Elsewhere on this magnificent anti-elite site, our host and savvy persuasion expert noted my side-stage posting here of the Trump interview with CBN.  

21 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

William posted on his OL blog yesterday's interview between Pat Robertson and President Trump (see here).

It was such a good interview, I found a YouTube copy and am posting it here in the Trump thread.

Thanks to MSK for tracking down a video with a subtitle file. I have had fun over this year in extracting subtitle files, with the aim to be able to read and re-read, rather than listen and listen again. 

So, for a plain-text cleaned-up version of the raw subtitles, this iframe provides:

I will fix up the readability (which is a chore) and upload it sometime later. I don't share the same enthusiasm for Trump as does MSK, but at least we have the same item under consideration. There are only a couple of places where our opinions diverge markedly. I will leave this here as a placeholder ... until i finish my shift fighting wildfires. 

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If you are like I am, you will feel a reluctance to watch it because of the religious stuff.

I was anxious to watch it. This is the first non-Fox interview in a couple of months. 

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Pat Robertson did not limit his questions to softball.

There was no hint of an adversarial relationship, that is for sure. It was a very respectful, encouraging kind of interview, and did not press the President to provide a soundbite of controversy ... or "gotcha."

The President is an accomplished interviewee. You can see that he talks about what he wants to talk about -- on his own terms. 

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For instance, we all know what the media pundits think about President Trump and President Putin. But what does President Trump think about Putin (other than rally rhetoric)? What does he think Putin thinks about America? Where are they at odds and where do they agree?

Interesting questions. What does Putin think about Trump ... from Trump's point of view?  If I had to sum in one phrase, the President thinks they 'got along' .. but folks can read into the answers what they will:

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CBN: you went to the g20 and you met for the first time front face to face with Vladimir Putin and George Bush once said he's stared into his soul and came away satisfied what do you think can we trust him?

TRUMP: well look we had a good meeting I think we had an excellent meeting one thing we did is we have a ceasefire inside your part of Syria where there was tremendous bedlam and tremendous killing and by the way this is now four days the ceasefire is held for four days Oh cease fires haven't held at all that's because president Putin and President Trump made the deal and it's held now I don't know what's gonna happen maybe as we're speaking they start shooting again but this has held unlike all of the other ceasefires that didn't mean anything so that was a great thing that came out of that meeting I think a lot of things came out of that meeting but I do believe it's important to have a dialogue and if you don't have a dialogue it's a lot of problems for our country and for their country I think we need dialogue we need to dialogue with everybody I had a great it was a great g20 in 20 countries I get along I think really fantastically with the head of every country.

I figure that Putin's views of 'The West' is primarily as a strategic adversary. His own words and statements during his years at the head of the Russian Federation provide the best illustration of his attitude. Does President Trump get into the 'big picture' that would presume a Russia versus America? Not really, although he returns to the question of Putin several times, in relation to the US-Russia agreement on a supervised ceasefire in south-western Syria.  Here's what may be of interest:

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CBN: well Lafayette we're here we've come back we are here we are oh that's that's good well back to Putin what do you think he wants? I mean I know he said what he wants what do you think his game is?

TRUMP: well he wants what's good for Russia yeah and I want what's good for the United States and I think like in a case like Syria where we can get together do a ceasefire and there are other cases there are many other cases we're getting along can be a very positive thing but always Putin is gonna want Russia and Trump is gonna want United States and that's the way it is and sometimes you're not gonna get along on things and sometimes you will but we had a good meeting it was a face-to-face meeting it was a long wait it was two hours and 15 minutes everyone was surprised by the amount of time but that was a good thing not a bad thing sure yeah I think we got along very well and I think that's a good thing that's not a bad thing yeah you know when people said oh they shouldn't get along well who would the people that are saying then I think we got along very very well we're a tremendously powerful nuclear power and so are they it doesn't make sense not to have some kind of a relationship.

CBN: we used to have that thing called mutually skews right structures mad and it's still there because he can he can hurt us he can decimate our country and we can do the same thing to him.

TRUMP: it's something you don't even like talking about yeah but again we're the most powerful country in the world and we are getting more and more powerful because I'm a big military person as an example. If Hillary had won our military would be decimated our energy would be much more expensive that's what Putin doesn't like about me and that's why I say why would he want me because from day one I wanted a strong military he doesn't want to see that and from day one I want fracking and everything else to get energy prices low and to create tremendous energy we're going to be self-supporting we just about our now we're gonna be exporting energy. he doesn't want that he would like Hillary where she wants to have windmills yeah he would much rather have that because energy prices will go up and Russia as you know relies very much on energy there are many things that I do that are the exact opposite of what he would want so when I keep hearing about that he would have rather had Trump I think probably not because when I want a strong military you know she wouldn't have spent the money on the military but when I want a strong military or when I want tremendous energy we're opening up coal we're opening up natural gas we're opening up fracking all the things that he would hate but nobody ever mentioned

CBN: well Gazprom held by the throat I mean they were the monopolies and now US is breaking into that monopoly with our exports of LNG right?

TRUMP: right we are we have LNG exporting all over yeah we have taken off some of the regulations that will make it impossible for the energy companies impossible for banks impossible for a lot of different things you couldn't build a house in some places and many of those restrictions have been taken off some are being taken off we have statutory waits meaning you have to weigh in a certain period of time and the country is doing really well so the stock market is the highest it's ever been

I highlighted what I thought was a striking claim: that Putin probably preferred a Hillary Clinton victory over a Trump victory. This was of course not taking into account any facts suggesting the opposite, and Robertson did not challenge this notion.

I guess there can be a difference of opinion. To me this seems bizarrely wrong and counter to reality.

21 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

In my opinion, this was the best one-on-one interview President Trump has given to date. At least among the ones I have seen.

It was interesting to me. The information provided was intriguing in a few places, and the ceasefire plan gives me some hope that the Syria war can enter its final stages under the Trump administration -- working with the Russians, while understanding their goals and allies are not America's friends. 

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Try to push away any underlying bad vibes about Pat Robertson you may have and you will see what I mean.

If you keep your eye on Trump, it hardly matters who is interviewing. I do wonder when and if the president will give a sit-down to the "fake news" networks ...

Updated and cleaned up.