, perhaps he still plans to reassure Dan Coats, his director of national intelligence, who, like others, is worried about what Russia is doing right now.
The RUNDOWN with Adam Kelsey
Within the Democratic Party's identity crisis, liberal voters have played a foil to the establishment, dragging candidates, and the party as a whole, to the left. But in California, a new drama is playing out in which the script has been flipped.
This weekend, state Sen. Kevin de León snatched the California Democratic Party's endorsement from Sen. Dianne Feinstein by a 65-7 percent margin, a month after Feinstein trounced her liberal challenger by nearly 33 percentage points in the state's jungle primary.
Feinstein, 85, is the oldest member of the Senate and matriarch of a party struggling with how to pass the torch to a new generation. But the dissatisfaction of party loyalists with the senator may lie more with her actions that her age.
Using a formula comparing how often a senator sides with President Trump's positions vs. how they might be expected to vote given Trump's 2016 performance in their state, FiveThirtyEight calculates that Feinstein's votes align with the president 7 percent more often than predicted, the highest level among Senate Democrats.
Though moderate Democrats have found success this year by compromising liberal doctrine with conservative positions, some liberal strongholds on the coasts are moving in the opposite direction by embracing ardent progressives.
The Democratic Party has come a long way to welcome its newly impassioned left-wing, but California will be a test case of whether the party’s progressive ambitions are enough to sway a populace that cast a clear vote of confidence in the “establishment” incumbent.
The TIP with Matt Seyler
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page returns to the Hill this morning for a second round of questions from the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on the anti-Trump messages sent between her and FBI agent Peter Strzok during the 2016 presidential campaign. Based on what we know of her closed-door hearing Friday, there is reason to believe she's in for a less contentious interview than Strzok faced the day before.
Strzok, who after leading the Hillary Clinton email investigation was part of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, withstood a 10-hour hearing of interrogations, accusations and raised voices with the two committees Thursday. GOP Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina called his integrity into question and Texas Republican Louis Gohmert condemned him for his extramarital affair with Page, among other attacks.
Page, on the other hand, may be heading into a much more amicable room today, if the GOP reaction to her first round of testimony is any indication.
"Lisa Page is a very credible witness and she's doing her best to help us find the truth," said North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows after Friday’s hearing.
Even Rep. John Ratcliffe of Texas, who was especially caustic while grilling Strzok, indicated that his time with Page was fruitful.
"She gave us new information that he either wouldn't or couldn't that confirmed some of the concerns that we have about these investigations," he said.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia ... over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough – that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition!" — President Donald Trump on Twitter Sunday in reference to today's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland.
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The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the key political moments of the day ahead. Please check back tomorrow for the latest.