that's all for us tonight. anderson cooper starts right now. good evening, everyone. we are live from ukraine. another day, of dramatic developments on the ground. also in europe and the united states. we want to get to all of that in the hour ahead. i want to set the scene, where we are, to give you a sense. this is one of the main roads going down into independence square. there are barricades all in place, this is still an active site of protests. there are protesters here who are camped out. you can see some of them huddled around a fire trying to stay warm.

this is also almost a shrine to the 80 people who died a week and a half ago. this is just one of many shrines all throughout the square. five people died right here on this spot, they are memorialized here. you can see their photographs pasted here, their names, some of the personal information, people placed rosaries, if you're wondering what these are, these are riot police shields. some of them were makeshift shields that the protester used to try to hide behind, to save themselves from sniper's bullets, people come here all day long, their flowers placed out here, people pray, you see people crying throughout the day. also all of these images drawn by children of the protests, of the situation here in ukraine. this is very much a shrine to those who have died as well as an active protest. the protester as we talked about last night, says they are going to stay here until real change has come to the new government here in kiev.

there are late developments, breaking news to tell you about tonight. we are getting some early indications, early indications from inside sources about how spontaneous the russian incursion was. also, developments on the diplomatic front as we mentioned, counterattacks from moscow as well. about economic sanctions from moscow to the united states. hillary clinton comparing putin's actions to hitler's actions. we'll talk about that ahead. it was a day when the talking between all the parties began in ernest. also a day that tensions stayed very high on the ground. take a look. the crisis in crimea spilled over into the states wednesday, and anti-russian protest. the ukrainian police eventually step in to keep the peace. local ukrainian police step in to maintain the peace.

tense and dangerous moments from the u.n. envoy, his convoy surrounded by pro russian forces. >> i'm in a coffee shop waiting for someone to get me out of here. >> the gunmen surrounded the shop with serry inside. he was eventually given safe passage outside and abandon his mission and head to the airport. and at sea near crimea's capital, with patience wearing thin, ukraine's active prime minister channels a cold war president, not from russia, but from the u.s. >> my key demand to russian president and russian government, immediately pull back your military. do not invade ukraine. my message to president putin is as follows. mr. putin, tear down this wall. >> meanwhile russia's foreign minister continued to post putin's message from yesterday.

it's self-defense forces he says, not troops from russia controlling crimea. >> translator: self-defense forces created by the crimean residents as the military of the black sea fleet, they are on their own bases. >> never mind the fact that only days ago, russian's foreign ministry admitted troops were in crimea. and late in the day, secretary of state john kerry met with lavrov and the foreign minister in the hopes he could get them to the table. russia refused. >> russia made a choice and we have clearly stated that we believe it is the wrong choice to move troops into crimea, russia can now choose to deescalate this situation and we are committed to working with russia and together with our friends and allies in an effort to provide a way for this entire situation to find the road to deescalation. >> there is breaking news tonight.

we're learning exactly how the russian invasion came together. just pieces of information starting to form a clearer picture, whether there was a lot of advanced planning or whether the plan was launched really on the fly by russia, implications for u.s. intelligence agencies which are being slammed in some quarters for being caught offguard, joining us is robert sciuto and bob bayer. so jim, you're learning new information about when vladimir putin decided to move into crimea, what do you know? >> well, anderson, speaking to intelligence official the as well as other officials who read these reports last week, these intelligence assessments of what was happening and what was likely to happen, there are indications this was not a vastly premeditated decision by vladimir putin to take military action on the ground. it was a relatively last minute decision. that is one reason why it was

difficult to predict. speaking to officials, they say he's an unpredictable character. he's done these sort of things before, last minute decisions, and that made it difficult for them to say he was definitely going to act and when was he and caught many offguard.e did >> well, bob, i'm curious to hear your perspective on this as a previous cia officer. over the last days or so, there's been several members of congress who have been very critical of the cia asking why didn't the cia or the united states know that putin was going to responsibility militarily until he had already done it. did this last-minute decision explain why the u.s. didn't know what was going on or as you ski this, was this a failure of intelligence? >> i see a failure of intelligence, putin invaded georgia in 2008. right before the olympics. it's clear he was ready to bring down an enormous amount of security forces to control his border within russia. he's threatened to protect

russians in the near abroad as it's called. it was perfectly logically act for him to take once the ukraine started to go under. i think that should have been predicted. i think there should have been a heads up to the state department as well as the white house. get somebody to moscow, talk him out of this. i think you can only look at this as a failure. you look at the russians are insistent on protecting russians on their borders and they will take action. so as it deteriorated, we should have known that, what he was going to do. >> so bob, how do you see that, senator dianne feinstein is saying the u.s. has to deploy its resources better in terms of intelligence. do you agree with that? i mean there are those that say that u.s. intelligence capabilities toward russia have sort of atrophied since so much focus is now on fighting terror? >> i saw it myself atrophy as the wall came down in the '90s, we were told to lay off russia,

it was an ally, it wasn't a threat, we were going to cooperate with the russians. i was in a station overseas, we unplugged the telephone taps and stopped targeting russians. and then, of course, comes 9/11 and we take all of our intelligence sources and put them in afghanistan and iraq. atrophy is not the word for it, we closed down moscow. with putin clearly intending to re-establish the russian empire in some form, i think we're going to look at this as a mistake as this continues. zbrm wow! it's really fascinating to hear that. i know the cia released a statement saying they had been updating policymakers with different scenarios, including one similar to one that's going on now in crimea. what are officials saying? >> keep in mind this is happening as they're taking criticism from mike rogers, -- releasing a fairly impressive

amount of detail as to what was in those reports, those assessments coming through last week. i have been told by officials that those reports included multiple tools that putin had at his disposal, including taking troops out of crimea and deploying them inside sovereign territory and using some of these militias, some of these unofficial, ununiformed groups. some of them taking on those anti-russian demonstrators earlier. groups of thugs. but let me give you a public statement that just came from the director of national intelligence, shawn turner a spokesman there, pushing back saying on february 26, for example, the intelligence community warned that crimea was a flashpoint for russian/ukraine

military conflict. it clearly stated that the russian military was likely making preparations for contingency in crimea. they listed a number of these scenarios a and they listed things like what we have seen with the militias and so on. and the question is, could they say when that would happen? and clearly they couldn't tell and could not accurately tell when it would happen. >> right, jim sciuto. stick around, we're going to come back to you shortly. i want to take a look at more of what motivates putin with steven hadley who has sat across the table from him on a number of occasions. right now, let's bring in ben wedeman who's on the ground for us in crimea. and also, former cnn moscow bureau chief jill doherty. ben, let me start off with you, in terms of what you saw on the ground today, what lapped?

>> we were outside, anderson, the headquarters of the ukrainian navy where really there's another one of these standoffs going on but we really saw the personal cost. we spoke to the wives of some of the men inside the navy headquarters there, a and they were trying to sneak food into the headquarters. its surrounded by not only these men in green, russian forces, but also these irregulars, what they call themselves a civil defense group, civilians, pro russian civilians and it was really a game of cat and mouse all day long as women would try to sneak up to windows and shove food through it. others we saw one woman with, looked like her 2-year-old daughter who tried to go up to the front gate and who sort of shouted back, being called a provocateur.

so really the stand-off continues here and throughout crimea, at various military instillations. and even though we didn't have incidents like yesterday, where shots were fired in the air, tense situations and for many people, very anxious on a personal level as they're trying to keep in touch with their loved ones inside these military instillations, but can't get through. we saw as a representative of the red cross tried to get into the navy headquarters with medicine, with food, with water. and they were stopped, anderson. >> and ben, the newly installed pro russian prime minister of crimea told cnn today that the descriptions of the realities on the ground in crime in a had been overblown. that the people of crimea are controlling the situations themselves.

you are there, is there truth to that? >> i have to say it's not a situation of chaos or disorder. in fact, outside of those areas around the military bases, it's amazing how normal life appears to be. people are going out, restaurants, bars, life really does appear to be normal, except around these military installations. we were at another navy installation by the sea not far from here, and there were russians right across the street from the main gate of that navy base, but they were sort of hidden away. so if you drove up you wouldn't realize that there was a contingent of men in green, russians, whatever you want to call them, right across the street. meanwhile, however families were coming up, wives were coming up with food, with cigarettes, with

drinks for their loved ones inside. so there are real pockets of tension. >> ben wedeman, be careful. thank you for joining us tonight. i want to dig deeper into how these negotiations play out with jill doherty. also what kind of counter pargs sergei lavrov really is. also joining us is former u.n. ambassador bill richardson. ambassador, thanks very much for being with us. i'm here on the ground with jill dougherty. in his meeting with foreign ministers around the world, secretary of state john kerry emphasized the importance of resolving this through dialogue. he said he saw that as a positive side, that all sides agree in the importance of dialog dialogue. do you believe that dialogue and diplomacy will work in russia? and is that a positive sign or did not much actually get accomplished today? >> it's a positive sign, the fact that you had all the foreign ministers in one room, especially ukraine and russia, although russia refused to talk directly with a ukrainian.

what needs to happen is for the russians to see, for lavrov to see that germany is behind our efforts, that france, especially the members of the security council, france, germany, the united states, that they're united, that this is a real, coordinated effort. but getting people together in a room to diffuse tension is important. so i think it was an important step, especially if the germans were there, because they're the strongest economic country in europe and they're the country with the most natural gas energy ties to russia. so if they start slipping away and not join the sanctions or the pressure, then russia is almost home free when it comes to europe. >> ambassador richardson, you've done a lot of negotiating, obviously. as you look at this situation,

do you feel that there's a planned strategic approach or is there an impression of an ad hoc nature on the decision making by putin? >> i think, jill, because putin is so unpredictable, because the russians are so all over the place on their intentions, it has to almost be ad hoc. one of the bad sides of today is the u.n. envoy literally being expelled, pushed out of crimea, if a solution is going to involve human rights monitors and observers, that's not a good sign and it sort of throws away the argument that the rush a -- russian military there is self-defense forces. they're serious military people. somebody must have told them to go hard on that u.n. envoy, i don't think it was high

officials like putin, but that's not a good sign. so it has to be ad hoc. i think the goals have to be clear, deescalate the conflict. get ukraine and russia to talk to each other. find ways to put summon fors and human rights observers there. but most importantly, put the pressure on putin that the sanctions are going to happen, that there's going to be diplomatic isolation. otherwise he's going to call our bluff and be more aggressive. >> jill, secretary kerry today said that he had had no intentions that lavrov, the russian foreign minister would actually meet with the ukrainian foreign minister. clearly, they had flown the ukrainian foreign minister there specifically for these meetings, there must have been some hope that they would actually meet. >> yeah, even though he said there wouldn't.

but they're still not. they're saying that they will not talk to them and that's one of the key problems because they still say that this is an illegitimate regime and therefore they can't do anything, so you have to find a way of breaking through. kerry and lavrov i believe are going to meet again tomorrow. lavrov goes back, he has to talk to putin. it has to come from putin. >> is that how it works, ambassador? i mean, you've dealt with the russian foreign minister, lav v lavrov. what do you anticipate the next step being? >> the next step is, yes, i think jill is right, he has to get an okay from putin. but lavrov -- by the way, his english is impeccable. he a's detail oriented, he's tough, he knows america well, he knows when we're serious and i think the fact that there is a very strong reaction in the american government lavrov knows

and hopefully he will tell putin, we have to deescalate. i think it's a very tense situation and we have to keep the pressure on and i think in europe, germany is the key, france and britain following with germany, taking a stronger lead i think is really very important. >> tense indeed, bill richardson, glad to have you on the program. thank you for your perspective. a lot more ahead, including the question of putin's motivations, do they include rebuilding the old soviet union or restoring russia to its former glory. next on our russian control network, the tv network, one journalist made a dramatic show of resigning. we'll show that to you.

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[ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. welcome back to our coverage of the crisis in ukraine. her name is liz wall, she's an american who works in the russian today america's washington bureau. she accused her employer of glossing over the actions of vladimir putin in crimea and she quit on the air. >> i cannot be part of a network funded by the russian government that whitewashes the actions of putin. i'm proud to be an american and believe in disseminating the truth and that is why after this newscast, i'm resigning. >> liz wahl joins us now, in her first interview since quitting r.t. america.

also jill doherty. it's good to have you on the program. obviously your announcement stunned a lot of people. you've been working there for 2 1/2 years, clearly you're familiar with the perspective of r.t. america, and the kind of stories they put on the air. so why today? >> why today? i think a that's a good question. i think the coverage, as we're in this diplomatic standoff and during the escalation of this crisis in crimea, i think the propaganda nature of r.t. came out in full force. today, for example, i had an interview with ron paul. the only question that i asked, i asked many questions, i asked about the russian intervention, you know, he has a very anti-intervention approach. i asked him in the wake of escalation by the russian military how long, you know, how should we respond to this, how

should the u.s. respond to this? and that question was cut out of the interview. there was another segment today, it was a news package from one of our correspondents that painted the opposition over there in the ukraine as having neo nazi elements. i think that's dangerous when you have a new government instability over there and i'm sure there are in fact neo nazi elements, but to portray the entire opposition as being part of this right wing extremist group is going along with the narrative that vladimir putin wants to go along with. >> was this something you had always felt pressure? i mean how does it work in r.t.? i mean where do directions come from?

>> the direction comes from management and i think -- there is a lot of young people that work there, some people inexperienced and they're eager to please management. there's a form of self-censorship that you learn, eventually you learn what management likes, what management dislikes. today, especially with the heightened situation in crimea, overtly questions are being written, very, very loaded questions, questions basically to paint the picture and to present the putin perspective in all of this. and i just think, i mean i would hope as a reporter and in life, you should always seek the truth, spread the truth, disseminate the truth and what's clear is what's happening right now amid this crisis is that r.t. is not about the truth. it's about promoting a putinist

agenda. and i can tell you firsthand, it's also about bashing america. and i kind of cited some of my background where i came from, and why i am proud to be an american. in recent days, i have been suffering from a lot of cognitive dissidence and felt that i could no longer work here and go on television and tell the american people that this is what's happening and how to pose as news. it's just something i don't feel comfortable with. >> i want to bring in jill who's at harvard-kennedy school of government. she spends a lot of time foc focusing on the media in russia. you wanted to talk to liz. >> i just wanted to ask u what is happening right now with you? have there been repercussions and how is r.t. going to explain this? because there was a previous woman who said some things about the conflict, abby martin and r.t. said, all anchors can express their views freely, have you had any reaction from the management?

>> well, it's all happening very quickly. this happened just a couple of hours ago, i haven't seen the official response, i kind of saw on twitter before i went on today that they said that i'm doing this as a -- for personal gain, which couldn't be farther from the south. i actually didn't speak on this for a while for fear of repercussion. i don't know how they intend to retaliate against me. or what actions are going to be taking against me. i can say it's comforting on social media, i've gotten an explosive response, really people appreciating me, coming forward with this. that's been comforting for me. in terms of how they're going to deal with this, i don't know. >> i'm sorry, there's a delay, so i don't mean to be talking over you. you talk about management and

pressure from management and even self-censorship. who is management, are managers russian? i know there are a lot of young americans who work there and r.t. bills itself as questioning authority, which is clearly their marketing strategy. are they russian? >> management is russian, yes. middle management, they are american and their role is to make sure -- it's kind of part of that censorship role to make sure we're in line, to make sure ultimately the narrative that the russian, you know, the guy calling the shots ultimately, we're based in moscow, funded by the russian government. they kind of make sure that the narrative is delivered. in one way or another. >> right. well, liz, i appreciate you speaking on the program tonight. thank you very much. i know it's probably been a surreal and a fast moving day for you. i appreciate your time. as jill mentioned, her former colleague abby martin also spoke

out on the air, she is on piers morgan live at the top of the hour. hope you tooth in for that as well. just ahead tonight, where do crimea and the ukraine fit into vladimir putin's vision of a larger russia? one pill. you decide. prevent acid with prevacid 24hr.

earlier in the program you heard two gusts discussing whether putin has a long-term

game plan or whether he's more instinctual in the way he plans for events. he's made no secret of his nostalgia for the old soviet union. take a look. >> translator: first of all and it should be acknowledged and i have spoken of this before, that the collapse of the soviet union was the greatest geo political catastrophe of the century. >> greatest geo political catastrophe of the century? that was nearly nine years ago. the question now is, what are his ambitions geographically. steven hadley saw from the white house saw mr. putin bring a piece of the soviet union. there's this belief among some, yourself included that what's happening in ukraine is part of a larger attempt by president vladimir putin to dig in against the west. you and jim are at the map. tell us exactly what you're talking about and why. how do you see it? >> he's trying to build a series of institutions that in some sense mirror the institutions in the west.

he's got a thing called the eurasian union. he's got a security organization sort of based on nato. so he's trying to build a set of institutions to rebuild, if you will, not a soviet empire, but a russian empire. and you can see how far he's gone so far. >> we put those in red, the eurasia union. we have three countries here kazakhstan, russia and belarus. and we talked about how he's pulling kyrgyzstan closer. they're not in it yet, but they're coming closer. >> he's putting a lot of pressure on it. armenia had an association agreement with the eu. after three and a half hours in moscow, putin said we're going to go with the eurasia union. >> you made a good point, this

is not a nice kind invitation. there's diplomatic pressure, there's financial pressure. >> but the key to making this work is ukraine, with ukraine because of its historical ties to russia, because of its industry, because of its population, with ukraine, this begins to look like a condensing empire. without it, it's still a bit player, it's never going to rival the west. >> i learned a word today in slavic languages, that ukraine or ukrine means buffer. in the language that the general told me earlier. it is a buffer, literally and figuratively, this gives them a buffer against all these nato allies here? >> he would like to have ukraine join this union. there's no question about it. he's misplayed it. his man in ukraine did not deliver and the ukrainians have made it clear they want to go west. take crimea, what does that do?

that's his fall back strategy. it creates a territorial dispute between ukraine and russia. and this is something jill doherty mentioned last night. because of that territorial dispute, the european countries will be reluctant to take into the eu, to take into a nato, a country that has a territorial dispute with russia. so it freezes these countries between east and west, buys him time so over the long-term, he can continue his persuasion and his blackmail to try to bring them east rather than west. >> i'm glad you brought up countries with territorial disputes. so here's another one, georgia, bring up the map there, so you can see that, georgia, the last country he invaded in 2008. he's created that separation. you have these two provinces which are now under russian control. it makes it harder for georgia to become a nato-eu member? >> exactly.

>> interesting. do you think vladimir putin sees this as a zero sum game? >> he does see it as a zero sum game and that is part of the problem. we not headed, i don't think for a new cold war. but we also do not want to be headed for a redivision of europe. you're either on one side or the other. the trick in ukraine is one, we need to help the ukraine new government succeed, stabilize it economically, have it be able to bring a secure, positive future for their people. we have got to take steps to deter putin from trying to run this play again. but what would be the optimal outcome is that the ukrainian people are free to choose to come into eu, free to come into nato if they want, free to move west. but not in a way that servers the economic and historical ties with russia. try to turn it into a game that ukraine can move west without having to sever its ties to the

east. that's a big challenge for our diplomacy, that's really where we ought to try to be heading. >> and that's certainly something that secretary of state kerry when he was here in ukraine kept trying to emphasize, the relationship between the ukraine and russia, the historic ties there, ties that according to kerry will continue, to kind of mollify russia on that front. great to have you on the program. up next, hillary clinton clarifying her comments comparing vladimir putin's actions in ukraine to what hitler did as a justification for invading countries before world war ii. we'll explain what she said today. and a closer look at just who vladimir putin is. [ children laughing ] move to the country, and live a long, happy life together where they almost never fight about money. [ dog barks ] because right after they get married, they'll find some financial folks who will talk to them about preparing early for retirement and be able to focus on other things, like each other,

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liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? former secretary of state hillary clinton compares vladimir putins actions to hitler in the runup to world war ii. hillary clinton said putin is using the same type of justification for invading neighboring counties. >> today putin basically said in a long press conference is that all i want to do is protect the rights of the minority, and he's been on a campaign to give everybody who has any russian connection, here are a lot of retired russian military in crimea, he's given them all russian passports.

now if this sounds familiar, this is what hitler did back in the '30s. >> well, at ucla today clinton clarified and said she's not necessarily making a comparison between the two. but putin's actions are reminiscent of hitler's actions in that he's trying to protect german minorities. joiningny are arielle kohn and masha gedso, author of the man without a face. the unlikely mirage of vladimir putin. masha, hillary clinton's comparison of actions taken by vladimir putin are like hitler, is that an apt comparison? >> i don't know if those comparisons are particularly useful. then we get into a conversation about what the important distinctions are between putin and hitler. i think it's more useful to look

at what putin has done. what putin has done is he's built an authoritarian regime. he's in the midst of executing a huge political crackdown on his country and now he's encroached on another country, violating it's sovereignty. those are pretty hideous things on their own. we can point to other awful things he has done, systematically violating international law. i think that's enough. >> she also said that he was a tough guy with thin skin, those were her words, that's a direct quote. i know you said that he's a playground bully. what do you mean? >> what i mean is that's the way he acts. he dominates, his goal is to dominate. when he's confronted, he obscures and that's exactly what he was doing yesterday at his press conference in moscow, he didn't step away for a second from what he is doing in crimea.

what he did was what everybody expected him to sort of step up and create a great mobilization effort and call in the russians to invade ukraine. instead he acted like a playground bully who said that wasn't me, i didn't break that glass and he's not my friend anyway, while doing exactly what he's been doing and we know what he's been doing. >> you've met with putin more than ten times with various groups, you said his training as an intelligence officer, plays into how he looks at everyone around him, he takes stock of the people he's playing against, explain that. >> putin among other things was a recruiter. he was trained to deal with human assets. when you're dealing with a human asset, you assess the person who's in front of you, you predict his or her behavior. and he took a look at the team who's playing against him who he considers russian enemies. he decides i'm bigger, i'm

tougher, i'm strong ever. >> do you think vladimir putin is planning long-term, that he has a long-term view of the horizon or his actions are more instinctual? >> i think his planned horizon is nonexistent. he acts on instincts. he's actually fairly consistent. but he have seen he has no ability to plan for the future. >> i disagree. >> arielle explain that. there's strategy to his actions in crimea and elsewhere. >> masha, you wrote a book on putin, you know that he said in 2005 the greatest catastrophe of

the 20th century was the collapse of the soviet union. his lifetime project now is the eurasian union for the 21st century where he will rectify this alleged historic injustice to russia. and in order to do that, he needs to go and take territory that he considers as historic russian territory. such as crimea. it is a ukrainian territory. >> masha i want you to be able to respond to that. then we have to finish. >> you're quite right. he sees it as his historic mission to collect the lands back together that he sees as russian. that mission predates his 2005 statement about the greatest -- it doesn't mean he has a stat strategy, but he has a mission that he acts day to day. >> arielle, masha, i appreciate you being on. >> thank you. up next on the program, from here in ukraine, republican

senator lindsey graham says he links what's happening here in crimea to president obama's response to the benghazi attacks. dana bash caught up with him today. [ male announcer ] we know they're out there.

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the crisis in crimea. he went to twitter with a series of tweets in which he wrote, benghazi, when you kill americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this time of investigation. this comment and others he made have some crying foul. dana bash asked senator graham about his remarks. dana, you talked to senator graham what, did he have to say? >> anderson, lindsey graham is a democratic senator who has actually work ed alongside him, he told me he has gone way too long without criticizing the president's foreign policy. senator, one of the tweets that you sent that's getting a lot of eyebrows is about benghazi, about the situation in the ukraine, it really in many ways started in benghazi when our first ambassador was killed. how on earth is what's happenings in the ukraine a result of what happened in benghazi? >> it's not just about ukraine,

it's about our standing in the world. you know, would you agree that snowden is a hero or a traitor. when our president tells the russians don't give him asylum there will be consequences and nothing happens, it hurts us. when you tell the egyptian military, don't put morsi and his crowd in jail, you challenge them to turn control back over to civilians, and nothing happens, that hurts us. when you draw a red line and you tell assad, if you use chemical weapons on your own people, that will be a red line. and you flinch. when you tell the world, we're going to find the people who killed our four americans in libya, including the ambassador and you do nothing about it, whether you agree with his policy in syria, egypt, whether you agree with his policies, when he tells people there will be consequences and there are none, it sets in motion exactly what you see. >> it just seems like a stretch to talk about the u.s., a u.s. ambassador and three other

americans killed, to take that to vladimir putin. >> i didn't say that putin basically ignored obama because of benghazi alone. >> i printed out a series of tweets and it was sort of rapid fire mean tweeting at the president. really personal. >> it is personal. >> calling him weak and indecisive, new fewer than three times. >> i think he is. >> but by saying these things, aren't you making him weaker in the eyes of putin by someone like you with your stature calling him weak and indecisive. >> i think he is -- during the iraq war, did senator obama criticize bush's policies? did people go on the floor and say that bush lied to us about weapons of mass destruction. didn't harry reid go on the floor and say that the iraq war was lost? the point i'm trying to make is that there's been too many times

in the last six months where the president has told people, if you don't do what i say, there will be consequences and nothing's happened. >> you are in the middle of a republican primary, back in your state? >> exactly. >> you say the word benghazi, it is red meat for the republican base. you know that. >> why. republicans and independents want it no more. >> this isn't about primary politics back home? >> everything i have done has been about what i think is best for the country. i think it's best to find the truth about benghazi. when my primary is over and i'm going to win, i'm going to still be on benghazi. >> what is fascinating is that despite the partisan divide you just heard there, which is very deep, over the reason for the crisis in the ukraine, there's a surprising similarity among republicans and democrats about what to do about it now. boycotting the g8 summit in

russia. and there's con sense us on what not to do, and that is military action. >> i spoke to senator marco rubio last night on the program who actually was in favor of much of what the obama white house has done thus far which was certainly interesting to hear from senator rubio. dana, i appreciate the reporting, thanks. >> thanks. and we'll be right back. up late. thinking up game-changing ideas, like this: dozens of tax free zones across new york state. move here. expand here. or start a new business here... and pay no taxes for 10 years. with new jobs, new opportunities and a new tax free plan. there's only one way for your business to go. up. find out if your business can qualify at start-upny.com

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a few quick notes about my exclusive interview with liz