deal until yesterday. i think the one person they really want is a murderer from germany. he killed somebody in open daylight. in a park on a bicycle. he is in german captivity. that is a person they really want out. i think that is very difficult for the united states government to work with him. but there may be others. i don t know for a fact. there may be other criminals that could be traded. and i do know for a fact that the biden administration continues to work on these issues. for paul whelan, for mark focal, they remain committed to try to get all americans out of russia. i just don t know exactly what cards they need to play. and lassiter michael mcfaul, as you said, these are complex issues, and i appreciate your insight and expertise. a day of shock and sadness in the world of soccer and beyond, as fans learned about the death
adam, i m struck by something that amber said, there is always this question of do you stay and fight or bugle because that is what necessary. to keep your family safe and intact. i wonder in this moment, how are you thinking about that? i see this in historical terms and actually, to me, it is scary. we are in additional priority here but so many other folks trans kids are even worse, lower caste or a trans person of color. they have even worse than we do. i think as a privilege to be here and stand up for what is right. i think at this in historical terms, i think it did not to doesn t future, we ll look back on this and not only will we have prevailed in this fight, americans at the pitcher will say that that was a shameful chapter in our history. the kids in this generation who are standing up were courageous.
president when americans linger in captivity for months or four years. joining us now msnbc international affairs analyst and former ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. ambassador, thank you for being with us avalon of questions for you but first i want to talk about viktor bout, can you explain why this exchange, why bout himself was so personal for putin? well victor bout was an arms control deal around the world, getting arms to lots of bad characters, lots of back governments, lots of bad movements around the world, if you look at his biography on his wikipedia page you can see that he studied at institutions in the soviet union were typically kgb agents also studied. so he is close to that world, that world of vladimir putin remember, putin was a kgb agent himself, and i can tell you from personal experience when i was the ambassador to russia, that the russian government mr. putin s government, has been
and we mostly did when i was in the obama administration. in this particular instance, i think it was right to take the deal. because if you didn t, there would ve been no deal. it wasn t like there was a better option. of course, we would wish for all americans, paul whelan, mark focal, to be part of this deal, three innocent americans for one criminal. but that was not the deal on the table. it was a very hard call. but i think they made the right decision. the timing of this is lost on no one. you i wonder how that then complicated all of this. it is a great question. i don t know the answer to that. i know that i sense, i should be careful i have not talked to putin about it. but i sense that when they picture up, they knew they had an asset, and that is the way they think about these things, that might be treatable for viktor bout. the other traits that were made, they did not think that they could do bout.
midterms. it s like, well, we control the senate now, we being the democrats, everything will be fined, and that they lose sight of the fact that trans kids are really struggling and suffering, especially here in texas. we will not lose our son. worst-case scenario, we pack up in the middle of night and i talked to the other states as quickly as we can, but we could lose everything. again, we could be internally displaced americans right here in the united states of america in 2022, and we know several families of trans kids who have already left the state, trying to avoid the trauma of being investigated in the first place. it s really important that your viewers pay attention to this because if they are not coming for your kid, now they will, they absolutely will because if we don t stop them, if we don t stop attacks against trans kid, they ll be another target and another target and another target. we re not just fighting for our