An American university professor and former top diplomat targeted by the Kremlin revealed on Wednesday that he has no confidence in President Donald Trump protecting him.
Stanford University Professor Michael McFaul served as United States Ambassador to the Russian Federation during President Barack Obama's administration and had previously served as senior director of Russian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council.
On Tuesday, Russian state media reported that Russia seeks to arrest the former diplomat.
"The president actually called this quid pro quo an 'incredible offer' -- that wasn't behind closed doors, he did that in public," MSNBC anchor Chris Jansing noted.
"I'm asking you in honestly, do you have any expectation your government will do that?" Jansing asked.
"I do, I don't expect President Trump to do it, but there are a lot of good people in the Trump administration, they know how crazy this is and I hope they understand that by not responding to these outrageous claims, somehow, some symmetry between an alleged cockamamie money laundering scheme, completely for political reasons, and the indictment that Mr. Mueller did last Friday, there is no symmetry to that."
"And they have to push back publicly, because if they don't, it's yet one more victory for Vladimir Putin," he added.
On Tuesday, MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi reported on President Putin's pattern of violently attacking critics, including Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Oleg Zhukovsky, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Natalia Estemirova, Sergei Magnitsky and Boris Nemtsov.
In March, Foreign Policy magazine reported on Russia "increasingly targeting dissidents and renegade spies for death by poison."
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