60 Minutes
- It seems that at his meeting with Trump at the G20 summit, Putin ultimately captured the heart of the American president. Now, it's safe to say that Trump is ours. He hasn't really figured out what to do though.
Turkey's still causing him a headache. The NATO-member country is about to get (not for free, of course) the wonderful and promising S-400 from Russia.
- No big deal. Trump's made up his mind: He wants the Independence Day parade to be exactly like Russian parades. Once again, imagine this: The Independence Day parade in the United States of America will feature tanks and aircraft, just like in Russia on May 9th. And we vividly recall the Americans telling us that military parades are for dictatorships like North Korea, Iran, and, naturally, our great country.
- That means France is also a dictatorship.
- But that's not all, Trump also wants to introduce policies similar to those of his counterpart Vladimir Putin. That's a serious statement. "I want everything that Putin has," says Trump. Let's hear it.
Donald Trump, President of the USA: "We're going to have a great 4th of July in Washington. We've never had an Independence Day like this before. This one will be special. Many, many, many people are coming. We'll have aircraft flying, the world's best fighter jets, and other aircraft as well. We'll have tanks on the streets, the newest Sherman and Abrams tanks. We'll have other military equipment on display, the newest and the best. We want to get out of a lot of areas where our troops aren't supposed to be. We are the world's police. If you look at Russia, you'll see that they don't aim to bring order to the whole world. They put things right in their own country."
- How's that possible, Mr. Ordukhanyan? Nekrasov even turned away when Trump was talking about parades. That's how disappointed he got.
- That's right, I despise parades.
Raphael Ordukhanyan, political analyst: I remember asking my American colleagues and my students what do they associate the word "parade" with. Russians associate it with the Victory Parade and military parades. You may guess what Americans associate the word with. I hope those won't be pride parades because that was the first association of my American friends. Who knows, we may be on the verge of a fateful moment.
Alexey Zhuravlyov, member of State Duma: It'll be a colorful one.
- We don't care much for their gay pride parades.
- They'll finally raise a generation of men.
Alexey Zhuravlyov, member of State Duma: In fact, he announced it back in 2017 when he attended the Bastille Day parade in Paris. He said, "We also need a parade." He should come to Russia on May 9th.
- We've invited him.
- It would be so cool. Well, my colleague was right to point out that our parades are quite different. When we celebrate Victory Day, every kid knows what it's about. It's not about flexing our muscles, "look at us, we're so mighty." That's not the point. We hold it to make sure no one forgets about what happened 75 years ago. We'll never forget that. That's what the parade is about. I'm not sure what the 4th of July is about. It's probably about being the coolest and strongest.
- It's a major holiday in America.
- Right, but that's what it's about. It's about America's greatness. That's the primary difference. And just in case, regarding bases, they have 587 bases outside of the United States.
- Maybe they'll close a couple.
- Like hell they will.
- Trump the isolationist.
- He's been talking about withdrawing from Afghanistan for a while now but hasn't yet fully withdrawn. Americans begin getting annoyed, "You spent two trillion dollars on Afghanistan, for that money you could've coated the country in gold and fixed our economy." But now, they need bases and military might instead. Ukraine's also worth $300 million. Was that money allocated to fix its economy? Nah.
- Their economy's doing fine though.
- That's what their policies are about.
- The key phrase was the last one, right, Mr. Zhavoronkov? I'm talking about him saying that instead of fixing the world he wants to fix his country like Russia does.
Sergey Zhavoronkov, political analyst: I'd like to point out that Trump didn't promise to withdraw troops from anywhere in his speech, including Afghanistan. He said, "We have reduced our forces very substantially in Afghanistan." He said that during his term, the personnel went down from 16,000 to 9,000. But he didn't promise to leave. He didn't promise to leave Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, Europe, Japan, or South Korea. By the way, he said that perhaps the U.S. will leave Syria. But he said that about eight months ago.
- He didn't say perhaps, he promised to leave.
- Well, the happy day still hasn't come yet. And I believe that it's not about to. Trump…
- Are you telling us that it was another lie by the US president?
- Trump has a need to tell his voters that he'll be spending more money on American domestic issues and less money on foreign issues. The other option is to make his NATO allies pay for that, which he's been successfully doing. Seven European nations have begun allocating 2% of their GDP. France and Germany promise to reach that level by 2023-2024. His primary goal is to save costs on the American budget and allocate the money for American domestic issues. He's not closing US bases all over the world because he's such a pacifist and is strictly against having bases anywhere.
- So he's not another Woodrow Wilson?
- He ultimately won't close any bases. He may optimize them and so on. That's the right thing to do, by the way. Back in 2011, when Obama withdrew troops from Iraq, America triumphed, "Look, he's finally withdrawing the troops as he promised." A year later, ISIS appeared there. Right where the US troops used to be.
- If they hadn't invaded Iraq, ISIS wouldn't have appeared.
- Nothing similar to ISIS appears where America has military bases. Trump realizes that. In his speech, he called Afghanistan a "Harvard for terrorists." He also said…
- It's still like that. There was an explosion this morning that killed 32 people. The Americans haven't changed and won't change anything there.
- How many Syrians die every day? What do you mean by "won't."
- Afghanistan's gotten better than it used to be, frankly speaking.
- If Afghanistan was what it used to be it would be a terrorist center…
- America illegally fought terrorists, and ISIS in particular, in Syria and couldn't win.
- What do you mean it couldn't?
- That's exactly what I mean. They couldn't win. They were there illegally and couldn't do anything.
- They took Raqqa, though. The Iraqi troops liberated Mosul with American air support.
- Killing all civilians!
- And you claim they didn't win.
- I'm sorry, but what about Trump? Realizing that what he's doing may be bad for winning over his voter base, he's forced to admit that America interferes in everything and that it never ends well. That's what the American president just told us.
- He says that America will deploy fewer troops abroad.
- No, the American president said that American interfered with everything and instead of doing that, it should deal with its domestic issues like the Russian president does.
- Did he promise to withdraw troops? He didn't.
- The US president admitted that his interference…
- He didn't say that.
- ...never ends well. He proposed to minimize engagement. That means he admitted. — "Minimize" is the word.
- Minimize, yes.
- Because it's expensive and pointless.
- That he didn't say.
Alexander Klyukin, political analyst: I've got this idea I'd like to share. Trump said a lot. He also said a lot during his election campaign. He said a couple of the right things this time. But remember what happened after Putin and Trump met in Helsinki? Instant sanctions. The mainstream media was demonizing him. I'm afraid the same thing's going to happen now. He won't withdraw anybody. He won't be able to do anything. He may still hold the parade, that's something he can control. I'd like to remind you that the United States held its last parade in 1991 after the victory in the Persian Gulf. They enjoyed that war. You compare our parade to their parade, which is supposed to be against militarization. In fact (it's been repeatedly mentioned here), that the history's different, the victories are different. The price of each victory is different. That's why our parade will always be beautiful. It would be great if he came here to see it.
- We'd like to draw your attention to the fact that while Trump was fighting terrorists he completely destroyed both cities, Mosul and Raqqa. Do you still believe that was his great victory?
- And who destroyed Aleppo?
- Nobody! Nobody destroyed Aleppo! Nobody destroyed Aleppo. Raqqa and Mosul were wiped off the face of the earth.
- The same thing happened to Aleppo.
- There's nothing left in those two.
- It's the same in Aleppo, go check on the internet.
- You go check on the internet. There's not a single building left intact.
Raphael Ordukhanyan, political analyst:
- The current population of Aleppo has reached its pre-war level. What are you talking about? What do you mean "destroyed"? Destroyed by who?
- Why are there so many people then?
- What are you talking about? Nobody removed the corpses. The Financial Times wrote about that. You can compare the two operations. No hospital or clinic was built there. And that wasn't an isolated case, it's a tradition. Go ask any Afghan. They say that the Soviet troops came there to build. The Americans only destroy things. Take a look at the current state of Afghanistan. Who's responsible for the Afghan drug traffic? It's being done intentionally by the Americans, in order to harm Russia.
- The drug traffic's been there for about 50 years.
- That's incorrect, to say the least.
- When the Taliban was there, the drugs were gone. There wasn't a single gram.
- Right, the Taliban were the good guys, sure.
- Let's trust the American president, he may decide to be like Putin.
