Congressman: Putin Beat Me in Drunken Arm-Wrestling

Dana Rohrabacher recounts his strange tale from 23 years ago
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 13, 2013 4:17 PM CDT
Congressman: Putin Beat Me in Drunken Arm-Wrestling
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.   (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama, Pool)

Vladimir Putin is back in the news today, but not for the reasons you might think. BuzzFeed picks up on an interview that California congressman Dana Rohrabacher gave to radio station KPCC yesterday. In it, the former Reagan speechwriter recounts how Putin and other Russian politicians visited him around 1990 while on a trip to DC. They played football, they went to a bar, they drank, they argued about the Cold War. And then:

  • "We decided to settle it like men do when they’ve had a little bit too much to drink at 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’ll tell ya: He put me down in a millisecond. He is tough, his muscles are just unbelievable."
And that, notes Daily Intel, is "why the Russian president doesn't believe in American exceptionalism." (More Dana Rohrabacher stories.)

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