12. Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, and has provided crucial military support to the Assad regime. What steps, if any, would your administration take to counter these actions? Senator Kaine?
KAINE: He answered that Hillary Clinton has gone toe-to- toe with Russia. She went toe-to-toe with Russia as secretary of state to do the New START Agreement to reduce Russia’s nuclear stockpile. She’s had the experience doing it. She went toe-to-toe with Russia and lodged protests when they went into Georgia. And we’ve done the same thing about Ukraine, but more than launching protests, we’ve put punishing economic sanctions on Russia that we need to continue.
13. “Putin has no respect for Hillary Clinton and no respect for Obama.” Why do you think he’ll respect a Trump- Pence administration?
PENCE: He answered that We’re going to rebuild our military. And let me this whole Putin thing. Look, America is stronger than Russia. Our economy is 16 times larger than the Russian economy. America’s political system is superior to the crony, corrupt capitalist system in Russia in every way...
14. Senator Kaine, what went wrong with the Russia reset?
And what would do you differently?
KAINE: He answered that Vladimir Putin is a dictator. He’s not a leader. Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn’t know Russian history and they don’t know Vladimir Putin. Hillary Clinton knows exactly who this guy is. John McCain said, I look in his eyes and I see KGB. And Hillary kind of has that same feeling. We do have to deal with Russia in a lot of different ways. There are areas where we can cooperate. So it was Hillary Clinton who worked with Russia on the New START Treaty to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpile. It was Hillary Clinton that worked with Russia to get them engaged in a community of nations to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons without firing a shot.