something about a referendum about ukraine, they haven t cleaned that up. that was in the russian press, by the way. and there is this alleged deal on syria that, again, is floating around in the russian press. we don t actually know what the president agreed to there. the good news always is the rhetoric is always worse than the action, at least as i m concerned. i think the trump administration policy is pretty good on russia. but the president s policy on russia is really horrible. because we don t know what it is, and when he says what it is, it tends to be very differential, lavishing praise on vladimir putin. and frank figliuzzi, you re a trained intelligence guy and not a diplomat. having said that, what did you make of putin s nonacceptance of the second summit here in washington? was this his way of trolling trump? was he giving our president a down, publicly? this looks very much like a dominance move.
somehow being suspected criminals in some crazy scheme that putin spun. they haven t pushed back on that. we think there was something about a referendum about ukraine. they haven t cleaned that up. that was in the russian press. and there s this alleged deal on syria floating around in the russian press. we don t actually know what the president agreed to on there. the good news always is the rhetoric is always worse than the action. at least as i m concerned. i think the trump administration policy is pretty good on russia, but the president s policy on russia is really horrible. because we don t know what it is and when he says what it is, it tends to be very differential, lavishing praise on putin. frank, you re a trained investigative guy and not a diplomat. having said that, what did you make of putin s nonacceptance of the second summit here in washington?
next to president putin, lavishing praise on him, accepting virtually every position that president putin sounds like he laid out in that meeting, including, you know, accusing people like me of criminal behavior while working for the u.s. government in russia, and you put those two things together and everybody is asking the question, why? why is the president of the united states so eager to be so cooperative with vladimir putin, of all people? but you re able to tamp down on some of the hysteria. given to swhoom damning or concerning thing that you have heard or people with whom he s associated, is there cause for concern? they re very prominent people and i know almost all of them. those are people i used to meet with as the u.s. ambassador. you know, it would be very natural for those people to push
someone that has a lot of political significance. so i think this might not be the last that we hear from him. and lavishing praise on president trump is a way to perhaps appeal to the president s base and keep himself relevant. and speaking of lavishing praise here s president trump. thank you scott, thank you very much. epa is doing really, really well. somebody has to say that about you a little bit. you know that scott. scott pruitt is doing a great job within the walls of the epa. we are setting records. outside he s being attacked by the press. i m not saying he s blameless. but we ll see what happens. are you confident of him? yes. i think he s a fantastic person. scott has done a fantastic job at epa. you don t see any problems with his ethical?
wildly between extremes. one second he s threatening fire and fury and amping up tensions and the second he s lavishing with praise. and you can naturally go down the middle once in a while and just keep it clean, which he doesn t do. he wants to be over the top at all times. but i saw those numbers. my first thought was a depressing thought, which is a good chunk of the country is always with the president or always kind of against him, and what we report on doesn t matter sometimes. it s a depressing thought, but it s probably true. trump also spoke to reporters shortly before his former campaign chairman paul manafort appeared in court this morning. he said he felt badly for manafort and other associates who were being investigated or pleaded guilty in the russia probe, he also singled out michael flynn and made reference to his longtime attorney and fixer michael cohen. i don t think it s right. i don t think it s right that they burst into a lawyer s office on a weekend early