The Putin Interviews (2017) s01e04 Episode Script
Part 4
1 Oh, man.
So, uh, as to, uh We're gonna sit here, Mr.
Putin.
I'm gonna sit here.
I will come around, and we can meet here.
We'll meet about here.
Descend from the balcony.
âI like it better from there âOkay.
'Cause it gives you some depth.
In fact, there's a bar back there if you'd like.
No, further back, further back.
Okay.
All right, ready? Now pretend like we don't know each other.
And we'reââ Pretend we haven't seen each other in months.
Okay.
And action.
Action.
Tell him "action" in Russian.
Okay.
Where's my AD? Come on.
Action! He went into another meeting.
Oh, there he is.
Oh, that's very kind of you.
Here.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
How have you been? It's been a long time.
âSugar.
âSugar? Without sugar here.
Uh, it's been quite a lot of activity the last few months.
My country, uh, America has had an election.
Donald Trump won.
This This is your fourth president.
Am I right? Your fourth president.
Mr.
Clinton Mr.
Bush Mr.
Obama, and now, the fourth one.
What changes? Is that your feeling, in between all the four presidents? Yeah.
Is there any possibility, a hope of change with Mr.
Trump? Wow.
That's very Russian.
Very Dostoyevsky.
Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyberattacks.
This is not just an attack against me and my campaign, this is an attack against our country.
US intelligence believes that the cyberattack on the eâmail of the Democratic National Committee was ordered by the Russian president himself, Vladimir Putin.
In early September, when I saw when I saw President Putin in China, I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn't happen was to talk to him directly.
And tell him to cut it out, and there were gonna be some serious consequences if he didn't.
The election has been heavily criticized.
And the narrative as written by the West has now become that Russia interfered in this election, to the benefit of Mr.
Trump.
Yes.
So why, why did you bother to hack the election then? Sadly the American Dream is dead.
Donald J.
Trump is calling or a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.
Build that wall! Build that wall! But, you know, even Trump has said the Russians hacked the election.
That was a quote.
As far as hacking, I think it was Russia, but I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.
If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what folks? That's called an asset, not a liability.
Now, I don't know that I'm gonna get along with Vladimir Putin.
I hope I do, but there's a good chance I won't.
And if I don't, do you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Does anybody in this room really believe that? Well, this all seems to me still historically enormous.
I've never seen where the two leading parties, the intelligence agencies, and, uh, the political leadership of NATO believe this story that Russia hacked the election.
It's enormous.
I mean Have you read the 25âpage report? It details Russian cyberattacks against not just the Democratic National Committee, but the White House the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department, even American companies.
Some hacks, successful.
Others, thwarted.
And, uh, it seems, Senator McCain for example, today or yesterday, was proposing a veto, a Senate veto, of any lifting of sanctions from Trump, in advance.
Putin is a killer.
There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Putin's Russia.
I repeat, there is no moral equivalent between that butcher and thug and KGB colonel and the United States of America, the country that Ronald Reagan used to call a shining city on a hill.
"Carthage must be destroyed.
" Russia has been accused of enormous treachery now.
This is a major charge.
The media repeats it and repeats it, and it seems to have entered into the lexicon in the United States.
It's just taken for granted.
You can say Russia hacked the election, and many people say Trump is, uh, in the Kremlin's pocket, has a debt to the Kremlin.
So you, you see where this leads to.
It makes a situation impossible, very difficult for Mr.
Trump, if indeed he intends to correct relations, to reset relations.
Many people are frustrated, who agree that this hacking charge is fraudulent.
Many people agree with Julian Assange, who has a pretty solid record going back to 2006.
We can say, um, we have said, repeatedly, uh, over the last two months, uh, that our source, uh, is not the Russian government, uh, and it is not state party.
Well, it seems to me that if you know their tricks, you could make some kind of statement about cyberwarfare and give specifics of why this was not possible, and why there should have been a trace.
I mean, there's many different avenues you can explore.
It seems as if Russia doesn't care about defending itself to these accusations.
They're letting them fly by and saying business as usual.
Well, is there any evidence, uh, in cyberspace that Russia can present in its defense? So, right now, he's waiting it out.
At the same time, you know, Mr.
Trump has called, on more than one occasion, for another massive US military buildup in both nuclear and conventional, which makes no sense to me.
I mean, how can America spend more than it's already spending? Do you have any hopes of a meeting, uh, sometime in the coming months with Mr.
Trump? But how is he going to work with the intelligence agencies if the intelligence agencies are telling him that Russia hacked the election? It's a dead end.
If, uh, Mr.
Trump called for wanted to declassify or see the files on Ukraine, all the files, all the files on Syria, and see the origins of these problems, is there a possibility of that, that he might change some of his thinking? When is the next G20 meeting? So that, theoretically, would be the first time they'd ever see each other if they did? I gather you've had two phone calls with him? And I gather, uh some of the talk may have been about terrorism? Right.
Right.
I understand.
Uh was there US interference in the 2012 election in Russia? We have programs both inside Russia and outside Russia.
To work with those Russian activists who want to work with us, to try to strengthen rule of law, to try to strengthen a free press.
We have a large number of Russian journalists who've actually fled this, uh, fled Russia now, who are working with us and with others in Europe, to try to ensure there is, um, independent Russian language news, uh, insideââ going back into the country.
We also work on legeââ uh, LGBT rights and other things inside Russia with those who want to work with us.
Yes.
Was there cyberinterference in the 2012 election? Let's clarify it, 'cause cyberwarfare is here with us.
We've started down that road a few years ago.
We have entered into a new phase of conflict, in which we use a cyberweapon to create physical destruction.
In the movie I did, Snowden, there's a sceneââ and Snowden, uh, told me this storyââ he's in Japan.
NSA wanted to impress the Japanese, show them our reach.
They were not as thrilled to learn that we wanted them to help us spy on the Japanese population.
They said it was against their laws.
Of course, we tapped the entire country anyway.
And we didn't stop there, 'cause once we owned their communications system, we started going after the physical infrastructure.
We'd slip these little sleeper programs into power grids, dams, hospitals, and the idea was, if the day came when Japan was no longer an ally, it'd be lights out.
And it wasn't just the Japanese.
We were planting malware in Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Austria.
I mean, China I can understand, or Russia or Iran, Venezuela, okay, but - âAustria? - â You're also being ordered to follow most world leaders and heads of industry.
You know, you're tracking trade deals, sex scandals, diplomatic cables to give the US an advantage in negotiations at the G8 or leverage over Brazilian oil companies, or helping to oust some third world leader who's not playing ball.
And ultimately, the truth sinks in that no matter what justification you're selling yourself, this is not about terrorism.
Terrorism is the excuse.
This is about economic and social control.
And the only thing you're really protecting is the supremacy of your government.
If I'm saying that they're planting malware in Japanese infrastructure to destroy power stations, railroads, close the country down, black it outââ the Russians are miles ahead of me.
They must realize the dangers here, and they must've been working on them for some time, uh, to prevent such a situation from happening to Russia, 'cause that would do the obvious, one of the obvious enemies of the United States.
Yeah.
I buy that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, we're talkingââ I mean, in real time, we're talking like, if Snowden is saying the US is doing this to an ally in 2007, with Japan, 2008, if they're planting malware in alliesââ do you understand what I'm saying? What are they doing with theirââ people like China, Russia, Iran, and so forth? I mean, you understand my point is that Russia had to be aware as early as 2007 that the US was planting malware.
The United States will not admit it, but it's known that in 2010, we succeeded in planting the Stuxnet virus in Iran.
By the fall of 2010, the consensus was that Iran's top secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz was the target, and that Stuxnet was a carefully constructed weapon, designed to be carried into the plant on a corrupted laptop or thumb drive, then infect the system, disguise its presence, move through the network changing computer code, and subtly alter the speed of the centrifuges without the Iranians ever noticing.
Sabotage by software.
Were there attacks on Russia as early as 2007, '06, '05? Yeah, yeah.
As late as what year? As late as Okay.
Yes.
And then what happened? I mean, when did Russia build up its cybercapabilities? I would imagine Russia is having an ongoing battle with the United States, secret battle, with cyberwarfare.
I would imagine United States is trying to do things to Russia, and Russia was trying to defend itself, and do things to the United States.
Okay.
Well, he's, he's acting funny about this story.
Like he's guilty a bit.
You look like a fox who just got out of the henhouse.
- A few weeks ago on RT, - I saw a report.
It was not followed up on, it disappeared after a day or two, but in that report, 20 plus countries were reported as being part of a botnet attack on the banking system in Russia, six major banks.
This seems to be of such a magnitude that it wasââ this was after the election.
It points to a possible US attack on Russia's banking system.
It's a gigantic piece of business.
I mean, you have Mr.
Biden, first of all, who says, we will attack Russia in the same manner as they attacked us in this election.
We're sending a message.
We have the capacity to do it and he'll know it, and it'll be at the time of our choosing and under the circumstances that have the greatest impact.
And Mr.
Obama seconded that.
I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action.
And we will, at a time and place of our own choosing.
Some of it may be, uh, explicit, and publicized, some of it may not be.
Um, but Mr.
Putin is well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it.
This is outrageous conversation, but those are big words.
They're from the vice president, and then from the president.
They're serious people.
So something happened before inauguration day.
Well, you're making light of it, but in view of how much money we have invested in cyberwarfare and our cybercommand, it seems like a serious threat to me.
I have the feeling that he's playing it down, because something did happen, and he doesn't want to reveal it, and because of sensitive relations.
No.
I'm worried that, you know, I would hateââ I believe that cyberwarfare can lead to a hot war.
Uh, I, I really believe that, because of the past.
The Stuxnet virus came very close to creating chaos in the world.
I think this is very dangerous, very dangerous, and I think we're playing with fire.
I know.
Well, you're obviously sitting on some information.
I understand why you may not want to make it public.
But are we gonna be able to handle the capabilities of this? It seems to me that what happened in Iran could be as serious in its way as what happened in 1945 at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
It was the beginning of a new age.
It seems to me it's secret war, but no one knows who started it, no one knows if it was a proxy country, if it was North Korea that hacked Sony, that, you know, these rumors go around.
But if all the lights go out in Russia overnight, there'd be a tremendous fear in Russia, as there would be in the United States, and people wouldn't know who did it.
Oh! Yeah.
A treaty.
Perhaps this is something that Mr.
Trump and Mr.
Putin can really open up.
John Reed, the only American buried in the Kremlin.
Played by Warren Beatty in the wonderful movie Reds.
He wrote about the revolution.
He was here in 1917â18.
He cared deeply about socialism and founded the American Communist Party.
Not that that was evil or anything, it was quite idealistic, 'cause it was a worker'sââ the workers had a lot of strikes going on in the US, and there was a lot of opposition from the corporations.
And he was considered a hero by many, many people.
Of course, he was against World War I, as were many pacifists and decent people.
And out of World War I came the Russian Revolution, which is an interesting comment on the role of empires.
Now we're coming up onto Lenin's tomb.
I visited here many years ago, but regulations don't permit us to go in and photograph anything.
You know, the interesting issue about Lenin's tomb is the fact that, uh, next year is the hundredth anniversary of the revolution.
So, this is a big event.
Many people revere him in all the cities of the Soviet Union, He has many, many statues.
On the other hand, with the failure of Communism in 1991 and the resulting pain to the population, there's also very divided feelings about whether to honor him on the hundredth anniversary or not.
It's a good time to maybe let him go, because if indeed his karma's in here, and he's in a grave, I would hateââ I'd hate to think I'd have to hang around a hundred more years and be watched by everybody.
I think you'd getââ you should get a moment off, you know? So that you can go off and ingest a new karma.
When you go in, it's a very it's a very austere experience.
They keep it quiet.
There's a guard that's always there, uh, or two.
Uh, and, uh, you have a little, you're not rushed like in a lot of places, you're rushed around a lot.
They give you time, and you, you sit, you watch, you listen, you think.
It's a very powerful experience.
Brezhnev.
- âFelix Dzerzhinsky.
- Dzerzhinsky.
âAndropov.
âYuri Andropov.
The most famous, uh, villain in history next to Adolf according to many people, Joseph Stalin.
To the people on the, of the revolution on the left, for which, uh, Communism meant a change, better change for the workers, he was a disaster in the sense that he left a horrible reputation, uh, and stained the ideology forever.
Uh it's mixed with blood and, and terror.
But he did play a huge role in World War II and was a very close ally with, uh, the US during World War II.
Mr.
Trotsky, no? Where is he? Askââ No Trotsky, right? Stalin, uh, managed to erase, uh, Trotsky's memory.
He ended up being killed in Mexico by Stalin's agents.
Let's go.
- On Stalin.
- He said that, you know, he's said negative things about Stalin, uh, and of course, he's widely condemned in the world.
But, at the same time, we all know that he lead, uh, Russia to victory over Germany, over fascism.
And, uh, what does he make of that, by, uh let's say that ambiguity? â âWhy? He can discuss it tomorrow if he wants.
Birthmarks.
And your father and your mother admired him, right? And when did his parents die? Were they proud of him? I mean, your mother and father couldn't believe it, right? "My president coming," let's see.
Yeah, that's nice.
The US, uh, accusations are essentially that you've created a system of centralization authoritarianism, what they call an oligarchic state capitalism.
On the other hand, they were quite pleased, of course, with the 1990s Russia where the olderââ where the oligarchs thrived, and then before you came in, and then you, you knocked out or derailed several of them, by your own.
You told me that story, that you had a meeting, uh, in Moscow, and you made the point in this meeting that there was a responsibility to the people and to the state.
So, uh, the Western elite says that you have put your oligarchs into the power in these last 15 years.
Whereas these old oligarchs are sitting in places like London.
They admit that they've accumulated great wealth but they say that you've lead them to the wealth and that you've shared in it, that you are, in fact, the single richest person in the world.
Not since, uh, Rockefeller, Morgan, or Onassis orââ You may laugh, and I appreciate it.
But as a leader of your people, like, uh, Chavez or Castro, or many other people who've been accused of corruption, is there some way you could make your personal wealth clearer? So, there is, uh, no bank accounts in Cyprus.
I would imagine.
Well, I have to say from personal observation that, uh, I would have a hell of a lot more fun if I was rich.
If you run again in 2018 and you win, you will be in power another six years, till 2024.
You would have been in power as president and prime minister for 24 years, longer than Roosevelt, less than Castro, who was close to 50 years, and close to Stalin, who was, give or take, 30 years.
Now, 27 years.
Does that not scare you? Do you not get used to power? Uh, does it distort your point of view? Do you feel that Russia needs you that badly? Can there not be a healthy competition among successors inside the system? The Chinese oneâparty system being an example, of competition within the party.
The successors are checked out for many years as party members in different provinces.
Yes, that's true.
I understand that.
I said "if.
" Ifââ And of course, no matter what, you know, um, democracy itself, whatever we call it, is flawed.
And America's system is, is hardly perfect.
We know that money buys power in America.
Certainly Russia has a flawed system.
It is very likeââ unlikely that the next election will convince the world that, uh, this is a democracy, a functioning democracy, unless international monitors were brought in, as Mr.
Chavez did in Venezuela.
And it became a really transparent process.
That is a dangerous argument, because, uh it works both ways.
Those who abuse power always say it's a question of survival.
Mr.
Putin, I don't doubt for one moment your love and pride in serving Russia.
It is clear that you are a son of Russia to me and that you've done very well by her.
But I think we all know the price of power.
And when we're in power, too long, no matter what, we feel the people need us, but at the same time, we've changed, and we don't even know it sometimes, or recognize it.
Okay.
So, uh, what time is it? Thank you, Mr.
Putin.
âBeaten? âBeaten.
No? Oh, yes, I've been beaten.
Oh sure.
Yeah.
No.
I know.
But it's worth it.
It's worth it if it brings some more peace and consciousness to the world.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Come back.
I will.
Lovely time.
âAll the best.
âThank you.
Thank you.
Byeâbye.
Our American "partner.
" It's their favorite word.
He's used it a thousand times.
âThank you, Dmitry.
âAll the best.
âSee you later.
âYeah.
Next time it'll be relaxing.
See you.
Thank you so much.
Good luck with the military tonight.
Take some time off after that.
Byeâbye.
So, uh, as to, uh We're gonna sit here, Mr.
Putin.
I'm gonna sit here.
I will come around, and we can meet here.
We'll meet about here.
Descend from the balcony.
âI like it better from there âOkay.
'Cause it gives you some depth.
In fact, there's a bar back there if you'd like.
No, further back, further back.
Okay.
All right, ready? Now pretend like we don't know each other.
And we'reââ Pretend we haven't seen each other in months.
Okay.
And action.
Action.
Tell him "action" in Russian.
Okay.
Where's my AD? Come on.
Action! He went into another meeting.
Oh, there he is.
Oh, that's very kind of you.
Here.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
How have you been? It's been a long time.
âSugar.
âSugar? Without sugar here.
Uh, it's been quite a lot of activity the last few months.
My country, uh, America has had an election.
Donald Trump won.
This This is your fourth president.
Am I right? Your fourth president.
Mr.
Clinton Mr.
Bush Mr.
Obama, and now, the fourth one.
What changes? Is that your feeling, in between all the four presidents? Yeah.
Is there any possibility, a hope of change with Mr.
Trump? Wow.
That's very Russian.
Very Dostoyevsky.
Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyberattacks.
This is not just an attack against me and my campaign, this is an attack against our country.
US intelligence believes that the cyberattack on the eâmail of the Democratic National Committee was ordered by the Russian president himself, Vladimir Putin.
In early September, when I saw when I saw President Putin in China, I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn't happen was to talk to him directly.
And tell him to cut it out, and there were gonna be some serious consequences if he didn't.
The election has been heavily criticized.
And the narrative as written by the West has now become that Russia interfered in this election, to the benefit of Mr.
Trump.
Yes.
So why, why did you bother to hack the election then? Sadly the American Dream is dead.
Donald J.
Trump is calling or a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.
Build that wall! Build that wall! But, you know, even Trump has said the Russians hacked the election.
That was a quote.
As far as hacking, I think it was Russia, but I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.
If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what folks? That's called an asset, not a liability.
Now, I don't know that I'm gonna get along with Vladimir Putin.
I hope I do, but there's a good chance I won't.
And if I don't, do you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Does anybody in this room really believe that? Well, this all seems to me still historically enormous.
I've never seen where the two leading parties, the intelligence agencies, and, uh, the political leadership of NATO believe this story that Russia hacked the election.
It's enormous.
I mean Have you read the 25âpage report? It details Russian cyberattacks against not just the Democratic National Committee, but the White House the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department, even American companies.
Some hacks, successful.
Others, thwarted.
And, uh, it seems, Senator McCain for example, today or yesterday, was proposing a veto, a Senate veto, of any lifting of sanctions from Trump, in advance.
Putin is a killer.
There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Putin's Russia.
I repeat, there is no moral equivalent between that butcher and thug and KGB colonel and the United States of America, the country that Ronald Reagan used to call a shining city on a hill.
"Carthage must be destroyed.
" Russia has been accused of enormous treachery now.
This is a major charge.
The media repeats it and repeats it, and it seems to have entered into the lexicon in the United States.
It's just taken for granted.
You can say Russia hacked the election, and many people say Trump is, uh, in the Kremlin's pocket, has a debt to the Kremlin.
So you, you see where this leads to.
It makes a situation impossible, very difficult for Mr.
Trump, if indeed he intends to correct relations, to reset relations.
Many people are frustrated, who agree that this hacking charge is fraudulent.
Many people agree with Julian Assange, who has a pretty solid record going back to 2006.
We can say, um, we have said, repeatedly, uh, over the last two months, uh, that our source, uh, is not the Russian government, uh, and it is not state party.
Well, it seems to me that if you know their tricks, you could make some kind of statement about cyberwarfare and give specifics of why this was not possible, and why there should have been a trace.
I mean, there's many different avenues you can explore.
It seems as if Russia doesn't care about defending itself to these accusations.
They're letting them fly by and saying business as usual.
Well, is there any evidence, uh, in cyberspace that Russia can present in its defense? So, right now, he's waiting it out.
At the same time, you know, Mr.
Trump has called, on more than one occasion, for another massive US military buildup in both nuclear and conventional, which makes no sense to me.
I mean, how can America spend more than it's already spending? Do you have any hopes of a meeting, uh, sometime in the coming months with Mr.
Trump? But how is he going to work with the intelligence agencies if the intelligence agencies are telling him that Russia hacked the election? It's a dead end.
If, uh, Mr.
Trump called for wanted to declassify or see the files on Ukraine, all the files, all the files on Syria, and see the origins of these problems, is there a possibility of that, that he might change some of his thinking? When is the next G20 meeting? So that, theoretically, would be the first time they'd ever see each other if they did? I gather you've had two phone calls with him? And I gather, uh some of the talk may have been about terrorism? Right.
Right.
I understand.
Uh was there US interference in the 2012 election in Russia? We have programs both inside Russia and outside Russia.
To work with those Russian activists who want to work with us, to try to strengthen rule of law, to try to strengthen a free press.
We have a large number of Russian journalists who've actually fled this, uh, fled Russia now, who are working with us and with others in Europe, to try to ensure there is, um, independent Russian language news, uh, insideââ going back into the country.
We also work on legeââ uh, LGBT rights and other things inside Russia with those who want to work with us.
Yes.
Was there cyberinterference in the 2012 election? Let's clarify it, 'cause cyberwarfare is here with us.
We've started down that road a few years ago.
We have entered into a new phase of conflict, in which we use a cyberweapon to create physical destruction.
In the movie I did, Snowden, there's a sceneââ and Snowden, uh, told me this storyââ he's in Japan.
NSA wanted to impress the Japanese, show them our reach.
They were not as thrilled to learn that we wanted them to help us spy on the Japanese population.
They said it was against their laws.
Of course, we tapped the entire country anyway.
And we didn't stop there, 'cause once we owned their communications system, we started going after the physical infrastructure.
We'd slip these little sleeper programs into power grids, dams, hospitals, and the idea was, if the day came when Japan was no longer an ally, it'd be lights out.
And it wasn't just the Japanese.
We were planting malware in Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Austria.
I mean, China I can understand, or Russia or Iran, Venezuela, okay, but - âAustria? - â You're also being ordered to follow most world leaders and heads of industry.
You know, you're tracking trade deals, sex scandals, diplomatic cables to give the US an advantage in negotiations at the G8 or leverage over Brazilian oil companies, or helping to oust some third world leader who's not playing ball.
And ultimately, the truth sinks in that no matter what justification you're selling yourself, this is not about terrorism.
Terrorism is the excuse.
This is about economic and social control.
And the only thing you're really protecting is the supremacy of your government.
If I'm saying that they're planting malware in Japanese infrastructure to destroy power stations, railroads, close the country down, black it outââ the Russians are miles ahead of me.
They must realize the dangers here, and they must've been working on them for some time, uh, to prevent such a situation from happening to Russia, 'cause that would do the obvious, one of the obvious enemies of the United States.
Yeah.
I buy that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, we're talkingââ I mean, in real time, we're talking like, if Snowden is saying the US is doing this to an ally in 2007, with Japan, 2008, if they're planting malware in alliesââ do you understand what I'm saying? What are they doing with theirââ people like China, Russia, Iran, and so forth? I mean, you understand my point is that Russia had to be aware as early as 2007 that the US was planting malware.
The United States will not admit it, but it's known that in 2010, we succeeded in planting the Stuxnet virus in Iran.
By the fall of 2010, the consensus was that Iran's top secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz was the target, and that Stuxnet was a carefully constructed weapon, designed to be carried into the plant on a corrupted laptop or thumb drive, then infect the system, disguise its presence, move through the network changing computer code, and subtly alter the speed of the centrifuges without the Iranians ever noticing.
Sabotage by software.
Were there attacks on Russia as early as 2007, '06, '05? Yeah, yeah.
As late as what year? As late as Okay.
Yes.
And then what happened? I mean, when did Russia build up its cybercapabilities? I would imagine Russia is having an ongoing battle with the United States, secret battle, with cyberwarfare.
I would imagine United States is trying to do things to Russia, and Russia was trying to defend itself, and do things to the United States.
Okay.
Well, he's, he's acting funny about this story.
Like he's guilty a bit.
You look like a fox who just got out of the henhouse.
- A few weeks ago on RT, - I saw a report.
It was not followed up on, it disappeared after a day or two, but in that report, 20 plus countries were reported as being part of a botnet attack on the banking system in Russia, six major banks.
This seems to be of such a magnitude that it wasââ this was after the election.
It points to a possible US attack on Russia's banking system.
It's a gigantic piece of business.
I mean, you have Mr.
Biden, first of all, who says, we will attack Russia in the same manner as they attacked us in this election.
We're sending a message.
We have the capacity to do it and he'll know it, and it'll be at the time of our choosing and under the circumstances that have the greatest impact.
And Mr.
Obama seconded that.
I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action.
And we will, at a time and place of our own choosing.
Some of it may be, uh, explicit, and publicized, some of it may not be.
Um, but Mr.
Putin is well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it.
This is outrageous conversation, but those are big words.
They're from the vice president, and then from the president.
They're serious people.
So something happened before inauguration day.
Well, you're making light of it, but in view of how much money we have invested in cyberwarfare and our cybercommand, it seems like a serious threat to me.
I have the feeling that he's playing it down, because something did happen, and he doesn't want to reveal it, and because of sensitive relations.
No.
I'm worried that, you know, I would hateââ I believe that cyberwarfare can lead to a hot war.
Uh, I, I really believe that, because of the past.
The Stuxnet virus came very close to creating chaos in the world.
I think this is very dangerous, very dangerous, and I think we're playing with fire.
I know.
Well, you're obviously sitting on some information.
I understand why you may not want to make it public.
But are we gonna be able to handle the capabilities of this? It seems to me that what happened in Iran could be as serious in its way as what happened in 1945 at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
It was the beginning of a new age.
It seems to me it's secret war, but no one knows who started it, no one knows if it was a proxy country, if it was North Korea that hacked Sony, that, you know, these rumors go around.
But if all the lights go out in Russia overnight, there'd be a tremendous fear in Russia, as there would be in the United States, and people wouldn't know who did it.
Oh! Yeah.
A treaty.
Perhaps this is something that Mr.
Trump and Mr.
Putin can really open up.
John Reed, the only American buried in the Kremlin.
Played by Warren Beatty in the wonderful movie Reds.
He wrote about the revolution.
He was here in 1917â18.
He cared deeply about socialism and founded the American Communist Party.
Not that that was evil or anything, it was quite idealistic, 'cause it was a worker'sââ the workers had a lot of strikes going on in the US, and there was a lot of opposition from the corporations.
And he was considered a hero by many, many people.
Of course, he was against World War I, as were many pacifists and decent people.
And out of World War I came the Russian Revolution, which is an interesting comment on the role of empires.
Now we're coming up onto Lenin's tomb.
I visited here many years ago, but regulations don't permit us to go in and photograph anything.
You know, the interesting issue about Lenin's tomb is the fact that, uh, next year is the hundredth anniversary of the revolution.
So, this is a big event.
Many people revere him in all the cities of the Soviet Union, He has many, many statues.
On the other hand, with the failure of Communism in 1991 and the resulting pain to the population, there's also very divided feelings about whether to honor him on the hundredth anniversary or not.
It's a good time to maybe let him go, because if indeed his karma's in here, and he's in a grave, I would hateââ I'd hate to think I'd have to hang around a hundred more years and be watched by everybody.
I think you'd getââ you should get a moment off, you know? So that you can go off and ingest a new karma.
When you go in, it's a very it's a very austere experience.
They keep it quiet.
There's a guard that's always there, uh, or two.
Uh, and, uh, you have a little, you're not rushed like in a lot of places, you're rushed around a lot.
They give you time, and you, you sit, you watch, you listen, you think.
It's a very powerful experience.
Brezhnev.
- âFelix Dzerzhinsky.
- Dzerzhinsky.
âAndropov.
âYuri Andropov.
The most famous, uh, villain in history next to Adolf according to many people, Joseph Stalin.
To the people on the, of the revolution on the left, for which, uh, Communism meant a change, better change for the workers, he was a disaster in the sense that he left a horrible reputation, uh, and stained the ideology forever.
Uh it's mixed with blood and, and terror.
But he did play a huge role in World War II and was a very close ally with, uh, the US during World War II.
Mr.
Trotsky, no? Where is he? Askââ No Trotsky, right? Stalin, uh, managed to erase, uh, Trotsky's memory.
He ended up being killed in Mexico by Stalin's agents.
Let's go.
- On Stalin.
- He said that, you know, he's said negative things about Stalin, uh, and of course, he's widely condemned in the world.
But, at the same time, we all know that he lead, uh, Russia to victory over Germany, over fascism.
And, uh, what does he make of that, by, uh let's say that ambiguity? â âWhy? He can discuss it tomorrow if he wants.
Birthmarks.
And your father and your mother admired him, right? And when did his parents die? Were they proud of him? I mean, your mother and father couldn't believe it, right? "My president coming," let's see.
Yeah, that's nice.
The US, uh, accusations are essentially that you've created a system of centralization authoritarianism, what they call an oligarchic state capitalism.
On the other hand, they were quite pleased, of course, with the 1990s Russia where the olderââ where the oligarchs thrived, and then before you came in, and then you, you knocked out or derailed several of them, by your own.
You told me that story, that you had a meeting, uh, in Moscow, and you made the point in this meeting that there was a responsibility to the people and to the state.
So, uh, the Western elite says that you have put your oligarchs into the power in these last 15 years.
Whereas these old oligarchs are sitting in places like London.
They admit that they've accumulated great wealth but they say that you've lead them to the wealth and that you've shared in it, that you are, in fact, the single richest person in the world.
Not since, uh, Rockefeller, Morgan, or Onassis orââ You may laugh, and I appreciate it.
But as a leader of your people, like, uh, Chavez or Castro, or many other people who've been accused of corruption, is there some way you could make your personal wealth clearer? So, there is, uh, no bank accounts in Cyprus.
I would imagine.
Well, I have to say from personal observation that, uh, I would have a hell of a lot more fun if I was rich.
If you run again in 2018 and you win, you will be in power another six years, till 2024.
You would have been in power as president and prime minister for 24 years, longer than Roosevelt, less than Castro, who was close to 50 years, and close to Stalin, who was, give or take, 30 years.
Now, 27 years.
Does that not scare you? Do you not get used to power? Uh, does it distort your point of view? Do you feel that Russia needs you that badly? Can there not be a healthy competition among successors inside the system? The Chinese oneâparty system being an example, of competition within the party.
The successors are checked out for many years as party members in different provinces.
Yes, that's true.
I understand that.
I said "if.
" Ifââ And of course, no matter what, you know, um, democracy itself, whatever we call it, is flawed.
And America's system is, is hardly perfect.
We know that money buys power in America.
Certainly Russia has a flawed system.
It is very likeââ unlikely that the next election will convince the world that, uh, this is a democracy, a functioning democracy, unless international monitors were brought in, as Mr.
Chavez did in Venezuela.
And it became a really transparent process.
That is a dangerous argument, because, uh it works both ways.
Those who abuse power always say it's a question of survival.
Mr.
Putin, I don't doubt for one moment your love and pride in serving Russia.
It is clear that you are a son of Russia to me and that you've done very well by her.
But I think we all know the price of power.
And when we're in power, too long, no matter what, we feel the people need us, but at the same time, we've changed, and we don't even know it sometimes, or recognize it.
Okay.
So, uh, what time is it? Thank you, Mr.
Putin.
âBeaten? âBeaten.
No? Oh, yes, I've been beaten.
Oh sure.
Yeah.
No.
I know.
But it's worth it.
It's worth it if it brings some more peace and consciousness to the world.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Come back.
I will.
Lovely time.
âAll the best.
âThank you.
Thank you.
Byeâbye.
Our American "partner.
" It's their favorite word.
He's used it a thousand times.
âThank you, Dmitry.
âAll the best.
âSee you later.
âYeah.
Next time it'll be relaxing.
See you.
Thank you so much.
Good luck with the military tonight.
Take some time off after that.
Byeâbye.