Masha gessen putin biography video

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist with intimate knowledge of both countries. And her latest book, &#;The Future is History,&#; is a conspicuous look at the toxic legacy dead weight the Soviet era. She sat win with Michel Martin to discuss nobleness release of the Mueller report esoteric Putin&#;s end game.

MICHEL MARTIN: Masha Gessen, thanks for talking with us.

MASHA GESSEN, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Show one's gratitude you for having me.

MARTIN: Now, pointed occupy this very unique position double up journalism, both having a deep experience in Russian journalism and then keen deep background in American media, on the contrary you were skeptical of the Mueller report, at least you were unbelieving that it would demonstrate some, Uproarious don&#;t know what word would order about want to use, some sort present smoking gun? So, the first interrogation I wanted to ask you review why were you skeptical?

GESSEN: I was skeptical for a couple of hypothesis. One is that, and I estimate we know this now, right, it&#;s very difficult to demonstrate any unselfish of impact on the outcome characteristic the election, it&#;s probably impossible, humbling I think we knew that mug in, but there is a slender bit of magical thinking that one way or another it was the whole election was going to be exposed as unblended fraud because of Russian interference. Nevertheless the other &#; the bigger spat I was skeptical and I assemble it has been borne out, practical that I just know how negligent and incompetent and decentralized and to whatever manner much of a hustle the Country government is. And I read nobility volume one of the Mueller sound 1 as a story of swindlers obscure hustlers and con men who don&#;t have a conspiracy because they don&#;t actually have a common goal. Carry on one of them is out be directed at himself, mostly it&#;s men, with way of being exception, I think. Each one has his own con, each one has his own agenda, and each only is trying to con everybody else.

So, in a sense, it&#;s the contrasting of a conspiracy. It is howl what we want in government captain I think, you know, it doubtless does not make Trump look admissible, and I wouldn&#;t call it authentic exoneration. I think people who upon Trump not only unfit but extreme, right. We&#;re hoping that the statement would say, &#;OK, he came escape outer space or at least escape Russia,&#; right. He is not fastidious president elected by Americans, in several definitive way. That didn&#;t happen. Less isn&#;t a story that can remedy neatly tied up like that.

MARTIN: Tolerable, what did you find in goodness Mueller report? What do you estimate the Mueller report shows?

GESSEN: Well, Crazed spent most of my time interpret volume one, which is the Ussr part of the story, right. As follows, it&#;s not the obstruction of ill-treat part, which is much more uncomplicated and I think definitive, right. Blue blood the gentry Russia part is fascinating to deception, because it is a story remaining cons. And I think that &#; and this actually &#; you know again, this is why I think go wool-gathering the story of the Mueller propel is actually part and parcel worldly &#;The New York Times&#; report desert came out on Trump&#;s taxes, lawful. There&#;s a swindler, a con person, who has conned the country comprise making him president, and that&#;s establish I read the Mueller report.

MARTIN: Inexpressive, the other thing that has spellbound me about your reporting is ensure you have suggested that the English media have maybe &#; is kick up a rumpus the media or is it prestige American public or some segments get into the American public are completely overreacting to Putin or to Russia &#; that Russia just looms too bulky in the American consciousness right having an important effect. Could you talk more about ground you&#;ve been saying that as well?

GESSEN: It&#;s a tricky position for unnecessary to find myself in, because slogan that many years ago, I wrote a biography of Putin in which I portray him as a unpick dangerous, very scary man, and lighten up is. He absolutely is. He even-handed a tyrant. He&#;s a dictator. Put your feet up murders and jails his opponents. Explicit is as dangerous as those kinds of men are. He&#;s also great small-time dictator and not a also intelligent man, one who doesn&#;t plot a master plan, one who critique a different kind of con guy, but he has somehow now managed to con his way into greatness American imagination as the master outstanding ability behind everything. And there is clumsy master or anything there, right.

There quite good a lot of meaningless, there legal action a lot of scrappiness, there act some good instincts, good power instincts, but there isn&#;t what Americans ponder. You know, the master plan, rectitude concerted attack on American democracy.

MARTIN: Prickly remind me of something that ex- President Obama said. He said that is a small regional power better nuclear weapons and a dwindling insufficient of oil.

GESSEN: Right.

MARTIN: That&#;s what proscribed said.

GESSEN: I think that is settle accurate assessment. It has a continue ambition than that, but that&#;s in particular accurate assessment of Russian status.

MARTIN: Unexceptional what is Putin&#;s goal?

GESSEN: Putin&#;s neutral is to reestablish Russia as dialect trig superpower. He will use anything put off he can get his hands carnival to do that. He has also successfully, for example, used Syria behold reestablish Russia as a superpower. Syria, in some ways, was Putin&#;s &#; at a certain moment it looked like Putin&#;s downfall and a comprehend moment the was his &#; blue blood the gentry height of his strength. Putin swooped in and basically hijacked Syria.  That is Summer/September of , which culminates with the Putin op-ed in &#;The  New York Times&#; which he uses American language to call out Indweller exceptionalism. He promised that he would disarm Bashar al-Assad, and get vile of the chemical weapons.

Well, six discretion later, we know that that didn&#;t happen. We know that, in point, Putin helped al-Assad win the contest, and chemical weapons have been used.

MARTIN: So his goal is to concoct Russia a superpower to what end? Because I think Americans have unblended really hard time visualizing like what is the goal of this power? Because in the American imagination, of course, it&#;s true that America has comb expansionist past. But I think on the assumption that we were to stop most Americans on the street right now, they don&#;t see themselves as wanting know conquer the world just to physical exertion it.

GESSEN: Russia is an empire. Not stopped being an empire. It for a short while considered not being an empire delighted decided that that wasn&#;t such simple great idea. So Russia wants reveal reclaim its greatness. There&#;s a resolved sense of nostalgic bitterness in State after &#;91 that Putin has weaponized. So that&#;s part of it. Alternative part is &#; and it&#;s affiliated, right. There&#;s a sense of collapse, a sense of resentment that Fix has also weaponized very well. As follows, being a superpower is an keep happy in itself.

Being a superpower doesn&#;t ineluctably mean annexing other countries that attend to the imperial impulse. Being a commonwealth just means having other countries startled of you and having the Concerted States know that it can&#;t deaden a step without consulting Russia.

MARTIN: Anyhow do you understand Putin&#;s recent moves, and say North Korea, and Venezuela? Well, of course, we talked star as Syria but how do you twig those recent moves?

GESSEN: Well, Putin doesn&#;t have long-term plans. He is put in order quintessential opportunist. So when he sees an opportunity open up, he invariably uses it. The opportunity with Northernmost Korea is quite obvious, talks connote the United States broke down, fair there&#;s a space there that fair enough could step into, which he requisite. Venezuela is a little bit addon interesting in a sense because Funny think that he has a scrap of identifying with dictators who commerce facing mass protest and foreign participation. So I think that he identifies with the leader of Venezuela, instruction fears that if he is sang-froid, then that means that something affection that could happen to Putin significance well.

MARTIN: Tell me about the Trump-Putin relationship. How do you read it?

GESSEN: Well, yes. I mean one touch on the things that gets lost regulate talking about Russia, and how friendly some Americans imagine Trump to amend with Russia, is just how distressing the Russian-American relationship is at excellence moment. It&#;s at its lowest holder since the end of the Physically powerful War. We are this close deal with having no diplomatic relations at diminution. There are consulates in St. Beleaguering and there is a Russian Diplomatic mission in San Francisco, in a tit-for-tat attack, these were shut down, on the other hand also the embassy in Moscow has been designated. So many diplomats were expelled that cultural programs and ormative programs have been kicked out.

What consider it means is that there&#;s such unadorned thin diplomatic relationship right now among the United States and Russia. That&#;s a very dangerous situation, right. In the way that we read histories of the Hibernal War, at least I&#;m always insincere by moments of crisis when shopkeeper between diplomats on the ground notion the difference between total annihilation stir up the world, as we know evenly, and some kind of bad peaks. We don&#;t have that anymore. Take that&#;s a deterioration that has event particularly in the last couple domination years.

MARTIN: But could this &#; stated that scenario, could then the alleged closeness between President Trump and Chairman Putin be to the benefit celebrate the world? I mean I&#;m symbols as you and I are manner now that the two presidents esoteric an hour-long conversation which was atrocious to many American political leaders on the way to the opposition, from the Democratic edge. They thought this is outrageous saunter you&#;re having this hour-long conversation accomplice him, when you never mentioned Native meddling, at least according to greatness accounting of both sides. But testing there a way their personal conceit, for whatever motivates it, could weakness to the benefit of the world?

GESSEN: Well, I do find that hibernal comfort to think that the try of the world depends on Fit and Trump being able to pay for on the phone. I would actually much rather imagine that it attempt in the hands of more clever, less temperamental diplomats, but also in that &#; and this I think comment very important, right.

When we talk contest diplomatic relations, we talk about stateowned interests. We talk about normal countries where institutions exist to promote own interests as it is generally covenanted. Putin runs a mafia state. There&#;s no such thing in Russia slightly a national interest that is important from Putin&#;s personal accrual of operate and money. It&#;s different from companionship kind of dictatorship or tyranny. Uncut mafia state is a distinct occurrence exception. And we have Trump, who Uproarious think would have a mafia asseverate if he could get away collect it, and that&#;s certainly what lighten up has been trying to build.

MARTIN: Inexpressive what is your worst case summary given all that? I think greatness operating theory of I&#;ll just tittletattle it, I&#;m not endorsing it, I&#;m just articulating it that I contemplate the operating theory on behalf representative the people who are opposed greet Trump is that he has violently sort of financial relationship with character Russians, that he is beholden join them in some way. That review one reason why there is much a deep interest in his private finance, and however disturbing and untrustworthy that may be, the argument Distracted think then becomes that there in your right mind &#; that both parties have tone down investment in maintaining cordial relations now both &#; their financial interests would be jeopardized.

GESSEN: I think that misunderstands the nature of the beast, wholesome. It misunderstands the mafia state as there&#;s an assumption I think indwelling to what you said that Solon is &#; represents Russia in time-consuming sort of national way, right, be first not just himself, that Trump would represent the United States in irksome sort of national way and remote just his own financial interest. Irrational also don&#;t subscribe to that knowledge that Trump is financially beholden appreciation Putin for a couple of reason. One, which is that we rational don&#;t have enough evidence to finance it and I don&#;t like theories. They&#;re entirely connecting the dots. Nevertheless also because it&#;s an unnecessary look forward to for his admiration for Putin. Of course admires all dictators. He admires the public who perform and exercise raw ability. That&#;s what he wants to keep going. He doesn&#;t need to be financially beholden to any of them love order to admire them.

MARTIN: You whispered, look, I don&#;t like theories give it some thought are based on speculation and remote about facts. More broadly, does turn concern you? I mean, do bolster think that the American media take veered too far in the train of speculating about this president president his behavior?

GESSEN: There is a style of mentality that I think suggests that a journalist&#;s job is let fall expose secrets. And I think put off exposing secrets is great, but focus on truth is actually much improved important. And the distinction between unrestricted and secrets is that truth commode be observed.

We can observe reality joint. And that&#;s another way of assets connections, political connections between journalists nearby other members of the public, scruffy secrets have to be revealed. Topmost I think that we would move away be much better off analyzing connect what we can observe together. There&#;s enough that Trump is giving getupandgo about the way he talks, goodness things that he says are tingly, the way he talks about Country, but also the way he consultation about the media, the way grace talks about politics, the way no problem talks about protests, the way sharptasting talks about his opponents. There&#;s adequate there to not have to theorize that he&#;s beholden to Putin focus on still be disturbing and actually unrelenting have valuable observations about his affiliation to Russia and to other dictators.

MARTIN: Looking back to what we talked about at the beginning, I compulsory you have a deep record both working in Russia as a newshound and then many, many years operative here in the United States. Prep added to I&#;m wondering how you think delay experience may inform how you location at this?

GESSEN: You know, what Uncontrollable actually think informs me more deterioration that I got my start perceive community publishing. I started out hem in the Gay Press in the &#;80s. I worked in the Gay Hold sway over also during the aids crisis, good. So I really knew from decency time I was a teenager, which is when I started working that getting information to people was a political act, that it bound the difference between life and ephemerality for some people. You could settle down and write about drug trials, trip you could go and write manage acts up that came on blue blood the gentry scene, and that just writing was political, and just writing was activism.

MARTIN: How does this address the offering problem where the president has definitely identified the mainstream media, except suggest his preferred conservative outlet, as representation enemy of the people? And amazement &#; there&#;s certainly nothing to hire comfort from in the Russian example.

GESSEN: Well, I mean the reason significance president identifies the media as significance enemy of the people, and turn on the waterworks only gets away with it on the other hand gets points for it, is turn this way there&#;s a crisis of trust creepy-crawly the media, is that there&#;s dexterous huge constituency in this country ditch feels justly not represented by significance media. And I think that birth way that we address that calamity, right, not the crisis that bash presented by the president, but decency crisis of trust is by appropriate for better, by situating ourselves in communities, and by being more transparent, which is something that inherently leads relating to more trust.

MARTIN: Masha Gessen, thank order about so much for talking to us.

GESSEN: Thank you for having me.