President putin issuing a statement which included an invite to the children of american diplomats in russia to christmas and new year shows in the kremlin. And then came this tweet from the kremlins twitter account reiterating that festive sentiment that has left a lot of people scratching their heads. Its apparently from putin who offers his new year greetings to president obama and his family, also to president elect donald trump. Lets go live now to moscow and Senior International correspondent Matthew Chance. Matthew, the u. S. Just slammed some of the toughest sanctions of any country in the world on russia so what now is behind this kind of response coming from putin . Its an interesting question. It was a very unexpected response as you indicated. We were expecting the kremlin to do a tit for tat expulsion of 35 u. S. Diplomats here in moscow. Thats what the Russian Foreign minister advised the kremlin to do but it was all very choreographed. It was all kind of staged to try and show that Vladimir Putin was magnanimous, that he wanted to take the high ground, that he wouldnt engage with the poooba administration in its final few weeks. Its been characterized by the russians as vindictive and unimaginative, diplomatically, the Obama Administration, that is. And Vladimir Putin was clearly reaching out to the Incoming Trump administration saying im not going to do anything with the diplomats or expel anyone, i wont play that game, effectively but i am going to base our relationship with the United States on the policies of the Incoming Trump administration and so hes reaching out to donald trump who takes office, of course, in a couple of weeks or in three weeks and saying, look, we want to deal do a deal, we want to do a deal about a range of issues and Vladimir Putin is trying not to let the Obama Administration derail that hope and anticipation. All right, Matthew Chance. What more do we know about the kinds of deals that putin would want to make with a President Trump . Theres a whole host of issues, fredricka, that have divided the United States and russia over the past couple years. Its no secret theyve been at odds over syria, theyve been on opposite sides of syria, with russia backing Bashar Al Assad and the United States backing antiassad rebels. Its no secret there have been tensions over russias annexation of crimea in ukraine. And the u. S. Has imposed sanctions against russia because of that involvement in ukraine and of course the issue of nato expansion has been a thorn in the side of the two countries for some time. L. A. What the kremlin hopes and Many Russians weve spoken to hope as well, is that in donald trump there will be an american president more sympathetic to the Russian Point of view and some of those divisions can be narrowed. All right Matthew Chance in moscow, thanks so much. Lets go to athena jones with president obama in honolulu. Athena, we know the president condemned russias hacking but what has been the reaction here in the u. S. To his sanctions . Well, the white house hopes that these sanctions will have some impact. I can tell you the white house is not responding to the nonresponse from president putin. Theyre directing us to the state department. The state Department Official telling cnn we have seen president putins remarks, we have nothing further to add. So i dont expect much news on that front. Mean while, Trump Supporters like former new york mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is, of course, been one of trumps most vocal supporters and defenders, are continuing to cast doubts on the conclusions reached by multiple u. S. Intelligence agencies when it comes to russia being involved in hack. Heres what he had to say on fox. You get your own people to review it. Theres no question that the intelligence that president obama has been getting has either been incompetent or politicized. I would urge President Trump when he becomes President Trump have his own intelligence people do their own report, lets find out who did it and lets bang them back really hard. Not something moving a couple of this ones around and that ones around. Theyre not hacking from those places. Its totally absurd. Now its interesting to hear Rudy Giuliani talking about trumps own intelligence people. Its unclear what he exactly means by that. Does he expect a new administration to have all new intelligence operatives . But i can also point out that members of trumps own party disagree with him on this front. Theyre not raising questions about the conclusions reached by these intelligence agencies. You had folks like speaker ryan, Mitch Mcconnell saying the sanctions are overdue but theyre appropriate. You have folks like arizona senator john mccain who called for hearings next week on the cyber attack issue so this is a point where trump seems to be at odds with members of his own party. Fred . Athena jones in honolulu, thank you so much. Lets bring in our panel. Cnn military analyst retired Lieutenant General mark hertling. David cramer, former Deputy Assistant secretary of state for russia and senior director for human rights and democracy at the mccain institute. Also joining me, john nixon, former cia Senior Analyst and author of debriefing the president , the interrogation of saddam hussein. Gentlemen, thanks so much for being with me. John nixon to you first. Russia took an unpredictable route. The predictable route would have been this tit for tat, perhaps matching sanctions, expelling people. Whats your interpretation of why Vladimir Putin took this route . Why should he not take this route . All he has to do is wait 20 days then he has a new president of the United States to deal with and a president whom, for all intense and purposes, hes probably going to get alo pg with great. And so david in your view is the public message, one thats very different than internally what may be taking place in russia as it pertains to Vladimir Putin . Lets be clear, putin is trying to come across as magnanimous, reasonable, moderate, but he authorized the hacking in the United States. So president obama, what he did yesterday was simply to retaliate for the russian hacking. Had putin responded to obamas measures yesterday he would have been escalating this situation not retaliating for it so i think putin has certainly orchestrated this response today. What the Foreign Ministry tried to do was completely coordinated with the kremlin. Lets not make any mistake about whom were dealing with here. Putin is responsible for the hacking. Hes responsible for the invasion of ukraine. Hes responsible for the civilian deaths from russian bombing in syria. This is a man who poses a threat to the United States, not someone in my view who is going to be a good buddy with the next president of the United States. So then in your view, has the u. S. Gone far enough with the expelling of russians with the promised sanctions, with the closing of the two compounds . I think the measures that were taken were good but more can be done. For example, the head of the fsb was not included on the sanctions whereas the head of the Russian Military intelligence service, the gru, was. We need to lop off some of the zeros in their Bank Accounts and have them complain about losing millions if not billions of dollars in illgotten gains and explain how they got that fortune in the first place. General, john touched on this, russia may just be buying time. 21 more day before the swearing in of the next president so what would russias next move be . Lets look at this, frederica, from the standpoint of cyber warfare. Truthfully mr. Putins action this is morning playwright into the game plan for what you do with cyber. There are three key words mayhem, confusion and distrust. If youre using cyber, those are the things you want in the psychological domain to sew. You want to confuse the enemy, you want to make them have distrust in terms of whats going on. In this case mr. Putin had his defense minister come out and say, hey, were going to expel folks, then he came back as santa claus was that coordinated, in your view . Sorry. That was coordinated, in your view . Absolutely coordinated. It goes right into a cyber play book. Then Santa Claus Putin comes out and says we wont do that. In fact well welcome children into the kremlin. Hes done a couple things which is a good military i would say statesman objective. He is playing toward trump and perhaps you havent heard this, but mr. Trump has a bit of an ego so hes playing to that ego. Hes concerned about what might happen in the overt means of cyber warfare, what the u. S. Might do for him, so hes backing off to see what occurs, how he can defend against it and how he can counterattack. Then hes also portraying himself as the more mature player. Hes not doing the tit for tat. Hes trying to prove himself to be the hero in this action and pour more scorn on president obama for taking this action. So hes playing, truthfully, one of the options, i thought, that he possibly would play when he was caught redhanded as he has been doing for the last ten years in europe in places like estonia, ukraine, and poland. John, how do you see it . If i can add one thing to that. I agree with both the previous speakers but one thing also i think putin wants to do is by taking this soft line it can possibly exacerbate the differences in tensions between the president elect and the cia and thats something he could eventually exploit to his benefit. And certainly i think from our standpoint a wall of mistrust between the president and his Intelligence Community would be a very bad thing. So, david, do you see this potentially could undermine donald trump . Particularly just three weeks away from his swearing in even though next week he does say he will be involved in intel briefings and at the same time senator john mccain is saying he wants to begin hearings on this matter. Well, if you look at the reaction among some key republicans in congress, they have said that this is too little too late. In other words they arent saying this step by obama yesterday should not have been taken, they are arguing that it should have been taken much sooner and, in fact, much tougher so the risk, i think that president elect trump faces when he assumes office is a growing divide between his views on russia and his interests in buddying up and becoming pals with putin and republicans in congress who do see russia and putin as a thread, the hacking as a major attack on the United States and the need for a much tougher position visavis russia. So in other words, the pressure is on that donald trump after swearing in would have to take this further to satisfy all of those parties. David cramer, john nixon, general mark hertling, thank you so much, gentlemen, appreciate it. Next, was president elect trump boxed in on u. S. russia Relations Just days before his inauguration as he and his advisers are saying . Well have reaction from maralago. Plus, protecting his legacy. 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Remove contacts before using xiidra and wait for at least 15 minutes before reinserting them. If you have dry eyes, ask your doctor about xiidra. Welcome back. Im fredricka whit field. The head of the House Homeland SecurityCommittee Says president obamas sanctions against russia for interfering with the 2016 election are long overdue. Congressman mike mccaul goes on to say in a statement for many months i have urged the administration to respond to the electionrelated hacks. I look forward to working with the Incoming Trump administration to make sure that in the future our response to such aggression is timely, decisive and forceful enough to convince our adversaries not to do it again. Let me turn to Sunlen Serfaty in palm beach. President elect trump is spending the holiday there, mccaul and much of the Republican Party back president obamas actions and do not question his reasons for doing it, but thats not the case for at least one top aide for donald trump. Talk to us about the former Campaign Manager and what shes saying. Reporter thats right, fred. Pretty direct words from Kellyanne Conway who, as you know, was former Campaign Manager but also someone who stands ready to take over a top job in the incoming white house. Heres she really calling out the Obama Administration for moving on these sanctions, suggesting politics are at play here. Shes really speculating these sanctions were in essence a move to tie the hands of donald trump before he even becomes president on russia policy and really an attempt to undermine his win in november. Heres what she said last night on cnn. Even on those who are sympathetic to president obama on most issues are saying that part of the reason he did this to today was to box in president elect trump. That would be unfortunate if politics were the motivating factor here but we cant help but think thats often true. Even the New York Times characterized it as such that this may be an attempt to box him in to see what hell do as president. Now since these sanctions were put in place by the Obama Administration yesterday, we have not heard that much from president elect donald trump who remains here at his resort in florida. We only heard a quick twoline statement from him yesterday. Notable that he basically said its time to move on and keeping in line with the posture hes taken in recent days, when asked for a response about the moves that were anticipated for quite a few days. We do know, of course, fred, he will sit down at some point next week likely in new york city with intelligence officials to get a briefing, potentially presented with the evidence that they have, that they have reached this conclusion with confident that russia is behind these hacks. Fred . Sunlen serfaty, thank you so much. Lets dig deeper now. I have cnn political commentator david swertleg from the washington post. David, you first, is this ax boxing in donald trump or is it more about president obama getting things done in his last few days in office . Probably a little bit of both but for the Kellyanne Conway spin of obama doing this to box in president elect trump you have to accept the idea which i dont, that president obama had never taken aggressive action toward russia previously. President obama rallied our western allies in 2014 to impose very tight economic sanctions on russia which has hurt their economy, hurt their oil industry and those sanctions are ongoing in response to what the Intelligence Community says was meddling in our election hes throwing on these additional sanctions that were announced yesterday. I think that president elect trump boxed himself in a bit, fredricka, when it was either two or three sundays ago he was on sunday shows dismissing the Intellige