Rep. Rohrabacher Arm-Wrestled Putin Over the Cold War in the Early 90s

A great story from KPCC’s “Off-Ramp.” In the early 90s shortly after the fall of the USSR, Dana Rohrabacher met a small group of communist officials who had come to Washington and wanted to meet him because he had worked with Reagan.

After they met, Rohrabacher invited the men to join a game of touch football taking place with a group of his conservative friends.

After the game ended, the group headed to an Irish bar and began drinking and arguing about who won the Cold War. Eventually, having had a few too many, they decided to settle it by arm wrestling. Rohrabacher wound up squaring off against the Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin.

Speaking of the contest Rohrabacher says “He’s a little guy but boy I’ll tell you he put me down in a millisecond. He is tough. His muscles are unbelievable.” Rohrabacher was relieved when Putin’s much larger body guard lost the second match to one of his conservative friends.

You can listen to Rep. Rohrabacher tell the full story here.

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