himself look like a puppet master. that s exactly right, it s not just at home it s also in eastern europe. he s just trying to recreate the old russian empire and make it as big as he can. he strained to say on the puppetmaster, and i am expanding russia and i m restoring the glory of old russia. it s all right, you russians, that you are suffering. because of sacrifice for the cause of the motherland. tucker: that s a familiar theme in russian history. what i didn t realize until i read your piece that right after the election were democrats in the country were howling that trumped one because of putin, the russian media were parroting that. that s right. the disadvantage that putin has, he controls every word the media say. we know what he s thinking all the time. you just read the media because he s approving what they say. right after the election, the russian media celebrated, they said trump is our friend, but only for a few days, then they said wait a minute, look at
from his muslim citizens on the one hand on the russian nationalists on the other. he has to satisfy this. he has created this image that makes them look like a strong man but only works if he has a week american president. tucker: this is for domestic consumption. more than internationally. were looking at this and say what does putin want, does he want us to back off on crimea is it ukraine that he s worried about and you re saying he s unstable at home and to shore up his support he wants to make himself look like a puppet master. that s exactly right, it s not just at home it s also in eastern europe. he s just trying to recreate the old russian empire and make it as big as he can. he strained to say on the puppetmaster, and i am expanding russia and i m restoring the glory of old russia. it s all right, you russians, that you are suffering. because of sacrifice for the cause of the motherland. tucker: that s a familiar theme in russian history.
nationalists on the other. he has to satisfy this. he has created this image that makes them look like a strong man but only works if he has a weak american president. tucker: this is for domestic consumption. more than internationally. we re looking at this and say what does putin want, does he want us to back off on crimea is it ukraine that he s worriedat about and you re saying he s unstable at home and to shore up his support he wants to make himself look like a puppet master. that s exactly right, it s not just at home it s also in eastern europe. he s trying to recreate the old russian empire and make it as big as he can. he strained to say on the puppetmaster, and i am expanding o russia and i m restoring the glory of old russia. it s all right, you russians, that you are suffering. because of sacrifice for the cause of the motherland. tucker: that s a familiar theme in russian history. what i didn t realize until i read your piece that right after
these national security appointments. matt has sessions, he was talking about mitt romney as secretary of state, these are all russia hawks. they said what s going on here. and they went quiet for about three weeks. and then this narrative started from a putin encouraging belief that he is the puppetmaster and in the russian media filed in the. meanwhile, he had surrogates in eastern europe saying listen, there s a new order. it s us. and you fred s of america, you don t want to be the last one still trusting america come of this bus is leaving, if you get on the bus right now, we ll take care of you. tucker: the deep irony in your theory is this would make the american media which hates trump a dupe of russian propaganda, they re the onesd bn propaganda. it would be the first time. what does putin want, he wants to keep crimea exactly what you said, he wants to keep crimea
going on. supposed to be in charge and doesn t i don t know if it s true but reports that steve bannon is the puppetmaster. you said it. i didn t want to you were doing this. for people not looking at screen but just listening. yeah. but why would he be bragging about electoral win to foreign leaders? we don t actually have reporting on that but trusting greg on it. it s something with historic precedent because he s done it several times before including with nancy pelosi and chuck schumer when they came down to white house to have discussion about legislation and he went off. you got to wonder if he goes back to that all the time because makes him feel good and justifies whatever actions he s going to take. it s what he knows. how he s going to act. makes him powerful. to the point of the world view,