the. russian thinking that idea of place russia's place in the world is very tightly linked today space the space russia occupies and crimea in this regard was a very peculiar case because syria totally it was in russian in two thousand and thirteen and two thousand and fourteen but geo politically it was russian as a seat of the russian fleet for several centuries when you look at the crimea case from that perspective wasn't it an accident waiting to happen regardless of whatever security arrangements you have in europe well i think it was more a problem that we thought we had solved but apparently came back again there was a question when the soviet union dissolved in one nine hundred ninety one should crimea stay with russia with ukraine or go to russia because not everyone was happy with khrushchev action in one nine hundred fifty four transferring crimea from. there were votes in crimea moreover there is there was a long negotiation within. that i remember that resulted in an autonomy agreement for crimea within ukraine by the late one nine hundred ninety s. the ukrainians were so happ

the u.s. relationship with russia right now. ou think they have a point. >> i think there's probably a case to be made that putin looks at trump perhaps as damaged goods as a result of the impact of the mueller i venvestigation. it's weak case. >> russia is why the u.s.-russia relationship is in bad shape. it's their interference in our election. their aggression in ukraine and the failure to help bring civil war in syria to an end. that's what's really driving this relationship down so far as it's gone. i think trump is distracted, he himself is causing problems bilaterally and multilaterally because he can't let go. >> we're covering this g20 summ summit. how do you think these world leaders are reacting? >> we know how they are reacting. we know they watch every development just as closely as we do here in the united states because it affects the relationship. it affects their ability to get their agendas done. look what we have seen in the past. when trump has something hanging over him, when something negative has happened a

except on the russia investigation. it seemed like the only reason donald trump fired him was to interfere with the special counsel's investigation. if that's the case, that could constitute obstruction of justice the same way that firing james comey was obstruction of justice. >> well, you are part of the new democratic majority. in january, you will all be sworn in, and nancy pelosi presumably will be speaker. what will, i suppose, the house judiciary committee, of which you're a member, what will you do about it if that's your view? >> i believe we need to be sending out, first of all, document preservation letters to the special counsel, to make sure that during this transition there's no shredding of documents or any documents are lost. we could also have hearings, we could also conduct our own investigation. we could build upon what the special counsel has done and then continue it in the house judiciary committee. there are a lot of ways we can hold donald trump and his administration accountable. >> can you do t

would simply say that from now on we do not want to have access to the black sea russia investigated moving the headquarters of the black sea fleet and found that the conditions at novara see school are not. deal for this they signed a. lease agreement with the ukraine and extended it in a rather controversial action in the ukrainian parliament in two thousand and ten more controversial among the ukrainians and so there was a legal arrangement and legal status for the russian fleet and russian military presence inside ukraine in crimea that was in place well before two thousand and thirteen two thousand and fourteen and was recognized by the rest of the world it was moving ukraine territorial and i think that a lot of westerners had a real problem with as you mentioned for many in the west. russia's takeover of crimea was pure and it's a sion but i'm sure you know that for many in russia it wasn't just the land grap it was to some extent. the only means of diverting a major strategic loss it was either a gain of a territory or a loss of a major strategic capacity of the

the. in russia or at least the perception within the kremlin is that russia is actually russia actually has a match when it comes to nuclear weapons or where the united states at the moment well you know this. sort of quotation from one. prime minister when she was asked whether either one of them a nuclear weapon and should respond in the way no we don't but if needed we will use. mr bolton is perceived in russia as one of the biggest harshest russia hawks and yet both from his visit to moscow and he's published views i got an impression that he was a much more comfortable interlocutor for the kremlin than let's say obama people who. didn't see nuclear deterrent deterrence as say as a saving grace and who wished for a nuclear free world is that an accurate perception that russia has countered that is find it easier dealing with people like mr bolton well stillest achille yes in terms of the priority issue on the table no. ministration and fewer people talking those issues that were much more focused on the idea that. weapons of mass destruction is a good day for us so we need to offer for

to pull the current here is russia relationship out of a tailspin well to discuss that i'm now joined by. the director of the institute of international studies at the moscow state institute of international relations mr good to see you thank you very much for coming over thank you for having me now you use a lot of psychoanalytic terms in your articles for example the fundamental attribution error of which according to you both russia and the united states in their analysis of each other's actions if we take these political psychoanalysis a bit further how would you diagnose the current state of mind on both sides of the atlantic who have a very deep symmetry of perception of what's going on and. they don't probably get started you can sequence all the kind of sanctions regime they have the see what's going on through the election peter there's a malevolent russian into a few of them seem to destroying american power they've focused on that and they're thinking that that's what's basically crossing out of line and actor who are almost i'm speaking about the washington elite washingto

holt the menace of an expansionist russia which i think is. not the case i mean there is a view that russia is this global menace so you have nato on the borders of the baltic countries it's a trip wire for more conflict nato should have been abolished at the end of the soviet union i mean it was there to design to counter the warsaw pact right now i think what should happen with nato is it should halt its expansion ukraine should become nonaligned the future of ukraine should be as a bridge between east and west that was the hope not as a proxy country for war between civil war between the united states and russia so you know when trump says things like nato attacks nato he's both right but he's the wrong messenger because people think he's doesn't know what he's talking about well he is so. nato has been brought up recently while some german and french politicians were pondering over the idea of creating a common european army. if that happens and trump wants europeans to take care of their own security with that make nato obsolete i don't th

nobody was asking about the russia investigation. in fact, you were asked about chris christie and whether or not you were thinking down the road about who might ultimately get this position after matt whitaker. but nevertheless, the president volunteered his response that, yeah, he put whitaker in there. and you know what? the mueller investigation, that's a problem. so that was -- that was late last night they released that transcript after we were off the air last night. then this morning the president started making online statements, started tweeting in all capital letters about the mueller investigation. it's the first time he has done that in a few weeks. he hasn't done that since september. and, in general, try not to care too much about the things the president says online. it's very rarely a means of him conveying factual information to the american peoples. i usually think it's designed to be provocative and it can therefore be ignored. but in this case, what the president posted online this morning, after volunteering to t

whitaker will now oversee the russia investigation, taking it over from rosenstein. when he was a conservative commentator for cnn, he was wary of giving the special counsel too much power and said the russia investigation could be throttle see a scenario where jeff sessions is replaced in a recess appointment and mueller's budget is reduced so low that his investigation is ground to a halt. >> reporter: and he saw nothing wrong with the president's son meeting with a russian lawyer who offered dirt on hillary clinton during the campaign. >> i've run for public office twice. you certainly want to have any legal advantage you can. >> reporter: robert mueller retains his full authority as special counsel. but he'll have to clear all major decisions with matt whitaker. >> functionally it means matt whitaker will oversee bob mueller's investigation. if mueller needs to do something or seek additional authority or get permission to charge, mueller has to go through whitaker. >> reporter: whitaker has authority to fire mueller but only for cause such as misconduct. no word

and what we have already seen out in public, open source reporting that the president's russia lawyers went privately to two crucial figures in the ongoing investigation, mike nine and paul manafort, and talked with their lawyers about potentially receiving pardons from the president. this at a time when both men were already cooperating with or considering cooperating with federal prosecutors in their investigation of the president. just today, in an interview, the president publicly floated the idea of a pardon for his campaign chairman paul manafort. why would i take this off the table? with the president's lawyers now bragging to "the new york times" as of last night that while manafort was supposedly cooperating with them, they in fact were actually using him as a source of intel to find out on behalf of the president what was going on inside the special counsel's office, what mueller's prosecutors were asking about and what they were focusing on. and we've heard some other elements of the president's behavior that sound like this before, it was reported in march by "the new york

speak of the answer is 42. >> i will lead off. i do think russia was quite successful in shaping the policies of all external actors intervening in their first objective was their existing plans did not work because they do not have a viable military option. russia partnered up early on with the right people in the order and if you have to intervene in the middle east you will be israel's new neighbor, that something after chordate right off the bat. frankly, they did a pretty good job with the united states, they verily quickly fought off a counterterrorism campaign against isis but in that sense, they were effective early on at claiming their part and slowly starting to work on it. in terms of friction as well, there are no inherent promises in any coalition except the middle east so you will have some pretty big contradictions no matter which regional partners you pick in iran, turkey, israel, you will have aligned with the united states, they're putting money into things to think about. you are definitely going to have a lot of issues. on the w

there's no collusion. >> going back to the russia investigation and the potential investigations from the now democratic majority in congress, some say that you could stop all this by declassifying -- >> i could. i could fire everybody right now. but i don't want to stop it because politically, i don't like stopping it. it's a disgrace. it should have never been started, because there was no crime. >> a hoax, a disgrace, he could fire everybody right now. little did anyone know at that time the president already had with jeff sessions. pamela brown is "outfront" now live at the white house for us this evening. pamela, even the white house staff, it appears, was caught off guard by this. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, kate. president trump's decision to effectively fire his attorney general, jeff sessions, on the same day he was touting victory in the midterms certainly caught at least some white house staffers by surprise in terms of time, though there was widespread understanding among aides that this was something president trump wanted to do shortly after the midterms, but as we

the u.s. relationship with russia. we're also following breaking news from alaska, where the state's largest city, anchorage, has been rocked by a magnitude 7 earthquake, causing extensive damage and felt 400 miles away. and the region is still being rocked by dozens of aftershocks. >>> this hour, i'll talk with senator bob menendez, top democrat on the foreign relations committee, and our correspondents, analysts and specialists, they are also standing by. >>> we're going to have much more on the breaking news from here at the g20 summit in just a moment. but first, let's get the very latest on that major earthquake in anchorage, alaska. cnn's brian todd is working the story for us. brian, we're seeing some very dramatic video. what's the latest? >> we are, wolf. first, the good news. so far, no reports of deaths or serious injuries. but we're still early in the recovery, and make no mistake, this was a very severe event. violent shaking. debris falls from the ceiling. terrified people dive under desks. >> it's okay. y

by the leaders of the u.s. and russia the donald trump but we missed ration has been trying to turn an entire system of international agreements upside down since pretty much donald trump was sworn in and just a couple of months ago donald trump said that he was ditching a cold war era nuclear agreement with russia and surely this was one of the very important issues that's important for europe for the entire globe actually that the two presidents were supposed to talk about but now apparently this isn't happening now the russian lawmakers have already reacted to this call by travel trouble and they said that russia is still open for such meetings but on equal terms but also the russian official suggested that mr trump was forced to do this by the internal bickering in the u.s. with some in washington using the situation in the current straight as a pretext then there's something else that we remember when donald trump and vladimir putin met helsinki before that the. u.s. president was under immense pressure back cold but

russia and occupied crimea. in august, the united states condemned russia's harassment of international shipping in the sea of azof and the kirch strait. the united states will continue to stand with the people of ukraine against the russian aggression. it is our expectation that our european partners will lead this effort through the normandy four format, which we support. we call on russia to respect its international obligations and not obstruct or harass ukraine's transit in the birch strait and to de-escalate the tensions it has created. as president trump said many times, the united states would welcome a normal relationship with russia. but outlaw actions like this one continue to make that impossible. the united states will maintain its crimea related sanctions against russia. further, russian escalation of this kind will only make matters worse. it will further undermine russia's standing in the world. it will further sour russia's relation was the u.s. and many other countries. it will further increase tensions with

this is the end of the movie, it ended, right? like there's, russia is very comfortable with the fact it's not going to end. there's not going to be two years from now a deal in syria. syria will be great. however it is, it breaks up, and it's over and it ends. i'm very skeptical it will end. it can go on and it will. >> success is, i would say, we kind of alluded to this. it bears repeating, russia has successfully to this point managed a coalition for the first time in a long time. in 2008 in georgia we had some of the chechen militias on their side. in some of the post soviet wars they dealt with using nonstate militias, this is the first time in a long time that russia is managing a coalition that includes iran, and lebanese hezbollah and assad regime and it includes sometimes some of the shia militias out of iraq. they've managed to fairly successfully do that friction points, i agree with michael. two big ones are the israeli/iranian conflict. with which i think both sides see as existential and is playing out in syria. and there's a very, very

the full extent of mr. trump's business dealings with russia. assessing the potential db damage to the president from michael cohen's stunning plea agreement with robert mueller. >>> 70 hours. cnn has learned that cohen talked extensive with the pounds n multiple meetings on a variety of topics. and a well-placed source tells me that mueller knows everything. what else has cohen revealed? "weak person." president trump slams his former fixer for flipping saying cohen is telling lies now to reduce his prison time. but is the president's current lawyer, rudy giuliani, undermining his argument? >>> and passing on putin. as mr. trump heads to the g20 summit in argentina, he abruptly cancels his meeting with the russian president citing the crisis in ukraine. given the timing right after the cohen guilty plea, is that explanation believable? >>> we want to welcome our

because he's angry about the russia investigation. so for a long time, i think people have had confidence on both sides of the aisle that rod rosenstein was acting in a professional way with respect to the mueller investigation. he, in fact, himself is the person who appointed robert mueller. and has said repeatedly in public statements and in congressional testimony that the special counsel's investigation is not a witch hunt. he hasn't seen anything inappropriate go on. that it should be supported, not interfered with. and so i think people felt comfortable that that investigation would see its way to a proper conclusion in an orderly fashion. so long as rod rosenstein was in charge of that investigation. so now you have a new person coming in, as has been pointed out by the reporters on just before me. you have someone who looks like he's prejudged the mueller investigation, has talked about a reduction in the budget for the mueller investigation, has talked about a narrowing of the scope of the mueller investigation. all of which a

the press secretary for the president of russia. spoke to a member of that office on the phone for 20 minutes about the moscow project. this means that michael cohen was work on the trump tower moscow deal at least through the summer of 2016. when donald trump became the nominee of the republican party. it also means he was working on a deal right around some other pretty significant dates. june 9th, 2016 when donald trump met with a russian lawyer promising dirt on hillary clinton. june 12th when julian assanged wikileaks has more damaging e-mails about hillary clinton and june 27th, 2016 when at his country club, donald trump head a news conference where he deflidefli -- denied he had any ties to russia and made the call for russia to find hillary clinton's missing e-mails. >> i will tell you zero. i have nothing to do with russia. i built an unbelievable company. you'll see there's nothing in russia. russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you'll probably be rewarded mig

people are worried what this could mean for the russia investigation. the resignation is the o end a slow-motion fall for the former senator. nt he and the presi been at odds since he recused himself from the russia investigation. news 4'sts tracie p is on capitol hill with more on this resignation and who's taking over the justice departnt. >> yeah, aaron and eun, it was the fourth resignationon ses was asked for, which he turned in just after the midterms. now he's being replaced by his own chief of staff, at least for now. matt whitaker, who has publicly criticized the russia investigation, saying draining it of money would be one option, opposed firing robert mueller. it's certainly raising questions here on capitol hill. democrats are saying mueller's job and thenvestigation must be protected. we saw the demonstration at the white house last night.e dozens mre planned around the country with questions about whether or not this is the beginning of obstruction of justice. >> all right. tracie potts on the hill for us. >>> it's 4:49. outrage this morni

national security as a drum paulton says russia and the u.s. need to hold strategic talks about china missiles which pose a potential threat to russia as well that's what is that that's how he put it do you think maybe washington is seeking to pick moscow and beijing against each other . well you will remember or i i don't want to make you older than you are you you won't remember but you've read about it that during the nixon year or as the idea was to play the so-called china card against the soviet union to china toward washington and away from moscow in the rest there is no china card any longer the old kissinger idea that you could play off china against russia is gone russia and china are becoming perhaps historic allies economically politically militarily strategically this has happened due to a lot of factors however you're right i mean china now has to be included in any new nuclear arms arrangements that involve these regional intermediaries and immediately misses my own feeling is that the struggle over china policy in washington is a

welcome to the program russia's president putin has accused ukraine of committing an act of premeditated provocation in the naval confrontation off crimea tensions between moscow and kiev escalated after russia sees three ukrainian vessels on sunday at least twelve ukrainian silas' have been detained pending trial ukraine's paris president poroshenko has declared martial law and the country's border regions and warned that russia is preparing for war. this is what life has become for many living around. it's the closest ukrainian city. both of which are now controlled by russian backed separatists since sunday's naval clash with russia ukraine has begun to impose martial law. so you are the country's president petro poroshenko has warned there could be a russian invasion. these tanks have not yet been removed their will there i don't want anybody to think that those are toys the country is under threat of a food scale war with russia. and with russia and ukraine have blamed each other for sunday standoff in the catch strait which links the black sea and the sea of a zone of russian naval

the atlantic council being one of them always a critic of russia always there to call for the most drastic measures against russia well one of their one of their pundits has been calling on nato to send warships to the through the strait crossing perhaps unaware that such a move would be illegal as the season tunnel waters of russia and ukraine and requires the permission of both third party bush ships to enter the as a seat nevertheless we've had a number of such schools and indeed the russians have offered their own version of what happened in the on sunday in the strait of they say the the tech did the ukrainian vessels they had new choice but to deploy weapons to use weapons these vessels as they were behaving dangerously radically they hadn't followed any notification they did not they demanded that they be allowed to barge under the kutch bridge through the strait of coach into the sea the documents they found abroad these vessels indicate that view or does carry out this provocative action was given by the ukraine's government that s.b.u. counter-espionage agents were on board to se

you know what at the end of the day russia has lost all credibility with respect to telling the truth and most viewers of yours unfortunately are probably forgotten that we have an ongoing war with russia the last four years four years we've had daily artillery attacks we've had daily attacks by tanks we've had daily sniper fire we've had daily casualties and daily deaths unfortunately that's left the news and now suddenly we have this naval incident and it's gone back into the news of course that makes sense but even the fact that ukraine has finally reacted in such a way that it brings out into the into the open what in fact is the reality and the reality is that there is a war and that russia is the aggressor that there are. two hours ago submitted a decree to parliament declaring martial law parliament will be in session in approximately half an hour and i would expect that there's going to be a lot of discussion tonight as to that law on basically a war measures act but ukraine is currently in a state of mobilization and it has been for the last four years but in reality what we

>>. >> the answer is 42. >> i do think russia was quite effective shaping the policies of the actors intervene iing. there are existing plans would not work. they didn't have a viable military option that they had to deal with russia. they partnered early on in order, if you have to intervene in the middle east and you're going to be israel's new neighbor, that's something you have to coordinate right off the bat. they knuckled under turkey and even system of the other states. frankly they did a pretty good job with the united states. which moved off to fight a complimentary counterterrorism campaign against isis. but in that sense they were effective early on. in terms of friction and problems, there's some problems in any coalition plus it's the middle east. so you're going to have some pretty big contradictions no matter which partners you pick. if your partners are iran, turkey, israel, you have a deconfliction line with the united states. you're definitely going to have a lot of issues. on the whole, probably the biggest problems for russia came more some years back in that they

the u.s. has accused russia. of ukraine's sovereignty. of course you can get all the latest news information. we have more news that. will be with you then thanks for watching. nico is in germany to learn german. polish benito why not learn with him online on the mobile and free to suffer from the w e learning course nicko speak.

the u.s. president donald trump himself ostend whether he's going to condemn russia's actions in the u.s. well he spoke more critically of russia than he has in a long while but he said that he's going to wait for a full report from his advisors before condemning any russian action that will be very determinative maybe i won't have the meeting maybe i won't. even have the meeting i don't like that aggression i don't want that aggression at all absolutely and by the way europe shouldn't like that aggression and germany shouldn't like that aggression he's referring there of course to the pre-agreed meeting with vladimir putin on the sidelines of the g twenty summit in argentina but we were also heard a lot of criticism in the press with calls and questions to donald trump and other leaders and why they aren't condemning russia hard enough but let's. be happy about president trump issued an extremely mild rebuke to russia for firing on and seizing three ukrainian ships other storage supporters of ukraine be it nations that great britain canada for example have condemned russia or third partie

the only thing that changed is today's bombshell in the russia investigation. fixer michael cohen pleading guilty to new charges saying he lied about how much the president knew during the 2016 campaign, about trying to build a trump tower in moscow. the president said his longtime lawyer was lying. >> he's a weak person. he's lying about a project that everybody knew about. i mean, we were very open with it. >> reporter: but that's not exactly the case as the president denied any business dealings with russia. >> no, i have nothing to do with russia. john, john, how many times do i have to say it? are you a smart man? i have nothing do with russia. i have nothing do with russia. >> reporter: in his guilty plea today, cohen said he lied to congressional investigators when he told them the trump tower moscow project wrapped up before the iowa caucuses which helped pave the way for trump winning the nomination. negotiations with russia lasted another five months. >> there would be nothing wrong if i did do it. i was running my business while i was campaigning. th

what was the reason he recused himself. >> he recused himself -- this is an investigation of russia's alleged interference in our election and the trump campaign's potential collusion with that investigation. sessions was a member of that campaign. he was a leading senior member of that campaign. he also lied about his involvement with russian -- or russians in the hearing or his confirmation. so when this investigation launched, he went, as you were supposed to do, as attorney general, he went to the ethics advisor in the justice department and said, here is a situation. we have got an investigation into the trump campaign's possible collision with the russians. i was part of the trump campaign. can i oversee that investigation? the answer is pretty obvious. no. that is the answer he got. you follow the other -- ethics advisor's advice. you follow the law in that situation. the problem was, he was not willing to put his personal loyalty to the president over his obligation to follow the law. and that is essentially why he got fired. nermeen: let's go to his replacement, matthew whita

i don't think new sanctions would do any good for us the russia is used to sanctions at this point second it would only bring russia further away from the minsk peace agreement the agreement might never have been really amounted to but all politicians at all levels terry emphasized that there is no alternative to it but the source of all problems isn't from main so the issue of credit and it's the source of many of the sanctions as well the russians have seen the peninsula's for the russians for more than four years now the ukrainian see the peninsula as ukrainian and both sides will certainly not change their positions there for a practical pragmatic solution on the ground just around the straits of kids couch is strongly needed and the political negotiations. we've heard u.s. president donald trump say in an interview let's get angela involved referring to german chancellor angela merkel of course what role could germany possibly play in this column flicked in terms of mediation. i think germany could play a big role anglo-american enjoys a very high respect on both sides have great res

fact that the russia to the journalist kept bringing this up it raised a lot of questions for people about what russia's real intent in this conference was you're not the only one who has a little bit of skepticism about some of these international player so i want to bring up this comment we got from interests out of kabul who talks about pakistan and their role how to listen to what he told the story. to the level of vision of one piece the first is not on state level. was lost in some jihadi groups who sees dude interests in benefits in the or in the description we have to get rid of that in the regional level it's been the original countries is sponsoring told to fight against their want to give enough on the species sponsoring dollars besides following your sponsoring terror groups to further you know if we need these you know we need more sanctions on boxer really a lot he points the finger at many in afghanistan do blame pakistan for their role and the intelligence agencies roll in and finding what do you

i want to begin with these late-breaking developments in the russia probe. you expect an indictment against jerome corsi in the coming days? >> it would be hard not to expect it given the circumstances when you're negotiating a plea deal with somebody. if you're operating in good faith and when the -- when the individual refuses to agree to the plea agreement, you tend to go forward and not just drop everything, it's rare for a prosecutor of the stature to make up that he has a case some kind. so i think at this point you go forth and you test the proposition. and you get the grand jury to indict, and you go on from there. >> you're a former u.s. attorney, you served as the attorney general for the state of rhode island. do you believe prosecutors need corsi's testimony? >> i don't see that. i think that there's a wide array of things to look at. obviously it would be helpful, but i don't know enough about what his testimony would say to be able to say that he knows anything that is critical or anything for which he's the exclusive source. and i do think the