this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main stories for you at the top of the hour, as newsday continues — straight after hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. vladimir putin regards nato, the us, and its western allies as hostile actors, posing a threat to russia's security, and the russian president is adept at exploiting weakness in his adversaries. so he surely welcomes discord over the ukraine crisis in western capitals. my guest is us congressman michael mccaul, an influential

republican voice on foreign affairs, with the us facing huge strategic challenges notjust from russia, but china and iran too. how damaging is the depth of division in washington? congressman michael mccaul in washington, dc, welcome to hardtalk. 0h, stephen, thanks for having me. it's a pleasure, congressman. now, you get classified intelligence briefings on a very regular basis from the white house. give me your reading of the current situation in ukraine.

i'd describe it as a noose being tied around the neck of ukraine by putin and the russians. 100,000 troops, about 70% combat—ready right now. four more destroyers or vessels went to the black sea, russian. they have a fleet in the black sea. but everything i can see is, he's preparing for an invasion. these medical teams, these units with blood plasma shows that he's preparing for casualties. and you have to ask the question, what has provoked this and why is putin doing this? he's always wanted ukraine, but why now? is it politically opportunistic of you to conclude that part of the answer is that putin, and i'm quoting you now, "smells weakness in the biden administration"? i'm just wondering on what basis you think that is true? well, for a couple of reasons,

and i don't think it's even... i think it's devoid of politics. i get briefed by analysts who agree with my assessment. you know, with the fall of afghanistan and the unconditional surrender, the way it was done looked very weak, it projected weakness, and nord stream ii waving those sanctions at congress, that i led the effort to sanction nord stream ii, and then the president waived those sanctions in may. remember, this build—up starting in march, he waived the sanctions in may and by august, afghanistan is imploding, and instead of redeploying his troops out of the region, he keeps them there... congressman, i really don't want to spend this interview discussing too much about afghanistan, but the raw truth of afghanistan is that joe biden made good on a pledge that was originally made by your guy, donald trump, to get all us boots off the ground in afghanistan.

it was trump that made that promise. decided that talking to the taliban was the right thing to do. he set a deadline, whichjoe biden actually pushed back, because he thought it was too soon. so if you're going to blame all of this on weakness showed over afghanistan, that's on donald trump. well, i don't think so. i think many presidents have tried to get out of there. i think it was the way it was done, stephen, more than anything, and trump would have had conditions on the ground. i don't think he would have had an unconditional surrender to the taliban, or given up bagram air base. i was in favour of the residual force to, you know, protect the region and the homeland. having said that, it did project weakness, and irrespective of afghanistan, this waiver of the nord stream ii pipeline — no european country that agrees with this other than germany, whose chancellor, former chancellor schroeder, is the lobbyist for

putin for gazprom... right, right, well, you know... sure, sso you've got a problem with germany, and we can talk more about the europeans in a second. but ijust want to come back to this extremely important and serious charge that you are putting at biden�*s door, that putin smells weakness around the biden administration. let us look at what joe biden has done. he's ramped up the weapons supply to ukraine with another $200—million—worth of weapons on top of $400—million—worth in the last 12 months. he's sent more us troops into the nato european theatre in poland and in germany, and he's made it quite plain to vladimir putin that if putin makes a new move into ukraine, the us and its allies will impose the most severe of sanctions. what's weak about all of that? it's very tough talk. i did applaud the deployment of the nato troops to the eastern flank.

you know, i met with the baltic region leaders in poland. they're very nervous about this. they live right next door to russia, unlike on the western flank of nato, and so, yeah, he's taken some measures, but, you know, they've been there since march. he held up this funding that was available, 200 million aid to ukraine, and held that up from november untiljust now releasing it. we in the congress would like to see more of that. and we also want to see sanctions not always after the invasion, but some before the invasion to deter... you know, right now, deterrence is the key. if we can't deter... ..thinking he will absolutely invade. yeah, this is the nub of it, isn't it? when it comes to sanctions, you're saying that biden�*s tough talk about sanctions that would be imposed should putin make a move, you're saying that strategy�*s all wrong, that the us has to impose these crippling new level of sanctions right now.

but i'm wondering how on earth that works in terms of logic and coherence, because if the us does that right now, putin is completely boxed into a corner. the only response he can surely make is to move into ukraine to show that he is not intimidated and weakened by the us administration. you deprive putin of any off—ramp if you put those tough sanctions on now. well, i would say that biden took the off—ramp away when he did the new start treaty for five years injanuary, and then, in may, waived congressionally mandated sanctions on nord stream ii. this is all about energy for putin. he wants the ports of mariupol and 0dessa, he wants control of the black sea, and he wants to divide and weaken nato, which, to some extent, i think he's done a decentjob at that. so i think... you know, i go back to chamberlain and hitler, and i think your audience knows that well.

and it took a churchill to come in, talking about appeasement invites aggression. that's an axiom of history that always plays out. and we had a president reagan who talked about peace through strength. i think biden gave him the off—ramp, unfortunately, prior to this, but i think... but hang on, just one more question on this specific, then we'll move on. but on this specific of sanctions, are you seriously saying to me that if the united states were to pre—empt any new move from putin and impose crippling sanctions now, you think vladimir putin would say, "oh, you know what, i've been rumbled here. i can't continue this confrontation. i'm going to back off, all my troops are going home. joe biden, you win." you really think that would happen? i think sanctions for the cyber events that have happened and things that have already happened, but i do think to lay out what the sanctions would be once an invasion occurs...

we didn't see the chancellor from germany yesterday when he came to washington to basically say, and i was waiting for him to say, "if putin invades, we will shut down the nord stream ii pipeline." i didn't hear that from him. now the president, biden, said that... yeah. ..but not germany... but that, with all due respect, congressman, is surely the key point here, thatjoe biden not only has a duty, as he sees it, to talk tough to vladimir putin, he also has a really important obligation to keep the western alliance together. he can't move far further forward than the french, the germans, or other key players in nato are prepared to let him move, because if he does so, the nato alliance will look completely fragmented, completely weakened, and that will only benefit vladimir putin. so there's some very nuanced and important diplomacy here that antony blinken and joe biden have to achieve.

i agree — but remember, this started last march, and they've been on the march since then. 20 february is an important date. it's the end of the olympics. the tundra, the ground, will be frozen, the tanks can roll in. he's always wanted this for legacy, for rebuilding the empire, but energy is a big part of this. and you know, i know you don't think it's significant, stephen, but a lot of your colleagues in the european continent do. the nord stream ii, to allow putin to build this pipeline into europe, to make your continent dependent on russian energy was a mistake. i passed on a national defence authorisation amendment that said we're going to take the presidential waiver out of this, that congress is imposing sanctions, and we're not going to allow the president to waive it. something like that would send a very strong message of deterrence to putin, which i think, stephen,

is lacking now, and that's why i think he's going to go in. well, you speak with great passion there, congressman. ijust wonder how united your own republican party is around your very hawkish position, that much more action has to be taken by the us to deter putin. because i'm reading, for example, a quote here from your fellow republican, congressman paul gosar from arizona, saying, "we have absolutely no dog in the ukraine fight." i watched tucker carlson, an extremely influential right—wing commentator who, i think it's fair to say, is a great sort of sympathiser with the trump america first ideology, telling all of his millions of fox news viewers that biden is needlessly provoking russia. 0n the conservative right in america, there are many voices saying that america just needs to back off, that this whole kneejerk interventionism is a mistake. well, that's the old tale of isolationists.

and it didn't work out. so if that had prevailed in world war ii, i would argue that britain would not be britain, the nazis would have taken over. but these people i've just quoted are great sympathisers and supporters of donald trump. this is the nature of your party today. the prevailing voice is one of isolationism, america first, transactional international politics, where you abandon the notion that america fights for freedom and democracy on every battlefield. i don't think any american wants american troops in the ukraine. i don't think that's going to happen. that's really off the table. deterrence is really the key here to stop an invasion and to stop a war. and that's what i'm talking about — we need to ramp up the deterrence. and i applaud the president for talking about tough sanctions and deploying the troops to the eastern flank — all those are good things. yeah, i may have a split in my party on this thinking, but i do think i'm correct on that in the sense

that i think history treats us the same way. if we were isolationists again, before world war ii and during that time, the nazis would have taken over the european continent, and that didn't happen because the united states got involved in the war. i'm not saying we want to go to war. we're very war—weary, but i don't want to see putin move the lines in countries and take over democracies. and this is very important, stephen, and a lot of people ask me, "why is ukraine so important? " for several reasons. most importantly, china. as we look to putin and xi standing hand in hand at the olympics with a pact against nato and their desire to weaken nato, calling nato being aggressive rather than putin being aggressive, which i think is the case. all the while, president xi is watching what happens very closely because, if putin can go into ukraine with very little damage, i guarantee president xi

is going to be looking at taiwan. they're already surrounding that island, and that would be a strategic failure for a lot of reasons. interesting you say that. and i just wonder whether you, in the spirit of candid review of your own party, whether you're prepared to say to me, you know what, the four years of donald trump, the way he handled vladimir putin and indeed xijinping was a disaster for us foreign policy making. because, on both fronts, we saw that donald trump wasn't really about principle. he was about transactional politics. and he thought he could conduct transactional politics with both putin and xijinping — and we see the results today. would you agree? well, if i could answer that, we didn't... we saw kim jong—un stop firing rockets. he just fired two rockets injanuary, claiming they were hypersonics. we didn't see china under trump launch a hypersonic missile.

we just saw china, and really the entire world in shock that he had that capability to orbit the globe with accuracy, pinpoint with a nuclear payload. we didn't see putin do this provocation on the border of ukraine. infact... well, forgive me, but we saw putin do all sorts of things. we saw putin, according to almost every independent analysis, use poison against a former agent in the uk, against his main opponent in russia, alexei navalny. we didn't see donald trump make a big noise about that. a big noise about russia's activities in syria and, indeed, we didn't... hang on, let mejust finish this point. we didn't even see donald trump make a big noise about what china is doing to the muslim uyghur minority in xinjiang province. i mean, these are the realities of what donald trump's leadership was all about. i'm not here to discuss mr trump. but i'll tell you, we didn't see this provocation

from russia, china, iran, north korea that we're seeing today in this modern world under president biden. you know, i'll let your viewers decide, you know, who the better person is there. but trump was the first president to send legal aid to ukraine. let's not forget that — the first president to do that. i'm a reagan republican. i believe in churchill's doctrine — the peace through strength, that appeasement invites aggression. and those are the principles that guide me. i don't really care about having a debate about the former president. i care about what is happening right now, and what we need to do to stop it. and if we don't provide the deterrence necessary, mr putin will take advantage of that and he will invade ukraine. right — and i do want to continue to talk china with you because you said that you... you've said several times you think china is the key strategic threat

to the united states going forward. the democrats in congress just tried to move through a piece of legislation which they say is all about combating china economically. they say that, you know, to do that, america has to up its game in a whole range of industries, particularly semiconductors. why did you and the republicans all vote against that democrat initiative, which is all about, they say, taking on china? because it wasn't countering china. the speaker took very good legislation, hijacked it, and, when the speaker drops it on the floor rather than the committees, this is what you get — a lot of poison pills. i'm hopeful i'll be going to a conference committee on this to get the good bills, like my chips for america act, which incentivises manufacturing of advanced semiconductor chips in the united states, or with our allies through tax incentives and a grant programme. that's absolutely fundamental to our national security. but what she did was throwing in things like $8 billion to the united nations green

climate fund that then would go to china for green energy. where do they produce that energy? solar panels and batteries in the xinjiang province, where they commit genocide with forced slave labour of the uyghur muslims. there is a moral issue to that bill. but i'm hopeful to your point that we can get a good competes act because china, rather than russia, long—term is the greatest threat to our national security. just a quick word on iran, because you alluded to iran a short time ago. i just wonder whether you would accept that, since donald trump walked away from the so—called jcpoa agreement that was supposed to curb iran's nuclear programme under the watchful eye of the international nuclear watchdog agency, since trump walked away from that agreement, iran has massively enhanced its capacity to enrich uranium, and many people, including seniorfigures in the israeli

government, say it was a major strategic mistake for the united states to walk away from that agreement. are you prepared now to accept trump got that wrong? well, again, you seem very fixated on president trump. well, he is the de facto leader of your party, congressman. well, i would say ijust got out of a classified briefing with the special envoy to iran. we were just talking about this issue. the sanctions have been effective in terms of crippling their economy. at the end of the day, the ayatollah is going to have to decide what's more important — his economy or being a nuclear power with a nuclear bomb. i will tell you this — a nuclear bomb is not acceptable to, you know, the policy of the united states or to israel, and i would argue most of europe. that is not acceptable. i understand that, i totally understand that. but my point was that we now know, and the iaea has confirmed it too, that iran has massively enhanced its capacity

to produce the most potentially dangerous fissile material since the us walked away from that agreement. now, the biden administration wants to get back to that agreement as the best way over the medium and long term of reining in iran's nuclear ambitions. are you now prepared to say, you know what, biden�*s got this one right? the sanctions were put in place to get a better deal, the secretary said a longer, stronger deal. i'm afraid they're going to go back and offer the 2015jcpoa. and you're right, they've made progress. they certainly have. but the whole idea was to get a better deal, not the same deal. and i think, if they want to have a nuclear energy programme, that's fine, if we can verify that and inspect it. but, you know, most importantly, stephen, if the sunset provisions are taken out, if their desire is to really have a peaceful

nuclear energy programme, then why do they care about the sunset provisions? because that only guarantees a nuclear iran. right. and if they really want it for peace, peaceful nuclear energy. and that's what we talked to the negotiators, just about 30 minutes ago, about... they're in vienna right now, they will be embarking on a two—week negotiation with iran. and, you know, it's going to be a very difficult one. congressman michael mccaul, we have to end there. i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk.

hello. a colder day for all of us on thursday, but across the northern half of the country, quite a wild day to come — all due to this amazing swirl of cloud we saw to the south of iceland on wednesday. it's an area of low pressure which, as we start thursday morning, will have moved in across the western half of scotland in particular. to the south, we still have a weather front set to clear that will be sweeping away the last dregs of the milder air. to the north of it, a chilly start, a risk of ice in places, a few wintry showers — but as i said, a particularly wild start to the day in parts of scotland 60—70 mph gusts across the western isles and those northwestern coasts, big seas, as well, and blizzards on the mountains. we'll see wintry showers across northern england, northern ireland, and parts of wales, but sunshine in between those and a blustery wind. strongest of the winds in scotland transfer eastwards through the day. winds always lighter further south and, once you've got rid of the morning cloud and patchy rain, it should be a bright and sunny day. the winds, though, will be a key feature — strongest through the afternoon in eastern scotland with gales.

and it's here and across northeast england where it will feel substantially colder than the thermometers would suggest, made to feel well below freezing as we go through the afternoon. so a cold end to the day, rain, sleet, snow showers and strong winds clipping eastern parts of england for a time during thursday night, then skies clear, winds fall light. coldest night of the week, coldest commute of the week as we go into friday morning — temperatures could be as low as —10 through some scottish glens, a widespread frost and some ice to watch out for. but a lovely, crisp day to come for many on friday — a few wintry showers in the west, building amounts of cloud, as well, but most staying dry with sunny spells, the best of which in the east. temperatures actually a degree so lower than normal for the time of year. but after a cold start to friday night, if you go into the weekend, it'll turn milder — and with it, some wet and windy weather. on saturday, especially in the west, outbreaks of rain coming and going all day long, more persistent through the afternoon in parts of northern and western england and wales. some parts of north east scotland may get away largely

dry, staying largely dry to east anglia and the southeast, but even here we will see rain and strong winds sweep through as we go through into saturday night. and then for sunday, we just have to watch the potential development of this area of low pressure. a bit of uncertainty attached, keep watching the forecast, but it could bring some more persistent rain later in the day and strong winds around the english channel. further north, though, something a bit brighter sunshine and showers, but feeling a little bit chillier. that's how it's looking, see you soon.

welcome to newsday. reporting live from singapore, i'm karishma vaswani. the headlines: protests spread across india and beyond against a ban on the muslim headscarf in some colleges in one southern state. two years of covid restrictions are set to end in england. rules are also eased in parts of europe and the us. canadian police threaten to arrest lorry drivers who have shut down central 0ttawa as anger and mandatory covid vaccines spread. who have shut down central 0ttawa as anger at mandatory covid vaccines spread. mission control: 2...1...0. and scientists in britain make a major new advance in the quest to generate energy from nuclearfusion.