As Trump Weighs Sanctions Bill, Moscow Expels Diplomats, Trump's Wild Week from Boy Scouts to Chaos to Cursing
BALDWIN: Russia retaliating today after congress passed a new sanctions bill against Moscow, a bill that is right now sitting on the president's desk. Vladimir Putin taking control of several U.S. diplomatic properties and ordering many U.S. diplomats and staff out of the country. But here's the question. Will president Trump sign this bill that cracks down on Russia for meddling in last year's election? The White House has been reluctant, saying it will hurt the president's chances to cooperate with Russia. Ben Judah, author of "Fragile Empire" is back with us today. Ben, nice to see you.</s>BEN JUDAH, AUTHOR OF "FRAGILE EMPIRE:  HOW RUSSIA FELL IN AND OUT OF LOVE WITH PUTIN": Thank you.</s>BALDWIN: Let me just begin with a retaliation. Can you explain the significance of these moves, these sudden moves by the Kremlin?</s>JUDAH: The Kremlin's classic playbook is mirroring retaliation, any sanctions that the United States puts on Russia, it wants to be able to mirror them, to show that it too is a superpower that can bite at what matters to the United States. The problem for Russia is that whilst Russian money and Russian kleptocrats and Russian banks have lots of reasons and lots of interests in the United States, there isn't so much that the U.S. has in Russia that makes it vulnerable to leverage. So, what Putin has done is try and hit on U.S. diplomats and U.S. diplomatic services here. Is it comparable to the effects of the sanctions hitting banks, these sanctions hitting really the funding networks of Russian kleptocrats? Not really.</s>BALDWIN: But if the president goes on and signs this bill, how will Vladimir Putin react to that?</s>JUDAH: What it will mean if the president goes on to sign this bill is that hopes of a reset, hopes of a deal between Trump and Putin are dead. Because the core of this has always been Putin trying to lift sanctions. Why is Putin so desperate to lift sanctions? That's because Russia is a kleptocracy. They will take their money out of Russia and put it abroad and launder it through the wests and what the sanctions have done is limit and freeze a lot of their financial flows so he's desperate to lift them because it harms his partnership with the people around him. Now, this bill, if passed, cements those sanctions. And it means that what Russia's meddling would have given it over the last election cycle in the U.S. is really very little, and it will be fitting in with what I see as a historical pattern of Russian overextension, of overplaying its hand, that we see in the 19th century and we see in actions that precipitated the Cold War.</s>BALDWIN: Well, it's a piece of legislation that is waiting for the president's autograph that had so much support within congress it is veto-proof. Ben Judah, we'll see what the fallout is either way. Coming up next, if your head isn't entirely spinning from this crazy week in Washington, you have not been paying close enough attention. We'll discuss where the Trump administration goes from here.