This is CBS. I am the world. I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague and friend. That is McCutter, former member of Congress now writing an American greatness, about his ambition once upon a time to be blacklisted by the Kremlin. But once upon a time is 20 years ago, I read from an Estonian

review register of Mr. McConnor in 2006. Congressman McCotter was one of the first American

leaders to sound the alarm about Vladimir Putin's creeping authoritarian tendencies and called for Western resolve in the

face of Putin's implicit threats to neighboring countries. That's 2006. And Thaddeus informs me that

he spoke at the Joint Baltic American National Committee. He also traveled to London and spoke before the House of the Lords,

all speaking very poorly of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin in 2005, 2006. And yet, not blacklisted,

not then, not now. That is, this is amazing. You've threaded the needle. You've said things that

are consistent with being blacklisted here in 25. They've threaded the needle. You've said things that are consistent with being

blacklisted here in 25. They missed you in 05-06. You're continuing to write of those events,

so you deserve blacklisting. How is it that you've avoided it? Do you have an explanation? Good

evening to you. Good evening to you, John. I have no explanation. I had assumed that in the

past at some point, I had been blacklisted. I mean, after all, you recited many of the instances

where I was sounding the alarm early. I didn't get on board when George Bush saw Sol in Putin's eyes.

I still don't know who soul Putin was using at the time.

I didn't get on board for Obama's Russian reset. And we've seen what I was warning about

happened. We saw the invasion of Georgia. We've seen the annexations in the Ukraine. We've

seen now the continuation of the criminal invasion of Ukraine now. And so you would have thought that somewhere

along the way they'd have said, well, look, there's this guy he was yelling at us, granted

it might have been a while ago, but he certainly deserves to be blacklisted. Oh, no. Oh, no.

So what added the insult to my injury and reminded me of this slight was my brother-in-law, who's a UK citizen,

told me that he had been put on the Kremlin blacklist, that Putin had singled him out for disapprobation.

Now, in my book, that's a badge of honor. I'm thinking to myself, well, I'd better check this out.

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