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canada and mexico to say to our european allies, we, canadians, americans, mexicans, will supply you with energy. you do not have to worry about putin pulling back energy on you. we will backstop you. that will allow them to be more aggressive with sanctions to get to putin. given the state of the russian economy that combined with the military maneuvers i'm talking about would put pressure on putin to stop his adventures and get back in his cage. >> one of the lines from your stump speech that jumped out at me your criticism of the obama administration for how they hand handled mubarak the former leader of egypt. given what was happening in the streets in cairo, would you have fought to keep mubarek in power despite the fact he was a totalitarian ruler, no free press in egypt, imprisoned small democrats. what would you have done? >> i wouldn't have thrown him under the bus, steve. there's a difference between fighting to keep someone and throwing him under the bus. going into the white house briefing room and throwing him under the bus.
canada and mexico to say to our european allies, we, canadians, americans, mexicans, will supply you with energy. you do not have to worry about putin pulling back energy on you. we will backstop you. that will allow them to be more aggressive with sanctions to get to putin. given the state of the russian economy that combined with the military maneuvers i'm talking about would put pressure on putin to stop his adventures and get back in his cage. >> one of the lines from your stump speech that jumped out at me your criticism of the obama administration for how they hand handled mubarak the former leader of egypt. given what was happening in the streets in cairo, would you have fought to keep mubarek in power despite the fact he was a totalitarian ruler, no free press in egypt, imprisoned small democrats. what would you have done? >> i wouldn't have thrown him under the bus, steve. there's a difference between fighting to keep someone and throwing him under the bus. going into the white house briefing room and throwing him
there are interesting questions about the timing of all of this. the president reaches out directly to the iranian people and among some of the bad actions they've taken recently were trotting out the cruise missiles or replicas saying that we should reach areas we've never reached before, all of this military brandishing. >> don't forget the american aircraft carrier. >> to symbolize that they could do that sort of thing. but mubarek is how the president begins his talking points which means happy first day of spring. now it's early spring. we have a chance to make progress that would benefit our countries and the world. seize the possibilities that can bloom this season. he's using the holidays inside iran that first day of spring, that reopening that they see as a culture to kind of get in there. the other thing i would mention is the president did reportedly call benjamin netanyahu and this topic of the united nations came up and the way that it has been
military invention. that would just invite a russian military intervention. >> rudy, i'm going to talk to later in the show a director of a powerful documentary oscar nominated about tahrir square and the uprising in egypt and all the consequences there. has not gone very smoothly, the transition to freedom and democracy, whatever you want to call it the arab spring. what are the lessons we can learn from egypt? in particular if you try to connect the dots here with other uprisings, kiev, venezuela, whatever. >> we have to know what we're replacing the bad guy with. in mubarek we went from bad to worse. and gadhafi possibly. kiev we really don't have that problem in kiev there is a very substantial two-thirds, three quarters of the population that would like to be a liberal democracy tied to europe. i don't think that issue exists in kiev. venezuela it may exist. venezuela we've been cut off from for a long time. there is a very large middle class in venezuela. there are a lot of of business interests in venezuela. my guess is if we could get rid
both mubarek as a figure head? have things improved? have they moved on? >> if you see the film you see it focuses on three characters who are struggling for change in egypt. and what's happening right now in terms of the military taking control again, many people have said, okay, this is a really dark time. because we've gone back to square one. if you talk to our characters and people on the ground, though, they are deeply optimistic. because they know that struggle is going to happen over a very long time. change happens very slowly. and so the important thing is that there's a staying power to this movement. and if you look at the civil rights movement or any struggle, some of the biggest compliments we've gotten has been people who have fought during the 1icivil rights movement. >> what you need it seems to me, in all these cases, civil
across the world that believe in their struggle and that will continue to support them. and that's what the power of witness is. during the first 18 days before mubarek stepped down, the absolutely impossible happened, right? mubarek was able to step down when we never imagined that would be possible. that was because it wasn't just the protesters versus mubarek. it was the protesters plus the world attention plus journalists like you that were filming. and the world attention, paying attention to what was happening. and that's what's happening now again with kiev and with the release of our film is that people are saying we care. because the success of egypt and the success for the struggle of human rights and social freedoms and justice is important to the entire world because our lives are interconnected. and the success in one square determines the success in another square. >> a victory i guess at the oscars just gives you a huge global platform to share the message of the film, right? >> well, i think that's exactly right. i mean, the thing that is --
military action, maybe some support, maybe some help. i don't know you want to do a military invention. that would just invite a russian military intervention. >> rudy, i'm going to talk to later in the show a director of a powerful documentary oscar nominated about tahrir square and the uprising in egypt and all the consequences there. has not gone very smoothly, the transition to freedom and democracy, whatever you want to call it the arab spring. what are the lessons we can learn from egypt? in particular if you try to connect the dots here with other uprisings, kiev, venezuela, whatever. >> we have to know what we're replacing the bad guy with. in mubarek we went from bad to worse. and gadhafi possibly. kiev we really don't have that problem in kiev there is a very substantial two-thirds, three quarters of the population that would like to be a liberal democracy tied to europe. i don't think that issue exists in kiev. venezuela it may exist. venezuela we've been cut off from for a long time. there is a very large middle
we've gotten from the oscar nomination is that people on the ground now realize that there are people that are halfway across the world that believe in their struggle and that will continue to support them. and that's what the power of witness is. during the first 18 days before mubarek stepped down, the absolutely impossible happened, right? mubarek was able to step down when we never imagined that would be possible. that was because it wasn't just the protesters versus mubarek. it was the protesters plus the world attention plus journalists like you that were filming. and the world attention, paying attention to what was happening. and that's what's happening now again with kiev and with the release of our film is that people are saying we care. because the success of egypt and the success for the struggle of human rights and social freedoms and justice is important to the entire world because our lives are interconnected. and the success in one square determines the success in another square. >> a victory i guess at the
things -- first of all i stand by that statement. but what is interesting in retrospect and what i make clear in the book is that on most of the major foreign policy issues in the obama administration, the vice president and i actually agreed. whether it was how to handle the downfall of mubarek in egypt or our opposition to intervening in libya and so on. we did disagree, and we disagreed deeply on afghanistan. and i did resent the vice president stoking suspicion of the senior military with the president. but when i go back to the early 70s through the end of the cold war, vice president voted when he was a senator voted against assistance for south vietnam that was going to be the lifeline as we left that country. he voted against virtually every element of president reagan's defense buildup and strategy toward the soviet union,