John Kerry Uses Words Like 'Disgraceful' and 'Dangerous'

John Kerry took a hard line Sunday in describing President Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki this week, Politico reports. Appearing on CBS' Face the Nation, Kerry called the private, unrecorded sit-down "one of the most disgraceful, remarkable moments of kowtowing to a foreign leader by an American president that anyone has ever witnessed." The former Secretary of State went on to explain "why it's dangerous: because it sends a message to President Putin and to the rest of the world that the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, really doesn't have a handle on what he's doing." Kerry added about Trump: "I don't buy his walkback for one second." For other reactions:

• "Not good": Sen. Marco Rubio called Trump's Helsinki meeting with Putin "not a good moment" on Face the Nation. "I think it's an important thing that we engage [Putin]," Rubio says, per the Hill. "I just think it's important that any conversation we have with Vladimir Putin is with the person who he really is."

• "Compromised": "I certainly think he's acting like someone who's compromised, and it may very well be that he is compromised or it may very well be that he believes that he’s compromised, that the Russians have information on him," Rep. Adam Schiff said of Trump on ABC's This Week, per the Hill.
• "Spin": Carter Page rejected accusations that he was a Russian agent as "literally a complete joke" and a "ridiculous smear campaign" after the FBI's FISA warrant applications were released Saturday, per Politico. He did admit in a 2013 letter to being an "informal adviser" to Russia, but said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union that "I've never been an agent of [a] foreign power by any stretch of the imagination."
• "Garbage": Sen. Lindsey Graham dismissed the FISA warrant applications as a "bunch of garbage" on Face the Nation, per the Hill. "If the dossier is the reason you issued the warrant, it was a bunch of garbage." But Rubio defended the applications on State of the Union, saying Page "was a guy that was on [the FBI's] screen even before the campaign."
• "Civil war": "The possibility of a civil war in Nicaragua is real," says Rubio on State of the Union. He went on, per Politico: "The message to the Nicaraguan regime under [President Daniel] Ortega was very clear, and that is: You call early elections, you allow legitimate elections, and this thing can move forward and everyone’s going to be fine. But if you soak your hands in blood, all of that’s off the table. They decided to soak their hands in blood."
• "Relevant": Bernie Sanders offered a little praise for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, who stunned the Democratic establishment with a primary victory over incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley last month, the Hill reports. "She ran an extraordinary campaign," says Sanders on Face the Nation. "And the reason that she won is she ran on ideas that were relevant to the working people in her district." Sitting beside him, Cortez dismissed Crowley's suggestion that she won because she's a woman: "We won across demographics. We won—we expanded the electorate ourselves."

Read more about the apparent rise of Democratic Socialists or the release of FISA warrant applications to wiretap Carter Page. (More Sunday morning talk shows stories.)