later, author and columnist max boot talks more about russia's invasion of ukraine. join the discussion with your phone host: good morning and welcome to washington journal. the russian invasion of ukraine is continuing with the countries attempting to come to a cease-fire to allow the evacuation of ukrainian citizens and allow some humanitarian aid. one point 5 million refugees have crossed into neighboring countries from ukraine, the greatest european exodus since world war ii. sanctions are intensified on russia. vladimir putin begins to crack down on his own people through

media and online. our question for you this morning, what do you think about what's going on with the russian invasion of ukraine? we will open up our regular lines. that means democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003 and we are always reading on social media. you can always follow us on instagram at c-span. this is the top story in the world right now. let's see some of the things happening over the last day or so.

that's go to a story in politico this morning that talks about the ukrainian president talking to the u.s. congress. i've read a few paragraphs from that story to you. once again it, that is coming

out of politico. get more information about what's going on in ukraine, we will go to a national security reporter with politico. good morning. first of all, bring us up-to-date with what's going on right now on the front lines in ukraine. guest: the main thing it to know is the russian forces are still struggling to get into key, their top objective. they've been fighting to the north of the city, still unable to make much progress. that 40 mile long convoy we've

heard about, that is barely making moves because of broken down vehicles, because of low morale, a lack of rations. troops are struggling to get to where they need to go. there is different story in the south for the russians are making a lot of gains and continue to take different parts of ukraine. this dispute about whether they've taken a city, it's undeniable that the troops are there. they are using it as a resupply point. they might not have captured the city. we have a tale of two battles. at the top, it is slow by the russians to take the capital. in the south, a lot more success. host: if we looked at a map of ukraine it, how much is russia controlling right now? where do they seem to be headed? do they want to take the entire

country? do they just want the capital? what do we know about their intentions right now? guest: it's hard to know in terms of territory taken. the map shows a lot of red. it's misleading because it's not like they control all of that area. they mostly control roads and service points. it's more like what three ways are they in control. that's a decent amount. as of yet, no real confirmation of taking over a city. in terms of what their goals are, it really does seem like a full out assault. clearly, they want to topple the government. key is a number one objective. -- kyiv is the number one objective. they want further control of

crimea, land bridges to moldova and the southern and eastern parts. how much control does russia have in western ukraine, which is pretty progress turn -- pro-western. there is no real infantry attempt to take over. host: as politico reported, there was a conversation between the ukrainian president and congress yesterday. do we see any shifting of what the united states plans to do to help ukraine hold off the russians? is there an offramp in the planet for the united states for what's going on between russia and ukraine? guest: shifting it, maybe. we see strong support for this russia oil band.

the white house is not super supportive. the press secretary said we are in touch with members of congress. the main reason that the buy demonstration is worried about rising gas prices and hurting the driver. they don't want to see prices rise too much and cause more economic pain. one thing that seems to have shifted his there is broader support in congress to send eastern european countries send their planes to ukraine have the u.s. backfill those with her own warplanes. we reported last night about a three-way deal the white house is considering with poland. the u.s. would back them. that is where we see things change on the ground.

in terms of offramp's, we don't really see any. that's what is disconcerting to people. it is still early days. we are about one week into this. russia has no signs of wanting to scale down the operation. it seems like the only potential offramp to give is if somehow they make a deal diplomatically. nothing has come from that to date. host: you mentioned the lack of interest and hurting american drivers through rising gas prices, is there appetite, is there interest to put direct sanctions on russian energy? >> it does seem that way. there is a bill that would do that.

it's unclear if chuck schumer would support it. he does want to see that. he would be shocked if there weren't at least 60 senators who would support such legislation. a bill to ban russian oil imports. i think it's a bipartisan issue. congress would be in support. the question is with chuck schumer, would he put it on the floor? he is likely to do that. host: the recently -- u.s. canceled and intercontinental ballistic missile test. will there be more tests like that canceled? guest: we should remember that

the u.s. did this shortly before president biden and vladimir putin met for their first summit in geneva last year. there was a planned test. the pentagon was wanting to do it a week or so before that meeting. the white house said cancel the test. they don't want to give the wrong signal before those two presidents met. this is a pattern, it's -- if we are talking about offramp's, there is a small offramp to say were not going to do this. we would like to keep tensions down. we would like to make it seem we are not going to war or moving militarily. i would expect the other planned test will also be canceled or delayed or not announced.

that is something the administration is also doing. we are providing weapons to review crane. we are not announcing it that much. everyone is hush-hush about ascending stingers. host: what you be looking for when you look at news with russia and ukraine. guest: i would keep looking at ukraine south for good reason. a lot of focuses on key of and the russian advance there. it's the tale of two battles. i would see how much progress they make in the south and eastern parts. they continue to make a lot of gains. if they make more gains, they will push upward or take more territory which would make it harder for ukraine and russia to make a deal seen as ukraine would not want to negotiate its

territory away. where is congress on all this? it looks like they will push for an oil band, for the u.s. to send more advanced fighter jets to eastern european allies. it looks like we are going to get these piecemeal deals, where poland sends its planes to ukraine and we will give planes to poland. is there any sign at all of the escalation? we really see none. host: are you hearing any whisper of sending american soldiers in the conflict? guest: not remotely. that is not a thing that's on the table at all. president biden took that off the table early. the white house says they will not do so. they will not put troops in

ukraine. this is not something that nato as a unit wants to do. what they have said and they demarcated a line. they have told russia that if you try to take nato territory, poland or romania, they will defend every inch of nato territory. we will help ukraine as much as possible. we will help them stop the russians, but contained in ukraine. if russia would spread its attack to nato, they will fight russia there. if anyone is worried as of this moment about joe biden or nato at all sending troops into ukraine, that is nowhere near the table at the moment.

it's very unlikely in the near future. host: we would like to think alexander ward from politico for coming on with us this morning and bring us up-to-date on the border crisis. thank you so much for your time this morning. we want to know what you think about the russian invasion of ukraine. let's go to our phone lines and start with marvin from pennsylvania on the democrat line. good morning. caller: i disagree with them saying they wouldn't go into poland. i think he will go into poland. giving airplanes would start a nuclear war. i think they have to hold out and fight as long as they can so the sanctions can work.

he went into a country that didn't want to fight. he declared war on them. he should be the one that finds a way out of this. and make some reason to get out of it. host: joseph is calling from boston on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. my idea is growing up in the countryside, let sleeping dogs lie. i voted for president trump for this specific reason. he would try to bring peace to the world. he is speaking to turkey.

turkey is a member of nato. he was speaking to north korea. i joined the marine corps with the intention of fighting russia in 1984. we are back to where we began. we used to have nuclear fallout drills. the idea was the russians are coming. sleeping bear got up early and its aggravated vladimir putin has been planning this for a long time. host: tyrone is calling from new york city. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i think we need to pay attention to the fact that we are not

going to go over there and kill vladimir putin. i think that would be completely irresponsible of lindsey graham to say 70 should take him out. this war is not going to be over overnight. it's going to take time. it's going to take some time. i understand some of what russia's stances. i think it's wrong for them to invade another country to protect their sovereignty. i don't think anybody was going to attack russia. they feel like they're getting squeezed by nato. all of these other countries are talking about joining nato. we've got a rough row ahead of us. i hope they don't put up the no-fly zone. it's going to put up more

problems for americans. people are talking about stopping taking oil from russia. when they are calling to stop the oil and they shoot up more, don't start crying about it cost too much money. we do have the money to pay for the oil because we stopped taking oil from russia. remember, jimmy carter was trying to get us off oil. ronald reagan came in and tore off the solar panels from the white house roof and then drill baby drill. we have gotten worse. our earth has gotten a lot worse. host: steve is calling from ohio

on the republican line. good morning. caller: first time it caller here. my comments are on a number of points. historically, there is a precedent for the american revolution, how successful would our fed have been if we didn't have help from other countries, especially france. go back to the 1990's with our involvement in the middle east and with different alliances we relied on, getting those other countries together so we could go in and basically -- noah knew what resistance would happen there. we thought we would be in a war. our forces were successful. we fast-forward to this situation where we have another

dictator forcing his will on a sovereign nation. we have to decide as a country what our will is to respond to this. it's similar to the 1940's with hitler's. what if with all the media attention we have to this now, back in the 40's the attention to what was going on then with the elimination of the jewish people, what if we saw that happening rather than it being more behind the scenes of the time. what with the willpower of the world have been to prevent this in an earlier stage? could we be in that same situation? we may want to stay out of the war and not commit troops. at some point, we have to have an indication that we rely on being reactionary or being

proactive to promote democracy in ukraine. it's a will of powers. what can we do? it's important that diplomacy, talk is cheap. talk is the most important thing with diplomacy. we need to find a way to bring vladimir putin to the table, where it's in his best interest to talk. host: sam is calling from arkansas. sam, good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. thank you. i do think there is a lot of propaganda and conditioning going on. our government and the media wants everybody to think this is all on russia. i really do think we have a lot

of responsibility in this. ukraine is not a nato country. they promised no nato expansion. it has expanded under 14 countries, including latvia, lithuania, and estonia. nato says they are not an offensive organization. in the 90's, they attacked the former yugoslavia. when yugoslavia broke apart, all of those nations except serbia are part of the european union. two of those republics are part of nato. we claimed this is an illegal thing by the russians. we leave out that we went into

iraq. iraq was a sovereign country. why is it that our country is now centering russian new organizations like rt? if we are writing all this, what is the harm of hearing from the russian side of things? host: let's go to lawrence calling from washington dc. good morning. caller: good morning two. i have an interesting perspective. i came here in the mid 50's as a refugee from germany. my mother was born in latvia. i'm just looking at the hypocrisy of what's going on here in so many ways. sam made some good points about how nato is expanding and i

can't believe some of the propaganda. sam pointed out how nato wasn't supposed to expand. every treaty the ned states has made has been broken. he brings up iraq. i could speak about libya, how we invaded it. we don't hear anything about all of the intrusions into the southern hemisphere, africa, central america. i really feel sorry for anybody who is being invaded and the refugee crisis. i came here as a refugee. i found out a few years ago that my maternal grandfather was a

latvian equivalent of then ss soldier. we came here to america. my mom had to deny my existence because i am a brown baby. look what's happening in palestine. i'm not anti-semitic or jewish. palestinians are somatic as well. it's just the hypocrisy of it. host: the wall street journal has a map on the front page of its website showing the exodus from ukraine going to neighboring countries. 550,000 headed to poland, 133,002 hungary, romania 50,000.

some are heading into russia. many people are calling this one of the greatest european exodus is since world war ii. some people are warning about a humanitarian crisis happening in europe right now. samantha power last week talked about this, her recent visit to ukraine and the deepening humanitarian crisis happening right now. this is what she had to say. >> what i will say, 360,000 was the figure three days ago. that gives you a sense of the scale and it's accelerating every day. if some of the towns the russians are beseeching, if people can be -- you can imagine

those numbers are going to go up even more. what i will say is to commend the neighboring states other than belarus for opening their borders and welcoming people with these great needs. there are very few questions, people's names are taken and they are registered. even mulled over which did not expect to be a major source of refugees, they've already taken more than 100000 and they have expected them to move on to germany or elsewhere in europe. half the people are choosing to stay in mulled over. we are hoping this will end and by staying close, they can go back to their homes. nobody wants to leave their homes.

there have been and students where third country nationals have been pushed to the back of the line. it's important that the polish government has come out. there's a much more orderly process now and hopefully we will see no more of those incidents. any incidents is terrible and something to record. we also see the russian federation disinformation machine make it seem like this is a very widespread phenomenon. this indicates the nazi-ism of the government and so forth. from the minute we heard those reports, the response was instant in terms of getting instructions out to border

guards and getting it into the chain of command. that's very important as well. host: let's go to bob calling from kansas city on the independent line. good morning. >> i just got a comment to make. russia telegraphed this whole operation. why on earth didn't nato or the u.s. or whoever send every bit of arms. you've got people over there who are dying to fight. i know the horses already left the barn. i just don't get it. all of those people who got displaced, much money are we going to have to spend to take care of them? you're not going to shame vladimir putin into anything.

that's all i've got to say. thanks for taking my call. host: shane is calling from kentucky on the republican line. good morning. caller: i was in the marine corps for four years. i've almost seen my brother log get sent over there. he's going to retire in two months. that's fine. i don't understand why we can't do something about this. we've got big things going on in the world. people are fighting with each other over color and race.

who cares? host:host: we are all brothers when it comes to the military. that's the caller: bottom line. caller: milton, wisconsin on the independent line. good morning. get rid of that son of a bit >> i can't believe that lindsey graham made the remark about somebody bumping off vladimir putin. everybody knows that should happen. his generals need to step up and try to take charge of the situation. he needs to be held for war

crimes, anything but blatantly stating someone should take him out. that sounds like something trump would say. that doesn't look good in front of the world for our politicians to be acting like nazis, ordering a hit. i don't see where this is going to go well for any of us if politicians start making remarks like that. host: last week, lindsey graham accused vladimir putin of war crimes in ukraine. here is what senator graham had to say. >> i think the entire world, those who believe in the rule of law need to speak on this complaint. we're not prejudging the outcome. this is a legitimate complaint.

i want to let the russian generals and pilots know that you follow the orders of vladimir putin at your own peril. you can find yourself in the hague if you drop cluster bombs on civilians. the world is watching you. i will do everything in my power as long as it takes to be a voice for justice for the ukrainian people. one of the most vicious people in the planet should be held accountable. enough of the murder, enough of destruction, and carnage on your behalf. host: let's see what some of our social idiot followers are saying.

one text says vladimir putin already lost this war, even if they take over the country, it will be destroyed and we won't have support of the people. russia will be economically decimated. a text says a nuclear war would make the world uninhabitable. biden has done a great job of uniting nato nations. trump withheld military aid from ukraine and praised vladimir putin for invading ukraine. another tweet says i'm tired of talking about it. another text says this war wouldn't be happening if we weren't financing this conflict with our oil purchases. we were energy independent before this administration took office. it's the perfect opportunity for

america to work to turn the russian people against vladimir putin. if we help ukraine destroy the russian army, it benefits us. we should send everything we can to help the ukrainian people defeat the military. they attacked us with the largest cyberattack ever. we want to know what you think. let's go to the new york times for the latest of what's happening in ukraine right now. here's what the new york times is writing today.

that's the latest of what's going on in ukraine right now as rush threatening the critical infrastructure of ukraine. we want to know what you think about what's going on in ukraine right now. mary is calling from philadelphia on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning.

we have been providing ukraine with military aid. for the president now of ukraine asking for his countrymen to return to ukraine to fight for this war, every country should have mandatory reservists and a draft in place to assist nato, i am a product of when we had the draft in place. for any country that doesn't have their own citizens. people are claiming refugee

status, dual citizenship status, if you are at a point where you are not going to fight for your country, you're not going to fight for the united states when it becomes mandatory. that means our men and women will be drafted for the united states. host: heidi is calling from florida on the independent line. caller: good morning. i'm looking for some information. they were talking about the sanctions and how they are seizing yachts and these accounts, how long have they known about this? is there any story on that we can find out?

i would like to know what was the agreement made when ukraine agreed to give up their nuclear weapons? are there any ways to research this? i'm looking for more information on how we may be complicit in all of this. host: joseph is calling from riverview, florida. good morning. caller: this is just unreal. it's making me sick. where is our future president? every congressman should be forced to go to poland and sit with those people. it's like looking at george floyd.

they are killing innocent people. we as americans should be telling the world, look at this. the people can change this. this is unreal. we've got to do something about it. i have the same feeling that i had during 9/11. i wanted to fight somebody. this is wrong for the world to sit back and let this holocaust in front of our face, we are doing nothing. thank you for taking my call. host: bill is calling from massachusetts on the republican line. good morning. caller: how are you doing? i've got three or four points.

how come we closed down the pipeline of the united states and we opened up the pipeline near russia in europe? that cause them to get billions of dollars, to afford to fight the war. how come we are not going to -- no investigation is being done about the chinese who are infiltrating australia, canada, the united states on this global reset. they are probably in the process of going to taiwan to take over. if they take over taiwan, that won't make the news. remember the censoring of all

american news. that won't make the news. it won't make it to c-span. only russia. we cause the war by shutting our pipeline down. how come the trucker thing isn't being part of the show right now? bye-bye. host: let's go to teresa from new york on the independent line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am listening to this. i've worked in news media myself. i know how important images are. it's amazing, i feel sorry for the people of ukraine.

nobly wants to see their homes destroyed and their children's future possibly destroyed. this is much bigger than vladimir putin versus the rest of the world. nobody is talking about the far right groups that have invaded ukraine. they see ukraine as a place to expand worldwide. this is a very serious thing. all you have to do is type in google far right extremism in ukraine. this is what vladimir putin is fighting for. you cannot have a country like ukraine with possible nuclear weapons and these people taking over. even just an hour ago, usa today

reported a regiment in ukraine's military was founded by white supremacists. they are battling russia on the front lines. i think our mainstream media are manipulating americans who know nothing about the history of ukraine. i was in panama when america invaded panama. i was working when we invaded in 2003. i was there when we attacked iraq. the american people need to take over their airwaves again. they need to hold these executive producers and owners

of our airwaves who are -- they never give you a balanced information. host: dave is calling from louisiana. good morning. caller: i want to say i think it's an embarrassment that we have the ukrainian ambassador to the u.s. sitting at the state of the union address the other night, we are not going to do a damn thing. i don't see how we can't recall this presidential election before he destroys us. to finish what obama started. host: are you there? let's go to washington on the democrat line. good morning. caller: my grandmother left

ukraine when she was six years old. she was just rest of kyiv. so far, we've heard one of your callers -- she did an outstanding job echoing vladimir putin's talking points. he's claiming that nazis are in ukraine. president zelensky is jewish. maybe she missed that. the ukrainian people are asking for and what president zelensky is asking for, this is certainly a profile in courage. he is willing to die for his country.

the ukrainian people are asking for a no-fly zone. i keep hearing about the u.s. and nato. there is also the united nations. the u.n. can enforce a no-fly zone. i doubt that vladimir putin wants to go to war with the entire world and wants to fight everyone. he talks about he has nuclear weapons, so do we. we don't want to use them and we are not going to. if we had a fraction of the courage of the ukrainian people, maybe we would find the ability to advocate for the u.n. enforced no-fly zone to stop the slaughter of civilians and women and children. there is something we can do. we have to remember that --

host: senator lisa murkowski and others joined a bipartisan group of members of congress supporting legislation to ban russian energy. this is what she had to say. >> he is not afraid to weaponize energy. he's been doing that all along. there has been an approach and a policy from this administration that says we don't want to put that on the table. it's already on the table. what can we do to respond? our message should be pretty clear and simple. no more russian energy should, into the united states for the duration of this horrifying and unprovoked war against ukraine. this measure is in direct

response to what russia is doing with the bombing of schools and hospitals and apartment buildings. they are killing the innocent. they are using some of the worst weapons in the world. these are not just acts of war, they are war crimes. there should not be an additional american dollar financing these atrocities. the president said he will use every tool in the toolbox. this is a tool. the one tool that might just force vladimir putin to -- host: let's see with the latest is from the washington post on what's going on in ukraine right now. this is the washington post story from this morning.

escalating its onslaught on ukraine it, russia obliterated sources of heat, lecture city, and water across major cities. one called it medieval. the ukrainian president warned that russian forces were preparing to attack odessa, the most economically strategic port on the coast. this would be a war crime he said in an emotional video. they said they would try to evacuate people from the battle zone. ukrainian officials accused russian troops of shelling what was supposed to be a safe escape route. a rocket blast ripped through

the south of kyiv. russia is responding to the scale. russia deployed similar tactics in chechnya in 19 99. it could be a long haul with the debbie prime minister singh thwarting the invasion could take months if not years. that's from the washington post again this morning. we are interested in what you think about the russian invasion of ukraine. that's go to charles from virginia on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. a couple of your callers have

made some interesting points. if you look at the u.s. foreign policy, it is pro can and has been for quite a while. we operate in these lulls through election cycles. lisa murkowski is making her points. others will make their points. there is no consistent foreign policy one can look at for 10 years. putin has been sitting back for almost 20 years, playing one game of chess. he knows what his objectives are. you get clinton, obama, trump, now you have biden and who knows what the next president will do in terms of foreign policy. they tend to be short term initiatives from the united states. they change with every political cycle. one of your callers mentioned

that we should been preparing for this. i agree. we saw this before trump. we knew that he had his eyes on ukraine. we made a decision to cater to him for the oil. we basically put ourselves in the situation. these are things we could've controlled. it's going to get worse before it gets better. host: pennsylvania on the republican line it, good morning. caller: yes. my question is why hasn't joe biden sanctioned the oil from russia yet? it's just like the croatia russia -- russia went in there

in 2016 and took over croatia. i think this has to do with a bunch of oil issues, even here with the pipeline. i think it's some kind of conspiracy. host: let's go to nancy calling from pennsylvania. nancy, good morning. caller: i just have to say that when i hear the we and we should have, i am calling to really say that we have a good example of uniting and everybody pulling it together to get this in the most peaceful way. everybody has their own ideas. do you want your family member to be going over there? we are trying to make this the

best response that america can have. it's not about what obama did or politics. that gentleman that called in about foreign policy, the foreign policy is what we need to do right now, to be the america that we should be but we have gotten so under -- with misinformation, we no longer set the information that the strong ukrainians do. those truckers when over there at a time when this is going on for that petty crap really discuss me. that is not the most pertinent subject right now. host: larry is calling from

michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: this is all about the oil. why do we just stop using russian oil and turn the pipeline back on it. we could supply the rest of the world. we have enough. i just don't understand it. joe biden has started this. it's time for the american people to stand up and say turn it back on it. let's get this under control. host: atlanta, georgia on the democrat line. good morning. caller: just like that last caller with the disinformation same biden started this. that's just another light. the republicans want to blame this all on the oil pipeline.

vladimir putin had dropped and the apartment party was backing in. why wouldn't you feel emboldened? he interfered in our elections. what did they do? they stood back. i told these people when you back vladimir putin, it's going to backfire. what did it have to do with it? it didn't have to do with columbia. it had to do with ukraine. now they want to try to fool you and say it wasn't about that. it was just about a pipeline. despots as they always do come into power and do economic uncertainty.

now, they want to blame everything on joe biden. host: let's go to elizabeth from tampa on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't really think this is a partisan issue. i know we call in on certain lines. i don't understand where that fits in. i'm a big supporter of politics in general. i think this is a large threat to our democracy. he was already involved in the cyber attacks. he's always been about eliminating democracy. he is a desperate, just like

other callers have said. this is going to be crimes against humanity. i learned in my studies in college, the u.n. and nato have been diminished over the years. with all of the cyber attacks, we need to recognize there is no ending for this desperate. when he was involved in our war, he was starting the plan and just enjoyed that attack on the capital. it put a crack in our democracy. host: we would like to thank all of our callers. we will be joined by law professor kim whaley about the january 6 investigation and her new book.

later, max boot discusses russia's invasion of ukraine and what u.s. and nato can do to avoid further escalation. we will be right back. ♪ >> weekends bring you book tv, featuring leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. on "in depth," author and journalist sam quinones discusses immigration issues and the drug epidemic in the united states. his books include "true tales from another mexico," "dreamland," and, most recently, "the least of us" about the neuroscience of addiction and the deadly impact of synthetic drugs. on "after words," daily beast journalist kelly weill reported on the rise of the flat earth movement and other conspiracy theories disseminated through online platforms. she is the author of "off the

edge: flat earthers, conspiracy culture, and why people will leave anything. she is interviewed by reason magazine books editor and author jesse walker. find a full schedule on your program guide. watch online anytime at booktv.o rg. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with author

and university of baltimore law professor kim wehle, who is here to discuss the january 6th investigation and ketanji brown jackson's upcoming supreme court confirmation hearings. good morning. guest: good morning. host: let's start with the january 6 investigation. the general sixth committee filed a legal brief that got a lot of attention across the country related to potential terminal activities. can you tell us exactly what that brief was about and explain what they were talking about? guest: the brief was not much of a big deal in terms of the legal issues presented. what was important was the arguments made in the brief relating to potential criminal activity by the former president, donald trump. basically, the committee is getting as much information as it can as congress, in theory, to legislate and make

congressional decision on the how to avoid another january 6th . a man called john easement used to work for jack pinto -- chapman university as a law professor who was in contact with donald trump and others leading to the lead up to january 6th. he has been interviewed by the committee and pled the fifth amendment over 146 times. but they want documents from him as well. he used the chapman university server, so those emails belong to the university right now, not to him personally. so he filed a lawsuit to stop the university from producing the records to the committee. basically, he has raised the kinds of argument we would hear in all kinds of regular civil litigation -- attorney-client privilege, something called the work product doctrine. attorney-client privilege probably does not apply anyway, but what the committee argued

was even if it does apply, there's something called the crime fraud exception kate even if you are communicative with a lawyer, you have to have hired the lawyer, has to be confidential, and has to be something leading to the law, or it does not apply at all. even if you talk to a lawyer, it does not apply as privilege. but you cannot talk to a lawyer about how to get away with a crime. you cannot go to your lawyer and say i killed someone, how do i get rid of the body? that "how do i get rid of the body" part would be produced in court, even if it was privileged communication. even if it is attorney-client privilege between john easman and donald trump, there was conspiracy to fraud the united states that would make these emails and texts and documents producible to the committee. it is important in part because the people running this investigation congress already

former federal prosecutors, so i do not think they would say that if they did not believe they had the evidence to back up that statement. that is what is so important about it. congress has no power to indict or prosecute anybody, but we will see, in april, public hearings letting the american people know new information about january 6th, and then there will be a report that report will be handed off to the justice department, and then the justice department could take steps to indict people based on that report, which is being produced and created by former prosecutors. these are prosecutors speaking to prosecutors, essentially. host: exactly what defines a criminal conspiracy? and did anything in these briefs provide evidence, or is this just politicians, as you say, former prosecutors just talking and speculating? guest: just to be clear, the big difference between -- i talk about this in my book, which i

know we will get to -- the difference between politicians and lawyers and prosecutors is that lawyers and judges are bound by rules. they are not allowed to speculate when it comes to producing evidence before a jury or a judge if that means making a decision about someone's life, someone's liberty, somebody's property. that is the big distinction. we have lawyers who have amassed lots of evidence. i think it is over 100 pages. it is a very long brief. they explain, step-by-step, a lot of what we know already publicly. there was a question of collusion and conspiracy. conspiracy is a term for lawyers, which means that has been a meeting of the minds, an agreement not just that people took steps on january 6th to invade the capital. we have seen hundreds of those prosecutions.

but there was actual agreement to overthrow a peaceful transfer of power. and the lawyers walked through this. there was no evidence -- i know there maybe some callers who still believe there was evidence of some kind of fraud in the election. the good news was there was not care that is good for american democracy. even there was no evidence, given the president was told there was no evidence -- we have seen lots of public information relating to what he said on january 6th, the communications he had with others relating to let's have the department of justice stop this, call brad raffensperger in georgia to stop the vote -- all of these steps taken to basically stop the peaceful transfer of power and cancel the electoral college votes properly determined by the states for that is the conspiracy part. it is very hard to approve a conspiracy, because you have to show there was an agreement.

another critical piece that happened, there was a member of the oath keepers who pled guilty to a conspiracy, a seditious conspiracy. there is now at least one person publicly who has said -- i do not know if there's anything relating to mr. trump specifically -- but he faces multiple years in prison, said yes, i did agree -- engage on an agreement that day to overturn the election. that is critical, that someone faced with this is the evidence you have against you, your either going to plea or we will throw the book at you. his lawyer probably said you have to plea or this will not be pretty for you if we go to trial. host: how close, based on your reading of the documents, does this get to former president trump? guest: it goes directly to former president trump. this is not the first time we have seen a filing. there was also a decision by a federal judge in washington,

d.c. -- remember, federal judges are united states government judges. there are a number of lawsuits filed by members of congress, police officers that were at the capitol on january 6th under civil laws, basically the" clan act that was passed to avoid violations -- basically the ku klux klan act that was passed to avoid violations of civil -- donald trump says i am immune to what happened january 6th because i was president. we had a federal judge say no, those losses can go forward, i am soberly and carefully making these rulings. i reject the idea that donald trump is immune from his actions, because seeking to overthrow an election, which looks like potentially happen here, that is not part of your

article ii power as president. your power is to leave the troops, execute the law, negotiate treaties, but you do not have the power to do that. just like we are talking about the crime fraud exception takes you out of the attorney-client relationship, if you're going to engage in sedition, attempts to avert the will of the people -- it is the people in charge -- then we will not give you immunity. this is getting closer to donald trump. we now have lawyers on the committee who say we have evidence of a crime involving the former president, and we have a federal judge who, in a ruling, saying i will not through these -- throw these lawsuits out. he throughout these lawsuits when it came to rudy giuliani and don jr., but not to president trump. does it mean he will actually face a lawsuit or indictment

that would have implications for him personally? it is impossible, in this moment, to predict how all of that will unfold. the key element, and i am sure we will talk about it, is the november election, which could change a lot when it comes to the january 6th committee. host: you are jumping ahead to my next question, but let me stop here really quickly to say to our callers and viewers that they can take part in this conversation. we will open our regular lines, which means democrats, you can call (202) 748-8000. republicans, your number is (202) 748-8001. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. keep in mind you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, on twitter, @cspanwj, and on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. kim, with everything we now know, what happens next with the

january 6th committee? do they make recommendations to the justice department? are they going to be filing new legislation? what happens next? guest: what we understand is what happens next is public hearings in april. congressman raskin of maryland said there will be public hearings that will blow the roof off things. i am paraphrasing him. what that means to me is we will hear, as americans, more information, more facts, more of the record developed then we are in the second impeachment. if you recall, there was a trial in the senate for donald trump's second impeachment, where, under the leadership of jamie raskin, we saw a lot of information about what happened january 6th. donald trump was not convicted in that trial. what this suggests is we will hear new stuff.

this is not just a rehash. it is supposed to be primetime in april. we will see if that happens. but it is really important that americans watch that. in my mind, there is legal jeopardy in the courts, and then there is the election. what we will see in april is information i think people need to bring to the ballot box in november. because it was not just donald trump involved. there were members of congress, people inside government, some of whom still have power of the people, and we need to decide, are those the folks we want to see stay in power moving forward? we are watching a democracy -- i was listening to your last hour -- we are watching a democracy in ukraine being attacked from the outside-in. our democracy was attacked from the inside-out, and it is still corroding. we could talk about that. the ukrainians, moms, dads, regular teachers, are having to learn how to bear arms, hunkering in subway stations by

the thousands, having babies and bunkers. what we have to do is vote. we have a lot easier. that is step number one. step number two is what will the media in terms of legal liability? many years ago, i worked on the whitewater investigation, an investigation against former president clinton. that is a little different from a committee, but it did produce a report that, in that instance but went to congress. here, it is the other way around. congress is -- producing a report that would go to the department of justice and the american people. even if the house of representative's or the senate shifts to republican control, merrick garland and joe biden will still be in charge of the justice department. so they will take that information, and they are probably looking at similar information now -- we do not know if there is a grand jury going, but they will take that information, which i assume is very thorough, and develop as if

it were a prosecutor doing it for, -- doing it, because they are former prosecutors, and do it against people who had the power to stop it. that is the critical piece. host: speaking of the november election, let's see if we can get clarity on what happens in congress and the justice department if republicans take over the u.s. house. let's assume the republicans will take over the house in the november election. what happens to the january 6th committee if republicans take over the house? guest: my expectation is that it will cease. if you recall, there was an attempt to have a bipartisan committee, and that became highly politicized. house speaker kevin mccarthy propose some people to be on the committee that our witnesses, like jim jordan, for example, witnesses to what happened january 6th.

that is a bias or a conflict of interest. so we just have adam kinzinger and liz cheney. the beauty of it is it is chugging along in an efficient way because everyone is on the page -- same page. we need to get to the facts and go where the facts lead us. the biggest challenge of a committee -- i have no insight information -- it is getting it before november. they have a lot of stuff to do between now and then to get this going. then i expect we'll see more politics play out. there have been calls for potentially joe biden's impeachment, more investigations against the democrats, all of that. that is somewhat visits as usual. unfortunately, in the last 20 years, has been ugly and sniping and not actually about the american people, producing legislation for the american people. but whatever would happen with a

republican-led house of representatives, whatever issues they are looking into, is nothing as close to being important as january 6th. everyone loses, every voting mirror, -- member of america. because that means we lose our power to decide our own leaders. with that goes people civil liberties. if you do not have any kind ability as a politician, that is you can just ignore the vote and say i will wrest power through shenanigans and cute maneuvers, take power for myself -- we see it with vladimir putin across the pond -- then there is no accountability for your they do not care if they start violating people civil rights. this is really important, that we all hang onto democracy. elizabeth made a comment about this in your last hour, that we all hang onto democracy, then go back to the business of debating

about issues, like what do we do about climate, the economy, crime, immigration. that is what those people are in congress to do, represent us on issues, not to take the power away from us. so again, what we learned between now and november, people watching, is how to vote in november. and please, please, please vote. it is getting harder to vote. this is another step in the degradation of american democracy, putting up artificial barriers to keep us from the polls. just like those ukrainians are having their guns and hanging onto their two-year-old, crossing the border into poland or whatever -- jump over those hurdles and vote, because that is how we can save our democracy. host: what happens with the justice department if republicans take over the house in november? does it affect anything merrick garland is doing or wants to do

with his investigation? guest: no, it doesn't. three different branches of government. the president and the justice department answers to the president. then we have article i, congress and its own chain of command. there could be political pressure. any indictment of a former sitting resident is unprecedented. it would be a huge deal. there is, traditionally -- donald trump is an exception -- traditionally the president and attorney general have not communicated on who to indict, because we do not want to sit where if you do not agree with whoever is in power, you will get indicted. we do not want that massive power to be used against people's political beliefs. that is not democracy. but they will chug along. there could be rusher in congress by investigating doj are doing political pushback on

that, but merrick garland has his own authority, regardless of what congress does. he also mentioned, could congress legislate? after watergate, which was a big scandal that led to richard nixon's resignation, there was a lot of legislation passed to shore up democracy. the freedom of information act. there were amendments made to that so that you and i could sort of ask the government, what are you doing, give me the documents. there is a lot of that come a lot of legislation to shore up american democracy in the wake of a visa power by a president. the problem at this moment is the filibuster. so we are not seeing basic legislation around this passing, because republicans have a super majority through the filibuster, which is nowhere in the constitution. it is not in the law. but there are two democrats, joe manchin and kyrsten sinema, who will not take steps to get rid

of the filibuster. for example, the john lewis voting rights advancement act, that is designed to put in place a provision of the voting rights act from 1965 that the supreme court gutted in 2013. the supreme court said congress, update that. we cannot even get some thing is basic as that. that is not even happening. regardless of what happens in november, unless there is a landslide in favor of democrats in the senate, frankly, which is unlikely, that we will see any meaning legislation. congress is broken right now. what americans need to do is put people in office who will do the work of the people and get away from this nonsense around the big lie and dividing us. we should get together and say we want you to do what we pay you to do through our tax dollars. host: let's let some of our viewers take art.

we start with howard. caller: you clarified one issue i wanted to ask with regard to the november election and republicans taking a majority with regards to the committee. but i am curious about the department of justice and why i do not see any insurrection charges being raised. mostly, it is petty trespassing and violent kind of stuff, small penalties. i want to see people locked away. that is where i am coming from. guest: that is a good question and one a lot of people have had. but as i mentioned earlier, there are indictments, at least one, for seditious conspiracy. that is that meeting of the minds, the attempt to overthrow the government, and we have at least one oath keepers, member

of the oath keepers, who has pleaded guilty to that. why is more of it not happening? a couple things. one is that it is harder to prove, because you have to show beyond a reasonable doubt, in theory -- 99% prove, not 51% proof like in civil action. you have to provide that high level meeting of the mines, like crawling into people's minds at the time. we have texts and documents i can get to that. that is number one. part two is this concept of precedent. prosecutors are used to mee too, not it. like me too, here's my case similar to that. without that precedent, lawyers

are hesitant, because they go out on a limb to create new precedent. the use of existing criminal laws to that day, there is creative lawyering going on, new paths being forged here. i am not saying they are not legitimate. i have looked at a lot of these legal papers, and they are solid arguments. but when it has never happened before, people get a little sheepish and worried, that they are going out on a limb and could lose. prosecutors do not do that. they do not bring cases unless they are sure they can win. but we are having those bigger claims being brought, but they are still against the regular people on the ground. what we have not seen is indictments against the people inside government. they are there to represent us, and they let it happen and did not stop it.

and donald trump did not either. he let it happen, egged people on, and did not take steps, with his massive power as commander-in-chief, in those early moments to stop the carnage and save some lives. i used to live near washington many years. i used to push my kids and their strollers around the capitol, and they used to be very strong law enforcement presence there, particularly when congress meets to transfer power. it was shocking to watch on television. where is the law enforcement, why is this such chaos? that, in my mind as a citizen, still has not been answered. that is not about the people on the ground, that is the people in leadership at that moment. host: let's talk to diane, calling from missouri on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: i'm fine, go ahead. caller: ok.

kimberly has left a lot of things out and put in facts that were not truthful. but i'm curious. what hillary clinton did trump with the russian and everything else, they are just scraping that under the carpet and attacking trump. what about what hillary clinton did, spying on a candidate and spying on a sitting president? i am curious to what she has to say about that. guest: well, let me just be clear. use the word "lying." no, i'm not lying. it is important that you raised that, and i talk about that in my book, "how to think like a lawyer and why." it is really important that you, and all of us, learn how to get the facts.

as far -- get good facts. as far as i know, there are no good facts on hillary clinton spying on a candidate. facts, for lawyers, we have to authenticate them. we will lose if we do not authenticate that. many years ago, 20, 30 years ago -- maybe diane had this experience -- when you wanted to get information, you would start with an encyclopedia then go to a library, to microfiche. our job was to get the facts. now, with social media, it is flipped. there is overwhelming information, a lot of it not only inaccurate, but because of computer algorithms, it is being fed into our phones to confirm our prior biases. it is really important, before we jump on this bandwagon or

that bandwagon, that we learn for ourselves how to find good facts. i have some tips in the book. number one, read original source material. if i see an indictment against hillary clinton, i will read it and i will go to whatever original documents might be associated with that and read it for myself. the other thing i do, that we all did many years ago, is make sure that the information we are getting is from a source that cares about having accuracy. 20, 30 years ago, it was major news networks, major newspapers, local newspapers. they did not make sure they had accurate facts because they cared about going to jail, it was because they cared about their professional reputations and their craft. there are still those outlets out there, but it is garbage in, garbage out. it is important we teach our children how to do that.

there should be something in k through 12 that is as basic as reading and writing -- how to sort what comes through your phones that manipulates the rights and the left. i am not just picking on the right. it is people across the board. how do you sort through that and get accurate information. host: you brought up your book, and i want to dive into "how to think like a lawyer and why." you have written about the constitution before, written about voting before. what made you decide to explain how to think like a lawyer and why we should think like lawyers? guest: we are talking about it right here. i wrote the first book on constitution, so people could understand their government. one third of americans at the time could not name the three branches of government. if you cannot name it, you do not know how to vote. and i realized after writing the first book is it all comes down

to voting. your vote is that powerful. then we are in this moment where we are divided over whether facts exist. are divided over whether facts exist. it occurred to me, i have been teaching for many years, there are some skills that can be brought to bear on thinking in making decisions that only an elite number of people get in america. lawyers look for the gray areas, the nuance, the uncertainty. we dive into the uncertainty rather than pick a side and defend the side. you will see it on tv people picking a side. that is after they have done all this work. why do they have to do this? they will lose in court or be sanctioned. the book gives a framework or methodology for taking a hard problem in your life, health

care, divorce, whether to take a big job, and gives a five-step process for breaking that down by looking for the nuance and facts bearing on both sides and coming to a conclusion where you realize you are not always going to win, you are not always going to get everything you want. lawyers understand that. it is an attempt to empower people to have another tool in their toolbox when it comes to overwhelming problems. lawyers don't just go on gut feelings. that is a great way of making decisions sometimes, but i am offering another way that has not been commercially available to people outside of law school. that is the goal of the book. host: how does your book connect to what we see going on in ukraine or what is going on with the january 6 investigation?

guest: there is a connection, i think the last caller, this question about hillary clinton. there is a connection around my third step. i have a five-step process. break questions down, identify your value system, seek and collect information. vladimir putin is giving the people in russia that information. there are accounts in the new york times of russian soldiers thinking ukrainians are going to welcome them with open arms because they have been lied to and told ukrainians are oppressed, and we need to relieve them. here is bad information coming through national television that people distorts their ability to make good information -- decisions for their families.

being put in this situation where many russians are dying as well. the connection is how to break this propaganda down in america, which vladimir putin has been feeding for years. we know in 2016 he said lies around the presidential election. that is established. the goal is to give people another tool to start to unpack the propaganda and manipulated information we are getting. that is powerful. analyze both sides. lawyers have to do that. they have to understand their opponents arguments as well as their own. tolerate uncertainty. tolerate that you are going to have people that don't agree with you. this idea that if you are not on my team, i don't like you. if i get a sense you are on a

different political team, i am going to alienate you, that is not the american way. it is not life. the hard stuff means give-and-take. lawyers have a reputation for being sharks, mean, too aggressive, but the legal method is a very solid way of walking through what can feel like an overwhelming situation, lots of uncertainty, and get to some resolution you can feel good about. host: let's go back to our phone lines. we will start with christine calling from rhode island on the democrat line. good morning. caller: the morning. -- good morning. i think i missed my calling. i should be a lawyer. i have been writing notes. i have been writing on everything.

i have been watching this from the beginning. it is frightening what is happening in our country. i might be a little old, but i see everything from the governance -- it is just destroying our country. the lawyers, when i would first start listening to them, i had a hard time understanding them. i am like that is now what was said. that is not what was done. it is almost like they are debating what we saw and heard. i know there is a lot of propaganda, dangerous propaganda for our country. all we heard, us, them. we are americans. we are supposed to be united. we are so divided over an

entertainer. that is how i feel. he had a show that, i don't know if it was popular or not, i never watched it. who is funding? for any republican not to pass a bill, work with the democrats on anything, deny, deny, deny, and nothing getting done. host: go ahead and respond. guest: christine puts her finger on a problem. government by we the people, not we the politicians, the democrats, the powerful, the privileged. it is government by the people. early americans fought a bloody war because they did not want a king anymore.

the difference between a president and king is a king has unlimited power. in theory that power came from the divine. it was unlimited. i speak for the divine, so what i say goes. american democracy broke that monarchy into three pieces. no one gets all the power. everybody's papers get checked by the other two branches. the legislative congress gets their papers graded by the president, who can veto. or the court can strike down legislation that is unconstitutional. that is the concept. you don't need to be a lawyer or constitutional scholar to understand whatever we have is not unlimited power in one place. that is what january 6 was about. if we came to that, it is over. if people want to think american democracy is special, we are not

like ukraine, that is not borne out by history. we are seeing it unfold before our eyes. someone who wants unlimited power, vladimir putin, taking it by force. america, we have oceans around. it is not going to be taken by force. vladimir putin working to corrode it from the inside out. it is getting people to not trust each other. that is the power. the book is designed -- a five-step process. if you are skeptical, i applaud you for being skeptical. don't listen to me. pull out the book. take the five steps. apply it to something in your life. i challenge everyone to change your mind about something. our kids are good at that. kids adapt. they are agile. older people tend to be stuck in their ways. try to change your mind.

i give you a five-step process that is a nod to what christine is talking about. trying to get us back to where we are communicating with each other. shaming, canceling, alienating, that stuff just makes people feel bad. that is the kind of thing that people like putin want to see in america. host: let's talk to craig. caller: i appreciate c-span and our guest today. you are doing a great job. i want to say i support the continuity of government and don't want to rehash the election. i think our election system is the best in the world. i have a constitutional question. i know the constitution says the states, they determine the times and methods of how they do their elections.

four of the six states in question violated the constitution. they changed the times and the methods and then send the vote to be certified by the president of the senate. he certified it. it is over. that is a hot potato. who is going to handle that hot potato? there is a real problem in this election. will it be the supreme court, house, or senate, and the constitutional professional i saw it said it would be the congress. we need to address that problem because there was a real problem that was constitutional. i hope somebody addresses it. as far as fraud, i'm talking about violations of the constitution by four states. if we can address that going forward, i think you will because a stronger country. -- i think it will make us a stronger country. guest: thank you for that

question. high-five to oklahomans. i lived there. craig is right that from a primary standpoint the constitution gives the power over elections to states. what is a state? states are just like the federal government. states are made up of various branches of government. you have got a legislature, courts, and a governor. a governor has people that answer to the governor just like the president has people that answer to the president. the changes that were made in the lead up in the various states to deal with covid, which i am assuming is in part what is being discussed here. those were made according to the laws of the state by actors that were authorized to do that under the law of the state. the constitution just says state.

the state can decide how to manage their elections. some states put it in different parts of the government. across the country, judges' job is to decide whether a law has been broken. i am quite confident as a constitutional scholar that there was no violation of the constitution in the changes that were made and the certifications that happened leading up to january 6. if there had been strong arguments, there would have been court action. there were 60 cases that were filed. they all failed with one tiny exception. there was no law backing it up. not because judges are better than other people in terms of their integrity, but because they are bound by facts and law. we do need changes to our electoral college process. there is an old statute called

the electoral count act. it is kind of a mess. it has gaps in it. it implements the electoral college, which is mentioned in the constitution. congress has the power to pass laws across the country that affect the federal elections. that trickles down to the states. there have been proposals to amend the electoral count act. it is probably the top of my list in terms of electoral reforms so we don't have nonsense happening around certification of the election. i can talk about where the holes are. part of the problem with the holes is people do not believe in the election. that is corrosive to american democracy. i want to give a shout out to craig to his point that he feels it was a good election. the reason i think we should feel proud is there are thousands of americans who went out during a pandemic to make that election work. this is not top-level level officials. these are regular people that

went out and counted the ballots and work the polls. those people did not commit fraud. the auditing procedures are quite tight. the problem has to do with the end when states are certifying and the congress is certifying. there are some holes in the statute. this time i think it was done properly. the holes are there. it needs to be fixed. host: before we run out of time, what are you keeping your eyes on for the confirmation hearing of judge canton g brown jackson? -- judge ketanji brown jackson? guest: we had a bipartisan support for her for the d.c. circuit judge, republicans and democrats, if they are going to adhere to their prior votes. this is a stellar candidate. she is not some liberal or

conservative ideologue. i would like to see the republicans in the senate standby their prior votes, reflect that this woman is strong and belongs on the court, and not turn it into a circus. bring dignity back to the process. she should be confirmed. once on the court, is she going to make a difference in the votes? no. i think having all women in the minority, which is more the moderate part of the court because the conservatives are quite radical now, it is interesting to have only women representing that part of the population that is more into singing the praises of individual rights on a number of fronts. it is really more the minority wing in the moment that is going to be a champion of that. host: we would like to thank kim

wehle, author of how to think like a lawyer and why. thank you so much for being with us. guest: i enjoyed it very much. thank you. host: coming up next, author max boot will be here to discuss russia's invasion of ukraine and what if anything the u.s. and nato can do to avoid further escalation. stick with us. we will be right back. >> the book hitler's american campbell recounts the five days that upended everything. those days include december 7 through december 11, 1941, from japan's attack on pearl harbor, tracing developments in real-time.

british historians reveal how america's engagement was far from inevitable. professors quote martin gilbert as saying hitler's decision to declare war on the u.s. was arguably his single greatest mistake of the war. >> brendan sims and charlie lederman on this episode of booknotes+. book notes is available wherever you get your podcasts. c-span's new american president website is your one-stop guide to our nation's commanders in chief, from george washington to joe biden. find video resources, life facts, and images that tell the story of their life and presidencies. visit c-span.org/presidents to

begin exploring this rich catalog of resources today. "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with author and columnist max boot, who sits as a senior fellow on the council for foreign relations. he is with us this morning to discuss russia's invasion of ukraine. good morning. guest: good morning. host: let's jump into it. where is the conflict between russia and ukraine headed? is escalation inevitable? guest: it is headed to no good place. escalation is very likely on the part of russia. right now, we are about 10 days into the war. the russian offensive appears to be bogged down. they are not making the kind of rapid progress they expected. the ukrainians are turning out to be much more effective fighters than russians bargained

for. you have this 40 mile long russian column stalled outside of kyiv. they are making better progress in the south. they are nowhere close to winning the war. what we are starting to see and will see more of in the future is that when vladimir putin becomes frustrated, he turns to wrecking things. he turns to a barbaric strategy of targeting civilian areas, killing innocent people. that is already underway in kharkiv. that is likely what is to be in store eventually for kyiv. clearly, the war will continue for a long time based on the current trajectory because the russians are nowhere close to winning. host: why is russia nowhere close to winning? we all assumed, and i always assumed, russia has one of the best militaries on the planet. you would think if they decided

they want to take ukraine, they can just take it. why are they having so many problems? guest: i think that was a widespread assumption. i think that was an assumption held by putin. i think he has been greatly disabused of that. there are two things going on. one is russian incompetence, and two is ukrainian will to resist. those are both much greater than people anticipated. in the past decade or so, we have gotten used to the russians intervening in places like syria or in 2014 when their little green men took crimea, and there was an impression that they had revamped their armed forces be much better than they used to be in the old soviet days. we are seeing a lot of that is not true. the russians cannot really coordinate air and ground operations, cannot keep their

troops supplied on the march. they have a lot of conscripts who do not know why they are being sent to ukraine and are not fighting effectively and are surrendering. there is a lot of lack of competence just beneath the surface. what you are seeing on the case of ukraine is that it is a much tougher target than any putin has taken on in his 22 years in power. the ukrainians have a large military. they are battle hardened. they have been fighting russian separatists in ukraine since 2014. the key factor is morale. i think you are seeing a lot of russians don't understand why they are fighting their suppose it brothers, the ukrainians. the ukrainians have skyhigh morale. they are defending their homes, cities. they are not giving up. they are saying they are going

to fight to the death. that is something i don't think the kremlin anticipated. host: what is your view of what the u.s. and nato and european countries are doing so far, both in terms of sanctions and supplying ukrainians with weapons? guest: i think we are doing an excellent job on both fronts. there is more you could do in both areas. overall, the western response has been tough, much tougher than the russians expected. all along the west had signaled we are not going to sanction russian oil and gas because europe relies for about 40% of its natural gas from russia. energy exports are the chief russian industry. there was a concern that because of that the sanctions would not be effective, but that has not turned out to be the case at all. the fact that the u.s. and

europe are willing to disconnect a lot of russian banks from swift, the fact that we are imposing sanctions on the russian central bank means putin cannot access his foreign currency. he built up a piggy bank of about $600 million. we have turned a lot of that into unusable cash, which is frozen in western banks. you are seeing an economic meltdown going on in russia with the ruble plummeting in value. the stock market is closed. people are trying to flee the country. i think the economic sanctions are tough. i think we should be going after russian oil and gas. even without that, we are imposing substantial costs. i think the western program to arm the ukrainians has been effective. you are something like 10 days into the war.

what you are seeing is the russians still don't have air superiority, which they assumed they would have in the early hours of the congo. a lot of the reason is we are providing them with so many stinkers and other weapons to shoot down russian aircraft. we are providing them with a lot of javelin antitank weapons which are taking a real toll on the russian column attacking ukrainian cities. there is more we could do. we need to keep the stingers and javelins flowing because thej ukrainians are going through those weapons at a high rate. there is a proposal on the table for eastern european states to provide ukraine with soviet made fighter aircraft from their own arsenals. that is something we can do. we can backfill those states

with f-16s from the u.s. we can ramp up a little bit more. overall, we are probably doing about 89% of what we ought to be doing. host: we can see sanctions are having some effect on the russian economy. what we have heard a lot in the american media over the last week is how the russian oligarchs who support putin are having their assets, like yachts, targeted by western countries. is there any evidence of an emerging split between vladimir putin and the russian oligarchs who finance him? guest: there is a little bit of a split, hairline fractures. you have seen some criticism of the invasion from oligarchs. i would not expect that the oligarchs would turn against putin because he has the upper hand in that relationship. they are losing a lot of money.

they are feeling a lot of pressure. at the end of the day, if they protest putin's war, they understand they could lose all their money and windup in the gulags. the real challenge to putin could come within his power base, which is the ranks of high-level security personnel, intelligence and military. if you see the military or russian intelligence turning against the war, that could be potentially dangerous for putin. i don't think we are at that point yet. where we are at now is the various growing antiwar protests in russia despite putin's attempts to crack down. putin is trying to clampdown on information and stop the protests. i think there is growing dissatisfaction across russian society with this invasion.

it is still early days. we will have to see where we are a few months from now. there is no question that this is conceivably the biggest threat to prunes rule -- putin's rule during his tenure. host: what do you see is going to happen with these sanctions, possible sanctions on russian oil and gas in the u.s.? do you see that as a possibility? why are we considering whether that should be a possibility instead of an action that should be taken? guest: it is a possibility. it is not that hard for the u.s. to cut ourselves off from russian oil and gas. we get very little in imports from russia. we are self-sufficient on the energy front. we are a large energy exporter. the difficulty would be for our

european allies, who get about 40% of their natural gas from russia. it is hard to substitute for what they are getting in these pipelines from russia. we could fill in some of that need with lng, liquefied natural gas from the u.s., qatar, and other sources. there is not enough tanker capacity in the world to keep europe supplied. there is a concern that if we sanction russian oil and gas, we could end up in a position where we are divided from our european allies. right now, we have strong unity. there is a concern about what is the economic impact going to be on the u.s. and europe. there is a concern about inflation spiking, political blowback. maybe taking russian oil off the market could be easier if we

concluded the nuclear deal with iran, so get iranian oil back on the market. there is a lot of reasons why president biden and european leaders have been hesitant to cut off russian oil and gas. i think we should move further in that regard. we need to be aware of managing some of the fallout. host: you said earlier that there were some weapons that could be moved into ukraine by nato members. how does the united states and nato members move weapons into ukraine without running into a russian guest: well, russia doesn't have enough troops right now to control ukraine and to police their border with nato. there's about 900 miles of border with nato states such as poland and romania, and right now the overland out from poland is wide open.

you're seeing convoys coming in from poland heading in to ukraine and the western ukrainian city is not currently under seige or it's not even under attack from the russians. so the russians are invading the country of about 43 million people with roughly 150,000 troops, they just don't have enough troops. there's no way they can effectively clamp down on this western border, at least certainly not right now when the troops are still bogged down trying to reach kyiv and other major population centers. host: one of our social media followers has a question about ukraine and nato that they want to see if you can explain. and they write, can you explain in layman terms why nato hasn't accepted ukraine into its group? guest: well, there was an announcement made in 2008 that

nato would start the process for georgia and ukraine joining nato and that was a dangerous announcement to make because we weren't saying they were going to join. we were saying they were going to join down the road. that gave putin an incentive to invade georgia and then ukraine. and the problem is that once putin attacked both of those countries, that basically froze the process of admitting them to nato because nato does not want to admit a country that is in a state of war with russia because if they became a member of nato that would mean that nato would be in a state of war with russia, which is a country that has something like 6,000 nuclear weapons. so we don't want to trigger world war three. so there is, that basically accounts for the reluctents to admit either georgia or ukraine into nato. but i think a more promising

policy would be to move towards admitting ukraine into the european union which is also something that putin does not want to see. but that's not the same kind of direct threat to russia and would not embroil the u.s. and nato countries in a war with russia. host: let me take a second here to remind our viewers that they can take part in our conversations. we're going up our regular lines. the numbers are on your screen. keep in mind you can always text us. and we're always reading on social media on twitter and on facebook.

now you've said there's a fine balancing line between applying maximum pressure on putin and still giving him a face-saving exit strategy. where is that line and what is a possible exit strategy for putin right now? guest: well, it is hard to see what the exit strategy would be right now. i think he would have to with draw his troops from ukraine. and if he did that maybe there would be some kind of agreement on the part of ukraine not to seek nato membership and perhaps to seek eu membership instead. it's really hard to know because putin has not shown a lot of i want rest in talks at the moment. but i think we should stay away from some of the ideas that are being bandied about, such as creating a no fly zone for russian aircraft and ukraine. i think that would be a very dangerous and a very bad idea because it would embroil the u.s. in direct conflict with

the russians. we would be shooting at their aircraft, they would be shooting at ours. it could very quickly escalate out of control. that's not something we want to do considering the nuclear weapons in both the american and russian arsenals. for the same reason i don't think we should be talking about killing putin which is something that senator lindsey graham has done in recent days. i think those are dangerous ideas, and just cause putin to dig in even further. if he ultimately frustrated with his invasion of ukraine and if he does want an offramp i think we should provide that to him and we should encourage him to leave ukraine rather than fighting to the death. >> there have been some people who have said repeatedly that putin is not a rational actor when it comes to international affairs, especially now that he started talking about nuclear weapons. do you think putin is a

rational actor when it comes to international affairs? guest: i think in general yes he is is a rational actor. but he, i think he is somewhat irrational on the subject of ukraine chess convinced is not an independent country and is a historic part of russia and should be a part of russia today. but i don't think that he is suicidal. i would not say his talk of nuclear weapons too seriously. remember, this is a guy who is so afraid of catching covid so worried about his own health that he makes his own aides set at the end of this prepross trussly long table which is much mocked in the west. so clearly he is really concerned about safeguarding his own well being and i think he understands that attacking a nato member or triggering a nuclear war is going to result in the destruction of russia and his own personal demise. i don't think that's something that he's going to do. i think there's a very good reason why he's attacked

georgia and ukraine rather than, say, latvia, poland. he is not attacking nato members. he understands what article 5 means and to remind him we have now pushed a lot more u.s. troops into frontline nato states like poland. i think there is no question putin has gotten the message if he attacks a nato state we will fight and there is a real risk of world war three. but short of that, we should be very cautious about getting into a conflict with putin which is why, as i've said, i think ideas like a no fly zone are not well advised. host: let's let some of our viewers take part in this conversation. we'll start with charles from arkansas. caller: good morning. i read your book invisible armies. i really liked it.

guest: thank you. caller: this is a brutal war of subjewgation. we haven't seen anything like this since -- am i still on? host: you are. caller: this is a brutal war of sub judegation. it's a brutal war against civilians. and i think this guy has read joe biden and watched and i think even though nato has come together and all the western countries have come together for an economic war against putin, putin has called the economic war a war. and i think he's going to continue to fight and push it because i believe he thinks biden will cave. ok? now, donald rumsfeld said you

go to war with the army you have not the army you want. we have a chain of command that may not be able or has shown that they may not be able to take on the russians who are brutal. so i have one bit of advice and then i will let you comment. i think president biden needs to do everything he can to bring the country back to the center. he was elected as a centrist which is not governing as. but if we get into a fight he is going to need all the people who don't have confidence in him. guest: i think you're basically right and i think president biden recognizes that, i think the state of the union was an attempt to recalibrate his presidency more towards the center when he said, for example, fund the police, don't defund the police. fund the police. i think that was an attempt to

move more to the center and to show that he agrees with republicans on this volume tile issue. overall, i would say i think president biden has been doing a good job. i'm not sure that any other president could do any more than what he's doing right now. i think it's really been masterful the way he has martialed the europeans and gotten them to go much further. than they were willing to go in the past. some of that of course is because the president of ukraine is an admiral figure and he's mobilized the west with his courage in resisting the russian onslaught and just the ville ni and bar barism of the russian attack has also mobilized the west. but i think president biden has done a very good job of managing that coalition and you see, for example, germany going much farther than they had ever gone in the past, raising defense spending past 2% of g.d.p., launching a rapid rearmment program, sending

weapons to ukraine. cutting off the nordstreem 2 pipeline. and basically all the europeans are on the same step with much tougher sanctions and military aid to ukraine than they've been willing to provide in the past. i think the team deserve tremendous credit for what they have done. and i think putin has been surprised by the level of the west as well as the level of resistance in ukraine. nd i think, again, president biden deserves credit for that. i was affs very critical of the withdrawal from affsen which i thought was badly mismanaged. but i think the handling of the ukraine crisis has been very well-managed by contrast. host: let's talk to john from wisconsin on the democrat line. caller: hi. how are you?

host: go ahead. caller: i don't think putin has thought about it but legally the nation's are getting together and they're sending in a volunteer army. and they're not going -- he's not going to be able to withstand that because all the countries in the world are sending in volunteer armies. and max you haven't spoke about that yet. i don't think anybody has because i don't know a lot about it but that's what's happening right now. thank you. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i'm not aware of a large volunteer army going to help ukraine. ukrainians had inquiries from about 20,000 individuals around the world interested in fighting for ukraine but it's not clear how many are fighting for ukraine at this moment. this is maybe a small number of western military veterans who are in ukraine helping

ukrainians but i don't think it's a significant number at the moment. the ukrainians are fighting for themselves and i think the primary role of the west has been and will continue to be to provide them with the weapons they need to fight effectively. host: max, i was about to ask you whether you think vadnir putin is looking beyond ukraine and we just see a tweet coming in just now from senator marco rubio who says there's a growing probability that rush will expand the invasion. do you think that putin is willing to move beyond ukraine? >> i think it is possible that he could move into moldova which is another former part of the soviet union that he feels should rightly be part of russia. and moldova like ukraine is not a member of nato so i think it

is possible that he could move into moldova but on the other hand he's already bogged down in ukraine so i don't know that he has the resources to take on any more countries and i don't think he's going to move into any nato countries because i think he understands that would trigger a devastating response from nato. and frankly, i don't know to what extent putin is getting an accurate assessment of the performance in ukraine but if he is he should be pretty alarmed because the kind of incompetence that the russian military is displaying in ukraine is nothing like the way that the u.s. military or other western militaries operate. this is showing that there is still a huge gap in military capacity and performance between the west and russia. so if putin understanding what's going on he is not going to want to mess with the west because our armed forces are

just much, much more capable than the russians are showing themselves to be in the ukraine. host: you've said before that you don't think russia has the ability to succeed in a hostile take eover of all of ukraine. why? guest: i think it will be hard for them to do because this is a country of 43 million people and they are not welcoming the russians even in cities where the russians have been able to march in and take over you're seeing people protest, people, ukrainians are willing to risk being shot by the russians to tell the russians to go home, to go to hell, to leave. there is a tremendous spirit of nationalism in ukraine. so i don't really understand what putin's end game here. i think it is puzzling for a lot of people. ok, let's say he eventually raises kyiv, he eventually his troops fight their way into keef and manage to overthrow the government. then what? he's going to install this pro

russian in kyiv? there will still be a ukrainian government in exile probably in poland and the ukrainian people have shown they will never accept a russian puppet. in fact, on two previous occasions in 2005, e 2014, they already overthrew pro russian rulers. so to keep a pro russian head of state in power in ukraine putin would have to send a massive forest garrison control ukraine. much larger than the force he sent to invade ukraine at the moment. and then there would be the risk of guerilla warfare. remember what happened in afghanistan in the 1980s it could be a similar situation where a steady flow of body bags home is going to undermine putin's role. so i don't understand how he thinks this is going to work out. my best guess is he was

deluded, basically drinking his own cool aid and he thought that the russians would be welcomed as liberators from the quote/unquote noo nazis and drug addicts that he claims rule in kyiv and would welcome the russian army. so i don't understand how he thinks he is going to win a long-term victory here. he can certainly inflict horrible death and destruction. he can certainly destroy ukrainian cities. but i don't see how he controls ukraine in the long-term. host: back to our phone lines and talk to john from florida on the republican line. good morning. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. so i have a question in 2008. you said you basically made a mistake of saying that ukraine was going to get into nato possibly. and then you said that nailto wasn't going to go into any country that was already in a war looking at a fight with

russia. so putin said he didn't want to putt the nato in ukraine. which i understand. why are you putting it on his order? so why with all you brain surgeons couldn't you figure out to admit being we're going to be in a war with him why not admit we're not going to put nato, pull nato out of ukraine. why did you not just do that? and then call his bluff. but you didn't. it's like watching undercover boss watching the council on foreign relations and all you so-called experts that think you know what you're doing but when it really happens it doesn't -- you don't know what to do with yourself. what i'm looking at is if putin didn't have permission by the powers that be, he wouldn't be doing this. he had, a at the world economic

forium, he said build back better. and this was what was going to happen. this is all part of it and you're playing the american people as fools to think that this isn't planned because they would not have turned our pipeline off the second day of this administration if they didn't want to do something on fuel. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i'm hearing a lot of paranoia and conspiracy mongering and name calling on the part of the caller. i'm not hearing a very cogent argument. to be clear, i'm not the person who talked in 2008 about offering nato membership to ukraine and georgia. that was during the george w. bush administration and that was a nato decision that in hindsight i think it was mistaken. but it's been clear for years that ukraine was not going to join nato. and i don't think that's the cause of the russian invasion. i think putin is worried that even without joining nato that

ukraine was becoming a pro western democracy that was becoming more integrated with the west. the very fact that you have a country with so many russian speakers which is led by a democratic elected president is a threat to putin. so i don't think that there was much that the west could have done to prevent this invasion by saying that ukraine was not going to join nato. i don't think we can make those kinds of concessions that at the point of a gun. i think ukraine has to determine its own future but i think the reality that i think putin understands very well is that ukraine is not going to be joining nato any time soon. i think the real issue is, is ukraine going to be a country with its own government, with its own foreign policy, with its own governance structure. or is it going to be a puppet state of russia and clearly that is what putin is aiming

for in ukraine and i think we are rightly standing behind the people of ukraine in their brave fight for their own freedom. host: let's talk to paul from maryland on the independent line. caller: good morning. i'm a student so here's my question. what led to this current conflict? why is it ok for putin to go into ukraine? and yet the talk of no fly zone or economic sanctions are consistent aggressions to him. and lastly, have u.s. sand nato challenged putin from the beginning would the calculus have changed? host: go ahead and respond there. guest: well, to take the last question first, i think yes we probably should have done more to challenge putin from the

beginning. if he had faced these kind of devastating economic sanctions in 2014 when he took over crimea and launched a proxy war in eastern ukraine, it might have given him some cause for doubt about launching the invasion of ukraine that he launched a few days ago. but i don't think we took the russian threat seriously up until recently and i think we're paying a price for that and finally we're reacting i think in the way that we should have done. host: now you are working on a biography of former president ronald reagan. and i want to play a little clip here of ronald reagan's famous berlin wall speech. >> in the 1950s, in the 1950s cruise chef predicted we will bury you. but in the west today we see a world that has achieved a world of prosperity and well being

unprecedented in all human history. in the communist world we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health. and now, now the soviets themselves may in a limited way be coming to understand the importance of freedom. we hear much from moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. some political prisoners have been released. certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state controls. are these profound changes in the soviet state or are they token gestures intended to raise false hopes in the west or to strengthen the soviet system without changing it? we welcome change and openness

but we believe that freedom and security go together. that the advance of human liberty, the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. host: that was a completely different era and a ussr that president reagan was talking about then. but can you compare reagan's view of russia to the views now? guest: the difference is he was right in the 1980s. it's really tragic to see what's happened because now it feels like we're going full

circle and you're now having the imposition once again of total toll tall yirm with russia with russia cut off from the west with putin cracking down and even harsher way than he did in the past. this is really tragic that russia has missed its opportunity for freedom and it's not just ukraine that's a victim of putin, it's also russia which is a victim of putin. and now the other point that occurs to me which you raised in your question is, of course this is a very different way of talking about russia than what you hear from donald trump and from some of the other current leaders of the republican party. it's hard to imagine in fact impossible to imagine president reagan greeting a russian invasion of ukraine by saying it's very smart, very savvy, and act of genius which is in fact what donald trump said at the beginning of the operation. it's hard to imagine conservative republican commentators in the 1980s what

tucker carlson has been saying that he doesn't really care about -- he doesn't see any reason why he should oppose putin in russia. why shouldn't we be friends, even though they're commiting all these astrosties. so for somebody who grew up in the 198 0s under president reagan it's shocking to me to see the extent to which so many republicans have become basically lap dogs of the kremlin from a party that for many years prided itself unopposing soviet and russian expansionism. i don't think that's a whole republican party but a vocal element and includes donald trump who is not only the former republican president but could well be the republican nominee in 2024. host: you've been pretty clear i think i can safely say about your feelings about former president trump. who do you see as the leading

candidate for the g.o.p. presidential nominee nomination in 2024? do you see that as being once again former president trump or is there someone else out there that you have your eye on that you think america should be watching? guest: i think if trump runs again he will get the republican nomination. i very much doubt he would have any serious challengers within the republican party because he has such a devoted base within the g.o.p. and he engages in such nasty name calling that i don't think there are a lot of republicans who will be willing to take him on. now, if trump decides he's not going to run i think it's more of a free for all with the current front runner being the governor of florida. but there would certainly be others including mike pence and nickie hail eie and others some of whom i think are less alarming than trump. and others of whom i think would probably be just as

alarming as trump. host: let's e see if we can get a couple more telephone calls in. jessica from cands on the democrat line. caller: good morning. i have a question for max. on high alert or stand by does that mean basically a forium? guest: putin talked about putting russian nuclear forces on a higher level of alert but it's not clear that he's actually done anything. u.s. intelligence says there really hasn't been any real change in the russian force posture, so it doesn't mean world war three. again as i said before i don't think that putin is the suicidal. he's not going to launch a war that he knows would result in the anhigh lation of russia.

so i don't think we need to be too concerned about his nuclear saber rattling unless we get involved in a direct war with russia and ukraine in which case things could spiral out of control as they did in 1914. host: washington, d.c., on the independent line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. and i have two questions. one, if your guest feels that as bad as the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan looked, are we in a better position now with what's going on not being bogged down in affsen to deal with this whole russian situation? maybe it puts us in a better position. and secondly, is putin do you think that putin may be just trying to think of his legacy and trying to leave russia in

the greatest position than when he assumed after the breakup of the soviet union trying to reconstitute the russian empire? and i don't mean the soviet empire, i mean the russian empire. because when he speaks a lot of times at the podium he has the eagle there, the sign of the roam noffs. i just wanted to know what your guests thought about that. thank you. guest: on the first point about afghanistan, i don't think that it strengthens our position to deal with russia to be out of afghanistan. that was a very small u.s. commitment of roughly 2,000 troops. i don't think it makes much difference pulling out the way that we pulled out, weak innocence. what is putin now? he is trying to reconstitute the russian empire and ink he does view that as his historical legacy. he's on record as saying that he thought the breakup of the

soviet union was the great geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century and clearly he is trying to reverse it. he is trying to create a russian empire again and as part of that it has to include ukraine which for hundreds of years was part of the russian empire even though ukrainians have viewed themselves as being an independent nation. so yes i think that is what he is doing. it is really tragic because conquering ukraine has nothing to do with improving the well being of the russian people. it's in fact impoverishing the people. it's imposing horrible costs so that putin can pursue his dreams of imperial glory. host: gale from new york on the republican line. caller: good morning. i just have two points. my husband's uncle fought in italy in world war ii. he was captured by the russians

at the end of the war. him and two friends were on a train and they know that they're getting deeper and deeper into russia. and they're getting scared. two of them jump off the train, they hide, they escape. they finally get to american lines. and the americans handed them cigarettes and said go home the war is over. they never heard from their third friend. we're dealing with a diabolical regime. and ukraine has only been free for 30 years so they even remember it better. we're lucky. 200 years we've lived wonderful. i truly believe we have to help the ukrainian people in any way we can. that's all i have to say. guest: i fully agree with the caller. i do think we need to help the ukrainian people in any way short of getting involved in world war three. i think the cause of ukraine is our cause too. it's the cause of freedom, it's

the cause of self-determination. this is what the united states stands for and this is what the brave people of ukraine are fighting for right now. and they're not asking us to send our soldiers to help them fight, they're just asking for our support. and that's something that i think we are providing and we should be providing. host: when will we see your biography of ronald reagan on shelves? guest: probably two to three years from now. i've been working on it since 2013. and i'm making good progress but this is obviously a massive undertaking. so it's not a fly by night book. host: we're looking forward to seeing it. we would like to thank author and columnist max fog being here and walking us through the rush-ukrainian conflict. thank you so much for your time this morning. guest: thank you for having me on. host: we're going to our open forium where you our viewers can call in and talk about your most important political topics of the day. you see the numbers there on

screen. we are waiting on your calls. we'll be right back.

host: we're back and we're in our open forium segment where you our viewers can call in and talk about whatever the most important political topic of the day to you is. we're going to open up our regular lines. that means the numbers are on your screen. keep in mind you can always text us and we're always reading on social media, on twitter and on facebook. before we get into your calls, let's go back and find out a little bit more about what's happening in ukraine today as reported by the hill newspaper. and the hill newspaper has a story this morning that's talking about ukraine and the

attempts to find out about the ukraine aid moving in to -- moving out of -- into ukraine. sorry about that. let's get into the story from the hill newspaper. fears are growing on capitol hill that the window to deliver critically needed humanitarian aid is quickly closing.

once again coming from the hill newspaper where lawmakers are fearing that time is running out to deliver ukraine aid. once again, we want to know what your top political issue to talk about this morning is. let's go to our phone lines and let's start with craig from washington, d.c. on the democrat line. caller: good morning.

i would like to make a suggestion i would feel that i can understand, i can see where putin don't bant nato right at his front door. so i was wondering if it would be a good thing if biden was to call him and just say look we're not going to let ukraine into nato so i think that would be a good thing for him to say so that maybe putin will stop this mess. so that's basically really what i just wanted to say. host: let's go to rj from oklahoma on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm from tulsa. i would like to bring two points of what we're looking

here the way -- [inaudible] is that the public -- [inaudible] that's going to go on. also just a side note that pandemic, what the pharmaceutical companies were doing. but the point here is that in 2015 u.s. was [inaudible] bioweapon labs to ukraine, kazakhstan. host: i think we're losing rj. let's go ahead and go on to alexis from north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on.

i first want to say your first host was outstanding. she explained things very well. she got in and talked fast. i wanted to say one thing. she used the word algorithm and maybe people might understand that better when they go on, i don't know, to play a game and the a ad shows up and you go, oh, i was looking for shoes and you click on it all of a sudden it's on your laptop everywhere you go website there's an ad for the shoes you were looking at. so that's basically what an algorithm it follows you. and what you want they try to get. the other thing i wanted to say -- you cut me off already? host: no, go ahead. caller: thank you. the other thing i wanted to say was she was wonderful about

explaining the legislature and how the three branches work. i might suggest that people stay off the news media and just watch what's going on on the floor and hear how their representatives talk. and whether you like what they say. because that's the way they're going to vote and you need to know whether they're on board with you or whether you need to choose someone else. host: let's go to haired from kansas on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling about a program note. i love the open forium, i like to talk about the things important now. but the show's kind of become like an advertisement for pod katzes. i'm sorry i don't listen to them. have never listened to a

podcast. it's not on my radar. it just seems like that's what it is. it's podcasts, so callers out there if you've got a comment too much podcasts on c-span, call in let me know. thank you. host: let's go to maurice from illinois on the democrat line. good morning. caller: i think the current administration is the epitome of hypocracy. in countries in africa they would be having other countries invading them and it never raised to fight or defend them. and their people, too. it seems when it's people of color, black people. black people, black countries, america just sits by idly by and watches. watches the countries fall.

so now every time it's the europeans, white country, everything now alarms got to be raised, everybody's got to stand locked in the center and help the european countries out. and now we've got to pay the price if our bank account. it's unfair. if you're going to be -- especially since it's not a country of nato. they're not -- their countries in africa were part of the nato but nobody stood by and helped them. you had this max guy on there and been around, people, he was there when they went into darfur. i think it's full of it. every time, every time european countries now you've got to jump in and now they've got to dom up with this $8 billion.

what about, how about here back home? speak host: speaking of the federal government and spending there's a story in the "washington post" that talks about the negotiations between republican and democrat over funding the federal government which could affect ukrainian aid. and here's the "washington post" story from earlier this week. senate republicans have issued a series of early threats against a still forming deal to fund the federal government. signaling that they should delay the package which may include emergency aid to ukraine over concerns about exezz excessive spending and vaccine mandate. the early morning delivered in two letters to schumer could slow lawmakers time sensitive work as russia's incursion into ukraine is intensifying all while washington faces a march 11 deadline to fund federal

agencies and avoid a government shutdown. once again that's from the "washington post" with republicans threatening to slow effort to aid to ukraine. we want to know what your topic is for today's open forium

segment. let's talk to chris from connecticut on the independent line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. my biggest topic is the situation in ukraine and how it spills over to china. rer we going to provide weapons to taiwan air force? are they prepared for what may happen? and what are we doing right now? host: let's go to henry who is calling from new york on the democrat line. caller: i would like to know why is it russia scared of our nuclear weapons? and if he fires one nuclear weapon on us, russia would be gone. so why should we let one man rule the whole world because he's got a nuclear weapon? we should go after russia. and it won't destroy the whole world.

that's my comment. thank you. host: let's go to robert from greenville, kentucky on the republican line. caller: good morning. i believe inflation is our biggest problem right now. and i believe we need to reopen our world explorations and fix our infrastructure for the gas. we've had several plants shut down over the last a 15 years. host: ok. let's go to russ from kansas. caller: we're a suburb of kansas city. on the eastern edge. i want to talk about the inflation that everybody seems to be concerned about. they seem to be blaming biden

on this. the truth of the matter is that opec is really the biggest problem right now. opec has held their production down just to get these prices up because that's how they make their money. they control approximately 80% of all the oil in the world. they've asked opec to increase production. biden has done that. back in 2019, putin was upset about the fact that when oil was down to $30 a barrel, that they weren't making money because russia became 90% of their income from oil and gas. the thing is, he went to trump. trump then went to opec who went to -- or went to saudi arabia and they came up with a deal because putin wanted them to raise, they didn't want them to do it, at that time. or stop production. now it's all connelling to a

head right now. it's taken a year-and-a-half to get to that point. so when people complain about the higher gas prices in inflationary prices, they need to understand this is about simple supply and demand. if you have less supply, the price -- and higher demand the price is going to go up. you have nothing to do with infrastructure. it has nothing to do -- our oil pro production in the united states has gone up from last year. this is all about corrections being made from the pandemic when we weren't using as much oil and i believe that that is what's driving everything right now. i think that's one of the big things we need to do. we need to shut off russia's oil exports, put a stranglehold on them, and then move forward. we're going to pay higher prices, people need to get that in their heads. it's coming.

host: john from south dakota on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to say there's a lot of places to get information. it feems the fossil fuel industry control the networks. co2.earth on facebook and other places, with demrashers collapsing in three to five years and with the events in the arctic and unborn child may never live to see retirement. we need to get off of fossil fuels immediately. and all this fighting we need to just get together and go to electric renewable energy. i

host: mark from maryland on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. thanks for taking my call. thanks for c-span and your good work. this is god's work here. thank you. i had three points following up on your good speaker before on what's fundamental national security in terms of the u.s. and our allies and those who want to be our allies around the world. three points. one simply congressional repeal of executive orders to ban drilling of proven oil and gas on federal lands currently. forget about new leases or anything else. let's just go with what's already in the ground and the executive orders which were put in within the first weeks of the administration. and that's pricing serves up from there. that's first and foremost the here and now that the be done immediately. two other points. the second point is on the

production of any energy in the united states above precovid levels. essentially any producer soup to nuts, green to brown to carbon to noncarbon soler wind whatever kind of under old bush administration policies all of the above solutions from the early 2000s to get production above precovid levels immediately with two in centives. one, new projects within a five-year basis would have capital gain exclusions. two, income. and that is income tax. setting income tax at 10% on that production which would essentially pave the way for an intermediate to long-term profile to get back to the independence that we had at the swing producer. and really who cares what owe peck does and doesn't do because we need to get back to $7 barrel oil where we were in

the late 1990s which cuts off the oxygen from putin and the kremlin and all of the cronies. that is the recipe for our success in the short, intermediate, long term and hopefully people who are listening can put this into motion. host: caller from virginia on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. first i would like to say c-span you are doing a great job informing the country. i was working in the u.s. house of representatives when they passed a bill to open up the air where people can see inside of congress. so i appreciate that. and i've been watching ever since. but two statements. first of all, the first bill, if i were nancy pelosi i would bring a bill up about the gas for joe biden to stop russia from the gas issue because what's going to happen if we stop the gas the same republicans are going to go at him and his president is going

to be gone because what's going to happen to voteder they're going to go to him. put congress on the record letting them vote yes or no and then joe biden, send the bill to joe biden. my second issue is the proud boys since they love to carry guns and fight, we've got a war going over there across the country over there, let them go over there and help the country out. you all have a good day. thank you. host: cnbc has a story coming out that talks about gasoline prices surging to the highest price since 2008. i'll read a couple paragraphs of that story to you.

california's average is now 5.28 a gallon. once again that's coming from aaa and cnbc news where the national average of gas topping $4 the highest price since 2008. let's get a few more calls in. we'll start with sheila from

georgia on the independent line. caller: good morning. i want to thank you for all that you do to allow us to be able to call in to the this forium. host: are you still there? caller: i'm looking at the television. anyway, i just wanted to say that i saw a documentry last night about olgarks in ukraine and it was by aljeersa of all things. but it's talking about the immense corruption in ukraine. you would not believe the scale of money that has flown from that country into other countries like britain. like london, for instance. and also russians are buying property in america as well in the heartland. i think that this war, this is

just a hypothesis but this war may be to cover up all that corruption that is happening. because not annual the soviet union involved, but they literally stole money from ukrainian people. they funneled money into that country and used it to launder money out of -- we cannot deny that. and you know, i was watching also a you tube video when russia was invading ukraine they were burning documents, they were literally burning documents on the lawn of their capital. so how could you deny that this has something to do with all the corruption and covering up the immense scales of the corruption and how -- and i would also like to say, and i support the united states of course i'm an american but how can you deny our long history over there trying to promote

democracy which i think is a good thing but promoting democracy, trying to get them to join nato. and just pushing it so far that we actually inadvertently caused this war. host: let's go to constance from florida on the democrat line. good morning. caller: my biggest concern is the fact that e we've got all this russian money in our own government on the republican side. this q anonthing was started by them. it's obvious. and trump was in cahoots with russia to weaken nato and to set us up for a fall. he went to foreign governments all that don't like us to gang up on us. that's what he did. and these republicans that are trying to hurt women, it's a

vile act to try to take their birthright, i mean their rights to say whether they want to have a baby or not. and that shows me that these people want to make slaves, future slaves, future children they can program the way they want like little nazis. or, they're trying to make slaves of people. but i would hate to see america, if we hadn't gotten joe biden in there, if we still had the monster little orange cheato man, we would have been doomed. people like me would have locked up. -- i have a big mouth and i am sticking up for freedom all the way. host: we would like to thank our guests and viewers and colors. steak with us, we will be back tomorrow morning for a new show. everyone, have a great sunday and continue to wash your hands.

have a great day, everyone. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy, visit ncicap.org] >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more, including cox. >>cox is committed to providing eligible families free internet, merging of the digital divide one connection and engaged student at a time. cox, bringing us closer. >>cox supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat democracy. .

>> c-span's washington journal. everyday we are taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day, and we will discuss policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, our guest from the quincy institute for responsible statecraft, discusses the potentials of nuclear conflict in russia's invasion of ukraine. and we look at the bedded administrations management of the pandemic with a former health and human services official during the trump administration. watch live at 7:00 eastern on monday morning on c-span, or on c-span now, our free mobile app. join the discussion with our phone calls, facebook comments, and tweets, and text messages. this week on the c-span network, both the house and senate are in washington, d.c. to work on passing a bill to fund the government before friday's midnight deadline to avert a shutdown. the senate also plans to vote on the house-passed postal service

reform bill. on tuesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span three, directors of the top u.s. intelligence agencies testify before a house intelligence committee on security threats facing the united states at a analyze. then at 3:00 p.m. on c-span3, the senate foreign relations committee discusses the invasion of ukraine, and the u.s. and international response. on thursday at 10:00 a.m. on c-span, testimony continues as the heads of the intelligence committee neat about global and national security threats. watch this week live on the c-span networks, or on c-span now, our mobile video app. also had to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video live or on-demand,