Obama on if Putin Outsmarted Him: I Saved U.S. from ‘Worse Financial Crisis in History’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

REPORTER: "And how do you respond to critics who say Putin is outsmarting you, that he took a measure of you in Ukraine and felt he could get away with this. Sorry." 
OBAMA: "I've heard it all before. I've got to say I'm always struck by the degree to which not just critics but I think people buy this narrative. Let's think about this. So when I came into office seven and a half years ago, America had precipitated the worst financial crisis in history, dragged the entire world into a massive recession. We were involved in two wars with almost no coalition support. U.S. World opinion about the United States was at a nadir. We were just barely above Russia at that time. And I think potentially slightly below China's. And we were shedding 800,000 jobs a month and so on and so forth. And today we're the strongest large advanced economy in the world. Probably one of the few bright spots in the world economy. Our approval ratings have gone up. We are more active on more international issues and forged international responses to everything from ebola to countering ISIL."