>> from our studios in new york rose."his is "charlie charlie: mikhail khodorkovsky is here. he was russia's most famous political prisoner until president clinton pardoned him in december 20 13 -- resident putin pardoned him. by then he had served 10 years in prison. he now leads a foundation called open russia. they are laying groundwork for human rights in russia. it is written that he is the most influential russian to ask critical questions about a

russia.in i'm pleased to have him back on this program. welcome. mikhail: thank you. charlie: what brings you to new york? i have my son's family living here, i have two granddaughters, so i came to visit them. we will spend thanksgiving together. charlie: happy thanksgiving. tell me what you have been doing since you were on this program last time. planned to do,ad i have launched the work of the open russia foundation, which just recently we turned into a movement in helsinki, a sociopolitical movement. within the frameworks of this movement, we are informing russian society about what the kremlin would not like to inform

the russian society. youngage in helping russian politicians to participate in the elections to the state duma and will continue to help them get elected into regional parliaments, or at participatepate -- in the pre-election show that is called elections in russia. we are also working in a number of other directions. i think that our activity in russia is noticeable. charlie: in what way? because you are having an impact on the ground in getting people who agree with you elect to? -- elected? elected in russia today without the present administrations approval is impossible. going toously he's not give us such approval, but we

can help and we do help young politicians, at least present themselves to society and introduce themselves to present an alternative to russian society. the main problem in russia is people don't really want putin to be president forever, but he has cleaned out the political field so much that society doesn't see an alternative. and everybody is afraid. wet will happen, so the task have set ourselves is to show society that there is an , andnative to putin nothing horrible will happen when he goes. on the contrary, it will give the country a new and positive impulsive. charlie: that's an interesting way to put it. your building for a post-putin time. does that mean you believe putin

can be president of russia for as long as he wants? today, that's what it looks like. i don't think that in reality it will be so. i think that if he doesn't leave that, this will take place with greater problems for russia and for him personally. but for now, at any rate, that's what it looks like, that he might just stay there as long as he wants. we are telling people that is not so, that between 2018 and 2024, we await some serious changes in russia, and we need to be prepared for that. we need to know what to do and see those people who need to be doing it. charlie: would you like to be president of russia? mikhail: absolutely no question about it, no. charlie: why not?

the post of russian president, especially in a crisis in which the kurd regime is going to leave russia is not the sweetest spot in the world to be in. i would be happy if some young politician would be found who could really want to take this post. at any rate, we are helping such politicians to show themselves. i see my task somewhat differently. i see that at the moment, when today's regime falls apart, and it certainly is going to fall apart, there will be a huge problem. we cannot conduct elections immediately in order to ,mmediately elect a new, honest honestly elected power in the country. what today's regime has done doesn't allow that to happen. they have adopted such laws, people in thesuch

electoral commissions that it is impossible to conduct an honest election. there will have to be a whichtion period during reform on how to take place. we figure it will take about 24 months to get this done. this work is something myself and my team could take upon ourselves or at least participate in getting it done. charlie: can you go back to russia? regime, inder today's can return to russia only in order to immediately go to jail. after this regime leaves, there is no doubt that i will be able to return, and i will return. charlie: they made it clear to you that if you return, you will go back to jail. mikhail: well, of course. first they said this softly, and then a few more times, said it

even more harshly. charlie: how did they say it? first, the supreme court of the russian federation, for the first time in history, refused to abide by a judgment of the european court of human rights that had ruled that my verdict should be reviewed. subsequently, they opened a new criminal case against me and ,ven requested interpol interpol obviously refused them, and today there are dozens of people in the country who are being searched, being brought in for interrogation, they are being intimidated, specifically because of their association with me and the work that i do. you believe the russian regime is a criminal regime?

that thei would say technologies that they use attempts to five people who don't agree with them. if you cannot buy them, then intimate date them, the creation of a hierarchy within themselves through letting everybody give permission to steal on his turf. that really does sound like a criminal model of behavior. and when we work with this regime, we need to understand that this is how they see things. for example, they can't realize that when a person is trying to make a concession to them, it's not because he is afraid of them, but because he's trying to find a common language with them, a common solution.

any attempt to meet them halfway they view as a weakness and a signal of the fact that you can and should keep on pressing. charlie: so this is a recommendation you would have for president-elect trump, that he should push forward in terms of negotiating with them, but do it with the expectation that he cannot allow them to believe he is weak. president think that as a person who spent a large part of his life in business, understand such a that some counterparties in business sometimes cap, but there is another point i want to make here. when we are working in business, we understand that our agreements with our counterparty ,r supported by a legal system which both i and my counterparty

adhere to. if we have agreed on something and it, we are going to do it. , in hist-elect trump country, in america, also understands that he cannot just do whatever he wants because he has a congress, a supreme court, the senate and public opinion. stand against him. he's going to be talking with the person who is completely free from any institutional support and institutional checks and balances. he could sign an agreement with you today, and tomorrow he will violate it, and there's nobody and nothing in the country that will prevent him doing that. this is a specific feature that needs to be taken into account, and that's why i say that

strategic agreements with flatter poop are hardly likely. --rlie: even though we have agreements with flatter mayor putin are hardly likely. i very much hope that nuclear arms is not a subject that's going to be put on the table immediately. after all, that is something that's best not to even think about. but if we go beyond the bounds real -- neutral nuclear determines, all other agreements need to be based on some kind of common values. there are no such common values. charlie: and what we call rule of law. mikhail: absolutely. and then we get a very serious problem after this. when the president of the united something, even

though he is a very influential person in the american political system, he does know that there are some things, some lines he cannot cross. something, even though he is a verypresident put understand that and doesn't realize this. charlie: so there is no restraint on his power in russia. mikhail: absolutely so. and he projects this onto his counterparty at the negotiating table. dothey say to him that i have constraints, there something i cannot do, he thinks they are trying to deceive him. fromie: what would he want the new government of the united states? putin's global task is to ensure that his regime is not replaced. that is his local task. but because in his head, the him, world stands against

and he projects this point of view on to all of russian society, he needs to be shown an enemy. an enemy will always be such a convenient enemy because it is powerful, but far away. him an, you can call enemy without having to worry about it, and he needs little victories like in syria or ukraine. so putin right now is going to try to get from the new american consolidation a of the acknowledgment of his victories, the annexation of crimea, what's going on in eastern ukraine, what's going on in syria. he needs for the new administration to say all right, vladimir, this is your victory.

you one, you did everything won. -- you we are going to establish the new world order with you. i'm not sure administration in the u.s. is ready for such a ring. know yet,e don't because the new administration doesn't even have its team together yet, but that's one of the important questions that came out of the campaign. what will be the relationship if donald trump wins between a president trump and president .utin what kind of understandings might they have about the world order. my opinion is that putin has already worked out the model that he would like to use with donald trump. he worked it out on her list berlusconni.

he's going to look for some kind of personal relations along the , here we are, way up on top altogether, just the two of us, and everybody else is somewhere there below us. i'm not sure whether the couldan political system handle this kind of style of relations. charlie: in syria, what does he want? ,oes he want to have his person bashar al-assad, stay in power, so that russia gets what? mikhail: well, as i already explained, in my opinion, putin one to keep his

regime unchanged. because this is done using methods that are very welcome in developed democratic countries, he needs to create the various -- that hee things can change. that is, if you do this for me, if you allow me to do what i orbit, russia's inner then i can give you a concession here. so what he wants to do is first create problems and then make it so these problems can be resolved only with him. syria is one of these problems that has been created specifically so that it can then be exchanged for somethingsyriar his line of behavior. and it has not been unsuccessful, i have to say. it's another matter that as was

the case in ukraine, you need to pay for this with the lives of our soldiers, but human lives are not nearly as viable to him as they may be to others. charlie: and he views syria and ukraine as a bargaining chip to maintain the stability and the survival of his regime in moscow? i would say ukraine might have a value in and of itself on top of that. charlie: as a border? neighbor,t is a near and you would like to have a government in kiev that is answerable to the -- to moscow, yes. but these are indeed just playing cards for him and nothing more, bargaining chips. --how weak is the russian

economy? it is deteriorating. it is gradually losing its competitiveness. howan see this easily from are becomingoducts a smaller and smaller part of the whole manufacturing base. the nexte are at circle already, even education is getting worse because for the kind of industry you have in russia today, you don't need the kind of education that we used to have. nobody needs that science. so the degeneration is taking place and this is a process that has gone away already. this this mean that as a result of these economic problems, the regime will collapse? no, that does not mean that.

a deterioration of the economy, in and of itself, is not going to drag down the foundations of regime. ♪

no matter how low the price of oil is, the regime will

be able to withstand sanctions, economic pressure, declining price of oil, which is not declining, by the way. you know much more about that than i do. you probably unfortunately had this experience with iran. the standard of living interior nation is compensated for by propaganda about enemies outside are attacking and doing nasty things to our economy. putin is using this iranian experience, the whole nine yards. in terms of europe, what are his objectives in europe? i think that the main

goal again is the same one i mentioned before, but the method that he wants to achieve this is by destroying a united europe. for putin, is much more effective and promising to work with individual national governments than with a united europe that naturally has opportunities in this case to stand for its common values and common interest much better. is theses doing now breaks, he is provoking these breaks, these cracked. we know that putin right now is both ideologically and financially supporting radical movements, both left and right. that is irrelevant to him. what is important to him is that

because riserope and as a result of this for europe to start breaking apart. also nottely, he is without successes in this area. trend ofa general movement away from globalization all processes, but he is putting himself into it very successfully. charlie: and you do see certain leaders announcing out of respect for putin, announcing a kind of willingness to do business with him, so to speak. is very yes, yes, putin effective. he has shown that the question of political corruption has not been taken off the table at all. in european democratic

countries, many of the democratic countries of europe, in some cases, this is not direct corruption, it is intermediated in other cases, pressure group propaganda tools which unfortunately in today's united europe have not turned out to be -- there is no alternative to them. but sometimes it is straightahead corruption, which unfortunately, sometimes actually achieves its goals. he just fired one of his principles in moscow for corruption. what was that about? know, in russia, there is a saying that the person who yells stop, thief, the loudest, is a thief himself. .harlie: i didn't know that

the person who says that is more ief.ly to be a th mikhail: that's not the only thing here. in russia, the corruption agenda does resonate with society and the opposition obviously tries to raise this agenda. naturally wants to co-opt it to himself. conduct ae has to cleansing of his circle and for this purging, the corruption façadeives a nice, noble to this cleanup. although you understand there isn't a single clean person in his circles. some are more corrupt, some are less corrupt, some act more

decently or less easily, but just about everyone is corrupt. i'm saying maybe there is some one person hiding someplace who is not corrupt, so i don't want to paint all of them. charlie: does that include your fellow oligarchs, that we are familiar with some of their names? are they, by definition, corrupted if they are continuing , and business in russia seemingly have a good relationship with putin? look, in 2003, we were at a crossroads. we could either have gone to an open economy without corruption, or we could have followed -- continued the same path. putin made the decision for the whole country. that me put it this way. it's hard for me to imagine how you could work in russia today

without taking direct or in thet participation correctional processes. let me give you one example. visible,ally is very nowman received money and everyone is convinced of this and there is a lot of writing about this in russia, a very large number of people got money , government employees and people in the uniformed services. large rosneft shareholder is british petroleum. representatives of bp not know that in the central office of rosneft, there are systemic bribes being given to members of the government, members of the

cabinet, employees of the law enforcement agencies? have maybe they might not known, but i find that hard to believe. charlie: possible, but you would find it incredible? how much money does putin have? be askedwhen i used to this question, i always used to answer that i think personally, he doesn't take money, because why does he need money? investigation, you may recall all these came in offshore companies have shown me bahamianll these companies have shown me that atil 2012, there was

direction in which money was from thed by people 's innerrcle, putin circle. so i cannot imagine that this be inf moneybox could place for anyone other than putin. from hundreds of millions of dollars, all the way down to $600,000, which is kind of interesting. it seems like this is that mechanism that putin doesn't want to stop or cannot stop anymore. this is how it is done. in these criminal circles, you the bossay tribute to man on top. part of what you gain, you pay upwards. whether he needs it or not is another question. how much has accumulated there?

i would say probably tens of millions, but i have no idea. one last question, in terms of your advice to the new president of the united states, in dealing with him, would be what? your advice to trump. mikhail: what kind of -- charlie: what kind of relationship should he have with putin? what warnings would you give him? probably in his rather lengthy business career, he's had cases when he's had to do business with people whom he didn't trust one bit. and who, for various reasons, he knew would be able to not adhere to their obligations. has to in big business

deal with such people, nevertheless, at times. that is the experience he's got to think back on when he's dealing with president putin, and understand that one of the talents, i really do think this is a talent of president putin, is the ability to have good relations with people, to gain their trust. he was taught this back in the kgb still. in this sense, i have to say they taught him well. you've got to remember that. years inyou spent 10 prison. you went from way up here to e.r i would assume that was not a pleasant experience for you. you and i talked about it, and we talked about what you had to have to be able to exist.

?hat did you learn faced knew that was what you, would you have conducted yourself differently? mikhail: i would very much want to believe that if even had i known what awaited me, i would still have acted the same. , i did not expect that it would be so long and so hard. i am glad that right now, at any rate, i don't need to once again

have to make a decision like i did, but if it is necessary, i will make that decision again. charlie: you would? because it was who you were? mikhail: yes, because that is me. is to be true to yourself more important than the conditions in which you find yourself, at least that's how i that iday, and i hope would still have enough strength and courage for that if i didn't need to go through that again. charlie: there is an assumption that you have access to millions of dollars, certainly a lot less than you once had, but that you have access to all the money you efforts ongoing, legal efforts to get that money.

where does that stand? the main part of the money that i have disposal to is free money. i use it for the work that i do in russia. is still todayey frozen. these freezing's took place when i was in jail, and right now my lawyers and i are continuing slowly to work at freeing this money. charlie: this is places like ireland and elsewhere? working ins, we are an irish court right now. we have filed suit there to release this money, and i'm hoping that -- well, maybe not as fast as i would like to happen, but i'm hoping it will be solved. where will the money go

to? mikhail: this is just my money. -- money that belong to today are under the management of their management, and i am not a shareholder or a member of its current management, so i have nothing to do with that money at all. his money does exist, i read about it in the press, and i'm told about it by my friends. that stilloney remains is other money that will be distributed amongst the shareholders. there is no money that has been frozen there, to my knowledge. russia issued an international arrest warrant the year charging you with

murder of a siberian mayor in 1998 and the attempted murder of a man who was head of arrival oil company in 1999. -- head of a rival oil company. this was a rather profile case and this was investigated in 1999. the people were found who were it wasof this, and determined who had put out the contract for this murder. again,, when the case all of those decisions were witnesses weree finger completely other people. so this has been going on since 2003. it is being used exactly in those moments when there is a need to put pressure on me or my colleagues.

i greatly regret to say that this is not just idle talk, but is last person still in jail , heing in jail on this case has a life sentence. he has been made an offer several times to finger his bosses, to finger the company's bosses and he has refused to do this. in liferemained imprisonment. , when i was already at liberty, i told him publicly that i call on him to give whatever testimony they want from him. that is just fine, let him say whatever they want him to say. i'm confident that nobody is going to believe them anyway. if this gives him freedom, let him do that, but he has refused

again. and he remains with a life sentence, and it's very difficult for me to talk with his mother, for example. it's all very difficult. charlie: do you fear for yourself? mikhail: of course there are risks, but compared to those risks that existed when i was in , when just one finger motion would be enough to make me cease to exist, these are all risks that i am just not paying any attention to at all. i know that until today, putin does regard me as one of his most acute opponents. he doesn't have too many of them, but i am certainly seen as one of the most serious of them. the reason is understandable,

everythingves that this world takes place only for money, and because i have money, obviously i am the most dangerous. if he gives the command to kill it will be difficult for me to survive that. he has many opportunities. but for now, this command doesn't exist, and i'm hoping we will never get to that point. charlie: why you think it doesn't exist? i would like to believe that my efforts and the efforts of people who think like i do are enough that is such a command does get issued, that i would wind out about it. so somehow you would know somebody who would give you an early warning. you have friends?

believe thatnt to this is so. i do think that i would know, and this is what allows me to live peacefully now. maybe i am deluding myself, but it's impossible to live if all you think about every day is, am i going to get murdered today? at some point you need to just set that aside and keep on living how you live, to do what you feel is the right thing to do. but if at some point you are going to have to die, none of us live forever anyway, right? charlie: right. but you are saying you have to live in a way that you are not in any way restraining yourself out of any fear of what may happen? you have basically made that decision that what you will say and do, other than going back to democracy encouraging

, encouraging the rule of law and encouraging free institutions, has become your life's work. or not? myhail: that's the point of life today. it has become the point of my life today, and i'm not going to set that aside, because this makes my life somewhat more dangerous. ok, so it is more dangerous, but at the end of the day, if you're going to live any other way, the same thing as dying today anyway. we've got to live the way we think is the right way. and then that can be called life. if we live how some of the else is telling us to live, that is not life, that is just survival. i don't want that. i've spent 10 years having to live that way, and i don't want to do that anymore.

so i'm working away today. ♪

charlie: could you have done something, could you have had an impact of a different kind if you had maintained your position and had some other kind of influence? until the spring of

2014, there actually was a find someway to solve problemsr with the kremlin. better -- and even better opportunity existed in 2011 before the president, totally counter to our constitution, decided to return to office. he has passed those crossroads already and now i just don't see any other way other than to help my country as a people to prepare for the moment when this regime will fall, because it will certainly fall. and the situation in which the country will be at that time is not going to be a very good one. even today it is not a great situation, but i fear it will be continuing only. by 2018 wantsin

to offer a new model to russian society. i think this model will look very much like the chinese model. when you have relative freedom in the economy, and it is quite big, it will be compensated for by a very tough, harsh political system. to work in going russia. i guarantee it's not going to work in russia. in order to convince yourself this is not going to work, or to convince himself that it not going to work, is going to take putin a couple of years. by 2020, he's going to have to start thinking about leaving. charlie: why do you think it will not work? streaks an authoritarian within the russian culture, as it was in china. thatrussians believe

yeltsin and others made a mistake, they should have fixed the economy and left the politics alone, as the chinese did. why do you believe it will never work to do it that way? at this late date. russia is a quite developed country, with social mentality that has developed, and this is a different mentality from the chinese one. charlie: and a rich, cultural history. mikhail: our state structure doesn't have this idea of service that exists to a great deal in china. at the same time, people in russia have really gotten used to living for themselves. all this talk about how there is this vertical of power in russia, this harsh system of

managing the country, actually, these are lies. there is no vertical of power in russia. putin runs only a very small number of people in his inner circle, and he resolves specific, concrete -- concrete tasks. the main task number one is to stay in power. the country on the whole actually is run by a whole bunch of people, not a single group of people, but it had arrived and his people at the regional -- a heterogeneous people, each of whom has his own piece of turf. develop a normal economy in russia if you don't have an independent judiciary. but the moment you have an independent judiciary, today's system of governance falls apart. you cannot adopt normal laws in such a huge country if your

parliament doesn't professionally discuss these laws come as is done, say, in the u.s. congress. have a normal, independent, influential parliament, today's system of power falls apart. you cannot conduct a modern economy in russia if you don't have a small and medium-size business. if you don't have independent entrepreneurial associations, the moment this monopolization of the economy that currently exist in the country starts policy -- falling apart, 70% of gdp is in putin's inner circle's hands. charlie: is it with putin, or his circle of friends? mikhail: they don't need privatization, either.

they are perfectly happy with this economy being formerly in the government's hands, but they are personally running it. i'll give you the example of rosneft. it is a state company. the state owns a substantial part of that company. according to our constitution, 's sharingn government companies is not run by the president, but by the government. he has officially said he will not be accountable to the government. if you call that a state enterprise, i have no idea what section private property is. this monopolistic structure falls apart, and you need that for an economy to develop.

monopolistic is killing development in russia. at that very moment, today's regime falls. putin, even if he wants to conduct a reform, he cannot. he will realize this. i know that in the next two years, he's going to realize that. then no other variant other than totally collapsing the country, or leaving himself, he won't have any other alternative. charlie: do you believe you know him and understand him? mikhail: in the broadest, global sense, every person is so complicated that we never can say we understand somebody fully. but if we talk about the way he runs the country -- charlie: his mindset, about how he thinks about how to manage governance, i think

that i and other people who been watching him for a long time understand him very well. mikhail: in the past 10 years or so, he hasn't changed much at all. he has become a little bit more self-confident, maybe. reason? with course. of i have always said that he is being successful in some of the things he is doing against the background of the falling apart of the russian economy, he's gotten lots of success in manipulating the western political system. not quite sure what russian citizens gain from that. charlie: who are the most important people to him? the five most important people he depends on for his control, success, survival? mikhail: i'm not really sure

there are people on which he depends directly. that can are people manipulate him quite successfully. inside russia, is considered number one in manipulating putin is igor -- also an extremely important person, strange as it may seem, is the leader of chechnya. charlie: you believe he will fall, at some point in the be a russiae will without vladimir putin. mikhail: i think that such a reason will be putin's realization that any model that he can offer russia is not going

to work. he has already offered russia t wo models. he will offer a third one and it also will not be successful. that will lead to a psychological crisis and how that will be implemented, my image of the best option would be if putin tries to himself transfer power to his chosen successor, the successor will put together a roundtable or a constituent assembly that will form a transition government, conducted political reform, and lead the country out of crisis. months, honest elections. that would be the gentlest transformation possible. all the other ways of transformation are much less

gentle, and i don't even want to articulate them, because i don't want to bring harm to my country. charlie: thank you for coming. the great jimmie johnson is here, the 2016 nascar sprint cup champion. group that realizes our cars were performing, 650 people build racecars for us. and wedy locked arms knew we had a mountain to climb. and through working together, we as the playoffs started, we were getting hot again. two events in the postseason and that led to the opportunity in miami. charlie: i follow formula one

and they have a big climactic race coming up this weekend. the samethat is on team, one was winning for a while and now the other was winning. it will essentially be decided by the final race. ♪

john: i'm john heilemann. mark: and i'm mark halperin. and "with all due respect" to mitt romney, who is reportedly having dinner with donald trump, would you consider secretary of steak? ♪ mark: it has been a news filled more fallout from fidel castro's november monday. and an attack on the campus of ohio state university this morning. we start the week with three unsolved mysteries. we would get to the mysterious case of the green lady's recounted in a moment, but first, the riddle of kellyanne conway and an ongoing secretary of state thrilla.