The Putin Interviews (2017): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript

The plot thickens this morning,

with US officials telling ABC News

that Russian President Putin
was directly involved

in the hacking of the Democratic
National Committee.

We have said repeatedly
over the last two months

that our source
is not the Russian government.

Vladimir Putin himself directed
the covert cyberattacks.

- Do you respect Putin?
- I do respect him.

Do you? Why? Putin's a killer.

There are a lot of killers. What,
you think our country's so innocent?

- Hello.
- How are you?



Mr. President.
Nice to see you again.

I thought maybe you could sit over there?

Okay. - And I'll sit here, and we'll see.

Play it by ear a little bit.

And we'll improvise.

No rules about this one.

Yes!

For over 40 years,
the United States led the West

in the struggle against Communism

and the threat it posed
to our most precious values.

This struggle shaped the lives
of all Americans.

It forced all nations to live

under the specter of nuclear destruction.

That confrontation is now over.



I think a lot of Western people
don't know much about you.

We'd like to know about your background,

and where you came from.

I know that you were born in October 1952,

after the war,

that your mother was a factory worker,

and your father had been in the war.

And I know that you lived
in a collective apartment

with other families as you grew up.

Doing what exactly?

He was wounded in the war, though?

I heard he had a bit of
juvenile delinquency problems.

He was a bit of a wild child

until he studied judo at the age of 12.

You, uh, graduated from, uh, high school

and I believe you went
directly to law school.

That's the Russian system?

And met your first wife there?

You last wife.
I mean, your only wife.

And then you joined the KGB
right away in '75?

1975. Yeah, you joined,
in Leningrad.

Oh, you were s... You had no choice?

And you had romanticized of course this...

There's the Soviet films
about the KGB and intelligence.

You went to Dresden in 1985 through 1990.

But the first 10 years, uh,
you were mostly in Leningrad.

East Germany in 1985
to '90 was pretty dismal.

It was a strange time.

Did you go back to Moscow?
Did you experience perestroika?

But these are Gorbachev's ideas,

so you were influenced by Gorbachev.

The Soviet Union collapsed

and the Russian Federation
was formed with Yeltsin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You moved to Moscow in 1996.

And you became the head of the
Federal Security Bureau for 13 months.

So, in that role, you must
have seen what a mess this was.

I gather, there was a nightmare of chaos.

In October 1993, Russia
was on the brink of civil war...

with parliament deputies on one side

and Boris Yeltsin
and his supporters on the other.

Yeltsin, who controlled tank divisions,

would give the order to fire
directly at the parliament building

with shells pounding the offices
of the Supreme Soviet chairman

and the vice president
who sided with the deputies.

Two days of street fighting
left hundreds dead and injured.

The United States continues to stand
firm in its support of President Yeltsin

because he is Russia's
democratically elected leader.

And in 1999, you worked your
way up to acting prime minister.

And Yeltsin resigned in 2000.

Just looking at, uh, press
conferences and film of Mr. Yeltsin,

it was clearly, uh, alcohol, uh, disease.

His brain seemed to be...

The way he spoke, and the
way he... he stared at the camera,

the way he moved,
he looked like he was catatonic.

So, here you are,

many prime ministers come and go,

and all of a sudden,

wow, you're the acting prime minister.

Now what?

You refused? Why is that?

Change his life, in what way?

I mean, he's already been a bureaucrat

in the government for a long time.

Oh, really?

What would you do?

Yeah, but did you see his...

Did he see his children
during this period and his wife?

And, uh, did you wake up at four
in the morning? Did you ever sleep?

Really?

No nightmares?

This is a discipline from the from
military, from your KGB experience?

Your theory of life, they say is
summed up in the philosophy of judo?

Not too complicated.

You have a lot of discipline, sir.

Okay. Well, then,
we're in 2000 now.

You've become president.
The vote was 53 percent.

You're not expected to last.

You're president of a country
which is in a dark time.

Chechenya War is going on,
it looks very bad.

One side says that it is
fighting against terrorism,

the other side says it is
fighting for independence.

And all the while, bodies line
the street amid the rubble of war.

This is not the Middle East.

This is the break-way
Russian Republic of Chechnya,

little mentioned, but no less horrifying.

You're credited with, uh, doing
many fine things in your first term.

You built up industries,

electronics, engineering,
petrochemical, agriculture.

You raised the GDP, you raised the income.

You reformed the army.

The privatization was stopped.

A real son of Russia.

The oligarchs took... underestimated him.

And when he became president,
they didn't think he would last.

He cut the poverty rate by two-thirds.

Respect for the old people, pensions.

In 2000, 700 rubles was the average income,

in 2012, 29,000 rubles.

Immensely popular in 2004,

he's reelected with 70 percent of the vote.

And 2008, because, uh,
two terms are only allowed,

you become the prime minister.

Well, you worked hard when
you were prime minister too.

And in 2012, you run for president,

and you win by 63 percent?

Yeah, you're right.

Three times president. Five
assassination attempts, I'm told.

Not as much as Castro,
who I've interviewed.

I think he must've had 50,

but, uh, there's a legitimate
five I've heard about.

In other words, you trust your security,

and they've done a great job.

Because, always,
the first mode of assassination,

you try to get inside the
security of the... of the president.

What is your fate, sir?

Have you... Do you know?

To die in bed, maybe.

You've had a tough day.

It's been a while.
Nice to see you.

I think, uh, last June was the, uh...

was the last time I saw you.

You miss me?

I'm sure you cried about other things.

Uh, excuse me, I just feel asleep upstairs.

Uh, I caught up on my jet lag.

How was your day?

Holy cow! Well, you didn't have
a cabinet meeting then, did you?

There was... I'm told there was

a national security council
kind of meeting?

I see.
A crisis or anything?

Well, I'm just asking, 'cause I'm curious,

'cause we're normally scheduled
at 3:00 p. m.,

and it's six hours and forty minutes later.

No, but I'm saying there's always...

there are crises that come up?

There are things that aren't scheduled?

Uh, that goes to my bigger question,

'cause my producer who's here, Fernando,

we were talking about you earlier,

and he said, you are an excellent CEO,

uh, Chief Executive Officer of a company...

Russia is your company.

You kick the tires,
you deal with these problems,

and you try to solve them on the spot.

Let's say the problem is this,
and you go into the detail here,

and the detail sometimes gets
smaller, and you do a micro-detail,

and the micro-detail has another
micro-detail, and before you know it,

you've lost the forest
for the trees, as they say.

That can be very irritating. You
could probably go to bed at night,

not having solved some of these
things, and it really drives you nuts.

He says he needs to complete something?

Which bring us to the... a large problem,

which is he's been doing this
as a president, prime minister,

and now president again, for 15 years.

I'm sure he knows
the story of Ronald Reagan,

one of the most admired presidents...
by conservatives... in my country.

He was famous for sticking to his schedule,

which required him,
on most nights, to come home,

in the White House by six o'clock,

and have an early supper
and watch TV with his wife.

That is my point,
is that he was a smiley man.

He was a great greeter and meeter.

He was very happy eating jelly beans

and telling a good joke.

Though Reagan was a big believer
in delegating authority,

to everyone around him.

I'm just trying to make
that example because...

it's another way of living.

Well, it seems to me,
you're doing it the hard way.

Well, Reagan would disagree.

He would say the country America was broke,

and that it needed to be fixed,

and it was morning in America again,

and it was his job to bring
in positive energy to America.

And he did a pretty good job
of making that feeling.

It's a feeling.
It's an illusion.

Well, uh, actually, some people would argue

that Reagan made America more broke

because the debt grew enormously.

I forgot.

Russia's one, right?

Eighteen trillion, US?

And about one trillion, Russia.

The food prices went up 20 percent in 2015,

and, uh, inflation
was running at 13 percent.

- 12.9 percent to be more precise.
- Okay. Okay.

What is the Russian Central Bank about?

What is that doing?

I thought you had nothing outstanding.

You had no debts to the IMF, I'm told.

Aah, you know, you still talk as
if the IMF is a partner of Russia's.

You act as if Wall Street
wants Russia to succeed,

and I question that.

And I would ask you,

is Wall Street actively working
to destroy the Russian economy,

in the interest of the United States?

That is the throne of the tzar

and the throne for the tzarina... Yeah.

...and also for the
dowager empress. Yeah.

You know, they say
that you want to be tzar.

This is, uh, you know,
that you're the new tzar.

They put magazine covers out there...

You laugh, right?

Yeah.

But you allowed, uh,
Charlie Rose to make a point

when he said, you have all the power,

you can do what you want.

He made that very clear, and then...

Because that's the way
many Americans think,

that there's no system here.

And, uh, you didn't correct him.

You, you...

Excuse, excuse me.

Well, then you should
shoot the interpreter too...

That's why we say that.

Was it you?
Yeah...

I don't think he understood the
question that Rose was leading him to.

I mean, in other words, in English,
it sounded like he wants the tzar,

and he took it for granted
that he was tzar.

Some have called you a tzar.

So what? You know,
people call me different names.

Well, does the name fit?

Do you ever lose it?

He says, you're so irrational

every time you're asked a question,

do you ever like have a day,
like a bad day? And...

Is that right?

There you go.
Now you're going to insult

50 percent of the American public.

The way they're gonna take it.

I know.

So a woman to you is a...
tends to be more emotional?

You don't want to have your emotions
ever cut in and control your reasoning?

- Question to, uh,
- President Bush.

Is this a man that Americans can trust?

Uh, I'll answer the question.

I looked the man in the eye.

I found him to be very
straightforward and trustworthy.

Now, we had a very good dialogue.

I was able to, uh...
get a sense of his soul.

What did you sense when he was saying that?

And on 9/11, you were one of the...

you were one of the first to call him

and offer him condolences and cooperation.

When President Bush,
invaded Afghanistan, uh,

President Putin cooperated
with the, uh, invasion

and set up bases
in the Caucasus and Eurasia,

in order for the Americans
to supply line Afghanistan.

And continued to do so until recently.

Russia has a long history in Afghanistan.

So how come you guys did not
figure out where Bin Laden was,

and what was really happening
with Bin Laden?

Not just where he was, but...

how weak the Al Qaeda base was
at this point in Afghanistan.

Bill Casey, director of the CIA
under Ronald Reagan,

made it a special effort

to excite the Muslims

in the Caucasus in Central Asia
against the Soviet Union.

His plan was bigger than just to
defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

His plan was basically regime
change in the Soviet Union.

In his mind, what was the most
dangerous moment in the Chechen Wars?

The first one,
the second one? What years?

The US support was covert.

You say you have evidence that
they were supporting the Chechens.

I think the administration has
adopted a hands-off attitude,

repeating like a mantra that
this is an internal Russian affair,

which in effect legitimated
the Russian action.

And then on top of it,
senior administration spokesmen

have engaged in a vilification
of the Chechens.

And, uh, all this while they're fighting
the war against terror in Afghanistan?

It seems like contradictory
behavior, and strange behavior.

I guess the letter is top secret,
so, it's not available for viewing?

Today we welcome

Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic,

finally erasing
the boundary line the Cold War

artificially imposed
on the continent of Europe,

strengthening an alliance that now clearly

is better preserved to keep the peace

and preserve our security
into the 21st century.

Our goal is to help to build a Europe

that is undivided, free,

democratic, at peace, and secure.

Today we proudly welcome

Bulgaria...

...Estonia...

...Latvia...

...Lithuania...

...Romania...

...Slovakia...

and Slovenia.

We welcome them into the ranks

of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

This is a special moment

in the hopeful story of human liberty,

as America formally declares
its support for Albania

and Croatia's entry into NATO.

What I've heard
from Mr. Gorbachev

as well as American officials,
including James Baker,

there was a, a deal with the Soviet Union

not to expand NATO eastward.

So this was a clear violation.

And right now the Warsaw Treaty
has faded into oblivion.

There is no Soviet Union.

Under the rules of NATO,
I believe you'd have to share

all your nuclear information
with the United States.

Yeah. Right.

Right.

The old Soviets were always
very realistic about American policy.

They always tried to understand
the intentions of the Americans.

I don't know if those think tanks still
exist here. I would imagine they do,

that Mr. Putin gets very
accurate assessments about

what United States' intentions are.

Has this ever stopped?

Has this attitude of the US ever stopped,

that they had an enemy in Russia?

Whether it was Communism
or whether it was Putinism

or whether it was any form, it
was just the concept of an enemy.

It raises the question of,

you know, the broader question,
of what is the US policy?

What is its strategy in the world?

In the whole world?

Well, uh, I can state it for
you, and you can argue with me.

That's one thing, I could say I think

or many learned people think
that US strategy

right now is to destroy
the Russian economy,

bring it back to 1990s' levels.

And change the leadership of Russia.

Make a new ally out of Russia
for the United States,

and basically, dominate
Russia, as they once did.

And perhaps did not... they
feel they did not go far enough

and take your nuclear arsenal
away from Russia.

I understand that Russia will not give up.

They will go to the end on
this economy. Under Stalin,

they gave their jewelry.

They gave their personal
possessions down to their last dollar

to support the government
against the Nazis.

We have the US elections in this year,

and none of these issues,

uh, the environment, fixing our alliances

has even been discussed one time.

Everything in
the election rhetoric has been

get tough, be tougher,
build up our military again,

and in addition to that...

And that goes for both sides,
that includes Hillary Clinton,

who's most definitely become
a neoconservative, a hawk,

strong policies against Russia.

She was certainly for the
Syrian intervention, and so forth.

And we have to send
a very clear message to Putin

that this kind of belligerence,

this kind of testing of boundaries

will have to be responded to.

In addition to that, the Pentagon
has announced recently,

this new general has announced that Russia is
the number one threat to the United States.

He's been very forceful
in those statements.

If you want to talk about
a nation that could pose

an existential threat to the United States,

I'd have to point to Russia.

If you look at their behavior,
it's nothing short of alarming.

Do you ever see him?

Yeah.

He has an opinion of his own
and some things...