“We went out and we played touch football and Scooter Libby was one of the players and a bunch of my right-wing friends were there. We all ended up going to the Irish Times pub afterwards. And we were having a little bit too much to drink I guess. But anyway we started arguing about who won the Cold War, etc, and so we decided to settle it like men do when they’ve had too much to drink in the pub.
So we got down to these arm-wrestling matches and I ended up being paired off with Putin! And he’s a little guy but boy I tell ya — he put me down in a millisecond. He is tough! He just – muscles were just unbelievable.” -Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) on Putin in the 1990s
There’s a lot to process here.
Scooter Libby playing touch football with Putin. Rohrabacher admiring Putin’s “unbelievable muscles.” Settling who won the Cold War by getting drunk and arm wrestling. I mean, sure, how else would you settle it?
Was Putin shirtless during all of this? He usually is.