to the russians. we no angela merkel has some concerns about that, because the trade flows between germany and russia both ways are huge, but so far, wolf. that test hasn't been put to the countries. they're still talking with one voight. maybe it's only that that's brought putin back from the brink. even so, i would put it this way. 200 points on the dow, it's scotch miss. it could disappear tomorrow if things turn nasty again. >> certainly could. this is a real volatile situation. richard quest, thanks very much. remember, you can always follow us on twitter. tweet me @warm frontblitzer. tweet the show @sitroom. let any step in with van jones and s.e. cupp. president obama's work is paying off he says have laid mer putin has hit the pause button.

>> which means as much as when russia hit the reset button. the debate starts right now. tonight on "crossfire", until pressure from president obama, is vladimir putin backing down? >> there have been some reports that president putin is pausing for a moment. >> is he proving his republican critics wrong? on the left, van jones. on the right s.e. cupp. in the crossfire, howard dean, former presidential candidate, and paul wolfowitz, a former deputy defense secretary. is the obama doctrine working? are some republicans undermining the president abroad? tonight on "crossfire." welcome to "crossfire." we're continuing cnn's breaking news coverage of the crisis in ukraine. i'm s.e. cupp on the right. >> we have a former presidential

candidate and former pentagon official. today we saw big hits that the tough diplomacy with russia might work. kerry delivered a billion dollar package to kiev. behind the scenes, the obama administration has put together a crippling set of proposed economic sanctions. while the president is busy doing his job, his republican critics keep trying to undermine him. freshman senator and self-appointed foreign policy expert ted cruz writing under the headline language of fools -- have laid mer putin running rampant shows how the obama administration's abdication of global leadership is making the world a more dangerous place. thank you very much for that help in a crisis, ted cruz. ted cruz is taking cheap shots. meanwhile, his republican friends are actually trying to raise money on this crisis. instead of actually trying to solve it.

i just think that's terrible, s.e. >> let's moveon.org. here on kroich kroich, former governor -- howard dean and former deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz. clearly, clearly president obama has underestimated vladimir putin. russia is stalling on syria, undermining our negotiations in iran, and now russia is invading ukraine. i'm not suggesting that obama has made putin a bad actor. russia has been a bad actor for quite some time, but can't you agree that putin has been emboldened by our weakness in that region? >> no, i don't agree with that. first of all, i think it is true that putin has not kept his word on syria. i think what putin's actions are

against international law. i think the president is doing the right thing. he's ratcheting up the heat, slowly enough that putin has a chance to back off. one problem with putin is not only he's broken the law, but he now has to back down an save face at the same time. he needs the opportunity to do that. the president needs to titan the vise, and not making it to -- >> some of the rhetoric is great, especially with what secretary kerry has said, the fact that he's taken the ukrainian foreign minister with him is a good thing. you can talk about tightening gradually, but there's i think we're long past the point where some firm action should be taken. let me be clear, the firm action is to begin to scare the 100 or 200 richest people in russia who

are the prop of putin's regime and have the money illegitimately. that's the money at risk. that needs to be done and done quickly. the brits, usually or stronger allies are putting the can i bosch. david cameron in a leaked piece of paper, said -- it was leaked today, said yesterday, that he wasn't interested in any kind of thing that might take russian money out of the city of london. >> talk about a message of weakness. putin is the problem here, not ted cruz. i have criticism of obama's behavior up to this point. i would say, for example, on this example, you know, putin looks at the red line in syria, the chemical weapons thing. he doesn't -- but the way to make him take it seriously is to do something now. if cameron doesn't like it, tell the british people that enabling london's theft of money.

>> i didn't say weakness. i said rhetoric and reality. >> duly corrected. >> isn't the reality that they face the same situation when putin ran into georgia, and they did nothing? >> two wrongs don't make a right where i come from. >> we should say something about american values and interests at stake here. and it is taking place in a very unstable where every country has large minority interested in it.

what would you have done difficultly this week, what would you have told him to do? >> i would go bad further. i would say don't talk reset with a man who's declared his goal in life is to restore the soviet union. i would not have whispered i'll have more flexibility after the election. >> fair enough. >> what would you have done this week difficultly? >> you start with evaluating him realistically. what do you think he thinks of our study? >> i really have no use for the russians at all. i haven't for a long time. >> i like the russians.

i don't like putin. >> the history of russia since the revolution has not been a pretty one in terms of their -- >> can i correct you on that for a minute? >> yeah. >> in 1994, a different russian president, boris yeltsin agreed with ukrainian independence. the ukrainance in return gave up their nuclear weapons and allowed the russians to have this base in crimea. putin is not a typical russian. he's a typical kgb cold war -- >> the point i'm trying to make is i do want to say that if i'm behind the scenes, i want to screen the russians carefully and slowly. i think the ukrainance have handled this incredibly well. they just kicked out an incredibly corrupt president who really had no stanton anymore. they have an unstable government, because they're trying to put this together. for them not to fire a shot was

very, very smart. they would have ended up where the georgians did. this is tough stuff. i don't have to tell you that. you've been in the seat. it's not a matter of saying we have to support the president. it's a matter of saying we need to give this president time to get to the result he needs to get to. i think running -- going too fast and too hard is probably a mistake. >> do you agree with the ambassador we should cancel our appearance at the g-8? >> eventually yes, but let's work up to that carefully. i assume somebody is telling vladimir putin, this is what you can expect in the next few days. if you don't do something to -- >> i don't think have laid march pew people tell putin -- >> there's always a back channel, always a way that somebody is talking to somebody in the kremlin. i presume they're saying this is what is really going to happen. >> let me bring up recent poll

numbers on president obama. he came into office in 2009 and said he wanted to restore image around the role, but this poll asked if americans think the president is respected abroad. in the five years he's been in office, it's dropped 26 percentage points president isn't that an indictment of the foreign policy? >> i think that's hard to say. almost every president, including his predecessor is at their nater of this time in the second term. if you think the president kicks his dog, he might get better numbers. >> don't you think the president has made some very serious foreign policy mistakes. we don't need to color the entire administration, but you would add miss -- his's made some mistake. >> i this was that was a mistake. putin bailed him out. >> a farce cal -- >> but that's on putin. we need to hold him accountable for that red line.

i think we need to do that. >> let me ask you a question. even looking at russia. if you look at what obama has been able to do, first of all, he didn't -- what he said was we're going to do three pragmatic things -- air rights over russia. he got that done. he said he was going to get russian table on iran. he actually has gone some things done here with regard to russia, and now the eu really is the one that -- how system obama's fault at this stage? >> look, you talked about what american public opinion, judging what foreigners think about the united states. i care about one foreign are at this moment and it's vladimir putin. he kind of gave his opinion, maybe is changing his mind, but the last statement is a warning that he will do it elsewhere in

ukraine. i think -- we're talking about how to manage risk here. no one wants this thing to blow up into a military confrontation, but peeten seems to think he can keep pushing and pushing. >> we're going to find out. in the next few days. he's going to stay where he is or advance into eastern ukraine. if he does that, i think you'll see some major stuff going on. we blamed obama and bush, but there's one person who also bearing blame here. i'll ask howard dean about her, next. [ male announcer ] we know they're out there. you can't always see them. but it's our job to find them.

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welcome back to cnn's breaking news coverage of the crisis in the ukraine. in the crossfire tonight, howard dean and paul wolf owitsds. today john kerry was in kiev trying to clean up the mess started business his predecessor. remember hillary clinton's russian reset. she had a prop and incorrectly translated slogan to go with it. >> we want to reset our relationship, as -- so we will do it together. okay? >> well, as we all knowing, our russians relationship was reset. we can thank hillary clinton for resetting it all the way back to the '80s, just as republicans like mitt romney, it turns out hillary clinton's defining moment as secretary of state could be this spectacular

failure. governor dean, was hillary clinton naive then five years ago? >> this is ridiculous conversation, s.e. >> it really isn't. this is going to haunt her for the next two years. >> these are talking points. it's beneath your show to put out partisan talk -- >> you don't think she's responsible for setting the tone of naivete with a clearly bad actor? >> first of all, it was joe biden's idea, and second of all the president's idea and that was before hillary clinton was even asked to be secretary of state, first of all. second of all, it is irresponsible not to talk to a major glob power and try to work stuff out with them. as van earlier said, what about the disarmament agreement, which is still successful, which the president had to get through, thanks to people like dick lugar, we prevailed. this is ridiculous washington talk. >> i hope you're right, i have a feeling this might come back to haunt her. >> i'm sure it will, and people

won't give a damn. >> people give a damn. >> this is a -- this is the ted cruz talk of the -- >> this is also s.e. cupp. people are talking about it. >> you don't want to be in the same seat with ted cruz. >> i don't mind. >> as we get to you, actually talk does matter and some of the talk from the republicans has been incredibly irresponsible. i want you to see this tweet from one of the great republican leaders, lindsey graham. he said it started with benghazi. when you kill americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this type of aggressio aggression, #ukraine. here is lindsey graham, a foreign policy guru sending out mean tweets, blaming the president for this. don't you think that's irresponsible? >> lindsey graham has to speak for himself. i think it is a risky world when people begin to think -- forget benghazi. people look at syria, and they see the president of the united

states says assad must go. he says chemical weapons mustn't be used. now they have agreed chemical weapons are used and we do nothing. frankly he was fighting the act, which have labeled some of the cleptocrats didn't. >> don't you think this type of stuff -- >> it's not like anything the democrats ever did. >> i know! where is this -- >> i've got one more indignant thing which i think is even worse, and this is from the head of the republican senate campaign saying president obama's leadership on the world stage has been marked by weakness, indecent and incompetent. say you're committed to restoring real american leadership by contributing today. they are actually raising money in the middle of a crisis. >> are you really sure that democrats have not done just that a million times? that feels an hypocrite cal.

>> do you think this type of stuff is appropriate? >> i'm not here to condone or approve. that's not the way i talk and it's not the way i like people talking about us in the administration, but believe me, the democrats in my experience do it three or four times more than republicans. so, you know, it's the pot calling the kettle black. >> maybe so. but honestly -- >> it's not the biggest issue of the time, by the way. putin is not judging his behavely what ted cruz or lindsey graham says. he's judges behave by what he thinks president obama is going to do. so far he hasn't seen much. >> i have not seen the republicans support the president on anything. name one thing that the republicans have supported him on. we did support your administration when it came to immigration and health care reform. we did try to stand with you on the wars. unfortunately the republicans have not stood with the president on anything. >> the republicans have supported the president in afghanistan. i don't know -- i think better

than democrats. the republicans supported the president on his asia policy, particularly his breakthrough in burma, which was a genuine success. >> and democrats did not support the president on his syria policy. they didn't vote for it, either. >> i know a lot of democrats who are privately unhappy, as maybe howard is privately, at what looks like, sorry to say it, weakness in the face of a villain out tie rant. >> just today, it's still teetering on the brink of disaster. take a look at this encounter.

i mean, that's intense stuff. today the russians moved forward with a preplanned intercontinental ballistic missile test which would been scheduled. i don't know that he had to do it today, but he decided to. isn't putin showing he's ready to go? >> we have to find that out. look, we're not going to commit troops to this. >> of course not. of course not. >> so that leaves one other possibility. that's some sort of diplomacy coupled with sanctions, which i hope is where the president is going. again, i revert to what i said earlier. first of all, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but i'm sure something is, because it always does. secondly, what the president should be doing, and i suspect he is, is tightening plenty i have advance notice. i think he's trying to avoid any rhetoric that he doesn't have to

get into. he needs to get putin to stand down and putin to save face needs to show he's doing it. so far, there hasn't been a shot aimed at another soldier on the other side. once that happens, it's almost impossible to put that the genie back in the bottle. >> are you confident we can talk putin down? >> not at all. i think putin has to see something tough in his face. we're consumed with who in the united states is to blame for all this. the man to blame is vladimir putin. the tragedy and we should emphasize this more than we do is that you know, boris yeltsin was comfortable ukrainian independence. things were going well till this thief became the tie rapt of russia. taking russia back into the 20th century. >> shevardnadze was the president. the succession of crooks. it wasn't till the orange revolution putin started to get

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. welcome back. it's time for the outrage of the day. i am outraged on behalf of 2.3 million of our fellow americans. these are active job seekers the republicans refuse to give any help or support to. you've got the job market that's still tough. folks need more time to look for jobs. plus, a little bit of gas money to get to job interviews. that's why congress should have extended unemployment benefits straight out. unfortunately, just before christmas, republicans said no way. that is unbelievable. they extended, these same republicans extended unemployment five times under george w. bush but under obama, the gop decided it wants to be the party of scrooge all year long. >> i wish that extending unemployment benefits would actually get people back to work. i'm sorry to say. >> helps them find work. >> it doesn't. my outrage. this is a warning to parents out there. please shield your children's eyes. i'm about to do something you don't want them to see.

ready? that there got a columbus ohio fifth grader suspended from school for three days. the charge? exposing other students to a "level two look alike firearm." yes, those words exist. i'd sure hate to see what a level three looks like. this is the kind of ridiculous childish progressive nonsense that makes it nearly impossible to have a real conversation about curbing gun crime because if you start with dumb ideas like this, how can anyone take you serious will i? let's also curb obesity and alcoholism by banning the hand gestures that accompany them. this is ludicrous. grow up, people. >> well, or the nra's gazillions of dollars they spend. >> this is going to solve everything. let's check in our fire back results. is president obama underestimating putin? right now 56% of say an yes, 44% say no. ambassador, are you surprised by the results?

>> i think it's about what i'd expect. but the judgment will be a judgment of history which is going to come within 12 months. i think the president would be much better off if he would say you know, i was wrong about reset. we've got to take a different approach. that would send a very strong message. >> thank you for being here, mr. ambassador and howard dean. the debate will continue onli online@cnn.com/crossfire as well as on facebook and twitter. i'm dan jones. >> from the right, i'm s.e. cupp. "erin burnett outfront" starts "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com putin tests an intercouldn't entit will ballistic missile. we have a live report from the white house and crimea with the breaking news ahead. plus, president obama takes on the 1% again. but is wall street too much for the president to handle? and a witness breaks down on the stand at the oscar pistorius murder trial. what she says she heard the night the blade runner killed his girlfri