Recognizing Crimea News Today

Thanks for being with us. i want to talk about the book in a moment. i want to ask you about the mueller investigation which started a year ago this week, regardless of what mueller does or doesnt find when it comes to russia, collusion or cooperation or coordination, did putin get exactly what he wanted? was his goal to sow discord in the u.s. and thats what he got? >> well, he didnt get exactly what he wanted. he most certainly preferred president trump over secretary clinton for obvious reaso...

Day haven they havent had that. he hoped there would be more disarray in the nato alliance. he hasnt had that. candidate trump said hed look into recognizing crimea. he hasnt done that. the disarray piece, of coursethy had that. we had the polarization well before the russians got involved but they have exacerbated that and the presidency of donald trump most certainly has exacerbating that as well. >> and you write a lot, obviously, about putin in the book. you dealt with him personally, dealt ...

Remember candidate trump said he was going to blow up nato and lift sanctions and look into recognizing crimea. hes done none of that. instead hes just kept the same basic policies that the obama administration had in place at the end of their administration. there has been two things that they have done aggressively. and they should get credit for that. one is lethal assistance to ukraine. that is a decision president obama did not make. the trump administration did make that and that is toughe...

True. literally, they cracked open bottles of champaign on the floor of the russian parliament because they believed this wasnt just a victory for donald trump and the republican party, a victory for them as well. as a candidate, donald trump voiced opinions that were very much in step with the opinions of kremlin like nato expansion and the war on terrorism. trump hinted at recognizing crimea, which russia annexed from ukraine in 2014. so, they thought this was going to be a transformational pr...

>> reporter: i think we all are in the sense that donald trump spoke repeatedly during his campaign about building a better relationship with russia. he spoke about doing a deal with russia over syria, and in the fight against international terrorism. he spoke about the potential of recognizing crimea, which russia annexed from ukraine in 2014, as being a legitimate part of russia. he criticized nato, and nato expansion. and all of this was music to the ears of the kremlin. as i say, they were e...

To the nato budget, the united states wants each country to pay at least 2% of its national budget to defense spending in nato. in terms of the other remarks from mike pence, regarding ukraine and regarding how russia will, you know, be held to account for its actions, i mean, i think from a russian poi, this is not the kind of language that they are expecting to come from the trump administration. remember, donald trump campaigned, effectively, on a platform of thawing the relationship between ...

The u.s. will be different moving forward under president trump? >> of course, that was the big expectation, there was a lot of hopes here, although the kremlin always said it never had a rose-tinted view about what donald trump could bring to the relationship between the united states and russia. you know, the russian media was full of praise for donald trump, full of high expectations about deals on issues from nato expansion to syria to the situation in ukraine. the whole situation, though, t...

Of course. but the state media, the messages put across in newspapers and on television here was very much pro trump because the kremlin sees him as somebody they can do a deal with potentially. they see him as not necessarily fixed in his anti-are russian stance, which is the way they characterized hillary clinton. so there are all sorts of ways in which they could be a pivotal moment between russia and the united states. trump indicated, for instance, that he would be willing to work with russ...