the evil empire back in 1983 and everybody said, oh, my goodness, this is shocking what he said. now we all remember that as a very clear statement of the truth back then. and it sent a very strong message, admiral stavridis, to dissidents in russia. you heard after the fall of the soviet union, you heard dissidents say when reagan and other western leaders would say something like that it shouldn t a strong message. by the way as far as joe biden saying something like this you don t have to go back to 2011 or 2012, he said it at the end of his state of the union address and it was clearly planned as he is walking away from the mic he says, let s go get him. a clear psy ops message to vladimir putin. joe, first and foremost, as you point out, there are different audiences here. you are absolutely right.
authoritarian governments. so historical speech. strong and significant resonance both at home and abroad. all over the world. all around the world. yeah, many of the trumpists are actually having their words played on russian television to, again, try to inspire the russian people to keep killing more ukrainians. now, but it is not a good look. no, it is not. mika, especially when many of the same people were the ones in the trumpist wing of the republican party who celebrated ronald reagan s evil empire speech, who celebrated ronald reagan joking and saying bombing would begin in five minutes. again, it is hypocrisy. they re not concerned about what is best for american, they re not concerned about what is best for democracy, they re not concerned about what is best for western civilization. they just want joe biden to fail
will say something harder. well, what are they saying? what are they meaning? you know, we ve been out front saying exactly what we re for, what we re doing, what s going on. i m not just saying this. listen, i said it when reagan was president. i like the creative ambiguity. i like a president that goes out and calls the soviet union an evil empire. i know the state department freaked out at the time, the diplomatic corps freaked out at the time. that s fine. creative ambiguity. keep them guessing. david, your thoughts? vladimir putin is a serial war criminal who is committing as we speak crimes against humanity. he s levelled an entire innocent neighbor. he did the same thing in syria. he did the same thing in chechnya. i don t think we should be that concerned with hurting his feelings.
from arms control to arms reduction. you re now getting rid of nuclear weapons. many american conservatives are afraid that mr. reagan is too anxious for an arms agreement to ensure his place in the history books as a peacemaker. well, i haven t changed from the time i made a speech about an evil empire, and i think i could sum up my own position on this with a recitation of a very brief russian proverb, doveryai, no proveryai. it means trust but verify. the importance of this treaty transcends numbers. we have listened to the wisdom in an old russian maxim. doveryai, no proveryai. trust but verify.
ronald reagan built his career saying communism is evil, and the notion that five years after his evil empire speech, ronald reagan lands in moscow and is welcomed and greeted is mind-blowing. just about like every other american tourist who comes to moscow, president reagan today toured red square, which is the historic center of this capital, of course. he had the best possible tour guide, mikhail gorbachev. so friendly was it all that at one point, president reagan threw his arm around gorbachev. and at another point completely took back his evil empire pronouncement. you still think you re in an evil empire, mr. president? no. why not? i was talking about another time and another era. the warmonger reagan is