capital expenditures, let s say a bridge that will last for 50 years but leveraging the government s ability to borrow at low interest rates, this could be an expansion of that. there s an opportunity here to move ahead and at least do this on a bipartisan basis. neil: let s go back to the summit and just get your overall thoughts on what we know so far, what was said, the duelling press conferences, if you will. just your initial assessment. i was pleased to see the president did raise some of the key issues. navalny is one. with regard to russia s interference in eastern europe, so glad the ukraine was part of the agenda. i wish also there was more discussion about belarus and about georgia. maybe we ll find out more about that later. it s important to have those discussions. i m glad that they were raised. the cyber security issue was raised as well, which was a huge concern right now. my concern, charles, goes to the
they are trying to build up leading to this meeting. the question is what are some practical things that they can get putin to cooperate on. there are many practical things they need him for, and one of them is on the nuclear issue, and one of them is on the cyber security issue, and i think that these are the things that are going to be worked out behind the scenes. between the two leaders, i think they want to establish a sense of mutual respect and in order to do that it seems the white house believes they have to they have to have the backup of the global community in order to project toughness and resolve going into that meeting. charles, you have written extensively about american isolationism and the consequences of that. we have talked about biden being a player on the world stage for decades now but we can t return to just as if this is january 19th, 2017, right? what is the work that this president has to do to return the u.s. to many of the places that leadership spots t
severe. steve mnuchin called it a very significant accomplishment for president trump before president trump himself backed away from the idea. so i can t speak to internal white house thinking on this particular matter. again, i m glad where the president ended up. but where the spirit of the president is on this, having addressed the election meddling with vladamir putin and going into place where is i think he was able to get more constructive agreements like the syrian cease-fire, there is a desire from the president to find areas where we can work together with the russians. but on the cyber security issue, i don t think that s one of them. matthew, does it make any sense that the u.s. would want to work with russia on cyber security and do you see president trump s meeting with vladamir putin as the president standing up on the issue of hacking? so i think the problem with this general term of cyber security is that it lumps two things together. one is attacks that happened
but on the cyber security issue, i don t think that s one of them. matthew, does it make any sense that the u.s. would want to work with russia on cyber security and do you see president trump s meeting with vladamir putin as the president standing up on the issue of hacking? so i think the problem with this general term of cyber security is that it lumps two things together. one is attacks that happened to use signer mechanisms on critical infrastructure. you could count in that our lector call mechanisms, you could count the power grid, our financial infrastructure and military systems that now defend on networked capabilities. the other thing that s essentially constant signer probing, espionage, gathering of illicit information, which isn t per se an attack. when it comes to the former, direct attacks on critical infrastructure, there s not really a kind of beat the russians at their own game solution. this is something where at the end of the day, and we ve known this for deca
he avoided that. he didn t do that. he went in, listened to putin and apparently one side thinks everything s okay and the other side wants to get on. his comments, let s get on with business with the russians rather than let s stop them from interfering in our elections. he did tweet at one point in that, on that cyber security issue. this is the president, the fact that president putin and i discussed a krib are security unit doesn t mean i think i can doesn t mean i think it can happen. it can t. but a cease-fire can and did. you welcome the achievement of the cease-fire? the cease-fire is very important. any step in syria to lower the level of violence and take pressure off the jordanians. it s right along their border. the more difficult issues will be the area not there along the jordanian border but in the euphrates valley along syria, iraqi border. that s where isis is retreating to. that s where our surkirogate forces are headed, assad and irans and russians, that s the