it but you ve got to be very, very firm. dealing with putin is like hand-feeding a shark. you can do it but you have to do it very, very carefully. that is republican senator john kennedy s advice on how to handle russian president vladimir putin, senator kennedy s recent return from a congressional trip to russia where he says he told high-level officials to stop screwing with our elections. senator john kennedy of louisiana joins me now. senator, you say talking to putin is like feeding a shark, you can do it but you have to do it carefully. did president trump feed the shark carefully? here s let me answer your question this way, and i will answer it, john, here s what i wish the president had said. i wish he d come out after the meeting and said president putin and i had a very frank conversation. i told him to stop acting like a thug, i told him if he wanted a better relationship with my country he should stop trying to
i stand by what i said about mr. putin, dealing with him is like hand-feeding a shark. he even has eyes like a shark, no disrespect. forget what he says, watch what he does. if he meddles in our election thisfall and i told his colleagues this when i was in russia as did the other senators. if hes mes with our election this fall i believe congress will double down on sanctions, maybe triple down. let s review a few things you said here. you said you thought the president was very ineffective, uncertain, you said, off hiss game. yes. do you feel he looked weak standing next to president putin? he looked off his game. i m never had an at-length discussion one on one with mr. trump about how he feels about russia so i don t know you have to judge well, i think we have every reason to think we do know how
what did he say to you? i assume the reaction was, we didn t do it, because that s when we ve heard publicly. but what did they say to you? well, it got testy at times. they, of course, deny everything. but and i expected them to. look, the last time that the russian government embraced western values and democracy was never. we re not going to convert their political leadership. we re going to have to contain them. and the only way to contain them, you don t have to be ugly about it, but you ve got to be very, very firm. dealing with putin is like hand-feeding a shark. you can do it, but you have to do it very, very carefully. senator, did you really say, stop screwing with our election ? you really said that to the foreign minister? yes. yes. i want to make sure i got the quote? we didn t hit it off very well at all. it sounds like it.
on balance, this was a good agreement.. they say working with kim is like hand-feeding a shark. you can do it, but you have to do it very, very carefully. tucker? tucker: great metaphor. thanks, ed. is the new deal with north korea actually a deal that is good for the united states? can we trust the north koreans to follow it? doug mcgregor is here, the representative of the state of nebraska also joins us tonight. congressman, first to you. is this a deal that americans ought to be happy about? the best word that i could use to describe the last few days is stunning.ns it s almost unimaginable given where we were just six months ago where we were on the precipice of some type of even potential nuclear exchange. s the president has leaned into something pretty radical here