bret. i met with my counterpart many, many times met with vladimir putin. vladimir putin thanked me and president trump for saving lives in st. petersburg. we always knew that he needed to make sure and have good conversations. develop whatever level of relationship. you could work together. you could save lives in a place like russia. you ought to do that. but when you came to defending america's interest. we were pretty clear we were going to do that every single day. >> bret: democrats on capitol hill obviously see this differently. some look through partisan lenses. others say that the two administrations dealt with things differently. here is senator mark warner. >> the administration's approach is significantly different than the previous president in this country to undermind the trans-atlantic alliance. questioned the very needs for its existence and took every opportunity to weaken the shared bonds that have kept peace in europe since world war ii.