to crimea and back. so, one of my colleagues here asked about this bridge, but there is no official name. some people call it the crimean bridge, the russian bridge. so, the question is which do you prefer? which would you suggest? and, again, back to stalingrad. the bridge is going to be completed very soon. what is the next big project here? president putin: well, as for the name, it is up to the people. perhaps you could do it in an opinion poll or referendum. the most important thing is to build it. naming is secondary. if you call it the cass bridge, let it be. it has its own issues that needs to be resolved. it has to be energy dependent, self-sufficient in terms of energy supplies. it is very important. certainly, that has to be with our relations with the eu, the european union. they have to make the decision that the baltic states need to join their energy alliance and that causes problems for us in terms of energy supplies. it requires additional resources to build a new supply line. i'm not su

crimea, one of the problems is energy supplies. crimea, one of the finalized its has project. the oil pipelines of crimea are connected with the oil network, the pipeline network of russia. in the next few days, we will announce that. gas will beand supplied to crimea. winterright now, we have consumes 1300 megawatts. 800 used used to be supplied by ukraine. proprietary capacities generate about 1000 or 1100 megawatts. next two or three days, we will start supplying and wesian natural gas will start construction of two power plants in crimea with a capacity of 470 megawatts. the total generating capacity will be around 2000 megawatts. as you can see, the peak consumption is 1000 megawatts. megawatts around 800 extra capacity. for the future, that will be needed for development of economy. the other cultural center for manufacturing, tourism, recreation, construction of the hotels. so, this is a landmark event for crimea. i hope this will be good news for them. >> good afternoon, mr. put in. now, the international community is fighting terrorism. first and foremost, with the or

eu leaders have agreed to extend sanctions against russia due to the annexation of crimea. there were no new sanctions imposed on moscow over its role in the recent bloodshed in syria. time now for business news. the latest on that mother of all hacks. christoph: we are talking yahoo! or rather, oh boy! it is said to be the biggest data breach in history. more than one billion user accounts were hacked in 2013. yahoo! claims that bank and payment data has not been stolen. still, if you haven't done so in the past couple years, do change your password. according to white house officials, the fbi is investigating the case, and as for yahoo!, the company has broken its own embarrassing record. reporter: the hacking revelation kicks yahoo! while it is down. one sacred law of silicon valley, protect consumer data, has been broken for a second time, just as the firm seeks a buyout deal. data security experts warn of a rude awakening for businesses. >> companies are something not taking security sufficiently seriously. these horrible hacks hopefully will persuade companies that th

russian oil and gas will be supplied to crimea. it means that today, right now we have winter and crimea consumes 1300 megawatts. it used to be supplied by ukraine, it's proprietary generation capacities generate 1000 megawatts but we will start supplying russian natural gas and will start the construction of two power plants in crimea with a capacity of 470 megawatts so the total capacity will be around 2000 megawatts so you can see the peak consumption is 1000 megawatts so there will be around 8000 megawatts extra capacity. for the future that will be needed for the development of the economy for the agricultural sector and manufacturing, construction of new hotels so this is a landmark event for crimea and i hope this will be good news for them. >> good afternoon vladimir putin the international community is fighting terrorism and first and foremost, with an organization that calls itself is onyx state. unfortunately, people in russia, including mass media but we know terrorism has nothing to do with islam or state. don't you th

putin is hoping that trump will offer him things, like recognition of crimea, or recognition of crimea, or recognition of crimea, or recognition of a russian sphere of influence, and so he wants to encourage trump in that direction by appearing to be friendly towards trump, and trump, you know, we will see how he responds to that, but eve ryo ne see how he responds to that, but everyone is playing their own agenda here. nancy soderberg, ambassador at the un under president clinton, believes putin will try to test donald trump early on. she was suggesting perhaps in the balkans. what is your reaction? well, i would think of a different type of test. i think of a different type of test. i think if it were hillary clinton we would have seen something very aggressive from russia, such as more military movement in ukraine or recognition of moldova as an independent state, something like that. i don't think that is what we will see in the case of putin and trump because trump is sending a signal of cooperation, so putin wa nts to signal of cooperation, so putin wants to see what he can get f

they have all fallen out over crimea. and the fact that russia backs bashar al assad in the syrian conflict. and you take virtually every issue. every issue that is important in the world today. and you see russia on one side and the west on the other side. there is this real tension that has come to the fore in the past couple of years. the big question facing us in russia is with the change of the white house, with trump taking on the white house and all of the positive things about, wouldn't it be great to do a deal with russia? he looked at the situation in crim crimea, and wants to cooperate with russia in the fight against international terrorism, which he and russia apparently see as the biggest threat facing us today. there's an extraordinary possibility for the relationship to get warmer. or it could go wrong. but at the moment, there are high expectations that this frozen relationship is going to get warmer in the months ahead. >> matthew chance live in moscow. >>> a new hours from now, vladimir putin will pay h

, he left, the chinese, expand their territory, just as he allowed russia to do so in crimeias crimea. without so much, as a small moment of objection. he could have whispered it, blowplease don't do that but he did not say a word. >> the obama administration is a debacle on every front. but, with chinese you have to think, we don't want an unnecessary war with china, but threat of a trade war is powerful. chinese need us, they need the money, their economy is slowing, people's expectations are rising. you know, if there is a trade war, the country with trade surplus is always the biggest loser. i'm not pushing for a trade war but we cannot let the chinese bachus -- back us down. i wish that donald trump is 1 fifth as tough with vladimir putin as he is on the chinese. lou: it is interesting you say that. they have slapped obama around. but at-this-point, not one of those three countries iran, china or russia has any reason in the world to expect the united states would be anything other than a docile puppet. the fact is that trump is already serving early notice he will not be that. p

invasion of crimea. georgia. ukraine. i'm highly concerned about the aggressive attitude of vladimir putin if russia. but it's been aggressive because we have shown weakness, lack of resolve, not as economically strong as we should be. donald trump is all about strengthening our economy. rebuilding our military. defeating isis. securing our borders. that will be a pog position of strength that he will deal with with putin. and that's far better than the position of weakness that has been happening over the last eight years. >> newly elected senator from weigh, ron johnson. senator, thank you for being with us tonight from back home in wisconsin. >>> back to our panel. nicole, what is going on here? >> i'm so happy he won. this is one of the races i watched on election night. >> ran against russ feingold. >> i was happy. i'm flabbergasted that my party can't say, hell yes, i am appalled that intelligence agencies have concluded that russian intelligence meddle where our elections. let's leave the outcome out of it. he was

we know they loss more than a billion dollars after the annexation of crimea. some are earn canned that that might inform the way tillerson thinks about the sanction. that said it would be a whiplash change in american policy for these sanctions to be in place for just a few weeks and immediately to be overturned. it's hard to game out. we will be paying attention to what trump says about it. >> the president of the united states only has about three weeks to go before donald trump takes the oath of office. the question many are asking, the trump team is accusing the obama administration of playing politics here. listen how kellyanne conway, trump's senior adviser describes it. >> i will tell you that even those who are sympathetic to president obama on most issues are saying that part of the reason he did this today was to quote box in president-elect trump. that would be very unfortunate if that were the motive, if politics from the motivating factor here. we can't help but think that's often true. each the "new york times" characterized it as such this may b

to crimea and in the ukraine? does he know about the overflights of the russian planes against our ships in the baltic sea? has he no clue at all about russia trying to undermine nato and do away with the one protection that we've had since world war ii, to protect western europe from an aggressive russia? doesn't he understand what he's playing into here? does he know that his secretary of state wants to do away with the sanctions that have been imposed by the european union as well as the united states against russia for their invasion of crimea, take overof crimea, as well as the actions they have taken in eastern ukraine? this is very serious stuff and our new president can marching out there with naivety or else trying to do away with the american safety in europe for more than 50 years. sit a frightening situation. >> are you concerned that the president-elect is putting the united states' national security at risk? >> absolutely. absolutely true. and the sanctions -- listen, tillerson, exxon's ceo, has been

we need to keep those sanctions in place until the russians are out of crimea and eastern ukraine and georgia as well. and we should not under estimate the degree to which the regime in moscow is capable of acts of tremendous barbarism and hostility towards the united states. we must not trust russians one bit. david: they killed americans. a forbes editor was murder on the streets of snos could you when he came out with an article talking about how his. i'm wondering if the sanctions impose after they went into the ukraine and took over the crimea, i wonder if that's what all this dancing i about. >> it may be. i'm totally happy to release sanctions against things that don't justify that. these getting out of crimea, if he's improving his behave year, then i think you can do a carrot and stick approach. but they have to show they are going foe change, otherwise we have to maintain sanctions. david: the battle over obamacare. da president obama has only a couple weeks left in the white house and he's making a last-ditch effort to save his healthcare bill. joining me now is heat street

annexing crimea, hugely popular in russia. putin's approval ratings in russia hovering at or above 80%. unthinkable for an american president to have ratings like that. when the americans pull back from syria, who moves in? the russians. now they've succeeded just over the past week, there's a cease-fire on thursday night, and potential peace talks brokered by who? the russians, the turks, the iranians, the americans not there. now finally he looks like the good guy this week in refusing to cooperate in tit for tat. i think what's going on is he's setting the stage as president-elect trump is trying to reach out to say, if you want to talk, you want to make america great again, i want to make russia great again. let's sit down and talk. i think this is a brilliant move. >> and, listen, there have been some in, you know, in the political world and also in the intelligence world who would say that these leaders, including netanyahu, and putin, they were actually playing donald trump, this is a strategy for donald trump that they

one of his boldest moves, alarming nato, was to capture crimea from ukraine, even though he'd signed a treaty promising he wouldn't. this is the most important of the bases in crimea, and the ukrainians had been planning to defend it to the end. none of that happened, of course. putin has had an astonishing rise from the low ranking official i first saw in the early '90s to the president now commanding world attention. once a year he gives a press conference in which anyone can ask anything, and he answers completely off—the—cuff. western countries almost universally now believe that there's a new cold war. would you care to take this opportunity to say to people from the west that you have no desire to carry on with a new cold war and that you will do whatever you can to sort out the problems in ukraine? translation: russia has indeed contributed to the tension that we are seeing in the world, but only in the sense that it's protecting its national interest more and more robustly. we don't attack in the political sense, we just defend our interests. so, russia's more aggressive,

it was pretty cool, he shot down that airliner, kind of neat how he invaded crimea and ukraine. they can justify almost any action. and what's disappointing is that you're not seeing more republican leaders out there. they've sort of crept up very tentatively to start examining some of this. but they have a responsibility to their oath of office to protect the country apartmeuoun constitution. and that includes against donald trump's allies. >> thank you both for joining us tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. >>> coming up, how to stop these cyberattacks on our systems. the former director of the u.s. cyber command, his job was to stop these cyberattacks. he will join us next. fiery tisst her nose sore and red. so dad slayed the problem with puffs plus lotion, instead. puffs have pillowy softness for dakota's tender nose. with lotion to comfort and soothe when she blows. don't get burned by ordinary tissues. a nose in need deserves puffs, indeed. now get puffs plus lotion in the squeezable softpack. when a moment turns romantic, why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? ci

they wanted to invade crimea, they did it. they want to fly flighter jets 30 feet over the heads of an american destroyer in international waters, they did it. i don't think they're going to do that kind of stuff under donald trump because he's bringing in a new approach that america isn't going to sit back and take it in the teeth. >> clinton supporters are adamant about blaming russia for hillary clinton's loss chbl. >> the only thing i'm blaming russia for is it seems that senator mccain, senator graham, the chairman of the house homeland security committee, the chairman of the house intelligence committee, both republicans, all agree that russia most likely hacked. and quite honestly if they did, we need a national intelligence estimate and part of it needs to be declassified so that american people have some access to this information. this should not be taken as the word of our leaders. >> let me say something quickly about what governor huckabee said. when you have a president-elect who on the campaign trail was not awa

they invaded crimea. senator mccain and i, some of our democratic friends, met with the delegation of the baltic countries just this week. to say that they are nervous about the russians, to put it mildly. >> now, carol, mcconnell is very careful not to criticize donald trump. he would not talk about donald trump's views on russia. i asked him specifically, do you think the russians were trying to steer the election to donald trump and he would not comment and would only stick to the opening statement. and rex tillerson, the likely secretary of state pick for donald trump. he was very careful. >> manu raju, what mitch mcconnell said today, it is likely some hearings will be held on capitol hill about russia and the u.s. election? >> yeah. that's absolutely right. we're expecting that to happen and through the senate armed services committee, john mccain, chairman of that committee and subcommittees on that panel as well, senator lindsey graham. watch for that. also, classified hearings. so this issue is n

as his mission to reestablish russian dominance over the area that was the soviet union, including crimea, including ukraine. and that hacking is one tool it has in its arsenal and it's used in the the past quite effectively and quite in a well-documented way in europe and eastern europe and use it now to influence the u.s. election. >> perhaps they're making baseball caps with that phrase on them as we speak. richard engel early on a friday morning in moscow. ken delaney late on a thursday night in washington. gentlemen, thank you so much for starting off our broadcast with us tonight. >>> our next guest is a proud product of the state of montana and stanford university where he has now returned as professor of political science. more importantly for our conversation, michael mcfaul served as u.s. ambassador to russia for two years ending in 2014. mr. ambassador, what do you make of this little wrinkle about putin richard engel just used based on his own reporting that putin was in more of a managerial function which we could have surmised and chiefly what are the risks for mr. trump? >>

of course, the situation in crimea. russia annexed crimea from ukraine in 2014, and the u.s. then imposed sanctions on russia in response to that. so there's been this whole range of issues that has pushed this relationship virtually back to cold war levels, and, you know, that's what this kremlin spokesman, the main spokesperson for vladimir putin, was talking about. saying that, as you just mentioned, that nearly all leveling of dialogue now are frozen. we don't talk to each other, will do so only as a minimum. of course that might change when donald trump becomes president in a couple of weeks' time. for the moment, the relationship is pretty bad. >> according to both the president-elect and the kremlin it will change on january 20th. matthew chance, thank you so much. >>> next, newt gingrich says donald trump is getting rid of one of his "cute phrases." a phrase he used in the campaign to win the white house. >>> plus -- bill o'reilly under fire for saying liberals want to take power away from "the white establishment." even though he's already won the election, trump is

what happens later that year, russia invades crimea. president obama angry as hell, puts sanctions on are yorussia. tillerson almost loses the deal completely. goes to the white house 20 times to meet with president obama and other people in the administration. tries to convince them sanctions don't work. let me continue doings. this then tells analysts and vefers in exxon mobil stock don't worry, this is not going to impact our major deal with roth neff. in fact, it did impact the deal. he had to stop drilling. one of the wells that he had in place off of siberia was expected to bring in $100 billion. >> so putin, basically told exxon shove it? >> well it was really america. once the sanctions were put in place. >> okay. but tillerson is supposed to have this great relationship with putin and you are telling me tillerson didn't win on the crimea invasion, that exxon got hurt and america got nothing out of it so some might say and john mccain being one of them, the senator from arizona, this is a businessman. he doesn't -- he is not tou

both parties ought to be united and standing up to cyber attacks and illegal annexation of crimea and other extra-legal interventio interventions. i explained a lot of the timing here of the obama administration and how we can expect democrats to talk about these over the course of the months. if donald trump wants to try to remove these sanctions and make changes to them, that's going to give democrats and republicans a way to talk about it if they did not have before and sort of changes the under line functions of thesie sanctions. we don't have statements yet from senator i don't know mccain or lyndsey graham. they are traveling to ukraine and georgia. it is a trip that aimed at what vladimir putin had done in the region as well as what he did in this election and we of course, heard them how they believe lyndsey graham. we'll look to see what they say about these sanctions and how the administration is putting out today. what they think they maybe able to do in addition to that, going forward. jacob. >> thanks with reaction fs and from the hill. some breaking news, out of washingt

look at russians in estonia, crimea, ukraine, going against the electric grid. and there's another dimension to this. that the russians have been trying to undermine western democracies, including ours for after the least 80 years, since the late 1940s, instituted a system called disinformation, otherwise known as lying. they've used it. have hundreds of thousands of people committed to working on it according to the head of rome mainian intelligence who defected in '79 to us. he said in his books and otherwise, that russia is all the time trying to undermine western democracies. focused on europe more until relatively recently. going after relatively weaker parties and so forth and expanded to here. it's not new. russia, even when they smile, they have still maintained the disinformation program. and they're right now probably finding some way to try to get into the system. it was not hacking up until relatively recently. now it's hack. they've used different technologies over the years and decades. this is not new that they're trying to damage western democrac

they wanted to invade crimea, they did it. they want to fly flighter jets 30 feet over the heads of an american destroyer in international waters, they did it. i don't think they're going to do that kind of stuff under donald trump because he's bringing in a new approach that america isn't going to sit back and take it in the teeth. >> clinton supporters are adamant about blaming russia for hillary clinton's loss chbl. >> the only thing i'm blaming russia for is it seems that senator mccain, senator graham, the chairman of the house homeland security committee, the chairman of the house intelligence committee, both republicans, all agree that russia most likely hacked. and quite honestly if they did, we need a national intelligence estimate and part of it needs to be declassified so that american people have some access to this information. this should not be taken as the word of our leaders. >> let me say something quickly about what governor huckabee said. when you have a president-elect who on the campaign trail was not awa

much of his team is in the business of finding ways of helping vladimir putin keep hold of crimea. who in this emerging team have you heard of who is in the business of advancing america's interests around the world? >> well, at this point, i mean other than general mattis, who is nominated for secretary of defense, i haven't heard of anybody. it appears that this is almost like a coffee clach for the kremlin, tillerson is a very interesting character, his first contacts with russia took place with boris yeltsin, he's had a relationship, when putin was even back running russian intelligence, and i find that all highly disturbing. but clearly this is all about economics and extraction industries and they will turn the state department essentially into a negotiation farm for dealing with continuing on his russian economic interests for exxon and other oil extraction companies. >> and joan, kellyanne conway was on meet the press on sunday and when asked about the criteria about how they're choosing the secretary of state. let's listen to what kellyanne conway had to say. >> are the ca

annexing crimea, providing overnight popularity to putin. pretty soon all this will be on president-elect donald trump's plate. >> he wants to be seen as a great deal maker and as a winner and so putin has made his wish list very clear. he wants ukraine, he wants sanctions lifted and he wants to be left alone in syria. >> reporter: problem is putin's idea of deal making not much of a deal. >> what he's offering i don't think is anything at all. nice words perhaps. >> reporter: and even his words warns browna aren't worth much. >> putin doesn't keep to his word. putin always betrays deals and he takes what's offered and then tries to take some more in the future. that probably won't play that well with trump who will feel ripped off. >> reporter: and what are his options going to be then? >> to become probably much tougher than any other u.s. head of state before him towards russia. >> i think at least for a period it will be in his interests to take things very calm. >> reporter: the alternative can be very deeply troubling, two powerful men

crimea was annexed. we forget what happened in kiev 2014. it elected a government. you don't have governments being overthrown in europe, elected governments, and then everybody says, well, it isjust popular uprising, when it was funded and encouraged by western governments. i would leave that to history to determine who is behind the development in ukraine. i am more worried about western europe not only being unstable because of the crisis that is has not come to terms with but also splintering from america. the old axis of stability which meant the american nuclear... europe is unstable because liberalism has collapsed. liberal governments are no longer effective. excuse me, you can see it with brexit, you can see it with trump, you can see it with all these movements. the complacent liberal hegemony is what has given rise to all these right—wing populist movements. if the liberal governments had been more attentive to their own populations and the disenchantment, detachment, alienation of their own populations, we would not be in this situation. exactly. you a

invaded crimea. senator mccain and i and some of our democratic friends met with the delegation from the baltic countries just this past week. to say they're nervous about the russians, is to put it mildly. >> let's compare that to president-elect trump. he told fox news he doesn't believe russia tried to influence the election to help him win. >> would trump have won this race if russia did not get involved? >> all i know is russia helped a lot. those wikileaks coming out, drip, drip, drip, hurt her. and comey helped trump significantly. a week before the election he came out with this. oh, we found some more e-mails. as a result of that, we lost senate seats. and i think we lost the presidency. >> so, you think comey single-handedly swayed this election to clinton and kept republicans in the senate? >> i'm not saying single-handedly but -- well, i'll say single-handedly. had he not written that letter a week or so before the

obama administration used sanctions for ukraine, annexation crimea. hasn't changed the facts on the ground and cyber tools to use. we don't know what they're going to do on the menu, could be expose, embarrassing information about the russians. right? hack into their e-mails and servers conceivably as well, but then you get -- escalate beyond that into more kweshl stuconseq stuff? if you do, you're at war at that point. can you do something short of that, kind of let them know you're inside the critical infrastructure? >> we could do this if we wanted to? >> the analogy, not turn off the lights in moscow but make them flicker? these are the things. as michelle said, again, white house is worried about escalation. >> and michelle, tell us about this. hillary clinton's campaign chairman has lane blame, certainly on the kremlin, on the fbi as well. and maybe not so much on the white house. >> reporter: yeah. you know the fbi has come up again and again also from the administration. from theous, they tried to be extremely careful, from the white house, ho

it was pretty cool, he shot down that airliner, kind of neat how he invaded crimea and ukraine. they can justify almost any action. and what's disappointing is that you're not seeing more republican leaders out there. they've sort of crept up very tentatively to start examining some of this. but they have a responsibility to their oath of office to protect the country and the constitution. and that includes against donald trump's allies. >> thank you both for joining us tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. >>> coming up, how to stop these cyberattacks on our systems. the former director of the u.s. cyber command, his job was to stop these cyberattacks. he will join us next. you only earn double miles when you buy stuff from that airline. wait...is this where you typically shop? you should be getting double miles on every purchase! switch...to the capital one venture card. with venture, you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, everywhere, every day. not just ...(dismissively) airline purchases. seriously... double miles... everywhere. what's in your wallet? when i was too busy

to crimea and back. so, one of my colleagues here asked about this bridge, but there is no official name. some people call it the crimean bridge, the russian bridge. so, the question is which do you prefer? which would you suggest? and, again, back to stalingrad. the bridge is going to be completed very soon. what is the next big project here? president putin: well, as for the name, it is up to the people. perhaps you could do it in an opinion poll or referendum. the most important thing is to build it. naming is secondary. if you call it the cass bridge, let it be. it has its own issues that needs to be resolved. it has to be energy dependent, self-sufficient in terms of energy supplies. it is very important. certainly, that has to be with our relations with the eu, the european union. they have to make the decision that the baltic states need to join their energy alliance and that causes problems for us in terms of energy supplies. it requires additional resources to build a new supply line. i'm not su

-led sanctions against russia for invading and annexing crimea hurt exxonmobil's bottom line so tillerson opposed the sanctions. governor rick perry knows something about oil himself. he also made the trump administration cut. he will -- senate confirmation hearing coming up. will run the department of energy. an agency that perry once vowed to eliminate. in the infamous oops clip, energy was the one governor that perry forgot. cnn correspondent phil mattingly is live outside trump tower. phil, one assumes that the president-elect saw the comments from republican senators expressing concern about tillerson's ties to putin. he must know this could be a tough confirmation battle. >> reporter: in talking to trump advisers, they know they'll have a fight on their hand. they believe if they make the case and they will they can smooth the way to eventual confirmation. this underscores something the president-elect has said throughout. he'll pick who he wants to pick and he's willing to defend them, no matter their history. today president-elect trump sticking to his pledge to pick unorthodox, b

and crimea and ukr going against their electric grid. the russians have been trying to compromise electric grids for at least eighty years. they instituted a system, otherwise known as lying. they have used it and have hundreds of thousands of people committed to working on it. according to the head of romanian intelligence who defected back in '89 to us. and says in his books and otherwise that russia is all the time trying to undermine western democracies. they focused on europe more until relatively recently, going after some of the weaker political parties in europe and so forth. they have now expanded to here. but it is not new. and russia, even when they smile they still maintain the disinformation program. and they are right now probably finding some way to try to get into the system. it was not hacking up until relatively recently. now it is hacking. but they have used different technologies over the years and over the decades. this is not new that they are trying to damage western democracy. >> general hertling what do you make

when their discussions of possibly lifting sanctions against russia related to their an exasian of crimea. >> that's right. we know the nominee for secretary of state rex tillerson is head of exxon mobil criticized sanctions of russia saying they weren't proven to work and the tillerson confirmation is now being caught up in this whole aftermath of the russian alleged hacking of the election. there are a number of senior republican senators, john mccain, for example, lindsey graham, marco rubio expressed concerns about tillerson's close relationship that he forged with vladimir putin as the head of exxon mobil. it's actually quite ironic. what we're seeing is donald trump was the ultimate anti-establishment figure. he picked tillerson for as his nominee of secretary of state. we're seeing establishment trying to keep tillerson on the track. former vice president dick cheney is sort of lobbying senators to let this nomination of rex tillerson go ahead. but what's so interesting is russia is at the center of this -- was at the center of this election, now at the center of the transition. if

the businesses acknowledge, we have syria, crimea, ukraine. we know that's unfinished business and that will be top of the priority list when trump becomes president. he'll have to deal with those. where businesses can play a vital role is to be somewhat of a shock absorber between the two nations as we deal with delicate national and world security issues. when you have a relationship on business to business and there is an economic impact in both countries, it can be a channel of communication, something that could be used to tamp down some of the tension. i think it's a positive thing regardless of where you are. >> do you think president-elect trump wants to lift the sanctions? he said as much in his very last press conference in i think it was july. he talked about maybe lifting the sanctions. is that something you think he would try to do? >> i can't speak for president trump on it. i think for him to start out new with relationships, whether it's with russia, with china, cuba, that's his prerogative as president. president obama reopene

because russia annexed crimea and intervened in ukraine. so we have to -- that is part of the policy, too, in my view, and that's why you have to, in my view, have a larger portfolio and think about these things, not just from the narrow perspective of energy. >> let's talk about the world. there's a whole globe out there. and i do agree with trump's -- i do agree with the guy occasionally. he was opposed to the iraq war. i don't like the secretary of states being constantly in airplanes. i think at some point you've got to use modern technology and sit in washington, at foggy bottom or the white house and advise the president, quality time with the president, lots of it. so jim baker and george bush sr. get your heads together. schultz and reagan. get your heads together, understand the world. that's a learning process. and bopping around on these long trips -- >> right now we dona't have a sense from donald trump and his team whether they're doing things by accident or on purpose. we don't know whether the flirtation with russia is a stra

we don't know that putin went to crimea, we literally don't know. he's somebody that refused to believe that russia invaded foreign country aies and russia hacking other countries. his refusal to believe that is part of a pattern. i think you will find and if you look at not just what the cia says but with several independent group says and you can loisten to the german intelligence service as well, you will discover that the hacking isra real and it is happening. we have been surprised by it and have not been response to it. there is been no real response and action and nothing has been taken. on the contrary what we have seen as a pattern of really extraordinary taking new forms that we are not used to. we have no american responsibility what so ever. >> so what should the response be, how does one respond to something like this? >> there is a question of whether we look at what happened during the election and how we response with sanctions, we'll step back as a new president coming in, you got to deal with russia on the security counsels and thi

it has been almost three years, since russia -- if you want to style it this way -- took crimea, carried out incursions again ukraine. and tonight affect. why is anyone suggesting that these sanctions will have any more affect than they had for pastily years? >> excellent question. and any time someone asks that question, and we have asked that question, of the president directly, he will usually push back with a notion that it is a long process, it has to be bit by bit applied and squeezedded what is a shrinking russian economy. but be blunt, does that affect change in has it affected by a half why are change? -- by ioral change, the answer is no. lou: well, he is without question a change agent. one senses a certain absurdity in this all that this administration would say it is a long haul, it takes a long time for these sanctions to work. having 29 days left in power. >> right. lou: for crying out loud. >> evely kevin cork, i must say, have you chosen a wonderful venue for your reports on the issues. you look good in that setting. >> i have to tell you, i'm a lucky man, lou. i love my

we have seen president putin's expansionism, whether annexing crimea, fomenting the small war in the ukraine, something we were told in the united states that was not possible to do. there are lots of danger statements. >> i don't think putin is in a simple position right now. things aren't going that well inside the country. and these's always had a simple ex -- and he's always had a simple explanation for that. there's this enemy, america. everything that's bad is america's fault. the people joke about -- they say if your doorstep has mud on it, it's obama's fault. putin put his stakes on hillary winning. >> but he backed donald trump. in fact, he interfered in the election. >> and yet he was counting on hillary winning. >> how do you know? >> but what's important in this situation, everything is quite simple for him. we have the enemy. >> right. do you think he's quietly unhappy about donald trump's victory? >> his inner circle is happy about it. you may have heard that when trump won, the state duma gave a standing ovation. but i don't think putin is particularly happy with the r

>> into crimea? >> no. into other areas bordering the former soviet union that may be concerned that russia may do the same thing to them. >> you're operating under the assumption that what russia did in crimea may be a precedent? >> i'm not the only one that raised that concern. people that live in the region. >> they were the ones begging the united states to allow them to enter into nato. >> that's absolutely true. let's be grown-ups, can we? >> we'll try. >> nato is a security organization, correct? >> right. >> it's not a nonselective fraternity. you get in our security organization if you enhance our security. bringing those countries in with their historic grievances against russia may be legitimate. >> i mean, i think i would have historic griefstoric grievance. >> this goes back hundreds of years. >> you said historical grievances. >> which may be legitimate, i said. why would you bring countries with a chip on their shoulders into your security administration which may result in diminishing of you

discussions after 201a because being a military choir, they praised the efforts of russian service men in crimea, when they annexed the peninsular and after that, some politicians in eastern europe and some in some other countries said the choir must be denounced or something like this. but as professionals, they were well recognised all over the world. what about the type of plane in question? it is commonly used in russia. yes, it is quite well known, the plane, considered to be relatively reliable. they started to produce it backin reliable. they started to produce it back in the 1970s, then it was modernised in the 1980s. it was widely used not only in russia but also abroad. in 2010, exactly this model, the tupolev15a was carrying the polish president and crashed near smolensk. if the polish president was using the plane, it means it was quite reliable, considered to be, anyway. also, there were a few cases when the plane managed to land even when all three engines stopped. but of course, they are quite old, and there were discussions even before there were discussions even before the air c

tillerson did oppose the sanctions involving russia over the annexation of crimea in 2014, so, yeah, i think that is a big -- potential conflict of interest. of course raid of raised by democrats in senate confirmation hearings and republicans who have suppressed early concern. >> do you see any patterns that are disturbing? >> well, it's interesting. kind of a remarkable appointment if he is announced as the pick as expected. he wasn't really on anyone's short list, even as recently as last week, and hails from the business community and work for exxon for 40 years, trump is appealing to trump because he is a kind of wheeler-dealer, making deals around the world with exxon. he doesn't have the political experience that other recent secretaries of state in modern history have, and so for some even republicans, that can be of concern, especially the big conflict of interest just because exxon is a huge obviously worldwide company. >> what do you make of these every move is pro russia? there's nothing that pushes back against vladimir putin. if there is one direction or other with this

people in crimea wanted to go back to russia and this caused this bloody conflict. this entire tragedy was based on the fact that they could not coordinate their positions on ukraine. these are purely economic ssues. how can you take an issue and escalate it into this kind of conflict? we have been talking to you for years trying to negotiate the parameters of this agreement. the president said he needed to talk to russia and coordinate ome of the parameters. we need the russian market. our european partners said no and the rest is history. how can you do such a thing? we don't think it is our fault. hat happened then? what is still going on? after this coup, under the pretext of joining this association agreement, immediately they postponed the agreement right away. they did accept what yanokovich sked them to do. year later, they made the decision to ratify and then put it on the back burner again. ow europe does not want to ratify this agreement. i do not know what to say about this situation. this matter of visa free travel for ukrainians, again, it is uestionab