Menendez: Putin must be thinking his 2016 investment paid off

Judy Woodruff:

And for a different view, I spoke with Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey. He's the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

We began with his overall take on the day's developments.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.:

Well, just an incredible moment in which an American president acts more as a supplicant than the leader of the free world, who, on foreign soil, basically disputes the decisions of his intelligence community, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee vote as well that made it very clear that Russia interfered in our election.

And instead of challenging President Putin and say, I know that you were involved in our elections, you have 12 intelligence officers that have been indicted, and there are consequences for that, he basically accepts Putin's excuse.

It's just unimaginable. So Putin must be standing there saying to himself, you know, my investment in 2016 really paid off.

Judy Woodruff:

The president did tweet, Senator, later this afternoon. Among other things, he said, "As I said today and many times before, I have great confidence in my intelligence people," but then he goes on to say, "We can't exclusively focus on the past. As the world's two largest nuclear powers, we must get along."

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.:

Well, what the president misses here, of course we'd like to have a good relationship with Russia and, for that fact, with any other country.

The problem is, you can only have good relationships if you share values. We do not share the value of undermining democracies, not only in the United States, but across Europe, by cyber-attacks that the Russian Federation has created.

We do not ultimately share values when you invade a sovereign country like Ukraine, take over and annex Crimea and continue to disrupt in Eastern Ukraine through Russian forces. We do not share values when you are creating a humanitarian disaster in Syria by propping up the butcher Assad.

So those are not the values we share. And so, instead of being chummy with Putin, he has to challenge Putin. And I'm seriously concerned that we haven't even seen the effects of what this meeting will ultimately bring with the two-hour session that we know nothing about.

Judy Woodruff:

What did you make of President Putin saying, well, look, the U.S. intel — he said, you can send your people over to pursue this investigation. You can come inside my government and try to get to the bottom of this.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.:

Well, first, he said he would send people over here. And that would be like having, you know, those who committed the crime be actually involved in trying to investigate it, or for us to send people and watch them interrogate their people.

Really? Really? Do we really believe that there's going to be any serious interrogation of Russian intelligence officers that were directed by Vladimir Putin, from my perspective?

Putin was KGB. He is KGB at his heart. He understands that using the new frontier of cyber-attacks is the new battle. And so for us to think that he's going to actually engage in a transparent process, where those who have been indicted by the special counsel as a representative of the Justice Department is going to be a way to seek justice?

No. He needed to say, you need to extradite those 12 individuals and face justice in an American court under the rule of law.

Judy Woodruff:

Bottom line, Senator, do you think long-lasting damage was done today?

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.:

I believe the president did incredible damage to the integrity of our national intelligence agencies, to the credibility of the United States in the Western world.

He went through our allies and gave them all the back of the hand and he gave a warm embrace to Putin. The Western world must be shocked at what transpired. The message to other entities in the world is, you can violate the international order, and there will be little consequence at the end of the day.

And that is a very dangerous message for the United States and for the free world.

Judy Woodruff:

Senator Robert Menendez, we thank you very much.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.:

Thank you.