On Tuesday, President Biden met with Vladimir Putin to discuss the latter amassing of a potential invasion force on the Ukrainian border. That afternoon, MSNBC's Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace wildly wondered if Biden's job has been made more difficult by former President Trump and a supposed "Republican-Russian Alliance" that she claimed seeks to serve Russian interests.
Wallace began by asking MSNBC analyst and former Obama Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel, who was on the job during the annexation of Crimea: "Rick, is there a sort of contraction of the options available? Is there a cumulative emboldening of Vladimir Putin from the last four years of the American political landscape? Is any American weakened by coming after Trump?"
Stengel responded by declaring:
I mean, Vladimir Putin was watching your last segment with Bart, Nicolle. I mean, he reads the newspapers. He reads the polls. You know, Donald Trump probably sends him his internal polls. I mean, you know, Putin is a kind of a checkers player. He’s, he believes in brinksmanship. He tests people. He tests nations. He's testing Joe Biden now. He's looking at Biden's polling. He’s looking at the midterms. He’s looking at the possibility that America will turn authoritarian and will have an authoritarian president in three more years. So, he's testing all of that.
Wallace then turned to former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and spun unhinged conspiracy theories: "I follow some accounts that monitor Russian media and the Russian coverage of Trump is like almost like an arm of the RNC, the way they cover Trump. The way they sort of follow his every move, the way they cover the Trump media echo chamber, you know who I’m talking about. What do you make of sort of this new Republican-Russian alliance as a geopolitical challenge for this White House?"
Of course, McCaskill happily engaged in the left-wing fantasy. She claimed "Well, it's another norm busting" and that "Putin loves Trump because he had his way with him... So, I do think Richard's right, that the only hand we've really had to play is an economic one, but Putin, what he's going to want to do so try to cause chaos to cause political problems for Biden so that he can get his guy back in. Because make no mistake about it, he wants Trump back in in the worst way because he knows Trump will always do what he wants."
Meanwhile, in the real world, it is Republicans who have stood firm on things like opposing Russia's Nord Stream 2 oil pipeline, while the Biden administration caved in order to appease the Germans. And invading Ukraine would be trickier for Putin in 2021 than it would've been 2014 under Stengel's boss in large part due to Trump sending over things such as Javelin anti-tank missiles.
This segment was sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service.
Here is a transcript for the December 7 show:
MSNBC
Deadline: White House
4:33 PM ET
NICOLLE WALLACE: Rick, is there a sort of contraction of the options available? Is there a cumulative emboldening of Vladimir Putin from the last four years of the American political landscape? Is any American weakened by coming after Trump?
RICHARD STENGEL: I mean, Vladimir Putin was watching your last segment with Bart, Nicolle. I mean, he reads the newspapers. He reads the polls. You know, Donald Trump probably sends him his internal polls. I mean, you know, Putin is a kind of a checkers player. He’s, he believes in brinksmanship. He tests people. He tests nations. He's testing Joe Biden now. He's looking at Biden's polling. He’s looking at the midterms. He’s looking at the possibility that America will turn authoritarian and will have an authoritarian president in three more years. So, he's testing all of that. You know, one of the things the White House said in the readout is that they don’t think, they're not sure that Biden has made, I mean Putin has made a discussion about this. I think that's right. I think he makes decisions in the moment based on how people react and that's why I think Biden's strong call today, the fact that he didn't back down, that they said look, there are going to be real consequences for this, was a, was, was positive. I mean, I just saw looking, I get, I get the tweets from the Russian Foreign Ministry, they spent, they waited three hours to do their readout from that call. That's very uncharacteristic for the Russians, they usually do it right away. To me, that suggests, well maybe there is, maybe it was tougher than they thought it was going to be.
WALLACE: Claire, I follow some accounts that monitor Russian media and the Russian coverage of Trump is like almost like an arm of the RNC, the way they cover Trump. The way they sort of follow his every move, the way they cover the Trump media echo chamber, you know who I’m talking about. What do you make of sort of this new Republican-Russian alliance as a geopolitical challenge for this White House?
CLAIRE MCCASKILL: Well, it's another norm busting.
WALLACE: Yeah
MCCASKILL: The Republicans that I knew, the Republicans that I knew…
WALLACE: John McCain
MCCASKILL: on the Armed Services Committee, yeah, and Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton and all of them. Marco Rubio. They were all about making sure we had eyes on Russia and that we were doing what we needed to do to hold Putin and his human rights abuses in check.
Now we have a completely different situation. Putin loves Trump because he had his way with him. I mean, for gosh sakes, Trump said publicly to the camera that he believed this ex-KGB despot more than he believed his own intelligence community, which was an extraordinary thing to have happen. It still is shocking to me that that happened and this man was remained as popular as he has remained with the Republican base. So, I do think Richard's right, that the only hand we've really had to play is an economic one, but Putin, what he's going to want to do so try to cause chaos to cause political problems for Biden so that he can get his guy back in. Because make no mistake about it, he wants Trump back in in the worst way because he knows Trump will always do what he wants.
