before it was cool. just remember in 2001, when bush started, excuse me, stared into putin s soul. and of course, who could forget he described him as a man he could trust. biden, though, on the other hand, wasn t so convinced, even 20 years ago, he said straight-up, i don t trust putin. but why can or not biden goes back with putin in a way he just doesn t with other world leaders, like british prime minister boris johnson, or fresh president macron, or even german chancellor, olaf scholz, who biden has described as no angela merkel. or at least, that s what some sources have told nbc news about his perceptions of the german chancellor. joining now to discuss this and more is nina khrushcheva, professor of international affairs of the new school, and great granddaughter of former soviet premier nikita khrushchev. great to see you again. i want to start by asking you about the current state of tensions, and all the details we have heard about today s call between these two leaders. wha
phone, a senior administration officials characterizing that call us quote professional, but resulting in no fundamental change on the russian ukrainian conflict. the two leaders have a lot of history. in fact, biden dislike putin before it was school. just remember in 2001, when bush started, excuse me, stared into putin s soul. and of course, who could forget he described him as a man he could trust. biden, though, on the other hand, wasn t so convinced, even 20 years ago, he said straight-up, i don t trust putin. but why can or not biden goes back with putin in a way he just doesn t with other world leaders, like british prime minister boris johnson, or fresh president macron, or even german chancellor, olaf scholz, who biden has described as no angela merkel. or at least, that s what some sources have told nbc news about his perceptions of the german chancellor. joining now to discuss this and more is nina crush ever, professor of international affairs of the new school, and great
here in geneva, switzerland, we are two days out from the critical biden/putin summit. we re covering that and the president s talks with nato leaders in brussels. phil mattingly is on the scene for us in brussels. the president says the nato meeting was productive, but his upcoming summit with putin is clearly very much on his mind. reporter: over the course of the last several days, meeting after meeting with u.s. allies, one thing has been clear. while there s a significant agenda the president wanted to address both at the g7 and here in brussels at the nato summit, the meeting with president putin is an ever important piece of every conversation that he has. i have found that he is, as they say, a worthy adversary. reporter: president biden deep into preparation for his high-stakes sitdown with russian
one of those, unprizsurprisingl being ukraine, russian aggression inside ukraine. he also said that he had the support of every member state of nato who had spoken to during the day. but the number one issue that he mentioned in terms of an area of confrontation with putin is alexei navalny, the russian opposition leader poisoned with novichok. president biden making it very clear that he will be raising the issue of navalny with putin. he also said that if navalny was to die in russian custody, that that would be a tragedy and will make it very clear that president putin has no interest in abiding by international norms. that was apparently in response to president putin s comments where he said he was not the one responsible for whether navalny
here in geneva one on one this week. our brian todd is taking a closer look at their relationship. brian, these two leaders have some history. reporter: they have a very contentious history, wolf. that moment today when biden seemed to backtrack on his characterization of vladimir putin as a killer is very much at odds of biden s tough guy approach to putin in the past. it was 22 years ago. then-president bush met with vladimir putin for the first time and he uttered this on the encounter. i was able to get a sense of his soul. reporter: bush called the russian president, quote, straightforward and trustworthy. almost then immediately, then-senator joe biden reacted by saying, quote, i don t trust putin. but i caution the administration against being excessivily optimistic about mr. putin and his intentions. joe biden is one of the american politicians who identified very early the type