so you see countries like moldova -- in 2014 everyone thought moldova would be next.ow they elected a man who ran as a mini-putin. he ran on it platform of tearing up their economic agreement with the eu and sunny one which russia. -- and signing one with russia. he never had to send a single man to moldova, and i think we will see that with the baltics as well. it's funny that trump talks about him being a pragmatist who opens up new avenues by being able to negotiate. but really what he has done his close down options for u.s. foreign-policy and open them up for russian foreign-policy. he has given the u.s. fewer choices and fewer avenues while putin has more. whether he intended to or not. julia: absolutely. charlie: hold on one second, go ahead. amy: whether he intended to or not, whether he thinks that putin can offer him or not, that has been the effect, to narrow americans options. julia: i completely agree with amy. "wrote" the who has art of the deal and has been a public dealmaker come he has been publicly flirting for months with russia. russia is in saying

these are conservative laces. .ou see countries, like moldova everybody thought they would be next. now, they have elected as a man who ran as a miniature version of vladimir putin and compared to him. he never had to invade or send a andle green man to moldova i think we will see that with the baltics. trump is a pragmatist who opens up new avenues by being able to negotiate. they open them up for prudent and -- charlie: finish. whether he intended to or not, whether he thinks that vladimir putin can offer this or not, it has narrowed the options. >> i completely agree. written the who has art of the deal and said he is a .reat deal maker put them in you can place. you are not getting anything from us and we are not talking about nuclear arms reduction or anything. it was unilateral and there will be unilateral action again. in flirting with this, he has given up any leverage or bargaining position the united states would have had, going in. >> you believe that vladimir absence of ahe response from donald trump has a looking at him and saying that he is the stronger leader and that

i spoke to people in the state department who said a couple of years ago we were worried moldova wouldeptible to. this this was an intelligence operation discovered our politics were so divided, people were already open to a highly propagandaistic form of communication, that we were a soft target for this kind of influence operation. >> one of the things i was struck by in your article is towards the end of your piece you wrote where you describe some of the intense agents think this was more improv on behalf of the russians not a strategic campaign. >> speaking broadly of the impression people have who are focused on this issue, if you look at the dossier of unverified claims submitted earlier to the f.b.i. and was then presented to the president, one of the claims in there was this was a long-standing five, six, seven year operation to cultivate donald trump. i think at the moment what you find is more people who are focused on this issue are inclined to believe this was an improvisation that was changing. elements were brought in at different points, meaning it may have started as a

kind of activity we are seeing an countries normally not on the front page of the new york times, moldova, belarus, montenegro, the kinds andperations to influence pushed the tide of elections there to be attempted in germany, the czech republic, the netherlands, french elections are coming up, although there seemed to be self-generated problems in the french elections, although one could information to the kinds of sources we are talking about as well. this is a pattern that has been continued for some. of time here at it is just now bit it is in our own backyard. failure said, it was a of imagination on our part not to see this given back if you go back to the 1980's and further, this is a feature of the kind of cold war activities that we and the soviet union were undertaking. putin is a former operative in the kgb. he continues to think like an operative. he himself is extremely proud of that skill set he acquired. he talks quite frequently of being a specialist in human resources. shies away from extolling the virtues of the techniques he learned to play dirty in the kgb in politics,

the entire list is longer, including the deployment of russian forces into georgia and moldova, unprecedented efforts to interfere with our election and the hostile approach that the russian government has taken to silence opposition, politicians, a free and independent press and civil society in general. the sudden hospitalization of pro democracy advocate vladimir kara-murza who testified here not long ago who continues to fight for his life, stands as a stark reminder of the risk born by russians when they speak out against an increasingly autocratic regime. similarly, the russian courts' treatment of alexi navalny begs the questions about the democratic process under putin. how we deal with russia is going to be one of the major projects for secretary of state rex tillerson. it is something for which he is ideally suited given his deep relationships and understanding of the geostrategic issues at play. secretary tillerson knows the dangers posed by russia and the importance of restoring a credible u.s. deterrent so moscow can no longer exploit what it perceives as american weakness. with