Editor’s note: The following video is a clip from a 19-part series filmed at a Truthdig and KPFK co-sponsored event in Los Angeles recently. The discussion features Oliver Stone, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director, and Robert Scheer, Truthdig’s editor in chief. The two talk about “The Putin Interviews,” a new Showtime series by Stone, as well as the published transcript, for which Scheer wrote the foreword. We are publishing one video per day. This is the 18th installment.

This segment begins with Stone briefly addressing why any attempt to impeach President Trump is “crazy,” because like it or not, Trump still has millions of supporters throughout America.

Stone then quickly turns the conversation to Vladimir Putin’s decades of experience in Russian politics. “He’s the son of Russia, he wants to help Russia,” Stone argues. “I don’t think he likes oligarchs who have no state interest.”

Stone continues to praise Putin, stating that the Russian leader “has weathered the ship of state 16 years now” and concluding: “He’s seen a lot. He’s the most experienced statesman on the planet. And he acts like it.”

On Saturday, watch the final clip in the series, in which Robert Scheer discusses the war economy in the United States.

—Posted by Emma Niles.

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