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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Become a Coast Insider and you can hear this complete conversation,

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Speaker 1: as well as recent shows featuring guests discussing new cases

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Speaker 1: of the troubling cattle mutilation phenomenon, worried some instances of

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Speaker 1: Lost City of Atlantis may have really once existed. Check

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Speaker 1: to Coast to Coast a m dot com and signing

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Speaker 1: up for Coast Insider. Now here's a highlight from Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast AM on iHeart Radio and welcome back to

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast. George nor with you our special guests

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Speaker 1: for the next couple hours. Professor Stephen Cohen, Professor of

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Speaker 1: Russian Studies and History Emeritus at n y U, Professor

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Speaker 1: of Politics Emeritus at Princeton University. He is among the

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Speaker 1: most distinguished scholars of Russian history in the United States.

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Speaker 1: I turned to him quite often for these stories about

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Speaker 1: Russia and the United States. It's and tonight we're going

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Speaker 1: to be talking about as the NATO summit and some

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Speaker 1: other important issues that face all of us. Now, some

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Speaker 1: of you have already sent me emails saying, are you

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Speaker 1: folks going to be pro Trump against her? It's not

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Speaker 1: about that. It is not about that. It is about

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Speaker 1: what is happening on this planet as it affects the

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Speaker 1: United States and subsequently as it affects you and Stephen.

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Speaker 1: We got to get a lot of people to understand that.

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Speaker 1: You said it best. It's not about Trump first and foremost,

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Speaker 1: it's about all of us. Uh, over shadowing and you

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Speaker 1: want to I know you want to talk about NATO,

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Speaker 1: and we should. But the media coverage has been to

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Speaker 1: frame the NATO visit, which was what yesterday and today, Oh,

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Speaker 1: to frame that as the prelude to the meeting with Trump,

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Speaker 1: I mean with Putin on Monday. So there are two

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Speaker 1: have been linked, and probably rightly so. But it's a

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Speaker 1: kind of ominous coverage. As one of your guests before said,

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Speaker 1: the theme is that Trump will sell out our allies.

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Speaker 1: That means the NATO folks to Putin on Monday. That's preposterous.

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Speaker 1: But that is the mainstream media coverage, and I find

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Speaker 1: it hard to deal with I'll tell you why if

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Speaker 1: I could see it up for us and you see

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Speaker 1: what's worth talking about. There's only one advantage of getting older,

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Speaker 1: and that is that you have a memory of history

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Speaker 1: that's relevant that never seems to be considered by the

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Speaker 1: mainstream media. Um Going to see Putin or having a

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Speaker 1: summit by President Trump is anything but unusual. The first

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Speaker 1: summit in history was Franklin Teller and Roosevelt's historic trip

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Speaker 1: to toe during World War Two to meet Stalin. Churchill

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Speaker 1: was there too. Imagine how hard it was for Roosevelt,

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Speaker 1: who could not walk, to make that trip. By playing

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Speaker 1: I think train, boat and car they offered. But that

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Speaker 1: was the first. After that, If I'm not mistaken, every

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Speaker 1: American president had at least one summit meeting with the

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Speaker 1: Kremlin leader Soviet and posts post Soviet and several Clinton,

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Speaker 1: Eisenhower a few others had several such meetings. So what

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Speaker 1: Trump is doing is anything but unusual. It's been done

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Speaker 1: since the dawn of the nuclear age. Primarily to be

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Speaker 1: sure that the United States and Russia, the two nuclear superpowers,

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Speaker 1: don't intentionally or accidentally go to war, has always been

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Speaker 1: the primary purpose. Why do they seem to be and

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about the media now seem to be so

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Speaker 1: into the fact that he's meeting with Russian president like

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Speaker 1: it's a sin. I don't get it. I mean carefully,

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Speaker 1: and though I can't fully explain it, I know what

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Speaker 1: it is. And they also, let me just say this, Stephen.

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Speaker 1: Even before the election, it was as if you can't

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Speaker 1: meet with any foreign leaders when you're running for president.

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Speaker 1: I would think that if I were running for president,

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Speaker 1: i'd want to meet as many other country leaders before

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Speaker 1: the election to try to tell them what my platform is,

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Speaker 1: what I plan to do, and if I'm elected, we

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Speaker 1: know each other already. I don't see anything wrong with that. Well,

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Speaker 1: I gotta disagree with you a little bit on that.

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Speaker 1: There's been the tradition. Maybe it's not a good tradition.

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Speaker 1: Maybe what you say would be a better tradition that

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Speaker 1: when you're running for president you should not meet with

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Speaker 1: foreign leaders because you're trespassing on the legitimate territory of

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Speaker 1: the sitting president. You're saying, essentially to a foreign leader

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Speaker 1: if you meet someone at a party, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't mean that, but I'll sit down. I don't

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Speaker 1: see anything wrong with it. Well, here's what they say.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying, miss Roy, but we should understand it

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Speaker 1: is we're thinking about you're running for president and your

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Speaker 1: credible candidate, you may be president. Before the election, you

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Speaker 1: meet with a foreign leader. Essentially, you're saying without opening

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Speaker 1: your mouth and paying no attention to the current president

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Speaker 1: because you'll be dealing with me in six five too much.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that what Reagan did? Reagan did not, I don't think.

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Speaker 1: But here's where Trump has been falsely accused and in fact,

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Speaker 1: the fact his first national security advisor, General Michael Flynn,

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Speaker 1: I think was bush whacked and to a felony conviction.

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Speaker 1: Once you're elected, you're called president elect. We agree on

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Speaker 1: that that you I agree with that, and it's about

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Speaker 1: what is it two months prior to taking office. During

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Speaker 1: that period, it is considered legitimate to reach out to

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Speaker 1: foreign governments. It's usually called the back door, and in

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Speaker 1: regard to Russia the Soviet Union, every president going back

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Speaker 1: at least to Nixon, possibly the Eisenhower, we aren't sure

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Speaker 1: had a back door to the Kremlin before they after

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Speaker 1: they were elected, but before they became president. Trump is

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Speaker 1: being accused and his sons and his national security advisor

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Speaker 1: of doing something illegal by seeking a back door to Putin.

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Speaker 1: But it was normal. I mean, Kissinger did it for

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Speaker 1: Nixon and actually used a Russian spy and used the

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Speaker 1: Soviet communications network because he didn't trust the American one.

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Speaker 1: So it is well established practice and Trump has got

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Speaker 1: a completely bum rap on this. But I mean, is

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Speaker 1: it illegal to meet with a foreign leader before your elected?

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Speaker 1: It's not illegal, but you know certain things are legal

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Speaker 1: but aren't done. George, you would agree with that. There's

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Speaker 1: a law practice, and I don't think it's a bad idea.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you're running for president, George, and even

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Speaker 1: though it looks like you're gonna win, you can wait

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Speaker 1: until your electoral victory to open your diplomatic lines of

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Speaker 1: contact with foreign states. You still have two months before

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Speaker 1: you take office. It's just it's the messages as science.

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Speaker 1: It's as though, don't pay any attention to who is

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Speaker 1: currently in the White House, even though they may have

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Speaker 1: important foreign policy business to do during the remaining six months.

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Speaker 1: Pay attention to me. That would be a confusing message

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Speaker 1: to send. It's a minor point, and nobody would have

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Speaker 1: paid any attention except for this crazy Russia gate. Because

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Speaker 1: one of the charges against the Trump campaign is that

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Speaker 1: it had back doors to Russia. And it did. But

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Speaker 1: after Trump selection, you remember, ABC mis reported this story

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Speaker 1: and they fired the correspondents the deal this was exactly

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Speaker 1: So this is not a light matter. It's something that

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Speaker 1: has gotten lost in this Russia Gate narrative, which is

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Speaker 1: so full of fictions that every day we have to

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Speaker 1: kind of tap ourselves on the heads talking about has

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Speaker 1: that tainted the upcoming meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin?

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Speaker 1: Now that and that's actually the message I want to

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Speaker 1: deliver to you and your listeners tonight. Now do it

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Speaker 1: very briefly. In my judgment, the relationship between the United

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Speaker 1: States and Russia today is more dangerous than it's ever been,

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Speaker 1: at least since the Cuban missile crisis, and maybe more

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Speaker 1: dangerous than that, because these new Cold War fronts where

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Speaker 1: we're eyeball to eyeball militarily with Russia are fault with war.

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Speaker 1: That would be the Baltic region where NATO is building up.

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Speaker 1: That would be Ukraine, and that would be Syria. So

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Speaker 1: it is exceedingly dangerous. It's imperative, not necessary or good

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Speaker 1: or wise. The imperative that Trump and Putin sit down

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Speaker 1: and try to walk back some of these confrontations. But

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Speaker 1: now comes your point, and this is unprecedented. Even though

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Speaker 1: every American president has had a meeting with the Krimlin leader,

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Speaker 1: none has departed with the charge that he's somehow compromised

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Speaker 1: by or an agent of the Kremlin when he leaves.

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Speaker 1: So no, none has ever been said to be potentially

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Speaker 1: a trader to American interests or to our allies. So

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Speaker 1: this is new. This is the burden Trump carries, and

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Speaker 1: this is the burden he will have to deal with

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Speaker 1: when he tries to agree with Putin to walk back

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Speaker 1: this new Cold war. It unprecedented, it is dramatic, and

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Speaker 1: it could be tragic. Listen to more Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: AM every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go

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Speaker 1: to Coast to Coast am dot com for more