Was in an economic ruin nation and putins mission and he spoke about this often was to preside over russias recovery at home a men were dying of 57 years old at that time larry you and i would be pushing the daisies by now to restore to russia at home a lifestyle a a stability that had been lost in the 1990 s. And thereby reposition russia its true as a great power which has always been on the world stage that is been put in its mission to achieve that mission he has said repeatedly he wants and i use his words modernizing partnerships with the west he wants a stable west that is trading with russia. 1st and foremost he has in mind europe because putin is a european man in europe particularly germany has enormous trade with russia but he also had in mind the United States therefore instability in american russian relations the accusations that putin is attacking america which is Utter Nonsense this is an authentic role its the opposite of how putin sees his own mission and its been a serious setback for him as he tries to formulate policy at home and abroad so he doesnt like any of this is Stephen Cohen and the trumpery. Boy thats a hard question one i can remember it must have been in 216 that you and i did this interview where trump and said he wanted to cooperate with russia and i said gosh thats interesting nobody else is saying that thats a good thing but its going to bring trump a lot of grief and of course he has. I didnt vote for President Trump and i would have to see who the democratic candidate is to know who i vote for in 2020 but i 100 percent support trumps ongoing continuing 3 year policy of cooperating with russia which for some reason because theres nothing to these russia gate charges i mean nothings been there was all fiction from the beginning i support trumps persistence and you got to get you got to admit that hes taken a lot of blows hes been caught its been called treasonous but he persists i mean he had lover off the soviet foreign minister in the white house in the oval office when i was a week ago i think and the press was horrible call it treason but trump is just determined to have this cooperative relationship with russia and that in that regard i support President Trump and other regards probably not how do you wash it is the question is heres the problem for people such as you and me we grew up knowing we should be one issue political voters right dont just take one issue but i am fixated on the dangers in american russian relations i think are very dangerous so that to the extent that she appears to be determined to reduce those dangers i support him in that regard how do you explain that from putin the relationship. Well you know this is very funny because last night i read in a newspaper that trump has said all these remarkably affectionate i think they use those words affectionate words about putin and i have a file at home which is called trump on putin putin on trumped you know things they said about each other the only thing that i can find that trump ever said in a really positive way about putin was and i remember when he said it he said putin is a strong leader well thats true what is he supposed to say putins a weak leader that would be untrue i dont find that pandering or subversive or treasonous i mean what do we want i mean its almost as though were no longer grown up do we want the president of the United States to curse at the occupant of the kremlin the other superpower i mean ever since the advent of atomic weapons and president eisenhower every american president has attempted to do diplomacy with whoever sits in the kremlin to keep us safe from war conceivably nuclear war and we applauded that and by the way larry heres an interesting thing the biggest episodes of what we call detente that is cooperating with the kremlin were presided over by republican president s right eisenhower correct nixon and finally Ronald Reagan who had the biggest cooperation detente of all so you could argue though im not sure trumps aware of this but he ought to Say Something about it he is squarely in the republican tradition of cooperating with hans what is food and said publicly about from. Not very much meaning he gets a kind of smirk and wicked grin on his face when reporters asking questions about whether he and trump have some secret relationship based on collusion i mean i think putin thinks its preposterous because the he knows theres no secret diplomacy or i should say secret diplomacy because there has to be secret diplomacy let me give you an example that happened just just this week so there is this demand that trump print publish make known the notes of his conversation with putin the last time they met correct i think it was in helsinki you know this scandal theyre now demanding in on television in congress that they publish these notes but this is impossible private diplomacy between the leaders of the United States and russia have kept us safe since the advent of Nuclear Weapons they have to be able to have private conversations why because always always there are the enemies of detente in moscow and washington who will attack will leader for doing cooperation so i find it proposed or as i find it not in Americas National interest i find it childish this notion that everything putin trump say to each other should be published we dont demand that when when the president talked to the president of france mccraw on and mccraw as ever you are pushing now for a soft policy where you are where you appalled at russias invasion of the ukraine. You know that the problem with this being that i wasnt appalled though i think that they had choices that they decided not to take but be we got to remember good we have to remember back what is it 5 almost 6 years now. 2014. The elected const he may have been a bad guy janak overage what he was constitutionally legally elected president of ukraine and he was overthrown by a mob i dont care what democratic slogans were on their banners it was a mob he fled they were storming his residence he fled to russia. It appeared at that point that ukraine would renege on it on russias lease of its most important naval base of a stop all that was a dire threat the Russian National security so russias reaction to that did not surprise me now i know from people who know because they have friends who work in the kremlin that putin had options and he debated him but he thought it was an accidental decision he had to protect the Russian Naval basis of a stop all and i think i mean its not a question of whether i approve of it question is do i understand it and i do understand it and i think any russian leader even the ones we like and think are democrats would have had no chose choice but to do it putin would tell you receive. His politics at princeton were discussing russia the United States the ukraine and well be right back after this break. Terror of russian and lights. In a world of big part of the new lot and conspiracy its time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made history media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bats and shouting past each other its time for Critical Thinking its time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. And. Terror of russian and lions. Same hammer i can use to smash someones head is the same hammer i can use to build them a home but thats a human choosing what to do with that thats me expressing my values for the tool and thats what we need to do with Artificial Intelligence as well. The washington consensus led by the United States says the liberal world order must be defended at almost all costs said differently the Foreign Policy blog demands the post cold war you know polar moment be preserved but alas it would seem a multiple world has already arrived. At. My newest sidekick the c. C c its. A bit over. When you know. Who constitute. The movement you know the nazis. And i used to make it a very easy i had no food to eat school on drugs used to people. Who people who comes to clubs doing he. Said if the. Music. Is because he makes me copy. He dies because to me its mean copy plain beautiful. And when you get to. The. Love. I doubt. There are good and bad the bad those in the United States. The good. Lord in syria the cia and the u. S. Military were engaged in. Overreactions really throughout the world. Where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up the right way military juntas funding an army of death squads theres no more because theres always a small call for a really good. Profit. That was Stephen Cohen russians galo whose latest book war with russia from putin and ukraine to trump and russia gate he is in new york city ok you sound to me steven as a strong. Strong maybe a strong. Supporter of putin ive been with putin twice youve never met him correct what attracts you to him. Its not i mean its not my job i mean i bad ben at this larry almost 50 years as a scholar who studies russia its not never been my job to support one. Russian leader over another its been my job to study him comment on him try to understand him i will admit there is one exception i came to know me heigho gorbachev and i became very fond of him and he was very kind to me and our families became friends so much so that my then 13 year old daughter thought that gorbachev was is her godfather he wasnt but she got it in her head that this was her godfather because we saw so much of gorbachev and he was so affectionate but apart from the relationship with gorbachev i dont support one russian leader or another i have many friends in the russian Political Class and if i was a russian i might vote for one of them not putin. But it it its what i do to try to understand russian politics and i have to say that that once venerable profession of studying russian politics has been lost in this country in fact i would submit to you larry think about this then all in all this nonsense about russia gate russia itself has been lost i mean we have very few news stories about whats going on in russia itself an enormously important country its all about the russia gate and the secret ties to trump or somebody else but whats going on in russia do you believe that putin once trumped reelected. You know. I dont know its in a in a Perfect World trumps cooperate with russia as i said before is the american policy that putin wants on the other hand putin and his advisors on america are absolutely astonished and demoralized by all these scandals that have dragged russia into american politics i guess putin would have to see what the alternative is. To see if he preferred somebody else do you think i dont think he feels personally wedded to trump do you think he interfered with. What is interfering metal using. Unorthodox unwarranted criminal means to affect how they voted in iowa or no i was living in moscow im going to take you back larry because i think we actually did an interview when i was in moscow and talked about it i was living in moscow in 1996 Boris Yeltsin then the president of russia was up for reelection he was at about 3 percent and positive approval polls he appeared to have no chance of winning whatsoever that the American Government under bill clinton launched a massive financial an on Site Campaign to get russia reelected to get yeltsin reelected i witnessed that i didnt like it but i was fascinated by this this legion of american advisors in american money that descended on moscow compared to that what russia did in the in the 216. 00 election was jay walking home run of the mill stuff i mean weve meddled in each others politics since the Russian Revolution i mean after our president Woodrow WilsonCenter American troops to fight the russians civil war in 1901001 thing is that nettle and of course it is weve tried to be involved in russia and russian and in soviet politics for decades usually unsuccessfully its something both sides do they meddle i dont think what happened in 216. 00 was anything out of the ordinary oh you characterize the current state of u. S. Ukraine relations. The problem here is which ukraine i mean youve got powerful Political Forces in ukraine trying to deal both with russia and the United States and its become an unholy mess what strikes me and its kind of its not yet tragic it may become tragic but its sad that this rather vaguely new and relatively young president of ukraine zelinsky wright who everybody points out had once been a t. V. Comedian becomes elected a pump elected president of ukraine now he ran larry on a program with ending the war with russia he ran on a Peace Program he was kind of a George Mcgovern candidate except that he won. It is his mission its his political mandate its what his anyone with about 71 percent of the vote its what his supporters wanted was an end of the war with russia and end of the fighting in done boss and elsewhere but he has been thwarted primarily because hes been dragged into american politics this is the bad thing so my view is is that all of us including trump including those people who are against trump really should withdraw from ukraine and let zelinsky make his peace with russia he has cards to play he could negotiate putin is ready and waiting we now have this big fight over shipping military more military about 400000000000 i think 380000000000. 00 worth of military equipment to ukraine why. Why D Barack Obama was pressured do that and he refuse one of the wise decisions obama made as president 1st of all you dont know whose hands those weapons are going to end up with ukraines one big black market secondly why risk an escalation of the fighting what we should want is olinsky to do is to continue this Peace Process sometimes known as the minsk accord with russia to settle this dispute whats the point of sending more weapons to ukraine which by the way and its warehouses has plenty of weapons do you support the. No no no no i dont support the a preacher in trouble for a whole lot of reasons but i think that at the end particularly with elections what 910 months away and this is not something that i dont see the crime for which. You know its compelling to make an impeachment case ive looked at all this stuff in russian here i mean it may have been bad form he had a couple phone calls with selenski which could have been better i dont think hes got great advisors in the white house some of the people he brought in the white house he didnt like but he brought him in to get the russia gate accusations he brought in hard liners like fiona on john bolton to make it look like he was tough i dont think its good advice but you know i dont i dont you think putin is the most of all men in the world. I mean that would take us to what we mean by powerful. Lets change the word to influence will ok in World Politics i was certain to say that hes one of and heres whats interesting. Partly because of trumps but hey if youre. But partly because putin has been an advocate of negotiating conflicts all the way from syria to ukraine and beyond putin has emerged for european leaders im not talking about american as one of the preeminent european statesman now when putin came to power thats what he wanted as i mentioned before so putins reputation his role in europe is very different from what it is here i mean for example i mentioned that trump had the the Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in the white house a perfectly normal playing and there was a big scandal how dare he have the Russian Foreign minister in the white house or what should we do with the Russian Foreign minister snub him shoot him deporting my mean Foreign Ministers are supposed to negotiate diplomacy in peace so theres now seen as a mainstay of European Security that is something new we havent seen that maybe not the 20th century. That role being played by russia a lot of it has to do with russias back on its feet but it lot of it has to do with putin and love rauf who is probably the number one foreign minister in the world i mean theyre pretty good at what they do diplomacy was personally even. In all the years ive known you to what what what draws you to prove. You are fascinated with him what draws you to him. Well i dont like the word draw but i am fascinated by them and again it comes back to what happened in russia in the 1990 s. The collapse of the country and when i see the country i mean the lives the professions of my personal friends so many people i know lost their professions so many people had to sell their household belongings because they werent being paid. The reason and im going to turn your question around a little bit here putin remains remarkably popular in russia even though inflation even though pensions have been reformed in a way not to the benefit of people even though putins ratings have dropped he remains remarkably popular people see him why is he so popular one is people dont see an alternative so you understand if they dont have a plausible alternative in front of him then they say yeah im proposing but i think its just lasting gratitude that putin presided over russias rise from the disaster of the 1990 s. Because almost every family in russia including young kids and their grandparents lived through a catastrophe in the 1990 s. And it wasnt putin personally and alone but he built a team of economist and of. People who knew what they were doing and he got russia stabilised back on its feet at home for that every russian i know including ones who dont like putin remain grateful to him. Thanks so much for your time today always enjoyed talking with you thank you larry also steven cohen the book is war with russia a question mark from putin the new ukrainian to trump and russia gate and that concludes this edition of politicking well number you can join the conversation on my Facebook Page or tweet me kings things and dont forget to use the politicking hash tag and thats all for this edition of fallen sick game. Teraflops russian deadlines. You know world big partisan new digs a lot and conspiracy its time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the bath shouting past each other its time for Critical Thinking its time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now were watching closely watching the hawks. There are some russian headlines. My name is sucking the sea on the. Surface jack see what i dont see its a. Little bit over there you know if. We let him out weve got to get it down to cause you need to move because you know the nazis speech and i use i dont think shes making any babies here i know suits me school on drugs used to people. Who cooks peoples clothes because who comes during hes trying to fit a music that. I love to jazz because he makes me copy i love he does because he makes me copy plain beautiful. And when you go to. The Office Box Office who loves to garden. Im pretty. Sure that i doubt. The washington consensus led by the United States says the liberal world order must be defended at almost all costs said differently the Foreign Policy blog demands the post cold war you know polar moment be preserved but alas it would seem a multiple world has already arrived. History. In the. Passenger planes crashed in kazakhstan in central asia the back of flight came down shortly after takeoff with 98. After a year of tension with the United States allies iran russia and china joined drills in the gulf. And rights activists are calling on the British Defense ministry to compensate Service Personnel who were expelled from the military because of their sexuality we hear reaction. Think we need to recognize the real pain suffering. Was subjected to these men we hear this all the time from various groups that we should treat people in the past as idiots because they were