WATCH: US playing ’bad cop’ toward Russia very real, expert says

U.S.-Russia relations are more complicated beneath the surface than it appeared during the chummy first meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to foreign policy expert Ilan Berman. 

 

{mosads}”I think the Russian euphoria about Donald Trump sort of pushing the reset button on relationship is being tempered quite a bit … his staffing — [national security adviser H.R.] McMaster, [Defense Secretary James] Mattis, [White House adviser] Fiona Hill — suggest there is increasingly ‘bad cop’ component to his discussion where there are people in positions of influence who have his ear who think of Russia in much more grim, stark, binary terms and willing to push back, craft strategy, viewing Russia not as ally but rather adversary, if the president doesn’t get what he wants,” Berman, the senior vice president at the American Foreign Policy Council, tells The Hill.