joining me now is tom rogan, columnist at "national review" and "daily telegraph." tom, good to see you. >> good to see you. >> what is the effect on the u.s. relationship with russia and talk to me, if you would, about the access the u.s. should be getting that we're not and also is putin to be trusted? >> yeah, it's a great question. i think the degree to which russian/u.s. relations are going to change in the coming days will be really down to the president and how much he's willing to back away from his previous strategy that we've seen in this disaster has clearly failed. there needs to be a lot more pressure on putin and there needs to be a lot more pressure not simply for the incident that we've seen, but the follow up. the disdain that the russian government shows for those victims and the way the rebels on the ground prevented the investigation from taking place. the russians are trying to cl r clearly cover up what happened. that is tolerable to the united states or to anyone, quite frankly, who believe that blowing people out of the sky is justified. >> wh

tom rogan, we heard a few moments ago from professor schwartz some criticism that the president isn'ttrong enough language to make demands on russia and president putin. is there a danger, though, in going too far making big demands and if they are not met having to walk through that? >> i think there is always a political risk. i agree that the situation that we have at the moment really with a palpable sense of absent leadership and perception drives a lot of reality and international politics is a big problem. the president does have to roll the dice in significant ways because what we have seen over the past few months whether it is ukraine or syria is that this broughtinbrooding notion that an can't be relied on but fostering these doubts and we can debate that. but vladimir putin is not concerned about the american threats so far. >> mark jacobson, reflect on that tone. >> the one area i would agree with is this issue of per session. despite the president having taken what i believe are some very good actions or some strong actions both in the middle east and europe. i think the

. >> joining us is tom roa rogan. >> thank you. >> let's talk about how much responsibility you think vladimir putin has for what happened here. >> i think he has a lot of responsibility and i think that for a number of reasons. the russian intelligence services and special forces have been training separatist rebels in eastern ukraine for a long time. especially in donetske, where this aircraft went down. but there's another point here that the russians have actively been trying to bring down the ukrainian sense of sovereignty, a sense of national united ukraine. although president putin is making a lot of rhetoric about the need to unite instead of divide, the sense of disdain that has been applied to the dead and the absolute disdain for the very investigation itself i think speaks to the fact that the russian ves no interest at all in an investigation that seeks the truth. >> how is the european press playing the story? >> well, i think it's quite interesting because the european press up until now has been hedging because especially on the opinions side, because a lot of european

joining me now is tom rogan, colu columnist from the daily telegraph.extreme right hijacked the gop. ellis, should he be fund raising? >> that is unrealistic. one task is politics and one is fund raising. you have to be. if you are in that job, you have to do a bunch of things at once. >> tom, i agree with that, do you agree or disagree? >> i believe the president needs to be the president and pursue political activities at home. with the president the fund-raiser in chief, the issue is he is disengaged. >> what does engagement look like if this is disengagement. i hear that levelled at the president without specificity as to what he should be doing. what should he be doing? >> that is a good question. he should be doing a number of things. in the aftermath of mh-17, he should have gone to europe. he should have been there actively pressuring europe and financial sanctions and energy sector sanctions. if you think about what was happening in libya today, the president should be involved with the national security team. this has been going on for a few d