in may, with his usual grandiosity, putin assumed the presidency of russia for the fourth time. he won the way he always does, overwhelmingly. putin s chief opponent was otherwise occupied. opposition leader alexei navali was arrested while leading protests against the russian president. much of this was not seen on russian television. for 94% of russia, their main source of news is television. if it didn t happen on television, it didn t happen. putin controls television. there s absolutely no critical words about vladimir putin on the russian airwaves none, not one word. putin controls everything in russia. putin has an untrammeled
says yes, sir, you do what you want without questioning anything. so we have the roberts court which is almost on a dog whistle of national security. sure you can ban these migrants. you can do anything you want as long as you call it national security. you can start trade wars as long as you call it national security. i m extraordinarily worried. by the way, trump is not the start of all of this. we ve been on a slide for decades where presidents have mobilized their cia assets, secret armies where we ve had wars that congress has not approved. but with the will to power and the grandiosity and the megalo mania of the current office, we are as close as we can be to one man rule as we ve been in our modern history. just taking a minute to let that sink in. if you say trump is a wrecking ball and you talk about the
grandiosity, putin assumed the presidency of russia for the fourth time. he won the way he always does, overwhelmingly. putin s chief opponent was otherwise occupied. opposition leader alexa that value di was arrested while leading protests against the russian president. most of this was not seen on television. for 94% of returns their main source of news is television. if it didn t happen on television, it didn t happen. putin controls television. there s absolutely no critical words about vladimir putin on the russian air ways. none. not one word. putin controls everything in russia. putin has an untrampled
in may, with his usual grandiosity, putin assumed the presidency of russia for a fourth time. he won the way he always does, overwhelmingly. putin s chief opponent was otherwise occupied. opposition leade eer was arrest while leading protests against the russian president. much of this was not seen on russian television. for 94% of russians, their main source of news is television. if it didn t happen on television, it didn t happen. putin controls television. there s absolutely no critical words about vladimir putin on the russian airwaves, none, not one word. putin controls everything in russia. putin has an untrammeled
new book. it says that president obama neither liked nor loathed putin nor did he subscribe to the view that putin was all that tough. if he was that sure of himself, obama said, he wouldn t have his picture taken riding around with his shirt off. joining us now is ben, former deputy national rity adviser and speech writer for president obama and now an msnbc political contributor. his new book is the world as it is: a memoir of the obama white house , and, ben, you have rave reviews for the book. it is not the typical inside the white house memoir. you are not trying to show how right you were about everything while everyone else was wrong. yeah, yeah. but take us into president obama s view of putin. it seems like such a clear and simple form of analysis looking at putin s public grandiosity and obama who didn t have that,