KVH: There is a network, and I do think that a younger generation -- and Steve has found this watching YouTube and others -- there's a younger generation getting their news from alternative sources. We still need to take on the big gatekeepers, because they police and vilify. But come on, I mean, there are openings which I think you know that they exist.
RS: Yes -- OK, I just want to complete the thought, though, of -- I'm talking about individual courage, now, aside from how you build movements. That's what we ask of our intellectuals, of our journalists, of our political spokespersons. I have -- OK, very few people have pointed out -- and by the way, I think Israel has the right to assert its views. I think Netanyahu can come to Congress and say whatever he wants. But it was breaking with tradition. He attacked Obama on his most important foreign policy victory, which was the arms deal with Iran, which I happen to support. I think it would be really unwise to destroy it. OK. However, that's what Israel wanted.
So my last question to you is when I look at this situation, the reason I say it's so nutty, Professor Cohen, it seems to me Putin is the guy who got screwed over whatever he was hoped to be gained by Trump winning. Russia still has sanctions; NATO's still moving very close to their heartland. Arms control agreements are being torn asunder. And so as opposed to, for instance, Israel, which got Trump's foreign policy vis-a-vis Iran, for example, is Netanyahu's policy, what did Putin get from this?
SC: Well, and he's criticized for that. I mean, first of all, the Kremlin did not do anything to help put Trump in the White House. There's zero evidence. Moreover, there are maybe a half a dozen major newspapers in Russia that are close to the Kremlin. So if you want to know what the debates are inside the Kremlin, inside the 30 or 40 people, "the collective Putin" as he's called in Russia, you read these newspapers. And during the electoral presidential campaign in 2016, in these Russian newspapers was a grave uncertainty of which candidate would be better for Russia, Trump or Clinton.
Russia has traditionally preferred the candidate they know, the devil they know. And they assumed that Mrs. Clinton would turn out to be just another American who would talk tough about Russia, but would do business. And they liked her husband. After all, they gave him $500,000 for a speech in Moscow about that time, talk about exchanging money. They worried about Trump; they didn't mind some of the things he said, but they thought he was kind of off the wall and unpredictable. And the Kremlin doesn't like unpredictability, particularly when it's trying to rebuild Russia.
So there's no evidence that they helped Trump; there's not clear evidence that they actually preferred Trump. I mean, this was a debate that went on. So a lot of this is made up in the United States and projected. You used the word "optimist" before; I end by adapting an adage that Russian intellectuals like to use when asked if they're optimist or pessimist about this situation. And they say like this: well, a pessimist thinks things cannot possibly get worse. And an optimist knows they can.
RS: Well, that's a good note on which to end this. I want, first of all, I want to thank Katrina vanden Heuvel for being here, and I want to make it very clear I think The Nation magazine has been the most important political magazine this country has had in its long history. What is it now, a hundred and --
KVH: A hundred and fifty-four years. Thank you, Bob.
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