efforts to influence and impact the united states election. issue after issue after issue, we have known that this is who vladimir putin is. and it should not have taken the murder of mothers and babies in a maternity ward or the shelling of a theater where civilians were taking cover for anyone to understand how dangerous this man is. given your strong mastery of the foreign policy issues as well as serving in the congress, do you see a shift here, and what do you account it for, as i did also mention when it comes to the recent votes, the vast majority of the republican party has been joining biden and your party s efforts to go at putin, to sanction him, to do everything but put boots on the ground which is very different from some of what we just hurt and certainly under the last president? well, i think what we re seeing here is that for years there was an effort to not only appease putin but appease trump. and certainly, time and time
special military operation in ukraine. the russian assault on ukraine began with missile attacks on key targets. putin decides what he wants to do, and he does it in half a day. very capable. enormous respect for him. that s what you call a leader. a horrific attack on a children s and maternity hospital. maybe putin did get his opponents killed. he s arformer head of the kgb. but on the other hand, who s our real enemy? four civilians including two children were killed over the weekend. running for their lives. journalists tried to help the casualties. do you respect putin? i do respect him. russian troops targeted civilian areas with no military facilities nearby. people dashed for their lives. as russian shells rained down. putin s a killer.
but the words and policies of government officials and some of these influential voices really matter. and they really shaped some u.s. policy and public opinion over the past few years. and given that so many of these right wing assertions were about putin s supposed prowess or his strength and competence, or questioning whether he really posed a danger to the west, well, because the facts matter right now we have a fact check report we prepared for you. which lines up some of those claims with what russia has actually been doing over these past three weeks. and a note, as with much of our coverage of the facts of this war, some of what you will see is disturbing. an honor to be with you. thank you. being so chummy with the man who hacked the u.s. elections. vladimir putin has made his decision to invade ukraine. it s never been proven that he s killed anybody. vladimir putin authorized a
this is actually the normal body language that you see when putin is with obama. your thoughts. the president trying to smile he didn t look too self-confident there. i don t think vladimir putin does small talk. and i don t think he gives good photo opportunities. he looked stoney faced alongside chancellor merkel, too. but he has been sending very interesting signals this week. he gave an interview just a couple of days ago in to which he was asked about that comment that he made back in the day when he described the fall of the soviet union as a disaster. he said it wasn t a political disaster, but a humanitarian disaster for the people who live there. that was a revisionist view he chose to put out there right before this meeting began.
thinking. there s an interesting meeting with the president talking to putin. the president seechls to be trying to get the upper hand. he s taller than the other fe a fella. that may be an effort here he s trying to laugh through an difficult moment there. you can see the side of his cheek. at the same time, you can see putin trying not to look at him. what happened in that conversation? well, wait a minute, i ve been witness to a lot of putin/obama meetings. and that is always putin s demeanor. le does not like looking. he does not look hick in the eye very mouch. he always has the scowl. i remember the last time they had a former joint bilateral meeting, the cameras come in and the president was trying to be a little jocular with him. and oputin makes the comment he s trying to make me laugh. almost like he s trying to make it look like we get along. he didn t say that second part, but that was.