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RUCKER: You know, it's interesting. From the very beginning - this was right after the election, during the transition period, when Trump was trying to staff his cabinet. He was in an interview, a job interview, with one of his secretary of state candidates. And he turned to Reince Priebus, who was set to become the White House chief of staff, and asked Priebus, you know, when can I meet Putin? (Laughter) I want to meet Putin. Can I meet him before my inauguration?
And that would have been such an extraordinary breach of protocol, to be meeting with the Russian president before having met with the NATO allies, before being inaugurated, while President Obama was still in office. But it was indicative of Trump's burning desire to have a relationship, a friendship, a bromance with Vladimir Putin. He saw Putin and still sees Putin as a strongman, as someone who has the leadership abilities and kind of muscular machismo that's to be admired. And throughout the book, there are moments where Trump is admiring of Putin.
And he actually finally had his first meeting with Putin in Hamburg, Germany, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit. And he met for about two hours in private with Putin, and afterwards, he told Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state - who, by the way, has years of negotiating with Putin as the head of ExxonMobil - Trump told Tillerson, I've got this. I understand Putin. I just spent two hours with him. I know more about him than you do. You don't need to advise me anymore. I got it under control.
DAVIES: And he expressed the opinion that, you know, Putin does not have an agenda of undermining U.S. interests, right? You can be friends.
LEONNIG: That was definitely what the president said repeatedly to all of his aides. Tillerson, Pompeo, the entire national security firmament, the intelligence community was constantly trying to brief this president about the ways in which Putin tries to exploit American vulnerabilities and leap into situations where he can take some advantage.
In fact, Rex Tillerson was trying to school the president gently, not in a patronizing way, but gently school him about here's what Putin is doing every morning when he wakes up; he's looking for where we've got a hole, and he's going to dash over there, and we won't be fast enough to take advantage of it and stop him. And the president repeatedly rejected this, including rejecting the intelligence that he was brought constantly about the fact that Putin had directly, intentionally interfered in the 2016 election. President Trump said, yeah, I don't think he's really doing that.
DAVIES: You write - this is the two of you in the book - (Reading) Putin had developed a knack for manipulating Trump, making him believe that the two of them could get big things accomplished if they ignored their staffs and worked one-on-one. National security aides feared Putin knew how to feed the unusual combination of Trump's ego and insecurity and how to cultivate conspiracies in his mind.
LEONNIG: You know, there is this moment when Putin says to President Trump, you know, we could have a great relationship, but the people, the little people below us, they're against it. It isn't exact quote. I want to be careful in what I say about this, but the paraphrase is, basically, if we just - you know, the little people are rooting against us in our government. I understand that. And it totally speaks to Donald Trump's conspiracy theories about the deep state.
You know, he believed his intelligence community, his national security community, his State Department, his Justice Department should be working for him and defending his image and his political, you know, power. But he also believed that they were out to get him. And it all started, honestly, with the FBI investigation of his campaign to try to figure out if any of the members of his campaign were coordinating in any way or encouraging Russian interference.
So, The Republicans are in the pocket of Trump, and Trump is in the pocket of Putin.
And people are calling the Democrats unpatriotic.