THE DAY AFTER HELSINKI: President Trump is scheduled to meet with members of Congress this afternoon at the White House, one day after his unprecedented performance alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Unprecedented in the shocking way an American president sided with a foreign foe against his own intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and unprecedented in the torrent of bipartisan condemnation that followed swiftly thereafter. The White House isn’t saying who Trump will meet with or what specifically is on the agenda, but it’s the only event on his official schedule for the day.

WHAT NEXT? While Republicans lined up to condemn Trump’s appeasement of Putin, the calls for action came largely from Democrats. “The question now looms, what if anything will Congress do in response to this awful trip?” said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate. “We need action, bipartisan, strong action, and we need our Republican colleagues to stand up for the good of this country,” he said. “They can start by refusing to water down and instead decide to ratchet up sanctions against Russia.”

Schumer also called for the members the president’s national security team who accompanied him to Helsinki to testify before Congress, and for an end to Republican attacks on the Department of Justice, the FBI, and special counsel Robert Mueller.

“This lends urgency to a piece of legislation that Sen. [Marco] Rubio and I have introduced called the Deter Act, which would establish automatic, very severe sanctions on Russia if they get caught interfering in our 2018 elections or any future elections,” Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told CNN. “It has bipartisan support. And since the president’s not willing to defend our democracy, it’s really incumbent upon the United States Senate to move on that legislation right now.”

“There are some steps that we could take,” Murphy offered. “We could levy another round of sanctions. We could make them mandatory, not permissive. We could take a look at some of the statutes undergirding NATO and take away from the president the power to try to weaken our commitment to NATO.”

“But, in the end, you know, Congress is kind of like the manager or the general manager of the team. President Trump is the one on the field every day executing foreign policy. We can’t stop him from saying things to undermine the EU and NATO. We can’t stop him from giving the press conference that he gave today. He alone can make the decision to rectify this.”

Correction: An earlier version of the newsletter attributed Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy’s comments to Marlyand Sen. Chris Van Hollen. We sincerely regret the error.

PUTIN’S PYRRHIC VICTORY: There was almost universal consensus that Putin was the big winner in Helsinki, but it has come with a heavy price. He has wounded Trump by making him appear weak and feckless, and therefore severely hobbled Trump’s ability to make future deals without subjecting himself to another round of searing rebukes.

In his interview with Sean Hannity that aired on Fox News last night, Trump said Putin admitted as much. “It’s the thing that he told me when he went in,” Trump said. “He said, ‘What a shame.’ He felt it was very hard for me to make a deal because of, you know, all of this nonsense.”

PUTIN’S OFFER: While denying Russia interfered in the 2016 election, Putin said his government would be willing to interrogate the 12 Russian officials indicted last week for hacking Democratic emails, and even allow Mueller witness the questioning. But the offer came with a major catch. In return Russia wants the U.S. to question businessman and Magnitsky Act advocate Bill Browder in the presence of Russian law enforcement officials.

Browder, the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital, told Fox News, “What this shows is that my advocacy of getting Magnitsky Acts all over the world passed — in seven countries — has hit the Achilles’ heel of the Putin regime.”

Trump seemed unaware of the downside of the deal, calling it “an incredible offer.” “He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people,” Trump said. “I think that’s an incredible offer.”

HAYDEN: THINK ABOUT RESIGNING: Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden said spy agency leaders have grounds to resign. “It’s a personal choice, of course, but what more should it take?” Hayden told the Washington Examiner. “At some point very senior officials have to decide when they have stopped being a guardrail and when their presence is now merely an enabler and legitimizer. That is the question they must answer,” he said. “To be fair, that is [a] very hard question. But sooner or later one has to ask what message staying on sends to the general American public and to the rest of the world.”

WHAT DOES PUTIN HAVE? Trump’s fawning performance prompted a lot of speculation that Putin has “Kompromat,” or compromising material that could be used to blackmail the president. “A single, ominous question now hangs over the White House — what could possibly cause President Trump to put the interests of Russia over those of the United States? Millions of Americans will continue to wonder,” said Schumer. “The only possible explanation for this dangerous behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump.”

In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox last night, Putin again denied that Trump was ever the target of Russian intelligence services. “I don’t want to insult President Trump when I say this, and I may come as rude, but before he announced he would run for presidency, he was of no interest for us,” Putin said through an interpreter. “He was a rich person, but there are plenty of rich persons in the United States. He was in the construction business. He organized beauty pageants. It never occurred to anyone that he would run for president.”

TALK OF SYRIA COOPERATION: There was a flurry of reports speculating that Trump was prepared to cut a deal with Putin on military operations in Syria as the two leaders headed into their first summit. It appeared Monday that did not come to pass. Trump touted the potential of U.S.-Russia cooperation for easing humanitarian suffering, but he stopped short of announcing any changes to military operations in the ongoing war against the Islamic State. “As we discussed in length, the crisis in Syria is a complex one. Cooperation between our two countries has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives,” Trump said. He also said he warned that growing Iranian influence would not be tolerated.

For his part, Putin pointed to Syria as a way to kick off U.S.-Russia cooperation on a variety of international issues. “As far as Syria is concerned, the task of establishing peace and reconciliation in this country could be the first showcase example of the successful joint work,” Putin said. “Russia and the United States apparently can act rapidly and take assumed leadership on this issue, and organize a direction to overcome humanitarian crises and help Syrian refugees to go back to their homes.”

NICHOLSON DENIES ‘DIRECT TALKS’ COMMENT: The top U.S. general in Afghanistan, Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson, has denied a report that he said American forces are ready to negotiate directly with the Taliban to end the war. “The United States is not a substitute for the Afghan people or the Afghan government,” Nicholson, who is the outgoing commander of NATO’s Resolute Support mission, said in a statement. “My reaffirmation of Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo’s statement in which he said peace talks would include a discussion of international forces and that the United States is ready to work with the Taliban, the Afghan government and the Afghan people towards lasting peace was mischaracterized.”

Nicholson said a comment he made Monday during a visit with Afghan officials had been mischaracterized and that he instead backs a peace process led by the U.S.-aligned government in Kabul. The news service Reuters had quoted him directly in a story Monday as supporting direct talks with the Taliban. That report came after the New York Times reported that the Trump administration has ordered its diplomats to seek out direct talks with the group to hasten an end to the 17-year-old war.

WHERE’S THE CARRIER? The USS Harry S. Truman strike group is heading back to port in Norfolk this week after just three months at sea. Typically carriers deploy for seven months, but there’s no problem with the ship. The shorter deployment is part of a plan implemented by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to put more unpredictability and flexibility into the carrier rotation schedule.

The “dynamic force employment concept” directs the Navy to be “operationally unpredictable while remaining strategically predictable.”

“Let me be clear — all returning units are 100 percent mission capable and will remain in the sustainment phase of the Optimized Fleet Response Plan, which means they will sustain warfighting readiness and be ready to surge forward or redeploy when called upon,” said Adm. Christopher Grady, commander, U.S. Fleet Forces, in a statement.

GUARD BOOSTED BORDER ARRESTS: The deployment of National Guard troops to the southwest border in mid-April has facilitated 10,805 “deportable alien arrests” of people who illegally entered the United States from Mexico, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman.

Because guardsmen are military personnel and not law enforcement officers, they cannot apprehend illegal immigrants. But CBP officers and Border Patrol agents apprehended thousands of people that guardsmen helped point out.

The National Guard’s presence also helped lead to the interception of more than 3,300 others who were turned back before they crossed into the U.S., CBP press secretary Corry Schiermeyer said in an email to the Washington Examiner.

ANTI-TANK MISSILE ‘FAKE NEWS’: Reports that the U.S. sent defective anti-tank missiles to Ukraine earlier this year are false, according to the State Department. The recent claims by a Russian media outlet are “outrageous” propaganda and the U.S. would not sell allies and partners the shoulder-fired Javelin missiles if they were not in working order, Ambassador Tina Kaidanow, the acting assistant secretary for political-military affairs, said in a press call. “Why would we do such a thing? And so that is purely fake news, if you want to call it that, and propaganda of the worst sort. And I can only tell you that, again, that’s just outrageous, frankly, and certainly not the case.”

THE RUNDOWN

Defense News: Trump advances ‘Buy American’ arms sales plans

Reuters: U.S. arms makers praise new U.S. weapons export policy

CNN: US charges Russian national with being a foreign agent

Stars and Stripes: Official: North Korea may return up to 55 sets of US war dead remains next week

Breaking Defense: Inside America’s aging nuclear missile submarines

Army Times: This new counter-drone weapon can take down advanced drone communicators with less power, weight

Military Times: U.S., North Korean military officials mark progress on efforts to bring home fallen American troops

Daily Beast: European MPs: Tune out Trump — turn to Congress, Pentagon for assurances

AP: Power Play: Non-Verbal cues between Trump, Putin

DoD Buzz: Air Force slowly building up in Eastern Europe: USAFE commander

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