Vladimir Putin went on ‘never ending’ 45-minute rant against America during his first meeting with Obama, book reveals
VLADIMIR Putin went on a “seemingly endless” 45 minute rant against America during his first visit with Barack Obama, the former president’s new memoir is set to reveal.
It comes after Putin predicted in a recent interview that he will have good relations with Joe Biden because the US Democratic Party shared his own “liberal values”.
However, the Russian president had nothing nice to say about the US when he invited Obama to breakfast in July 2009, a few months after Biden became his vice president, according to Obama’s new book.
The meeting took place at Putin’s “dacha” a country cottage in the Moscow suburbs – which turned out to be a gated mansion, Obama writes in his anticipated book A Promised Land, which comes out November 17.
“Obama talks about how Putin didn’t look imposing when they posed for photos, describing him as ‘short and compact,’ with a prominent nose and pale watching eyes.,” a publishing source told The Sun.
“He talks about how male waiters in traditional peasant dress and high leather boots served them eggs and caviar and poured tea, while Putin launched into a “seemingly endless” diatribe about every single perceived injustice and betrayal that he said he and the Russian people had suffered at the hands of the Americans.
“Putin said he liked President George W Bush personally and reached out after the September 11 attacks, to pledge his solidarity and had even offered Russia’s help in handling Saddam Hussein.
“But he said Bush went and invaded Iraq and accused him of destabilising the entire Middle East.
“The staffers who accompanied Obama to the meeting tried to cut it short when Putin was about thirty minutes into the rant.
“But Obama describes how he decided not to interrupt as it appeared that Putin had rehearsed the entire thing.
“It was 45 minutes before he finally stopped and Obama answered him point by point in what turned into a marathon two hour conversation.
“He claims that Putin seemed open but not enthusiastic to his point of view.”
The 751-page memoir is part one of two volumes.
The publishers Penguin Random House paid over $65 million in 2017
for the rights to Michelle and Barack’s memoirs – a record for presidential autobiographies.
It covers Obama’s youth and the years 2008 to 2011 up until the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
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The book will also reveal how Obama struggled to make the decision to go ahead with the bin Laden raid because he could not confide on it with wife Michelle – and how he made a joke when pictures of the terrorist’s corpse were sent to the White House – to “lighten the mood”.
He will also discuss how Donald Trump offered to build him a beautiful ballroom at the White House – but he politely declined.