Axios

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Fox News' Chris Wallace Monday that Western efforts to isolate Russia have "failed," and he and President Trump began a "new path" today.

The backdrop: Trump has been pilloried from all sides following today's press conference for seeming side with Russia, rather than the U.S. intelligence community, over election meddling in 2016. Putin reiterated his denials in the Fox News interview, saying, “Do you really believe that someone acting from the Russian territory could have influenced the United States, and influenced the choice of millions of Americans?”

Maria Butina, a Russian national, has been arrested for failing to register with the Attorney General while operating as a foreign agent in the U.S. as part of an effort to infiltrate the NRA, according to the affidavit filed in a U.S. district court.

Why it matters: This shows Russian efforts to meddle in U.S. politics go beyond hacking and social media influence campaigns — it's also about wheeling and dealing with influencers. Butina was also a part of Russian efforts to create a backchannel of communications as part of the campaign, which Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have approved, according to messages obtained by the FBI.

At his Helsinki summit with President Trump, Vladimir Putin argued for letting bygones be bygones and opening a new era in U.S.–Russia relations, something Trump was happy to embrace. Trump went on to indulge in some unfortunate moral equivalence by stating that both countries bore the blame for the poor state of their relationship.

Why it matters: As was the case in Singapore, Trump exaggerated what had been accomplished at the summit. Indeed, little appeared settled in the way of policy other than perhaps a revival of arms control talks.

In response to President Trump's stunning refusal to back the U.S. intelligence community's assessment of Russia meddling in the U.S. 2016 election while speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said his agency “will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support off our national security."

"The role of the Intelligence Community is to provide the best information and fact-based assessments possible for the President and policymakers. We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security."

President Trump today, at a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he didn't see "any reason" why Russia would interfere in the 2016 election, in response to a question on whether he believed Putin or U.S. intelligence agencies.

Our thought bubble from Jonathan Swan in Helsinki: "I just have no words. As press in this room, we are all sitting in here speechless and stunned. Trump cast doubt over the U.S. intelligence community and endorsed Putin’s denial. Trump was given an opportunity to denounce the meddling and he didn’t; he just pivoted to lines about the missing server and Hillary’s emails. While Putin spoke forcefully, lying, Trump nodded along. There’s no way of sugar coating or spinning this."

Jeffrey Tricoli, a senior FBI official who is one of two leaders of an election-meddling task force created last year, has left the agency for a private-sector job at Charles Schwab Corp., the Wall Street Journal’s Dustin Volz reports.

Why it matters: The departure adds to concerns over the effectiveness of the task force in protecting U.S. elections from foreign interference.

President Trump is calling his 2+ hour one-on-one Helsinki meeting with Vladimir Putin “a very, very good start for everybody.”

"I think we have great opportunities together ... and frankly we have not been getting along very well for the last number of years ... I think we will end up having an extraordinary relationship ... Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing."

Earlier this year, Israel spies stole a stack of documents from Iran, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used as part of his push to lobby President Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

The latest: New details from those documents reveal that the Iranian government was using weapons-design information from a foreign source and was on the brink of mastering nuclear weapon development until it was ordered to stop 15 years ago, reports the Washington Post.

The multi-hundred-billion-dollar retail prescription drugs market is the new battleground for Big Tech, relying on its usual brute force in an effort to keep growing. But in neither the U.S. nor China is it proving as easy to crack as groceries.

The big picture: In the U.S. and China, retail drugs are too big to ignore — last year, Americans spent $466.6 billion on pharmaceuticals, and the Chinese forked out $122.6 billion in a market growing at about 9% a year. That's why Amazon and China's Alibaba have piled into the sector.

President Trump goes into his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the heels of 12 new Mueller investigation indictments against Russian military officials for interfering in the 2016 election. One big question is whether he'll ask Putin to hand over those officials.

The bottom line: Russia doesn't have an extradition treaty with the U.S., and Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, told ABC's "This Week" he thinks "it’s pretty silly for the president to demand something that he can’t get legally."

At his press conference at the NATO meeting in Brussels, President Trump said he would discuss with Vladimir Putin both Russia's violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, originally negotiated in 1987 by President Reagan, and the potential extension of the 2010 New START accord.

Why it matters: Trump and Putin together control more than 90% of the world’s nuclear stockpile, and it's Russian nuclear weapons pointed toward the U.S. that present the greatest existential threat to its national security.

Many critics of President Trump's foreign policy believe he is giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a gift by agreeing to a summit while ignoring sources of tension such as the annexation of Crimea and foreign election meddling. But a chummy photo op goes a very short way to meeting Putin’s actual needs.

Reality check: In his fourth and final term, Putin is focused on domestic priorities such as lifting the economy out of stagnation, improving infrastructure and raising the retirement age to ease social-program budgets. Sanctions and a toxic international environment are big obstacles to these plans. To deliver on this agenda, he needs Trump to deliver on a calmer foreign-policy and business environment.

Days before Donald Trump meets with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16, the agenda for the summit remains unclear. Putin craves legitimacy that only Western recognition can grant him, and his greatest demands include the West's recognizing his annexation of Crimea and lifting sanctions.

Yes, but: Congress is bipartisan in its opposition to recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, and it can also veto a rollback of Russia sanctions, no matter what Trump might promise in Helsinki. Thus if any deal comes out of the Trump-Putin summit, it's likely to be on Syria, where the West has had the least interest in opposing Putin’s intervention, and where Congress lacks similar leverage.

Next week's Helsinki summit poses the risk that President Trump could make a rash offer to Vladimir Putin in an attempt to improve U.S.–Russian relations. It's possible he might recognize Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, assent to Syrian President Assad’s continued rule or waver on America’s commitment to NATO.

The big picture: As much as Trump may want to turn the page with Putin, his recent call for a one-on-one meeting without aides is risky. Putin is a shrewd negotiator. A conciliatory approach with Russia has not worked out for the past three American presidents or a long list of European leaders, and it likely won't for Trump either.