c-span.org or watchful coverage on c-span now, our free video app. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. funded by these television companies and more, including media,. >> the world changed in an instant. the mediacom was ready, internet traffic soared and we never slowed down. schools and businesses where virtual and we powered a new reality because at mediacom, we are built to keep you ahead. >> mediacom supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers. >> coming at this morning on "washington journal," we look at the threat of retaliatory cyber attacks from russia with michael daniel, president and ceo of cyber threat alliance.

brad bowman with the foundation for defense of democracies talking about russia's invasion of ukraine and potential u.s. and nato response. join the conversation with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages and tweets. "washington journal" is next. >> a contest between autocracy and democracy, sovereignty and subjugation, make no mistake, freedom will prevail. ♪ host: that was president joe biden from the white house yesterday afternoon after unveiling a stepped-up sanctions package aimed at punishing russia for its invasion of ukraine. we are now just over 33 hours since vladimir putin announced his invasion of ukraine. as attacks continue across the country right now, we are staying with the story on "washington journal" throughout our program this morning, and as we do, we want to hear from you

and your reaction to the russian invasion of ukraine. phone lines split as usual by political party, republicans, democrats, independents. you can also send us a text this morning. if you do, please include your name and where you are from. otherwise, catch up with us on social media. a very good friday morning to you. sometimes it is best to let the headlines lead the way. here is the banner headline across "the new york times," "were in ukraine. -- war in ukraine." this is the front page of "usa today," "putin's war sets the world on edge." one more from "the op-ed pages

-- the op-ed pages of "the washington post," "the assault on ukraine will shape a new world order." we are talking about it and hearing from you about it. here is more from president biden yesterday on the stepped-up sanctions package he announced. [video clip] >> i have been transparent with the world, we share declassified evidence about russia's plans and cyber attacks so they could be no confusion or cover-up about what putin was doing. putin is the aggressor. putin chose this war. now, he and his country will bear the consequences. today, i am authorizing additional strong sanctions and new limitations on what can be exported to russia. this is going to impose severe cost on the russian economy both immediately and over time. we have purposely designed these sanctions to maximize a long-term impact on russia and

minimize the impact of the united states and our allies. i want to be clear, the united states is not doing this alone. for months, we have been building a coalition of partners, representing well more than half the global economy. 27 members of the european union, including france, germany, italy as well as the united kingdom, canada, japan, australia, new zealand and many others to amplify the joint impact of our response. i just spoke with the g7 leaders this morning and we are in full and total agreement, we will limit russia's ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds and yen, to be part of a global economy. we will limit their ability to do that. we are going to stop the ability to finance and grow the russian military. we are going to impose major and impair their ability to compete in high-tech 21st century economies. we have already seen the impacts

of our actions on russia's currency in the ruble, which earlier today, hit its weakest level ever in history. the russia stock market plunged today. the russian government spiked by over 22%. we have now sanctioned russian banks that together hold around $1 trillion in assets. host: that was president biden yesterday from the white house. we are going to be talking more about the sanctions package during our program today. a note on what we know about the president and vice president's schedule today. kamala harris is set to meet with the bucharest 9, that group of eastern flank nato alliance numbers. that expected to happen within the next hour or so. president biden expected to meet with fellow heads of state at 9:00 a.m. eastern. also expecting a briefing today

from white house press secretary jen psaki in the early afternoon. this from punch bowl news today on a different topic. president biden has decided on his nominee for the supreme court to replace stephen breyer, according to a source familiar with the situation. cnn first reported that yesterday. the white house wants to announce that nominee today, but punch bowl noting it would hold off. biden has interviewed jackson, childs, and krueger. biden has promised to nominate the first black women to sit on the supreme court. that news may be coming today as well. we are talking about the russian invasion of ukraine throughout the morning on the washing -- on "washington journal." we mostly just want to hear you and your reaction.

one line for republicans, one for democrats and one for independents. we will take a look for your social media posts as well. marvin is up first out of philly. democrat, good morning. caller: i think biden is doing the smart thing with the sanctions. i think the sanctions will get a lot harder. if all of the countries from nato stand together, i think we make a stop. if we allow him to do this, i think we bring back the goal to take over. host: one take on the sanctions this morning. one posted saying no country has been hit with such international sanctions. "these sanctions are truly

economic warfare in response to a military invasion." this is from john smith, he says "these are the most powerful since the cold war era." caller: i have been trying to follow this and have been listening to the various stations. you have former ambassadors and former military people. the feeling i get is that putin, at this point, does not care about sanctions. i think the general consensus i am getting is if you are going to go with sanctions, go all out. take the gloves off, go 100%. whatever you have left, go. one point was made this morning that no matter what, people are going to purchase oil and gas from russia. that might be one of the sources of income. i think one of our aces in the

hole here in this country's energy. i think the president has got to give the petroleum industry the green light and get away from the war on fossil fuels, which the left is really trying to push. this moment in time, i think is so important when it comes to energy. if we can get close to being energy independent, we are able to help maybe some other european countries that do need gas and oil. i think this will probably help a little bit with the economy because if we don't, we will go down the black hole as far as the economy is concerned. you are going to see the price of oil go up to $120, one hundred $40 -- $140 a barrel.

already in california, it is five dollars or six dollars a barrel. we don't increase our production in this country. i might be wrong, but we are talking seven dollars or eight dollars a gallon. host: on the energy front, a few more of the headlines. this is the business section of "than your times," "-- "the new york times." here is more from president biden yesterday on the steps his administration is taking to regulate oil and the energy crisis. [video clip] >> as we respond, my administration is using every tool at its disposal to protect the american family and businesses from rising gas prices. we are taking active steps to bring down the cost in american -- and american gas and oil companies should not exploit this moment to hike their prices to raise profits. in our sanctions package, we

specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue. we are closely monitoring energy supplies for any disruption. we have been coordinating with major oil producing and consuming countries toward our common interest to secure global energy supplies. we are actively working with countries around the world to elevate collective release from the strategic petroleum reserves of major energy consuming countries. the united states will release additional barrels of oil as conditions warrant. i know this is hard, and that americans are already hurting. i will do everything in my power to limit the pain the american people are feeling the gas pump. this is critical to me. but this aggression cannot go unanswered. if it did, the consequences for america would be much worse. america stands up to bullies. we stand up for freedom. this is who we are. host: president biden in that

address from the white house yesterday. ken in granite city, illinois. you are next. caller: how are you doing? my -- i have so much to say that i would be on for an hour. basically, i think what we need to think about is that we are now in a cold war. it is cold because we are not shooting at anybody, but we are in a cold war struggle with russia. when i say we, i mean the democratic countries of the world. the democracies. we are all in a battle now with russia. and of course, good old china is on russia's side and iran is on russia's side. will this hurt eventually the american people?

are they going to have to pay a price? i have in a drawer here at home some ration coupons from world war ii for sugar and for tires for the car. that is the kind of sacrifice that we made fighting the two enemies we had then. democracies worldwide have some enemies, and it is russia and china. host: that is ken in granite city, illinois. here is one of the illustrations on the op-ed page of "washington journal" today, it is an american eagle facing off against a russian bear. ukraine being one of the ponds on the board -- pawns on the board at a chinese dragon watching what is happening. caller: good morning.

i would like to say that this has gotten out of hand and i think we should bomb russia. that is all i have to say. host: rebecca, california. independent. good morning. caller: good morning, everybody. i think we need to send in the navy seal team six. why don't we do to putin what we did to bin laden, because he has never really crossed the line. i agree with what a man said previously, he does not care about sanctions. what he pairs -- cares about his land. why don't we start taking land away from him starting with the land over by alaska? drastic times, drastic measures. i think we need to treat him like a true terrorist. host: rebecca in california. sheila in oklahoma. republican, good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. this has been very interesting

discussion from hearing what everybody is saying. i think the sanctions he propose our week. they are not going to do -- are weak. they are not going to do anything to deter russia. he did not shut down oil. he shut down the keystone pipeline for us to get oil. we cannot even export oil to europe because we were independent before he came into office. now, we have to import oil. i did not realize, sir, that we were importing oil from russia. because of paying money, we are helping russia come against ukraine. host: that pipeline you referred to, the nord stream 2 pipeline, germany announcing earlier this week, even before the larger invasion of ukraine, that they would not be certifying that pipeline, effectively shutting it down. that being seen as one of the

harshest sanctions even ahead of the package announced yesterday. you said it is weak. what at this point would be stronger? are you talking you would want a military option because president biden indicated again yesterday that is off the table. caller: i don't want military. i think we ought to have more by the sides. i think it has been weak. president biden knew a long time ago the invasion is going to happen, so he waited so we are going from behind. i just think this president, and administration, they don't plan very good. just like afghanistan. i think our allies are weak. i don't think they are working together with him. that is just my opinion. i really feel like, sir, that probably we are going to have terrorist attacks over here because he is weak, the

democratic party is weak. they have to come up with something different. host: don, golden valley, arizona. good morning. caller: i think putin and his cronies, they can go lay on some yacht somewhere and enjoy all that money and stuff that they have stashed away in western banks. i think they need to go after his assets and his friends assets because these sanctions are not hurting nobody except people in this country and the free world and they are hurting the russian people. he can ride them out. that is my opinion. i expressed that view to my senators sinema and kelly this morning. i had to leave a message, but at

least he could get the idea. thanks. host: don in arizona. one sanctioned move that is still on the table, some are pushing for, is shutting russia out of the global financial system known as the swift system. "the wall street journal" with a breakdown of what that is, the society for tilt munication support swift is the financial messaging infrastructure that links banks, the belgian-based system is run by member banks and runs millions of instructions across more than 200 countries and territories and more than 11,000 financial institutions. iran and north korea are cut off from it. cross-border financing is critical to every part of the world. disconnecting a country from swift could hit all of that. asking the question of why there has been reticence so far of a

cut off because of the economic blowback is the region, not just in europe, which relies heavily on russia's natural gas exports, but also the rest of the world. former u.s. officials say the move could severely hurt russia's economy and hurt the west. it was president biden who was asked yesterday why the world has not taken that move yet. here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> you did not mention swift in your sanctions that you announced. is there a reason why the u.s. is not doing that? is there disagreement among allies regarding swift and whether russia should be allowed to be part of it? >> the sanctions that we have proposed on all of the banks may be more consequence than swift, number one. number two, it is always an option, but right now, that is not the position the rest of europe wishes to take. host: president biden yesterday

from the white house. taking your phone calls this morning throughout our program. the russian invasion of ukraine. roberta, decatur, georgia, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i just think with putin, i think he is losing a grip on his own country with many people who are wanting to not live under a dictatorship or authoritarian regime. i have heard people say it is all about oil, gas, water. with putin, he does not like democracies. ukraine was an independent country, voted independently for their own ruler, their own president. i think putin does not like that so he chose to go in and is trying to force the country to be under his rule, to try to

look like someone who is tough. as a military veteran, i served in korea in the late 1970's and south korea and in germany in the 1980's before the wall of berlin was torn down. you think about it, it is like we are there to try to help countries to live independently, to live in a democracy. putin does not like that. i think in the end, you see that even in his own country -- even those in his own country don't believe his lies of why he went into ukraine because they are out protesting. and with jail time. i just think people really need to listen, learn their history, their geography because he won't stop it ukraine, and if he does not stop it ukraine, it will be u.s. military personnel involved

in this. host: a story on protests in russia, the color was talking about. -- caller was talking about. this from "the huffington post," "a wave of protests. antiwar demonstrations broke out across the country, including moscow where videos show a significant degree force deployed to quell dissent. videos and shared on social media show police officers almost immediately arresting anyone who participated." "the huff post" reporting some 1700 people in 54 russian cities were detained thursday, at least 957 in moscow. caller: talking about the money, look at all of the money hunter

biden got for his family to enrich their lives from russia, china and ukraine. you don't think putin is blackmailing biden to other countries? he could blow biden out of the water right now for what he knows. he has got the laptop from hunter biden. he knows joe biden is a criminal. just is putin. whatever he says about putin, that is what i say about biden. he is a liar, a fraud, and the guy needs -- host: that is susan in massachusetts. this is janet in florida. caller: good morning. just wanted to talk about what i had read a few days ago in the paper where there had been flooding in brazil. i read the article and it was interesting and said bull dinero

-- bolonaro was visiting with putin. it is interesting how these dictator-like leaders are all meeting and how trump was quite interested in putin too. i understand russia has no peer weapons, so isn't that something we should be concerned about -- nuclear weapons, so isn't that something we should be concerned about? thank you. host: shepherdstown, west virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i used to live in russia. mf putin at the beginning of his tenure -- i met putin at the beginning of his tenure. something we are not realizing here.

i don't know her name, the press secretary for biden. host: jen psaki. caller: she and biden both say we cannot get into putin's head. that is absolutely nonsense. putin is a very simple person. he responds, he reacts. sanctions will do nothing except tick him off. he is the richest man in the world, unofficially. he has all the money he needs. and he is a former fsb kgb. we have to understand where he is coming from. he does not come from the oligarchs, the rich guys who lay down on their yachts, as one caller said. he is responding to nato expansion. that is what this is all about. nato expansion. i don't think most of our callers truly understand the concept of what nato was created for.

he made his demands. don't put ukraine into nato. biden said -- he refused. in other words, he gave him no choice but to do what he had to do, and that was take over ukraine. host: can i ask, what you were doing living in russia and under what circumstances you met putin? caller: i was a businessman. i did not work for the u.s. government and i was not military. host: how did you get a chance to meet putin? caller: same way i met yeltsin. trade deals, import export. i also organized industrial tradeshows. there were reasons for us to meet. it was strictly on trade. at the time that he came into

office, the u.s. and russia were developing very strong trade relations. unfortunately, that was also the time that president clinton was focused on nafta. if you are aware of history, clinton went to russia, and i met him at that point. he snapped putin who just became vice president and quickly became president when yeltsin resigned. it was an interesting period of time. he has been angry basically at the united states. host: to your point about nato expansion, this is from the bbc,

. host: this is carl and alabama. caller: i don't think -- i think a more for medical military is going to be the only thing that will deter putin right now. i don't think any amount of sanctions imposed is going to deter him because i think he is leaders are focused on removing this current government in ukraine and installing his own

puppet government. i wish the allies, nato, we would at least give the ukraine military all the weaponry, artillery they need to at least be able to combat the russian forces. i think it is so sad that we have a former president, mike pompeo. we have a former president heaping praise on our enemy.

host: carl mentioned one of our closest allies. this is boris johnson yesterday addressing the british parliament. [video clip] >> shortly after 4:00 this morning, i spoke to president zelensky of ukraine as the first missiles struck his beautiful and innocent country. i assured him the unwavering support of the united kingdom. i can tell the house that at this stage, ukrainians are offering a fierce defense of their families and their country. i know that every honorable member will share my admiration for that resolve. earlier today, president putin delivered another televised address and offered the absurd pretext that he sought the the military's age and and -- de militarization and den

azification of ukraine. in pledge and every principle of civilized havey between states, spreading the best efforts of this country and our allies to avoid bloodshed. for this, putin will stand condemned in the eyes of the world and in history. he will never be able to cleanse the blood of ukraine from his hands. and although the u.k. and our allies tried every avenue for diplomacy until the final hour, i am driven to conclude that putin was always determined to attack his neighbor, no matter what we did. now we see him for what he is -- a bloodstained aggressor who believes in imperial conquest. i am proud that britain did everything we could in our power to help ukraine prepare for this onslaught, and we will do our utmost to offer more help as our

brave friends defend their homeland. our embassy took this precaution on the february 18 of relocating from kyiv, where our ambassador continues to work with ukrainian authorities and support british nationals. now, we have a clear mission, diplomatically, politically, economically, and eventually, militarily. this hideous venture of vladimir putin must end in failure. host: boris johnson yesterday, addressing the british house of commons. just after 7:30 on the east coast this morning. we are getting your reaction to the russian invasion of ukraine. phone lines as usual, republicans, democrats, independents, four lines for each. since these events began, we

have been showing some of the reaction from members on capitol hill. nancy pelosi, yesterday afternoon, this statement, the response of america and our allies will be devastating for russia economically, diplomatically, and strategically. the president made clear that we will continue to impose costs on russia. this from kevin mccarthy, the house minority leader, saying that vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine is reckless and people. the united states stands with the people of ukraine in praise of their resolve. this act of war is intended to rewrite history. and, more concerning, be held accountable for their actions. those from the democratic and republican leaders. one view on how americans could and should act, according to the

editorial board of usa today. americans must stand united against russia's act of war -- politics stops at the water's edge may seem outdated in a world of twitter rants and me first politics, but a brief review of american history shows why the concept remains important. after the end of world war ii, the u.s. and allies faced an accident -- existential threat from soviet union. recognizing the threat, senator arthur vandenberg, a republican from michigan, embraced isolation before the war, but align himself with president truman, a democrat who championed american that international initiatives. vandenberg supported adoption of

the marshall plan. nato became america's first mutual defense treaty since its alliance with france in the american revolution. vandenberg -- they wrote the world beyond america's shores is a dangerous place. -- the editorial board of usa today. from highland, california, independent. caller: thank you for taking my call. bless the people of ukraine. putin is not listening to whatever nato is talking about or anything like that. he is doing what he wants. why can't somebody answer this? why can't all the nations of nato, the free world, get together and show putin that they are together and go and b

omb his military place? maybe that will show him that we mean business, the united states and all of nato. and maybe everybody is worried about china, maybe china will see that also. host: there is a lot of worry if nato were to do that, escalating this to a much larger war beyond ukraine. are you not worried about that? caller: yes, yes, but something could be done to russia. putin will not be listening to anyone. he is only for himself. in the meantime, the president is saying we will do this or do that, and he is doing what he wants. those poor people, those poor children -- it is heartbreaking. thank you for taking my call. host: connie in california on nato. this is the nato

secretary-general yesterday on the alliance's threat posture with the russian invasion of ukraine underway. [video clip] >> we will demonstrate that, despite double medic efforts and economic sanctions, russia -- despite diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions, russia decided to once again invade ukraine. since we have been warning against this for a long period of time, we have taken prudent measures to prepare ourselves. that is the reason why come over the last months and weeks, we have significantly increase the presence of nato troops in the eastern part of the alliance. with more ground troops but also more air and naval forces. in the coming weeks, there will be even more. we will further increase and are increasing our presence in the

eastern part of the alliance. today, we activated nato's defense stance that gives military commanders more authority to move forces and deploy forces when needed. this could also be elements of the nato response force, so we are ready, we are adjusting our posture, but what we do is defensive, measured, and we do not seek confrontation. we want to prevent the conflict and any attack against a nato-allied country. host: we will expect to hear from him again today. at noon eastern time, he will be addressing journalists following a private videoconference with nato leaders. this will be airing here on c-span, c-span.org, and the free c-span now video app. the un security council will vote on a resolution that would condemn russia's invasion of

ukraine and demand a withdrawal of russian troops, live at 3:00 p.m. eastern time, also on c-span, c-span.org, and the free c-span now video app. back to your phone calls. jackson, tennessee, independent, thanks for waiting. caller: i was in russia in the 1990's at the time putin was really coming onto the scene. my husband and i were there to adopt a child. we became very involved with speaking to the people that lived there, learning something about those people. even then, those people were terrified of this man. they were terrified of him. some of the people we dealt with were saying that they were keeping on the ready to leave the country, because they were so terrified of him. the people that we dealt with that helps us were educated people of the country.

they were the physicians of the country. they were people that, in this country, would be honored and respected, but, in that country, lived in utter and abject poverty. it was disgraceful, the way this country operates. the people -- there are very, very few people who have anything, and those who do not have anything struggled. there is no social support systems in those country. this has not changed, from what i understand from people from this country. vladimir putin does not care about his own people. how could we think sanctions were going to be enough to stop him from invading and recklessly harming other individuals? this man has no heart, no compassion. he does not care about -- nato is part of it, but his drive is power and a legacy --

host: the people you met in russia were scared of him then. i wonder if you had a chance to see some of the videos of the protests in moscow and other around russia, what your thoughts are about those people protesting yesterday, expected to protest again today, the arrests happening there? caller: those had to be really brave and passionate people. they know the potential consequences for what they did. they will likely -- they will be imprisoned or not survive this. host: connie in jackson, tennessee. joe here in washington, d.c., democrat. caller: good morning, how are you? host: go ahead. caller: to the previous caller,

i want to say i am also adopted from russia. god bless you. so sweet to hear your story. i want to remind everybody that you can't be gay in russia, can't be trans in russia, can't be lgbtq in russia. russia has a hit list of queer people that, if and when russia occupies ukraine, they will be killed. queer activists in russia are killed every single day. ukraine has a spotty history with its lgbtq community, but the last two years, they have had pride parades in kyiv and other major cities, but that is all about to end. i want people to remember that russia and putin has no compassion in his heart for his own people and once only power and to stifle any type of resistance to what he sees as his vision for russia. host: joe, you are referring to

those intelligence reports that were unclassified, a story from a couple days ago, warning that russia has a kill list of ukrainians to be killed or detained if they take control of the country? caller: that is correct. host: out of the bluegrass state, democrat, you are next. caller: i am just thinking about if trump had won the election, he and putin would be playing golf. -- host: are you not concerned about a wider escalation of war beyond ukraine, perhaps even beyond europe? caller: if we do not stop him now -- if trump had won, he will be coming after us, because trump and him were such good

friends. just go ahead and bomb him and get it over with. host: maxine, independent. caller: good morning, my favorite host. i want to give my minor opinion here. when we pulled out of afghanistan, that gave putin everything he needed to know about our leader, biden. we do not have a man that -- a statesman that can deal with putin. you look at what we have got, we have a president whose total life has been running for president, running for office. you got putin, who has a kgb background. he has got a spine that we do not have. and all this -- all they are doing is infuriating him. he does not care.

he will do what he has to do. my concern right now, biggest concern, is nuclear holocaust. we are so on the verge of having a nuclear holocaust. we will not have world war iii. we will have a nuclear holocaust, and russia will be the first one to do it, because he will not stand by and just take it. i am so worried. i am thankful i do not have any grandchildren, because if i did, i would be scared to death. thank you, and i hope you have a good weekend. host: paul in fort lauderdale, florida, republican. good morning. caller: hello. i do not like to be insulted. but i hope everyone saw that press conference and heard joe biden say that he was doing

everything he could to keep the pain away from the american people with regard to these sanctions. and examine and remember how convincing an emotional and persuasive someone can be when they are giving you an outright lie. i am totally insulted, the fact that he could open up drilling and the xl pipeline and lower gas prices and cut them in half overnight. and he knew, when he said that, that he was lying. the oil problem is one of the basis of all the inflation we have in this country, and high oil prices is empowering putin and russia.

he is a liar. i have used to the usual stuff, where if the democrats ever saw the truth, they would never recognize it stuff. but i was totally insulted to be told a lie in front of the entire american people. host: this is greg in west virginia, republican. good morning. caller: the last caller basically eloquently said just what i feel. joe biden is just a puppet for the extreme radical climate c razies in this country, john kerry, on and on. i hope i can understand this. we are importing thousands of gallons of oil from russia now. we cut out the keystone pipeline the first day he was in office.

so joe biden is basically paying for this war. he is paying to annihilate innocent people in ukraine. when we were independent in our country on energy. the first thing he did when he came in office was to close down the pipelines and our energy. we have the resources here in our country, and you are telling me that we are importing oil from russia? and he said he will do everything to help us with our gas prices. just like the previous caller, he is a total liar. donald trump had a lot of faults , and yes, his suites were arrogant and rude. -- his tweets were arrogant and rude. but i hope our country is happy with what we have got right now. i would take our tweets any time of the day over what we have now. we have total chaos in this country. host: here are a few of your

comments from social media. american joe sang one of the previous callers was right, that we threw away the opportunity to develop in cooperation with the russian federation. terrible shame, he says. we, the world, and ukraine are paying for our stubborn arrogance and mindless hostility toward russia. and this one saying the war in ukraine has been ongoing. the obama administration supplied much more than blankets. the trump administration was in the process of supplying more military aid when the former president trump delay the aid and trump continues to praise prudence dictatorial tactics -- praise putin's dictatorial tactics. mary ann saying nato needs to respond militarily. deborah just saying prayers for ukraine. caller: good morning.

i watch you regularly. what i hear from a lot of people -- by the way, i am not -- i am a liberal democrat, but i couldn't get in on that line. i am liberal because i believe in people and i care. but what i. -- what i hear from most people is what they think. but they really do not know. they do not know what is going on behind the scenes. and we should not really know. we have to trust our government. and our leader, our president is not playing golf every day. he is working with the people that he put in place to protect us. and nato was never aggressive. they were always in defense of their people in europe.

i have one other question. would we come as americans, rather be ruled or governed? there is distance between being ruled and being governed. it is the distance between russia and the united states of america, that great distance. i have a lot of operations of the last couple of years, so my speaking is hard for me, but my feelings and what i think i am trying to based on facts, not just emotions. and these people who condemn what is going on, don't any of them read history and about hitler and the holocaust and how

he started his march? host: we will take the comment -- and i know it can be fresh rating to not get in on the phone line that best suits your political philosophy, but we ask that you stay on those phone lines, just because the program works better if people actually call in on the phone lines of the political party that best fits them. i know it can be frustrating, especially on a day like today, where the phone lines are lit up, but if you could, that would help this program. we will go to wayne in winter haven, florida, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say thank you for allowing me to speak. i am trying to hold my composure, because our country is so divided that we are not clearly understanding what it takes for president to make the decisions he needs to keep us

and the world safe. let's go to the facts. when trumpet came president, his talking point was us getting out of nato -- when trump became president, his talking point was us getting out of nato, a talking point putin agreed with. his other talking point was ukraine, before sending them weapons to defend themselves, he would need information from them. when putin allegedly put a bounty on our soldiers in afghanistan, trump said, you know what, i believe he is telling the truth. the facts is that we cannot play monday court when it comes to a situation that could interest into world war iii. as a democrat, liberal, i implore both parties, both sides, to use common sense. this is a situation where people's lives in ukraine, most

likely, there will be a bloodshed. we can do what is afforded to us and not escalate to a situation where it will be a greater catastrophe. putin has already said i have nuclear weapons. he was not talking to ukraine. he was not talking to europe. he was talking to us. host: staying in florida, miami, this is marian, republican. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. my heart is so broken for the ukraine people. the hardest thing for me in this whole thing is my anxiety is building. i am just thinking about history. i am thinking about the future. i am thinking about now. at what point -- it is even hard to distinguish in the media, because i watch different media channels. it is almost like there is a

fear of calling it what it is. even with conservative media, basically, it is almost like they are saying you should have known better. and i am like what is going on? what happened to america first? how many times are you going to have to be hit before you react? so let's not move into ukraine, and i still hear sanctions. only the british prime minister, who had said anything about military force to support the people of ukraine, but i am not hearing it from america. it is breaking my heart. he is not going to stop there. if his justification is because ukraine is in his border, when he takes over ukraine, the other allies are in his border, so then what is next, you know what i mean? host: staying in florida, dale, independent.

caller: good morning. we have a president in office that does not have a clue. he has never made a good decision. his own people said that. and his whole career, he has never been on the right side of things. now we are faced with one of the biggest crises we have had in a very long time. putin is threatening america. this is biblical. i believe it will escalate. because joe does not have a clue how to handle this. people say we need to give him a cognitive test. he feels one every time he gets up to talk. host: on president biden, this from a column in the wall street journal, calling it biden's time for choosing right now, writing that this is the president's chance to reset his domestic

standing. key senate democrats have already signaled that they back tougher russia -- some 70% -- even missouri populist josh hawley mustard and typewritten outrage. they write this provides a huge opening for bipartisan national security and to make good on his campaign promise of unity. so would a domestic energy plan, which would play well with a public fearing rising energy prices. progressive groups are already

arguing that mr. biden's sponsor be to double down on their unpopular agenda. she says that the political ramifications of taking their dictation at this moment would be catastrophic. a few months left in the segment of "washington journal" to talk about ukraine. it is the topic of our entire program, so you have two hours ahead if you do not get in. howard beach, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i am tired of listening to people talk about the rise of oil prices. in world war ii, we had rationing of oil and other things. in order to support our efforts. it is the price we pay to begin with for not losing lives. i am willing to pay another $2

or $3 of oil if it means saving my son. in addition to that, i am sick and tired of listening to reporters screaming at the president about the sanctions, whether they work or not. sanctions all work. they may not be sufficient, but they all work, and they take time. and i have a solution to the problem. i have a solution to stopping the war immediately. let the reporters ask the president why don't you give ukraine nuclear weapons? thank you. host: philip, michigan, your next. good morning. caller: good morning. the issue everyone talks about is nukes, icbm's. mutual assured destruction. china recently shot two

hyperspeed velocity rockets into space, in the vacuum of space around the planet. i think they went twice around and struck a target in china. we have to get on board with the hyperspeed rockets really soon, or we are going to end up in a situation like pearl harbor, where we are behind. if we do not hurry up and produce hyperspeed rockets, china will make them, and mutual assured destruction will be a thing of history. we need to get rid of worrying about icbm's striking us if we just get on board with these hyperspeed rockets. host: danny, last caller in this segment, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. john, first of all, i want to be quite clear -- i am praying for the people in ukraine. this should never happen to them. second of all, when joe first got into office, he x'ed out the

xl pipeline, fracking, stuffer us to be energy independent. after saying that, this is my opinion. if joe and the democrats get oil so high, we will be forced to buy their electric cars. i think this is all about that. joe is afraid of aoc plus three. when joe is in a press conference, he only takes questions from a predetermined list or he is shuffled off the stage. the only one who can answer the hard questions as peter ducey. host: danny in arizona. plenty more to talk about today.

up next the u.s. briefing for cyber attacks in the lake of invasion. will tom by the u.s. and private sector are preparing for that with michael daniel from the cyber threat alliance. later we were joined by the terry analyst brad bowman from the foundation of defense democracies -- donation for defense democracies on the russian military invasion. we will be right back. >> weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday you will find events that explore our nation's past on american history tv. on sunday, book tv rings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. it is television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. weekends on c-span two.

>> following president biden's historic take on the supreme court justice from the announcement to the confirmation process on c-span, c-span.org or by downloading the free c-span now app.

>> can report to the nation america is on the move again. live tuesday, the state of the union, president biden addresses a session of congress and the nation reflecting on his first year in office and laying out his agenda for the year ahead. live coverage begins 8 p.m. eastern. president speaks at 9:00. followed by the republican response. we'll take your phone calls and social media reactions. the state of the union address live tuesday, 8 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org or the c-span now video app. >> washington journal continues. host: a conversation on russia's cyber keep abilities now with michael daniel, the former white house cybersecurity for nader in the obama administration, current president of cb -- of the cyber threat alliance. explain about the cyber threat alliance. guest: the cyber threat alliance is a group of cybersecurity

companies that have come together to share threat intelligence with each other to do so in an automated fashion and human fashion. we have 34 members from 11 different countries around the world. we are a membership association. that is how we work. host: explain what you and your members are seeing on the cyber battlefield during the lead up and now invasion of ukraine. the attacks on the cyber front fall into certain types of categories? guest: you have seen the reporting of our members of a new kind of malware that is referred to as a wiper. it is designed to destroy computers ability to operate. that has been deployed across a number of different systems

inside ukraine. we are mostly seeing the same kind of malicious activity that you see almost every day. phishing campaigns, ransomware attack's, that sort of thing. host: what we know how about russia's capabilities on this front besides what you just said, anything surprising? esko -- guest: so far not that we've seen that is been surprising. russians have shown themselves to be quite creative, very ingenious in what they do. before the concept is done i'm expecting a few surprises from them. host: lighthouse yesterday -- the white house yesterday quick to knock down report the president biden was being provided options for a cyberattack against russia offensive capability's. why do you think that was sunday the white house jumped out to knock down? esko -- guest: it is easy to get

breathless reporting over these options. there are defensive cyber options in the mix for possible policy responses down the road. this white house is trying very carefully to control the escalation path to make sure things do not spiral further out of control. you can see that in how measured they are being in the other activities they are taking. they're trying to manage this tightly. that is why they stepped out there to knock down the speculation. host: staying on cyber offensive capability is, how to u.s. cyber cape ability stack up against russia? what kinds of attacks are we best at compared to what you are describing with what russia has been doing in ukraine? guest: when you think about the

major cyber powers, the nations with the greatest cyber capabilities around the planet, the u.s. is among them. russia, china, others like that. we have a broad array of capabilities that we can deploy against russian networks. some you have seen in previous encounters like the denial of service attacks against some the internet research agencies, things that happened a few years ago. we could carry out equally destructive attacks if we chose. we have tended to be more discriminant and stealthy. the kind of capability's we have built. both russia and the u.s. possess

extensive cyber cape ability spit hood host: explain what a denial of service attack is and what does. guest: a denial of service attack is when you flood a computer or server with so much traffic that you overwhelm it and it cannot carry out any of its other activity. host: is misinformation a form of cyberattack or does that fall into a different category? guest: you hit on something that is a massive debate inside the community. from the russian point of view they are all about peace. the russians do not talk about cybersecurity unless they're interacting with the west. they talk about information security. they talk about information operation. from the russian perspective, they're all woven together, using misinformation and disinformation to boost direct

to woody to enhance misinformation or disinformation campaign. on our side we make a big distinction between those two. people like me do not have as much experience working in the information -- disinformation space. it will be part of what the russians are doing. host: cyber threat alliance.org. if you want to ask him a question will be with us until 8:45 eastern. start calling in. phone lines republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. as folks are calling in, this headline from the usa today this morning administration shields up to protect the united states. let's talk about defensive

capabilities. the concerns, one abilities -- the vulnerabilities. guest: when you look at our digital landscape we have become very visually dependent as a country -- digitally depended as a country. almost everything connected to the internet can be vulnerable and some form. that is a lot of stuff now. people who have been in this business for a while we used to talk about wired desktops as the primary thing we are worried about. now is everything from your refrigerator to your car to your industrial systems to smartphones and laptops. what the administration was trying to do was to reinforce with the cybersecurity -- with the cyber community has been

saying for a long time which is that good basic cybersecurity practices you need to be into many to reduce your risk of having a malicious cyber incident whether in a current crisis or from cyber criminals or anything in the future. host: pipeline hack is been traced back to russian hackers. sling what were -- explain what went wrong there. guest: the attack on colonial pipeline was a ransomware incident. some malicious actors put software onto colonial pipeline's business system that encrypted those systems. and made them inaccessible to the rightful operators. those actors demanded that colonial pipeline pay a ransom in order to get the key to unlock their data.

what happened was because of the concerns about the extent of how the ransomware mayor propagated through their system they decided to shut down their pipeline and their technology systems to prevent the ransomware from spreading there. the ransomware to not actually hit the systems that run the pipeline. one you'll pipeline took the decision to do that -- colonial pipeline took the decision to that themselves. that led to the fuel disruptions and other things we saw here along the east coast. some of which ash there was not as much of a shortage as there could've been. because everybody was worried about that it created a shortage. that was a interesting case.

host: i could you defend against a denial of service or ransomware attack? guest: the one thing about a denial of service attack is that it is a reversible and stoppable. once the perpetrator stop sending the package the problem goes away. it is not permanently destructive. there is a lot of capabilities out there, many companies that will help you defend against id dos service. internet service providers like at&t or verizon, amazon, all sorts of services you can use for that. for ransomware, when you're infected with ransomware it is difficult to prevent a ransomware from spreading at

least two some of the machines in your network. ransomware is a big problem. it is primarily driven by the criminal underground. it is becoming a big business. host: you were in the position of white house security coordinator in the obama administration. what was the worst cyberattack that the u.s. experience during that time that you dealt with? guest: that is an interesting question. some of them were not singular incidents. the ongoing chinese campaign to steal intellectual property and business and trade secrets from u.s. company's. the russian interference in the 2016 election which was as much about misinformation as it was

about cyber activity. north korean attack, the iranian attacks on our financial institutions. it was quite a long list. got to where we had to develop much better incident response procedures and policies. many of which are still in place today. you can see the white house building on that. host: plenty of calls for you. allen in new york democrat. caller: you cute into my topic about the election. we had to deal with the problem of redefining treason going back to the 2001 attack on the world trade center dealing with nonstate actors. what does it mean to be a

traitor to your own country if you are not aligned with a foreign nation but with foreign national terrace? we have the problem of dealing with how to be redefined treason in an age where we are not nest early facing weapons used by a power but the soft invisible threat posed by cyberattack? i'm wondering in which respect -- in retrospect given the fact that we now have a kinetic war in ukraine but with someone whom our last president was very cozy intolerant of his operation in the cyber realm, does this redefine some of the conduct of our last president as being more clearly treasonous? i think muller was pointing in that direction with his report. bardi feigned that report -- bar

defined that before. host: michael daniel, any thoughts? guest: it is fair to say that in the area of my expertise unfortunately while the previous administration had a number of people who were very dedicated to working on cybersecurity issues and actually made some really strong advancements, unfortunately they did not put as much emphasis in continuing to develop cybersecurity policies made the things we need to do to build our cyber defenses. this administration is going much better job of that across the board. whether you're talking about not

just this crisis but the executive orders they've issued, the way they're working with the private sectors, setting up a public-private collaboration for contingency planning kitty ready for possible incidents and responding to incidents as they emerge. what you can see is that in this space there are nonstate actors and state actors. distinguishing between them is often challenging. there are fuzzy and unclear linkages between those actors. that is what makes dealing with cyber threats are challenging. host: is there such thing as a pentagon for u.s. cybersecurity? you mentioned an agency.

in the department of homeland scaredy. your former office at the white house. i am assuming the pentagon has its own cybersecurity group. are all these pieces talking to each other and correlating? are there any issues? disco -- guest: the pentagon has the u.s. cyber command. that is a combatant command national security agency there. that's what's in -- that is with the national scaredy staffer doing, they are making sure the departments and agencies ranging from the u.s. intelligence community to the state department to homeland security but also including law enforcement, so the justice

department and the fbi, secret service. many other departments and agencies across the government that have a role in cybersecurity. that is the job of the national security council to help bring those together deal with these geopolitical crises. there is now also the office of national cyber directors, chris is the first national cyber director. it -- it is his job to bring together the group of agencies i was mentioning for the development of cyber policies and how the government is organized, trained and equipped and ready to deal with cybersecurity issues. that is a very important role that was recently traded by congress and has been newly filled. host: dave in florida republican. caller: i have been a republican since voting for reagan in 1980.

main concern with a nuclear war, now it is even more dangerous because of our dependence on digital technology. i have to wonder what ronald reagan would think if he could have foreseen that the republican party would eventually become a cult that supports a russian dictator while smearing and maligning our own president. who could have imagined the political environment in this country could become so toxic that it creates a cult of reptiles? host: on the history of cyber develop me, the color is talking about what would reagan do. when do we actually start dealing with this threat? guest: he history of this goes

back a long way. some of the initial viruses being distributed via disk back in 1987. this is not a new problem depending on your perspective. it has been around for 20 or 30 years. in the grand scheme of policy development, cyberspace and in cybersecurity are relatively new to the policy world. many of the ways we think about the world do not work very well in cyberspace because things move at light speed. it is not a continuous landscape like the rural world. we are still struggling to come to terms with and figure out how to deal with the problems we now face in cyberspace. at the same time they have roots that are actually go back a long

way -- that go back a long way. you cannot separate what is happening from cyberspace from what is happening in the real world. when nation states, russia, china, ran carry out activities in cyberspace is all connected to their goals in the world. they're not separate. host: south carolina harvey democrat. caller: high --hi. in the real world, you mention what happens in the cyber world a cure -- occurs simultaneously in the real world. byes who are working against us in clear sight, some of them have called in on these type of shows may be.

people working on the other against his country. i do not want to say the former president coddled to the soviet union or vladimir putin but overtly he made in roads and relationships, made him to be a genius. he continues at this time to spout good things about persons that we recognize from the world war ii area -- sheriff as being enemies of the u.s.. it happens in cyberspace as well. what do be do to protect ourselves and calms of behaviors on behalf of the foreign states and the people that may live among us? guest: is about a question of doing with misinformation, wrong information -- dealing with

misinformation, wrong information in cyberspace. a lot of it is partially becoming skeptical of what you read. if what you read seems a little too sensationalist, a little too good to be true, just like your mom thought you if it is too good to be true it probably is. learning to be critical of what appears, thinking logically and critically about what you're seeing, reading in cyberspace. we are in the first stages of doing with this problem. for a long time, or challenge -- your challenge in school was finding information. you were taught how to use a card catalog, how to do research finding information. now finding information is much

easier. finding good information is still hard though. learning the new skills of how to sort through the flood of information that all of us are presented with to discern what is reliable, useful, good information, that is where we have to develop a new skill as citizens. that is what we need to be teaching our kids about how to operate in the space. that will be a big project over the next two decades as we learn to develop those skills. host: we started with russian cyber attacks against ukraine. have there been attacks or targets outside of ukraine in recent weeks? have other countries been hit and have they been traced back to russia? guest: not that you can attribute directly to the

invasion activity or the ongoing military activity. there are a few new pieces of malware that were uncovered this past week, that have shown up in some of the baltic countries but not in a great extent. it is not clear that it was deliberate. it may have just been an artifact or test or accident. we have not seen too much that has been directly tied to the invasion activity. there is all sorts of malicious activity going on a lot of which emanates from russian criminal groups. a lot of that is being occurring. how much of that has been tied to what the russians would like to see happening, that is more difficult to discern. host: cyber for in this -- cyber

forensics, explain why it is so hard to trace a specific attack back to a specific state actor. guest: there is several reasons. one of which is usually the state actors are working very hard to erase their steps so that you cannot trace it back to them. in the physical world, think about what criminals do to make it more difficult for forensics experts, digital equivalent of putting on latex gloves and wiping down services and not leaving trace behind. a lot of the tools you can use our tools everybody else uses. there is commodity malware. this is malware you can go and easily attain -- obtained from the dark web and other places

that criminal groups sell. nationstates use that as well. if you see an actor using a particular type of malware it is honestly tell you who that actor is -- it does not necessarily tell you that actor's. you have used other clues to try to figure out as you have to use other clues to try to figure out who the actor is. and what they were doing, how they did it. that takes time. u.s. intelligence community and the u.s. law enforcement committee has become adept at defining lots of different kinds of intelligence and sources, information to do the attribution. when the u.s. government make statements about attribution they always have a very high degree of confidence in their statements.

even though it is a challenge it can be done and with a high degree of confidence. host: arizona this is mac good morning. caller: good morning mr. daniel. do your point on cyber defense -- to your point on cyber defense come from state or nonstate actors, similarly on the defensive side our state has its posture. what role do you believe that the state has in helping nonstate actors be a part of that defense? is it a program where people need to be educated? guest: is a good question. working out the roles and responsibilities between individuals, organizations and

governments is one of the big challenges that we have. on the one hand, it is ridiculous to think that the u.s. government is going to be sponsor for the -- responsible for the siebel security of every single business in the u.s. and you probably would not want that. you do not want the government being that intrusive. on the other hand, it is ridiculous to think that individual businesses and organizations are going to take on the cyber capabilities of the russians, chinese by themselves. as we work out those relationships so that -- how do we work out those relationships? what is the right level of responsibility? what parts of cybersecurity are individuals and responsible -- and businesses responsible for? and what parts of the government

responsible for? does that change whether a business is small or large? does it change on the base of the actor? does it change over time? all of those are questions we are still working out. it is going to have to be a joint effort. simply assigning the role of cybersecurity to one entity in the ecosystem like we try to do with order security where that is -- border security where that is assigned to the federal government alone that is not going to work with cyber space. his two interconnected, -- it is two interconnected, to woven into other things. it is an ongoing project for every country trying to work out those relationships. this is the meat of some of the

policy issues i worked on when i was in government and are continuing to work on at the cyber threat alliance. trying to work out those relationships make that work in the real world. host: are there some sectors where there are mandates of minimum cybersecurity requirements? if you run a damp or nuclear power plant you have to meet some sanders? -- do you have to meet some standards? guest: the more readily did the sector is like medical devices there are certain minimums that some regulars have put in place. it has been difficult for us to figure out exactly how to specify those minimums. it has only been in the last two years that we are starting to get a good handle on the minimum requirements the you may want to put on organizations out there. and then working out if we are going to impose responsibilities

on those what to they get in return? you regulated utilities get to recover some of those cybersecurity investments? how are they going to finance those sows that question -- that is where that debate is really occurring right now. host: los angeles, david independent. caller: we are up early. good morning to you. i would like to caution that we take a step back. i would like to offer to especially black listeners which are democrats to study history.

talk about the fall of war, it brings a whole new dimension to the so-called cold war phenomenon. during the cold war i would like to suggest to your black listeners -- host: why are you speaking specific lead black listeners? caller: scope with your cold war topic that you bring up, michael daniel on these concerns during the cold war and the earliest technologies, concerns about decoupling computer systems from soviet abilities to hack in and possibly cause a launch of a nuclear system, can you take us back to the earlier days of this? guest: the way i think about

this is that we have, there is always this tension between convenience, wanting to connect devices, systems, processes to a broader network. the whole point of that is it makes things easier. you don't have to go all the way out that remote location. you can say we are -- you can stay where you are and connect sensors to it and get data from it. at the same time. it is been recognized that doing that, if you can soak in the back us. how do you protect fortin systems? it was thought that for very important systems you could air depth them, meaning create a gap of air where they were not as

she physically connected. while that may still be a viable defense for certain kinds of off-line data, it is not workable for the broad systems and things like that in today's environment. tell me about your air cap system and i will find out the 60 ways it is back connect to the net. somebody has hooked it up somewhere. it is not a good defense to try to rely on air tapping alone. to be thinking about your defense in depth. how you employ basic cybersecurity hygiene using multifactor authentication, using good passwords and password managers, patching your systems, keeping them up-to-date.

host: a few minutes left with michael daniel this money. elliott in new york city line for democrats. caller: i wanted to say the people of faith in your audience, i hope they all pray for the good people of ukraine. do cyber questions, -- two cyber questions, talk about the expertise of the biden team. i'm curious how you would assess the cybersecurity expertise in the previous white house. the other question is, there were previous segments -- like any -- callers are talking about whether people should buy price from russia. do you have any feelings in the past, russia has overseen acts of computer systems which has

resulted in release of documents. people seem to have use those documents. they did not say it is coming from russia we should probably stay away from it. i am curious to know how russia plays out in commerce of the free world. host: tough questions for either. as for you there. guest: when you look at the cyber cape abilities, the lever of -- the level of expertise in the u.s. government one of the things that is clear is there is an enormous array of talent that the u.s. government has drawn and continues growing. you have an enormously wide set of people who are very talented many of whom are career civil servants or have served in

decades. those are the people i work with a lot as i worked with a lot during my time in government, i was a career civil servant for a long time. the u.s. government has a broad array of expertise. there is a talent shortage but that is true across both the private sector and government. when it comes to russia and the connections into the broader cybersecurity world in the tech world that is an area where russia has struggled with. compared to china. they have some top-notch cybersecurity firms in the form of companies. those companies have become tackled to this autocratic government and has really hurt their ability to operate

globally. there is not as much technology interaction between russia and the west as there is between china and the u.s. and the west. host: rebecca in ohio public and. caller: i was surprised, you answer my question already. why are we worried about russia when it is china's cyber that we need to worry about? quite frankly our own government that does a lot of spying on us. why have we not cut off russia's oil supply? why are they still buying oil from them? guest: think the director for cybersecurity for nsa had a good analogy that i have stolen.

rob joyce said russia is like a hurricane in china is like climate change. to deal with both. -- you need to deal with both. we don't have the luxury of being able to ignore one of them and focus only on the other. it is true that while right now we are focused on russia we also cannot lose sight of what china is doing. the fact that china is a long-term competitor also does not mean that we don't have to focus on the cyber cape abilities that russia can deploy . we have to address both at the same time. senior level of government in situations like this, you cannot take your eye off other situations around the world even

though there is a crisis t. host: about tim and his love with you mr. daniel. final question from twitter, this is lee who asks a question. when it comes to cybersecurity, our voting machines -- our voting machines connected to the net? guest: most voting machines are not connected to the internet most of the time. one of the things you learn when you get into election security is if you have met one state or county in the u.s. you have met one state or county, almost every jurisdiction runs or operations little differently. it is very rare for voting machines to be connected to the internet innocently done periodically to run updates things like that.

it is one the reasons why most cybersecurity experts myself included think that trying to vote over the internet is a terrible idea. we are not able to provide the security for that type of activity. host: michael daniel is a president and ceoit is at cybern twitter. you can find them online at cyber threat alliance.org. in the next 45 minutes will be joined by military analyst brad bowman of the foundation for defense of democracies on how the russian military invasion in ukraine may play out over the days and weeks to come. stick around. we'll be right back. >> begins on c-span two are an intellectual fees.

every saturday you will find events and people that explore our nation's past on american history tv. on sunday, book tv rings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. this television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore. weekends on c-span two. >> following president biden's historic pick for the next supreme court justice from the nomination announcement all the way to the confirmation process. on c-span, c-span or or by downloading the free c-span now app. >> ♪. >> i can report to the

nation america is on the move again. live tuesday, the state of the union. president biden addresses a joint session of congress and the nation reflecting on his first year of the office and laying out his agenda for the year ahead. live coverage ginza 8:00 p.m., the president speaks at 9:00 followed by the republican response. we will -- will take your responses. live tuesday at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span 2 -- on c-span, c-span.org or the c-span now video app. >> washington journal continues. host: bradley bowman joins us

now, the senior director at the foundation for defense democracies focusing on u.s. defense policies. he spent a decade as the national security advisor one capitol hill. 15 years as a active-duty officer. as the picture of the russia and -- invasion of ukraine gets a bit less fog, what is your read of russian strategic aims here? what has jumped out to? guest: this is a massive multi-pronged combined arms assault on ukraine the likes of which we have not seen since world war ii. the goal is for vladimir putin to subject the free people of ukraine to his authoritarian oppression. he is seeking to do that by conducting re movements. you have one major line of

assault coming from crimea. another coming from the northeast on the russia ukraine border. the goal is to isolate ukrainian forces in the east. they're using the russian forces and russian backs effort is to dachshund donbass. the goal is to isolate ukrainian forces where most of them are located and destroyed as much of them as possible. the second re movement is focused on the capital coming down either side of the river, -- the goal to surround the capital, going to the capital, forces are already on the ground. the goal there is to topple the newly elected government of ukraine. here we are, we are seeing a massive historic combined arms assault on a major capital in europe by any authoritarian power trying to overturn a democratically elected government. host: what represents the most important resistance that ukraine has been able to put up so far? are they able to defend against this kind of assault?

guest: the russian military is one of the premia militaries in the history. they are formidable on every metric of power. they are more capable than the ukrainian forces. but the ukrainian forces have dramatically improved since 2014. in these early days and hours we are seeing ukrainians are fighting. they are fighting hard to defend their country, their sovereignty and territorial integrity. russia is already taking casualties. the bad news is this happening in we were not able to deter it. the good news is the free people of ukraine are fighting and we should do everything we can to support them. host: numbers from usa today on how the two militaries stack up. usa today notes that in terms of land power, russia prevails with more than 12,000 tanks compared to 2500 for ukraine. 30,000 armored vehicles, ukraine has 12,000. 12,000 self propelled artillery,

ukraine has a little over a thousand. russia dominates in airpower with over 700 fighter aircraft combined with 70 for ukraine. more than 500 attack helicopters, ukraine has 34. 1500 helicopters overall, ukraine has a little over 100. that is not even going into seapower. what is in your view russia's most potent weapon here? what is ukraine's most potent defense? tesco -- guest: those numbers sound right. what russia is doing is predictable, to the biden administration's credit i would say they predicted much of this. they're trying to take out ukraine so they take out the radars, air missile defense, he tried to seize airports, combat and will just go forces. -- and logistical forces. russia's greatest asset is their

military. many americans may not be tracking that russia in recent years has conducted a massive militarization modernization effort. i will remind viewers that russia continues to occupy portions of georgia. the ukrainian military has improved as well. russia has a formidable military course. he laid out the numbers. what the ukrainian people have is that they are a free people defending their homes. any study of history suggests, do not money -- underestimate the power and will of a free people defending their land. host: largest military action in europe since world war ii. for viewers who may be used to look back on those world war ii maps seeing the flow of the front as it were as world war ii progressed, is there going to be a front here in ukraine?

how is that expected to move and adjust as these attacks happen? guest: sometimes in washington, as you said i worked in the u.s. senate for nine years, sometimes there is overinflated rhetoric. i want to avoid that. i believe we are at a decisive move it -- moment in history. we see the ongoing conflict between freedom and authoritarianism. ukraine is at the frontier of freedom. they are free people trying to live free. vladimir putin is saying to the ukraine i more powerful than you are therefore i can tell you what to do. vladimir putin cannot accomplish what he wanted at the negotiating table so now he's trying to take it by force. this is the easiest it will get for vladimir putin right now in

conventional compact, his effort to capitated the ukrainian government and replace zelensky with a kremlin stooge. he is sorely mistaken if he thinks the ukrainians will stop fighting. they will continue to fight. how does that russian stooge stay in power? without russian forces continuing to occupy parts of ukraine. maybe not all that but at least parts of it. vladimir putin has started a unprovoked were here. sadly the russian people are already paying a high cost and the cost will continue to increase because of this war they started that was simply unnecessary and unprovoked. host: you have a view on whether nato forces should be involved here? whether ukraine should be allowed into nato and if that could happen? guest: i have argued for some time that we should be moving heaven and earth to get ukraine

the means to defend itself. the biden administration was slow in sending weapons. they have now sent quite a few. i applied that. but i think the effort to help arm ukraine was belated and still insufficient. we see ports from ukrainian defense minister pleading for additional stinger air missiles to shoot down aircraft that are assaulting the country. and also additional antitank weapons. we provided javelin systems already but when war starts you start to deplete your supplies and you need resupply. every american leader, european leader, after they express their thoughts and prayers to the people of ukraine and the brave fight they are undertaking they should turn to their staffs and ask themselves what are we doing right now to get additional weapons ukraine to help them defend themselves? nato, led where prudent is a

incredibly -- vladimir putin is an incredibly persuasive billboard for membership or he invaded and occupied georgia in 2008, annexed crimea in 214. he is fueled the serpas movement in donbass since 114 when roughly 14,000 people been killed. he is launched the largest military assault on europe since world war ii. he invades and occupies in bullies non-nato members but he does not dare mess low -- mess with nato members. we have seen 70 plus years where nato is been a hard thing prudent has hit. the north atlantic treaty signed in washington dc in 1949 includes article five. it says an attack against one is a attack against all. president's prescient -- message of the worlds that will defend every inch of nato. cap the back it up with combat

power. that is all the prudent respect. -- potent respect. when in romania are very lives -- poland and romania are very wise. based on history and current events that prudent is going to go for more not less. if he believes that our response is weak i fear he may be tempted to carry these results -- assault beyond ukraine. that would be a catastrophe that would put u.s. and russian forces in direct combat against each other. we need to be strong and not weak. by being strong we can prevent things being worse. host: phone numbers, a special line for active and retired military. the number (202) 748-8003. otherwise flow numbers as usual. democrats (202) 748-8000 (202) 748-8001. republicans (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. plenty of callers already calling in.

we your calls a second. the associate oppressed with this breaking news, president joe biden is numbing federal peers judge kentucky brown jackson to be the first black woman on the u.s. supreme court. speculation whether that announcement would come today. we will look to see if there is more for the white house. brad bowman with us now take your calls on the russian invasion of ukraine. line for retired military, and active, dave in tennessee independent. caller: didn't reagan make a promise to russia that we would not have to move nato further east? like estonia orders russia. i thought we made a promise that we would not do stuff like that.

guest: thank you for a question. i'm glad you asked that. that is a misperception that is been put out there willingly or unwillingly that supports what vladimir putin has been saying which is the opposite of the truth. there was any early discussion years ago about what the nato expansion may or may not look like but there was no formal commitment to do that. suggestions otherwise are not accurate. what is the core conflict here? nato is not a threat to russia. nato is not napoleon. nato is not nazi germany. vladimir putin's comments about denazify ukraine are preposterous. nato is a problem for potent because he wants to dominate his neighbors.

vladimir putin cannot nominate -- dominate his neighbors if they become members. do you believe the people of ukraine should decide policy or vladimir putin? if your opposing nato's by which sovereign countries aside whether they want to join nato in a collective defense alliance that is zero threat to prudent then i think you should support nato's open-door policy. if you believe that vladimir putin should be able to tell ukraine, the people to do what they do. you are arguing for a spear of influence. a fear of influence -- pure of influence by which russia dominates his neighbors. we have many decades of peace. one of the reasons for that is because of the positioning of u.s. military power. sovereignty and

international borders. putin is attacking all of this. if you are hearing people argue this is none of america's business, i think you should question that. we saw two world wars within a 30 year period. more than 500,000 american casualties, our most important trading partners are there and the world is watching. china is watching. iran is watching and north korea is watching. if we are weak, they will believe they can accomplish their objectives too with military force. host: staying on the line for active retired military, ken, go ahead. caller: i retired after 28 years in the military. me and lloyd austin went to afghanistan together. at the end of the day, i don't understand why america always has to be so weekend cowardly when it comes to russia and also

china? -- and also china. i feel sorry for taiwan. if we don't do something, taiwan will be gone because china will field in -- feel emboldened. in america, we could fight against each other with racism and this and that. when it comes to doing what we have to do to protect, we always cower down. the last president who did something was reagan. he said do not cross this line and dropped a bomb in more market toffees bedroom -- in his bedroom. we should have been -- these are what tankersley for. they will be happy to go to ukraine and defend -- tankers live for. they will be happy to go to ukraine and defend ukraine. host: thank you for your service, including your service

in afghanistan. guest: i find little to disagree with in what you said. when people make arguments such as you did, which i have echoed many times, it sometimes caricatures as warmongering, as you know they stun your service from the military, soldiers, salesman -- sailor men and marines, they are the last ones because they pay a high price. it is cliche to say it but i think it is true. if you want peace, you have to prepare for war. there is an old linin saying -- lenin saying that says you push hard until you hit something. i applaud diplomacy. i think we need to have a fully resourced state department.

as george shultz said and as i have often quoted, if you are negotiating and you don't have the shadow of power at the negotiating table, it is appeasement. some people are saying we should feed ukraine to the crocodiles. as churchill suggested in a different scenario but not entirely similar. -- dissimilar. i think history suggests we should consider that fact. i agree with you. we don't want war with russia, so we should be reinforcing nato's future flank. we should be mindful, as i said earlier that the world is watching. if we are weak, we will get more of the same in the taiwan strait and the middle east and the korean peninsula and elsewhere if we are not colorful -- careful. host: let me go back to arms for a second. you were talking about the need

for antitank missiles. why is that the best weapon to provide right now? why not and even stank -- and even rooms -- why not a tank? why not get an f-35? guest: frankly, i would like ukraine to have everything possible. i was citing two examples that the minister has asked for. i published an article in defense news, detailing the many other types of weapons we should get them. many of the service members listening will understand, you have to get the weapon system to the country and then you have to train people how to use it and you have to forward position it. that is why i was saying that is fine, pursue diplomacy. plumas he will likely fail. let's help get those weapons now. -- diplomacy will likely fail. let's help get those weapons now. i believe we can send those

weapons across the border into ukraine. m1 a1 tanks, there is not enough time right now to do that. let's get ukraine what they are asking for. they know best on the ground what they need. why are the stinger missiles and shoulder fire so valuable? the people are under aerosol. russian helicopters -- are under assault. if you establish dominance, you will get your rotary wing of aircraft. the people of ukraine will want a means to challenge those aircraft's. this is a mechanized assault. this is a mechanized assault. i am talking about tanks and armored personnel carriers. the way you defeat those is with the javelin anti-armor systems that we have been talking about. literally, these are weapons that will be used to defend the european capital against an

ongoing assault where ukrainians are dying to defend their country. host: five minutes left with brad bowman. the line for active retired military is -- the line for retired military is (202) 748-8003. guest: the foundation for debit -- defense of the mocker sees is a nonprofit research institute, focused on foreign-policy and national security policy. we don't take any money from foreign governments. as our name says, we believe that democracy is worth defending. there are continued threats to democracy and we want the good guys to be more powerful than the bad guys. when that happens, we protect our freedom, prosperity and way of life. host: steve, ohio, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you very much, mr. bowman.

you are a wise man. i would like to state three things. number one, i would like the administration, the current administration to call president jean ping -- president xi jinping and set up a summit meeting between putin -- biden and president xi and settle this thing on the world stage. that is number one. number two, trump gave putin the green light to do what he is doing today. number three, the u.s. should

let iran unleash the oil, sell the oil to the world. those are my points. thank you. host: thank you for the call. quickly addressing each of your points, if i may, you talk about china and russia. here is what my research tells me and what i have observed, regarding china and russia. china and russia are more aligned than they have been since the 1950's. guest: they are not allies but they are more aligned than they have been. we have seen combined military exercises between china and russia, last year. we saw maritime exercises. they did a combined patrol around japan. they have done combined exercise and land exercises where they practiced integrating forces, sharing best practices. we should expect in coming years, there will be an exchange

of weapons between the two. i'm not suggesting you will see chinese military forces showing up in europe. i'm not suggesting that at all. i am suggesting strategic coordination. i think we and our allies have to consider that we might confront simultaneous conflict in europe in the taiwan straight. we have to guard against that. i am not predicting that will happen immediately. i am saying we will have to be watching that and we have to make sure our military has the capability, capacity and readiness to operate sign terry -- simultaneously. if you look at the five leading threats we confront, china, russia, iran, north korea and terrorism, these are in the congressionally mandated national defense strategy report in 2018. each of those threats is far worse today than it was in 2018. that's why i don't understand why the biden administration proposed a defense budget that would not keep up with inflation.

and before viewers call in and say but we are going broke from military spending, that is not a fact. we are spending near post-world war ii lowe's as a percent of gdp and as a percent of federal spending on national defense. that is a fact, look it up. i would say we can afford to defend our freedom and our interests. host: -- just got a call from arlington, virginia. mark is on the line. caller: 30 years ago today, i was in iraq for the conquest of kuwait. nato intervened in its region when it needed to to affect world events. libya, bosnia. when we look at what is going on in ukraine and what our

obligations are under the 1994 treaty of budapest, ukraine gave up nuclear weapons in return for a guarantee by the united states. host: go ahead and finish are common. caller: that was the end of my comments. i was looking for a reaction. host: thank you for the call. there is a lot of insight there. just quick responses to the two main points i heard. guest: vladimir putin uses a catastrophe and he is trying to constitute as much of the soviet union as possible, perhaps as a neo-czar. there was a debate made that nato needed to go out of area to remain relevant. nato did some of that. i would remind viewers that for 20 years in afghanistan, many of

our nato members fought and died at our side. america 20 years -- or what they did for 20 years at our side -- remember what they did for 20 years at our side and more than a thousand did not return to their families. one of the early leaders of the nato said that one of the primary purposes for nato was to keep the russians out. keep the russians out. my goodness, it looks like that founding mission is more relevant than ever. second, you mentioned the budapest memorandum. i am glad you brought that up. i think every american should familiarize themselves with the 1994 budapest memorandum. i am publishing an article on this topic with some of my colleagues. the bottom line is when the cold war ended, when the soviet union

fell, there were soviet weapons on ukrainian territory. ukraine did not have operational control of those weapons but there was concern. the united states, the united kingdom and russia and ukraine signed the budapest memorandum by which, essentially, ukraine relinquished the nuclear weapons in return for specific commitments. reaffirmation of specific commitments. what were those commitments? that russia, all of us, but especially russia, would not threaten force against ukraine, would not use force against ukraine. my goodness, russia has blown off those commitments. they blew them off beginning in crimea in 2014. they are trampling on it even more than ever now. if anyone needed a reminder that we can't trust what the kremlin says and we can't trust their signature, look to the budapest memorandum for an example of that. i think that reinforces my point

that, in the end, it is about hard power that putin respects. host: lincolnton, north carolina, ginny. caller: what i wanted to say is if we want to hurt putin, can you tell me why we still have the pipeline open for putin, when we closed our pipelines? would it not be better for us to reopen our pipeline and then turn around? we were energy efficient with trump. also what i want to say is with china, i would like for people to also realize that we are having our test kits made and manufactured in china. and then coming here and distributing them from the united states. people need to know that while he is making putin rich, he is also helping china. this is not going to be good for our country. guest: energy is playing a large

role in this conflict. in the months and weeks preceding it and continuing now. we know that russia is the leading producer and exporter of energy. i used to work with someone who worked closely with john mccain. john mccain joked that russia is a gas station masquerading as a country. energy experts are fundamental to russia's economy. countries like germany have been developing the nord stream 2 pipeline which would bring energy resources directly from russia to germany, bypassing ukraine. i think many americans have been opposed to that, for good reason. it is undermining ukraine and made germany and europe more dependent on russian gas and they have taken decisions in germany, for example, a leading consumer about russian energy

that has made them more vulnerable on russia's fossil fuel. i think the current crisis decides -- shows how shortsighted it was. i am glad to see berlin suspended the certification of the nord stream 2 pipeline. i think the united states and our partners and allies around the world should do everything they can to reduce europe's dependence on russian energy exports. host: about 15 minutes left with brad bowman. you can find mr. bowman on twitter at brad_l_bowman. this is jack on the line for retired and active military. caller: good morning, mr. bowman. i have enjoyed listening to you in the car for this entire time. thank you for sharing your morning with us. i am 20 years in the air force. i served under presidents clinton, bush, president obama.

then i retired in 2013. while our country, during each of those administrations, had our differences among the parties and among the citizenry, i never once doubted the ability of my brothers in arms, brothers and sisters in arms to come together, to exhibit the most fearful cohesion on the planet to get the mission done. however, these days, i think we are all aware that there are so many of our fellow countrymen that are at each other's throats , daily. i am concerned that that has somehow seeped into our military culture. when i see a lot of veterans, retirees and even active-duty who actively opposed our chief executives and commander in chief question then is are you seeing from your perspective,

are you seeing there is a possibility or probability that if we are to deploy to europe to shore up the defenses of nato, that we might even have a military why it -- where it might be difficult to attain the cohesion we had for 20 years. i will take my answer. thank you for sharing your morning with us. guest: thank you for calling, sincerely and thank you for your decades of service to us. i am glad you brought that up. a previous caller brought that up and i did not respond the way i wanted to. let me do that now. i focus on foreign-policy and national security issues. but i am also a west point grad who taught american politics at west point. first and foremost, i am an american citizen. a proud one at that. as you have heard me try to argue here as best as i can, we

have lots to be concerned about overseas and what happens over there matters to us here. we learned that in pearl harbor. we learned that in 9/11 and we learned that with covid. what happens overseas matters at home. we have to go abroad, we have to lead and build a consensus and we have to act smartly and assertively and proactively. but, i will tell you as a citizen, i -- my number one concern is the state of the domestic discourse in this country. anyone who served in the military, you know that you raise your right hand and you swear under oath, not to an individual, not to a party, and not to a president. you swear to the constitution of the united states. every american of good faith, regardless of party, at this moment particularly and more broadly going forward, if we want to give our children and grandchildren the kind of country we enjoy, we have to get rid of this tribalism where we view our fellow americans and

citizens in good faith as enemies. they are not our enemies. vladimir putin other authoritarian governments, including the chinese communist party, would like us as divided and weak as possible. i will do everything in my power to unify americans and focus on what matters. i would say respectfully to viewers, if you are spending more time criticizing trump or biden right now, you are the real villain in this scenario, who is -- van you are the real -- than you are the real villain in the scenario, who is vladimir putin, you need to look at yourself in the mirror. host: if he falls, do you expect there to be some way for the ukrainian military to reconstitute in the western part of the country? guest: i mentioned the double

pincer movements, putin has two primary objectives. one is to disarm ukraine as much as possible. that is not possible, completely. he wants to destroy their military power as much as possible. that is the goal of the potential movement coming from crimea and russia. and the potential movement coming from belarus, belarus has facilitated this invasion. collaborating with moscow. the movement coming from the north is the toppling of the democratic government of ukraine. the news today i fear is you will see a lot more combat in and around kyiv, the capital and a lot more strikes. and we could see significant russian forces in the capital in the coming days, i fear. if vladimir putin thinks that is the end of it, i think he is sorely mistaken. there will be major ukrainian military formations, fighting

incapable throughout the country. simultaneously, i do believe and frankly, i hope, you will start to see assertiveness against occupying russian forces. i think nato should do everything they can in terms of providing weapons and real-time battlefield intelligence, including intelligence used to target invading rushing -- russian forces, to give them what they need to defend their own country. host: why is the ukrainian army trying to hold onto the east? would it make more sense to fall back on kyiv? guest: it is a great question. i take your point and i approach these issues with humility, for sure. there is multiple dilemmas here. ukraine not only wants to protect its capital and its government, of course, but it

also has major populations to protect. one is not far from the russian border and is a major metropolitan city. you may have seen some of the footage in the last few hours of people cowering in underground metros in underground metros and places like that. if that ukrainian forces in the east were to withdraw, one, there might be some difficulty getting them to kyiv in time. two, the russians would follow behind them and you would have a bigger problem around kyiv. ukrainian forces are having a real dilemma. one thing we have not talked about is amphibious warfare. we know russia has major combat power in the black sea. or, they can cut -- conduct amphibious landing closer to edessa. that is something russian military leaders have to consider right now.

the main thing is to continue to fight to protect the capital as best they can. if putin's goal is to overthrow the government and insert a kremlin puppet, if history is any indication, the proud people of ukraine will not be happy with that. look at the my don -- midan. i don't see how that russian puppet stays in power without a continuation of russian occupation. that will mean casualties and more of the protests we are seeing. host: robert from the active and retired military, go ahead. caller: i have been watching this conflict for some time. one of the things that is missing is an expensive understanding of the origins of it. i don't think you can get that from just having on guests who are from the washington think tanks. we need to hear the russian side of it. i found out that pugin and many

russian politicians for years have been telling the west and nato that they fear this eastward expansion toward its borders. i feel like we would be remiss if we don't try to understand the other side of it. these actions by the russians are logical innocents that they feel they are protecting their borders, not wanting ukraine to join the nato military, which we think of as a defensive program but from the russian perspective, they can see that as adding missiles to their border. it would be like if russia joined a military alliance with cuba, the united states would never allow cuba to put military weapons inside mexico. host: during your time in active service, did you serve in the european theater? caller: no. i did not serve overseas. it was just a small program. guest: thank you for the call and thank you for the argument. it is an argument that is common.

i welcome a constructive and respectful dialogue with individuals with this point of view but i think that point of view is flat wrong and not supported by evidence. who were the foreign forces right now in russia? it is the russian military. there are no u.s. combat forces in ukraine. there are a couple hundred advisors, and american ed -- a couple hundred american advisers before this started. the russian perspective, absolutely. we should absolutely understand our adversaries pre-die don't claim to be a russian expert. but -- adversaries. i don't claim to be a russian expert. but i understand russia has security interests. they don't include the right to invade and occupy every country. vladimir putin once assurances that russia will not be invaded,

great. but note to self, vladimir putin, if you want people to not want to join nato and you don't want western military power in eastern europe, stop invading and occupying countries. that might be a good place to start. host: michael in plainfield, illinois, independent. caller: i was in service during the vietnam war. i could have called in on the other line. you let this whole conversation be dominated. this is for mr. -- by these military people. it has tainted the whole program for here is my specific question for the gentleman. there is a piece of territory that is sandwiched in between poland and with the weenie a that used to be -- with the way neah -- lithuania that became

part of russia when they moved these eastern european countries to the west. do you know of any treaty giving transit rights to the russians through either the baltic countries or belarus and poland, to get to that area? and, in addition to that, that is the flashpoint. they will demand some kind of a land bridge, eventually, through that piece of property. and nobody is talking about it at all. regarding this whole military thing, the country is bankrupt. the military also supports not taxing jeff bezos and elon musk and his crowd. that is why we have no money to take on russia. and they are nuclear.

they are not libya, they are not bosnia, they are not syria. bear that in mind and please explain this to me. thank you. guest: thank you for the call. i am so honored to hear from you and i am honored to hear from people who have served our country in uniform. think all of these perspectives are important to hear from. i hear two categories of questions. i'm not sure exactly the situation you are referring to. i would highlight this. we talked a lot about the russian forces coming from belarus and the russian invading forces coming from russia. and we also talked about the forces coming from crimea. viewers should also know that there is -- there are russian forces to the southwest. they have been there for many years and they are occupying part of moldova. if you look at a map, it is to the

you have russian military forces there as well and worth keeping an eye on. so i would just highlight that. regarding the defense spending, sir, i agree, we have a deficit, we have debt that's concerning. but if you look at the facts, i cited them earlier as a percent of federal spending and gross domestic product we're spending post world war ii on defense even when the five threats i discussed are more dangerous, not has and -- not less and inflation is becoming a problem. host: jodi on twitter with the last question just on u.s. naval assets, what we can and could be able to do. jodi asking, should american submarine fleets be on hand to answer russia if cruise missiles rain on ukraine fulfilling that agreement we signed with ukraine when they gave up their nucleares to protect ukraine? it speaks to the question of

what capabilities we could have with our naval assets? guest: the u.s. has the best navy in the world. we do have forces in the region, eastern mediterranean. our forces, land, air, sea, space and cyberspace have been on a heightened state of alert and been reinforcing our position in the black sea region in the baltics and also in maritime regions. i think that's the right move and would lean towards more not less assuming putin will take more aggression, not less if his path is pro logged. host: from the center of political power, fdd. org. appreciate your time. thanks for chatting with callers. a half-hour left in our program on this friday morning and in that time with a lot going on around the world and in this country, it's our open forum, letting you lead the discussion this morning and want to hear

about any political orb international issues and the news breaking this morning about president joe biden expected to nominate the appeals court judge ketanji brown jackson happening within the past hour as well and we can talk about all of it, republicans and democrats and independents, numbers on your screen and call now and we'll get to the calls after the break >> on weekends, american history tv and on sundays book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors and television for serious readers. learn, discover, explore.

weekends on c-span 2. >> following president biden's historic pick for the next supreme court justice from the announcement all the way to the confirmation process on c-span, c-span. org or down the free c-span now app.

>> i can report to the nation, america is on the move again. >> live tuesday, the state of the union. president biden addresses a joint session of congress and the nation reflecting on his first year in office and laying out his agenda in the year ahead and live coverage at 8:00 p.m. and the president speaks at 9:00 followed by the republican response and take your phone calls and media reactions. the state of the union address live tuesday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span. org or the c-span now video app. announcer: washington journal continues. host: our open forum with 25 minutes left in the show letting you lead the discussion. republicans 742-8001. independents, 202-748-8002.

we can talk about the russian invasion of the ukraine or talk about the news today of the expected appointment nomination of judge ketangi brown jackson by president joe biden to be the next supreme court justice, currently a u.s. district court judge in the district of columbia. it's been noted that judge jackson was confirmed the d.c. circuit court of appeals last year by a vote of 63-44 and voting yes with all 50 democrats and three republicans, susan collins, lisa murkowski and lindsey graham, the republicans who supported her in that confirmation process and now has another confirmation process ahead. some notes on her nomination, chad of fox news, capitol hill bureau saying she should be relatively easy to confirm because the senate confirmed her

twice already from a voice vote for a lower court in 2013 and some other comments as well. we'll get to you but we respectfully want to hear your remarks, your comments this morning. some members of congress already congratulating judge ketanji brown jackson ahead of any official statement of the white house but congresswoman shelly pingri of maine is the standing choice to replace justice breyer who she clerked for after graduating from harvard law school and recently confirmed to the d.c. court with bipartisanship support and expect her nomination to receive swift approval. the democrats from florida, saying i look forward to her voice joining the court and ask my senate colleagues to start as soon as possible saying congratulations on your information from lois frankel. and from the democrat in the house, adding her congratulates on your history making appointment to the united states supreme court saying let's do

this from haley stevens. some reactions from members of the congress now the phone lines are yours, what do you want to talk about, rich from new york, republican, go ahead. caller: yes, sir. i'd like to discuss comments made by mr. bowman. i'm in the military, all my 20's and two tours in europe all during the cold war and i understand what this is about. this is -- i grew up in newport beach, california, very close friends with the wayne family, john wayne. his son, ethan john wayne actually dated my sister and i understand what this is about. this is my worst nightmare. this is communism once again trying to take over the world and they won't quit. and there's a wonderful documentary put out by john wayne in the 197 0's before he

died about communism, vietnam war and they won't quit. i was stationed for five years, 38 clicks from the czech border and my life expectancy if the soviets attacked was 38 seconds. and i understand this. and this is my worst nightmare. this is about communism. they won't quit. all the communist parties will get involved and we have to defend #. host: rick in florida this is mary from iowa. democrat. good morning. caller: yes. many people have wrong impression about the x.l. pipeline. this is very dark oil that comes out of canada and comes across and goes underneath the missouri

river and underneath the missouri river is nine states of water aquifer and the x.l. pipeline never completed a environmental study and if this oil leaks into our aquifer, our nine states will not have clean water. and also this pipeline goes straight to new orleans and shipped out of the united states. there's no profit from this oil line. thank you. host: joanne, lake forest, republican, go ahead. caller: yeah. good morning. in 1959, khrushchev made a prediction, it's too long for me to read. i would love for you to look it up and read it to everyone, and i'm sure -- i mean, i remember what was said back in 1959, what

he predicted and what's going on. host: can you summarize it, joe ann? caller: i'm sorry? host: can you summarize it? caller: it gives his prediction and the eight things. i have to look it up on my phone. it tells about how he came -- how america, they will not have to even use any military stuff we will become -- our children will have a communist society. i'm sorry, my voice is shaky. and it gives eight reasons why and talks about how our country fighting against each other, all these things that's been

happening basically over the years. i'm sure putin, he knows about this. that's probably one of his guidelines. he's been looking at this for years. and he's been playing this game back and forth with the united states. and now he's -- everything seems to be coming all in truth with khrushchev's letter. host: that's joe ann this morning. this is rachel in texas, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. this is a step trump has said this week that puthen is going into ukraine for peace making mission, that he was savvy and he was a genius and then he said the other night that putin was mad about the rigged election in the united states.

and then i'm wondering, we got trump taking highly classified documents to mar-a-lago and nobody is mad about all that? it's crazy and i can't understand why these people stand with trump after all he's done. i don't understand it. host: we'll hear more from president trump on saturday night, the keynote speaker that night, i believe 7:00 p.m. on saturday night at the conservative political action conference. our coverage of cpac began yesterday at the beginning of the conference continuing today and former trump secretary of state mike pompeo will be speaking today at 11:00 a.m. eastern. can you watch that in its entirety here on c-span, c-span. org and listen to it on the free c-span now video app. richard norman, oklahoma, republican, good morning.

caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: i'm doing well, richard. go ahead. caller: i just have a comment about the ukraine here. what i got out of putin's speech the other day was all europe is east and the united states at his west. he says there's nazis where he's at right now. hitler was a nazi and you know what he tried to do? he was a dictator. putin is one of the richest man in the world and so is hitler and he got his riches. looks to me like i'm glad we got our troops around ukraine now because he wants to go further than ukraine is what it sounds like. my dad was in the world war ii and a gunner aboard the merchantships in the south pacific and told me one thing that stuck in my mind and we had an enemy back then and knew who he was and i believe we know who our enemy is right now. thank god for our troops right now. and president biden, open our pipelines and get us drilling again, we need oil. we can't afford gas right now.

thank you. appreciate your show, man. host: appreciate you. this is joel, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm very pleased to be on the show with you. what i want to discuss is the tension going on in ukraine, is there any intention or how could i put it in words, is there anything that we can do to help ukraine because from what i see, everybody is just standing by and watching what's going on and there's no intervention. this country is literally being invaded in front of our eyes and this generation, our generation. we would like to know, also, you know, what's it going to take for it to stop, you know, without more deaths? from yesterday there was 138 innocent people that died, you know, like i said, everything is going on and nobody is doing anything.

biden, is the administration, is anybody going to do anything to help the people in ukraine because we're all here so far away and you know, it's very different for us because we're living right now day to day calm and on the other side everybody's just, you know, havoc, destruction, chaos. and putin has to stop what he's doing. host: that's joel in florida. about 15 minutes left in our program. it's our open forum, any public policy issue you want to talk about. also keeping you updated on the latest here in washington, around the country and around the world. from d.c. first, this being reported by "the new york times," they were the first with it yesterday, senator jim imhoff, the republican from oklahoma told officials in his state he'll step down at the end of this congress, vacating a seat he's held since 1994 with four years remaining in his current term.

mr. imhoff, 87 years old, was poised to announce his plans on monday and they write according to two republicans that spoke on condition of anonymity, it is unlikely to affect the balance of power in the senate given oklahoma's solid republican leanings. speaking of the senate, more reaction on the reports about the nomination of judge jackson to fill that supreme court seat. this notably from a republican senator, lindsey graham saying just about 10 minutes ago, if media reports are accurate, judge jackson has been chosen as the supreme court nominee to replace justice breyer and it means, he said, the radical left won the president over again, the attacks on the left to judge childs apparently worked referring to one of the other names that had been floated as a potential nominee for the supreme court, though i would note that the hill report tweets

from nbc that we read a little bit ago, he went back to judge jackson's d.c. circuit court of appeals vote in the senate last year noting the three republicans who voted for her then, susan collins, lisa murkowski and the other name he had on that list, lindsey graham. one other story for you this morning, the trial of the three former minneapolis police officers who yesterday were found guilty of violating george floyd's civil rights, "the washington post" reporting on their front page and this news coming out yesterday, three former minneapolis police officers on the scene with derrick chauvin as he pressed his knee in george floyd's nick were convicted yesterday of violating floyd's civil rights in a case likely to increase scrutiny how officers are trained to intervene when it comes to rogue colleagues. "the washington post" noting the u.s. district judge paul

magnuson didn't order the officers to be taken in custody citing a separate trial in june on state charges of aiding and abetting and manslaughter and he announced he'll announce sentencing in the civil rights case at a later date and other members of the legal team representing the floyd family called the decision yesterday another important chapter in our journey for justice to george floyd. back to your phone calls, this is tom, raleigh, north carolina, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. people keep bringing up trump. trump's not in office, number one. number two, how do you liberals like the price of gas? it's because joe biden did away with the pipeline, no doubt. he's got to own that. and when we start paying $5 or $6 a gallon, i don't want to hear it from you liberals. number two, biden can't take more than five questions at a press conference. the media would be jumping all over trump if he didn't answer all those questions. number three, kamala harris has

been to the border one time and if mike pence had done that, the media would be going crazy, where are y'all at? come november it's going to be a shellacking, the american people are fed up and when you liberals pay $6 or $8 a gallon, it's because of joe biden, not donald trump. host: in north carolina, this is frank out of oakland, a democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. i'd like to talk about the war in ukraine. i'm a u.s. air force veteran and served during the cuban missile crisis and worked with nuclear weapons and nuclear b-52's and i'm concerned about this war going in a direction that we do not anticipate. about the possibility of moving into a total war. world war i is an example where the elites of europe totally

underestimated what would happen in world war i and thought it would be over in three months. and i'd like to raise a point. if you're going into a total war which we're headed. you have to know and understand your enemy's capabilities. and understand their rationale. now, they talk about sphere of influence. they want a sphere of influence around their border. they're not the only country that has that view. the united states had the monroe doctrine for over 150 years and we said no european country could be on our border. in fact they could not be in the western hemisphere, the united states had a sphere of influence policy then and we have a sphere of influence policy now. we did not stand for soviet nuclear missiles in kuba during the cuban missile crisis and in return we pulled our missiles off the russian border in turkey. there's a real problem here that

is the american people are not understanding. the russians have a sphere of influence question like we have like we do. and we better understand that or we're going to be in a total war in europe and let's put it this way, if there was a revolution in mexico and a government came to power that wanted to have a military alliance with russia, would we stand for nuclear weapons on the mexican border? host: that's frank in california. more on the russian invasion of ukraine today that you can watch here on the c-span networks, today nato secretary general will provide an update on the security situation there. he'll be speaking to journalists following a private video conference with world leaders and we'll be airing the conversation with the journalist live at 12:00 p.m. eastern time here on c-span, c-span.

org and on the free c-span video app and then the u.n. security council will vote today on a resolution that would condemn russia's invasion of ukraine and demand the withdrawal of russian troops expected at 3:00 p.m. eastern and that again is here on c-span, c-span. org and the free c-span video app. just a few minutes left in our program today and it's our open forum. allen in new york, independent. you're up next. good morning. caller: hi. i was call dogma a couple comments. this past february 18 was 70 years since turkey has joined nato. turkey is on the same -- right on the russian border and all this nonsense about nato encroaching on russia is just that, nonsense. thinking back to your last guest on the show, the final caller had an interesting point they made about the land near

khalingrad known as the salaki gap, one of nato's biggest problems and was hoping to ask that guest about ways that nato could be reinforcing the salwaki gap but hopefully more people will be able to investigate the situation for themselves right now. you know, i think we're really -- a lot of callers have been talking about the prospects of total war. i think we're in a moment where a lot of people are staring into a disaster that's barreling down on them and this is the time where we need to move and prepare. we can't stand around talking about what's happening or trying to talk to putin anymore. we're not really going to be able to make much more progress on that front. it's time to defend ourselves. thank you. host: that's allen in new york, as we approach 10:00 a.m., we could be getting an official announcement from the white house about the nomination of

judge ketanji brown jackson for the supreme court, that's reporting from white house correspondent saying that he's expected to make that announcement at 10:00 a.m. eastern and also confirming that reporting as well. so we'll see what the white house comes out with in just a few minutes here. sandy, youngstown, ohio, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, about the sanctions, biden said in a press conference that they weren't very strong and we'll see what happens in a month. he said in one other one, it's ok if russia did a small incursion in the ukraine? and why is he not sanctioning the gas company? why do we have to suffer in this country because they shut it down on day one but he is

getting gas from russia and all of our food prices are going up and we're going to hurt even more. we have to suffer for a communist country? host: did you watch the president yesterday, the russian gas company among those now sanctions, and we've seen these sanctions increase over the course of the week. caller: the main russian gas company? host: gasprom. caller: i don't know what it's called. but the main thing is why is he helping a communist country instead of us because they want to destroy our economy because they're letting in many of illegals into this country. we're going to be broke, food is going to be too expensive and we're not going to be able to afford it. don't forget that laptop russia has of his son in bed with a hooker and crack pipe and saying his father is running for

re-election. host: brent in elmira, new york, good morning. caller: good morning. got a quick question and then a comment. i'd like to know what the reasoning was behind the state department under the obama administration for selling 23% of america's uranium reserves to russia. because that sure doesn't look like a good sell right now, does it? i'd like to know what happened to the money from that. the comment is, the problem is these world leaders -- this is the new world order working together. when you look at all the money that's been passed between them over the years through either hunter biden or the clinton initiative, what's going on north of the border, that's just a dry run for every world leader

involved in the new world order to do to their citizens. at least in the democracies and the republicans and the democratic republicans. host: chip is next out of kansas, independent. good morning. caller: i just have a couple comments and want to remind folks that this is not an unprecedented thing that's going on. it hasn't been all that many years ago that the world pulled together a coalition to kick saddam hussein you've kuwait. it was an expansion deal and wanted a land grab that supposedly belonged to them, blah, blah, blah. but anyway, the world pulled together a coalition and went after him because they thought that he had weapons of mass destruction. ok. he didn't. but russia for sure, putin at his disposal does have weapons of mass destruction.

so where is our world leaders, our n. and our nato, why don't they pull together the whole world, not just the united states and go after this rascal? i enjoy your show. thank you. host: alvin, st. cloud, minnesota, democrat, good morning. caller: yes, sir, i'm calling in regard to the young lady that made a comment about khrushchev in 1959, the point she left off was he made a statement that russia would take over this country without firing one shot. also, i want to make a comment about 9/11, they caught us sleeping that time. there's a probability if we escalate to a world war we should prepare defcon2 now and don't want to get caught because they could host: bernadette, and for the, good morning. caller: good morning.

i am just saddened at this event happening to begin with. i'm saddened about it, but the reason i'm calling today is i do believe ukraine, i do believe it was maybe 15% of the ukrainians wanting nato, to join nato, and the opposition of course was smaller numbers of percentages. there was an election. the ukrainian president was elected, this latest one. he was against it. he said they don't want to join nato. that is where it stood. my question is, how did the subject matter, about after ukrainian president said that they are not going to join nato? this allowed the subject matter that popped up that created this frenzy. i don't understand.

the ukrainians feared russia doing this from the beginning. this was one of the main reasons why they chose later not to join nato, because they knew that russia was going to attack. my question is, who put this on the table? after the president of ukraine said no years back? i believe it also goes back to the earlier part of this february, he was saying no. but someone put this agenda on the table and now they were attacked. host: bernadette in florida, previous caller had asked about gas problems and the wrap up of sanctions, noting that nord stream 2 pipeline certainly impacting gas. . they paid much of the cost of that pipeline.

we are -- we saw the associated press and others reporting that president biden is set to announce his pick for that supreme court vacancy. that may happen very soon this morning. a lot going on today. stay with the c-span network. today. we will be back here on the "washington journal" tomorrow. in the meantime, have a great friday. ♪ >> coming up on c-span, we will take you live to florida and the conservative political action conference, where mike pompeo will be speaking in orlando.

that is scheduled to start in about one hour, 11 a.m. eastern time. with an update on the situation in and around ukraine, as russia proceeds with its invasion. at three p.m. today, the un security council hold a vote on a resolution that would condemn the russian invasion and demand the withdrawal of all russian troops. you can watch all of these events here on c-span or watch online at c-span.org. we have full coverage on our free mobile video app, c-span now. president biden has nominated catania brown jackson to be the u.s. supreme court. if confirmed, she would be the first black woman to serve on the high court. the senate confirmed miss jackson to the d.c. circuit judge last year by a vote of 53-44, voting yes for all 50 democrats, plus three republicans.

♪ >> it was the teenagers who actually showed up for these protests initially, because they were not under the constraints that their parents were, or other religious leaders in the community that participated in this march, in this city in, that that would affect their livelihood. but these teenagers, they were not working. they were concerned about being

students and they would show up and participate in the march. they would be arrested, the teenagers would be arrested, they would be taken to jail, their parents would be called, they had to come and bail them out or the act would bail them out, than their parents would say that if their son or daughter could do this, they need to participate as well. >> sunday night at 8 p.m. on q&a. you can listen all of our podcasts on the freed c-span new app. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. it is provided by these television companies and more, including cox.

>> up next, speeches from the conservative political action conference being held in orlando. we will hear from a group of republican congressional candidates and speeches by senator ted cruz, of texas. and senator josh hawley of missouri. >> ladies and gentlemen, this is the power play. please welcome former alaska commissioner kelly trunk. -- kelly. ♪