Vladimir Putin

When Vladimir Putin announced he was annexing parts of Ukraine

last week, he did not skimp on the showmanship.

He emerged on a stage after walking through gigantic golden doors, pulled open by a pair

of goose stepping soldiers.

A packed house was there to hear him speak.

Vladimir Putin no doubt likes the trappings of lack of a better term, dictatorship.

I asked Politico's Brian Bender to sit down and talk about the speech with me.

He is the sole power in Russia and he likes everybody to know that.

And so when he does public events, they're usually big and outsized and everything that

would go with the sort of culture personality.

There was this one moment I wondered if Brian had noticed.

It was when Putin claimed he was scooping up parts of Ukraine because it was the will

of millions of people.

Because it's the will of millions of people.

This is a species claim at best.

But it didn't matter.

It was as if one of those old-time applause signs had gone off.

And the studio audience knew just what to do.

Well, you know, this is not unlike any, you know, I'm one who tries to avoid historical

analogies because they're never perfect.

But a bunch of people last week were raising Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

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