Schumer: Move G-20 summit to punish "schoolyard bully" Putin
(CBS News) Not only should President Obama cancel a bilateral summit with "schoolyard bully" Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday on "Face the Nation," but considering the country granted asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, U.S. allies should try to move next month's G-20 gathering from St. Petersburg.
"President Putin's behaving like a schoolyard bully, and in my experience, I've learned, unless you stand up to that bully, they ask for more and more and more," Schumer said. "He's always going out of his way, President Putin is, to seem to poke us in the eye, whether it's in Iran, Syria, now with Snowden - so I would urge the president not to go forward with the bilateral meeting next month. That would give Putin the kind of respect he doesn't deserve at this point in time.
"I would also urge the president to try to urge our allies, if it were possible, to move the G-20 summit away from St. Petersburg," he continued. "Some of them may not want to do that. The G-20 summit's important, but certainly on our own end, for the president to meet with Putin in a one-on-one meeting later this month would give him respect he doesn't deserve after all he's done."
Schumer, who called the U.S.-Russia relationship "more poisonous than at any time since the Cold War" because of Snowden, scored an unlikely ally later on the program: Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul Ryan.
"For once," Ryan said, "I agree with Chuck Schumer on that. ...This is a stab in the back; this is a slap in the face. And I actually agree with Sen. Schumer - that has to come with consequences."
White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday said Mr. Obama is reconsidering his planned meeting with Putin in Moscow, but made clear he would still attend the G-20 summit in Russia. The country granted one-year asylum to former government contractor Snowden, who leaked information about top-secret government surveillance programs that cull broad swaths of data about Americans. He has been charged with three felonies in the United States.
Schumer said the NSA programs have disrupted "many, many terrorist plots," and could be helping to thwart the reportedly credible terror plot that prompted the U.S. government to close nearly two dozen embassies and consulates Sunday. Still, he said, "there's always a balance between security and liberty, and there's always a time to reexamine that. It is appropriate to do that right now, and I do think that reexamination will go forward."
