Obama Gets ‘Feisty’ as Reporter Grills Him on Putin: ‘He’s Challenging Your

In a wide-ranging, 24-minute interview that covered domestic and foreign policy, it was the Middle East that produced the most fireworks between Obama and “60 Minutes” reporter Steve Kroft. But Mr. Obama backed the Islamist dictatorship of Mohammed Morsi, even after 30 million Egyptians took to the streets in July, 2013 to force his overthrow.

Steve Kroft: It’s an embarrassment.

Steve Kroft: A year ago when we did this interview, there was a few saber-rattling between the United States and Russian Federation on the Ukrainian border. He also ruled out sending USA troops to Syria.

Obama pushed back strenuously against several questions CBS News correspondent Steve Kroft asked in the interview, including coming to the defense of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton amid questions over the security of her use of a private email service while she was in office. However, when the program had not produced any positive results, the United States president had to suspend it and recognize the inefficiency of the Pentagon’s military operation, the article said.

Obama also acknowledged that Donald Trump has tapped into voters’ dissatisfaction to lead the Republican presidential field and that he has so far run a dynamic campaign but suggested that Trump wouldn’t win the party nomination. Let me ask you this question.

In an interview with Reuters, Bush said that if elected in 2016 he would seek to build a coalition of European and Arab partners to work for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which he said is key to resolving the festering conflict and a worsening refugee crisis.

“If you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in, in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then we’ve got a different definition of leadership”, said Obama, referring to Putin’s efforts in Ukraine.

In terms of perceptions of world events, there may be less daylight between Obama and Putin than Obama and his critics.

In deploying Russian warplanes over northern Syria, Putin has sought to portray his nation’s involvement as as contributing to the U.S.-supported rebels fight against the so-called Islamic State.

Obama added that the continuous Russian attacks are performed due to weakness. Does Russian Federation have the best interests of the Syrian people at heart or is it more interested in gaining a stronger foothold in the Middle East? The territory now held by Isis contains important oil assets and Putin will be eager to bring these under his control.

“Look, there’s no doubt that it did not work,” Obama said of the program, but argued that there was no “silver bullet” approach to solving the Syrian problem. “Bet on the people who have been tested”.

For his part, Putin emerged from that meeting talking about what Obama could do to help Russian Federation keep Assad in power. And it’s easier to push back on a president who’s not popular and is presiding over an unmitigated mess in the Middle East.

Whether they like it or not, western leaders now have to talk to him again. In Ukraine, it was the Euromaidan protests that threatened to permanently dislodge Kiev from Moscow’s orbit; in Syria, it may have been the transfer of US arms to anti-Assad rebels.

Depending exclusively on Mr. Putin’s strategic objectives, that prevailing restraint can vanish in an instant.

Second, there is also little evidence that a US military intervention in Syria would succeed where interventions in Iraq and Libya failed.

One reason we haven’t seen more of this, in my view, is that the president hasn’t exposed himself to many television interviews with journalists like Kroft. And I’d say, ‘Listen, we’re enforcing this no-fly zone. And I think that’s right.