Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/foreign-leaders-campaign-for-american-hearts-and-minds Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript In the Connection, Hari Sreenivasan takes a look at the new wave of retail diplomacy. Why have Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Hasan Rouhani taken their appeals directly to the American people? Is their strategy working? Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. HARI SREENIVASAN: Finally, the Connection.Politicians and foreign leaders campaigning for hearts and minds, now in other countries.This week, Senator John McCain took Russian President Vladimir Putin to task through on an op-ed on a prominent Russian website –That was in response to Putin's own op-ed piece on Syria in the New York Times … Questioning American exceptionalism.And yesterday, the new Iranian president used the Washington Post to promote his message of engagement. Why?Christopher Dickey of the Daily Beast: CHRISTOPHER DICKEY: These things are very carefully crafted sometimes i guess by the heads of state themselves but also by their aides and then by their PR firms that they retain for enormous amounts of money HARI SREENIVASAN: Of course, Dickey says, these rare expressions sell papers. CHRISTOPHER DICKEY: I think it attracts a lot of attention to those publications and they all like it, even those that are the most powerful like the New York Times and the Washington Post. HARI SREENIVASAN: If a picture is worth a thousand words than big time broadcast and cable news interviews are priceless. Of course, foreign leaders choose the person interviewing them carefully. BASHAR AL-ASSAD: "and we prepare ourselves for every possibility…" HARI SREENIVASAN: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, after conducting what the United States says was a chemical attack that killed 1400 men women and children, recently sat down with American journalist Charlie Rose.And then, the following week, he showed up on Fox News BASHAR AL-ASSAD: "Because in every house you have pain today." HARI SREENIVASAN: This past Wednesday, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, sat down for an exclusive interview with NBC's Ann Curry. HASSAN ROUHANI: "We have clearly stated that we are not in pursuit of nuclear weapons and will not be." HARI SREENIVASAN: Does this style of retail diplomacy assume that mass audiences are bright enough to figure out the truth for themselves, or dim enough to be fooled?