we are back with author max booth who is also on the council for foreign relations and he is here with us this morning about the invasion on ukraine. good morning, let's get right into it. where is the confluence with russia and ukraine headed in is the escalation inevitable? 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-ukraini

>> c-span's washington journal. every day we are taking your calls, live, on the air, on the news of the day, and we discussed policy issues that impact you. monday morning, a discussion of the potential for nuclear conflict in the russian invasion of ukraine. and we look at the biden administration's management of the pandemic with a former health and human services official during the trump campaign. watch live at 7:00 eastern monday morning on c-span, or c-span now, our free mobile app. join the discussion. >> this week, congress returns and talks continue on the omnibus spending package that

may include additional funding for ukraine and covid-19 relief efforts. the house will also work on legislation aimed at preventing threats of violence against historical black colleges and universities. when the senate returns, the postal reform bill in considering the nomination of a texas sheriff. watch live coverage on c-span and c-span2. also watch congressional coverage online at c-span.org or with our free app, c-span now. >> c-span's online store, browse through our latest selection of c-span merchandise and accessories. there's something for every c-span fan. shop now or anytime at

c-spanshop.org. >> next, illinois congressman adam kinzinger talks about russia's invasion of ukraine as a possible watershed moment in the republican party and american politics. he also spoke about the impact of the january 6th u.s. capitol attack. this is from the principles first summit, gathering in washington of republicans who oppose former president donald trump. [applause] >> thank you. thanks, guys. [applause] way too nice. thank you. you know, honestly this is a first time i've spoken in front of a group of people in months. so thank you for being out here. and if i'm a little rusty in my speaking skill