Russian President Vladimir Putin is little more than a "schoolyard bully" and President Barack Obama should cancel next week's summit with him, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday.
"I would urge the president to cancel the bilateral summit he's having with Mr. Putin," Schumer said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "President Putin's behaving like a schoolyard bully, and in my experience, I've learned, unless you stand up to that bully, they ask for more and more and more."
The New York Democrat said Obama should push other countries to move the upcoming G-20 summit out of St. Petersburg, Russia, to protest the Putin's actions concerning National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum for one year by Russia.
"I will say that the relationship between the United States and Russia, for instance, is more poisonous than at any time since Cold War because of all of this," Schumer said.
Schumer said that Putin's agreement to shelter Snowden was a "stab in the back" to the United States, and action needs to be taken.
Putin is "always going out of his way to seem to poke us in the eye, whether it's in Iran, Syria and now with Snowden," Schumer said.
Going ahead with the summit, Schumer said, will give Putin "the kind of respect he doesn't deserve at this point in time."
Schumer said he knows some other countries may not want to move the G-20 summit, but "for the president to meet with Putin in a one-on-one meeting later this month would give him respect he doesn't deserve after all he's done."
Putin is behaving the way he is over Snowden because he "feels the loss of Russian power, certainly since the end of the Cold War, keenly, being an old KGB officer, and he's trying to build it back up," said Schumer.
Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, also appearing on CBS, said he doesn't often agree with Schumer, but does so on the issue of Putin
"I think President Putin thinks he can get away with pushing around this administration because the administration has given a sort of appeasement feeling that they can do this," Ryan said.
Accepting Snowden in Russia "is a stab in the back," Ryan said. "This is a slap in the face. And I actually agree with Sen. Schumer that this has to come with consequences."