HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND: It would appear that the world’s most exclusive club is made up of those who know what was said in Monday’s private meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. The club is so exclusive we don’t know who’s in it, or whether it includes more Russians than Americans.

HAPPENING TODAY: The Aspen Security Forum continues today, in Aspen, Colo. The four-day conference ends tomorrow. A late add to today’s agenda is a discussion on Europe’s shifting relationship with the United States, moderated by Courtney Kube, NBC News national security reporter, and featuring Bill Browder, head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign.

Browder is the American-born British financier who was among the people Putin wanted to question in return for allowing special counsel Robert Mueller to sit in on questioning by Russian officials of the 12 members of GRU that have been indicted for election interference by the U.S. Justice Department. It was a suggestion that Trump initially hailed as “an incredible offer,” but after returning to Washington and consulting with his advisers, Trump decided to take a pass on.

“It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

THE SENATE CONCURS: The latest walk-back from the White House came as the Senate voted 98-0 in favor of a resolution saying the Trump administration should not allow Russia to question any U.S. diplomats or officials.

The resolution was among a slew of newly proposed Russian legislation. Another Senate resolution sponsored by Sens. Jeff Flake and Chris Coons would have affirmed Russian responsibility for the 2016 election interference and demanded the notes from Trump’s two-hour, one-on-one conversation with Putin.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn blocked the bill. “The way to do our work is through bipartisan committee work, have the witnesses come and testify, ask them hard questions, and render our judgment,” Cornyn said on the floor. “I think we should consider sanctions, not sort of Sense of the Senate resolution that … [has] no deterrent effect.”

GETTING INTO A ‘WEIRD AREA’: The move to back off the interpreter was supported by oft Trump critic Sen. Bob Corker. He said he did not want to subpoena the translator. “It feels a little out of bounds,” Corker told a group of reporters. “We are in countries where we have translators that meet with us. They know nothing about foreign policy, most of them. I just think we are getting into a pretty weird area when you are going to start asking the translator for their notes.” Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Schiff disrupted a public House Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday and made an unsuccessful motion to subpoena the interpreter.

SCHUMER’S RANT: This “incredible offer,” as Trump so casually and incorrectly called it, raises other serious questions,” said Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate yesterday.

“What else has President Trump agreed to behind closed doors? What else has he discussed with President Putin? President Trump and President Putin met for nearly two hours behind closed doors, no one else present but a translator, and hardly anyone knows what was said! Has Secretary Pompeo been briefed on that private, behind closed doors meeting? Nobody knows, he hasn’t said so. Does our military know if President Trump made commitments about our nuclear arsenal? Nobody knows. Defense Secretary [Jim] Mattis hasn’t said whether he’s been briefed. Do we know if President Trump made commitments about the security of Israel, or Syria, or North Korea, or any of the other issues the president said he discussed with Putin? It is utterly amazing, utterly amazing, that no one knows what was said. This is a democracy. If our president makes agreements with one of our leading, if not our leading adversary, his Cabinet has to know about it and so do the American people,” Schumer said.

NDAA UPDATE: The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, told the Washington Examiner on Thursday that he expects a final National Defense Authorization Act bill to be released next week. He said he also expects a House floor vote next week on the $716 billion annual policy bill. That assessment tracks with earlier predictions by Thornberry and Sen. Jim Inhofe, who is the senior Republican representing the Senate Armed Services Committee. Both committees have been negotiating a final conference report version of the bill for the past week.

MATTIS WRITES CONGRESS ON F-35s: As lawmakers debate the defense budget, Mattis has written a letter to House and Senate committees urging them to not put restrictions on F-35 joint strike fighter sales to Turkey, Bloomberg reported. Senators have been upset by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s moves to curb freedoms and the country’s detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson. The House’s NDAA bill proposes delaying any jet sales to Ankara until the Pentagon turns over a report, and the Senate bill orders up a Pentagon report on cutting the country from the F-35 program.

BLOCKING ANY NATO WITHDRAWAL: Any move by Trump to withdraw from the NATO alliance would spark unified opposition from Congress that would be historically unprecedented, Sen. Thom Tillis said Thursday. “There would be nothing more unifying that any president, whether it’s Trump or pick one of the 20 people planning on running in 2020, if they were to actually seriously withdraw from NATO I think it would create a unifying event unlike anything you’ve seen in U.S. history in terms of actions that we can take,” said Tillis, a leading member of the Senate’s NATO Observer Group and a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Tillis spoke about NATO at a Washington think tank along with Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who also sits on both Senate bodies, but said he would not discuss what specific actions Congress might take to block a “hypothetical” withdrawal from the alliance. “It’s not just resolutions of disapproval or some sort of sense of the Senate at a 60-vote threshold. I honestly believe that the same 97-2 vote would be the kind of vote that we would have for congressional action for any number of things that we could do,” Tillis said. “And I’m not going to get into specifics because then the press will play that up and speculate on what that would be.”

OBAMA WAS A ‘TOTAL PATSY’: Trump continues to argue that no one has been tougher on Russia than him. In an interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen that aired this morning on “Squawk Box,” Trump said he has been “far tougher on Russia than any president in many, many years, Maybe ever.”

“Look at the diplomats I threw out,” Trump said. “Look at all the things that I have done. Obama didn’t do it. “Obama was a patsy for Russia. A total patsy.”

POMPEO BRISTLES: Meanwhile on Fox last night Pompeo rejected the bipartisan criticism that Trump showed weakness during his meeting with Putin. “I think those allegations are absurd,” Pompeo said. “This administration has been relentless in its efforts to deter Russia from its bad behavior … We inherited a situation where Russia was running all over the United States. These last few days have been, frankly, more heat than light.”

NIELSEN’S ‘FULL STOP’: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that she concurs with a January 2017 report from members of the U.S. intelligence community that found Russian agents were responsible for interfering in the election. In an interview at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Nielsen said she agrees with the report “full stop.” She did not explicitly say, however, that Russia interfered to help Trump, as the intelligence community’s assessment surmised. “I haven’t seen any evidence that the attempts to interfere in our election infrastructure was to favor a particular political party,” Nielsen told NBC News. “I think the overall purpose was to sow discord.”

RUSSIA ASSASSINATION RISK: Russia may attempt to use chemical weapons to assassinate individuals in the U.S., Coats said during the Aspen Security Forum. “The Russians do bold things and extraordinary things.”

The Kremlin has denied British allegations that Russia used “a military-grade nerve agent” to attack a former Russian military intelligence officer who worked as a double-agent for the United Kingdom. The target, Sergei Skripal, survived the March incident, but a woman in a neighboring town died after an apparent exposure to vestiges of the chemical weapon.

PUTIN SUMMIT POLLING: A new poll found a majority in the U.S. disapprove of Trump’s handling of a Monday summit with Putin, but that among Republicans, there’s widespread doubt that Russia intervened in the 2016 election. Overall, 55 percent of poll respondents disapproved of Trump’s handling of the Putin summit, and 32 percent approved.

The poll also found 70 percent of respondents believed Russia intervened in 2016, and 24 percent said they didn’t believe it. Among Republicans, however, just 51 percent believed the conclusion and 42 percent did not believe it. A similar share of Republicans told pollsters they believed then-President Barack Obama was a Muslim.

GOOD MOURNING, VIETNAM: News that Adrian Cronauer, the Air Force disc jockey who was portrayed by Robin Williams in the 1987 movie “Good Morning, Vietnam,” has died at the age 79, brings to mind a story I first heard from my colleague Chris Plante, when we worked together at the Pentagon. According to Plante, who is now a conservative radio talk show host, Cronauer was appearing on the CNN show “Sonia Live,” to promote the movie, and was asked by host Sonia Friedman if he really used the signature line “Good morning, Vietnam,” and what he thought the troops were thinking when he said it.

“I think they were saying, ‘F–k You!’” Cronauer said to a shocked Friedman. (This was 1987 after all.) “You do realize we’re on live TV,” she said. “Yeah, but it’s cable, right?” Cronauer allegedly replied. Plante swears it’s true, and Cronauer is right. You can say the F-word on cable with impunity, as the HBO hit show “The Sopranos,” would go on to prove.

THE RUNDOWN

Bloomberg: Mattis condemns Russian actions yet urges waivers for arms sales

Washington Examiner: Russia and China rebuff US call for North Korean oil embargo

Defense News: America has sold more weapons in six months than in all of 2017

New York Times: Trump to Invite Putin to Washington as Top Advisers Seek Details of Their Summit Talks

BuzzFeed: The Russians Who Hacked The DNC Have Targeted At Least Three 2018 Campaigns, Microsoft Says

Task & Purpose: ‘These Things Often Take Time,’ General Says Of Two-Decade-Old Wars

Daily Beast: Who You Gonna Trust? Not NATO as Long as Trump Is President

USA Today: Russian foreign ministry mounts ‘Free Maria Butina’ campaign

Foreign Policy: U.S. Bomber Crews Flying With Broken Ejection Seats

AFP: Rebel fighters enter besieged Syrian town of Fuaa

Defense One: Chinese Hackers Targeted Internet-of-Things During Trump-Putin Summit

Marine Corps Times: Russia threatens ‘negative consequences’ over Marine exercise with Ukraine in the Black Sea

Business Insider: Russia just released videos of its next generation of nuclear weapons — Here’s what we know

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