klimnik, and klimnik s plan for a brokered negotiation/peace deal between ukraine and russia, that our understanding and our sources tell us would favor russia. so this is sort of potentially, if you re looking for the quid pro quo, you see the quid, the work by russia, and the meddling in the election. what is the quo? you have at least the potential of building a theory around the fact that the quo would be a peace deal that would favor russia and potentially result in the lifting of u.s. sanctions against russia which, of course, is the biggest driving foreign policy objective of the russians. harry, you talk about the idea of a nuanced reading of the transcripts. you hone in on something the prosecutor said. talking about the core of the russia investigation, he said, what is as far as i can go. why did you key in on that piece? yeah, first of all, really meticulous and elegant reporting
enforcement in that regard. is it working? there is a lot of improvement for sure. heather: el salvador the last one we will look at. or than $118 million to el salvador. that one has decreased for the coming year. we all suffer from similar issues, violence, corruption, lack of economic opportunity, corruption being a keyword. heather: how do we keep track of the money once it gets there? i worked in the government for 12 years. foreign aid is a tool we use as much as any other tool in terms of achieving a foreign policy objective. like sanctions or communications or diplomacy. it is another tool and never just giving to the government willy-nilly. it is usually just invested directly into a program that manages itself through usaid or the peace corps or civil society
butina s conversation in that interview was about sanctions. mike flynn was lying about his conversation with the ambassador about sanctions. the meeting in trump tower about kushner and manafort and don junior that they later denied happened, that was about sanctions. time and time again there s a marriage of business interests, making money and talking about sanctions. those comments are referencing an exchange between butina and candidate trump in which she asked him about sanctions. do you believe all this attempted influence is really just about sanctions? it s not just about sanctions, no. first and foremost it is about sanctions, and getting sanctions listed. that was a top foreign policy objective for president putin that when people argue, sanctions don t matter, why is he so animated to get them
congress is exercise what s they re supposed to do. authorize and appropriate. that s the money that comes. when the president has foreign policy objective that he wants to do and congress doesn t want to allow him to do it, this is how they exercise neil: they said some response because they fear from him no response and it bothers them. i think they re seeing it. you have to look at it again. when i was on the program when this killing of khaishoggi first happened, what you re looking at is the larger strategic interests of the united states playing out. while president trump is very concerned with how saudi arabia handled this entire issue, we have to look at yemen and it needs to be resolved. that country is suffering through a proxy war tweep saudi arabia and iran. we in fact have to help the saudis in the region but making sure that iran understands that there s a cost for their continued involvement in that war as well. neil: commander, thank you. thank you, neil.
isis would share your view. we ve been incredibly hard on terror from wherever it comes whether it s the shia, whether it s the sunnis or anyone else engaged in terror around the world. our objective is to protect american interests and we will protect them no matter who it is perpetrated and whether they come from a religion, no religion and the should i as or the sunnis. are the russians helpful on iran? they ve not been to date. do you think they can be? i always live in hope, chuck. it is my mission, and it is my task to convince the russians, too, that you re firing rockets from yemen into major gulf states and arming lebanese hezbollah, and all of these activities. these aren t in russia s best interest either and just come to america and poke us in the eye is not a foreign policy objective. that s being a nuisance and what i hope they do is we take what matters to each of our two peoples.