senator himself. among them anti-putin activist vlad who sad down with me exclusively to talk about his role in tomorrow s service and how he and the senator bonded. martha: tell me a little bit about the origins of your friendship with senator mccain. we first met, the three of us the russian opposition leader senator mccain and myself at the beginning of 2010 and n. that building just behind us in the russell senate building where senator mccain s office was and this was about the legislation bill introduced in the u.s. astronaut and senator mccain was one of the main driving forces behind that bill. what that bill proposed to do was to impose individual personal targeted sanctions not against russia as a country but against corrupt officials and human rights abusers in vladimir putin s regime. impunity whereby the same people who have for years been attacking and undermining and violating the most basic norms of
she served as the deputy secretary of energy from 2014 to 2017. she s also the former white house coordinator for defense policy and weapons of mass destruction. liz, thanks so much for joining us. thanks, wolf. you know, the juxtaposition of the president s tweets is astonishing and creates a very dangerous precedent for would-be proli p proliferators around the world. you have the president saying to north koreans, who are known human rights abusers, we give you respect, and indeed he said after the meeting in singapore that he had given them a guarantee of regime survival iranians is you have to nuclear weapons. you know from your personal experience, liz, how hard it is to dismantle nuclear arsenal. so what s your assessment on the challenges the u.s. is facing right now with north korea?
it s been a tough week for the human rights council in other ways. the united states has withdrawn. i think the first member state to ever do this. and nikki haley and the administration officials argue that, look, this is a this is a rights council that makes a mockery of the name. you have countries like cuba and venezuela and saudi arabia, known human rights abusers on it. do they have a point that these if these countries are under, the whole thing is a sham? well, there is certainly a point to be made on composition. and we ourselves have said that especially if you have members who are not cooperating with my office, which is distinct from the human rights council, or other human rights mechanisms, the then they, of course, should their whole membership our membership needs to be revisited.
depending on whom you talk to the moral credibility of the us has been in question for some time some argue that it took a hit yesterday when the united states withdrew from the united nations human rights council and the council promotes human rights and investigates abuses around the world or us ambassador to the you when nikki haley justified her country s exit by accusing the council of hypocrisy and bias against israel human rights abusers continue to serve on and be elected to the council the world s most inhumane regimes continue to skate scrutiny and the council continues politicizing and scapegoating of countries which positive human rights records in an attempt to distract from the users and their ranks therefore as we said we would do a year ago if we did not see any progress the united states is officially
the basis of their union together in the first place. so i think that the combination of trump s unwillingness to relent and his genuine belief that this is the right thing to do makes it unlikely that he ll back off, unless the congress forces it on him and passes something by a veto proof majority that he has to accept. david, i also want to ask you about the position by the u.s. to pull out of the u.n. council, the council accused of having a bias. this comes after human action on the border unconscionable. i want to know your thoughts. the u.n. human rights council has people on there who are human rights abusers. they have been slanted against israel on many instances. the obama administration, their view was better to be inside the